I must have been quite distracted when President Packer gave his talk last weekend. No disrespect meant to him, but I think I was waking up from a nap. I found I had missed out on something Monday, though, when I received an email denigrating President Packer for being both a homophobe and a pedophile, accusations that are just mean-spirited and do nothing to advance anyone’s “cause.” But the lack of care, compassion, and sophistication didn’t stop there. Apparently there was also a protest in Salt Lake City yesterday. Good for them. Here are just a couple of words about the lack of sophistication which has characterized the discussion so far:

Much of what people are reacting to is President Packer’s statement that, “Some suppose that they were preset and cannot overcome what they feel are inborn temptations toward the impure and unnatural. Not so!” Consider the following:

1. Are people born homosexual? Heterosexual? D&C 93 states that ”Every spirit of man was innocent in the beginning; and God having redeemed man from the fall, men became again, in their infant state, innocent before God.” Innocent. To talk about being born any way seems to me too simple.
2. Does innocent mean “void of attraction,” to any sex? I don’t know that it does or that it doesn’t. But if we read the next few verses, it suggest where sin comes from: ”And that wicked one cometh and taketh away light and truth, through disobedience, from the children of men, and because of the tradition of their fathers.” If sin can come from either place, then why does the debate seem to center only on the “disobedience” part, and any talk about the value of tradition is left out? That’s something we could use more of on both sides.
3. Finally, in response to President Packer’s “Some suppose that they…cannot overcome. Not so!”, he continues: ”Remember, God is our Heavenly Father. Paul promised that ‘God . . . will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.’ You can, if you will, break the habits and conquer an addiction and come away from that which is not worthy of any member of the Church.” This feels too simple. As King Benjamin said, man is nothing and can do nothing of himself. As Christ said, “With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible.” We could do to talk a little more about what grace is and what it means, again on both sides of this fruitless debate.

And then of course, as Dennis pointed out to me, there is the fact that, while it seems President Packer is talking about homosexual relationships, the context actually suggests – if not, at least allows for – the possibility that he’s referring to other unnatural relationships. The statement just before the above quotes refers to “Satan’s many substitutes or counterfeits for marriage.” This could include any number of non-marital sexual relationships (which we seem to have stopped talking about now that gay marriage is so hot-button). I understand that, given the context of the recent gay teen suicides, one is more inclined to read President Packer one way (the way he’s obviously been read). But with a little more sophistication, I don’t think we have to read him just one way.

One final thing: in the article linked to above, the American Psychological Association resolution concerning “Appropriate Affirmative Responses to Sexual Orientation Distress and Change Efforts” is mentioned as a good reason to protest President Packer’s talk. Quoting the article, “No solid evidence exists that such efforts [to change sexual orientation] work, the APA concluded, and some studies suggest a potential for harm.” Many of the studies referred to in this are studies done 30 or more years ago (see above link) on convicted sex offenders forced to attend conversion therapy. APA, always so sly with their philosophical convictions, ignores more recent, and even rather significant research, that has shown the benefits of conversion therapy.

It’s a shame so much press can come of so little sophistication.

The “right” to be self-fulfilled

Let me try to articulate what I’m talking about: by talking about marriage as a freedom and a right, people are essentially drawing on a narrative like the very one I grew up with: when I marry, I want someone to whom I am physically and sexually attracted; I want someone who treats me well (in part because of their attraction to me) and who helps me reach my full potential as a person (can take me to the temple, etc); I want someone who cares for me like I care for them, who I can keep secrets with and who will share my life with me. I want… I want… I want…

Now, I confess: when I first got married, I wanted, too. I thought the same about marriage. I was looking for someone that would fulfill me – and I was fortunate enough to be mostly attracted to women, so I was looking for a woman. I hoped that, in getting married, I would find companionship and good sex and fun and positive emotionality and that my “self” would be enriched, etc, etc. Most of all, I hoped I would go to the celestial kingdom. I mean, who wouldn’t? In fact, I don’t know that there’s someone to blame for this perspective on marriage – it’s culturally pervasive and seems perfectly natural.

So whether you claim rhetorically that marriage is a “right” or not, few fail to see marriage this way – as primarily self-fulfilling. As a consequence, most people behave as though marriage were some grand privilege. And given our constitutional right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, no such privilege should be denied any American. That is, of course, if you demand (rhetorically or behaviorally) that we see marriage this way.

My own experience

But now that I’ve been married almost eight years, this narrative can no longer describe my marriage. Oh, I have a great companion, and there is a lot of positive emotionality – and other stuff that I’ve described above (maybe we’ll even go to the celestial kingdom!). But it’s a whole lot more, and that “whole lot more” is a whole lot more important than my own good feelings – my own wants – and frankly, more important than the celestial kingdom.

First of all, my marriage is about me learning to love someone completely different than I. By love, I do not mean “feel” love – I mean “give myself to”, “act charitable towards”, “forgive”, and “treat kindly”. Do you know how hard that is? It sucks sometimes, because she’ll do something completely offensive to me, and she won’t apologize, and I want her to suffer for it so she’ll feel sorry, but that’s not marriage – so I forgive her, I love her. And sometimes, she doesn’t even know she’s done something to offend me – those are the most irritating times, because I have to be gracious without her knowledge! I want her to know, to feel sorry (because she will if I say something), to hurt and to apologize to me – but sometimes, I just forgive her and let it go. It isn’t just, nor is it fair, but it is marriage.

And it’s made all the more difficult when you have to love someone of the opposite sex. Don’t lie to yourself, men and women are different in fundamental ways – even gays know this – and that makes loving harder. My wife doesn’t think the same way I do (in part because she’s a woman), she doesn’t act the same way I do (in part because she’s a woman), and she’s constantly getting in my way (in part because she’s a woman). These fundamental differences mean offenses come more easily and dealing with the offenses becomes more difficult. That is just a fact of being different sexes. I have to love her differently than I would a man – that’s marriage.

And then there’s sex. Do you realize that each and every time we have sex, there is the risk (unless she’s already pregnant) that she can get pregnant? Every time! That doesn’t happen in gay relationships – ever! And so our sexual relationship is just as risky as it is fun. Why risky? Because having kids just complicates the whole “loving thing”. To name just a few of the reasons: first there’s the pregnancy. For three months, she’s sick all the time. Not only do I have little idea what that’s like (I’ve never been pregnant), but it’s partly my fault – even if we planned on having a baby. So, I feel like I owe her something. But I can never repay, because I can never go through what she’s going through. So I’m constantly in her debt. Then, there’s the last three months, when she is no longer sick, but physically uncomfortable. She doesn’t sleep well, so she’s tired all the time; her big belly gets in the way of doing some of the things she likes to do; and her body goes through one of the most traumatizing transformations she’ll ever have to face. Then she has the baby and she can’t sit for more than a half hour at a time, she’s constantly feeding the baby who’s constantly hungry, and so on, and so on. Then, she’s no longer pregnant and our sexual relationship becomes risky again. And through it all, I still need to love her - and loving becomes so much more complicated, in part because she was the pregnant one, she’s the nursing one, and because I (as a man) couldn’t do that – that’s marriage.

And then there’s our community. The longer my wife and I have been married, the more we have come to realize that our marriage is not just our marriage, but it is a marriage that also belongs to the community. Without us, quite frankly, our community would be lacking in important ways; and without our community, our marriage would be lacking in important ways. So we have found it important to be – as a couple – an integral part of the community, to serve it when it needed and we could, and to give to the community our love. In other words, as we have learned to love each other, we have felt compelled to share that love with our community. And again, our differences (including gender differences) mean that we have different contributions to make – complimentary contributions to make, even. My wife, for instance, has a whole lot to say about child-bearing and helping women through that ordeal. I don’t have that contribution to make, but she’s got me to thank (or to hate) for giving her that opportunity. My unique contribution, on the other hand, might come because I have more energy (given my inability to be pregnant) to serve both manually and financially those around me. That’s marriage.

Am I still attracted to my wife? Yes, I am. In fact, I’m even attracted to her when she’s pregnant. But I’m also attracted to lots of other women (and, dare I say it, a couple of men), and I’ve come to realize that’s not the point of my marriage. If it were, I wouldn’t be writing this.

Does my wife “fulfill” me? Sure she does, and I’m glad for it. But so does my work, and so do many of my relationships with other people, though perhaps not to the extent of my wife. So maybe that’s not the point of my marriage.

The gay marriage debate

To those who think that marriage is a “right” and a “freedom” that I enjoy, I hope I’ve made it clear that my marriage cannot be reduced to some self-fulfilling legal arrangement, that grants me privileges – psychological, financial, etc. – otherwise unattainable.

To those who might disagree with the “marriage as a right” position, do you also see marriage as some self-fulfilling legal arrangement, that grants me privileges – psychological, financial, etc. – otherwise unattainable?

As it turns out, gay’s do have the “freedom” and the “right” to marry, given the above perspective on marriage. But here’s what that requires of them:

First, they would have to marry someone they aren’t attracted to. How does that sound to those who do not identify as gay? I can tell a number of stories of people who aren’t willing to put up with their spouse quite simply because, “I’m no longer attracted to her”. And many of these people are opposed to gay marriage!

Second, gays might not experience the same sort of fulfillment that heterosexuals find in a heterosexual marriage. Giving up on marriage because you’re no longer attracted to your spouse seems awfully superficial; but the issue of fulfillment is huge – especially with Latter-day Saints. Again, I have stories: how many women (and men) have run from the marriage that isn’t helping them reach their full potential? (“I told him if he didn’t come back to church, I’d leave him!”)

So what exactly is wrong? For one, marriage as a “right” is probably the wrong perspective to take. Marriage is not self-fulfillment, even when it is self-fulfilling. It isn’t about what you want, but about what you need to do. It is, at least in part, a deep obligation to love – to love a spouse, and one of the opposite sex, with all that that implies; to love a family, one that is naturally implied each time you and your spouse (of the opposite sex) engage in sexual intimacy; and to love a community, particularly in unique, gender-specific ways.

What else is wrong? Few of us who are opposed to gay marriage don’t want to live marriage this way. Instead, we spend our adult lives either (a), running from self-fulfilling marriage to self-fulfilling marriage; (b) we demand our spouse change that we might find self-fulfillment in our marriage (and consult any number of books that reinforce our entitlement); or (c) we live, quite miserably, the life we’re asking homosexuals to live, complaining to our neighbors about how horrible our marriages are in the same conversations where we talk about how horrible gays are.

I’m tired of listening to both sides of this thing. I’m tired of listening to the gays talk about my marriage as though it were some self-fulfilling relationship that brings me so much of life’s pleasures denied to them, because that’s not what my marriage is. But even more, I’m tired of Latter-day Saints who talk about my marriage as though it were some self-fulfilling relationship that brings me so much of life’s pleasures that they either share or are denied (depending, of course, on their own marriage).

It seems to me that both sides could stand to be a little more understanding.

I assumed that it would at least be mentioned. Which would have been nice, as most members I’ve talked with, including priesthood leaders, are unaware of the announced addition to the church’s mission.

To my surprise, there was no mention of it (unless I missed something). This post is not a complaint; I imagine the Brethren know what they’re doing in terms of implementing the new mission. Perhaps they just want to take the time to develop a systematic program before they make a big deal out of it.

