Episode 334: Mormon Doctrine and Apologetics in Social Media with Aaron Shafovaloff Part Two

Summary

Apologetics Profile, Ep. 334 — "Mormon Doctrine and Apologetics in Social Media" with Aaron Shafovaloff (Part Two)

Release Date: March 23, 2026
Hosts: James Walker and Daniel Ray
Guest: Aaron Shafovaloff
Length: ~60 min

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Episode Overview

This episode deep dives into the evolving world of Mormon apologetics—especially as it unfolds on social media—focusing on the doctrinal debates between evangelical Christianity and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS). Guest Aaron Shafovaloff joins the hosts to explore key Mormon doctrines under scrutiny, such as biblical infallibility, the nature and plurality of God, grace and works, and the shifting landscape of LDS public theology and apologetics. Rich with references to history, scripture, and current events, the conversation analyzes not just what Mormons believe, but how those beliefs are debated, changed, and presented in today’s digital culture.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Sola Scriptura, Infallibility, and Biblical Authority (00:06–07:01)

• Opening Exchange: The episode sets the stage with Hayden Carroll, a Mormon social media creator, challenging Frank Turek on evangelical claims concerning Sola Scriptura and biblical infallibility:
  • "Humans are fallible, therefore anything we produce is fallible. So do you think we need an infallible source? Why do you posit that the authors of the Bible...could understand [and] interpret infallibly?...You're looking at...the text to prove the text right." – Hayden Carroll [00:06]
• Evangelical Position: The hosts clarify that Evangelicals see the Bible as infallible because the Holy Spirit guided its authors ("God-breathed"), not because of the authors’ individual perfection.
  • "What Hayden and other Latter Day Saints who argue against infallibility of the Bible miss is that the Holy Spirit guided fallible men to create and eventually codify an infallible, inerrant set of texts." – Host [13:49]
• The problem of circular reasoning and different approaches to authority highlight a persistent fault line in Protestant/LDS dialogue.

Notable Moment

• Analogy to astronauts:
  • "Replacing deceased apostles would be like NASA replacing deceased moonwalking astronauts...There will never be another set of New Testament apostles akin to the apostles whom Jesus hand selected." – Host [07:20]

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2. The Nature of God: LDS Plurality vs. Classical Monotheism (15:14–24:27)

• Aaron explains that many LDS apologists and philosophers grapple with the idea of God’s logical infallibility because of LDS teachings about God’s prior mortality ("God the Father was once a man").
  • "I don't think people realize this, but Latter Day Saint apologists and philosophers...don't believe that God himself is logically infallible." – Aaron Shafovaloff [15:35]
• Theogony in Mormonism: Debates about whether there is a "heavenly grandfather," the possible infinite regress of gods, and recent apologetic attempts to halt that regress at our Heavenly Father.
  • "In the dominant Latter Day Saint tradition, it's been gods who have fathers, who have fathers, who have fathers...gods have gods." – Aaron [18:46]
• Aaron references Blake Ostler, a leading LDS philosopher offering alternatives to traditional regress doctrines, showing the diversity and evolution within Mormon theology.

Memorable Quotes

• "The emotional worship idolatry question here is, what do you place? Where do you locate your sense of awe?" – Aaron Shafovaloff [18:14]
• "Recently, most [prominent Mormon apologists] argue the regression of deities actually terminates on our Heavenly Father...while we can become gods, Heavenly Father himself doesn’t have a God." – Aaron [18:56]

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3. Biblical Usage of “Gods” and Polytheism Accusations (24:09–36:17)

• Psalm 82 & 1 Corinthians 8: The podcast dissects key proof texts Mormons use to defend divine plurality.
  • "Elohim can sometimes refer to sons of God, and...angelic beings. What Psalm 82's use of Elohim does not mean is that other gods like Yahweh actually exist." – Host [21:19]
• Clarification that biblical references to “gods” point to idols, angels, or false deities, not co-equal divine beings.
• Analysis of Joseph Smith’s “Sermon in the Grove” and the Nauvoo Expositor incident, highlighting Smith’s defense and doubling down on the plurality of gods just before his death.
  • "In that sermon, Smith doubles down on his King Follet Discourse...stating clearly that he believed that Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are three distinct personages and three gods." – Host [28:26]

Notable Segment

• "Smith...interprets [1 Corinthians 8] to mean...there is a variety of other gods over other dominions, but there's only one that pertains to us. So Smith regionalizes...the dominion of God and allows for other gods over other dominions." – Aaron Shafovaloff [34:09]

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4. Grace, Works, Covenants, and Salvation—Shifts in LDS Soteriology (37:45–51:59)

• The hosts and Aaron compare the LDS doctrine of covenants (the need to keep commandments) to the unilateral grace of the Abrahamic covenant.
  • "In the Christian view, heaven is wholesale the presence of Heavenly Father and the Lord Jesus Christ...In the Latter Day Saint view, there are different heavens, different kingdoms, different degrees of glory..." – Aaron [51:59]
• Traces the history and evolution of how key LDS scriptures (2 Nephi 25:23—"We are saved by grace after all we can do") have been understood—from strictly merit-based (mid-20th century) to a more grace-oriented reading in recent decades.
  • "It looks like since the 90s and then really into full swing now...passage [2 Nephi 25:23] means that we’re saved by grace in spite of all that we can do." – Aaron [45:13]
• Discusses how the LDS mixture of justification and sanctification complicates communication with evangelicals.
  • "[LDS] position on salvation is an admixture of what we would call justification and sanctification. They've confused the two..." – Dr. Frank Turek [53:23]

Notable References

• Dan McClellan’s Study on shifting interpretations of 2 Nephi 25:23 [46:12]
• Moroni 8:25 cited as an example where Book of Mormon emphasizes fulfilling commandments for forgiveness [50:04]

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5. Language, Definitions, and the Difficulties of Dialogue (54:17–58:27)

• The challenges of interfaith discussion:
  • "We have different terms. I think we could also say we not only have a different dictionary, but we probably also have a different philosophy of whether the dictionary even matters." – Aaron Shafovaloff [54:17]
• Aaron underscores the fluidity and ambiguity in Mormon theological language: initial denials, then nuanced or equivocal answers in follow-up probing.
  • "The initial Latter Day Saint reflexive answer sometimes is more of a defense mechanism...if you probe, if you're patient, if you're not superficial, but you're more substantial...you'll find...maybe...he was a man who had yet to become a God." – Aaron [55:44]

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6. Practical Advice and Final Thoughts (58:36–59:09)

• For effective engagement with LDS friends:
  • "Be patient, be gracious...ask a few good questions, but be prepared for...ambiguity that comes up the more detailed you get into a discussion, especially the theological terminology..." – Dr. Frank Turek [57:54]
• Aaron recommends practical resources:
  • "I would stop listening to me and start listening to Bradley Campbell of GodLovesMormons.com..." – Aaron Shafovaloff [58:36]

