LeGrand L. Baker

Category: Philosophy of Language

Language Transactions in Covenant and Contract
Chauncey Cazier Riddle

Proceedings
of the
Deseret Language
and Linguistics Society
1993 Symposium

Brigham Young University
1-2 April 1993

I. Introduction

Language Transactions in Covenant and Contract – by Chauncey Riddle – Printed in the Proceedings of the Deseret Language and Linguistics society 1993 symposium

Two fundamental ideas form the frame of this paper. First human beings have four kinds of language ability. They have language of heart, mind, strength and might. Language of heart is that of desire, for human beings do what they desire to do. Heart language is the fundamental expression of the human being, and all other human languages are but translations of the heart language. Could one read the heart language of a person, one would understand the person completely. Mind language is the ideas of the person, the concept/event sequences of the imagination. Mind language forms the context in which the person functions and desires: The beliefs of the person form a world in which the person lives, moves and has being, and which provides the alternatives among which the heart makes choices in desiring. Mind language is the first translation from heart once desires have been fanned, as the desires are given concrete expectation by the mind upon their being settled upon by the heart. Strength languages are the actions of the human body which express the desires (heart) and intentions (mind) of the person. These strength languages may be any kind of natural bodily action from crying, dancing, and woodcarving through instrumental languages such as painting and music, to sophisticated utterances in the human verbal languages such as English or computerese. Might languages are the resultant effect of the heart, mind and strength languages of the person, and range from the very personal, such as the effect of one’s accent on others, to the movements of an army or navy according to instructions from the commanding officer. All that human beings do or can do is exhausted in these four kinds of languages of heart, mind, strength and might.

The second fundamental framing idea of this paper is that human beings are what they do. Each is the sum total of the expressions each makes in the four kinds of language power which each possesses. Another way to say this is that the person is the sum of his or her linguistic powers which are used to result in effects upon the remainder of the universe. (In this stipulation, potential is not real; it is taken to be an imagination of what might be or might have been, but is not reality. Only the actual is real.)

The importance of these two framing ideas is that the most important thing about any human being is that person’s language transactions, and the fundamental language transactions are those of heart, mind, strength and might. These two framing ideas are the basis of human covenant and contract, alike. We shall now turn to an analysis of contract and covenant in these terms.

II. Contract

Civil governments are created by men to ease the power struggle of the jungle. What civil government does is to assume a monopoly on might language which involves the use of force, and grants civil rights in the place of the use of brute force, reserving brute force to itself. Individuals are created by civil government as that government grants a person individual rights and recognizes the residual powers of the individual to act apart from those rights. A driver’s license gives one the right to direct an automobile on the highways, and the right of free speech enables one to use his powers to communicate with others in verbal and other languages. Arrest and incarceration are denials of the right to come and go, and capital punishment is the denial of the right to exist. So if one citizen injures another using brute force, the injured party has no right to retaliate in kind, but has the right to plead with the government in a civil proceeding to get it to punish the offender. If the government decides chat the offender is indeed guilty, the government then proceeds to use its brute force to exact whatever penalty it deems appropriate from the offender. When other language transactions fail governments also relate to one another using brute force, which is war. Thus civil governments create individuals by granting them rights to act.

One of the special rights civil governments grant is the right to exchange rights between individuals. Rights to exchange rights are the laws of contracts. But the rights to contracts are complex rights which must be based on other rights previously granted to the individuals it recognizes. The rights granted by civil governments which are necessary to entering into contracts are; The right to have and to exchange information. The right to perform and exchange services. The right to own and to exchange goods. And rights to redress (remedy) in the case of wrongful exchange. Contractual arrangements flourish only among equals: Equals in the jungle can successfully barter) but only persons created equal before the law can successfully contract. Unequals cannot usually contract because one will dominate the other and there is no remedy for wrongful exchange.

The environment conducive to contract is one of free exchange of information where each party is aware of his or her own rights and the rights of all others. In such a situation, an individual may perceive a right that another person has and desire it. The individual with the desire contacts the person who has the right he or she desires and works out an agreement whereby each will give up a right to gain a right which each desires. Thus I may have a right to have my earnings saved in a bank I see another person who has a right to a certain piece of property. I desire that property and arrange to exchange my right to my money for the right to own that property if the other party is willing.

The essentials of a good contract are as follows:
1. There must be a meeting of the minds. Each party must understand its own and the other party’s rights and what is being agreed upon by way of exchange of rights. This is mind language. Human beings are not ordinarily mind readers, so a meeting of the minds is stipulated in careful legalese colloquial strength language. But the necessity of the part mind language plays in the contract is explicitly recognized by the law.
2. Performance. Each part must use its present powers upon terms the contract. This is strength language, both verbal and non-verbal. The role of strength language in the execution of a contract is explicitly recognized by the law.
3. Consideration. Each party must suffer a detriment, or loss of a right or rights, which is called “consideration.” The point of detriment is of course to gain desired rights. But it is detriment or consideration which makes a contract and separates a contract from the bestowal of a gift. Consideration is might language in contract transactions.
In theory, a contract is entered into by each party because it is pleased with the opportunity to gain a right that it does not now possess and to do so at a tolerable cost (detriment). Should either party not be pleased after the execution of the contract, then either party may seek redress or remedy before the civil government. The civil government will examine the transaction first to see if there was a valid contract involving a free exchange of information (no deception) and a meeting of the minds about rights actually possessed by each party. Should the contract be clearly sound, then the performance and execution will be examined to see if those transactions have been fulfilled according to the agreements of the contract, to see if the consideration or detriment suffered by each party was appropriate.

It is also part of the theory that government is the equivalent of omniscient and omnipotent, and that it is just in its rendering of judgments. Unscrupulous persons often try to seize the reins of government so that they can redress their favorites and punish their enemies using the government monopoly on force. Checks, balances and review procedures mitigate the abuse of power by government officials, bur only when the unscrupulous are in the minority. The failure of the government redress of aborted contractual relationships is a return to the law of the jungle.

Governments are set up by brute force and fall by brute force. Governments and contractual obligations are adequate only when a majority of the people who give power to the government are themselves just and recognize that there are principles of governance which do not derive from brute force but which must be upheld by brute force. These principles which brute force must uphold are the recognition that every human being must be equal before the law and must be protected in his or her rights.

Thus contract is civilized barter, and it affords complicated cooperation which the barter of the law of the jungle cannot enable.

III. The New and Everlasting Covenant.

The New and Everlasting Covenant of the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ is taken here as the paradigm covenant because it was the original covenant, it preceded all civil government in the time of Adam and therefore preceded all contractual arrangements, and because it is the model upon which all other covenants and contracts are based.

Mankind exists because God created men in his own image, male and female. An individual is defined and created by God in the gifts and power given to that individual, spiritual and physical. What the individual does with those gifts and those is the self-defining acts of the person, making himself or herself something out of the opportunity which God has given each.

To every person God initially gives heart, mind strength and might, those vastly varying in quality and quantity. As the individual uses those gifts and powers in defining himself or herself, each prepares for an eternal reward of what each has chosen to become. It is God’s announced desire to share all that he has with each of his children, to make them equal with himself. God is limited in what he can do and share with each person by that person’s choices in mortality. Those who choose to be just and to develop all the gifts and powers from God can receive a fullness from God. Those who choose to be unjust and to use the evil gifts and powers of the adversary limit themselves to an eternity of damnation. The Gospel of Jesus Christ proclaims the mediation available for all who have sinned or erred, allowing them to change or repent through Christ to achieve the character, the use of the gifts and powers of God, which they truly desire.

Thus all men are free, subject to their own desires, except as they are limited by their ignorance. by the law of the jungle or by civil government. Each may make language transactions with heart, mind, strength and might unto the fulfillment of desire. With heart and mind man speaks to and receives from God. With strength and might man speaks to and receives from mankind and from nature. But the categories are not right. The languages of heart and mind affect men and nature as well as God, and the languages of strength and might speak to God even as do the heart and mind of the person.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is that men may learn to communicate with their heart, might, mind, and strength in a perfect way, even as Christ does. The change which enables such communication comes only by the bestowal of the power of God in me ordinances of the Restored Gospel. The actual bestowal of that godly power to surpass human ability comes only through covenant, the New and Everlasting Covenant.

There are certain requirements which must precede the making of the New and Everlasting Covenant. First, the person must understand the difference between good and evil. Good is the righteousness of God, and evil is anything which deviates from the righteousness of God. To every person who enters this world, the light of Christ is given that each might know the righteousness of God. Also to every person who enters the world, the power of Saran is manifest to give each ample opportunity to know evil firsthand. Secondly, the person must understand the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The essence of the Gospel is that each human being can be rescued both from doing evil and from the effects of having done evil by accepting Jesus Christ as their new father and learning to keep all of his instructions. Thirdly, the person must have a desire to accept the Gospel and become a new creature in Christ through the 1aws and ordinances of the Gospel.

The New and Everlasting Covenant is an agreement between God and an individual to exchange powers and services, not rights, as in the case of contract. The covenant is a relationship between unequals, and the law of me jungle obtains, for man is nothing when compared to God. But the mighty one in this case is benevolent. God desires only the welfare of the individual, and will never use or abuse him or her to his own ends. There is no third party to give remedy or redress. But there is a third party: Satan. He gives no redress but does offer a counterfeit covenant. Each human being is free to covenant either with God or with Satan, and some choose one, some, or the other, according to their own desires for men are free. Too late will each individual who covenants with Satan learn that Satan only covenants to use or to abuse the individual. giving each a momentary benefit in exchange for an eternity of misery. But no one is eternally trapped by the covenant of Satan except those who have known and deliberately rejected the New and Everlasting Covenant.

The language transactions necessary to the New and Everlasting Covenant are as follows:
1. Mind. Man is to give up pride (self-sufficiency, enmity toward God) and to acknowledge God as me only source of good. He must accept Jesus Christ as his Savior and keep every commandment which Christ gives to him. Only those who already know good from evil and desire to choose me good can accept the covenant with their minds and communicate this to God.
2. Heart. Man desires to give up evil (selfishness), and God begins to purify the heart of the individual, giving each pure desires (for righteousness only). If a person is wilting to desire only the pure desires from God, the person can receive a new heart which no longer desires any evil. The person can speak the language of the pure love of Christ, which me scriptures call “charity.”
3. Strength. Men desire to give up all actions to feather their own nests, rather desiring to work for the good of all as God directs. So far this is heart and mind language only. It becomes strength language when the person actually does me good works which God enjoins, wearing and wasting his or her human life away in the cause of godliness. God gives gifts and power to each person so that each can do the good that he directs and do it skillfully.
4. Might. Men give up possessiveness and the use of their power to take advantage of other persons. Rather they put all they command at the service of God, that good might be done for everyone around the person as God directs. Men and women who use their might language this way in the covenant become heirs of all that God possesses, which is to say that they, too, will eventually be almighty.
God fulfills his part of the covenant perfectly. He speaks to each participant in the covenant in languages of heart, might, mind and strength, enabling the human being to become conversant in the righteous use of the languages of heart. might, mind and strength unto the day of perfection, when every language transaction of the former human is now the perfect communication of a goodly, godly person, a saint, one who is a joint-heir with Christ of all that Famer has. No one who enters the covenant for the right reasons and pursues it according to instructions is ever disappointed. Only those who wish to retain a certain portion of evil as they serve God find fault with the communications of God.

