Can we choose which revelations to believe?

[Anonymous]

Ray wrote (in relation to the thread on the 1831 revelation on polygamy):

Quote:

The biggest thing that bothers me about polygamy was that I believe the unrighteous dominion line was crossed – and that it was obvious and undeniable. The way it was practiced runs directly against D&C 121, imo – and, in fact, I personally believe that revelation (which I believe to have been truly a divine revelation) was largely a result of the way polygamy was approached – and Joseph finally “breaking” in a real way in Liberty Jail.

My attention here is to the bolded part and not to polygamy per se. I am not sure I get this, even as I understand that a main purpose of this website is to help people possibly find a middle way in the church. And I do recognize that I might be mischaracterizing Ray’s intent, so I will state that up front.

How can one choose which revelations he/she thinks is real or not? Sure, one can do that, but aren’t the revelations that JS received either of God or not of God? If the church is led by divine leadership and still pronounces all of JS’s revelations as of God, who are we to say which ones we want to believe? It seems to me that this approach undermines the whole point of revelation through a prophet.

[Anonymous]

The great challenge of our mortal existence is to know the truth, and god’s specific will for me personally.

First, truth is first and foremost true. If a scientific or historical fact disproves something pronounced by a prophet, the scientific or historical fact wins. Faith is hope for things not seen which are true: therefore, belief in something seen (observed, proven) and is false, it isn’t faith and it isn’t true.

The best historical evidence is that Joseph Smith did not translate the bible and book of Abraham. His inspired version of the bible is not a translation, for the best and close to original Greek texts do not support the inspired version. The BoA papyrus doesn’t have any of abraham’s words, and the facsimiles don’t say what joseph claimed them to say.

Whether these are “inspired” is a question of faith, one which I support.

Second, the counsel of prophets throughout time has been just that: counsel for a time and place. Detached from time and place, the counsel is not always relevant.

Third, we are not to be commanded in all things. We are here to learn from our own experience to distinguish good from evil. While it may be giid to the taste and very desirable to partake of the tree of dogmatic good and Evil, it is seldom healthy to do so.

Fourth, common sense is usually more inspired than summary pronouncements of “the one and only way…” when you feel good about something, you feel harmony, it seems right…that is often, but not always, an indicator of the right thing to do.

[Anonymous]

Joseph Smith is reported to have said, “Some revelations are of God: some revelations are of man: and some revelations are of the devil.”

An apolagetic site discussing this reported quote says the following:

Quote:

But one will say, what becomes of certainty even in matters of revelation and divine inspiration if such views as these are to obtain? The answer is that absolute certainty, except as to fundamental things, the great things that concern man’s salvation, may not be expected. Here, indeed, that is, in things fundamental, we have the right to expect the solid rock, not shifting sands, and God gives that certainty. But in matters that do not involve fundamentals, in matters that involve only questions of administration and policy, the way in which God’s servants go about things; in all such matters we may expect more or less of uncertainty, even errors; manifestations of unwisdom, growing out of human limitations. Would absolute certainty be desirable? “Know ye not that we walk by faith, not by sight,” is Paul’s statement. From which I infer that this very uncertainty in the midst of which we walk by faith, is the very means of our education. What mere automatons men would become if they found truth machine-made, of cast-iron stiffness, and limited, that is to say, finite, instead of being as we now find it, infinite and elusive, and attainable only by the exertion of every power known to mind and heart of man, with constant alertness to ward off deception and mistake!

I like them apologetics! :thumbup: The entire site can be found here:

http://www.angelfire.com/sk2/ldsdefense/copyright.html

[Anonymous]

Roy wrote:

Joseph Smith is reported to have said, “Some revelations are of God: some revelations are of man: and some revelations are of the devil.”

I would love to have the source and provenance of that quote…a real keeper. Do you have it?

