I'm Not Catholic Because I'm Mormon...

[00:00:00]I am like a currently practicing and very devout Mormon or member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Mouthful.

[00:00:09]And at the beginning, I heard you and this is just like something that is like something that I've studied a lot. And it's in Daniel 2 when Daniel is interpreting the dream to the king and he's talking about all the various kingdoms and everything. I heard in the beginning when you were talking about like the three things that we get wrong. And I'm not coming at this from like an argumentative point or anything.

[00:00:34]This is like >> No, no, no, no, no, please, please, express yourself freely. Good. Yeah.

[00:00:38]>> Very good.

[00:00:38]>> I really do want to hear your view on this.

[00:00:40]>> Yeah.

[00:00:41]>> And Daniel is describing any I don't know if you like want to pull up your scriptures or something cuz I'm going >> Yeah, I've got it I've got it pulled up.

[00:00:47]>> I've some of the verses. Okay, sweet.

[00:00:49]So, at 31 when he starts talking about like the great image and he's talking about the being that he sees and he's talking about the head of gold and silver and then brass, iron, and then clay. He's talking about these various kingdoms that are going to come up and they're going to fall and there's going to be these various empires and these various times like periods of time. The head of gold, this is going to be Nebuchadnezzar. Arms and breast of silver, like that can be Babylon. The belly and thighs of brass could be Alexander. The legs of iron I understood to be like Rome or to be the Catholic Church and Catholic faith.

[00:01:27]>> Oh, so you equate those two.

[00:01:30]>> So, we're 33 saying his legs of iron, feet part iron, part clay. And then he's talking about that there's the stone that's cut out and this without hands which smote the image upon his feet and broke it all into pieces. And so, when I'm studying this, I'm reading that stone is the gospel or Christ, you know, his kingdom.

[00:01:51]>> Okay.

[00:01:52]>> But then it comes to these verses. And so, it's the interpretation now. And so, he's saying the fourth kingdom shall be as strong as iron for as much as iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things. As iron breaketh in pieces and subdueth all things, and as iron that breaketh all these shall it break into pieces and bruise. And then whereas thou sawest the feet and toes part of potter's clay and part iron, the kingdom shall be divided. And so when I was reading it, to me that seems like a clear distinction that there's going to be a split in this great kingdom. And it could be a split of like Roman Constantinople potentially. And then the iron in 43 which is with the miry clay and in them shall be the seed of men, they shall not cleave one to another even as iron is not mixed with clay. So they're going to still be distinct. So it's going to be mixed, distinct, it's been divided. But there's no more great kingdom. So there's no more just great Rome. Instead now, like in 44, in the days of the kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed. Okay, so it's in the days of these kings that God will establish his kingdom. And if we're following and it it doesn't have to be the Catholic Church. It can be just Rome, like the empire of Rome, too, when I'm reading this. But so we're at the days of the kings. This is like becoming more modern times. Not modern, but more recent. We have Europe, we have many kings, many kingdoms. And this is when God is going to establish his kingdom that will never be destroyed. The kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms. And it shall stand forever. So his gospel will go over all the earth and it will be its own entity. It won't It won't be this great kingdom anymore. It's like a separation from the normal literal kingdom. For as much as thou sawest that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands and that it break in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, the gold, the great God hath made known to the king what shall come to pass hereafter. And the dream is certain and the interpretation thereof is sure.

[00:03:44]>> Mhm.

[00:03:45]>> And so I guess what my if I was to like have a clear question come out of this, it would be this. Does this passage mean that God would establish this kingdom that would never be destroyed during Rome or after Rome?

[00:04:01]>> Yeah, great question. During Rome.

[00:04:04]Because there's not a fifth kingdom. So, let's start with where we agree and then where I think the Cuz what you're describing is a is a pretty faithful read of Daniel 2 from an LDS perspective. President Kimball in a talk called The Stone Cut Without Hands in I believe 1976 said this. He said, "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints restored in 1830 after the numerous revelations from divine source and this kingdom set up by the God of heaven would never be destroyed and superseded and the stone cut out of the mountains without hands would become a great mountain and would fill the earth." That's That's clearly a reference to Daniel 2. But in this version, Daniel 2 is prophesying not the coming of Christ, not the coming of Christ's kingdom, but the restoration in 1830. And so, fascinatingly, in that version of Daniel 2, Jesus' coming has nothing to do with it. Like Jesus, the stone unformed by human hands, just happens to exist sometime during the fourth kingdom, but that's not when his kingdom is actually established in this interpretation. Because notice, Jesus as a mere historical fact is born during the fourth kingdom. So, we agree on the first three at least. You've got the Babylonians, then you've got the Persians and Medes who are treated in Daniel as a two-headed single empire.

