In acting the trilemma, we decided we would need to be respectfully distant in our depictions but near enough to expose the obvious truth of Jesus’ divinity. We drew on the idea of somebody trying to steal a man’s identity in order to rob him of his money. The liar failed the security questions and so was caught mid-attempt. As lunatic, I became confused upon encountering the fake card and proceeded to have an identity crisis in the middle of the “bank.” Only the true man was able to withdraw his cash.
Our goal was to reach out to students who might not necessarily be sure of their faith. In university we are often exposed to very attractive but ultimately detrimental ideas. We are trained to be skeptical; phrasing the event as a question thus subconsciously provoked a response in us as soon as we clicked on the Facebook invite. Many students begin to believe Jesus was a great moral teacher but not God, an idea that is completely turned on its head in the trilemma. If Jesus was, indeed, a liar or a lunatic, he could not possibly be “a great moral teacher.” The trilemma calls for a choice: a pivotal moment of all or nothing.
The experience of writing and acting in the skit gave me an opportunity to examine the trilemma in greater depth. It gave me a working knowledge of one of the most hotly debated arguments between Catholic apologists and atheists. There are, of course, many stronger arguments out there that more fully explain why I believe in Jesus. But as young Catholics on the brink of the New Evangelization, it is integral for us to equip ourselves with these answers so that we may build on them for the renewal of the world.
(Dias, 20, is an English literature and history student at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont. Read her full profile at youthspeaknews.org)
It’s all or nothing in the Lewis Trilemma
By Andrea Maria Dias, Youth Speak NewsYou learn more than you’d expect playing the part of the lunatic.
On the third Friday of every month, Catholic Christian Outreach in Kingston, Ont., hosts the “Cornerstone,” a gathering in which an aspect of our Catholic faith is explained in a way that could be appealing to the average university student. Recently, the theme was Jesus’ momentous question to Peter, “Who do you say that I am?” and we decided to introduce our theme with a skit. What better apologetic argument is there in answer to that question than the Lewis Trilemma?
The trilemma is an argument laid out by C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity that attempts to prove Jesus is divine. Occasionally summarized “liar, lunatic, lord,” it places the questioner in a rhetorical dilemma which leaves no room for any other alternative than He is Lord. Jesus reveals His divinity repeatedly in the Gospels; therefore, if it is not the case that He was divine, He was either completely deluded or He deliberately deceived His followers. But would a lunatic be able to live a life so in fulfilment of the Old Testament? Would a liar — a truly evil man — have lived in a way that was otherwise so morally unquestionable?
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