Scott Woodward:
What is truth? What does it mean to really know something? And what are the best methods and tools to come to know a thing? In today’s episode of Church History Matters, we begin our new series on Good Thinking, where we explore the important role our brain and intellect play in truth seeking and the life of faith. Specifically in this series, we want to explore what mental moves are made or what frameworks of thinking are used by intelligent, critically thinking Latter-day Saints whose faith is strengthened rather than damaged by diving deeply into our church’s history and doctrine. So this should be fun. I’m Scott Woodward, a managing director at Scripture Central, and my co-host is Casey Griffiths, also a managing director at Scripture Central. And today Casey and I dive into our first episode in this series about truth seeking and good thinking. Now let’s get into it.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Well, hello, Scott.

Scott Woodward:
Hello, Casey. How you doing, man?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Great. I’m doing great, and I am excited to start this new series. To be honest, this probably should have been our first series that we did, but a series entitled “Epistemology” is a lot less grabby than something like “The First Vision” or “Polygamy” or “Race and the Priesthood,” so we did put this off a little ways down the road, but we have been employing the methods and principles that we’re going to talk about in this series the whole time. And part of the reason I think why we wanted to do this is, Scott, it’s fair to say you and I both, first day of class, do this.

Scott Woodward:
That’s right.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
With our students.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. Especially in a church history class. Before you dive into the complexities of church history, a couple simple guidelines about how to find truth, what truth is. Models can be really, really helpful for students that kind of navigate these challenging issues. Is that fair to say?

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. We want to set up kind of mental frameworks of thinking, so that we have a nice guide on how to seek truth in both church history and doctrine, right? Especially at the beginning of, like, my doctrinal courses, or yeah, church history courses. Like, we definitely—I’ll always frame it at the beginning with these principles. Now, the luxury of having podcasts is we can go hours and hours and hours into this stuff, whereas maybe in the classroom we’re constrained by one class period because there’s so much else to get to when you only have so many lessons in a semester. But the podcast, I think this is great. We can dive into this for five, six hours.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Absolutely. And I’ll just say that these skills aren’t just useful when you’re exploring church history and doctrine. They are useful when you read the news, when you’re trying to discern what’s real and what’s not real on a daily basis. They also aren’t just concerned with what’s true and what isn’t true. One of the good skills that a real, thoughtful, faithful Latter-day Saint needs to have is knowing what’s important. What do we need to put our boxing gloves on for and fight for the Restoration, and what can we kind of back off and say, hey, a little diversity of thought here is okay. It doesn’t break the church if you believe this idea differently than I believe this idea. As I’ve seen these ideas kind of blossom amongst our students, it really does turn into one of those, “you give a man a fish or you teach a man to fish” kind of things, where we’re empowering them with the skills to basically figure out this stuff on their own with the guidance of the Holy Ghost and the Scriptures and the Prophets, to find their own path and kind of make their own way so that it’s more meaningful.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
So this isn’t about a specific church history topic. This is going to be about truth and history and doctrine and how we navigate each one of those things. I like what you’ve written here. It’s what do you know and how do you know it, basically.

Scott Woodward:
I’m still caught up on the word epistemology. Are we really calling this series epistemology?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
I think—I don’t know. I don’t think that’s going to be the series title.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Epistemology—I’m looking through our outline. We’ve got ontology, we’ve got inferences, hermeneutics—college professors like to use big words. It makes us feel more ambidextrous. And don’t be put off by those things. I actually see this among my students for the first day. They’re like, “Oh my gosh, there’s a ton of big words.” And then by the end of the semester, they’re coming up to me and saying, “Hey, I know this is a little esoteric, but tell me what you think about this.” And so don’t be put off by that. We’re going to introduce some big words. like epistemology, but we’re going to define them clearly, and we’ll give you examples to make them crystal clear. And I’m saying this as someone who a couple years ago, if someone had said “epistemology,” I would have been put off. In fact, I remember someone saying to me, “exegesis,” like, “I think your exegesis is off.” And I was like, “You need a find-a-Jesus” or something like that. I didn’t understand what the heck they were talking about. But I mean, by the time we’re done, hopefully epistemology, exegesis, eisegesis, ontology—all these things will be simple enough that you could explain them to somebody else. But, again, it’s worthwhile to know this stuff. It really, really will help you in your testimony of the gospel and in your exploration of truth in general in the world.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. What are some other titles for this series? Let’s, let’s think about it.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
I mean, the idea—I’m dumber than you, Scott.

Scott Woodward:
No, you’re not. That is so not true.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
But my title would have been “The Truth Toolbox.”

Scott Woodward:
“The Truth Toolbox.” Okay.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
“The Truth Toolbox.”

Scott Woodward:
I like it.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Like, here’s the tools for finding truth: doctrinal truth, historical truth, scientific truth, all that kind of stuff.

Scott Woodward:
What about “Seeking Truth,” or “Truth Seeking,” or “Thinking Clearly about History and Doctrine”?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
I like all those, and I don’t think we have to settle right now. But that is, in essence, what we’re going for, is this is how you find the truth and how you can discern and know the truth from error.

Scott Woodward:
That’s it. That’s what we’re after.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yep, that’s what we’re going for. So, again, Scott, this is a complicated subject.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And, I mean, it’s easier to just go on and say, “Hey, we’re talking today about the Mountain Meadows Massacre,” or something like that. Why did we choose to pause our historical flow, I guess you’d say, and sort of put in place all these complicated structures? Like, what’s the reason for doing this? Make a case for me.

