SMPT Conference: Thoughts

Posted on March 30, 2008
Filed Under Philosophy |

So let me say upfront that I was only able to attend Friday and then only until 4. Plus I missed the first talk which was one I very much wanted to hear. Sadly my family had health issues with the toddlers. And my wife wanted to come with me on Friday but that meant sitters. (And she ended up missing my session due to not being familiar with the U and where to find public parking)

Anyway, that said, let me address the talks I did hear. I should note that Sunstone donated their recording equipment so we’ll be putting the presentations up on the web. I’ll put links up with perhaps a bit of commentary as they start to go up. I’ll try and convince them to do it like a podcast with an rss feed as well.


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First up was Sheila Taylor and “A Broken Mirror Image: Original Sin in LDS Theology.” I really enjoyed this talk. It ended up being primarily a discussion of Augustine and Pelagius and their views of grace and original sin and putting them in a kind of pseudo-dialog with Mormonism. The question answer session was quite well. The one thing I do wish Sheila had done is read Blake Ostler’s book since he addresses a lot of these issues in an LDS context. Blake actually made some comments in the Q&A afterwards that were interesting.

To me the most interesting part of the talk was a near aside about how there were multiple senses of freedom in the Book of Mormon. Much of the text is concerned about political freedom. This to me was quite interesting especially in the context of her approach. To me the most interesting thing in the Book of Mormon is how Nephi’s and Jacob’s exegesis of Isaiah sets the tone for so much of what is to come in the Book of Mormon. There we have a hermeneutic where the Isaiah text has numerous senses which are all simultaneously true. The political senses of both Isaiah’s time, the time of the Babylonian conquest, the future gathering and then the future eschatological political senses of course dominate. But they are simultaneously mapped on top of Nephite history. (And I’m convinced Mormon makes use of this in his editing) But these political senses also are mapped onto the spiritual history of Israel.

So there is this strong tie between political history and spiritual history. One ends up interpreting the other. This then applies to the individual who is a part of the community. While I believe Book of Mormon views of grace evolve - especially after King Benjamin - I think this Isaiah-centric view of grace is key to understanding the presentation in the Book of Mormon.

I brought this up in my question but didn’t get much of a stir out of it unfortunately.

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The next session was mine. I wasn’t quite sure until just before exactly what the approach was. Were we supposed to be technical? Were we presenting the text to others so as to encourage them to read it? Or was this a kind of congratulations session for Blake’s work? I kind of prepared for all three and then crammed memorizing all the terms and philosophers that were relevant to discussing Blake’s book. Then, to make matters worse, I got picked to go first. Talk about the blind leading the blind!

I ended up praising Blake’s book (which is justified) and placing it in the history of LDS theological works. I think it the most important because it’s the first to really seriously engage philosophy in the presentation. Orson Pratt’s work is pretty naive in many ways. Roberts does a bit better but simply buys wholesale a Cartesian mind. Plus he really doesn’t engage many philosophical arguments. McMurrin I’ve discussed before and I think he does a terribly superficial and misleading job on Mormon thought. While there are others (say Robinson’s) I think Blake’s ends up being the most important. It’s the first to really present the arguments and engage seriously with them.

However like Pratt or Roberts or even McMurrin it is a very idiocyncratic view of Mormon theology. That is it isn’t trying to show the range of views possible and rationally defensible within Mormon thought. Rather it is systematic theology given Blake’s personal views. And like most systematic theology it starts with a few ontological premises and works out the implications. For Blake the main ontological premiss is agent libertarian free will. Everyone reading this blog probably knows that so I’ll not belabor the point.

I then tried to touch upon the major problems with Blake’s approach. The first is the problem of foreknowledge and how Blake has to reject it. The second is the problem of physical theory. Specifically the problem of simultaneity in relativity. The third is the problem of how Blake reads and in many ways devalues the King Follet Discourse and Sermon in the Grove. The final one is the privileging of scripture and Joseph Smith so high above all other figures. Especially what I’ll call the oral traditions (and outright taught traditions) of post-Nauvoo theology. Blake has pretty good defenses for why he does this. But I don’t think most Mormons will be convinced. (Although a surprising number when the problem of foreknowledge and free will is laid out reject foreknowledge)

I had little time but I tried to touch upon why I thought systematic theology, which focuses in on a single kind of assertion is inferior to what I call a theology of spaces. That is an attempt to find the boundaries of what is or is not allowable within Mormon theology and to trace out the range of possibilities that are rational. Unfortunately my time ran short so I’m not sure I really communicated that well.

