In defense of CS Lewis: the Trilemma rocks!

[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: (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=34450&highlight=Lewis)

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":

'I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: 'I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God.' That is one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of thing Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic—on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher.'

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]

Originally posted by 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?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"?

My specific contention remained unrefuted: C. S. Lewis is not a reliable authority for determining the facticity of Gospel stories.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]

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"?
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]

Originally posted by 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"? 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.

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. 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]

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."

This may be close:

The Jesus of Nazareth who came forward publicly as the Messiah, who preached the ethic of the Kingdom of God, who founded the Kingdom of Heaven upon earth, and died to give His work its final consecration, never had any existence.

only to harmonize the Synoptics to will into existence:

. . . one immeasurably great Man . . . creating eschatological facts, [in a surroundings he admits] . . . have no eschatological character.

--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/modern/richard_carrier/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]

Originally posted by 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. 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.

[Clutch]

Originally posted by 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. The argument is dismal, even on this interpretation. It hinges on a contrived sort of brinkmanship.

I think, for instance, that Gandhi counts as a great moral teacher. (Not perfect, mind you, but a great moral teacher.) Now, suppose that Gandhi believed himself to be a human incarnation of the divine, or the son of a divinity, or at least that he gradually came to believe this. He had this idiosyncracy, suppose, or a strain of grandiosity, though it did not interfere with his pacificism, his practice of living simply, his determination to set an example. We might even find some hidden writings of Gandhi to this effect.

Now, if Lewis is right, I would have to retract my belief that Gandhi was a great moral teacher! Why? Because he'd be a lunatic! Looooonatic, I tell you!

But that's not an argument. It's deliberate obtuseness. The Trilemma fails on any interpretation.

[Vorkosigan]

GD, is there some inherent contradiction between being a great moral teacher and being a madman? Also, could a man be wrong about being god, but right about ethics?

Also, how do you know Jesus claimed to be god? I could probably quote several scholars who feel that is later Christian interpolation into his thoughts and sayings.

Lewis' argument hinges on the reader not realizing that these claims are controversial, and on not spotting the many flaws in his logic.

Vorkosigan

[Echo]

To echo the above posts, I have never understood this idea that one cannot be esteemed as a wise teacher or role model if one happens to suffer from a mental illness or possesses some bizarre belief.

So, if I had a neighbor or colleague or beloved high school teacher who was kind and compassionate, loving and caring, never had a harsh word to say to anyone, and gave selflessly of his time and money to charitable causes, I couldn't hold that person up as a role model if, for example, he claimed to be in psychic communication with his dead cat.

And as for all of those people in mental institutions...well, we have nothing to learn from those people about life and love because they're in mental institutions for Pete's sake! Their psychological impairments simply wipe away any valuable lessons they may have to teach us.

This theistic argument is lost on me.

[Vorkosigan]

The Economist just had an article on a book about Bayard Rustin, who was a giant of the civil rights movement and a deep ethical and political thinker, who was also lied and fabricated much of his biographical data. Even in its own terms, the Trilemma is nonsense. it reads well because of Lewis' master of rhetoric, but it has no rational basis.

Vorkosigan

[Peter Kirby]

Sometimes something rotten turns worse when set loose from its cultivator, especially when the tree is itself infected and the disease is an epidemic throughout the forest. Such is the case with the Trilemma. See if you can figure out who said this:

"The evidence is clearly in favor of Jesus as Lord. However, some people reject the clear evidence because of moral implications involved. There needs to be a moral honesty in the above considerations of Jesus as either a liar, lunatic or Lord and God."

Now who said this:

"The historical difficult of giving for the life, saying and influence of Jesus any explanation that is not harder than the Christian explanation is very great. The discrepancy between the depth and sanity of His moral teaching unless He is indeed God has never been satisfactorily explained. Hence the non-Christian hypotheses succeed one another with the restless fertility of bewilderment."

Who's responsible for this?

"This testimony, if not true, must be downright blasphemy or madness. The former hypothesis cannot stand a moment before the moral purity and dignity of Jesus, revealed in His every word and work, and acknowledged by universal consent. Self-deception in a matter so momentous, and with an intellect in all respects so clear and sound, is equally out of the question. How could He be an enthusiast or a madman who never lost the even balance of His mind, who sailed serenely over all the troubles and persecutions, as the sun above the clouds, who always returned the wisest answer to tempting questions, who calmly and deliberately predicted His death on the cross, His resurrection on the third day, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the founding of His Church, the destruction of Jerusalem--predictions which have been literally fulfilled? A character so original, so complete, so uniformly consistent, so perfect, so human and yet so high above all human greatness, can be neither a fraud nor a fiction. The poet, as has been well said, would be in this case greater than the hero. It would take more than a Jesus to invent a Jesus."

