Part III: Omniscience and divine Learning

The Attributes of God
Part III: Omniscience and divine Learning

Related posts: Omniscience ; Immutable, Omnipresence ; Whence God? Talking about God ; Creation ex nihilo

Is the future open or closed? If the future is open to God then naturally God learns. Some might find it surprising but this belief was once common among Mormons. In 1857 Apostle Wilford Woodruff (who became 4th president of the church in 1889) said, “God himself is increasing and progressing in knowledge, power, and dominion, and will do so, worlds without end” (JD 6:120). Brigham Young said, “The greatest intelligence in existence can continually ascend to greater heights of perfection” (JD 1:93).[1] George Q. Cannon (Apostle; d. 1901) said, “There is progress for our Father and for our Lord Jesus…It is endless progress, progressing from one degree of knowledge to another degree” (Gospel Truth: Discourses and Writings of President George Q. Cannon, p. 92). General Authority B.H. Roberts (Seventy; d. 1933) wrote, “God is [not] Omniscient up to the point that further progress in knowledge is impossible to him; but that all knowledge that is, all that exists, God knows” (Seventy’s Course in Theology, vol. 4, p. 70-71).

Because the Mormon conception of the universe denies its creation ex nihilo (see Creation Ex Nihilo) there is a sense of obligation to grapple with scientific explanations of physical phenomena. We believe there is an underlying consistency between the universe and God. For example, James E. Talmage wrote in Jesus the Christ,

Miracles cannot be in contravention of natural law, but are wrought through the operation of laws not universally or commonly recognized…The human sense of the miraculous wanes as comprehension of the operative process increases. (p. 139)

Though God’s knowledge is greater than ours, even he operates within the bounds of law—this is uncontroversial for most Mormons. Miracles might contradict known laws but ultimately they do not suspend the natural laws of the universe. But does God learn?

Can God’s knowledge change?
If God learns then what he knows is subject to change.

This brings me to an illustration of one way God might learn. Firstly, suppose truly random processes exist. Most scientists would concede this is predicted by quantum mechanics, but I will use the illustration of “random” dice. Consider the outcome of a role of a six-sided dice, and suppose I get six. If the dice is truly random I cannot say there was a reason I got six. It could easily have been one, two, three, four or five. The outcome is unrelated to all antecedent conditions. There was no cause. It is, after all, random. If true randomness exists in the larger universe it’s impossible for science to predict absolutely the future. If randomness is outside God’s foreknowledge then he can learn at such-and-such a time, at such-and-such a place, Troy rolled a six. Taking this idea further, what if I base some of my decisions on a random quantum device (RQD) — such a device could be designed utilizing electron spin. When I push a button my RQD randomly lights up a yellow or red light. So when I make the decision to either walk to school or to ride the bus I push the button. If I get yellow I take the bus; if I get red I walk. Because my choice is based on a random outcome it’s impossible to foreknow what it will be.[2] If this is impossible for God to foreknow then he would learn on that particular morning the RQD gave me a red light and that I shall walk to school.

There is another way God’s knowledge could change. If I am sitting, then surely at that moment God knows I am now sitting. God knows I am now sitting only while I am sitting, and not at any other time. God cannot know I am now sitting while I am standing, neither can he know I was sitting before I sit, neither can he know I will be sitting after I stand up. If God’s knowledge is subject to change then it is at least partially temporal.[3] But further, doesn’t God know that he knows what he knows?—I, for example, know that 1 + 0 = 1; I also know that I know 1 + 0 = 1. [4] If God’s knowledge has any temporality to it then what God knows about himself changes. God cannot know that he knows I am now sitting before I sit. If any of God’s knowledge is temporal then God also discovers himself.

But what if God sees all temporal events as an eternal “now”? At that “now,” then, I am both sitting and not sitting, which seems to be a denial of the law of non-contradiction—a proposition cannot be concurrently true and false.

Mechanization
If God knows me absolutely then I am a mechanism. If I am a mechanism then free will is an illusion. If free will is completely knowable it too is mechanistic. But if I am not a mechanism it follows that God cannot know me absolutely. If I adopt this belief I should also reject infallible foreknowledge because it seems inconsistent to believe God knows all my future actions and yet does not know me completely. If God can’t know me completely then obviously I don’t know myself completely—true. But can God know himself completely? Is God a mechanism? Should we worship a mechanism? It seems if any being is to be non-mechanistic then total and comprehensive knowledge of it must be impossible, both to itself and to others. This requires rejecting traditional omniscience and embracing the belief that God learns. It also means there is no positive description of free will—random “choices” are also un-foreknowable. So it provides merely grounds for believing free will exists.

But could there be any way for God to know exactly what I will do even if my intentions are hidden? Consider this example. Every morning I choose either to walk to school or to ride the bus. And on one particular morning the bus breaks down several blocks from my house, but I had already chosen to walk to school without knowing this. God knew the bus would break down—He is, after all, an ace mechanic. So he knew with certainty I would walk to school, and I freely chose to walk to school, and participated in bringing that about. Though only one choice was available, Fate didn’t find me. I encountered it. Also, my choice need not be mechanistic—it could have been based on the outcome of my RQD; the issue of mechanization needn’t arise. All God needs to know is that I intend to go to school (one way or another) and that nothing shall prevent me from going to school, and that the bus will break down. Simply put, God can foreknow I walk to school and I can choose freely to walk to school. But instead of basing my choice on the outcome of my RQD, it could be based on my un-foreknowable free will.

