The discussions concerning Church history and Joseph Smith seem to have heated up in recent years with the ease of publishing and sharing of opinions. Clearly, for many seekers, God has not made faith easy to maintain. Some can’t even get to faith, because God Himself has become such an obstacle. And from a strictly human, rational, moral, and legal POV, one can hardly fault them. Many times, God manifests as an incomprehensible stumbling block.
On a diet of milk (or skimmed milk1), God seems easy enough to accept, but when one attempts to eat meat in His house, one is almost guaranteed to experience bouts of choking because, at some point, He quits mincing it for us. Just ask Adam & Eve, Noah & Naamah, Abraham & Sarah, Moses, Job, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Nephi, Peter, Joseph & Emma Smith, and tens-of-thousands of others.
He has forewarned us about the meat in His house.
I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able. (New Testament 1 Corinthians 3:2)Many of us study the history of God’s dealings with mankind, and know of His dealings with us and our loved ones, and when we get to the meat of life, we, like Job, often cry out:
For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe. But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. (New Testament Hebrews 5:12-14)
Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts. For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little: (Old Testament Isaiah 28:9-10)
For they cannot bear meat now, but milk they must receive; wherefore, they must not know these things, lest they perish. (Doctrine and Covenants Section 19:22)
... I am full of confusion; therefore see thou mine affliction; For it increaseth. ... (Old Testament Job 10:15-16)God’s meat (will) is full of contradictions and contraries despite what we would prefer (and often preach). Consider:
▪ the command for Abraham to perform human sacrifice;What do these few examples say about our belief in: “Thou shalt not kill”; justice and lovingkindness; the dignity of prophets; following the prophet; “Thou shalt not bear false witness”; “Thou shalt not commit adultery”; God protects and blesses His faithful; and so on?
▪ the unmerited sufferings of “perfect” Job;
▪ the command for Isaiah2 to go naked and barefoot like a slave;
▪ the command for Hosea 2 to marry an infamous “wife of whoredoms”;
▪ the counsel of an old prophet3 to a young prophet to disobey personal revelation (and the fatal consequences, I Kings 13, JST);
▪ the command for Nephi to kill Laban;
▪ Peter’s denying the Christ (as a command???4);
▪the command for Joseph Smith to practice polygamy; (???)
▪ the horrible suffering and death of hundreds of prophets, saints, sages, and defenders of truth as they sealed their testimonies with their blood.
At times, the meat of contrarieties5 becomes too dissonant, agonizing, overwhelming, nonsensical, shocking, irreconcilable, and on and on. For many of us, the point comes where belief runs up against information, documentation, allegation, assumption, disappointment, etc., etc., and we cry: “I know too much (to remain faithful).”
BUT WHAT IF, in the end, the final, simple question is: “Did you know enough? (—to judge Me or My thoughts and ways?")?
We already have the short answer:
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Old Testament Isaiah 55:8-9)which is perhaps the one scripture that should be written on the forehead of every seeking soul. Or perhaps:
... he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of his ears: (Old Testament Isaiah 11:3)If we demand a rational, reasonable, logical, common sense God, then we won’t get the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; of Moses, Joshua, Hosea, Gideon, Joseph Smith, or of any of the old prophets. We seem, in this latter day, to want a telestial/terrestrial God who conforms and confines Himself to the enlightenment paradigm.
But no! we have been told time and again:
He is beyond us:
O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor? Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. (New Testament Romans 11:33-36)He has a purpose:
For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. (Pearl of Great Price Moses 1:39)He is going to try us:
... that I may prove them, whether they will walk in my law, or no. (Old Testament Exodus 16:4)And HOW is He going to test/prove/try us? by NOT offending our sense of logic and reason? by always confirming our faith-based, telestial/terrestrial biases? by offering up physical evidence? by preventing contradictory, confusing evidence? by making it easy to believe?
And we will prove them herewith, to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them; (Pearl of Great Price Abraham 3:25; bold emphasis added.)
But, O LORD of hosts, that judgest righteously, that triest the reins and the heart, ... (Old Testament Jeremiah 11:20)
My people must be tried in all things, that they may be prepared to receive the glory that I have for them, even the glory of Zion; and he that will not bear chastisement is not worthy of my kingdom. (Doctrine and Covenants Section 136:31; bold emphasis added.)
So if God commands Abraham or Nephi or Joseph Smith (or others) do we ever know enough to cry foul? And if the civil authorities do, then is it not up to God to provide a way for their escape, or not, as He sees fit?
Each of their acts offends our sense of what is rational, logical, reasonable, legal, moral, etc. And worse yet, how are we supposed to reconcile any of this with civil law and order? How, if confronted with civil or criminal law, could any of these have justified themselves? The contraries cannot be anything but agonizing and incomprehensible.
God’s will is often like a harpoon to the heart (or the imaginations of the heart, or mind, as the case may be). Again, just ask Abraham.
And maybe, in this twenty-first century, our harpoon to the heart is to let God be transrational6; to let Joseph Smith be His prophet of the Restoration (or as I first mistyped it, Testoration) even when he fails our “enlightenment,” evidentiary tests. What better way to push us toward “the evidence of things not seen”7 than to hopelessly confound the “evidence of things seen.”
In light of Abraham 3:15, the question we will surely face regarding Joseph Smith will be: Despite all you knew or thought you knew, did you ever know enough to judge him righteously?
-------------------------/
The following links are expansions of several of my thoughts expressed above:
1. Skimmed milk: http://dejavu-timestwo.blogspot.ca/2010/10/skimmed-milk.html
2. Isaiah/Hosea: http://dejavu-timestwo.blogspot.ca/2010/11/shock-of-contrast.html
3. Old Prophet: http://dejavu-timestwo.blogspot.ca/search/label/Old%20Prophet ; Ask yourself: How correlation-rational is this story?
4. Peter: http://dejavu-timestwo.blogspot.ca/2011/12/in-defense-of-peter.html
5. Contradictions: http://dejavu-timestwo.blogspot.ca/2009/09/agony-of-contradictions.html
6. Transrational: http://dejavu-timestwo.blogspot.ca/2012/11/transrational.html
7. Faith: Hebrews 11:1
