Quote by C.S. Lewis
I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing thatpeople often say about Him: I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moralteacher, but I don't accept His claim to be God. That is the one thing wemust not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesussaid would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic--on alevel with the man who says he is a poached egg--or else he would be theDevil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, theSon of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for afool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at Hisfeet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronisingnonsense about His being a great moral teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.
Summary
In this quote, C.S. Lewis challenges the common notion that Jesus can be accepted solely as a moral teacher while disregarding His claim to be God. Lewis argues that if Jesus were merely a human and made the profound claims He did, He would either be insane or deliberately deceitful. To dismiss Jesus as a great moral teacher without considering His divinity would be a condescending oversimplification. Lewis emphasizes that Jesus has left no room for ambiguity in His teachings; one must choose to take Him as either a divine figure, a madman, or something worse.
Topics
Religion
By C.S. Lewis