Circle Squared
A Textual Analysis of the Book of Mormon
Chapter 14: "This is the End"
Chapter Summary:
An angel tells Nephi of the blessings and cursings to fall upon the Gentiles--There are only two churches: the Church of the Lamb of God and the church of the devil--The Saints of God in all nations are persecuted by the great and abominable church--The Apostle John will write concerning the end of the world. About 600–592 B.C.
This is the final chapter describing Nephi's illustrious vision. Until now, most of the vision has been of various allegories and retro-fitting history to appear as prophecy. This chapter branches out slightly and makes some predictions about the end of the world and what will happen to the Gentiles.
As one might guess, becoming a believer has desirable consequences and disbelief is punished dearly. Verse two introduces a new phrase to the book which will pop up quite a bit in coming chapters: "hardening one's heart against god". What does this mean exactly? It is left vague here, implying that any form of disbelief is merely hardening one's heart or denying one's belief in god (score 1 for the presuppositionalists). But some chapters to come will suggest that it is more than disbelief. In fact, they draw a line between those who favor scholarly learning over faith, and suggest that those who dismiss things believed on faith on the basis of the “learning of man” have hardened their hearts so much that they are no longer able to hear god talking to them. To Mormons, this is a bad thing.
Verse two continues to say that faithful Gentiles who convert to the “true religion” will join the house of Israel and America will be prosperous forever. This is a common idea in political conservatism: America is "struggling" because society has distanced itself from god in the public sector. I, for one, am unclear what is meant by "struggling". Sure, our economy is relatively weak, but this is mostly in comparison to where we were a few years ago. If you look at the world stage, we still have one of the highest average standards of living--ever. The same can be said of many other areas in which conservatives claim America is failing.
Let's suppose that America does eventually fall in to shambles; would this mean the prediction in the Book of Mormon is divine? Not necessarily. It is safe to say that given enough time all governments will fall. How many governments exist today completely unchanged from their Bronze Age predecessors? It has been 150+ years since this "prophecy" was published and more than 2500 years since it was predicted. How long should we wait for its fulfillment? Another 150 years? 2000?
Verses 3-4 paint a picture of Hell which is very "fire and brimstone", of the sort one would expect to hear in a more traditional Protestant church. This would not stand out to most, perhaps, but Mormons believe that Hell is not a literal place of fire and endless torture. It is a separation from god. Sure, apologists will tell you that all of the colorful language in the Book of Mormon concerning Hell is merely a metaphor of the anguish one will feel of being eternally separated from god, but this is a small consolation, really. The point is that the anguish is torturous and eternal. It doesn't matter if it is emotional strife rather than physical pain. In the end, the torment is endless. The issue becomes even muddier in verse 7 which specifies that the captivity and destruction of the wicked by the devil will be done "both temporally and spiritually".
To me, hearing apologists explain how Mormon Hell (the Telestial Kingdom) is not really Hell, but rather a lesser form of heaven, sounds like back pedaling to make Joseph's original notion of a literal Hell (a notion which he was raised to believe in his Methodist home) sound more like their current understanding of heaven (3 heavens or degrees, no hell). It is an ad hoc rationalization. It is squeezing the pieces together until they fit.
Verse 10 adds some fun imagery about the church of the devil: "...Behold there are save two churches only; the one is the church of the Lamb of God, and the other is the church of the devil; wherefore, whoso belongeth not to the church of the Lamb of God belongeth to that great church, which is the mother of abominations; and she is the whore of all the earth."
If you aren't with us, you're against us. Oh, and you're a whore.
Such ad hominem attacks, although quite colorful, are meaningless at their core. I could just as easily say there are two types of beliefs: those based on facts and reason and those based on stupid, slutty faith. Or, there are two types of sandwiches: those with pastrami and those which are eaten by 5-dollar prostitutes. Adding insults to arguments does not make them wrong.
The next few verses add more color to the church of the devil and they state that the devil will have power over the entire earth and will fight against god's church. Eventually, god will give a damn and fight back, but not until after a long drawn out charade. Why would god play things out in this way? If god is omnipotent and the devil is anything less than omnipotent, nothing the devil ever does can ever thwart god's intentions. Omnipotence trumps non-omnipotence every time, as Martin Wagner of the Atheist Experience puts it. Therefore, any thwarting which might occur is by definition god's will. God is essentially playing cat and mouse with himself. Masochist.
The remaining verses deal with the apostle John writing the Book of Revelations. I noticed an interesting bait and switch here. As with the previous chapter where many "plain and precious" things were taken out of the bible, such is also the case for the Book of Revelations: "the things which were written were plain and pure, and most precious and easy to the understanding of all men". Since the book is now very confusing and involves a lot of hard to understand allegories, it is implied that this was done by the church of the devil to obstruct god from relaying a clear message to humans about end times.
But rather than clarifying the passages with understandable language, the angel tells Nephi that, although he will see the same cracked-out vision as the apostle John, "thou shalt not write [what you see]; for the Lord God hath ordained the apostle of the Lamb of God that he should write them", despite the fact that the message John writes will be obscured and confusing. This sounds an awful lot like someone who claims to have a royal flush but refuses to show their cards. In which case, what good is it? All of these plain and precious truths are vague to the point of futility (or to the point of meaning whatever the believer wants). It's a dodge, a shirking of accountability, and it is exactly what one would expect to find in a holy book written by a charlatan.
The chapter closes the vision with Nephi saying that he really did see everything he wrote down and he can confirm Lehi's dream as divine (I'm not sure how; how do we know any of it actually happened?). It is no different than any other anecdotal testimony of a "true believer". It is a bald assertion of extraordinary things and it offers no reliable method to determine its veracity. It assumes that faith is sufficient to justify belief. It assumes that its readers are uneducated and gullible.