LeGrand L. Baker

Blog

  • As a Prophet Thinketh in His Heart, So Is He: The Mind of Joseph Smith

    Chauncey C. Riddle
    Professor of Philosophy
    Brigham Young University
    Originally given in 1988

    Chapter 15 in The Prophet Joseph: Essays on the Life and Mission of Joseph Smith, edited by Larry C. Porter and Susan Easton Black, (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1988), pp. 261–279.

    One important question a thinking Latter-day Saint might ask concerning Joseph Smith is, What are the basic beliefs of his thinking? In other words, what are the fundamental ideas which are part of all that he felt, thought, and did?

    This question is important because the mind of Joseph Smith was shaped by God himself; the thinking as represented in the scriptures which came through him is a prime clue to the nature of the mind of God. And since it is the opportunity of each Latter-day Saint to come to have one mind with God and with all of the holy prophets since the beginning, this question also comes down to what each of us should believe.

    I will attempt to isolate the most important features of the thinking of the Prophet Joseph Smith. This is not a work of scholarship, for no scholarly methodology enables one to make the value judgments necessary to this task. This writing is more a personal testimony, an editorial on the life and thought of the Prophet. Admittedly it represents my personal opinions, based on a lifetime of study of the scriptures and pondering of the doctrines of the restored gospel. A similar effort on the part of everyone is an important labor in establishing Zion as we strive to attain one mind, the Savior’s mind.

    This paper lists and elaborates the ideas which I believe are central to the thought of Joseph Smith and to the thought of all others who pursue the revelations of the true and living God in the hope of being saved from ignorance and impurity. My method is to give the reader a trisection by which to contemplate these ideas. One aspect will be quotations from the nonscriptural writings of the Prophet, another will be scriptural references, and still another will be my comments.

    1. The heart of man is the key, the most important factor of man’s being. “Thus you see, my dear brother, the willingness of our heavenly Father to forgive sins, and restore to favor all those who are willing to humble themselves before Him and confess their sins, and forsake them, and return to Him with full purpose of heart, acting no hypocrisy, to serve Him to the end.” 1

    The four parts of man are the heart, which is the function of desiring and choosing; the mind, which is the function of understanding, knowing, and planning; the strength, which is the physical body of man, having the functions of sensing, acting, and procreating; and the might, which is the influence of a person (of the heart, mind, and strength) as that person acts in the world. Thus the four important things to understand about any person in a given situation are the person’s motive (heart), intention (mind), action (strength), and resulting influence (might)—the most important of these being heart, for it is the independent variable. (2 Nephi 31:13: “Follow the Son, with full purpose of heart.”).

    2. Man’s life consists of using one’s heart and mind to choose and act.“A man may be saved, after the judgment, in the terrestrial kingdom, or in the telestial kingdom, but he can never see the celestial kingdom of God, without being born pf water and the Spirit. He may receive a glory like unto   the moon [i.e., of which the light of the moon is typical] or a star, [i.e., of which the light of the stars is typical]: but can never come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels; to the general assembly and Church of the Firstborn, which are written in heaven and to God the judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant unless he becomes as a little child, and is taught by the Spirit of God.”2

    To live is to act. To act is to sense a problem, perceive the situation, choose and plan a solution, and act to create a change the odd in the hope of solving the problem. The world is ones environment. A person acts to change that environment so that the desires of the person will be fulfilled. Actions do not always result in the fulfillment of desire, but persons always act to fulfill desire. (Proverbs 23.7. “As he thinketh in his heart, so is he.”)

    To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction in people as well as in particles, so whenever a person act; to change hi environment, that action also changes himself. (2 Nephi 2:1: “Opposition in all things.”) The specific change of self-involved in a given action is that every choosing creates a propensity to make a similar choice at a later time. That propensity, if reinforced with similar choices, will eventually create a habit in the person, and habits create a character. (Alma 62:41: “Hardened, … softened.”)

    To live a human life is to attempt to reshape one’s environment; this attempt may or may not succeed, but the attempt always creates a set of habits, a character, in the person. A person always succeeds in shaping the self into the image of that person’s own desires. (D&C 123:11–17. “Cheerfully do all things that lie in our power.”)

    To live spiritually is to act under the direction of the Holy Spirit, which leads to eternal life, which is the fulness of acting spiritually. (Moses 6:59: “Enjoy the words of eternal life in this world, and eternal life in the world to come even immortal glory.”)  

    3. In every action man must choose between what he believes to be the better and the worse, between darkness and light.“We again make remark here—for we find that the very principle upon which the disciples were accounted blessed, was because they were permitted to see with their eyes and hear with their ears—that the condemnation which rested upon the multitude that received not His saying, was because they were not willing to see with their eyes, and hear with their ears; not because they could not, and were not privileged to see and hear, but because their hearts were full of iniquity and abominations; ‘as your fathers did, so do ye.’ The prophet, foreseeing that they would thus harden their hearts, plainly declared it; and herein is the condemnation of the world; that light hath come into the world, and men choose darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil. This is so plainly taught by the Savior, that a wayfaring man need not mistake it.”3

    What a person thinks is better, the person calls good; and what a person thinks is worse may be called evil. This is to say that every human has agency. The agency consists in being subject to a person’s own desires, thus enabling that person to call some things good because they are desired by the person, and to call some things evil, or bad, or undesirable, because they are not desired by the person.

    (Alma 42:7: “Subjects to follow after their own will.”)

    Every person has some desires that he or she may act upon and others which he or she is powerless to attain. But in either case, the desiring and planning when one is powerless to act and the desiring and planning and acting when one is able to act both result in habit and character formation. (Mosiah 4:24–25: “you who deny the [poor] … say in your hearts.”)

    4. In every action one is influenced toward the good by God and toward evil by Satan. “We admit that God is the great source and fountain from whence proceeds all good; that He is perfect intelligence, and that His wisdom is alone sufficient to govern and regulate the mighty creations and worlds which shine and blaze with such magnificence and splendor over our heads, as though touched with His finger and moved by His Almighty word. And if so, it is done and regulated by law; for without law all must certainly fall into chaos. If, then, we admit that God is the source of all wisdom and understanding, we must admit that by His direct inspiration He has taught man that law is necessary in order to govern and regulate His own immediate interest and welfare; for this reason, that law is beneficial to promote peace and happiness among men. And as before remarked, God is the source from whence proceeds all good; and if man is benefitted by law, then certainly, law is good; and if law is good, then law, or the principle of it emanated from God; for God is the source of all good; consequently, then, he was the first Author of law, or the principle of it, to mankind.” 4

    God and Satan may influence man directly or indirectly. Direct influence comes in the form of personal revelation from either, God acting upon the spirit (heart and mind) and body of man, and Satan working upon the body. Or the influence may be indirect, through other human beings, through illness or calamity, or through natural events. The person receiving these influences might not recognize either God or Satan as existing or having any effect in a given situation. But it is fundamental to scripture-based thinking to recognize that all good that is really good comes from God and that everything that is evil is sent forth by the power of Satan. (Moroni 7:11–12: “All things which are good cometh from God; and that which is evil cometh of the devil.”)

    Every person who attains accountability in this world knows both good and evil. But they do not come labeled. Thus there may be a difference between what a given person says is good and what God commends as good. The things individuals call good are relative goods, the desires of the person, and may differ from person to person. (See Moroni 7:14.) The good of God is righteousness and is absolute. Righteousness is so absolute that no human being can find it on his own. Thus it is that the true and living God of righteousness, which is Jesus Christ, is also “the fountain of all righteousness” to mortals on this earth. (Ether 12:28.)

    Evil is inherently relative, never absolute, because it is always simply anything other than the righteousness which God commends at any given moment. Evil admits of degrees; some things are more evil than others. But righteousness admits of no degree: one is either righteous or not, which is to say that one is either yielding to the influence of God to do what is right at a given moment, or one is not. (James 2:10: “Offend in one point, he is guilty of all”; italics added.)

    5. The righteousness of God is wise sharing in love; the evil of Satan is selfishness. “Let the Saints remember that great things depend on their individual exertion, and that they are called to be co-workers with us and the Holy Spirit in accomplishing the great work of the last days; and in consideration of the extent, the blessings and glories of the same let every selfish feeling be not only buried, but annihilated; and let love to God and man predominate, and reign triumphant in every mind, that their hearts may become like unto Enoch’s of old, and comprehend all things, present, past and future, and come behind in no gift, waiting for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.” 5

    Righteousness is of God. It is acting under the direction of God to share the good things one has and can do with others in such a way that the eternal happiness of any beings affected by that action is maximized. (2 Nephi 26:24: “He doeth not anything save it be for the benefit of the world.”) Selfishness is to shorten the God-ordained blessings of some being in order to try to fulfill one’s own personal desires. (3 Nephi 1:29: “They became for themselves.”) One work of God among men is to direct them as to where and how to be generous with those who are less fortunate than they are. Satan essentially says to each human that one should look out for himself first, that one should feather his own nest. (Moses 5:29–31: “Murder and get gain.”)

    As a person yields to the influence of God, that person grows in generosity and care for the welfare of others until his love is full, pure, and universal. Thus, over time, that person acquires the character of God. As unselfishness becomes the essence of the person, God is able to share with that person his own purity of heart and fullness of mind and strength. Thus the person grows to be as God, which process eventuates in becoming a god. (D&C 50:24: “Until the perfect day.”)

    As a person who was once cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ yields to the influence of Satan, he becomes selfish and possessive in character. If he does not repent of that selfishness before temporal death, then Satan seals that one to himself. (Alma 34:35: “He doth seal you his.”) But if one turns away from selfishness before one’s character is finally fixed and partakes to some degree of righteousness through Jesus Christ, that one may become righteous in character to that same degree and able to endure a kingdom of glory in eternity. (D&C 76:50–106: “Just men made perfect.”)

    It follows also that no action of any human being is temporal only. Every action has moral ramifications and eternal consequences. Every action is either a yielding to the influence of God to do the work of righteousness, or it is yielding to the influence of Satan to sin. In every act, humans fill the God-given opportunity to make the world a place of happiness, wisdom, and truth; or, they fulfill the Satan-inspired opportunity to be self-indulgent, uncaring for others, promoting darkness and lies. (D&C 29:34–35: “Not at any time have I given unto you a law which was temporal.”)

    One measure of the degree of evil a person is perpetrating when he acts is the limits of the circle within which that person is willing to be good to others. Thus an absolute devil has concern only for himself; everything and anything else, including all human beings, God, and Satan are simply tools to be used by that person to get what he wants. A less evil being is “good” to perhaps one other person but acts selfishly toward anyone else. A being yet less evil may include in the circle of persons with whom he desires to share all of his immediate or extended family.  

    A being still less evil may extend the boundaries of his positive concern to his village, state, or nation. But a being cannot become righteous until he is willing to share with everyone—with his enemies, with all other human beings regardless of their nationality, religion, class orientation, education, health, or gender, and also with God, Satan, rocks, trees, animals, stars, etc., ready to share with all in the manner commended to him by God. (2 Nephi 26:24: “Benefit of the world.”)

    Human tragedy is made when a person attempts to do good for those whom he loves, tries to do evil to those whom he does not love, and finds that the evil he tries to do to the unloved ones destroys those whom he desires to love. The tragedy is occasioned, of course, by the fact that his love for those whom he desires to love is not pure love, because it does not first focus on love of God. Thus the person finds that his relative, personal love is another form of evil, of which he must repent if he wishes to come to God and be reconciled to true righteousness. (See Matthew 5:43–48.)

    6. Acuteness of heart and mind in man consists in learning to discern the influence of God and to distinguish it from the influence of Satan. “The Spirit of Revelation is in connection with these blessings. A person may profit by noticing the first intimation of the spirit of revelation; for instance, when you feel pure intelligence flowing into you, it may give you sudden strokes of ideas, so that by noticing it, you may find it fulfilled the same day or soon; (i.e.) those things what were presented unto your minds by the Spirit of God, will come to pass; and thus by learning the Spirit of God and understanding it, you may grow into the principle of revelation, until you become perfect in Christ Jesus.”6

    Life is an intelligence test. Of all the things a person may attempt in this life, the most important and for some the most difficult task is that of sorting out his or her own heart and mind. Three things must be carefully and accurately identified: the influence of God, the desires and ideas of the self, and the influences of Satan. (D&C 46:7: “Not be seduced by evil spirits.”) This is not strictly a mind problem, as many would make it. It is a heart and a mind problem.

    God is to be identified by the fact that he is the source of good and of truth. The self is to be identified as a source of desires and ideas which do not always square with good and truth. Satan is to be identified by his insistence that our own desires and ideas are really very good when we ourselves in our “heart of hearts” know that they are not. (Moroni 7:16–17: “The way to judge.”)

    The person who has not made such identifications lives life in a fog where everything is relative and nothing is holy except perhaps himself. This person is driven to and fro with every wind of doctrine, having no anchor and no rudder. He or she will likely be an imperfect copy of some stronger nearby human being. (James 1:5–7: “He that wavereth.”)

    One begins to live as an individual only when one makes these discriminations and begins to use them. One then knows that God exists and is good, that Satan exists and is evil, and that one’s self is not either God or Satan but that one may choose between them. This can be an auspicious beginning of good things in the person’s life.

