A “trilemma” is a difficult choice from three alternatives. The “Jesus trilemma” is an apologetic argument defending the divinity of Jesus by postulating the unreasonableness of the alternatives. It is most often associated with British lay theologian Clive Staples “C. S.” Lewis, who is doubtless responsible for its popularity and notoriety. It is, nevertheless, something with deeper roots. It is simple and reasonable enough that some earlier Christian thinkers may have arrived at it independently of others who postulated a similar logical equation. This trilemma is often found designated as the “Lunatic, Liar, or Lord” argument, or the “Mad, Bad, or God” argument.
In Mere Christianity (1952, pp. 55-56) C. S. Lewis (1898–1963) wrote:
“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 patronising 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.”
In 1936, Chinese Christian church leader Watchman Nee (1903-1972) in The Normal Christian Faith wrote:
“How can Jesus of Nazareth claim to be God? Before going on, we have to pause for a moment to seriously consider the matter. It is not a light thing to claim to be God. A person who makes such a claim falls into one of three categories. He must belong to one of these three categories; he cannot belong to all three. First, if he claims to be God and yet in fact is not, he has to be a madman or a lunatic. Second, if he is neither God nor a lunatic, he has to be a liar, deceiving others by his lie. Third, if he is neither of these, he must be God. You can only choose one of the three possibilities. If you do not believe that he is God, you have to consider him a madman. If you cannot take him for either of the two, you have to take him for a liar. There is no need for us to prove if Jesus of Nazareth is God or not. All we have to do is find out if He is a lunatic or a liar. If He is neither, He must be the Son of God. These are our three choices. There is no fourth.” (The Normal Christian Faith, Chapter 3, Section 3)
Scottish Free Church preacher John Duncan (1796-1870), in Colloquia Peripatetica (2nd edition. Edinburgh: Edmonston & Douglas, 1870, p. 107) wrote:
“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.”
American Congregationalist preacher Mark Hopkins (1802-1887) in Lectures on the Evidences of Christianity: Before the Lowell Institute, January 1844 (1846, p. 255), wrote:
“...either that those claims [by Jesus of who he was and what he would do, rlv] were well-founded, or of a hopeless insanity. No wonder those who did not believe said of him, ‘He hath a devil, and is mad: why hear ye him?’...No impostor of common sense could have had the folly to prefer such claims.”
The trilemma is based on accepting the New Testament as an inspired source that portrays Jesus accurately. I find that those who question the logic of the trilemma also question the accuracy of the New Testament record.
God is either the I AM or He is not at all.
Psalm 119:105 Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.
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