The trilemma.

Years ago I made the mistake of trying to edit a Wikipedia article. It’s not always safe to do that, y’know. Some Wikipedia editors consider certain pages their territory, and will fight to the death any of your attempts to fix or update them.

The article in question was on C.S. Lewis, and you know how some Evangelicals are about Lewis. Christian apologists especially. He’s one of their patron saints. He’s a former atheist who turned Christian; an academic who taught at both Oxford and Cambridge, and apologists love when academics join their field. In 1941 and 1942, during World War 2, he wrote three radio talks for the British Broadcasting Corporation. The transcripts were initially published as Broadcast Talks, then renamed The Case for Christianity in 1943, then re-renamed Mere Christianity in 1952. It’s an introduction to Christian beliefs for anyone who might be on the fence about Jesus. Plus they’re usually fond of his Narnia books; especially the bit about Aslan not being a tame lion, and apologists often like to imagine they’re not tame lions either.

I’m a fan of Lewis too. I grew up on his Narnia books, and discovered his Space Trilogy and apologetics works in college. But unlike many a Lewis fan, I can’t agree with everything he taught. I take great issue with how the characters in his novels were willing, even thought it righteous, to kill their enemies. In the Narnian wars it’s somewhat justified; these are wars after all. But Elwin Ransom beating Weston to death in his 1943 book Perelandra—I don’t care that Weston was possessed by Satan. You could bind the guy, same as God’s angel is gonna do with Satan during the millennium, Rv 20.1-3 and get the very same result. I’d’ve much preferred Lewis got his ideas from the New Testament than the Crusades.

Anyway, the part I tried to update was the article’s section about the “trilemma.” It’s still there. I tried to move it to another page, and someone has since successfully done so.

Trilemma isn’t Lewis’s word, by the way. It was probably coined by Philip Henry in 1672. Its meaning in Christian apologetics was defined by “Rabbi” John Duncan (1796–1870), professor of Hebrew and oriental languages at New College, Edinburgh, Scotland. His fellow Scottish Free Church pastor William Knight collected many of Duncan’s interviews and sayings into a book, Colloquia Peripatetica/Deep-sea Soundings: Being Notes of Conversations with the Late John Duncan. L.L.D., published 1907. And among his sayings is this one:

Christ either deceived mankind by conscious fraud, or He was Himself deluded and self-deceived, or He was Divine. There is no getting out of this trilemma. It is inexorable. Knight 109

I don’t know whether Lewis read Duncan. He definitely read Catholic novelist and pundit G.K. Chesterton, whose 1912 novel The Napoleon of Notting Hill described one of the book’s characters, Adam Wayne, this way:

“He may be God. He may be the devil. But we think it, for practical purposes, more probable that he is off his head.” Chesterton 171

Or maybe he heard the trilemma concept from another fellow Christian. Either way, it got into Mere Christianity like so:

I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about him: “I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God.” 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. 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. Lewis 1.8

Josh McDowell, in his 1979 book Evidence that Demands a Verdict, reduced it to Lunatic, Liar, or Lord. These are our three options; Jesus is one of the three. It’s not a di-lemma, with two options; it’s a tri-lemma, with three. Get it?

Are the communion elements literally Jesus?

TRANSUBSTANTIATE træn.(t)səb'stæn.(t)ʃi.eɪt verb. Substantially convert into the literal body and blood of Christ Jesus. Used to describe the elements of bread and wine during the Christian ritual of holy communion or Eucharist.

2. Change something’s form or substance into something wholly different.

[Transubstantiation træn.(t)səb.stæn.(t)ʃi'eɪ.ʃən noun.]

Since I’ve been writing about the living bread in John 6, passages Roman Catholics love to use to back up their doctrine of transubstantiation—particularly Jesus’s bit about eating and drinking him—I figured I’d write about that idea in a little bit more detail.

As you can tell from the vocabulary word I provided up top, transubstantiate, Catholics take John 6 literally and claim the elements of holy communion—the wafers and wine they use—literally become Jesus. They don’t merely represent Jesus, as many Protestants have come to believe. Jesus, Catholics insist, wasn’t being metaphorical, wasn’t using hyperbole, when he said,

John 6.53-58 NABRE

53B“Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you. 54Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him on the last day. 55For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. 56Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. 57Just as the living Father sent me and I have life because of the Father, so also the one who feeds on me will have life because of me. 58This is the bread that came down from heaven. Unlike your ancestors who ate and still died, whoever eats this bread will live forever.”

When Jesus says, “My flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink,” he’s not mincing words: We’re literally meant to eat him.

The Galileans he spoke to when he said this, and his students, had no clue at the time exactly what Jesus meant by this. He hadn’t yet taught his followers about holy communion; wouldn’t for a few more years. So it was still a mystery—but one which freaked out the Galileans. In contrast Jesus’s kids had trusted him this far, so they stuck around long enough to watch him ultimately fulfill it, which he did at his last supper. (Nevermind that he didn’t do holy communion at all in the gospel of John. The author was aware of the other gospels, and didn’t feel the need to repeat them.)

