Three Simple Questions

I think there are three deceptively simply questions in life:

1. Who am I?
2. How do I know?
3. What am I supposed to do about it?

I think Mormonism has a unique take on the answers to these questions. My believing self answers these questions like this:

1. Who am I?  I am a child of God.
2. How do I know?  Because the key of knowledge has been restored through prophets who cannot lead us astray.
3. What am I supposed to do about it?  Follow the prophet.  see (2).

Yet these three questions are much larger in scope than the simple LDS reflexive answers can provide.  As our faith matures, we realize the need for greater clarity:

1. Who am I?

By itself, our simplified Mormon identity as Children of God gives us no sense of unique identity --
all humans on this earth are equally children of God.  So what does it really mean? What is the nature of being co-eternal with god as his spirit-intelligence children?  What is the nature of God's being, if he was once like us and we are to become like him?  Where is Heavenly Mother in all this?  Is gender and our family identity persistent in both directions?

The Who am I question points us to a "First Principle" in both the metaphysical discipline of philosophy as well as religion:

Ontology: What is the nature of being?  

Mormonism does offer a unique ontology, although poorly explained in the correlated materials.  This ontology is best expressed in Lorenzo Snow's couplet, "As man is, God once was, and as God is, man may become".  We are divine beings on a divine journey.  Although Joseph and Brigham speculated on what this means - and often created confusion as a result -- we have a divine nature, origin, and destiny.

This fundamentally must change how we view others.  "God" is not some being beyond being, but rather, "God" is exalted humanity.  We ought to really explore how that affects our daily walk.  When we embrace who Jesus Christ truly is -- as both god and man, and yet, one of us and our Friend, then we must embrace that Jesus, the I AM, is the key to life itself.

Once we realize the Christ, this concept of being is not just about who am I, but also, who are you, who is Christ, and how do we connect to each other in love.  Life is about this connection.  Christ's first, second, greatest, last, and new commandment was to love one another as he loves us. This is what it means to have life in abundance.

2. How do I know?

When we look in detail at prophetic answers, not only is there insufficient knowledge within the words of the prophets, but we observe how inconsistent they are from the beginning. Prophets today are not prophetic, but rather, in the position of authority -- the only ones authorized to pronounce doctrine, yet they are neither scholars, scientists, nor particularly imbued with prophetic visions.  Thus, our reliance on their words as trumping science and independent investigation seems antithetical toward truth-seeking.

The "How do I know" question points us to another "First Principle" in both metaphysics as well as the gospel:

Epistemology: What is the nature of knowledge?

Mormonism offers five important epistemological concepts:

1. Truth is knowledge of things as they are, as they were, and as they are to come. 
2. All truth is circumscribed into one great whole.  That is to say that science as knowledge of the material/physical world, and religion as a kind of faith knowledge need not be opposed, but in fact, should harmonize -- not by relegating science to a second seat, but rather, by using the right tools for the right purpose.
3. While eternal truth may be unchanging and without question, mankind's understanding of such truths is limited to our ability to understand.  We receive revelation through our minds and hearts in the language of our understanding.  
4. We learn truth line upon line, precept upon precept, thus our understanding of truths must be both progressive and evolutionary.
5. We learn through our own experience and not by dogma and creed.  Alma 32 teaches an epistemic approach that allows us to work in faith to gain knowledge by experimentation.  

In our faith, we ought never to be afraid of the truth, nor in any way cover up inconvenient facts of our past and doctrine because they are not "faith promoting".  According to Alma, faith is not knowledge, but rather, hope in something that is true -- or at least "not false".  To believe something that is false in not faith, but rather deception, and ultimately will cause faith crisis.  As disciples of a God of Truth, we must be rigorously honest in our approach to learning truth.

3. What am I to do?

Mormon authority requires absolute, unquestioning obedience and uncompromising loyalty to the brethren and church in all things.  (see GBH: "Loyalty" 2003).  The basic principle is (1) the Love of God is the first and greatest commandment, (2) If we love god we keep his commandments, and (3) his commandments are expressed through the voice of his anointed servants -- the prophets, seers, and revelators.  All of Mormonism, today, can be reduced this simple principle: you love god by obeying the brethren with exactness.

Yet this kind of obedience does not save us, does not develop us, but rather destroys us by virtue of making us vulnerable to despotism and demagoguery.  This is not the Plan of God, but rather, the one who required absolute obedience. We really need a much better way to sort out what we are to do.

The "What am I to do" question leads us to a third "First Principle" in both metaphysics as well as the gospel:

Ethics: How are we to act?

Our religion has many ethical and moral standards, yet they are most often focused on separating our behavior from others in the world.  We do not have a strong, simple moral ethic that guides our living, other than "obedience" to the dictates of our Church leaders. We have created a kind of Mosaic/Rabbinical/Talmudic law unto ourselves.

Yet Christ had a much simpler concept: to love one another as he loves us.  And how does he love us?
 he forgives, he is our friend, he is unconditional in his love.  Others have said as much: Confucius, Hillel, and almost every ethical system in the world: "That which we find hateful when done to us, we should not do to others."  Or positively said, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

Jesus, and Hillel, correctly claimed that this simple principle is the basis of all the law and the prophets. It ought to be the basis of how we act, and how we thoughtfully hearken to those who sit in Moses' prophetic seat.

