Paradigm Shifts, Mormon Studies, The Philosophies Of Men

[mfbukowski]

In another thread about the historicity of the Book of Mormon, now locked for inexplicable reasons, I made the following comment

I think perhaps I didn't make myself clear.
The view of some BOM scholars is now that Nephites lived as a subculture of other larger groups, the Maya could be good candidates.and that is the reason we have problems separating Mayan artifacts from Nephite artifacts. Imagine looking for Armenian artifacts in America in a few thousand years and you might see the problem.
No Armenian pottery? Oh well there were no Armenians here I guess.But in the case of the Armenians, at least there would be evidence of their language. That would not be the case with Nephites whose first language was perhaps only known to prophets, as Latin today is only known to some Catholic priests.
Edit: And further suppose in the future suppose the Armenians are known by a different name. Instead of looking for "Nephites", perhaps that group of Mayans were called by a different name.
We are swallowing camels and straining at gnats. Christianity requires that historically a man came back from the dead. We have no problem with that. But missing pottery stamped "made in Zarahemla?" Oh gosh, game over.

 

http://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/64358-is-belief-in-the-book-mormon-as-history-important/?p=1209432815

 

bcuzbcuz returned this VERY important point, about which I think everyone has questions.  This raises important issues key to most people here, and I propose we deal with it directly in this thread
 

 

I think I understand your main points. But I was raised in the church at a time when the Hill of Cumorah was in the state of New York, and modern day Native Americans were the Lamanites of the Book of Mormon. When 230,000 Nephite warriors were killed in Mormon, chapter 6, I believed those numbers. I just don't see, I do not comprehend, I cannot believe that those Nephite warriors were some little hidden, indistinguishable, undefinable sub-group of an overwhelming majority, non-Nephite group.

The Book of Mormon has gone from being the defining history of the peoples of the Americas, to being a record of an almost invisible sub-culture, who left not a single mark or evidence of their own group.

What have I missed?

 

I thought for a minute and had very little time, and my first notion was to answer quickly and somewhat snarkily - as is my usual "natural man" tendency when I post with little time, something like this:

 

Yeah, well we all have to deal with the fact that ALL scriptural interpretation effectively IS the "philosophies of men mingled with scripture", like it or not.  It is impossible to separate scripture from its interpretation when we think about theological issues, because we grow up with philosophical predispositions inherited from our times.

 

Those who grew up in the church inherited 19th century interpretations, and now we have at least 20th century interpretations- no telling what will happen when we finally start making 21st century interpretations of the Book of Mormon.

 

Of course I never made that reply because the thread was locked.  Hence this discussion.

 

New data brings with it new interpretations of data, and that is the natural process of human thought.  Looking out at the horizon, one could well believe the earth is flat, and so many thought for thousands of years.

 

But the data made that belief difficult.  Ships going over the horizon disappeared from the bottom up, the last thing visible being the top of their mast.  The view from the ship was similar- the first thing to disappear looking back into port was the shoreline, then the hills, then the highest mountains, but eventually they also disappeared into the distance.

 

The only explanation possible for this phenomenon was that the earth was "in fact" round, and so that "modern" conception was born.

 

There is no reason to think that religious thinking is any different.  YET  MORMONS GET CRITICISM for following the same rules of thought that have been used by mankind forever.

 

Paradigms shift.  There is a famous philosopher of Science, Thomas Kuhn, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Kuhn, who has gotten credit largely for "discovering" paradigm shifts, but that idea had been around for perhaps a hundred years before he came along.

 

If you aren't familiar with the concept, that wikipedia article is a good place to start.

 

But because we have been raised with the paradigm that "TRUTH never changes" - a pagan Greek idea- we are stuck with the Neoplatonic sectarian Christian idea that this is the case.