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

| Timestamp | Speaker | Quote | |-----------|-------------------------|-------| | 00:06 | Hayden Carroll | “Do you accept Sola Scriptura?...Do the Scriptures need to be infallible? We don't believe the Book of Mormon is infallible either. Right...So how can a human write an infallible [book]?” | | 07:20 | Host | "Replacing deceased apostles would be like NASA replacing deceased moonwalking astronauts...There will never be another set of New Testament apostles akin to the apostles whom Jesus hand selected." | | 15:14 | Aaron Shafovaloff | "When you give up on inerrancy, you give up on grace. You need something infallibly good if you're going to be saved. You need to receive something you can bank on and trust." | | 18:34 | Aaron Shafovaloff | "Is [awe] in the infinite depth of God’s own rich being...In Latter Day Saint theology it's the infinite regress of gods, not God." | | 34:09 | Aaron Shafovaloff | "Smith regionalizes or relativizes...the dominion of God and allows for other gods over other dominions. And he essentially relativizes what should otherwise be absolute." | | 45:13 | Aaron Shafovaloff | "It looks like since the 90s...it looks like this new generation of Latter Day Saints...passage [2 Nephi 25:23] means we’re saved by grace in spite of all that we can do."| | 54:17 | Aaron Shafovaloff | "We probably also have a different philosophy of whether the dictionary even matters..." | | 57:54 | Dr. Frank Turek | "Be patient, be gracious...be prepared for the ambiguity that comes up the more detailed you get into a discussion..." | | 58:36 | Aaron Shafovaloff | "I would stop listening to me and start listening to Bradley Campbell of GodLovesMormons.com..." |

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Key Timestamps

• Sola Scriptura and Infallibility Debate: [00:06–07:01]
• Nature of God and LDS Infinite Regression: [15:14–24:27]
• Biblical “Gods” & Joseph Smith’s Plurality of Gods: [24:09–36:17]
• Covenants, Grace, and Salvation—Shifting LDS Teachings: [37:45–51:59]
• Differences in Language and Communication Difficulties: [54:17–58:27]
• Practical Resources & Closing Thoughts: [58:36–59:09]

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Summary for New Listeners

This episode provides a nuanced and well-documented examination of the doctrinal divides and evolving apologetics between evangelical Christians and Latter-day Saints. Through historical analysis, scriptural debate, and firsthand examples from social media, it exposes both the entrenched issues and changing narratives within Mormonism, offering thoughtful strategies and resources for deeper, more patient, and more productive interfaith conversations.

Transcript

[Podcast Host / Narrator]

You're listening to Apologetics Profile.

[Hayden Carroll]

I'm a Latter Day Saint, also known as a Mormon, and one of the things that prevents me from being an Evangelical Protestant Christian is the tradition of Sola Scriptura. Do you accept Sola Scriptura? Would you agree with Sola Scriptura being the that The Bible, the 66 books of the Protestant canon, are the sole infallible rule of faith and practice for Christians? The question more so goes around the idea of the Scriptures being infallible. Do you take that stance? Do you posit that as a theological claim? Or do you have evidence for that? Or Jesus said that the New Testament would be infallible. Is that your position? Does Christ ever say the Scriptures are infallible? I'm hung up on this infallible. Do the Scriptures need to be infallible? We don't believe the Book of Mormon is infallible either. Right, we don't. The standard default position is that humans are fallible, therefore anything we produce is fallible. So do you think we need an infallible source? Why do you posit that the authors of the Bible, most of them anonymous, could understand interpret infallibly? I'm not saying it's not correct. I'm saying because fallible would be possible of error. But your your position would be they are not possible of error. But you also are pointing to the text to prove the text right. You're looking at so do you accept that circular reasoning? So you're saying every line in the Bible is infallible. That's just while also saying that humans are fallible. So how can a human write an infallible.

[Podcast Host / Narrator]

That was Latter Day Saint and social media content creator Hayden Carroll during a question and answer session with Christian Author and apologist Dr. Frank Turek of crossexamined.org the event took place at Arizona State University on September 9, 2024. Cross examined posted a video of the brief exchange between Hayden and Frank Sometime in early 2025. That video engendered a lot of reaction from Latter Day Saint apologists on social media, including Hayden himself, who posted a short review of the interaction. Addressing Frank Turek directly at the end of his video, Hayden concluded that Frank does not understand the Jesus of the Bible.

[Hayden Carroll]

The reality is that you are the one who does not understand the Jesus of the New Testament. The entire lens you view the Bible through is corrupted by false traditions, which jade your entire perception of of what the Bible really teaches and how it relates to the Church of Jesus Christ

[Aaron Shafawalaf]

of Latter Day Saints.

[Podcast Host / Narrator]

During their exchange, Frank told Hayden that Jesus affirmed the Old Testament.

[Aaron Shafawalaf]

Jesus said the Old Testament is the word of God and he promised the New Testament. And I just have a personal policy.

[Dr. Frank Turek]

Hayden. If somebody predicts and accomplishes his own

[Aaron Shafawalaf]

resurrection from the dead, I just trust whatever the guy says.

[Podcast Host / Narrator]

Another popular Mormon social media platform called Ward Radio also reviewed Hayden interaction with Frank. In this next clip, you'll hear one of the hosts of Ward Radio, Jonah Barnes, criticizing Frank's statement regarding Jesus affirmation of the Old Testament.

[Jonah Barnes]

Well, Jesus Christ, you know, said that the Old Testament was scripture and you know, if he rose from the grave, I'm gonna trust him. Woo. Gets cheers from the crowd like, wait a minute, sorry. Jesus Christ had no concept of the Old Testament that we have today. What in the holy heck are you talking about? So where did, where did Jesus Christ say the 1611 edition of the King James Old Testament is infallible? That is such an insane claim. That is so ridiculous. Jesus Christ said, you know, you search the scriptures because in them you think you have eternal life. The Old Testament in, in, in 30 A.D. i hate when they do this. They prey upon the ignorance of their parishioners. He knows this is a lie. He knows this is BS. There was no Old Testament in 30 A.D. there was no Old Testament. 30 A.D. there was NO New Testament in 30 A.D. it wasn't called Old Testament. There was the Ketuvim. There was the, the Tanakh. There was, you know, the Torah. Okay, you could kind of talk about those things which Jesus Christ doesn't. He doesn't. Okay, like. And so this guy, he acts like the Old Testament didn't even exist. He's counting on his listeners being ignorant.