Or who does this argument belong to: "any theory of hallucination breaks down on the fact (and if it is invention it is the oddest invention that ever entered the mind of man) that on three separate occasions this hallucination was not immediately recognized as Jesus (Luke xxiv. 13-31; John xx. 15, xxi. 4). Even granting that God sent a holy hallucination to teach truths already widely belived without it, and far more easily taught by other methods, and certain to be completely obscured by this, might we not at least hope to would get the fact of the hallucination right? Is He who made all faces such a bungler that He cannot even work up a recognizable likeness of the Man who was Himself?"

Or this one: "All the accounts suggest that the appearances of the Risen Body came to an end; some describe an abrupt end six weeks after the death. . . . A phantom can just fade away, but an objective entity must go somewhere--something must happen to it."

Or who said this: "Now of course we must agree with Hume that if there is absolutely uniform experiences' against miracles, if in other words they have never happened, why then they never have. Unfortunately, we know the experience against them to be uniform only if we know that all the reports of them are false. And we can know that all the reports of them to be false only if we know already that miracles never occurred. In fact, we are arguing in a circle."

I bet you can guess this one: "The authority of experts in that discipline is the authority in deference to which we are asked to give up a huge mass of beliefs shared by the early Church, the Fathers, the Middle Ages, the Reformers, and even the nineteenth century. . . . In what is already a very old commentary I read that the Fourth Gospel is regarded by one school as a 'spiritual romance', 'a poem not a history' . . . Read the dialogues: that with the Samaritan woman at the well, or that which follows the healing of the man born blind. Look at its pictures: Jesus (if I may use the word) doodling his finger in the dust; the unforgettable 'it was night' [translated from Lewis's Greek]. I have been reading poems, romances, vision-literature, legends, myths all my life. I know what they are like. I know that not one of them is like this. Of the text there are only two possible views. Either this is reportage--though it may no doubt contain errors--pretty close up to the facts; nearly as close as Boswell. Or else, some unknown writer in the second century, without known predecessors or successors, suddenly anticipated the whole technique of modern, novelistic, realistic narrative. If it is untrue, it must be narrative of that kind. The reader who doesn't see this has simply not learned to read."

Check out this argument: "There are characters whom we know to be historical but of whom we do not feel that we have any personal knowledge--knowledge by acquaintance; such are Alexander, Attila, or William of Orange. There are others who make no claim to historical reality but whom, none the less, we konw of as we know real people: Falstaff, Uncle Toby, Mr. Pickwick. But there are only three characters who, claiming the first sort of reality, also actually have the second. And surely everyone knows who they are: Plato's Socrates, the Jesus of the Gospels, and Boswell's Johnson. Our acquiantance with them shows itself in a dozen ways. When we look into the Apocryphal gospels, we find ourselves constantly saying of this or that logion, 'No. It's a fine saying, but not His. That wasn't how He talked.'--just as we do with all pseudo-Johnsonians."

This would be... "Now I do not here want to discuss whether the miraculous is possible. I only want to point out that this is a purely philosophical question. Scholars, as scholars, speak on it with no more authority than anyone else. The canon 'If miraculous, unhistorical' is one they bring to their study of the texts, not one they have learned from it. If one is speaking of authority, the united authority of all the Biblical critics in the world counts here for nothing. On this they speak simply as men; men obviously influenced by, and perhaps insufficiently critical of, the spirit of the age they grew up in."

Name that tune: "remember, the biblical critics, whatever reconstructions they devise, can never be crudely proved wrong. St. Mark is dead. When they meet St. Peter there will be more pressing matters to discuss."

Here's a hint: only one of the above is from Josh McDowell.

best,
Peter Kirby

[Calzaer]

Buddah was a great moral teacher. So: Liar, Lunatic, or Lord? If he was a great moral teacher, he must be The Lord.

[Peter Kirby]

Perhaps closer would be "Bombastic, Befuddled, or Buddha." I don't recall traditions that Siddharta said he was a god--maybe late and similarly false ones?--but certainly ideas that Siddharta received a unique enlightenment (was the Buddha).

