The apostles trilemma

[2Corrie]

What do you think?

[Dicky Underpants]

Can we first sort out the dilemma over apostrophes?

[Sebastian Toe]

Is that the one starring Jude Law?
He was very good.
I vote yes.

[Dicky Underpants]

What do you think?

Okay, so it seems to be Apostles' rather than Apostle's, right? And you're referring to that bit of fallacious gumph perpetrated by C.S. Lewis? (God, Liar or Lunatic). Other options are available.

[wigginhall]

The original Lewis trilemma has been widely criticized as being too narrow.   In other words, it excludes other views.   The same is probably true here, for example, it's not clear if we are talking about the people who wrote stuff down and the followers of Jesus, who may not be the same people.   Anyway, either of them could be mistaken, for example.   Deluded/liars/truthful doesn't really cover all the possibilities.   There is also the vexed question of plagiarism, which I have to admit,  I know very little about in relation to ancient texts, where it seems to have been seen as OK to an extent.

[Maeght]

Does the option about being committed to the truth include any implication that the gospels are true?

I am sure the gospel writers believed what they wrote was true but that doesn't mean it was.

[wigginhall]

Yes, it shows how these either/or arguments often contain hidden assumptions, or presuppositions.   Thus in the Lewis trilemma, he has as one alternative, that Jesus is God.   However, this ignores the point that he might have sincerely believed that, but he wasn't.   And also the more subtle point that early texts don't have him saying he is God, and this is added later.    So being God is imputed to him - all of this is concealed in Lewis's either/or, but Lewis is after a black and white position, in other words, a false dichotomy, trichotomy I suppose.   

[jeremyp]

I went for the first option as being the closest to my opinion. However, note that options 1 and 3 are not exclusive. You can be a person of integrity and deluded at the same time.

Another problem with the question is that the title and the question are about different people. The gospel writers are unknown but it seems unlikely that they were the Apostles. Even on the traditional (and wrong) Christian view, only two of them were apostles.

[Enki]

Haven't a clue exactly who you are supposed to be talking about, as the gospel writers and the apostles weren't necessarily the same people. Also, your choices are rather simplistic and don't seem to allow any variations between them, or even other alternatives. They seem to be designed according to what I consider to be the fatuousness of C.S. Lewis's original trilemma. Consequentially I shan't be bothering to vote. 

[trippymonkey]

Are we all assuming what we have now is what's ALWAYS been

[Walt Zingmatilder]

The original Lewis trilemma has been widely criticized as being too narrow.   In other words, it excludes other views.   The same is probably true here, for example, it's not clear if we are talking about the people who wrote stuff down and the followers of Jesus, who may not be the same people.   Anyway, either of them could be mistaken, for example.   Deluded/liars/truthful doesn't really cover all the possibilities.   There is also the vexed question of plagiarism, which I have to admit,  I know very little about in relation to ancient texts, where it seems to have been seen as OK to an extent.

Lewis's trilemma is often criticised for lumping mistaken in with sad. That is probably inconsequential except to those seeking some kind of excuse.
We should also take to task those who shimmy evasively around one of Lewises other dilemmas namely Christianity is either true or it is the most successful con job in history.

[Sebastian Toe]

Lewis's trilemma is often criticised for lumping mistaken for sad. That is probably inconsequential except to those seeking some kind of excuse.
We should also take to task those who shimmy evasively around one of Lewises other dilemmas namely Christianity is either true or it is the most successful con job in history.

Would that type of arguement also apply to Islam?
Either it is true or it is the second most successful con job in history?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Would that type of arguement also apply to Islam?
Either it is true or it is the second most successful con job in history?

It probably applies to naturalism too although I think there is a trilemma there.

Naturalism is true, an up and coming biggest Con Job or the most massive collective act of de facto fence squatting the world has ever seen.

[Maeght]

Lewis's trilemma is often criticised for lumping mistaken in with sad. That is probably inconsequential except to those seeking some kind of excuse.
We should also take to task those who shimmy evasively around one of Lewises other dilemmas namely Christianity is either true or it is the most successful con job in history.

Its a very appealing message.

[wigginhall]

It's another false dichotomy.   Between true and a con, there are other alternatives, e.g. mistaken. 

[Nearly Sane]

It's another false dichotomy.   Between true and a con, there are other alternatives, e.g. mistaken.

And each possibility is not exclusive. It's possible for bits of it to be true,bits of it to be mistakes, bits of it to be miscommunication, bits of it to be lies (and note not all lies are cons). The while approach is logically fallacious and redolent of dishonesty and/or desperation.

