That quote makes me think of a recent Facebook discussion I had regarding the following Tweet which one of our relatives had reposted:
Ed: Where should we eat? I say pizza.
Ann: Pizza!
Ty: Pizza!
Liz: This old shoe!
Ed: Ugh, guess we have to eat this old shoe again.
Ann: Why??
Ty: Liz is from WY. Her vote is worth 3.6x more than ours.
[End Scene}
This has been the Electoral College.
Without getting into details, I challenged this Tweet as an inaccurate description, or even definition, of Electoral College. It was recommended to me to "Don't think so much into it."
The part of my response which I think applicable to my current message was as follows "[The Electoral College] is a deeper and more subtle subject than [the author of this Tweet] gives it credit for, and light thinking will not be sufficient to wrap the mind around its principles, much less lend itself to formulate productive critiques, let alone 'better' principles. I do not think that it is unreasonable to properly understand the mechanism of and the reason for the institution you wish to criticize -- settling for [this Tweet's] infantile explanation of the Electoral College process (which would not be acceptable in an 8th Grade U.S. History course), and then the advice to not think so much about it, is what I don't understand."
In this sense, I find a parallel between learning about the Church (its doctrine, its policies, its history from dispensation to dispensation, its leaders, etc) and learning about our American heritage (i.e., the political and cultural principles and institutions of the United States) and our more broad Western heritage (i.e., those principles and heritage leading up to the Founding). The acknowledgement of deep things in both the spiritual and secular planes, the interconnectedness of the two, that deep things are necessary to understand, that it will take work to condition the mind to handle thinking about deep things, and that the necessity of the mind to practice pondering these deep things. Thinking on these things in reference to the above quote by Brother Joseph, I wonder whether one's capacity for deep thought isn't part of the idea behind when the Lord says “For he who is not able to abide the law of a celestial kingdom cannot abide a celestial glory;" as in one's power for thinking being part of what degree of God's glory a person can endure, after the question of worthiness.
From the secular side, I have been struck with the sheer volume of honest thinking that has already occurred in the history of the Western world -- thinking which has been preserved through the Ages, thinking which we can read today. As members of the restored Church, possessors of the fullness of the Gospel, we rightly revere the Bible, in spite of not always being translated correctly (Article of Faith 8), and missing what Nephi described as "plain and precious truths" (1 Nephi 13:20-26). And yet, the preservation of the Bible is a miracle in and of itself. It is one of the many subtlties of history, a lesson in the restraint from judgment based on light understanding -- it is without a doubt that the Catholic and Orthordox Churches are the apostate remnants of that popularly-called "original" Church restored at the time of Jesus Christ, and yet it cannot be denied that it was because of people (many of them members of either these churches or the branched Protestant churches) doing their best to follow God with the light and truth they had that nevertheless set the stage for the Restoration, including the compilation and preservation of the Bible.
And I can't help but feel that the Lord's hand was in the preservation of not just strictly theological knowledge, but also other branches of thinking through the ages; not that all of that thinking was correct, but knowing what is wrong helps us clarify what is right.
And I think that this story of Socrates is illustrative of this point. You probably know that Socrates was a very influential Greek philosopher in his day. He didn't write anything down, all of our records of him are from what his student Plato wrote down, mostly in the form of Dialogues. I want to share three extended quotes with you. As background, you need to know that Socrates was condemned to die by the city of Athens for teaching the people to be "atheist" (that was, to believe in gods not endorsed by the city-state) and for "corrupting the youth." The first extended passage I wanted to share is from the Apology of Socrates, which is Socrates' speech to defend himself before the Athenian tribunal.
"I dare say, Athenians, that some one among you will reply, 'Yes, Socrates, but what is the origin of these accusations which are brought against you; there must have been something strange which you have been doing? All these rumours and this talk about you would never have arisen if you had been like other men: tell us, then, what is the cause of them, for we should be sorry to judge hastily of you.' Now I regard this as a fair challenge, and I will endeavour to explain to you the reason why I am called wise and have such an evil fame. Please to attend then. And although some of you may think that I am joking, I declare that I will tell you the entire truth. Men of Athens, this reputation of mine has come of a certain sort of wisdom which I possess. If you ask me what kind of wisdom, I reply, wisdom such as may perhaps be attained by man, for to that extent I am inclined to believe that I am wise; whereas the persons of whom I was speaking have a superhuman wisdom which I may fail to describe, because I have it not myself; and he who says that I have, speaks falsely, and is taking away my character. And here, O men of Athens, I must beg you not to interrupt me, even if I seem to say something extravagant. For the word which I will speak is not mine. I will refer you to a witness who is worthy of credit; that witness shall be the God of Delphi—he will tell you about my wisdom, if I have any, and of what sort it is. You must have known Chaerephon; he was early a friend of mine, and also a friend of yours, for he shared in the recent exile of the people, and returned with you. Well, Chaerephon, as you know, was very impetuous in all his doings, and he went to Delphi and boldly asked the oracle to tell him whether—as I was saying, I must beg you not to interrupt—he asked the oracle to tell him whether anyone was wiser than I was, and the Pythian prophetess answered, that there was no man wiser. Chaerephon is dead himself; but his brother, who is in court, will confirm the truth of what I am saying.