    7. Wisdom for man is to learn to act only under the influence of God. “There is one thing under the sun which I have learned and that is that the righteousness of man is sin because it exacteth over much; nevertheless, the righteousness of God is just, because it exacteth nothing at all, but sendeth rain on the just and the unjust, seed time and harvest, for all of which man is ungrateful.”7

    “Every word that proceedeth from the mouth of Jehovah has such an influence over the human mind the logical mind that it is convincing without other testimony. Faith cometh by hearing. If 10000 men testify to a truth you know would it add to your faith? No, or will 1000 testimonies destroy your knowledge of a fact? No.” 8

    Man is free to serve God or to serve himself. Satan’s only leverage is to encourage an individual to disobey God in following his own desires. (James 1:13–14: “Own lust.”)   But by paying careful attention, a person may learn to serve God only, never to indulge the desires of self. (Helaman 3:35: “Purifying … sanctification.”)

    The self is motivated to make this dedication only after it has learned to identify and distinguish carefully between the influence of God and the influence of Satan. Having attained that enlightenment, the self will then quickly discern that when one follows the influence of God, things go well: one’s beliefs then are regularly discovered to be true, and one’s actions are seen to lead to kindness, love, sharing, and an increase of the happiness of others whom one affects. Having observed such results, the self then sees that the only intelligent thing to do is to yield to the influence of God in all things. (Alma 32:26–43: “Ye must needs know that the seed is good.”)

    There will be momentary doubts for most. To satisfy those doubts one needs but to relapse into selfishness for a season and bask in its misery to be reassured that the way of God is real and correct. God is kind and permits such experiments, but not forever. Before mortal death, each person who has heard the gospel of Jesus Christ must declare himself or herself. (D&C 88:83: “Seeketh me early.”)

    8. The only way wisdom can be attained is to learn to love with God’s love.“The names of the faithful are what I wish to record in this place. These I have met in prosperity, and they were my friends; and I now meet them in adversity, and they are still my warmer friends. These love the God that I serve; they love the truths that I promulgate; they love those virtuous, and those holy doctrines that I cherish in my bosom with the warmest feelings of my heart, and with that zeal which cannot be denied. I love friendship and truth; I love virtue and law; I love the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob; and they are my brethren, and I shall live; and because I live they shall live also.” 9

    “Until we have perfect love we are liable to fall and when we have a testimony that our names are sealed in the Lamb’s book of life we have perfect love and then it is impossible for false Christs to deceive us.” 10 

    This is to say that one must not just play at learning to yield to the influence of God in all things. One must throw one’s whole heart and soul into the fray. Until one fastens all the affections of his heart on God and his righteousness, so much so that serving God and establishing his righteousness on earth become an all-consuming passion, one will not be able to yield to the influence of God unerringly. (Alma 37:37: “Counsel with the Lord.”) The pressures to care for self are so great and so pervasive that mind alone can never deliver a soul to God. (Matthew 13:22–23: “Care of the world … choke the word.”) Nevertheless, heart and mind combined and dedicated can make this all-important delivery. But heart must lead the way, for heart is stronger and more important than mind. Mind facilitates, and that in a most ingenious and admirable manner, but heart points the mind and controls the occupation of the mind almost entirely. (D&C 59:5: “Thou shalt love.”)

    9. The only way one can love God with all of one’s heart, might, mind, and strength is through the law and the ordinances of the new and everlasting covenant. “It is a duty which every Saint ought to render to his brethren freely—to always love them, and ever succor them. To be justified before God we must love one another: we must overcome evil; we must visit the fatherless and the widow in their affliction, and we must keep ourselves unspotted from the world: for such virtues flow from the great fountain of pure religion. Strengthening our faith by adding every good quality that adorns the children of the blessed Jesus, we can pray in the season of prayer; we can love our neighbor as ourselves, and be faithful in tribulation, knowing that the reward of such is greater in the kingdom of heaven. What a consolation! What a joy! Let me live the life of the righteous, and let my reward be like this!” 11

    To be able to deliver oneself—heart, might, mind, and strength—to Jesus Christ is a matter of power. No human being has that power naturally, though many go a remarkable distance toward that goal outside the covenant. The power that makes that delivery possible is the gift of the Holy Ghost, which is the pearl of great price. Through the Holy Ghost a person’s heart may be purified, cleansed of all selfishness; then the soul can reflect back to God that pure love and also extend it to a neighbor. By that power the mind can eliminate all errors of belief, which are the chains of hell inflicted by Satan on the world, and also gain that precious knowledge of the truth which one must have to be saved. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, one may keep his body clean and pure and have it renewed in rebirth unto sufficiency to accomplish every mission to which the person is appointed by God. And through that power one receives priesthood might, enough might to show that one will use it obediently and fully in the service of God. (Moroni 7:25–48: “Lay hold upon every good thing.”)

    Thus through the new and everlasting covenant one can fulfill all that is possible for man: to become as God is. (D&C 132:19–20: “Then shall they be gods.”) This new creation will not be accomplished completely in this mortality, but enough will be accomplished here that the individual may become a great power in extending the influence of God in the earth. (Mosiah 8:15–18: “Becometh a great benefit.”)

    The law of the celestial kingdom is that one must act only in faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. (D&C 132:12: “No man shall come unto the Father but by me or by my word, which is my law.”) All righteous acts are acts of faith in him, and whatsoever is not that faith is sin. To say that we should love the Lord, our God, with all of our heart, might, mind, and strength is linguistically equivalent to saying that we should exercise full faith in Jesus Christ through the new and everlasting covenant.

    10. The key to knowledge (truth) is to learn first of the whole, which is God, then of the parts, which are nature and man.

    2. Let us here observe, that three things are necessary in order that any rational and intelligent being may exercise faith in God unto life and salvation.

    3. First, the idea that he actually exists.  

    4. Secondly, a correct idea of his character, perfections and attributes.

    5. Thirdly, an actual knowledge that the course of life which he is pursuing is according to his will. For without an acquaintance with these three important facts the faith of every rational being must be imperfect and unproductive, but with this understanding it can become perfect and fruitful, abounding in righteousness, unto the praise and glory of God the Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. 12

    The world would have one study the parts and through them discern the whole. But this is not really possible. No one can intelligently study a part of something without having at least a working hypothesis of the nature of the hole of that something. If the hypothesis about the whole is faulty, the part will be analyzed in a faulty way. This is the real lesson of systems thinking, thinking popularized in the present century but employed by responsible thinkers from time immemorial.

    The whole is God. The universe is personal, not natural, because the hand of God is in every thing. (D&C 59:21: “Confess … his hand in all things.”) Until one understands the nature and being of God, one cannot understand correctly the rest of the universe. Nature is the handiwork of God, and when one sees any natural occurrence in the universe, one is beholding “God moving in his majesty and power.” (D&C 88:46–47.) Men are the children of God, and when one sees a human being one sees the literal offspring of gods, a potential heir of Jesus Christ. Whatsoever one does to any of those heirs, Jesus Christ counts it as done unto himself. (Matthew 25:40: “Ye have done it unto me.”) Each of these heirs may inherit all He is and has if that heir will only deny selfishness and grow in spiritual stature unto the measure of the fulness of his stature through faith in Him and through the power brought by the covenants. (Ephesians 4:13: “Fullness of Christ.”)

    11. Jesus Christ is the Truth. The gospel of Jesus Christ is the truth which points the way to find the Truth. “And now what remains to be done, under circumstances like these?   I will proceed to tell you what the Lord requires of all people, high and low, rich and poor, male and female, ministers and people, professors of religion and non-professors, in order that they may enjoy the Holy Spirit of God to a fullness and escape the judgments of God, which are almost ready to burst upon the nations of the earth. Repent of all your sins, and be baptized in water for the remission of them, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, and receive the ordinance of the laying on of the hands of him who is ordained and sealed unto this power, that ye may receive the Holy Spirit of God; and this is according to the Holy Scriptures, and the Book of Mormon; and the only way that man can enter into the celestial kingdom. These are the requirements of the new covenant, or first principles of the Gospel of Christ: then ‘Add to your faith, virtue; and to virtue, knowledge; and to knowledge, temperance; and to temperance, patience; and to patience, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, charity [or love]; for if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful, in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.’” 13

    “Again, if others’ blessings are not your blessings, others’ curses are not your curses; you stand then in these last days, as all have stood before you, agents unto yourselves, to be judged according to your works.” 14

    Man is saved no faster than he gains knowledge of the Truth. This truth one must know is not just any truth, such as one would encounter in a phone book or on a topographic map. The truth which saves is Jesus Christ. Only he can and will save from sinning, from hell, from death. Only as one comes to know him personally can one be saved. (John 8:31–36: “Ye shall know the truth.”)

    Everyone on earth is invited to come to know the Truth through the teaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ. If a person accepts that gospel and lives it completely, the path entered upon will lead such a one to know the Savior personally. The scriptures speak of the gospel as the truth because it is that portion of truth in the world which everyone must come to know to fulfill their mortal probation in accepting or rejecting Jesus Christ. (D&C 123:11–12: “Know not where to find [the truth].”)

    The responsibility for seeing that every child of God encounters the gospel of Jesus Christ rests on the shoulders of the Savior himself. He enlists others to assist him, that they too might become as he is through faithful service. But he also respects the agency of men. He allows men to teach their children the truth or lies, as they will. Some teach the lies of Satan or part truths in ignorance, but some do not. (D&C 123:7–8: “Chains … of hell.”) It suffices to know that God is just, and thus every soul will hear the truth taught to him in his own tongue, in all humility, by a servant of Jesus Christ. This will happen before he or she becomes fully accountable for his or her sins and therefore liable for the final judgment which will come to all human beings. Partial accountability comes to each person through the light of Christ. But the light of Christ witnesses of truth and good. It does not tell one how to repent of sinning nor how to be able to make amends for all the evil one has done. That is the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ. (Moses 6:55–62: another law: all men must repent through Christ.)

    As defined by the Lord himself in scripture (see 3 Nephi 27:13–21), there are but a few simple, powerful ideas which constitute the truth, the gospel of Jesus Christ. These are as follows:

    1. Jesus Christ was sent into this world to do the will of God, his Father.
    2. His Father’s will was that he be lifted up upon the cross and atone for the sins of all men.
    3. After Jesus had been lifted up, he was to draw all men to himself, that each might receive a final judgment as to whether each one’s works were good or evil.
    4. Whosoever would desire to be found guiltless at the day of judgment must:
      1. Exercise full faith in Jesus Christ, unto
      2. Repenting of sinning, and
      3. Being baptized in his name, of water; then to  
      4. Receive the Holy Ghost unto the remission of sins; then to
      5. Endure to the end.
    5. Whosoever receives the Holy Ghost and endures not unto the end will be hewn down and cast into the fire.

    12. Family is the important social relationship.

    Except a man and his wife enter into an everlasting covenant and be married for eternity, while in this probation, by the power and authority of the Holy Priesthood, they will cease to increase when they die; that is, they will not have any children after the resurrection. But those who are married by the power and authority of the priesthood in this life, and continue without committing the sin against the Holy Ghost, will continue to increase and have children in the celestial glory. The unpardonable sin is to shed innocent blood, or be accessory thereto. All other sins will be visited with judgment in the flesh, and the spirit being delivered to the buffetings of Satan unto the day of the Lord Jesus.

    Salvation means a man’s being placed beyond the power of all his enemies. The more sure word of prophecy means a man’s knowing that he is sealed up unto eternal life by revelation and the spirit of prophecy, through the power of the holy priesthood. It is impossible for a man to be saved in ignorance. 15

    All human beings have one literal Heavenly Father and thus are brothers and sisters in the spirit. All human beings have one physical set of parents, Adam and Eve, and thus are brothers and sisters in the flesh. One purpose of the gospel of Jesus Christ is to allow men to know and affirm this family relationship, that all might learn again to serve their Father, the true and living God. (Acts 17:22–31: “God that made the world.”)

    The marriage covenant is of God, and marriage and the begetting of children unto God are to be holy undertakings, functions of the holy priesthood of God. The most important personal bond between any two persons is the bond between any human being and the Savior, as one learns to love the Savior, his new father, with all of his heart, might, mind, and strength. (Ether 12:4; Mosiah 5:7: “Children of Christ.”) The next most important bond for any human being is the bond of love which the new and everlasting covenant makes possible between husband and wife. This second bond can be successful only if the first one is in place, the bond of love between each individual and the Savior, When a husband and wife bond in the pure love of Christ, they create an eternal unit and they can then be exalted. It is that nuclear, bonded family consisting of three persons, the Savior as father, and the faithful husband and the faithful wife, which is and can be exalted, not the individuals separately. (D&C 132:8–25: singly saved.)

    13. The greatest power on earth is the Holy Priesthood.“It has been the design of Jehovah, from the commencement of the world, and is His purpose now, to regulate the affairs of the world in His own time, to stand as a head of the universe, and take the reins of government in His own hand. When that is done, judgment will be administered in righteousness; anarchy and confusion will be destroyed, and ‘nations will learn war no more.’” 16

    “Other attempts to promote universal peace and happiness in the human family have proved abortive; every effort has failed; every plan and design has fallen to the ground; it needs the wisdom of God, the intelligence of God, and the power of God to accomplish this. The world has had a fair trial for six thousand years; the Lord will try the seventh thousand Himself; ‘He whose right it is will possess the kingdom, and reign until He has put all things under His feet;’ iniquity will hide its hoary head, Satan will be bound, and the works of darkness destroyed; righteousness will be put to the line, and judgment to the plummet, and ‘he that fears the Lord will alone be exalted in that day.’” 17

    The holy priesthood is the power of God. By it the worlds are created, governed, and destroyed; and by it the work of God in all the universe is accomplished. (D&C 38:1–3: “All things came by me.”)

    Man is given the opportunity, through faith in Jesus   Christ, to receive and use this priesthood if he will use it only as God instructs him. As God commands men, they do the most important work they do on earth through the priesthood power. That work is to establish eternal family relationships between God and men through the teaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ and through the administration of the new and everlasting covenant. (D&C 128:17–18: “Tum the heart of the fathers.”)

