167: Contradiction, Part 1

This is the first part of a series where Denver discusses why contradiction exists, why it is a necessary part of our development, and how we can understand apparent contradictions in gospel principles. The gospel is vast, and only the beginning, introductory part of the Restoration was established through Joseph Smith. There’s still a great deal left to recover. The task is daunting. Unto what can I liken it to help you see it clearly? I stand beside a great ocean, and I cannot convey it to you. I’m but a man, and all I have is a cup with which to show you. If I labor all my life using my cup, I can never convey the ocean to you. Using the limited talent and means I have and with only a cup at a time, I can never convey enough to allow you to comprehend the ocean's sheer size. My effort mocks the great ocean because my measure is too modest—comparatively microscopic. Using a cup, how can I ever portray the depth and pressure of the ocean? How can you ever discover its vast range of temperature in my small cup? How will you understand the relation between temperature and current? Or the great power of the ocean's current? How shall I explain the effect of the moon on the ocean's tides when I have only a cup to declare it to you? How will the great diversity of both plant and animal life living in the ocean ever be understood when I have only a cup to show you? In the top 600 feet of the ocean lives 90% of known oceanic animal life, but the ocean is over 36,000 feet deep. Mount Everest rises 29,000 feet, and the ocean plunges down more than 7,000 feet beyond Everest's height. If 90% of the animal life we know lives in less than the top 2% of the ocean, how much life is there in the oceans we know nothing about? Life we’ve not even a hint exists may thrive in abundance in depths completely hidden from our knowledge. The grandeur of Christ's gospel makes my capacity to declare it pitiful. I confess my inability, and I fear I can never do enough to help this generation to awaken and arise. If I can help you grasp even a little of it, then let me point you to God who can do the rest. Men cannot utter what you need to learn. I’m not capable, and it is not lawful. Great and marvelous are the works of the Lord, and the mysteries of his Kingdom which he showed unto us, which surpasses all understanding, in glory, and in might, and in dominion, which he commanded us we should not write while we were yet in the Spirit, and are not lawful for men to utter, neither is man capable to make them known, for they are only to be seen and understood by the power of the Holy Spirit, which God bestows on those who love him and purify themselves before him, to whom he grants the privilege of seeing and knowing for themselves that through the power and manifestation of the Spirit, while in the flesh, they may be able to bear his presence in the world of glory. (T&C 69:29, emphasis added) You can know. God can show it to you. I testify to you that that has and does happen. But if God deigns to show you some of His great mysteries, never think that excuses you from the labor still left undone. Rejoice in your knowledge, but do not forsake God's work. There have been some people who’ve been pointed to the greatness of God's work and have been so captivated by the wonder of the ocean's shoreline that they’ve gone astray. They’ve wandered off into their own exploration, thinking they have found something greater in a starfish than what has been shown to them in my cup. They have failed to continue because they think themselves independently enlightened and self-sufficient. One of the immediate casualties of their arrogance is their loss of any part in Zion. Zion will be interdependent, cooperative, and community-based. Zion will not consist of a solitary spiritual sojourner wandering the vast intertidal zones of an almost infinite shoreline. No matter how much they may discover along that journey, they will not grasp the ocean's depth they could have found in Zion. There are many paradoxes (meaning apparent contradictions) in the gospel. Very often we must accept two truths that seem opposed to one another. The gospel is more art or music than math or science. But some kinds of art require math and science to engineer its creation. The scientist and artist may believe their skills conflict, but the gospel includes all truth and, therefore, unites both. You will find paradoxes. Welcome them. Often ocean life depends on the pressure of the great deep to exist. Pressure more than a thousand times our atmosphere at sea level exists at ocean depths, yet there is life there. That life exists with 15,750 pounds of pressure on each square inch and is utterly dependent on the physical law that you cannot compress a liquid. Things that live there would explode if suddenly brought here, and if you were taken there suddenly, you would be crushed. The gospel is an ocean and includes both. We live with conflicts, paradoxes, and opposing opinions. We must be at peace with all these. There’s a poem in the Book of Job I rather like. This is taken from a modern version: Have you given the horse strength?Have you clothed his neck with thunder?Can you frighten him like a locust?His majestic snorting strikes terror.He paws in the valley, and rejoices in his strength; He gallops into the clash of arms.He mocks at fear, and is not frightened; Nor does he turn back from the sword. The quiver rattles against him,The glittering spear and javelin.He devours the distance with fierceness and rage;Nor does he come to a halt because the trumpet has sounded. At the blast of the trumpet he says, 'Aha!'He smells the battle from afar,The thunder of captains and shouting. (Job 39:19-25) The culmination of the ages will require us all to face the conflicts, the unease, anxiety, or what Jesus described as the distress of nations, with perplexity (Luke 12:17 RE). The paradoxes and perplexities will require us all to charge ahead, like Job's horse, to the battle. A final conflict may still be comparatively afar, but it is coming. It can be seen in the news, media, politics, and society of our day. It creeps ever closer and is even now only held at bay by the providence of Heaven. This is a time to prepare. We are now in a season to reclaim and restore incomplete gospel understanding. These are precious moments and need to be well-spent. We need to gallop into the clash of arms and devour the remaining distance with the fierceness and rage of a committed heart, determined to defy the idolatry and foolishness of our vain age. Stand fast in the truth. Defend yourself with knowledge. Knowledge of the truth comes from above and fortifies the soul with light and truth. When you understand that something in history was actually an event that took place, then you need to understand the event that took place. What are its details? How important are differing accounts? If there are contradictions among witnesses, how are they harmonized? When you’ve sorted through the material and arrived at the most accurate version, what does the incident mean? If you change the details, does the meaning change? In the King Follett Discourse, for example, there were several note-takers who left accounts of the sermon. Most people are acquainted with this talk through The Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith. That version is an amalgamation of the various notes of those who were present. In compiling the consolidated version, some of the trimming and harmonizing left details out of the final transcript that may be important. Almost all of the notes from that day have been gathered by Andrew Ehat and Lyndon Cook in their book The Words of Joseph Smith. That very valuable book allows you compare what one person preserved of the talk with what another person preserved. The contrasts are important and make actual doctrinal differences. If you are content with the TPJS version and have developed some of your religious views based on it, then discovering that it may have omitted details from Joseph’s talk may alarm you. You must decide whether you want to know what Joseph actually said, and perhaps what he actually meant, or if you are only interested in keeping what you already believe. Many people think they can “feel” the truth. They determine what they believe by how it makes them feel. Their “truth detector” is not rational, but intuitive. I’ve been involved in litigation for long enough to realize there is an irrational component to every conclusion we make. Despite the effort to be rational, we always have our personal filters and our hidden biases. Humans are rational, but not entirely so. Therefore, this “feel” for truth happens in us all. Malcom Gladwell has written several books exploring this trait. The challenge is to control your impulse to come to a conclusion about something before you let all the available information develop. You may come to a conclusion that you can defend rationally and emotionally, but it may not be true. If, instead, you suspend your impulse to decide something and let information expand, you may still reach the same conclusion, but it will be deeper, richer, and more complete. On the matter of “feeling” things to be true and right, we should not be hasty about closing the door on additional information. New information may change your view dramatically, and then with the new insights, you will “feel” right about another, better-informed view. When you deal with less information, you may think in your heart that everything is just as you believe it to be, only to later find that good-faith belief was sadly under-informed or misinformed. You can only proceed on the basis of what you know and never on the basis of what you do not know. This is why our good-faith critics who advance honest objections are not evil. They even raise questions we should ask ourselves and try to provide an honest answer. ...