Ezra Taft Benson said “in many cases a higher degree today, in the so-called social sciences, can be tantamount to a major investment in error. Very few men build firmly enough on the rock of revelation to go through this kind of indoctrination and come out untainted. Unfortunately, of those who succumb, some use their higher degree to get teaching positions even in our Church Educational System, where they spread the falsehoods they have been taught.” (ET Benson Teachings p.319)
Elder Dallin H. Oaks warned of the consequences of leaving things to scholars. He said, “I have seen some persons attempt to understand or undertake to criticize the gospel or the Church by the method of reason alone, unaccompanied by the use or recognition of revelation. When reason is adopted as the only—or even the principal—method of judging the gospel, the outcome is predetermined. One cannot find God or understand His doctrines and ordinances by closing the door on the means He has prescribed for receiving the truths of his gospel. That is why gospel truths have been corrupted and gospel ordinances have been lost when left to the interpretation and sponsorship of scholars who lack the authority and reject the revelations of God.” (Elder Dallin H. Oaks Alternate Voices, April 1989)
Elder Neal A. Maxwell taught of the supremacy of revelation compared to worldly learning. He said, “When Moses was schooled by the Egyptians, what he learned there did not compare in eternal significance to what he learned from God’s revelations, things he said he “never had supposed” (Acts 7:22; Moses 1:10–33).” (The Inexhaustible Gospel, August 18, 1992 • BYU Devotional, https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/neal-a-maxwell/inexhaustible-gospel/)
Jacob warns against rejecting plain truth for sophisticated godless theories: “But behold, the Jews were a stiffnecked people; and they despised the words of plainness, and killed the prophets, and sought for things that they could not understand. Wherefore, because of their blindness, which blindness came by looking beyond the mark, they must needs fall; for God hath taken away his plainness from them, and delivered unto them many things which they cannot understand, because they desired it. And because they desired it God hath done it, that they may stumble.” (Jacob 4:14)
Church founder and dispensation head Joseph Smith was not shy of correcting the learned. He said, “I wish to correct an error among men that profess to be learned, liberal and wise; and I do it the more cheerfully because I hope sober-thinking and sound-reasoning people will sooner listen to the voice of truth than be led astray by the vain pretensions of the self-wise.” (https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-of-joseph-smith/67)
