Note: This is part two in a three part analysis. Part one can be found here.
Now, it doesn't take much imagination to see the limits of where this Venn Diagram breaks down, as there are areas that don't overlap: Nomenclature notwithstanding, I will side with other Christians and disagree with a Muslim about Jesus' role in God's plan. I can agree with the precept that free will is a part of the human experience, as some atheists do, but I wouldn't back up their claims of no God at all. That there are differences isn't what matters here; it's what's the same.
This is part of what draws me to Milton: His proto-Mormon understanding of God's feelings, behaviors, and choices have a lot of parallels to the scriptures I adhere to. For some people, the Swedish theologian Swedenborg also taps into lines that parallel and overlap Mormonism. The echoes of human worth and virtue that reverberate through the classics have inspired Christian writers from before Dante and long after I will draw my last breath.
"Discovering" these Truths that map onto each other, at whatever scale, is part of the inherent flexibility and ubiquity of Truth. This is why I feel that the pathways to understanding Truth are manifold--there are so many different ways of looking at the world, considering its past, pondering its future, and believing in its origin. While some are incompatible (purpose of life for a Norseman is different than for a Muslim as it is for a Mormon), even the impulse to understand Truth is mirrored in each tradition. If there's a Truth, then it will manifest itself in myriad ways--and not one of them is complete. Even Mormonism admits to being incomplete, as the ninth Article of Faith observes:
And that leads to my third assumption.
Second Assumption
The pathways to understanding Truth are legion. This posit would entail epistemological considerations that I'm not interested in following here, but anyone curious could start here for an overview of the philosophy. Rather, I'm interested in pursuing broader swaths of understanding and knowledge, recognizing that a lot of the road has been paved by philosophers and theologians, but focusing more on my own process of thinking.
To begin, I think there's something to be said about prima facie impulses about basic sensory data. The sun is hot, we can feel it and see it, and those physical stimuli come from a cause which we can point to and agree with. Intersubjective agreement may be necessary on one level, but once there, we're discussing common knowledge, verified through the senses. This kind of truth can be considered a rudimentary Truth--human senses are triggered via external processes that allow humans a subjective experience of an objective world.
And that's a secondary, important contingent to how I conceive of Truth: It operates independently of observation. The sun shone on uninhabited parts of the planet before, it does now, and it will later. Things existed before humans were around to perceive it--a literal reading of the Bible supports that claim. (Whether the locus of continued existence resides in Deity is beside the point; humans are not the road of reality, but instead vehicles on the highway.)
While there are appeals to different sorts of ways of knowing--authority, tradition, science, emotion--these aren't the areas that I'm most interested in exploring. Instead, I want to tighten what I mean by my second assumption, and that's by returning to Brigham Young's quote:
“Mormonism,” so-called, embraces every principle pertaining to life and salvation, for time and eternity. No matter who has it. If the infidel has got truth it belongs to “Mormonism.”The implication of this quote is wide, as it means that Taoism is part of Mormonism, and swaths of atheism fit into my religion, and there is common ground that Satanists and and Saints could agree upon. This spectrum runs from vague, universal assertions to the doctrinally specific: A secular humanist could make a claim about human worth, and I could condone that. A Baptist could insist that adult baptism is necessary, and I would nod my head in agreement. A Jew could assert that God wishes for Sabbath-day observance, and I would be with her in weekly adoration.
Now, it doesn't take much imagination to see the limits of where this Venn Diagram breaks down, as there are areas that don't overlap: Nomenclature notwithstanding, I will side with other Christians and disagree with a Muslim about Jesus' role in God's plan. I can agree with the precept that free will is a part of the human experience, as some atheists do, but I wouldn't back up their claims of no God at all. That there are differences isn't what matters here; it's what's the same.
This is part of what draws me to Milton: His proto-Mormon understanding of God's feelings, behaviors, and choices have a lot of parallels to the scriptures I adhere to. For some people, the Swedish theologian Swedenborg also taps into lines that parallel and overlap Mormonism. The echoes of human worth and virtue that reverberate through the classics have inspired Christian writers from before Dante and long after I will draw my last breath.
"Discovering" these Truths that map onto each other, at whatever scale, is part of the inherent flexibility and ubiquity of Truth. This is why I feel that the pathways to understanding Truth are manifold--there are so many different ways of looking at the world, considering its past, pondering its future, and believing in its origin. While some are incompatible (purpose of life for a Norseman is different than for a Muslim as it is for a Mormon), even the impulse to understand Truth is mirrored in each tradition. If there's a Truth, then it will manifest itself in myriad ways--and not one of them is complete. Even Mormonism admits to being incomplete, as the ninth Article of Faith observes:
We believe all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal, and we believe that He will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God.It's my belief that additional revelations do and continue to come from sources outside of Mormonism.
And that leads to my third assumption.