*
By which I mean an excellent, effective Christian apologist of a new kind and potentially broad constituency?
Well, probably there never will be another Lewis, as a package; but in terms of apologetics, Givens comes closer than anyone I can think of with The God who Weeps - co-written with his wife Fiona.
What I get from the Givens's book is the same kind of freshness as I find in Mere Christianity (and which is so lacking from later attempts to emulate MC) - it results from the capacity to rethink faith from the ground up, based on premises which the author personally finds relevant and convincing, together with a strong and likeable literary persona.
*
The twist, of course, being that Givens is what might be termed a Mere Mormon, and furthermore one who has stepped away from any worries about convincing mainstream Christians that they ought to include Mormonism, but who has instead focused on clarifying and explicating Mormonism's distinctive qualities with most relevance to the concerns of modern times.
*
I made this connection while re-reading God who Weeps and after reading the blog Dawning of a Brighter Day:
http://blog.mormonletters.org/?p=5849
I have no idea whether Givens is indeed the Mormon CS Lewis, since I don't know enough about his Mormon rivals - but whatever his status in the LDS community, Givens could well become a Lewis-ite figure for Mere Christians, if only they could approach his work in a positive spirit.
*
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Givens. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Givens. Sort by date Show all posts
Sunday, 25 August 2013
Saturday, 11 August 2018
The joy of Mormon theology - Terryl Givens's Wrestling the Angel (2015)
As soon as I began learning about Mormon theology, which began before I became a Christian, I have responded to it with a heartfelt joy. This has been renewed over the past days when I have been listening to an audiobook of Wrestling the Angel: the Foundations of Mormon Thought: Cosmos, God, Humanity - by Terryl Givens.
I had already bought the paper book, and read parts of it; but found it rather dense and hard-going compared with Givens's usual style, which I like so much. The audible book medium proves ideal in taking me through the book at a measured pace, and maintaining progress the face of any tendency to lose concentration. My response has been powerful, inspiring, en-couraging.
The experience has triggered yet another renewal of my appreciation, and gratitude, for the Mormon awakening; specifically for the way in which Joseph Smith and subsequent theologians of the CJCLDS have restored the gospel spirit - that underlying and defining spirit of Jesus that we get from the accounts of his life and records of his words.
Not many people (including, according to Givens and other Mormon theologians, not many Mormons) recognise how radical is the Mormon recasting of Christian theology, how total and systematic, how radical (i.e. root level) is the transformation.
The observable, explicit superstructure of Christian teaching, worship, ethics, and the ideal life is very little changed (Mormon church members live very similarly to other devout Christians, although they tend to be more devout in their practice); but the underlying metaphysics is altogether different. And this difference goes right down to the metaphysical assumptions concerning the nature of reality, the nature of the universe and the origins of man. So the message and person of Jesus is much the same, but the understanding of that message rests upon qualitatively different foundations.
I am not and never have been a Mormon, and it has become very obvious over the past years that outside the Mormon church almost everybody is strongly prejudiced against the idea that Mormon theology could be good, beautiful; and intellectually deeply satisfying; and that this absolutely blocks the possibility of them learning otherwise.
So be it. But I am very grateful for the work of Terryl Givens - and have found listening to Wrestling the Angel to be a wonderful experience. Many of (what I regard as) the stumbling blocks of 'traditional' Christianity are lucidly explained in their developing historical context, and the Mormon reappraisals and recastings (which I find so satisfying, and for which I am so grateful) set out in their more recent context.
To give specific examples; Mormon theology and metaphysics solves what I personally regard as the most important errors of traditional, mainstream Christian emphasis and explanation - such as the omniscience and nature of God, false doctrine of original sin, the nature of human agency, and the basis of sex and sexuality.
I have often observed that the traditional Christian theological explanations have a tendency to gravitate towards an 'Islamic' understanding of God and the human condition on the one hand; or else towards secularism on the other. This is because of the wrongness of the metaphysics and theology that was imposed upon Christianity in (probably) the early centuries, from approximately 100 AD onwards, presumably after - and allowed by - the death of most of the disciples.
From this time the early theologians, including most of the 'Church Fathers', began to place Christianity within an incompatible set of pre-existing (pre-Christian) basic assumptions about philosophy. Details are lacking concerning this era, but these early and influential intellectuals apparently did not work from Christ's message and teachings, to develop a compatible and supporting set of assumptions; but went in the other direction - shoe-horning Christianity into their prior intellectual frameworks.
The idea of Original Sin is a particularly chilling example. Reading Givens and thinking about the problems created by the false understanding of God's 'omniscience' one can see how this really nasty idea (no hint of which is in the Gospels, and barely at all anywhere in the New Testament - except with the eye of prejudice) emerged to explain the need for Christ when God was supposedly omnipotent. Original sin reached an astonishing degree of prominence with Augustine of Hippo: almost becoming the single most important Christian doctrinal-fact. This was later taken even further with Calvin.
The result was Christianity that, at a deep level, became something that in practice (in terms of the relation between Man and God) was about as strongly against the spirit of the Gospels as it was possible to be. In sum, by Original Sin, Christianity was transformed from a religion of hope and joy at the new possibilities of everlasting and divine life that Jesus brought (clearest and least ambiguous in the Fourth, and most authoritative, Gospel); into a religion in which Jesus was our rescuer from a mortal torture chamber, which all Men justly were born-into, and which all Men inhabited due to their essential and ineradicable depravity; both our torment and our depravity being caused by a mystical complicity in a primal act of sin against Jesus's Father.
In contrast to such monstrous error, misrepresentation, and manipulation; Mormon theology shows us how to be Christian without such interpretations being forced upon us by foundational but not-Christian assumptions; and, so far as I know, Mormonism is the only Christian theology which does this. That is a measure of its scope, originality and importance!*
(And if you don't believe-in the reality of that scope and originality, then you simply don't understand it - and not many do. Whether you agree with Mormon theology is a secondary matter. My point is that very few people are in a position to disagree - since they don't know enough to recognise what they are disagreeing with.)
Anyway, if you are interested and intrigued by the above; and if you can sufficiently 'trust a Mormon' that you can make a genuine effort to understand and think-though the Mormon perspective, then Terryl Givens would be the place to start; if not with the all-out scholarship and rigour of Wrestling the Angel, then probably with the shorter and more polemical (yet equally, albeit covertly, scholarly and rigorous) The God Who Weeps (with Fiona Givens, 2012).
It is difficult. So you need both to be interested, reasonably well-disposed, and also to be willing (initially) to adopt a different perspective; until such a point that you have learned enough to grasp the coherence of the 'system'.
But if (like most external commentators) you are studying Mormon theology and metaphysics only to prove 'why it is wrong', and without any expectation of finding good in it; then it is very unlikely that you will ever make the 'paradigm shift' required to understand it in the first place.
*Note added: To clarify, my point is that original sin is a monstrous perversion on Christianity but if original sin is dispensed-with in the context of traditional Christian theology, it is nearly-always associated with apostasy - certainly, that has been the historical pattern and trend. Those churches that (correctly) deleted original sin were also those churches that were en route to apostasy, to becoming non-Christian - such as the Unitarians around 1800, or later 19th century Methodists. Thus original sin seems to be necessary to the integrity of traditional Christian theology; yet it is a false and monstrous doctrine in stark opposition to the teaching of the Fourth Gospel (in particular, but all the Gospels and nearly all of the NT). Therefore, original sin is a reductio ad absurdum of traditional theology: with this theology OS needs to be adopted for the sake of coherence and sustainability, but necessarily leads to absurd conclusions. Mormon theology represents a third way, a wholly different theological system, which both rejects original sin and yet is sustainable (for over 190 years so far) without a decline through apostasy, 'liberalism', or laxness. Original sin therefore represents an argument both for the error of traditional Christian theology and an argument for both the radical different-ness and for the coherence and sustainability of Mormon theology. The same type of argument could be constructed for other issues, such as free-will/ agency, the nature of God, the nature of suffering etc.
I had already bought the paper book, and read parts of it; but found it rather dense and hard-going compared with Givens's usual style, which I like so much. The audible book medium proves ideal in taking me through the book at a measured pace, and maintaining progress the face of any tendency to lose concentration. My response has been powerful, inspiring, en-couraging.
The experience has triggered yet another renewal of my appreciation, and gratitude, for the Mormon awakening; specifically for the way in which Joseph Smith and subsequent theologians of the CJCLDS have restored the gospel spirit - that underlying and defining spirit of Jesus that we get from the accounts of his life and records of his words.
Not many people (including, according to Givens and other Mormon theologians, not many Mormons) recognise how radical is the Mormon recasting of Christian theology, how total and systematic, how radical (i.e. root level) is the transformation.
The observable, explicit superstructure of Christian teaching, worship, ethics, and the ideal life is very little changed (Mormon church members live very similarly to other devout Christians, although they tend to be more devout in their practice); but the underlying metaphysics is altogether different. And this difference goes right down to the metaphysical assumptions concerning the nature of reality, the nature of the universe and the origins of man. So the message and person of Jesus is much the same, but the understanding of that message rests upon qualitatively different foundations.
I am not and never have been a Mormon, and it has become very obvious over the past years that outside the Mormon church almost everybody is strongly prejudiced against the idea that Mormon theology could be good, beautiful; and intellectually deeply satisfying; and that this absolutely blocks the possibility of them learning otherwise.
So be it. But I am very grateful for the work of Terryl Givens - and have found listening to Wrestling the Angel to be a wonderful experience. Many of (what I regard as) the stumbling blocks of 'traditional' Christianity are lucidly explained in their developing historical context, and the Mormon reappraisals and recastings (which I find so satisfying, and for which I am so grateful) set out in their more recent context.
To give specific examples; Mormon theology and metaphysics solves what I personally regard as the most important errors of traditional, mainstream Christian emphasis and explanation - such as the omniscience and nature of God, false doctrine of original sin, the nature of human agency, and the basis of sex and sexuality.
I have often observed that the traditional Christian theological explanations have a tendency to gravitate towards an 'Islamic' understanding of God and the human condition on the one hand; or else towards secularism on the other. This is because of the wrongness of the metaphysics and theology that was imposed upon Christianity in (probably) the early centuries, from approximately 100 AD onwards, presumably after - and allowed by - the death of most of the disciples.
From this time the early theologians, including most of the 'Church Fathers', began to place Christianity within an incompatible set of pre-existing (pre-Christian) basic assumptions about philosophy. Details are lacking concerning this era, but these early and influential intellectuals apparently did not work from Christ's message and teachings, to develop a compatible and supporting set of assumptions; but went in the other direction - shoe-horning Christianity into their prior intellectual frameworks.
The idea of Original Sin is a particularly chilling example. Reading Givens and thinking about the problems created by the false understanding of God's 'omniscience' one can see how this really nasty idea (no hint of which is in the Gospels, and barely at all anywhere in the New Testament - except with the eye of prejudice) emerged to explain the need for Christ when God was supposedly omnipotent. Original sin reached an astonishing degree of prominence with Augustine of Hippo: almost becoming the single most important Christian doctrinal-fact. This was later taken even further with Calvin.
The result was Christianity that, at a deep level, became something that in practice (in terms of the relation between Man and God) was about as strongly against the spirit of the Gospels as it was possible to be. In sum, by Original Sin, Christianity was transformed from a religion of hope and joy at the new possibilities of everlasting and divine life that Jesus brought (clearest and least ambiguous in the Fourth, and most authoritative, Gospel); into a religion in which Jesus was our rescuer from a mortal torture chamber, which all Men justly were born-into, and which all Men inhabited due to their essential and ineradicable depravity; both our torment and our depravity being caused by a mystical complicity in a primal act of sin against Jesus's Father.
In contrast to such monstrous error, misrepresentation, and manipulation; Mormon theology shows us how to be Christian without such interpretations being forced upon us by foundational but not-Christian assumptions; and, so far as I know, Mormonism is the only Christian theology which does this. That is a measure of its scope, originality and importance!*
(And if you don't believe-in the reality of that scope and originality, then you simply don't understand it - and not many do. Whether you agree with Mormon theology is a secondary matter. My point is that very few people are in a position to disagree - since they don't know enough to recognise what they are disagreeing with.)
Anyway, if you are interested and intrigued by the above; and if you can sufficiently 'trust a Mormon' that you can make a genuine effort to understand and think-though the Mormon perspective, then Terryl Givens would be the place to start; if not with the all-out scholarship and rigour of Wrestling the Angel, then probably with the shorter and more polemical (yet equally, albeit covertly, scholarly and rigorous) The God Who Weeps (with Fiona Givens, 2012).
It is difficult. So you need both to be interested, reasonably well-disposed, and also to be willing (initially) to adopt a different perspective; until such a point that you have learned enough to grasp the coherence of the 'system'.
But if (like most external commentators) you are studying Mormon theology and metaphysics only to prove 'why it is wrong', and without any expectation of finding good in it; then it is very unlikely that you will ever make the 'paradigm shift' required to understand it in the first place.
*Note added: To clarify, my point is that original sin is a monstrous perversion on Christianity but if original sin is dispensed-with in the context of traditional Christian theology, it is nearly-always associated with apostasy - certainly, that has been the historical pattern and trend. Those churches that (correctly) deleted original sin were also those churches that were en route to apostasy, to becoming non-Christian - such as the Unitarians around 1800, or later 19th century Methodists. Thus original sin seems to be necessary to the integrity of traditional Christian theology; yet it is a false and monstrous doctrine in stark opposition to the teaching of the Fourth Gospel (in particular, but all the Gospels and nearly all of the NT). Therefore, original sin is a reductio ad absurdum of traditional theology: with this theology OS needs to be adopted for the sake of coherence and sustainability, but necessarily leads to absurd conclusions. Mormon theology represents a third way, a wholly different theological system, which both rejects original sin and yet is sustainable (for over 190 years so far) without a decline through apostasy, 'liberalism', or laxness. Original sin therefore represents an argument both for the error of traditional Christian theology and an argument for both the radical different-ness and for the coherence and sustainability of Mormon theology. The same type of argument could be constructed for other issues, such as free-will/ agency, the nature of God, the nature of suffering etc.
Friday, 17 August 2018
What happens after death is - overall - what people sincerely desire to happen to them
Every faithful Methodist that has lived up to and faithfully followed the requirements of his religion,... will have as great a heaven as he ever anticipated in the flesh, and far greater. Every Presbyterian, and every Quaker, and every Baptist, and every Roman Catholic member, - ... that lives according to the best light they have,... will have and enjoy all they live for... This is the situation of Christendom after death.
You may go among the Pagans, or among all the nations there are... and if they have lived according to what they did posses, so they will receive hereafter.
