DR. COREY MILLER Undermining Confidence in a Mormon’s Personal “Testimony”
Summary
Many Christians fail to realize the central role that a testimony plays in the Mormon psyche, preventing heartier and seemingly more important discussions on essential matters such as God and salvation. To have a truly fruitful conversation, it is vital for the Christian to wean the Mormon’s reliance on it early in the discussion by casting doubt about which testimony is most reliable.
The Authority of Testimony
In their conversations with Mormons, too many Christians are left dumbfounded and deflated upon realizing that the Latter-day Saint testimony takes preeminence over facts and logical arguments. There is a place for discussing essential doctrines, but eliminating this communication barrier is necessary to fruitfully address those issues.1 Mormons must first begin to doubt before they can believe what the Christian shares.
Anyone who engages with Mormons frequently will encounter “the testimony.” In fact, personal testimonies are the featured event on the first Sunday of every month at LDS meetinghouses all over the world. A testimony goes something like this: “I bear you my testimony. I know Joseph Smith is a prophet of God. I know the Book of Mormon is the word of God. And I know that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the one true church!” Mormonism is founded upon “priestly” authority as well as the teachings of prophets, apostles, and the Standard Works. Nonetheless, it is often the testimony that proves to be most influential for a Mormon.
“Testimony,” Apostle Boyd K. Packer once said, “is to be found in the bearing of it. Somewhere in your quest for spiritual knowledge, there is that ‘leap of faith,’ as the philosophers call it.”2 Somehow, “bearing” the testimony helps discover it. Elsewhere, Packer revealed the nature of testimony: “Bear testimony of the things that you hope are true, as an act of faith.”3 It bears similarity to the sort of wish fulfillment ridiculed by atheists like Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud.
Dallin Oaks, a member of the First Presidency, described the testimony as a “ ‘burning in the bosom’ (see D&C 9:8-9)…which signifies a feeling of comfort and serenity.”4 Seventy Gene Cook encouraged its deployment in evangelism: “Sincere feelings conveyed from heart to heart by means of testimony convert people to the truth where weak, wishy-washy, argumentative statements will not.”5
An official LDS church manual proclaims, “In order to know that the Book of Mormon is true, a person must read, ponder, and pray about it. The honest seeker of truth will soon come to feel that the Book of Mormon is the word of God.”6 President Spencer W. Kimball even warned that failure to bear one’s testimony frequently could result in a loss of merit points toward the heavenly goal.7 It seems the church leaders teach that the more expressively one’s testimony is told and repeated, the truer and more deeply rooted it becomes. It is often delivered with such tenacity that one might be tempted to conflate it with veracity.
Turning a Problem into Opportunity
Religious testimony can be a legitimate form of knowledge, as there is strong philosophical grounding and biblical precedent as well as rhetorical power in sharing a testimony. The problem is not that a testimony is subjective, but that it is sometimes too subjective, as in the LDS case. Only testimonial reports that contradict truth or fail to be adequately supported (or supportable) by evidence are problematic.
We can build a bridge in the conversation by learning “Mormonese,” what I call the natural language of Latter-day Saints.8 Building some common ground with Mormons by affirming the practice of the testimony in general helps cultivate a receptive rather than a defensive posture. To undermine their confidence in the subjective testimony, the Socratic dialogue (i.e., asking questions) is more effective than direct frontal assault. Good questions foster reflection rather than deflection. Given the high number of LDS adults who have served in church missions, most Mormons are conditioned to see themselves as teachers who have a repository of religious truth.
To undermine confidence in the LDS testimony, I find it helpful to use what I call the police-lineup approach. A police lineup is a process by which a witness’s alleged identification of a suspect is confirmed on some level that can be admissible as evidence in a court trial. Along with several foils—people of similar height, build, and complexion—the suspect is placed against a wall next to them as they face in the direction of the witness, who stands behind a one-way mirror to allow for anonymity. The goal is to identify the real culprit in contrast to lookalikes who are eliminated in the process of consideration. The person behind the glass must determine which of these people, if any, is responsible for the crime.
Mormonism claims to be the true representation of God. But which Mormonism? There are numerous competing Mormon sects, yet not all of them can be true.9 In discussing the various versions of Mormonism, all retell the story of the “First Vision” that is believed to have taken place in 1820 when Smith was only 14. During that time, many different Protestant churches sought converts through revivals. Smith claimed that he went into the forest and prayerfully sought an answer to his question about which church to join. Although there were several varying versions, the official account is that God the Father and Jesus Christ appeared to Smith in the First Vision and told him that he should join none of them since all were apostate; they also said that the Christian pastors did not have the necessary authority to represent God. Smith was then called to restore what was lost.
The legitimacy of Mormonism hinges on this story and its teachings of the “Apostasy” and the “Restoration.” Mormon missionaries recount this story to people in their first missionary discussion, noting that the multiplicity of churches today removes any hope of confidence in religious knowledge without modern revelation and a living prophet available to guide humanity.
A steep burden of proof here is often left unchallenged. These assertions require one to believe that for nearly two millennia following the death of the last of Jesus’s apostles, the priestly authority was lost, leaving millions of Christian thinkers and devotees misinformed, misled, or otherwise severely lacking until Smith emerged to restore the faith. Before introducing the police-lineup approach concerning the Restoration, I start by suggesting the problem of the Apostasy by appealing to their imagination. Consider my initial response to the First Vision:
I appreciate what you’ve shared, but let me present you with a similar scenario. Suppose we were out in the wilderness together and I briefly journeyed off on my own. When I return, I inform you that I just encountered God. I saw Him! He spoke with me! Moreover, he told me that all religions, including Mormonism, were apostate and in need of restoration. Would you believe me if I claimed to have seen God and then asked for you to leave your religion, begin donating money to my movement, and follow me as your spiritual leader?
