"I Believe, Because It Is Absurd": The Most Famous Thing Tertullian Never Said
Despite the fact that, if one takes a broader eye to his work as a whole, Tertullian not only fully accepts the use of human reason but in fact borrows freely from philosophy of his day, taken in isolation Tertullian can easily be turned into a sort of religious type who disdains rationality and embraces the ridiculous. Nevertheless, the quote and its intent remain alien to Tertullian. Modified by seventeenth-century Englishman Thomas Browne, and then transmuted again into its more familiar form by the French philosophe and anti-Christian polemicist Voltaire (who also famously misattributed the quote to the much more influential St. Augustine), this declarationturns out to be an invention of Enlightenment propaganda.[3]Sadly, it also embodies what is today a fairly standard opinion regarding the history of faith and science—namely that faith is an embrace of the ridiculous precisely because it has no evidence. As the historian of science and religion Peter Harrison writes, “these modifications [to Tertullian’s saying] were not the result of careless mistranslations, but signal a new way of understanding religious faith and the beginnings of its characterization as an epistemic vice.”[4]
Sigmund Freud for example used this saying as evidence bolstering his argument that religion is merely an infantile wish fulfillment which embraces any means necessary to avoid reasoned scrutiny.[5]In a 1990 psychology text (actually, an abnormalpsychology text!) this avoidance of rational accountability that Freud mentioned is turned into a motto—with reference to Tertullian— which is used to characterize the psychology of the whole historical era of the early Church.[6]The philosopher and historian Ernst Cassirer in a similar albeit more nuanced vein suggests that Tertullian and his saying represent a religious “type”[7](as would psychologist Carl Jung),[8]while the great sociologist Max Weber used it to characterize what he thought was the inevitable and universal conflict of science and religion.[9]Even more recently, the apothegm still occurs in textbooks and reference volumes. Simon Blackburn’s The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy is a good example of this, and he describes it as “Tertullian’s Paradox,” indicating “the very impossibility of a proposition becomes (mostly in theology) a kind of motivation for belief in it.”[10]
Yet, as we mentioned, Tertullian never said it. What he did say: “And the Son of God died, it is [utterly] credible, because it is unfitting.”[11]By which Tertullian means: no one would fabricate this story to verify Christ’s character as God, as it not only makes him to be a failed criminal, but a subject of flesh and bone: “And He was buried and He rose again; it is certain, because it is impossible.” By which Tertullian magnifies his first point: according to the major concepts of God being passed around in his day, no one would make up this story to persuade others that Christ was a God. Further, the notion of the “afterlife” consisting in the reanimation and perfection of current bodies—rather than escape from them—was entirely odious to the ambient religious tenor in which Tertullian wrote. It was, in a word, absurd. According to hidden wisdom of the Gnostics (against whom Tertullian is specifically writing), God cannot die. God cannot enter into the flesh. And flesh and blood (as it does indeed say in Scripture to different effect than the Gnostics often put it to) cannot inherit the Kingdom of God (1 Cor. 15:50). Incarnation, death, resurrection thus constituted a particularly offensive trifecta of doctrines in Tertullian’s day.
Sigmund Freud for example used this saying as evidence bolstering his argument that religion is merely an infantile wish fulfillment which embraces any means necessary to avoid reasoned scrutiny.[5]In a 1990 psychology text (actually, an abnormalpsychology text!) this avoidance of rational accountability that Freud mentioned is turned into a motto—with reference to Tertullian— which is used to characterize the psychology of the whole historical era of the early Church.[6]The philosopher and historian Ernst Cassirer in a similar albeit more nuanced vein suggests that Tertullian and his saying represent a religious “type”[7](as would psychologist Carl Jung),[8]while the great sociologist Max Weber used it to characterize what he thought was the inevitable and universal conflict of science and religion.[9]Even more recently, the apothegm still occurs in textbooks and reference volumes. Simon Blackburn’s The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy is a good example of this, and he describes it as “Tertullian’s Paradox,” indicating “the very impossibility of a proposition becomes (mostly in theology) a kind of motivation for belief in it.”[10]
Yet, as we mentioned, Tertullian never said it. What he did say: “And the Son of God died, it is [utterly] credible, because it is unfitting.”[11]By which Tertullian means: no one would fabricate this story to verify Christ’s character as God, as it not only makes him to be a failed criminal, but a subject of flesh and bone: “And He was buried and He rose again; it is certain, because it is impossible.” By which Tertullian magnifies his first point: according to the major concepts of God being passed around in his day, no one would make up this story to persuade others that Christ was a God. Further, the notion of the “afterlife” consisting in the reanimation and perfection of current bodies—rather than escape from them—was entirely odious to the ambient religious tenor in which Tertullian wrote. It was, in a word, absurd. According to hidden wisdom of the Gnostics (against whom Tertullian is specifically writing), God cannot die. God cannot enter into the flesh. And flesh and blood (as it does indeed say in Scripture to different effect than the Gnostics often put it to) cannot inherit the Kingdom of God (1 Cor. 15:50). Incarnation, death, resurrection thus constituted a particularly offensive trifecta of doctrines in Tertullian’s day.