 

Now we are reaping the damage from accepting the philosophy and theology of the apostasy, and grafting the apostasy "philosophies of men mingled with scripture" into the Restoration "philosophies of men mingled with scripture" with results that leave us with questions like the one bcuzbcuz raises.   This is not a trivial issue, it goes to the core of Mormon doctrine and its interpretation.

 

So how do we get out of this quandary?   Come on class, pretend we are seminary.  What is the usual right answer to all questions in seminary?

 

"Pray, follow the spirit, and keep the commandments"

 

Philosophies come and go, interpretations come and go, science even comes and goes, new paradigms come and go, but God will always communicate with his children.  It is what He does.  It's his job as our Father.  He has to bring to pass our immortality and eternal lives.

 

You can't do that without communication. 

[stemelbow]

this thread has me thinking more about the book I read a few months ago by David Bokovoy. In recent years I've been pretty close to what you describe as scripture. his book and his ideas took my little hunch, which surely has come from many others ideas, and threw another football field away.

Your ideas a very good, even if I disagree a tinge with the "pray, follow the spirit, and keep the commandments". Not all commandments. That's too difficult anymore. Keep the important commandments and shrug off the little mistakes we make through repentance.

[pogi]

 

 shrug off the little mistakes we make through repentance.

 

Sounds like an oxymoron to me.  

 

I disagree a tinge with the "pray, follow the spirit, and keep the commandments". Not all commandments. That's too difficult anymore. Keep the important commandments and shrug off the little mistakes we make through repentance.

 

 

I wonder how God might answer this prayer:

 

"Father, please reveal to us which commandments are not important to obey because it is just too difficult to obey them all..."  

 

I dare you to pray like that in Sunday school. 

Edited October 24, 2014 by pogi

[UtahTexan]

this thread has me thinking more about the book I read a few months ago by David Bokovoy. In recent years I've been pretty close to what you describe as scripture. his book and his ideas took my little hunch, which surely has come from many others ideas, and threw another football field away.

Your ideas a very good, even if I disagree a tinge with the "pray, follow the spirit, and keep the commandments". Not all commandments. That's too difficult anymore. Keep the important commandments and shrug off the little mistakes we make through repentance.

Awesome post

[CV75]

"Pray, follow the spirit, and keep the commandments"

 

Philosophies come and go, interpretations come and go, science even comes and goes, new paradigms come and go, but God will always communicate with his children.  It is what He does.  It's his job as our Father.  He has to bring to pass our immortality and eternal lives.

This reminds me of Haggai 2:13-14, “Then said Haggai, If one that is unclean by a dead body touch any of these, shall it be unclean? And the priests answered and said, It shall be unclean. Then answered Haggai, and said, So is this people, and so is this nation before me, saith the Lord; and so is every work of their hands; and that which they offer there is unclean,” which in turn reminds me of Hosea being commanded to take unto him “a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms: for the land hath committed great whoredomes, departing from the Lord.”

 

Any individual, no matter how virtuous, is unclean in this fallen world—we cannot help it. There was no way Hosea could have married a woman untouched by the paradigms, studies and philosophies of her place and time. There is no way we can escape our fallen nature, except through the seminary answers you mentioned!

[Brant Gardner]

As quoted in the opening post, bcuzbcuz said:

But I was raised in the church at a time when the Hill of Cumorah was in the state of New York, and modern day Native Americans were the Lamanites of the Book of Mormon. When 230,000 Nephite warriors were killed in Mormon, chapter 6, I believed those numbers. I just don't see, I do not comprehend, I cannot believe that those Nephite warriors were some little hidden, indistinguishable, undefinable sub-group of an overwhelming majority, non-Nephite group.

I was raised about the same time, and had the same preconceptions. I was pretty smug about some of them as well. I remember hearing about the New World being settled by travelers over the Bering Strait and thinking how I knew so much better.

 

Of course, I also had the impression that Israel was at the heart of ancient history. If I begin to catalogue the things I misunderstood about history outside of religion, the list gets really, really long. 

