Continuing from Faith is Not Blind 1. Bruce C. and Marie K. Haven and their book “Faith is not Blind”:
This unfiltered access offers great advantages, but also invites great dangers. It may take real effort to check the accuracy and motives of the website’s authors, and we seldom have an experienced teacher nearby to answer our questions. The lack of responsible, effective filters makes the internet highly vulnerable to misinformation and manipulation.
When one friend was struggling with something he had read on line, we asked if he had also read the work of reliable LDS scholars on trustworthy sites. He said, “I don’t trust those people—they’re already biased in favor of the Church.” We replied, “Don’t you think the sponsors of negative websites have a bias against the Church?” Virtually everything on line reflects somebody’s bias—and those biases will not necessarily be self-evident.
Another risk of unfiltered access is that readers can’t know which critical claims have already been discredited and negative sites’ sponsors are not likely to tell them. Actually, careful research by LDS scholars has responded thoroughly to the main criticisms about Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, the Book of Mormon, and other issues. It would be highly ironic if the internet were producing more casualties from critics now, when the Church’s scholarly credibility has never been higher.
And speaking of biases, some feelings of doubt and inability to feel the Spirit are caused not by intellectual problems but by behavioral ones. That explains the request of one father when his son left for college while still unsettled about his testimony. “As you continue your search for faith,” he said, “please keep the commandments. Otherwise you will bias your search. If the affections of your heart are attached to the vices of the world, your head won’t make you—perhaps won’t even let you—believe in the virtues of God’s world.
Third Suggestion: Focus on hugely positive doctrinal content of the Restoration, rather than becoming sidetracked with the details of how Joseph received that content. That big-picture perspective is central to simplicity beyond complexity.
If we assume that Joseph Smith “translated” scriptures the way a scholar would, we misunderstand the role of a seer. . . .It was clearly a process of revelation. “It was principally divine inspiration rather than [Joseph’s] knowledge of languages that produced the English text of the Book of Abraham. “That is also true of the Book of Mormon—translated simply “by the gift and power of God.” But Joseph also told us: “Could you gaze into heaven five minutes, you would know know more than you would by reading all there ever was written on the subject.
As Richard Bushman wrote, “Unlike the scholarly translators , [Joseph] went back beyond the existing texts to the minds of the prophets, and through them to the mind of God.”11 Joseph apparently had access to original sources from which all other scriptures had come, a window into the entire heavenly realm—perhaps the same window through which Moses, Nephi, and John the Revelator saw. The pure and profound doctrines he found there revolutionized Christianity, restoring the true understanding of the nature of God and our relationship with Him; the nature of man—past, present, and future, the Fall, Christ’s Atonement, the scriptures, and the very purpose of life. This astounding religious bedrock rings with such clear truth that it speaks for itself—with so much clarity that details of how the Lord gave it to Joseph, even if we could understand those details, are less important than the content he received.~~Bruce C. and Marie K. Hafen’s book “Faith is Not Blind” (Salt Lake City, Deseret Book, 2018). p.22-24 (continued)
