The following is a transcript of a talk given by Elder Dallin H. Oaks, member of the Quorum of the Twelve apostles, at Harvard Law School on 26 February 2010.
I
welcome this opportunity to speak in what our hosts have
called “Mormonism 101.” In his fine lecture last year Judge
Thomas Griffith said he was giving “an introduction to the
Mormon faith.” I intend to do the same, speaking from my
special responsibility as an apostle called to speak as a
witness of the gospel plan and mission and Church of Jesus
Christ.
It
is challenging to speak to such a diverse audience—some
thoroughly familiar with the doctrines of the Church of
Jesus Christ, some unaware, and many between those
extremes. I will address this diversity by speaking about
some of the fundamental premises of our faith and how they
affect our interaction with the rest of mankind. My object
is to illuminate several premises and ways of thinking that
are at the root of some misunderstandings about our doctrine
and practice.
I.
We
Mormons know that our doctrines and values are not widely
understood by those not of our faith. This was demonstrated
by Gary Lawrence’s nationwide study published in his recent
book, How Americans View Mormonism. Three-quarters
of those surveyed associated our Church with high moral
standards, but about half thought we were secretive and
mysterious and had “weird beliefs.”[1] When
asked to select various words they thought described Mormons
in general, 87% checked “strong family values,” 78% checked
“honest,” and 45% checked “blind followers.”[2]
When
Lawrence’s interviewers asked, “To the best of your
understanding, what is the main claim of Mormonism?” only
14% could describe anything close to the idea of restoration
or reestablishment of the original Christian faith.
Similarly, when another national survey asked respondents
what one word best described their impression of the Mormon
religion, not one person suggested the words or ideas of
original or restoration Christianity.[3]
Even
the “Tonight Show” took notice of this lack of
understanding. In the course of poking fun at Senator Orrin
Hatch’s Hanukkah song, Conan O’Brien led a chorus in singing
several stanzas, including the following:
“Oh
Mormons, Mormons, Mormons,
We
haven’t got a clue
Of
what you folks believe in,
Or
think or drink or do.”[4]
My
disappointment with these findings is only slightly reduced
by Lawrence’s other findings and observation that on the
subject of religion Americans in general are “deeply
religious” but “profoundly ignorant.” For example, 68% said
they prayed at least several times a week, and 44% said they
attended religious services almost every week. At the same
time, only half could name even one of the four Gospels,
most could not name the first book of the Bible, and 10%
thought Joan of Arc was Noah’s wife.[5]
Many
factors contribute to our people’s predominant shallowness
on the subject of religion, but one of them is surely higher
education’s general hostility or indifference to religion.
Despite most colleges’ and universities’ founding purpose to
produce clergymen and to educate in the truths taught in
their chapels, most have now abandoned their role of
teaching religion. With but few exceptions, colleges and
universities have become value-free places where attitudes
toward religion are neutral at best. Some faculty and
administrators are powerful contributors to the forces that
are driving religion to the margins of American society.
Students and other religious people who believe in the
living reality of God and moral absolutes are being
marginalized.
Some
have suggested that religion is returning to intellectual
life. In this view, religion is too influential to ignore
in these times of the Taliban and the political influence of
some religious organizations. But it seems unrealistic to
expect higher education as a whole to resume a major role in
teaching moral values. That will remain the domain of
homes, churches, and church-related colleges and
universities. All should hope for success in this vital
task. The academy can pretend to neutrality on questions of
right and wrong, but society cannot survive on such
neutrality.
I
have chosen three clusters of truths to present as
fundamental premises of the faith of Latter-day Saints:
1. The nature of God, including the role of the
three members of the Godhead, and the corollary truth that
there are moral absolutes.
2. The purpose of life.
3. The three-fold sources of truth about man and
the universe: science, the scriptures, and continuing
revelation, and how we can know them.
II.
My
first fundamental premise of our faith is that God is real
and so are eternal truths and values not provable by current
scientific methods. These ideas are inevitably linked.