Our Mormon ethic clarifies this kind of love in a way we ought to take very seriously: We are to lift one another's burdens, that they may be light, to mourn with those who mourn, and to comfort those who stand in need of comfort.  We witness in Mormonism of a godly love when we serve without reservation our communities.  I have seen this miracle of Mormon service -- we can make a difference by being Mormon in the Way Alma taught at the Waters of Mormon.

So,

Who am I?
How do I know?
What am I to do about it?

Jesus answers our questions by saying, "I AM the Way, the Truth, and the Life".

Who am I?  I AM, and in being One with Christ, I have Life in abundance.

How do I know?  Because I am here to learn through my own experience -- I will make mistakes, but as I test, doubt, and discover, the truth will become clear to our minds through objective, empirical experiments, and to our hearts, through our hope, faith, and love.

What am I to do about it?  As the first disciples called themselves "Followers of the Way", we follow not men and their opinions, but rather, Christ in his words -- the basis of all ethical systems: to love one another as he loves us.

The First Principle of the Gospel

It occurs to me this morning that the "First Principle" of the Gospel is "Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ". In my LDS experience, however, faith is not of any primacy, and while we speak of Jesus Christ, it seems that we are stuck in the literal and supernatural things he represents.

In Church. the first principle we teach is obedience, that we are here to be tested to see if we will obey, and we must do all we can do to be saved. Then, and only then, after all we can do, we are saved by grace. This obedience is not to the teachings of Jesus Christ, but rather, to the words and will of the Prophets, who speak in the Lord's name. Obedience to each and every pronouncement of the prophets is, by LDS definition, following Christ, because the Prophets are the Lord's representative. "By mine own voice or the voice of my servants, it is the same." (D&C 1)

Exploring a bit, I searched on "first principles of the gospel" in Google, just to see what came up. The first four links direct me to LDS . org, number 5 is the Encyclopedia of Mormonism, and number six is a speech given by a college professor at BYU on the topic.

While I do think that the LDS church employs a bit of "Search Engine Optimization" on key themes important to Mormonism, it's interesting that our Mormon thought starts with a term "First Principles". One would and should think that such concepts are important. More importantly, if "Faith" is truly the first principle, then where does "obedience" actually fit in?

To read the BYU professor's talk, he starts with the topic in Preach My Gospel about Faith in Jesus Christ, but takes it a step further. To him, "Faith exists when absolute confidence in that which we cannot see combines with action that is in absolute conformity to the will of our Heavenly Father. Without all three—first, absolute confidence; second, action; and third, absolute conformity—without these three all we have is a counterfeit, a weak and watered-down faith."

"Absolute confidence"..."absolute conformity"...without these, we have "counterfeit faith".

I wonder. I truly wonder.

When we speak of "First Principles" in the quest for truth, usually we mean that there is something upon which our entire quest depends--something so important that we must embrace this before everything else. My fundamental question is whether "Absolute Confidence" is an appropriate beginning to any quest for truth -- I do not believe it is.

This, to me, is the heart of faith crisis: the idea that we think of faith as something it is not, and we have not created the right "First Principles" in our faith journey to properly navigate our Way.

We have been told, repeatedly, that our Church and gospel are an all-or-nothing proposition: "Each of us has to face the matter—either the Church is true, or it is a fraud. There is no middle ground. It is the Church and kingdom of God, or it is nothing." (Hinckley, 2003) While the term "true" could be an indicator of "direction" or "allegiance", the more common interpretation of "true" has a more epistemic (how we know things) meaning: that which is without material error or subterfuge.

As a result, we embrace a testimony in the church that makes epistemic claims about the truth of the church and gospel: I know that the book of mormon is an ancient record, translated by the gift and power of god, I know that we have a living prophet on the earth, I know that if we follow the prophets we cannot go astray. Such claims of "I know" do not allow for the humility of "I believe", or the recognition that something may be false. It is an expression of certainty, of knowledge. A "pure testimony" makes these claims.

Yet we come to a realization that within our realm of "Absolute Confidence" that there are things for which we realize do not justify such certainty. Perhaps, by doing a little digging among the LDS . org site, we find that the Book of Mormon wasn't actually "translated" at all, but rather, was somehow expressed through "scrying" -- peering into a seerstone in a hat. Perhaps we find that the Book of Abraham -- what it says it is in the Pearl of Great Price, and authentic translation of writings of Abraham by his own hand -- has absolutely nothing to do with the actual characters in papyrus or especially in the facsimiles in the book itself. There are dozens of things for which we discover that the Church and gospel are in some ways "not true".

What, then, happens to our "Absolute Confidence" in the Church when we discover there is a profound flaw? Is "Absolute Conformity" justified if we come to know that there are some things in the Church's teachings that are false?

Rene Descartes was faced with much this same problem. He had discovered as he matured in life that there were a number of things he held to be absolutely true in his youth that are no longer true. This profoundly disturbed him, so he set aside some time from his work and teaching to meditate on first principles.

