A blog I wasn't familiar with, Defensor Veritatis linked to my post from a few months back on whether Mormons are Arians. In his comments he linked to one of his posts on Mormons and deification. Since there are, in my opinion anyway, a few misunderstandings I thought I'd chime in with my own comments. I should add that in terms of Patristic parallels Blake's far more knowledgeable than I. To me that is kind of a moot issue since Mormons already think that Christianity was apostate by then. So I tend to think that the Patristic parallels at best establish rhetorical points to and fro on the issue of the legitimacy of Mormonism for apologists.
Anyway, off to Brad's post. I'll just quote the parts I have quibbles with. Once again I'm not approaching this in terms of what the Patristics did or didn't believe. I'll just stick with what I think the range of Mormon beliefs are and what philosophical problems there might be. I should note in passing that it appears Brad is a gentleman who converted to Catholicism from Mormonism. (My apologies if that isn't quite right) So he clearly has some familiarity with Mormonism.
To LDS, God is of the same species as humans, but more advanced, like a butterfly to a caterpillar. We donÕt believe any such thing. If we did, it would make no sense to object to humans becoming beings exactly like God is.
I'm not sure that's correct. I think the way to think of LDS belief is in terms of the theology of Christ in traditional Christianity. Mormons conceive of the dual nature as applied to all people. Thus, in a certain sense, the divine is within all of us. However we don't let that divine nature rule us. But to use the metaphor of species would probably be incorrect. I think Mormon theology requires there be no ontological gap between our nature and God's. But I think the analogy of same species is simply too misleading, although clearly Mormons do use that analogy in some circumstances. (Reminds me of the Gnostic Gospel of Phillip where speaking of a kind of divinitization they say "a horse begets a horse and a dog begets a dog and you are the children of God" or words to that effect -- too lazy to look up the exact passage.)
I should add though that even within LDS theology there are differences. Some tend to reject the King Follet Discourse theology and put a much wider division between man and God that probably is closer to what one finds in traditional Christian theology. That is we're made divine-like but there is still a massive divide between us and God. But certainly the more traditional Mormon theology, believed by most Mormons, sees us through Christ's atonement becoming like him. That is of the two natures unified and perfected.
But rather, we believe that God is truly infinite, not caused by anything else, not composed of anything pre-existent, not needing anything to bring other things into being.
However Mormons would say that both humans and God are already infinite. This isn't even that unique. Levinas for instance takes a similar tract in seeing the Otherness of God as a way of thinking the Otherness of other minds.
Thus, becoming like God isnÕt a matter of ageing, advancing, or metamorphosing. Thanks to the Son assuming a human nature like ours and entering into Heaven, we can likewise become as much like God as our finite human nature allows.
I think all Mormons would agree with the above. The point I think a Mormon would make is that if Jesus as fully human had a finite human nature that this then can't limit what a human can be as God since Jesus was fully God. It seems to me that to take your line of thought ends up denying the incarnation.
That's not to say that a Catholic can't come up with an other objection. I think that ultimately the main point of difference is over creation ex nihilo as I've said many times. Once you reject that doctrine then I think a lot of the rest of Mormon theology follows fairly naturally.
Hello Clark,
Thank you for the comments, but I have to correct you. I'm afraid you are wildly mistaken; I'm in no way a gentleman. A more minor correction: I was raised Catholic. My interest in and knowledege of Mormonism came about from falling in love with a sweet, beautiful, and (alas!) Mormon girl.
Where I am, it's 2:30 AM, and I am retiring for the night, but I'll study the rest of your comments in the morning.
Clark: I think that ultimately the main point of difference is over creation ex nihilo as I've said many times. Once you reject that doctrine then I think a lot of the rest of Mormon theology follows fairly naturally.
I must admit, I've never understood the importance of this. Forgive my ignorance of Mormon doctrine, but what is really at stake here? What's the difference between a god creating the universe ex nihilo and a god creating the universe out of some (non-nothing) substance?
Clark: I believe that the statements made at Defensor Veritatis about the LDS view of deification are not merely confused -- but fail to grasp what is essential. Individual humans don't simply mature into gods or just naturally grow into them the way a son becomes like his father if he just hangs around long enough. There is a category difference between a divine person and an individual person -- and the very notion of a single divine person in isolation already exposes the error. The difference between "God" and mere humans is analgous to the difference between hydrogen and oxygen as elements and water as a molecular compound. To be divine is to be in a certain relation from which the divine nature emerges because of the kind of beings that we are. We participate in the divine nature -- we don't simply have it by being human. However, inherent in our nature is the possibility of divinity because we are beings capable of love -- but love in the divine sense of indwelling sharing of our life, light and intelligence. Thus, an individual human cannot be divine because the divine nature is necessarily a relation of persons having the nature that we do and a new nature -- a relational nature -- emerges if we keep the commandment to love one another as the divine persons love each other and us. Divine nature is thus necessarily a relationship of divine persons who are divine because: (a) they have a capacity for love and for divinity; and (b) they have freely chosen to be in such a loving relationship.
Further, the Patristic Fathers (and the Cappadocians after them) used language that would lead us to believe that persons become fully what God is, but their language is misleading at points and what they have in mind falls far short of fully sharing the divine attributes. Further, they all adopted the notion of creatio ex nihilo and placed mere humans on the created side of the ontological gap so that what God is must be so far different from what amy created being could possibly be that the notion that humans share the divine nature becomes very attentuated. Of course, the logical tension in asserting that the single person Christ is at once divine and human becomes very logically difficult to maintain given such assumptions.
The difference between LDS views and "orthodox" views is that in the LDS view humans are fully capable of participating in the divine nature by having the very same unity and relationship that the Father, Son and Holy Ghost have to each other and in so doing to share fully in the divine attributes of a fulness of knowledge, power and presence. Humans don't have the same unity or the same attributes in orthodox thought but merely share eternal life because God sustains them in existence eternally. In the end, in the orthodox tradition "divine nature" means nothing more than "God's power keeping a mortal in existence eternally." It is't really divine nature at all in the sense of participating in the attributes of divinity.
BTW I have two chapters in these issues in the third volume of Exploring Mormon Thought.
Michael, there end up being quite a few implications. For one if creation ex nihilo isn't true then there are more limits on God than most Christian theologians are comfortable with. I think that, moreso than anything else, is why they dislike Mormon theology. There is a drive to make God completely unbound. I think though that there are always tensions in traditional theology that make that impossible. Within Mormon theology there just isn't that drive. The debate within Mormonism might best be seen over how limited he is. Thus the debate over foreknowledge (where Blake and myself differ) and the debate over whether God is a first cause in any sense.
The other theological implication is pre-mortality. Mormons accept a kind of immortality of the soul that goes in both directions. Many Jewish theologies have this, but it's pretty alien to most Christianity. Being materialists this is different from say Platonic immortality of the soul, but offers a lot of logical similarities.
The biggest benefit of rejection of ex nihilo is with the problem of evil. It resolves rather nicely the logical problem of evil and opens up fruitful avenues in the other kinds of problems of evil. For instance the main theodicy within Mormonism is that this life is necessary for our development. Because we are pre-existent souls not ultimately created by God, God is best seen within a potter metaphor. Thus God is limited in how he can change us. So both our mortal existence as well as the atonement are seen as being necessary due to God's limitations with respect to souls. Whereas I've typically felt that this life and the mission of Jesus didn't make a whole lot of sense within traditional Christianity.
There are other implications, such as in our ability to become like God.
Blake, thanks for the comments. I'm not sure what's holding up my Amazon purchase. I actually went to the local Barnes and Noble and Borders but surprisingly neither had your book. (I should call them since I think it would sell well in this area - far better than some of the books they have) I wonder if there are still distribution problems with Kofford.
Anyway, I've held off talking on the discussion of your book chapters until I get the book. Given all the delays with volume 2 I'll not ask when to expect volume 3. (grin)
One last one before I get back to painting and plumbing.
