Testimonies

As a professor of philosophy at Brigham Young University (1972-2011), I have rationally defended the restored gospel in local, national, and international venues. Indeed, in all my published work, I have done nothing else. Yet my own conviction of the restored gospel is not based on philosophical or theological reasoning; it is grounded in personal manifestations of the Holy Spirit. Though these are sacred experiences, not often communicated or communicable, I share one such experience here.

Confirmation at Bellingham

Several years ago I attended an eight week Institute in the Philosophy of Religion at Eastern Washington University in Bellingham, sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities. The Institute was directed by Professors William Alston and Alvin Plantinga and included as faculty some of the most prominent philosophers of religion in both the U.S. and Great Britain. We met all day Monday thru Fridays and a half day on Saturday, as well as three evenings a week. Near the end of July, sensing participant burnout, Professor Alston announced that we were going to take a day off the coming Friday and that, for those interested, plans had been made for a whaling boat excursion of the coast of Puget Sound.. All of us eagerly signed up.

On Thursday night—the eve of the excursion—I remembered that I had accepted an invitation to teach the priesthood lesson on Sunday in the High Priests group of the Bellingham 2nd Ward—my ward for the summer. Realizing that there would be little time later, I decided to read and begin to prepare the lesson. The manual that year was based on the Old Testament. The particular lesson dealt with seeking and receiving spiritual confirmation of gospel truth. The introduction to the lesson included a passage from Jeremiah containing the phrase “in mine heart like a burning fire,” and a quotation from President Harold B. Lee which said (I’m paraphrasing): “One is not truly converted until he sees the spirit of the Lord resting upon the leaders of the Church and that testimony goes down into one’s heart like fire.” As I read and pondered the lesson material, I felt a very strong impression that there was someone who was struggling with his faith who very much needed this lesson and that I consequently I needed to prepare the lesson with great care and prayer—so much so that I should forego the whaling boat excursion on the morrow and spend the entire day Friday in preparation. I tried to brush these feelings aside—I really wanted very much to go on that whaling boat expedition. But the feelings persisted. The thought came to me: you will only pass this way but once. There is someone who will especially benefit from your thorough preparation of the priesthood lesson. The battle continued. That’s a very vain and presumptuous thought, I countered. God doesn’t need me; he can do his work through anyone. The conflict continued for some time, but eventually my lower self lost the battle. I gave up the excursion and spent all day Friday preparing the priesthood lesson. I read and reread the lesson, together with the scriptures cited. I took several walks to ponder the manual’s content and spent much time on my knees praying for guidance. And guidance came. Impressions were clear. You need to deal with these issues; you need to invite class members to respond to these questions. You need to reflect on these scriptures, you to need to share these experiences. Never before had I felt such clear direction in my preparation. By the end of the day, my lesson outline was completely and clearly spelled out. I thought about the members of high priest group, wondering for whom I was specially preparing the lesson, but I drew a blank. Having been in the group for only six weeks, I didn’t know any of them very well.

It was the first Sunday in August and Ward meetings began with fast and testimony meeting. Near the end of the meeting, a young woman (probably in her early forties) came to the podium to share her testimony. Before doing so, she explained that she and her family were from out of state and that they were on their way to Vancouver, Canada, which was hosting the World’s Fair. They felt impressed to stop in Bellingham to attend their meetings. She bore her testimony and returned to the bench, a few rows ahead of mine, where her husband and children were seated. Her husband immediately followed her to the podium. He explained that, before the meeting, he had made a deal with his wife: although he had never spoken a word in a Church meeting, if she would bear her testimony, he would bear his. He began by sharing some personal background. He reported that he had never been a believer. And that his study of the hard sciences, including chemistry, in college had served to confirm him in his atheism. While in college, he met and subsequently married the woman who was now his wife. She was, and she had always remained, an active Latter-day Saint. Throughout their married life, she had always taken their children to the church, while he almost always spent his Sundays reading the newspapers, watching TV, and resting. Occasionally, he went to church with them, almost always when a family member was speaking or otherwise performing. And he sometimes participated with his wife in Church social activities. In time, his rabid atheism was supplanted by an open agnosticism. It was then that he, at his wife’s urging, was baptized. He became fully active in Church activities. Nevertheless, he said, until this morning, he had never before borne his testimony, asked a question, or even spoken a word in a Church meeting. In ending his remarks, he said: “I cannot honestly say ‘I know the Church is true.’ I have never experienced a spiritual confirmation of its truthfulness. But, I can honestly say ‘I know the Church is good.’” And, he concluded: “I hope the Church is true.” He then returned to his seat.

While this brother was speaking, I received a powerful spiritual confirmation that he was the person for whom, with God’s help, I had prepared the priesthood lesson. Accordingly, immediately following the close of the fast and testimony meeting, I introduced myself to him and invited him to our high priest group meeting. “Thank you,” he said, “but I’m an Elder.” “That’s alright,” I said. “You’re supposed to meet with the high priests this morning.” Puzzled, he nonetheless came with me.

In the group meeting, I presented the lesson material—asking the questions, pondering the scriptures, sharing the experiences—as I had been divinely guided to do. Consistent with what he had reported in his testimony, this brother did not say a word.

But he lingered in the classroom following the closing prayer until only the two of us were left in the room. Then he thanked me for the priesthood lesson, reporting that the issues dealt with in the class were the very ones that he had struggled with throughout his life. “Now I know how to resolve them,” he said, “Thank you very much.” He continued, “During the lesson, I received a spiritual confirmation that the restored gospel is true.” And then with tears streaming down his cheeks, he continued, “God brought me to Bellingham this morning.” And, through my tears, all I could say was, “I know.”

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David Lamont Paulsen is an emeritus professor of philosophy at Brigham Young University (BYU), where, from 1994 to 1998, he held the Richard L. Evans Chair of Religious Understanding.

Professor Paulsen received an associate’s degree from Snow College in English, a bachelor’s degree from BYU in Political Science (graduating that year as BYU’s valedictorian), a J.D. from the Law School of the University of Chicago in 1964, and then, after several years spent as a practicing attorney, a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Michigan in 1975, with emphasis in the philosophy of religion.

With Donald W. Musser, Professor Paulsen edited Mormonism in Dialogue with Contemporary Christian Theologies (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2008). He also wrote the foreword to The Mormon Doctrine of Deity: The Roberts-Van Der Donckt Discussion (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2000).

Professor Paulsen has contributed articles to The International Journal for the Philosophy of Religion, Analysis (“Divine Determinateness and the Free Will Defence” [43:1]), The Harvard Theological Review (e.g., “Early Christian Belief in a Corporeal Deity: Origen and Augustine as Reluctant Witnesses” [83:2]; and, with Carl W. Griffin, “Augustine and the Corporeality of God” [95:2]), Faith and Philosophy (“Must God Be Incorporeal?” [6:1]), and Speculative Philosophy.

He has also contributed essays to the FARMS Review (including, among others, with Ari D. Bruening, “The Development of the Mormon Understanding of God: Early Mormon Modalism and Other Myths” [13:2]; with Brent Alvord, “Joseph Smith and the Problem of the Unevangelized” [17:1]; and, with Cory G. Walker, “Work, Worship, and Grace” [18:2]), the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies (e.g., with Roger D. Cook and Kendel J. Christensen, “The Harrowing of Hell: Salvation for the Dead in Early Christianity” [19:1]; with Brock M. Mason, “Baptism for the Dead in Early Christianity” [19:2]; and, with Kendel J. Christensen and Martin Pulido, “Redeeming the Dead: Tender Mercies, Turning of Hearts, and Restoration of Authority” [20:1]), and BYU Studies (e.g., “The Doctrine of Divine Embodiment: Restoration, Judeo-Christian, and Philosophical Perspectives” [35:4]; “Joseph Smith and the Problem of Evil” [39:1]; “Joseph Smith Challenges the Theological World” [44:4]; “Are Christians Mormon? Reassessing Joseph Smith’s Theology in His Bicentennial” [45:1]; with Julie K. Allen, “The Reverend Dr. Peter Christian Kierkegaard’s ‘About and Against Mormonism’ (1855)” [46:3]; “What Does It Mean to Be a Christian? The Views of Joseph Smith and Søren Kierkegaard” [47:4]; with Clark H. Pinnock, “Open and Relational Theology: An Evangelical in Dialogue with a Latter-day Saint” [48:2]; and, with Martin Pulido, “‘A Mother There’: A Survey of Historical Teachings about Mother in Heaven” [50:1]).

Posted December 2011

My testimony is who I am. I am the accumulation of what my parents and their parents passed down to me, and the understanding I have gained from experiences in all aspects of my life. It is not just something I say. It is not just what I do or what I think. It is part of the essence of what makes me, me.

My progenitors

My father was born in Provo, Utah, and went with his family to Southern California when his father was seeking work during the Depression. His mother was of Mormon handcart pioneer stock and his father was a Catholic from Wisconsin. They met when my grandfather was stationed in Provo with the US Army to guard the power plant during early World War I. Grandpa didn`t join the Church until many years later. Grandma was just a small town girl who made great pies and hugged her grandchildren a lot. As a side note, this simple country girl took up china painting when she was fifty and had one of her pieces put on permanent display in the Smithsonian before she died.

My mother was born in Houston, Texas, and was a convert to the Church before I was born. As another side note, her father learned to fly from Wilbur Wright and was one of the “early birds” whose name is engraved on the Wright Brothers Memorial at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Her parents divorced when she was young and her mother joined the Church a few years before she died. Her father was always gracious, but was not interested in the Church.

Even though my father’s mother was a believing Mormon, his family was not active in the Church. Family legend has it that her grandfather was on his way to the bishop’s storehouse to pay his tithing with a wagonload of potatoes when one of his neighbors told him there was no need to go because he had “just been excommunicated” from the Church. Family legend does not say why. My father was baptized quite late for those born in the Church (at age sixteen; the usual age is eight) and he did not set foot in the church again until he was reactivated while serving in the Navy during World War II. Apparently his mother sent word to the Church that my father was stationed in Florida and he was visited by a Church member who challenged him with an inquiry as to what he was doing “about the eternal welfare of his family?” He responded positively to the challenge, became active and converted my mother.

My early experiences

I was born a couple of years later with my father and mother both active in the Church. They took me to church and taught me right and wrong, but were not rigid, by-the-book Mormons. I suspect my mother was never fully converted because she occasionally remarked that she was still a Methodist at heart. I remember my mother once telling me that I would “never amount to anything in the Church because,” as a California Mormon, “I was not related to anybody” of importance. Balancing that statement, I also remember her saying that I was “special” because my father had promised God while my mother was pregnant that he would “dedicate me to His service” if I were a boy (I have an older sister and a younger brother). These comments stuck with me my whole life.

