December 2020 – Todd Decker

Causal and Emergent Models

Models are critical tools that enable us to think about, qualify, and quantify features of many processes. And as with any kind of tool, different kinds of models are better suited to different circumstances. Here we look at two kinds of models for understanding transport phenomena: causal and emergent models. In a causal process there is some kind of distinct, sequential, goal-oriented event with an observable beginning and end. In an emergent process there are uniform, parallel, independent events with no beginning or end but in which observable patterns eventually emerge.

For the video version of this episode, which includes some visual aids, see on YouTube.

Since my university studies I’ve been fascinated by the ways we use models to understand and even make quantitative descriptions and predictions about the world. I don’t remember when exactly, but at some point I really began to appreciate how the pictures of chemical and physical processes I had in my head were not the way things “really” were (exactly) but were useful models for thinking about things and solving problems.

Conceptual models in science, engineering, economics, etc. are similar to toy models like model cars or model airplanes in that they aren’t the things themselves but have enough in common with the things they are modeling to still perform in similar ways. As long as a model enables you to get the information and understanding you need it is useful, at least for the scale and circumstances you’re interested in. Models are ubiquitous in the sciences and one of the major activities in the sciences is to improve models, generate new models, and create more models to apply to more conditions.

Something to bear in mind when working with a model is the set of conditions in which it works well. That’s important because a model may work very well under a certain set of conditions but then break down outside those conditions. Outside those conditions it may give less accurate results or just not describe well qualitatively what’s going on in the system we’re trying to understand. This could be something like being outside a temperature or pressure range, extremes in velocity or gravitational field strength, etc. And often it’s a matter of geometric scale, like whether we’re dealing in meters or nanometers. The world looks different at the microscopic and molecular scale than at the macroscopic scale of daily life.

I’m really a pluralist when it comes to models. I’m in favor of several types to meet the tasks at hand. Is a classical, Newtonian model for gravity superior to a relativistic model for gravity? I don’t think so. Yeah, a Newtonian model breaks down under certain conditions. But it’s much easier and intuitive to work with under most conditions. It doesn’t make sense to just throw away a Newtonian model after relativity. And we don’t. We can’t. It would be absurdly impractical. And practicality is a major virtue of models. That’s not to say there’s no such thing as better or worse models. A Newtonian model of planetary motion is better than a Ptolemaic one because it’s both more accurate and simpler to understand. So I don’t embrace pluralism without standards of evaluation. I suppose there’d be an infinite number of really bad models in the set of all possible models. Even so, there are still multiple that do work well, that overlap and cover similar systems.

I studied chemical engineering in the university and one of my textbooks was Transport Phenomena by Bird, Stewart, and Lightfoot, sort of a holy trinity of the discipline. Transport phenomena covers fluids, heat, and diffusion, which all share many features and whose models share a very similar structure. One of the ideas I liked in that book is its systematic study of processes at three scales: macroscopic, microscopic, and molecular. I’ll quote from the book for their explanations of these different scales.

“At the macroscopic level we write down a set of equations called the ‘macroscopic balances,’ which describe how the mass, momentum, energy, and angular momentum in the system change because of the introduction and removal of these entities via the entering and leaving streams, and because of various other inputs to the system from the surroundings. No attempt is made to understand all the details of the system.”

“At the microscopic level we examine what is happening to the fluid mixture in a small region within the equipment. We write down a set of equations called the ‘equations of change,’ which describe how the mass, momentum, energy, and angular moment change within this small region. The aim here is to get information about velocity, temperature, pressure, and concentration profiles within the system. This more detailed information may be required for the understanding of some processes.”

“At the molecular level we seek a fundamental understanding of the mechanisms of mass, momentum, energy, and angular momentum transport in terms of molecular structure and intermolecular forces. Generally this is the realm of the theoretical physicist or physical chemist, but occasionally engineers and applied scientists have to get involved at this level.”

I came across an interesting paper recently from a 2002 engineering education conference titled How Chemical Engineering Seniors Think about Mechanisms of Momentum Transport by Ronald L. Miller, Ruth A. Streveler, and Barbara M. Olds. It caught my attention since I’ve been a chemical engineering senior so I wanted to see how it compared to my experience. And it tracked it pretty well actually. Their idea is that one of the things that starts to click for seniors in their studies, something that often hadn’t clicked before, is a conceptual understanding of many fundamental molecular-level and atomic-level phenomena including heat, light, diffusion, chemical reactions, and electricity. I’ll refer mostly to the examples from this paper by Miller, Streveler, and Olds but I’ll mention that they base much of their presentation on the work of Michelene Chi, who is a cognitive and learning scientist. In particular they refer to her work on causal versus emergent conceptual models for these physical processes. Her paper on this is titled Misconceived Causal Explanations for Emergent Processes. Miller, Streveler, and Olds propose that chemical engineering students start out using causal models to understand many of these processes but then move to more advanced, emergent models later in their studies.

In a causal process there is some kind of distinct, sequential, goal-oriented event with an observable beginning and end. In an elastic collision for instance, a moving object collides with a previously stationary object and transfers its momentum to it. In an emergent process there are uniform, parallel, independent events with no beginning or end but in which observable patterns eventually emerge. Electricity, fluid flow, heat transfer and molecular equilibrium are examples of emergent processes. Miller, Streveler, and Olds correlate causal and emergent explanations with macroscopic and molecular models respectively. As Bird, Stewart, and Lightfoot had said in their descriptions of their three scales, it’s at the molecular level that “we seek a fundamental understanding of the mechanisms.” But at the macroscopic scales we aren’t looking at so fundamental an explanation.

Miller, Streveler, and Olds use diffusion, i.e. mass transport, as an example to show the difference between causal and emergent explanations. Say we have a glass of water and we add a drop of color dye to it. The water is a solvent and the color dye is a solute. This color dye solute starts to diffuse, or spread, into the water solvent and we can explain this diffusion process in both causal and emergent ways; or we could also say in macroscopic and molecular ways.

