Birds-eye View of Book of Mormon Evidence

I've decided to lay out my evaluation of evidence for and against the Book of Mormon having been written by ancient, real people. Details are a discussion I'm more than willing to enter into individually and in private, but this is a debate I'm reluctant to enter online. There are plenty of other places where details are debated, so I'll just have my irresponsibly non-academic say and keep it to my own blog until I'm willing to do the work to substantiate the claims.

1. Physical evidences against the Book of Mormon being a Mesoamerican record are 100% negative (we haven't found X, so X wasn't there). I couldn't find a single positive contrary evidence on two rather extensive online lists of criticisms of the Book of Mormon. The list of such evidences has also shrunk consistently over the last several decades (although the list writers aren't necessarily aware of it). I'll give only two examples. We're going from 'No Horses' to physical remains of horses reported sporadically in primary academic reports. We've gone from 'No or Insignificant Transoceanic Contact' to an academic journal devoted to pre-Columbian transoceanic influences, and evidences for many transoceanic voyages and possible cultural influences. The trend is more and more that critics of Book of Mormon historicity are the ones claiming that "all the evidence we don't have supports our view" (a quote I really hate that has sometimes been used by people I consider friends). I believe this trend is documentable, and significantly documented in John Sorensen's book, Mormon's Codex.

2. a. Supposed positive physical evidences against the Book of Mormon are all against superficial or sloppy readings of the text, or against modern impositions on the text, and not evidences against the text itself. Very often these are readings believed by many LDSs, and even pronouncements made by latter-day prophets, including Joseph Smith. This may make them rational reasons for doubting the LDS church, but does not make them relevant for judging Book of Mormon historicity. Examples include DNA evidence, unrealistic geographies, apparent absence of surrounding cultures, and others.
    b. Alternatively, the positive contrary evidences are based on unrealistic beliefs about what science can discover. 90% of the ancestors of late 20th century Icelanders--ancestors identified from genealogical records of the late 18th century--can't be seen from mitochondrial and Y-chromosome DNA sequencing. This was with a thorough sampling of Icelandic DNA. Physical evidences of the Battle of Hastings--which happened in 1066 and at a known location--consists of only a handful of bones and no weapons or armor. Similar questions regarding the Book of Mormon shouldn't even be on the table for a rational seeker of the truth regarding the Book of Mormon. The objective seeker must do the work to examine and understand what hypotheses are rigorously consistent with the Book of Mormon and then evaluate if the hypotheses have been adequately addressed by the scientific community. In most cases, the scientific community has neither presented viable hypotheses from the Book of Mormon, nor sought the data necessary to test the hypotheses. Very few non-LDS scientists have shown the both the interest in and knowledge of the Book of Mormon needed to test historical Book of Mormon assertions. Despite this disconnect between supposed evidence and valid hypotheses, many such items are included in long lists of 'problems' with the Book of Mormon. The rational seeker would remain agnostic on such issues. To reference another analogy I find frequently misapplied, any scientific inquiry is going to put more questions on your shelf than it ever takes down. That's the lived reality of science.
    c. Another common imposition on the Book of Mormon is linguistic. When real cultures collide, including in translation, a certain number of words are always used in new ways. New things are given old names because they are somewhat similar. The Book of Mormon is often required to mean one particular thing despite documented examples of alternative meanings. For example, the Spanish calling wood and obsidian weapons swords, or describing materials from other fibers as silk or linen when they encountered them in Central America.

3. Evidences that supposedly favor 19th century origins for the Book of Mormon are all linguistic, narrative, thematic, or otherwise superficial as regards historicity. Most (and maybe all) 19th century linguistic parallels are exactly what would be expected for a translation of a religious text into 19th century religious/scriptural language (See similarities with the Late War). This is also likely true of biblical influences. Narrative and thematic elements are mostly (perhaps completely) superficial coincidences or parallels that break down upon more careful examination, or they are consistent with ancient origins. One example of this is supposed 19th century republicanism and democracy in the Book of Mormon. As discussed by Richard Bushman, Book of Mormon government and political narrative are much more in keeping with Biblical government and political systems than with 19th century rhetoric. I'm less versed in this type of analysis, but I have seen this pattern on multiple occasions with LDS scripture. Apparent 19th (or 20th) century parallels agree superficially, but examination in detail reveals better agreement with ancient parallels. I trust that a concerted study of such parallels would return a similar result to physical evidences, namely, that evidence for 19th century origins is shrinking, while detailed evidence of ancient convergences is growing.

4. Positive physical and linguistic/thematic/narrative evidences for Book of Mormon historicity are growing. These are typically dismissed (when not dismissed ignorantly) by claiming that the evidences are no stronger than the similar parallels drawn for 19th century origins. Alternatively, they are dismissed by imposing particular readings on the Book of Mormon text that are not justified. I've referred to a couple of examples, above. Rebuttals by literary and historical analysts also frequently show a lack of understanding of statistics and probability (responses to chiasmus and stylometric conclusions come specifically to mind), finding more significance in superficial patterns and less confidence in subtle but objective statistics than are rationally merited. It is also common to treat all parallels as equally valid or invalid despite substantive differences in usage. A 19th century parallel used to claim that Joseph Smith derived the Book of Mormon from a particular text is given the same weight as an ancient convergence used simply to demonstrate that the Book of Mormon is true to ancient cultures.

5. Stylometry strongly and objectively favors multiple authors. It also identifies the styles in the Book of Mormon as significantly different from other writings of proposed 19th century authors. These observations, together with a broader understanding of the effectiveness of stylometric methods, favor conclusions of multiple authorship translated into 19th century pseudo-biblical english, or intentional fraudulent multiple authorship signatures generated by Joseph Smith. I think the latter is very difficult to maintain, since there are no other similar examples in the world.
So to summarize my conclusions? There is no evidence against Book of Mormon historicity--only against certain understandings of the Book of Mormon which I believe are wrong. There is significant, positive evidence that the Book of Mormon emerged from an ancient, Mesoamerican context. I would place the (minimally) dozens of positive convergences against hundreds of negative evidences any day.

