Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Passing the Heavenly Gift/Claims about priesthood ordination

Claims about priesthood ordination

Priesthood conferred by ordination is just a potential and not actual bestowal of power

Writes Snuffer:

[A]ny person who has priesthood conferred upon him will need to go into God’s presence, and receive it through the veil for power in their priesthood. That is, for any person who has priesthood conferred upon them, they will not gain power in the priesthood until they come to God from whom this power comes through the veil. Not as a mere ceremony delivered by the church, but through contact directly with God. It is the voice of God, through the veil, which activates the dormant power conferred by ordination (36).

Power versus authority of the priesthood

Snuffer quotes President Packer:

We have done very well at distributing the authority of the priesthood. We have priesthood authority planted nearly everywhere. We have quorums of elders and high priests worldwide. But distributing the authority of the priesthood has raced, I think, ahead of distributing the power of the priesthood. The priesthood does not have the strength that it should have and will not have until the power of the priesthood is firmly fixed in the families as it should be.

Snuffer couples such remarks with a repeated appeal to D&C 121:36, which rightly notes that “the powers of heaven cannot be controlled nor handled only upon the principles of righteousness.” Snuffer takes this vital observation, however, and then concludes: “the power of the priesthood comes only one way, and, as the revelation to Joseph Smith states, men do not have any right to either confer it, or prevent it from being conferred” (28). This, however, is a distortion of what the text says: it speaks of conferring the priesthood, but it says nothing about having priesthood power without ordination. Surely whether power comes is dependent upon God’s will—in that Snuffer is correct—but this does not mean that ordination is of no real importance.

In addition to the all-or-nothing view of power that we see above, part of the confusion arises because Snuffer falls victim to the fallacy of equivocation. This logical error involves a word or expression that has more than one meaning. The fallacy occurs when differences in meaning are blurred or ignored. Snuffer does so repeatedly with the term “authority”. President Packer speaks of distributing the authority of the priesthood (i.e., the legal right to carry out priesthood ordinances). He also speaks of how those with authority do not always measure up and receive power. So far so good, and he and Snuffer agree that power is contingent upon God, not mere ordination. (That is, it seems to me, President Packer’s point.)

Snuffer draws, however, repeatedly on D&C 121:37, which warns that “when we undertake to cover our sins, or to gratify our pride, our vain ambition, or to exercise control or dominion or compulsion upon the souls of the children of men, in any degree of unrighteousness,” then “Amen to the priesthood or the authority of that man” (D&C 121:37, emphasis added). Snuffer concludes (sometimes implicitly) that this use of the term authority means the “legal right to carry out priesthood ordinances.” If this is so, then he sees a grave problem—since we cannot know that a priesthood holder is worthy, if real priesthood power and authority are contingent, then ordinances performed by priesthood authority must be of relatively little importance: otherwise, members would forever be at risk of receiving ordinances that are null and void because “Amen” has been said to the authority of the man performing them (319–324, 336).

This is, however, only a problem because of Snuffer’s fallacy of equivocation around authority. In D&C 121, the scripture is not speaking about the right to perform ordinances. Instead, the “power” and “authority” to which it refers is power and authority over other people. The scripture is concerned with those who “aspire to the honors of men,” because they will interpret their ordination as a right “to exercise unrighteous dominion,” but “[n]o power or influence can” be exercised on anyone by virtue of priesthood office. This says nothing about the right or authority to provide necessary ordinances—it is a simple declaration that any authority over a person than one presumes to have based upon priesthood ceases to exist. The only “dominion” that one gets now or in the future because of priesthood comes “without compulsory means” (D&C 121:35–46).

To distinguish these two uses of the term “authority,” I will refer to the right to officiate in priesthood ordinances as “right of legal administration” or “being a legal administrator.” As we will soon see, Joseph used such expressions and indicated that such rights were absolutely essential. It is in this sense that President Packer uses the term “authority”—we have not done well in distributing the right to have authority or dominion over people (because such a right does not exist), but have rather done well in creating many legal administrators. Whether those legal administrators receive any power in their own lives is, of course, entirely up to them—just as whether recipients of the ordinances receive any power or benefit is dependent upon their personal righteousness.

Authority not vital for ordinances

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Legal Administrators

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To truly receive priesthood power, a type of divine theophany is necessary

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Could Brigham Young Qualify to Claim Sealing Power?

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Notes