I think a common view within Mormonism is that Christianity went wrong fairly early and that ultimately the problem related to mixing Greek conceptions of God with Hebrew conceptions of God. (Although to be fair, that had been going on for more than a century before Christ) Thus the ultimate error of traditional Christianity, to many Mormon thinkers, is to equate Being with God. There really is a big divide between the two in Mormon thought whereas there isn't in most forms of Christianity. However unlike either Stoicism or the various Platonisms, Christianity took the approach of making an absolute division between God and creation, whereas in most Greek thought they are one in some sense.
So it's ironic that despite the main error (as Mormons see it) arising from Greek thought, the second biggest error (creation ex nihilo) is something fairly novel within Christian thought that undoubtedly upset the pagans terribly.
Some tend to reject the King Follet Discourse theology and put a much wider division between man and God that probably is closer to what one finds in traditional Christian theology. That is we're made divine-like but there is still a massive divide between us and God.
I'm not sure this follows. It would seem that a close reading of the KFD and the Sermon in the Grove would assert that there will remain a gap between Godhood (qua the Father) and humans in the eternities.
Could you clarify on that? The typical reading of the KFD is that while we may never reach the place of God the Father it is simply because he is eternally progressing as well. But we may reach the point where he is now.
If that is what Joseph Smith meant (an ontological gap), that is certainly not the way nearly every prominent commentator for over a century interpreted him to mean. Everybody from Brigham Young to John A. Widstoe was in the everlasting / eternal progression, "as God once was, man now is" camp. The ontological distinction, to the degree it is held at all, is an artifact of late twentieth century "neo-orthodoxy" (aka rolling back most aspects of Church doctrine to about 1835 and some to about 1535).
minus a few original thinkers and some PR considerations...
I recognize that it has been used to support that "as man is..." ideology. The text of the accounts, however, is rather quite explicit:
- God the Father came to Earth like Jesus did.
- When on Earth he "redeemed" that world.
- After this life plays out, Jesus will take the place of God the Father.
Unless you accept some sort of reincarnation and a physical embodiment of premortal Jesus, the couplet simply doesn't work.
Going to the original diaries regarding the sermon it seem fairly explicit that we will become Gods and sit on a throne. From the Clayton account:
You have got to learn how to be a god yourself in order to save yourself-- to be priests & kings as all Gods has done--by going from a small degree to another--from exaltation to ex--till they are able to sit in glory with those who sit enthroned.
And later
the saying they shall be heirs of God &c.--what is it--to inherit the same glory power & exaltation with those who are gone before. What did Jesus do. Why I do the things that I saw the father do when worlds came into existence.
And again:
That God himself--find himself in the midst of spirit and glory because he was greater saw proper to institute laws whereby the rest could have a privilege to advance like himself. I know that when I tell you those words of eternal life that are given to me
One could go on, but to argue that the KFD applies only the Jesus simply is to twist the reading a fair bit (IMO). That last quote in particular seems fairly key.
Clark, we are both familiar with the source materials. If you strip latter interpretation from both the KFD and the Sermon at the Grove, you are left with a very different approach than what you assert.
In the KFD Joseph describes two exaltations. One is that of Jesus Christ and His Father. This requires being a sacrifice for humanity. The other is for human biengs. He is always very careful to sepperate the two and no where does he assert that we humans will tread the same path that Jesus did and that all Gods qua the Father must do.
In the Sermon in the Grove he is even more explicit, describing again that Jesus is doing what his father had done before and that God the Father too had a Father in the same mould. Joseph then goes on as related in the Bullock account (abreviations replaced with words):
now says God when visited Moses in the Bush - moses was a stutt[er]ing sort of a boy like me - God said thou shalt be a God unto the children of Israel - God said thou shalt be a God unto Aaron & he shall be thy spokes. I believe in these Gods that God reveals as Gods - to be Sons of God & all can cry Abba Father - Sons of God who exalt themselves to be Gods even from before the foundation of the world & are all the only Gods I have a reverence for -
John said he was a King. Jesus Christ who hath by his own blood made us Kings & Priests to God. Oh thou God who are King of Kings & Lord of Lords.
We know very well what Joseph was alluding to. It is very evident from the text that there are two things happening and that while related we do not follow in Jesus' path.
I should also add that the Sermon in the Grove is generally viewed as being Joseph's clarification of the KFD. He was accused as a false prophet; so, Joseph gave the KFD as proof that he wasn't. When the doctrine of the KFD was used to attack his status as a prophet, he then reasserted the principles a couple months later in the grove to repudiate his accusers.
Considering how much time Brigham Young, the Pratts, and others spent with Joseph Smith, I am more inclined to accept their interpretation of what he believed than a strict exegesis of a text he never had a change to edit.
There is no question that the KFD has some problematic aspects. However, even granting the assumption that Heavenly Father played the same role on his world that Jesus Christ did, it does not follow that he was _ontologically_ different from his fellow men, or that Jesus Christ was either. Indeed the first half of D&C 93 and half a dozen New Testament scriptures weigh pretty strongly against that idea - especially D&C 93:19-20.
The idea that Christ was fundamentally a different sort of being than the rest of us is generally known as Docetism - in its pure form the idea that Christ was a divine personage who only took on the attributes of humanity as a matter of convenience. A common LDS "Docetist" commentary on Christ states that "he had power to lay down his life, and power to take it up again", i.e. he resurrected himself, no help required. For various reasons, that is a difficult position to defend - c.f. the whole debate about Kenosis.
Classical Mormon theology is generally monophysite or Eutychianist - i.e. in Christ (and in all of us) the human and divine natures are combined, a matter of degree rather than kind. D&C 93:20 is a classic expression of this perspective, i.e. that we may receive a fulness of grace and be glorified in Christ _as_ he is in the Father. D&C 93:13 is a pretty explicit contradiction of Docetism - namely that Christ did not receive of the fulness at first, but received it grace for grace. Combined the verses pretty explicitly teach that Christ is set a perfect rather than nominal example of the path we are to follow.
Contemporary Mormon Docetism is another one of those things that we appear to have imported from conventional orthodoxy, and oddly taken to a greater extreme than prevails in traditional Christianity - or in other words many contemporary Mormon commentators want to deny Christ's Human nature the same way the 5th Century Docetists did - something ironically that is the exact opposite of the position of Arianism on the matter (The Arians denied Christ's divine nature).
There is more to what Joseph Smith had to say though...
Just because Jesus Christ or his Father performed a greater role or made a greater sacrifice, and thus obtained a higher exaltation, does not mean they are ontologically different(c.f. Hebrews 11:35). Christ may have been granted special capacity to perform the Atonement (the temporal aspect of which is weak spot in LDS theology), but I don't think that a strong argument can be made that he had to be *ontologically* different to do that, even if prevailing opinion borders on that position in several respects.
Oddly Joseph Smith hardly mentions the Atonement in the KFD at all (perhaps realizing it was an issue that needed to be resolved before a proper explanation could be made). I haven't seen any evidence in TPJS that J.S. thought that Heavenly Father was a Savior-type figure on his world, so if you have a reference, please quote it here.
First, I am not certain that this was ever taught in the Anointed Quorum, or it would have likely been used by apostates to attack him before the KFD was given. Instead, apostates were generally shocked that Joseph went were he did. Furthermore, Brigham and the rest of the latter commentaters (most the twelve, council of fifty and 100 missionaries) were on their missions during this time.
The assertion that the premortal Jesus was not a God is a bit of a stretch, Mark. I think the general perseption is that section 93 is a comentary of Jesus mortal crescendo, not that of his premortal capacity. I think that an assertion that his being able to execute an atoning sacrafice is a difference of magnitude and not kind seems to me to be insupportable.
