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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: Lewis's Trichotomy
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Kaplan Corday
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# 16119
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Posted
I was thinking recently about C. S. Lewis’s famous assertion that Jesus was either a fraud, a loony or exactly who and what he claimed to be - sometimes expressed as “liar, lunatic or Lord”, or “conman, madman or Messiah”.
When I was a teenager, we thought that this was pretty cool and pretty unanswerable.
In the decades since, I have grown to regard such propositions as reductionist and simplistic pea and thimble tricks.
I retain an orthodox and credal Christology, but not because of the Lewisian trichotomy, though at the same time, I am not sure that it doesn’t contain a kernel of validity.
For that matter, I am skeptical in general about the role of apologetics in a pomo world, and while I still like Lewis as a person, and find him endlessly stimulating and suggestive, I have long since ceased to regard him as an oracle – his Problem Of Pain, for example, is itself extremely problematic.
Well, a thread on the continuing relevance of apologetics in general, or even C.S. Lewis in particular, would be rather unwieldy, but I would be interested to read Shippies’ opinions about his Christological “proof”.
[ 01. December 2012, 10:53: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
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Mark Betts
Ship's Navigation Light
# 17074
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Posted
C. S. Lewis never claimed that any of his works were infallible. You don't need to agree 100% with everything he says, but he must still have a lot of clout as most (if not all) of his books are still in print.
Of course there's still a place for apologetics today, especially with all this new theology which is so far gone from the Faith once delivered to the Saints.
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"We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary."
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
I think they're generally considered to be false alternatives today. That is, there are other possibilities, for example, that Jesus was just mistaken, without being mad.
I think the commonest scholarly view has been that it is possible that Jesus did not claim to be divine, and that this was retro-engineered. I think this is Ehrman's view.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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shamwari
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# 15556
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Posted
I also query whether the syllogism is right.
Colin Morris once pointed out an alternative 4th possibility.
It also depends of whether Jesus made the egocentric claims on which it is based.
I dont believe he did.
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Mark Betts
Ship's Navigation Light
# 17074
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I think they're generally considered to be false alternatives today. That is, there are other possibilities, for example, that Jesus was just mistaken, without being mad.
I think the commonest scholarly view has been that it is possible that Jesus did not claim to be divine, and that this was retro-engineered. I think this is Ehrman's view.
The argument that C.S. Lewis was trying to counter here was the idea that Jesus was just a good moral teacher and nothing more.
If Jesus was mistaken, what was he mistaken about, since some claim he never believed he was divine?
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"We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary."
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Jay-Emm
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# 11411
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Posted
The logic is pretty much irrefutable (in full text).
However:
In the shortened or colloquial form the words have an emotive aspect and are overloaded.
The situation has changed slightly so the debate has moved to denying the predicate* (on varying quality of grounds) is more common.
And people are more happy to describe Jesus as what is covered by mad/bad.
So in a sense he's kind of won. The irrational middle ground claiming has faded.
*I.E the "Jesus did and said [and was] as the gospel writers describe"
[edit cross post]
[ 02. September 2012, 08:09: Message edited by: Jay-Emm ]
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
Of course, Lewis's argument is predicated on the acceptance of Jesus as a great moral teacher. Thus he seems to be arguing that it is difficult to accept that, and not his divinity.
So if you don't see Jesus as a great moral teacher, the trilemma collapses in any case.
But allowing for that, it always sounds quite naive and amateurish to me.
If you are willing to use it in argument, beware!
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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shamwari
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# 15556
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Posted
I dont tthink that Lewis' argument is predicated on Jesus as a great moral teacher.
It is predicated on the " I AM" sayings of Jesus in the 4th gospel.
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
By 'predicated' I just mean 'follows on from'. This is one version of Lewis's text:
"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 the one thing we must not say
I take that to mean, that if you don't think Jesus is a great moral teacher, then the trilemma is meaningless.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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Freddy
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# 365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I think the commonest scholarly view has been that it is possible that Jesus did not claim to be divine, and that this was retro-engineered. I think this is Ehrman's view.
quote:
Originally posted by shamwari:
It also depends of whether Jesus made the egocentric claims on which it is based.
I dont believe he did.
I agree that these are the most common responses to Lewis' assertion. He doesn't seem to have anticipated that Christians would question the authenticity of the Biblical record.
Many religions, though, face a similar "trichotomy." Joseph Smith was either a fraud, a loony, or he really did find golden tablets.
I am a Swedenborgian. Swedenborg was either a fraud, a loony, or He really did spend decades traveling in heaven and recording his experiences.
The same is true of every biblical author who claims that the Word of the Lord was revealed to them, that God showed them miraculous things, or who records miraculous events. They were frauds, loonies, or these things really happened.
But I agree with others that these aren't the only or the most likely possibilities. The biblical authors could have been none of the above and have simply written their best understanding of events as they perceived them, either from their own experience or from others. The massively superstitious mindset of the times did not require looniness or fraudulence to believe and assert things that never happened.
My own belief, though, is that the Bible is true, the recording of events is reasonably accurate, God really did speak to these people, and Jesus really is who the Bible says He is.
