By Richard LaJeunesse, presiding justice of the Utah Labor Commission adjudication division

(Editor’s Note:  The following letter, written to a missionary son by his father, gives us ideas for what works – and what doesn’t – when we speak with people who are hostile to the Church.)

Dear Barrett:

I received your letter requesting some material that addresses anti-Mormon literature and arguments.  There are numerous books and pamphlets that confront anti-Mormon arguments. In fact, there are so many that it is difficult to anticipate the ones that would actually hit the specific points you are faced with.  For example, Hugh Nibley wrote several books and pamphlets, including Sounding Brass and Tinkling Cymbals, The Myth Makers, and No Ma'am, that's Not History.  Dr. Sidney Sperry wrote Answers to Book of Mormon Questions.  B.H. Roberts wrote the three-volume set Defense of the Faith and the Saints.  The books I listed are just a drop in the bucket as to the vast body of work generated by Mormon scholars and apologists. 

My personal opinion is that your mission is far too short to spend all of your time trying to become an expert in refuting every picky little alleged historical discrepancy dredged up by critics of the Church.  Furthermore, it is usually counterproductive to argue.  Let me give you several examples.  Once on my mission I encountered a born-again Christian who spent all his time reading the Bible and listening to religious programs.  The man did not work and had no hobbies.  He simply studied the Bible all day long.  I engaged him in robust debate over the necessity of baptism as a prerequisite for salvation.  I mastered this biblical expert with my brilliant arguments and defeated him hands down.  He conceded the necessity of baptism and he personally took his family down to the river that night and baptized them.  So much for victories based solely on logic instead of spiritual understanding!  

On a separate occasion. a minister from another church confronted us about the mystery of the 14^th Article of Faith.  The minister wanted to know why if the Articles of Faith came from a prophet of God, the church eliminated one.  It turned out, the minister had it right.  At one time there was a 14^th Article of Faith. The 14^th Article of Faith essentially declared our belief in the resurrection of the dead.  As far as I know, we still believe in the resurrection of the dead.  So the point is what?

Finally, I beat a Jehovah's Witness so bad in an argument he started crying and we had to leave him in that emotional state.  As far as I know, the Jehovah's Witness didn’t join the Church.  My accomplishment consisted of making someone miserable and resentful.

Actually the best way to counter anti-Mormon arguments is to structure your discussions around your testimony, the positive points of the gospel as set forth in the scriptures, and your discussions.  Let me share with you what I consider the best way to approach anti-Mormon controversies.   

1. Set Standards of Proof.

First of all, if you want to prove a point you must first determine whether or not the point can be proved, and whether or not the means of proof are available.  In philosophy this is known as the field of epistemology, or the study of how we acquire knowledge.  Here I assume most of your confrontations with anti-Mormons involve people who believe in God and are some sort of Christian.^[1]

The first point you should always address then is, Does God exist?  Again our immediate hypothetical assumes that both participants in the discussion agree that God in fact exists.  But the point is important to any further discussion of any religious topic because it involves the means and availability of proof concerning religious knowledge.

Is it important to us to know that God exists?  Is it important to God that we know he exists? If our salvation depends on knowing that God exists, then it is important to us.  If God cares about us, and our salvation depends on knowing God exists, then it is important to God that we know he exists.  Yet, how is knowledge concerning the existence of God obtained?    

Some argue that God's existence can be established through pure logic, through scientific means, or through historical and archeological proof.  Anselm used raw logic in his argument for the existence of God.  This argument states that through simple verbal logic you can prove that God exists.  In essence, pure reason tells us there must be that than which nothing greater exists.  Therefore, God is that than which nothing greater can exist.  While the argument makes logical sense, it says nothing about the existence of the personal God of the Old and New Testaments.  The “that” than which nothing greater exists could be any cosmic force such as gravity, fusion, and so on.  Carl Sagan believed God to be nothing more than the forces of nature that operated in the universe. 

This brings us to another critical point.  It is important to know God, not merely that some force exists to which we attach the label God.  Primitives fell to calling the forces of nature greater than themselves gods. Labeling powerful forces of nature as gods is a fruitless exercise if we truly believe in a personal God possessed of the power of salvation or even interested in advancing the welfare of mankind in any degree.