So, cough it up anti-Buddhists: was the Buddha simply being bombastic smartie-pants in his claims, was he as befuddled as a man who said he was a swallowed by a whale, or did he receive a supernatural enlightenment and ascend to nirvana as the one and only Buddha that millions proclaim him to be throughout history? I don't want to hear any nonsense about how he was a mystic with a lot of good ideas--that shows that you are not willing to be challenged by the unique moral authority of the Buddha.

best,
Peter Kirby

[wade-w]

Originally posted by GakuseiDon
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.


italics in the above quote added by me to convey the original emphasis

If you dismiss someone’s moral teachings on that basis, you are committing a classic argumentum ad hominem. So based on your interpretation, Lewis is asking us to buy into a logical fallacy.

[Steven Carr]

Originally posted by GakuseiDon
Lewis is arguing against the notion that [b]Jesus was just a great moral teacher.

Many sceptics do not claim that Jesus was a great teacher.

Jesus taught about God,Heaven,Hell,demons and Satan. Sceptics do not believe in God,Heaven,Hell,demons and Satan so do not claim it is great teaching to teach about them.

Jesus taught about the Flood. There was no Flood. Would not a great teacher not have known that?

Jesus taught that some people were in a 'synagogue of Satan'. Great teachers do not use antisemitisms.

Jesus called his enemies 'hypocrites', 'blind guides', 'whitewashed tombs', 'snakes', 'broods of vipers'.

Jesus promised the people of Capernaum that it would be more bearable for Sodom on the day of judgment than for them.

Sceptics prefer the teachings in Paul's letter to the Ephesians 4:29 'Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen... Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice'

[Steven Carr]

Originally posted by Echo

And as for all of those people in mental institutions...well, we have nothing to learn from those people about life and love because they're in mental institutions for Pete's sake! Their psychological impairments simply wipe away any valuable lessons they may have to teach us.

This theistic argument is lost on me.

I always wondered how John Nash was given the Nobel Prize. The man was a lunatic, for goodness sake!

[GakuseiDon]

Originally posted by Vorkosigan
GD, is there some inherent contradiction between being a great moral teacher and being a madman? Also, could a man be wrong about being god, but right about ethics?Lewis didn't believe so. In the same section of "God in the dock", Lewis said, "In my opinion, the only person who can say that sort of thing is either God or a complete lunatic suffering from that form of delusion which undermines the whole mind of man."

That's Lewis's opinion. So, is he right? Are there any great moral teachers who were also recognised as being quite mad?
Also, how do you know Jesus claimed to be god? I could probably quote several scholars who feel that is later Christian interpolation into his thoughts and sayings. Then it would be out of scope of the trilemma. I'm not trying to prove that Jesus was God, either.

[GakuseiDon]

Originally posted by wade-w
italics in the above quote added by me to convey the original emphasis

If you dismiss someone’s moral teachings on that basis, you are committing a classic argumentum ad hominem. So based on your interpretation, Lewis is asking us to buy into a logical fallacy. Lewis said, "In my opinion, the only person who can say that sort of thing is either God or a complete lunatic suffering from that form of delusion which undermines the whole mind of man."

Have there been any great moral teachers who were recognised as being quite mad?

[GakuseiDon]

Originally posted by Peter Kirby
Perhaps closer would be "Bombastic, Befuddled, or Buddha." I don't recall traditions that Siddharta said he was a god--maybe late and similarly false ones?--but certainly ideas that Siddharta received a unique enlightenment (was the Buddha).

So, cough it up anti-Buddhists: was the Buddha simply being bombastic smartie-pants in his claims, was he as befuddled as a man who said he was a swallowed by a whale, or did he receive a supernatural enlightenment and ascend to nirvana as the one and only Buddha that millions proclaim him to be throughout history? I don't want to hear any nonsense about how he was a mystic with a lot of good ideas--that shows that you are not willing to be challenged by the unique moral authority of the Buddha.

best,
Peter Kirby So you agree with the trilemma then? That Buddha, if he existed, and if he was quoted accurately, was who he said he was, or he was lying, or he was a madman?

[Vorkosigan]

Originally posted by GakuseiDon
Lewis didn't believe so. In the same section of "God in the dock", Lewis said, "In my opinion, the only person who can say that sort of thing is either God or a complete lunatic suffering from that form of delusion which undermines the whole mind of man."

Yes, I understand that. But I don't see the logical contradiction between madness and great ethical teaching. The fact that offhand we can't think of any nutso ethical would not necessarily confirm Lewis' point. That point is already invalidated because we know numerous ethical thinkers who were also humans and therefore lied, as humans will.

That's Lewis's opinion. So, is he right? Are there any great moral teachers who were also recognised as being quite mad?

Irony of ironies...I suspect if we sifted through the Church's list of saints, we'd find many who taught about ethics, and were quite mad.

