C.S. Lewis's Famous Trilemma

Jesus: Liar, Lunatic, or Lord?

C.S. Lewis is one of the most famous fiction writers of the 20th century. At one point in his life Lewis was an atheist. Against God and angry at the pain and suffering he saw in the world he argued that God could not exist while the problem of evil exists.

But upon reflection Lewis learned that the existence of evil proved that a standard of good existed by which he could see evil. Eventually his friend J.R.R. Tolkien, author of the Lord of the Rings series, helped Lewis come to faith in Christ. After his conversion C.S. Lewis became a great Christian apologist, using reason and logic to defend the truths of the Christian faith.

One of Lewis's most compelling arguments was concerning the deity and authority of the claims of Jesus Christ. After a careful reading of the teachings of Jesus in the New Testament, Lewis concluded that Jesus did not leave himself open to be just another wise man along the path of history. But rather He was God in the flesh come to save humanity from itself.

Lewis stated his argument as follows:

"I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. 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." - Lewis, C.S., Mere Christianity, London: Collins, 1952, pp. 54–56. (In all editions, this is Bk. II, Ch. 3, "The Shocking Alternative.")

Lewis sees that the words of Jesus shouldn't be taken lightly, that He didn't just teach people to be good to each other. Jesus's words cut people to the core. Jesus came to bring the dead to life, to find the lost, and redeem the created to live eternally with the Creator.

So which is the best option to choose of Lewis's great trilemma?

Liar?

Was Jesus a liar? Was he really the promised Messiah that was foretold in the Jewish scriptures? Why think he was a liar? Jesus's life is one of the most well attested biographies of the ancient world. Tens of thousands of manuscripts from early writings after Jesus's crucifixion and resurrection remain today. These represent vastly more attestations than any other ancient figure. We can at least be assured that what he said and did was recorded accurately, but does that mean that He was telling the truth? Or that He really is the Son of God?

One piece of evidence we can search out is the rise of the early church. Rising among the backdrop of Judaism and Roman paganism, the early church was persecuted heavily for their beliefs and practices. All of the apostles, except for John, dies a martyr's death. If Jesus was a liar, then these men died for a lie. But none recanted their stories. And all died horrible deaths separated from one another. What could have possibly been their motive?

Lunatic?

Was Jesus a crazy man? Was he on the level of a David Koresh, just a mere mortal with delusions of being another god? What kind of crazy would you have to be to challenge the rule of Caesar? The world has been transformed by this man over the last 2000 years. Modern science, hospitals, orphanages, humanitarian aid have all been instituted in the name of this supposed lunatic! Read the New Testament for yourself and you most likely won't come away thinking the words of Jesus were conjured up out of lunacy.

Lord?

The only option left is that Jesus is who He said he is: the Light of the world, the Son of Man, the Lamb of God who comes to take away the sins of the world. Not only did Jesus come to preach righteousness and God's perfect moral code, but the New Testament records that He came as a sacrifice to redeem the lost so that by his shed blood alone could man be reconciled with God and be brought back to fellowship with the Creator of the universe.

If this is the case, then every man, woman, and child owes Jesus their allegiance and their very lives. We owe eternal gratitude and worship to the one who gave up eternity to suffer at the hands of His own creation. He should rightly be seated at the right hand of the Father, and worshiped day and night by the people who gave their lives so that all could know the good news!

So Lewis's trilemma stands before us all today. How will you choose?

The Argument From Fine-Tuning

The universe is incredibly fine-tuned, not just for life, but for it's own existence.

From the initial conditions of the Big Bang, to the microscopic DNA strands that carry instructions for the creation of life, this world in which we find ourselves is fine-tuned on a razor's edge. It is so finely tuned that if the some of the quantities were altered, the universe would collapse on itself and die. If other quantities were altered the universe would never be able to form galaxies, or any other element than hydrogen. 