Next, St. Thomas Aquinas advanced his arguments for the existence of God, which were adapted from the philosophy of Aristotle and from scientific observation.  His arguments for God’s existence are based on the order of the universe^[2]  -- and the fact that everything has an ultimate cause.  There are several modern versions of Aquinas’ proofs.  However, the same problems emerge concerning Aquinas’ arguments as with Anselm’s proof.  In other words, what is proved?  Only that some prime mover, some ultimate cause, or some organizing force exists in the universe.

Finally, there are the weaker arguments for the proof of God through historical or archeological evidence.  We certainly have the Bible and some historical and archeological evidence supporting some of the biblical events.  However, historians and archeologists disagree as to the significance of evidence that correlates with biblical events.  Certainly no consensus exists that history and archeology prove the Bible to be the word of God, or that God exists.  Many skeptics argue that the available evidence disproves the Bible as accurate religious history.

None of these inductive logical proofs, or their modern variants, establishes the existence of a personal God, tell us anything about the nature of God, or God's will concerning us.  Yet, our present scenario demands that we arrive at a knowledge of God and his requirements for salvation.

We eliminated raw inductive logic, scientific methodology, and historical or archeological evidence as stand alone methods for learning about God.^[3]  What means, then, is left to acquire knowledge of the existence and nature of God?  Only, one obvious method remains for the acquisition of religious knowledge, and that is direct communication from God to the person obtaining the knowledge.  Certainly, God could simply come down in full power and impose empirical knowledge of His existence, nature, and character on every living creature.  The fact that God never exercised the option of overwhelming empirical proof means that he elected some other method, or we go back to a failure of proof altogether.   

Here is where the significance of your testimony comes to play in this discussion.  This is why the importance of obtaining, strengthening, and bearing your own testimony is preeminent in missionary work. Individual testimony is your personal knowledge concerning the existence and nature of God acquired directly from God through the Holy Ghost.  Spirit-to-spirit communication is the method of proof made available from God.  Testimony is empirical evidence from God, pure knowledge, and the method of proof chosen by God to disclose religious truths.

Here, then, is the importance of the scripture in James 1:5 that led Joseph Smith to the sacred grove to obtain religious knowledge concerning the nature of God:

If any of you lack wisdom let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.

Similarly the simple injunction contained in Matthew 7:7 –

Ask, and it shall be given you, seek and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you;

Jesus made plain the method of knowing God in Luke 10:22, when he said:

[a]nd no man knoweth who the Son is, but the Father; and who the Father is, but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him.

In short, we gain knowledge of God, or religious knowledge in general, by asking God who then reveals the knowledge to us.  In fact, personal revelation is the only method available to obtain religious knowledge about the existence of God, character of God, nature of God, the truth of the Bible, knowledge about the atonement of Christ, and the individual details of salvation.  That is why you as a missionary ask investigators to obtain knowledge concerning the truth of the gospel by asking God for personal revelation. That is why you constantly refer investigators to Moroni 10:4-5.  Other methods for ascertaining religious truth are inadequate.

In his book The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis tells the story of a group of theologians who met regularly to argue about the nature of God.  After all of the theologians in the group died, an angel greeted them on the other side.  The society of theologians resumed their arguments about the nature of God, but the angel interrupted them and said he would take them to meet God so that they could see what he is like in person.  The theologians discussed the proposition for a bit, finally deciding they would rather argue about the nature of God than to find out what he was like for a certainty. 

As a missionary, you are in the position of the angel in C. S. Lewis' story as you try to get people to ask God himself whether he exists and what he is like.  In other words, go to the source.

Now what does the whole of this first section have to do with confronting anti-Mormons? Simply this:  Debates concerning the truth of any religious proposition can only be resolved by a direct appeal to God through sincere study, sincere prayer, and ultimately personal revelation. In sum, you must go to the source.  Appealing to God himself is the standard of proof and the only useful standard of proof in such discussions. There are mountains of books written with archeological, historical, linguistic and other evidence in support of the validity of the Book of Mormon.  To the contrary, there are numerous books that purport to challenge the authenticity of the Book of Mormon.  No one has the time or means to read them all. Yet, salvation should be available to all.  Therefore, the means to obtain the religious knowledge essential for salvation must necessarily be accessible to all people, not just a handful of scholars who managed to read every argument on the subject.

The anti-Mormon forcefully acknowledges the importance of determining the truth of the Book of Mormon in the strongest terms possible by the vast effort put into attacking the book.  If people thought learning the truth of the Book of Mormon were not important, they would leave it alone.  Accordingly, why would God leave determination of the truthfulness of such things as the Book of Mormon to the endless task of comparing and debating archeological data, historical texts, and linguistic studies that all evolve from year to year.  The same principles of ascertaining the truth apply to all religious issues be it the existence and nature of God, or the validity of the Book of Mormon. 