Importantly, his first meditation was to discover that his entire schema of knowledge was potentially flawed, and being such, the only way to really build the proper foundation was a complete "destruction" of his schema of knowledge. He not only had doubts, but embraced them fully, realizing that only by doubting everything could he build the proper foundation.

Many who read Descartes' first meditation call this kind of doubt "hyperbolic doubt". The reality is much deeper. Descartes was suggesting a methodical approach to determining truth, and part of that method was to recognize, in humility, that we don't know. Methodical doubt is the first step on a journey towards truth.

But in this process of methodical doubt, the idea of completely discarding our schema of what we know is so profoundly unintuitive to members of the Church, it's never a good idea to muse in public. I frequently say, here, that I do not *believe* a single truth claim of the church. I do not *believe* in prevailing omni-whatever definition of god (although Descartes most certainly did). Such statements rapidly escalate into an emotional issue for members of the church, immediately labeling me as a "nonbeliever" or an "atheist", which, while technically accurate terms, do not mean the same thing for me than for those who are labeling me.

But the First Principle of the gospel is not doubt by itself. Doubt simply is the beginning of refining faith. To be clear, the First Principle of the Gospel is "Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ". I'm going to suggest that when we refer to this as a "First Principle", we need to fully understand what "Faith" and "the Lord Jesus Christ" mean, not in a dogmatic sense of "doctrinal" answers, but rather, in terms of how these two things, together, constitute a "First Principle".

When we think of First Principles in the pursuit of truth, it's important that we start with some basics:
1. We need to address how we can "know" things. This area of concern is formally called "Epistemology". Curiously, the greek term for "faith" is "pistis" as a noun, and "epistomai" as a verb. In short, "Epistemology" is entirely about "Faith": how we come to know truth.

2. We need to understand the nature of the how things are, how they exist. This area of concern, discovering the nature of being, is formally called "ontology". The identity of things, how we label them, is all part of this exploration of ontology. Ontology asks questions like "Who am I?" "Who or what is god?" "What is the nature of existence?"

These two disciplines are essential to our quest for truth.

With respect to Epistemology, we need to understand how we can make the claim "I know that X is true" or "I know that X is not true", and what our approach shall be for that which is between these two poles of "knowledge". We will discover that "Faith" is the epistemic Middle Way between these two poles: the idea that Faith is not certainty, it is the humble recognition that we don't know, but given that we hope for things, we are willing to try them and to discover the truth of them.

With respect to Ontology, we will come to embrace an understanding what it means to say "I AM", and realizing this, we will come to embrace the Lord Jesus Christ as a being who was fully god and fully man, who marked the path and led the Way to an integrative oneness with all that is.

As LDS, we will discover along this journey that we have unique approaches to both epistemology as well as ontology. Alma 32 will express an epistemology that redefines "faith" away from assertive belief into an experiential reconstruction of both knowledge and faith. As we embrace the LDS view of the plurality and unity of gods, we will come to a unique ontology: we exist as eternal beings in an emergent progression toward godliness, as does the being we call "Heavenly Father". To realize the intimate name of God is "I AM", and eternal constants of the universe are its matter and laws, give unique ontological insight into our divine nature. Jesus revealed this nature in John as he spoke of us being in the present gods, and that he was "I AM".

Let us therefore explore the First Principle of the Gospel in a unique light. To embrace "Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ" is to recognize that I need to understand how I know things and what those things are in the first place. Such exploration cannot occur when the cup of our minds are full of preconceived dogma. We must cast aside everything we think we know, and come to a methodical deconstruction and reconstruction of faith.

This is the Journey of a lifetime.

Shall we walk upon this Way?

Is the Church true?

Every Sunday, I greet my former Bishop and very good friend with the statement, "Well, Bishop, is the Church still true?"  His normal response is, "What does that word mean?"  We laugh. 

His wife has been struggling for some seven years about whether the truth claims and hagiography around the founding of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are valid.  She's researched all sorts of evidence that there are challenges with these claims, and she views that the Church tends to whitewash its leaders and history in the most positive of light.  She especially struggles over Joseph Smith's hidden polygamy and polyandry as being inconsistent with the role model we paint as what a Prophet should be.  Having been through all that, I certainly know where she is coming from.

Over dinner with my wife and her husband, she asked me, "Can you say that the Church is the only true church on the face of the earth?"  I simply answered, "Yes, it is for me."  This, from a wayfaring fool who believes none of the truth claims as being literally the case.

The "Mormon Apologists", or "mopologists" claim my Middle Way is incoherent nonsense.  Do they have a point?  Is it possible to have the Church be "true for me" when I don't believe in its historical truth claims?

I think what drives me to declare that the Church is "True for me" is the way many insist that since some of these truth claims are not valid, it must be "not true".  One ex-mormon thinks my Middle Way is "intellectually dishonest", because I fail to reject the whole because some of the parts are not valid.  Another non-mormon observed:

"The church is obviously not true because it's pretty obvious Joseph Smith just made things up, it's not at all clear that any of his more substantive claims, such as to have had hands laid upon him by resurrected or "translated" beings to confer authority on him from the Creator of the Universe, involve actual occurrences or are in fact later inventions designed to bolster his influence over his followers. Supposedly ancient scripture allegedly translated by Joseph Smith appears to have been of modern invention, etc."

