Christological Argument - Argument From The Claims of Jesus To Divinity

Argument From The Claims of Jesus To Divinity

See also: Lewis's trilemma

A related line of evangelical argument addresses the notion that Jesus Christ was a great philosopher and ethicist, but not God. It draws on the Trilemma as postulated by C. S. Lewis and others, which argues that Jesus claimed to be God, and either this claim was true and Jesus was in fact divine, or else he was a charlatan or a madman. Assuming the trilemma to be accurate, the argument proceeds in stating that neither a charlatan or a madman could be considered a great moral teacher and that therefore the possibility of Jesus being merely a great moral teacher is excluded.

The argument conditionally argues for the existence of God; it relies on the premise that Jesus was a great moral teacher. The structure of the argument is as follows:

  1. Jesus claimed to be God
  2. Jesus was a wise moral teacher
  3. By the trilemma, Jesus was dishonest, deluded or God
  4. No wise moral teacher is dishonest
  5. No wise moral teacher is deluded
  6. By 2 and 4, Jesus was not dishonest
  7. By 2 and 5, Jesus was not deluded
  8. By 3, 6 and 7, Jesus was God
  9. By 8, God exists

Read more about this topic:  Christological Argument

Famous quotes containing the words argument, claims, jesus and/or divinity:

    ““English! they are barbarians; they don’t believe in the great God.” I told him, “Excuse me, Sir. We do believe in God, and in Jesus Christ too.” “Um,” says he, “and in the Pope?” “No.” “And why?” This was a puzzling question in these circumstances.... I thought I would try a method of my own, and very gravely replied, “Because we are too far off.” A very new argument against the universal infallibility of the Pope.”
    —James Boswell (1740–1795)

    “Let me live onward; you shall find that, though slower, the progress of my character will liquidate all these debts without injustice to higher claims. If a man should dedicate himself to the payment of notes, would not this be an injustice? Does he owe no debt but money? And are all claims on him to be postponed to a landlord’s or a banker’s?”
    —Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    “Is it true?
    Is it true?
    I can only imagine it is true
    that Jesus comes with his eggful of miracles,
    his awful death, his blackboard full of graffiti.”
    —Anne Sexton (1928–1974)

    “Here we also see: what this divinity lacks is not only a sense of shame—and there are also other reasons for conjecturing that in several respects all of the gods could learn from us humans. We humans are—more humane.”
    —Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)