035 What Do You Know? And How Do You Know It?

Episode Transcript
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Scott Woodward (00:05):
What is truth?
What does it mean toreally know something?
And what are the best methods andtools to come to know a thing?
In today's episode of Church HistoryMatters, we begin our new series on Good
Thinking, where we explore the importantrole our brain and intellect play in
truth seeking and the life of faith.

(00:25):
Specifically in this series, we wantto explore what mental moves are
made or what frameworks of thinkingare used by intelligent, critically
thinking Latter-day Saints whosefaith is strengthened rather than
damaged by diving deeply into ourchurch's history and doctrine.
So this should be fun.
I'm Scott Woodward, a managing directorat Scripture Central, and my co-host

(00:48):
is Casey Griffiths, also a managingdirector at Scripture Central.
And today Casey and I dive into ourfirst episode in this series about
truth seeking and good thinking.
Now let's get into it.

Casey Paul Griffiths (01:07):
Well, hello, Scott.

Hello, Casey.
How you doing, man?

Great.
I'm doing great, and I amexcited to start this new series.
To be honest, this probably should havebeen our first series that we did, but
a series entitled “Epistemology” is alot less grabby than something like “The
First Vision” or “Polygamy” or “Raceand the Priesthood,” so we did put this

(01:32):
off a little ways down the road, butwe have been employing the methods and
principles that we're going to talkabout in this series the whole time.
And part of the reason I think whywe wanted to do this is, Scott,
it's fair to say you and I both,first day of class, do this.

That's right.

With our students.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.
Especially in a church history class.
Before you dive into the complexities ofchurch history, a couple simple guidelines
about how to find truth, what truth is.
Models can be really, reallyhelpful for students that kind of
navigate these challenging issues.
Is that fair to say?

Yeah.
We want to set up kind of mentalframeworks of thinking, so that we have
a nice guide on how to seek truth inboth church history and doctrine, right?
Especially at the beginning of,like, my doctrinal courses, or
yeah, church history courses.
Like, we definitely—I'll always frame itat the beginning with these principles.
Now, the luxury of having podcastsis we can go hours and hours and

(02:32):
hours into this stuff, whereas maybein the classroom we're constrained
by one class period because there'sso much else to get to when you only
have so many lessons in a semester.
But the podcast, I think this is great.
We can dive into this for five, six hours.

Absolutely.
And I'll just say that these skillsaren't just useful when you're
exploring church history and doctrine.
They are useful when you read the news,when you're trying to discern what's real
and what's not real on a daily basis.
They also aren't just concerned withwhat's true and what isn't true.
One of the good skills that a real,thoughtful, faithful Latter-day Saint
needs to have is knowing what's important.

(03:07):
What do we need to put our boxinggloves on for and fight for the
Restoration, and what can we kindof back off and say, hey, a little
diversity of thought here is okay.
It doesn't break the church ifyou believe this idea differently
than I believe this idea.
As I've seen these ideas kind of blossomamongst our students, it really does
turn into one of those, “you give a mana fish or you teach a man to fish” kind

(03:30):
of things, where we're empowering themwith the skills to basically figure
out this stuff on their own with theguidance of the Holy Ghost and the
Scriptures and the Prophets, to findtheir own path and kind of make their
own way so that it's more meaningful.

Yeah.

So this isn't about a specific church history topic.
This is going to be about truthand history and doctrine and how we
navigate each one of those things.
I like what you've written here.
It's what do you know and howdo you know it, basically.

I'm still caught up on the word epistemology.
Are we really callingthis series epistemology?

Casey Paul Griffiths: I think—I don't know. (04:04):
undefined
I don't think that's goingto be the series title.

Yeah.

Epistemology—I'm looking through our outline.
We've got ontology, we've gotinferences, hermeneutics—college
professors like to use big words.
It makes us feel more ambidextrous.
And don't be put off by those things.
I actually see this among mystudents for the first day.
They're like, “Oh my gosh, there's a tonof big words.” And then by the end of

(04:28):
the semester, they're coming up to meand saying, “Hey, I know this is a little
esoteric, but tell me what you think aboutthis.” And so don’t be put off by that.
We're going to introduce some big words.
like epistemology, but we're going todefine them clearly, and we'll give you
examples to make them crystal clear.
And I'm saying this as someone who acouple years ago, if someone had said
“epistemology,” I would have been put off.

(04:49):
In fact, I remember someone saying to me,“exegesis,” like, “I think your exegesis
is off.” And I was like, “You need afind-a-Jesus” or something like that.
I didn't understand what theheck they were talking about.
But I mean, by the time we're done,hopefully epistemology, exegesis,
eisegesis, ontology—all these thingswill be simple enough that you
could explain them to somebody else.

(05:11):
But, again, it's worthwhileto know this stuff.
It really, really will help youin your testimony of the gospel
and in your exploration oftruth in general in the world.

Yeah.
What are some othertitles for this series?
Let's, let's think about it.

I mean, the idea—I'm dumber than you, Scott.

No, you're not.
That is so not true.

But my title would have been “The Truth Toolbox.”

“The Truth Toolbox.” Okay.

“The Truth Toolbox.”

I like it.

Like, here's the tools for finding truth
truth, historical truth, scientifictruth, all that kind of stuff.

What about “Seeking Truth,” or “Truth Seeking,” or “Thinking
Clearly about History and Doctrine”?

I like all those, and I don't think
we have to settle right now.
But that is, in essence, what we'regoing for, is this is how you find
the truth and how you can discernand know the truth from error.

That's it.
That's what we're after.

Yep, that's what we're going for.
So, again, Scott, thisis a complicated subject.

Yeah.

And, I mean, it's easier to just go on and say, “Hey,
we're talking today about the MountainMeadows Massacre,” or something like that.
Why did we choose to pause our historicalflow, I guess you'd say, and sort of put
in place all these complicated structures?
Like, what's the reason for doing this?
Make a case for me.

