Moroni's Promise vs Sign Seeking

[Nofear]

Seeking and sign and asking for confirmation of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon are different things, at least at some level.
Without having put too much thought into it, I found myself not quite able to articulate the differences very well. So, I thought I'd ask this group (as a shortcut to deep thinking?).
Anyway, your comments would be appreciated.

[CV75]

1 hour ago, Nofear said:

Seeking and sign and asking for confirmation of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon are different things, at least at some level.
Without having put too much thought into it, I found myself not quite able to articulate the differences very well. So, I thought I'd ask this group (as a shortcut to deep thinking?).
Anyway, your comments would be appreciated.

I would say a sign serves as a type or evidence while personal revelation serves as communion and communication.

[smac97]

1 hour ago, Nofear said:

Seeking and sign and asking for confirmation of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon are different things, at least at some level.

I agree.  I think the latter, embodied in Moroni's Promise, is intended to engender and strengthen acceptance of things on faith, whereas the former is intended to circumvent faith.  See, e.g., this The Encyclopedia of Mormonism's entry on "Sign Seeking":

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Signs are greeted by the faithful with reverence and appreciation (see Signs As Divine Witness). On the other hand, a sign can become a condemnation to an unbeliever (D&C 63:7-11). Skeptics may rationalize the signs as aberrations of nature, harden their heart, and not recognize or acknowledge God's "hand in all things" (D&C 59:21). When an unbeliever seeks for a sign he is tempting God and subjects himself to possible condemnation and the wrath of God. Two vivid Book of Mormon cases illustrating the consequences of unholy sign seeking are Sherem (Jacob 7:13-14) and Korihor (Alma 30:43-56). Furthermore, Jesus said to the Jewish rulers, "a wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign" (Matt. 16:4). And in the latter days, Jesus explained that "he that seeketh signs shall see signs, but not unto salvation" (D&C 63:7). There is a great difference between signs to confirm or reward faith and the seeking of signs as an excuse for not exercising faith or as a substitute for faith.

"There is a great difference between signs to confirm or reward faith and the seeking of signs as an excuse for not exercising faith or as a substitute for faith."

I think that's substantively correct.  

Thanks,

-Smac

 

[Calm]

5 hours ago, Nofear said:

Seeking and sign and asking for confirmation of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon are different things, at least at some level.
Without having put too much thought into it, I found myself not quite able to articulate the differences very well. So, I thought I'd ask this group (as a shortcut to deep thinking?).
Anyway, your comments would be appreciated.

Signs are external and confirmation is internal.

Edited February 22, 2024 by Calm

[Nofear]

2 minutes ago, Calm said:

Signs are external and confirmation is internal.

I'm pretty sure one can ask for internal signs too (e.g. a dream etc.).
One of Ostler's points is also that he can use spiritual experience as a basis for belief precisely because he recognizes the experience as being external to himself.

[LoudmouthMormon]

When I took Alma's experiment and sought Moroni's promise, and spent upwards of a year reading and praying, nothing short of the promised result would have sufficed for me: 

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But behold, if ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words.

Now, we will compare the word unto a seed. Now, if ye give place, that a seed may be planted in your heart, behold, if it be a true seed, or a good seed, if ye do not cast it out by your unbelief, that ye will resist the Spirit of the Lord, behold, it will begin to swell within your breasts; and when you feel these swelling motions, ye will begin to say within yourselves—It must needs be that this is a good seed, or that the word is good, for it beginneth to enlarge my soul; yea, it beginneth to enlighten my understanding, yea, it beginneth to be delicious to me.

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And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost. 

My skeptical rational doubting self would never have bent my knee without experiencing, unambiguously, unmistakably, such a thing.  

Seeking a sign and seeking a confirmation are different, and one's ok while the other isn't?  Ok.  I don't really understand it, but ok.

[GoCeltics]

6 hours ago, Nofear said:

Seeking and sign and asking for confirmation of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon are different things, at least at some level.

What kind of confirmation sign are you looking for regarding the truthfulness of other 
books considered part of this church's canon? Additionally, do you seek signs to confirm 
the messages heard during General Conference as well?

[Nofear]

Ok, I put some thought into it and I think I have most of the answer. My criteria is that it should be simple and intuitive. A religion that requires a doctorate to be accessible isn't worth the paper that the thesis is written on. When one reads the answer the response should be, "Well, duh, I knew that."

There are two main factors (I believe there are other elements but these two are the largest and most common attributes). They are intention and direction. The two are quite similar but the two English words rhyme, so hey, yay.

Intention: Sincere prayerful inquiry is one where the petitioner is willing to respond of their own accord. If one has no intention of responding to the answer (unless it is the one they want) then the Lord isn't typically going to give us one. We have to be willing to act on the answer. Similarly, if we have no intention to  respond but that the Lord gives us "no choice" but to act, then we won't likely get a response either. One of the fundamental tenants of our mortal experience is that moral agency must be preserved (in all be the rarest of circumstances). He won't force our hand.

