My thoughts come from the D&C - just above the part of my comment that you have quoted here.JohnW wrote: ↑Wed Mar 22, 2023 11:59 pmIt would be interesting to hear more of your thoughts on this. I agree that the idea of God (benevolent or otherwise) cannot be proven true, but I also think the idea of God cannot be proven false either. In my opinion, it all comes down to the assumptions we make about God. We humans usually aren't careful with our assumptions.
We are told that a function of the power of the priesthood is to heal the sick.malkie wrote: ↑Wed Mar 22, 2023 1:49 am...
Even when god apparently promises that he is bound to do what we need, it's pretty clear that this promise is not true.To me, this idea of the benevolent god of Mormonism is one of these things that cannot be proven true, but can be proven false, and clearly has been. Unless, of course, the promise is solely about unverifiable events.D&C 82:10 wrote:I, the Lord, am bound when ye do what I say; but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise.
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/stu ... k?lang=engElder Dallin H. Oaks Of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles wrote: For this audience—adults who hold the Melchizedek Priesthood and young men who will soon receive this power—I will concentrate my remarks on healing blessings involving the power of the priesthood. We have this priesthood power, and we should all be prepared to use it properly. Current increases in natural disasters and financial challenges show that we will need this power even more in the future than in the past.
Many scriptures teach that the servants of the Lord “shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover” (Mark 16:18). Miracles happen when the authority of the priesthood is used to bless the sick. I have experienced these miracles. As a boy and as a man I have seen healings as miraculous as any recorded in the scriptures, and so have many of you.
Any number of successes does not prove the promise to be true. Agreed?
But how many failures would you say it takes to prove it false?
And how many failures has each of us here, who has ever been an active priesthood holder, seen and participated in?
Either on this board, or perhaps somewhere else, I told of an all-ward-priesthood blessing led by the Stake President, being pronounced on a member with a degenerative condition, and how ward members were on a high afterwards, fully expecting the healing to take place. After a little while people stopped talking about it, because the person's condition continued to deteriorate according to the medical prognosis - the blessing as pronounced simply failed. The scriptural promise was not fulfilled.
Here are the five elements that Elder Oaks, in the same talk, lists as essential parts of the blessing:
(1) the anointing,
(2) the sealing of the anointing,
(3) faith,
(4) the words of the blessing, and
(5) the will of the Lord
I don't expect anyone to seriously challenge (1) or (2), but in any case surely if there were a slip by the Elder in either of these a benevolent god would not allow the sick person to not be healed, or possibly to die, as a result.
Similarly for (4), though perhaps there's a bit more wiggle room here. But still, how badly does the priesthood holder have to mess up for god to say that he has good reason to ignore the blessing? And how often would you expect that to happen?
I think that the requirement for faith is almost certain to be satisfied in the vast majority of cases. And I absolutely hate the idea of people who are begging for a healing blessing, or a blessing of comfort, being told that they will not receive it, or did not receive it, because their faith fails to meet some unknown and possibly arbitrary threshold. How cruel does god have to be to not honour the blessing?
As for (5), if "the Lord" does not will it, for reasons known to neither man nor beast, do we really need to go through the whole process when it it going to fail anyway? And if it is a hopeless case due to god not wanting it to take place, why would he not tell the priesthood holders, or someone in authority, that they are wasting their time? Why raise false hopes? Simply tell the person that they will not receive a blessing because it is god's will that it fail.
I may be going out on a limb here, but if the promises of the scriptures have any reality and truth, I really cannot see how it is possible that large numbers of blessings apparently have none of the promised effects. Especially when they are compared with the number of genuine no-other-explanation-possible miracle healings as a result of priesthood blessings.
But lets say, for the sake of argument, that there was some deficiency in every case of a blessing that did not have the effect that was apparently promised. Why, in the name of whatever god exists, would we not be clear about it? Why not say that, although unfortunately we don't understand why, the priesthood blessings we offer in the church almost always fail. Since they have a dismal, an abysmal, rate of success, we should encourage people to heed the last beatitude, and lower their expectations. We have nothing better to offer than any other religion in this respect.
I'm driven to the conclusion that if god exists he is not benevolent, and/or his promises are false.
ETA: I don't consider "healings" that are explicable as normal and to be expected recoveries, and that occur at the un-blessed rate, to be promises fulfilled. In the real world you'd have a hard time selling anything with the promise that returns on investment with our super-duper company are essentially the same as with any other. Micky-mouse taffy-pulling stuff, that.