So what role does religious authority play in the grand scheme of things? In the first two parts of this essay, I've argued that human beings are endowed by their Creator with an innate moral sense that becomes their compass for life, the means by which we steer ourselves morally and ultimately return to God. But if we have an innate moral sense, why would we need external religious authorities and institutions? Doesn't the "Light of Christ" already give us everything we need?
The answer obviously is no. Morality has no meaning without community. This is because everything we are here to accomplish as human beings requires community both as a means and as an end. And community is impossible without organization. And organization requires leadership. And what the restored Church and the restored priesthood mean is that now this community can extend not only across time and space within this dimension, but beyond the veil and into eternity.
So if we have an innate moral sense, it should not surprise us that this moral sense naturally draws us/drives us into community, and ultimately into eternal community. So religious authorities are the crucial players, the facilitators in helping us to accomplish what we need to accomplish. If our innate moral sense is drawing us back to God, and if part of that drawing back requires that we work communally and link humanity back together as one great family, our innate moral sense cannot ultimately set us apart from community or against religious authority.
This is why one of the most important phrases uttered in fast and testimony meeting is: "I know this Church is true."
This all makes eminent sense to me at least in principle. Of course the challenges of mortality and our human flaws and imperfections -- among leaders as well as among members -- make this not so much a smoothly oiled train chugging steadily along the track toward the Empire of God, as a sailing ship that occasionally breaks a rudder, loses a sail, or runs up against hidden reefs, and that requires constant care and attention from its captain as well as all of its sailors in order to steer us all truly back into safe harbor.
Then of course, there is the principle of faith, which is spoken of much among Mohos. God chooses to work through a priesthood authority structure, and reveal certain information to those who are in positions of leadership. Part of the discipline we need to develop in this life involves acting by faith; not always knowing the answers to everything, but learning to trust those who have been called to positions of trust.
Of course, faith operates at the level of the individual relationship with God too. I have had the experience of receiving a revelation in which the Spirit prompts me to act in a certain way or do a certain thing, without telling me why. Or sometimes the Spirit has prompted me to simply wait in patience. I am required to trust that if I follow the prompting, the reason will eventually become evident. Faith develops humility, it forces us to be interdependent. Not just dependent, but interdependent, because when I receive a prompting to act, the prompter is counting on me, just as I am trusting the prompter. It is a two-way street.
And that is no less true in the communal context, when an inspired leader asks me to act in a certain way. The trust is a two-way street, and the rewards for learning humility and building trust also flow two ways between leader and follower.
So what do we do when something that a religious authority says or does or teaches or asks us to do seems to conflict with our innate moral sense? What can we do?
Note I am not speaking here about what happens when a religious teacher's instructions conflict with our hungers, desires, or even perceived needs. In that situation, the moral imperative is to follow. I am talking about conflicts between religious authority and the highest sense of self, the most authentic spiritual self. I believe this can and does happen, and it can be one of the greatest trials of one's life to figure out exactly what is happening. It's not a comfortable position to be in.
It is tempting to slip into extremes when that happens. It is tempting to utter intemperate words. But I think if we listen, if we follow the Spirit, we can maintain integrity and eventually work things through. And I trust -- the Atonement allows me to trust -- that all errors will eventually be corrected and all breaches will eventually be healed. But in the mean time, we have to struggle, sometimes in painful ambiguity.
Has the religious leader made a mistake? Is he or she getting a false revelation from God? Or has he or she failed to seek a revelation at all, simply going by his or her preconceived notions, assumptions and prejudices? Or am I wrong? Have I somehow discerned incorrectly? Have I mistaken petty desires and wants for true moral imperatives? Am I being misled? Discernment is critical, which is why I always come back to the importance of listening well.
But assuming we have done our homework -- and this is not easy -- I don't think there is any answer but that individual conscience can never be violated. It can never not demand our primary allegiance. If I do not follow my conscience, nothing else has meaning. Certainly my allegiance to the Church and Church leaders has no meaning anymore either. What meaning could such allegiance have if it does not flow from my heart, if it is not a result of my primary allegiance to conscience?
Does not the act of upholding authority contrary to conscience have a corrosive effect on one's innate moral sense? Does it not convince us that we cannot possibly know the difference between right and wrong ourselves any more? Does it not make us increasingly dependent on external authorities to become our conscience for us? Does this not, as Voltaire suggested, then prepare us for the commission of every atrocity, so long as that atrocity is sanctioned by authority?
Those who are in positions of moral authority in the Church can and do understand this. But there is also such a thing as institutional self-interest, and such a thing as institutional temptation. And probably the primary institutional temptation is the hunger for smooth running, and impatience with those who don't run smoothly.
