Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, concluded the “Chiasmus Jubilee” commemoration Wednesday night at Brigham Young University, reminding guests that the spirit of revelation — including one’s testimony of the Book of Mormon — comes through a process of “engaging the head as well as the heart,” with “the force of fact as well as the force of feeling.”
He added: “Our testimonies aren’t dependent on evidence. We still need always and forever that spiritual confirmation in the heart of which we’ve all spoken. But to not seek for and not to acknowledge intellectual, documentable support for our belief, when it is available, is to needlessly limit an otherwise incomparably strong theological position and deny us a persuasive vocabulary in the latter-day arena of religious investigation in a sectarian debate.
Elder Holland cited the Apostle Paul’s expression of faith being “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen,”
“For me, the classic example of substance that I hope for and the evidence of things I have not seen is the 531 pages of the Book of Mormon, which come from a sheath of gold plates that some people saw and handled and hefted, but I haven’t seen or handled or hefted, and neither have you,” Elder Holland said.
“Nevertheless, the reality of those plates — the substance of them, if you will — and the evidence that comes from them in the form of the Book of Mormon is at the heart, at the very center, of the hope and testimony and conviction of this work that is unshakably within me forever.”
“When we are confronted with evidence that challenges our deeply held beliefs we are more likely to reframe the evidence than we are to alter our beliefs. We simply invent new reasons, new justifications, new explanations. Sometimes we ignore the evidence altogether.” (Mathew Syed 'Black Box Thinking')
Our testimonies aren’t dependent on evidence. We still need always and forever that spiritual confirmation in the heart of which we’ve all spoken.
After Elder Holland's Two Roads and Two Brothers talks I'm not sure I would put much stock in the efficacy of his spiritual confirmation, let alone take advice from him about how the spirit works.
by the way does anyone else think Chiasmus Jubilee is a humorous title for a conference? I'm holding out for the Iambic Pentameter Extravaganza!
"Be excellent to each other." - Bill and Ted “The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.” - Mark Twain
What did his head & heart tell him about the Hells Angel whom he claims to have made a personal mission of keeping track of....?
“When we are confronted with evidence that challenges our deeply held beliefs we are more likely to reframe the evidence than we are to alter our beliefs. We simply invent new reasons, new justifications, new explanations. Sometimes we ignore the evidence altogether.” (Mathew Syed 'Black Box Thinking')
Our testimonies aren’t dependent on evidence. We still need always and forever that spiritual confirmation in the heart of which we’ve all spoken.
After Elder Holland's Two Roads and Two Brothers talks I'm not sure I would put much stock in the efficacy of his spiritual confirmation, let alone take advice from him about how the spirit works.
by the way does anyone else think Chiasmus Jubilee is a humorous title for a conference? I'm holding out for the Iambic Pentameter Extravaganza!