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- [00:02]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Welcome to the Standard of Truth podcast. In this podcast, Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat and Dr. Richard Leduc explore the early history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and the life and teachings of the prophet Joseph Smith. They examine the original historical sources and provide context for events of the past. They approach the history of the church with faith, expertise and humor.
- [00:38]
Hi. Welcome to a special live episode of the Standard of Truth podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Garrett Dirkmont, and I am joined by my friend, although he may not be my friend by the time we're done with this episode, Dr. Richard Leduc.
- [00:51]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Hi, Garrett. Thanks for. Thanks for having me back. That was. That was. I. We. We coached them and we coached them, and that was. That was. They are not excited to be here. It is 5,000 degrees.
- [01:06]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
We decided we'd do a live recording in a room that's somewhere north of 90 degrees. Someone said we're trying to recreate what the ancestors, our ancestors went through as they crossed the plains.
- [01:17]
Dr. Richard Leduc
It's true. So we're in the best Western Palmyra Inn, and I would give it only 4.8 stars.
- [01:24]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Oh, wow. Yeah.
- [01:25]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Air conditioner doesn't work.
- [01:26]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
They're working.
- [01:27]
Dr. Richard Leduc
A room wasn't cleaned. They're working very nice. They're efforting. The staff is lovely, though. Very kind.
- [01:32]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Ah, yes, yes.
- [01:33]
Dr. Richard Leduc
So Christie's Corner is going to be Section 88 of the Doctrine Covenants.
- [01:40]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
When you want to look smart in Sunday school, if you want your friends to think you're cool, when you want to seem wise and not a fool, it's Christy's Corner. So the last couple Christie's Corners have been heavy.
- [01:54]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Yes.
- [01:55]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
It's like, hey, here's the longest or most important section of the Doctrine and Covenants. Tell us something important about it.
- [02:02]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Right?
- [02:03]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Yeah. So, I mean, 88 is, like, legitimately, like, what, 130 verses? How many verses is it?
- [02:10]
Dr. Richard Leduc
I've never read it. I don't know.
- [02:11]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Okay, well, there's a lot of things in Dr. Covenant, Section 88, like the command to build a house of learning, which they actually initially are going to take as a house where the school the prophets is going to be held. They don't know anything about temples. They know that they will build some eventually. But even in this. In this Revelation, they seem to interpret the house of the Lord that they're told to build as a schoolhouse and not, you know, for their kids, a schoolhouse for the elders to be educated. So this is the introduction of what will be the school of the prophets. They'll Begin meeting in Newell K. Whitney store. And there. There's a lot of pretty heavy doctrine and. Doctrine and covenant. Section 88. God is teaching about the relationship between light and Jesus. He's talking to them about those who are qualified based upon the various kingdoms that have been revealed. And so I thought I would spend time on, you know, the minutes of the meeting where this revelation took place. This revelation is received in a church meeting. So they have a conference of elders that are assembled, and it's December 27, 1832. They start, you know, with prayer. So it's. It's Joseph Smith, Sidney Rigdon, Joseph Smith Sr. Orson Hyde, Hyrum Smith, Samuel Smith, Newell K. Whitney, Frederick G. Williams, Ezra Thayer and John Murdoch. So it's not a ton of people there. This is. They'd have been comfortable in that room. They're actually not in the. They're not in the School of the Prophets room. They are. They're in the translating room. So the other. The other room which everyone will get to see. But these are the minutes. Brother Joseph arose and said, to receive revelation and the blessings of heaven, it was necessary to have our minds on God and to exercise faith and become of one heart and of one mind. Therefore, he recommended all present to pray separately. Now, I hate to pause because it's a beautiful sentiment. Frederick G. Williams was writing this down. He spelled pray like you were about to kill a deer.
- [04:46]
Dr. Richard Leduc
We need to pray separately.
- [04:47]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Now, that would be a much different meaning if they took this very literally. He's like, if we want revelations, we've got to pray. I don't know. I. But that's what it says. This is not Joseph writing this. This is. You know, most things are spelled correctly. Frederick Williams just a little. I mean, maybe he thought it was the English spelling, which is still a Y, but you know how they have the. You know, with gray.
- [05:13]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Yeah, right.
- [05:13]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Yeah. Kind of thing. No one knows that, but I don't know why I'm saying that. He recommended all present to pray separately and vocally to the Lord for to reveal his will unto us concerning the upbuilding of Zion and for the benefit of the saints and for the duty and the employment of the elders. Accordingly, we all bowed down before the Lord, after which each one arose and spoke in turn his feelings and determination to keep the commandments of God. So what's interesting is they're going to have everyone pray out loud, in turn. In fact, this is a fairly common thing in the early church. In the earliest church meetings, everyone will pray. Not everyone prays out Loud together, not. They're repeating the prayer like, you know, Bill will pray because he's an adulterer. It doesn't stick. And so they go to the next person and Jim will pray, you know, and they'll all pray. So, like, you could only assume that as much of an hour of the meeting is different people praying. And that appears to be what Joseph wants them to do here. And what they do, each person takes turns praying out loud. And then after they're done, they kind of stand up and bear their testimony. I can only assume that they talked about, you know, I was just in New York City and, you know, I took my RV there when I was there, though I shouldn't kid. But talking about what they think about Zion and the way that they're going to defend it. Each man in turn, his feelings and his determination to keep the commandments of God and then proceeded to receive a revelation concerning the subject at about 9:00pm the revelation not being finished, the conference adjourned till morning at 9:00 o'clock am. So. So I don't know how long they're going past. You know, they start at nine. They're not done. And in fact, doctrine coming to Section 88 is received in two parts. There's a first part that's received and then a second part that's received. It's a revelation over two days, December 27 and December 28. So the second part of the minutes, we met according to the adjournment and commenced by prayer. So I'm assuming in the same way. I can only imagine, like, here goes John Murdoch's prayer again. Prays for 45 minutes every time. Yes, John, we know only I apparently, have evil thoughts, but other people, maybe, I don't know, We. We commenced by prayer and then proceeded to receive the residue of the above revelation. And it being finished, there being no further business before the conference, we closed the meeting by prayer in harmony with the brethren and gratitude to our Heavenly Father for the great manifestation of his Holy Spirit. During the conference, they get together for this conference. The point of it is to receive a revelation. They conduct no other business. They don't call anyone else to any other position. They don't set anyone else apart. They go in, they clearly need to receive a revelation. Joseph says, if we want a revelation, all of us are going to have to pray for it. They all commence praying. Joseph then gives a revelation that is, you know, not short. And as it continues to go, they eventually adjourn the meeting. I don't know what that was like. Like in the middle of the revelation. I hope that it was Joseph who said, let's. Let's. Let's get back in the morning. You know, it's past midnight. Emma's gonna wonder why I'm not back yet or something, but somehow there's an adjournment. We don't know how the break comes in that regard of how they know to stop, but they stop, go home, come back the next morning, repeat the same steps, praying again, and then receive the second half of the revelation. So there's some context of this revelation if you think it's a little long to read. At least it didn't take you two days to receive this.