Then it would be out of scope of the trilemma. I'm not trying to prove that Jesus was God, either.

Don, it looks like you want to argue that within the tiny little world it creates, Lewis' argument isn't flawed. Perhaps that is true. But in order to create that world, you have to accept innumerable premises (we know what Jesus said, it was all faithfully reported, liars and lunatics cannot be great moral teachers, etc) that will not hold up under scrutiny.

Peter, that was an absolutely crushing post. :notworthy

Vorkosigan

[Mediancat]

Originally posted by GakuseiDon
Lewis didn't believe so. In the same section of "God in the dock", Lewis said, "In my opinion, the only person who can say that sort of thing is either God or a complete lunatic suffering from that form of delusion which undermines the whole mind of man."

But is a complete lunatic necessarily recognizable as such by everyone? There are many people who are quietly mad, convinced they are God or the son of, yet who could quite easily pass in normal society -- or, worse, gain followers through the strength of their convictions, lunatic or not. Jim Jones was a wonderful example of this. Was he mad? Probably. But did he convince people he was a holy man and moral teacher? Oh, yes.

Rob aka Mediancat

[Roland]

If Lewis is so brilliant, did he ever confront the following dilemma?:

Why is it that all the quotes attributed to Jesus in The Gospel of John are DIFFERENT FROM THE QUOTES ATTRIBUTED TO HIM IN THE SYNOPTICS?

On what basis, therefore, do we have even the slightest confidence that Jesus actually said all those things John's Gospel claims he did? If he had uttered them, why wouldn't any of the Synoptic writers have picked up on them and included them in THEIR gospels? The sayings of Jesus found in the fourth gospel are obviously fabrications made by a person with a specific theological point to get across.

Lewis should have seen that.

[CX]

Originally posted by Steven Carr
Many sceptics do not claim that Jesus was a great teacher.

I don't want to hijack or derail this thread so maybe we should think about starting another. That being sad I have always been utterly bemused by the claim that Jesus was a great moral teacher. Much of what Jesus is purported to have said, when divorced from twisted apologetic, was not especially moral by contemporary standards. The things that are contained within the teaching of Jesus (love your neighbor, give to those in need, pacifism, etc.) which are decent moral principles are totally unoriginal. I think the pagan philosopher Celsus made this point far better than I am making it now. I'd be interested for someone to point out one unique or completely orginal moral principle promulgated by Jesus.

[RED DAVE]

But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher.'

I remember my first response to this: what a piece of patronizing crap!

1) It is extremely iffy that he said he was God.

2) If he did, he was incredibly outside the Jewish tradition as it was and is. Therefore, why should Jews accept him at his word. And, in fact, few Jews did or do. If fact, why should nayone but some kind of Biblical literalist accept his words, as writtin in the gospels?

3) Lewis never could figure out why his wife Joy's family (Jewish) were not overjoyed by her conversion of xtianity. He was, in fact, borderline antisemitic.

RED DAVE

[Secular Pinoy]

Originally posted by CX
That being sad I have always been utterly bemused by the claim that Jesus was a great moral teacher. Much of what Jesus is purported to have said, when divorced from twisted apologetic, was not especially moral by contemporary standards.Indeed, if we accept the findings of the Jesus Seminar, and especially Robert Funk's interpretations of them in his book Honest To Jesus (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060627581/internetinfidels), I cannot see why he would be considered a great moral teacher. In the said book, Funk emphasized the radical teachings of Jesus. He flouted social convention, ridiculed ordinary thinking, and had ironic or unconventional endings in his parables.

[Toto]

Originally posted by Peter Kirby
Sometimes something rotten turns worse when set loose from its cultivator, especially when the tree is itself infected and the disease is an epidemic throughout the forest. Such is the case with the Trilemma. See if you can figure out who said this:

<snip quotes>

Here's a hint: only one of the above is from Josh McDowell.

best,
Peter Kirby

I give, Peter. Who authored those quotes?

And, as far as I know, the Buddha never claimed to get a unique insight into enlightenment, and at least some Buddhists do not consider enlightenment to be the result of supernatural inspiration.

[Calzaer]

So you agree with the trilemma then? That Buddha, if he existed, and if he was quoted accurately, was who he said he was, or he was lying, or he was a madman?

Are you saying Buddah is equal to Jesus?