So when Jesus did this at his last supper, it triggered the memory of when he talked about the living bread:

Mark 14.22-25 NABRE

22While they were eating, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them, and said, “Take it; this is my body.” 23Then he took a cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them, and they all drank from it. 24He said to them, “This is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed for many. 25Amen, I say to you, I shall not drink again the fruit of the vine until the day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”

Again, Catholics insist, Jesus wasn’t using metaphor. That was his body. That was his blood.

If it’s not, why did Paul and Sosthenes have to warn the Corinthians against practicing holy communion without acknowledging it’s Jesus’s body?

1 Corinthians 11.27-32 NABRE

27Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord. 28A person should examine himself, and so eat the bread and drink the cup. 29For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself. 30That is why many among you are ill and infirm, and a considerable number are dying. 31If we discerned ourselves, we would not be under judgment; 32but since we are judged by the Lord, we are being disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world.

This is why Catholics won’t let non-Catholics partake of Eucharist. Unlike other Christians, who figure if you’re Christian of course you can worship Jesus along with them, they don’t want people ignorantly eating and drinking judgment upon themselves. After all, those elements aren’t merely wafers and wine: They’re Jesus. It’s why Eucharist is the central part of the Catholic worship service—it’s when Jesus enters the building. It’s a big, big deal.

Losing students—and keeping the good ones.

John 6.66-71.

Growing up, I’ve heard many a Christian claim the worst verse in the bible was John 6.66. I suspect most of that is because of the address. Plenty of Christians are superstitious about the number 666, forgetting it’s only a hint of what the Beast’s name is; it’s not an inherently evil number. And there are much worse verses. But here’s how that verse goes:

John 6.66 KWL

Because of this,

many of Jesus’s students are going back,

and are no longer walking with him.

You remember a crowd came to Jesus hoping he’d give ’em free bread, and maybe overthrow the Romans, and instead he tells them he’s living bread who wants to save us, and expects our response to be a deep commitment—we gotta eat this living bread. And no, this isn’t actually about holy communion; Jesus is not making statements about how eating and drinking the communion elements literally work. He’s talking about abiding in him. Jn 15.4 About being one with him. About really following him.

He didn’t just weird out the crowd; this was too much for some of his own students. And if this freaks you out, Jesus pointed out, wait till you see Jesus get raptured.

Jesus had already pointed out the people didn’t trust him, Jn 6.36, 64 and the radical stuff he was saying—much of which affirms he’s actually God. It broke them. So they quit. They followed him no more.

Christian apologists love to point to this, and claim it’s part of the “trilemma,” John Duncan’s claim (which C.S. Lewis popularized; no, he didn’t invent it) that Jesus is either a fraud, self-deluded, or divine. Or, as Josh McDowell rephrased it, a liar, lunatic, or Lord. (Pagans typically choose a fourth option: Jesus never said any of these things, for overeager Christian fanboys made ’em up.) So the students who quit figured Jesus was either phony or crazy, and the students who stayed figured Jesus is Lord. In other words a good old-fashioned di-lemma: Jesus is either wrong, or right.

As for those who stayed:

John 6.67-71 KWL

67So Jesus tells the Twelve,

“You² don’t want to leave too?”

68Simon Peter answers Jesus,

“Master, to whom will we go?

You¹ have the sayings of life in the age to come,

69and we trusted you

and knew you¹ are God’s saint.”

70Jesus answers them, “Don’t I choose you² Twelve?

And among you is an accuser.”

71Jesus is saying this

of Judas bar Simon Iscariot,

for Judas is about to betray him,

despite being one of the Twelve.

Jesus goes too far for some of his students.

John 6.59-66.

The first time I heard this story, I thought, “Wait, some of Jesus’s students left him? I thought the Twelve always stayed with him.” And in fact John’s very next verses say the Twelve stuck with him. But somehow I had the idea Jesus only had the 12 followers. The fact he’d been teaching 5,000 followers in the beginning of this chapter, kinda skipped my notice; I didn’t think of these followers as students, but as fans. Fans love what you’re doing, and wear your merchandise, but you shouldn’t expect them on the training field with you. Same deal with “Christians” who love being Christian, and heartily approve of Jesus, but don’t obey him any, never plan to, and never produce good fruit.

And yeah, the people who followed Jesus to Capharnaum looking for him to give ’em more bread: A lot of them were nothing more than fans. Jesus starts talking about serious dedication with all his “living bread” talk, and they’re all, “Nope, I’m tapping out,” and the fans scatter. But apparently the living bread stuff was too much for some of his legitimate students, the ones he was teaching along with, and same as, the Twelve—the ones Jesus designated apostles. The ones we Christians usually call “disciples.”