I will add that I believe there are good reasons to reject the religious authority of the Book of Mormon while still admitting that it appears to be ancient. The strongest of these, to my mind, is doubting the existence of God. That greatly increases the likelihood of atheistic explanations of its origins. I will admit that much value can be had from the Book of Mormon without believing its historicity. I know people who are examples of this. I also believe there are good reasons for not putting in the time or effort to come to my same conclusions. The main one of these is that it doesn't necessarily increase one's love for his neighbors, although I hope the Book of Mormon has contributed to increasing mine. I believe there are good reasons to not belong to the LDS church even if you do believe the Book of Mormon is ancient and inspired. The one I respect most here is when the institution hurts you or someone you need to support. I hope further historical study can reveal some interesting things about Zion that might improve the world, and I hope it can improve how believing Latter-day Saints understand our own religion. I think it can, but that's for some future posts.

Leaving Eden

I think I've always known that symbolism, allegory, and parable have always been significant in how we are taught and learn the Gospel of Christ, but part of me continues to hang on to the idea that there are elements of literal truth behind, or within, many of the allegories. Because of my early and ongoing interest in the creation of the world, I have read and reread scriptural creation accounts over many years, and paid close attention every time I've been able to attend the temple. I finally concluded that there was no way to reconcile the details of any of the creation accounts with what science has uncovered of the physical creation process. It is possible to come close, but there is always at least one point where you have to break sequence, even interpreting the sequence loosely--and I'm not simply talking about the days of creation. But part of me wants to hang on to literalism, so here's my new literal.

Once upon a time there were bits of something called intelligence. Intelligence met other intelligence and formed intelligences. Some of these intelligences chose to allow themselves to be further organized as we were born as spirit children of Heavenly Parents. We learned about what it would take to become gods, and discovered that it was a pretty hard road. Many of us decided we didn't want to go that way, and had to leave the path our Parents laid out for us. As spirits, and under the direction of our parents and older brother, we more obedient spirits created a world where we could live. It was good, and we went to live there--progressing yet one more stage toward the glory of godhood. It was a really nice place, without pain or death. Mom and Dad could come visit anytime. But it was a dead end of sorts. Satan, who had left the path to godhood, but not gone away, pointed this out to two of our siblings, Adam and Eve. He probably pointed it out to others, too. We would have to leave the Garden if we were to fully become like our Parents.

Eve decided to take the plunge. She would go to the world filled with pain, death, and forgetfulness, and separated from our heavenly parents, because she saw that it was the only way. I don't know how the mechanics of the change worked, but she came here, and Adam followed. The rest of us, here, eventually understood what Eve and then Adam figured out and decided to follow them--each of us independently choosing to leave the Garden. So it is kind of funny, Satan being punished for convincing Eve to leave the Garden. It probably really was what was done previously, and you and I might have been convinced to leave the Garden by Eve, or Adam, or someone else we revere. Maybe even God had previously convinced some of His siblings to leave their Garden in another universe. I can imagine it--What! You're punishing me for doing the same thing you did? But there's the story.

We made choices all along the way. We aimed for a goal we don't have to ever realize, but we can only get there through the stages and worlds that will shape us into gods. The prophets who revealed the creation and temple stories to us may have seen this. They didn't understand how the world was created, and they likely didn't grasp all of the events before this life. I know we haven't been given a clear picture in any of the texts or ceremonies we have available to us, today. But maybe they did see something real--something literal--and they captured it as best they could. Maybe Adam and Eve were real people, and they represent the choices each of us made before this life. Maybe the first estate literally was about showing obedience, and this one is about something else--we all showed our obedience already, so what is even more important?

I may have discarded a this-world, literal view of the creation stories, but I'm reluctant to make them too symbolic. We would lose most of our personal histories if we did.

The Theory of Agency

The universe exists as an act of will, not of God's will, but of its own.

For any readers who are philosophically educated, what follows is one possible view of reality. If you dislike it enough to reject it out of hand, you are free to just move on. I'm not interested in discussing differences of opinion over unprovable assumptions. If you want to pick on the Free Will Theorem, make sure you've understood it thoroughly, first. I'll provide links. Otherwise, if there are logical or factual errors in my extensions, I would love feedback and discussion.

I am reasonably certain that experimental quantum physics shows that our universe--at least on a very small scale--is not deterministic. No one can predict the outcomes of certain experiments, and it seems that is true because certain properties of some subatomic particles are not determined until you make a measurement. Somehow, those properties don't exist in any particular state until you do something requiring that the property have a value. That's my rough take away from the Kochen-Specker Theorem, which is probably rather imprecisely stated. I, like some others, had thought this indeterminism left a loophole to explain things like free will, or how God could interact in the world without leaving a trace, but it bothered me to force God's hand into a tiny, quantum box. I prefer a God whose hand can be seen in everything, not one who acts in teeny-tiny spaces that are always in danger of further shrinkage.

A few years ago an acquaintance explained to me that indeterminism is a problem for belief in free will. If something happens randomly, how can you ever hope to control it? If what I do is governed by a random event, it's even harder to say "I chose that" than if I take in the inputs like a computer and respond in some logical way. This acquaintance introduced me to Compatibilism. Compatibilism was supposed to give me a way to reconcile determinism and a belief in free will. I went and did some reading. I found the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, and read a few articles:

Compatibilism
Arguments for Incompatibilism
Incompatibilist Theories of Free Will
Free Will
Causal Determinism

I know I didn't understand everything in these articles, although I managed to make sense of large portions after some hard thinking. I think I understood the following:

• Causal determinism, or the idea that every event depends completely on previous events, is the most popular viewpoint among philosophers.
• Compatibilism in some form is the predominant explanation of free will held by philosophers who believe in free will. With selected foundational assumptions (which may be true), some very particular, non-intuitive definition of free will is not logically inconsistent with determinism.
• Many (most? all?) intuitive definitions of free will are incompatible with determinism. Many definitions which invoke some non-deterministic element result in logical inconsistencies. 
• Other, more subtle, variations of Incompatibilist theories of free will preserve more intuitive understandings of free will. These all have elements which may be questionable, but no one has managed to demonstrate fatal logical or experimental inconsistencies in them.
• Determinism is unproven, and there are substantial reasons for doubting its universality.
• I don't care for philosophies that disbelieve in free will or assume that it is an illusion.
• There are observable and logical limits on what free will can mean. Some of these limits are quite severe, and we are much more limited in our choices than most of us are inclined to believe.