So why did the Church make the announcement several months ago? Perhaps it was more a message to the world than to the Saints. Perhaps they didn’t want to wait to let others know that we are really serious about helping the poor and the needy.

I’m curious if anyone has information about the rolling out of the fourth mission. Has the Church communicated anything about this to stake or ward leaders? Has anyone’s ward, stake, or quorum began any kind of organization or new callings associated with helping the poor? For example, has anyone’s Elders Quorum called a Helping the Poor and Needy chair? And would it be OK to do something like this, absent specific instructions from Salt Lake?

Because this post is late and synthesis requires more effort than chronology, I’m just going to list the Top 10 “moments” that stood out to me (in chronological order), and include some of my own thoughts:

1. Elder Bednar distinguished “things that act” from “things that are acted upon.” (And kudos for the gentle rebuke on “pre-packed, purchased, and downloaded family home evenings.”) There seemed to be a sub-text of creation vs. consumption in this last part of Bednar’s talk. Rather than passively consume information and resources, we need to actively create what is most important for our families.

2. Once again, Elder Holland delivered a masterful and emotional sermon, tackling pornography in a way that perhaps no other authority has before. My favorite part is when he encouraged those who struggle with pornography or lustful addictions to remember the face of a mother, wife, or child.

3. In the priesthood session, Elder Oaks gave a nice overview of healing through priesthood blessings. Much was familiar, but it was interesting how he said that the words of the blessing, after the anointing and sealing — though often important — are not essential. Even where the giver of the blessing speaks amiss or struggles with uncertainty, the proper blessing will  be given according to the faith of those involved and the will of the Lord. It sounds like he emphasized this to encourage priesthood holders who are afraid they don’t know what to say.

4. The funniest moment of the conference, for me, was in Elder Rasband’s priesthood talk. (Sorry sisters, but the funniest moments are almost always in priesthood sessions. President Monson ear wiggling–need I say more?) Rasband recounted his experience of “assisting” Elder Eyring with calling  missionaries. A couple times, Eyring would ask Rasband where he thought the elder should go. Rasband would fumble a best guess, to which Eyring would reply tersely, “No, that’s not it.” It was pretty funny the way Rasband said it.  (On the last call of the day, Rasband said he knew with a certainty where the elder would go–and he was right.)

5. I was moved, as I often am, by President Eyring’s talks. In his priesthood talk, he spoke of the importance of pressing on when you feel you deserve a rest and that as we do so, Christ can change our hearts to want what He wants.

6. President Monson said that the Priesthood session was one of the finest priesthood meetings he has ever attended. Plus an amusing story about a “trained toe expert.” (For those who weren’t there, you need to watch this talk to fully appreciate it.)

7. Everybody loves President Uchtdorf. The German rock star of General Conference. “You are my hands.” “Canned food Mormons.” He never disappoints.

8. Amen, Elder Cook, about the need for civil discourse. How we disagree is a measure of who we are. An important lesson, for me most of all.

9. President Monson: “At the last moment, the Master could have turned back. But He did not.” This talk brought tears, and then ended with God’s promise to wipe away tears from our eyes.

10. Thank you, Elder Nelson, for talking about the New Family Search. I’ve found that many members have no idea what it is. This talk gives validation, I think, to the Church being ready to roll out with this new platform on a wide scale. It’s exciting to think about a family tree for the entire world, to be made worthy of all acceptation by the Lord.

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I recently attended a conference where the presenter, C. Bradley Thompson, defended the philosophy of Objectivism. During a question and answer session, someone asked him, “What single philosophical idea do you believe has caused the most damage to human society?” He responded immediately and confidently, “Altruism.” He argues that human beings consistently forgo actions that are in their best individual and collective interests for the sake of an unobtainable ideal that usually does more harm than good. Mutual exchange, based upon mutual self-interest, does for more good in the world than encouraging free-loaders and laziness by giving valuable time and resources to those unwilling or unable to reciprocate.

Psychologists and biologists continually debate whether true, genuine altruism is even possible in a species that is the product of biological evolution. Is it possible for a genetic trait to be passed on through the generations if this trait did not, in some way, improve the individual’s ability to reproduce? Even if this is possible, it would make the “trait” of altruism a genetic accident, an aberration in the normal course of evolution.

Most psychological paradigms treat altruism as a kind of selfishness in disguise. As Nathan Richardson explains, “[From the traditional psychological perspective], the main purpose or intent behind each action then becomes maximizing personal gain. There are two ways to do this: ignoring the desires of others, or giving space for others’ desires to increase the odds of obtaining your own desires.” In other words, we help others because doing so, in some way (either directly or indirectly), benefits us. Thus, from this perspective, altruism is simply a form of long-range self-interest. We love others because we ultimately love ourselves.

Turning the Debate Upside Down

It seems that the debate has always centered on two questions: Is genuine altruism even possible? If so, is it necessarily better than rational self-interest? Both questions, however, presume the existence of genuine self-interest. I would like to turn the debate on its head and ask a new question: Is genuine self-interest even possible?

To clarify, when I speak of self-interest, I question the possibility that the soul may be interested, focused, attentive to its own well-being to the exclusion of others. I do not dispute the fact that the self may have interests. For example, the self may pursue pleasure, enjoy music, or seek to help others, and all these things may be categorized as the “interests of the self.” However, I intend to argue that the self may not be the object of its own interests, and it is this kind of self-interest that I refer to. In a sense, it is psychological egoism that I critique.

Background: The Call of the Other

In order to lay some groundwork for why I ask this question, I’ll need to review some ideas I have previously written about. Earlier this year, I wrote a series of posts outlining Terry Warner’s ideas about self-deception and self-betrayal. These ideas are outlined in literature published by the Arbinger Institute and in Warner’s book, Bonds That Make Us Free. If you are not at all familiar with Arbinger’s work or with Warner’s ideas, I recommend that you read this series before continuing with this post. This series contains some anecdotal examples that I will reference in this post.

Simply put, Warner argues that we are constantly receiving signals from our fellow human beings about how we should treat them. In other words, we are constantly and inevitably aware of the humanity of those around us, and this humanity beckons us in general and often specific ways. These beckons present us with a choice: we can either respond to them, or we can resist them. When we resist the beckon of another person’s humanity, we do them wrong.

However, not only do we do them wrong, be we rewrite the world we see and react to in such a way that makes our wrongdoing seem right. We invent rationales and justifications for our wrongdoing, and by so doing create for ourselves a world in which our actions seem to us the only right course of action. These rationalizations often take the form ofaccusations. We often use the faults of those whom we are wronging (or we even invent faults for them) as an excuse for our wrongdoing. We cloak or mask the humanity we are resisting through accusations. For example, I recited the story of Marty, who resisted the call to help his wife by tending the baby. As he resisted this call, he also mentally and emotional accused his wife of wrongdoing towards him, citing her wrongdoing as a justification for his own.

Accusations are not the only rationalization for wronging others. Just as frequently, we cloak our wrongs in terms of self-interest. We cite our own needs as an excuse for not responding to the call of need of the Other. Again, in the story of Marty, he also determined that his own need for sleep outweighed the needs of his wife. The pressures of his job required him to sleep. I have numerous anecdotes from my own life where I have used my own needs as an excuse not to meet the needs of others. I have, for example, decided that getting to class on time was more important than holding the elevator door for someone. I have used homework as a rationale for not performing simple acts of service for roommates or friends. In every instance, I have put my own needs ahead of the needs of others, but I excused it by believing I was acting in my own best interest.

Consider: when we resist the call of the Other, either by masking the Face of the Other in an accusation or by placing our own needs ahead of the needs of the Other, we are doing them wrong. This isn’t just a passive sin of omission. When we neglect the call of the Other, we actively reinvent the world in order to justify doing it. Resisting the humanity of another person is an action, not a lack of action. An analogy is helpful here. When we push away the hand of someone who has offered a handshake, we aren’t simply neglecting to shake the person’s hand, we are actively pushing it away. According to Warner and Levinas, when the Face of the Other beckons, simple neglect is impossible. Failure to respond is active resistance.

I would like to attach a label to this wrongdoing: malice. When we actively resist the Face of the Other, we do the opposite of love: we experience malice towards the Other. Although the word is most frequently used in the passive tense (as something we experience), I mean it here in an active sense. In other words, when Faced by the Other, we have two real choices. We can either respond with love, or we can respond with malice. Simply ignoring the Face of the Other and doing neither is not an available option.

The Role of Reason in Our Lives

Emmanuel Levinas, the philosopher on whose writings many of Warner’s are based, argued that reason itself is a response to the Face of the Other. For example, to use Warner’s terminology we put our rational capacities to use in one of two ways: we can seek and discover ways to respond to the call of another’s humanity, or we can seek and invent ways to justify our resistance to the another’s humanity. Both possibilities use human reason, but for different purposes. In either case, reason was called into action in response to an obligation: either as a means of responding to it, or as a means of explaining it away.

If these are the only two responses to the call of another person’s humanity, then what of the third option, self-interest? If these are really the only two genuine options, then self-interest is simply the justification or rationale we invent for resisting the call of another person’s humanity. Simply put, altruism is not disguised self-interest. Rather, self-interest is disguised malice. It is putting reason to work in excusing our response to our fellow human beings.

In defense of this claim, I would like to recall another claim made by Warner: those who do no wrong need no rationale or justification for their actions. They need only to find the best way to do it. For example, when those who risk their lives to rescue a child from a busy street are asked why they did so, they most often respond, “Because it just felt like the right thing to do.” They certainly used reason to determine the speed of the cars on the road, how much time they had to rescue the child, or the fastest way back to the sidewalk. However, they did not use reason at all to invent a reason for their actions.

However, when someone is asked why did not help someone in need, they’ll almost always have a rationale for their inaction. Those who do wrong (and everyone fits in this category) constantly use reason to explain why they do the things they do. We invent reasons for our actions only when we feel the need to justify them. Self-interest is a reason for action. The pursuit of rational self-interest is a sophisticated, ancient philosophy that provides criteria for when we should or should not help other people, based upon the sophisticated calculus of long-term goals and desires. Those who genuinely do no wrong do not need any such sophisticated calculus to motivate their lives or to rationalize their behavior.

The Soul as a Flashlight

A standard flashlight can never shine light onto its own self. It can shine light outwards onto the surrounding environment, but it can never illuminate itself. I believe that the soul is much the same way: it can never be the object of its own attention, love, or interests. The soul can attend to things or people in the world around it, but never to itself. It can love things or people in the world around it, but never itself. It can be interested in things or people in the world around it, but never itself.

How then do we explain or describe self-love or self-image? James Faulconer, a respected philosopher and professor at BYU, explains, “Since by definition an image is not the real thing, the self placed at the center when one is concerned about self-image isn’t even a real self. … This is a corollary of the fact that love is necessarily of something other than ourselves: love of self is love of something that is not really our self.” In other words, love must be directed outwards, towards something in the outside world, something that is not the person who is doing the loving.

We can invent for ourselves an image of what we think we are, and direct our time and energies focusing on, fine-tuning, or serving the needs of this invented image of ourselves. By doing so, however, we are not actually focusing on our actual self, but only an image of ourselves that we have invented in our minds. We can never directly experience the presence of the self in the same way that we experience the presence of another person, and thus we can never experience an obligation to the self in the same way that we experience an obligation to another person.

