Thom Hobson, a Protestant and critic of the Church, wrote the following:
For many Latter-day Saints, the testimony of the Holy Ghost in their
hearts overrules any amount of evidence one might share with them to persuade
them to change their belief. Moroni 10:4 in the Book of Mormon says that if we
ask god whether the book’s message is true, “he will manifest the truth of it
unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.” Likewise, the Protestant
Westminster Confession of Faith (1:5) says that “our full persuasion and
assurance of the infallible truth and divine authority [of the Bible] is from
the inward work of the Holy Spirit, bearing witness by and with the Word in our
hearts.” Both traditions teach that the testimony of the Spirit is the
ultimate confirmation of God’s truth. (Thom Hobson, The Historical Jesus
and the Historical Joseph Smith [Nashville, Tenn.: Elm Hill, 2019], 5,
emphasis added)
Hobson, of course, tries to claim that the Protestant
appeal to the Holy Spirit is backed up by the facts, and (falsely) that the LDS
claims are not. And even then, he is forced at times to admit things like the
following:
. . . there are some parts of our canonical Gospels that require faith
beyond what history can establish . . . (Ibid., 19)
Further Reading: