Talk:D&C 88:1-141

Verses 3-7 and on

I'm sort of confused by this section. When I outline it I see a long string of things:

• comforter is the Holy Spirit of Promise
• promise is the promise of eternal life
• eternal life is the glory of the celestial kingdom
• glory is that of the church of the Firstborn
• first born is Jesus Christ
• Jesus Christ is the light of truth
• truth is the light of christ
• light of christ is ...

At this point the pattern breaks down, but I think the same thing is sort of going on. Not sure what to make of this whole collage of concepts/images that we are told are all sort of the same thing. Any thoughts? --Matthew Faulconer 07:30, 14 August 2007 (CEST)

Hmmm. I'm inclined to read the "even" wording as more of a "subset" modifier rather than a strict equivalence. So the Comforter is the Holy Spirit of promise in the sense that one thing the Comforter does is promise us eternal life. And at least one way to think about eternal life is in terms of the glory of the celestial kingdom, and this glory of the celestial kingdom includes at least the glory of the church of the Firstborn. Finally, and perhaps supportive of my view, Jesus Christ is, among other things, the light of truth.

But this whole section is mighty intimidating for me to try and make sense of. I'm inclined to think of this passage as sort of disrupting our modern tendency to carve things up into separable entities and ideas. The comforter, by this set of connections, is intimately related to truth, Christ, the Church of the Firstborn, etc. Like in John 17 where we are commanded to be one, I tend to think along the same lines, of not a strict equivalence, but in some sort of closely related way (I know I'm contradicting my own "subset" idea above, but I want to back off that wording, and say something more like "a lot of overlap" or "sort of the same thing" as you put it".... --RobertC 21:20, 15 August 2007 (CEST)

Verse 32 =

I find verse 32 very confusing. I tried putting a decent question together but I wasn't even happy with a question. Does anyone have any explanation they can give of this verse? Is this referring to the sons of perdition? What is their own place? Why are they returning to it? who is it that they can enjoy their that they could be willing to receive and still go there? --Matthew Faulconer 07:10, 16 Jun 2005 (CEST)

From the Doctrine and Covenants Institute Manual: D&C 88:32–35. Who Are “They Who Remain”? These verses refer to those unworthy to receive a degree of glory, or the sons of perdition (see Notes and Commentary on D&C 76:26–31).

Verses 36-40

The anonymous user 157.201.145.112 writes:

See, this de-bunks the extreme-constructivist view that all learning is experiential.

I have removed this from the commentary page because 1) as a single sentence it does not stand as commentary by itself. It is clear that the the statement takes an anti-extreme-constructivist position, but it doesn't make clear what a constructivist position is. 2) Even if the sentence were expanded into a longer discussion, I think there would be a legitimate concern that the commentary would be commentary about the extreme-constructivist view rather than commentary on the scriptures. But, depending on how it is done, it could work on the commentary page. Anyway, for now at least, I think discussion about this is best left to either a) the relevant discussion page (i.e. here), b) a personal page on this site, or c) on other sites. --Matthew Faulconer 23:35, 9 Nov 2005 (UTC)

v 88:46-50

I liked your edit but I removed the word "astronomy" from the following phrase you wrote:

and to use astronomy to help us seek out God.

I felt like it could be misinterpretted to mean either the science of astronomy (what I think you called physics in the same sentence) or maybe astrology. Anyway, feel free to re-edit. --Matthew Faulconer 08:41, 30 Mar 2006 (UTC)

Law of the gospel (v. 78)

My thoughts on this are that gospel refers primarily to faith, repentance, baptism and gift of the Holy Ghost, and that the law of the gospel refers to the law of justice, the law(?) of mercy, and the way in which the atonement works according to faith, repentance, baptism and the Holy Ghost. Here are a few possibly interesting references: D&C 13:1 (four principles of gospel); D&C 39:6 (same as previous); D&C 84:27 (same as before but ties in "law of carnal commandmnents"); D&C 130:20 (is "the law" here referring to "the law of the gospel"? I suspect it is...).

I think the previous discussion on law in this section is also crucial for understanding what's goin on here, which I think is mighty big question. In particular, I think "the law of Christ" in v. 21 is a key complementary phrase.... --RobertC 14:37, 11 Dec 2006 (UTC)

I think these are good thoughts as well, though I confess I'm as bewildered as Matthew on what this means. If I take the phrase etymologically, I get some idea, but I don't know how etymologically one should take it. Here's the etymological reading, for interest: law, lex, logos, some speaking or order of logic that binds two people together (a sort of mediation that joins two otherwise independent extremes)--I think this is how law is understood earlier in the section; gospel, euangelion, good (eu) message of the angels (angelion), the good word the angels bring (from the other side of the veil). This way, the "law of the gospel" might be: the angelic message taken as the word that binds community together. I picture something like the Day of Atonement: the high priest emerges angelically from the Holy of Holies with a message about the covenant, binding them together. Since we are speaking here, however, of the Gospel, I think it is important to recognize that there is a specific content in mind: the high priest comes out speaking of the coming Messiah (announcing the "good news"), and that announcement opens the possibility of binding together the people within a law (whether the Law or some other law, I don't know that it matters... perhaps D&C 42 is the "law" in question). Anyway, some thoughts. --Joe Spencer 14:33, 13 Dec 2006 (UTC)