JoeSixPat said:
I think the point of the trilemma is that those who like to go along with the "I like Jesus - I think Jesus was cool - he had some great ideas, about peace and loving each other but I don't think he was the son of God" need to contemplate that what they are saying is
"I think Jesus was a great man - but a liar "... or
"I think Jesus was a great man - but he was delusional"
So its a false dilemma for someone who has no problem with the liar or crazy theorems but a dilemma for those who try to rationalize their view of Jesus as great but non-divine.
Many people haven't really contemplated that they are in fact saying exactly that with the "Jesus - cool guy but not God" rationale they've bought into.
Joe, then the theory of the "trilemma" serves only to alienate those who are not Christians, or to attempt to, anyway. I'll get to why it's a bit silly (again) in a moment. But first let's look at the results of this argument:
1. For the Christian: he who believes deeply not only that Jesus was good, but that Jesus was God, must therefore see all non-Christians as ridiculing or condemning God - that is, if this "trilemma" argument is accepted, the holder of this opinion believes that all others in the world believe Jesus to be evil or clownish. This is not the case, so the argument encourages a sort of theological paranoia.
2. For the non-Christian: this argument is a wonderful way of challenging the non-Christian to be rude and proclaim the "foolishness" or "evilness" of Jesus. It's not an argument, as you point out, for accepting Jesus, except in the case of some very polite people who would rather convert than offend. For all others, it's most polite to just ignore the argument or show its falsity; but the believing Chestertonian sometimes sees it (mysteriously) as the be-all and end-all of such a discussion.
The falsity of the argument lies in at least two areas:
1) the supposition that only a clown/fool/what-have-you has ever falsely proclaimed himself the Messiah (or been so proclaimed, and not denied it.)
2) the supposition that the Greek bible, without any purgative support (as regards competing stories,) faithfully records the pre-Pauline phase of Christianity.
The non-Christian may or may not understand (1). I, for one, do. Religions are full of figures making various claims I do not believe; I do not, however, discard each such religion
in toto because of a basic role misunderstanding on the part of a founder, or as could well be the case for Jesus, on the part of later writers. Furthermore, many significant figures in Jewish history in particular, have been false messiahs. They have not been lauded for this, but it is not a death knell to their worth either. Shabbetei Zvi is almost universally condemned, for greatly demoralizing the people in his quest for messiahship; Simeon Bar Kochba, on the other hand, symbolized zealous rebellion, and while not universally embraced, he was certainly not condemned. Neither he, nor Rabbi Akiva (who accepted his claim) is considered a fool or an evil man. (Akiva is regarded as one of the most prominent sages of his day.)
(2), for the modern reader, is also of some interest. Since Jesus spoke, rather than wrote, we have a significant gap in knowledge about his mission,
as he himself understood it. Biblical scholars put a great deal of confidence in much of the "sayings" material, that is, the message as it was publicly proclaimed. The public pronouncements echoed in the gospels are primarily radicalized extrapolations of Judaism; and in that he took Jewish teaching to logical conclusions, many Jews find much of what Jesus
said to be honorable and good (although Jesus has no "place" in Jewish scripture, whose canon was set by the time of his appearance.)
But a non-Christian is free to understand the arguments of the best critical minds in the field of biblical scholarship as well (as are Christians of the non-Chestertonian school of thought.) That is to say, we see that the gospels tend to agree most on the publicly preached words of Jesus, but less on things like the character of the apostles, the role of Peter, and the "second coming," or
parousia. To the literalist, they must all be perfectly aligned to one another; to the outside observer, they seem not to be. This raises the distinct possibillity that rather than proclaiming himself the Man-God of Mithraism or similar Greco-Roman cults, Jesus proclaimed himself the wholly human Jewish messiah, or even a lesser figure, such as a humble teacher or prophet. So it depends on the claim of Jesus himself, not the claims of later writers. For the non-believer, these claims are debateable, based on available evidence, including but not limited to the Christian bible. To the believer, they are perfectly preserved in the gospels attributed to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John -- despite any apparent contradictions.
A final note: in very early Judaism, there was a belief (reflected in the Torah, the so-called "old testament,") that there were beings called the "Sons of God." In one verse the "Sons of God saw that the daughters of men were fair," for example. The "Sons of God" are usually interpreted away by commentators as a sort of heavenly court; but that is not what the text says.
It is entirely possible that the early writers or storytellers literally believed that God had sons; obviously, by the time of Jesus, this meaning was passe. This is not a problem for a believer in divinely
inspired text, but is a problem for the claim that Jesus is God's "only begotten son," for the so-called literalist. In other words, it is possible that, to take the bible literally, God had plenty of sons, in which case we see a contradiction. Or, it is possible that the words in the earlier verse need interpreting; but then, what of words in later scripture?
This is the sort of thing that results in interpreting, whether one calls oneself a literalist or not. To claim to literally believe every word is absurd. To claim that someone
else picks and chooses, but that one is himself without the stain of the sin of interpretation, is hypocrisy or ignorance.
The only intellectually honest course of action, for me, is to understand interpretation as the native tongue of religion, and to understand scripture as divinely inspired storytelling, not literally accurate news reporting.
PFnV
