“We believe in all truth, no matter to what subject it may refer…. We are willing to receive all truth, from whatever source it may come.” Joseph F. Smith, April Conference 1909. [1]
As I see it, whatever was influencing JS was “true” if we believe Joseph Smith’s revelations were true.
I took that position in 2008 when I got accepted to a seminar with Richard Bushman. Bushman was feeling overwhelmed with members’ concerns about issues in Mormon history after publishing Rough Stone Rolling so he hoped there could be a better approach to tackling and discussing difficult issues within church education.
Bushman had a list of concerns from the wife of a stake president in Europe and we added some more. I picked the issue of similarities to Swedenborg. We presented to the group after doing some research and my presentation was simple. “So what if Joseph Smith was influenced by Swedenborg? If we believe DC 76 is true, then who cares if Swedenborg also had truth?” I said a bit more than that, but that was my main point. [2]
The guys grilled me for an hour saying it can’t be the simple with me insisting that I believed it was exactly the simple. [3]
So again, back to the question I asked Ryan: why is it okay for JS to be influenced by the Bible, but we balk at the possibility of other sources (like Swedenborg)? Put another way, why is the Bible okay, but Plato is not? Can we be “willing to receive all truth, from whatever source it may come”? Does Joseph Smith need to get every unusual Mormon idea from the Bible, even when he said the Bible was missing truth?
Indeed, the heading that JS added to DC 76 in his 1838 history which we now have in the current heading declares, “From sundry revelations which had been received, it was apparent that many important points touching the salvation of man had been taken from the Bible, or lost before it was compiled.” Not only had truth been removed from the Bible like 1 Nephi 13:26 said, but there was truth (apparently related to DC 76) that never even made it into the Bible!
But I’ve noticed such a strong tendency over the last few decades (including responses to these posts) that many members seem to believe that ideas can only be true if they are biblical. Joseph Smith rejected Protestant notions of sola scriptura, but it’s as though, living in a culture dominated by Protestant notions, we revert back to Protestant claims that JS rejected.
[1] Joseph Smith said similar things. See the quotes I posted on the sixth comment on this previous post.
[2] I’m arguing that Plato and Lead are better fits for DC 76 than Swedenborg’s writings. JS did know of Swedenborg, but I don’t think Swedenborg was very influential. Swedenborg was likely influenced by Lead.
[3] Okay, over the passing years, I see that it’s probably not quite that simple, but I still like the approach I laid out there.
Comments
18 responses to ““We are willing to receive all truth, from whatever source it may come””
Even if you believe in truth, sometimes it is hard to sus out all of its implications. Truth is complex and often nuanced. For example:
God is a Darwinist (just look around you!)
There will be life on the Earth in 30 million years, some of it, intelligent.
In eternity 10^100 years is a drop in the bucket.
Joseph said he was working on the translation of John, pondered what John said, and then received the revelation recorded in D&C 76. If you claim he had also read Plato and was also pondering what Plato said when he received the revelation recorded in D&C 76, that seems possible and interesting. If you claim Joseph read Plato and then pretended to receive the revelation recorded in D&C 76 because that was the only way he could get Church members to accept the Platonic truth, then I strongly object. But I’m not objecting to the idea of there being truth in Plato–I’m objecting to calling Joseph Smith a fraud and a liar.
“As I see it, whatever was influencing JS was “true” if we believe Joseph Smith’s revelations were true.”
It depends on what you mean by “true.” If Plato taught the three degrees of glory, then what he said then was true. That doesn’t mean everything Plato taught was true.
We were both thinking of Moroni 7 after your last post. Mormon wants us to lay hold of every good thing, but he also emphasizes judging carefully what is good and what is not. He then tells us that we can know something comes from God if it invites us to do good and persuades us to believe in Christ. So if Plato contains truths that invite us to do good, we should lay hold on them. But if there are parts that persuade us not to believe in Christ and his atonement, we should reject them.
