Bernie Dehler
Vancouver Science/Religion Discussion Group 5-23-10
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Keep in mind, other religions may ask a similar question
Could a Muslim say this?
“Who was Muhammad: liar, lunatic, or prophet of God?
”
Or a Mormon:
“Who was Joseph Smith: liar, lunatic, or prophet of God?”
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In his (C. S. Lewis’) own words
(1 of 2)
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.
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In his (C. S. Lewis’) own words
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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.
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The “Other” ‘L’ Option: Legend
There is another option, “Legend.” This means he might (or might not) have lived, but the reports of him in the Bible are way overblown. Examples of hint of myth in the Bible: dead people came back to life when Christ died; Jesus visibly ascended into heaven up in the sky (they thought heaven was “up there,” as do Muslims who think that Jesus ascended into heaven), if a Christian drinks poison they won’t get hurt.
My view is that Jesus is a Legend, whether he once lived as a real man or not.
Likely he was one of many false messiahs who was executed as a political threat to the Roman rulers. (The
Jews did revolt slightly later in 70 AD and they were thoroughly crushed by the Romans and
Jerusalem was destroyed. The atmosphere must have been thick with a building momentum for
Jewish revolt during the time of Jesus.)
Problem:
How do we explain the domination of Christianity if the gospel message is not true? Could it be a work of God? How else could you explain the dominance of Christianity from such humble beginnings?
Answer:
I think Christianity is a marvelous showing of religious meme evolution. Monotheistic, as an improvement over polytheism. Love and forgiveness are superior morals to selfishness and greed
(although Christian history seems to have had to learn this through history rather than Christ, witness the Crusades, anti-Popes, selling of indulgences, etc.).
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Are these the only three choices?
The three categories are all extremist. Either Jesus was lying (making him a sort of Devil, and who would call Jesus a Devil?), or he was crazy (how could he be crazy when he was so loving and taught so many profound things?), or he was really God. Maybe Jesus was a false messiah (delusional, like many other false messiahs of his day). On top of that, maybe the gospel and biblical accounts of him are all overblown stories, making Jesus into a legend, and making it impossible to know what the real man was like. Also, Jesus may have lied about being God, but we don’t have to go extremist in painting him as “the Devil of hell” as C. S. Lewis claims.
If Jesus were not God, then claiming to be God wouldn’t really make him “the
Devil of Hell.” If he wasn’t God, then his claim wouldn’t be undermining the gospel; since the gospel is based on Jesus being God, which wouldn’t have been true if Jesus was not God. Also, for a theist, it is reasonable to think that a demon may come to lead some astray; but another motive could be greed or ego. There’s more than one motive for one to lie and yet not be crazy.
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Are these the only three choices?
Which of the three or four is Jesus? It isn’t obvious there’s a clear answer.
The logical structure of the argument doesn’t demand a logical conclusion.
It’s not like saying the following:
“I have three items that are either red, blue, or green. It’s not red or blue, so can you tell me what color it is?”
It is more like:
“I have three items that are either red, blue, or green. It’s not red or blue, so can you tell me what color it is? (And the item actually has some red, blue, mostly green, and some yellow on it).”
The actual choices aren’t three, but a continuum.
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Are these the only three choices?
Jesus could have been a liar, crazy, and a good teacher. Many of his teachings had nothing to do with his claims of divinity (such as “love your enemy”). Even liars and crazy people can tell the truth. Hitler could proclaim “2+2=4” and be perfectly correct. How many Christians would disagree with Hitler when he said the following?
"The National Government will regard it as its first and foremost duty to revive in the nation the spirit of unity and cooperation. It will preserve and defend those basic principles on which our nation has been built. It regards Christianity as the foundation of our national morality, and the family as the basis of national life."
Source:
My New World Order, Proclamation to the German Nation at Berlin, February 1,
1933
We have Christian examples of suicidal madmen who fooled many followers: Jim
Jones, David Koresh, etc. Crazy people can still motivate people. People who are loony are not 100% crazy 100% of the time.
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Are these the only three choices?
This basic criticism of the trilema is echoed by Christian apologist William Lane
Craig[ 3 ]:
An example of such an unsound argument would be:
-- Jesus was either a liar, a lunatic, or Lord.
-- Jesus was neither a liar nor a lunatic.
-- Therefore, Jesus is Lord.
This is a valid argument inferring one member of a disjunction from the negation of the other members. But the argument is still unsound, because the first premise is false: there are other unmentioned alternatives, for example, that Jesus as described in the gospels is a legendary figure, so that the trilema is false as it stands.
Note: This is from: http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/jim_perry/trilemma.html
3 Source for William Lane Craig quote:
Craig, William Lane, Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics , revised edition, 1994, pp. 38-39.
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What is known about Jesus is from the Bible, and it could have easily been fabricated
These fabricated stories include accounts of Jesus being seen as resurrected from the dead. Maybe the Apostle Paul lied when he said that over 500 saw him at one time.
How could we check it? Paul doesn’t mention who these people were, when it happened, where it happened, and what the situation was. If the Apostle Paul lied, he certainly wouldn’t be the first.
For example, probably everyone here would refer to Joseph Smith, the founder of the
Mormon church, which is also very fast growing, as a liar or crazy man for reporting that God the Father personally appeared to him and spoke to him, telling him not to join any of the current Christian denominations because they were all an abomination.
Maybe all these prophets are schizophrenic (seeing imaginary people that really aren’t there… we now have drugs to treat patients for it).