Roy wrote:

An apolagetic site discussing this reported quote says the following:

apologetic source wrote:

Here, indeed, that is, in things fundamental, we have the right to expect the solid rock, not shifting sands, and God gives that certainty.

I like them apologetics! :thumbup:

I do not like apologetics, because truth needs no defense.

In the snippet I included above, what are the “fundamentals” to which god gives certainty?

I know of very few things that aren’t shifting sands. I would hope that the most fundamental is “Jesus is the Christ”. Or “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”. Love god, love one another. Are there other fundamentals than these?

Now, if I say “Jesus is the Christ”, what does that mean? Christ means the “anointed one”. What does that mean? Is there a fundamental, clear, rock solid doctrinal explanation as to what that means?

Faith, repentance, baptism, gift of holy ghost… Faith in what? Repentance of what? Baptism by whom and when? How is the LDS gift of the HG materially different from other non-LDS spiritual or mystical experience?

I am not trying to be difficult, and while my definitions of what is fundamental from an LDS perspective will likely conform to LDS norms, for someone not versed in LDS-speak, such “certainty” is anything but rock solid or clear.

[Anonymous]

I have to live according to the dictates of my own conscience and have faith that God will not punish me for doing so. I’d rather follow that path and be wrong, learning from my mistakes and having an atonement cover those honest mistakes, than to believe and do things just because others say I need to believe and do them. That last construct is the heart of what we call Lucifer’s plan – and I think it’s critical do recognize that.

CAN we choose which revelations to believe? I think everyone chooses which revelations to believe – even if that means some people choose to thnk they believe them all. Actually, I think there isn’t a Mormon alive who believes them all – when revelation is defined as “everything an apostle or President taught or said from the pulpit”, since there are so many contradictory things that have been taught and preached (and so many things we no longer teach and preach).

Everyone looks at things and decides what they can believe – and then they choose whay they can live – and then they construct justifications for the gap (the largest one being that the Atonement will cover that gap, as long as we’re trying to do our best). That, to me, is a huge part of pure Mormonism – an acknowledgment that all of us are living according to the dictates of our own consciences and hoping in faith that God will understand and not hold it against us.

[Anonymous]

I don’t see why not. Personally I think the idea of speaking as a man versus speaking as a prophet is one of the best Mormon apologetic arguments of all time. The general idea is that even if Joseph Smith was wrong about polygamy that doesn’t necessarily mean he was also wrong about current doctrines like the WoW and temple marriage. Similarly you can’t blame Gordon B. Hinckley and Thomas S. Monson for all the highly questionable things Bruce R. McConkie, Brigham Young, and other Church leaders have said in the past.

It is basically a way for the Church to try to have it both ways where they can demand blind obedience to current leaders but still be able to minimize the importance of any apparent mistakes after the fact because they supposedly don’t affect the salvation of past or present Church members. It’s at least a remotely plausible theory so that’s why I don’t look at any one thing as being undeniable proof that the Church is completely wrong as much as trying to connect the dots to get a fairly confident idea of what is more likely. So if you have several cases of Church leaders acting like they knew what they were talking about when they really didn’t then it undermines their overall credibility. Basically at this point I don’t see why God should blame me too much for not taking tithing and the WOW more seriously when they come from the same source as all this other embarrassing stuff.

[Anonymous]

I want to take the other side of the coin of what Ray said. The key question to me is:

Quote:

Can I really choose what I do and don’t believe?

Wouldn’t it be better to honestly accept what I do and don’t – or can and can’t believe?

I think this is essentially the same thing that Ray is saying but coming from a different angle.

Can I choose to believe that the sky is green and the grass is blue? Is that a choice that is open to me if I am being truly honest with myself?

It may be possible to learn more about pigments and the light spectrum and accept new definitions that could encompass a broader view and include the views of most people (if they differ from my own) but the point is if you honestly believe something — can you just choose a different belief?

[Anonymous]

Yes. We absolutely have the power and responsibility to believe or disbelieve any and all revelations. Perhaps a large number of traditional members don’t consciously realize this, and maybe never focused on it. But they constantly make those decisions.