Here you must have faith in your own convictions and the sincerity of the individual investigating the Church.  Ask your investigator to go to the source and sincerely ask God if the gospel is true.  Why would God neglect to answer such an important question if the inquirer is sincere?  An investigator may lack the desire, or sincerity to discover the truth, but that doesn’t alter the reality of the truth.  One thing anti-Mormons fear more than anything else is a person sincerely reading the Book of Mormon and praying about it.  Anti-Mormons either do not trust God, or they do not trust their own position.  If anti-Mormons trusted God and their own position, they would be the ones passing out copies of the Book of Mormon faster than the missionaries and asking people to pray about it.

2.       Start with Nature and Character of God.

Start any gospel discussion with the nature and character of God.  This is why your missionary discussions usually start with Joseph Smith’s first vision or a direct discussion about the nature and character of God.  Joseph Smith’s first vision fully revealed the nature and character of God.  A proper understanding of God is critical to correct theology.  If any religion gets the nature and character of God wrong, then nothing can be right about that religion’s theology thereafter.  This is why most anti-Mormons prefer to begin discussions about the Church with some historically controversial detail like polygamy, the Danites, or character flaws of the prophet Joseph Smith.  Anti-Mormons find a bug on a tree trunk and declare that the entire tree is a beetle instead of an oak.  Anti-Mormons cannot talk about the tree itself without acknowledging that it is an oak, or look foolish calling it a beetle.

I once had a discussion with Sandra Tanner, the undisputed queen of anti-Mormons.  Sandra Tanner and her husband Gerald published more anti-Mormon literature than all other anti-Mormons combined.  I told Ms. Tanner I wanted to talk about the nature and character of God with her and she flat out refused to carry on the discussion at that level.  However, before I left we got far enough into a discussion of pure religious principles that Sandra Tanner admitted she did not believe the Old Testament to be the word of God.  That is why anti-Mormons do not like to discuss the principles of the gospel.  Anti-Mormons always come up short when you compare true gospel principles as taught in the scriptures against their own personal beliefs.  Therefore, anti-Mormons will always try to attack you with some fragment of Church history.

I also had a formal debate with a local radio evangelist, who was an anti-Mormon Baptist minister.  We carried on the debate in front of his congregation on the nature and character of God.  He ended the debate by tipping over a table and walking off. His own congregation came up me afterward and apologized for his behavior.  Very simply, when confronted with any anti-Mormon message you must start at the beginning with the nature and character of God.  That is where every intelligent discussion of religion should begin in any event.

The first vision taught that

• There are three distinct personages in the Godhead – God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost
• God is anthropomorphic (in the form of man)
• God is corporeal (has a physical body), and
• God reveals himself to man. 

To the contrary, most Christian sects following the Athanasian Creed and Westminster Confession of Faith that teach this:

• The three personages of the Godhead are one in substance and being
• God is without form
• God is incorporeal (has no physical body), and
• God is invisible to man.

Again, our knowledge concerning the nature and character of God comes from God himself.  John1:1 and 14 declare:

1. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 

14. And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father) full of grace and truth. 

By any Christian standard, then, Jesus Christ, the Word, is God.^[4]  Jesus Christ then revealed the nature and character of God to us in his own person.  As Jesus himself said in John 14:9, “[H]e that hath seen me has seen the Father....”

What does the revelation of God through Jesus Christ teach about the nature and character of God as compared with Joseph Smith’s vision?  God is anthropomorphic, in the form of man, and corporeal, or possessed of a physical body.  Jesus had the physical body of a man. John1:14 says, “And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us....”  Even after his death and resurrection Jesus retained a physical body.

Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have.  (Luke 24: 38)

God reveals himself to man.  Multitudes saw Jesus during his life and after his death and resurrection.  Accordingly, God is not invisible. 

As to the separateness of the three members of the Godhead, Jesus and his Father plainly demonstrated separate wills.  In the Garden of Gethsemane, Luke 22:42 records Jesus as saying:

Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me; nevertheless not my will, but thine be done.