Scott Woodward:
Well, glad you asked. I think the best case is that we live in the information age, and it just so happens that both faith and doubt are fed by information. Like, I think we all know people whose faith has been weakened by new information or shaken by new information, whether that’s doctrinal information or historical information. I’d probably say it’s usually historical. You know, the story’s almost proverbial at this point, that you have a church member who comes across information on the internet, calls into question some core tenet of their faith—maybe they learned about multiple accounts of the First Vision, like we’ve talked about in one of our series, or the translation method of The Book of Mormon or polygamy, some shocking fact about polygamy or blacks and the priesthood or something—and they’re shocked, and they begin to doubt, and they begin to kind of spiral downward, right? And it’s not just the new information that troubles them. It’s also the fact that nobody in the church ever told them about this stuff. And so now trust has been violated, right? They feel betrayed, and it’s a very uncomfortable place to be in because now they become suspicious of the very methods and sources of knowledge they used to turn to to strengthen their faith. They wonder if they can even trust their past spiritual experiences. Like, this is a very real phenomenon that’s happened to a lot of people that you and I love, and probably a lot of listeners can relate with what we’re talking about here. And what drives it is information. That’s what’s interesting.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Like, I’ll go out on a limb here and say, I think we live in the golden age of church history, right? There’s so much good stuff, and there’s an amazing new discovery almost every week. But that flow of information that you’ve talked about is a flood, and people can get swept away in floods.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Right? If they don’t know where the firm ground is, if they don’t know where to stand, if they don’t know how to seek safety, it can be really, really difficult to stand in the middle of that flood of information and still be okay. And so we’re not criticizing anybody that’s left the church or that’s struggled with this stuff. We’ve struggled with some of this stuff. But there are certain tools that allow you to navigate these complicated issues without losing your faith and maybe even strengthening your faith as you go.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, and that’s what’s fascinating, right? On the flip side, there are hundreds of men and women who have chosen to professionally study the church’s history and doctrine. You and I know many of them. And they know the very same information that rocked the faith of that unsuspecting church member online, and they know it better than anybody else. Yet more often than not, their faith is strengthened because of that information. Fascinating, right? So, for instance, one professor of history that you and I admire named Spencer Fluhman, he said only a few years ago, “I am not a committed Latter-day Saint in spite of my careful study of LDS history, but because of it.” How is that possible, that one person can have their faith rocked by church history and another person can have their faith strengthened by church history? And I dare say that Spencer Fluhman knows the history way better than those who are posting fragments of it online that are shocking and shaking people’s faith. I guess our burning question for this entire series is, “What mental moves are made by intelligent, critically thinking Latter-day Saints whose faith is strengthened rather than damaged by diving deeply into our church’s history and doctrine?” Or another way to say it is “What frameworks of thinking do they use when approaching scripture and history?” We think that’s a vital question.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
I remember hearing Rick Turley, who was Assistant Church Historian, once say, “We’re not worried about our people knowing too much about church history. We’re worried about people knowing too little about church history”—that that’s the danger: that if you have a little piece here and a little piece there without the full context and without the full background, it really can be damaging to your faith. We’re not saying it isn’t.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. Right.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
But if you have a couple tools in place so that you don’t panic when you come across something that’s disturbing or you know how to contextualize things, a lot of stuff in church history stops being faith harming and becomes faith promoting, just like Spencer Fluhman said.

Scott Woodward:
That’s right. We’re really emphasizing the mind here and thinking skills intentionally because we believe this is key to successfully navigating the information age. Like, it’s inevitable. Like, we have to use our mind, and this belief of ours is actually rooted in a verse from the Doctrine and Covenants, section 88, verse 118. I’ll just read that. This is where the Lord says, “And as all have not faith, seek ye diligently, and teach one another words of wisdom. Yea, seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom. Seek learning, even by study and also by faith.” Just a few observations there: I love how he opens that, he says, “As all have not faith.” That’s awesome. That’s comforting. I take comfort that the Lord is not alarmed nor bothered here by the fact that not everyone in the church has faith. Like, He just kind of says it matter of factly here, right? And I think sometimes we culturally put a premium on being able to say “I know” and to declare everything with, like, certainty, with every fiber of our being. And doubt is sometimes seen as bad or even sinful. And then, like, only “believing” is viewed as somehow inferior to knowing. And here the Lord speaks of not having faith as, like, a very normal and understandable place to be in. And then he offers the next steps to progress and strengthen that faith. That’s when he says, “Seek ye diligently and teach one another words of wisdom.” Like, I love the community aspect that he’s emphasizing there, of seeking together and teaching each other. And we are to become independent seekers of wisdom from, “the best books.” I love that. I love that. So that’s the Lord’s solution to not having faith is to, “seek learning.” Seek learning together with other seekers out of the best books, even by study and also by faith, both of these together, right? Brain work and spiritual work here, not one or the other, but both together.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. One of the things I’ve noticed when I’ve read through the Doctrine and Covenants is how often he brings this up—that he really strongly encourages them to be smart people that learn as much as they can. In one place, learn about the complexities of the world, learn history, but also be faithful people that see it through a lens of faith, and to bring those two things together. And one of the real blessings of being a church member is that you’re encouraged to do both, that education is encouraged.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
That deep thinking is encouraged. That the leaders of the church are among some of the most intelligent and thoughtful people I know, and that the members of the church are encouraged to do so.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. Yeah, that’s so good. Like, truth seeking, in the Lord’s formulation, is always a combination of both intellectual and spiritual effort. And I dare say that’s a commandment, not just an encouragement, I guess, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
He’s always asking us to use our brain and our heart. Like, think of Moroni 10:3-5. Like, how do you come to know that the Book of Mormon is true? Is it just pray about it? No. Listen to the brain words here. We’re familiar with these verses: “Behold, I would exhort you,” Moroni says, “that when ye shall read these things,”—ding, ding, ding! There’s a brain word—“that ye would remember,” there’s another one, “how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men from the creation of Adam down until the time that ye shall receive these things,” like, that’s a lot to remember. So there’s a implication here that you’ve studied the Bible, you’ve studied, like, a lot here, right from Adam all the way down to the time that you have received these things. And then third brain word, “and ponder it in your hearts.” We’re going to talk a lot about, like, what that can look like throughout this series. Like, “ponder” is a really packed little word. It doesn’t just mean, like, sit back on your chair and think about it a little bit. There are some mental moves that you can make to help, like, better and more clearly think through a lot about the scriptures and about church history, right? And then he says, right, it’s only then that he exhorts us to “then ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true,” with the promise that “he will manifest the truth of it . . . by the power of the Holy Ghost.” And how will that witness come? If you jumped over to D&C 8:2, remember what the Lord says there? “Yea, behold, I will tell you in your mind and in your heart,” there it is again, “by the Holy Ghost.” So it’s study and faith, mind and heart.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Right. And if I can offer a little more context to that verse you just quoted, it’s Oliver Cowdery who’s told, “I’ll tell you in your mind and in your heart.” And the specific task here is he’s trying to translate the Book of Mormon. He wants to swap places with Joseph Smith.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, give it a shot.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
He is unsuccessful, and when he goes to the Lord to ask why he wasn’t successful, the Lord says, this is Doctrine and Covenants 9. “You have not understood.” This is verse 7. “You have supposed I would give it unto you when you took no thought, save it was to ask me. But behold, I say unto you, you must study it out in your mind. Then you must ask me if it be right.” In other words, the pattern has always been study, then ask. It’s never been just walk into the woods with no preparation and no thought and no work and kneel down and pray and God will give you a revelation. It’s that it’s a collaboration between you and God—that you’re working together. You’re doing everything you can to find the answers on your own through the methods that are available to you. And then when you’ve demonstrated your sincerity through your effort, God will give you the answer. And I think you see that in the First Vision, in Oliver Cowdery’s story, and repeatedly throughout the scriptures where people are seeking answers: that they have to do a lot of work before the Lord gives them the answer, and that he isn’t intending to just slide down a magical moonbeam and tell you everything—that you have to collaborate with him to find the truth.

