Religion Final - Foundations of the Restoration

the idea that your faith in and knowledge of the restored gospel is supposed to become more complex and better informed as you grow and are challenged

but it wont unless you treat it as it deserves and the scriptures prescribe- namely to diligently seek truth form the best sources of knowledge, relying simultaneously on both your heart and your mind.

ingredients of an historical narrative

objective facts, subjective facts, interpretation

D&C 88:188

***And as all have not faith, seek ye diligently and teach one another words of wisdom; yea, seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom; seek learning, even by study and also by faith.***

Becoming a seeker

is hard intellectual and spiritual work…. seekers learn to identify and interrogate their assumptions

epistemology is the

philosophy of knowledge- metacognitive

moving to simplicity

**We begin in simplicity, which includes faith in simple truths such as “I am a child of God, And He has sent me here.”5 But simplicity also includes faith in assumed ideals such as “[God] has given me an earthly home With parents kind and dear.As we grow up, we learn that things are more complex than we may have been taught and more complex than we may have assumed. This is true about every subject—math and language, art and science. It is true about the gospel of Jesus Christ as well. The Restoration isn’t simple, and when all goes according to plan, we confront its complexity as part of growing up.**

confronting complexity

**When we confront complexity, it is common to feel dissonance or tension between the ideals we thought we knew and the reality we now see. We become aware that there is more than one narrative and more than one point of view. Then we think about what we know and how we know it. We consider and experiment with options and alternatives. We choose what we will believe, how we will interpret the facts, and what narrative we will use to make sense of the facts. We choose whether our faith will continue to be childish, grow up with us, or die.**

**Seekers make that choice metacognitively by diligently learning from the best sources. They read the best sources, not other people’s opinions about the best sources. They come to terms with what they know and how they know it. They may rely on others—parents or professors—in the beginning, but, ultimately, seekers don’t let anyone else choose for them what they know and how they know it.**

other side simplicity

**is informed faith. It is more mature than complexity. Other-side simplicity knows everything complexity knows and more. For our faith to grow and develop according to God’s plan, we must come to terms with complexity but not get stuck there. The plan is for us to seek our way from simplicity through complexity, by study and by faith, until we arrive at the simplicity on the other side of complexity.**

over coming bias -

**Being biased is a human condition. Bias thrives when we ignore evidence. What I am advocating is that we be aware of our biases and educate them. Let’s learn all the facts and evaluate various interpretations.**

putting in the work

the restoration is richly documented… there are lots of best books ( primary sources of knowledge) found at josephsmithpapers.org

seekers are not content

to let unexamined assumptions pose as truth

**“The closer you get to Joseph Smith in the sources, the stronger he will appear, rather than the reverse, as is so often assumed by critics.”**14

**the stronger he will appear, rather than the reverse, as is so often assumed by critics.”**

classical theism

**most Christians today share its assumption that God is immaterial**

internalize the difference between the restored truths god

revealed about himself to joseph smith and classical theism

**the transcendent ultimate must not only be unchanging, it must be unmoving,**

**indivisible, unaffected, and outside time--since each of those things implies change.**

**When later thinkers began to think about the Jewish and Christian God philosophically--**

**as they had to from at least the second century on--they tended to do so in Parmenides's terms.**

**"Parmenides's way of thinking about**

**reality became an embedded cultural assumption.**

god and Christ were of one uncreated

substance, immutable, impassible

april 1844

**King Follett discourse**

**Joseph rejected the assumption on**

**which traditional Christianity is based**.

***ex nihilo***

**God created out of nothing**

**There are two basic kinds of stuff–**

**element and intelligence**.

 **identifying and interrogating the**

**assumption on which Christianity is based**

**long before Joseph Smith offered his first prayer, thousands and millions of people must have yearned, as Sarah [Edwards] did,**

**for the assurance that God was not the severe, distant, impersonal deity of Jonathan Edwards, but the kind, loving, and very personal God that Joseph found in the Sacred Grove**

1770’s

universalism- god will save everyone

armaniamisn/ methodism

choosing to follow, putting your arm up to follow chirst

calvianism

Jonathen Edwards, no choice, god hates you so better be on your best behavior always.... presbyterianism ( god is sovereign and in control)

sarah pierpont

Edwards wife, not really a religion, but had an experience that she new edward was wrong

deism

christ is a philosopher

1832

Brief Auto bio by joseph about teens

Joseph’s mother’s memoir

tells how Josiah Stowell came from Pennsylvania to hire Joseph, “having heard, that he was in possession of certain means, by which he could discern things, that could not be seen by the natural eye.