[Podcast Host / Narrator]

Contrary to Mr. Barnes assertions, the Old Testament did exist in Jesus Day. It was called the Tanakh, which is the original Jewish name for the Hebrew Bible. The Tanakh of Jesus Day also contained all the 39 books we have in the Old Testament today, though they were arranged slightly differently. The Tanakh was divided into three main sections called the Torah or Law, the Neviim, the Prophets and the Ketuvim, the writings. And contrary to Mr. Barnes claims, once again, Jesus did talk about them. One very clear example of Jesus speaking of the Tanakh is found in Luke 24, verse 44, where Jesus said to his disciples, these are my words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all the things which are written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled. The Torah, the Nevaim, and the Ketuvim. To be fair to Latter Day Saints. Ward Radio does not finely represent what all Mormons believe, nor is the edgy style of ward radio representative of most Latter Day Saints you'd meet in person. Ward radio is, however, one example of the growing phenomena of Latter Day Saint apologists in social media. Some LDS content creators like Ward Radio are a little bit more edgy and aggressive when engaging with their critics, and other LDS apologists take a more peaceable approach, sometimes even civilly engaging in interviews and debates with evangelical Christians. We highlighted Hayden's questions about inerrancy and infallibility this week because they are one of the more prominent hot button topics for Latter Day Saint apologists who critique Protestant evangelical beliefs. How might you answer the questions that Hayden asked.

[Dr. Frank Turek]

As One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind

[Podcast Host / Narrator]

that was Neil Armstrong speaking from the moon on July 20, 1969, as he took the very first and very famous one small step onto the lunar surface. A small step for Neil, a giant leap for mankind. There will never be another Neil Armstrong. The historical event of the first human being to set foot into the moon's silvery powder will never be repeated. Neil Armstrong passed away on 8-25-20. But imagine for a moment NASA at a press conference declaring that they intend to fill the vacancy left behind by Neil's passing. They announced that they will be selecting another living astronaut to become the first man to walk on the moon. Most of us would likely think that NASA officials had lost their minds if they said anything like that, because you simply cannot replace Neil Armstrong with another living astronaut. Apollo 11's historic mission was a first for human space exploration. It remains an unrepeatable once in a lifetime event, and by the end of 1972, 11 other human beings would follow in Armstrong's footsteps. Only 12 men in all of human history have ever set foot on another world. NASA cannot systematically replace these astronauts with other astronauts. The original 12 Apollo moonwalking astronauts will forever remain one of a kind. Now you might be asking, what does any of this have to do with the Bible's infallibility and inerrancy? Well, first consider Jesus words to Peter in Matthew 16:18 and I also say to you that you are Peter and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades shall not overpower it. Neil Armstrong was the first to walk on the moon, but Peter walked with the one who made the moon. Peter would also become the first living rock or stone, the first one through whom Jesus as the chief cornerstone would begin to build his church. Just as there will never be another Neil Armstrong or another first human being to set foot on the lunar surface. There will never be another Peter, and there will never be another origin of Jesus church on Earth. And just as there will never be another set of 12 original moonwalking astronauts, there will never be another set of New Testament apostles. With the exception of Judas. The original twelve disciples became the Church's foundational stones, the twelve apostles whose names will be inscribed upon the twelve foundation stones of the New Jerusalem see Revelation 21:14. So there will never be another New Testament apostle akin to the apostles whom Jesus hand selected and endowed with his authority. There will Never be a 13th foundational stone added to the new Jerusalem once the first apostles died. With the exception of Matthias replacing Judas, the early church did not replace the original apostles. Replacing deceased apostles would be like NASA replacing deceased moonwalking astronauts with astronauts who never walked on the moon. The first apostles saw and interacted with the risen Jesus. They received their authority from Jesus himself, and the early church recognized and understood the apostolic authority and how they preserved and protected what Jesus passed along to them. It is likely that during the lifetimes of the apostles, the Gospel accounts and epistles that make up the New Testament today were written and circulated through the growing church. While liberal biblical scholarship often tends to date the writings of the New Testament much later, there is good evidence, internal evidence, that the entire Corpus of the 27 books of the New Testament we have today were all completed by 70 A.D. none of the books of the New Testament, for example, mention the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. there is no mention of Emperor Nero's persecution that began in 64 AD in any of the 27 books. The apostle Paul was martyred under Nero's persecution, but was still alive when Luke wrote the Book of Acts. Acts therefore had to be written before Paul died. Paul even quotes Luke as scripture in 1 Timothy 5, 18. And Peter is believed to have been martyred under Nero as well, so his epistles would have had to have been written before then. Mark's account is believed to be the first of the four Gospel accounts and is believed to have come from Peter himself. If Luke was written before Paul's death, then Mark's account must have been completed even earlier. All of this to say the inerrancy and infallibility of the Bible. Both the Old and New Testaments came through the authority of Jesus himself, who attested to the veracity and authority of the Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible, and bestowed authority to his chosen apostles, giving them the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth. And it was through the agency of the Holy Spirit that both the authors of the New Testament books and the original apostles themselves created and authenticated the 27 books of the New Testament were we have today. What Hayden and other Latter Day Saints who argue against infallibility of the Bible Ms. Is that the Holy Spirit guided fallible men to create and eventually codify an infallible, inerrant set of texts. Most Latter Day Saints simply find it impossible that fallible men could author infallible texts. But this is to completely dismiss the agency of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth whom Jesus told his disciples would guide them in all truth and bring to mind the things Jesus said and did see John 16:13. In summary, the Spirit of Truth the Holy Spirit is incapable of error when guiding us into all truth. He will not guide us into error because he cannot guide us into error. Therefore, under the God breathed authority and inspiration of the Spirit of Truth, the authors of the New Testament wrote infallible inerrant documents. Scripture is thus true and without error, not because Scripture says it is without error, but because the triune Godhead of Father, Son and Holy Spirit have inspired and authenticated it, guiding its human authors into all truth. Jesus himself declares that he is the Way, the Truth and the life. There is no higher authority. There is no more fundamental source of truth than Jesus himself. But the Apostle Paul reminds us that natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are not spiritually discerned. See First Corinthians 2:14. So finally, there is no greater witness. There is no higher authority, no more secure or everlasting source of truth than the triune Godhead of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God cannot, will not, and does not lie to us or lead us into error. As the Lord says in Psalm 89 Once I have sworn by my holiness, I will not lie to David. His descendants shall endure forever and his throne as the sun before me. It shall be established forever like the moon and the witness in the sky is faithful. Here once again is Aaron Shafawalaf.

[Aaron Shafawalaf]

When you give up on inerrancy, you give up on grace. You need something infallibly good if you're going to be saved. You need to receive something that you can bank on and trust. You need the grace that comes from pure power and truth.

[Podcast Host / Narrator]

Yeah.

[Aaron Shafawalaf]

So if you have nothing ultimately to stand on, then grace will not be a final fruit of the path you're going down. The other thing too, is. I don't think people realize this, but Latter Day Saint apologists and philosophers typically don't believe that God himself is logically infallible. I should unpack that for just first couple sentences.