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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
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Adeodatus
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# 4992
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Posted
Freddy, without wishing to diminish the claims of Swedenborg or, for that matter, Joseph Smith, I think your post highlights that Lewis didn't really think his point through. It has already been said or implied on this thread that we need to add "mistaken" and "misinterpreted" to the list. We could also add that he may have misinterpreted his own experiences, or may have been a mixture of any or all of those things on the list - I mean, there are plenty of discussions on these very boards that would lead you to believe that some of the participants are totally bonkers, but might actually have a point!
I think you've also put your finger on Lewis's biggest mistake, and I'm afraid I find it difficult to believe it wasn't a wilful one - that he was uncritical of the Biblical texts. It would be more accurate to say that it was one or more of the gospel writers, not Jesus himself, who were frauds, lunatics, etc. - because, of course, it's their claims we have, not his. I say I find it difficult to believe this wasn't a wilful mistake because textual criticism of the Bible had been going on for a very, very long time before Lewis - he must have known that it was not obvious that one should take the texts at face value.
Sometimes Lewis is brilliant. But I'm afraid it's arguments like this that give the impression to the world that even the best of Christians are intellectually weak.
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"What is broken, repair with gold."
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
I think Christianity has a very dumbed down side to it, which is rather embarrassing. I suppose on the other side, there is a place for the naive and unsophisticated statement about the divine, and so on. And then there are pretty high-powered philosophical arguments; and there is stuff like Karen Armstrong, which is middle of the road. So I guess that a lot of people tip-toe amongst these different discourses.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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Freddy
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# 365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Adeodatus:
I think you've also put your finger on Lewis's biggest mistake, and I'm afraid I find it difficult to believe it wasn't a wilful one - that he was uncritical of the Biblical texts.
I think that's right. I'm sure that it was willful. He realized that the argument assumed that the texts are accurate and was happy to make, and assert, that assumption.
I agree with Lewis, so I'm inclined to accept his "trichotomy." But I agree that many people are not likely to do this, least of all people who are unconvinced of Christianity - the very ones that Lewis is addressing.
Still, whatever we say, Lewis has been amazingly effective. Just because someone can poke holes in an argument doesn't mean that it doesn't work.
Naturally, I find myself in a situation like Lewis' because I believe what Swedenborg wrote and know that hardly anyone else does. I want to make the same assertion Lewis does (there are no textual issues in this case), but I am in agreement that it is actually a weak argument. It doesn't allow for an author to be simply mistaken.
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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
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Trudy Scrumptious
BBE Shieldmaiden
# 5647
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Posted
We discussed this before a few years ago, and it interests me because I, like the OP, found Lewis's argument absolutely compelling as a teenager. Now, while I still have a lot of admiration for Lewis, I find it hard to imagine how a writer who was trained as a scholar, even writing/speaking for a broad popular audience, could possibly have imagined that it held water.
The last time the discussion came round I remember writing up an alternative list of options in addition to Lewis's original three, something like:
1) Jesus claimed to be divine, and really was.
2) Jesus claimed to be divine, but was lying (and thus evil).
3) Jesus claimed to be divine, but was mistaken (and thus crazy).
4) Jesus never claimed to be divine; He made the statements about divinity attributed to Him but meant something different by them than the church has believed He did (e.g. He may have meant that we are all, in some sense, children of God or one with God).
5) Jesus never claimed to be divine; He never made the statements about divinity attributed to Him. These were put into His mouth by later gospel writers who already decided He was divine.
6) Jesus was a good man and great teacher but, like many great men, He had a blind spot; He believed grandiose things about Himself and His mission that weren't true, but was still capable of brilliance and great insight.
7) Jesus said or taught nothing distinctive or interesting and may not even have existed; the entire Jesus-story is a myth created by the early Christians (perhaps with its roots in the dying-and-rising-god myths of other religions) with some basic Jewish moral teaching tacked on for good measure.
If I recall correctly, even after I had made what I thought was an exhaustive list of the possibilities, as above, people kept coming up with more to add to the list, demonstrating that there are far more than three ways to understand Jesus' statements about His own divinity.
Really, Lewis's entire argument hinges on accepting the absolute veracity of the Gospel accounts, and since lots of people don't accept that, the argument collapses pretty quickly.
For what it's worth I still think #1 is the correct answer but not because I find Lewis's "proof" in any way convincing.
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Books and things.
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Gamaliel
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# 812
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Posted
Great topic for a thread, Kaplan. Like you, I admired the proposition as a young man. Indeed, I remember a Baptist chap using it during a long train conversation about faith - along with other propositions and apologetic arguments I later became more familiar with.
At the time, that was fair enough. It was one of the things that led to me coming down off-the-fence in the period leading up to my evangelical conversion - my 'born again' experience if you like.
Now, all these years later, it all sounds rather trite. But I am certainly now disputing that the Lord 'used' it, if you like, to arrest my attention and cause me to take more seriously 'the claims of Christ' to use an old evangelical phrase.
I think the pomo thing is pertinent. I'm not so sure these days that a modernist, propositional approach cuts the mustard. The evangelicals are children of the Enlightenment just as much as they are grandchildren of the Reformation.
My views are similar to Kaplan's. I feel that there's a core of truth to Lewis's apologetic - but equally that, wise and clever man that he was - he must have been aware of the weaknesses. Could it be that he was accommodating himself to a popular audience - dumbing down in effect?
