Celestial Law or Impossible Gospel

What is called "the impossible gospel" is also called "the celestial law" by other anti-Mormons. This was a favorite of our old friend Coleen Ralson (of the infamous Nauvoo Christian Visitor Center) who had a display set up about it at the NCVC.

The way it works is that the anti-Mormon quotes a few scripture that talk about the need for complete obedience or complete repentence. The scriptures include

They also use a few quotes from general authorities that talk about the need to repent of all sins and to be completely obedient.

Once they can convince the Mormon that he or she must be completely obedient and never repeat past sins in order to qualify for grace and salvation (and they use 1 Nephi 3:7 to show that God wouldn't ask this of people if it were not possible), then they back the Mormon into a corner where the Mormon "must" admit that he/she is not forgiven or saved and never will be under the Mormon "celestial law" (or "impossible Gospel").

So here is a way to respond to a Church member who has been subjected to this line of reasoning.

  1. Do you think that there will be a lot of people in the Celestial Kingdom? Has it always been your understanding of what is taught as LDS doctrine that all people have the potential to go to the Celestial Kingdom and that many will? [Answer: yes]
  2. Excluding Jesus, do you think that there is anyone who becomes absolutely perfect in this life such that he or she never commits any sin of any kind, no matter how small? [Answer: no or probably not or only a very, very tiny number]
  3. Given that the doctrine of the Church is that (a) many will be in the Celestial Kingdom and (b) essentially no one becomes perfectly obedient and entirely sinless in this life, we now have a conflict between Church doctrine and the interpretation of the scriptures that our anti-Mormon is using. Either Church leaders for almost 200 years haven't understood what is true and how to interpret the scriptures, or the anti-Mormon is interpreting the scriptures in a way contrary to that of the prophets and apostles.
So the issue becomes NOT one of determining if the anti-Mormon's "impossible gospel" is true. We know that it isn't because it does not reflect at all what LDS believe and teach. The only issue is how to reconcile the seemingly contradictory scripture verses with LDS belief. That is, what is the proper interpretation of those passages of scripture?

It can be pointed out that this issue of extracting doctrine from scripture alone and then arguing over whose interpretation is the best is EXACTLY the sort of thing that led to the Great Apostacy, the Protestant Reformation, and the utter disintegration of Protestant unity. The very process that the anti-Mormon is using (private interpretation of scripture in opposition to the teachings of living prophet and apostles) is wholly rejected by the Latter-day Saints as an apostate and contra-biblical exercise of human will in rebellion against God.

The anti-Mormon will try to press the Latter-day Saint to then exegete those passages in a way that doesn't contradict LDS doctrine. The member has a few choices.

  1. Refuse to do so because the anti-Mormon will argue with an LDS exegesis no matter what, but the LDS will be right no matter what since LDS exegesis of LDS scriptures always trumps whatever an outsider thinks is right.
  2. Say he/she doesn't know a good way to exegete those passages, and when he/she has the time and inclination to study them he/she might do so, but no matter what he/she isn't likely to get back to the anti-Mormon since the anti-Mormon will likely reject it no matter what and isn't really interested in learning LDS doctrine anyway.
  3. Explain how one or more of the passages could be interpretted in such a way as to not be in conflict with LDS beliefs and then appeal to #1 or #2 for the rest.
The unsuspecting member will almost certainly have already agreed with the clever anti-Mormon about some of the passages of scripture that the anti-Mormon used in his argument, so the member should feel comfortable about going back and saying that he/she is taking back his/her earlier acceptance of the anti-Mormon's reading since that reading led to a contradiction with LDS doctrine.

The only thing left from the LDS apologetic side is to provide our LDS friends with some possible interpretations of those proof texts used by the anti-Mormon.

The anti-Mormons will say "this is Mormon doctrine" as they then assemble their proof texts into an argument.

But the member should become immediately suspicious because (1) he/she has never heard that taught before and (2) the anti-Mormon is trying to convince the Mormon "what the Church REALLY teaches and believes." The instant you have someone working hard to convince you that the Church "really" believes something that you have never heard of, you can be pretty certain that you have a certifiable anti-Mormon on your hands. This is a classic tactic.

And all this stems from their worldview that doctrine can ONLY be extracted from authoritative texts through careful exegesis and paying close attention to the details of individual words within a verse. They simply don't have room in their belief system to allow for inspired, true teaching that "misuses" scripture (i.e., that uses unusual, counterintutitive, or questionable readings and interpretations of scriptures). This is despite the fact that New Testament writers engaged in the same kind of "scriptural abuse" (e.g., Matthew 2:15 --- "Out of Egypt have I called my son."). The idea that authorized priesthood leaders can teach truth outside of, or in apparent contradiction to, scripture is simply anathema to them.