In The Grove?

[mfbukowski]

Yes.

It was both.

It says that he was of the seed of Joseph of Egypt; so in essence the answer to your question is Yes.

Well observed.

He was in the grove, as well as in the Kirtland Temple.

Yes.

He said that he did. That presumably means that he did. What else do you think it could mean?

Not true.

Dang. This is getting spooky. I have actually been agreeing with Zerinus lately!

[mfbukowski]

I like the thought. I guess that "in your mind" is used to indicate an internal, rather than external origin.

The point is, you don't always "know" which is which. In dreaming, you don't know it's a dream until you wake up, and then it's clear. (Usually)

Having never had a vision I couldn't tell you if you know what it is- certainly we can go on the descriptions. But how God "does" visions is, I think, something we will never know until we ask him and he tells us.

But I think the contrast with Moses is unfounded. The story was written hundreds of years after the occurrence and the writer could not possibly know what "really" happened- the important thing is that Moses saw God and God spoke to him- by the spirit or by sound waves from his mouth I suppose we will never know and it doesn't matter anyway.

Who knows- if Moses actually wrote the account, he might have said "vision". We take this all on faith anyway.

[volgadon]

The point is, you don't always "know" which is which. In dreaming, you don't know it's a dream until you wake up, and then it's clear. (Usually)

Having never had a vision I couldn't tell you if you know what it is- certainly we can go on the descriptions. But how God "does" visions is, I think, something we will never know until we ask him and he tells us.

But I think the contrast with Moses is unfounded. The story was written hundreds of years after the occurrence and the writer could not possibly know what "really" happened- the important thing is that Moses saw God and God spoke to him- by the spirit or by sound waves from his mouth I suppose we will never know and it doesn't matter anyway.

Who knows- if Moses actually wrote the account, he might have said "vision". We take this all on faith anyway.

Another excellent point. As you said, we aren't always able to tell which is which. We tend to privilege the physical, but the idea of spiritual eyes is that the physical doesn't- indeed- cannot, tell the whole story. Your Nagel quote on physicalism seems along the same lines. There is a fascinating study by Martin Buber on the significance of sight in the Abraham cycle, it follows traditional Jewish lines of thought. I've also found a ton of stuff in Eastern Orthodox writings. In fact, if you don't mind, I'd like to run some of it by you as I appreciate your insight.

[Log]

Still not true.

CFR.

[volgadon]

CFR.

He laid out his case in post #8.

[Log]

He laid out his case in post #8.

Post #8 does exactly nothing to prove my position false. Therefore, he should retract.

[zerinus]

CFR.

#8, #16, #21.

[Log]

#8, #16, #21.

Do not suffice and are severally irrelevant; moreover, just saying "false" is not an argument nor a reference. Retract.

Edited May 19, 2012 by Log

[zerinus]

He laid out his case in post #8.

Thank you.

[mfbukowski]

Another excellent point. As you said, we aren't always able to tell which is which. We tend to privilege the physical, but the idea of spiritual eyes is that the physical doesn't- indeed- cannot, tell the whole story. Your Nagel quote on physicalism seems along the same lines. There is a fascinating study by Martin Buber on the significance of sight in the Abraham cycle, it follows traditional Jewish lines of thought. I've also found a ton of stuff in Eastern Orthodox writings. In fact, if you don't mind, I'd like to run some of it by you as I appreciate your insight.

Sure I'd love to see it.

Does God breathe? Does he actually force air over his vocal cords when he is speaking "face to face" or does he cause thoughts to appear in one's mind?

How could we ever tell? What scientific experiment would establish that? And if it "only" spiritual ideas appearing in our brain- how is that different than a vision anyway?

These questions of course are rhetorical- the point is that there is no difference, and we could not know the difference if one "actually" exists, assuming that the words "actually exist" even have meaning here.

[Log]

Where was this discussed?

Can you provide a link?

Yes, it was discussed in this thread. Sorry, it took me a while to locate it.

Z is on my ignore list, so if I miss some killer, documented argument from him that destroys my position that Joseph only claims to have seen Father and Christ in vision and does not claim to have received a visitation by them, please let me know.

