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Perfect, SD. Absolutely perfect. A distinction that doesn’t get drawn often enough (in my opinion) is that between doctrine and practice. I think a simple definition of “doctrine” is the combined principles that constitute the sine qua nonof Mormonism – the bedrock principles that guide and animate our practices. – There is a god. He is the father of our spirits
– Jesus Christ is the Son of God
– Christ mediates with God on our behalf, based on His Atonement
There is obviously more. Our practices, on the other hand, flow from our doctrine. For example, we go to Church on Sundays to worship God and renew our covenants. Sunday worship is not a doctrine itself – it serves a doctrinal purpose. Hence Christ’s teaching that the Sabbath was created for man, not man for the Sabbath.
Not a very well-thought-out or cogent posting on my part, but I think there’s a very small, dense core of doctrine, and the rest is practice that relates to and emphasizes the doctrine.
I think you made a great point Kumahito. That’s another great way of breaking it all down into comprehensible parts. However we systematize it, there’s always a breakdown and degradation that seems to occur between the core abstract concepts like love and faith, down to the level of applications and practices. It seems really true on the abstract broad level. Love. Who can argue with that? The devil is always in the details.
😈 Personally I look at doctrine in two different ways: 1) The most common beliefs of the general membership.
and
2) True doctrine = Actual truth, whatever that may be.
There are several statements from Joseph Smith on down that support #2, statements that I love deeply and cling to in some of my most troubled times. I love the statement out of “Mormon Scientist” that “you only need to believe it if it’s true.”
The principles of continuing revelation and learning line upon line also strongly support #2, and suggest to us that as our understanding today is different than it was in the past – the common understandings of the church in the future will likely look much different than today. That is why I don’t mind if my personal understanding may differ from the church as a whole. I may be wrong in my views, but I like to ask the question “would members from the 1860’s and 70’s be wrong if they believed (against the grain at the time) that plural marriage was a temporary policy?
It is easy to feel that ideas and practices will not change, but they do.
Hey all, new here — this is my first post. My mission president gave a great talk about this subject during a zone conference that I will never forget. He said that there are three tiers to the practice and culture of the church — 1) Gospel Doctrine, which does not change; 2) Church practice, which is “official” but may change from time to time, and 3) personal preferences. The talk was given in the context of church members in Europe believing that coke was as sinful as any alcoholic beverage and seeing us American missionaries as disobedient and somewhat apostate by drinking said caffeinated beverage. He said the doctrine, which does not change, was that we keep our bodies healthy. The church practice is the WoW, currently emphasized as a prohibition on the “big 4”, and whether or not to drink coke, etc., was “personal preference.” However, to maintain relationship with the German members, we were asked not to drink coke outside of our apartments.
So, to me, the definition of Doctrine is something that hasn’t changed in the history of the world, in as much as you accept that. For me, that includes the Atonement of Christ, man’s fallibility, don’t kill or steal; that kind of thing. (don’t pick apart that last part too much, I was speaking for myself only and not trying to define official church doctrines or positions.)
I agree with Orson. However, truth is truth. It doesn’t change IMO. If a person that we accept as God’s prophet states a “thus saith the Lord” revelation….and another such prophet states a “thus saith the Lord” revelation that contradicts the former……then we have a problem.
As a side note:
For us old-timers…I’m probably not the only one who mentally equates the term “mormon doctrine” with McConkie’s book. I wish I wasn’t so simple-minded but the term “doctrine” produces a mental snapshot of that book. Augghhh!
I do feel that the Lord wants us to love each other and support each other and this sight has certainly helped me.
Keep up the good work guys.
Baldzach, welcome, and feel free to post an introduction so we know a little more about you in the introduction section. I like your breakdown of doctrine, practice, and preference.
My experience, however, is that very few things “never change”. I do not find Old Testament doctrines are the same today. I like the way Ray has mentioned in the past that he doesn’t want to try to go back to Old Testament things and try to fit that into our current day teachings. I don’t think you can very successfully, nor is it a fruitful exercise.
I think God gives us doctrines through prophets for what we need in our time. Other times and places don’t need the same doctrines, IMO. Scripture, temples, ordinances, teachings of pre-existence or post-mortal kingdoms all seem to change over time, and that’s ok with me. We have what we need. I don’t think it can be substantiated it goes back in history as never changing, even though it would be nice to fit it into a nice neat little box of truth clearly defined.
What things do you think are “doctrine” that never change?
Heber13 wrote:
What things do you think are “doctrine” that never change?Well I mentioned a few in my post, but I’ll reiterate. The atonement of Christ seems to be one that, if you believe the interpretation of ancient scripture as told by the church, hasn’t changed. The fall of man as necessary for eternal progression as well. As to relating to behavior, the law of chastity — changeable as the application of it has been — has existed since the dawn of time; the principle of healthy living (if you accept the law of Moses decrees as relating to health); the making of covenants… I’m sure there’s more, but there’s a few.
I don’t get what you are saying. What part of the law of chastity and the word of wisdom HAS not changed….even in the last 150 years?
Perhaps I’m missing the point?
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The challenge is that doctrine is such an ambiguous word. Here are a few terms that I think we should look at:
Canon: Brian initially defined “doctrine” as what I would call “canon”. Basically the canon of the church is the standard works. There were arguably other documents that were considered canon before.
Looser Canon: This could essentially include anything that is an official church publication. The church lesson manuals, the ensign, general conference talks, etc.
Church Policy: The current rules in the church. Some of these are doctrinally based, some are not. For example a current policy that has no doctrinal basis is that male missionaries go on 24 month missions and must go between the age of 19 & 26.
Church Doctrine:
This is actually kind of hard to define I think because it is used in so many different ways.