Well, glad you asked.
I think the best case is that welive in the information age, and
it just so happens that both faithand doubt are fed by information.
Like, I think we all know peoplewhose faith has been weakened by
new information or shaken by newinformation, whether that's doctrinal

(06:46):
information or historical information.
I'd probably say it's usually historical.
You know, the story's almost proverbialat this point, that you have a church
member who comes across information on theinternet, calls into question some core
tenet of their faith maybe they learnedabout multiple accounts of the First
Vision, like we've talked about in oneof our series, or the translation method
of The Book of Mormon or polygamy, someshocking fact about polygamy or blacks and

(07:10):
the priesthood or something and they'reshocked, and they begin to doubt, and they
begin to kind of spiral downward, right?
And it's not just the newinformation that troubles them.
It's also the fact that nobody in thechurch ever told them about this stuff.
And so now trust has been violated, right?
They feel betrayed, and it's a veryuncomfortable place to be in because
now they become suspicious of the verymethods and sources of knowledge they

(07:33):
used to turn to to strengthen their faith.
They wonder if they can even trusttheir past spiritual experiences.
Like, this is a very real phenomenonthat's happened to a lot of people
that you and I love, and probablya lot of listeners can relate with
what we're talking about here.
And what drives it is information.
That's what's interesting.

Like, I'll go out on a limb here and say, I think we live in
the golden age of church history, right?
There's so much good stuff, and there's anamazing new discovery almost every week.
But that flow of information thatyou've talked about is a flood, and
people can get swept away in floods.

Yeah.

Right?
If they don't know where the firmground is, if they don't know where
to stand, if they don't know how toseek safety, it can be really, really
difficult to stand in the middle of thatflood of information and still be okay.
And so we're not criticizinganybody that's left the church or
that’s struggled with this stuff.
We've struggled with some of this stuff.
But there are certain tools that allowyou to navigate these complicated issues

(08:29):
without losing your faith and maybeeven strengthening your faith as you go.

Yeah, and that's what's fascinating, right?
On the flip side, there arehundreds of men and women who have
chosen to professionally studythe church's history and doctrine.
You and I know many of them.
And they know the very same informationthat rocked the faith of that
unsuspecting church member online, andthey know it better than anybody else.
Yet more often than not, their faith isstrengthened because of that information.

(08:55):
Fascinating, right?
So, for instance, one professor ofhistory that you and I admire named
Spencer Fluhman, he said only a few yearsago, “I am not a committed Latter-day
Saint in spite of my careful study ofLDS history, but because of it.” How is
that possible, that one person can havetheir faith rocked by church history
and another person can have theirfaith strengthened by church history?

(09:17):
And I dare say that Spencer Fluhman knowsthe history way better than those who
are posting fragments of it online thatare shocking and shaking people's faith.
I guess our burning question for thisentire series is, “What mental moves
are made by intelligent, criticallythinking Latter-day Saints whose faith
is strengthened rather than damaged bydiving deeply into our church's history

(09:40):
and doctrine?” Or another way to say it is“What frameworks of thinking do they use
when approaching scripture and history?”We think that's a vital question.

I remember hearing Rick Turley, who was Assistant
Church Historian, once say, “We'renot worried about our people knowing
too much about church history.
We're worried about people knowingtoo little about church history”—that

that's the danger (10:00):
that if you have a little piece here and a little
piece there without the full contextand without the full background, it
really can be damaging to your faith.
We're not saying it isn't.

Yeah.
Right.

But if you have a couple tools in place so that you don't
panic when you come across somethingthat's disturbing or you know how to
contextualize things, a lot of stuffin church history stops being faith
harming and becomes faith promoting,just like Spencer Fluhman said.

That's right.
We're really emphasizing the mind hereand thinking skills intentionally because
we believe this is key to successfullynavigating the information age.

(10:50):
Like, it's inevitable.
Like, we have to use our mind, andthis belief of ours is actually
rooted in a verse from the Doctrineand Covenants, section 88, verse 118.
I'll just read that.
This is where the Lord says, “And asall have not faith, seek ye diligently,
and teach one another words of wisdom.
Yea, seek ye out of thebest books words of wisdom.

(11:10):
Seek learning, even by study and also byfaith.” Just a few observations there:
I love how he opens that, he says, “Asall have not faith.” That's awesome.
That's comforting.
I take comfort that the Lord is notalarmed nor bothered here by the fact
that not everyone in the church has faith.
Like, He just kind of says itmatter of factly here, right?
And I think sometimes we culturally puta premium on being able to say “I know”

(11:33):
and to declare everything with, like,certainty, with every fiber of our being.
And doubt is sometimesseen as bad or even sinful.
And then, like, only “believing” isviewed as somehow inferior to knowing.
And here the Lord speaks of nothaving faith as, like, a very normal
and understandable place to be in.
And then he offers the next steps toprogress and strengthen that faith.

(11:56):
That's when he says, “Seek ye diligentlyand teach one another words of wisdom.”
Like, I love the community aspect thathe's emphasizing there, of seeking
together and teaching each other.
And we are to become independentseekers of wisdom from, “the
best books.” I love that.
I love that.
So that's the Lord's solution to nothaving faith is to, “seek learning.” Seek

(12:19):
learning together with other seekers outof the best books, even by study and also
by faith, both of these together, right?
Brain work and spiritual work here, notone or the other, but both together.

Yeah.
One of the things I've noticed when I'veread through the Doctrine and Covenants is
how often he brings this up—that he reallystrongly encourages them to be smart
people that learn as much as they can.
In one place, learn about thecomplexities of the world, learn
history, but also be faithful peoplethat see it through a lens of faith,
and to bring those two things together.

(12:55):
And one of the real blessings of being achurch member is that you're encouraged
to do both, that education is encouraged.

Yeah.

That deep thinking is encouraged.
That the leaders of the church areamong some of the most intelligent
and thoughtful people I know,and that the members of the
church are encouraged to do so.

Yeah.
Yeah, that's so good.
Like, truth seeking, in the Lord'sformulation, is always a combination of
both intellectual and spiritual effort.
And I dare say that's a commandment, notjust an encouragement, I guess, right?

Yeah.

He's always asking us to use our brain and our heart.
Like, think of Moroni 10:3-5.
Like, how do you come to knowthat the Book of Mormon is true?
Is it just pray about it?
No.
Listen to the brain words here.

