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.

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.

In Part 15 of this series, I examined and evaluated the support that Kreeft and Tacelli provide for premise (14). I evaluated their arguments as arguments for premise (14A), a revised and improved version of premise (14). I showed that the argument based on premise (15) was UNSOUND because premise (15) is FALSE, and because that argument is logically INVALID. I showed that the argument based on premise (16) also FAILED, because premise (16) is too UNCLEAR, due to VAGUE QUANTIFICATION, to be rationally evaluated. Because both of Kreeft and Tacelli’s arguments supporting (14A) FAIL, they have FAILED to show that premise (14A) is true.

THE ARGUMENTS AGAINST JESUS BEING A LUNATIC

The second key premise of Kreeft and Tacelli’s case for the divinity of Jesus is this:

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

We have seen that Kreeft and Tacelli have already FAILED to show that (2B) is true, because they FAILED to show that (4B) is true:

4B. Jesus was not a liar.

It is now time to examine whether they managed to show that the second element of (2B) is true:

5B. Jesus was not a lunatic.

Kreeft and Tacelli give three arguments in support of premise (5B):

Why couldn’t Jesus be a lunatic?

1. Because the psychological profiles are opposite. The lunatic lacks the very qualities that shine in Jesus: practical wisdom, tough love, and unpredictable creativity.

2. When we meet a lunatic, we are uncomfortable because we feel superior to him; when his enemies met Jesus, they were uncomfortable for the opposite reason. A lunatic does not make you feel personally challenged, only embarrassed and, eventually, bored. But Jesus made everyone feel challenged and uncomfortable, never bored. A lunatic is like darkness, Jesus was like light. A lunatic is like a man asleep, Jesus was the most wide awake of all men.

3. No Jew could sincerely think he was God. No group in history was less likely to confuse the Creator with a creature than the Jews, the only people who had an absolute, and absolutely clear, distinction between the divine and the human.

(HCA, p. 160-161)

THE FIRST ARGUMENT AGAINST JESUS BEING A LUNATIC

Here is the first argument from Kreeft and Tacelli for premise (5B):

19. Lunatics lack practical wisdom, tough love, and unpredictable creativity.

20. Jesus clearly possessed practical wisdom, tough love, and unpredictable creativity.

THEREFORE:

5B. Jesus was not a lunatic.

CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF PREMISE (19)

Premise (19) is UNCLEAR and cannot be rationally evaluated as it stands. First, there is an initial obvious VAGUENESS of QUANTIFICATION. Here are four alternative interpretations:

ALL lunatics lack practical wisdom, tough love, and unpredictable creativity.

ALMOST ALL lunatics lack practical wisdom, tough love, and unpredictable creativity.

A VERY HIGH PERCENTAGE of lunatics lack practical wisdom, tough love, and unpredictable creativity.

MOST lunatics lack practical wisdom, tough love, and unpredictable creativity.

There is also more VAGUENESS of QUANTIFICATION in the term “lack”, especially given that “practical wisdom”, “tough love”, and “unpredictable creativity” are characteristics that are possessed to various degrees. Here are four alternative interpretations of the term “lack”:

Lunatics have ABSOLUTELY NO practical wisdom, ABSOLUTELY NO tough love, and ABSOLUTELY NO unpredictable creativity.

Lunatics have ALMOST NO practical wisdom, ALMOST NO tough love, and ALMOST NO unpredictable creativity.

Lunatics have ONLY A LITTLE practical wisdom, ONLY A LITTLE tough love, and ONLY A LITTLE unpredictable creativity.

Lunatics have a BELOW-AVERAGE DEGREE of practical wisdom, a BELOW-AVERAGE DEGREE of tough love, and a BELOW-AVERAGE DEGREE of unpredictable creativity.

Furthermore, because no quantification is spelled out, it might well be the case that Kreeft and Tacelli, if pushed for clarification, would quantify the “lunatics” and the “lack” differently for the three different characteristics, so on one possible interpretation of (19), Kreeft and Tacelli might mean to assert these three claims:

• ALL lunatics have ONLY A LITTLE practical wisdom.
• ALMOST ALL lunatics have ABSOLUTELY NO tough love.
• A VERY HIGH PERCENTAGE of lunatics have ALMOST NO unpredictable creativity.

