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.

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.

Here is a diagram of the second argument Kreeft and Tacelli give to support (4B):

In Part 14 of this series, I showed that the second argument Kreeft and Tacelli give to support (4B) FAILS to show that premise (4B) is true. In that post I focused on the core of the argument, namely the inference from premise (14) to (4B). No matter how well Kreeft and Tacelli support premise (14), this argument FAILS to show that (4B) is true.

However, I would like to provide a more complete evaluation of this argument, by looking at the support that Kreeft and Tacelli provide for premise (14). Given their deplorable track record, I suspect that there will be more false premises and/or invalid inferences in this part of their second argument against the view that Jesus was a liar.

PREMISE (15) AS SUPPORT FOR PREMISE (14A)

As I argued in Part 14 of this series, premise (14) contradicts a basic assumption of Kreeft and Tacelli’s case for the divinity of Jesus, making their second argument against Jesus being a liar into a complete disaster. So, I’m going to consider an argument that uses one of the alternative interpretations of premise (14) that does not have this self-destructive implication:

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

THEREFORE:

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

Premise (15) is FALSE. Jesus never claimed to LITERALLY be God, not even in the Gospel of John. None of the Gospels portray Jesus as claiming to LITERALLY be God. I have argued that Kreeft and Tacelli are wrong on this basic point. It is extremely unlikely that Jesus claimed to LITERALLY be God, and yet none of the Gospels ever mention that he made such an extraordinary claim. Furthermore, Jesus does say things that indicate that he was NOT God. So, premise (15) is FALSE, and thus this argument is UNSOUND and should be rejected.

The inference from (15) to (14A) is also INVALID.

First of all, showing that there were potential selfish motives for Jesus to NOT claim to LITERALLY be God does not show that there were no potential selfish motives FOR claiming to LITERALLY be God. It is possible for there to be selfish reasons or motives for BOTH courses of action.

Second, there are some obvious possible selfish motives for Jesus to claim to LITERALLY be God, selfish motives that are NOT ruled out by the risk that Jesus would experience hatred, persecution, torture, and death as a result of making this claim. Jesus might have had a strong desire to have power, control, and influence over some of his fellow Jews that would come if he could get them to believe that he was LITERALLY God. Jesus might have had a strong egotistical desire to be admired, worshiped, and adored by some of his fellow Jews that would happen if he could get them to believe that he was LITERALLY God. Jesus might have believed that in provoking his fellow Jews to hate, persecute, and kill him, he would be carrying out God’s mission for his life, and that God would then make him King of Kings and Lord of Lords. All of these selfish motivations are possible, even if it is true that Jesus faced hatred, persecution, torture, and death as a result of claiming to LITERALLY be God.

Third, even if it was clearly NOT in Jesus’ overall self-interest to claim to LITERALLY be God, that does not prove that Jesus perceived his circumstances that way. Jesus could have failed to realize how dangerous it was to claim to LITERALLY be God, and he might have had an unrealistic assessment of his chances for being viewed as being divine by many of his fellow Jews. So, the selfish motivation of being obeyed and adored as God by many of his fellow Jews could have outweighed, in Jesus’ mind, the dangers involved in claiming to LITERALLY be God.

Seeing the great danger of Jesus claiming to LITERALLY be God in HINDSIGHT does not prove that Jesus clearly and realistically perceived the extent of this danger prior to his arrest and crucifixion.

Therefore, premise (14A) does NOT FOLLOW logically from premise (15). This argument clearly FAILS to show that (14A) is true, because premise (15) is FALSE, and because the inference in the argument is INVALID. This argument is clearly UNSOUND and should be rejected.

PREMISE (16) AS SUPPORT FOR PREMISE (14A)

Here is the argument from premise (16):

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

THEREFORE:

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

Strictly speaking, this argument is a non sequitur. There is no clear logical connection between the premise and the conclusion.

Furthermore, premise (16) is VAGUE and UNCLEAR, like so many of the claims made by Kreeft and Tacelli. It is not possible to rationally evaluate such a VAGUE and UNCLEAR premise. The problematic phrase in (16) is: “would be successful”. That phrase must be defined or clarified before this claim and this argument can be rationally evaluated.

The argument Kreeft and Tacelli give to support premise (16) gives an indication of what they have in mind by the phrase “would be successful”:

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.

Apparently, Kreeft and Tacelli think that the only selfish motive Jesus could have had for claiming to LITERALLY be God is to receive worship from other Jews. I would think that a more likely selfish motivation would be to gain power and control over other people since Jews believe that they have an absolute duty to obey any command from God. I suppose if Jesus had a huge ego, he might have had a strong desire to be worshiped by other Jews, but that doesn’t seem like a very appealing or desirable goal.