[Peter Kirby]

Originally posted by GakuseiDon
So you agree with the trilemma then? That Buddha, if he existed, and if he was quoted accurately, was who he said he was, or he was lying, or he was a madman? Have you ever heard of the reductio ad absurdum? Christianity and Buddhism teach doctrines that probably both can't be true. If Trilemma logic leads us to accept unique claims for both Buddha and Jesus--and Muhammad: liar, lunatic, or Prophet of God?--then I am led to suspect something wrong with the logic chopping--something that can be seen on independent grounds anyway.

best,
Peter Kirby

[Peter Kirby]

Originally posted by Peter Kirby
Sometimes something rotten turns worse when set loose from its cultivator, especially when the tree is itself infected and the disease is an epidemic throughout the forest. Such is the case with the Trilemma. See if you can figure out who said this:

"The evidence is clearly in favor of Jesus as Lord. However, some people reject the clear evidence because of moral implications involved. There needs to be a moral honesty in the above considerations of Jesus as either a liar, lunatic or Lord and God." Josh McDowell, popular apologist.

Now who said this:

"The historical difficult of giving for the life, saying and influence of Jesus any explanation that is not harder than the Christian explanation is very great. The discrepancy between the depth and sanity of His moral teaching unless He is indeed God has never been satisfactorily explained. Hence the non-Christian hypotheses succeed one another with the restless fertility of bewilderment." C. S. Lewis, arguing that Jesus was God.

Who's responsible for this?

"This testimony, if not true, must be downright blasphemy or madness. The former hypothesis cannot stand a moment before the moral purity and dignity of Jesus, revealed in His every word and work, and acknowledged by universal consent. Self-deception in a matter so momentous, and with an intellect in all respects so clear and sound, is equally out of the question. How could He be an enthusiast or a madman who never lost the even balance of His mind, who sailed serenely over all the troubles and persecutions, as the sun above the clouds, who always returned the wisest answer to tempting questions, who calmly and deliberately predicted His death on the cross, His resurrection on the third day, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the founding of His Church, the destruction of Jerusalem--predictions which have been literally fulfilled? A character so original, so complete, so uniformly consistent, so perfect, so human and yet so high above all human greatness, can be neither a fraud nor a fiction. The poet, as has been well said, would be in this case greater than the hero. It would take more than a Jesus to invent a Jesus." Philip Schaff, Christian historian.

Or who does this argument belong to: "any theory of hallucination breaks down on the fact (and if it is invention it is the oddest invention that ever entered the mind of man) that on three separate occasions this hallucination was not immediately recognized as Jesus (Luke xxiv. 13-31; John xx. 15, xxi. 4). Even granting that God sent a holy hallucination to teach truths already widely belived without it, and far more easily taught by other methods, and certain to be completely obscured by this, might we not at least hope to would get the fact of the hallucination right? Is He who made all faces such a bungler that He cannot even work up a recognizable likeness of the Man who was Himself?"

Or this one: "All the accounts suggest that the appearances of the Risen Body came to an end; some describe an abrupt end six weeks after the death. . . . A phantom can just fade away, but an objective entity must go somewhere--something must happen to it."

Or who said this: "Now of course we must agree with Hume that if there is absolutely uniform experiences' against miracles, if in other words they have never happened, why then they never have. Unfortunately, we know the experience against them to be uniform only if we know that all the reports of them are false. And we can know that all the reports of them to be false only if we know already that miracles never occurred. In fact, we are arguing in a circle."

I bet you can guess this one: "The authority of experts in that discipline is the authority in deference to which we are asked to give up a huge mass of beliefs shared by the early Church, the Fathers, the Middle Ages, the Reformers, and even the nineteenth century. . . . In what is already a very old commentary I read that the Fourth Gospel is regarded by one school as a 'spiritual romance', 'a poem not a history' . . . Read the dialogues: that with the Samaritan woman at the well, or that which follows the healing of the man born blind. Look at its pictures: Jesus (if I may use the word) doodling his finger in the dust; the unforgettable 'it was night' [translated from Lewis's Greek]. I have been reading poems, romances, vision-literature, legends, myths all my life. I know what they are like. I know that not one of them is like this. Of the text there are only two possible views. Either this is reportage--though it may no doubt contain errors--pretty close up to the facts; nearly as close as Boswell. Or else, some unknown writer in the second century, without known predecessors or successors, suddenly anticipated the whole technique of modern, novelistic, realistic narrative. If it is untrue, it must be narrative of that kind. The reader who doesn't see this has simply not learned to read."

