What is "The Truth" in the Scriptures?

[_Philo Sofee]

New article on my blog for your reading pleasures
https://drpepaw.wordpress.com/2015/09/2 ... e-inquiry/

[_churchistrue]

I read your blog and it got my creative juices flowing. I included a reference to your post in my blog today. http://www.churchistrue.com/blog/faith-as-a-choice/

I agree with your idea of the difficullty of finding absolute truth within scripture. I think is difficult/impossible to do.

You seem exasperated by the idea of Terryl Givens to simply choose to believe it within the framework of Mormonism, but I think choosing to have faith is all we can do, when it appears impossible to know.

[_Chap]

You seem exasperated by the idea of Terryl Givens to simply choose to believe it within the framework of Mormonism, but I think choosing to have faith is all we can do, when it appears impossible to know.

"All we can do"? Really?

How about simply deciding that we shall have to say "Questions like what happens when we die are not capable of any rationally based answer. So instead, let us leave them to one side, and turn our attention to problems that can be solved if we try hard enough, like making sure every child gets an education, and has enough to eat. At least that can do no harm, and may even do a lot of good."

[_huckelberry]

How about simply deciding that we shall have to say "Questions like what happens when we die are not capable of any rationally based answer. So instead, let us leave them to one side, and turn our attention to problems that can be solved if we try hard enough, like making sure every child gets an education, and has enough to eat. At least that can do no harm, and may even do a lot of good."

A sensible Christian response.

Yes I realize the response is not sole property of Christian.

[_sock puppet]

You seem exasperated by the idea of Terryl Givens to simply choose to believe it within the framework of Mormonism, but I think choosing to have faith is all we can do, when it appears impossible to know.

"All we can do"? Really?

How about simply deciding that we shall have to say "Questions like what happens when we die are not capable of any rationally based answer. So instead, let us leave them to one side, and turn our attention to problems that can be solved if we try hard enough, like making sure every child gets an education, and has enough to eat. At least that can do no harm, and may even do a lot of good."

Yep. Anything buy apatheism is a waste of time. The New Testament says man can't know the mind or will of god. So why fret about whether such a New Testament 'god' exists.

[_churchistrue]

You seem exasperated by the idea of Terryl Givens to simply choose to believe it within the framework of Mormonism, but I think choosing to have faith is all we can do, when it appears impossible to know.

"All we can do"? Really?

How about simply deciding that we shall have to say "Questions like what happens when we die are not capable of any rationally based answer. So instead, let us leave them to one side, and turn our attention to problems that can be solved if we try hard enough, like making sure every child gets an education, and has enough to eat. At least that can do no harm, and may even do a lot of good."

All we can do may be poor word choice. I mean we may not know something, but we can choose it, via faith. Obviously other options are to reject completely or to ignore it.

[_honorentheos]

I was moved to put together this blog post by a question Kerry Shirts asked “What is ‘the truth’ of scripture?”

“The newest Mormon rhetoric to come out, that of Terryl Givens, claims that ‘…many scriptural contradictions are only apparent, [to who?] evaporating upon closer or more contextualized reading.’ Nice, but whose contextualization? Givens, being a Mormon apologist says Mormonism, of course! And we are once again back to square one.”

This is exactly the kind of statement that used to really bother me, before I moved from a literal to a metaphorical paradigm and accepted faith as something denotes choice not necessarily belief. Truth to a literal believer is limited to only statements that are factual accurate. Truth to me now is doctrine that leads us to understanding about God and ourselves, and leads us to a better, higher, happier state of living.

I choose to have faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ as restored by Joseph Smith. I understand the historical claims of our church’s origin are messy. They might even prove it is false, if you are restricted to a narrow, literal view. But by a larger definition, I believe the church is true. The evidence of the church’s truth is the rich abundance I feel in my life when I engage fully in the church. I find God in the Mormon church, and my life is enriched.