The idea that God gave Plato certain truths but withheld a knowledge of the core of the gospel, the atonement of Christ, is an interesting one. It seems to fit with what Alma said about how “the Lord doth grant unto all nations, of their own nation and tongue, to teach his word, yea, in wisdom, all that he seeth fit that they should have.” But we need to evaluate Plato in the light of the restored gospel, not the other way around.
I am having a hard time understanding why they where that upset that you were saying Swedenborg influence JS. That is not an uncommon opinion and one that I have heard from even “orthodox” members. I don’t think saying that was very far ought. Additionally, you should take whatever is true and leave the rest. There is no issue with taking truth from Plato, Lao Tzu, or Kierkegaard or wherever else, as long as you discard what is false.
Certainly we evaluate other claims in the light of what we find to be true. No doubt Joseph Smith did that. But my more focussed question for what I’ve been working on is “What did Joseph Smith see as ‘the truth’?” And for that question I look at the historical evidence.
It does look to me like JS, influence by his father, came to believe early on that Protestantism and even the Bible were missing a fuller truth, much of what was found in what scholars at the time referred to as “then ancient theology.” And since there are a lot of Mormon ideas in the ancient theology, I think that’s interesting.
Vic, I tend to agree with your statement, “There is no issue with taking truth from Plato, Lao Tzu, or Kierkegaard or wherever else, as long as you discard what is false.”
My experience growing up in the church was that we were discouraged from looking outside the faith for truth. I very much got the impression the we had the whole truth and nothing but the truth (until God decides to reveal more at the appropriate time) inside the church.
But back to your statement, the LDS hymn “O Say, What is Truth?” comes to mind. What is the method one might use to determine what is truth and what is error? The Spirit, historical research, or some combination of the two? What if they are at odds?
This reminds me of Terryl Givens’s thoughts on the Restoration as “Inspired Syncretism” (for example, https://www.terrylgivens.com/talks/2021/5/19/the-woman-in-the-wilderness-mormonism-catholicism-and-inspired-syncretism).
Yes, Davek, we do struggling to implement statements like Joseph F. Smith into practice. Defining what exactly the “truth” is can be a challenge, and sometimes a close canon makes things a little simpler.
Yes, I liked the comments I quoted in my last post from Givens as well, Chad. My argument, though, is that what JS wanted too restore was a bit more focussed: how JS interpreted the ancient theology.
Some of you have mentioned ancient theology. I’d be interested to know if any of you have listened to
https://theancienttradition.com/
Thanks for the link, Senior. I’d not heard of that website. Yes, those sorts of scholars did continue that idea of a universal ancient ideas, but they were operating in a bigger world that the German scholars that influenced Joseph Smith. By that I mean, to those earlier scholars, the ancient world focussed on the Mediterranean and Near East. By the end of the 1700s and onward, the West learned a whole lot more about the rest of the world. Thus scholars like Eliade and Campbell looked at a much bigger picture.
I’ve been active in the LDS apologetics community for some time now. With rare exceptions, most faithful, orthodox apologists I know are comfortable with the idea that Joseph Smith’s revelations could, in part, be catalyzed by environmental sources he was exposed to or interacted with—whether that be the Bible, Joshua Seixas’ Hebrew lessons, Adam Clarke, 1830s temperance movements, Thompsonian medicine, or other influences. In principle, both I and plenty of other orthodox folks I know have no issue with this idea. In fact, I have a forthcoming paper with Interpreter where I argue for this to some extent with the Book of Abraham.
The problem, Stephen, is that you are desperately trying to attribute environmental influence on Joseph Smith from some of the most unlikely or dubious sources. Whether it’s Jane Lead, Plato, or Kabbalah, you have, frankly, failed to demonstrate a genuine connection between these sources and Joseph Smith’s teachings and revelations. Our objection isn’t that we’re unwilling to consider outside influences beyond the Bible—it’s that you haven’t provided convincing evidence that the specific sources you keep emphasizing actually impacted Joseph. And when we point this out, you get defensive and accuse us of being fundamentalists.