I always thought there was a God. I felt the presence of spiritual beings, especially while going to sleep at night. I attended church meetings with my parents and went up through the age grades in the Primary (the children’s organization). I noticed as a youth that if I sat near the front of the chapel in church meetings that I felt a special warmth that I did not feel if I sat out in the overflow area where most kids wanted to sit. I was never severely tempted to smoke or drink or be immoral. I was just a normal Mormon kid who became an Eagle Scout, studied hard in high school, and looked forward to a life of happiness and achievement. In my senior year at Burbank High School I was captain of the swim team and student body president. I felt like I was king of the school. I didn’t think of myself as a missionary, but found myself frequently involved in discussions about religion at the back of the bus on the way to swim meets and with non-LDS girls I was dating. To my surprise, three of my close high school friends joined the Church. In my senior year I decided to turn down an offer of admission to a prestigious California university and go to BYU. The principal called me into his office and pleaded with me to reconsider because he felt I was about to make a mistake I would “regret for the rest of my life.” A profound turning point for me was when I was getting on the bus for the All Night Party at Disneyland after the evening high school graduation ceremony held in the Burbank Starlight Bowl in the Verdugo Hills overlooking the San Fernando Valley. As I saw the lights stretching over the large valley I remember being struck by the thought that all the “glory” of high school and of this world was fleeting and ultimately of little value. I felt an emptiness that longed for filling.

Going off to college

My parents moved from Burbank as soon as I graduated and I lived with my sister, three years older than I am, in an apartment in a neighboring town during the summer because we both had summer jobs in the area. Those three months were the spiritual low point of my life: I was away from home for the first time and living in a lonely, anonymous environment. My sister had her own life and I felt stranded. I hardly went to church at all that summer. When it became time to head up to BYU in the fall, I looked forward to turning over a new leaf and being completely active in the Church. When I got to Provo, I was 100 percent active in my BYU student ward, and for the first time I discovered how fulfilling and meaningful church service could be. I went to BYU expecting to be surrounded by “farmers” (as a Southern California teenager, we made fun of people at the beach with “farmers’ tans”). I was admitted to the Honors Program and was quickly disabused of any feelings of superiority. I had great professors and was impressed with the quality of the students, and especially of the recently returned missionaries I met on campus. When I started at BYU, I told myself and others that I would go on a mission after completing my undergraduate education, but the enthusiasm of the former missionaries had penetrated and I applied to go as soon as I was old enough the summer following my freshman year.

My mission

I studied Japanese on a lark as a freshman and, not surprisingly, I was called to serve in Japan. I was kind of a “hot shot” at the beginning of my mission because I was one of the very few missionaries who had studied Japanese before the mission. In those days, missionaries were literally dumped into Japanese society without formal language training and were expected to be stopping people on the street and inviting them to meetings during their first week in the country. I remember the first missionary testimony meeting I attended; experienced missionaries bore what I perceived to be fervent testimonies that they “knew” the Book of Mormon and the Church were true. I recall saying something weak like, ”I hope the Church and the Book of Mormon are true.” While not satisfying to me, I did not worry about it, or go tell my mission president that I wanted to go home because I didn’t have a testimony. I just went to work with my companion doing what missionaries are supposed to do, and studied hard about the Gospel, as well as the language. At another missionary testimony meeting a couple of months later, I found myself saying, and believing it, that I “knew” the Church and the Book of Mormon were true and that Jesus Christ was my savior. I can’t put my finger on exactly when I gained this conviction. It just came, and has never wavered since then.

I had read the Book of Mormon only once before my mission and had never read the Bible cover to cover. I came to love the scriptures on my mission. I also learned that the value of a single soul is great in the sight of the Lord. I had one convert baptism to my name when I left Japan, and he went inactive in the Church shortly after joining. However, there was a college student that my companion and I contacted while he was working out with the university swim team just three weeks after I arrived in Japan. We scaled a chain-link fence to get access to the pool area. He was baptized after I was transferred to another area, and he later became one of the top church leaders in Japan who has brought dozens, if not hundreds, of people into the Church during his life. He is a living example of that old saying, “you can count the number of seeds in the apple, but you can’t count the number of apples in the seed.” Despite the paucity of baptisms, I felt a deep satisfaction when boarding the plane home that my mission had definitely been worth the two-and-a-half years I had spent on it.

As a returned missionary at BYU

After my mission in the spring of 1968, I was obliged to enroll immediately at BYU and had to stay for summer school to keep from being drafted. I really didn’t want to be there. My parents had divorced while I was on my mission and my father had remarried to a lovely lady who was not a Mormon. He met me at the Los Angeles airport while I was waiting for my flight to Salt Lake and was smoking a pipe, as if to signal me as to his activity status in the Church. He told me that, due to the change in his circumstances, he could not help me financially and I was on my own. I arrived at BYU penniless and with no idea how I would support myself.

A miracle occurred soon after arriving at BYU, when the professor who taught me Japanese as a freshman told me that I could have a room in his house for free. He had ten children and I was treated as number eleven. I ate with his family and all I had to do in return was to be what I have jokingly referred to as his “slave” (e.g. I built a fence, helped him finish his basement, baby-sat his children and served as his research assistant). This was entirely acceptable because I had time but no money.

One afternoon that summer I was studying in my room at the professor’s house and was not at all happy about life. I felt lonely and wanted to be in California with my family. Like many recently returned missionaries, I had a hard time getting back into the dating and social scene after the mission. I wondered if anyone loved me. In this state of heightened emotional sensitivity, I remember looking out the window and seeing clouds swirling around the top of nearby Mt. Timpanogos after a brief summer shower, and I had a strong feeling I should go outside into his large and private back yard (which I had fenced). The sight of the mountains, near dusk with the setting sun making them aflame with various shades of red, overwhelmed me. I began to pray vocally and asked my Heavenly Father, simply, if He loved me. At that moment I felt as if my body was being filled with a hot liquid, beginning in my toes and moving slowly upwards. When it got to my head I began to cry and spontaneously started to sing the LDS hymn “Oh, My Father,” which goes in part:

O my Father, thou that dwellest
In the high and glorious place,
When shall I regain thy presence
And again behold thy face?
In thy holy habitation,
Did my spirit once reside?
In my first primeval childhood
Was I nurtured near thy side?
….
I had learned to call thee Father,
Thru thy Spirit from on high,
But, until the key of knowledge
Was restored, I knew not why.
In the heav’ns are parents single?
No, the thought makes reason stare!
Truth is reason; truth eternal
Tells me I’ve a mother there.

When I leave this frail existence,
When I lay this mortal by,
Father, Mother, may I meet you
In your royal courts on high?
Then, at length, when I’ve completed
All you sent me forth to do,
With your mutual approbation
Let me come and dwell with you.

I had no doubt that my Heavenly Parents loved me more than I could comprehend, and all I really wanted in life was to return to live with them someday.

After that late summer experience, the fall semester rolled around, and I was called to serve as the head of the young men’s organization in my ward. I worked with the head of the young women’s organization and we planned and executed many fun activities for our ward. Toward the end of the winter term we started to date and got engaged shortly thereafter. We were married that summer. To my surprise, I was called to serve as a counselor in the bishopric of our singles ward just ten days after our marriage. This reinforced how much I loved church service. I subsequently served in two other bishoprics at BYU before graduating. The opportunity to serve continued in graduate school, when I was called to be a member of high councils while in my PhD program at the University of Michigan and while attending Harvard Law School.

Graduate school

Our first couple of years in Ann Arbor were challenging, both academically and church-wise. I was actually not admitted to the Anthropology Ph.D. program at first, despite the fact that I had a full 4 year fellowship in Anthropology from the National Science Foundation. The professor with whom I wanted to study told me to come anyway and enroll in a Japan Studies M.A. program, while taking the full first year course work for the anthropology Ph.D. program and, thus, getting to know the department faculty. I later learned that I was the first applicant to the program from BYU and a student from Princeton was admitted for the only slot available. I was duly admitted the second year and was not delayed in my progress. A year later I failed the part of my doctoral exams which was read by a professor who was a former Mormon and very bitter about the Church. I told my advisor, with whom I had become very close, that this professor “hated me” (he scathingly referred to my religion as a “cargo cult” in his written critique of the exam), which my professor did not think possible because he said the other man was a “professional.” When told that he threatened me on the telephone with physical violence over an imagined slight, my advisor promptly arranged for a new committee member and I retook the exam and passed.

The ward in Ann Arbor was a real eye-opener to us. There seemed to be a sense of questioning the doctrines and folkways of the Church, especially the idea of deferring to the authority of the Brethren in Salt Lake City. I had a strange feeling that the many psychologists in the congregation were psychoanalyzing me every time I participated in the meetings. I felt like a rube from BYU. In the first couple of years more than one of my cohorts in the ward became noticeably disaffected regarding the Church. I made a conscious decision at the time to not question Church authority or aspects of the doctrine that I did not fully understand. Similar to my experience as a young missionary, I decided to “not sweat the small stuff,” get on with my life and Ph.D. program, and suspend judgment on certain matters until I could understand them later. I consciously decided that my religion was my life and that no amount of “intellectual honesty” was worth giving up or damaging my belief system. I realized that the “group” of believers really mattered to me. This reaffirmed the path that my mission firmly set me upon.

The church experience at Harvard was vastly different than that in Ann Arbor. There was a sweet spirit of testimony and even humility among the many first-rate students and faculty affiliated with Harvard, MIT, and other excellent universities in the area. We loved it in Boston. We had a particularly faith promoting experience while there. The Church needed to build a new meetinghouse for our ward and the bishop (a young professor at MIT) challenged the members, many of whom were graduate students, to contribute to the building fund in an amount that would “hurt.” He said he was reluctant to say this because, from his experience, the Saints were almost always faithful and he did not want anyone to do anything “foolish” by giving too much. The only money we had accumulated was a certain amount set aside to buy a sewing machine, which my wife had earned while babysitting. When the bishop sat down with us to find out how much we would give, we gave him a check for that amount. Surprised, he asked us where we got that kind of money. When we told him, he began to cry, saying this was the kind of sacrifice that he was worried about. At our insistence he accepted the money. A few weeks later I got a letter from the financial aid office at Harvard Law School saying there was an error made in calculating our aid amount and they needed to talk to me about it. Such a notice from that office was almost always bad news (e.g. they found out my father earned more than he said and I owed them money). I went to the office in trepidation. As I talked to them they explained, with some embarrassment, that they were teaching a new employee how to calculate need and randomly pulled my file out of a filing cabinet packed with hundreds of student aid files. They said that while going over the numbers they realized they had under-calculated my need and that they owed me additional aid amounting to over 3 times the sum we had donated. As I stood and related this experience to our ward members in the next fast and testimony meeting, the bishop sitting on the stand again began to cry. My wife got her sewing machine. This reinforced our testimony that Heavenly Father blesses us as we have the faith to sacrifice and live his commandments.

