Thursday, December 26, 2019

Do LDS Abuse Johann Mosheim? Responding to Matthew A. Paulson


In an attempt to claim that Latter-day Saints abuse sources, Matthew A. Paulson wrote the following about some LDS appealing to the work of Johannes Mosheim:

LDS First Counselor in the First Presidency Harold B. Lee states: “As did Truly, as has been written by the noted historian Dr. Johann Mosheim, an authority on early Christian church history: ‘There is no institution so pure and excellent which the corruption and folly of man will not in time alter for the worse, and load with additions foreign to its nature and original design’” (“Plain and Precious Things,” Ensign, Aug. 1972, p. 2). Lee endorsed this famous historian with an interesting axiom: any perfect church will be corrupted. Ironically, I must wonder—has it occurred to Lee to apply Mosheim’s statement to his own “restored” church? Ironically, this statement serves as an indictment that corruption by a “foreign nature” has already entered into the LDS Church! To this one fact, we can agree. If Lee would acknowledge their imperfection of his church, then we stand on common ground, because I, also, can acknowledge imperfections within the Christian church.

It is good that Lee sees the value of Johann Mosheim. He was a 18th century German Lutheran (1694-1755) called “the father of modern ecclesiastical history.” This scholar has written about the success of the early Church. Mosheim states, “We give credence to the many and grave testimonies of the writers of those time, who cannot be suspected of either fraud of levity, that the successful progress of Christianity in this [2nd] century was, in a great measure, attributable to divine interpositions . .. “ (Johann Mosheim, Historical Commentaries on the State of Christianity During the First Three Hundred and Twenty Five Years From the Christian Era, [New York, NY: Converse, 1854], pp. 3-4). Mosheim’s view of the success of the early Christian church is contrary to Mormonism’s supposed early Christian apostasy. Also, Mosheim also tells how some heretical groups have tried to deceive the church. He records that “pious frauds found a place among the causes of the prorogation of Christianity in this [2nd] century, yet, they unquestionably held a very inferior position, and were employed by only a few, and with very little, if any success” (Ibid.) (Matthew A. Paulson, Breaking the Mormon Code: A Critique of Mormon Scholarship Regarding Classic Christian Theology and the Book of Mormon [Livermore, Calif.: WingSpan Press, 2006, 2009], 130-31)

This only shows the importance of checking sources. Firstly, Lee is not, as Paulson likes to think, shooting himself in the foot with the Mosheim quotation. How so? If one reads the article Plain and Precious Things, one will see Lee explicitly teach the importance of modern revelation to authenticate the inspiration of the Bible and key doctrines, something that the second-century church did not have.

Secondly, if one reads Mosheim’s works, at times, he will admit that various core doctrines of mainstream Christianity were later developments and/or “inexplicable” (imagine if a Latter-day Saint said something like that about our doctrines!). For instance, commenting on third century Christianity, Mosheim wrote in another of his works:

The controversies relating to the divine Trinity, which took their rise in the former century, from the introduction of the Grecian philosophy into the christian church, were now spreading with considerable vigour, and producing various methods of explaining that inexplicable doctrine. One of the first who engaged in this idle and perilous attempt of explaining what every mortal must acknowledge to be incomprehensible, was Noetus of Smyrna, an obscure man, and of mean abilities. (Ecclesiastical History, Ancient and Modern [trans. Archibald MacLaine; New York: Evert Duyckinck, 1823] 1:237)

Mosheim then discusses various failed attempts to make sense of the Trinity, a doctrine which, for Mosheim, was introduced by Hellenistic philosophy and any attempt to defend such eventually falls into heresy (e.g., Modalism).

For a book that purports to be a response to the purported abuses of scholarship by Latter-day Saint scholars and apologists, Paulson proves time and time again that he is guilty of such ("projection" is the term used by psychologists). For more articles refuting Paulson’s book, see:


Listing of articles responding to "Breaking the Mormon Code"