In Acts, Luke identifies two of these students, who were nominated to take Judas Iscariot’s place in the Twelve after he died—Joseph Barsabbas and Matthias. Ac 1.21-26 These two guys, among others, had been with Jesus from his baptism to his rapture. No doubt there were others who joined them along the way, who were just as much disciples as Matthew—both men and women, ’cause Jesus had no problem with women students like Mary the Magdalene. We really don’t know how large Jesus’s class was.

Here’s where it gets smaller.

John 6.59-66 KWL

59Jesus says these things

while teaching in the Capharnaum synagogue.

60Upon hearing it, many of Jesus’s students

therefore say, “This is an outrageous lesson.

Who can listen to it?”

61Having known within himself

his students are bellyaching about these things,

Jesus tells them, “This trips you² up?

62So what’ll you do when you² see

the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?

63The Spirit is making you alive.

The body benefits no one.

The sayings I spoke to you²

are of the Spirit, and are life.

64But there are some of you²

who don’t trust me.”

For Jesus knew from the beginning

some are unbelievers,

and some will betray him.

65Jesus says, “This is why I told you this:

No one can come to me

unless the Spirit was given to them¹

by {my} Father.”

66Because of this,

many of Jesus’s students are going back,

and are no longer walking with him.

Wait, we gotta 𝘦𝘢𝘵 Jesus?

John 6.47-58.

Jesus is the living bread. It’s a metaphor for how we gotta commune with him. And in this passage, Jesus gets a bit graphic with the metaphor: The living bread is his body, and if we wanna abide in him, we gotta eat his body. The living drink—he doesn’t specify here whether this drink is living water, or the wine we use as part of our ritual of holy communion—is his blood, and if we wanna abide in him, we gotta drink his blood. (Since drinking blood is a no-no in the Law, Lv 17.10 that got their attention.)

This is where Jesus goes way too far with the Galileans who came to him hoping for free bread. They wanted Jesus to feed them like Moses (properly, the LORD) fed the Hebrews in the wilderness with manna. They didn’t expect him to make profound divine statements, and tell them if they wanted life in the age to come (KJV “eternal life,” because the coming age of the kingdom of God lasts forever) they’d have to eat and drink him.

And like I said, Jesus gets graphic. In verses 54, 56, and 58 he uses the word τρώγων/trógon, which doesn’t merely mean “eating,” like we see in a lot of bibles; it means chewing. Not necessarily loudly, but yeah, like livestock chews on its grain or cud. You gotta chew on the Son of Man. We’re meant to get the idea of rumination—or meditation. We’re meant to turn this food over and over in our mouths—or turn Jesus’s word over and over in our minds, and really work on abiding in Jesus.

Of course, since Jesus is talking about eating and drinking him, it immediately brings to mind the ritual of communion which Jesus introduced in his last supper. Mk 14.22-25, 1Co 11.23-26 Which is likely why bibles don’t translate trógon as “chewing,” but simply “eating.” You know how a lot of churches discourage us from chewing on the communion wafers, because they represent Jesus and they consider it disrespectful to chew Jesus? Yeah, Jesus doesn’t share their hangup. He says trógon. Which is why “chewing” is in my translation.

John 6.47-58 KWL

47“Amen amen! I promise you²

one who believes has life in the age to come.

48I’m the living bread.

49In the wilderness,

your² forefathers did eat manna,

and did die.

50This is the bread

which comes down from heaven,

so one might eat it,

and might not die:

51I’m the living bread

which comes down from heaven.

When anyone eats of this bread,

they¹ will live in the age to come.

Also, the bread which I will give you,

my body,

is for the life of the world.”

52So the Judeans are debating one another,

saying, “How can this man

give us his body to eat?”

53So Jesus tells them, “Amen amen! I promise you²

unless you² eat the body of the Son of Man,

and drink his blood,

you² don’t have life in you².

54One who chews on my body

and drinks my blood

has life in the age to come,

and I will resurrect them¹ on the Last Day.

55For my body is really food,

and my blood is really drink.

56One who chews on my body

and drinks my blood

abides in me,

and I in them¹.

57Just as the living Father sends me,

and I live because of the Father,

one who chews me—

that one will live because of me.

58This is the bread

which comes down from heaven.

It’s not like the forefathers did eat

and die;

One who chews on this bread

will live in the age to come.”

The living bread who comes from heaven.

John 6.41-46.

As I’ve said previously, there are a lot of Christians who incorrectly teach the reason Jesus’s teachings in John 6 made the Galileans freak out and stop following him, is because the teachings went over the Galileans’ heads. It’s a popular myth. It’s totally false though; the text of John 6 doesn’t support it. The Galileans understood Jesus perfectly, and that was their whole problem: Jesus is making radical divine statements about himself, which didn’t at all jibe with anything the Pharisees had ever taught ’em about the End Times. Jibes with the bible just fine, but not Pharisee teachings.