Professional life and Church service

After law school, I was recruited into the management consulting firm Bain & Company and, after three years there, two of which were in Tokyo, I was invited to return to BYU in a tenure-track position in Anthropology. The decision to leave Bain was not easy because I was going from a comfortable income to the likelihood of 1/3 of my salary at that time. I waffled back and forth about going or not, and one evening told my wife that I decided to turn down the university position. The next day I went from our home in Tokyo to Osaka on a business trip. As I ran to catch the bullet train to return to Tokyo, the doors closed in my face and the train departed. To that point, I had never missed at train or a plane. As I stood there , I heard a voice from the far end of the platform calling out “Walt Ames! Walt Ames!” It was my friend, a BYU Japanese language professor, leading a group of BYU students on a study abroad trip who had just gotten off the train I had intended to board. What were the odds of this happening in the teeming Osaka train station? What if I had been two seconds faster and gotten on that train? It immediately struck me that it was literally BYU calling me and that it was an answer to prayer. I called my wife from Osaka, told her we were going to BYU and to have the movers come the next day.

A month after joining the faculty, I was called as a counselor in a BYU student stake presidency and a year later, at age thirty-eight, I became president of the stake. I told the Apostle who called me that I had not yet been a bishop. He told me not to worry about that, to just rely on the Lord and do the job. As he was setting me apart, I felt almost an electric shock as he placed his hands on my head. Afterwards I could not restrain myself from testifying to the small group of people in the room that I knew that he was a true Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ. As president of a single student stake comprised mostly of recently returned missionaries and young women interested in that demographic, I had numerous spiritual experiences working with young people as they tried to live the Gospel. To cite just one, I remember an occasion where my counselors and I were setting a young man apart to a position in an elder’s quorum presidency. With my eyes shut and my hands on his head, I saw in my mind’s eye a being dressed in white joining us in the circle with his hands on the head of the young man. After the setting apart I felt impressed to ask him about his father. He told me that he was deceased and had been a faithful member and priesthood bearer. I told him about the experience and said I felt that it was his father in the circle with us. The Apostle who had called me to be stake president (a former president of the university) later told me that he felt the real reason I had come to BYU was to serve as stake president.

After four years or so at the university, and with the blessing of the Apostle who had called me, I left BYU to set up the Tokyo operations of a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based management consulting firm. While there, at age forty-three, we received a telephone call from a member of the First Presidency of the Church calling my wife and me to preside over the Japan Nagoya Mission. Living in Japan for an extended period was not easy for a family (we had six children, the youngest aged two at the time). When asked in a pre-calling “chat” with a General Authority of the Church about how a mission would fit in our lives at that time, my wife was asked for her response first. In her typically honest and faithful manner she replied “Terrible! But if the Lord wants us to serve, we will do so.” She had borne the brunt of raising the children in a tough school, social, and medical environment in Japan. When I was asked, I saw it as a great adventure and said I would look forward to it immensely. We received the call. After being set apart by the member of the First Presidency who called us, he stopped us at the door as we were leaving his office, looked my wife in the eye, and said the things she was worrying about “would not happen.” The mission turned out to be a great blessing in the lives of our entire family. We saw countless miracles during the three years of our unpaid service.

Recent years

Our life has passed, it seems, in a flash since our mission experience. I returned to BYU for another year and then became an executive recruiter with a global executive recruiting firm in their Tokyo office. I worked for fifteen years in several different global firms in this industry, mostly recruiting senior executives to work in multinational enterprises in Japan and elsewhere in Asia. Church-wise, I have had the privilege of finally being called to serve as bishop in one of the English-language wards in Tokyo. I am now retired on disability and working as an adjunct professor at Utah Valley University and at BYU. My wife shared with me an insight the other day regarding something that had been weighing on my heart. She said that the reason I had been called to prominent positions in the Church so early in age was that the Lord knew I would become disabled, and if He had waited until I was older I would not have had the chance to serve. The Spirit whispers that she is right. Throughout our married life my wife and I have prayed to be in a position to serve others and our Heavenly Father and we have had many opportunities to do so in formal Church callings and in quiet and informal ways.

My testimony is based on numerous profound spiritual experiences and miracles which I cannot deny, and the realization that life is meaningful only if we serve others. My mother was right in that I have been able to spend my life in God’s service. Of course my life is not yet over, and I hope in the end she will be proven wrong in that I will have amounted to something in the Church. Despite some weakness in my parent’s activity in the Church, I have been able (thanks largely to my wife) to raise a progeny who have founded themselves on the rock of the Gospel.

I know the Gospel of Jesus Christ has been restored to the earth and is found in its fullness in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I know the Book of Mormon is the word of God and will bring happiness to those who follow its precepts. I know the Church is led by Apostles and Prophets and I have had the blessing of sitting at their feet and hearing the word of God uttered directly from their lips. I know that God lives, that He loves me and that His gracious hand is in all things. My fondest hope is to live my life in such a way as to fill the measure of my mortal creation and to find true and everlasting joy with my family gathered around me in the presence of my Heavenly Father and Mother.

I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, AMEN.

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After graduating from Brigham Young University (BYU) with a B.S. in Anthropology and Asian Studies, Walter L. Ames earned a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and a J.D. from Harvard Law School.

He has taught at various periods for BYU, and currently serves as an adjunct faculty member at both BYU and Utah Valley University.

He has also served as a managing director at Russell Reynolds Associates, a partner at Ray & Berndtson, a vice president at A. T. Kearney Executive Search (which acquired Ray & Berndtson), and a partner at Edward W. Kelley & Partners (which acquired A. T. Kearney Executive Search), and is currently a partner with Heidrick & Struggles.

He is the author of, among other things, Police and Community in Japan (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1981), and a contributor to, among other things, Japanese Law in Context: Readings in Society, the Economy, and Politics (Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2001).

Posted November 2011

I have had a very fulfilling forty-plus-year career in science as a statistician. Besides teaching and mentoring students, my career has had two other integral parts. One is the development of new statistical methodology and the other is the application of existing statistical tools in collaboration with other scientists for the purpose of new scientific discovery. In reflecting over my career, it is very clear to me that my religious faith has impacted and enriched my career in some fundamental ways.

Scientific discovery can be so very exciting and competitive that it can be totally engrossing. Some of my coworkers tend to become “workaholics” in pursuit of discovery, setting aside other “distractions,” working single-mindedly to be the first to solve a specific problem. Were it not for some firmly rooted religious practices in my life, including Sabbath Day observance, I too would probably have become consumed with the quest for scientific discovery with resulting neglect of other personal and family values. Instead I have found, and bear testimony, that Sabbath Day observance has had a very positive impact on my career. For me, Sabbath observance implements one of the great natural laws of human endeavor, namely that, in any intense effort, a proper rest gives added perspective and renewed strength. In my life, an effective rest is not physical inactivity with my mind still engaged in scientific matters, but rather total absorption in a completely different activity. Focused religious contemplation and engrossing service in the Church provides a beneficial rest for the mind. Time and again, not only in my professional career but also in my studies long ago, I have witnessed how Sabbath Day observance has blessed me professionally. It seems paradoxical that the absence from scientific activity in body and mind for short periods could be so beneficial in scientific pursuits, but that has clearly been the case in my career.

My religious faith has blessed me in another way that is not so empirically transparent. Over my career, I have also been invited to assume various ecclesiastical callings, including serving twice as a bishop and as a member of a stake presidency. I do not have data to prove it statistically, but I have noticed that periods in which I was the most involved in ecclesiastical callings were also the periods during which I was the most successful professionally, for example in the production of scientific papers. I have not promised such a positive correlation between Church work and professional success to others. But I do bear testimony that, as I have been engaged in the work of the Lord, dedicating time and emotional energy to that work, He has blessed me with inspiration to prosper professionally. In this as well as in other ways, it has been cherished experience to accept personally challenging Church assignments in faith, and then to witness the hand of the Lord blessing one to accomplish the Church work and at the same time to thrive professionally.

A recent manifestation of the Lord’s inspiration in scientific pursuits occurred during the humanitarian mission that my wife and I served in Syria (2008-2010). In addition to pure humanitarian work, my duties included serving as a faculty member at Damascus University. The Lord blessed me to be very productive professionally, despite the limited resources, as a means of serving others and representing the Church. It was a marvelous experience to witness again such science-related inspiration.

I bear personal testimony that my religion, besides being a source of strength in my professional life, has also brought great joy in my personal life and in family life for my wife and me.

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James Matis is a Professor Emeritus of Statistics at Texas A&M University. He received a BS in Mathematics from Weber State, an MS in Statistics from BYU, and a PhD in Statistics from Texas A&M. He has been on the faculty of Texas A&M since 1970.

He is a fellow of the American Statistical Association (ASA) and an elected Member of the International Statistical Institute. He received the Founder’s Award, the highest honor from ASA, for “outstanding leadership . . . advancing statistical education.” He also received university-level Distinguished Achievement Awards in both Teaching and Research from Texas A&M. He has published over 150 scientific papers appearing in over 40 journals, and has been a consultant for business and government agencies. His international experience includes service as a statistical expert for the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO), twice to India and once to the People’s Republic of China. He was twice awarded a Fulbright research fellowship from the US State Department to India and, on another occasion, was awarded an Indo-American fellowship to India. He has also taught in South Africa, and was recently a faculty member at Damascus University for two years as part of an LDS service mission.

Posted November 2011

[Click to read English version.]

ヴァン・C・ゲッセル

わたしは1950年代から60年代にソルトレーク・シティーでプロテスタントとして育ちました。家族はとりわけ教会に熱心だったわけではありませんが，自分の救い主としてのキリストを信じていました。熱烈な反モルモンだったわけでもなく，二度ほど，モルモン教徒は善い人たちだけれど，ジョセフ・スミスを「礼拝する」のは間違いだと言ったことがありました。わたしは，イエスが自分の救い主であること，そしてモルモンの信仰が間違っているという前提を疑わずに成長しました。

13，4歳の頃には，気が向いたときに新約聖書の，おもに福音書を読むようになっていました。聖書を読んだり，日曜日の説教を聞いたりしているうちに，神が神であるためには基本的に二つの要件が必要だと思うようになりました。すなわち，神はその子らにあまねく公平で，わたしたち一人一人を愛し，わたしたちの生活をほんとうに心にかける御方であるはずだという，2点です。

10代半ばのあるとき，青少年の日曜学校のクラスに牧師がやって来て，質疑応答の時間を持ったことがありました。友人が，アフリカなどに住んでいてイエス・キリストについて生涯聞く機会のない人たちはどうなるのかと質問しました。牧師の答えはわたしの脳裏に焼きつけられました。「残念ですが，皆地獄に行きます。」もちろんそれは，愛に満ちた神についてわたしが考えていた二つの要件に反するものでした。その日から，わたしはいわゆる「あまり活発でないプロテスタント」になりました。