From this reading and thinking, I couldn't settle on a philosophical view of free will that was completely satisfying. The Incompatibilist theories, while not disproven in all cases, seemed improbable in different ways. I couldn't find a mechanism for the choices except for random quantum events, and randomness destroys free will. I couldn't believe in the determinist universe seemingly required by Compatibilism, since it seems to fly in the face of numerous quantum experiments. I came to a conclusion for myself: If free will is to be preserved, it needs to be a fundamental law of nature, sort of like Relativity or Gravity.

Free Will as a Law of Nature seemed like a comfortable possibility, to me, and I gave up on the topic. I knew I wasn't equipped to investigate it further. I couldn't prove its reality, but I was confident it was logically consistent and probably not any more provable or disprovable than Determinist and Compatibilist claims. In addition, Mormon scripture is quite clear that Agency is inviolable. Even God would not (can not?) take it from us, and we appear to have had it even before coming to this earth. The chances that anyone would investigate the Law of Free Will seemed impossibly remote, but I could wait a decade or two or three to see where philosophers went. I was convinced that physics had already shown the universe to be non-determinist. I had my free will, and didn't much care if someone else thought it was an illusion.  It turns out I was wrong, though. Two rather famous figures had recently spent a decade arriving much more rigorously at my same conclusion.

The free will theorem of John H. Conway and Simon B. Kochen states that, if we have a certain amount of "free will", then, subject to certain assumptions, it can be proven that some elementary particles also have free will. Here are some links where you can learn more about it:

• Wikipedia: An excellent brief summary, including links to some of the relevant, original papers.
• A series of six, one hour lectures given at Princeton where John Conway explains the theorem and some of its philosophical implications. I really enjoyed listening to these, and they are quite accessible. You don't have to be good at math to understand the vast majority of what he says.

One thing Conway makes clear, repeatedly, is that the Free Will Theorem does not disprove determinism. It does not attempt to. Conway, like I, thinks that determinism is unproven and that there are good reasons not to believe in it, but I, like Conway, am not going to push my non-determinist beliefs on any determinists in my audience. It also doesn't prove that there is very much free will. What it proves is that if experimenters have enough free will to choose among 33 or 40 buttons independently of each other, then some elementary particles have enough free will to choose among 2 or 3 different states in a way that isn't determined by previous events. It also proves that this is a choice--made by the particles, or the universe at the location of the particles, or something--and not a random event. This is the real, philosophical key, for me. The particle's behavior is neither predictable, nor random. It is not determinist, nor indeterminist in the random sense. Just as I thought philosophical belief in free will might require a new law of nature, I think we need a new word for this type of indeterminate choice. The particle does not choose randomly, it chooses arbitrarily. I will continue with this after a technical aside.

Technical Aside

There have been two significant, professional criticisms of the Free Will Theorem. Cristian Wuthrich misses the point, a little, from my perspective. The Free Will Theorem is not intended to prove that the universe is indeterministic, and yes, it postulates indeterminism from the beginning. What it shows is that, if a limited indeterministic theory of free will is correct for humans, then it is correct even for subatomic particles. You can't give humans choice without giving some choice to electrons, too.

The second criticism attacks the Free Will Theorem on its MIN axiom. This took me a long time to figure out. The claim is that for a stochastic indeterministic system, there is no reason that MIN must be true. Simon Kochen apparently said they were interpreting MIN incorrectly and applying it too loosely, but the authors disagreed. After going over it several times, I think I understand, I think I see what Kochen meant, and I think I agree with Kochen. You can't simply assign the values chosen by the elementary particles as probability distributions. That is too soft. The particles choose a discrete value every time--not a probability distribution of values.

I admit to not having a perfect understanding of this controversy, and if the Free Will Theorem has a flaw, it is definitely in MIN. If you are smart and interested enough, maybe you can identify it or explain to me fully why the criticisms of Goldstein, et al. are correct.

Agency and LDS Thought

Agency has been a key part of Mormon thought since the beginning. It is found repeatedly in the Book of Mormon:

And the Messiah cometh in the fulness of time, that he may redeem the children of men from the fall. And because that they are redeemed from the fall they have become free forever, knowing good from evil; to act for themselves and not to be acted upon, save it be by the punishment of the law at the great and last day, according to the commandments which God hath given. Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh; and all things are given them which are expedient unto man. And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death. . . (2 Nephi 2:26-27)

God "has created you from the beginning, and is preserving you from day to day, by lending you breath, that ye may live and move and do according to your own will" (Mosiah 2:21) 

It is echoed in the Doctrine and Covenants, and in the Pearl of Great Price: 

Wherefore, because that Satan rebelled against me, and sought to destroy the agency of man, which I, the Lord God, had given him . . . (Moses 4:3)

The Lord said unto Enoch: Behold these thy brethren; they are the workmanship of mine own hands, and I gave unto them their knowledge, in the day I created them; and in the Garden of Eden, gave I unto man his agency (Moses 7:32)

That every man may act in doctrine and principle pertaining to futurity, according to the moral agency which I have given unto him, that every man may be accountable for his own sins in the day of judgment. (Doctrine and Covenants 101:78)

It has been taught by prophets throughout our history down to today. Here are some strong examples from Brigham Young and John Taylor:

"This is a law which has always existed from all eternity, and will continue to exist throughout all the eternities to come. Every intelligent being must have the power of choice." Brigham Young (Deseret News, Oct. 10, 1866, 355)

"The volition of the creature is free; this is a law of their existence and the Lord cannot violate his own law; were he to do that, he would cease to be God. He has placed life and death before his children, and it is for them to choose. If they choose life, they receive the blessing of life; if they choose death, they must abide the penalty. This is a law which has always existed from all eternity, and will continue to exist throughout all the eternities to come. Every intelligent being must have the power of choice, and God brings forth the results of the acts of his creatures to promote his Kingdom and subserve his purposes in the salvation and exaltation of his children." (Discourses of Brigham Young, p.62)

"Are we not the framers of our own destiny? Are we not the arbitrators of our fate? . . . It is our privilege to determine our own exaltation or degradation; it is our privilege to determine our own happiness or misery in the world to come." -John Taylor, in Teachings of Presidents of the Church: John Taylor [2001], 141

In addition to, and within, these familiar themes are a few intriguing ideas. One is that God judges us only according to what we can really choose. We are judged by our works and by the desires of our hearts. Joseph Smith saw his brother Alvin in the Celestial Kingdom, and we are told that those who would have accepted the Gospel, had they had the chance, will receive the full glory of God, in time. Mormonism does not hold us responsible for things outside our control, even if other humans (ourselves included) often do.