As for references to his sacrifice, the George Laub account (WoJS pg. 362):
Jesus Spake in this wise, I do as my Father before me did well what did the father doo why he went & took a body and went to redeem a world in the flesh & had power to lay down his life and to take it up again
From the Clayton account (WoJS pg. 357):
What did Jesus say Ñ as the father hath power in himself even so hath the son power to do what why what the father did, to lay down his body and took it up again.
...What did Jesus do[?] Why I do the things that I saw the father do when worlds came into existence. I saw the father work out a kingdom with fear & trembling & I can do the same & when I get my Kingdom worked out I will present to the father & it will exalt his glory and Jesus steps into his tracks to inherit what God did before.
From the Bullock account of the Sermon at the Grove (WoJS pg. 381):
I want you all to pay particr. attent. J. sd. as the Far. wrought precisely in the same way as his Far. had done bef Ñas the Far. had done bef.Ñhe laid down his life & took it up same as his Far. had done befÑhe did as he was sent to lay down his life & take it up again & was then committed unto him the keys &c I know it is good reasoning
...btw, do I need to do something special to get the blockquote feature to work?
Use it with explicit paragraph tags. It just assumes you're doing either HTML or plain text. So what's happening is you are putting the blockquote tag and then a return. But since you didn't put in explicit paragraph tags it's assuming you want it to create paragraphs based upon carriage returns. But that means you end up with an empty paragraph for your blockquote. (Look at the generated HTML) I should put in some more intelligence. I've just been too busy.
I simply don't buy the two exaltation theory as exegesis. The last paragraph I quoted is, as I said, key. God wants everyone else to "have a privilege to advance like himself." That would seem a very compelling argument against the two exaltations. Second he talks about "all the Gods" and never makes an explicit separation as you demand.
The part you quote from the Clayton account is interesting since that (and all the other accounts) seem to tie our exaltation and Jesus'. The Bullock account gives it as
how consoling to the mourner when they are called to part with a wife, mother, father, dear relative to know that all Earthly tabernacle shall be dissolved that they shall be heirs of God & joint heirs of Jesus Christ to inherit the same power, exaltation until you ascend the throne of Eternal power same as those who are gone before what Jesus did I do the things I saw my Father do.
Just to add, I do agree that Joseph was teaching that the Father was a Savior on an other world and his father on an other world before that. So in that sense there is a difference since we need a redeemer whereas the Father once was a redeemer. However the two exaltation claim is a separate claim. It claims not just this fact, but that when we become exalted we don't really share in the glory and fulness that Jesus does.
Now as you are aware there was speculation, tied to Brigham's A/G speculations, that we'd then need to be a savior for some world as part of our progression. I don't buy it, but that's how they reconciled it. I think the simpler explanation is to simply take Joseph at his word that we "inherit the same power, exaltation until [we] ascend the throne of Eternal power same as those who are gone before."
Clark, it would seem that this paragraph asserts that our exaltation, while tied to Jesus' (as the in the Sermon in the Grove (SitG) - by Christ we are made Priests and Kings), is the same as those who are "gone before." The Father went before Jesus. Who went before us? Well, as the SitG, it is those who are made Kings and Priests. Prophets, etc.
The SitG lays it out quite plainly (especially with reference to the Temple liturgy), that God qua the Father and God qua Moses (which we hope to be) are different.
Could you be more explicit (with quotes) because I read it as asserting quite the opposite. I simply don't see that paragraph as saying what you make it say without a bit of twisting. The problem is that the word "god" is key and it simply doesn't make any clear distinction of the sort you do. You are confusing a distinction of mission with a distinction of exaltation. Such a claim demands a bit of evidence since the prima facie reading clearly is that exaltation and God means the same when used in the text.
Clark, I am confused. You concur that Jesus, God the Father, and God the Father's Father all are Godhead material and follow the same pattern. Yet, you assert that our exaltation is not different. How is that? Are you saying that we are living some sort of Mormon antropic principle and it is just by chance that we have a succession of saviors in the Godhead?
I do believe that any glory we do get in exaltation is shared with Christ.
As I said you are confusing missions with glory and exaltation. It seems up to you to say they are the same.
If I read you right you are saying that since the Father was a savior and the Father before that then it follows that to be a Father one must be a savior. Is that correct? Thus we can never be fathers.
Ok. The extended Bullock account is as follows
you have got to learn how to be a God yourself & be a King & Priest to God same as all have done by going from a small capy to anr. from grace to grace until the resn. & sit in everlasting power as they who have gone before & God in the L D. while certn. indivals are proclaimg. his name is not trifling with usÑhow consoling to the mourner when they are cald. to part with a wife, mother, father dr. relative to know that all Earthly taber shall be dissolved that they shall be heirs of God & jt. hrs of J. C. to inherit the same power exaltn. until you ascd. the throne of Etl. power same as those who are gone bef. what J. did I do the things I saw my Far. do before worlds came rolld. into existence I saw my Far. work out his K with fear & trembling & I must do the same when I shall give my K to the Far. so that he obtns K rollg. upon K. so that J treads in his tracks as he had gone before.
So here he says that we need to become a god and a king and priest to god as others have done before. Then he goes on to explain how Jesus is following God the Father as he worked out his kingdom with "fear and trembeling" treading, "in his tracks." We simply don't do what Jesus did. So, what do we do?
From th Bullock account of the SitG speaking of our exaltation after talking about how the Godhead are disparate indaviduals:
They are exalted far above princ. thrones dom. & angelsÑ& are expressly decld. to be heirs of God & jt. heirs with J.C. all havg. et[erna]l. powerÑthe Scrip are a very strange doct.ÑI have an[othe]r. ScripÑnow says God when visited Moses in the BushÑmoses was a stutt[er]ing sort of a boy like meÑGod said thou shalt be a God unto the children of IsraelÑGod said thou shalt be a God unto Aaron & he shall be thy spokes. I bel. in these Gods that God reveals as GodsÑto be Sons of God & all can cry Abba FatherÑSons of God who exalt themselves to be Gods even from bef. the foundatn. of the world & are all the only Gods I have a reverence forÑ John sd. he was a K[ing]. J.C. who hath by his own blood made us K & P to God. Oh thou God who are K. of K's & Ld. of Lds.
Seems pretty strait forward that there is God qua the Father that requires being a Savior and then there is God qua King and Priest.
As to God the Father's Father from the SitG
hence if J. had a Far. can we not believe that he had a Far. alsoÑI despise the idea of being scared to deathÑI want you all to pay particr. attent. J. sd. as the Far. wrought precisely in the same way as his Far. had done bef Ñas the Far. had done bef.Ñhe laid down his life & took it up same as his Far. had done befÑhe did as he was sent to lay down his life & take it up again & was then committed unto him the keys &c I know it is good reasoning
If I read you right you are saying that since the Father was a savior and the Father before that then it follows that to be a Father one must be a savior. Is that correct? Thus we can never be fathers.
Yep
Again, it does not follow from the proposition that Heavenly Father was a Savior on his world and the KFD that Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father were a different race of beings. There is all sorts of scriptural evidence for us following in Christ's footsteps and becoming joint heirs of the *fulness* with him.
There is little or no direct evidence to suggest that spirits are divided into a permanent class system. Indeed how can we in any real sense call Jesus Christ our elder brother, or our Father in heaven a father, if they are fundamentally unlike us. It is really Jesus Christ Superman, some sort of interloper from a higher race of beings? and our relationship to them merely some sort of adoptive formality? Or are we to suppose that Savior class figures just have some rare mitichlorien type genetic advantage and the rest of us were dumbed down to Epsilon minuses? Or does spiritual propagation naturally produce one true heir out of every one hundred billion or so, a king among drones, one with the Midas touch?
If anything classical Mormon theology has always been that we are natural heirs of the Father and joint heirs with Christ in a very real sense - to the point of ridicule of the creedalists who thought otherwise. Most of the early leaders took this quite literally. And whatever Brigham Young added to the Adam God theory - he said he was taught the original idea by Joseph Smith. And it is certainly pretty easy to read that sort of theogony right out of Joseph Smith's last discourses.
