Lord, Liar, or Lunatic: C.S. Lewis and the Jesus Trilemma
Thursday September 25, 2008
Is Jesus really whom he is reported to have said he was? Was Jesus really the Son of God? C.S. Lewis believed so and also believed that he had a very good argument for convincing people to agree: if Jesus was not whom he claimed, then he must be a lunatic, a liar, or worse. He was certain that no one could seriously argue for or accept these alternatives and that left only his favored explanation.
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Every generation produces another “Benny Hinn”
My classic response to this is to invoke the reality that there are many people who claim aliens have abducted them. Not all of these people are making money by writing books. In fact, a good many suffer ridicule as “crack pots” in our culture.
A Harvard professor, John Mack, even took up the cause–basically thinking, like Lewis, that people wouldn’t just “make this stuff up”–and wouldn’t suffer for a lie.
There is a certain reality, though, to this statement: If you believe it’s true, it’s not a lie.
There is a huge difference between a person knowingly attempting to decieve me with a lie, and a person telling me something he sincerely believes, although it may not be true. Generally, if a person believes their claim, we don’t label them a liar–even if they’re claim is false.
People can be delusional and CAN convince other, even intelligent people to believe their delusions. ALSO, people can be delusional in one area of their mind/life AND intelligent, and otherwise socially functional. AND many people can share the same delusion.
Alien abductees prove all of this. Also, Christians have to believe all other religions are based on mass delusional thinking (untrue claims that many people accept as true). And there are martyrs in other religions. So, even Christians can SEE FOR THEMSELVES that when it comes to religion, it doesn’t matter if it’s true or not, people will kill and even READILY die for their untrue beliefs.
But, as always, when it comes to THEIR religion, the reality we see around us all the time simply doesn’t apply.
>…we don’t have an accurate record of what he truly said
I should add that I learn toward this as well. But rather than get into a debate about the Bible with a Christian, I prefer to show them when/how their arguments are in direct contradiction with the reality they can’t deny around them. When they engage in special pleading, I prefer to ask them why they don’t give the same “benefit of the doubt” to all other beliefs that they reject–and if they don’t give other systems that benefit, why they expect me to give them special status with regard to their claims.
I think this is personal, as some of my most striking recollections about my theist and Xian days were the times when someone pointed out to me that I had effectively denied observable reality in order to argue for my belief. I didn’t know I was doing this, until it was called out; and when it was, I recall thinking: “I knew that…so why didn’t I remember that information when it conflicted with my apology?”
It may not impact everyone as hard as it did me; but my personal experience is likely why I prefer the mode of simply asking them why their apology _can’t_ be applied to any other belief system (that they, obviously, aren’t applying it to).
Yes, my thought, the first time I met that argument was, “Or he may have been misquoted.” and then “If He wasn’t the Lord, what difference does it make; whether he was mad or a lying?”
>“If He wasn’t the Lord, what difference does it make; whether he was mad or a lying?”
Generally, the apologetic follow up would be: If he was mad, he wouldn’t have had such an impact on so many sane people who followed him and died for his cause. Tell this to Jim Jones–right?
They would also claim that if he was lying, he’d have recanted rather than die–because people won’t die for a lie. My response is the same as my earlier post–if by “lie” we mean any untrue thing–then every person ever persecuted in any religion other than Xianity is a person who died for a “lie” according to Xians. In that case–people die for “lies” all the time.
Lord, Liar, or Lunatic:
Could it be that those wrote what Jesus is reported to have said be the liars and lunatics?
The degree to which books like Lewis’ Mere Christianity and McDowell’s More Than a Carpenter are touted by Christians as infallible proof of something speaks volumes about the fragility of these positions.
Lewis’ book contains various arguments like the one Austin describes. They are well written, and a person unschooled in critical thought might not be able to poke holes in them easily. But the arguments are nothing new, and not hard to brush aside. The weakness of the book, like McDowell’s, comes in the form of myriad references to the Bible, as if this is somehow clinching proof of anything.
It does not seem to be the logic of the arguments that draws the religious to their tenets; it is this hyper-reliance on the Bible as a source of truth which marks the most confounding thing about mainstream Christian belief. Still, it is important to deal with all of these banal statements, and as always, this site serves as an encyclopedia of powerful retort.
I agree tracieh. My 4 year old daughter totally believes in Santa Claus - a lie perpetuated to her by me and her mother. My daughter believes it’s true with all her mind, but that obviously doesn’t make it true. The same idea can be extended to the believer (or the politician, or whatever your flavor/delusion of the day might be). When I was a believer, I was on dangerous ground because I used to say that I “knew” that stuff was true. My arrogance in faith defied all epistemology and took on the form of fact in my mind. I’m glad I was “saved” from Jesus. LOL
Incidentally, I don’t mind lying to her about Santa Claus. The worst he can do is skip her next Christmas. But at least he doesn’t command her that she love him unconditionally and burn her eternally in a lake of fire if she doesn’t want to.