 

This triggered something inside of me. 

 

It didn't trigger "doubt" -- I don't doubt the claims, for I have set aside belief entirely.  An empirical claim is either true, not true, or unproven, and doubt doesn't have a lot to do with it.  True claims I accept.  False claims I reject, and the Middle Way between them -- the area of the unproven, I suspend both belief and disbelief and hold such things in "Faith". 

 

No, I think it triggered "loyalty".  I think I objected to the buying-in of the "all or nothing" proposition -- it's either "all true" or "all fraud", and such absolutes don't work for me anymore.  My response was as follows:

I really have a serious issue with the proclamation, "It's obvious the church isn't true".

What does it mean for a 'church' to be 'true' or 'not true'?   I could look at a photograph, and say, is that photograph a true and accurate representation of the subject, and perhaps it is or perhaps it isn't. If I make a claim and say that the photograph is a picture of bob, when it really is a picture of 'fred', then we might be justified in saying 'it is not true'.

But the church is not a photograph. It is meant to point to something, and that something is 'Christ'. Does the church accurately point to Christ? Can I come closer to Christ by reading the Church's scripture (the book of mormon, etc.)? Is my daily life closer to Christ when I live in harmony with what the Church teaches?

Something within us all points to Christ. Something within Joseph Smith pointed very well to Christ. And that something, which I choose to call God, revealed to Joseph a powerful scripture that leads people to Christ by speaking to that spark of Christ within us all. We can choose to look at Joseph Smith's methods for getting that divine spark across.  We can pretend that he translated some ancient records and swear on our testimonies that he did. But any literal claim or lack thereof doesn't change whether or not the product of his prophetic experience points to Christ or not.

And the proof of that claim is entirely in the person experience one has. We have a word for that personal experience: "Testimony".

To say, "The Church is true for me," is to declare that it is mine.  I may not like everything it does -- it is full of people with whom I may agree or disagree.  Sometimes, I profoundly disagree.  But in the end, this is my tribe, my culture, and my Church.

This doesn't mean a blanket acceptance of harmful falsehoods.  Sterling McMurrin said in an interview in Dialogue, "I really have a genuine love for the Church and a concern for its well being."  He often stood in opposition to orthodoxy that didn't make sense, and was counted as a true "heretic".  I think his example is very critical.

To love the Church is to stand tactfully against those things it does to harm its members and others.  I struggled mightily with the Church's position on Proposition 8, as I did with its position on blacks and the priesthood on my mission.  On my mission, I caved and taught the principle of exclusion from the priesthood.  Proposition 8 had me distancing myself from the Church.  I find neither of these approaches satisfactory.  To be concerned with the welfare of the Church is to remain engaged and find the way to mend the harm done by the institution when it does harm.  This is the Middle Way of appropriate activism: to remain faithfully engaged in helping the church not do harm to itself.

Because the Church is mine, I bear responsibility for its actions, even and especially when I don't agree.  This is what it means to me to "sustain" its leaders.  I have no illusions that I can change any aspect of the Church.  The leadership is somewhat autocratic, and my voice is nothing.  But I can be very engaged.  I can and must stand in opposition, as I do, to those "mopologist" voices whose supposed defense of the Church does far more harm than good.  I will continue to oppose the blurring of boundaries between Church and State.  But these efforts often bring me down, emotionally, and do not bring out the best in me.

Where I think the Church matters the most is in the individual service we render.  I can sit, one on one, with those who struggle with faith, and find the way to lift them while lifting my own soul as well.  Here is where the church is truest to me -- in the quiet, loving service we render in support to another human being.

 

The Mormon Truth Heuristic

This is a work in process -- I'm posting to save it and get initial thoughts.

Mormons often state in their testimony, "I know the Church is true".  It's a remarkable claim, full of hope, passion, and certainty.  To those outside the culture, particularly from other, competing faiths, it seems to be arrogant as well.  It isn't intended to be, but rather, it intends to be a confession of faith (not knowledge) that the Church (what Mormons call their religious organization, culture, and everything else with it) is true and relevant to testifier, personally.  Those may not be their words, but that is the intent. 

Those of us trained in critical thinking and in epistemology find the statement also to be deeply problematic.  To know something is to have justified true belief in it -- proof from evidence that the thing being testified to is indeed 'true' and not in any way false.  Yet the statement of 'knowing' something to be true when there is no proof has deep precedent:

Examine Job's claim:

 For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another; though my reins be consumed within me.

Job 19:25-27

This powerful witness is Job's prophetic utterance: he 'knows' by some means that an unseen being exists, will stand on the earth, and that after death, in the flesh, Job will see his redeemer.  This "I know" (hebrew "yada", and in the Septuiguint "oida") is quite certainly "knowledge".  From the point of view of evidence, of epistemological validity, Job has no basis, not justification for this belief, therefore he has no "knowledge" of it, yet he says he "knows".

Moving forward to the Gospels, both Peter and Martha are found to testify that about something that is not apparent from the evidence.  They do not use the term "know" but it is quite certain language:

Jesus saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am?

Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.

Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.

