34 Comments

1. I think you’re dead on that criticisms have a historical situatedness to them we need to be aware of. We also have to recognize that doesn’t necessarily invalidate them, but it does usually mean things are more complex than portrayed. However some premises don’t quite fit your criteria. (Say the popular pastime of pitting dead prophets against living ones)

   Comment by Clark — May 2, 2015 @ 8:44 pm

2. I wish such analysis could be so straightforward as a simple syllogism. But I think it is not.

   Criticism originating from the “Great and Spacious Building” crowd is nuanced and subtle. The mockers understand that they are more effective if their challenges are rooted within reasonable argumentation. So they spin a careful web of deceit, and entrap many of the unwary.

   I laugh at the suggestion that “They are the philosophies of (wo)men.” Even this reference is tainted with the critical “gender inclusion” argument that has become so popular and pervasive. It would indeed be amusing to me, if only it had not also proven to be so effective a stumbling point for so many.

   Comment by Jim Cobabe — May 3, 2015 @ 8:51 am

3. Clark,

   I agree that this approach wouldn’t be quite the knock down argument against those who leverage past or future prophets against those that actually have stewardship over them. I think those people are still ignoring or misinterpreting the historicity of revelation through a somewhat Platonic appropriation of timelessness and truth, but it requires much more than this post to nail them down in that way.

   Jim,

   The reason behind this post was that I had given almost the same exact response to posts that were critical of the church and decided to distill the main point into a post for future linking and cut/pasting. At least half of those posters were women, so I wouldn’t read too much into my “philosophies of women” comment.

   That said, I would agree that what these critics actually say is nuanced and subtle, a necessary strategy if one is to play both sides. What these critics leave unspoken, however, is quite clear and condemn-able. Such critics certainly tend not to actually cite where they get their values and arguments from since this gives the whole thing away. Instead, they like to pretend that their values and premises are timeless, natural and/or obvious when they are anything but. That’s the whole point of my (1).

   Comment by Jeff G — May 4, 2015 @ 12:07 pm

4. Very enlightening. Thanks.

   Comment by Allan — May 6, 2015 @ 5:44 am

5. By what method would the personal unrighteousness of a leader be revealed, if that personal unrighteousness was a failure to seek revelation?

   The primary method invented against authority is satire and satire doesn’t work on the righteous.

   Comment by Martin James — May 6, 2015 @ 9:49 pm

6. Jeff C,

   I’m confused why you say their values are premised as timeless when often the values are explicitly held as an innovation and improvement.

   Comment by Martin James — May 6, 2015 @ 9:58 pm

7. Your conceptualization of disloyal criticism presumes a strict dichotomy between historical context and priesthood channels/the Church. Can you provide examples of values that are universal and did not arise through specific historical processes?

   Comment by SmallAxe — May 7, 2015 @ 6:53 am

8. Martin,

   The only example I find of priesthood authority being voided is through personal unrighteousness or going beyond one’s stewardship. If you could somehow establish that some person wasn’t praying enough about their calling, I suppose you could raise that as an objection. But who is in a position to know such a thing? I would much more convinced that such a claim was merely a cover for the person simply disagreeing with the priesthood authority… which actually counts for nothing since they aren’t authorized to receive revelation for the leader.

   As for the timelessness of values, they certain say that their “discovery” of the values might be new, but they also say that the value itself is “natural” and just is binding regardless of context. They have to do this because otherwise they have to make explicit the contingent choices that they are making in bringing a foreign set of values against the values of the church. In other words, they want it to appear that they the values have a life of their own and that it is they rather than the person that is against the church.

   SmallAxe,

   One of my premises was that all values emerged or were revealed through a historical process. It a value was not revealed in such a way, then it simply was not revealed at all. In other words, there must have at one time or another been some person who acted as prophet in revealing a moral value to their audience. The only question is whether that person was authorized to act as such a prophet.

   Comment by Jeff G — May 7, 2015 @ 11:51 am

9. Hi Jeff,

   If that’s the case I see no point to your first step.

   Comment by SmallAxe — May 7, 2015 @ 12:01 pm

10. The point is the articulate the historical contingency of all value claims in a way that makes the next steps morally relevant, for a when necessarily forces the question of who and a who forces the question of whether the person was authorized to reveal something that is morally binding upon the audience. I have no problem with philosophers articulating theories that serve us, but when they say things that we have an obligation to bow before, their authority very much becomes an issue.

    You’re right that I didn’t make this too clear since I was trying to keep the post short. Let me know if I’m still missing your point.

    Comment by Jeff G — May 7, 2015 @ 12:23 pm

11. I think there are two problems with this(at least) one theoretical and one practical.

    The theoretical problem is the infinite regress in the capacity to understand revelation and what authority is. By what process other than nature does one have the capacity to “understand”. Even if the communication is authorized, having concepts is natural and historical.

    The practical problem is that Mormons, whether leaders or followers have for the most part lost the nerve to act in concordance with the belief that they have sole authority.

    In practical terms, there is no good way to consider all the values not relating to legitimate authority “lost” and all the values related legitimate authority “sacred”. No one’s mind can function that way. Everyone’s values and relationships and practices are a hopelessly complex intertwining of the legitimate and illegitimate.

