Moroni’s Promise and Begging the Question

Moroni’s Promise is a passage found in the Book of Mormon, Moroni 10:3-5, where the prophet Moroni invites readers to test the truthfulness of the book. According to the scripture, Moroni promises that if readers sincerely ask God in prayer, with a genuine heart and real intent, they will receive a confirmation through the Holy Ghost, which will manifest the truth of the Book of Mormon to them.

The Mormon Church presents Moroni’s Promise as a powerful spiritual test for gaining a testimony of the Book of Mormon’s divine origin. Members and missionaries often encourage investigators and members alike to follow this process by reading the Book of Mormon, pondering its teachings, and praying to know whether it is true. The Church teaches that receiving a positive answer through feelings of peace, love, and conviction from the Holy Ghost confirms that the Book of Mormon is the word of God and that the Church is true.

The Missionaries are trained to share this promise as a simple formula. If you carefully follow the steps, the only satisfactory response is the affirmative, the church is true. How do you know? Because you’ve felt it. As instructed, you study the book, ponder it, desire for it to be true, consider God’s love, and then ask him for truth. Then, surprise, you feel a burning in your bosom or love or goodness, and are taught that this response can only mean one thing: “It’s all True!”

The catch is—it’s a trap! This is flawed logic. The trap of Moroni’s Promise lies in its circular reasoning and built-in assumptions. It suggests that if we read the Book of Mormon and pray with a sincere heart and real intent, we will receive confirmation from the Holy Ghost that it is true. However, if we do not receive this confirmation, the promise implies we either lack sincerity, genuine intent, or sufficient faith. This creates a no-win situation: if we believe, it confirms the Church’s truth claims; if we don’t, the fault lies with our efforts or intent, not with the promise or the church. This circular logic traps individuals in a cycle where any outcome reinforces the belief system, making it difficult to evaluate the truth of the Church’s teachings. It is dangerous to base a belief on something so subjective and manipulative.

A logical fallacy is a flaw in reasoning. Logical fallacies are like tricks or illusions of thought, and they’re often very sneakily used to fool people. The church even knows this and has studied the psychology of these feelings and even how to engineer them for marketing. They even trademarked the technique, calling it HeartSell®!

Begging the Question

You presented a circular argument in which the conclusion was included in the premise.

This logically incoherent argument often arises in situations where people have an assumption that is very ingrained, and therefore taken in their minds as a given. Circular reasoning is bad mostly because it’s not very good.

Example: The word of Zorbo the Great is flawless and perfect. We know this because it says so in The Great and Infallible Book of Zorbo’s Best and Most Truest Things that are Definitely True and Should Not Ever Be Questioned.

Your Logical Fallacy is: Begging the Question
https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/begging-the-question

Circular logic or begging the question is a logical fallacy where the argument’s conclusion is assumed within its premises. In circular logic, the argument goes in a loop, where the claim relies on itself for proof without providing any outside evidence. For example, “The Book of Mormon is true because it says so in the Book of Mormon” assumes its conclusion is true from the start. Begging the question is a specific form of circular logic where a statement is made that presumes the truth of its own conclusion, often by restating it in a slightly different form. Both fallacies fail to provide a genuine argument because they do not offer independent reasons to support their claims.

The Essence of Mormon Epistemology

Epistemology is “the branch of philosophy that tries to make sense out of knowledge, rationality, and justified or unjustified beliefs.”² In other words, it’s about what we know and how we know it. This is important because Mormons frequently appeal to subjective experience as important evidence for determining truth. They view it as an adequate means of gaining and grounding knowledge. The Book of Mormon states,

And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.

Moroni 10:4

Mormon missionaries regularly quote this verse and accompany it with heartfelt personal testimony about how the Holy Ghost bore witness to them of the truth of the Book of Mormon. They encourage potential converts to follow suit so that they, too, may know the Book of Mormon is from God. This is the essence of Mormon epistemology. Bruce McConkie, a doctrinal authority and former apostle within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, wrote, “But the great and conclusive evidence of the divinity of the Book of Mormon is the testimony of the Spirit to the honest truth seeker.” While praying about the truth of a book may seem innocent, there are many inherent problems with this type of subjective test.

