The Language of Heart, Might, Mind, and Strength

Posted on August 19, 1991 by Admin

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

Posted in Education Week, Philosophy, Philosophy of Language | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on The Language of Heart, Might, Mind, and Strength

Language of the Spirit

Posted on August 19, 1991 by Admin

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.

Posted in Education Week, Philosophy of Language | Tagged , | Comments Off on Language of the Spirit

Spiritual Survival in These Last Days

Posted on May 19, 1991 by Admin

Dr. Chauncey C. Riddle

Talk Radio 1400 AM, May 19, 1991
“Friends and Scholars,” hosted by Dennis Warlaw

And now it’s time for “Friends and Scholars,” made possible by the friends and scholars listeners club. Here’s your friends and scholars host, Dennis Warlaw.

Our guest this evening, our friend and scholar, is Dr. Chauncey Riddle, Professor of philosophy at Brigham Young University. Welcome, we’re pleased to have you here this evening, Chauncey.

Thank you.

By way of introduction to our audience, let me make mention that you studied at Brigham Young University as a student. I understand,

Yes.

Received your bachelors and Masters there, and then went to Columbia University?

Bachelors at BYU.

Oh, and your masters and Doctorate at Columbia. And that since 1952 you have in the College of Religion first, then served as Dean of the Graduate School, Assistant Academic Vice President, and a Department Chairman in Graduate Studies of Religion. That’s quite a broad area of interest. We would like to ask by further way of introduction, you and your wife Bertha have how many children?

We have eleven living children.

That’s wonderful. And in your church service, by the way, how old is your oldest child now?

Our oldest child just turned forty-five.

Do you have any in the mission-field presently?

Yes, we have one serving as a missionary in the Helsinki, East Mission.

And where is he stationed at present?

He is stationed in Leningrad, in Russia.

Isn’t that exciting?

He is really excited about it. The work is going well there.

We’re pleased to get the reports of such missionary endeavors. Your church service yourself, you’ve served as a bishop, have you?

Yes.

How many times?

Three times.

Understand you have had a number of experiences in high council assignment.

A few.

You’re presently serving in that capacity, are you Chauncey?

I am, in the Oak Hills Stake.

And have served in the Stake Presidency, previously.

Yes.

As far as your writings; you’ve published in the BYU Studies?, The Ensign, have you?

Yes.

I should be letting you tell me more about this. I will turn you loose here in just a minute. Because we’re anxious. You may note that I have in front of me some two tapes I acquired of your presentations over the years. One of them on the subject of “Crown Jewels, and Royal Purple.”

A most interesting tape. By the way, I received this from the media department at BYU. And a presentation you made, my, nearly thirty years ago on the second coming. It was very well done. Significant information and a sound approach. I recommend. And then I one which you apparently gave as the honored lecturer at the Talmage lecture, on the subject of abortion and capital punishment. I wish there might be time tonight, for you approach this, if there isn’t, we may invite you back. Because that’s so intriguing. What is on your heart tonight, Dr. Riddle?

Tonight I would like to talk about “Spiritual Survival of These Last Days.” I think this is a very interesting time to live, and a time to be especially careful about what we do with our time.

Do you think we are approaching the Second Coming of our Savior?

Well, clearly we get closer, one day closer, every day. I don’t wish to make any predictions as to how close we are, but the thing that’s important about these times is the rising tide of opposition, of evil that forces every one of us, to recognize we have to do something. We can’t just be complacent in this situation.

Mary and I serve presently (One of our assignments) as preparedness advisors, helpers, in our ward. And have been doing research and getting materials together. And we were most appreciative when we learned you would be talking about spiritual preparation, or survival, in these days. What is the first step?

Well, my understanding is that we have to understand something about our situation. Our Father in Heaven gives us to start with a good deal of knowledge about who we are, why we are here, and what we are doing here. And from that, we then, have to find our way.

For instance, It’s very important to understand that we are on an eternal journey. We did not begin here. We do not end here. This is one scene in the play. It is as if we were on stage. We don’t see the audience, but there’s a vast, eternal audience that is watching us. But because the lights are dim, we only see ourselves, and those playing parts with us on the stage at the present time. And so it’s important to realize this because we have to see things on an eternal perspective.

Yes.

One of the great short-comings of so much of the world’s thinking right now is that it’s short run. But if we learn to think in terms of our family, of our whole ancestry, of our whole posterity, and their welfare. And what we do affects them in both directions. Then we begin to have the perspective of eternity.

I don’t believe that the attitude we should have toward life is really any different in these last days than it would be at any time since the fall of Adam. Because the basic problems have always been the same. It’s true that the physical problems have changed. We aren’t in a war right now, we don’t have a famine right now. There are places on the earth where there is war, there is famine. Where people are suffering. And in any of these circumstances, the real key to survival, spiritual survival, is the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. And it pleases me to discuss this issue in that frame, this evening.

We appreciate the preparation you have made.

I would like to suggest, first of all, there are some ages and stages of life that are important to comprehend. I speak now from the perspective of the Latter-Day-Saint. And what Latter- Day Saints should accomplish in this journey. While we act on the stage in this time. And my belief is that if we fulfill these stages successfully, we will be well prepared for anything that will come in eternity.

The first age and stage of life is to be as a little child before our Father in Heaven. That is to say, to learn from Him. Especially, to learn to receive spiritual signals from Him. The nice thing about a little child is that little children are teachable. And if we can become teachable, in the Spirit of the Lord. And learn the truths from our Heavenly Father that He would have us know, Then we have a sure foundation for every other thing we might do with our lives. Little children who are acquainted with the Spirit of the Lord from the time of their birth are fortunate indeed. Children can grow up in the homes of Latter-Day Saints, and be taught to pray, be taught to feel the spirit, taught to live by its guidance in their lives, well before they are eight years old. Before Satan gets a chance at them. If parents wait until after they are eight or ten to start telling them about those things, it’s very late. The little children are especially sensitive to spiritual things, and can learn that well.

My belief is that the first ten years of a person’s life, I don’t mean to say just the chronological years. If you are born in the Church, that does mean chronological years. But if you are converts the Church, the first stage of life is always to be as a little child. To learn the language of the Spirit of the Lord. And we want to learn to govern our lives under the influence of that Spirit. The basic problem that we have in this life is simply to choose between good and evil. And our Heavenly Father gives us the Light of Christ, and for members of the Church, the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost is limited to members of the Church, but we have the special opportunity to have Him as a constant companion. And if we receive those gifts from our Heavenly Father, then we can make un-erring choices between good and evil. That’s the business of life. And the time to learn that is right at the first. You need to learn what is good to eat, and what is not good to eat. With whom we should associate, and those with whom we should not associate. How to spend our time, how not to spend our time. What’s good music, what’s bad music. And so forth. As we learn to discriminate in all things between good and evil, between good and bad, we lay the foundation of spirituality which makes it possible to be a Latter- Day Saint in every other thing we do.

The second age and stage of life that I understand, is our youth, as it were, having learned to discern the will of our Father. Then we need to learn much about this world. Now chronologically, for members of the Church, this would be ages eleven through twenty. Most of us, in those years, spend our whole time in school, learning. But learning is not enough. I believe, that though we learn good things in our schooling, the essential thing we need to learn as we are going through those time is to learn to serve. If we see that our learning in Mathematics, in Science, in Physical Education, or Drama, or whatever we do, is to help others, to bless other’s lives, to render service, then we are indeed on our Father’s pathway, on the strait and narrow. If we use the Spirit of the Lord that we have gained in the first decade, to learn how to serve in each capacity we find ourselves in. We live in an age where the concern of most people is: “What are we going to get out of this situation, how can this profit me?” Whereas, servants of the Lord come from a situation that’s very different.  We have a Father that as unlimited resources. We have a Father that is kind and good. Our job is to learn how to share all that He has given us with others. And to learn to do it willingly, and in a friendly way, not begrudging, and to do it well, in the spirit of excellence as we give this service. Now if every person could learn this as the second stage of life, to find that their happiness consists in serving others, in doing good. I remember President Lee used to say all the time, “It’s amazing how much good you can do in this world if you don’t care who gets the credit.” And I think that’s a profound saying. If we do, behind the scenes, many good for others, simply delighting in the opportunity to serve our Father in Heaven, and benefit His Children, then we are mastering this second stage of life. The culmination of this second stage should be a full time mission for most young LDS people.

The third age and stage of life is the post mission opportunity to marry, to find our companion, and marry in the correct way and begin to found an eternal family. My belief is that this is probably the most important single thing we do in our lives. No, let me back up on that, it is the second most important. The most important thing we do is to commit ourselves to the Savior Jesus Christ. And having committed ourselves to Him, then the most important thing we do is to find our companion. And then in the Savior, build a bond with that companion that will see us through hell, through heaven, through all eternity, as best friends and good cooperators. So I think this exciting challenge in mortality has as one of its main features first to learn to love the Lord, and then to learn to love our husband and wife. With such a sure and wonderful bond, that nothing can break it. No temptation, no strain, no opportunity for service will ever come between. But we together, working, will forge this bond, and cooperatively be much stronger than either one of us would be separately. Because we serve the Lord and we serve together.

Latter-Day Saints should be particularly responsive to these thoughts and this counsel because of what we have been taught with reference to covenants. That we, of all people, should keep covenants, above all decisions, above all commitments and responsibilities. We should keep our covenants, especially marriage. Is that your feeling?

Indeed, the covenants sort of outline the path, the strait and narrow path for us. And the first stage of life, zero to ten, is when we make the covenant of baptism, and there receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. So we can be surely on the path, not in doubt as to what Father would have us do. The second stage of life, we receive the Priesthood, and learn to serve. In this third stage of life we are married in the temple. And receive that binding, that opportunity for binding, that can become an eternal union.

We’re visiting with Dr. Chauncey Riddle, Professor of Philosophy, at Brigham Young University. Our Friend and Scholar on tonight’s program. What is the next stage?

Well the next stage of life is a combination of three decades, roughly from the ages from thirty to sixty. And I see that there are three main things that must go on simultaneously in this particular age and stage of life. The first of these three, is (this is our adult life now) once we have laid the foundation and established our marriage, then the main responsibilities of this load-bearing stage of our lives, is first of all, to raise a family in the Lord. To bear children, but most especially, to bring those children up in the nurture of the Lord. To teach them to know Jesus Christ and His Spirit, and Father, and the Holy Ghost. And to treasure the opportunities and responsibilities of the Restored Gospel. We are told that if no other success can compensate for failure in the home. That is to say, failure to establish this bond in marriage, and failure to nourish our children in the good word of God. So that’s the first responsibility in the load-bearing responsibility of this adult stage.

The second is being a stalwart in the Church and Kingdom of God. Now I have a little different understanding of the Church I guess than some people do. It is my understanding that the Church is not here to save us. But that we are here to serve in the Church. And through that service, we show our love for our Father in Heaven, and for our Savior. It is true, the Church can give us many things, especially at first. And it does help us. But the thing that is going to save us is our personal relationship with the Savior. The Church cannot save us. It makes available to us the ordinances. And in that respect is a great benefactor to us.

This approach applies also, does it not, to our responsibilities with reference to government. There are those who feel government is here to take care of us. When really, we’re here to be good citizens. To do what needs to be done in our communities, and in our homes and even more broadly. Not expecting to be waited upon, but to be a servant in that area.

Indeed. And if we have learned to serve, that will be our natural course of life. To do that. Yes, being a pillar of the community, to foster good government, with sound civil practice in our society is the third load-bearing activity that I envision should consume our mature years. So, if you’ll notice I haven’t mentioned earning a living so far. It’s understood that we must earn a living as we go. We must support ourselves and our families and the Church and the government. They should not support us, unless of course, we are incapable, totally incapable of doing so. But nevertheless, we have the opportunity to give this service, to render this support. And I see this period of thirty-forty-fifty years we have as a load-bearing adult as the prime of life in a sense. Where we are raising our family, working in the church, strengthening our local and national government, contributing to the welfare of everyone, everywhere we can. This is a great load to bear.

Then we come to the final age and stage of life.

We aren’t quite ready for that are we?

Well, it depends on how we conceive it. If we conceive it in the correct way, we will hardly be able to wait to get there. I’m talking about the period after retirement from our earning years. And to my mind this age and stage of life means that we go into full time service of the Lord.

How marvelous.

And we spend the rest of our lives on missions, doing genealogy and temple work, family history, on working with our families, enjoying and teaching our grandchildren, being a strength to our community, being a good neighbor. Now that we have accomplished many of the great works of life, now without reservation we can turn our time fully to the service of our fellow man. Now all of the activities up to this time have been geared, by Father, to shape and polish us into accomplished servants in his sight. One of the interesting things about the concept of Priesthood in the Restored Gospel is that the words Priest and King as I understand them in the restored gospel, mean literally, servant. The world turns that upside down. The world believes that the priest and the king are the one that runs things, the ones who preside over all, who call the shots.

One in the area of religion, the other in the area of civil government.

Correct, and it’s the mission of Latter-Day Saints to be both Kings and Priests, but to be King and Priests unto God. Or, to administer for Him.

What you’ve brought to my mind is the great example and message of King Benjamin.

Indeed, King Benjamin is a good role model in this respect. He who labored with his own hands to support himself so that he would not burden the people with taxes. Who sought diligently all the days of his life to bring to them civil order and spiritual prosperity. And he accomplished a mighty work, he did so well, that the Lord was able to instruct him in what to teach his people in a special way that goes beyond what we have yet enjoyed in this dispensation. And so I enjoy thinking of him as a role model.

Now this retirement stage of life I think should be the crowning experience of life. This should be a time of glory, some people call them the “Golden Years.” They should be golden because of our living the golden rule and doing the golden deeds, cramming everything we have attempted in our lives with this wonderful, good service to others. As we go into the temple and look at the people who are serving there, the ordinance workers, I think we can catch a glimpse of this. These people have a special spirit, a willingness to serve, a desire to be pure, a desire to be holy. Now, if we can attain that, and we can, then we will do well, and we will find the true happiness. The purpose in life is to be happy. The Lord did not give us the strait and narrow as a strait jacket. He gave it to us as an enabling principle. That we might, through him, have a fullness of life. And if we stay on his path, which I think these ages and stages outline, then we will indeed have a fullness of life.

I am enjoying this marvelous presentation, Chauncey Riddle, we will pause here for a Church produced home-front message, and be back with more of the wisdom and counsel that you might bring us.

We are visiting with Dr. Chauncey Riddle on “Friends and Scholars” this evening. He’s discussing the subject of “Spiritual Survival in the Last Days” and I might say that this man has been to me and exemplar, one who has not only studied deeply, taught with the spirit, but has also endeavored to live the gospel, both in his family, (I might mention that I tried to reach you here about a week ago, Chauncey, and one of your children indicated you were out in the yard doing some plowing. Is that correct?

Yes, I believe that one of the commandments was that we subdue the earth. I believe in that very literally. I believe that part of the tutelage that Father gives us, part of the training, for His work, is to be an efficient and an effective workman. To subdue the earth, to produce something of value. And I think as we pursue that, Father can bless us and help us. I don’t believe that everyone has to follow exactly the same path in doing that. Not everyone has to do what I do. But I believe that everyone should spend some time working with his or her hands.

We have encouraged (my wife and I) in our preparedness assignment even those who live in condos such as ourselves to get a little plot or have some miniature trees, as well as flowers. With some vegetables along in that row of flowers.

That not only we maintain that closeness to the soil, which I might confess my wife does better than I, but also that we are still preparing. And in an event of more dire circumstances, be prepared physically as well as spiritually.

A man after my own heart. Very good. Well, we have talked about the ages and stages of life. I would like to talk now about how we do these things. Because knowing what we do is fairly simple. Doing it is rather difficult. In fact, I don’t know any more demanding task that there is in this world than to be a faithful Latter-Day Saint. It takes everything we have. The Lord tells us that we must serve and love Him with all of our heart, might, mind, and strength.

The first problem that we have is to learn to discern His voice. And I think this is the number one intellectual problem for every Latter-Day Saint. How do we know when it is the voice of the Lord as separated from the temptations of Satan, as separated from our own thoughts and desires.

Many of our listeners may picture the audible voice of the Lord to be expected, which of course, is not impossible, but you perceive something even beyond that or other than that, don’t you Doctor?

