In a joke article Failing Godhood, Michael Flournoy continues to prove the truth of Heb 6:4-6; 10:26-29. In this piece, he wrote the following:
What if the Bible
says, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” (Mark
13:31 ESV) but The Book of Mormon says “…they have taken away from the gospel
of the Lamb many parts which are plain and most precious; and also many
covenants of the Lord have they taken away.” (1 Nephi 13:26)? What if the Book
of Mormon says, “Behold, David and Solomon truly had many wives and concubines,
which thing was abominable before me, saith the Lord.” (Jacob 2:24), but
Doctrine and Covenants condones it like this?
Matt 13:31 and related texts (e.g., Isa 40:8) is not about the preservation of the written record of God's revelations. This shows that Flournoy does not know what he is talking about when he appeals to such a passage. Do note the following from a Protestant apologist:
[T]here is a difference between the Word of God, which is eternal (Psalm 119:89, 152, 160), and the Bible, which is not. The Bible is the Word of God written. If one were to destroy one paper Bible, or all paper Bibles, he would not have destroyed the eternal Word of God. One such example is given in Jeremiah 36. The prophet was told by God to write His words in a book, and to read it to the people. Wicked king Jehoiakim, not comfortable with what had been written, had the written Word destroyed. God then told the prophet to write the Word down again. The king had destroyed the written Word, but he had not destroyed God's Word. God's Word is eternal propositions that find expression in written statements. (W. Gary Crampton, By Scripture Alone: The Sufficiency of Scripture [Unicoi, Tenn.: The Trinity Foundation, 2002], 156)
Furthermore, absolutizing such texts in the way that many (not all, to be fair) Protestants are wont to do will result in one having to ignore textual criticism, as such an (eisegetical) interpretation would mean there would be no textual variations whatsoever. However, such is simply false. Commenting on some of the difficulties posed to texual criticism, and how this approach is detached from reality, three conservative Protestant scholars noted:
Even with all of this help [from textual criticism], Christians often ask two important questions or which there are no simple answers. First, why did God in his providence not insure that an inerrant, inspired original was also inerrantly preserved? Second, how do we as Christians deal with those portions of traditional translations (like the KJV) that modern discoveries have shown were not part of the original autographs? The first question takes on added significance in light of other religions that claim, however erroneously, that their sacred writings have been perfectly preserved (most notably the Book of Mormon and the Qur’an/Koran). To be sure, we do not know God’s hidden motives. Perhaps he did not want us to idolize a book but to worship the God who became incarnate in Jesus. Leaving the transmission of Scriptures to fallible human beings parallels leaving the proclamation of those Scriptures to sinful and potentially rebellious disciples. God does not choose to override free will in either case, and he reveals and inspires only at particular moments in human history. But there is a sense in which we can discern his providence in the amazing extent to which the texts have been preserved.
The second question becomes particularly acute with regard to the two longest passages (printed in most Bibles) that almost certainly did not appear in the original manuscripts: Mk 16:9-20 (an additional account of Jesus’ resurrection) and Jn 7:53-8:11 (the story of the woman caught in adultery). The necessary approach should be clear—whatever was most likely in the original texts should be accepted as inspired and normative; what was not in those texts should not be given equal status. But application proves more difficult. As noted elsewhere in this book, Jn 7:53-8:11 may be a true story, from which we can derive accurate information about Jesus’ view of the Law, even if it did not original form part of John’s Gospel. On the other hand, there is almost no evidence to support Jesus having said, “He that believes and is baptized shall be saved” (Mk 16:16), as if baptism were necessary for salvation, or for the promise that believers may pick up snakes, drink their venom, and yet not be harmed (Mk 16:18). One unnecessarily risks suicide by treating that text as normative! But in both Mark and John, the textual evidence is very strong for rejecting these passages as inspired Scripture.
Or what about verses in which the NT quotes the OT but follows the Septuagint, even though the meaning in the Greek translation does not accurately reflect the Hebrew of traditional OT manuscripts? These differences prove more difficult to assess. The traditional Hebrew versions, known as the Masoretic text (MT), date from no earlier than the A.D. 800-900s. The existing Septuagint (LXX) manuscripts go back an additional half a millennium or more. It is possible, therefore, that at times the LXX accurately translated a Hebrew original that later became corrupted. Portions of OT books found among the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS) from as long ago as 200 B.C. have suggested that occasionally though not often, this was exactly what happened. Compare, for example, Heb 1:6, which quotes a longer form of Deut 32:43 found only in the LXX and DSS.
