So, 'doctrine' is prophetically revealed and authoritative, but 'theology' allows individual interpretation of doctrine? Is any interpretaion acceptable? If not, what governs the acceptability of an interpretation of doctrine? Prophets are fallible, and doctrine comes through prophets, so doctrine can be wrong, but simultaneously authoritative? If doctrine can be wrong due to prophetic fallibility, how would a member know which doctrines are wrong and which are not? If the answer is personal or prophetic revelation, but people and prophets can make revelatory mistakes, how is revelation reliable for testing the reliability of revelation (aka doctrine)? How is any of this reliable? It sounds dangerous to me.
Wouldn't just moving forward with faith accepting the fact of all of our imperfections then waiting for farther light and truth knowing that with my lack of capacity it would be pointless even if I did receive more light how would it be beneficial
Do you think the saints who listened to Joseph speak on the voice of the Lord commanding them to go on missions or to humble themselves in Doctrine and Covenants would agree the Lord didn’t use him as what you call a marionette?
Sections 101,103 and 105 have the Lord promising that the Saints in Missouri should NOT sell their homes but to scrape more money together and buy more land because the Lord would help fight their battles and they would return to the land of their inheritance for generations to come. In stead, hundreds died due to illness/ exposure from the bitter cold of being homeless through the winter. Clearly not Jesus speaking!!!!!! Actually none of the D&C is Jesus speaking. Shame on Joseph for making these claims.
Book of Mormon and BIble both have spreads of hundreds of years between prophets. 400 between Malachi and John for example and stretches of hundreds of years in the Book of Mormon. There is nothing that says presidents are all prophets. Joseph F Smith said he was selected by "custom and not revelation" and that "literally any member could be elected president". In the Reed SMoot hearings he said that he had never received a revelation for the church. Heber J Grant was similar.
I think the Church, even the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, has made clear that they prefer to present their prophetic claims in a biased way. The Church likes to present a mythical presentation of Prophets as infallible, without balancing that with the actual shortcomings and contradictions that are a part of the Prophet figures. It is like a defense attorney who presents a biased version of their defendant and leave it up to the prosecuting attorney to balance the version. The Church presents a defense of the mythical prophets and leaves to the critics to bring up contrasting views, which is necessary for a more complete perspective. Dr. Mason says of the prophets, "God couldn't take away their agency," yet in the case of the angel with the flaming sword confronting Joseph Smith about polygamy, it seems that God did exactly that.
