#STRask - How Do We Know Moses Interpreted His Experiences of God Correctly?

Episode Date: November 4, 2024

Questions about how we know the biblical authors (Moses, etc.) interpreted their subjective experiences of receiving revelation from God correctly as opposed to Mohammed or Joseph Smith and how to respond to the idea that we can have different truths and both be right.   All supposed revelation of religions involves a subjective experience of receiving that revelation, so how do we know the biblical authors (Moses, the prophets, etc.) were interpreting their experiences correctly as opposed to Mohammed or Joseph Smith? How should I respond to a meme claiming that your truth is not my truth and we can both be right?

Welcome to all of you. I'm Amy Hall, and today with me, I have Greg Kokel, and we're here to answer the questions that you send us on X with the hashtag STRASK or through our website at str.org. All right, Greg, you ready for today's questions? We'll see. All right, this one comes from Jamie. How do we respond to someone who says all supposed revelation of religions is inherently subjective? That is, how do we know the original authors, Moses, the prophets, Paul, etc., were interpreting their experiences correctly as opposed to Muhammad or Joseph Smith? Well, when you say they're, when that person says they're inherently subjective,

we want to be careful we're not guilty of equivocation. Okay, equivocation is when a concept is used in two different ways in the same context, and it sounds like you're using them the same way, okay? There's a certain sense that everything we know or learn from our environment is subjective because we are subjects that have to perceive the environment or the revelation and then make an assessment about it. And in that sense, everything is subjective. All knowledge is subjective because we are subjects that are perceiving that have to interpret our perceptions. And therefore, this concern can be leveled against every single bit of knowledge that we think we have. So even all scientific knowledge, everything that is based on our perception of the physical world,

based on our perception of the physical world, we can always ask, well, how do we know that we're interpreting our perceptions of the physical world accurately? By the way, that's a fair question. But it isn't as if there's no answer to it, you know. We have to be aware of maybe the ability to misperceive or have biases or whatever. And so this requires then that we give more care to the process. All right. So in one sense, everything is subjective in that sense. Another sense of things are not all subjective.

Another sense of things are not all subjective. Subjective also means that the truth of a thing is simply based oria, then the claim that you are female is a subjectivist kind of claim, not an objectivist kind of claim. The objective world is one way, but your subjective feelings are another. That's a relativistic claim. So I just want to keep those claims distinct. The fact is, we are perceivers of things that we're trying to determine truth about, and so we just have to be careful. In this particular case, the question is, how do we know the perceptions of those receiving revelation, Moses versus Joseph Smith, were accurate perceptions, all right? Now, here we get into a little bit of a wrinkle on this issue because the claim that each person is making is that what they are reporting on is a revelation from God. Now, if in fact one of them is a revelation from God, takes care of the subjective, perceptive problem. Because if God is the author of the revelation that the individual is writing down,

then the accuracy of the writing does not depend on the individual who is finite, but it depends on the power of God, who is infinite and impotent. So God can't, God can warranty that whoever he is communicating to is going to get it right, all right, because of his power. I mean, that's kind of, it's almost an analytic statement like bachelors are unmarried males. If God is giving a revelation, if that's what we're stipulating, then the, if that's actually what's going on, well, then the revelation is going to be accurate because God doesn't get things wrong. And it doesn't matter whether, and I've said this regarding scripture, it doesn't matter whether

men or monkeys are writing it. God is powerful enough to get the individual recording the revelation to guarantee and warranty that that individual gets it right. So the real question is whether or not we have reason to believe that one or the other is a divine revelation. And it can't be both, by the way, because they say conflicting things. So they both can't be divine revelations. Now, in the case of Moses, I think we have an unusual way of verifying Moses' authority as writing revelation from God. And that way of verifying is that Jesus thought so. So if you look at the gospel accounts and just look at them as historical accounts, that these are the disciples, the people privy to the inside information that are giving

a reasonably accurate recording of what Jesus actually said, it's obvious through multiple examples that Jesus had a high view of Old Testament Scripture. That is, he thought the Old Testament was God's Word. And he cited Moses, the Pentateuch, a number of times as authoritative. And sometimes he would say, Scripture says, sometimes he would say, Moses says, sometimes he would say, God said. So, in Jesus' perspective, just speaking of the Pentateuch, which is what Moses authored, Pentateuch, which is what Moses authored, apparently, allegedly, as a result of God revealing stuff to him, Jesus thought that happened. Because Scripture and Moses and God in the context of the Pentateuch were all the same. They were synonymous, all right? Now, if Jesus spoke with authority, then we can trust his authority regarding what he said about