I perceive that we should search for the Lord, I believe that, even as we search for food, and very carefully prepare it to nourish ourselves many times a day, we should search for the very best spiritual nourishment, and learn to discern what is Grade A.

Where do we turn in that search?

The thing that we are given to guide us is our own spirit. We have a spirit within us, and that spirit registers. Now our physical body registers things. Our physical body registers light waves, sound waves, and chemicals, and touch, and so forth. But none of these things can save us. That is to say that the information we need to be saved will never come through the physical senses. The information we need to be saved comes by becoming alive spiritually. So if we will become conscious of our inner experience, we will then discern that there are within our heart and mind, different influences.

Now our job is to sort out the good from the evil. That’s the business of life. That’s what makes a truly intelligent person. We see some people who are fairly intelligent about the physical things. The things they hear and touch and smell. But it’s important to be spiritual about the things we feel on the inside. The light of Christ comes into the life of every human being who reaches normal mentality. And the light of Christ witnesses to us of truth and of good. But Satan is there for every one of us, and unless we can tell the difference we may be greatly fooled. And then people tell us things. Now the traditions of the world say “Don’t pay much attention to those voices within you, just listen to human beings. And let them be your guide.” And that’s why most people get most of what they believe from other human beings. We call that authoritarianism. But we are told in section one of the Doctrine and Covenants that the restored gospel was brought to earth specifically for the purpose that man would not counsel his fellow man. That each of us could speak in the name of God.

So our job is simply to go work and pay enough attention to these spiritual influences that we will be able to separate them out very carefully just like you would separate out the poisonous from the good mushrooms when you are hunting for food in the forest. Or we want to make sure that you separate out the kinds of herbs that are beneficial from those that are poisonous. So are the ideas that come into our mind, some are good and some are evil. Now, if we have any clue as to which is good, the thing which we must do is to follow that clue, and test the spirit that’s saying something and see if the result is good and beneficial.

If our hearts are good we will be able to find that there are some good spirits that come and tell us good things to do. And as we do what they say, and draw ourselves closer to that spirit, we engender the good spirit in ourselves until it comes brighter and brighter and stronger in our lives. Eventually, of course, if we go all the way, if fills our lives. The scriptures say the light becomes brighter and brighter until the perfect day. But we are the ones that have to make the selection and the search. And as we do that very carefully, making it the most important business of our life, that enables us to fill stage one that we talked about. Then, through that light… Oh, before I lose that topic, let me say there are some places and things we can do to foster that good spirit. We go to church because the spirit of the Lord is there. We go to the temple because the spirit of the Lord is there. We associate with good people because they carry the spirit with them. We read the scriptures because they foster the Spirit of the Lord in us. Now it’s true we can read the scriptures with an evil spirit telling us what to believe about it. But you see, we eventually have to contradict what the words say if we listen to the evil spirit. There are intellectual clues that we can receive. But the main problem is that our heart must tell us which is the good spirit and which is the evil. As we foster the good spirit it will begin to teach us what’s true about ourselves. To realize, that precious bit of knowledge that we are literal children of the Gods. We did not evolve from so lower form, or animal.

This is true not only of our intelligence or spirit, but where did Adam come from, who was his father?

My understanding that Adam was born, just as you and I are. And that he traces his lineage to the Gods. Now, I don’t know just exactly how that tracing is done. But the scriptures tell us that he was the son of God.

Now, once we have gotten the spirit, then we learn these great truths. And they provide the framework, or the backdrop of our lives. All of our understanding is against a backdrop. And, as the backdrop gets truer and truer, the significance of our daily lives becomes truer and truer to us. You can put any act, and against different backdrops it looks very different. And so, we need to get the right backdrop. Then we will know what to do. Knowing what to do, of course, is the bottom line of the whole thing. Because what we do, the choices we make, the acts we carry out in this life determine our eternal destiny. My image of eternity is something like this: That we’ve been on a journey since the beginning, that is to say, we have always been on a journey. There was no beginning, but we talk about a beginning because the story has to start somewhere. And we have been on a path, we will be on a path forever after this world. The peculiar nature of this mortal existence is that we get to adjust the path while we’re in mortality. So, should we wake up and find that we aren’t as pure a spirit as we would like to be. In mortality we can repent and change. And our Savior Jesus Christ has wonderful things that he can do to help us. He tells us that His goal for us is that we learn to love Him with all of our heart, might, mind, and strength.

Yes.

Now, we can’t do that by ourselves. That is an impossibility for we human beings, as I understand it, to achieve any one of those four. But there is a program called salvation. And the Savior saves us from ourselves. He saves our heart, mind, our strength (which is our physical body) and our might (which is our influence in the world). He saves each of them beginning with our heart. If we enter into His New and Everlasting Covenant, and become faithful servants to Him. We are told that the day comes when we have done all that we can. That we may apply for a new heart. This is what King Benjamin got his people to do before he died. In that last great sermon he asked them to ask for a new heart. And they did, they wanted to. They were prepared, and not only did they ask, but they received it. And the marvelous they reported then was that they no longer had any desire to do evil. Now this is how we overcome the world. By receiving from our Savior a new heart. The scriptures call this the process of purification.

Is the reference to a broken heart in the scripture of a point here?

A broken heart is the preparation for the pure heart. Until we are willing to break our own hearts because of our sins, and admit before our Father in Heaven that we are nothing, that is to say, there is not enough good in us that we can claim anything from Him. Until we can come to that point of broken hearted-ness, we will not be sufficiently humble before our Savior to do His works and to be able to receive that new heart from Him.

The second thing he does is He is willing to go with us through our minds by the help of the Spirit and check each idea that we have, each of our beliefs. He will check us to see if we believe what is true. Satan’s great weapon is lies. And all it takes is a few lies in a system. Think of a great computer system, just throw a few bad commands into it, it doesn’t have to be more than a half of one percent, it destroys the whole functioning of the whole program. Similarly with the work of Satan. Only when we serve God with all of our mind can we be sure of doing what’s right. So the Savior is willing to go through our minds with us. Combing our minds, getting rid of every false idea that has its source from Satan, leaving only the truth.

Then He’s willing to save our bodies. First in this life by helping us to have those practices of life which lead to health and strength. But secondly, to give us in the resurrection a perfected body, like His. So His resurrection is a way of saving us.

It’s interesting you’ve mentioned deception being a tool of Satan, and mentioned also the importance of us caring for our bodies. One thinks of the eighty-ninth section and the fact that deception is mentioned there as a primary introduction to that whole subject. In consequence of evils and designs …

From conspiring men who wish to make money off of us, so we let people dictate to us certain fads and fashions of food and drink which are not good for us. And we need to go back to the fundamentals which Father has given us. That’s why I say that first stage is being a little child, and getting the spirit of the Lord so that we eat and drink by the spirit. Not according to our physical appetites, not according to the ways of men, but according to the ways of God.

Let us introduce you again, for those who may have missed the earlier introduction. Our guest tonight on “Friends and Scholars” is Dr. Chauncey Riddle of the faculty of Brigham Young University. Go right ahead Chauncey.

The next thing the Savior does for us is to save our might. Our might is the power or influence we have over others or with others in the universe. Now the thing that destroys might is sin. And as we sin, Father must take away our might, and cause us to be less and less mighty, until such time as we repent. But if we repent, and start doing good instead of evil, then he can give us more and more might. Now the process by which he cleanses our might is called in the scriptures sanctification. Or, the forgiveness of sins. And if we are forgiven of our sins, and are on the right track. Then the Savior can give us great power, because He knows we will not abuse it. We will use it only for good.

Now the overall of this whole thing is what the scriptures call, justification. The world has a justification that is a false justification. The false justification says, “Well, so-and-so isn’t very good, but we’ll pretend that his efforts are sufficient.” That’s the world’s justification. The Savior’s justification is different, the Savior’s justification says, “We will take this man and give him every opportunity to rise to the full measure of righteousness, and if he is willing to learn, and to repent, then we will make him fully righteous.” The scriptures call this a just man, made perfect. Now, through all of these processes, the Savior saves us.  That is to say, he makes a new creature out of us. Our problem is, are we willing? Some of us say, “No, I’m quite content the way I am. I wish to feel my feelings, think my thoughts, do my deeds, and have my affect in the Universe, and I do not wish to change.”

Is that referred to as a “law unto oneself?”

Exactly, that is what the scriptures call selfishness. And selfishness is the great enemy. But on the other hand there is righteousness, which is selflessness. Those who have a hunger in their hearts and minds to be righteous, find in the Savior Jesus Christ a great delight. Because He not only sets the model for complete righteousness, but has the wherewith to help each of us become fully righteous even as He is. And that’s what salvation is. My understanding is that salvation is to be saved from ourselves, from our selfishness, by the combination of our own efforts. To hear, and to believe, and do the works of Christ. In His saving power, His grace. We are saved by grace, but only after all we can do. We must do our part. He will do His part, if we will just do ours.

Now the way that the Savior signals these things to us, and gives them to us is through the New and Everlasting Covenant. That precious opportunity to bind ourselves to Christ. I envision the New and Everlasting Covenant as, if I may use a homely example, as sort of a wrapping. Most of us are so spineless, we don’t have bones in our body that we can stand up straight. And so what we do is we come to the Savior and use His frame, His strength, His skeleton. And we come to Him and try to assume His stature. And we use these covenants to bind ourselves to Him. So that He becomes the framework in which our life is then spent. And He becomes our strength, He becomes our skeleton, He becomes the power of our words. We become His words, He becomes our words, and thus we are saved. Now this through the New and Everlasting Covenant.

First the covenant of baptism. We make three marvelous promises in the covenant of baptism. We promise first of all that we will take upon ourselves His name. My understanding is that the word “name” in this usage is a code word for the glory, the power, the honor, of God, which is received through the fullness of the New and Everlasting Covenant. So what we essentially promise is that we are willing to endure to the end and receive all that Christ has to give us. I don’t know of a greater promise that anyone could make than that.

Secondly we promise that we always remember Him. We will never forget that He is our new Father under this covenant. And that we are His covenant servants. And that we dedicate ourselves fully and wholly to Him, to serve Him, day and night, summer and winter, young and old, all of our lives. That we might bring to pass His righteousness.

Thirdly we promise that we will keep every commandment that He gives us. And He is willing to give us commandments from time to time. At first it may be only one or two a day. But as our faithfulness increases, and our power to do His will increases, He gives us more and more. Until eventually, the scripture says, “He will tell us all things that we should do.” Then we have risen to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.

In the words of Paul. In the words of Paul. I love that passage. Well, now, that is the first part of the New and Everlasting Covenant.

We then are privileged to receive the Holy Ghost. As a gift. Hands are laid upon our head. It is said unto us, “receive the Holy Ghost.” That does not mean we have it. That is a command to seek it and to receive it into our lives as a constant companion. As we do that then we have been, indeed, born of the water and of the spirit. And have fulfilled that essential step the Savior told Nicodemus that we must do to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. But then we must continue on the path.

The other part of the New and Everlasting Covenant is to receive the Holy Priesthood. Again, keeping in mind, what the priesthood is for: The priesthood is to become a servant. Not to be a Lord, not the master, but a servant. And as we are ordained to the priesthood then we begin our service to others.

There are three basic stages to receiving the Melchizedek Priesthood as I understand it. The first stage is to be ordained to the Melchizedek Priesthood. Incidentally, I like that word Melchizedek, In the Hebrew, it means “King of Righteousness.” Mel-chi-ze-dec, I take it that is actually one of the names of Christ. He is the King of Righteousness. And when we take upon ourselves the Melchizedek Priesthood, we are receiving that special power that belongs and pertains to our Savior.

Of course, that great King of Salem was himself a great and honored man.

And he was a disciple of Christ. My guess is that he was given the name Melchizedek in honor of Christ.

Others have similarly been given the names of Christ for key roles that are under and through the authority of Christ.

As Abraham, “Father of Many People.” I take also to be a name of Christ. And there are many others of course. But coming back to this receiving the priesthood.

The second stage of receiving the priesthood is to go into the temple and receive our endowments.

The third stage of receiving the priesthood is to be married in the temple. And then we have, basically, all the priesthood that there is. Our Heavenly Father is a husband and father. And these are the things that we receive the power to do in the temple.

And these things are received also by, and shared in, wives with husbands.

Indeed, there is a marvelous statement in the Book of Mormon that I think is the key to the whole book and perhaps to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, I’d like to bring that in at this point. Moroni 10, verses 24 and 25. “Now I speak unto all the ends of the earth, that if the day cometh that the power and gifts of God shall be done away among you, it shall be because of unbelief. Wo be unto the children of men if that be the case. For their shall be none that doeth good among you, no, not one. For if their be one among you that doeth good. He shall work by the power and gifts of God.” I don’t know many more fundamental things to know than that. The basic problem in our lives is this difference between good and evil. If we’re going to do good it is only by the gifts and power of God that we can do it. That’s why Father sends the Light of Christ, the Light of His Son, to lighten every man that comes into the world. Then those people can do good. He also sends Satan so they can do evil. And thus we have a choice. Thus we are agents. And thus when we come to the New and Everlasting Covenant it is because we have hearkened to the good spirit. And the purpose of the covenant is then to give us more and more of these gifts.

We start with the gift of the Light of Christ. Which is the spirit of excellence, the spirit of truth, the spirit of good, that all men enjoy. Some partake of it and follow it and foster it, and they are ready then for the Holy Ghost which comes to witness of the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. If they profit by the Light of Christ then they will profit also from the Holy Ghost. And they will accept the Gospel, and take the Covenant.

Now, one of the precious gifts is the gift of the Holy Ghost. And it brings in it’s train the special gifts of the spirit. The gift of understanding, the gift of knowledge of the mysteries, the gift of speaking in tongues, the gift of healing, the gift of the knowledge of operations, and so forth. Then in the temple we receive further gifts. The word endowment means, “gift”. And the gifts of God that come there are the special gifts we need for our marriage, for our missions, to truly be servants to all mankind. Israel is called to be servants of the rest of the earth. Not to be the Kings and Rulers, but to be the servants of all mankind. It is our mission to go to each and every nation, in the spirit of the Lord, using the gifts and powers we have received, through the New and Everlasting Covenant to minister righteousness, and salvation, and hope, to every nation, kindred tongue, and person on earth. And that is the glory and opportunity to be a Latter-Day Saint, and to know of Jesus Christ through the Restored Gospel.

Chauncey Riddle, we appreciate this marvelous presentation you given us on the subject of “Spiritual Survival in the Last Days.” We wish there were more time, I think we will take time on another occasion, if we might, and have you extend your remarks on these most significant areas.

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Language, Conversation, Sanity and Reality

Posted on March 7, 1991 by Admin

 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
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.

Posted in Deseret Language and Linguistics Society Symposium, Philosophy of Language | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

Take Up Your Cross

Posted on November 1, 1990 by Admin

Chauncey C. Riddle
Nov. 1990

One of the strong teachings of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the injunction of the Savior to each person to take up his or her cross. This is clearly made a condition of salvation. This teaching is given in the Bible, in the Book of Mormon, and in the Doctrine and Covenants.

In Matthew 10:38 the Savior says:

“He that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me.”

The idea is even more emphatic in Matthew 16:24:

“Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake shall find it.”

In the Book of Mormon Jacob tells us: “But behold, the righteous, the saints of the Holy One of Israel, they who have believed in the Holy One of Israel, they who have endured the crosses of the world, and despised the shame of it, they shall inherit the kingdom of God, which was prepared for them from the foundation of the world, and their joy shall be full forever.” (2 Nephi 9:15–23) In the Doctrine and Covenants, it is revealed to Thomas B. Marsh:

“Now, I say unto you, and what I say unto you, I say unto all the twelve: Arise and gird up your loins, take up your cross, follow me, and feed my sheep.” (D&C 112:14)

It is plain from these quotations that the Savior is our pattern. To take up our cross we must do as he did. The Savior’s cross was given to him of his father. It was something he had to endure to complete his mission on this earth. He bore it faithfully and in so doing he completed his mission to bring salvation to all mankind.

The cross the savior bore was to atone for the sins of each and all mankind. His mission of bringing salvation included the necessity of satisfying the law of justice, to suffer for each infraction of Father’s law which ever had been or ever would be committed on this earth. In one twenty-four hour period he suffered for these sins, finishing the suffering on the cross. The cross upon which he was crucified was not his cross; but it was the symbolic representation of his cross. Thus the symbol of the cross becomes the symbol of the suffering each human being must do to follow in the footsteps of our Master, Jesus Christ.