Jesus is telling them he’s living bread. He came down from heaven. He’s going to resurrect people on the Last Day. Pharisees had taught ’em God would resurrect everybody, not the Son of Man—because they had no idea the Son of Man is God, incarnate.

The Galileans were so thoroughly indoctrinated in what their rabbis had claimed, there was no room in their minds for anything Jesus claimed. They’d never heard anything like this before—even though plenty of it is found in the Prophets!—so they responded same as most humans do: Automatically presumed it’s wrong. And automatically presumed Jesus is nuts.

After all, isn’t Jesus a man like them? Isn’t he Galilean like them? Don’t they know his parents? How did the son of Joseph and Mary of Nazareth come down from heaven?

John 6.41-46 KWL

41So the Judeans are bellyaching about Jesus

because he’s saying, “I’m the bread which comes down from heaven.”

42They’re saying, “Isn’t this Jesus bar Joseph?

Haven’t we known his father and mother?

Now how does he say this—

‘I came down from heaven’?”

43Jesus replies, and tells them,

“Stop bellyaching with one another.

44No one can come to me

unless the Father my Sender attracts them¹,

and I will resurrect them¹ on the Last Day.

45It was written in the Prophets:

‘All of them² will be taught by God.’ Is 54.13

Everyone who listens to the Father, who learns,

comes to me.

46Not that anyone saw the Father

except the one who’s from God.

That one saw the Father.”

Again, the Galileans (whom John calls “Judeans” because they are; the Galilee was settled a century before by Judeans) are ἐγόγγυζον/egóngyzon, “complaining in a low tone; muttering” because they don’t like what Jesus is saying. They’re not loud about it, because John eventually reveals they’re in synagogue when Jesus says these things, Jn 6.59 but the bellyaching is making enough noise in Jesus’s class for their rabbi to overhear and rebuke.

He knows why they’re bellyaching too—and he doubles down.

The living bread wants to save us.

John 6.35-40.

You’re gonna find today’s passage translated a bit differently in other bibles. It’s because Jesus is using a lot of conditional verbs. Grammarians call this “the subjunctive mood,” and it refers to things which should happen, ought to happen; things which Jesus wants to happen. Since he sits at the Father’s right hand, he has the unlimited power to make ’em happen. But they might not happen.

Because they’re conditional. There’s a variable which first has to be met. It’s not Jesus; he wants all this stuff to happen. It’s us humans. We have to abide in Jesus. Jn 15.4 We have to come to him, to trust him, to follow him. If we don’t, the conditions aren’t met. Jesus might grant us eternal life—but if we don’t trust him, he might not.

So why do bible translators regularly render these verbs as unconditional; as if they will happen? Well, commentators and translators don’t say. All of ’em are just following custom. Other bibles translate ’em as unconditional, definitive statements, and so do they.

Going all the way back to the first bible translations. When the New Testament was translated into Latin, which has no subjunctive-form verbs—where you have to recognize these statements are conditional by their context, same as English—Jesus’s conditional statements weren’t translated into Latin as conditional statements.

Most of us have commonsense and basic reading skills, and recognize Jesus must be speaking only of the people who come to him. Jn 6.37 But—no surprise—there are always exceptions. Universalists will insist this is proof Jesus is gonna save everybody, even antichrists. Certain determinists will insist this is proof if the Father chooses us for salvation, his will is paramount and must prevail, and these people will come to Jesus, whether they want him or not. It’s a really iffy interpretation of this passage… but it’s mighty popular among some Christians who really want their pagan loved ones to be saved.

Well. Whether you can deduce the conditional nature of this passage or not, I decided to translate all the conditional verbs as conditional verbs, and make it nice ’n obvious. Here ya go.

John 6.35-40 KWL

35Jesus tells them, “I’m the living bread.

One who comes to me ought not hunger.

One who trusts in me ought not thirst.

36But I tell you² that you² also saw me—

and you² don’t trust me.

37Everyone the Father gives me

will come to me.

I ought never throw out

one who comes to me.

38For I came down from heaven

not so I might do my own will,

but my Sender’s will,

39and this {the Father} my Sender’s will:

That I might lose none of everything he gave me,

but I might resurrect it on the Last Day.

40For this is my Father’s will:

Everyone looking to the Son,

and trusting in him,

might have life in the age to come

and I might resurrect them¹ on the Last Day.”

As you can see, Jesus isn’t the variable. He wants to save us. He’s never unable, never unwilling; the whole reason he came into the world was to save it. Jn 3.17 But we humans were granted free will, which means we can misuse it and reject God’s salvation. He 2.3 And no small number of us will, for bitter or wrongheaded reasons, do so.