Check out this argument: "There are characters whom we know to be historical but of whom we do not feel that we have any personal knowledge--knowledge by acquaintance; such are Alexander, Attila, or William of Orange. There are others who make no claim to historical reality but whom, none the less, we konw of as we know real people: Falstaff, Uncle Toby, Mr. Pickwick. But there are only three characters who, claiming the first sort of reality, also actually have the second. And surely everyone knows who they are: Plato's Socrates, the Jesus of the Gospels, and Boswell's Johnson. Our acquiantance with them shows itself in a dozen ways. When we look into the Apocryphal gospels, we find ourselves constantly saying of this or that logion, 'No. It's a fine saying, but not His. That wasn't how He talked.'--just as we do with all pseudo-Johnsonians."

This would be... "Now I do not here want to discuss whether the miraculous is possible. I only want to point out that this is a purely philosophical question. Scholars, as scholars, speak on it with no more authority than anyone else. The canon 'If miraculous, unhistorical' is one they bring to their study of the texts, not one they have learned from it. If one is speaking of authority, the united authority of all the Biblical critics in the world counts here for nothing. On this they speak simply as men; men obviously influenced by, and perhaps insufficiently critical of, the spirit of the age they grew up in."

Name that tune: "remember, the biblical critics, whatever reconstructions they devise, can never be crudely proved wrong. St. Mark is dead. When they meet St. Peter there will be more pressing matters to discuss."[/B] All pure unadulterated Lewis.

best,
Peter Kirby

[Peter Kirby]

Originally posted by Toto
And, as far as I know, the Buddha never claimed to get a unique insight into enlightenment, and at least some Buddhists do not consider enlightenment to be the result of supernatural inspiration. Oh well. We can just make it up, pretend like he said it, and the argument is just as airtight.

best,
Peter Kirby

[GakuseiDon]

Originally posted by Vorkosigan
Yes, I understand that. But I don't see the logical contradiction between madness and great ethical teaching. The fact that offhand we can't think of any nutso ethical would not necessarily confirm Lewis' point. That point is already invalidated because we know numerous ethical thinkers who were also humans and therefore lied, as humans will.C'mon, Vork. Lewis said it (madness vs great ethical teaching) was his *opinion*. Since when has opinion been proof of logical contradiction? Why even say it is? You know better than that. Lewis gives his opinion that a great moral teacher wouldn't be mad. I would say that empirical evidence shows that this is more correct than incorrect. And even if Jesus could be shown to have been mad, that would still confirm the Trilemma as it has been set up. Saying "man, myth, misrepresented" as you did earlier is simply irrelevent to the Trilemma as Lewis set it up. The Trilemma just sets up the options that Lewis uses to frame that part of his discussion.

Vork, I read your posts, and I can see that you (and Peter Kirby) are intelligent and insightful. I can't believe that you both are having trouble over this.
Don, it looks like you want to argue that within the tiny little world it creates, Lewis' argument isn't flawed. Perhaps that is true. But in order to create that world, you have to accept innumerable premises (we know what Jesus said, it was all faithfully reported, liars and lunatics cannot be great moral teachers, etc) that will not hold up under scrutiny.Vork, EXACTLY!

In my first post, I said that though I thought the Trilemma was valid, it wasn't a very important argument. It seems to be brought up more often by atheists than theists, and then only to trot out the urban myth that Lewis created the "Trilemma" to prove that Jesus was God. He didn't! In fact, someone else coined the word after Lewis had died, so he never saw his words being ripped out of context and abused the way they have been. (It makes me wonder: here we have the words of someone writing in modern English, and we have the context in which he wrote the words - yet intelligent people can STILL get it wrong. How much more difficult in analysing the words written 2000 years ago?)

The Trilemma has a number of premises that make it irrelevent to most of the discussion that goes on this board. But Lewis never intended it to. The Trilemma can be applied to any claim: George says he is a fireman. He is either telling the truth, telling a lie, or deceiving himself. Fred says he is a baker. He is either telling the truth, telling a lie, or deceiving himself. Simple, really.

Not that what Lewis intended matters. People (atheists and theists) are going to continue to bring it and talk about the Trilemma as Lewis's argument that tries to prove that Jesus was God. Just wait a few months, and someone else will bring it up.

[Peter Kirby]

Originally posted by GakuseiDon
It seems to be brought up more often by atheists than theists, and then only to trot out the urban myth that Lewis created the "Trilemma" to prove that Jesus was God. He didn't! In fact, someone else coined the word after Lewis had died, so he never saw his words being ripped out of context and abused the way they have been. I'm not sure that Lewis indeed created the sentiment. A similar argument was mounted by Philip Schaff in 1910.