[wigginhall]

Yes.  There are also different kinds of true; for example, 'Hamlet' could be seen as true about the human condition - or not.   You can't  reduce ideas to slogans, which is what these trilemmas and dilemmas do. 

[Nearly Sane]

I think it's a bit sad to see people who are in what a rich, complex belief system boil into down into this black or white dull unnuanced, inhuman and inhumane xerox. Perhaps it's the jejune need of the apologist to be like a science that seems to haunt so much of the endless witterings about ontological and kalam and things things that are never the reason they believe but seem to be some philosophical rags to give them some small sense of respectability.

[wigginhall]

There are arguments that positivism basically wrecked Christian thought, as it could not match requirements of verifiability and so on.   Very difficult to demonstrate this link, of course, especially as Christian ideas had come under attack through people like Nietzsche, Marx, Freud, and so on.   But it's as if there is some desire to provide scientificalistic proof of Christianity, which is a doomed approach.  Far better to look at the imaginative and symbolic power of parts of it.  But I suppose that's not considered to be 'true'. 

[Walt Zingmatilder]

And each possibility is not exclusive. It's possible for bits of it to be true,bits of it to be mistakes, bits of it to be miscommunication, bits of it to be lies (and note not all lies are cons). The while approach is logically fallacious and redolent of dishonesty and/or desperation.

And that is a very consumerist cast of religion.
It also ignores any idea of centrality and the almost sheer difference of what Dawkins calls cultural Christianity ( shopping for stain glass windows, whist drives and church bazaars ) and orthodox Christianity which requires focus, a change of thought and commitment.

Not to face up to the enormity of the possible central con or the enormity of the possibility of the central truth is the dishonesty here.

You are like the person in the art gallery who hates the work but rather than a full on committed defacement of it prefers the secretive flicking bits of his lunch at it.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

There are arguments that positivism basically wrecked Christian thought, as it could not match requirements of verifiability and so on.   Very difficult to demonstrate this link, of course, especially as Christian ideas had come under attack through people like Nietzsche, Marx, Freud, and so on.   But it's as if there is some desire to provide scientificalistic proof of Christianity, which is a doomed approach.  Far better to look at the imaginative and symbolic power of parts of it.  But I suppose that's not considered to be 'true'.

But the non positive approach just results in using Christianity as a piss wall for that ever so nice secular humanism.

To put it less graphically you have Christians who are nice to you and some who have called for focus. Be honest , none of either type have moved you toward Christianity, have they?

[Nearly Sane]

And that is a very consumerist cast of religion.
It also ignores any idea of centrality and the almost sheer difference of what Dawkins calls cultural Christianity ( shopping for stain glass windows, whist drives and church bazaars ) and orthodox Christianity which requires focus, a change of thought and commitment.

Not to face up to the enormity of the possible central con or the enormity of the possibility of the central truth is the dishonesty here.

You are like the person in the art gallery who hates the work but rather than a full on committed defacement of it prefers the secretive flicking bits of his lunch at it.

A dichotomy needs to be a proper dichotomy. This isn't. 

[Walt Zingmatilder]

A dichotomy needs to be a proper dichotomy. This isn't.

I think we are rather hiding behind the number of "Lammas" thus some how bypassing the need for focussing on any of them.

If you think Christianity has been a global mistake about a man coming back from the dead and millions claiming to have encountered him rather than a super con trick or global conspiracy I'd like to see the working out on that.

Lewis aside I think we can agree it boils down to one dilemma.......true or false?
Anything more and you are introducing the below resolved state.

[Shaker]

If you think Christianity has been a global mistake about a man coming back from the dead and millions claiming to have encountered him rather than a super con trick or global conspiracy I'd like to see the working out on that.

Easily done.

1. Actually dead people don't come back from actual death.

2. Stories of "encounters" with dead people are more economically/parsimoniously explained by the demonstrated tenets of human psychology than the wholly unevidenced wild wibble of supernatural assumptions unsupported by evidence.

[Nearly Sane]

I think we are rather hiding behind the number of "Lammas" thus some how bypassing the need for focussing on any of them.

If you think Christianity has been a global mistake about a man coming back from the dead and millions claiming to have encountered him rather than a super con trick or global conspiracy I'd like to see the working out on that.

Lewis aside I think we can agree it boils down to one dilemma.......true or false?
Anything more and you are introducing the below resolved state.

If I point out that the census story in the gospel is demonstrably untrue, will your faith disappear because it must all be false? No. And nor should it.

I don't know what the full and real details are for everything in Christianity. And I don't have an obligation to do so. Your claim, your burden of proof.