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| Not the official cover, just something I threw together |
That all three have been presented as fact by the gospels, says Tertullian in a nutshell, is based upon its real occurrence in the messiness of history, not upon someone fabricating it based upon its agreement with the preestablished “religious” clarity of theogonies making up the atmosphere of the day. Ironically, despite his disavowal of Greek philosophy, in this strategy of presenting the credibility of Christ Tertullian is actually following a strategy first laid down by Aristotle, who wrote on seemingly absurd events that “We may argue that people may not have believed [the incredible event] if they had not been true or nearly true. And that they are more likely to be true because they are incredible.”[12]While the philosopher David Hume would later balk at such reasoning, however odd it may appear this is still a legitimate line of argument used today, for example when historians and theologians speak about the veracity of the resurrection accounts. It is suggested in this vein that if one were to fabricate the account, one would not have done so by making the women followers of Christ the first to report the empty tomb—as women were generally viewed as being unreliable witnesses. Moreover, to fabricate the story this way also reflects poorly on the piety of Christ’s male disciples, seeing as the women were the most fervent and loyal followers of Christ to make such a discovery so quickly.
Where then did this phrase that would later be used like a spell to conjure the psychology of an entire era—indeed, all of theology and religion—come from? Peter Harrison has recently traced the humorous life and travels of this most curious saying. Quite pertinent to the title of our current book, this particular proverb taken from Tertullian emerged into historical consciousness not just at the same time, but indeed by the same individual, who is most likely responsible for the modern form of the footnote: Pierre Bayle (1647-1706).[13]Bayle’s unlikely bestseller, the eccentric encyclopedia Dictionnaire historique et critique [Historical and Critical Dictionary] from its initial publication in 1696 went through a number of revised editions and placed such an emphasis on its footnote citations that the main text only offered a “thin and fragile crust of text on which to cross the deep, dark swamp of commentary.”[14]
Bayle ironically used the quote from Tertullian to emphasize his own take on faith, where neither rationality nor philosophy provide any sort of reliable guide. It proved a fertile hook upon which Bayle could hang his own religious sensibilities. Ironically, this mis-take would be one of the few encounters the French would have with Tertullian at all—for Tertullian’s paradox did not have any inroads into French literature until Bayle. And with all the force mustered by the seemingly endless academic depths of his footnotes, it was passed on in good faith (forgive the pun). This is the pathway that let it find its way to Voltaire, who made great sport of it and, as we mentioned, attributed it to Augustine—the most influential theologian in the West this side of Jesus and Paul. As one of the most renowned polemicists of his day, from Voltaire the saying stuck. In Bayle’s footnotes—and with the Tertullian paradox in particular—Voltaire and the other French philosophes found a “vast, subversive engine”[15]to power their war against the Church.
Where then did this phrase that would later be used like a spell to conjure the psychology of an entire era—indeed, all of theology and religion—come from? Peter Harrison has recently traced the humorous life and travels of this most curious saying. Quite pertinent to the title of our current book, this particular proverb taken from Tertullian emerged into historical consciousness not just at the same time, but indeed by the same individual, who is most likely responsible for the modern form of the footnote: Pierre Bayle (1647-1706).[13]Bayle’s unlikely bestseller, the eccentric encyclopedia Dictionnaire historique et critique [Historical and Critical Dictionary] from its initial publication in 1696 went through a number of revised editions and placed such an emphasis on its footnote citations that the main text only offered a “thin and fragile crust of text on which to cross the deep, dark swamp of commentary.”[14]
Bayle ironically used the quote from Tertullian to emphasize his own take on faith, where neither rationality nor philosophy provide any sort of reliable guide. It proved a fertile hook upon which Bayle could hang his own religious sensibilities. Ironically, this mis-take would be one of the few encounters the French would have with Tertullian at all—for Tertullian’s paradox did not have any inroads into French literature until Bayle. And with all the force mustered by the seemingly endless academic depths of his footnotes, it was passed on in good faith (forgive the pun). This is the pathway that let it find its way to Voltaire, who made great sport of it and, as we mentioned, attributed it to Augustine—the most influential theologian in the West this side of Jesus and Paul. As one of the most renowned polemicists of his day, from Voltaire the saying stuck. In Bayle’s footnotes—and with the Tertullian paradox in particular—Voltaire and the other French philosophes found a “vast, subversive engine”[15]to power their war against the Church.