And suffer we must, even as did our Savior. He tells us that we must bring a sacrifice to him to be saved, that of a broken heart and a contrite spirit. The broken heart is doing away with all pride, to come down in the depths of humility, because of our sins. To be contrite means to suffer with—to suffer with our Master. As he suffered for the sin of all mankind, so we must be willing to suffer. Sometimes we must suffer for sins, our own or the sins of others. But some human suffering has no obvious good cause or reason. Some of it simply happens as the result of Father’s omniscient benevolence, and we discover that benevolence only after the suffering is completed. Thus we have crosses.

It seems that every accountable human being who wishes to be saved must suffer. Not every human being suffers his or her assigned cross; sometimes it is possible to avoid it, and thereby avoid salvation. Sometimes the cross cannot be avoided; then the question is, is the cross borne in humility before Father’s will or in angry rejection of him. But it is clear that if we are to be saved we must take up our cross and bear it well. The Savior did not enjoy his cross. He asked that it be taken from him. But when it could not be, he manfully shouldered it and bore it off triumphantly. In this each of us must follow him.

Let us now turn to ten examples of human beings bearing crosses well in Christ.

Friend No. 1 was born with a clubfoot. He was born before orthopedic surgery could cure this problem. So his only course was to suffer it. He suffered it well, through his faith in Christ. He earned a living as a woodworker, raised a fine family, and triumphed. The really hard part was not being crippled all of his life. The worst part was enduring the taunts and the shame his fellows heaped upon him, and especially the many persons who considered him to be demented, as humans are wont to do with crippled persons.

Friend No. 2 was widowed at age twenty-six with four small children in the depths of the Great Depression. She had no money, poor health, no family to help. But she had faith in Christ. She bowed her head and struggled against all the odds to raise those children in righteousness. In abject poverty she eked out a sustenance, bearing the shame of poor clothing and having little but life itself. When her children were raised things were a bit easier, but her health was no better. Still she pursued genealogy, was faithful in all church assignments, was the most dependable person in her ward. She bore her cross well.

Friend No. 3 had a mother who took Thalidomide when she was in the womb. She was born without arms. But she was the soul of cheerfulness and determination. She learned to swim to paint to do virtually everything a normal person would do in school. Though she required help every day of her life, she tried to give something to others every day of her life. And give she did, being an inspiration to all who knew her.

Friend No. 4 was a prosperous professional. Having come from a background of poverty, he was generous withall, enjoying giving his wealth to others that they also might be well off. Then one of his business partners embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars and left him in virtual ruin. He picked up the pieces, held his firm together with sheer grit and a good name, and gradually brought things back from the brink of disaster. The irony of it was that the man who wounded him so badly had done the same thing once before. But the embezzler had asked forgiveness and proclaimed repentance in the first instance. So he was trusted again and became a cross to be borne.

Friend No. 5 was a superb academician and a top university administrator with a national reputation. A faithful Latter-day Saint, he was a kindly mentor to budding professors and anxious leaders. As he approached the climax of his career, he was an obvious choice for the position of chancellor in the university system of which he was a part. But he was passed over and a man with but a fraction of his ability was selected for the position. Patiently he watched the new man struggle, and patiently he tended to his own professional labors, not complaining once. For his trust was in the Savior, not in the honors of men.

Friend No. 6 was the soul of friendliness—outgoing, warm generous in every way. He married a beautiful young woman and they were blessed with four handsome, intelligent children. Oh how he loved his family. But his wife was frigid. After the birth of the last child she refused to let him touch her ever again. He could have divorced her. He felt it was not right to do so. So he suffered his cross, year after year of complete denial of physical affection. He felt it was right simply to bear the cross, to give all the love he could both to his wife and to his children.

Friend No. 7 discovered in his childhood that he was not like other boys. He did not know why, and did not want it to be so, but he could only like and love men. As he became a teenager and it came time to date, he was horrified at the prospect. He was homosexual and dating a girl was equivalent to hell for him. So he did not date. But he knew he was in trouble. He went to his priesthood leaders for help, but very little was forthcoming: they simply did not know what to do to help him. Eventually he came into contact with one of the General Authorities of the Church. This kind man spent hours and hours with him helping and encouraging him. In all of his wild twisting and turnings to shake off this malady, he did not give in to his sexual desires to have physical sexual relations a man. Determined to fulfill the Savior’s pattern, he married and he and his wife raised a fine family. He held many church positions, helped many people, and sought valiantly to proclaim the testimony of Christ.

Friend No. 8 was born to goodly parents, and she was a bright precocious youngster, head of her class all through school, fine athlete, devout Latter-day Saint. Her great goal in life was to have twelve children and to teach every one of them the love of the Savior. But she was six foot three inches tall and very intelligent. Though she longed to marry, she was never once courted. So she lived her life in loneliness, taking her students in school and church as her children, hoping in the savior that in some other world she might be fulfilled.

Friend No. 9 was abandoned by his parents when he was ten years old. They were poor and he was told to go out on his own. With only the clothing on his back, he left home, never to see his parents again. He ate out of garbage cans, slept on rooftops in the mild climate of his hometown. And he went to school every day! He studied hard, though that was hard on an empty stomach. He finally found work and someone who would let him sleep on their floor in the winter. He worked his way through high school, then through college, and became a top government engineer. He married, had a fine family, and how he loved those children. He forgave his parents, found and helped his brothers and sisters, and did great good with his life.

Friend No. 10 had a fine professional career and a model family. Then his wife became ill. The illness was diagnosed as multiple sclerosis. She progressively was debilitated, first losing her strength, then her sight, then the ability to move. For seven years she lay bedridden, and her husband personally cared for her when he was home. He had to turn her in bed often to avoid bedsores and muscle spasms for every night of those seven years. But he did not complain, nor let on that he had lost any sleep. He was attentive and loving, loved his children, and did what was right, bearing his cross in Christ.

Our Savior is trying to exalt each of us, to make us equal with himself in purity, wisdom, knowledge and power. But before he can bestow these blessings upon us we must show that we can be trusted. The way, the only way which we can demonstrated that is to do what he did: to take the cross which Father gives to each of us and bear it, at the same time keeping all of Father’s commandments, our lives are not given to us for pleasure. There is pleasure in living, but to live for the pleasure is to show that we cannot be trusted with the riches of eternity. But if we can be as little children, meek, submissive, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all that which Father sees fit to inflict upon us, then we prove ourselves trustworthy.

There is a plan of salvation. The plan provides the opportunity for each child of Father to prove that he or she is trustworthy. The plan is that each person must deny himself or herself, that is, each must not seek first to please himself or herself, but each must sacrifice personal desires to do Father’s will, to bring to pass his righteousness. This sacrifice involves taking up our personal cross, and while bearing it, do everything within our powerto keep every commandment of God. This means for each of us to be an exemplary Latter-day Saint no matter what troubles or problems we might be called upon to bear.

This is not to say that a Latter-day Saint is masochistic. We do not self-inflict pain and suffering to show our devotion. It is not that easy. What we must do is take the cross assigned to us and bear it with faith in Christ. Sometimes the cross will be lifted by Father: the disease may go into remission, fortunes may change, love might come to the forlorn. But these reprieves are Father’s doing. We do not bear our cross just because Father will soon lift it from us, for he might not. We do not assign our own cross and we should not reject our own cross, just as in the Church we do not seek callings from the Lord nor do we reject them. If a cross is not assigned by Father, we need not bear it. But if it does come from him, and we can know this through the Holy Spirit, then bear it we must or we cannot be saved.

There are two kinds of burdens we humans bear. One kind is a cross: a handicap in life assigned to us by Father which we must bear while keeping the commandments to demonstrate that we love God with all of our heart, might, mind and strength. The other kind of burden is suffering for our own sins, the just consequences of our own choice to sin. Part of being intelligent is not to mix these two, not to confuse crosses with consequences.

To repent is to deny ourselves (to deny the lusts of the flesh). That helps to stem consequences, but does not remove crosses. The Savior’s atonement can remove the eternal suffering of the consequences of sin, but only after repentance. (Even after repentance, we sometimes must continue to suffer in mortality for the consequences of our sins.) To be really intelligent is to bear both patiently and humbly, letting both crosses and consequences be constant reminders to remember the Savior and to repent, thus to put ourselves firmly in the narrow way of total obedience to his commandments until we have endured to the end.

Mortal life is a handicap race. We do not race against each other. Indeed, we can greatly help one another. We race against time, to see if we can learn to keep every one of Father’s commandments while carrying our individual crosses and the burdens of our own sinning before our mortal probation expires. This race is not to the swift. Victory comes only to the humble children of God who are willing to bear all things Father sees fit to inflict upon them.

For any who are tempted to think that this race is too much to bear, the voice of the Master is heard:

“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me for I am meek and lowly in heart and ye shall find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28–30)

And again:

“He that will not take up his cross and follow me, and keep my commandments, the same shall not be saved.” (D&C 56:2)

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Pride and Riches

Posted on August 24, 1990 by Admin

The Book of Mormon - Jacob through Words of Mormon - To Learn with Joy - Pride and Riches - Chauncey Riddle

The Book of Mormon – Jacob through Words of Mormon – To Learn with Joy – Pride and Riches – Chauncey Riddle

Chauncey C. Riddle, “Pride and Riches,” in The Book of Mormon: Jacob through Words of Mormon, To Learn with Joy, eds. Monte S. Nyman and Charles D. Tate Jr., (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1990), 221–34.

Chapter 13: Pride and Riches

Chauncey C. Riddle

One of the most memorable and striking passages of the Book of Mormon is Jacob’s instructions to his people on the subjects of pride and riches. Our purpose here is to examine the detail of this message and to apply it to our own day. We will proceed by giving a verse by verse commentary on the short passage on this subject found in Jacob 2:12–21, and will then draw some relevant conclusions for our own time.

Parentheses and superscripts are used to mark the portions of the text upon which specific commentary will be made. Commentary is then made without further reference to substantiating evidence. The supposition is that each reader will compare notes with the author’s opinions and submit any differences of opinion to the Lord in prayer for resolution. That, of course, is what must be done with any evidence or opinion, footnoted or not.

The setting for Jacob’s message is that his older brother Nephi, the son of Lehi, and leader and prophet unto the Nephites, has died. Jacob has been consecrated to be the spiritual leader of the Nephites, and on the occasion of the message concerning riches he is addressing those whom we might well presume are the more faithful of the Nephite peoples because his discourse takes place within the confines of the temple (Jacob 1:17). In response to Jacob’s prayer, the Lord has given him instruction, specific word, to deliver to these covenant people on this occasion, and Jacob delivers that word as quoted below.

Jacob 2:12. And now behold, my brethren, this is the word which I declare unto you, that many of you have begun to search for gold, and for silver, and for all manner of precious ores, in the which (this land, which is a land of promise unto you and to your seed)a, doth abound most plentifully.

a. A land of promise is a place designated by the Lord where he will go before those who are assigned to go there. The promise is that there they may find righteousness and the Lord himself, to be personally redeemed from the fall of Adam. There is no guarantee that a promised land will be fruitful or that it will abound in ores, such as Lehi’s promised land did. If it is fruitful and abounds with treasures, this may actually prove to be a snare to the people if they forget the real purpose of their being in the land and if they then substitute temporal desires for the promised spiritual blessings.

13. (And the hand of providence hath smiled upon you most pleasingly, that you have obtained many riches)a; (and because some of you have obtained more abundantly than that of your brethren)b (ye are lifted up in the pride of your hearts)c, and (wear stiff necks and high heads)d (because of the costliness of your apparel)e, and (persecute your brethren because ye suppose that ye are better than they)f.

a. The Lord is the provider, the hand of providence. He wants his children to enjoy the good things of the earth.

b. The Lord gives different gifts in differing amounts to each of his children. He deliberately does not equally bestow his temporal blessings. He wishes to give each of his children the opportunity voluntarily to share with others who have less of some temporal gift. Sometimes the temporal blessings are given to those who seem to deserve them least. The initial distribution of spiritual blessings also often seems to be unequal and unearned. But any subsequent spiritual blessings must be earned upon the principles of righteousness. In this area of further spiritual blessings, the Lord is immediate, equitable and absolutely just in bestowing his blessings, even as he will be in bestowing physical blessings in the next world.

c. We lift up our heads in pride as if we were something special among men, supposing that it has been our intelligence and industry which have provided for our desires rather than the Provider. Thus we look down on those whom we consider to be less industrious and less intelligent.

d. We have stiff necks in that we will not bow to the God of the land and acknowledge the source of our blessings. We have high heads in the haughtiness of pride.

e. The common way of showing wealth the world over is to wear expensive clothing. Expensive clothing is labor intensive, and wearing it shows that we are able to buy the time and skill of others more than most persons can.

f. Persecution comes in so many forms that it is impossible to name them all. But standard ways of persecuting are to look down on others, to speak down to them, and to segregate them because of their lack of wealth.

14. And now, my brethren, (do ye suppose that God justifieth you in this thing)a? Behold, I say unto you, Nay. But (he condemneth you)b, and (if ye persist in these things his judgments must speedily come unto you)c.

a. God justifies men by teaching them what is just or righteous, then empowering them to live up to the standard. He never calls an evil thing just, and can never make a person who persists in doing evil things into a just person. The only hope an unjust person has to become just is personal repentance through faith in Jesus Christ.

b. Jacob is the Lord’s anointed; he represents Jesus Christ to them. Thus they need to take very seriously his flat statement that the Lord condemns them.

c. This is a plain warning of peril. The Lord will not always immediately bring misery and woe upon a people who are wicked if they know him not. But when a people have covenanted to become his children and obey his commandments, he warns them through his prophet and then shakes them temporally if they will not hearken to the spiritual warning. This has the goal of causing them to be humbled through physical suffering if they will not be humbled by spiritual warnings. Only as they are humble can they repent and receive the promises.

15. (O that he would show you that he can pierce you, and with one glance of his eye he can smite you to the dust)a,

a. Jacob seems to be saying: I would that he would impress you by letting you see his great power, without having actually to smite you so that you and your children suffer.

16. O (that he would rid you from this)a (iniquity)b and (abomination)c. And, O (that ye would listen unto the word of his commands)d, and (let not this pride of your hearts destroy your souls)e!

a. It is the Lord who makes it possible for a person to repent. He does not take the iniquity out of the world or the person, but enables the person to depart from the iniquity by turning to the corresponding righteousness. When we have departed from iniquity by making the good things the Savior would have us do part of our character, then we can also receive a permanent forgiveness for the iniquity once committed.

b. Iniquity is inequity, and it is never seen more plainly than when some are rich and some are poor and there is no attempt on the part of the rich to create equity in righteousness. Unrighteous ways to create equity in wealth are theft and governmental redistribution. Both of these attempted solutions use force to negate agency, and never do create real equity, for they are based on the faulty “wisdom” of men. The righteous way to attain equity in society is for the rich to humble themselves before God and share their wealth with the poor as he directs, until they have achieved a just equity (D&C 104: 11–18).

c. Abomination is that which departs from, is different from, the revelations of God. All righteousness comes through faith in God, which is loving obedience to his revealed instructions “Omin” is the equivalent of “omen,” which refers to revelation. “Ab” means away from.

d. Faith comes by the hearing of the word. If only they will inquire of the Lord to know for sure that this is his word and then do what he says in full faith, they can and will be released from the curse under which they operate.

e. The curse under which they operate is their own doing. They have departed from the way of the Lord, and the destruction of their souls, spirit and body, awaits them if they will not now return to that strait and narrow way.

17. (Think of your brethren like unto yourselves)a, and (be familiar with all)b and (free with your substance)b, (that they may be rich like unto you)c

a. The Lord’s celestial way is for us to love one another even as he loves us. If we are not quite up to that, at least we ought to think of and treat our brethren and sisters of the covenant the same way we treat ourselves.

b. The desire to make money, especially to benefit unduly, is one of the great spiritual traps of the world. Spiritually, we might well be much better off if there were no money and we were under the necessity of trading labor. That would be one step toward equity. But another, more immediate step, is simply freely to give of our possessions to those who have less than we do, being aware of their needs and circumstances and imparting to them under the direction of the Holy Spirit.

c. Richness is relative. It is not required that all men rise to a certain absolute level of physical wealth. It is only required that we of the new and everlasting covenant be equal, voluntarily equal, with each other in whatever we have. Then the Lord promises that he will give us the abundance of spiritual blessings. (D&C 70:14)

In any mortal situation, a righteous person who has the strength to do so will be voluntarily producing physical goods and services for the society in which he dwells. He will consume only what is necessary of these self-gained benefits, and will voluntarily share the surplus with others who are in need of his surplus.