Matthew 16:15-17

Although Peter isn't saying he knows, he makes a propositional, definitive truth cliam, "Thou art the Christ".  How can he make this claim?  He makes it not through tangible evidence, but through exclusively a spiritual kind -- the witness of the "Father which is in heaven."  Again, the critical thinking epistemologist may not be satisfied, because such an intangible witness might as well be a personal feeling of certainty.  While valid and important to Peter, it does not provide evidence except to the Peter himself. 

 

In the case of Martha, she states unequivocally the following to Jesus upon the death of Lazarus:

Yea, Lord: I believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of God, which should come into the world.
John 11:27

The critical thinking epistemologist might approve of the term 'believe' in this case.  Even moreso, the writer of John uses the verb "πιστεύω"/pisteuo, which means more of "faith" rather than belief.  This expression is quite distinct from Job's "yada"/"oida" of certain knowledge, but it is also not "belief".  Pisteuo involves a working trust in something: more like "I trust (accept, agree, hope) that thou art the Christ".  As evidence of that trust, she was finished with the conversation expressing her concerns about Lazarus' death, and went back to her business.  She acted on her faith by turning over her concerns to Jesus and moving on, trusting that he had things under control.

 

These three ways of expressing faith-based knowledge -- Job in saying "I know", Peter in making a certainty proposition, and Martha in expressing faith -- all are part of the way religious people confess their faith.  It should be no surprise that Mormons make similar claims about their own faith.  But how do Mormons form their truth claims?  

 

The Mormon Truth Heuristic -- Short Form

 

There are two terms in this that need to be defined: Truth, and Heuristic.  First, from Joseph Smith:

Truth is knowledge of things as they are, and as they were, and as they are to come.
Doctrine and Covenants 93:24

A remarkable statement: simple, precise.  It is controversial in using the term 'knowledge' in it, but whatever is that truth of things as they are, were, and are to come is ineffectual unless we know about them.  Truth is simply things as they are.  Truth in history is things as they were.  Truth in the future?  if we say with certainty that X will happen, and we have justified belief that it will happen, and it happens, then for purpose of this discussion, it is true.

 

The second term, heuristic, literally means the means to find something out.  In modern use, especially in the field of computability, a heuristic solves problems with a short-cut, a trial-and error method, when a finite, deterministic algorithm is impractical.  By using the term "truth heuristic", I mean how LDS explore truth through a specific trial and error testing process, and the tendency to use that method to short-cut an exhaustive investigation of truth.

 

The first version of the truth heuristic is encountered in the very first missionary discussion, where missionaries present the Book of Mormon, and encourage investigators to ready, ponder, and pray.  Here is the "Moroni Challenge" universally accepted as the means to test the truth of the Book of Mormon:

I would exhort you that when ye shall read these things, if it be wisdom in God that ye should read them, ... and ponder it in your hearts.

And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.

And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.

Moroni 10:3-5

So the investigator is to read, ponder 'it', and pray, and the outcome is that teh truth of 'it' will be manifest by a feeling of certainty that Mormons call, "the Holy Ghost".  I have emphasized 'it', because the term is non-specific.  'it' could refer to what is read, or the entire book.  'it' could refer to the spiritual 'truth', symbolic in nature of what is read, or that the events in the book literally happened as reflected.

 

Reading, pondering, and praying about something to assess whether it has spiritual value to you as a reader is certainly a valid test.  But as for whether the events in the book literally happened, or whether the book as a whole can be proposed as 'true', meaning without material flaw, accurate, god-given, etc., 'it' becomes a bit problematic.

 

This is where the heuristic becomes a short-cut.  When missionaries return for a second visit, they ask about the experience the investigator had about the verses they were asked to read.  These verses are spiritually powerful in the text, and many investigators, if open minded, will have a positive, comforting experience with the text.  Because many who grew up believing the Bible to be the word of God tend to relate to King James English as being 'scriptural', they may even have had a very powerful emotional and spiritual experience with the material.  At that point, the missionaries describe these feelings as the "Holy Ghost" telling them that the Book of Mormon is true.  Without being specific, they have taken spiritual value associated with specific verses and generalized that evidence to the entire book and by implication, its history and divinity. 

 

Now that the heuristic has determined that the Book of Mormon is true and divine, then the means whereby the Book of Mormon came about must also be true and divine.  After all, it is impossible for a thing of God to come out of anything other than a true Prophet.  In glowing terms, the story of Joseph Smith and his position of Prophet of the Restoration is laid out.  The investigator learns of the miracle of a farm-boy with very little formal education translating this divine book by the gift and power of god.  The investigator is asked, "Could any man have written this book?", and the the investigator remembers the spiritual feelings and believes that Joseph could not have been a normal man, but indeed a true Prophet.  And from there, a True Church -- the ONLY true and living church -- because that was the content of the First Vision.

 

So from a very basic and essential spiritual test of whether the Book of Mormon has spiritually valid content, the investigator inductively concludes that the Church as presented by the missionaries is "true".  Having had a spiritual awakening, the associated bond to the missionaries, the Book, and to the Church is complete, and the investigator becomes a member.