First, a quick overview of diffusion. The mathematical model for diffusion is Fick’s Law of Diffusion. The equation for this is:

J = -D(dC/dx)

Where,
J is the diffusion flux
C is concentration
x is position
D is diffusivity, the applicable constant of proportionality in this case

The basic logic of this equation is that the diffusion of a solute is proportional to the gradient of the concentration of that solute in a solvent. If the solute is evenly distributed in the solution the concentration is the same everywhere in the solution, so there is no concentration gradient and no diffusion. But there is a gradient if the solute concentration is different at different positions in the space, for example, if it is highly concentrated at one point and less concentrated as you move away from that point. The diffusion flux is proportional to the steepness of that decrease, that gradient. If a drop of dye has just been placed in a glass of water the flux of diffusion is going to be very high at the boundary between that drop and the surrounding water because there is a huge difference in the concentration of the dye there.

So that’s the logic of Fick’s Law of Diffusion. But why does this happen? And here we can look at the two different kinds of explanations, causal and emergent explanations.

Here are a few examples of both:

Causal Explanation: “Dye molecules move towards water molecules.”
Emergent Explanation: “All molecules exercise Brownian motion.”

Causal Explanation: “Dye molecules flow from areas of high concentration to areas of low concentration.”
Emergent Explanation: “All molecules move at the same time.”

Causal Explanation: “Dye molecules are ‘pushed’ into the water by other dye molecules.”
Emergent Explanation: “Molecules collide independently of prior collisions. What happens to one molecule doesn’t affect interactions with other molecules.”

Causal Explanation: “Dye molecules want to mix with water molecules.”
Emergent Explanation: “The local conditions around each molecule affect where it moves and at what velocity.”

Causal Explanation: “Dye molecules stop moving when dye and water become mixed.”
Emergent Explanation: “Molecular interactions continue when equilibrium is reached.”

This is gives something of a flavor of the two different kinds of explanations. Causal explanations have more of a top-down approach, looking for the big forces that make things happen, and may even speak in metaphorical terms of volition, like what a molecule “wants” to do. Emergent explanations have more of a bottom-up approach, looking at all the things going on independently in a system and how that results in the patterns we observe.

I remember Brownian motion being something that really started pushing me to think of diffusion in a more emergent way. Brownian motion is the random motion of particles suspended in a medium, like a liquid or a gas. If you just set a glass of water on a table it may look stationary, but at the molecular scale there’s still a lot of movement. The water molecules are moving around in random directions. If you add a drop of color dye to the water the molecules in the dye also have Brownian motion, with all those molecules moving in random directions. So what’s going to happen in this situation? Well, things aren’t just going to stay put. The water molecules are going to keep moving around in random directions and the dye molecules are going to keep moving around in random directions. What kind of patter should we expect to see emerge from this?

Let’s imagine imposing a three-dimensional grid onto this space, dividing the glass up into cube volumes or voxels. Far away from the drop of dye, water molecules will still be moving around randomly between voxels but those voxels will continue to look about the same. Looking at the space around the dye, voxels in the middle of the drop will be all dye. Voxels on the boundary will have some dye molecules and some water molecules. And voxels with a lot of dye molecules will be next to voxels with few dye molecules. As water molecules and dye molecules continue their random motion we’re going to see the most state changes in the voxels that are different from each other. Dye molecules near a voxel with mostly water molecules can very likely move into one of those voxels and change its state from one with few or no dye molecules to one with some or more dye molecules. And the biggest state changes will occur in regions where voxels near to each other are most different, just because they can be so easily (albeit randomly) changed.

This is a very different way of looking at the process of diffusion. Rather than there being some rule imposed from above, telling dye molecules that they should move to areas of high concentration to low concentration, all these molecules are moving around randomly. And over time areas with sharp differences tend to even out, just by random motion. From above and from a distance this even looks well-ordered and like it could be directed. The random motion of all the components results in an emergent macro-level pattern that can be modeled and predicted by a fairly simple mathematical expression. The movement of each individual molecule is random and unpredictable, but the resulting behavior of the system, the aggregate of all those random motions, is ordered and highly predictable. I just think that’s quite elegant!

Miller, Streveler, and Olds give another example that neatly illustrates different ways of understanding a physical process at the three different scales: macroscopic, microscopic, and molecular. Their second example is of momentum transport. An example of momentum transport is pumping a fluid through a pipe. As a brief overview, when a fluid like water is moved through a pipe under pressure the velocity of the fluid is highest at the center of the pipe and lowest near the walls. This is a velocity gradient, often called a “velocity profile”, where you have this cross-sectional view of a pipe showing the velocity vectors of different magnitudes at different positions along the radius of the pipe. When you have this velocity gradient there is also a transfer of momentum to areas of high momentum to areas of low momentum. So in this case momentum will transfer from the center of the pipe toward the walls of the pipe.

The model for momentum transport has a similar structure to the model for mass transport. Recall that in Fick’s Law of Diffusion, mass transport, i.e. diffusion, was proportional to the concentration gradient and the constant of proportionality was this property called diffusivity. The equation was:

J = -D(dC/dx)

The corresponding model for momentum transport is Newton’s law of viscosity (Newton had a lot of laws). The equation for that is:

τ = -μ(dv/dx)

Where

τ is shear stress, the flux of momentum transport
v is velocity
x is position
μ is viscosity, the applicable constant of proportionality in this case

So in Newton’s law of viscosity the momentum transport, i.e. shear stress, is proportional to the velocity gradient and the constant of proportionality is viscosity. You have higher momentum transport with a higher gradient, i.e. change, in velocity along the radius of the pipe. Why does that happen?

So they actually asked some students to explain this in their own words to see on what geometric scales they would make their descriptions. The prompt was: “Explain in your own words (no equations) how momentum is transferred through a fluid via viscous action.” And they evaluated the descriptions as one being of the three scales (or a mixture of them) using this rubric. So here are examples from the rubric of explanations at each of those scales:

Macroscopic explanation: The pressure at the pipe inlet is increased (usually by pumping) which causes the fluid to move through the pipe. Friction between fluid and pipe wall results in a pressure drop in the direction of flow along the pipe length. The fluid at the wall does not move (no-slip condition) while fluid furthest away from the wall (at the pipe centerline) flows the fastest, so momentum is transferred from the center (high velocity and high momentum) to the wall (no velocity and no momentum).