[Dr. Frank Turek]

Because Heavenly Father was once a man like we were. Yeah.

[Aaron Shafawalaf]

Well, it requires a little bit of unpacking.

[Podcast Host / Narrator]

Yeah.

[Aaron Shafawalaf]

There are a variety of Latter Day Saint views on the history of God. Theogony, God's origin story, was he. So the idea in Latter Day Saint history is that God the Father experienced a mortality. So the question is, was he a redemptive savior in his own mortality? Was he a sinless mortal but not a redemptive figure? Or was he more like us, perhaps? Was he more generally like us, but not exactly like the sun? And so there's a question of how some of the kingfellet discourse phrases are to be construed. So that's a big debate even within the Latter Day Saint community. There's are. There's a variety of positions, and there's even a variety of positions on what is even official or if. If there is even an official doctrine on it. Well, modern Latter Day Saint apologists typically argue that there is no heavenly grandfather. Now, that's a change, because after the death of Joseph Smith, with perhaps one notable exception, but essentially from pioneer Mormonism onward, Latter Day Saint prophets and apostles who spoke to the issue affirmed an

[Dr. Frank Turek]

ascending recursive, an infinite regress in the philosophical links.

[Aaron Shafawalaf]

Deities. Yeah. At least a regress, if not an infinite regress, at least that there's a heavenly grandfather.

[Dr. Frank Turek]

Well, they were thinking about this at least when W.W. phelps wrote high unto Kolob. One of the verses says, can we begin to contemplate where gods began? The gods began to be.

[Aaron Shafawalaf]

And I think that that phrase in that hymn at least functioned in Latter Day Saint discourse to perpetuate the regress of deities constantly and to sort of

[Dr. Frank Turek]

put it out of the epistemic reach of human beings. It's just something about God that we don't understand.

[Podcast Host / Narrator]

Let's just sing about it.

[Aaron Shafawalaf]

And that's an interesting point because they're singing in awe of the fact that it's incomprehensibly big.

[Hayden Carroll]

Wow.

[Aaron Shafawalaf]

But what they're not celebrating in that case is that God himself is the incomprehensibly transcendent big God. They're really celebrating a reality that is bigger than God himself. So the emotional worship idolatry question here is, what do you place? Where do you locate your sense of awe?

[Dr. Frank Turek]

Yeah.

[Aaron Shafawalaf]

Is it in the infinite depth of God's own rich being.

[Dr. Frank Turek]

In Anselm's words, the greatest conceivable being in Latter Day Saint theology is the infinite regress of gods, not God.

[Aaron Shafawalaf]

In the dominant Latter Day Saint tradition, it's been gods who have fathers, who have fathers, who have fathers. And I mean spirit fathers or gods have. Gods have gods. Recently, in the Latter Day Saint apologetic space, there are exceptions to this. But recently, most of the ones that are prominent argue that the regress lineage of deities actually terminates on our Heavenly Father, that we really got lucky. Our Heavenly Father is the first Heavenly Father and that while we can become gods, Heavenly Father himself doesn't have a God. Now, there's a really strange twist on that because they still have to answer the question of what God was Heavenly Father submitting to in his mortality. And probably the most prominent influential philosopher in that space, he posits that, and I'm not making this up, this is in Blake Osler's works, he argues that when Heavenly Father became mortal, there was another deity that filled in for him temporarily. So one of the subordinate deities to Heavenly Father became a temporary relational superior that Heavenly Father worshiped. And then. And then that. That inferiority, superiority, relational positioning then flipped back once Heavenly Father resurrected and ascended.

[Dr. Frank Turek]

So you have, though, a problem that you've run into many times in the 20 years you've talked to Latter Day Saints, I'm sure, and Mormon research ministries here. Same thing. The question always comes up or the issue always comes up. If you quote somebody that's saying something that is unusual or strange or no longer adhered to, if you quote an authority, past authority in the Church, council of the 70, quorum of the 12, the office of the first president, if somebody said something even 10 years ago, well, that's not really what we believe, or that's not really the church's official doctrine. That comes up a lot. You mentioned Blake. Yeah, even Jacob Hansen or anybody that you want to refer to, if you put the onus on that person for saying that thing, the exception clause is invoked like a draw for an uno.

[Aaron Shafawalaf]

Yeah, yeah. Hansen himself is very much influenced by Osler. He actually talks about how he felt very uncomfortable with the regress of deities idea, and he took great comfort and relief in finding out that Blake was offering an alternative position.

[Podcast Host / Narrator]

Latter Day Saints often cite Psalm 82 in support of their belief in a multiplicity of gods. Consider, for example, verse one where we read, quote, God takes his stand in the congregation of the divine among the gods he judges. That is a literal English rendering. Of the Hebrew. The word for gods used in this verse is Elohim, which is the very same word used for God himself. Now, Mormons are quick to point this out, claiming that other gods do in fact exist. But Elohim can sometimes refer to sons of God, and in the Hebrew this appears as the phrase Bene Elohim. This use of Elohim is traditionally understood as another way to refer to angelic beings. See job 38, 7, where we see the sons of God rejoicing with God at the creation of the world. Elohim can also mean simply judges, which is likely the intended meaning of Psalm 82. What Psalm 82's use of Elohim does not mean is that other gods like Yahweh actually exist. There are a number of verses throughout the Bible which state plainly that no other gods like Yahweh exist. Mormons will typically claim that the exclusivity of Yahweh proclaimed in these verses is merely referring to the supremacy of Yahweh among a pantheon of gods that are like Yahweh, not that Yahweh is exclusively the only God who exists. But the problem for Mormons in trying to interpret verses like Deuteronomy 4:35, 39, or Isaiah 43:1011 or Isaiah 44:6, 8 or Isaiah 45:21, just to name a few, is that in both the Old and New Testaments, there is nothing good ever said about these other alleged gods. The commandments, for example, forbid us to have other gods. See Exodus 23 and Deuteronomy 5:7. Israel would provoke God with their sacrifices to demons that were not gods. See Deuteronomy 32:16, 17. The apostle Paul was grieved by the multiplicity of Athenian gods he saw in the marketplace. And Paul reminded the Galatians that before they became followers of Christ, they were enslaved to gods that were not in fact gods. So if Latter Day Saints wish to advocate for the existence of a multiplicity of divine beings, they must also address the question of why these so called gods mentioned in the Bible are never favorably portrayed. Why would Latter Day Saints then wish to aspire to something that not only grieves God, but is expressly forbidden by God. It is an age old temptation common to every human being who has ever lived. You shall be like God, knowing good and evil. See Genesis 3, verse 5.