 

What I am sure of is that the Book of Mormon's first goal is spiritual. Understanding the history behind it enriches our understanding, but the fact that we might have had it wrong at some point is no different than all of the vast catalogue of things that humankind has been wrong about through history. That is why we are to keep learning and applying our understanding. The principle is eternal progression, not eternal stagnation. While that is still more important spiritually, I'm sure it applies to all of the understanding we are to learn. We should be seeking truth. In all things. That will mean finding out that we have believed something that was wrong in the past. That will be true for both secular and religious topics.

[mfbukowski]

As quoted in the opening post, bcuzbcuz said:

 

 

I was raised about the same time, and had the same preconceptions. I was pretty smug about some of them as well. I remember hearing about the New World being settled by travelers over the Bering Strait and thinking how I knew so much better.

 

Of course, I also had the impression that Israel was at the heart of ancient history. If I begin to catalogue the things I misunderstood about history outside of religion, the list gets really, really long. 

 

What I am sure of is that the Book of Mormon's first goal is spiritual. Understanding the history behind it enriches our understanding, but the fact that we might have had it wrong at some point is no different than all of the vast catalogue of things that humankind has been wrong about through history. That is why we are to keep learning and applying our understanding. The principle is eternal progression, not eternal stagnation. While that is still more important spiritually, I'm sure it applies to all of the understanding we are to learn. We should be seeking truth. In all things. That will mean finding out that we have believed something that was wrong in the past. That will be true for both secular and religious topics.

Yes I agree.  I think we just need to embrace growth and understand that growth cannot happen without some sacrifice and even pain attached.  Adjusting to new patterns of thought takes time and effort, if you are learning division in 4th grade, or writing a paper for publication, experiencing the loss of a loved one, or facing any new challenge.

[mfbukowski]

this thread has me thinking more about the book I read a few months ago by David Bokovoy. In recent years I've been pretty close to what you describe as scripture. his book and his ideas took my little hunch, which surely has come from many others ideas, and threw another football field away.

Your ideas a very good, even if I disagree a tinge with the "pray, follow the spirit, and keep the commandments". Not all commandments. That's too difficult anymore. Keep the important commandments and shrug off the little mistakes we make through repentance.

I think that any new idea or way of organizing ideas we receive is itself "scripture" in a way, since it gives us a new way of understanding the world, and after all that is what scripture is for.

 

I have found that the more I discipline myself by following the commandments, even the "hard"ones (each of us has a different 'hard one' ) the closer I am to the spirit, which is a feeling I crave more and more, as it grows sweeter and sweeter (Alma 32)

 

I hope that someday I will value that sweetness of the spirit more than I value whatever it is I get out of sin, so that the propensity to sin virtually disappears.

 

I have been close to that for very limited times in my life, and it was wonderful, but always some new challenge arises that challenges me in a different way that I have never experienced, and wham- the old patterns pop up again.  We are continually tested.

 

But I think it is dangerous to refuse to try to improve by labeling ANY challenge "too hard".  Even before I joined the church, my goal was to become the best human being I could, and I think there are many "humanists" in the same boat.

 

I can't conceive of voluntarily giving up some opportunity for personal growth because it is "too hard".  On the other hand, we should not be too hard on ourselves and give up, because then no growth is possible either.

 

It's not an easy balance!

Edited October 25, 2014 by mfbukowski

[Rob Osborn]

I guess I am old school on the BoM. I still believe in a semi-hemispheric view with Nephites and Lamanites that were on both North and South American continents, waged war with each other over hundreds of years traveling thousands of miles in the process and ending up in New York at the Hill Cumorah to do one last epic battle. Paradigm shifts sadly begin at the scholarly level such as at BYU and then get spread throughout the church. I call them the philosophies of man. Its sad that we truly see so close minded anymore and our supposed "scholars" are only learned in the training of mans ways and cannot see the forest because of the trees.