One such surplus is knowledge, skills and tools which enable us to produce physical benefits. These may be righteously shared with others and are even more helpful to the recipient in most cases than are consumable goods.

18. But (before ye seek for riches, seek ye for the kingdom of God)a.

a. There is nothing wrong in itself about seeking for riches. But we must put things in proper perspective, in proper order. The correct order is first to straiten our hearts and minds into the pattern of the Lord’s love. That we do by finding his kingdom, accepting the covenant to enter that kingdom, then fully participating in the proffered salvation of our souls from the evil which is within our own breasts, which evil keeps us from becoming just and upright in all that we do.

19. And (after ye have obtained a hope in Christ)a (ye shall obtain riches, if ye seek them)b; and (ye will seek them for the intent to do good)c—(to clothe the naked)d, and (to feed the hungry)e, and (to liberate the captive), and (administer relief to the sick and the afflicted)f.

a. Hope in Christ is the pivotal concept which helps us to bridge from the beginnings of faith in Jesus Christ to the attaining of the fullness of faith, which is charity. After we receive a manifestation from the Savior which reveals his will, we have the opportunity to exercise faith by believing and obeying that instruction. Obeying the Savior gives us a right to hope for the spiritual blessings which the Savior can so richly bestow. The principal blessing which a person of faith can hope for is to receive a new heart, a pure heart which no longer desires any form of evil. This pure heart is called “charity” and is the greatest mortal attainment of any human being. Attaining it makes it possible to be able to ask for and to receive any other blessing from the Savior. Such a further blessing can be either spiritual or temporal. Additional gifts can then be given freely by the Savior to the individual who has charity because there is then no danger that the person will use any gift for an evil purpose. Thus to attain to a genuine hope in Christ is another way of saying that we have attained unto charity, which is the pure love of Christ. Then we are ready to endure to the end of our lives in righteousness, in doing pure and godly works in behalf of others. We are then ready to seek riches of any kind to be used for righteous purposes.

b. The Savior tells us that when we are pure and cleansed from all sin, we can ask for anything and will surely receive it as we obey him, because we will not ask amiss but will ask for good things to do the work of righteousness.

c. The intent to do good is the intent to do the will of God, even Jesus Christ, who is the fountain of all righteousness for the inhabitants of this earth. This good sought may be of four forms or types, each one corresponding to part of the nature of each individual human being.

We humans consist of heart, mind, strength, and might. The heart is the heart of the spirit body and is the decision center in the human being. The mind is the brain of the spirit body and is the knower, planner, executor function of the human being. The strength is the mortal human body especially including the power of procreation. The might is whatever power or influence the person has in his or her sphere of action resulting from the abilities of the heart, mind and body and also from any wealth, property, persuasive power, or ability to command the efforts of other persons which anyone might enjoy. Thus there are good things of the heart, such as pure desires; good things of the mind, such as truths; good things of the body, such as health and strength; and good things of might, such as food, clothing, shelter, fuel, money, land, political position, priesthood power, etc.

d. The naked may be those who have no clothing with whom we might share our excess clothing. Or they might be naked emotionally, such as the bereaved or hopeless to whom we can extend love. Or they might be naked intellectually, and we can share with them a knowledge of just how this world works so that they need no longer be so buffeted because of their ignorance.

e. Some hungry persons need physical food. But others are hungry in heart; they need love and kindness in a world that offers much hate and tyranny. Or they may have an insatiable curiosity which they cannot satisfy because they lack the opportunity to learn.

f. Some captives are political or military prisoners who are incarcerated through no fault of their own. To use our might to free them may be most important. Or they may be justly imprisoned, where influence might be brought to bear to help them to square a debt with society so that they may be honorably released. They might be emotional captives who are under the spell of an evil person and need an alternative to which to turn. They may be intellectual captives whose vision of the world is constrained to the point that they know not God. They may be captive to drugs or sin, from which they might be released through the assistance of the ordinances of the holy priesthood.

g. Administering relief to the sick and the afflicted may be caring for someone who has had a stroke or a debilitating disease. But it may also be nurturing someone who is suffering under a load of guilt and does not know of the mercies of the Savior. It may be to help someone who has a preoccupation with a false idea or cause, who needs to see the world another way. It may be to help a person who is possessed of evil spirits who can find no relief except in Christ.

Whatever the virtually infinite variety of need, the Savior has a solution which faithful servants may obtain and administer for every malady save one: A hard heart which will not admit the Holy Spirit. Only that person himself can change that.

20. And now, my brethren, I have spoken unto you concerning pride; and those of you which have afflicted your neighbor, and persecuted him because ye were proud in your hearts, of the things which God hath given you, (what say ye of it)a?

a. When the prophet speaks to those of the covenant, they of necessity must respond. If they are repentant, they will confess their sins and forsake them; thus Jacob asks his people what they will say. If they wish to continue the apostasy, they will murmur under their breath and persist in the way of evil. In either case they are judging themselves and setting the direction of their own future unto good or evil, whichever they choose; and out of their own mouths they are exonerated or condemned.

21. Do ye not suppose that such things are abominable unto him who created all flesh? And the one being is as precious in his sight as the other. And all flesh is of the dust; and (for the selfsame end hath he created them, that they should keep his commandments and glorify him forever)a,

a. God is a god of righteousness. He desires that we should worship and glorify him because that increases the righteousness in the universe and enables him to enlarge us without end. The dust of the earth and we humans were both created, or organized, for that same purpose, but most of the time the dust is more faithful than are most humans.

Reflection on Jacob’s message brings three strong conclusions to mind. The first is that there is a good reason why it is hard for people to share: the differences of values and commitments which they have. The second is that to live the gospel of Jesus Christ we must be willing to be poor. The third is that before we do anything else in our life we should seek for a hope in Christ.

Having differences of values and commitments does not make sharing impossible or unnecessary, only harder. When people have the same values and allegiances, it is easier to share. When they do not, sharing can become more difficult. To use an extreme example to emphasize the point, let us suppose two families living as neighbors. One family is very frugal and saving, and through years of living by those principles have gathered a small surplus. They are in a position to share. Suppose the other family is very needy. The first family sees that need and takes part of its hard earned savings to the other family to buy groceries. Then suppose that the second family takes the gift, rejoices in it, but decides that the best way to spend it would be to invite all of their friends over for a big alcohol bust. In one evening they squander the hard earned savings of the frugal family and are even poorer than they were to start with. Sharing has gone awry there.

For this reason, the first thing people should share with one another is the restored gospel of Jesus Christ in the hope that there can be a common set of values, and service under a common Master. That would greatly facilitate sharing. But even if those in need will not change their values, they may yet have needs that must be addressed.

This brings us to the general rule laid down by the Savior: Sharing needs to be done under his instruction and in his way. That is why there is a gift of the Holy Ghost, for men are not wise enough to know how to do all things in righteousness. That is why there needs to be a priesthood structure in the Church to be an established channel of inspiration and sharing among the children of the Savior. Difficult though sharing maybe, it must be done, but in his own way by the guidance of his own Spirit. When done in the Savior it is always worthwhile to impoverish ourselves in the service of our fellowmen.

Clearly we do not need to be impoverished or poor to be servants of Christ. But we must always be willing to be poor. If we are already poor, we are admonished to remain poor before seeking wealth until we have obtained a hope in Christ. Thus we must be willing to be poor. If we have wealth, we must be willing to share our wealth with our brethren to the point that they are equal with us in physical wealth; if we have many brethren, our wealth may help many only a little, leaving us and everyone else in relative poverty. Sometimes our mission in life may cause us to be impecunious, as are some persons who spend most of their lives on a series of missions, or who may be dedicated to an enterprise which completely drains them financially, such as sustaining a fledgling educational institution. Or they may be moved to contribute heavily to the construction of a new temple, and making that contribution leaves them impoverished.

The general principle is, of course, that all we have is at the Lord’s disposal. Whenever he instructs us to give it all away to the cause of righteousness, we gladly do so, knowing that we are pleasing our Master and furthering his work. We cannot be faithful servants of Christ unless we are willing to be poor, even as he, the Father of Heaven and Earth, was willing to be poor to fulfill his earthly ministry in righteousness.

But who can look so dispassionately on material possessions as to count them nothing dear when the time comes to be stripped of them? This is not easy for most mortals. It surely is not the natural inclination of the vast majority of mankind. But it must be the attitude of all who are true followers of Jesus Christ.

The true followers of Jesus Christ know that the only riches worth counting are the riches of eternity. They know that all flesh is as grass and will be gone tomorrow. They know that God is good, and amply rewards the faithful for any sacrifice of worldly goods they might make. They trust completely in the wisdom of their Master, having tried him and having found him to be trustworthy in every particular. So their faith commends only one thing as the first priority in their lives: Seek first for a hope in Christ before doing anything else.

The time called “youth” is looked upon by the world as a time of freedom from responsibility, a time of learning, of indulging, of exploration before settling into the sacrifices and rigors of adulthood. That largely perverse view is a very poor preparation for adult, responsible life for most of its adherents. No wonder so many want to be supported by society throughout their lives, or to be perpetual students, or to indulge their ever increasing desire for pleasure, or to avoid the responsibility of family and a productive life.

The ideal pattern for Latter-day Saint youth would seem to be that of the life of Jacob himself, who in his youth sought for a hope in Christ and found it. As a youth he beheld the glory of the Savior (2 Nephi 2:4). Then Jacob could ask for anything and know that he would receive it because of the promise of his God. If we become pure and spotless, we may ask whatsoever we will and we will receive it, for we will not ask amiss (D&C 46:30). We will ask to be able to succor the weak, the helpless, the poor, the abused, the ignorant, the hopeless. The riches of both time and eternity are standing ready to be given to the faithful to minister to the needs of the poor of all nations, kindreds, tongues and peoples if only the covenant servants of Jesus Christ will seek first for the kingdom of heaven and for a hope in their Beloved Master before they seek for anything else.

The real problem is not with riches, of course. The real problem is with hearts. When our hearts are not pure, we cannot love with a pure love. We cannot love the Savior as we should, nor can we love our neighbors as we should. The Savior came to save us from this deficit of love by extending the arms of mercy, through our own faith and repentance, to each of us.

Why do some of us resist? Is it not because we somehow see ourselves as being sufficient as we are? Do we not believe in our hearts that we are already good enough, that the Savior may indeed have to forgive us of a few things, but his love and generosity will easily take care of those things and we will then be ushered ceremoniously into the blessings of the great beyond? (2 Nephi 28:7–9). Such a belief is what the scriptures call pride. It is the belief that we are good, though perhaps our deeds are not. This is the belief that the old us does not need to die and become a new creature, but only our garments need to be cleansed. In pride we see ourselves as eternal creatures who may need to be forgiven and lifted up by Jesus Christ, but who do not need to be essentially changed by him. We do not need that new and pure heart which only he can give to us.

My understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ is that no mortals are just and righteous enough of themselves to go to the same kingdom as Jesus Christ unless they are remade in the image of Christ, heart and mind, body and soul. For without that pure heart, that charity, we are nothing (Moroni 7:44), and can, of ourselves, do no good thing (John 15:1–5). We must cease to exist as the old selfish persons we were and take upon ourselves new hearts and new minds.

Then in the humility of being salvaged from damnation by the Savior’s love, we will never again consider that we are better than anyone else. Then we will know that we stand only in the grace of Christ, and will never be found looking down on anyone, including the worst sinner and Satan and his angels. We will then know our true place and being in the universe, and will say of the sinner, “There, but for the grace of God, go I.”

Pride is the root of our evil, the source of our selfishness, the great barrier to our salvation. It is the pride of our hearts from which we need to be saved more than from anything else. Once we are saved from that, then all good things can be added to us. Then we will see as we are seen, know as we are known, and we will be familiar and free with our substance, treating all men as brothers. Then indeed we will have heaven on earth.

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Philosophy 110 – Class Notes

Posted on March 15, 1990 by Admin

Chauncey C. Riddle
March 15, 1990
8:35 am

Today’s question, what is the metaphysical point of this story? There was a maiden in Judea who was married to Heavenly Father and had a son. He was born Joshua, the name Jesus was attached to him by the Greeks. He was never called Jesus but that’s all right he answers to Jesus when you and I call upon him. We use that name, that is now one of his names.

All right, what’s the answer to the question? Yes, it does explain how Christ became both God and man. What’s another one? There’s a big metaphysical point to be made in that story, a tremendous metaphysical point. This is one of the big places where the restored gospel gives us information that’s absolutely essential for our understanding. This little story ought to set the world on its ear. But you see people don’t think about what it means. The world in general has no idea what … The story is told over and over again without any understanding. What is the fundamental metaphysical point made in this story?

One of your basic metaphysical questions was, what is the nature of man? Man was created by God. That’s true, but that’s not the point of this story. What is the great metaphysical point of this story? That’s what we’re after. Ah, thank you. Man and God are exactly the same species, the same kind. You see that is a tremendous metaphysical point. If you don’t know that you miss the whole point of what salvation is. The Christian world doesn’t believe that. Therefore, the Christian world misses the whole point. It doesn’t understand God, Jesus Christ, nor man. And all that the Christian world really gets out of Christ is some good ethical teachings. It does not understand salvation. Why? Because the metaphysics is all messed up. How did it get so messed up? You’d think that that story being told thousands and thousands of times in everybody’s lifetime would put a point across. Why doesn’t it? Because Satan has been very careful to sow lies in the minds of the children of men. Many of them want to believe the lies, so they do. They don’t inquire of God what the story really is. They just assume what they’ve always heard by some authoritarian source. That God is some non-material being. Therefore, man and God can’t possibly be of the same race.

This isn’t the origin of man, this is the origin of Christ who came so the rest of us could become as he is.

What does the `Son of Man’ mean?

What is God’s name? His name is the Man of Holiness. Jesus Christ is the son of Man of Holiness. You and I can also become sons of God or Man of Holiness. That’s what salvation is.

All right, are we all settled on that metaphysical point? What class do people belong to? That is a very important metaphysical question. What is the nature of man? What is the nature of God? The point is that they both have essentially the same nature. You see, that if Heavenly Father could actually beget a child by Mary in exactly the way you and I were begotten, we have to be the same species. That’s really good evidence in fact.

Because they can’t imagine that she was married. When the story starts she’s a virgin. They don’t know the whole story, they don’t know that she got married. You see therefore the big question in the minds of a lot of peoples, was he born an illegitimate child? We know he wasn’t. He was born under the covenant. There’s a great deal of difference, you see. No, the Father wasn’t around, so she had another husband for time. As often happens to sisters in this world they’re sealed to their husbands who are not around. They also have other husbands for time.

Now, do you have a Heavenly Mother? It’s a good metaphysical question, isn’t it? One of the important metaphysical questions about God is, does he have a wife? In the LDS situation the answer is, of course. Eliza R. Snow said, the thought makes reason stare. If you have any sense at all you know if there is a Father in Heaven, there has to be a Mother in Heaven. It’s just so simple. The world you see confuses this, it’s not using it’s own common sense. I can’t prove it to you but I believe it. And I have fairly good evidence. But the evidence isn’t your evidence. So why am I throwing it out to you for? As a hypothesis by which you might wish to seek evidence.

All right, we are discussing the nature of man.

Joseph was a good man. My guess is Joseph knew full well what he was doing. And he won’t miss out on his eternal blessings at all. He performed a very great service by being a good foster father to the Savior.

Well, where do children go? They go with the mother. So brethren, be good to your wife or you’ll lose your posterity. Seriously.