And will it be glory? you may inquire. Yes. Glory, glory, glory.
Brigham Young - President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints 1847-77. Quoted in Wrestling the Angel by Terryl Givens, 2015, p253.
Givens goes on to cite Wilford Woodruff saying 'there will be few, very few, if any, who will not accept the Gospel'; meaning at some point in the endless time of post-mortal life. And Lorenzo Snow stating: 'very, very few of those who die without the Gospel will reject it on the other side of the veil' - meaning the veil of mortal death.
I was very pleased to see these, and other, endorsements of my own inferences about salvation (several times posted in this blog ever the past years) cited by Terryl Givens as typical of the Mormon Apostles and Prophets from the years up to the early 20th century (perhaps especially related to the Presidencies of Lorenzo Snow, and that of Joseph Fielding Smith who, in 1909, published an article called Salvation Universal); after which such near-universalist ideas of salvation became less often articulated, or contradicted.
But it is, from our perspective more than a century later, to notice that near-universalism with respect to salvation is Not universalism; not all are saved, because always there has to be the exception of the 'unpardonable sin' of the 'sons of perdition' - which recognises that human agency (or 'free will') means that a choice in favour of damnation may be made by a person; 'in perfect clarity and understanding' (p252).
As Givens says: 'It is unforgivable not because [the sin] is so grievous or offensive, but because it is the only sin a human can make with no mitigating circumstances that could be the basis of re-choosing under different conditions... Only the choice of evil made in the most absolute and perfect light of understanding admits of no imaginable basis for reconsideration or regret.'
Such a sin is comparable to that of Lucifer's, and as such there is no possibility of repentance. Hell has been chosen.
What we need to recognise is that the average Methodist, Presbyterian, Quaker, Baptist or Roman Catholic of 2018 would not want the heaven that was desired by their namesakes of the middle 1800s - indeed, the modern adherents probably would not be considered Christians at all, by the men of the past.
And that brings us back to the Sons of Perdition and the strategy of the powers of evil for damning as many Men as possible...
If you accept (as I do) that Hell is ultimately only for those who want it, who actively-choose it (and all others will go to a degree of glory in accordance with their own deepest wishes - bearing in mind that apparently many or most people do not aspire to any very high degree of glory, if the promises of their religions are regarded as a guide) - then the task of the demons is a difficult one...
The demons must bring a Man to the point where he clearly understands what Heaven is, and that (thanks to the work of Jesus Christ) Heaven can be his dwelling at an astonishingly cheap price - And Yet, at this point of clarity and understanding; that Man will permanently reject this gift of Heaven and Glory; and instead choose Hell.
Let us suppose that that is the difficult task of the demons; then, for the powers of evil to win a human soul for Hell is, in most cases, not going to be easy...
Such was one of key, repeated, messages of CS Lewis in both The Screwtape Letters and The Great Divorce. And Lewis gave many hints towards an accurate prediction of what seems to have been the demons' answer in Screwtape Proposes a Toast - which is: to work gradually towards the inversion of Good. So that a Man will (overall) regard Good as evil, and evil as Good. Such a Man will regard Heaven as Hell; and by choosing his-personal-Good, he will in fact be choosing Hell.
This was, Lewis implies, a major strategic shift requiring great restraint on behalf of the demons; because it required them to set-aside the short-term gratifications of Men suffering and dying (as with the world wars of the early twentieth century); and instead to be contented with progress (decade by decade since the 1950s) towards a long-term goal of mass moral-, aesthetic- and truth-inversion among Western Men.
Men were to be corrupted by comfort, prosperity, materialism; by irony, hedonism and despair. By a pride so absolute and individual and cut-off; that it attained to solipsism: in doubt of its own existence, cynical of its own capacity for knowledge; and denying of external reality...
And the tremendous success of that demonic strategy explains the strange - unprecedented - nature of the modern condition, the way in which it resembles a self-chosen and cure-rejecting insanity. The average condition of modern Man is, in fact, the precise state of soul required to make someone actively choose Hell - in perfect clarity and understanding.
Note: I was not so clear or solidly confident as I am now; but I first made this kind of argument in Thought Prison (2011) and Addicted to Distraction (2014).
You may go among the Pagans, or among all the nations there are... and if they have lived according to what they did posses, so they will receive hereafter.
And will it be glory? you may inquire. Yes. Glory, glory, glory.
Brigham Young - President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints 1847-77. Quoted in Wrestling the Angel by Terryl Givens, 2015, p253.
Givens goes on to cite Wilford Woodruff saying 'there will be few, very few, if any, who will not accept the Gospel'; meaning at some point in the endless time of post-mortal life. And Lorenzo Snow stating: 'very, very few of those who die without the Gospel will reject it on the other side of the veil' - meaning the veil of mortal death.
I was very pleased to see these, and other, endorsements of my own inferences about salvation (several times posted in this blog ever the past years) cited by Terryl Givens as typical of the Mormon Apostles and Prophets from the years up to the early 20th century (perhaps especially related to the Presidencies of Lorenzo Snow, and that of Joseph Fielding Smith who, in 1909, published an article called Salvation Universal); after which such near-universalist ideas of salvation became less often articulated, or contradicted.
But it is, from our perspective more than a century later, to notice that near-universalism with respect to salvation is Not universalism; not all are saved, because always there has to be the exception of the 'unpardonable sin' of the 'sons of perdition' - which recognises that human agency (or 'free will') means that a choice in favour of damnation may be made by a person; 'in perfect clarity and understanding' (p252).
As Givens says: 'It is unforgivable not because [the sin] is so grievous or offensive, but because it is the only sin a human can make with no mitigating circumstances that could be the basis of re-choosing under different conditions... Only the choice of evil made in the most absolute and perfect light of understanding admits of no imaginable basis for reconsideration or regret.'
Such a sin is comparable to that of Lucifer's, and as such there is no possibility of repentance. Hell has been chosen.
What we need to recognise is that the average Methodist, Presbyterian, Quaker, Baptist or Roman Catholic of 2018 would not want the heaven that was desired by their namesakes of the middle 1800s - indeed, the modern adherents probably would not be considered Christians at all, by the men of the past.
And that brings us back to the Sons of Perdition and the strategy of the powers of evil for damning as many Men as possible...
If you accept (as I do) that Hell is ultimately only for those who want it, who actively-choose it (and all others will go to a degree of glory in accordance with their own deepest wishes - bearing in mind that apparently many or most people do not aspire to any very high degree of glory, if the promises of their religions are regarded as a guide) - then the task of the demons is a difficult one...
The demons must bring a Man to the point where he clearly understands what Heaven is, and that (thanks to the work of Jesus Christ) Heaven can be his dwelling at an astonishingly cheap price - And Yet, at this point of clarity and understanding; that Man will permanently reject this gift of Heaven and Glory; and instead choose Hell.
Let us suppose that that is the difficult task of the demons; then, for the powers of evil to win a human soul for Hell is, in most cases, not going to be easy...
Such was one of key, repeated, messages of CS Lewis in both The Screwtape Letters and The Great Divorce. And Lewis gave many hints towards an accurate prediction of what seems to have been the demons' answer in Screwtape Proposes a Toast - which is: to work gradually towards the inversion of Good. So that a Man will (overall) regard Good as evil, and evil as Good. Such a Man will regard Heaven as Hell; and by choosing his-personal-Good, he will in fact be choosing Hell.
This was, Lewis implies, a major strategic shift requiring great restraint on behalf of the demons; because it required them to set-aside the short-term gratifications of Men suffering and dying (as with the world wars of the early twentieth century); and instead to be contented with progress (decade by decade since the 1950s) towards a long-term goal of mass moral-, aesthetic- and truth-inversion among Western Men.
Men were to be corrupted by comfort, prosperity, materialism; by irony, hedonism and despair. By a pride so absolute and individual and cut-off; that it attained to solipsism: in doubt of its own existence, cynical of its own capacity for knowledge; and denying of external reality...
And the tremendous success of that demonic strategy explains the strange - unprecedented - nature of the modern condition, the way in which it resembles a self-chosen and cure-rejecting insanity. The average condition of modern Man is, in fact, the precise state of soul required to make someone actively choose Hell - in perfect clarity and understanding.
Note: I was not so clear or solidly confident as I am now; but I first made this kind of argument in Thought Prison (2011) and Addicted to Distraction (2014).
Sunday, 22 February 2015
My repentance theory of Christ's Atonement (stimulated by wanting to complete the argument of Terryl Givens's Wrestling the Angel)
*
I have been reading Terryl L Givens's most recent scholarly book about Mormonism - Wrestling the Angel - The foundations of Mormon thought: Cosmos, God, Humanity (Oxford University Press, 2015), and my verdict is that the book is simply superb.
By my evaluation; Givens is one of the most sheerly intelligent writers alive, and also a man whose thought processes and evaluations are extremely congenial to me - he is 'on my wavelength' in an intellectual sense, and has a similar set of priorities in the domain of theology and religion.
In general, I find Givens's account and explication of Mormon theology to be completely satisfying; the exception is The Atonement, the various theories of which he explores in a useful and thorough fashion, before concluding that (as a statement of fact) there is no satisfactory and comprehensive Mormon theory of the Atonement - its importance is central to modern Mormonism, but its nature and operations are essentially regarded as a mystery.
While I hope that this suffices for most people, I am continually 'bugged' by a personal need to understand - or at least know more about - the nature of the Atonement; and having finished Givens's book I felt that for the first time I may be able to articulate a theory which satisfies me - which, in other words, satisfies the constraints I understand to be necessary for an adequate theory from a Mormon metaphysical and theological perspective.
*
In a nutshell, this theory is the idea that Christ's Atonement was about repentance, rather than sin as such; and that Christ's sufferings (in the Garden of Gethsemane and on The Cross) were a suffering of the agonies of repentance for Man - rather than a suffering of the sins of Man.
By his Atonement, therefore, Christ enabled all Men to repent and be saved - by the simple (and 'easy') act of accepting Christ's supreme act of vicarious repentance - this replacing the 'impossible' demand of Men to repent each and every one of their sins individually and wholly.
*
How do I get to this theory?
The basic 'set-up' is my conviction that human agency (or free will - the ability of all men to be a 'first cause' or 'unmoved mover' - i.e. genuinely to choose from within ourselves and not as a consequence of prior causes) is due to our eternal pre-mortal existence and primary autonomy.
In other words Human agency is not from God, not a gift from God - it is a given fact of reality; which God must work-around, and which God cannot overwhelm or obliterate (even if He wanted-to - which I do not think he does).
Agency just is a fact of existence.
*
So the Atonement takes place against a back-drop of ineradicable agency - God's 'problem' was to advance Men towards divinity in this context. It seems that incarnation and mortality are absolutely necessary for Man to make spiritual progress towards divinity - therefore I infer that the single most important thing about incarnate life is death.
Death is the gateway to incarnate immortality.
*
I accept that we all, as pre-mortal spirit, volunteered to undergo life on earth and death. But the big problem anticipated for this 'plan' would have been that mortal life of earth entails sin (we are too weak, temptations too numerous and strong), and sin renders us unfit for resurrection to immortality.
(If we - as we are in mortal life - were resurrected to immortality, then that would be a kind of Hell; to benefit from resurrection our souls must be purified and our bodies perfected and yet we remain our-selves - and this process of pre-resurrection purification and perfection can only be done with our consent.
This is salvation - being saved to eternal life ('life' referring to incarnate immortality, as our-selves).
Resurrection to happiness depends on repentance - and that is all it depends upon.
*
My understanding is that nobody - none of the pre-mortal spirits which we were - would be so reckless and foolish as to volunteer to risk mortality under such difficult conditions unless there was special provision that salvation would be easy and straightforward.
If our individual salvation required recognition, acknowledgement and repentance of every single sin; then salvation would be a rare occurrence - perhaps nobody would ever be saved.
Thus, provision was made that mortal men should be saved by the vicarious Atonement of Jesus Christ - He would save us; and all that each of us would need to do would be freely to choose to to accept Christ's act on our behalf.
*
So the divine Son of God was incarnated and died - and by this account Christ's death was the single most important thing he did; but his death would not have been efficacious unless he had also performed the Atonement; and the Atonement must be about repentance.
Without Christ's Atonement, repentance would be de facto impossible - since there is too much to repent, and because our knowledge of what needs to be repented is partial and distorted.
So, as mortals, we could never know the full extent of our transgressions - and therefore we would not even know what had to be repented.
And while we were 'working through' discovering and understanding all the multitude of things that needed repenting, then we would be accumulating more sins...
Because the nature of repentance is recognition and acknowledgement - repentance is knowing that we have objectively sinned which is vital; and knowing how so many of our attitudes and actions are at-odds-with the divine plan.
In a nutshell, full repentance requires a full knowledge of reality, and knowledge of our denials of reality (denials by thought and deed).
Since this is impossible, it can only be done for us. And it was done, by Christ's Atonement.
*
I take it as axiomatic that for a Christian, Christ's Atonement must be absolutely necessary. That is, necessary to the salvation of Men.
Since repentance is a psychological act; then this psychological act must be made effective.
Since specific repentance for each and every sin is impossible, effective repentance absolutely requires that repentance be simplified to a single decision that encompasses all other decisions.
It was Christ's Atonement that made repentance into a single decision.
*
My understanding is that before He died, Christ repented all the sins of everyone who had lived and died up to that point - all who lived before Him - and it was the pain of this vast act of Atonement which he apparently underwent mainly in Gethsemane and on The Cross.
After His death and resurrection, Christ continued, and He continues, to repent the since of all who lived and died after He did, and those live and die now - and He continues to suffer for that reason.
So Christ's Atonement made effective repentance possible - from this act, we may by a single choice accept that God loves us, that He is wholly good; and that God's plans are for our benefit - and by repentance we permanently ally ourselves with these plans.
*
The Atonement gave mortal life on earth a fail-safe mechanism.
This was necessary.
Many or most - or perhaps all - people who are incarnated as Men, and who volunteered to be incarnated as Men, lead terrible lives which render them in need of repentance on an epic and virtually impossible scale.
But this need will have been fore-known, and our Loving Father who wants everyone to be saved (that is, everyone who will consent to be saved - He cannot force anyone to be saved - nor would He wish to compel them even if He could)... our Loving Father made provision for this outcome; so that we would be saved anyway by the shortest and simplest and most-accessible of acts: the simple acceptance of the gift of full-repentance which Christ did for us, and which He offers to give us.
Because of the Atonement we have nothing more to do than recognise the nature of this gift and accept it; and our reward is the happiness of eternal incarnate life as our-real-selves (with a purified soul in a perfected body).