 

Conversion is an emotional/spiritual process.  Seldom does anyone become converted by virtue of logic and reason.  Yet, the disturbing part of this short-cut heuristic is that the conclusion of truth of the whole is inductively derived from a specifc test of a specific reading of the Book.  In making the inductive leap from that specific test to the truth of the whole is glossed over. 

 

The heuristic itself is valid, when it applies to investigating a specific issue, to working it through in one's mind, and then to seek spiritual guidance as to whether that specific issue has merit, is true, or is relevant.  The outcome of this is a type of experiential knowledge -- a justification that the belief is true.  What is invalid is the movement from specifc to the general, from a subject claim of value to an objective claim of truth.

 

What really happens with the short-cut heuristic

 

Before going in to what is happening in the mind with conversion, it is important to recognize that to LDS thinking, all spiritual reality is material as well.  Thus, the spiritual processes of conversion are coupled with physical processes in the brain.  To investigate what is happening physically with conversion does not minimize the spiritual reality thereof, but it does help us understand why it happens, and what it means to be converted.

 

When the missionary asks the investigator to ready, ponder, and pray, the reading creates a set of mental pictures from the narrative, as we would get from any book with a narraative story.  As we form these mental images in our short-term memory, our mental processes need to stop input and process the information in order to commit it, place it, into our long term memory.  Moroni's promise asks us to ponder, not just what is read, but also, a deeply embedded narrative in Western culture:

Behold, I would exhort you that when ye shall read these things, if it be wisdom in God that ye should read them, that ye would remember how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men, from the creation of Adam even down until the time that ye shall receive these things, and ponder it in your hearts.
Moroni 10:3

The narrative of the mercy of God to the children of men is deeply embedded in every active Christian from early childhood.  These stories have a parallel emotional context in the child's brain -- emotions of security and how god protects them from fear.  The "emotional context" is found in another part of the brain than logic: it forms the limbic system of the brain, where primal fears and desires are located.  By bringing into the Book of Mormon context the emotional context from a Christian's childhood, the investigator is planting a seed of associations between the visual images of the Book of Mormon narrative and the emotional context of scripture stories.  Even the use of King James English re-enforces this religious/emotional context.

 

By pondering these things together, the investigator is triggering an event within the nonconscious part of the mind -- that which helps us implant long-term memories through dreams and other mechanisms.  After pondering, and perhaps stepping away from the Book and sleeping on it, the nonconscious mind makes neural associations between the act of reading the Book, the visual images, and the positive experiences from the investigators' youth about biblical stories.  As the investigator prays about this, particularly after some time for the non-conscious mind to extend the neural associations, the investigator feels a spiritual comfort about the Book of Mormon.  That comfort is located in the limbic mind, in the amygdala, right in the same general location as "love", "comfort", "happiness": it is a feeling of knowing that something is true -- an emotion, not a logical construct. 

 

It's as if the investigator has fallen in love with the Book of Mormon, and all things associated with it.  And quite similar to falling in love, the objectivity of the cerebral cortext -- the locus of conscious, rational thought, takes a secondary seat to the feeling of knowing and love for all things Mormon.  This feeling of knowing, of comfort, can be extraordinarily powerful.  It creates a strong dependency of all things mormon to and through the primary emotional chain that started with an emotional/spiritual experience after reading, pondering, and praying, to the core truth claims of the church, to the existence and relevance of the entire church structure and teachings.  By falling in love, and making a deep, personal commitment, the limbic mind creates a bond between the investigator and the church -- one that is very hard to break.

 

While this may sound illogical to make such a life choice based upon an emotional bond, the origin of this bond in evolution is quite critical to the survival of species.  Humans are social animals out of necessity: the survival of individuals is greatly enhanced in the extent to which humans are part of a tribe, flock, or group of people.  The emotional bonding of the investigator to the Church is by no means a bad thing -- the Church is a very suitable tribal structure, with extensive support for the survival of the individual who fully commits to it.  The need to be part of such an organization is vital to any human, as it has been for millions of years. 

 

So there is benefit to joining the Church, tremendous benefit.  But maintaining the same type of short-cut truth heuristic for all decisions within the Church is deeply problematic.

The problem with the Short-Cut Truth Heuristic

In a sense, the idea of converting to the church through a single experience with the spirit is a bit like falling in love with a person, and the moment

In sorting out truth of things, it is helpful to have a testable proposition.  Take the statement "The Book of Mormon is true": This is a testable proposition, provided we first define what the word "true" means.  One definition would be absolute truth: every word, statement, claim, history, origin in the book is exactly what it says it is - an accurate history of the Native American people, translated from golden plates written a language called "reformed egyptian", etc.   Every claim about the book needs to be true in order for the claim of absolute truth applies.

Proving an absolute claim is difficult, because it requires that all aspects of the book be shown to not have any flaws or falsehoods.  In a book with 500 pages, with a history that cannot be fully verified, the ability to prove it to be true in an absolute sense is impossible.  However, it is quite easy to prove it is not true.  A single fact that is not possible would bring down the claim.  For example, if it is not possible for a beheaded individual to sit up, struggle, then expire, then the book at least has some things in it that aren't strictly 'true'.

But most LDS will be satisfied with a feeling that it is true. 
 

