GakuseiDon

Being a big CS Lewis fan, and seeing a lot of nonsense spoken about both CS Lewis and the Trilemma recently on this board, I thought I'd start a new thread that defends the Trilemma. I was going to include something about the "crackpot" comment as well, but that seems to be well defended elsewhere.

Personally, I don't think the Trilemma is a very important argument, but I do believe that it is a valid one. Lewis wasn't the one who coined the word "Trilemma", and I don't think he considered it as a key apologetic argument at all. I think he would be amused at the fuss it has caused, and how his "lord, liar, lunatic" argument has been misrepresented/misunderstood/mythologised.

So, some of the comments on this board:

From Pomp:

... the Trilemma is one of the most simplistic theistic arguments I've ever seen and ignores a host of possibilites other than the three it deals with...

The Trilemma (also know as the Liar-Lunatic-Lord argument)is the pseudo-argument that, taking the Gospels at face value, Jesus said he was God, and, therefore, one of these three things must be true:

He really was God.
He was a liar.
He was a lunatic

From Vorkosigan:

"Many regard Jesus as a holy man, a wise teacher: a thoroughly good man. Yet, this is precisely what cannot be held about him: sooner a lunatic or a deceiver than a mere good man — or else God himself. Aut Deus, aut homo malus."

This is a really dumb argument. Lord, Liar or Lunatic? Or maybe Man, Myth, or Misunderstood.

And that's just the tip of the possibilities.

Both somehow misread what Lewis is saying, even though Vork actually quotes the key point, and Pomp is close to it.

Let's look at what Lewis says in "Mere Christianity":

Lewis is arguing against the notion that Jesus was just a great moral teacher. He isn't trying to prove that Jesus was God through this argument! His point is that if you meet someone who said that he was God, there are three alternatives: he is telling the truth, he is telling a lie, or he is self-deceiving. Lewis didn't want Christians to regard Jesus as just a great human teacher like a Buddja, he wanted to confront them with the idea that Jesus said He was God.

So, the other alternatives that Vork gives would be valid if Lewis was trying to use the argument to prove that Jesus was God. But Lewis wasn't. (Lewis does talk about how Jesus couldn't have been a myth, etc, elsewhere, but the Trilemma isn't part of his argument).

Peter Kirby

Do all or most people who consider Jesus to be just a great moral teacher accept the premise that Jesus claimed to be the two-legged God of the universe?

My specific contention remained unrefuted: C. S. Lewis is not a reliable authority for determining the facticity of Gospel stories. See my latest post in the infamous "crackpot" thread. The fact that Lewis doesn't even defend his belief that Jesus claimed to be the Word on earth shows that, once again, he has a blinkered attitude to historical-critical scholarship.

best,
Peter Kirby

GakuseiDon

No. But do they think that Jesus claimed that? If not, then they are irrelevant to the Trilemma. If they do, how many of them say "well, Jesus said He was the Son of God, and He was wrong, but I think He was a great moral teacher"?

Who says that Lewis is a reliable authority for determining that the Gospels were factual? Lewis was speaking from his experience and knowledge, but he also had no problem with describing himself as a layman.

Jack the Bodiless

If there is even a possibility that Jesus didn't actually claim to be God, then there is no "trilemma". You can't just arbitrarily create one by ignoring other possibilities.

If Lewis didn't specify a "trilemma", then responsibility for the error lies with those who use the trilemma argument.

Peter Kirby

Find me a quote from one person that says "Jesus said He was the Son of God, and He was wrong, but I think He was a great moral teacher." If Lewis was trying to speak to people that thought that Jesus was just a great moral teacher, Lewis should have addressed the common concern in this population that Jesus may not have said "I am God."

Also, is this argument about "God" or "Son of God"? They are not always equivalent.

Lewis set himself up as an authority: "Now, as a literary historian, I am perfectly convinced the whatever the Gospels are they are not legends. I have read a great deal of legend and I am quite clear that they are not the same sort of thing. They are not artistic enough to be legends." Lewis wants the reader to accept that the Gospels do not contain legends because Lewis has read a lot of legends and Lewis says that there are not any legends here. But Lewis was wrong.

best,
Peter Kirby

Doctor X

This may be close:

only to harmonize the Synoptics to will into existence:

--J.D.

Reference:

Albert Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus. New York: The MacMillan Company, 1961.

Peter Kirby

You read Schweitzer in his opposite sense. Schweitzer implies that "The Jesus of Nazareth who came forward publicly as the Messiah . . . never had any existence." Schweitzer is saying that Jesus didn't anticipate the church and didn't openly make messianic claims like in the Gospel of John. In other words, Schweitzer would agree that Jesus didn't say he was God. Can you find me a quote from Schweitzer saying, "Jesus claimed to be God"?

best,
Peter Kirby

Nom

Assuming for argument's sake that Jesus actually existed, I still fail to see what's wrong with the "lunatic" option. Or, f you prefer a more generous term, "man of his times." Richard Carrier did a great short article several years ago (archived at: http://www.infidels.org/library/mode...ier/kooks.html) looking at numerous alleged gods, saviors, and prophets of the day. The Roman Empire was replete with them, and skeptics were few and far between. Why believe that any actual, historical Jesus was any different?

DMB

I think the most likely explanation is that the bible is inaccurate as an historical document.

GakuseiDon

Exactly! The establishing premise of the trilemma is that Jesus claimed to be God. If Jesus didn't claim this, or there was no Jesus, then it is out of scope of the trilemma.