*
Even the weakest person born into the worst circumstances can achieve this acceptance of a gift - when each of us was and will be presented, after death, with a restoration of our pre-mortal state of full understanding of the divine plan.
Of course, we will (as free agents) be able to reject this gift - and to choose damnation.
This is why mortal incarnate life was and is a real risk, and why it was essential that all who underwent it (all of us,that is) were volunteers who knew the risks.
Mortality offers the possibility, even the probability, of spiritual progress towards divinisation; it also contains the ineradicable risk that at the end of it all, we might reject salvation and damn-ourselves.
Our loving Father would not have set up this plan of salvation unless the odds of salvation were stacked in our favour; so the odds are indeed stacked in our favour - and to do this was the work of Christ's Atonement.
But no matter how favourable the odds of salvation - salvation cannot be guaranteed, because of the primary reality of agency.
*
I have been reading Terryl L Givens's most recent scholarly book about Mormonism - Wrestling the Angel - The foundations of Mormon thought: Cosmos, God, Humanity (Oxford University Press, 2015), and my verdict is that the book is simply superb.
By my evaluation; Givens is one of the most sheerly intelligent writers alive, and also a man whose thought processes and evaluations are extremely congenial to me - he is 'on my wavelength' in an intellectual sense, and has a similar set of priorities in the domain of theology and religion.
In general, I find Givens's account and explication of Mormon theology to be completely satisfying; the exception is The Atonement, the various theories of which he explores in a useful and thorough fashion, before concluding that (as a statement of fact) there is no satisfactory and comprehensive Mormon theory of the Atonement - its importance is central to modern Mormonism, but its nature and operations are essentially regarded as a mystery.
While I hope that this suffices for most people, I am continually 'bugged' by a personal need to understand - or at least know more about - the nature of the Atonement; and having finished Givens's book I felt that for the first time I may be able to articulate a theory which satisfies me - which, in other words, satisfies the constraints I understand to be necessary for an adequate theory from a Mormon metaphysical and theological perspective.
*
In a nutshell, this theory is the idea that Christ's Atonement was about repentance, rather than sin as such; and that Christ's sufferings (in the Garden of Gethsemane and on The Cross) were a suffering of the agonies of repentance for Man - rather than a suffering of the sins of Man.
By his Atonement, therefore, Christ enabled all Men to repent and be saved - by the simple (and 'easy') act of accepting Christ's supreme act of vicarious repentance - this replacing the 'impossible' demand of Men to repent each and every one of their sins individually and wholly.
*
How do I get to this theory?
The basic 'set-up' is my conviction that human agency (or free will - the ability of all men to be a 'first cause' or 'unmoved mover' - i.e. genuinely to choose from within ourselves and not as a consequence of prior causes) is due to our eternal pre-mortal existence and primary autonomy.
In other words Human agency is not from God, not a gift from God - it is a given fact of reality; which God must work-around, and which God cannot overwhelm or obliterate (even if He wanted-to - which I do not think he does).
Agency just is a fact of existence.
*
So the Atonement takes place against a back-drop of ineradicable agency - God's 'problem' was to advance Men towards divinity in this context. It seems that incarnation and mortality are absolutely necessary for Man to make spiritual progress towards divinity - therefore I infer that the single most important thing about incarnate life is death.
Death is the gateway to incarnate immortality.
*
I accept that we all, as pre-mortal spirit, volunteered to undergo life on earth and death. But the big problem anticipated for this 'plan' would have been that mortal life of earth entails sin (we are too weak, temptations too numerous and strong), and sin renders us unfit for resurrection to immortality.
(If we - as we are in mortal life - were resurrected to immortality, then that would be a kind of Hell; to benefit from resurrection our souls must be purified and our bodies perfected and yet we remain our-selves - and this process of pre-resurrection purification and perfection can only be done with our consent.
This is salvation - being saved to eternal life ('life' referring to incarnate immortality, as our-selves).
Resurrection to happiness depends on repentance - and that is all it depends upon.
*
My understanding is that nobody - none of the pre-mortal spirits which we were - would be so reckless and foolish as to volunteer to risk mortality under such difficult conditions unless there was special provision that salvation would be easy and straightforward.
If our individual salvation required recognition, acknowledgement and repentance of every single sin; then salvation would be a rare occurrence - perhaps nobody would ever be saved.
Thus, provision was made that mortal men should be saved by the vicarious Atonement of Jesus Christ - He would save us; and all that each of us would need to do would be freely to choose to to accept Christ's act on our behalf.
*
So the divine Son of God was incarnated and died - and by this account Christ's death was the single most important thing he did; but his death would not have been efficacious unless he had also performed the Atonement; and the Atonement must be about repentance.
Without Christ's Atonement, repentance would be de facto impossible - since there is too much to repent, and because our knowledge of what needs to be repented is partial and distorted.
So, as mortals, we could never know the full extent of our transgressions - and therefore we would not even know what had to be repented.
And while we were 'working through' discovering and understanding all the multitude of things that needed repenting, then we would be accumulating more sins...
Because the nature of repentance is recognition and acknowledgement - repentance is knowing that we have objectively sinned which is vital; and knowing how so many of our attitudes and actions are at-odds-with the divine plan.
In a nutshell, full repentance requires a full knowledge of reality, and knowledge of our denials of reality (denials by thought and deed).
Since this is impossible, it can only be done for us. And it was done, by Christ's Atonement.
*
I take it as axiomatic that for a Christian, Christ's Atonement must be absolutely necessary. That is, necessary to the salvation of Men.
Since repentance is a psychological act; then this psychological act must be made effective.
Since specific repentance for each and every sin is impossible, effective repentance absolutely requires that repentance be simplified to a single decision that encompasses all other decisions.
It was Christ's Atonement that made repentance into a single decision.
*
My understanding is that before He died, Christ repented all the sins of everyone who had lived and died up to that point - all who lived before Him - and it was the pain of this vast act of Atonement which he apparently underwent mainly in Gethsemane and on The Cross.
After His death and resurrection, Christ continued, and He continues, to repent the since of all who lived and died after He did, and those live and die now - and He continues to suffer for that reason.
So Christ's Atonement made effective repentance possible - from this act, we may by a single choice accept that God loves us, that He is wholly good; and that God's plans are for our benefit - and by repentance we permanently ally ourselves with these plans.
*
The Atonement gave mortal life on earth a fail-safe mechanism.
This was necessary.
Many or most - or perhaps all - people who are incarnated as Men, and who volunteered to be incarnated as Men, lead terrible lives which render them in need of repentance on an epic and virtually impossible scale.
But this need will have been fore-known, and our Loving Father who wants everyone to be saved (that is, everyone who will consent to be saved - He cannot force anyone to be saved - nor would He wish to compel them even if He could)... our Loving Father made provision for this outcome; so that we would be saved anyway by the shortest and simplest and most-accessible of acts: the simple acceptance of the gift of full-repentance which Christ did for us, and which He offers to give us.
Because of the Atonement we have nothing more to do than recognise the nature of this gift and accept it; and our reward is the happiness of eternal incarnate life as our-real-selves (with a purified soul in a perfected body).
*
Even the weakest person born into the worst circumstances can achieve this acceptance of a gift - when each of us was and will be presented, after death, with a restoration of our pre-mortal state of full understanding of the divine plan.
Of course, we will (as free agents) be able to reject this gift - and to choose damnation.
This is why mortal incarnate life was and is a real risk, and why it was essential that all who underwent it (all of us,that is) were volunteers who knew the risks.
Mortality offers the possibility, even the probability, of spiritual progress towards divinisation; it also contains the ineradicable risk that at the end of it all, we might reject salvation and damn-ourselves.
Our loving Father would not have set up this plan of salvation unless the odds of salvation were stacked in our favour; so the odds are indeed stacked in our favour - and to do this was the work of Christ's Atonement.
But no matter how favourable the odds of salvation - salvation cannot be guaranteed, because of the primary reality of agency.
*
Monday, 3 March 2014
Q: Why is Harry Potter's wizarding world so reckless? A: It is an intrinsically high risk society
*
From Nathaniel Givens
http://difficultrun.nathanielgivens.com/2014/02/05/j-k-rowlings-brilliant-world-building-wizards-muggles-and-human-nature/
...Wizarding society is incredibly reckless relative to Muggle society. It’s impossible to get even ballpark mortality estimates because the wizarding world is at war throughout most of Harry Potter, but even the peacetime activities are frightfully dangerous compared to what would be acceptable in a Muggle world.
In the very first book, after all, Dumbledore keeps a vicious, man-eating, three-headed dog monster inside a school full of young kids who have a hard time knowing where their classes are. And, oh yeah, Fluffy is separated from the kids by nothing but a locked door that virtually any of the kids can defeat with a trivial spell. From that to Hagrid’s choice of ferocious textbooks to the potentially lethal Tri-Wizard Tournament, wizards all seem a bit deranged when it comes to matters of life and death.
But that sort of makes sense in a world where everyone is carrying the magical equivalent of a loaded bazooka from age 11 whether they want to or not. Ariana Dumbledore’s death is the most tragic example of this: she lived and died in peacetime before either Voldemort or Gridlewald had risen to power. She died simply because her brother got into a fight with his childhood friend. Similarly, Luna’s mother blew herself up messing about with potions. Because magic is so powerful, being a wizard is inherently dangerous, and there’s just no way around it.
But it’s not just individuals who are prone to early demise in the Wizarding World. The entire society itself is incredibly volatile because of all the characteristics noted so far. Wizarding society is completely dependent on Muggle society for its institutions, culture, and basic resources. And yet, because wizards aren’t subject to the same competitive pressures, the link between the Wizarding and Muggle Worlds is increasingly breaking down. This leaves the wizarding institutions increasingly arbitrary and brittle.
It’s also a very flat world, where the relative power of the weakest member is very high relative to the most powerful institutions. Add to this the very low numbers of wizards, and it’s clear that the entire society is dangerously volatile and will only become more so with time.
**
This satisfyingly solves a puzzle that has frequently recurred when I have been reading the Harry Potter series.
As Givens elucidates; for wizards, danger is intrinsic, universal, unavoidable and ever present - it cannot be avoided.
There is no possibility of 'safety first'.
Therefore risk has become just a part of wizarding life - hardly anyone notices unnecessary perils and hazards, and hardly anybody tries even to reduce risk - let alone minimize it.
*
From Nathaniel Givens
http://difficultrun.nathanielgivens.com/2014/02/05/j-k-rowlings-brilliant-world-building-wizards-muggles-and-human-nature/
...Wizarding society is incredibly reckless relative to Muggle society. It’s impossible to get even ballpark mortality estimates because the wizarding world is at war throughout most of Harry Potter, but even the peacetime activities are frightfully dangerous compared to what would be acceptable in a Muggle world.
In the very first book, after all, Dumbledore keeps a vicious, man-eating, three-headed dog monster inside a school full of young kids who have a hard time knowing where their classes are. And, oh yeah, Fluffy is separated from the kids by nothing but a locked door that virtually any of the kids can defeat with a trivial spell. From that to Hagrid’s choice of ferocious textbooks to the potentially lethal Tri-Wizard Tournament, wizards all seem a bit deranged when it comes to matters of life and death.
But that sort of makes sense in a world where everyone is carrying the magical equivalent of a loaded bazooka from age 11 whether they want to or not. Ariana Dumbledore’s death is the most tragic example of this: she lived and died in peacetime before either Voldemort or Gridlewald had risen to power. She died simply because her brother got into a fight with his childhood friend. Similarly, Luna’s mother blew herself up messing about with potions. Because magic is so powerful, being a wizard is inherently dangerous, and there’s just no way around it.
But it’s not just individuals who are prone to early demise in the Wizarding World. The entire society itself is incredibly volatile because of all the characteristics noted so far. Wizarding society is completely dependent on Muggle society for its institutions, culture, and basic resources. And yet, because wizards aren’t subject to the same competitive pressures, the link between the Wizarding and Muggle Worlds is increasingly breaking down. This leaves the wizarding institutions increasingly arbitrary and brittle.
It’s also a very flat world, where the relative power of the weakest member is very high relative to the most powerful institutions. Add to this the very low numbers of wizards, and it’s clear that the entire society is dangerously volatile and will only become more so with time.
**
This satisfyingly solves a puzzle that has frequently recurred when I have been reading the Harry Potter series.
As Givens elucidates; for wizards, danger is intrinsic, universal, unavoidable and ever present - it cannot be avoided.
There is no possibility of 'safety first'.
Therefore risk has become just a part of wizarding life - hardly anyone notices unnecessary perils and hazards, and hardly anybody tries even to reduce risk - let alone minimize it.
*
Tuesday, 31 December 2013
Favourite newly-read book of 2013
*
Terryl & Fiona Givens. The God who weeps: How Mormonism makes sense of life. Shadow Mountain Publishing: Salt Lake City, Utah, USA, 2012
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/is-terryl-givens-modern-cs-lewis.html
*
Terryl & Fiona Givens. The God who weeps: How Mormonism makes sense of life. Shadow Mountain Publishing: Salt Lake City, Utah, USA, 2012
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/is-terryl-givens-modern-cs-lewis.html
*
Thursday, 13 March 2014
Is mortal life behind a veil of forgetfulness - or wading in a soup of sluggish viscosity?
*
Many people have an intuition of pre-mortal existence, a very vague memory or feeling or hunch that their life did not start at birth (or conception).
They may not take notice of it, or it may be explained by reason or revelation. So, some attribute this to reincarnation, others to a spirit life before incarnate life... there are various possibilities pagan, philosophical, mainstream Christian and nowadays Mormon - documented by Terryl Givens in When Souls had Wings.
But a big problem is trying to explain (usually by some metaphor) why we don't remember more of this pre-mortal existence - or more exactly why we remember enough to have an intuition, but not enough to recall anything specific.
*
The main metaphor I have come across is that a 'veil' divides the pre-mortal from the mortal life: the idea apparently being that through a veil one can perceive shapes and movements, but no specific details.
On the other hand, the metaphor breaks down in the sense that a veil is so flimsy, yet the barrier preventing us from perceiving pre-mortal existence seems almost absolute; also that a veil seems suited to dividing an 'ongoing' spirit-world from this mortal world, but less helpful in explaining the vague nature of our memories.
*
Another way of thinking about this, another metaphor, is that mortal life could be conceptualized as extremely thick and viscous; so that compared with pre-mortal life we can only wade and move very slowly through it, and with great effort.
