Author’s Note: This post refers to content in April Fool? and April Fools Part II.
Would you say that Jose Luis de Jesus is a good man? A highly respectable teacher? An inspiration to us all?
Unless you are one of his followers, you would probably say that he is a megalomaniac�??deluded to an extent that verges on insanity�??or worse: a con-artist, an exploiter, a deceiver.
We forget that people said the same things about Jesus of Nazareth.
It is interesting that most people who are not Christians, i.e. people who do not believe that Jesus was God in human flesh, nevertheless feel that Jesus was a good man: a great teacher, an inspirational leader, a shining example of the potency of the human spirit. But is that really a valid interpretation? As was argued some years ago by C. S. Lewis (and perhaps earlier, and certainly many times since), a person who claims to be God (in the monotheistic sense) cannot be merely a good human being. Either he/she is in fact God, and is worthy of our worship; or he/she is not. But a human being who is not God and puts himself/herself in the place of God, claiming all the power and authority of God and demanding all the respect and obedience worthy of God�??is there anything more absurd, or disturbing? Let me remind you of a few statements made in the ABC and FOX news reports:
“Any group whose leader says, ‘I am God’ … is very dangerous for our society.”
“He is no good for families. He destroys many families.”
“Many of his followers give him everything they own.”
Jesus of Nazareth was not some polite man who suggested ways for people to be nicer to each other. One doesn’t get killed for that. He claimed moral perfection and absolute power, and demanded complete loyalty from his followers, to the point of giving up their possessions, their families, and if necessary, even their lives. 2,000 years of cultural reverence have made it difficult for Westerners to appreciate the seriousness of Jesus’s claims. Jesus claimed to be God. If we do not worship him as Lord of the Universe, we must despise him like we do David Koresh and Jose Luis de Jesus â€??? as a liar or a lunatic. There really is no other choice. Sometimes, it takes a person like Jose Luis de Jesus to make us realize that.
My response to a person who thinks of Jesus as merely a good man would be this: Find yourself a copy of the New Testament and read any one of the four gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John). Note that Jesus made the same outrageous claim as Jose Luis de Jesus â€??? that he was God. Then ask yourself, were his words and deeds more consistent with a despicable hoax, or … perfect power, truth, and love?
Ryan,
First off: Welcome to Band of Brothers. Perhaps we should call you “Night Writer” as you published this post sometime between when I went to bed and this morning. Thanks for burning the “midnight oil”.
Secondly, I appreciate how your post draws upon the visceral response that comes from watching the Jose Luis de Jesus videos. I was first introduced to the Lord, Liar, or Lunatic argument many years ago, and upon recollection, I can think of persons who have claimed to be God (e.g. David Koresh). However, in the case of de Jesus, the immediacy of the FOX News and Today show pieces brings this example into a much more surreal context for me.
Ryan,
Thanks for the post. Just as Michael said:”the case of de Jesus, the immediacy of the FOX News and Today show pieces brings this example into a much more surreal context for me.” This is what must be done to accept Christ.
It is not a natural thing to become contemporary with Jesus so that one can place themselves in the context which Jesus walked the earth and said what he said. It is only then one can truely answer the question: “Who do you say that I am?”
But there is even a further difficulty concerning the ability to become contemporanious with Christ in that people no longer even believe in the importance of using logic to work out what the implications of such a claim might be. In my opinion this idea of “Lord,Liar, or Lunatic” is most vital for those who claim to be Christian; that they may give it consideration.
Jim Perry offers a critique of the LLL argument here:
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/jim_perry/trilemma.html
Essentially, Perry argues that the LLL argument fails because…
1. It’s not clear that Jesus did claim to be Lord
(some people don’t think that scripture suports this reading, and even if it does, maybe scripture isn’t 100% accurate on this point)
2. Lord, raving lunatic, and malicious liar aren’t the only options. (Jesus could have been telling what he saw as a “noble lie;” he could have been speaking in metaphor that the disciples characteristically misinterpreted; he could have been mistaken about being the Messiah without being the sort of crackpot who is liable to believe that he’s a poached egg).
Note that, so long as Perry is right about either 1 or 2 (he need’t be right about both, and he also needn’t be right about ALL of the reasons he gives for either 1 or 2), the LLL argument fails.
