If bacteria is a sign of life on Mars, then a heartbeat should be considered a sign of life on Earth. If we both see that which you say to be true, and both see that which I say to be true, where, I ask you, do we see it? Neither I in you, nor you in me, but both in the unchangeable Truth itself, which is above our minds. More is required for the intellect than mere sensation that contacts accidents but does not reach the essence of essences, the mind does this either knowingly or unknowingly. If knowingly, then the mind knows before abstracting, and hence it is useless to abstract. If unknowingly, then the mind is at the mercy of chance and can hardly be called an intellect at all. Consequently, the intellect is not a passive, but a beam moving outward and casting its light on things. However, there is more to this situation because in matters of intellectual knowledge, certitude, and evidence, humans must be assisted by a divine illumination—a divine active intellect—in addition to one’s own human active intellect. This assistance by divine illumination is not a direct vision of God or an infusion of ideas. Rather, it is an assistance over and above that given by God as the conserving cause of all that exists. Its purpose is to guarantee necessity and certitude (considered irrevocably unobtainable through sensation) for our knowledge. “And a portion of that Spirit dwells in us, which gives us knowledge, and also power according to our faith and desires which are in God,” reports Alma 18.35. #RandolphHarris 1 of 11

In the realm of natural theology, there is one key axiom that pervades Franciscan philosophical circles—human creators are entirely dependent upon the First Cause (God) with regard both to the fact of existing and to their ability to act. From this it follows that whatever causal powers a human creator may possess are ontologically delegated to them by the First Cause. The important corollary of this principle is that the First Cause can bypass the agency of the human creators and intervene to produce the effect immediately. We invoke this principle to some extent in the illumination theory of knowledge. It is also used to defend the autonomous existibility of prime matter without any form against the contrary opinion of critics. “And this is the manner after which they were ordained—being called and prepared from the foundation of the World according to the foreknowledge of God, on account of their exceeding faith and good works; on the first place being left to choose good or evil; therefore they having chosen good, and exercising exceedingly great faith, are called with a Holy calling, yea, with that Holy calling which was prepared with, and according to, a preparatory redemption for such.” reports Alma 13.3. All medieval philosophers were agreed that the First Cause was pure form and that prime matter was completely formless. In each thing there are many forms, or at least many grades of one form.  #RandolphHarris 2 of 11

In human beings there are several forms—vegetative, sensitive, and rational—in a gradated order that cooperate toward the good and unity of the being as a whole. “For the commandment is a lamp; and the law is light; and reproofs of instruction are the way of life,” reports Proverbs 6.23. A commandment is a lamp to show us the right course, and indeed the law defines that course that we are to follow. Some people look upon laws in general as impediments to them—obstacles—and there are good people in every segment of life who believe that the laws of God, even the great Ten Commandments, are intended only for certain people—for those whom they describe as being extremely religious or for the less fortunate. They believe that while it is essential to observe the laws of the land, it matters little or none if one observes the laws of God. Some people think that the laws of God inhibit freedom; and that they who are not religiously inclined are automatically exempt from the laws and commandments of the Lord; and that is one minds one’s own business and lives one’s own life, so to speak, one has sufficient religion for one’s own well-being; and that salvation and joy everlasting will somehow be forthcoming, even though they do not observe the laws and commandments of God. Surely thinking that we do not need to obtain more insight into spiritual life is a shortsighted view. #RandolphHarris 3 of 11

Actually, if we are to find happiness, success, and peace, then the commandments of the Lord are principles upon which the architecture of our lives must construct its foundation and temple. We believe that through the atonement of the Savior that all humankind may be saved by obedience to the laws and the ordinances of the gospel; and because of God’s great love for the World and everything and everyone in it, the Lord has granted each of us the blessing and privileged to have a material body and live in the material World and through obedience to the laws of the gospel and through spiritual maturity and development, we can find happiness and peace and prepare to live in eternally in the Kingdom of God in Heaven, in a state of never-ending happiness. “For behold, they are blessed in all things, both temporal and spiritual; and if they are received into Heaven, that thereby they may dwell with God in a state of never-ending happiness. Oh, remember that these things are true; for the Lord God hath spoken it,” reports Mosiah 2.41. This theory holds that the domain of knowledge can be so characterized that general assertions can be proven true of all possible knowledge; the theory also holds that it is the dependence of all knowledge upon logic that makes such a characterization possible. The ideas in the mind of God can be known by human minds. #RandolphHarris 4 of 11