    Even theoretically this is the case, where the legitimate authorities tell us to comply with the law and to love our neighbors as ourselves. This incorporates all of the complexity of complying with the law under the banner of legitimate authority and all the ethical and conceptual complexity of what love and service and kindness and meekness and peacemaking mean.

    The plain fact is that most of the people you refer to are confused and they are primarily confused because the commandments present contradictory choices.

    It’s the ever greater clarity of the conflict because of the increasing diversity of the communities that we are in means that following the leaders is confusing.

    Take someone like Carl Wimmer a Utah legislator that left the church. The political positions taken by the church and in his narrative, lobbied for, created a cognitive dissonance with what he had been taught religiously. His understanding was not sufficiently subtle.

    It’s not just that authority is not being followed out of disloyalty, it’s that it is increasingly hard to discern what it means to follow the counsel.

    Likely, the disingenuous exploit this gap but i don’t think that they created the gap at all. The gap was created by the tentativeness of the leadership to navigate what it means to be in the world but not of the world in our day.

    In my opinion, anyone that says they can clearly state what our leaders our telling us on issues like feminism and sexual identity is profoundly confused. It is confusing to all including our leaders.

    Comment by Martin James — May 7, 2015 @ 3:14 pm

12. Martin,

    “The theoretical problem is the infinite regress in the capacity to understand revelation and what authority is.”

    You have always said something like this, but I still have no clue what it’s supposed to mean. 1) I don’t know What infinite regress you’re talking about. 2) I am suspicious of all such regresses. They almost always tend to be regress in assumptions in that assumptions presuppose assumptions and so on, as if our speech and understanding were based in logical assumptions rather than the other way around. Assumptions are simply questions that are practically asked within practical experience and bottom out as soon as it is no longer practical to ask such questions.

    “for the most part lost the nerve to act in concordance with the belief that they have sole authority.”

    That’s an interesting speculation. Any way you can justify it?

    “It’s the ever greater clarity of the conflict because of the increasing diversity of the communities that we are in means that following the leaders is confusing.”

    This conflict is only a problem if one assume that each voice is equally legitimized to speak on the subject. Once we acknowledge that only those with living priesthood stewardship are so legitimized, then the conflict shrinks immeasurably. Remember, the legitimacy of someone’s word comes not from their arguments, but from their ordination, so no matter how many arguments get piled up, the truth is always as clear as our leaders’ stewardship.

    “the disingenuous exploit this gap but i don’t think that they created the gap at all”

    I agree. The gap was created quite intentionally by the thinkers of the protestant reformation and the scientific revolution for the express purpose of constraining Catholic authority. Once it was created, it got spread, for less explicit reasons, through popularization and the state education system. This gap is now built into our western psyche thus lending it to exploitation by the disingenuous.

    “anyone that says they can clearly state what our leaders our telling us on issues like feminism and sexual identity is profoundly confused”

    I agree with this as well. The lack of clarity, however, is not due to a conflicting plurality of specific positions since the church rarely has such things. The idea that there are clear positions from which we are supposed to deduce logical consequences is itself derived from the disputatio taught in theological seminaries. I strongly resist the idea that this is how living prophets are supposed to be interpreted. Rather, living prophets establish moral boundaries – stewardships – that are themselves quite clear within which a moderate amount of freedom and pluralism is tolerated if not encouraged such that it can be adapted to individual and localized contexts. Again, the boundaries of revelation follow those of priesthood stewardship and is thus hierarchical in nature (kind of like an organic set theory).

    Comment by Jeff G — May 7, 2015 @ 4:45 pm

13. Hi Jeff,

    Thanks for clarifying. If I’m following you, it seems that your point can be summarized as follows:

    Disloyal criticism is an attempt to sideline priesthood authority; where “sideline” means to replace priesthood authority by means of advocating values not received through priesthood channels.

    Faithful criticism can only be made by a call to return to those values received by priesthood channels.

    Let me know if this sounds right to you.

    If this is the case, I don’t think you need the claim about historical contingency.

    Also, if this is an accurate summary of your view, I’m curious to hear how you account for the differences between values in times such as the Old Testament where people are often treated as objects and more contemporary conceptions of human beings as having inherent dignity. If the latter view is correct, and currently endorsed by priesthood channels, does it mean that priesthood channels in the past were wrong?

    Comment by SmallAxe — May 8, 2015 @ 8:01 am

14. Great comment.

    By “sideline” authority is mean embrace a mindset that think authority is totally beside the point, or at least ought to be: the idea that appealing to authority is a fallacy.

    My aim at bringing up the history angle is because many people assume, or at least act as if logical fallacies naturally exist in some timeless sense, and that to commit a fallacy is to be irrational in some objective and timeless sense. The appeal to history is meant to show that reasoning and rationality are plural, and that one of form of rationality can legitimately appeal to priesthood authority.

    The historical aspect is precisely aimed at the question in your final paragraph, in that I’m trying to undermine the idea that there simply must be one answer that timelessly applies to both situations. The whole point of priesthood, I suggest, is that only living prophets have the authority to receive revelation for us since only they have priesthood keys over us. Dead or yet unborn prophets are only binding to the extent that those who actually have stewardship over us legitimize them.