- [10:01]
Dr. Richard Leduc
That's very good.
- [10:01]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Yeah.
- [10:02]
Dr. Richard Leduc
There you go. So I hope my sister is able to raise her hand quickly and make the comment.
- [10:06]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
If you're going to make that comment, I feel like that should be before they even start the class. Yeah, yeah. You come into Sunday school and they start passing around the meat packing assignment thing.
- [10:16]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Yeah, yeah.
- [10:17]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
You gotta.
- [10:17]
Dr. Richard Leduc
You gotta serve down at the mill.
- [10:18]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Yeah, something like that. Oh, we need more volunteers. Yeah. And then as they're passing it around, just stand up. You should stand up.
- [10:25]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Of course.
- [10:26]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Say, I wanted to share something that I learned through my own study about Doctrine and Covenant, Section 88, that I think everyone here would like to know.
- [10:35]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Yeah.
- [10:36]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
And then.
- [10:37]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Then go.
- [10:37]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Yeah.
- [10:37]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Yeah. I wish my sister the best of luck as she does that. She's an award in Texas, So she's in McKinney, Texas. She's running for Relief Society president, and we hope she's going to get it.
- [10:49]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Yeah. Has she ever stopped aspiring? That's the question.
- [10:52]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Well, she was a young woman's president.
- [10:54]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Oh, yeah.
- [10:55]
Dr. Richard Leduc
That fed her bloodlust for a period of time. But now she.
- [10:59]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
She. She was never an MTC district president.
- [11:03]
Dr. Richard Leduc
She was not. She didn't serve a mission. But.
- [11:05]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
But if she had.
- [11:06]
Dr. Richard Leduc
If she had.
- [11:07]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Yeah.
- [11:07]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Yeah. So, Garrett, speaking of my sister serving a mission, we. We're gonna finish up our discussion on atheism today.
- [11:17]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Are we.
- [11:18]
Dr. Richard Leduc
There's no connection. I don't know what that is. I love my sister. I'm just. What's that?
- [11:21]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Are we gonna finish up?
- [11:21]
Dr. Richard Leduc
We're never gonna finish it, but we're gonna do parts.
- [11:23]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
I feel like we have several other things we need to do.
- [11:25]
Dr. Richard Leduc
We do. We. We've actually received.
- [11:27]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
We just skipped right over the mailbag.
- [11:30]
Dr. Richard Leduc
We did.
- [11:30]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
We have thousands of people that are emailing us. Beautiful emails, sincere emails.
- [11:34]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Very thoughtful. We just want to talk about sincere Very touching. And unlike section 88, we've read them all. And. But we are. We. We did want to have a discussion. So we talked about Alex o' Connor and his podcast where they were talking about different atheist arguments. We talked about the problem of evil in part two, in part three, we received quite a bit of positive feedback about Angry Garrett, and so we're gonna try and deliver on that here.
- [12:07]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
We've got to change the format of the podcast. The podcast can't be. You trying to make me mad.
- [12:14]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Yeah. If it was only so, so hard to make you mad. If only. The thing is embarrassing. No, it's good. Look, here's the thing. And I've said this. I've said this to the.
- [12:26]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
They don't know this. But before we started rolling on the mic, so someone, you know, made a comment I. I lost.
- [12:33]
Dr. Richard Leduc
And it was. It was. It was a Christian comment.
- [12:36]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
It was kind. It was someone, like, trying to say something virtuous.
- [12:39]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Lovely. It was a good report.
- [12:41]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
It was praiseworthy of. Of Christian comment you would make about loving someone else.
- [12:47]
Dr. Richard Leduc
And Garrett said, I would not. Garrett's like, we will not have this here. He said, Richard was a merciful man, but I will not.
- [12:56]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
I will not.
- [12:57]
Dr. Richard Leduc
And that's.
- [12:58]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
That's Richard's favorite quote.
- [12:59]
Dr. Richard Leduc
It is. That's. It's the Joseph Smith, Brigham Young quote.
- [13:01]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Joseph Smith. Brigham Young, yeah.
- [13:03]
Dr. Richard Leduc
So, yeah, Brigham Young saying that about Joseph, that he was a merciful man, but I will not. Was it. Was it in. Was it in corner quarters?
- [13:09]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
And. And there's all kinds of, you know, there's lots of Bill the adulterers there. We did have someone just email and say, I know a man named Bill who's like my stake patriarch is the greatest guy ever, and I think he'd be pretty upset if you said he was an adult. I'm not saying that's the Bill. That's an adultery.
- [13:25]
Dr. Richard Leduc
No. But also, you might have repented. You don't know.
- [13:27]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Oh, my goodness gracious. No, no. But it's just a generic, generic term. But Anyway, yeah.
- [13:36]
Dr. Richard Leduc
William McClellan, you were talking about people having adultery in winter quarters.
- [13:42]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Right. So there's all kinds of problems in winter quarters. You got everybody out there on this giant camping trip, so things are going to be a problem. You don't have the right supplies. You're sleeping out in the middle of the snow, it's cold, you're in Nebraska. I mean, there's a lot. There's. There's. There's a. Many, many things that are difficult and and people have, you know, there's people stealing things from other people in the camp.
- [14:08]
Dr. Richard Leduc
You're gonna steal.
- [14:09]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
There's people that are gambling. There's people that are getting drunk.
- [14:12]
Dr. Richard Leduc
You shouldn't judge the gambling.
- [14:13]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Well, the moment you. I figure.
- [14:15]
Dr. Richard Leduc
President Hinckley haven't given his address yet.
- [14:18]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Anyone who gets into Nebraska is already warming up for a Cornhusker game, so that's where the drinking comes from.
