How do you know that you know, and how do you prove it? And if I prove it, how do I know that I know that I prove it, and how can I prove that I know that I know to others, and how do we know that we know that we prove it the same way? Or can we know that we know? This is why, at a certain point: Can we even know?
I know in the same way that Peter knew that Jesus was the Christ. You can know, as Christ said, by the fruits and by doing the will of the Father to see if it is true. Further you are able to follow the admonition found in Moroni 10:3-5 and follow the experiment found in Alma 32.
Faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things, not a first. The proof comes only after the trial of faith and one must grow in knowledge and in truth not having the fullness a first and perhaps not until after this life. Being compelled through logic or reason to know the truth is certainly not the start of faith but it does bring knowledge and with knowledge comes greater responsibilities (see Alma 32:17-19).
Furthermore, the logical proofs of the Catholics depend on the Metaphysics of Aristotle, which further depend on the assumptions made by Aristotle. Aristotle never had theophany (I might need to do another post on this one), he never talked with God, so his reasoning was the reasoning of a natural man. Paul both warns against such, stating that "But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." 1 Corinthians 2:14. To me this certainly seems to mean that the mixing of the philosophies of men with scripture is not true theology but something else entirely. Of course if such a mixing were dependent on the plain meaning of the scriptures then maybe they would have an argument. However when "the LORD spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend." is taken to mean that the Lord doesn't have a body or a face and isn't the form of a man then they are just being silly if they expect me to believe that their arguments are not primarily those of Aristotle but instead from the Apostles of Our Lord. Indeed many of scriptures and many of the very early Church Fathers appear to warn very strongly against the marriage of scripture and philosophy, and then many of the Church Fathers and Doctors very obviously throw out things they were taught by believing Christians in favor of the philosophy of men (ie. they say they are doing so and ridicule the simple faith of those that brought them to the faith).
To me it certainly seems true that the Catholics have mastered the art of drawing near to God with their lips, but having their hearts far from him, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof. That is precisely what was stated in the post I am responding to; that the still small voice of the Spirit, the voice of God, is to be quashed under the reasoning's of the Catholic Magestarium. They do not respond like Moses: "would God that all the LORD'S people were prophets, and that the LORD would put his spirit upon them!" but instead appear to be saying that there can be and are no prophets.
There was an Apostasy, as the prophets and Apostles said.
There was a restoration, as the prophets and Apostles said.
Make sure to check out the more information and scriptural references and conference talks which will have more references including historic.
I invite the interested reader to research statistical studies on the subject of the fruits of the Chruch of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. For starters, one may wish to look at the recent Pew Study .
A response by The Ubiquitous:
ReplyDeleteGiven the absurd nature prima facie of your historical case, not to mention the others, your examples must exceed the scriptural standard. You have a much, much higher burden of proof, and one that cannot be wished away by appealing to scriptural precedent. “Joseph Smith predicted the Civil War all of three decades in advance,” which in fact someone (not you) has cited as evidence for Mormonism, ain’t gonna cut it.
You must have exponentially more depth, sophistication, and truth than Catholicism simply because your claim to Christ is so bizarrely young. The Mormon faith not only does not have credibility, but standing next to the Catholic Church it is so negligible that mentioning Mormonism as being whatsoever compelling is either a gesture of charity or Catholic self-mortification. Add in extrinsic factors and the burden, already overwhelming, is insurmountable.
In short: the Mormon religion does not deserve a response until it earns a seat at the table. Protestants would be in the same position if it weren’t that Protestants were family once.
As for explaining the fruits of Mormonism, it’s right there in scripture.
But she said: Yea, Lord; for the whelps also eat of the crumbs that fall from the table of their masters.
The Civil War prophecy is well known, as is the restoration of the Jews, the Word of Wisdom, the settling of the Rocky Mountains, the government imposed name of Utah, some others. My experience with bringing those revelations up is that no one accepts them, even when they have said that if there were something like that then they would accept such a thing. It is not proofs that convert but the Spirit of God.
DeleteMormonism has no official theologians. For one things we take revelation as being the only real source of theology and anything else is just speculation that is likely to be wrong. James E. Talmage's works for instance are very well respected and he was an Apostle, but there are things that he was wrong on.
