A Reason For Faith: Problematical Apologetics

[_Arminius]

...Don Bradley's argument about a secular translation has some weight, but not coupling it with Joseph being a man who could easily be deceived. Mormonism shoots that theory down by way of it's own claims to discernment.

The gift of discernment, per the passages you cited, is intended for leaders to be able to discern whether professed spiritual gifts are from God...or not.

In other words, it's *not* intended to help one discern whther something said is true or not, but rather to know the source from which such said things come.

Read into it what you wish. Discernment isn't intended to tell you in advance if the weather rreporter gave an accurate prediction that morning. But it can tell you what his/her intent/motivation was in saying what was said....which can often be more important than knowing the latter.

[_grindael]

...Don Bradley's argument about a secular translation has some weight, but not coupling it with Joseph being a man who could easily be deceived. Mormonism shoots that theory down by way of it's own claims to discernment.

The gift of discernment, per the passages you cited, is intended for leaders to be able to discern whether professed spiritual gifts are from God...or not.

In other words, it's *not* intended to help one discern whther something said is true or not, but rather to know the source from which such said things come.

Read into it what you wish. Discernment isn't intended to tell you in advance if the weather rreporter gave an accurate prediction that morning. But it can tell you what his/her intent/motivation was in saying what was said....which can often be more important than knowing the latter.

You are simply wrong, I have literally dozens of statements by Mormon Authorities on this, here is one by Stephen L. Richards

First, I mention the gift of discernment, embodying the power to discriminate, which has been spoken of in our hearing before particularly as between right and wrong. I believe that this gift when highly developed arises largely out of an acute sensitivity to impressions -- spiritual impressions, if you will -- to read under the surface as it were, to detect hidden evil, and more importantly to find the good that may be concealed. The highest type of discernment is that which perceives in others and uncovers for them their better natures, the good inherent within them. It's the gift every missionary needs when he takes the gospel to the people of the world. He must make an appraisal of every personality whom he meets. He must be able to discern the hidden spark that may be lighted for truth. The gift of discernment will save him from mistakes and embarrassment, and it will never fail to inspire confidence in the one who is rightly appraised.

The gift of discernment is essential to the leadership of the Church. I never ordain a bishop or set apart a president of a stake without invoking upon him this divine blessing, that he may read the lives and hearts of his people and call forth the best within them. The gift and power of discernment in this world of contention between the forces of good and the power of evil is essential equipment for every son and daughter of God. There could be no such mass dissensions as endanger the security of the world, if its populations possessed this great gift in larger degree. People are generally so gullible one is sometimes led to wonder whether the great Lincoln was right, after all, in the conclusion of his memorable statement, "You can't fool all the people all the time." One does feel at times, however, a sense of pity and sympathy for some of the peoples of the world whose education, information, and exposure to higher ideals and exalted concepts have been so arbitrarily and ruthlessly restricted.

There is a class of people now grown sizable in the world who should possess this great gift in large degree. They know how the gift is attained. They have been educated in its spiritual foundations. They have been blessed with the counsels which foster it. They know how to order their lives to procure it. You know who they are, my brethren and sisters. Every member in the restored Church of Christ could have this gift if he willed to do so. He could not be deceived with the sophistries of the world. He could not be led astray by pseudo-prophets and subversive cults. Even the inexperienced would recognize false teachings, in a measure at least. With this gift they would be able to detect something of the disloyal, rebellious, and sinister influences which not infrequently prompt those who seemingly take pride in the destruction of youthful faith and loyalties. Discerning parents will do well to guard their children against such influences and such personalities and teachings before irreparable damage is done. The true gift of discernment is often premonitory. A sense of danger should be heeded to be of value. We give thanks for a set of providential circumstances which avert an accident. We ought to be grateful every day of our lives for this sense which keeps alive a conscience which constantly alerts us to the dangers inherent in wrongdoers and sin. Conference Report, April 1950, p.163

Nice try though.

[_grindael]

Other Mormons don't agree with you either...

Deseret News
How to develop the gift of discernment
Published: Saturday, Nov. 18, 1995
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The gift of discernment helps us to recognize good and evil, truth and error. We can develop it through the following:

- Praying. When we pray, we focus our minds on our Heavenly Father. Prayer is not a chance for us to tell God what we want. It helps us to learn our Father's will.- Searching the scriptures. Through diligent, prayerful scripture study, our understanding of the gospel increases and so does our ability to recognize truth and error. President Ezra Taft Benson said that the Book of Mormon exposes the enemies of Christ, and it does.

- Keeping the commandments. When we're obedient, we have the Spirit to be with us. When we're disobedient, the Spirit withdraws.

- Listening to your feelings. If a person, thing or idea makes us feel good and want to be more like Christ, then we know it's good.