We're familiar with these verses: “Behold, I would exhort you,” Moroni (13:41):
undefined
says, “that when ye shall readthese things,”—ding, ding, ding!
There's a brain word—“that ye wouldremember,” there's another one,
“how merciful the Lord hath beenunto the children of men from the
creation of Adam down until the timethat ye shall receive these things,”
like, that's a lot to remember.
So there's a implication here thatyou've studied the Bible, you've

(14:02):
studied, like, a lot here, right fromAdam all the way down to the time
that you have received these things.
And then third brain word, “and ponderit in your hearts.” We're going to
talk a lot about, like, what thatcan look like throughout this series.
Like, “ponder” is areally packed little word.
It doesn't just mean, like,sit back on your chair and
think about it a little bit.
There are some mental moves thatyou can make to help, like, better

(14:23):
and more clearly think througha lot about the scriptures and
about church history, right?
And then he says, right, it's only thenthat he exhorts us to “then ask God, the
Eternal Father, in the name of Christ,if these things are not true,” with the
promise that “he will manifest the truthof it . . . by the power of the Holy
Ghost.” And how will that witness come?
If you jumped over to D&C 8:2,remember what the Lord says there?
“Yea, behold, I will tell you inyour mind and in your heart,” there

(14:47):
it is again, “by the Holy Ghost.” Soit's study and faith, mind and heart.

Right.
And if I can offer a little more contextto that verse you just quoted, it's
Oliver Cowdery who's told, “I'll tellyou in your mind and in your heart.”
And the specific task here is he'strying to translate the Book of Mormon.
He wants to swap places with Joseph Smith.

Yeah, give it a shot.

He is unsuccessful, and when he goes to the Lord to ask
why he wasn't successful, the Lordsays, this is Doctrine and Covenants 9.
“You have not understood.”This is verse 7.
“You have supposed I would giveit unto you when you took no
thought, save it was to ask me.
But behold, I say unto you, youmust study it out in your mind.
Then you must ask me if it beright.” In other words, the pattern

(15:30):
has always been study, then ask.
It's never been just walk into thewoods with no preparation and no thought
and no work and kneel down and prayand God will give you a revelation.
It's that it's a collaboration betweenyou and God—that you're working together.
You're doing everything you can tofind the answers on your own through
the methods that are available to you.

(15:51):
And then when you've demonstratedyour sincerity through your effort,
God will give you the answer.
And I think you see that in the FirstVision, in Oliver Cowdery's story, and
repeatedly throughout the scriptureswhere people are seeking answers:
that they have to do a lot of workbefore the Lord gives them the answer,
and that he isn't intending to justslide down a magical moonbeam and

(16:12):
tell you everything—that you have tocollaborate with him to find the truth.

Do we need to ask God?
Yes.
We wouldn't downplay either thespiritual or the intellectual, right?
And too often you see kind of thependulum swinging one way or the
other on that, and the Lord is saying,no, keep it right in the middle.
Do both.

Yeah.

Consistently.
So maybe let's call D&C 88:118our theme scripture for this
series about seeking, right?
The Lord wants us to “seek learningby study and also by faith.”

Yeah, and to that theme scripture, I'll add a

theme quote (16:45):
this is from Dieter F.
Uchtdorf.
He gave a CES devotional called“What is Truth?” I love this quote.

Here's what he said (16:52):
he said, “Latter-day Saints are not asked to
blindly accept everything they hear.
We are encouraged to think anddiscover truth for ourselves.
We're expected to ponder, to search,to evaluate, and thereby to come to
a personal knowledge of the truth.”

Boom.

He was a member of the first presidency at the time.
He's still a member ofthe Quorum of the Twelve.
He's one of our most esteemedvoices saying, no, you're
encouraged to do this stuff.
We're not discouraging you.
We're not worried aboutwhat you'll find out.
We want you to know these things.
So go out and find the truth.
Work with God, collaborate, andcome to a knowledge for yourself.

(17:31):
That's our deal.

It's our deal, and it's going to require—I like his words:
ponder, search, evaluate, and therebycome to a personal knowledge of the truth.
So good.

So we mentioned that there were going to be some big
words, and this is where we get to thebig wordy part of our exploration today.

Buckle up.
Nerd alert.
Nerd alert.

Once you know these terms, you're going to be dropping
them in conversation left and right.
You're going to be sitting there, youknow, eating lunch at a restaurant
and say to your friend, “I thinkyour epistemology is a little
flawed” or something like that.
But let's start out with the key termswe need to know, beginning with the

magic word of the day (18:20):
epistemology.
Scott, what is epistemology?
Define that for us.

Yeah, here we go.
Big word.
It simply means the study of knowledge.
I think a dictionary definition is,“the investigation of what distinguishes
justified belief from opinion.” So itbasically probes the questions, like,
what does it mean to know something?
How do you come to know things?
And is there any way we canbe sure that we're right?

Yeah.

Right?
So that's just this,how do you know stuff?
That's epistemology.

It's searching for truth, right?
The Savior said if you know thetruth, the truth will set you free.

Yeah.

And by the way, the Savior himself in the
Doctrine and Covenants gives aninteresting definition of truth.
You might remember when he wason trial before Pontius Pilate.
Pontius Pilate asked him, “What istruth?” The Savior doesn't answer, but
if he did, it would have been close tothis scripture he gives in section 93.
This is Doctrine and Covenants93:24: “Truth is knowledge of

(19:15):
things as they are, and as theywere, and as they are to come.”

Bam.
So the Lord's definition thereis highly epistemological, right?
That's an epistemological definition.
When you try to define what knowledgeis, you are engaging in epistemology.
That's what the Lord did here.
Truth is knowledge of things as they are,as they were, and as they are to come.

Yeah.
And I like that dictionary definition,that it says it distinguishes
justified belief from opinion.
A lot of us just act on our opinions.
And this isn't saying thatepistemology allows you to know
everything for certain for sure.
That's where faith comes in.
But the words “justifiedbelief” are powerful, right?

Yeah.

It's good for you to be able to say, “I believe
this, and here's the reasons why.”Epistemology can give us a reason to
say why we believe what we believe,how we justify it, and what our
framework is for discerning truth.
Once that framework's in place, we cango to work on a lot of problems and
solve a lot of issues that face us.