Microscopic explanation: Fluid in laminar flow moves as a result of an overall pressure drop causing a velocity profile to develop (no velocity at the wall, maximum velocity at the pipe centerline). Therefore, at each pipe radius, layers of fluid flow past each other at different velocities. Faster flowing layers tend to speed up [and move] slower layers along resulting in momentum transfer from faster layers in the middle of the pipe to slower layers closer to the pipe walls.

Molecular explanation: Fluid molecules are moving in random Brownian motion until a pressure is applied at the pipe inlet causing the formation of a velocity gradient from centerline to pipe wall. Once the gradient is established, molecules that randomly migrate from an area of high momentum to low momentum will take along the momentum they possess and will transfer some of it to other molecules as they collide (increasing the momentum of the slower molecules). Molecules that randomly migrate from low to high momentum will absorb some momentum during collisions. As long as the overall velocity gradient is maintained, the net result is that momentum is transferred by molecular motion from areas of high momentum to areas of low momentum and ultimately to thermal dissipation at the pipe wall.

With these different descriptions as we move from larger to smaller scales we also move from causal to emergent explanations. At the macroscopic level we’re looking at bulk motion of fluid. At the microscopic scale it’s getting a little more refined. We’re thinking in terms of multiple layers of fluid flow. We’re seeing the gradient at a higher resolution. And we can think of these layers of fluid rubbing past each other, with faster layers dragging slower layers along, and slower layers slowing faster layers down. It’s spreading out a deck of cards. In these explanations momentum moves along the velocity gradient because of a kind of drag along the radial direction.

But with the molecular description we leave behind that causal explanation of things being dragged along. There’s only one major top-down, causal force in this system and that’s the pressure or force that’s being applied in the direction of the length of the pipe. With a horizontal pipe we can think of this force being applied along its horizontal axis. But there’s not a top-down, external force being applied along the vertical or radial axis of the pipe. So why does momentum move from the high-momentum region in the center of the pipe to the low-momentum region near the pipe wall? It’s because there’s still random motion along the radial or vertical axis, which is perpendicular to the direction of the applied pressure. So molecules are still moving randomly between regions with different momentum. So if we think of these layers, these cylindrical sheets that are dividing up the sections of the pipe at different radii, these correspond to our cube voxels in the diffusion example. Molecules are moving randomly between these sheets. The state of each layer is characterized by the momentum of the molecules in it. As molecules move between layers and collide with other molecules they transfer momentum. As in the diffusion example the overall pattern that emerges here is the result of random motion of the individual molecular components.

So, does this matter? My answer to that question is usually that “it”, whatever it may be, matters when and where it matters. Miller, Streveler, and Olds say: “If the macroscopic and microscopic models are successful in describing the global behavior of simple systems, why should we care if students persist in incorrectly applying causal models to processes such as dye diffusion into water? The answer is simple – the causal models can predict some but not all important behavioral characteristics of molecular diffusional processes.” And I think that’s a good criterion for evaluation. I actually wouldn’t say, as they do, that the application of causal models is strictly “incorrect”. But I take their broader point. Certainly macroscopic and causal models have their utility. For one thing, I think they’re easier to understand starting off. But as with all models, you have to keep in mind their conditions of applicability. Some apply more broadly then others.

One thing to notice about these transport models is that they have proportionality constants. And whenever you see a constant like that in a model it’s important to consider what all might be wrapped up into it because it may involve a lot of complexity. And that is the case with both the diffusion coefficient and viscosity. Both are heavily dependent on specific properties of the system. For the value of viscosity you have to look it up for a specific substance and then also for the right temperature range. Viscosity varies widely between different substances. And even for a single substance it can still vary widely with temperature. For diffusivity you have to consider not only one substance but two, at least. If you look up a coefficient of diffusivity in a table it’s going to be for a pair of substances. And that will also depend on temperature.

At a macroscopic scale it’s not clear why the rates mass transport and momentum transport would depend on temperature or the type of substances involved. But at a microscopic scale you can appreciate how different types of molecules would have different sizes and would move around at different velocities at different temperatures and how that would all play into the random movements of particles and the interactions between particles that produce, from that molecular scale, the emergent processes of diffusion and momentum transport that we observe at the macroscopic scale.

Once you open up that box, to see what is going on behind these proportionality constants, it opens up a whole new field of scientific work to develop – you guessed it – more and better models to qualify and quantify these phenomena.

The Sermon on the Mount: Matthew 7

This is the last in a three-part series on the Sermon on the Mount. In Matthew 7 Jesus taught: “Judge not”, “Ask, and it will be given to you”, “Whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them”, “Narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life”, “You will know them by their fruits”, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven”. As Jesus teaches about the narrow gate and difficult way consider what it means to live according to “The Way” as a disciple of Christ.

This will be the third and last episode of this trilogy on the Sermon on the Mount. I’ve decided to give the Sermon on the Mount special attention for personal study. Preparing and presenting my thoughts on these passages has been a good way for me to organize and record my thoughts. I hope it’s also of some value to readers and listeners. I see the New Testament as the central text of Christian life and the Sermon on the Mount is among the most important sections of the New Testament. Definitely in the top tier. This is where we really get to see who Jesus is and what he is about. And also who God is and what God is about. As Jesus said: “He who has seen Me has seen the Father” (John 14:9). By studying the Sermon on the Mount we’re learning about Jesus and we’re learning about God. We’re learning about “The Way”, ἡ ὁδὸς (he hodos), which is also Jesus Christ (John 14:6), “I am the way” – Ἐγώ εἰμι ἡ ὁδὸς (Ego eimi he hodos). The Sermon on the Mount shows The Way we are to live as followers of Jesus Christ. And as we will see in Matthew 7, The Way is strict and narrow, so it’s important to pay close attention to it’s exposition in scripture.