Our claim for truth is that it comes from God the source of all truth. Anyone can ask God for themselves whether it be right, though obtaining an answer requires really wanting to know and being willing to act on the knowledge if given. It is not a matter of whether it deserves a place at any table, it is a matter of whether or not it is true, and that only God can say.
As for the fruits, the statistical studies show significant (and sometimes hugely so) differences in the positive direction from any other studied religion or subset of a religion. If we are of the crumbs then those crumbs are pure gold while the feast appears to be mostly dross.
... or that the faith is a sham, held together only by the good will of those who want it to be true and the social pressures possible from Salt Lake City being so close or a silent martyrdom of Salt Lake City being so far. This reading begs the question; the statistics are explainable either way.
DeleteBut you are right here: God is the source of all truth! Absolutely! But that there are no official Mormon theologians seems to me to show that the Mormon organization --- what you would call the church --- is neither vessel nor vehicle for that truth.
As for your proposed vehicle for truth: If only God can say what is true, and if knowing truth is important, how do you know you aren't hooking yourself up to a kind of feedback loop? And if you're right, what of the baptist who sincerely feels the same way about the Bible while renouncing the Mormon scriptures? Examples of this kind proliferate.
No, it takes authority and official authority which does not rely on an apparently circular proof for the truths of the Bible.
The social pressure argument is no argument at all, since being both far or close to Church headquarters is supposedly causing such pressure. Or if you really wish to go down that route the same thing could be said about Catholicism, not that it has any kind of pleasing statistics associated with it, but the whole faith is a sham held together by social pressure from being near or far from centers of Catholicism.
DeleteWe have no theologians, but we do have Prophets and Apostles and we further claim that everyone can be a prophet in the sense that they can receive revelation by way of the Holy Spirit.
The Bible does not say that it is the source of all truth, it in fact says that God is the source of truth, that we should trust in God, and that we are to worship and trust in Him over His creations, which include both the Bible and any Church that claims to be Christs.
We claim official authority by way of the laying on of hands of Peter, James, and John with other keys restored by way of various other prophets including Elijah (who we are told in Malachi that he would return to turn the hearts of the children to the fathers; the first (non-Mormon) genealogical society was created a few years later, while we were already doing baptisms for our dead.
You have worse problems then the LDS (while infinitely better then the Protestants and Evangelicals to be sure) with circular feedback loops:
Exactly what is your proof for the rightness of Holy Tradition that was not written down in the Bible? The claim that supposedly the Bible says there will be no falling away (when multiple times elsewhere it does say there will be)? How do you then know that the Bible is right? From the authority of the Catholic Church?
How do you know the Catholic Church still has authority? From Holy Tradition? In which case we are already at a circle; from history? The Jews have a longer, as do the Hindus, why are they not right?
Rational? The Jews and the Hindus both claim the same rational basis as the Catholics, and the Jews were dying for their faith centuries before the Catholics and have continued to die for their faith in larger numbers and more consistently through the millennia then the Catholics. Then there are Biblical verses on the subject of wisdom; I will have to gather all of them and have you explain the subject to me.
By the Fruits? ... you would have to explain what fruits you see Catholicism having produced and producing currently that are supposed to be good fruits.
My comments at John C. Wright's place are getting marked as spam. To continue:
ReplyDeleteWhat constitutes "buying" the priesthood? How many have to "buy" the Mormon priesthood for the whole institution be invalidated? (How many bad apples does it take to spoil it for everyone?)
Is the institution spoiled automatically by the nature of the act itself or does the spoiling of the priesthood happen later, as an ordinance of God?
Remember: This is your central claim, your "Great Apostasy." God revoked the institution of a valid priesthood somehow, (and it must have happened in a flash considering the evidence for Catholic doctrines incompatible with Mormon claims.) You have just said that the primary benefit of the purported Restored Gospel is the reestablishment of authority.
Given all this, it makes sense that in making this claim, Mormons should know, in great detail, what constitutes losing that authority, both in history and for wider relevance today.
Did you miss the part where continuing revelation is necessary for the priesthood line to continue? If there are no prophets or apostles then the church as a whole has already fallen.