I get the general idea from William Arkle - the point being that the viscosity and extremely slow movement of earthly life, relative to Heavenly or other 'higher' forms of life, is an essential aspect of our unique ability to gain experience as incarnate mortals; BUT that it creates a significant (although not absolute) barrier to our perceptions and memories of pre-mortal existence - which seems to us almost incomprehensibility swift and frictionless.
Just a thought...
*
Many people have an intuition of pre-mortal existence, a very vague memory or feeling or hunch that their life did not start at birth (or conception).
They may not take notice of it, or it may be explained by reason or revelation. So, some attribute this to reincarnation, others to a spirit life before incarnate life... there are various possibilities pagan, philosophical, mainstream Christian and nowadays Mormon - documented by Terryl Givens in When Souls had Wings.
But a big problem is trying to explain (usually by some metaphor) why we don't remember more of this pre-mortal existence - or more exactly why we remember enough to have an intuition, but not enough to recall anything specific.
*
The main metaphor I have come across is that a 'veil' divides the pre-mortal from the mortal life: the idea apparently being that through a veil one can perceive shapes and movements, but no specific details.
On the other hand, the metaphor breaks down in the sense that a veil is so flimsy, yet the barrier preventing us from perceiving pre-mortal existence seems almost absolute; also that a veil seems suited to dividing an 'ongoing' spirit-world from this mortal world, but less helpful in explaining the vague nature of our memories.
*
Another way of thinking about this, another metaphor, is that mortal life could be conceptualized as extremely thick and viscous; so that compared with pre-mortal life we can only wade and move very slowly through it, and with great effort.
I get the general idea from William Arkle - the point being that the viscosity and extremely slow movement of earthly life, relative to Heavenly or other 'higher' forms of life, is an essential aspect of our unique ability to gain experience as incarnate mortals; BUT that it creates a significant (although not absolute) barrier to our perceptions and memories of pre-mortal existence - which seems to us almost incomprehensibility swift and frictionless.
Just a thought...
*
Tuesday, 7 June 2016
What I am reading (including audiobooks)...
If I take the past few weeks as a time-slice - the main things I am reading have been mostly reflected on this blog:
1. Major theme: I am exploring the Romantic Metaphysics tradition (I just made-up that name) of Coleridge, Steiner, Barfield and Arkle - by various combinations of slow intensive reading, listening to bits read aloud (this applies mainly to the Steiner, which is available in this form - but my Kindle will read aloud any book, albeit in a robotic and badly-emphasised fashion) and almost random dippings-in by impulse. A bit of Traherne.
2. Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell - yes... I'm afraid I am listening again to this as an audiobook - from the beginning. And loving it.
3. Tolkien - dipping mainly, but I re-read The Notion Club Papers (nth time), and looking through bits of the History of Middle Earth, and favourite parts of Lord of the Rings; listening (in the car) to Smith of Wootton Major. I tried to listen to The Children of Hurin read by Christopher Lee, but did not like the work or the reading of it.
4. Again in the car, I listened to the funny stories and verse of a Northumbrian farmer - about farming life - called Henry Brewis - who issued three CDs in the 1990s.
5. I have watched a couple of Shakespeare plays on DVD and read in Sam Johnson's and Coleridge's Shakespearian crit.
6. Read various poems from Palgrave's Golden Treasury.
7. Tried to read A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay, but gave up 1/3 of the way through from lack of interest.
8. Bedtime reading aloud (to my wife) - Finished one Miss Read 'Fairacre' novel by Miss Read, and started another - in between got more than halfway through RL Stevenson's Travels with a Donkey (a re-read, maybe fourth time including talking books?) but it didn't work terribly well read aloud and unedited.
9. Family listening in the car - Terry Pratchett - finished Small Gods, am most way through Soul Music.
10. Ground to a halt in listening to an audiobook of the Emerson biography by Robert D Richardson - a book I used to love to the point of obsession, but I now find Emerson too annoying with his multiple proto-progressive views (supported strongly by the biographer).
11. Not much scripture - mainly the Gospel of John.
12. Continuing my rather slow progression through Terryl Givens's Wrestling the Angel account of Mormon theology.
*
Probably more - the large number of works is mainly a reflection of my rather desultory current habits, as I drift from one thing to another...
The reason for so much 'audio' reading is that I listen to books - or cricket - while doing cooking and other kitchen chores.
(When I say 'cooking' I should really write 'food preparation' - of which I do a lot which is necessary and also something I am happy to do for the family; although I very seldom really cook anything. I don't hate it, and I like mealtimes and getting drinks and snacks etc for the family members - but cooking does not give me any intrinsic satisfaction. I have never made a meal I was 'proud of'.)
1. Major theme: I am exploring the Romantic Metaphysics tradition (I just made-up that name) of Coleridge, Steiner, Barfield and Arkle - by various combinations of slow intensive reading, listening to bits read aloud (this applies mainly to the Steiner, which is available in this form - but my Kindle will read aloud any book, albeit in a robotic and badly-emphasised fashion) and almost random dippings-in by impulse. A bit of Traherne.
2. Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell - yes... I'm afraid I am listening again to this as an audiobook - from the beginning. And loving it.
3. Tolkien - dipping mainly, but I re-read The Notion Club Papers (nth time), and looking through bits of the History of Middle Earth, and favourite parts of Lord of the Rings; listening (in the car) to Smith of Wootton Major. I tried to listen to The Children of Hurin read by Christopher Lee, but did not like the work or the reading of it.
4. Again in the car, I listened to the funny stories and verse of a Northumbrian farmer - about farming life - called Henry Brewis - who issued three CDs in the 1990s.
5. I have watched a couple of Shakespeare plays on DVD and read in Sam Johnson's and Coleridge's Shakespearian crit.
6. Read various poems from Palgrave's Golden Treasury.
7. Tried to read A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay, but gave up 1/3 of the way through from lack of interest.
8. Bedtime reading aloud (to my wife) - Finished one Miss Read 'Fairacre' novel by Miss Read, and started another - in between got more than halfway through RL Stevenson's Travels with a Donkey (a re-read, maybe fourth time including talking books?) but it didn't work terribly well read aloud and unedited.
9. Family listening in the car - Terry Pratchett - finished Small Gods, am most way through Soul Music.
10. Ground to a halt in listening to an audiobook of the Emerson biography by Robert D Richardson - a book I used to love to the point of obsession, but I now find Emerson too annoying with his multiple proto-progressive views (supported strongly by the biographer).
11. Not much scripture - mainly the Gospel of John.
12. Continuing my rather slow progression through Terryl Givens's Wrestling the Angel account of Mormon theology.
*
Probably more - the large number of works is mainly a reflection of my rather desultory current habits, as I drift from one thing to another...
The reason for so much 'audio' reading is that I listen to books - or cricket - while doing cooking and other kitchen chores.
(When I say 'cooking' I should really write 'food preparation' - of which I do a lot which is necessary and also something I am happy to do for the family; although I very seldom really cook anything. I don't hate it, and I like mealtimes and getting drinks and snacks etc for the family members - but cooking does not give me any intrinsic satisfaction. I have never made a meal I was 'proud of'.)
Saturday, 1 March 2014
Everybody was killed - but why the children?
*
Genesis 19: 24 Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven; 25 And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground.
*
Nathaniel Givens talks about a discussion of why presumably innocent children died when the city of Sodom was destroyed -
http://timesandseasons.org/index.php/2014/02/thanking-gods-advocates/
The assumption behind such discussions is that God could have destroyed the city while saving the children, if He had wanted to - but He chose not to.
Thus (it is being assumed) God chose to kill the children of Sodom when He did not need to.
And this was what the discussants were apparently trying either to justify or to critique - either to explain why God needed to kill the children, or else saying that God should not have killed the children.
*
However, I see a lot of scriptural evidence against the apparent background assumption that God can do anything He wants, so that things just become the way He wants. Like waving a magic wand and then - whoosh! everything is the way it should be...
In contrast, to me it looks as if - throughout the Bible - God usually accomplishes things in imperfect and roundabout ways, much as things are done in our mortal life.
*
For example, just before the above passage from Genesis, two angels arrive to rescue Lot and his family, and they do so by a combination of good advice, persuasion and supernatural - but limited - power (making Lot's attackers blind so they couldn't find the door to where Lots family were hidden). It all sound very roundabout - not to say clunky and probabilistic.
Why not just wave that wand and in a trice Lot and Co. would instantly be somewhere safe?
The best example is, of course, the single greatest event of history: the incarnation, life, teachings, joys and sufferings, atonement, death, resurrection and ascension of Christ - at a particular time and place of history; this is apparently an extraordinarily roundabout and seemingly contingent way of accomplishing the salvation of Man.
*
My point is that I find it conceivable that - given Sodom needed to be destroyed - the way it was destroyed was the best that could be managed.
In any war, the same dilemma is found. If the war must be won, innocents will die. Even with perfect knowledge, even with steps taken to inflict the minimum of innocent death - there is necessarily a very heavy cost.
This kind of thing is a terrible tragedy - terrible for us, terrible for God.
But - since neither we nor, apparently, God can 'wave a magic wand' and makes things just be the way we would want them to be - it seems unavoidable.
*
Genesis 19: 24 Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven; 25 And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and that which grew upon the ground.
*
Nathaniel Givens talks about a discussion of why presumably innocent children died when the city of Sodom was destroyed -
http://timesandseasons.org/index.php/2014/02/thanking-gods-advocates/
The assumption behind such discussions is that God could have destroyed the city while saving the children, if He had wanted to - but He chose not to.
Thus (it is being assumed) God chose to kill the children of Sodom when He did not need to.
And this was what the discussants were apparently trying either to justify or to critique - either to explain why God needed to kill the children, or else saying that God should not have killed the children.
*
However, I see a lot of scriptural evidence against the apparent background assumption that God can do anything He wants, so that things just become the way He wants. Like waving a magic wand and then - whoosh! everything is the way it should be...
In contrast, to me it looks as if - throughout the Bible - God usually accomplishes things in imperfect and roundabout ways, much as things are done in our mortal life.
*
For example, just before the above passage from Genesis, two angels arrive to rescue Lot and his family, and they do so by a combination of good advice, persuasion and supernatural - but limited - power (making Lot's attackers blind so they couldn't find the door to where Lots family were hidden). It all sound very roundabout - not to say clunky and probabilistic.
Why not just wave that wand and in a trice Lot and Co. would instantly be somewhere safe?
The best example is, of course, the single greatest event of history: the incarnation, life, teachings, joys and sufferings, atonement, death, resurrection and ascension of Christ - at a particular time and place of history; this is apparently an extraordinarily roundabout and seemingly contingent way of accomplishing the salvation of Man.
*
My point is that I find it conceivable that - given Sodom needed to be destroyed - the way it was destroyed was the best that could be managed.
In any war, the same dilemma is found. If the war must be won, innocents will die. Even with perfect knowledge, even with steps taken to inflict the minimum of innocent death - there is necessarily a very heavy cost.
This kind of thing is a terrible tragedy - terrible for us, terrible for God.
But - since neither we nor, apparently, God can 'wave a magic wand' and makes things just be the way we would want them to be - it seems unavoidable.
*
Thursday, 25 April 2013
Free will implies/ entails pre-mortal existence
*
I find the following line of argument very convincing.
Edited, and with bold emphases added, from pages 47-51 of The God who weeps by Terryl and Fiona Givens, 2012:
*
The greatest virtue of the idea of premortal existence, undoubtedly, is in its solution to the problem of human freedom...
If our life carries hidden within its core our own eternal past, then we are free in a way no alternate model of human existence can account for.
*
[The most daunting problem of free will is the challenge to understand..]
how we can freely choose, if God made us - body and soul, mind and will, genes and instincts, predispositions and predilections, tastes and desires?
One can say, God created us and He created us free. But that just substitutes a declaration for an explanation.
No, if God is the sole author of all that is, then we cannot find our way clear to believe He is not responsible for our choices.
*
The ancients knew that something is free only if it is not caused or created by something else,
[...as JME McTaggart wrote]
If God created our souls, He 'could have prevented all sin by creating us with better natures and in more favourable surroundings... Hence we should not be responsible for our sins to God.'
This is the same logic by which we assign blame in all other instances where there is a creator and a thing created. If a bridge collapses, we hold responsible the person that designed the bridge or executed its construction...
*
But the fact is, as adults with moral awareness, we sense we are responsible for our own choices.
And the reason we know is we are, is because we feel guilt when we do something wrong...
*
The modern era has given us a dozen reasons to explain away those legitimate feelings of guilt we all experience...
But no rationalization can allay the insistent knowledge that we all confess in moments of secret honesty: we do wrong because we make a decision to do so, and feel guilty because we know we could have acted differently.
*
That means we had other options than the one we chose. If we could have acted differently, then we were free to act differently at that moment of choice.
Guilt, the legitimate remorse we feel for the deliberate decision to do wrong, is all the proof we need that arguments about determinism and predestination are a philosopher's game.
Guilt is how we know we are free to choose.
(...)
In our present, earthly form, we are clearly the product of forces outside our control that influence our personality, inform our character, and shape our wants and desires.
And yet we know we are free.
How can this be, unless there is something at the heart of our identity that was not shaped by environment, not inherited from our parents, and not even created by God?
(...)
Some scholars who thought deeply about the nature of sin came to the same conclusion that only pre-existence can explain human freedom.
It is no solution simply to insist God made us free.
Sin must mean accountability... Accountability must mean the freedom to choose.
*
And human freedom can only have its roots [to quote Julius Muller] 'in a sphere beyond the range of time, wherein alone pure and unconditioned self-determination is possible'.
**
COMMENT
The above seems to crystallize pretty much exactly my own feelings on this topic.
I agree that 'God created us and He created us free' is a pseudo-argument.
I also agree in rejecting the suggestion that free will is one of those things that humans cannot know, but in this matter we must simply submit to (what we imagine to be) God's will - because I find this to be not just an un-Christian, but an anti-Christian conception of the relationship between God and Man.
And I agree that pre-mortal eternal pre-existence solves the problem of free will in the way that nothing else does.
*
Therefore, the only remaining question is whether it is true that the human soul or spirit (of some kind) had a pre-mortal eternal existence (of some kind).
The idea of pre-mortal soul/ spirit existence is compatible with at least some authoritative, albeit unusual (some would say heretical - but that is to beg the question) views of Christianity including some Holy Fathers such as (apparently) Augustine and Origen.
There is also a great deal of indirect experiential subjective evidence implying pre-mortal existence;
and a strong metaphysical argument that if souls are eternal from mortality forwards, then this would tend to imply they are immortal from mortality backwards (i.e. if something exists eternally - as souls do, then it is hard to imagine a time when it was not existing, and was created from nothing. Easy to say this, but hard to imagine it);
and furthermore the alternative times suggested for when the human soul is created (conception, during embryonic development, birth etc) all seem to be arbitrary and implausible.
