The Trilemma Argument - Part 5: Five Passages from the Gospel of John

 1. JOHN 10:24-33, NRSV Updated Edition

In Chapter 5 of Evidence for Jesus, the first passage the McDowells reference in the section called "Jesus' claims of Divinity" is this one from the Gospel of John:

 24 So the Jews gathered around him and said to him, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly.” 25 Jesus answered, “I have told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name testify to me, 26 but you do not believe because you do not belong to my sheep. 27 My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, in regard to what he has given me, is greater than all, and no one can snatch them out of the Father’s hand. 30 The Father and I are one.”

31 The Jews took up stones again to stone him. 32 Jesus replied, “I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these are you going to stone me?” 33 The Jews answered, “It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you but for blasphemy, because you, though only a human, are making yourself God.”

• The Gospel of John is a historically unreliable account of the life and words of Jesus.
• Jesus never says “The Father and I are one” or “God and I are one” or “The Father and the Messiah are one” or “God and the Messiah are one” or “The Father and the Son are one” or “God and the Son are one” in any of the other three Gospels.
• Paul never says “The Father and Jesus are one” or “God and Jesus are one” of “The Father and the Messiah are one” or “God and the Messiah are one” or “The Father and the Son are one” or “God and the Son are one” in any of his letters.
• In the New Testament, outside of the Gospel of John, nobody ever says “The Father and Jesus are one” or “God and Jesus are one” or “The Father and the Messiah are one” or “God and the Messiah are one”
• If Jesus did actually claim to be one with God, he did not mean that he was God himself. This is clear from Jesus’ discussion of oneness in Chapter 17 of the Gospel of John:

20 “I ask not only on behalf of these but also on behalf of those who believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

Jesus is “one” with the Father, because the Father is in him, and Jesus is in the Father (verse 21). But Jesus prays that “they [Jesus’ followers] also be in us” and “I [Jesus] in them”. If we assume that Jesus is God, then Jesus is praying that his followers will be in him (i.e. God) and that he (i.e. God) will be in them. But that would mean that the followers of Jesus would, just like Jesus, be one with God.

Thus, if being one with God makes a person God, then every follower of Jesus would be God. Obviously, nobody, not even Jesus, believed that every follower of Jesus was God. Therefore, being one with God does not imply being God.

2.  JOHN 5:17-18, NRSV Updated Edition

In Chapter 5 of Evidence for Jesus, the second passage the McDowells reference in the section called "Jesus' claims of Divinity" is this one from the Gospel of John:

17 But Jesus answered them, “My Father is still working, and I also am working.” 18 For this reason the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because he was not only breaking the Sabbath but was also calling God his own Father, thereby making himself equal to God.

• The Gospel of John is a historically unreliable account of the life and words of Jesus.
• Jesus never says “I am equal to God”, or “I am equal to the Father”, or “I am equal with God”, or “I am equal with the Father”, in any of the Gospels, including the Gospel of John.
• Jesus never says “the Messiah is equal to God” or “the Messiah is equal with God” or “the Son of God is equal to God” or “the Son of God is equal with God” in any of the Gospels, including the Gospel of John.
• Paul never says “Jesus is equal to God”, or “Jesus is equal to the Father”, or “Jesus is equal with God”, or “Jesus is equal with the Father” in any of his letters.
• Paul never says “The Messiah is equal to God” or “The Messiah is equal with God” or “the Son of God is equal to God” or “the Son of God is equal with God.”[1] 
• In the New Testament, outside of the Gospel of John, nobody ever says “Jesus is equal to God”, or “Jesus is equal to the Father”, or “Jesus is equal with God”, or “Jesus is equal with the Father” or “the Messiah is equal to God” or “the Messiah is equal with God” or “the Son of God is equal to God” or “the Son of God is equal with God.”
• Although the historical Jesus probably did refer to God as his “father”, this does not mean that Jesus was claiming to be equal to God. Jesus taught his disciples to pray to God this way: “Our Father in heaven…” (Matthew 6:7-15). Jesus believed that God was the father of Jesus' disciples, but Jesus did not believe that his disciples were equal to God, nor that any of his disciples was God himself.

3.  JOHN 8:57-59, NRSV Updated Edition

In Chapter 5 of Evidence for Jesus, the third passage in the section called "Jesus' claims of Divinity" is this one from the Gospel of John:

57 Then the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?” 58 Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, before Abraham was, I am.” 59 So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.