    Thus, what dead prophets said back in their historical times is under no obligation to be logically consistent with what living prophets say now. I hope this shows the use to which I put history. I’m not sure that this speaks directly and unequivocally to your claim that I don’t really need it, but hopefully it will help you reframe the issue.

    Comment by Jeff G — May 8, 2015 @ 2:16 pm

15. Jeff, I confess I suspect I still am misunderstanding your ultimate position on authority. To me it seems clear not all appeals to authority are fallacious. I got a speeding ticket over the weekend when driving by Price to go camping. An argument about why I ought pay my ticket isn’t fallacious.

    Clearly you mean something stronger than that. Yet I don’t think you mean that authority always trumps other arguments. But I keep suspecting you mean something stronger than authority provides a burden of proof positions such as I adopt.

    Comment by Clark — May 8, 2015 @ 8:07 pm

16. Jeff G,

    I don’t understand what is to be gained by setting up a structure where it is important to have terms like “rational” and “legitimate” with respect to authority. Sure one can choose to care about authority and act on it but what is gained by calling it legitimate?

    but on practical grounds I still think it is problematic. When a current prophet says to “follow the prophets” or “follow the scriptures” how do we know what they mean if timeless, logical consistency is off the table.

    Likewise, the issue of when a prophet is non compos mentis is a problem. The question of who decides this stuff is not under priesthood authority alone. If a family didn’t allow access to a prophet there is no way of knowing whether he was of sound mind or not.

    Comment by Martin James — May 8, 2015 @ 9:30 pm

17. Clark,

    “Yet I don’t think you mean that authority always trumps other arguments.”

    Actually, this is very close to what I mean. My position is that when it comes to the stewardship of a righteous priesthood holder, his position always trumps that of any argument. Of course, priesthood leaders usually announce and defend moral boundaries rather than clear cut positions, so there is definitely some room for variety and persuasion, nor am I saying that a priesthood leader can’t or shouldn’t sometimes listen to other perspectives.

    The only thing that can trump the pronouncement of a righteous priesthood leader is private personal revelation… but this itself is simply an appeal to a higher priesthood authority. In other words, the only thing that can legitimately trump righteous priesthood authority is a higher righteous priesthood authority! The coherence, logical validity or evidential support for a position are peripheral and extremely weak constraints upon it. This is quite contiguous with my strong suspicion of theology and apologetics where scholars pretend to speak in lieu of priesthood leaders.

    As for your example, I would say that arguments from any other kind of authority are fallacious in the relevant sense. A policeman, or a judge are authority figures, but they are constrained by arguments, precedence and public opinion in a bottom-up fashion that priesthood leaders should not be.

    Martin,

    My use of the word “legitimate” is meant to block two things: 1) the all too common strawman that paints me as saying authority is right no matter what, and 2) to distinguish priesthood authority from secular authorities that I have no intention of legitimizing. Sometimes it sounds and feels redundant, but I’ve found that as soon as I drop such qualifiers, I get pounced upon pretty hard…. of course they do that anyways so maybe I am wasting my time.

    “how do we know what they mean if timeless, logical consistency is off the table.”

    This is a total ploy by enlightenment intellectuals wherein they try to make it seem like they are the only game in town and that all other apparent games are really their game being played less well than they play it. (Daniel Dennett explicitly uses this.) Logical consistency is a term that covers so many modes of thinking, the most famous and basic of which goes back to Aristotle. Logic is a human artifact, one way in which we choose to interpret the world.

    As rationality is (again a highly variable term) is an acceptable answer to a question. The enlightenment tradition would say that an acceptable answer must employ logic, evidence and that’s about it. There is also a more romantic, counter-enlightenment tradition that says that other answers are perfectly acceptable so long as they make no reference to a person’s station in society, i.e. priesthood office. Both of these were forms of revolting against one part of the scholastic tradition that accepted “because a priesthood leader says so” as a perfectly good answer. It is in this specific way that enlightenment reasoning was meant to sideline and subvert priesthood authority by making appeals to it unacceptable (think Galileo).

    The claim that a person cannot understand language at all unless they also use logic is absurd. Most people never learn logic and get along just fine without it. Yes, we could possibly interpret what these people are doing according to the rules of logic, but who says that we have to? Why in the world do we have to bring such an interpretation to everything? What makes this particular interpretation binding upon us?

    “The question of who decides this stuff is not under priesthood authority alone. ”

    Says who? Who taught you to assume such a thing and when did they start teaching it? Michel Foucault brings a massive assault against the idea that doctors just “naturally” have the proper authority to tell us what kind of a person someone is. Indeed, the doctor/patient relationship is the very epitome of somebody exercising authority over somebody else in that a patient allows the doctor to trump their own conception of his or her own person and body. In this relationship, everything the patient says is taken as phenomena to be explained rather than a legitimate explanation in and of itself. In other words, the doctor comes to “represent” the patient to that very same patient in a way that very closely parallels what priests occasionally do.

    Comment by Jeff G — May 9, 2015 @ 12:33 pm

18. Hi Jeff G.,

    Thanks again for clarifying.

    I think I follow you with regard to your claims about authority: appeals to authority are often seen as a fallacy, however in a gospel context the priesthood trumps reason or other forms of argumentation. Priesthood authority is precisely the authority to pronounce correct determinations in situations, and it is not bound to other laws of argumentation.

