Post by EvenThen on Oct 14, 2004 16:17:28 GMT -5
First off, for this argument to be valid, you must assume that:
a) Jesus was a real person, and He did walk the earth
b) The Bible is a reliable historical and factual source
c) God is perfect and blameless
Now, I believe those three things. But for those of you that don’t, for the sake of this argument, assume those statements are true.
Now here’s an argument for the divinity of Christ, called Lord, Lunatic, or Liar? I don’t think that’s the right order, but you get the gyst. This is an argument written by C. S. Lewis. Here goes:
p. s. I’m just giving a basic outline of the argument, so inevitably there will be some few holes cause I can’t remember all of it offhand.
The argument raises three questions: was Jesus crazy, lying or really the Son of God? Let’s take it one at a time.
Is it possible that Jesus was crazy? Think about it. Jesus claimed He was a deity. We must all agree that an all supreme, omnipotent, omnipresent (it goes on and on) must be of sound mind. It is contradictory to say that God is crazy if God is perfect, right? So, if Jesus was the Son of God, He couldn’t have been crazy. Let’s also take into consideration the Apostles. These were ordinary men, men that made an honest living (well, most of them at least) had families, homes, friends, etc. Imagine one day some random guy walked up to you while you were working at your desk, and asked you to drop everything and follow him. Pretty crazy, right? But it would take more than some average, every Joe to make you get up and follow Him. I do not believe that the disciples would have dropped everything to follow a madman. And even if they had initially, wouldn’t they have eventually realized the guy was wacky and just left? Hmmm… so He couldn’t have been crazy.
But could He have been lying? I don’t think He was. To use my disciple argument, would the disciples have stuck with a guy that was lying, and lying fairly obviously? If He weren’t the Son of God, the miracles and healings that He performed would have had to be doctored up, procured, faked. Some of the miracles He perfumed could not have been faked. Water turned to wine in front of their eyes. People that had been blind and crippled for all of their lives suddenly got up to walk, or could see again. How do you fake those? Maybe He talked to the “crippled” people beforehand and paid them to pretend to be healed, you say? That isn’t logical. How could someone suddenly be blind, or crippled? Wouldn’t those that were around them beforehand recognize that they were faking it? Also, if Jesus were lying, why would He go to His death (and what a horrible, excruciating death it was) and never wavered, never cried for help, never admitting His lie? If you were lying about something, and then were threatened to be killed for that lie, wouldn’t you come clean about that lie?
Let me add another possibility: what if Jesus was merely mistaken? What if He truly believed He was the Son of God and was just simply wrong? This doesn’t seem possible, if you think about it. First of all, how could thousands of years of prophecy in the Scriptures line up for someone that wasn’t the Son of God? Well, what if He was aware of those prophecies and fulfilled them intentionally? That would have made Him a liar, not merely mistaken. And, if He was simply mistaken, then how did He perform all those miracles? Surely you can’t perform miracles unless you are God.
Let me also bring up the resurrection. Even if He was the Son of God, did He really raise from the dead? Did the apostles steal his body away in the night? This seems highly unlikely. The tomb was blocked with an enormous stone, a stone that took several Roman soldiers to roll it into place. How could the disciples sneak to the tomb in the middle of the night, somehow roll the stone away and steal away with Jesus’ body? You could possibly say that the Romans assigned with guarding the tomb were asleep. Could you sleep through the rumbling of a 2-ton rock being rolled? I certainly couldn’t. The tomb was sealed with a special Roman seal, and breaking that seal meant breaking Roman law. Breaking that seal was punishable by death. You did not want to be a fugitive of Roman law. Maybe they scared the soldiers off, you say? Deserting was also a huge offense in the Roman army. That was also punishable by death. I doubt that there were too many Roman soldiers who wanted to be hunted down like dogs and then crucified. Something frighteningly miraculous must have scared them away. Also, consider the burial clothes. There was no body in them, and yet they were undisturbed. In the same position that they had been in when the body was present.