- [14:25]
Dr. Richard Leduc
They do have casinos on the Council Bluff side over in Iowa.
- [14:28]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
You know that.
- [14:28]
Dr. Richard Leduc
I've heard.
- [14:29]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Okay.
- [14:29]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Okay.
- [14:30]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Yeah. Anyway, you're. You're late to put in your WNBA Sparks bet. Is that.
- [14:37]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Yeah, the fever.
- [14:38]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Okay, all right.
- [14:39]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Well, Indianapolis fever, anyway, so. That's a terrible name, by the way.
- [14:44]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Yeah, isn't it?
- [14:45]
Dr. Richard Leduc
No, no, I mean fever.
- [14:47]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Miami Heat.
- [14:48]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Yeah, but it's hot. It's hot or whatever.
- [14:50]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
It's hot.
- [14:50]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Fever. Fever is directly attached to sickness. Illness, death. Fever. When is. Unless it's a fever. For more cowbell, I can't understand a possible reason why you would want.
- [15:02]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
The only cure is more cow bell.
- [15:04]
Dr. Richard Leduc
I apologize. It's just. It's. It's a very poor, poorly named wmb. I don't know why I'm so worked up.
- [15:09]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Yeah, you're more mad about that than I am about this whole Christianity thing.
- [15:14]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Yeah.
- [15:14]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Anyway, anyway, so the whole quote, I. I should look it up, so I get it. Right. But I won't, because already delayed and that is, you know, Brigham essentially says, look, if you don't stop your. Your lie, if you don't stop your. Your backbiting, you're evil speaking, you're stealing your adulteries. You know, I'm just going to leave you here and I'll go on to our new place. And he said the quote that Richard loves is he said, brother Joseph, being a merciful man, bore with you these things, but I will not. And that's kind of sometimes how you feel. I mean, but if you bring him young, you're like, guys, I literally just broke. Brought you out of Illinois where people were murdering us. We barely got across Iowa, and you're stealing flour from Brother Johnson.
- [16:11]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Yeah. Anyway, so we're gonna go from that. We're gonna play a clip from Alex o' Connor and his podcast where they discuss the atheist argument of divine hiddenness. So I'm going to play that clip, and then we're going to get your reaction to that.
- [16:32]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Oh, okay.
- [16:32]
Dr. Richard Leduc
And we're going to talk about your feelings, and we'll take it to that point.
- [16:38]
Alex O'Connor
Next up is the argument from Divine Hiddenness. So there are many different arguments from divine hiddenness. It's a bit misleading to say the argument, but here's one way to construe the argument. The first premise would be something like if a perfectly loving God exists, then there is a God who is always open to a personal relationship with any finite person. The second premise would be that if there's a God who is always open to a personal relationship with any finite person, then there's going to be no non, resistant, non belief in God. Okay, so what is non resistant, non belief? Well, it's just basically people who fail to believe in God, but that's not. Their failure to believe in God is not due to, like, willful culpable resistance to God on their part.
- [17:23]
Wesley Huff
God might have reason to restrict evidence from people. But then for me, an interesting subset of this argument is the problem of religious geographic distribution. So the fact that statistically speaking, you are far more likely to be a theist if you're born in Rwanda, say one of the most Catholic countries in the world, than if you're born in Thailand, which is like 90 something percent Buddhist, and Buddhism is atheistic, therefore you don't believe in God. So if Christianity is true, for example, then your place of birth is a statistically reliable indicator of how likely you are to be saved. That doesn't seem so great. And people will say that this commits the genetic fallacy of you sort of believing something for the wrong reason. Doesn't make it true. That doesn't make it false. That's of course that, that, that is of course accurate. However, if you believe that it's being supervised by a God who loves everybody equally and wants to come to know everybody, like you say, then why would he hide his face more from the Thai than from the Rwandans? Or is it just that the Thai are just naturally, like orders of magnitude more resistant than the Rwandans are? And if that's the case, then why are they built in that way? You know what I mean? So there are so many problems as to God's seeming arbitrary desire and ability to reveal himself to some and not to others. There are those who even don't want to believe in God, like C.S. lewis's conversion. He talks about dragging his eyes, darting like a desperate animal for any means of escape, dragged in to belief in God. And there are those of us who go, please, just give me something, and they get nothing. So the arbitrariness of God's revelation, the geographical distribution of God's revelation, and also the fact that it doesn't seem to accord with people's desires. Seems to me to undermine belief in God quite powerfully.
- [19:19]
Dr. Richard Leduc
All right, so, Garrett, it's a pretty common atheist argument. What are your thoughts on that point?
- [19:26]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Well, this is another argument that an atheist or agnostic, I mean, he claims.
- [19:31]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Yeah, Alex is great. I think he's pretty fair.
- [19:34]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
He's at least claiming he's in this. He's the perfect example of this divine hiddenness.
- [19:39]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Yeah, right.
- [19:40]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
He says he really wants to believe that he's searched all different kinds of belief systems, that he's prayed for God to give him light, and he doesn't have it. So. But he's not as much troubled by the fact. Or maybe he is and he's just not being forthright. I don't know. I mean, I don't know the guy, but he doesn't appear to be as much troubled by the fact that he's not getting an answer from God as it is the apparent randomness of whether or not someone has the proper belief in God. And of course, if you don't have the proper belief in God, then.
- [20:18]
Dr. Richard Leduc
There'S a randomness element, and then there's also an element that's not random at all. When he brings up people being born.
