"Thought...Eternal Restless Thought..."
- Luke Harmuth
- May 13, 2024
- 8 min read
Updated: Jan 27
A sacrament meeting talk given at Fort Huachuca, AZ
May 11, 2024
See original here with footnotes
Since we are at one of the nodes of the U.S. intelligence apparatus I decided that preparing a talk on the Christlike attribute of Knowledge would be appropriate. I would like to talk about the pursuit of acquiring knowledge generally, the risks associated with thinking, and the humility and tolerance required for the pursuit of knowledge and allowing others to do the same – weaving in the thoughts of my intellectual and spiritual heroes who lived on the edge of knowledge, holding one foot in the status-quo and the other into the unexplored intellectual and theological future. They include the Prophet Joseph Smith, Eve, Elder B.H. Roberts, Elder Hugh B. Brown, Alma the Younger, and President David O. McKay.
Aristotle once said: “All men by design desire to know.” Our Father in Heaven agrees, further stating that to know is to become like Him. “The glory of God is intelligence” (DC 93:36). He tells us to “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.” And the purpose of our studies? As Peter puts it, to have “for every man that asketh you, a reason [the Greek meaning being a logical defense] for the hope that is in you” (1 Peter 3:15). Elder B.H. Roberts, remembered as the defender of the Mormon faith, even by non Latter-day Saint scholars bluntly put it: “It is evident that the Lord never designed that his ministry should be an ignorant ministry.”
So where do we get knowledge, true knowledge? Revelation. But where do we get revelation? There are in fact many channels. Elder Hugh B. Brown, one of my role models, stated that: “We should be in the forefront of learning in all fields, for revelation does not come only through the prophet of God nor only directly from heaven in visions or dreams. Revelation may come in the laboratory, out of the test tube, out of the thinking mind and the inquiring soul, out of search and research and prayer and inspiration.” There are various ways and none of them perfect, wrong things have been supposed from the halls of academia, the pulpit, the journals of sciences, none are free from personal bias – a combination of genetic makeup, environmental experience, and social reinforcement; our certainty often masquerades as altruistic piousness. We are told to treasure the truth, then we consider our idea of truth and treat it like our treasure. This is the opposite of humility. In class this week we learned about the biases that limit the way we perceive the world, recall information, and fit it within our desires. Notwithstanding our individual limitations, truth will win in the end. Elder Brown continues: “Night never had the last word. The dawn is always invincible.” One thing will be in common among those who use all the methods: they were seekers, inquirers, questioners. They not only thought about what those who came before them had said, but asked what could be. These are the pioneers of exploratory theology. We owe our testimonies to their sacrifices. If the Church was a heart, they were the beats of its rhythm. Let’s start with Eve, the beginning of our history in faithful exploration.
To begin, I would like to start with a scenario and a question. Think back to the part of the story where Eve had taken her first bite of the fruit, and Adam had not. Eve, her mind filled with a new knowledge, wonderful knowledge, but comes with it the understanding that she cannot stay where she is at. Eden is shortly to become a place in her past. If Adam does not partake, so will he. I can imagine that she thought of this fact before she took the bite, and yet why did she press forward? A poem by Jennifer Hecht puts the question into context: “Even Eve, the only soul in all of time to never have to wait for love, must have leaned some sleepless nights alone against the garden wall and wailed, cold, stupefied, and wild and wished to trade-in all of Eden to have but been a child. In fact, I gather that is why she leapt and fell from grace, that she might have a story of herself to tell in some other place.” One distinctness we have as Latter-day Saints is our belief that Eve was the hero of that story. The hero that knew she was going beyond the bounds that had been set, an exploration of her own. Here is my question for you: In that first moment after her first bite, who was closer to God? Was it Eve, who would shortly be released from Eden, or Adam, who could stay because he obeyed? I am not going to attempt to answer the question here. Just kidding it was Eve I’m pretty sure. She who dared to ask, to use her reasoning, and decided that to explore in spite of the risk was in fact the best thing she could do. Perhaps the real test of Eden wasn’t to obey God’s commandments, for they could not be all followed at once. Maybe the test was could our first parents could choose of their own will, which commandment to follow, and which one to leave behind - the constraints forced them to become an agent. We too operate in a similar situation – no method of gaining truth is 100% reliable, in that every time we call on it it will give us the truth. Even prayers go unanswered and we are left to decide for ourselves. Will we then cease to think? Thinking is dangerous, you can think wrong, is it better then to cease your thoughts and wait to be told what to think?