 

 

 

 

truth is knowledge of things as they are, and as they were, and as they are to come
D&C 93:24

 

The Message of the First Vision

Within the Middle of the First Vision, one of the personages gives Joseph Smith the core message of the first vision, found in the following:

I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong; and the Personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt; that: “they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof.” He again forbade me to join with any of them; and many other things did he say unto me, which I cannot write at this time.

That’s the entire Message of the First Vision, as stated in the 1838 account and part of the official History of the Church. LDS consider this statement scripture. The Personage is accepted by LDS as Jesus Christ. For simplicity, we’ll refer to the Personage as Christ and the text above as the Message.
The Message makes a number of important claims.

1. Join none of them, for they were all wrong. This is a tough statement, and very polemic. Perhaps for this reason, alone, Christians have such a vitriolic reaction to the LDS church: it starts out in its first, founding statement that the Churches are all wrong. By itself, it’s not helpful, for we have to explore the reasons for which the Personage said they’re all wrong.

2. All their creeds are an abomination in his sight. This is very tough language as well. When we look at the creeds, some of them are quite difficult to understand, but most are straightforward and uncontroversial. In fact, the first two, below, are relatively similar to the Articles of Faith. Gradually, the principles are expanded to include doctrine not consistent with LDS teaching (listed as “false doctrine”, below). Evenutally the creeds depart significantly from the original beliefs of the church as taught by Jesus. But the Message says “all their creeds”, not just the latter one. Here are the creeds:

• The Old Roman Creed (2nd Century). No false doctrine.
• The Apostles’ Creed (3rd Century). No false doctrine. A mention is made of the “Holy Catholic Church”, but this is meant to mean that there is a universal church of Jesus Christ — that the worldly organization was established by Christ.
• The Nicene Creed (325 CE). A single word of false doctrine is introduced, “ὁμοούσιον”/”homoousion”, meaning “single substance”, implementing the dogma of the trinity that there is one god in substance/essence who exists in three persons. Homoousion is never found in scripture or in the earliest writings, it is an invention to fix in dogma the relationship between God the Father and Jesus.
• Latin version of the Nicene Creed (?) This adds terms such as “God of Gods” and that the Holy Ghost proceeds from both the Father and the Son (Filioque). There are a couple polemic versions batting this concept back and forth between Catholic traditions.
• The Chalcedonian Creed (451 CE). This continues to expand on the homoousion/Consubstantial dogma.
• The Athanasian Creed (late Fifth Century, 100 years after Athanasius). This is the most complex creed of all, containing a lot of illogical language about one in three but not three…, as James E Talmage would say, "It would be difficult to conceive of a greater number of inconsistencies and contradictions expressed in words as few."

Aside from the Athanasian Creed, why should they ALL be an abomination? Two of them, the most common used by the Protestant Churches, are nothing but a statement of belief, entirely consistent with the LDS Articles of Faith.

Could it be that the mere idea of a creed – a required statement of belief on the part of a Christian is an abomination?  We have Joseph Smith's actual words to interpret why creeds were an abomination:

The most prominent difference in sentiment between the Latter-day Saints and sectarians was, that the latter were all circumscribed by some peculiar creed, which deprived its members the privilege of believing anything not contained therein. Latter Day Saints have no creed, but are ready to believe all true principles existing, as they are made manifest from time to time.  (Joseph Smith, History of the Church, v5 p215)

One of the truly amazing things about the LDS church is that ‘doctrine’ is extraordinarily hard to fix. I propose that this is intentional. From the very beginning, Joseph Smith and Brigham Young innovated on doctrinal topics, exploring possibilities, and in some cases, saying some pretty outrageous things. Critics of the church sieze upon these speculative explorations and declare that “This is what the Church believes”, when in fact we do not. We must recognize that when ‘orthodoxy’ is set aside, then it is possible, even encouraged, to explore what might be meant by the message of the gospel.

In the latter half of the twentieth century, Church leaders standardized the teachings of the church and set aside a lot of the speculative theology espoused by earlier generations. This may have been necessary to allow for consistent teachings, but should not be construed as ‘orthodoxy’ — a mandated set of beliefs that must be strictly adhered to. “What is taught” is equivalent to “Church Doctrine”. It is distinct from what is believed by the member is his or her own testimony — a personal witness constructed from personal learning, prayer, and spiritual experience. The fact that we teach a standard church doctrine does not absolve us from the responsibility to learn from our own experience to distinguish good and evil — this is a most important principle: We must think for ourselves: the Church provides guidelines in “What is taught”, it does not mandate thought or belief.

This lack of ‘orthodoxy’ was the hallmark of the restored church: man was not to pluck of the fruit of a tree of predefined dogma, but rather, to learn for himself to distinguish good and evil. The original definition of “heretic” from the greek means “to think for oneself”. Joseph Smith was an original, authentic heretic. To Joseph Smith, knowledge was the fruit of seeking truth — for “all truth” was meant to be part of the Gospel. “Truth is knowledge of things as the are, as they were, and as they are to come.”

