This was, to be honest, the chapter that kept me from getting on
with Ostler's book. (Well that and the fact that not too many
people seemed to be reading along making other readings that much
more attractive.) The problem is that this chapter is primarily a
brief overview of all the main theological movements the church.
It's kind of hard to figure how to respond. What I think I'll do
is just briefly comment on a few places I disagree with Ostler's
reading. Originally I was going to take this slower. However each
section really could be a whole reading club of its own. (i.e. the
surprisingly complex Lectures on Faith or the
"neo-orthodoxy" of Joseph Fielding Smith and Bruce R. McConkie) By
and large though I agree with Ostler's readings. I just thought
there were a few places where I had some qualms.
The first section is on the Lectures on Faith. I agree with Ostler that this is very important, if only to orient Mormon theology away from cosmology and theology in terms of fundamental ontology. Rather the ground of Mormon theology is the interpersonal relationship between God and man. To move beyond that is really, I think, to move beyond what Mormon theology orients itself around. Having said that though there is one problem in the Lectures. (Note that they are primarily authored by Sidney Rigdon, despite the attribution to Joseph Smith). The text seems unstable between the discussion of faith in God and faith in a more abstract sense. Further there are some passages, while important, that seem somewhat ambiguous. For instance Ostler quotes Lectures 1:22
We here understand that the sacred writers say that all these things were done by faith. It was by faith that the worlds were framed - God spake, chaos heard, and worlds came into order, by reason of the faith there was in Him. So with man also - he spake by faith in the name of God, and the sun stood still, the moon obeyed, mountains removed, prisons fell, lions mouths were closed, the human heart lost its enmity, fire its violence, armies their power, the sword its terror, and death its dominion; and all this by reason of the faith which was in them.
This is somewhat ambiguous whether the faith in the "chaos" was the chaos exercising faith in God or God exercising faith in God and thus having power. Ostler reads this as, "...the worlds were framed by cooperation of the chaos that responded in faith to God's word." (71) I think this incorrectly reads into the text a panpsychic view that isn't necessary. I think the idea is that faith in God is the basis for power for God as well as for man. I don't think Sidney Rigdon is here teaching panpsychic views in which matter obeys God and obeys out of faith. That sense of faith, while common in later figures such as Orson Pratt, seems inappropriate to read in here.
I must say there there is one place that Ostler moves even more beyond the text. Ostler quotes Lectures 4:11 which speaks of God's knowledge.
. . .seeing that without the knowledge of all things, God would not be able to save any portion of his creatures; for it is by reason of the knowledge which he has of all things, from the beginning to the end, that enables him to give that understanding to his creatures, by which they are made partakers of eternal life;and if it were not for the idea existing in the minds of men that God had all knowledge, it would be impossible for them to exercise faith in him.
However in opposition to the straightforward reading that would entail foreknowledge Ostler says that "Lectures wisely refrain from saying whether the 'things' that God knows includes items which are not yet in existence and therefor not yet truly 'things.'" (73) This is sophisticated hair splitting that goes well beyond the normal sense of the words. Were there some indication that Sidney Rigdon, a formal Cambellite, had denied foreknowledge, I'd be more willing to entertain the theory. However absent that I think one really ought to read this as Sidney Rigdon and other authors as accepting divine foreknowledge. I can see Ostler arguing for his reading of scripture. But attributing his belief to Rigdon seems a bit hard to accept without some positive evidence. To argue that God's stated omniscience (Lectures 2:2) isn't omniscience in any normal sense of the word in common vernacular really requires either some positive statement within the text or from its context. Ostler points out that two of the quoted scriptures can be read as solely referring to God's activity. However that's really insufficient for how Ostler uses it in attributing a position to Ridgon. I can see thinking traditional omniscience incorrect. I can even see a comment about the logic of the argument. But to attribute the view of open theology to Rigdon seems hard to swallow.
