I've sadly neglected McMurirn too long. I finished the sections of the main part of the book. The rest of the book consists of two supplementary essays. The first is on the thesis that God is a person, in the full sense of that term. It is vastly superior to the main section to the book. I'm not sure it is superior enough to make the volume worth purchasing. But it really is quite good. The basic problem is one McMurrin has touched upon several times before. The God of the philosophers is primarily an impersonal entity constructed to solve philosophical problems and to be behind existence itself. Yet the being described in the Judeo-Christian scriptures is very much a personal entity, frequently discussed in very anthropomorphic terms. How do you reconcile these?
The more cynical among us would suggest that traditionally theology, especially the sort conducted by philosophers, has downplayed the persons as persons. Even the meaning of person in the traditional Trinitarian formulation makes one wonder whether the hypostasis as persons is really a person in our regular sense of the word. What exactly is a person? It seems that far too many theologians subscribe to something like Aquinas' definition. "Person signifies what is most perfect in all nature - that is, a subsistent individual of a rational nature." That focus on rationality and mind is generally how the more philosophically inclined have viewed person. It lets them keep the idealism that passed from Plato into Christianity. Yet, I wonder if that view of person as intellect and will really would convince anyone? I find it hard myself to reconcile with my view of person.
McMurrin does a great job in this whole essay comparing and contrasting the very personal Gods of the ancient world, especially among the pre-philosophical Greeks (i.e. Zeus and the other anthropomorphic deities) with the more "absolutist" Gods of the philosophers as first cause, ground of being, and so forth.
Can they be reconciled? I don't think Mormonism attempts to. Indeed I think it basically separates the two and says little or nothing about the God of the Philosophers. My personal opinion is that Mormonism is quite content to accept that there is Being and so forth, but views it in a fashion more in line with how an atheist would. God is quite different from the absolute or impersonal (in the more traditional sense of the term). Further we understand God, not because of philosophical questions of existence, cause, ground, or so forth. Rather we understand God from a basic phenomena of relating with God in personal terms.
Unfortunately McMurrin never really addresses the Mormon solution to any of this. While this essay is included in his book on Mormonism, it really isn't about Mormonism at all. Instead it focuses in on this tension between the personal and the impersonal. It is quite good as a brief overview of how the tension has been dealt with. (Typically by seeing God as more than personal, or arguing that the absolute must include the personal within it) I'll not go through the various figures. Probably the two who pop up the most in LDS theological discussions are Martin Buber and Josiah Royce. Tillich is there as well, although I've only encountered him in a negative fashion in LDS discussions. (Usually with a brief digression into his rather interesting personal life filled with sexual debauchery)
Responses to other chapters in McMurrin's The Theological Foundations of the Mormon Religion can be found on our Reading Club page.
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