I see your trilemma, and raise you a tetralemma!

Last updated on: November 28, 2012 at 4:57 pm by Leah Libresco

I see your trilemma, and raise you a tetralemma! 2012-11-28T16:57:07-05:00 Leah Libresco

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Over at Cross Examined, Bob Seidensticker has an objection to C.S. Lewis’s Trilemma, and John E_o raised the same question over here. Bob says, why stay stuck in Lewis’s framework that Jesus Christ must be either a lunatic, a liar, or the Lord of all Creation? Can’t we just pick ‘legend?’

We have no problem with wisdom taken from the Koran or the story of Gilgamesh or the Upanishads or any other book of religion or mythology despite its being wrong about the supernatural stuff. Assuming that the Bible’s supernatural claims are false, why must that invalidate its wisdom, too?

Lewis’s Trilemma is a very narrowly targeted apologetic argument, and it’s often truncated when quoted, so it’s easy to make Bob’s mistake. Lewis is framing his argument for an interlocutor that concedes that Jesus existed, said the things in the Gospels, but thinks that Jesus is basically a Martin Luther King Jr figure. He taught a lot of wonderful things, but he wasn’t God, so why not just ignore all the theological bits?

And that would work for a fictional character. A work might be thought-provoking and instructive, but you still wouldn’t want its protagonist to walk out of the pages and demand your fealty. You take up the teachings as you judge them appropriate, but the character has no authority over you.

But the “Jesus was an amazing, real person, and a great moral teacher” crowd doesn’t have a very coherent place to stand. Claiming to be God and to have the power to personally forgive sins on behalf of others is more than just a charming eccentricity like handing out lemon drops at odd moments. If you would defer to this person’s moral judgement (and isn’t that what we’re saying, when we say we want to put on Christ or pattern our lives after his), then you must trust them.

Now, since I raised the MLK parallel, I’d like to use it to head off one other objection. Martin Luther King Jr was a prophetic voice in the civil rights movement. And he cheated on his wife. When we say King is a great moral luminary, we’re not obligated to endorse every action he took or say we want to imitate every aspect of his character. Why can’t we similarly quarantine Christ’s claims to divinity?

Well, if you asked King about his infidelity, he would probably tell you not to follow him in that. He would own it as a weakness and he certainly wouldn’t argue it was part of a seamless garment with his activism. But Christ does claim that all of his teaching flows from his Sonship. So then, you’re basically trying to follow a teacher who looks a lot like a Chinese room; he keeps outputting true statements even though he contradicts them and can’t explain where his insight comes from. At that point, you ought to be less interested in this strange epistemological wind-up toy and start getting interested in how it was programmed.

Finally, if you make the case that you believe everything that Jesus said about ethics, but you think everything related to metaethics and theology was an interpolation, you might be getting closer to the legend out that Bob proposes, but I hope you’re awfully adept in Biblical scholarship to be able to sift the text so finely. If you just have a strong intuition that No one so wise would claim something so foolish! Lewis has you dead to rights.

Apologetics

CS Lewis

freedom means choosing a master

Previous Post

November 28, 2012

The theologians Chris Hallquist doesn't believe in

Next Post

November 29, 2012 Hey, Hallquist, want to give me a one-sentence long early Christmas present?

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category 7 Quick Takes Apologetics Atheism Book Conversion Debate Tactics Debates Epistemology/Philosophy Housekeeping Ideological Turing Test Marriage Morality in Practice Parsing Catholicism Possibly Heretical Radio Reviews/Recommendations Sequence Index Spiritual Practice Uncategorized

Select a Month April 2017 March 2017 January 2017 December 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Which Christian group is known for practicing strict nonviolence?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Presbyterians Methodists Lutherans Mennonites