Even though I find McMurrin's book more than a little overrated, I've tried to be fair to it. It's a valid criticism of my comments to point out that McMurrin is dealing with Mormon theology as presented in Mormonism and not what is entailed from various doctrines. The fact that he was writing in the late 1950's and early 1960's adds to that. The "renaissance" in academic studies of Mormonism, both within the church and outside of the church came a few decades after McMurrin wrote his text. I don't think this necessarily means the criticisms of the text aren't valid, mind you. It simply explains why McMurrin's text is problematic. It is just too dated. Nowhere is this more apparent than on his section on evil.
McMurrin simply wrote before recent studies on the logical problem of evil. Most notably most think that Alvin Plantinga successfully dealt with it via a free will defense. Of course there is far more to the problem of evil than merely the logical problem of evil. (Basically the question of how there can be evil if God is all powerful and could eliminate it) The natural problem of evil basically points out that all evil isn't just evil acts by free actors. Rather there are evils like famine, pestilence and other such occurrences. While Christians can always appeal to the fall from the Garden of Eden, it seems to beg the question of why Adam's children can justifiably be punished for the sin of Adam in terms of natural evils.
Now of course Mormons have answers to all these issues about evil. We see evil as inherently useful for growth. Thus allowing evil to exist in the short term may be beneficial in the long term. This view of the utility of evil is possible, in part, because Mormons reject creation ex nihilo and believe that each human soul, in some sense, always existed. God thus is limited in that he can't do anything logically possible, simply because there are other eternal uncreated beings. One can trace through the logic of this situation to see that if God wants these uncreated beings to maximize their potential, he can't do it by fiat. He has to work and develop them in terms of their free will.
The Mormon perspective is thus different from the free will defense in that free will, however ontologically taken, isn't given to individuals but is innate in some sense. God of course can give agency, but that appear to be the environment an agent finds themselves in rather than an ontological giving. Further the Mormon view that God's aim is to maximize these individual's and to make them like him, also changes how we view evil. That view of progress really isn't the aim of God in many other Christian theologies. Yet it significantly affects how we view evil.
Getting back to McMurrin's text, I think he establishes a lot of these points. Further I think he is more or less correct in contrasting the Hegelian absolutism of God with American pragmatism like William James. To McMurrin, evil thus arises out of free will or at least God limiting himself (which may, as for Mormons, entail more than simply the limiting to allow free will).
The biggest point that McMurrin makes is the contrast between predestination inherent in strong senses of divine sovereignty and the Mormon view where free will is independent of God. Calvinists, for instance, who believe all human actions originate in God, still accept Plantinga's free will defense for the problem of evil. Yet to many skeptics, the fact that these acts originate in God suggests that God truly hasn't allowed a robust free will that removes God's responsibility for evil. I confess I don't know how Calvinists respond to this, and it is a big question I've long had towards Christian compatiblists. But most Christians who hold such beliefs don't seem to see it as a problem. In contrast, I think most Mormons see the very notion of predistination with extreme distaste. It certainly goes against our view of what freedom consists of.
An interesting implication of all this is that while Calvinists and some Mormons may both be compatibilists, how we view the meaning of free will within compatibilism is quite different. Specifically I don't think Mormons would consider Calvinist free will as really being free will.
McMurrin, of course, argues Mormonism entails a commitment to strong senses of free will. (In that he and Blake Ostler are probably agreed) McMurrin points out that Mormons often assert what he sees as incompatible assertions. (i.e. simultaneously asserting omniscience, omnipotence, and multiple such free beings) However McMurrin points out that "absolute" in Mormon thought tends to mean absolute within a given system. Thus it is inherently limited by the limitations of that system rather than being a true absolutism. Put an other way, Mormon absolutism, for McMurrin, ought not be taken as ontological absolutism but what we might call a political absolutism.
The big issue thus appears to be the Mormon linguistic adherence to various sorts of absolutism while simultaneously in context appearing to deny the ontological sense of those words. I'm not convinced this is a bad thing - especially if the ontological sense of these terms entered in via Hellenistic thought. However it does become problematic discerning Mormon ontological senses when the terms are so much more vague in their denotation.
The final claim McMurrin makes, is a rather important one that he unfortunately does not spend much time on. Is evil real? Evil, in the Augustinian and neoPlatonic sense is simply the absence of God. i.e. if you fall short of what you could be. Mormonism appears, for McMurrin, to entail there being a real evil. Exactly what McMurrin means by that isn't clear. I think he means it in a more pragmatic or utilitarian sense. I don't think he reifies evil. (Makes evil a "thing") Indeed he does leave the discussion saying that evil is a mystery.
As I started out saying, McMurrin's work is more than a little dated. I think that in particular, the last decade, has seen a lot of analysis of Mormon finitism, as well as perhaps questioning of how to take absolutism.
Responses to other chapters in McMurrin's The Theological Foundations of the Mormon Religion can be found on our Reading Club page.
I've closed comments in order to avoid spam since I don't check this older blog as much anymore.
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