Edited May 19, 2012 by Log

[volgadon]

Post #8 does exactly nothing to prove my position false. Therefore, he should retract.

Really? Take a look at D&C 67 again. It shows that the Lord's presence is a physical thing, and not a distant one either, but one that cannot fully be experienced with our regular faculty of vision.

[Log]

Really? Take a look at D&C 67 again. It shows that the Lord's presence is a physical thing, and not a distant one either, but one that cannot fully be experienced with our regular faculty of vision.

I'm sorry. Can you please, in as much detail as you can, explain exactly how that is in any way, shape, or form, relevant to my claims?

[volgadon]

11 For no man has seen God at any time in the flesh, except quickened by the Spirit of God.

12 Neither can any natural man abide the presence of God, neither after the carnal mind.

13 Ye are not able to abide the presence of God now, neither the ministering of angels; wherefore, continue in patience until ye are perfected.

If this "vision" weren't a physical thing, ormerely in the mind, then why would physical dangers be listed? The point is that certain changes have to be made before God can be seen, since the eyes, or mind, etc., can't withstand the sight in their present condition.

[Log]

If this "vision" weren't a physical thing, ormerely in the mind, then why would physical dangers be listed? The point is that certain changes have to be made before God can be seen, since the eyes, or mind, etc., can't withstand the sight in their present condition.

I ask again: how does that relate to my claims? If it doesn't, why do you bring it up as though it does?

[JeremyOrbe-Smith]

(Edit: Well, hrmph! I didn't see all the replies made while I was typing. My bad!)

"We tend to privilege the physical, but the idea of spiritual eyes is that the physical doesn't- indeed- cannot, tell the whole story."

Warning: idiosyncratic hobby-horse-of-mine semantic quibble alert! (The following is not meant as a criticism of your post, volgadon; I'm using it as a jumping-off point because I think there's some cool stuff about this topic which can be considered by digging into things a little more thoroughly.)

Personally, I think the too-prevalent notion of a dichotomy between "spiritual" and "physical" is a false one. That is, everything we are able to perceive is "physical" (otherwise it would not be capable of interacting with us physical beings) but all classes of things are physical in different ways, different forms. (Maybe: all things are spiritual, but not all things are intelligences which can be adopted into the family of the Gods. All squares and rectangles are quadrilaterals, but rectangles are not squares.)

Light is a physically-existing "thing", but it is a different type of "thing" than, say, a rock. They are structured in different ways, and therefore are perceived differently by us primates. We can't just reach out into a beam of light and ball it up in our hands like we could with wet sand, but that doesn't mean that the light is not physical; in a similar way, water is physical, but it behaves much differently than stone. We are not able to perceive bacteria with our "natural eyes", but they are still physically-real things.

I would extend this to "visions." "Visions" must be physically-real events which happen in our shared causal universe. Our present civilization does not currently possess the technological capacity to fully replicate the mechanisms which are necessary to produce the transmission of neurological information we term "visions", but at root there must still be an underlying "materialist" explanation for them or they would not be able to interact with our brains. We're still taking painful baby steps in this direction, but I think there's interesting stuff going on that shows promise:

[media=]

(Hah, on that second vid I got the Sergio Sanchez "I'm a Mormon" ad, talking about how there is no conflict between being a man of science and a man of faith. Appropriate!)

The point is, even our tentative studies on related issues allow us to at least conceive of a rational possibility for the direct-to-mind reception of images and audio, despite our current inability to transmit such signals ourselves. (And the subjective, visceral nature of the communication perhaps helps to account for why the common worldwide religious archetypes are based in ritualistic musical words and primal images such as trees and fruits,

.) (This speculation has great import on Joseph's translation process, even.)

Christ -- one of an infinite plurality of corporeal Gods of flesh and bones -- would not, then, have to "physically" stand in front of Joseph in order for Joseph to receive a "physical" vision sent from God into his mind. There's (currently?) no way to reproduce in a lab Joseph's brain state during these particular historical events, so one would have to be very unscientific to dismiss his records of his subjective experience as mere imagination or hallucinations despite the inability to offer a falsifiable hypothesis amenable to reproducible experimentation. It's a historical claim, not a scientific one; moreover, it's a historical claim that resists many of the scientific methods we've developed to peripherally confirm other types of historical events. (Archaeology, geology, etc.)

