Item Detail
-
31435
-
2
-
4
-
English
-
Joseph Smith and Modernism
-
BYU Studies
-
2020
-
59
-
2
-
Provo, UT
-
Brigham Young University Press
-
121-134
-
"Modernism and skepticism discredit the idea of visions and revelations. Joseph Smith’s 1832 First Vision account reveals that a faith-eroding modernist current influenced his world, but he rejected it and offered a classic deist answer to religious doubt. Smith’s opinion of nihilism, or the absence of meaning and value, is aligned with the Book of Mormon, specifically in Lehi’s teaching and Korihor’s narrative, where rejection of the supernatural is equated to rejection of God himself. In his later years, Joseph Smith taught a God who is an exalted man and a model for what humans can become, and thus in fulfillment of the Enlightenment dream, humans can become gods." [Publisher]