False Dilemmas and the Faltering of Faith

[_DonBradley]

Grindael,

Yes, there were past LDS church leaders who taught that they, or some other prophet couldn't be mistaken.

In this teaching, they were mistaken.

Any other questions?

Don

[_DonBradley]

by the way, a much more stark version of this sort of dichotomy is provided in the Bible, which mandates that if someone, purporting prophethood, prophesies something and the prophecy fails, they are to be stoned to death as a false prophet.

Yet there's quite a bit of scholarship showing that some biblical prophecies, even from such archetypal prophets as Jeremiah, failed. The fundamentalists would never admit this, of course. They'll go into all kinds of contortions to have the false prophecies in the Bible be actually true. But if we lay aside such apologetic thinking in both Mormonism and Christianity it becomes clear that neither could survive the kind of this kind of dichotomy that requires a prophet to always be right.

Don

[_grindael]

Grindael,

Yes, there were past LDS church leaders who taught that they, or some other prophet couldn't be mistaken.

In this teaching, they were mistaken.

Any other questions?

Don

According to you they were mistaken, but not according to them. This doctrine was there from the beginning. No error in the "revelations". Therefore, it is not a "non argument", nor a false dichotomy, (from their point of view, which is all that matters here) it is the simple truth. This is not about what individuals believe, but what the leadership of the church taught and believed.

[_grindael]

Suppose I say, "I never told you I was perfect, but there are no errors in the message board posts that I have made." Now, explain to me how this statement obligates anyone to accept my message board posts in their totality or reject them in their totality, rather than accepting what I've written selectively.

Ready. Set. Go...!

This is an excellent point well stated.

But while the Richards and Smith statements don't consitute a compelling logical case for dichotomized reading, they do supply a compelling social constraint. The institutional Church takes these statements as gospel and teaches its members that these are the only ways to read the scriptures, which means anyone who wants to carve out a middle way is not only tilting against an awful lot of momentum and tradition, but also risks divorcing the scriptures from the very social context that makes them meaningful.

Exactly. But Don's point is apples and oranges. He is not claiming to be the Oracle of the Message Boards speaking with divine authority "what the Lord would say if he were here." (Marion G. Romney, 1945). To overturn this teaching, you must fundamentally change what the Church claims to be at its core, which I'm not sure the leadership is going to go for.

[_Sammy Jankins]

Grindael,

Yes, there were past LDS church leaders who taught that they, or some other prophet couldn't be mistaken.

In this teaching, they were mistaken.

Any other questions?

Don

Why doesn't God clarify that? From a believers perspective this false dichotomy (created by God prophets, not critics) is setting people up for failure. Not only is this not clarified, it is being reinforced. As recently as October General Conference Russell Nelson stated

“Keep the eyes of the mission on the leaders of the Church. … We will not and … cannot lead [you] astray.

“And as you teach your missionaries to focus their eyes on us, teach them to never follow those who think they know more about how to administer the affairs of the Church than … Heavenly Father and the Lord Jesus Christ do” through the priesthood leaders who have the keys to preside.

“I have discovered in my ministry that those who have become lost [and] confused are typically those who have most often … forgotten that when the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve speak with a united voice, it is the voice of the Lord for that time. The Lord reminds us, ‘Whether by mine own voice or by the voice of my servants, it is the same’ [D&C 1:38].”5

[_grindael]

They'll go into all kinds of contortions to have the false prophecies in the Bible be actually true. But if we lay aside such apologetic thinking in both Mormonism and Christianity it becomes clear that neither could survive the kind of this kind of dichotomy that requires a prophet to always be right.

And yet today, we have many branches of Christianity (still surviving) who still quote Deuteronomy as a credential for prophetic infallibility:

17 The Lord said to me: “What they say is good. 18 I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their fellow Israelites, and I will put my words in his mouth. He will tell them everything I command him. 19 I myself will call to account anyone who does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name. 20 But a prophet who presumes to speak in my name anything I have not commanded, or a prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, is to be put to death.”

21 You may say to yourselves, “How can we know when a message has not been spoken by the Lord?” 22 If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the Lord does not take place or come true, that is a message the Lord has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously, so do not be alarmed. (Deuteronomy 18)

Where in modern Mormonism does anyone admit that Thomas Monson has or will give a false prophecy (or "revelation") or that he even can?

False prophets and false teachers are those who declare that the Prophet Joseph Smith was a duplicitous deceiver; they challenge the First Vision as an authentic experience. They declare that the Book of Mormon and other canonical works are not ancient records of scripture. They also attempt to redefine the nature of the Godhead, and they deny that God has given and continues to give revelation today to His ordained and sustained prophets.

