Our on-and-off relationship with person-truth

The idea and person views of truth can lead to different views on moral and societal progress. When we adopt an idea view of truth, we often assume that society is continually moving from antiquated ideals towards ever newer and better ones. We assume that knowledge is cumulative. Society, from this view, is on a fairly straightforward trajectory of continual progress. For many, the greatest intellectual or moral crime is to be “behind the times,” “out of touch,” or “on the wrong side of history.”¶

Consider the popular computer game Civilization, originally developed by Sid Meier. In the game, the player shepherds a civilization from the stone age into the modern age. Part of the strategy of the game is deciding which technologies and social developments to prioritize while competing against neighboring nations. Within the game, no development is ever lost, once gained. Every new development builds upon previous developments, whether technological, social, or political.¶

Civilization is just a game, but it illustrates the assumption that progress is the inevitable result of collective human action. If truth is a set of ideas that we grasp with the mind, then all we must do is record those ideas in our collective memory. The invention of writing made this possible, and the information age makes this inevitable. From this view, as long as we can preserve some type of knowledge library we are unlikely to regress to earlier stages of development or forget the truth we have accumulated.¶

This is because the idea view of truth assumes that truth is discoverable by human methods and that truth is largely a matter of the mind. By archiving and cataloging discoveries and innovations in libraries and databanks, we maintain both their longevity and accessibility so they can never be truly forgotten. This applies to moral truth as well. From an idea view of truth, even if individuals engage in faulty moral reasoning, the moral beliefs of rational people across cultures and time will eventually converge. Changes in our collective moral reasoning are presumed to be almost always for the better.¶

This assumption sometimes leads to what C.S. Lewis termed “chronological snobbery,” which is the “the uncritical acceptance of the intellectual climate common to our own age and the assumption that whatever has gone out of date is on that account discredited.”¹ Figuring out the direction of progress only requires extrapolating current trends. From the idea view of truth, current societal consensus trumps the prior tradition, and future societal consensus trumps both. Only fools linger at the tail end of our onward march of social, moral, and intellectual progress. For example, as society starts to revisit and abandon the very concept of gender, this view might conclude that new consensus is informed by convergent moral reasoning, grounded in accumulated collective experience. We can treat the new consensus as more informed than the prior consensus, and the consensus of generations yet to come as more informed than both.¶

Our relationship with person-truth requires nurturing

As you may have guessed, person-truth treats moral progress very differently: our relationship with truth is inextricably connected to our relationship with God. Like any relationship, it must be nurtured. Without this nurturing, we may collectively lose our relationship with Truth, and reverse course in our spiritual progress (and wander in metaphorical foreign and desolate lands). Scripture contradicts the assumption that societal progress is inevitable or that knowledge inevitably increases over time. The Old Testament is thick with stories of apostasy, in which the Israelites neglected their covenants with God and slid backwards in their pilgrimage towards truth.¶

The prophet Jeremiah, for example, wrote: “The Lord said also unto me, ... Hast thou seen that which backsliding Israel hath done? she is gone up upon every high mountain and under every green tree, and there hath played the harlot. And I said after she had done all these things, Turn thou unto me. But she returned not” (Jeremiah 3:6-7). Notice the metaphor of infidelity that is used in these passages. Jeremiah continues, “Because my people hath forgotten me, they have burned incense to vanity, and they have caused them to stumble in their ways from the ancient paths, to walk in paths, in a way not cast up” (Jeremiah 18:15).¶

Similar themes are found in the Book of Mormon. Alma cried to the people of Ammonihah, “Behold, O ye wicked and perverse generation, how have ye forgotten the tradition of your fathers; yea, how soon ye have forgotten the commandments of God” (Alma 9:8). The prophet Mormon spoke of the Nephites who followed the wicked Amalickiah, “Thus we see how quick the children of men do forget the Lord their God, yea, how quick to do iniquity, and to be led away by the evil one” (Alma 46:8). The Nephites would often “forget the Lord their God” and “wax strong in iniquity” (Helaman 11:36). Later, the prophet Mormon wrote:¶

Passages such as these permanently dispel the notion that society’s moral trajectory is always upward and forward. In fact, it was when the Nephites and Lamanites exalted their own wisdom over the teachings of Christ and His servants that they faltered the most in their moral, societal, and spiritual progress.¶

