Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Leviticus 18:17-20

17 Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of a woman and her daughter, neither shalt thou take her son’s daughter, or her daughter’s daughter, to uncover her nakedness; for they are her near kinswomen: it is wickedness. 

18 Neither shalt thou take a wife to her sister, to vex her, to uncover her nakedness, beside the other in her life time. 

19 Also thou shalt not approach unto a woman to uncover her nakedness, as long as she is put apart for her uncleanness. 

20 Moreover thou shalt not lie carnally with thy neighbour’s wife, to defile thyself with her.

We have been discussing relationships that were too close to permit sexual relations. Today continues that pattern, but extending beyond familial relationships to others. It points out the perversion of sleeping with both a woman (apparently not as her original husband) and her daughter. The mother and the daughter are too near to one another and should not be so intimately linked to the same man.

Verse 18 continues this idea by further prohibiting marrying one woman, and then also marrying her sister. Once again, we do see a patriarch who was on the wrong side of this, Jacob was famously married to both Rachel and her sister, Leah. Of course, that was not his intention but came about by trickery from his father-in-law Laban.

Verse 20 also shows how a neighbor’s wife is too close of a relationship for you to be mixing with. Of course, there is the matter of fornication that already makes such a relationship forbidden, but perhaps this is saying there is even an extra offense if the person you fornicate with is a neighbor. We are also instructed not to lay with a woman during her period or other times of uncleanness.

In all, we are being told that there is such a thing as situational transgression. A woman might in other cases be eligible to woo, but because of a shared element, now becomes too close for anything like that. Before a man and woman become closer than any other, there must first be a sufficient gap between them.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Criticizing Another’s Faith- Admission of Uncertainty

Admission of Faith)

Today I wanted to cover one more example I frequently see of un-Christlike and ineffective doctrinal critique. An attitude that once it manifests, I conclude that the critic is acting in bad faith, more interested in winning a debate than convincing a brother.

And that is when they show absolute certainty of their position.

I believe this bad-faith approach is an extension of our debate culture. In a formal debate, there is no room for uncertainty and nuance. A debater must show absolute confidence in his opinion, and his only aim is to prove that position is correct. I find it very tiring that so much of online discourse falls into this same mindset, that people cannot merely share different views, or disagree, or even argue like real people anymore.

Because real people actually know very little and believe very much. And real people are able to admit that.

As I have said all throughout this series, I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and I believe that my church is true. I believe that Joseph Smith was a prophet, I believe that the Book of Mormon is the word of God, I believe that this church is uniquely endowed with the priesthood authority of Christ, I believe that the path to fulness of union with God is through the principles and ordinances of the gospel, I believe the unique teachings of the premortal existence and afterlife and the potential to become like God are true. I believe all of these points, some of them extremely strongly, and also…I could be wrong on all of them.

I admit to true and sincere faith, not to sure and certain knowing. I am an active member of my church because I genuinely believe in its divine mission, but I cannot claim that there is zero chance that I have been deceived. I genuinely think that I am both rational and well-attuned to the spirit and conscience within me, but I have been wrong about some things in the past, and I can be wrong about more.

I am willing to admit all this because it is honest. One might think this admission might present a weak and vulnerable point, but not really, because I know that any critic of my beliefs is also operating by faith in areas of uncertainty, just like me. Just as I cannot perfectly know my position is right, you cannot perfectly know that it is wrong. Yet there are many critics that pretend that they do know perfectly, and once they make that arrogance clear I have no interest in listening to them any further, because they are liars, deluded by their own pride.

Gaps in Every Faith)

The fact is that every single one of us has gaps in our knowledge of the truth. Gaps that have to be filled with faith. When we pretend to have no gaps, that is when we are truly deceived.

Every Christian has faith that Jesus Christ is the Lord and Savior of the world, but even beyond that they have faith that their own church is in alignment with that Lord and Savior. Because, if we are being honest, every Christian church in the world today has a gap between them and Jesus, and that gap has to be filled with faith.

When we look at the earliest Christian churches, there is a gap of decades between the end of the New Testament, and the next Christian writers. And among those writers (Ignatius, Clement, Didache, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, etc.) we see disagreements and division. Thus, there is a gap of certainty to be filled with faith on which, if any, of the second wave Christian writers were correct. Eventually these doctrinal divisions led to the establishment of formal creeds to settle the disputes. This is another gap of certainty as to whether the conclusions of those creeds were correct, or whether the oppositions to them were. Eventually major schisms occurred, such as the separation of the Roman and Eastern Orthodox churches, and this is another gap of certainty as to which side, if either, was correct. Later, some would accuse the church of having lost its way. Another gap of uncertainty. Reformers would attempt to correct the orthodoxy through the formation of new churches. Another gap. And in some cases, such as with my faith, it is believed the true authority had been lost long before, and had to be entirely restored, not just reformed. Another gap, to be sure.

And then, even after all that, even if a specific Christian church is the true embodiment of our Lord’s gospel today, an individual within that church will still need to correctly understand and interpret that church’s doctrine, which is yet another gap of certainty.

The reality is that each and every one of us has many gaps that we fill with faith to hold the beliefs that we do, and anyone who claims otherwise is deceived. If there were not these points of uncertainty, there could be no honest disagreement about what Christ’s truth was, and clearly that is not the world we live in. Ideally each of us would say that even though we believe we have found the truth that is most consistent, most justifiable, most supported by the evidence…that we can still acknowledge that others who disagree may have sincere and valid reasons for doing so.

On top of our faith in Christ, there is faith that we are also in his correct church, and there is faith that we understand the doctrines of that correct church correctly. And so, we believe and express that belief sincerely, but we also couple that conviction with the humble admission that our knowledge is imperfect, and that other people have good reasons for thinking something different.

Posted on by Abe Austin

I Know vs I Do

There is a great chasm between “I know that I should” and “I am actually doing it.”

Within that distance is all the struggle of conscience, the transformation of coward into hero, the measure of one’s very soul. In it we see the difference between a society that is flourishing and one that is decaying, between depravity and morality, and the life or death of the world. All of it turns when we finally act from what we already know in our hearts.