False prophets and false teachers are those who arrogantly attempt to fashion new interpretations of the scriptures to demonstrate that these sacred texts should not be read as God’s words to His children but merely as the utterances of uninspired men, limited by their own prejudices and cultural biases. They argue, therefore, that the scriptures require new interpretation and that they are uniquely qualified to offer that interpretation. ...However, in the Lord’s Church there is no such thing as a “loyal opposition.” One is either for the kingdom of God and stands in defense of God’s prophets and apostles, or one stands opposed. (M. Russell Ballard, 1999)

We have a prophet living on the earth today. This prophet is the President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He has the right to revelation for the entire Church. He holds “the keys of the kingdom,” meaning that he has the authority to direct the entire Church and kingdom of God on earth, including the administration of priesthood ordinances (see Matthew 16:19). No person except the chosen prophet and President can receive God’s will for the entire membership of the Church. The Lord said, “There is never but one on the earth at a time on whom this power and the keys of this priesthood are conferred” (D&C 132:7). The President of the Church is assisted by his counselors in the First Presidency and the members of the Quorum of the Twelve, who are also prophets, seers, and revelators.

We should do those things the prophets tell us to do. President Wilford Woodruff said that a prophet will never be allowed to lead the Church astray:

“The Lord will never permit me or any other man who stands as President of this Church to lead you astray. It is not in the programme. It is not in the mind of God. If I were to attempt that, the Lord would remove me out of my place” (Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Wilford Woodruff [2004], 199). ... We should follow his inspired teachings completely. We should not choose to follow part of his inspired counsel and discard that which is unpleasant or difficult. The Lord commanded us to follow the inspired teachings of His prophet:

“Thou shalt give heed unto all his [the prophet’s] words and commandments which he shall give unto you as he receiveth them, walking in all holiness before me;

“For his word ye shall receive, as if from mine own mouth, in all patience and faith” (D&C 21:4–5).

The Lord will never allow the President of the Church to lead us astray. (Gospel Principles, brackets in original)

All or nothing.

[_grindael]

Don,

Oh boy, grindael is on a real tear now and he is such a confused soul. I think that is part of his psychosis of I'm-not-biased-and-can-never-be-wrong-or-completely-misunderstand-things. I don't mean to steal your thunder, but it is sad to see someone misunderstand quotes so badly. Anyway, I think his confusion lies around what a prophet is. For example, is a prophet a perfect hand-puppet for God? Do they lose their humanity and are they forever-more incapable of making a single mortal mistake? According to grindael, that comical caricature of a prophet is the one that he would like foisted on us. Or maybe instead Mormon prophets feel they are called of God and feel inspired by God and don't feel mistaken (or apologetic) about that. But of course, you'd have to be open to a different view than the narrow distorted world in which grindael lives.

Tobin

This idiotic straw man is really comical. It is Mormon "prophets" themselves who set up their own dichotomy, (as I have proven) not me. (I never once said they could not make a "single mortal mistake" - Brigham Young did though, about Joseph Smith and his "revelations"). What a stupid thing to glean from what I did say. But that is lost on this troll, who just can't seem to help making a fool out of himself with every comment he makes. I'm not the one claiming to have had space aliens visit me to critique my sex life, that is all Trollbin. Talk about confused!

[_grindael]

Thanks to everyone for your interesting and thought provoking contributions. I had not intended for this to be an argument about whether Mormonism itself was a black-and-white belief system. My intention was to point out the silliness of making the acceptance or rejection of certain interpretations, some of them obviously lacking priesthood authority, the litmus test for true faith.

I am on my phone right now, so I can't respond at length to some of the other posts here. I look forward to returning to this when I can do so more conveniently. Excellent points have been made and I want to respond to them.

Noted. What brought me to my comment was one of the links provided in the original article you sited by Boylan. Here is Stephen Smoot:

Turning to Price’s contention that Joseph Smith was the “inspired author” of the Book of Mormon, the question of whether God would actually inspire a liar is a non-issue for Price, who is an avowed atheist.38 Indeed, Price seems to see the “inspiration” of the Book of Mormon in the same sense that one would see “inspiration” in the works of Shakespeare or Homer, i.e., nothing more than an excellent literary quality. Because there is no God, Price’s “inspiration” means anything except actual revelation. This has not stopped Price from arguing that the Book of Mormon is no more a hoax than are the fictional works of other great authors. “We ought to realize,” Price opines, “that for Joseph Smith to be the author of the Book of Mormon, with Moroni and Mormon as narrators, makes moot the old debates over whether Smith was a hoaxer or charlatan.”39 By way of comparison, Price asks if Herman Melville and Shakespeare should also be considered hoaxers because they too wrote their fictional narratives in first person, introducing new fictional characters in the process.40

