â??either On The One Hand Or On The Otherâ?�

[DonBradley]

I know and/or seek to know God's will on everything. I don't simply trust my own judgement, alone.

If I did that I could be just as wrong as other people, but with God I can know I know the truth.

Paul,

To learn God's will, you interpret scriptures and experiences using your own judgment. It's not something you can escape.

Don

[Paul Ray]

Paul,

To learn God's will, you interpret scriptures and experiences using your own judgment.

Close, but not quite.

To learn God's will, I seek God's assurance on how God wants me to interpret the scriptures and what I observe during my own experiences.

It's [the use of your own judgement is] not something you can escape.

Think again.

[DonBradley]

Hi Alf,

There's much we're agreeing on. You seem to have taken my opening statements as disagreeing with you, when my point was actually to state what I think we would agree on, and continue my argument from there.

On a couple major points where we differ, the following admittedly leading questions would show where I'm coming from, and perhaps they will enter into your own calculus of the historical probabilities too:

Do you think Joseph Smith threatened potential plural wives' salvation because of perceived divine commands? Do you think his prophetic affirmation of the healthfulness of his swampy lands was revelatory? And do you believe that all instances in which he used God's name, his revelatory voice, and promises of salvation/threats of damnation were instances in which he believed he had divine inspiration? If not, how would you reconcile these with

When you refer to Joseph Smith's "private diary," do you mean to suggest that he didn't believe this would become one of the records of the church? That it would remain lastingly private, and that he used it principally to confide his personal feelings to a trusted, if inanimate, other, as school girls are depicted as doing? And if not--if he realized his diary would be entered into the larger record of the church, or even that it might be read by others--what kind of material would he fill it with in either case, whether he was pious or not?

I enjoy your posts--as I always have, and appreciate your informed challenge on this issue. In fact, I'd be interested in other evidences you have for Joseph Smith's sincerity, since I want to take account of all the evidence I can pointing either way.

Thanks,

Don

[DonBradley]

Close, but not quite.

To learn God's will, I seek God's assuranace on how God wants me to interpret the scriptures and the things I observe in my own experiences.

Think again.

Paul,

As you experience these words, you interpret them. And as you have religious experiences, you interpret them--always; otherwise, they would be completely meaningless to you, and would provide you no information or knowledge whatsoever.

Don

[Paul Ray]

Paul,

As you experience these words, you interpret them. And as you have religious experiences, you interpret them--always; otherwise, they would be completely meaningless to you, and would provide you no information or knowledge whatsoever.

Don

Yes, I interpret them, but I do so with the assurance God gives me concerning how I should interpret them.

And when I have questions, I simply ask for more guidance.

I've learned my lesson about making assumptions.

... and yet sometimes I still do that... I'm not perfect.

But I can "escape my own judgement" by asking God for His assurances, and by knowing I know the truth, I am free.

... not just because I know the truth, but because I know God.

It is only with God that we're free.

[Alf O'Mega]

There's much we're agreeing on.

I agree (which makes one more thing we agree on).

You seem to have taken my opening statements as disagreeing with you, when my point was actually to state what I think we would agree on, and continue my argument from there.

Whoops! Okay, sorry for the full-court press.

On a couple major points where we differ, the following admittedly leading questions would show where I'm coming from, and perhaps they will enter into your own calculus of the historical probabilities too:

Do you think Joseph Smith threatened potential plural wives' salvation because of perceived divine commands?

I don't know. I think he could have. There's a quote I read recently but can't find at the moment from a friend of Joseph's to the effect that near the end of his life Joseph had asked the Lord whether he had been guilty of adultery and had been assured that he had not. This sort of introspection is what I would expect of a sincere believer. A conscious fraud would be unlikely to admit to such misgivings.

Do you think his prophetic affirmation of the healthfulness of his swampy lands was revelatory?

I don't know. It may have gotten rolled together with the impulse to build Zion, which certainly was revelatory.

