Reasoning in plainness and simplicity

It is amazing that anyone still debates the setting of the Book of Mormon. The pursuit of clarity, charity and understanding means that we all impute charitable motives, which means we agree everyone is acting in good faith and is sincere.

The pursuit of understanding (instead of conversion, coercion, or compulsion) means we seek first to understand, then to be understood, without any need for agreement. We're fine with people believing whatever they want.

But the pursuit of clarity requires everyone to be candid about the evidence and their beliefs, which usually rely not on the facts but on their respective assumptions, inferences, and theories about the facts. This is the FAITH model.

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With respect to the setting of the Book of Mormon in the promised land, the pursuit of clarity recognizes that the fundamental issue is a simple binary; i.e., did Joseph and Oliver tell the truth, or did they not?

People can choose to believe what they said, or choose to disbelieve what they said. People can seek facts to make informed decisions, or they can make a decision and then seek to justify that decision by filtering out facts that contradict their decision.

Or they can defer their agency by relying on others whom they choose to follow.

Regardless of how they make their decisions, people should own what they choose to believe.

After all, if Joseph and Oliver did not tell the truth, does it make any difference what anyone else thinks?

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Joseph and Oliver taught the New York Cumorah in plainness and simplicity. 

The principal complaint by the disbelievers (in this case, the M2Cers and others who reject what Joseph and Oliver said) is that Joseph personally did not leave enough of a record to satisfy them. The record he did leave, according to them, is too late and inadequate. 

But we can all see that Joseph helped Oliver write Letter VII. Joseph had Letter VII copied into his own history. Joseph had it republished multiple times, including in the Times and Seasons where he also published his letter to the Saints explaining he learned about Cumorah before he even got the plates (D&C 128:20).

Others corroborated what Joseph and Oliver said about Cumorah as well. But none of that is sufficient if you don't want to believe what they taught. So M2Cers and critics alike reject the plain, simple, and direct teachings of Joseph and Oliver about Cumorah.

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Speaking of simplicity, the most popular post on my setting blog is titled "Simplicity."

https://www.bookofmormoncentralamerica.com/2016/05/simplicity.html

In that post, we observed that the historical facts are unambiguous and we contrasted two sets of assumptions about those facts:

1. the simple, plain assumptions that Joseph and Oliver told the truth about the origin and setting of the Book of Mormon

against 

2. the chain of conspiratorial assumptions M2Cers must make to persuade Latter-day Saints to reject what Joseph and Oliver taught.

The word "simplicity" is used just once in latter-day scripture:

And for this cause, that men might be made partakers of the glories which were to be revealed, the Lord sent forth the fulness of his gospel, his everlasting covenant, reasoning in plainness and simplicity—

(Doctrine and Covenants 133:57)

Plainness and simplicity. 

Together.

And then ...

Reasoning in plainness and simplicity.

Imagine how little contention there would be if everyone reasoned in plainness and simplicty.

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Paul spoke about plainness of speech:

Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech: (2 Corinthians 3:12)

Nephi spoke about plainness in more detail.

I shall speak unto you plainly, according to the plainness of my prophesying.

For my soul delighteth in plainness; for after this manner doth the Lord God work among the children of men. For the Lord God giveth light unto the understanding; for he speaketh unto men according to their language, unto their understanding. (2 Nephi 31:2–3)

And now I, Nephi, cannot say more; the Spirit stoppeth mine utterance, and I am left to mourn because of the unbelief, and the wickedness, and the ignorance, and the stiffneckedness of men; for they will not search knowledge, nor understand great knowledge, when it is given unto them in plainness, even as plain as word can be. (2 Nephi 32:7)

As plain as word can be...

Or, as Jonathan Edwards put it, "so it is indeed as plain as words can make them."

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(click to enlarge)