    Because of the fall of Adam, men must do the work to earn their bread by the sweat of their brows. This is part of the individual salvation each must work out as each seeks to be obedient to God. But the time will come for the faithful, perhaps in the next world, where all work will be done by priesthood power. As one is true and faithful to his priesthood covenants here, one prepares to wield the greatest power in all of eternity, the holy priesthood of God. (D&C 84:33–38: “These two priesthoods.”)

    All associations or alliances made on earth which are not made through the new and everlasting covenant “have an end when men are dead.” (D&C 132:6–7.) The only associations which may be made eternal through that covenant are family relationships.

    The power of the holy priesthood is also the only power by which righteous and lasting government can be established on the earth. The civil governments of men are better than nothing, usually, but none can solve all problems or achieve either equity or righteousness. The nations of the earth must suffer until they are willing to accept the Savior as their lawgiver; then he will reign through love and the power of priesthood.

    The thinking of the Prophet Joseph Smith is as wide and as deep as eternity. It compasses all of God and all of space, time, and matter. Truth and righteousness are his themes, but righteousness reigns as head. For him it is the God of Righteousness who rules the universe, who is the source of truth, who is the “Spirit of Truth” to all who hunger and thirst after righteousness.

    Notes

    1. Joseph Smith, History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 7 vols., 2 ed. rev., ed. B. H. Roberts (Salt Lake City, Utah: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1932–51), 2:315.

    2. Joseph Smith, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, sel. Joseph Fielding Smith (Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book Co., 1938), p. 12.

    3. Ibid., pp. 95–96.

    4. Ibid., pp. 55–56.

    5. Ibid., pp. 178–79.

    6. Ibid., p. 151.

    7. Ibid., p. 317.

    8. Andrew F. Ehat and Lyndon W. Cook, eds., The Words of Joseph Smith (Provo, Utah, Brigham Young University Religious Studies Center 1980), p. 237.

    9. Smith, History of the Church, 5:108–9.

    10. Smith, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 9.

    11. Smith, History of the Church, 2:229.

    12. Lectures on Faith (Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book Co., 1985) no. 3, p. 38.

    13. Smith, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 16.

    14. Ibid., p. 12.

    15. Ibid., pp. 300–301.

    16. Ibid., pp. 250–51.

    17. Ibid., p. 252.

  • Interpreting the New Testament

    The New Testament and the Latter-Day-Saints – Sperry Symposium 1987 – p. 263-278

    Chauncey C. Riddle

    Interpreting the New Testament quoted from The New Testament and the Latter-day Saints – Sperry Symposium 1987

    This paper is divided into three parts:

    1. Deals with the place of the New Testament in our lives and why we must know it.
    2. Discusses the three modes of interpreting the New Testament.
    3. Contains special suggestions for interpreting the New Testament.

    Part 1: The Place of the New Testament in Our Lives

    To understand the place of the New Testament in the life of a Latter-day Saint, we must first inquire as to the place of the scriptures in general. If salvation is the goal for man, then we see that there are three principal helps for man as he seeks to be saved. The first help is God himself. Salvation is not a mortal or human thing. It is supernatural, a lifting of man from human to divine status, and comes to us only in the person of Jesus Christ. It is through the personal power and intervention of Jesus Christ that any man is saved from unrighteousness.

    The second help sent by God to draw men unto him that they might be saved is the prophets of God. These are they who are given power from God to teach the true gospel of Jesus Christ and to administer the saving ordinances, which are the covenants thereof. The gospel is necessary because men must understand and desire salvation from unrighteousness before they can be saved. Each person is then saved in and through the covenants each makes with God and the carrying out of the promises made by each person and by God.

    A third help for salvation is the holy scriptures. The purpose of the scriptures is to acquaint men with the possibility of salvation, that each might have the opportunity to understand and to desire salvation through Jesus Christ. Those who have that desire are pointed by the scriptures to find a prophet of God, that they, too, might partake of the covenants and thus enter into life, which is salvation. When the scriptures are not adulterated by men, they perform well those two tasks: allowing men to desire righteousness by understanding its possibility in Jesus Christ, and pointing them to find an authorized servant of Jesus Christ who can lawfully and effectively administer the saving ordinances.

    Let us note what is necessary for salvation: God is necessary, and since he saves men only through covenants, the covenants are necessary. Prophets of God would not be necessary if God himself were to come down and administer the gospel and the covenants directly to men. But God chooses not to do that most of the time. When God chooses not to come down, then men who desire to be saved must seek a legal administrator sent from God, a prophet. In this case, the prophet, who bears the authority of God to teach the gospel and administer in the ordinances thereof, becomes necessary. The scriptures are not necessary. They are helpful, but men could be saved if there were not one line of scripture written. Men could be saved by the prophet of God without scripture, for the true prophet has all that is necessary.

    But the scriptures are helpful. They point our minds to our God and to righteousness. They make us hunger and thirst for the ordinances which make righteousness possible. Each different scripture gives the witness of a different people and / or time, showing that God loves his children and saves men in all ages through the very same gospel and ordinances. The New Testament is the special witness of the prophets who labored in the Old World during the meridian of time. They give us many precious insights into the life and ministry of the Savior and his apostles. But no Latter-day Saint needs those insights to be saved.

    We are a missionary people, however. The New Testament is the only record of Jesus Christ and his gospel that much of the world knows. That record therefore is the bridge by which we can put them in touch with the true priesthood authority of God. Because Latter-day Saints are a missionary people, we need to know the New Testament backwards and forwards, not for our own salvation but that we might be instrumental in bringing the knowledge of how to be saved to others of our brothers and sisters. For us to ignore the New Testament or to know it poorly is not to love either our God or those Christian neighbors whom our God has given us.

    Part 2: Three Modes of Interpreting the New Testament

    The first mode for understanding the New Testament is private interpretation; the second is scholarly interpretation; and the third is prophetic interpretation.

    A. Private Interpretation

    Private interpretation of the New Testament is reading some version of it and deciding that it means whatever we think it means. In this method, each person sets himself up as the interpreter and fixes on his own fancy as the standard. There are two principal ways of doing this.

    The first kind of private interpretation is whimsical; with it we allow our own creative imagination to tell us that the text means whatever pops into our heads as we read it. Many human beings interpret everything they read in this way.

    The second variety of private interpretation is the dogmatic variety, wherein the reader attributes the same meaning to the text which he or she has been told by someone else is the proper interpretation. Without any further thought or inquiry the reader simply accepts what he has been told.

    The New Testament has a pointed comment about private interpretation. Peter warns us not to indulge in it: “Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost” (2 Peter 1:20-21). The dogmatic variety of private interpretation is what the scriptures call the “chains of hell” (see D&C 123:7-8). The purpose and end of private interpretation is to confirm and convince the reader of what he already believes. It is principally an occasion for self-justification, a path to be eschewed under all circumstances.

    B. Scholarly Interpretation

    Scholarly interpretation of the New Testament is applying a rational formula to the translating of a scriptural text into some vernacular and then designating the significance of that text. There are two principal varieties of scholarly interpretation.

    First-class scholarship has each of the following criteria as necessary conditions: (a) the most authentic.e .version of the text must be used; (b) the text must be used in the original language (Greek, for the New Testament); (c) the scholar must be aware of and account for what every other first-class scholar has said on the topic or passage being interpreted; and (d) the first- class scholar must use a rational formula which I explicitly describes and which any other scholar could discern and use. These rather strict conditions for first-class scholarship cause it to be rare. One mark of the work of first-class scholars is the abundance of footnotes, but many footnotes do not make first-class scholarship. Only a first-class scholar will read all the footnotes, track down the origins, and judge for himself whether or not a writer makes sense. It takes a first- class scholar to identify and deal with a first-class scholar.

    Second-class scholarship is interpretation which satisfies any one of the conditions for first-class scholarship but lacks one or more of the other requirements. There is a good deal of second-class scholarship in the world.

    The rational formulae which scholars use are of some note, and it serves our purpose to review the principal varieties here.

    “Lower,” or textual criticism, is the comparison of texts to determine by both internal and external evidence the text which is most authentic. In the case of the New Testament, this usually is the pursuit of the oldest manuscript, assuming the oldest to be the closest to the source. We have nothing which could be considered an original manuscript for the New Testament, so lower criticism is important to every student of that text.

    “Higher” criticism is the search for authorship of biblical texts by considering internal evidence, such as writing style, vocabulary, historical references, and so forth.

    Grammatical criticism, or ordinary textual interpretation, is intense analysis of the words and grammatical forms of the text, in an attempt to establish what would constitute an acceptable modal translation of the text based on what are considered to be the meanings of other nonscriptural texts of the Koine Greek which appears in the New Testament manuscripts.

    Source criticism is the attempt to structure the hypothetical original documents which the writers of the Gospels and Acts might have used to compose those works, drawing evidence from the similarities and differences found among the synoptic Gospels in particular.

    Form criticism is the attempt to relate the New Testament texts to the literary forms present in the manuscripts of the contemporary Hellenic culture of the writers of the New Testament. Various pericopes or fragments of the text are analyzed as paradigms, tales, legends, myths, and exhortations, interpretation being affected by the perceived literary device employed.

    Redaction criticism assumes that there were primary source documents like those which source criticism seeks to reconstruct, and that writers of the New Testament were principally employed in stitching the older fragments together with comments of their own, which is redaction. The work of redaction criticism is to reinterpret the text in light of the perceived biases and emphases of each redactor.

    Tradition-history criticism attempts to correlate the biblical text with the historic development of the New Testament church. It is based on two principles: first, that the Christology of the New Testament is not that of Jesus himself but is a product of the legends which grew up in the first century; and second, that it is possible to separate the authentic teachings of Jesus himself from the accretions added by later Christians.

    Comparative religion criticism (history of religion criticism) approaches the New Testament by noting what elements it does and does not have in common with the other religions of the ancient Near East. Relationships with Zoroastrianism, Mithraism, and other religions are established, showing that the atoning sacrifice and purification rites were common to many cultures.

    Demythologizing is the attempt to relieve the New Testament of its supernatural elements, which, it is said, are no longer tolerable to the enlightened mind, and to discover the authentic, timeless core that lies within those supposed myths. An interesting variation on that theme is the attempt to “remythologize” the text in favor of modern myths, those more acceptable to modern minds.

    Hermeneutics, as an intellectual approach, leaves the attempt to say what the text originally meant to others, and concentrates instead on discerning what the text should mean for us in our modern setting. Instead of our judging the text, it is understood that the text judges us who read it. As Jesus established a common understanding with the people to whom he spoke that he might thereby surely deliver his message, so we must seek today that frame of mind in which the teachings of Jesus will be most meaningful to us.

    Another scholarly device is that employed by Harnack, Boman, and others in the attempt to characterize the patterns of Hebrew thinking as they contrast with those of the Greek mind. Boman sees the Hebrews as interested in action, whereas the Greeks look for the unchangeable, eternal verities; the Hebrews focus on inner qualities of soul, while the Greeks favor visible particulars in describing persons; Hebrews see action as either complete or incomplete, whereas the Greeks nicely divide time into past, present, and future. Such differences as these, Boman contends, must be taken into account when interpreting the Hebrew New Testament message in Greek grammatical forms.|interpreting the new testament (fn:1)|

    An excellent explanation of much that relates to the scholarly interpretation of the New Testament is found in a work edited by I. Howard Marshall, entitled New Testament Interpretation.|interpreting the new testament (fn:2)| I recommend especially the article by F. F. Bruce entitled “The History of New Testament Study,” one by E. Earl Ellis entitled “How the New Testament Uses the Old,” and a third by Anthony Thiselton entitled “The New Hermeneutic.”

    The end or goal of scholarly interpretation is knowledge. The scholar seeks, with the best rational tools and worldly learning that he can muster, to reach conclusions that are intellectually justifiable. His greatest fear is that he will believe something that is unworthy of rational assent. Often he assumes protective custody of nonscholars in attempting to spare them the horrors of naive belief and private interpretation, thus becoming a brother-keeper. Some scholars, of course, have a real belief that Jesus was divine. They search and reason while believing, hoping to find a better faith, and through their faith have given great gifts to the world. I think here of works such as that of James Strong, who, with others but without the benefit of a computer, produced that invaluable tool for biblical scholarship that we know as Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible.|interpreting the new testament (fn:3)| I also recommend the volume by Richard L. Anderson entitled Understanding Paul, an interpretive work of first-class scholarship.|interpreting the new testament (fn:4)|

    Scholarly interpretation is clearly an improvement on private interpretation. Scholarly and rational though it is, much of it is guesswork. But gems can be found in it which are well worth the search. This body of material is much in the category of the biblical Apocrypha concerning which the Lord declared through the Prophet Joseph Smith: “There are many things contained therein that are not true, which are interpolations by the hands of men …. Therefore, whoso readeth it, let him understand, for the Spirit manifesteth therefrom; And whoso receiveth not by the Spirit, cannot be benefitted” (D&C 91:2-6).

    We now contrast private and scholarly interpretation with prophetic interpretation. Prophetic interpretation is interpretation of a scriptural text under the immediate direction of the Holy Spirit. This is personal revelation, the same kind of personal revelation by which the scripture was originally created. This kind of interpretation is denominated “prophetic” because it is the Holy Spirit which brings the true testimony of Jesus Christ and that testimony of Jesus Christ is the spirit of prophecy. Whoever has the Holy Spirit to guide him or her is for that moment a prophet-not necessarily a prophet to anyone else, but at least a prophet unto himself or herself. Since it takes a prophet to tell a prophet, the Holy Spirit binds the sent prophet to the receiving prophet in the unity of submission to the mind and will of God (cf. D&C 50:13- 24).

