Seminary Doctrine and Covenants Teaching Manual ““Apostles Talk about Reasons for Lifting Ban”, Daily Herald, Provo, Utah (5 June 1988) “If you read the scriptures with this question in mind, ‘Why did the Lord command this or why did he command that,’ you find that in less than one in a hundred commands was any reason given. It’s not the pattern of the Lord to give reasons. We can put reasons to commandments. When we do, we’re on our own. Some people put reasons to [the ban] and they turned out to be spectacularly wrong. There is a lesson in that… The lesson I’ve drawn from that, I decided a long time ago that I had faith in the command and I had no faith in the reasons that had been suggested for it. […] I’m referring to reasons given by general authorities and reasons elaborated upon [those reasons] by others.
The whole set of reasons seemed to me to be unnecessary risk taking. […] Let’s [not] make the mistake that’s been made in the past, here and in other areas, trying to put reasons to revelation. The reasons turn out to be man-made to a great extent. The revelations are what we sustain as the will of the Lord and that’s where safety lies.”” — Dallin H. Oaks (more…)
