The Articles of Faith Part 3

=3.= The multiplicity of evidence upon which mankind rest their conviction regarding the existence of a Supreme Being, may be cla.s.sified, for convenience of consideration, under the three following heads:

I. The evidence of history and tradition.

II. The evidence furnished by the exercise of human reason.

III. The conclusive evidence of direct revelation from G.o.d Himself.

=4. I. History and Tradition.=--History as written by man, and tradition as transmitted from generation to generation prior to the date of any written record now extant, give evidence of the actuality of Deity, and of close and personal dealings between G.o.d and man in the first epochs of human existence. One of the most ancient records known, the Bible, names G.o.d as the Creator of all things,[49] and moreover, declares that He revealed Himself to our first earthly parents and to many other holy personages in the early days of the world. Adam and Eve heard His voice[50] in the Garden, and even after their transgression they continued to call upon G.o.d and to sacrifice to Him. It is plain, therefore, that they carried with them from the Garden a knowledge of G.o.d. After their expulsion they heard "the voice of the Lord from the way toward the Garden of Eden," though they saw Him not; and He gave unto them commandments, which they obeyed. Then came to Adam an angelic messenger, and the Holy Ghost inspired the man and bare record of the Father and the Son.[51]

[49] Genesis i; see also Pearl of Great Price, Moses ii, 1.

[50] Genesis iii, 8; and Pearl of Great Price, Moses iv, 14.

[51] Pearl of Great Price, Moses v, 6-9.

=5.= Cain and Abel learned of G.o.d from the teachings of their parents, as well as from personal ministrations. After the acceptance of Abel's offering, and the rejection of that of Cain followed by Cain's terrible crime of fratricide, the Lord talked with Cain, and Cain answered the Lord.[52] Cain must, therefore, have taken a personal knowledge of G.o.d from Eden into the land where he went to dwell.[53]

Adam lived to be nine hundred and thirty years old and many children were born unto him. Them he instructed in the fear of G.o.d, and many of them received direct ministrations. Of Adam's descendants, Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, and Lamech the father of Noah, each representing a distinct generation, were all living during Adam's lifetime. Noah was born but a hundred and twenty-six years after the time of Adam's death, and moreover lived nearly six hundred years with his father Lamech, by whom he was doubtless instructed in the traditions concerning G.o.d's personal manifestations, which Lamech had learned from the lips of Adam. Through the medium of Noah and his family, a knowledge of G.o.d by direct tradition was carried beyond the flood; and Noah held direct communication with G.o.d,[54] and lived to instruct ten generations of his descendants. Then followed Abraham, who also enjoyed direct communion with the Creator,[55] and after him Isaac, and Jacob or Israel, among whose descendants the Lord wrought such wonders through the instrumentality of Moses. Thus, had there been no written records, tradition would have preserved and transmitted a knowledge of G.o.d.

[52] Genesis iv, 9-16; Pearl of Great Price, Moses v, 22, 34-40.

[53] Genesis iv, 16; Pearl of Great Price, Moses v, 41.

[54] Genesis vi, 13, and succeeding chapter.

[55] Genesis xii, and succeeding chapters.

=6.= But even if the accounts of the earliest of man's personal communion with G.o.d had become dimmed with time, and therefore weakened in effect, they could but give place to other traditions founded on later manifestations of the Divine personality. Unto Moses the Lord made Himself known, not alone from behind the curtain of fire and the screen of clouds,[56] but by direct face to face communication, whereby the chosen high-priest beheld even "the similitude" of his G.o.d.[57] This account of direct communion between Moses and G.o.d, in part of which the people were permitted to share,[58] as far as their faith and purity permitted, has been preserved by Israel through all the generations of the past. And from Israel the traditions of G.o.d's existence have spread throughout the world; so that we find traces of this ancient knowledge even in the most fanciful and perverted mythologies of heathen nations.

[56] Exo. iii, 4; xix, 18; Numb. xii, 5.

[57] Numb. xii, 8; see also Pearl of Great Price, Moses i, 1-2.