All phenomena and all concepts—all that can be before the mind—are representations, for the ideas in the mind of God are conceived as Platonic archetypes, and are first given a material embodiment in the form of the objects of our experience and are then derived by us from those objects by abstractions. The synthesis in intuition is the synthesis of the divine idea (already present in an unconscious form within the soul) with the matter of sensation to form the empirical object which is also, by virtue of the divine idea, the transcendental object; and the concept is derived by abstraction from the object given in intuition. “And we, ourselves, also, through the infinite goodness of God, and the manifestations of his Spirit, have great views of that which is to come; and were it expedient, we could prophesy all things. And it is the faith which we have had on the things which our king has spoken unto us that has brought us to this great knowledge, whereby we do rejoice with such exceedingly great joy. And we are willing to enter into a covenant with our God to do his will, and to be obedient to his commandments in all things that he shall command us, all the remainder of our days, that we may not bring upon ourselves a never-ending torment, as has been spoken by the angel, that we may not drink out of the cup of the wrath of God,” Mosiah 5.5. This discovery has great importance. #RandolphHarris 5 of 11

Granting these doctrines, it is clear that the major premises must be innate in the mind. We have been promised the constant companionship of the third member of the Godhead and hence the privilege of receiving revelation for our own lives. Although the pain of loneliness seems to be part of the mortal experience, God in his mercy has made it so that we need never deal with the challenges of mortality alone.  It is not living the gospel that is hard. It is life that is hard. It is picking up the pieces when covenants have been compromised or values violated that is hard. The gospel is the Good News that provides us the tools to cope with the mistakes, the heartaches, the disappointments we can expect to experience here. Honoring the laws of God has its privileges. We are lead by the most powerful and holy force on Earth. We are members of a beloved community founded by prophets of God. To these remarkable privileges, “If we will receive the Holy Ghost, it will show unto us all things what we should do,” 2 Nephi 32.5. What a remarkable privilege and promise to have manifestations of the spirit every day of our lives so that we may know the light, and not be groveling continually in the dark. #RandolphHarris 6 of 11

We may talk to the Saints about the follies of the World until dooms day, and it will make no impression. However, place them in a position where they will get the Holy Ghost, and that will be a sure protection against outside influences. We are not alone! The Holy Ghost enlarges our minds, our hearts, and our understanding; helps us subdue weaknesses and resist temptation; inspires humility and repentance; guides and protects us in miraculous ways; and gifts us with wisdom, divine encouragement, peace of mind, a desire t change, and the ability to differentiate between the philosophies of humans and revealed truth. The Holy Ghost is the minister and messenger of the Holy Trinity, and has a glorious global reality and a connection to us personally. Without the presence of the Spirit, it is impossible to comprehend our personal mission or to have the reassurance that our course is right. No mortal comfort can duplicate that of the Comforter (God). There is no greater blessing that can come into our lives than the companionship of the Holy Spirit. We may have the Spirit of the Lord to direct us, and are satisfied, however, that, in this respect, we live far beneath our privileges. It is meant that the fundamental logical relation from which the categories must be derived is signhood in which the relating has three ontological categories of mind, matter, and God. #RandolphHarris 7 of 11