I have suggested four different quantifications concerning “lunatics” and four different quantifications concerning the “lack” of a characteristic, so there are sixteen different combinations of these quantifications for each characteristic. Since there are three different characteristics, the number of possible interpretations of premise (19), based on these different possible quantifications is:

16 x 16 x 16 = 256 x 16 = 4,096 different possible interpretations

There is an extraordinary degree of AMBIGUITY in premise (19).

On top of that extraordinary degree of AMBIGUITY, we also have the UNCLARITY of the basic characteristics at issue:

• practical wisdom
• tough love
• unpredictable creativity

These are all very subjective and fuzzy terms. It is not at all clear what constitutes “tough love” or how we could measure that characteristic in any sort of objective way. I have no idea how “unpredictable” creativity differs from “predictable” creativity, so that concept seems very UNCLEAR. Psychologists do study “creativity” although I doubt that there is much agreement among psychologists on how to objectively measure a person’s creativity.

The term “practical wisdom” probably derives from the philosophy of Aristotle, given that Kreeft and Tacelli are both Catholic philosophers, and are no doubt familiar with Aristotle’s conception of “practical wisdom”. I suspect that Kreeft and Tacelli would be able to produce a definition of “practical wisdom” along the lines of Aristotle’s views on that idea. However, “practical wisdom” is a rather broad concept (meaning something like: the ability and tendency to make good decisions about what policy to adopt or course of action to take). Again, I don’t think there are any widely-accepted ways of measuring the degree of “practical wisdom” possessed by an individual.

So, before we can rationally evaluate premise (19), we need clear definitions of the three key characteristics (definitions that will allow us to assess the degree to which different people possess the characteristic), and we need to know which of the 4,096 possible interpretations of the QUANTIFICATION in premise (19) concerning “lunatics” and “lack” is the correct interpretation.

Finally, the term “lunatic” is an UNCLEAR term, as I mentioned way back in Part 2 of this series of posts:

What does the claim “Jesus was a lunatic” mean? Kreeft provides no definition or clarification of the term “lunatic”. He does, however, sometimes use the word “insane” in place of the word “lunatic”, so presumably, he views these words as synonyms (see Kreeft’s use of “insane” and “insanity” when introducing this part of the argument on pages 155 and 156 of HCA).

The dictionary definition of “lunatic” indicates an AMBIGUITY in this term:

People who are NOT insane sometimes believe things that are WILDLY FOOLISH for them to believe. For example, I think that it is WILDLY FOOLISH for Kreeft to believe that Jesus physically rose from the dead, but I do NOT think that Kreeft is insane. So, the word “lunatic” has a stronger and weaker sense. In the stronger sense of the word, to say that “Jesus was a lunatic” means that “Jesus was insane”. In the weaker sense, it means that “Jesus held some wildly foolish beliefs”. Because Kreeft uses the word “insane” as a synonym for the word “lunatic”, it seems likely that he intended the stronger sense of the word “lunatic”:

affected with a severely disordered state of mind: INSANE

However, the term “insanity” is no longer an accepted medical diagnosis:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insanity

Presumably, when they speak of “lunatics”, Kreeft and Tacelli have in mind “the wide range of mental disorders” that are now diagnosed as “bipolar disorder, organic brain syndromes, schizophrenia, and other psychotic disorders.” In that case, it will NOT be easy to gather the factual data needed to evaluate premise (19) even after all of the AMBIGUITY of quantification is settled, and the meanings of the UNCLEAR key terms are specified.

We would then need to gather data on the degree to which the three characteristics mentioned in (19) are possessed by people who have been diagnosed with: (a) bipolar disorder, (b) organic brain syndromes, (c) schizophrenia, and (d) other psychotic disorders. Sounds like a HUGE research project, with only a very small chance of finding sufficient relevant data to arrive at confident conclusions about the truth or falsehood of a clarified version of premise (19).