Now, what does that mean about the eternities? Do you know who Adam’s father is in the patriarchal order? Who is Adam’s father? His father in the patriarchal order is Jesus Christ. He is sealed to Jesus Christ. Who is the father of Jesus Christ? He is sealed to our Heavenly Father. Why are you and I trying to get our genealogy work done? So that you and I can also be sealed into that line. Because if we’re not sealed to Adam we cannot get sealed to Christ. And if we’re not sealed to Christ … it descends only from father to son. See, what we’re asked to declare ourselves for in this mortality, we’re asked if we wish to claim the race … the race to which we genetically belong. We belong to the race of the Gods. If we wish to relinquish that we may. That is man’s agency. We don’t have to inherit it. But anybody who’s willing to undergo training to inherit. What is the training to inherit? It’s schooling in righteousness of Christ through the laws and ordinances of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Anybody who wishes to inherit may inherit. There’s no soul on this earth that can’t inherit and receive the full blessings of his rightful heritage. You see, if the world understood these things … take advantage but most people don’t know, they don’t know where to find them. It’s our job to get it out …

Now we need to ask some other questions about it. It’s important to know about the kind of being man is. The most important thing to know is, that man is of the race of the Gods. The key to theology is that they are of the same species. If you don’t understand that, you don’t understand theology because that’s the key to the whole thing. It’s the key to the whole understanding of salvation, of covenants, of everything that goes on in the kingdom of God.

OK, what are some other questions concerning the nature of God? We discussed last time, are we all the same or are we all different? Let’s ask the question a little bit differently. Let’s ask the question in this way. Sure we all have these individual … but does that mean we are actually different creatures in essence or are we all pretty much the same? For instance, do we all have the same heart? No. Since the heart is the independent variable, what does that tell us about ourselves? People come to the world different but can grow to become one with Christ, to look like Christ. (Al 5)

That’s right, sin is never justified. Why did the Father create the fall so we would sin? Why did the Father want us to sin? It’s not necessary to sin. A third of the people that come into the earth don’t bother to sin. They take a body and leave without sinning, they don’t need it. How come the rest of us need to? One of these days there will be a whole generation who will grow up without sinning. Not everybody who comes to earth needs to sin. Most of us are so hard headed, most of us apparently have to sin and see for ourselves how evil it is before we will not do it.

The world is Satan’s kingdom on this earth. The world was created, Satan was given a kingdom on this earth in the fall. So that we would sin and we are told exactly why that was done. Why was that done? So that all would taste the bitter and know the difference between the bitter and the sweet. So that when we make up our minds to choose either the bitter or the sweet we’re doing it out of our own power, not out of (supposition). That’s important.

Father doesn’t want us to sin, nevertheless, is it not true he put us into a situation where we have to sin. So that we could all taste the bitter and know it. So that we could choose by our own knowledge. Now, why? There has to be opposition. In the Celestial Kingdom there is no sin, but there is opposition. What’s the opposition in the Celestial Kingdom? Not evil desires, no one will be there who has evil desires. So where do you get the opposition? You see unless there is the opportunity to be evil, the opportunity to be good means nothing. The Celestial Kingdom could not be Celestial if there was not opposition. So where does in come from? Ah, yes. Just not outer darkness but the other kingdoms. All right, the opposition in the Celestial Kingdom is provided through the other places to go and those in the Celestial Kingdom see those other places constantly. They know, they know what’s going on there. That is the opposition in the Celestial Kingdom to go to some other place. That’s the option that’s there. that’s why there is opposition in the Celestial Kingdom. The only people who stay in the Celestial Kingdom are the ones that want to. Who choose to, thus they reject the opposite.

… point of doing good. There has to be the constant opportunity of doing evil. Can God lie? Yes, anytime he wanted to. Why is he God? Because he chooses to. He doesn’t do it because he’s beyond temptation. In the sense that he couldn’t do it. He does it by sheer will. He holds himself on the path of righteousness. It isn’t outside him that holds him there. He doesn’t have a big gyroscope that keeps him upright on the line. By his own will he chooses in every act he does to do what’s right. And you see, the only way you and I can qualify to be in that kind of a kingdom is also to learn in every act of will to choose what is exactly right and nothing else.

You see that’s what is … it makes it possible for us to be saved. We cannot be saved except by our own will power, we get on the path and choose what’s right, by our own choices. (Al. 5)

Every day is precious to fashion in ourselves a new character, to make the change in the time we have to do it.

Repentance is a strategy of religion, to stop sinning.

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Truth and Language

Posted on March 14, 1989 by Admin

Chauncey C. Riddle
Brigham Young University
14 Mar. 1989

Riddle, Chauncey C. (1989) “Truth and Language,” Deseret Language and Linguistic Society Symposium: Vol. 15: Iss. 1, Article 4. Available at: http://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/dlls/vol15/iss1/4

The challenge of this paper is to say enough about the subject of truth in a short space so that the picture of truth that emerges is not a false witness.

You may be aware that in the long history of the problem of truth there have been some principal answers as to what truth is. The correspondence theory of truth holds that truth is ideas or statements which are perceived empirically to correspond to the nature of the universe. The main problem with the correspondence theory is that empiricism often yields false results. Another historic theory is that truth is the property of propositions which rationally cohere with certain fundamental truths; this coherence would be good if we could only find those fundamental truths. The pragmatic theory of truth says that what works may be taken as true; but what that theory supports is that what works does work, not why it works or what it is that works. A recent entry into the arena is the linguistic theory of truth as initiated by Wittgenstein and articulated by Garth L. Hallett in the book Language and Truth (Yale University Press, New Haven, 1988). This linguistic theory holds that statements are true if they are faithful to the linguistic norms of the culture in which they are uttered. I believe there is a good deal of merit in Hallett’s formulation in that he does well represent how the word “true” is actually used in society, but that his theory also falls short by not giving a clear statement as to what truth is and in failing to handle the problem of untruth in ordinary usage.

I therefore now proceed to give my own theory of truth and true, hoping to shed light on this important subject.

I define truth as a synonym for reality. Reality is all that exists, or has existed or yet will come into existence. One cannot discuss reality without making fundamental metaphysical commitments, which I now proceed to stipulate for my ideas of truth.

I understand existence to be composed of material things in various orders, arrangements and functions. These material things and their relationships constitute a whole, each part of which is essential. Thus truth is one, and cannot be divided. To be grasped as truth, it must be grasped as a whole, all that is and was and will be in all of its whys and wherefores, particles, subsystems and totality. Needless to say, this truth is beyond the grasp of any human being.

Each human being is a particular part of the whole of truth, a participant. Each of the feelings, ideas, and representations of a human being are part of the whole truth. The pertinent and pressing question about any given human being is then how he or she represents the truth of the universe to self and to others, and how intelligently one takes ones place in that great truth.

Of principal concern to us is representation of truth. We shall define “true” as a quality of something which measures up to a standard. Thus human beings are true to their word if they do what they have promised to do, and their statements are true if and as those statements measure up favorably to the truth of the universe. What are the possibilities that what an individual thinks or says can be called “true”? To answer that question, a taxonomy of human representations must be posited. We will now explore a taxonomy which begins with representations which have the greatest possibility of being most true and ends with those least true.

The general label which I give to all human representations of truth is “factitions,” from the Latin facere. I use this term to emphasize that in every case, human attempts to characterize truth are for each individual a creative making and doing. Human beings do not passively reflect the universe at any time in their characterizing of it. There is a personal element in each factition which is ineradicable. To use the analogy of a landscape painter, every human factition of truth is an attempt to paint some piece of the universe in a helpful manner. But the painting is never exactly true relative to the truth for at least two constant reasons: first, every human representation is an abstraction from truth, leaving out much that is true; second, no human representation can capture the whole, and only the whole is the truth.

The first level of human representation is perception. Perception, or conocer, kennen knowledge, is the direct sensory inspection of some aspect of the universe. In that direct sensory relationship perception is as close to the truth of things as a human being can get. Sensation is always particulars and of particulars. But this perception is ordinarily flawed by the fact that sensation is not perception until it is interpreted by the mind of the person. That interpretation is done on the basis of the total contents of the mind of the person; all of his previous sensations, ideas, theories, hopes, fears and inhibitions color his interpretation of sensation. Sensations must be read, just as a book must be read, to make any “sense.”

The categories of understanding which the person uses to interpret the particular sensations are usually themselves universals. These universals are theories as to what is important and true in the universe and what is not. The more truth the person already has in mind, the more true will be his perceptions. But it is quite safe to say that no human ever perceives ill things truly. The best and paradigm case of human perception is found in the direct, continuous, present, proximal sensing of a limited and very familiar aspect of the universe by one who is an expert on that subject. At best direct perception is once removed from the truth, which is to say that the best representation of the truth a human can make may yet be false.

The second degree or echelon of representation is the understanding of an experienced person. This is saber, or wissen knowledge of the world. At its best and surest this understanding is limited to the spatial, temporal, and causal sequences with which the person is very familiar. Identities, differences, continuities, etc., are part of this domain. At its weakest, this type of representation may be so flawed by false theories of the universe as to render the individual without a workable hypothesis as to what is being perceived, as is seen in certain types of mental illness. At best, these representations are twice removed from truth; at worst they are wholly untrue.

The third echelon of human representation of truth is found in the ability to do what one wishes to do. This ability exists only in doing what one wishes to do. This is koennen knowledge, can do in English. This kind of representation of truth comes after perception because the desire to do things comes only after understanding the possibility that they might be done. This can-do knowledge is a representation of truth by emphasizing what works, what the effective sequences of action are that are necessary to produce a certain result. Producing results does give us the truth that a certain action has produced a result, which is a specialized form of understanding, but knowing that a thing has happened does not involve knowing why that thing happened. Thus a full understanding of echelon two is a better representation of truth than the partial understanding of what works as found in echelon three. And echelon three is thrice removed from the truth.

Perception, understanding and the ability to do something are personal representations of truth within the individual. They have been the inspiration for the correspondence,   the coherence, and the pragmatic theories of truth. Though not truth, they are the representations of truth closest to the truth and therefore the most true ideas which the individual may have. They are not linguistic, but they reflect heavily the prior linguistic experience of the individual. The remaining categories of representation of truth by persons are all linguistic functions.

The fourth echelon of human representation of the truth is found in the individual’s witness of his own perceptions. Using his own personal perceptions as a base, the person formulates some verbal means of expressing a new perception. All words represent universals. When an individual tries to express the particulars of his experience in words he always faces a mismatch between what sensations are and what words can do. That problem, compounded with the universals of interpretation and understanding which color all perception, make an individual’s testimony as to what he has personally perceived four times removed from the truth.

The fifth echelon of human representation is in the witness an individual gives of his understanding of actual experiences he has had. All of the problems of perception and the reporting of perception are here augmented by the potential flaws in his understanding. A person might honestly report a temporal or spatial or causal sequence which he has observed, but be so thoroughly mistaken as to what actually was happening as to be a totally misleading witness. This fifth echelon is five times removed from the truth.

The sixth echelon of human representation of the truth is in the individual’s linguistic representation of what has worked for him as he has tried to fulfill his objectives as a person. Colored by his perceptions and limited by his understanding of the truth, this echelon is further hampered by the fact that when an individual is successful in accomplishing something he seldom can give an exhaustive account of all that he did and of all that the environment furnished to bring about his desired result. The individual knows that in situation X he did Y and obtained Z, but cannot give a full and accurate account of X or Y or Z. Therefore, this sixth echelon of representation is six times removed from the truth.

The seventh echelon of human representation is human witness as to inductive generalizations he has made about the world out of his own experience. We have now crossed the line from the possibility of inadvertent error in representing truth to the overt and deliberate embellishment of what the individual has experienced. In other words, we are now in the realm where pure guesswork characterizes the attempts of the individual to represent the truth. All interpolations and extrapolations are technically guesses, and these guesses suffer even more from the possibility of wishful thinking than do the previous levels of factitions. Valuable and useful as some inductive generalizations of experience may be, such representations are at least seven steps removed from the truth.

The eighth echelon of representation is theory. Theories are understandings that are deliberately invented to characterize some aspect of truth which cannot be the subject of direct empirical observation. Thus discussion of the nature of atoms, of space-time matrices, of how man came to be on the earth, of what is good and evil—all such are inventions of men to try to overcome their lack of ability to see for themselves the truths of these matters. All historical accounts and all interpretations of linguistic formulations are types of theories. This echelon includes all quotation of other human beings. While it is true that logical consequences of a theory sometimes offer the possibility of empirical confirmation, no empirical experience necessitates either the adoption or the rejection of any theory. Theories are often accepted and rejected on non-experiential criteria. Theories are eight times removed from the truth.

The ninth echelon of human representation of truth is found in overt fictions. These are counted as representations of truth because one main use and value of fiction is to   present ideas as to the way things really are in some respect using non-historical characterizations. These characterizations are usually attempts to present inductive generalizations or theories of truth in an artistic form, one that is pleasing or attention-getting. But as representations of truth, fictions are at least nine steps removed from the truth of things.

The tenth and final echelon of human representation of the truth in this taxonomy is found in the deliberate lie. This lie is a deliberate mis-representation which is known to the positor of the lie to be a lie but which he hopes he can get other humans to accept as true, as adequately representing truth. Lies are very effective in a world where truth is important and valued, where truth is difficult to come by, and where people are not always very careful as to what they accept as a representation of truth. Such is the world in which we live. Thus lies are ten steps removed from the truth. But they are not very far removed from those representations which are close to it in the echelons of representation.

Sometimes human beings do recognize the importance of truth and take special precautions to try to eliminate falsehood from linguistic exchanges. In law there is a recognition that the personal testimony of an eyewitness to an event is more valuable in establishing the true representation of an historic event than any other kind of representation, and that the testimony of several witnesses is better than that of only one. Also recognized is the testimony of expert witnesses, who are allowed to tell of their understanding and can-do knowledge, sometimes even of their inductive generalizations and theories. But since that kind or representation is from four to eight times removed from the real truth, the justice of our courts of law sometimes miscarries because it must accept such a poor representation of the truth as this, for want of better. The scholarly world recognizes that primary sources (fourth echelon representations) are much better evidence of the truth than are secondary sources (eighth echelon representations).

Science as an institution has sought to rid itself of the problem of representing truth by eliminating all personal knowledge and witness of truth, the first four echelons, and by replacing them with inductive generalizations and theories which are agreed upon by the majority of competent scientists. Science thus focuses on the seventh and eight echelons of truth representation. Scientists essentially say to the rest of mankind: We will manage your truth concerns for you; just put your trust in us and we will deliver you from error, because anything different from or outside of what we propound is error. Historical insight reveals that science is not omniscient but advances by replacing one scientific representation by another through time. The power of science is of course not in its representations. Its power and prestige come ultimately from the fact that the technology associated with modern science is formidable. Science is accepted as a painter of truth because of the fireworks it can produce. Producing fireworks does show that sometimes the inductive generalizations and theories of science do have some positive relationship to the truth.

Art in some of its forms is a non-literal attempt to represent truth, as discussed above in the matter of deliberate and overt fictions. Another side of art is that it attempts to create truth, to bring to pass new being which is valuable in some way. The attempt to capture ideals in artistic production is the attempt to “realize” things which are taken to be true, good and beautiful. The question about such art is, does it fully embody the ideal which the artist set out to create? Inasmuch as an artist does create, his artistic production becomes truth, part of the whole being of truth, which itself must and may then be represented by some one of the above delineated ten echelons of human representations of truth.

We come now to some conclusions and applications.  

1. Truth is a whole and cannot be represented adequately by human beings. Therefore a large measure of humility is appropriate in every human attempt to find or state something which could be called true.

2. There are no degrees of truth. Something is either the truth or it is not. But human representations of truth certainly do come in degrees, in at least the ten steps of removal from the truth as explicated in this paper. The trueness of a representation is thus a qualitative variable which may vary from 1 to 10, 1 being best. But human beings have no human means of being sure that their representation of the truth is true. Error always lurks as a real possibility.

3. There is also a quantitative measure of truth as well as a qualitative measure. How much truth a human being represents is a function of the amount of experience he has had with whatever fraction of the universe he has experienced.

4. All human representations of the truth are creative, factitious, and are therefore as much a measure of the artificer as they are of the truth being represented.

5. It is easier to know truth, to represent it to oneself, than it is to speak truth, to represent it to others.

6. Most of human discourse, statistically speaking, lies at the untruth end of the spectrum rather than at the truth end.

Which brings us to the necessity of including in what we say some mention of spiritual matters. Spiritual matters are part of the reality of the universe, and to try to discuss truth without saying something about spiritual experience would be deliberately to falsify everything that has been said. There are two troublesome problems that must be dealt with in connection with spiritual matters. One problem is that every human being is more an expert on his own spiritual experience than is any other human being. This is good in that it fosters individual initiative and independent thinking. The other problem is that because there are two spiritual sources, many persons latch onto a spirit that fosters untruth, and in their independence, are difficult to assist. A typical human attempt to overcome these problems is to encourage people to denigrate all spiritual experience in favor of trusting in some human authority. We shall show that that is a poor expedient, if getting close to the truth is the goal.

