Priesthood: The power and authority from God to assist in the saving work of Jesus Christ.
Power: Ability to perform miracles by divine means.
Authority: Delegated right to act for God.
Name of the priesthood:The Holy Priesthood after the Order of the Son of God. (D&C 107:3)
A true priest always leads people to find the living Christ for themselves and to live by His light.
Priestcraft: Setting oneself up as a light unto the world for praise or gain. (2 Nephi 26:29)
Functions of the true priesthood:
Preach a binding witness of Christ upon people’s souls.
Administer the ordinances of salvation in the New and Everlasting Covenant of Jesus Christ.
Judge persons as to their worthiness to partake of the ordinances in the New and Everlasting Covenant of Jesus Christ.
Order and organize the Church of Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God on earth. (The Church and families.)
Perform miracles to further the work of Jesus Christ.
Priesthood performance: To receive the Holy Priesthood is to receive a designated duty or duties to perform in the kingdom of Jesus Christ which can only be fulfilled by the true power and authority of Jesus Christ. Honorably to fulfill such duties is worthy priesthood performance. Receiving the priesthood is not an honor, but much more than an honor: it is a responsibility to produce worthy priesthood performance.
Priesthood proven: A bearer of the Holy Priesthood is priesthood proven when he has shown that he can be trusted to fulfill any and every priesthood assignment. This is only done by achieving a series of worthy priesthood performances.
Worldly authority: Dominion is exercised from the top down.
Divine authority: Righteous dominion means that one is appointed by God to preside over others and thus becomes their servant. This dominion is exercised only from the bottom up.
There are three steps to receive the fullness of the Melchizedek Priesthood:
To have the Melchizedek Priesthood conferred and to be ordained to an office in that priesthood.
To receive one’s endowments in the holy temple.
To be sealed (married) in the holy temple for time and eternity.
Jesus Christ is the source of all good things on this earth. If any person does any good thing, it is by the gifts and power of Christ. Satan is the father of all lies and other evil. If any person on this earth does an evil thing, it is because he or she has yielded to the temptation of Satan. The agency of man is to choose at each moment between the gifts and power of Christ and the gifts and power of Satan. (Moroni 10:24–25; Moses 4:3–4; 2 Nephi 2:26–29) Below is a sequencing of the basic gifts and power of God available to mankind. Receiving each gift is prerequisite to receiving the next gift.
1. The light of Christ. A radiation from Christ which is the law by which all things in the universe are governed. It enables men to live, breathe and be intelligent; to tell the truth, to do good things for one another. It manifests itself in the form of conscience.
2. The Gospel message. Enables persons to understand how to enter into the New and Everlasting Covenant of God in order to do greater good. It is manifest unto men by the preaching and teaching of prophets, in scripture, and in the whisperings of the Holy Spirit.
3. The witness of the Holy Ghost. Assurance to the heart and mind that Christ lives and that the Gospel message is true. It manifests itself in the voice of conscience, but a stronger, augmented conscience. Conscientious persons readily accept this witness, for they already recognize the voice of God.
4. Faith in Jesus Christ. Faith is willing trust and obedience to someone or something. Faith in Jesus Christ exists first in trust in and obedience to the Holy Ghost, who is the messenger from the Father and from our Savior. Afterward it may also exist in trust in and obedience to direct personal instruction from the Father or the Son, but only as led by the Holy Ghost. Faith is a gift in that the prerequisite is having a message from God, but that gift does not fulfill faith. Faith in Jesus Christ is fulfilled or manifest only in wholehearted obedience to a specific message from God.
5. Baptism by water. The formal act of accepting the New and Everlasting Covenant by being immersed in water under the hand of one authorized by God. It is \efficacious only to those who have accepted the witness of the Holy Ghost that the Gospel is true, and who do make the promises of the covenant.
6. The Gift of the Holy Ghost. The constant companionship of the Holy Ghost, to lead one into all truth and to all righteousness. It comes only to those who make the covenant of baptism knowing and intending to keep the promises of the covenant, and only by the laying on of hands by one having authority from God. It manifests itself in the voice of the augmented conscience.
