WHERE WE ARE

In Chapter 7 of their book Handbook of Christian Apologetics (hereafter: HCA), Christian philosophers Peter Kreeft and Ronald Tacelli make a case for the divinity of Jesus. Here is the main argument they present in Chapter 7:

1A. Jesus was either God, liar, lunatic, guru, or myth.

2A. Jesus could not possibly be a liar, lunatic, guru, or myth.

THEREFORE:

3A. Jesus is God.

In Part 3 of this series, I analyzed and clarified a series of four dilemmas (four EITHER/OR statements) that they use to support premise (1A). The four dilemmas are used to try to prove that there are only FIVE possible views that can be taken on this issue.

In Part 4 of this series through Part 9 of this series, I have shown that the FIRST DILEMMA contains an INVALID inference, and I have shown that the SECOND DILEMMA contains an INVALID inference. I agreed with Kreeft and Tacelli that the inference in the THIRD DILEMMA is logically VALID.

In Part 10 of this series, I have shown that in the FOURTH DILEMMA there is one VALID inference (to the LIAR VIEW) and one INVALID inference (to the LUNATIC VIEW). Therefore, there are INVALID inferences in three out of the FOUR DILEMMAS, and just one INVALID inference is enough to sink Kreeft and Tacelli’s FOUR DILEMMAS argument in support of premise (1A) of their case for the divinity of Jesus. So, they have utterly and completely FAILED to show that this key premise of their argument is true, and that premise remains DUBIOUS, at best.

In Part 11 of this series, I argued that my objections not only show that there are three INVALID inferences in the argument presented by Kreeft and Tacelli in support of premise (1A), but that there are three clear COUNTEREXAMPLES to premise (1A), each of which shows that premise (1A) is FALSE. There are at least three more VIEWS that Kreeft and Tacelli failed to take into account: the SKEPTIC VIEW, the STAR WARS VIEW, and the THEOLOGICAL CONFUSION VIEW.

Therefore, not only is the argument given by Kreeft and Tacelli for premise (1A) clearly a BAD argument, but premise (1A) is clearly FALSE. So, their argument for the divinity of Jesus is based on a premise that is FALSE, and that argument is thus UNSOUND and should be rejected.

THE ARGUMENT FOR PREMISE (2A)

Here again, is premise (2A) one of the key premises of Kreeft and Tacelli’s argument for the divinity of Jesus:

2A. Jesus could not possibly be a liar, lunatic, guru, or myth.

The argument in support of (2A) consists of four more specific claims:

4A. Jesus could not possibly be a liar.

5A. Jesus could not possibly be a lunatic.

6A. Jesus could not possibly be a guru.

7A. Jesus could not possibly be a myth.

THEREFORE:

2A. Jesus could not possibly be a liar, lunatic, guru, or myth.

Before I diagram this sub-argument, I should correct a problem with premise (2A). Premise (2A) appears to make the strong claim that it is LOGICALLY IMPOSSIBLE that Jesus was a liar, and LOGICALLY IMPOSSIBLE that Jesus was a lunatic, etc. But such strong claims are clearly and obviously FALSE. We can imagine it being the case that Jesus was a liar, and we can imagine it being the case that Jesus was a lunatic. There is no logical self-contradiction in these claims. Thus, it is LOGICALLY POSSIBLE that Jesus was a liar, and it is LOGICALLY POSSIBLE that Jesus was a lunatic. The claim intended by Kreeft and Tacelli here is that historical facts show that Jesus was NOT in fact a liar and NOT in fact a lunatic.

So, to avoid the second premise being immediately judged to be FALSE and tossed aside, we should modify this premise so that it has at least some initial plausibility, if possible. This problem is easily fixed, so I will revise the second premise to make it more clearly into a factual and historical claim:

2B. Jesus was not a liar, lunatic, guru, or myth.

Since we have revised the second premise to make it at least initially plausible, we need to also revise the premises in the argument supporting the second premise in a similar manner:

4B. Jesus was not a liar.

5B. Jesus was not a lunatic.

6B. Jesus was not a guru.

