Socrates Meets Jesus: History's Greatest Questioner Confronts the Claims of Christ [Paperback]

Peter Kreeft (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 10, 2002

What would happen if Socrates--yes, the Socrates of ancient Athens--suddenly showed up on the campus of a major university and enrolled in its divinity school? What would he think of human progress since his day? How would he react to our values? To our culture? And what would he think of Jesus? Peter Kreeft, Christian philosopher and longtime admirer of the historic Socrates, imagines the result. In this drama Socrates meets such fellow students as Bertha Broadmind, Thomas Keptic and Molly Mooney. Throughout, Kreeft weaves an intriguing web as he brings Socrates closer and closer to a meeting with Jesus. Here is a startling and provocative portrayal of reason in search of truth. In a new introduction to this revised edition, Kreeft also highlights the inspiration for this book and the key questions of truth and faith it addresses.

Product Details

• Paperback: 182 pages
• Publisher: IVP Books (January 10, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0830823387
• ISBN-13: 978-0830823383
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #123,163 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Peter J. Kreeft (Ph.D., Fordham University) is professor of philosophy at Boston College where he has taught since 1965. A popular lecturer, he has also taught at many other colleges, seminaries and educational institutions in the eastern United States. Kreeft has written more than sixty-seven books, including The Best Things in Life, Christianity for Modern Pagans, Fundamentals of the Faith and The Handbook of Christian Apologetics.

Dr. Kreeft's MP3 audio lectures can be purchased on Amazon, such as
"Christianity in Lord of the Rings".

Free articles, audio lectures, the speaking schedule and more info from Dr. Peter Kreeft can be found at his popular web site:
http://www.peterkreeft.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

61 of 65 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars What will you do with Jesus?, June 8, 2005

By 

Corum Seth Smith (Hendersonville, NC USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Socrates Meets Jesus: History's Greatest Questioner Confronts the Claims of Christ (Paperback)

First of all, if I may get away with answering some critics. I was a philosophy and religious studies student at a secular liberal arts university where Christianity was not thought of fondly. I then went to a divinity school where I learned that not everything called "Christian" really is. Though I may not be an expert, I know what kind of things go on in the setting that Kreeft has offered, a divinity school.

If nothing else, Socrates criticizes modernist "Christians" who try and have it both ways (All the success of the spread of Christianity without any doctrine or personal piety). Now with regards to the critics, many of them use two words: "straw man" and "fundamentalism." The irony is this: anyone who does not want to critically consider the claims of Christianity calls even its basic, central beliefs (crucifixion, resurrection, Bible) "fundamentalism." Anyone who goes to Divinity School will (hopefully) learn that there have been Benedictines, Puritans, and Lutherans; however all these people had in common basic beliefs about who Jesus was and what he did. After a belief is deemed "fundamentalist," it is no longer studied. Fundamentalism becomes such an all-encompassing, and thus poorly defined staw man, that Christianity is considered easily dispatched.

However, it would serve such critics well to read the sociologist of religion Martin Marty's "Fundamentalisms Observed." In it, he dispels the popular notion that fundamentalism is the predominant mode of Christianity, and second, contends that many "conservative" Christians really aren't fundamentalists. In fact, this irony is aptly exposed in chap. 3 of Kreeft's book when Socrates concludes that the definition of fundamentalism employed currently is too broadly conceived.

Furthermore, this Socrates, for better or worse, is exactly the "gadfly" of the Apology/Phaedo, the eternal questioner. The central method of Socrates was to start with a set of premises and follow them to their logical conclusion. Aristotle later criticized Socratic logic in his "Prior Analytics," suggesting that premises themselves might have to be established from a more empirical basis, preventing an ad nauseam of logical progression. However, this Socrates is the very rationalist who Aristotle criticized. The exact reason for some of the philosophical overlaps between Socrates and Christians (theism, monotheism, ethical holiness of God) is still a subject of great debate; Kreeft just offered an answer to that overlap that displeases the philosophical secularist.

Perhaps the bottom line is that several critics don't want to acknowledge/consider even the most basic premises of faith. In this sense, they are ironically dogmatic. Either Jesus was who he said he was or he wasn't. This much is a tautology. We'll call it J v ~J. If he wasn't, it is because the Scriptures were untrue or the ones who wrote Scripture were deceived (argument in pp. 169-170, one critic stopped reading at 150). The argument is logical. What it really means is that Christianity is an all or nothing. You either accept it or mightily refute it as a lie. There is no middle ground of "Jesus was just kinda nice." The historical character and teachings of Jesus simply burned that philosophical bridge.