Those who find fault with God may tum to civil government for redress, but in vain, for governments of men can only redress the rights which they create in the first place. No human government can remedy any unhappiness a human being has with God. The fault-finding human can turn to Satan, who will assure him that he is in the right, that God is unjust, and who will give the person some worldly advantage to ease his distress. But the easing comes with the price of eternal captivity for those who actually know and have tasted of the goodness of Christ.

IV. Conclusions: Language transaction differences between contract and the New and Everlasting Covenant.
1. Contracts are always entered into and executed on the basis of inexact human strength and might languages; remedy always involves inexact interpretation of those same inexact transactions by a third human party. New and Everlasting Covenant transactions are always conducted in all four kinds of language simultaneously and accurately: heart, mind, strength and might. The first two kinds of language transaction provide the opportunity for precise meeting of the hearts and minds, that desires and understandings might be exact and commensurate. A person does not gain a fullness of the covenant at first, but learns step by step, grace for grace, what is required. As a person takes each new step he or she is shown greater understanding is given to go one step beyond the present faithfulness. Strength Language is part of the New and Everlasting Covenant as a witness in case of the default of the human participant. No participant is held for anything he or she did not understand; but until there is understanding, there is no possibility of faith sufficient unto the great blessings for which the New and Everlasting Covenant is administered. The covenant is entered into and executed first and foremost in heart language, but only after the mind language has brought appreciation of what God requires.
2. The essence of contract is consideration, enhancing the might of the parties to the contract by goods and/or services. The essence of the covenant transaction is heart, God sharing his pure heart with the human participant. Contract functions to change what a person controls so that both parties may fulfill their desires. The covenant functions to change what the person desires so that enlargement of what the person controls will not increase the evil in the universe.
3. The Language transactions of contract leave the parties unequal, even though they might be considered by the law which governs the contract to be equal. The transactions of the New and Everlasting Covenant bring men to the stature of a god, making men first the children of God, then equal with Christ in every aspect of character.
4. The language transactions of contract are finite in time, space, and material consideration, and have no meaning when men are dead. The language transactions of the New and Everlasting Covenant are infinite in time, space and material consideration, pertaining both to this life and to eternity.
5. The transactions of contract make men of ill will into enemies, because, to the evil, their fair share is never enough. The transactions of the New and Everlasting Covenant enable the participants to become brothers and sisters to every human being, to love and serve every one through the name and power of God, the good and the evil among men alike.
6. The remedy for improper transactions of contract is not only insistence on performance but also punitive penalty. Redress for improper transactions by men in the New and Everlasting Covenant may be punitive, but only to gain the attention of the erring person. When the person repents and remakes the covenant, the improper transactions are swallowed up in Christ, through his atonement.
7. Contract needs to have all four kinds of language transactions, even though it does not have them. Heart language would assure bargaining in good faith. Mind language would assure perfect understanding of the circumstances and agreements of the contract, a true “meeting of the minds.” Strength language would be technical and exact, forming a proper record of the agreement and assuring accurate performance. Might language would be the resultant order and power in the world envisioned by the making of the contract. But contract actually only enjoys strength and might language functions. It is therefore very imperfect compared to the New and Everlasting Covenant.
8. Contract is the human counterfeit of the Covenant. Contract serves human beings fairly well in a fallen world to achieve worldly goals, but only when the participants are men of good will who abide the light of Christ are contracts mutually beneficial and enforceable. Where men are wholly given to evil, contract fails and only the law of the jungle prevails. But humans can enjoy the New and Everlasting Covenant either in the jungle or in a civilized nation of law and order. The covenant does not depend upon fortunate environment.
9. In Zion and in heaven, the covenant will wholly replace contract. For men and women will gain all they need from celestial sources, not needing anything from the non-celestial portion of their environment except the opportunity to administer the gifts and blessings of God, which opportunity he gives. Contract is at best terrestrial, a shield to protect good men from unscrupulous men. The covenant is celestial, when good men draw strength from God and minister to all the rest of mankind. Telestial and perdition-type persons use contract as a sword, to defraud their fellowmen, rather than as the shield for which it was intended.
10. Thus, the only sure and fully satisfying language transactions between men and men or between men and God are the transactions of the New and Everlasting Covenant. All other language transactions will ultimately fail because the heart and mind transactions are insufficient to the performance required for unending relationships. Marriage by contract is an endurance contest. Only marriage in the covenant has the hope of perfecting the participants so that they could stand to be with each other all of the time and cooperate in all matters unto eternal happiness.
Chauncey C. Riddle graduated from Brigham Young University in 1947 with a major in mathematics. He obtained an M.A. and a PhD in philosophy from Columbia University in 1951 and 1958 respectively. He taught at Brigham Young University from 1952 through 1992.
April 1, 1993
The Language of Heart, Might, Mind, and Strength

Chauncey C. Riddle

Education Week, 1991

The title of these series of discussions is Language and Philosophy of Language, and their connection with religion. Yesterday we talked about communication, pointing out that everything we do is a communication. And our communication, or what we do, is the sum of our existence. We are what we do. In other words, we are how we communicate.

Today I would like to talk about languages. Each of us is adept at many languages, and it is important to understand these languages. This changed from the schedule, I hope you don’t mind. I had to put this one first to make sense of the one that comes up tomorrow, which is the one that is scheduled for today. I hope you will forgive me if this upsets your plans. But anyway, we are talking about languages of heart, might, mind and strength.

We assume this paradigm, which is fundamental in the scriptures. That human beings are composed of four aspects, that is to say that there are four parts of us that we control. And we are accountable for each of these four. Our heart and our mind are the spirit, that is to say they belong to our spirit body. We are talking about the heart of the spirit body.

Apparently the heart is the thing that makes decisions. It is that thing in us that is the real us. That’s the personality we bring from eternity.

The mind is what thinks, what understands, what plans, what executes the desires of the heart. Executes in the sense of giving signals to the body. The mind is the thinker, the place where ideas and representations are made.

The strength is the body, the physical tabernacle. Into which we are placed at birth, and which we are relieved of at death, and which we again have at the resurrection.

Our might is the trail of effects we leave in the world and the universe. Our might is the wake of our ship. It’s the swath we leave as we go through life, in other words, it’s the effects we have on the world. Now there are two aspects to might. One is our potential, which is sometimes spoken of as might. But the more real might is the actual thing we have accomplished.

So we will talk about language in each of these four aspects. Because there are languages of heart, languages of mind, strength and might. So, what is a language? A language is a patterned and socially normed set of assertions by which one being communicates with another. Now, let’s take that apart a little bit. It’s patterned, that’s to say there are repeated sequences. There is a discernable pattern.

If you were to record my voice you would find that I go through a repetition; certain phonemes, certain words, certain phrases, and these come up again and again as I speak. Every language has these patterns. We pick up on the patterns, the human brain is so constructed to pick patterns very readily. And things don’t have to be exactly the same. Our mind functions by analog, or by metaphor, which means it doesn’t have to be exactly alike to see a similarity. We are good at seeing similarities, at seeing patterns, Even though the details may not be exactly the same. Otherwise we couldn’t recognize each other from day to day.

We all look a little different; wear different clothes, wear our hair a little different, appear in different circumstances. And if we couldn’t see the patterns apart from some particulars, of course we wouldn’t do very well.

So languages are patterned, they are socially normed, in the sense that in a community (a community needs to be no larger than two people) the pattern begins to take a significant meaning which both the sender of the pattern and the receiver of the pattern understand to be associated with some idea or intention. And so to learn a language is to learn the social norms of a community. It is to acquire the culture of that community. There are no private languages in the technical sense. All languages are public, they are socially normed.

Now a set of assertion codes is simply a way of manifesting ourselves. The assertion codes that we use as human beings are almost all of our body. Some our not, some are our might. But they come through our body. The body reveals the things that go on in the heart and in the mind. And if you become very good at it, you can read a person’s body and detect things that are going on in their heart and mind. There is also a spiritual power of discernment. Whereby one may read a person’s heart. Or read a person’s ideas and mind. And if a person is gifted spiritually and has that power then there is a direct, (you don’t have to guess that way.) You can look at a person’s body, or the results of their efforts and infer what is going on in their heart and mind. That is guess work, but if you have the gift of discernment, you simply read directly what is in the heart and the mind.

Well, these assertion codes then, are the signals. Assertion codes for instance I am sending you a series of assertion codes which are noises I make with my vocal chords. And these are socially normed. You know approximately what I mean. By uttering each noise, and the sequence makes a difference to you and out of that you fabricate a meaning from these noises and attach some kind of set of ideas to this whole series of nonsense.

Well, now let’s talk about the different languages:
HEART
Heart language is patterned expression of the human heart. There are many dimensions, I am not sure how many dimensions there are of the heart language. Let me mention a few to you that you will recognize. Some people (these come in pairs) and we recognize different personality types, as different people have different heart language. For instance, some people are strong personalities, and some people are weak personalities. That is a function of the heart. That is to say the strength of the person. The heart is what determines that.

Some people are very sure of themselves, and move ahead. Other people are deterred by every wind that blows in their purposes. One is strong, the other is weak. To have courage (the word courage of course, cour is the french word for heart) courage is simply heart. Courage is being strong in heart, and to be afraid is to be weak in heart. And part of the gospel is to help us to have courage. And we are told that if the language we express is the language of fear that means we do not yet have faith, and if we do not have faith we cannot be saved. So those who fear are not saved. To be saved for one thing means to acquire something in which we can put our trust so that we don’t need to be afraid. So the heart speaks a language dependent on what it’s capabilities are internally and externally. If a person doesn’t know anything that is stable or good in the world, he can trust nothing, then the heart is automatically weak. If the heart can trust something, and as it trust in that, and it finds that trust vindicated, then the person grows strong.

Some people are steady, other people are pragmatic, or variable, Some people are constant in the sense that you can always depend that when you see them they will always have a certain attitude and stance. Other people you will never know if they will be up or down. Now that again is part of the language of the heart. This I think is closely related to the strength and weakness part of the language.

Now the person who is steady is the person again has something in which they can trust, they have an anchor for their soul. The gospel provides such an anchor in the Savior. Those who have come to know the Savior, know his work, and know his spirit, and find that he is eminently trustworthy, they are simply different people. They speak a different language. They speak differently because of the knowledge that they have.

Some people are sober, that is to say they are serious about serious things. That doesn’t mean they are always long-faced. But the opposite of being sober is to be light-minded. To be light-minded is to be flippant about sacred things. And some people find that the only way they can pursue life is to treat everything as if it were a joke, nothing is sacred to them. Again, you see, that is closely related to faith. And the heart expresses itself, and shows it’s faith or lack of faith in whether a person is sober or light- minded.

When Mormon was about ten years of age, Ammoron came to him and said “I perceive thou art a sober child” I presume what he meant by that was, `You take spiritual things seriously’. Therefore, I can trust you. That is the thing, of course, that we need to engender in ourselves, in our children. We can’t engender it directly, but we can encourage faith in the Savior. And faith in the Savior makes possible every good thing. Another attitude of the heart, is some person’s are proud or self-sufficient. That is to say, they are a law unto themselves, they have no trouble passing judgement on anything, anytime, anywhere. On setting the standard saying whether something is true or false, or right or wrong. They simply know of themselves, it is so because they say so. That is to say they are very self- sufficient.