Why do I mention this? Because I am going to explain to you why I have such an evil name. When I heard the answer, I said to myself, What can the god mean? and what is the interpretation of his riddle? for I know that I have no wisdom, small or great. What then can he mean when he says that I am the wisest of men? And yet he is a god, and cannot lie; that would be against his nature. After long consideration, I thought of a method of trying the question. I reflected that if I could only find a man wiser than myself, then I might go to the god with a refutation in my hand. I should say to him, 'Here is a man who is wiser than I am; but you said that I was the wisest.' Accordingly I went to one who had the reputation of wisdom, and observed him—his name I need not mention; he was a politician whom I selected for examination—and the result was as follows: When I began to talk with him, I could not help thinking that he was not really wise, although he was thought wise by many, and still wiser by himself; and thereupon I tried to explain to him that he thought himself wise, but was not really wise; and the consequence was that he hated me, and his enmity was shared by several who were present and heard me. So I left him, saying to myself, as I went away: Well, although I do not suppose that either of us knows anything really beautiful and good, I am better off than he is,—for he knows nothing, and thinks that he knows; I neither know nor think that I know. In this latter particular, then, I seem to have slightly the advantage of him. Then I went to another who had still higher pretensions to wisdom, and my conclusion was exactly the same. Whereupon I made another enemy of him, and of many others besides him.
Then I went to one man after another, being not unconscious of the enmity which I provoked, and I lamented and feared this: but necessity was laid upon me,—the word of God, I thought, ought to be considered first. And I said to myself, Go I must to all who appear to know, and find out the meaning of the oracle. And I swear to you, Athenians, by the dog I swear!—for I must tell you the truth—the result of my mission was just this: I found that the men most in repute were all but the most foolish; and that others less esteemed were really wiser and better. I will tell you the tale of my wanderings and of the 'Herculean' labours, as I may call them, which I endured only to find at last the oracle irrefutable. After the politicians, I went to the poets; tragic, dithyrambic, and all sorts. And there, I said to myself, you will be instantly detected; now you will find out that you are more ignorant than they are. Accordingly, I took them some of the most elaborate passages in their own writings, and asked what was the meaning of them—thinking that they would teach me something. Will you believe me? I am almost ashamed to confess the truth, but I must say that there is hardly a person present who would not have talked better about their poetry than they did themselves. Then I knew that not by wisdom do poets write poetry, but by a sort of genius and inspiration; they are like diviners or soothsayers who also say many fine things, but do not understand the meaning of them. The poets appeared to me to be much in the same case; and I further observed that upon the strength of their poetry they believed themselves to be the wisest of men in other things in which they were not wise. So I departed, conceiving myself to be superior to them for the same reason that I was superior to the politicians.
At last I went to the artisans. I was conscious that I knew nothing at all, as I may say, and I was sure that they knew many fine things; and here I was not mistaken, for they did know many things of which I was ignorant, and in this they certainly were wiser than I was. But I observed that even the good artisans fell into the same error as the poets;—because they were good workmen they thought that they also knew all sorts of high matters, and this defect in them overshadowed their wisdom; and therefore I asked myself on behalf of the oracle, whether I would like to be as I was, neither having their knowledge nor their ignorance, or like them in both; and I made answer to myself and to the oracle that I was better off as I was.
This inquisition has led to my having many enemies of the worst and most dangerous kind, and has given occasion also to many calumnies. And I am called wise, for my hearers always imagine that I myself possess the wisdom which I find wanting in others: but the truth is, O men of Athens, that God only is wise; and by his answer he intends to show that the wisdom of men is worth little or nothing; he is not speaking of Socrates, he is only using my name by way of illustration, as if he said, He, O men, is the wisest, who, like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing. And so I go about the world, obedient to the god, and search and make enquiry into the wisdom of any one, whether citizen or stranger, who appears to be wise; and if he is not wise, then in vindication of the oracle I show him that he is not wise; and my occupation quite absorbs me, and I have no time to give either to any public matter of interest or to any concern of my own, but I am in utter poverty by reason of my devotion to the god." (Plato, Apology [of Socrates])
You'll notice that Socrates basically sights revelation (a communication from heaven), as he understand it, as the source of his life's work, which was the pursuit of knowledge through questioning people. He is trying to obey his Deity, we would say God. But it was because of his obedience to that direction that he gained many enemies, because the men he questioned were frequently embarrassed, their pride hurt. He was basically put to death for following that revelation, by being accused of "corruption" and "atheism," trumped-up charges.
While of course, not a prophet, I cannot help but be reminded of the lives of many prophets when contemplating the persecution, trial, and unjust death of Socrates.
I will stop here, but include the other two extended quotes in other letters.
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