Refuting CS Lewis' Weak "Lunatic, Liar, or Lord" Argument

[viole]

CS Lewis' most famous argument for the divinity of Jesus is trivially easy to refute. The argument goes like this, quoted directly from Mere Christianity:
"I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That is 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 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.
We are faced, then, with a frightening alternative. This man we are talking about either was (and is) just what He said or else a lunatic, or something worse. 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. God has landed on this enemy-occupied world in human form."

Now, of course this argument is intellectually bankrupt. There is no reason why being a great moral teacher and being a lunatic should be mutually exclusive. For instance, Pythagoras was a phenomenal mathematician who revolutionized our view of geometry, yet he was also more than a bit loony, and started his own religion that was primarily based upon his hatred of eating beans. Nikola Tesla was a revolutionary scientist, electrician, inventor, and all-around genius who even predicted future events correctly. Yet he was also irrational in many ways, fearing quantities of anything not divisible by three, and believing that he communicated with Martians. There are many other great scientists, philosophers, geniuses and moral teachers who were mentally ill. I cannot understand why Lewis would think that a mentally ill man could not have good ideas, and I cannot understand how this so obviously illogical argument is still used today as an argument that Jesus must be God.

Well, he "forgot" a possible fourth alternative concerning the claims surrounding Jesus. The most likely: Made Up. Or, more generally, "quite exaggerated".

I mean, these things happen every day. Someone with some charisma and people ready to swear on the wonders he can make. And I am talking of 21st Century western civilization.

So, if we fast backward 2000 years in the middle east...I mean...why not someone walking on water or magically resurrecting? Tedious...very tedious

Ciao

- viole

 

[Samantha Rinne]

Not true at all, and this opens up another can of worms. Jesus didn't write the gospels; other people did. Could very well be that the people who wrote the gospels added in his claims to divinity afterwards. But, another question I would have is, just what do you mean by the gospel being "void?" Void of what?

When you write a check, then cancel it, the check as a contract is said to be "void." It no longer has value.

That Jesus was divine was not the point here. Lunatic, word can't be trusted. Liar, word can't be trusted.

Barring those options, his word can be trusted (or as Lewis says, he is then Lord)

If you want to refute something, it should be consistent with what the original guy meant. Or it's a strawman.

You don't know what Jesus did or didn't do.
I have come to the conclusion that Jesus' main gig was anti-Roman activist. But the Apostles were hardly likely to tell Paul about that, given Paul's history. So Paul invented a new religion based on a carefully edited legend of The Christ. That better matches the facts, such as there are any.

Fair enough. For the record, Paul appears to contradict the gospels in a few places too. But this is Paul, not Jesus. When I read the NT, I often skip the Letters entirely, cuz I can't say I care much for Paul.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

CS Lewis' most famous argument for the divinity of Jesus is trivially easy to refute. The argument goes like this, quoted directly from Mere Christianity:
"I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That is 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 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.
We are faced, then, with a frightening alternative. This man we are talking about either was (and is) just what He said or else a lunatic, or something worse. 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. God has landed on this enemy-occupied world in human form."

Now, of course this argument is intellectually bankrupt. There is no reason why being a great moral teacher and being a lunatic should be mutually exclusive. For instance, Pythagoras was a phenomenal mathematician who revolutionized our view of geometry, yet he was also more than a bit loony, and started his own religion that was primarily based upon his hatred of eating beans. Nikola Tesla was a revolutionary scientist, electrician, inventor, and all-around genius who even predicted future events correctly. Yet he was also irrational in many ways, fearing quantities of anything not divisible by three, and believing that he communicated with Martians. There are many other great scientists, philosophers, geniuses and moral teachers who were mentally ill. I cannot understand why Lewis would think that a mentally ill man could not have good ideas, and I cannot understand how this so obviously illogical argument is still used today as an argument that Jesus must be God.

The argument is also completely irrelevant to anyone who doesn't accept that Jesus as described in the Bible was a great moral teacher (e.g. me).

 

[atanu]

That's not really true.
I have compelling evidence, AKA proof, ...

Well.

 

[atanu]

The argument is also completely irrelevant to anyone who doesn't accept that Jesus as described in the Bible was a great moral teacher (e.g. me).

Yes. At the same time, the argument is valid for a monotheist Christian.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

So, to elaborate on what I said:

1. If Jesus is a liar, his words cannot be trusted, thus the Gospel is void.
2. If Jesus is a lunatic (not just a "little crazy", we would be looking for serious logical contradictions) his words cannot be trusted, thus the Gospel is void.
3. If Jesus cannot be proven as either, he is still Lord.

This is not a weak argument. In order to actually invalidate it, you would need to show either where Jesus led people in a direction that was not right, where he was seriously crazy (not just slightly depressed, which he probably was), or you haven't any real case.

It's actually an awful argument, but it isn't the one Lewis is making.

Pay attention to the part at the beginning of what Lewis says: his argument is for people who accept that Jesus was a great moral teacher but don't accept him as God. He's saying that Jesus's preaching on moral issues is actually bad advice unless his preaching on God is also correct... and I'm inclined to agree with Lewis on this point.

I don't think Jesus was God. Lewis argues that this position is incompatible with believing that Jesus was a great moral teacher... which is fine, because I find Jesus's morality often very questionable.

 

[columbus]

Well.

That's a deep subject.
Tom

 

[Subduction Zone]

Yes. At the same time, the argument is valid for a monotheist Christian.

That is called confirmation bias. It is not a rational way to argue. It only convinces those that want to believe and is not based upon reality.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Yes. At the same time, the argument is valid for a monotheist Christian.

