Triple Dipper

Three men on seven bases, a most unique home run

Double or duckstack

Art: Art of Diplomacy, by Michael Cheval

ATTENTION. As of now, every constellation in the sky is called “Duckstack”. The Little dipper? That’s a Duckstack. The Big dipper? That’s a Duckstack too. Any other dipper? Same story. Orion’s belt is now a Duckstack. Now you might be thinking, “isn’t this a little bit confusing?” But you need to understand constraints are the beating heart of innovation. If you absolutely must, I recommend you simply attach a number to each constellation now Duckstack, in preference order. People’s numbers won’t match, but you’re both talking about a Duckstack, so harmony is still achieved. If you the reader are in a position of authority over astronomers, I recommend you start updating your star charts, because the change is already in an public. I’m pushing publish right now. Its going to everybody.

A Game Of Telephone

Learn all about corporate group communication dynamics from this exciting new Duckstack Feature!

I think its high time we started seeing if I can retype the same section verbatim every week. We’ve been putting this off for too long.

The Case for Apostasy of Christ’s Early Church

Cracking open a cold case of Apostasy of Christ’s Early Church with the boys

This section will be long, sourced, and boring, with multiple sub-sections. Feel free to just skip it if theological squabbles do not interest you.

I have been asked to provide the sort of “basic case” for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, in hard, secular terms.¹ Latter-Day Saint apologists generally shy away from this topic, not because the case is unclear but more because 1) we don’t want to be mean to the Catholic church, who we respect greatly for its work in preserving the early writings and traditions of Christ and 2) it isn’t how our membership generally thinks about our own truth claims- we focus on the supernatural testimony of Joseph Smith, ourselves, and others, and this can sometimes give outsiders the impression that Joseph Smith was sort of a “runaway prophet” who took it upon himself to do what he did. This is an especially common misconception, because taking it upon yourself is how basically every Christian church operates anyway. Pastors of certain protestant sects will commonly go to college to learn what “the scholars” think about the Bible, then they’ll start or apply to be hired by various churches to lead and teach. So their teaching license comes from secular, academic institutions².

The Catholic church and the Eastern Orthodox church, and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints are slightly different. We are what could be called “Sacerdotal churches”, meaning we believe authority to act in God’s name originates in a passed-down priesthood in a direct line from Jesus Christ. This is important, because it supposes that the priesthood roles mentioned by Paul in i.e. Ephesians 4 are official and hierarchical roles, not personality types. In institutional organizations, you cannot just take over because you feel like it, a judge cannot issue parking tickets, an employee cannot make hiring decisions. Under this view, Christ’s church is a literal kingdom, with literal offices and positions, which Catholics and Orthodox say continued institutionally, protestants say continued underneath the surface of the institutional church, and which Latter-Day Saints and some few others say stopped and was then restarted, and this is what I’ll be laying out the case for here.

When Latter-Day Saints talk about “The great apostasy”, we are referring to the loss of true doctrines and, primarily, to the loss of priesthood authority. I’ll dive into those lost doctrines in a minute. For now I’m going to focus on institutional progression, because most people do not realize that the case for an apostasy does not revolve around Catholic errors, which would surely be disputable, but instead rests upon much simpler matters of historical record. To do this I will need to clear up some additional terminology.

When Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox talk about "apostolic succession”, what they mean is “apostolic cessation”. Neither church has, nor claims to have, apostles, though their reasoning for why this is the case varies. The Greek word “apostle” means “ambassador” or “delegate”, in essence an “authorized representative”- thus our central contention is that with the death of the apostles, the authority to directly represent Christ in matters was not passed on.

The evidence for this is more straightforward than expected. The institutional churches of Catholicism and Orthodoxy trace their line of priesthood authority to Peter through a man named Linus, who was never ordained as an apostle. He may, at most, have been ordained as a Bishop or Evangelist (missionary), but that isn’t the same thing, and with the death of the apostles, the apostleship was clearly lost. Whether or not God “would let his church fail” and similar “problem of evil” arguments are not germane- these are incontrovertible facts.

In response, the Catholic church says, the doctrine of apostolic succession was "developed”, as people started to notice they weren’t getting any more scripture. In the 1973 document “Catholic Teaching On Apostolic Succession”, the Vatican declares its state as “subapostolic”:

There are three broad stages along this path: the time before Easter, the apostolic period, and the subapostolic period, and each period has its own specific value; it is significant that what the dogmatic constitution “On Divine Revelation”, Dei Verbum (18), calls “viri apostolici“ should be responsible for some of the New Testament writings.

