by Kwame Weekes
C. S. Lewis |
Considered by many to be one in the long
line of heavyweights in Christian apologetics is Clive Staples Lewis. In his
memoir, Surprised by Joy, he told a
story of growing up sceptical of religion and becoming atheist at the age of
15. At the age of 32, after years of personal study and quiet nudging by friends
like J. R. R Tolkien, he found reason to believe in the Christian God. Since then,
he has become a poster child for atheist-to-Christian conversion, giving hope
to Christian families with wayward sons. A young Christian looking for
ammunition to fight against the onslaught of atheist friends may come across
his famous Trilemma argument in
favour of the godhood of Jesus Christ.
The argument (which can be found in Mere Christianity) is that we must either
accept Jesus Christ as a liar, lunatic, or Lord. He argues that there is no
room for us to consider Jesus to be a great moral teacher while simultaneously stripping
him of his divinity because anyone who makes the kind of claims that Jesus made
is either a mad man or a liar, neither of which, according to Lewis, could be
considered great moral teachers. Therefore, if we are to accept Jesus as a
“great moral teacher,” we must also be willing to accept him wholesale, “fall
at his feet and call him Lord and God.”
The argument is made against persons who
claim Jesus as a great moral teacher but not Lord. I, for one, do not consider
Jesus to be a “great” moral teacher. He said some wonderful things, yes, but he
also said some things in ways that make me second guess his sanity. However,
for the sake of argument I will grant that Jesus Christ was indeed a great moral
teacher. The question now is, why can’t he be both a great moral teacher and a
lunatic or a liar or an unfortunate combination of all three?
If I understand the phrase correctly, a
great moral teacher gains his greatness by what he teaches. The term does not
say he is a great moral person. We’ve all heard the saying “do as I say and not
as I do.” It is conceivable that a person can teach and preach the most beautiful
morality and still be the devil himself. There is also room in there for
madness. There are different types of madness and psychology is a science that
does not yet stand on very solid ground with regard to its use of definitions.
Regardless of this limitation, history has been coloured with many mad men who
lived normal public lives and were considered sane by the rest of the world.
One such person is Jeffery Dahmer, serial
killer extraordinaire. Anyone who watches a video of him may find it hard to
believe that this man killed people, cut off their heads, stripped the skin off
their faces, stored their skulls in refrigerators and had sex with their
corpses. If this darkness was not enough to stop him from charming young men
back to his room, most certainly with lies, what was to stop Jeffery from
spouting a few words of moral wisdom if he wanted to?
I tried pointing this out to a friend of
mine who had cited Lewis’ Trilemma argument
and he agreed with my general argument. Still, he said that we would never call someone like Jeffery
a “great moral teacher” no matter how many good things he may have said. That
may be true, but that does not refute the argument that a person can be both at
the same time and that the Trilemma
is no real trilemma at all. I thought about what my friend said, however, and
wondered why that was so.
Historian Jad Adams did extensive primary
research on the voluminous writings of Mahatma Gandhi, a man second only to
Jesus in popular perception of holiness. Adams revealed in Gandhi: Naked Ambition a Gandhi who believed sex tarnished the soul
and so practiced celibacy. The shocking information, however, is that the saint
tested his fortitude by surrounding himself with women – sleeping naked with
them and bathing with them. To add madness to the peculiar, he refused to give
his wife suffering with pneumonia medication, a decision that resulted in her
death. When he was struck by malaria, though, he reversed his aversion to
modern medicine and accepted it. This type of inconsistency was known to him,
it seems, because he wrote of himself elsewhere:
I am not at all
concerned with appearing to be consistent. In my search after Truth I have
discarded many ideas and learnt many new things…What I am concerned with is my
readiness to obey the call of Truth, my God, from moment to moment, and
therefore, when anybody finds any inconsistency between any two writings of
mine, if he has still faith in my sanity, he would do well to choose the later
of the two on the same subject. (http://www.oxonianreview.org/wp/elephant-traps-in-the-hunt-for-gandhi/).
Was Gandhi a liar, lunatic, or great moral
teacher (unlike Jesus, he never claimed divinity)? I’d argue that he was a
mixture of all because there is nothing that says he cannot be. The real
problem of the Trilemma is not a problem inherent in the persons in question
but in the persons looking on. Some persons find it difficult to see people
complexly. It is either you are a sinner or a saint, a hero or a villain, a
Madonna or a whore. When it comes to public figures like Gandhi and Jesus,
Aristotle can give insight to this propensity. Ethos, he says, is one of the three components of persuasive
arguing. Your case is greatly improved if you are seen as an ethical person.
