On Personal Revelation

Saturday, May 16, 2015

I was reading a blog post that was shared on facebook—it emphasized the importance of personal revelation to those who might be struggling in the church with some church members.  (http://dinosaursarefun.blogspot.com/2015/05/how-to-stay-mormon-when-youre-tired-of.html). The writer argued that personal revelation is more important than anything—even than the revelations that come through the prophets themselves.

This term “personal revelation” is probably unique to LDS culture. Conceptually, it is an outgrowth and fusion of multiple doctrines—the idea that God answers prayers (James 1:5); that He will reveal the truth to honest seekers (Moroni 10:4-5), that the Holy Ghost bears witness of the Father and the Son and that he will teach us all things that we need to know (John 14:26), among other things—however, I think the concept is terribly misunderstood and often misapplied by Saints.

It is very important that we get this right, not only because it is so central to our doctrine—if the truth is established in the mouth of two or three witness, how much more will it be established in the mouths of multitudes of witnesses? (and are we not commanded to be one, and if we are not one we are not Christ’s? And such unity comes through the ministration of the Holy Ghost, through personal revelation—D&C 50:22-23.

Undoubtedly, we can be led astray: the Lord revealed to Joseph Smith that “there are many false spirits”, which have gone forth in the earth, deceiving the world” and that the influence of such false spirits can lead to “abominations” even among the saints (D&C 50:1-4). Certainly such “spirits” (or ideas, or whatever) can be misinterpreted as messages of the Holy Ghost, if for no other reason, I would think, than that they speak to our prejudices, to our “carnal” minds—indeed, this is what led Korihor to preach his devilish doctrines (Alma 30:53).

D&C 50 teaches that if a man preaches by the Holy Ghost and the listener listens by the Holy Ghost, then the two are edified: they grow together, and the unity and brotherhood that is supposed to be the hallmark of the Saints is achieved (at least in that thing). So how, then, do we preach and listen by this Holy Spirit, by the Spirit of the Lord? To do this, we must first be “sincere,” as Moroni says, or we must have “faith, nothing wavering” as James says. And what does that mean? What does that look like?

Here, as in all things, Jesus is the model to follow: when he went to pray before performing his atoning sacrifice, he asked God to remove the cup, to not make him have to go through what he was being asked to go through—but then, he said: “Not my will, but thine be done.”

He was willing to submit to all things that his Father saw fit to inflict upon him; he trusted his Father unwaveringly. And this must be our attitude as well: what the Lord tells us may not agree with popular opinion, may not be “pleasing unto the carnal mind,” but we must be willing to accept the will of the Lord no matter what.

This is why it is so important to follow the prophets: they can help ensure that we do not follow our own way, that we are not deceived. This, I think, is what it means to “doubt you doubts before you doubt your faith,” as Pres. Uchtdorf advised: that we be willing to submit our will to God’s. Such submission is an act of humility; it is a recognition that we don’t know everything, that we aren’t perfect. If our own beliefs are in conflict with the words and ideas of the Apostles, that should, at the very least, suggest that we re-evaluate our ideas, that we go to the Lord and ask Him for revelation, that we seek personal revelation—but that we do it with this humble, Christ-like attitude: not my will, but thine be done.” We must be willing to recognize that we don’t know everything, and that He does, that our most deeply held ideas could be incorrect, and that He can clarify—if we submit our will to His.

This way of doing things flies in the face of the received wisdom of modernity: modern thought would have us “think for ourselves”—and yet does anyone really think for themselves? Reason only works if there is a framework of reason upon which to organize one’s ideas “rationally”—a framework of assumptions that allows us to “rationalize” (with all the ultimately circular reasoning that this term implies). The ideas that form the frameworks of reason are in constant flux from a broad historical perspective, but in the myopicness of our immediate historical moment, “reason” appears to be so “rational,” so “true.” Despite the fact that we know every generation has believed it’s “truth” to be THE truth, its reasons to be THE reasons, we still fall into the same hubristic trap, thinking that this time, in our time, OUR generation has finally figured it out.

But we haven’t. Every moment in history thinks its rational framework is the best, the only, the “truth,” and every historical moment is wrong.

Does this mean that the words of former prophets were “wrong” when they told not to believe in the theory of evolution, or not to support the equal rights amendment, or not to use birth control—or even that blacks couldn’t hold the priesthood because God didn’t want them to? Well, no—at least, not necessarily. And, at the same time, yes. I cannot help but think of the Jerusalem saints who had ben told by Christ that he had other sheep not of that fold, and they misinterpreted that to mean the Gentiles (they didn’t ask for clarification, and Christ didn’t give it to them). Sometimes prophets are commanded to prophesy, and the words of that prophecy are limited by the limitations of time and place of the audience and orators (which is why we constantly need divine guidance, ever-evolving divine guidance).

This may be one reason why the Lord says that his ways are not our ways: we, by our very nature, lack eternal perspective; we are literally trapped in our times and places, and it is almost impossible for us to be otherwise (we cannot even imagine what we cannot imagine!). Perhaps this is also why we have been commanded not to judge (a commandment that was, interestingly, directed at “hypocrites” specifically: those who were more concerned with the reactions of their human audiences than the Divine audience, something each of us is guilty of): we are ignorant, blind, so we need to be careful who we condemn and why. The beams of the framework may so block our vision that we cannot see clearly the difference between right and wrong.

In the Old Testament we read about one of the kings’ who sacrificed in the name of a different god because that god was the god of the place he was invading (dang--where was that? I was just reading this story with the kids? Was it in Chronicles?); that made perfect sense in the framework of rationality that existed at the time: gods were thought to be localized. Today, idols and false gods aren’t so much made from stone and wood as from ink and ideas, but they are just as parochial as they have ever been. As the Lord told Joseph Smith: there are many “spirits” or ideas abroad in the world, and they are false, and, more often than not, thinking for one’s self is really think like you’ve been taught to think, reasoning as you’ve ben taught to reason—thinking, in other words, like others want you to think.

Personal revelation is exactly the opposite of this: it is seeking to think as the Lord thinks, seeking to know the mind and will of God so that we can do that (not my will, but thine be done); personal revelation should place one’s own will in unity with the Father’s, and with the Son’s, and with their servants, so that we become one as they are one. And if it is for any other reason, it will ultimately lead to darkness, disunity, and apostasy.

It is still a kind of personal revelation; we just need to realize that the revelation isn’t from the true source.

If we don’t like what our leaders—whether that’s our parents, our bishop, the RS president, the stake president, or the Apostles themselves—have asked us to do, before we just dismiss them outright for challenging our preconceptions, we need to ask ourselves: is my reticence because this thing is against the laws of God, or because it offends my carnal mind?