WHERE WE ARE

For a brief summary of what has been covered in Part 3 through Part 15 of this series, see the “WHERE WE ARE” section at the beginning of Part 16 of this series.

In Part 16 of this series, I argued that Kreeft and Tacelli’s first argument against Jesus being a lunatic FAILED because both premises of the argument are too UNCLEAR to be rationally evaluated and because they offer ZERO factual evidence in support of the SCIENTIFIC CLAIMS and HISTORICAL CLAIMS that are asserted in those premises.

In this current post, I will say a little bit more about the first argument against Jesus being a lunatic, and then I will move on to a critical examination of Kreeft and Tacelli’s second argument against Jesus being a lunatic.

ONE MORE PROBLEM WITH THE 1ST ARGUMENT FOR (5B)

Here again, is the first argument by Kreeft and Tacelli against Jesus being a lunatic:

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.

I have previously pointed out that there is VAGUE QUANTIFICATION in premise (20), which opens this premise up to 64 different possible interpretations. But for the sake of illustration, let’s consider one specific possible interpretation of this premise:

20A. Jesus possessed a VERY HIGH DEGREE of practical wisdom, tough love, and unpredictable creativity.

Premise (20A) implies three fairly general HISTORICAL CLAIMS:

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

All three terms about personal characteristics here are UNCLEAR terms, but the meaning of “practical wisdom” seems less problematic than “tough love” and “unpredictable creativity”. I won’t attempt to provide a clear definition of “practical wisdom”.

Did the historical Jesus possess a very high degree of “practical wisdom”? This is a very difficult question, and I don’t think it can be answered with any level of confidence based on the historical evidence that is currently available to us. We know very little about the historical Jesus, especially about the thoughts and intentions, and personality of the historical Jesus.

Right now, one of the biggest questions facing Americans is whether or not our former president, Donald Trump, will be charged and convicted with one or more federal crimes related to his attempt to steal the last election through violent and illegal means.

Many of us Democrats and liberals are hoping that Donald Trump will spend the rest of his life in federal prison. However, there is one BIG obstacle in the way of this hope becoming a reality: Donald Trump, like the head of an organized crime family, avoids putting his thoughts and requests, and commands into writing. Trump does not use email or text messages to communicate with his subordinates and co-conspirators.

As a result, it will be very challenging for federal investigators and lawyers to prove claims of criminal intent about Donald Trump. It is thus quite possible that this lying sack of shit who attempted to subvert our democracy through violence and illegal schemes, who greatly deserves to spend the rest of his life in prison, will not ever be convicted of a federal crime, and will not spend a single day in federal prison for his evil deeds.

Jesus, like Trump, was probably illiterate. Jesus probably could not read or write, like 90% of his fellow Jews who lived in ancient Palestine. Obviously, Jesus never texted or emailed any of his disciples or any of his opponents and critics. But Jesus also did not keep a diary or journal. Jesus did not write letters or books. Jesus did not write down his thoughts, feelings, sayings, or sermons in a notebook. So far as we know, Jesus never wrote a poem or essay or short story or prayer or hymn or sermon.

Furthermore, although Trump has had hundreds or thousands of conversations with people who are alive today and who can be interviewed by professional federal investigators, nobody who Jesus spoke to is alive today. In fact, the authors of the Gospels were second or third-generation Christians who never set eyes on Jesus and never heard Jesus speak a single word. So, our evidence concerning the thoughts, intentions, desires, and feelings of Jesus are much more difficult to determine than the thoughts, intentions, desires, and feelings of Donald Trump.

Finally, the information that we do have about the historical Jesus is sketchy and has been filtered by clearly biased storytellers and authors. Scholars who study the historical Jesus have generally concluded that the Gospel of John, for example, is mostly legend and fiction that is strongly shaped by a particular Christian theological point of view. Although Kreeft and Tacelli would happily quote dozens of passages from this Gospel as “evidence” for their HISTORICAL CLAIMS, this is a very biased and UNRELIABLE source of information about the historical Jesus.

That leaves us with three Gospels: Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Matthew and Luke both borrow heavily from the Gospel of Mark, so if the Gospel of Mark is UNRELIABLE, then all four Gospels are UNRELIABLE!

