Click here to read my interview with Coggins7

[NorthboundZax]

See below

[_Coggins7]

Coggins, are you up for an interview?

Just wondering

Loran:

Fire away. Anytime, anywhere (as long as its here in my easy chair in front of my computer screen).

[_Tal Bachman]

Hi Loran

I don't know anything about you - only that you seemed to have sharp words for folks on the Wade Englund interview thread. Do you mind including a short bio here? Here are a few things my legions (:P) of interview followers might be interested in:

Are you an active member of the LDS church? What are your feelings about the church - do you believe it is all it claims to be? How old are you? What kind of callings have you had? Did you serve a mission? Are you married? Kids? How do you think Wade did in his interview?

Thanks,

Tal

[_Coggins7]

I was born in 1959 in Seattle Washinton, and lived in that state until 1974, when we moved to San Diego. My parents were both from Utah (Kerin and Logan respectively), and were life long members, coming from an long line of LDS ancestors, going back to the pioneer days of the settling of the Utah territory.

I am a fairly active member, although this is primarily bacuse of my wife's ill health which makes consistent attendence difficult. Otherwise, I've been active all of my life, save for a two year period in which I became inactive due to a number of self destructive tendencies, including alcoholism, which came to dominate my time and energies at that time in my life (and most of this was a direct outgrowth of a particularly bitter and shattering marriage and divorce).

As to callings, in the last 25 years or so I've been a gospel doctrine teacher, youth teacher, primary teacher (stand in, for the most part), on a music selection committee for youth dances, and, of course, a home teacher. Because of alcoholism and some other problems, I probably haven't had all the callings for which I'm capacitated and competant, but that is a work in progress, as they say.

I have three kids. One, my biological son Jared, is living in Phoenix and is 25. My step sons, Aaron and Jason, are both pretty successful and while on lives near to me, the other is in York Penn. Both are baptized members but neither is at all active, for various reasons.

I didn't serve a mission. In essence, my first wife talked me out of it even as I was receiving the call. She had her own reasons for this, and none of them were in either my or her own best interests. This was the most catastrophic mistake of my entire life (not going on the mission, and marrying this individual).

I have been married to my second wife for almost 21 years now.

Well, that's the intro.

Loran

[_Tal Bachman]

Hi Coggins

I admire your willingness to open up about your alcoholism and divorce. It sounds like those have been real struggles.

Would it be fair to say that the church has helped you through those problems? If so, how?

[_Coggins7]

Hi Coggins

I admire your willingness to open up about your alcoholism and divorce. It sounds like those have been real struggles.

Would it be fair to say that the church has helped you through those problems? If so, how?

It would be fair to say that yes, and to answer your questions, the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ, for all the things I could mention it provides in the realm of comfort, empowerment, motivation, and inspiriation (knowledge, wisdom, and insight as to the core aspects of these problems), probably the most important thing I can think of is the doctrine of the fatherhood of God. We cannot know ourselves until we know, or understand God, and in knowing him, we find the very center of our self concept as human beings. We are not just human beings but literal children of a Father in Heaven, and hence we have embryonic attributes, capacities, and abilities similar to his. This forms the crux of my self worth and self concept, and this, perhaps more than anything else, is what has allowed me to survive the last 25 years.

Of course there is the Priesthood, and the many holders of it who have blessed me, counseled me, and been mindful of my welfare and their when I needed them over this same span of time.l

Loran

[_Tal Bachman]

Yes, I understand that. I'm sure you've known many moments of sorrow or temptation, when that faith was what pulled you through...

You spoke of the great benefits you've found in church membership. Would it be correct to assume that in addition to your faith that Mormonism is useful, and perhaps in your case, to the point of life-saving, that you also have faith that it is everything it claims to be, namely, the only true religion in the world, or in history, so true that Jesus Christ was a member of the Mormon church?

[_Coggins7]

Yes, I understand that. I'm sure you've known many moments of sorrow or temptation, when that faith was what pulled you through...

You spoke of the great benefits you've found in church membership. Would it be correct to assume that in addition to your faith that Mormonism is useful, and perhaps in your case, to the point of life-saving, that you also have faith that it is everything it claims to be, namely, the only true religion in the world, or in history, so true that Jesus Christ was a member of the Mormon church?

I have a personal testimony and witness, within myself, that has come from God in personal communication with me, that the church is indeed all that it claims to be. It wouuld be more accuracte to say that my faith is in Jesus Christ personally, not in the church. As I said on another thread, belief (mental assent), faith, and knowledge are different things but interconnected in that they exist on a continuum. Each has a place, in a systemic way, within the gospel.