[Aaron Shafawalaf]

So some of these guys have sort of like. They're almost like testimonies or stories of how much Blake rescued them from having to believe what their own prophets and apostles had taught.

[Podcast Host / Narrator]

Wow.

[Aaron Shafawalaf]

So the only reason I know there's

[Dr. Frank Turek]

this situation where like, it's like Bart Ehrman with atheism. Bart's my hero. He pulled me out of Christianity with his textual criticism kind of thing.

[Aaron Shafawalaf]

In a sense, Blake is kind of. Blake Ostler is sort of like the rescuer for modern Mormon apologists. It's not that the typical Latter Day Saint even knows who Blake Ostler is, but the modern Mormon apologist finds a kind of comfort and relief in getting permission from Blake intellectually not to have to affirm what their own prophets and apostles have traditionally and dominantly taught. So the reason I bring that up, though, is, and really the only reason I'm quoting Osler here is that we only got here because of Osler. Osler is the one who has influenced people to re interpret the Kingfollet discourse, reinterpret the sermon in the Grove. And I shouldn't push too hard in all directions because Blake, I think, is operating off of a quasi Protestant impulse. And he, in his book, he uses many of the same passages that evangelicals use, like Psalm 90, verse 2, from everlasting to everlasting. You are God. Blake even at one point appeals to Morona 8, 18. It goes on to say, God is unchangeable from all eternity to all eternity. And Blake even appeals to those passages to argue that it's that we should believe that Heavenly Father was unchangeably God, at least up until his condescension. And so. But there's this impulse there that God would not be. I think some Latter Day Saints have a quasi evangelical impulse that's just to say here they have a conscience that's. That's not as completely asleep. And they know that if there is a heavenly grandfather and a heavenly great grandfather and an ascending recursive lineage of gods, what a form of polytheism if there ever was one. I know there's different forms of polytheism.

[Dr. Frank Turek]

I've heard one individual on Facebook who's part of the holy rebellion, talking about henotheism as if Latter Day Saint theology was henotheistic. That means basically, as you know, there is a God, a high God, a God that we pick, but there's a pantheon. But we exalt this one God out of the pantheon.

[Aaron Shafawalaf]

Yeah, there's some semantic category shifting going on there. They'll say, well, the Old Testament affirms the existence of other gods, but they're really not doing the upfront rhetorical work of defining how much of a semantic range.

[Dr. Frank Turek]

Well, they love to quote 1st Corinthians 8, 5 and 6 where Paul's like talking about idolatry. And Paul says, well, there are many lords and many gods, but they omit

[Podcast Host / Narrator]

the verse before it.

[Dr. Frank Turek]

Well, Paul's calling them so called gods because there's not really any idols. There's not really any gods. But you have to they never contextualize that with Paul's sermon on Mars Hill where he's grieved by the idea of other gods.

[Podcast Host / Narrator]

It's not something he celebrates.

[Aaron Shafawalaf]

Yeah, it's a great passage to bring up in the Sermon in the Grove, and I am hopeful that that will enter into the evangelical LDS discourse. More the kingfollet Discourse was given in April. The Nauvoo Expositor was destroyed two months later, in June and just some days later, Smith responded to the Nava Expositor with the Sermon in the Grove.

[Podcast Host / Narrator]

A brief background on the Sermon in the Grove the Nauvoo Expositor is a paper created by former members of Smith's fledgling church, and they publish their grievances against Smith. On June 7, 1844, historian Robert B. Flanders, in his 1966 book Nauvoo Kingdom on the Mississippi, briefly describes how and why the Nauvoo Expositor came to be. Conflict over the issues of plurality of wives and other altruist doctrines, including plurality of gods, had grown within the circle of Mormon leaders until an open break occurred in the spring of 1844. A number of prominent men withdrew and formed their own Reformed church. They were led by William Law, a member of the first presidency since 1841 Wilson Law, a brigadier general in the Legion Austin Cowles, a member of the Nauvoo High Council James Blakesley, a prominent 70, and Robert D. Foster, Chauncey Higbee, and Charles Ivins, prominent businessmen. They resolved to publish their views and to expose the secret and abominable teachings of the Mormon hierarchy in an opposition newspaper to be named the Nauvoo Expositor. On June 7, they issued the first and only edition of their paper. Joseph Smith, as mayor of Nauvoo, ordered the press to be destroyed on June 10. The order was carried out on June 16 of 1844, just six days after the Nauvoo Expositor had been destroyed. Joseph Smith delivers his last public discourse, his Sermon in the Grove, defending himself against his critics and the charge that he taught a plurality of gods. In that sermon, Smith doubles down on his King Follet Discourse he gave at the April 1844 General Conference, stating clearly that he believed that Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are three distinct personages and three gods, end quote. Smith went on to affirm his conviction of this plurality of God's by twisting the Apostle Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 8, 5, 6, where Paul appears to affirm the existence of many gods. But this is not what Paul is actually saying. In Galatians 4, 8, for example, Paul reminds the Galatians that before becoming followers of Christ, they were enslaved to gods who were not actually gods at all. And in Acts 17:16, Paul was grieved by the idolatry of false gods of the Athenians saw in the marketplace. In 1 Corinthians 8, Paul then is not affirming the actual existence of other divine beings like Yahweh, but he is actually acknowledging the idolatrous reverence pagans had for so called gods. Deuteronomy 32:17, for example, says that Israel often sacrificed to demons who were not God, to gods whom they have not known, new gods who came lately whom your fathers did not know. Smith, however, uses 1 Corinthians 8 to affirm his polytheistic theology. But if Joseph says there are gods many and lords many, they cry, away with him. Crucify him. Crucify him. Paul, if Joseph Smith is a blasphemer, you are. I say there are gods many and lords many, but to us only one. And we are to be in subjection to that one. And no one can limit the bounds or the eternal existence of eternal time. Nine days after the Sermon in the Grove on June 25, Smith and his brother Hyrum are arrested and jailed in Carthage, Illinois. Two days later, on June 27, a mob attacks the jail and kills both Joseph and Hyrum in a gun battle.

[Aaron Shafawalaf]

The Nauvoo Expositor complained that Joseph Smith taught innumerable ascending gods above Heavenly Father. And the sermon in the Grove, responding to his critics, argues, there's so much to say, but I'll go straight to your, your passage. In First Corinthians 8, Paul says, For the God, Lord's many and God's many, but for us there is one God. Now, if you just zoom out to the, the immediate context, you'll see, oh, he's talking about pagan deities who aren't like God. Um, it's not that they're also creators, but over other jurisdictions, uh, Paul even. He even says of God that he alone is the Creator. And then there's these prepositions that Paul uses to make God look glorious. So there's from whom, through whom, to whom. In Romans 11. For from him and through him, and to him are all things. And forgive me if I get the

[Podcast Host / Narrator]

details wrong here, but in first it's from God.