None of this makes sense if truth is a set of universal principles, especially in a modern era where information can be so easily replicated, disseminated, and preserved. However, if truth is a person, then accumulated information is no guarantee of moral progress, and a photographic memory is no guarantee against moral regress. Our knowledge of truth is bound up with our covenantal relationship with God. We can lose truth as we neglect or betray that relationship. In the Book of Mormon, the Lord said:¶

In other words, sin can lead us to lose—and even forget—knowledge we have previously had. We see this happen in human relationships all the time: people who are in love and then have a falling out will often forget the good times they’ve had together and only remember the bad. Sometimes, it is only when they’ve reconciled that they begin to remember the good times again. The same is true of our relationship with God: when we distance ourselves from Him, we can forget the times we have experienced His hand in our lives. We can forget the foundations of our relationship with God. To understand how this process of remembering and forgetting works on a personal level, it helps to use a new metaphor: our spiritual life as a garden.¶

Living truth in our spiritual garden

Once we take literally the idea of living truth, we can employ a new metaphor: imagine our spiritual understanding is a garden. As we make and keep sacred covenants with God we plant this garden with living seeds of faith and truth. As we nourish that garden by reading our scriptures and feasting upon the words of Christ (and the teachings of living prophets and apostles), those seeds bear fruit and grow into mighty plants in our garden. As a metaphor, we can think of it as the living truth becoming alive within us, bearing fruit in our hearts.¶

But occasionally false plants are planted as well. These plastic counterfeits can be smuggled into our spiritual garden and planted among the living truths. Often they are introduced into our spiritual garden unintentionally—a misunderstanding of a doctrine, a poorly taught Gospel doctrine class, an impertinent object lesson, or an eccentric reading of scripture presented as if it were fact. Part of the project to discipleship is to regularly detect these counterfeits and uproot them, to create more space for the living truths of Christ to grow. However, we all likely have some of these plastic counterfeits—lower-case “truths” that done come from the true vine.¶

But consider what happens if we stop nourishing, watering, and weeding our spiritual garden. What will happen to the living truths of the Gospel of Jesus Christ? Those plants will wilt and eventually die in our spiritual garden. We will, in fact, cease to remember those truths, and when we do, we will no longer remember why they made so much sense to us. Unlike facts and formulas, which can have an infinite shelf-life, without continual nourishment these living truths will literally disappear from our minds and hearts. As Alma the Younger taught the people of Ammonihah, “And they that will harden their hearts, to them is given the lesser portion of the word until they know nothing concerning his mysteries” (Alma 12:11).¶

Those have ever had a friend or loved one leave the faith might have observed something like this: often, when we betray our commitments, we seem to forget everything we once knew. But what is fascinating is what remains: as these living truths perish, we will discover our spiritual garden to be full of plastic plants—the fakes and counterfeits that got smuggled in over the years. And so as we survey our spiritual garden—in which the living truths that once bore fruit have died—all we have left are the counterfeits. We might even believe that this was all there ever was. It’s not uncommon for those who have departed from their covenants to seem to only remember the false and distorted versions of what prophets and apostles have taught.¶

In fact, we might even be able to differentiate between true and living truth and counterfeit falsehoods by what remains when we stop nourishing our spiritual garden. A tell-tell sign of living truth from the Source is that it does wither away and become forgotten when it is neglected. In contrast, counterfeit truths—the plastic plants—persist even when neglected. They don’t wither, because they were never alive to begin with. They remain fixed and unchanging, giving the illusion of life but lacking the capacity to grow, bear fruit, or respond to the living water of Christ. They are durable in the wrong sort of way.¶

And so, the paradox of the covenantal tradition is this: living truth is perishable when untended, while falsehoods are durable when unchallenged. Living truth flourishes only in covenant relationship with God—the true Gardener. When we abide in Him, the garden of our soul becomes fruitful again. This means that discipleship is not merely about collecting correct ideas but about keeping living truths alive—continually nourishing them through prayer, repentance, and faithful action. The truths of the gospel live only as long as we let Christ’s life flow through us. As the Savior taught, “I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing” (John 15:5).¶

We progress on our journey by heeding God’s voice

When we covenant our allegiance to Christ, He promises to lead us—both metaphorically and literally—safely through this “vale of sorrow into a far better land of promise” (Alma 37:45). He did this for the Israelites after they fled Egypt, Jared’s people after they fled the city where the tower of Babel was being constructed,² Lehi’s family after they fled Jerusalem,³ and the Saints moving west after the death of the Prophet Joseph.⁴¶