[mfbukowski]

I guess I am old school on the BoM. I still believe in a semi-hemispheric view with Nephites and Lamanites that were on both North and South American continents, waged war with each other over hundreds of years traveling thousands of miles in the process and ending up in New York at the Hill Cumorah to do one last epic battle. Paradigm shifts sadly begin at the scholarly level such as at BYU and then get spread throughout the church. I call them the philosophies of man. Its sad that we truly see so close minded anymore and our supposed "scholars" are only learned in the training of mans ways and cannot see the forest because of the trees.

But here is the point- even your view is a "philosophy of man"

 

It is not contained in scripture- it is a human interpretation of the Book of Mormon, and always has been.

 

All we have are the "philosophies of men" because WE ARE MEN, indeed even God is a glorified man.   In a sense even scripture is the philosophy of the Man of Holiness.

[Rob Osborn]

But here is the point- even your view is a "philosophy of man"

 

It is not contained in scripture- it is a human interpretation of the Book of Mormon, and always has been.

 

All we have are the "philosophies of men" because WE ARE MEN, indeed even God is a glorified man.   In a sense even scripture is the philosophy of the Man of Holiness.

Yes true, however, there is an aspect of being close minded that prevents/hinders one from finding and learning truth

[katherine the great]

I'm not really sure that the type of paradigm shift Kuhn refers to with regard to scientific revolution is applicable here--I'd have to think about that. (I have the book in my library and I refer to it frequently)  However, I completely agree with you though that the paradigm or lens through which we view Book of Mormon peoples has had to change significantly over time--at least among those who accept any type of data that comes from empirical studies. That aside, yes, it is better to test the Book of Mormon's principles through living them (i.e. Alma 32) than it is to try to explain the discrepancies in its history (or perceived history.)

[pogi]

Yes true, however, there is an aspect of being close minded that prevents/hinders one from finding and learning truth

 

Believing the "old-school" philosophies of man because it is traditional is no less closed minded.  I think the point is that it doesn't really matter what we believe at this moment, because we will be led to what we need to know piece by piece as we pray and obey.  It is ok to be old-school or new-school so long as you don't reject being spiritually schooled because you just can't let go of your favorite or traditional beliefs. 

Edited October 25, 2014 by pogi

[CV75]

That aside, yes, it is better to test the Book of Mormon's principles through living them (i.e. Alma 32) than it is to try to explain the discrepancies in its history (or perceived history.)

This is interesting in light of Moroni 10:3: “remember how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men, from the creation of Adam even down until the time that ye shall receive these things...” It would seem the Lord accommodates anyone's perception of history as long as it involves Him! And while our knowledge is quite imperfect, our faith (and sincerity and intent) can be sufficient (10:32).

 

I think there are many ways to test the Book of Mormon from a spiritual perspective. Moroni's promise is a very direct test and is presented by way of exhortation to receive confirmation by the power of the Holy Ghost. Alma's is an explanation of how to recognize spiritual knowledge when it arises as an answer to acting in faith, and that accepting the aid of the Spirit of the Lord is key to recognizing what is is good. I think Moroni picks up at the point where the reader concludes that there something is good enough to receive confirmation about.

[Rob Osborn]

Believing the "old-school" philosophies of man because it is traditional is no less closed minded.  I think the point is that it doesn't really matter what we believe at this moment, because we will be led to what we need to know piece by piece as we pray and obey.  It is ok to be old-school or new-school so long as you don't reject being spiritually schooled because you just can't let go of your favorite or traditional beliefs.

My point, is dont be so easily persuaded by mans learning because those philosophies usually do not lead to the truth. Scholars can live their whole lives in a closed shell determined they have found the truth and making sure all others are censored so that they themselves will be seen as the only ones capable of finding the truth. Truth comes from personal study coupled with the light of Christ and the Holy Ghost. Joseph Smith was one such possessor of truth because of his ability to keep his mind open.

