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The question was posed by the moderator at an early Republican presidential debate in 1999: "Who is your favorite political philosopher?" George W. Bush surprised, if not stunned, his fellow candidates when he tersely declared, "Jesus Christ, because he changed my life."
Commentators had a field day. Maybe Bush didn't know the names of any real philosophers and seized on Jesus out of desperation. Other observers suspected a calculated pitch to Bush's core constituency—a shameless bit of pious posturing.
At the philosophical level, we might say candidate Bush dropped the ball. He gave a religious or devotional justification for his choice of Jesus as favorite philosopher instead of stipulating just what it was about Jesus as a philosopher that he valued above other philosophers. There's no reason to doubt his sincerity; nevertheless, he didn't speak to the question.
But what about Bush's answer taken on its own terms? Was it, as the media generally took for granted, frankly absurd, embarrassing, ignorant? Or was Jesus in fact—whatever else he may have been—a bona fide philosopher? If the answer is yes, several other engaging questions emerge: What kind of philosopher was he? What did he believe and why? How does his philosophy relate to that of other philosophers? Does his philosophizing have anything to contribute to contemporary philosophical debates? Further, just what is a philosopher anyway?
Most reference books in philosophy suggest by omission that Jesus was not a philosopher. For example, The Encyclopedia of Philosophy (1967), long a standard reference work, has no entry under "Jesus" or "Christ." The newer and well-respected Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (1998) has no entry for "Jesus" or "Christ" but includes one on "Buddha."
So what is the essential condition for being a philosopher? I take it to be a strong and lived-out inclination to pursue truth about philosophical matters through the rigorous use of human reasoning. By "philosophical matters" I mean the enduring questions of life's meaning, purpose, and value as they relate to all the major divisions of philosophy (primarily epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics).
Of course, one may speak to life's meaning, purpose, and value in a nonphilosophical manner—by merely issuing assertions or simply declaring divine judgments with no further discussion. (Some wrongly think this was Jesus' only mode of teaching.) A philosophical approach to these matters, however, explores the logic or rationale of various claims about reality; it sniffs out intellectual presuppositions and implications; it ponders possibilities and weighs their rational credibility. The work of a philosopher need not include philosophical system-building (à la Aristotle or Aquinas), nor need it exclude religious authority or even divine inspiration so long as this perspective does not preclude rational argumentation. Being a philosopher requires a certain orientation to knowledge, a willingness to argue and debate logically, and to do so with some proficiency. On this account, was Jesus a philosopher?
Philosopher Dallas Willard, who makes much of Jesus' brilliance, argues that a philosophical mind requires not only certain intellectual skills but also certain character commitments regarding the importance of logic and the value of truth in one's life. A thoughtful person must choose to esteem logic and argument through focused concentration, reasoned dialogue, and a willingness to follow the truth wherever it may lead. This cognitive orientation places demands on the moral life—demands that Jesus accepted wholeheartedly. Willard deems Jesus a philosopher by these standards.
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