That may look like a lot of books behind Robert Boylan, but he can eat all those before breakfast.
This post is going to read like a free-flow of thought, a bit of a ramble, but if you follow along and don't skim, you should be rewarded with some interesting thoughts.
I'm not a huge fan of debates in general, but it does say something that the prominent LDS scholar Robert Boylan, whom I count as a friend, has a difficult time finding people who are willing to debate him. If you look through his blog, Scriptural Mormonism, you'll understand why prominent Protestant scholars (let alone your local Pastor) will find every excuse in "the book" to avoid talking about "The Good Book" with him.
When it comes to apologetics, I'm more of an armchair guy than a scholar but I come up with ideas other people don't come up with, and I put those ideas "out there" in the hopes that people will consider them. Some aren't fans of my style because I leave ideas on the table which they don't know what to do with. But although I may be one of the "weak things" of the world, sometimes that's what God uses.
(As an aside, in an odd way I have the same problem as Robert, i.e. trying to get people to engage rather than dismissing from a distance).
Engaging is not simply responding. It entails taking time to understand and steelman, then respond, THEN listen and wait for the counter-response, and start the process over, attempting to provide clarification and find mutual agreement on where the disagreements lie.
And it's beautiful when we can actually see it work.
However, apologetics and criticisms are both limited by certain realities.
For one thing, they are 90% about history, and history is deeply flawed. People tend not to realize how deeply flawed it is, because people from the past aren't here to correct us.
Misunderstandings happen all the time in our own daily lives, but when people are dead they are no longer able to clarify. Misunderstandings get set in stone, and we don't account for the fact that much of what we read, be it in a journal scrap someone wrote when angry, or a passing reference in a newspaper from 200 years ago, penned by a busy journalist, do not reflect reality. Many misunderstandings got cleared up before making their way into the historical record, but many did not. And we don't know how many that is.
Try this thought experiment. Imagine you die, and 100 years from now the only thing people know about you is what others wrote on social media when mentioning you. How accurate would that picture be of you?
My Best Friend
Yesterday I attended the Memorial Service of my best friend, Austin. A celebration of his life, by those who knew and loved him. And although only true things were said about him, there is no way anyone would have even close to an accurate understanding of him and his life if they were basing their understanding on the service rather than knowing him intimately and having hundreds of hours of deep conversation. And that's okay.
But the same problem faces us with history.
A good example is the Kinderhook Plates. I've tried to make this point for years, and I'm grateful that at least LDS Scholar/Philosopher Blake Ostler told me that he thinks my analysis is very good. That's pretty much the only feedback I've received from anyone, though.
But the point here isn't about the Kinderhook Plates specifically, but how much we don't and can't know, generally.
The work of grief is so hard. But the growth and learning that can come from it is incalculable. And I'm grateful I was able to know him as deeply as I could have in this life. And yet I'll still be surprised when I get to the other side and learn how many misconceptions I've had, even about him.
The Meaning Of Life
After the Memorial Service, I went with some friends to a favorite spot, a particular restaurant where Austin and I had been to countless times.
Right as we sat down, before we even ordered our food, in light of my best friend's death one of my friends said, "Ryan, what is the meaning of life?"
I thought for just a second, then I answered, "It's not what meets the eye. There's more going on than we know."
I used the analogy from the first Harry Potter film, where the bad guy was trying to get the Sorcerer's Stone, but he was stumped. He was standing in front of a mirror which contained the stone, but he couldn't figure out how to obtain the stone from the mirror. You see, the mirror had been enchanted so that one could only obtain the stone if they were not seeking it and didn't want it.
What is it that we are seeking knowledge for? Is it to build a Tower of Babel to get us to heaven? Or is it because we want to know God?
Knowledge comes forth "in the own due time of the Lord." Otherwise, we would not be able to exercise and strengthen our faith. What a wonderful time we live in, 200 years are marked from the time God the Father introduced His Beloved Son, Jesus Christ, to a 14-year-old named Joseph Smith, in a Sacred Grove. As our living Prophet has declared, big things are coming, and we are so fortunate to be able to live through this marvelous time and help prepare the world for the Second Coming.