I guess my bottom line to critics is, just read the book. Don't read the book reading your stereotypical view of a Christian apologist such as Kreeft into the book (an inherently ad hominem read). Just take the premises as they come; avoid gratuitous emotion or subjectivity, try to look at the ideas themselves. That is the true task of the philosopher, and Socrates makes that evident, unlike an "intoxicated hippie" (to use words of a profound critic of this book). Socrates may yield to some foundational propositions that are occasionally questionable, but each argument he makes necessarily follows from the starting premises.

Whether you believe or do not believe, I implore you to look at the ideas and logic itself, and judge the book on this basis, not on the basis that this book is written by a Christian apologist. I think then you will realize one thing that both a secularist and I can agree on: Jesus was, and will continue to be, one of the most influential figures of all time.

46 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Appropriately thought provoking..., November 29, 2003

By 

Neil R. Roberts (Ridley Park, PA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Socrates Meets Jesus: History's Greatest Questioner Confronts the Claims of Christ (Paperback)

Several reviewers have commented on the simplistic nature of the discussion within the book. However, I think that fails to recognize the intent of the book. Kreeft is not attempting a thorough, painstaking, philosophical examination of Christianity. He is not a New Testament scholar, and would scarcely even suggest such a thing. His purpose is to use Socrates as a vehicle for approaching some of the core concepts of Christianity, specifically those most frequently addressed in popular circles. Even among the topics most purely "philosophical", he is able to address them in only an introductory way. He succeeds admirably in revealing some of the absurd notions regarding Jesus that find such frequent mention today. He employs logic in a very clear, vivid way, using it as the tool that it is to test and examine these notions. The book seems intended to introduce and encourage one to consider the claims of Christianity ACCORDING TO THE PRIMARY TEXTUAL SOURCE, the bible. NOT hearsay, weekly news magazines, and Discovery Channel documentries. If Christianity is true, then we better wake up to it, and face the issues Jesus raises as though our lives depended on it. And maybe they do. Logic and common sense demand such an examination.

22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another Great one by Kreeft, May 7, 2007

By 

Steven R. McEvoy "MCWPP" (Canada) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Socrates Meets Jesus: History's Greatest Questioner Confronts the Claims of Christ (Paperback)

This is another in a series by Kreeft that has Socrates reappearing in a modern day setting to challenge people with what they believe or why the live the way they do. So, much like his other books The Best Things In Life and The Unaborted Socrates, the names of people and places in this book are a series of puns and jokes. In this book, Socrates wakes up from what he assumed was his suicide in the 'Broadener Library at Have It University', which is supposed to be a renowned hub of learning in 'Camp Rich, Massachusetts'. Sound familiar?

It appears that he has been registered at the Have It Divinity School. The characters he interacts with are varied and interesting. The first student he meets is Bertha Broadmind, then Thomas Keptic, Professor Flatland who teaches 'Science and Religion'. Then Socrates encounters Professor Shift who teaches 'Comparative Religions'. Next Socrates encounters the claims of Christ in Professor Fesser's 'Christology' seminar. This is the purpose of the book - to have Socrates encounter the claims of Christ. The rest of the book takes place around these seminar classes.

Kreeft has a very interesting book here, in that he tries to answer the question of what would happen if Socrates of Athens were to reappear today and interact with a modern university crowd. Socrates has not changed much from dying and reappearing somewhere and some time else. He is still the ultimate questioner and his questions will challenge what people believe and why they believe.

The first time I read Kreeft's Socratic style, a book written directly as dialogue, I was not all that enthusiastic about it. But now that I have read a few books in this style, I really enjoy it. It makes the reading of philosophy very quick and painless. That, combined with Socrates method of asking questions, lets you read more serious philosophy in an easier-to-approach method.

Kreeft is known as a great scholar who specializes in apologetics (the defense of the faith), also C.S. Lewis and Socrates. This book brings together two of those passions of his academic life and highlights them in a fun, uncomplicated way. Kreeft has a knack for taking very difficult topics and making them far more approachable.

This is a great book to encounter the claims of Christ and the modern academic setting. Though a little kitschy with all the puns, that just makes it more fun and memorable.

So pick up this book and join history's greatest questioner as he confronts and challenges the claims of Christ and the modern academic environment - especially in religious schools, colleges or seminaries. My recommendation would be to give it a try even if you just want to broaden your knowledge of Christianity or to learn how to ask the right questions to get the answers you are looking for. A great scholar, Dr. Peter Frick, once said, 'Life is not about knowing all the answers but about learning to ask the right questions.' This book will help you learn how to do that. Therefore, I can only say this book is definitely a 'Love It'.

(First Published in Imprint as 'Love It' in the 'Love It / Hate It' book review column 2007-05-04.)