On the basis of the reduction of the copula to signhood, it is predicate that when applied to the subject by being made to stand for the same object for which the subject stands, that the sign relation consists in a symbol standing for something to someone in some respect, and therefore that unless there are things, minds, and abstractions, there is no knowledge. However, since the pure abstraction attribute is the Platonic Form in the mind of God, without these three ontological categories signhood would be impossible. “And behold this thing shall be given unto thee for a sign, that after thou hast beheld the tree which bore the fruit which thy father tasted, thou shalt also behold a man descending out of Heaven, and one shall witness; and after you have witnessed him you shall bear record that it is the Son of God. And it came to pass that the Spirit said unto me: Look! And I looked and beheld a tree; and it was like unto the tree which my father had seen; and the beauty thereof was far beyond, yeah, exceeding of all beauty; and the whiteness thereof did exceed the whiteness of the driven snow. And it came to pass after I had seen the tree, I said unto the Spirit: I behold thou hast shown unto me the tree which is precious above all. And he said unto me: What desirest thou? And I said unto him: To know the interpretation.  And the Angel of the Lord said: Behold the World and the wisdom.” reports 1 Nephi 11.7-11 and 35. #RandolphHarris 8 of 11

Since the reference of a sign to its object I established by its being predicated of another sign which already refers to that object, and since the predication exists only because there is an interpreting sign which so interprets it, it is clear that the series of signs is doubly infinite. Our responsibility, therefore, is to learn to hear the voice of the Lord. For the Holy Ghost blesses us with optimism and wisdom at times of challenge that we simply cannot muster on our own. No wonder that one of the adversary’s favorite tactics among righteous people is busyness—getting us preoccupied with the flurry of daily life that we fail to immerse ourselves in the gospel. What we are trying to avoid is the classic dilemma of the empiricist who, having tracked cognition back to the original impression of sense, find oneself completely unable to prove the accuracy of that first impression. We cannot afford not to seek the things of the Spirit! There is too much at stake. The Lord does indeed communicate his people. Our ability to hear spiritually is linked to our willingness to work at it. The only way to get anything done is to get on our knees and plead to God for help in prayer and then get on our feet and go to work. That combination of faith and hard work is the consummate curriculum for learning the language of the Spirit. “Blessed are all they who do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled with the Holy Ghost,” reports 3 Nephi 12.6. #RandolphHarris 9 of 11

Hungering and thirsting translate to sheer spiritual labor. Worshipping in the temple, repenting to become increasingly pure, forgiving and seeking forgiveness, and earnest fasting prayer all increase our receptivity to the Spirit.  Spiritual work works and is the key to learning to heart the voice of the Lord. As experience progresses and we acquire more relevant stimuli, we further conceptualize this referent, and in time we acquire a progressively more and more complete and precise idea of it. However, our knowledge is never fully complete, so that this process of learning and inquiry is endless. It is true that we have a relatively detailed concept of the referent, we assume that the object antedated our experience of it and in fact caused that experience; epistemologically, however, it is the experience which comes first and the notion of the object which comes later. The object, then, is a hypothesis designed to give coherence to our experience, and this hypothesis is derived by hypnotical and inductive reasoning; hence, the process of cognition can be fully described by the three forms of inference. Moreover, it follows that the object must be as we conceive it, since it is only as we conceive it that it is postulated at all, and therefore there can be no such thing as incognizable cause of cognition, for the postulate that an object exists is warranted only by the coherence it gives to experience. Accordingly, whatever it, is cognizable. #RandolphHarris 10 of 11

The object is real only if as the number of cognition goes to infinity, the concept of the object tends to a limiting form. It follows, therefore, that although the object is not independent of being thought (since it is only as it is though that it exists at all), it is nevertheless independent of the thought of any particular person and represents what would be agreed upon by an ideal community of investigators if inquiry were to go on forever. And many empiricists agree that if the object is real, then if inquiry does go on forever, our hypotheses will converge to a final true description. What we are attempting to do in this instance is to propound a doctrine which is at once phenomenalistic and realistic. Reality is an inexhaustibility promise of an infinite series of cognitions. “Therefore, we should be steadfast and immovable, always abounding in good works, that the Savior, the Lord God Omnipotent, may seal us to his, that we may be brought to Heaven, that we may have everlasting salvation and eternal life, through the wisdom, and power, and justice, and mercy of the Lord who created all things, in Heaven and in Earth, who is God above all,” reports Mosiah 5.15. #RandolphHarris 11 of 11