There is also the idea of the dust of the earth, and the stars obeying the will of God. This may be simply figurative language, with the laws of nature representing the will of God, but the creation account in the Book of Abraham allows for it to be something more:

And the Gods ordered, saying: Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the earth come up dry; and it was so as they ordered; And the Gods pronounced the dry land, Earth; and the gathering together of the waters, pronounced they, Great Waters; and the Gods saw that they were obeyed. (Abraham 4:9-10)

A third idea is that God would cease to be God if He violated agency. The most obvious reading is that of Brigham Young, that God will not violate His own laws. That may be true. Maybe it would just make God inconsistent, and not the being whom we worship. But maybe there is something more, and God himself is bound by requirements of agency outside of Himself. Maybe God would cease to be God because His power is inextricably tied to agency--or maybe His very existence is inextricable from agency. These possibilities seem within the realm of Mormon possibilities.

Agency is THE creative power

Returning to discussion of the Free Will Theorem, it seems that we need a new term to break us out of the determinist/indeterminist stalemate. According to the Free Will Theorem, the quantum events at the foundation of all things in this universe are neither random nor predictable. I would suggest, instead, that they are arbitrary. Most of the time, what choice is made doesn't matter--left or right, up or down, red, green, or blue--it doesn't matter. So particles choose arbitrarily, and the behavior is indistinguishable from randomness. But the Free Will Theorem provides room for something more.

I'm going to introduce some very simple, basic, uncontroversial thermodynamics, here. The energy for creation we see around us is the result of interactions of subatomic particles. This is true back to moments after the Big Bang, and I would guess it is true all the way back to the beginning of our observable universe, but maybe with some modifications. Couple that with subatomic interactions being the results of arbitrary will, and it's not much of a stretch to think our very existence is the result of agency. The stuff that is us somehow chose to become us. Maybe not very intentionally. Maybe it was something like is described in the Doctrine and Covenants: "For intelligence cleaveth unto intelligence; wisdom receiveth wisdom; truth embraceth truth; virtue loveth virtue; light cleaveth unto light." (88:40) Amazing properties can emerge from self-assembling systems of very simple components. Just look at us. Through this idea of arbitrary but not random choice, there is room in the Free Will Theorem for both the agency I believe in and for the hand of God in our lives. The problem with randomness destroying free will is gone. The problem with forcing God's hand into the tiny box of quantum events is gone, because God is able to act through the sometimes obedient will of all that exists around and within us. The Free Will Theorem provides this subtle but spectacular shift. Agency and God are not to be found in a nudged quantum event here or there. They are to be found throughout the entire fabric of existence. This agency is what created our earth: "And the Gods watched those things which they had ordered until they obeyed." (Abraham 4:18)

No We Won't Ask

I work hard to be publicly positive. I tend toward depression, and I found I was much happier when I distanced myself from current events news and activism that is just about trying to get my voice heard. I look for ways to do things with more immediate effects, because that makes me happy. Calling for peace in Iraq before the second Gulf War and campaigning for politicians I didn't personally know mostly just made me frustrated, anxious, and sad. But I'm about to join another activist movement, because I'm really sad, today, and I really care.

I believe in ongoing revelation. I believe that the leaders of the LDS church are called by God, and that they most likely seek and receive revelation from God on a daily basis. I've known people who did, like my amazing mission president, Halvor Clegg. He also taught us a lot about how revelation works. You have to ask the right question. You have to stay focused on the question. You have to interpret the answer correctly, so if the question isn't constructed well, the answer might be really ambiguous (if one even comes). You have to be humble and willing to do whatever God asks. Sometimes even Seventies don't get the right answers, so you listen attentively, and then you go do whatever God wants you to do. Maybe it's what the Seventy said, and maybe it's not.

I have resisted posting a profile with Ordain Women. I want women to have the priesthood. I don't see any theological barriers to it, and I think it would make the LDS church better in both predictable and unpredictable ways. But I've been willing to hold back, assuming that our leaders are aware of the complex issues involved with such a social change, and hoping that they really have been praying about it--despite the public silence on the question. They almost never tell us what they pray about, and I'm mostly fine with that. So, giving them the benefit of the doubt, I trust the Lord is directing His church and get on with the little practical service I manage to do and the too many apologetic, speculative, theological blog posts that I obsess about.

This General Conference has broken my internal stalemate. It's going to take me a bit to pull the pictures together and maybe make a video, but I'm going to put up a profile with Ordain Women. The public answer given to the Ordain Women movement appears to be: We will not ask because the answer has already been given--Men are to have the priesthood.

I speak to the air and to my friends and family, because I don't expect this question to be answered, but I plead to my church leaders--Tell us that you are praying about women's ordination. Tell us what you are asking. Tell us that the answers are unclear, or even contradictory among you, and that you are continuing to seek illumination and unity on this troubling subject. Or tell us what you have prayed for and that you have received a decisive, unified answer. Give me a reason to trust you on this issue. I choose to continue to trust you in my life, including ignoring a few pieces of your counsel that don't apply to me or have been hurtful to me or others, but I fear that my children will not. I fear that they will grow up and never experience the joys of Mormonism that I have felt. I fear this immensely.

It may be possible to blame me in this loss. Everything I teach my children will be colored by my feelings of exclusion and marginalization. As I feel that my leaders are not representing people that I love to God, but are only dictating partially understood messages downward toward us, I am unable to speak the same sincere reverence for living prophets I have long felt. As I turn from hurtful teachings about modesty and sexuality toward my own moral authority that has made my life happier and richer, I can't teach my children to rely on the church for correct guidance on these issues. I can't teach them the trust I grew up with and that has enriched my life in so many ways. I have to give them a more complicated truth, and I don't think they are developmentally ready for it. Without that indoctrination while they are young, I'm not sure they will have the patience to stay when they start to care about moral issues where the church is imperfect.

