. . .

Conclusion

Robinson has misconstrued the article and the issues it treats at numerous, critical points. In his oral presentation at Brigham young University, he admitted that he responds to a worse-case-scenario of the implications of the expansion theory. he was in fact caricatured the article as an unwilling agnostic, or at best as liberal Protestantism in drag. This caricature is unjustified. He complains that critical methodologies must disregard faith assumptions and then claims that anyone who would apply such methodologies to the Book must accept its faith claims. He remonstrates that we must not disregard God in history, and then complains inordinately when scholars adopt a view of salvation history which is cognizant of the role of faith in understanding historical events. He maintains that treatment of scripture cannot and should not avoid assumptions of faith, and then chastises me for bringing faith assumptions into the discussion after assessing the evidence. indeed, he complains that I assume the Book's faith claims and then asserts that the inevitable result of the expansion theory is a loss of faith in the Book.

Robinson also admitted that his oral presentation that Joseph Smith may have interpreted the Book and used the KJV, but he draws the line at adding anything not contained on the gold plates. How can one interpret a text without adding cognitive content not in the interpreted text? To what extent did Joseph Smith interpret in translation of the Book? Perhaps if Robinson addressed these issues at the very heart of the article's thesis he would see that some form of expansion theory is essential to explain the book.

Robinson's discussion of nineteenth century is shallow at best - misleading at worst. His assessment of Arminian thought is simply a diversion. His argument that others before Arminius thought Arminian ideas leads him to misrepresent Pelagius, the Semi-Pelagians and 2 Baruch. His discussion of Ansel's satisfaction theory is deficient.

Robinson does, however, raise some issues that needed clarification. The article was but an introductory statement to a subject and a Book that require, and deserve, further elucidation and criticism. The limitations of empirical research are important to understand. Nevertheless, Robinson appears to have misunderstood some limitations and overlooked the legitimate uses of such methodologies. In fairness, Robinson appears at times not to respond directly to the article but to tendencies among some biblical critics to claim too much and overlook their assumptions. However, he confused the methods of the article with the unbelief of some scholars. There are also believing critical scholars. Critical methodologies are neither anti-nor pro-Christian. They are tools that are incapable of answering some questions. The fact that critical methods don't help to answer which shirt we should wear to school today does not mean, however, that they are useless or that conclusions derived from such methodologies have no validity.

Robinson has criticized me for both believing too much and not believing enough. I plead guilty up front, I am a believer. I do not believe that anyone can totally escape his or her assumptions, culture, time and place. But then, isn't Robinson adopting my thesis of inherent interpretation as a basis for criticizing me? The result of the expansion theory is not loss of (informed) faith, but a faith aware of human limitations. The challenge of the expansion theory is not to reject scripture because it was written and interpreted by humans, but to accept the prophets precisely because they delivered the scripture to us despite their limitations. The effect hf the expansion theory is not to reject the prophets because of their limitations, but to bring us to a consciousness of our own.