In fact, I argue in this post that when we focus on serving the needs of this invented image, we are doing so as a rationale for resisting the Face of the Other. Even when we help others based upon a sophisticated calculus of self-interest, we are masking the face of the Other with an invented image of the self. And, since resistance is an active experience, not a passive one, and since resistance can best be categorized as malice, this kind of self-interest is simply a mild form of malice (although pernicious in its clever disguise). For this reason, I turn the traditional academic debate about altruism on its head and ask instead, “Is genuine self-interest even possible?”

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A few days later, I got onto the bus, and a kind man who was reading a book met my eyes, shifted over a little, and invited me to sit.

When I was sitting next to an empty seat, I saw others as a nuisance. I was worried that if the man on the bus sat next to me, it would make me less comfortable. I saw him as a hindrance to my own desires, because I saw my desires as more important than his. In essence, I saw others as objects that could either help or hinder me in the pursuit of my own desires.

The kind man who invited me to sit with him saw others as people, with needs, hopes, and concerns just as real as his own.

Even though we were both sitting on the bus, reading a book, and doing exactly the same thing, we saw people around us in a fundamentally different way.

I think there are two ways that we can relate with others. I remember in boy scouts, I had a senior patrol leader who was very good at organizing campouts, and very good at getting other scouts to get merit badges. However, we all felt as though we were just check marks on his good record … we were objects to be manipulated, in order to serve his purposes. Although he carefully masked it in altruistic rhetoric and motivating speeches, we felt a little as though he was trying to impress us and make a good name for himself, and he needed our cooperation to do it.

I had another senior patrol leader who was different. He wasn’t as good at organizing. He wasn’t as good at motivating, nor as articulate as the old senior patrol leader. However, we felt as though he was there for us, rather than us there for him. He saw us as people, rather than objects, and we loved him for it. We loved him because he wasn’t looking for love… he was simply loving us.

The philosopher Martin Buber described two different fundamental relationships that we can have with others. He called one type of relationship the I-It relationship. We relate in an I-It relationship when we see others as either tools or hindrances to our own needs and desires. We see them as objects.

The other type of relationship Buber described is the I-Thou relationship. Jeffrey Reber, a professor of psychology at BYU, explained what Buber means by this. He said, “The I-Thou relation happens when there is a direct, unmediated meeting with another being, not as an object or a thing to be experienced, used, and explained, but as a Thou, a You, to be met, responded to, and shared with.” When we relate with others in an I-Thou relation, we see their needs, hopes, and fears as just as legitimate as ours.

According to the Arbinger Institute, Martin Buber “argued that we are always, in every moment, being either I-Thou or I-It—seeing others as people or seeing them as objects.” Any action can be done from either of one of two ways of being. If you do something while being I-Thou, that action will have an entirely different flavor than when you do it while being I-It, and vice versa. Someone who is very considerate may, on the surface, be doing nothing different than someone who is merely being cloy or being a pleaser. However, the first person is being I-Thou, and the second person is being I-It.

The philosopher Terry Warner said, “We are constantly receiving signals from others that reveal something of their needs and hopes and fears… We are called upon by others’ unspoken requests, expressed in their faces and gestures and voices, to treat them with consideration and respect.”

This strikes at the heart of what it means to be human. Do you remember the time when you felt as though you should take out the trash for a family member? Do you remember the time when you saw someone struggling to carry a heavy box, and you felt as though you should help them? Do you remember when you thought you should slow down so that someone would be able to cross at the crosswalk? I do. I’ve had all of these experiences, and tons more.

But we don’t always do what we feel we should. We don’t always share cookies with our roommates. We don’t always volunteer to spend time at the nursing home. We don’t always wash our dishes so that our roommates can enjoy a clean kitchen. To be human means that we have a moral sense of what we should do for others, and also the ability to violate our moral sense.

I would like to tell the story recounted by Terry Warner in his article, “Who We Are.”

Marty was lying in bed, wrapped in the comfort of a deep sleep. He was and still is a young, ambitious businessman concerned about his career ladder and preoccupied most of the time with corporate assignments. As he slept, the four-month-old baby began to cry in the nursery just off the master bedroom. Marty roused, lifted his head, and looked at the clock. 2:30. His wife, Carolyn, lying next to him in her curlers and sleeping mask, wasn’t stirring.

At that moment, I had a fleeting feeling, a feeling that if I got up quickly I might be able to see what was wrong before my wife would have to wake up. I don’t think it was even a thought because it went too fast for me to say it out in my mind. It was a feeling that this was something I really ought to do.

But I didn’t do it. I didn’t go right back to sleep either. It bugged me that my wife wasn’t waking up. I kept thinking it was her job. She has her work and I have mine. Mine starts early. She can sleep in. Besides, I was exhausted. Besides that, I never really know how to handle the baby. Maybe she was lying there waiting for me to get up. Why did I have to feel guilty when I’m only trying to get some sleep so I can do well on the job? She was the one who wanted to have this kid in the first place.

In this story, we have a remarkable example of a truth that lies at the heart of all relationships. When Marty first thought to help his wife, he was simply thinking of her needs. He saw her as a person among persons. He was relating with her in an I-Thou relation.

However, when Marty violated his moral sense of what he should do for his wife, the way he saw his wife changed. He began to see her as a nuisance, as a person who would pretend to sleep in order to get out of helping. He began to rehearse in his mind all the reasons his needs trumped hers. He was relating with her in an I-It relation. Why? Because seeing her this way justified his refusal to do what he felt he should do for her.

We often think of anger, irritation, and frustration as things that happen to us, beyond our control. We all have said something to the extent of, “he bugs me,” or “she made me mad.” Marty’s experience provides a perfect counter-example: What was the only thing that happened between the time that Marty saw his wife as a person with needs, hopes, and fears as real as his own, and the moment in which he was irritated, frustrated, and perhaps even angry with her? It was his choice to neglect the feeling he had to help her. It was nothing that she did… she was asleep the whole time!

When we violate our sense of what is right, the entire way that we see other people changes. We need to convince ourselves that we are right in mistreating others by accusing others of wrongdoings towards us. We begin to see them as objects, rather than persons among persons, because only then can we be right in mistreating them. We relate with them in an I-It relationship in order to mask the face of the Other—the Thou that calls upon us for respect—that we are ignoring.

Marty’s wife probably wasn’t lazy or disrespectful. She was probably just as diligent and hardworking as Marty was.

Simply put, it is only when we have done wrong that we feel the need to accuse others.

Living in Brigham Young University housing, one of the policies was that our apartment would be checked by the landlord to make sure it was kept clean. Each person living in the apartment had a particular cleaning task assigned, for which they would be responsible. I remember a time when, although I had done my chores meticulously, my roommate had not even started his chores, which included the kitchen. The landlord was scheduled to arrive within half an hour, and my roommate was still preparing for the day.

As I was about to leave the apartment to head to class, the thought crossed my mind that I should take out the trash for my roommate on my way out, so that he wouldn’t have to. I didn’t do it. All the way to my class that morning, I kept rehearsing to myself all the reasons why my roommate didn’t deserve my help. He slept in. He was annoying. He created most of the mess that I cleaned up earlier. He didn’t have nearly as important a class schedule as mine. In fact, he didn’t have nearly as high ambitions as I did. My mind rallied everything fact it could to justify my neglect of my moral sense. I became irritated, upset, and even resentful towards my roommate for putting me in a position to feel guilty for not going the extra mile to help bail him out of the consequences of his own laziness.

I no longer saw my roommate as a person among persons. I saw him instead as more than just a nuisance—in a sense, I had demonized him, made him appear less than human in order excuse myself for treating him as less than human.

My roommate was every bit as lazy as I made him out to be in my mind. But the way I saw him was a lie because I saw his faults as a reason to refuse to help him only when I needed to feel justified for neglecting the feeling I had that I should help him. Despite his flaws, his humanity still called upon me to respect him. I exaggerated my own virtue in the very moment I was anything but virtuous.

In nearly every story we find in which someone violates their moral sense, the way they saw the world and those around them changed. They no longer saw others as who they really were: they constructed new identities for their fellow human beings.

Simply put, we cannot both do wrong and see right at the same time.

This is called self-deception. Self-deception is “the act or practice of allowing oneself to believe that a false or unvalidated feeling, idea, or situation is true.” We do it all the time. Whenever we violate our moral sense, we become self-deceived. We no longer see the world as it truly is … and the only way back to reality is to respond to our moral sense.

Accusing and demonizing others is only one form of self-deception. Whenever we excuse ourselves for doing less than our best, we are engaging in an act of self-deception. This is because our moral sense tells us more than to just treat others with respect. It also tells us to do our best and to be our best in every situation in which it is right. When we don’t, we construct for ourselves a reality in which we couldn’t have done otherwise, or in which it is perfectly okay to be less than what we could be.

In short, we make excuses for our bad behavior. However, they are more than just excuses. We actually see the world differently, as if through colored lenses. Our emotions collaborate with the lie, complete our false reality with an appropriate dose of anger, irritation, arrogance, pride, discouragement, or self-disparagement.

This doesn’t mean that we have to be overwhelmed with responsibility or put the weight of the world on our own shoulders. It simply means that we should respects others as people. It simply means that, in every situation, we should do what we feel is right. We know we’ve done what is right because we’ll feel at peace about it. It is only when we don’t do what we feel is right that we feel we have to marshal evidence to convince ourselves that we’re doing good.

We all resonate with these ideas, because we’ve all experienced these stories (or variations of them) in our own lives. This is basic to human nature: To be human is to have a moral sense of what we should do for others. This is what it means to see people as persons among people, and to relate with them in an “I-Thou” relation.

To violate this moral sense of what we should do for others is to wrong others. When we wrong others, we deceive ourselves by constructing for ourselves a view of the world in which our wrongdoing seems right. To do so, we invariably relate with others in an “I-It” relation.

We are always relating with others in one of these two fundamentally different ways, and we likely switch back and forth between them frequently every day. Violating our moral sense of what we should do for others is how we move from an I-Thou relation with others to an I-It relation with others. And the way back is simple: we respond to our moral sense, and do what we feel we should do for others. We need to respond to the Call of the Other.

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In Contrast with Western Philosophy

What is Western philosophy? Western philosophy traces its ancestry to ancient Europe, to countries such as Greece and Rome. It is the philosophy that you and I are already familiar with. It permeates our thoughts, ideas, and even how we make sense of the world. In Western philosophy, truth is generally considered to be the unchanging, foundational principles of the Universe. Philosophy itself is thought to be the method of reducing the flux of everyday experience to a set of static principles. For Western philosophy, there is no loss in this “reduction,” because we are making the world intelligible, or reducing the chaos we find in experience to unchanging unity.

In simple terms, in order to be truth, it has to be true everywhere, all of the time. Mathematical abstractions are the perfect example of Western truth. The equation c² = a² + b² seems to be true everywhere and everytime, regardless of the particular circumstances, and thus Pythagoras and subsequent Greek philosophers regarded it as truth. Thus, for Western thinking, all things that are dynamic, that are in motion, and that change can be accounted for by the few things that fundamentally do not change. The few things that are always the same govern or explain the many things that are in flux.

