Missed comment

I just noticed a comment made last October in my "Another string of thought" post. It points out that Latter Day Saints claim that the Book of Mormon is "the most correct book on the face of the earth" which would infer that the Bible is below the Book of Mormon in truth. This does not ring well in the ears of the rest of Christendom. Here is my response.

The Articles of Faith of the LDS church state that we "believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly". I will paraphrase a quote from a church authority whose identity I have forgotten: the words of the Bible as they were produced from the pen of the apostles was perfectly accurate. Now, the filters of multiple translations have caused many passages to lose their original meaning and have thus been rendered incomplete in truth. Examples of this are not terribly hard to find.

Exodus 7-14 mentions frequently that "the LORD hardened the heart of Pharaoh". If this is true, then why didn't God soften the heart of Pharaoh, instead of seemly forcing him into doing the evil that would cause his own destruction?

Exodus 33:20 and John 1:18 say that no man has seen God or can see God and live. Yet several accounts of man seeing God are recorded in the Bible - one of them is a few verses behind the former scripture reference: "And the LORD spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend." Other accounts and references are found in Job 19:26, Acts 7:56, Genesis 32:30, Isaiah 6:5, and others. How else do you think we have a prophetic description of the risen Lord in the Book of Revelations?

Ephesians 2:8-9 says that man is saved by Grace and not by works, that God gives the gift of salvation. Different sects of Christianity differ on how to interpret this scripture, but most who say that salvation comes by Grace alone argue between 'predestination' - that God has already chosen who He is going to save - and the need to put forth faith - a simple acknowledgement that God exists - to obtain salvation. But according to Revelations 20:12-15, people whose works have been judged to be evil, regardless of their level of faith or predestination status, will be "cast into the lake of fire."

These are some of the more obvious doctrinal conflicts that occur within the Bible. As Christians, Latter Day Saints hold the Bible to be the Word of God, but we acknowledge that during a period of great apostasy, Biblical truths were altered. We assert that the Book of Mormon is a record of complete truth, as it came to Joseph Smith from Spirit of Revelation. That said, we do not believe either book holds the entirety of the Word of God. Article of Faith 9 states: "We believe all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal, and we believe that He will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God." We believe that God does not speak to a few people at a few points in history and then "shuts the heavens" so to speak. Why wouldn't God reveal everything at once instead of having a stream of revelation only when there are enough righteous people and prophets to listen, as seems to be the pattern in the Bible (Chronicles 36:15-16; Jeremiah 7:25-26)? And why would He stop after the death of the Apostles of the early church? Was there suddenly nothing left to reveal? Did the people suddenly become righteous and stop corrupting the doctrine to what they thought it should be (Galatians 1:6-10; 2 Timothy 4:3-4)? But I digress. What I wanted to say is this: we believe both books of scripture are necessary for us to know the truth of God, that they support and testify of each other, and that neither stands alone as a complete volume of the Word of God. Like the synthesis of the Old and New Testaments, the histories contained within both books create a more complete image of God.


Before I end, I want to mention one other thing. As I was reading the post in question, "Another string of thought", I found that I did not like the way I wrote some of my commentary. Of course I leave it the same doctrinally, but I felt I was too unnecessarily judgmental of some of the people to whom I made reference. I have since been working to improve in that area, seeing that I have no authority to make any such judgments.

Before I go to bed

I recently learned that I passed my music theory test-out exam. Since I also tested out of my dictation class with 100% I had planned to go on to my upper level music courses here at BYU, which is what I had been looking forward to doing for several years now, but I will have to wait until I complete my sight singing course (which I couldn't take this last term due to work schedule conflicts) which will be available this fall semester. So basically I will be taking mostly generals until the winter semester of 2012. However this will free my schedule up to get some more Arabic classes in, which I have been thoroughly enjoying. So for the summer I will be taking 102 and for the fall I will be taking 201. After that is 202, but beyond that I do not know what I will do. My composition courses will keep my schedule full (once I can take them) and a trip to Jordan or Egypt would definitely put graduation off a bit. So I will do the best I can and see what my options are when the time comes.