As I feel that God has revealed to humans demonstrable and measurable truths about how equality makes societies happier, more peaceful, and safer for women, yet my leaders reject these measurable truths, I find myself echoing Stirling Talmadge, geologist and son of James E. Talmadge, who said:

Without multiplying instances in support of this contention, I feel justified in claiming that no man, whatever his ecclesiastical position, ever was or ever can be justified in dogmatizing regarding those physical things that are amenable to measurement or scientific investigation; and, if he has made the mistake of so dogmatizing, he has no right to cast an irreligious accusation against the man who, by research and measurement, finds out the facts that show the dogma to be false. Such dogmatism has probably contributed more than any other single factor to the apparent rift between science and religion. But if any system of theology insists on holding to dogmas contrary to demonstrated facts, the scientist who knows the facts cannot accept such a system and be honest with himself. Due to such a cause, many a scientist has found his faith destroyed; but the destruction was brought about by the untruthful dogmas and not by the truths revealed by his scientific measurements.

What was once true of evolution is now becoming true of social issues. We are better at measuring social effects of organizational policies. Putting women in charge in significant numbers makes science better and more creative. It makes businesses more competitive. It makes countries more peaceful. It makes workplaces safer for women. I am unaware of studies reporting any measurable harms that have sometimes been predicted by nay-sayers when women's rights have been advocated. I don't want Mormonism to lose my children, or my children to lose Mormonism. It's already lost my sister and her family--largely over women's rights. I don't want to lose more, because Mormonism is my life. It is all truth. It is the Zion I hope to build. It is the great hope for humanity. It is the loving God who revealed Himself to a boy and who promises to reveal Himself to each of us. I hope I can give my children the faith to hope and wait. But right now I'm sad and afraid.

Continuing Revelation--Seers and Craftspeople Part 2

For me, Mormonism is unsettling. I long ago bought in to the proposition that Mormonism encompasses all truth. We do have some amazing truths that are not widely accepted or understood, but the fact that we don't have it all, yet, still bothers me. Mormonism should encompass all truth, but far too often we put up walls that keep some truth out. Modeling my thoughts after Lee Smolin's critique of Science, I offer my critique of Mormonism. At times I use Dr. Smolin's own words. I offer this in hopes that we will truly fulfill our generation's role in furthering the work of Zion and building the kingdom of God on earth.

What is Mormonism?

Mormonism is many things, but among them it is a community striving toward a shared goal--the immortality and eternal life of all. There are a small number of shared practices that Latter-day Saints consider essential on this journey, but Mormonism has resisted any canonization of dogmatic theology. In theory, new revelation will always trump old dogma, and until we are in God's presence, the final word on how to get there hasn't been spoken. In this regard, Mormonism is like science. We are more committed to the goal of exaltation than to any creed or individual prophet. Prophets don't speak the final word, but instead are guides for a particular time and place. If new circumstances or understanding come forth, we expect past prophetic utterance to give way to new light and knowledge. I would propose an ethic I believe many Mormons adhere to, including many of our prophets and general authorities:

1. If unity on an issue can be arrived at by people of good faith, applying rational argument and spiritual promptings to publicly available evidence--including prophetic utterances--then it must be regarded as settled.
2. If, on the other hand, rational argument based on the evidence (including revelation), patience, gentleness, meekness, and love unfeigned do not succeed in bringing people of good faith to unity on an issue, Mormons must allow and even encourage people to draw diverse conclusions based on their personal understanding, experience, and circumstances.

I believe Mormonism has succeeded to the degree it has because of this attitude that we teach correct principles and allow individuals to govern themselves--even if we adhere to this ideal imperfectly. Let us look at some ways we sustain this ideal.

• We canonize very little. Not even all of Joseph Smith's revelations or greatest sermons have been canonized. Official declarations are made, but are often left to fade into the history of a particular time and place.
• The great majority of decisions regarding day to day matters and the function of individual members within the church are left to local, lay leaders who change quite frequently. While sometimes constraining guidance is given at the general level, local leaders often have great leeway in its application, and local members are allowed to teach, preach, and decide many things regarding the functioning of aspects of the local congregation.
• Every member is told to seek personal revelation, and is told that it can and will come. The fact that we attempt to set up hierarchies of validity, or sometimes tell each other that our personal revelations are wrong (the skeptic telling the conservative believer that her feelings were wishful thinking, and not revelation, or the conservative believer telling the radical idealist that his experience of Heavenly Mother wasn't real revelation) has not succeeded in undoing the freedom of thought maintained by this teaching. We must learn to be aware that revelation can be in error, and we must make efforts to avoid and correct such errors, but we must learn to be prophets.
• Every member recognizes that the goal is building Zion and obtaining eternal life. None of us can do it alone. A particular program may help a group of saints for a time, but when its usefulness wanes, we must be prepared to change and grow. The inspiration of the past will never get us all the way to building Zion, so we must continue to press forward according to the new circumstances and knowledge of the saints.
• At the same time, each member of the scientific community recognizes that the eventual goal is to establish consensus. A consensus may emerge quickly, or it may take some time. The ultimate judges of scientific work are future members of the community, at a time sufficiently far in the future that they can better evaluate the evidence objectively. While a scientific program may temporarily succeed in gathering adherents, no program, claim, or point of view can succeed in the long run unless it produces sufficient evidence to persuade the skeptics.
• Membership in the community is open to any human being who desires to come to Christ, and is willing to show that desire through faith, repentance, and baptism. Considerations of status, age, gender, or any other personal characteristic may not play a role in the consideration of a members value to the community. Entry into the discussion of what is required for members of the community to achieve exaltation has further criteria. A member must master certain knowledge of the scriptures and of modern prophetic utterances, and must show a level of preparation to receive spiritual instruction through maintaining a certain degree of moral and ritual behavior in his or her life.
• While orthodoxies may become established temporarily, the community recognizes that all members of the body of Christ are needed, that practices need individual adaptation, and that an openness to ongoing revelation at all levels of administration is essential for the health of the church.

When people join Mormonism, they give up certain beliefs to which most of us are inclined, to some degree: the need to feel that they are right all the time or the belief that they can be in possession of the absolute truth in this fallen world. In exchange, they receive membership in an ongoing enterprise that over time will achieve what no individual could ever achieve alone. They also receive expert training in the craft of being Mormon, and in most cases learn much more than they ever could on their own. Then, in exchange for their labor expended in the service of Mormonism, the community safeguards a member's right to think any way he or she feels is supported by prophetic utterances and personal revelation.