Scott Woodward:
Do we need to ask God? Yes. We wouldn’t downplay either the spiritual or the intellectual, right? And too often you see kind of the pendulum swinging one way or the other on that, and the Lord is saying, no, keep it right in the middle. Do both.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
Consistently. So maybe let’s call D&C 88:118 our theme scripture for this series about seeking, right? The Lord wants us to “seek learning by study and also by faith.”

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah, and to that theme scripture, I’ll add a theme quote: this is from Dieter F. Uchtdorf. He gave a CES devotional called “What is Truth?” I love this quote. Here’s what he said: he said, “Latter-day Saints are not asked to blindly accept everything they hear. We are encouraged to think and discover truth for ourselves. We’re expected to ponder, to search, to evaluate, and thereby to come to a personal knowledge of the truth.”

Scott Woodward:
Boom.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
He was a member of the first presidency at the time. He’s still a member of the Quorum of the Twelve. He’s one of our most esteemed voices saying, no, you’re encouraged to do this stuff. We’re not discouraging you. We’re not worried about what you’ll find out. We want you to know these things. So go out and find the truth. Work with God, collaborate, and come to a knowledge for yourself. That’s our deal.

Scott Woodward:
It’s our deal, and it’s going to require—I like his words: ponder, search, evaluate, and thereby come to a personal knowledge of the truth. So good.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
So we mentioned that there were going to be some big words, and this is where we get to the big wordy part of our exploration today.

Scott Woodward:
Buckle up. Nerd alert. Nerd alert.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Once you know these terms, you’re going to be dropping them in conversation left and right. You’re going to be sitting there, you know, eating lunch at a restaurant and say to your friend, “I think your epistemology is a little flawed” or something like that. But let’s start out with the key terms we need to know, beginning with the magic word of the day: epistemology. Scott, what is epistemology? Define that for us.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, here we go. Big word. It simply means the study of knowledge. I think a dictionary definition is, “the investigation of what distinguishes justified belief from opinion.” So it basically probes the questions, like, what does it mean to know something? How do you come to know things? And is there any way we can be sure that we’re right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
Right? So that’s just this, how do you know stuff? That’s epistemology.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
It’s searching for truth, right? The Savior said if you know the truth, the truth will set you free.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And by the way, the Savior himself in the Doctrine and Covenants gives an interesting definition of truth. You might remember when he was on trial before Pontius Pilate. Pontius Pilate asked him, “What is truth?” The Savior doesn’t answer, but if he did, it would have been close to this scripture he gives in section 93. This is Doctrine and Covenants 93:24: “Truth is knowledge of things as they are, and as they were, and as they are to come.”

Scott Woodward:
Bam. So the Lord’s definition there is highly epistemological, right? That’s an epistemological definition. When you try to define what knowledge is, you are engaging in epistemology. That’s what the Lord did here. Truth is knowledge of things as they are, as they were, and as they are to come.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. And I like that dictionary definition, that it says it distinguishes justified belief from opinion. A lot of us just act on our opinions. And this isn’t saying that epistemology allows you to know everything for certain for sure. That’s where faith comes in. But the words “justified belief” are powerful, right?

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
It’s good for you to be able to say, “I believe this, and here’s the reasons why.” Epistemology can give us a reason to say why we believe what we believe, how we justify it, and what our framework is for discerning truth. Once that framework’s in place, we can go to work on a lot of problems and solve a lot of issues that face us.