- [20:24]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
In Thailand, and that is something he said, you know, how do I know whether or not you're, you know, a good Catholic? Well, if you're born in Rwanda, you probably are right. That geographical location has more to do with what someone believes than. Than almost anything else. This is a problem that, you know, early theologians wrestled with even without knowing the extent of all the people in the world. And they wrestled with it. Because if you say you have to have faith in God in order to be saved, then almost every conversation you will ever hear from any Christian publicly will be about personal salvation, their personal salvation, and how someone else that they know personally could be saved. But in practical terms, Alex is making a very good point that in that system, there is a gigantic disparity in people who actually have the ability to know about Jesus. Even if you say, well, if someone really wanted to know Jesus, they, you know, they would just know. I mean, you'll hear people say this. Well, you know, they should be able to just look at a tree and know that Jesus is their savior. That's literally not what Paul says. Paul says, how can they believe except someone be sent, Right? Paul says, you believe. Hearing cometh by belief, cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God is what Paul says. So their own Bible, their own Sola Scriptura says someone can't have faith without hearing the Word. And then we're going to just act like it's not a big deal that almost no one in the history of the world could ever hear the Word. So even if you took that off the table and said, well, somehow in China, where there's no Jesus being preached and there's no access to the Internet, you know, for things like Christianity, that someone could still theoretically, you know, find a Bible floating down the Yangtze and they learned, they accept Jesus, it would still be the case that it's an unfair situation, that that person in no way had the same opportunity as someone living in the United States to learn about Jesus. And how do you account for that? How would you possibly account for that? Well, frankly, I mean, early Calvinist theologians, they accounted for it the only possible way you can, and that is if you believe that God is absolutely all powerful, then that means God does what God wants to do. It's actually the best part of being all powerful, that you do whatever you want to do. As an all powerful being who knows everything and knows exactly what's going to happen for the outcome of every single situation. You're never surprised, you're never like, oh man, I had no idea Jill wasn't going to have faith in me. Guess I should add another Bible float down the river. You know full well that she's never even going to hear the word Jesus. And yet you know what they don't cover here, which is unfortunate and it's so shallow in that regard, which I hate to say I'd say that to Alex's face. The real issue is that the punishment that is attached to that non belief is forever. We're not talking about someone who's just looking for secular wisdom and they went to the wrong guru and they, and they didn't quite find the truth they were looking for. Or they're mistaken about something like Einstein who believed in a static state theory of the universe and he wasn't right about it. He had to change what he thought. We're talking about someone suffering forever. Not a million years or a billion years or a trillion years forever because God gave them an immortal spirit. So far more problematic than the divine hiddenness or the randomness of where someone is born. The reason why it's problematic is the suffering attached to that is forever. There is no, oh, I'll make it up to you in the next life. The next life is nothing but horror. And so you know what? I don't know how our Christian responds to that. But it led early Calvinist theologians to simply say, God never intended to save those people. Now that is really hard. You're a Latter Day Saint and you're like, no, he did. And their response to you would be, God is all powerful. God does what God wants to do. Are you trying to tell me that God wanted to save that girl in China but just couldn't figure it out? I'm all powerful. I created her out of nothing. I created the means of salvation. I created who goes to heaven, who goes to hell. I just can't figure out how to bring her the gospel, even though I could send an angel there right now. If you believe God is all powerful, ultimately you can't get away from the fact that it is ultimately God's fault if someone does not hear the gospel. Because God knew that when God made them. And God didn't have to make them, he's making them out of nothing. And making them out of nothing. He didn't have to have them born in a country where there was no Christianity, and making them out of nothing and having them born in a country where there's no Christianity. He didn't have to give them an immortal spirit. He's making them out of nothing. Just when you come to the ones that you've already decided, you're never going to have them hear the word Jesus, just make them without an immortal spirit.
- [27:16]
Dr. Richard Leduc
One of the things that you talked about in the last episode was somebody was trying to explain the problem of evil, and they were trying to explain the problem of evil as saying, yes, in this life there is injustice, but in the next life is where these things are made. Right?
- [27:33]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Yeah, but unless you're almost everyone who's ever lived on Earth.
- [27:38]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Right. So that.
- [27:39]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
That's the divine hiddenness and the randomness that's such a problem.
- [27:42]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Exactly.
- [27:42]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
So does God love someone born in Indonesia in 600 AD as much as he loves me? You ask that question to any Christian, they will say the answer yes. Well, God has a pretty terrible way of showing it then, because not only is he going to have them born in a time where they have. I mean. I mean, I know the air conditioning is not working, but we've got it pretty good, you know, I mean, just had some. We already. We just ate dinner, had more calories than most people on Earth are going to have in a week. You know, I mean, or at least was that just.
- [28:21]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Just you and I had like seven.
- [28:22]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Helps of rice pudding.
- [28:23]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Yeah, we really hit that pretty hard.
- [28:25]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
I feel like maybe Maybe there was something added to it that's the reason why msg. Yeah, there's no maybe about that at all. The idea behind it is so. It's so frustrating because what the response will be, well, yes, he does, but he created them in a place where they were never going to hear about Jesus, where he knew they were never going to hear about Jesus. And after this horrible, unfair life where there's, you know, it's. There's no medicine, it's terrible society, you know, early, you know, early times that their, Their next life is. They're going to burn in hell forever. And you're supposed to walk away from that saying, yeah, God just loves everyone equally. He loves them so much, he's just like creating him by the billions to burn in hell. And if you were to posit that, the response would be, well, you don't understand the wisdom of God. Who are you to question the wisdom of God? What I'm saying is God is not what you're saying he is. Because you want me to believe that God is all good. At the same time, nearly everyone he creates, he creates knowing that after this life of suffering, they will suffer far more for the rest of time. And God could put an end to that whenever God wanted to. If God's all powerful, God could empty hell right now. If you say God can't empty hell right now, then God stops being all powerful. So you don't, you don't get to talk about whether or not God could empty hell. You now have to have a conversation about why won't he? Why won't he? If God could save everyone, why doesn't he? And the response that you'd get back is just mysteries of God. Well, mysteries of God. It's a fine thing to say. Look, there's all kinds of things about God that I don't know, but we're talking about billions of people that are going to burn in horrific suffering forever. Fine, you, you can say, we don't really know. That's fine. But you then need to turn around and admit you don't really know why God did almost everything that he did. So maybe stop condemning me to hell for believing in a Jesus that's not a triune God. You know, maybe. Maybe dial that back a little bit because you seem super certain about that, but you don't know where 3 billion people are going to.
- [31:25]
Dr. Richard Leduc
So this is a perfect segue then, into talking about Wesley Huff. I think you're gonna love it.
- [31:31]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
I feel like maybe we should just end the podcast now.
- [31:34]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Like completely all. Forever.
- [31:36]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Forever. Thank you for attending our last podcast.
- [31:39]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Well, of all time. Your blood pressure is 400 over 300.
- [31:44]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Yeah.
- [31:45]
Dr. Richard Leduc
But I, so what I want to do, I'd like to please play a clip. So, so Wesley Huff, was he to. To Latter Day Saints. They might know him from a Joe Rogan clip where he was talking about our faith and how, you know, the ways it was. Was wrong and, and that, that got six or seven views. Yeah, he was on the Joe Rogan podcast.
- [32:11]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Super accurate with his descriptions. That's the best part.