Other people are humble. These people who are humble do not pretend to know all things. Sometimes you can be humble and strong for instance some people are humble and they don’t know very much, but what they do know they feel very strong about. They don’t know very much. But some people (there are all kinds of variations) You see, as talk all these kinds of characteristics, and get them in different kinds of combinations, you begin to weave personality. You find a personality pattern. And interestingly enough, it is easier to read the heart of a person than it is the mind. Because the heart really comes through. You can see it in a person’s demeanor. In what they do, in how they speak, how they act, what they do, and so forth. You can read that.

The final dimension of heart language is the person’s attitude toward good and evil. I say final dimension, I suppose there are many other dimensions of heart language. These are the ones that I have been able to identify surely to my own satisfaction. But I suppose there are others. But perhaps the most fundamental of all is simple the orientation toward good of evil. So a person either love’s righteousness, and seeks for equity and truth and justice and kindness and love, or they don’t. If they are casual about such things, and they don’t mind being good, if it suits their purpose, and they don’t mind being evil, if it suits their purpose; that is a special expression of the heart.

And so the heart expresses itself in everything we do, in everything we say. We can’t do anything without the heart, because the heart is the basic aspect of the human personality; the most fundamental thing of any person.

MIND
Let’s move on to mind language then. Mind language is the patterned expressions of the human mind. We say these are harder to read. Father has given us the ability to hide our minds better than the ability to hide our hearts. The ability to hide is in a sense our agency. If everything were absolutely public and there were no place to hide, there would be no space for repentance.

It is my understanding that in the celestial kingdom, every inhabitant of the celestial kingdom reads hearts and minds directly. That is to say the discernment is so great everybody knows exactly what everybody else is thinking and feeling inside. They don’t have to say a word. I presume there is no verbal communication in the celestial kingdom. Simply people read each other, read each other’s intentions and thoughts and feelings directly. Well now, if you’ve had a chance to repent and get yourself in shape that’s wonderful. But here in this world we get to hide that a little bit. We don’t hide it from Heavenly Father, or from spiritually gifted persons, but most people aren’t awfully spiritual, and most people have to guess what is going on in our minds. It is easier as I say to guess what’s going on in the heart, because there is so many evidences of that.

But mind language is simply our ideas; what we think. And so we express our mind language in our concepts. We take concepts and put them together, for instance, if you’ve successfully navigated the various locations of these Education Week lectures the last few days that means you have some sense of a map in your mind about the BYU campus. And if it were not for that map in your mind, you couldn’t navigate the system. And so if you have a certain belief about the BYU campus, that belief doesn’t have to be exactly accurate. It can be skewed in various ways and you can still get to your destination on time as long as certain essential relationships are right. You might have the distances all wrong but the directions might be right etc. And so you eventually get there. But nevertheless, you’re mind language is simply the ideas in which you think about the universe.

Now mind language has several dimensions. We have in our mind what we call the truth, but we also have in our minds other variations of that which for the past would be “what might have been” and for the future it is “What could be”. So, we have in our minds what was, what is, and what will be. That’s one set of beliefs, but we have another set of beliefs: what might have been, in the past, what might have been right now, and what could be in the future. And so we do a great deal of thinking about what could be.

Now if we’re the recriminating type, we really like to lay it on people, and we go back and harbor in our minds all these “what might have beens”. When somebody challenges us and finds fault we lay on them “what might have been” had they done something different. That’s a way of counterattacking; defending ourselves. It isn’t especially effective, but it seems to be a rather popular way of acting.

But we spend a great deal of time thinking about what might be. We had this sense of what will be if nothing changes. But then if we do something maybe something else will happen. And so we have to have this in mind and this and this is our ability to plan and to project the future and shape the future according to our own desires. So if we don’t want to be hungry tonight, we make some kind of thought as to what to do to prepare for that contingency. There are fifty different ways to solve the problem. So we find some solution that happens to be attractive to us. And begin to set in motion those thoughts and feelings that will lead us to do the things that will produce the satisfaction we want. So our mind language is connected both with truth “what is” and with possibilities of things.

And so we express ourselves constantly. A little child, as soon as they come into the world, they begin to build an image of the universe. They are very good at it. Little children are extremely bright and quickly begin to construct a world to figure out what is going on, who’s good, who’s bad, what you can to depend on, can’t depend on, and so forth. Very soon, they have world all built in their mind. Now the interesting thing is when we actually think and act we don’t think and act in the real world, we think and act in our minds. That’s all our consciousness can get around.

Our consciousness is limited to our brains, apparently to a small portion of the brain. And so in our brains we live and move and have our being. Now this body is and extension of that brain, but we know we don’t touch with our hands when I reach out and touch this podium. I’m feeling it back here, I’m really sensing it back here. In my mind I’m projecting it out to here. But where I’m actually feeling it is right here as if it were out here. And similarly with everything we experience. It is actually taking back here in the back of our heads. And so in this we represent the world in our heads, it is where we live and think and move and judge.

Now it is true that our body is in the real world, but our body sends us sensations, some of which we can interpret, some of which we can’t. We make the best of these sensations, some noises we can’t interpret, some noises we can. Some sights we see we can get a significance for them and fit them into our pattern. Some we can’t. For different persons there is a different percentage of things they look at around them that they can understand. Some understand a lot some don’t understand very much. But everybody has to understand something to be able to survive as a human being.

So, we need to be able to have a mind that is adequate to our environment. There are then, languages of mind. And these languages are the ideas that we build in our minds to represent the universe so that we can live and make what we think are wise decisions. Consisting basically of beliefs, of strategies for achieving our desires, and for readings of other people and their intentions.

Now we build an image of each person we meet, and we interpret them in terms of that image. That image is our mind language expression or our caricature of that person somewhat like a cartoonist. Instead of drawing on paper we draw on our minds. We draw an image of the face, we draw an image of personality, we construct a heart with some of its variables that we talked about. We type the person as being smart or not so smart, linguistic or not very linguistic, and so forth. All kinds of things we characterize them as. Not that we are putting them down, we just have to know those things to know who it is we are talking to. Those are things we have to do to have a picture of one another. I say it is a caricature, because it is never exactly right. We are not given the ability to get the real absolute truth of things, we only approximate things. The more experience we have with people, the more our image of them comes in relationship to the truth. Each day it gets closer and closer. But we can be badly fooled. So we always have to be careful that’s why it pays to be humble. When we begin to suppose we know everything, that we’ve go everything figured out, that is when the roof is about to fall in.

So we have these different mind languages in which we express ourselves. All mind language is simply an expression of the desires of the heart. We build the kind of world which we think exists, which we want to believe in. We build the kind of possible world that includes the things we would like to achieve. We build the kind of people the caricatures of people around us into the kinds of persons we’d like them to be.

Again, we have to have a dose of reality with that and recognize we may be wrong. Well, anyway, that’s mind language. We use mind language constantly when we think. Some people have a rather narrowly developed mind language, others have widely developed. Vocabulary is a pretty good measure of mind language. It’s not the sole measure, because sometimes people are very good at thinking about things about which they have no words.

Now reading is a form of mind language. When you pick up a book, you normally see black marks on a white piece of paper. The marks have to be. But what you do is you sit there and study the marks, and see patterns in the marks. And you take the normal meanings of those patterns and begin to build an imaginative world out of them. And your ability to read is usually just a function of the development of your mind language.

The best way to teach somebody to read books is to talk to them a great deal. To expose them to a lot of verbal language so that they get used to building images in their mind. And then when they pick up a book and start looking at the black marks on the white page they use that same facility they’ve used with heard words to do it with the black marks and away they go.

Children that are read to, normally have a very good vocabulary, and have a very well developed imagination by the time they go to school. The ones that are not read to do not have as well-developed imagination because they have not been exposed to as wide a vocabulary nor as varied a scenery as people who have been read to have.

And so people who do a lot of traveling have a bigger mind vocabulary because they have all kinds of ideas in their mind about things and places other people just don’t have. To be parochial is to have a narrow mind language. To be broad means to have many experiences and to be able to interpret in many ways and variations.

STRENGTH
Now we come to strength language. Strength language is what we do with our body. Expressions of the human physical body. The strength language of itself does not have meaning. It is only a signal, and the signal is always indeterminate. The meaning of the signal is what is going on in the heart and mind of the sender. Since most people can’t read the heart and mind of the sender they simply “invent” or “guess” the meaning of the signal. And they build a projection on the basis of that guess. So we hear each other’s noises, see each other’s faces, see each other’s hand gestures and we create and imaginative scenario as to what they might be saying in that process.

It’s amazing that we do well with language as we do. I’m convinced that in college classes the communication seldom rises above seventy-five percent. And the first day of class it is always about ten to twenty percent. As time goes on, things get better. But sometimes you read a book, or hear a talk in church, and the person is just talking way over your head and almost nothing gets through. We just don’t have the ability to imagine anything that fits with those words. So part of speaking, projecting language, is to size up what language your audience understands and speak in that language. It’s typical at times for people who don’t care about others for people not to do that. People who care, watch their audience, and try to read their attitudes by their reactions. As you sit there, you are reacting, every one of you to me as I speak. If I’m good at reading you, I can tell your positive input or negative input, and so forth. And if I’m wise I will use that to adjust what I say when I say it.

So there are different physical languages. There is first of all body language. Body language is simply how we control our body to indicate certain things. All of our verbal language exists in the context of body language. Verbal language cannot be understood except you put it in the matrix or context of a physical surrounding and a body language. It is the only way we can make verbal language mean anything is by ostensive definition, that is to say, some fundamental definitions you have to point, show, and then the person begins to figure out what the norms are. And the meanings for those symbols. Now, with that we build up our entire repertoire of language. But strength language is the basic fulcrum of our communication with each other through which we build up our understanding. Now spiritual language is there also, and that’s very important. In speaking after the human — our strength is the fulcrum on which everything turns when we communicate with each other.

So, there are different kinds of body languages. Dancing is a body language. Playing soccer is a body language. Carpentry is a body language. In each of these enterprises what we are doing is we are going through patterned expressions or motions of the human body by which to accomplish something in the physical world. And so, just about everything we do, we do by the way of the languages we have learned. It’s all patterns and norms and we express ourselves to achieve our desires. Not in a random haphazard way, that would not be a language. But in a specialized patterned way are our languages.

So there are all kinds of these languages, anything we do regularly, all forms of acting, are simply languages. Then there are colloquial human languages. These are the mother tongues of the human race. Strictly speaking, there is a mother tongue for each individual family. No mother teaches her children exactly the same language as any other mother. Because no two mothers speak exactly the same language. There is no such thing as `the’ English language. There are several hundred english languages that have something in common. But the one on this end is totally incomprehensible to the one on this end. Even though they’re both english. Bill Meyers has demonstrated this very well if you’ve seen his series on the english language.

So there is a family of languages. Languages are always familial. The same mother tongue is no accident. Mothers are the purveyors of language. It is the mothers that teach children language. The first language children learn from their mother is heart language. They learn whether the mother is afraid or confident, steady or not steady, and so forth. And the child picks up on that emotional pattern and begins to be like that from the moment of birth. The child picks up on body language, very quickly the child picks up on spoken language and begins to form ideas. And begins to build a mind world. A world where he can speak his own mind language. And by the time the child is two or three, it is well adapted into the human languages, doing very well with expressing itself in heart, mind and strength.

Then there is another kind of language, there are artificial human languages. Most artificial human languages are `technical’ languages, or `specialized’ languages which people use to communicate with each other for particular purposes. Colloquial language, or the mother tongue language are always deliberately vague, ambiguous. That’s one of the glories of language. That is both deliberate and not deliberate. That is to say, we do it sometimes deliberately so that we can’t be pinned down as to what we are saying. Sometimes we would like to express ourselves more particularly, but don’t have the vocabulary.

