Letters from Our Readers

I find it curious that some of your readers still wish to continue writing their concerns about Mormonism being Christian.

Several weeks ago another letter concerning Mormon beliefs was printed in your paper with the admirable intention of settling this "argument" using logic and common sense.

The conclusion was summed up like this: "Mormons may be sincere, but their God and their Scripture are a nice fiction."

Although I am a devout Mormon and strongly disagree with that part of his conclusion that claims our God and Scripture are "a nice fiction," I appreciate his using logic for a persuasive argument.

Persuasive arguments like this were used by Greek philosophers to further human knowledge; their efforts long ago still have a great influence on us today.

The persuasive argument can be broken down into parts to better understand how it works.

First you start with assumptions - statements that all people accept as true and factual.

Next, you use these assumptions and logic to extend what is accepted as truth, arriving at an irrefutable conclusion.

Assuming the logic is sound and the assumptions are true, you must accept the conclusion as the truth. However, if the assumptions are not true, no amount of flawless logic can make the conclusion true.

Even if you use perfectly sound common sense, a conclusion that is certain is not possible when the assumptions are not first accepted as truthful.

With this in mind, let's suppose someone starts a persuasive argument by saying, "Assuming the world is flat, it implies that ...."

Even if he were to use perfect logic, you would not be the least convinced that any kind of conclusion he came to would be anything near the truth, because you do not believe his assumption is true - that the world is flat.

The letter assumed "that the universe and all it contains has not always been here ... Before that point in time there was nothing at all".

This assumption probably is accepted by most of your readers as truthful, but Mormons do not agree with this statement.

Rather, we believe that matter is eternal. When we read in the Bible that God "created" the world, Mormons believe it means "formed" or "organized".

It's the same sense of the word when you say that an artist creates a masterpiece. You do not imply that his work of art came into existence from nothing. Rather, you mean that he has skillfully used existing materials by organizing and forming them into something beautiful and inspiring.

In like manner, God formed this universe with matter already in existence, matter that is as eternal as He is.

At this moment, those reading this may be thinking that we've reached another impasse due to differences in our respective "interpretations" of the meaning of the Scriptures. This is not the case.

There is ample evidence that supports the idea that matter is eternal and not created. In the much older Hebrew version of the Old Testament what we translate as "create" in our English KJV of the Bible is the Hebrew word "baurau" which means organize, form or fashion.

Oxford University's Rev. Baden Powell wrote, "The idea of 'creation,' as meaning absolutely 'making out of nothing,' or calling into existence that which did not exist before, in the strictest sense of the term, is not a doctrine of scripture" (Cyclopaedia of Biblical Literature).

If this notion of creation from nothing does not come from scripture, then how is it that most Christian churches teach it?

If the intention of your reader was to include us in his discussion of our own beliefs, he will have to use another assumption to be convincing. It's no different than if I were to start a persuasive argument by saying, "Assuming the Bible and the Book of Mormon are both Holy Scripture from God, then it implies ..."

If I use sound logic, my conclusion should be convincing to a Mormon, but would mean little to someone who did not agree with my first assumption that the Book of Mormon is true.

The letter also used the scientific theories of relativity and the Big Bang to substantiate its conclusion. My own understanding of these theories is nowhere complete, but what little I do understand supports my own beliefs about the nature of God.

I understand that relativity says that our perception of the passage of time is subjective. How we perceive events taking place in time depends on our speed relative to those events. Our perception of time and space are dependent on each other. Because they are dependent, scientists refer to them as a single thing called space-time.

This idea, in part, led scientists to ask what would happen if gravity were to overcome the universe's present expansion and make it collapse. What would happen if there were a Great Collapse of the entire universe?

Their conclusion was that space and, therefore, time would cease as we know and measure them. In turn, their conclusions led Stephen Hawking to propose the reverse. A great explosion: The Big Bang.

The theory concerns itself with what happens immediately (sometimes in millionths of a second) after the big event. It does not concern itself with what was there just before it happened, nor with the why or how it happened.

Scientists cannot measure or observe what existed before the Big Bang. They can only see and measure the after-effects, so that is what they concern themselves with.

According to theory, had the temperature or speed of the Big Bang been different in the least bit, the physical universe would have been fundamentally different. This is why scientists agree that a conscious intelligence is involved intimately in the creation of our universe.

In the preface to his book "The Big Bang," Joseph Silk of UC Berkeley writes, "It is a theory based on astronomical data, painstakingly gathered at observatories around the world, and on recent advances in particle physics toward an understanding of the ultimate nature of matter. The search is far from over, and the theory is still incomplete."

In other words, there are still many questions that the Big Bang doesn't answer.

In fact, physicists have recently observed situations where matter appears to travel faster than the speed of light. This is important because Albert Einstein used the assumption that nothing travels faster than light for his Theory of Relativity.

In the current issue of Discovery Magazine is an article about some physicists that are questioning Einstein's entire theory because of this one possibly flawed assumption.

The Theory of Relativity is an important part of the basis of all our current scientific understanding of the universe. Nowhere that I have read, do Relativity or Big Bang claim matter came from nothing.

On a different note, the letter mentioned the Mormon phrase "a burning in the bosom".

This is used by many Mormons to describe the sensation they feel when the Holy Ghost is communicating with them on a spiritual level.

From my own experiences as a young Mormon missionary long ago and in more recent discussions with non-Mormons about this feeling, I have not found a single person who understood what I meant by "a burning in the bosom," yet the letter claimed that this sensation was felt by all people of all faiths.

Instead, those with other beliefs have expressed to me their being satisfied, content, or finding comfort from their faith. These feelings are real and are felt by Mormons as well, but I believe are not the same feelings we have when the Holy Ghost is telling us that something is true.

Whatever we may say to describe our feelings when visited by the Holy Ghost, I believe our words will always fall short. I think what we are sensing and describing is only an secondary effect of what is really going on inside us - a transfer of knowledge from God to man; revelation. The experience is profound and should be life-changing.

The writer of the letter claimed he had asked for this knowledge, but had not received it. It is true that some do not get an answer right away, while others seem to get their answer almost immediately.

Brigham Young, the great western colonizer, second prophet to the Church and successor to Joseph Smith, did not gain his knowledge that the Church was true until he'd struggled with it for two years.

I do not understand all of God's Will. Why one should receive and another not receive an answer is beyond my knowledge. Why one should receive quickly and another receive only after great time and effort is likewise beyond my understanding.

Although this does occur, it doesn't take away from the reality of the answers that I and millions of other Mormons have received by the Holy Ghost.

I know God loves all people and that He wants them all to know the truth, but He does it according to His will and not ours.

My faith is that He knows what is best for each of us and is intimately involved in our individual searches for truth.

Mormons may not agree with many traditional Christian beliefs, but I think there is one thing we Christians can all agree on. If we do not know that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world and has paid the penalty for our individual sins, then whatever else we may have discovered won't amount to a hill of beans.

Kevin Bentley
Peachtree City