- Acting upon the promptings of the Spirit. If we don't act upon the gift, the gift dwindles. - Janice Leilani Smith, Kingsville, Texas

*****

What we did:

Obey God's laws

There are two scriptures that I value. They do not use the word "discernment," but I feel the development of discernment can come through their application.

"Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery." (1 Tim. 4:14.)

"There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated - And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated." (D&C 130:20-21.)

The scripture in the Doctrine and Covenants was read to me the day I was baptized (age 19), and whenever I feel the need for a blessing or the use of a gift, I try to find out what I need to do to receive it.

Obedience to God's laws sharpens our discernment and guides us to the gift we need and how to use it. - Virginia A. Terribilini, Penngrove, Calif.

Two special gifts

The Lord has blessed us in our lives with the gift of discernment as members of His true Church. We are blessed with two means of discernment - the Holy Ghost and the light of Christ. In Moro. 7:14-19, we are told that the light of Christ is given to all men to know good from evil. As members of the Church, we are also blessed with the gift of the Holy Ghost to be our constant companion. The Holy Ghost bears witness of all truth.

These two special gifts can aid us throughout our lives as we live worthy of them. These powers of discernment grow and develop as we live faithful and act upon their promptings. As we act upon our promptings, we will be able to bless our families and those over whom we have responsibility. These gifts of discernment will aid us in our family decisions, employment, education and Church service. - Tammy Lake, Lake Butler, Fla.

Two-way communication

Any time I am asked to speak at a baptism, I always love giving the talk on the gift of the Holy Ghost. I commonly use the following analogy:

If I called you on the telephone, I would have to identify myself to you before I began to talk. I would have to identify myself each time I called for the next several days. After a month of calling you every morning, I would no longer need to identify myself. After a couple of months of calling you every morning, you would not only be able to recognize my voice, but also you would be able to tell the mood that I am in and many other details.

Developing discernment of the Spirit works the same way. If you pray every day for a month, you will not have a challenge identifying the Holy Ghost from your own thoughts and feelings. After a couple of months you will even be able to understand the details of the messages that He is sending through the "still small voice." It is only by daily prayer with two-way communication that we can ever expect to grow in our ability to discern the Spirit. - W. Denis Murmela, Sun City, Calif.

Prayer in your heart

In order to develop the gift of discernment, you must be in constant contact with the Spirit and have a prayer in your heart the entire day. You must make sure your surroundings are those in which the Spirit can dwell and that your actions are those with which the Spirit can be comfortable. You must always do what the Spirit says, because if you ignore those promptings, they will stop. If you do these things on a daily basis, you will find that your gift will grow and grow. - Candace Salima, Orem, Utah

Warmth, peace, joy

Having the gift of the Holy Ghost does not automatically entitle us to the gift of discernment. If not a natural gift, it can be gained as a gift of the Spirit over a long period of time with practice. The gift of discernment was given to me in my patriarchal blessing, but I still had to fully discover it and learn how to develop and use it. Many years of faithful prayer and scripture study, Church and temple attendance and keeping the commandments are conducive to receiving the Spirit's promptings in our lives. As we follow those promptings, we will find that they come more often, and we begin to recognize when the Lord is inspiring us.

His Spirit is always one of warmth, peace and joy, a feeling of "rightness." Satan cannot counterfeit this peace and warmth, but his temptations come with a dark, confused, anxious or fearful feeling. The Lord's spirit of love casts these out. The more we practice hearing and obeying the Spirit in our lives, the more we can discern the spirit in anything we read, hear, see or do as being good or evil. The main principle by which we can discern is to always do that which will be edifying, uplifting and beneficial to our Father's children in bringing them back home to Him. - Hollye Holmquist, Lancaster, Calif.

All areas of life

Following the Spirit is the key, but living our lives so the Spirit can be with us is the most important. The Lord expects us to discern between good and evil or righteousness and wickedness in all areas of our lives, not just spiritually, but also educationally, politically and socially.

The only way we can discern in any of these areas is to strive to live each day as the Lord would have us live. For example, try a little harder each day to be a little stronger and love a little more - thereby strengthening our love for the Savior and ensuring the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost. - Liz Hardman, Emmett, Idaho

[Guest]

...Don Bradley's argument about a secular translation has some weight, but not coupling it with Joseph being a man who could easily be deceived. Mormonism shoots that theory down by way of it's own claims to discernment.

The gift of discernment, per the passages you cited, is intended for leaders to be able to discern whether professed spiritual gifts are from God...or not.

In other words, it's *not* intended to help one discern whther something said is true or not, but rather to know the source from which such said things come.

Read into it what you wish. Discernment isn't intended to tell you in advance if the weather rreporter gave an accurate prediction that morning. But it can tell you what his/her intent/motivation was in saying what was said....which can often be more important than knowing the latter.