    Let me know if that’s wrong.

    If this is correct, I think you’re still unclear about faithful criticism.

    You say that faithful criticism of those in authority can only be done by appealing to the values received through priesthood channels. Yet, if priesthood leaders are not even bound to priesthood leaders of the past (and I presume not bound to even their own previous determinations), then what’s stopping them from simply claiming that their current actions stem from new revelation?

    The notion of “authority” in a modern context has taken a pretty bad hit because of its propensity for abuse. I’m not sure your account of authority avoids the problem of abuse.

    I have a few personal thoughts on the matter, but I think I’d like to hear more to make sure they’re relevant.

    Comment by SmallAxe — May 11, 2015 @ 9:37 am

19. Jeff G.,

    I used the term logic because I thought you were tired of me saying semantics. Do you agree that there is tremendous room for people to have very different understandings based on “follow the prophets”. Much of this is subtle and imitative. Like white shirts and clean-shave faces versus beards and sandals.

    As long as all you are hoping for is to people to see the authority, romantic alternative we are in agreement. I just think it leaves a lot of practical room for people to disagree with other people who don’t have the same conclusions about what authority has in mind. This is where you get a lot of variety about how local priesthood leaders see things. I’m fine with that even though it isn’t a consistent position from a non-authority point of view.

    Comment by Martin James — May 11, 2015 @ 10:53 am

20. Martin,

    I would agree that there is plenty of room for pluralism in such understanding. I’m sure we agree that not all understanding will be of equal worth, but I would also resist that idea that different understandings are necessarily of different worth either. Again, I see priesthood and revelation more in terms of setting boundaries, rather than laying down some strict and exclusive ideal.

    Small Axe,

    Your restatement of my position sounds spot on. If nothing else, I want to thank you for your generosity in that aspect alone. Now let me address your perfectly reasonable objection and fear. I think it reasonable to be nervous about abuses of authority, but I think the degree to which many people take it so extreme and ideologically motivated.

    The Protestant Reformation and the Scientific Revolution were explicitly revolts against church authority and were also the historical sources of the values that we are taught in our schools. These movements sought to replace all appeals to parochial authority figures where in one person is place “above” another by principles and values that are either universal – in that they equally include all of humanity – or individual – in that they include each person by themselves. From this we see the modern tendency to push facts towards universal objectivity and values towards subjective preferences. Modernity is basically committed to all moral truths falling toward one of these poles or the other.

    It is in this context that we are taught that reason and critique are the ONLY ways of checking authority and that if we throw out reason, then the only other option is “blind obedience”. Indeed, we are practically encouraged to think that any appeal to authority is itself automatically “unrighteous dominion” when such is quite obviously not the case.

    You’re right about me in that I do not think that human reason is meant by God to legitimately trump a righteous priesthood authority. I also reject the idea that past priesthood authorities who never had authority to receive revelation for us can in and of themselves trump those that do have such an authority. These two positions might be a little radical, but it does not leave us with a totally unchecked authority figures. The point is that Zion and her authority figures are constrained from heaven above, and not the world below.

    Thus, all authority figures must keep the commandments, for it they are unrighteous, their priesthood is null and void according to section 121. (It gives no other reason.) These commandments, in turn, come from priesthood authorities that are above him, Christ being the highest. It is absolutely crucial, then, that each member has access to that highest authority through personal revelation. Finally, obedience to the church must be absolutely voluntary, leaving people to freely follow their personal revelation wherever it may lead.

    Thus, authority is checked only by higher authorities, and a person trying to leverage their own personal revelation against the church is NOT a higher authority. Nor is a reasoned argument. Nevertheless, a person is always completely free to appeal to and follow a higher authority.

    Comment by Jeff G — May 11, 2015 @ 12:05 pm

21. Hmm. I’m surprised you take authority as an absolute trump in all senses. Is this limited to just certain classes of authority within the Church? Could you point me to one of your prior posts you argue for this explicitly? It seems a terribly controversial (and in my opinion difficult to argue for) position.

    Regarding civil authority, it’s not clear to me that civil authority occurs in a bottom up fashion. Typically the ultimate decider of what is or isn’t proper authority is SCOTUS in the United States. But that’s hardly a bottom up movement unless you are thinking of the legislative process granting explicit authority which ultimately comes from the authority of being voted in. But I think there is (by design) a tension between the judicial and legislative branches and thereby two senses of authority.

    To your first part I’m thinking explicitly of the example of rather bad use of authority during the baseball baptism period in the late 60’s and 70’s when authorities asked members to do thing of question appropriateness. We can say personal revelation trumps this, but short of personal revelation I think there are reasons to question it. Likewise I can think of examples of more recent Mission Presidents abusing authority where it seems prima facie that using ones reason one can see they are abusing authority independent of personal revelation.

    Of course personal revelation is the key answer and the best answer. Yet I think the there is an essential tension between personal revelation and hierarchal authority. While it’s not quite the same as the balance of powers within US politics in terms of authority there are some interesting parallels.

    The problem I have with what you say is it seems you are logically required to affirm that a person must do something that appears quite immoral even an authority commands it unless they have an explicit personal revelation. That seems deeply problematic.