7B. Jesus was not a myth.

THEREFORE:

2B. Jesus was not a liar, lunatic, guru, or myth.

THE ARGUMENTS FOR PREMISE (4B)

Here again, is premise (4B):

4B. Jesus was not a liar.

Kreeft and Tacelli give more than one reason in support of this premise:

THE FIRST ARGUMENT FOR (4B)

The first argument for (4B) is summarized in the first sentence: “Because he has the wrong psychological profile.” But that is just a summary. The key premise in the argument is this one:

10. Liars lie for selfish reasons, like money, fame, pleasure or power.

(I will ignore the numbers used by Kreeft and Tacelli, and assign numbers to statements in whatever way helps to clarify the logic of their argument.)

The first phrase of the second sentence logically connects with premise (10): “He was unselfish, loving, caring…”. Let’s take this as another premise in the first argument for (4B):

11. Jesus was unselfish, loving, and caring.

The rest of the second sentence appears to provide some support for the first part of the sentence, for premise (11):

12. Jesus was passionate about teaching truth and helping others to truth.

The fourth sentence also appears to provide some support for premise (11):

13. Jesus gave up all worldly goods, and life itself.

Premises (10) and (11) are the core of this first argument:

10. Liars lie for selfish reasons, like money, fame, pleasure or power.

11. Jesus was unselfish, loving, and caring.

THEREFORE:

4B. Jesus was not a liar.

Premises (12) and (13) provide support for premise (11).

THE SECOND ARGUMENT FOR (4B)

The next point made by Kreeft and Tacelli also relates to Jesus’ motivations:

Because there is no conceivable motive for his lie. It brought him hatred, rejection, misunderstanding, persecution, torture and death. (HCA, p.160)

What does the phrase “his lie” refer to? Clearly it refers to “Jesus’ lie that he was LITERALLY God”. However, Kreeft and Tacelli don’t believe this was a lie, so in more neutral language, they mean “Jesus’ claim that he was LITERALLY God”:

14. There is no conceivable motive for Jesus to claim that he was LITERALLY God.

The next sentence begins with the pronoun “it”: “It brought him hatred…”. The pronoun clearly refers back to “his lie”, which we have clarified to mean “Jesus’s claim that he was LITERALLY God.”:

15. Jesus claimed to LITERALLY be God, and this brought him hatred, rejection, misunderstanding, persecution, torture and death.

Premise (15) appears to be a reason given in support of premise (14), and (14) is a reason given in support of (4B):

15. Jesus claimed to LITERALLY be God, and this brought him hatred, rejection, misunderstanding, persecution, torture and death.

THEREFORE:

14. There is no conceivable motive for Jesus to claim that he was LITERALLY God.

THEREFORE:

4B. Jesus was not a liar.

ANOTHER ARGUMENT FOR (14)

Here again is the third point given by Kreeft and Tacelli in support of premise (4B):

Because he could not have hoped that his “lie” would be successful, for the Jews were the least likely people in the world to have worshipped a man, and Jesus, as a Jew, would have known that. (HCA, p.160)

The reference to “his ‘lie'” at the beginning of this sentence is not intended literally, which is why the word “lie” appears in quotation marks. Kreeft and Tacelli believe that Jesus claimed to LITERALLY be God, and that this claim was true, not a lie. So we need to rephrase “his ‘lie'” in more neutral language:

16. Jesus could not have hoped that his claim to LITERALLY be God would be successful.

The second part of the sentence provides a reason in support of premise (16):

17. The Jews were the least likely people in the world to have worshipped a man.

The third part of the sentence makes a claim that works with premise (17) to support (16):

18. Jesus, as a Jew, would have known that the Jews were the least likely people in the world to have worshipped a man.

Premise (16) appears to provide further support to premise (14), so the third point by Kreeft and Tacelli appears to be a sub-argument within the second argument, rather than being an independent argument for (4B). So, will modify the diagram for the second argument to include this additional sub-argument.

Kreeft and Tacelli have provided two arguments in support of (4B). In the next post of this series, I will evaluate the first argument in support of (4B).