I don't think it would be accurate to say the Jesus was a member of the Mormon church. It would be more accurate to say that his children are members of his church, and that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is the present day manifestation, or organized visible community, authoritatively representing his gospel and plan of salvation. This church has had different names and even very different practices and doctrinal imperatives (the Law of Moses) in different times and places, but all are instances or manifestations of the same gospel, which, in LDS theology, are known more or less, in different dispensations among disparate peoples.

Of course, in the 'dispensation of the fullness of times", LDS teachings are that all of the gospel knowledge of past ages with be restored and added to new knowledge even those elder dispensations didn't have to form a much greater whole.

Hope this helps.

Loran

[_Tal Bachman]

Coggins, you wrote:

I have a personal testimony and witness, within myself, that has come from God in personal communication with me, that the church is indeed all that it claims to be.

A few questions about this:

1.) What would you say to an evangelical Christian who tells you that they have a "personal testimony and witness, within myself, that has come from God in personal communication with me, that the LDS church is a fraudulent cult founded by a charlatan", and gives every impression of being just as certain and sincere as you are? Would you say he had imagined that, or been deceived by Satan, or Jesus had lied to him? What?

2.) What would you say to those investigators who tell you that they sincerely investigated Mormonism's truth claims, read the Book of Mormon, attended church, prayed, fasted, etc., and yet felt no such communication at all?

3.) As you may know, it is nothing extraordinary for a human being to feel they have had a personal communication from God about some question or other, whether it's about some item of theology or justice or what have you. For example, radical abolitionist John Brown had (according to him) a personal communication from God to attack white slaveowners in an act of vigilantism; Solar Temple cult members were told by God (according to them) that they should murder themselves; some Muslims are supposedly told by God to kill Jews even by blowing themselves up. Mormons, Moonies, Catholics, etc., will all similarly claim certainty of divine communication, although fortunately these communications only rarely include killing others (though in some cases of course they have).

So, I want to ask you to step back from your own convictions for one moment and look at this scene with me.

I see many people who evidently are:

about equally certain they are right

about equally sincere in that certainty

about equally (at least potentionally) motivated by that certainty

and yet they disagree profoundly on what the content of those divine communications is.

So given all this, a few more questions:

3A.) What do you think the odds are that, out of all these many hundreds and hundreds of millions of people, members of one relatively microscopic denomination founded in 1830, are the only ones in the world who God is REALLY telling are absolutely right?

3B.) The truth claims of these many millions of people differ widely and fundamentally: some know polygamy is moral, some know it isn't; some know eating pork is a sin, some know it isn't; some know Jesus was God, or the Son of God, some know he wasn't; etc. But there is one thing they all have in common: they are all human beings, sharing human needs, nature, and psyches. Stepping back and surveying the whole of mankind, do you think it is at least possible that these features of the human religious experience are more attributable to the human psyche, than to actual messages to them sent from a being who created the universe?

You wrote:

I don't think it would be accurate to say the Jesus was a member of the Mormon church.

In an official 1980 statement, the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said:

"We solemnly affirm that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is in fact a restoration of the Church established by the Son of God...".

I am curious to know how, in your mind, it is possible for someone to supposedly "establish" and preside over an organization, while not being a member of it (!). Would you explain that?

[Dr. Sunstoned]

Coggins, you wrote:

Quote:

I have a personal testimony and witness, within myself, that has come from God in personal communication with me, that the church is indeed all that it claims to be.



A few questions about this:

1.) What would you say to an evangelical Christian who tells you that they have a "personal testimony and witness, within myself, that has come from God in personal communication with me, that the LDS church is a fraudulent cult founded by a charlatan", and gives every impression of being just as certain and sincere as you are? Would you say he had imagined that, or been deceived by Satan, or Jesus had lied to him? What?

I've had at least several evangelicals make just such a statement to me before, and have read similar things in print. My response to this is, as it has pretty much always been to simply take the horns of the dilemma in both hands as it presents itself, i.e., there seem to be the following possibilities:

1. One of us is receiving actual revelation from God, and the other isn't

2. Neither of us are receiving revelation, and what we perceive as "revelation" is purely a mental construct explainable as a feature of internal psychological dynamics, family or cultural conditioning, or brain physiology/biochemistry.

3. One or both of us are using the claim disingenuously as a tool or tatic of debate the point of which is to escape serious critical thought on the matter, or to attempt to flummox or disorient the other with a bold, counter claim of the same type

I wouldn't say one thing or the other on the face of it, just because he made such a statement. Since my own testimony of the Gospel, through the power of the Holy Spirit, is personal, intimate, and subjective, and not open to the inspection of others in any direct way, then similar claims coming from a philosophical antagonist are only known to him and not to me. My confidence in that testimony and its fundamental epistemological nature and source are not in question in my mind, and therefore the question would not now devolve into either a throwing up of the hands in a spirit of nihilism and saying "never mind, we can never know the truth one way or another, so let's forget the whole thing,", or a degeneration into positivism and reductionism that would try to boil down both our perceptions into brain biochemistry or sociological phenomena. The discussion would now be centered on an exploration of just what our respective experiences entailed, and what patterns were manifested therein such that a better understanding of just what the origins of each might really be. One point to be made here would still be that, if I can logically and critically demonstrate, at least plausibly, that the LDS church and its teachings are valid and reasonable, across a spectrum of theological or philosophical areas, any claim that the entire thing is a fraud is called into question the more the range of possible objections is wittled down.