[mfbukowski]

I'm not really sure that the type of paradigm shift Kuhn refers to with regard to scientific revolution is applicable here--I'd have to think about that. (I have the book in my library and I refer to it frequently)  However, I completely agree with you though that the paradigm or lens through which we view Book of Mormon peoples has had to change significantly over time--at least among those who accept any type of data that comes from empirical studies. That aside, yes, it is better to test the Book of Mormon's principles through living them (i.e. Alma 32) than it is to try to explain the discrepancies in its history (or perceived history.)

Agreed.

In mentioning Kuhn, I really only meant to only point out the entire idea that we view everything through cultural paradigms that do in fact shift.

 

But honestly, I think that the difference between the paradigm of God as an ineffible Spirit occupying the universe but somehow neither material nor subject to having a location, and yet somehow acting as a "Being", and our conception of God, actually does qualify as a "paradigm change" as important as the Copernican revolution was in science.

 

This shift now allows us to conceive a God who is compatible with materialsm and humanism both, and with Alma 32, suggests a different way of even understanding truth, which is also compatible with the Pragmatic theory of truth, and thus with other contemporary views on epistmology.

 

I think really we are at the tip of a theological revoltion which could make major differences in the world, but we don't understand what we have.

 

We are so busy worrying about finding swords in Mesoamerica and trying to rationalize how truth can be unchanging and yet having a God who progresses and gives us ongoiing revelation, that we miss the strengths of our position, and the potential to maximize our influence in the world by effectively communicating the big picture of our theoology to those who are hungry to hear it.

 

This is the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  It was not restored because God wanted us to follow the old paradigms, but to define new ways of seeing the gospel and telling others about them. 

 

We are so busy trying to join the co-opted "Christian" club that we bend over backwards to try to be just like them, and soft pedal our strongest beliefs, the very beliefs that make us unique.

 

We have made great progress in the last 185 or so years, but like the old church around 200 AD, we are at a crucial phase, in my opinion.  The old church adopted a theology which was fundamentally incompatible with the true gospel, because culturally that was all that was available in Greek thought, but times have changed and so has philosophy.  It is my view that contemporary philosophy - which understands that truth changes and grows over time- with views like those of Kuhn and company- is far more compatible with continuing revelation and Alma 32 and even Moroni 10: 4-5.

 

We have incredible potential- we just need to understand that and communicate it to the world in the proper way

[Kevin Christensen]

I'm not really sure that the type of paradigm shift Kuhn refers to with regard to scientific revolution is applicable here--I'd have to think about that. (I have the book in my library and I refer to it frequently)  However, I completely agree with you though that the paradigm or lens through which we view Book of Mormon peoples has had to change significantly over time--at least among those who accept any type of data that comes from empirical studies. That aside, yes, it is better to test the Book of Mormon's principles through living them (i.e. Alma 32) than it is to try to explain the discrepancies in its history (or perceived history.)

It was about twenty years ago when I saw a connection between Alma 32 and Kuhn's descriptions of the most important values for testing paradigms. That is, where Kuhn says that the most important values for testing competing paradigms are, testability, accuracy of key predictions, comprehensiveness and coherence, fruitfulness, simplicity and aesthetics, Alma says, experiment upon the word, watch for results, see what happens expands your mind and increases your understanding, appreciate what you discover that you would have never imagined otherwise, savor what is delicious and enlarges your soul, and move towards the unrealized but significant future promise. To me, Alma 32 is a primer on how to find the best and most promising paradigms.

Given the definition of truth as knowledge of "things as they are, as they were, and as they are to come," it is not truth that changes, but the understanding of the observer. Orthodoxy may have issues with such changes, but Mormonism has never been, at its roots and practice, a church of static, on the shelf, orthodoxy, however much some members have wanted it to be such. Creeds, Joseph said, "set up stakes and bounds to the work of the almighty, saying, 'Hitherto come and no further."

FWIW

Kevin C.

[stemelbow]

I think that any new idea or way of organizing ideas we receive is itself "scripture" in a way, since it gives us a new way of understanding the world, and after all that is what scripture is for.