Mormonism as an ethical and imaginative community

Lee Smolin calls this kind of community, in which membership is defined by adherence to a code of ethics and the practice of service and ritual developed to realize them, an ethical community. . .
". . . some ethical communities exist to preserve old knowledge rather than to discover new truths." Mormonism has the potential to also be an imaginitive community. "This is a community whose ethic and organization incorporates a belief in the inevitability of progress and an openness to the future. The openness leaves room, imaginatively and institutionally, for novelty and surprise. Not only is there a belief that the future will be better, there is an understanding that we can [only imperfectly] forecast how that better future will be reached."

Although the institution of the LDS church gives a successful Mormon many reasons to believe he understands truth and will be exalted, any good Mormon knows "that the minute you succumb to believing that you know more than [the next revelation], you cease to be a [Mormon]." Mormonism is thus both an ethical and an imaginative community.

"What should be abundantly clear from this description is that [differences are] essential for the progress of [Mormonism]." When Mormons decide prematurely that they know the will of the Lord for all time, Mormonism is in danger. This is amply evident in the struggles to change and progress in the modern history of Mormonism--from Joseph teaching that people would fly apart like glass when he tried to reveal something new, to the many who left the church when revelation came to end polygamy.

I believe that enough Latter-day Saints adhere to the ethic of ongoing revelation that progress continues to be made, despite the inclinations of any large organization toward conservative orthodoxies and their attendant wastefulness, and even hurtfulness. Progress must be viewed over time.

There is always room for improvement in how we seek and follow revelation--both personally and publicly. This seems especially true, today, when technology is forcing societal changes on the LDS church at a rate unlike any seen before. You know this is happening when there are great differences of opinion among faithful Latter-day Saints divided largely by age. This is particularly noticeable in questions of women's rights and gender identity. It is not uncommon for a faithful, thoughtful, righteous young LDS to feel that LGBT members should be allowed to marry, or that women should be given priesthood authority, but that until the Prophets speak, they will follow the word of God for today. God must have His reasons to guide His church in this way. This orthodoxy limits the discussion of difficult issues, and limits the questions that can be asked of God in order to obtain new revelation, but it cannot stop discussion or prayer completely.


The exaltation of humanity relies on the possibility of achieving unity in the long term. We must fully experience at-one-ment and build Zion. However, Mormonism progresses because we hang on to that ideal of teaching correct principles and allowing everyone to govern themselves. Information is always incomplete, both when we look at the lives of others and when we attempt to gaze into the heavens. No one can predict with certainty what the Lord will reveal, tomorrow. All we can do is train one another in the crafts of seeking and receiving revelation, and of building Zion. After that, we must trust individuals to follow their best understanding and personal revelation. As long as we continue to seek and serve, Mormonism will eventually succeed.

The task of exaltation will never be finished in this world. "It will always be necessary to fight off the dominance of orthodoxy, fashion, age, and status. There will always be temptations to take the easy way, to sign up with the team that seems to be winning rather than try to understand a problem afresh. At its finest, [Mormonism] takes advantage of our best impulses and desires while protecting us from our worst. The community works in part by harnessing the arrogance and ambition we each in some degree bring to the search. Richard Feynman may have said it best: Science is the organized skepticism in the reliability of expert opinion." Might I say: Mormonism is the organized surety that new revelation will never end?

Seership and the craft of revelation

One thing everyone who cares about Mormonism seems to agree on is that major changes are needed to build Zion. Both those who desire revelations of new doctrines, policies, and practices and those who believe that current doctrines, policies, and practices are largely sufficient, believe that ongoing revelation is essential. We have not arrived. All is not well in Zion. Something big has to happen.


"It goes without saying that people who are good at asking genuinely novel but relevant questions are rare," and that the ability to look at what has been revealed and see any substantial lack in the knowledge that has been given. The fulness has been restored. The skills in receiving revelation of this kind are quite distinct from the workaday skills that are a prerequisite for joining the ranks of LDS leadership. It is one thing to be a craftsperson, highly skilled in receiving daily, personal revelation needed to help individuals and run an organization. It is quite another to be a seer--seeing into the heavens to expand our vision of Zion.

"The distinction does not mean that the seer is not a [faithful, orthoprax Mormon]. The seer must know the subject thoroughly, be able to work with the tools of the trade, and communicate convincingly in its language. Yet the seer need not be [Peter Perfect]. There is only one person I can think of who was both a visionary and the best [Mormon] of his day: [Jesus]; indeed, almost everything about [Jesus] is singular and inexplicable."

"Master craftspeople and seers [love Mormonism] for different reasons." Master craftspeople seek revelation because, for the most part, they have discovered that it leads them to happiness. It reassures them that all is well in the world. It guides them to lovingly serve those around them. They work hard to receive it, but it comes relatively easily to them.

"Seers are very different. They are dreamers." They delve into Mormonism because they have questions about the nature of existence that Sunday School hasn't answered. If they weren't Mormon, they might be seeking fulfillment through meditation, or searching for meaning through secular humanism, or looking for God in monastic service of the poorest of God's children. They may be more universalist in their views, and may question various orthodoxies. It is only to be expected that members of these two groups misunderstand and mistrust each other.

"Of course, some people are mixtures of both. No one makes it through [years of service and leadership] who is not highly competent on the technical side." But the majority of Mormons are craftspeople when it comes to receiving revelation. Seership is actively reserved for only 15 men, and in practice only for one. Yet even he is required to hide, or never use, that gift until he is sustained as the President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

I believe a revolution is being forced on us. We need a revolution in how Mormonism is practiced and how revelation is sought and received. We need to draw on the long-standing ethic of Mormonism--the aspirations dating from biblical times that all humans will be prophets, and that the testimony of Christ is the spirit of prophecy. We need to find a way to teach our youth to seek revelation, but not just revelation in a box. Not just revelation tightly bounded by current policies, practices, and perceived doctrines, but revelation that reaches out to the worlds of possibilities declared by Joseph Smith.

"I have nothing against people who practice [revelation] as a craft, whose work is based on the mastery of technique." In fact, I love and revere many who do. I believe they have been called and chosen by God to direct His work in the latter days. Their understanding of revelation is what makes normal Mormonism so powerful. "But it is a fantasy to imagine that foundational problems can be solved by technical problem solving within existing theories. It would be nice if this were the case--certainly, we would all have to think [and pray] less, and thinking [and praying are] really hard, even for those who feel compelled to do [them]. But deep, persistent problems are never solved by accident; they are solved only by people who are obsessed with them and set out to solve them directly. These are the seers, and this is why it is so crucial that [Mormonism cultivate them] rather than exclude them."

