Where Do You Rest Your Authority?

[WysteriaBlue]

I really enjoyed Elder Christofferson's talk and learned a lot from it.  I think he did a great job in putting the impetus for behaviour, wisdom, and discernment on each of us.  Thanks for bringing it back up CV75...

 

wb

[JAHS]

"What entity would you say holds authority in your life?"

E.)  My wife.

[Hamba Tuhan]

God has never spoken to you face to face.

 

This is presumptuous in at least two ways:

 

1) How do you know what interactions others have or have not had with Deity?

 

2) What makes you think that a face-to-face encounter with God would somehow be different to any other act of communicating with him?

 

Whose voice when their is conflict do you trust is his voice.

 

Speaking from my personal experience, the conflict isn't amongst A, B, C and D as much as it is internal to D: What do I do when there is a conflict between the voice of the Spirit and my own reasoning/logic/preferences?

Edited October 20, 2014 by Hamba Tuhan

[mfbukowski]

I think this talk gets to the crux of the question, which seems to touch on relativism: https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2014/10/free-forever-to-act-for-themselves?lang=eng

An interesting consequence of believing in relativism is that absolute morality is just as correct as relativistic morality.

 

Never would a consistent relativist say that the existence of absolute standards is "wrong".

[CV75]

I really enjoyed Elder Christofferson's talk and learned a lot from it.  I think he did a great job in putting the impetus for behaviour, wisdom, and discernment on each of us.  Thanks for bringing it back up CV75...

 

wb

Yes, and I think that which makes these things happen is faith, which is the exercise of agency.

 

From Elder Maxwell: “…the submission of one’s will is really the only uniquely personal thing we have to place on God’s altar. The many other things we “give,” brothers and sisters, are actually the things He has already given or loaned to us. However, when you and I finally submit ourselves, by letting our individual wills be swallowed up in God’s will, then we are really giving something to Him! It is the only possession which is truly ours to give!” https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1995/10/swallowed-up-in-the-will-of-the-father?lang=eng

 

Our will, the only thing that is truly ours, has no authority. So we have no authority but God and that portion of authority which He gives us. Here are a few other talks by Elder Maxwell that also touch on this relationship between will, individuality and agency:

 

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1996/10/according-to-the-desire-of-our-hearts?lang=eng

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2002/04/consecrate-thy-performance?lang=eng

[Silhouette]

"What entity would you say holds authority in your life?"

E.) My wife.

LOL

[ERayR]

I am asking a black and white question to which I want a black and white answer first than you can elaborate.  I also have follow up questions.

 

Question = What entity would you say holds authority in your life?  Where do you look to decide what is right and wrong?

 

A.) The Church

B.) Parents, Bishop, PH leader

C.) scriptures

D.) yourself (this can be a combination of your conscience, the Holy Ghost, reasoning, logic, study) etc.

 

 

When there is a conflict between any two answers above from A - C and what you personally arrive at, how do you reconcile.  What if you came to a conflict so great between A-C and yourself you could not reconcile?  What about specifically a conflict between A and D?

 

 

Where we place our authority (what is our source of beliefs and positions) says a lot about us and where we are on the journey.  I am curious about others here and how they handle such ideas and thopughts and if they can stand back and see their own shift from one authority to another?

 

Once some answers start coming in I will share my own perspective with some quotes.

 

All of the above + God.

[ERayR]

But how are you getting's god's message?  Church, parents, Holy Ghost?  You can say God but he is coming to you in some other way unless you have spoken face to face with him?

 

That is a possibility you know.

[ERayR]

see my response to his comment.  this answer misses the point.  God has never spoken to you face to face.  Whose voice when their is conflict do you trust is his voice.  

 

And you know this how?

[Glenn101]

This an attempt to make something complex out of something simple. I, nor anyone else, has any authority intrinsically. Any authority I have, any spiritual authority, comes from God, using the vehicle that He has designated to deliver it. That vehicle is His Church and those He has ordained to minister in it.

I do not have to see or talk with God face to face to know that He exists, nor to obtain any authority He should wish to bestow on me. The confirmation comes through the Holy Ghost.

 

Glenn

[stemelbow]

I am asking a black and white question to which I want a black and white answer first than you can elaborate.  I also have follow up questions.

 

Question = What entity would you say holds authority in your life?  Where do you look to decide what is right and wrong?

 

A.) The Church

B.) Parents, Bishop, PH leader

C.) scriptures

D.) yourself (this can be a combination of your conscience, the Holy Ghost, reasoning, logic, study) etc.

that doesn't come close to the amount of resources I refer to when trying to determine what's right and what's wrong. I don't know how to answer this question, sorry for the lack of help.

[mfbukowski]

That is a possibility you know.

I was thinking about starting a thread about the following, but don't have the time- you can if you want to- or anyone else if they want to.

 

St. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, had a vision of God and Christ.  It might be an interesting comparison and contrast with Joseph Smith's vision, as well as a discussion about "could they both be 'true'", etc.

 

http://books.google.com/books?id=KbJQAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA192#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

http://www.sjweb.info/rometourShow.cfm?PubTextID=62

 

I would think it might also challenge the Catholic view that God is an ineffable spirit, etc.

 

One wonders how many times this has happened to people, when the vision has NOT made it into the history books.  We as LDS often are confident that many have seen Christ- why not the Father as well?

Edited October 20, 2014 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

that doesn't come close to the amount of resources I refer to when trying to determine what's right and what's wrong. I don't know how to answer this question, sorry for the lack of help.

Agreed.

 

It is everything inside me, in my "gut" as we say.  It is the totality of my experience, including of course my experience of God which goes into making an important decision.

[pogi]

Question = What entity would you say holds authority in your life?  Where do you look to decide what is right and wrong?

 

A.) The Church

B.) Parents, Bishop, PH leader

C.) scriptures

D.) yourself (this can be a combination of your conscience, the Holy Ghost, reasoning, logic, study) etc.

 

All hold authority, and with the exception of the Holy Ghost, all can be a source of both right and wrong. I personally would make "yourself" and "the Holy Ghost" two separate answers for that reason.   All of these need to be respected as authority figures, but ultimately they all need to be examined in the light of Christ/Holy Ghost for verification that our ultimate decisions are right.  

 

In other words, I look to all of them but unequivocally trust only the light of Christ/Holy Ghost. 

[HappyJackWagon]

Myself because ultimately I'm responsible for what I accept or reject from each of the other authorities listed.

 

I'm curious about all those on this thread who seem to be offended by the question. And also those who take offense that DB assumed you haven't seen God face to face. If someone would like to dispute that with personal experience I'd love to hear about it, otherwise DB may be right, you just don't want to admit it.

[WysteriaBlue]

Dear Happy Jack wagon,

 

I liked your answer because it brings it down to personal responsibility, personal discernment, personal opportunity, personal obligation, personal culpability...

 

I "think" for me the "poll" offered is a bit offensive because it says that just one source should ALWAYS be right...always be trusted...always be TRUE.

 

God is the only one for me that would ever have that capability...

Yet, HOW do we discern what God wants from us on an everyday, decision by decision, balance of intuition/faith/belief and facts/knowledge/wisdom from the cacophony of life?

The onus of responsibility that come from free agency also REQUIRES that we search for truth and DO the right things...

this can be overwhelming in the information age with so much coming at us in terms of what is real, factual, debateable, right, wrong, anti or for and it changes every minute.

The pendulum of favor or opinion or real or false or conservative or liberal and in all things swings and it is hard to find the BALANCE in all things that again I think God treasures as in Proverbs 11.

We listen to the prophets, we listen to our elders, we listen to news, we read the scriptures, we read the articles, we have to sift and DISCERN the truth.

 

None of this is easy and it does get more complicated...  We want there to be a set of core Universal Truths...some are found in all religions, some are found in the arts, some are found in the Articles of Faith, some are in the commandments, some are in our hearts and given to us by the Holy Ghost.

 

If we have to choose A, B C or D....we also have someone to blame when things go wrong or wicked or pain and temptation enters our world...as it will do.

 

I have no real answers, just clues and beliefs and the knowledge that I WILL be responsible for my own actions both here and in the hereafter. 

It is daunting but I will not stop seeking and also stopping to be grateful for what I see/hear/touch/smell and feel.

 

wb

[Kenngo1969]

A.) The Church

B.) Parents, Bishop, PH leader

C.) scriptures

D.) yourself (this can be a combination of your conscience, the Holy Ghost, reasoning, logic, study) etc.

 

 

Any of the four (often in combination), depending on the circumstances.  The Church, like any organization, has the right to set parameters for a participant to be considered a member in good standing.  If I want to be considered a member in good standing, then I must agree to and follow those parameters.  When I was a minor, my parents had the responsibility to make many decisions for me.  I believe, generally speaking, that my parents were and are wise, and that such wisdom guides their decisions.  They made one or two major decisions regarding my health at the time that we would all decide differently if we had those same choices today, but hindsight always is 20/20.  My opinion regarding my parents' wisdom hasn't changed even though I've become an adult, and I still value their counsel even though they reared me to make my own decisions.  Such counsel may still factor heavily into decisions I make, and the more likely it is any decision I might make will have a major effect on them, the more likely I am to defer to their counsel.  

 

With respect to Priesthood leaders, as an example, 3-4 months ago, my Bishop sat in my living room and formally extended a call to me to sing in the Tooele/Grantsville/Stansbury regional choir that sang in the Saturday Afternoon session of October General Conference. Since I sang in a similar choir for a regional conference in 2012, I was familiar with the physical demands that traversing the bowels of the Conference Center and ascending to the choir loft might entail.  (I have Cerebral Palsy, and I walk with a pair of forearm crutches.)  Although I had embarked on a regimen of walking 2-3 miles a day in an effort to get in better shape starting the week after April General Conference, not too long before my visit with the Bishop, I awoke one day and attempted to go about my usual routine, but found myself unable to do so.  By the time I got back to my house, the tendinitis in my lower leg was bad enough that I couldn't even walk from room to room, let alone on my usual daily route or through the Conference Center's bowels and up into the choir loft.

 

I accepted the call anyway.

 

Acceptance notwithstanding, I still almost backed out.  (I'm much better than I was 2-3 months ago, and I'm better than I was when I wasn't sure my current condition would allow me to meet the physical demands that singing in the choir would entail, but even after all of this time, I'm still not 100%).  Without the timely collective ministration of the choir's general manager, the high councilor coordinating the choir, and a member of the Stake Presidency, I may not have followed through.   

 

As for scriptures (including the words of Latter-day Living Prophets), they, too, have played a major role (sometimes the deciding role) in choices I have made.   See, for example, here: https://www.lds.org/new-era/1993/02/we-did-it?lang=eng&query=Gourdin. One of the better sermons I have heard about prayer was delivered perhaps a year ago by the same high councilor I refer to above. He said the Lord can answer prayers in one of at least four ways: "Yes"; "No"; "Not yet"; and "What do you think?"  Brigham Young once said: "“If I do not know the will of my Father, and what He requires of me in a certain transaction, if I ask Him to give me wisdom concerning any requirement in my life, or in regard to my own course, or that of my friends, my family, my children, or those that I preside over, and get no answer from Him, and then do the very best that my judgement will teach me, He is bound to own and honor that transaction, and He will do so to all intents and purposes.” 

 

So, in short, the answer to your question is, "Yes."  I'm sure, alas, that you'll find that singularly unsatisfying, but there it is.

[Tacenda]

Well, well Kenngo, you are a hero!! I'm so glad you made it on that stand, what guts!!

[Vance]

C.) scriptures

Or rather the Bible.

A Bible, a Bible, we have got a Bible, and there cannot be any more Bible.

[Kenngo1969]

Well, well Kenngo, you are a hero!! I'm so glad you made it on that stand, what guts!!

Heh.  Maybe I made it sound more impressive than it actually was.  (But thanks, all the same.)

Edited October 30, 2014 by Kenngo1969

[EllenMaksoud]

I am asking a black and white question to which I want a black and white answer first than you can elaborate.  I also have follow up questions.

 

Question = What entity would you say holds authority in your life?  Where do you look to decide what is right and wrong?

 

A.) The Church

B.) Parents, Bishop, PH leader

C.) scriptures

D.) yourself (this can be a combination of your conscience, the Holy Ghost, reasoning, logic, study) etc.

 

 

When there is a conflict between any two answers above from A - C and what you personally arrive at, how do you reconcile.  What if you came to a conflict so great between A-C and yourself you could not reconcile?  What about specifically a conflict between A and D?

 

 

Where we place our authority (what is our source of beliefs and positions) says a lot about us and where we are on the journey.  I am curious about others here and how they handle such ideas and thopughts and if they can stand back and see their own shift from one authority to another?

 

Once some answers start coming in I will share my own perspective with some quotes.

God