    Comment by Clark — May 11, 2015 @ 2:18 pm

22. Jeff (20) Thus, all authority figures must keep the commandments, for it they are unrighteous, their priesthood is null and void according to section 121

    This leads to a problem since of course the commandments must be interpreted and short of personal revelation are interpreted by reason. Yet that means that to judge an authority who is breaking a commandment is done by reason. Yet you’ve already excluded this as an appropriate move.

    Again this is easy to handle with personal revelation but since not everyone gets personal revelation or is good at interpreting it it seems you’re left in a problematic quandary of requiring we act by reason while simultaneously excluding reason.

    Comment by Clark — May 11, 2015 @ 2:20 pm

23. “It seems a terribly controversial (and in my opinion difficult to argue for) position.”

    I agree, it definitely is controversial. I don’t find it difficult to argue, only difficult to convince others… which comes as no surprise.

    “it’s not clear to me that civil authority occurs in a bottom up fashion.”

    In practice, I agree. However there is that element within our culture that says it ought to be, even if such a goal cant’ ever be fully realized in practice. This, of course, is the whole point of by the people and for the people.

    “short of personal revelation I think there are reasons to question it”

    But where to these reasons come from? How could they ever rise above being the philosophies of men? I know we don’t like it, but aren’t all other reasons really just steadying the ark? (This isn’t to say that I like baseball baptisms. Rather, it is to question the relevance of my preferences and reasons.)

    “you are logically required to affirm that a person must do something that appears quite immoral even an authority commands it unless they have an explicit personal revelation.”

    OF course the question is: immoral from what standards?If we simply mean commonly accept standards of the world then this is EXACTLY what true religion is supposed to be! From a Socratic perspective, this is hugely problematic, but that doesn’t make it wrong.

    “short of personal revelation are interpreted by reason”

    Careful about your use of the word “reason”. I don’t mean – the use of one’s brain. Rather, I simply mean a tradition that count certain questions and answers as legitimate. We do not need the Socratic tradition or scholarly thought to expose the hidden unrighteousness of our leaders. If we have doubts, we raise our hands in objection and then the higher authorities take us aside to ascertain whether our objection is valid or not. But simply saying “his teaching contradicts good reason/science/politics/etc” isn’t ever good enough on its own.

    “not everyone gets personal revelation or is good at interpreting it it”

    I’m not at all convinced of this. Furthermore, I don’t think it’s that practically relevant. What matters most is the voluntary nature of the church, where a person can freely disagree or disobey whenever they see fit. The principle of personal revelation, I suggest, is largely aimed at isolating the stewardship or legitimacy of such deviators such that their reasons or revelations for deviating are of zero relevance to what others ought to do.

    Almost all of my posts revolve around this issue, but here are a couple that might be decent summaries:

    The False Prophets We Follow

    and

    Priesthood Authority vs. Inter-Personal Reasoning

    Comment by Jeff G — May 11, 2015 @ 2:51 pm

24. I’ll read those links later tonight (thanks – that should make it easier for me to understand) It almost sounds like you want something certain and methods that are clear cut. Whereas to me there is never that kind of certainty. (I oppose foundationalism in epistemology too) So perhaps that’s why I see authority and reason always as of degrees and never absolute. That’s likely also why I reject the very notion of a trump and prefer burdens of proof.

    To me there’s always an essential tension and in any decision always an element of risk.

    Exactly what you mean by reason still isn’t clear to me. I think in practice practical reasoning by people leads them to think some leaders are acting inappropriately. In practice sustaining conflict doesn’t resolve the issue. Again, I can think of the experience of a cousin on his mission who had a mission president being quite inappropriate. Now in that case he also had spiritual confirmation, but it seems a sticky situation regardless.

    Comment by Clark — May 11, 2015 @ 4:08 pm

25. This post is a bit old, but it’s probably the most focused I’ve been on what reason and intellectualism I am and am not attacking.

    Comment by Jeff G — May 11, 2015 @ 6:23 pm

26. Hi Jeff G.,

    Sorry to be so slow in responding. I’ve been caught up in a few other things.

    Indeed, we are practically encouraged to think that any appeal to authority is itself automatically “unrighteous dominion” when such is quite obviously not the case.

    I think this is a legitimate fear. I also think that if we stop and reflect for a bit, we’ll see all kinds of ways in which we (in contemporary American society) rely on authority. More often than not we rely on doctors with a license to practice medicine when we are in need of medical care. We rely on the state to monitor weights and balances when we fill up at the gas station. We rarely insist on inspecting a restaurant kitchen before eating the food at a particular restaurant.

    Of course there are lots of differences between these cases and the Church, but I think there are some significant similarities as well.

    IMO, part of this can be captured by the language of trust. We trust in people, institutions, etc. when we have no way of knowing that they will not harm something of value to us. We can trust Church leaders without fully understanding the reasons they’ve taken a particular position on an issue.

    On the other hand, I do not think that we can simply will trust. In other words, I think there must be reasons to trust someone; although these reasons need not be logical in a strict sense. In this way, I think priesthood leaders must provide reasons to be trusted. I don’t think it’s wrong, for instance, for members to ask why a priesthood leader should be trusted. I worry that what you are advocating frees our leaders from having to cultivate trust.

