Caspian's Creator:
The Trilemma of C.S. Lewis

By Neil Earle

The movie Prince Caspian did well its first week out knocking off Iron Man and supplanted barely by Indiana Jones which in turn was overtaken by Sex and the City.

Prince Caspian was part of a seven-novel series called “The Chronicles of Narnia” written in the early 1950s by the Christian thinker, C.S. Lewis (1898-1963). Lewis died on November 22, 1963, the same day as author Aldous Huxley and President Kennedy. Lewis achieved fame in the mid-twentieth century as a robust defender of the Christian faith as well as a noted literary scholar. During World War Two the British government asked him to broadcast a series of faith-building lectures over the BBC which he issued in 1952 as the provocative Mere Christianity.

In this book Lewis refined a bold philosophical formula that has stirred much controversy. It has been called “The Trilemma.” In 1995-1996 when I taught a ninth grade Bible class in Pasadena, CA, many students appeared fascinated by this almost unforgettable Lewis stratagem for advocating an essential element of the Christian faith: Was Jesus God or was he just another religious sage? The “Trilemma” tries to answer this question in combative Lewis style.

It goes like this, in the inimitable words of Lewis himself:

“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about [Jesus Christ]: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’”

Son of God…or else

“That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic – on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg – or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse.”

Wow – pretty bold stuff for a tweed-jacketed Oxford Don wouldn’t you say?

But Lewis doesn’t finish yet. He goes on:

“You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

Of course, as Lewis himself hastened to add, “it seems to me obvious that he was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently…I have to accept that he was and is God. God has landed on this enemy-occupied world in human form.”

No doubt about it, there are aspects of Lewis’ thought that are piercing and challenging even for Christians. But what about Jesus Christ? What aspects of the life and teaching of Jesus led Lewis to conclude that he was neither Liar nor Lunatic but Lord?

Jesus as Liar?

As the English theologian John Stott puts it: “The most striking feature of the teaching of Jesus is that he was constantly talking about himself.” And about himself Jesus made the most astonishing claims. Remember? Jesus repeatedly advanced the notion that he in his own person was sufficient to deliver human beings from suffering and futility. Two well-known Scriptures attest to this:

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” (Matthew 11:28-29).

“I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never go thirsty” (John 6:35).

Any teacher or prophet who made the seemingly ego-centric claim that he or she could in their very person satisfy our deepest longings, replenish our most barren spiritual dryness or heal our most broken human failings and serve as an eternal source of inner nourishment – such a teacher had better make good on those claims or else. Else the accusation “Liar! Liar!” would drown out his claims. Buddha doesn’t do this. Nether does Confucius or Mohammed. But if the New Testament documents are to be believed Jesus makes good on these claims. Consult the account of the demon-possessed man in Mark 5:1-20 or reread the testimony of the Roman centurion at the Place of the Skull (Matthew 27:54) or ask any three people you meet in church next week.

If Jesus lives up to His claims He is no liar. He is the truth personified.

Jesus as Lunatic?

But it goes even further than this.

As John Stott mentioned in Basic Christianity, Jesus made four clusters of claims that pointed unmistakably to his view of himself as equal with God (that claim is made in a turnabout phrase in Philippians 2:6 and again in John 14:8-11). The first of these revolve around his direct association with the Father. “I and the Father are one,“ Jesus taught his astonished disciples. “If you have seen me you have seen the father (John 14:9).” He offended his enemies with the bold statement: “Before Abraham was born, I am (John 8:57-59).”

Secondly, Jesus accepted worship as Lord and God. This happened at least three times (Matthew 14:33; Luke 5:8; John 20:28-29). Thirdly, Jesus claimed to forgive sins and bestow eternal life (Matthew 9:1-8; John 5:26). His enemies knew what this meant. “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” they murmured (Luke 5:21). Fourthly, Jesus claimed to judge the world (John 5:25-30) as is seen most notably in the parable of the Sheep and Goats (Matthew 25:31-46).

As Stott remarks: Were such a preacher to show up today making these claims he or she might not escape the attention of the psychiatrists. In fact, even Jesus’ own family wondered if he had not lost his mind (Mark 3:20-21). But he hadn’t, of course, and one of the great evidences that he had not was that his own family later acknowledged who he was – sinless Son of God, Savior of the World (Acts 1:12-14).

Jesus is Lord!

Yes, C.S. Lewis well knew what Peter and Andrew, James and Mary and millions of later disciples have found out – Jesus Christ is Lord. Our job is to proclaim that truth to the nations. Perhaps Lewis, the creator of Prince Caspian and the inventor of Narnia and a great Christian advocate should get the last word:

“We are told that Christ was killed for us, that His death has washed our sins, and that by dying He disabled death itself. That is the formula. That is Christianity. That is what has to be believed.”