 

I have found that the more I discipline myself by following the commandments, even the "hard"ones (each of us has a different 'hard one' ) the closer I am to the spirit, which is a feeling I crave more and more, as it grows sweeter and sweeter (Alma 32)

 

I hope that someday I will value that sweetness of the spirit more than I value whatever it is I get out of sin, so that the propensity to sin virtually disappears.

 

I have been close to that for very limited times in my life, and it was wonderful, but always some new challenge arises that challenges me in a different way that I have never experienced, and wham- the old patterns pop up again.  We are continually tested.

 

But I think it is dangerous to refuse to try to improve by labeling ANY challenge "too hard".  Even before I joined the church, my goal was to become the best human being I could, and I think there are many "humanists" in the same boat.

 

I can't conceive of voluntarily giving up some opportunity for personal growth because it is "too hard".  On the other hand, we should not be too hard on ourselves and give up, because then no growth is possible either.

 

It's not an easy balance!

Just saying I think we have burdened ourselves with non-commands calling them commandments. In so doing we often seem unfocused on the important ones of loving God and loving our neighbor. In practice I've noticed over the years many a non-LDS complain many LDS are rude, judgmental, unfriendly, arrogant etc. I have seen that type of stuff within my fellow church goers from time to time as well as they busy themselves with "church service" forgetting about actual service.

[stemelbow]

Sounds like an oxymoron to me.  

 

 

 

I wonder how God might answer this prayer:

 

"Father, please reveal to us which commandments are not important to obey because it is just too difficult to obey them all..."  

 

I dare you to pray like that in Sunday school. 

Why would I do that? We know the important commandments, we simply need to focus more on those and not worry so much about earrings and such.

[mfbukowski]

Just saying I think we have burdened ourselves with non-commands calling them commandments. In so doing we often seem unfocused on the important ones of loving God and loving our neighbor. In practice I've noticed over the years many a non-LDS complain many LDS are rude, judgmental, unfriendly, arrogant etc. I have seen that type of stuff within my fellow church goers from time to time as well as they busy themselves with "church service" forgetting about actual service.

Well, we pick our own "burdens" and define them as such ourselves.  It is clear to me that happiness and unhappiness are both choices.  I have seen people who have experienced unimaginable trials and pain who maintain a happy positive attitude, and others who complain about nothing.

 

Furthermore, I think that the attitudes of church members vary from place to place.  Judgemental attitudes are sometimes contagious.  It is one way people who see themselves as inferior make themselves feel better.  It is a learned behavior, I think.

 

I have not seen those attitudes in my particular stake.

[mfbukowski]

It was about twenty years ago when I saw a connection between Alma 32 and Kuhn's descriptions of the most important values for testing paradigms. That is, where Kuhn says that the most important values for testing competing paradigms are, testability, accuracy of key predictions, comprehensiveness and coherence, fruitfulness, simplicity and aesthetics, Alma says, experiment upon the word, watch for results, see what happens expands your mind and increases your understanding, appreciate what you discover that you would have never imagined otherwise, savor what is delicious and enlarges your soul, and move towards the unrealized but significant future promise. To me, Alma 32 is a primer on how to find the best and most promising paradigms.

Given the definition of truth as knowledge of "things as they are, as they were, and as they are to come," it is not truth that changes, but the understanding of the observer. Orthodoxy may have issues with such changes, but Mormonism has never been, at its roots and practice, a church of static, on the shelf, orthodoxy, however much some members have wanted it to be such. Creeds, Joseph said, "set up stakes and bounds to the work of the almighty, saying, 'Hitherto come and no further."

FWIW

Kevin C.

Thanks for the thoujghts.

 

It is difficult to reconcile the idea that truth does not change with the idea that our knowledge of the world changes through paradigm shifts which manifest the "understanding of the observer".  One might wonder how one knows that truth does not change, when all we have to work with is our changing understanding of it. 

