The Luigi Cascioli Case - Proof for the Existence of Fools

John 21:25 (New International Version)

“Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.”

I came across a little piece of news a while ago. Enrico Righi, an Italian priest has been ordered to prove in court that Jesus actually existed. He must do so in answer to a criminal complaint filed by Luigi Cascioli, an atheist who claims:

“That Righi violated two Italian laws by making the assertion: so-called “abuse of popular belief” in which someone fraudulently deceives people; and “impersonation” in which someone gains by attributing a false name to someone.”

What had Father Righi asserted? The good Father, as any good Christian would, asserted that Jesus of Nazareth actually did exist:

“Righi wrote in a parish bulletin that Jesus did indeed exist, and that he was born of a couple named Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem and lived in Nazareth.”

So, the question of the existence of Jesus is being litigated. What millions and millions of people, Christian, Jew, Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, agnostic, and atheist take for granted, Father Righi and his legal team now have to prove to the satisfaction of a court. Amazing!

Aren’t there enough crooks to prosecute in Italy these days? Apparently not.

The case reminds me of some of the silly cases that people have brought against God. I’ve read somewhere about a case filed claiming God was at fault for not acting on behalf of a plaintiff in a dispute with his enemies. What did the plaintiff want in the case? He wanted God to return his youth and guitar playing skills. God even gets blamed for all the bad stuff in the fine print of insurance policies. Every once in a while I read my homeowners policy for a bit of amusement. There are clauses in it that indemnify my insurer against “acts of God” that might do damage to my house. Included in those acts are pestilence, plague, hurricanes, meteorites falling from outer space, forest fires, and so forth. What’s amusing to me is that the acts of God are always framed in negative terms. For the insurer it means that they aren’t going to cover my loss if the Almighty does something mean to me.

The current case, though, has taken a creative turn. An adherent of Jesus is being prosecuted for simply claiming He exists.

I wonder how the lawyers are going to approach this. Are the prosecutors going to demand a birth certificate? I’m not sure there was one. Will they demand that Jesus’ body be exhumed? The tomb is empty!

I’m only a layman, but I do have some ideas about the matter. Years ago Nancy and I went to Paris. One of the day trips we took was to Les Invalides. There, entombed in splendor, lies Napoleon. I remember at the time comparing the glory of Napoleon’s tomb to the empty tomb in Jerusalem that could not hold Jesus in. But there was something else that I thought of that day. Above Napoleon’s tomb, carved on the highest part of the walls, was one of the great accomplishments in life – the Napoleonic Code. It’s been two hundred years or so since Napoleon lived, and I doubt that people know that Napoleon Bonaparte existed because they can see a birth certificate or the coffin in which he’s buried. People universally accept the fact that he existed because they can read about what he said and did and see the impact he had on the world. While Napoleon might be considered a great man, the impact he had on humanity pales in comparison to the impact Jesus had, and continues to have today. In those terms, there is far more evidence that Jesus existed than there is for the existence of Napoleon. It’s recorded in the Gospels, the epistles, and even in secular history. More importantly, it’s recorded in the hearts of millions and millions of Christians around the world.

I think about myself. I know I exist. I don’t need Descartes or a battery of lawyers to prove my case for me. But two thousand years from now there is going to be far less evidence that I ever passed this way than there is for Napoleon or Jesus. Two thousand years from now the words I’ve posted on this blog will have been deleted by some unknown archivist somewhere. My gravestone will have been eroded by time. My birth certificate will have been cast into some Massachusetts catacomb, never more to be seen. I will not be revered as either a great thinker or conqueror. I will not have left great ideas or great sermons like the Sermon on the Mount. But, I am confident that two thousand years from now, if the world as we know it still exists, Jesus will still be revered and worshipped. As far as I’m concerned that’s good enough.

The record of Jesus, His life, death, and resurrection, are not, as Holy Writ puts it, “cunningly devised fables.” The evidence for Jesus’ existence, life, teaching, and deeds is overwhelming.

Luigi Cascioli would do well to follow the lead of wise men who’ve tested the evidence and came to that sane conclusion. Simon Greenleaf, one of the founders of Harvard Law School wasn’t sure about Jesus and sought to disprove the things written and believed about him using classic rules of legal evidence. The result of his search was “The Testimony of the Evangelists,” a classic work in apologetics. He began with doubts about the Christian claims:

“These are no ordinary claims; and it seems hardly possible for a rational being to regard them with even a subdued interest; much less treat them with mere indifference or contempt. If not true, they are little else than the pretensions of a bold imposture, which, not satisfied with having already enslaved millions of the human race, seeks to continue its encroachments upon human liberty, until all nations shall be subjugated under its iron rule. But if they are well-founded and just, they can be no less than the high requirements of heaven, addressed by the voice of God to the reason and understanding of man, concerning things deeply affecting his relations to his sovereign, and essential to the formation of his character and course to his destiny, both for this life and for the life to come.”

Greenleaf examined the evidence and concluded:

“The doctrines and precepts of Jesus are in strict accordance with the attributes of God, agreeably to the most exalted idea which we can form of them, either from reason or from revelation. They are strikingly adapted to the capacity of mankind, and yet are delivered with a simplicity and majesty wholly divine. He spake as never man spake. He spake with authority, yet addressed himself to the reason and understanding of men; and he spake with wisdom, which men could neither deny nor resist…He is represented in every variety of situation in life, from the height of worldly grandeur, amid the acclamations of an admiring multitude, to the deepest abyss of human degradation and woe, apparently deserted by God and man. Yet everywhere he is the same, displaying a character of unearthly perfection, symmetrical in all its proportions, and encircled with splendor more than human.”

I know I exist. I know that Luigi Cascioli and Father Enrico Righi exist. I know Napoleon existed. And, at the core of my life, I know that Jesus existed two thousand years ago and now sits enthroned in heaven. I’d be a fool to believe otherwise. Luigi Cascioli, the Italian atheist, would do well to follow my lead in this regard.