In this episode, Trent sits down with fellow Catholic Answers apologist Joe Heschmeyer to discuss how to fairly critique the false doctrines of Mormonism such as their anti-Trinitarianism.
Transcript:
Welcome to the Council of Trent podcast, a production of Catholic Answers.
Trent Horn:
Hey everyone. Welcome to the Council of Trent Podcast. I’m your host Catholic Answers apologist, Trent Horn. Originally I was going to host a debate between Tim Gordon from Rules for Retrogrades and a Protestant apologist on an issue related to solo scriptura or the canon. Unfortunately, that debate, it fell through. Right now we are working on getting another Protestant opponent for Gordon to debate, so stay tuned for that. We might have someone available for October, and I’m really excited about that. I mentioned that in my previous episode about Taylor Marshall and other online traditionalists saying I’d really like to see them engage in critical dialogue and debate with non-Catholics, and Gordon stepped up to the plate. And if he’s willing to do that, I think that’s a good thing. So hopefully we’ll do that in October. In the meantime, because the debate didn’t happen, I decided to invite my friend and colleague, Mr. Joe Heschmeyer, a fellow Catholic Answers apologist, to come back on the show. I really enjoyed having you on earlier, Joe, when we talked about the cannon.
Joe Heschmeyer:
Thanks, it was good to be on the show. I’m happy to be the B-Team.
Trent Horn:
You are not the B-Team. You are a part of the A-Team. Which member of the A-Team do you want to be?
Joe Heschmeyer:
Obviously Mr. T. I mean, just based on the hair alone.
Trent Horn:
B. A. Baracus?
Joe Heschmeyer:
Yeah, exactly.
Trent Horn:
“I pity the fool.” What’s funny about B. A. Baracus is it’s basically Mr. T. He’s not really acting. He’s just being Mr. T basically.
Joe Heschmeyer:
Look, it’s kind of like when you have Andre the Giant in the Princess Bride. When you’ve got someone who seems like maybe they’re more prepared for the world of wrestling than the world of theater or movies, you might adjust your expectations accordingly, let’s put it that way.
Trent Horn:
In any case, I love it when a plan comes together. Maybe I should have you on for free for all Friday. We’ll just do retro television shows. I’m thinking A-Team, Knightrider, Airwolf. So many good ones to pick from.
Joe Heschmeyer:
Yeah, that was a good list to come up with off the top of your head. I’m impressed.
Trent Horn:
I am the world’s youngest boomer, I’ve been called on Twitter, because of my comments about capitalism and things like that. In any case, let’s get to the topic I wanted to talk about. On your show recently… And also I’m really excited to have Joe on because I want you guys to go and subscribe to his podcast, Shameless Popery. Not shameless potpourri, which would be like some kind of unabashed trivia. Instead, it’s Shameless Popery. I’ll take potent potables, Alex. No, Shameless Popery based on his blog, which is an excellent resource for apologetics.
Joe’s channel is really thriving and he’s just got really solid content. We talked about the cannon of scripture last week. Recently you have been talking about Mormonism, which is very apropos by the way, because Matt Fradd of Pints with Aquinas is trying to put together a debate on Mormonism. He said something, I’ll call it incendiary, about the Book of Mormon and about Mormonism, and some Mormons said they wanted to see a debate on there. So he’s trying to do a debate and then it fell through, so we’re all having bad luck with that. But this is a subject you’re interested in as well because you’ve been covering it a bit on your podcast, right?
Joe Heschmeyer:
Yeah, I just finished up a, I guess it was a five-week series on Mormonism, and I don’t normally stick with any topic for more than an episode. But it all started off, the first of the five episodes, I was suggesting that broadly speaking we don’t do apologetics as well as we could because we’re uncharitable in it. And I gave the example, and originally it was just meant to be that, kind of an example of doing apologetics with Mormons, that Mormons are often kind of the subject of mockery and scorn, and that’s not really the Christian way to approach even falsehood. It’s not the Christian way to approach people who are in error, that something greater than that is desired. And so then since I’d kind of thrown the gauntlet down, I spent the next four weeks trying to… you can judge for yourself the level of success… to figure out, okay, how should we do this better? And what would it look like to critically engage with Mormonism in a way that is still charitable and respectful of the people who hold those beliefs?