The second section deals with Joseph Smith's theology and basically covers the D&C and King Follet Discourse. One quibble would be over the use of "presence." Ostler says that not only are things present to God but God is present to all things and "through them." However as I mentioned in the prior chapter's comments, exactly what this entails isn't clear. Given field theories in modern physics, any entity within the universe is through all things, limited by the speed of light. Still, I think Ostler is right that Joseph believed God's power is a necessary condition for all activities within the universe. Exactly how though isn't clear. Ostler says it is through his "indwelling spirit which penetrates all things... This spirit is also the basis of natural law in the universe" (76) I'm not convinced that this is the source of all natural law. It is the source of a kind of law, and may even entail certain aspects of natural law. But I think Ostler's reading may be going beyond the text. I'm also not sure the light of truth in the sense spoken of here is God's indwelling spirit. (i.e. either the Holy Ghost or light of Christ in the senses commonly used in regular speech by modern Mormons)
I confess, though, that D&C 88 and D&C 93 are very difficult scriptures. I'm certainly not about to say with any confidence what they mean. I'm not even sure Joseph Smith understood what they meant. Without some clarification of how Joseph Smith read those texts, I'm of the opinion we can't state much about what Joseph believed. While I'd like to believe he understood well all the revelations he received, there seem many indications that he did not. (Indeed many apologists make that point with regard to the text of the Book of Mormon). I have a few views on D&C 88 and 93. However I certainly don't feel confident enough in them to really state them authoritatively as what Joseph Smith's theology was.
The other place I have some qualms with Ostler's reading is in his comments about if God the Father was God prior to being mortal. (i.e. becoming mortal the way Jesus was mortal, a uniquely Mormon concept) While I understand why Ostler wants the Father to be fully God prior to mortality, I don't think this is a necessary belief in Mormonism. Even if he was fully God, was he always fully God prior to mortality? Or was it something he achieved at some time?
Ostler doesn't mention this, but that was actually a topic of wide conversation in the latter 19th century with many prominent figures believing the opposite of what Ostler asserts. The point of the potential to become like God, suggests that what Ostler concentrates on doesn't matter. Further, the notion of God as Godhead entails that there always were beings fully God. So it really seems a problem that isn't a problem. So far as I know, there is no positive reason to assert one way or the other whether the Father was always divine prior to mortality. For that matter, ought we even say he wasn't divine in mortality? After all we say that Jesus, as a mortal, was both mortal and divine. Thus Ostler's later comment that "to be a 'god' is thus to posses each of the divine attributes in their fullness in dependence on the light, spirit or glory of God" seems difficult to accept. I think most Mormons would want to say Jesus was always (within this creation) fully God, but that he didn't have the fulness but learned grace from grace within mortality. (D&C 93:13)
I don't claim to understand what it is that makes one divine, or even if that term has a consistent usage. I'm not sure I buy Ostler's concept analysis though.
I'll get to the final sections of this chapter later. (Don't want to make this longer than it already is)
Discussions on individual chapters from Blake Ostler's Exploring Mormon Thought: The Attributes of Godliness can be found on our Reading Club page.
Clark: If chaos "hears" God's command and "worlds came into order, by reason of the faith there was in Him," how can we avoid some form of panpsychism? Inert matter doesn't hear anything, and the Lectures are clear that it is by the spoken word that God acts. He speaks. Chaos hears and obeys. It seems to be a form of chaos obeying God because it hears Him speak.
With respect to whether the Lectures teach that God does not have foreknowledge, I can only point out that my view (explicitly stated) is that the Lectures don't expressly address the issue and they leave it open to the interpretation (for those like me who don't believe that God has absolute foreknowledge)that he does not. You are likely correct that Rigdon simply accepted the prevailing view regarding omniscience -- but that also is unclear. I also believe that the Lectures were not simply authored by Rigdon -- there is rather clear evidence that they were a collaborative effort, just as the preface to the first edition signed by Joseph Smith, Sidney Rigdon and Frederick G. Williams indicated.
I treat the issue of Christ's eternal deity in the second volume. The reference to Jesus's growth to "a fulness," grace for grace, in D&C 93 seems to me to rather clearly refer to being made fully divine after he had given up his pre-mortal glory, become human and is in the process of regaining it through his resurrection through the grace of the Father. (I discuss that in chapter 14) As you interpret it, it refers solely to the time before he became mortal. In context, that reading seems literally contra-textual to me. Blake
I think a simple explanation is that the text is metaphoric. Presumably basing itself off of the account of creation in Genesis 1 in which speech also is used in a similar fashion. I don't know how Protestants treat this, but I know the "word" and speaking is rather common. I'd be loath to read more into in than a Protestant would at this date without some other texts to indicate a panpsychic reading. Clearly later on such panpsychic tendencies were there, as I mentioned. I wish I was more familiar with the Protestant rhetoric of the era - especially amongst the Cambellites. But I'm sadly not. I know that many Protestants broke from the Augustinian reading of the God's speaking creation. How exactly, I'm not sure.