Since Kreeft and Tacelli talk about Jesus wanting “the Jews” to worship him, there is a problem of VAGUENESS in the quantification of the worship that would constitute “success” from Jesus’ point of view. If his disciples Peter and John worshiped Jesus, would that be “success” from Jesus’ point of view? Or does “success” here mean that all twelve of Jesus’ inner-circle of disciples must worship Jesus? Or must hundreds of followers of Jesus beyond the inner-circle of twelve disciples also worship Jesus? Or must most of the Jewish population of Palestine worship Jesus as God, in order for Jesus to count his effort as being “successful”?

And how often and for how long must these Jews worship Jesus? If Peter and John worship Jesus every Sunday for an hour, is that enough to constitute Jesus being “successful”? Or do they need to worship Jesus for an hour every day? Or do they need to worship Jesus for an hour every morning, every afternoon, and every night? Or do they need to worship Jesus every waking moment of their lives? The same questions apply, if Jesus required that the twelve disciples worship him, that hundreds of his followers worship him, or that most of the Jewish population of Palestine worship him.

Since I cannot relate to a person for whom it is highly desirable to be worshiped by other people, I have no idea HOW MANY PEOPLE Jesus would have wanted to worship him as God, nor HOW OFTEN and for HOW LONG Jesus would have wanted those people to engage in such worship. But without having a degree of specificity about such QUANTIFICATION concerning what would constitute being “successful”, premise (16) cannot be rationally evaluated as either being true or false.

It should be pointed out, however, that a sizeable number of Jews became followers of Jesus, or followers of the newly developing Christian faith, in the first century, after the crucifixion of Jesus. Furthermore, according to Kreeft and Tacelli, even the earliest Christian believers (many of whom were Jews) worshiped Jesus as being God. So, if Jesus had the selfish goal of being worshiped by hundreds or thousands of other humans within a few decades after his death, then it appears, at least according to Kreeft and Tacelli, that this goal was achieved, that Jesus was in fact “successful” at least to that extent.

If premise (17) and premise (18) are assumed to be true, it could still be the case that hundreds or thousands of Jews did begin to regularly worship Jesus (on Sundays) as being God, within a few decades after his death (at least according to Kreeft and Tacelli). In that case, it is far from clear that (16) follows logically from (17) and (18).

There is a second problem of QUANTIFICATION in this argument. The phrase “the least likely people in the world to…” only specifies a relative probability. If, for example, Jesus had a 75% chance of getting hundreds of Romans to worship him, a 70% chance of getting hundreds of Greeks to worship him, a 65% chance of getting hundreds of Egyptians to worship him, and a 60% chance of getting hundreds of Jews to worship him, then it might well be the case that the Jews were “the least likely people in the world to have worshiped a man” and yet also the case that it was more likely than not that Jesus would be able to get hundreds of Jews to worship him. So, if being “successful” for Jesus meant getting hundreds of Jews to worship him, then he could have had a reasonable chance of being “successful” even if the Jews were “the least likely people in the world to have worshiped a man.”

In any case, given the VAGUENESS of QUANTIFICATION in the phrase “would be successful” in premise (16), we cannot rationally evaluate the truth or falsehood of (16), nor can we rationally evaluate the validity or invalidity of the inference from (17) and (18) to (16). Although I cannot determine that premise (16) is FALSE nor that the inference from (17) and (18) to (16) is INVALID, nobody else can determine that (16) is TRUE nor that the inference from (17) and (18) to (16) is VALID. Premise (16) is too UNCLEAR to allow this argument to be rationally evaluated.

CONCLUSION ABOUT THE ARGUMENTS FOR PREMISE (14A)

Kreeft and Tacelli provide two arguments in support of premise (14) and I have evaluated those two arguments as arguments for the revised premise (14A):

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

The first argument is based on premise (15). Premise (15) is FALSE, and the inference from premise (15) to (14A) is INVALID, so the first argument clearly FAILS.

The second argument is based on premise (16), and this argument cannot be rationally evaluated because premise (16) is too UNCLEAR to allow one to determine whether it is true or false, and it is too UNCLEAR to allow one to evaluate the inference from premise (17) and (18) to premise (16). So, the second argument FAILS, because the key premise of that argument contains an UNCLEAR phrase that involves VAGUE QUANTIFICATION (i.e. the phrase “would be successful”). Therefore, the second argument also FAILS.

Both of Kreeft and Tacelli’s arguments for premise (14A) have FAILED, and thus Kreeft and Tacelli have FAILED to show that premise (14A) is true.

CONCLUSION ABOUT ARGUMENTS FOR PREMISE (4B)

Kreeft and Tacelli give two arguments in suport of premise (4B):

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 Part 14 of this series, I showed that the second argument Kreeft and Tacelli give to support (4B) FAILS to show that premise (4B) is true. In that post I focused on the core of the argument, namely the inference from premise (14) to (4B).

Therefore, Kreeft and Tacelli have FAILED to show that premise (4B) is true. That means that they have also FAILED to show that the second key premise of their case for the divinity of Jesus is true:

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

So, the first key premise of their case for the divinity of Jesus, premise (1A), is FALSE, and the second key premise of their case, premise (2B), remains questionable because they have FAILED to prove that Jesus was NOT a liar.