You have a treasure trove of quotes from Mormon 'prophets and apostles' opining on the Gift of Discernment, and yet... You just crapped out a nugget of wrongness. We could literally give you 100 statements on the Gift of Discernment coming directly from the Church and I have a hunch you'd be like, "Nope. It's what I think it is."

- Doc

[_DonBradley]

Hey Again Grindael,

Thanks for your compliments on my Joseph Smith polygamy research for Brian. I'm glad that's proving useful to you. =)

I certainly agree that Joseph Smith tended to break down the barrier between secular knowledge and spiritual knowledge (which I've always thought was pretty damn cool, for what it's worth). And you present texts that evidence this.

What I'm not seeing is your documentation that Smith asserted that it was impossible to deceive him.

You previously used D&C 46 as evidence that Joseph Smith was immune to deception by anyone on any topic. But it doesn't say that. Rather, it says that bishops, elders, and other church leaders will have the power to discern true spiritual gifts from false spiritual gifts:

D&C 46:27 And unto the bishop of the church, and unto such as God shall appoint and ordain to watch over the church and to be elders unto the church, are to have it given unto them to discern all those gifts lest there shall be any among you professing and yet be not of God.

Note that the text speaks specifically of judging spiritual gifts, not of judging any and all truth claims. And note that this discernment is not the special prerogative of the president of the church, but of all church officers from the level of elder and up. For your reading of what "discernment" here means to have been correct we would need to believe that Joseph Smith claimed not only that he personally could not be deceived about anything by anyone, but also that every apostle, patriarch, bishop, high priest, and elder in the church could not be deceived about anything by anyone. I find it pretty

Given that this text doesn't support the idea that Joseph Smith claimed it was impossible for anyone to deceive him, if you're going to document Joseph Smith teaching that idea, you'll need to do it with a text where he does say that that and says it clearly enough that impartial observers would take it that way.

Offhand, I do see evidence against the idea that he claimed to be impossible to deceive. First, Joseph Smith says explicitly and to correct what he takes to be a general misunderstanding, that "a prophet is only a prophet when acting as such." Given that he made this statement, it's difficult for me to believe that he would assert that since he was the prophet he could not be deceived, since by his own admission he wasn't always a prophet. Second, I still think I remember Joseph Smith acknowledging times when someone had deceived him, such as John C. Bennett, with his feigned repentance.

I can't point to a source for what I think I'm remembering. But, on the other hand, no source has been presented where Joseph Smith said it was impossible to deceive him, and no one seems to recall reading such a source. In the absence of evidence that Smith made this claim, there's no reason to believe he did.

Don

[_grindael]

C'mon Don,

Ya got to look at the entire context,

7 But ye are commanded in all things to ask of God, who giveth liberally; and that which the Spirit testifies unto you even so I would that ye should do in all holiness of heart, walking uprightly before me, considering the end of your salvation, doing all things with prayer and thanksgiving, that ye may not be seduced by evil spirits, or doctrines of devils, or the commandments of men; for some are of men, and others of devils.

8 Wherefore, beware lest ye are deceived; and that ye may not be deceived seek ye earnestly the best gifts, always remembering for what they are given;

And then...

27 And unto the bishop of the church, and unto such as God shall appoint and ordain to watch over the church and to be elders unto the church, are to have it given unto them to discern all those gifts lest there shall be any among you professing and yet be not of God.

It says IN ALL THINGS, to ask of God, and they were given "gifts" so they would not be deceived. Joseph Smith was not appointed to watch over the church? And then Don, you have Mormon Authority after Mormon Authority saying it is way more than what you say it is. Sorry, but I will go with them.

[_Themis]

The question of whether Joseph Smith could be deceived despite having the gift of discernment strikes me as a question of religious belief rather than of historical scholarship. And I'm not convinced that most believers either do or should hold that Joseph Smith could never be deceived. But whether Joseph Smith said he could or could not be deceived is a historical question.

It's also a religious question. One in which historical evidence may answer. That's the funny thing about scientific and historical bodies of knowledge. They may not be intentionally trying to answer religious questions, but do it anyways. If one believes a prophet with the gift of discernment cannot be deceived, you just brought forth evidence answering the question of whether Joseph was ever deceived. Now if they don't reject that evidence like so many biblical literalists do with the sciences, they will have to adjust their beliefs to accommodate the new evidence. It could be that maybe the power of discernment does not make one immune to deception, or maybe Joseph was not a prophet. Scientific and historical evidence can answer a lot of religious questions. It did for this believer. I never thought Joseph couldn't be deceived, but at the same time it seems very reasonable that the power of discernment should give you a real advantage over others in not being deceived. Especially in important matters such as the kinderhook plates. It doesn't seem reasonable if Joseph had powers of discernment and regular communication with God that he would not go first to God about the plates.

