Why I Say I Know the LDS Church Is True

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Gadianton
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Re: Why I Say I Know the LDS Church Is True

Post by Gadianton »

I had this FARMS book a long time ago with essays and one was about this. Last time I moved, I threw out all my church books as dead weight, so I can only go from memory. I think the point was that saying you know the church is true is an expression of faith. I thought it was a great explanation at the time, which was pre-mission and college. Superficially, very similar to Packer's version. Huge difference though, because the intellectual version was saying, "of course you can't really know!" Packer's version is sustainable because you keep dragging the carrot, which is real and never disappears. The hope is that you can know with absolute certainty even if in practice you don't. In all the intellectual versions, either the community value is emphasized or there is some save that doesn't depend on actual knowing. In this case, sure, it's clever to say a person has such a high level of faith and commitment as to say "I know" when it isn't the case, and it's not lying any more than sincerely over-professing your love for somebody. The author certainly wasn't in self-analysis mode, but trying to understand testimony bearing from a faithful, community perspective. People on the fringes who are cautious about bearing their own testimony might find comfort in explanations like this, but its not sustainable for the average saint, who won't see the point of accepting the possibility that saying "I know" is never the case and not possible. Take the over-exuberant love analogy, that only works if the participant is not self-aware that their love devotion is over exuberant.
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JohnW
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Re: Why I Say I Know the LDS Church Is True

Post by JohnW »

Yeah, I wonder if each person who bears their testimony has a different idea of what it means to say, "I know the church is true." As mentioned, testimony tends to be fairly personal. I think most people understand that a testimony is an expression of their own experience, even if there are the periodic few who try to strong arm the congregation with their testimony.

In my own case, I like to think more of the verb true and not the adjective. It doesn't fit perfectly, but it helps me. When we are building a house and true a door or a wall, we make it have right angles. We bring it into alignment with the house plans. We never get it exactly right, but we get it close enough for the purposes of the house plans. If we build everything true, then at the end of the process we get a nice, safe house, assuming the plans were any good. If we aren't true to the plans, we get an unsafe structure.

Is the church true to the gospel of Jesus Christ? Does it bring us into alignment with the truths found there? Are the truths of the gospel even any good? In my case, those are the questions I'm answering when I say, "I know the church is true." I'm not exactly sure how all the gospel truths are captured in the church. I'm not even exactly sure which truths found in the gospel are good. All I know, in my case, was that through the vehicle of the church I came to know God. It had to have been true, because at the end of the process, I have a relationship with God, even if that relationship can sometimes be frustrating. During it all, I somehow had enough faith to continue on even though I couldn't explain all the issues still lying around.

Yeah, maybe this way to articulate the concept of testimony is non-standard, but I think many people have an underlying understanding of some of this process when they bear their testimony. At least that has been my experience.
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Morley
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Re: Why I Say I Know the LDS Church Is True

Post by Morley »

Welcome back, John. Nice explanation. Please stick around.
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Re: Why I Say I Know the LDS Church Is True

Post by dastardly stem »

Benjamin McGuire wrote:
Sat Sep 17, 2022 3:00 pm
Gadianton wrote:
Sat Sep 17, 2022 1:14 am
So Ben, after that explanation, do you know that the Church is true?
No. And I would be very unlikely to ever make this statement. This isn't to say that I can't enumerate my list of propositions. And, with my personal philosophical leanings, I suspect that my list would be one of those that is quite different from most LDS members (different in part because I have spent the better part of my life learning to articulate my beliefs and then watching them change as both my experience and my understanding has changed).
How is that different from the experience of "most LDS members"?
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Re: Why I Say I Know the LDS Church Is True

Post by dastardly stem »

JohnW wrote:
Mon Sep 19, 2022 2:23 am
Yeah, I wonder if each person who bears their testimony has a different idea of what it means to say, "I know the church is true."
THat's true and a good way to put it.
It had to have been true, because at the end of the process, I have a relationship with God, even if that relationship can sometimes be frustrating.
Have you ever wondered, "is there really a relationship here outside my own mind"? WHen people speak of a relationship it appears to be as solid and real as if everyone is individually making it up in their own mind--almost in a "I'm having a conversation with myself" kind of way.
“Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos
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bill4long
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Re: Why I Say I Know the LDS Church Is True

Post by bill4long »

Moksha wrote:
Sat Sep 17, 2022 6:04 pm
I would love to hear Donald Trump bear an LDS testimony, although I think he would end up talking and heaping praise on himself. "People have said that my knowing is deeper than all others and that nobody bears a testimony truer than mine."
Damn funny :lol:
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JohnW
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Re: Why I Say I Know the LDS Church Is True

Post by JohnW »

dastardly stem wrote:
Mon Sep 19, 2022 1:42 pm
JohnW wrote:
Mon Sep 19, 2022 2:23 am
It had to have been true, because at the end of the process, I have a relationship with God, even if that relationship can sometimes be frustrating.
Have you ever wondered, "is there really a relationship here outside my own mind"? WHen people speak of a relationship it appears to be as solid and real as if everyone is individually making it up in their own mind--almost in a "I'm having a conversation with myself" kind of way.
Yeah, I think that is part of what I'm alluding to when I say my relationship with God is sometimes frustrating. There are times when it seems like nothing can be more real than my relationship with God. There are other times when I wonder if I haven't just made it all up in my mind. When I was going through graduate school, I almost became an atheist, so this topic tends to be an extra sensitive one for me, a little like an old wound that aches periodically.
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Re: Why I Say I Know the LDS Church Is True

Post by IHAQ »

JohnW wrote:
Mon Sep 19, 2022 2:23 am
It had to have been true, because at the end of the process, I have a relationship with God, even if that relationship can sometimes be frustrating.
On that basis, all religions with a God are true.
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Re: Why I Say I Know the LDS Church Is True

Post by IHAQ »

KevinSim wrote:
Wed Sep 14, 2022 3:01 am
At times I get up in Fast and Testimony Meetings and say, among other things, that I know the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is true. By that I don't mean that I have a step by step proof from known axioms to my conclusion about the LDS Church. Rather I mean that I have a very strong hunch that that conclusion is correct. I have talked a little about this on other threads. It's obvious to me that human beings (and all other forms of life?) are non-deterministic, and it's also obvious that non-determinism cannot arise out of a completely deterministic universe, so I have concluded that someone, or some group of beings, with free will has/have existed since the moment of the Big Bang.
Kevin, you subscribe to the idea of a Big Bang rather than the Adam & Eve creation story?
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Re: Why I Say I Know the LDS Church Is True

Post by Kishkumen »

drumdude wrote:
Wed Sep 14, 2022 3:10 pm
I think shades is being a little harsh.


“I know the church is true” is a cultural meme within Mormonism and should be understood in that context. Mormons mean it in the same way he is using it, I think.
I agree, drumdude.
“If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don’t have to worry about the answers.”~Thomas Pynchon, Gravity’s Rainbow
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