The Vitality of Mormonism: Brief Essays on Distinctive Doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day SaintsTalmage, James E. (James Edward)
Religion
The Vitality of Mormonism: Brief Essays on Distinctive Doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Talmage, James E. (James Edward)
Latter Day Saint churches; Latter Day Saints
This usage of the term has gained a place in modern English, as
lexicographers agree. The Standard Dictionary gives us the following as
one of the specific definitions of intelligence: "An intelligent being,
especially a spirit not embodied; as the intelligences of the unseen
world; the Supreme Intelligence."
The word is current as connoting (1) the mental capacity to know and
understand; (2) knowledge itself, or the thing that is known and
understood; and (3) the person who knows and understands. Beside these
there are other minor usages.
In the revelation above cited the Lord impressed upon His ancient
prophet and seer the fact that some of the spirits were more
intelligent than others; and then proclaimed His own Divine supremacy
by the declaration: "I am the Lord thy God, I am more intelligent than
they all. . . . I rule in the heavens above, and in the earth beneath,
in all wisdom and prudence, over all the intelligences thine eyes have
seen from the beginning. I came down in the beginning in the midst of
all the intelligences thou hast seen."
In such wise did God make known anciently the power by virtue of which
He is supreme over all the intelligences that exist--the fact that He
is more intelligent than any and all others. In the heavens as upon the
earth the aphorism holds good that Knowledge is Power, providing that
by "knowledge" we mean application, and not merely mental possession,
of truth. In a revelation through Joseph Smith the prophet given in
1833, the character of Divine authority and power is thus sublimely
summarized: "The Glory of God is Intelligence." (D&C 93:36.)
The context of the passage shows that the intelligence therein referred
to as an attribute of Deity is spiritual light and truth; and that
man may attain to a measure of this exalting light and truth is thus
made certain: "He that keepeth His commandments receiveth truth and
light, until he is glorified in truth and knoweth all things. . . .
Intelligence, or the light of truth, was not created or made, neither
indeed can be. All truth is independent in that sphere in which God has
placed it, to act for itself, as all intelligence also."
The antithesis of light and truth is darkness and falsehood; the
former is summarized as righteousness, the latter as evil. Reverting
to the figure of mortality as a school for embodied spirits, we must
admit that every pupil who ignores or rejects the truth as presented
to him through the revealed word and his own experience is culpably
responsible for his ignorance.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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