What Happens to Apologetics If We Add "Legend" to the Trilemma "Liar, Lunatic, or Lord"? by Tom Gilson
English: Illumination of Christ before Pilate Deutsch: Jesus vor Pilatus (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) He did not leave us that option: he did not intend to." Thus C. S. Lewis closes out his famous "Trilemma" argument on the impossibility of Jesus being a great moral teacher and nothing more. The argument is beautiful in its simplicity: it calls for no deep familiarity with New Testament theology or history, only knowledge of the Gospels themselves, and some understanding of human nature. A man claiming to be God, says Lewis, could hardly be good unless he really was God. If Jesus was not the Lord, then (to borrow Josh McDowell 's alliterative version of the argument), he must have been a liar or a lunatic. Christian apologists have responded with arguments hinging on the correct dates for the composition of the Gospels, the identities of their authors, external corroborating evidence, and the like. All this has been enormously helpful, but one could wish for a m...