I want to set forth today two simple but fundamental propositions: (1) that the Lord sanctions the life of the mind in the first great commandment and study of the humanities in the second commandment; and (2) that these implied gospel imperatives to use our minds and to understand our neighbors are greatly amplified in modern revelations to the Prophet Joseph, especially “the Olive Leaf” (D&C 88). Latter-day Saint scholars may find a gospel basis for study of the humane disciplines in these foundational ancient and modern revelations of their faith.
My argument may seem at once obvious and unnecessary to an audience gathered under the banner “Mormon Scholars in the Humanities.” Nevertheless, I think it fitting to set forth such an argument at this inaugural symposium because it speaks to matters fundamental to this new association. It also has been an important source of self-reflection for me as a Mormon scholar in the humanities. I hope this paper may be for you as well. So let me articulate a gospel ground for the humanities implicit in the first and second commandments and elaborated in modern revelation.
Two Commandments
I believe that Christ’s two great commandments encompass in brief the full scope of our duties as disciples. In one way or another, Christians find every worthy aspect of their lives in these grand imperatives. The two great commandments have something to say about our worship, work, and play; our politics, art, and science; our friendships and family life; our creations and our recreations.
Most fundamentally, they remind us that all endeavors worthy of a disciple’s life should flow from love. As Thomas à Kempis wrote, “Without love, the outward work is of no value; but whatever is done out of love, be it never so little, is wholly fruitful.”1 This is worth remembering at the inauguration of a new LDS professional association. The work of LDS scholars and teachers in the humanities should be informed by a desire to love God and neighbor. Of course, the same holds true for Latter-day Saints in any profession. Spiritually, Christians always ought to work for love, not merely for money. This imperative, however, may be more apparent to Latter-day Saints who choose a career in the humanities. For heaven knows, it doesn’t make sense to pursue the profession of humanities scholar for the money!
The great commandments not only reveal the proper foundation of our professional lives, namely love of God and man, they also disclose the proper order between the loves that animate our life, including the professional passions that draw us to the humanities. The first commandment is first for a reason. Its primacy signals the fact that all other loves must be rooted in love for God to truly flourish. Only as neighbor-love becomes “like unto” love of God will it grow into charity. By contrast, when we put the second commandment first, our devotion to both humans and the humanities can become a form of idolatry. As C. S. Lewis says, “[love] begins to be a demon the moment he begins to be a god.”2 This principle applies not only to romantic love, familial love, friendship, and love of country but also to the passion we have for books, art, history, language—in short, for the materials of our discipline. The proper way to embrace our discipline is as a disciple. This is implicit in the ordering of the first and second commandments. When the first commandment informs and orders the second, then the subordinate commitments that govern our personal and professional lives fall into their proper place and flourish.
First Commandment
Having considered how the two great commandments together provide a basis for “Mormon Scholars in the Humanities” by grounding our profession in love and ordering those loves, let us now consider the implications of each commandment separately. The first speaks to the idea of “scholar,” the second to the idea of “humanities.”
The first commandment sanctions the mind as an instrument of love; this implicitly validates the scholarly quest to understand truth with our intellectual faculties. When Jesus recast Deuteronomy 6:5 as the “first of all the commandments” (Mark 12:29–30), he made a significant addition. He added “mind” to the faculties with which we are to love God. “Mind” occurs in all three of the formulations of the first commandment found in the synoptic gospels (Matt 22:37; Mark 12:30; Luke 10:27). It appears as well in at least ten reformulations of the injunction to love God with heart, might, mind, and strength that dot the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants (2 Ne. 25:29; Mosiah 2:11; Alma 39:13; Moro. 10:32; D&C 4:2; 11:20; 20:31; 33:7; 59:5; 98:47). Clearly, the Lord expects believers, indeed commands us, to love and worship him with a scholar’s temperament: thoughtfully, diligently, studiously, attentively—that is, with our minds, indeed with all of our minds.