Scott Woodward:
That’s true. How often have you seen—like, online sometimes I’ll see someone quote something on Facebook or post something on Facebook, and underneath it it says, there’s that little disclaimer that says “potentially misinformation” or something like that, you know, where it’s kind of giving a little disclaimer, like, hey, this has not been verified. People are claiming stuff. That’s a “things as they are” type of a dilemma, right? There’s a lot of people saying that things are a certain way in the news or politics or whatever. It’s an epistemological question to say, is that accurate? And how can we know if that’s true? Is that misinformation, or is that something that we should take seriously?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. We argue about all three, but I honestly think the one that we’re struggling with the most right now is things as they are.

Scott Woodward:
Oh, why?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
I’m not going to bring up any current political events or anything like that.

Scott Woodward:
Wise man.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
But we just argue about basic facts about how the world is and what the major problems are in the world and where we should devote our resources towards. I think everybody wants to make things better, but we sometimes just disagree on how things are and therefore what’s the best approach to try and make the world a better place. So all three are potent, right?

Scott Woodward:
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
What’s our next big word we’re going to tackle here?

Scott Woodward:
How about ontology?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Ontology. Okay. Okay.

Scott Woodward:
Ontological inquiry, yes. So what does that mean, Casey? Ontology.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Whoa, boy. This is a million-dollar word, but it’s basically what is real.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
What is existence? And I know that those are two questions and not necessarily an answer, but that is what ontology deals with. Ontology concerns itself with big questions like, does God exist? Are my feelings real? What is nothing, and does it exist? These are all ontological questions. So it has to deal with the nature of things that can’t be measured easily. It’s how we embrace reality and what we have to do with it.

Scott Woodward:
So that moment in Harry Potter where he sort of briefly dies in the last book and he’s in King’s Cross Station and he asks Dumbledore, there’s, like, white all around him—remember this moment?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
And he says to Dumbledore, is this real or has this been happening inside my head? And then Dumbledore answers, “Of course it’s happening inside your head, Harry. But why on earth should that mean it’s not real?” That’s something of an ontological wrestle, isn’t it?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. So, epistemology, ontology. Hopefully you’re still with us. Let’s go to the next word, which isn’t super big: facts.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. And what if we do the next three together? Because I think they play off of each other.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Okay, do them. Yeah, go ahead.

Scott Woodward:
So facts, inferences and assumptions. These are words we’re going to use a lot throughout this series. So facts are things that are true and verifiable no matter your perspective, right? Like, I’m wearing glasses right now. Like, that’s true, it’s verifiable, doesn’t matter your perspective, your worldview. Like, I’m wearing glasses, you know?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
That’s a fact. Then there’s inferences. Inferences are kind of these snap conclusions, or meaning that we give the facts based upon our underlying assumptions. Someone’s coming at you with a knife, you’re going to make a snap conclusion, “I’m in danger. This person intends to harm me,” or something like that, and that’s based on assumptions. And assumptions are these, like, beliefs that we suppose to be true, usually based on previous learning that we don’t really question. These assumptions form our belief system and help us interpret the world. They actually help form our hermeneutic. That’s a word we used way back in the First Vision series, hermeneutic, which is basically a fancy word for the lens by which we see the world. And so—or another way we could say is our hermeneutic is our cluster of assumptions that then form the lens by which we look out into the world and interpret what’s going on out there. And that’s true of looking at the present, also looking at the past, and also contemplating the future. And so facts, inferences, and assumptions are huge to be able to slow down and think about, especially when it comes to analyzing history. Let me give you an example: here’s a fact. In 1839, Joseph Smith testified that in 1820, he sought two divine beings who answered his prayer. That’s a fact.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Fact. Yeah. Nobody’s disputing that. Yeah. It just happened.

Scott Woodward:
Look at the manuscripts in 1839. Like we still ha—yeah, like, we know that’s true, that that’s what he testified and that’s when he testified. Now, someone might make an inference that Joseph must not have actually seen a vision in 1820, or else he would have written about it when it happened, not 19 years later. And that would be based on an assumption that people basically always write down major life experiences shortly after they happen. And since Joseph didn’t do that, my inference is he must not be telling the truth. Now, that’s coming from what we called a hermeneutic of suspicion back in our First Vision episode. Here’s another one. By the way, I’m riffing off of a talk that Stephen Harper gave. He’s one of our favorite thinkers. We’ve had him on the show before. He gave a great talk at a women’s conference called “Seekers Wanted.” He gave a variation of what I’m going through right now, so props to Steve for helping me think slowly about these things, too. Here’s another one: Joseph Smith said that he was employed to search for buried treasure and that he used a seer stone to do so. That’s a fact. Inference: God would not call a young man who searched for buried treasure by looking in a stone to be a prophet. Assumption. Looking for buried treasure through stones is weird and fringe and cultish. You know, it’s like, why would God call someone that was engaged in weird stuff to be, like, a dignified prophet? That can’t be right. Or here’s another one from our polygamy series. Joseph Smith was sealed to many women. Fact.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Fact. Yep.