- [32:14]
Dr. Richard Leduc
He, he gets under your skin, which is why of playing the clip, I.
- [32:18]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
I, I don't want it to seem like I don't have any grace. I clearly, I, I need some. But it's incredibly frustrating when someone in a supposedly position of education. Right. Wesley Huff, is at least claiming.
- [32:38]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Right.
- [32:38]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Right. Why do we care what he has to say? Well, because he's, you know, preacher. He's an expert. Well, then you don't get to be wrong. Look, people are wrong all the time, but if what you're being wrong about is how you're condemning someone else as not being a Christian, then you kind of need to be right about what you're saying about them, because you don't have to talk about them. You don't have to talk about them. You chose to talk about them. And if you chose to talk about them, I don't know, maybe read anything. At this point, I'm convinced he hasn't read anything. Not even C.S. lewis.
- [33:16]
Dr. Richard Leduc
He quotes.
- [33:16]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
I know. That's. I don't even know. Okay. At this point, Chat. GPT gave it.
- [33:20]
Dr. Richard Leduc
He hasn't, he hasn't seen Lion Witch in the Wardrobe? No, nothing.
- [33:23]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
He bought far less Turkish Delight than you did.
- [33:26]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Well, yeah. 600 on Turkish Delight.
- [33:29]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Whoa.
- [33:29]
Dr. Richard Leduc
I know. It was so much money. I got so much trouble. What's that?
- [33:33]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
How much Turkish Delight was it?
- [33:35]
Dr. Richard Leduc
It was a lot of Turkish Delight.
- [33:36]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Do you still have some?
- [33:37]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Well, that's the problem. It all went bad. Almost all of it did. When I gave it as a gift. What I said, every time I gave it, I said, look, I know you don't like this. No one likes this.
- [33:48]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
I like Turkish Delight.
- [33:50]
Dr. Richard Leduc
We threw years away. We didn't see it before it went bad. Anyway, what happened is, is that we. And it's not. It's not the jelly stuff. That's garbage. This is made with honey or something.
- [34:01]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Something I don't know with, apparently. Something that rots instantly.
- [34:04]
Dr. Richard Leduc
It was very good. Well, a month. It was very Good. I bought a lot of it, and it was at the Turkish Bazaar and it was around. It was. So it was in one carry on. We had to buy a separate carry on. That carry on weighed 40 pounds of Turkish delight. Turkish. It was all Turkish delight and some dirty garments that we patted it with.
- [34:26]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Yeah, it makes sense.
- [34:27]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Yeah.
- [34:28]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Becky, how. How. Becky, how was the Turkish delight? Was good.
- [34:32]
Dr. Richard Leduc
It was very good.
- [34:32]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Okay.
- [34:33]
Dr. Richard Leduc
It was very, very.
- [34:34]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Eat some before it went rancid.
- [34:36]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Yeah, they went hard in the paint with the fig, though. No one wanted any of that. The peanut butter one was pretty good. And anyway, we ended up having to throw most of it away. It made me very sad as we gave it as gifts. I said, look, you don't want this, but I need you. When I give this to you, I need you to pretend that you really, really are happy to receive it, because it cost me a lot of money and that's how I usually give gifts. So, anyway. Anyway. Most of it in the trash. What are we talking about? Atheism.
- [35:07]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Yeah, you were about to point out.
- [35:08]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Anyway, so I'm going to play a clip from Wesley Huff, and this is the. So this is. So we've talked about the atheist arguments, the problem of evil, divine hiddenness. There's lots of atheist arguments. Those are two of the. Of the better atheist arguments and two of the better atheist arguments that get a lot of Christian apologetics to Christian counters to. The reason I want to play this Wesley Huff bit is he was on the Andrew Schultz's podcast Flagrant, and the language can be aggressive. I've gone through. I've listened to this now, like, three. Three times to make sure that there are no swears in this segment on YouTube. It's all clean.
- [35:54]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
So you're possibly about to play a clip for these. Fine.
- [35:57]
Dr. Richard Leduc
This is. I'm gonna vid angel this clip.
- [36:00]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Yeah, there's.
- [36:00]
Dr. Richard Leduc
And so I'm gonna be sued by Disney.
- [36:03]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Somewhere there are multiple people. This will be the first curse word they have ever heard. If they're.
- [36:10]
Dr. Richard Leduc
I don't know if they talked to Dan. They've heard more. Well, anyway, I did.
- [36:13]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
After I. After I pull off the handle.
- [36:15]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Yeah. No, so. So no. So it's a clean clip, but it's great because he's on there and he's talking about hell and the misconceptions that people have about hell. And I think that it's kind of a good segue in that it can be frustrating, I think, to you, where the hell that he's describing isn't necessarily the Hell, that is part of the doctrine that is, that is being taught. And I think it's, it creates the frustration. And also some, some, well, all kinds of different fun things.
- [36:53]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
I think you're really going to enjoy some dandometer.
- [36:56]
Dr. Richard Leduc
The, your dander meter dandometer is going to be through the roof. So I'm going to go ahead. So what we're going to do is so it's an eight minute clip. So we're not going to play it all. We're going to play it until you say you want to respond to something and, and then we'll stop it.
- [37:10]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Okay.
- [37:11]
Dr. Richard Leduc
It'll be a stop start, stop start, stop start.
- [37:15]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Okay. Okay.
- [37:16]
Dr. Richard Leduc
We'll see how far we go.
- [37:21]
Andrew Schultz
Humans are very. I also think we want heaven without subscribing to also the alternative of the religion. I think there's part of it that's there. It's like, hey, I'm a good person. Yeah. Maybe I don't go to church and maybe I haven't accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior, but I'm a good person. So I still get in. Right. It's like we still want in. We still wanted, we want the eternity. Right. It's still begging the question. But the alternative is hell.
- [37:47]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
That's the issue I have.
- [37:48]
Andrew Schultz
If there was a first class, a.
- [37:49]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Business class and a coach, I'm with it. I don't gotta be first class. That's fine. But the idea that it is a, like God doesn't owe you heaven, but he don't need to give you hell.
- [37:59]
Andrew Schultz
Well, I think part of this is that we have these understandings of hell which might be skewed by Middle Ages.
- [38:04]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Okay. I would love to hear that.