Of course, even if the argument fails, Jesus is Lord.
The fact of the matter is this: that those who were contemporary with Jesus were forced to have an opinion about Him. And that the LLL question is what every individual who wants to know who Jesus was/is is confronted with. Perry has the luxury of 2000 years of seperation to multiply innumerable speculations concerning this man. But a contemporary does not have that luxury, he must have an opinion. And anyone who hates God will be certain that he never comes face to face with: “Who do you say that I am?” And because of the blabbering nonsense of people like Perry, many unstable Christians will suppose that they too can avoid this “trilemma” and still be Christian. And if any person approach the “Who do you say that I am?” and not respond with “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God”, then they have yet to become Christian.
Maybe, but their options weren’t just “LLL.” One of their options was “good teacher who is speaking in metaphor.”
No, “LLL OR SOMETHING ELSE?” is the question that every such individual has to consider.
Perry is in the same situation that we’re all in.
What do you mean (and why is this relevant)?
Why is what he says “blabbering nonsense”? (How do you respond to his arguments)?
Also, one can be a stable Christian and think that the trilemma is avoidable because there are other options available (e.g., the Bible falsely reports that Jesus claimed to be God); a Christian just can’t think that those other available options are correct any more than she can think that the liar or lunatic options are correct.
Agreed
Regarding Perry’s two critiques against LLL:
1. “It’s not clear that Jesus did claim to be Lord.” It’s as clear as anything we think we know about any historical figure. The evidence is overwhelming that scripture is a reliable record of Jesus’s teachings and actions; and from those it is very clear that Jesus claimed to be both divine (by which I mean at least uniquely superhuman) and Lord (authority over nature and of all beings both physical and spiritual). But even if you don’t accept the reliability of scripture, there are extra-biblical histories (e.g. Josephus) indicating that Jesus claimed divinity.
2.a “Jesus could have been telling what he saw as a ‘noble lie’ .” The noble lie is a fantasy. Jesus could not have been noble any more than Jose Luis de Jesus was noble, which is the point I was making in my blog entry. If you are claiming to be God and are not God, then you are not good.
2.b “he could have been speaking in metaphor that the disciples characteristically misinterpreted.” Of course it is always possible to discount what someone says by insisting that they really meant something else. But that strikes me as a perverse way of arguing. Unless there is good evidence to suggest that a teaching is metaphorical (e.g. it is manifestly illogical or unreal, or begins with a phrase like “topic X is like Y”), you must take the teaching at its logical meaning. And it is logically clear from Jesus’s teachings and statements about himself (see below) that he was claiming to be Divine Lord.
2.c “He could have been mistaken about being the Messiah without being the sort of crackpot who is liable to believe that he’s a poached egg.” If Jesus were claiming to be “divine” in an eastern sense, along the lines that there is something ineffable and eternal in each of us, that would be one thing. But he claimed that he was omnipotent (”all authority on heaven and on earth has been given to me”), that he was the ultimate moral judge (at the end of time he would choose who went to heaven and hell), that he was without any fault whatsoever … and numerous other claims, all of which are far beyond rationality for any mere human being. To claim those things one would have to be more than simply mistaken; one would have to be completely out of touch with reality.
Regarding contemporaries of Jesus:
[David] “The fact of the matter is this: that those who were contemporary with Jesus were forced to have an opinion about Him.”
[Claire] “Maybe, but their options weren’t just ‘LLL.’ One of their options was ‘good teacher who is speaking in metaphor.’ ”
It is true that for a time, the crowds were not sure what to make of Jesus: some thought he was a prophet, some thought he was the messiah, some thought he was a good teacher, some thought he was a deceiver. But at that stage the crowds did not have the full revelation of Jesus. By the time of his crucifixion, after he had said and done all he needed to say and do, people either hated him as the devil or hailed him as Lord. While public opinion is not a measure of truth, it is noteworthy that those who were forced to come to an informed opinion of him chose one extreme or the other; that is, Jesus evidently behaved in such a way that the option of “good human being” was not tenable for long.
When Lewis put forth the LLL argument, it was not as if he somehow forgot to consider that there might be alternatives. He examined the popular alternatives (namely the noble liar and doe-eyed mystic) and found them to be either logically inconsistent or inconsistent with the facts. There really are no alternatives to Lord, Liar, and Lunatic for someone who said and did what Jesus said and did.