Scott Woodward:
Verifiable, right? But some people infer from that kind of a snap conclusion: Hmm, Joseph Smith must have exercised unrighteous dominion over women. That’s an inference, but it’s based on what? Assumption: Men in positions of power often take advantage of women. Hmm. Therefore Joseph Smith must have taken advantage, right? Hermeneutic of suspicion. What we’d like to do in this series is to show that that’s not the only way to think about these things, right? There are important skills of thinking slowly and examining our own assumptions and being willing to change those assumptions in light of new information. And when you change your assumptions, that’s going to change the inferences or the snap conclusions and the meaning we give to the facts and help us to kind of reorient and see the history with some more clarity. And that’s in light of new information, not closing our eyes to information, right? And that’s—you mentioned earlier context, like learning and understanding context, both theological, historical, cultural—that’s all going to be super helpful in helping us to examine our assumptions and hopefully modify and change those when necessary based on that new information.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
So going into our toolbox of truth here, now we’re going to introduce some of the tools that a person can use to explore the truth, that they’re going to use in their epistemological approaches to figure out what’s true and what isn’t, what’s justified belief versus what’s opinion. So the first one is scientific method. We’re just going to use this as a broad term to describe an empirical approach to answering questions and testing assumptions about the natural world. This is when we ask questions about the nature of what things are, how they got that way, how and why they work, and how we can work within these observable realities and shape them to benefit mankind. That’s the dictionary definition here. And I will say that from the beginning, the church has had a pretty comfortable relationship with science, to be honest with you.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
I’m going to plug my own work here, but I wrote a book about a guy named Joseph F. Merrill, who was a physicist. He was a chemist. He worked at the University of Utah. In fact, there was a time when the Quorum of the Twelve had several professors from the University of Utah, James E. Talmage, John A. Widtsoe, Joseph Merrill, Richard Lyman, among their number, and it didn’t seem like it was a problem. And what’s interesting is that these men were serving in the Quorum of the Twelve at the time when science and religion seemed to be having their biggest conflict. You might have heard of the Stokes [Scopes] monkey trial in Tennessee. That happens in 1925. And it was basically Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan arguing over science and religion. At the same time, you have all these scientists in the Quorum of the Twelve that are arguing that science isn’t contradictory to faith, that science can strengthen faith. In fact, one quote Joseph Merrill would use all the time is he would say, “Truth is truth where e’er ’tis found: on Christian or on heathen ground.”

Scott Woodward:
I like that.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
So Joseph Merrill would basically say, hey, if I found something spiritual in the scriptures and it’s true, great. If I found something that’s true using scientific tools, great. I’m going to accept it. If it appears that the two don’t mesh together, I’m not going to assume that they’re not true: I’m going to seek for a way to harmonize them. And so scientific method actually is a really valuable tool. It’s not opposed to religion. It’s a tool that I hope religious people can use to strengthen their faith and work out incorrect assumptions and beliefs that might be present before them.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. And these tools, these approaches for getting at truth that we’re talking about, scientific method being the first one here, that’s it, right? That’s the whole point is we’re trying to get at truth to help us modify our assumptions so that we think more clearly about the nature of reality, right? About our ontological conclusions and help us to get to bedrock when it comes to truth.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
What I love about the scientific method is it’s always challenging the assumptions of its own findings or the findings of the past, and it’s always trying to update and just be as clear as possible and always testing from different angles to figure out what is true. And it’s a very effective tool when it comes to the nature of physical realities that are measurable, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Right.

Scott Woodward:
Like, some subsets of the scientific method are, like, the archaeological method, which is tooled to answer questions about the physical remains of the past and try to reconstruct what happened in the past, especially the deep past. There’s documentary methods, where through documentary methodology, you’re trying to piece history back together in a coherent narrative based on existing documents and records and archives. And so in scientific methodology, you’re going to use documents, you’re going to use archaeology, and you’re going to try to piece together what can we actually know from the remaining evidence about the past about things as they really were.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. And I mean, things like the archaeological method are used by faithful Latter-day Saints to strengthen their faith. If you go to Israel, for instance, there’s a ton of archaeology. Archaeology has been called the national religion of Israel because everywhere you go, there’s something to be found. And in sorting through these findings, we find things that change our perspective sometimes but also strengthen our perspective. The Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in the first half of the 20th century. They’re the earliest record we have of what we currently call the Old Testament. That changed a lot of people’s perspectives, but in a lot of ways it also strengthened people’s faith to say, hey, look at this record and how far back it goes. In church history even in recent things, archaeology can be used to strengthen our beliefs. For instance, they do archaeology before they usually reconstruct a historic site. A guy I know, Mark Staker, who’s a crackerjack archaeologist, did an archaeological dig in Kirtland in the ashery, where the whole town would bring their ashes to make products like potash and pearlash, and as he was sifting through the wreckage, he found a bunch of pipe fragments. Well, that confirmed a statement that was made by Brigham Young that when the Word of Wisdom was first given in the 1830s, a lot of the men that the revelation was received for took their pipes and threw them into their stoves. And those broken pipe fragments wound up in the ashery, thereby showing that the early saints really did take the Word of Wisdom pretty seriously when it first came out—that they may have ebbed and flowed in their observance of it, but here’s archaeological evidence that, yeah, they threw their pipes away, just like the historical record says. Now, when it comes to documentary methods we use a lot of detective work to put together things like that. For instance, we mentioned this in our First Vision series, but the earliest account of the First Vision is from, we think, 1832. It doesn’t have a date. So how do we figure out that it came from 1832? There’s a bunch of tools. Joseph Smith wrote a letter to Emma Smith dated 1832 where he said he was reflecting back on his life, that he was going to a grove to pray often, and he knew that the Lord had forgiven him of his sins. That particular account starts in Joseph Smith’s handwriting, but then all of a sudden turns into Frederick G. Williams’ handwriting, and 1832 is when Joseph Smith and Frederick G. Williams started to work closely together. You put all these little hints together, and the most likely assumption is that this history was written in the summer of 1832. We do that all the time through documentary methods as well.

