Question I have recently stumbled upon a short book written by the Catholic theologian named Peter Kreeft. He deductively argued for Jesus’ divinity through an approach he summarized as “Aut deus aut homo malus.” (Either God or a Bad Man.) Basically, his argument works only on the assumption made by most historians. Jesus was a teacher, he claimed divinity, and was executed. So, assuming this is true he says Jesus must’ve been one of three things. One possibility is that he was a liar. He said he was divine even though he knew it was not true. Another possibility is that he was insane. He believed he was divine even though he wasn’t. The final possibility is that he was telling the truth and he was correct. He was divine. He goes through and points out that Jesus shows no symptoms of insanity. He had no motive for lying. In fact, he was executed because of his claims. That gives him a motive to deny his divinity, which he apparently was given a chance to do by according to the Jewish and Roman sources on the issue. (Only the Ebionites, who wrote the bible, paint his trial as unfair. The Jews and Romans say that they gathered evidence for forty days. The Pharisees say he wasn’t crucified but rather hung.) Anyway, since he has no motive to lie and there’s no evidence that he was lying there’s no logical reason to make this conclusion. Since he shows no symptoms of insanity there’s no logical reason to think he was insane. He must be divine, according to Kreeft. He argues with a sort of ‘Ocham’s Razor,’ type approach, you see? Working on his assumption that the historical information claiming that he Jesus was a teacher, he claimed divinity, and was executed, showed no signs of insanity, and had no motive for lying is there any counter for his argument?

Accepted:
July 27, 2009

Comments

I don't find this argument persuasive - for what it's worth, versions of it have been given for centuries.

History and common experience present us with many individuals who function well in many circumstances despite the fact that they have delusions of divine (or other) grandeur. Usually such individuals suffer greatly in all kinds of ways on account of their delusions. We do not take this suffering to speak to the correctness of their perceptions but rather to the psychically entrenched nature of their delusions. I do not see in any of the alleged facts about Jesus that you point to any reason for not counting him to be one such individual. In some everyday sense of "plausible," it seems much more plausible to think, on the basis of the evidence you have put forward, that he was delusional than to think that he was divine.

So what I would take issue with is the claim that according to "the historical information ... [Jesus] showed no signs of insanity." He did: he claimed to be capable of miraculous or divine feats.

I agree with Alexander George: the argument is hopeless.

As it happens, I came across the argument for the first time only recently: and -- when I'd stopped laughing -- I blogged about it, rather rudely. You can read what I said, and 33 comments(!) here.

I disagree with Smith's (as usual) and George's reply because they fail to take into account the context of debate and argument. This is easy to do, I suppose, especially for those who think the framework of debate is so skewed against theism. If you adopt what Smith elsewhere describes as "cheerful atheism" then of course he will laugh and laugh at thinking the Kreeft argument can have any credence, but that is because he gives no credence to theism. An assessment of Christ's claims (or the claims by Christians about Christ) has to take place in the context of a broad inquiry that takes theism (and atheism) seriously. I happen to think there are good philosophical grounds to think theism is more reasonable than its most promising alternative (naturalism) and given that broader position reasoning like Kreeft's has credibility. I recommend Richard Swinburne four books, beginning with The Coherence of Theism and The Existence of God (which seem to me to overturn J.L. Mackie's The Miracle of Theism) and then look at his OUP book on whether Jesus is fully God and fully human.

Charles Taliaferro's third sentence could be read as saying that I "give no credence to theism". If that's what he means, he presumes too much. What I give no credence to are bad arguments for theism.

Thanks to Charles Taliaferro for resurrecting this interesting question (which I was too swamped to answer when it came around the first time). It is important to remember that like many philosophical arguments it has a specific audience in mind. Let's call the intended audience 'the agnostic gentleman' in these two senses: first, the intended audience is genuinely agnostic in that he/she really believes that miracles and the incarnation are possibilities with a reasonable probability of being true. The intended audience does not have a strong commitment to naturalism or standing opinion against the possibility of miracles. Second, the intended audience is a 'gentleman' in the sense that he/she really wants to hold an unambiguously positive view of Jesus so the 'liar' and 'lunatic' options of the 'trilemma' will not be attractive to him/her. For someone holding the two previous commitments, the argument can be quite effective.

The initial questioner's error was in assuming that no one would find the 'liar' or 'lunatic' views of Jesus attractive. But as Peter Smith's and Alexander George's responses demonstrate, there are plenty of people who are willing to take those options.