Moses. Now, why would we think Jesus spoke with authority? Because of the miracles he did, especially his resurrection. So we have sound and reliable historical documentary evidence of the miracles, the many, many miracles that he did, and the resurrection that secures the full authority of Jesus regarding everything he said, including what he said about Moses. So we have a line of thinking now that makes it, I think, the concept of trusting Moses' writings as being from God and therefore not vulnerable to Moses' misperception,

not vulnerable to Moses' misperception, because God is responsible, not just the limitations of man. What do we have with Joseph Smith? We have nothing like that. We have claims that these things were given by the angel Moroni, for example, the Book of Mormon, and that the other things were the more theological things. The Book of Mormon is not that theological, actually, which is ironic that they ask you to pray to see if the Book of Mormon is inspired

and get the feeling of the burning of the bosom, whatever, when it's not the books that we ought to be asking that of. It's the theologically dense books that we ought to be asking that of. In any event, what is the means of books that we ought to be asking that of. In any event, what is the means of verification that we have for all the theological information? Now, what's curious to me is that the Mormons believe that the Bible is the Word of God, the Bible we have is the Word of God, insofar as it's properly translated. Well, that's my belief.

I don't think that a mistranslated text is the Word of God, right? So we shouldn't take exception with that. But the irony is that this book—and they favor the King James Bible. Fine, I'm good with that. I'm good with that. None of the doctrines of Mormonism, virtually none, are validated by the Scriptures that they say are God-given. They're validated by their theological works that are contrary to the Scriptures. And this is demonstrably so. I wrote an article about this, you know, eight or nine years ago, called, Is Mormonism a Christian denomination? That was all that I was assessing.

Is it really a subcategory of Christianity writ large, and then we have different denominations like Methodists and Baptists and etc., and Mormons. Well, it turns out that it's not, and it has nothing to do with whether Mormonism is true and Christianity is false or vice versa. It's just a matter of seeing whether it makes sense to call this a denomination, and it turns out that the doctrines are so completely different, which includes an utter and complete and explicit rejection of Nicaea by the LDS Church. And I get all my doctrine about LDS churches from their publications, like Deseret Press's LDS Beliefs, I think is the title of it. It's the most thoroughgoing, current statement of their convictions.

There is no match. There are all kinds of variations with classical Christianity. I'm not saying it's false at this point. I'm just simply saying it ain't Christian. Or if it is Christian, then we aren't Christian. But you can't call them both Christian in any meaningful way because the differences on vital issues are so different. So I'm asking the question now, do we have—I gave some reasons why we should believe that Moses got God right, partly because Jesus thought God was involved, and if God's involved, then he's not going to make any mistakes, even with a human

agent involved. But I don't know, why would we believe that about Joseph Smith? And the key here is not whether Joseph Smith perceived accurately the revelation that he think he got from Moroni or any other place. I don't even care about that. That doesn't even matter. What matters is what the revelation that he think he got says. And where it came from, I guess. Well, if it came from the angel Moroni and that was inspired by God,

then his revelation is inspired by God. But the question is whether maybe he misperceived the revelation. And my response is that doesn't really matter because what we are comparing Christianity and Mormonism to, to find out which one is legitimate, is the doctrines of the group. The doctrines of Mormonism are—maybe he got it wrong, but he could only get it wrong if it wasn't a divine inspiration. And if he got it wrong, what matters is these teachings are the foundation of Mormonism, and those particular theological views do not comport with classical Christianity in any way, with classical Christianity in any way, shape, or form. In fact, I was trying to think of what beliefs or doctrines about Christianity are repeated in Mormonism, and I think the only thing, maybe you know of a different one, is I think they believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus.

Yeah, they believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus. Yeah, they believe in the resurrection. Yeah, but that's it. Who Jesus is, very different. What must I do to be saved? Very different. What hell is like? Very different. What heaven is like?

Very different. The person of Christ, the nature of God, the nature of the so-called Trinity, because they use the word, but it's not Trinity, it's tritheism when you look at the definition that they offer. And so even using the word Trinity by them is misleading. And I'm not sure they would use it. They would say the Godhead, but I'm not sure they would say Trinity. Oh, I think you're right. Yeah, because I'm trying to remember the page where I drew this information from. But in any event, what one has to look at, you have to look at the whole thing. If the question is, how do we know they didn't misperceive? That's the kind of question we can apply to anything we learn. And that means the way we answer that question is we have to look carefully and think carefully and assess carefully any particular claim to truth. And when you do that, I think what you come up with is, especially based on Jesus' assessment of Moses, a defensible claim that Moses wrote the revelation of God.