A perfect example of this Western way of thinking is in the scientific discipline. Scientists observe change in the world—be it objects falling or creatures evolving—and attempt to discover the unchanging principle to account for that change. For example, they develop a law of gravity to explain why things fall, and thus all the many instances of falling objects can be explained by the one law of gravity. They also formulate the law of natural selection to explain why creatures evolve. Both these laws are considered unchanging and static. Because these principles never change, scientists assume that they are more fundamental than what does change.

We can see that this idea of truth is everywhere in our society. Of course, this does not perfectly capture the thoughts of all Western philosophers. There are many variants and deviations from this worldview. We have summarized enough, however, to see what it is that Levinas responds to in his writings.

Reducing the Other to a Totality

Levinas claimed that there are two ways to know the world, or two ways that we can approach a phenomenon. Another way to say this is that there are two ways that we can know what is Other. The first way of knowing the world is the way that Western philosophy has adopted since its beginning. In order to describe this way of knowing the world, it may be best to use a metaphor. Consider a fruit, like an apple. The apple, upon first encounter, is not part of me; it is something other than me. However, when I eat the apple, it then becomes a part of me. When we consume food, we make it part of us, or part of the Same.

According to Levinas, Western philosophy does the same thing when it encounters the Other. It makes sense of the Other in a way that turns it into the Same. It destroys the otherness of the Other by reducing it to the Same. When we describe the Other in words or abstractions, we turn it into something that we can grasp, understand, encapsulate in words, and remake it in our own image. We use the idiomatic phrase, “I get it!” or, “I’ve got it!” to describe the way we know the phenomenon we’ve encountered. We thus take possession of the Other, and it thus becomes part of us. We become masters of the Other, because the Other has surrendered to us and has lost its alterity. The word alterity means “the state of being other, or different.” “Percieved in this way,” said Levinas, “philosophy would be engaged in reducing to the Same all that is opposed to it as other.” In essence, the goal of Western philosophy is to turn that which is alien into that which is familiar. Levinas continued, “Western philosophy coincides with the unveiling of the other in which the Other … loses its alterity. Philosophy is afflicted, from its childhood, with an insurmountable allergy: a horror of the Other which remains Other.”

There are many experiences that are perfectly compatible with this way of knowing the world. For example, descriptions of how things fall, mathematical principles, even bacterial infections are encounters with the world that are not distorted when enframed into a Totality.

Approaching the Other as the Infinite

However, there are many experiences where this process of subsuming the Other does distort the reality of the Other. For example, people are foremost and always an irreducible Other that must be approached differently. The second way Levinas said that we can know the world can be illustrated with another metaphor. Like the apple, when we drink from a spring, that which we drink becomes a part of us. But unlike the apple, we cannot drink all of the water that flows from the spring. Not only is there more to the phenomenon than we can consume, but there will always be more than we can consume, because it is an inexhaustible source. Thus, the Other is not something that we can encapsulate in words, take possession of, or make part of ourselves. There will always be something genuinely and irreducibly Other about it.

Levinas said, “The relation with infinity cannot, to be sure, be stated in terms of experience, for infinity overflows the thought that thinks it.” Let’s consider another example: when we think of the ocean, we have an idea what the ocean is and what it is like. However, there is always more about the ocean that we do not know. There will likely always be more in the ocean than what we know. Perhaps an even better metaphor is an idea of the cosmos: no matter what is contained in our idea, the reality of the cosmos is inexhaustible. It can never be fully encapsulated into words. The reality of the infinite will always be able to shatter whatever conceptions we make about it. We can never make the Infinite into a Totality. It can never be fully consumed, tamed, mastered, or made a part of us. In this mode of approaching the Other, we cannot make the Other into the Same. The Other is always in flux, because of its inexhaustible nature.

Because people are foremost and always an irreducible Other, they escape any attempt to reduce them into a totality or to make them into the Same. C. S. Lewis wrote that when his wife died, he would remake the images and memories he had of her in his own image. He said, “Although ten minutes—ten seconds—of the real Helen would correct all this, the rough, sharp, cleansing tang of her otherness [was] gone. … The reality is no longer there to check me, to pull me up short, as the real Helen so often did, so unexpectedly, by being so thoroughly herself and not me.” This experience shows that there is something about the Other that is always in flux, that will always shatter whatever conceptions we form about it, that is inexhaustible in its presence as a spring of water. C. S. Lewis described God in a similar way: “My idea of God … has to be shattered time after time. He shatters it Himself. He is the great iconoclast. Could we not almost say that this shattering is one of the marks of His presence?” Levinas described this shattering as the other’s face: “The way in which the other presents himself, exceeding the idea of the other in me, we here name face. … The face of the Other at each moment destroys and overflows the plastic image it leaves me.” In other words, the Otherness of the Other cannot be made perfectly familiar without destroying its alterity.

When we make the Other into a Totality, the Other surrenders to us, and we take possession of it. When we approach the Other as the Infinite, something different happens; the Other inevitably pulls us into a relationship of obligation. “The face resists possession, resists my powers.” When we totalize another person, we do violence to that person. Only when we approach the Other as Infinite can we reduce the violence we do to them.

Conclusion

Human beings are inescapably an Infinity, not a totality. We see this in the way we approach others. Even when we are in a position to treat another person as an object, we inevitably acknowledge their humanity. For example, if a scientist wants to see what is inside a fruit, he simply slices it open and looks inside. However, few people would simply slice a living human being merely to satisfy a scientific curiosity. Even when we mistreat another person and treat them as objects, we acknowledge their humanity. We may laugh maliciously when we mischievously trip our friend, but no one laughs when a chair falls.

We see here a contrast between two different approaches: The reducing of the Other into a Totality, and the reverent approaching of the Other as the Infinite. Emmanuel Levinas worked to rupture the way we make sense of the world, to question the assumptions we make, and to create space for the second way of approaching the Other. According to Levinas, the reduction of what is infinite and Other to a totality and the Same is sometimes, if not often, a lesser and destructive method that mangles the phenomena we seek to understand. When we approach people as a totality, we can mask the genuine Otherness of those around us.

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Thus far I have tried to make a case for difference in marriage, arguing that without confronting the fundamental differences symbolized by the sexual unity of male and female, we are less able to understand fully what it means to be charitable. In this final post, I will argue that defending marriage – and by association, charity – requires we defend difference.

Thus far, Latter-day Saints have put a lot of money and rhetoric into defending marriage, in particular against gay marriage. Perhaps the most notable example of this was the church’s recent campaign for Prop 8 in California. Though Prop 8 passed, we have seen since its passage that this “victory” for marriage cost more than just a lot of money. For the Latter-day Saint church in particular, the victory bordered on a public relations nightmare, with a lot of hate generated against the organization and its membership. Even worse, perhaps, was the division it caused within the membership.

One might argue that these are simply signs of the times – that we are in the last days and should expect good to be reviled – and one might be correct. But it is also correct that rhetoric (and money, for that matter) can only get one so far when it isn’t backed up by correlating behavior. In other words, if our actions don’t reflect our commitment to and value of marriage, then we will almost certainly struggle to defend marriage with our rhetoric.

You may ask, “But don’t our actions reflect our rhetoric?” When it comes to defending marriage, that’s the question we ought to be asking ourselves. If what I have argued is correct, then our behaviors must reflect a willingness to embrace difference. And I fear that we as Latter-day Saints struggle with embracing difference, choosing instead to go with the flow of society and favor similarity – even between the sexes.

Consider a popular marriage book, And They Were Not Ashamed, written by Latter-day Saint Laura Brotherson to enhance the sex-lives of married couples (particularly Mormons). Brotherson spends two chapters discussing what she calls the “Symphony of the female sexual response,” her purpose being primarily to help the couple work together so that the woman might experience an orgasm at every sexual encounter.

Ostensibly, it appears that Brotherson is helping couples embrace differences that exist between men and women: it is generally far more difficult for a woman (biologically speaking) to have orgasms, so let’s figure out ways to make it happen. But what she may or may not know is that she is following in a long tradition of feminists who have been pining for a feminine sexuality that mirrors as close as possible male sexuality – orgasm every time.

Now, I don’t want to argue for or against female orgasms here. What I do want to point out, however, is that the author of this best-selling LDS sex book is doing little to promote differences – let alone embrace them – in her repetition of a stale argument for equality of the sexes. Once we make men and women biologically the same (all should have orgasms every time), what case do we have against persons of the same sex marrying?

That we fail to embrace difference at the biological level is also evident by our failure to embrace differences at the social level.  It is true that our rhetoric is quite traditional: men and women are eternally different. But our practice? Aside from who gets the priesthood, what social differences do we have? Men and women increasingly assume similar roles in and out of the household. But to truly be different, we must not only differ biologically - our biological differences must necessarily have social manifestations. Ignoring differences or acting as though they should not be there is denying a truth so deep that it even manifests itself biologically. Denying the truth seems like the last thing Latter-day Saints want to do.

I do not know what these social differences ought to look like. I don’t even know if they should be universal (i.e., cut across all cultures). But if what I argue is correct, then we must at least start talking about differences. In order to defend marriage – and in doing so, defend a tolerant and loving society – differences must be there. If we aren’t different, then we can’t learn to love difference. And if we can’t learn to love difference, we not only fail to defend marriage, but we fail to defend charity.

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To sum up my argument so far, I began this series of posts discussing differences and why we ought to value them. I then discussed that teaching children to value difference in others begins in the home, where two parents of different descent love each other for their differences (not to say, also, their similarities). Previous to this post, I argued that married couples engage in what I called a ritual of difference, wherein they realize a full expression of the infinity of their relationship – made up in part of their differences – and are better situated to have charity for one another, as well as for others. I would like to turn now to the sin of Sodom and draw all three posts together.

Many say that the sin of Sodom was homosexuality. They often make this case using scriptures, such as the following: “I will therefore put you in remembrance…Even as Sodom giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh” (Jude 1:5, 7). Whether “going after strange flesh” means homosexuality or not, obviously Sodom was being condemned for sexual sin, whether homosexual or heterosexual.

On the other hand, there are those who argue that the sin of Sodom was instead inhospitality. As Ezekiel says: “this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread…, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy” (16:49). Placed in the context of how the people hoped to treat Lot’s guests, it seems like a real lack of respect and love for the stranger might have been the problem.

Though both arguments are said to conflict with one another, considering both as one argument might change the way we see marriage in a significant way.

Consider this: marriage, as I have argued, is that relationship in which we face the infinity of the other. I create with my spouse a relationship that goes infinitely beyond just me, because she (with her fundamental differences) is also part of it. Our willingness to face that infinitude (our humility and reverence) compels us to be charitable not only to one another, but to all others in whom we recognize differences.

But what if I am unwilling to face that infinitude? What if I only see my spouse as a caricature of what I think she is (or ought to be) and close the door on infinity? What if I love my spouse only insofar as she is like me? Do I learn charity? I cannot. And without charity, I fail to reverence difference – whether in my wife or in others. That failure can quite easily lead to inhospitality for the other. But it could also lead to sexual sin, particularly where my spouse becomes interchangeable when I find her too much of a “stranger” (too different) to love anymore.

Perhaps, then, the sin of Sodom is something else entirely: a lack of charity resulting from an inability (or unwillingness) to confront and love difference. Perhaps “going after strange flesh”, whether it be through either heterosexual or homosexual sin, goes hand in hand with “pride” and failing to “strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.” Rarely do you find one without the other. We may debate what the sin of Sodom really was, but perhaps we’re arguing straight through one another. Perhaps both sexual sin and inhospitality were symptoms of a greater sin: a lack of charity.