Like other believers, we proclaim the existence of the
ultimate lawgiver, God our Eternal Father, and the existence
of moral absolutes. We reject the moral relativism that is
becoming the unofficial creed of much of American culture.
For
us, the truth about the nature of God and our relationship
to Him is the key to everything else.
Significantly, our
belief in the nature of God is what distinguishes us from
the formal creeds of most Christian denominations. Our
Articles of Faith, our only formal declaration of belief,
begins as follows: “We believe in God, the Eternal Father,
and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost.”
We
have this belief in the Godhead in common with the rest of
Christianity, but to us it means something different than to
most. We maintain that these three members of the Godhead
are three separate and distinct beings, and that God the
Father is not a spirit but a glorified Being with a tangible
body, as is his resurrected Son, Jesus Christ. Though
separate in identity, they are one in purpose. We maintain
that Jesus referred to this relationship when he prayed to
His Father that His disciples would be “one” even as Jesus
and his Father were one (see John 17:11)—united in purpose,
but not in identity.
Our unique belief that “The Father
has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man’s; the Son
also; but the Holy Ghost has not a body of flesh and bones,
but is a personage of Spirit” (D&C 130:22) is vital to
us. But, as Gary Lawrence’s interviews demonstrate, we have
not effectively conveyed this belief to our fellow
Americans.[6]
Our
belief in the nature of God comes from what we call the
First Vision, which began the restoration of the fulness of
the gospel of Jesus Christ. Joseph Smith, an unschooled boy
of 14, seeking to know which Church he should join, was
given a vision in which he saw two personages of
indescribable brightness and glory. One of them pointed to
the other and said, “This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him!”
(JS-H 1:17). God the Son told the boy prophet that all the
“creeds” of the churches of that day “were an abomination in
his sight” (JS-H 1:19). This divine declaration condemned
the creeds, not the faithful seekers who believed them.
Joseph Smith’s first vision showed that the prevailing
concepts of the nature of God and the Godhead were untrue
and could not lead their adherents to the destiny God
desired for them. A subsequent outpouring of modern
scripture revealed the significance of this fundamental
truth, and also gave us the Book of Mormon. This new book
of scripture is a second witness of Christ. It affirms the
Biblical prophecies and teachings of the nature and mission
of Christ. It enlarges our understanding of His gospel and
His teachings during His earthly ministry. And it also
provides many teachings and illustrations of the revelations
by which we may know the truth of these things.
In a
New Testament letter the Apostle Paul explained his
testimony of Christ. He wrote the Corinthian saints that he
did not come to them “with excellency of speech or of
wisdom,” because he had “determined not to know anything
among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (1 Cor.
2:1-2). He added that his preaching “was not with enticing
words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit
and of power” (vs. 4). He did this, he explained, that
their faith “should not stand in the wisdom of man, but in
the power of God” (vs. 3). Similarly, the Book of Mormon
condemns those who hearken to “the precepts of men, and
[deny] the power of God and the gift of the Holy Ghost” (2
Nephi 28:26).
These teachings explain our testimony of Christ. We are not
grounded in the wisdom of the world or the philosophies of
men—however traditional or respected they may be. Our
testimony of Jesus Christ is based on the revelations of God
to His prophets and to us individually. I will explain this
process of revelation in my third premise.
What
does our testimony of Jesus Christ cause us to affirm?
Jesus Christ is the Only Begotten Son of God the Eternal
Father. He is the Creator. Through His incomparable mortal
ministry He is our Teacher. Because of His resurrection all
who have ever lived will be raised from the dead. He is the
Savior whose atoning sacrifice opens the door for us to be
forgiven of our personal sins so that we can be cleansed to
return to the presence of God our Eternal Father. This is
the central message of the prophets of all ages. Joseph
Smith stated this great truth in our third Article of
Faith: “We believe that through the Atonement of Christ,
all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and
ordinances of the Gospel.”