That's true.
How often have you seen—like, onlinesometimes I'll see someone quote
something on Facebook or post somethingon Facebook, and underneath it it says,
there's that little disclaimer thatsays “potentially misinformation” or
something like that, you know, whereit's kind of giving a little disclaimer,
like, hey, this has not been verified.
People are claiming stuff.
That's a “things as they are”type of a dilemma, right?

(20:36):
There's a lot of people sayingthat things are a certain way in
the news or politics or whatever.
It's an epistemological questionto say, is that accurate?
And how can we know if that's true?
Is that misinformation, or is thatsomething that we should take seriously?

Yeah.
We argue about all three, but I honestlythink the one that we're struggling with
the most right now is things as they are.

Oh, why?

I'm not going to bring up any current political
events or anything like that.

Wise man.

But we just argue about basic facts about how
the world is and what the majorproblems are in the world and where we
should devote our resources towards.
I think everybody wants to makethings better, but we sometimes
just disagree on how things are andtherefore what's the best approach to
try and make the world a better place.

(21:23):
So all three are potent, right?

Mm-hmm.
Yeah.

What's our next big word we're going to tackle here?

How about ontology?

Ontology.
Okay.
Okay.

Ontological inquiry, yes.
So what does that mean, Casey?
Ontology.

Whoa, boy.
This is a million-dollar word,but it's basically what is real.

Yeah.

What is existence?
And I know that those are two questionsand not necessarily an answer, but
that is what ontology deals with.
Ontology concerns itself with bigquestions like, does God exist?
Are my feelings real?
What is nothing, and does it exist?
These are all ontological questions.
So it has to deal with the nature ofthings that can't be measured easily.

(22:10):
It's how we embrace realityand what we have to do with it.

So that moment in Harry Potter where he sort of briefly
dies in the last book and he's inKing's Cross Station and he asks
Dumbledore, there's, like, whiteall around him—remember this moment?

Yeah.

And he says to Dumbledore, is this real or has
this been happening inside my head?
And then Dumbledore answers, “Of courseit's happening inside your head, Harry.
But why on earth should that meanit's not real?” That's something of
an ontological wrestle, isn't it?

Yeah.
So, epistemology, ontology.
Hopefully you're still with us.
Let's go to the next word,which isn't super big: facts.

Yeah.
And what if we do the next three together?
Because I think theyplay off of each other.

Okay, do them.
Yeah, go ahead.

So facts, inferences and assumptions.
These are words we're going touse a lot throughout this series.
So facts are things that aretrue and verifiable no matter
your perspective, right?
Like, I'm wearing glasses right now.
Like, that's true, it'sverifiable, doesn't matter your
perspective, your worldview.
Like, I'm wearing glasses, you know?

Yeah.

That's a fact.
Then there's inferences.
Inferences are kind of thesesnap conclusions, or meaning
that we give the facts basedupon our underlying assumptions.
Someone's coming at you with aknife, you're going to make a
snap conclusion, “I'm in danger.
This person intends to harmme,” or something like that,
and that's based on assumptions.
And assumptions are these, like,beliefs that we suppose to be true,

(23:47):
usually based on previous learningthat we don't really question.
These assumptions form our beliefsystem and help us interpret the world.
They actually help form our hermeneutic.
That's a word we used way back inthe First Vision series, hermeneutic,
which is basically a fancy word forthe lens by which we see the world.
And so—or another way we could sayis our hermeneutic is our cluster of

(24:07):
assumptions that then form the lens bywhich we look out into the world and
interpret what's going on out there.
And that's true of looking at thepresent, also looking at the past,
and also contemplating the future.
And so facts, inferences, andassumptions are huge to be able to
slow down and think about, especiallywhen it comes to analyzing history.

Let me give you an example (24:29):
here's a fact.
In 1839, Joseph Smith testifiedthat in 1820, he sought two divine
beings who answered his prayer.
That's a fact.

Fact.
Yeah.
Nobody's disputing that.
Yeah.
It just happened.

Look at the manuscripts in 1839.
Like we still ha—yeah, like, we knowthat's true, that that's what he
testified and that's when he testified.
Now, someone might make an inferencethat Joseph must not have actually
seen a vision in 1820, or else hewould have written about it when
it happened, not 19 years later.
And that would be based on anassumption that people basically
always write down major lifeexperiences shortly after they happen.

(25:06):
And since Joseph didn't dothat, my inference is he must
not be telling the truth.
Now, that's coming from what wecalled a hermeneutic of suspicion
back in our First Vision episode.
Here's another one.
By the way, I'm riffing off ofa talk that Stephen Harper gave.
He's one of our favorite thinkers.
We've had him on the show before.
He gave a great talk at a women'sconference called “Seekers Wanted.” He

(25:29):
gave a variation of what I'm going throughright now, so props to Steve for helping
me think slowly about these things, too.

Here's another one (25:35):
Joseph Smith said that he was employed to
search for buried treasure andthat he used a seer stone to do so.
That's a fact.

Inference (25:43):
God would not call a young man who searched for buried treasure
by looking in a stone to be a prophet.
Assumption.
Looking for buried treasure throughstones is weird and fringe and cultish.
You know, it's like, why would Godcall someone that was engaged in weird
stuff to be, like, a dignified prophet?
That can't be right.

(26:04):
Or here's another onefrom our polygamy series.
Joseph Smith was sealed to many women.
Fact.

Fact.
Yep.

Verifiable, right?
But some people infer from thatkind of a snap conclusion: Hmm,
Joseph Smith must have exercisedunrighteous dominion over women.
That's an inference,but it's based on what?

Assumption (26:20):
Men in positions of power often take advantage of women.
Hmm.
Therefore Joseph Smith musthave taken advantage, right?
Hermeneutic of suspicion.
What we'd like to do in this series isto show that that's not the only way
to think about these things, right?
There are important skills of thinkingslowly and examining our own assumptions
and being willing to change thoseassumptions in light of new information.

(26:43):
And when you change your assumptions,that's going to change the inferences
or the snap conclusions and themeaning we give to the facts and
help us to kind of reorient and seethe history with some more clarity.
And that's in light of newinformation, not closing our
eyes to information, right?
And that's—you mentioned earliercontext, like learning and understanding
context, both theological, historical,cultural—that's all going to be super

(27:06):
helpful in helping us to examineour assumptions and hopefully modify
and change those when necessarybased on that new information.