When human beings find themselves wanting to speak very precisely and do not want to be misunderstood, so that there can be absolute communication they always go to a technical language. And a technical language, there is only one meaning. And if the technical language allows two or more you haven’t got a good technical language. So you refine and refine and refine until the signals are all unambiguous. You can communicate exactly and know what your wants and needs of the situation are. So if you are a carpenter, and you go on the job, you have to speak the carpenters language. English will not do. If you are a basketball player, you go on the court, (Say you are a pro basketball player) you don’t speak english. The language of pro basketball is black english, and if you are white, you have to speak black english or you don’t play basketball. That’s all there is to it. And so forth.

There are specialized languages, the language of science over the whole world is the same…bad english. Broken english is the standard scientific language anywhere you go in the world. Anyone who pretends to be a scientist will speak to you about scientific things in broken english. Now your english might be better than that, but that is the standard scientific language. And it works, that is the beautiful part of it. That there is sufficient communication plus it is a technical language because the person is expressing himself very carefully in specialized terms. And the communication succeeds. The grammar doesn’t have to right. It’s the meaning that you get that you formulate in connection with what you say that has to be right. The grammar can be terrible.

Grammar is all artificial and invented anyway. There is no such thing as `correct grammar’. Grammar is always a matter of norms. Now that doesn’t mean to say I am against grammar. I am very much for good grammar. Because when you use a standard grammar you tend to stabilize a language. When you break the grammar patterns. You cause a change in the language. And change puts you out of touch with certain groups. Now some people do this deliberately. When you wish to have a clique of people that you control, what you do is you form a private language for that group. You invent new words for some common meanings, common terms, and speak in that language with the people in that group who know what you mean. And pretty soon you find that there are `insiders’ and `outsiders’ and that gives you a group identity. Because you have a language now.

Now, language is the vehicle for group identification. If you wish to join a group, the only way you can usually do it is first of all to master language. You may have to do some other things to but if you don’t master the language, you’re never in. So, if you are in a group of college graduates, if you don’t speak college language, they will not count you as one of their number. It doesn’t matter how many degrees you have. If you can’t handle the language, you don’t count. If you can handle the language, (there are people who have never been to medical school who fake being MD’s.) they’ve been around enough that they can handle the language. They get by with other doctors and do beautifully. Because they know the language. That is the main thing you learn when you go to medical school is the language. In any profession, that is what you learn.

I am a philosopher, what do we teach students in philosophy? The language of philosophy. And to become philosophical is simply to be able to express yourself in the normal historic philosophic patterns. Simply to learn the specialized jargon of philosophy. That is what constitutes being a philosopher. And so it is with almost every discipline in the world. These are artificial languages that people learn to accomplish specific tasks. The more languages a person knows, usually the more powerful they are. You can take any colloquial language and render it a technical language simply by being careful how you use it. So, if the need demands, you become careful. There are different ways of being careful. If you’re trying to meet somebody on campus that you’ve missed the last few times, you pretty soon get pretty good at doing it so that you don’t miss them. You have them say where they’re going to be and you say where you’re going to be and you repeat it about three times, you have a backup for where you’ll be if that fails, and so forth. Eventually you get to the point, if succeeding is important to you, you figure out a way to succeed. And the way to succeed is to be so technical about language that you cannot be misunderstood. So there are these strength languages.

MIGHT
Lets go to might languages. Might language then, is the result of all that we do from the heart, mind, and strength languages. So if you were to go to my home and look at it you would see my trail, and my wife’s trail, and our children’s trail. It is a collective trail, but nevertheless, certain features of it are mine, certain features of it are my wife’s, certain features of it are my children’s. But you can read us in the trail that we have left in our home. The way the furniture is arranged, the kind of art-work that what we have on the walls, the kind of dishes that we collect, the kind of layout of the house, the way the grounds are kept, the way the automobiles look. (Just don’t look in the garage, that’s my territory).

But anyway, like it or not, all those things beray us, that is to say, they are our linguistic expression. And a person can look at those things and read us by looking at what we have left. So, to can read a person you see what is interesting to them, what is valuable to them, what isn’t interesting to them. Some people don’t care about clothing at all. They wear the craziest getup that don’t match at all. Other people are very conscious of clothing, and they leave a very different impression on us. The result on other people is the might language. Some people are orderly, and wish to be precise and careful about all things. Others are orderly about some things and not about others. And again, that is an expression of the self.

So, our might is the trail that we leave. Again, like it or not, the happiness of our spouse is one way you can read your own might language. If your spouse is happy, that means you are expressing yourself well to your spouse. If you’re happy, they’re expressing themselves well. Our children are might language. Children have their own individual identities, we cannot control them. Nevertheless, a great can be read about parents simply by looking at the children. You can’t read everything, but you can read a lot. Some people use priesthood as their might, they perform lots of ordinances and do lots of things in the power of God. And the trail that they leave is a language trail which can be read and linked back to the nature of the person that left the trail.

Now, the Savior tells us that we must assess people. He tells us to be careful about judging them. We must judge righteous judgement. If we have to judge the goodness or the badness we better do it by his power and his authority. We nevertheless have to assess what they are. And he tells us, “By their fruits shall ye know them.” Now the words people speak are not their fruits. The words people speak are their strength language. But the results of their deeds are their fruits. That’s their might language. The real way for us to read each other is the might language. And the Savior commends that to us.

Now again, he doesn’t read us that way alone, he reads that, he judges according to our deeds, but he also judges us according to the thoughts and intents of our heart. Which means our heart and our mind. They are visible to him, he reads them directly. And thus knows us completely, and makes no mistakes in judging us. He knows exactly what we are and therefore can succor us in our need exactly as we need it.

Well, these are the languages in which human beings express themselves. Repentance, to speak linguistically, is to change the way we express ourselves. Is to change our language so that our fruits are meet. That is to say so that they are more like those that Christ would produce.

Repentance is changing our expression so that achieve different might results in the world. To do that we normally have to change our heart language. That is to say, to assess our own hearts. To size ourselves up and to find where we are weak and where we are strong. And to be very candid about that. And then pray for those aspect of heart that will enable us to do better. If we are vacillating, we need to pray for steadiness. If we are weak, we need to pray for strength. Those are all spiritual gifts we can have if we will pray for them in the right way. When we get the heart language correct then we pray for the correct mind language.

The correct mind language means to really understand what is going on, to know the truth about things. And to see the real possibilities of things. Some of the possibilities are not real, that is to say we think that might happen but it really can’t. It isn’t in the cards we might say. But some things are possible that we don’t even dream of. More things can be done through the priesthood I think than most people ever suppose. Usually we have a rather limited view of what you can and can’t do with the priesthood. The possibilities, I think, are almost endless. And the time will come, when virtually all that we do, if not all, will be done through priesthood. As an expression of the language of God. It may turn out that the Adamic language is simply the priesthood language. I don’t know. Maybe just the language of God expressed in the pattern of God. To control things and accomplish results that are good using the principles of righteousness.

So, as we correct our heart language and our mind language then we make more precise our strength language. What we actually do. And that makes better fruit. That is to say, our might language will then improve. We can’t say we have repented until the fruits change. But when the fruits are good then we know that we have repented.

So, this is the message about languages. How many languages do you speak? Well, you speak many. And my understanding is it pays for us to be very good at language. We ought to study the expressions we make. We ought to study our own hearts, and correct our expression. We ought to study our own minds, and correct our minds as much as possible. We ought to study our own bodies, how we express ourselves, how well we communicate to others.

Study our might, take a candid assessment. What am I? looking at my achievements, my accomplishments, what am I really? Where do I need to repent, what’s the next thing I need to do. What’s the thing that hurts most in my kingdom that needs to be fixed. And since it depends on me, it has to be fixed in here in my heart and mind first. And I will fix me, and then it can be fixed. Well, that’s what repentance is.

Now we have a minute or two for questions:

Q: The question is, what was the Adamic language like?
A: I don’t know, I suppose with you that with the Adamic language, expression is quite precise. We know that when we go back to the old languages, the further back we get, the more complicated the grammar is. That is to say, the more precise the expression is. As we come forward, the vocabularies increase, the number of words we have increases, but the grammar collapses. And so we aren’t quite sure what’s being said. Even though we know what we’re talking about. So, there are these variables in language that I don’t know.

Q: I a have heard that English has something like seven hundred thousand words, French has like two hundred thousand. I always assumed that English was there for (I can’t think of a better word right now) but a superior language. That there is more variation and that you can get more precise in your definitions.

A: The comment is that English has many more words than French and therefore English is a better language. That doesn’t necessarily follow. The reason English has so many words in it, (the number I had in mind was 450,000 but the difference is not important) the reason English has so many words is because it is a smash of so many languages. It has all of French essentially, all of Anglo-Saxon, which is the Germanic background. Plus a lot of other things tucked in there. And therefore it has a big vocabulary. That doesn’t mean you can say more things with it. The French pride themselves on expressing themselves rather exactly. They believe that is something important to them. They want to be very clear and precise when they speak. That’s why the language of diplomacy for a long time was French. Because that was cultivated in that language. The French are very careful not to let their language shift. They are very conservative about language. They have their national board that tries to hold things down, and not let all these foreign words creep in and adulterate the language and so forth. So they specifically hold it.

Now, the acting vocabulary of a normal American is about ten thousand words. That isn’t very many compared with the 250,000 say in French. The passive vocabulary of the normal American is about fifteen thousand words. Somebody who is really educated might have a passive vocabulary of about 30,000 words. But you see, none of us tap the language. We don’t use the power of the language. To be quite blunt about it, most of us don’t need to. The kinds of endeavors that we are engaged in from day to day don’t require a great vocabulary. Because you can make millions of combinations out of five hundred characters and that suffices for most things.

So, the power of language is not in the extent of it’s vocabulary. Usually in the extent in which you can be precise in expressing yourself. That is to say, to be understood very exactly. And that’s something again, that’s hard to come by.

Q: Sister Nello points out that in a dealing with people of foreign nationalities, when you are trying to teach them English, you have to begin with going on feelings and on emotions using body language.
A: I think that’s very common. When two cultures meet there is always this inability to communicate. The people want to communicate, so when two cultures meet there is always an adaptation. That’s what is called pidgin. Pidgin language is where part of one language and part of another starts to be used by both of them so that they can begin to communicate. Pidgin is almost always all physically oriented. It is full of nouns, very few verbs, almost no adjectives at all, no adverbs and only one tense. People find that that doesn’t do very well. And so they develop it further. And you get the next stage of language which is creole. Creole language is the next stage. It is a language that has adjectives and adverbs and tenses. And then the full- blown language has all the cases.

So, we find that it takes a good many parameters to trust what we wish to express. But, sometimes we don’t wish to express. English, for instance, is losing the subjunctive. It’s virtually gone for all intents and purposes as a grammatical form. Now the function is maintained and people still can understand when we mean a subjunctive. But we have lost the ability to express it clearly. And so the language has degenerated in that sense, though the function we were still able to save.

Q: What is the relation of ordination in the priesthood to the expression of the priesthood as a language.

A: What is the explanation of ordination to the expression of the priesthood as a language. Well, my understanding is that ordination is simply an expression, one of the expressions of priesthood language. And that blessing is another. Sometimes they happen in the same speech, by the same laying on of hands. But that ordination is a specific transfer of some kind of power or authority.

Q: ?