As
members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,
we testify with the Book of Mormon prophet-king Benjamin
that “there shall be no other name given nor any other way
nor means whereby salvation can come unto the children of
men, only in and through the name of Christ, the Lord
Omnipotent” (Mosiah 3:17).
Why
is Christ the only way? How could He break the bands of
death? How was it possible for Him to take upon himself the
sins of all mankind? How can our soiled and sinful selves
be cleansed and our bodies be resurrected by His atonement?
These are mysteries I do not fully understand. To me, the
miracle of the atonement of Jesus Christ is
incomprehensible, but the Holy Ghost has given me a witness
of its truthfulness, and I rejoice that I can spend my life
in proclaiming it.
III.
Purpose of Mortal Life
My
second fundamental premise concerns the purpose of this
mortal life. This follows from our understanding of the
purposes of God the Eternal Father and concerns our destiny
as His children. Our theology begins with the assurance
that we lived as spirits before we came to this earth. It
affirms that this mortal life has a purpose. And it teaches
that our highest aspiration is to become like our Heavenly
Parents, which will empower us to perpetuate our family
relationships throughout eternity. We were placed here on
earth to acquire a physical body and, through the atonement
of Jesus Christ and by obedience to the laws and ordinances
of His gospel, to qualify for the glorified celestial
condition and relationships that are called exaltation or
eternal life.
We
are properly known as a family-centered Church, but what is
not well understood is that our family-centeredness is not
just focused on mortal relationships but is a matter of
fundamental theology. Under the great Plan of the loving
Creator, the mission of His Church is to help us achieve
exaltation in the celestial kingdom, and that can only be
accomplished through an eternal marriage between a man and a
woman (D&C 131:1-3).
My
faithful widowed mother had no confusion about the eternal
nature of the family relationship. She always honored the
position of our faithful deceased father. She made him a
presence in our home. She spoke of the eternal duration of
their temple marriage and of our destiny to be together as a
family in the next life. She often reminded us of what our
father would like us to do so we could qualify for the
Savior’s promise that we could be a family forever. She
never referred to herself as a widow, and it never occurred
to me that she was. To me, as a boy growing up, she wasn’t
a widow. She had a husband and we had a father. He was
just away for a while.
We
affirm that marriage is necessary for the accomplishment of
God’s plan, to provide the approved setting for mortal
birth, and to prepare family members for eternal life.
Knowledge of God’s plan gives Latter-day Saints a unique
perspective on marriage and children. We look on the
bearing and nurturing of children as part of God’s plan and
a sacred duty of those given the power to participate in
it. We believe that the ultimate treasures on earth and in
heaven are our children and our posterity. And we believe
that we must contend for the kind of mortal families that
provide the best conditions for the development and
happiness of children—all children.
The
power to create mortal life is the most exalted power God
has given his children. The use of this creative power was
mandated in the first commandment, to “be fruitful, and
multiply” (Gen. 1:28), and another important commandment
forbade its misuse. (“Thou shalt not commit adultery” [Exo.
20:14], and “Thou shalt abstain from fornication” [1 Thess.
4:3].) The emphasis we place on this law of chastity is
explained by our understanding of the purpose of our
procreative powers in the accomplishment of God’s plan.
There are many political, legal, and social pressures for
changes that de-emphasize the importance or change the
definition of marriage, confuse gender, or homogenize the
differences between men and women that are essential to
accomplish God’s great Plan of Happiness. Our eternal
perspective sets us against such changes.
In
last year’s lecture, Judge Griffith explained another
characteristic of Mormons that stems from our belief that we
are all children of Heavenly Parents. He said we have “an
optimism about human potential that encourages sociality.”
As a result, “we like people and that which we do best is
build communities.”[7] While some people
complain that Mormons are not good neighbors because we are
focused so intently on our families and our Church programs,
I believe Judge Griffith had it right when he said that
Mormons are good members of a community. This is why
Mormons are often sought out to lead and staff cooperative
community efforts.
