B.H. Roberts

[I]n no department is the frank and honest confession “I don’t know,” more imperative than in Theology; and when it is given as an actual confession of having reached the limits of our knowledge, it is worthy of all praise. But if it becomes tainted with the spirit of “I don’t care,” then I have no respect for it.

dialogue b h roberts on the intellectual and spiritual quest

Mental laziness is the vice of men, especially with reference to divine things. Men seem to think that because inspiration and revelation are factors in connection with the things of God, therefore the pain and stress of mental efforts are not required;.To escape this effort, this mental stress to know the things that are, men raise all too readily the ancient bar—“Thus far shalt though come, but no farther.” Man cannot hope to understand the things of God, they plead, or penetrate those things which he has left shrouded in mystery. “Be thou content with the simple faith that accepts without question”. So men reason; and just now it is much in fashion to laud “the simple faith;” which is content to believe without understanding, or even without much effort to understand. And doubtless many good people regard this course as indicative of reverence—this plea in bar of effort—“thus far and no farther” “There is often a great deal of intellectual sin concealed under this old aphorism,” remarks Henry Drummond. “When men do not really wish to go father they find it an honorable convenience sometimes to sit down on the outmost edge of the ‘holy ground’ on the pretext of taking off their shoes.”. I maintain that “simple faith”—which is so often ignorant and simpering acquiescence, and not faith at all—but simple faith taken at its highest value, which is faith without understanding of the thing believed, is not equal to intelligent faith, the faith that is the gift of God, supplemented by earnest endeavor to find through prayerful thought and research a rational ground for faith— for acceptance of truth; and hence the duty of striving for a rational faith in which the intellect as well as the heart—the feeling—has a place and a factor. But to resume: This plea in bar of effort to find out the things that are, is as convenient for the priest as it is for the people. The people of “simple faith,” who never question, are so much easier led, and so much more pleasant every way—they give their teachers so little trouble. People who question because they want to know, and who ask adult questions that call for adults answers, people who think—barring chronic questioners and cranks, of course—and thinkers are troublesome, unless the instructors who lead them are thinkers also; and thought, eternal, restless thought, that keeps out upon the frontiers and active and noble minded. Therefore one must not be surprised if now and again he finds those among religious teachers who give encouragement to mental laziness under the pretense of “reverence;” praise “simple faith” because they themselves, forsooth, would avoid the stress of thought and investigation that would be necessary in order to hold their place as leaders of a thinking people.

dialogue b h roberts on the intellectual and spiritual quest

The very title of our Church—the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—indicates that it is not only “the Church of Jesus Christ,” but also of the “Latter-day Saints.” God has conferred upon his Church and our Church the right of being governed by common consent of the members thereof. It is not a tyranny, nor an ecclesiastical hierarchy dominating the people and destroying individual liberty.

the relation of inspiration and revelation to church government ie

Now, while the Church is one of God’s instrumentalities for making known the truth, we do not maintain that he is limited to this Church for such purposes, neither in time nor place. We hold that all great teachers are servants of God, inspired men appointed to instruct the children of God according to the condition in which they are found; therefore, it is not obnoxious to us to regard Confucious as a servant of God; nor Buddha as an inspired teacher of a measure of truth; nor the Arabian prophet as inspired who turned his people from worshiping idols to a truer conception of Deity. As so with the sages of Greece and Rome, and the Reformers of the early Protestant times.

the relation of inspiration and revelation to church government ie

This law of common consent is in strict harmony with God’s moral government of the world. Man is by nature a free moral agent, and that agency involves the liberty of violating the laws of God as well as the liberty of respecting them.

the relation of inspiration and revelation to church government ie

[W]here the Almighty uses a man as an instrument, the manner in which that revelation is imparted to men may receive a certain human coloring from the prophet through whom it comes. The inspiration of the Lord need not destroy the personality of the man through whom it is made.

the relation of inspiration and revelation to church government ie

Now about men being constantly under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, so that all they say and do is an inspiration of God, even the answering of questions.