None of this obviates the need for a testimony, nor does anything I might say "prove" the gospel and church true. But in any battle between "testimonies", I think it likely that the whole argument will cycle back once again to conventional critical discourse in which point and counter-point are exchanged. In other words, two people really cannot battle it out in the arena of ideas testimony against testimony. That's something a little like saying I see a patch or red, and the other saying he sees a patch of blue, and then trying to argue each other into believing it.

As the Book of Mormon says, the testimony is entertained "within myself", and anyone else who has had what he believes to be a similar but divergent experience, is likewise closed to inspection by another self outside of his own mind. Therefore, we really can't argue over testimonies. We can talk about theology, archeology, history, philosophy, textual criticism etc and I can put forward my arguments for the church based on these, but at the end of the day I'm going to tell our hypothetical evangelical that I know the church is true because God himself as made it known to me. If he then retorts that he also has a testimony--that what I have said is false, then we are at an impasse.

The other obvious point is, of course, that one can say whatever he pleases. This point is handled by Moroni's promise of confirmation to the sincere seeker of knowledge. What I can know, anyone can know. Which brings us to the next point.

2.) What would you say to those investigators who tell you that they sincerely investigated Mormonism's truth claims, read the Book of Mormon, attended church, prayed, fasted, etc., and yet felt no such communication at all?

I would say, in all sincerity and sobriety, "keep trying, keep investigating, keep searching for truth, keep exploring. Some come to a knowledge of the truth in a short time frame, some over longer, and ever much longer time frames." I personally knew an older gentleman in my hometown in Washington State who had been an inveterate anti-Mormon for upwards of 20 years. Then, after studying and investigating the church for that amount of time, for the purposes of impugning and delegitimizing it, he came to understand that is was, in fact, what it claimed to be, and became a member. He's now an expert "apologist" and has insight both from within and without both those worlds. In other words, when someone says they have "sincerely investigated Mormonism's truth claims, read the Book of Mormon, attended church, prayed, fasted, etc., and yet felt no such communication at all", whatever else I may think of that on the surface, it means little outside the Lord's timetable for our conversion and the process he wants us to go through to achieve it. I wouldn't ever dare to say when or in what manner one would be converted.

3.) As you may know, it is nothing extraordinary for a human being to feel they have had a personal communication from God about some question or other, whether it's about some item of theology or justice or what have you. For example, radical abolitionist John Brown had (according to him) a personal communication from God to attack white slaveowners in an act of vigilantism; Solar Temple cult members were told by God (according to them) that they should murder themselves; some Muslims are supposedly told by God to kill Jews even by blowing themselves up. Mormons, Moonies, Catholics, etc., will all similarly claim certainty of divine communication, although fortunately these communications only rarely include killing others (though in some cases of course they have).

Or the founder of Findhorn Garden having a vision of the god Pan. Or Ramtha, or whatever. Again, subjective claims of testimony or experiences that are divergent and yet claim to be about higher or absolute truths of the universe cannot be inspected directly with the tools of philosophy. Perhaps with the tools of psychotherapy, if the beliefs are dangerous to self or others (the Raliens, for example), but that's not what were dealing with in most cases (unless you lost you're shirt to K.C. McKnights numbers game courtesy of Ramtha back in the eighties)

They can, however, be scrutinized in other, oblique ways. One is, of course, to look at the manner in which the purveyor of a testimony of ultimate truths lives his or her own life. Another is to, as we do here (and sometimes with actual intellectual seriousness), subject the detailed doctrinal or philosophical claims of the system of belief to which the one claiming testimony adheres to critical analysis. Oblique as they are, our intellectual tools can at least give us some degree of penetration into the substance of the beliefs and hence the sincerity of the testimony. This, of course, does not logically obviate a testimony. One does not always do what is right or hold to ideas even when he knows, beyond any doubt, that they are right. This begins to close the circle again, as it must in metaphysical things, and brings us back again to testimony and the techniques, means, and path that must be followed to gain one for oneself such that my word or the word of GBH or anyone else need not be taken at face value alone.

So, I want to ask you to step back from your own convictions for one moment and look at this scene with me.

I see many people who evidently are:

about equally certain they are right

about equally sincere in that certainty

about equally (at least potentially) motivated by that certainty

and yet they disagree profoundly on what the content of those divine communications is.