The individual in his own personal experience of truth can be closer to the truth than any linguistic and socially acceptable account of the universe could ever be. Personal experience is always spiritual, and furthermore each honest person knows that there are at least two spirits besides his own which affect him constantly. Let us then make a brief account of truth in light of those two spirits which affect human beings.

One spirit is the spirit of truth and the other spirit is a lying spirit. By whatever names these spirits are known to men, they are known to men. Whenever a person attempts to characterize the truth, to know it or to speak about it, one or both of those spirits is at hand to assist in the process.

It is the mission of the spirit of truth to assist the person to see, to understand, and to be able to do all that he needs to do in this world. But the spirit of truth is not primarily interested in truth. What the spirit of truth is more concerned about is righteousness, doing good in the world. Truth is a means to doing good, but knowing truth is never more important than doing good. So the spirit of truth comes to a person first to tell them the importance of doing good, then to tell them what truly is the good to be done by them in their situation, then to tell them any other truth they need to know to be able to do the good they should do. Should what that person needs to do to do good involve linguistic characterizing of the truth about the universe for the benefit of another human being, the spirit of truth will instruct the speaker as to what to say,   and then will interpret for the hearer, so that the exact portion and quality of truth necessary for both the speaker and the hearer to do good will be communicated.

The lying spirit is of course also not principally interested in truth and error. That spirit is principally interested in getting human beings to do evil to one another, to damn and hurt one another. The chief weapon of this spirit is lies, thus this is a lying spirit. He will tell truth and will influence human beings to know and speak truth whenever that will bring about evil, and he promotes lying whenever it will bring about evil.

So if a human being understands the difficulties of representing truth and also knows these two spirits, how can or should he or she act? We shall first delineate the case of the follower of the spirit of truth, and then the case of the person who follows the lying spirit.

How will a follower of the spirit of truth act in this world? Such a person will seek to feel the influence of the spirit of truth in all situations. He or she will be apt to listen to and quick to do that good which that spirit of truth commends, seeking also to gain true perceptions, true understanding, and true ability to do that which needs to be done. Should this person need to speak of the truth, he or she will assiduously strive to measure every gesture, word and characterization to itself become a good and a true representation, acting and speaking as humbly as possible under the influence of the spirit of truth. When one speaks by the spirit of truth, though words cannot convey the truth, the truth of the matter can be manifest to the hearer by that same spirit of truth by which the speaker speaks. Thus it is the spirit of truth that is responsible for the truth, not the human speaker. This does not give license for the speaker to be careless with the truth, for he must attempt always to speak truly, by the spirit of truth. But truth is yet the province of the spirit of truth.

Should the follower of the spirit of truth encounter the words of another human being who speaks by the spirit of truth, that hearer will pay close attention to the personal witness of particulars which the speaker relates out of his own experience. If the matter is important, the hearer will go to see for himself. He does not want to depend on the word of another, even a good word, because words are always further removed from the truth than is personal observation under the influence of the spirit of truth. Should the good speaker speak of things not in his personal knowledge, that person will speak only under the influence of the spirit of truth, and the hearer will then apply to the spirit of truth to receive a personal manifestation of the matter from the spirit of truth for himself. He knows that personal knowledge is always closer to the truth than a manifestation reported by another, even if the speaker is truly saying what he has been led to say by the spirit of truth. Thus the influence of the spirit of truth is to cause every person to seek to know for himself both the natural things he may observe and the unseeable things concerning which he may receive his own personal instruction from the spirit of truth.

When one who hears by the spirit of truth hears a person who speaks by the lying spirit, the results are much the same. The hearer will not accept the reported personal knowledge of the speaker, but will go see for himself. Neither will he accept the witness of things which are not personal knowledge, but will seek further from the spirit of truth the truth about the matters on which the person of the lying spirit speaks.

What happens when one of a lying spirit hears another who speaks by the spirit of truth? In this case the person of the lying spirit will accept whatever is in the personal knowledge witness that the speaker gives which the hearer finds to be useful or pleasing, and will reject the rest. The person of the lying spirit hears the speaker who speaks of unseeable matters by the spirit of truth in such a way as to reject what is said unless it can be twisted or interpreted to become pleasing or useful to the hearer.  

When one of a lying spirit hears one who speaks by a lying spirit, the witness of personal knowledge is again accepted if it is pleasing or useful. But if the hearer wants to use that knowledge to accomplish something in the real world, he will go find out the truth of the matter by his own personal observation, for even liars must abide truth in that which they wish to accomplish. But in the matters which are not the personal knowledge of the speaker, the hearer of the lying spirit will hear what pleases himself or what he will find useful in promoting lies with others.

Now for some conclusions and generalizations about spiritual matters related to truth.

1. A person of the spirit of truth wants the real truth no matter how unpleasing it is, because only the truth enables him to work in a real way to solve the real problems with which he is confronted.

2. A person of a lying spirit must leave that lying spirit and seek truth to be able to do anything in the natural world, for nature cannot be flattered into cooperation by lies as people can.

3. People who speak truly by the spirit of truth will often be rejected by those who hear with the lying spirit, because the truth does not please them. If truth pleased them, they would seek and hold to the spirit of truth rather than the lying spirit.

4. Persons who seek influence in society by the lying spirit only need to tell those who hear by a lying spirit what pleases them in order to gain power.

5. No person can assure any other person of the truth. That is the domain of the spirit of truth.

The conclusion of the matter is then that two factors must be accounted for by one who would make truth his standard. First he must be more interested in righteousness than he is in truth, for then he will be able to find the spirit of truth and to hold to abide in it without error. Second, he must understand the difficulties and problems in knowing and speaking truth, so that he will believe and speak only by the spirit of truth, and not be tempted to let go of the spirit of truth and propound on his own as if he were some sort of non-human paragon of truth. For to propound on our own that which pleases us is to have fallen into the arms of the lying spirit.

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The New and Everlasting Covenant

Posted on February 6, 1989 by Admin

C. C. Riddle

6 February 1989

In Doctrines for Exaltation: The 1989 Sperry Symposium on the Doctrine and Covenants, 224-45. Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book, 1989.

The New and Everlasting Covenant by Chauncey Riddle given at The 1989 Sperry Symposium on the Doctrine and Covenants

The New and Everlasting Covenant by Chauncey Riddle given at The 1989 Sperry Symposium on the Doctrine and Covenants

1. Introduction

I begin with a word about speaking. Realities are wholes. Human words can never capture wholes, thus human descriptions always fall short of being true to the reality they attempt to describe. The best we human speakers can do with words is to paint broad brush strokes which indicate some basic relationships and hope that each recipient will gain inspiration from that painting, partial and incomplete though it be, and that each hearer will then search for the truth of the matter through the Holy Spirit.

I propose to paint for you a picture of the New and Everlasting Covenant. I do not suppose that I can or will say everything necessary to do justice to this topic. But I will attempt to express what I feel to be certain key concepts and ideas which are important. I ask you to compare these with your own picturings of the reality of things in the hope that we may each move one step closer to understanding those things which are eternally important. I therefore bear the following witness.

2. The gods.

We begin with the concept of our God. We know of three beings who are our God: the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost>>1. These three are individuals, yet they are also one, and furthermore, they invite every human being to become one with them>>2. The good news of the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ is that God is our Father and invites us to become as he is and one with him through his son Jesus Christ.>>3

Though there be gods and lords many, there is but one God,>>4 and that God is the priesthood – ordered community of all the righteous exalted beings who exist.>>5 To be invited to join them by hearing the Gospel of Jesus Christ is to receive the greatest message in the universe; to be enabled to join them by receiving the New and Everlasting Covenant is to have the greatest opportunity in the universe; to be joined with them is the greatest gift in the universe, which gift is life eternal, sharing with them all the good they have and are.>>6

This good which they share is righteousness. Righteousness is that necessary order of social relationships in which beings of knowledge and power must bind themselves in order to live together in accomplishment and happiness for eternity. They bind themselves to each other with solemn covenants to become predictable, dependable and united so that they can be trusted. They bind themselves to be honest, true, chaste and benevolent so that they can do good for all other beings, which good they do by personal sacrifice to fulfill all righteousness.

The contrary of this good is evil. Evil is departing from God’s order of righteousness by twisting and/or diminishing it. Evil enables one being in a social order to fulfill his own personal desires at the expense of others, thus to be a law unto himself.>>7

3. Man

We, the children of God, as we are found in our natural and evil state upon the face of this earth are called by the scriptures “natural man” or sometimes simply “man.”>>8 The natural man is without God and Christ in the world, and by default is carnal, sensual and devilish.>>9 We pay more attention to information that comes through our flesh than that which comes directly to our spirit. We are sensual as much as we delight more in the pleasures of the flesh and of the world than we do in doing good. We make devilish decisions when we would rather yield to the temptations of Satan and be selfish rather than to perform the sacrifices necessary to do good for others. Such a natural man tends to continue in his inertial path of choosing first good, then evil, as he pleases, but is jarred out of his complacency by a divine witness. The witness is that to become righteous he must repent of choosing evil and accept the godly order of choosing good. Those who accept that jarring are the honest in heart.>>10 Those who will not accept it harden their hearts by that rejection, placing themselves further from righteousness.>>11

The honest in heart who hear the Restored Gospel are taught that Father is Man of Holiness who cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance.>>12 They are also taught that Father so loved his children of this world that he gave his Only Begotten Son as a sacrifice so that every human soul might be redeemed both from the effects of the Fall of Adam and from the effects of his own sins and weaknesses. They are taught that because of the Fall man’s nature is to be evil continually,>>13 and that only through striving to accept the merits and mercy of the Son of God can any human rescued from being and doing evil.>>14

4. Salvation

The rescue process is called salvation. To be saves is to be placed beyond the power of one’s enemies.>>15 The great enemy of each human being is himself, for in our weakness and selfishness we are and do evil. We as individuals or as collective humanity cannot help ourselves or each other fully to overcome weakness or selfishness.>>16 But that overcoming is possible if we fully cooperate with Jesus Christ in fulfilling Father’s plan of salvation. That cooperation enables each human being also to become a person of holiness, which is to be completely righteous, perfect in good, even as the Father is, even as the Son is.>>17

But such salvation comes only by covenant with God, never by accident or by natural or human process.>>18 Man must first understand, then desire the proffered transformation of his own eternal nature when it is proffered.>>19 Before it is too late>>20 man must cooperate with Christ to the fullest extent of his considerable human powers to do better,>>21 and he must then fully submit to the incomparable divine power of Jesus Christ to create for him and of him & new creature, remade in every aspect of being.>>22 Thus human beings may become good and gods.>>23

There are two covenants whereby a human being may attain complete good and thus become an exalted being as God is. These two covenants were established by Father in the beginning for the salvation of his children. The first of Father’s covenants is a covenant of justice; the second is called the New and Everlasting Covenant and is a covenant of mercy.

5. The first covenant.

The first covenant of justice was discussed in the council of the gods held before this world was as is recorded in the Book of Abraham:

God saw these souls that they were good, and he stood in the midst of them, and he said: These I will make my rulers; for he stood among those that were spirits, and he saw that they were good; and he said unto me: Abraham, thou art one of them; thou was chosen before thou was born.

And there stood one among them that was like unto God, and he said unto those who were with him: We will go dawn, for there is space there, and we will take of these materials, and we will make an earth whereon these may dwell;

And we will prove them herewith, to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them;

And they who keep their first estate shall be added upon; and they who keep not their first estate shall not have glory in the same kingdom with those who keep their first estate; and they who keep their second estate shall have glory added upon their heads for ever and ever. (Abraham 3: 23?26. Emphasis added.)

The conditions of the first covenant, the Covenant of Justice, were that:

1. Father would give his children instruction and commandments.

2. Any child who would believe Father and obey his every commandment, without exception, would in that obedience grow to attain and maintain all the good which Father is and does, which is exaltation.

3. Any child who disobeyed any single commandment of Father, would, without exception, immediately die spiritually, which spiritual death is to be cut off from Father’s presence, no longer to be able to grow in his order of good.>>24

4.For every transgression of a commandment of Father, the offender must suffer for that sin and make full restitution for that sin, this suffering and restitution being at least equal to the suffering and loss caused to the persons against whom the transgression was committed.>>25

It is possible that the Covenant of Justice, or the first covenant, is the order of heaven spoken of in the Lord’s prayer.>>26 If so, it would have been the abrogation of that covenant by which the third of the hosts of heaven fell in the premortal war in heaven.>>27 That speculation aside, it is quite plain that this covenant of justice was understood by Adam in the Garden of Eden, for he was determined to and intended to keep all of Father’s commandments.

But Adam transgressed the first covenant, and by so doing immediately brought upon himself and upon all of his posterity the promised spiritual death.>>28 In this condition, if there were no intervention, Adam and his posterity would have been lost and fallen forever.>>29 Upon mortal death every soul would have passed fully into the power of Satan, to become angels to Satan forever.>>30

This Fall of Adam was necessary. It was necessary because every child of Father needs to be out of Father’s presence, to have forgotten the premortal existence, thus to be thrust into a strange world where he would be forced to choose between good and evil according to the desires of his own heart.>>31 It is a proving of the heart of each person whereby each person may see for himself whether or not he will choose good over evil and thus be able to stand the opportunity of wielding Father’s unlimited knowledge and power.>>32 But if the Fall was necessary, so was it necessary to have a means of reclaiming man from the Fall should any man desire to choose good and only good. Father in his goodness and omniscience had already provided before the Fall for a second covenant.>>33

6. The second covenant.

This new covenant is a covenant of mercy, and is the New and Everlasting Covenant. It is new because it is the second covenant,>>34 and it is everlasting because “Everlasting” is one of the names of him in whose name we must learn to do all things.>>35 We make this covenant with the Father, with the Son, and with the Holy Ghost, but we receive all of the blessings of this covenant through the Son, who is Everlasting. Through him and only through him may any fallen creature claim blessings which are everlasting.>>36

The New and Everlasting Covenant has two basic parts. Part one is the covenant baptism, being born of water and of the spirit. This is our pledge to seek after good and to eliminate all choosing and doing of evil in our lives, and the receiving of the power to keep that promise.>>37 Part two is the Oath and Covenant of the Priesthood. The work of part two is to receive the power and authority of God and to become perfect in using that power and authority to minister unto other beings to bring about their happiness,>>38 The intent of both of these parts is to enable a human being to lay hold on every good and godly thing in both time and eternity.>>39 They enable us to do all that we can do towards our own salvation, but also to receive and rely upon the fullness of the grace of God, that we might be fully transformed from the weak natural creature which we were into one like unto God himself, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.

Please do not mistake: we here consider parts one and two of the covenant as separate only because it helps us to see the whole better by analysis. Analysis reveals distinctions, but these distinctions are artificial and illustrative only. The New and Everlasting Covenant is one living whole; the two parts intertwine and enable each other in every way, even as the intertwining of body and spirit make the living, acting, breathing human soul, indissoluble in function but separable in understanding.

The formal nature of part one of the New and Everlasting Covenant is initiated in the covenant of baptism, and is progressively renewed and strengthened in partaking of the flesh and blood of our Savior in the sacrament. Part two of the New and Everlasting Covenant is initiated by ordination, and is enlarged by the ordinances of the temple.