[58] Exo. xix, 9, 11, 17-20.

=7. II. Human Reason=, operating upon observations of the things of nature, strongly declares the existence of G.o.d. The mind, already imbued with the historical truths of the Divine existence and its close relationship with man, will find confirmatory evidence in nature on every side; and even to him who rejects the testimony of the past, and a.s.sumes to set up his own judgment as superior to the common belief of ages, the multifarious evidences of design in nature appeal.

Every observer must be impressed by the proofs of order and system among created things, and by the absence of superfluities in nature.

He notes the regular succession of day and night providing alternate periods of work and rest for man, animals, and vegetables; the sequence of the seasons, each with its longer periods of labor and recuperation, the mutual dependence of animals and plants, the circulation of water from sea to cloud, from cloud to earth again, sustaining the fertility of the soil. As man proceeds to the closer examination of things, he finds that by study and scientific investigation these proofs are multiplied many fold. He may learn of the laws by which earth and its a.s.sociated worlds are governed in their orbits; by which satellites are held subordinate to planets, and planets to suns; he may behold the marvels of vegetable and animal anatomy, and the surpa.s.sing mechanism of his own body; and with such appeals to his reason increasing at every step, his wonder as to who made all this gives place to inexpressible admiration for the Creator whose presence and power are thus so forcibly proclaimed; and the observer becomes a worshiper.

=8.= Everywhere in nature is the evidence of cause and effect; on every side is the demonstration of means adapted to end. But such adaptations, says a thoughtful writer, "indicate contrivance for a given purpose, and contrivance is the evidence of intelligence, and intelligence is the attribute of mind, and the intelligent mind that built the stupendous universe is G.o.d."[59] To admit the existence of a designer in the evidence of design, to say there must be a contriver in a world of intelligent contrivance, to believe in an adapter when man's life is directly dependent upon the most perfect adaptations conceivable, is but to accept self-evident truths. These axioms of nature ought to require no demonstration; the burden of proof as to the non-existence of a G.o.d ought to be placed upon him who questions the solemn truth. "Every house is builded by some man, but he that built all things is G.o.d." So spake the Apostle of old,[60] and plain as is the truth expressed in these simple words, there are among men a few who profess to doubt the evidence of reason, and who deny the Author of their own being. Strange, is it not, that here and there one, who finds in the contrivance exhibited by the ant in building her house, in the architecture of the honey-comb, and in the myriad instances of orderly instinct among the least of living things, a proof of intelligence from which man may learn and be wise, will yet question the operation of intelligence in the creation of worlds and in the const.i.tution of the universe?[61]

[59] Ca.s.sell's Bible Dictionary, p. 481.

[60] Paul in Heb. iii, 4.

[61] See Note 4.

=9.= Man's inborn consciousness tells him of his own existence; his ordinary powers of observation prove the existence of others of his kind, and of uncounted orders of organized beings; from this he concludes that something must have existed always, for had there been a time of no existence, a period of nothingness, existence could never have begun, for from nothing, nothing can be derived. The eternal existence of something, then, is a fact beyond dispute; and the question requiring answer is, what is that eternal something--that existence which is without beginning and without end? The skeptic may answer, "Nature; matter has always existed, and the universe is but a manifestation of matter organized by forces operating upon it; however, Nature is not G.o.d." But matter is neither vital nor active, nor is force intelligent; yet vitality and ceaseless activity are characteristic of created things, and the effects of intelligence are universally present. True, nature is not G.o.d; and to mistake the one for the other is to call the edifice the architect, the fabric the designer, the marble the sculptor, and the thing the power that made it. The system of nature is the manifestation of that order which argues a directing intelligence; and that intelligence is of an eternal character, coeval with existence itself. Nature herself is a declaration of a superior Being, whose will and purpose she portrays in all her varied aspects. Beyond and above nature, stands nature's G.o.d.