- [38:05]
Andrew Schultz
The people burning. I would say hell is the concept of God's wrath against evil in eternal justice, but it's also a separation from his goodness. And so you see these depictions, particularly from the Middle Ages of like demons burning people alive. And that's more. Both heaven and hell in the Middle Ages is drawn more from like Greek imagery of where the gods live and what the underworld is than it is from what scripture actually says. Actually says about these things.
- [38:45]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Yeah.
- [38:46]
Andrew Schultz
I feel like Dante's Inferno defined hell for us and not scripture. Sure. And that's like quintessential, you know, Middle Age. Yeah, yeah. If you're a monger, the scripture say hell is. Well, it's, it's separation. It's separation from God. Like God is not going to force you into his presence, into that. And if, if you are not choosing that like if you are not in Adam, you're in. Sorry, if you're not in Christ, you're in Adam. So Jesus is called the second Adam. Right. Adam brings sin into the world and taints everything. Christ comes into the world and renews everything. And so the gospel message is that you're either going to be found in Adam or in Christ. Yeah, that's it. And God is not going to force you into being under Christ's righteousness. And at the same time I still don't deserve that. So this is where, like when I was talking about before all these religious concepts, it's about the do the feel the think. It's also about mercy or justice. Right. So I would argue that something like the Eastern philosophies, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, anything that has a reincarnation that's just right, you get what you deserve. The good you do in this life, you get in the next life. The bad you do in this life. Sort of. There's a difference between reincarnation, Hinduism and Buddhism. But that aside, it's like just right. But we wouldn't necessarily say that it's merciful. You do get what you deserve.
- [40:13]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Oh yeah, it's not.
- [40:13]
Andrew Schultz
Yeah, yeah. Then there are other religious systems and to a certain degree I would pin Islam in that group because every chapter of the Quran, bar one chapter, starts with the Bismillah God, the most merciful, the most benevolent. And so in that sense the God of Islam forgives but somewhat arbitrarily and it's at the expense of his justice. So if you, if God will forgive you, but the wrong you've done hasn't actually been been paid for. His law is kind of just winked at. Where Christianity is different is that the punishment that we deserve is taken on God himself in the person of Jesus. And so in that sense justice is fulfilled. And because justice is fulf fulfilled, his law is accomplished and now mercy. So justice is getting what you deserve, mercy is not getting what you deserve and grace is getting what you don't deserve.
- [41:05]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Okay, there's a lot there. First, I already know multiple theologians that have taken issue with his characterization. He does this a lot. Now look, there's a lot of Christian concepts of heaven and hell and salvation, but a lot of theologians, you know, he wants to stress that hell is purely the separation from God, that hell is your not with God. And look, I think Latter Day Saint can get behind the fact that you want to be in God's presence. Right. So that, and that heaven is being God's presence. I Think that there's some. Some aspects to that. The problem is he kind of jumped over what the actual question was. Right. Well, if you choose to be separate from God, then God's going to give you the choice that you want. Well, you know what? I actually could see how that would be a fair system, if you made a choice.
- [42:11]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Because we believe that. Right.
- [42:13]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
That if you chose to reject God forever.
- [42:17]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Right.
- [42:18]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
You could. Because agency is an eternal principle.
- [42:22]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Right.
- [42:23]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
That's not what he's saying. Right. Well, he is saying it, but he's saying that the people who aren't saved, the people who go to hell, they are people who choose to be separated from God. Well, how do you make a choice? Any. To say that someone has a choice, you have to have some semblance of an understanding of the choice that you're making. If there's a door that's labeled A and a door that's labeled B and behind one is, you know, a million dollars, and the other one is an alligator that's going to eat me, probably because he thinks this room is a swamp because it's so hot. And he came up from Florida.
- [43:10]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Why did he come to upstate New York?
- [43:12]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Well, because, you know, he has family. A lot of New Yorkers.
- [43:16]
Dr. Richard Leduc
New Yorkers. He's up to Florida, so he's coming up.
- [43:18]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
My cousin Vinnie coming up in summer.
- [43:20]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Yeah, that checks.
- [43:22]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Yeah, he's. Maybe he's. Maybe he's from New Jersey. Yeah.
- [43:26]
Dr. Richard Leduc
So the alligator is from New Jersey, lives in Florida, coming to visit family in upstate New York.
- [43:30]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Yeah, they're the.
- [43:30]
Dr. Richard Leduc
And he's in the Best Western Palmyra Inn behind option A or B, but it's only labeled A or B. I'm just trying to set up the scenario that you created.
- [43:39]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
This is way clearer than Wesley was saying. We can say if I choose the door that the alligator's behind and I get eaten by the alligator before he goes to visit his friends in Poughkeepsie. That is by far the dumbest analogy I think I've ever made in my life. Let's cut that out.
- [44:07]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Yeah.
- [44:07]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Okay, I'll cut it out. Yeah. Okay, so let's say I go to door. I go to door B and the alligator eats me. You can say, well, he made a terrible choice. And at some level, I guess.
- [44:26]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Yeah, he did. He did.
- [44:27]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
I did choose door B because I had no idea what was behind it. I had no idea there were alligators that were anywhere, much less visiting our friends in upstate New York. I didn't know what was behind the other door. It's a randomness in that regard. Right. So saying, oh well, this is what you chose. You chose to. To not to not go to heaven. Well, if you're saying I chose to not go to heaven, then that means you presented me two possible options. I understood both options. And like a rebellious teenager said, you know what, I bet I can beat the alligator. And I went through the alligator door.
- [45:14]
Dr. Richard Leduc
The reason I wanted to play that clip is while it's not a direct reaction rebuttal against divine hiddenness, it's kind of Alex o' Connor's point.
- [45:21]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Right? Yeah. Trying to say, you know, it sounds good on a doily, you know, maybe that someone would crochet. Well, you know, the reason why you're separated from God for eternity is that's what you chose. Well, again, I believe there are occasions where that's true, but it's not true for almost anyone. Could it be true? Sure. Is the 16 year old girl in Indonesia in 600 AD, is she choosing to reject Jesus? No, she doesn't ever hear the word Jesus in her life. Is she choosing to reject him?
- [46:13]
Dr. Richard Leduc
No.