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
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Enoch
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# 14322
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Posted
I think this thread is being unfair to Lewis. It is condemning him for not answering a different question from the one he was trying to answer. In his time, the argument 'I accept and admire Jesus's moral teaching. He was a great moral teacher. I just don't accept his claim to be the Son of God', was a very prevalent excuse people trotted out for not believing.
Whatever explanation people give, a lot (probably most) of those who say they don't believe, do so because subliminally they know they will be threatened by the challenge belief would be to them. If you believe, you have to do something about it. As long as you can say you are questioning, haven't made up your mind yet, have problems of faith, you can stay as you are.
The argument 'I don't have to believe because Jesus didn't really say that; his followers put it all into his mouth' is a different one, to which the answers are different. It isn't the one that Lewis was answering in making that statement.
The argument 'Jesus wasn't a great moral teacher at all' is a rarer one. The only people I can think of, off hand, who have maintained that are Nietzsche, Adolf Hitler and possibly the late Christopher Hitchens.
However, the argument, 'he was mistaken' does produce the same difficulty as Lewis was addressing. Even if you are not clinically mad, coming from a conventional C1 Jewish background and believing yourself to be the Messiah, God's anointed one, his Son, will skew your thinking fairly drastically It will make it difficult, if not impossible, to produce any sensible moral teaching at all, yet alone the Sermon on the Mount or the parables - unless, as Lewis suggested, your claim is true.
As to whether his writings resonate for a pomo or post-pomo generation, I can't comment. I'm now in my sixties, and don't have to bother about that.
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
I completely agree that apologetics ONLY work for the converted, Kaplan Corday, and then cease to. SOF has taught me that and Premier Christian and other sites. I have found with a strong weak atheist friend who is always messaging me on FB that we can go infinite bare knuckle rounds, beat each other to a standstill where we THEN get relational, existential, that if I THEN get evangelical (note NO big-E) the game's afoot again. I get the last word far more, which is ALL important obviously ...
I have THE perfect apologetic material proof of God but no one here gives it the time of day. These things are NOT transferable as they can't affect disposition, as is demonstrated by Roman Catholic and Protestant catholic apologetics.
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Love wins
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Jay-Emm
Shipmate
# 11411
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
...
1) Jesus claimed to be divine, and really was.
2) Jesus claimed to be divine, but was lying (and thus evil).
3) Jesus claimed to be divine, but was mistaken (and thus crazy).
4) Jesus never claimed to be divine; He made the statements about divinity attributed to Him but meant something different by them than the church has believed He did (e.g. He may have meant that we are all, in some sense, children of God or one with God).
5) Jesus never claimed to be divine; He never made the statements about divinity attributed to Him. These were put into His mouth by later gospel writers who already decided He was divine.
6) Jesus was a good man and great teacher but, like many great men, He had a blind spot; He believed grandiose things about Himself and His mission that weren't true, but was still capable of brilliance and great insight.
7) Jesus said or taught nothing distinctive or interesting and may not even have existed; the entire Jesus-story is a myth created by the early Christians (perhaps with its roots in the dying-and-rising-god myths of other religions) with some basic Jewish moral teaching tacked on for good measure.
...
To be fair in the Mere Christianity context some of these are referenced before. (possibly inadequately).
1-3) trivially (no pun intended)
4&6) "talking as if He was God. He claims... But this man, since he was a Jew...silliness and conceit unrivalled" (1 page before)
5&7) though, I can't find at the moment... (ok it is in a section entitled what Christian's believe) and prefaced with:
"I have been asked to tell you what Christian's believe...I was able to take a more liberal view... right and they are wrong" (start of sub-book)
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Leprechaun
Ship's Poison Elf
# 5408
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
I think this thread is being unfair to Lewis. It is condemning him for not answering a different question from the one he was trying to answer. In his time, the argument 'I accept and admire Jesus's moral teaching. He was a great moral teacher. I just don't accept his claim to be the Son of God', was a very prevalent excuse people trotted out for not believing.
As Enoch has said, I think the problem here is the people who came after Lewis, not Lewis himself. All he was trying to do was to challenge the people who, at the time, tried to boil Christianity down to some moral tenets whilst ignoring Jesus' ostensible claim to divinity and to introduce us to God himself.
It's the rather over the top followers, the likes of Josh Mcdowell who have tried to turn it into a multi purpose knockdown argument for Jesus' divinity for any occasion. This is silly, not least because lots of people are happy to say that he is mad or God. I still think it holds some traction today for people who say they like the morals of Jesus teaching (as we have it recorded) but not Christianity. You don't have to read much of Jesus teaching to see that rather a lot of it was to do with himself, and specifically his return to judge the world. Whatever that is, it's not moral teaching as most people mean it. In that sense the trilemma can provide a useful to way to spur people out of their ignorance. But it's not the convert maker we might have thought in the 80s.
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leprechaun:
[QUOTE] But it's not the convert maker we might have thought in the 80s.
Though watching the Alpha Course talks recently, Nicky Gumbel still seems to think it is.
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Soror Magna
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# 9881
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
... The last time the discussion came round I remember writing up an alternative list of options in addition to Lewis's original three, something like: ...
