1. In Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis popularized a now-famous Christian argument in the form of a trilemma: Jesus was either a liar, a lunatic, or the Lord. This trilemma goes back to a 19C Scotsman.
I never took the trilemma seriously because it takes the accuracy of the Gospels for granted. Given the accuracy of the Gospels, it's a good argument, but given the accuracy of the Gospels, the argument is superfluous. If the Gospels are accurate, then we can dispense with the trilemma.
2. However, that objection is a tad shortsighted. For it pushes the issue back a step: if Jesus was a deceiver or self-deceived, would we have the Gospels? Would we have any Gospels? Would we have four 1C Gospels? Would we have them as written? Or, at best, would we have very different accounts of Jesus than what we find in the canonical Gospels?
Either they were written by authors who knew Jesus or who authors who knew folks who knew him–or else they are fictional or legendary tales written by authors with no reliable information.
If they were written by authors with reliable sources, and Jesus was in fact a deceiver or self-deceived, then the Gospels have him making supernatural claims he can't pull off. A liar or lunatic can't perform most of the miracles attributed to Jesus in the Gospels.
So on that view, the authors was in a position to know Jesus was a liar or lunatic. But in that event, what's his incentive to write about Jesus as if he was what he claimed to be?
Writing books promoting the Christian movement was not a career booster in the 1C. It was a public invitation to be ostracized, dispossessed, imprisoned, tortured, and martyred.
Suppose the Gospels were written by authors who had no reliable information about Jesus. It's just hagiographic legend and pious fiction. But once again, what does the author get out of that exercise? It's not a ticket to success. It doesn't make him rich and popular. 72 virgins aren't waiting for his attention. To the contrary, he's asking for persecution–despite the fact that the Jesus of story isn't worth suffering for.
What kind of Jesus must stand behind the Gospels to explain their existence, as they stand? That's a deeper question.
> I never took the trilemma seriously because ...
ReplyDeleteI don't think it was aimed at people like you. Lewis was writing in a time in culture in which there was still considerable agreement with the thesis of the reliability of the gospels, without a matching willingness to follow Christ as Lord. In that context, Lewis's argument was brilliantly formulated to meet its hearers in their point of inconsistency and argue for their repentance.
As such, it's still a useful apologetic tool, as there are still many people who may not be analytical philosophers who don't see the inconsistency of their position. It forces a certain class of agnostic to be consistent one way or the other. Yes, of course, the person confronted by the trilemma has recourse to the other, unstated, option of "the gospel accounts are radically unreliable". But bringing that out into the open, forcing the critic to follow the consequences of his position (and then embrace the ensuing problems with it if he makes the wrong choice) is a valuable move.