Part of what got me into a close reading of this sermon in particular is what I perceive to be something of a Christian identity crisis. “Who are we?” and “What are we about?”

I’m thinking especially of Christianity in the United States but I’m sure similar challenges occur in other countries. It’s by no means a settled conclusion that just by calling ourselves Christians or followers of Christ, by making a declaration to the world and to ourselves that we are his followers that that makes it so. As we’ll see in this chapter, that is often not the case. How to find our way? In the Bible certainly. And I think the Sermon on the Mount especially is a great place to look for the fundamentals.

So let’s dive in.

Matthew 7:1-5

“Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”

This is a tough one. How do you not judge? And what does it mean to judge? This is one of those verses like Matthew 19:24, that it’s “easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God,” where we always want to say, “hmm, it must really mean that.” And soften it somewhat to make it more practical. It’s probably apparent that I’m skeptical of that method of interpretation. But that’s not to say it’s not at all legitimate or can’t be justified. Jesus was, afterall, a very nonliteral, metaphorical and parabolic teacher. So sometimes his teachings shouldn’t be taken literally. But this passage doesn’t seem like an obvious candidate for that kind of interpretation. The message seems pretty clear: do not judge – Μὴ κρίνετε (Me krínete). So how does that work in practice?

Part of what makes this passage difficult is that it’s certainly not the case that just anything goes. There is still such a thing as right and wrong and understanding the difference is a form of judgment, if not of individuals, than at least of certain actions, even if abstracted from specific instances and specific individuals. So for example, if someone says that it’s wrong to do something it’s not sufficient to just say, “Oh, don’t judge!” That wouldn’t be consistent with the rest of Christ’s teachings. So, don’t try to use that as a lame excuse for your own bad actions. Jesus taught tons of things to do and not do. Even saying “Judge not” is saying not to do something. In terms of actions it’s making a judgment about judgment. So this isn’t some kind of loophole to get away with whatever you want; it’s not a shield for your own sins. There’s still right and wrong, even as Jesus says, “Judge not.” So how does this all fit together?

Let’s work our way back from the end of the passage where Jesus says: “First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” So we’re not supposed to just leave things as they are with everyone. We are supposed to help each other and that includes moral help, helping people to repent of their sins and change for the better. We might say that involves some kind of judgment. But it seems to be a different kind of judgment than the kind Jesus has in mind when he says “do not judge”. What is the difference?

One pitfall is hypocrisy. “And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye? Hypocrite!” So one problem is not having your own self in order before going out to reform others. I struggle a little with this because even in this case the motivation seems honorable. “Let me remove the speck from your eye”. The person has a speck in their eye. They need help. What’s wrong with trying to help someone else out with their moral problems even though we have our own or maybe even worse moral problems? Can’t we just say we’re all screw ups trying to straighten ourselves out together? I think maybe we can, as long as we’re not pretending. Or, if I can make up a word, as long as we’re not hypocrite-ing, one meaning of the verb ὑποκρίνομαι (hupokrínomai) being “to pretend”. The problem here may be less having a plank in your eye than pretending that you don’t have one. But of course, better still is to actually “remove the plank from your own eye” as Jesus says, to be even more effective in helping others to remove the specks from their own eyes. And maybe to be on the safe side, to be in more precise alignment with Jesus’s teachings, one ought just to be complete that process first. It might be like how they say on the airplane that with a loss in cabin pressure you should put on your own mask first and then help others put theirs on.

All of this I think should be understood in reference to that first commandment in the chapter, “Do not judge,” which I see as a kind of center of gravity for all the rest of this. Whatever interpretations we may make of the other parts of the passage, they should conform to that. Not judging is the baseline rather than an afterthought.

There’s a similarity here of the teaching that “with what judgment you judge, you will be judged” to the supplication in the Lord’s Prayer in the previous chapter that God “forgive us our debts, as – Ὡς (Hos) – we forgive our debtors (Matthew 6:12). There’s a similar consistency in the measure – μέτρον (métron) – used. “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” (Matthew 6:14-15) How strictly do you want to be judged? Do you want to be judged harshly or laxly? Do you want your words to be interpreted in the worst possible way or in the most charitable way? If we want to be judged laxly and charitably we should be lax, charitable, and forgiving toward others.

Matthew 7:6

“Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces.”

On one level the meaning here isn’t too hard to grasp. Some things are special and should be treated as special. Special things should be separated from common things. This is an idea that runs throughout the Bible. On another level though it’s not entirely obvious why this verse is here. What does it have to do with the verses that precede and follow it? Is it to be understood as a separate saying in isolation or does it relate to the other verses?

First on the subject of specialness or separation, looking at the cultural context in the ancient Israelite thought, in Hebrew the word for “holy” is קָדוֹשׁ (qadosh), which also carries the sense of separation. The anthropologist Mircea Eliade theorized that many cultures have this concept of separation between the “sacred and profane”. By “profane” Eliade just meant not sacred, something common or part of normal daily life, something not special or separate from the usual. The Torah talks a lot about how priests and people would need to be cleansed before coming into sacred spaces like the tabernacle. So this idea here that Jesus is getting at, that you don’t just mix special things with normal or dirty things, has a very rich cultural background.

Does this saying connect to the others? It’s not totally clear. But we can speculate or try to make an (I think) acceptable interpretation, whether or not it was originally intended. The most plausible connection I’ve seen is that pearls represent the “brother” who we might be inclined to judge. And that in judging a brother we are treating them dismissively as not-special, as common and profane things. Reminds me of a little alliterative maxim I have, “people before principles”, which I justify from Jesus’s teaching that the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath (Mark 2:27). Principles are important but it’s also important to remember that they exist for people. Sabbath violation was one of the things Jesus and his followers were always being judged for and he repeatedly told people to step back and think about the bigger picture, what the Sabbath is and how it serves man. Can be applied to other commandments as well and that’s something to think about when there’s that temptation to judge.

Matthew 7:7-12

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him! Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.”