- [46:14]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
To say that she's choosing to reject him is to essentially make Alex's point. Christianity sure seems to kind of be like a Western European, Western, you know, hemisphere whites only club almost. Right. Like if you happen to be born in a place where the Europeans were dominant, lucky you, you'll get to hear about Jesus and then of course you'll choose against him and you'll go to the alligator door. But, but you don't have to have chosen that. Right? So I think that frustrates me because he used a lot of words almost as a kind of razzle dazzle without coming to what the real problem is. Problem is, look, Wesley, the problem isn't that I'm not okay with the fact that someone who knows God and says, I reject God, I want nothing to do with God and for the rest of eternity, even after this life, they say I still reject God. I'm okay if that's your scenario, that God allows them to continue to reject him forever. But that is not what we're talking about. A Christian will tell you that the moment you die, you immediately are judged and you immediately go to heaven or hell. I mean, a Protestant Christian, anyway, Catholic's not going to say that. But my guess is Wesley's not super pro Catholic, which means you already know who Jesus is. He's, he's, he's the one who's judging you, sending you to heaven or to hell. What he's saying is the reason why people are in hell is that after, even after they die, knowing Jesus, knowing that there's alligators behind the door, they're just like, you know what, bring me some more alligator. Do you have any more relatives up here? You know, and that's just a false analogy. And I think it's one of the things that Alex is upset about is you're acting like your own personal journey to find Jesus is anywhere similar to anyone else who has ever lived on earth. And in doing that, saying, yeah, God's totally just and merciful. You know, I have a friend and I mean, I told them all about Jesus and he, he wouldn't believe and he died and you know, he had a chance. That's great. I get it. I understand why you might say that they're going to hell, but that is almost never actually the case with the billions of people that lived on earth. Most people will never have his opportunity to learn about Jesus. But don't worry, God's just, he's just condemning them all to hell because they, they chose that they wanted to be separate from a God that they didn't even know existed. They chose without knowing somehow. And then the other point is a pretty common Christian comment, and that is when you start to push the point of why doesn't God save more people? The response is always, well, all of us should go to hell. All of us are sinners. Again, a Latter Day Saint understands this. We can't be saved without the blood of Jesus Christ. So we agree that there is no salvation except through Jesus. But the point that he's making is that you shouldn't complain about the fact that, that, that 16 year old burns in eternal hell forever and you know, kind of burying the lead. I mean, yeah, the reason why we think that there's like fire in hell is because like, you know, all that medieval art like showed it, that's why we think it. It's like crazy that we believe it. I mean, I guess kind of, I don't know, we could maybe read the book Bible though, since I hear that's something that Latter Day Saints aren't willing to do. There was a certain man, a certain rich man which was clothed in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day. And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus which was laid at his gate full of sores and desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table. Moreover, the dogs came and licked his sore and it Came to pass that the beggar died and he was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom. The rich man died also and was buried. And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torment and seeing Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said, father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in these flames. I have no idea why people have a conception of hell as being fire and excruciating. It's all. It's crazy. It's as if it's totally invented by medieval artists. And that's why.
- [51:53]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Well, so we ended the clip with him saying, justice is getting what you deserve, mercy is not getting what you deserve, and grace is getting what you don't deserve. And that sounds pithy. Is that a hummingbird or is that a moth? It's a moth. That's a big, big moth.
- [52:15]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
I think it's probably just a bat.
- [52:17]
Dr. Richard Leduc
It's a. That's. That's a monstrous moth. By the way, Garrett, the most northern alligator attack was in North Carolina. I just looked like research, though. I. I didn't look at zoo attacks.
- [52:30]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
I'm gonna look at alligators and include crocodiles.
- [52:34]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Okay.
- [52:35]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
And maybe, you know, Caymans, you know.
- [52:37]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Okay. Lake Waccamaw, North Carolina. 12 foot alligator.
- [52:42]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
I've always avoided Lake Walker.
- [52:43]
Dr. Richard Leduc
I've never been there. But. But you know what? I'll look at zoos and I'll actually expand the worldwide because we'll just look at latitude anyway, to the justice, mercy, moth and grace discussion that. You want to read it again or.
- [52:59]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
No, I mean, I think that's, you.
- [53:00]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Know, it's a pithy comment.
- [53:02]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
It's pithy. And, you know, and that's why people like Wesley, he has a lot of pithy ways of saying things, and he's obviously a better, you know, communicator than someone like me. But again, to say grace is what we don't deserve. Hey, I'm on board with that. The problem is in the same breath, you're saying, and it just so happens the only people who do deserve it are the people who've heard about Jesus. And it just so happens the people who do deserve it and the people who've heard about Jesus just so happen to be people who live in these Christian countries, people who don't live in oppressive dictatorial regimes where religion is oppressed all throughout the history of humankind. Again, it's something that's burying the lead I get it. That if my sins are washed away, I don't know, merit that at all, that I deserve to not be given the free grace that God gives me through the atonement of Jesus Christ. But we're not just talking about me. And one of the unfortunate features of Protestant theology, because the primary argument that you have a direct religion relationship with God, that it's just whether or not you have faith and that's all that matters in salvation, that's great for you, but what happens when you care about anyone that isn't you, when you look outside of the country you live in and when you think about the vast expanse of human time since Christ's crucifixion? And so, yeah, I mean, it's great to say, you know, God is merciful in the same breath that you're saying, almost no one gets that mercy. It's amazing to say that you're saved by Christ's grace. It's just that almost no one gets that grace. But lucky me, I got it. I got him good. I'm good. And, and I think that's why it's frustrating because, I mean, I don't know that the co host, he's talking to the host of the show is thinking that deeply about this.
- [55:34]
Dr. Richard Leduc
I mean, yeah, no, I mean, Andrew Schultz is a, you know, he's a thoughtful comic, but yeah, I don't know.
- [55:41]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
So maybe he's not thinking on the.
- [55:44]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Well, no, I mean, that's a fairly. But that's part of the problem, right, Is that the, the second and third questions that you're asking are fairly deeper.
- [55:51]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Yeah, fairly deeper in nature, kind of. The point I made is that we tend to have these discussions that focus on my own personal salvation and the salvation of people that I know and the people around me, when that's almost nobody in the grand scheme of things. And I realized that, you know, there's a reason why I'm worried about my own personal salvation. Joseph Smith was worried about, about his own personal salvation. But I mean, at some point, don't you need to kind of have the experience where, you know, you're praying all night, you know, you're praying, and as soon as you get salvation, you begin praying for your brethren to have salvation. And as soon as you understand that they're going to have salvation, you pray that even your enemies are going to have salvation. Means that at some point, the closer you get to Christ, the more you want the salvation of everybody. And again, many wonderful, great, good Christian people desperately do want everyone to have the message and to be saved. But them wanting everyone to have the message doesn't actually answer for the fact that almost no one does. And I think that's why Alex struggles with it. Right. It's great that you say everyone can be saved by Jesus in a theoretical world that doesn't actually exist. We live in a world where billions of people have lived or will live, where they won't ever have a real opportunity to have faith in Jesus. So why did God create a world where billions upon billions of people will never have a chance to be saved?