It isn’t possible to believe in and obey every revelation from all current and past Church leaders. Some are mutually exclusive. Many don’t agree, not even when you try to sort them chronologically and go with the most recent one.

In fact, I find this process one of the most important steps to learn in our spiritual progress — to STOP depending on other people for all our spiritual needs, no matter how fancy their title is! If God wanted all his children to be siccophants and “yes men” then He would have just gone with Lucifer’s plan. Just sayin’… That was the plan of total obedience to everything, you know. Apparently there’s something seriously flawed with that approach.

[Anonymous]

Brian: +1000. You are my guru and my god! (now if I can just get that image of a pasty-white buddha out of my head)

[Anonymous]

curt wrote:

How can one choose which revelations he/she thinks is real or not? Sure, one can do that, but aren’t the revelations that JS received either of God or not of God? If the church is led by divine leadership and still pronounces all of JS’s revelations as of God, who are we to say which ones we want to believe?

How do we choose? Yes…this is the experience we get in this mortal life…deciding how we will choose what is revelation from God, and what is not. What is God’s will, and what is not. Apparently, even the chosen prophets are allowed to fail at this, that they may learn from their failures. Joseph Smith with the 116 pages is an example, but also the whole banking fiasco. Gordon B Hinckley and the Salamander Letters [although he was not THE prophet at the time, but he was a prophet, seer, and revelator with support from the Q15 to proceed]. These are examples of times the prophets thought they had revelation to proceed…but were told afterwards of their mistake. So are prophets infallible? The answer is no, and the church teaches that.

Here is what Elder Oaks taught about 2 Lines of Communication with God:

Quote:

the priesthood line does not supersede the need for the personal line [of revelation]. We all need a personal testimony of truth. As our faith develops, we necessarily rely on the words and faith of others, like our parents, teachers, or priesthood leaders (see D&C 46:14). But if we are solely dependent on one particular priesthood leader or teacher for our personal testimony of the truth instead of getting that testimony through the personal line, we will be forever vulnerable to disillusionment by the action of that person. When it comes to a mature knowledge or testimony of the truth, we should not be dependent on a mortal mediator between us and our Heavenly Father.

~”Two Lines of Communication”, Elder Oaks, GC Oct 2010., emphasis added.

I am grateful the church teaches this truth, that we must come to the truth ourselves through our relationship with God. But it saddens me when people with good intentions misunderstand and think that “when the prophet speaks, the thinking is over.” The 14 Fundamentals can be interpreted in an extreme position to perpetuate such misunderstandings.

This is part of developing faith. How to sustain and follow the prophet, and still think for ourselves and search for confirmation and reason for us to feel at peace. It is a balance. That is the middle way. The middle way is not rationalizing truth to fit our need. It is finding the DEEP truth that works within us.

curt wrote:

It seems to me that this approach undermines the whole point of revelation through a prophet.

I disagree, curt. I think it teaches us exactly what the point of revelation is for, and how God works with all His children. People who expect revelation is the literal word of God, word for word, and it is perfect, and all we must do is blindly obey, undermine the whole point of revelation through a prophet.

[Anonymous]

wayfarer wrote:

Roy wrote:

Joseph Smith is reported to have said, “Some revelations are of God: some revelations are of man: and some revelations are of the devil.”

I would love to have the source and provenance of that quote…a real keeper. Do you have it?

The quote comes to us from David Whitmer and was copied into Comprehensive History of the Church, 1:163 by B.H. Roberts. It was also quoted in a GC address in 1991 found here:

http://www.lds.org/general-conference/1991/10/the-dual-aspects-of-prayer

wayfarer wrote:

I do not like apologetics, because truth needs no defense.