7. Hope in Christ. Faith in Jesus Christ encourages one to hope for celestial gifts and blessings. As one thus hopes, he or she has the gift of hope. Without this hope, faith will not endure. Hope is fulfilled and manifested in a determination to be faithful, to endure to the end, come what may.
8. The gifts of the Holy Ghost. Special gifts and power from God to do specific good acts in and for the kingdom of God. Some of the standard gifts are enumerated in D&C 46. They are manifest through the Gift of the Holy Ghost.
9. The Holy Priesthood. Received by the laying on of hands to work in behalf of God to do supernatural good for others within specially prescribed bounds (keys). This power manifests itself through the Gift of the Holy Ghost.
10. The Holy Endowment. A further bestowal of priesthood, received in the temple by the laying on of hands. (“Endowment” means gift.) Specific gifts of knowledge and power are bestowed. These gifts are manifest and usable only through the Gift of the Holy Ghost.
11. Eternal marriage. Received only in the temple, and is the final stage of receiving the Melchizedek Priesthood. Specific gifts and powers (keys) are bestowed. These are manifest and usable only through the Gift of the Holy Ghost.
12. Charity. All other gifts are foundation for this greatest and culminating gift. Charity is the pure love of Christ manifest in power unto blessing everything and everyone around the bearer of this gift. To have this charity is to have become just, keeping all the laws of God; to have become merciful, to forgive all others their trespasses and to pay the penalty thereof whenever possible; and to have gained the power of Christ, our covenant Father. To have this charity is to be as Christ, one with Him. It manifests itself in everything one is and does, physical or spiritual. To live in this gift is to have “endured to the end.”
Thinking: The spiritual, intellectual, social and physical response of a person to his total environment on the basis of all the evidence he can gather and in accordance with his own eternal personality. To think is to exercise agency.
I. Preparation
Get rid of what we usually start with Pride Fear Despair Fatigue Ennui
By fostering what is born of discipline Humility (spirituality) Courage Conscience Health Enthusiasm
II. Definition
Carefully size up the problem and as much of the situation which has created the problem as possible.
Turn the problem over and over, looking at all sides of it.
Define how and for what you intend to use the answer.
Formulate the problem in carefully defined terms.
III. Hypothesis
Construct an answer to the problem in terms of all you now know and feel. You must start where you are.
Detail the hypothesis sufficiently that it becomes rich with implications. (This is known as “sticking your neck out.”) This is usually done by making the hypothesis as specific and as “concrete” as possible.
Formulate the hypothesis as simply as is possible in symbols that will enhance communication.
IV. Test the Hypothesis
Intellectual. Employ the thinking processes deliberately and carefully. Especially search out the consistency of the hypothesis with as many other things you know and believe as possible.
Study. Gather relevant information everywhere possible. Read, examine, pick the minds of intelligent people on the subject as you have appropriate opportunity.
Social. Try your hypothesis out by telling your friends about it. (A friend is a person who can and will cut your ideas down to size with reason and evidence without cutting you down or demanding that you accept his or her ideas.)
Experiment. Act on your hypothesis doing the best you know mentally, physically, and spiritually. Carefully note the consequences. (If you cannot experiment with it, it is not a real problem.)
Time. Don’t be in a great hurry unless the problem is unimportant. If the hypothesis wears well over a period of time, good. The better you become at thinking, the more success you have had in doing it, the more you can afford to move swiftly.
Prayer. The spiritual test is the most important. Prayer should be the beginning, the constant middle, and the terminus of all real thinking. If you are humble and spiritual, light and truth will flow into you as you exercise your own powers to think as fully as possible.
V. Modify your Hypothesis
As each bit of sound evidence and inference brings new light, modify the hypothesis appropriately. Use all the results of all the tests insofar as possible.
Never finalize your hypothesis. If it works, delight in it and bear testimony to it on appropriate occasions. But never assume that no new evidence can cause a change in your hypothesis. That would be intellectual and spiritual death.
VI. Record your Results
Even though your memory is marvelous, write down your testimony of your fruitful hypothesis. Sin can snatch from you both your memory and your testimony to good things. You may need the record later to revive yourself.