[Dr. Frank Turek]

All things are from God, and then all things are through Christ. In, in that.

[Aaron Shafawalaf]

Yeah, in. In. In Colossians 1, everything's from him, by him and for him. And then first Corinthians 8, if I. It, maybe you can fill it in for me. But he. He taps into yet more prepositions that God has created all things, like you said, through Christ. So these, these prepositions as applied as used, are uniquely suitable to God. And God. I'm sorry, yeah. God who creates is the one who creates through Christ. And so Paul is applying prepositions that are uniquely appropriate to God.

[Dr. Frank Turek]

Yeah, he says Christ, he says verse four of chapter eight. He says, we know that there is no such thing as an idol in the world, and there is no God but one, even if there are so called gods, whether in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many lords. But again, keeping in mind what Paul thought of gods in Acts 17, yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things, and we exist for him, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him.

[Aaron Shafawalaf]

So that is. That's fuel for worship, by the way. That's awesome. But in Paul's mind, that's true of God through Christ, not true of these other gods. And so when he, He, He. If you think he's dignifying these other beings as gods, well, it's not a proper dignity. It's sort of like a. It's, it's a relative dignity. I mean, they might be angelic, they might be demonic, they might be other kinds of creatures that are extraordinary and heavenly, but they're not. Like, when Paul taps back into the singular one God, he assigns a different kind of category to that, and he assigns certain kinds of unique divine activity to that sort of. Finish it out in the sermon in the Grove, Joseph Smith zeroes in on that text because he knows that this is a key text for this issue. And Joseph Smith interprets it to mean that when Paul says there is one God for us, he means there is a variety of other gods over other dominions, but there's only one that pertains to us. So Smith regionalizes or relativizes or circumscribes the dominion of God and allows for other gods over other dominions. And he essentially relativizes what should otherwise be absolute. So he's he's twisting the passage to allow for arguably a. An ascending, recursive, backwards lineage of gods, an infinite regress of other gods who have gods, who have gods who have gods.

[Dr. Frank Turek]

Now, this is just before he went to Carthage, right?

[Aaron Shafawalaf]

Correct. This is his final major sermon on theology proper. And we are utterly wrong to say king. The king, like Jacob Hansen claimed, I think back in December he said that the King Fell Discourse was Joseph Smith's last discourse on the subject. Utterly false, very misleading, not helpful. The Sermon in the Grove is where Smith doubles down on these notions.

[Dr. Frank Turek]

And we should be clear to listeners who are kind of unfamiliar with what we're talking about. The. The Nauvoo Expositor only printed one paper because Smith and company went. I don't know if they dressed up or whatever they did. They actually went in and destroyed the paper because of what the paper was printing about Joseph Smith. And this is why he landed in Carthage, the jail for a trial to see if there was disorderly conduct or whatever. But the Nauvoo Expositor lived up to its name and exposed what Joseph Smith was doing at the time.

[Podcast Host / Narrator]

And the mob that rushed the jail,

[Dr. Frank Turek]

I mean, you cannot long flirt or engage with or, you know, approach or abscond with other men's wives before you're going to have a mob coming after you, in a sense.

[Aaron Shafawalaf]

Bradley Campbell, if my listeners are interested to learn more. Bradley Campbell runs GodLovesMormons.com and he has a whole video on the Nova Expositor. It's extraordinary. It's a great video. He researched the heck out of it. He did a great job on it. Highly recommend it. I don't know if Smith himself was a part of the mob, but he was a part of the council that approved and pushed for.

[Dr. Frank Turek]

So that's like, it's kind of like Brigham in the Mountain Meadows. We don't really know.

[Aaron Shafawalaf]

Well, we just, we do know from minutes, we didn't know from the minutes of the, the councils that he was in, that he was, he authorized pushing for authorizing. He was, he was in charge in multiple ways.

[Dr. Frank Turek]

But we don't know if he was there that night.

[Aaron Shafawalaf]

I think we know he wasn't there

[Dr. Frank Turek]

as we're kind of coming to the end here. I wanted to talk about briefly, you hear this all the time, Latter Day Saints talking about, especially missionaries, keeping the commandments, keeping our commandments, promises to God that they, they look at commandments, covenants, they make a covenant with God. And that covenant is, I'm going to do my best to Keep the covenant. This is the kind of speech you get on your front porch from a Latter Day Saint, a well meaning Latter Day Saint missionary. We're going to keep covenants. We keep covenants. That's what we are supposed to do. I had an engagement with a young man on Facebook a couple of weeks ago about this very issue of covenants. And I went back to Genesis chapter 15 and I asked him what his knowledge was about the Abrahamic covenant and what was unique about it. And I explained to him and he seemed to take no interest in the explanation or had any kind of follow up to it. But I said, you know what a covenant was? Susarian treatise that the king of the ancient near east would make a covenant, a contract we might call it in the modern world with his vassals, with a subjected people that he conquered, or his own people. He promised to do X and the people would promise to do Y. And if one side or the other broke the covenant, usually the penalty was death for that kind of covenant breaking. But the covenant in Genesis chapter 15 is along these lines. But the stunning reality of it is, is that God takes the place of both sides of the covenant. In other words, the covenant is not contingent upon how well Abraham can behave. This is a royal decree that is fulfilled by God himself. He takes the side of the covenant breaking people and he takes the kingship. And he makes a covenant between himself for Abraham and his descendants. And that's why he can promise Abraham In Genesis 15:5, your descendants will be like the stars. Count the stars if you're able. So this idea that this is embedded in Mormon theology to where salvation, when they talk about salvation is contingent upon their ability to keep covenants, to do all they can do. God's grace will come after all they can do. Until they renounce all ungodliness, will they get the grace of God? So have you noticed when you talk to LDS that this behavioral contingent upon trying to keep a covenant with God? And I find in my conversations with them, when you get honest about, well, how's your covenant keeping coming, they will routinely say that they're not living up to knowing what they should be. Well, if that's the case, then you

[Podcast Host / Narrator]

can't receive grace according to your own

[Dr. Frank Turek]

scriptures because you haven't yet done all that you can do. You haven't yet.

[Podcast Host / Narrator]

So I think there's that, that tension there and the salvation and the covenant

[Dr. Frank Turek]

keeping, it's all kind of a salvation in the LDS Church.

[Podcast Host / Narrator]

They're under a lot of pressure to behave and to perform and to do

[Dr. Frank Turek]

rituals and duties and things in order to try to earn God's favor.