*
So, I conclude that it is true and the reality is that human souls eternally pre-existed mortality in some form and mortal life is (mostly) shielded from (full and explicit) knowledge of this by a veil of ignorance - such as to preserve the autonomy of mortality on the one hand; while, on the other hand, encouraging us with legitimate hope and sufficient understanding.
*
I find the following line of argument very convincing.
Edited, and with bold emphases added, from pages 47-51 of The God who weeps by Terryl and Fiona Givens, 2012:
*
The greatest virtue of the idea of premortal existence, undoubtedly, is in its solution to the problem of human freedom...
If our life carries hidden within its core our own eternal past, then we are free in a way no alternate model of human existence can account for.
*
[The most daunting problem of free will is the challenge to understand..]
how we can freely choose, if God made us - body and soul, mind and will, genes and instincts, predispositions and predilections, tastes and desires?
One can say, God created us and He created us free. But that just substitutes a declaration for an explanation.
No, if God is the sole author of all that is, then we cannot find our way clear to believe He is not responsible for our choices.
*
The ancients knew that something is free only if it is not caused or created by something else,
[...as JME McTaggart wrote]
If God created our souls, He 'could have prevented all sin by creating us with better natures and in more favourable surroundings... Hence we should not be responsible for our sins to God.'
This is the same logic by which we assign blame in all other instances where there is a creator and a thing created. If a bridge collapses, we hold responsible the person that designed the bridge or executed its construction...
*
But the fact is, as adults with moral awareness, we sense we are responsible for our own choices.
And the reason we know is we are, is because we feel guilt when we do something wrong...
*
The modern era has given us a dozen reasons to explain away those legitimate feelings of guilt we all experience...
But no rationalization can allay the insistent knowledge that we all confess in moments of secret honesty: we do wrong because we make a decision to do so, and feel guilty because we know we could have acted differently.
*
That means we had other options than the one we chose. If we could have acted differently, then we were free to act differently at that moment of choice.
Guilt, the legitimate remorse we feel for the deliberate decision to do wrong, is all the proof we need that arguments about determinism and predestination are a philosopher's game.
Guilt is how we know we are free to choose.
(...)
In our present, earthly form, we are clearly the product of forces outside our control that influence our personality, inform our character, and shape our wants and desires.
And yet we know we are free.
How can this be, unless there is something at the heart of our identity that was not shaped by environment, not inherited from our parents, and not even created by God?
(...)
Some scholars who thought deeply about the nature of sin came to the same conclusion that only pre-existence can explain human freedom.
It is no solution simply to insist God made us free.
Sin must mean accountability... Accountability must mean the freedom to choose.
*
And human freedom can only have its roots [to quote Julius Muller] 'in a sphere beyond the range of time, wherein alone pure and unconditioned self-determination is possible'.
**
COMMENT
The above seems to crystallize pretty much exactly my own feelings on this topic.
I agree that 'God created us and He created us free' is a pseudo-argument.
I also agree in rejecting the suggestion that free will is one of those things that humans cannot know, but in this matter we must simply submit to (what we imagine to be) God's will - because I find this to be not just an un-Christian, but an anti-Christian conception of the relationship between God and Man.
And I agree that pre-mortal eternal pre-existence solves the problem of free will in the way that nothing else does.
*
Therefore, the only remaining question is whether it is true that the human soul or spirit (of some kind) had a pre-mortal eternal existence (of some kind).
The idea of pre-mortal soul/ spirit existence is compatible with at least some authoritative, albeit unusual (some would say heretical - but that is to beg the question) views of Christianity including some Holy Fathers such as (apparently) Augustine and Origen.
There is also a great deal of indirect experiential subjective evidence implying pre-mortal existence;
and a strong metaphysical argument that if souls are eternal from mortality forwards, then this would tend to imply they are immortal from mortality backwards (i.e. if something exists eternally - as souls do, then it is hard to imagine a time when it was not existing, and was created from nothing. Easy to say this, but hard to imagine it);
and furthermore the alternative times suggested for when the human soul is created (conception, during embryonic development, birth etc) all seem to be arbitrary and implausible.
*
So, I conclude that it is true and the reality is that human souls eternally pre-existed mortality in some form and mortal life is (mostly) shielded from (full and explicit) knowledge of this by a veil of ignorance - such as to preserve the autonomy of mortality on the one hand; while, on the other hand, encouraging us with legitimate hope and sufficient understanding.
*
Monday, 14 November 2011
Acknowledgement of reality - what would it take?
*
I said in yesterday's post: "modern Evil is characterized and made distinctive by an historically vast and pervasive expansion of The World - of Negligence."
This is why mainstream public discourse can be insane (not why modern society is insane - that is down to secular Leftism - but why or how it is that the insanity is not self-correcting).
*
What would it take to restore a sense of reality to mainstream public discourse? - the conviction that there is a reality, that reality is really real whatever we may say or think about it.
Some pretty extreme things have happened, such as communism (which is indeed still happening) yet reality is still denied.
What, then would it take - is anything big enough?
The answer is no, nothing is big enough that the mass media could not absorb it and normal unreality be resumed within an obscenely short period of days.
*
Reality cannot be restored at a population level unless and until the mass media has collapsed.
In the meantime, we must work with individuals, with souls.
At a personal level, for some people, sometimes something happens (it need not be nasty, but often is) such that reality becomes undeniable; and that individual may make a decision to acknowledge reality.
*
Reality is not a revelation - it is a grasp of the human condition as something given (not made by humans or human minds, not a framing device).
The condition of reality is what it is but our response to it is a matter of will and choice.
And recognition of reality involves recognizing that our will and choice are not our own, but are caused and corrupted (unless assisted from outwith themselves).
So that reality and our recognition that there is reality are both givens.
*
I said in yesterday's post: "modern Evil is characterized and made distinctive by an historically vast and pervasive expansion of The World - of Negligence."
This is why mainstream public discourse can be insane (not why modern society is insane - that is down to secular Leftism - but why or how it is that the insanity is not self-correcting).
*
What would it take to restore a sense of reality to mainstream public discourse? - the conviction that there is a reality, that reality is really real whatever we may say or think about it.
Some pretty extreme things have happened, such as communism (which is indeed still happening) yet reality is still denied.
What, then would it take - is anything big enough?
The answer is no, nothing is big enough that the mass media could not absorb it and normal unreality be resumed within an obscenely short period of days.
*
Reality cannot be restored at a population level unless and until the mass media has collapsed.
In the meantime, we must work with individuals, with souls.
At a personal level, for some people, sometimes something happens (it need not be nasty, but often is) such that reality becomes undeniable; and that individual may make a decision to acknowledge reality.
*
Reality is not a revelation - it is a grasp of the human condition as something given (not made by humans or human minds, not a framing device).
The condition of reality is what it is but our response to it is a matter of will and choice.
And recognition of reality involves recognizing that our will and choice are not our own, but are caused and corrupted (unless assisted from outwith themselves).
So that reality and our recognition that there is reality are both givens.
*
Thursday, 29 June 2017
Pre-mortal life seems natural to modern, 'evolutionary' thinking (from Owen Barfield)
Modern man must believe of anything that exists, that it has come gradually into being, that it has 'evolved'.
By and large, modern Man can no longer accept an hypothesis of instantaneous creation; and there is little doubt that, consciously or subconsciously, he applies that as much to his own individuality as to anything else.
If belief in his own existence is to involve believing that he was created at, or immediately before, his physical birth, he will abandon that belief - and he will have good reasons for doing so.
Edited from Self and Reality, in The Rediscovery of Meaning and other essays, by Owen Barfield (1977).
Barfield is surely correct in his observation of modern metaphysics - there is an inbuilt assumption that things 'gradually come into being'. Among mainstream Christians who have noticed this, such an assumption is typically regarded as necessarily a secular corruption, and there is an attempt to restore a pre-modern (medieval) metaphysics of instantaneous creation from nothing.
But for both Barfield (an Anthroposophist) and myself (a believer in Mormon theology), the 'modern' evolutionary thinking is correct, and in its essence an aspect of the spiritual progression of Man.
For both Anthroposophists and Mormons; the pre-modern belief is instantaneous creation is seen as an error, inherited from pre-Christian classical philosophy.
By 'evolution' is Not, of course, meant the purposeless evolution of Darwinian natural selection; but evolution in its original (and primary) meaning of a purposive and developmental unfolding towards a goal.
The implication is that each us us has an existence stretching back into pre-mortal life. For Barfield, this pre-existence was one of several incarnations with periods of spirit life in between - in which incarnations began as diffuse and spiritual, and became more solid and embodied. (The future envisaged was one of further progressive incarnations, eventually leading to full deity.)
For Mormons; pre-existence began with some kind of primordial consciousnesses, a stage of being spirit children of God, then a chosen incarnation into this mortal life. (The future envisaged is of a post-mortal resurrected eternal life, with ultimate potential for full and embodied deity.)
A belief in pre-existence - that we each, each of us, lived as spirit children of God, before being incarnated in mortal bodies to experience death, and thereby enable resurrection - is a metaphysical assumption that has potential to make a very large and positive difference to Christian life: it is an assumption that overcomes some of the stumbling-blocks and solves many of the deepest problems and paradoxes experienced by modern Christians.
By and large, modern Man can no longer accept an hypothesis of instantaneous creation; and there is little doubt that, consciously or subconsciously, he applies that as much to his own individuality as to anything else.
If belief in his own existence is to involve believing that he was created at, or immediately before, his physical birth, he will abandon that belief - and he will have good reasons for doing so.
Edited from Self and Reality, in The Rediscovery of Meaning and other essays, by Owen Barfield (1977).
Barfield is surely correct in his observation of modern metaphysics - there is an inbuilt assumption that things 'gradually come into being'. Among mainstream Christians who have noticed this, such an assumption is typically regarded as necessarily a secular corruption, and there is an attempt to restore a pre-modern (medieval) metaphysics of instantaneous creation from nothing.
But for both Barfield (an Anthroposophist) and myself (a believer in Mormon theology), the 'modern' evolutionary thinking is correct, and in its essence an aspect of the spiritual progression of Man.
For both Anthroposophists and Mormons; the pre-modern belief is instantaneous creation is seen as an error, inherited from pre-Christian classical philosophy.
By 'evolution' is Not, of course, meant the purposeless evolution of Darwinian natural selection; but evolution in its original (and primary) meaning of a purposive and developmental unfolding towards a goal.
The implication is that each us us has an existence stretching back into pre-mortal life. For Barfield, this pre-existence was one of several incarnations with periods of spirit life in between - in which incarnations began as diffuse and spiritual, and became more solid and embodied. (The future envisaged was one of further progressive incarnations, eventually leading to full deity.)
For Mormons; pre-existence began with some kind of primordial consciousnesses, a stage of being spirit children of God, then a chosen incarnation into this mortal life. (The future envisaged is of a post-mortal resurrected eternal life, with ultimate potential for full and embodied deity.)
A belief in pre-existence - that we each, each of us, lived as spirit children of God, before being incarnated in mortal bodies to experience death, and thereby enable resurrection - is a metaphysical assumption that has potential to make a very large and positive difference to Christian life: it is an assumption that overcomes some of the stumbling-blocks and solves many of the deepest problems and paradoxes experienced by modern Christians.
*
Much more on this vital theme can be read in When
Souls Had Wings: Pre-Mortal Existence in Western Thought by Terryl Givens, 2009.
The Mormon understanding is articulated by a recent Apostle (and great orator!) Neal A Maxwell: https://www.lds.org/ensign/1985/11/premortality-a-glorious-reality?lang=eng&_r=1
Wednesday, 5 March 2014
The evidential basis of the Book of Mormon, Mormonism and Mainstream Christianity
*
In a nutshell, I regard the matter of the evidential nature of the Book of Mormon (BoM) as a microcosm of the nature of Mormonism, which is itself a microcosm of Christianity.
That is to say there is evidence on both sides - evidence that the Book of Mormon is true - in the sense of being what it says it is; and other evidence that it is not true.
So that there are grounds for belief and also grounds to reject belief - and ultimately there is a choice to be made.
*
As Terryl Givens has said, the whole way that the production, the existence, of the Book of Mormon explains itself, and the way the BoM was explained-by Joseph Smith - with such concrete exactness and wealth of specific detail (the size, weight, location of the gold plates, the instruments of translation, the convoluted history of the visitations and manuscript etc.) presents a stark dichotomy: either such an elaborate and concrete story is basically true (with some inevitable human errors and distortions), or it is an elaborate and deliberate fraud (a fiction grossly elaborated from a mere handful of unremarkable facts).
*
And - because the BoM is the root and basis of the LDS church, the same argument applies to Mormonism - it is either essentially what it says it is, or else an elaborate and deliberate fraud.
*
The evidence is not all on one side, there is a significant balance of evidence; not equal balance - whatever that would mean - but the mass of unbelievers cannot accurately or honestly say there is nothing (or nothing significant) to be said in favour of the reality of the BoM and Mormonism itself; nor can Mormons accurately or honestly state that the evidence for the book and the faith is overwhelming and could only be rejected irrationally or maliciously.
Even those who conclude that the BoM is a fraud cannot legitimately claim it is an obvious fraud; even those who claim the BoM is the most important book in the world cannot legitimately claim that its production and nature are transparently and compellingly consistent with that status.
*
Furthermore, I feel that - at this point in history and in The West - the situation for Christianity is closely analogous to Mormonism.
CS Lewis put this crisply (although I would qualify his statement a little) when he said that Jesus Christ can only be regarded as either what he said he was; or else a deliberate fraud or insane.
My qualification is that the idea of Christ being insane is not much more plausible than that Joseph Smith was insane: considered as men (because those who deny the divinity of Christ regard him as a man) both functioned at far too high a level to be truly insane.
Those who regard Jesus as insane are required to believe that Christianity was fabricated by the Apostles - who would have had to be men of genius (and John and Paul certainly were); those who regard Joseph Smith as insane would be required to believe something similar - that Joseph Smith was surrounded by geniuses who did the real work of writing the BoM, devising a radically new theology, devising and organizing a new kind of church and so on - attributing the heavy lifting to the likes of Sidney Rigdon, Brigham Young and perhaps Parley Pratt and with Joseph Smith as a charismatic, inspired but unwitting and crazed 'front' for these covert operations.
*
So, in both instances it comes down to elaborate and deliberate fraud versus truth.
And neither mainstream Christians nor Mormons should be offended by hypothetical fraudulent explanations of their churches - since fraud is the only intellectually rigorous explanation for not believing.