[...] Good Discussion Finally, for our last link of interest, I am directing you back to Ryan’s Lord, Liar, or Lunatic post. If you haven’t checked out the meta (i.e. the comments) on that post lately, be sure to give it a second look as Claire’s and Ryan’s comments have added to Ryan’s excellent conversation starter. [...]
“The evidence is overwhelming that scripture is a reliable record of Jesus’s teachings and actions”
That’s not true.
From Perry:
“Exactly what Jesus claimed is not known. The gospels are the closest thing we have to an account of his claims, and there is no explicit claim of divinity by Jesus in the gospels, let alone an unambiguous theological statement of what precisely it might mean for a man to claim to be God. (Obviously the Christian church came to think that Jesus was God, though even they had trouble determining what that meant, as witnessed by centuries of “heresies” concerning this issue). Much of what is often interpreted as suggesting divinity comes from the fourth gospel, but this is considered to be of relatively late authorship (compared to the synoptics) and may reflect theological ideas developed in the early church or those of the author, and may thus be removed from the actual claims/sayings of Jesus. This is not to urge a particular interpretation of John, but to make the point that there is not a clear consensus on the historical claims of Jesus, or how his words as we have them should be interpreted in context.”
I think Perry’s point about how even the church had to argue out the issue of Jesus’ divinity shows that a reasonable, well-intentioned person could interpret Jesus’ claims as recorded in the gospel in more than one way. I for one do not take Jesus to have claimed to be divine because I think that there is no way I could be mistaken in my interpretation of the Bible. I think that that interpretation is the BEST one, but it doesn’t follow that it’s the only game in town. Also, I trust that God guided the Church through history, leading them to come to the truth about Jesus’ divinity.
Suppose that, as many believe, the Egyptian pharaoh’s claimed to be divine. Does it follow that ALL of those who so-claimed were either lunatics, gods, or liars? (Of course, all of them were liars–all men are liars–but you know what I mean: were they lying about being divine?)
Claire,
Yes. For either they were telling the truth and are gods. Or thought they were gods but actualy were not and are lunatics. Or they knew that they were not divine but claimed to be so anyway and are liars.
You also said in an earlier post: “I think Perry’s point about how even the church had to argue out the issue of Jesus’ divinity shows that a reasonable, well-intentioned person could interpret Jesus’ claims as recorded in the gospel in more than one way.”
True. And many people will go to hell. So what is your point.
“I for one do not take Jesus to have claimed to be divine because I think that there is no way I could be mistaken in my interpretation of the Bible. I think that that interpretation is the BEST one, but it doesn’t follow that it’s the only game in town.”
It is not a matter of good, better, best. There is truth and there is falsehood. But remember, it does not rest upon if Jesus made this claim that establishes His divinity. HE WAS RAISED FROM THE DEAD! That is what illuminates all of Jesus’s previous actions. Ryan made this quite clear in comment #6.
“Also, I trust that God guided the Church through history, leading them to come to the truth about Jesus’ divinity.”
NO.NO.NO.NO. What in the world are you talking about? The Truth was always there from the beginning. The Church did not “come to the truth about Jesus’ divinity.” There is no question that there were many different opinions about Jesus before His Passion. But afterwards there are believers and non-believers. It is just as my friend Jerry says about those who say that they believe in Jesus but that they do not accept that He is Lord, “David, that’s devil’s faith”. And that is most certainly what it is.
Here’s a bad argument:
“Jesus is divine, and if you don’t believe me, you’re going to hell.”
The reason that it’s a bad argument has nothing to do with whether its claims are true or false: the reason that it’s a bad argument is that it’s easy to see how a reasonable, well-intentioned person could find it unconvinving. So, my point is that LLL fails as an argument because it’s easy to see how a reasonable, well-intentioned, person could fail to accept it (because such a person reasonably fails to accept some of its premises).
I agree that claims are either true or false, but that doesn’t mean claims are either 100% plausible or 100% implausible. Some things we know with near certainty; for other things the evidence isn’t as clear. Some parts of the Bible are crystal-clear; other parts aren’t; and some interpretations of the less-clear parts are better than others. And this is true even though, for all parts of the Bible, there is a fact of the matter about which interpretations of those parts are correct and which ones are incorrect.