This helps one to see clearly how the community of Jesus Christ solved the problem of remaining apostolic even though it had become subapostolic. This explains why the subapostolic part of the New Testament has a normative character for the Church at a later period, for it must build on the apostles, who themselves have Christ as their foundation. In the subapostolic writings, Scripture itself bears witness to Tradition and gives evidence of the Magisterium in that it recalls the teaching of the apostles (see Acts 2:42; 2 Pet 1:20). This Magisterium really begins to develop in the second century, at the time when the idea of apostolic succession is made fully explicit.

Scripture and Tradition taken together, pondered upon and authentically interpreted by the Magisterium, faithfully transmit to us the teaching of Christ our Lord and Savior

-Source: Catholic Teaching On Apostolic Succession, emphasis added

Now, I am not an expert in which Catholic texts count as “authoritative” and which are more “peripheral”, so this is mostly to give you an idea of the kind of attitude that surrounds the shift from a living church producing new scripture and doctrines and prophetic visions, into a “steward” church that sees itself more as a preservationist. (For which the Catholic churches should be lauded!). But the essential note here is that the apostles themselves, in the scriptures, give no hint that such a change is coming- instead, they hammer home in the letters that each church must “endure to the end”, that “a great falling away must happen before the second coming”, that “a dark night comes wherein no man can labor”. So the justifications for the change must come post-hoc. As Catholic Answers explains:

As the apostles died, the task of shepherding the Church fell by default upon the highest-ranking ministers appointed by them. This group is known today as the bishops, who are the successors of the apostles as the highest shepherds of the earthly Church.

-Source: Catholic Answers, Successors of the Apostles, emphasis added

The Church Fathers, on this subject, proclaim their authority as markedly lesser to the apostles. Ignatius, one of the earliest church fathers, insisted: “I do not, as Peter and Paul, issue commandments unto you. They were apostles; I am but a condemned man.”

Thus, the only real question is this: Did the apostles leave behind “everything”? If so, did the institutional successors successfully preserve it? Was the ordination of Mathias to refill the number of apostles following Judas Iscariot’s death intended to set a precedent? Is “subapostolic” authority sufficient to put together the canon of scripture, in ~200 A.D.? Even if the apostles left behind everything mankind needs, would new, modern scripture from an ambassador holding full apostolic authority from Christ be /useful/? If so, what is the justification for a loving God withholding additional guidance? Surely the role of a prophet in the old testament rarely had anything to do with doctrine, and everything to do with warning, using God’s full authority, of calamities, disasters, and temptations unique to their society and day.

As for lost doctrines, I would suggest at least three, and this will comprise the rest of this piece.

— Lost Doctrine #1: Literal Resurrection —

In any serious religion, there’s a great variance between the official doctrinal creeds, and the folk beliefs of uneducated congregants, but looking at Christianity today, I see a huge missed message, which is Christ’s resurrection. Of course most sects believe Christ literally resurrected, but this is not used to conclude anything about either God nor mankind’s nature. Does Christ still have a body? If so, where in space is it? My impression is that, due to the developed doctrine of the trinity, the vast majority of Christians think that with the body’s purpose accomplished, his body has now vaporized and merged with the cosmic harmony. Most Christians are actively averse to thinking of God in bodily terms at all, hence the anger at Joseph Smith proclaiming that Christ’s Father has a body. “blasphemy”, they say. What does that tell you about how they view Christ?

Now, that’s not the official doctrine, usually. However, vitally, the scriptures also say that regular people are going to be resurrected too. This is not usually taken seriously, and I don’t just mean in a sort of “harps and clouds” picture of heaven. I mean that many people actively and directly believe that this resurrection is just a “spiritual” resurrection, a non-literal resurrection³. The doctrine has been “spiritualized” away from its plain meaning into near-irrelevance, when in reality it is supposed to be one of the most glorious doctrines of Christianity itself.

In lieu of this glory, Christianity is taken as a compliance religion- You follow it to get out of Hell, or get into heaven, but not because it excites you. Such a Christianity is almost by necessity tribalistic, having only abstract “good news” (the greek meaning of the word ‘gospel’) or no news at all. This Lost Doctrine also leads to a cascade of Lost Doctrines- Most people say when you die you go to heaven or hell. But what happens when you are resurrected? Do you leave heaven or hell? Then where do you go? And more importantly, why? I ask you, if a religion is not equipping its constituents with a thorough map of reality, then what is the religion’s point?