Judge Griffith also notes that because our church
congregations are defined geographically rather than by
personal preference, our Church attendance and associations
tend to be racially and socially diverse. We work
side-by-side in church with other Mormons we may never have
met or chosen as friends otherwise. We are assigned to make
frequent visits to the homes of a few other members to see
what service is needed. We are responsible to watch over,
be with, and strengthen one another. As Judge Griffith
said, we “come to appreciate and even love those whose
backgrounds, personalities, and interests are different from
our own.”[8] We learn how to serve
outside our personal
preferences and this prepares us for volunteer community
service.
Finally, our understanding of the purpose of mortal life
includes some unique doctrines about what follows
mortality. Like other Christians, we believe that when we
leave this life we go to a heaven (paradise) or a hell, but
to us this two-part division of the righteous and the wicked
is merely temporary, while the spirits of the dead await
their resurrections and final judgments. The destinations
that follow the final judgments are much more diverse, and
they stand as evidence of the magnitude of God’s love for
His children—all of them.
God’s love is so great that He requires His children to obey
His laws because only through that obedience can they
progress toward the eternal destiny He desires for them.
Thus, in the final judgment we will all be assigned to the
kingdom of glory that is commensurate with our obedience to
His law. The Apostle Paul described these kingdoms. In his
second letter to the Corinthians, he told of a vision in
which he was “caught up to the third heaven” (2 Cor. 12:2).
Speaking of the resurrection of the dead, he described
“bodies” with different glories, like the respective glories
of the sun, moon, and stars (1 Cor. 15:40-42). He referred
to the first two of these as “celestial bodies, and bodies
terrestrial” (1 Cor. 15:40). For us, “eternal life” in the
celestial, the highest of these glories, is not a mystical
union with an incomprehensible spirit-god. As noted
earlier, eternal life is family life with a loving Father in
Heaven and with our progenitors and our posterity.
The
theology of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ is
comprehensive, universal, merciful, and true. Following the
necessary experience of mortal life, all sons and daughters
of God will ultimately be resurrected and go to a kingdom of
glory more wonderful than any mortals can comprehend. With
only a few exceptions, even the very wicked will ultimately
go to a marvelous—though lesser—kingdom of glory. All of
this will occur because of God’s great love for His children
and it is all made possible because of the atonement and
resurrection of Jesus Christ, “who glorifies the Father, and
saves all the works of his hands” (D&C 76:43).
IV.
Sources of Truth
I
have described some things that may seem doubtful and untrue
to some of you. This concluding part describes our
fundamental LDS premises on how one can know the truth of
such things.
Mormons have a great interest in pursuing knowledge.
Brigham Young said it best:
“[Our] religion . . . prompts [us] to search diligently
after knowledge. . . . There is no other people in existence
more eager to see, hear, learn and understand truth.”[9]
On
another occasion he explained that we encourage our members
to increase their knowledge in every branch of learning
because “all wisdom, and all the arts and sciences in the
world are from God, and are designed for the good of his
people.”[10]
We
seek after knowledge, but we do so in a special way because
we believe there are two dimensions of knowledge, material
and spiritual. We seek knowledge in the material dimension
by scientific inquiry and in the spiritual dimension by
revelation. In the interest of time I will say no more of
the material dimension except to affirm the obvious truth
that thousands of Latter-day Saints perform brilliantly in
the material world without denying—and, indeed, by using—the
parallel truths and methods of the spiritual world.
I
will speak about the spiritual dimension and the way we
experience its truth. This concerns revelation,
God’s communication to man—to prophets and to every one of
us, if we seek.
