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I am genuinely interested in understanding what it is people mean when they say, “I know the Church is true.” I’ve been struggling to grasp this since I was a child. When I was in high school, I confided in a Seminary teacher I really admired that I wasn’t sure I “knew” the Church was true. I told him I “believed” it was, but I wondered how it was possible to really “know.” He asked me, “Do you love your parents?” “Absolutely,” I answered. “Are you sure? Do you really know you love them?” he asked. “Yes, I know for sure,” I said. “Well,” he said, “it’s the same thing with knowing the Church is true.” I thanked him and went away thinking that that made no sense. How can so many Mormons “know” the Church is true when even more Catholics “know” Catholicism is true? Knowing with an absolute certainty that I feel a particular emotion is not the same thing at all as knowing that something you have been taught is accurate. I’m 62 years old and I still “believe” the Church is true. I’ve pretty much given up thinking I’m ever going to “know.” I am confused, though. If people are using the word “know” as I would use it, I wonder how they came to know. If they’re using the word to mean “strongly believe,” why don’t they just say that? Katzpur, there are some other archived threads that deal with this question. We all can comment again, but, as I’m sure everyone expected 😳 , I will try to find some of the other threads and provide the links so you can read what we’ve written in the past.Feel free to ask in this thread about anything someone said in one of the other threads.
“The Church Is True” (
http://forum.staylds.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=151 “How much of the church is true?” (
http://forum.staylds.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=1474 “The One and Only ‘TRUE’ Church” (
http://forum.staylds.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=142 “What does ‘I know this church is true’ even mean?” (
http://forum.staylds.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2342 Forgive me, Ray, but I’m going to respond in this thread. After all, there are 4 other threads, so five does seem to follow. Katzpur wrote:I am genuinely interested in understanding what it is people mean when they say, “I know the Church is true.” I’ve been struggling to grasp this since I was a child. When I was in high school, I confided in a Seminary teacher I really admired that I wasn’t sure I “knew” the Church was true. I told him I “believed” it was, but I wondered how it was possible to really “know.” He asked me, “Do you love your parents?” “Absolutely,” I answered. “Are you sure? Do you really know you love them?” he asked. “Yes, I know for sure,” I said. “Well,” he said, “it’s the same thing with knowing the Church is true.” I thanked him and went away thinking that that made no sense.
As a child, I had a spiritual experience where I was “given” an overwhelming certainty that the Church was “true”. It was more than a witness, though I received that too. I suddenly and absolutely *knew* that the Church was unquestionably “true”. This kind of certainty is non-rational, is highly emotional, and (if you know your science fiction well) is like the Mule in Asimov’s
Foundationseries, as he re-adjusts people’s loyalties to a loyalty to him personally. So for many years when I said those famous words “I know the Church is true” — I really meant it. But how could I explain it? I didn’t even try, for the source of the certainly was not only non-rational, it was ineffible as well. Not to mention how young I was and inexperienced in explaining things to people. Then I got edjumacated and things changed, but still! I have had to deal with that early witness in an honest way within myself. It’s been interesting.
Katzpur wrote:How can so many Mormons “know” the Church is true when even more Catholics “know” Catholicism is true?
If both Churches are part of the Church of the Lamb of God, wouldn’t that make them ‘true’? If both were paths to Christ and the Church of the Firstborn, wouldn’t that prove they are ‘true’? If I knew the Church was ‘true’ and so I kept the rules and studied my scriptures and gave countless hours of service and learn to be a leader and didn’t swear and didn’t go out drinking & partying, is that a good thing? I think so.
Yes, I’ve re-defined ‘true’. It’s in the dictionary this way, though, so I don’t think I’ve done anything wrong. True as an arrow is straight. Useful, practical, accomplishing its design. Truth to Bro. Johnston is a ham sandwich, but to me it is what works. Maybe that’s the same thing.
Katzpur wrote:Knowing with an absolute certainty that I feel a particular emotion is not the same thing at all as knowing that something you have been taught is accurate.