You mean a Christian who doesn't accept that Jesus is God?

I'm not sure that matters. Different Christians take his claims to mean different things. I think Lewis's argument is that you have to accept or reject what Jesus says as a package; it isn't really about how to interpret those claims once you've decided to accept them.

 

[Rational Agnostic]

When you write a check, then cancel it, the check as a contract is said to be "void." It no longer has value.

That Jesus was divine was not the point here. Lunatic, word can't be trusted. Liar, word can't be trusted.

Barring those options, his word can be trusted (or as Lewis says, he is then Lord)

Again, you're not getting it. Jesus could've been loony and think he was God, yet be right about almost everything else, just like Nikola Tesla was loony when he thought he needed to cleanse himself from germs in his magic electricity bath, but was also correct about most other scientific matters.

 

[Rational Agnostic]

The argument is also completely irrelevant to anyone who doesn't accept that Jesus as described in the Bible was a great moral teacher (e.g. me).

I agree, and there certainly were better moral teachers.

 

[Rational Agnostic]

Yes. At the same time, the argument is valid for a monotheist Christian.

It shouldn't be. A monotheist Christian should recognize the flaw in the argument. You don't have to give up your personal belief that Jesus is God in order to recognize that the argument is logically invalid.

 

[GoodbyeDave]

CS Lewis' most famous argument … goes like this:
"A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. … Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse.

The problem with this is that Jesus never claimed to be more than the messiah. Apart from that, there is nothing that Jesus said that could not have been said by any Jew of his time.

Nor did his followers believe him to be divine. The only gospel that is authenic, that of Mark, say nothing about his being the son of god. Paul said he was physically descended from David, which means phsyically decended from Joseph. Clement of Rome writing in the 90s called Jesus the "mirror of god", not the son of god. Josephus, writing at the same time, said that the Christians believed Jesus to be the messiah. The is no evidence of anyone thinking of him as divine written within 100 years of his death.

And has been pointed out, many of us would not accept him as a great moral teacher anyway.

 

[David T]

Yes, that's also true. And given the fact that the gospels were written decades or more after Jesus' life, there is no reason to believe the authors recalled his exact words correctly. Heck, I can't even remember what someone said to be last week.

Your memory

Your paradigm and Lewis' paradigms are different. That is all. I do not think that Lewis' argument is intellectually bankrupt.

Framework is the more proper word and agreed btw he is working from a different framework. Although I detest proper'"....

Do I agree with Lewis? Yes the question is totally valid. I disregard his conclusion its irrelevant it's simply his opinion. it takes the focus of the question and then he interjects himself. I could care less about Lewis. Yet the responses, are they related to the question or to Lewis? They actually seem to be more related to themselves and to Lewis.


simply because Lewis

 

[Ponder This]

And he's a hack writer

I share your opinion: C.S. Lewis was a hack: one book a year for seven years? Not a problem for him even if the stories were not all that great, IMO.

Not a big fantasy fan but Tolkien's better.

I like fantasy (and sci-fi sometimes). I agree that Tolkien was better. Unfortunately, Tolkien wasn't as good at being a hack writer as C.S. Lewis was. Tolkien had difficulty meeting the publishing deadlines for The Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Silmarillion because he had so much substance it was pain-staking difficult to organize it into coherent plot (which had the unfortunate side-effect of making The Silmarillion close to unreadable). But at least Tolkien wasn't a hack like C.S. Lewis.

As for the argument from C.S. Lewis about Jesus, I think the OP is more or less correct and perhaps it's the unfortunate side-effect of being a hack writer that makes C.S. Lewis' argument not particularly well-thought out in our eyes. Maybe the argument had appeal among readers at the time that he wrote it?​

 

[atanu]

It shouldn't be. A monotheist Christian should recognize the flaw in the argument. You don't have to give up your personal belief that Jesus is God in order to recognize that the argument is logically invalid.

I do not see how. And I do not agree about ‘intellectual bankruptcy’.

 

[Kelly of the Phoenix]

If Jesus cannot be proven as either, he is still Lord.

Why is it so hard to realize that Jesus wasn't involved in the storytelling and it could be the authors who are mistaken or lying? And, frankly, Jesus is less than accurate about many things. He calls Satan the Father of Lies but nowhere Satan is present in a story does he ever lie. Jesus is lying about Satan. He claims "Jews" killed the prophets, but they didn't. A couple might have been, but Jesus acts like Jews did it all the time.

you would need to show either where Jesus led people in a direction that was not right

Telling people to stop doing stuff because the END is coming next week or something is blatantly irresponsible.

Jesus was a wise

A lot of his parables fall apart when you think about them long enough.

and kind man

He called one woman a dog just for asking for help. "Broods of vipers", "fools", "whitewashed tombs" ... those aren't buddy terms.

But he could be counted on more or less to perform healings and to teach the people.

More people seemed to be interested in free healthcare than talk about God, and Jesus actively tried to avoid crowds because they kept bothering him for cures.

"For God so loved the world He sent His only son, who quickly tried to put everyone on Ignore."

Matthew shows repeatedly in his gospel that Jesus was acting in line with the prophecy of how Messiah was supposed to act.

Jesus had read those prophecies, though. It'd be more impressive if he fulfilled any while being ignorant of them. Otherwise, you just have a guy with a prophecy checklist trying to add points.

Chased people around with sharp implements

Whips?

Claimed his religion was one of peace, then robbed from and murdered people (oh wait, that's Muhammad).

Encouraged people to bring swords. Boasted of tearing families apart. Wished for the deaths of billions.