Megalomaniac, Liar or Other?
The Australian Atheist picked up this comment in a post (from Australia, unsurprisingly) about Jesus:
There is no room in this story for regarding this Jesus as merely a good spiritual teacher. He was either a dangerous megalomaniac, a liar or what he said he was.
And on the basis that Jesus probably/certainly (who knows, it was a long time ago) believed that the end of the world was nigh, concludes that the most likely answer is either dangerous megalomaniac, or a liar.
I don’t dispute that of the three, those are the two more likely statements. The chances of anyone being resurrected within a few years of their death and returning on “clouds of glory” is, let’s just say remote, to be polite.
As you may know, these choices were famously posed by C.S.Lewis in Mere Christianity
I read Mere Christianity a few months ago, on the recommendation of some friends (one atheist, one Christian) and strongly disagreed with lots (but not all) of the book. And this question was one of the things that I disagreed with. There are, after all, plenty of other choices. My favourite is that Jesus was just wrong.
Yes, he thought the world was going to come to an end and that God would come to rule, but plenty of people genuinely think that all the time without suffering from uncontrollable mental illness. And there are certifiably competent people who go round thinking much weirder things, like the world is ruled by an elite cabal of lizards posing as humans.
Me, I think Jesus was an ordinary dude living in interesting times who had some good ideas, got carried away, and ended up being executed. And living on in the collective memories of his friends, and their minions. And now he’s really famous. But still dead.
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3 Responses to “Megalomaniac, Liar or Other?”
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I think there is a misunderstanding involved regarding the nature of the Lewis argument. His point includes the idea that Jesus was wrong — but if Jesus was wrong, he was either a liar or a lunatic. The idea that Jesus was wrong is not just about the end of the world, but about his claim to deity, given his answers to many questions (”I Am”, “Before Abraham was, I Am”, etc).
That said, rather than conflict with the Lewis argument, the idea that Jesus might have been wrong plays into his argument.
Interesting thoughts though.
I disagree.
He could only be lying if he knew that the truth was something else. If he genuinely thought that he was going to rise from the dead, then he wasn’t lying when he said that, he was just wrong.
Thinking that you are going to rise from the dead is not really lunacy. It’s an irrational belief certainly, but it wouldn’t preclude someone from being able to otherwise function normally.
You could make Lewis’ argument about someone like the Dalai Lama who claims to be the reincarnation of previous Dalai Lamas. He isn’t lying in the claim and neither is he a lunatic. He is either correct, and thus deserves to be treated as his position demands, or he is incorrect, in which case he has to stand on his on his own merits..
I disagree with Shaun’s understanding of Lewis’s argument. Making inaccurate statements does not automatically render one a liar. For example, all of the pundits who predicted that Hillary Clinton would lose last night’s New Hampshire primary were simply wrong. They didn’t lie when they made their predictions. They took their best guesses based on the information they had at hand. The fact that what they said turned out to be false does not mean that they lied. Similarly, Jesus’ statements to the effect that the world would end soon were simply wrong. It’s quite plausible to suggest that he did not intend to deceive, he was simply mistaken.
As for the lunatic label, that’s a loaded term. What does it mean to be a lunatic? To be stark, raving mad and unable to function in any normal fashion? That’s probably one meaning. But those extreme symptoms only describe a small percentage of people who live with various mental impairments. Such difficulties hinder some parts of their lives yet, in other respects, they function within “normal” parameters. Most people with mental instabilities live pretty ordinary lives, especially with appropriate medication, therapy, etc. We probably work and interact all the time, without realizing it, with people who are being treated for mental illnesses, just as we work and interact, again, completely unaware of the fact, with people who are taking meds for high blood pressure and other physical ailments.
While Lewis’ clever alliteration has aesthetic appeal, the fact is that the term, lunatic, should be regarded as a rhetorical flourish rather than an analytically apt description of a state of affairs. That alone renders his “argument” moot. Add to that shortcoming the fact that Lewis created a false trichotomy - thus narrowly avoiding committing the false dichotomy fallacy
- and it becomes clear that his “argument” is cute and entertaining, but certainly not persuasive.