This argument falls flat as soon as one realizes that Joseph Smith never claimed the Book of Mormon was fiction like the works of Melville or Shakespeare. He claimed to have translated by miraculous means an ancient record written on real, tangible, physical golden plates given to him by an angel who was once an ancient Nephite prophet and one of the principle authors of the very book Joseph Smith translated. “[T]o my knowledge,” Hamblin quips in response to Price, “Shakespeare never said that the resurrected Hamlet appeared to him in a dream and gave him a prewritten play Hamlet on golden plates. Shakespeare also never claimed to have been resurrected and ascended into heaven. Frankly, the two examples are not even slightly analogous.”41

To insist on such mercurial definitions of “scripture” and “inspiration” is to make these crucial concepts meaningless, since anything that strikes one’s fancy could be qualified as “scripture” or “inspired,” if one followed Price’s opinion. Or, to paraphrase Robert Alter, “[this] concept of [scripture] becomes so elastic that it threatens to lose descriptive value.”42 Within the understanding of the Latter-day Saints, what gives a text “inspiration” and makes it “scripture” is not its literary merit, but rather when the text is created under the influence of the Holy Ghost (see Doctrine and Covenants 68:4). Price may call any work of literary excellence “scripture” if he likes, but for him to call the Book of Mormon “scripture” while denying that it comes from God is to introduce a concept totally alien to the faith of the Saints. ("The Imperative for a Historical Book of Mormon", Stephen O. Smoot, http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/the-im ... of-mormon/)

This is what Don was trying to argue to me, that his comments on the internet are comparable (in analogy) to "inspired" words of Mormon Prophets. It's at the heart of the argument. This (in my opinion) is the mindset of those like Boylan, who cannot conceive of the argument in any other way. All or nothing. Watch where Smoot goes with this,

But how could the Book of Mormon possibly convince others of the truthfulness of biblical teachings if it is fraudulent? And why would God use a book created under false pretenses to serve as the star witness of his existence in the latter days? What are we to think of these prophecies concerning the coming forth of the Book of Mormon if they were penned no earlier than 1829, and if the genesis of their content is not with Joseph of Egypt, Lehi, or a resurrected Jesus, but instead Joseph Smith? Are we to give God credibility or exhibit any faith in his powers if these passages amount to nothing more than language penned by Joseph Smith about himself? Furthermore, how is a supposedly fictional historical account in the Book of Mormon supposed to convince latter day Jews, Gentiles and the remnant of the house of Israel that Jesus is the Christ, and has made ancient covenants with their forefathers which are to be fulfilled in the last days?56 (Smoot, ibid)

...as Givens writes elsewhere, what outrages rival Christian denominations to this day isn’t so much “the content [of the Book of Mormon],” which sincere Christians could hardly object to, “but rather its manner of appearing; its has typically been judged not on the merits of what it says, but what it enacts.”58 For the Book of Mormon is undoubtedly the primary evidence for Joseph Smith’s divine call. What more could a skeptical world ask for in the way of proof of a genuine prophet than an unlearned New England farm boy “[finding] through the ministration of an holy angel, and translat[ing] into our own language by the gift and power of God”59 an ancient record written in “hieroglyphics, the knowledge of which was lost to the world”?60 Perceptive scholars like Paul C. Gutjahr recognize this clearly. “The presence of a new sacred text testified to the special status and powers of Joseph, who had translated it, and in turn Joseph testified to the truth of the book through his continuing revelations from God” writes Gutjahr in a refreshingly honest and evenhanded non-Mormon treatment of the Book of Mormon. “Neither the Prophet nor the book would, without the other, wield the oracular power each enjoyed.”61

It is therefore upon the Book of Mormon that Latter-day Saints build their confidence in not only Joseph Smith as a prophet, but the divinity of Christ and his Church. President Ezra Taft Benson taught

...that the Church stand[s] or fall[s] with the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. The enemies of the Church understand this clearly. This is why they go to such great lengths to try and disprove the Book of Mormon, for if it can be discredited, the Prophet Joseph Smith goes with it. So does our claim to priesthood keys, and revelation, and the restored Church. But in like manner, if the Book of Mormon is true . . . then one must accept the claims of the Restoration and all that accompanies it.62