 

Perhaps it is ultimately a semantic issue, and we have to again deal with the ambiguity of language, as the Perry Scheme has taught us.

 

Perhaps "things as they are" ARE things as we see them, and so things as they are really do change.

Edited October 28, 2014 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

Why would I do that? We know the important commandments, we simply need to focus more on those and not worry so much about earrings and such.

I think you are raising questions here which are half-asked.

[cdowis]

 

This is the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  It was not restored because God wanted us to follow the old paradigms, but to define new ways of seeing the gospel and telling others about them. 

 

We are so busy trying to join the co-opted "Christian" club that we bend over backwards to try to be just like them, and soft pedal our strongest beliefs, the very beliefs that make us unique.

 

We have made great progress in the last 185 or so years, but like the old church around 200 AD, we are at a crucial phase, in my opinion.  The old church adopted a theology which was fundamentally incompatible with the true gospel, because culturally that was all that was available in Greek thought, but times have changed and so has philosophy.  It is my view that contemporary philosophy - which understands that truth changes and grows over time- with views like those of Kuhn and company- is far more compatible with continuing revelation and Alma 32 and even Moroni 10: 4-5.

 

We have incredible potential- we just need to understand that and communicate it to the world in the proper way

 

I think we have been "communicate" by emphasizing our common beliefs, without abandoning our principles.  Often our differences are semantic, or even very minor, such as the discussion on grace vs works.  There is a way to express our belief which de-emphasizes our differences.

 

For example, if someone asks to whether I am "saved", I merely say, "Well, I believe that being saved is a journey rather than a single event.  Repentance for sin is a necessary part of that journey."

Edited October 29, 2014 by cdowis

[Mars]

mfbukowski,

 

Do you think some of the more fundamental elements of the Gospel - say, for example, the notion that a guy has to recognize his shortcomings as well as the absolute need for the Atonement to be made whole - are shaped by our understanding of the world around us?

 

I'm having a hard time thinking how someone in 50 CE, 325 CE, 1450 CE, 1836 CE, or today would have drastically different viewpoints on that particular issue.

[mfbukowski]

mfbukowski,

 

Do you think some of the more fundamental elements of the Gospel - say, for example, the notion that a guy has to recognize his shortcomings as well as the absolute need for the Atonement to be made whole - are shaped by our understanding of the world around us?

 

I'm having a hard time thinking how someone in 50 CE, 325 CE, 1450 CE, 1836 CE, or today would have drastically different viewpoints on that particular issue.

Long answer- for short version see below.

 

Good to see you-  it's been a while!

 

Great question- it becomes a chicken/egg issue- which comes first, the chicken or the egg?  In this case the question is which comes first, the cultural pressure to act in a "moral" way and feeling guilt for not measuring up ("understanding the world around us") or the gospel notion of guilt and knowledge that we are fallen beings and therefore in need of the atonement?  Or a better way to say it is, which story says it better?  What is the purpose for the story?

 

Which parable shall we use for which audience?

 

So in a sense, how much is cultural and how much is "revealed truth"?  I don't think these two can be separated, really, it just depends on how one wants to think about these issues.   I have been thinking a lot about this recently, how gospel vocabularies (ie scriptural explanations and expositions) parallel secular ways of seeing the world, and I have been noticing that really these can be seen as two different languages explaining the same kinds of experiences.   I think that one can be "translated" into the other.

 

So we can see it in both a secular way and a gospel way, and use different vocabularies to explain the same experiences. 

 

The gospel explanation would be that The Light of Christ within us causes us to feel bad about hurting others and not measuring up, and so we feel guilt, which can be very painful if we have seriously wronged someone.  So we feel the need for the atonement, because we have felt the fall from innocence and cry out to God for peace.   This parallels the garden of Eden story of course, especially as told in the temple.  God tells us that there is a plan which will redeem us, that a savior will be sent to take away our sins, and to save us from the pain of the fall, if we but believe in the savior (believe the story) and repent.  Eve, in her genius, sees that there is no other way to raise her children to exaltation without knowing both good and evil.