It would be almost question-begging for the LLL argument to assume that Jesus was raised from the dead. The LLL argument is supposed to convince people who think that Jesus wasn’t divine, just a really good person/ teacher, right? So, of course those people aren’t going to take Jesus’ being raised from the dead as a matter of faith…and they also aren’t going to believe in such a miraculous event just because the Bible says so.
Also, just because God raises a person from the dead, it doesn’t mean that that person is divine.
Suppose a person living well after Christ’s time on earth but just before the church councils had prayed the following, “God, I don’t know whether Jesus is divine or not; some of the authorities in the church say he is, and some say he isn’t. Whatever the answer is, just as I’ve told you before, I want to live as Jesus taught, I want to serve you, and I love you with all my heart and soul and mind, and I (still) want Jesus’ sacrifice to be applied to me. Please reveal the truth about Jesus–whether or not he is divine– to me and to the leaders of the church.” Would you really call such a person’s faith (as he’s praying the prayer, before God answers the part about revealing the truth about Jesus) ‘devil’s faith’? I wouldn’t. I also wouldn’t be surprised if some pre-council members of the church (and some of the members of the councils themselves) prayed prayers alond these lines.
You are right in saying that an argument fails if the premises and presuppositions that the argument is assuming are not agreed upon.
[Claire quoting Perry] “… there is no explicit claim of divinity by Jesus in the gospels, let alone an unambiguous theological statement of what precisely it might mean for a man to claim to be God. ”
For LLL to be valid, it is not necessary for the claim of divinity to be explicit or precisely defined. The claim need only be clearly inconsistent with the reality of human existence (such as claims of mastery over nature and death.) Such a claim can then only be made (if it is false) with either intentional misrepresentation (”lying”) or severe misperception of reality (”lunacy”).
[Claire] I think Perry’s point about how even the church had to argue out the issue of Jesus’ divinity shows that a reasonable, well-intentioned person could interpret Jesus’ claims as recorded in the gospel in more than one way.
Unless I am mistaken, the debate within the early church was not about whether Jesus was Lord (i.e. more than a good human), but exactly how and in what ways Jesus was Lord.
Also, lots of reasonable, well-intentioned people disagree on things that are actually perfectly clear because people are not really reasonable nor well-intentioned. Because the stakes of spiritual matters are highly personal, our interpretations are prejudiced. Intellectuals (including theologians, philosophers, historians, and scientists) are particularly well-versed at obfuscating the truth because we can’t publish papers, get tenure, or congratulate ourselves on being smart for saying, “yep, the obvious interpretation is pretty much correct.”
[Ryan] The evidence is overwhelming that scripture is a reliable record of Jesus’s teachings and actions.
[Claire] That’s not true.
Claire, you didn’t really give any support for that assertion, although I know you could (a ton exists). The historical accuracy of the gospels is another thread entirely, but I will say this here: by all commonly accepted historical criteria (prevalence and agreement of source material, internal consistency, external confirmation, proximity in time and space of sources to events, etc.) the gospels are better attested to than any historical (say, pre-Renaissance) document; and furthermore, the only reason the Bible seems (to some people) to have more historical weaknesses than some other documents is because it has been subjected to far more critical evaluation (much of it biased) than any other document ever written. The Bible has been the easy target; it’s popular, prevalent, and specific enough to admit criticism.
In conclusion: Objections from “reasonable, well-intentioned” people notwithstanding, I maintain that the scriptures are entirely reliable for inferring the nature of Jesus’s claims about himself, and that it is clear to anyone without a predisposition to the contrary that he was claiming to be far more than a good human being. There are many aspects of Christianity that I think are uncertain enough to warrant real debate; but Jesus’s claim to divinity is not one of them.
[At this point the argument has degenerated to, "Yes it is." "No it isn't." "Is so! "Is not!" "Wanna bet?" ]
P.S. — Of course the pharaohs were lying. Oh, I suppose a few of them might have been deluded enough to believe they were divine. They were so inbred and their lives were so insular they were bound to get a little confused!
Thank you for your comment Ryan. You have a far better ability to respond to an argument than I. The Lord has surely blessed you for His sake.