Speaking of FACTUAL DATA, Kreeft and Tacelli have provided absolutely ZERO facts relevant to determining whether premise (19) is true or false! They are philosophers, not psychologists, so they have no expertise in the study of people who have been diagnosed with: (a) bipolar disorder, (b) organic brain syndromes, (c) schizophrenia, or (d) other psychotic disorders. Furthermore, it is obvious that they did ZERO investigation of scientific studies about the relevant personal characteristics of such people. In short, they have absolutely NO CLUE what they are talking about here. They are doing the worst sort of armchair philosophy, namely: making SCIENTIFIC CLAIMS about which they have no expertise and for which they have no factual data whatsoever.

Because premise (19) is hopelessly UNCLEAR, and because Kreeft and Tacelli are obviously CLUELESS about the scientific claims they are making, we should REJECT premise (19) as being too UNCLEAR to rationally evaluate, and as being a SCIENTIFIC CLAIM for which Kreeft and Tacelli have absolutely ZERO factual data. They are simply attempting to baffle us with bullshit.

CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF PREMISE (20)

Premise (20) suffers from some of the same problems that we found with premise (19). There is some VAGUENESS of QUANTIFICATION in terms of the degree to which Jesus possesses the three key characteristics:

Jesus possessed the MAXIMAL DEGREE of practical wisdom, tough love, and unpredictable creativity.

Jesus possessed an ALMOST MAXIMAL DEGREE of practical wisdom, tough love, and unpredictable creativity.

Jesus possessed a VERY HIGH DEGREE of practical wisdom, tough love, and unpredictable creativity.

Jesus possessed an ABOVE AVERAGE DEGREE of practical wisdom, tough love, and unpredictable creativity.

Since no QUANTIFICATION was specified in the original statement, Kreeft and Tacelli might well, if pressed for clarification, assert that Jesus possessed different degrees of the three different characteristics. For example, they might clarify premise (20) as asserting the following three claims:

• Jesus possessed an ALMOST MAXIMAL DEGREE of practical wisdom.
• Jesus possessed a VERY HIGH DEGREE of tough love.
• Jesus possessed an ABOVE AVERAGE DEGREE of unpredictable creativity.

Although there are not thousands of different possible interpretations of the QUANTIFICATION in premise (20), there still is some significant AMBIGUITY in this premise. Because there are at least four different degrees for each characteristic, and because there are three different characteristics, the number of different possible interpretations of QUANTIFICATION in this premise are:

4 x 4 x 4 = 16 x 4 = 64 different possible interpretations

We also have the same problem with the UNCLEAR meanings of the three key characteristics:

• practical wisdom
• tough love
• unpredictable creativity

These subjective and fuzzy concepts need to be clearly defined before it will be possible to rationally evaluate premise (20). And the definitions of these terms must be such that they enable us to determine (on the basis of facts and observations) the degree to which an individual possesses the characteristic in question.

Once again, as with premise (19), Kreeft and Tacelli provide absolutely ZERO facts in support of the claims that premise (20) makes about Jesus. These are HISTORICAL CLAIMS about a particular person, and such claims need to be supported with HISTORICAL facts or evidence. But we are given absolutely no facts or evidence in support of premise (20). Kreeft and Tacelli are simply asserting these HISTORICAL CLAIMS, without providing any relevant evidence.

Because premise (20) is too UNCLEAR to be rationally evaluated, and because Kreeft and Tacelli have provided no historical evidence whatsoever in support of the HISTORICAL CLAIMS about Jesus that are asserted in premise (20), we should REJECT premise (20) as a dubious claim.

The first argument presented by Kreeft and Tacelli in support of premise (5B) FAILS, because both premises of this argument are too UNCLEAR to be rationally evaluated and because Kreeft and Tacelli do not offer any relevant factual evidence whatsoever in support of either of the two premises.

In the NEXT post in this series, I will critically examine the second argument for premise (5B), and perhaps, the third argument for (5B) as well.