Scott Woodward:
It’s, like, kind of a documentary triangulation, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. Yeah. We use these historical tools to kind of figure out a simple question like, well, when did Joseph probably write down this story for the first time? And that helps us contextualize it in the face of other events that are going on. I will note that these scientific methods should also be noted to have limits. There’s those questions we always ask: who, what, when, where. That is what scientific method is equipped to answer. There’s one question or branch of questions that science admittedly doesn’t answer, and that’s the why questions. I remember watching this old movie. It’s a dumb movie. I’m not even going to say the name. Don’t look it up, but it’s a bunch of scientists flying through space, and one of them is religious, and the other guys start to razz the guy who’s religious, like, how can you be a scientist and still believe in God? And the guy looks at them and says, science doesn’t answer any of the really interesting questions. Which, when you think about it, yeah, science can tell us where, when, how, and what but not necessarily give purpose or meaning. For that we turn to other tools that should be used alongside science to provide meaning, and this is where theology, religion, and philosophy come into play.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah, excellent. So let’s talk about the philosophical method. That’s different than the scientific method pretty substantially because of—let’s introduce two new words: one is “empirical” and one is “rational.”

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Mm-hmm.

Scott Woodward:
So empirical is knowledge that’s derived from experience and experimentation. It’s very evidence-based. And so scientific method and historical method is very empirical in that we’re trying to get knowledge based on evidence, evidence and experience, whereas philosophy is rational, or it’s in this rationalism framework, and that means just basically knowledge that’s derived from reason and logic, right? It’s by using reason and logic, so it’s primarily this rational approach to getting at the truth of, like, theoretical statements through logic, reason, argument, not so much through documentation, historical fragments, experiments in a laboratory. This is more what goes on in your mind.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And let me give you an example of a philosophical exploration of an idea. One of the most basic questions people wrestle with is if there’s a God, then why do bad things happen?

Scott Woodward:
The problem of evil.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
The problem of evil, right? And I’m quoting here from an excellent, excellent BYU devotional by David Paulsen called “Joseph Smith and the Problem of Evil,” where he basically brings up that old philosophical question of if there’s a God, why do bad things happen? And typically a person of faith would say, “Well, bad things happen because people make bad decisions.” You know? People do wrong things. In answer to that, a person that doesn’t have faith could philosophically ask the question, “Why didn’t God just make people so they don’t make bad decisions?” That’s a perfectly reasonable premise. Why did God make us so screwed up, basically? David Paulsen goes to section 93 of the Doctrine and Covenants and pulls something here that is in the revelation that I think is amazing. Section 93, I’m going to quote here, verse 29. “Man was also in the beginning with God. Intelligence, or the light of truth, was not created or made, neither indeed can be. All truth is independent in that sphere which God has placed it, to act for itself, as all intelligence also. Otherwise there is no existence. Behold, here is the agency of man, and here is the condemnation.” In other words, what section 93 interjects into the conversation is the Lord tells Joseph Smith that man was not created or made. In other words, we can’t really say, “Why didn’t God just make us so that we don’t make bad decisions,” because section 93 is saying you weren’t created: you’ve always existed. It also says you’ve always had agency. In other words, God took what was there, and he tried to shape it and mold it and teach it and make it good, but it always had an independent existence and could make its decisions. And this tackles another big philosophical question, which is, do we actually have free will? Are we just robots doing what God programmed us to do, or are we independent beings that have a real choice? Section 93 says, yeah, we are independent beings that have our own choices to make, and therefore God’s not responsible for the evil we commit. He did the best he could with us. Just like we wouldn’t hold a parent responsible if their kid turns out to be a serial killer because their kid’s independent and has agency. Parent did the best they could, but the kid has their own choices. Likewise, God did the best he could with us, but sometimes we make bad decisions, and that’s part of what’s our nature as well. I mean, that’s a philosophical argument that’s very profound and interesting.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. D&C 93 is philosophically powerful.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
In so many ways. Philosophers like David Paulsen do a great job pointing that out. I remember Truman Madsen saying that D&C 93 was more philosophically powerful than Plato’s Timaeus.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. Here’s the quote from Truman Madsen, who was a philosophy professor, by the way.

Scott Woodward:
He’s a philosophy guy, yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
He said this: “Section 93 was received in May 1833, when Joseph was 27 years old. It defines beginningless, beginnings, the interrelationships of truth, of light, of intelligence, of agency, of element, of embodiment, of joy. Every sentence—every word is freighted with meaning. In one fell swoop, it cuts many Gordian knots.” So philosophers like Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle wrestled with these questions, and then 27-year-old Joseph Smith just drops a revelation that solves a lot of these philosophical issues by authoritatively declaring man has always existed and always had free agency. That’s an interesting and powerful way of exploring truth.