[Aaron Shafawalaf]

To some extent, I think that's essentially true, though I would try to help my evangelical friends shift some of the rhetoric and I'll give you some background. I do think that because of this bilateral obedience, contract view of covenants, namely that there's some arrangement where we covenant with God to keep all the commandments. And our success in keeping all the commandments is what our exaltation is predicated on. Are we keeping celestial law? Then we can be celestially exalted? Are we on the covenant path? Are we fulfilling the commandments? Are we qualifying? Are we worthy of it? There's like a dozen different rhetorical ways Latter Day Saints talk about this. And it was extremely clear in pioneer Mormonism and into the 1900s, it was extremely clear. And Mormons were extremely proud that their theology was of merit system. They called it that. That's not my.

[Dr. Frank Turek]

Yeah, they.

[Aaron Shafawalaf]

They proudly celebrated it as a merit system. And this even, you know, this rhetorically, even amped up in the anti communism era of Ezra Taft Benson, where he taps into the economic metaphors of capitalism and hard work, and that even cranks up even more that this is a merit. So Ezra Taft Benson, Spencer W. Kimball probably represents the height of perfectionism in Latter Day Saint rhetoric.

[Dr. Frank Turek]

Miracle of forgiveness.

[Aaron Shafawalaf]

Yes. He. He essentially argues that you can't be forgiven for a sinful habit until you've successfully and permanently purged yourself of it.

[Dr. Frank Turek]

Engaging with the mastery of self will, being the master of your own destiny. I was just reading through that recently where he sounds more like Albert Camus or some existentialist than he does a theologian.

[Aaron Shafawalaf]

A lot of Latter Day Saints think that the book is problematic for its tone, but I don't think they're thinking clearly about the system that he calls Paul in Ephesians.

[Dr. Frank Turek]

The doctor that the. The by grace you have been saved through faith and not of yourselves. It is a gift lest anyone should boast.

[Podcast Host / Narrator]

He calls that a doctrine of Satan.

[Aaron Shafawalaf]

I think he calls the doctrine of grace alone.

[Dr. Frank Turek]

Yeah.

[Aaron Shafawalaf]

Of Satan.

[Dr. Frank Turek]

Yeah.

[Aaron Shafawalaf]

So for Kemp, Kimball brings that to peak. And then that's was it that the 70s. And that's a book that was given to a lot of people on the other end of the desk in an interview with their bishop. So if you're confessing your sins to your getting counsel from your bishop, that is a book that a bishop would have a stack of copies of and that that became pervasively influential in LDS culture and that's part of why Christians who are reaching Latter Day Saints for with the Gospel of grace we use the miracle forgiveness in the 80s and 90s and early 2000s a whole lot. Eric Johnson still does. Another passage that we used that functioned as a summary one liner for how Latter Day Saints thought about this system of of covenant, keeping unto forgiveness and final exaltation was second Nephi 2523 which says we're saved by grace after all we can do. I think the earlier version says after all that we can do or something like that. So a little twist here that I would love to a little correction that I'm helpful caution to my to my evangelical friends. That passage really wasn't used in Latter Day Saint teaching to push a works based theology until the late 1950s.

[Dr. Frank Turek]

Okay, interesting. I didn't know that.

[Aaron Shafawalaf]

And it became a it even became a passage used by Latter Day Saints to distinguish themselves from evangelicals.

[Dr. Frank Turek]

What was the catalyst for that change?

[Aaron Shafawalaf]

I don't know. I've traced the beginning. I don't know the cause. But it really it entered into common Latter Day Saint interpretation and they would couple it with Morena 1032 so here's my caution. It looks like since the 90s and then really into full swing now in the 2000s, 2000s especially, it looks like this new generation of Latter Day Saints, they don't use that passage in the same way. In fact, the BYU professors who were influential since the 1990s have essentially convinced LDS leadership that that passage means that we're saved by grace in spite of all that we can do. So we can quibble about what we think the verse originally meant in 1830. That's another question. But what it meant to Latter Day saints from the 1950s to the 1990s is no longer the case in 2026.

[Podcast Host / Narrator]

In 2020, latter day saint and biblical scholar Dan McClellan wrote a 19 page article on the issue of how the meaning of 2 Nephi 2523 has changed for Latter Day Saints over the last several decades. 2nd Nephi 2523 reads for we labor diligently to write, to persuade our children and also our brethren to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God. For we know that it is by grace that we are saved after all we can do from this verse alone, it seems that grace comes to us only after all we can do. And for years this is precisely how the LDS Church has understood and interpreted this verse. As McClellan points out in his article, this traditional reading has long been employed for the rhetorical purpose of exhorting members of the church to give their all to Christ, and no less salient, it has become a central identity marker for our community. But a side effect has been the socio cultural embedding of an inaccessible soteriology, something with which many members of the church have struggled, particularly the youth. McClellan then cites the LDS Bible Dictionary, which can be found online. Grace, the definition says, cannot suffice without total effort on the part of the recipient. Hence the explanation it is by grace that we are saved. After all we can do, end quote. So McClellan is correct when he notes, quote if all we can do is the prerequisite for grace, no one will ever receive it. Recognizing this impossibility is what McClellan argues constituted a recent shift in how 2 Nephi 2523 is understood by Mormons today. McClellan's article offers an in depth analysis of the language and idioms of Joseph Smith's time and place in an attempt to determine what 2 Nephi 2523 is allegedly really saying. But studying the late 18th and early 19th century idioms and the linguistic and rhetorical styles of American to understand what 2 Nephi 2523 really means would be like studying the nuances of modern 21st century English. To understand the meaning of ancient Hebrew or Greek words, you don't need an English lexicon like the Oxford English Dictionary, you would need a Hebrew or Greek dictionary. So to know what 2 Nephi 2523 really means, we would need to study a reformed Egyptian lexicon and understand the culture and times in which the reformed Egyptian was written. But no such lexicons exist, and neither do the original gold plates upon which the alleged reformed Egyptian was first inscribed. McClellan goes on to cite the Oxford English Dictionary to make his case that after all we can do really means in spite of all we can do. But Joseph Smith did not consult the Oxford English Dictionary when he was interpreting the gold plates. The OED wasn't published until 1884, long after Smith first published the Book of Mormon in 1830. But McClellan does make a solid point about how the meaning of 2 Nephi 2523 has shifted in recent years. For Latter Day Saints, it would appear Saints likely recognize the impossibility of receiving grace if they must first do all they can do. So McClellan's article brings to the surface another chief the ways in which LDS doctrines, interpretations of scripture and practices have changed and evolved over the years. Today, you might believe that 2 Nephi 2523 means in spite of all we can do. But perhaps a prophet president some 20 years from now during a general conference speech will reintroduce the older interpretation as sacrosanct.