But who are the seers who will open visions of Zion and exaltation to us? I honestly don't know. Unlike the scientific community, where an alert and open expert like Lee Smolin can identify some likely candidates, I don't even know where to look. There are certainly tens of thousands of faithful, intensely committed Latter-day Saints who are seeking to know the will of heaven. They study their scriptures, pray, attend church, serve in many callings, and in addition study LDS history and seek wisdom out of the best books in many areas of knowledge. Some are so committed to Mormonism that they will stay LDS even if they are marginalized for perhaps believing too much in some idealistic teaching of Joseph Smith. Maybe this is where we will have to look for our seers. In many parts of the world, there are no fifth generation members--and very few second. They have had spiritual witnesses of Mormonism, and are ready to give their souls to it. They know how to live righteously and how to listen to God's promptings, but maybe they don't know all the forms of American Mormonism. Maybe these people need to be placed where they can receive revelations for the entire church. Maybe they will make mistakes, but maybe they will see things from their different cultures that will point our minds to new glories. Maybe our seers are in distant lands.

Why don't we take some risks? Let our scholars share their uncorrelated inspirations in the Ensign--not just obscure Mormon journals. Call young, enthusiastic, and talented members to councils as advisers to the day-to-day decision makers. Maybe they don't yet have the skills to run an organization, or they don't have the time to be bishop or Relief Society president, but they have grown up in worlds we don't fully understand. I can see this at just a 20 year distance from my students, neices, and nephews. Let's give potential seers permission to seek for, and power to act on revelation that may be new or uncomfortable to us. It seems worth the risks, to me. "The payoff could be discovering how [God] works."

The Trouble with Physics--Seers and Craftspeople Part 1

The following is an excerpt from the conclusion of the book The Trouble with Physics by Lee Smolin. I have thought for months about how to synthesize this, and failed. Here it is, in full. It is largely a long quote, but a few sentences or paragraphs have been removed to condense it as much as possible, and I have paraphrased at a couple of points. I reviewed and expanded on some thoughts from other portions of the book here and here (essentially the same post). Now for Smolin:

"Science has succeeded because scientists comprise a community that is defined and maintained by adherence to a shared ethic. It is adherence to an ethic, not adherence to any particular fact or theory, that I believe serves as the fundamental corrective within the scientific community.
"There are two tenets of this ethic:

1. If an issue can be decided by people of good faith, applying rational argument to publicly available evidence, then it must be regarded as so decided.
2. If, on the other hand, rational argument from the publicly available evidence does not succeed in bringing people of good faith to agreement on an issue, society must allow and even encourage people to draw diverse conclusions.

"I believe that science succeeds because scientists adhere, if imperfectly, to these two principles. To see whether this is true, let us look at some of the things these principles require us to do.

• We agree to argue rationally, and in good faith, from shared evidence, to whatever degree of shared conclusions are warranted.
• Each individual scientist is free to develop his or her own conclusions from the evidence. But each scientist is also required to put forward arguments for those conclusions for the consideration of the whole community. These arguments must be rational and based on evidence available to all members. The evidence, the means by which the evidence was obtained, and the logic of the arguments used to deduce conclusions from the evidence must be shared and open to examination by all members.
• The ability of scientists to deduce reliable conclusions from the shared evidence is based on the mastery of tools and procedures developed over many years. They are taught because experience has shown that they often lead to reliable results. Every scientist trained in such a craft is deeply aware of the capacity for error and self-delusion.
• At the same time, each member of the scientific community recognizes that the eventual goal is to establish consensus. A consensus may emerge quickly, or it may take some time. The ultimate judges of scientific work are future members of the community, at a time sufficiently far in the future that they can better evaluate the evidence objectively. While a scientific program may temporarily succeed in gathering adherents, no program, claim, or point of view can succeed in the long run unless it produces sufficient evidence to persuade the skeptics.
• Membership in the community of science is open to any human being. Considerations of status, age, gender, or any other personal characteristic may not play a role in the consideration of a scientist's evidence and arguments, and may not limit a member's access to the means of dissemination of evidence, argument, and information. Entry to the community is, however, based on two criteria. The first is the mastery of at least one of the crafts of a scientific subfield to the point where you can independently produce work judged by other members to be of high quality. The second criterion is allegiance and continued adherence to the shared ethic.
• While orthodoxies may become established temporarily in a given subfield, the community recognizes that contrary opinions and research programs are necessary for the community's continued health.