Trent Horn:
I think that’s fair because people, well, Catholics want our beliefs to be treated charitably. It reminds me of in the debate that the atheist Sam Harris had with William Lane Craig, and this was back in 2009, on God and morality. And Harris completely decided to abandon the original debate topic and wanted to rip into the Bible, even into Catholicism, trying to say religion’s irrational. And he said that if someone prayed over a bunch of pancakes and said that was Elvis Presley you would think they were out of their minds. But Catholics basically do the same thing with the Eucharist. And of course all Catholics would collectively roll their eyes or groan like, “Oh, come on, give me a break already.” But do you think sometimes we have similar ideas about Mormonism?
Joe Heschmeyer:
Yeah, I think that’s true. And look, in saying this, I’m not saying what Mormons believe is all true, but that we can approach these things with a greater deal of respect. And this is not just out of respect for other people, it’s also if you’re serious about evangelization, because as a Catholic and anyone listening, whatever tradition they’re coming from, they’ve probably experienced someone coming at them with these kind of ridiculous caricatures that are easily batted away. You gave the example, I think in last week’s episode, when you were talking about Kennedy Hall tweeting about Luther and passing on some kind of probably false information.
Trent Horn:
At least unsupported. At the time of the tweet there was no evidence for it, the idea that Luther killed cats as a kid or other things like that.
Joe Heschmeyer:
And so Lutheran listening to that is going to respond much like a Catholic hearing the pancake thing and just kind of roll their eyes and dismiss the person speaking. And as an evangelist, you never want to be in the position where you’re saying something so provocatively stupid that people are just rolling their eyes at you. And so when you approach Mormonism with just an air of mockery and dismissal, I think it does two things. One, it undermines your own standing. And two, if the person you’re dealing with already has a sense of embattlement or a sense of we’re a persecuted people, then you’ve really doubled that kind of sense. You’ve really legitimated that feeling. What that does psychologically and sociologically, it increases group identity.
My group is being attacked by outsiders and so I feel a greater need to cling to this group. And this is true of everybody in every kind of group setting. It’s that famous kind of like, I can criticize my kids but don’t you criticize my kids. And that kind of thing happens. And so if you have these especially false or really uncharitably construed presentations of Mormon theology, Mormons who know better than you what Mormons believe are going to dismiss you, and they’re going to do it somewhat justifiably because you haven’t shown yourself to be a good faith, well-informed participant in the conversation.
Trent Horn:
To give an example off the top of my head, I know some people, Catholics, when they’ve talked about Mormonism and said, “Oh, it’s a cult. It’s a crazy secret thing with weird sex rituals that are secret and they have to wear this magic underwear,” and they talk about it in a very lurid way. But you could say the same thing about some aspects of Catholicism. We wear scapulars, the Knights of Columbus have secret elements to their rituals, nothing that’s occult but they have elements so that the knights could be something that men could join instead of joining the Masonic Lodge or something like that and still have that sense of fraternal fellowship. So maybe you can unpack that a little bit more that people make these kinds of accusations of the Mormons.
Joe Heschmeyer:
Yeah, I think I purposely steered clear of the whole magic underwear thing because I don’t think it moves the ball forward. No one is going to say, “Aha, I guess the LDS religion is false because you told me that we have magic underwear.” That’s not helping, it’s not creating any light it’s only generating heat in a way that’s likely to generate, just like I said, mockery rather than understanding or persuasion. And so in that, look, we live in a culture not just religiously but politically, where that’s kind of the MO, where half of the point of rhetoric isn’t to actually convince anybody else, it’s to fire up your own base. And so you can have anti-Mormon or anti-anybody kind of polemics where it fires up other Catholics, other Protestants, other whoever, but if it’s not actually accurately representing what the other person believes they’re never going to be persuaded by that.
And when I say it falls short of the Christian standard, I’d use the kind of go-to Bible verse on apologetics. Apologetics, from apologia, comes from 1 Peter 3:15-16. And we always like to quote the first part, to always be prepared to make a defense in apologia. But if you read the rest of it, what Peter is saying is be prepared to make that defense to anyone who calls you to account for the hope that is in you. So that’s the first thing. You should first be living the kind of life that inspires question about what makes you different, and that’s probably not you running your mouth on Twitter or X as we now call it.
