Trifecta, Tricycle or Trilemma
Trifecta, tricycle, trilemma. An interesting trio, don’t you think? Most of us are familiar with the first two, but the third may not be so familiar.
C.S. Lewis uses the idea of this “trilemma” to describe what you will have as you wrestle with three vary different conclusions concerning Jesus Christ. Once an agnostic Lewis writes, “I am trying 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.’”
Jesus claimed to be God, if he was not, he wouldn’t be a great teacher, he’d be a liar. However “someone who lived as Jesus lived, taught as Jesus taught, and died as Jesus died could not have been merely a liar. What alternatives are there?”
He’d be a lunatic. If he were crazy enough to think he was God, that might also explain why he spoke words that eventually got him crucified. But, historians and psychologists report his teachings were those spoken by a man with mental clarity. Now what?
He must be as he claimed, the Christ, the Son of God—Lord.
All three choices of the trilema are possible, but which is most probable? Who you decide Jesus Christ is cannot be determined by some “idle intellectual exercise. You cannot put him on the shelf as a great moral teacher. That is not a valid option. He is either a liar, a lunatic, or Lord and God.”[1] You must make a choice.
I’d love to hear from you. What do you think? What will you do with this trilema?
You can find more intriguing writings like this at http://www.keytofreedom.org/resources.html.
[1] Adapted from Josh MacDowell’s More Than a Carpenter
See also MacDowell’s Evidence that Demand’s a Verdict
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