Via Times and Seasons, I read a post entitled “Epistemology: How We Know Things” by Nathan Richardson at Latter-day Saint Philosopher.  Excerpt:

Second, according to the essay, each of the four sources of knowledge has both strengths and weakness; none of them can be used alone in every situation. I questioned this assertion at first, because so many prophets have affirmed the supremacy of revelation as the strongest source of pure knowledge.

…

The only weakness I could think of for personal revelation is that the Lord will not use it to tell us trivial things that we should figure out on our own, such as which brand of toothpaste to buy. But that is not a weakness of personal revelation, so much as a (possibly temporary) limitation the Lord had placed on its use. It left me wondering what weakness the essay referred to.

As it turns out, the weakness cited was that “intuitive events . . . may be difficult to describe to someone else. It is this privateness, this inaccessibility to public scrutiny, that is the weakness of intuitive knowledge.”

I have a suggestion: the weakness of personal revelation in particular, and intuition in general, is that it is as easily mistaken as any of the other four methods.  Just as one may rely on an unreliable authority, or use faulty logic, or fall victim to misleading empirical phenomena, intuition can be led astray.  One may intuit or perceive something that is not actually substantial or reliable (i.e. interpret as revelation something that is not).  One may have spent his entire life forming his sense of intuition (or revelation) to be attuned to such things. One may intuit genuinely but incompletely; he may miss the point.

I don’t dismiss revelation or intuition; I believe it is natural, good, necessary, and designed and conducted by God.  But I also believe that of all of our other God-given faculties of knowledge.  Because they are all God-given, and because mistakes can be made with any of them, I think we need a more integral epistemology, where one form of knowledge is notexalted nor automatically trumps any or all of the others.

From The Love That Satisfies by Christopher West, pp. 124-126:

I’d like to ask you to suspend your disbelief for just a moment and walk through the following scenario with me.  Imagine that I’m an angel sent by God to give you an important message.  You and I are standing before a beautiful stone building.  It looks almost like a monument, with a mysterious tower reaching to the heavens.  I say to you, “God, the Ultimate Source of the universe, the One, True, Omnipotent, Omniscient, Immutable, Incomprehensible, Infinite, Sovereign, Righteous, Glorious, Holy, Merciful, Loving, Living God who created you, through an incredible self-emptying on his part, has made himself really, truly, actually, substantially present in that building.”  Now, with your disbelief still suspended, imagine it to be true.  God, the One Real God, is really in there.  What would you do?  What would you want to do?

Imagine I tell you that God will allow you to enter that building and stand in his presence.  What an awesome, unfathomable, glorious opportunity it would be — the chance of a lifetime.  But there’s more.  Suppose I tell you that God will allow you to see him through a veil.  Inconceivable!  But there’s more.  God will allow you to reach out and touch him through that veil.  Outrageous!

Let’s review: God is actually in this building and you are allowed to enter and stand in his presence.  You are able to see him and touch him through a veil.  Unfathomable?  Inconceivable?  Outrageous?  All that is nothing compared to this final proposition, this final gift.  God has told me to tell you — I can barely bring myself to say it.  In fact, I asked the Almighty several times in utter bafflement if I had heard him correctly, and he assured me that I had.  It’s going to sound crazy, preposterous, mad, I know.  But again, keep that disbelief suspended.  Are you ready?  (This is crazy!  This is insanely crazy!  Deep breath…) — God has told me to tell you that not only does he want you to be with him in his presence and to rejoice in seeing him and touching him, but he wants — in fact, he said it was the deepest yearning of his heart — you to… to eat him.

What?  Yes, you heard me correctly.  God wants you to consume him — to eat him so that he can be truly in you and one with you, and you can be truly in him and one with him.  O taste and see: taste and see the goodness of the Lord!

Bruce at Mormon Mentality asks a question about LDS theology, something I’ve wondered about as well: What qualified Christ to become part of the Godhead while still an unembodied spirit?  (and other, related questions)

Interesting question.  I’ll have my eye on this one.

First, because tornadoes are set to rip through Omaha again, and second, because my two worst fears were realized today and it is the worst day of my life.

At the behest of my mother, back to writing.  First off, there’s this story.  In short, Catholic parishes have been explicitly directed not to share their member records with LDS genealogical researches, so as not to cooperate in LDS baptism for the dead.  When the CNS story came out, I knew it would make a lot of Mormons upset or at least indignant, just like when the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith announced its ruling that Mormon baptisms are not valid.  Indeed, opinions are many and varied.  Steve linked to a Catholic’s perspective on the matter, and here’s the Deseret News story on it, complete with a ton of impassioned comments.  (Incidentally, everything I don’t like about internet discussion is found in those comments.  Ick.)