 

The secular story would be that,  because we have accepted the mores of our culture, which teach us that in order to live peacefully and therefore have happy society in which to raise lots of happy babies, which is good for the culture, when we have damaged the culture itself by damaging a member, we have violated the happiness of all, and we feel separation from their protection, which causes pain and guilt, since we cannot survive alone.  Fall from innocence and consequent explulstion in a culture is death.  We feel guilt which is dissonance between our knowledge of the acts we have committed and the cultural mores we have internalized, and that conflict causes pain.   We seek to make it right.  The only way we can do that is by doing our best to never again commit acts against our cultural mores ("repentance" in the other scheme)   We need to believe that never doing it again will make us free from the guilt.  After all, we have learned our lesson, and thus the culture is justified in keeping us, and we are thus "saved" from the death of separation from the culture.  Morality has "evolved" as a need of society to both survive in a competitive world and stay civilized.

 

We need both good and evil, and knowledge of the pleasure and pain of both to become fully civilized and reach our fullest human potential.  (Note the Eve story above)

 

So we have this pair of kind of Jungian "myths" describing the same scenario in two vocabularies/languages.  Which is "correct"?   Both and neither.  Both are explanations prepared for a specific context to describe the same human experience- both teach that if you do something wrong, feel guilt, and do your best to never do it again, your guilt will go away.  Neither explain it fully, miss nuances of the other, and miss that there are a zillion other ways of seeing it all as well.

 

So I think that is a universal human behavior, explained on one hand with the Adam and Eve story, and the other explained by some contemporary sociologist- type, enither of which get it all right, but that is the problem with any explanation of anything.

 

But are these both manifestations of "Universal Absolute Truth"?  That depends on what explanation communicates best to you.   If you are religious, the first will work for you, if you are not, the second will.

 

For me that is the total brilliance of Mormonism, because we have unified both explanations because we have the underlying idea that GOD IS HUMAN.

 

We have elevated humanity and the concerns of humanity as Ideals - as Archetypes which we actually worship!!  It's a phenomenal idea!  We essentially worship THE FAMILY as an ideal.

 

"Families can be together forever

Thru Heavenly Father's plan

I always want to be

With my own family

And the Lord has shown me how I can"

 

Using secular language, we worship family values.   The Godhead itself is a Family.  The ideal behavior is the behavior which promotes familhy and social welfare.  We are to work to become a Zion society, in which the Patriarchal Order reigns, even including our dead, who we remember, and cherish and commemorate with ordinances to help them help us achieve "Forever Families".

 

So yes, I think these are universal human values which work for all cultures, and times, no matter what words you want to use ot explain them.  Any civilized human living at any time ultimately has to affirm some kind of family values because humanity would become extinct without them.  The fact is that our babies are born helpless and cannot fend for themselves really until they are young adults!  That means we must provide a family support- some kind of cultural support- and therefore cultural support is critical to survival of the species, and we call that cultural support "civilization".

 

BUT WAIT A MINUTE THERE, BUKOWSKI- I THOUGHT YOU SAID THERE WERE NO TRUTHS THAT WERE ALWAYS TRUE- THAT TRUTH CHANGES AND SO WE HAVE PARADIGM SHIFTS AND ALL THAT STUFF.

 

Notice I told two stories here, one was the religious way and the other was the secular way of expressing the same human experiences.

 

THAT is the key here.  There is no "one true way" to express human experience in language, because we each have our own experiences.  Each of the two versions of the story are "true" yet each tells it in a drastically different way.  Each way of telling the story serves its own purposes.  One story tells "the truth" for the humanist, the other tells "the truth" for the Mormon.  Each represents two different paradigms, two stories, two vocabularies two "truths"

 

Does that help at all?

Edited October 30, 2014 by mfbukowski