Scott Woodward:
So a revelation like section 93 fundamentally alters the underlying assumptions, the philosophical assumptions, by which people get all tied up and tangled up in these Gordian knots, as Truman Madsen is saying, with the problem of evil.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
What’s so powerful about section 93 is that it changes the underlying assumptions upon which some of these major philosophical problems are based, right? And that’s tied—so section 93 is kind of an interesting bridge between the philosophical method and theological method, right? So we should kind of go down a little bit one more level to the theological method here, which is, like, a way to study the things of God. And philosophy often overlaps with theology and is asking theological questions and about the nature of reality, like ontological questions, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
And theological method is essentially based upon, like, both a rational study by synthesizing teachings in the scriptural canon where we believe is housed divinely revealed truth, and it kind of bridges over into the empirical, where you’re also probing the things of God through your own experience, right? Such as engaging in personal prayer, and if you actually experience God answering your prayer, that tells you something about the nature of God and the nature of reality. Personal experiences with God can be really subtle, such as, like, just feeling God’s Spirit, feeling peace in your heart as you pray or as you contemplate the things of God. It can be really grandiose. It could be really extreme, like, through visions and appearances of angelic ministrations and personal appearances of God himself. Like, those would be empirical experiences that tell us a lot about theology, about the things of God, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
So theology is an interesting mix of both the rational, where we’re thinking through and using logic and reason to synthesize and make sense of scripture; revealed truth; and also experiential, this empirical approach to truth through your own sincere living of God’s laws and seeking God in prayer and through faithfulness, which leads to personal experience. Like, Alma 32 shows this interesting blend of both the rational and empirical, right? You’re planting the Word of God in your heart, which is almost this philosophical proposition that salvation comes in and through Jesus Christ. Plant that in your heart, Alma says, and let that work inside you. Do a little experiment upon that word. Act as if that’s actually a true propositional statement, and see what starts to happen as you live as if that’s true. Then you’re going to start getting empirical evidence that it’s true. It’s going to start to swell and enlighten your mind and enlarge your soul and become delicious to you. You’re going to start to see positive fruits in your own life as you start to live based on that powerful propositional truth. That’s kind of the theological method.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
I don’t know. What else do you want to say about the theological method, Casey?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Well, Latter-day Saints don’t like the word theology, do we?

Scott Woodward:
Why not? We don’t use it very much, that’s true.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
We don’t use it very often. I think that’s in part because in our discourse we favor terms like doctrine. Doctrine is a more concrete-sounding term that’s like, this is the way it is. This is what’s what. Theology can be a little bit more exploratory. And in that sense, theology can be really, really fun, too, because it’s where you basically say, let’s do some thought experiments based on the things that we know. Now, our doctrine comes from revelation, and that’s the foundation we build on, but it’s okay to explore a little bit theologically. I found this quote from Joseph Smith that kind of marries the two ideas. Joseph Smith said, “Could you gaze into heaven five minutes, you would know more than you possibly would know by reading all that was ever written on the subject. We are, one, only capable of comprehending that certain things exist, which we may acquire by certain fixed principles. If men would acquire salvation, they have got to be subject to certain rules.” So on the one hand, Joseph Smith is saying seek revelation because that’s how you really learn at an exponential rate, but we’re also all going to be operating within a set of fixed principles and rules. Theology kind of represents those principles that are set that we use to explore ideas, especially ideas surrounding God.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
So it’s okay to say theology, it’s okay to like theology, even if it is a little bit more of an ethereal term than doctrine is. Doctrine is great, and we build ourselves on doctrine, but theology has its place, too.

Scott Woodward:
I think just because a revelation has been received and recorded in scripture, that does not mean that we all understand what it’s saying, or that we understand its implications, right? And so theology can be fun, that way, like you’re saying, exploratory, and what do these revelations mean, what do they infer, what do they imply? If that’s true, then what else is also true, right? To kind of get into understanding both the text itself and the implications that flow from that. And that’s all really fun. It’s not like—my experience is it’s not that once a revelation has been given, everybody automatically understands it and understands all of its implications, right? That’s certainly not true for me, and I haven’t seen that be true for anyone I know, honestly. Like, it requires engagement, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
It requires us to dig into it and think of that revelation in light of everything else that’s also been revealed. And that’s really fun. That’s really exciting. I like theology.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. And rather than seeing philosophy and theology and scientific method as opposed to each other, they’re part of our toolbox, right, when we explore truth.

Scott Woodward:
Yep.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
It’s like, yesterday, I cut my lawn. I have a hammer. I have pliers. I have a lawnmower. I have a trimmer. I know how to use a hammer, but it’s not the best thing to use to cut my lawn. I use the lawnmower. Then I used my trimmer to make the edges look really nice. However, I needed to cut off some excess trim line, so I got out my pliers, and I cut them off. These tools that we have for discovering truth aren’t in opposition to each other, but sometimes you have to sit down and say, what’s the best tool for exploring this?

Scott Woodward:
It just depends on your question, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. Yeah. The witnesses of the Book of Mormon: Historical methodology is probably going to be your best tool there. If you’re trying to figure out the meaning of section 93, philosophical exploration is going to be your best tool to use there. If you’re trying to figure out section 76 and the degrees of glory, theology is going to help you out there. And a lot of times they overlap with each other.

Scott Woodward:
That’s right.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
You know, you use one tool to do this and that, just like yesterday, I used my lawnmower, my trimmer, my pliers, all these things to get the job done that I needed to get done. I did not use my hammer at any point in mowing the lawn, but it’s there just in case I need it.

Scott Woodward:
Wait, wait, wait. I’m caught up on your pliers. You used your pliers to cut your lawn? What? Tell me about that.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Well, I used them to trim the trim off my trimmers.

Scott Woodward:
Oh, so to kind of clip the little string?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. I clipped the little trimming wire off. I used my pliers and their wire cutter function.

Scott Woodward:
I see. That was an important clarification. I appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
I’m glad I can clarify.

Scott Woodward:
I like what you’re saying here, that it’s not that you’re only going to use one tool on one question. Like, one question might require two or three different tools. Like, if we’re digging into the three witnesses, and we’ve done that for an episode, we’re going to look at historical method, yes, but we’re also looking at the theological implications that that brings to bear, right? Like, if the three witnesses are telling the truth, that has major ontological implications. That means there’s actually a God who exists. They said they heard the voice of God. They saw an angel. That’s a pretty phenomenal claim that would say there is such thing as angels, that the Book of Mormon is true. If the Book of Mormon is true, like the angel said, then all the implications that has about the nature of atonement, God’s plan for his children, the fact that there was an ancient civilization called the Nephites and Lamanites, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
So the Three Witnesses is a fascinating, interesting case study where we’re going to be using primarily historical methodology, but what’s going to come from that are some really interesting philosophical and especially theological implications.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. Let’s introduce one last term here.

