{Consider this an epilogue, or perhaps a coda, to my (and Pascal’s) previous posts about Joseph Smith, the founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.}
According to Wikipedia, “Joseph Smith wrote that in 1820, while he had been praying in a wooded area near his home, God the Father and Jesus Christ together appeared to him, told him his sins were forgiven, and said that all contemporary churches had "turned aside from the gospel."
Again, according to Wikipedia, “Christianity’s three synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) recount the story known as the “transfiguration”. Jesus and three of his apostles, Peter, James, and John, go to a mountain (later referred to as the Mount of Transfiguration) to pray. On the mountaintop, Jesus begins to shine with bright rays of light. Then the Old Testament figures Moses and Elijah appear and he speaks with them.”
What criteria do we use to distinguish the above claims? We have only the testimony of eyewitnesses to go on. Were Jesus’ disciples more reliable chroniclers than was Joseph Smith? How do we conclude that Jesus was the messianic Son of God, while Joseph Smith was merely a savvy huckster who knew a good con when he invented one?
The following passages are from Sir Isaac Berlin’s The Magus of the North, a study of the thought of 18th-century German philosopher (or anti-philosopher) Johann Georg Hamann:
Eighteenth-century German thinkers were profoundly troubled by the abyss between the general statements of philosophy and empirical reality, between universal ‘truths of reason’ and ‘truths of fact’. They agonized over the question of how necessary truths, good for everyone in all places and at all times—say, the existence of God, or of the immortal soul, or of universal objective moral truths—could be inferred from historical propositions, empirically known, and therefore contingent.
God spoke to men at identifiable times, in particular places. Jesus was crucified in a particular place at a particular time, certain apostles and prophets stated holy truths based on their experiences, commonly called supernatural, in particular places at particular times. Can the eternal truths revealed by sacred history rest on accounts which no evidence could render absolute, infallible?
If, for the sake of argument, the supernatural exists, and if the supernatural from time to time deigns to interact with the natural, how are we to distinguish revelation from delusion or invention? Matthew’s gospel refers to Jesus’ parables as revealing “things hidden since the foundation of the world,” and Paul writes to the Corinthians about “a man” (we understand it to be Paul) who was “caught up to paradise, [where] he heard inexpressible things, things that man is not permitted to tell.” If someone serves, willingly or not, as a conduit for the divine, how can anyone else judge, evaluate, or assess the truth of what emerges? Why believe one set of implausible claims but dismiss another set? If Jesus could walk on water, why could Joseph Smith not produce a loose translation of a text he admittedly could not read?
According to the Book of Acts:
“A Pharisee named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law who was honored by all the people, addressed the Sanhedrin. ‘Leave these men [followers of the crucified Jesus] alone; let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop them; you will only find yourself fighting against God.”
And, according again to Matthew’s gospel, Jesus said this about identifying false prophets:
“By their fruits you will know them. Every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Therefore, by their fruits you will know them.”
The fruits of Mormonism, like the fruits of Christianity, are a mixed bag; who could possibly weigh the good fruits against the bad, much less weigh one religion's yield against another's?
Isaiah Berlin, on the quandary of the 18th-century German thinkers:
“They concluded that all approaches of the varied religions were but tentative efforts to arrive at the one central truth, and that all these different avenues had an equal right to our respect and veneration.”
The flip side of that tolerant coin is that, for the skeptic, all religions equally merit disrespect and derision for their unsupported claims about invisible beings who dwell in an undetectable (except through the eyes of faith) supernatural realm.
Either way, Mormonism comes off as no better and no worse than Christianity, Judaism, Islam, or any other religion. 1 Only the patina of antiquity distinguishes those older faiths from Joseph Smith’s 19th-century invention; and Palmyra, New York is no more unlikely a place for divine revelation than Nazareth, Bethlehem, Jerusalem, or Mecca. “No prophet is accepted in his hometown,” said Jesus, and Joseph Smith was no exception to that rule. I do not accept his gospel, but, having grown up a stone's throw from Palmyra, I will try to show him more respect in the future.
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1 Except, of course, for L. Ron Hubbard’s bogus Scientology, which is from the devil. The only science-fiction author worthy of having founded a religion was Philip K. Dick, and he had the good sense not to do so; instead, he simply left a scripture (the Exegesis) for posterity. I wonder if Urim and Thummim could translate that?
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Real vision or huckster's hoax?
Transfiguration or drug-induced hallucination?
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