By the way, I thunk the proposition that Jesus Christ was fully God in the pre-mortal existence or at any time prior to the resurrection is completely untenable, for a long list of reasons. He hadn't been resurrected, he hadn't been tempted, he hadn't suffered, he hadn't progressed from grace for grace until receiving a fulness, and on and on. From an LDS Christological perspective, it hardly makes sense for him to rank any higher than Adam, Noah, or the other prophets until his earthly mission was complete.
If Christ was fully God before he was born, then as far as he was personally concerned, his whole mortal mission was basically superfluous, as the Docetists have it. Does mere pain and suffering accomplish anything (assuming he felt it at all, being fully God and all)? Why not just lock himself in a closet for a few hours? Does his example mean anything if he was a true Superman - literally incapable of sin, whose power was at his fingertips (not just at his beck and call) from the moment he was born? That is a pretty pathetic example to me.
Why should he deserve an infinitely higher exalation if he was born with the ultimate silver spoon in his mouth? Just for condescending to associate with us plebians? When there was no real risk at all? Where his humanity was all a ploy to gain sympathy from the crowd, like an upper class guy who took the wrong freeway exit?
Having one everlasting eternal Father is one thing, having a race of inherently superior beings who had no real chance of failure is something else entirely - something that levels the power of Christ as an example to all mankind to something of much lesser significance, and idea that reduces the Atonement to a bad day in the salt mines.
Please forgive the typos...
Again, it does not follow from the proposition that Heavenly Father was a Savior on his world and the KFD that Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father were a different race of beings.
How much more different would they have to be? Moreover, I think your definition of the fullness and Joseph's may be divergent.
There is little or no direct evidence to suggest that spirits are divided into a permanent class system...and our relationship to them merely some sort of adoptive formality?
Perhaps like the premortal Lord being greater than them all (a la abraham)? or as John Taylor liked to preach:
It was not a law of carnal commandments and ordinances, but "the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus, which makes us free from the law of sin and death;" the law of the Gospel whereby men were adopted into the family of God, and became "heirs of God and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ," that "if we suffer with him," as he once said, "we shall also reign with him, that both may be glorified together." It was a thing that adopted them into the family of God, and made them heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ his Son (JD 14:326)
I agree that traditional Mormon theology reads Joseph Smith in a manner that I find incoherent. The discourses on theogony (KFD & SitG) in the last months of his life can be interpreted to mean many different things (e.g., this discussion). I see why Multiple Mortal Probations and Adam-God were embraced by many; because if you don't want to give up on certain concepts, it is the only place to land. I'd rather just take Joseph at his word.
As I said Jonathan, I think you are confusing particular missions or callings with exaltations. The texts just don't make the distinction you are making. You are inferring into the text because of the description of Jesus, as I said.
So I understand why you are saying what you are saying but I just can't agree with it. Certainly it's not clear in the text. At best we can make a distinction between ourselves and saviors but the idea that (to use your words) that this entails a God qua Father and God qua King seems a bit misleading since Joseph's theology of being a king, priest and god entails fatherhood. (IMO)
As you say, one way out is A/G speculation. But if you are going to make the separation you do then I think you end up naturally following down that road. It makes more logical sense of the text if you read the distinction. It would seem to entail that the only way to be a god the way your read the text is to be a savior, which was what the common 19th century Utah era theology taught.
To say you're just taking Joseph at his word seems a bit misleading. It seems you've found a possible contradiction and just take his word in such a way as to create an un-explicit division to make sense of one concept. Indeed a natural reading of the Bullock account would make Joseph teaching the 19th century belief. And of course that's just what Brigham claimed and there are indications in other texts, such as the Nauvoo Expositor of that as well.
I do agree that there is some father character in the station of King. But, I'm not sure that I am following you, Clark. If Joseph gives several examples of a Godhead and they all follow the same pattern, it is reasonable to conclude that this pattern is normative, no?
As far as the Nauvoo Expositor goes, I think this goes back to my previous comment that the Laws seem to be talking the KFD and analyzing it. There aren't any apostates attacking Joseph on this matter before the KFD and all those close to Joseph who noted in their journals seem to recognize the KFD as new stuff. It would follow that Joseph didn't teach this stuff in the Anointed Quorum. William Law had no priviledged access to the doctrine.
How do you propose the humans enter the "tracks" of the Savior and the Father?
Unfortunately, theology is at least as much a matter of taste as it is a matter of logic. Certainly the considerations that motivate contemporary "neo-orthodoxy" weigh pretty strongly in the favor of a caste system theogony, or even an ontological separation. However, that is certainly a "new" way of reading Joseph Smith, a significant departure from more than a century of prior practice.
The other way to go is significantly less "orthodox" - it involves analyzing the characteristics that differentiate the mission of Jesus Christ from the mission of the rest of humanity. The Atonement provides a convenient starting point because the conventional account is incoherent for roughly the same reason as the doctrine of a fixed future is incoherent - i.e. is is completely a-causal. A Process view of the Atonement fixes this problem and opens the door wide open to what I call the "distributed Atonement", the idea that Jesus is a representative of a larger class, a class of equals, true joint heirs by virtue of sharing the same load, a natural requirement for a similar exaltation, a duty largely (but not completely) performed in the post mortal state, a duty that the events of Gethsemane and the Cross merely pre-figure.
There are some scholars who are convinced that the whole New Testament was written on this theory, but it is certainly a decidedly un-orthodox view of the sort that makes Adam-God look like a walk in the park, politically speaking.
I think that Stapley is right that one must be a savior on a planet to become as the Father is. Joseph did teach that idea and logic seems to dictates that if we want to be as the Father is we must do as the Father did.
I also think that Clark and Mark are right that Joseph (and all his successors) taught that we can indeed become as the Father is.
Therefore, the only good solution I have come up with is to agree with Heber C. Kimball, Eliza R. Snow, a few Orsons, and others that our path through eternity includes multiple mortal probations. As I have discussed at some lenght at the Thang, the MMP solves these problems handily.
BTW -- what's up with your odd comment numbering Clark?
contemporary "neo-orthodoxy" weigh pretty strongly in the favor of a caste system theogony
Hm. I think we may have divergent view ow what Mormon neo-orthodoxy is. I understand it to refer to the JFSII-McConkie theology and exigesis. It seems to me these folks were really quite opposed to a "royal lineage of Saviors;" though, their acceptance of evangical protestantisms tools may lead to many accepting protestant beliefs.
Geoff, the numbering is done on the client level rather than the server level. I hope to fix that this weekend. It was a quick hack done in about 5 minutes. The problem is that it assumes my blog isn't popular. So if lots of people are commenting around the same time. . .
I understand Mormon "neo-orthodoxy" to be the general trend away from the previously prevailing "progressive" Mormon theology of Young,Pratt,Roberts,Widstoe et al in the direction of something more closely resembling classical Christian orthodoxy, notably Protestant Calvinism, by the piecewise adoption of similar, generally literalist and axiomatic modes of scriptural exegesis and argumentation.
This drift is most notable with regard to quasi-authoritative (e.g. CES) perspectives on human depravity, eternal progression, divine temporality, free will, the Creation, the Fall, the Atonement, plus a host of less significant exegetical issues. In a pinch, I call people who ardently defend the whole package "Mormon Calvinists", where Mormons ca. 1830 were more "Mormon Arminians", and moved dramatically in the direction of and beyond what is today called Open Theism (a neo-Arminianism) in the years afterward, until the trend started to reverse with the de facto rejection of Brigham Young's theology ca. 1915 or so, and the informal adoption of the body of conservative Protestant scriptural commentary at about the same time.