(Relying on the mere "probability" of, say, schizophrenia, to disprove such visions is untenable, since the very point at issue is whether or not they were hallucinations) Clarke noted that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic; Brother Brigham said that there is no such thing as a miracle, except to those who do not understand.

Currently, we do not understand the physics of how the First Vision went. But I get no warm'n'fuzzies from contemplating the sheer mysteriousness of God. What gives me hope is the few tentative indications we have that we can learn, we can do our reproducible experimentation, and we can eventually understand how all these unexplained events could have happened.

(Egad, this is such a sci-fi geek post. )

Edited May 19, 2012 by JeremyOrbe-Smith

[Log]

Also, IM - you cite Numbers as follows:

Hear now My words:

If there is a prophet among you,

I, the Lord, make Myself known to him iin a vision;

I speak to him in a dream.

Not so with My servant Moses;

He is faithful in all My house.

I speak with him face to face,

Even plainly, and not in dark sayings;

And he sees the form of the Lord.

I think you read a bit too much into this: it doesn't specify that the Lord physically appeared to Moses versus Moses saw him face-to-face in a heavenly vision - where Moses (or his spirit) might have been caught up into heaven, let's say. I know, you can dispute this with the "make myself known to him in a vision" bit, but that's not so clear to me.

Reading through Moses, which do you believe is most likely meant?

Edited May 19, 2012 by Log

[volgadon]

I ask again: how does that relate to my claims? If it doesn't, why do you bring it up as though it does?

That is a very tedious game, but if that is how you intend on winning... How does my post relate to your claims? You appear to be claiming that visions and physical encounters are two separate phenomena. The scripture provided shows that there is a "natural" and a "spiritual" condition. They are both physical, the divider being a change initiated by God, that is, a "quickening." A "vision" is the kind of seeing possible in the "quickened" condition, rather than being non-physical.

To use a crude metaphor, it is like being unable to percieve amoeba in a drop of water without using a microscope.

[volgadon]

Warning: idiosyncratic hobby-horse-of-mine semantic quibble alert! (The following is not meant as a criticism of your post, volgadon; I'm using it as a jumping-off point because I think there's some cool stuff about this topic which can be considered by digging into things a little more thoroughly.)

Personally, I think the too-prevalent notion of a dichotomy between "spiritual" and "physical" is a false one. That is, everything we are able to perceive is "physical" (otherwise it would not be capable of interacting with us physical beings) but all classes of things are physical in different ways, different forms. (Maybe: all things are spiritual, but not all things are intelligences which can be adopted into the family of the Gods. All squares and rectangles are quadrilaterals, but rectangles are not squares.)

Superb post, I totally agree. I too think the dichotomy is silly, after all, spirit is finer matter, butI used the dichotomy for sake of convenience. Maybe I should say the paradigm that is physicalism.

[Log]

That is a very tedious game, but if that is how you intend on winning...

So, in other words, you see this as a contest. Quite enlightening.

How does my post relate to your claims? You appear to be claiming that visions and physical encounters are two separate phenomena.

I am directly claiming that Joseph only claimed to have seen Jesus and God in heaven and nowhere claims to have seen them when they were not in heaven.

I am further claiming that the best explanation for this interesting historical fact is that Christ does not exit heaven to present himself bodily to Gentiles, but manifests himself by the power of the Holy Spirit in heavenly visions.

So, I ask again: how do your postings relate to my claims?

Edited May 19, 2012 by Log

[volgadon]

So, in other words, you see this as a contest. Quite enlightening.

No, I see it as you playing games, your position being weaker than you'd like to let on.

I am directly claiming that Joseph only claimed to have seen Jesus and God in heaven and nowhere claims to have seen them when they were not in heaven.

I am further claiming that the best explanation for this interesting historical fact is that Christ does not exit heaven to present himself bodily to Gentiles, but manifests himself by the power of the Holy Spirit in heavenly visions.