This saying reminds me of others in the Sermon on the Mount, like in chapter 6 about the fowl of the air and the lilies of the field just being taken care of without having to worry. It seems like a similar kind of childlike trust in God providing. “You need something? OK, just ask.” Jesus even compares it to a parent-child relationship. When a child needs something the parents take good care of them and give them what they need.

Now the first thoughts I have reading this are: (1) I’ve asked for things before and haven’t gotten them and (2) kids ask for things all the time that parents either don’t give them because they shouldn’t or don’t give them because they can’t. My daughter has asked me for a “real” spaceship or a “real” magic wand but those are currently either outside my budget or outside the constraints of reality (as far as I’m aware).

A few thoughts on this. One is that, thinking of this saying in relation to the sayings about the fowl of the air and the lilies of the field, those earlier sayings were, in part, about simplicity. We aren’t supposed to even worry about what to eat, drink, or wear. That’s pretty basic stuff. Jesus just says we’ll be taken care of. But you’d think we shouldn’t expect any great extravagance in what we’ll be provided, at least not in terms of worldly expectations. So that might apply as well to the “Ask, and it will be given to you” saying.

Another interesting thing here is that there’s a similarity to the Lord’s prayer from chapter 6, where Jesus says that we should ask to be forgiven our debts, in accordance with the way we forgive our debtors; that there’s a symmetry here between the way we treat others and the way the Father treats us. And we see that here again. The “Golden Rule” verse is often taken in isolation, and I think that’s fine. But it’s worth noting that the verse has a “Therefore” – οὖν (oun). So it’s a kind of conclusion taken from the previous verses. “Therefore, whatever you want men (οἱ ἄνθρωποι) to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” What is this being concluded from? Just before this Jesus had compared the Father to earthly fathers who give good things to their children, like food. Fathers give “good gifts” – δόματα ἀγαθὰ (domata agatha) – to their children. It would seem that this is what we should all be doing to each other. We all desire to receive good gifts, therefore we should also give good gifts to mankind – οἱ ἄνθρωποι (hoi anthropoi).

Matthew 7:13-14

“Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.”

This is an important saying in relation to the theme I’ve been using to frame the whole sermon, that the Sermon on the Mount shows us The Way, ἡ ὁδὸς (he hodos) that is Christianity and that is also Christ himself. What does Christ here say about ἡ ὁδὸς (he hodos)? Essentially it’s no cakewalk.

We learn here that ἡ ὁδὸς (he hodos) is something that most people do not follow. Instead, most people follow the way of ἀπώλεια (apoleia), destruction. I think here again of the contrast between our animal human nature and the καινὴ κτίσις (kaine ktisis), the “new creation” in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17). The Way taught by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount is not really compatible with human nature. That’s why we need to die to sin and rise as new creatures in Christ (Romans 6:1-11).

I think this should be simultaneously and paradoxically both unsettling and reassuring. On another occasion Jesus also spoke of the narrowness of ἡ ὁδὸς (he hodos) saying it would be easier for a camel to walk through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 19:24). Well that’s certainly unsettling. So his disciples asked, “Who then can be saved?” And Jesus said, “With men this is impossible but with God all things are possible.” (Matthew 19:25-26) That’s why it’s both unsettling and reassuring. It is impossible for our human nature. But we don’t have to rely on our human nature. The human being becomes a καινὴ κτίσις (kaine ktisis), a “new creation” in Christ by the power of God, through whom all things are possible.

That it’s through God that we are enabled, rather than through our own strength, might help to understand this in comparison to another of Jesus’s somewhat different sayings:

“Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)

This saying about things being “easy” and “light” sounds different than the other about things being “narrow” and “difficult”. And that’s why I bring it up, because I want to get the comprehensive view scripturally with all its complexity; to avoid facile proof texting. As a tentative explanation I speculate that the difference has to do with entering the kingdom and on whose strength it can be accomplished rather than with the severity of the path, independent of the destination. If you’re just wanting a good time and not seeking the kingdom of heaven the “wide” and “broad” way is much more agreeable. But if you’re trying to enter the kingdom of heaven the wide and broad way is literally impossibly difficult, i.e. impossible. But to enter the kingdom of heaven the narrow and difficult way is, somewhat surprisingly, infinitely easier by comparison because it’s actually possible and because it is done through the strength of the Lord.

It’s interesting that Jesus said of the wide and broad way, “there are many who go in by it.” I wonder if since there are so many more that follow that path it starts to seem like the dominant and even natural human tendency. And that anything else could seem anomalous or a deviation. I think we scientifically enlightened moderns might be inclined to look at the Sermon on the Mount and think, “Oh, that’s nice and quaint but really not consistent with a more realistic, honest understanding of human nature from modern psychology and economics, etc.” The nature of human nature is a point of contention on many fronts, scientifically, ethically, and politically. And that’s all useful stuff to consider in terms of stuff like secular public policy or running a business. But it doesn’t really impinge on or detract from the Sermon on the Mount or ἡ ὁδὸς (he hodos), The Way of Christ, because Christ doesn’t work within the constraints of human nature as it is. He completely transforms it.

I don’t think this is just fideistic or wishful thinking. This is something we can actually observe to have happened both in the lives of individuals and in entire civilizations. The world of classical antiquity, of the Roman Empire, is a vastly different world than the one we know today. And I don’t just mean because of developments of science and technology. Even more significant has been transformation in the way we think about the value of ordinary people. This is a cultural change that scholars like N.T. Wright and David Bentley Hart talk a lot about in their books.

It’s worth considering, going back to that secular public policy and running a business, how to live as a Christian in those settings, since we presumably shouldn’t “check our religion at the door” when we enter secular spaces. The Way concerns not only individuals but is ultimately about a βασιλεία (basileia), a kingdom. Jesus’s pronouncement, his Gospel is that the βασιλεία τῶν οὐρανῶν (basilea ton ouranon), the kingdom of heaven, or the kingdom of God, is coming. All of society and its institutions are to be transformed into a καινὴ κτίσις (kaine ktisis), a “new creation”. The alternative is ruin, a path that leads to ἀπώλεια (apoleia).

