Lewis's Trilemma
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Lewis's trilemma is an
apologetic Apologetics (from Greek , "speaking in defense") is the religious discipline of defending religious doctrines through systematic argumentation and discourse. Early Christian writers (c. 120–220) who defended their beliefs against critics and ...
argument traditionally used to argue for the
divinity of Jesus In Christianity, Christology (from the Greek grc, Χριστός, Khristós, label=none and grc, -λογία, -logia, label=none), translated literally from Greek as "the study of Christ", is a branch of theology that concerns Jesus. Diffe ...
by postulating that the only alternatives were that he was evil or mad.Lewis, C. S., ''God in the Dock'' (Eerdmans, 2014), pages 100–101. One version was popularised by
University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...
literary scholar and writer
C. S. Lewis Clive Staples Lewis (29 November 1898 – 22 November 1963) was a British writer and Anglican lay theologian. He held academic positions in English literature at both Oxford University (Magdalen College, 1925–1954) and Cambridge Univers ...
in a
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
radio talk and in his writings. It is sometimes described as the "Lunatic, Liar, or Lord", or "Mad, Bad, or God" argument. It takes the form of a
trilemma A trilemma is a difficult choice from three options, each of which is (or appears) unacceptable or unfavourable. There are two logically equivalent ways in which to express a trilemma: it can be expressed as a choice among three unfavourable option ...
— a choice among three options, each of which is in some way difficult to accept. This argument is very popular with Christian apologists, but some theologians and biblical scholarsDavis (2006), page 151 do not believe that Jesus claimed to be God.


History

This argument has been used in various forms throughout church history. It was used by the American preacher Mark Hopkins in his book ''Lectures on the Evidences of Christianity'' (1846), based on lectures delivered in 1844. Another early use of this approach was by the Scots preacher "Rabbi"
John Duncan John Duncan may refer to: Arts and entertainment * John Duncan (painter) (1866–1945), Scottish painter * John Duncan (artist) (born 1953), American artist and musician * Big John Duncan (born 1958), Scottish punk musician * John Duncan (harpist) ...
(1796–1870), around 1859–60:
Christ either deceived mankind by conscious fraud, or He was Himself deluded and self-deceived, or He was Divine. There is no getting out of this trilemma. It is inexorable.
Others who used this approach included N. P. Williams,
Reuben Archer Torrey Reuben Archer Torrey (28 January 1856 – 26 October 1928) was an American evangelist, pastor, educator, and writer. He aligned with Keswick theology. Biography Torrey was born in Hoboken, New Jersey, the son of a banker. He graduated from ...
(1856–1928) and W. E. Biederwolf (1867–1939). The writer
G.K. Chesterton Gilbert Keith Chesterton (29 May 1874 – 14 June 1936) was an English writer, philosopher, Christian apologist, and literary and art critic. He has been referred to as the "prince of paradox". Of his writing style, ''Time'' observed: "Wh ...
used something similar to the trilemma in his book, ''
The Everlasting Man ''The Everlasting Man'' is a Christian apologetics book written by G. K. Chesterton, published in 1925. It is, to some extent, a deliberate rebuttal of H. G. Wells' ''The Outline of History'', disputing Wells' portrayals of human life and civi ...
'' (1925), which Lewis cited in 1962 as the second book that most influenced him.


Lewis's formulation

C. S. Lewis was an
Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...
medieval literature Medieval literature is a broad subject, encompassing essentially all written works available in Europe and beyond during the Middle Ages (that is, the one thousand years from the fall of the Western Roman Empire ca. AD 500 to the beginning of t ...
scholar, popular
writer A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles and techniques to communicate ideas. Writers produce different forms of literary art and creative writing such as novels, short stories, books, poetry, travelogues, p ...
,
Christian apologist Christian apologetics ( grc, ἀπολογία, "verbal defense, speech in defense") is a branch of Christian theology that defends Christianity. Christian apologetics has taken many forms over the centuries, starting with Paul the Apostle in th ...
, and former
atheist Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no ...
. He used the
argument An argument is a statement or group of statements called premises intended to determine the degree of truth or acceptability of another statement called conclusion. Arguments can be studied from three main perspectives: the logical, the dialectic ...
outlined below in a series of
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
radio talks later published as the book ''
Mere Christianity ''Mere Christianity'' is a Christian apologetical book by the British author C. S. Lewis. It was adapted from a series of BBC radio talks made between 1941 and 1944, originally published as three separate volumes: ''Broadcast Talks'' (1942), ' ...
.''
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. 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 the 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. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. ... Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God.
Lewis, who had spoken extensively on Christianity to
Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...
personnel, was aware many ordinary people did not believe Jesus was God, but saw him rather as "a 'great human teacher' who was deified by his supporters"; his argument is intended to overcome this. It is based on a traditional assumption that, in his words and deeds, Jesus was asserting a claim to be God. For example, in ''Mere Christianity'', Lewis refers to what he says are Jesus's claims: *to have authority to forgive sins — behaving as if he really was "the person chiefly offended in all offences." *to have always existed, and *to intend to come back to judge the world at the end of time. Lewis implies that these amount to a claim to be God and argues that they logically exclude the possibility that Jesus was merely "a great moral teacher", because he believes no ordinary human making such claims could possibly be rationally or morally reliable. Elsewhere, he refers to this argument as "the ''aut Deus aut malus homo''" ("either God or a bad man"), a reference to an earlier version of the argument used by
Henry Parry Liddon Henry Parry Liddon (1829–1890), also known as H. P. Liddon, was an English theologian. From 1870 to 1882, he was Dean Ireland's Professor of the Exegesis of Holy Scripture at the University of Oxford. Biography The son of a naval capta ...
in his 1866
Bampton Lectures The Bampton Lectures at the University of Oxford, England, were founded by a bequest of John Bampton. They have taken place since 1780. They were a series of annual lectures; since the turn of the 20th century they have typically been biennial ...
, in which Liddon argued for the divinity of Jesus based on a number of grounds, including the claims he believed Jesus made.