Keep a Book of Remembrance. The most precious heritage you could possibly give your posterity would be a record of your good ideas, your testimony and experiments.
VII. Courage
Have the courage of your convictions. If you always act on your best ideas, you will never be sorry.
Bear witness in word (as you are prompted) and in deed to your good ideas. Don’t worry if you stand alone before men. Fear God, not men. If you stand with God, He and many righteous people will stand with you in this age.
1. Since a basic definition is always ostensive, and since ostensive definition can only offer family resemblance likeness in the formation of universals, the first language learned by a person must always be a vernacular language where family resemblance is the unifying factor in all universals.
2. After a vernacular language has been mastered, essential definitions can be constructed, thus making technical languages possible.
3. For a symbol system to be a language, there must be:
a. A community of persons who have a need or opportunity to cooperate.
b. A common physical context (to make primitive ostensive definitions possible).
c. A set of signals (phonemes, letters, gestures, etc.)
d. A defining procedure (ostensive plus other definitions).
e. A lexicon: a set of defined signals.
f. A syntax: a set of typical patterns of word and sentence formation.
g. A rhetoric: a set of typical patterns of sentence usage in conversation and writing.
h. A social structure for identifying and rewarding “correct” usage and for identifying and penalizing “incorrect” usage.
4. Mastery of a language is the ability to use it correctly (typically) for all purposes, satisfying the social structure which rewards and penalizes usage.
5. Once they have mastered a language, some persons who are leaders expand the typical patterns by introducing new symbols with old meanings, new symbols having new meanings, new meanings for old symbols, new syntactical arrangements, new defining procedures, and new social support structures. This atypical use of language is the occasion for the growth of knowledge, change in values, and the drift of language.
6. Language is a technology, the most important technology known to man. It is thus an instrument of power. It enables men to:
a. share good things with others (righteousness),
b. dominate others (unrighteousness), and
c. fill up time (phatic use of language).
7. Principles of language use:
a. Radical utility. Usefulness shapes and controls the nature of every language in every aspect.
b. Indeterminacy. Any linguistic structure can be used to mean anything by any person.
c. Typicality. For any given language in a given time/place/culture there is a pattern of typical phonetic, semantic, syntactic and rhetorical usage, the mastery of which makes one a full-fledged member of that language community. Non-typical usage is simply error.
d. Atypicality. One who has mastered a language can then use it atypically with great power. Atypicality must be very close to typicality to have power. When one uses language atypically, one is attempting to assume a leadership role. (Any given population is susceptible to the atypicality of leaders because there are always unfulfilled desires. The leader raises the hope of fulfilling those unfulfilled desires by leading the group to the “promised land.”)
e. Parsimony. When language is used for sharing or control, efficiency is important: language tends to be lean, spare, nothing unnecessary. When language is used phatically, parsimony is undesirable.
f. Ellipsis. No speaker can express all he means in any finite discourse. The meaning of any utterance is ultimately the total universe of the speaker.
g. Entropy. There is always a loss of information from speaker to hearer in any natural language transaction.
h. Integrality. As persons have four parts, so meaning has four parts: heart, might, mind and strength. The whole person speaks in every linguistic usage.
i. Attraction. The community using a given language grows (in relation to rival languages) in proportion to the relative utility of that language.
j. Generality. A pattern of typicality in a language is more widespread the more large segments of the population have common linguistic experience. (E.g., television is a powerful establisher of typicality.)
k. Diversity. The more a sub-population desires to separate itself from a community, the more its typical language patterns will differ from that of the community from which it wishes to separate itself. Examples of the need for diversity: 1) professional jargon; 2) preventing “out” persons from penetrating an “in” group.
1. Definition of language: Any patterned and normed set of assertion codes by which one being communicates with another.
Patterned: A finite set of standard projections which may be combined and recombined in a virtually infinite set of communications.
Examples:
Written language: An alphabet, a syntax, a rhetoric
Spoken language: Morphemes, a syntax, a rhetoric
Normed: Mutual agreement in a community of agents as to the definition of a pattern set. This establishes typical usage.