Matthew 7:15-20

“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore by their fruits you will know them.”

I remember reading this saying in a class in college and some of the students thought it didn’t make much sense. Nowadays that actually seems like an appropriate response to a saying of Jesus. That’s how the people who listened to him back then reacted too. What seemed off was the idea that good couldn’t come from bad and that bad couldn’t come from good. Because that seems contrary to experience. I like that observation because I think it highlights something that we might otherwise pass over, either out of familiarity or respect for the text. If what Jesus said is right something deeper than our surface-level experience must be going on here.

I wonder if this points to a distinctly Christian ethic. What seemed odd to me and my classmates was that actions and agents should be so tightly linked. We usually think about the goodness or badness of actions independent of the goodness or badness of the people doing them. But Jesus seems to be speaking of things differently. Recall that the action of giving alms, thought of independently would seem to be a good action. But for Jesus it’s not so simple. It also depends on why a person is giving alms, which seems more closely related to the moral character of the person. Are they the type of people who are genuinely concerned about the welfare of the people they serve or the type of people who are just seeking praise? Similar thing with not committing adultery. You might say not committing adultery is a good action, or non-action as it were. But for Jesus, again, it’s more complicated. One can be adulterous in character even without committing adultery in actions.

But that wouldn’t explain everything because Jesus also teaches this as a way to distinguish true prophets from false prophets. How can you discern the character of someone claiming to be a prophet whose outward actions seem good, if their internal character is actually evil and deceitful? The two types would seem to be indistinguishable from the outside. Another scripture that may help with this is in Acts 5, when people are worried about all the people that are following Jesus’s apostles and if they should actively persecute them to try and stifle it. You could say they’re worried about people following a false prophet. But one of the Sanhedrin, Gamaliel, proposes something different:

“Then one in the council stood up, a Pharisee named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law held in respect by all the people, and commanded them to put the apostles outside for a little while. And he said to them: ‘Men of Israel, take heed to yourselves what you intend to do regarding these men. For some time ago Theudas rose up, claiming to be somebody. A number of men, about four hundred, joined him. He was slain, and all who obeyed him were scattered and came to nothing. After this man, Judas of Galilee rose up in the days of the census, and drew away many people after him. He also perished, and all who obeyed him were dispersed. And now I say to you, keep away from these men and let them alone; for if this plan or this work is of men, it will come to nothing; but if it is of God, you cannot overthrow it—lest you even be found to fight against God.’” (Acts 5:34-39)

What stands out to me here in Gamaliel’s very astute counsel is that he’s taking the long view. It seems that false notions have a way of imploding on themselves, while truths are self-sustaining and endure. There’s a similar idea of an underlying rationality to history in which it works out its own logic, negating or confirming different ideas through large-scale and long term trial and error. This was roughly Hegel’s philosophy of history. Gamaliel pointed out that there were a lot of intense but short-lived religious movements, that sparkled and fizzled. But truth endures. And I think the author of Acts gave an account of this story, basically to say, look, Gamaliel’s prediction was right and Christianity did endure, which is a testament to its truth.

Another aspect to this is that sometimes false prophets can seem convincing in the short term and, on the flip side, true prophets can seem eccentric and erratic in the short term. A lot of people thought Jesus was crazy. Those closest to him said, “He is out of his mind.” (Mark 3:21) A lot of prophets in the Hebrew Bible did some pretty weird stuff. But, their teachings endured. So the short term, close-up view can be insufficient. And it doesn’t even mean that everything the prophets did makes sense or was good. Again, a lot of prophets in the Hebrew Bible not only did some weird stuff but also did some morally questionable stuff. But the things that they taught endured.

Matthew 7:21-23

“Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’”

I had a conversation with a friend recently where we were wondering if the reputation of Christianity has been irreparably tarnished by association in popular thought with materialism, militarism, and various forms of prejudice. It’s that Christian identity crisis I mentioned earlier. We both think that Christianity is an important foundation for many of the liberal and tolerant values of Western culture. So what happens if Christiany becomes discredited in the West? Will liberalism and tolerance eventually go with it? How long can liberalism persist only on inertia and habit?

But I’m cautiously optimistic. I do think that Christianity is being discredited in the eyes of many people but that’s also happened many times in history and will probably continue to happen many more times. But I’m optimistic because, even though we Christians have repeatedly not lived up to the teachings of Christ, we haven’t been able to sink it, and Christ’s church repeatedly bounces back in spite of us. Thank God Christianity can withstand the liability of its sinful adherents.

Another reason I am optimistic is because Jesus said that claiming Jesus and devotion to him has little to do with actual discipleship. In this passage Jesus said there would be people who prophesy, cast out demons, and do many wonders in his name, yet he will not know them. So invoking the name of Christ is not sufficient.

In another chapter, Matthew 25, Jesus told a parable in which he says to the righteous – οἱ δίκαιοι (hoi díkaioi):

“‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.’ Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’” (Matthew 25:34-40)

They didn’t even know. The primary meaning of this parable would seem to be that the way to serve and love Christ is to serve and love the “least of these” – οἱ ἐλᾰ́χῐστοι (hoi eláchistoi) – through them. But another meaning, I suspect, may be that many people serve Christ without even being aware of Christ or thinking about Christ, but nevertheless they are serving Christ because they are serving the “least of these” – οἱ ἐλᾰ́χῐστοι (hoi eláchistoi). Is Christ harmed if his name is defamed but many still follow his teachings? I see Christ’s teachings persisting among many good, secular people.