And do you believe that all instances in which he used God's name, his revelatory voice, and promises of salvation/threats of damnation were instances in which he believed he had divine inspiration? If not, how would you reconcile these with

Did you have something more to say here? Anyway, I can imagine Joseph occasionally getting a little worked up, especially when in self-justification mode, and speaking confidently in the name of the Lord somewhat unreflectively. Still, I can also imagine a little subsequent meditative retrospection supplying the confirmation that may not have been there in the heat of the moment. Also, David Whitmer quotes Joseph as saying that some revelations are from God, and some are from the devil. Another indication of personal misgivings that I think a conscious fraud would be unlikely to share aloud.

When you refer to Joseph Smith's "private diary," do you mean to suggest that he didn't believe this would become one of the records of the church? That it would remain lastingly private, and that he used it principally to confide his personal feelings to a trusted, if inanimate, other, as school girls are depicted as doing? And if not--if he realized his diary would be entered into the larger record of the church, or even that it might be read by others--what kind of material would he fill it with in either case, whether he was pious or not?

I don't think Joseph spent much time thinking about posterity's opinion of him, since he expected to head the welcoming committee at Jesus' return. Certainly he could have been self-consciously crafting a pious image for his followers, but these writings seem too spontaneous and full of authentic-sounding devotion. To chalk it up to crafty spin strikes me as an unnecessarily elaborate interpretation. If you're inclined to distrust Joseph's motives, there's nothing in his diaries that can't be attributed to guile, but that seems just as unnatural as the hagiographies we grew up with.

I enjoy your posts--as I always have, and appreciate your informed challenge on this issue.

Right back atcha!

In fact, I'd be interested in other evidences you have for Joseph Smith's sincerity, since I want to take account of all the evidence I can pointing either way.

Just one more instance. When Joseph turned back after fleeing Nauvoo in June 1844, I can't fully account for it without believing in Joseph's true devotion to his friends and followers. Obviously the whole "lamb to the slaughter" thing has been somewhat overplayed by official biographers, but he genuinely feared for his life when he fled, and it showed real courage to return under those circumstances. I think that he wanted to keep his people together, and he recognized that running away would likely transfer his personal risk to them. Of course he hoped to escape with his life, but he was willing to face the risk because of his love for his panicked flock. Not the actions of an utter fraud, I submit.

[DonBradley]

Yes, I interpret them, but I do so with the assurance God gives me concerning how I should interpret them.

You're missing the point: the experience of assurance itself, like every human experience, requires your interpretation. You can't extract yourself from your experience. That's the nature of subjectivity--of having experience.

Don

[DonBradley]

Hey Alf,

Those are good points. I won't try to refute them. I suppose what needs to be done is to look at Joseph Smith's known actions, both apparently sincere and apparently insincere, in both situational context and the context of his whole life, to see what patterns and general picture of his motivations emerge. A systematic analysis would probably provide the closest we're going to get to a peek inside his head.

Cheers,

Don

[Paul Ray]

You're missing the point: the experience of assurance itself, like every human experience, requires your interpretation.

You think so, huh?

What if I told you that you are missing the point?

When I interpret what you say, I first ask for guidance. I ask God to help me understand you. I don't automatically assume I understand what you're saying. My interpretation, alone, is insufficient.

You can't extract yourself from your experience. That's the nature of subjectivity--of having experience.

Have you heard of something called "objectivity"?

Can you go from being subjective, to objective?

I think you need to keep thinking some more.

[Uncle Dale]

But wait...what is there to do in Missouri

Well, for starters, you can hobnob with a whole bunch of other Latter Day Saints who believe that

JS was a fallen prophet. Attend JS bashing fests. Attend D&C book burnings... you name it.

UD

[DonBradley]

Paul,

All individual conscious experience is subjective by definition.

This conversation is going nowhere, and I'm going to bow out.

Cheers,

Don

[Paul Ray]

Paul,

All individual conscious experience is subjective by definition.

This conversation is going nowhere, and I'm going to bow out.

Cheers,

Don

Quiting so soon?

Just so you know, I know I have my own thoughts, but my thinking doesn't stop with my thoughts.

I was trying to tell you I ask God for His thoughts to assure me of what God thinks and/or knows.

