All of you that like McMurrin's book and disagree that it is among the most overrated books on Mormonism, please take me to task on these pages. To me, these, as much as the initial pages, illustrate the problem in McMurrin's approach and oversights. These two sections deal with original sin and grace. Yet McMurrin seems bound and determined to ignore all the interesting approaches of Mormon materialism. This is extremely interesting to me as he is writing at the end of what we might call the "scientism" period of Mormon theology. The dominance of Roberts, Talmage, and Widstoe is coming to an end and the so-called neo-orthodoxy is rising. (Basically McConkie and Joseph Fielding Smith, although I see Nibley put in there as well for reasons I've never grasped. Nibley, in my mind, is a platonist after the old Roman mold. Chauncey Riddle was put amongst the neo-orthodoxy as well, but I think his pragmatism and existentialism put him at odds with how we normally take neo-orthodoxy). But of course we're not here to discuss theological movements but McMurrin's ignorance of them.
The first thing to remember is that mainstream Christian theology tends see Adam's sin as causing an ontological change. We are in some fundamental sense sinful. Mormonism, as typically interpreted, tends to see Adam's sin as enabling a fall into mortality. This change isn't an ontological one, but a physical one. In other words the "natural man" might best be considered in terms of the limitations our body places upon us along with the veil of forgetfulness wherein we don't remember anything prior to our birth. Why doesn't McMurrin address this? It is discussed in a variety of ways by nearly everyone.
The oddest comment by McMurrin is this one:
Most Mormon writers seem to have been unaware that in the classical theology men are not typically held responsible for Adam's sin, but rather their own original sinfulness which they possess by virtue of the "solidarity" of mankind in Adam as the progenitor of the race.
But this seems a subtle difference if it is a difference at all. If I am held responsible for the consequences of some act I did not do, then surely in a real sense I am being held partially responsible for the act. This seems to be the sense that King Benjamin speaks of in Mosiah 3:11. The idea is accountability for this nature. If we are ignorant, incapable or otherwise irresponsible, we aren't judged for this sin. It is when we are accountable so as to choose to follow our sinful nature that we are judged. This is fairly straightforward LDS doctrine. While it admittedly sometimes sounds like Pelagius, there are significant differences. Further, one of the obvious implications of the doctrine seems to be that many aspects of our fallen nature we are not judged for. It is our free choices, and not the consequences of Adam that make us sinful.
I also don't quite understand his comments about a "kind of Jansenist movement in Mormon academic circles that appears to be dedicated to the celebration of whatever Augustinian elements may be discernible in the scriptures..." I'm not sure what he is referring to, but I suspect this is a veiled aside at the rising neo-orthodoxy. He considers this a negativism in opposition to the positivism he sees in earlier Mormon theology (in opposition to the fundamental negativism in Protestantism, to use his words). Personally what I think he is trying to do is see his own particular brand of hopeful secular humanism in Mormonism. Yet, I think to make Mormonism a kind of humanism, as he attempts at various times, is really to misread both our theology as well as our politics. There are similarities, to be sure. But I think how McMurrin deals with them is unfortunate.
I'd say that the rest of the first section, in which he attempts to deal with the Mormon notion of spiritual death is especially muddled and confused. So I'll not say much about it. It is quite bad.
The next section on Grace is very muddled as well. McMurrin argues that "notwithstanding the statements of some Mormon theologians the good of Adam's transgression" was primarily in establishing freedom and not setting the state for Christ's Grace. Yet it seems that the two are intrinsically intwined in LDS theology and are part of one overall plan. We are free to choose between good and evil with Christ's grace and Adam's fall making that possible. Alma 42 seems a rather well known sermon on this. Certainly this conception of Grace is in terms of the purpose of Grace, somewhat different from the Protestant from of Christianity. Mormon views of Grace are very people-centered, an expression of God's love as enabling a plan for his children to maximize their potential. While I could be wrong, I'm not sure that appears in most other forms of Christianity. At least McMurrin gets that difference right at the end. The point, for a Mormon, is not our dependence on God, but God's attempt to bring us to eternal life. The focus is not man on God but God on man.
Responses to other chapters in McMurrin's The Theological Foundations of the Mormon Religion can be found on our Reading Club page.
Clark, you just won't give McMurrin an inch, will you? I'll post longer comments on this reading on my blog today or tomorrow, but I think the muddle and confusion you attribute to McMurrin is a reflection of the muddle and confusion of the LDS position on original sin, spiritual death, and grace. One can support almost any position by cites from the BoM and various GA quotes. To discuss "LDS theology" McMurrin of necessity refers to classical Mormon thought or orthodox Mormon thought. Sure, one can always cite BoM or D&C verses that suggest a different view or find an influential Mormon thinker who sketches an alternative take on doctrine, but that's not McMurrin's fault.
This is no different from the fact that the Biblical text supports a broad range of theological views. In that sense, there is a whole range of "LDS theologies." To me, it appears McMurrin is discussing something like mainstream "classical" Mormon doctrine, viewed theologically and compared with orthodox Christian theology. It works for me.
Dave, if there was a single ubiquitous "Mormon theology" I'd probably agree with you. However we basically have, in the era McMurrin was writing, a wide range of views. We have the Pratts, we have the Brigham Young class of views, we have the Widstoe, Talmage, Roberts view, we have the neo-orthodoxy and then a few other minor views to boot. That's a lot of variety and I don't think McMurrin makes much of an attempt to deal with it. I can accept that he is writing before the big focus on grace that started probably in the 1980's. But most of the big focus was as much a part of trajectories from earlier decades as it was looking at more traditional theology among Protestants and trying to find what Mormons could take and what they ought to reject. (Thinking here of Robert Millet's excellent work on grace - undoubtedly in part influenced by his growing up in Louisiana and the debates that raged there)
What bothers me is that within all the pre-1960 writers there actually is a lot more on grace and sin than McMurrin engages with. Especially in the Pratts and Young. There is a whole different way of looking at the question entailed by materialism that is fascinating that he sort of ignores. What bothers me is that this section tends to be biased overly by a "search for humanism." i.e. he has this idea that Mormonism is akin to the traditional humanism he sees as so healthy for society.
I don't know, perhaps it is just me. But the early sections and this one really do seem fairly incomplete in many ways. There is so much more there. The other sections I covered I didn't think McMurrin was that bad on.
I've closed comments in order to avoid spam since I don't check this older blog as much anymore.
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