Vos: If the "great cardinal facts of Sacred History...are not essential... then the mass of minor historical events (have) next to no importance."

"For some time past the assertion has been made, and it is being made in our own day with greater confidence and insistence than ever, that our Christian faith and historical facts have very little or nothing to do with each other. Most frequently this assertion is made with reference to some one particular event of Sacred History, which has for the time being become the subject of debate from the point of view of its historicity.

"Those who incline to doubt the historical truthfulness of some such narrative as, e.g., that of the supernatural birth or the resurrection of the Saviour, or at least incline to consider it an open question, are, when their skepticism awakens remonstrance from the conservative side, ever ready with the answer that Christianity is something too great and too deep, too inward, ideal and vital to be dependent in its essence on this or that single occurrence in the world of history. They protest that their own faith lives far superior to the level where such questions are discussed and decided, as to whether Christ was supernaturally conceived by the Virgin Mary or rose bodily from the grave on the third day. And they are not slow to make their own subjective faith in this matter the standard of what is possible to Christian faith in its essence.

"But, while most commonly asserted with reference to such single facts, the position tends, from the nature of the case, to become a general one, involving the severance of the Christian faith from the historical facts in the widest sense. For, even if no other considerations came into play, the circumstance that the facts from which faith has thus begun to emancipate itself are not subordinate, but the great cardinal facts of Sacred History, leads straightway to the inference: if these facts are not essential, if the Christianity of the heart can subsist and nourish without them, then assuredly the mass of minor historical events may be considered as of next to no importance.

"He who has once become reconciled to the idea that perhaps the resurrection-account arose from a delusion of the disciples, or that the story of the Virgin-birth was the product of pagan conceptions, and thinks that his practical religion has suffered no loss through familiarity with such an idea, is not apt overmuch to vex his soul with the question, whether Abraham ever emigrated from Ur of the Chaldees, or whether the walls of Jericho fell down at the sound of the trumpets. Thus people are gradually made ripe for the conviction that Christianity, can survive, even though the whole sub-stratum of history, on which hitherto it has been supposed to rest, should be withdrawn from under it." Geerhardus Vos, "Christian Faith and the Truthfulness of Bible History"