Direction: We must face the Lord and be willing to move (again, intention). If we turn away and are unwilling to face that Lord but instead is of the mindset, "God, turn me around if you want me to believe in you" then we similarly aren't likely to get an answer. We must be humble and willing to look at Moses's staff and not require the Lord face us that direction. The Lord will always be ready to accept us but he doesn't descend from Holy Places to make us come to Him. The faithful supplicant will take the Lord's response as given by the Lord while the sign seeker often seeks to dictate the nature of the response.

 

A sign seeker might have one or neither of those attributes but not both. A humble petitioner will have both. Sometimes one may not know in what direction to look and are "kept from the truth because they know not where to find it." Hence the importance of missionary work, the scriptures, priesthood blessings, and faithful ministering. We can position ourselves in the direction of the Lord and help others see that direction as a nearby signpost as it were. But if we are not facing in the right way ourselves, then obviously we wouldn't be of too much help. Missionaries may often yahoos by virtue of their youth, but the nature of their work when faithfully done points them in the right direction and investigators can then then know in which way to look too.

I think the response of the nature "internal" vs "external" were trying to express the above concepts. I prefer intention and direction vs external and internal. Spiritual experiences are external events that we perceive individually (hence the temptation to call them internal). Sign seekers may well seek external evidences but it is quite possible the sign seeker could ask for demand/require an internal response (e.g. a dream, burning in the bosom, etc.). Similarly, faithful petitioners are sometimes given answers externally (some event that happens in the public world). By internal I suspect the idea of intention is often trying to be expressed.

Anyway, those are my thoughts on the matter. I welcome additional insights, corrections, modifications, abject praise, or other helpful responses.

Edited February 23, 2024 by Nofear

[OGHoosier]

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7 But ye are commanded in all things to ask of God, who giveth liberally; and that which the Spirit testifies unto you even so I would that ye should do in all holiness of heart, walking uprightly before me, considering the end of your salvation, doing all things with prayer and thanksgiving, that ye may not be seduced by evil spirits, or doctrines of devils, or the commandments of men; for some are of men, and others of devils.

8 Wherefore, beware lest ye are deceived; and that ye may not be deceived seek ye earnestly the best gifts, always remembering for what they are given;

9 For verily I say unto you, they are given for the benefit of those who love me and keep all my commandments, and him that seeketh so to do; that all may be benefited that seek or that ask of me, that ask and not for a sign that they may consume it upon their lusts.

D&C 46:7-9 (emphasis mine)

This is from D&C 46's discussion of spiritual gifts; one should note that verses 13 and 14 include the crucial elements of what we call a testimony:

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13 To some it is given by the Holy Ghost to know that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and that he was crucified for the sins of the world.

14 To others it is given to believe on their words, that they also might have eternal life if they continue faithful.

D&C 46:13-14

From these verses I consider a testimony to be a spiritual gift on par with the rest of them, and "sign-seeking" is therefore the request for a spiritual gift for illegitimate motives. What are these illegitimate motives? You will note that the "consume it upon their lusts" language associates D&C 46 with James 4:

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1 From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?

2 Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not.

3 Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.

4 Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.

5 Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy?

6 But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.

James 4:1-6

I think the critical difference between Moroni's promise and sign-seeking is that sign-seeking is predominantly other-oriented; to justify our positions to others or compel them to believe. It attempts to make God's self-disclosure into a means of control or pride. Sign-seeking is an attitude that seeks to befriend us with the world, via its epistemology or public acclaim or whatever. Reminds me a lot of Iain McGilchrist's thoughts about the pathology and ultimate downfall of left-brain dominance:

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Our dominant value - sometimes I fear our only value - has, very clearly, become that of power. This aligns us with a brain system, that of the left hemisphere, the raison d'etre of which is to control and manipulate the world. The whole point of its knowing is, simply, the better to control: as Francis Bacon famously put it, knowledge is power. But for us to be satisfied that we have power, the world must be seen to respond to our will, and work according to rules that we can know and operate, whenever and to whatever extent our will dictates. Any suggestion that some things are not amenable to this approach is taken as an affront to the onward march of the human intellect. Odd as it may seem, it is the very same people that view humans as little more than conniving apes that are most vain about their human capacity to know and do. The position seems to be that, however limited, commonplace, and unamazing we are, the world is even more limited, commonplace, and unamazing, since with all our shortcomings we can understand it. This could be contrasted with the view that marvellous as we are, the world is even more marvellous than we have the capacity to understand. As the British nuclear physicist Emerson Pugh put it: "If the human brain were so simple that we could understand it, we would be so simple that we couldn't."

Iain McGilchrist, The Matter With Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World, vol. 1, pg. 49

Edited February 23, 2024 by OGHoosier

[Stargazer]

In my opinion, sign-seeking comes from a lack of faith, a will to disbelieve, or even a defiance against faith. When the Lord said "An evil and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign" (Matt 12:39) he wasn't condemning the humble search for confirmation of truth, but the doubter's active defiance. Will a sign convince a doubter? Maybe temporarily, but not necessarily over the long haul. The perfect example can be found in Laman and Lemuel.

Following the advice in James 1:5 or Moroni 10:4 is not sign-seeking. Defying the Lord to prove you wrong, that is sign-seeking. 

Edited March 3, 2024 by Stargazer