It's important to note that "fine-tuned" doesn't mean "designed". That would certainly be a circular argument. The term "fine-tuned" refers to the fundamental reality of the constants and quantities that make up the known universe, including certain aspects of the Milky Way galaxy, our solar system, the earth and moon.

Here are a few examples:

• amount of entropy of the universe
• the gravitational constant
• the strong nuclear force
• the amount of matter in the universe
• the speed of light
• the ratio of proton to electron mass
• the size and shape of the Milky Way galaxy
• the position of our solar system within the galaxy
• the distance of the earth to the sun
• the distance and size of the moon to the earth
• the tilt of the earth's axis
• the rotation speed of the earth
• the mass and composition of the earth
• and so on and so on

There are literally hundreds of "fine-tuning" examples that, if changed, would not permit the earth to sustain human life. So what are we to think of this incredible phenomenon? Is this worth studying, or is it just an incredible coincidence to notice?

There are 3 possible explanations for the incredible fine-tuning observed in the known universe:

1. Chance
2. Necessity
3. Design

Chance: It is essentially a throw of the dice, just a shot in the dark, and could have been any set of quantities. The famous physicist Roger Penrose has estimated that the odds of the universe having it's unique set of constants and quantities is 1/10^10^126. That's a number so large that there is not enough space in the known universe to hold all of the 0's needed to write out that number.

Necessity: There is no other possible way for the universe to be the way it is. But physicists and scientists see no reason that the universe must be the way it is. They speculate that any of these fine-tuned elements could have been different. Even if it were necessary, that would tend to point to something beyond the universe itself dictating the physical necessity of the universal make-up.

Design: Something or someone had a plan in mind, a purpose, and deliberately set up the universe in such a way to enable a particular outcome. 

So which seems more plausible to you? That the universe just happened to be spit out the way it was, like a spin of the roulette wheel? That the universe must be this way and that there is no other way it could be? Or that it was designed by a superior intellect powerful enough to bring the universe into being ex-nihilo?

The argument would be stated as follows:

1. The fine-tuning of the universe is due to either chance, necessity, or design.
2. The universe is not due to chance or necessity.
3. Therefore, the universe is designed.

"A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a super intellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature." - Fred Hoyle

Who Created God?

"If God created the universe, then who/what created God?"

It seems reasonable at first. It seems like there should be an explanation for everything, right? Well, the explanation may not be a contingent state of affairs.

For centuries philosophers thought that there must be a first un-caused cause, the prime mover. Aristotle called this first cause "the un-moved mover". He reasoned that there cannot be an infinite regress of events or causes because there would never be an ultimate resolution to the question.

So what are we to think of the question "Who or What created God?"

The question itself has a presuppositional hurdle to overcome. When some asks "Who created God?", they are implying that God was created. And if God was created then we must seek to find out who or what is responsible. And then you would naturally ask "Who created the god that created the god that created the god..." into infinity.

This has been a question that atheists and skeptics have asked as some sort of knock-down objection that is supposed to stop any theist in their iron-aged tracks. But why should we suppose that God was created?

The Bible is very clear that God is eternal:

Deuteronomy 33:27 - "The eternal God is a dwelling place..."

Job 36:26 - "Behold, God is exalted, and we do not know Him; The number of His years is unsearchable."

Isaiah 40:28 - "Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth does not become weary or tired. His understanding in inscrutable."

I understand that those who don't believe in the authority of scripture might not be convinced by some Bible verses, but consider the following...

Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz said that the first question of philosophy that should rightly be asked is "Why is there something rather than nothing?" This is a pretty good question.

Everything that exists exists necessarily or contingently. There is no third option. Either something comes into being from some other cause, or that thing exists by a necessity of it's own nature. This would be the case for God. If God exists eternally, then God must be a metaphysical necessity. In other words, it is impossible for God not to exist.

So if God is metaphysically necessary, then God is un-created. God is eternal and cannot not exist. God exists necessarily, therefore eternally and had no beginning. God is the prime mover that Aristotle thought must exist.