Once again, to be clear– I am not espousing relativism or an inescapable blanket condition of doubt or the inability to make spiritual claims. I think relativism can be combatted with MacIntyre and Taylor’s approach to evaluating a faith or ideology’s internal consistency and ability to do what it sets out to do; I agree with Taylor that doubt is a feature of a Westerns ecular age that we must consciously work through (the reverse of the “enchanted” pre-secular age), and we can make spiritual claims through revelation (with the limitations above) and our own conviction of the reality of their spiritual power in our lives.

If Russell is suggesting that we would all be better off if we could all learn to live gracefully in uncertainty, I think he is (a) assuming that we can’t get legitimate certainty (which I dispute), (b) being deeply unrealistic about what human society is likely to achieve, ever, and (c) being rather naive, in light of (b) about the many bad things that come when elites like Russell give up the search for true certainties on spiritual questions. As I’ve argued above, without certain truths, we tend to fall into worse dogmas, social fragmentation, and terrorism, among other things. Taylor seems to be moved by a similar sentiment to what Russell expresses here, but I think they are both wearing rose-colored glasses and arriving at unwise conclusions.

With regards to God many would say he does have access to all information and thus can’t be surprised. Others see even God’s knowledge as limited in ways that in small areas even he could be surprised.

Admittedly in this conception I’m reflecting my bias towards Peircean pragmatic accounts of truth.

I agree that often, perhaps most of the time, what we know even through spiritual confirmation, even perhaps through more dramatic heavenly visitations, is limited in various ways by our own abilities to imagine or articulate the truth. We have to learn line upon line, through revelations given in our own language with its limitations, until we are able to understand something more complete and accurate. And this is part of why we need to continue to have dialogue even among those who have all received a certain core knowledge from spiritual authority—because there is so much more for us to learn. But I don’t think that means we can’t know anything with certainty through revelation; I just think that means we each, individually, at any particular point in our progression, have limits to what we can know with certainty that way.

I would be interested to hear if Rachael feels this helps bring our perspectives closer together, but she might balk at the idea that we can have any certainty at all. Her point seems to be more radical than yours: that none of us can claim any more justification than anyone else when it comes to spiritual claims.

That said, I don’t think Rachael’s comments are act odds with this. I think there’s a functional reason why God doesn’t reveal things in their purity but make us struggle and tends to reveal them in vague ways. I’d add that we know Jesus himself learned grace for grace. So I think this applied to him as well – although exactly what Christ knew and when is one of those questions I’ve long had. Part of this life seems to be to learn patience and faith regarding our fallibilism and ignorance. And that’s a feature not a bug since that appears to be something more difficult to learn when God was before us at all times. Christ needed that too.

But you don’t have to twist my words to get a pass for leaving off. The OP came out over a month ago; I’ll watch for the posts to come.

The problem with making God speaking to you as the only criteria for justification is that we can of course be deceived by someone pretending to be God. Or, in more practical terms where’s God’s communications are typically not terribly clear, we can misinterpret them. So appealing to revelation doesn’t get us as far in practice as it might seem at first glance. (This of course is noted in scripture such as places like Alma 32 where coming to know is a process)

I’m sure everyone reading knows all this so I don’t want to come off pandering. Just that is’t important to keep these in front of us when we think through the issues.

I have two responses, essentially taking another run at points I’ve been making before. Perhaps my point will be clearer now and we will make more progress.

First, what argument do you have for this? You and I both have doubts about achieving objective, certain knowledge, as a human being, through some universal survey of the possibilities that one has conducted oneself. If this is what knowledge from the Universal standpoint is, then I won’t argue it is possible. Nor do I see any sign that Mormons are recommending this kind of Universal standpoint. But I don’t concede that this is the only way to know what is Right. Do you think it is? Can you offer an argument?

Perhaps we need another word to identify certain knowledge that is reached another way. We could use the word “Objective” to refer to knowledge that would in fact be borne out through a universal survey, but has not been reached in that way. The usual Mormon view is that one can arrive at Objective knowledge through having that knowledge delivered or confirmed by God. Maybe God has been through a universal survey (he has time and brain power to spare), or maybe not. Anyway, this is another way to achieve Objective knowledge as a human, to hear from God. This is learning what is Right through spiritual authority. Do you accept this as possible? If not, why not?

I’ll just leave Latour aside for now, because no one else I know thinks that God is just another being in the wide universe, with no better access to truth than we have.

Second, if you reject the possibility of Objective knowledge in this sense, what is left of spiritual authority?

On chastening, you seem to be running together two completely different things. To “engage in genuine questions and conversations” and “increased collaboration” with those of other faiths in no way requires that someone be uncertain about spiritual truth. When Jesus was hanging out with publicans and sinners, was it because he was still trying to figure out whether extortion or prostitution might be a good idea after all? No.

People who are not confident about the truth may have lots of open and genuine conversations with people of varying viewpoints, or not. Similarly, people who have a firm conviction or even knowledge may have such conversations, or not. What church leaders are calling for is not a dialing back of conviction, but a dialing up of love. Love is the reason why we should want to have genuine conversations rather than dogmatic, judgmental ones. To suggest that genuine conversation requires epistemological uncertainty is to nullify the power of love to shape our interactions.

So, to call for some epistemological chastening in order to improve conversation I think is deeply confused.

Unfortunately, in our current culture of doubt, epistemological pessimism is actually making the conversations much worse. When people stop thinking they can arrive at the truth, they stop talking. When they don’t see any reliable, shared reference frame for answering questions, they have a strong tendency to either (a) dismiss the question and conversation as pointless and turn their attention to other things (like material wealth, pleasure, power, etc.–i.e. making us and our relationships with others shallower and more self-serving) or, where they feel a continued urgency to the question despite the unavailability of a shared reference frame for answering it, they tend to seek solutions through the sheer exercise of power over those they disagree with, whether through trickery and manipulation (“if you loved me, of course you would have sex with me” . . .), political coercion, or through simple violence. Witness our current, poisonous political discourse, leading presidential candidates that are despised by far more Americans than support them, Al-Qaeda, and ISIS.

As for Joseph’s question, sure, someone who is already sure of the truth of one answer can’t ask the question the way she or he did before getting the answer. But you are mixing up the questioner with the person who has the answer. Once we have the answer, of course we approach the question differently, but the main people we are interested in when we are thinking about asking questions are the people who don’t already have the answer, and there are still plenty of those around, as there were in Joseph Smith’s day.

Again, I am not convinced the Universal Standpoint is possible, so of course I don’t think that’s the only way one could verify the truth of Christ’s claims. I agree with Taylor’s “subjective” approach, that we can claim their truth in how they operate in our lives. But Church members proclaim “The Church is the only True Church” in a way that implies a Universal standpoint that a) is far outside their evidence/experience and b) not even possible. I think the Church can be “true’ in many other ways. Clark’s take on “truth” in the Hebraic sense points to one possible direction, in his linked blogpost.

Re: the “chastening”– I think some leaders have articulated a move in this direction by suggesting that missionaries engage in genuine questions and conversations with the people they encounter/teach, and overall increased collaboration with other faiths. There’s a lot that could be done in de-insulating and being more “chastened” by others faith claims like reading other sacred texts, dialoguing, asking questions, etc.

As for Joseph’s question: I’m saying the Church asks people to verify, not to ask, because they have staked an a priori truth claim based on Joseph’s answer. I’m not referring to whether we are asking the question in the same way/same expectations as Joseph, but whether the question itself (and its relation to an a priori answer) is repeatable. I don’t think we can have our cake and eat it too. We have an a priori truth claim or we don’t.