There were plenty of reactions among blogs I read, too.  Father Richtsteig (whose name I always have to double-check for spelling) is overjoyed.  Clark at Millennial Star is more sympathetic to both sides.  Wilfried at Times & Seasons seemed upset.  And folks are saying the ban will hurt genealogy experts.

So that’s what everyone else thinks.  What do I think?  Well, I’d like to split the whole uproar into smaller issues and address them one by one.

First, will it hurt innocent genealogy?  I don’t know, so I can’t really comment.  If so, it’s an unfortunate side effect, but I don’t think you can really fault the Catholic Church for its decision on this.  Contrary to Clark, I’d hold that the Church is under no obligation at all to cooperate with any genealogical studies. Sure, it’s a nice thing to do, but if more important matters prevail, such as religious issues or privacy issues, then the Church’s first obligation is to her members.

Second, and most popular, why should the Church care?  Why should we call it “erroneous” and “detrimental” if we’re right and LDS baptisms for the dead have no effect?  I have been asked similar questions when in the past I said I’d like not to have any such ordinances performed for me after I die.  My reasoning is simple, and I think it goes along with the statement the Church is making now: we can cooperate with (or merely tolerate) things that are in harmony, or at least are not contrary, to the Catholic faith.  I’d give money, I would commend and praise, I would work side-by-side with Mormons on things like serving the poor, defense of marriage, et cetera.  But I cannot, and the Church cannot, be complicit in baptism for the dead.  It’s contrary to Catholic belief about Baptism, and more fundamentally, to Catholic belief in the truth of the Catholic faith.

That last point is the important part: it’s contrary to the Catholic faith.  With that in mind, I don’t know why Mormons or anyone would disagree with declining to have any part in it.  I can’t think of any ways the LDS church contributes to Catholic rituals of any kind, and I think they would make the same decision if the roles were reversed.  It’s not being petty, or trying to suppress others’ freedom of religion, or anything like that.  It’s believing in the truth of the Catholic faith enough to dare to say that something else is incorrect.

(On a side note, I hope it’s well understood that the reason for the existence of the LDS genealogical program is for proxy temple work.  Or maybe I’m wildly mistaken.)

Third - and this is something that perplexed me when the baptism thing came out too - I’m told that LDS churches would not disclose such records to anyone else.  What’s the deal, then?

Fourth - and I know I will never get anyone to agree with me on this - I do think it’s there’s an element of offensiveness in the practice.  Yes, it’s motivated by genuine belief and love and concern for the departed (I’ll get to that).  But it’s also a public act of denial of the most important choice, the highest and most difficult choice, in the lives of the departed: to believe, heart, mind, and soul, in the teachings of Catholic Church.  As far as I can tell, Mormon culture is very different and Mormons generally can’t identify with my feeling on this.  And it’s certainly the least important of the little sub-issues.  Still, it just rubs me the wrong way a bit.

Finally, Mormons wonder why the Church responds so coldly to acts of love and compassion.  The answer goes back to my second point: we can appreciate the sentiment, but that doesn’t override the fact that we believe it’s false, and our beliefs compel us not to cooperate in it.

So those are my thoughts.  I’m sure I left something out, so discuss away.

Well, time to start writing again.  I have a number of things to write about, so the blog will see life this week.

In the meantime: I received the sacrament of Baptism 23 years ago today.  Having been born two weeks prior, I was reborn into God’s kingdom on that day.  Yay!

Somehow it’s already Friday of Dead Week, which is the week before Finals Week. Someone asked me the other day if my semester is winding down. I said no, my semesters don’t do that. I thought about it for a minute and came up with the perfect analogy for the ends of my semesters:

The building can represent my sanity, the amount of sleep I get, or something like that. Dead Week is the round of dynamite destroying all the critical joints and supports. Finals Week is when everything collapses spectacularly into a giant heap and crap goes flying everywhere. As I said, the perfect analogy.

Toodles!

I had some wonderful plans for the first half of 2008, and then I got an internship and took 21 credit hours of classes.  Sadly, the blog is not even on the back burner right now; it’s in the freezer.  I’ll get it out and thaw it after I finish this insane month and get settled into my new place, wherever that ends up being.

I noticed this letter to the editor in the University of Nebraska-Lincoln student newspaper.  Excerpt:

As college students, our budgets are extremely limited, but the cost of birth control wasn’t anything we ever had to worry about.

The UNL Health Center provided birth control - like most university health centers - for a highly reduced rate. This year, however, the price jumped 200-500 percent. Most birth control pills went from $10 a month to $20, NuvaRing went from $12.50 to $42 and Ortho Tri-Cyclen Lo went from $8 to a whopping $40 a month!

That means I, and students like me, will have to make tough choices about how, or whether, we can afford contraception.

Meanwhile, people who have the ability to choose not to have sex… do.

How many times has this sentence ever been written?

Jesus quite simply pwns him:

Rofl.  Jesus: pwnin’ n00bs since the dawn of time.