THE CHARACTER OF CHRIST
In this section, Bertrand discussed how people who claim to be Christian
don’t always live up to Christ’s teachings.
However, ‘The Character of a Person’ proof has to do with how the specified
person responds to a situation, and not what others will do. In other words,
the proof for the ‘Character of Christ’ refers to how the historical person,
Jesus Christ, behaved, and what Jesus claimed for himself.
This is a good place to point out that in the next section, Defects in Christ’s Teaching,
Bertrand Russell declared, “Historically, it is quite doubtful whether Christ ever
existed at all, and if he did we do not know anything about him, so I am not concerned
with the historical question, which is a very difficult one.”
These doubts would have fit better in this section, because it would have
directly addressed ‘The Character of Christ’ issue.
Russell claims that we don’t know much about Christ. Actually, we do.
We know what the historical New Testament* says about Christ.
For example, at the end of the Gospel of John, Chapter 8,
Jesus declared that the patriarch Abraham was glad to see Jesus (v56).
Before the conversation ended, the Jews picked up stones to cast at Jesus,
because Jesus had declared himself equal with God.
Now this story makes for an interesting claim on the character of Christ.
1. Was this all some fictional story, as Bertrand believes?
2. Was Jesus a liar for saying he saw the patriarch Abraham**?
3. Was Jesus simply crazy?
4. Did Abraham actually see Jesus, because Jesus really is God?
Because of the supernatural implication, this is indeed a difficult historical question.
Did God come to Earth as a man, or not***? Bertrand would have done better to have
addressed this issue, one way or another.
As it is, he committed the error of the Fallacy of Relevance, by focusing on
the irrelevant behavior of people other than Jesus Christ.
* The book Evidence that Demands a Verdict, by Josh McDowell addresses the historicity of the New Testament.
** Abraham was born approximately 2150 years before Jesus’ birth.
*** To declare a priori that God did not come to Earth, is to introduce a naturalistic only assumption.