But then Peter goes on to tell you how to do this. He says do it with gentleness and reverence and keep your conscience clear so that when you are abused those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. So that’s pretty strong language. He has one line about making the defense and several lines telling you here’s how not to do it and here’s how to do it. And it’s almost as if he knew people aren’t going to have a problem with the I want to argue part, they’re going to have a problem with having rules of doing it well.
Trent Horn:
Right. And to talk about the garments also to a bow on that so to speak, this is something that Mormons receive as part of their endowment ceremony in temple.
Joe Heschmeyer:
Oh yeah, I should’ve explained that.
Trent Horn:
No, that’s fine. This is what the official LDS handbook says about that. They’re not some kind of magical garment. One handbook says this, “The garment provides a constant reminder of the covenants made in a temple. When properly worn, it provides protection against temptation and evil. Wearing the garment is also an outward expression of an inward commitment to follow the savior.” So here, this is helpful for us when we’re talking to Mormons that we can identify a lot of common ground with Mormons. This is not too far off from the idea of a sacramental.
Joe Heschmeyer:
Look, I literally have a bracelet I wear reminding me of Marian consecration and I can regularly tap it or even kiss it just as a physical kind of reminder. And I think what this gets right, in both the case of Catholic sacramentals and in the case of, I mean they probably won’t use the word sacramentals, but in the case of the endowment undergarments, is-
Trent Horn:
Right, like pious objects.
Joe Heschmeyer:
… is that humans aren’t just souls trapped in bodies, that there’s an actual bodily dimension to who you are. And that the relationship between soul and body is a complicated one. There’s all sorts of fun kind of secular studies that point to this. They have two groups of people take a test and the first group of people they have them put on what they tell them is a doctor’s lab coat. And that group actually does better on the test than the second group who’s wearing a painter’s smock. But the great joke here is it’s literally the same white coat. They’ve just told them one is a doctor’s and one is a painter’s. There’s nothing magical about the item itself, but there’s a sort of psychological relationship of mind and body that can have a real impact.
You literally outperform or underperform on a test based on this. There’s all kinds of stuff on this. This is one of the controversial things in kind of the casual Fridays, that workplace productivity can sometimes take a hit when people dress too casually, even at home. That psychologically you have a complicated relationship to your body and to what you wear. All that to say, I think the Mormon thing is totally sound psychologically, whether it actually provides any spiritual benefit is obviously something we could part company on, but it’s not just an absurd kind of idea.
Trent Horn:
I’d also say though that the productivity we lose on casual Friday is offset by the increase in appetizers that are consumed.
Joe Heschmeyer:
Touche.
Trent Horn:
So I think there’s a bit of give and take there. So let’s jump into a little bit more about Mormonism. I do want to say that when it comes to this sort of dialogue, finding that common ground is helpful, especially for helping Mormons to… if there’s any faith they should consider if they’re leaving Mormonism, it should be Catholicism because we actually have a lot in common. We both reject solo scriptura. We both believe in the authority of the priesthood, that Jesus gave us a priesthood. Now Mormons believe the priesthood had to be reestablished in the 19th century, and that’ll get into the whole thing about the great apostasy, which I would definitely want to hear more from you on that. But it does seem like that and baptism and salvation, do you find it’s helpful to be able to focus on this common ground before we get to the meat of the disagreement?
Joe Heschmeyer:
I do. I experienced this in person of a couple that I’m friends with maybe 10, 15 years ago. They lived down the block from the regional headquarters for the LDS in Northern Virginia. And so they just made a habit of having regular dinners with the missionaries when they’d come in town. And they’re both military, they’re both very smart, and the wife, Meg, would always focus on that common ground. And then Cary would just kind of bide his time because he just wanted to talk about where do we disagree. Meg just wanted to talk about where do we agree. And the two of them together really effectively did this tag team, I think, largely unintentionally just based on their personalities. But it meant that there was an actual buildup of goodwill and it was clear this was coming from a place of charity and love and respect and not a place of just kind of like gotcha.
