The “Aut Deus Aut Homo Malus” Argument
In the June 17, 2024, zoom meeting of the “Reasons for Faith” course hosted by OnlineChristianCourses.com, Dr. Stephen C. Meyer (author of “Return of the God Hypothesis” and director of the Discovery Institute in Seattle) talked about Peter Kreeft’s book “Between Heaven and Hell: A Dialog Somewhere Beyond Death with John F. Kennedy, C. S. Lewis, & Aldous Huxley”. The book is a novel that tells the story of a philosophical discussion of faith engaged in by these three famous men who died on the same day within hours of each other. The discussion takes place in an intermediate place (Purgatory?) and the men are discussing possibilities of where they might be now that they have died. Kennedy takes the “modern Christian” view, Huxley presents arguments from the “orientalized Christian” view and Lewis takes the “conservative Christian” view.1
Dr. Meyer explained that in this novel the contributions of C.S. Lewis present the concept of “Aut deus aut homo malus” which is a Latin phrase translating to "either God or a bad man”. This is one of the arguments for the truth of the divinity of Jesus. Dr. Meyer told us the story of how he explained this concept to one of his dinner companions by drawing a diagram on a napkin at the table. In the diagram he divided a circle into four parts.
In the God/Man quadrant, Dr. Meyer challenged the idea that Jesus merely claimed to be God. He explained that Jesus proved that He was NOT just a part of nature (as in Huxley’s pantheistic view of the universe) but that He is God the Creator, and that He proved that fact by the miracles He performed, which demonstrated His mastery over nature (i.e., calming the storm, feeding the five thousand, healing the lepers, etc.).
In the Morally Bad Man quadrant, Dr. Meyer challenged the idea that Jesus was a liar by citing examples of Jesus’ sagacious wisdom, love of mankind, and good moral teaching along with His humility and boldness. Dr. Meyer pointed out that Sages are not liars, and that liars and deceivers typically exhibit self-centered and self-seeking behavior, whereas Jesus never acted out of self-interest, but was always concerned with doing the will of His Father.
In the Intellectually Bad Man (Insane) quadrant, Dr. Meyer stated that if Jesus only thought He was God (divinity complex) then He would have demonstrated the traits of people who think they are God. Dr. Meyer said that people who hold this view are usually full of themselves and are unwilling to sacrifice their personal desires and ambitions for the good of others. The records of the life of Jesus (in the gospel accounts and in the writings of extra-biblical authors such as Josephus and Tacitus) Jesus is portrayed as a good and wise teacher; traits that are exactly the opposite the traits of an insane person. In Antiquities 18:63 Josephus writes:
“About this time lived Jesus, a wise man, if indeed one ought to call him a man. For he was the achiever of extraordinary deeds and was a teacher of those who accept the truth gladly.”2
Tacitus was a member of the Roman Senate and a great historian. In “The Annals Book 15” he wrote about Jesus and the Christians of that era:
“Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular.”3
Early Church Fathers such as Polycarp, Ignatius, Justin Martyr, Hippolytus, Tertullian, and Origen believed that Jesus was not insane, but that He was God. Irenaeus of Lyons (Ad 130-202) portrayed Jesus as having a perpetually good, loving nature derived from His heavenly Father. In “Against Heresies” he wrote:
“But that He is Himself in His own right, beyond all men who ever lived, God, and Lord, and King Eternal, and the Incarnate Word, proclaimed by all the prophets, the apostles, and by the Spirit Himself, may be seen by all who have attained to even a small portion of the truth.”4
Dr. Meyer also brought up the fact that Jesus was unique in the way that He brought grace and truth into harmony, which most people (especially insane people) can’t or won’t do.
After Dr. Meyer finished explaining why three of the suppositions were not tenable, he arrived at the conclusion that Jesus is truly the Divine Man. This conclusion appears to be the most probable one considering how it adheres to people’s “sense of fitness” written about by C.S. Lewis in the chapter “On Probability” in his book “Miracles A Preliminary Study”.5
some scholars such as Richard Carrier, Robert Price, and Thomas L. Brodie take a mythical view of Jesus rather than believing that He was an actual historical figure.6 In the mythical view of Jesus, it is believed that Paul was writing about a celestial Jesus and that Christians viewed Jesus the same way they viewed all the other Greek and Roman gods.
There is plenty of evidence to rebut the mythical view of Jesus. “Excavating the Evidence for Jesus” by archaeologist Dr. Titus Kennedy is a book that presents a comprehensive archaeological defense of the Gospels' historical reliability and their account of Jesus of Nazareth's life. The book is well-illustrated and documented, and Dr. Kennedy examines the different phases of Jesus' life chronologically, from birth to resurrection, as recorded in the New Testament. Along the way, he notes relevant archaeological, historical, geographic, and literary findings, and argues that in each case, there is a surprising amount of evidence that supports the Gospel accounts. The book is intended to allow readers to decide for themselves whether the evidence confirms the existence and story of Jesus.