1834

anti-Mormon book Mormonism Unvailed includes statements from some of Joseph’s New York neighbors who were with him when he discovered a seer stone and/or when he searched for treasure.

Omni 1:20

the gift and power of god

1829

BOM was translated during that time and filed for copyright

1982

another testament of jesus christ was added as a subtitle

DC 3:19-20

that they may believe the Gospel & rely upon the merits of Jesus Christ & that they might be glorified through faith in his name & that they might repent & be Saved

**demonstrate that when the powers of sin assailing filled his soul with deep despair,**

**Joseph Smith sought the God of love. His humble prayer was answered. He found the living, loving, God. So can you**

1832

joseph wrote an auto biography including this passage about his early teens

JSH 1:8

**mind became somewhat partial to the Methodist sect, and I felt some desire to be united with them**

JSH 1:20

**I have learned for myself that Presbyterianism is not true**

**those two lines are enormously meaningful. They say so much about what Joseph was looking for.**

**They reveal the terrible dilemma Joseph struggled to resolve. The nature of God is at stake**

**the Presbyterian God is sovereign. That's the most important thing about Him. He is in control.**

**He might decide to save us but is much more likely to damn us. And there is nothing we, in our totally depraved fallenness, can do about it.**

methodists

choosing to come to christ

1838-39 mansucritp history

confusion of the sects, reflected and then went and prayed

**there is so much at stake in the historical sources of Joseph Smith's first vision that truth seekers must learn what these sources say**

**while seeking the revelation required to know whether what they say is true.**

1969

byu publishes a issue on the first vision

1970

James Allen Published the 8 accounts

1971

backman published the first scholary book on the first vision

JSH 1:25

**I knew it, and I knew that God knew it, and I could not deny it**

**gain knowledge of the treasure seeking sub-culture in which God revealed the Book of Mormon plates to Joseph. Doing that will**

**help us to better understand Joseph Smith-History in the Pearl of Great Price and the restoration of the Savior's gospel**.- **practice slow thinking by identifying and interrogating assumptions and being source critical**

DC3:20

**rely upon the merits of Jesus Christ and be glorified through faith in his name, and that through [our] repentance [we] might be saved**

1834

anti mormon book

**Joseph Smith and others solved the problem the Lord gave them of getting the Book of Mormon translated**, and for us to **seek learning by study and by faith to answer the questions:**

**What can be known about the translation of the Book of Mormon, and how can we know it?** 

1832

autobio about he traslated the book

 **gain more appreciation for what it means that the Book of Mormon is another testament of Jesus Christ,**

**and that one of the Book's main purposes is to convince everyone that Jesus is the Christ**

**Campbell thought it was absurd that the Book of Mormon says that Jews like Nephi were Christians long before the birth of Jesus Christ.**

**When the Book of Mormon was published in 1830, no one thought of people who lived before Christ as Christians.** 

BOM restores…

the knoweldge that Jesus is the Christ and that all the other religions were wrong lol

2 Nephi 10

Prophcies that Jesus is the Christ / would be called Christ

3 Nephi 11

jesus testifying of his resorection

DC3: 19-20

repent and will be saved

**the Lord is resolving problems by restoring the priesthood, and** how **that means**

**more than we might assume, including that the priesthood is being restored as we speak**.**Jesus Christ called, ordained, and authorized apostles with his priesthood--power to act in his name to do his work. He also gave them keys--permission to use the priesthood to accomplish his purposes**. **But by about 100 CE, the only one of the Savior's apostles who remained on earth was John, and he was exiled to an island in the Aegean Sea**.

priesthood problem 1 : no apostles

joseph prayed and **Peter, James, and John came to them and conferred the priesthood they needed.**

problem 2: **Unless families get sealed by the power of the priesthood, the creation will be for nothing at the Lord's coming, and there's no one around with sealing priesthood** 

**Prophesied Solution: The Lord will send Elijah to Joseph with sealing priesthood** 

**Priesthood Problem 3: The Savior's gospel says that unless a person makes and keeps the baptismal covenant (mediated by someone with priesthood), they're damned. Joseph and Oliver don't know anyone with priesthood who can officiate in the ordinance of baptism.**

**Revealed Solution: On May 15, 1829, the man who baptized Jesus appeared, resurrected, in the Pennsylvania woods, gave Joseph and Oliver priesthood, and instructed them how to use it to make the baptismal covenant.**

**Priesthood Problem 4: Joseph and Oliver needed more (what we now call Melchizedek) priesthood to give the gift of the Holy Ghost.**