Example:
Periodic table of the elements
Dictionary
Assertion: Any communication of one being to another.
Example: A person speaks standard morpheme patterns in a standard syntax and rhetoric to communicate with others within his group.
Code: Medium for the physical projection of an assertion in a language.
Example:
Regular spoken English
Morse code
Sign language
Digital language
2. Kinds of language:
a. English, French, American Sign Language.
b. Body language (actions and appearance)
c. Chemical triggers
d. Concept language
3. Basic principle of language usage: Radical Utility: All language use is governed by the desire of individuals to communicate with (affect change in) their environment. The only limitation on language is that it work (that the individual achieves his desires). There are no necessary patterns, norms, codes or languages. Any individual may do anything he or she pleases with language. The only question is, does what is done further the desires of the individual or not?
4. Other principles of language use:
a. All meaning is personal. No language pattern means anything. Meaning is always a function of the speaker or hearer but never of the connecting language link between speaker and hearer.
b. All meaning is total. To get a full understanding of what a person means by a given communication one would need to understand his entire being: heart, might, mind and strength in the past, present and future.
c. All language is abstract. All meaning is particular.
d. There are two kinds of language in every culture:
1) Common sense language: Meanings are vague and general (family resemblance) Example: I want to buy an apple tree.
2) Technical: Meanings are relatively much more precise (essence) Example: I want to buy a Stark Yellow Delicious on a Malling IX
e. No language usage should be self-referential. Language must always depict things from a “distance” to avoid paradoxes.
5. Parameters necessary to a language:
a. A community of persons who have a need to cooperate.
b. A common physical context. (This makes definition possible)
c. A code. A set of signals.
d. A syntax. A typical set of word and sentence forming patterns.
e. A rhetoric. A typical set of message and communication patterns.
f. A lexicon. A standard set of words.
g. A defining procedure. A standard means of relating codes, words and meanings.
h. A culture. A common set of beliefs, values and customs.
6. Natural language: Any language learned as a mother tongue.
Artificial language: Any language not learned as a mother tongue by anyone. Any language artificially constructed or artificially employed.
7. Grammar: Rules invented in the attempt to provide pattern for syntax systems. (Grammar is an artificial imposition on a language; syntax is the typical “natural” patterning of a language. Grammar is not used to learn mother tongues. It is a “schooling” contrivance thought by some to assist the learning of second languages.)
8. Stages of language:
a. Pidgin: Noun language formed in the first generation of cultural contact between two very different language cultures.
b. Creole: Basic inflected language formed in the second generation of cultural contact between two very different language cultures.
c. Normal language: Fully developed language having all tenses, moods, cases needed by the participants.
9. Additional principles of language use:
a. Indeterminacy: There are no correct or incorrect semantic, syntactic, or rhetorical patterns in any language. There is only modal usage. Modal usage is a pattern that is used most often in a particular culture at a particular time and place to accomplish a particular task.
b. Typicality: The modal usage of language in a particular time, place, and culture. Only by mastering the typical patterns of a language can one gain entrance to most social groups. Typicality maximizes the utility of language for most ordinary purposes.
c. Entropy: There is always a loss of information between the sender and the receiver in any natural communication.
d. Ellipsis: No speaker can say all of what he means in any finite language use.
e. Parsimony: Communication must be finite to be effective. (Say all that is necessary but no more.) The principle of parsimony does not apply to phatic communication; there the goal is to fill up time, so the communication may be infinite.
f. Integrality: Every assertion has four principal parts. Speaker intent, speaker message, speaker support, speaker result. This is matched by hearer intent, hearer message, hearer support, hearer result. (These map on to heart, might, mind and strength for every person.)
g. Attraction: The community using a given language grows in number (in relation to the number of users of rival languages) in proportion to the relatively greater utility of a language.
h. Generality: The more widespread and the greater the number of experiences a language population has in common, the more uniform the language usage tends to become (patterns of typicality have more widespread use.)
i. Diversity: The more a sub-population desires to separate itself from a community, the more it clings to non-typical patterns of language. Non-typical patterns are used when there is a need to:
1) Discourse in a technical way about recondite matters (jargon).
