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The LDS Church Claims
Authority for God on
Earth ... but they can’t seem
to get straight where that
authority comes from.
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Version One:
Standard Works Rule
In Doctrines of Salvation, Vol. 3, P. 203, Joseph Fielding
Smith wrote:
It makes no difference what is written or what anyone
has said, if what has been said is in conflict with what
the Lord has revealed, we can set it aside. My words,
and the teachings of any other member of the Church,
high or low, if they do not square with the revelations,
we need not accept them. Let us have this matter
clear. We have accepted the four standard works as
the measuring yardsticks, or balances, by which we
measure every man’s doctrine.
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(continued)
You cannot accept the books written by the authorities
of the Church as standards in doctrine, only in so far
as they accord with the revealed word in the standard
works.
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Version Two:
The Prophet Rules
In 14 Fundamentals of Following the Prophets, Ezra Taft
Bensen wrote:
SECOND: The living prophet is more vital to us than
the standard works.
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Version Three:
They Are Equal
In Articles of Faith, James E. Talmage wrote on page 7:
We rely therefore, on the teachings of the living oracles
of God as of equal validity with the doctrines of the
written word.
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Text
http://scriptures.lds.org -> Gospel Library -> Lessons -> Unit 3, Chapter 9 Prophets of God
9. ®
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Houston, We have a
problem!
That link from BYU says that anyone moving with the
Holy Spirit can edit and/or reinterpret the Standard
Works.
Can you see the problem here?
The LDS Church is a multivalent system of doctrines
and theology where there is no absolute truth.
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So Which One Is It?
The Bottom Line
The LDS Church teaches that the Church’s President/
Prophet/Seer and Revelator speaks exclusively for God in
all things on Earth, unless he’s contradicting past prophets
-- or contradicting the Standard Works -- except in the
case where the Standard Works are less than the
prophet, or equal to the prophet, otherwise they are
greater than the prophet -- who speaks exclusively for
God in all things on this earth.