    Thus there are two basic types of prophetic interpretation. The first is the prophecy of receiving from God for one’s own personal benefit. As one approaches a scriptural text in prayer and faith, ready to do what is instructed by the Holy Spirit, one indeed may receive specific instruction in connection with text as to how that should be interpreted, then acting accordingly in one’s own life situation and predicaments. This is using the text as if it were a Urim and Thummim, a divinely given aid to facilitate the receiving of further revelation from the Lord. Since the Lord has promised that he will give wisdom–that knowledge of how to act in faith–that we might please him, such revelation is a frequent occurrence. Its occurrence is correlated strictly with the degree to which the person seeks and hungers after righteousness through Jesus Christ. We noted above that the purpose in private interpretation is self-justification and that the purpose of scholarly interpretation is the ascertaining of truth, that one might know what to believe. Contrasted with both is the purpose of prophetic interpretation: to be able to act in faith to please God. Action, which includes but goes much beyond mere believing, is the end of prophetic scriptural interpretation. Built into this kind of prophecy is the supposition that this process will take place again and again, and that through much faith and experience in experimenting with those messages delivered by the still, small voice of the Spirit, one will come to know for oneself, unerringly, what is and what is not the voice of God in this world. Thus one becomes sure and established, rooted and tested in the faith of Christ, and through that mature faith comes all other good things from God.

    The second kind of prophetic interpretation of the scriptures is the prophecy of receiving from God for the purpose of bearing witness to others concerning God. To safeguard the purity of this kind of revelation, the Lord has put three safeguards on it. First, prophecy may be received and delivered to other human beings only by those who are ordained of God by the laying on of hands by those who have true authority from God, even as was Aaron. Second, the hearer will always be one to whom the preacher or teacher is specifically sent. It will be publicly known to members of the Lord’s Church who those preachers and teachers are that are duly sent. Third, each hearer is entitled to personal revelation from God himself confirming any interpretation or prophecy which the one who is sent might deliver to him or her. Thus the prophecy of preaching or teaching for God must be matched by the prophecy of receiving from God by the hearer for the witness of the preacher or teacher to be valid and binding. These three essentials are clearly stated by the Lord as his standard: “And, behold, and lo, this is an ensample unto all those who were ordained unto this priesthood, whose mission is appointed unto them to go forth–And this is the ensample unto them, that they shall speak as they are moved upon by the Holy Ghost. And whatsoever they shall speak when moved upon by the Holy Ghost shall be scripture, shall be the will of the Lord, shall be the mind of the Lord, shall be the word of the Lord, shall be the voice of the Lord, and the power of God unto salvation” (D&C 68:2-4).

    Thus, each human being who encounters the holy scriptures has three choices: he may put his own private interpretation on the scripture, he may use the tools and formulae of the scholarly world in interpreting it, or he may seek and find personal revelation that the Lord might interpret it for him. It seems that this is an exhaustive taxonomy; every interpretation can be correctly designated as one of these three.

    But what about the value of mixing these three types of interpretation? It is plain that private interpretation is always evil and that it will destroy any good that might otherwise be found by an individual when combining it with either scholarly or prophetic interpretation. Scholarly interpretation is evil if it is private interpretation, that is to say, if it is not done under the inspiration and permission of the Holy Spirit. But scholarship can be noble and spiritually rewarding. The scholarly work of Mormon in creating the Book of Mormon is a perfect model of responsible, spiritual scholarship. But scholarly or not, interpretation of scripture must always be purely prophetic to avoid being evil. The kingdom of our Savior today could use more first-class scholarship by those who enjoy the spirit of prophecy. Of course, what it most needs is more persons reading the scriptures by the spirit of prophecy and then acting faithfully. We have enough scripture; we need to better use what we have. It is promised that then we shall have more.

    D. Applications by History

    How can an understanding of these three kinds of interpretation be seen to operate historically? First, we note that all scripture is produced by prophecy, by the revelations of God to his chosen servants. The intention is that all reading and interpreting of any portion or of all of that scripture should be done by prophecy, either for the benefit of the individual in his own stewardship or for the purpose of instructing others. But when men sin, the gifts of the Holy Spirit are taken from them. If they then interpret scripture, they are forced either to scholarly or to private interpretation.

    After prophets ceased in Judah in Old Testament times (c. 400 B.C.), there arose the schools of rabbinic interpretation. Rabbinic interpretation is scholarly interpretation. It focuses on reading the accepted text in the original Hebrew, knowing what other rabbis have said about it, and elaborating interpretation according to rational formulae. These scholars were known as scribes and Pharisees in the Savior’s time. Jesus was a problem to them because he did not have the rabbinic training or outlook: he taught as one having authority, for indeed he was a prophet of God. He spoke only by the spirit of prophecy and instructed his followers to do likewise. In this the Savior threatened the rabbinic tradition of the scribes and Pharisees. They saw themselves as the saviors of the common people, preserving them from the great evil of private interpretation of the holy scriptures, which is generally the scholarly attitude. It was these protectors of the people who called for and gained Jesus’ blood, calling him a blasphemer for pretending to revelation from his Father and theirs. So they had their way, and rabbinism has maintained its hold on Judah to this day.

    Paul was a rabbinic zealot, persecuting the blasphemers wherever he could. He was cured of his spiritual blindness by a revelation which left him physically blind. But then, knowing revelation, he became a faithful disciple of the Savior, teaching the deadness beth of the law of Moses and of the rabbinic tradition of interpretation which refused to see the law as the schoolmaster to prepare Israel for Christ.

    During the time of Paul and the other Apostles, prophetic interpretation of the scriptures flourished, though not without opposition. But when the apostles were gone, the opposition triumphed and scholarly interpretation replaced revelation, even as it had done in Judaism earlier. Training for the priest became the study of languages and philosophy that scholarly work might be pursued. Thus, the world came to think that one cannot preach unless he is school learned.

    The Protestant Reformation provided an interesting twist on the old story. When Luther, Wycliffe, and others translated the Bible into the vernacular languages, they did so as scholars, but they were undoubtedly aided by the Holy Spirit in much of what they did. The result was that prophetic interpretation again began to flourish. Individuals could now read the things of God and interpret them for themselves, and through faithful obedience to God as he gave them revelation, they revolutionized the world for much good. Institutionally, Protestantism has always been weak. Lacking authority for the preaching and teaching gifts, it has foundered on the question of authority. But individuals were not barred or prevented from doing much good. That is perhaps why the practice of Christian religion among genuine Protestants has so often been very good while the theory has been very bad.

    The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints also reflects the tension among these three modes of interpreting the scriptures. Prophetic interpretation is the core and being of the Restored Church. But there are those who insist on their own private interpretation of the revelations. These go off into the desert (spiritually and/or temporally) and form their own private churches and kingdoms. They have their reward.

    Others employ scholarly methods to interpret the scriptures, and some of that scholarship is first-rate. Among these scholars there are those who are also submissive to the Holy Spirit, who wait upon the Lord; they have sometimes made important contributions to the kingdom, often anonymously. They know that their blessings come not through their scholarly attainments but from their faith in Jesus Christ Another group in the Church are scholars of one sort or another who do not brook priesthood authority and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. They come to believe that reason must and will eventually triumph over what they call “blind faith.” To them, blind faith is unscholarly faith. They struggle with what the General Authorities of the Church say and cannot fully support those authorities. They are sometimes miffed because persons of lesser intelligence and scholarship are placed in positions of authority over them or are given precedence before them. Their scholarship has become a stumbling block to them. This is one source of the so-called anti-intellectual bias of the Church.

    But scholarship and revelation can go hand in hand as long as revelation is the leader, the interpreter, and not vice versa.

    Part 3: Suggestions for Interpreting the New Testament

    We come now to the third part of this paper, which is to make some concrete suggestions for faithful, prophetic interpretation of the New Testament. It is incumbent upon every faithful member to read the New Testament during 1987, if at all possible. If we read it and how we read it will determine much about our future.

    I will make seven specific suggestions as to how one might profitably go about reading the New Testament prophetically. I report these as admonitions to myself, hoping that something I say might find a responsive chord in your spiritual repertoire.

    1. I believe that it is important to begin each scripture session with prayer, that we might demonstrate our faith and make ourselves more receptive to the whisperings of the Spirit. Indeed, prayer itself, if done truly, is simple practice at receiving and obeying personal revelation. It is thus a specific preparation for receiving what the Lord would have us do in connection with the text we are about to examine. I call as my witness on this point, Nephi of old: “But behold, I say unto you that ye must pray always, and not faint; that ye must not perform any thing unto the Lord save in the first place ye shall pray unto the Father in the name of Christ, that he will consecrate thy performance unto thee, that thy performance may be for the welfare of thy soul” (2 Nephi 32:9).

    2. It has often been noted that we tend to see in a text what we already believe. If what we already believe is true, then we have a great help in interpreting the scriptures. But if we are struggling with new doctrine and have false doctrine as our interpretive frame, we will have a difficult time when the Holy Spirit tells us something contrary to what we already believe. We must clean up the launching pad to avoid misinterpretation.

    One excellent way to cleanse our minds of error is to let the Book of Mormon be our standard of doctrine and truth. Of course, the Book of Mormon cannot give us the truth without revelation. But at least we are reading the book with the most correct text in this whole world. A better place to practice interpretation by the Spirit and to establish a true theology and cosmology is difficult to find, and if found, is sometimes not accessible (such as the person of a General Authority). My witness here is the Prophet Joseph Smith: “I told the brethren that the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth, and the keystone of our religion, and a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book” (Introduction to The Book of Mormon).

    3. We need to see all things from the perspective of eternity. There is only one thing which matters in eternity: righteousness. If righteousness is the thing after which we hunger and thirst, then as we read the scriptures prayerfully and faithfully, we will be filled with information about how to obtain righteousness and how to avoid unrighteousness. The Christian world generally believes that the problem of salvation is to somehow get forgiveness for unrighteousness. The Book of Mormon shows us that the larger problem is getting our personal self re-created into a new being that no longer does anything unrighteous. Studying that process of re-creation through being reborn and growing up into the stature of the fulness of Christ is the key to righteousness and eternity. We have the promise of the Savior: “Blessed are all they who do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled with the Holy Ghost” (3 Nephi 12:6).

    4. We can liken the scriptures unto ourselves. When we read the stories of the scriptures, we can imaginatively put ourselves in the place of the characters of the story. How would I think, feel, and act if I suddenly awoke and realized that I am the prodigal son? What should I then feel, think, say, and do? Or do I imagine myself to be the other brother who supposedly never sinned; do I see myself as saved while all about me are prodigal? If so, I probably am in great need of repentance for even allowing myself to suppose that I am that son.

    When I read of Ananias and Sapphira, do I understand what must have been going through the heart and mind of each when questioned about the consecration? Can I feel the fear of trusting entirely in that unseen Jesus Christ, yet being tugged upon by the Holy Spirit to tell the truth? Can I imagine the anguish each must have felt in deliberately denying the Holy Spirit, grasping at a worldly straw? Can the memory of that imagination help me in the future when my faith wavers and the cares of the world press upon me? I can indeed live a hundreds lives in my imagination, and taste the bitterness of sin and the joy of righteousness vicariously. That knowledge then can help me to be strong and reject the bitterness of hell. Through Cain I know murder and perdition. Through Judah I know the pain of adultery. Through David I know the damnation of lust. Through Peter I deny that I know the Christ and have bitter tears. Through Paul I know persecution and stoning. Through John I know what it is to lean upon the Savior’s breast and be his beloved disciple. Not that I do these things, but the Holy Spirit causes all these things in me as I prayerfully meditate and ponder the stories which the prophets have carefully preserved for me under instruction from the Holy One. Again, I call Nephi as my witness in this likening: “And I did read many things unto them which were written in the books of Moses; but that I might more fully persuade them to believe in the Lord their Redeemer I did read unto them that which was written by the prophet Isaiah; for I did liken all scriptures unto us, that it might be for our profit and learning” (1 Nephi 19:23).

    5. More specifically I can ask myself how I relate to the priesthood authority which my Savior has set over me. Am I Uzza who steadies the ark? Am I Simon who would buy the power of the priesthood if I cannot bring myself to repent to get it? Am I like the rich young man who goes to the authorities for help but then has to go away sorrowing because I love the world more than I love obedience? Can I see how I must not pretend that I am as good as the prophet, as Hiram Page was tempted? Do I see in my bishop and stake president the same authority and power which parted the Red Sea and fed the five thousand?

    The brethren who preside over us are human, but the authority they have is not. Can I look both fully in the face and accept them? When those brethren use a scripture to teach us, do I find fault with their interpretation because I fancy myself to be superior, then neglect to do what they tell me, thus compounding the error? Peter tells us that the key to perfecting our love for the Savior is first to learn to love the brethren whom he has sent to preside over us (see 2 Peter 1). If our reading of the scriptures encourages us and enables us to do that, we are profiting from the scriptures indeed.

    6. If we love the brethren who preside over us, we then can use our reading of the scriptures to draw us closer to the Lord himself. Have we read the life of the Savior in all the detail preserved for us, then prayed for the confirmation so that we can say with Peter; “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16)? If we read with faith, we will know that our Savior loves us and that he does nothing save it be for the benefit of the world. If we love and serve him, everything which happens to us he will turn to our good. As our admiration and love for him and our faithfulness to him grow, we will grow in the power and understanding of his word. The scriptures will indeed become a Urim and Thummim to us. We will not be in doubt as to what he would have us believe and do. He himself tells us, “And again, verily I say unto you, my friends, I leave these sayings with you to ponder in your hearts, with this commandment which I give unto you, that ye shall call upon me while I am near–Draw near unto me and I will draw near unto you; seek me diligently and ye shall find me; ask, and ye shall receive; knock, and it shall be opened unto you” (D&C 88:62-63).