Truth is a risky business, and many believe the risk is not worth the journey. Best stay inside the safety of Eden, within the walls of innocence. They wait to be told what to believe, what to do. [As a side note, I am not advocating careless intellectual anarchy, anything goes mentality.] The danger is this, risking believing in a false tradition and adopting an incorrect new one. There is no great solution to this dilemma, other than that unconditional grace and tolerance mandated by Christ that should flow from the religiously liberal to the religiously conservative, and from the conservative to the liberal. The brightest example in my eyes of this grace would be President David O McKay. Having served in a position of senior Church leadership the longest, ordained in 1906 as an apostle, his presidency lasting for nearly 20 years ending in the late sixties, witnessed much of the intellectual action.
He missed the Brigham Young versus Orson Pratt debates over slavery in the late 1800s, but McKay was there for the debate over whether evolution could be taught in the Church between Joseph F. Smith versus Elders B.H. Roberts and James E. Talmage at the dawn of the 20th century, among others issues. Witnessing these battles between intellectual rivals holding the same priesthood office he came to this conclusion: “This principle of free agency and the right of each individual to be free not only to think but also to act within bounds that grant to every one else the same privilege, are sometimes violated even by churches that claim to teach the doctrine of Jesus Christ. The attitude of any organization toward this principle of freedom is a pretty good index to its nearness to the teachings of Christ…” Under his protective shield, paths for positive change were blazed. President McKay, hearing of Elder Joseph Fielding Smith and Elder Harold B. Lee’s plans to excommunicate the University of Utah scholar Sterling McMurrin for his unorthodox views, namely evolution and publicly advocating for African-Americans to hold equal status in the Church, visited with him and told him: “They cannot do this to you! They cannot put you on trial!... [and] if they put you on trial for excommunication, I will be there as the first witness in your behalf.” President McKay fought to preserve that spark of intellectual curiosity and itch for asking “why”, which spirit permeated throughout the beginning of the Restoration.
Many believe that the Restoration began with the First Vision. Jonathan Neville, lawyer, educator, and LDS scholar argues that it really began in Joseph’s early life. Early on Joseph was inclined to curiosity, specifically towards religious questions and truth. Joseph studied the arguments of religious denominations, finding their contradictions, which knowledge of the contradictions became the basis for his trip to the Sacred Grove. Incapacitated for three years due to a leg surgery, he had nothing but time for his thoughts to reach to the stars. In his youth he joined the local debate club to hone his abilities of critical thinking and articulation. Joseph later taught “Thy mind, O man! if thou wilt lead a soul unto salvation, must stretch as high as the utmost heavens, and search into and contemplate the darkest abyss, and the broad expanse of eternity — thou must commune with God.” Later in life He tried to get the Saints to adopt the same exploratory mindset and thirst for knowledge that enabled him to receive his revelations. Joseph lamented “I have tried for a number of years to get the minds of the Saints prepared to receive the things of God; but we frequently see some of them ... [that] will fly to pieces like glass as soon as anything comes that is contrary to their traditions: they cannot stand the fire at all.” But even prior to his vision, Joseph was a sort of Socrates, questioning everyone about their traditions and their beliefs. Joseph’s vision probably gave the church leaders an excuse to unleash their frustration towards him. Elder B.H. Roberts in the Improvement Era, which became the New Era, comments on this phenomenon: “People who question because they want to know, and who ask adult questions that call for adult answers, disturb the ease of the priests. The people who question are usually the people who think—barring chronic questioners and cranks, of course—and thinkers are troublesome, unless the instructors who lead them are thinkers also; and thought, eternal, restless thought, that keeps out upon the frontiers of discovery, is as much a weariness to the slothful, as it is a joy to the alert and active and noble minded. Therefore one must not be surprised if now and again he finds those among religious teachers who give encouragement to mental laziness under the pretense of "reverence;"...because they themselves…would avoid the stress of thought and investigation that would be necessary in order to hold their place as leaders of a thinking people.”
Even in The Book of Mormon, prophets prior to receiving the types of revelation that earned them a place in Mormon’s anthology, first passed through a trial of their own before their finest revelations came. Alma the Younger, whom Mormon dedicates much of the record to, is the Book of Mormon’s chief intellectual. His explanations of faith mature over the book’s timeline, Alma II himself modifying his approach after each interaction. He must have enjoyed this process, he said that it was enlightening, and in chapter 32, speaking to a group of disaffected believers, he summoned the totality of his lived experience and studied knowledge, learning from his experiences with Korihor, and drawing in material from Lehi to King Benjamin, he delivered one of the greatest works in epistemological exploration of heavenly knowledge put in so few words. That the exploration is faith drawn from knowledge, which turns back into faith, and the process is more important than the prize. The fruit of the experience of faithful exploration for divine knowledge is sweet above all that is sweet. It is an adventure. It is my wish that we as a Church continue in that tradition as Eve began it, with Christ’s Atonement there to cover us as we act according to our knowledge and our conscience, exploring the world as we see it, and while we probe the heavens as we feel it – waiting as Alma says, for the “tree to bring forth fruit to you” (Alma 32:43). May we wait, but actively wait, in that state of thought — eternal restless thought.

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