2) Prevent the general population from understanding or penetrating an “in” group (dialect).
j. Admittance: the entre into any social group is to master the language patterns of that group.
k. Accession: The key by which to acquire the total culture of any social group is to master the typical language patterns of that group.
l. Stability: Typical use of language tends to stabilize language forms through time. Factors which tend stability in a language:
1) Constant physical environment.
2) Constant culture/religious environment.
3) Appreciation/respect for ancestors/conventions/traditions.
4) Influential persons who speak typically.
5) A written literature which is highly respected and widely read.
m. Metamorphosis: Non-typical and atypical use of language tends to cause language forms to change. Factors which abet metamorphosis:
1) New physical environment or factors.
2) Desire for exclusivity.
3) Desire for novelty.
4) Influential persons who speak atypically or non-typically.
5) Social interaction with other cultures.
6) Preponderance of spoken over written usage of the language.
10. The signals (codings) used by a language vary on a scale from very representational to very referential. Examples:
a. Very referential: Binary codes, alphabets.
b. Moderately referential: Glyphs, pictographs
c. Moderately representational: Pantomime, pictures, graphs
d. Very representational: Drama, movies, television, role-playing.
Referential coding maximizes efficiency in communication.
Representational coding maximizes efficacy in communication.
11. Naming may be random or rational.
a. Rational coding: Surnames, latitude, and legated descriptive names
b. Random coding: Most given names
12. Defining: pairing a symbol with another indicator of meaning.
(Rule: Never use the definiendum in the definiens.)
Definiendum: That which is being defined.
Definiens: that which does the defining.
Modes of defining:
a. Ostension: Pairing a symbol with an experience.
b. Synonymy: Pairing a symbol with another symbol which is supposed to have the same meaning.
c. Denotation: Pairing a symbol with a verbal set of directions which enable the receiver to pair the symbol with an experience.
d. Connotation: Pairing the symbol verbally with a larger class to which the concept belongs (the genus), then verbally separating it from other members of that class (differentia).
13. Kinds of assertions: There are four kinds of assertions by which human beings express themselves. These are:
a. Disclosures: Communication of thoughts or feelings of the speaker. Examples: I have a headache. I believe in the supernatural.
b. Descriptions: Communication of the nature of things in the universe other than inside the speaker. These may be open to inspection by the hearer, whereas disclosures are not. Example: The earth revolves around the sun.
c. Directives: Communications by which the speaker attempts to get the hearer to do something. Example: What time is it?
d. Declaratives: Communications by a person having authority which change the status of something in the universe. Example: I now pronounce you man and wife.
Exercises for Language
1. Why is there communication that does not involve language?
2. What is the basic difference between linguistic and non-linguistic communication?
3. What are some theories of language other than Radical Utility?
4. What are the inter-relationships of the triad signal/sign/symbol?
5. Is the fourfold taxonomy of assertions exhaustive?
6. What are the inter-relationships of the fourfold taxonomy of assertions?
7. Why can’t human beings be fully human without language development?
8. Why do propositions not serve well as the basic unit of human communication?
9. Why is it false to say that all meaning is particular?
a. The original covenant of Justice: Keep every commandment and inherit. Abraham 3:25 This is a covenant of justice.
b. The New and Everlasting Covenant: Repent of all sinning and learn to keep every commandment and then inherit. This is a covenant of mercy, which mercy enables a sinner finally to keep the original covenant. Mercy cannot rob justice.
c. The Covenant of Abraham: This is Abraham’s personal version of the New and Everlasting Covenant with four additions that pertain to time only:
1) His posterity will be a great nation.
2) His posterity will be charged to take the Gospel of Jesus Christ (The New and Everlasting Covenant) to all other nations.
3) Everyone who accepts the Gospel of Jesus Christ (and partakes of the New and Everlasting Covenant) will be counted as Abraham’s posterity if they were not already literally so.
4) God will bless all who bless Abraham, and curse all who curse him. (Abraham 2:9–11)
2. The New and Everlasting Covenant is the means of obtaining forgiveness of sins so that we may then try to fulfill the original covenant. It gives us the supernatural powers necessary to fulfill the original covenant.