*
Now, of course, there is no reason why a Christian who has faith in the self-claimed divinity of Christ and is certain that Jesus was not a fraud; there is no reason why such a person is in any way compelled by consistency (or the similarity of the cases) to believe that 'therefore' the self-claim of Joseph Smith that he was a prophet was genuine.
It is logically possible that Jesus was genuine and Joseph Smith was a fraud. (Which is, of course, the mainstream Christian view.) And the opposite (i.e. JS genuine and JC a fraud) is not possible - because the fraudulence of Christ would invalidate all of Joseph Smith's visionary and prophetic claims.
*
BUT the evidential position for Jesus Christ and Joseph Smith is similar to the modern mind, using evidence we have today and with that evidence regarded as we regard it today: which is to say there is reasonable and plausible evidence on both sides of the question, and that the ultimate decision of truth or fraud must be a choice and a matter of faith, intuition, inspiration, personal conviction.
The evidence does not decide the question for us - we must necessarily choose and we must know that we are doing the choosing; and yet we will (like it or like it not) believe and live by our choice; because upon our choice hinges the basic frame and understanding of our future life - our basic motivation and sense of purpose.
(Or, alternatively, our state of essential nihilism - characterized by underlying alienation, incomprehension and demotivation.)
*
I think Mormons are considerably more aware of this reality of modern existence as both consciously chosen and yet believed with certainty than are Mainstream Christians - and that this is one of the strengths of Mormonism.
*
In a nutshell, I regard the matter of the evidential nature of the Book of Mormon (BoM) as a microcosm of the nature of Mormonism, which is itself a microcosm of Christianity.
That is to say there is evidence on both sides - evidence that the Book of Mormon is true - in the sense of being what it says it is; and other evidence that it is not true.
So that there are grounds for belief and also grounds to reject belief - and ultimately there is a choice to be made.
*
As Terryl Givens has said, the whole way that the production, the existence, of the Book of Mormon explains itself, and the way the BoM was explained-by Joseph Smith - with such concrete exactness and wealth of specific detail (the size, weight, location of the gold plates, the instruments of translation, the convoluted history of the visitations and manuscript etc.) presents a stark dichotomy: either such an elaborate and concrete story is basically true (with some inevitable human errors and distortions), or it is an elaborate and deliberate fraud (a fiction grossly elaborated from a mere handful of unremarkable facts).
*
And - because the BoM is the root and basis of the LDS church, the same argument applies to Mormonism - it is either essentially what it says it is, or else an elaborate and deliberate fraud.
*
The evidence is not all on one side, there is a significant balance of evidence; not equal balance - whatever that would mean - but the mass of unbelievers cannot accurately or honestly say there is nothing (or nothing significant) to be said in favour of the reality of the BoM and Mormonism itself; nor can Mormons accurately or honestly state that the evidence for the book and the faith is overwhelming and could only be rejected irrationally or maliciously.
Even those who conclude that the BoM is a fraud cannot legitimately claim it is an obvious fraud; even those who claim the BoM is the most important book in the world cannot legitimately claim that its production and nature are transparently and compellingly consistent with that status.
*
Furthermore, I feel that - at this point in history and in The West - the situation for Christianity is closely analogous to Mormonism.
CS Lewis put this crisply (although I would qualify his statement a little) when he said that Jesus Christ can only be regarded as either what he said he was; or else a deliberate fraud or insane.
My qualification is that the idea of Christ being insane is not much more plausible than that Joseph Smith was insane: considered as men (because those who deny the divinity of Christ regard him as a man) both functioned at far too high a level to be truly insane.
Those who regard Jesus as insane are required to believe that Christianity was fabricated by the Apostles - who would have had to be men of genius (and John and Paul certainly were); those who regard Joseph Smith as insane would be required to believe something similar - that Joseph Smith was surrounded by geniuses who did the real work of writing the BoM, devising a radically new theology, devising and organizing a new kind of church and so on - attributing the heavy lifting to the likes of Sidney Rigdon, Brigham Young and perhaps Parley Pratt and with Joseph Smith as a charismatic, inspired but unwitting and crazed 'front' for these covert operations.
*
So, in both instances it comes down to elaborate and deliberate fraud versus truth.
And neither mainstream Christians nor Mormons should be offended by hypothetical fraudulent explanations of their churches - since fraud is the only intellectually rigorous explanation for not believing.
*
Now, of course, there is no reason why a Christian who has faith in the self-claimed divinity of Christ and is certain that Jesus was not a fraud; there is no reason why such a person is in any way compelled by consistency (or the similarity of the cases) to believe that 'therefore' the self-claim of Joseph Smith that he was a prophet was genuine.
It is logically possible that Jesus was genuine and Joseph Smith was a fraud. (Which is, of course, the mainstream Christian view.) And the opposite (i.e. JS genuine and JC a fraud) is not possible - because the fraudulence of Christ would invalidate all of Joseph Smith's visionary and prophetic claims.
*
BUT the evidential position for Jesus Christ and Joseph Smith is similar to the modern mind, using evidence we have today and with that evidence regarded as we regard it today: which is to say there is reasonable and plausible evidence on both sides of the question, and that the ultimate decision of truth or fraud must be a choice and a matter of faith, intuition, inspiration, personal conviction.
The evidence does not decide the question for us - we must necessarily choose and we must know that we are doing the choosing; and yet we will (like it or like it not) believe and live by our choice; because upon our choice hinges the basic frame and understanding of our future life - our basic motivation and sense of purpose.
(Or, alternatively, our state of essential nihilism - characterized by underlying alienation, incomprehension and demotivation.)
*
I think Mormons are considerably more aware of this reality of modern existence as both consciously chosen and yet believed with certainty than are Mainstream Christians - and that this is one of the strengths of Mormonism.
*
Sunday, 28 April 2013
Miracles, history and religion
*
All religion, Western and Eastern, is founded upon miracle.
It makes little sense to present arguments against Joseph Smith and early Mormonism that would extend equally well to what we are told about the origins of what will eventually be Judaism, the origins of Christianity, the origins of Islam.
All religion depends upon revelation. All revelation is supernatural. If you wish to be a hard rock empiricist, then you should not entertain any religious doctrine whatsoever.
Harold Bloom
*
The kind of revelation that Joseph describes is the scandal of Mormonism, in the same way that the resurrection of Christ is the scandal of Christianity.
And what I mean by that is that on the face of it, that's an affront to sophisticated notions of how the Universe works.
God doesn't deliver gold plates to farm boys. It's a cause of embarrassment to many intellectuals in the church to continue to insist that Joseph had literal gold plates given to him by a real angel.
But I also mean that it's a scandal in the sense that it is inseparable from the heart and soul of Mormonism, that one could no sooner divorce the historical claims of the Book of Mormon from the church than one could divorce the story of Christ's resurrection from Christianity and survive with the religion intact.
*
I think there's no question that the [LDS] church rises or falls on the veracity of Joseph Smith's story.
History as theology is perilous. If it turns out that the whole story of Christ's resurrection was a fabrication, then Christianity collapses.
That's the price we pay for believing in a God who intervenes in human history, who has real interactions with real human beings in real space and time.
That makes it historical, and that's a reality that we just can't flee away from.
Terryl Givens
**
From the PBS documentary The Mormons, 2007
http://www.pbs.org/mormons/etc/script.html
Bold emphasis added.
*
All religion, Western and Eastern, is founded upon miracle.
It makes little sense to present arguments against Joseph Smith and early Mormonism that would extend equally well to what we are told about the origins of what will eventually be Judaism, the origins of Christianity, the origins of Islam.
All religion depends upon revelation. All revelation is supernatural. If you wish to be a hard rock empiricist, then you should not entertain any religious doctrine whatsoever.
Harold Bloom
*
The kind of revelation that Joseph describes is the scandal of Mormonism, in the same way that the resurrection of Christ is the scandal of Christianity.
And what I mean by that is that on the face of it, that's an affront to sophisticated notions of how the Universe works.
God doesn't deliver gold plates to farm boys. It's a cause of embarrassment to many intellectuals in the church to continue to insist that Joseph had literal gold plates given to him by a real angel.
But I also mean that it's a scandal in the sense that it is inseparable from the heart and soul of Mormonism, that one could no sooner divorce the historical claims of the Book of Mormon from the church than one could divorce the story of Christ's resurrection from Christianity and survive with the religion intact.
*
I think there's no question that the [LDS] church rises or falls on the veracity of Joseph Smith's story.
History as theology is perilous. If it turns out that the whole story of Christ's resurrection was a fabrication, then Christianity collapses.
That's the price we pay for believing in a God who intervenes in human history, who has real interactions with real human beings in real space and time.
That makes it historical, and that's a reality that we just can't flee away from.
Terryl Givens
**
From the PBS documentary The Mormons, 2007
http://www.pbs.org/mormons/etc/script.html
Bold emphasis added.
*
Friday, 30 August 2013
Given that there are grounds for doubt, what should tip the balance between faith and unbelief?
*
From Lightning out of Heaven by Terryl Givens
http://magazine.byu.edu/?act=view&a=1851
Some people seem born with faith. And many people die with a full complement.
My own grandmother spent her last months pining for death because she was the last of her generation, she “missed her people” to an excruciating degree, and she grew more and more disconnected from a world she saw as simply irrelevant. Faith did not seem a choice for her. It descended upon her as naturally and irresistibly and encompassingly as the heavy snowfalls on her upstate New York farm.
But such a gift I have not found to be common. And it would seem that among those who are committed to the scholarly pursuit of knowledge and rational inquiry, faith is as often a casualty as it is a product.
*
The call to faith is a summons to engage the heart... with principles and values and ideals that we devoutly hope are true and have reasonable, but not certain, grounds for believing to be true.
*
I am convinced that there must be grounds for doubt as well as belief in order to render the choice more truly a choice, and, therefore, the more deliberate and laden with personal vulnerability and investment.
The option to believe must appear on one’s personal horizon like the fruit of paradise, perched precariously between sets of demands held in dynamic tension.
*
We are... always provided with sufficient materials out of which to fashion a life of credible conviction or dismissive denial.
We are acted upon... by appeals to our personal values, our yearnings, our fears, our appetites, and our ego.
What we choose to embrace, to be responsive to, is the purest reflection of who we are and what we love.
*
That is why faith, the choice to believe, is in the final analysis an action that is positively laden with moral significance.
Men and women are confronted with a world in which there are appealing arguments for God as a childish projection...
But there is also compelling evidence that a glorious divinity presides over the cosmos...
*
There is something to tip the scale, however.
There is something to predispose us to a life of faith or a life of unbelief.
There is a heart that in these conditions of equilibrium and balance—and only in these conditions of equilibrium and balance, ... is truly free to choose belief or cynicism, faith or faithlessness.
http://magazine.byu.edu/?act=view&a=1851
**
Note:
It is possible for someone to remain in a state of agnostic balance - poised between belief and unbelief, unable or unwilling to choose - for a long time: for years, decades, until overtaken by death...
This is better than embracing the secular mainstream of hedonic nihilism, but is seriously deficient, because it is to commit to weakness - because it is to reject any possibility of spiritual progress.
Certainty may come after choosing, but certainty does not compel choice - not in this world.
To wait for certainty before choosing faith is therefore a significant and substantial moral defect - itself a negative decision in the face of the human condition.
To fail to choose is a failure to engage the heart: it is a failure which is both self-revealing and self-defining.
*
From Lightning out of Heaven by Terryl Givens
http://magazine.byu.edu/?act=view&a=1851
Some people seem born with faith. And many people die with a full complement.
My own grandmother spent her last months pining for death because she was the last of her generation, she “missed her people” to an excruciating degree, and she grew more and more disconnected from a world she saw as simply irrelevant. Faith did not seem a choice for her. It descended upon her as naturally and irresistibly and encompassingly as the heavy snowfalls on her upstate New York farm.
But such a gift I have not found to be common. And it would seem that among those who are committed to the scholarly pursuit of knowledge and rational inquiry, faith is as often a casualty as it is a product.
*
The call to faith is a summons to engage the heart... with principles and values and ideals that we devoutly hope are true and have reasonable, but not certain, grounds for believing to be true.
*
I am convinced that there must be grounds for doubt as well as belief in order to render the choice more truly a choice, and, therefore, the more deliberate and laden with personal vulnerability and investment.
The option to believe must appear on one’s personal horizon like the fruit of paradise, perched precariously between sets of demands held in dynamic tension.
*
We are... always provided with sufficient materials out of which to fashion a life of credible conviction or dismissive denial.
We are acted upon... by appeals to our personal values, our yearnings, our fears, our appetites, and our ego.
What we choose to embrace, to be responsive to, is the purest reflection of who we are and what we love.
*
That is why faith, the choice to believe, is in the final analysis an action that is positively laden with moral significance.
Men and women are confronted with a world in which there are appealing arguments for God as a childish projection...
But there is also compelling evidence that a glorious divinity presides over the cosmos...
*
There is something to tip the scale, however.
There is something to predispose us to a life of faith or a life of unbelief.
There is a heart that in these conditions of equilibrium and balance—and only in these conditions of equilibrium and balance, ... is truly free to choose belief or cynicism, faith or faithlessness.
http://magazine.byu.edu/?act=view&a=1851
**
Note:
It is possible for someone to remain in a state of agnostic balance - poised between belief and unbelief, unable or unwilling to choose - for a long time: for years, decades, until overtaken by death...
This is better than embracing the secular mainstream of hedonic nihilism, but is seriously deficient, because it is to commit to weakness - because it is to reject any possibility of spiritual progress.
Certainty may come after choosing, but certainty does not compel choice - not in this world.
To wait for certainty before choosing faith is therefore a significant and substantial moral defect - itself a negative decision in the face of the human condition.
To fail to choose is a failure to engage the heart: it is a failure which is both self-revealing and self-defining.
*
Wednesday, 25 April 2018
Denying pre-mortal spirit existence seriously weakened Christianity
I believe that we, all of us, existed as pre-mortal spirits; and that we chose to be incarnated into this mortal life (from which we will be resurrected). This doctrine, I got from Mormonism, where it is a key part of the revelations from Joseph Smith; but I believe it because of direct intuitive experience... because I 'remember' that it was so.
(That is the proper - although not sole - reason for believing any key Christian doctrine; indeed until one has such a personal revelatory conviction, any belief tends to be 'just a theory', and thereby feeble or fear-based.)
However, as Terryl Givens makes clear in his scholarly book When Souls Had Wings (OUP 2009) - this idea of pre-mortal existence is Biblical, and was a belief of several of the early church Fathers, before it was 'oulawed' as heretical by later church councils.