その後目的もなく過ごしていた時期に，末日聖徒の友人がジョン・A・ウイッツォー著のA Rational Theology（『合理的神学』）という本を貸してくれました。 うやうやしくベッド脇のテーブルの上に置いたものの，手に取って読むことは一度もありませんでした。そのまま数年の時が流れ，その間，そこからずっとわたしを見上げ続けていたその本の題名がやがて頭から離れなくなっていきました。今思うに，それが18歳のときに，回復された福音の教えに出会う備えとなったのです。なぜなら，突き詰めれば，わたしが宗教に求めていたのは合理性であり，神はその子ら一人一人のために，そのひとり子を賜わったほどこの世を愛してくださったのだと確認することだったからです。

高校を卒業してすぐの夏，優しい友人の誘いで，モルモン書をひもとくようになりました。読み始めたところ興味がわき，深夜疲れてうとうとし始めても本を置こうとは思いませんでした。そこで，階下に駆け下り，自分で初めて（そして最後の）コーヒーを沸かして，眠気覚ましにそれを飲みながら読み続けたのです。モルモン書には興味をそそられましたが，正直なところ，最初の数日に読んだ箇所からは求めていた答えは見つかりませんでした。

それから第三ニーファイを読み始めたのです。神は，より大いなる知識を授けるために，前もってわたしを優しく備えておいてくださいました。救い主がエルサレムの弟子たちに向かって訪れなければならない「他の羊」がいると言われた，その一見不可解な言葉に，年少だったわたしの注意を引きつけてくださっていたのです。第三ニーファイ第15章21節の「『この囲いにいない他の羊……』とわたしが言ったその羊とは，あなたがたのことである」という聖句を読んだとき，めったにない，心躍る，純粋で衝撃的な啓示を受けたのです。それは，それまで散在していた数多くの真理のかけらが明らかな調和の下に一つにまとまった瞬間でした。その一つの聖句がわたしのあらゆる疑問と神への切なる思いに答えを与えてくれたのです。そして，歴史上のいかなる時の，いかなる場所にいる人でも，神は確かにその子らを知っておられ，さらに重要なことに，彼らを心にかけておられるということを教えてくれたのでした。神が預言者を通して福音の真理を子らに知らしめることと，預言者の活動範囲はガリラヤにとどまらないことも教えてくれました。また，神の究極の，絶対的公平さについてさらに学ぶために，わたしを備えてくれたのです。それは宣教師が救いの計画を説明してくれたときのことでした。神は生者にとっても死者にとっても等しく神であられ，主がお気づきになられずにその指の間からこぼれ落ちる人はだれ一人としていないことを教えられたのです。そして，主が理性の神であって，永遠の標準を維持しつつも，わたしたち一人一人が，主がわたしたちに望んでおられることを知る機会を得るまで最後の審判を保留しておられるのだと確信することができました。

40年以上前，わたしは否定することのできない御霊の証を受けました。その後，あの最初の，稲妻のような証を確認する啓示を数えきれないほど受けてきましたが，あの最初の経験を思い返し，かみしめることがよくあります。信仰が試されているときは特にそうです。これまでの経験から，信仰の試しは，信仰を揺るがすためでなく，もっと強固にするために与えられることを学びました。そして，もし主に「心の中で〔主に〕叫び求めた夜を思い出し」，自分が真実であると知っていることをしっかりと守っていれば――たとえあらゆる小さなジレンマや問題を解決する答えがなかったとしても――神は「この件について〔わたしの〕心に平安を告げ〔て〕」くださいます（教義と聖約6：22－23）。

神は公平で，愛に満ち，すべての子らを心にかけて案じてくださる御方であるという，10代の後半に受けた基本的な証は，プライベートでも職業上でも，後に直面した様々な経験で支えとなってくれました。大学院入学を翌日に控えた夜，妻が初めて妊娠した子が思いがけず双子で，しかも早産だと知らされました。わたしたちが思い描いていた生活が目の前で音をたてて崩れていくように感じました。息子たちは二人とも危篤状態で，呼吸装置の助けを借りて息をしていました。わたしたち夫婦は，たとえこれ以上の教育をあきらめざるを得なくても，彼らの命が助かるよう主に願い求めることしか念頭にありませんでした。9日間にわたって，わたしたちは二人のために昼夜を問わず祈り，彼らの命を助けてくださるように主に嘆願し，請い願いました。そして10日目の夜，「御心が行われますように」と祈りの言葉を変えたときに初めて，主はその腕で温かくわたしたちを包み，双子の一人はわたしたちのもとに残されるけれども，もう一人は主の元に戻ると教えてくださったのです。生存した息子とそっくりな男の子といつか再会できると知っていることが，わたしたちに言葉にできないほどの慰めを与えてくれました。

日本文学の博士号を取得すると，わたしたちは教育界という荒野をさすらう旅に出ました。母校のコロンビア大学で１年，ノートルダム大学で2年，カリフォルニア大学バークレー校で8年，そしてブリガム・ヤング大学ではもう20年以上になります。そんな曲がりくねった道を導いてくれる霊的なGPSなどあろうはずもなく，わたしたち家族は，わたしたちの必要をわたしたち以上に知っておられる個人的な神を信頼して進んできました。コロンビア大の職を失ったことが結果的に自分の益になろうとは，だれが予知できたでしょうか。ノートルダム大という宗教法人を経営母体とする大学で勤務した経験が後にBYU で教鞭を取る備えになろうとはだれが知り得たでしょうか。また，バークレー校における2度の終身在職権審査（1度目は不合格，2度目は合格）を通して主に教えられたことが，BYUプロボ校の人文学部長として教員たちの書類審査に携わる備えであったとはだれが予知できたでしょうか。

後になってみれば分かる，そのような数々の経験で証が強められただけではありません。主の深い憐れみにより，ビショップ，ステーク会長，伝道部会長といった神権の鍵を伴う召しにも備えられました。そして，わたしが教え導くように召された人々に主の愛と御心を伝えられるよう，文字通り途切れることなく御霊の導きを受ける特権を与えてくださったのです。そのような召しを受けていた期間に，わたしはだれかと一対一で話し合っているときに，幽体離脱して自分の様子を客観的に見てみたいという衝動に駆られることがよくありました。主がわたしを御手の器として使い，シナイ山の上でモーセになさったように，天の神がわたしの思いと言葉を支配して，明瞭に，力強くわたしの（正確に言えば主の！）囲いの羊の一人に語りかけておられたからです。あまりに神秘的で，チャネリングのように聞こえるかもしれません。しかし，主がその愛をしもべらに示される現実の方法を，ほかにどんな比ゆ的描写をもってしてもわたしには 十分に表現できるとは思えないので，ご容赦ください。わたしは祝福されて主の普遍の愛を感じることができただけでなく，それを人に伝えるというすばらしい特権に浴してきました。

このように多くの証が与えられてきたのに，主が存在するか，主は心にかけておられるかと疑うことなどできるでしょうか。肉の目で主を見ても今以上に知ることは不可能です。霊の目で主を見，親しく語り合ったからです。わたしにとって，主の「完全な」福音の正確な意味は，それがあらゆる場所で，あらゆる時代に，いつまでも，終わりのない世まで生を受ける主の子ら一人一人に完全に及ぶということに尽きます。主はわたしを知っておられ，わたしに対して公平であられます。わたしを心にかけてくださるがゆえに御子を送られ，福音を回復してくださいました。主はわたしの神，わたしの王であられます。

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ヴァン・C・ゲッセルはカリフォルニア州コンプトンで生まれ，ユタ州ソルトレーク・シティーで育った。1968年10月にソルトレーク・シティーにて改宗。1970年から1971年，日本で伝道する。1979年，コロンビア大学より日本文学で博士号を授与される。コロンビア大学，ノートルダム大学，カリフォルニア大学バークレー校，ブリガム・ヤング大学で教鞭を取る。ブリガム・ヤング大学アジア-中近東言語科長，人文学部長を歴任。

ゲッセル博士は日本のクリスチャン作家として知られる遠藤周作の著書から，『侍』や『深い河』を含む6作を翻訳出版している。博士の翻訳による『女の一生＜第一部・キクの場合＞』も近日出版される。リード・ニールソンと共同編集したエッセー集Taking the Gospel to the Japanese: 1901 to 2001は最優秀国際モルモン歴史書としてモルモン歴史協会よりジェラルディン・マクブライド・ウッドワード賞を受賞している。The Showa Anthologyを共同編集し，J・トーマス・ライマーと共同編集したThe Columbia Anthology of Modern Japanese Literatureを発行している（第1巻を2005年，第2巻を2007年）。
教会においてはBYUの独身ワードのビショップ，同じくBYUの独身ステーク会長を務めた。2005年から2008年にはオレゴン州ポートランド伝道部会長の任にあった。妻のエリザベス・ダーリー・ゲッセルとの間に3人の子供がおり，5人の孫に恵まれてい

る。2010年5月投稿。

My Testimony of the Book of Mormon

My testimony of the Book of Mormon came to me as a borrowed gift from my great-grandfather, Marius Falslev, who converted to Mormonism in Randers, Denmark, and gave up everything to emigrate to be with the Saints in the new “Zion.” He was not an easy target for the missionaries, buffeting them a number of times and refusing their “Good News.” Once he “caught the Spirit” his testimony was rock solid. As a child he told me that until I had a testimony of the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith, I should borrow his. “Lean on my testimony,” he said, “until you have one strong enough to stand on your own.” I did just that.

During my elementary school years, I read Deta Petersen Neeley’s books based on the Book of Mormon, and the characters and history began to speak to my heart, a child’s innocent heart. Upon reaching junior high school I began in earnest to read the Book of Mormon in its entirety. I remember well the day that I finished and felt the seeds of a testimony begin to grow that it was indeed “the word of God.” Following Moroni’s admonition, I did seek confirmation of the Spirit, that it was divine writ. My testimony was one of simple faith. I had such deep respect and love for my grandparents, parents, teachers . . . all of whom bore witness of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. That was sufficient for me.

During my collegiate days, I continued my study of the Book of Mormon and began to teach its concepts to children in my Primary and Sunday School classes. That had a deepening effect on me, enabling me to understand the core of the work, not just the characters and scenes. I began to receive a personal association with the principles discussed by the ancient prophets. My most significant mentor, who was not a member of the church but who had studied comparative religions, saw the Book of Mormon as nothing more than a literary contrivance of the nineteenth century. I tried to convince him logically, through scientific evidence and literary content, why I believed as I did. I had no influence with him. I don’t believe he wanted the Spirit to bear witness to him because it would require some alterations within his life. Our last conversation regarding the Book of Mormon ended on his saying, “When you go away to graduate school and become more educated, you will be able to see the fallacies of your belief in the Book of Mormon.”

Quite the contrary has been the case! In the process of acquiring a PhD and venturing into the world of scholarly pursuit, the more I studied the book, the more “evidence” I found of its truthfulness. In 1994 my family and I moved to Jerusalem, Israel, to spend a sabbatical year. Little did I know that our experience living there would unlock a multitude of insights into the Book of Mormon. I had assumed that we would be enlightened regarding the Old and New Testaments, but the reality was that it did more to secure my knowledge of the accuracy and astonishing clarity of the Book of Mormon.