=10.= While existence is eternal, and therefore to being there never was a beginning, never shall be an end, in a relative sense each stage of organization must have had a beginning, and to every phase of existence as manifested in each of the countless orders and cla.s.ses of created things, there was a first, as there will be a last; though every ending or consummation in nature is but the beginning of another stage of advancement. Thus, man's ingenuity has invented theories to ill.u.s.trate, if not to explain, a possible sequence of events by which the earth has been brought from a state of chaos to its present habitable condition; but by those hypotheses, this globe was once a barren ball, on which none of the innumerable forms of life that now tenant it could have existed. The theorist therefore must admit a beginning to earthly life, and such a beginning is explicable only on the a.s.sumption of some creative act, or a contribution from outside the earth. If he admit the introduction of life upon the earth from some other and older sphere, he does but extend the limits of his inquiry as to the beginning of vital existence; for to explain the origin of a rose-bush in our own garden by saying that it was transplanted as an offshoot from a rose-tree growing elsewhere, is no answer to the question concerning the origin of roses. Science of necessity a.s.sumes a beginning to vital phenomena on this planet, and admits a finite duration of the earth in its current course of progressive change; and in this respect, the earth is a representative of the heavenly bodies in general. The eternity of existence, then, is no more positive as an indication of an eternal Ruler than is the endless sequence of change, each stage of which has both beginning and end. The origination of created things, the beginning of an organized universe, is utterly inexplicable on any a.s.sumption of spontaneous change in matter, or of fortuitous and accidental operation of its properties.

=11.= Human reason, so liable to err in dealing with subjects of lesser import even, may not of itself lead its possessor to a full knowledge of G.o.d; yet its exercise will aid him in his search, strengthening and confirming his inherited instinct toward his Maker.[62] "The fool hath said in his heart, There is no G.o.d."[63] In the scriptures, the word fool[64] is used to designate a wicked man, one who has forfeited his wisdom by a long course of wrongdoing, bringing darkness over his mind in place of light, and ignorance instead of knowledge. By such a course, the mind becomes depraved and incapable of appreciating the finer arguments in nature. A wilful sinner grows deaf to the voice of reason in holy things, and loses the privilege of communing with his Creator, thus forfeiting the strongest means of attaining a knowledge of G.o.d.

[62] See Note 5.

[63] Psalms xiv, 1.

[64] Proverbs i, 7; x, 21; xiv, 9.

=12. III. Revelation= gives to man his fullest knowledge of G.o.d. We are not left wholly to the exercise of fallible reasoning powers, nor to the testimony of others for a knowledge of the Divine Creator; we may know Him for ourselves. Instances of G.o.d manifesting Himself to His prophets in olden as in later times are so numerous as to render impossible any detailed consideration here; moreover, we will have opportunity of examining many examples in connection with our study of the ninth of the Articles of Faith; for the present, therefore, brief mention must suffice. We have already noted, as the foundation of many traditions relating to the existence and personality of G.o.d, His revelations of Himself to Adam and other ante-diluvian patriarchs; then to Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses. An example but briefly mentioned in the Jewish scriptures is that of Enoch, the father of Methuselah; of him we read that he walked with G.o.d.[65] From the "Writings of Moses" we learn that the Lord manifested Himself with special favor to this chosen seer,[66] revealing unto him the course of events until the time of Christ's appointed ministry in the flesh, the plan of salvation through the sacrifice of the Only Begotten, and the scenes that were to follow until the final judgment.

[65] Gen. v, 18-24; see also Jude 14.

[66] Pearl of Great Price, Moses vi, vii.

=13.= Of Moses we read that he received a manifestation from G.o.d, who spoke to him from the midst of the burning bush in Mount h.o.r.eb, saying: "I am the G.o.d of thy father, the G.o.d of Abraham, the G.o.d of Isaac, and the G.o.d of Jacob. And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon G.o.d."[67] Unto Moses and a.s.sembled Israel G.o.d appeared in a cloud, with the terrifying accompaniment of thunders and lightnings, on Sinai: "And the Lord said unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, Ye have seen that I have talked with you from heaven."[68] Of a later manifestation we are told:--"Then went up Moses, and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel: And they saw the G.o.d of Israel: and there was under his feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone, and as it were the body of heaven in his clearness."[69]

[67] Exodus iii, 6.