    I also think that the notion of “authority” can mean different things–it can refer to a right to represent someone or some institution, as well as an expertise in a field (an authority on Shakespeare, for instance). These notions of authority overlap to a certain degree in priesthood leadership. But inasmuch as some leader makes a claim of the latter kind (of an expertise), then I do not think that such a claim transcends criticism from others who have that expertise. In other words, a priesthood leader saying that God wants us to deny some group of people the priesthood is of a different sort than a priesthood leader saying that denying some group of people the priesthood is based on past precedent. The latter claim ought to be open to criticism. The former claim might be made on the basis of revelation, in which case the leader might be making a “trust me on this one” argument. If the leader has built up enough trust, then people will follow. If he does this too many times, however, his trust may be depleted, and people will be less likely to accept his leadership.

    Comment by SmallAxe — May 13, 2015 @ 1:26 pm

27. “On the other hand, I do not think that we can simply will trust.”

    Your appeal to trust is a nice way of putting it. Thus, the question that I’m opening isn’t “can you will yourself to truth so and so?” Rather, it is “What counts as a good reason to trust so and so?” Within modern secular culture we are taught that expertise (which is supposed to be potentially open to anybody) and representation (in that the authority answers to and derives authority from the people) are the only valid kinds of authority. In other words, modern authority is based in the idea of peer review.

    In this way, intellectual Mormons spend so much of their time and thought in showing how the statements of priesthood authorities really do line up with one of these two secular types and that they can pass the review of peers. This, however, is absolutely wrong. Divine authority comes by ordination not expertise (that supposedly comes from revelation), and it comes from above not below. Priesthood stewards is precisely aimed at separating a leader from his former peers such that they are not in a position to “review” his statements.

    “The latter claim ought to be open to criticism. The former claim might be made on the basis of revelation, in which case the leader might be making a “trust me on this one” argument.”

    Do you see how you’re tacitly accepting the secular definitions of authority by peer review? Why should a claim that it is based on precedent somehow place his audience on the same level as he? Why is a revelation necessary for a righteous leader to make an authoritative claim or decision that is within their stewardship? You didn’t say it, but what supports that claim that the revelations given to an authority can or ought to be “verified” or “confirmed” in a way that mirrors peer-review? No doubt, personal revelation can tell you to accept or reject a priesthood leader’s teaching, but this is not at all the same as personal revelation telling you anything about the relationship and communications that have taken place between that leader and the Lord.

    The whole point of my approach is that the authority of peer review is wholly earth bound and can never rise us above the philosophies and petty disputes of men. To criticize a position is to pollute it with human reason since only the leader and his leaders are qualified to receive God’s wisdom on the subject. It is for this reason that priesthood authority absolutely must come from ordination from above and not emerging by way of expertise from below. Priesthood leader must be held responsible by those above him and not those below. This is the only way that church policies and teachings can truly be divine.

    Comment by Jeff G — May 14, 2015 @ 12:17 pm

28. Hi Jeff,

    You’re arguing that the priesthood is a kind of authority that doesn’t fit into either of the two models I proposed. If that’s the case, I’m curious to hear what this alternative model is. Here’s why I think the priesthood fits largely in a representational model of authority, which can in fact be distinct from expertise, although in practice this is quite rare:

    I don’t think the representational view of authority in a modern context is necessarily bottom-up. The original purpose of the electoral college in the US, for instance, was to create a kind of representational authority distanced from “the people.” The judiciary system, while also imbued with a heavy sense of expertise, is also a top-down model of representational authority. Likewise in business, where managers have representational authority and are not chosen by the people below.

    Priesthood stewards is precisely aimed at separating a leader from his former peers such that they are not in a position to “review” his statements.

    Although as you’ve already mentioned above, one’s priesthood stewardship is in fact subject to the review of those above him, so even in your model it’s not as if priesthood transcends review.

    Do you see how you’re tacitly accepting the secular definitions of authority by peer review? Why should a claim that it is based on precedent somehow place his audience on the same level as he? Why is a revelation necessary for a righteous leader to make an authoritative claim or decision that is within their stewardship?

    Let me clarify this. A claim about expertise is necessarily a claim that is open to the evaluation of others with that expertise. For instance, to claim that we do not give women the priesthood because it is not a Biblical teaching is in fact a claim that is open to the evaluation of others. No priesthood leader can make this claim without himself being subject to the scrutiny of others under his stewardship or even those outside his stewardship.

    This is very different from a priesthood leader saying, “Women don’t have the priesthood because God told me so.” This is a case of representational authority. And this falls outside the bounds of a critique from experts, although revelation is rarely (or never, IMO) disassociated from the act of interpretation, so how a priesthood leader came to interpret said revelation is still open to criticism, in my opinion.

    We obviously have two different views of the limitations of priesthood authority; and so for the sake of clarity, allow me to summarize my view:

    1) Priesthood authority is a kind of representational authority (although not wholly independent of expertise).

    2) Priesthood authority works best when trust is cultivated, and reasons must be provided in order make someone trustworthy.

    3) Priesthood authorities can make claims that are not subject to those below them.

    4) However, when making claims of the expertise sort, these claims are subject to the criticism of those with expertise authority.

    5) The nature of revelation is rarely cut and dry.

