One of John Piper's most renowned books in the evangelical world, 50 Reasons Why Jesus Came to Die, ironically serves as a blatant expression of Piper's irrationalistic theology. Every chapter has two pages devoted to it, and a statement in capitalized letters introduces each chapter as the header, with one chapter addressing each of Piper's supposed reasons why Jesus died. Before reading even to the tenth chapter, any rationalistic reader can see that the book fails to truly list the 50 reasons its title mentions. The purposes for Christ's coming and death are often shallow attempts to split one claim into multiple independent assertions.
For example, as a Trinitarian, Piper is merely restating his fifth reason why Jesus died in stating his sixth reason. If Jesus is Yahweh and the death of Jesus occurred in part to show God's love of humanity, then it is absolutely redundant, unnecessary, and unhelpful to treat the love of Christ for humans as a distinct theological fact. There is simply no possible way to derive 50 separate reasons for or ramifications of Christ's death from the contents of the Bible. Soteriological points about the death of Jesus inevitably reduce down to a rather small handful of motives or implications.
There are other repetitive claims of Piper. Reason 29 is "To Free Us From The Slavery Of Sin" is restated by reason 30, which says "That We Might Die To Sin And Live To Righteousness." Reasons 32 and 36 likewise are simply different aspects of reason 29, and yet they are held up as if they are separate, mostly self-contained points that need to be made. There are certainly different aspects of specific statements or facts that can be explored, but to treat these aspects as if they constitute anything more than different truths about the same fact(s) is asinine.
Piper's errors extend far beyond mistaking the same theological idea for multiple ideas, however. The introduction of the book plainly says in its first sentence that there is no greater question in the 21st century than "Why did Jesus come and die?" Given the evidence in favor of Christianity, and the handful of Christian doctrines that overlap with metaphysical truths that can be proven in full by reason [1], this is indeed a question of philosophical importance, but it is not the ultimate question of any era.
This is because Jesus, whether or not he existed (although there is strong evidence that he did thanks to writers like Josephus and Tacitus), cannot be the most foundational thing in existence, nor does whether or not he had a divine nature lift humans out of their epistemological limitations. The collective laws of logic are the most foundational, all-encompassing, and illuminating thing in existence; it could not be any other way. The existence and divinity of Jesus are far from self-evident. If Jesus did not exist or was not divine, truth would still exist: it would therefore be true that the Biblical conception of Jesus is objectively false.
However, reason is self-evident, necessary, and the one thing all other things in existence metaphysically depend on, as only that which is logically possible can even exist in the first place. Objective truths exist whether or not Jesus is divine, as there must still by necessity be logical truths that define and conform to reality regardless of human consensus or awareness. Moreover, the existence or divinity of Jesus is far from obvious and can only be validly supported by a rationalistic analysis of historical evidence and the Bible itself.
This is one of Piper's ultimate errors. In focusing on Jesus to the point of regarding reason as secondary, he has rejected the true nature of reality and shown that his commitment to Christ is rooted in nothing more than ignorant impulses, random assumptions, or emotional experiences. Every non-rationalistic belief reduces down to one of these things. John Piper seldom lands on the right side of the truth in any matter, but logically invalid premises and an irrational type of emphasis on Christology (even if his Christology was not mistaken) are some of his gravest philosophical failures.
Logic, people. It is very fucking helpful.
[1]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2019/01/christianity-and-skepticism.html
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