5) Jesus never claimed to be divine; He never made the statements about divinity attributed to Him. These were put into His mouth by later gospel writers who already decided He was divine.
6) Jesus was a good man and great teacher but, like many great men, He had a blind spot; He believed grandiose things about Himself and His mission that weren't true, but was still capable of brilliance and great insight.
7) Jesus said or taught nothing distinctive or interesting and may not even have existed; the entire Jesus-story is a myth created by the early Christians (perhaps with its roots in the dying-and-rising-god myths of other religions) with some basic Jewish moral teaching tacked on for good measure. ...
ISTM there were lots of contemporary examples on the "Summer season of miracles" thread.
I have been told by many Christians that if Jesus *wasn't* divine, there's no reason to follow His teachings over any others. It always surprises me when Christians go all Marshall McLuhan. Jesus is far from the only spiritual leader to advocate self-sacrificing love.
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Squibs
Shipmate
# 14408
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I think they're generally considered to be false alternatives today. That is, there are other possibilities, for example, that Jesus was just mistaken, without being mad.
This is a really curious view.
If a member of the public stood up in court and declared that the crimes of the just convicted murder had been forgiven, and she insisted that she alone had such authority, would anyone think her simply mistaken? I think not. Why then should we entertain the idea that says anyone who believes themselves to be the creator and sustainer of the universe to be sane? Delusional doesn't begin to address how wrong such a belief is.
Perhaps there is another valid 4th option, but this isn't it.
As an aside, I wonder what Kaplan Corday would have Christians do to defend and promote their faith if not use apologetics? I would have thought that the presentation of a coherent message of what Christianity is about is one way of dispelling some of the more pernicious false beliefs about Christianity.
To be sure John Lennox, C.S. Lewis, William Lane Craig et al. are not going to be to everyone's taste, but that's besides the point. Christians (and other theists besides) are battling against the tide and simply having a voice to present a coherent message is a victory in and of itself. More so if this voice stops to make someone think.
I've certainly heard of enough people come to faith or had their faith strengthened by some type of apologetic for the practice of apologetics to be justified.
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
Well, I have done Zen meditation for 30 years, and I have quite often heard participants on retreats say something like, 'I am creator of all', or 'I alone am', or 'I love everything because I make it', or 'I am everything', and so on.
I didn't think they were mad at all. I don't know whether or not they are mistaken.
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the long ranger
Shipmate
# 17109
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Posted
Lewis is totally over-rated, in my opinion.
Jesus could have been mad
Jesus could have been bad
Jesus could have been misquoted
Jesus could have been misunderstood
Jesus could have been having a bad day
Jesus could have been just wrong
That is before even getting to the question of whether the gospels are an accurate record of what he said about himself.
I think it is a pretty unhelpful thing for Lewis to say, really.
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"..into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” “But Rabbi, how can this happen for those who have no teeth?”
"..If some have no teeth, then teeth will be provided.”
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daronmedway
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# 3012
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Soror Magna:
Jesus is far from the only spiritual leader to advocate self-sacrificing love.
Advocating self-sacrificing love doesn't get people crucified, which suggests to me that Jesus stood for a whole lot more than that.
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Jay-Emm
Shipmate
# 11411
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Well, I have done Zen meditation for 30 years, and I have quite often heard participants on retreats say something like, 'I am creator of all', or 'I alone am', or 'I love everything because I make it', or 'I am everything', and so on.
I didn't think they were mad at all. I don't know whether or not they are mistaken.
FWIW Lewis does actually make the point that they would be (much more) perfectly natural things to say in the Indian religions.
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jay-Emm:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Well, I have done Zen meditation for 30 years, and I have quite often heard participants on retreats say something like, 'I am creator of all', or 'I alone am', or 'I love everything because I make it', or 'I am everything', and so on.
I didn't think they were mad at all. I don't know whether or not they are mistaken.
FWIW Lewis does actually make the point that they would be (much more) perfectly natural things to say in the Indian religions.
Yes, the context is rather important! If someone stood up in Coventry magistrates court, and announced forgiveness for all present, it probably would be construed, well, as odd, certainly.
If you were in India, sitting with your guru, it might be unexceptional.
In this sense, in a Jewish context, it probably would (then and now) be seen as shocking, and perhaps mad.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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Jay-Emm
Shipmate
# 11411
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
Lewis is totally over-rated, in my opinion.
Jesus could have been mad
Jesus could have been bad
quote:
Jesus could have been misunderstood
Jesus could have been having a bad day
Jesus could have been just wrong
I'm intrigued how he could be so wrong. I mean it's not exactly as simple careless mistake like 1+1=1643.*
And the interaction doesn't read as being sarcastic, and Jesus seems to have been given enough feedback to correct misunderstood.
quote:
That is before even getting to the question of whether the gospels are an accurate record of what he said about himself.
Jesus could have been misquoted
which does of course change a number of things. (and in John especially where the quotes end)
*yes we have the guys from the Taiping, but if that's not what the word mad/bad is for, then...
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Squibs
Shipmate
# 14408
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Well, I have done Zen meditation for 30 years, and I have quite often heard participants on retreats say something like, 'I am creator of all', or 'I alone am', or 'I love everything because I make it', or 'I am everything', and so on.