[00:05:21]Then you've got the Greeks and then after that you've got the Romans. Now, in your version, you've got the Romans and you've got the Roman Catholic Church and you've got the different countries of Europe kind of all grouped together in in the fourth kingdom. And and then it ends up being a bunch of kingdoms.

[00:05:39]So, I think there's a few interpretive problems with reading it that way. The first is the whole reason there are these successive kingdoms are that these are these successive kingdoms that ruled over Israel. There were a lot more than four kingdoms that existed on the earth.

[00:05:52]There were a lot more than four empires.

[00:05:54]We're not tracing like, you know, Genghis Khan or anything like that, or what are the Carthaginians doing? We We don't care about any of that. We care about the four successive empires that rule over Israel. That's the uniting theme of Daniel 2. That's why we care about the Babylonians, the Persio-Medes, and the Greeks because those three rule over Israel one after another. And then another kingdom rules over Israel after that, Rome. And during that time, uh you know, he he describes there being these four kings kingdoms. He says, you know, and as you said in verse 40, there shall be a fourth kingdom strong as iron, because iron breaks to pieces and shatters all things, and like iron which crushes it shall break and crush all these. But now, apply that to what's being interpreted. Because back in verse 34, it said, "As you looked, a stone was cut out by no human hand, and it smote the image on its feet of iron and clay and broke them in pieces, and the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold all together were broken in pieces." So, there's not a you know, like this turns it into four kingdoms and then a bunch of other kingdoms at the bottom.

[00:06:58]But Daniel has four kingdoms, and the fourth kingdom is the Roman Empire, which is an empire that is often held together by a shoestring, which if you know anything about the history of the Roman Empire was clearly true. There are times it's divided into like a tetrarchy. The Roman Empire itself is divided into two empires eventually, the East and West. They have multiple emperors various points. So, it's on the one hand a very strong empire that stretches from Spain to basically India.

[00:07:22]On the other hand, it's a well, not quite India, but on the other hand, it's a very weak empire in terms of the internal kind of tensions, and and it even describes that this division is not about different nations. It shall be a divided kingdom. Notice that's that the it there is still the fourth kingdom.

[00:07:39]And the uh the union is one of marriage. As you saw the iron mix with Myrick clay, so they will mix with one another in marriage. That there is this complicated dynasty within the fourth kingdom. All of this accurately describes the Roman Empire. So, the advantage to the Catholic reading is number one, it's centered upon the coming of Jesus, who is the cornerstone, who is the stone unformed by human hands. And number two, it centers on four successive kingdoms that lead to the Roman Empire. Because if if this is actually supposed to be a prophecy about 1830s America, as Kimball says, that has absolutely nothing to do with Babylon or Persia or Medes or the Greeks or even the Romans or for that matter the Europeans. None of those kings have anything to do with anything. And like the prophecy is completely unrelated to its fulfillment. And Jesus talks about building his kingdom. Like the coming of the kingdom is very much part of the proclamation of Jesus's entry into the world. And so to interpret Daniel 2 in a way that doesn't even have Jesus's entry into his as a point and just turns all of this from the first century into the 19th century. And the coming of the kingdom established by Christ is just cut out completely from the interpretation. I think are are really glaring interpretive difficulty. Like it's very easy to see this as Jesus builds a kingdom that will last forever during the Roman Empire. Trying to turn that into Joseph Smith will restore a kingdom in the 1830s in America. No, none of the details in the prophecy mean anything. None of them make sense. Like why why those four kingdoms? What do they have to do with anything? Because those four kingdoms didn't rule over America. And Nebuchadnezzar to Joseph Smith is by no means a straight line to to put it, you know, simply as I can. What would you say to all of that?

[00:09:24]>> I think I understand what you're saying.

