by larry gilman » July 27th, 2004, 1:40 pm
I agree that the L-cubed dilemma falls fall short of a proof. All arguments about the existence of God or the divinity of Christ do. And you have put your finger on one of its basic flaws: it assumes that all the words which create the dilemma are nonfictional. But there is no way to prove this: the only documents that attest to these statements being made at all, the intensely agenda-driven documents of the New Testament, are not subject to any independent confirmation. Of course, I speak according to the coldest possible skeptical standards---but isn’t that the point? If the L-cubed argumed isn’t intellectually binding on someone who does not pre-assume the validity of Christianity and its founding documents, then whatever the good of it may be, it can’t be to convince unbelievers. So even granting that Christ existed, it does not follow that the alleged dilemma exists.
Further, the argument is noncoercive because it is an argument from psychology. And if there is anywhere where we cannot lay down absolute laws about what _must_ and _cannot_ occur, it is the human mind. So even if we grant that the Gospel accounts of Christ’s sayings are (a) absolutely accurate and (b) have omitted nothing that would clarify the picture---and why should any unbeliever grant these points?---it does not follow that Christ’s psychology can prove his divinity. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof: and for the uniquely extraordinary claim that a man was God, no probabalistic argument about what a "lunatic" was liable to say or not say is sufficiently extraordinary proof. Lunatic, by the way, is a spin-word. It conjures up a frizz-haired whackazoid proclaiming that he is Napoleon, which the Christ of the gospels obviously was not. But our real-life psychological ills and distortions are infinitely more various and subtle than this cartoon notion.
Christianity does not, thank Goodness, hang by such threads. The value of the L-cubed dilemma is not as a proof for unbelievers, but as a lens through which people who are already Chrisitan can meditate on one aspect of the Incarnation.
Sincerely,
Larry Gilman