I remember back at BYU when I first encountered the "neo-orthodoxy" label. It encompassed such different views (Hugh Nibley, Chauncey Riddle, Bruce R. McConkie) that in my mind it is almost worthless as a category. (Much like postmodern, feminist or many other terms) If there is a tendency it is to focus on canonized texts as being more authoritative than 19th century sermons never put forth as official doctrine. However one can also see folks like Blake Ostler, Stephen Robinson and others who also make this move but who come to radically different conclusions for the so-called neo-orthodoxy. I also admit to finding applying labels like Calvinist or Arminian to any Mormon theology more misleading than helpful.
Certain religious "labels" are enormously useful for categorization purposes precisely because they do not describe some amorphous collection of coincidentally associated propositions (the way many "isms" do), but rather were historically differentiated by the adoption of some very well defined theological propositions.
TULIP for example neatly differentiates Calvinism not only from Catholic orthodoxy, but from the Arminians as well. That makes "Calvinist" uniquely descriptive of a well defined theological outlier. "Free will theism" identifies the primary point of departure of the Arminians from Calvinism, making Arminianism uniquely descriptive of a spectrum of positions from that of Arminius to Open Theism, with Methodism and much of early Mormonism in between.
The degree of belief in human depravity characterizes a spectrum of Christian theologies with Calvinism at one end (The T (total) in TULIP), and various forms of nineteenth and twentieth century Christian liberalism at the other.
The reason why Calvinist is uniquely useful as a descriptive term is because of the incredible extent to which it forms a logically interlocking set of propositions, to the degree that those who interpret the scriptures the way Calvin did find his conclusions hard to avoid.
"neo-Calvinist" is much more descriptive than "neo-orthodox", the latter being ambiguous with regard to which orthodoxy it is referring to. One might say "neo-Arminianian", but Arminianism is identified as a liberal departure from Calvinism, so it is rarely used to describe any orthodox Christian instinct, instead it is normally used as "unit vector" pointing in the direction of Open Theism, such that "neo" is always more liberal, not less.
"Neo-orthodox" is a strange label to apply to Hugh Nibley. "Neo-socialist" is more like it. The defenders of "neo-orthodoxy" I know generally place Nibley at the other end of the LDS theological spectrum, politically at least. Without his reputation as a defender of the faith he would surely have been run out of BYU by the Benson-Wilkinson camp, comparable to the instinct of many Church leaders to excommunicate someone as unobjectionable as Sterling M. McMurrin.
To clarify my own position, I think there is a certain tension or inconsistency in the text. There are three approaches to the problem. The first is to deny one of the elements of contradiction. (i.e. only Jesus can be a Father) The second is to say that on this point there is a vagueness that needs to be filled in. The third is what I'll jokingly call the Hegelian approach and create a new doctrine to make a synthesis: i.e. saying there are two exaltations.
As I said I think this synthesis just doesn't work. Both because the quotes I mentioned simply indicate that we share the same exaltation. But also because I think we ought just adopt a degree of vagueness. i.e. we don't know how to make the reconciliation and to assume your reconciliation is what Joseph intended seems hard to justify. It might just be that Joseph was contradictory. (It wouldn't be the first time)
Mark, the popularity of the term arose primarily because of the book Mormon neo-orthodoxy: A crisis theology. It's been years since I read it. So I don't want to comment on its contents too much. But I'm pretty sure Nibley is included. Louis Midgley reviewed it although Midgley's reviews are often fairly polemical.
My sense, perhaps wrong, is that the whole neo-orthodoxy taxonomy arose primarily in response to McMurrin's view of Mormonism which was itself very superficial. While one could make an argument that all the neo-orthodoxy (including Nibley) adopt a kind of absolutism towards God, I'd be careful about how to take that. I suppose one might see it as a conflict over Open-theism.
This excerpt from Beckwith's The New Mormon Challenge discusses neo-orthodoxy as well. Of course I think Beckwith's analysis is wrong also.
I have read White's book and am generalizing his definition. I do not recall any convincing reason for including Nibley, and as a rule I cannot countenance randomly placing unrelated items in the same class - useful terms require functional definitions, not enumerative ones - otherwise one cannot extend them to new contexts.
The White derived definition of Mormon neo-orthodoxy given by Francis Beckwith is about as accurate a summary of White's perspective as you are going to find. I disagree to some degree with White's causative analysis, which is based on parallels with comparable developments in the Protestant world. However, his general characterization of the leading characteristics of Mormon neo-orthodoxy is generally accurate - a rejection of limited theism, an emphasis on human sinfulness and inability, and a distaste for the prior focus on the similarities between God and man in favor of an emphasis of the differences. The main point White errors on is the re-emphasis of the doctrine of grace, which is more an echo of a long time semantic dispute than an actual doctrinal change.
All of those points move Mormon theology away from a position most Christian commentators consider radically liberal, even Pelagian, headlong in the direction of Calvinist doom and gloom.
I do not deny by the way, that Mormon neo-orthodoxy was accompanied by some welcome developments, I am just stating my preference for functional rather than coincidental or even associative usage, and I do not see how Nibley figures in other than by coincidence, nor the re-adoption of the term "grace" except by association.
The dispute hangs on whose orthodoxy we are talking about. In the Protestant world, Calvinism is the very definition of orthodoxy. If we went back a millienia we might substitute Augustine. Aquinas, though the definition of orthodoxy in the Catholic world, will not do, because he defined a considerably more moderate position than Calvin on the very doctrines that differentiate both Calvinism and Mormon neo-orthodoxy from their immediate predecessors, though certainly to a lesser degree in the latter case.
Regardless, the "orthodoxy" in Mormon neo-orthodoxy cannot generally refer to Mormonism ca. 1830, or even a renewed emphasis on the canon alone - the scriptures are simply not specific enough to make the necessary theological conclusions, not without adopting some sort of over-arching interpretive scheme at any rate. The proper way to interpret the canon is precisely what is under dispute in the debate between the Calvinists and the Open Theists, or between the adherents of Mormon theological progressivism and the diehards of Mormon "neo-orthodoxy".
The salient matter is that the latter dominate BYU and CES and apparently the ecclesiasticum of the Church, to the near total exclusion of those who headlined LDS theology as recently as seventy years ago.
I think you are mistaken in your chategorizations, Clark. First, the critique of what you label as the synthetic approach fits quite nicely with Joseph's teachings about the Temple liturgy and how it relates to exaltation. I think calling it a novel synthesis in not therefore accurate.
I would add to your list of approaches at reconcilliation:
1. Deny contridictory elements
2. Dual (or many as implied by later authors) exaltations
3. Multiple mortal probations
4. Live with the contridiction
As mentioned I find your reading of the text for a unified and equal exaltation implausible. I find living with the contridiction or denying certain elements quite unsupportable. So, we are left with MMPs, which I don't see as being valid, or different exaltations.
As I mentioned, I find tremendous support for different exaltations in period teachings on the Temple and Sealings. I do appreciate the explication of your position. Thanks.
Please forgive these interruptions into a thread that is largely centered around other things.
And, of course, thanks for your patient answers.
Clark:Because we are pre-existent souls not ultimately created by God, God is best seen within a potter metaphor. Thus God is limited in how he can change us. So both our mortal existence as well as the atonement are seen as being necessary due to God's limitations with respect to souls.
So, if I understand this right, God the potter didn't create the clay. Presumably, the clay then was created by whatever Creator created God. If this is the case, two questions arise:
a) is Mormonism essentially a late variation of Gnosticism?
b) like all gnosticisms, haven't we just bumped the problems (of evil, etc.) up a level? That is, Why did the presumably perfect (ultimate) creator create an imperfect demiurge and imperfect clay?
Michael (#39), Mormonism holds that matter is self-existent, and generally interprets the word "create" in the sense of "organize". Time, space, and intelligence (of some sort), and natural law (of some sort) are likewise held to be self-existent. Some accounts assert the self-existence of agents or primal persons in general, others just the self-existence of the person of God himself. No one created God - he has necessary being, just as in other Christian theologies. There is no consensus as to how God's "intelligence" (soul) gained a "body" - some hold he always had it, others that he had a mortal tenure similar to that of Jesus Christ at some point.