Because everyone’s experienced that, someone just trying to catch you in something and tear you down. It’s not conducive to changing anyone’s mind. I mean, the missionaries would go and play basketball with Cary and they even joined us for Mass once. I mean, really it was a remarkable scene. It wasn’t like, look, they went out and got baptized and confirmed in the church. No, but it was clear the needle had gotten moved in their understanding of Catholicism and probably their sense of being loved by Catholics. And I think that’s really important. You don’t have to, like St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians, you don’t have to do all of it. You might just plant the seed, you might water it, but ultimately Christ is the one who gives it the increase. So you do what you can. And I think this is a clear example. Start with where you have common ground because it builds up that mutual respect.
Blaise Pascal talks about this, that people are more persuaded by the reasons they come to themselves than by the reasons put into their head by others. So to take a non-Mormon example, with abortion, when somebody tells you I am pro-life except in cases of rape, incest, life of the mother, whatever their exceptions are, the temptation is to immediately jump in. And I mean this is more… you’re the expert on this so I know I’m speaking to the choir here… but the temptation is to immediately jump in on where do we disagree and why. But it can actually be really helpful to say, “Well, why aren’t you okay with abortion across the board?”
And then once they tell you whatever that reason is, if there’s some recognition that this is an unborn child or whatever’s in the womb with the mother has some kind of rights, now you actually have a basis to have a meaningful conversation. If they just say yes and you just say no, that’s not likely to go anywhere. But if you say, “I notice you say no most of the time and yes some of the time, let’s focus on our shared no and then see if it sheds light on where we disagree.” That way you’re not running from the controversy, but you are creating the framework in which it can be productive.
Trent Horn:
Yeah, I’ve done this as well when someone says, “Oh, I’m against abortion in the case of rape,” the temptation might be here’s why you are wrong about abortion in the case of rape. But to ask a question, “Help me understand why is pregnancy that comes from rape something that is so bad it justifies abortion, but pregnancy from another stressful, difficult circumstance doesn’t justify abortion. Why are you against abortion in non-rape cases?” And if they say, “Well, because it kills a human being,” well, does that happen in cases of rape as well? And when you ask the question, as you said, quoting Pascal, the person comes to that of their own accord and they start to see it.
So let’s jump then into our disagreements that you’ve covered on the podcast with Mormonism. I think probably the biggest disagreement honestly is the understanding of who God is or how many gods there are. So for example, one big difference is that Mormons believe that God is Father. They call him Heavenly Father, just like we believe there is God the Father, but they believe that God the Father is… Now, we believe God the Son is embodied after the incarnation and he will always have a human nature for the rest of time.
Joe Heschmeyer:
Right, the Word became flesh, John 1:14.
Trent Horn:
And that’s permanent because he doesn’t change. It’s not like Jesus is going to go back to being disembodied. He will always have a human nature. But they also believe that God the Father has a body and that He is a man, or at least He was a man like you or I. That’s a little bit of a different doctrine, but they would say that God the Father has a physical body. And some Christians might scoff at that and say, “Oh, that’s just so silly. How could you believe something like that?” And yet when you read scripture, especially the Old Testament, there’s a lot of verses that you can take anthropomorphically, God’s right hand, Moses seeing the face of God, and God’s back side. So it’s not too far off someone could read that and say, “Yeah, I think God has a body.” It seems pretty similar here in scripture.
Joe Heschmeyer:
Yeah, I mean in Exodus we even hear about the wings of God and Psalms the same thing. So it raises a bunch of questions about what kind of body are we talking about here? And I think most people, Catholic, Protestant, whatever, we would read that and say this seems to be metaphorical language, but nevertheless, it isn’t as if the Mormons have nothing to point to. They can point to plenty of passages that taken literally would suggest that God the Father has a body. And now this of course raises a second question. When we see these depictions of God, who are we talking about there? Because Mormons don’t believe in the Trinity as classically understood. They believe that the Father and the Son both have bodies and the spirit is a personage of spirit, but that they’re not literally one in being, that they aren’t consubstantial. They’re three separate beings on a common mission. This is sometimes called social Trinitarianism or sometimes just [inaudible 00:19:03].
Trent Horn:Read more on Catholic.com