Make a stronger case, and we’ll be willing to consider it. It’s that simple.
Case in point: in this very post, you quote Joseph Smith’s 1838 manuscript history prefacing D&C 76 but omit a crucial part: “while translating St John’s Gospel, myself and Elder [Sidney] Rigdon Saw the following [text of D&C 76].” Here, Joseph explicitly states what catalyzed the vision—his engagement with the biblical text. And indeed, almost everything in the vision has a biblical precedent, whether in concept or language.
So your task is to convince me that we should prioritize esoteric environmental sources that Joseph never mentions over the source he explicitly identifies. Sure, it’s conceivably possible that he was influenced by [insert obscure 18th-century esoteric weirdo here], but absent stronger evidence, the more parsimonious explanation is that he was influenced by what we know was influencing him—the Bible and the contemporary Protestant concerns surrounding it.
I never used the word “fundamentalist.” I used the word “apologist” and as I understand it, that’s a label you use for yourself, right, Stephen?
Now, I know the term “apologist” can mean different things, and I do see myself wanting to defend the church at points as well. Many have noted a tendency in Mormon apologists that I have a problem with as well: the tendency of doing scholarship to defend a previously held faith position and demanding the evidence fit that previously held faith position, rather than trying to make a good-faith effort to interpret the evidence.
So no doubt people with that apologetic point of view aren’t going to like what I have to say. But I’ll keep posting anyway.
Case in point: apologists that I described all make the same argument over and over: JS was only influenced by the Bible. Just keep saying it over and over.
So in sum, I’m not trying to convince apologists who take the approach I described. If the conclusion is already determined BEFORE any historical evidence is examined, then what’s the point of showing any evidence to people with that point of view?
I hope to have broader conversations in these posts.
And in case someone like Jonathan would appreciate me sharing a little more evidence on the point of Plato and DC 76, here’s a quick summary.
1) Lots of Platonic ideas in Mormonism and reason to believe Joseph Sr. came in contact with some of them while in the hill country. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgmvsNIx7ms&t=2021s
2) Andre Dacier’s introduction to his WORKS OF PLATO ABRIG’D has a whole lot of Mormon ideas including an outline of Plato’s life with striking similarities to the book of Mosiah. I talk about that in this presentation from minute 38 to 48. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UY-O23TivaY&t=300s
3) Dacier’s collection also included Plato’s PHAEDO who has a description of afterlife state as the end of the dialogue. 4 different states like DC 76. Furthermore, JS changed John 5:29 to “just and unjust” and in doing so used the wording in Plato’s PHAEDO just prior to the descriptions of the four afterlife states. (Thanks to the tour guys at the Johnson farm who pointed out to me last summer that JS had made that change!)
4) The question is, why did John 5:29 cause JS and Rigdon to “marvel” (v. 18) when John 5:29 had two afterlife states similar to the Book of Mormon and conventional Protestantism? It would seem JS and Rigdon already had in mind that there ought to be MORE afterlife states. Jane Lead and Plato (and Swedenborg) proposed multiple afterlife states. Otherwise, why would they “marvel” over such a conventional statement of John 5:29? And why would JS change the wording of John 5:29 to match that of Dacier’s translation of Plato’s PHAEDO?
5) Yes, I think that like most visionaries, JS was hesitant to share his sources. I do really think that’s what he was saying in the KFD.
Stephen, please ignore señor Smoot’s diatribe. Although some will be uncomfortable with unorthodox ideas, there are still many of us who enjoy hearing diverse thoughts and opinions and I’ve learned more about my own beliefs by considering your ideas
Stephen, is there a way to get a phone call with you? I find your work fascinating and would love a conversation. I have similar conclusions and just wanted to see if, as a devote Mormon, which although I am no longer (6 generations) how you see these connections overall.
Thanks, Dr. !
Sorry, didn’t see your post until now, Beto. [email protected]