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Criticism of Mormonism/Online documents/Denver Snuffer/Doctrinal claims/Priesthood authority not necessary
A FairMormon Analysis of Denver Snuffer's Online Claims: Doctrinal claims: Priesthood authority not necessary
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Overview
- Response to claim: False claim: the Church claims to "control the Holy Ghost"
- Response to claim: "We must all find salvation for ourselves"
- Response to claim: "it does not matter whether there is an officiator with authority from God on the earth or not"
- Response to claim: "the responsibility to live so as to invite the Spirit is all you need"
- Response to claim: "the required priestly authority is still available through the veil"
False claim: the Church claims to "control the Holy Ghost"
Denver Snuffer claim:
"
There is no organization that controls the Holy Ghost....The practice of the missionaries demonstrates the ‘rubbish-ness’ of any such thought. This is because when the missionaries teach investigators about the Book of Mormon they use Moroni chapter 10, verse 4, and admonish they pray and ask God if these things are not true. Investigators are promised God will manifest the truth of it unto them “by the power of the Holy Ghost.” To the unbaptized, unwashed, uninitiated, missionaries extend the invitation to ask God, and then listen for the Holy Ghost speak to them. If they submit to this process, the Holy Ghost will speak to them. The Holy Ghost does, can, and will speak to anyone.[1]
" There is no organization that controls the Holy Ghost....The practice of the missionaries demonstrates the ‘rubbish-ness’ of any such thought. This is because when the missionaries teach investigators about the Book of Mormon they use Moroni chapter 10, verse 4, and admonish they pray and ask God if these things are not true. Investigators are promised God will manifest the truth of it unto them “by the power of the Holy Ghost.” To the unbaptized, unwashed, uninitiated, missionaries extend the invitation to ask God, and then listen for the Holy Ghost speak to them. If they submit to this process, the Holy Ghost will speak to them. The Holy Ghost does, can, and will speak to anyone.[1]
FairMormon Response
The Church agrees. It does not claim to "control" the Holy Ghost, or claim that He cannot speak to anyone.
Snuffer is misleading the audience by implying that the Church teaches this, when it does not.
"the responsibility to live so as to invite the Spirit is all you need"
Denver Snuffer claim:
"
If the Holy Ghost will visit you even without an authoritative ordinance then the responsibility to live so as to invite the Spirit is all you need to have that same companionship the ordinance could confer...."[2]
" If the Holy Ghost will visit you even without an authoritative ordinance then the responsibility to live so as to invite the Spirit is all you need to have that same companionship the ordinance could confer...."[2]
FairMormon Response
The Church certainly believes that the Holy Ghost can speak to anyone, in or out of the Church. As Snuffer notes, the Church depends on this fact when missionaries encourage those who investigate the Church to pray for a witness.
Snuffer consistently ignores, however, that Joseph Smith taught that there was a difference between a witness of the Holy Ghost (which was open to all) and the "gift of the Holy Ghost" (which Joseph taught could come only by confirmation by the laying on of hands by one with priesthood authority.
Snuffer claims that receiving the ordinance of confirmation and the gift of the Holy Ghost makes no difference. But, Joseph Smith taught the opposite:
- There is a difference between the Holy Ghost and the gift of the Holy Ghost. Cornelius received the Holy Ghost before he was baptized, which was the convincing power of God unto him of the truth of the Gospel, but he could not receive the gift of the Holy Ghost until after he was baptized. Had he not taken this sign or ordinance upon him, the Holy Ghost which convinced him of the truth of God, would have left him.[3]
Furthermore, Joseph Smith disagreed with Snuffer about the Holy Ghost. When asked how the Church differed from other religious groups, Joseph Smith replied that
- we differed in...the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands. We considered that all other considerations were contained in the gift of the Holy Ghost....[4]
According to Joseph, the gift of the Holy Ghost is the single greatest distinguishing characteristic which differentiates the Church he restored from all others. It is not something available to everyone, without priesthood, and without authority, as Snuffer pretends.
Snuffer is teaching false doctrine about the Restoration he claims to support.