For the record - I’m not opposed to systematic theology. If it is combined with that broader sense. I think a very healthy distrust of theologizing is a good thing. A hermeneutics of suspicion, as it were.

Next up was Jim. Unfortunately while I was eagerly awaiting Jim’s thoughts I’m not sure he was the best choice. He hadn’t read the book before being asked to be on the panel. Which makes me wonder why it was he who was put there. Given Jim’s own writings on grace (the main theme of the 2cd volume) I’d intentionally not touched upon that in my comments. I figured Jim would discuss them. But Jim only got his copy of the book a few days earlier which didn’t make for very thorough comments. There were some interesting comments still. Jim mentioned that most of the figures Blake engages with are Protestant. Unfortunately because Jim hadn’t thoroughly read the book he missed the brief pages where Blake went beyond those figures. I think this a valid concern though. I think we, as Mormons, sometimes focus so much on Protestantism - especially Evangelical varieties - that we miss a lot of interesting discussion. As I’ve mentioned many times, I think a more thorough engagement with Eastern Orthodoxy is long overdue.

David Paulsen was an other figure I was eager to hear. Especially given the place he holds in the popularity of process theology among some Mormon thinkers like Blake. (For the record I’ve tried to figure out process thought many times. I’ve read Whitehead’s main books and then some commentaries at least three times. Once I get beyond the basics which are easy I still can’t figure some things out - such as the ontology of time.) Sadly Dr. Paulsen merely read his introduction from Blake’s first volume. I’m not sure why this was the case. Perhaps because Jim and I had been making criticisms? I don’t know. It’s a nice introduction and full of praise for Blake. But not as informative as I think some would have wished. This got back to my feeling that I wasn’t quite sure what the panel was really about.

Blake then took up most of the rest of the time in a very emotional and well made explanation of why he took the approaches he did. Ultimately it came down to that nothing else made sense to him.

The comments kind of blurred by - and there wasn’t a lot of time left. One thing I’d like to see in future SMPT sessions is 1.5 hours rather than 1 hour for each session. Most presentations take near an hour and there is little time left for questions. Yet it is in the questions that much of the really interesting discussion takes place.

The one very controversial thing that Blake did say in the comments that I don’t recall him explicitly saying elsewhere was that anything in the Book of Mormon that could be read as in opposition to his view he would take as a later expansion by Joseph Smith. It seemed to me to be a very disturbing hermeneutic. At least he did acknowledge that in scripture there are many places where God is portrayed as knowing the future.

Now I should note that I was kind of in a daze. I’d had about 3 hours sleep the night before due to sick kids and only slightly more the night before that. Dan Wotherspoon and Randy Paul took my wife and me out to pizza. There we had a few interesting discussions. (Sorry Randy, I just think a new Constitution Convention would be an amazingly bad thing on practical grounds) I’m not sure I was much like they expected. I tend to get that a lot. I can only imagine the reaction four years ago when I was not so tired and my wife and I were in quite good shape. (grin)

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Next up was Jim’s Presidential address which basically asked for a wide diversity in theological approaches. He also asked about encouraging more people to join SMPT. I have some thoughts on that but will leave it for a later post. There was no Q&A session which seemed a bit odd since I’d have thought the audience would have a lot of ideas there.

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The final session that I was able to attend was the one on authority and Church doctrine. Robert Millet was supposed to be at this one but surprisingly didn’t show up. (Everyone kept waiting for him to appear but he didn’t) The other speakers were Richad (argh forgot your last name — forgive me) and Ben Huff. I really, really liked Richard’s discussion. It was basically a chicken and egg discussion of what comes first - presentation of what is Church doctrine or there being an authoritative church doctrine which people then present. He ties this to the hermeneutic circle we’re all familiar with. Ben did a variation on his paper defending systematic methodology in theology. It was quite different in presentation than Richard’s with Ben writing on a white board a lot. It tried to emphasize as well that there is an unity and pluralism and all the ways we can think about them arguing that, in a way, all are correct and necessary.

