Philosophy of Man, mingled with scripture

Interesting thought.

I think Satan’s plan is to confuse or confound us to lead us away from God. So that includes philosophies of men, mingled with mortal interpretations of scripture to lead us away from truth and towards sin.

God’s way is the scriptures and prophetic revelation that lead us towards truth and towards Him and His holiness.

The “middle” way, IMO, are the enlightened philosophies of men that help us feel happy. I could argue if it makes me happy, it comes from God, but I would allow a middle way to separate things that are not holy, but still happy. For example, Basketball makes me happy, but I don’t believe it is in the scriptures nor that God teaches it as a Holy practice. However, apart from the fighting in churchball, it is rewarding because of the exercise and social value to me. Therefore, it is not needed for salvation, but is not evil or a sin. Succeeding in my job would be another example of a middle way philosophy of man. It is necessary to survive in this world, but does not directly have value in the hereafter, unless I over work and under perform in my family life or church responsibilities.

The middle way are just things of this world that don’t impact my salvation, but add to my experience in this life.

I would say that God’s way is higher than our way – that revelation is our best approximation, since it is the closest we can come to “hearing” or “seeing” or “understanding” what He would have told us if our filters weren’t interfering to some extent. The philosophies of men are just that – our own best guesses. Some are really good; some are really bad; most are quite mediocre. (just like we are) Mingling scripture with the philosophies of men is a crap shoot – sometimes improving the philosophies, but sometimes making them worse (like what happened when a bad philosophy of racial superiority was mingled with scripture to create even more layers to the originally bad philosophy).

To me, that’s why the mixing of the two is so toxic – it takes corrupt and mortal ideas and clothes them in an aura of divine approbation.

I would say that God’s way is higher than our way – that revelation is our best approximation, since it is the closest we can come to “hearing” or “seeing” or “understanding” what He would have told us if our filters weren’t interfering to some extent. The philosophies of men are just that – our own best guesses. Some are really good; some are really bad; most are quite mediocre. (just like we are)

I agree with you here Ray.

As for me, my interpretation of the “philosophies of men” is different. I view collective human wisdom and experience as superior to everything else. This isn’t because it is superior to God’s knowledge, but it is, I think, superior to what Ray pointed out above. That is to say, I think “philosophies of men” is the collective wisdom of humankind. Is it not possible that this is God’s primary method of leading His children rather than through a single prophet for the entire world? The Bible to me, is not the infallible word of God, but rather a piece in the collective wisdom of humankind. Same with Joseph, the current prophet, the BoM, PofGP, Muhammed, Quran, etc. etc. Admittedly, I am systems engineer who focuses on information theory, so I am probably a bit biased on this. I believe that in the aggregate, people make optimal decisions, and can correctly coordinate themselves, and solve complex problems. The things we can learn from history, by studying organizations, individuals, gov’ts, religions, and mythologies will tell us far more about God, the world, eschatology than any one individual’s revelations.

I agree with that definition, jmb275 – totally.

I think the combined wisdom of the ages also includes some refuse, if you will – and it’s that refuse that Mormons generally tend to associate with “the philosophies of man”. Otoh, we are told in the D&C to seek out learning from all the best sources – the “good” subsection of the collective wisdom of the ages / philosophies of (wo)men.