What a remarkable imperative! We often think of loving God as something we do solely with our hearts and our strength. Yet every scholar knows that the mind is also a powerful instrument of love and devotion. And every lover knows that love awakens a desire to understand, to know everything one can about the object of one’s devotion. The first commandment invites us to include this human passion to know, the passion that motivates scholarship, as part of our worship. By including “mind,” Jesus dignifies the intellect. He acknowledges the intimate connection between loving and learning, a truth well known to scholars whose lives are dominated by a love of learning. To love with the mind describes my deepest experience as a scholar, not only in sacred but in secular subjects. As an LDS scholar-saint, I am grateful that the Lord embedded “mind” in the first commandment, thus sanctioning and sanctifying this part of my being. Although I never regard myself as an intellectual because this reduces me to only one faculty of my self, and that not the most important to me, I am a person who desires to bring my mind to the altar and offer it along with my whole soul to the Lord.
The first commandment corroborates the idea, dear to Christian humanists, that the mind is a divine gift and that we are fashioned to serve God, even in the tangles of our minds—as Thomas More says in Robert Bolt’s play A Man for All Seasons: “God made the angels to show him splendor—as he made animals for innocence and plants for their simplicity. But Man he made to serve him wittily, in the tangle of his mind.”3 Likewise, Shakespeare expresses sentiments consonant with the view that the mind is a divine gift when Hamlet observes that God does not expect our intellectual faculties to rust in us unused:
Sure he that made us with such large discourse
Looking before and after, gave us not
That capability and god-like reason
To fust [mold] in us unus’d.4
Some religious traditions disparage the intellect because it can lead to pride, arrogance, skepticism, and doubt. By contrast, the first commandment recognizes the mind as fundamentally holy, on a par with the heart and the soul. To be sure, there are spiritual dangers associated with the intellect; they are real. But these are perils from the misuse of a good gift, not from any inherent evil in the gift itself. “To be learned is good,” Jacob affirms, “if they hearken unto the counsels of God” (2 Ne. 9:29). This gets it just right for Mormon scholars in any discipline. The Lord expects us to hearken. As Elder Maxwell often reminded us, scholars and so-called intellectuals are not exempt from obedience or meekness. Rather, the Lord expects us to use our minds to love him and seek to understand him.
And, I would argue, his creations. Encompassed within the injunction to love God with our minds is an invitation to contemplate his wondrous creations. Studying his handiwork can be, for the disciple scholar, a way of loving the Creator. The Doctrine and Covenants says that anyone who has gazed up into the starry sky “hath seen God moving in his majesty and power” (88:47). It was common in the Early Modern period to speak of God’s revealing himself in two books: the book of scripture and the book of nature. The first commandment invites us to read the testimonies of the divine inscribed in both books. It thus sanctions not only what Latter-day Saints often call “gospel scholarship” but also inquiry about the natural world.
But what of the human world? Do the natural sciences alone find a gospel ground in the first commandment? What of the humanities? There are two answers to this question: (1) Since humans are part of the created order, indeed creation’s capstone, and since we are fashioned in the image of God, anthropology (i.e., the knowledge of the human) certainly holds a place along with cosmology and theology as proper objects of study for an LDS scholar seeking to love God with one’s mind. (2) In addition to the first commandment, the second commandment specifically sanctions study of the humanities. Indeed, it provides a profound gospel grounding for our discipline. Let me explain.
Second Commandment
The second commandment calls us to love our neighbors as ourselves. Surely the imperative to love our neighbors as ourselves implies an obligation to understand our neighbors—their culture, history, language, science, and so forth. For how can I love another “as myself” whom I do not understand, or at least desire to understand, well? Neighbor-love implies an obligation to engage in humanistic learning.