Regarding Jesus' glory, I don't think I said it refered solely to the time before he became mortal. That's not necessarily what I believe. My point is more that he was fully God through the entire process. However I'm not committed, one way or the other, to whether Jesus was always God. I do think we was always God within our period of creation though. I'd note that the late 19th century appears to have had a fairly established theory of evolution on these matters. Clearly it isn't doctrine and I suspect most Mormons aren't even familiar with it. But I suspect there was some basis for those ideas, even if I don't think the theology is fully correct.
Regarding authorship, while I think Rigdon the primary author, I agree it was collaborative, with some sections purportedly having other authors as primary. I don't recall the exact attributions and don't own the book on the topic to check. However even with a Rigdom primacy I believe it was still in reaction to the teachings at the school of the prophets. (Much like I think the theology in Utah was outgrowth of similar teachings in Nauvoo) While I don't think we ought to attribute everything to Joseph Smith any more than we ought to attribute all Utah doctrine to Joseph Smith, there clearly is a relationship. But how do we separate things one way or the other? I don't think we unambiguously can.
Clark: You say that "I think most Mormons would want to say Jesus was always (within this creation) fully God, but that he didn't have the fulness but learned grace from grace within mortality." Isn't that simply a contradiction? Jesus both was fully God and also didn't have a fulness and learned grace for grace within mortality (which is certainly with this creation). It appears to me that you assert that the average LDS persons believes an outright contradiction to the effect that Jesus both always had a fulness and had to regain a fulness. Thus, my confusion at what you are saying.
Blake, that was why I brought the point up. You are assuming what makes God as God is the glory. That's the very point I disagree with. As to whether it is a contradiction, that is true only if there is a univocal use of the term God. Yet you already established, quite well I might add, that God is not an univocal term in LDS theology.
Put an other way I think that Mormons, like our Protestant friends, adopt the basic Christian position that Jesus is (and always was in the narrative) God.
Clark: There is an important distinction that you are not observing in the way I elucidate divinity. Christ is inherently of the kind "divine" and could not fail to be divine. He could, however, fail to have a "fulness" of divinity. Christ is always divine, he does not always have a fulness of divinity. The way you phrase it by using the ambiguous term "God" (your use and not mine) masks over this failure to make the distinction in question. The degree of our divinity depends on the extent to which we participate in the glory or light of God (this view is explicit in D&C 76, 88 and 93) However, that Christ is always divine is not in question -- it is the degree of that divinity that he expresses that is at issue. This distinction is also implicit in the kenotic Christology that I adopt. Moreover, if you are really saying that this is a problem with my view, then why do you attribute to "most Mormons"? I found that to be confusing.
Blake, I guess what I'm getting at is that divinity probably isn't the word I'd use as I think divinity and Godness end up being synonymous and roughly equivalent even over the various senses of each term. Perhaps this is merely a semantic qualm. However my sense is that you tie together glory and divinity too much.
When I say Jesus is fully God in mortality, to me, that entails that he has the fulness of divinity. When fulness is spoken of, it always appears to be fulness of truth or fulness of glory. Yet I don't think we ought to equate glory and divinity in the sense you do.
I'll reread the section in your book. It may well be that I'm overlooking something. But I think this may be an important point in terms of how we understand the meaning of divinity.
Clark: Doesn't D&C 93 state that Christ did not possess a fulness at first? It seems to me to state that Christ did not possess a fulness as a mortal -- so do you argue that D&C 93 doesn't state or imply that Christ did not have a fulness at the time he was mortal? And do you think that the fulness referred to has nothing to do with the expression of the divine attributes of power and knowledge, for example, while he is mortal?