A: The language, the occasion of the ordination as I understand it is the occasion by which the power is transmitted to the person by God. But the language itself does not transmit the power. It is simply the signal by which the power is being transmitted. If that makes sense.

One more and we have to quit. Brother.

Q: Here on this earth, can we be perfected in any of the languages.

A: Can we be perfected in any of the languages on this earth. Well, I think, yes, the important language to become perfected in is heart language. If we will study what the heart of the Savior is, and then work and work until we get that down. There are just a few parameters there. It is not a complex language. And if we go out of this life with that language learned everything else good will follow. But apparently if we fail on that, we have kind of missed the boat as a human being.

Q: In your opinion, would God’s language have a very limited vocabulary?

A: Does God’s language have a limited vocabulary. My answer is no. I take it that his language is different from ours. Our language is all generalizations. I use the word `chair’ and it covers fifty kinds of pieces of furniture. When he uses a word it always means a precise thing. Now he probably has the ability to use general words to. But he expresses himself, I take it the language is actually mind language, ideas. He shapes an idea in his mind and communicates it as an idea. It does not need to go through a symbolic vehicle. And therefore his communication is always precise and sure. When he gives a message he speaks to us in our heart and mind in our language. So that we cannot misunderstand. We don’t have to interpret, we know what he says. Does that make sense?

Q: That makes sense, but what that is saying to be is that he always speaks in generalities.

A: No.

Q: Because what you are saying is that if he has one word for `chair’ and we have one word for `chair’ we need to create a specific brown chair.

A: He tells us to build a chair, he will show us a specific chair to build, I think. Like he did Nephi with the boat. He showed him the boat he was to build. And it wasn’t a generic boat, it was a specific boat. And he built it and it worked beautifully. For whatever that’s worth.

Q: Well, he showed the brother of Jared to build a barge. And that barge was different from a boat, he used a different word there.

A: I agree, what’s your point?

Q: So you’re saying there is only one kind of boat.

A: No, I’m not saying that at all. I’m sorry, we’re over time, thank you very much.

END

August 19, 1991
Language of the Spirit

Chauncey C. Riddle

We talked yesterday about language. The topic today is how this applies to our living our lives in the world, in the gospel. I would like to pose a problem for you, something to investigate. That is, the very interesting story we have of the fall.

Language before the fall very possibly was different. I’ve tried to understand exactly how they communicated before the fall and what difference the fall made. It’s possible that before the fall communication was simply concept communication the way it will be in the Celestial Kingdom. Adam and Eve were Celestial people, they had Celestial bodies, they had their spiritual eyes opened and they could see the Father and the Son and very possibly they simply communicated by thought.

And that Satan was given the privilege of coming and speaking to them in the same way, I don’t know. The thing I think that is the key to the puzzle is three things that we learn in the story of the fall. When we understand what it means when it says their eyes were opened and they knew they were naked and they were ashamed. I think those pieces were put in there as clues to the puzzle to help us understand something about communication.

Now my understanding further is that before they fell they did not know good and evil except in one particular that the Father had told them of. The evil was to partake of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, they knew they shouldn’t do that but everything else was just neutral. It was neither a good nor evil because they didn’t know an evil to correspond with it. Now, I think that we have to concede that part of that was the fact that they were very perceptive. That they simply looked around and saw things and took them for what they were without having anything with which to contrast that.

It’s possible that what the fall was, was giving them the kind of language that we now have. And the kind of language we now have enables us to conceive and hold in our minds varies possibilities about things. Which enables us then to contrast a good with an evil. And it is just possible that the tree of knowledge of good and evil was the giving of language. The kind of language we have as opposed to the concept language that they communicated with before.

At least, I think we can say this much. Language is the great facilitator of our knowledge of good and evil. Because through language rather than showing us exactly what to do or being something, the Savior can say to us, be kind to your neighbor, Satan can say to us, take advantage of your neighbor. Because we have language we can conceive those two possibilities in our minds.

Now, what I’m saying, I’ll try to make it a little clearer. I don’t think animals in their looking at the world can see good and evil the same way we can. They can see things that may be dangerous to them, they can see things they want to avoid but I don’t think they can see good and evil and have the same ability to choose between good and evil that we do. Because we can suit whatever is good or evil to our own desires.

We have this interesting ability because we get presented with good and evil alternatives but they don’t come labeled. No voice, no label, no power says to us, this is the good and this is the evil, we just get these two opposing things. We have to put the label on them. And we have to, we do choose which is the good and which is the evil according to our own desires. And so you find people in the world going around pasting the label good on all kinds of evil and what are they doing? They’re simply carrying out their agency. This is part of why they were put down here and on the day of judgment what will they be rewarded with? They’ll simply will be given over to those things that they wanted. As they judged so shall they be judged. If they judged these things to be good to them so they will get them for eternity. Now, that isn’t to say that they will get all of their desires but if they wish to be selfish and they call selfishness good then they can be selfish for as long as they want to be selfish. If they like to be carnal, fleshly, they will be carnal and fleshly forever. If they wish to be kind or honor the truth do good for others this will be rewarded unto them forever. Because the judgment simply fixes upon us that which we have chosen.

But language is the great facilitator of that choosing. It is the thing that exposes us to all kinds of opportunities the range of variables that make great freedom possible.

Now, when Adam was put in the garden we know that God gave him a language both oral and written. Language is a gift of God and a great and wonderful blessing. As I said yesterday, no greater technology has ever been given to man. And by this we receive the commandments of God. He speaks to us in our own language in our own concepts so that there is no confusion. We will not be able to say I didn’t understand when he speaks to us. When men speak to us there is a real possibility that we won’t be able to understand. But when God speaks to us he always gives us at least two witnesses. Sometimes there are two persons, sometimes there’s one person and the Holy Ghost, sometimes there is a written message in the scripture and then a spiritual message through the Holy Spirit directed to our concepts.

My guess is that the Holy Ghost always communicates to us in our own concepts and if we want to put that into a language we have to translate it. I’ve often asked one who knows two languages which one they pray in? They tell me one or the other and I say which one does the answer come in? How many of you know two languages? You know which one you pray in, which one does the answer come in? It doesn’t come in a language, you have to put it in the language of your choice. And that’s the answer that almost everyone gives. Which I think is a good indication that the language of the spirit is a concept language not a verbal language. And that’s why the Holy Ghost can communicate with us perfectly because it uses our concepts. He touches our mind, our heart in the way that we will understand exactly what he wants us to say. Which we human beings don’t have the power to do as we talk to each other.

So when the angel came and commanded Adam to offer sacrifice Adam knew exactly what he meant. I would guess that when the Father gave commandment to Adam to offer sacrifice Satan also said don’t bother to do that, that’s a waste of time or some such. Because now that Adam was fallen Satan had full access to Adam to communicate with him. Apparently in that same concept language. And thus here’s Adam, he has these two forces working upon him now in everything that he does and he has to decide where does his heart lie? Does his heart lie with this the voice of God? Or this with the voice of Satan?

Adam did have an advantage, he had known God and Satan before he fell and it was probably easier to recognize their voices. But his children, you see, never had that advantage, perhaps that is why so many of them fell away and worshiped Satan and called him the good instead of God. The angel came and asked Adam why he was offering sacrifice. Without language of course he wouldn’t have understood the question nor would have been able to answer. But, he gave an answer, and the answer was because he had faith. He believed the commandment of God and then the angel explained why he had given that commandment to him. To teach him that in all things he must look to Christ who’s the author of all good things and the beginning and end, the author and finisher of his faith.

Now, what does righteousness consist of? If someone chooses to serve Jesus Christ to keep the new and everlasting covenant, the facilitation of the keeping of that covenant is through language: Through the reading of the scriptures, through listening in church meetings, by receiving instruction of priesthood authorities, by bearing our witness to non- members, by teaching the gospel, hearing the gospel.

Now we do all of those things but we have to remember that in doing all of those things that there is a good and there is an evil. The fall made it so that in every choice that every human being has there is, we must always choose between a good and an evil. So whenever we open our mouths to speak we have the choice. The important thing to know is how do you find the good and what is the evil? In general, in my understanding, the evil is what we want to say (selfishness) choosing our own desires over those of God. If we wish to do the good we are going to have to inquire of God and find out what he would have us say. Now you have to have the gospel of Jesus Christ before this is a meaningful thing to say. To those outside the church they aren’t going to have that possibility but we who have accepted the new and everlasting covenant know something more.

We know that we shall be held accountable for every idle word that we speak. An idle word is a word that we speak having chosen to do it evilly. Whereas a non-idle word is a word given to us having chosen to speak the good, meaning the right thing to say, the righteous thing to say. So I conceive that the Father has devised for us a program, a plan, whereby he will teach us how to speak truly, how to speak righteously. He speaks only light and truth, he never lies, he never gives bad advice.

I take it in our apprenticeship to become as he is that’s probably one of the most important things we need to do is to learn to speak only light, his light and only truth, his truth. So how do we do that? I think the key to it is prayer. Now, there is a correct way to pray and there’s a false way to pray. The false way to pray is to say whatever we want to say. But the scriptures are plain, when we pray correctly it is given to us what we shall ask. And so if you have learned about how to pray correctly you come to realize, prayer is a thing that must be done by revelation. That is to say, our use and abuse of language is what condemns or saves us for one thing.

And there’s probably no more important thing that we do than to use language. If we use it for evil then we cannot be saved and one of the greatest things we can do is to learn to speak only light and truth through Jesus Christ. Which we do by first learning to pray, how do you do that? Well, we have to first ask the Father to help us to pray, that has to come from us. But he has commanded us to do it so it is a good thing to do. And then we wait and we think and we try to open our hearts, to be as humble, as pliable, as susceptible as we can to the enticings of the spirit.

And then sooner or later something comes to us and we have to discern whether that is a good spirit or an evil spirit. Whenever we invite the good spirit in the evil spirit also comes around and has it’s say and that because of the fall. We’re subject to Satan in that respect and so God does not speak to us except there is an evil counterpart to that so that we always have a choice. So if we will choose the good then our prayers begin to be holy prayers, prayers of light and truth. Now should we ever get so good at this that we can say a whole prayer simply by saying what we are prompted to say by the Holy Spirit we’ll be beginning to be in good shape.

Imagine what it would be then, if each of us took that clue and then used it in our daily conversations with each other. And we did not say anything to anybody except that it was good in the spirit of the Lord to say so. So that we only spoke light and truth to each other. Wouldn’t that be a marvelous change in our society. We would never again get angry and tell somebody off. We would never again say something to hurt someone deliberately. We might say something that would hurt someone but it would only be because the Lord prompted us to and we say it in love with the intention of helping them. And then show forth an increase of love after so they will know we did not say it in anger, did not say it to hurt them.

Now, if you get a great big sliver, if it’s deep somebody may have to cut your flesh to get it out, that’s going to hurt. And that’s what the Lord has to sometimes do with us, he has to hurt to help us get rid of the evil that’s in us. But the hurt is always beneficial in the long run when it comes by the Holy Spirit. If it’s light and truth the hurt is but a short hurt and brings great blessings in its consequence. But we have to judge these things by their fruits. We have to tell the difference between good and evil by seeing what the results are.

So it’s given to us to judge and if we don’t like the way our life is going, that’s a clue to us that we are not listening to the right spirit, we’re not getting the clues that we want and need. If our hearts are evil, of course, then it’s very difficult for us to tell. The great key is to get a pure heart so that we will be able to tell the difference between good fruits and evil fruits.