The discussions were quite good. Dennis Potter (who unfortunately I didn’t get to go and say hi to — I haven’t seen him in years even though we live in the same town) made a provocative statement about whether doctrine is propositional. I’m not sure where he was going with that. It’s quite different than the line he used to spout back in his more analytic days in the 90’s. I suspect he’s thinking more in terms of liberation theology. Which as you may know I’m actually pretty sympathetic to. I pointed out though that his comment was meaningless unless we unpack what we mean by “proposition.” If we take it in Fregean terms than it can be quite a problem. (Although I think Grice’s approach to speech acts resolves some of the problems) However we can also go the route of the pragmatists, especially Peirce, who see propositions in terms of statements whose meanings are habits of performances of people. One could also go a more Davidsonian route as well.

I then tried to make the point that authority only matters once we don’t have revelation. I guess a lot agreed as there were a lot of people nodding their heads. This was after an excellent comment by Dr. Sherlock who brought up the difference between Catholic dogma and Mormon dogma. Mormons most emphatically don’t have formal boundaries between what is or isn’t doctrine. Catholics due. The example someone (was it Sherlock?) gave was the case of removing feeding tubes from a dying woman. The Mormon authorities say this is a matter of prayer and that we shouldn’t feel obliged to artificiall extend life. The Catholics, in contrast, get in a debate about the difference between intravenous drips and food drips. While Mormons are quite different from Catholics with our lack of formal rules the one thing formal rules do is let people know if they are outside of what is acceptable doctrine. Mormons can sometimes be surprised (although I think this can be highly exaggerated)

Comments

5 Responses to “SMPT Conference: Thoughts”

Regarding Eastern Orthodoxy, I have also thought that there will be a missed opportunity if we don’t engage them seriously.

I’ve read many translations of church fathers, and always, the further east they were (Greek more than Latin, and Syriac, like Ephraim the Syrian, more than Greek), the more I enjoy and find light in them. I love the Syriac documents Daniel Peterson’s group is startng to translate and publish.

As LDS apologists and David Paulsen in his article “Are Christians Mormon?” have highlighted, their belief in deification and our seeking to be like God have many overlaps, though they are by no means the same thing. My sense that their love of ritual overlaps with and would help us understand and appreciate our rituals in the Temple more fully.

I was also struck, as I read the chapter on Eastern Orthodox view of Salvation, and specifically their very astute combination of grace and works, in the recent book “Salvation in Christ: Comparative Christian Views” that we would gain much from how they have defended their positions over the years. (See large excerpts from the chapter on my blog at this link http://ldsfocuschrist.blogspot.com/2007/09/salvation-in-christ-eastern-orthodox.html ).

In short, I agree that it may be time for discussions with them.

I am LDS Director of Interfaith Relations in Orange County, California, and have worked at setting up numerous interactions with Evangelicals in the area, including visits of BYU Philosophy students and Blake Ostler to Biola University for discussions and presentations there. In the course of doing it, I have become fairly well acquainted with Dr. John Mark Reynolds, the head of the Philosophy Honors program there. Interestingly (for an Evangelical College), he is an Eastern Orthodox member by profession, and follows the Antiochian Orthodox tradition. He blogs here: http://www.scriptoriumdaily.com/

I’ll look for your comments about Eastern Orthodoxy on your blog, and see how they fit in. Do you think its time for people to start doing this? Are there others LDS scholars who would think so, too?
Thanks, Steve St.Clair

I stumbled upon a blog of Eastern Orthodox scholars discussing some of Blake’s writings on deification and discussed some of the misunderstandings Blake was making. However I’m just not as up on the nuances of how ontological categories were treated in the east. I’ve read Pelikan of course. But my sense is that there are some difficult philosophical splices here that Mormon apologies just aren’t quite appreciating.

I may make comments on eastern Orthodoxy but I’ll fully admit I’m ignorant enough so as to have my comments not worth a whole lot.

The problem with this sort of interfaith dialog is that it really demands that Mormon philosophers become more familiar with how basic ontology was conceived of in the east rather than the west. While I may be wrong I just don’t know anyone quite up on that sufficient to engage in fruitful dialog yet.

Glad to see you finally got to present Clark. Knowing how much you love cameras, I am assuming recordings are going to be in audio format only.

LOL. Thank goodness. Let me tell you being on national TV involved extreme self control the week before.

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