Evidences and Reconciliations 5/26/08

With the JST modification, “No man hath seen God at any time, except them who believe. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us.” I don’t see anything from these scriptures particularly contradictory. We know that God and Christ have dwelt physically among their people in the past, and will do so again.

“…as a man speaketh unto his friend.” This is always how I’ve imagined the reunion with Christ to be. Like turning a corner and running into an old friend, and having Memories rush back.

I grew up in the Southern Bible Belt, and that should tell most people what kind of response many kids at school had to Mormons. Everything from horrified fascination (like looking at a particularly ugly insect) to outright fear and loathing. The fact that I was a D&D playing, trench-coat wearing youth probably didn’t help much. Of course while all of them were off smoking weed behind the school I was quietly reading every book I could lay hands on. But that’s a tangent.

The point is that I’ve had that scripture in John thrown at me more times than I can remember as a reason for why JS was a complete fraud. I knew then it was obviously wrong-headed, and nothing has changed in the 15 years or so since high school. If Moses truly saw God face to face, then John obviously had something else in mind. So what does John mean by this, because he certainly knew about Moses. There are two explanations, assuming that we have an accurate rendering of John’s writings. Either John is saying that the account in Exodus is a mistranslation or he had a different rendering of it OR he is saying that Moses did not see God in all His Glory, though he spoke to him face to face. (There may be other explanations that I am missing, admittedly).

Of course, it is possible, just possible, that the rendering of Johns writings is incorrect, as Neal (#1) states, but there you have it. I’d say Stephen (#2) has a point as well.

My personal take on theophany is this: there are at least types: sleeping vision (in which the person is shown deity in dream), waking vision (in which the person’s mind is called up and shown things of the heavens, including deity), and finally, personal visitation (in which the person is literally visited by deity). I would guess that the first of these is fairly common for prophets and apostles, inasmuch as any vision of deity can be called common. The second is probably much less so, and the third is likely quite rare–on the order of once or less per dispensation, and only in extremely sacred grounds or, if available, within the confines of a temple.

I might argue that there may be a fourth and fifth type, the fleeting glimpse, which may be experienced in a brief waking moment, and the momentary translation, such as Enoch’s experience when he was taken into the heavens and shown all of creation, which is somehow greater than even Joseph Smith’s experience, but I have less scriptural or other evidences for these types. I certainly would argue that these are important.

Just some thoughts.

Perhaps John was thinking of a point later in the same chapter of Exodus, which says,

18. He said, “Oh, let me behold Your Presence!” 19. And He answered, “I will make all My goodness pass before you, and I will proclaim before you the name [LORD], and I will grant the grace that I will grant and show the compassion that I will show. 20. But,” He said, “you cannot see My face, for man may not see Me and live.” (JPS)

When God’s goodness passes before Moses, we’re told, Moses is standing protected in the cleft part of a rock, and Moses’s eyes are covered until God’s face is out of Moses’s line of sight. Perhaps Moses’s eyes were also covered when he and God were speaking face to face? Or perhaps it’s an idiomatic expression to mean God spoke so plainly that Moses was able to understand perfectly?

As for Joseph Smith’s experience, would it be an acceptable interpretation to describe it as a waking vision (of Benjamin O’s 2nd type in #3 above) and not a literal viewing of the divine faces?