When the New and Everlasting Covenant is kept (and only when it is fully kept), it is:
a. A bestowal of knowledge and wisdom.
b. A bestowal of righteousness (a pure heart).
c. A bestowal of the promise of eternal increase.
d. A bestowal of an increase in priesthood power.
Only those who completely repent of all sinning while in their probation can fully inherit.
Anyone who wills not to repent completely is damned to the degree that they refuse to repent.
(The New and Everlasting Covenant makes it possible to repent of every and all sinning.)
3. The most important sentence in all of scripture: “Thou shalt love the Lord, thy God, with all of thy heart, with all thy might, mind and strength: and in the name of Jesus Christ shalt thou serve him.” (D&C 59:5)
The second most important scripture: “Thou shalt do all that thou doest in the name of the Son, and thou shalt repent and call upon God in the name of the Son for evermore.” (Moses 5:8)
The keys to fulfilling the New and Everlasting Covenant.
Consciously do everything we do as a priesthood act, in the name of Jesus Christ, by:
a. Being obedient to Christ, even unto the ultimate sacrifice. (Heart)
b. Putting our full trust in Jesus Christ. (Mind)
c. Being chaste, uniting only with our husband or wife in the covenant. (Strength)
d. Use all we have and control to build Zion and establish His Righteousness. (Might)
4. Conclusions:
The centerpiece and jewel of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in any dispensation is the New and Everlasting Covenant.
The endowment in the temple is the key to human fulfilling of the New and Everlasting Covenant.
The most important covenant is the original covenant. The New and Everlasting Covenant is the bridge that makes it possible even to try to keep the original covenant.
When we come to the point where we will no longer to sin, and do no longer sin, we will be fulfilling the New and Everlasting Covenant.
If we then, no longer sinning, endure in faith in Christ unto the end of our probation, we will also fulfill the original covenant and can and will enter into exaltation.
Human beings are spiritually and physically the children of the gods, and may become gods.
Each human being has a stewardship of mind, heart, strength, and might.
Mind is what and how one thinks and believes.
Heart is what and how one feels and chooses.
Strength is what and how one acts with one’s physical body.
Might is what and how one affects other beings.
Each human being who learns to love God with all of his heart, might, mind, and strength, can become as God is.
II. Human Learning: Epistemology
Each human being has two possible modes of learning.
1. One can learn physically, from other human beings: horizontal learning.
a. One can learn from human beings who learn from God.
b. One can learn from human beings who know not God.
2. One can learn spiritually from spiritual beings: vertical learning.
a. One can learn from God (personal revelation) about all things.
b. One can learn from Satan (personal revelation) about all things.
III. Human Beliefs: Metaphysics
What one believes about God, man and the universe sets the stage for all that one believes can happen in mortality.
What one believes can happen sets the limits as to what one can do.
IV. Human Actions: Ethics
Every person’s beliefs cause one to think there are better and worse ways of acting in this world.
How one acts is governed by one’s beliefs as to what acts are worthwhile.
V. Human Religion
The pattern of how a person learns, feels, chooses, acts, and influences others is his religion. (Everyone does something with his heart, might, mind and strength.) Habits=character=religion.
Churches are institutional forms of religion. Not everyone has a church, but everyone has a religion.
Everything one does is a demonstration of one’s religion.
VI. Skills
Skills are the learned patterns-of-action of a person.
One’s education or development is best gauged by the kind, number, and degree of refinement of one’s skill learning.
One’s religion is clearly exhibited in the skill applications one uses to meet the opportunities of daily life.
VII. What is art?
Art is both a process and a product.
Process: Every human skill is an art, a technology.
The arts which were practiced in the courts of Medieval Europe are now called “fine arts.” But there is no defensible line of demarcation between fine art and practical art.
Product: The products of fine art are called “art.”
The products of the practical arts are often called “artifacts.” Unfortunately, this historic division of art into two kinds has fostered a cultural and social schism. Some people feel superior because they deal with “fine art;” and most others are made to feel inferior because they deal only with “practical arts.” That division hides a very important truth: The work of every person’s hands can be honorable. Whether that work is honorable does not depend on whether it is fine art or practical art.