Likewise, the second commandment implies a responsibility to care about our neighborhoods, including the cultural conditions that shape us and our neighbors for good and ill. As Ken Myers has written: “fulfilling the commands to love God and neighbor requires that we pay careful attention to the neighborhood: that is, every sphere of human life where God is either glorified or despised, where neighbors are either edified or undermined. Therefore, living as disciples of Christ pertains not just to prayer, evangelism, and Bible study, but also our enjoyment of literature and music, our use of tools and machines, our eating and drinking, our views on government and economics, and so on.”5
Neighbor-love thus requires thoughtful engagement with culture. In every era, Christians have a stake in understanding the culture of their times if they are to be able spokesmen for a countercultural gospel on Mars Hill, or “wise as serpents” (Matthew 10:16) as they go forth into the world. What the age propounds affects what ministers of the gospel must expound. In this era, where many cultural forces subtly conspire to degrade discipleship, we have an especially great stake in understanding and shaping culture. As Mormon scholars in the humanities we must take the measure of philosophy, science, art, culture, and technology, if we are to be prepared in all things. We thus have a double obligation in our disciplines: we have much to learn from them and we should bring a critical Christian perspective to them.
These then are some of the ways that the two great commandments lay a foundation for Mormon Scholars in the Humanities. All of us who embrace these divine injunctions live under a religious imperative to learn about God and his mighty creations, as well as about neighbors and neighborhoods in which Christian love must be practiced.
Olive Leaf (D&C 88)
Modern revelation makes our duty to learn about the humanities even more explicit and concrete, particularly the revelation Joseph entitled the “Olive Leaf.” This sets forth an expansive vision of education for Latter-day Saints, whether scholars or not. According to Elder Dallin H. Oaks, the Olive Leaf, “which defined the objectives of the School of the Prophets,” still serves as “the basic constitution of Church education.”6 Let me briefly describe how this grandly constitutional revelation articulates the how, what, and why of our profession as LDS scholars in the humanities.
How
The Olive Leaf teaches us how we are to learn. The Lord enjoins the saints to “seek learning, even by study and also by faith” (D&C 88:118). This famous LDS locution is repeated again twice in Doctrine and Covenants 109 (7, 14). It succinctly summarizes how we should approach learning, which is probably why the phrase “by study and by faith” has achieved the status of Mormon aphorism. Like the first commandment, this formula validates the mind as a divinely sanctioned means of learning. Similarly, just as the first commandment joins the faculties of heart, might, and mind, this foundational formula conjoins study and faith as complementary parts of an integrated whole. This yoking of opposites is typical of the Restoration. The restored gospel encourages Latter-day Saint scholars to embrace dichotomies that tend elsewhere to be broken apart: such as study and faith, reason and revelation, head and heart, body and spirit, heaven and earth, human and divine, and so forth. The Olive Leaf encourages a holistic approach to learning, one that engages all the human faculties.
Section 88 also encourages the Saints to approach learning “diligently.” This adverb speaks to another important dimension of how Mormons are to be scholars in the humanities or any other field for that matter. “Diligent” is a word rich in resonance. At root “diligent” connotes not only strenuous effort but delight. “Diligence” derives from diligere, meaning to esteem highly, to love, choose, take delight in. “Diligently” captures both the rigor and the joy, the assiduousness and excitement, that should attend our labors as scholars and teachers. It picks up qualities implicit in the first commandment to love with all our mind and might.
Study, Faith, Diligence: these three terms are key to how we ought to pursue our profession as Mormon scholars in the humanities according to Doctrine and Covenants 88.
What
The “Olive Leaf” also articulates what should be studied. It sets forth a broadly inclusive curriculum, not unlike a good liberal arts curriculum. Early Latter-day Saints were to “be instructed more perfectly in theory, in principle, in doctrine” (D&C 88:78). They were to learn of things “both in heaven and in the earth, and under the earth; things which have been, things which are, things which must shortly come to pass; things which are at home, things which are abroad; the wars and the perplexities of the nations” (D&C 88:79). They were further commanded to seek wisdom “out of the best books” (D&C 88:118) and to “study and learn, and become acquainted with . . . languages, tongues, and people” (D&C 90:15). In these verses the restored gospel gives a scriptural imprimatur to general education, grounding a liberal education in religious duty.