The Father departed entirely from Jesus during the Crucifixion.  Mark 15:34 tells us this:  “[M]y God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

Clearly, the revelation of the nature and character of God through the person of Jesus Christ confirms the truths about God that are restored through the prophet Joseph Smith.^[5]  Indeed, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the only Christian church to accurately teach the nature and character of God as revealed through the person of Jesus Christ.  Now you understand why anti-Mormons focus on historical minutia rather than core issues. 

3.       Always Examine the Premise of Any Argument.

There are a number of anti-Mormon arguments that start from a false premise that they ascribe to the teachings of the Church.  For example: “If Joseph Smith is prophet of God, how come he dug for money while in the employ of Josiah Stoal [see: Joseph Smith History 1:56].  The implication is that a prophet of God would know whether there is money buried in the ground and would never take money from his employer for such a phony endeavor.  The false premises built into this argument are that a prophet is perfect, never makes mistakes, and is always acting as a prophet every minute of the day.  A casual reading of the Doctrine and Covenants would dispel all these false notions.  In D&C 5:21, the Lord said to Joseph Smith:

And now I command you, my servant Joseph, to repent and walk more uprightly before me, and to yield to the persuasions of men no more.

Joseph Smith never claimed to be perfect or error free.  Therefore, arguments that advance the premise that Joseph as a prophet could never sin or make a mistake in his life start with a false assumption.  To determine the prophetic status of the prophet Joseph Smith one need only return to the Book of Mormon and ask God, the source of all religious knowledge, if it is true.  Then ask God if Joseph Smith is a prophet.  To discover if Joseph Smith is a prophet square his teachings about the nature of God with the teachings from God’s other prophets in the Bible.

A second and more current example of an anti-Mormon argument based on a false premise is the recent assertion by a geneticist who claimed he conducted a genetic survey of the native inhabitants of America and found no genetic link with Semitic people of the Middle East.  The false premise here is that the Book of Mormon taught all people on the American continents came from the Book of Mormon migrations.  The premise is inaccurate.  The Book of Mormon allows for populations inhabiting the American continents when the Book of Mormon migrations arrived here. [see: John L. Sorenson. Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon pp. 49-50.].  The Book of Mormon does not exclude the possibility of other immigrations to the American continents, either by boat or through the Bering Straits. 

The title page of the Book of Mormon states that it is: "[t]he record of the people of Nephi," not a history of all the native American Indians.  In fact, the Nephites, Lamanites, Jaredites, and Mulekites may have composed only a fraction of the inhabitants of the American continents and probably intermingled with other inhabitants.  Consequently, a genetic study of a group of Native Americans that yielded no Semitic gene markers proved nothing except that the group studied did not come from Book of Mormon stock.  Obviously the geneticist did not examine every Native American on both continents.  To succeed in his argument, the geneticist required the false assumption that the Book of Mormon asserts all people on the American continents before Columbus came here via the Book of Mormon migrations.

Examples of anti-Mormons advancing their arguments on false premises are numerous.  Therefore, always examine the premises and assumptions built into anti-Mormon arguments.

4.       Hold Anti-Mormons to the Same Standards to which they Hold the Church.

A few examples illustrate the importance of holding critics of the Church to the same standards they utilize.  Anti-Mormons argue that you cannot rely on the testimony of the three and eight witnesses to the Book of Mormon because they all constituted friends and relatives. Of course the same thing is true of the Bible.  Only the disciples of Jesus wrote the Bible, and only they provided contemporary testimony to his divinity and miracles.

The standard used by anti-Mormons is that a prophet never makes a mistake or commits sin. Yet, look at the prophets of the Bible.  Does the Christian world reject Jonah because he refused to do the Lord’s bidding and had to be chastised by the Lord? 

Some anti-Mormons claim that Joseph Smith lifted concepts from contemporary ideas to write the Book of Mormon.^[6]  The fact exists that many Christians in Joseph Smith’s day believed that tribes of Israelites migrated across the sea and also believed the American Indians descended from these migratory Israelites.  It should come as no surprise that Christians with a Bible believed that tribes of scattered Israelites found their way to the American continents.  A common biblical missionary scripture teaches the same:

And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice: and there shall be one fold and one shepherd. John 10:16

The basic fallacy in the anti-Mormon argument again comes from a false premise that if an idea precedes the known scriptural source, then the scriptural source copied the idea from the preceding source.  Agnostics use the same argument in attacking the Bible.  Agnostics argue that the code of Hammurabi preceded the Ten Commandments in the Bible, ergo the Bible copied the Ten Commandments from Hammurabi.  Agnostics claim that the Sumerians had legends of a global flood before the account of Noah in the Bible, hence the Bible merely adopted Sumerian legends.  The Phoenicians and Semites had traditions of sacrificing the king's eldest son for the sins of the people, which agnostics ascribe as the source for Jesus’ atoning sacrifice.

