On the Issue of Truth and Falsehood

    It was an interesting DL, when Dr. White brought up the issue of cognitive dissonance of a certain professor of textual studies, which was the topic of discussion. That professor is from BYU, a university that my mentor, in a loose sense, chose to bring up for discussion. The discussion, as I understand it, is how can you take a position such as that of claiming that the scribes of the early to medieval centuries of the church were effective, if they had less knowledge of the Koine Greek, than their counterparts, who had more knowledge of that language.

    So there was the thesis that if you have less knowledge of a human language, then you are more likely to copy your manuscripts more accurately than another person, who has at least some familiarity of that language. This thesis or topic interests me because it runs in counter distinction to the thesis that the Book of Mormon has been given by Joseph Smith on golden tablets that were of heavenly origin. I think that was the antithesis to the above thesis. Basically, the thesis is that this Mormon professor of textual critical studies from BYU was accused by Dr. White of holding to two theses that were incompatible with each other.

    When we think of holding to two ideas that are contradictory, we think about which one is true and which one is false. This way of thinking is trying to separate out the true from the false, but when both theses are held at the same time, then you undergo cognitive dissonance, which is an irrational approach to solving the contradiction. Another method is to hold onto the thesis or proposition that seems to be true by comparison. You would be able to see the true statement by rejecting the false one, which is by comparing both statements in light of what else is held to be true.

    So, the brief discussion on the DL was about the preservation of the NT manuscripts in light of a recent doctoral dissertation that Dr. White had access to. The professor was accused by Dr. White of holding to contradictory ideas about textual studies, which is an area that I only have the faintest understanding of. And then there was the concept of cognitive dissonance, which could be dissolved by comparing your theses for their validity. This additional discussion brought on by Dr. White was helpful in seeing that the validity of statements would be solved in part by the comparative method of sorting out the truth from the false.