To my knowledge, these injunctions have never been revoked. Therefore we too, just as the early Saints, ought to understand the broad domains of human knowledge. For me, this is both a daunting and a thrilling prospect. It invites me to indulge my intellectual curiosity. It provides me an antidote to intellectual sloth, narrow-mindedness, and self-satisfaction. And it enjoins me never to cease learning and to seek to learn from those in every field of study and walk of life, not just from those in my narrow area of expertise.
The stunning scope of the Lord’s curriculum in the Olive Leaf lends support to the proposition that the gospel embraces all truth. So wide is the expanse of things the Lord would have his Saints know!
Why
Finally, modern revelation describes why believers are to seek learning—its telos or purpose. Traditionally, most justifications of learning fall into one of two categories: education is justified as having instrumental or intrinsic value. The Doctrine and Covenants ascribes both instrumental and intrinsic value to knowledge. LDS theology endorses both teleogies.
The early Saints were commanded to seek learning so that they would “be prepared in all things” to “magnify” their callings when the Lord would send them again into the world (D&C 88:80). Knowledge here is seen as serving an instrumental purpose. Latter-day Saints are to seek learning not for its own sake but for the sake of a world they were supposed to serve and save. The broad curriculum outlined in the previous verses is useful to help the elders and sisters act more effectively in the world. It is instrumental specifically in evangelizing the world. Early LDS missionaries were conscious of the utility of knowing language, history, politics, and culture, for fulfilling “the mission with which I have commissioned you” (D&C 88:80). Consequently, they actively sought such learning. The “best books” were thus made available in the Seventies Hall to prepare the Elders in Nauvoo to go to the nations.
So, according to scripture one reason for studying the humanities lies in its instrumental value. In addition, however, the Saints were to seek intelligence to become more like God. To this end they were taught that the “glory of God is intelligence, or, in other words, light and truth” (D&C 93:36). This doctrine implies that learning truth is an intrinsic good, a good in and of itself, for knowledge is an attribute of God.
I cannot conceive a more powerful argument for the intrinsic value of learning than this, nor a more inspiring incentive to learn all the truth we can—even while in this life. Latter-day Saints have the promise that “whatever principle of intelligence we attain unto in this life, it will rise with us in the resurrection. And if a person gains more knowledge and intelligence in this life through his diligence and obedience than another, he will have so much the advantage in the world to come” (D&C 130:18–19).
Intelligence makes us more like God. Obviously, what is meant here by “intelligence” is not coterminous with knowledge of academic subjects, much less with the field of the humanities. But I suspect there is some overlap, since the “truth is knowledge of things as they are, and as they were, and as they [will be]” (D&C 93:24). This definition of truth includes much of what we study in the humanities, whose deepest object may be understanding the unchanging verities of the human condition but whose materials are the changing human pageant. I do not argue that the knowledge of transient human things studied in the humanities is required for exaltation. I do believe, however, that understanding art, literature, stories, histories, language, and beliefs of humans across time and space is intrinsically valuable. These things too belong in the precincts of truth. They, too, help us become more godlike in our comprehension and compassion.
Which is, at last, the highest end or aim of education. The ultimate end of education is to help us become more like God. As Milton says in “Of Education”: “the end then of learning is to repair the ruins of our first parents by regaining to know God aright, and out of that knowledge to love him, to imitate him, to be like him.”7
Conclusion
Today I have tried to set forth two simple but fundamental propositions: (1) that the Lord sanctions the life of the mind in the first great commandment and the study of the humanities in the second great commandment; and (2) that these implied gospel imperatives to use our minds and to understand our neighbors are greatly amplified in modern revelations to the Prophet Joseph, especially “the Olive Leaf.” These have been important to me, as a Mormon scholar (of sorts) in the humanities. I hope that they will be for you, too.