On this playing field the true gospel holds a distinct advantage over the Christian anti-Mormon, who cannot defend his own religious beliefs against the agnostic critic using the same premise anti-Mormons throw at the Church.  Members of the Church know from the Books of Moses and Abraham in the Pearl of Great Price that God taught the complete gospel to Adam and all the Old Testament prophets from the beginning:

And now, behold I say unto you: this is the plan of salvation unto all men, through the blood of mine Only Begotten who shall come in the meridian of time. Moses 6:62

Therefore, through the true teachings of the gospel we learn that the Code of Hammurabi, the global flood legends of the Sumerians, and the crude concepts of the atonement held by the Phoenicians and Semites actually constituted corrupt versions of the true gospel handed down from the days of Adam.  In short, biblical gospel principles did not derive from pagan traditions; the pagan traditions actually derived from true gospel principles taught to the patriarchs and corrupted through time.

The same concepts apply to arguments raised by anti-Mormons that parts of the restored gospel as taught by Joseph Smith are derivative.  To the contrary, the gospel has existed from the foundation of the earth and man corrupted it during many apostasies.  One would expect to find corrupt pieces of the gospel everywhere.  As stated in Hebrews:

For unto us was the gospel preached, as well as unto them (people in ancient times): but the word preached did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it. Hebrews 4:2

Conclusion.

Once more, your mission is too short to dwell on every specific ant-Mormon allegation.  If you study the gospel in your scripture, you’ll find the answers you need to any important question.  If you cannot find the answer to a religious question in the scriptures, chances are the question is merely a distraction without substance.  Again:

• Always adhere to the proper standard of proof in religious discussions.
• Start with the nature and character of God first.  If a person gets the nature and character of God wrong, then everything else thereafter will be wrong.
• Always examine the premises used in any discussion.  A wrong premise will lead to a wrong result. Anti-Mormons are notorious for foisting the wrong premise on members of The Church who then feel obligated to defend them.
• Hold anti-Mormons to the same standards they’re holding you.

One time on my mission we tracted a single man and gave him a door approach on eternal families.  It was the worst door approach I ever gave to anyone.  Yet the man joined the Church with his girlfriend, another friend of his, plus that friend’s wife and children, and the friend’s sister.  It proved to me that when the time, place and people are right, the Holy Ghost will intervene and conversion will take place despite the lack of a slick approach.

You are a great person Barrett, and blessed with a strong testimony.  Throughout your life you have been blessed with the guidance of the Holy Ghost.  Stay close to the Spirit and you will obtain the knowledge you need to teach.  If you have specific questions, please ask and I’ll try to answer them.  But you will do your best work by just teaching the gospel straight up through your discussions and testimony.

Love,
Paps 

^[1] Talking with Atheists involves similar principles but with some variation that involves a tangent probably not relevant to your present concerns.

²One modern variant for this argument derives from the general law of thermodynamics that deals with entropy in the universe.  Entropy states that systems in the universe left to themselves tend to chaos rather than order.  Accordingly, evidence of any order in the universe proves the existence of an intelligence providing the structure i.e. God.  This is God as the Watchmaker argument. Another modern variant involves the principles of probability i.e. what are the chances that a world as complex as ours evolved spontaneously from chaos.  

³I don't want to discount logic altogether.  It is important that our belief in God not be wholly illogical.  It would be impossible to believe in a God who simultaneously wanted our eternal salvation and eternal damnation.  Our beliefs about the nature of God must be logically consistent or our minds would reject the subject completely.

⁴Once more the gospel teaches that there are actually three separate and distinct members, but each being a member of the Godhead is God

⁵Along a similar line anti-Mormons criticize the gospel for the aphorism: "As man is God once was, as God is, man may become." Yet Jesus as God was as man is.  Jesus also commanded us: "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." Matthew 5:48.  It is interesting to ask the Christian anti-Mormon if he believes God is a loving Father, and if he is all-powerful.  Then ask if an all-powerful God can create children capable of becoming like him.  If God can create children that are capable of becoming like him, and he is loving Father, what reason would he have for creating inferior children? 

⁶Even Gerald and Sandra Tanner rejected the Spaulding Manuscript theory.