And if God was involved in Moses then Moses is not going to get it wrong. But I don't think there's any line of thinking that allows us to say that about Mormon doctrine proper. They have you pray about the Book of Mormon. That's different. And then it's just a subjective feeling that it's really God speaking there. But when you compare the two doctrinal systems to each other, there's virtually no overlap in substance, and therefore, they're two separate religions. Well, I think, Jamie, I think your friend, there's something your friend needs to understand, and that is there's a fundamental difference between the revelation that came to Moses and the revelation that came to Muhammad and Joseph Smith. And I think it's because God actually did care about this question. He wanted people to know that the revelation came from him. So what he did was he

didn't just give them a subjective idea and have them write it down. That's what happened in the case of Muhammad and Joseph Smith. They received this subject, you know, they received this message. When you say subject, you mean first person project? Yes. So they received a message. Only they received it. Everyone else had to take their word for it.

That's how it worked with Joseph Smith. How it worked with Moses is that God tied it to history because he said, I want them to know that this revelation came from me. And how will I do that? By revealing myself objectively in history, by saving you from slavery, by doing these plagues against Israel so that the people will know that I am God, that I am powerful, that I express my wrath against sin. So it wasn't just that Moses had some sort of words that he wrote down. Hey, folks, God told me to tell you kind of thing. Right.

It was that Moses said, hey, God told me that you need to put blood over your door so that the angel of death will pass over your house. And guess what? It happened. And that's what saved them. And that's what saved them from God's judgment. So it wasn't just the message. It was tied up with what was actually happening. It was third-person public, not first-person private, because even though they weren't up on the mountain with Moses when God was speaking, they were down at the base of the mountain,

and many times they heard the noise, the thunder, all this other stuff, and the interaction with Moses and God that scared them and said, you go away over there because we're scared. So they had the pillar of fire by night, the cloud by day. And so there's all these supernatural manifestations of God's presence, that third-person public that validated the first-person, more private kind of actual revelation of God, writing on the tablets. And that was another thing. He brought the tablets down, you know. Right. He revealed himself publicly to the people to the point where they were saying, no, don't talk to us anymore. Just talk to Moses. We don't want any of this. And another thing he did when there were prophets later on is he gave them signs. So you see Elijah and Elisha, they do miracles to confirm the fact that what they're hearing is from God.

And Jesus says the same thing. If you don't believe me, believe the miracles. The miracles are there to attest to their message, which can't be tested. And so God always was careful to give them things that they could test so that they could trust the message. Right, right. In order that you should know that the Son of Man has the authority to forgive sins, I say to you, arise, take up your pallet. Well, that's Mark 2, but there's another very clear example of doing something in the physical realm that people can of God's intervention in miraculous ways and powerful ways. When I say the 40 years, even the wandering and the manna and the quails and the water coming from the rock and acts of judgment that came down on the people and fire from heaven and all these other things were physical manifestations that are meant to

authenticate God's involvement in this whole process that you certainly don't have in Joseph Smith's case at all. So God cared about that. That was a good point. And even in the case of Jesus, the response to him was that he was a magician. It wasn't that, no, he's not doing works. They could see that he was doing works. They just rejected the idea that he was from God. So, of course, then the question becomes, well, did these things happen in history? But that's a different question. The question here is how do we know that there's not some false, that they were just misinterpreting their message. The answer is because it was connected to what was happening in history.

Now, whether or not that's true, you have to look into that and find that out. But that is a major difference between Christianity and other religions. Yeah, especially Mormonism. Notice that in here again, we've got Joseph Smith, who has a testimony about golden plates and translating the plates. It's all first-person private, essentially. Nobody else has access to those plates. They're not around.

You can't assess them or anything like that. So it's just, in a certain sense, the stark naked claim of one man. And that is a very different set of circumstances that we have with Moses. Let's squeeze one more question in here. This one comes from Phil. There's a meme that I've seen posted that shows two people standing over the number six or the number nine, depending on which side you're standing. And the essence of the meme is that your truth is not my truth. We can both be right. I'm sure there's a logical fallacy there, but I'm not sure what it would be. Well, sometimes I pause because I don't mean to be condescending, but sometimes the challenges are so silly. I'm trying to figure out a way to clarify or explain. A six is not a nine.

Just because the six token, the numeral or however, can be flipped to represent something else doesn't mean that contradictory notions are equally true. I don't even know how people can be persuaded by that. Here's a six. Okay, let's not use the numeral, which can be flipped. Let's use six pennieseral, which can be flipped. Let's use six pennies there and nine pennies here. Okay? And so now what we have is an actual representation of six objects versus nine objects.

Why could we say that those are both basically the same? When you say there are six and I say there are nine, we can't both be right regarding a particular group. If there's nine there and you say six, well, there's not six, there's nine. If there's six there and you say nine, there are not nine, there are six. Or maybe there's five and we're both wrong. It cannot be the case that contradictory notions are equally, watch the qualification here, objectively true. If somebody says, well, this is my truth, you're right. Okay, fine.