Nonetheless, the belief in a pre-mortal spirit existence has remained a minority thread within Christianity throughout its entire history - and could perhaps be regarded as heterodox rather than heretical.
Anyway, having understood and assented to the reality of pre-mortal life; I have come to realise how much mainstream Christianity lost by excluding it and instead insisting that our souls were each created from nothing sometime between conception and birth.
For a start, the exact point at which the newly-created soul is joined with the body seems important, yet all arguments I have seen on the topic seem unconvincing, arbitrary.
Secondly, when the soul is newly-created from nothing, then there is no possibility of our having agreed to incarnation - leading to the 'I didn't ask to be born' notion, so common in modernity. People understand themselves to have been 'thrown-into' the world. Whereas I believe that we did ask to be born - each of us, individually; we were offered the possibility, and each of us actively chose it. Those who did not so choose, remained as pre-mortal spirits.
Because the baseline assumption of mainstream Christianity is that we were incarnated without consent, this creates a big problem when someone has a life of extreme suffering - because it seems that God has forced that soul to endure extreme suffering, like-it-or-not...
This problem is compounded by the common mainstream Christian assumption that damnation and eternal suffering in Hell is the default outcome of mortal life; and that it is very difficult to avoid this outcome, so that (probably) most people/ nearly everybody ends-up in Hell. Such a nightmare scenario is, to say the least of it, hard to reconcile with God as our loving Heavenly Father... It seems more like an act of gratuitous cruelty, only somewhat ameliorated by the slim chance of eternal happiness.
In other words, under the standard scenario, it is statistically better never to have been born. Yet we are born. ...Which apparently refutes the Christian description of the loving nature of God.
However, if we acknowledge and believe (and know) that we were pre-mortal spirits who freely chose incarnate mortal life en route to resurrected eternal life; then this life can quite simply be made sense of in terms of its being the necessary step of obtaining a mortal body, which can via death become an eternal body; and as a finite period of experience and learning through-which 'theosis' we may (if we choose well) become more-divine in our natures, leading-into in our eternal post-mortal life.
This scenario has a further indirect implication, which is that we would not have been likely to choose our own incarnated mortality unless there was a reasonable chance of avoiding permanent damnation into Hell. It therefore fits with the idea (which I believe to be scriptural) that salvation is a gift (from Jesus) which we must actively reject in order to be self-consigned to a chosen Hell of eternal suffering.
(This is part of the Mormon model of post-mortal life being, for nearly everybody, a matter of levels of 'Heaven'; of essentially pleasing places, with grades from a materialist paradise at the lowest level; to a highest level including close friendship with our brother Jesus, partnership with God our Father, permanent celestial marriage, and participation in the primary work of divine creation... Hell being a reality of eternal suffering chosen by the deliberately unrepentant (prideful) and calculating (Good-hating) sinner: the conscious rejecter of Heaven.)
In sum (and I could say more) it seems to me that the doctrine of pre-mortal spirit life is something close to an essential for a coherent Christian faith if it is to provide a scenario of mortal life that is consistent with our knowledge of God as our loving Heavenly Father who made this world and this life for the benefit of all his children.
I would therefore urge all Christians who do not already have a conviction of pre-mortal life, to consider this matter with seriousness, and diligently to seek personal revelation on the topic.
(That is the proper - although not sole - reason for believing any key Christian doctrine; indeed until one has such a personal revelatory conviction, any belief tends to be 'just a theory', and thereby feeble or fear-based.)
However, as Terryl Givens makes clear in his scholarly book When Souls Had Wings (OUP 2009) - this idea of pre-mortal existence is Biblical, and was a belief of several of the early church Fathers, before it was 'oulawed' as heretical by later church councils.
Nonetheless, the belief in a pre-mortal spirit existence has remained a minority thread within Christianity throughout its entire history - and could perhaps be regarded as heterodox rather than heretical.
Anyway, having understood and assented to the reality of pre-mortal life; I have come to realise how much mainstream Christianity lost by excluding it and instead insisting that our souls were each created from nothing sometime between conception and birth.
For a start, the exact point at which the newly-created soul is joined with the body seems important, yet all arguments I have seen on the topic seem unconvincing, arbitrary.
Secondly, when the soul is newly-created from nothing, then there is no possibility of our having agreed to incarnation - leading to the 'I didn't ask to be born' notion, so common in modernity. People understand themselves to have been 'thrown-into' the world. Whereas I believe that we did ask to be born - each of us, individually; we were offered the possibility, and each of us actively chose it. Those who did not so choose, remained as pre-mortal spirits.
Because the baseline assumption of mainstream Christianity is that we were incarnated without consent, this creates a big problem when someone has a life of extreme suffering - because it seems that God has forced that soul to endure extreme suffering, like-it-or-not...
This problem is compounded by the common mainstream Christian assumption that damnation and eternal suffering in Hell is the default outcome of mortal life; and that it is very difficult to avoid this outcome, so that (probably) most people/ nearly everybody ends-up in Hell. Such a nightmare scenario is, to say the least of it, hard to reconcile with God as our loving Heavenly Father... It seems more like an act of gratuitous cruelty, only somewhat ameliorated by the slim chance of eternal happiness.
In other words, under the standard scenario, it is statistically better never to have been born. Yet we are born. ...Which apparently refutes the Christian description of the loving nature of God.
However, if we acknowledge and believe (and know) that we were pre-mortal spirits who freely chose incarnate mortal life en route to resurrected eternal life; then this life can quite simply be made sense of in terms of its being the necessary step of obtaining a mortal body, which can via death become an eternal body; and as a finite period of experience and learning through-which 'theosis' we may (if we choose well) become more-divine in our natures, leading-into in our eternal post-mortal life.
This scenario has a further indirect implication, which is that we would not have been likely to choose our own incarnated mortality unless there was a reasonable chance of avoiding permanent damnation into Hell. It therefore fits with the idea (which I believe to be scriptural) that salvation is a gift (from Jesus) which we must actively reject in order to be self-consigned to a chosen Hell of eternal suffering.
(This is part of the Mormon model of post-mortal life being, for nearly everybody, a matter of levels of 'Heaven'; of essentially pleasing places, with grades from a materialist paradise at the lowest level; to a highest level including close friendship with our brother Jesus, partnership with God our Father, permanent celestial marriage, and participation in the primary work of divine creation... Hell being a reality of eternal suffering chosen by the deliberately unrepentant (prideful) and calculating (Good-hating) sinner: the conscious rejecter of Heaven.)
In sum (and I could say more) it seems to me that the doctrine of pre-mortal spirit life is something close to an essential for a coherent Christian faith if it is to provide a scenario of mortal life that is consistent with our knowledge of God as our loving Heavenly Father who made this world and this life for the benefit of all his children.
I would therefore urge all Christians who do not already have a conviction of pre-mortal life, to consider this matter with seriousness, and diligently to seek personal revelation on the topic.
Tuesday, 27 May 2014
Christian converts and the re-enchantment of everyday life - a shopping list of suggestions
*
No all Christian converts can join a church - most Christian churches are not worth joining and most are not Christian but anti. Among those who do join a church not all can be active or devout. Not all real Christian churches provide an all-round experience - some are dry, cold, black and white; others are excessively communal for some people - others are not communal enough.
In sum: everybody should be a Christian, but not everybody (here and now) can or should join a church.
So what then? How on earth can the Christian convert (or the cradle Christian, for that matter) get support, be encouraged, experience relatedness, joy, connection when there is no church - or no church that provides this kind of thing?
How, in sum, can a Christian convert experience that which many crave - the re-enchantment of everyday life - when they are pretty much 'on their own'?
*
I can only offer a shopping list of suggestions. In no particular order.
1. As a general attitude: approach your religious life as a process of trial and error - make trials, expect to make errors; repent, learn, try again.
2. Meditation - various methods. Much depends on the purpose - if aiming to get power: bad; if aiming for joy and cheer then it depends on how; if aiming for communion with God, to understand, to feel divinity - then Good.
3. Prayer - very varied. From short repetitions or short spontaneous prayers (thanks, requests etc) to long formal prayers, written prayers, improvised/ inspired prayers. All Christians will pray to the Father in the name of Jesus - some Christians add others.
4. Read scripture. Some people are systematic (from the start to the end), others have a plan (for example the evangelical plan or reading the Bible by LAGER: Luke, Acts, Genesis, Exodus, Revelations); others just read what they feel drawn to read - some read in small intensely considered passages; others take in a large sweep of text to get a 'feel' for things.
5. Focus on the work of specific persons, and the people who are recommended by them or who have been influenced by them. E.g. CS Lewis, Father Seraphim Rose, Terryl Givens.
6. Attend churches sometimes for specific reasons (rather than 'joining' a particular one) e.g. for the joyous liturgy, the teaching sermons, the music, the people.
7. Read inspiring devotional Literature/ Poetry/ Essays - Herbert's poetry, Pascal's Pensees, Traherne's 'Centuries of Mediations' that kind of thing.
*
Then reverse the prescription of Robert Burton and Samuel Johon who tried to avoid melancholy and: Be Solitary, Be Idle (unstructured time). Feel life happening.
Seek quite, rural, peaceful journeys, mornings and evenings - or night.
Either try for multiple daily spiritual injections of the above - or else a period of some days of total immersion in the above (a retreat).
Fast from the Mass Media.
**
No all Christian converts can join a church - most Christian churches are not worth joining and most are not Christian but anti. Among those who do join a church not all can be active or devout. Not all real Christian churches provide an all-round experience - some are dry, cold, black and white; others are excessively communal for some people - others are not communal enough.
In sum: everybody should be a Christian, but not everybody (here and now) can or should join a church.
So what then? How on earth can the Christian convert (or the cradle Christian, for that matter) get support, be encouraged, experience relatedness, joy, connection when there is no church - or no church that provides this kind of thing?
How, in sum, can a Christian convert experience that which many crave - the re-enchantment of everyday life - when they are pretty much 'on their own'?
*
I can only offer a shopping list of suggestions. In no particular order.
1. As a general attitude: approach your religious life as a process of trial and error - make trials, expect to make errors; repent, learn, try again.
2. Meditation - various methods. Much depends on the purpose - if aiming to get power: bad; if aiming for joy and cheer then it depends on how; if aiming for communion with God, to understand, to feel divinity - then Good.
3. Prayer - very varied. From short repetitions or short spontaneous prayers (thanks, requests etc) to long formal prayers, written prayers, improvised/ inspired prayers. All Christians will pray to the Father in the name of Jesus - some Christians add others.
4. Read scripture. Some people are systematic (from the start to the end), others have a plan (for example the evangelical plan or reading the Bible by LAGER: Luke, Acts, Genesis, Exodus, Revelations); others just read what they feel drawn to read - some read in small intensely considered passages; others take in a large sweep of text to get a 'feel' for things.
5. Focus on the work of specific persons, and the people who are recommended by them or who have been influenced by them. E.g. CS Lewis, Father Seraphim Rose, Terryl Givens.
6. Attend churches sometimes for specific reasons (rather than 'joining' a particular one) e.g. for the joyous liturgy, the teaching sermons, the music, the people.
7. Read inspiring devotional Literature/ Poetry/ Essays - Herbert's poetry, Pascal's Pensees, Traherne's 'Centuries of Mediations' that kind of thing.
*
Then reverse the prescription of Robert Burton and Samuel Johon who tried to avoid melancholy and: Be Solitary, Be Idle (unstructured time). Feel life happening.
Seek quite, rural, peaceful journeys, mornings and evenings - or night.
Either try for multiple daily spiritual injections of the above - or else a period of some days of total immersion in the above (a retreat).
Fast from the Mass Media.
**
Tuesday, 19 March 2013
God's power
*
God’s power rests not on totalizing omnipotence, but on the ability to alchemize suffering, tragedy, and loss, into wisdom, understanding, and even joy.
Rachael Givens
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peculiarpeople/2012/05/mormonism-and-the-dilemma-of-tragedy/
*
To alchemize suffering, tragedy, and loss, into wisdom, understanding, and even joy; seems to me a profoundly helpful analogy for understanding the nature of the help God provides when we are faced with pain, here in this mortal life on earth.
God does not will all instances of suffering; He cannot prevent all instances of suffering; and yet the risk of suffering is necessary - being intrinsic to and inescapable from God's plan.
But God can and will ultimately, in Time, weave all evil and suffering into his purposes.
*
God’s power rests not on totalizing omnipotence, but on the ability to alchemize suffering, tragedy, and loss, into wisdom, understanding, and even joy.
Rachael Givens
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peculiarpeople/2012/05/mormonism-and-the-dilemma-of-tragedy/
*
To alchemize suffering, tragedy, and loss, into wisdom, understanding, and even joy; seems to me a profoundly helpful analogy for understanding the nature of the help God provides when we are faced with pain, here in this mortal life on earth.
God does not will all instances of suffering; He cannot prevent all instances of suffering; and yet the risk of suffering is necessary - being intrinsic to and inescapable from God's plan.
But God can and will ultimately, in Time, weave all evil and suffering into his purposes.
*
Tuesday, 10 September 2013
Spiritual pride and the necessity for theosis
*
The sin of spiritual pride is a focus of the ascetic monastic tradition of Eastern Orthodoxy. It is also recognized by the Western Catholic tradition - although not given such prominence; and indeed by monastic Zen Buddhists.
*
Spiritual pride is the particular sin of those who embark upon a personal quest for holiness, for sanctity (the path to Sainthood), for theosis (becoming more like God) - and the sin is something like regarding one's own will as if it were the divine will - or perhaps being deceived into regarding demonic promptings as if they were divine.
The particular problem of spiritual pride, is that the person who suffers it imagines they are at a higher spiritual level than those around them, and so becomes immune to advice, warning, criticism.
The Eastern Orthodox antidote is to embark on ascetic disciplines only under supervision of a spiritual Father - and initially in a monastic (group) setting, with the monks 'looking out for each other'.
The assumption is that the spiritual Father has attained a sufficiently high level of theosis that he can detect and help solve the problems in the apprentice; and the apprentice must, for his own good, submit to this authority. The religious life is thus transmitted from Master to apprentice in an unbroken chain - implicitly originating and emanating from the Apostles at the time of Christ. (
However, it seems that the chain of tradition has been broken in many or most places in the world, which means that this method of attaining theosis is no longer possible - at least for most people in most places.)
*
My impression is that spiritual pride is especially a problem of spiritual ambition, when spiritual ambition is contaminated by the desire for one's own power and glory - e.g. the desire to make a 'successful career' of being a recognized Holy Man (rather like those fake 'gurus' of the 1960s), or simply the status of holiness - even purely the the self-satisfied 'smugness' of regarding oneself as of higher holiness than others.