Gnosticism is so ill defined that it is easy to find superficial similarities. Joseph Smith certainly did not study 3rd century Latin or Greek texts.
I should add that the devil (Satan) is held to be a personal spirit of the same genus as everyone else, who led an organized rebellion against God. And like every other person, he is considered to be a free agent responsible for his own actions, not a being created by God to fulfil some inscrutable higher purpose, as some theologies have it.
Michael, there are some vague similarities between Mormon Theology and Gnosticism, but on the important matters we're polar opposites. In terms of theology Gnostism is horribly anti-materialistic going so far as to say having a body is evil and must be escaped. Mormons are probably the most materialistic group in Christianity. Not only do we think bodies are good (emphasizing the physical resurrection massively) but we even think spirits are material. The Gnostics thought the God of the Old Testament was an evil demiurge who created matter, as opposed to Jesus. Mormons think Jesus was the God of the Old Testament (for the most part anyway) and that this world is good.
The similarities tend to only be to a certain kind of Gnosticism (the Valetinians -- hope I spelt that right) who were a little less extreme than the other Gnostics. So we do value the role of knowledge and there are some parallels in ritual although once again even the Valetinians tend to see it as much more allegorical and anti-materialistics than Mormons. So Mormon apologists do make a lot of use of The Gospel of Philip which was unknown by Joseph Smith. So, for instance, Mormons place a big deal on marriage which is done in a mirrored room (representing eternity due to the visual effect) off of the Holy of Holies in our temples. Famously Jesus does the same thing in the Gospel of Philip. Of course as I mentined, I think most scholars see this as much more allegorical whereas a Mormon reading it would see it as an element of original Christianity that survived in a corrupted form amongst the gnostics, only misinterpreted. Likewise Mormons, like the gospel of Philip believe in a kind of deification of man. (Also similar to what one finds in the main hermetic texts of the era) But unlike the Gnostics or Hermeticists Mormons see this in a fairly literal and materialistic sense. It isn't conceived of in mystic or platonic terms.
Like the Platonists, the Gnostics had an immortality of the soul. But as I mentioned the Mormon view of materialism pretty well renders the immortality as significantly different. It's nothing like Plato's conception.
Regarding the ultimate creation, Mormons actually end up taking a position more akin to the atheists that existence just is and doesn't require a creator. This also leads to an interesting existential tendency within Mormonism. (IMO)
As for the problem of evil, by saying existence just is, one can really resolve evil quite nicely. Existence precedes essence and God can't in any way be held accountable for evil. Rather God is doing the best he can with the chaotic world he already finds himself in. Even the evils of this particular world can (and are) typically be seen as God doing the best he can while trying to teach the beings in this world how to be better. i.e. evil in this world is primarily seen as a kind of pedagogical necessity due to God's limitations due to being-in-the-world.
Jonathan, I think we'll just have to agree to disagree. I think the hermeneutic principle that one should always assume everyone understands everything they say and don't make vague or contradictory statements to be problematic. Thus I reject what one could call the Hegelian tendency in terms of trying to understand what someone's intents are.
Certainly what you outline is a reasonable logical reading, as are several others. But this to me simply points out that theologically this is a vague point. I definitely agree most people don't like vagueness and indeterminateness in theology. But that to me is what leads to most theological errors. I don't mind vagueness in the least on these matters. So to me what is valuable (outside of the historical issues) is seeing the range of possibilities entailed by vagueness.
Mark: The notion that Christ was fully divine before becoming mortal is stated so many ways in LDS scripture that it is simply established doctrine as a far as I am concerned. However, that belief doesn't ential Docetism for the simple reason that there is a kenosis or emptying of the divine attributes in their fulness when Christ becomes mortal. If the fulness of divinity arises from being in a fulness of relationship with the Father, as I argue, then when the relationship becomes emptied by becoming mortal, then so do the divine attributes and their expression. Have you read ch. 14 of the first volume of Exploring Mormon Thought where I discuss these issues and eludicate a kenotic view of Christology? I believe that such a view more than adequately answers your arguments and concerns expressed here at least.
Clark: Rather God is doing the best he can with the chaotic world he already finds himself in.
Wow, this is news to me-- I hadn't realized you had a non-omnipotent, non-creator god. Very interesting, indeed.
Clark:Regarding the ultimate creation, Mormons actually end up taking a position more akin to the atheists that existence just is and doesn't require a creator. This also leads to an interesting existential tendency within Mormonism. (IMO)
Stranger and stranger. If you really believe that existence precedes essence, why bother with the weak god at all? Wouldn't Occam's razor lead you to Sartrean atheism?
Michael: Weak compared to what? Maximal Power doesn't require creation ex nihilo. Further, doesn't Occam's razor slip on its own knife? Even if it didn't, the simplest explanation is the simplest given all of the data of experience, not just an idealized a prior hypothesis. Moreover, what is that any being could do that brings something about out of nothing?
Further, I guess you suggest that God isn't doing the best that he can? Isn't that the strangest suggestion of all then?
Blake, I have read the first volume, although it has been a while. I appreciate the conflict, I just think that several theological considerations weigh in favor of a more gradual progression of Jesus Christ from a state of first among equals to full blown divinity after the resurrection. Mostly a conventional interpretation of the KFD and a comparable reading of several related New Testament and D&C scriptures.
For example Philip 3:20-21 is unusually informative with respect to the value of having a resurrected body:
For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.
I read this scripture as explaining that it is Christ's resurrected body whereby he is able "to subdue all things". Thus whatever position of authority he occupied prior to and evn during his earthly ministry, the lack of a resurrected body was apparently a major limitation.
The other major argument is from D&C 93, which I read as introducing the doctrine that the KFD later became famous for, the idea that Christ is a perfect examplar who had to proceed grace for grace just as we, implying that _ontologically_ at least our pre-earth status was comparable, even if he was far more advanced than we. The NT "joint heir" scriptures are similar, though not as explicit.
The traditional pre-mortal life scriptures, and the various New and Old Testament accounts do not give much weight to the idea that Christ was a separate class of being than the rest of us. Indeed the accounts of Moses demonstrate much greater in the way of raw power and authority and the ones regarding Christ in his earthly state.
As far as Christ's pre-mortal state is concerned, I think the current identification of Jehovah, the God of the Old Testament with Jesus Christ is unusually strained with respect to a large number of Old Testament accounts as well as Moses 7. Jesus said, "If I witness of myself, my witness is not true". So why then would he be sent to prophesy of himself, in third person no less?
Part of the problem stems from trying to identify what exactly is it that Heavenly Father does, when there seems to be an overwhelming motivation to have Jesus Christ do everything except accept prayers. To me that is an artifact of trinitarian thinking, almost an explicit denial that there is any substantive parallel between us and Christ at all - where I view the doctrine that Christ is a true examplar who overcame the same obstacles we have to, as making much more sense of his mission here than the Jesus Christ "Superman" theory, or the Jesus Christ "didn't have to come, but condescended to anyway" theory.
Prior to his atoning sacrifice, I do not see why our relationship to him would be much different than ours to Adam, Enoch, or Moses. Indeed I would say that it is ultimately his sacrifice that makes Jesus Christ God unto us, i.e. God is our Father because of what he does, not because of what he is, by virtue of our voluntary relationship with him, where we indeed are free to choose another (however ineffectively) to be "our god". (cf. John 8:42, where Christ denied that God was the father of certain individuals, and said they had chosen the devil to be their father instead).
There is no question that this view does not agree with the established doctrine of the past century or so, of course, but I am not inclined to give the interpretation of the day too much weight. Reading the canon is hard enough without authorities turning the doctrine upside down every half century or so, with hardly a word of explanation.