"When people join a scientific community, they give up certain childish but universal desires: the need to feel that they are right all the time or the belief that they are in possession of the absolute truth. In exchange, they receive membership in an ongoing enterprise that over time will achieve what no individual could ever achieve alone. They also receive expert training in a craft, and in most cases learn much more than they ever could on their own. Then, in exchange for their labor expended in the practice of that craft, the community safeguards a member's right to advocate any view or research program he or she feels is supported by the evidence developed from its practice.
"I would call this kind of community, in which membership is defined by adherence to a code of ethics and the practice of crafts developed to realize them, an ethical community. . .
". . . some ethical communities exist to preserve old knowledge rather than to discover new truths. . . . [S]cience in its modern form evolved from monasteries and theological schools--ethical communities whose aim was the preservation of religious dogma. . . .
". . . I would like to introduce a second notion, which I call an imaginitive community. This is a community whose ethic and organization incorporates a belief in the inevitability of progress and an openness to the future. The openness leaves room, imaginatively and institutionally, for novelty and surprise. Not only is there a belief that the future will be better, there is an understanding that we cannot forecast how that better future will be reached.
". . . .
"An imaginative community believes that the future will bring surprises, in the form of new discoveries and new crises to be overcome. Rather than placing faith in their present knowledge, its members invest their hopes and expectations for the future in future generations, by passing along to them the ethical precepts and tools of thinking, individual and collective, that will enable them to overcome and take advantage of circumstances that are beyond the present powers of imagination.
"Good scientists expect that their students will exceed them. Although the academic system gives a successful scientist many reasons to believe in his or her own authority, any good scientist knows that the minute you succumb to believing that you know more than your best students, you cease to be a scientist.
"The scientific community is thus both an ethical and an imaginative community.
"What should be abundantly clear from this description is that controversy is essential for the progress of science. . . .
". . . When scientists come to agreement too soon, before they are compelled to by the evidence, science is in danger.
"If we think we know the answer, we will try to make every result fit that preconceived idea.
". . . I would suggest that enough scientists adhere to enough of the ethic that in the long run progress continues to be made, despite the fact that time and resources are wasted in the promotion and defense of orthodox and fashionable ideas that later turn out to be wrong. The role of time must be emphasized.
". . . .
"Adherence to the shared ethic is never perfect, so there is always room for improvement in the practice of science. This seems especially true today, when fashion appears to be playing too large a role, at least in physics. You know this is happening whenever there are bright young recent PhDs who tell you privately that they would rather be doing X but are doing Y because that is the direction or technique championed by powerful older people, and they thus feel the need to do Y to get funding or a job. Of course, in science as in other areas, there are always a few who choose to do X in spite of the clear evidence that the doers of Y are better rewarded in the short term. . . . Thus the progress of science may be slowed by orthodoxy and fashion, but as long as there is room for those who do X instead of Y, it cannot be stopped completely.
". . . . While the progress of science relies on the possibility of achieving consensus in the long term, the decisions an individual scientist makes as to what to do, and how to evaluate the evidence, are always based on incomplete information. Science progresses because it is built on an ethic recognizing that in the face of incomplete information we are all equal. No one can predict with certainty whether an approach will lead to definite progress or years of wasted work. All we can do is train students in the crafts that experience has shown to lead most often to reliable conclusions. After that, we must leave them free to follow their own hunches and we must make time to listen to them when they report back. As long as the community continually opens up opportunities for new ideas and points of view and adheres to the ethic that in the end we require consensus based on rational argument from evidence available to all, science will eventually succeed.
"The task of forming the community of science will never be finished. It will always be necessary to fight off the dominance of orthodoxy, fashion, age, and status. There will always be temptations to take the easy way, to sign up with the team that seems to be winning rather than try to understand a problem afresh. At its finest, the scientific community takes advantage of our best impulses and desires while protecting us from our worst. The community works in part by harnessing the arrogance and ambition we each in some degree bring to the search. Richard Feynman may have said it best: Science is the organized skepticism in the reliability of expert opinion."

"The one thing everyone who cares about fundamental physics seems to agree on is that new ideas are needed. From the most skeptical critics to the most strenuous advocates of string theory, you hear the same thing: We are missing something big.
. . . .
"It goes without saying that people who are good at asking genuinely novel but relevant questions are rare, and that the ability to look at the state of a technical field and see a hidden assumption or a new avenue of research is a skill quite distinct from the workaday skills that are a prerequisite for joining the physics community. It is one thing to be a craftsperson, highly skilled in the practice of one's craft. It is quite another to be a seer.
"The distinction does not mean that the seer is not a highly trained scientist. The seer must know the subject thoroughly, be able to work with the tools of the trade, and communicate convincingly in its language. Yet the seer need not be the most technically proficient of physicists. . . . There is only one person I can think of who was both a visionary and the best mathematician of his day: Isaac Newton; indeed, almost everything about Newton is singular and inexplicable.
. . . .
"Master craftspeople and seers come to science for different reasons. Master craftspeople go into science because, for the most part, they have discovered in school that they're good at it. . . .
"Seers are very different. They are dreamers. They go into science because they have questions about the nature of existence that their schoolbooks don't answer. If they weren't scientists, they might be artists or writers or they might end up in divinity school. It is only to be expected that members of these two groups misunderstand and mistrust each other.
"A common complaint of the seers is that the standard education in physics ignores the historical and philosophical context in which science develops. . . .
"Of course, some people are mixtures of both. No one makes it through graduate school who is not highly competent on the technical side. But the majority of theoretical physicists I know fall into one or the other group. . . .
"When I first encountered Kuhn's categories of revolutionary and normal science as an undergraduate, I was confused, because I couldn't tell which period we were in. If I looked at the kinds of questions that remained open, we were clearly partway through a revolution. But if I looked at how the people around me worked, we were just as obviously doing normal science. There was a paradigm, which was the standard model of particle physics and the experimental practices that had confirmed it, and it was normally progressing.
"Now I understand that the confusion was a clue to the crisis I have been exploring in this book. We are indeed in a revolutionary period, but we are trying to get out of it using the inadequate tools and organization of normal science.
. . . .
"I have nothing against people who practice science as a craft, whose work is based on the mastery of technique. This is what makes normal science so powerful. But it is a fantasy to imagine that foundational problems can be solved by technical problem solving within existing theories. It would be nice if this were the case--certainly, we would all have to think less, and thinking is really hard, even for those who feel compelled to do it. But deep, persistent problems are never solved by accident; they are solved only by people who are obsessed with them and set out to solve them directly. These are the seers, and this is why it is so crucial that academic science invite them in rather than exclude them.
"Science has never been organized in a way that is friendly to seers. . . .
". . . But who are the seers? They are by definition highly independent and self-motivated individuals who are so committed to science that they will do it even if they can't make a living at it.

Many of the seers have to make careers outside of the establishment, and are only welcomed back much later, if at all.

"I wish I could have an honest conversation about risk with the National Science Foundation. Because I'm sure that 90 percent of the grants they give in my field fail, when measured against the real standard: Do those grants lead to progress in science that would not have occurred if the person funded did not work in the field?
"As every good businessperson knows, there is a difference between low-risk/low-payoff and high-risk/high-payoff strategies, starting with the fact that they are designed with different goals in mind. When you want to run an airline or a bus system or make soap, you want the first. When you want to develop new technologies, you cannot succeed without the second.
"What I wouldn't give to get university administrators to think in these terms. They set up the criteria for hiring, promotion, and tenure as if there were only normal scientists. Nothing should be simpler than just changing the criteria a bit to recognize that there are different kinds of scientists, with different kinds of talents. Do you want a revolution in science? Do what businesspeople do when they want a technological revolution: Just change the rules a bit. Let in a few revolutionaries. Make the hierarchy a bit flatter, to give the young people more scope and freedom. Create some opportunities for high-risk/high-payoff people, so as to balance the huge investment you made in low-risk, incremental science. The technology companies and investment banks use this strategy. Why not try it in academia? The payoff could be discovering how the universe works."