From the moment we moved into our apartment on Ha Nachal street near Hebrew University, clarity came to my mind with regard to a concern I had harbored from my adolescence concerning the first pages of I Nephi. The term “river of water” is found a number of times within the early part of the document. I remember thinking that it was redundant (all rivers have water, I thought, that is why they are called rivers!), or perhaps Joseph had used the phrase to sound as if it were from the “Old World.” It was not until the name of our street was translated that I understood why Nephi referred to a “river of water.” Ha Nachal means a river without water; nahar is the word for “river of water.” There are two kinds of rivers in ancient Israel (Jerusalem), one with and one without water. Joseph could not possibly have known that. He never lived in a region where there are “wadis,” or “rivers without water.” Only someone from such a region (ancient Judea?) could have been acquainted with such.

The allegory of the olive tree in Jacob is so accurate in terms of the husbandry of these remarkable and rare trees. Having lived in Israel and Italy, where the care of olive trees is very serious business, I have gleaned a great deal of information regarding the art and science of their care. It is so accurate that it could be used as a horticultural text. Neither Joseph nor any American easterner could possibly have had knowledge of this ancient art/science. Someone from the Old World would have to have written it.

In my study of Biblical Hebrew, I discovered continual “Hebrewisms” in the text of the Book of Mormon. Joseph was not afforded an education sufficient to have enabled him to do that. The more I have learned about the ancient world, the more absolute has become my knowledge that the Book of Mormon was written by an ancient remnant of the house of Israel.

A truly revelatory surprise came to me in studying “chasanot” (the ancient practice of cantillation [chanting] of the scriptures). It was my desire to be able to read the markings set down in the eighth century by rabbinical scholars in the area of Tiberias (Galilee) giving symbols to what Moses had done when he first chanted the Torah (the first five books of the Old Testament). There are few scholars left in the world who can decipher these markings. I was fortunate to work with Professor Ezri Uval at Hebrew University. Knowing how few experts there are on this ancient art, I asked him what unusual experiences he might have had in his years of study. He told me of a lecture he presented in Albuquerque, New Mexico, at the university there. He was asked to enlighten the students as to the various practices used in the Torah, the Prophets and the Psalms.

He began with Genesis, chapter one, verse one. As he began to chant “Brseet bara Elohim” …בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים בְּרֵאשִׁית, a group of Navajo Indians began to become very animated. During the first break, they approached him, asking from whence the tune came to which he chanted the story of the “creation.” He pointed out that the markings were there in the Hebrew Bible since the eighth century. He asked why they were asking. Their response perplexed him. They said: “Though the language is different in the way you delivered it, the tune is the same as the tune to which our forefathers have told the ‘creation’ story for generations.” “How is that possible?” Ezri asked me. “Is it possible that part of the lineage of Israel made it to the New World with the scriptures?” “Yes!” I responded, “but I cannot tell you how I know that because I have promised your government not to proselytize here in Israel.” He said “I only want an explanation. I don’t want to convert!” I said, “Ah, but if I give you an explanation, you will convert!” I told him that if he could come to the USA I could explain why I believe that the lineage of Israel did come to the New World, with the scriptures (Plates of Laban). I arranged for him to come to Utah State University and present a symposium on cantillation of the scriptures. I presented him with a Book of Mormon, which he devoured. It made perfect sense to him and it does to me. The aural transmission of music can go on through millennia. I have every reason to believe that Lehi and his family brought from the Temple/Synagogue the Books of Moses chanted and passed them on to their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren to the present day. Languages change (especially those that are not written). Music is so orderly and sticks in the brain with such accuracy, it can be passed on century after century and remain the same.

Bottom line: The more I have learned (in the learning of the world, language, history, music, art) the more convinced I am of the authenticity and accuracy of translation of the Book of Mormon. I suspect that trend will continue until it is time to meet with Lehi, Nephi, Alma, etc. in the next realm.

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Michael Ballam has had an operatic and recital career spanning four decades and every continent. A native of Logan, Utah, Dr. Ballam has performed in the major concert halls of America, Europe, Asia, Russia, and the Middle East, with command performances at the Vatican and the White House. His operatic repertoire includes more than six hundred performances of over a hundred major roles. He has shared the stage with the world’s greatest singers, including Joan Sutherland, Beverly Sills, Kiri Te Kanawa, Birgit Nilsson, and Placido Domingo, performing regularly with such companies as the Chicago Lyric, San Francisco, Santa Fe, Dallas, Washington, Philadelphia, St. Louis, and San Diego Operas.

As a recitalist, Dr. Ballam has performed with critical acclaim in some of the most important concert halls in the country, including the Kennedy Center (Washington DC), Orchestra Hall (Chicago), Jordan Hall (Boston), Jones Hall (Houston), and the Los Angeles Music Center. He has also performed with Broadway legends Karen Akers, Tammy Grimes, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Jean Stapleton, and Ethel Merman.

At the age of twenty-four, Dr. Ballam became the youngest recipient of the degree of Doctor of Music (with Distinction) in the history of the prestigious Indiana University. An accomplished pianist and oboist, he is the Founder and General Director of the Utah Festival Opera, which is fast becoming one of the nation’s major Opera Festivals. Professor of Music for the past twenty-four years at Utah State University, he has also been a faculty member at Indiana University, the Music Academy of the West, the University of Utah, and Brigham Young University (where he was awarded the Teaching Award in Continuing Education in 1992), and, as a guest lecturer, at Stanford, Yale, BYU Idaho, Catholic University, and the Manhattan School of Music.

He is the author of more than forty publications and recordings in international distribution, has a weekly radio program on Utah Public Radio, starred in three major motion pictures, and appears regularly on television. Dr. Ballam serves on the boards of directors of twelve professional arts organizations. In 1996, he was designated one of the 100 Top Achievers in the State of Utah by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of the U.K.. He was appointed Artist Extraordinaire by the Governor of Utah in 2003, given Honorary Life Membership in the Utah Congress of Parents and Teachers, received the “Excellence in Community Teaching Award” from the Daughters of the American Revolution in 2007, and was awarded the Gardner Award by the Utah Academy of Science, Arts, and Letters for “Significant Contributions in the Humanities to the State of Utah” in 2010.

Posted November 2011

I was raised a Catholic, but I became an atheist somewhere between eleven and twelve years old. By college, I had evolved into an arrogant, militant, abrasive atheist. You’ve probably met the type.

In my junior year as a physics major at Berkeley, I realized that the belief system of an atheist had at least as many unproven assumptions as—and fewer explanations than—the belief system of any adherent of faith. Explain the Anthropic Principle, or what preceded the Big Bang. The unprovable idea of a Multiverse? That won’t even pass for a theory, much less a scientific hypothesis—it’s untestable, so by definition is not science.

So which is the more assumptive, i.e., non-scientific belief system?

I cast around for an alternative: Islam, Daoism, Buddhism—but avoided off-shoots of where I had come from and had already rejected. Around a year later was talking with the girlfriend of a high school buddy—they had both become Mormons—and I asked what drew her to this. Her answers struck me in several ways: LDS doctrine proposed a testable approach for confirmation of its truthfulness. It is a belief framework that was amazingly self-consistent, and also consistent with my observations of the world—including life and death, and vague memories and recognitions that I now realize are an imperfectly opaque Veil.

As I investigated the startling claim of receiving and translating golden plates, I nearly blew it all off. However, after I read through the Book of Mormon, I was amazed at the details. I read the Testimony of the Three Witnesses and that of the Eight Witnesses. As I pondered the utter improbability of gathering eleven people from my neighborhood to sign such affidavits—and never renege on them—I got my first taste of something I had never experienced before: the touch of the Holy Ghost. It nearly knocked me down—I was crying. I once heard a friend compare this experience to taking a teaspoonful of honey and feeling the warm glow suffuse through your entire body. Subsequently I learned of how closely 1 Nephi describes the Frankincense Trail, and how closely 3 Nephi 8 describes a volcano-tectonic event an order of magnitude greater than the 1980 eruption of Mount St Helens. None of this information was available to a 22-yr-old with a third-grade education in 1827. There are lots of others, but I have direct personal experience with these.

As I have grown older I have had many, many “coincidences” happen. A man in a coma for four days sat bolt upright as I gave him a blessing. I was warned exactly when to depart with my family from a lucrative job in Saudi Arabia—nearly five hours before I received orders, otherwise out of the blue, to stop practicing my religion. The departure time I was given (October 1995) made absolutely no sense—but I later learned that this saved me from a Reduction in Force in the USGS, allowed a son to start and complete high school in Switzerland, and permitted two daughters to complete college in Montreal. I’ve had unusual success in a long career as a scientist—I have never had to waste time knocking around in a dead-end research path. Some of these miracles were small, some were big . . . but together they make a compelling, cumulative pattern. The aggregate of all these miracles and answers to prayer has become so overwhelming that I could never deny my faith—I would have to ignore my entire previous life experience to do so.

I once listened to Don Lind (the astronaut/astrophysicist) give a lecture at the University of Arizona. In that lecture he made an interesting point, which I paraphrase here: “This is the only religion I can follow and not have to believe one thing on Sunday and something else the rest of the week. This is the only religion I can adhere to as a scientist.”

I suppose this is why we use the word “Amen” —Yes! Exactly.

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Jeffrey C. (“Jeff”) Wynn earned an A.B, in physics and mathematics from the University of California at Berkeley, an M.S. in solid-state physics from the University of Illinois, and a Ph.D. in geoscience and electrical engineering from the University of Arizona.

Dr. Wynn is a research geophysicist with the United States Geological Survey (USGS). He is currently based in the Cascades Volcano Observatory in Vancouver, Washington, one of the five USGS volcano observatories in the United States.

During his professional career, Dr. Wynn has served as vice president for research and development of Zonge Engineering and in several rotational management positions within the USGS, including terms as Chief Scientist for Volcano Hazards, Chief of the Office of Geochemistry and Geophysics, and Chief of the Venezuelan Guayana and Amazonas Exploration Mission (“Jefe del Grupo Asesor”), where he was lead author of the first complete geologic map of southern Venezuela and also published a full assessment of discovered and undiscovered mineral resources for the roadless southern half of the country. Dr. Wynn also served for four years as the Deputy Chief for Science of the USGS Saudi Arabian Mission. He has been awarded the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Meritorious Service Award for “his outstanding career in geophysics and . . . scientific leadership of the US Geological Survey.”

Author of more than 250 articles, books, and maps in fields as diverse as geophysics, archeology, and astronomy, Dr. Wynn has studied and published on the historical era Wabar craters asteroid impact event in Saudi Arabia’s Empty Quarter, and has done extensive geophysical mapping in southeastern Alaska.

He developed a new technology for mapping sub-seafloor minerals, buried wrecks, and migrating hydrocarbon plumes in the open ocean using a physical property called induced polarization (IP). He has been awarded two patents on marine IP, with one patent pending for mapping hydrocarbons in the open ocean. A commercial version of the towed-streamer technology was successfully tested in the Bismarck Sea in February 2005 and off the east coast of South Africa in a successful large-scale seafloor-mapping deployment during May and June 2007.