In the final post, I hope to tie each of the previous four together by discussing implications for marriage, for difference in marriage, and for difference in gender.

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In the last post, I argued that teaching our children charity was facilitated by the love parents share in the face of differences. In being one body (one flesh), as Paul taught, we must embrace our differences – otherwise, where were the hearing?

In this post, I want to address a particular difference (or set of differences) which many married couples experience on a regular basis. I’m talking in particular about “knowing” one another in the biblical sense (e.g., “Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived…“). I am not trying to be coy about using the word “sex.” For my purposes, I feel that knowing is the most appropriate word.

Let me begin by claiming that men and women are different in many ways. This notion of difference may seems somewhat regressive, but no matter how you slice it, it is true. Men and women are certainly different physiologically (and for Latter-day Saints, that should be enough, as we believe the “soul” is both spirit and body together – which must mean what affects the body affects the spirit), as all sexually active people are aware.

Now, before you accuse me of sexism and misogyny, it should be clear that I agree we are similar in many ways, even physiologically. Indeed, if we take the Genesis account of Eve’s creation literally, we must confess there are bound to be similarities: after all, we (man and woman) are made of the same whole. But we are also two different and distinct parts of the same whole, thus differences – fundamental differences – must exist. Now, I won’t assume here to know precisely what those differences are, but they must be there.

When we come together to know one another, we engage in a ritual of difference. I and my spouse are naked. By naked, I do mean literally; but I also mean figuratively – as in, we are emotionally and spiritually (soul-fully) exposed, vulnerable before one another. And in our nakedness our differences are revealed. That is, in knowing one another, we are confronted with the alterity of the other who is our spouse. This confrontation begins physically, and the physical then represents the other differences that are part of our relationship and of our knowing one another.

As we engage repeatedly in this ritual, it should become clear to us (if we are humble enough to see the truth) how deep our relationship is. We can learn reverence before our spouse – because only our spouse could reveal the depth through revealing his or her difference. In other words, in this our ritual of difference, we confront eternity – the eternity that is our spouse; the eternity that is our marriage.

Couples have other rituals of difference – for example, the “conflict” which I alluded to in the previous post – and if they pay close enough attention and are humble enough, they will realize that it will take years (even an eternity) to fully know one another – to fully be one flesh.  And through our faithfulness to the one, the truly humble will learn from marriage that infinity characterizes us all, that reverence is due to us all, and feel compelled to treat all others with the same reverence.

This is the beginning of charity: facing the infinity in the one and learning to love it completely; then realizing that that infinity characterizes all. Learning this charity begins – or at least finds full expression – in the ritual of difference wherein we as spouses know each other.

In the next post, I will explore charity, difference, and the sin of Sodom.

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In the previous post, I argued that differences were actually essential for a spirit of charity to thrive in marriage. In seeking out and embracing these differences, we learn to love that which is other than us – and by love, I mean in part to appreciate and embrace the unique contribution made by those differences.

Charity, as Paul says, “Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth” (1 Cor 13:6). The truth is, we (husbands and wives) are different, and to have charity, we must rejoice in those differences. Doing so has the benefit of uniting us, as I discussed before. In this post, I’d like to discuss another benefit through a semi-narrative.

Imagine two people perpetually in conflict with one another. Let us say their conflicts are sometimes not particularly contentious, but do (as they must) get heated every once in a while. Now, in spite of how those conflicts play out (i.e., whether they are resolved or not), imagine that these two people also love each other with complete fidelity – that they are desperately faithful to one another. We might even see their love for one another manifested during conflicts.

Now imagine this couple has kids. Their children understand, at least to some degree, their parents’ conflict and, as a consequence, see quite clearly the differences between their parents.  But these children also see the love that seems to pervade these differences. If these kids are very introspective, they might start asking themselves about the nature of marriage and parenthood, and if difference and conflict always occur in these important relationships. They might also reflect on the nature of love, and what role difference plays in love. They might find themselves asking how it is that love can exist where so much conflict occurs, and if so, if love and conflict must occur together in relationships.

Chances are, however, the kids aren’t really that introspective. Instead, they simply grow up in this atmosphere assuming – quite naturally – that two very different people can be different and love each. Indeed, they may just assume – quite naturally – that differences help to make true (truth) love possible. In other words, they may never be introspective about the nature of their parents’ relationship, but simply grow up thinking that difference and love go hand in hand.

How will these children react in the face of difference? It’s quite possible that they’ll love in the face of difference, simply because it’s the natural thing to do, because it has become part of their nature, because it was part of how they were raised.

Teaching children to have charity requires that we have charity, and loving the different is part of having charity. Whether couples are in conflict with each other regularly or not, they will be different, giving all married parents the chance to demonstrate/practice charity with their spouse by rejoicing in the truth of their spouse. Thus difference is not just essential for unity, as I argued before, but loving difference is useful in teaching our children how to be charitable.

In the next post, I hope to explore a ritual of difference that should engage married couples in the practice of differing on a regular basis, giving couples the opportunity to develop and, subsequently, teach charity to their children.

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In all three scriptural accounts of the physical creation, Adam is created of the dust of the earth, while Eve was created of Adam (Genesis 2:7, 21-22; Moses 3:7, 21-22; Abraham 5:7, 15-16). Adam, upon seeing woman for the first time, notes the significance of this division when he calls woman bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh. What is striking to me is what Adam says next: “Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh” (v. 24 in Genesis and Moses, emphasis mine). Were they not already one flesh before God removed the rib from Adam’s side?

I’m intrigued by the literary symbolism here: Adam is created as the first flesh; woman is created next, of man, as though man and woman are two parts of a single whole; recognizing this, Adam feels compelled to “leave his father and mother” and cleave unto Eve and – be one flesh (again?). This statement by Adam is often used to introduce the topic of unity in marriage. But the narrative leading up to this statement seems to suggest that, before Adam and Eve could be “one flesh,” they need first to be divided, or different.

Paul has something to say about the relationship between difference and unity. In 1 Corinthians 12, he talks about members of the church as members of the Body of Christ. In being united, or being one body, difference is essential. He asks, if we were all the same, what kind of body would we be? His answer: not much of one. “If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling?” (v. 17).  Being one, then, has more to do with working as a whole, contributing our various – unique – talents to the building up of the kingdom, with Christ at our head.

When wards are truly united, they do this well: each member has a particular role to play – perhaps a role that can’t be played as well by any other member. When each member in his or her role is functioning well, the ward thrives and a spirit of love and charity seems to reign.

Yet, popular wisdom sometimes suggests that couples should avoid conflict. When it arises, conflict should be “resolved,” which usually means that some sort of agreement ought to be reached. If that is impossible, disagreement ought to just be ignored (tolerance). But spouses will always have differences and if we take Paul seriously, the key is not to eliminate or ignore the differences, but instead to embrace those differences.

Our creation narratives seem to offer us this wisdom: being one flesh is not about being the same, but about being different – and being united through those differences. Valuing  differences is part and parcel of unity, whether in congregations or in marriage, and necessary in order for love and charity to thrive in our relationships.

What might this mean? For starters, we are all different. Being married ought to mean loving someone different than us. And by loving, I don’t mean tolerating; I mean truly valuing that person – differences and all – and what they uniquely contribute to whole of the marriage.  That is, after all, God-like love. And perhaps it is best practiced in marriage.

In the next post, I will explore where God-like love is best learned.

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Here are some great quotes (most of which were distributed from my ward’s gospel doctrine teacher) that illustrate just a taste of why, I believe, Latter-day Saints should be the most environmentally friendly people on earth.

From Hugh Nibley:

The title of dominus designated the Roman emperor himself as the common benefactor of mankind inviting all the world to feast at his board. In short, lordship and dominium are the same thing, the responsibility of the master for the comfort and well-being of his dependents and guests; he is the generous host, the kind pater familias to whom all look for support. He is the lord who provides bread for all, but how? By tilling the earth that he may “eat his bread by the sweat of his brow” (see Genesis 3:19)-he is not a predator, a manipulator, or an exploiter of other creatures but one who cooperates with nature as a diligent husbandman. (Brother Brigham Challenges the Saints, pp. 7-8)

From President Kimball:

I have traveled much in various assignments over the years, and when I pass through the lovely countryside or fly over the vast and beautiful expanses of our globe, I compare these beauties with many of the dark and miserable practices of men, and I have the feeling that the good earth can hardly bear our presence upon it. I recall the occasion when Enoch heard the earth mourn, saying, “Wo, wo is me, the mother of men; I am pained, I am weary, because of the wickedness of my children. When shall I rest, and be cleansed from the filthiness which is gone forth out of me?” (Moses 7:48). (Ensign, June 1976, p. 4)

Here’s Elder Ezra Taft Benson:

A common problem is a concern for our environment. It is not likely that someone who does not love his neighbor will be concerned with his adverse impact on the environment. To love one’s neighbor is a spiritual law. Just as physical laws are interrelated, so are spiritual laws. One dimension of spiritual law is that a man’s self-regard and his esteem for his fellowmen are intertwined.

If there is disregard for oneself, there will be disregard for one’s neighbor. If there is no reverence for life itself, there is apt to be little reverence for the resources God has given man. The outward expressions of irreverence for life and for fellowmen often take the form of heedless pollution of both air and water. But are these not expressions of the inner man?

Whatever mortal reasons there are to be concerned about environment, there are eternal reasons, too, for us to be thoughtful stewards. President Brigham Young said: “Not one particle of all that comprises this vast creation of God is our own. Everything we have has been bestowed upon us for our action, to see what we would do with it—whether we would use it for eternal life and exaltation, or for eternal death and degradation.”

We are concerned about scarred landscapes that cause floods and leave an economic emptiness that haunts the coming generations. Similarly, unchastity leaves terrible scars, brings floods of tears and anguish, and leaves a moral emptiness. Significantly, both imprudent strip mining and unchastity rest on a life-style that partakes of an “eat, drink, and be merry” philosophy–gouge and grab now without regard to the consequences. Both negligent strip mining and unchastity violate the spirit of stewardship over our planet and person. (“Problems Affecting the Domestic Tranquility of Citizens of the United States,” Vital Speeches, Feb 1, 1976.)