All this leads me to believe that Christ was more than just a man. Thoughts?
a) Jesus was a real person, and He did walk the earth
b) The Bible is a reliable historical and factual source
c) God is perfect and blameless
Now, I believe those three things. But for those of you that don’t, for the sake of this argument, assume those statements are true.
Now here’s an argument for the divinity of Christ, called Lord, Lunatic, or Liar? I don’t think that’s the right order, but you get the gyst. This is an argument written by C. S. Lewis. Here goes:
p. s. I’m just giving a basic outline of the argument, so inevitably there will be some few holes cause I can’t remember all of it offhand.
The argument raises three questions: was Jesus crazy, lying or really the Son of God? Let’s take it one at a time.
Is it possible that Jesus was crazy? Think about it. Jesus claimed He was a deity. We must all agree that an all supreme, omnipotent, omnipresent (it goes on and on) must be of sound mind. It is contradictory to say that God is crazy if God is perfect, right? So, if Jesus was the Son of God, He couldn’t have been crazy. Let’s also take into consideration the Apostles. These were ordinary men, men that made an honest living (well, most of them at least) had families, homes, friends, etc. Imagine one day some random guy walked up to you while you were working at your desk, and asked you to drop everything and follow him. Pretty crazy, right? But it would take more than some average, every Joe to make you get up and follow Him. I do not believe that the disciples would have dropped everything to follow a madman. And even if they had initially, wouldn’t they have eventually realized the guy was wacky and just left? Hmmm… so He couldn’t have been crazy.
But could He have been lying? I don’t think He was. To use my disciple argument, would the disciples have stuck with a guy that was lying, and lying fairly obviously? If He weren’t the Son of God, the miracles and healings that He performed would have had to be doctored up, procured, faked. Some of the miracles He perfumed could not have been faked. Water turned to wine in front of their eyes. People that had been blind and crippled for all of their lives suddenly got up to walk, or could see again. How do you fake those? Maybe He talked to the “crippled” people beforehand and paid them to pretend to be healed, you say? That isn’t logical. How could someone suddenly be blind, or crippled? Wouldn’t those that were around them beforehand recognize that they were faking it? Also, if Jesus were lying, why would He go to His death (and what a horrible, excruciating death it was) and never wavered, never cried for help, never admitting His lie? If you were lying about something, and then were threatened to be killed for that lie, wouldn’t you come clean about that lie?
Let me add another possibility: what if Jesus was merely mistaken? What if He truly believed He was the Son of God and was just simply wrong? This doesn’t seem possible, if you think about it. First of all, how could thousands of years of prophecy in the Scriptures line up for someone that wasn’t the Son of God? Well, what if He was aware of those prophecies and fulfilled them intentionally? That would have made Him a liar, not merely mistaken. And, if He was simply mistaken, then how did He perform all those miracles? Surely you can’t perform miracles unless you are God.
Let me also bring up the resurrection. Even if He was the Son of God, did He really raise from the dead? Did the apostles steal his body away in the night? This seems highly unlikely. The tomb was blocked with an enormous stone, a stone that took several Roman soldiers to roll it into place. How could the disciples sneak to the tomb in the middle of the night, somehow roll the stone away and steal away with Jesus’ body? You could possibly say that the Romans assigned with guarding the tomb were asleep. Could you sleep through the rumbling of a 2-ton rock being rolled? I certainly couldn’t. The tomb was sealed with a special Roman seal, and breaking that seal meant breaking Roman law. Breaking that seal was punishable by death. You did not want to be a fugitive of Roman law. Maybe they scared the soldiers off, you say? Deserting was also a huge offense in the Roman army. That was also punishable by death. I doubt that there were too many Roman soldiers who wanted to be hunted down like dogs and then crucified. Something frighteningly miraculous must have scared them away. Also, consider the burial clothes. There was no body in them, and yet they were undisturbed. In the same position that they had been in when the body was present.
All this leads me to believe that Christ was more than just a man. Thoughts?