DeleteIf one person attempts to sell the priesthood for money then their own priesthood becomes solely to their own damnation and the person that they attempted to sell to has received nothing from, and indeed knows nothing of, God.
Again, unlike the Evangelicals being made fun of in that post you linked to, I do not accept the trinity, the closedness, completeness, or even the complete correctness of the canon, or veneration of relics, and everything before that 150 ad point he has exists as doctrine in my church, and we also hold that with the loss of the Apostles with John then only those ordained at that point had authority at a certain level of church hierarchy leading to the eventual general loss of authority.
How do you know you have prophets or apostles? How do you know the prophets you claim are in fact prophets rather than prophets-in-name-only?
Delete(Really? The Real Presence? The Sacrifice of the Mass?)
"How do you know you have prophets or apostles? How do you know the prophets you claim are in fact prophets rather than prophets-in-name-only?"
DeleteOne, you are getting circular in what you are asking about, we have sort of covered this to death a few times now.
Two, their testimonies of Christ distinguish them as Apostles.
Three, the test for a prophet is clearly laid out in Deuteronomy; Find it, get back to me, and then we can continue the conversation.
"(Really? The Real Presence? The Sacrifice of the Mass?)"
See 3 Nephi 18.
If these questions seem circular it's because that's where your answers are leading the discussion.
DeleteFrom what you've said, it all comes down to:
Certain folks have authority. I accept their authority because of one of two things:
a. I read the Bible a certain way which substantiates their claim. I read the Bible a certain way because those in authority suggested to do it this way.
b. I talk to God a certain way which creates the experience of substantiating their claim. I talk to God this way because those in authority suggested to do it this way.
I agree that this is circular. That's precisely the point.
Secondly, when asked point-blank what the special thing about the purported "Restored Gospel" was, it boiled down to little more than the question of authority and things which come from that.
This seems weird because:
1. Mormons believe all sorts of novel things, unsubstantiated by historical inquiry.
2. We were apparently doing just fine without authority for all these years. (Link where you have answered this criticism. It doesn't come to mind.)
3. Knowing how to read Deuteronomy, which substantiates the constant validity of the Mormon Quorum, relies on the authority of the one of the two methods described.
4. If simply asking God bears truth, you would have to substantiate that not a single person who came to the attention of anyone who wrote anything down that survived to this day.
The Mormon claims, respectfully, are the epitome of the well-timed nudge. There is no evidence which does not rely on your authority, and your claims to authority are essentially circular.
Meanwhile, you do not have the Sacraments, nor a devotion to the Blessed Mother, nor any of the other efficacious means of grace known to Catholics. What's more, the anti-Catholic case often repeats standard, tired anti-Catholic charges.
Where you are the same as Catholicism, you are admirable. Where you are different your evidence is merely circular. Where you are novel, you are weird, even bizarre. This does not add up to a revelation of truth.
By the way, the Sacrament was silent on the point of Mormonism.
"Certain folks have authority. I accept their authority because of one of two things:
Deletea. I read the Bible a certain way which substantiates their claim. I read the Bible a certain way because those in authority suggested to do it this way.
b. I talk to God a certain way which creates the experience of substantiating their claim. I talk to God this way because those in authority suggested to do it this way."
In one post you seem to get it and then in the next you revert to form of slander and lies. Get a grip man, I have answered this quite a few times now and not a single one of them boil down to this. I am sorry for wasting your time with responding to your other comments but if this is what you accuse me of after all the explanations of everyone knowing the difference between good and evil then there is as much point in me talking with you as with the commenter mary on scifiwright.
Continuing revelation and the gift of the Holy Ghost both explain the novel things. Speak to a Jew then about Deuteronomy and prophets, nor does it have anything to do with a special interpretation of Deuteronomy.
As for 4, you keep ignoring that God reveals what He will to people, there is no reason to suppose that He would have revealed knowledge that would have gotten people burned at the stake, though given the numbers burnt at the stake I suppose there is no reason to suppose that He didn't do that for some.
We certainly do have Sacraments. I would quote about the bizarreness of Christianity to the Greeks and the Jews again but you don't read the scriptures that you have, nor do you appear to believe in them.