So going into our toolbox of truth here, now we're going
to introduce some of the tools that aperson can use to explore the truth,
that they're going to use in theirepistemological approaches to figure
out what's true and what isn't, what'sjustified belief versus what's opinion.
So the first one is scientific method.

(27:35):
We're just going to use this as a broadterm to describe an empirical approach
to answering questions and testingassumptions about the natural world.
This is when we ask questions aboutthe nature of what things are,
how they got that way, how andwhy they work, and how we can work
within these observable realitiesand shape them to benefit mankind.

(27:55):
That's the dictionary definition here.
And I will say that from thebeginning, the church has had a
pretty comfortable relationshipwith science, to be honest with you.

Yeah.
Yeah.

I'm going to plug my own work here, but I wrote
a book about a guy named Joseph F.
Merrill, who was a physicist.
He was a chemist.
He worked at the University of Utah.
In fact, there was a time when the Quorumof the Twelve had several professors
from the University of Utah, James E.
Talmage, John A.
Widtsoe, Joseph Merrill, RichardLyman, among their number, and it

(28:28):
didn't seem like it was a problem.
And what's interesting is thatthese men were serving in the
Quorum of the Twelve at the timewhen science and religion seemed to
be having their biggest conflict.
You might have heard of the Stokes[Scopes] monkey trial in Tennessee.
That happens in 1925.
And it was basically ClarenceDarrow and William Jennings Bryan
arguing over science and religion.

(28:50):
At the same time, you have allthese scientists in the Quorum of
the Twelve that are arguing thatscience isn't contradictory to faith,
that science can strengthen faith.
In fact, one quote Joseph Merrillwould use all the time is he would say,

“Truth is truth where e’er ’tis found: on Christian or on heathen ground.” (29:03):
undefined

I like that.

So Joseph Merrill would basically say, hey,
if I found something spiritual inthe scriptures and it's true, great.
If I found something that's trueusing scientific tools, great.
I'm going to accept it.
If it appears that the two don't meshtogether, I'm not going to assume

that they're not true (29:24):
I'm going to seek for a way to harmonize them.
And so scientific method actuallyis a really valuable tool.
It's not opposed to religion.
It's a tool that I hope religious peoplecan use to strengthen their faith and
work out incorrect assumptions andbeliefs that might be present before them.

Yeah.
And these tools, these approaches forgetting at truth that we're talking
about, scientific method being thefirst one here, that's it, right?
That's the whole point is we're tryingto get at truth to help us modify our
assumptions so that we think more clearlyabout the nature of reality, right?
About our ontological conclusionsand help us to get to bedrock
when it comes to truth.

Yeah.

What I love about the scientific method is it's always
challenging the assumptions of itsown findings or the findings of the
past, and it's always trying to updateand just be as clear as possible
and always testing from differentangles to figure out what is true.
And it's a very effective tool whenit comes to the nature of physical
realities that are measurable, right?

Right.

Like, some subsets of the scientific method are, like,
the archaeological method, whichis tooled to answer questions about
the physical remains of the past andtry to reconstruct what happened in
the past, especially the deep past.
There's documentary methods, wherethrough documentary methodology, you're
trying to piece history back together ina coherent narrative based on existing

(30:49):
documents and records and archives.
And so in scientific methodology, you'regoing to use documents, you're going to
use archaeology, and you're going to tryto piece together what can we actually
know from the remaining evidence aboutthe past about things as they really were.

Yeah.
And I mean, things like the archaeologicalmethod are used by faithful Latter-day
Saints to strengthen their faith.
If you go to Israel, for instance,there's a ton of archaeology.
Archaeology has been called the nationalreligion of Israel because everywhere
you go, there's something to be found.
And in sorting through thesefindings, we find things that
change our perspective sometimesbut also strengthen our perspective.

(31:28):
The Dead Sea Scrolls were discoveredin the first half of the 20th century.
They're the earliest record we have ofwhat we currently call the Old Testament.
That changed a lot of people'sperspectives, but in a lot of
ways it also strengthened people'sfaith to say, hey, look at this
record and how far back it goes.
In church history even in recentthings, archaeology can be

(31:51):
used to strengthen our beliefs.
For instance, they do archaeology beforethey usually reconstruct a historic site.
A guy I know, Mark Staker, who's acrackerjack archaeologist, did an
archaeological dig in Kirtland in theashery, where the whole town would
bring their ashes to make productslike potash and pearlash, and as he
was sifting through the wreckage,he found a bunch of pipe fragments.

(32:14):
Well, that confirmed a statement thatwas made by Brigham Young that when
the Word of Wisdom was first given inthe 1830s, a lot of the men that the
revelation was received for took theirpipes and threw them into their stoves.
And those broken pipe fragments woundup in the ashery, thereby showing that
the early saints really did take theWord of Wisdom pretty seriously when

(32:36):
it first came out—that they may haveebbed and flowed in their observance of
it, but here's archaeological evidencethat, yeah, they threw their pipes away,
just like the historical record says.
Now, when it comes to documentarymethods we use a lot of detective
work to put together things like that.
For instance, we mentioned thisin our First Vision series, but
the earliest account of the FirstVision is from, we think, 1832.

(32:58):
It doesn't have a date.
So how do we figure outthat it came from 1832?
There's a bunch of tools.
Joseph Smith wrote a letter to Emma Smithdated 1832 where he said he was reflecting
back on his life, that he was going toa grove to pray often, and he knew that
the Lord had forgiven him of his sins.
That particular account starts inJoseph Smith's handwriting, but then
all of a sudden turns into Frederick G.

(33:19):
Williams’ handwriting, and 1832 iswhen Joseph Smith and Frederick G.
Williams started to work closely together.
You put all these little hintstogether, and the most likely
assumption is that this historywas written in the summer of 1832.
We do that all the time throughdocumentary methods as well.

It's, like, kind of a documentary triangulation, right?