Which leads us to tell the difference between good spirits and evil spirits, which enables us then to choose the good and never to choose the evil. If we learn to speak righteously to one another, that is the key to learning to use the priesthood.

What is the priesthood? The priesthood is the power of God, but it is not given to any man to say of his own mind and desires what he will do with that priesthood. I learned that one the hard way. Years ago I was an Elders quorum president in Manhattan, we were visiting members of our quorum on Statten Island. We came to the home of one brother, he had just had a heart attack and they had taken him to the hospital. His wife asked us to go to the hospital and give him a blessing. So we went, we slipped through the oxygen tent and gave him a blessing and told him that he would be all right, that he soon would be well. Ten minutes later he died. That’s a bit disconcerting if you’re a young elder quorum president. And so, we went to the high counselor over our quorum and said, tell us what happened? He was also the stake patriarch and understood this problem very well. He said, did the spirit tell you to say that? We said, no. We just thought that would be a nice thing to say.

That’s not how the priesthood of god works. Man does not know what is good or righteous. Righteousness is of Christ and many times the things we ask for in our prayers are simply evil. The scriptures says, if you ask for evil it will be accounted unto you for evil. We have to learn to speak correctly. And so, we get this opportunity to practice and we’re promised that the Holy Ghost will be our constant companion and will communicate with us through this concept language exactly what it is we should pray for. And then what we should say to one another and then what we should say when we’re hoping to represent him, using the priesthood. Now there is two sides to that, sometimes when you’re laying your hands on someone’s head and the Holy Ghost is speaking through you, what the Holy Ghost tells you to say is so scary that you don’t dare say it. We have to be brave enough to say it and humble enough to get what to say.

What are we supposed to do, we lay our hands upon somebody’s head and nothing comes? We’re not to say anything by way of blessing. We’re simply supposed to pray for the person. We admit defeat at that point and say, I’m sorry I can’t give you a blessing but I will pray for you. And I’ll pray for you the best I can but I don’t really know how to bless you. I had the experience a few years ago of laying my hands on a sister’s head. And I was told that there was a blessing for her, she was to be healed but because I hadn’t repented of my sins I couldn’t do it. It’s called a come up’ins. The Lord brings you up short once in a while, he lets you know where you stand. Twenty- four hours later another man laid his hands on her head, she was healed instantly. Because he had lived for that opportunity, he was able to heal her she was able to go on with her work. It’s the Lord’s desire that all of us be able to heal, by being righteous. I’ll tell you the man’s name, his name is Nathan Eldon Tanner.

But you see, how much good can we do if we would repent of our sins and learn to speak nothing but light and truth. Oh, then we would have power in the priesthood. Which does not come from man, it comes from God. But it’s learning to use language, use this great technology that the Lord has given us correctly. So that we can use the greater technology. Priesthood is greater than language. But learning to use language correctly is the key to using the priesthood correctly. So he gives us a lesser power to see if we can learn to do well with it so then we can see if we can use the greater power.

Now, if we can, not only do we have to speak by the power of the Holy Ghost we have to read and understand by the power of the Holy Ghost. And so he gives us the scriptures. The scriptures were not written to be understood, they were written to be a puzzle. They were written to help those who have the spirit and to blind those who don’t have the spirit, lest they be condemned. Here again, we get to practice. We have these beautiful words and if we are faithful we will sit and look at those black marks on the white pages and try to hold back our own interpretation which is private interpretation, until we get the Holy Spirit coming to us in our minds and telling us what the Lord wants us to think in connection with those black marks. Thus we have a chance to learn to interpret by the Spirit of the Lord.

We get to sit in conference, we get to listen to the prophet of God and the question is: Are we in tune? If, as he is speaking, the spirit rings and our hearts swell within us and our minds are enlarged and enlightened and we know this is light and truth then we know we are on the beam. If we’re faithful the Lord is rewarding us with that resonance that comes when we are in tune. Should we find that we are beginning to wonder, is President Benson getting a little old? Is he saying things that really aren’t quite square? Has one of his helpers put this into his mind? He really wouldn’t say that if he were about to be — These are things that people say. And they are the temptations of Satan as it were. But, if you and I will go to the conference humbly in the attitude of prayer and fasting, ready to receive the word of the Lord. Having done what we were instructed to do the last conference. That’s our key to getting the Holy Spirit to understand this next conference and then the Holy spirit will just flood our minds with this beautiful feeling, will fill our heart with this warmth and we won’t have to ask further if this is the will of the Lord we will just know it, with every sentence he says, will just march into our heart and fill our being with light and truth. We will know that he is the prophet of God, that he loves us as the Savior loves us. And that he’s trying to do the thing that we need.

What does he want us to do? He wants us to read the Book Of Mormon. The Church has neglected the Book of Mormon and he knows the church is suffering under a curse because of that. The curse was pronounced way back in 1832. It’s never come out of the curse because we as a people have never paid enough attention to the book yet. He’s trying to lift that curse, he loves us, so he’s gone to the Lord to find what we need to do to start being Zion. The first thing we need to do to start being Zion is to get ourselves wrapped around that book. It’s concepts, it’s ideas, it’s a chance for us to have the most perfect instrument in the world perhaps, to teach us how to live by the spirit that there is. There’s no better way to do that than to read the Book of Mormon.

Maybe prayer is the only other thing that comes close to it. Now reading the Book of Mormon is probably the best help there is to learn how to pray. They go hand in hand. But if we learn to interpret by the spirit so that we interpret the scriptures, then we interpret the words of the brethren in conference, then we interpret the words of our Stake President, we interpret the words of our Bishop, we interpret the words of our Father. And then we begin to interpret every word we read and hear everywhere it comes. Discerning whether it’s good or evil, treasuring, collecting, remembering, living by all the good that we meet from any source. Putting on the shelf holding in abeyance everything we hear that’s evil.

Now, if we can do those two things, learn to speak and interpret by the power of the Holy Ghost then we’re really benefiting from this marvelous thing of language which God has given us to raise us up. Why does he give us language? Because only through language can he give us the freedom to choose both good and evil. This freedom is the whole key to our salvation. If by our own free will and choice we will choose the good when it comes to us, then he can give us every good thing. We have to make that basic choice. So, what is our mission in life? It is to perfect our relationships with one another by first perfecting our relationship with God. If we can love him and hear his voice and interpret him without error then we can learn to love one another.

We transact most of our business with one another through language. If we have learned to interpret language to separate the good from the evil then our language transactions with each other will begin to be holy. We will not speak anything that is evil and we will not allow ourselves to believe anything that is evil and thus we begin to bring our relationships to perfection. One place I think this needs to be focused, can be focused is in the relationships between husband and wife. The place to practice good communication is in prayer, that’s the first place, the second place is between husband and wife. Because husband and wife love each other they will want to communicate and my thought is, where is a better place to learn to communicate through spiritual means than between husband and wife?

To use the physical words of the English language that we usually use as a key to begin to communicate by feeling and by ideas through the spirit of the Lord. If you have been married a while and your marriage is good you probably have experienced some of that. What a beautiful thing to have, that’s really wonderful when you begin to see eye to eye and you begin to know exactly how your spouse will react to something. That’s great communication and if they both choose the good, you see, there’s no limit to how close they can become, because each will become enclosed to the Savior all the time. Becoming closer and closer to the Savior enables them to become closer and closer to each other. Till finally they come to have one mind and one heart. How is Zion established? I think Zion is established by getting husbands and wives to love each other, so they come to have one mind and one heart. We’re surely not going to have one heart and one mind with anyone else if we can’t do it with our own wife or husband.

Charity begins at home. If we can’t love the person we’re closest to, our closest neighbor in all this world which is our spouse, we’re surely not going to do much for anyone else. There’s the place to perfect our language. To work with one another, talk with one another, think, pray, hope, compare notes until we can do this just the right way. Now what do we do with language? With language then we participate in our own creation. Our creation is not over, it’s on going every day. Our Savior has given us a body but the body is changing constantly, it’s being recreated every day. Our minds are being recreated every day, as our hearts also and our might. Every time some new influence comes into our life, and we react to it we are a different person.

So by making these choices that come to us through language we are choosing either the good or the evil; thus building ourselves into a better person or an evil person. Thus by the end of our lives we will have created a god through the help of God or a devil through the help of Satan, according to our own desires. We can’t do either without help from those sources. But with the help of those sources we can do either. Thus our final blessings then come by the pronouncement of either God of Satan. God has certain words which he says which seal us to him. Satan has certain words which he says which seal us to him. Thus we become the eternal child of either God or Satan, depending on which one we choose including what we do with language.

So, as we learn to use language it’s important to recognize that there are four components to all language. There’s a heart portion, a mind portion, a strength portion, and a might portion. We have to perfect each one of these. Might is our fruit, it is given unto those who are not very spiritual yet to judge others by their fruits by the effects of their language. If their language produces good we know that they are good. If their language produces evil we know that they are evil.

As we learn to communicate better and better then we begin to communicate by concepts by feelings of the heart directly. Finally by communicating as God does by looking upon the heart of other people. We have to be a little careful we don’t presume we can do that before we actually can. Well, we have said essentially what needs to be said about the use of language in our lives and applying it to the gospel.

I think that as Latter-day Saints we would do well to try to be rich in the languages of this world. Languages are the keys for bearing testimony. The more languages we know the more people we can help. I think it ought to be our constant study to be working on another language other than the one which is our mother tongue. We need to be learning child language so we can speak to children. Some people can’t talk to children. We need to be learning technical language so that we can speak to people who want to speak technical language. We need to be learning the language of whoever it is that we love. Because if we do love them we will want to speak to them in their own language, in their own frame. Father has promised that every person will hear the gospel in his own tongue. And that may be a certain variety of English, it may be French, it may be scientific language, it may be statistical language, it may be the language of music, it may be the language of painting, it may be the language of dancing. All of these are languages, they speak, they express. And whatever it is we need to know to speak to someone we need to learn that language. The measure of our love for them is our willingness to sacrifice enough to learn their language so that we can bear witness of light and truth to them in terms that they will understand.

Well, are their questions?

(unheard)

God says that in the mouth of two or more witnesses he will establish every word. So, he usually sends out missionaries two by two, so that there will be two witnesses. Whenever he gives a scripture, we see something written here in a book, he always sends his Holy Spirit, if we will receive it, to accompany that. So that we get the witness of the black and white and also of the Spirit. The Father and the Son are two witnesses, the Son and the Holy Ghost are two witnesses. In everything he tries to make sure we get two witnesses so that we will never have to depend on a single source. Two points make a line, he’s trying to give us lines or direction. Does that help?

I was thinking of prayer when the Holy Spirit speaks to us, where if …

The other witness will be the fruits of the prayer, the consequences of our prayer. If we don’t learn any other way, we will learn by what happens after we pray. If the prayer is answered, if we get what we asked for or pray for, that’s a pretty good sign. If it isn’t answered we’ll know that maybe something is probably wrong with that prayer and we can ask, why wasn’t it answered? And we’ll probably get an answer as to what we should then do to make amends or reparations. If we do that and it works, then we then know that we’re on the right track. We should always look for the second witness. My experience is that if we are in tune we always get an immediate answer of some kind. It’s true that sometimes I might pray for a million dollars and not get an answer for a long long time, I may never get it, but I can ask, why not? I’ll get an immediate answer to that. I find that sometimes my prayers are not answered but there’s one kind of question I’ll always get an immediate answer to and that is, what should I do next?