    6) Priesthood leaders should exercise epistemic humility in accordance with the clarity of the revelation.

    7) Rejecting any of claims 4-6 opens the door to abuses of authority.

    Comment by SmallAxe — May 15, 2015 @ 6:34 am

29. A few thoughts.

    Jeff (27) Thus, the question that I’m opening isn’t “can you will yourself to truth so and so?” Rather, it is “What counts as a good reason to trust so and so?” Within modern secular culture we are taught that expertise (which is supposed to be potentially open to anybody) and representation (in that the authority answers to and derives authority from the people) are the only valid kinds of authority. In other words, modern authority is based in the idea of peer review.

    I think “peer review” (very broadly defined) applies within Mormon culture in ways you aren’t acknowledging. Consider fast & testimony meeting at minimum where people share their testimony and often experiences. We compare ourselves (sometimes appropriately, sometime inappropriately) to others. Likewise the force of social norms within a ward is often more of a factor than the explicit statements of the brethren. Again sometimes good sometimes bad.

    The problem I have with your view is that “will to truth” as you present it often is “will yourself to believe this presentation as if it was the truth.” That is the truth as truth or what counts as legitimate epistemology doesn’t matter. Authority, in your scheme, counts not as evidence in an overall judgment but counts as truth. Fundamentally that rejection of including more things (except personal revelation which also isn’t allowed analysis) is what I disagree with.

    Now peers are important, both because I think truth is what we arrive at as a process of inquiry rather than a single judgment. Peers help guide us in inquiry.

    No doubt, personal revelation can tell you to accept or reject a priesthood leader’s teaching, but this is not at all the same as personal revelation telling you anything about the relationship and communications that have taken place between that leader and the Lord.

    But of course you’d acknowledge that personal revelation could at least in theory tell us about that relationship or communications.

    The whole point of my approach is that the authority of peer review is wholly earth bound and can never rise us above the philosophies and petty disputes of men.

    If the peers are themselves open to the spirit or to listening to the authority of priesthood leaders I don’t see how that follows. If someone if the ward feels prompted to say something to me, while it lacks authority, I don’t think we can say it is, “wholly earth bound.”

    Comment by Clark — May 15, 2015 @ 11:31 am

30. “I don’t think the representational view of authority in a modern context is necessarily bottom-up.”

    But this is the say that the revolutions of 1848 were pointless. The whole point of parliamentary representational government was to make gubernatorial representatives equal peers with and accountable to the people. This stood in contrast to the Feudal order in which some people were simply born above the rest of the commoners and were thus neither peers with nor responsible to their preferences. Another example would be the debate between Locke and Fillmore with regards to whether lords inherited their divine rights from Adam by way of primogenitor, or whether God gave mankind collective and egalitarian sovereignty over the non-human world.

    Yes, representational government were designed to create some distance from the mob psychology of the masses, but such representatives are supposed to represent the will of their constitutives, not the will a higher Lord. Indeed, the original meaning of “representation” had to do, among other things, with the symbolic presentation of royal lordship and authority over and to the public. This was the reason for all the pomp and ceremony of both the Catholic Church and various monarchies. Priesthood authority is thus a kind of divine right that comes by a means other than birth – probably closer to knighting somebody.

    “so even in your model it’s not as if priesthood transcends review.”

    You’re absolutely right. That’s exactly why it is not blind faith or unchecked authority. What is crucial to my model, however, is that priesthood authority is not checked by human reasoning or that the ark is steadied by human hands. Priesthood stewardship is reviewed, but never by peers, since the priesthood is structured so that there are no peers. Each person (might) has people below them in their stewardship, and (always) has people above him but there is rarely if ever somebody who is a peer at the same level. This is the whole point! If two people had shared stewardship, then their conflicting interpretations of personal revelation would have to be settled by way of human reasoning. Peers = equal human reasoning. No peers = no human reasoning.

    “For instance, to claim that we do not give women the priesthood because it is not a Biblical teaching is in fact a claim that is open to the evaluation of others.”

    Why though? Who was it that revealed this claim? I know it seem axiomatic to us, but honestly where did it come from? Whose interests where served by totally sidelining the social position of the person doing the speaking and the people doing the evaluation? These ideas were all invented within the last 500 years or so.

    “how a priesthood leader came to interpret said revelation is still open to criticism, in my opinion”

    But why? This whole idea of interpretation coming between us and some data is itself an artifact from schcolars (not authorized prophets) attempting to figure out what unity they could find in the words of dead prophets – i.e. biblical hermeneutics. Furthermore, what makes us think that our human reasoning about a prophets interpretation is any more qualified than his or her own interpretation? Why would bringing more human reasoning to the issue clarify rather than pollute the revelation? Finally, why would we think that God couldn’t or wouldn’t anticipate any such innocent misinterpretations and package His message accordingly?

    So here is my version of your 7 claims:

    1) Priesthood authority is a kind of representational authority of God, not of the people.

    2) Priesthood authority works best when trust is cultivated, and a legitimate ordination and moral purity make someone trustworthy.

    3) A righteous priesthood authority always makes claims that are not subject to those below him since he is only subject to those above him from which his authority stems.

    4) However, when making claims outside of his stewardship, his claims are subject to the criticism of those with expertise authority among others. When speaking within his stewardship, expertise can inform him but cannot legitimately be brought against him by way of criticism, correction, pressure, etc.