Yeah.
Yeah.
We use these historical tools to kindof figure out a simple question like,
well, when did Joseph probably writedown this story for the first time?
And that helps us contextualize it in theface of other events that are going on.
I will note that these scientific methodsshould also be noted to have limits.
There's those questions we alwaysask: who, what, when, where.

(34:03):
That is what scientificmethod is equipped to answer.
There's one question or branch ofquestions that science admittedly doesn't
answer, and that's the why questions.
I remember watching this old movie.
It's a dumb movie.
I'm not even going to say the name.
Don't look it up, but it's a bunchof scientists flying through space,
and one of them is religious, andthe other guys start to razz the guy

(34:25):
who's religious, like, how can you bea scientist and still believe in God?
And the guy looks at them andsays, science doesn't answer any of
the really interesting questions.
Which, when you think about it,yeah, science can tell us where,
when, how, and what but notnecessarily give purpose or meaning.
For that we turn to other toolsthat should be used alongside

(34:47):
science to provide meaning, andthis is where theology, religion,
and philosophy come into play.

Yeah, excellent.
So let's talk about thephilosophical method.
That's different than the scientificmethod pretty substantially because

of—let's introduce two new words (35:12):
one is “empirical” and one is “rational.”

Mm-hmm.

So empirical is knowledge that's derived from
experience and experimentation.
It's very evidence-based.
And so scientific method and historicalmethod is very empirical in that
we're trying to get knowledge basedon evidence, evidence and experience,
whereas philosophy is rational, or it'sin this rationalism framework, and that

(35:39):
means just basically knowledge that'sderived from reason and logic, right?
It's by using reason and logic,so it's primarily this rational
approach to getting at the truth of,like, theoretical statements through
logic, reason, argument, not so muchthrough documentation, historical
fragments, experiments in a laboratory.
This is more what goes on in your mind.

And let me give you an example of a
philosophical exploration of an idea.
One of the most basic questionspeople wrestle with is if there's a
God, then why do bad things happen?

The problem of evil.

The problem of evil, right?
And I'm quoting here from an excellent,excellent BYU devotional by David Paulsen
called “Joseph Smith and the Problemof Evil,” where he basically brings up
that old philosophical question of ifthere's a God, why do bad things happen?
And typically a person of faith wouldsay, “Well, bad things happen because
people make bad decisions.” You know?

(36:35):
People do wrong things.
In answer to that, a person that doesn'thave faith could philosophically ask
the question, “Why didn't God just makepeople so they don't make bad decisions?”
That's a perfectly reasonable premise.
Why did God make us soscrewed up, basically?
David Paulsen goes to section 93of the Doctrine and Covenants and

(36:58):
pulls something here that is in therevelation that I think is amazing.
Section 93, I'm goingto quote here, verse 29.
“Man was also in the beginning with God.
Intelligence, or the lightof truth, was not created or
made, neither indeed can be.
All truth is independent in that spherewhich God has placed it, to act for
itself, as all intelligence also.

(37:19):
Otherwise there is no existence.
Behold, here is the agency of man, andhere is the condemnation.” In other
words, what section 93 interjects intothe conversation is the Lord tells Joseph
Smith that man was not created or made.
In other words, we can't really say,“Why didn't God just make us so that
we don't make bad decisions,” becausesection 93 is saying you weren't

created (37:42):
you've always existed.
It also says you've always had agency.
In other words, God took what wasthere, and he tried to shape it and
mold it and teach it and make itgood, but it always had an independent
existence and could make its decisions.
And this tackles another bigphilosophical question, which is,
do we actually have free will?

(38:03):
Are we just robots doing what Godprogrammed us to do, or are we independent
beings that have a real choice?
Section 93 says, yeah, we areindependent beings that have our own
choices to make, and therefore God'snot responsible for the evil we commit.
He did the best he could with us.
Just like we wouldn't hold a parentresponsible if their kid turns out

(38:24):
to be a serial killer because theirkid's independent and has agency.
Parent did the best they could,but the kid has their own choices.
Likewise, God did the best hecould with us, but sometimes we
make bad decisions, and that'spart of what's our nature as well.
I mean, that's a philosophical argumentthat's very profound and interesting.

Yeah.
D&C 93 is philosophically powerful.

Yeah.

In so many ways.
Philosophers like David Paulsendo a great job pointing that out.
I remember Truman Madsen sayingthat D&C 93 was more philosophically
powerful than Plato's Timaeus.

Yeah.
Here's the quote from Truman Madsen, whowas a philosophy professor, by the way.

He's a philosophy guy, yeah.

He said this: “Section 93 was received in May
1833, when Joseph was 27 years old.
It defines beginningless, beginnings,the interrelationships of truth, of
light, of intelligence, of agency,of element, of embodiment, of joy.
Every sentence—every wordis freighted with meaning.
In one fell swoop, it cuts many Gordianknots.” So philosophers like Plato,

(39:30):
Socrates, and Aristotle wrestled withthese questions, and then 27-year-old
Joseph Smith just drops a revelation thatsolves a lot of these philosophical issues
by authoritatively declaring man hasalways existed and always had free agency.
That's an interesting andpowerful way of exploring truth.

So a revelation like section 93 fundamentally alters the
underlying assumptions, the philosophicalassumptions, by which people get
all tied up and tangled up in theseGordian knots, as Truman Madsen is
saying, with the problem of evil.

Yeah.

What's so powerful about section 93 is that it changes
the underlying assumptions upon whichsome of these major philosophical
problems are based, right?
And that's tied—so section 93is kind of an interesting bridge
between the philosophical methodand theological method, right?
So we should kind of go down a littlebit one more level to the theological
method here, which is, like, away to study the things of God.

(40:25):
And philosophy often overlaps withtheology and is asking theological
questions and about the nature of reality,like ontological questions, right?

Yeah.

And theological method is essentially based upon, like, both a
rational study by synthesizing teachingsin the scriptural canon where we believe
is housed divinely revealed truth, and itkind of bridges over into the empirical,
where you're also probing the things ofGod through your own experience, right?
Such as engaging in personal prayer,and if you actually experience God

(40:56):
answering your prayer, that tellsyou something about the nature
of God and the nature of reality.
Personal experiences with God canbe really subtle, such as, like,
just feeling God's Spirit, feelingpeace in your heart as you pray or
as you contemplate the things of God.
It can be really grandiose.
It could be really extreme, like,through visions and appearances
of angelic ministrations andpersonal appearances of God himself.

