Elder John A. Widtsoe On The Flood (Full Context)

[JDave]

Reducio absurdum. The Church takes no position on the value of Pi. There is no correction of Scripture that has it as anything but exactly 3.

Pi is exactly 3, when only considering one significant digit.

 

You seem to be stating that if Church doctrine was established only by what is in the scriptures then it leads to absurdities like definitions of the value of pi.

[cinepro]

Reducio absurdum. The Church takes no position on the value of Pi. There is no correction of Scripture that has it as anything but exactly 3.

 

If there were an equal number of statements by the same people in the same official Church publications about the value of pi being exactly 3.00..., then I would argue just as strongly that the Church's official position on the matter was that the value of pi is 3.000...

 

But since there aren't, I won't.

 

Reductio ad absurdum indeed.

[thesometimesaint]

If there were an equal number of statements by the same people in the same official Church publications about the value of pi being exactly 3.00..., then I would argue just as strongly that the Church's official position on the matter was that the value of pi is 3.000...

 

But since there aren't, I won't.

 

Reductio ad absurdum indeed.

Does it really matter how many statements there are to determine the validity of an argument? Try Argumentum Ad Populum.

[MormonFreeThinker]

I'm still not clear on where this criteria comes from.  I have already shown that Church leaders (including Apostles and Prophets) have taught a global flood consistently, clearly, recently, and repeatedly in official Church publications, and it is also taught in the scriptures (as interpreted by the same Apostles and Prophets). 

 

Church Statements on a Global Flood

r

 

I only counted 4 statements made by General Authorities in General Conference, not 7 apostles. 

None of those 4 statements say anything about a Global Flood that killed all animal life and created mountains.

None of those 4 statements refute the "Noah's World" interpretation. 

Just because 4 General Authorities teach something, it doesn't mean it's official doctrine, you need to read the history of the church.

 

"have taught a global flood consistently, clearly, recently, and repeatedly in official Church publications,"

Typically, references to the Flood are presented in the context of teaching some Gospel principle. None of them have mention "Global Flood", and none of them have condemned the local flood theory. 

 

"If we include statements made by Seventies, BYU Scholars and other authors that have been made in Church published curriculum and magazines, without correction or ammendation"

 

Read the "what is official doctrine" topic. 

You have not proven that the Global Flood theory is official doctrine. 

 

"At the April 1929 general conference, President Anthony W. Ivins of the First Presidency cautioned: “We must be careful in the conclusions that we reach. The Book of Mormon … does not tell us that there was no one here before them [the peoples it describes]. It does not tell us that people did not come after."

https://www.lds.org/topics/book-of-mormon-and-dna-studies?lang=eng

 

"The promised place was set apart. Without habitation it waited for the fulfillment of God’s special purposes.With care and selectivity, the Lord began almost at once to repeople the promised land. The Jaredites came first" - Elder Holland, General Conference 

https://www.lds.org/ensign/1976/06/a-promised-land?lang=eng

Edited May 19, 2014 by MormonFreeThinker

[JDave]

Does it really matter how many statements there are to determine the validity of an argument? Try Argumentum Ad Populum.

Validity not so much, but for considering doctrine the church seems to think it matters.

 

http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/approaching-mormon-doctrine

"A single statement made by a single leader on a single occasion often represents a personal, though well-considered, opinion, but is not meant to be officially binding for the whole Church."

"doctrine [is] consistently proclaimed in official Church publications. This doctrine resides in the four “standard works” of [scripture], official declarations and proclamations"

[Rob Osborn]

Reducio absurdum. The Church takes no position on the value of Pi. There is no correction of Scripture that has it as anything but exactly 3.

We have already hashed out pi and I have shownthat the scriptures do not make a claim about pi. This is an atheist tactic.

[thesometimesaint]

Validity not so much, but for considering doctrine the church seems to think it matters.

 

http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/approaching-mormon-doctrine

"A single statement made by a single leader on a single occasion often represents a personal, though well-considered, opinion, but is not meant to be officially binding for the whole Church."

"doctrine [is] consistently proclaimed in official Church publications. This doctrine resides in the four “standard works” of [scripture], official declarations and proclamations"

 

We have what is known as Common Consent((With divine inspiration, the First Presidency (the prophet and his two counselors) and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (the second-highest governing body of the Church) counsel together to establish doctrine that is consistently proclaimed in official Church publications)) in this church, and to date have no problem with what has met those requirements.

[thesometimesaint]

We have already hashed out pi and I have shownthat the scriptures do not make a claim about pi. This is an atheist tactic.