7. Baptism

The light of Christ is given to every man who comes into the world, that he may know the good, as opposed to the many varieties of evil which are promoted by Satan in this world.>>40 The essence of human living is to make many choices between good and evil each day.>>41

We choose so that we can demonstrate what we really desire. If we desire the good, we show that our nature is compatible with Father’s and that we would enjoy doing the work of righteousness in time and eternity. If we desire evil, we show that we cannot be trusted with any great power, for we would tend to use it for our personal advantage rather than for the great work of righteousness in which all of the gods participate.>>42

Every soul who comes to accountability is thus forced to wrestle with good and evil and to make choices. He who chooses good will discover that he also chooses evil, for all of us sin and go out of the way.>>43 To every sinner there eventually comes a new light, the Holy Ghost. This new light bears witness of Jesus Christ and tells him that if he will put his trust in Christ, Christ will become his Savior and help him to stop choosing evil. Those who desire to stop choosing and doing evil find this message most enticing, so much so that they are willing to try the experiment to see if the Promise is true.>>44

Each soul is instructed that if he wishes to try the experiment, he must believe and trust in the Son of God and begin to eliminate each evil thing from his life. These steps are called faith and repentance. The promised consequence of taking these two steps is that the Holy Spirit which guides and enables these two steps will then come in even greater abundance, and will reward the experimenter with increased understanding and power to have even more faith and to repent of more sins.>>45 If the experimenter is pleased with that result, then a new proposal is made to the experimenter: Would you be willing to enter into a covenant with God what would enable you to have full faith in Jesus Christ, to strengthen your repentance by enabling you to have the constant companionship of the Holy Spirit? Those who accept this message are given the opportunity to enter into the New and Everlasting Covenant by being baptized.>>46

There are three things which must be promised by the candidate for baptism:>>47

l. The recipient must be willing to take upon himself the name of Jesus Christ. Taking the name of the Savior begins in the waters of baptism whereby we accept Jesus Christ as our new spiritual father and are willing to be known as his children before all men at all times and in all places. But it is also an expression of the willingness to take upon us all of the names of Jesus Christ, even until we receive a fullness of what he is and has. This willingness then is the willingness to go on to receive the second part of the New and Everlasting Covenant, which is to receive the oath and covenant of the Holy Priesthood.>>48

2. The covenantor additionally promises always to remember his new father Jesus Christ. This seems to mean that one should think upon him, yearn for him, pray continually in his name, be anxious for the success of his great work of salvation among the children of men.>>49

3. The recipient of the covenant of baptism must also affirm his willingness to abide and obey every instruction which his new father will give to him. Only in so doing can the covenantor come to avoid choosing and doing evil, for righteousness in this world is only of Christ, he being the sole fountain of this rare reality.>>50

It will be noted that this requirement of total obedience>>51 is much like the requirement of total obedience of the first covenant; indeed it is identical with it. The difference is that in the second covenant there is the possibility of salvation and exaltation even if this promise is not entirely kept at first. This is to say that there is Provision for salvation even if one is weak and sins after taking the covenant. But the covenant also provides that the covenantor cannot suppose that the provision for sinning will allow him an escape forever; the escape is strictly temporary, and while yet in mortality the person must learn firmly and determinedly to keep this promise to obey fully and faithfully every single instruction the Savior gives him without error or omission, which means a complete cessation of sinning.>>52

The immediate reward to the covenantor for making these three promises of the covenant of baptism is that hands are then laid upon the person’s head, he is blessed with the right to the constant companionship of the Holy Spirit, and he is commanded to receive that companionship unto himself.>>53 Only with the help received through that constant companionship can any individual keep the promises made in the waters of baptism. And only by keeping the promises made will the Holy Spirit remain with the person. If one willfully disobeys the promptings to do good which the Holy Spirit brings, one is no longer entitled to nor can stand the continuing presence of the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit then mercifully departs.>>54

Receiving the constant companionship of the Holy Spirit is the baptism of fire which normally follows the baptism of water, and is the occasion for the person receiving a remission of the penalty due for the sins which he has previously committed but has now repented of.>>55 The presence of the Holy Spirit then enables the person to go forth in the knowledge and power of God on the straight and narrow path of righteousness. As long as the person is obedient to the Savior’s instructions as received through the Holy Spirit, he will retain that forgiveness of sins and will enjoy the continued blessed presence of that companionship. Willful disobedience, however, brings a loss of both.>>56

By receiving the baptism of water and of fire the covenantor has now entered upon the strait and narrow path that leads to the end, which is eternal life.>>57 But he is by no means there yet.>>58 What he has gained is a fighting opportunity to win the battle between good and evil in his life. If he will do all he can to keep the covenant of baptism, surely and firmly evil will be eliminated from his life, replaced in every particular by the righteousness of God. Thus the person triumphs over worldliness and evil in his or her own person. Until this triumph of good over evil is an accomplished fact in his life, little can be done with the second part of the New and Everlasting Covenant.>>59

8. The Oath and Covenant of the Priesthood.

As the first part of the New and Everlasting Covenant focuses on the triumph of the covenantor in the battle to replace evil with good in all things, so the focus of the second part, the oath and covenant of the Holy Priesthood, focuses on the training of the individual to function for good in the power of the Holy Priesthood of the Son of God, and to use that power correctly and advantageously in the callings of God to promote the eternal work of righteousness. The challenge of receiving the Holy Priesthood is: Now that you have shown that you can overcome evil for yourself, let us see if you can go further, to wield the power of God, in righteousness, to help others to overcome evil.>>60

There are three steps or stages by which one takes upon himself the oath and covenant of the Holy Priesthood and receives the power and authority of the Son of God.>>61 The first stage is to receive the priesthood, which one does by receiving ordination, being set apart to a calling, and by functioning faithfully in that calling under the guidance and instruction of the Holy Spirit. Those who thus function carry out the mind and the will of God. If they do this faithfully, they will be given progressively greater power and responsibility in their stewardships, but this does not necessarily mean church position.>>62 To receive the priesthood does mean that one fully accepts the priesthood authority of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter?day Saints and that one will be subject to those who preside over him in that priesthood.

The second stage of receiving the oath and covenant of the Holy Priesthood is to receive one’s personal endowments in the Holy Temple of God. The endowment consists first of special blessings which are given to the person so that he or she can bear the power of God in this world without being destroyed by the abundant evil which will confront and oppose his and her labors to do the work of God in the power of God. Secondly, the endowment is a set of instructions and understandings which assist the person to understand mortality and his role therein. Thirdly, there are covenants which the person makes, special promises to bear the burden of the work of the Lord in righteousness and purity. These promises are covenants of the oath and covenant of the priesthood.>>63 The oath is action taken by God, who cannot lie nor sin in any way. Men, who can and do sin and lie, make covenants with God that they might escape sinning altogether and wield the power of God in righteousness, and they do this altogether for the glory of God, as part of their worship of him for his goodness, for his righteousness.”

The third part of the oath and covenant of the Holy Priesthood is to receive the covenant of marriage in the temple. This is God’s marriage, eternal marriage, the establishment of a new eternal kingdom in the pattern of godliness, to do the supreme work of godliness eternally. Blessings are bestowed, covenants are made, and power and authority to act in the priesthood roles of husband and wife, father and mother, are given.>>65

To receive the oath and covenant of the Holy Priesthood of the Son of God is to affirm & desire to take one’s place in the divine order of righteousness. To be received into that order is, as it were, to be brought into a harness.>>66 The harness is a great eternal set of bindings that link husbands to wives, parents to children, men to God. To be worthy of the harness, one must pull one’s assigned weight in one’s assigned priesthood labors to further the eternal work of righteousness using the gifts and powers of God. One enters that place in the harness by free will, accepts the burden of the position by free will, and endures to the end by free will. The harness is not imposed upon anyone against his or her desires. Rather it is gained only by much pleading and repentance and is fulfilled only in sacrifice and obedience.>>67 It is true that the outward forms of the priesthood are seemingly imposed upon some in their ignorance, unwillingness or disobedience; but such an imposition is but a temporary thing of this world. Unless they repent, such persons have no power to bind or to act for God in this world, nor have they any claim on the power of God for the next world.>>68

The net sum of the New and Everlasting Covenant is that it is the power by which a human being learns to love God with all of his heart, might, mind and strength, and to establish God’s righteousness here on earth.>>69 This is another way of saying that we are thereby enabled to love our Savior and our neighbor in the exact same manner in which our Savior’ loves us.>>70 The work of the Aaronic Priesthood is to set into the godly order of righteousness affairs that pertain to the subduing of the earth and civil governing. The work of the Melchizedek Priesthood is to promote the spiritual welfare of souls through missionary work, genealogy and temple work, and the perfecting of the saints unto the establishment of Zion. The highest focus of the Melchizedek Priesthood is the perfecting of the bonds of love between a husband and wife that binds them to the Savior and their children to them in the drawing power of that perfect love which we can receive only from our Savior and only as we abide the promises we make in the New and Everlasting Covenant.

9. The Atonement of Jesus Christ.

Hitherto we have concentrated almost solely on what human beings need to do to fulfill their opportunities and responsibilities in the New and Everlasting Covenant. I wish now to turn our attention to our Savior’s role in this grand pattern of salvation for mankind. We have been discussing the necessary human one percent of the work of the covenant. Now we turn to the divine ninety?nine percent, the grace of God whereby we ore saved. We are and can be saved by that ninety?nine percent only if and as we fully do our one percent.>>71 I turn now to the atonement of Jesus Christ.

When we examine the etymological roots of the word “atonement”, we find that in old English there was a regular expression used to say that people became “at one.” This was sometimes spelled as two words, sometimes as one. The concept was a bringing together, an arranging of agreement, a uniting of hitherto estranged parties. The process by which this uniting was achieved was in English appropriately denominated “atonement.” When a word was desired to express what our Savior accomplishes in our behalf, no better word could be found than the word “at?one?ment,” which we have come to pronounce atonement. This English word is the translation of the Hebrew “kaphar”, which means among other things to cover, and the Greek word “katallag”, which means to change in an intensive way, and also to reconcile. The Savior’s atonement does cover our sins, and change our nature, and reconcile us to the Father.

My understanding is that our Savior’s atonement is the general descriptive term which covers all of his labors to exalt mankind from the moment he said “Father, thy will be done, and the glory he thine forever,”>>72 to the great and last day when he will present his children spotless before Father for Father’s acceptation unto exaltation.>>73 As it is the task of men to learn to love God with all of heart, might, mind and strength,>>74 so we can see that it is the task of our Savior’s atonement to enable men to love God with all of heart, might, mind and strength. We will describe the atonement in these four aspects.

9. Justification.

The process by which our Savior enables men to love God with all of their minds is termed in the scriptures “justification.” Our Savior helps us to become just, which is to say righteous, by teaching us the truth we need to understand about God, about righteousness, about ourselves, and about the nature of our mortal probation. That teaching is essentially accomplished through the teaching and preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This Gospel was given to our father Adam, and will be yet taught to every child of Adam. Jesus Christ is the truth,>>75 and only in truth can man act correctly to be saved. Thus our Savior has worked since the beginning to make sure that every human person has access to enough truth to take advantage of the opportunity to be ennobled in righteousness, to be redeemed from the Fall of Adam, and to be reunited with Father.>>76

But truth of itself does not fulfill righteousness. The understanding of what is must be supplemented by correct principles which tell us what ought to be, and by specific instructions as to how to implement those correct principles within the framework of the true reality that has been revealed. Thus our Savior also reveals correct principles and specific directions as to how to act wisely for righteousness. These principles and directions are called in the scriptures “light,” and together with truth, they constitute intelligence, or the glory of God. Enabling his children to have his light and truth as the basis of all of their understanding, choosing and acting is the purpose of the Savior’s process of justification of his children, thus to assist each of them to become just beings.>>77 This mission of justification of his children the Savior does largely through his agent, the Holy Ghost.>>78 The receiving of the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost is the means by which our new father, Jesus Christ, teaches each of his children to walk in light and truth, giving each line upon line and precept upon precept until that great day when through complete faith in him each of his children is glorified in light and truth,>>79, even as he, our Savior, has been so glorified by his father.>>80

In behalf of justification, the prophets have labored in each dispensation to explain to men the basic outlines of truth and righteousness, and have hoped that men would rejoice in those outlines, desire to become more righteous, and enter into the New and Everlasting Covenant to receive a fullness of righteousness. In behalf of justification the scriptures have been written, that men might better understand the witness of past generations and see that God and righteousness are the same today, yesterday and always. The Scriptural epitome of what it means to be just, to have received the justification of Christ, is given in the Sermon on the Mount. The Book of Mormon is the scripture which lays out justification both as a process and a product with greatest clarity.>>81 The scriptures testify that justification through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is indeed just and true.>>82

10. Purification

As the new children of Christ bask in the light and truth of our Savior’s justificatory power, it gradually dawns on each of them that to pour light and truth into the human vessel is not enough. As a child of Christ attempts to love the light and truth that come to him by his new father’s gift, each becomes aware of an alarming fact: having light and truth is no guarantee of being able to do what is right. Sometimes we know full well what our Savior would have us do, but we yet deliberately do that which is evil because we want to. If a person has indeed begun to love God and his neighbor, this revelation of the impurity of one’s own heart is horrifying. It means that at any time one is able to and apt to kick over the traces of the priesthood harness and consort with the evil powers in this world to gain some short?term personal advantage. It is this realization which makes even the prophets to weep and to mourn because of their iniquities and weaknesses.>>83

Providentially, the Savior has a cure for this malady of heart, this willingness to choose evil over good. The Savior’s cure is denominated in the scriptures as “purification.”>>84 Being the Lord God Omnipotent, the creator of Heaven and Earth and all things that in them are, being fully invested with the power of Father, our Savior can reach into our bosom and give each of us a new heart, a pure heart. He tells us that he will not do that upon some incidental request but only after we have done literally all we can do to repent and conform to the standards of godliness with the powers and opportunities he has already given to us. if we have repented of every sin which we can repent of, have made fourfold restitution as far as we are able,>>85 have been reconciled to our brother,>>86 we may present ourselves at the altar with a broken heart and a contrite spirit,>>87 and plead in mighty prayer for this change of heart.>>88 Then and only then will our Savior reach in and give that person a new heart.

The new heart will be a pure heart, one that has no selfish desires, one that is willing to do the right thing. It will choose to do the will of God at all times and places, no matter what the opposition nor the sacrifice involved. This new heart is made in the image of that of Jesus Christ, that same heart which enabled our Savior to say, “Father, not my will, but thine be done,” that same heart that enabled him to live a sinless life, that same heart for which he was chosen to be the Firstborn and to be the Only Begotten.

To be purified is to become literally a new creature in Christ, to die as. to the old person that we were, literally to become of the heart and mind of our new father. The scriptures promise great rewards for those who qualify and take this step. The scriptural name for this new heart is “charity.”>>89 Charity is to have a heart that loves with the pure love of Christ. Without that charity, we are literally nothing. Thus is the heart of a person saved. Then becomes possible for the person to be redeemed from the fall,>>90 to see God,>>91 and not to need to be further protected from the tree of life by those helpful cherubim.>>92

11. Resurrection.

The strength, or the mortal tabernacles of men were rendered temporary and relatively impotent by the fall of their mortal father, Adam. This fallen and mortal state of man’s body is a blessing because being temporary it does not have to be endured forever. Pain, illness, hunger, aging and other kinds of physical distress are able to serve their useful temporary purpose in the education and strengthening of the spiritual aspect of individuals while allowing an anticipated surcease.>>93

Permanent physical death would not be an improvement. Were mortal death to be the end of being tabernacled in flesh, every human would be at a serious disadvantage, because only when clothed in flesh can there be a fullness of joy.>>94 Because of the circumstances in which Adam fell, he became subject to Satan, and that subjection would have been complete and final had not the Savior a most important part to play relative to our physical tabernacles.

Our Savior is God for every living creature, for he created all of us physically and is charged with fostering our eternal welfare. All the while that he is offering truth and righteousness for our minds and hearts through the light of Christ and through the covenant processes of justification and purification, he is also entirely mindful of the physical circumstances of each being on earth. Not a sparrow nor a hair of our heads falls to earth unnoticed by him.>>95

For his eternal purposes our Savior suffers to transpire much that we humans call evil. But he also prevents much evil from occurring and transmutes all of what evil he does allow into the possibility of becoming a blessing. For that behind?the?scenes love for us he gets precious little credit. But he gives that love in spite of the unknowing and selfish complaining of his reluctant charges.

Persons of the world pay a good deal of attention to creature comforts. In fact, some spend most of their time in acquiring, comparing and consuming the delights of the flesh. Worldly wisdom has it that a pleasure in hand is worth two hundred in the heavenly bush. Worldly wisdom also has it that the end justifies the means in acquiring said carnal delights, especially when taken at the expense of one’s enemies.