As that 14-year-old showed, even prophets are here to learn and are experiencing a mortal probation. God never pronounced that prophets (or parents!) are perfect, but that they have a place in His plan, pointing His flock to Him. God's plan is perfect, but is intended to be implemented by imperfect people, in a setting of powerful opposing forces. On one hand, perfection. On the other hand, purposeful imperfection.By understanding that there is a purpose to imperfection, we can accept a "precept upon precept" approach, expecting some answers will come now, others later. This, the Gospel predicts. If we understand the fall of man and the Atonement, along with the role of faith and repentance, it only makes sense that we would struggle with challenges.
If one accepts D&C 76:1-10, it shapes the possibilities one is willing to pursue. This approach does not preclude scholarship, although the scholarly research operates within parameters. Those who think unkindly of this approach might not be aware of ways in which their dismissal of such evidence affects their own scholarship. When dismissing claims which point to Joseph Smith being a true Seer, one must be aware and upfront about whether or not they are imposing their own prejudices and thereby restricting the scope of their own scholarship. We may tend to think our own biases are just obvious facts. And that can lead to premises which we have not taken time to formally consider. We may also tend to think this is only a problem other people have which we don't have. We think our own opinions, of course, are always the best. That's why we hold them.
Differences in ways of viewing information may be unavoidable, because some assumptions may be required prior to the application of logic. Each individual's intuition plays a role in determining which assumptions they will make. It is important to remember that intuitions lead to assumptions which lead to premises which only then do we apply logic to. It is helpful to be aware of our intuitions and how they cause us to favor our chosen assumptions over alternate assumptions.
The existence of intellectual challenges is expected in LDS doctrine. These, along with other challenges, are even central to the Gospel; the Atonement of Jesus Christ being the greatest challenge and the centerpiece of the Gospel. We might not realize it but our challenge, our yoke, is mitigated through the Atonement, so that our challenge is limited to only what is necessary for our growth and our exercise of agency.
In an LDS view, we intentionally left a Heavenly home and intentionally had our knowledge of reality temporarily erased from our memory. We are meant to search. This is the intended context of our earth experience. Knowing this is the intended context helps us understand why God does not usually make Himself known through our external senses, but speaks instead to our hearts. Even when we are mentally and physically in a state of tumult, the veil allows us to choose for ourselves whether and how we will search out and follow that voice.
This unique LDS concept, of us choosing to come to earth with a "veil" over our minds, offers a theological explanation for the question our atheist friends pose: "if there is a God, why doesn't God just prove it is so?" From the LDS point of view, with the veil being part of the plan, the question can be answered with a question: "what would be the purpose of a veil that blocks our knowledge, if God were to simply turn around and reveal all that knowledge?" Instead, this world is intended to house varying degrees of understanding. Precious spirits are born into a variety of circumstances. Half of the world's population worships the God of Abraham, and over half of that group worship Jesus Christ as their Savior - and, among those Christians, a variety of interpretations and understandings exist. The Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ is itself far from completely revealed. Much more is to come.
We may at times wonder why sacrifice is necessary, and why God does not just give us the end result without the struggle. I suspect it might not be logically possible to know what suffering feels like without feeling it. The intellectual side we might be able to comprehend through reason, but the human side we might only be able to comprehend through experience. I believe this underlies the struggle in the war in heaven.
In accordance with God not generally revealing Himself directly to the world's physical senses, the purpose of life is not to figure out God with our intellect, again like the Tower of Babel, trying to reach Heaven with human reasoning instead of God. What sense would it make for God to test our intellect? That is not the purpose for our coming here. Christ never required from us the wisdom of man. He chose a 14-year-old boy. He chose fishermen. He never said anyone must be "scholarly enough" to get into heaven. He's not impressed with our intellects. He said one must become as a little child. The idea behind coming to this earth is to give us opportunities to choose and to experience. As we are surrounded by a fog, God's voice speaks to our heart, a voice our spirit recognizes even though it doesn't remember why.
Even if we don't intellectually know that the voice is God, we hear it in our souls. The test of this life is to use our agency to determine how important that voice is to us. When we hear His voice and want to be closer to Him, even though we can't see Him, that is faith.
I believe that when we pass through the veil, and greet those who have gone before, we will see that Joseph Smith is sweet and kind and gentle, just as so many who knew him in life attested.
For now, there is a great deal of disagreement on what to believe. Why does God not just tell us in objective, scientific terms? Because the reason for believing matters.
So, then, what do we make of challenges like the arguments against the things God tells us and we know to be true? Childlike faith, based on staying close to Heavenly Father, is paramount in dealing with issues we don't understand.