[00:09:27]I'm trying to think of my words. I was not taking notes while you were talking.

[00:09:31]I should have been though.

[00:09:32]>> I completely understand.

[00:09:33]>> One of the I think like one of the separations potentially of what I'm understanding and it may potentially be what cuz I've been listening to like what other people have thought like we think the apostasy is cuz we don't think that the apostasy is like the loss of Christianity. Like obviously Christianity was on the earth ever since Christ established it. It was more so the like direct line of priesthood authority and like the covenant which and I it's it's always been a joke that I've said with my Catholic friend is like either we're right or you guys are right. So it's like there's no >> [laughter] >> arguing with the priesthood. Like both of us can walk in and handle that argument at least.

[00:10:18]But [clears throat] with the kingdom being established in the day of Rome according to these verses, I think so the way I'm looking at it isn't necessarily like it's going to be built or Christ is going to come when Joseph Smith does all his things, but it's more of like in a prophecy that there are going to be these great kingdoms and not just like what you're saying with like King as a Kong and everything. Like obviously there are other kingdoms on the earth, but each of these specific kingdoms that are being mentioned had a direct hand in the gospel that was on the earth at the time. So like in intertwined with the Lord's covenant people. And so he's talking about because in the day of the beginning and then it you know it goes all the way down. And I would agree that in the beginning cuz there isn't a clear date when this great apostasy happened or anything like that.

[00:11:11]It's that's not how it was. In the beginning like I would 100% say like yes, in the beginning the Catholics that church was Christ's church that he established on the earth. I I would say that.

[00:11:24]And I would say like the early teachings of the fathers like a lot of those things are the full gospel. It was it was a falling away. It was like a descent. It wasn't this great like boom, Christ died and boom, the apostles died and then it began. And so I think that's where when it's talking about when the iron is being mixed with the clay, that's kind of the beginning of this falling away. And >> So just just if I can press that a little bit. I I I get what you're saying. That's I think that's actually a very clever interpretation in in a lot of ways. But when Daniel explains the meaning of the iron mixed with clay, he says, "As you saw the iron mixed with myry clay, so they will mix with one another in marriage, but they will not hold together just as iron does not mix with clay." So they that looks like it's talking more about like the political weakness of dynastic marriages. It doesn't look like it's talking about doctrinal purity. What would you say to somebody who who said that?

[00:12:18]>> Are you in verse 43?

[00:12:19]>> Yeah, verse 43. So I know I know you're using the KJV, so I can switch to the KJV if that's easier.

[00:12:23]>> Yeah, could you switch to that one?

[00:12:25]>> Yeah, I'm sorry. Okay.

[00:12:26]>> Yeah, I'm sorry. Okay. Which version are you reading?

[00:12:29]>> I was reading the Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition, but you you does it either way. I mean, I just like it cuz it's a little clearer. But in verse 43, it says, "And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with myry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men, but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay." So this is the mingling themselves with the seed of men is understood as a a reference to marriage.

[00:12:51]Now maybe you take that to mean something like doctrinal falsehood or something?

[00:12:55]>> No, I think I might be taking it the same way as you. Like it's like a political stance type thing. Is that what you're taking it as?

[00:13:02]>> Yeah, yeah. That's right. The The Roman Empire had marriages and they tried to hold the empire together and it didn't always work. This is a wonderful conversation, Lily. You've been a a real uh joy to talk with. If I may, I'll have you stick around and get a copy of The Early Church Was the Catholic Church because it seems like you have an appreciation, at least for the earliest Christians. And so in that book, I look at just Christians until about the year 200. that uh what they believe in the 100s and I think we'll see it's very Catholic which means either you'd have to put the great apostasy much more is that like immediate event you were saying it's not or we'd have to say no, no, the non-apostate Christians are very clearly believing these very Catholic things like about the Eucharist or about you know, the nature of baptism all that. So if you're if you're open for it, I would I would love to send you a copy and and then maybe you can call back and let us know what your thoughts are. And you can be as as harsh or as probing as you would like to be and I you will not hurt my feelings.

[00:14:00]>> Yeah, you were very gracious Lily. The [music] where where you're used to all kinds of conversation here. So you should always whenever you call please feel free to state your [music] case as clearly and robustly as you'd like. We take no offense at that cuz that's why we're here.