False Dilemma and C.S. Lewis

(click image to go to original comic location)

Most people are familiar with the false dichotomy (or false dilemma) - the fallacy of presenting two possibilities and claiming they are exhaustive when they are not. The first panel of the comic above provides an example.

The last panel in the comic demonstrates a false trichotomy - the presentation of three possibilities as if they form an exhaustive list ("What about the Flying Spaghetti Monster?").

Although this fallacy should be easy to spot and recognize, I am amazed at how many Christian websites still use a text-book example of a false tri/dichotomy used in Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis (an explicit example can be found here and here, though I have also seen sites that don't credit - let alone quote - Lewis, though they use his "argument"). Here it is, from Mere Christianity:

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 the level with a man who says he is a poached egg - or he would be the devil of hell. You must take your choice. Either this was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God.

This leaves out obvious possibilities. One that immediately springs to mind is that we don't accurately know the sayings of Jesus, so it is completely conceivable that Jesus was a great moral teacher and was misquoted on a few things. Perhaps Jesus was just mistaken - you don't have to be a liar or a lunatic to be mistaken - even about your own identity (especially when you have a group of dedicated followers). A case can be made that Jesus never existed, giving us yet another possibility.

As an aside, let's for a second accept the false trichotomy that Jesus was either a liar, lunatic, or a god. To me, the first two options are still far superior explanations. The fact that Lewis thought the latter was the best, and put this forward as his only argument in Mere Christianity of Jesus' divinity, really shows the depth of his bias. It's regrettable that so many Christian sites use this argument as if it holds any merit - no non-believer would be the least bit swayed by it.