Is there a difference between the language that Satan speaks and Christ speaks?

Yes. The Savior always speaks in light and truth. Satan always speaks in darkness and warped truth or wrong, untruth. I have to be careful with that, sometimes he speaks truth, he never speaks light but sometimes he speaks truth so that we will buy what he has to say. And so yes, there’s a difference, and that’s why the whole study of our lives that the basic skill of being a Latter-day Saint consists in being able to detect the difference between the voice of God and the voice of Satan. Now we need to study that and try out different cases and try experiments until we become absolutely perfect at making that distinction.

Satan can never speak to your heart.

I don’t know about that. I think he can. But that’s my guess don’t believe that.

The question is, he asked me how I read the scriptures, as the prophet has told us to read the Book of Mormon.

I try to read it lots of different ways. I find that I have to just read it through occasionally. Start from the beginning and go to the end because that way I sweep out things I hadn’t seen before. Sometimes I read it topically, I look for a certain word or subject and just trace that though all the scriptures. I find it very useful to try a different medium, I’m currently listening to the Book of Mormon on tape for the first time and I hear things I’ve never seen before at looking at the printed page. I read it in Spanish last year. And the Spanish showed me certain things that I’d never seen in the English. I insisted sometimes to myself, that’s not in the English and I’d go back and look in the English and there it was. One difference was ever since I began to read I’ve been a fast reader. So I read the Book of Mormon just as fast as I can read, which is somewhere between 800 and a 1000 words a minute. There’s a lot you miss when you read that fast. I can’t read Spanish nearly that fast and slowing down taught me a great many things. So I would commend to you, slow down sometime, just read it very carefully word for word and piece it together. You have to do that on the tough passages. But read it slowly, read it fast, read it with other people. As you share with other people sometimes their insights are just what you need to put the pieces all together from what you’ve been studying. You’ve got the rest of it, they’ve got the one piece. That’s why the Lord wants us to teach one another, he doesn’t give everything to everybody. He wants us to need each other and to converse and teach each other about these things so that we will learn. So those are some thoughts.

Question – (unheard) – something about choosing between good and good and between good and evil.

But the real evil is always a good and the most tempting evil is always a good. That we could do, it is a good thing to do under ordinary circumstances, but it just happens in this case there something better to do so the good becomes an evil.

Question – (unheard)

My understanding is it’s always good and evil even though the two things in general terms are good. I use this technique. If there’s some job I’ve been putting off for a long time and I know I should do it. There comes a day I’m prompted to do something that’s much better than this and I say well I’ll go and do that job I’ve been putting off because I don’t want to do the good I’d rather do evil in this case, isn’t that terrible. But I find that I’m able to get some things done that way. The Lord has to try hard to save some of us.

Question – Why is the devil able to duplicate the gifts of the Holy Spirit?

Well, what he can duplicate is the results and not the holiness of the spirit. Therefore we know that the two spirits will never be confused. But for instance the devil can heal. And if all you can do is live by signs you have no sense of gifts then you can be taken in by Satan. Those that seek for signs are always evil in their hearts, cause if they had good hearts they wouldn’t seek for signs they would seek for the gifts. And they would seek to know the difference between the good spirit and the evil spirit.

That’s the basic gift of the Spirit. But if you’re just looking for signs or the guy who’s got the power or to be healed or to speak in tongues or can do mighty miracles, Satan can do all of those things. If that’s the only thing that convinces you, there’s no hope.

Question – Can Satan hear a silent prayer?

I don’t know the answer. My belief is, that if we’re under the influence of the Holy Ghost he can’t.

Question – (unheard)

May I read you a scripture? I’ll give you my understanding on that. It’s Section 58 of the Doctrine and Covenants.

“It’s not meet that I should command in all things.”

Is that the one you’re talking about? Let’s deal with both of them then. We’re supposed to the Savior says, “work it out in your own mind”. Don’t ask until you put some effort into it. That’s the instruction to Oliver Cowdery as to how he should translate. Now not every problem is a problem of translation. Is that the formula that applies to everything? I don’t think so. If the Lord tells you to do that in some particular problem, study it out in your own mind and present it to him, that’s what we must do. But my experience is this. Sometimes I go to him without having put any investment into trying to finding the answer. I just ask the question and I get the answer before the question is half out. Other times He makes me wait and do research on it for years. So I can’t find that that’s a general formula. That’s a specific instruction and a valuable thing to do when we’re supposed to do it. That takes care of Section Nine.

Now Section Fifty Eight. This is a Section that was given that many people use that many people say, “we shouldn’t seek the revelations of God, we don’t want to bother Him with anything that’s not awfully important.” But I don’t think that is what He was saying. Beginning with verse 24, the revelation was given to Edward Partridge. He had been told in a previous revelation to take his counselors and move to Missouri where he was to be the presiding bishop of the church. He went to Joseph and said, “ask the Lord how we shall go”? This is the answer, “now as I spake concerning my servant Edward Partridge. This land, meaning Missouri is the land of his residence and those who he has appointed his counselors and also the land and residence of whom I have appointed to keep my store house. Wherefore let them bring their families as they shall counsel between themselves and me. In other words, don’t ask Joseph, ask me! For it is not meet that I shall command in all things. What does he mean by command? He has to mean. He has to mean getting a commandment through flesh and blood. For he that is compelled in all things the same is a slothful and not a wise servant, wherefore he receiveth no reward. Men should be anxiously engaged in a good cause and do many things of their own free will and bring to pass much righteousness. Because the power is in them, wherein they are agents unto themselves.”

What makes us agents? We are an agent when we can choose either good or evil in a situation. If we don’t have both those possibilities we are not agents. And the Holy Spirit is that which makes use an agent to know what is right to do. The evil spirit makes us an agent in knowing what is wrong to do. The power is within us, the power of the Holy Ghost to bring to pass much righteousness. We don’t have to ask flesh and blood what to do. We can find out by asking the Lord himself directly. That’s what makes a Latter-day Saint, is someone who has the Holy Ghost with him and asks and gets answers and doesn’t have to be commanded in all things.

Question – What are alms of prayer?

My understanding that an alm of prayer, that an alm is something that we give to the poor. That’s the basic meaning of the word. But we do it in the intent of doing an act of righteousness, an act of good to the Lord. We’re trying to love our neighbor as he loves us when we give alms to the poor. Now, when we pray we’re trying to learn to pray in the same kind of token and sacrifice as we do when we give alms to the poor. We’re trying to pray correctly. So an alm is an offering or a sacrifice we make. And we offer up our prayers as offerings to the Lord in the same sense we do the offerings of sheep or goats on the alter or the offering of something we give to the poor. That’s my sense of it if that helps.

Question – Something about gods and lords.

My understanding is yes, gods are only created for exaltation in the Celestial Kingdom. But some create themselves into terrestrial beings by waiting a long long time to finally decide to choose good and not evil. The ones that choose good early and anxiously are the celestial spirits that become exalted. Those who want to do good but not all of it become ministering angels in the Celestial Kingdom. Those who want to do good but not too soon become terrestrial. And those who finally admit at the last ditch that it’s better to do good than evil they apparently become telestial. But they all choose the good and every one of them does nothing but good ever after. There’s no evil committed by anybody in the Telestial Kingdom. They don’t sin, they don’t do very much but everything they do is good.

Question – Does that imply that the progression of people in the Terrestrial and Telestial Kingdoms will sometime lead to Godhood?

My understanding is no. It says, worlds without end they will not pass the barriers. This is the time to prepare to meet God. Now is the day of our probation and after this life it’s over.

Question – Do we have the same development in our language as we grow spiritually as we do as we grow physically?

And I think so yes. As we become acquainted with the words and concepts of the scriptures we are growing in our linguistic ability which is also a growth in our spiritual ability. That’s why we study the scriptures and figure out what all these things mean. That’s a growth in language ability which sets us free then to do more perfectly the will of the Lord.

August 19, 1991
Language, Conversation, Sanity and Reality

DLLS PROCEEDINGS 1991

PROCEEDINGS OF THE DESERET LANGUAGE AND LINGUISTICS SOCIETY 1991 SYMPOSIUM

BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY MARCH 7-8, 1991

Language, Conversation, Sanity and Reality

Chauncey C. Riddle

Brigham Young University

PROCEEDINGS OF THE DESERET LANGUAGE AND LINGUISTICS SOCIETY 1991 SYMPOSIUM
BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY MARCH 7-8, 1991
Language, Conversation, Sanity and Reality
Chauncey Riddle

The thesis of this paper is that human being consists of conversations, and that the ability of a person to converse with other beings to the advantage of the other beings is the measure of the person’s sanity.

1. Human Being is here taken as a verb form, not a noun form.

While it is possible to understand human beings as entities, as essences with accidents, another way of understanding human beings is to see each of them as what each one does. This does two things. It changes the emphasis from the kind or type, the universal, to the individual. And it also puts the focus on accomplishment rather than on potential. A human being, taken as an essence, is a being of a certain material nature, seen as a standard anatomy with a standard physiology and as a being with special capacity to communicate and to reason. But a human being seen as a doer of deeds is individualized into just where and when the individual lives, with what environment that person must cope, and the particular effect that person has on his or her total environment While both analyses are useful, the latter understanding is more pertinent for purposes of this paper.

2. Communication is one being affecting another being.

The word communication etymologically means to be within the walls together. Beings which communicate are not walled off from each other. They are able to affect one another. The affect may be reciprocal or not. Communicative affect may be received as sensory effect, as kinetic effect or as chemical effect Sensory effects are hearing, seeing, touching, tasting, etc. Kinetic effects are such as being moved, as when one person shoves another, or being shot by a bullet or an arrow, etc. Chemical effects are such as being burned by an acid or inhaling carbon monoxide. One special case of sensory affect/effect is using symbols to communicate.

Everything which happens to a person is communication from some other being. Everything a person does communicates with other beings.

3. Language is patterned and normed affect/effect. Pattern is configurations of affect and effect which are repeated. Normed patterns are patterns to which some receiver/reader of patterns reacts in some typical manner. To send communications in a patterned and normed manner is to use a language. To react to the patterned and normed affect of another being in a typical and understanding way is to “read” the other being. There are natural languages and artificial languages. Natural languages are seen to operate when a candle flame exhibits a characteristic pattern; a moth reacts in a typical manner by veering into the flame as it flies. Or a pistil reacts chemically to one type of pollen while ignoring others. Or DNA recombines in various ways to form an organism. Artificial languages are human languages which use symbols, the combinations of which are patterned and normed to facilitate human sensory communication. The special case of language communication is a standard human language such as English.

4. Conversation is continuing language communication between two or more beings.

Bees converse when transmitting data about nectar sources by dancing. A bird converses with a nest using twigs and grass until the nest satisfies it for nesting. All deliberate human action is a form of conversation with something or someone. Growing a garden is a conversation with a plot of ground and living plants. Playing flute is a conversation with a musical instrument, and the music is a conversation with an audience if the audience responds. The special case of conversation is when two human beings speak back and forth with each other in a language such as English.

5. There are four special kinds of conversations which human beings participate in, each being differentiated by the different kinds of partners in conversation.

The basic partner in human conversations is nature and physical objects. Learning to observe, read, and react in conversation with one’s physical surroundings is the initial human task. This task is to develop a language ability to relate to other natural and physical objects so that one may converse with them. Such basic conversation is seen in a baby crying and being comforted, in the baby tasting everything, or in reaching for everything.

