"Research is Not the Answer"

[Guest]

Just as "rational argument" does not create faith, study and research alone cannot be used to sustain it. This is why the scriptures say that the ideal way to learn is "by study and faith".

This is all that I am saying, and I think Elder Oaks was saying something similar.

No. Oaks was suggesting that members with doubts drop the "study" part of learning about the Church and it's history.

Maybe we aren't talking about the same talk. This is the talk I read:
https://www.LDS.org/church/news/preside ... -?lang=eng

Quote:

President Oaks acknowledged that some Latter-Saint couples face conflicts over important values and priorities. Matters of Church history and doctrinal issues have led some spouses to inactivity. Some spouses wonder how to best go about researching and responding to such issues.

“I suggest that research is not the answer,” he said.

The Church does offer answers to many familiar questions through its Gospel Topics essays found at LDS.org.

“But the best answer to any question that threatens faith is to work to increase faith in the Lord Jesus Christ,” he said. “Conversion to the Lord precedes conversion to the Church. And conversion to the Lord comes through prayer and study and service, furthered by loving patience on the part of spouse and other concerned family members.”

Elder Oaks on learning by "study and faith":
https://www.LDS.org/manual/missionary-p ... 2?lang=eng

Quote by Pres. Oaks:

“In modern revelation the Lord has told us to ‘seek learning even by study and also by faith.’ (D&C 109:7.) Seeking learning by study, we use the method of reason. Seeking learning by faith, we must rely on revelation. Obedient to heavenly decree, we should seek learning by reason and also by revelation. …

“The things of God cannot be learned solely by study and reason. … We cannot come to know the things of God while rejecting or failing to use the indispensable method God has prescribed to learn these things. The things of God must be learned in his own way, through faith in God and revelation from the Holy Ghost” (The Lord’s Way, 16, 56).

To me, Pres. Oaks is a good example of someone who combines "study and faith", and I don't think it is wise to judge him by one statement of "research is not the answer", rather we should seek to place this statement in the context not only of the talk it comes out of but also in the context of what he has said all during the last 30-40 years about "study and faith", including the time when he served as BYU prez. He has written scholarly works, not only when he was a Chicago law professor but he has also written at least one scholarly work (in partnership with historian Marvin Hill) about church history, the book "Carthage Conspiracy"; and of course he has written and spoken extensively about faith since his call to the Twelve.

[_fetchface]

Oaks makes a poor case. Frankly, faith doesn't deserve the same footing as reason. Millions around the globe "know" all kinds of wildly divergent and contradictory things by personal revelation. There is much more convergence of knowledge across the peoples of the world when we use reason. No contest, really.

If faith were a good way to know things, people's beliefs formed by faith wouldn't be unreliable or contradictory.

It will always be necessary to invoke a No True Scotsman fallacy to justify one's beliefs that are informed by revelation. (i.e. No true revelation would give results different from my revelation.)

[_kjones]

Oaks makes a poor case. Frankly, faith doesn't deserve the same footing as reason. Millions around the globe "know" all kinds of wildly divergent and contradictory things by personal revelation. There is much more convergence of knowledge across the peoples of the world when we use reason. No contest, really.

If faith were a good way to know things, people's beliefs formed by faith wouldn't be unreliable or contradictory.

It will always be necessary to invoke a No True Scotsman fallacy to justify one's beliefs that are informed by revelation. (i.e. No true revelation would give results different from my revelation.)

Yeats, "The Second Coming":

The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Is one any better than the other?

Hugh Nibley treated the tendency of some saints to focus only on faith in his essay "Zeal Without Knowledge", the text of which comes from something Joseph Smith said to the newly created Relief Society: "Beware of overmuch zeal that is not according to knowledge."

Study and faith: one without the other is incomplete.

A man who is all faith and no study is like a man hopping down the street on one leg. And so it is as well for a man who is all study and no faith.

Nibley, "Zeal Without Knowledge":
http://emp.byui.edu/andersonkc/zeal%20w ... wledge.pdf

[_Shulem]

O Jevovah, I have done what thou hast commanded me to do. Thou mayest fulfill thy promise and remove Nelson from his place and set me before thy church that I may speak thy holy words, O Jehovah. Hear thy humble servant!



Prophet Oaks

[_kjones]

O Jevovah, I have done what thou hast commanded me to do. Thou mayest fulfill thy promise and remove Nelson from his place and set me before thy church that I may speak thy holy words, O Jehovah. Hear thy humble servant!



Prophet Oaks

Funny guy, Shulem . . . if I were still in the 7th grade.

Now satire, clever satire . . . that is something else. Mockery is not the same thing as satire, Shulem.

I can laugh at "The Book of Mormon" musical just as I can laugh at "Father Ted". And my favorite TV series of all time is "Black Adder", a clever satire on British history starring Rowan Atkinson.

But mockery ... there is nothing clever or witty about mockery. Most of us grow out of it by the time we leave the 7th grade.

[_fetchface]

Study and faith: one without the other is incomplete.

A man who is all faith and no study is like a man hopping down the street on one leg. And so it is as well for a man who is all study and no faith.

Yes, growing up Mormon I have heard this asserted probably a billion times throughout my life. But I've never heard a good argument for why faith is good. Not one.

I have, however, heard quite a few cute little similes that attempt to make faith seem good, and people who don't have it seem bad or deficient in some way. I've never heard an actual good argument for it, though.

Reason without faith is just fine. Reason without empathy/kindness is what's bad.

[_kjones]

Study and faith: one without the other is incomplete.

A man who is all faith and no study is like a man hopping down the street on one leg. And so it is as well for a man who is all study and no faith.

Yes, growing up Mormon I have hear this asserted probably a billion times throughout my life. But I've never heard a good argument for why faith is good. Not one.

I have, however, heard quite a few cute little similes that attempt to make faith seem good, and people who don't have it seem bad or deficient in some way. I've never heard an actual good argument for it, though.

Reason without faith is just fine. Reason without empathy/kindness is what's bad.

Well there are good and bad examples of both extremes. Anybody who has grown up in LDS culture can point to the local gospel hobbyist as an example of why "faith only" is distorting and a bad idea.

But on the other hand history and culture are rife with examples of the other: what happens when reason and science only prevail.

I personally see Dallin Oaks as a good example of someone who combines both study (i.e., reason, knowledge) and faith.

[_fetchface]

But on the other hand history and culture are rife with examples of the other: what happens when reason and science only prevail.

Are you talking about nontheistic totalistic ideologies? Faith is still the problem there.

[_Shulem]

But mockery ... there is nothing clever or witty about mockery. Most of us grow out of it by the time we leave the 7th grade.

Right about that time when Mormon bishops start interviewing children by asking sexually explicit questions. You wouldn't happen to one of them, would you?

[_consiglieri]

consiglieri,

Meet Mahalaleel!



Son of cabbage

You are freaking killing me!!!