That's what you believe. But is your belief accurate? And so maybe this is the way to ask the question. Instead of even saying, is your belief true? Because now you're using the word truth equivocally in a different sense. First one, this is my truth that's subjective, but is it really true to reality that's objective? So the equivocation can be confusing. So you might just say, okay, that's your truth, which means what? That means that's your belief. Yes, okay, and you want to call your belief a truth.

But here's my question. Is the belief that you call a truth actually accurate? Well, now we've taken away the equivocation and it becomes clear what we're after. And if it's not accurate, then, I mean, really, it's not a truth. It's a falsehood. Really, it's not a truth. It's a falsehood. Even if you call it a truth, it's not a truth. People talk this way because they don't think that it's possible to know the objective, accurate state of affairs regarding these circumstances. And all you can do is guess or believe or hope or have your own fantasy. And one fantasy is as good as another.

That is epistemologically. It's just a matter of personal fantasies. So, you know, how can you say I'm wrong in my fantasy? It's just a fantasy. That's really what it comes down to. And the only way to get around this is to ask the kind of questions that I've just been asking because people are profoundly confused on the issue of truth. So I went into quite a bit of detail, a number of things that I've written in the past, but most recently in Street Smarts. And I talk about this relativistic problem, the way people see things and the way the language twists them up.

And I try to get to the heart of the matter so you can unpack this with people a little bit more effectively. But when people say, well, that's my truth, you have your truth, I have my truth. When you say your truth, what does that mean? Well, this is what I believe. Okay, got it. So in other words, when you say it's your truth, it's your belief. Yes. Okay, I have another question about your belief. What's that? Is it accurate? Huh? That's not even the right question to ask about my belief is probably what they're thinking. And if that's the case, then why is that not the right question to ask? This whole thing with the six and the nine, you flip them over. I mean, this is a silly, this takes you nowhere. a silly, this takes you nowhere. Well, the thing is, you can have a different perspective on the same thing, and it can be a different perspective, but still, they can both be accurate. So let's say I'm having a conversation with you, and Kyle's standing across the room. So Kyle's perspective is he's watching us talk, and my perspective is what we're talking about, what, you know,

both of those things are accurate, But if Kyle were to say something that was contradictory to what we were saying, then one of us is wrong. So it's possible to have two different perspectives on the same thing that notices different things if they fit together. But as soon as they're not contradictory, if they don't contradict each other, right. As soon as they're contradictory, you know know one or both of those perspectives is wrong. Right. So if truth is reality, then there's only one reality. And you can both be right if you're describing different aspects of that reality, but you can't both be right if you're describing contradictory aspects of reality.

Right, right. Or describing that reality in contradictory ways. contradictory aspects of reality. Right, right. Or describing that reality in contradictory ways. Kyle's going to have his subjective awareness of what's going on in here. But if what he thought was that I'm not talking to you, I'm talking to Katie. Well, I'm not talking to Katie, I'm talking to you. And so that would be a perspective that contradicts the perspective that we have. And we both can't be right on that. Right. So maybe, I like everything you said, Greg, about asking, is it accurate? Maybe another thing you could do is bring up something that they know is outside of the religious realm so that they know, they think more clearly about it. So, for example, put a pencil on the

desk and say, all right, how many pencils are sitting there? Oh, one. Okay, I say there are two. Can we both be right? So maybe just a concrete example so that they'll say no and then say, well, why can we both be right on religion, but we can't both be right on this pencil on the table? And what they may want to do is do their little end around. They'll do their relativistic two-step. And they say, well, if you believe there are two there, that's your truth. And I believe that there are one there, and that's my truth. I said, okay, I got that.

But which belief is accurate? Given what I just stipulated, that there's one pencil on the table. Well, obviously, two pencils is not accurate. And it's, when you get to this point with people, they're going to fudge. Most of the time, they're not going to give in because I've been in conversations like this and they, and they just say silly things because they do not want to sacrifice the foolishness of their view and where they relativize everything. But the minute they are not defending turf, they are going to revert back to a common sense way of looking at things.

So when they get their check for their work that week and they're shorted 50 bucks, they're going to complain. And it doesn't matter whether their employer says, well, it's my truth that you got what you deserved or you got what we agreed on. You know, they're not going to subjectivize, relativize that. They're going to say, wait a minute, it's $50 short. You owe me 50. I earned that. You owe it to me. Pony up. That's just your truth, Greg. Yeah, there you go. Well, thank you so much, Jamie and Phil. We appreciate hearing from you. If you have a

question, send it on X with the hashtag STRasker. Go to our website at str.org. This is Amy Hall and Greg Kokel for Stand to Reason.