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, through Part 10 of this series, I showed that there are three INVALID inferences in Kreeft and Tacelli’s FOUR DILEMMAS argument in support of premise (1A). So, they have utterly and completely FAILED to show that this key premise of their argument is true, and thus this premise is DUBIOUS, at best.

In Part 11 of this series, I argued 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, premise (1A) is clearly FALSE. So, their argument for the divinity of Jesus is based on a premise that is FALSE, and the argument is thus UNSOUND and should be rejected.

In Part 12 of this series, I revised the second premise so that it would not be obviously false and so that it would have at least some initial plausibility:

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

One key premise in support of (2B) is the following premise:

4B. Jesus was not a liar.

In Part 13 of this series, I showed that the first argument Kreeft and Tacelli give to support (4B) FAILS to show that premise (4B) is true.

In this post, I will critically examine the second argument Kreeft and Tacelli give to support (4B).

THE SECOND ARGUMENT FOR PREMISE (4B)

Premise (14) is the primary reason given in support of (4B):

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

THEREFORE:

4B. Jesus was not a liar.

Kreeft and Tacelli provide two reasons in support of (14):

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

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

Kreeft and Tacelli also give an argument in support of premise (16):

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

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

THEREFORE:

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

It is clear right away that the primary inference in this argument from premise (14) to (4B) is INVALID. The (alleged) fact that Jesus had no conceivable motive for claiming to LITERALLY be God is IRRELEVANT to whether Jesus was a liar or not.

No matter how well Kreeft and Tacelli support premise (14), the conclusion (4B) simply does NOT FOLLOW from that premise. At most, one could infer that Jesus did not intentionally lie about LITERALLY being God. But that leaves open the possibility that Jesus constantly lied about all sorts of other matters. So, this argument is clearly INVALID and thus it FAILS.

A VERY SERIOUS PROBLEM WITH PREMISE (14)

However, there appears to be an even more serious problem with premise (14). This premise LOGICALLY IMPLIES that Kreeft and Tacelli are wrong in their belief that Jesus claimed to LITERALLY be God:

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

THEREFORE:

19. Jesus did NOT claim that he was LITERALLY God.

If someone S has “no conceivable motive” to do X, then it follows that S will NOT do X. One must have a motivation for every action that one chooses to take. Why would Kreeft and Tacelli assert premise (14) given that this premise (a) clearly FAILS to support their claim that Jesus was not a liar, and (b) clearly implies that their basic assumption that Jesus claimed to LITERALLY be God is FALSE?

Kreeft and Tacelli are not the sharpest tools in the shed, so it is possible that they could have made both of these HUGE ERRORS all at once. But I suspect that the problem here is that premise (14) does not accurately represent what they were thinking. So, we need to take a closer look at this premise, to see if there is a better interpretation available, an interpretation that is not so obviously IDIOTIC, given what they were attempting to prove.

ALTERNATIVE INTERPRETATIONS OF PREMISE (14)

Here again is the quotation from Kreeft and Tacelli, where this premise is put forward:

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

The second sentence uses the pronoun “it”, and this clearly refers back to the expression “his lie”. But if we interpret the second sentence straightforwardly, then it would be asserting this:

Jesus LIED in claiming to LITERALLY be God, and that LIE brought him hatred, rejection, misunderstanding, persecution, torture and death.

This straightforward interpretation of the second sentence will not work, though, because Kreeft and Tacelli obviously don’t believe that Jesus LIED in claiming to LITERALLY be God. So, clearly, they would not assert that Jesus LIED in this way as being a historical fact. I therefore interpreted the second sentence this way:

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

In other words, I dropped the idea that this was a LIE out of the second sentence because I know that Kreeft and Tacelli do NOT believe that Jesus LIED by claiming to LITERALLY be God.

If they had written these sentences more CAREFULLY and CLEARLY, they would have used scare quotes around the word “lie”:

Because there is no conceivable motive for his “lie” of claiming to literally be God. His claiming to literally be God brought him hatred, rejection, misunderstanding, persecution, torture and death.

In the previous sentences, Kreeft and Tacelli based an argument on the claim that “Liars lie for selfish reasons…”. So, it is possible that they intended the phrase “no conceivable motive” in the first sentence to be QUALIFIED in view of their previous statements so that what they actually meant was that Jesus had “no conceivable SELFISH motive”. Here is a revised version of premise (14) based on this hypothesis:

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

Another possible interpretation of the first sentence involves keeping the concept of LYING in the claim, but in a hypothetical manner:

14B. There is no conceivable motive for Jesus to claim that he was LITERALLY God, if Jesus knew this claim was FALSE (and thus a LIE).

Finally, it is possible to combine both of these alternative interpretations together to form a third possible interpretation of the first sentence:

14C. There is no conceivable SELFISH motive for Jesus to claim that he was LITERALLY God, if Jesus knew this claim was FALSE (and thus a LIE).

So, if we substitute these alternative interpretations of this premise into the second argument against Jesus being a liar, does that fix the argument?

First, any of these three alternatives is at least an improvement over the original interpretation, because none of these three alternative claims imply that Jesus did NOT claim to LITERALLY be God. Kreeft and Tacelli’s entire case for the divinity of Jesus rests on the assumption that Jesus claimed to LITERALLY be God, so the original interpretation of premise (14) completely destroys the foundation of their own case for the divinity of Jesus. The alternative interpretations don’t have this huge self-destructive implication.