I reviewed the pertinent chapter in your book Blake, and agree that there is a strong basis to identify Jehovah as Jesus Christ, so far as the Book of Mormon is concerned. Most parts of the Book of Mormon use titles for the Father and the Son virtually interchangably, and have Christ speaking as if he was the Father in first person so much that it is hard to make heads or tails of the matter. 3 Ne 20,21 seem the most clear, but even there there are unusual switches, some of which have lead to some rather exotic theories, such as the Father returning to earth to prepare the way for Christ's second coming, and so on.
I would rather not have to, but some sort of grand interpretive scheme seems the only way out of difficulties like this, and I prefer the generational eternal progression one implied by the King Follett Discourse, to the two class of being alternatives. Or in other words, I might say I am not convinced there is any ontological distinction between us and our Father in Heaven, in favor of a difference in degree of glory (perhaps infinitely so) rather than any difference in fundamental kind.
That naturally leads to the corollary that God is contingently God, by virtue of his relationship with us and other acquired attributes (including a glorified, resurrected body) not necessarily God. The proposition that one can temporarily discard necessary attributes doesn't make any sense.
I wouldn't say that there is, metaphysically speaking, a bright line between divine nature and human nature, but rather that divinity is an infinite continuum of increasing glory and honor founded on righteous influence and sacrifice (cf. D&C 29:36, 121:46). So rather than "Maximal Divine Power" I tend to fall into the "Necessary Divine Power" camp - i.e. what power does God actually require to accomplish his mission, and assuming he progressed to his current station, why would he delay the plan of salvation a moment longer?
Michael (#45), I think the reason we don't go down the Sartrean path is empirical. I tend to see Mormonism as entailing an extremely empirical and evidentiary approach to God. I know we've discussed that before in the context of faith. I think Mormons tend to see faith as a kind of trust in a known relationship.
Not all see it that way - there's a fair bit of diversity of thought in our religion - but I think it the typical view. Thus faith isn't a kind of Kierkegaardean irrational leap. Which isn't to say there aren't Kierkegaardean elements to Mormonism. Just that I think what most people see in Kierkegaard is a bit alien to Mormonism. (Some time I'll have to do a close reading of Derrida's The Gift of Death here and get into those elements)
I'm not quite sure of the appeal to Ockham's razor. I think that independent of the spiritual experiences Mormons claim justify our belief in Mormonism, that one would be led to a kind of atheism. And indeed several regular posters here are former-Mormons who moved into the atheist camp. I know some Mormons become Catholic or even Evangelical. But my own view is that if Mormonism isn't true there's not a lot to be had in any other religion.
As to weakness, as Blake said, maximal greatness probably shouldn't be called weak. Further I think Blake has some interesting arguments regarding what is greater, to tame a world one already finds oneself in or to create it from scratch. The so called value problem with Anselm. What is the "greater" in "a greater than which can not be conceived?" I tend to find the God who is being-in-the-world greater.
BTW, if you are interested, there's a great book on ancient Jewish views of God that I found particularly worth reading. It's written by a Jewish person and really isn't in any way a Mormon book. But it pretty well gives the Mormon perspective on God (IMO). It also has a lot to do with problem of evil. The book is Creation and the Persistence of Evil by Jon D. Levenson. It won quite a few awards when it was first published. It argues, fairly persuasively, that the early creation accounts have God in a pre-existing world (the waters of chaos) that God fights back. Further this battle is an ongoing one that has to be repeated and repeated again.
Even if you aren't interested in the Mormon overtones I think there are some interesting philosophical overtones relative to Derrida and Heidegger and creation/truth being an ongoing phenomena that has to be repeated. There's actually a book by a French woman whose name escapes me that wrote an entire study on elements of Judaism in Heidegger's thought. I've been meaning to pick it up. Obviously one can see these in Derrida and Levinas (although they have their Christian influences as well) but many people don't notice a very Jewish mindset in Heidegger. (Somewhat ironic, all things considered)
Mark: Book 3 of my Exploring Mormon Thought: God, the Godhead and Gods, explores these issues you raise here. I suppose I give a grand interpretive scheme -- but it isn't really that difficult. The word "God" is equivocal in all Christian usage. It can mean the one divine person, Yahweh, the Father, the Son and/or the Holy Ghost, each of them or all of them, the divine nature itself, or the Godhead, the divine council or the entire divne family in unity.
Christ relates to the Father as another, as not the same self that the Father is. That much is clear. Christ is actually the divine person who appears as God in the OT, but always and only as an agent of the Father or the Most High God -- but those in the OT didn't know it. The Gospel of John and Paul's genuine epistles repeatedly see Christ as the actual divine person who appears in the name and glory of the Father and as the Father's agent clothed with divine identity. In the Hebrew saliah tradition (the sent one), the agent was seen as identical to the one who sent the agent in all respects relevant to giving a message from the Sender. In the First Presidency Statement, it is called "divine investiture". Christ is both Father and Son by divine investiture, and the more I read this statement the more impressed I am with it.
So the one who appeared and gave the Law to Moses was in fact Christ. He acted on behalf of, manifested the glory of and in the name that was given to him by the Faher which was the Father's own name -- Yahweh. However, there is a Most High God, or a God of all other gods, and this God is uniquely the Father. The sons of God are often called elohim and sons of Elohim, but never sons of Yahweh. I think that is significant. Anyway, I've written about 500 pages on it so I'm pretty sure a post isn't going to do it justice.
However, since I don't adopt a harmonizing hermeneutic, since I don't believe that all writers of scripture must say the same things or even things that are logically consistent with each other, I'm not interested in some grand unifying scheme. I just want to see the explanations of the questions you raise as I take those writing scripture sensed them -- if they address them at all.
Mark: Or in other words, I might say I am not convinced there is any ontological distinction between us and our Father in Heaven, in favor of a difference in degree of glory (perhaps infinitely so) rather than any difference in fundamental kind.
How is an infinite difference in glory not a fundamental difference in kind?
Blake, do you view this "Most High God" as being what Joseph frequently refered to as "King of Kings?" In any case, I do look forward to your treatment on the Sermon in the Grove whether in volume 2 or 3.
Mark: I agree that there is not an ontological difference between the kind of persons that the divine persons are considered individually and what we are individually. We are of he same kind -- but there is a qualitative difference between what we are as mere individuals and what we are when in a relationship of indwelling glory.
J. I address the Sermon in the Grove in vol. 2 in the final chapter. I conclude that God the Father, the one to whom Christ prays as Father, is the God of all other gods, the Most High God, the one that is the most intelligent of all intelligences. There is only one such God in this sense to whom all others (including Christ) give all honor and glory -- unless they reject God and are damned in progression of their relationship with him and their individual growth. However, that doesn't mean that we cannot share fully in the same glory and we can have and be all that the Father has and is.
J. Stapley (#48),
First of all, the mathematical concept of infinity has radically advanced in the last century and half. No one can say any more that an infinite quantity is the highest quanity there is, because it has been demonstrated that there are an infinite number or degrees of infinity. The most well known infinity is aleph0, which represents the cardinality of the integers. Then there is a power set procedure that can take a set of any cardinality, and then take the cardinality of the set of all subsets of the original set. You end up with a new cardinality that is 2 to the power of the original cardinality. So if you plug in aleph0, you get a series of infinite cardinalities each of which is higher than the previous one. The term of art for the first set (of cardinality aleph0) is "countably infinite", and the successive power sets are "uncountably infinite".
In any case the point is that there are an infinite number of infinite quantities, giving some sense to the idea of the progression of a being with infinite characteristics, and to the idea that the gap can actually be closed. For all we know human beings may already be infinite to some lower degree than God is. Quantum mechanics is full of these kind of infinities - that is why active research is being done into devices that can for example factorize large numbers trillions of times faster than a traditional quasi-sequential computer. (The premise of the movie Sneakers was the discovery of such a device, making it trivial to break contemporary encryption schemes).