But I see the historical and the religious tasks as distinct. So, on the one hand, my finding inspiration in the Book of Abraham doesn't mean that Joseph Smith literally translated it from a lost papyrus; and, on the other hand, my concluding that he didn't literally translate the Book of Abraham from a lost papyrus doesn't render its religious content uninspired or false.

Problem is that historical and scientific knowledge tends to provide answers to many religious tasks. The question of Joseph claims to be able to translate are shown to be false. This has huge implications for the Book of Abraham, Book of Mormon, Joseph's claims about God, etc. And historical/scientific evidence just continues to shows many many many problems for religious tasks/claims about Joseph Smith. It certainly does provide answers to whether Joseph was inspired from some supernatural source and whether some of his claims are false. Certainly one can still be inspired by Joseph's writings, just as we are by many fictional works in history.

[_DonBradley]

I find your interpretation muddled in a variety of ways.

1. The first verses you quote say that one should seek spiritual gifts in order to avoid deception. They don't identify that with the discernment specially given to the "elders" and other leaders of the church. And if what enables one to avoid deception is gifts of the Spirit, then you can't make an exception for Joseph Smith's admissions that he'd been deceived re:the Canadian copyright revelation--since he already had the Spirit at that point, even if he didn't have the Melchizedek priesthood.

2. The verses also don't say that these gifts make one infallibly undeceivable. I'm not aware of any early Mormon teaching that one who had a spiritual gift had it with infallible perfection--e.g., that one who had the gift of healing could always heal everyone from every sickness, or that one who had the gift of charity would always and invariably be loving in all things. That's not something you're reading out of the text, but something you're reading in. I've never held to that reading either while in or out of the LDS church. It's not an obvious reading. So, rather than argue from that reading to make your point, you need to argue for that reading.

3. Speaking of context, it's clear from the verse you don't include that those who watch over the church who are given discernment include bishops and even elders - which brings me back to my point that your reading wouldn't just require that Joseph Smith claimed himself to be impossible to deceive, but that he claimed this for all church leaders down to the level of elder. Surely you don't believe that's what he intended, do you? But if he didn't intend to say that about bishops and elders, he also wasn't saying it about himself, since the church president is not singled out from these other leaders.

4. You haven't bothered to try to adduce an explicit statement from Joseph Smith that he couldn't be deceived, because you don't have one.

5. You haven't bothered responding to Joseph Smith saying explicitly that he was not always a prophet, which would moot any contention you have that Joseph Smith as prophet was impossible to deceive.

6. Lastly, you're conflating polemical issues with historical issues. If you want to make a polemical point, the various quotes you're using may be relevant. But in terms of understanding historically what Joseph Smith claimed about himself, it doesn't matter what various 20th century church leaders said, nor do I read them as claiming that one with discernment literally cannot be deceived about anything, like another person lying to them.

In the absence of evidence that really says what you need it to say to make your point you're glomming on to a shallow snap reading of D&C 46 and then quoting everyone under the sun but Joseph Smith--the person whose views you're ostensibly trying to uncover--to support that reading.

Don

[_grindael]

Some may receive faith to the discerning of spirits; they can discern the spirit of a person, whether it is good or evil. They have such power, that when a person enters this congregation they can tell the spirit of such person; then they have received the gift of discerning of spirits. Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 16:164–65. August 31, 1873.

Joseph said,

“The Apostles in ancient times held the keys of this Priesthood—of the mysteries of the kingdom of God, and consequently were enabled to unlock and unravel all things pertaining to the government of the Church, the welfare of society, the future destiny of men, and the agency, power and influence of spirits; for they could control them at pleasure, bid them depart in the name of Jesus, and detect their mischievous and mysterious operations when trying to palm themselves upon the Church in a religious garb, and militate against the interest of the Church and spread of truth.”

Was he speaking of spirits dressed up in clothes? No. He is speaking of men "trying to palm themselves upon the church" and that by the gift of discernment, it would be revealed so they would not be deceived. So how did Joseph not know that Wilbur Fugate & Co. were deceiving him? It sure qualifies as a mischievous operation...

[_Themis]

1. The first verses you quote say that one should seek spiritual gifts in order to avoid deception. They don't identify that with the discernment specially given to the "elders" and other leaders of the church. And if what enables one to avoid deception is gifts of the Spirit, then you can't make an exception for Joseph Smith's admissions that he'd been deceived re:the Canadian copyright revelation--since he already had the Spirit at that point, even if he didn't have the Melchizedek priesthood.

Not sure how Joseph was deceived with the Canadian copyright revelation. Certainly it is not a good position for God to do it. Satan isn't much better in that no one can know who is the source of any revelation. Same for deceiving oneself, which is the only good explanation, and one we see all the time.