the narrator wrote:Droopy wrote:"Absolute" in what sense?
In the divine, unchanging sense repeatedly taught by Church leaders. You read my Element piece, you know what I am talking about.
All divine, unchanging principles are understood as absolute. However, their
application within the sphere of mortal affairs admits of degrees, levels, and stages of both comprehension and application. Absolute, eternal truths are, within a gospel context, capacitated or calibrated to the needs and/or level of ability to absorb or accept that truth.
Hence, the Law of Moses is an instance, or specified application of the gospel of Jesus Christ to a particular people under particular conditions. That law (the "schoolmaster to bring the children of Israel to Christ, as Paul described it) was fulfilled and discontinued during the ministry of Christ. The upshot of all this is that its discontinuance, and the stark differences in a number of areas we see between the doctrines and principles of the teachings of Jesus and of the restored gospel, do not mean that the Law of Moses was not a divine system who's laws and ordinances, as they came by revelation, were not true and true absolutely. They were, in other words, absolutely true
within the sphere, bounds and conditions of their applicability and purpose.
The Law of Moses contains a body of doctrines, practices, and ordinances that are not only absent with regard to the modern Church, but which are in some cases sharply inconsistent with post Mosaic teachings, or appear to be so, from a surface film perspective in which application and purpose are ignored in favor of a concentration on the abstract principle of absoluteness alone.
We are not to love our friends and hate our enemies, but love both. We do not sacrifice animals as symbolic of the coming sacrifice of Christ, but sacrifice our sins and purge our hearts of them. Virtually the entire ritual religious life of Israel was understood to have been fulfilled in Christ, and its ordinances, principles and observances subsumed within the higher gospel Christ taught during his mortal ministry.
Plural marriage is another example in which we have two principles which, on their face, would appear to be in contradiction, but upon closer inspection are seen to be two instances or applications of the same eternal principles and laws which are manifest at different times among different peoples, or individuals, to various degrees and with unique conditions, boundaries and demarcation lines attached to their practice or application.
The WoW is yet another example. At first, it was not known, and use of psychoactive substances (tobacco, alcohol, and caffeine respectively) went on as before. When it was revealed, it came in stages or segments over time, all the way into the late 20th century. It was revealed, and continued to be revealed over time, as cultural conditions required its further unfolding and expansion. At first, it was only tobacco, alcohol, and "hot drinks." Later, this last was, not expanded, but clarified and refined through revelation to mean, precisely, coffee and tea, as well as taking anything in a very hot state.
During the last third of the 20th century, it became necessary to expand the spirit of the WoW such that its letter did not artificially choke its full meaning and import. The WoW is far deeper and more expansive than its few textual restrictions, and those restrictions are not exhaustive. However, their limits and application, based in the text of the scriptures alone, without continuing, contemporary revelation centered in divinely authorized, legal administrators of the gospel on earth, would inexorably become part of a closed canon of the traditional sort.
The point to be made here is that, although divine truths are absolute truths, their application to the mortal sphere must, more often than not, be partial, limited, and acquired by degrees and incremental steps. In any such process, as more knowledge is incrementally acquired, some aspects of that system will appear contradictory or inconsistent at some time within that process of knowledge acquisition and comprehension.
Beer may be accepted at one point and restricted at another, within a gospel context, without any conflict over what is "official" doctrine and what is GA opinion or prejudice, when one realizes that many of the absolute truths the gospel identifies to us may be understood as absolute in two senses. The first would be a truth such as the law of chastity, in which the boundaries of sexual conduct are clearly and rigorously demarcated and for which no exceptions to the general rule are understood to exist (save for, perhaps, some excruciatingly extreme or unusual circumstance that would be gist for thought experiments in an ethics class, but have only the most tangential relevance to real life).
The second would be absolute truths that come to us through a kind of gospel prism, refracted as higher or lower truths that, while all true, are true relative to our own condition and spiritual maturity and hence, our ability to receive and comprehend that truth.
For example, the Lord may accept the drinking of beer by his people in a period of early gospel development that he will not accept under conditions of greater spiritual maturity. If then, it is an eternal truth that humans should not drink beer, it may also be an eternal truth that, while a gospel dispensation is in its infancy, it is better to lead his people toward greater light and knowledge, and the greater disciplines of gospel living, line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little, and there a little, as opposed to thrusting a people into "the deep end of the pool" all at once.
Indeed, this is a well established concept within the Church. The point is that, while there are many absolute, eternal truths, not all of them have the same relevance or applicability for a specific people within a specific cultural context and under specific conditions attendant to the place in a gospel dispensation, or, we could say, a gospel developmental period, in which a people find themselves.
Alcohol generally is another case in point. The prohibitions of the WoW regarding it are hardly fully circumscribed by their relation to human health. The covenant promises associated with living the WoW in this area are primarily spiritual, far transcending physical health, though this is clearly an attendent benefit.
As a hypothetical case, we can imagine a society who's spiritual, cultural, and intellectual maturity are of a kind and depth such that alcohol could be (but not necessarily should be) used for social or ceremonial reasons, one might find the WoW modified to take that greater spiritual, cultural, and intellectual maturity into consideration.
In another culture, such as ours, for example, for whom alcohol, as well as other drugs, are perceived by a critical mass of that culture as a
recreational drug and as primarily a means of intense perceptual and psychological catharsis and self administered chemical anesthesia, the use of which is closely associated with a plethora of the deep social pathologies that permeate our society, alcohol would be prohibited as a matter of absolute abstinence.
The tolerance of a culture, in other words, for alcohol, before its use reaches pathological levels, is much greater in one, and quite narrow in another.
In the same sense, organized, just warfare is not absolutely prohibited to the Lord's people, nor is personal self defense. However, a specific people (or person) within a specific context, such as the Anti-Nephi-Lehies, may take upon themselves, by covenant with the Lord, an absolute prohibition, based upon their own history and cultural background. Divine, eternal, absolute truth could encompass both states of affairs as
instances of the application of core, overarching absolute truths to unique, human conditions, without any contradiction because
both peace and human warfare have gospel application, and are salient features of the human condition which the gospel doesn't simply absolutely prohibit or absolutely enjoin, but
mediates, defines, and
conditions predicated upon overarching eternal, absolute laws and principles.