Revelation is clearly one of the distinctive characteristics
of our faith. Beginning with Joseph Smith’s First Vision,
described earlier, this founding prophet of the restored
Church was directed and edified by a continuing flow of
revelation throughout his life. The immense quantity of his
published revelations, including the Book of Mormon and the
Doctrine and Covenants, carried forward his unique calling
as the prophet of this last dispensation of time. In this
prophetic revelation—to Joseph Smith and to his
successors as presidents of the Church—God has revealed
truths or commandments to His prophet-leaders for the
enlightenment of His people and for the governance and
direction of His Church. This is the kind of revelation
described in the Old Testament teaching that “the Lord God
will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his
servants the prophets” (Amos 3:7). Joseph Smith declared
that “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was
founded upon direct revelation, as the true Church of God
has ever been.”[11] “Take away the Book
of Mormon and the revelations, and where is our religion?”
he asked. “We have none,” he answered.[12]
Joseph Smith also taught—and this is the subject most
important to this part of my remarks—that because revelation
did not cease with the early apostles but continued in these
modern times, each person can receive personal
revelation for his or her conversion, understanding, and
decision-making. “It is the privilege of the children of
God to come to God and get revelation,” he said. “God is
not a respecter of persons; we all have the same
privilege.”[13] The New Testament
describes such personal revelation. For example, when Peter
affirmed his conviction that Jesus was the divine Son of
God, the Savior declared: “Flesh and blood hath not
revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven”
(Matthew 16:17).
Personal revelation—sometimes called “inspiration”—comes in
many forms. Most often it is by words or thoughts
communicated to the mind, by sudden enlightenment, or by
positive or negative feelings about proposed courses of
action. Usually it comes in response to earnest and
prayerful seeking. “Ask, and it shall be given you;” Jesus
taught, “seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be
opened unto you” (Matt. 7:7). It comes when we keep the
commandments of God and thus qualify for the companionship
and communication of the Holy Spirit.
Here
is a personal example. Nearly 50 years ago, while I was
employed by a large law firm in Chicago, Dean Edward H.
Levi, who was later to serve as Attorney General of the
United States, approached me with a proposal that I leave
the law firm and become a professor at The University of
Chicago Law School. He said, “I know you will want to pray
about this.” He knew that because he knew me. I had been
his student, we had frequent associations when I was the
editor-in-chief of his school’s law review, and he had
successfully recommended me to be a law clerk to Chief
Justice Earl Warren. I discussed this unexpected new career
path with my wife. My personal journal for that August 1961
records: “We prayed about it all through the weekend and
shortly felt that this was what we should do.” I wrote to
our parents: “None of us knows where this will lead, but we
feel perfectly peaceful in our hearts that this is another
valuable preparation for us.” This experience illustrates
what we Latter-day Saints mean by personal revelation—a
feeling of confirmation in response to earnest prayer for
guidance in an important personal decision. To cite other
examples, we believe that revelation also occurs when a
scientist, an inventor, an artist or great leader receives
flashes of enlightenment from a loving God for the benefit
of His children.
Some
wonder how members of The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints accept a modern prophet’s teachings to
guide their personal lives, something that is unusual in
most religious traditions. Our answer to the charge that
Latter-day Saints follow their leaders out of “blind
obedience” is this same personal revelation. We respect our
leaders and presume inspiration in their leadership of the
Church and in their teachings. But we are all privileged
and encouraged to confirm their teachings by prayerfully
seeking and receiving revelatory confirmation directly from
God.
I
explain this principle by an analogy from the law. We are
all familiar with official use of certified copies of legal
documents like a death certificate or an honorable discharge
from military duty. The official certificate allows such
copies to be accepted as if they were originals. This
practice is based on the fact that anyone who doubts the
authenticity of the certified copy can verify its
authenticity by going to the original. So it is with the
prophetic revelations of prophets of God. They are the
certifying authorities that their teachings or directions
are from God. Anyone who doubts this—and all are invited to
ask questions about what is true—can verify the authenticity
and content of the message by checking it with the Ultimate
Source, by personal revelation. As Joseph Smith taught, “We
never can comprehend the things of God and of heaven, but by
revelation.”[14]
Most
Christians believe that the scriptural canon—the
authoritative collection of sacred books used as
scriptures—is closed because God closed it shortly after the
death of Christ and there have been no comparable
revelations since that time. Joseph Smith taught and
demonstrated that the scriptural canon is open.[15] In fact, the canon
of scripture is open
in two ways, and the idea of continuing revelation is
crucial to both of these.