 

Value of Pi in the Bible "And he [Hiram] made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one rim to the other it was round all about, and...a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about....And it was an hand breadth thick...." — First Kings, chapter 7, verses 23 and 26

 

Your tired old McCarthyite not withstanding. It was Theists in about 200 BCE that first determined the value of Pi.

[Rob Osborn]

Value of Pi in the Bible "And he [Hiram] made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one rim to the other it was round all about, and...a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about....And it was an hand breadth thick...." — First Kings, chapter 7, verses 23 and 26

 

Your tired old McCarthyite not withstanding. It was Theists in about 200 BCE that first determined the value of Pi.

Atheist attacks. Thats all it is.

[thesometimesaint]

Atheist attacks. Thats all it is.

 

Theists are not Atheists. Back to your own idiosyncratic definition of words AGAIN.

[Rob Osborn]

Theists are not Atheists. Back to your own idiosyncratic definition of words AGAIN.

http://www.tektoonics.com/test/parody/howtobe.html

Make yourself a checklist.

[cinepro]

I only counted 4 statements made by General Authorities in General Conference, not 7 apostles. 

None of those 4 statements say anything about a Global Flood that killed all animal life and created mountains.

None of those 4 statements refute the "Noah's World" interpretation. 

Just because 4 General Authorities teach something, it doesn't mean it's official doctrine, you need to read the history of the church.

 

"have taught a global flood consistently, clearly, recently, and repeatedly in official Church publications,"

Typically, references to the Flood are presented in the context of teaching some Gospel principle. None of them have mention "Global Flood", and none of them have condemned the local flood theory. 

 

"If we include statements made by Seventies, BYU Scholars and other authors that have been made in Church published curriculum and magazines, without correction or ammendation"

 

Read the "what is official doctrine" topic. 

You have not proven that the Global Flood theory is official doctrine. 

 

"At the April 1929 general conference, President Anthony W. Ivins of the First Presidency cautioned: “We must be careful in the conclusions that we reach. The Book of Mormon … does not tell us that there was no one here before them [the peoples it describes]. It does not tell us that people did not come after."

https://www.lds.org/topics/book-of-mormon-and-dna-studies?lang=eng

 

"The promised place was set apart. Without habitation it waited for the fulfillment of God’s special purposes.With care and selectivity, the Lord began almost at once to repeople the promised land. The Jaredites came first" - Elder Holland, General Conference 

https://www.lds.org/ensign/1976/06/a-promised-land?lang=eng

 

 

I'm not sure why you've added "and created mountains" to the claim.  I've never said that the Church teaches all mountains were created during the flood.  None of the quotes I've collected have ever claimed that. 

 

 

But here are a few more for thought:

 

Because modernists now declare the story of the flood is unreasonable and impossible, should we disbelieve the account of Noah and the flood as related in the Old Testament?

 

Howard W. Hunter, "Where, Then, Is Hope?"

 

 

Did the people in Noah's day need a prophet to warn them spiritually and temporally? Had a man refused to follow Noah, would he have been saved from the flood? Yet the Bible tells us that in the last days in which we live, the wickedness of the people will become comparable to the wickedness of the people in Noah's day when God cleansed the earth by flood. Do you think we need a prophet today to warn us and prepare us for the cleansing that God promised will come, this time by fire?

 

Ezra T. Benson, "Listen to a Prophet's Voice"

 

Now, in the Bible we have the story of the great flood, when, because of the wickedness of the people, none but Noah and his family were spared.

 

N. Eldon Tanner, "Thou Mayest Choose for Thyself"

 

 

According to the writings of Moses, the history of the world from the beginning to the end was revealed to Enoch when Enoch was permitted to look upon the world and see it as it was in the days of Noah, as it was in the Meridian of Time, and as it would be in the last days, or the days in which we now live. Enoch beheld all of the inhabitants of the earth. He saw that after the flood had depopulated the earth, because of wickedness, it was after a time inhabited again.

 

Elder ElRay L. Chrstensen*, "...Walk in My Statutes..."

*only an Assistant to The Council of the Twelve Apostles, so he might not have known what he was talking about.

 

 

 

Let us point to a few Bible examples of what we say. God walked and talked with Adam and Eve. They knew what he was like, and they received commandments from him, but many of their descendants were not true to the faith. By the time of Noah, all mankind was apostate and as a result was destroyed in the flood, all except Noah and his family. God raised up Noah as a prophet and talked with both him and his sons, revealing himself to them. Therefore they knew God and worshiped him as a result of obtaining that knowledge.

