“But to Be Learned Is Good If They Hearken Unto the Counsels of God”
Those who trust in the arm of flesh have an unnatural reliance upon the theories and philosophies of men. Those who study and trust the revelations of God cherish the declarations of living oracles.
“We have no right” counseled Elder Orson F. Whitney, “to take the theories of men, however scholarly, however learned, and set them up as a standard, and try to make the Gospel bow down to them; making of them an iron bedstead upon which God’s truth, if not long enough, must be stretched out, or if too long, must be chopped off-anything to make it fit into the system of men’s thoughts and theories.
On the contrary, we should hold up the Gospel as the standard of truth, and measure thereby the theories and opinions of men. What God has revealed, what the prophets have spoken what the servants of the Lord proclaim when inspired by the Holy Ghost, can be depended upon, for these are the utterances of a spirit that cannot he and that does not make mistakes; while the teachings of men are often based upon sophistry and founded upon false reasoning.” (From CR, April 1915.)