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As you know, a valuable resource on this site is a list of well-written, well-researched books and articles that may provide valuable insights to the studious Latter-day Saint. This feature will forever be incomplete, as we will always [...]
Jeffrey Thayne
We live in a very different intellectual climate than those who wrote the scriptures. Our philosophy and our academic climate was inherited to us from the Greeks; even our concept of truth “originates primarily where a lot of Western intellectual culture originates—Greek philosophy and culture.”1 The prophets who recorded divine revelations into scripture were [...]
Jeffrey Thayne
The dictionary defines theocracy as “a system of government by priests claiming a divine commission.”1 That is, a theocracy is a government that claims to have authority from God. However, our modern experience with governments led exclusively by a particular religion or which claim special divine authority has largely been negative. For example, the [...]
Jeffrey Thayne
We have established in previous posts that governments need authority from God to govern. In the absence of a divinely appointed ruler, the only legitimate governments are those that are set up by the people with limited powers. All other governments claim authority that they do not actually have. As Joseph Fielding Smith explained:
We [...]
Jeffrey Thayne
In my previous two posts (”John Locke and Primal Authority” and “Government by the People“), I have claimed that God is the origin of all legitimate political power. A person may be appointed by God to rule on the earth, or in the absence of such ruler we can delegate to a designated person [...]
Jeffrey Thayne
In my post “John Locke and Primal Authority,” I quoted Joseph Fielding Smith and John Locke, who both claimed that no person on the earth has any authority to rule over other people except that which is given them by God. In this post, I would like to explain how a representative government, such [...]
Nathan Richardson is, at this time, on an adventure fighting dragons and orcs in an effort to save the world. While we wish him luck on his week-long leave of absence, this means we won’t be hearing from him for a few days. However, I would like to invite our readers to peruse our new [...]
Jeffrey Thayne
In my post “Ecclesiastical and Government Authority,” I discussed the importance of priesthood authority in conducting the affairs of true religion. I drew on our familiarity with the importance of authority in ecclesiastical affairs to propose this possibility: in order to govern other men, a man must first have authority to do so. I [...]
Jeffrey Thayne
Jeffrey R. Holland, in the April 2005 General Conference, quoted President David O. McKay who said that the most distinguishing feature of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was “divine authority by direct revelation.” Holland continues:
Clearly, acting with divine authority requires more than mere social contract. It cannot be generated by theological [...]
Jeffrey Thayne
One goal of the natural sciences is to discover regularities in observable phenomena that allow us to predict future phenomena. George Kelly explained, “It is customary to say that the scientist’s ultimate aim is to predict and to control.”1 To this end, the natural sciences have largely, if not completely, adopted the philosophy of [...]
Jeffrey Thayne
Terry Warner, in a lecture given at the BYU Women’s Conference in 2006, said, “It is not the wrongs others do to us that harm us most, but the wrongs we do to others.” In other words, we hurt more for the harm we inflict on others than anything that others can inflict upon [...]
Jeffrey Thayne
Terry Warner, in his book Bonds That Make Us Free, said:
We are constantly receiving signals from others that reveal something of their needs and hopes and fears. Martin Buber expressed this idea in these words: ‘Living means being addressed.’ We are called upon by others’ unspoken requests, expressed in their faces and gestures and [...]
Jeffrey Thayne
I was recently rereading Mere Christianity and found a passage that eloquently expresses an idea I hinted at in “Metaphors of the Atonement” and “Knee-Bending Rules.” The idea is that it is something within us that prevents us from returning to God if we don’t repent, rather than some metaphysical law that forbids us [...]
Jeffrey Thayne
The phrase unconditional love is familiar to us and is in common use in today’s society. It is certainly a scriptural mandate to consistently love others. As the prophet Mormon taught, “charity is the pure love of Christ, and it endureth forever” (Moroni 7:47). The love we should have for each other should not [...]
Jeffrey Thayne
My friend Nathan brought to my attention a pedagogically useful example that illustrates an idea I have tried to convey in the past. Consider for a moment that we are testing a missile, and have predicted the precise trajectory of the missile based upon mathematical calculations. If we were to observe the missile traveling [...]
Jeffrey Thayne
We habitually consider the university to be an institution of higher learning, that is, a place where students go to learn. Let’s imagine for a moment a university at which the quality of instruction surpasses every other school. At this imaginary university, you could learn anything you wanted to know better than at any [...]
Jeffrey Thayne
I recently read an article by Ed Gantt and Stan Knapp entitled “Marriage: Of Contracts, Commitments, and Covenants.” As a missionary, I frequently taught investigators the meaning of the word covenant. Because the word is so infrequently used in modern society, I would use an unfortunate metaphor they were already familiar with: an [...]
Jeffrey Thayne
I read through entries from an internet discussion group a few weeks ago and found the post of an individual who argued that the Honor Code at Brigham Young University is wrong because it “restricts our agency.” I realized that the basis for his absurd and false argument is a doctrine commonly taught in [...]
Jeffrey Thayne
“Wherefore, redemption cometh in and through the Holy Messiah; for he is full of grace and truth. Behold, he offereth himself a sacrifice for sin, to answer the ends of the law, unto all those who have a broken heart and a contrite spirit; and unto none else can the ends of the law [...]
Jeffrey Thayne
As Latter-day Saints, we know that every sin, every heartache, and all suffering can be redeemed through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. We also know that the Savior is the only way to find redemption from and through these things. There are a great many metaphors in circulation that explain why the atonement [...]
 | Dennis on Books |
 | Jeff Thayne on The Consequences of Ideas |
| Jeff Thayne on The Greek and Hebrew Intellect… |
 | Wesley on The Consequences of Ideas |
| Wesley on The Greek and Hebrew Intellect… |
Felipe Pinto
Nathan Richardson