For me, this boils down to patience. It boils down to listening to God, doing what I need to do, having patience and waiting. I trust that all truth will be manifest in the end. All truth is still unfolding. What we see is not what we get. And I believe that when God's Empire is established in its fullness, we all will be surprised by it.
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Our Innate Moral Sense, Part II
My understanding of the secular view of human nature is that in it we are essentially animals that have somehow mysteriously evolved a frontal lobe that permits higher reasoning functions. Our bodies are us, are all that is us. Our bodies are our sole source of feeling, reason and even what we would call spirituality.
Most religious perspectives (though different religions have different takes on this) view human nature as having at least two, but sometimes considerably more components. In the Lakota view, for example, all living things have four spirits. Regardless of the religious perspective, the point is that man is both physical and spiritual. But before discounting religious perspectives that see man's spirit as a composite of several spirits, we should remember that in the LDS perspective, human beings began as eternal intelligences, which were subsequently endowed by God with spirit bodies. We are currently endowed with mortal physical bodies, but anticipate union with immortal physical bodies. LDS scripture explains that the "spirit" and "soul" are two separate concepts, that "soul" is the spirit united with the body. Furthermore, LDS scripture reminds us that we are endowed with something called the Light of Christ, "the light which is in all things, which giveth life to all things, which is the law by which all things are governed" (D&C 88:13). I count at least four components to our spiritual natures here: intelligence, spirit, soul, and the light of Christ.
Since God is endowed with a body, and our eternal selves will be too, it seems to me that our physical nature should be seen as a component of our ultimate spiritual natures, though in mortality, we are still working on that aspect of ourselves. I have a tendency to view the purpose of mortality as the process of incorporating our physical selves into our spiritual natures, of teaching our flesh to harmonize with our spiritual natures.
OK, but my point is, we have several different ways of feeling, of perceiving, of understanding. We have physical eyes and physical senses, but we have spiritual eyes and spiritual senses. We have/are "intelligences" which I assume to be different from brain synapses firing, though I believe we have a kind of intelligence that results from the connections between our brain cells. And we have that aspect which grants us access to the divine, the Light of Christ -- that aspect which, I dare say is most important. Is this not conscience? That's not a rhetorical question... Tell me if you think conscience is something different from the Light of Christ. But all of us have the Light of Christ; it is our built-in homing device. If we did not have it we would have no way of returning to God.
To reduce all feeling to mere carnality is, in my mind, the secular perspective. It fails to understand the full complexity of human nature.
My original point here was that C.S. Lewis spoke of this innate moral sense, which we cannot knowingly violate without becoming, in some sense demonic. I don't think this is out of harmony with the LDS perspective either, see for instance 2 Nephi 9:9 ("and our spirits must have become like [Satan], and we become devils..." etc.). This is built into us. We know at some level when we are going that route, without anyone having to teach us.
Now unless you are going to suggest that all homosexuals are demons (and some conservative Christians have kind of gone that route) and that our innate moral sense is so spoiled and rotten and ruined that we are incapable of judging right from wrong or knowing whether we are approaching Christ or wandering away from him, unless we are willing to take that extreme position, then shouldn't we be willing to consider as valid data the fact that so few of us feel our homosexual natures or same-sex relationships to be wrong?
I'm not speaking merely of "physical desire" or physical "feeling." I am speaking of our moral natures, our moral and spiritual feeling as well. And I'm also not speaking of the guilt or fear we might feel because we've violated an externally imposed rule that might bring upon us public or familial shame. Many gay folks struggle with that kind of guilt their whole lives. I'm speaking of the deep-down sense that comes from deep within that makes me know something is wrong. Like the feeling I got as a kid once after an afternoon of incinerating ants with a magnifying glass -- something I never did again after having that gut-wrenching feeling I had done something horrible.
I have wrestled again, again, again, and again with the question of whether the right and the moral thing for me to do would be to leave my partner. I have thought it out rationally, I have consulted my feelings, I have searched my moral sense (my conscience), I have prayed and sought spiritual guidance from God. And I know the Spirit, I know what the Spirit feels like. I feel it guiding me every day. And I can say that at every level, not only do I get no sense that my relationship with my partner is wrong in any way, but I get a very deep, very powerful sense that to leave him would be morally wrong in every way imaginable.
Now perhaps I am a ruined soul. But in my life I have known spiritual despair, I have known guilt. I have known unhappiness -- not mere physical unhappiness but the worst most desolate kind of unhappiness, the spiritual kind. And I can say that my decision to listen to the voice of reason guiding me into faithfulness in my relationship with Göran has not left me in that state. It has delivered me from it. If that is what it is to be a ruined soul, then there is no hope for me to know anything spiritually valid or meaningful. Which makes no sense for me to believe, because it would mean that the homing device God gave me doesn't work.