Now, my optimism isn’t boundless. There have been periods where abandoning the “constraints” (as they seemed) of Christ’s teachings predictably coincided with dehumanization and brutality. This is a contestable take but I don’t think it’s incidental that the mechanized, industrialized warfare and systematic genocide of the World Wars were preceded by a zeitgeist, a wave of culturally fashionable ideas that abandoned the notion of all humanity being, equally, made “in the image of God” – בְּצֶ֥לֶם אֱלֹהִ֖ים (betzelem elohim). Friedrich Nietzsche characterized Jewish and Christian morality as “slave morality” (Sklavenmoral) because of its respect for the the “least of these” – οἱ ἐλᾰ́χῐστοι (hoi eláchistoi), the kind of people that earlier, more heroic cultures would have dismissed as pathetic. Nietzsche’s characterization very well may have been a contributor to the dehumanizing zeitgeist. Or it was at the very least indicative of the kind of thinking in vogue at the time.To compare with my earlier comments on Gamaliel and the “fruits” of certain ideas, philosophers Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, in their book Dialectic of Enlightenment, argued that the Enlightenment, with its instrumentalization of rationality, contained the elements that led to the developments of fascism, genocide, and mass technological warfare. It seems that people in the West felt severely chastened for some generations after that. But there’s nothing to say it can’t happen again. So it’s something to be vigilant and watchful for. There need to be valiant Christian Dietrich Bonhoeffers to face the Hitlers of the world.

But getting back to this passage in the Sermon on the Mount. “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven.” So what is required, if proclamation alone is not sufficient? “But he who does the will of My Father in heaven.” It is required to actually do his will. And so Jesus ends the Sermon on the Mount with a parable on this point.

Matthew 7:24-27

“Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.”

This is similar and related to the earlier passage, as well as the saying about feeding, giving drink, housing, clothing, caring for, and visiting in prison the ἐλαχίστων (elachíston), the least. It’s crucial to actually do these things. It’s not sufficient to just invoke the name of Christ in self-servicing actions. That would be a weak and insufficient foundation that will not endure. A strong foundation in Christ’s teachings consists in living according to ἡ ὁδὸς (he hodos), “The Way”. How we treat the least, the ἐλαχίστων (elachíston), is everything. It is absolutely definitive of our discipleship to Christ and imitation of the image of Christ, who is The Way.

Matthew 7:28-29

“And so it was, when Jesus had ended these sayings, that the people were astonished at His teaching, for He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.”

People were repeatedly “astonished” at Jesus’s teachings; the words ἐξεπλήσσοντο (eksepléssonto) and ἐθαύμασαν (ethaúmasan), “astonished” and “amazed”, come up again and again, and seem to me like one of the most common reactions to Jesus, anger maybe being a close competitor. Makes you imagine and want to know what it would have been like to be in his presence to hear him teaching.

Even at a distance of two thousand years and through the medium of the testimonies of the scriptures I find myself “astonished” and “amazed” at Jesus’s teachings. They’re life-shaping and life-changing.

The Sermon on the Mount is challenging. It’s the core and the marrow of Christ’s gospel. I think it gives a singular view of Christ, “The Way” that is Christ and that we follow as Christians, as disciples of Christ.

So that’s the last chapter of the Sermon on the Mount. I’ve found this close study very rewarding. And if you’ve listened to it I hope you’ve found it useful and edifying. Thank you much!

In Defense of Dumb Movies

Pete and Todd talk about dumb movies. What is it about a good dumb movie that makes it fun to watch? We talk about comedy, romantic comedy, action, and horror. What kinds of movies are borderline, dumb but also kind of smart? And on a more “serious” note, what can we learn about life and the need to take a break, relax, and have fun?

A Second Look at the Book of Mormon

The Book of Mormon is a challenging book. To the faithful it is the word of God. To some it’s a work of deception. For those who have read it as faithful believers but then come to doubt its truth and divinity, how do you go back to the Book of Mormon for a fresh perspective? At the very least the Book of Mormon is a rich source of ideas that can shape one’s identity and thought. Studying it in that way might provide a middle path to a second look.

I’d like to talk a little about the Book of Mormon. I’m planning to do a longer episode on the Book of Mormon with a collaborator early next year. But today I just want to share some thoughts I’ve had lately about ways to read the Book of Mormon, depending on where you stand in relation to it.

The Book of Mormon is a challenging book. For its contents, yes. It’s certainly a complex and demanding text. But also, and maybe even more so, for everything that surrounds it. Its origin story is one of buried gold plates, angels, and seer stones. Supernatural elements abound. To the faithful it is the word of God, “the most correct of any book on earth” and the keystone of a religion. To others it’s an outrageous fraud perpetrated by a consummate charlatan. That, makes it difficult to approach the text itself. From one camp or another people are watching and evaluating, wondering which side you will join.

In looking at another way to read the Book of Mormon I’m thinking primarily of Latter-day Saints who have already read it as faithful believers but who have come to doubt its truth and divinity. How do you go back to the Book of Mormon now? How can you not have the specter of (possible) fraud hanging over your shoulder the whole time. At the very least it’s a distraction.

Philosopher Henry Nelson Wieman, in his book The Wrestle of Religion with Truth, spoke of three approaches to religion that I think apply to scripture, like the Bible, and to the Book of Mormon as well. The first approach is of “religious rationalizers” who think about religion primarily to defend it. The second approach is of “irreligious rationalizers” who think about religion primarily to attack it. The third approach is of the “religiously inquisitive” who think about religion with a view to “discovering precisely what may be the good of it”.

Personally I take all three approaches. I’m certainly a religious rationalizer, trying to give rational justification for things that I believe to be true. I’m even an “irreligious” rationalizer at times, in a manner of speaking, in the sense that I criticize what I understand to be heresies and false doctrines. And much of the time I’m just religiously inquisitive, even as a committed believer, because there are still many open questions that, while not decisive to my faith as a whole, are interesting, even consequential, and that I can take up and evaluate in a provisional and experimental way.

I think the inquisitive approach can be useful for the Book of Mormon when you’re just not quite sure what to make of it, not ready or even just not feeling the need to commit to a view of it as venerated scripture or outrageous fraud. Taking up the Book of Mormon apart from those positions one could read it looking for what may be the good of it, just as a book.

One of the reasons I like to read “old books” or works of literature and mythology in general is as a source of ideas. Humans are a sophisticated species and we’ve been thinking about stuff for a long time, thousands of years. Even before we had writing we were passing down stories and concepts orally. I repeatedly feel like I’m just scratching the surface of the insights that my species has accrued over the millennia.