Exactly. The first is non-rational, the second is rational. Both are based on evidence, but of different categories. You’ve got two sides to the higher order of your brain. They work very differently. Both are legitimate, regardless of what Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens say. And how about this: of the four horsemen, Sam Harris agrees with me. Well, somewhat… I’ve read all three.
Katzpur wrote:I’m 62 years old and I still “believe” the Church is true. I’ve pretty much given up thinking I’m ever going to “know.” I am confused, though. If people are using the word “know” as I would use it, I wonder how they came to know. If they’re using the word to mean “strongly believe,” why don’t they just say that?
I know the Church is true. And I know the Church is not true. It’s all in your frame of reference. I guarantee it’s not what I thought it was through most of my life.It’s better!In coming to this realization, I’ve had to jettison several Church teachings. But at least some weren’t doctrinal anyway, like the “This is the one & only True Church”. And all my new positions are ones that the Spirit has testified to. So it’s all good.
HiJolly
Katzpur wrote:I am genuinely interested in understanding what it is people mean when they say, “I know the Church is true.”…I confided in a Seminary teacher I really admired that
I wasn’t sure I “knew” the Church was true. I told him I “believed” it was, but I wondered how it was possible to really “know.”…How can so many Mormons “know” the Church is true when even more Catholics “know” Catholicism is true? Knowing with an absolute certainty that I feel a particular emotion is not the same thing at all as knowing that something you have been taught is accurate…If people are using the word “know” as I would use it, I wonder how they came to know. If they’re using the word to mean “strongly believe,” why don’t they just say that?Some of my thoughts on the entire testimony doctrine are covered in this older thread:
“Testimony” (
http://forum.staylds.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1837 After thinking about it some more recently, it seems like all the Church really means by this is that they understandably want members to trust their feelings or intuition as long as they support continued loyalty to the Church but if not then they want them to work on developing strong conviction about the Church’s relative importance because otherwise a likely result with all the heavy demands is that many of them will end up “falling away” from the Church. To me, the awkward and misleading semantics of a statement like “I know the Church is true” are less interesting than the question of: what purpose does the testimony doctrine serve? For example, why does the Church think this is important enough to set aside entire meetings devoted to this and include a temple interview question about having a testimony of the “restoration” of the gospel?
Personally, I think this testimony idea started out with the good intentions of trying to strengthen members’ faith and provide group support and it still does that to some extent but it has also evolved into something much more sinister, un-Christian, and cult-like in many cases. Would it really sound that much better to hear members get up and say they honestly feel strongly in their heart that this is the one and only true church that is guided by living prophets and the Book of Mormon is true? Even if that is a more accurate way of expressing their opinion I don’t think that really solves the problem of the intolerant environment that has been created where it’s not acceptable to openly disagree with some of these ideas that are not even open for debate.
The problem is that this doctrine currently ends up putting such a strong emphasis on the notion of us-versus-them as if we are supposedly so special and right and everyone else is wrong and it also promotes an all-or-nothing mindset where if you believe one thing the Church says then you supposedly need to believe it all and if you don’t believe any one thing then there is no point in believing any of it. The result is that many members that have doubts or don’t believe some of this feel alienated like they are not really welcome at church and many of them feel compelled to leave almost as a matter of personal integrity because the Church acts like belief in all these doctrines at the same time is so important.
Thank you, everybody. I should have known that this is a question that would come up from time to time. I didn’t even think to do a search. 😳 Somewhere in one of these thread jwald made the statement that “when I hear or say, ‘I know the church is true’ it’s more of an affirmation of belief rather than a statement of fact.” That is probably a pretty good way for NOMs and StayLDSers to look at it.
Yes cwald. Katzpur wrote:Knowing with an absolute certainty that I feel a particular emotion is not the same thing at all as knowing that something you have been taught is accurate.