VIII. What is the connection between ethics and art?
A person’s art (process and product) is a clear and direct expression of his/her ethical commitments and metaphysical beliefs. In other words how and what a person does in the work of his/her life is a direct result of that person’s religion (not his church, but his personal religion).
If a person’s religion commits him/her to service to others, it leads that person to learn and practice skills which benefit others.
If a person’s religion is the worship of selfishness, he/she will do little for others but will pursue the consumption of wealth with great skill and perhaps with much learning.
IX. What is beauty?
The arguments as to what beauty is are thousands of years old and have made no identifiable progress in that time.
It seems likely that what most people call “beauty” is simply that name which they give to things that they like, want, or appreciate; beauty is thus a form of “good” for them. Is there a meaning for “beauty” which corresponds to “right?”
What a person calls beautiful or ugly is another clear index to his/her personal religion. Have you noticed that calloused hands are usually ugly to people who don’t like to work with their hands? And have you noticed that what is beautiful and desirable in clothing is almost always socially determined? A person’s religion takes a public bow whenever that person makes “value” statements such as what is and is not beautiful.
X. Which is more important in art, form or content?
This is a question which reflects a preoccupation with “fine art”; only there can art form be relished apart from content. Would a chair be beautiful if it collapsed and caused you serious injury? In practical art the content (function) is necessary, but the skill that produces good function also produces good form. In fine art some think they are being very (“upper”) classy by ignoring content and concentrating solely upon form or technique. However, they would be first to criticize a plumber who had masterful technique but who used newspapers for pipe in their home.
Rather than worry about form versus content, every artist would do well to concern himself first about what is the right thing to do, and then do that right thing with consummate skill. Then would the world be better off indeed.
XI. Is art communication or expression?
This is another question which arises out of the preoccupation with fine art. It can only be asked about art which is essentially useless.
All practical art must render service. It must communicate or translate need into satisfaction. Only in fine art can the artist be so contemptuous of others that he cares not a fig if he communicates with them. But note that such a one usually wants to be paid for “doing his own thing.”
Art which does not focus upon communication, upon translating need into satisfaction and appreciation, is art which reflects the religion of selfishness.
XII. Who can judge art?
We need to decide if we are talking about process or product to answer this question.
Judging the process, the skill of an artist, can only be done by one who is himself well-skilled or who has close and wide observation of the better practitioners of the art. There is something objective about skill, about what a person can and cannot do well.
Judging the product, the “good” of the artistic production, leaves everyone to himself, for this value is always personal, a function of present desire. It is the tendency of the world for those who are able to judge the process effectively and accurately to also place themselves as experts on product and to proceed to tell everyone else which artistic productions they should and should not esteem. Such easily turns to priestcraft.
Who can judge the “rightness” of art? Who could rightfully pronounce such judgment?
XIII. What is the place of art in civilization?
Observation of the art of a people, all of their arts of every skill, and concerning both process and product, gives an index to their civilization. The more moral their endeavors and the more skillful their execution, the higher, the better, the nobler, is their civilization.
Zion cannot be established in the absence of good artists and good art. When everyone in the society sees the need of producing good things, moral things, and doing it well, all for the welfare of one’s neighbors, then Zion is nigh.
To establish Zion, a people must believe that all work is equally honorable if it is a right thing to be doing. Doing well at any task is as noble as any other if it is what the individual is supposed to be doing to fulfill his stewardship.
One reason Zion is not yet upon the earth is because art, all art, has not yet found its proper place and function in the lives of those who call themselves Latter-day Saints.
XIV. What of Plato’s triad of “the good, the true, and the beautiful”?
Platonic thought makes the good, the true, and the beautiful all one thing, different names for single identity: The greatest idea. In the Platonic hierarchy of the Forms, the final idea or form is at the same time truth, beauty, and goodness.
In a world where men only approximate truth, where good is what they want, and where beauty is attributed to something because it pleases them, each individual person’s truth, beauty, and good, may indeed coalesce, but each person will have a truth, beauty, and good, different from every other person.