Again, from a secular perspective you can say, there is no Light of Christ, except what we imagine. It's all nerves and electrical impulses and hormones and whatnot. That kind of denial makes sense from a secular perspective, but not -- to me -- from a religious perspective.
Most religious perspectives (though different religions have different takes on this) view human nature as having at least two, but sometimes considerably more components. In the Lakota view, for example, all living things have four spirits. Regardless of the religious perspective, the point is that man is both physical and spiritual. But before discounting religious perspectives that see man's spirit as a composite of several spirits, we should remember that in the LDS perspective, human beings began as eternal intelligences, which were subsequently endowed by God with spirit bodies. We are currently endowed with mortal physical bodies, but anticipate union with immortal physical bodies. LDS scripture explains that the "spirit" and "soul" are two separate concepts, that "soul" is the spirit united with the body. Furthermore, LDS scripture reminds us that we are endowed with something called the Light of Christ, "the light which is in all things, which giveth life to all things, which is the law by which all things are governed" (D&C 88:13). I count at least four components to our spiritual natures here: intelligence, spirit, soul, and the light of Christ.
Since God is endowed with a body, and our eternal selves will be too, it seems to me that our physical nature should be seen as a component of our ultimate spiritual natures, though in mortality, we are still working on that aspect of ourselves. I have a tendency to view the purpose of mortality as the process of incorporating our physical selves into our spiritual natures, of teaching our flesh to harmonize with our spiritual natures.
OK, but my point is, we have several different ways of feeling, of perceiving, of understanding. We have physical eyes and physical senses, but we have spiritual eyes and spiritual senses. We have/are "intelligences" which I assume to be different from brain synapses firing, though I believe we have a kind of intelligence that results from the connections between our brain cells. And we have that aspect which grants us access to the divine, the Light of Christ -- that aspect which, I dare say is most important. Is this not conscience? That's not a rhetorical question... Tell me if you think conscience is something different from the Light of Christ. But all of us have the Light of Christ; it is our built-in homing device. If we did not have it we would have no way of returning to God.
To reduce all feeling to mere carnality is, in my mind, the secular perspective. It fails to understand the full complexity of human nature.
My original point here was that C.S. Lewis spoke of this innate moral sense, which we cannot knowingly violate without becoming, in some sense demonic. I don't think this is out of harmony with the LDS perspective either, see for instance 2 Nephi 9:9 ("and our spirits must have become like [Satan], and we become devils..." etc.). This is built into us. We know at some level when we are going that route, without anyone having to teach us.
Now unless you are going to suggest that all homosexuals are demons (and some conservative Christians have kind of gone that route) and that our innate moral sense is so spoiled and rotten and ruined that we are incapable of judging right from wrong or knowing whether we are approaching Christ or wandering away from him, unless we are willing to take that extreme position, then shouldn't we be willing to consider as valid data the fact that so few of us feel our homosexual natures or same-sex relationships to be wrong?
I'm not speaking merely of "physical desire" or physical "feeling." I am speaking of our moral natures, our moral and spiritual feeling as well. And I'm also not speaking of the guilt or fear we might feel because we've violated an externally imposed rule that might bring upon us public or familial shame. Many gay folks struggle with that kind of guilt their whole lives. I'm speaking of the deep-down sense that comes from deep within that makes me know something is wrong. Like the feeling I got as a kid once after an afternoon of incinerating ants with a magnifying glass -- something I never did again after having that gut-wrenching feeling I had done something horrible.
I have wrestled again, again, again, and again with the question of whether the right and the moral thing for me to do would be to leave my partner. I have thought it out rationally, I have consulted my feelings, I have searched my moral sense (my conscience), I have prayed and sought spiritual guidance from God. And I know the Spirit, I know what the Spirit feels like. I feel it guiding me every day. And I can say that at every level, not only do I get no sense that my relationship with my partner is wrong in any way, but I get a very deep, very powerful sense that to leave him would be morally wrong in every way imaginable.
Now perhaps I am a ruined soul. But in my life I have known spiritual despair, I have known guilt. I have known unhappiness -- not mere physical unhappiness but the worst most desolate kind of unhappiness, the spiritual kind. And I can say that my decision to listen to the voice of reason guiding me into faithfulness in my relationship with Göran has not left me in that state. It has delivered me from it. If that is what it is to be a ruined soul, then there is no hope for me to know anything spiritually valid or meaningful. Which makes no sense for me to believe, because it would mean that the homing device God gave me doesn't work.
Again, from a secular perspective you can say, there is no Light of Christ, except what we imagine. It's all nerves and electrical impulses and hormones and whatnot. That kind of denial makes sense from a secular perspective, but not -- to me -- from a religious perspective.
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