There is nothing in the doctrines of the Church which makes it necessary to believe that, even of men who are high officials of the Church. When we consider the imperfections of men, their passions and prejudices, that mar the Spirit of God in them, happy is the man who can occasionally ascend to the spiritual heights of inspiration and commune with God!

the relation of inspiration and revelation to church government ie

[W]e should recognize the fact that we do many things by our own uninspired intelligence for the issues of which we are ourselves responsible. he will help men at need, but I think it improper to assign every word and every act of a man to an inspiration from the Lord. Hence, I think it a reasonable conclusion to say that constant, never—varying inspiration is not a factor in the administration of the affairs of the Church; not even good men, no, not even though they be prophets or other high officials of the Church, are at all times and in all things inspired of God. It is only occasionally, and at need, that God comes to their aid.

That there have been unwise things done in the Church by good men, men susceptible at time to the inspiration of the Spirit of God, we may not question. Many instances in the history of the Church, through three quarters of a century, prove it, and it would be a solecism to say that God was the author of those unwise, not to say positively foolish, things that have been done. For these things men just stand responsible, not God.

It is well nigh as dangerous to claim too much for the inspiration of God, in the affairs of men, as it is to claim too little. By the first, men are led into superstition, and into blasphemously accrediting their own imperfect actions, their blunders, and possibly even their sins, to God; and by the second, they are apt to altogether eliminate the influence of God from human affairs; I pause in doubt as to which conclusion would be the worse.

the relation of inspiration and revelation to church government ie

But with reference to matters involving merely questions of administration and policy in the Church; matters that do not involve the great and central truths of the Gospel—these afford a margin wherein all the human imperfections and limitations of man, even of prophets and apostles, may be displayed; that they, in common with the membership of the Church, may exercise their freedom and agency, standing responsible, blameable or praisable, according as they acquit themselves well or ill in discharging those duties which devolve upon them.

the relation of inspiration and revelation to church government ie

I believe Mormonism affords opportunity for disciples of the second sort; nay, that its crying need is for such disciples. It calls for thoughtful disciples who will not be content with merely repeating some of its truths, but will develop its truths; and enlarge it by that development. Not half—not one-hundredth part—not a thousandth part of that which Joseph Smith revealed to the Church has yet been unfolded, either to the Church or to the world. The work of the expounder has scarcely begun. The Prophet planted by teaching the germ-truths of the great dispensation of the fulness of times. The watering and the weeding is going on, and God is giving the increase, and will give it more abundantly in the future as more intelligent discipleship shall obtain. The disciples of Mormonism, growing discontented with the necessarily primitive methods which have hitherto prevailed in sustaining the doctrine, will yet take profounder and broader views of the great doctrines committed to the Church; and, departing from mere repetition, will cast them in new formulas; co-operating in the works of the Spirit, until “they help to give to the truth received a more forceful expression, and carry it beyond the earlier and cruder stages of its development.”

in defense of the faith and the saints vol 1, p. 310

I can never can read [D&C 88: 77-79] without exclaiming: What a field of knowledge there is laid before the elders of the church, and which they are bidden to enter and reap abundantly! People have talked about the ignorant ministry of the Mormon Church. All the while here is our curriculum of studies marked out for us, a curriculum that we are to follow. And for what purpose? Listen to the next paragraph: ‘That ye may be prepared in all things when I shall send you again to magnify the calling whereunto I have called you, and the mission with which I have commissioned you.’ God has no use for an ignorant ministry in his church. This is our law of instruction and our guide, to prepare us for the work of the ministry. Therefore we want to learn and become acquainted with the trend of modern science, as well as ancient science. We want to know something of what these men—who scan the heavens, and reduce the elements, by analysis, to more or less true proportions—know; we want to know something about that, and it is our mission to find out; hence the connection.

discourses of b h roberts, p. 24

Knowledge by faith! What a thought—knowledge by faith! But let no one suppose that knowledge by faith is to be obtained by an easy road or method. It will demand effort and strenuous life and the exaltation of life itself to obtain knowledge by faith.

discourses of b h roberts, p. 24

It will be futile to cry out for ‘peace, peace,’ until justice is recognized and established upon a firm foundation.

Discourses of B. H. Roberts, p. 11 conceptions of the nature of the universe entertained by man must ever affect human views of God.

discourses of b h roberts, p. 93