[68] Ex. xx, 18-22.

[69] Ex. xxiv, 9-10.

=14.= On through the time of Joshua and the judges to the kings and the prophets, the Lord declared His presence and His power. Isaiah saw the Lord enthroned in the midst of a glorious company, and cried out, "Woe is me, for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts."[70]

[70] Isa. vi, 1-5.

=15.= At a subsequent period, when Christ emerged from the waters of baptism, the voice of the Father was heard declaring "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."[71] And on the occasion of our Lord's transfiguration, the same voice repeated this solemn and glorious acknowledgment.[72] While Stephen was suffering martyrdom at the hands of his cruel and bigoted countrymen, the heavens were opened, and he "saw the glory of G.o.d, and Jesus standing on the right hand of G.o.d."[73]

[71] Matt. iii, 16-17; Mark i, 11.

[72] Matt. xvii, 1-5; Luke ix, 35.

[73] Acts vii, 54-60.

=16.= The Book of Mormon is replete with instances of communication between G.o.d and His people, mostly through vision and by the ministration of angels, but also through direct manifestation of the Divine presence. Thus, we read of a colony of people leaving the Tower of Babel and journeying to the western hemisphere, under the leadership of one who is known in the record as the brother of Jared.

In preparing for the voyage across the great deep, the leader prayed that the Lord would touch with His finger, and thereby make luminous, certain stones, that the voyagers might have light in the ships. In answer to this pet.i.tion, the Lord stretched forth His hand and touched the stones, revealing His finger, which the man was surprised to see resembled the finger of a human being. Then the Lord, pleased with the man's faith, made Himself visible to the brother of Jared, and demonstrated to him that man was formed literally after the image of the Creator.[74] To the Nephites who inhabited the western continent, Christ revealed Himself after His resurrection and ascension. To these sheep of the western fold, He testified of His commission received from the Father; showed the wounds in His hands, feet, and side, and ministered unto the believing mult.i.tudes in many ways.[75]

[74] Book of Mormon, Ether iii.

[75] Book of Mormon, III Nephi xi-xxviii.

=17.= In the present dispensation, G.o.d has revealed, and does still reveal himself to His people. We have seen how by faith and sincerity of purpose Joseph Smith, while yet a youth, won for himself a manifestation of G.o.d's presence, being privileged to behold both the Father and Christ the Son.[76] His testimony of the existence of G.o.d is not dependent upon tradition or studied deduction; he declares to the world that both the Father and Christ the Son live, for he has beheld their persons, and has heard their voices. In addition to the manifestation cited, Joseph Smith and his fellow servant, Sidney Rigdon, state that on the 16th of February, 1832, they saw the Son of G.o.d, and conversed with Him in heavenly vision. In describing this manifestation they say: "And while we meditated upon these things, the Lord touched the eyes of our understandings, and they were opened, and the glory of the Lord shone round about; and we beheld the glory of the Son, on the right hand of the Father, and received of His fulness; and saw the holy angels, and they who are sanctified before His throne, worshiping G.o.d and the Lamb, who worship Him forever and ever. And now, after the many testimonies which have been given of Him, this is the testimony last of all which we give of Him, that He lives, for we saw Him."[77]

[76] See page 9.

[77] Doc. and Cov. lxxvi, 11-24.

=18.= Again, on the 3rd of April, 1836, in the temple at Kirtland, Ohio, the Lord manifested Himself to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery, who say of the occasion:--"We saw the Lord standing upon the breastwork of the pulpit before us, and under His feet was a paved work of pure gold in color like amber. His eyes were as a flame of fire, the hair of His head was white like the pure snow, His countenance shone above the brightness of the sun, and His voice was as the sound of the rushing of great waters, even the voice of Jehovah, saying,--I am the first and the last; I am He who liveth; I am He who was slain; I am your advocate with the Father."[78]