[Aaron Shafawalaf]

So if I can make a concrete suggestion is that evangelicals, we would replace 2 Nephi 25:23 with Moroni 8:25 Moroni 825 which says 4 fulfilling the commandments bringeth remission of sins. Really simple, short and sweet. Fulfilling the commandments brings remission of sins. That's a really good example of where the Book of Mormon, in spite of its 1830 revivalistic Wesleyan Evangelical fervor at different points, it is at least sowing the seeds of a works based system that Latter Day Saints eventually adopted wholesale. I think that's a great verse showing that ultimately in the Latter Day Saint framework, even if you say that God is graciously helping you, empowering you, equipping you and you know, enabling you, even if you rhetorically can speak of the grace of God being necessarily involved in the whole process, modern Latter Day Saints really try to stress the rhetoric of grace and that excites evangelicals. Oh, this sounds great. But when you peel beneath the typical system that they're promoting still is differentiating levels of heaven for and by levels of. I don't really have a problem in theory with levels of heaven. They don't really have levels of heaven merely. They have different heavens, they have different kingdoms. In the Christian view, heaven is wholesale the presence of Heavenly Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus says, in my Father's house are many mansions. And he goes on to say, I wouldn't tell this to you unless I was going back. Unless I was going to come back to bring you back to where I am.

[Dr. Frank Turek]

I go and prepare a place for you.

[Aaron Shafawalaf]

So Jesus isn't preparing places where he isn't, he's preparing places where he is. The rooms of the mansions are the plenitude of space and dwellings where the Father and the Son are. In the Latter Day Saint view, there are different heavens, different kingdoms, different degrees of glory, some of which people are essentially damned. I'm using their language, not mine, to be away from the presence of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ forever. And there's some asterisks for the terrestrial kingdom where Jesus visits you. But the dominant view is that Jesus is not. You are essentially separated from the Lord Jesus Christ in the telestial kingdom, very separated from Heavenly Father and you are not enjoying the blessed unity of God's people and the richness of full fellowship with all of God's people. So they say you can go to heaven by grace alone. But, but what they often mean is, well, you can go to a heavenly kingdom where you will arrive in a regretful pain for all of eternity, out of regret for not doing enough to qualify for and be worthy of the higher levels of the kingdoms of heaven, where you would have had more relational intimacy with the Father, the Son and all of God's people.

[Dr. Frank Turek]

So they've, they've mixed in traditional orthodox Christian terms. Their position on salvation is an admixture of what we would call justification and sanctification. They've confused the two, that they don't accept the ultimate final justification. You are right with God solely because of what and through Jesus has done through his passive obedience on the cross and his perfect obedience in obeying the law. They've taken that justification and they've intermingled it with sanctification and sort of behavior modification and obedience and everything that is contingent upon, you know, what we're supposed to do. Well, Jesus says to keep my commandments. Jesus says to do all this kind of stuff. But it seems to me that the bigger issue is one of being able to get your LDS friends to understand the difference between justification and sanctification when it comes to salvation.

[Podcast Host / Narrator]

Because we're not all using the same terms. No.

[Aaron Shafawalaf]

And, and, and Christians have been saying that for two centuries about the LDS faith. We use a different dictionary. We, we have different terms. I think we could also say we not only have a different dictionary, but we probably also have a different philosophy of whether the dictionary even matters. That's a harsh statement. But what I mean by it is this Latter Day Saints culturally have a different set of sensibilities over whether the definitions even matter or how far of a semantic range or what kind, how much equivocation is, is culturally tolerable or. Yeah, so what, what is your threshold or your willingness to switch definitions on the fly or to use terms in unexpected ways that are not clarified? I think evangelicals had a. Have a different set of sensitivities to the use of language, whereas the Latter Day Saint culture on matters of theology, not with respect to business or neighborly stuff, but with respect to theology and doctrine. Latter Day Saints have a different dictionary, a different lexicon, but they also have a different philosophy of whether we should even clarify what's in the dictionary.

[Dr. Frank Turek]

I would say that their theological epistemology is as solid as a cloud. You can keep falling through it. It's like tissue paper. You can't really stand on it. It's almost very postmodern Aaron.

[Aaron Shafawalaf]

It does smell like that. One really concrete example I'll give people just so it doesn't sound like I'm bad mouthing my neighbors, who I love is if you were to ask a Latter Day Saint did God ever learn to be God? And what we've experienced on the street is Latter Day Saints will, I think out of an instinct and a reflexiveness, not wanting to sound awful, they'll say, of course not. No, God's always been God. God never learned how to be God. But if you just ask a few probing diagnostic questions not but 90 seconds later you'll hear, well, as far as we're concerned, he's always been God, but maybe prior to this eternity he was a man who had yet to become a God. So I'm saying it even more clearly than perhaps they would. But what I'm really saying is if you probe, if you're patient, if you're not superficial, but you're more substantial in your use of religious terminology, if you're willing to pause and kindly and patiently probe and diagnose and question, I think you'll find that the initial Latter Day Saint reflexive answer sometimes is more of a defense mechanism or a reflexive, if I could put it positively. I think Latter Day Saints are eager to be agreeable. They're eager not to be in conflict. I think they even want the approval of their evangelical neighbors and friends. They don't want to be called non Christian. They don't want to be embarrassed by the Protestant world. And so when you ask a Latter Day Saint, did God ever learn to be God? The reflexive answer is often no. And then the follow up answer is often, well, maybe. And that's just a really good example of the use of terminology is critical in evangelical LDS discussion.

[Dr. Frank Turek]

It's like for you, we take the dictionary seriously. You can open up the Oxford English Dictionary and find the word run and use the first definition.

[Podcast Host / Narrator]

But they'll go, well, there's five other

[Dr. Frank Turek]

definitions, maybe we can use those. But if you, if you try to in other words, what you're saying is be patient, be gracious. Sounds like first Peter 3:15. Be compassionate, be gentle, ask a few good questions, but be prepared for the I don't mean this in a pejorative way, but be prepared for the ambiguity that comes up. The more detailed you get into a discussion, especially the theological terminology, the terms

[Aaron Shafawalaf]

that you thought meant one thing might end up meaning the exact opposite of what they initially thought that they initially portrayed themselves to be Right.

[Podcast Host / Narrator]

Right. Well, Aaron, thank you so much for your time. What are some final thoughts you can

[Dr. Frank Turek]

give to our evangelicals and our Latter Day Saint friends that might be listening?

[Aaron Shafawalaf]

Oh, I. I would stop listening to me and start listening to Bradley Campbell of GodLovesMormons.com he's more accessible. He's more probably. It's probably a better resource for your man on the street. Typical Latter Day Saint or evangelicals. It's just I think I get in the weeds sometimes with some of these details. Bradley has done a great job of communicating effectively for people. For everyday conversations, You've been listening to

[Podcast Host / Narrator]

Apologetics Profile, a podcast ministry of Watchmen Fellowship Incorporated.

[Aaron Shafawalaf]

For more information about our ministry and

[Podcast Host / Narrator]

resources, visit our [e-mail].