And I am claiming that D&C 67 doesn't support the idea of Joseph only seeing God in heaven. He saw him the grove, he saw him in Kirtland. The vision refers to the spiritually prepared condition of Joseph's body, rather than to location. When he does see Christ in heaven it is clearly noted, such as in D&C 76.

So, I ask again: how do your postings relate to my claims?

Come off it. I don't believe you are that obtuse.

Edited May 19, 2012 by volgadon

[Log]

As an interesting datum on the tendentious "physical vs. spiritual" debate, make of the following what you will.

Section 76

The Vision of the Degrees of Glory

Historical Background

It had been over a year since the Prophet Joseph Smith began a revision of the Bible, and the months of January and February 1832 found him again involved in this assignment.

Through his study of the scriptures, many questions and problems relative to the Biblical account were resolved through revelation. One such question had to do with the term heaven. The Prophet wrote: “Upon my return from Amherst [Ohio] conference, I resumed the translation of the Scriptures. From sundry revelations which had been received, it was apparent that many important points touching the salvation of man, had been taken from the Bible, or lost before it was compiled. It appeared self-evident from what truths were left, that if God rewarded every one according to the deeds done in the body the term ‘Heaven,’ as intended for the Saints’ eternal home must include more kingdoms than one. Accordingly, on the 16th of February, 1832, while translating St. John’s Gospel, myself and Elder Rigdon saw the following vision: [ D&C 76 ].” ( History of the Church, 1:245.)

Philo Dibble was an eyewitness to the reception of this revelation. He wrote that “the vision which is recorded in the Book of Doctrine and Covenants was given at the house of ‘Father Johnson,’ in Hiram, Ohio, and during the time that Joseph and Sidney were in the spirit and saw the heavens open, there were other men in the room, perhaps twelve, among whom I was one during a part of the time—probably two-thirds of the time,—I saw the glory and felt the power, but did not see the vision.

“The events and conversation, while they were seeing what is written (and many things were seen and related that are not written,) I will relate as minutely as is necessary.

“Joseph would, at intervals, say: ‘What do I see?’ as one might say while looking out the window and beholding what all in the room could not see. Then he would relate what he had seen or what he was looking at. Then Sidney replied, ‘I see the same.’ Presently Sidney would say ‘what do I see?’ and would repeat what he had seen or was seeing, and Joseph would reply, ‘I see the same.’

“This manner of conversation was reported at short intervals to the end of the vision, and during the whole time not a word was spoken by any other person. Not a sound nor motion made by anyone but Joseph and Sidney, and it seemed to me that they never moved a joint or limb during the time I was there, which I think was over an hour, and to the end of the vision.

“Joseph sat firmly and calmly all the time in the midst of a magnificent glory, but Sidney sat limp and pale, apparently as limber as a rag, observing which, Joseph remarked, smilingly, ‘Sidney is not used to it as I am.’” ( Juvenile Instructor, May 1892, pp. 303–4.)

[Log]

No, I see it as you playing games, your position being weaker than you'd like to let on.

That is an interesting example of projection on your part.

And I am claiming that D&C 67 doesn't support the idea of Joseph only seeing God in heaven.

You're correct - and you are correct because D&C 67 is utterly irrelevant to the idea, either pro or con.

He saw him the grove, he saw him in Kirtland.

I agree Joseph saw him while Joseph (or, at least, his body) was in the grove; the Lord was not in the grove, but in heaven. And I agree that Joseph saw him in Kirtland - but the Lord was not in Kirtland; he was in heaven, and Joseph was looking into heaven - where the Lord was standing on a paved work of gold.

The vision refers to the spiritually prepared condition of Joseph's body, rather than to location. When he does see Christ in heaven it is clearly noted, such as in D&C 76.

As it also is clearly noted in his accounts of the First Vision, and also in D&C 110 (vv. 1, 11), cited (except for D&C 110:1) on page 1 of this thread.

Edited May 19, 2012 by Log

[DWhitmer]

I've been reading Joseph's account of the first vision, and I'm wondering why it's called a vision?