(41:19):
Like, those would be empiricalexperiences that tell us a lot about
theology, about the things of God, right?

Yeah.

So theology is an interesting mix of both the rational,
where we're thinking through and usinglogic and reason to synthesize and make
sense of scripture; revealed truth;and also experiential, this empirical
approach to truth through your ownsincere living of God's laws and seeking
God in prayer and through faithfulness,which leads to personal experience.
Like, Alma 32 shows this interesting blendof both the rational and empirical, right?

(41:49):
You're planting the Word of God inyour heart, which is almost this
philosophical proposition that salvationcomes in and through Jesus Christ.
Plant that in your heart, Almasays, and let that work inside you.
Do a little experiment upon that word.
Act as if that's actually atrue propositional statement,
and see what starts to happenas you live as if that's true.

(42:10):
Then you're going to start gettingempirical evidence that it's true.
It's going to start to swell andenlighten your mind and enlarge your
soul and become delicious to you.
You're going to start to seepositive fruits in your own life
as you start to live based onthat powerful propositional truth.
That's kind of the theological method.

Yeah.

I don't know.
What else do you want to say aboutthe theological method, Casey?

Well, Latter-day Saints don't like
the word theology, do we?

Why not?
We don't use it very much, that's true.

We don't use it very often.
I think that's in part because in ourdiscourse we favor terms like doctrine.
Doctrine is a more concrete-soundingterm that's like, this is the way it is.
This is what's what.
Theology can be a littlebit more exploratory.
And in that sense, theology can bereally, really fun, too, because
it's where you basically say,let's do some thought experiments

(42:59):
based on the things that we know.
Now, our doctrine comes fromrevelation, and that's the foundation
we build on, but it's okay toexplore a little bit theologically.
I found this quote from Joseph Smiththat kind of marries the two ideas.
Joseph Smith said, “Could you gaze intoheaven five minutes, you would know more
than you possibly would know by readingall that was ever written on the subject.

(43:22):
We are, one, only capable of comprehendingthat certain things exist, which we may
acquire by certain fixed principles.
If men would acquire salvation, they havegot to be subject to certain rules.” So on
the one hand, Joseph Smith is saying seekrevelation because that's how you really
learn at an exponential rate, but we'realso all going to be operating within

(43:44):
a set of fixed principles and rules.
Theology kind of representsthose principles that are set
that we use to explore ideas,especially ideas surrounding God.

Yeah.

So it's okay to say theology, it's okay to like
theology, even if it is a little bit moreof an ethereal term than doctrine is.
Doctrine is great, and we buildourselves on doctrine, but
theology has its place, too.

I think just because a revelation has been received and recorded
in scripture, that does not mean that weall understand what it's saying, or that
we understand its implications, right?
And so theology can be fun, that way,like you're saying, exploratory, and
what do these revelations mean, whatdo they infer, what do they imply?
If that's true, then whatelse is also true, right?

(44:29):
To kind of get into understandingboth the text itself and the
implications that flow from that.
And that's all really fun.
It's not like—my experience isit's not that once a revelation has
been given, everybody automaticallyunderstands it and understands
all of its implications, right?
That's certainly not true forme, and I haven't seen that be
true for anyone I know, honestly.
Like, it requires engagement, right?

Yeah.

It requires us to dig into it and think of that
revelation in light of everythingelse that's also been revealed.
And that's really fun.
That's really exciting.
I like theology.

Yeah.
And rather than seeing philosophy andtheology and scientific method as opposed
to each other, they're part of ourtoolbox, right, when we explore truth.

Yep.

It's like, yesterday, I cut my lawn.
I have a hammer.
I have pliers.
I have a lawnmower.
I have a trimmer.
I know how to use a hammer, but it's notthe best thing to use to cut my lawn.
I use the lawnmower.
Then I used my trimmer to makethe edges look really nice.
However, I needed to cut off someexcess trim line, so I got out

(45:32):
my pliers, and I cut them off.
These tools that we have fordiscovering truth aren't in opposition
to each other, but sometimes youhave to sit down and say, what's
the best tool for exploring this?

It just depends on your question, right?

Yeah.
Yeah.

The witnesses of the Book of Mormon: Historical methodology is probably (45:44):
undefined
going to be your best tool there.
If you're trying to figureout the meaning of section 93,
philosophical exploration is goingto be your best tool to use there.
If you're trying to figure out section76 and the degrees of glory, theology
is going to help you out there.
And a lot of times theyoverlap with each other.

That's right.

You know, you use one tool to do this and that,
just like yesterday, I used mylawnmower, my trimmer, my pliers,
all these things to get the jobdone that I needed to get done.
I did not use my hammer at anypoint in mowing the lawn, but
it's there just in case I need it.

Wait, wait, wait.
I'm caught up on your pliers.
You used your pliers to cut your lawn?
What?
Tell me about that.

Well, I used them to trim the trim off my trimmers.

Oh, so to kind of clip the little string?

Yeah.
I clipped the little trimming wire off.
I used my pliers and theirwire cutter function.

I see.
That was an important clarification.
I appreciate that.
Thank you.
Thank you.

Casey Paul Griffiths: I'm glad I can clarify. (46:36):
undefined

I like what you're saying here, that it's not that you're only
going to use one tool on one question.
Like, one question might requiretwo or three different tools.
Like, if we're digging into the threewitnesses, and we've done that for
an episode, we're going to look athistorical method, yes, but we're also
looking at the theological implicationsthat that brings to bear, right?
Like, if the three witnessesare telling the truth, that has

(47:00):
major ontological implications.
That means there'sactually a God who exists.
They said they heard the voice of God.
They saw an angel.
That's a pretty phenomenal claimthat would say there is such thing as
angels, that the Book of Mormon is true.
If the Book of Mormon is true, like theangel said, then all the implications
that has about the nature of atonement,God's plan for his children, the fact

(47:24):
that there was an ancient civilizationcalled the Nephites and Lamanites, right?

Yeah.