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[1]Eric Osborn, Tertullian: First Theologian of the West (Cambridge: CUP, 2003), 28: “[These claims about Tertullian’s credo] have become a slogan in fideist alternatives to the Enlightenment where they have…acquired a meaning which is foreign to Tertullian. Not only did he never say ‘credo quia absurdum,’ but he never meant anything like it.”
[2]As Dariusz Karlowickz, Socrates and Other Saints trans. Artur Rosman (Eugene: Cascade 2017) has reminded us, we should not confuse the philosophies on offer in Tertullian’s day with rationality per se. This is a perennial mistake in interpreting Tertullian. What Tertullian is critiquing were systemic attempts at rationality in his day, i.e. philosophies. To his mind, their fault was not that they were rational, but rather that all failed at being truly rational in one way or another. Christianity is as such not a-rational or irrational for Tertullian, but in fact offers a chance for a better, more precise, more all-encompassing rationality.
[3]The hilarious and fascinating tale of this apothegm is traced by Peter Harrison, “‘I Believe Because It Is Absurd’: The Enlightenment Invention of Tertullian’s Credo,” Church History 86 (2017): 339–64 to which I am greatly indebted for the opening section of this chapter. Many of the references to psychology texts were initially cited in Harrison, which I subsequently verified for use here.
[4]Harrison, “I Believe,” 340.
[5]Sigmund Freud, The Future of an Illusion (London: Hogarth, 1928), 49.
[6]T.E. Weckovicz and H.P. Liebel Weckovickz, The History of Great Ideas in Abnormal Psychology (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1990), 38.
[7]Ernst Cassirer, The Philosophy of the Enlightenment (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968), 180.
[8]Carl G. Jung, Psychological Types, trans. Gerhard Adler and R.F.C. Hull (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971), 12-16.
[9]Max Weber, “Science as a Vocation,” The Vocation Lectures (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2004), 29.
[10]Simon Blackburn, The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 88.
[11]Tertullian, De Carne Christi V.4. The brackets indicate that [utterly; Latin: prorsus] is not in the most reliable texts, but as Harrison mentions was present in the first printed edition of Tertullian in 1521.
[12]See: James Moffat, “Aristotle and Tertullian,” Journal of Theological Studies (1916): 170-171.
[13]Harrison, “’I Believe, Because It Is Absurd,” 349; On Bayle’s contribution to the footnote, see Grafton, The Footnote, 190-222.
[14]Grafton, The Footnote, 191.
[15]Grafton, The Footnote, 195.
[1]Eric Osborn, Tertullian: First Theologian of the West (Cambridge: CUP, 2003), 28: “[These claims about Tertullian’s credo] have become a slogan in fideist alternatives to the Enlightenment where they have…acquired a meaning which is foreign to Tertullian. Not only did he never say ‘credo quia absurdum,’ but he never meant anything like it.”
[2]As Dariusz Karlowickz, Socrates and Other Saints trans. Artur Rosman (Eugene: Cascade 2017) has reminded us, we should not confuse the philosophies on offer in Tertullian’s day with rationality per se. This is a perennial mistake in interpreting Tertullian. What Tertullian is critiquing were systemic attempts at rationality in his day, i.e. philosophies. To his mind, their fault was not that they were rational, but rather that all failed at being truly rational in one way or another. Christianity is as such not a-rational or irrational for Tertullian, but in fact offers a chance for a better, more precise, more all-encompassing rationality.
[3]The hilarious and fascinating tale of this apothegm is traced by Peter Harrison, “‘I Believe Because It Is Absurd’: The Enlightenment Invention of Tertullian’s Credo,” Church History 86 (2017): 339–64 to which I am greatly indebted for the opening section of this chapter. Many of the references to psychology texts were initially cited in Harrison, which I subsequently verified for use here.
[4]Harrison, “I Believe,” 340.
[5]Sigmund Freud, The Future of an Illusion (London: Hogarth, 1928), 49.
[6]T.E. Weckovicz and H.P. Liebel Weckovickz, The History of Great Ideas in Abnormal Psychology (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1990), 38.
[7]Ernst Cassirer, The Philosophy of the Enlightenment (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968), 180.
[8]Carl G. Jung, Psychological Types, trans. Gerhard Adler and R.F.C. Hull (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971), 12-16.
[9]Max Weber, “Science as a Vocation,” The Vocation Lectures (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2004), 29.
[10]Simon Blackburn, The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 88.
[11]Tertullian, De Carne Christi V.4. The brackets indicate that [utterly; Latin: prorsus] is not in the most reliable texts, but as Harrison mentions was present in the first printed edition of Tertullian in 1521.
[12]See: James Moffat, “Aristotle and Tertullian,” Journal of Theological Studies (1916): 170-171.
[13]Harrison, “’I Believe, Because It Is Absurd,” 349; On Bayle’s contribution to the footnote, see Grafton, The Footnote, 190-222.
[14]Grafton, The Footnote, 191.
[15]Grafton, The Footnote, 195.
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