Another thought. Something I taught as a missionary but now seems much clearer, probably because of the strings of thought I have been having lately. The Book of Mormon is either true or it isn't. But to say it isn't implies it was written by either Joseph Smith or someone else with some sort of incentive to do so. This is basically what I said in a previous post. The difference is that I've been considering the level of ignorance that theory would stipulate. Almost certainly the theorist has not read the book. In the case of, say, Trey Parker and Matt Stone, producers of the recent "Book of Mormon Musical", who have likely read at least a part of the book, I am clueless as to their theory on the book. The only explanation I can think of is that they refuse to accept Joseph's story because it would mean they are wrong about many, many things. But what other reasonable option is there? Could Joseph Smith have written the book? As I've discussed earlier, Joseph would have no reason to write a 500+ page book for which he would have to research ancient geographic, religious, and literary history extensively, which by the way would have to be one of the most drastic turn-arounds in history: from a poorly-educated, near illiterate farm boy to a world-renown author, historian, and theologian in a few years with no formal training. A few of the more obvious nails in the structure holding up the validity of the Book of Mormon. It seems that Trey and Matt choose an illogical perspective in the face of clear evidence to the contrary in order to bolster their self-assurance of the validity of their way of life, which would seem to indicate a good bit of insecurity. Wait, what were they mocking again?

Added later: After hearing the music from the aforementioned musical, and on the assumption that the music represents the information presented in the musical, I no longer think it likely that the producers have read the Book of Mormon. Or at least, they did not use the doctrine in it for the musical. Which is fine, and also means it can't be considered an argument against Mormonism.

Theory of God

I was thinking of this a few months ago and haven't really thought about it since until the last week. It's not a very complex thought string though I don't think I reached a full resolution. Perhaps I will right now.

The scientific theory is a method of problem solving that seeks to disprove theories, not prove them. Indeed, you technically can't "prove" anything - there's no official universal number of tests that need to be run to confirm the truth of something. What we believe we know as facts are in reality theories that have yet to be disproved. It's like we have a single lamp inside a dark and near infinitely large room. We see and have some understanding of the area we're in, and as far as we can tell the rest of the room is just like our spot, but we can't prove there's nothing that exists within the shroud of darkness that we aren't familiar with. The human mind simply does not possess omniscience, and thus is incapable of proving anything, save for mathematical proofs, which deal with abstract and theoretically impossible re-projections of the universe which cannot be otherwise expressed.

With this perspective, the theory of God is by its very nature non-disprovable. Romans 11:33 - "how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!" Isaiah 55:8,9 - "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts." In fact the scriptures often use the term 'mystery' to describe the ways of God. This essentially creates an inability to lay out specific parameters that would constitute a theory which could be tested. This aspect of the nature of God, I here speculate, is one of the primary causes of disbelief. The scriptures outline a Deity that is scientifically and philosophically untouchable by nature: a cause-all, fix-all to everything in life, whose dubious seeming simplicity and consistent absence of immediate gratification of short-term curiosity is quick to foster speculation in the human mind.


Of course I reject the validity of the speculation based on my own experience. I also reject it because it lacks important foundations of argument on a socio-analytical level. Perhaps in the world of Christianity outside of the Latter-Day Saint church, such speculation is not so easily apprehended. Although the Gospel still stands through the prescribed method of knowing its validity as described in the scriptures themselves, it seems to more easily match the description given by Karl Marx: the opium of the masses. With existence of the Book of Mormon, however, an impressive hole appears in the foundation of the opposing argument.


The most plausible explanation that holds up against the Book of Mormon without admitting it was inspired by God is that Joseph Smith and/or his fellow 'founders' wrote it. I think few would dispute that, if someone was trying to lead people astray with a made-up religion, their fabricated scripture would support their practices and beliefs. Why, then, would Joseph Smith write Jacob 2, which speaks explicitly of the evils of polygamy and the scriptural justification thereof, if he were planning to make some sort of polygamist utopia, as many critics firmly claim? Why would Joseph Smith write Alma 30:7,8 "Now there was no law against a man’s belief; for it was strictly contrary to the commands of God that there should be a law which should bring men on to unequal grounds. For thus saith the scripture: Choose ye this day, whom ye will serve." if he wanted to keep people of black skin from holding the Priesthood? We may apply the same question to proposition 8. Perhaps one would say at this point, "then doesn't that make God look hypocritical?" The response I would give would take up several more paragraphs and would be a digression of the matter at hand, and likely not the direction of conversation my opposing party would take at this point. The point of the matter is that the Book of Mormon does not contain the characteristic residue of opium-seekers, not does it contain any other sort of modern human traces. There would be no motivation to write such a book. It does not cater to Joseph Smith's faults. Thus it adds validity to the theory of the God of the Bible on, among others, a socio-analytical level.