According to dictionary.com:
Quote:1. a particular principle, position, or policy taught or advocated, as of a religion or government: Catholic doctrines; the Monroe Doctrine.
2. something that is taught; teachings collectively: religious doctrine.
3. a body or system of teachings relating to a particular subject: the doctrine of the Catholic Church.
So #3 is probably the most useful definition.
I’ve often heard the phrase “policies of the church change but the doctrines never change.” I call apologetic nonsense on this definition. The doctrines of the church have changed and continue to change. If the definition is something that doesn’t change – it really means something that hasn’t changed yet. A great example of this is that in the 1950s the first presidency sent a letter to an inquiring BYU professor explaining that it was church doctrine that blacks could not hold the priesthood. These days apologists try to say “it wasn’t a doctrine it was a policy.” Another poster gave the example “thou shalt not kill” as an unchanging doctrine – Nephi chopping off Laban’s head is a simple counter-example.
So I’d define LDS doctrine as the current teachings of the LDS church.
I would then break that down into 2 categories:
1) Official doctrine
Things that are officially taught and somewhat emphasized.
One example of something that I would call official doctrine is the Bednar fairly recently in general conference stated that part of the atonement of Christ was that Christ spend a microsecond personally suffering for and atoning for each of our sins on an individual basis. I would say that is part of the current doctrine today but wasn’t 50 years ago. Another example is that Brigham Young’s teachings about Adam/God were doctrine back then but are no longer doctrine today.
2) Cultural doctrine
This would often be deep doctrine. However, a lot of times it isn’t necessarily something all that confusing but is more of the Mormon culture than something officially taught.
CWald, my understanding of what Baldzach is trying to say is that there has always been a law of chastity, there has always been an atoning savior, ect. I think he means that the existence of those things hasn’t changed, even though the practice of some of them frequently changes. Bc_pg, that is so clearly unclear 🙂 Church doctrine defined as current, but ever changing doctrine that might be considered crazy in thirty years. (I just learned about the Adam-God theory…really crazy to me.) Thank goodness for personal revelation!@ Orson & Bruce in Montana Defining doctrine as the actual truth (or reality) is super problematic in my mind. From my point of view as an atheist that would mean that “real doctrine” is that God does not exists and that man invented God. That there is no such thing as anything supernatural.
Defining doctrine as “the real truth” is problematic in the same way that Alma & Mormonism in general defines faith as being “belief in things that are not seen that are true.” So if Mormonism turns out to not be true, that means nobody who believes in Mormonism has faith?
IMO, doctrine is a set of beliefs and teachings regardless of how accurately they truly match with reality.
HSAB wrote:CWald, my understanding of what Baldzach is trying to say is that there has always been a law of chastity, there has always been an atoning savior, ect. I think he means that the existence of those things hasn’t changed, even though the practice of some of them frequently changes.
Yes, this. Thanks.
Bruce in Montana wrote:I agree with Orson. However, truth is truth. It doesn’t change IMO.
If a person that we accept as God’s prophet states a “thus saith the Lord” revelation….and another such prophet states a “thus saith the Lord” revelation that contradicts the former……then we have a problem.
YES! Houston we have a problem! Truth does not change but our understanding of it WILL, this is the nature of our human experience. I believe we are given these “opportunities” or proddings (things not lining up) to help us learn the realities of “seeing through the glass DARKLY.” All these things are for our benefit – and hopefully help us to become more charitable, accepting, understanding, etc. etc.
bc_pg wrote:@ Orson & Bruce in Montana
Defining doctrine as the actual truth (or reality) is super problematic in my mind. From my point of view as an atheist that would mean that “real doctrine” is that God does not exists and that man invented God. That there is no such thing as anything supernatural.
Thanks for engaging me in this discussion bc_pg, it is fascinating to me. I agree that doctrine can be seen as the common beliefs and practices, that matches my #1 definition. I don’t think my #1 and #2 definitions are easily held by the same people at the same time because they can be paradoxical. As far as the atheistic view goes – if we accept that truth is truth and whichever way it is – IS the way it is — AND if we define Mormon Doctrine as Actual Truth (I think this is possible based on early quotes) then it is my belief that we will be better off learning from all the evidence that can be demonstrated. For me personally this does not mean abandoning the concept of God.
The question to me is not “Does God exist?” My question is “what is the true nature of God?” Yes the church teaches that Joseph learned the true nature of God in his first vision – but I think we can honestly look at all of his accounts of that vision, and see it in the light of “personal revelation” and understanding human nature and all the quirks of the human condition. While it is a deeply meaninful visionary experience, I’m not sure that we can set things in stone from this one witness.
Personally I define God as the source of Truth, Love, and Life. God exists by definition to me because these three things do exist. Thus the question turns as I stated above to “what is the true nature of God?” …back to your atheistic view example — If we can modify the “atheistic” doctrine from “God does not exist” to “God’s true nature cannot be fully known” then my view is we’re almost on the same page. I don’t think most religionists will say we can fully comprehend the whole of God’s true nature. I know there will be differences of opinion – a single “being” vs. some cosmic force or even a set of laws that govern the nature of the universe for example, but to me it is helpful to be willing to speak from a similar point of origin or concept. Brigham Young said something like “there are no miracles, only higher laws than we understand.”
I guess what I’m saying is I don’t see a problem adapting spirituality and theology (especially Mormon theology) to anything that science may be able to prove. All it takes for me to have a meaningful conversation with an atheist is their accepting the possibility of defining “God” as the source of Truth, Love, and Life. Truth IS what is, …God IS what IS… by definition! The bible says God IS Love! God created the Earth and all life. There is a good chance the process of evolution was the method of creation. No problem! The only problem comes in the more minute ideas around the true nature of God. Does God step in to help us discover lost car keys? Is there more going on in our human subconscious than we can explain? All fascinating questions!!
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