In Narnia

A version of this argument appears in Lewis' book ''
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe ''The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe'' is a fantasy novel for children by C. S. Lewis, published by Geoffrey Bles in 1950. It is the first published and best known of seven novels in ''The Chronicles of Narnia'' (1950–1956). Among all the ...
''. When Lucy and Edmund return from Narnia (her second visit and his first), Edmund tells Peter and Susan that he was playing along with Lucy and pretending they went to Narnia. Peter and Susan believe Edmund and are worried that Lucy might be mentally ill, so they seek out the Professor whose house they are living in. After listening to them explain the situation and asking them some questions, he responds:


Influence


Christian

The trilemma has continued to be used in
Christian apologetics Christian apologetics ( grc, ἀπολογία, "verbal defense, speech in defense") is a branch of Christian theology that defends Christianity. Christian apologetics has taken many forms over the centuries, starting with Paul the Apostle in ...
since Lewis, notably by writers like
Josh McDowell Joslin "Josh" McDowell (born August 17, 1939) is an evangelical Christian apologist and evangelist. He is the author or co-author of over 150 books. In 2006, his book ''Evidence That Demands a Verdict'' was ranked 13th in '' Christianity Tod ...
.
Peter Kreeft Peter John Kreeft (; born March 16, 1937) is a professor of philosophy at Boston College and The King's College. A convert to Roman Catholicism, he is the author of over eighty books on Christian philosophy, theology and apologetics. He also f ...
describes the trilemma as "the most important argument in Christian apologetics" and it forms a major part of the first talk in the Alpha Course and the book based on it, ''Questions of Life'' by
Nicky Gumbel Nicholas Glyn Paul Gumbel (born 1955), known as Nicky Gumbel, is an English Anglican priest and author in the evangelical and charismatic traditions. He is known as the developer of the Alpha Course, a basic introduction to Christianity supp ...
.
Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan ( ; February 6, 1911June 5, 2004) was an American politician, actor, and union leader who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He also served as the 33rd governor of California from 1967 ...
also used this argument in 1978, in a written reply to a liberal Methodist minister who said that he did not believe Jesus was the son of God. A variant has also been quoted by
Bono Paul David Hewson (born 10 May 1960), known by his stage name Bono (), is an Irish singer-songwriter, activist, and philanthropist. He is the lead vocalist and primary lyricist of the rock band U2. Born and raised in Dublin, he attended M ...
. The Lewis version was cited by
Charles Colson Charles Wendell Colson (October 16, 1931 – April 21, 2012), generally referred to as Chuck Colson, was an American attorney and political advisor who served as Special Counsel to President Richard Nixon from 1969 to 1970. Once known as Pr ...
as the basis of his conversion to Christianity. Stephen Davis, a supporter of Lewis and of this argument, argues that it can show belief in the Incarnation as rational.
Bruce M. Metzger Bruce Manning Metzger (February 9, 1914 – February 13, 2007) was an American biblical scholar, Bible translator and textual critic who was a longtime professor at Princeton Theological Seminary and Bible editor who served on the board of the A ...
argued that "It has often been pointed out that Jesus' claim to be the only Son of God is either true or false. If it is false, he either knew the claim was false or he did not know that it was false. In the former case (2) he was a liar; in the latter case (3) he was a lunatic. No other conclusion beside these three is possible." It has also been put forward by Catholic apologist
Robert Barron Robert Emmet Barron (born November 19, 1959) is an American people, American prelate of the Catholic Church who has served as bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Winona-Rochester, Diocese of Winona-Rochester since 2022. He is the founder ...
.