The second partner in human conversations is other humans now acting as symbolic communicators rather than as physical, natural beings. As the child begins to associate sounds and actions with each other, consciousness of spoken language is formed. Then other persons are no longer just physical objects, but physical objects with whom the child can converse, say in English.

The third partner in human conversations is God. Little children have an awareness of communicating with a spiritual being who teaches them of good. If they are taught to honor this opportunity, it grows and increases in importance in their lives as they mature. If they are taught to disavow this opportunity, they turn from it and the opportunity atrophies while it is no longer part of the person’s conscious conversations.

The fourth partner in human conversations is Satan. Satan is the spiritual person of evil who promotes lies and selfishness. When humans do not acknowledge the existence of Saran they attribute his influence to themselves or as the residua] effect of some other person upon them; this causes misinterpretation of the conversations with Satan. But if Satan is recognized as a conversational partner, his influence can be dealt with directly and more effectively.

Conversing with natural and physical objects and with human beings as symbolic communicators serves as a horizontal axis of human conversation, or communication within the physical realm.

Conversing with God and Satan serves as a vertical axis of conversation, or communication within the spiritual realm. It is popular to pretend that only horizontal communication exists or can exist. But to ignore the spiritual is to ignore the inner feelings and idea development which human beings experience. To attribute all of our inner experience to natural, horizontal sources is to deny the existence of the spiritual realm. Part of the thesis of this paper is that such denial is an important source of insanity in the human population. To be sane one must deal with all of one’s experience and conversations, not with just a selective part of it.

6. Some regularities which pertain to human conversations:

Law 1. Conversations with all four partners, with natural/physical things, with other humans as symbolic communicators, with God, and with Satan. are necessary for normal human life. (Not to deal with one or more of these partners in a deliberate conscious way is to abdicate agency or stewardship in !lull area. To do so is to be less than fully human by not conversing with a potential partner, only receiving communication, not responding in deliberate conversation. That is like owning a piece of property but not paying any attention to it, letting it go wild and letting whoever and whatever to dwell and act thereon.)

Law 2. If human beings converse only with natural physical things, they never develop normal human language capacity and are limited to conversations with natural/physical things. (They do not gain human language, nor agency. Having a developed human language is what makes it possible to converse normally with other humans, with God, and with Satan. Without a language we can receive influence, but cannot converse as an agent may.)

Law 3. God communicates with human beings in many ways (in God men live, move, have mentality, etc.), but he converses with them principally to enable them to advantage other humans and natural/physical things in their communications with other beings.

Law 4. The ability to advantage other beings has its ultimate source in God, and he is the sole ultimate source of such conversational ability. This is to say that God is the sole source of good. But human beings also help each other and help natural beings through the influence which derives from God.

Law 5. Satan converses with human beings only to teach them to disadvantage other beings (other humans. natural/physical things, and God) in their conversations.

7. Conversational competence is being able to converse well enough with a partner in conversation to have the option either to advantage or to disadvantage that partner.

To advantage a partner is to give the partner more being (conversational attainment) by sharing with the partner truth. kindness, power, etc. To disadvantage a partner in conversation is to converse so as to disable the partner through lies, insults, wounds. etc. Thus conversational competence is the measure to which one is able to do both good and evil to a partner in conversation. One may be minimally competent to converse with one human partner, but be able to have a hundred times the competence to communicate with another human partner. To be a minimum normal human being is to have minimal conversational competence with all four kinds of partners, physical and spiritual. Which is to say that most human beings can and do converse with all four kinds of partners. Some are very good at such conversing, and some are not. Some have conversations with many kinds of natural things and many human beings, while others have few such conversational partners. To be a god is to have maximal conversational competence with every other being. Agency begins with minimal human conversational competence and maximizes in the power of a god.

8. Sanity is the use of human agency (conversational competence) to advantage natural, human and godly partners in conversation.

Since the power to advantage partners in conversation comes only in conversations with God, humans are sane only when they are able [0 converse with God and then use that conversation with God as a basis for advantaging natural and human partners in conversation. When one advantages natural or human partners in conversation one automatically advantages God. When one uses conversation with Satan to disadvantage humans, or nature, or God, one is not sane.

The reason for me connection between sanity and advantaging partners in conversation has to do with the nature of reality. The reality of a being is not what it is but what it does. (What it is an artificial attempt to capture the being apart from what it does, bur this is always a caricature of the being.) What every being does is communicate. Most of the communications of every being are conversations. Most of what a being is, its reality, is its conversations with other beings. Thus every being has a career, which is the history of its conversations with other beings. Few beings are static entities, but are also being advantaged and disadvantaged (enlarged and diminished) in every conversation (hey have, and are advantaging and disadvantaging others in every conversation, each being using its agency. When humans converse with God, he only advantages them. When human beings converse with Satan, he only converses to disadvantage the human beings, thus to advantage himself at the expense of others as his kingdom and dominion increase. Human beings are agents, which means they may choose either to advantage those with whom they converse (deriving from their conversations with God) or to disadvantage them (deriving from their conversations with Satan).

When a being disadvantages another being, that disadvantaging of the other being results in reduced conversational competence for that other being. But if one being reduces the conversational competence of another being, the one being thus reduces the opportunity to converse with that disadvantaged being. Since the amount of being a being has is the sum of its conversations with others, when one reduces the conversational competence of another being one reduces the being of that being and also reduces the being of the self because one can no longer converse as much with that being. A classic case of this kind of disadvantaging is found in Cain killing Abel. Cain disadvantaged Abel in slaying him, hoping thereby to gain his brother’s goods. But the goods soon perish, and Cain is diminished because he no longer has a brother Abel with whom he can converse and rejoice. To disadvantage another being results in the reduction of one’s own being. Pursued far enough. disadvantaging others results in the attainment of the narrowed being and diminished stature of Satan, as do the Sons of Perdition.

Sanity is wholeness. The ultimate of wholeness is God, who advantages all beings and thus enjoys greater being by conversing more and more with all those beings. Whenever a person learns from God how to advantage another being and does so, that person enlarges the being of the other person, also enlarges the being of God, and also enlarges his or her own being. This is sanity, or a reaching towards wholeness. To disadvantage another being is to diminish that being, to diminish God and to diminish self; which is insanity, that which detracts from wholeness.

Satan is the advocate of insanity or unwholeness. His basic ploy is: If you disadvantage your partner, that will advantage you. That lie is answered in the paragraph preceding. But Satan has another ploy: If you disadvantage others, I (Satan) will give you special advantages. And he sometimes does: short-run, physical advantages. To accept a short run advantage from Satan in order to disadvantage another being is selling that other being. The question every person should then ask is: Can a being who tempts you to disadvantage others and who pays you to disadvantage others in the short run be likely [0 give you any advantage 1n the long run? To accept a temporary advantage from one who promotes disadvantage is also insanity.

One of Satan’s lies is that the amount of goods and happiness in the world is a finite sum. In such a zero-sum situation, the less my neighbor has, the more J can have. So part of the human reaction is based on whether one believes Satan’s lie that this is a zero-sum game or whether one believes God’s promise that his riches are infinite. Those who believe in advantaging others have little trouble believing in God, and those who truly believe in God have little trouble believing that it is good to advantage others. Those who don’t mind disadvantaging others are fearful for their own welfare (selfish). do not believe in nor trust God, and are willing to believe the zero-sum idea. So they go on disadvantaging others. Eventually (the long run) they will understand that disadvantaging others also disadvantages themselves, and they will stop acting insanely.

9. The cure for insanity is conversing with God. Those who will not learn to communicate competently with God are doomed to some measure of insanity until they learn to have such competent conversation with God. The more competent one becomes in conversing with God, the more one can advantage one’s partners and the more sane one can be.

10. Happiness is being sane. Happiness is increasing the being of one’s partners in conversation by continually advantaging them. It is a rejoicing in helping others to grow in helping others to grow in helping others to grow. .. ad infinitum. Man was created by God to be happy. Satan was given to man by God to provide an opposition so that the choice to advantage one’s neighbors or to disadvantage them would be a real and live option. Only when people converse competently with God can they chose to be like God in advantaging others. But only as they also converse competently with Satan by saying an explicit “No” to his influence does conversation with God and chosen obedience to God become meritorious. Thus one can freely choose advantaging others over disadvantaging others only if one is conversationally competent and makes a deliberate, explicit choice to favor the affect of God over the affect of Satan.

11. The conclusion of the matter. The more competent one is to converse with nature, people, God and Satan, the more agency one· has. If one uses that agency to serve God, one’s ability to converse with nature, humans and God will increase to the maximum possible, because God advantages those who advantage others. This increase of agency and advantaging tends to maximize the agency and advantaging of the person who does so, which is the process of becoming as God is.

Conversing with nature is a key to this process of learning to be conversationally competent. Nature never lies, Nature is always regular, constant, dependable, Nature is always available and will always converse. Conversations with nature help us to be concerned about reverencing and advantaging natural things as we are influenced by God, or they help us to harm and destroy as we are influenced by Satan. The help or the harm always has an immediate reaction (though some reactions may be delayed), and thus one learns to read the influence of God and Satan in nature as one pays attention. Learning to read nature is a better index to differentiating between God and Satan than learning to read humans, because humans listen to both God and Satan and thus the spiritual influence of persons varies from person to person and from time to time in the same person. To have better conversations with nature is to order and beautify the earth and to respect and honor all natural things as God’s handiwork. To have better conversations with humans is to see in each of them the face of Christ and to honor and advantage each one of them as God inspires one to do so. To have better conversations with God is to learn to love him with our heart, might, mind and strength. To have better conversations with Satan is to recognize him whenever he approaches, then firmly to say “No” to him, But conversation with Satan must not be engaged in to bring railing accusation against him, for he, too, is a son of God. The maximum of reality, which is conversing, and of sanity, which is ‘advantaging in conversation, is found for human beings only in inheriting all good things from Father by learning to be conversationally competent with God, then to use that competence to advantage both him and our neighbor (nature and other human beings.

To learn better conversational competence with any partner is to be attentive and to learn from experience how to do better. God gives guidance, but that guidance must be sought in competent conversation with God. How better to converse with God? By trying. To converse with him is the most advantageous of all conversations, for he is the great advantager who advantages everyone as much as possible, teaching them how to be more competent in conversation with any partner including Satan.

12. The moral of the matter. Humans who wish to be sane would do well especially to concentrate on improving their conversations with God, with natural/ physical things, with other people, and with Satan. From natural/physical things we learn to be exact. From God one will learn to be true and to advantage others, as well as how to converse more competently. In conversing with Satan to deny his influence, one will learn to overcome selfishness, the insanity of disadvantaging others. Some humans serve God and some serve Satan and some serve both; thus conversing with humans in general does not promote exactness, or fidelity, or advantaging, nor does it quell selfishness. But a human who is greatly sane in conversing with nature, God and Satan is well prepared to converse sanely with other humans, and will become able to advantage each partner (except Satan) in a pure manner, which is charity, the pure love of Christ.

Biographical material: Born Salt Lake City, Utah; graduated from high school in Las Vegas, Nevada. Attended Brigham Young University majoring in mathematics and d physics, graduating in 1947. Married Bertha Allred of Fountain Green. Utah and McGill. Nevada. Attended Columbia University in New York City, receiving the MA degree in 1951 and the PhD degree in 1958. Joined the BYU faculty in 1952. Served as department chairman (Graduate Religion), Dean of the Graduate School, Assistant Academic Vice President, and Professor of Philosophy.

March 7, 1991