I didn't think they were mad at all. I don't know whether or not they are mistaken.
I'm not sure that this is quite the same thing. But for what it is worth, if somebody thought that they were the creator and sustainer of the universe and that they had the power to do things like forgive moral failings and that through their death they would usher in a new type of existence then I would have to conclude that they were mad.
I don't see any other conclusion.
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
Lewis is totally over-rated, in my opinion.
Jesus could have been mad
Jesus could have been bad
====
Jesus could have been misquoted
Jesus could have been misunderstood
====
Jesus could have been having a bad day
Jesus could have been just wrong
That is before even getting to the question of whether the gospels are an accurate record of what he said about himself.
I think it is a pretty unhelpful thing for Lewis to say, really.
Firstly, you forgot the other option of the trilemma - "he actually was Lord". Funny that!
The trilemma was presented to people who weren't questioning the foundational reliability of what was written in scripture. These were and are the type of people who typically think that if Jesus is recoded as having said Z, Y and Z that Jesus actually said X,Y and Z. They then try to make sense of what was said. So it's not fair to present your additional options as if they have some bearing on what Lewis was saying. The historicity of the NT might well be a vital question, but it was not one that Lewis was dealing with in the trilemma.
Additionally, I'm not sure what "having a bad day" could mean. Not all the events recorded in the Gospels (or "are reported to have happened" if you prefer) happened in a day.
As for Jesus being "just wrong" that is already one conclusion reached by the existing trilemma.
It's like you are typing anything that comes to mind so as to create a list as long as possible. As if Lewis' argument will collapse under the sheer volume of additional options he never considered.
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Squibs
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# 14408
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
In this sense, in a Jewish context, it probably would (then and now) be seen as shocking, and perhaps mad.
I think it would have been seen as worse than that. Hence the crucifixion.
If you don't believe me just try imaging having the "I'm actually the Messiah and I'm here to judge you" conversation with some of the gun hoarding zealots over at the Golan Heights, especially if people elsewhere began to pay attention to you.
My prediction would be that the press would devote a few paragraphs or so to the life and death of an individual who though he was God.
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quetzalcoatl
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# 16740
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Posted
Squibs wrote:
But for what it is worth, if somebody thought that they were the creator and sustainer of the universe and that they had the power to do things like forgive moral failings and that through their death they would usher in a new type of existence then I would have to conclude that they were mad. I don't see any other conclusion.
Well, my suggestion is that this is because you live in a rather narrow cultural milieu. I think in some parts of the world, and in some types of milieu, this would not be considered to be mad at all.
For example, in the famous Zen book, 'Pillars of Zen', there is the story of someone having a satori experience, who announces that Mount Fuji exists through his own making. (Rather Berkeleyan, actually).
However, certainly, in a first century Jewish context, I agree that it would certainly be considered shocking and probably blasphemous. Whether it would be considered mad, I don't know, as I don't really know much about views of sanity and insanity at that time.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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Bostonman
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# 17108
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Posted
I think Lewis starts with the assumption that the Gospels are at least consistent in reporting Jesus' words, rather than accurate. Either his claims of divinity AND his moral statements were made, or neither. This is supposed to prevent cherry-picking parts of his teaching. So if one questions the accuracy, it means one can't claim "he was a great moral teacher."
Of course it may be in itself a very dubious assumption.
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the long ranger
Shipmate
# 17109
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Squibs:
Additionally, I'm not sure what "having a bad day" could mean. Not all the events recorded in the Gospels (or "are reported to have happened" if you prefer) happened in a day.
I wasn't speaking literally. The aspects of Christ's ministry which lead Lewis to suggest that he was a) mad, b) bad or c) Lord could have been things he said on a bad day. If you say he was perfect and that he couldn't have a bad day, then you've already decided that he is Lord, hence the formulation means almost nothing.
quote:
As for Jesus being "just wrong" that is already one conclusion reached by the existing trilemma.
I don't think so, the formulation is mad, bad or Lord. It is entirely possible that Jesus Christ could have believed things about himself which were not true without him being mad (mentally ill) or bad (deliberately misleading). Human teachers sometimes get things wrong. That doesn't make them mad or bad.
quote:
A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things 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 patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. (Mere Christianity pg. 52)
quote:
Squibs: It's like you are typing anything that comes to mind so as to create a list as long as possible. As if Lewis' argument will collapse under the sheer volume of additional options he never considered.
Not really, I composed a list of reasons why the Lewis formulation is not a good one. Which was the question asked in the original post.
[ 02. September 2012, 16:58: Message edited by: the long ranger ]
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"..into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” “But Rabbi, how can this happen for those who have no teeth?”
"..If some have no teeth, then teeth will be provided.”
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the long ranger
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# 17109
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
However, certainly, in a first century Jewish context, I agree that it would certainly be considered shocking and probably blasphemous. Whether it would be considered mad, I don't know, as I don't really know much about views of sanity and insanity at that time.
I don't think Lewis is talking about a reception in first century Palestine but in twentieth century Oxford.
Coincidentally, I was thinking about this in church this morning. As church people, we often say things which might sound more than a bit mad in another context. But the context is important - as is the regard with which the sayer is held.
