Hi Edgar,

Thanks for taking the time to respond.

You said: "I get the sense that you’re not fully engaging with what I’ve written."

I suppose we'll see.

But I have read and examined everything you've written. I maintain that you haven't provided a fourth option, which would be necessary to dismantle the Trilemma. If you still appeal only to its three options, you aren't dismantling it. You're using it.

You said: "First, you claim that I didn’t propose a fourth option, but I did. My argument is that Jesus could have been a combination of both liar and lunatic."

Again, that isn't a fourth option. It's using two options of the three provided.

Lewis didn't stress that they're mutually exclusive. Of course someone could both be delusional and be a liar. Nothing Lewis wrote would preclude that, nor would common sense.

But these are still two of the three options Lewis gave.

It's not a fourth option.

Even if a person is oscilating between them, sometimes lying and sometimes being delusional, it's still only two of the three options, not a fourth one.

As such, it's only reinforcing the Trilemma, not challenging it.

You said: "Certainly, someone can have delusions of grandeur without being clinically insane. We see this in public figures today—people who exhibit clear narcissistic tendencies and grandiose self-perceptions but are not necessarily “stark raving mad.” Jesus could have had delusional ideas while still functioning as a charismatic leader."

Narcissistic tendencies and grandiose self-perception are not the same as claiming to be God in the flesh.

Of course a charismatic leader can be narcissistic or delusional about their own grandeur. We see it all the time.

Now try to imagine one of these narcissistic, charismatic leaders telling people they're God -- literally God.

Do we still see them as a charismatic leader? Or do we start to think they're going crazy?

Imagine any world leader today doing what Jesus did -- claiming God is his Father, claiming to be one with God, claiming to be able to forgive sins committed against God.

Does everyone on the world stage still regard this leader as possessing a sound mind?

Or do we start to think they're losing it?

Hopefully this should demonstrate how qualitatively different it is to claim to be God than to be narcissistic.

You said: "Jesus could have had delusional ideas while still functioning as a charismatic leader. That’s the nuance Lewis’s trilemma completely ignores, and it’s central to my critique. Yet, you didn’t engage with that possibility in your response."

No, neither I nor Lewis ignore it.

Of course it's possible to be delusional and be charismatic. That's what the "lunatic" option conveys.

But no matter how charismatic you are, or how big of a crowd you amass, if you aren't God but think you are, you're delusional. It's the "lunatic" option. Being charismatic doesn't change that.

You said: "Second, you quote me correctly as saying that the Synoptic Gospels do not clearly depict Jesus as claiming to be God. Yet, the examples you provide don’t actually support your claim that he did."

They do, actually.

Jesus' earliest recorded words, at the age of 12, indicates that Jesus saw Himself as the son of the Father, not the son of Joseph. He saw God's work as His work.

He didn't see this in the way that a priest did. No priest identified God as his personal father! To do so was antithetical to how holy they perceived God to be -- so much so that they wouldn't even speak His Name, Yahweh.

For Jesus to call God His own Father, and to consider God's work as His work, demonstrates that Jesus saw Himself as divine even as 12.

You said: "Saying that Jesus forgave sins does not necessarily mean he thought he was God—it’s entirely possible he saw himself as acting under divine authority, much like a prophet or priest."

This betrays an ignorance of what forgiveness means.

No priest or prophet can simply declare forgiveness for sins committed against God. You won't find this anywhere in the Bible.

Ironically, you are importing later theological developments here. Catholic priests proclaim forgiveness, which is likely the kind of thing you're assuming into the text.

But such a thing doesn't exist in the Scriptures.

Try to find anyone in the Old Testament who can simply decide, on their own, to forgive the sins you committed against God. It isn't there.

Priests can help you with your sacrifice, knowing that it's the blood of the sacrifice that makes atonement for the sin. The priest themselves can't decide to forgive the sin. They have no authority to do so. They can only help you make the sacrifice that accomplishes the atonement.

What Jesus does has no precedent.

Jesus doesn't use a sacrifice or a prayer. Jesus doesn't consult with God.

