What is Lewis's Trilemma? (Liar, Lunatic, or Lord?)

A video briefly examining the argument from C.S. Lewis called Lewis's Trilemma, the Liar, Lunatic, or Lord, Argument, the Mad, Bad or God argument, the conman, madman, or God argument, or the charlatan, madman or God argument. This video introduces two forms of the argument and previews the objections we will make to both versions in the argument in the coming series.

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Information for this video gathered from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, The Collier-MacMillan Encyclopedia of Philosophy, the Dictionary of Continental Philosophy, and more!

[dantealighieri]

I think the trilemma is only an option if one accepts already that he is a historical figure and that the gospel accounts we have of him accurately present his sayings.

The other options such as legend, myth (does not exist), or never claimed divinity are only plausible if one already rejects the gospels as reliable.

[hughrobertson-ritchie]

Other options:
Mistaken, misunderstood, misrepresented.

[matteo-ciaramitaro]

I rarely see an argument with so many disagreeable premises

[Uryvichk]

I prefer "C.S. Lewis was a lummox, " an untalented hack riding the coattails of his contemporaries, but with none of the intellect and detail of Tolkien and none of the wit and self-deprecation of Chesterton. Mere Christianity is such a lame work of apologetics that even other apologists tend to shy away from it. His other books may have captivated children, but that's about the only audience he could ever credibly write for. I do not have a high opinion of the man or his work, is what I'm saying.

As to the argument itself, I don't want to step on the toes of what I expect will be brought up in later videos, but I think Lewis's premises are obviously so flawed that the usefulness of even contemplating the trilemma is in question:

LIAR: There's no reason to think a person could not choose to lie to bolster the credibility of their teachings. Jesus could have lied about possessing some manner of divine power or authority in order to convince otherwise incredulous people to follow what he genuinely believed to be good moral teachings. Good teachings would theoretically be good regardless of whether the teacher is himself a hypocrite, and some people are able to pragmatically justify their own hypocrisy in the name of greater good. While this might be somewhat unlikely, Lewis's contention that anyone who would lie about moral teachings would have to be "the Devil in Hell" is utterly ludicrous hyperbole. If we can even contemplate a logically possible scenario in which a person might reasonably lie for reasons they see as ultimately beneficial to others, we can't rule out the Liar horn.

LUNATIC: Lewis seems to believe that a crazy person is incapable of functioning. This shows (as usual) his complete lack of both imagination and knowledge of people who suffer delusions. There are plenty of people out there who have delusional beliefs about one particular issue, but are otherwise completely functional individuals. Lewis's contention also seems to disregard the distinct possibility that a lunatic is actually MORE likely to draw a following; people pay attention to those who stand out, and a charismatic individual (even if they're nuts) can be quite persuasive (to say nothing of a lunatic's followers possibly being lunatics themselves, as suggested by Carrier). If Lewis's notion of a Lunatic is flawed and doesn't actually produce the individual he's claiming it would, we can't rule out the Lunatic horn.

LORD: What if Jesus genuinely believed himself to have been divine, had some subjective experience that appeared to confirm this, and was merely mistaken? Some people lump this under Lunatic, but I mean this in the sense that Jesus was a rational man being deceived by forces intending that he be led to make claims that he felt were justified but which were in fact untrue. For example, malicious aliens used advanced technology to convince Jesus that he really did have the power to heal the sick; these same aliens later revived him from death, leading him to preach resurrection as he genuinely believed he had been raised from the dead by God. While I'm sure Lewis would argue this scenario is implausibly silly, it is self-evidently more probable than that God exists and that Jesus was correct in believing he received supernatural powers from God and/or was God. We have evidence that space travel, medical technology, and malicious gaslighting exist, as well as reasons to think that life may be possible elsewhere in our surprisingly old universe; we have no such evidence that divine beings of any sort exist. If we can find a more statistically likely explanation for all the same claimed facts regarding Jesus's powers, no matter how improbable that explanation is, we can't "rule in" the Lord horn.

[GapWim]

Lewis forgot one very important possibility: Legend.

[tcorourke]

At first glance, it seems to rely on some pretty big generalities.

For example, is it truly impossible that an insane person could not be a good teacher?

Or that Christ was not a con man, but lying for altruistic reasons? That he might have allowed himself to be killed to further his message?

[anneonymous]

Highly imperfect ("false trilemma") but still useful.

[RENATVS_IV]

Dude, you sounded very serious in this video. It seems you had a rough day.

About the series, I'm excited about it. It's a really interesting topic.

[GorVala]

" ..What is man? A miserable little pile of secrets..." Lord D.