• The Gospel of John is a historically unreliable account of the life and words of Jesus.
• Jesus never says “before Abraham was, I am” in any of the other three Gospels.
• Jesus never claims to have existed before his own birth in any of the other three Gospels.
• There is no explanation by “the Jews” who picked up stones to throw at Jesus as to why they objected to what Jesus said, and there is no explanation by the author of this Gospel about why “the Jews” objected to what Jesus said. We can only speculate about why they were offended by Jesus’ response.
• Even if Jesus did claim to have existed before Abraham, that does not imply that Jesus claimed to be God. Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel, Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japeth all existed before Abraham (according to the Bible), but nobody believes that any of them were God. The angels, including the devil, existed before Abraham (according to the Bible), but nobody believes that any of the angels are God, and certainly nobody believes that the devil is God.
• Some Jews in Jesus’ time believed that the Messiah existed in heaven prior to being sent by God to lead the Jewish people, but they did not believe that the Messiah was God. So, Jesus could have believed the Messiah would exist in heaven prior to being born, and also believed that he was the Messiah, and therefore that he must have existed in heaven before he was born, even though he had no memory of being in heaven before he was born. Being the Messiah, however, does not imply being God. So, if Jesus believed he was the Messiah, he might well have inferred that he must have existed in heaven prior to his birth and yet did not believe himself to be God.
• Alternatively, Jesus might not have believed himself to be the Messiah nor believed he existed in heaven before he was born, but after his death and alleged resurrection some of his followers imposed this already existing concept of the Messiah on Jesus, and shaped the words and teachings of Jesus to conform with their belief that Jesus was the Messiah.

 4.  JOHN 5:22-23, NRSV Updated Edition

In Chapter 5 of Evidence for Jesus, the third passage in the section called "Jesus' claims of Divinity" is this one from the Gospel of John:

22 The Father judges no one but has given all judgment to the Son, 23 so that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Anyone who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him.

• The Gospel of John is a historically unreliable account of the life and words of Jesus.
• Jesus never uses the phrase “honor the Son” anywhere else in the Gospel of John or anywhere in the other three Gospels, or anywhere else in the New Testament.
• Jesus never uses the phrase “worship the Son”, or “worship the Messiah”, or “worshipped the Son” or “worshiped the Messiah” anywhere in the New Testament.
• Paul never uses the phrase “honor the Son” anywhere in the New Testament.
• Paul never uses the phrases “worship the Son”, or “worship the Messiah”, or “worship Jesus”, or “worshipped the Son” or “worshipped the Messiah” or “worshipped Jesus” anywhere in the New Testament.
• Apart from this one verse in the Gospel of John, nobody ever uses the phrase “honor the Son” anywhere in the New Testament.
• Nobody in the New Testament ever uses the phrases “worship Jesus”, or “worship the Messiah”, or “worship the Son”, or “worshiped Jesus”, or “worshiped the Messiah”, or “worshiped the Son”.
• If the historical Jesus actually claimed he would be the judge of all humankind, that would not imply that Jesus claimed to be God. God can delegate his authority to a human being.  According to the Gospel of John, Jesus planned to delegate eternal judgment of humans to his disciples. But nobody believes that each of Jesus' disciples is God. According to Paul, God planned to delegate eternal judgment of humans and angels to Christian believers (1 Corinthians 6:2), but nobody believes that all Christian believers are God.
• If the historical Jesus actually claimed that he should “receive honor” just as God should “receive honor”, that would not imply that Jesus claimed be God. Jesus believed that prophets of God should receive honor (Mark 6:4 and John 4:44), but nobody, including Jesus, believes that every prophet is God. According to the Gospel of John, God will honor those who are followers or servants of Jesus (John 12:25-26), but nobody, including Jesus, believes that God will worship the followers of Jesus.

5.  JOHN 14:7-9, NRSV Updated Edition

In Chapter 5 of Evidence for Jesus, the fifth passage in the section called "Jesus' claims of Divinity" is this one:

7 If you know me, you will know my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

8 Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied.” 9 Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you all this time, Philip, and you still do not know me? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?