In a Restored Gospel frame where truth is the mind of God, where good is what is “right” in His eyes, and beauty is the holiness of the implementation of his right and truth, then indeed the three are one and they also become the same for everyone who lives the Restored Gospel.
A (non-exhaustive) Taxonomy of Human Arts (Skills)
An important index to the culture (civilization) of a group is which people (e.g., all or some) within the group master and employ such skills as the following.
Heart: Feeling Arts
Type
Description
Empathy/Sympathy/Compassion:
Ability to sense what others are feeling and then to feel the same way.
Pain tolerance:
Ability to allow pain to work its beneficence without seeking to mask it.
Self-motivation:
Ability to generate out of one’s own desires sufficient impetus to gain a goal.
Purity of heart:
Ability to discern the needs of others, with no admixture of selfishness.
Spirituality:
Ability to detect and identify both the Holy Spirit and the evil spirit unerringly.
Discipline/Control of appetites:
Ability to avoid interference of personal need or desire in learning and executing a regimen.
Judging/Evaluating:
Ability to establish “good” and/or “right” for any object of attention.
Might: Social Arts: (Based upon communication)
Type
Description
Motivating others:
Ability to turn the personal desires of others into an impetus to achieve a common goal.
Social graces/Manners:
Ability to follow a protocol to eliminate unpleasant surprises in social interaction.
Organizational management:
Ability to coordinate the activity of many persons in achieving a single goal.
Friendship/Enmity:
Ability to produce and maintain warm/cold personal relations.
Love/Hate:
Ability to sacrifice for/injure another person.
Priesthood/Priestcraft:
Dispensing truth and light to others with/without true authority and without/with remuneration.
Mentor/Master:
Guiding the skill development of another person with/without their consent.
Disciple/Slave:
Receiving a regimen from another person with/without one’s consent.
Business (buying, selling):
Exchange of goods for mutual benefit.
War/Assault:
Forcible attempt to deprive another group/person of some good thing they possess.
Diplomacy/Negotiation:
Verbal attempt to deprive another group/person of some good thing they possess.
Training:
Ability to change the reaction patterns of another person to what the trainer desires.
Mind: Intellectual Arts
Type
Description
Philosophy:
Asking questions which help to elicit understanding/comprehension.
Science:
Production of peer-acceptable descriptive assertions about the natural world.
Scholarship:
Creation of imaginative accounts of events of distant or past times out of record evidence.
Mathematics:
Creation of systems of order, pure and applied.
Engineering:
Ability to achieve specific goals using current technology and limited resources.
· Physical:
Creation of plans or physical objects and processes to achieve a physical goal.
· Social:
Creation of plans for social processes to achieve a social goal.
· Legal:
Creation of plans or pathways and legal barriers to assure legal attainment of client goal.
· Medical:
Creation of diagnosis and plans to attain a desired somatic state.
Thinking:
· Perceiving:
Identification of sensory phenomena.
· Comprehending:
Relating some idea to a matrix of relevant ideas.
· Systems:
Creating special relationships of ideas to achieve a personal or social goal.
· Deduction:
Deriving necessary conclusions from given premises in accordance with given rules.
· Induction:
Creating assertions about whole populations on the basis of evidence of samples.
· Adduction:
Creation of premises from which a given assertion may be validly deduced.
Strength: Physical Arts
Type
Description
Walking/Running:
Ability to change spatial deployment of one’s person as desired.
Carpentry:
Ability to deploy wood (plastic materials) to create larger structures.
Music:
Ability to create patterned noises.
Observation:
Ability to achieve extrapolable data from sensory perception.
Experimentation:
Observation of results of a change deliberately introduced into a controlled situation.
All: Arts which inherently involve heart, might, mind and strength simultaneously.
(Every art involves heart, mind and strength.)
Type
Description
Learning:
Achieving desired changes in habits of one’s own heart, mind and body.
Communication/control:
Achieving desired actions in another person.
Righteousness:
Achieving the action patterns of a god through communication with God and becoming a disciple of God.