"the required priestly authority is still available through the veil"
Denver Snuffer claim:
Ordinances do not need to be performed by one with legitimate Church authority, since "the required priestly authority is still available through the veil."[5]
Ordinances do not need to be performed by one with legitimate Church authority, since "the required priestly authority is still available through the veil."[5]
FairMormon Response
Snuffer again contradicts Joseph Smith, who made it very clear that no ordinances would be performed by divine messengers once the authority had been conferred on mortals:
- The angel told… Cornelius that he must send for Peter to learn how to be saved: Peter could baptize, and angels could not, so long as there were legal officers in the flesh holding the keys of the kingdom, or the authority of the priesthood. There is one evidence still further on this point, and that is that Jesus himself when he appeared to Paul on his way to Damascus, did not inform him how he could be saved. He had set in the church firstly Apostles, and secondly prophets for the work of the ministry… and as the grand rule of heaven was that nothing should ever be done on earth without revealing the secret to his servants the prophets…. [S]o Paul could not learn so much from the [Page 196]Lord relative to his duty in the common salvation of man, as he could from one of Christ’s ambassadors called with the same heavenly calling of the Lord, and endowed with the same power from on high—so that what they loosed on earth, should be loosed in heaven; and what they bound on earth should be bound in heaven.[6]
Snuffer's view is also contradicted by the Doctrine and Covenants:
- 28 But purify your hearts before me; and then go ye into all the world, and preach my gospel unto every creature who has not received it; And he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, and he that believeth not, and is not baptized, shall be damned. For unto you, the Twelve, and those, the First Presidency, who are appointed with you to be your counselors and your leaders, is the power of this priesthood given, for the last days and for the last time, in the which is the dispensation of the fulness of times. Which power you hold, in connection with all those who have received a dispensation at any time from the beginning of the creation; For verily I say unto you, the keys of the dispensation, which ye have received, have come down from the fathers, and last of all, being sent down from heaven unto you (D&C 112꞉28-32, emphasis added).
The scriptures say that the authority regarding baptism and the associated keys have been given to the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve for the last time.
Snuffer's claim that they have been lost, or that others will potentially need to receive them again from a divine messenger contradicts scripture. He argues against the Restoration that he claims to support.
Denver Snuffer claim:
Snuffer claims the Church has lost the fullness, but "[t]he required priestly authority is still available through the veil."[7]
Snuffer claims the Church has lost the fullness, but "[t]he required priestly authority is still available through the veil."[7]
FairMormon Response
Snuffer claims that the Church has lost vital priesthood authority, and so ordinances do not need it, or Snuffer's followers can get it "through the veil."
- An angel, said Joseph, may administer the word of the Lord unto men, and bring intelligence to them from heaven upon various subjects; but no true angel from God will ever come to ordain any man, because they have once been sent to establish the priesthood by ordaining me thereunto; and the priesthood being once established on earth, with power to ordain others, no heavenly messenger will ever come to interfere with that power by ordaining any more…You may therefore know, from this time forward, that if any man comes to you professing to be ordained by an angel, he is either a liar or has been imposed upon in consequence of transgression by an angel of the devil, for this priesthood shall never be taken away from this church.[8]
Joseph Smith said that the Church would never lack priesthood authority, and that if someone claimed a heavenly messenger had brought them authority, they were either:
- deceived by Satan; or
- a liar.
Notes
- ↑ Denver Snuffer, "Preserving The Restoration," Lecture 10, Mesa, Arizona (9 September 2014), 3-4. https://www.scribd.com/doc/239760895/10-Phoenix-Transcript-Preserving-the-Restoration
- ↑ Denver C. Snuffer, Jr., Passing the Heavenly Gift (Salt Lake City: Mill Creek Press, 2011), 460, compare also page 33.
- ↑ Joseph Smith, "For the Times and Seasons. SABBATH SCENE IN NAUVOO; March 20th 1842," Times and Seasons 3 no. 12 (15 April 1842), 752. off-site GospeLink See also Joseph Smith, Jr, Manuscript History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Documentary History). 7 vols. Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book, 1978, 4:555.
- ↑ Joseph Smith, History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 7 volumes, edited by Brigham H. Roberts, (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1957), 4:42, citing letter from Joseph Smith and Elias Higbee, 5 December 1839.. Volume 4 link
- ↑ Denver C. Snuffer, Jr., Passing the Heavenly Gift (Salt Lake City: Mill Creek Press, 2011), 468.
- ↑ Joseph Smith, "Baptism," Times and Seasons 3 no. 21 (1 September 1842), 905. off-site GospeLink
- ↑ Denver C. Snuffer, Jr., Passing the Heavenly Gift (Salt Lake City: Mill Creek Press, 2011), 468.
- ↑ Orson Hyde, "Although Dead, Yet He Speaketh: Joseph Smith’s testimony concerning men being ordained by angels, delivered in the school of the prophets, in Kirtland, Ohio, in the Winter of 1832–3," Millennial Star 8 no. 9 (20 November 1846), 138–139, emphasis added.