 

Elder Mark E. Peterson, "One Lord, One Faith, One Baptism"

 

Prophets cried repentance Centuries later, when all living beings upon the earth were threatened with destruction, when corruption filled the earth, caused by a lack of repentance, the prophet Noah labored valiantly in crying repentance unto the people, but to no avail. All living upon the earth, except Noah and his family, were destroyed by a flood of waters.

 

Alvin R. Dyer, "Repentance"

 

This ones gets a double bonus for also tying in BoM geography:

 

George Washington is often referred to as the "Father of his country." But I would like to suggest the name of another man who might qualify in a more real sense as the "Father of America." After the flood waters had receded from off the face of this land, a little group of people were led by the Lord from the confusion of tongues at Babel, back to this land of promise, to repeople and to restock America with plant and animal life. The Lord said to the brother of Jared, who, under his direction, led this little colony to this new beginning...

 

Sterling W. Sill**, "Lest We Forget"

**Assistant to the Council of the Twelve Apostles

 

So they turned away from the truth unto the worship of all manner of false doctrines and gods, refusing to hearken to the prophets that were sent among them, and it became necessary for the Lord to bring in the flood upon them and cleanse the earth of its iniquity. Once again the world started out with just one family, and as men began to spread upon the face of the earth, they were taught by the prophets and were given revelation from the Almighty.

 

Elder Joseph Fielding Smith***, "The Field Is White Already to Harvest"

***It has been established on the internet that it's okay for LDS to ignore anything JFS taught if they don't like it.

 

The history of the antediluvians furnishes us with an impressive example of the serious consequences of sin and rejecting the gospel.

Noah preached to that people 120 years (Moses 8:17). They rejected the prophet and his message and became a very wicked people and morally corrupt.

The penalty inflicted upon them was, in part, that of drowning by a flood that covered the whole earth. The death penalty tells but a small part of the story of what befell them on account of their wickedness. They were confined in a spirit prison for, according to the Bible chronology, more than 2,300 years.

 

Elder George F. Richards, "Obedience, the Way of Exaltation"

[Bikeemikey]

Does it really matter how many statements there are to determine the validity of an argument? Try Argumentum Ad Populum.

I think the issue is you are trying are conflating the correctness of the churches position on something with the more simple identification on what the churches position on something actually is.

You are assuming that as the global flood is demonstrably false that the church would not have a position that suggests there was a global flood.

However, what we have is a preponderance of evidence that the churches position, based on both historic and recent quotes, does in fact support a global flood as well as an over whelming amount of evidence that their was no global flood in the last few thousand years.

In this instance it is simply the case that the church position is wrong.

In my opinion the church should have less and less opinions about more and more things for this exact reason.

[Rob Osborn]

I think the issue is you are trying are conflating the correctness of the churches position on something with the more simple identification on what the churches position on something actually is.

You are assuming that as the global flood is demonstrably false that the church would not have a position that suggests there was a global flood.

However, what we have is a preponderance of evidence that the churches position, based on both historic and recent quotes, does in fact support a global flood as well as an over whelming amount of evidence that their was no global flood in the last few thousand years.

In this instance it is simply the case that the church position is wrong.

In my opinion the church should have less and less opinions about more and more things for this exact reason.

The Church only claims its doctrine based on divine revelation. If it had to be crtiqued by science then our entire religion is false. Science has its place but it also has its limits. Science has no way to prove a global flood didnt happen.

[thesometimesaint]

http://www.tektoonics.com/test/parody/howtobe.html

Make yourself a checklist.

 

Read the Dictionary.

 

Atheist. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/atheist

Theist. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/theist

[Rob Osborn]

Read the Dictionary.

 

Atheist. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/atheist

Theist. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/theist

As long as you keep bashing the bible and using the same tatics as atheists then I am left only with the logic of...if it swims like a duck, if it walks like a duck, if it quacks like a duck...

You get the drift. If you claim to be a theistthen try defending the text for a change.

[cinepro]

These are indexed by BYU, but I can't find the whole talk online:

 

By reading the Old Testament we learn that for a long period of time after Adam came, the people, exercising their agency, determined to have their own way and followed after the teachings of the adversary until they were too wicked to live. The flood came and only those were left who had been obedient and had sought to do the Lord's will.

 

George Albert Smith, 1936

 

We read in the Old Testament the circumstances that surrounded the people at the time of the flood. We are informed that they were not destroyed until they had been fully warned. For one hundred and twenty years Noah, a prophet of God, went to and fro among the people, calling on them to abandon their wickedness. He warned them that unless they repented of their sins and turned to the Lord, destruction would overtake them. One hundred and twenty years of pleading to do right was followed by the flood that destroyed all flesh not preserved in the ark. Because Noah was indeed a prophet of God, and had only told the people what the Lord had directed, his promise was fulfilled, he was vindicated, and the earth received its baptism of water. Only the little handful that believed in the prophet of God and listened to his wise counsels, were saved.