- [57:42]
Dr. Richard Leduc
And I think that that's the thing that the restored gospel of Jesus Christ is able to answer in a way that is so beautiful and profound and that I, that I hold just so incredibly dear, is that not only does our theology answer that question, it answers the larger question, which is why we're even here at all, which is a.
- [58:13]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Great question that you don't ever really hear asked. What's the purpose of life? I mean, look, John MacArthur will give it to you straight up.
- [58:24]
Dr. Richard Leduc
Glorify God.
- [58:24]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
To glorify God. You're here to glorify God. God created you for his glory. God does all things in his glory. God created you in this world and you suffer. And whatever the ultimate thing you can do is bring glory to God. And that's the best answer, by the way, for Christians, because anything else you say runs up against God's, God's all powerfulness. Why did God create us? I mean, I've had a pastor say back, well, you're lucky God created you at all. You shouldn't even exist. Okay, but he did create me and then he made me a Mormon. So then what? You know, the idea that there's a purpose to our existence. Because any answer you give to that, if you believe in a truly all powerful God, whatever that answer is, doesn't actually make sense. Right? Why did God create us? Well, so that we could learn about his glory. Okay, except God's all powerful. He can just have us learn about his glory without having to suffer through immortal life. Because he's all powerful. Why did God create us? So we could be tested. Okay, except God already, like, knows the answers to the exam, right? Because he's God and he knows everything. And he already knows everything that's going to happen. So why do I have to suffer and then go to hell? Couldn't I just. Couldn't I just go directly to hell and do not pass go and I don't collect $200. Why do I have to suffer first? And then go to hell. What's the redeeming quality of that? You already know God. You already know I'm a Latter Day Saint. As far as every Christian's concerned. I'm going to burn in hell, so why create me? Oh, you're going to be tested. Be tested in a world that you created with an exam that you know I'm going to fail with an immortal spirit that you know I'm going to suffer in a burning hell forever with. Well, what? Why? I mean, ultimately a Christian is going to argue God needs nothing from us. God existed outside of time. And then God decided at some point to create time and to create the universe and to create us and to create everything out of nothing. Well, why did he decide to create billions of sentient beings in his own likeness and image in which he gives them immortal spirits, knowing that almost all of them that he creates are going to have horrific mortal lives. Starvation, sickness, disease, malnutrition. And that's not even counting all the other sufferings we have. Heartache and loss and the death of loved ones and friends who betray and all of the other horrors that are incident to mortality. And those are nothing compared to the horrors of eternity forever suffering. Why is that the plan? Why is the plan to create billions of people out of nothing that you know are going to suffer forever? And the great part about being a Latter Day Saint is that's not the plan. It was never the plan. You weren't arbitrarily created by God and thrust on this fallen world so that God could somehow gain more glory from your suffering. You were with God in the people beginning. And when the plan was presented that you could potentially become like your Heavenly Father if you went through a difficult mortal life, that you could become like Him. We clapped our hands and shouted for joy. And we weren't tricked into it. We didn't think that it was the door B with the alligators. We knew exactly that mortality would be filled with suffering and disappointment and loss and difficulty. And we shouted for joy. The Christian world believes that a God that is all perfect, all wise and all just created billions of people knowing that they would writhe in agony forever for God's glory. We believe that because we're God's children, because the purpose of this earth is so that we can become like God. The purpose of this mortality, that's difficult. So we can become like God, that God's glory is that we become like him, to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. You might someday probably not, certainly not If Wesley's making the argument can convince me that, yeah, it's actually really a triune God, and it's God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit, they're all one God, one and the same. 3 and 1 and 1 and 3. Maybe you'll somehow convince me of your triangle God argument, but you will never convince me that God is somehow all good when he created almost everyone to suffer for forever. And that's the best part about being a Latter Day Saint. You stand alone in that. As a Christian, you don't have to believe that God created everyone arbitrarily with so much suffering. That's why. Look, I get it. People have questions about church history. I get it. There are things that. Well, I don't understand this. And why hasn't God revealed that? Or why did God allow this to happen for so long? They're valid questions. All of them pale in comparison to the alternative. And the alternative is this. Life is fundamentally meaningless. God could have done whatever he wanted, wanted, and almost like he's playing chess on a chessboard, decided arbitrarily to create us in this suffering. We don't have to believe that. And so we're probably. Over time. Richard's giving me the look like he wants me to be quiet. And that's most of the time.
- [66:09]
Dr. Richard Leduc
It was. It was very good, very well said, by the way. Most northern alligator attack.
- [66:15]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Yeah. In a zoo.
- [66:17]
Dr. Richard Leduc
No, it was in a. Well, it was a petting zoo. Scales and Tails was the name of the petting zoo.
- [66:22]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Yes, I. Yeah.
- [66:24]
Dr. Richard Leduc
And the state.
- [66:26]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
I was hoping you'd say it was in Quebec, but Utah. Oh, I remember that.
- [66:31]
Dr. Richard Leduc
The most northern attack. Now there was. There was a time when an alligator snapped at somebody in Ireland and. Yeah, an alligator named zoo in the 70s. But. Yeah, you saw Utah, the most northern attack.
- [66:43]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Yeah. Well, I. I feel like.
- [66:44]
Dr. Richard Leduc
I feel that's a perfect ending to the beautiful testimony that you just shared.
- [66:47]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
That I was using a Latter Day Saint motif of alligators. We knew it was good. Yeah, that was. That was a.
- [66:54]
Dr. Richard Leduc
That was a beautiful and heartfelt testimony on the planet Salvation. Garrett, that was.
- [66:58]
Dr. Garrett Dirkmaat
Thank you so much for joining us. And yeah.
- [67:10]
Thank you for listening to the Standard of Truth podcast hosted by historian Dr. Garrett Dirkmot and Dr. Richard leduc. If you know of anybody that could benefit from the material in this episode, please share it with them until next time.