Aramaic Targums, which combined free translation with occasional explanatory additions and commentary, may at times also reflect an older text. Interpreters, for example, have often wondered how to account for the end of Eph 4:8, “he gave gifts to men,” when the Hebrew of Psa 68:18 that Paul is quoting reads “you received gifts from men.” But at least one early Targum contains an Aramaic equivalent for Paul’s word, so it is possible than its author reflected the intent of the original Hebrew. (William W. Klein, Craig L. Blomberg, and Robert L. Hubbard, Jr. Introduction to Biblical Interpretation [Dallas: Word Publishing, 1993], 72-3, comment in square bracket added, italics in original)
Does Jacob 2:24 conflict with D&C 132?
Michael Flournoy knows very well the LDS responses to this. The face that he, a former LDS apologist does not present the common LDS responses thereto and interact with them is a sign of his lack of any integrity.
Firstly, it should be noted that Jacob 2 is a complete denunciation of plural marriage per se and focuses on the polygamy (or, to be more correct, polygyny) of David and Solomon. Indeed, Jacob 2:30 has long been cited as a text allowing for the practice of plural marriage if and when the Lord commands:
For if I will, saith the Lord of Hoses, raise up seed unto me, I will command my people; otherwise they shall hearken unto these things [monogamy]
What is often overlooked in this discussion is that Jacob 2:24 (the verse Flournoy quotes) is based on Deut 17:17, a text dealing with the ideal king from the perspective of the Deuteronomists:
Behold, David and Solomon truly had many wives and concubines, which thing was abominable before me, saith the Lord. (Jacob 2:24)
Neither shall he [the king] multiply wives to himself, that his heart turn not away: neither shall he greatly multiply to himself silver and gold. (Deut 17:17)
The Deuteronomy text warns against a Davidic king “multiplying” the amount of possessions he has, including gold, silver, and horses (see v.16). Contextually, it should be obvious that what is being condemned is not a linear increase of such things, including wives, but an exponential and/or forbidden increase thereof. In the case of King Solomon, he had seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines (1 Kgs 11:3 [which also resulted in his embracing their idolatrous practices]), while David had an adulterous affair with Bathsheba, whom he would later marry as a polygynous wife, after murdering her husband to cover his tracks. Combined together, they truly had “many wives and concubines,” something condemned by Deut 17:17 and Jacob are unbecoming of a true Davidic king. That is what is abominable vis-à-vis the polygyny of David (and Solomon), not their polygyny per se, let alone the practice of polygyny in general. Compare with how Rashi interpreted the Deut 17:17 text:
In his commentary on Deut 17:17, Rashi argued that the command for kings not to multiply wives is a reference to exponential increase, and, further, is not a biblical condemnation of plural marriage:
NEITHER SHALL HE MULTIPLY WIVES TO HIMSELF — only eighteen, for we find that David had six wives, and it was announced to him (by Nathan the prophet): “[Thus saith the Lord . . . I gave thy master’s wives into thy bosom] . . . and if that had been too little, I would add unto thee such and such as these (i.e. twice as many)” (Sanh. 21a; Siphre). (Torah with Targum Onkelos and Rashi’s Commentary, Volume 5: The Book of Devarim-Deuteronomy [ed. Rabbi A.M. Silbermann; BN Publishing, 2014], 91)
On Rashi’s commentary on Deut 17:16 (a similar command for a king not to multiply the number of horses he owns), Rabbi A.M. Silbermann noted:
Rashi points out that לא ירבה לו סוסים and ולא ישיב העם מצרימה וכו are not two separate commandments. They form one command that forbs the king to possess a large number of horses and at the same time states why this is prohibited,--so that he may not send the people back to Egypt to purchase horses. The same phraseology occurs in the next verse: Neither shall he multiply wives unto himself, so that his heart turn not away from God. (Ibid., 210)
In other words, Deut 17:17, in part, is a warning not to do what Solomon et al would do—be led away by plural wives from pagan peoples.