He also co-developed an airborne electromagnetic technology to rapidly map groundwater deep beneath arid basins in 3D. Using this technology, he successfully mapped the groundwater of the San Pedro Basin in southern Arizona and northern (Sonora) Mexico in three dimensions.

A past president of the Environmental and Engineering Geophysical Society (2002–2003), Dr. Wynn has also served as Special Editor of Geophysics and is currently an Associate Editor of Exploration Geophysics.

A certified Advanced Open Water diver, Dr. Wynn also holds a fifth degree black belt in Japanese-origin Jujutsu. As a community service, he has taught numerous free self-defense clinics for women in northern Virginia and southwestern Washington and provided self-defense training to agents of the Washington State Department of Revenue. He currently serves as a counselor to the bishop of the Grass Valley Ward in the Vancouver Washington East Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

In 1999, Asteroid “9564 Jeffwynn” was named for him by the International Astronomical Union.

Posted November 2011

It was my first semester of graduate school and I was sitting in a class that focused heavily on historical theory. One of the professors disagreed with the approach taken by one of the students in her master’s thesis. The debate continued for several minutes, and one could see the frustration increase in the student. Throughout the semester, all of the students were exposed to new ways of thinking and approaching history. By the end of the semester, the above-mentioned student had become completely disillusioned with her own approach to history, and believed that her whole concept of the world had been wrong. Her disillusionment was so great that she dropped out of the doctoral program and pursued a completely different program of study. I thought at the time how sad it was that she had based her whole world view on one particular theoretical approach to history, and that it could be so easily disrupted. I thought how fortunate I was that I had the Gospel as my foundation. I saw clearly in my personal life the parable of the foolish man building his house on sand versus the wise man building his house on rock.

Some people have told me that my religious beliefs are merely a crutch, and that my so-called security is really obstinacy in thinking my beliefs are true rather than my having any actual truth. I personally don’t feel like I am an obstinate person, but I may be deceiving myself. I only can state what I believe to be true. I was raised in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and I have always believed that it is God’s one Church. As a Mormon missionary in Switzerland, I was speaking to a man on the streets of Basel and he told me that I only believed what I did because I was culturally conditioned to believe that way; put in a different part of the world with different circumstances, I would believe something else; it is all relative. I pondered what he said, and wondered if I had been raised in a different cultural milieu, whether I would have accepted or rejected the Church if I had been exposed to it. I cannot answer that question, because that was not my condition, but I continue to believe.

Others have asked me how a person with a PhD and a historian could believe in religion generally and Mormonism specifically. Again, I don’t know how a “person” could; I only know that I do. History has not made me skeptical of God; if anything, it has made me skeptical of humanity. Studying the works of previous scholars, I realize that theories, ideas, hypotheses, and conclusions have changed over the years. I find it complete hubris for someone to think he/she has written the definitive work on any subject, and that his/her conclusions and analysis will forever stand the test of time. There is always a new study, a new analysis, a new approach. If anything, my time spent in academia has only strengthened my conviction not to put my trust in the arm of man, for it is weak and ever-changing.

Obviously that does not mean that I think scholarly pursuits are a waste of time. I do believe that God wants us to strive to understand the world around us. We should explore, think, analyze, and hypothesize. I love to learn, to read, and to explore. I believe that humanity is bettered when it is exposed to ideas and knowledge. But I do believe that the Gospel of Jesus Christ will improve humanity the most.

In my academic pursuits, I have read and studied many things, and history is a nebulous field of study. I believe that I have understood things in the past, through my research and analysis, but I have to say that the things I believe the most have not come from physical experimentation. I believe that the Holy Spirit has communicated with my soul. There are things that I believe that I cannot fully explain, but I know them nonetheless. I have experienced the Spirit’s revelatory power, and I know that Jesus is the Christ. I know that Joseph Smith was a true prophet of God, and that he restored Christ’s Church to this Earth. I believe that The Book of Mormon is a true testament of Jesus Christ.

Mormonism appeals to me logically and spiritually. It has given me answers to the most troubling questions I have had. Do I have doubts? Of course. But I doubt and question many things in this world, including myself, but I believe I have found the way to find answers. I don’t think that God has a problem with questioners, if they are honest in their questioning. I continue on in what I believe to be true.

I think in the end science and religion do mesh: true science and true religion. I concur with the Apostle Paul when he said that now we see through a glass darkly but then we will see clearly. I recognize that in this world we do not see all things clearly, and so all things aren’t clear to me now. Once again, I can only go with what I have personally experienced, and what I personally believe. I believe that Jesus Christ is the way, and that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is the only way to Christ.

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Stephen S. Francis specializes in Renaissance and Reformation European history in the Department of History at Weber State University, in Ogden, Utah. He received his BA at Weber State in 1991, and then proceeded to earn his MA and his PhD from Arizona State University in 1994 and 1998, respectively.

Posted November 2011

Because I’m a third generation LDS scholar, many people have jokingly said that “of course” I would teach the gospel and know its truths. But a testimony is not something automatic or genetic. Although I have learned much from the teachings and example of my grandfather, father, grandmother, mother, etc., I have had to learn for myself how to gain spiritual knowledge to build and sustain a testimony. (Each generation must gain its own testimony and remain faithful to its own covenants).

There have been many experiences throughout my life that have left me with a conviction that I have a Father in Heaven; that He sent His son, Jesus, to earth to redeem mankind and prepare a way to return to Him; and that He has given the gift of the Holy Ghost to help guide and direct through mortal life. It is the Holy Ghost that has given me the subtle and strong assurances that we have books of scripture that contain God’s word for us on earth. I have particularly been touched by my study in the Bible and the Book of Mormon as I have come to a greater appreciation of my Savior, Jesus Christ, and his matchless atonement that makes justification a reachable proposition. I may not have answers to all religious questions—these debates have been going on for centuries—but I feel at peace and confident in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Anyone can pick random principles of a religion and twist them to seem “strange” or “fanciful,” but the whole picture must be examined and tested to know of its validity. Frankly I believe the fruits of the gospel as found in the LDS church are testimony enough of its truthfulness. I am continually amazed at what gospel living can produce and how the church continues to grow and strengthen without professional clergy or trained ministry—a sign that its message and principles are eternal and empowering. Without ever having been an imperial or state religion, and placing the bulk of its missionary efforts on young, inexperienced missionaries, the LDS church has become a world religion of astonishing variety, each member gaining a testimony of things sometimes far removed from his or her own culture or upbringing. There really is nothing quite like it in religious history!

My studies in the Hebrew Bible, Greek New Testament, and world religions, as well as times of study and teaching in the Holy Land, have given me many opportunities to reflect upon religion, the Bible, and mortals’ place within a larger cosmos. I am grateful for these academic opportunities and the knowledge they have given both through information learned and questions raised. But in the end, as fun or interesting as the historical background or literary studies may be, if there is not an accompanying confirmation of truth through the Holy Ghost, they are not as meaningful as the sweet experiences with the spirit. These sweet experiences with the spirit can come through a Gospel Doctrine class, hymn singing, personal scripture study, or even an attempt at family scripture study with rambunctious children.

I believe in the core doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (also stated as the four cornerstones of our faith by President Gordon B. Hinckley): Jesus Christ as the Savior, Joseph Smith as a Prophet and recipient of the First Vision, the Book of Mormon as true scripture, and the restoration of true priesthood and authority. The implications of these truth statements are huge, which only strengthens my belief in them. It is the implications of these statements that cause me to believe, follow, teach, raise my family, and strive to obey my covenants. I am grateful for the gospel of Jesus Christ!

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Jared Ludlow has been teaching in the Ancient Scripture Department at BYU since Fall 2006. Previous to that, he spent six years teaching Religion and History at BYU Hawaii, and served the last two years as Chair of the History Department there. Jared received his bachelor’s degree from BYU in Near Eastern Studies, his master’s degree from the University of California at Berkeley in Biblical Hebrew, and his PhD in Near Eastern Religions from UC Berkeley and the Graduate Theological Union. His dissertation was published as a book, Abraham Meets Death: Narrative Humor in the Testament of Abraham, by Sheffield Academic Press. His primary research interests are in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity, and specifically the Pseudepigrapha.

Jared has regularly presented papers at the Society of Biblical Literature national meetings and has participated in Sperry and FARMS symposia at BYU. He is a member of the Enoch Seminar, a group of international scholars who study Second Temple Judaism and Early Christianity. He is teaching at the BYU Jerusalem Center during the 2011-2012 academic year. He enjoys teaching Bible courses, Book of Mormon, World Religions, and History. Jared served an LDS mission to Campinas, Brazil, and has also lived in Germany and Israel. He is married to Margaret (Nelson) and they have five children.

Posted November 2011

The Invitation of the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ

I cannot remember a time when I did not believe in the Gospel of Jesus Christ, in the restoration of its fullness in our day, and in the central role the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints plays in proclaiming the “good news.” Even as a child, I did not see the practices and beliefs that constitute Mormonism as an imposition, but as the unfolding of “who I was” in the meaningful and purposeful World that God created for all of his children. The gospel was an invitation for me to fulfill my potential.

The Roots of My Childhood

My mother and father were only a generation removed from the pioneers who journeyed across the vast plains of America’s heartland to settle in the valleys of the Mountain West. After my father graduated from the George Washington University Law School, the Great Depression drew my parents back to Utah, where he was fortunate to find work in a number of legal capacities in the Southern part of the state. Shortly after my birth, in the midst of World War II, my father was appointed to the Utah Juvenile Court, and our family relocated to Ogden, Utah.

It was in Ogden that I first gained a sense of my life’s journey and the rich connections that linked my personal world to the larger space of family, church, community, nation, and more. I came to see the roots of my testimony not as something external or foreign, but as the foundation that had always been a part of who I was and am. The Gospel and its claims on my life during my adolescence opened up before me a meaningful future in a world that harbored the promise of great good alongside the dangers posed by negative and destructive behavior. I felt protected from these dangers by the warmth and safety of a secure home and the acceptance of a loving family.

I vividly recall the abundance I sensed, as the family kneeled around my parents’ large bed to offer thanks to the Lord. My parents’ prayers so pervasively evoked the presence of the living God that I could not imagine life without the power and peaceful assurance of this loving relationship. To diminish this experience by placing it at a distance or examining it as some kind of foreign object subject to question, had it occurred to me at all, would have seemed a betrayal. There was nothing outwardly unusual about these prayers, but they had a quiet and simple power that revealed the deep trust and gratitude my parents felt and were infused by the Holy Spirit, which witnessed God’s pleasure at their words. This experience engaged something central in my being. Even as an adolescent when I sometimes pretended fall asleep due to the prayer’s “undue” length, I could not pretend that my heart had not been touched.