Non-Christian

The atheist writer
Christopher Hitchens Christopher Eric Hitchens (13 April 1949 – 15 December 2011) was a British-American author and journalist who wrote or edited over 30 books (including five essay collections) on culture, politics, and literature. Born and educated in England, ...
accepts Lewis's analysis of the options but reaches the opposite conclusion: that Jesus was not good. He writes, "I am bound to say that Lewis is more honest here. Absent a direct line to the Almighty and a conviction that the last days are upon us, how is it 'moral' ... to claim a monopoly on access to heaven, or to threaten waverers with everlasting fire, let alone to condemn fig trees and persuade devils to infest the bodies of pigs? Such a person if not divine would be a sorcerer and a fanatic."


Criticisms

Writing of the argument's "almost total absence from discussions about the status of Jesus by professional theologians and biblical scholars", Stephen T. Davis comments that it "is often severely criticized, both by people who do and by people who do not believe in the divinity of Jesus".


Jesus' claims to divinity

A frequent criticism is that Lewis's trilemma depends on the veracity of the scriptural accounts of Jesus's statements and miracles. The trilemma rests on the interpretation of New Testament authors' depiction of Jesus: a widespread objection is that the statements by Jesus recorded in the Gospels are being misinterpreted, and do not constitute claims to divinity.Davis (2006), page 150. According to
Bart Ehrman Bart Denton Ehrman (born 1955) is an American New Testament scholar focusing on textual criticism of the New Testament, the historical Jesus, and the origins and development of early Christianity. He has written and edited 30 books, including t ...
, it is historically inaccurate that Jesus called himself God, so Lewis's premise of accepting that very claim is problematic. Ehrman stated that it is a mere legend that the historical Jesus has called himself God; that was unknown to Lewis since he never was a professional Bible scholar. In ''
Honest to God ''Honest to God'' is a book written by the Anglican Bishop of Woolwich John A.T. Robinson, criticising traditional Christian theology. It aroused a storm of controversy on its original publication by SCM Press in 1963. Robinson's own evaluati ...
'',
John A. T. Robinson John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Second ...
, then
Bishop of Woolwich The Bishop of Woolwich is an episcopal title used by an area bishop of the Church of England Diocese of Southwark, in the Province of Canterbury, England. The title takes its name after Woolwich, a suburb of the Royal Borough of Greenwich. Two o ...
, criticizes Lewis's approach, questioning the idea that Jesus intended to claim divinity: "It is, indeed, an open question whether Jesus claimed to be Son of God, let alone God".
John Hick John Harwood Hick (20 January 1922 – 9 February 2012) was a philosopher of religion and theologian born in England who taught in the United States for the larger part of his career. In philosophical theology, he made contributions in the are ...
, writing in 1993, argued that this "once popular form of apologetic" was ruled out by changes in New Testament studies, citing "broad agreement" that scholars do not today support the view that Jesus claimed to be God, quoting as examples
Michael Ramsey Arthur Michael Ramsey, Baron Ramsey of Canterbury, (14 November 1904 – 23 April 1988) was an English Anglican bishop and life peer. He served as the 100th Archbishop of Canterbury. He was appointed on 31 May 1961 and held the office until 1 ...
(1980),
C. F. D. Moule Charles Francis Digby "Charlie" Moule (; 3 December 1908 – 30 September 2007), known professionally as C. F. D. Moule, was an English Anglican priest and theologian. He was a leading scholar of the New Testament and was Lady Marg ...
(1977), James Dunn (1980), Brian Hebblethwaite (1985) and David Brown (1985).Hick, John, ''The Metaphor of God Incarnate''
page 27
"A further point of broad agreement among New Testament scholars ... is that the historical Jesus did not make the claim to deity that later Christian thought was to make for him: he did not understand himself to be God, or God the Son, incarnate. ... such evidence as there is has led the historians of the period to conclude, with an impressive degree of unanimity, that Jesus did not claim to be God incarnate."
Larry Hurtado Larry Weir Hurtado, (December 29, 1943 – November 25, 2019), was an American New Testament scholar, historian of early Christianity, and Emeritus Professor of New Testament Language, Literature, and Theology at the University of Edinburgh ( ...
, who argues that the followers of Jesus within a very short period developed an exceedingly high level of devotional reverence to Jesus, at the same time says that there is no evidence that Jesus himself demanded or received such cultic reverence. According to
Gerd Lüdemann Gerd Lüdemann (July 5, 1946–May 23, 2021) was a German biblical scholar and historian. He taught first Jewish Christianity and Gnosticism at McMaster University, Canada (1977–1979) and then New Testament at Vanderbilt Divinity School, U.S. ...
, the broad consensus among modern New Testament scholars is that the proclamation of the divinity of Jesus was a development within the earliest Christian communities.
Gerd Lüdemann Gerd Lüdemann (July 5, 1946–May 23, 2021) was a German biblical scholar and historian. He taught first Jewish Christianity and Gnosticism at McMaster University, Canada (1977–1979) and then New Testament at Vanderbilt Divinity School, U.S. ...
,
An Embarrassing Misrepresentation
, ''
Free Inquiry ''Free Inquiry'' is a bimonthly journal of secular humanist opinion and commentary published by the Council for Secular Humanism, a program of the Center for Inquiry. Philosopher Paul Kurtz was the editor-in-chief from its inception in 1980 until ...
'', October / November 2007. "the broad consensus of modern New Testament scholars that the proclamation of Jesus's exalted nature was in large measure the creation of the earliest Christian communities."