—Lost Doctrine #2: The Premortal Life —

Most people, instinctively, believe in an “antechamber of souls”, and once you start having kids, it becomes nearly irrefutable. Because this doctrine is known but not fleshed out, you have a lot of the tragedies of liberalism- people believing they could be born in the wrong body, or as a different ethnicity, or many other cosmic accidents. But if your spirit has a pre-existence, then that pre-existence must be causal. In other words, your current mortal circumstances are influenced by actions you took before your mortal birth- The Jews knew this, and they asked Christ if a man’s circumstance was because he had sinned before he was born, and Christ expounded on that doctrine by explaining that some premortal curses are to the recipient and God’s glory. God told the prophet Jeremiah he had ordained him a prophet before his body was even formed in the womb. What great things did God ordain you to in your life? What responsibilities might you bear, either by call or by volunteer?

The issue is, people don’t know where they came from, so they don’t know why they’re here. As conservatives (most people who read my blog are conservatives) we understand how important lineage is. When you understand the giants whose shoulders you stand upon, you feel the responsibility of the past, and it keeps you from making mistakes in the future. I grew up with this. Most people did not.

—Lost Doctrine #3: The Nature of Trinitarian Unity—

Here I copy a response I made to a gentleman⁴ on twitter this week, who claimed such things as philosophical metaphysics demanded belief in his idea of God, which is that Christ and his Father are a single existence with two “persons”- that the idea of God itself demanded his Eastern Orthodoxy theology. This is what I said:

“The trinity has one essence.” Who told you this? I can make up a concept called "hyper essences" which make up trinity essences and there's three of them so you have three hyper existences instead of one. Or better yet you could have a trinity of four beings, or more. There's no "philosophical argument" that guarantees against any of these constructs because there was no argument to arrive at them in the first place- the idea of essences was derived post-hoc, from motivated reasoning of early Christians who were embarrassed by the Jews accusations of polytheism, and were unwilling to take Christ literally when he said it was his Father. They didn't go "oh, the ontological argument and TAG must posit three persons and no more and one is the savior of mankind" or whatever, but this philosophy is instead invented backwards to make your specific flavor of Christianity sound reasonable, and this is especially evinced by the constant chorus that there are no earthly analogies for the trinitarian unity, despite genesis stating God created man in his own image. The reason your idea of God is unlike anything in reality is because it is fantasy, and a masochistic one at that. I can claim there's a higher dimension where 2x2=6, or =bagel, or =any number of other things, but this is both unverifiable, irrelevant to reality by definition, and transparent guesswork (or worse). Even if I was right, I would be right-by-accident, because it doesn't, and can’t, (by definition) map to reality in any meaningful way.

There is, however, a way multiple persons can share one 'essence' in the real world, right now, today, which is unity of purpose, and this is the true nature of the unity of the trinity. It isn't a matter of shared hyperdimensional matter (or however you visualize essence), but rather the simple, straightforward unity of a congress. This is, in fact, exactly how Christ describes his relationship with his Father, in John 17- "I pray Father that my apostles will be one, in exactly the same way as you and I are one." He literally does the things which please his Father- but this offends trinitarians, who don't want their God to be "common." A similar attitude the pharisees took, of course, but there are dozens more such verses. "I go now to my Father, who is your Father, and he's my God, and he's your God."

Christ and his Father are certainly one, and the scriptures describe several other things as one, most notably marriage, where male and female twain become one. Letting scripture interpret itself, the relationship becomes clear, and more importantly, real, because it is straightforward to understand a perfect congress.

But this is all too boring for the trinitarian doctors, most notably because it undermines their fancy philosophical juggling and "first mover" and "uncaused cause" arguments, which is what they really believe in, rather than Christ⁵. Nobody, especially a pharisee, wants to feel like they're worshipping a man.

But perhaps just as vitally, these fancy philosophical underpinnings (which mostly exist to make amateur theologians, of which includes everyone at Nicaea, feel special) make disciples feel "grounded". Because if the trinity exists within reality (as a real thing, rather than an astral 8D hologram projected down into our world to prove a point about Judaism), then they feel like reality must be "out of control", like there is no pilot at the head. They were fine believing God is originless but they can't handle believing the universe is, for mostly the same reasons the ancient scientists were uncomfortable believing in heliocentrism.

But the discomfort of the theological doctors on this subject does not translate to truth, "wishing does not make it so", and this is simply the truth of the way it is. Jesus Christ has a physical, resurrected body, just like his Father, just like Joseph Smith said. “The Son doeth what he seeth the Father Do.⁶”

Creation in all times has always been a process of mastery, not fabrication, like a potter sculpting clay. This is the way God does it because this is the way the universe works, and every cell in your body first came from nutrients extracted from somewhere else. It takes a prophet to unveil this but when he does so it fits, because it is real, rather than cool hypothesis or sophistry.