In the Star Trek episode “Darmok”, the crew of the starship Enterprise encounters as species that speaks entirely in terms of ancestral stories. As a comparison I sometimes think I’m halfway there with family and close friends when much of our conversation consists of movie quotes. It’s funny but I think that’s also part of being human. We think in terms of stories because, even more than words, stories convey a lot of meaning, densely packaged in the form of those references.

Something I’ve realized is that I do the same with the Book of Mormon. I speak in Book of Mormon quotes and short phrases a lot. There are many complex ideas that I either would have to work really hard to express in a different way or even wouldn’t be able to express at all without recourse to a story or phrase from the Book of Mormon. What does that imply?

Philosopher Jacque Derrida, among other post-structuralists, had an interesting idea that words never stand in isolation. They are always connected in long, maybe endless, “chains of signifiers”. So if I use a phrase like “neither sense nor insensibility” (2 Nephi 2:11) that’s connected to other phrases like “compound in one”, “opposition in all things”, “in the wilderness”, “consecrate thine afflictions”, and to the broader story of the “days of my tribulation in the wilderness” in which these are all embedded and interconnected. I suspect that it’s not just that these are useful ways to express ideas, though they are, but that they actually shape the way I think and actually compose the substance, the gears in the mental machinery, of my thought. The Book of Mormon is inextricable from my thought. Trying to expunge it would result in a severe impediment.

I’ve heard of some Latter-day Saints doing readings of the Book of Mormon focusing on particular topics. Going through it and highlighting every reference to Christ is the most common I think. But it can be done with all sorts of topics. The idea being that you might notice things you didn’t notice before or see things in a different way. In a sort of similar way I’d propose that it’s possible to read the Book of Mormon with an eye to what may be the good of it, in a provisional way, neither committing to it as scripture or as fraud, but just looking at it as a text and considering its ideas. And additionally, for people who grew up with the Book of Mormon, investigating how much of yourself you find in it. How has the book shaped you? And what does that mean for you and your identity?

There are lots of ways to do this. The text of the Book of Mormon itself of course is the primary source. Currently I’m reading a couple of books that take a literary approach to the Book of Mormon. One is Michael Austin’s Buried Treasures: Reading the Book of Mormon Again for the First Time. The other is Grant Hardy’s Understanding the Book of Mormon: A Reader’s Guide. And I don’t mean to say that these exact books are going to be what makes studying the Book of Mormon in this way most fruitful but I’m just giving an example of a way to do it. Kind of to show what’s possible, to see more in the text than you may have realized is there.

Michael Austin’s book Buried Treasures is a collection of essays he wrote while he was reading the Book of Mormon for the first time in 30 years. Austin is a professor of English and reads and analyzes texts very closely as part of his job. But he said he had been worried that the Book of Mormon would disappoint him, that it wouldn’t be as rich as the great works of literature he usually worked with. And I’ll just quote him here saying what he found instead:

“I discovered in the Book of Mormon a profoundly human record of people struggling with their relationship to God and to each other. It has all the messiness one would expect of a record compiled over a thousand years, with multiple narrative perspectives, biases, agendas, and blind spots—as the authors and narrators groped towards an understanding of the Kingdom of God. It is a book that can bear multiple readings from multiple perspectives without exhausting its treasures. And it is a book that Latter-day Saints should never be ashamed to place alongside the great books of the world’s traditions, both religious and secular.”

And the book has some very interesting essays. Just to give a few examples from their titles: “Lehi’s Vision as a Corrective Typology of Eden”, “Nephi: The Anti-Isaiah”, “Laman’s Curse: Etiology and Race in the Book of Mormon”, “Why the ‘Anti-Nephi-Lehies’ Matters Today”, “Economic Inequality and the Tragedy of Fourth Nephi”.

Grant Hardy is a professor and history and religious studies and I’m actually most acquainted with his work on Eastern culture from his fantastic Great Courses lectures on Great Minds of the Eastern Intellectual Tradition and Sacred Texts of the World. He’s enthusiastic about intensely curious about the great storehouse of human wisdom collected from various cultures over the millennia of human existence. So it’s interesting that he is able to be similarly fascinated and dedicated to the Book of Mormon. His book Understanding the Book of Mormon also takes a literary, narrative approach to the book and elucidates the richness of the text.

Again, I don’t mean to say that you need to look at the Book of Mormon through the eyes academics like Austin and Hardy, though I certainly recommend their work if you find that interesting. But the takeaway I want to give here is that there are different ways to read the Book of Mormon. If you don’t quite know what you think of it, or what you think of Joseph Smith, it’s possible, I think, or I’m at least making the hypothesis that it’s possible to pick up the Book of Mormon to see what kind of resource for ideas and meaning it contains. And if you find something there then it’s another project to determine what that means. If the Book of Mormon contains a lot of useful ideas and conveys a lot of meaning, that doesn’t entail or prove that it’s the word of God or a translation of an ancient record. But it’s something and maybe something important. Even if it’s just something of relative, individual and personal significance, like how I find that the Book of Mormon is pretty much indispensable to much of my thought and speech. That’s something of deep subjective, personal significance, whatever it may say about the broader objective implications about its historicity and potentially divine origins.

It may sound like I’m just trying to sneak in pitch to sell it as the word of God. Maybe. But I’ll also say as a comparison that this is possible with many texts. And I hope not to offend faithful Latter-day Saints with this comparison but I think it’s useful. It’s possible to find tremendous insight from clearly fictional works like Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings or the tragedies of Sophocles, without thinking that they are narrating things that actually happened. If it helps to think of the Book of Mormon in this way, at least for a time, or even if that’s where you ultimately end up, I think there’s value in that too.

Approaching the Book of Mormon as a treasure of insights and resource for ideas is not limited to people who have doubts about its historicity or divinity. I think it also blends well with normal devotional reading, as a testament of Jesus Christ. So really this “other way” is potentially a supplement as well as an alternative. Fortunately, scripture is versatile enough to be accessible in different ways for different people, from wherever they’re coming at it.