From Elder Alexander B. Morrison:

In a revelation concerning the United Order given to the Prophet Joseph Smith in April 1834, the Lord reminded His Church that every man (and assuredly every woman also) is accountable as a “steward over earthly blessings” that He has made and prepared for His creatures. (D&C 104:13.) The importance and priority of that sacred stewardship are indicated by the fact that our accountability will be given to Christ Himself: “That every man may give an account unto me of the stewardship which is appointed unto him.” (D&C 104:12.) When He interviews us, I feel certain that one of His questions will, in essence, be the following: “What have you done with the earth which my Father and I gave you as a home? Have you cherished and protected it? Have you dressed it and kept it, as your father Adam was commanded to do? Or have you laid waste to it, defiled its waters, destroyed its fertile lands, befouled its life-giving air?” To those questions, I fear there are many, even among those who aspire to become a Zion people, who will hang their heads in shame. The earth groans under the insults inflicted upon it. (Visions of Zion)

A fantastic quote from Brigham Young:

The Saints of God should be self-sustaining. While they are laboring to gain the mastery over themselves, to subdue every passion and feeling of their nature to the law of Christ; while they are striving to possess the Holy Ghost to guide them every moment of their lives, they should not lose sight of their temporal deliverance from the thral[l]dom which has been thrown around them by the traditions of their fathers and the false education they have received in the nations where they were born and reared. In Utah territory they are well located for variety of climate suitable to the production of materials necessary to gratify every reasonable want. So far as we have learned the resources of the country, we are satisfied that we need not depend upon our neighbors abroad for any single necessity of life, for in the elements around us exists every ingredient of food and raiment; we can be fed with the daintiest luxuries, and can be clothed almost equal to the lilies of the field. Cotton and fruits of tropical climes can be grown to perfection and in abundance in the southern portions of Utah, while cereal crops, flax, wool, silk, and a great variety of fruit can be produced in perfection in the northern. Our object is not to find and possess great stores of the precious metals. Iron and coal would be far more valuable to us than mines of silver and gold. (President Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses Volume 10)

And this one takes the cake, from Brother Joseph himself:

We crossed the Embarras river and encamped on a small branch of the same about one mile west. In pitching my tent we found three massasaugas or prairie rattlesnakes, which the brethren were about to kill, but I said, “Let them alone—don’t hurt them! How will the serpent ever lose his venom, while the servants of God possess the same disposition and continue to make war upon it? Men must become harmless, before the brute creation; and when men lose their vicious dispositions and cease to destroy the animal race, the lion and the lamb can dwell together, and the sucking child can play with the serpent in safety.” The brethren took the serpents carefully on sticks and carried them across the creek. I exhorted the brethren not to kill a serpent, bird, or an animal of any kind during our journey unless it became necessary in order to preserve ourselves from hunger. (quoted in Joseph Fielding Smith, Answers to Gospel Questions)

To all who need to hear: This should not be a political issue, folks. It’s about our temporal and spiritual salvation. We would be wise to listen more to these great leaders of ours–and listen less to voices that ridicule efforts to care for this great earth we call our home.

We can start, many of us, by walking to church.

(Or emailing this post to your friends.)

But add Moses’ account into the mix and things become a little dicier. In Moses 2-3, we get a sense that the first account is a spiritual creation that occurs previous to the physical creation, which doesn’t begin until chapter 3. Then, when the physical account is actually given, the Lord states in Moses 3:7, “And I, the Lord God, formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul, the first flesh upon the earth, the first man also” (my emphasis). I can’t tell whether figurative language is being used here or not. The narrative continues when God says to His Only Begotten that “it was not good that the man should be alone; wherefore, I will make an help meet for him” (3:18). So, in the next verse, God forms, out of the ground, all the beasts (other “flesh upon the earth”) and brings them to Adam. Adam names them, “but as for Adam, there was not found an help meet for him” (3:20). None of the beasts would do. It wasn’t until Eve was created of his own flesh that “This I know now is bone of my bones…” (3:23; my emphasis).

It seems in this account that man was the first flesh, followed by the beasts, followed by woman (who was there all along, just part of man). That’s a somewhat backwards progression, in light of evolution.

But Abraham is different, isn’t it? Well, a more careful reading of Abraham’s creation account might in fact show more similarities. Look at how this narrative unfolds: it proceeds rather the same, beginning with the light, dividing the waters from the waters, the water from the earth, etc. Then we get to vegetation and things begin to get redundant. In verse 11: “Let us prepare the earth to bring forth grass…and it was so, even as they ordered” (my emphasis) and then verse 12: “And the Gods organized the earth to bring forth grass…and the Gods saw that they were obeyed” (my emphasis). But it only seems like a redundancy: first, the Gods prepared the earth to bring forth grass, and it was so. Then they organized the earth to bring forth grass, and they were obeyed. It’s as though they are planning (spiritual creation?) before they actually do it (physical creation?).

But look at how the planning/doing “redundancy” plays out later. Verse 20: “Let us prepare the waters to bring forth abundantly the moving creatures that have life; and the fowl, that they may fly above the earth in the open expanse of heaven.” This is – potentially – the first flesh, but in this first verse, the waters are only prepared, and it was so. Then we see something change when, in the next verse, the Gods prepare for the fish and the fowls: this time, they don’t wait to see that they are obeyed; instead, “the Gods saw that they would be obeyed, and that their plan was good” (my emphasis). Note the future tense, both here and when the Gods prepare for the beasts.

It appears, at this point, that Abraham might be covering both a spiritual and physical creation in a single narrative, rather than dividing it up like Moses did. First prepare, then do. But if that’s the case, then we must see somewhere where man is first flesh, like in the Moses account. Is that what we see? In fact, it seems that the Gods first  go down in verse 26 to “form man,” both male and female, give them dominion and whatnot. Then, in verse 30,  the proceed to “give…life” to all the beasts, fowl, and fishes. It seems that Abraham and Moses may indeed agree that Adam was the first flesh upon the earth, with the beasts to follow. Abraham, then, seems to offer the same reverse-progression that we get in Moses’ account of creation.

Now understand, I’m not trying to refute evolution by using the scriptures (please, people: I’m not a creationist; I do not claim these accounts are literal, but literary). But for those Latter-day Saints who love evolution, I am asking if our creation narratives ought to be, or even can be, used in support of creation by evolution?

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Let me reveal my ignorance by talking about things I don’t understand.

Carbon-dating and the Age of the Earth. So apparently the earth is really old. And apparently, back in the day, this revelation was meant to explode any creationist idea about the youth of the earth (i.e., that the earth was only 10,000 years old, or something of the sort). By now, it’s agreed by most people that the earth is millions – perhaps billions – of years old, and we know that because of carbon dating and stars and stuff.

I guess Mormons never had a problem with the earth being really old, since we believe everything has an eternal existence. But wait! we believe the elements are eternal? Then how come we accept the “age of the earth” from scientists who actually put a “birth” to the elements? Do we really believe that the earth is billions of years old? Or do we believe that the elements are eternal and have no age? Or do we believe something else entirely? I’d like to know.

Natural Selection and Being Nice. Last I heard, we as Christians believed we should live by the two great commandments: love God, love your neighbor. Last I heard, Natural Selection was all about “survival of the fittest,” whether that means loving your neighbor or not. Something just isn’t fitting here: if we really were formed through natural selection, then why are we commanded to be nice to people?

Natural Selection, Creation, and Death. Here’s another place where I’m ignorant. In fact, doubly ignorant. I know little about natural selection and I guess I know little about what Mormons believe about creation. What I thought I knew about natural selection is that it required death. What I thought I knew about Mormons and creation is that when creation occurred, death was not part of the picture – death only came about because of the fall of Adam.

So do Mormons believe in a literal fall? If so, do they believe in a literal Garden of Eden, where there was no death? If so, how does evolution and natural selection fit into the picture? I’m having a really hard time understanding that one.

Natural Selection, Resurrection, and Life after Death. And finally, if we get our bodies back after we die, then how does that fit with Natural Selection or with Creation though evolution? Did God work the whole resurrection thing into evolution before he began evolving stuff? This just doesn’t make sense to me.

And above all, I have to ask this question: why are there only two (three?) sides to the debate over creation and evolution? By this I mean, either you believe in evolution, or you’re a crazy person who believes in creationism or intelligent design (neither of which holds much scientific water). Why haven’t Mormons come up with something different – something that takes into account the eternal nature of man and of the elements; something that “fits the data” but also “fits the doctrine”? Are we really that inept?

Or perhaps we have and I’m simply ignorant of that fact. Would someone enlighten me?

I always feel spiritually rejuvenated after General Conference, and this conference was no exception. Here are some of the dominant themes and highlights I noticed, along with some of my own thoughts:

1. Fresh ways of looking at the “fundamentals”

I sometimes grow tired of the way the “fundamentals” in the Church are sometimes talked about by church members: “the Sunday School answers; you gotta read, pray, and go to church; you gotta make good habits; etc.” It’s not that I disagree with the importance of the “fundamentals,” it’s that I think they are too often talked about in shallow ways.

This conference, however, had several excellent talks that can aid members in the way they think and talk about the “fundamentals” of consistent scripture study, prayer, family home evening, and worship.

Sister Vicki Matsumori talked about making homes and chapels a place where it is easiest to feel the Spirit. Consistency in gospel fundamentals is much more than habits that we need to obey; it is a way of life and a way to “build” one’s home to the Lord.

Elder Bednar talked about how consistency of intent and work in these worshipful activities is perhaps the most important thing for our families. Like brush strokes on a canvas, a grand picture emerges in the pattern, not in the singular, and sometimes seemingly futile, actions. (Also, props to Elder Bednar, once again, for exposing common hypocrisies in the church: expressing love and bearing testimony to your loved ones publicly in church but not privately at home.)

Finally, Elder Dale G. Renlund gave a simply amazing talk in which he likened a heart transplant to a (spiritual) “mighty change of heart.” Just as transplant recipients need to consistently take medications and adhere to certain protocols in order to prevent their body’s natural rejection of the new heart, so do we need to consistently and diligently, not casually, adhere to seemingly small actions.

2. Openness to receiving direction from God

Several authorities spoke of the importance of being sensitive to the promptings of the Holy Ghost and open to God’s direction.

Elder Scott spoke wisely about how there is no easy formula for receiving revelation. God wants us to use our own agency to sometimes struggle for direction. He also spoke about the importance of responding to, and applying, the first promptings that come to you–and in doing so, greater direction may be in store.

A string of Saturday afternoon talks address similar themes. Elder Hales warned against being dominated by cynicism and criticism when seeking direction from God. Elder Andersen warned against “pulling the shades down” and resisting direction from God–still praying, but listening less. And President Packer spoke of the lesson he learned from his young son’s prayer for their terminally ill cow: we shouldn’t rule out the possibility of God’s healing grace, even when the chances may seem slim.

On a similar note, Elder Michael T. Ringwood said that an easiness and willingness to believe comes from a softness of heart–a heart that can feel the Spirit and the power of the Atonement of Christ. We should look back at times when it was easier for us to believe and ask why. Similar to the talks about the fundamentals, Ringwood said that the daily living of the gospel yields a softened heart.

3. Love of God and neighbor

The two great commandments, happily, were dominant themes of the conference. I particularly appreciated President Uchtdorf’s talk. Without being rooted in the two great commandments, we run the risk of getting lost in the realm of “good ideas”–of complicating revealed truth with “man-made addenda.” I’ve found this to be true in my life. Once when I was grappling with certain questions pertaining to the church, I concluded–with great conviction–that what was most important for me was to love God and my neighbor. These commands superseded all other concerns and they deserved my grappling attention.

Other talks pertaining to love (and service): Elder Oaks on the relationship between law and love, Elder Eyring on teaching the two great commandments through example in our families, Elder Cook on stewardship for the poor and needy, and President Monson on service.

I was quite touched by President Monson’s talk, especially the stories of service. It shouldn’t take the emotion of the prophet’s birthday wish to prompt us “to go and do something today.” But I’m happy to see all the good that came of it, and hopefully the occasion can help more of us to more naturally serve as a regular part of our lives (I’m thinking of myself especially). I resonated with President Monson’s observation that we often live side by side, but not “communicating heart to heart”–we are too caught up in the business of our lives, too much “in the thick of thin things.” How can we do better to “communicate heart to heart”–to tear down the buffered walls of liberal individualism that keep us from relating to and serving one another? (my question)

4. Case studies in the church’s worldwide growth

In the priesthood session, Elder Yoon Hwan Choi spoke of his ward’s missionary efforts in South Korea. It was touching to see the amazing fruits of their efforts in reaching out to some hoodlum adolescents.