    7. My final suggestion for interpreting the New Testament and all scripture is that we strive to understand how to apply the great commandment. We are told, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy might, mind, and strength; and in the name of Jesus Christ thou shalt serve him” (D&G 59:5). I take this to mean that there are four basic and distinct ways in which we should love our God. Since everything we do should be an act of love for him, reading the scriptures must be one of those things, and we should use the scriptures to lean how we can love and serve him with all of our heart, might, mind, and strength.

    Our heart is the heart of our spirit body and is the factor which determines what we choose among the alternatives furnished by the mind. Most of us have the problem that our hearts are not pure: we want to do what is right, but we also want to sin. So we defeat ourselves, frustrate ourselves by doing some good things but not being able to reap the full benefits because we also tarnish ourselves with sinning. The solution to the problem is to find the one way to become pure in heart, which is found only in the Savior. If we come unto him as little children, believing and obeying, he can purify us. When we read the scriptures, we might well be asking, What does this passage teach me about how I should feel and what I should desire? If I then follow through with what I am instructed by the Spirit to feel and desire, I am beginning to love the Lord with my heart.

    Our mind apparently is the brain of our spirit body. It is our mind which knows and understands, which receives instruction and reproof, which contemplates the world and the perspective of eternity. If our mind is right, we will receive many things but admit into our beliefs only those things directly attested by the Holy Spirit, which will show us the truth of all things. Under the direction of that Spirit we will train ourselves to think, to compare, to analyze, to relate, to synthesize, to create, to conjecture, to test, to evaluate. We will strive to furnish our heart with an able and truthful servant and companion. Even as the heart needs to be pure, so does the mind need to be filled with truth and to eschew all error, even until one sees and understands the mysteries both of this world and of eternity. Only the Spirit of Truth, which is Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost acting as one, can so purify our minds and fill them that we can begin to become wise servants, properly furnished with the perspective of eternity. As we read the scriptures, we should be hungering and thirsting after truth, jealous for every true belief, that we might learn to love the Lord fully, in truth and righteousness, with our mind.

    Our strength is our body, our mortal tabernacle. To love our God with all our strength, we must study and train ourselves until we furnish this body with the very best nutrition available, the best hygienic environment we can muster, the most valuable exercise and work which is appropriate. We must treasure our power of reproduction, deeming its purity of more value than physical life itself. We must search out that field of labor where the Lord would have us dwell and be a husbandman to his vineyard, and bring forth upon the earth those physical and spiritual fruits which will please him. Our study of the scripture will help suggest particulars of how we might act as just and wise stewards, how we might keep ourselves unspotted from the world, how we might need to sacrifice our very physical life in the cause of our Master. Thus we learn to love the Lord with all of our strength.

    Our might is our sphere of influence in this world: our money, our property, our belongings, our family and friends, our stewardships. We are apprentice gods, and it pleases God to instruct us in all the ways of godliness if we seek righteousness rather than power. As we read his word, we will learn many things about how to be a just and wise steward. Through his Spirit he will show us good examples in the scriptures of the very principles and standards that he himself abides. As we are faithful in complying with that instruction, he is able to make us rulers over many, for we have then learned to love him with our might.

    Learning to love God through the scriptures is like learning to braid with four strands. Here and there, line upon line, and precept upon precept, we learn the standards and requirements for loving him with heart, might, mind, and strength. As we obey, we make the strands a reality instead of a possibility. As we obey through time, we twist, turn, weave, and sacrifice until we have formed a tightly woven strand, one that is strong yet flexible, durable yet pliable, ready and able to bear the weight of eternal things. We personally, being reborn and refashioned, have become worthy of the Master of our apprenticeship through loving him and his word.

    One example must suffice. We read in John that if we continue in the word of the Savior, we are his disciples indeed; then we shall know the truth and the truth shall make us free. How shall we interpret this according to heart, might, mind, and strength? With our heart we can desire to know him who is the truth, desire enough that we actually repent of our sins and obey his will through his Holy Spirit, hungering and thirsting after righteousness. With our mind we can understand that he is the way, the truth, and the life, and that besides him there is no Savior and no salvation. We see that the world does not know the truth. We must put our whole trust and confidence in him only. With our strength, we can sacrifice to keep his commandments, to get up when we should, to sleep when we should, to eat when we should, to go and come and work and play as we should, to defend or retreat as we should, to till the earth and provide for our own as we should. With our might we can tithe and consecrate, foster good causes and bless, share with our neighbor who is in want, store for a dark future, and invest in that which is eternally worthwhile. For if we love and serve him who is the truth, he will then be able to set us free from every impurity, every smallness, every selfishness, every error, every untoward desire. Then we shall be free indeed.

    The sum of the matter is that scripture is of no private interpretation. We must search and strive until we find that Holy Spirit which alone can make the scriptures come alive to us with that life which never ends. May we relish that great treasure, the New Testament, in that way, is my hope for all of us.

    1. Boman, Thorlief; Hebrew Thought Compared with Greek, W. W. Norton Co., 1960.
    2. Paternoster Press, Exeter, England, 1977.
    3. MacDonald Publishing Company, McLean, Virginia.
    4. Anderson, Richard Lloyd; Understanding Paul, Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book Company, 1983.

  • Pillars of My Faith – What A Privilege To Believe!

    Printed in Sunstone Magazine, May 1988
    Given at Sunstone Symposium
    Salt Lake City, 28 August, 1987

    By Chauncey C. Riddle

    What a Privilege to Believe! A philosopher explores the pillars of his faith – Printed in Sunstone Magazine May 1988

    I AM GRATEFUL TO BE A MEMBER OF AND SUPPORTER OF THE Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

    One of the reasons why I am so grateful for the opportunity to support this church is because it has no creed. It challenges me to construct for myself out of the scriptures and my own personal revelations an understanding of the universe which will help me to attain important goals in this life I enjoy this challenge to search for the truth using all of the evidence and intelligence which I can muster I recognize that my understanding is neither complete nor as yet fully self-consistent. But I rejoice in the process of learning and growing line by line precept upon precept.

    In this paper I intend to explain something of what I believe the picture of the universe I have fabricated to date and then explain why I believe these conclusions.

    To me the most important thing in the universe is God. That is simply a matter of definition for me I call “God” that which is most important in any person’s life. If anything is important to a person, then there will be a most important thing and that thing is that persons god. I see some people who are their own gods, for instance. Every human being of normal intelligence has a god by this definition but most people certainly do not agree as to what God is like To know what a person’s God is, is the most important thing to know about any person, one’s self included.

    My God has two aspects. I believe first that there are beings in the universe who are fully good; they are perfect; holy, and righteous. These I denominate “gods,” with a lowercase “g.” But all of these gods are associated in a great family priesthood structure which I call “God” with a capital “G” Each individual god has a specific place in that family priesthood order and fills that place perfectly, being omniscient; omnipotent; and morally perfect in his or her own right There is but one God (capital G”) in the universe.

    Not everything in the universe is God. The principal non-God things in the universe are nature and worlds. Nature is God’s handiwork and is holy and sacred; holy because it wholly obeys God, and sacred because it is God’s gift. Worlds are chunks of space-time where children of God have been given their agency which agency those children use to become like or unlike their divine parents to some degree Nature is the physical setting for worlds, of which there are two kinds. In worlds of the first kind, the children of God contemplate good and evil and choose between them; these are called “probationary worlds” or temporal “time worlds.” Worlds of the second kind are eternal worlds, where those children have made their choice of some degree of good and/or evil and are enjoying the consequences of their choice.

    Men and women are the children of God, and are potentially gods themselves. Like their parents, each one is a dual being a body and a spirit. The body and spirit are inseparable for the parents but separable for the children to facilitate their probation and the maximization of the happiness of each human being. The spirit of a person is composed of heart and mind. The heart is the most important part, the true self, the most private aspect. The heart is the chooser the decision maker. The mind is the switching center; the understanding which presents choices to the heart; and the controller which implements decisions by giving instructions to the physical tabernacle. The body of a person also has two aspects, strength and might. The strength is the actual physical tabernacle, the house of the spirit; the link between the person and nature and other people. Might is the sphere of influence of the person and is measured by the effect which he or she has upon the world in which he or she resides. Both the body and spirit are matter material.

    When people are given agency in a probationary or temporal world, their essential business is to choose and embody some kind of order. There are four basic kinds of order in the universe. Celestial order is the order of righteousness, which arises out of a love for God and for all other beings. Terrestrial order is the order of correctness, which arises out of respect for truth and for others. Telestial order is the order of selfishness, putting the desires of self above the needs and desires of others. Perdition order is the order of destruction, seeking to destroy all her order. This probationary world in which we human beings find our-selves is thus a heaven and a hell at the same time where the celestial, terrestrial. telestial, and perdition systems of order confront each other. It is this confrontation which gives each human being choice. The gift of God is agency which is the power to enact that which one chooses. Thus each human being is busy implementing some kind of order on this piece of the universe in accordance with his or her own desires. Since there are persons who severally desire each of the alternatives, we see a world which is chaotic and spotty; having no universal order but only interlocking and conflicting chunks of the celestial, terrestrial, telestial, and perdition options as each person fulfills his or her agency.

    To me the celestial order is the most interesting though the others are important and must be understood. The celestial is the ideal, that order which one can fully achieve in this world only within his or her heart. Pure hearts yearn also for celestial mind, strength, and might, which they are promised by God for the eternal world where they will dwell hereafter. A pure heart is so wonderful that a person who desires it would give up everything else to obtain it, for it is the most precious and most powerful possession in all eternity.

    Originally printed in Sunstone Magazine – May 1988

    There are other factors which I believe are consonant with a pure celestial heart. The most important human skill is to abide one’s own conscience which is to seek and maintain purity of heart under the light of Christ. The most valuable human activity is prayer by which one seeks and maintains place in the light of Christ. The most valuable human opportunity is work, which is the option to enact within ones stewardship that celestial order to which one is guided by the light of Christ. The most valuable human experience is pain, for pain is the surest index that one is not fully abiding the light of Christ, spiritual pain being even more diagnostic than physical pain. The most important human work is perfecting a godly bond of love with one’s spouse, becoming one with him or her and with Christ. The most important means to perfecting that celestial bond with one’s spouse is to have and nurture children in the light of Christ. The greatest happiness this world affords comes from creating celestial and terrestrial order in some piece of this world. The greatest joy comes in perfecting the family associations which the New and Everlasting Covenant offers in this existence. The most important power in the world is the power of the Holy Priesthood, which is the power and authority of God.

    The key to power in that priesthood is to first seek the light and knowledge of God to perfect ones soul. Then one can use one’s human power with maximal efficiency to set in order his or her stewardship. Once this human power is mastered and disciplined, one can shift over to the power of the Holy Priesthood to govern and control the elements. For example, a righteous man knows that he must subdue the earth to fulfill God’s commandments. So he works to master the skills and understanding which will enable him to produce crops in abundance from the earth. Having become a master husbandman, producing ample crops for his family and others, he then is in a position to learn how to draw the earth into ample production by speaking to it the words of love in the authority of the priesthood. Sometimes, of course, the Lord will allow a man to do a work with his priesthood which he has not mastered by temporal means, such as in a healing, but I understand that to be the exception and not the rule.

    The key that runs through all these ideas is the centrality of righteousness. God is a God of righteousness. The restored gospel of Jesus Christ is the message as to how to obtain the righteousness of God. The restored Church is the organization of those who have dedicated themselves to fulfilling the Lord’s righteousness. The Holy Priesthood is God’s power of righteousness which he shares with people as they begin to come to his righteousness. Righteousness in this system has precedence over truth, as important as truth is. A righteous being will receive and profit from having all truth, but all truth in the hands of an unrighteous being would create a monster. Thus, one should seek first the kingdom of God to establish his righteousness, then all other things, including all truth, will be added to him or her

    But what is righteousness? As I understand it, righteousness is what beings must do, given the total universe in which they exist, so to use their agency so that their actions redound to the maximum eternal benefit for every being whom their actions do actually affect. It should be obvious that to be righteous requires both omniscience and omnipotence to know what should be done and to have the power to do it. Thus righteousness is of God, never of man. The person who would set his or her stewardship into any beginning of celestial order must thus renounce his or her own will and do only the will of God through the new and everlasting covenant, as our Savior did.

    These beliefs are the frame in which I understand the restored gospel, the restored Church, and the Holy Priesthood. I now turn to the basis on which I have come to believe these things

    I divide my support for my beliefs into two categories, lesser evidence and better evidence. Lesser evidence is that which comes through the flesh. Better evidence comes through the spirit.

    The first lesser evidence is the testimony of other human beings. The witnesses of my parents, relatives, and friends were the beginnings of my beliefs. It was they who pointed me to belief and give me my initial framework of ideas. As I grew older the testimony, example and teachings of ward members, quorum advisors, and some very special bishops and stake presidents were impressive. These were people whom I knew in daily life. I saw them in many situations and could see for myself that they were intelligent, honest, capable people. I remember as if yesterday sitting close to the stand and hearing my stake president bear witness of the love and mission of Jesus Christ. That meant something to me for I had watched him and had been the recipient of his personal concern already in my youth. These witnesses sank deep into my soul. As yet I did not know; I only believed, and that in a tentative experimental sort of way.

