Cut on the Bias quotes from a Ronald Reagan apologetic, written in 1978:
“(E)ither he was what he said he was or he was the world’s greatest liar. It is impossible for me to believe a liar or charlatan could have had the effect on mankind that he has had for 2000 years. We could ask, would even the greatest of liars carry his lie through the crucifixion, when a simple confession would have saved him?
Reagan’s logic here is terrible. First of all, he’s assuming that the account of events in the New Testiment is necessarily accurate – but there’s no reason (aside from religious faith) to make that assumption. Secondly, even assuming the NT’s general accuracy, there’s an obvious third possibility besides “messiah” and “charlatan” – Jesus might have been sincere but mistaken about who he was.
Susanna compares Reagan’s logic to C.S. Lewis, but I have a hard time imagining Lewis putting forth an apologetic this unsophisticated. Reagan’s work seems more comparable to Josh McDowell’s..
Or comparable to that of Mel Gibson
Or comparable to that of Mel Gibson
CS Lewis did put forward an argument much like that, in Mere Christianity; it’s generally called the “trilemma” argument, or “Lord, Liar, or Lunatic”. It’s an argument aimed at people who already have an emotional attachment to the notion that the gospels are true. Lewis, in the essays that got collected in that book, was addressing Christians of weak faith, not attempting to convert non-Christians. It’s still a logically flawed argument, though, as you pointed out.
thanks for the details, Avram; i was wondering about the Lewis comparison as well. Amp’s “sincere but mistaken” role seems roughly equivalent to the “lunatic” role. (perhaps?)
Reagan’s logic, such as it is, seems hopelessly flawed anyway. the way i look at it, a liar/charlatan/lunatic JC would have no reason *not* to “carry his lie through the crucifixion” — surely he would recognize that to “confess” would destroy the cult of personality developing around him. am i missing something?
Well, I’m a great admirer of Lewis and I don’t think it was his most lucid moment either. But I always read it as less of a specific argument for Jesus’ divinity, and more of an response to the way that some non-believers will talk about their great admiration for Jesus and acceptance of all of his teachings, while ignoring the religious context completely. That is, if you believe that Jesus was just some guy with excellent ideas, and *if* you also accept the Gospels as an accurate report of what he said then you’d have to call him either a liar or a lunatic – or “mistaken” as Amp generously puts it.
My guesses as to why Lewis found it so easy to skirt the issue of the Gospels’ verbal accuracy:
1. He just personally didn’t see it as open to question. In The Screwtape Letters, he has even the devils admit that the texts are indisputable.
2. I *think* New Testament scholarship has changed somewhat since then, and moved more in the direction of Mark being the primary text and the other 3 being largely derived from it… whereas in Lewis’s day it was a common assumption that if the same dialogue appeared in different books, they corroborated each other. I may be totally wrong about this.
3. He was reacting to an illogical but common side effect of secular Christianism. That is, people grow up with the Bible as a highly respected cultural artifact that they don’t really know much about, and with lots of social pressure to profess a vague allegiance to Judeo-Christian heritage etc. etc… which often translates into “I have no opinion about God, and there was probably some logical explanation for those miracles, but I agree with absolutely everything Jesus said.”
CF, yeah, Reagan’s take on it seems like even more of a stretch.
I’m not sure my post above is very clear – what I meant to say in that first paragraph is that I think Lewis’s argument in that case was more defensive/territorial – “all you well-meaning nonbelievers, please get your hands off my Jesus… you wouldn’t like him so much if you paid attention to what he said” – whereas Reagan clearly saw it as a way to proselytize, rather clumsily.
Lewis was NOT a literalist, as far as the Biblical text goes – I’d have to dig around for a specific quote, but he says as much in “Thoughts on the Psalms” (again, I don’t have the specific title of that piece).
I’m not sure exactly what C.S. Lewis said about something like this, but the “a liar wouldn’t do it, so he must be the Christ” arguement is something I heard a lot growing up in a pretty conservative church.
As Amp points out, it’s logically falacious because Jesus could have been insane and have gone through with it for misguided reasons. And, to be honest, it’s entirely possible that he was a liar and said as much and the crucifixion still went on. Technically Jesus was crucified for blasphemy for claiming to be the son of God, but I get the sense that he was killed for more reasons than just that one. But, really, if Jesus had spent the entire trip up Galgotha saying “look, man, I’m not the Christ!” do you think the Gospels would have reported it? There were a lot of self-proclaimed messiahs at the time, as there always are, so it seems logical that the only people who would write books about Jesus would be his followers, who wouldn’t be too keen on mentioning that Jesus had renounced his claims. (I’m reminded of a part in Monty Python’s Life of Brian in which Brian, who has been confused for Jesus, says that he’s not the Christ, to which one of his followers responds, “only the Christ would say that.”)