But for his faithful covenant children, those who have hearkened to the spiritual call to truth and righteousness, the Savior recommends sacrifice and selective denial of the flesh.>>96 Those of his children who are faithful to his recommendations then receive special physical blessings through the power of his Holy Priesthood and his Holy Spirit, so that illness, accident, genetic disorders and death take no more than their exact allotted toll. As is appropriate in his wisdom, his faithful servants are renewed in the flesh,>>97 that their earthly mission cannot be shortened by natural processes. He intervenes when appropriate when their enemies would destroy them.>>98 And when the time does come for the beneficial suffering of death, his faithful children are accompanied at each step by his Holy Spirit and foreknow his will in these matters. They know that they are not left alone.>>99

When they do die as to the flesh, it is our Savior that welcomes them to the eternal worlds, and assigns them to new labor in his order of priesthood.>>100 He ministers salvation in the spirit world through them, even as he does on earth, that all former mortals might know of and partake of the gifts he has to give.>>101

When our Savior took upon himself the role of Messiah, descending below all things to become flesh and blood on this earth and in this fallen world, he bought with him a special advantage. Being born of and fully empowered by an immortal Father, he had the power not to die and also to raise himself from the dead should he choose to die. Being born of a mortal mother, he inherited the power to die. Not needing to die, he voluntarily gave up his possibly unending mortal life and all he could have accomplished in that sojourn for a greater purpose.>>102 By dying voluntarily he performed the sacrifice of the atonement, and by that sacrifice seized the keys of death and hell from Satan, who had gained them in the Fall, and thus prepared the way for the resurrection of all mankind.>>103

Thus after all probation has been extended, after each human creature has chosen the law by which he desires to be governed,>>104 after all things are set in order and there is no further need of the special change known as repentance, then our Savior extends the opportunity of resurrection to each human being through his priesthood order. Every soul will receive again a tabernacle of flesh and bone, nevermore to die.>>105 His righteous children receive a tabernacle of his own order, a celestial body, having the same powers that he inherited from his Father in becoming the Only Begotten. Thus our Savior draws us into the same order of flesh and bone as that which he and Father enjoy. Thus in one more way we may become one with Father through the atonement of Jesus Christ.

12. Sanctification

Coming into this world already just and pure, our Savior was able to live in mortality without sinning. This astounding achievement was not automatic. He knew full well that he had the power to sin and he could easily have stepped off the path in either direction at any time. But because he loved Father with all of his heart, might, mind and strength, he refused to sin. In that love he also loved us, his neighbors, with that same pure love with which Father loves him. Thus our Savior was the perfect model of righteousness, truly our total exemplar.>>106

By not sinning even once our Savior demonstrated that he was indeed The Son of God. Not only did he show us the way, the truth and the life, but he also made it possible by his sinlessness to suffer for our sins, which is the fourth and final aspect of his atonement.

The need for the suffering of the atonement came from the nature of human sin. Sin is transgression of the law of God.>>107 The law of God is not arbitrary, but is established upon eternal principles of righteousness. That righteousness, by way of justice, demands that when one being hurts another without cause and permission, that hurt must be matched by a similar suffering on the part of the perpetrator of the injury. Not only that, but restitution must be made so that the injured person is at least as well off after the injury as he or she was before the injury. Only as both of these conditions are fully satisfied, suffering and restitution, can any sinner stand blameless before Father and endure his presence.>>108

Having given men the opportunity to sin after having created them, our Savior also provided that a man might not be eternally damned for having sinned if he were truly sorry.>>109 The appropriate measure of sorrow is that the sinner confess the sin, forsake sinning completely by turning to do only the Savior’s will,>>110 and make whatever partial restitution he can, which is repentance. Repentance indeed removes sinning, thus sparing the one-time sinner from further jeopardy, but that does not absolve the former sinner of the debt previously incurred. Only our Savior can make a sufficient and restitution to render the sinner clean enough that that person could ever again live with Father.

So when a man has done all he can to repent of sinning and to make restitution for his sins through partaking of the New and Everlasting Covenant, our Savior then assumes responsibility for the remainder of the obligation, saving men by his grace, but only after they have done all they can do.>>111 The restitution he does through his role as Jehovah, the Father of Heaven and earth, he who is able to reach into eternity and remove the everlasting eddies of the sins that men commit. He is able to stop the otherwise inexorable eternal consequences whereby evil is propagated through time and space by cause and effect. Thus he is able to leave each resurrected being in a condition where he or she suffers no eternal consequence for any evil done to him in mortality by any other mortal.>>112 Thus our Savior satisfies part of the demands of justice. It yet remained for him to suffer for the sins of all mankind, those sine past, present and future to his mortal sojourn.

The occasion of the suffering of the atonement was but one day of his life, the final day of his mortality. In Gethsemane and through the time on the cross, our Savior trod the winepress alone,>>113 suffering the debt of sin, suffering a total suffering equal to all of the sinning that ever had or ever would be done.>>114 Having paid the debt of sinning for the sins of all men, he can invite all men to come to him and to learn of his ways and to partake of his forgiveness.>>115

Through his suffering our Savior made it possible for men not to need to suffer for their own sins, and thus also made it possible for them to be acceptable again to Father. Thus our Savior offer to all men the cleansing of their might, that their power and priesthood in time and eternity might not need to be shortened because of blood and sins. He cleanses their garments, their power, that he then might make them perfect, complete, in all good things, even as Father is. Thus his divine restitution and suffering constitute a great work of atonement, enabling men to be one with Father in might, thus enabling men to share all that Father and he have.>>116

13. Conclusions

Thus human beings are saved by the grace of Christ, but only after each does all he or she can do to perfect, purify and ennoble himself or herself. The saving grace of Christ is his New and Everlasting Covenant and his power of Atonement, which are made possible by his righteousness and perfect faith in his Father.

Thus human beings may be saved only by binding themselves to Christ. It is as if our task were to stand straight and tall before Father. But because of the Fall, we are broken and twisted. The Savior is our straight and tall splint. If we bind ourselves to him, wrap strong covenants around us and him that progressively draw us up into his form and nature, then we can become righteous as he is and can be saved. But without him we are nothing.>>117

Thus “the righteous” spoken of in the scriptures are not human beings who are or can become righteous by themselves. The righteous are only those who have bound themselves to Jesus Christ by the promises of the New and Everlasting Covenant and who then keep those promises.>>118 Only in him and by him are they able to do any good thing. The righteous acts they do are not strictly their own acts; therefore they take no credit for them. Rather do they give the glory to God. They know that their righteous acts are acts of Christ, chosen by the pure heart given by Christ, understood by the just mind given by Christ, carried out by the new strength given by Christ, redounding to the blessing of others in the priesthood might of Christ. Thus in Christ the righteous move, and live and have their being.>>119

If a human being endures to the end in the New and Everlasting Covenant, until he is literally transformed into the stature of Christ in heart, might, mind and strength, then he may love God with all of his heart, might, mind and strength. And if he then endures to the end of mortal life in that same condition, unfailingly enacting that same love, that new nature will become his eternal nature. He and she become one with God, part of God, also to work for the immortality and eternal life of man forever, as gods.>>120

Thus the purpose of the New and Everlasting Covenant is to provide a means whereby every human being may come to be able to fulfill the first covenant, to do all things whatsoever their God commands them. But the first covenant cannot be fulfilled by one who has sinned. Therefore it is only through living vicariously in Christ that any mortal fulfills the first covenant and thereby is enabled to become exalted. Thus Christ wrought eternal life for us in love by satisfying justice for us vicariously. He extends mercy to all who will learn to love until their love can satisfy the demands of Father’s justice. The New and Everlasting Covenant is our detour whereby our Savior strengthens us until we can tread the narrow way of justice and mercy on our own.

Thus the New and Everlasting Covenant is a special case of the first covenant, that which enables sinners to yet claim the blessing of exaltation in eternity even though they themselves by themselves do not merit such blessing and are at first unable to receive such blessings. Only in and through Christ may they inherit, through his worthiness.

Our Savior kept the first covenant, and was exalted by it. For had he sinned, there could have been no one to at?one him with Father. Because of his faithfulness in the first covenant, the second or New and Everlasting Covenant was made possible, that all of us may share his blessings with him for all eternity.>>121

Footnotes

1. D&C 20:28

2. John 17:21

3. D&C 20:59

4. 1 Cor 8:5-6

5. D&C 124:123, 76:50-60, Alma 13:1-16

6. D&C 14:7

7. D&C 88:21?35

8. Mosiah 3:19

9. Moses 5:13

10. D&C 8:1?3

11.Alma 10:6; 12:10,35

12. Moses 6:57; D&C 1:31

13. Gen 6:5; Ether 3:2; Moroni 7:8

14. Moroni 6:4; D&C 3:20

15. Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 305

16. Acts 4:12

17. 3 Nephi 12:48; 27:2?

18. TJS p. 272 “Where there is no kingdom of God there is no salvation. What constitutes the kingdom of God? Where there is a prophet, a priest, or & righteous man unto whom God gives his oracles…” to eventuate in the administration of the New and Everlasting Covenant.

19. TJS p. 217 “A man is saved no faster than he gains knowledge.”

20. D&C 45:6

21. 2 Nephi 25:23

22. 2 Cor 5:17; Gal 6:15

23. D&C 132: 19?20

24. Alma 42:14

25. Alma 42:22?28

26. 3 Nephi 13:10

27. Moses 4:1?2; Rev. 12:7?11

28. 1 Cor 15:22

29. Alma 42:14

30. 2 Nephi 9:7?9

31. Psalms 37:4; Mosiah 11;2; P of GP JSHistory 1:15

32. Psalms 24:3?5

33. l Nephi 10:18

34. Moses 6:56

35. Gen 17:7?8

36. D&C 132:19

37. Eph 4:11?13

38. D&C 121:41?46

39. Moroni 7:9

40. John 1:9

41. 2 Nephi 2:26; Alma 5:41

42. D&C 121: 34?40

43. Rom 3:12; 2 Nephi 28:11

44. Alma 32:28?32

45. Alma 32:34

46. Mosiah 18: 8?10

47. Moroni 4:3

48. Elder Dallin H. Oaks, “Taking Upon Us the Name of Jesus Christ,” Ensign, May 1985 pp. 80-83

49. Alma 34:17?27

50. Ether 8:26; 12;28

51. John 14:15

52. Alma 22:16

53. John 20:22; 2 Nephi 31:13; D&C 39:23; 76:52

54. Alma 7:21

55. 2 Nephi 31:17

56. D&C 82:7

57. 2 Nephi 31:18

58. 2 Nephi 31: 19?21

59. D&C 121:36

60. Mosiah 8:15?18

61. D&C 68:2?4

62. Matt 25:14?30

63. D&C 84:39

64. D&C 82:19

65. D&C 131:1?4

66. Alma 13:6?9

67. D&C 97:8

68. D&C 121: 34?37

69. 3 Nephi 13:33

70. John 13:34

71. 2 Nephi 25:23; Mosiah 2:21

72. Moses 4:2

73. D&C: 76:107

74. D&C 59:5

75. John 14:6

76. 2 Nephi 2:3

77. D&C 93:28

78. Moses 6:60

79. D&C 76:69

80. D&C 93:11?14

81. E.g., Alma 5

82. D&C 20:30

83. 2 Nephi 4:27; Isa 6:5

84. Mal 3:3; James 4:8; D&C 112:28

85. D&C 98:44: Luke 19:8

86. Matt 5:23?24

87. 2 Nephi 2:7

88. Mor. 7:48; Mosiah 4:2

89. Moroni 7:47

90. Ether 3:13?14

91. 3 Nephi 12:8

92. Alma 12:21

93. 2 Nephi 9:15

94. D&C 93:33?34

95. Luke 12:6?7

96. Moroni 10:32

97. D&C 84:33

98. 2 Nephi 4:33

99. John 14:18

100. 2 Nephi 9:41

101. D&C 138:30

102. John 10:18

103. 2 Nephi 9: 10?12

104. D&C 88: 23?37

105. Alma 11:41-44

106. John 14:6

107. 1 John 3:4

108. D&C 4:2, D&C 84:24

109. Mosiah 26:23

110. D&C 58:43

111. 2 Nephi 25:23

112. Matt 19:29

113. Isaiah 63:3

114. D&C 19:16-17

115. 3 Nephi 27:13-22

116. Alma 34:12-17

117. John 15:1-5

118. Alma 9:28

119. Acts 17:28

120. D&C 132:19-20

121. D&C 88:107

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The Book of Mormon Mind vs the Humanist Mind

Posted on May 25, 1988 by Admin

Chauncey C. Riddle
25 May 1988

  1. Assumptions:
    1. Book of Mormon Mind—The mind of the Book of Mormon prophets
    1. The Book of Mormon prophets were of one mind.
    1. We understand by comparison: The Book of Mormon mind will be compared with the mind of contemporary Humanism (which is not of one mind).
    1. It is impossible to separate a description of mind from theology (theology is metaphysics).
    1. This study creates a social commentary.
  2. Epistemology
Book of Mormon Mind Humanist Mind
Heart fundamental, mind importantMind fundamental, heart said not to be important
Vertical orientation: manticHorizontal orientation: sophic
Base: Natural man: Carnal, sensual devilish unless redeemedBase: Ordinary man: superstitious, inept unless educated
Redemption: Yield to the light of Christ, and choose good; it will lead one to the Holy Ghost, by which one learns the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Upon accepting it, the ordinances, and the Holy Ghost, one may know what to do in all cases. If one then does what one knows one should, one will be redeemed by Jesus Christ.Rescue: Go to the best schools, learn the learning and wisdom of men, especially science. Science is a description of the universe which has been empirically grounded, rationally articulated and socially accepted by certified human beings.


Test: Power to be righteous. Test: Power to do what one desires.
(This leads to a showdown of power.)
Evaluates the confirmed Humanist as hard-hearted.Evaluates Book of Mormon mind as insane.

Fundamental Concepts

Book of Mormon MindHumanist Mind
God and SatanMyself, and everyone else
Choosing good over evilAttaining pleasure, avoiding pain
Saint/Natural manLearned, powerful/ unlearned, impotent
Space for repentanceLong life to have much pleasure
Place to prosperTurf to dominate
Redemption: To be restored to the presence of GodAdvantage: Some edge on others by which to be superior to someone
(No human competition)(Based on human competition)

Dichotomies

Book of Mormon MindHumanist Mind
Good/evilGood/bad
Righteousness/sinSuccess/stupidity
Righteous/ wickedAdvantaged/disadvantaged
Nephites (covenant people)/ Lamanites (non-covenant)Enlightened/backward
Throne of God/ gulf of miseryAll the latest technology/primitive conditions
Tree of Life/spacious buildingHonors of men/ignominy
Heaven/hellWealth/poverty
Happiness/miseryPleasure/pain
Church of Jesus Christ/secret combinationsLiberal civilization/reactionary persons
Liberty/captivityFreedom from economic concerns/ fending for oneself
Records of prophecies/ records of kings and warsReligious/ secular

3. Metaphysics

Book of Mormon MindHumanist mind
Time is finite for the group and the person.Time is infinite for the group, finite for the person.
Eternity is infinite for each person.Eternity does not exist.
Space is finite, assigned by God for repentance.Space is infinite, waiting to be conquered.
Causation: God creates all opportunities. Man determines those opportunities. No such thing as luck or chance.Causation: Blind chance creates all opportunities. Man chooses according to his conditioning. Luck and chance important.
History: All is foreknown: men act out the play.History is not determined; men create history in existential angst.
Groups exist to help individuals.Individuals exist for the sake of the group.
Reality is spiritual and physicalReality is only physical
Universals are guides to particulars.Particulars are guides to universals.
Particulars are the true and the good, to be treasured.Universals are the true and the good, to be treasured.

4. Ethics

Book of Mormon MindHumanist Mind
Man should rejoiceBlue is the common theme
Wisdom is Faith in Jesus ChristWisdom is prudence
Means to wisdom: Yield heart to GodMeans to wisdom: Shake off traditional religion and embrace the learning of men.
Duty of man: To love God with all of one’s heart, might, mind and strength.Duty of man: To thine own self be true.
Classes of men: Servants and those served.Classes of men: Leaders (intelligensia) and masses.
Social mobility: attained by personal repentance (abundance economy).Social mobility: attained by gaining some advantage over others (scarcity economy).
Success is to gain a pure heart.Success is to attain pleasure, acclaim, and might.
Lineage is all important.Belonging to the right contemporary group is important; lineage is only a burden.
Doing is most important. Knowing is most important.
The good: RighteousnessThe good: Pleasure, acclaim and might.
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