    Then I began to get into the scriptures themselves and began to piece together LDS theology for myself. I first read the Book of Mormon completely through at age sixteen, but did not understand much of the doctrine. College years brought many discussions with peers, and I began to propound and defend my construction of the restored gospel. This process led me to see the strength of the gospel. It did have answers. It did hang together. There was a fine correlation between the works of ancient and modern scripture. Thus my mind began to be satisfied that the gospel was something worthy of and fruitful in rational investigation. As apparent contradictions melted before better understanding and as the range and beauty of the concepts came into my view, I was impressed. My belief was strengthened.

    There was a strong pragmatic element to my beliefs. It didn’t take much intelligence to see that those who kept Church standards were better off. Those who were active and sincere were special people: accomplishers, doers, succeeders. I especially noticed the young people who were a year or two ahead of me. Some were casual about the gospel, and although they were talented, their labors seemed only to aggrandize themselves. Others who were gospel oriented were such a benefit to everyone that it was always a delight to be in their company and to see their good works. As yet I had only belief; but that belief was getting stronger.

    Then I went away to graduate school, where I was challenged severely. One professor warned his students that any who had religious beliefs and wanted to keep them had better get out of his class, because he intended to shred their beliefs; he proceeded to do so with great skill. Another warned me that people who believed such works as the Bible and the Book of Mormon were not fit to be in graduate school. The result of all this was that I was sent scurrying to find support for my beliefs. A frantic inventory revealed that my store contained only circumstantial evidence; I didn’t really know. I realized that I needed a rock to stand on, and that rock could only be personal revelation.

    I felt I had received some revelation before. However, I saw that random revelation was not sufficient. To be a rock, a bastion of surety, revelation must be something on which one can count and receive in every occasion of real need. I began to seek for it actively. I prayed, I fasted, I lived the gospel as best I knew. I was faithful in my church duties. I tried to live up to every scruple which my conscience enjoined upon me. And dependable revelation did come. Intermittently, haltingly at first, then steadily, over some years it finally came to be a mighty stream of experience. I came to know that any time of day or night, in any circumstance, for any real need, I could get help. That help came in the form of feelings of encouragement when things seemed hopeless. It came in ideas to unravel puzzles that blocked my accomplishment. It came in priesthood blessings which were fully realized. It came in whisperings of prophecy which were fulfilled. It came in support and even anticipation of what the General Authorities of the Church would say and do in general conference. It came in the gifts of the Spirit; as the wonders of eternity were opened to the eyes of my understanding. That stream of spiritual experience is today for me a river of living water that nourishes my soul in every situation. It is the most important factor of my life. If it were taken away, all that I have and am would be dust and ashes. It is the basis of my love, life, understanding, hope, and progress. My only regret is that though this river is so wonderful, I have not been able to take full advantage of it as yet. My life does not yet conform to all that I know. But now I do know; I do not just believe.

    This river of revelation is the better evidence which I mentioned. The testimony of others, rational correlations, pragmatic justifications are all lesser evidence. But personal revelation, that enduring dependable river of personal experience with my God in prayer and obedience, that is better evidence, even a rock, even sure knowledge. But there is one piece of lesser evidence worthy of special mention. That is the Book of Mormon.

    The Book of Mormon has a unique place in my life and thought. I first read at it at age eight; I then felt its spiritual power though did not understand nor much appreciate the divinity and importance of that witness. Over the years I have read the book through some forty to fifty times, and I consult it constantly. That familiarity has brought me a special appreciation of the book. The constant divine witness that accompanies experience with it is better evidence. However the lesser evidence of the book is massive. The strength and lucidness of the doctrine the clarity of its instruction for living the gospel, the internal consistency of the story line, all add to a monumental, overwhelming mass of lesser evidence. I believe the day will come when the lesser evidence has so accumulated that anyone in the world will be able to see that the Book of Mormon is a true document, all that Joseph Smith said it was. I also believe that it will be too late then to repent. But even today the evidence is massive, impressive. The faith of Latter-day Saints does not stand on documents or on flesh and blood. It stands on the rock of revelation, on that river of living daily experience with God as one serves him. Yet the lesser evidence is helpful and satisfying. It leads one to perform the experiments of sacrifice which do bring the better evidence, the sure knowledge. The Book of Mormon is especially helpful as a catalyst to help seekers receive better evidence, the sure knowledge.

    Although human authority, reason, pragmatic justification, and empirical evidence are lesser, while personal experience with God is the greater, the better evidence, I am grateful to be the possessor of both and to know that the restored gospel of Jesus Christ is true, that this is his restored Church, and that there is godly power in the priesthood authority of this kingdom. One thing further remains: To point out the place and relationship of the lesser evidence as related to the better, the sure rock.

    Lesser evidence cannot give one sure knowledge of the truthfulness of the restored gospel. Lesser evidence is sand. Sand is not useless, for often it is our only basis for approaching and gaining the rock. But what if there is a problem with the rock itself? How are we to be sure that we have the true rock? There is a counterfeit rock, for Satan also gives revelation, that very satisfying revelation that pleases the carnal mind. How can we be sure that we have the rock, the true rock, and not its counterfeit?

    The answer is that we must use the lesser evidence: human authority, reason, empirical evidence, and pragmatic justification to certify the rock itself. If a person has not learned to be wise in judging human authority, in rationally analyzing evidence for completeness and consistency, in carefully observing empirical data, in judging the worth of circumstantial and pragmatic evidence related to the physical things of this world then one is not in an admirable position to judge between God and Satan. The developing and proving ground for those powers that bring one to strength in lesser evidence is the work of this earth, subduing the earth. If you find a person well skilled in subduing this earth, in providing food, clothing and shelter from nature, then you find a person who has learned to learn from others, who can reason, who can evaluate empirical evidence who can capitalize on pragmatic correlations. Such a one developed in judging the things of this earth, is also well developed to judge the things of God, for the earth is the handiwork of God. It is made by him, for us, and all things temporal are in the pattern of things spiritual. Men and women who are wise about earthly things have a head start in being wise about heavenly things if they will take the same care to gather and evaluate the evidence that they have used in the physical sphere.

    You may have noted that I restricted my praise for development of skill ln lesser evidence to the sphere of subduing the earth (or nature); I deliberately did not include success in the world as a base for judging the things of God. This world is a fallen place where Satan controls much of what goes on. It is possible for a person to have success in this world and not to have learned judgment in the evaluation of lesser evidence. Success in this world is as much a social as a physical thing. It is sometimes possible to attain worldly success using the tools of Satan, such as lying, priestcraft, monopoly, bribery, deceit, and raw power. Nature resists the tools of Satan and yields only to the intelligent use of man’s strength. Those who are successful in this world may have gained those skills which enable them to evaluate evidence but then again they may not have. It is thus often the humble laborer who senses the divine gift of God ahead of the wealthy and successful man or woman of the world.

    In conclusion, I emphasize that I have been sharing my beliefs and my basis for knowing the truth of the restored gospel. If your beliefs and basis for testimony differ from mine that is only to be expected. I believe that no one can build on another’s foundation, that we all must be true to our own experience and evidence. This means that initially we will not see eye to eye.

    But if we eventually reach the same conclusion from our several bases, and each know from different life histories that the restored gospel is true that gospel will then tend to bring us into a unity and commonality of experience both temporal and spiritual. That unity and commonality of experience will then bring us to see eye to eye, each building from the rock up rather than attempting to mold and force each other’s thoughts after the manner of this world.

    When we do see eye to eye it will be, I believe, because we are all thoroughly converted to the restored gospel, to the restored Church, to the Savior of all mankind. That conversion is not simply an objective, detached, mental assent to overwhelming evidence. Conversion is of heart, first and foremost, and hearts are easiest to convert when they hunger and thirst after righteousness. Conversion of the heart proceeds apace with conversion of the mind, as heart and mind lead and complement one another. Conversion is also of strength; the body will follow the heart and mind, creating a visibly new person, a tower of good deeds and examples. This means that the person’s might, their stewardships, will also be converted and begin to show forth the love of God, to become a witness to his grace and goodness.

    All of this shows you why I gratefully assert that the restored gospel, Church and priesthood are true, for I know that they represent the true and living God. This leads me to see that the most important and most powerful sentence in existence is the following instruction from the true and living God: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy might, mind, and strength; and in the name of Jesus Christ shalt thou serve him.” (D&C 59:5).

    CHAUNCEY C. RIDDLE is a professor of philosophy at Brigham Young University. This paper was presented at the Sunstone Symposium in Salt Lake City on 28 August 1987.

  • Human Rights, 1987

    April 1987

    1.   If a right is not:

    • a.   A natural process that would happen anyway.
      Example: Growing old.
    • b.   A social requirement inflicted on someone no matter what his will.
      Example: Income taxes.

    2.   Then perhaps a right is a freedom granted to a person by another person or group of persons.

    3.   The people of the United States grant rights to individuals such as:

    • a.   The right to or not to vote.
    • b.   The right to or not to leave the country.
    • c.   The right to or not to sue.
    • d.   The right to or not to kill unborn babies.
    • e.   The right to or not to have an attorney when charged with a crime.

    4.   Parents sometimes grant rights to their children, such as:

    • a.   The right to or not to take the family automobile.
    • b.   The right to or not to attend church.
    • c.   The right to or not to keep a messy room.

    5.   God grants only one right to His children:

    • a.   The right to label good and evil.
    • b.   The ability to choose and to do good or evil is not a right. No one has a right to do evil before God.

    6.   Observations about rights:

    • a.   A right is worth only the power invested by the granting agency to guarantee that right.
      Example: If the government does not assure that you can vote when you get to the polls, your “right to vote” is worthless.
    • b.   Rights may be withdrawn by the granting agency.
      Example: Martial law suspends many individual rights.
    • c.   There is and can be no “right to life,” for no one can guarantee it. What government presently guarantees is freedom from government harassment if one aborts one’s child. But in a recent court case it was decided that mother’s do not have the right to abuse their unborn children with drugs and then give birth to them.
    • d.   There is no right to health, for no one can guarantee it.
    • e.   There is no right to education, for no one can guarantee it. But some societies guarantee a right to schooling.
    • f.    There is no right to be free from racial discrimination, for no one can enforce it. But there is a right to sue and obtain damages for racial discrimination in specific contexts (e.g., hiring) if such can be proved in a court of law.
    • g.   Who has rights to the public treasury? Only those who have legal entitlements. Do AIDS victims have a right to research money to find a cure for the disease quickly? Only if some government body passes a law to that effect.
    • h.   God wills that men grant each other the rights to protection of life, freedom of conscience, and the right to control of property. Any society that grants its citizens these rights must be upheld by citizens if they are servants of God. Otherwise, God holds them blameless if, under His direction, they overthrow those governments.

  • The Logic of Meaning

    Chauncey C. Riddle
    Brigham Young University
    27 Mar 1987

    Riddle, Chauncey Cazier (1987) “The Logic of Meaning,” Deseret Language and Linguistic Society Symposium: Vol. 13: Iss. 1, Article 20. Available at: http://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/dlls/vol13/iss1/20

    Logic has two major applications to language. One is the relating of truth-value, taking units of language as wholes and relating them to each other in the manner of the propositional calculus. This we shall call macro-logic. The second application is the study of the logic of meaning relationships in language, which we denominate as the micro-logic of language. The concern of this paper will be with the micro-logic of meaning. But first we must lay some groundwork.

    A. Background Considerations

    Certain premises govern all that is said in this paper. The first is that language is a system of actions whereby a person affects the universe about him. It is an intentionally devised and intentionally used human tool. The principal use of this tool is one person affecting or controlling others. We note the following categories of this social affect and control by distinguishing three kinds of language usage:

    1. Phatic usage: Language used to fill up time.
      1. Esthetic usage: Language used to stimulate imagery and/or feelings.
      2. Informative usage: Language used to formulate testable hypotheses about the universe.

    It is noteworthy that in usage, these categories are not usually found in the pure state. Language usage may be phatic, esthetic and informative all at the same time. But usually one of these functions will be dominant in a given usage.

    The informative use of language itself has three subdivisions:

    1. Disclosure: The speaker reveals his inner states.
      Example: I have a headache.
    2. Directive: The speaker reveals his desired hearer response.
      Example: What time is it?
    3. Description: The speaker reveals his ideas about something outside himself.
      Example: This dog is old.

    Every informative use of language is disclosure, because the speaker is revealing himself, but some disclosures are also commands (directives). Some disclosure commands are also descriptions. In all three the speaker reveals himself, but in some he purports to reveal the nature of the universe as well.

    Revelations about the universe may take one of two forms, or be couched in two different types of language. The difference comes in the mode and precision of definition being used. One type of language is “ordinary,” the common vernacular languages of mankind which everyone learns as a child. The basic form of definition used in this language is ostensive. By induction a person learns to see pattern in objects which arc given names by his mentors. Dogs have aspects in common, and as one   observes enough dogs a pattern forms in his mind which he then uses both to understand and to indicate that pattern when conversing with others. This kind of pattern or meaning is not exact, is not usually specifiable in terms of a specific number of elements all of which are common to the pattern dog. This is “family resemblance” meaning, as celebrated by Wittgenstein.

    The second type of informative language is technical usage. Technical terms are those which have a precise meaning, a meaning based on essence rather than family resemblance. To have an essence means that there is a finite set of qualifications which necessarily apply to an object being referred to. This does not mean that the object may have no other characteristics: it need not be pure. It means that speaker and hearer both intend that the object referred to has at least the characteristics, the “essence,” agreed upon by prior stipulation. For instance, to be a legal contract in the technical sense, certain factors are stipulated in advance, such as:

    1) both parties must be competent to contract;
    2) there must be a meeting of the minds;
    3) there must be an anticipated benefit to both parties; and
    4) there must be an exchange of consideration.