So given all this, a few more questions:

3A.) What do you think the odds are that, out of all these many hundreds and hundreds of millions of people, members of one relatively microscopic denomination founded in 1830, are the only ones in the world who God is REALLY telling are absolutely right?

My response here is that truth (and as a non-postmodernist, I believe in the existence of precisely such knowledge and phenomena) is not, by definition, a matter of probability; its a matter of perception. Do we perceive the truth, and if not, is there a way or means through which we can? Keep something in mind here, when thinking about the claim that the LDS church is the only true and living church on earth. The church does not claim to have a monopoly on truth. What is does have a monopoly on is a set of core truths about the nature of existence, the meaning and purpose of life, and the central figure in that great drama, Jesus Christ. Nothing that contradicts those doctrines can, of course, be themselves true principles. On the other hand, the still fragmentary and imperfect nature of the church's knowledge base means that much knowledge found outside the gospel is indeed good and valid, and some logical or conceptual inconsistencies between gospel principles and those found in other systems are only apparent. Many ideas found outside the gospel, a great many, are also false. This is a wheat and chaff situation, and the Lord has given us all the tools necessary, intellectual and spiritual, to negotiate the rough terrain if we will apply ourselves to that task.

What this means, relative to your question, is that its perfectly reasonable that the Lord would, in all ages, not just ours, organize and authorize a specific group of people to preach and teach his gospel in purity (that purity maintained by himself through the power of the Holy Ghost as a mantle upon worth members of that organization (the gift of the Holy Ghost)) and with divinely granted ministerial authority precisely so that it would be set off against all other systems of thought and belief. Since the gospel is a system of doctrine, ordinances, and principles necessary for our successful negotiation of the mortal probation and a return to the Father's presence, its core teachings, both as to morality, ethics, and metaphysical questions about the nature and purpose of life, would best be set off against all others precisely for the purpose of comparison and contrast. All truth is ultimately a part of the gospel, but its the fundamental concepts of the plan of salvation that really matter for us at this mortal juncture. Hence, the strictness of the exclusivity of the church's mission and central teachings. If we get those wrong, then nothing else really matters. Peripheral truths found in other religious systems, core truths that are known but in a fragmentary or incoherent way, and the mishmash of incorrect principles and beliefs that will always be mixed with truth in the human world, cannot compensate for the lack of the foundational concepts, not to mention, the authority, without which even the truths themselves are not much more than one more set of philosophical propositions among many.

The premise of your question is, in my opinion, flawed. The question is not what the chances are of God speaking directly and clearly about the core, central questions of existence to a small and rather obscure people. The only really live question here is simply, did he?

3B.) The truth claims of these many millions of people differ widely and fundamentally: some know polygamy is moral, some know it isn't; some know eating pork is a sin, some know it isn't; some know Jesus was God, or the Son of God, some know he wasn't; etc. But there is one thing they all have in common: they are all human beings, sharing human needs, nature, and psyches. Stepping back and surveying the whole of mankind, do you think it is at least possible that these features of the human religious experience are more attributable to the human psyche, than to actual messages to them sent from a being who created the universe?

I think that some are attributable to the human psych, some to cultural conditioning, some to legitimate spiritual intimations or inspiration, and some to direct revelation and communion with God.

You wrote:

Quote:
I don't think it would be accurate to say the Jesus was a member of the Mormon church.

In an official 1980 statement, the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said:

"We solemnly affirm that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is in fact a restoration of the Church established by the Son of God...".

I am curious to know how, in your mind, it is possible for someone to supposedly "establish" and preside over an organization, while not being a member of it (!). Would you explain that?

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is his church. While he is a member of a greater and, shall we say, ultimate church (which the scriptures call the Church of The Firstborn), the particular manifestation of it in our age is for us and our needs, just as the Church of Jesus Christ of former day saints was a unique institution, founded upon the same principles, but capacitated to the needs and challenges of that age. Ditto the Mosaic gospel. Hence, While I wouldn't say Jesus was a Mormon, or a member of the Mormon church, the church is an instance, or specific manifestation of a church and gospel that is cosmic in scope and of which he is a member. I see no logical necessity of Jesus haring to be a member of an earthy and temporary, even if divine, organization he forms, in any direct way. We in the church believe that he, as the God of the Old Testament, organized and revealed the Mosaic law and gospel, but this does not imply necessarily that he was an observer of the Law of Moses. In a sense, of course, he is, in that anything that is a part of the gospel in its totality is true, and hence something he approves of and supports. But as Jesus Christ has no need himself of animal sacrifice, he need not practice it or be a member of an earthly organization that features such observances as necessary for mortals of a certain kind to participate in, even as he is the author and creator of that organization.

Loran