I am not a sophist, but if I have a little wisdom it is this, which is that I know how faith works, and you can't have faith in an eldritch God of essences and existences any more than you can have faith in a dog or a wild animal. You can't trust an alien mind, you can only submit to it, which is what trinitarian faiths generally do. But God in the scriptures wanted more of his disciples- don't just keep his commandments but follow in his footsteps, and feed his sheep. It was a pattern. Can man gather figs of thorns? Would a father give a hungry child stone instead of bread? No. The theology doctors don't operate on behalf of God, they operate for themselves, and by this we can know that they don't come from God, don't serve him, and aren't sent by him, because they simply don't have the tokens. But you do not need to take my word for it, because you can replicate it, and what you will find is when you pray to God as a man rather than a trinity, the power of God enters your life as never before. Because you can only have life eternal by knowing the only true God and Jesus Christ who he has sent, and because you can't know a trinity which is defined as unknowable⁷.

This is a bare bones, broad strokes argument, and I could cite many, many more scriptures on the subject, but the more important point is that this really is the way it really is, and because God and Christ are real, this doesn't actually need to be a matter of abstract discussion and hypothesis. You can literally just go up the mountain like Moses and meet the Lord- Christ isn't dead, he is risen, and quite involved with this Earth, and there is no need for philosophical navel gazing to hypothesize his nature. In actual fact doing so is a clear sign that one has had little or even no contact with Christ at all- you don't need to prove to yourself the existence of someone you see regularly, you don't need to thirdhand derive to calculate and originate your essence to your mother, she's simply there as a real fact of your life. And this is how my Father in Heaven has been with me. And so you'll forgive me if I come on strong and unimpressed with these trains of reasoning, I've seen them before, and tried them, and they didn't work, but in trying Christ he certainly has. He has always provided for me, and he has always pulled through for me in my times of need, and I will be grateful to my Savior forever.

!! Congratulations !!

Congratulations are out of order

• Congratulations to Santa, for another day off

• Congratulations to all members of the United States Postal Service who have birthdays today.

• Congratulations to you, the reader, for scrolling this far. You have found an isopod.

Art: Yooooooooooo

• Congratulations to my mom, she’s worked really hard this week⁸.

• Congratulations to me, for writing The Duckstack

• Congratulations to Dark Santa of the South Pole, whose mustache is especially villainous today, and who has ruined more lives than I can count⁹.

• Congratulations to everyone who has ever successfully been potty trained. I appreciate you.

That’s all of them

History: The Tower of Toddler Babble

Our daughter is talking! Not words though really

Everyone at our son’s preschool was talking about siblings and he proudly told everyone that he has a brother named Jethro. And so then a teacher asked “do you have a sister too?” And he looked over at our daughter who was playing nearby and looked back at them and said dead seriously: “no.”

We’re at that age where our entire house is filled with lava. I don't know how our son even learned what lava is, but he has and its happened and now we can't go ANYWHERE without being burned.

Our son a few weeks ago developed what he calls “vulture noises” where he plugs his nose to make some unique donald-duck like sound. This week, our toddler started imitating him. She can’t make the sound so she just plugs her nose and yells

My wife told our son this week “Your room is too messy.” He instantly replied, angry: “No, my room is enough messy!’

One of the good ways to be woken up is to be slapped in the face with pizza. My wife learned this when our toddler decided she was going to feed her

Ducksnax

Joust

Ducksnax #101

♡ Previous Duckstack ♡

1. inasmuch as it makes sense to talk about churches in secular terms lol

2. This universally horrifies Latter-Day Saints, who believe in theory if not in practice that basically the only valid authority on God is personal experience with him. Hence why we have “testimony meetings” every month, an open mic night at church where any congregant can get up and briefly give witness to various gospel principles or things God has done in your life, testimony just like you would give testimony in a court of law.

3. So what is even being resurrected then huh? because the spirit is already still going right so does it just “super-continue” then?

4. He actually was a gentleman, our conversation has been very cordial

5. I have had hundreds of Catholics tell me explicitly that if Christ’s Father had a Father, it would render him unworthy of worship- despite all that his son has done.

6. John 5:19 “Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.”

7. From the Eastern Orthodox liturgy: “ineffable, inconceivable, incomprehensible, ever-existing”. From this I take that the trinity and life eternal are incompatible.

8. You too honey ♡

9. I’m illiterate