Ogden, Utah, was a unique place to grow up. World War II brought a number of critical defense emplacements to the area along with a work force drawn from around the country. This supplemented the diversity of the city that already included the largest Hispanic and African-American populations in the state. While most people belonged to the Church, there were still many Catholics, a diversity of Protestants, a notable Jewish and non-Christian presence, and some who remained non-religious by choice or circumstance.

Although I had neighborhood friends who were of other faiths, in most respects their manner of living differed little from mine. In high school, the differences were more evident, but did not have much influence on my views. Like many at that age, the challenges of growing up seemed all-consuming and involved regrettable choices in conflict with my beliefs and commitments. It was in the gulf of these contradictions that I came to understand how my personal vulnerabilities could place at a greater distance the truths I had learned as a child. Fortunately, the steadfastness of a few friends and the unrelenting support of my parents drew me beyond this gulf. In every respect, my parents were followers of Christ. My mother’s conviction and loyalty and my father’s patience and gentle goodness helped me leave behind the distractions and accept a mission call to France where my life and future came together in a tangible and positive way.

My Mission Experience

My missionary service opened up a new chapter in my life, one filled with countless blessings and a challenge to become more than I was. I learned that genuine tolerance was not to be confused with the bland sort of relativity that sees everything an individual sincerely believes in as personal or private and possibly true. Most of all, I learned how far I need come in order to stand in a proper relation to my Father in Heaven.

After landing at Orly Airport in Paris, the incoming group of missionaries I arrived with excitedly jumped into the small Volkswagen Vanagon that awaited us and were driven to the mission home in the center of Paris. My senses were alive with the sites and sensations of this extraordinary city so far removed from my everyday world. The mission president, Rulon T. Hinckley, invited us into the mission home and held a brief meeting. President Hinckley was a short, sturdy man who radiated good will.

Despite his ordinary manner, I would come to learn that he was an individual of extraordinary spiritual power. In his sixties, President Hinckley was more than forty years removed from his own French-speaking mission and now spoke only rudimentary French at best. It was inspiring to see how the French members, normally demanding about proper French usage, would wait patiently to hear him speak. No matter how eloquent the other speakers at district conferences might be, members came to hear President Hinckley. A spirit of warmth, goodness, and certainty would radiate across the hall when he rose to the podium to bear testimony of the Restored Gospel in his broken and sometimes halting French. His words held genuine power and all who listened left filled with hope.

In contrast, during a short testimony meeting that President Hinckley held for us on that first day in the mission home, I safely and politely said that “I believed in the Gospel and hoped to one day know that it was true.” In the years since, I still distinctly remember the sense of having shared less than the light I had been granted in order to portray myself in a more “sophisticated” light. The rest of my mission, fortunately, provided me with abundant opportunities to share that light, many of them intensely personal. One in particular stands out. My companion and I were tracting on the outskirts of Paris in one of the many “cités” constructed after World War II. This was prior to the creation of the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah, so I had just begun learning French. It was my turn to take a door. I rang, waited, and rang again. A middle-aged man opened the door, listened patiently to our initial greeting, and invited us in.

The man kindly told us that we were too late; for years, he had sought religious truth, examining all of the major belief systems, but he had since renounced the search and resigned himself to a future of doubt. Nonetheless, the man politely allowed me to share the story of Joseph Smith. As I began to recount the events leading up to the First Vision, I recognized an earnest sincerity in the man’s eyes and felt a wave of peace rush over me. The account of Joseph’s search for truth seemed to flow seamlessly—from the discouragement Joseph felt in his search for the true faith to his decision to follow the admonition of James ask of God—and I felt a warmth and power testify of the truth of the words I spoke and envelop us both. Learning of the appearance of God the Father and his Son to a young farm boy seeking answers in a secluded grove clearly moved this humble man. To this I added my conviction that this had in fact occurred; then I requested the opportunity to return and meet with him again.

During a long period of silence, this man tried to process all that he had been told. Finally, looking down, he quietly said that he could not revisit the question—that he had moved on with his life. I urged him to consider the truths I had shared as an answer to his life-long search for the true and living God. After another long silence, he took a deep breath, thanked us for our visit and showed us out. Although this man had not opened himself up to our message that day, I nevertheless recognized that I had been a literal conduit for the Holy Spirit’s witness of the restoration. I was humbled and grateful, but also saddened at the irony of the situation: after searching for religious understanding for so long, this man appeared to close the door just as the answer had come.

Family and the Pursuit of an Authentic Life

Following my mission, I received undergraduate degrees in History and Political Science, married my beautiful wife, and moved to New York City to pursue a graduate degree at Columbia University. I eventually graduated with a PhD in Political Science, focusing primarily on theory and political thought. Initially I focused more on the empirical and normative character of my interests in history, politics, and philosophy, but I later felt drawn to more purely philosophical issues. I wondered about the status of various way of making sense of “the world,” how they might be grounded, and what the limits and possibilities of such ways of thinking might be. Increasingly meaning, and the various ways language gets used to constitute meaning, seemed at the heart of these questions.

I had been warned by many people of faith that such concerns harbored dangers and that philosophy had become an enemy to religious belief and should be avoided. While I agreed that “intellectual life” in general and philosophy in particular could never be a substitute for the deeper witness of the Restored Gospel I had always experienced, I valued those approaches to philosophy that sought to ground the various ways in which language gets used to constitute meaning. Here, philosophy had more often than not undermined the claims of a whole range of secular religions (versions of reality) that seemed to advance themselves without proper foundation.

Upon graduating, my immediate preoccupation was finding a job that would allow me both to support my family and to reflect on the religious and philosophical issues so central to my interests. I was fortunate to find a position with Brigham Young University’s Department of Political Science, which provided me the opportunity to teach courses in political theory and political philosophy, while also helping students to navigate difficult philosophical concepts from a religious perspective. The thirty-five years I went on to spend at BYU only served to deepen my religious convictions, from both an intellectual and a spiritual perspective. I owe a great debt to many with whom I fellowshipped along the way, including colleagues who shared similar interests (such as Louis Midgley, Don Sorenson, Jim Faulconer, and Ralph Hancock, among others), friends who pursued different intellectual passions but who still contributed greatly to my understanding through our common bonds in the Gospel, and the countless students I was blessed to teach or otherwise work with.

The Artificial Divide Between the Religious and the Academic

From the beginning of my career, I was excited at the possibility of exploring all subjects of interest, unrestricted by what I considered an artificial boundary separating religious and moral understanding from secular research and writing. My religious heritage was always the larger whole within which everything else in my academic and personal life found meaning and purpose. For these and other reasons, it is not surprising that after working at BYU for ten years, I found myself increasingly involved in seeking to bring into better view the limits inherent in the social sciences and humanities and their attempts to account for the “nature of things,” in particular the possible ways in which they retrieved the meaning of my religious heritage. I would discover that despite the diversion of legitimating appeals to objectivity and neutrality, most such approaches were ungrounded and some were little more than intellectual ideologies whose tenets were advanced as self-evident.

Even more troubling was the unexamined acceptance of a seemingly insuperable divide between what were termed “faith” and “reason,” “morality” and “science,” “facts” and “values”—an assumption that exuded an absolutism akin to some interpretations of the separation of church and state. Unfortunately, in this uneven divide, genuine religious understanding had been marginalized and characterized as little more than interesting fantasies: While “doubt” was elevated to a cardinal intellectual virtue, “belief” was increasingly relegated to the domain of the naive.

Over my next twenty-five years at BYU, it became increasingly evident that the meaning of “Mormonism,” in its past, present, and future possibilities, was in the process of being fundamentally redefined according to different interpretive categories, including some that undermined the self-understanding of believing Latter-day Saints. In a host of articles and discussions that followed—and alongside Don Sorenson, Louis Midgley, and many others—I sought to bring into the open the unclaimed limits of certain interpretations, revealing why they could not displace the more original self-understanding of the faithful.

While I view this ongoing discussion as important, I do not believe that testimonies depend on or are secured by such discussion. Even as a youth, I always understood that assuming a faithful relationship to the revealing power of the Spirit involved more than an abstract desire to “know the truth,” which in itself could only be a rather empty and abstract exercise. To stand in a relationship of faith involves the inherently moral imperative to “live the truth.” As our conviction of the truth of the Restored Gospel is enriched and becomes more deeply rooted, it cannot be separated from our willingness to be guided by the moral claim these convictions exert on the concrete possibilities that ceaselessly unfold before us.

The Invitation of the Gospel

As I look back on my life, I recognize that, when I have fallen short in what God has required of me, my testimony of the Gospel remained but seemed more remote; whereas, when I have overcome difficulties and risen to life’s challenges, my conviction of the Gospel has grown, much as a living truth that continuously fills my being and invites me to become more than I am.

I believe that, at its root, the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is an invitation to become more than we are, to leave behind all encumbrances and become new creatures in Christ. It is an invitation to move beyond understanding truth as a mere abstraction and toward a life that embodies the good and the true in both thought and deed—one made holy by the Spirit and renewed by the atonement of God’s Son.

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David Earl Bohn (Ph.D., Columbia University) is a retired professor of political science at Brigham Young University, where he taught comparative politics and the history of political theory. He is the author of articles in Sunstone; The Journal of Politics; and with Earl H. Fry, ed., The Other Western Europe: A Political Analysis of the Smaller Democracies (Santa Barbara, 1983); as well as of “Unfounded Claims and Impossible Expectations: A Critique of New Mormon History,” in George D. Smith, ed., Faithful History: Essays on Writing Mormon History (Salt Lake City, 1992).

Posted October 2011

Belief in God

I have often thought that the question of belief or non-belief in God is not so much a question of argumentation as it is a question of choice, owing to the unfathomed complexity of the universe. I have also thought that once the choice is made, that choice should at least be intellectually and, for me, spiritually satisfying. I would like to lay out some of the reasons behind my choice to believe in God.

Such reasons necessarily impinge on certain beliefs of those who have chosen not to believe in God. For example, I have heard the bald statement that “all things have a natural explanation, that all phenomena are caused by impersonal laws of physics, not by any expression of sentient will.” The implication here is apparently that laws of physics are all encompassing in their capacity to explain “all things”; that there is nothing of intelligence in laws of nature because they are impersonal and certainly not sentient. Thus, belief based on the laws of physics provides uniquely natural explanations, which necessarily obviate any old-fashioned, superstitious explanations based on belief in God because, obviously, “God” can only be imagined to be goal oriented, as well as personal and sentient.

This simple approach to explanation is satisfying if one can swallow the claim that its scope really does account for (or even potentially accounts for) the cause of “all things.” Hidden in this view is a tacit assumption that demands a clarification of the scope of “cause.” Most objectionable is the restriction of cause to the impersonal and the non-sentient. Obviously, the law of gravity does not care what is falling off a cliff, be it a rock or the most important person in the world. It is impersonal and non-sentient in doing its duty either way. On the other hand, the impersonal, non-sentient computer that responds to the very personal, deliberate, sentient, goal-oriented touch of my fingers is surely something whose existence is not the product of some mechanical “law of nature”—although such laws are certainly at the heart of the physicality of its function. Mechanical laws, which purport to explain all things, do not now nor can they ever account for the human artifacts found all over the face of the earth. These are the product of personal, purposeful, sentient behavior. The nature of human cognition and subsequent human invention cannot be ignored if one insists on explaining “all things.” It does not make sense to consider the vicissitudes of the human condition outside of what counts as reality.