I admit it seems unlikely that a group would today believe someone who claimed to be a divine being in our midst. But stranger things have happened.
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"..into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” “But Rabbi, how can this happen for those who have no teeth?”
"..If some have no teeth, then teeth will be provided.”
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the long ranger
Shipmate
# 17109
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Squibs:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
In this sense, in a Jewish context, it probably would (then and now) be seen as shocking, and perhaps mad.
I think it would have been seen as worse than that. Hence the crucifixion.
The Romans crucified the Christ not the Jews. The Jewish punishment for blasphemy was stoning.
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"..into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” “But Rabbi, how can this happen for those who have no teeth?”
"..If some have no teeth, then teeth will be provided.”
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daronmedway
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# 3012
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
quote:
Originally posted by Squibs:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
In this sense, in a Jewish context, it probably would (then and now) be seen as shocking, and perhaps mad.
I think it would have been seen as worse than that. Hence the crucifixion.
The Romans crucified the Christ not the Jews. The Jewish punishment for blasphemy was stoning.
That's a bit like saying the US won WW2, not the allied forces. The Jewish authorities were complicit in the death of Christ, as St Peter's Pentecost sermon attests.
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the long ranger
Shipmate
# 17109
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by daronmedway:
That's a bit like saying the US won WW2, not the allied forces. The Jewish authorities were complicit in the death of Christ, as St Peter's Pentecost sermon attests.
Well, years of misinformation by the church led to the Jewish pogroms.
The simple fact is that Jesus Christ was crucified for insurrection like many other rebels. The Jewish authorities may well have disliked his pretensions to divinity, but they did not execute him by crucifixion and the Romans had no reason to do it for them.
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"..into the outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth,” “But Rabbi, how can this happen for those who have no teeth?”
"..If some have no teeth, then teeth will be provided.”
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
Well, years of misinformation by the church led to the Jewish pogroms.
The simple fact is that Jesus Christ was crucified for insurrection like many other rebels. The Jewish authorities may well have disliked his pretensions to divinity, but they did not execute him by crucifixion and the Romans had no reason to do it for them.
It's pretty bold to claim as fact a hypothesis that contradicts all the available accounts.
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
Still working my way through this thread, so apologies if someone has already mentioned this and I haven't got there yet--
The trilemma IIRC comes from a book that was basically a set of short radio talks Lewis did for "the common man"--meaning by that intelligent people with no particular education and only a handful of minutes to listen during the war years. Under those horrendous constraints Lewis got to "say a few words" on key topics of Christianity. Therefore you're not going to get any nuance (no time!) or any consideration of textual critical theories (hey, he's got ten minutes to try to say something to John the butcher and Mary the typist; good luck even explaining the basics of textual theories, let alone the controversies thereof).
It's not quite fair to pick on Lewis for the limitations of his medium and audience. At least, give it a go yourself (I have) and see what you come away with. ![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
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daronmedway
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# 3012
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet:
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
Well, years of misinformation by the church led to the Jewish pogroms.
The simple fact is that Jesus Christ was crucified for insurrection like many other rebels. The Jewish authorities may well have disliked his pretensions to divinity, but they did not execute him by crucifixion and the Romans had no reason to do it for them.
It's pretty bold to claim as fact a hypothesis that contradicts all the available accounts.
Quite.
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
We discussed this before a few years ago, and it interests me because I, like the OP, found Lewis's argument absolutely compelling as a teenager. Now, while I still have a lot of admiration for Lewis, I find it hard to imagine how a writer who was trained as a scholar, even writing/speaking for a broad popular audience, could possibly have imagined that it held water.
The last time the discussion came round I remember writing up an alternative list of options in addition to Lewis's original three, something like:
1) Jesus claimed to be divine, and really was.
2) Jesus claimed to be divine, but was lying (and thus evil).
3) Jesus claimed to be divine, but was mistaken (and thus crazy).
4) Jesus never claimed to be divine; He made the statements about divinity attributed to Him but meant something different by them than the church has believed He did (e.g. He may have meant that we are all, in some sense, children of God or one with God).
5) Jesus never claimed to be divine; He never made the statements about divinity attributed to Him. These were put into His mouth by later gospel writers who already decided He was divine.
6) Jesus was a good man and great teacher but, like many great men, He had a blind spot; He believed grandiose things about Himself and His mission that weren't true, but was still capable of brilliance and great insight.
7) Jesus said or taught nothing distinctive or interesting and may not even have existed; the entire Jesus-story is a myth created by the early Christians (perhaps with its roots in the dying-and-rising-god myths of other religions) with some basic Jewish moral teaching tacked on for good measure.
If I recall correctly, even after I had made what I thought was an exhaustive list of the possibilities, as above, people kept coming up with more to add to the list, demonstrating that there are far more than three ways to understand Jesus' statements about His own divinity.
Really, Lewis's entire argument hinges on accepting the absolute veracity of the Gospel accounts, and since lots of people don't accept that, the argument collapses pretty quickly.
For what it's worth I still think #1 is the correct answer but not because I find Lewis's "proof" in any way convincing.
Thank you for such a clear summary. I'm going to try to respond from what I know of Lewis (life, writings, and particularly from his work in the field of English and the classics, which is my preferred playground too).