Hi churchistrue,

My apologies for jumping into the discussion midstream. But the definition of truth you provide above seems to deserve more specific discussion and since "Truth in Scripture" is the central theme of Kerry's link in the OP perhaps it will further the OP's intent to some extent.

From your statement, it seems accurate to say you are redefining the term "true" away from one that tells us about objective reality that is independent of our emotional responses. Instead, what determines the truth of something is, to borrow your phrase, the abundance it causes you to feel.

Could one argue that within your definition, then, the opposite of truth is contraction? The loss of abundance one feels?

This raises a serious concern to my mind because in my experience I have encountered situations where an initial thought, even prolonged and acted upon, felt heady and enriching only to be proven inaccurate by cold hard facts. Sometimes rather bluntly by someone else with knowledge of the facts who could point out the error in my thinking. The experience certainly could feel like a contraction and loss of abundance, but the results were an increase in my understanding of what was objectively so.

How does your theory of truth-as-abundance, to be chosen rather than acknowledged through resilience to scrutiny, deal with the need to be falsifiable but able to withstand the attempts to falsify it? And remain consistent with your definition?

[_churchistrue]

I was moved to put together this blog post by a question Kerry Shirts asked “What is ‘the truth’ of scripture?”

“The newest Mormon rhetoric to come out, that of Terryl Givens, claims that ‘…many scriptural contradictions are only apparent, [to who?] evaporating upon closer or more contextualized reading.’ Nice, but whose contextualization? Givens, being a Mormon apologist says Mormonism, of course! And we are once again back to square one.”

This is exactly the kind of statement that used to really bother me, before I moved from a literal to a metaphorical paradigm and accepted faith as something denotes choice not necessarily belief. Truth to a literal believer is limited to only statements that are factual accurate. Truth to me now is doctrine that leads us to understanding about God and ourselves, and leads us to a better, higher, happier state of living.

I choose to have faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ as restored by Joseph Smith. I understand the historical claims of our church’s origin are messy. They might even prove it is false, if you are restricted to a narrow, literal view. But by a larger definition, I believe the church is true. The evidence of the church’s truth is the rich abundance I feel in my life when I engage fully in the church. I find God in the Mormon church, and my life is enriched.

Hi churchistrue,

My apologies for jumping into the discussion midstream. But the definition of truth you provide above seems to deserve more specific discussion and since "Truth in Scripture" is the central theme of Kerry's link in the OP perhaps it will further the OP's intent to some extent.

From your statement, it seems accurate to say you are redefining the term "true" away from one that tells us about objective reality that is independent of our emotional responses. Instead, what determines the truth of something is, to borrow your phrase, the abundance it causes you to feel.

Could one argue that within your definition, then, the opposite of truth is contraction? The loss of abundance one feels?

This raises a serious concern to my mind because in my experience I have encountered situations where an initial thought, even prolonged and acted upon, felt heady and enriching only to be proven inaccurate by cold hard facts. Sometimes rather bluntly by someone else with knowledge of the facts who could point out the error in my thinking. The experience certainly could feel like a contraction and loss of abundance, but the results were an increase in my understanding of what was objectively so.

How does your theory of truth-as-abundance, to be chosen rather than acknowledged through resilience to scrutiny, deal with the need to be falsifiable but able to withstand the attempts to falsify it? And remain consistent with your definition?

That's getting into level of discussion that's above my pay grade, but probably is more in line with what Philo Sofee is aiming at with his OP.

I'll think about this and respond later.

[_Fence Sitter]

[


All we can do may be poor word choice. I mean we may not know something, but we can choose it, via faith. Obviously other options are to reject completely or to ignore it.

See this is the problem with the constraints of faith; accept you don't know and act as if you do, reject completely or ignore.
The option to leave open the possibility that the future may prove you wrong is the antithesis of faith.

[_honorentheos]

That's getting into level of discussion that's above my pay grade, but probably is more in line with what Philo Sofee is aiming at with his OP.

I'll think about this and respond later.

That's fine. Please take the time you need.

I do hope that you'll come back to it when ready, though.