• The Gospel of John is a historically unreliable account of the life and words of Jesus.
• Jesus does not in any other Gospel claim that those who saw him saw God.
• Jesus does not use the phrase “seen me”, or “seen the Messiah”, or “seen the Son”, in any other Gospel.
• Jesus never uses the phrases “seen the Father” or “show us the Father”, or “show the Father”, or “show us God” in any other Gospel. Jesus does use the phrase “see God” just once, but he uses it as a roundabout way of saying some people who are good will go to heaven (Matthew 5:8).
• Paul never uses the phrases “seen the Son”, or “seen the Messiah”, or “show us the Father” or “show the Father” or “show us God” or “show God”, or “seen the Father”, or “seen God” in the New Testament. Paul uses the phrase “seen Jesus” just once (1 Corinthians 9:1), and this is not a reference to seeing the historical flesh-and-blood Jesus, but refers to an alleged appearance of the risen Jesus to Paul, which was probably a vision or hallucination.
• Outside the Gospel of John and the letters attributed to John, nobody in the New Testament ever uses the phrases “seen the Son”, or “seen the Messiah”, or “show us the Father” or “show the Father” or “show us God” or “show God”, or “seen the Father”, or “seen God”, and the phrase “seen Jesus” occurs only once, in a letter by Paul (see the previous bullet).
• If the historical Jesus actually claimed that people who saw him saw God, this does not imply that Jesus claimed to be God. Jesus might well have believed that his words and actions were fully in accordance with God’s will, and thus that his words and actions clearly revealed God’s will and God’s character to the people who heard his words and observed his actions. In other words, the claim that those who have seen Jesus have seen God might well mean that Jesus’ words and actions were fully in accordance with the will of God, not that Jesus himself was God.

    END NOTES

1. There is a passage in a letter of Paul’s to the Philippians (2:5-7) where Paul quotes a Christian hymn that talks about Jesus and “equality with God”, but Paul doesn’t have to agree with the theology of that hymn to make his point, and it is unclear that the hymn asserts or assumes that Jesus is God or that Jesus is equal with God. 

1

The Trilemma Argument - Part 4: Did Jesus Claim to be God?

THE ARGUMENT FOR THE KEY PREMISE (1)

The core of the Trilemma Argument is clear (see Part 2 of this series):

1. Either (a) Jesus is God, or (b) Jesus lied about being God, or (c) Jesus was seriously mentally ill.

2. It is not the case that: Jesus lied about being God.

3. It is not the case that: Jesus was seriously mentally ill.

THEREFORE:

4. Jesus is God.

 

Most of the Trilemma Argument is concerned with supporting premise (1), the claim that we are limited to just three options concerning Jesus.

Here is a diagram of the Trilemma Argument that shows the logical structure of the sub-argument supporting premise (1):

Based on my analysis of the sub-argument supporting premise (1), that sub-argument is based on a key historical claim: 

5. Jesus claimed to be God.

This historical claim is false, so the entire Trilemma Argument is based on a false historical claim. 

According to the McDowells, Jesus claimed to be God:

Among the great religious leaders, Jesus uniquely claimed to be God in human flesh. (EFJ, page 39)

The Gospels record many examples of Jesus claiming to be God. (EFJ, page 47)

ONCE I (JOSH) CONCLUDED THAT JESUS CLAIMED TO BE GOD, I realized I had only so many options left. (EFJ, page 64)

Jesus’s claim to be God must be either true or false. (EFJ, page 65)

Despite the confident assertions by the McDowells, Jesus never claimed to be God. The McDowells come close to admitting this historical fact:

CRITICS OF CHRISTIANITY ARGUE THAT JESUS NEVER uttered the words “I am God.” Technically, they’re right! But while Jesus is not recorded in the Bible as having said those three words, that doesn’t mean Jesus did not claim deity. (EFJ, page 41)

The problem, however, is not that Jesus never said the three words “I am God”. The problem is that there are at least fifty different ways that Jesus could have claimed to be God, but Jesus never made any of these fifty different statements. 

THE EVIDENCE AGAINST PREMISE (5)

In the New Testament, Jesus never says:

1. “I am God.”

2. “I am the eternal God.”

3. “I am the everlasting God.”

4. “I am the immortal God.”

5. “I am the living God.”

6. “I am the mighty God.”

7. “I am the Almighty God.”

8. “I am the all-wise God.”

9. “I am the holy God.”

10. “I am the true God.”

11. “I am the great God.”

12. “I am the supreme God.”

13. “I am the Most High God.”

14. “I am the God of heaven.”

15. “I am the God of heaven and earth.”

16. “I am the God of glory.”

17. “I am the God of peace.”