*
Yet of course spiritual ambition is in itself 'a good thing' - and very necessary in a world such as ours where spirituality is at a pitifully low ebb.
But it seems that an onslaught on spirituality, aided by fasting, many hours of prayer, vigils (staying awake all night to pray) is - while often effective - hazardous; and hazardous in a similar way to the 1960s use of psychedelic drugs to create spiritual experiences - selfish, evil, demonic experiences are mistaken for insights, miracles and divine revelations.
These smack of a very modern impatience, sensation-seeking, mere curiosity, desire for novelty and impressive, extreme, experiences which can be boasted about.
*
It might have been expected that, on theological grounds, the Mormon religion would be especially prone to spiritual pride - since it makes theosis (called exaltation) into a central tenet: we are God's children - hence of the same nature as the divine - in a much more literal sense than in mainstream Christianity; there is a different concept of The Fall, thus no Original Sin to 'worry about'; and there is at least a remote and theoretical potential of each human becoming a God (under God the Father, but of similar scope) - which would seem like a very direct invitation to arrogance, selfishness.
Furthermore, all Mormons are told to ask for and expect to receive personal divine revelations - direct communications from God - to guide them through life
And yet spiritual pride is not a particular feature of Mormons nor much of a problem in the LDS church.
*
This apparent relative immunity to spiritual pride (at least, compared with other Christian traditions which emphasize theosis/ sanctification) may be related to the much more human ('anthropomorphic') understanding of God.
Mormons would tend to regard God the Father as a vast, almost infinite amplification of Man - i.e. starting from Man; while most mainstream Christian theology starts with abstract definitions of God, and tries to move towards Man - but typically cannot get very far with the comparison. It is a matter of starting at opposite ends.
Terryl and Fiona Givens - writing in The God Who Weeps - also suggest that the traditional Mormon emphasis has been much less on a God of infinite Power and Glory, and more on a God of infinite love and compassion (as depicted in the weeping God of Enoch's experience and depicted in the scripture Moses 7: http://www.lds.org/scriptures/pgp/moses/7?lang=eng).
To become ever more like a God the Father whose love is 'infinite' such that his suffering for the sins of the world is 'infinite' (like the mortal earthly Father of a vast family of deeply loved and profoundly suffering children) is not really the kind of goal likely to be provoking of spiritual pride.
*
Another difference is that the Mormon spiritual life is ideally in a family context - not a monastery nor in solitude.This guards against the many problems of ascetic monasticism.
Indeed, the opposite problem of worldly busy-ness - too much social doing, and not enough solitude, contemplation and prayer - would seem to be the characteristic limitation of Mormon spirituality.
*
Another difference is that for Mormons the path of theosis (exaltation) goes beyond death into the next life - and indeed stretches out into infinity.
Mormons may be aiming to become a God at some point in the unimaginably remote future, but in the meantime the main business is the hourly, daily, yearly business of living by the Commandments, working, serving, striving and so on - and this continues into the after life.
In other words, for Mormons there is not much sense of urgency about theosis - quite the reverse, since it stretches into an eternal future - exaltation it is mostly a matter for patience and endurance.
*
This is in stark contrast to mainstream Christianity where sanctification/ theosis is urgent and the clock of mortality is ticking.
Protestants generally regard spiritual progress as stopping at the instant of death, at which point the possibilities of salvation are fixed.
Catholics acknowledge a short period of potential spiritual development after death (e.g. the forty days of Orthodoxy or Roman Catholic purgatory) during which salvation/ theosis may be affected - but this seems to be conceptualized as a period when the soul may be helped by the intercessions of others, rather than its own efforts.
*
All this is very important stuff, to my understanding, since sanctification/ theosis/ exaltation is the main business of our continued experience of mortal life - it is what we ought to be focused on as our main business, day by day, hour by hour, year on year.
The main business of incarnate mortal life is - as the name implies - to experience 1. living in a body, and 2. dying. It is these which are the essence of this life we live - and these are experienced by everybody.
*
Beyond that, human experience is very varied - some die in the womb, or as infants, others live for varying times and in varying circumstances. The question is, beyond the necessity of not-rejecting that salvation which Christ has given us - what should we do with our days?
The answer is theosis - so we are called-upon to be spiritually ambitious, to progress as far as we can towards divinity during incarnate mortal life.
Therefore (assuming the above reasoning is correct), theosis is a topic which deserves, which requires, a lot more consideration than it is given in most Christian traditions.
*
The sin of spiritual pride is a focus of the ascetic monastic tradition of Eastern Orthodoxy. It is also recognized by the Western Catholic tradition - although not given such prominence; and indeed by monastic Zen Buddhists.
*
Spiritual pride is the particular sin of those who embark upon a personal quest for holiness, for sanctity (the path to Sainthood), for theosis (becoming more like God) - and the sin is something like regarding one's own will as if it were the divine will - or perhaps being deceived into regarding demonic promptings as if they were divine.
The particular problem of spiritual pride, is that the person who suffers it imagines they are at a higher spiritual level than those around them, and so becomes immune to advice, warning, criticism.
The Eastern Orthodox antidote is to embark on ascetic disciplines only under supervision of a spiritual Father - and initially in a monastic (group) setting, with the monks 'looking out for each other'.
The assumption is that the spiritual Father has attained a sufficiently high level of theosis that he can detect and help solve the problems in the apprentice; and the apprentice must, for his own good, submit to this authority. The religious life is thus transmitted from Master to apprentice in an unbroken chain - implicitly originating and emanating from the Apostles at the time of Christ. (
However, it seems that the chain of tradition has been broken in many or most places in the world, which means that this method of attaining theosis is no longer possible - at least for most people in most places.)
*
My impression is that spiritual pride is especially a problem of spiritual ambition, when spiritual ambition is contaminated by the desire for one's own power and glory - e.g. the desire to make a 'successful career' of being a recognized Holy Man (rather like those fake 'gurus' of the 1960s), or simply the status of holiness - even purely the the self-satisfied 'smugness' of regarding oneself as of higher holiness than others.
*
Yet of course spiritual ambition is in itself 'a good thing' - and very necessary in a world such as ours where spirituality is at a pitifully low ebb.
But it seems that an onslaught on spirituality, aided by fasting, many hours of prayer, vigils (staying awake all night to pray) is - while often effective - hazardous; and hazardous in a similar way to the 1960s use of psychedelic drugs to create spiritual experiences - selfish, evil, demonic experiences are mistaken for insights, miracles and divine revelations.
These smack of a very modern impatience, sensation-seeking, mere curiosity, desire for novelty and impressive, extreme, experiences which can be boasted about.
*
It might have been expected that, on theological grounds, the Mormon religion would be especially prone to spiritual pride - since it makes theosis (called exaltation) into a central tenet: we are God's children - hence of the same nature as the divine - in a much more literal sense than in mainstream Christianity; there is a different concept of The Fall, thus no Original Sin to 'worry about'; and there is at least a remote and theoretical potential of each human becoming a God (under God the Father, but of similar scope) - which would seem like a very direct invitation to arrogance, selfishness.
Furthermore, all Mormons are told to ask for and expect to receive personal divine revelations - direct communications from God - to guide them through life
And yet spiritual pride is not a particular feature of Mormons nor much of a problem in the LDS church.
*
This apparent relative immunity to spiritual pride (at least, compared with other Christian traditions which emphasize theosis/ sanctification) may be related to the much more human ('anthropomorphic') understanding of God.
Mormons would tend to regard God the Father as a vast, almost infinite amplification of Man - i.e. starting from Man; while most mainstream Christian theology starts with abstract definitions of God, and tries to move towards Man - but typically cannot get very far with the comparison. It is a matter of starting at opposite ends.
Terryl and Fiona Givens - writing in The God Who Weeps - also suggest that the traditional Mormon emphasis has been much less on a God of infinite Power and Glory, and more on a God of infinite love and compassion (as depicted in the weeping God of Enoch's experience and depicted in the scripture Moses 7: http://www.lds.org/scriptures/pgp/moses/7?lang=eng).
To become ever more like a God the Father whose love is 'infinite' such that his suffering for the sins of the world is 'infinite' (like the mortal earthly Father of a vast family of deeply loved and profoundly suffering children) is not really the kind of goal likely to be provoking of spiritual pride.
*
Another difference is that the Mormon spiritual life is ideally in a family context - not a monastery nor in solitude.This guards against the many problems of ascetic monasticism.
Indeed, the opposite problem of worldly busy-ness - too much social doing, and not enough solitude, contemplation and prayer - would seem to be the characteristic limitation of Mormon spirituality.
*
Another difference is that for Mormons the path of theosis (exaltation) goes beyond death into the next life - and indeed stretches out into infinity.
Mormons may be aiming to become a God at some point in the unimaginably remote future, but in the meantime the main business is the hourly, daily, yearly business of living by the Commandments, working, serving, striving and so on - and this continues into the after life.
In other words, for Mormons there is not much sense of urgency about theosis - quite the reverse, since it stretches into an eternal future - exaltation it is mostly a matter for patience and endurance.
*
This is in stark contrast to mainstream Christianity where sanctification/ theosis is urgent and the clock of mortality is ticking.
Protestants generally regard spiritual progress as stopping at the instant of death, at which point the possibilities of salvation are fixed.
Catholics acknowledge a short period of potential spiritual development after death (e.g. the forty days of Orthodoxy or Roman Catholic purgatory) during which salvation/ theosis may be affected - but this seems to be conceptualized as a period when the soul may be helped by the intercessions of others, rather than its own efforts.
*
All this is very important stuff, to my understanding, since sanctification/ theosis/ exaltation is the main business of our continued experience of mortal life - it is what we ought to be focused on as our main business, day by day, hour by hour, year on year.
The main business of incarnate mortal life is - as the name implies - to experience 1. living in a body, and 2. dying. It is these which are the essence of this life we live - and these are experienced by everybody.
*
Beyond that, human experience is very varied - some die in the womb, or as infants, others live for varying times and in varying circumstances. The question is, beyond the necessity of not-rejecting that salvation which Christ has given us - what should we do with our days?
The answer is theosis - so we are called-upon to be spiritually ambitious, to progress as far as we can towards divinity during incarnate mortal life.
Therefore (assuming the above reasoning is correct), theosis is a topic which deserves, which requires, a lot more consideration than it is given in most Christian traditions.
*
Friday, 14 June 2013
Free will is not exactly God-given but, ultimately, a product of us being eternal autonomous beings
*
My current understanding is that each person has existed eternally as an autonomous (but not, initially, personal) essence - and that at some point in Time we became Sons of God, which made us into persons.
(God shaped us into personhood when we became his spirit children, before we entered mortal life.)
*
Our free will is rooted in our eternal autonomous existence, but was made effectual - choices were made possible - by our having become Children of God.
This is what made The Fall possible.
*
On the one hand, our personhood comes from God and the reality of our situation is that we are in a profound relationship with God since He is our Father and made us persons; but on the other hand we existed as essences before we had a relationship with God; and this pre-existence is what enables us to reject God, and to deny the primacy of our relationship with Him.
*
It is because our free will derives from eternal agency that we are able to choose (to have the divine attribute of being unmoved movers, or first causes).
And it is because our free will derives from eternal agency that we must choose to acknowledge God's Fatherly love for us, and our child-like love of Him - because we cannot be compelled (not even by God - it is vital to recognize this) to acknowledge God's love, nor can we be compelled to love Him.
To be Christian is a choice because it must be a choice.
*
Therefore, Satan could not and cannot remove the ultimate (metaphysical) autonomy of persons, nor can Satan control free will - although he can of course enslave the body and compel actions.
Satan can influence autonomy only indirectly - principally by demoralization and corruption of the will - so that a person will choose to use his autonomy to deny his autonomy; and deliberately, repeatedly, systematically choose to sin and to destroy Good - while denying at every moment that he could choose otherwise.
And this is, of course, the great triumph of Satan in this modern era: to have so deeply confused and corrupted modern man that he uses his eternal and indestructible freedom of will in actively-denying the reality of his own freedom.
*
[Note: The above schema is the only one that (currently) seems to make sense of free will to me, therefore I present it for consideration. It leaves intact all core Christian doctrine, but modifies the metaphysical back story - so that some things are re-explained. It is, I think, pretty much identical with the implications of Mormon theology as I get it from Sterling McMurrin and Terryl Givens - but there are quite likely aspects which go beyond, or conflict with, what many or most Mormon theologians seem to say - so far as I can tell - which is not very far.]
My current understanding is that each person has existed eternally as an autonomous (but not, initially, personal) essence - and that at some point in Time we became Sons of God, which made us into persons.
(God shaped us into personhood when we became his spirit children, before we entered mortal life.)
*
Our free will is rooted in our eternal autonomous existence, but was made effectual - choices were made possible - by our having become Children of God.
This is what made The Fall possible.
*
On the one hand, our personhood comes from God and the reality of our situation is that we are in a profound relationship with God since He is our Father and made us persons; but on the other hand we existed as essences before we had a relationship with God; and this pre-existence is what enables us to reject God, and to deny the primacy of our relationship with Him.
*
It is because our free will derives from eternal agency that we are able to choose (to have the divine attribute of being unmoved movers, or first causes).
And it is because our free will derives from eternal agency that we must choose to acknowledge God's Fatherly love for us, and our child-like love of Him - because we cannot be compelled (not even by God - it is vital to recognize this) to acknowledge God's love, nor can we be compelled to love Him.
To be Christian is a choice because it must be a choice.
*
Therefore, Satan could not and cannot remove the ultimate (metaphysical) autonomy of persons, nor can Satan control free will - although he can of course enslave the body and compel actions.
Satan can influence autonomy only indirectly - principally by demoralization and corruption of the will - so that a person will choose to use his autonomy to deny his autonomy; and deliberately, repeatedly, systematically choose to sin and to destroy Good - while denying at every moment that he could choose otherwise.
And this is, of course, the great triumph of Satan in this modern era: to have so deeply confused and corrupted modern man that he uses his eternal and indestructible freedom of will in actively-denying the reality of his own freedom.
*
[Note: The above schema is the only one that (currently) seems to make sense of free will to me, therefore I present it for consideration. It leaves intact all core Christian doctrine, but modifies the metaphysical back story - so that some things are re-explained. It is, I think, pretty much identical with the implications of Mormon theology as I get it from Sterling McMurrin and Terryl Givens - but there are quite likely aspects which go beyond, or conflict with, what many or most Mormon theologians seem to say - so far as I can tell - which is not very far.]
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)