Now suppose, hypothetically, that God's infinitely higher capacity than us is based on comparable principles, infinitely parallel quantum perception or computation without some sort of infinite power supply. (Ever wondered what God's personal power budget is? Megawatts? Gigawatts? Or perhaps much smaller... How could he generate that kind of power continuously without an external energy source? - e.g. caloric consumption of some kind - he certainly does not create energy ex nihilo).
Blake, for various reasons I am inclined to the idea that the Most High God (El Elyon) is one person, the Father who presides over all others. (If that is not the case, either there is no unity among exalted beings, or there are multiple universes, or the topology of the universe is hyperbolic instead of quasi-flat).
That leads to typical boundary condition problems in a position like mine, where I assert that God (even the Most High God) became God and remains God on a contigent, relational basis. (c.f. Alma 42:13). For all I know that was millions of "eternities" ago - I do not see any reason why it would be metaphysically impossible though.
The irony about divine investiture theories is that they open the door wide open to all sorts of alternative interpretions of scriptural name/title/identity assertions. So if someone invokes divine investiture or Hebrew tradition to patch a small number of irritating inconsistencies, the way is open for much more sweeping substitutions, of the type that excited the LDS world in the second half of the nineteenth century until Wilford Woodruff told everybody to give it up.
In this case, by a serious application of divine investiture, it is impossible to distinguish between what Christ did and what the Father did in the Old Testament. All we can say is that Christ actively participated, which I do not dispute. What I do assert is that the Old Testament generally records the voice of the Father speaking about Christ in every place where the difference is discernable. Jesus may very well be the "medium" by which this message is delivered, but the voice is distinctively the Father's. I know of no instance where Christ speaks in first person about his own mission in the Old Testament, although there are a couple of instances in the Book of Mormon.
Given the overwhelming amount of comparable first person language from Christ in the New Testament and the Doctrine and Covenants, that seems rather odd. Ultimately though it is irrelevant - because divine investiture and the "speaking of future conditions or events in past tense" thing makes it difficult for us to come to any reliable conclusions about the degree of Christ's divinity prior to his mortal tenure.
All we can say is that he had not yet received a body as tangible as man's, nor a glorified resurrected body, but was in a position where he had plenipotentiary authority to speak in the Father's name, something somewhat difficult to distinguish in character from the period where Moses was granted similar authority (c.f. Exodus 7:1). That is real power and authority of course, but is subject to question whether it was truly his.
Now as far as interpretive schemes go, I have no problem with the idea that scriptural writers have a diversity of opinions. The point of a reasonable interpretive scheme (in my opinion) is not to blindly discard positions one does not agree with (if at all possible) but to interpolate a common thread giving each position comparable faith and credit as to the degree it represents the underlying gospel truth, with a reasonable balance of economy and aesthetics befitting natural law and a plan of divine origin.
Admittedly, in some cases that is impossible, and one has to take sides rather than approximate or synthesize. The divine investiture scriptures leave such broad room for flexibility one is often inclined to sweeping simplifications in favor of economy, regularity, and aesthetics. I view the KFD as such a statement that left several issues unexplained to avoid giving too much offense to orthodoxy.
Few have a problem in Mormonism with us becoming like our Father in Heaven, but a serious analogy to Christ and his mission is beyond the pale. As radical as the Adam-God theory was, it did not even touch on the issue of why every exalted person became a heavenly father or a heavenly mother, but only one out of 100 billion or so became a Savior. That in my opinion is its fundamental weakness, a weakness only solvable (speculatively speaking) through a process view of the Atonement, and some distribution of the burden over the population of exalted or about to be exalted beings in general.
I suspect that Joseph Smith was headed down that path, theologically speaking, but one might certainly argue that that avenue is a dead end, just a scriptural analogy, and that Christ condescended to come down in the manner of a swimming instructor who was born with the ability to swim, rather than one who had to learn to swim like the rest of us, one who went through the motions of mortal life just to set an example, not to stretch or grow or take risks in any significant sense.
To the degree that the question comes down to a matter of taste, I think a Savior in whose tracks we are actually following is a far more motivational example than the other conception, an idea that gives greater coherence to Christ's mission here on earth, than a theogony where a Savior is a singularity or an exceedingly rare anomaly.
By the way, in a scheme where there are only three fully divine beings, how is the burden of the Atonement split up between say Christ and his Father? If the Father went down and was a Redeemer, shouldn't his Atonement be sufficient for all?
Clark:I think the reason we don't go down the Sartrean path is empirical. I tend to see Mormonism as entailing an extremely empirical and evidentiary approach to God.
I guess you have access to different evidence than I do, or interpret the evidence differently. Me, I'm a "First Noble Truth" kind of guy.
Clark:But my own view is that if Mormonism isn't true there's not a lot to be had in any other religion.
I think you and I are only one god away from agreement, then.
Clark:As to weakness, as Blake said, maximal greatness probably shouldn't be called weak. Further I think Blake has some interesting arguments regarding what is greater, to tame a world one already finds oneself in or to create it from scratch.
If the world around us is evidence of maximal greatness, I'd still call it weak. The creator may have been given shoddy materials to begin with, but even still, I'd hardly compliment him on his job of taming things. It's certainly a long, long way from omnipotence, to say the least.
Do Mormons believe in Satan? Was he created by god, or was he ex nihilo also?
Mark: You are correct that investiture theories open doors wide open for interchangeable identities. However, my point was that both the writer of the gospel of John and Paul adopted such theories -- and so did the First Presidency. It isn't merely a convenient hermenuetic; but a view the text already adopts to makes senes of itself (at least in the NT). Moreover, given that the writers of the NT see the OT as merely a shool-master for a child to lead to further truth, isn't such a view quite consistent with a notion of continuing revelation that unfolds ever-greater knowledge?
As for your question about atonement, Joseph Smith's poetic re-endition of the Vision makes very clear that Christ's atonement is sufficient for all worlds. I don't believe that the Father atoned any more than it is necessary that Christ ate everything his Father did.
As for the problem of embodiment -- it is simply a false view that spirits must be emobidied to be divine. It is also false that a fully divine person has progressed as far as a divine person can; rather, divine persons are always dynamically growing and progressing because divine perfection is not a matter of reaching an absolute upper limit or ceiling on perfection (since their is no such limit), but of eternal growth. So no matter how far progressed a divine person is at any given time; there is more to go. Thus, that Christ had not progressed to the point of being resurrected and yet was God or fully divine in his pre-earth life (as Ether 3 demands), does not count against his divinity. You have a notion of perfection and divinity that precludes an alway-further-progressing deity. Yet that is not Joseph Smith's view -- at least as I see it.
On my reading of the KFD and the Sermon in the Grove, the Father was already fully divine before becoming mortal just as was Christ. Thus, I don't believe that there is a theogony in LDS thought, but a story of divine beings always reaching new vistas through new experiences and expanding experiential knowledge. At least, that is how I see it.
Michael, Mormons do believe in Satan. Angels in Mormon thought are just regular people either awaiting birth or who have been resurrected. In Mormon thought Satan was a major figure while planning what we call the plan of salvation. (i.e. the idea of being born into a world of pain and suffering for our growth and development) He wanted this world to be a world where everyone was saved and there really wasn't much by way of practical free will. There was a war in heaven and he and 1/3 of the people involved in that creation were cast down.
So it's somewhat similar to Catholic thought, although with quite a few important differences.
Regarding maximal greatness, I think it important for Mormons to say that God could easily have made a better world. Just that this world is better for its use. That is a kind of world where we experience pain and suffering for our growth. Clearly though this still raises quite a few questions. So I do think there are some theological questions as to why the degree of pain and suffering. But I suppose an analogy that some Mormons might agree with would be a boot camp for our development.
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