So the Three Witnesses is a fascinating, interesting case
study where we're going to be usingprimarily historical methodology, but
what's going to come from that are somereally interesting philosophical and
especially theological implications.

Yeah.
Let's introduce one last term here.

One last term.

And it's a term that you probably know

I have heard that term before, yes.
That one I have heard.

Yeah.
I put this quote up the first or secondday of class in every class that I
teach, and it's not by a Latter-daySaint: it's by Oliver Wendell Holmes.

He said this (48:14):
“I would not give a fig for the simplicity on this side of
complexity, but I would give my lifefor the simplicity on the other side
of complexity.” And let me just maybeshare what I think that means: A lot
of times, the place where people runinto problems when it comes to their
faith, especially Latter-day Saints,is that we're raised with this simple

set of truth (48:38):
I am a child of God.
Joseph Smith is a prophet.
Jesus Christ is the Savior.
Joseph translated the Book of Mormon.
All that kind of stuff.

Sure.

And those truths are true, but they are simple, right?

Yeah.

And then when we lose people is when they go from
the simplicity of their childhood tothe complexity of the adult world.
Simplicity is, in my analogy, likestanding on the bank of a river.
That's your natural environment.
That's where you'rereal, real comfortable.
That's where you feel safest,because humans are land creatures.
They were designed tooperate best on land.

(49:12):
However, when we become adults,we are confronted by complexity.
What do you mean I'm a child of God?
In what sense are you a child of God?
What do you mean JesusChrist is the Messiah?
How is he the Messiah?
Why is it necessary to have a Messiah?
What do you mean Joseph Smithtranslated the Book of Mormon?
How did that happen?

Yeah.

And embracing that complexity is like jumping
off the riverbank into the river.
All of a sudden now we're in anenvironment that we don't feel comfortable
in, that we weren't built to exist in.
It's swirling us around, and it'spushing us down the river, and it
can be sort of scary and terrifying.

Disorienting.

It can be disorienting too, right?

Yeah.

But when we emerge from the river on the other side, back to
simplicity, that comfort returns, right?
So you take an assumption like Iam a child of God, this simple,
beautiful truth that one of ourmost famous songs reinforces.
You sit down with a kid and you say,what do you mean I'm a child of God?
In what sense are you a child of God?
What does it mean when Jesussaid He was the Son of God?

(50:07):
How is He different from you?
How is He like you?

How the Book of Mormon says that you become the
children of God after you're baptized.

Yeah.

And that introduces some doctrinal complexity.
I thought I already was a child ofGod because of the song, but now
Book of Mormon's telling me thatI need to become a child of God.
What does that mean?

Yeah.
If you're a child of God, why does theBible and the Book of Mormon say we
become the sons and daughters of God?

Totally.

You dive into all this complexity, and the exploration
can be thrilling and terrifying andoverwhelmingly uncomfortable, but
you come out the other side of thecomplexity, you crawl out the other
side of the river, and you're back insimplicity where you can 100 percent
say, yeah, I am a child of God.
But that idea is so much moremeaningful because you've explored

(50:54):
the complexity that surrounds it.
What really shakes people upis when they haven't explored
the complexity of these ideas.
They haven't made it to thesimplicity that exists on
the other side of complexity.
So a simple testimony of the gospel isabsolutely something that you should
seek after and that you should obtain,but the complexity of the world we

(51:14):
exist in means that these ideas, Igenuinely believe, merit testing.
And I think that they'll stand upto examination using all the tools
that we have here and that you'llcome out the other side of that
examination with a simple beliefthat, yeah, I'm a child of God.
That's meaningful.
That's powerful.
I think that it's defensible.
And it's something that shapes myworldview and really changes the way that

(51:37):
I see myself, the world around me, andhow I can affect and do good in the world.

Yeah.
So we're going to try throughoutthis series to talk carefully about
all the different tools by which wecan examine the complexity, right?

Yeah.

And to appreciate the complexity to get to
that other side, simplicity.
In our next episode, we're going totalk about how to think doctrinally.
How do we approach scriptureto derive doctrine from that?
Because it's not actually simple.
We talk about studying our scripturesto learn truth, but it turns out
that's actually a lot harder, a lotmore complex than at first sounds.

Yeah.

We're going to talk about how to think historically
in the following episode.
We're going to talk about examining ourown assumptions and cognitive flexibility
after that and contextualizing facts.
It's going to be good.
It's going to be a great series.
We're going to try to offer a lotof tools to handle the complexities
that exist on all the most importantquestions that we eventually want
to get to other side complexity on.

Yeah.

And let me just end with this quote from Steve Harper,
again from that talk, “Seekers Wanted.”he said, “Seeking is a long, patient,
persistent process that includesinternalizing the best books, including
the scriptures, where we not only learnthe most important facts but the most
valid meanings and values to give them.

(52:54):
Seeking is hard work.
It's not for the weak-willed or faintof heart, nor for the intellectually or
spiritually lazy, but it will sustainfaith in a world intent on destroying it.”

Amen.
Amen.

So join us next time as we talk about how to think doctrinally.
Thank you for listening to thisepisode of Church History Matters.
Next week we continue thisseries by getting really specific
about how to evaluate doctrinalor theological truth claims.

(53:28):
As it turns out, there arethree crucial questions to think
about when attempting to do so.
If you're enjoying Church HistoryMatters, we'd appreciate it if you
could take a moment to subscribe, rate,review, and comment on the podcast.
That makes us easier to find.
Today's episode was produced byScott Woodward and edited by Nick
Galieti and Scott Woodward, with shownotes and transcript by Gabe Davis.

(53:51):
Church History Matters is a podcastof Scripture Central, a nonprofit
which exists to help build enduringfaith in Jesus Christ by making
Latter-day Saint scripture and churchhistory accessible, comprehensible,
and defensible to people everywhere.
For more resources to enhance yourgospel study, go to scripturecentral.org,
where everything is availablefor free because of the generous

(54:13):
donations of people like you.
While we try very hard to be historicallyand doctrinally accurate in what we
say on this podcast, please rememberthat all views expressed in this and
every episode are our views alone anddo not necessarily reflect the views
of Scripture Central or The Churchof Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Thank you so much for beinga part of this with us.

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