It is important to insist upon a response, even though they probably will be suspicious and can anticipate your direction. I would follow with this:
What is more probable on the face of it: one man’s claim to literally see God, who informed him that millions of brilliant and godly Christians were lost with respect to the nature of God and salvation, or that this one man was lost? If my encounter in the forest sounds incredible, and you would not believe me, how is this different from committing yourself to the words of Smith now and asking me to do the same?
The Mormon will come to feel just what this experience reveals: the steep burden of proof to establish the Great Apostasy required to make sense of a Restoration whereby one is called to place all one’s trust in one man over and against history. The burden becomes increasingly steep considering Jesus’s statements denying any such total apostasy (Matthew 16:17-19; 28:18-20), even if small-scale apostasy is mentioned elsewhere in the New Testament (1 Timothy 4:1).
Mormons may bear their testimony in response, creating an opportunity for the police-lineup illustration. Invoke the illustration even if they do not bear testimony at that time. Remember, the goal is to undermine their confidence in subjective testimony such that every time they bear it, regardless of your presence, they will be unable to feel confident given the residue of doubt. They will be more open to consider other truths once this obstacle has been successfully undermined, subverted, or demolished.
Problems with the Personal Testimony
If it is not already apparent, the LDS testimony is significantly problematic. One shortcoming is that a subjective testimony is taken as the primary criterion for truth, which leads to a sort of subjectivism. The police-lineup approach considers the fact that there are dozens of Mormon splinter groups. However, as previously mentioned, the LDS Church is not alone—dozens of other churches each claim Joseph Smith as their founder; each group says it has a direct link to a restored priesthood authority. Furthermore, members from each group cite the same Book of Mormon passage (Moroni 10:4-5) to support their personal testimonies.
To illustrate the problem, suppose you inquire about which Mormon sect you should join. You need only name a few.10 Ask them to imagine gathering one representative from each competing sect in a room to bear their testimonies. Each would undoubtedly bear a sincere and similar testimony with equal tenacity. Yet they will all contradict each other at serious points—not to mention that each thinks the other to be apostate. This demonstrates that tenacity cannot be confused with veracity. Ask:
How might an investigator conclude which of all these Mormon sects is true? Which of these is really the “one true” church? Logically, since they are all contradictory to one another, at best only one can be true and all others false. At worst, they are all false.
Invoking imagination again with an illustration, continue:
Suppose I were standing before a lineup of representatives of various Mormon sects, each with its own set of prophets and apostles, bearing testimonies. How would I determine which one is true? How do you know your church is true and not another? As I see it, you have a few options. Either you can judge their hearts and call them liars or insincere. Or you can claim that, though sincere, they were somehow deceived by a lying spirit. If your testimony is true, are the others insincerely lying or sincerely deceived?
Get a commitment. Because of the current cultural aversion to making judgment calls about others, they will likely choose the latter and conclude that these others are either self-deceived or deceived by a lying spirit. Continue penetrating the issue, asking:
Since you believe that people can be sincerely deceived after praying about the Book of Mormon, how do you know that you are not sincerely deceived in your testimony?
Point out the apostle Paul’s warning when speaking of the possibility of people being deceived even by an angel of light (Galatians 1:6-9; 2 Corinthians 11:14). Then reiterate,
How do you know you are not the one who is deceived when competing Mormon sects testify of an equally emotive feeling of peace and serenity? It seems to me that a subjective testimony cannot be relied upon as the sole criterion of truth. Furthermore, if Mormonism teaches a foreign god or means of salvation contradicting the Bible, biblical Christians should no more pray about this than pray over whether it is right to murder. After all, if God has already spoken on something, there is no need to ask Him to change His mind. It is not wise to rely on a merely subjective testimony as the primary criterion of truth—especially if eternity hangs in the balance. Would you agree?
Clinching the Conversation
Having undermined their testimony, I culminate by passionately deploying my testimony and sharing the most explicit statement in Scripture that tests the legitimacy of a subjective testimony.11 Speaking with tenacity, I will testify in Jesus Christ alone and my belief that provides me with eternal life and a relationship with God forever.12 Read 1 John 5:9-13 as translated in the New International Version, emphasizing what I have italicized:
We accept human testimony, but God’s testimony is greater because it is the testimony of God, which he has given about his Son. Whoever believes in the Son of God accepts this testimony. Whoever does not believe God has made him out to be a liar, because they have not believed the testimony God has given about his Son. And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.
Then ask the clinching questions:
Do you have this testimony? If you died today, do you know that you would experience eternal life with Heavenly Father merely by having the Son? If not, is God a liar?
Based upon biblical testimony, I do, in fact, know that I have eternal life because I trust in Christ’s work alone, doing good works in grateful response to the salvation I presently possess solely on the merits of Christ. If it were based on anything I could do, I could not know this. But I know this both by the Spirit (Romans 8:16) and the testimony of Scripture. Mormonism does not offer the confidence that my testimony has in harmony with God’s testimony, namely, whoever “has the Son” can know that eternal life with Heavenly Father is assured.13
Dr. Corey Miller was a sixth-generation Mormon raised in Utah who converted to Christianity and then earned four graduate degrees. He serves as the president/CEO of Ratio Christi: Campus Apologetics Alliance (www.ratiochristi.org) and is an adjunct professor in philosophy and comparative religions at Indiana University-Kokomo. He co-edited Is Faith in God Reasonable? Debates in Philosophy, Science, and Rhetoric (Routledge, 2014) and co-authored Leaving Mormonism: Why Four Scholars Changed their Minds (Kregel, 2017).