Frances Lee Menlove - On the Limitation of Revelation

Any revelation must be filtered down through the mind and intellect of the receiver, pressed and squeezed into language inadequate to handle it, and altered and changed by the boundaries of human understanding and experience.  Both the fact that the Church exists and expresses itself in a particular cultural and historical context an the realization that we have only finite and limited understanding about infinite matters must be made explicit.  Failure to make these distinctions accounts for some of the most acute abuses of individual conscience.

-Frances Lee Menlove, "The Challenge of Honesty" Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Vol.1 No. 1 (1966): 49

"It [the revelation extending priesthood to all worthy males] is a tremendous thing. It came as a result of great effort and prayer, anxious seeking and pleading. Anyone who does not think that is a part of receiving revelation does not understand the process." -Gordon B. Hinckley, interview with Ed Kimball on July 12, 1978

B.H. Roberts - Revelation, Inspiration, and Church Admin.

There is nothing in the doctrines of the Church which makes it necessary to believe that [men are constantly under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit], even...men who are high officials of the Church.  When we consider the imperfections of men, their passions and prejudices, that mar the Spirit of God in them, happy is the man who can occasionally ascend to the spiritual heights of inspiration and commune with God!...
We should recognize the fact that we do many things by our own uninspired intelligence for the issues of which we are ourselves responsible...He will help men at need, but I think it improper to assign every word and every act of a man to an inspiration from the Lord.  Were that the case, we would have to acknowledge ourselves as being wholly taken possession of by the Lord, being neither permitted to go to the right nor the left only as he guided us.  there could then be no error made, nor blunder in judgment; free agency would be taken away, an the development of human intelligence prevented.  Hence, I think it a reasonable conclusion to say that constant, nevery varying inspiration is not a factor in the administration of the affairs of the Church; not even good men, though they be prophets or other high officials of the Church, are at all times and in all things inspired of God.  it is only occasionally, and at need, that God comes to their aid."

-B.H. Roberts, "Relation of Inspiration and Revelation to Church Government," Improvement Era 8 (March 1905): 362

Blake Oster: Cocreative Participation Model of Revelation

When individuals attempt to verbalize their experience, they further interpret by using a conceptual framework of language. Concepts affect how we perceive, however, even before we interpret and explain. The way we conceptualize the world influences how we will perceive it. Further, language is not merely a more or less systematic inventory of various items of experience, it also contains a creative, symbolic organization which not only refers to experiences already acquired but actually defines experience. Language constitutes a logic, a general framework within which we categorize reality (Bishin and Stone 1972, 159). Anyone who has learned to think in another language knows that there are expressions and nuances of thought that cannot be translated into English, for the cultural frame of reference necessary to understand the concept is missing. As Michael Polanyi (1962) noted, culture and language entail a tacit knowledge which  impacts upon how we conceptualize experience. We assume a structure of reality in the act of attempting to communicate about our experience.

These observations about experience are crucial to understanding revelation, but they are not the total explanation of revelation. If they were, nothing new could be learned in revelation; revelation would be a mere restatement of cultural and preconceptual presuppositions. Revelation is not experienced from God's viewpoint, free of cultural biases and conceptual limitations, but neither is God limited to adopting existing world views or paradigms to convey his message. Revelation is also a revolution in human thought, a real breakthrough that makes new understanding possible. In Mormon theology, revelation is necessarily experienced within a divine-human relationship that respects the dignity of human freedom. God does not coerce us to see him as God; that is left to the freedom of human faith. Revelation cannot coerce us because the divine influence is, of metaphysical and moral necessity, persuasive and participative rather than controlling. We exercise an eternal and inherent freedom even in relation to God. Revelation becomes a new creation, emerging from the synthesis of divine and human interaction. Revelation is part human experience, part divine disclosure, part novelty. It requires human thought and creativity in response to the divine lure and message (Cobb and Griffin 1976,101-5).

The ultimate reality in Mormon thought is not an omnipotent God coercing passive and powerless prophets to see his point of view. God acts upon the individual and imparts his will and message, but receiving the message and internalizing it is partly up to the individual. In this view, revelation is not an intrusion of the supernatural into the natural order. It is human participation with God in creating human experience itself. Revelation is not the filling of a mental void with divine content. It is the synthesis of a human and divine event. The prophet is an active participant in revelation, conceptualizing and verbalizing God's message in a framework of thought meaningful to the people. Human freedom is as essential to revelation as God's disclosure.

Blake Ostler - "The Book of Mormon as a Modern Expansion of an Ancient Source"

Obviously there would be differences of opinion among the general authorities on questions of administration and policy...From my point of view, that inspired men and women might maneuver to have their influence felt illustrated how human agents interact in their efforts to do god's work.  Not every statement or act of church leaders is inspired, since they disagree among themselves.  Not every conclusion is right, since they occasionally backtrack.  that the Lord is in charge does not mean that he inspires or approves everything done in the church.  That he is in charge does mean that our leaders will get a lot more right than wrong.  In the meantime, a follower like me, trying to do a job under conflicting instructions or pressures, was like a mouse crossing the floor where elephants are dancing.

-Leonard J. Arrington, Adventures of a Church Historian (pg. 144)

"I know nothing of God. But I know that something knows. Something knows or else that old man could not know. Something knows and will tell you. It will tell you when you stop pretending that you know."

-Cormac McCarthy, The Stonemason (pg. 97)