It was nice to see the first black African general authority of the Church speak in General Conference. I appreciated hearing Elder Joseph W. Sitati, from Kenya, speak about the growth of the church in Africa (which, from what I understand, the church intentionally curtails because they don’t want the branches to outgrow the roots). It was especially interesting to hear about how the church gives African saints a new way to hold onto their family traditions, minus arguably harmful and oppressive traditions (e.g., dowries). (Plus there was an interesting undercurrent of a “global church” but the problems of secular globalization.)

5. Elder Holland’s powerful testimony of the Book of Mormon

Without question, Elder Holland’s talk was the highlight of the conference (judging from my Facebook status updates, anyway). I won’t attempt to summarize what he said, but it was very powerful to me. I truly did believe what he saying as he was saying it. I also liked how he debunked all of the “frankly pathetic” alternative accounts of the Book of Mormon’s origins. From my reading of church history, Elder Holland is right on here. There is not a single compelling story about the book’s origins that is not a grasping for straws–that is not pure conjecture that is completely at odds with the facts–other than the account Joseph Smith gave. (Richard Bushman makes this argument in Rough Stone Rolling.)

It’s fascinating that with all the attempts to drag the church down, the Book of Mormon continues to stand virtually untarnished. When I read the Book of Mormon, I feel the hand of God in my life. I can’t read a chapter like Alma 26, for example, without thinking that the Book of Mormon is, without a doubt, what it purports to be. I hope and pray that Elder Holland’s talk strengthens many testimonies, including my own, in the Book of Mormon–and that it stirs others to finally crack open the book and read the actual words.

In a previous post, I presented Oakeshott’s view of rationality as the capacity to form interpretations of and responses to experience. In another post, I described ways in which the movie Contact provides an excellent example of this. In this post, I will explore a little deeper how Ellie’s experience in the movie illustrates Oakeshott’s point. I would recommend that those who haven’t read either of these two posts do so here: Rationality Redefined; Jodi Foster’s Empiricism in Contact.

Interpreting Experience

There were several ways to interpret Ellie’s reported experience. The committee chairman interpreted the entire experience as a delusion: Ellie, a young woman starved for contact with her long deceased father, created the experience in her mind to ease her loneliness and sorrow; the entire project was a hoax developed by an eccentric personality who had for a long time been influencing Ellie’s life and research.

Ellie, although she admitted that the chairman’s interpretation seemed more likely than her own, chose to interpret the experience as an interaction with an alien intelligence that wished to learn about the human race. She chose to interpret the experience this way because this interpretation brought hope and meaning to her life. It justified her changed heart and renewed humility.

If Michael Oakeshott’s point of view is correct, it implies that no interpretation is a priori known to be true. How any given experience is to be interpreted is “up for grabs,” so to speak. However, this does not mean that all interpretations are equal; they all have implications and consequences that we should consider. Let’s look at another example that may help illustrate this.

Scrooge and Gravy

Each Christmas time, I try to take the time to reread Charles Dickens’ classic novel, A Christmas Carol. One particular passage in the book caught my attention this year. Ebenezer Scrooge is conversing with the ghost of his former partner, Jacob Marley:

“You don’t believe in me,” observed the Ghost.

“I don’t.” said Scrooge.

“What evidence would you have of my reality, beyond that of your senses?”

“I don’t know,” said Scrooge.

“Why do you doubt your senses?”

“Because,” said Scrooge, “a little thing affects them. A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats. You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There’s more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!”

Indeed, Scrooge is right. Every experience may be interpreted any number of ways. Is it possible that a biochemical reaction in Scrooge’s brain induced him to hallucinate his entire experience? Of course it is possible. Scrooge, however, abandoned that possibility, and was convinced that the ghost did, in reality, exist.

What caused him to believe in the ghost’s existence? He didn’t arrive at the conclusion through logical deduction. Reason, as we have seen, can lead us interpret our experiences in any number of ways. As I discussed in Rationality Redefined, reason is our capacity to make sense of our experience, and there is no single way to do it. Shirley Robin Letwin describes this point of view aptly: “A man may have to deal with physiological processes within his body and physical processes outside it … , but as long as he retains his reason, he chooses how to understand and deal with his experience.”

The Basis of Conviction

At the conclusion of Scrooge’s experience, you would be hardpressed to get him to chalk up the whole experience to an “undigested bit of beef.” Certainly, the possibility still existed. However, Scrooge would never accept that possibility because he was changed, in a penetrating way, because of his experience. There is something about revelatory experiences that invites us to interpret them as such. When we accept that invitation, we abandon alternative interpretations and open ourselves to be changed forever.

For example, when I prayed and asked God if the teachings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were true, I received many revelatory experiences convincing me that I had received an answer from God.

A well-trained psychologist will remind me about confirmation bias, a process where individuals will notice information that confirms their belief (or what they want to believe) and ignore contradictory information.

A well-trained physiologist will remind me that certain hormonal changes at the right times may have led me to believe that I was having a feel-good experience in answer to prayer, when it was really just coincidence.

I confess that each of these alternatives have a certain amount of plausibility, in the sense that each of them are rational interpretations of my experiences. However, there was something about the experiences that invited me to believe that they were communications from God. I accepted that invitation, committed myself to that interpretation, changed as a person because of it, and have never regretted it.

I write this post because I think it’s important that we understand this central fact: there is no logical certainty in our religious beliefs. There isn’t meant to be. Our beliefs are rooted in lived experience, not reason. Also, there is no certain way to interpret those experiences. However, we have committed, through an act of free will and an act of faith (and in response to an invitation that we believe comes from God), to interpret certain lived experiences as revelatory experiences.

In other words, we believe because we choose to believe. Some would say that this is precisely why we should abandon our beliefs in favor of “more likely” interpretations. However, this analysis applies to any and all interpretations, and therefore applies equally to the atheist or the materialist who look for “scientific” interpretations of lived experience. Thus, Oakeshott’s view of rationality “levels the playing field” in an important way. A biological, evolutionary, or reductionist account of religious experience is not better by virtue of the fact that it relies solely on scientific principles, because any commitment to those principles is simply that: a commitment.

The act of choice that leads to our conviction may not necessarily involve pre-deliberation; in fact, it rarely does. The choice resides in the fact that we are constantly and actively interpreting our experiences and responding to invitations from the Spirit. There is nothing wrong with this–it is partly what makes us human. And it is what allows us to commit to the gospel of Jesus Christ, and to construe the world through the lens of revealed truth.

Then, to my dismay, I came across this post at FMH, in which ECS criticizes Hafen’s speech, in particular his use of references. But the FMH post itself is misleading and needs to be critiqued.

First, ECS critiques that Hafen cites a paraphrase from a Wall Street Journal article about the recent APA resolution on reparative therapy, rather than the resolution itself. Here is the quote in question, followed by ECS’s reply:

Just last month the American Psychological Association adopted a resolution stating that there is insufficient evidence to prove conclusively whether sexual orientation can be changed.  But in what the Wall Street Journal called “a striking departure” from that Association’s earlier hesitation about encouraging such therapy, the same resolution also stated that “it is ethical—and can be beneficial—for counselors to help some clients reject gay or lesbian attractions,” especially clients with a strong religious identity.

It’s a bit strange that Hafen quotes a paraphrase of the resolution written by WSJ reporter instead of quoting the A.P.A. resolution itself.  I read the APA’s report, and I tried to find this quote.  It didn’t appear in the official APA Resolutions or anywhere in the APA report.   Then I noticed that the WSJ article doesn’t say the quoted language is an APA resolution.  The WSJ article doesn’t say anything about a resolution – yet Hafen claims that the paraphrased language written by a WSJ reporter  (that is not a resolution) is a resolution sanctioned by the A.P.A.  More importantly, the WSJ paraphrase of a non-Resolution does not accurately characterize any A.P.A. Resolutions.

My counters:

1. People often quote paraphrases for rhetorical reasons. The in-text citation and footnote are both correct, at any rate, making it clear that this quote comes from the WSJ article.

2. The WSJ article DOES talk about a resolution! In fact, the very quote ECS provides from the article does:

But in a striking departure, the American Psychological Association said Wednesday that it is ethical — and can be beneficial — for counselors to help some clients reject gay or lesbian attractions.

What is “said” here is the resolution! The fact that Hafen knows this, but apparently ECS does not, shows who has done more research on the matter. In fact, ECS’s comments betray how little she knows about what happened at the APA meeting last month. At any rate, it is false to say that “The WSJ article doesn’t say anything about a resolution.” Ooh, kind of weakens ECS’s argument, doesn’t it? Yes.

3. The WSJ paraphrase DOES accurately characterize the APA resolution. It quotes the chair (note, this is the person in charge) of the resolution explaining the need for this kind of middle-ground with religious groups.

“We’re not trying to encourage people to become ‘ex-gay,’” said Judith Glassgold, who chaired the APA’s task force on the issue. “But we have to acknowledge that, for some people, religious identity is such an important part of their lives, it may transcend everything else.” . . . “They’re faced with a terrible dilemma,” Dr. Glassgold said. The profession has to offer alternatives, she says, “so they don’t pursue these ineffective therapies” promising change.

I don’t have time to defend this claim like I would like to, but I do think that Hafen’s quote is consistent with the spirit of the resolution–and the quote above speaks to that. Interesting that ECS says nothing about any of this.

Second, ECS asserts that Hafen calls homosexuality a disorder. But he does no such thing. He simply criticizes the motivations in declassifying it in the 1970s. Not quite the same thing as calling it a disorder (e.g., maybe it never should have been called a disorder, but nonetheless its being removed as one was more a matter of political motivations than anything–not an irrelevant point even if it one wouldn’t call it a disorder). It is simply inaccurate to say that he called it a disorder because he did no such thing. In the interest of accurate reporting, ECS would be wise to avoid the very things she is criticizing.

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One of my favorite movies is Contact, based on a novel written by Carl Sagan. One reason I like it is that it makes such important statements about how we come to know things. (Spoiler alert: Those who haven’t seen the movie and would not like the plot spoiled for them should not read this post.)

Ellie Arroway and her friend Palmer Joss discuss the meaning of religious experience.

One of my favorite movies is Contact, based on a novel written by Carl Sagan. One reason I like it is that it makes such important statements about how we come to know things. (Spoiler alert: Those who haven’t seen the movie and would not like the plot spoiled for them should not read this post.)

The movie is about a woman named Eleanor Arroway (Ellie, played by Jodi Foster), who is an astronomer working for the SETI program (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence). She scans the stars using radio telescopes, looking for radio signals from other planets that may be communications from intelligent life outside the solar system.

Traditional Empiricism

Ellie is an atheist (or at best, an agnostic); she does not find any compelling evidence to believe in God. She refuses to believe in anything unless it can be demonstrated to her scientifically. She does not feel that there is enough evidence to warrant belief in a Supreme Being.