In addition, there are plenty of lying, crazy, Christian “prophets” on Christian TV (TBN), such as Benny Hinn and others. Benny Hinn has been debunked on Dateline TV twice, but he is still in operation. Peter Popoff is another “Christian” evangelist/healer on TV who steals money from the desperately sick… millions of dollars per year. His minions could also write about his miracles, etc., if they wanted to, building him into a legend of a man.
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Are claims of divinity interpreted (by some) from Jesus’ metaphorical teaching?
Jesus often speaks in metaphor. John 10:30 says he and the father is one. Maybe he is saying he’s God. But he doesn’t say that he and the father are equal but separate, as (evangelical trinity-believing Christians) believe.
Maybe they are one in purpose and unity,,, in spiritual alignment? Jesus said he is in the father… but also… we can be in him. Does that made us God too (John 14:8-21)?
John 14
8Philip said, "Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us.“ 9Jesus answered: "Don't you know me,
Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the
Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'? 10Don't you believe that I am in the Father, and that the
Father is in me?
The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. 11Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves. 12I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. 13And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. 14You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.
Jesus Promises the Holy Spirit
15"If you love me, you will obey what I command. 16And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another
Counselor to be with you forever — 17the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be[c] in you. 18I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.
21Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him."
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Jesus never explicitly claimed to be God
There is a major problem with the starting premise… that Jesus claimed to be God. This is not at all clear.
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Jesus didn’t claim to be God
Christians who know anything about
Christian history know that the argument over Jesus being God, the Trinity, was a
HUGE issue in the early church. It has largely been resolved for Christians for a long time, but the fact remains the Bible is very unclear.
Bruce Shelly, an evangelical historian, makes this point in his book “Church History in Plain language.”
When the Muslim claims that Jesus was a prophet and not God, it actually seems to be more reasonable from a literal reading of the
Bible, if you ignore the influence of Church history. But history demonstrates how religion evolves over time.
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Jesus didn’t claim to be God
Did Jesus claim to be God? If so, where? According to C. S. Lewis (who doesn’t specifically say which passage he’s referring to), Jesus claimed to be God by way of forgiving men their sins… something only God could do. Here’s an example verse that I picked:
Mark 2
Jesus Heals a Paralytic
1A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home. 2So many gathered that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them. 3Some men came, bringing to him a paralytic, carried by four of them. 4Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above
Jesus and, after digging through it, lowered the mat the paralyzed man was lying on. 5When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, "Son, your sins are forgiven." 6Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves, 7"Why does this fellow talk like that? He's blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?"
8Immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts, and he said to them, "Why are you thinking these things? 9Which is easier: to say to the paralytic, 'Your sins are forgiven,' or to say, 'Get up, take your mat and walk'? 10But that you may know that the
Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins . . . ." He said to the paralytic, 11"I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home." 12He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all. This amazed everyone and they praised God, saying, "We have never seen anything like this!"
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Jesus didn’t claim to be God
Some things I noticed:
-- The religious teachers seem to indicate they thought Jesus was acting like God, because he forgave sins. The gospel writer tried to make that clear.
-- Did Jesus reply that he was God? No . He replied only that he had the authority to forgive. Was the authority just given to him from God, with him not being God?
-- Does he describe who he is, if not God? Yes , he uses the term “Son of Man.” The Jews would have been familiar with that term from Scripture, and it did not mean “God.” (In the Old Testament, “Son of Man” is used very frequently and mostly in Ezekiel. If I heard Jesus saying this, and I was an expert in the OT (as a Jew), I’d assume Jesus was associating himself as a prophet in the style of Ezekiel (Daniel is the only other prophet using this title for himself, but only in a few places.)
Examples from the Old Testament:
Numbers 23:19
God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man , that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act?
Does he promise and not fulfill?
Ezekiel 2:3
He said: " Son of man , I am sending you to the Israelites, to a rebellious nation that has rebelled against me; they and their fathers have been in revolt against me to this very day.
(Note: Ezekiel has a tremendous amount of references to “Son of man”
Daniel 8:17
As he came near the place where I was standing, I was terrified and fell prostrate. " Son of man ," he said to me,
"understand that the vision concerns the time of the end."
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SUMMARY
So not only can we make a case that a relatively obvious nut might found a religion and still be remembered as wise, but a paranoiac or a sufferer of various other forms of delusion might be quite convincing on the subject of their delusion, while furthermore being quite capable of sound reasoning on e.g. moral issues. Once again, the story would have been passed on by people who believed what the leader said.
Source: http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/jim_perry/trilemma.html#N3
I might add:
The believers who passed it on also tried to clean it up and/or add to it, as the note on Mark 16:1718 indicates (“drinking poison and not dying” is not in the oldest, most reliable, manuscripts).
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Let’s all call on reason and “moral honesty” when considering this argument
(Christian apologist) Josh McDowell wrote:
The evidence is clearly in favor of Jesus as Lord. However, some people reject the clear evidence because of moral implications involved .
There needs to be a moral honesty in the above consideration of Jesus as either a liar, lunatic, or Lord and God.
-- The evidence is far from clear.
-- Some may reject the evidence for fear of the conclusion for Christianity, that is true.
-- However, some others may also reject sound reasoning for fear that their own Christian faith might be undermined.
-- I agree the situation calls for moral honesty and boldness/willingness to face the truth, wherever and regardless of where it may lead.
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Secular Humanism in the Portland area.
Two groups, and b oth can be found at meetup.com
Center for Inquiry (CFI-Portland)
The Humanists of Greater Portland
(HGP)
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