    If those stipulations were the agreed essence of a contract in a society, any agreement lacking one of those components would not be considered a legal contract and could not be enforced.

    It is noteworthy that many of the terms used in a technical listing of essential characteristics themselves need further technical definition, such as “meeting of the minds” and “consideration” in the example of the preceding paragraph. But eventually all technical definitions must rest on terms which are not technically defined. Formally speaking, this is to say that defined terms must be defined in terms of undefined primitives. In the real world, our primitive definitions are non-technical, family resemblance definitions which we invent by induction through ostensive definition. This is to say that all technical use of language is embedded in a larger context of ordinary language. Technicality is a matter of degree. Only one term of a conversation might be used technically. Or a majority may be used technically. When the number of technical terms becomes so great that the non-initiated hearer cannot grasp the gist of the conversation, the language has become technically oriented jargon.

    Meaning is a matter of pattern. The meaning of any word or sentence is the pattern of ideas which the speaker intends or the hearer infers. The atomic elements of these patterns are either irreducible sensory items (a shade of blue, the fragrance of lilac) or constructed elements (line, wishing, angry). Constructed elements usually may be further subdivided at the constructor’s desire; thus to be elemental is to be considered elemental by the constructor. The meaning of tulip is, for ordinary language, the indication of a spring blooming bulb which produces a flower of greatly varied shapes and colors, the pattern being a vague one which enables its constructor to identify tulips with a high (say 90%) rate of success. The technical meaning of tulip specifies exactly the parameters necessary for a plant to be tulip, enabling the user to identify correctly with something like a 99% rate of success.  

    B. Parameters Necessary for Truth

    We are now in a position to ask, what are the parameters of information necessary to make an informative statement about the universe? We find that there are four basic kinds of information necessary to form a minimum complete statement.

    These are:

    a) A target pattern,
    b) An overlay pattern,
    c) Affirmation or denial of the overlay,
    d) Specification of relevance factors.

    We will explain each of these factors.

    The target pattern is something like the subject of a sentence, but it is the meaning subject, not the grammatical subject. In the sentence “It is raining,” the target pattern is “current weather.” Be it a simple or a complex pattern, the target pattern is simply the subject being operated upon in a given situation of linguistic usage.

    The overlay pattern is the pattern being brought to bear upon or to modify the target pattern. A sentence functions to overlay or to add the overlay pattern upon the target pattern. In the example of the preceding paragraph, “raining” is the overlay pattern.

    The third clement of an informative sentence is the affirmation or denial of the overlay. Affirmation is to assert the overlay, as in “It is raining.” This sentence would be used principally in case the pattern of current weather in unknown to the hearer or to emphasize the fact of the overlay. Or we might deny the overlay by saying, “It is not raining.” This sentence would ordinarily be used when the hearer is uncertain whether or not it is raining, or has been afraid it might be raining, or believes that it is raining because someone has said so. Affirmation or denial is strictly an on/off matter. It admits of no degrees or variations. Should degrees or variations be necessary, those factors would be put into the pattern of the target or overlay class, as in “It probably is raining.” In this example we have an affirmation of overlay of “probably is raining” on target pattern “My idea of current weather.” This shifts the focus of the sentence from description of the weather to epistemological considerations about whether one knows what the weather is or not.

    The fourth consideration, relevance factors, give the information necessary to test the pattern established by overlay or subtraction of overlay against the “real world.” Four relevance factors are necessary: 1) Spatial location, 2) Temporal location, 3) Mode of reference, and 4) Specification of ordinary or technical usage.

    Spatial location is the designation of the boundaries within which the overlay pattern is asserted to hold. Just where is it raining? Difficulty of description limits most usages of the example sentence to specification of the fact that it is raining or not raining at a particular spot. Weather persons on television have the ability to show satellite photos with areas of rain indicated.

    Temporal location is again best done by specifying time when it was raining at a particular place, or saying that rain began at a certain time and continued to a certain time. To speak of future time is to forecast, which is the relevant issue since the past is already gone and that past rain rains no more. But future rain has very practical consequences. Needless to say, forecasting future time rain is a guess, but sometimes a very sophisticated guess which turns out to be vindicated.

    Mode of reference designates whether one is speaking in the disclosure, directive, or descriptive mode. The same sentence could be used in any of the three modes, hence the need to specify. In real life this factor is seldom overly specified because the context makes evident what is going on. But sometimes the context is insufficient. “It is raining” could be a description if the person has been asked what the weather is. That sentence could be a directive if the speaker previously had told the hearer to move indoors as soon as it started raining. And that sentence could be a disclosure if it is a response to the question “What is your guess as to what the weather is right now?”

    The specification of ordinary or technical usage is of great practical importance. Weather reports almost always are given in ordinary language. This means that though rain is reported over a certain area at a certain time, that does not mean that every open square foot of the area is being rained upon. The meaning is approximate, family resemblance type, and is thus usually given in percentages. “There is a 70% chance of rain falling in this area.” Such a statement seems silly when one looks out the window and sees pouring rain. But the statement is intended to give a percentage over an area, not at a specific location. Technical usage would have to assure rain or not rain at a specific number of specified areas.

    Thus we see that two kinds of information are needed in the relevance factors of language usage: Where and when to look to see if something is true, and what kind of language usage the speaker is using to assert what he does. Only as these relevance factors are explicitly specified can the exact nature of the utterance be described. This is to say that we are attempting to give a technical definition of the relevance factors necessary to linguistic usage.

    It is interesting to note what is necessary when verbal communication is reduced to the absolute minimum, when context provides everything but the minimum. The minimum is the specification of the overlay pattern. Thus when someone cries out “Fire,” this word is a specification of the overlay. The target pattern (conditions), the affirmation, the present time and place, the mode of reference, and the ordinary use of language are all assumed.

    C. The work of Jean-Marie Zemb

    In an unpublished paper entitled “The Trios, the Duos and the Solo in the Structure of Propositions” (Translated by Alan K. Melby of Brigham Young University), Jean-Marie Zemb of the College of France has approached the problem of the relationship of the grammar of linguistic usage as related to the structure of meaning. He concludes that the structure of meaning is not tied to grammatical form as is inferred by the hearer as the hearer infers the meaning of the sentential formulation.

    Zemb analyzes the structure of meaning in a manner similar to that which has been done in this paper. He concludes that the structure of the proposition is that of thema-phema-rhema. Thema is analogous to what we have designated as the target class. Rhema is like that which we have called the overlay class. Phema is a pattern like that of the affirmation or denial of the overlay.

    If one uses Zemb’s terminology we see that a fourth element is necessary. That fourth element has been called above the relevance factors. To match Zemb’s terminology one might designate these relevance factors as schema, the pattern or ordering of the assertion relative to the universe of human experience.

    Zemb has made a contribution by showing clearly that grammar and meaning are not correlated uniquely. His suggestion of the thema-phema-rhema is seen to be consonant with the pattern employed in this paper. Zemb’s focus is on the proposition, whereas this paper focuses on the assertion as the basic unit of human language. But it is possible that a fruitful accommodation of terminology may consolidate Zemb’s work and the present paper into a viable approach in the philosophy of language.

    D. Conclusion

    The conclusion of the matter is that the micro-logic of meaning is very simple compared with the macro-logic of truth. The logic of meaning is simple addition or subtraction of overlay pattern to or from a target pattern. Using this device of overlay recursively, any meaning can be reduced down to its simplest elements or built up into a most complex idea, such as the idea of the universe.

  • Fundamentals of Language, 1987

    March 1987

    Definition of “language”: A language is the public patterned expressions of an individual which have been established and normed in and relative to a physical and social context. Thus:

    Thinking is not a language, though it may use language.

    Physical motions may be a language, if patterned and socially normed.

    Parrot talk may use a language, but only in the same sense that a tape-recorder does.

    To be “established and normed” in a physical context means that the definitions are shared in some community.

    Postulates of this system of thinking about language:

    1.   All meaning is personal. (Symbols or actions do not mean anything. Only people mean things through symbols or actions.)

    Thus symbols have modal usages but no literal meaning.

    2.   All meaning is total. (To elicit a total understanding of what any person means by a given symbolic usage, the entire contents of his mind would need to be understood.)

    3.   No symbol usage should be considered to be self-referential. (To avoid Russell’s paradox.)

    4.   All meaning is abstract. (Neither a part nor the total of phenomenal particularity is ever “meant” by a person. We think only in terms of universals. All so-called “particulars” of thought are actually a kind of universal, including proper names.)

    5.   There are two basic kinds of languages:

    • a.   In vernacular languages, words represent concept universals which have only a “family resemblance” meaning pattern in common.
    • b.   In technical languages, words represent concepts which have a common essence. (Thus only technical languages can successfully and fully use logic, for there the problem of excluded middle is taken care of.)

    6.   The general purpose of language is to assist the individual mind to become adequate to reality, to inform the mind so that the person can act more intelligently.

    The unit of language is the assertion. An assertion is a patterned action by which an individual expresses itself agentively. Every assertion may be (must be) analyzed into four parts to be understood by a given observer:

    1. A speaker intention must be hypothesized.
    2. The patterned expression must be identified. (The actual words.)
    3. A meaning pattern must be hypothesized. (Hearer supposes what the speaker intends his words to mean.)
    4. A relevance or truth-function must be hypothesized.

    This four-part meaning pattern is seen in watching an archer. To understand the archer one must put four pieces of information together:

    1. one must decide what the intent of the archer is, to aim at a target, as in target practice, or to aim at people. Is he friend or foe?
    2. one must have some sense of what the archer is shooting. Is he shooting wavering reeds or steel-tipped war arrows?
    3. one must note at what the archer is aiming. If he is aiming at me, I need to get the message, the meaning.
    4. I must have some sense of what will result if his arrow strikes me: serious wound and death?

    Meaning is always the relating of universals (patterns). To say “this arrow is poison-tipped” is to overlay the target pattern (this arrow) with another pattern (poison-tipped) in an affirmative relationship. The logic of meaning is simple: it is simply either the overlay of a secondary pattern on target pattern (affirmation); or it is the blocking of overlay of secondary pattern on target pattern (denial: negation or subtraction).

    In a modified Zemb frame this would mean that thema is the target pattern or universal, rhema is the secondary or overlay pattern, and the phema is the signaling of addition or non-addition of patterns (which includes both subtraction and simple blocking of addition).

    Meaning does not exhaust the assertion, however. Meaning establishes only the possibility for concept formation which the speaker wishes to emphasize. How that asserted concept formation is to be related to the universe must next be described.

    There are three kinds of assertions:

    1. Disclosures: Revelation of personal thoughts and feelings by a speaker.
    2. Directives: Attempts by a speaker to produce specific actions in a hearer.
    3. Descriptions: Attempts by a speaker to enable the hearer to conceptualize a reality external to both the speaker and the hearer (either in the absence or the presence of the thing being talked about).

    When a hearer attempts to understand a speaker, in addition to forming a meaning for the symbols used, the hearer must decide whether the speaker is using language in the disclosure mode, the directive mode or the descriptive mode. If the hearer selects the disclosure mode, he cannot look for a referent, but will look to see if the actions of the speaker are consistent with his professed disclosure. If the hearer selects the directive mode, he will act or not act, as he thinks appropriate, and then watch to see what the subsequent reaction of the speaker will be. If the hearer selects the description mode, then the hearer will look to the universe, to the referent if possible, to see if the speaker spoke truthfully.

    In all interpretation, the hearer must judge the relevance of the speaker’s assertion to something in the context which the speaker and hearer have in common, which must include relevance in space and time. This establishment of the relevance of the meaning of the assertion is a fourth element. In terms of Zemb’s analysis, I would call this the schema, the hearer’s perception as to how the assertion relates to the universe.

    The crux of the matter is the addition of schema to the thema-phema-rhema may remain constant while the schema varies. It may mean a disclosure of anger and impatience: I have told you a thousand times where the book is. It may be a directive: Don’t ask me; look it up for yourself in the book on the table. Or it may be description: The book is not in its normal place because I just put it on the table.

    Thus there is a minimum of four things which must be established to complete an assertion: target class (thema), overlay class (rhema), addition or non-addition of the overlay class (phema), and the time, place and respect in which the thema-phema-rhema is to apply to the universe (schema).

    I agree with Zemb that the logic of assertions is separate from the syntax of the language. Syntax is patterned expression which varies from culture to culture. Assertions are independent of cultural expression as relationships among speaker-hearer-universe.

  • The Logic of Language, 1987

    March 1987

    1.   There are two aspects to the logic of language:

    • a.   The logic of micro-language, of kernel sentences, which are the units of meaning in language.
    • b.   The logic of macro-language, of complex sentences, which are the units of truth-value in language.

    2.   Micro-language functions to create meaning units by the addition and subtraction of meaning patterns in kernel sentences, which are semantically incomplete sentences of the language.

    3.   There are four parts to a kernel sentence:

    • a.   A designator, pointing to the particularity of the subject pattern (class).
    • b.   A pattern name, designating the universality of the subject pattern (class).
    • c.   A copula, asserting the relationship between the subject pattern (class) and the predicate pattern (class).
    • d.   A pattern name, designating the universal aspect of the predicate class.

    4.   In a kernel sentence, a designated particular instance (pointed to by the designator) of a class, the subject (which is the class being operated upon) has added to or subtracted from it (the operation performed by the copula) another class or pattern (the predicate, or that which is added to or subtracted from the subject).

