A "Literal" question for Clark G.

[_Fence Sitter]

Clark,

First off, I'd like to thank you as well as Johannes and Physics Guy for joining some of the conversations up here in the higher kingdom. The variety of view points you guys are bringing have been very interesting.

It appears to me that many of your responses have been to reinterpret generally accepted meanings of stories and events in the Book of Mormon as non literal. Perhaps that is a generalization with which you might take exception but bear with me for a minute as I get to my question.

In my opinion there are many events which, in order to maintain our Mormon identity as a distinct Christian sect, have to be literal. So those aspects of Christianity which we share with most other sects, like a literal resurrection and atonement, are not part of what I am asking here. What I am looking for are which historical events that are peculiar to Mormonism or have their own Mormon interpretation, do you believe had to literally occur as commonly believed by what are referred to as Chapel Mormons? Events that are linchpin events which , if you will, are not true mean what ever occurred afterwards cannot also have happened as literally described and show Mormonism to be a man made religion.

I think there are a long list of such items which would include real Adam & Eve, real Pentateuch prophets and an actual ancient Israel as described in the Bible, the exodus, global flood, tower of Babel along with a confusion of all languages on earth,an actual church organization established by Christ, a large portion of the Book of Mormon stories, many of the divine visitations claimed by Joseph Smith and so on.

What do you view as linchpin events in Mormonism which have to have literally happened in order for it to be what it claims and remain a distinct sect?

[_ClarkGoble]

It appears to me that many of your responses have been to reinterpret generally accepted meanings of stories and events in the Book of Mormon as non literal. Perhaps that is a generalization with which you might take exception but bear with me for a minute as I get to my question.

I don't think that would be a correct characterization of my position. First we need to unpack what is meant by "literal." I think in most cases that's a pretty misleading term. What in practice most people mean by it is a naïve exegesis of a passage by reading it as if it were written by a contemporary peer using their language and culture. So for example the typical Evangelical to the degree they read the Bible reads it as if it were written by say an Evangelical living in the rural south.

So if that kind of naïve hermeneutics is what you mean by literal then I agree I'm not reading literally.

The reason I dispute that is because more often literal is put in a kind of opposition to figurative. Figurative means to read the accounts as if they were metaphors disconnected to any real event. (Parables being a good example) I most explicitly am not reading in that fashion. And often what people call literal isn't. Almost always fundamentalists of the various types have key passages that they have to read figuratively in order to defend their reading.

If you're interested I go through some of those issues with a fundamentalist over reading the Adam accounts over in the comments at T&S a few weeks ago. (Comment 42)

So to me the whole discourse by all sides around 'literal' is highly problematic. Now there is a basic debate about literal vs. figurative in the philosophy of language to have. That is whether language is grounded in literal denotive atoms of meaning or is metaphor all the way down. (The way this is put in pragmatism is anti-foundationalism where our words are vague and refer to other vague signs) I tend to favor the latter for various reasons although that gets quite technical. I'm not sure it has much practical bearing on these questions either.

In my opinion there are many events which, in order to maintain our Mormon identity as a distinct Christian sect, have to be literal. So those aspects of Christianity which we share with most other sects, like a literal resurrection and atonement, are not part of what I am asking here. What I am looking for are which historical events that are peculiar to Mormonism or have their own Mormon interpretation, do you believe had to literally occur as commonly believed by what are referred to as Chapel Mormons?

I think there are some events that have to be semi-accurate in terms of there being real figures and real events. I'm open of course to inaccuracies because I think taking the texts seriously in terms of historicity means taking seriously their being written by primitive people who simply don't have the theoretic knowledge nor traditions we do in describing events. That is their texts should reflect their culture.

I'll hold off the term 'chapel Mormons' as I think that a pretty misleading term at best. But to your question of what needs be essentially true I think there need to be real plates for the Book of Mormon, a real angel Moroni, real Nephites and Lamanites, and so forth. The readings about how trustworthy in terms of historical description the narratives are tend to be more open. But I think there definitely need to be Nephites with a loose connection to the events described at minimum. As to what doctrines are like that I'm not sure. And because I'm a fallibilist I might well be wrong in any list I'd make.

[_Fence Sitter]

Hey Clark,

Thanks for the response.

I am not ignoring, it just mulling over my response. I will say that I think your response may be why some of us that have been raised in the church have problems with this type of apologetic.

In the church I grew up in, literal was not a nuanced concept and one did not have to have a degree in philosophy in order to understand Mormonsim. I am not trying to make that as harsh as is sounds, but I have had many conversations with faithful LDS who take the stories in the Bible and Book of Mormon literally. I am sure they would be surprised to find out that not only have they misunderstood those stories, they also have no idea what 'literal' means.

If you are right about your interpretations of both the Book of Mormon stories and the Bible stories, at a minimum there has been a huge divine communication problem in a church purported to be led by a God who frequently communicates to both his leadership & his everyday members. To me it would indicate a complete failure of Moroni's promise.

More later, and again thanks.

[_Fence Sitter]

So in reading some of the past few days responses on other threads here, I can see that I am simply pulling you into a somewhat redundant thread. No need to respond here as I can see you are also trying to answer similar questions elsewhere.

Thanks

[_ClarkGoble]

In the church I grew up in, literal was not a nuanced concept and one did not have to have a degree in philosophy in order to understand Mormonsim. I am not trying to make that as harsh as is sounds, but I have had many conversations with faithful LDS who take the stories in the Bible and Book of Mormon literally. I am sure they would be surprised to find out that not only have they misunderstood those stories, they also have no idea what 'literal' means.

Most people, including Mormons, don't inquire about things they don't have to. Doesn't mean they are right. Most of these issues don't matter much for their day to day lives and so they just assume a naïve reading. As I said, you could give a very simple test of scriptural events and the vast majority of Mormons would fail that test. At best studies suggest Mormons are more familiar with scripture than the typical religious believer but that's setting a very low bar.

So my problem is that people are judging a position based upon the beliefs of the masses which seems a rather odd approach to take. We don't judge American science based upon the beliefs of general Americans. If we did that we'd get ludicrous results

My question, to turn things around, is why do these beliefs determine Mormonism rather than reading the range of meanings of the texts out of which the beliefs arise? At best we merely discover, unsurprisingly, that Mormons tend to use the same sort of hermeneutic as regular people.

If you are right about your interpretations of both the Book of Mormon stories and the Bible stories, at a minimum there has been a huge divine communication problem in a church purported to be led by a God who frequently communicates to both his leadership & his everyday members. To me it would indicate a complete failure of Moroni's promise.

How is it a failure? I recognize it seems that way to many people here - thus my comments on infallibility. But a de facto infallibility seems impossible to reconcile to Mormon doctrine. So I find it surprising so many see it as the key doctrine out of which everything follows.

I've long liked the talk on revelation by Elder Faust

God speaks, I think most Mormons have experienced it and recognize it. But he doesn't always speak to what we want him to speak. He seems rather focused on getting us to turn to him not the nuance of historical questions. We may not like that but it seems odd to demand he does otherwise.