The "God" of Michael Flournoy is a Liar
Flournoy has become an ardent defender of imputed righteousness (for a thorough refutation, see Response to a Recent Attempt to Defend Imputed Righteousness). This doctrine makes God a liar. How so? Under a section entitled "The Charge of 'Legal Fiction,'" Robert Sungenis wrote that:
During the Reformation, the Catholic Church charged that the Protestant conception of justification was a "legal fiction." The Church maintained that if justification is only a legal category into which God places a man without being truly just in his own person, then the justification is not real. A "declared" justification (which is another term for a forensic justification) without a just object in view is merely a legal label, hence a "legal fiction." (Robert A. Sungenis, Not By Faith Alone: The Biblical Evidence for the Catholic Doctrine of Justification [2d ed; Catholic Apologetics International Publishing inc., 2009], 349)
The footnote for this (pp.349-50, n. 434) also adds further insight into this rather blasphemous tenet of Reformed soteriology:
R. C. Sproul misses the point when he says: “The forensic declaration of justification is not a legal fiction. It is real and authentic because the imputation upon which it is based is no fiction. It is a real imputation of real righteousness of a real Christ” (Justification by Faith Alone, op. cit., p. 39). Geisler and MacKenzie attempt the same argument with a little more subtlety: “Our status is not merely legal (as in forensic justification) but also ontological (real) for we become the actual children of God at the initial moment of salvation… ([Evangelicals and Catholics: Agreements and Differences]., f. 67, p. 239). Catholic theologians have no contention with Protestants if they desire to think of their imputation as “real.” The Counter-Reformation charge of “legal fiction” referred rather to the forensic justification’s theory that the individual was still said to be unjust, though justified. This infringed on the integrity of God, who was put in the position of calling something just that was not really just. Analogously, a gold-plated coin is real but that does not mean that the metal underneath is real gold. Thus, for someone to call the coin a genuine gold coin would be a lie. George Eldon Ladd refutes the charge by saying that the justification is relational as opposed to ethical. He writes: “The forensic righteousness of justification is a real righteousness, because a man’s relationship to God is just as real as his subjective ethical condition. A man’s relationship to God is no fiction” (Ladd, [A Theology of the New Testament] ., pp. 439-30). Though Catholic theology would not deny that there is a definitive relational change between God and man in justification, limiting the exchange to relationship is neither biblical noir logical. It would be analogous to a bachelor who marries claiming only that his marital status (i.e., his relationship with the woman) has changed but who ignores the fact that he desired to marry her because he loved and admired her for who she was as a person (i.e., her ethical and other virtuous qualities). The formal moment of marriage is analogous to baptism, which defines the relational change. However, just as a man marries only because he loves his fiancé for who she is before the wedding ceremony, so God seeks and begins an ethical change in the individual prior to his baptism. That prebaptismal ethical change, initiated by the grace of God , is called “repentance” (cf. Mt 3:6-8; 4:17; Mk 1:5; 6:12; Lk 3:3-8; 5:32; 24:47; Ac 2:38; 3:19; 10:1-4; 17:30; 20:21; 22:16; 26:20; 2Pt 3:9). From another vantage point, Douglas Jones attempts to escape the charge of legal fiction by first asserting that “…God justifies those who have the real, ontological property of corporate righteousness. No legal fiction. No imperfect individual righteousness.” Although corporate righteousness is certainly part of the righteousness God gives to the Church at large, yet God still requires the individual to have and obtain his personal righteousness from the corporate entity. This is precisely why Catholicism insists that individuals obtain justification and infused righteousness from the graces given to the Church, e.g., sacraments, communion of saints, etc. Justification is both corporate and individual and it is therefore erroneous to elevate the former at the expense of the latter. Jones also claims that Catholicism by not attributing man’s guilt of sin to Christ engages in a “legal atrocity” which, he claims, makes God a slayer of the innocent, i.e., Christ (“Non Est” in Credenda Agenda, vol. 8. No. 3, p. 23, emphasis added). First, Catholicism does not speak of the death of Christ in “legal” terms. It is a personal decision by a loving Son to obey his Father in order to provide grace to mankind. Second, Jones ignores the appeasement motif throughout Scripture, wherein Christ offers himself in death to appease God’s personal anger against sin. God is not “slaying the innocent,” rather, it is Christ who voluntarily offers himself up to the Father as an act of love for mankind. There is quite a difference between shedding the innocent blood of a involuntary victim (e.g., Dt 19:10; 1Sm 19:5; Ps 106:38) and offering oneself up voluntarily in love for others (Jn 10:18; Hb 7:27; Ph 2:6-8).
The theology espoused by Flournoy et al., is one that makes God a liar, declaring something to be “righteous” when in reality they are not. This is a violation of the integrity of God’s character, something summarised by the Apostle Paul in Titus 1:2 thusly:
In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began.
It should be clear that Michael Flournoy, since abandoning his inheritance (the Restored Gospel) and replacing it with pottage (Protestantism) now preaches a false God; a false Christ, and a false salvation.
For previous responses to Flournoy, see