Today, our (metaphorical) promised land is to build a global covenant community. This community is called Zion, a society in which God’s laws are lived and normalized and in which residents walk and dwell in the presence of Divine Beings. In the Zion of Enoch’s day, “the Lord came and dwelt with his people, and they dwelt in righteousness, … [and] they were of one heart and one mind, and dwelt in righteousness; and there was no poor among them” (Moses 7:16, 18).¶

In the Nephite version of Zion, “they had all things common among them; therefore there were not rich and poor, bond and free, but they were all made free, and partakers of the heavenly gift … and did walk after the commandments which they had received from their Lord and their God” (4 Nephi 1:3, 12). From a scriptural perspective, this is the pinnacle of societal and moral progress, and something towards which all disciples of Christ are striving.⁵¶

It is also worth noting that in each covenant journey through the wilderness, God sent directors to guide His covenant people safely through the dangers that plagued their journey. These have included pillars of fire, scriptures, liahonas, seer stones, prophets and apostles, and the Holy Spirit. A number of times, though, God’s covenant people faltered in their progress. This always happened when they neglected the instructions God had given to them through His conduits of revelation.¶

Alma taught his son Helaman about the Liahona (director, or compass) that the Lord provided to Lehi and his family. He wrote:¶

Similarly, when the ancient Israelites disregarded the pleadings and guidance of Moses, they ended up living in the wilderness for forty years. Likewise, when the brother of Jared ceased to call upon God, he and his people tarried for years rather than progressing on their journey forward (Ether 2:13-14). In every case, progress was only made to the extent that people heeded the instructions of God within their covenant community. In our covenant community, the authorized channel of revelation includes the First Presidency, the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and the Holy Spirit.¶

From an idea view of truth, “societal progress” takes place independent of our relationship with God. We sometimes adopt this view in the Church. We assume that while societal progress is inevitable, it is also slow. Prophets “foresee” and “anticipate” future progress and can accelerate our progress. In this view, revelation allows Latter-day Saints to stay a little ahead of the moral and social progress curve, to be a “light on the hill,” moving society forward with us.⁶¶

This may be why some Latter-day Saints become agitated and discouraged when it seems like leaders of the Church are straggling behind on this forward journey, or when prophets question the virtue of progressive changes taking place in society. When this happens, some assume that divine revelation is being hampered by tradition and unacknowledged prejudice. However, from a person view of truth, when we betray our covenants with God, we unhinge ourselves from the only Person who can keep us from faltering in our moral and spiritual progress.¶

Our greatest concern should not be whether we are on the “right side of history,” but whether we are on the right side of God.⁷ We have been warned by apostles and prophets that society is heading in a direction that we really do not want to travel. When prophets warn against embracing the so-called “common sense” of our day, it is not because they are reluctant stragglers in society’s march towards progress. Rather, it is because society may not actually be progressing at all on matters of greatest importance.¶

Reframing Our Questions: Chapter 7

The first of these questions assumes that societal consensus will always point us in the direction of progress—as varying truth claims are subjected to public scrutiny, we inevitably discard discredited understandings in favor of newer and better understandings. The second question, however, assumes that our collective moral knowledge is contingent on our relationship with God. The closer and more intimate we are in our relationship with God (the Truth), the fuller and more discerning our understanding of what is right and true.¶

Footnotes

1. Lewis, Essential, p. 39. ↩

2. The Lord told the brother of Jared, “I will go before thee into a land which is choice above all the lands of the earth” (Ether 1:42). ↩

3. The Lord told Nephi, “And inasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments, ye shall prosper, and shall be led to a land of promise; yea, even a land which I have prepared for you; yea, a land which is choice above all other lands” (1 Nephi 2:20). ↩

4. Ronald K. Esplin, “A ‘Place Prepared’ in the Rockies,” Ensign, July, 1988, 6-13. ↩

5. See Hugh Nibley, Approaching Zion (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book, 1989). ↩

6. See Ralph Hancock’s critique of this view in his article, “Our One-sided ‘Openness’ to Continuing Revelation,” First Things, October 16, 2013. ↩

7. A famous account of an exchange between President Abraham Lincoln and a minister during the height of the Civil War reflects this sentiment. Apparently the minister expressed to President Lincoln his fervent belief that “the Lord was on our side.” The President responded: “I am not at all concerned about that, for I know that the Lord is always on the side of the right. But it is my constant anxiety and prayer that I and this nation should be on the Lord’s side.” From Francis Bicknell Carpenter, Six Months at the White House with Abraham Lincoln (Bedford, MA: Applewood Books, 1866), 282, italics in the original. ↩