Suppose that Mark does present a historically reliable account of the life, ministry, teachings, and death of Jesus. In that case, there would still be serious problems with the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke. Mark has no birth story about Jesus, and Mark has no resurrection-appearance stories. When Matthew and Luke are borrowing from Mark, they agree with each other fairly well, but when it comes to their birth stories and their resurrection-appearance stories, they completely contradict each other. So, it appears that stories about Jesus in Matthew and Luke that are not found in Mark, are historically DUBIOUS. When they don’t have Mark to lean on, they contradict each other.

Mark clearly implies that the first appearances of the risen Jesus to his disciples took place in Galilee a week or more after the crucifixion. But Luke clearly asserts that the first appearances of the risen Jesus to his disciples took place on Easter Sunday (two days after the crucifixion) in Jerusalem. Both accounts CANNOT be true.

Most scholars side with the earlier and less theologically-driven account in Mark. That means that Luke’s resurrection appearance stories are FICTION! If Luke gives us FICTION about the most important event concerning the historical Jesus, why should we believe ANY story in the Gospel of Luke that goes beyond stories found in the Gospel of Mark?

Matthew adds several events and details to Mark‘s account of the crucifixion, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. These additional elements are almost all clearly legendary or fantastic. Matthew is the Steven Spielberg of the Gospels. Matthew adds several dramatic and theologically-laden events and details to the account that he borrows from Mark‘s Gospel. This gives us good reason to doubt ANY such additions that Matthew makes to stories that he gets from the Gospel of Mark.

In the Gospel of John there are some long sermons by Jesus. Those long sermons might have given us some insight into the thoughts and feelings and personality of Jesus, except that the Gospel of John is historically UNRELIABLE, especially concerning the words attributed to Jesus in that Gospel. So, we cannot use those long sermons found in the Gospel of John.

There is the “Sermon on the Mount” in the Gospel of Matthew, but that is just a collection of some alleged sayings of Jesus that the author of Matthew assembled together. This brings up a central problem with the Gospels: the words that the Gospels attribute to Jesus and that have some significant chance of being accurate representations of the words of the historical Jesus are short sayings and parables. Furthermore, NT scholars believe that the CONTEXTS in which Jesus uttered these sayings and parables have been LOST. The Gospel authors usually invented the contexts for the sayings of Jesus. Without knowing the actual context, correct interpretation of these short sayings and parables is often difficult.

In the end, we are left with the Gospel of Mark, which may or may not be RELIABLE, plus some sayings of Jesus from Q (the passages in Luke and Matthew that closely agree but that are not based on Mark’s Gospel are believed to be derived from an early collection of sayings of Jesus called “Q”). The author of Mark was a second or third-generation Christian believer who probably never set eyes on Jesus and never heard Jesus speak. The author was a Christian believer who would obviously have a BIAS in favor of seeing Jesus as a person of great “practical wisdom”.

Common sense tells us that the Christian author of Mark would be unlikely to report any stories about Jesus, or sayings of Jesus, that indicated that Jesus made a foolish decision or said something that was foolish. So, we cannot use this source as being a FULL and UNBIASED account of the words and actions of the historical Jesus. Nobody will be able to firmly establish claims like the following one, about the historical Jesus, based on the currently available historical evidence:

• Jesus possessed a VERY HIGH DEGREE of practical wisdom.

Therefore, claims like premise (20A) also cannot be firmly established on the basis of currently available historical evidence:

20A. Jesus possessed a VERY HIGH DEGREE of practical wisdom, tough love, and unpredictable creativity.

THE SECOND ARGUMENT AGAINST JESUS BEING A LUNATIC

Here again, is Kreeft and Tacelli’s presentation of their second point against Jesus being a lunatic:

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.

(HCA, p.160-161)

First of all, the last two sentences are more poetry than philosophy. They are metaphorical and emotionally-laden sentences that do more to undermine the credibility of Kreeft and Tacelli than to provide any sort of solid reason for the claim that Jesus was not a lunatic. Consider the second-to-last sentence:

A lunatic is like darkness, Jesus was like light.

This is poetry, not philosophy. This use of VAGUE metaphorical language is shameful for professional philosophers who are presenting philosophical arguments. However, I will attempt to translate this unclear statement into clearer language. Darkness is often a metaphor for EVIL. Light is often a metaphor for GOOD. This is a common metaphor used, for example, in the Gospel of John, and also in apocalyptic thinking, and in the Star Wars movies. So, a reasonable guess is that Kreeft and Tacelli are making the following claim:

ALL people who have a very serious mental illness are EVIL, but Jesus was completely GOOD.