Ellie befriends a man named Palmer Joss, who is a theologian and a humanitarian specialist who writes books about the lack of meaning in our lives. He finds it remarkable that despite an increased standard of living and incredible technology, we feel so much more distant from each other and still search for the meaning that is absent in our lives. At one point, he shares his conversion experience with her. He describes his troubled childhood and his first experience with God:

Joss: I had … an experience. Of belonging. Of unconditional love. And for the first time in my life I wasn’t terrified, and I wasn’t alone.

Ellie: And there’s no chance you had this experience simply because some part of you needed to have it?

Joss: Look, I’m a reasonable person, and reasonably intelligent. But this experience went beyond both. For the first time I had to consider the possibility that intellect, as wonderful as it is, is not the only way of comprehending the universe. That it was too small and inadequate a tool to deal with what it was faced with.

Ellie confesses that she cannot believe in his experience without some physical evidence to support it. Without that, she has no grounds for belief.

The Experience

Soon Ellie discovers a signal from a neighboring star called Vega. The signal transmits a series of prime numbers (a phenomenon that cannot be naturally explained), with frequencies containing instructions for building a massive machine. Ellie and a group of scientists discover that the machine is designed to transport one person by unknown means to an unknown location.

Eventually she has an opportunity to use the machine, as a representative of the human race in its first contact with extraterrestrial intelligence. The machine works; Ellie is transported through a wormhole to another world, where she meets an alien being who appears to her in the form of her long-deceased father, on a beach setting recollected from her childhood. The aliens had downloaded her memory and created a setting that would be not only familiar but familial to her. They tell her that only she would be able to visit, and that in time her race would find its way to the stars. This was just one small step, and the next step would have to wait. This, they said, was the way it has been done for billions of years.

Ellie is transported back to earth, where she is stunned to learn that, by earth time, she was gone for only a fraction of a second. In fact, nobody thinks that she even left; they are busily trying to figure out why the machine malfunctioned. Ellie insists that the machine worked fine, that she had contacted alien life, and had been gone many hours. However, every scientific instrument in the room indicates that nothing significant had happened. Even her personal recording device showed only static.

The Conversion

The following video clip shows the subsequent inquiry, during which Ellie is interviewed/interrogated about her experience.

For those who can’t get the video to work, Ellie is asked if she can prove that her experience was real, to which she replies that she cannot. She is asked,

Dr. Arroway, you come before us with no evidence. No records, no artifacts–only a story that–to put it mildly–strains credibility. Over half a trillion dollars was spent, dozens of lives were lost. … Are you really going to sit there and tell us that we should simply take this all on faith?

The chairman of the committee presents a compelling alternative account of Ellie’s experience and discovery. He attributes the whole discovery to an elaborate hoax prepared by S. R. Hadden, an eccentric and incredibly wealthy man who not only funded Ellie’s SETI research, but also owns, as subsidiaries, the Japanese subcontractors who were paid to develop and build the machine. It seems that Hadden was made incredibly wealthy and famous by Ellie’s discovery, and thus had a strong motive to fake the extraterrestrial communication.

Ellie admits that there are other explanations for her discovery and her experience, that perhaps she had a delusional episode, and that possibly the whole machine was a hoax. She said, “As a scientist, I must concede that, I must volunteer that.” The chairman of the committee then asks, “Then why don’t you just withdraw your testimony and concede that this journey to the center of the galaxy in fact never took place?” To this, Ellie emotionally responds,

Because I can’t. I had … an experience. I can’t prove it. I can’t even explain it. All I can tell you is that everything I know as a human being, everything I am–tells me that it was real.

I was given something wonderful. Something that changed me. A vision of the universe that made it overwhelmingly clear just how tiny and insignificant–and at the same time how rare and precious we all are. A vision … that tells us we belong to something greater than ourselves … that we’re not–that none of us–is alone.

I wish I could share it. I wish everyone, if only for a moment–could feel that sense of awe, and humility … and hope. That continues to be my wish.

Empiricism Means Experience

Ellie had discovered exactly what Joss was trying to convey earlier in the film. In fact, she borrowed Joss’s own words as she tried to describe her experience. Some experiences cannot be proven, only reported. Some experiences can completely change us, and we can’t communicate that change in words; we can only invite others to seek their own life-changing experiences.

I do not believe that it is our job only to rationally justify or logically prove the doctrines we believe in. Bruce R. McConkie said, “The scriptures have many references to revelation. The prophets have said much about it. What it means to us is that we need religious experience. We need to become personally involved with God.”¹ We need, he said, to seek experiences with God, of which we can then testify and report to others.

As a Christian and a Latter-day Saint, I do not base my convictions on logic or reason. I had … an experience. I felt the witness of the Holy Spirit testify to my heart that God is real, and that Jesus Christ is His son. I base my convictions on experiences that I have had.

One of the claims that I would like to make is that Ellie’s conviction was, in a very real sense, based upon empirical experience. In this context, I do not use the word “empirical” to mean scientific; I simply use it to mean experience as the basis of knowledge. The experience was not necessarily replicable, public, or measurable, but it was nonetheless an experience. Traditional empiricism limits the scope of knowledge to those experiences that are measurable and replicable. The empiricism that I adhere to certainly includes these experiences, but also the full range of human experience, including religious experiences. Thus, I contrast my epistemological worldview against ancient Greek rationalism, which holds that knowledge can be obtained through rational processes alone.

In my next post, I explore further how this movie relates with Michael Oakeshott’s view on reason, and also to the Latter-day Saint claim to revealed truth.

Notes

1. Bruce R. McConkie, “How to Get Personal Revelation,” Tambuli, Apr. 1981, p. 4.

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Early Greek philosophers saw reason as the conduit through which human beings could access the unchanging certainties of the cosmos. This perspective actually makes some sense. We may age, wither, and die, but the Pythagorean theorem remains unchanged through time. The conclusions of rational thought were seen as the bedrock truths at the bottom of our swiftly changing world.

This understanding of human reason implies that rational people will converge on the same ideas. An interesting, subtle, but extremely important side effect of this point of view is expressed aptly by John Locke: “All that is voluntary in our knowledge, is the employing or withholding any of our [rational] faculties. … But they being employed, our will hath no power to determine the knowledge of the mind one way or another.” Thus, the conclusions of rational thought are inevitable.

Modern philosophers have, to some extent, rejected this ancient perspective on rationality. Instead, reason has been seen as a human tool for satisfying our individual desires. This is easily seen in the example of Sigmund Freud, who believed that human beings possess, at the bottom, a sea of insatiable desires (the id), which are satisfied more effectively by forming a rationality more suited to pursue them (the ego). While few overtly subscribe to Freud’s philosophy, it is merely an instantiation of a widespread modern trend which David Hume summarized when he described reason as “the slave of the passions.”

Michael Oakeshott’s Point of View

In contrast to both trends, Michael Oakeshott did not describe reason as either a conduit to certain truth or a slave of human passion. According to Shirley Robin Letwin, Oakeshott believed reason was “a purely human, but creative power.” Rationality, according to Oakeshott, “is a faculty for inventing interpretations of and responses to experience.”

Basically, reason is the human capacity to “make sense” of the world, to create order and make patterns out of otherwise unordered experience. “In this picture,” explained Letwin, “if a person’s faculties are in good order, he exercises his rationality in whatever he is doing because he is always interpreting his experience and responding in the manner that he selects. This means that whenever a man is aware of anything, he has made something of it.”

There is no single path that rationality may follow. A person may make sense of the same experience in any number of ways. For example, he may make sense of his trip to the fast food restaurant as a deserved reward after dieting for a lengthy time, or he may make sense of the trip as an unfortunate indulgence after a long time of resisting temptation. Which way a person makes sense of his experience is his choice. “In short, to say that a man is a rational being is to say that he makes of himself what he will and that things appear to him as he chooses to see them.”

When we see rationality this way, we see that all of human action and perception involves choice. “To say that human beings possess individuality,” explained Letwin, “means that all are the makers of their own thoughts, … and that they are responsible for what they become.” With this insight comes a danger, however. Letwin warns,

But if understanding rationality in this fashion (as a purely human attribute, instead of as a pipeline to non-human certainties) offers a better explanation of individuality, it also suffers from a great drawback: It allows no escape from the constant flux of human life. And the implications can be highly disconcerting. As there is no cosmic necessity for any human contrivance, everything can be questioned.

What this means is that none of our beliefs or truth claims can be indisputably justified through rational analysis. For example, said Letwin,

however firmly we assert that “every human being is to be treated as an end and never as a means,” that understanding must be a commitment because we accept it even though there are alternatives to it that we cannot demonstrate to be necessarily false. We can elaborate and embellish this commitment, but we cannot establish a universal and wholly uncontentious obligation to regard every human being as an end in himself.

In other words, our most cherished beliefs can never be demonstrated to be indubitably true; we can simply commit to them as an act of faith. We can certainly persuade others to do the same thing; we may even use logic and other persuasive tools to convince them to. However, any subsequent conversion is best compared to a voluntary shift in allegiance, because at no time did we prove that our beliefs were true—we only persuaded others to relinquish their commitment to their former beliefs and commit to a new point of view. According to Letwin, “science is as vulnerable as morality.” He continues:

If we accept a scientific explanation of the precipitation we call rain, we may confidently say that anyone who expects to produce precipitation by rolling stones is mistaken. Our awareness that we may later change our views on rain need not prevent us from declaring the statement to be true. But we cannot ultimately justify our view to the stone-rolling rainmaker other than by declaring a commitment to a particular manner of explaining such phenomena—the manner which we consider to be “scientific.”

In other words, certainty is no longer the product of reason; certainty must be found elsewhere, if at all. I suspect that certainty is not impossible from this point of view—it just cannot be rational certainty. Rational certainty is no more than conviction.

Summary

This view of human rationality makes individuality inevitable. While the ancient view of reason implied that rational people will converge on a single idea, Oakeshott’s perspective implies that divergence of worldviews is possibly inevitable among rational people. Letwin explains, “Disputes are bound to arise not just because human beings can be wicked [as in the ancient view of reason], but because they are rational. … In short, once we cease to think of human rationality as a pipeline to eternal verities, we can achieve a coherent understanding of human individuality.”

Does this point of view conflict with a Latter-day Saint worldview? I haven’t yet made up my mind about the issue. Many moralists argue in favor of the ancient view of reason because the implications of the modern view of reason can lead to nihilism. Oakeshott’s view of human reason, however, lacks the certainty provided by the ancient view, but may, perhaps, avoid the nihilism of the modern. Consider: few Latter-day Saints claim to know indubitably, through logical deductions, the restored doctrines of the gospel. That kind of logical pursuit is not the invitation we find in scripture. Rather, we are invited to commit ourselves to follow the Savior by making promises, and then to be true to those promises afterwards.

Certainly, we claim certainty through divine revelation. Consider Bruce R. McConkie’s claim that the divinity of the Savior Jesus Christ is not established through logic, but by apostolic witnesses. It doesn’t seem as though revealed truth is something that requires reason to be a conduit to certain truth, since none of the important truths of the gospel are rooted in the claims of reason. I will discuss more of the epistemological implications of Oakeshott’s point of view in a future post. For now, let’s consider the possibility that divine revelation is one of many kinds of experiences that we subsequently make sense of. Unique to the experience of divine revelation is the fact that it frequently invites us to reconstrue our understanding of the world, and to make sense of it differently than we had before.

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