Jesus simply proclaims forgiveness of these sins, those which were committed against God.

As I wrote last time, you can't declare forgiveness for sins committed against someone else. If someone beats you up and robs you, I can't come along and proclaim forgiveness for what they did to you. You are the victim. You are the one who was sinned against. It is your right to forgive or chose not to. I can't declare it for you.

But Jesus declares forgiveness for sins committed against God.

That's something only God can do.

That's why the scribes objected so vehemently. What they said is true: only God can forgive sins like that.

Jesus then heals the man, to prove that Jesus can forgive sins as only God can -- to prove that He is God.

We could keep going all day.

You skipped over Matthew, but you really shouldn't.

Jesus declares with no wiggle room that you only worship God (Matt 4).

Jesus then spends the rest of the book receiving worship.

It's a crystal-clear example that Jesus saw Himself as God and received worship as only God may.

You said: "I actually agree that the Synoptic Gospel writers viewed Jesus as divine in some sense, but that’s not the same as Jesus himself claiming to be God. Nowhere do Matthew, Mark, or Luke present him as synonymous with God or as one person of the "Trinity"—concepts that developed much later."

All the Gospels see Jesus as fully divine -- as God in the flesh.

Again, this is why Matthew records Jesus being called "Immanuel," which means "God with us."

It doesn't mean "God's representative with us," or "God's spokesman with us." It means "God with us."

There are about a hundred other examples of how the Gospels clearly see Jesus as fully God.

You said: "The term Kyrios (Lord), for example, was not exclusively used for God. I’d encourage you to look into its broader usage in Greek."

Naturally. I said as much, before. The Jewish scribes took a word that wasn't used exclusively for God, kurios, and chose to say it in place of the Divine Name. It's granted that they took a word used in other ways and imported it, here.

Yet we cannot ignore that kurios is the word they used to express the Divine Name and to refer to God.

We cannot ignore that they call Jesus "THE Lord," not "a lord," not just "my lord," but "THE Lord."

This phrase -- "THE Lord" -- applies only to God.

And it is applied constantly to Jesus.

You said: "Regarding extra-biblical sources, you initially claimed they confirm that Jesus himself claimed to be God, but then you shifted your position when I challenged that assertion."

I didn't change my position.

The extra-biblical sources confirm that Jesus is worshiped as God by the earliest Christians.

This fits perfectly with Jesus Himself claiming to be God.

But it runs contrary to a Jesus who never claimed this.

Deifying a leader tends to take centuries, not decades. Look at Charlemagne, for example.

You said: "Additionally, you argue that first-century Jews were strict monotheists, but that’s not entirely accurate. Monotheism as we think of it today was still evolving at that time. Paul himself acknowledges the existence of “other gods and other lords,” while affirming that, for his community, there was only one god and one Lord. That’s not quite the same as modern monotheism."

It's exactly the same.

What do you think monotheistic Jews, Christians, and Muslims believe?

Do you think we believe that there are no other spiritual forces -- no angels, no demons?

The Scriptures, both Old and New Testaments, clearly identify these other gods and lords as demons. They are false gods, but they aren't powerless. They are real spiritual entities with real power.

But they also aren't on the same level as God.

There is only one God, who created everything, including all angels and demons. The demons were angels who rebelled, seeking worship for themselves. They continue to lead astray anyone who will be led astray.

The monotheism in the OT matches monotheism today, point for point.

You said: "And, as I pointed out, by the end of the first century, most Christians were Gentiles, not Jews—another crucial factor in how Jesus came to be seen as divine."

Certainly, more Gentiles were being added in.

But all the early leaders were Jews, and all the early churches began with Jews.

You're implying that these Gentiles could insert beliefs that the Jewish Christians would resist. That simply isn't possible, given how dominant in leadership positions the Jewish Christians were.

You said: "Finally, I still don’t think you’ve addressed my core argument."

I've addressed it directly, several times.

You claim to be disrupting Lewis' Trilemma, but all you've done is appeal to it.

You combine two of the three options and call it a fourth, but it isn't. It's still two of Lewis' three options.