My Response To Jeremy Runnels Part 1 Hales And Google

[CMZ]

How true.  However, what about those of us who think that response #2 is what one would expect from a yokel who doesn't know that people living a couple hundred years ago did not have the same cultural attitudes and customs we have today.  My response to #1 is typically "so what?"  Why would that matter to anybody who knows anything at all about history?

 

Well, yes, agreed. That's basically my response too. I'm just saying arguing about it doesn't produce testimony, although some people act like eventually someone might be able to put such an overwhelmingly logical point to it one or the other way that everyone who reads the argument will be locked into believing.

[CMZ]

St Peter (I Peter 3:15), St Paul (Philippians 1:7,17), B. H. Roberts, and Hugh Nibley have each very well shown us how to defend the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and we cannot always appeal only to the Holy Spirit -- except to those who are willing to try that.  We can also follow the experimental method provided in Alma 32.  We can prove all things and latch onto that which is good (I Thessalonians 5:21).  We are not restricted to only one epistemology.

 

100% correct. That's why I don't believe that such matters should never be discussed and I likewise don't believe that the Holy Spirit always operates in complete isolation from human reasoning. I was going to get into that point more in my original post but it was already getting a little too unwieldy. It's just that I see a lot of people who try to operate solely in the realm of human reasoning when discussing these matters. And you end up with people thinking the matter will be settled and testimonies of the gospel will come or be bidden away if they can perfectly analyze all the quotations on the dust jacket of a Brian Hales book.

[CMZ]

Yes.  Like "cheap grace," knowledge cannot really be had on the cheap.  It comes hard.  If you are in for the long haul, you just might get there.  It may take a lifetime, but it is well worth it.

 

And that, mi compadre, is what so few people get. Gospel study isn't really working if it doesn't hurt and stretch your brain and your soul. When one goes to Sunday School and the teacher asks if anyone has studied the lesson material and is met with a veritable sea of blank stares then little wonder we have people having an emotional crisis when they encounter some anti-Mormon claim for the first time (never mind that others have encountered it beforehand); then they go on a tirade about how the Church was trying to deceive them and about how they are going to think for themselves from now on and not just lap up what the Church tells them to think and how they are going to warn others of the deception being forced on us all by "One Temple Square" and so forth and so on.

 

 

When I say don’t be superficial, I mean don’t form conclusions based on unexamined assertions or incomplete research, and don’t be influenced by insincere seekers. I would offer you the advice of our Assistant Church Historian, Rick Turley, an intellectually gifted researcher and author whose recent works include the definitive history of the Mountain Meadows Massacre. He says simply, “Don’t study Church history too little.” While some honestly pursue truth and real understanding, others are intent on finding or creating doubts. Their interpretations may come from projecting 21st Century concepts and culture backward onto 19th Century people. If there are differing interpretations possible, they will pick the most negative. They sometimes accuse the Church of hiding something because they only recently found or heard about it—an interesting accusation for a Church that’s publishing 24 volumes of all it can find of Joseph Smith’s papers. They may share their assumptions and speculations with some glee, but either can’t or won’t search further to find contradictory information. Remember the verse of English poet Alexander Pope:

 

A little learning is a dangerous thing;

Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring:

There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,

And drinking largely sobers us again.

 

http://www2.byui.edu/Presentations/Transcripts/Devotionals/2013_9_24_Christofferson.htm

 

[CMZ]

 

Finally, don’t neglect the Spirit. As regards Joseph Smith, we seek learning both by study and by faith. Both are fruitful paths of inquiry. A complete understanding can never be attained by scholarly research alone, especially since much of what is needed is either lost or never existed. There is no benefit in imposing artificial limits on ourselves that cut off the light of Christ and the revelations of the Holy Spirit. Remember, “By the power of the Holy Ghost, ye may know the truth of all things.”

http://www2.byui.edu/Presentations/Transcripts/Devotionals/2013_9_24_Christofferson.htm

[Robert F. Smith]

....................................................................................................

................................................................................And you end up with people thinking the matter will be settled and testimonies of the gospel will come or be bidden away if they can perfectly analyze all the quotations on the dust jacket of a Brian Hales book.

  I gave you all kinds of rep points for that one, CMZ, hither, thither, and yon.

[Kevin Christensen]

In my response to Letter to a CES Director, I commented on the Runnells quote:

"I believe that members and investigators deserve all of the information on the table to be able to make a fully informed and balanced decision as to whether or not they want to commit their hearts, minds, time, talents, income, and lives to Mormonism,"

 

On the website response to FairMormon, Runnells says this: “I believe that members and investigators deserve all of the information on the table to be able to make a fully informed and balanced decision as to whether or not they want to commit their hearts, minds, time, talents, income, and lives to Mormonism.”42 “All of the information on the table” is rather a large order. What it actually means is we all deserve “God-Like Omniscience” as a basic human right, to be provided by institutional authorities before students and investigators make any serious decision or commitment. This demand for absolute certainty and omniscience as a gift to students before they make any faith [Page 203]decision would, by its nature, rule out the possibility of any faith decision being made. Faith decisions, by definition, are based on incomplete knowledge.

Think about it. Where exactly can we go to get that basic right of pre-digested, spoon-fed omniscience on demand fulfilled now? Does Runnells himself come even remotely close to measuring up to the standard of what he demands from even the CES or FairMormon? Does he come close to putting “all of the information on the table” in even one of the topics he treats?43 Is there a single page of his essay that could even remotely be described as “fully informed and balanced” with respect to any topic that he treats? He does not put any favorable information on the table concerning the Book of Mormon or the Book of Abraham.

http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/eye-of-the-beholder-law-of-the-harvest-observations-on-the-inevitable-consequences-of-the-different-investigative-approaches-of-jeremy-runnells-and-jeff-lindsay/

I noticed that John Dehlin introduced his interview with Runnells with the same quote which tells me that Dehlin is just as unreflective as Runnells.

A sense of entitlement brings its own expectations, and any failure in living up to those expectations, no matter whether they make any kind of realistic sense, tends to lead to grievance and resentment.

On the other hand, if we drop any sense of entitlement, we also loose the foundations of the grievance and resentment upon which they would otherwise be built. We also become capable of graditude for the efforts of even imperfect people, accepting it all as a well-intentioned gift.

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

Edited December 30, 2014 by Kevin Christensen