The Liar, Lunatic, or Lord Essay Assignment

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The Liar, Lunatic, or Lord Essay

Kyle D. Panchot

APOL 330 – C. S. Lewis and the Apologetic Imagination

Professor Seth Johnson

27 July 2025

Seth Johnson

Good title page!

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Did Jesus Claim to Be God

C.S. Lewis famously puts forth an argument for the divinity of Christ by suggesting that there are

only three conclusions we can draw from what He says in Scripture: that He was either lying, He

was crazy, or He was what He claimed to be—God incarnate. Out of these three, only one makes

sense of the information given to us.

As C.S. Lewis points out, for a Jew to claim to be God was unheard of. Even among the

Gentiles, though some monarchs claimed divinity, none went so far as to claim to be the one true

God. But in Scripture, that seems to be exactly what Jesus does.

Forgiving Sins

“Why does this man speak thus? It is blasphemy! Who can forgive sins but God alone?” (Mark

2:7).i

In the above passage, the Pharisees rightfully point out that only God can forgive sins. But Jesus

claims to be able to do exactly that:

“Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise, take up your

pallet and walk’? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive

sins"—He said to the paralytic—"‘I say to you, rise, take up your pallet and go home.’” (Mark

2:9–11).ii

And not only does He claim to have this power, which is the prerogative of God alone, He goes

one step further by giving it to His apostles:

“Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent Me, even so I send you.’

And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If

you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’”

(John 20:21–23).iii

As Lewis points out, “The claims to forgive sins, unless the proponent is God, is really so

preposterous as to be comic.”iv He also writes, “He told people that their sins were forgiven and

never waited to consult all of the people whom their sins had undoubtedly injured. He

unhesitatingly behaved as if He was the party chiefly concerned—the person chiefly offended in

all offenses.”v

Invokes the Divine Name

“The Jews then said to Him, ‘You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?’

Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.’ So they took up stones

to throw at Him; but Jesus hid Himself, and went out of the temple” (John 8:57–59).vi

Seth Johnson

New paragraphs should be indented properly.

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Here Jesus not only claims to be older than Abraham, but by invoking the divine name given to

Moses by God (Exodus 3:14), He claims to be God Himself, the one through whom all was

created.

Accepted Worship Due to God

“Thomas answered Him, ‘My Lord and my God!’ Jesus said to him, ‘Have you believed because

you have seen Me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe.’” (John 20:28–29).vii

Here we see Thomas explicitly calling Jesus God, and Jesus makes no attempt to rebuke him. In

the next couple of passages we see that He goes so far as to let the women at the tomb worship

Him:

“So they departed quickly from the tomb with fear and great joy, and ran to tell His disciples.

And behold, Jesus met them and said, ‘Hail!’ And they came up and took hold of His feet and

worshiped Him.” (Matthew 28:8–9).viii

And He also lets the twelve apostles worship Him:

“While He blessed them, He parted from them and was carried up into heaven. And they

worshiped Him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy.” (Luke 24:51–52).ix

Liar

Since the time our Lord came claiming to be God, there have been many individuals who have

come claiming to be our Lord. In our own day, there have been several who have claimed to be

Jesus come again. And in each case, except for a very small number of people, far from evoking

belief and devotion, they evoke ridicule and quickly fall into obscurity. Throughout the years,

undoubtedly, there have been many more that we are not aware of, but their names have been

lost to the sands of time.

But with Jesus it is different. Far from mocking Him, even the greatest critics of Christianity

seem to not dare question His integrity, preferring instead to claim that He was just a great moral

teacher. But it is worth asking if a great moral teacher would make the claims that He made and

do the things that He did.

If someone had the audacity to say something like, “He who loves father or mother more than

Me is not worthy of Me... He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My

sake will find it” (Matthew 10:37–39),x would he be considered a great moral teacher?

I think people's reluctance to call into question His integrity has a lot to do with a feeling that He

is not like other men. A man who lies does so for some personal gain, but Jesus did not act in this

way. He spent His time going around preaching and healing and asking for nothing in return. Far

from asking for something in return, He would steadfastly go down a path that would lead to His

gruesome death.

Seth Johnson

A beautiful and powerful quote from the NT.

