Revelation can Contradict Traditions

The Catholics have long believed that revelation that counters the tradition of their elders cannot be from God:

A true mystic or visionary will always obey the legitimate religious superiors and authorities in the Church. We can be sure that if a mystic or seer is in any way disobedient to the local Bishop or their religious Superiors, then the alleged revelations and messages cannot be authentic. God's graces flow through His Church in union with the legitimate authority (ie—Pope, Bishops, Religious Superiors) that He Himself has established.1

To claim that revelation cannot contradict tradition is to claim that leaders are infallible, a position that is overwhelmingly refuted by historical examples of repeated deviation of religious tradition from God’s revealed law. For example, Jesus showed through precept and example that the leaders of his time lived a tradition that contradicted God’s. When asked why his disciples “transgress[ed] the tradition of the elders,” “he answered and said unto them, ‘Why do ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?’” (Matthew 15:2-3.) In this case Jesus was referring to God’s word as recorded in the scriptures.

Unfortunately, some in the LDS church take² the same position as the Catholics:

In 1912 the first presidency warned, ‘“When visions, dreams, tongues, prophecy, impressions or an extraordinary gift or inspiration, convey something out of harmony with the accepted revelations of the Church or contrary to the decisions that its constituted authorities, latter-day saints may know that it is not of God no matter how plausible it may appear. (1912 First Presidency Letter, recently quoted by Elder Oaks.)

Besides contradicting God’s word and logic, it seems rather ironic that any in the church would adopt a position that would discredit the experience of its founder by arguing the impossibility of anyone having a similar experience. Joseph’s “visions, dreams, and prophecies” strongly opposed the position of the constituted authorities of his time. God uses revelation to point out the false traditions that have been embraced contrary to the scriptures. Without allowing such corrections, an institution cuts itself off from God’s attempts to point out errors that have crept in.³

The Book of Mormon clearly teaches that the Spirit supersedes man’s traditions. Nephi was taught why his understanding was incorrect in assuming that God prohibited all killing. He was commanded to kill Laban by the Spirit despite the tradition that killing was always a sin. King Benjamin openly credited his people’s access to the scriptures as having prevented their adoption of traditions that would have contradicted God’s word:

I say unto you, my sons, were it not for these things, which have been kept and preserved by the hand of God, that we might read and understand of his mysteries, and have his commandments always before our eyes, that even our fathers would have dwindled in unbelief, and we should have been like unto our brethren, the Lamanites, who know nothing concerning these things, or even do not believe them when they are taught them, because of the traditions of their fathers, which are not correct. (Mosiah 1:5.)

Merely having the scriptures was insufficient. They had to have them “always before [their] eyes.” Not only that, but they obviously had to believe that the scriptures held precedent to any innovations by their leaders. They had to take God’s word as a higher authority than man’s word, or words from men claimed to be God’s. To king Benjamin’s people, the scriptures were a primal source of truth, and men’s traditions and innovations were to be measured against scripture.

Although the scriptures can and should be used to separate God’s word from man’s tradition, they are not the supreme source of distinction. It is the Spirit—and only the Spirit—that can divide truth from error and reveal the truth of all things.⁴

If we accept that men, even leaders, can be incorrect, and we know that the Spirit can and does reveal the truth of all things, we must accept that the Spirit can and will reveal to us discrepancies between the positions espoused by church leaders and God’s will.

The “great apostasy” occurred because church leaders made changes based on committee decisions instead of revelation.⁵ Unwilling to follow the doctrines as given by their dispensation head, they were unable to receive new revelation, and therefore substituted their own ideas for God’s word.⁶ As innovations and the commandments of men replace the commandments of God, the need for an individual to sift through the philosophies of men to reveal and reclaim the revelations given to the dispensation head increases. In short, the importance of personal revelation increases as the receipt of institutional revelation decreases.