18. “I am the God of love and peace.”

19. “I am the God of hope.”

20. “I am the God of all grace.”

21. “I am the God of faithfulness.”

22. “I am the God of our ancestors.”

23. “I am the God of Abraham.”

24. “I am the God of Isaac.”

25. “I am the God of Jacob.”

26. “I am the God of Israel.”

27. “I am the God of the Hebrews.”

28. “I am the God of gods.”

29. “I am the God of the spirits of the prophets.”

30. “I am the God of the spirits of all flesh.”

31. “I am maker of heaven and earth.”

32. “I am the creator.”

33. “I am the creator of the world.”

34. “I am the creator of all things.”

35. “I am the creator of the ends of the earth.”

36. “I am the creator of Israel.”

37. “I am Yahweh.”

38. “I am the Almighty.”

39. “I am the Mighty One.”

40. “I am the Mighty One of Israel.”

41. “I am The Lord of the earth.”

42. “I am the Lord of all the earth.”

43. “I am the Lord of the whole earth.”

44. “I am the Lord of heaven.”

45. “I am the Lord of heaven and earth.”

46. “I am the Lord of hosts.”

47. “I am the Lord God.”

48. “I am the Lord God Almighty.”

49. “I am the Lord God the Almighty.”

50. “I am the Lord God of Israel.”

From these facts, it is clear that Jesus never claimed to be God.

Furthermore, the earliest Christian writings we have are the letters of Paul (particularly the seven letters that NT scholars view as authentic letters that were actually written by Paul), but Paul never writes that “Jesus is God”, and Paul never uses any of the above fifty different ways of stating this claim. So, Paul also never claimed that Jesus is God. If Jesus frequently claimed to be God, why didn’t Paul ever make this claim about Jesus?

Finally, nobody in the New Testament ever uses any of the above fifty different ways of claiming that Jesus is God. This is powerful evidence that Jesus never claimed to be God. Otherwise, some of the followers of Jesus would have made some of those fifty claims about Jesus.

Jesus also does not claim to have the divine attributes of God:

• I am eternally a bodiless person (or a spirit).
• I am eternally an omniscient person (or all-knowing).
• I am eternally an omnipotent person (or all-powerful).
• I am eternally a perfectly morally good person (or morally flawless).
• I am eternally an omnipresent person (present in every location).
• I am the creator of the universe.

Thus, Jesus neither claimed to be God nor claimed to possess the key attributes of God.

OVERVIEW OF THE MCDOWELL'S EVIDENCE FOR PREMISE (5)

What evidence do the McDowells provide to support their key assertion that Jesus claimed to be God?  In Chapter Five of EFJ (called “Did Jesus Claim to Be God?”), they focus on eight passages from the Gospels. Five of those eight passages, however, are from the Gospel of John.  But the Gospel of John provides a historically unreliable account of the life and words of Jesus, so most of their evidence can be tossed aside, because it is very dubious.[1]

In fact, one of the main reasons that N.T. and Jesus scholars view the Gospel of John as being historically unreliable, is that Jesus frequently makes exalted claims about himself in that Gospel, but not in the previous three Gospels.  It is precisely the sort of passages that the McDowell’s quote from the Gospel of John that leads most scholars to view that Gospel as being unreliable.[2]

Furthermore, Jesus does not clearly claim to be God in any of the five passages quoted from the Gospel of John. All five passages can be reasonably interpreted in a way that they do not imply that Jesus is God[3], and given that it is also dubious that the historical Jesus spoke the words attributed to him in those five passages, the evidence from those passages fails to provide any significant support for the assertion that Jesus claimed to be God.

The McDowells also provide two quotations of Jesus from the Gospel of Matthew, and one quotation of Jesus from the Gospel of Mark.

Aware of the serious problem with their assertion that Jesus claimed to be God, the McDowells appear to slide into making a weaker claim:

Even if Jesus never explicitly stated that he is God, he certainly made many implicit and indirect claims to deity. (EFJ, page 63)

If Jesus “made many implicit and indirect claims” to be God, then perhaps some modified version of the Trilemma could get off the ground, based on that weaker assertion. 

The problem with "implicit and indirect claims" by Jesus is that such "claims" are usually dubious because they require a significant degree of interpretation, thus allowing believers and Christian apologists to exercise subjective bias grounded in their wishes or desires that Jesus was God and claimed to be God. This is clearly the case with the Gospel passages put forward by the McDowells.