First of all, the text. Lewis was definitely and clearly aware of the various textual controversies, as some have pointed out, how could he not be? He was after all an Oxford don with a triple first yadda yadda. He also did a fair amount of public debate and private letter answering, and issues like these would no doubt have cropped up quite a bit.
I'm of the opinion that what prevented him from taking the textual arguments as ... seriously? ... as many people do was precisely his knowledge of the classics (and English too). It inoculated him against the biblical controversies, just as it's done in my own case and doubtless that of many others.
This is what I mean. The whole "x didn't really write the book of X" stuff did not begin with biblical studies. It began with the classics--Homer is a major case in point. Of course there was no real Homer. Of course the work we attribute to the mythical Homer was actually a compendium of work done by two, three, eighty-five odd poets. Actually, scratch that. It "jest growed" as a product of community group-think and oral tradition. In fact, it evolved from a multitude of sources, more or less unconsciously, and no individual had much to do with it, bar perhaps the final scribe who actually set it down in some sort of order (and really, that makes us uncomfortable, we'd rather imagine several scribes working together).
Now this is just plain nonsense. Oral traditions there are, and legends there are, but it takes an author--a poet--to turn the mass of inchoate and often contradictory stories into a single coherent work. Not a committee, a poet--a maker (which is I believe what that word originally sigified, from poieo, no?). Even a committee won't do. What great work of art ever emerged from a committee? (I'm waiting for one of y'all to pop up with the exception that bops me over the head and sends me back in shame to my hideyhole, come on now! ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif) )
After a while this "Homer isn't real" crap jumped the genre wall into biblical studies. (And what is it about that genre wall--I've discovered that you can predict the next up and coming fad in theology just by looking at what English lit was doing five/ten years ago. I mean, WTF?)
But back to Lewis--so he's seen the basic assumptions of higher criticism in his own field, and has seen the holes there. (AFAIK nobody still goes around saying Homer didn't compose Homer, I'm told that's quite old-fashioned nowadays). He's seen the same approach taken to other authors in his field, and seen those holes. And he's seen the same approach used on himself and on his fellow writers, the other Inklings--while they are still living, and able to contradic--as they did--the alleged "findings."
That kind of experience is enough to put anybody off blind faith in the findings of higher criticism. And Lewis himself said so, on several occasions--which I dearly wish I could give you chapter and verse for, but it's been several years since I last read his work. I'm suspecting "Introduction to Paradise Lost" and his essay "Experiment in Criticism", though it may have been somewhere more abstruse.
Finally, there's the fact that Lewis had a thorough grounding in what used to be called "lower criticism"--that is, the grinding painstaking work of collating manuscripts, following variants, establishing filiation of manuscripts, and so forth. Anybody who grinds away in that field (as I did, for five bloody years) learns to look with terrible jealousy at the textual witness for the New Testament. Green with envy, pah--I was chartreuse. All those manuscripts, all so closely, closely related, many of them so bloody early, with so very, very, VERY few variants among the humongous mass of them spread over a thousand years--a Shakespeare scholar would do murder just to get a thousandth of the textual authority for (say) the play Hamlet. Seriously. Some day I'll write a murder mystery around that idea.
Lewis would have known all that. And given that kind of overwhelming witness, there's not the least chance that "oh, the text has changed over the years, and Jesus didn't really make those claims for himself." Pull the other one, it's got bells on.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
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Freddy
Shipmate
# 365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
I think this thread is being unfair to Lewis. It is condemning him for not answering a different question from the one he was trying to answer. In his time, the argument 'I accept and admire Jesus's moral teaching. He was a great moral teacher. I just don't accept his claim to be the Son of God', was a very prevalent excuse people trotted out for not believing.
That's right. I remember now. That's a great explanation.
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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
Posts: 12845 | From: Bryn Athyn | Registered: Jun 2001
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
quote:
1) Jesus claimed to be divine, and really was.
Yes, I agree with this one too.
quote:
2) Jesus claimed to be divine, but was lying (and thus evil).
Yes, anyone who said such things knowing them to be false would be evil. Because Jesus' claims to divinity were offered in the context of "therefore turn to me, so that I can meet your needs for life, for forgiveness, etc." If he is in fact lying, then he is not only making false statements about himself, but he is doing so to induce people to rely on him in areas where there is no chance of him really helping. It's far worse than if I said, "I have a billion dollars in the bank. Everyone who is homeless and hungry, come to me and I will feed you!"
quote:
3) Jesus claimed to be divine, but was mistaken (and thus crazy).
Yes, in that culture above all, anybody who believed himself divine without being so would definitely be madder than a box of frogs.
quote:
4) Jesus never claimed to be divine; He made the statements about divinity attributed to Him but meant something different by them than the church has believed He did (e.g. He may have meant that we are all, in some sense, children of God or one with God).
Not as a Jew, he didn't! Of all the cultures in the world LEAST likely to use that kind of metaphorical language, post-exilic Judaism tops the list. They were rabid about it. You'd be safer to go around saying things like "Caesar is the father of a pig by the high priest's wife." The offense level would be about the same.
quote:
5) Jesus never claimed to be divine; He never made the statements about divinity attributed to Him. These were put into His mouth by later gospel writers who already decided He was divine.