[nik]

I view this as either incomplete or too narrow. As "there are more than three options".
I think he had too little faith in liars, lies, and too much faith in people being rational and not following a lunatic, or couldn't think of a person saying their truth but being incorrect.
I think Jesus could have believed himself to be telling the truth, but incorrect, therefore he would not be a liar, yet he would not be telling the truth.
I think there's a difference between claiming to be the son of God (or something divine) and being God itself.
I think, people can still follow lunatics, regardless of the one being followed being a lunatic.
I think a liar can still be a good moral teacher and not be a conman.


He could have also been misunderstood or misrepresented.

[subliminallime]

He could have just been mistaken, he may have been fictional, he might not have claimed to be divine... 3 other possibilities off the top of my head.

Also, I remember Resa Aslan pointing out that modern theories of truth weren't around in the time of Jesus so he might not have understood what you meant if you asked him "Is that true?"

[localhamster]

An answer to the trilemma that is often overlooked for both versions in the "more options" category is that if we accept the existence of the supernatural, then there are other solutions that are supernatural variants of the normal options, and cannot be distinguished by any observer from the "Lord" option. For example in the claim that Jesus wasn't a liar because then he wouldn't have been willing to die on the cross, what if he was a powerful mage and cast a delayed resurrection spell on himself? One need not be omnipotent in order to have sufficient magical power to keep one's soul in the world and regain control of one's body. Of course, maybe he never died at all. A powerful sorcerer might be able to cast powerful illusions on a big crowd, or maybe grab a random stranger, morph his flesh to look like the sorcerer, then mind-control him from a safe distance. The puppet gets crucified, put in a tomb, then the sorcerer opens a portal into the tomb, drags the corpse out, and walks out himself. Creating fake wounds would also be simple for such a sorcerer. As far as the original version of the trilemma goes, he could definitely still be a good moral teacher. Maybe he used sorcery to look at possible futures, and saw that the moral lessons he wanted to pass were super critical for humanity but the only way they'd take root and become widespread enough is if he pretended to be divine? He'd be a liar and manipulator but if the alternative was that we'd have gone extinct by now or worse, I think many people would say he made the more moral choice. Sounds far fetched, but I am not a clairvoyant sorcerer. Maybe there really are clairvoyant sorcerers, and they're reading this right now and think this sounds mundane and they don't get why I'd think its far fetched.
Similar answers work for both lunatic options. When the supernatural gets involved, any "list of options" argument for anything flies right out the window because we simply have no good grasp on what different types of supernatural beings are truly capable of.

[MatthewMartinDean]

This sounds like an argument to nonbelievers, but after watching this, I think it is aimed at people on the fence or who already have accepted many things as fact (that he existed, that he is important, that he is was a nice guy). To a nonbeliever or adherent of another religion, the 4th option is "Irrelevant"

[johnmanno]

Folks, you do realize that this can easily be said about Joseph Smith (the founder of The Church of Latter Day Saints, or Mormonism), Mary Baker Eddy (Christian Science), and even L. Ron Hubbard (you-know-what). The problem with the trilemma, imo, is that it makes too many assumptions to be really useful. Maybe humans aren't rational, maybe "reason" doesn't really do all that much, and because of that, maybe "lunatics" and "charlatans" actually provide a useful service in spite of themselves. Certainly an awful lot of people have gotten solid benefits from all those sects and religions I've mentioned.

[KaiHenningsen]

Well, on the one hand, it's clearly a false trilemma. It seems fairly obvious (for those whose religion doesn't require them to accept biblical inerrancy) that, on closer examination, the gospels are clearly unreliable accounts (since they have numerous contradictions, including whether the buy ever claimed to be god). So legend or myth is clearly an option.
On the other hand, humans are complicated, and so I don't think Lewis' three options actually contradict each other.
And on the third hand, I don't think he was a good moral teacher, to begin with. In fact, he comes off - to me - as a pretty typical cult leader. Consider the verses about how people should follow him to the detriment of their family, for example.

[frankbs]

I waspresented with this as my faith began to crumble. That these were not the only possibilites was immediately obvious. Assuming that he has his roots in a real person is it just one? Was he misrepresented? Liar, lunatic, lord, lumped together or legend? And probably a few more besides with enough Ls to fill a Welsh dictionary.

[tovialbores-falk]

I think that Jesus claiming to be God was added in when people wrote down the story almost a generation later.

[bigredracingdog]

Jesus is a legend. He was likely a real man, but the gospels were not written by contemporaries, but by second-hand oral histories. They are often contradictory as one would expect. More importantly, they were written by members of a religious sect eager to deify its figurehead.

[shoseki]

I mean... he could have just been wrong.

[disraelidemon]

It's wortth noting that the trilemma is not necessarily a trilemma if you don't pre-suppose the Christian conception of god - it would be logically possible to have an insane god who was a compulsive liar.