If the Gospel is “all truth”, and mankind is to discover it line upon line and precept upon precept, then the core teachings of the Church must include a means to discern truth from all things. And the good news of the Book of Mormon is that this means to discern truth is through the Holy Ghost, and from the Doctrine and Covenants, the Holy Ghost witnesses after we study it out in our minds. Here is the truth paradigm of the church: To seek out of the best books learning, and by experience in faith, to study out these things in our minds, and to seek confirmation by the Spirit that each thing is true.
What works against this truth paradigm is a declaration that “THIS is what you are to BELEIVE (credo, creed)”, and you are to accept this dogma without question or doubt. If a loving God wants us to learn, the learning is best done by experience and emotional bonding with the truth — best done through experience and not through rote dogma. For this loving God/Parent, the fixed answerbook of a “Creed” is a cheat — an abomination to the type of learning designed from the beginning to be “The Plan of Salvation”.

3. Those professors were all corrupt. Again, a very polemic statement — insulting in the extreme to the preachers of other faiths. But it doesn’t say ‘preachers’, but rather, ‘professors’. A professor is a teacher, one who is supposed to know the truth, and provide as accurate of a truth to the students. A ‘corrupt professor’ is one who violates the profession of a professor – that is, either doesn’t teach, or teaches falsehood as if it were truth.

I’m going to suggest that Christ was extraordinarily precise in his statement: those who then were preaching from the creeds as if that was the thing all people must accept on faith without doubt were corrupt in promoting such dogma. Professors who fail to help their students think critically and bond their learnings with personal experience are a menace to learning. Rote learning can do nothing but indoctrinate. It cannot teach — it prevents critical thinking, so necessary for an objective determination of truth. Those who profess and teach dogma as if it were truth, and then base all ‘knowledge’ on the dogma, are creating a type of tyranny over the mind of man that prevents real knowledge of truth. Such practice is corrupt indeed.

4. They teach for doctrine the commandments of men. Christ then quotes Isaiah 29:13 linked to 2 Timothy 3 with an important conjunction between the two. Isaiah 29:13 says:

Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men:

2 Timothy 3:5 says:

Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.

The quote in the Message blends these two with the highlighted conjunction:

they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof.

The term ‘doctrine’ means either “what is taught” or “dogma”. Since the expression “they teach for [what is taught] the commandments of men” doesn’t make a lot of sense, the meaning “They teach for [dogma] the commandments of men” fits much better within this context.

According to the Message, Christ condemned the creeds and professors, and then explicitly states that the practice to be condemned is the teaching of doctrine (dogma) constructed from the commandments of men. Elsewhere, multiple times, Christ states explicitly that the only ‘doctrine’ or ‘dogma’ that rises to the level of “Doctrine of Christ” is as stated in 2 Nephi chapters 31-32, 3 Nephi 11, and here in Doctrine and Covenants Section 10:

67 Behold, this is my doctrine—whosoever repenteth and cometh unto me, the same is my church. 68 Whosoever declareth more or less than this, the same is not of me, but is against me; therefore he is not of my church. 69 And now, behold, whosoever is of my church, and endureth of my church to the end, him will I establish upon my rock, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against them.

In other words, the core Doctrine of Christ is quite simple: it comprises of the first principles and ordinances of the Gospel as stated in the Articles of Faith, without the explicit definition of things one must know or declare as dogma. Note clearly that Christ’s “Church” consists of those who keep to these core principles and those who declare more or less as core principles is not of Christ’s church.

While this seems like an extreme statement, the point is clear: the only ‘dogma’ — that which is to be accepted without doubt — is the need to repent and come to Christ, and endure to the end with him. All other things are either to be learned from experience, or are not required as core beliefs. We declare a set of beliefs in the Articles of Faith, but there is no absolute requirement to accept these things without determining for ourselves that they are true.

It is absolutely essential to understand that “commandments of men” are not forbidden, but they must not be construed as the “Doctrine of Christ”. They are not to be taught as if they must be accepted without doubt or personal testimony. Teaching commandments of men as if they are doctrine is explicitly forbidden by scripture, therefore as a responsible member of Christ’s church, one must recognize the difference between the Doctrine of Christ, and that which must be tested, as Alma proposes in Alma 32.

5. Join none of them. This is stated at the very beginning and end of the Message. Joseph had come asking which one to join, and Christ gave him his answer: do not join up with an organization that subjects the mind to the tyranny of dogma.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints does not use the term “Dogma” in explaining what the Church believes. There is no Westminster Confession, a long statement of belief intended to be taught and professed verbatim by members. There are no creeds recited each sunday and required as a declaration of belief by the member. Each and every principle in the Church is intended to be witnessed by the individual member through his or her own testimony: not a rote version to be memorized, but rather, through one’s own personal experience with the Spirit.

To be sure, there is a cultural tendency, reinforced by some unfortunate statements from the pulpit at BYU devotionals and General Conference, that members are to observe with exactness every word that proceeds forth from the mouth of the prophet and servants of the Lord, without question or doubt. Such observation in faith should never violate one’s responsibility to learn from experience and by spiritual confirmation the truth of all things.

To me, the Message of the First Vision is extremely important and clear: we are to be very wary of things that appear like ‘dogma’ — that which is to be accepted without doubt or question. With the singular exception of repenting and coming to Christ, all things are subject to question and spiritual confirmation.