See my post on textual stuff above. Lewis knew better.
quote:
6) Jesus was a good man and great teacher but, like many great men, He had a blind spot; He believed grandiose things about Himself and His mission that weren't true, but was still capable of brilliance and great insight.
Lewis himself noted that you don't get good men who are great teachers on the scale of Jesus who nevertheless have one truly HUGE and freakin' ginormous blind spot of that nature. I could maybe believe it if you told me that Jesus had a thing for talking to teapots, or was under the mild delusion that he was of royal descent. But to believe yourself GOD ... no. Not in that culture. Not in this culture, I don't think. And the better the man, the wiser the woman, the less likely they are to have or express delusions of this sort.
quote:
7) Jesus said or taught nothing distinctive or interesting and may not even have existed; the entire Jesus-story is a myth created by the early Christians (perhaps with its roots in the dying-and-rising-god myths of other religions) with some basic Jewish moral teaching tacked on for good measure.
See textual note above.
quote:
Really, Lewis's entire argument hinges on accepting the absolute veracity of the Gospel accounts, and since lots of people don't accept that, the argument collapses pretty quickly.
True. Lewis knew better than anyone that you can't argue people into the kingdom of God; the most an apologist can hope to do is remove some of the brush and weeds (misconceptions etc) before the true farmer shows up to plow the ground and plant the good seed. He therefore proposed that anybody who intended to do apologetics should if possible partner with a person capable of real evangelistic preaching--a gift he did not credit himself with having. He thought that work the more important of the two.
And so in the end, it doesn't really matter what we think of Lewis, or even of his arguments. Lewis would certainly say so. (and be highly entertained by this thread, I think)
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Arethosemyfeet
Shipmate
# 17047
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
What great work of art ever emerged from a committee?
I would suggest that the King James Version of the Bible might fall under that category. As a work of art it is thought by many to exceed the source material, and was translated and compiled by committee.
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
If you say he was perfect and that he couldn't have a bad day, then you've already decided that he is Lord, hence the formulation means almost nothing.
Did Jesus ever NOT have a bad day?
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
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Garasu
Shipmate
# 17152
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Posted
quote:
3) Jesus claimed to be divine, but was mistaken (and thus crazy).
Yes, in that culture above all, anybody who believed himself divine without being so would definitely be madder than a box of frogs.
Sorry, not really disagreeing, just wondering why "in that culture above all"?
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"Could I believe in the doctrine without believing in the deity?". - Modesitt, L. E., Jr., 1943- Imager.
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
(6) just restates (3).
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
Well, I'd love to read somebody's historical monograph on the effect of the Exile on Jewish monotheism. Because prior to that, they seemed to be about as mix-and-match in religion as they come--hey, we've got YHWH, now let's add a little Ashterah, and what about that guy Molech--I guess I can spare a kid or two... But by NT times it's gone so far in the opposite direction that Pilate has to call out the legions IIRC to quiet the uproar when he tries to hang golden shields with images of the emperor on them in Herod's palace in Jerusalem--not for worship, mind you, not in the precincts of the temple either, not as anything, really, to do with the Jews at all--and they pitched such a hissyfit about Commandment One and graven images that Tiberius himself got involved and told him to take them elsewhere. This is quite a turn-around from the people whose ancestors put up idols next to the very altar of the Lord itself! And astonishing that Tiberius and later emperors take such notice of their sensitivities, and grant them unparalleled freedom with regard to staying monotheist and avoiding emperor worship etc. Someone could get a truly awesome psych dissertation on that one (and probably has, oh well)
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
This is what I mean. The whole "x didn't really write the book of X" stuff did not begin with biblical studies. It began with the classics--Homer is a major case in point. Of course there was no real Homer. Of course the work we attribute to the mythical Homer was actually a compendium of work done by two, three, eighty-five odd poets. Actually, scratch that. It "jest growed" as a product of community group-think and oral tradition. In fact, it evolved from a multitude of sources, more or less unconsciously, and no individual had much to do with it, bar perhaps the final scribe who actually set it down in some sort of order (and really, that makes us uncomfortable, we'd rather imagine several scribes working together).
I've read somewhere that the Iliad and the Odyssey weren't really written by Homer, but by another blind poet with the same name.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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Jay-Emm
Shipmate
# 11411
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Garasu:
quote:
3) Jesus claimed to be divine, but was mistaken (and thus crazy).
Yes, in that culture above all, anybody who believed himself divine without being so would definitely be madder than a box of frogs.
Sorry, not really disagreeing, just wondering why "in that culture above all"?
Because it's monotheistic. (excuse the stereotyping, and cartoony nature and general ignorance) God is above the universe.
The Indian Aryan family is different, God is the universe. Claiming to be 'one' with the creator (e.g. the Zen quotes above) isn't such a big claim. Of course it's also true of everyone else.
And to claim a greater concentration would be a bit arrogant, without good reason (e.g. a life meditating or royal blood).
The western Aryan world (e.g. Greek) is different again, gods are in universe. Claiming to be divine just means that Zeus liked your grandmother and recognises you. It's still an arrogant claim, one you'd only expect of a Caesar. But possible.
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