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

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”.