    5) It is cut and dry that no person can receive authority for something outside their stewardship. This is why expertise can never be more than human reasoning.

    6) “Epistemic” humility is a value of scholars, not prophets or priesthood leaders. Priesthood leaders should exercise moral humility and never compel or coerce his followers since they are entitled to their own revelation which they can freely follow within their own stewardships

    7) Rejecting any of claims 1-6 opens the door to apostasy as human reasoning infiltrates and corrupts the church. Abuses of authority are constrained in the Lord’s way, not that of the Protestant Reformation/Scientific Revolution.

    Comment by Jeff G — May 15, 2015 @ 2:43 pm

31. Clark,

    I think my comment above addresses most of what you say.

    “Now peers are important, both because I think truth is what we arrive at as a process of inquiry rather than a single judgment. Peers help guide us in inquiry.”

    I find no such support for this in the scriptures. There, truth is treated as persons, paths, poems, fables, etc. (Of course the world teaches us to reinterpret such claims as persons, fables, etc. “teaching us” truths rather than actually being truths, but this is to read words into the scriptures that just aren’t there.) At no point is any public process of inquiry ever suggested. Out of curiosity, do you accept the correspondence theory of truth?

    “But of course you’d acknowledge that personal revelation could at least in theory tell us about that relationship or communications.”

    Why? This gets awfully close to saying I can receive revelation for people outside my stewardship and this I totally reject. Furthermore, I see no reason to suggest that the truths that are revealed necessarily must match up with what that leader says or thinks. Personal revelation is guiding truth, not celestial data that can (dis)confirm somebody else’s findings.

    “If the peers are themselves open to the spirit or to listening to the authority of priesthood leaders I don’t see how that follows. If someone if the ward feels prompted to say something to me, while it lacks authority, I don’t think we can say it is, “wholly earth bound.””

    This is a good point. There is a world of difference, however, between follow promptings to say such and such to x and me acting as a prophet to x. This difference parallels the distinction between a well-confirmed scientific model and a morally binding truth. Science can usefully inform us in the same way that another person’s personal revelation can usefully inform us. But in no sense does that person or the scientist have authority to speak divine truth to us or to tell us what we are supposed to do in any way that we are obligated to hearken to.

    Comment by Jeff G — May 15, 2015 @ 2:54 pm

32. Small Axe again,

    Just to clarify, I’m not saying that your model is incoherent in any way at all. I think it perfectly describes the views of authority and truth as the world sees it. The historical approach that I adopt makes pretty clear the process and reasons for the historical emergence of this secular model. My point, rather, is that there is another model that is equally coherent thus forcing us to actively choose between two competing conceptions. My model, I suggest, it the one found within the scriptures and which structures the claims and actions of the living prophets. The other model was invented for the specific purpose of sidelining and undermining all divine authority, even if its legitimate.

    Comment by Jeff G — May 15, 2015 @ 3:14 pm

33. Well, you’re pushing it more towards a prooftext sort of discussion which isn’t quite the direction I think fruitful. However there are numerous scriptures speaking of the phenomena I am referring to. A few:

    …as many as were converted did truly signify unto the people that they had been visited by the power and Spirit of God… (3 Ne 7:21)

    …when thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren. (Luke 22:32)

    …Speak ye everyone man the truth to his neighbor; execute the judgment of truth and peace in your gates (Zech 8:16)

    And the church did meet together oft, to fast and to pray, and to speak one with an other concerning the welfare of their souls (Mor 6:5)

    I’d say Romans 10 and the similar exegesis of Isaiah in Mosiah 15 make a similar point. But it’s not quite prooftext clear.

    As for the correspondence theory of truth I think it a secondary type of thing but I don’t think correspondence between thoughts in our mind and objects or states of affairs is fundamental. Rather I adopt the more Peircean notion that something is true when our thought matches the thoughts an idealized community of inquirers would stabilize at given enough inquiry. So you have not a correspondence between two different things but an equation between two things of the same sort. However to make that possible I think there’s a phenomenological truth making process that acts on individuals letting things unveil themselves to our minds. (I’m thinking here a Heideggarian sort of idea but you get something similar in D&C 93)

    To revelation to do something for others, it’s not revelation for people outside of our stewardship due to the nature of authority. However functionally it’s no different than being prompted to help a neighbor which is also not in our stewardship but something we do regularly. So there is an issue of authority, but what I’m suggesting is that your notion of authority can’t really address this situation. As you note there is a difference between a bishop or apostle saying something and a neighbor. I just don’t think your system explicates what that difference is.

    Comment by Clark — May 15, 2015 @ 7:27 pm

34. “However functionally it’s no different than being prompted to help a neighbor which is also not in our stewardship but something we do regularly.”

    This is exactly the difference that I see. There is a word of difference between helping and directing somebody. I see no problem at all with somebody receiving revelation to tell me something. Them mentioning that it is not them talking, but the revelation, however, is something that I am not willing to accept. No matter how much revelation they receive about me, this gives them zero authority over me in that what they say carries zero presumption. In other words, as far as I’m concerned, they did not receive any revelation at all.

    Comment by Jeff G — May 19, 2015 @ 11:40 am