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Lunatic

So if Jesus was not lying, was He perhaps insane? I don't think so, nor did His followers seem to

think so. In fact, at any given point it seemed that Jesus was the one with the clearest mind in the

room.

From the time of His childhood into His adult ministry, we're constantly told that people

marveled at His wisdom and His teachings. Just to list a couple: in Luke 2:46–47, we read about

the 12-year-old Jesus in the Temple, and it says, “all who heard Him were amazed at His

understanding and His answers.”xi And in Luke 4:22, while teaching in the synagogue, we are

told, “all spoke well of Him and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of His

mouth.”xii

These are just a couple of the many passages of Jesus being held in high regard. So clearly, the

people of Jesus's day did not think that He was insane.

Would the Argument Be Persuasive Today

Whether Lewis's argument is persuasive today is going to depend largely on whether you accept

that Scripture is reliable or not. For those who accept the reliability of Scripture, then yes, I

believe that Lewis's argument is highly persuasive today.

But much has been done in recent decades by biblical scholars to call into question the reliability

of Scripture. For those who take this view, Lewis's argument will probably be unconvincing.

Though the general reliability of Scripture is beyond the scope of this essay, I believe that

modern biblical scholarship is plagued by a couple of critical flaws. Though there are insights

that we can glean through modern biblical scholarship, a lot of it suffers from an anti-

supernatural bias as well as a certain intellectual snobbery, where they see themselves as

intellectually superior to those in the past and, as such, think they see things more clearly.xiii

C.S. Lewis offers the following critique in his essay "Fern-seed and Elephants": “The idea that

any man or writer should be opaque to those who lived in the same culture, spoke the same

language, shared the same habitual imagery and unconscious assumptions, and yet be transparent

to those who have none of these advantages, is in my opinion preposterous.”

In the opinion of these intellectuals, I can't help seeing a parallel between them and certain

modern theologians who believe that their interpretation of Scripture is more faithful to the

gospel than those who were far closer in time and place to the apostles themselves, and in some

cases even chosen by them. As G.K. Chesterton points out, “Tradition means giving votes to the

most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to

submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about.”xiv

Seth Johnson

Interesting quote here by Chesterton.

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Conclusion

As we have seen above, Lewis's argument as well as his conclusion reflect the teachings of

Scripture in that they draw the same conclusion: that Jesus Christ is both Lord and God, and as

such, we should fall to our knees and worship Him.

Seth Johnson

I remember reading the basic thrust of Lewis' argument years ago. It has stuck with me. The New Testament presents Jesus making certain claims about Himself that someone who is merely a good teacher just couldn't make. How is it that Jesus could say that before Abraham was, "I am"? (John 8:58). As a passage of Scripture, I think the entirety of John 8:48-59 is instructive.

Thank you for your thoughts on this very serious subject matter. I think we have to make a choice about how we view Jesus as portrayed in the New Testament. The Gospel of John is particularly strong on the topic. Thank you for reflecting on this matter.

[...]

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i Mark 2:7 (RSV-2CE).

ii Mark 2:9–11 (RSV-2CE).

iii John 20:21–23 (RSV-2CE).

iv C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: HarperOne, 2001), 52.

v Ibid., 53.

vi John 8:57–59 (RSV-2CE).

vii John 20:28–29 (RSV-2CE).

viii Matthew 28:8–9 (RSV-2CE).

ix Luke 24:51–52 (RSV-2CE).

x Matthew 10:37–39 (RSV-2CE).

xi Luke 2:46–47 (RSV-2CE).

xii Luke 4:22 (RSV-2CE).

xiii C.S. Lewis, “Fern-seed and Elephants,” in Fern-seed and Elephants and Other Essays on Christianity

(London: Fount Paperbacks, 1975), 106.

xiv G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1908), 85.

Seth Johnson

Research how to use proper Turabian footnotes as opposed to end-notes.

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Bibliography

Chesterton, G.K. Orthodoxy. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company, 1908.

Lewis, C.S. Fern-seed and Elephants and Other Essays on Christianity. London: Fount

Paperbacks, 1975.

Lewis, C.S. Mere Christianity. New York: HarperOne, 2001.

The Holy Bible. Revised Standard Version, Second Catholic Edition. San Francisco: Ignatius

Press, 2006.