I take D&C 93 to be referring to John's encounter with Jesus and discusses his move from mortal birth to receiving a fulness of glory and truth. Clearly for part of mortality he didn't have a fulness. I just don't think this means he wasn't fully God. For that matter, I don't think being God is a matter of degree - either you are or you aren't. Put an other way, I think you are conflating Godhood with the divine perfected attributes.
Questions:
1) I've wondered why Joseph Smith allowed that part of Lecture 5 to be published in the 1835 edition of the D&C referring to God as a spirit, Christ as a tabernacle and the Holy Ghost the mind of God and Christ. This is particularly puzzling since Joseph Smith saw God and Jesus in the Grove back in 1820.
2) Why did the LDS Church leave the Lectures on Faith in the D&C until 1921, when the clarifying doctrine of God, Christ and the HG was given in Section 130:22 in 1843, not to mention that Joseph has his vision in 1820?
I think part of the reason it was removed was because of the confusion you mentioned. With respect to why Joseph left it in the Doctrine and Covenants, I suspect there are a few reasons. For one, I don't think he felt people would confuse the lectures with revelation. (Indeed the title of the D&C came from this distinction, the lectures were the doctrine - a kind of catechism - while the covenants were the revelations) As for why it took until the early 20th century to change it, I think there is that conservativism that doesn't want to change things too much unless necessary. i.e. it was in it so don't remove it. I think that's an unfortunate aspect of Mormon culture, but an understandable one.
As for why Joseph let the lectures be published despite his vision, I'd simply say that it doesn't appear that the vision would have distinguished between a spirit and an embodied being. One ought note that Joseph appears to have held to a more materialistic view of spirits, even before the teaching that spirits are material. By that I mean that he probably adopted the view of spirits common in the folk tradition of things like ghosts. Spirits are simply phenomenally like regular people, but "finer" or "more transclucent." I don't see any evidence that he held to a more Aquinas view of spirit and considerable reason to think he wouldn't have.
Indeed I think the more common theological view of spirits that one finds in Descartes or Aquinas is most at odds with how lay people think about them. I think the folk tradition ends up being very much akin to how Mormon theology even today considers spirits.
Given all that, even if God the Father was considered a spirit, he would have been seen as appearing like a human being and not "invisible" and outside the universe ala the theological conception.
An other thing to consider is that spirit had a fairly broad meaning and could mean angel or messenger. I don't think that explains the issue you are concerned with.
The final approach to the problem is to suggest that Joseph felt that texts should be left within their own context. If, in the early 1830's, Joseph didn't yet know that the Father was a resurrected personage like Jesus, then doesn't that form the context for the revelations and writings of that period? It appears, for instance, that Alma doesn't know of the work for the dead nor Jesus' entry into spirit prison during his death. Yet with that information from the NT and latterday revelation, we don't go about rewriting Alma 42. I think prophetic teaching is always limited to the understanding of the prophets. I'd suspect Joseph, who certainly tried to study such matters, recognized this. In that case, why change it?
On the other hand, Joseph also saw texts are fairly fluid and open to revision. Thus the changes between the original D&C and the revised version wherein several revelations were added to. The JST also added to various NT texts, primarily expanding information in answer to questions. (The common parallel being made to Jewish midrashic texts)
So certainly Joseph could have rewritten the Lectures on Faith. Who know, perhaps had there not been so much persecution and so many other things he was engaged in, he would have reworked it. It might be an ommission due to time and resources rather than having any real significance.
Bob: Joseph Smith didn't merely "allow" Lecture 5 to be published, it appears that this is the one Lecture for which he is primarily responsible (Sidney Rigdon it appears was primarily resposible for Lectures 2 and 6). A close examination of Lecture 5 shows that it closely paraphrases Mosiah 15 and D&C 93 and appears to be an attempt to give an explanation of the Gehdhead based primarily on these scriptural texts. I largely agree with Clark as to the explanation of why the Father would be described as a Spirit. Remember that the revelation that revealed that the Father and the Son both have material bodies was not received until later -- so it is likely just an attestation to the principle of continuing revelation.
The LDS left the Lectures in until 1921 because the Lectures were highly regarded. I like them very much and think that it would serve us to be very familiar with them.
I've closed comments in order to avoid spam since I don't check this older blog as much anymore.
and Theology
Number of unique visitors:
Blogged by Clark Goble