>If a person pronounces the Lord Jesus Christ as Deluded or a Liar or a
>Lunatic, then there is nothing furthur that can be said. ...
>
>As is said in Roman's 1 "Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.
>And changed the glory of the uncorruptable God into an image made like to
>corruptable man"
>
The C. S. Lewis quotation that this discussion has revolved around is
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 the man who says he's a poached egg -- or else he would be the devil
of Hell. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit on 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 patronising nonsense about His being a great human
teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.
It's somewhere in "Mere Christianity" I believe.
It's always been a favorite of mine, but my experience has been that
Christians value it highly, nonchristians don't. And the nonchristians
have objections like those of Russell Stewart: that some alternatives have
been left out to force the uncritical listener to choose from less than the
available alternatives.
It seems to me that Jesus' discourses were so thoroughly predicated on His
identity as the Son of God, that it would be difficult to give Him much
credibility if He really weren't the Son of God. He might not be a
lunatic, and He might not be the devil. But if He's not the Son of God,
He's fooled or deluded millions of people for the past 2000 or so years.
Some people of course are easily fooled, but the people who have followed
Him have come from all walks of life -- shepherds, laborers,
businesspeople, academics, lawyers, judges,military and political leaders...
Bill Hamilton
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William E. Hamilton, Jr, Ph.D. | Staff Research Engineer
Chassis and Vehicle Systems | General Motors R&D Center | Warren, MI
William_E._Hamilton@notes.gmr.com
810 986 1474 (voice) | 810 986 3003 (FAX) | whamilto@mich.com (home email)