And I'll keep asking for God's thoughts forever because my own thoughts will never satisfy me.

[Alf O'Mega]

I suppose what needs to be done is to look at Joseph Smith's known actions, both apparently sincere and apparently insincere, in both situational context and the context of his whole life, to see what patterns and general picture of his motivations emerge. A systematic analysis would probably provide the closest we're going to get to a peek inside his head.

I think Dan Vogel has done the best, most systematic work for the pious fraud model, and I look forward to seeing him extend his analysis into the Ohio period and beyond.

[kantgomo]

I know and/or seek to know God's will on everything. I don't simply trust my own judgement, alone.

If I did that I could be just as wrong as other people, but with God I can know I know the truth.

I agree that with God, we can know truth. I disagree that we seek God's will on everything. I know in my own life at times, I have merely asked God to bless my own efforts when I had thought I was relying totally on Him.

[Paul Ray]

I agree that with God, we can know truth. I disagree that we seek God's will on everything.

But do you believe we should seek God's will on everything?

I think it is foolishness to trust our own judgement, alone... no matter who we are.

Even our Lord always sought to know and do our Father's will, and He is our ultimate examplar.

[Alf O'Mega]

I believe that I should withdraw one piece of evidence for the pious fraud model I offered earlier. I had cited a friend of Joseph Smith's recalling Joseph wondering if he had committed adultery. I tracked the source down, which I read in Donna Hill's Joseph Smith: The First Mormon. In arguing for Joseph's sincerity, she writes:

There is evidence that he was troubled by conscience from an early date in his career. As has been noted in the letter he wrote to Emma, June 6, 1832, he had shed tears of remorse for his follies, although he does not there identify them.

At a later period, one of his contemporaries, Joseph Lee Robinson, brother of Ebenezer, ascribed to Joseph one specific matter of conscience:

God revealed unto him that any man that ever committed adultery in either of his probations that that man could never be raised to the highest exaltation in the celestial glory, and he felt anxious with regard to himself that he inquired of the Lord that the Lord told him that he Joseph had never committed adultery.

In spite of his troubles of spirit, Joseph never in any way expressed doubt of his calling to establish the new dispensation. There is never the slightest suggestion of insincerity in his most private conversations, in his personal journal or in the letters he wrote in his own hand. On April 6, 1843, he said, "If I had not actually got into this work, and been called of God, I would back out. But I cannot back out, I have no doubt of the truth." (Donna Hill, Joseph Smith: The First Mormon [Midvale, Utah: Signature Books, 1977], 344)

I decided to look up Joseph Lee Robinson's journal, which I found available in a PDF download here. It turns out that the phrase "either of his probations" refers to something altogether more radical:

We heard him say a great many good things. One was that if the Latter-day Saints would hold fast to him or to his garments that he would pack or carry them safe into the celestial kingdom of God. We never doubted his word. We also heard him say that God had revealed unto him that any man that ever committed adultery in either of his probations that that man could never be raised to the highest exaltation in the celestial glory and that he felt anxious with regard to himself that he inquired of the Lord that the Lord told him that he, Joseph, had never committed adultery. This saying of the prophet astonished me very much. It opened up to me a very wide field of reflection. The idea that we had passed through probations prior to this and that we must have been married or given in marriage in those probations, or there would be no propriety in making such an assertion, and that there were several exaltations in the celestial kingdom of our God. The highest exaltation we suppose to be the godhead and we conclude there are several grades of exaltations in servants to the Gods.

Joseph was not wondering whether anything he had done in this life constituted adultery. He was worried about earlier, forgotten lives. So I'm withdrawing this piece of evidence from my argument, although I still believe the pious fraud model to be the best fit for the evidence.

[Warship]

Well, for starters, you can hobnob with a whole bunch of other Latter Day Saints who believe that

JS was a fallen prophet. Attend JS bashing fests. Attend D&C book burnings... you name it.

UD

How could I not see it for the oasis it is?

I hear The Book of Commandments won't burn.... and pages of it are worn by members around the book burning bonfire as fire retardant.