HAVE WE HEARD ENOUGH FROM GOD?
Who's going to tell Him to shut his mouth?
My friend, Mary, who continues to attack Joseph Smith as “a false prophet” and depict his followers (including me) as pathetic dupes, also persists in her ignorant refusal to read the Book of Mormon. In the midst of the great and ongoing controversy that has always swirled around the founder of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, that book is really the only way to cut through the controversy, blow away all the smoke and develop an independent, informed, first-hand opinion about the man and his work.
In the face of her dug-in refusal to inform herself, I recently sent Mary a quote from C.S. Lewis:
“If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth, only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair."
Mary responded thusly:
“Jesus IS TRUTH (the WAY/TRUTH/LIFE) and I have all three in Jesus alone. Jesus is also the WORD, whose WORD is embodied in the Holy Bible alone.”
Here is my rejoinder:
Beats me, Mary, how you came up with the silly idea that every word God ever uttered or intended for mankind to have is contained in the hodge-podge, patch-work, pieced-together, multi-translated Bible.
7 Lost Books of the Bible: Uncovering Missing Scriptures
21 Books Mentioned in the Bible That Are Likely Lost
And again:
Nevertheless, regarding your closed-minded approach to the Book of Mormon, your own Bible condemns you:
"Test all things and hold fast to that which is good." - 1 Thessalonians 5:21
The prejudiced, condemning, condescending attitude you have taken regarding information you have never considered and thus are completely ignorant of does not speak well of your intellect, your willingness and ability to learn what you do not know, and is a standing repudiation of the mindset Paul encouraged the Thessalonian Christians to embrace. Notwithstanding their having a testimony of Christ, which they clearly already did, Paul, obviously indicating there was more to learn, admonished these people to keep open minds and put everything to an honest test.
This principle is almost embarrassingly self-evident. Indeed, since none of us knows everything about anything and there is always more to learn - that is simply the nature of life - being open to learning what you didn't know before is simply the road ahead, the road to truth, the basis for all human progress and the pathway to the ever-brighter day that increasing knowledge of truth brings. Does God take a different path? I think not:
"That which is of God is light; and he that receiveth light, and continueth in God, receiveth more light; and that light groweth brighter and brighter until the perfect day” (D&C 50:24)
"For behold, thus saith the Lord God: I will give unto the children of men line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little; and blessed are those who hearken unto my precepts, and lend an ear unto my counsel, for they shall learn wisdom; for unto him that receiveth I will give more; and from them that shall say, ‘We have enough’, from them shall be taken away even that which they have." - Book of Mormon, 2 Nephi 28:30
Do you "have enough", Mary? Do you think you have arrived at "the perfect day"? Are you certain you know and understand everything God intends you to receive at his hand? If so, you will certainly receive no more. Why would you?
The further implication in Paul's words to the Thessalonians was that real Christians have the means within themselves - an oblique reference to the witness of the Holy Spirit - to recognize "that which is good". As previously noted, the Christian scriptures, both the Bible and the Book of Mormon, are replete with recitations of this promise:
"Ask and ye shall receive, seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you", "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God..", "Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free", "Flesh and blood have not revealed it unto you, but my Father which is in Heaven", "And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things."
Do you believe these promises, Mary? I don't think so. The Chinese have a saying:
口是心非
Literally, it means “mouth is, heart isn’t”. One could translate it to mean “hypocrisy” - saying one thing, believing another.
Paul obviously did not share your dead-in-the-water, know-it-all, we-have-enough mentality. He did not teach that, having learned a little about Christ, just able to drink milk but not yet ready to eat meat, one nevertheless needed to learn nothing more - that God had nothing more to teach. Paul did not teach Christians to close their minds, as you have closed yours, and learn no more, thereafter going about in the faithless fear, as you do, that by learning something new you might be walking into the devil's embrace.
Having never read the Book of Mormon - a work millions upon millions - I and your father and mother among them - have read and believe to be, along with the Bible, the veritable Word of God - and, worse, having declared your determination never to read it - you cannot claim, except by resort to some sort of twisted, self-serving reasoning - to have embraced Paul's admonition and put that information to the sort of open-minded test he encouraged. Consequently, as I have noted before, you have failed the biblical test and have no standing in a discussion of this topic in company with intelligent, informed people - to say nothing of judging, attacking and dismissing those who are informed.
You remind me, Mary, of nothing more than the Jews, who, as God’s ancient covenant people, did have something - quite a lot, actually - but not a correct understanding of the Messiah. From Jesus's day to this, they have closed their minds and refused to consider the argument for Christ, even skipping over inconvenient passages in their own scripture, such as Isaiah 53. How many Jews do you suppose have read the New Testament? And how would most of them react if they were invited to do so? Just as you have reacted to the Book of Mormon. Locked blindly down in their static preconceived notions - as are you - the Jews, at least for the time being, have priorities other than the open-ended pursuit of truth. That mindset has not worked out well for them...
Always trying to get down to the root of things, my assessment is that you, notwithstanding your vociferous representations to the contrary, have a fundamental problem of lack of faith, and that critical shortfall makes you afraid - in this case - forgive me, but almost comically - afraid to read a book. It is, after all, just a book, ink on paper, page after page...
You obviously do not trust the aforesaid promises central to the Christian proposition to the world - that God himself, by his inimitable power, will prove his case to his human family and lead his people - those with eyes to see and ears to hear - not by endless contentious interpretations of scriptures which, in and of themselves, without the Spirit, are dead - scriptures which in any case "are of no private interpretation" - but by the continuing manifestations and direct guidance of the Holy Spirit. If you actually believed those promises, Mary, you would have no fear of putting the Book of Mormon to the test.
Instead of choosing the more excellent way - the direct, open-ended guidance of the Spirit of Truth - "line upon line, precept upon precept" - you, as previously noted, insist on falling back into that traditional, tumultuous bruhaha of scriptural combat - the confused, non-stop trench warfare of scriptural interpretation - a war that has been fought for thousands of years with never a winner, and never producing this:
There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all." - Ephesians 4:4-6
Instead, the Christian Church, starting early, was as if someone had thrown a fragmentation grenade into the meeting house.
As of 2024, there are approximately 45,000 different Christian denominations worldwide - “…with different beliefs, practices and interpretations of scripture.”
Now, Mary, again, you have the right to believe anything you want based on anything you want. I do support you in that right, and I do not take offense that we disagree on some things - even some critically important things, as this issue is. For me, a perfect harmony of views is not a condition of friendship. Indeed, I never had a friend - even my very best - that I was in perfect agreement with on every subject.
However, when you propose to attack, demean and dismiss what you clearly are grossly ignorant of, as you have repeatedly done with regard to Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon, and, worse, doggedly refuse to inform yourself about the matters you presume to criticize, you completely disqualify and dismiss yourself as an intelligent, informed critic or contributor to the conversation and deserve to be passed over in silence.
For my part, Mary, if someone were fairly to accuse me, as I have you, of being ignorant on a subject I had been pontificating on - as you, depending on others to do your thinking for you, have ignorantly pontificated regarding Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon - I would find that intolerable and would be immediately compelled to scathing introspection. I would know that I had two choices - either put a sock in it and retire from the field or get down to the business of learning what I needed to know to engage intelligently and avoid making a fool of myself.
Right vs. wrong, reality vs. fantasy, knowledge vs. ignorance, order vs. chaos, law vs. lawlessness, justice vs. injustice, light vs. darkness, virtue vs. vice, good vs. evil, happiness vs. misery, God vs. the Godless…
Life is sorting us all out… We can’t not choose…
Torquemada
Best,
Ron