 

George Albert Smith, 1922

 

Noah, whose other name is Gabriel, the Angel of the Resurrection -- how could we do without him? He holds the keys to bring us forth from the grave. He is one of our ancestors. His three sons repeopled the earth after the Flood; Shem peopling, Asia; Ham, Africa; and Japheth, Europe. We are from Shem, through Abraham and the House of Israel, though mixed with the children of Japheth, the Gentiles.

 

Orson F. Whitney, 1927

 

Our numbers are few, it is true; but the people of God always were few in every age of the world. Noah, after preaching 120 years, while building the ark, only succeeded in saving eight souls out of all the inhabitants of the earth. The rest were destroyed by the flood, and they were shut up in prison and there visited by Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God.

 

Wilford Woodruff, 1890

 

 

In the works of infidel writers the flood is referred to as an exhibition of cruelty on the part of Deity; and their descriptions of it have been drawn out in such a manner as to cast reproach upon the justice and the mercy of God. And at the first glance it seems difficult to justify such a great calamity as we regard the flood to be, by which the whole race of men was well nigh swept out of existence.

 

B.H. Roberts, 1893

 

And Enoch and his brethren prophesied unto the people about the calamities that should overtake them, that the world was to be destroyed by a flood; and there were provisions made for the continuance of the human family, and it was made known to Methuselah that his seed should be the medium through which should be perpetuated the human family upon the earth.

 

John Taylor, 1880

[Bikeemikey]

These are indexed by BYU, but I can't find the whole talk online:

I like the way you post... all up in my face with quotes and stuff....

Nicely done.

[thesometimesaint]

The Church only claims its doctrine based on divine revelation. If it had to be crtiqued by science then our entire religion is false. Science has its place but it also has its limits. Science has no way to prove a global flood didnt happen.

 

When "divine" revelation claims the axeheads float, that this planet is flat, that the Cockatrice is real, that Adams and Eve rode around on Dinosaurs. that men live on the moon and sun, that men will never be in space or land on the moon, that Caesar Augustus literally taxed the entire world, then yes science has disproven those and other like claims. Claims about God are outside the realm of science. IE; I'm really not going to find much information about ancient China in the Book of Mormon.

[thesometimesaint]

As long as you keep bashing the bible and using the same tatics as atheists then I am left only with the logic of...if it swims like a duck, if it walks like a duck, if it quacks like a duck...

You get the drift. If you claim to be a theistthen try defending the text for a change.

 

I'm not bashing the Bible. Our own Articles of Faith state that: We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck but it needs batteries, you probably have the wrong abstraction.

 

When a Theist says something that is true. I defend it with equal fierceness to when a Atheist says something that is true. IE; The earth is a ball no matter if a Theist or an Atheist says it.

[JDave]

We have what is known as Common Consent((With divine inspiration, the First Presidency (the prophet and his two counselors) and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (the second-highest governing body of the Church) counsel together to establish doctrine that is consistently proclaimed in official Church publications)) in this church, and to date have no problem with what has met those requirements.

Has the scriptural account of Noah not been accepted by Common Consent?

[MormonFreeThinker]

 

 

 

But here are a few more for thought:

 

 

General Conference? 

 

"I've never said that the Church teaches all mountains were created during the flood"

 

and none of them say "flood filled every hollow and valley until the earth was a great sphere of water covering the highest mountain peaks" 

 

and none of them contradict the "Noah's world" interpretation.

 

Again, just because church leaders teach something, it doesn't mean it is official doctrine, even if it is found in official church publications. Read "What is Doctrine" topic again. 

 

and a LDS Bible scholar thinks the Flood was Local 

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/benjaminthescribe/2014/02/gospel-doctrine-lesson-6-moses-819-30-genesis-65-22-71-10/

[thesometimesaint]

Has the scriptural account of Noah not been accepted by Common Consent?

 

Has it neither been accepted nor declined by Common Consent. We are free to believe as we choose until such time as it is either way. What we shouldn't do is teach others that is either.

Edited May 19, 2014 by thesometimesaint

[JDave]

Has it neither been accepted nor declined by Common Consent. We are free to believe as we choose until such time as it is either way. What we shouldn't do is teach others that is either.

What exactly in the scriptures has been accepted by Common Consent?

[Rob Osborn]

This whole bit is getting old. The church has always maintained the belief in a worldwide flood. It has NEVER taught that it wasnt.