Unsound logical form

Another criticism raised is that Lewis is creating a false trilemma by insisting that only three options are possible. Craig Evans writes that the "liar, lunatic, Lord" trilemma "makes for good alliteration, maybe even good rhetoric, but it is faulty logic." He proceeds to list several other alternatives: Jesus was Israel's messiah, simply a great prophet, or we do not really know who or what he was because the New Testament sources portray him inaccurately. Philosopher and theologian
William Lane Craig William Lane Craig (born August 23, 1949) is an American analytic philosopher, Christian apologist, author and Wesleyan theologian who upholds the view of Molinism and neo-Apollinarianism. He is Professor of Philosophy at Houston Baptist Univ ...
also believes that the trilemma is an unsound argument for Christianity. Craig gives several other logically possible alternatives: Jesus's claims as to his divinity to have been merely good-faith mistakes resulting from his sincere efforts at reasoning, Jesus was deluded with respect to the specific issue of his own divinity while his faculties of moral reasoning remained intact, or Jesus did not understand the claims he made about himself as amounting to a claim to divinity. Philosopher John Beversluis comments that Lewis "deprives his readers of numerous alternate interpretations of Jesus that carry with them no such odious implications".
Peter Kreeft Peter John Kreeft (; born March 16, 1937) is a professor of philosophy at Boston College and The King's College. A convert to Roman Catholicism, he is the author of over eighty books on Christian philosophy, theology and apologetics. He also f ...
and Ronald Tacelli, SJ, both professors of philosophy at
Boston College Boston College (BC) is a private Jesuit research university in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. Founded in 1863, the university has more than 9,300 full-time undergraduates and nearly 5,000 graduate students. Although Boston College is classifie ...
, have also expanded the argument into a
tetralemma The tetralemma is a figure that features prominently in the logic of India. Definition It states that with reference to any a logical proposition X, there are four possibilities: : X (affirmation) : \neg X (negation) : X \land\neg X (both) : \n ...
("Lord, Liar, Lunatic or Legend") — or a pentalemma, accommodating the option that Jesus was a
guru Guru ( sa, गुरु, IAST: ''guru;'' Pali'': garu'') is a Sanskrit term for a "mentor, guide, expert, or master" of certain knowledge or field. In pan-Indian traditions, a guru is more than a teacher: traditionally, the guru is a reverentia ...
, who believed himself to be God in the sense that everything is divine.Kreeft, Peter and Tacelli, Ronald, ''Handbook of Christian Apologetics'', (Madison, 1994), 161–174.


See also

* Christological argument *
Christology In Christianity, Christology (from the Ancient Greek, Greek grc, Χριστός, Khristós, label=none and grc, wiktionary:-λογία, -λογία, wiktionary:-logia, -logia, label=none), translated literally from Greek as "the study of Chr ...
* False trilemma *
Mental health of Jesus The question of whether the historical Jesus was in good mental health has been explored by multiple psychologists, philosophers, historians, and writers. The first person to openly question Jesus' sanity was French psychologist Charles Binet-San ...
*
List of Jewish messiah claimants The messiah in Judaism means "anointed one" and included Jewish priests, prophets and kings such as David and Cyrus the Great. Later, especially after the failure of the Hasmonean Kingdom (37 BCE) and the Jewish–Roman wars (66–135 CE), the ...
*
Rejection of Jesus There are a number of episodes in the New Testament in which Jesus was rejected. Jesus is rejected in Judaism as a failed Jewish messiah claimant and a false prophet by all Jewish denominations. New Testament Hometown rejection In the sixth ...


References

{{C. S. Lewis, state=collapsed C. S. Lewis Christian apologetics Religious perspectives on Jesus