This is why politicians go through great lengths to cover up their dirty pasts.
Men like Jesus and Gandhi preached philosophies
and had devoted followers. After their deaths, in order for these philosophies
to grow and remain influential, followers needed to ensure that the saintly
images of their leaders were preserved. The unpopularity of the dark sides of
Gandhi is better understood when put in the context of India’s independence and
the role he played there. If everyone knew about his secret practices it may
have adversely affected his influence while alive and also after death. For
human beings, you cease being a hero the moment your sin becomes public and
this must be avoided at all costs. Seeing that the earliest gospel written
about Jesus was done 40 years after his death, I suspect that similar things
were done with Jesus as were done with Gandhi.
What I think is necessary as we move
forward is less hagiography and more objective historical inquiry. Jesus Christ
should not be exempt from this scrutiny. Christians should ask themselves why
they believe the things they believe about Jesus. What evidence do we have that
he was free from sin? Why should we believe that Jesus Christ was the perfect
human being apart from books written about him by devoted followers? Jesus
Christ never told a white lie? Really, now. There is evidence of him being a
bit rude to his mother when they couldn’t find him because he was “about his
father’s business,” but that is always interpreted in Jesus’ favour. More is
needed for us to uncover the true face of Jesus and we may all be surprised by
what we find. We should want to know the truth no matter how unbearably
beautiful or terrifying because reality equips us for real life better than any
fantasy ever can.
You made some great points here Kwame. The main one being that Christians like to paint everything in black and white. You are flawlessly good or perfectly evil. Even if you have never found a flaw in someone it is a complete logical fallacy to suggest that it is an impossibility that they could ever make or have made an error. It's like going to a wait for a bus every morning and finding it was on time every day in a year and then concluding that it is impossible that the bus will ever be late anytime in the future or was late at anytime in the past.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, this is the first time I have seen C.S Lewis's full name written out. 'Clive Staples.' Wow! Never knew. Thanks for that bit of education. :)
Great points and true, people like to whitewash their held up heroes' sketchy pasts or behaviour. Seems like we humans are desperate to find a character that transcends what seems to be our flawed nature. It never really turns out that way, may I add 2 more to the growing list of enigmatic protagonists - MLK & Lance Armstrong. And there is even doubt that Jesus even existed, I for one don't think he did and can find better teachings about life with the very real Marcus Aurelius or Aristotle, at least they didn't pretend to be uber perfect, and I'll take that anytime of day!!! Great writing!
ReplyDeleteInteresting article indeed. Great points and arguments.
ReplyDeleteJust one or two things I'll like to consider. Speaking about morality and moral 'teachers', I fail to see what is the basis you're using to determine whether someone is a good 'moral' teacher or not.
For instance, speaking about Jesus you wrote "He said some wonderful things, yes, but he also said some things in ways that make me second guess his sanity". Does this mean then that you are qualifying his teaching based on your 'own' morality or 'moral code'?
If so, then whether someone is a moral teacher is subjective and thereby someone being a 'universally great' moral teacher, is a non-entity and indeed independent of their person as the odds favor that they'll find someone subscribing to their moral standards. It would then suffice to say "I consider X to be a moral teacher", no discussion needed.
If we are not judging their teachings by our own personal 'moral code' then is there a moral standard or does the human race have a common 'moral code' embedded into us that we all adhere to? If this is true then whatever they teach would conform to our ideologies of morality and this question is again a non-entity. However you only have to visit another village, country or society to realize that isn't the case. The human race doesn't have a universal, common moral standard. So I'll stick with the former.
Keeping this 'moral confusion' in mind as a background, if someone is therefore a 'Liar' (someone who lies repeatedly), how then are we going to accept them as a 'moral teacher'. Do we then pick through everything they say and determine what is 'lie' and what it 'truth'. What basis are we using to decide that. IF we have another basis or standard to 'TEST and QUALIFY' the liar's teaching then he isn't infact a teacher, the source of our 'standard' is greater than him. We haven't truly Learnt anything, we test the student not the teacher.
If he IS infact 'LORD' then by the definition of 'LORD', then he has be a moral teacher or even the moral standard. If he is not LORD then we are back to picking and choosing what of this teachings agree with 'our moral code'.
A lunatic is a person whose actions and manner are marked by extreme eccentricity or recklessness and is of an unsound mind. Not quite sure why we're discussing whether the products of their unsound minds and brains are ethically and morally upright and should be followed and adhered to by us having sound minds. Foolish discussion.
I hope you realize that this dilemma is wayyy more complex that we think it is.We can't fool ourselves. Can't be universally all at the same time.