But much more importantly, even the suggestion that any mechanical law of nature has no connection with thought in its rational power and influence is unfounded, because such laws are not only rational in their predictability and behavior, they are themselves a species of thought. Evidence that they really are a species of thought is that they yield to cognition and understanding; and with that understanding, we use them for our comfort and benefit. We have even used them to devise and execute a trip to the moon and back.

Sadly, the material world is too much with us, prompting such fierce but mistaken focus on the material effects of “laws of physics” that the nature of the laws themselves is ignored. Such material emphasis blinds even capable thinkers to the cause behind the effects so overwhelmingly manifest in the physical, tangible world we experience. It is the mode of being of governing laws that deserves our attention—not just the predictable effect of such laws. Formulae that predict physical effects must never be confused with the laws that cause such effects.

The monumental failure of such mesmerizing focus on material effects is the failure to see the positive connection between causal laws and the remarkable faculty of ratiocination. In this regard, consider C.S. Peirce’s (CP 5.604) assessment of “pervasive laws of the universe” and the faculties of mind: “[I]f the universe conforms . . . to certain highly pervasive laws, and if man’s mind has been developed under the influence of those laws, it is to be expected that he should have a natural light, or light of nature, or instinctive insight, or genius, tending to make him guess those laws aright, or nearly aright.” In short, “the reasoning mind is [it]self a product of this universe. These same laws are thus, by logical necessity, incorporated in his own being” (CP 5.603).

Someone once told me that he did not believe in Aristotle’s final cause because it was teleological—it had to be purposeful and therefore a product of thought. He could only believe in the unconscious nature of mechanical, natural laws because it was impossible to see purpose in their expression. What he did not understand is that thought is not necessarily something that is only in us: “One must not take a nominalistic view of thought as if it were something that a man had in his consciousness. . . . Thought is more without us than within. It is we that are in it, rather than it in any of us” (Peirce 8.256). Therefore, what he did not understand is that causation is only sometimes an expression of sentient, conscious will. The effects of the law of gravity are not the effects of conscious planning, but they are teleological in the sense that such effects are informed by the final causation attributable to that law.

One would be intellectually blind not to see that intelligence, structure, and lawful organization—conscious or unconscious—infuses every particle of the universe, from the beautiful organization and structure of the subatomic world of particles, to the structure and intelligence manifest in the material world, to the intellectual nature of life, to the solar system, and even to the universe itself. “The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork” (Psalms 19:1). “Therefore, whoever cannot look at the starry heaven without thinking that all this universe must have had an adequate cause, can in my opinion not otherwise think of that cause half so justly than by thinking it is God” (Peirce 5.536).

More explicitly, Peirce (1:316) argues for an anthropomorphic God:

I hear you say: “This smacks too much of an anthropomorphic conception.” I reply that every scientific explanation of a natural phenomenon is a hypothesis that there is something in nature to which the human reason is analogous; and that it really is so all the successes of science in its applications to human convenience are witnesses. They proclaim that truth over the length and breadth of the modern world. In the light of the successes of science to my mind there is a degree of baseness in denying our birthright as children of God and in shamefacedly slinking away from anthropomorphic conceptions of the universe.

It is truly remarkable that our transcendent nature allows us to represent with ever increasing accuracy the realities the govern us and our universe. What must be acknowledged is the faculty that allows for our growth, be it intellectual, physical, or moral. In the broadest sense, our intellect is less than, but analogous with, the lawful realities we discover, whose effects we represent. Our capacity to understand is in a real sense the same as the lawful realities that we have capacity to represent in our language and even in our conscious and unconscious behavior.

If we think about—really think about—the intimate details of how any of us come to understand a previously opaque phenomenon, the scales will fall from our eyes, and we will see that all genuine understanding has at least this element: what characterizes our mind is analogous to what characterizes the phenomenon we have rationalized. We are neither more nor less than the governing laws that we come to understand. Propositions that truly represent any significant reality are shibboleths of, as Peirce put it, “our birthright as children of God.”

From here I will be more specific by identifying those attributes that would prompt me to fall down and worship a being who is a God. For many reasons, including those outlined above, I would worship an anthropomorphic God.

First, I would worship a God whose glory is intelligence. By intelligence, I mean the etymological core of intelligence, which is inter leg-ere. Latin inter means ‘among,’ and the first definition of legere is ‘to choose.’ As a first approximation, intelligence, for me, amounts to an intrinsic, original faculty of a creative, organizing potential. Because the highest expression of “creation” and “organization” presupposes freedom to choose among alternatives, it follows that the highest expression of intelligence comes full circle, back to its etymological core: ‘to choose among.’

Second, I would worship a God who, through supernal intelligence, has chosen wisely among both physical and moral laws, which have produced in him the power and the means to offer to others at least the opportunity to rise to similar wise choices, with similar effects. I would worship a God of love, as identified by Plato:

Let us declare the cause which led the Supreme Ordainer to produce and compose the universe. He was good; and he who is good has no kind of envy. Exempt from envy, he wished that all things should be as much as possible like himself. Whosoever, taught by wise men, shall admit this as the prime cause of the origin and foundation of the world, will be in the truth.

Third, I would worship an evolutionary God—a God who has progressed to his godly state. I would worship a God, who, through his creative and organizing genius, would give reason for my very being, and for the being of all my earthly brothers and sisters. I would worship a God who would respect the freedom of all to choose, while supplying us the means of “being as much as possible like himself.”

Finally, I do worship a revelatory God—a God with all the properties and characteristics revealed by and through the prophet Joseph Smith that resulted in the restoration of the Church of Jesus. The beauty, the grace, and the goodness of the totality of ideas that came through Joseph have given me a wholly satisfying life, spiritually, physically, and intellectually.

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John S. Robertson (Ph.D., Harvard University) is a professor emeritus of linguistics at Brigham Young University.

Dr. Robertson is the author or co-author of several books, among them: as principal author, with John Hawkins and Andrés Maldonado, Mam Basic Course (Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 1969); with Robert W. Blair, et al., Cakchiquel Basic Course (Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 1969); with Julio Salazar, Cakchiquel: A Basic Course for Language Learning (Provo: Language Training Mission, 1977); with Hugh Biesinger and Randy Ellsworth, Quiché: A Basic Course for Language Learning (Provo: Language Training Mission, 1977); The Structure of Pronoun Incorporation in the Mayan Verbal Complex (New York: Garland Press, 1980); with Robert Blair, et al., Diccionario Español-Cakchiquel-Inglés (New York: Garland Press, 1981); The History of Tense/Aspect/Mood/Voice in the Mayan Verbal Complex (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1992); and, with Danny Law and Robbie A. Haertel, Colonial Ch’olti’: The Seventeenth-Century Moran Manuscript (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2010).

He is also the author or co-author of numerous academic articles including, in the International Journal of American Linguistics, “A Syntactic Example of Kurylowicz’s Fourth Law of Analogy in Mayan” (1975); “A Phonological Reconstruction of the Ergative Third-Person Singular of Common Mayan” (1977); “The History of the Absolutive Second Person Pronoun from Common Mayan to Modern Tzotzil,” (1982); “Colonial Evidence for a Pre-Quiché, Ergative 3sg *ru-” (1984); “A Re-Construction of the Ergative 1SG for Common Tzeltal-Tzotzil based on Colonial Documents” (1985); “A Reconstruction and Evolutionary Statement of the Mayan Numerals from 20 to 400” (1986); “The Origins of the Mamean Pronominals: A Mayan/Indo-European Typological Comparison” (1987); “The Common Beginning and Evolution of the Tense-Aspect System of Tzotzil and Tzeltal Mayan” (1987); and “The Origins and Development of the Huastec Pronouns” (1993).

With Stephen Houston and David Stuart, Dr. Robertson is the co-author of, among other things, “Disharmony in Maya Hieroglyphic Writing: Linguistic Change and Continuity in the Classic Society.” Anatomía de una civilizatión. Aproximaciones interdisciplinarias a la cultura Maya, ed. by Ciudad-Ruiz, Andrés Yolanda Fernández Marquínez, José Miguel García Campillo, M.a Josefa Iglesias Ponce de León, Alfonsos Lacadena García-Gallo, Luis T. Sanz Castro (Madrid: Sociedad Española de Estudios Mayas, 1998), 275-296; “A Ch’olti’an Explanation for Ch’orti’an Grammar: A Postlude to the Language of the Classic Maya” Mayab 11 (1998): 5-11; “Recovering the Past: Classic Maya Language and Classic Maya Gods,” in Notebook for the XXIIIrd Mayan Hieroglyphic Forum at Texas. (Austin: Department of Art and Art History, the College of Fine Arts, and the Institute of Latin American Studies of the University of Texas at Austin, 1999; “The History of First Person Singular in the Mayan Languages,” International Journal of American Linguistics 65 (1999): 449-465; “The Language of the Classic Mayan Inscriptions.” Current Anthropology 41:321-356 (2000); “Quality and Quantity in Glyphic Nouns and Adjectives,” Research Reports on Ancient Mayan Writing (Washington DC: Center for Maya Research, 2001); and “More on the Language of Classic Maya Inscriptions,” Current Anthropology 42 (2001): 558-559. With Stephen Houston, he is the co-author of “El problema del Wasteko: Una perspectiva lingüística y arqueológica,” in XVI simposio de investigaciones arqueológicas en Guatemala, ed. Juan Pedro Laporte, Bárbara Arroyo, Héctor Escobedo, and Héctor Mejía (Guatemala: Ministerio de Cultura y Deportes, 2003). With Stephen Houston and Danny Law, he is the co-author of “Split Ergativity in the History of the Ch’olan Branch of the Mayan Language Family,” International Journal of American Linguistics 72.

Professor Robertson has also published on the historical linguistics of Mayan in such places as Language, Anthropos, Quaderni di Semantica, Anthropological Linguistics, Journal of Mayan Linguistics, The Oxford Encyclopedia of Linguistics, Grammar: Invariance and Variation (Amsterdam, 1991); and The Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerican Cultures: Civilizations of Mexico and Central America (2001); and, with Zachary Hruby, published “The Verbal Morphology of the Classic Mayan Word tzutz” (Washington DC: Center for Maya Research, 2001). He wrote about more general linguistic topics for Computing in the Humanities (1982), Semiotics (1983), and Semiotica, and, on the thought of C. S. Peirce, for Semiotica, Lingüística, and From Time and Chance to Consciousness: Studies in the Metaphysics of Charles Peirce (Oxford, 1994).

Posted October 2011