Mike Ash on Mormon Doctrine

[cinepro]

So the fact that it's an official publication of BYU and some of the Brethren, including Dallin H. Oaks, Neal A. Maxwell, and Jeffrey R. Holland (president of BYU when the project began), helped manage and review this work, still leaves it wanting for "official publication" status?

Big UP!

Lamanite

I think it's a great work; my father bought a set as soon as they were available, and I read almost the whole thing before going on my mission.

But its purpose is not to be a doctrinal work. It was not reviewed by the FP, the Q12, or even the correlation committee. While a few apostles were involved, it was largely written under the auspices of the CES.

Certainly, there isn't anything in it that I would point to as being flat out erroneous or dishonest, but it isn't a standard against which doctrine can be judged. It's just a useful view into late 20th century Mormonism.

FWIW, I would classify the "Gospel Topics" section of the Church website as being far more authoritative than the EOM.

[mfbukowski]

Exactly.

But that doesn't make it useless.

Totally agree.

I was more responding to the assertion that it was a "church publication", which it is not.

I am more of the opinion myself that only the Standard Works are offically "doctrinal" which I suppose makes the press release "undoctrinal", but interestingly, it can be interpreted in my favor; and of course that is how I interpret it, not surprisingly.

[mfbukowski]

Me too! I really liked his most recent article in the Deseret News where he denied any geographical location for the Book of Mormon. Priceless!

I was going to let this go, but I just can't.

He didn't do that at all. What he said was that the church didn't take a position on the geographical location. Big difference.

[the narrator]

I recently published an essay on the challenges of doctrine in Element: The Journal for the Society for Mormon Philosophy and Theology. You can read an early draft of my paper here, here, and here.

To sum it up, the challenges with appealing to Church publications, General Conference talks, official announcements, and even scripture as sources for determining 'doctrine' is that they often change and contradict previous claims (this includes scripture). Furthermore, like scripture, they are always subject to the problem of interpretation.

One could argue that it is only that which is found in contemporary talks and publications that are doctrine (allthewhile ignoring the problem of interpretation), however this still leads to the problem of doctrine and truth, which I briefly summarize here:

1. Church doctrine are true.

2. Church doctrine changes.

3. Truth changes.

(I am quite aware that this is not a robust logical proof).

One could (such as Nate Oman) deny (1) and claimd that 'doctrine' should only be understood by its basic definition of 'teaching,' thus allowing for Church doctrine to be things that are taught by the Church, but are not necessarily true. One could deny (2), though I believe this goes contrary to all the evidence. Or one could accept (3) and argue that the traditional absolutist correspondence theory of truth is wrong and that we need to adopt a different relative theory of truth.

[cinepro]

His is another good article analyzing the press release:

"The 4 May 2007 Statement of the LDS Church: "Approaching Mormon Doctrine""

Valerie M. Hudson

SquareTwo, Vol. 2 No. 2 (Summer 2008)

For many LDS who have squirmed through Sunday School lessons where teachings that clearly seemed at odds with Mormon doctrine as we currently understand it were promulgated because some Church leader has sometime, somewhere said something to that effect, this means they need no longer squirm

[mfbukowski]

(3) and argue that the traditional absolutist correspondence theory of truth is wrong and that we need to adopt a different relative theory of truth.

3 wins. I vote for Pragmatism. I wouldn't call it "relative" though since it is the only theory which works, pardon the pun. Absolute Pragmatism? I would have been much happier if Heraclitus succeeded where Platonism did- truth changes- and that is "absolutely true".

Got a dose of Wittgenstein in there too.