"This testimony, if not true, must be downright blasphemy or madness. The former hypothesis cannot stand a moment before the moral purity and dignity of Jesus, revealed in His every word and work, and acknowledged by universal consent. Self-deception in a matter so momentous, and with an intellect in all respects so clear and sound, is equally out of the question. How could He be an enthusiast or a madman who never lost the even balance of His mind, who sailed serenely over all the troubles and persecutions, as the sun above the clouds, who always returned the wisest answer to tempting questions, who calmly and deliberately predicted His death on the cross, His resurrection on the third day, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the founding of His Church, the destruction of Jerusalem--predictions which have been literally fulfilled? A character so original, so complete, so uniformly consistent, so perfect, so human and yet so high above all human greatness, can be neither a fraud nor a fiction. The poet, as has been well said, would be in this case greater than the hero. It would take more than a Jesus to invent a Jesus." (History of the Christian Church, p. 109)

Here we see again the idea that Jesus was too morally perfect to have made a false claim about his identity.

The Trilemma has a number of premises that make it irrelevent to most of the discussion that goes on this board. But Lewis never intended it to. The Trilemma can be applied to any claim: George says he is a fireman. He is either telling the truth, telling a lie, or deceiving himself. Fred says he is a baker. He is either telling the truth, telling a lie, or deceiving himself. Simple, really.

Here's the logical form of the trilemma.

Assume that A claims X. The following disjunction holds:

1. X is true.
2. X is false, and A believes X.
3. X is false, and A does not believe X.

I think that the idea behind an argument, however, is that it can lead to a worthwhile conclusion.

Assuming the Bible to be true, there is no trilemma. The Bible teaches that Jesus is Lord, leaving only one possibility. Not assuming the Bible to be true, how can we get anywhere with all this?

Not that what Lewis intended matters. People (atheists and theists) are going to continue to bring it and talk about the Trilemma as Lewis's argument that tries to prove that Jesus was God. Just wait a few months, and someone else will bring it up. How do you know that Lewis didn't intend the argument to persuade people of the divinity of Jesus? See the additional Lewis quote I provided.

"The historical difficulty of giving for the life, saying and influence of Jesus any explanation that is not harder than the Christian explanation is very great. The discrepancy between the depth and sanity of His moral teaching unless He is indeed God has never been satisfactorily explained. Hence the non-Christian hypotheses succeed one another with the restless fertility of bewilderment." (Miracles: A Prelminary Study, p. 113)

In other words, Lewis maintains that it is a historical difficulty to give a satisfactory explanation about Jesus other than that He is indeed God, because of His moral teaching.

best,
Peter Kirby

[GakuseiDon]

Originally posted by Peter Kirby
Assuming the Bible to be true, there is no trilemma. The Bible teaches that Jesus is Lord, leaving only one possibility. Not assuming the Bible to be true, how can we get anywhere with all this?Good point. But the Trilemma deals with what Jesus said (according to the NT) rather than on the rest of the Bible. Lewis wasn't an inerrantist anyway.
How do you know that Lewis didn't intend the argument to persuade people of the divinity of Jesus? See the additional Lewis quote I provided.I'm sure that the Trilemma was part of the argument. It just wasn't the whole of the argument as people seem to believe today. I'm only 'defending' the Trilemma part, by showing that it's been misunderstood and taken out of context. It's valid, but largely irrelevant, unless you've already assumed that there was a historical Jesus who said pretty much what the Gospel says He said.

[Peter Kirby]

Originally posted by GakuseiDon
I'm only 'defending' the Trilemma part, by showing that it's been misunderstood and taken out of context. It's valid, but largely irrelevant, unless you've already assumed that there was a historical Jesus who said pretty much what the Gospel says He said. Then the Trilemma doesn't rock. It does disco. :p

best,
Peter Kirby

[GakuseiDon]

Originally posted by Peter Kirby
Then the Trilemma doesn't rock. It does disco. :p

best,
Peter Kirby :)

[Clutch]

quote:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Don, it looks like you want to argue that within the tiny little world it creates, Lewis' argument isn't flawed. Perhaps that is true. But in order to create that world, you have to accept innumerable premises (we know what Jesus said, it was all faithfully reported, liars and lunatics cannot be great moral teachers, etc) that will not hold up under scrutiny.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Vork, EXACTLY!I've explained that the trilemma does not function as an argument even granting all the hedges you suggest, Don.

It still requires two main assumptions: that claiming divine ancestry amounts to lunacy; and that lunacy precludes being a great moral teacher.

You, Don, have attempted to gloss this by suggesting that Lewis said it (madness vs great ethical teaching) was his *opinion*. Since when has opinion been proof of logical contradiction? Now, which is it? Is the trilemma supposed to be an argument? In which case, every rebuttal here finds the mark. Or is it not intended to be an argument, but just a musing -- an expression of opinion? In which case, attempts to refute it are misguided... but it bears no rational force, and is shamefully abused by every apologist who presents it as bearing rational force. Choose one of these stories and stick to it, and I suspect you'll get no complaints.