**Solution: Peter, James, and John came to them and conferred the priesthood they needed.** 

**Priesthood Problem 5: Joseph and Oliver needed revelation to teach them how to exercise the priesthood to organize the Savior's church.**

**Revealed Solution: That revelation came to them in the Whitmer home. They obeyed it by gathering the baptized believers and receiving their consent, on April 6, 1830, to serve as the Lord's apostles, then ordained each other as presiding elders in the Savior's restored church.** 

**Priesthood Problem 6: Everyone needs an endowment of priesthood power in order to regain God's presence and stay there. That power is only available in the ordinances of the Melchizedek priesthood. That's all news to Joseph. He knows nothing about temple or endowment.** 

builed temples…

**President Nelson teaches that the most important thing happening right now, the greatest cause, and the biggest challenge, is the gathering of Israel.**

**The purpose of this lesson is to learn how you relate to Israel, what it means to gather Israel, and why it matters.** 

the name of isreal is

the man of jacob, the literal descedants of jacob, the ture believers in christ, regarldess of their lineage or gerographical location

**Isaiah**, in a nutshell, **is about how God justifiably let Israel be scattered, and how,**

**in his mercy, he will renew his covenant and gather Israel again**

**Israel is better defined by making and**

**keeping covenants than it is by DNA or ancestors.**

Matthew 28:19

baptize all nations and bring them to the church ( gathering of isreal)

stem of jesse

christ

rod

it is a servant in the hands of christ

Gathering isreal is accomplisehd

by the great commission

Neslon Taught about the great commission

**When we speak of the** ***gathering*****, we are simply saying this fundamental truth: every one of our Heavenly Father’s children, on both sides of the veil, deserves to hear the message of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. They decide for themselves if they want to know more.**

**internalize evidence that Joseph Smith was a revelator and to learn to think about and**

**act on revelation in better ways than William McLellin chose to do**.  

communication theory ( 3 parts )

* **an encoder sends a signal**
* **a decoder receives the signal**
* **noise between them hinders perfect transmission and reception**

semantic noise

when the decoder lacks the power to decipher, ( if the revelation was in spanish)

physiological noise

the mental state prevents accurate interoperation of the signal

 **God is a flawless, divine encoder,**

**but mortals are the decoders**.- no mortal has been a perfect decoder ( because of our noise)

DC 66

William McClellin story- secret reveltaion, x communication

DC 1:24

I am God, I dont make mistakes, my prophets make mistakes

**learn to read and think about the Bible**

**as Joseph Smith learned to read it and think about it**.

Restoration of the Church Aspects

kept all the best elemets, got rid of the crap, and added better features

**Protestant Christians declare that the Bible alone, not the Pope,**

**is the highest authority and the ultimate arbiter of truth**.  

sola scriputra

only scriptures, bible is the hightest authority

**learn more about the February 1833 revelation we call the Word of Wisdom while** **thinking**

**slowly through simplicity and complexity to the simplicity on the other side of complexity**. 

1850’s

parents started teaching kids about WOW

 **better understand the complexity surrounding the Book of Abraham and to appreciate**

**how the Book contributes to the foundations of the Restoration.**

**God covenanted with Abraham that he would provide him a promised land**

**and endow him with the power of priesthood covenants**.

**Abraham’s version says clearly what the other accounts obscure: that “the God*****s*** **[plural]**

**organized and formed the heavens and the earth**

Book of Abraham summary of info

1842 it was published, teached about the plan of salvation, we dont know where it came from but that shouldnt stop us from learning about it.

**earn how the Lord kept conditional, covenant promises he made to the saints when he said if they would move to Ohio and build a House of God,**

**he would endow them with power and send Elijah the Prophet with priesthood**. is to **learn how the restoration resolves Christianity's soteriological problem**

**Latter-day Saint theology is, above all else,**

**a theology of death’s conquest**

Soteriology Problem

* **God loves all people and desires their salvation (1 Timothy 2:3-4)**
* **Salvation comes to those who knowingly and willfully accept Jesus Christ as their Savior (John 3:16)**
* **Most people live and die without accepting Christ, or even knowing that they could or should**

**he Lord restored the doctrine of redemption for the dead, especially the ordinance**

**of baptism for the dead, as part of the ongoing Restoration**.

assumption that the earliest christians did not make

death is a deadline that determines a person’s salvation

**what a free agent desires to do with the Savior’s atonement once they know about it-**

**-is what determines salvation here or hereafter**

solution to the soteriological problem

people can be baptized for the dead!, debunks the idea that death is the deadline ( associated with Jane Neyman)