Scott Woodward:
One last term.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And it’s a term that you probably know: complexity.

Scott Woodward:
I have heard that term before, yes. That one I have heard.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. I put this quote up the first or second day of class in every class that I teach, and it’s not by a Latter-day Saint: it’s by Oliver Wendell Holmes. He said this: “I would not give a fig for the simplicity on this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity.” And let me just maybe share what I think that means: A lot of times, the place where people run into problems when it comes to their faith, especially Latter-day Saints, is that we’re raised with this simple set of truth: I am a child of God. Joseph Smith is a prophet. Jesus Christ is the Savior. Joseph translated the Book of Mormon. All that kind of stuff.

Scott Woodward:
Sure.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And those truths are true, but they are simple, right?

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And then when we lose people is when they go from the simplicity of their childhood to the complexity of the adult world. Simplicity is, in my analogy, like standing on the bank of a river. That’s your natural environment. That’s where you’re real, real comfortable. That’s where you feel safest, because humans are land creatures. They were designed to operate best on land. However, when we become adults, we are confronted by complexity. What do you mean I’m a child of God? In what sense are you a child of God? What do you mean Jesus Christ is the Messiah? How is he the Messiah? Why is it necessary to have a Messiah? What do you mean Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon? How did that happen?

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
And embracing that complexity is like jumping off the riverbank into the river. All of a sudden now we’re in an environment that we don’t feel comfortable in, that we weren’t built to exist in. It’s swirling us around, and it’s pushing us down the river, and it can be sort of scary and terrifying.

Scott Woodward:
Disorienting.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
It can be disorienting too, right?

Scott Woodward:
Yeah.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
But when we emerge from the river on the other side, back to simplicity, that comfort returns, right? So you take an assumption like I am a child of God, this simple, beautiful truth that one of our most famous songs reinforces. You sit down with a kid and you say, what do you mean I’m a child of God? In what sense are you a child of God? What does it mean when Jesus said He was the Son of God? How is He different from you? How is He like you?

Scott Woodward:
How the Book of Mormon says that you become the children of God after you’re baptized.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
And that introduces some doctrinal complexity. I thought I already was a child of God because of the song, but now Book of Mormon’s telling me that I need to become a child of God. What does that mean?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah. If you’re a child of God, why does the Bible and the Book of Mormon say we become the sons and daughters of God?

Scott Woodward:
Totally.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
You dive into all this complexity, and the exploration can be thrilling and terrifying and overwhelmingly uncomfortable, but you come out the other side of the complexity, you crawl out the other side of the river, and you’re back in simplicity where you can 100 percent say, yeah, I am a child of God. But that idea is so much more meaningful because you’ve explored the complexity that surrounds it. What really shakes people up is when they haven’t explored the complexity of these ideas. They haven’t made it to the simplicity that exists on the other side of complexity. So a simple testimony of the gospel is absolutely something that you should seek after and that you should obtain, but the complexity of the world we exist in means that these ideas, I genuinely believe, merit testing. And I think that they’ll stand up to examination using all the tools that we have here and that you’ll come out the other side of that examination with a simple belief that, yeah, I’m a child of God. That’s meaningful. That’s powerful. I think that it’s defensible. And it’s something that shapes my worldview and really changes the way that I see myself, the world around me, and how I can affect and do good in the world.

Scott Woodward:
Yeah. So we’re going to try throughout this series to talk carefully about all the different tools by which we can examine the complexity, right?

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
And to appreciate the complexity to get to that other side, simplicity. In our next episode, we’re going to talk about how to think doctrinally. How do we approach scripture to derive doctrine from that? Because it’s not actually simple. We talk about studying our scriptures to learn truth, but it turns out that’s actually a lot harder, a lot more complex than at first sounds.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
We’re going to talk about how to think historically in the following episode. We’re going to talk about examining our own assumptions and cognitive flexibility after that and contextualizing facts. It’s going to be good. It’s going to be a great series. We’re going to try to offer a lot of tools to handle the complexities that exist on all the most important questions that we eventually want to get to other side complexity on.

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Yeah.

Scott Woodward:
And let me just end with this quote from Steve Harper, again from that talk, “Seekers Wanted.” he said, “Seeking is a long, patient, persistent process that includes internalizing the best books, including the scriptures, where we not only learn the most important facts but the most valid meanings and values to give them. Seeking is hard work. It’s not for the weak-willed or faint of heart, nor for the intellectually or spiritually lazy, but it will sustain faith in a world intent on destroying it.”

Casey Paul Griffiths:
Amen. Amen.

Scott Woodward:
So join us next time as we talk about how to think doctrinally. Thank you for listening to this episode of Church History Matters. Next week we continue this series by getting really specific about how to evaluate doctrinal or theological truth claims. As it turns out, there are three crucial questions to think about when attempting to do so. If you’re enjoying Church History Matters, we’d appreciate it if you could take a moment to subscribe, rate, review, and comment on the podcast. That makes us easier to find. Today’s episode was produced by Scott Woodward and edited by Nick Galieti and Scott Woodward, with show notes and transcript by Gabe Davis. Church History Matters is a podcast of Scripture Central, a nonprofit which exists to help build enduring faith in Jesus Christ by making Latter-day Saint scripture and church history accessible, comprehensible, and defensible to people everywhere. For more resources to enhance your gospel study, go to scripturecentral.org, where everything is available for free because of the generous donations of people like you. While we try very hard to be historically and doctrinally accurate in what we say on this podcast, please remember that all views expressed in this and every episode are our views alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of Scripture Central or The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Thank you so much for being a part of this with us.