As HiJolly said, Exactly! I had a discussion with an old bishop of mine recently, the topic of “knowing” through the spirit was addressed to some degree and I felt it significant that he agreed he would not want to risk his life using machinery designed wholly through spiritual promptings. The spirit is a different kind of process for a different kind of knowledge. I think it was brilliant of your teacher to draw the parallel to knowing you love someone – it is a similar type of “knowlege.” When someone says they know the church is true — they are saying they know it puts THEIR life on the “correct” path, or in other words ‘it works’ or ‘has validity’ for them. That’s what it is. Sure members may be confused about the spirit confirming historical facts or whatever, but in my mind that is something like saying the scientific test confirmed how emotionally moving the audience will find a particular film – and to the Nth degree. To me it is simply absurd. Different methods for different knowledge. Using the same words across those boundries does make things confusing.
I know my marriage is true. I know my wife is the best wife on the face of the earth today, and that she is true, and that I will get closer to god by abiding by the precepts that we have agreed upon within our marriage. I know I have the best job on the face of the earth. Is the LDS church true — is the LDS church the best church?
Where is Heber’s signature line when you need it? “Most of the truths we cling to are true from a certain point of view.” or something like that.
I think of the word “testimony” as a synonym for “worldview.” Can anyone think of a situation where this would not apply? I find this to be particularly applicable to the line-upon line testimonies, the ones that grow as a person would grow, that come from confirmed experience, experimentation, and a lifetime of dedicated living. Testimony is strengthened by talking about it, it is strengthened by the affirmation that those around you believe likewise. So when someone says “testimony”, I hear “worldview” or “assumptive reality.” I also find that we are encouraged to say that we “know.” I remember as a missionary reading that to say “I know” is an implication of revelation, because that kind of knowledge doesn’t come any other way. By saying “I know,” what you say is indisputable because you are declaring a fact from within yourself. Imagine trying to argue that someone doesn’t “love” their children. They may abuse and even kill them but no external fact could ever prove that the individual doesn’t love them. It is the same with “I know.”
I have personally refrained from ever using the phrase “I know” when giving my testimony. Because I don’t know. I don’t know at all. I sorta think some things are probably true. I hope they are. Knowing kinda rules out faith, doesn’t it? I use “I believe” and “I feel” instead.
I’ve thought about using the phrase, “I am convinced…” instead of either “I believe” or “I know.” It seems to have the conviction of “I know” while acknowledging that it’s a conclusion that I have come to based on what “I believe.” You know, almost more than anything else, what makes me wonder if “the Church is true” is the unbelievable odds I have beat by being born LDS. I mean less than .2% of the world’s population today is LDS and it’s a higher percentage now that at any time in history. What on earth made me so special to God that I would have been included in that miniscule percent. When I think about the liklihood of my having converted to the Church had I not been born LDS, I’m even more incredulous to think that I’m a member of “the only true and living Church upon the earth today.” I mean it just sounds so presumptuous to even think it. But it’s what millions of members of the Church actually do think. I haven’t even been lucky enough to win the Publishers’ Clearing House Sweepstakes. How did I manage to luck out and be LDS? Am I making any sense?
But Katzpur…. The Church of the Lamb of God is much larger than .2% of the worlds population… It’s still not a majority, but I don’t think things are as bleak as you seem to suggest.
You don’t have to keep the erroneous opinions of the majority of the membership of the Church as your own.
HiJolly
HiJolly wrote:But Katzpur….
The Church of the Lamb of God is much larger than .2% of the worlds population… It’s still not a majority, but I don’t think things are as bleak as you seem to suggest.
You don’t have to keep the erroneous opinions of the majority of the membership of the Church as your own.
HiJolly
Cynicism from you today Hijolly?
HiJolly wrote:You don’t have to keep the erroneous opinions of the majority of the membership of the Church as your own.
I don’t?😯 :thumbup: Geez… Did my Veneer of Proper Deportment just crack? 😳 HiJolly
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