Some of the most amazing evidence for the historicity of Jesus are the following archaeological discoveries that Dr. Kennedy includes in his book. These discoveries have validated the existence of four key figures (Jesus, Caiaphas, Pontius Pilate and Herod Antipas) involved in the trial of Jesus recorded in the Gospels.
1. Evidence of Caiaphas's tomb. The tomb of this priest was discovered in a burial cave in south Jerusalem in 1990. Two of the 12 stone boxes found had the name Caiaphas written on the side, and one contained the entire name, "Joseph, son of Caiaphas." The most elaborately decorated ossuary found in this cave contains two inscriptions relating to Caiaphas.7
2. The Pilate inscription in 1961, was discovered by Italian archaeologists working at Caesarea Maritima (Israel) while excavating a Roman amphitheater. It was a tribute from prefect Pontius Pilate to Tiberius Caesar and contains an inscription listing his name and title as: "Pontius Pilate, Prefect of Judea". Pilot corroborates Luke’s writings that Tiberius was emperor at this time and place. Pontius Pilate is also known from the writings of Philo, Tacitus, and Josephus.8
3. The Coins of Herod Antipas as Tetrarch of Galilee, Herod Antipas had the right to mint his own coins. The archaeological record reveals that he minted coins of four denominations during his reign.9
4. The Nazareth Inscription is an edict from an unnamed Caesar inscribed in Greek on a marble slab (tablet). The decree imposed a death penalty in Israel for anyone caught disturbing graves or moving bodies from family tombs, and specifically “sepulcher-sealing tombs,” such as the one Jesus was buried in. It was acquired by Wilhelm Froeher in 1878 who recorded that it came from Nazareth.10
All of Christianity hinges on the question of the historicity and truth of the deity of Jesus Christ. Accounts of His life, death, burial and resurrection were carefully recorded in the Gospels, attested to in extra-biblical sources and evidenced by archaeological discoveries. If Jesus did not exist (and rise from the dead), the claims of Christianity are null and void. The “Aut deus aut homo malus” argument is the idea behind the trilemma that C.S. Lewis presented in his book “Mere Christianity”. The following is a famous quote from that book about the identity of Jesus.
"I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to."11
References
1. “Between Heaven and Hell (novel)” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Between_Heaven_and_Hell_(novel)#:~:text=Kennedy%2C%20C.%20S.%20Lewis%2C%20%26%20Aldous,a%20philosophical%20discussion%20on%20faith.
2. Maier, Paul L. (2016, March 30) Josephus and Jesus https://www.namb.net/apologetics/resource/josephus-and-jesus/#:~:text=The%20standard%20text%20of%20Josephus,who%20accept%20the%20truth%20gladly.
3. Kraby, Clayton (2024) Jesus Outside the Bible the Bible, 1 – Tacitus https://reasonabletheology.org/jesus-outside-the-bible-1-tacitus/.
4. Barnett, Tim (2016, November 24) Nine Early Church Fathers Who Taught That Jesus Is God https://www.str.org/w/nine-early-church-fathers-who-taught-jesus-is-god#fn:16.
5. “On Probability” Lewis, C. S. “Miracles A Preliminary Study” Harper Collins Publishers 1947, renewed 1974 page 167.
6. Schmitty422 (2018) Jesus Mythicism https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicBiblical/comments/9457g3/what_is_jesus_mythicism_and_how_is_it_understood/.
7. “Caiaphas's tomb” Kennedy, Titus Dr. “Excavating the Evidence for Jesus the Archaeology and History of Christ and the Gospels” Harvest House Publishers 2022, p. 163.
8. “The Pilate Stone” Kennedy, Titus Dr. “Excavating the Evidence for Jesus the Archaeology and History of Christ and the Gospels” Harvest House Publishers 2022, p. 82.
9. “The Coins of Antipas” Kennedy, Titus Dr. “Excavating the Evidence for Jesus the Archaeology and History of Christ and the Gospels” Harvest House Publishers 2022, p. 187.
10. “The Nazareth Inscription” Kennedy, Titus Dr. “Excavating the Evidence for Jesus the Archaeology and History of Christ and the Gospels” Harvest House Publishers 2022, p. 220.
11. “The Shocking Alternative” Lewis, C. S. (1996) Mere Christianity. Simon & Schuster pp. 54-56.