Dallin H. Oaks and Thomas Hobbes's Description of Life

Again, I skipped over a bunch of talks with no external quotes in them, and finally found this one, written by Dallin H. Oaks in his talk, "Strive for Excellence" in the October 1971 Conference.

It felt significant a little, especially since Dallin H. Oaks is now President Oaks, having recently become president and prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  At the time he gave this talk, he was serving as President of Brigham Young University.

 

 The Quote (Expanded for Context)

As I have studied this subject (excellence), 

my thoughts have been drawn to some lines I read at BYU 

some twenty years ago. 

The first of these lines you will think strange 

as an illustration of the subject of education in the Church. 

They were written by Thomas Hobbes, 

the seventeenth century English political philosopher, 

in his greatest work, The Leviathan.

In describing the nature of man, 

Hobbes wrote that “the life of man [is] solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” 

This is a classic example of the philosophies of man. 

I am grateful that my education exposed me to that thought 

and others like it, 

because my familiarity with these thoughts 

has helped me to understand the world and its peoples and its problems.

But most of all, 

I am grateful that my educational program was such 

that at the time I was exposed to this view of man, 

I was also being taught these lines:

“Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy.” (2 Nephi 2:25)

 

I'm also very familiar with that quote by Thomas Hobbes  - but I did not know about the Leviathan.

What's more, I didn't also know that Thomas Hobbes was describing a world at war when he said that famous quote. In that context, I definitely agree with his summation:

 

""Whatsoever therefore is consequent to a time of Warre, 

where every man is Enemy to every man; 

the same is consequent to the time, wherein men live without other security, 

than what their own strength, and their own invention shall furnish them withall. 

In such condition, there is no place for Industry; 

because the fruit thereof is uncertain; 

and consequently no Culture of the Earth; 

no Navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by Sea; 

no commodious Building; 

no Instruments of moving, and removing such things as require much force; 

no Knowledge of the face of the Earth; 

no account of Time; 

no Arts; no Letters; no Society; 

and which is worst of all, continuall feare, and danger of violent death; 

 And the life of man, solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short. 

 

The 'short' part would be a relief in a situation like that.

War is the ultimate condition of chaos, where nothing thrives. This was his premise - that we as humans needed a social contract in order to bring order to chaos, otherwise every man would fight every man, because that is Mankind's nature.

And while I do agree that creating a sort of social contract does make for a more peaceful and prosperous society, there is more, far more, than mere legal boundaries that keep us from going to each other's throats.

The reason I expanded the quote is to show there's more than one way for life to be. 

For some of us, there is God, and Jesus Christ. There are blessings and purpose and progression and meaning to life that come from living God's laws, and accepting Jesus Christ as our Savior.

 

Life is hard for all of us, sometimes poor, sometimes nasty or brutish. Even sometimes shorter than we would like. But in the middle of that, there can also be joy, even in the worst possible circumstances.

It all depends on our focus. 

 

 

 

Elder Sterling W. Sill and Martin Luther's Table Talk

We move past several talks here, to eventually land on Elder Sterling W. Sill's talk, "Thou Shalt Not" - yet another talk featuring the Ten Commandments, which seemed to be something of a theme in 1971.

 

The Quote

"Sin is more than ordinarily important, 

for as Martin Luther once said, 

“One vice can overcome ten virtues.” 

 

Yes, depending on the vice, that's true. A reputation can still be quickly ruined for even a single offense online today, no matter how hard a person works or how good they are before that point. It seems unfair, but that's what often happens. Yet at other times, people somehow overlook the vice to some extent. 

So did Martin Luther actually say this, and where did he say it? Or something like it?

Martin Luther's Table Talk

And so I came upon an item I didn't know existed. I knew that Martin Luther had nailed up his 97 Theses to the door of the All-Saints Church in Wittenburg, Germany (which maybe was true or maybe not, kind of like Washington and the cherry tree). But I didn't know about his other writings.

This book, his Table Talk, is really interesting. It seems to contain a lot of his sayings and wisdom, along with some personal stories of his life. And it appears that he did say something along the lines of the quote that ended up in the Conference talk.

In Section CCCXCVIII (398) of the chapter entitled 'Of Preachers and Preaching', he said the following:

 

"The defects in a preacher are soon spied; 

let a preacher be endued with ten virtues, 

and but one fault, 

yet this one will eclipse and darken all his virtues and gifts, 

so evil is the world in these times. 

Dr. Justus Jonas has all the good virtues and qualities a man may have;

yet merely because he hums and spits, 

the people cannot bear that good and honest man."

Intriguing. I may peruse this source a bit further. 

And yes, you're welcome for searching through all those Roman numerals to find just the spot - although I have to admit a bit of help from this handy-dandy Roman numeral converter.