The apologist that I was quoting from seems quite reasonable in his explanation. He doesn’t attack or try to discredit the source of the quote but instead talks about the nature of “infinite and elusive” truth. I also appreciated that while he did say that the “fundamentals” were certain and solid rock – he did not elaborate on what those fundamentals are. He leaves that interpretation to the individual. For all we know he could have been referencing “the core Gospel principles (LOVE; belief in the unseen but hoped; self-reflective change; symbolic cleansing; striving to recognize the will of the divine; never giving up) [that] are universal.” And then his position might seem remarkably similar to Ray’s. 😯

[Anonymous]

Here’s a revelation from a former Apostle that I believe in:

“The saints believe in divine revelation today. At the head of this church stands a man who is a prophet, seer and revelator, sustained in that position by the vote of the whole body of its members. When the lord wishes to speak to his church as a body, he does so through that individual, his servant. President Wilford Woodruff is a man of wisdom and experience, and we respect and venerate him, but we do not believe his personal views or utterances are revelations from god, and when “thus saith the lord comes” from him, the saints investigate it. They do not shut their eyes and take it down like a pill. When he brings forth light, they want to comprehend it. Light, truth, intelligence, wisdom progress, growth all the time — that is “Mormonism” — to grow in grace and the knowledge of the truth.”

-Elder Charles W. Penrose, Millenial Star (Vol 54), March 21st, 1892

[Anonymous]

Brian Johnston wrote:

Here’s a revelation from a former Apostle that I believe in:

“The saints believe in divine revelation today. At the head of this church stands a man who is a prophet, seer and revelator, sustained in that position by the vote of the whole body of its members. When the lord wishes to speak to his church as a body, he does so through that individual, his servant. President Wilford Woodruff is a man of wisdom and experience, and we respect and venerate him, but we do not believe his personal views or utterances are revelations from god, and when “thus saith the lord comes” from him, the saints investigate it. They do not shut their eyes and take it down like a pill. When he brings forth light, they want to comprehend it. Light, truth, intelligence, wisdom progress, growth all the time — that is “Mormonism” — to grow in grace and the knowledge of the truth.”

-Elder Charles W. Penrose, Millenial Star (Vol 54), March 21st, 1852

Worthy of framing, imho.

What if the prophet spoke these words over the pulpit at general conference, with the specific mention that the 14 fundamentals talk by Benson is not church doctrine.

What if the prophet simply said that ‘light and truth’ are given to us line-upon-line, precept-upon-precept. As it always has been in the past, it shall always be so in the future. As we increase in light and truth, we need to re-evaluate what we thought in the past. It ever was so when in 1978 Preesident Kimball received the revelation that all worthy men should hold the priesthood, and the church’s position on blacks prior to that time was not right, for which we formally apologize. Now today, we have as a church taught that Gay members are not worthy is they have sexual realtions, and we have been opposed to Gay marriage. We have now received further light and knowledge that gay members can participate fully in the covenant of marriage…”

oh, dream on, wayfarer…

[Anonymous]

Can we choose which revelations to believe? YES.

Will “the church” agree and admit that we can choose which revelations to believe? NO!

Sent from my SCH-I500 using Tapatalk 2

[Anonymous]

Brian Johnston wrote:

Here’s a revelation from a former Apostle that I believe in:

“The saints believe in divine revelation today. At the head of this church stands a man who is a prophet, seer and revelator, sustained in that position by the vote of the whole body of its members. When the lord wishes to speak to his church as a body, he does so through that individual, his servant. President Wilford Woodruff is a man of wisdom and experience, and we respect and venerate him, but we do not believe his personal views or utterances are revelations from god, and when “thus saith the lord comes” from him, the saints investigate it. They do not shut their eyes and take it down like a pill. When he brings forth light, they want to comprehend it. Light, truth, intelligence, wisdom progress, growth all the time — that is “Mormonism” — to grow in grace and the knowledge of the truth.”

-Elder Charles W. Penrose, Millenial Star (Vol 54), March 21st, 1852

How far we have fallen.

[Author]

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