END NOTES

1.The Gospel of John is a historically unreliable source of information about the life, ministry, and death of Jesus. There are a number of good reasons supporting this skeptical view of the Gospel of John:

• The Gospel of John was the last of the four canonical gospels to be written, according to most NT scholars.
• The Gospel of John was written about 90-100 C.E., sixty to seventy years after Jesus was crucified, according to most NT scholars.
• The Gospel of John was probably not written by an eyewitness of the life, ministry, and crucifixion of Jesus, according to most NT scholars.
• The Gospel of John disagrees with the earlier Gospels on a number of points (e.g. what Jesus said about himself, exorcisms by Jesus, whether Jesus was crucified on Passover, and whether the first time the risen Jesus appeared to his disciples took place in Jerusalem on Easter Sunday or in Galilee a week or more after Jesus was crucified).
• The “sermons” of Jesus in the earlier Gospels are just collections of various short sayings of Jesus, while the “sermons” of Jesus in the Gospel of John are actually long, coherent sermons. Short sayings repeatedly spoken by Jesus could have been accurately remembered by his followers, but it is very unlikely that his followers would be able to accurately remember a long sermon that Jesus delivered only once or twice. Most NT scholars do not believe that the “sermons” of Jesus presented in the Gospel of John represent accurate memories of what Jesus actually said.
• The Gospel of John features a number of dramatic one-on-one conversations between Jesus and specific individuals. An omniscient narrator tells us about these private conversations, which is a lovely literary device, but this casts serious doubt on the historicity of those private conversations. Who was there to hear and remember these conversations?
• The Gospel of John contains some of the finest writing in the NT and is known for its extensive use of theological metaphor and symbolism.  Some of the most notable passages in this gospel, especially in John’s passion narrative, were clearly written as short plays, with distinct scenes. The pronounced theological and dramatic emphasis of this gospel indicate that historical accuracy was not a high priority for the author of the Gospel of John.
• For nearly two centuries, scholars who specialize in studying the historical Jesus have focused their attention on the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) and have largely ignored the Gospel of John because they view the Gospel of John as historically unreliable.
• For a more in-depth case for the historical unreliability of the Gospel of John, see my posts on this subject:

The Unreliability of the 4th Gospel - Part 14: Summary and INDEX  

2. The Gospel of John is considered by Jesus and NT scholars to be significantly less historically reliable than the other (“synoptic”) gospels.

Marcus Borg is a leading Jesus scholar, and he writes this about the Gospel of John:

Cumulatively these differences [in how the 4th Gospel portrays Jesus vs. how the other gospels portray Jesus] have persuaded scholars that a foundational choice must be made: The historical Jesus was either more like the Jesus of the synoptics [Matthew, Mark, and Luke] or more like the Jesus of John [the 4th Gospel].  The differences are so great that the synoptic and Johannine portraits of Jesus cannot be harmonized into a single whole.  For mainline scholars the choice is the synoptics. 

(“The Historical Study of Jesus and Christian Origins” by Marcus Borg, in Jesus at 2000, p. 132, edited by Marcus Borg)

E.P. Sanders is a leading NT scholar, and after pointing out a number of differences between the 4th Gospel and the synoptic gospels, he writes this about the Gospel of John:

It is impossible to think that Jesus spent his short ministry teaching in two such completely different ways, conveying such different contents, and that there were simply two traditions, each going back to Jesus, one transmitting 50 per cent of what he said and another one the other 50 percent, with almost no overlaps.  Consequently, for the last 150 or so years scholars have had to choose.  They have almost unanimously, and I think entirely correctly, concluded that the teaching of the historical Jesus is to be sought in the synoptic gospels [Matthew, Mark, and Luke] and that John [the Gospel of John] represents an advanced theological development, in which meditations on the person and work of Christ are presented in the first person, as if Jesus said them.

(The Historical Figure of Jesus, by E.P. Sanders, p. 70-71)

Dwight Moody Smith is a leading scholar on the Gospel of John, and his view of the Gospels agrees with that of Borg and Sanders:

Because the Synoptics [Matthew, Mark, and Luke] do not generally present Jesus as proclaiming himself, i.e. presenting Christological doctrine, and because the issues they portray him dealing with are largely indigenous to early first-century Palestinian Judaism, historians have rightly preferred their renditions particularly of Jesus’ teaching but also of his healing activity and his death [over those of the Gospel of John].