First, Joseph Smith taught that God will guide his children
by giving new additions to the canon of scriptures. The
Book of Mormon is such an addition. So are the revelations
in the Doctrine and Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price.
Sometimes those new revelations explain the meaning of
scriptures previously canonized—meanings that may not have
been evident in earlier times. Most often prophetic
revelations add new doctrinal understanding of the Gospel of
Jesus Christ and new illustrations of His love for and
guidance of His children. Continuing revelation is
necessary for us to understand what the Lord would have us
do in our own time and circumstances.
Second, continuing revelation also opens the canon as
readers of the scripture, under the influence of the Holy
Ghost, find new scriptural meaning and direction for their
personal circumstances. The apostle Paul wrote that “all
scripture is given by inspiration of God” (2 Timothy 3:16;
also see 2 Peter 1:21) and that “the things of God knoweth
no man, except he has the Spirit of God” (1 Corinthians
2:11, Joseph Smith Translation). This means that in order
to understand scripture we need personal inspiration from
the Spirit of the Lord to enlighten our minds.
Consequently, we encourage our members to study the
scriptures and prayerfully seek inspiration to know their
meanings for themselves. Thus, while Latter-day Saints rely
on scriptural scholars and scholarship, that reliance is
preliminary in method and secondary in authority. As a
source of sacred teaching, the scriptures are not the
ultimate but the penultimate. The ultimate knowledge comes
by personal revelation through the Holy Ghost.
It
is time for me to conclude. In doing so I offer a closing
commentary on this “Mormonism” that is so satisfying to so
many Latter-day Saints and so puzzling to so many others.
It
works. Jesus taught, “By their fruits ye shall know them”
(Matthew 7:2). To me, to countless other participants, and
to many observers, the fruits are good—good for the members,
good for their families, good for their communities, and
good for their nations. Peter Drucker told a seminar at
Harvard that “the Mormons are the only utopia that every
worked.”[16] Whatever one may
think of utopias, their participants make good neighbors.
The millions of dollars worth of supplies and services The
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its members
are quietly and efficiently providing to repair the terrible
tragedy in Haiti are evidence of that fact. That effort is
worthy of pride by its members and emulation by others.
As
an apostle, I am called to be a witness of the doctrine and
work and authority of Christ in all the world. In that
capacity I bear witness of the truth of these premises of
our faith, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
[1] Gary Lawrence, How
Americans
View Mormonism (Parameter Foundation,
Orange, Calif., 2008), p. 32.
[2] Id., at p. 34.
[3] Survey referenced id. at p.
42.
[4] “Conan Mocks Orrin Hatch and
the
Mormons,” Deseret News, December 16, 2009,
C8.
[5] Lawrence, note 1, supra
at
p. 40.
[6] Lawrence, note 1, supra
at
p. 49.
[7] Thomas B. Griffith, “Mere
Mormonism,” p, 8, a lecture sponsored by the
Latter-day Saint Student Association at Harvard Law
School, April 7, 2009, manuscript provided to
author.
[8] Id., at p. 10.
[9]
Discourses of Brigham Young, p. 247 [1978].
[10]
Ibid.
[11]
Teachings of the Presidents of the Church:
Joseph Smith, p. 195 (2007).
[12]
Id., at 196.
[13] Id., at 132.
[14]
Teachings, note 11, supra, at 195.
[15]
Teachings, note 11 supra at pp.
207-16, 265-66.
[16] Quoted in Mark W. Cannon,
“The
Mormons are the Only Utopia that ever Worked,”
Deseret News, January 13, 2010.
(Wisdom From Elder Jeffrey Holland)
Paul put it candidly, but very hopefully. He said to all of us:
"Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but [only] that which is good . . . [and] edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.
"And grieve not the holy Spirit of God. . . .
"Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you. . .
"And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you."
Ephesians 4:29–32