EVALUATION OF REVISED ARGUMENTS

However, the main question at issue here is whether any of these alternative interpretations of premise (14) change a FAILED argument into a SUCCESSFUL argument. Are any of these alternative claims true? Do any of these alternative claims logically imply the conclusion that Jesus was NOT a liar? Let’s consider revising the argument by using premise (14A):

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

THEREFORE:

4B. Jesus was not a liar.

First, premise (14A) is FALSE. If Jesus believed he was LITERALLY God, and if Jesus believed that he was on a mission from God that required him to die by being executed by the Romans, and if Jesus believed that he would become the King of Kings and Lord of Lords if he faithfully carried out his mission, then Jesus clearly had a powerful SELFISH motivation for claiming to LITERALLY be God and thus to help bring about his own execution by the Romans, at the request of offended Jewish leaders in Jerusalem. So, this argument is UNSOUND and should be rejected.

Second, the conclusion does NOT FOLLOW from the premise. Whatever motivations Jesus may have had with respect to claiming to LITERALLY be God, this has almost nothing to do with whether Jesus was generally truthful or generally a liar about OTHER matters. Jesus might well have had many times when there was a selfish motive for him to lie about something (about his age, his health, his parents, his financial circumstances, his plans, his feelings about someone, etc.) Premise (14A) is only talking about one specific thing that Jesus might have chosen to say or not to say, so it does not have wide implications about how honest or dishonest Jesus was in general. Thus, the LOGIC of this argument is INVALID and the argument should be rejected.

Let’s consider revising the argument by using premise (14B):

14B. There is no conceivable motive for Jesus to claim that he was LITERALLY God, if Jesus knew this claim was FALSE (and thus a LIE).

THEREFORE:

4B. Jesus was not a liar.

First, premise (14B) is FALSE. There are MANY selfish motives that Jesus could have had for claiming to LITERALLY be God. Jews believed they owed absolute obedience to God, and Jews believed they had a duty to love God with all their heart and mind, and Jews believed that God was a wonderful and amazing person who deserved honor, praise, and worship. So, if Jesus could persuade some Jews to believe that he was LITERALLY God, that would give him great power, influence, and control over those Jews. Since (14B) is FALSE, this argument is UNSOUND and it FAILS.

Second, the inference from (14B) to (4B) is clearly INVALID. Premise (14B) only talks about Jesus’ decision to either claim to LITERALLY be God or not to make this claim. It tells us NOTHING about the thousands of other subjects about which Jesus made claims. So, even if it is the case that Jesus had no motive to claim to LITERALLY be God, he probably did often have motive to lie about thousands of other questions and topics. Since the LOGIC in this argument is INVALID, this argument FAILS.

Let’s consider revising the argument by using premise (14C):

14C. There is no conceivable SELFISH motive for Jesus to claim that he was LITERALLY God, if Jesus knew this claim was FALSE (and thus a LIE).

THEREFORE:

4B. Jesus was not a liar.

First, premise (14C) is FALSE. It is FALSE for the same reason that premise (14B) is FALSE. Thus, this argument is UNSOUND and it FAILS.

Second, the inference from premise (14C) to (4B) is INVALID. It is INVALID for the same reason that the inference from (14B) to (4B) is INVALID. Because the LOGIC of this argument is INVALID, this argument FAILS.

EVALUATION OF THE SECOND ARGUMENT AGAINST JESUS BEING A LIAR

The core of the argument against Jesus being a liar is premise (14):

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

THEREFORE:

4B. Jesus was not a liar.

The inference in this core argument is clearly INVALID, so no matter how well Kreeft and Tacelli support premise (14), this argument FAILS.

In addition, premise (14) is clearly FALSE. It is FALSE because persuading other Jews to believe that he was God would give Jesus great power, influence, and control over those Jews. So there is an OBVIOUS selfish motive for Jesus to claim that he was LITERALLY God.

Thus, this core argument has both a FALSE premise and an INVALID inference. It is clearly an UNSOUND argument and it FAILS to show that (4B) is true.

Furthermore, not only does premise (14) FAIL to support premise (4B), but it actually DESTROYS the entire case made by Kreeft and Tacelli for the divinity of Jesus. Premise (14) implies that Jesus did NOT claim to LITERALLY be God, but that is a basic assumption of Kreeft and Tacelli’s case for the divinity of Jesus. They have truly shot themselves in both feet with premise (14).

Because premise (14) FAILS so spectacularly, I have made a serious effort to come up with alternative interpretations of the sentence on which (14) was based, to see if I could come up with an interpretation that helped to fix their badly broken argument.

I came up with three alternative interpretations, each of which are an improvement over the original premise (14) in that they do not logically imply that Jesus did NOT claim to LITERALLY be God. These alternative interpretations at least don’t DESTROY the entire case by Kreeft and Tacelli for the divinity of Jesus.

However, all three alternative interpretations turned out to be FALSE claims, and NONE of the alternative interpretations logically imply (4B), so if we substitute any of the three alternative premises into the argument for (4B), the argument will have a FALSE premise and an INVALID inference, and FAIL just as badly as the original argument with the original interpretation of premise (14).

I conclude that this argument by Kreeft and Tacelli against Jesus being a LIAR is a complete and utter FAILURE, like most of their other arguments.