(“John, the Gospel According to” by Dwight Moody Smith in The HarperCollins Bible Dictionary, revised edition, edited by Paul Achtemeier, p.533-534)

3. In the next part in this series of posts on the Trilemma Argument, I will examine each of the five passages from the Gospel of John that the McDowells put forward as evidence that Jesus claimed to be God.

The Trilemma Argument - Part 3: The Argument for Premise (1)

DILEMMA ARGUMENTS vs. TRILEMMA ARGUMENTS 

A dilemma argument is an argument that starts out by specifying two alternatives as being the only possibilities, then eliminates one of the alternatives, and then concludes that the other alternative must be true:

Either the butler killed Mr. Jones or the maid killed Mr. Jones.

The butler did not kill Mr. Jones.

THEREFORE:

The maid killed Mr. Jones.

A trilemma argument is an argument that starts out by specifying three alternatives as being the only possibilities,  then eliminates two of the alternatives, and then concludes that the one remaining alternative is true:

Either the butler killed Mr. Jones or the maid killed Mr. Jones or the gardener killed Mr. Jones.

The butler did not kill Mr. Jones.

The maid did not kill Mr. Jones.

THEREFORE:

The gardener killed Mr. Jones. 

The core of the Trilemma Argument for the deity of Jesus has the same logical structure:

1. Either (a) Jesus is God, or (b) Jesus lied about being God, or (c) Jesus was seriously mentally ill.

2. It is not the case that: Jesus lied about being God.

3. It is not the case that: Jesus was seriously mentally ill. 

THEREFORE:

4. Jesus is God.

THE DILEMMA BEHIND THE TRILEMMA

The most important historical claim in the Trilemma Argument occurs in the first sentence of the chapter where the McDowells lay out the Trilemma:

ONCE I (JOSH) CONCLUDED THAT JESUS CLAIMED TO BE GOD, I realized I only had so many options left. (EFJ, page 64)

A key historical claim of the Trilemma Argument is this: 

Jesus claimed to be God.

From this claim, the McDowells infer a dilemma:

…Jesus’ claim to be God must be either true or false.  (EFJ, page 65)

I will restate this claim so that each alternative of the dilemma is spelled out:

Either Jesus' claim to be God was true, or Jesus claim to be God was false.

The McDowells turn this dilemma into a trilemma by dividing the second alternative into two possibilities:

But if Jesus’ claims to be God were false, then we are left with just two options: he either knew his claims were false (he was a liar), or he did not know they were false (he was crazy). (EFJ, page 65) 

I will restate this assertion more simply and concisely (leaving out the added inferences about Jesus being a liar or being crazy):

If Jesus' claim to be God was false, then either Jesus knew his claim to be God was false or Jesus did not know his claim to be God was false (though it was false). 

THE SUB-ARGUMENT FOR AN INITIAL TRILEMMA 

We may now state the argument for an initial trilemma:

5. Jesus claimed to be God.

THEREFORE:

6. Either Jesus' claim to be God was true, or Jesus' claim to be God was false.

7. If Jesus' claim to be God was false, then either Jesus knew his claim to be God was false or Jesus did not know his claim to be God was false (though it was false).

THEREFORE:

8. Either (a) Jesus' claim to be God is true, or (b) Jesus knew his claim to be God was false, or (c) Jesus did not know his claim to be God was false (though it was false).

We can now diagram the logical structure of the sub-argument for the initial trilemma, premise (8):

THE SUB-ARGUMENT FOR PREMISE (1) 

In order to arrive at the trilemma statement used in the core of the Trilemma Argument, the McDowells make inferences from each of the three alternatives stated in the initial trilemma, premise (8):

If Jesus' claims [to be God] were true, then he is Lord. (EFJ, page 65) 

If Jesus knew he was not God, then he was lying. (EFJ, page 65) 

...or he [Jesus] did not know they [his claims to be God] were false (he was crazy). (EFJ, page 65) 

Let's clarify these three statements so that they are clear and use the same expressions as the previously clarified premises (see Part 2 of this series): 

9. If Jesus' claim to be God was true, then Jesus is God.

10. If Jesus knew his claim to be God was false, then Jesus lied about being God.

11. If Jesus did not know his claim to be God was false (though it was false), then Jesus was seriously mentally ill. 

If we add these three claims to the initial trilemma statement, premise (8) above, we can infer the key statement of the trilemma in the core of the Trilemma Argument:

1. Either (a) Jesus is God, or (b) Jesus lied about being God, or (c) Jesus was seriously mentally ill.

We can now diagram the logical structure of the sub-argument supporting premise (1) in the core of the Trilemma Argument:  

If we add the core of the Trilemma Argument to the above two diagrams, we can diagram the whole Trilemma Argument, minus the reasons/arguments for premises (2) and (3):

The Trilemma Argument - Part 2: Clarification of the Core Argument

 The Core Argument of the Trilemma

Here is how Josh and Sean McDowell state the core argument of the Trilemma in Evidence for Jesus[1]:

ONCE I (JOSH) CONCLUDED THAT JESUS CLAIMED TO BE GOD, I realized I only had so many options left. I could reject this claim, which would mean that either Jesus was a liar who knew he wasn't God but said so anyway or a lunatic who believed he was God but wasn't. Or I could accept this claim, which, for me, would mean becoming a Christian. This has famously been called the "liar, lunatic, Lord" trilemma. (EFJ, page 64)

On pages 65 to 67, the McDowells argue that Jesus was not a liar. On page 68, they argue that Jesus was not a lunatic. On the next page, they state a key premise of their argument:

If Jesus of Nazareth is not a liar or a lunatic, then he must be Lord. (EFJ, page 69)

We can restate their core argument this way:

Either (a) Jesus was a liar or (b) Jesus was a lunatic, or (c) Jesus is Lord. 

It is not the case that: Jesus was a liar. 

It is not the case that: Jesus was a lunatic.

THEREFORE:

Jesus is Lord.

Before I spell out this argument any further, it should be noted that the Trilemma is Dead On Arrival. This argument fails right out of the starting gate because it is unclear, too unclear to be rationally evaluated. 

The problem is that all three of the statements we are supposed to choose between are ambiguous. Because of the ambiguity of the three alternative statements, there are many different possible interpretations of that set of three statements. “Jesus was a liar” has two meanings; “Jesus was a lunatic” has three meanings, and “Jesus is Lord” has five meanings, so there are thirty different interpretations of those three statements:

2 x 3 x 5 = 30 possible interpretations

Although the Trilemma is DOA due to ambiguity, I will now attempt to perform the miracle of bringing it back to life by clarifying each of the three statements that we are supposedly forced to choose between.

Jesus was a liar. This statement has two possible meanings[2]:

• Jesus told a lie.

• Jesus regularly told lies.

This claim is an inference from the assertion that Jesus claimed to be God plus the suppositions that this claim was false and Jesus knew the claim was false. Since we are talking about one specific claim, the inference to Jesus told a lie seems correct, and the inference to Jesus regularly told lies seems to be a hasty conclusion. So, in order to be fair to the argument, it seems best to interpret the statement as making the weaker claim that Jesus told a lie.[3]

However, the force of the arguments against Jesus telling a lie is based on the specific lie in question: Jesus' claim to be God. So, we should phrase this alternative in a way that maintains this specificity: Jesus lied about being God.

Jesus was a lunatic. This statement has three possible meanings[4]:

• Jesus was very foolish.

• Jesus was seriously mentally ill.

• Jesus was non compos mentis (legally of unsound mind).

C.S. Lewis made a comment that supports the second interpretation:

A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said wouldn’t be a great moral teacher. He’d either be a lunatic—on a level with the man who says he’s a poached egg—or else he’d be the Devil of Hell.[5]

A man who seriously claims to be “a poached egg” is clearly more than just very foolish; such a person would presumably be seriously mentally ill.  Such a person might also be legally of unsound mind, but the use of this legal category doesn’t seem as relevant as the mental-health category; we are not deciding whether Jesus was guilty of a crime.

In Evidence for Jesus, the McDowells open the chapter on the Trilemma with a quote from C.S. Lewis that includes the above quotation[6], so the McDowells also seem to understand “lunatic” as meaning a person who is seriously mentally ill. 

Furthermore, the McDowells indicate they have this stronger sense of “lunatic” in mind:

We must remember, though, that for someone to think he was God, especially in a fiercely monotheistic culture…was no slight flight of fantasy. These were the thoughts of a lunatic in the fullest sense. (EFJ, page 68, emphasis added)

For these reasons, we should understand the sentence Jesus was a lunatic in the Trilemma as meaning: Jesus was seriously mentally ill.