None of this, though, is to say that Jesus wasn’t the son of God (I’m still debating that one) or that things didn’t happen exactly as they are described in the Gospels. I personally don’t believe this (the perfection of the Gospels) to be the case but have no way of proving it one way or the other, which is my entire point: the Gospels, like most of the rest of the Bible, like most any historical work at all, cannot be explicitly proven or disproven. This is, of course, why faith is important.
…
On a related note, I’m getting rather sick of pseudo-archaeological proof in favour of Biblical events. Most of the proofs I’ve seen are logically falacious misconstruing of facts to suit a particular end. For instance, I heard a bunch of sermons growing up about how there’s a mountain that is, if I remember correctly, in Saudi Arabi that has been blocked off by the Saudi government and is, apparently, the real Mount Sinai (as I understand it, what’s presently labelled on maps as “Mount Sinai” is generally accepted by scholars to not be the true Mount Sinai from the Books of the Law). According to multiple accounts, the top of this mountain is completely blackened, but only on the outsides of all of the rocks. Now, the Bible-provers jump on this as proof that the spirit of God descended as a fire and scorched the top of Mount Sinai as described in the Book of Exodus (and the Books of Leviticus and Deuteronomy, I believe). The possibility that the Hebrews saw a scorched mountaintop and made up a story to suit the facts is, apparnely, not a real possibility at all.
There’s a video series circulating among the churches I grew up in (alas, I can’t remember the title) that consists largely of trying to prove the truth of Jesus’s teachings and messiahship by pointing out archaeological evidence that, hey, some of the places talked about in the Bible really exist. I suppose, than, that this proves the veracity of the Koran or the Book of Mormon because those works mention real places in them too. Or even, by that logic, Tom Clancy’s books must be real because there’s a real place named Washington, D.C.
It strikes me that this “real thing-liar” dichotomy may be based less in logic (since it ignores the transparent insanity option) than in evangelical experience, where major leaders are routinely exposed as frauds. If you’re used to seeing your seemingly devout religious leaders exposed as frauds, you project that onto Jesus.
Take THAT, Reagan and evangelicals! I’m thinking of Pat Robertson, Oral Roberts, Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Bakker, but I could go on. And I really do find Reagan’s review of Jesus despicable. He wasn’t a two-bit huckster, unlike your buddies. Maybe also Reagan found the insanity option more unpalatable than “con man Jesus” – if so, that’s all you need to know about Ronald Reagan.
IIRC, a man was just executed in FL still believing he was the Messiah. Ugh.
Your argument “he’s assuming that the account of events in the New Testiment is necessarily accurate – but there’s no reason (aside from religious faith) to make that assumption.” is quite logical- and true. The only problem is that Reagan’s assumption is correct. Reagan is assuming we have all accepted the New Testament to be truely the Word of God. If you disagree, back it up! find a flaw! The bible has withstood nearly 2000 years of criticism from all over the world and it has yet to have a hole poked in it! take your best shot at it- and by the way, i’ll be praying for you all.
Sorry, I couldnt let such a nice thread end on such an annoying note.
Well it was quite a while ago, but if the gentlemen ever comes back here is my list of challenges. You sound quite confident, and its late, so i’ll let you do the work of looking these up. I am assuming we are talking about a literal intrepretation. Explain these, big guy:
Gen. 2:17 vs Gen. 5:5
Genesis 6:6. Exodus 32:14, Numbers 14:20, I Samuel 15:35, II Samuel 24:16
vs
Numbers 23:19-20, Isaiah 15:29, James 1:17
Genesis 12:7, Genesis 17:1, Genesis 18:1, Genesis 26:2, Genesis 32:30, Exodus 3:16, Exodus 6:2-3, Exodus 24:9-11, Exodus 33:11, Numbers 12:7-8, Numbers 14:14, Job 42:5, Amos 7:7-8, Amos 9:1
vs
Exodus 33:20, John 1:18, 1John 4:12
Genesis 11:9 vs 1 Cor. 14:33
Matt. 5:16
vs. Matt. 6:1-4
Matt. 12:39, Mark 8:12, Luke 11:29
vs. John 3:2, 20:30, Acts 2:22
Luke 22:3-23 vs. John 13:27
Acts 26:23 vs. 2 Kings 4:32-37, Matt. 9:18-25, John 11:38-44
Mark 15:25 vs. John 19:14-15
Mark 16:2 vs. John 20:1
Matt. 28:8-9 vs. Luke 24:13-15
Romans 13:1-7
This one implies, say saddam hussein was appointed by god, and by resisting him we are sining. That also goes for the impeachment of clinton, or anyone who rebelled against the nazis or even the taliban, since they were the rulers of Afghanistan. I think the people who wrote this just didnt think this one through. Oh, and of course you know MLK is burning in hell.
One of my favorites: Mark 16 : 16-18
Hey Mr. Confident, hows about a rat-poison chaser to go with that big mug of faith?
And please, dont reguritate some arm-waving explanation involving slightly different contexts for each quote, or some excuse that relies on “how different things were back then”. And please, James don’t pray for me, ok? I hate to see wasted human effort.