[GakuseiDon]

Originally posted by Clutch
Now, which is it? Is the trilemma supposed to be an argument? In which case, every rebuttal here finds the mark. Or is it not intended to be an argument, but just a musing -- an expression of opinion? In which case, attempts to refute it are misguided... but it bears no rational force, and is shamefully abused by every apologist who presents it as bearing rational force. Choose one of these stories and stick to it, and I suspect you'll get no complaints. [/B]Lewis never coined the word "Trilemma". He didn't say, "now I'll use the Trilemma argument". He used it to *frame* part of his argument. He said that anyone who claimed to be God could only be (in effect) "lord, liar or lunatic". I think that part of it is valid.

He then gives his opinion that a great moral teacher couldn't be a lunatic. He never rules out "liar".

I've rarely seen the Trilemma brought up by theists, so if it is being abused, I'd say (in my opinion) that it's mostly being done by atheists.

Any complaints?

[Vorkosigan]

Originally posted by GakuseiDon
I've rarely seen the Trilemma brought up by theists, so if it is being abused, I'd say (in my opinion) that it's mostly being done by atheists.Any complaints? [/B]

GD! The Trilemma is one of the most common quotes on websites around the web. Googling lord liar lunatic lewis can bring up thousands of websites where this low-level stuff is taken for having great depth. Of course, Infidels will be one of the first ones you hit. We're the best!

Vorkosigan

[Clutch]

He said that anyone who claimed to be God could only be (in effect) "lord, liar or lunatic". I think that part of it is valid. Of course it isn't.

What's true is that anyone claiming to be divine or descended from divinity is either correct or incorrect. So the trilemma you list (please, please don't say again that Lewis didn't call it a trilemma; the point is that it's a trilemma) is absurd, since it equates being incorrect with being a liar or a lunatic or both.

That one can be mistaken without being a liar or a lunatic is too obvious to bear emphasis to anyone save a Lewis apologist!

There is no circumscription of the argument's aims on which it comes off better than crashingly invalid.

[Calzaer]

Perhaps it should be a "quadlimma"... "Liar, Lunatic, Lord, or LEGEND."

[DMB]

Perhaps some of the problem is the idea that "lunatic" implies "off his trolley the whole time".

I know someone whom I respect as a thinker and activist who nonetheless appears to be extremely paranoid and to misjudge the world around him as a result and to such a degree that he risks undoing all the good he has achieved rationally.

There's no rule that says that, if human beings are spectacularly right and insightful about A, they can't simultaneously be spectacularly wrong and wacky about B. So Jesus could have been a great moral teacher and at the same time erroneously convinced that he was the son of god.

Mind you, I don't see how we can know reliably what Jesus claimed for himself or what he said in any context. And I agree that it's at least arguable that on the basis of what is reported in the gospels he wasn't a great moral teacher

[-DM-]

The so-called Trilemma "argument" (Jesus was either Lord, liar, or lunatic) is fallacious for at least this one reason: it is not exhaustive, it doesn't cover the possibilities.

Here are some of the possibilities (there may or may not be other possibilities):
1) Jesus was Lord.
2) Jesus was a liar.
3) Jesus was a lunatic.
4) Jesus was both Lord and a liar.
5) Jesus was both Lord and a lunatic.
6) Jesus was both a liar and a lunatic.
7) Jesus was Lord as well as a liar and an lunatic.
8) Jesus was neither Lord, liar, nor lunatic, or any combination thereof. He was simply mistaken about himself.
9) His "biographers" lied.
10) His "biographers" were lunatics.
11) His "biographers" were lunatics who lied.
12) His "biographers" neither lied, nor were they lunatics. They were simply mistaken in what they wrote.

-Don-

[Apikorus]

13) Jesus was a jelly doughnut.

Or was that JFK?

[Tharmas]

Originally posted by Apikorus
13) Jesus was a jelly doughnut.

Or was that JFK?

:notworthy

Every now and then I'm reminded of why I read all the way through these threads...

[premjan]

evidently every individual person is entitled to an individual perception of who they are within the larger scheme of things. Krishna said he was the Lord. Jesus said he was the son of God. Buddha said he was beyond all Gods. This was their individual perception of their state at the time when they made the statement. You have to ask yourself what implications they believed the statement had. It may not have been the same as those of other people who ascribed beliefs to them.