Joseph Smith — "I defy all the world to show a more perfect law than the one that is given to us…"
I defy all the world to show a more perfect law than the one that is given to us.
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Details
History of the Church, Vol. 2, p. 119 (Discourse, September 1834)
Date: 1834
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Understanding this quote
What it means
The speaker asserts that no legal or moral code anywhere on earth surpasses the one he follows and teaches. It is a bold challenge to critics, skeptics, and competing religious traditions, claiming absolute superiority and divine perfection for the doctrines and commandments he has received and proclaimed to his followers.
Relevance to Joseph Smith
Joseph Smith claimed to receive divine revelations that superseded all prior religious law. As founder of the Latter-day Saint movement, he positioned himself as a modern prophet restoring lost gospel truth. This defiant confidence mirrors his unwavering declarations against theological critics, legal persecutors, and religious rivals throughout his ministry in New York, Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois.
The era
In the 1830s–1840s, America was flooded with competing religious movements during the Second Great Awakening. New denominations, reform movements, and utopian communities each claimed superior moral frameworks. Smith's declaration arose in this crowded religious marketplace, where Methodists, Baptists, and others debated which tradition best embodied Christian law, making such supremacy claims both culturally intelligible and deeply provocative.
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