Jesus is Lord. This sentence has five different possible meanings[7]:

• Jesus is Yahweh.

• Jesus is my master.

• Jesus is God.

• Jesus is the ruler of the universe.

• Jesus is God’s right-hand man.

Because the main premise of the Trilemma is that Jesus claimed to be God, it seems obvious that the intended conclusion of this argument is that Jesus is God.  The statement Jesus is Lord appears to have been used for the trivial reason that it results in the memorable alliterative phrase: Liar, Lunatic, or Lord.  So, we should not hesitate to discard the highly ambiguous sentence Jesus is Lord and replace it with the clearer and more relevant sentence: Jesus is God.

Thus, the Trilemma has been brought back to life. We can now restate the core argument of the Trilemma clearly:

1. Either (a) Jesus is God, or (b) Jesus lied about being God, or (c) Jesus was seriously mentally ill.

2. It is not the case that: Jesus lied about being God.

3. It is not the case that: Jesus was seriously mentally ill.

THEREFORE:

4. Jesus is God.

Given this clarification of the core argument of the Trilemma, it is now possible to rationally evaluate this argument.  However, there is a complex sub-argument given in support of premise (1), so we need to make sure that sub-argument is also clear enough to be rationally evaluated.

Furthermore, we also need to know the reasons or arguments that the McDowell's give in support of premises (2) and (3), so that we can properly evaluate those two claims.

END NOTES

1. Josh McDowell and Sean McDowell, Evidence for Jesus (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2023).

2. Here are two definitions of “liar” from The Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary:

a person who has just told a lie or who regularly lies

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/liar viewed 9/14/26

There are two definitions of “liar” from Vocabulary.com:

a person who has lied or who lies repeatedly  

https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/liar  viewed 9/14/26

3. McDowell does talk about “Jesus’ claims [plural] to be God”, and provides a number of different quotes of Jesus that are alleged to be examples of Jesus claiming to be God. So, McDowell could argue for the view that Jesus regularly lied (about being God). However, many of his examples are from the Gospel of John, which I, and many Jesus scholars, dismiss because we view that Gospel as providing a historically unreliable account of the life and words of Jesus. McDowell does have a few quotes from the other Gospels, but apart from the Gospel of John, his evidence is very skimpy. So, in order to make a strong case for his most important assumption, the assumption that “Jesus claimed to be God”, McDowell ought to focus on the modest alternative: “Jesus told a lie” (when he claimed to be God).

4. The American Heritage Dictionary gives us just two definitions of “lunatic”:

1. A person affected by lunacy; a mentally deranged person.

2. A very foolish person.

https://www.ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=lunatic viewed 9/14/26

The term “lunatic” was used in past centuries as a legal category of persons, and as a medical category of persons. But it has been rejected as a legal category and also as a medical category. In law, “lunatic” was replaced by the phrase non compos mentis (legally of unsound mind). In medicine and psychology, “lunatic” was replaced by “serious mental illness”.  Because the phrase “mentally deranged” is unclear, I have substituted the phrase “serious mental illness” for the first definition given in The American Heritage Dictionary.

Although “lunatic” has been rejected as a legal term, there is still a need for a similar legal category, so I include the phrase non compos mentis (legally of unsound mind) as a third meaning of the word “lunatic”.

For information on the history of the term “lunatic”, see the Wikipedia article “Lunatic” and the Wikipedia article on non compos mentis:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunatic  viewed 10/12/26

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non_compos_mentis  viewed 10/12/26

Also worth reading is the article on “Lunacy” in the The American Cyclopædia (1879) on Wikisource:

https://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=The_American_Cyclop%C3%A6dia_(1879)/Lunacy&oldid=6040306  viewed 10/12/26

Google AI response on "non compos mentis meaning in law":

5. C.S. Lewis, The Case for Christianity, page 45:

https://archive.org/details/caseforchristian0000lewi/page/n5/mode/2up  viewed 9/26/26

6. Josh McDowell and Sean McDowell, Evidence for Jesus (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2023), pages 64 to 65.

7. Mounce’s Complete Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words, General Editor: William Mounce (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2006), pages 422-423. 

In the New Testament, the word “lord” is usually translated from the Greek word kyrios. The discussion of the meanings of kyrios in Mounce’s Complete Expository Dictionary describes the five different meanings that I have presented as different meanings of the word “lord”.