Without the historicity of the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith has no genuine prophetic qualifications. When the historicity of the Book of Mormon, and by implication the historicity of the Restoration, is sacrificed on the altar of the Inspired Fiction theory, Joseph Smith goes in an instant from being a “choice seer” (2 Nephi 3:7) chosen by God to reveal a new dispensation of the gospel to just another sad example of the type of religious imposter well known throughout history. At best he becomes a well meaning but deluded quack, and at worst a pathological liar. “It should be obvious,” writes Daniel C. Peterson, “that, if the Book of Mormon were false, little or nothing that is distinctive to our faith would stand. Joseph Smith’s prophetic mission and all of the other revelations that came through him would be called into question.”63 It should be obvious, but for some inexplicable reason this simple point seems to elude proponents of the Inspired Fiction theory. (Smoot, ibid)

This is why Callister's argument is THE argument they (Apologists) use when defending the Book of Mormon against it being fiction:

That is the genius of the Book of Mormon—there is no middle ground. It is either the word of God as professed or it is a total fraud. This book does not merely claim to be a moral treatise or theological commentary or collection of insightful writings. Like the Bible, it claims to be the word of God---written on gold plates, delivered to Joseph by a heavenly angel an translated by the gift and power of God. If that story is true, then the Book of Mormon is the holy word of God, just as it claims to be; if not, it is a sophisticated but nonetheless diabolical hoax that needs to be rejected and exposed by every honest seeker of truth. (Tad R. Callister, The Blueprint of Christ’s Church [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2015], 311).

The Willard Richards story is simply a cog in the wheel of this argument. All or nothing.

[_DonBradley]

According to you they were mistaken, but not according to them. This doctrine was there from the beginning. No error in the "revelations". Therefore, it is not a "non argument", nor a false dichotomy, (from their point of view, which is all that matters here) it is the simple truth. This is not about what individuals believe, but what the leadership of the church taught and believed.

Absolute nonsense. Where the rubber meets the road it's always the individual who decides whether, and what, he or she will believe about a religion. Neither the religion's leaders nor anyone else can decide for someone what they will believe.

You're also cherry picking your quotes to support the dichotomy, when opposing quotes can be found as well. While you quote Joseph Smith as saying that there is no error in the revelations he has taught, you could just as well, and opposingly, quote his statement to David Whitmer after the Canadian copyright revelation failed: "Some revelations are of God, some are of man, and some are of the devil." Far from setting up the simple dichotomy you claim, Smith acknowledged that at least one of his revelations was not from God.

Hyrum Smith, as recalled by Abraham O. Smoot in the Provo School of the Prophets, used to say, about making prophecies, that "if you hit once in 10 times, that is alright."

The Book of Mormon acknowledges its possible errors on its title page.

And so on.

But even without these quotes, the illogic of argument is present on so many levels.

For example, you cite a statement by Joseph Smith saying that there are no errors in his revelations while ignoring that 1) asserting that his revelations are all right his not the same as staking his prophethood on that assertion, 2) the statement itself is not in a revelation, and therefore not necessarily correct under the terms of the statement, and 3) the Bible does explicitly stake a prophet's prophethood on his inerrancy, yet the biblical prophets, in whom you believe, make demonstrably false prophecies. If you reject Smith, who didn't stake his prophethood on his revelatory inerrancy for his errors, you've got many times over the reason to reject the biblical prophets for theirs. Yet you don't, suggesting that the supposed force of your logic is lost even on you.

Don

[_DonBradley]

Grindael,

Yes, there were past LDS church leaders who taught that they, or some other prophet couldn't be mistaken.

In this teaching, they were mistaken.

Any other questions?

Don

Why doesn't God clarify that? From a believers perspective this false dichotomy (created by God prophets, not critics) is setting people up for failure. Not only is this not clarified, it is being reinforced. As recently as October General Conference Russell Nelson stated

“Keep the eyes of the mission on the leaders of the Church. … We will not and … cannot lead [you] astray.

“And as you teach your missionaries to focus their eyes on us, teach them to never follow those who think they know more about how to administer the affairs of the Church than … Heavenly Father and the Lord Jesus Christ do” through the priesthood leaders who have the keys to preside.

“I have discovered in my ministry that those who have become lost [and] confused are typically those who have most often … forgotten that when the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve speak with a united voice, it is the voice of the Lord for that time. The Lord reminds us, ‘Whether by mine own voice or by the voice of my servants, it is the same’ [D&C 1:38].”5

Sammy,

The continued dichotomizing baffles me. I really don't see what good people expect to come from this rhetorical posture.

Don