Clearly, not ALL people who are seriously mentally ill are EVIL, so this statement is FALSE. Furthermore, since this contrasts with Jesus being allegedly “GOOD”, and since Jesus being “GOOD” means that Jesus was MORALLY GOOD, that implies that the term “EVIL” here means MORALLY EVIL. But in that case, the minority of seriously mentally ill people who we would be inclined to call “EVIL” (namely: psychopaths who are serial killers) are not plausibly considered to be MORALLY EVIL.

They are “EVIL” in the way that an earthquake or a poisonous snake are “EVIL”. Earthquakes and snakes are not moral agents that can be morally BLAMED for their “actions”. Earthquakes and poisonous snakes are NOT MORALLY EVIL. Similarly, it seems that psychopath serial killers are NOT MORALLY EVIL, because their thinking and choices are affected by very serious mental illness, so MORAL BLAME is not appropriate for them. They should be locked up or executed for the safety and well-being of other people, but they are so mentally defective that we should not think of them as being moral agents who are deserving of either praise or blame.

Therefore, based on my suggested interpretation, this statement by Kreeft and Tacelli is FALSE for at least two reasons: (1) some seriously mentally ill people are NOT “EVIL” (even in the non-moral sense of the term), (2) the seriously mentally ill people who are reasonably considered to be “EVIL” are NOT appropriately considered to be MORALLY EVIL.

Consider the last sentence of the second paragraph/argument:

A lunatic is like a man asleep, Jesus was the most wide awake of all men.

Again, the use of unclear metaphorical language is inappropriate for use in philosophical arguments, so this statement mostly undermines the credibility of Kreeft and Tacelli as philosophers.

Being “awake” is commonly used as a metaphorical reference to “enlightenment” or “wisdom”. In Buddhism, being “awake” is the primary description of the Buddha, at least after he grasped the basic ideas of his new philosophy. This is metaphorical language used to assert that the Buddha obtained great enlightenment or wisdom. So, based on this common use of the metaphor of being asleep vs. being awake, we can make a reasonable guess at the meaning of this last sentence:

ALL people who have a very serious mental illness are unwise, but Jesus was the wisest of all men.

To assert that “Jesus was the wisest of all men” is very similar to the previous assertion in the first argument that “Jesus possessed a VERY HIGH DEGREE of practical wisdom”. This claim has all of the problems that we have previously mentioned with the first argument against Jesus being a lunatic, and this claim is also thus REDUNDANT with the first argument.

I will ignore the last two sentences, and focus instead on the sentences that are clearer and more appropriate as relevant evidence. Here are my clarifications of the other sentences asserted by Kreeft and Tacelli in making their second point against Jesus being a lunatic:

21. When a mentally healthy person meets an insane person/a lunatic, they feel uncomfortable, and they feel that way because they feel superior to the insane person.

22. When a mentally healthy person meets an insane person/a lunatic, they feel uncomfortable, and this is NOT because they feel personally challenged by the insane person.

23. When mentally healthy persons met Jesus, they felt uncomfortable because they felt personally challenged by Jesus.

24. When mentally healthy persons met Jesus, they felt uncomfortable and this was NOT because they felt superior to Jesus.

There are two main contrasts here: (1) feeling uncomfortable because of feeling superior vs. feeling uncomfortable NOT because of feeling superior, and (2) feeling uncomfortable because of feeling challenged vs. feeling uncomfortable NOT because of feeling challenged. Thus, there are two main arguments here of a similar logical structure:

21. When a mentally healthy person meets an insane person/a lunatic, they feel uncomfortable, and they feel that way because they feel superior to the insane person.

24. When mentally healthy persons met Jesus, they felt uncomfortable and this was NOT because they felt superior to Jesus.

THEREFORE:

5B. Jesus was not a lunatic.

23. When mentally healthy persons met Jesus, they felt uncomfortable because they felt personally challenged by Jesus.

22. When a mentally healthy person meets an insane person/a lunatic, they feel uncomfortable, and this is NOT because they feel personally challenged by the insane person.

THEREFORE:

5B. Jesus was not a lunatic.

Although the second point by Kreeft and Tacelli turns out to include two arguments, we can put both of these arguments into one argument diagram showing two arguments in support of the same conclusion:

In the next post of this series, I will critically evaluate these two arguments from Kreeft and Tacelli’s second point against Jesus being a lunatic.