The fact that was one of the requirements of a prophet should satisfy the curious.

This was discussed recently; they were not in the grove. It was a vision.

The following account describes the physical aspect, then the spiritual:

At first, he was severely tempted by the powers of darkness, which endeavored to overcome him; but he continued to seek for deliverance, until darkness gave way from his mind, and he was enabled to pray in fervency of the spirit, and in faith.

And while thus pouring out his soul, anxiously desiring an answer from God, he at length, saw a very bright and glorious light in the heavens above; which, at first, seemed to be a considerable distance. He continued praying, while the light appeared to be gradually descending towards him; and as it drew nearer, it increased in brightness and magnitude, so that, by the time that it reached the tops of the trees, the whole wilderness, for some distance around was illuminated in a most glorious and brilliant manner. He expected to have seen the leaves and boughs of the trees consumed, as soon as the light came in contact with them; but perceiving that it did not produce that effect, he was encouraged with the hope of being able to endure its presence. It continued descending slowly, until it rested upon the earth, and he was enveloped in the midst of it. When it first came upon him, it produced a peculiar sensation throughout his whole system; and immediately, his mind was caught away, from the natural objects with which he was surrounded; and he was enwrapped in a heavenly vision, and saw two glorious personages, who exactly resembled each other in their features or likeness

. (Orson Pratt’s,

An Interesting Account of Several Remarkable Visions

.)

...within the context of the of the current thread, anything that is seen with the eye of the Spirit rather than the natural eyes is legitimately called a vision. So any kind of "seeing" God can only be done spiritually, or by the spiritual eyes, not natural eyes, and that is what the scriptures call a "vision".

Sounds rational, but that's a false formula. God walked with Adam in the Garden, was that experience a "vision" also?

To my knowledge, Joseph did not see Jesus in person. This is because Jesus only manifests himself to the Gentiles by the power of the Holy Ghost.

The key is present tense; you should have said: "Jesus only manifested himself..." The BoM states clearly that Jesus himself would minister to the Gentiles in the last days who were upon ancient BoM lands. Thus, Christians before J.Smith, and after him - including now - have been ministered to by the Savior.

The point is, you don't always "know" which is which.

That's expected from Mormons who haven't a clue what the baptism of fire is, and yet the BoM is full of examples of the reality of God's glory and the affect is has upon the body and soul.

Having never had a vision I couldn't tell you if you know what it is- certainly we can go on the descriptions. But how God "does" visions is, I think, something we will never know until we ask him and he tells us.

Among Christians are many testimonies if one is so inclined to learn.

But I think the contrast with Moses is unfounded. The story was written hundreds of years after the occurrence and the writer could not possibly know what "really" happened- the important thing is that Moses saw God and God spoke to him- by the spirit or by sound waves from his mouth I suppose we will never know and it doesn't matter anyway.

The accounts of God interacting with Moses are profuse and make for a wonderful study of how it was done, which has many similarities to what Pratt described of J.Smith's encounter.

Warning: idiosyncratic...Christ -- one of an infinite plurality of corporeal Gods of flesh and bones

Thanks for the warnig. I found that statement indeed to be idiotic.

Currently, we do not understand the physics of how the First Vision went. But I get no warm'n'fuzzies from contemplating the sheer mysteriousness of God.

Sorry to hear that. Try prayer with a hint of meditation and a dash of humility until the lack of the "warm-n-fuzzies" becomes an unquenchable fire in your soul.

The final element that deserves mention (for those still reading) is the reason God came down - to start His work - the "Work of the Father."

[Log]

The key is present tense; you should have said: "Jesus only manifested himself..." The BoM states clearly that Jesus himself would minister to the Gentiles in the last days who were upon ancient BoM lands. Thus, Christians before J.Smith, and after him - including now - have been ministered to by the Savior.

The BoM uses the present tense, so also therefore do I.

The Gentiles should not at any time hear my voice—that I should not manifest myself unto them save it were by the Holy Ghost.

This does not preclude the Savior's ability to minister.

Also, you're 2 pages too late with your reference to the First Vision.

Edited May 19, 2012 by Log