Problems with the Mormon Test for Truth

Whenever a Mormon suggests we should pray to find out whether the Book of Mormon is true, we should begin by pointing out that this idea comes from the Book of Mormon itself. This in itself is problematic and amounts to a logical fallacy known as “begging the question” or circular reasoning. Begging the question occurs when you assume in your argument the conclusion you are trying to prove. In this example, we have to assume Moroni 10:4 is true when it exhorts us to pray with sincerity about the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. In other words, we have to assume the Book of Mormon is true in order to find out if it’s true. This is nothing more than circular reasoning.

The Mormons you’re speaking to may appeal to James 1:5 as biblical support for their approach: “But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him.” Mormons assure us that we simply need to ask God if we lack wisdom concerning the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. The problem with the Mormon’s use of this verse becomes apparent when we examine it in context. First, James is writing to those who are already Christian believers, not potential converts. These believers are experiencing trials (verses 2–4), and James instructs them to pray and ask for wisdom in the midst of their testing. Second, Christians here are encouraged to pray if they are lacking wisdom, not requiring knowledge. Wisdom is the proper application of knowledge. Third, nothing is mentioned in this passage about attempting to discover the truth of a book through a subjective test. This interpretation is contrived and must be read into the text.

Further, this sort of prayer test is specious since there are some things we don’t need to pray about. For example, everyone can agree we don’t need to pray about committing adultery or murder because Scripture has already revealed biblical commands prohibiting these. By the same token, God has already warned believers about the dangers of a false gospel. Paul states in Galatians 1:8, “But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed!” To pray about such things as adultery, murder, or a false gospel is to test God because He has already revealed to us the truth in these matters. So, the more important question regarding the Book of Mormon is whether or not it teaches a false gospel.

Finally, what happens if there are objective facts and evidences that contradict a personal testimony? (Unfortunately, space does not permit an extensive look at some of the historical inaccuracies, contradictions, and doctrinal changes contained within Mormonism. For more information, see this list of resources at Utah Lighthouse Ministry.) Is greater authority given to the objective data or subjective experience? In the end, there are simply too many problems with relying on such a limited and subjective truth test.

Why You Shouldn’t Ask God if the Book of Mormon Is True
https://www.str.org/w/why-you-shouldn-t-ask-god-if-the-book-of-mormon-is-true

Again, the circular logic of Moroni’s Promise traps individuals in a cycle where any outcome reinforces the belief system. It is the primary tool Mormon Missionaries use when teaching others about the church. They are taught that this is how to learn any spiritual truth, and are usually well-intentioned youths. The church knows that this is an effective sales pitch, but we can’t be so sure the church leadership is as well-intentioned as the young missionaries. Not only is this Promise circular, but also the church teaches to ascertain truth via feelings over facts. The church teaches a burning in our bosom should be interpreted that all the church teaches is true.

How were you taught the promise from Moroni? How did the experience influence your beliefs and life choices? Did you place more weight in a circular promise than your own thoughts? Did you value a good feeling more than an array of facts? Do you still? What was your turning point? What catalyzed your deconstruction? Please share your thoughts in the comments or consider sharing your full “I was a Mormon” story at wasmormon.org.

• Mormon Binary Thinking and The Great Sham
• Bonneville’s HeartSell® – Strategic Emotional Advertising With the Holy Ghost
• Does a “Burning in Your Bosom” Outweigh Physical Evidence?
• Moroni’s Promise – A Lesson in Confirmation Bias and Elevated Emotions
• When Moroni’s Promise Doesn’t Work
• Truths From Mormon Satan – Or Someone Who Plays Lucifer in the Temple, Corbin Allred
• https://www.str.org/w/why-you-shouldn-t-ask-god-if-the-book-of-mormon-is-true
• https://www.flickr.com/photos/powerpig/3895956607