    Examples:

    • a.   That ball is red.
    • b.   That ball is not red. (For this to be a kernel sentence, the subject “ball” must already have as part of its meaning or pattern the pattern of being red. The “red” aspect of the pattern is then subtracted in that kernel sentence.)

    Though these sample sentences are grammatically complete, they are not yet semantically complete. Every well-formed kernel sentence must be grammatically complete.

    5.   A kernel sentence of the micro-language is changed into a sentence of the macro-language by the addition of three variables that make it semantically complete:

    • a.   Designation of the truth or falsity of the meaning of the kernel sentence.
    • b.   Designation of the spatial context in which the meaning of the kernel sentence is true or false.
    • c.   Designation of the temporal context in which the meaning of the kernel sentence is true or false. (If we humans develop a useful space-time continuum in which everything can be given unique space-time coordinates, then b. and c. above would collapse into a single variable.

    Examples

    • a.   Kernel: This he is a liar.
    • b.   Truth-value: Default position: assertion of truth.
    • c.   Spatial limits: Here in this room.
    • d.   Temporal limits: Last five minutes.
    • e.   Translation: He just told a lie to me, and unless he repents, he will be and remain a liar henceforth, wherever he is.

    6.   Most human logical systems such as logic, class logic, propositional logic, etc., are operations upon kernel units of meaning taken as lumps. Sentences that use such logic are thus macro-language operations. Macro-language transactions are truth transaction, whereas micro-language transactions are meaning transactions. Aristotelian logic is a primitive micro-logic, or logic of meaning.

  • Private Language II, 1987

    March 1987

    The following arguments are attempts to show that private language is impossible, as inspired by the Philosophical Investigations of Ludvig Wittgenstein.

    Argument I.

    1.   All language in use tends to drift (change meaning), because:

    • a.   People apply old language in new contexts, therefore definitions change.
    • b.   Cultures meet and meld (change, accommodate) at their intersections.
    • c.   Atypicality is deliberately employed.

    (Each of the above is a sufficient condition for change. The categories are not cleanly discrete.)

    2.   Drift in language both enhances and limits its utility.

    Drift enhances the utility of language in meeting new situations.

    Drift limits ability to communicate with others: contemporaries, forebears, descendants.

    3.   One of the devices which thwarts drift in language is to make them rule-based, establishing standards of correct and incorrect usage.

    4.   A rule is a social norm, norms are socially defined. No one person can establish a social norm.

    5.   Therefore, language cannot be based on the actions and judgments of a single individual. (There can be no private language.)

    Argument II.

    1.   Language is a rule-based system. The rules are social norms.

    2.   In a rule-based system, I either abide the rule or I do not.

    3.   Thinking that I abide the rule and abiding the rule are not the same thing. I do make mistakes.

    4.   Only the testimony of others can assure me that I actually am keeping a given rule when I think I am doing so. (This is one reason why we have judges, umpires, etc.)

    5.   If I think I am keeping a rule, and those around me say that I am not keeping that rule, there is no infallible internal evidence to which I can turn to prove either to myself of to others that I really did keep the rule. I must look for, find, and proffer external evidence (a photograph, circumstantial evidence, the testimony of additional persons, etc.) to assure that I kept the rule.

    6.   The search for external evidence to prove that I kept the rule is done to prove to others that I really did what I think I did. Therefore, others are the basis for being sure I abide the rule.

    7.   Therefore, there is no private language (no linguistic structure wherein I make up the rules, use the rules, judge that I use the rules, and have a right to be absolutely sure that all that is done correctly).

  • Private Technical Language, 1987

    March 1987

    One. Suppose that someone says, “I have and use successfully a private language.” We ask: “Is this language made up of rules? (Standard patterns of symbol usage).” He will probably reply, “Indeed it is.” And we say: “How are you sure that your language does not drift, that you use it consistently through time?” He might say, “It is a genuine language. It has regularity. It is not just my whim as to how I use it.” Then we come to the point: “What is the evidence that you use this private language you have consistently, other than your own testimony?” If intelligent, he will likely say, “My private language is a technical language. Every term is carefully defined according to the essence involved. When I use a term, I can check all the essential items to be sure that I am using the term consistently and correctly.” We counter: “Are there any undefined, primitive terms in your language?” Being an honest person he admits, “Yes there are, since every language must have undefined primitives.” We add: “So you cannot then be sure that the meaning of these primitives does not drift?” He retorts, carefully, “While it is true that I cannot be sure that the definitions of my primitive terms do not drift, I am sure that my private language system is sound and does not drift because I am able to do things with it in the real world. Nature responds to my formulae. I am justified in saying that I have a genuine private language because it works.” Then we reach for the clincher: “And how are you assured that it works?” He proudly responds, thinking he has won the argument, “Because nature produces for me exactly what I want when I use my fomulae on it. Thus my private language constitutes a genuine private language, because no other human being knows it and I can use it to accomplish just what I desire to accomplish.”

    For all of his intelligence and good will, our friend does not see two things. First, he does not see that his desires may be shifting, and that nature gives him what he desires because he has come to desire what nature gives him. He cannot produce any evidence except his own word that his desires have not changed. Second, if nature does respond to his formulae and give him desired results, that means that he and nature have a successful communication going. He communicates to nature what he desires, and nature communicates back, filling those desires. That is not a private language; it is only private relative to other human beings, but public in relation to himself and nature, the two together seen as a community. So there is no private language as yet.

    Suppose our friend pulls out his last resort and says, “But I do have a private language with God. I have made up my own terminology and syntax, and I write and speak to God in that language which is completely unknown to any other human being.” We need only inquire: “And does God then speak back to you in that language, and using that language does he enable you to foreknow the future and to accomplish that which you could not do by your own power?”

    If he says, “No. God never speaks to me.” He has a problem. He then thinks he has “a language,” but cannot assure himself or anyone else that he is using it consistently. Thus no private language, only private mumblings. If he says, “Yes. All of those things happen and more,” then he has given his case away again. For if he speaks to God and God speaks back to him through that process, he learns things he did not before, knows and does things he could not before do, then his language is not private but public, defining the community to which this language is not private but public, defining the community to which this language is public to be himself and God. Only where there is a community that serves as a check and balance on our language can we know that what we are doing is using a language. Otherwise what we say or do is meaningless babble. Thus, there is no private language.

  • Self-Love (Philosophy 110)

    C.C.Riddle

    1983, rev. 1987

    What is a self? A self has a body, feelings, thought processes, desires; but a self is probably not any one of these nor even the collection. Perhaps a self is a consciousness that is aware of its body, its feelings, thinking and desiring. This consciousness has the power of attention. It can focus on anything within the stream of mental events. It is an active choosing force that we call “the real me.”

    A healthy self is one that is ready to meet any happening in the world with aplomb. It is never afraid (though it tries to be prudent), never angry (sometimes wary), never self-pitying (though sometimes hurting), never envious (but has real desires). In short, the healthy self never entertains negative emotions, even though tempted to do so.

    The unhealthy self is afraid. It fears its body will be hurt or not nourished or rested. It fears its feelings will be wounded. It feels its thoughts to be inferior, and therefore is hesitant to be open. It fears its desires will not be fulfilled. It fears its actions will be rejected as wrong or insufficient.

    The fear of the unhealthy self probably has root in rejection as a child. There was an experience of real hunger that was not met until fear of hunger had lodged deeply. There may have been unassuaged hurts that culminated in fearful anticipation of further wounds. There were situations of “put down” embarrassment which caused the self to wonder when such would happen again. There probably were unfulfilled desires which left the self wondering if this were perhaps a totally hostile universe.

    These fear-engendering experiences of the self have given rise to a defense mechanism: self-love. The self essentially says: “No one else loves me, so I will undertake the cause of my own welfare. I will love and take good care of me, then I will have less to fear.” But that strategy has a problem: it doesn’t work. The love of self never satisfies the fears of the self. And the self feels, deep down, that self-love may be wrong, to boot.

    When the self adopts the posture of self-love, it has embarked on a course of further destruction of the self, but now self-destruction. It becomes self feeding upon self. For the measure of true love is sacrifice. Whatever we give up of our own comfort and benefit to help another is the sacrifice that makes true love real. But when the “other” is one’s self, one tries to give up comfort and benefit to try to give oneself comfort and benefit. This self-love doesn’t work well because it is a diminishing of the person as one sacrifices something usually better to comfort oneself with something usually worse. The conscience of the person tells him this is a doubtful enterprise, and the person is further discomfited. Between the depletion of good, the depletion of resources and the bad feelings engendered, self-love turns into classic self-destruction.

    Self -love leads to self-despising. Self-love, the pampering of oneself, is despised by others. We naturally tend to think less of ourselves when others around us despise us. The fact that this self-indulgence of self-love is insufficient to satisfy the needs of the self further lowers one’s self-respect. One’s conscience causes self-shame. The self-destructiveness of self-love is a final blow. Self-respect sinks to an intolerable low point.

    It is difficult for anyone else to help wounded lover of self. Such an one cannot openly discuss the problem because the wounds are so deep and painful. Discussion usually exacerbates the hurt. Nor can the self-lover brook criticism, for that is taken as further despising heaped upon the deep self-despising, becoming more than one can bear.

    The distraught self-loving, self-despising self has no comfort or peace. The supposed antidote has become a torment. The torment   soul thrashes wildly, trying to find peace, comfort, security. Typical attempts at compensatory behavior are

    Stimulation of the body: (I’ll drown my sorrows.)

    Overeating                                Drugs

    High speed thrills                              Sexual libertinism

    Seeking to be scared    Loud and/or erotic music     Escape:      (I’ll forget my sorrows.)

    Television                                Books

    Workaholic performance                    Professional student

    Immersion in peer group                   Overzealous espousing of some cause

    Hiding: (No one must know.)               Lying

    Hypocrisy                                 Rejecting help

    Reclusiveness                             Denigration:      (I’m not worth anything.)

    Constant apologies                              Masochism

    Psychosomatic illness                     Carelessness

    Suicide                                   Aggression: (You rejected me, world.I’ll get back at you!)

    Sports brutality                          Anger

    Hatred                                    Crime

    War                                       Insult

    Criticism of others                             Spite

    Strikes                                   Terrorism

    Compensation:

    If I can’t have real love, I’ll take .

    Money                               Power

    Prestige                                  Possessions

    Fashion clothing                          Jewelry

    Cosmetics                                 Famous friends

    Arrogance                                 Spendthriftness (I’ll be the generous one.)

    A person who is bound down with self-love is in the bondage of sin. As in quicksand, every struggle to add more self-love takes him deeper.

    The only cure for self-love, or sin, is to be loved with a pure love. When a person finds that instead of the usual patronizing love of another self-lover he is confronted by a pure love which accepts him as he is. (He does not despise him), which will not collude in causing him to sin or in accepting his sinning, and which sacrifices to be a friend to him, he is at first overwhelmed. Then he doubts it and tries to proved that it is hypocritical or not real. When doubt and attempts at disproof have failed, the self-lover must make a fundamental choice. He must either admit that sin and self-love are not good and don’t work, which the contrast with a pure love has shown him, or his must reject the pure love as spurious. Thus the person must either reject his own self-love for a better love, or he must turn and fight against the pure love by lying about it. Which is to say the person must at that point either repent of his self-love or sink more deeply into it by rejecting and lying about the real and pure love.

    The only real and pure love in this world is the pure love of Christ as embodied in the Savior himself or in his true and faithful servants. To encounter this love is also to encounter the Holy Spirit, which witnesses to the person of the purity of that love and of the opportunity and necessity of repentance. Only through the Holy Spirit can one repent and come to the righteousness of pure love, replacing the self-righteousness of self=love.

    The person who has loved himself, therefore only loved himself, can learn through the Holy Spirit how to forget about his own welfare and seek only to help others as the Holy spirit directs. He then realizes that he of himself does not know enough to really help anyone else unless he is given guidance by the Holy Spirit. That Spirit teaches him that God knows all and has all power, and that Jesus Christ is the only fountain of righteousness in this world. Feeling that pure love of Christ, he may yield himself as a little child into the arms of the Savior, not needing to fear nor to feather his own nest any longer. Being relieved of those burdens, he is free to follow the Holy Spirit in ministering to the needs of others in the pure love. He becomes a child of Christ, ready to obey every instruction the Savior gives him, willing to suffer humbly whatever the Savior sees fit to inflict upon him, ready to make any sacrifice to love purely. He feels that pure love of the Savior for himself, the pure love that casts out all fear because it is so satisfying. He never hungers nor thirsts again, but ministers freely and humbly of that which the Savior has given him to help others not to be afraid.

    Thus the person lost to self-love may be reborn through the waters of baptism and in the warm spiritual cleansing of fire and the Holy Ghost. No longer needing to love and defend himself, he now focuses a true and pure love on the Savior, loving the Master as he himself is loved. Guided by the Holy Spirit he feasts upon the words, feelings, ideas and actions of his new father, Jesus Christ. He yearns to be nearer to Him and spends his best moments in mighty prayer, striving to draw ever nearer to his father. Upon arising from prayer he views the world with the eye of faith: it is his apple, the endless opportunity to demonstrate to his neighbors the wonders of his new father’s love. Thus he loves others without a trace of self-concern or self-love. He speaks the truth in all humility, visits the widows and the fatherless in their affliction, and keeps himself unspotted from the world.

    Self-love has given way to pure love of God and of neighbor, the pure love of Christ for God and neighbor. This newness of life is not of this world. But the grateful possessor of this love is grateful to be in this world where he can reach out and comfort and share with others who are tormented by self-love.