But what if I had waited for the bus? Eventually I would have been forced to walk to school. So this illustrates only that some choices can be made freely and also be compatible with foreknowledge.

Having said that, I find it hard to believe something like the above example applies to all my free choices. What if there are two pieces of a cake to choose from, and my choice is based on the outcome of my RQD? or my unknowable will? That choice would be truly un-foreknowable.

Why reject omniscience?
Are there more solid grounds for rejecting traditional omniscience? Patrick Grim has come up with an intriguing argument against omniscience. If omniscience is knowledge that constitutes the set of all truths then there can be no omniscient being. I will simplify his arguments. Suppose there exist only three truths in the universe and they constitute the set S = {T1, T2, T3}. One could argue an omniscient being will know all truths in the universe, all truths contained in S—S, after all, is the set of all truths. However, a power set can be formed from these truths. The power set of S consists of every possible combination of the three truths of S: {}, {T1}, {T2}, {T3}, {T1, T2}, {T1, T3}, {T2, T3}, {T1, T2, T3}. I can then ask, “Is T1 in the first element? No. Is T1 in the second element? Yes. Is T1 in the third? No,” etc. What I end up with is more truths than those contained in the so-named set of all truths. (This is an application of the diagonal argument.) Because there is no set of all truths there can be no omniscient being. If an omniscient being did know all truths, it is always possible to generate more truths from the power set; the power set is always larger than the original set. Moreover, the argument works equally well with an infinite set of truths and analogues to this argument can be made for other ways of explicating omniscience. Because there can be no set of all truths, there can be no omniscient being.

Maybe that is true. At the very least it proves there is no cogent description of omniscience. But does this necessitate abandoning the very idea of omniscience? Perhaps not. In an exchange with Patrick Grim, Alvin Plantinga responded:

Suppose you are right: what we have, then, is a difficulty, not for omniscience as such, but for one way of explicating omniscience…A person who agrees with you will then be obliged to explain this maximal perfection in some other way; but she won't be obliged, at any rate just by these considerations, to give up the notion of omniscience itself. (“Truth, Omniscience, and Cantorian Arguments: An Exchange,” Philosophical Studies, vol. 71, 1993)

Conclusions
Personally, I have no strong objections to omniscience or to soft fatalism; nor do I have any special attachment to them. Scripture can support either view.[5] A typical argument for traditional omniscience is, “Without the knowledge of all things, God would not be able to save any portion of his creatures” (Lectures on Faith, 4:11). But I don’t see how that holds up. Suppose God knows everything except, say, how many dust particles existed in some uninhabitable, unobservable part of the universe six billion years ago? Would it matter to my salvation? I can’t see how. It’s always possible to come up with some factoid that doesn’t matter. Though traditional omniscience is very important to the God of the philosophers—If you want to say God is a being “than which nothing greater can be imagined” you must have omniscience—I don’t like the theological baggage that comes with it: pessimism, the fated future, that being known completely means I am a mechanism. Moreover, I don’t believe omniscience has any serious soteriology. If omniscience were essential to salvation then every fact, no matter how seemingly trivial, has salvific value or is necessary to another fact that has salvific value. And I can’t see how that’s true. Though omniscience has tremendous comfort value it seems unnecessary to religion.




End Notes_____________________________
[1] The Apostle Orson Pratt taught that God could not progress in knowledge. This was denounced by Brigham Young who said on 13 January, 1867, “Some men seem as if they could learn so much and no more. They appear to be bounded in their capacity for acquiring knowledge, as Brother Orson Pratt, has in theory, bounded the capacity of God. According to his theory, God can progress no further in knowledge and power; but the God that I serve is progressing eternally, and so are his children: they will increase to all eternity, if they are faithful” (JD 11:286). Wilford Woodruff wrote in his journal, “Prest Yound said I corrected O. Pratt to day I did not way that God knows all things comprehends all things had has a fullness of all that He will ever obtain that moment eternity seases you put bound to Eternity & space & matter and you make an end and stopping ploease to it.” (4 March, 1860; qtd. in “The Mormon Concept of God” by Blake Ostler. See footnote 38 on page 77).

[2] LDS scientist Henry Eyring made a similar observation:

More recently, we have been obliged to give up the old determinism of classical mechanics as well as the idea of indestructibility of matter. Mechanical determinism meant that if one were given the state of the universe at any instant of time, a sufficiently expert mathematician could calculate the state of things at all times to come. This left no place for the great religious principle of free will. Then quantum mechanics brought with it the uncertainty principle. This principle eliminates the possibility of predicting the future exactly and tends to confirm that fundamental Christian tenet that man enjoys free agency as a divine gift. (Improvement Era, vol. 51, no. 2, February 1948)

[3] See Wolterstorff, Nicholas, 1975, ‘God Everlasting’ in God and the Good: Essays in Honor of Henry Stob.'

[4] “And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments” (1 John 2:3).

[5] One from the Book of Mormon reads, “But the Lord knoweth all things from the beginning; wherefore, he prepareth a way to accomplish all his works among the children of men; for behold, he hath all power unto the fulfilling of all his words” (1 Nephi 9:6). Preparations imply acting in time, and possibly accounting for contingences. Knowing all things “from the beginning” doesn’t necessarily imply knowing all things to their end. And Nephi didn’t say God has infinite power, but power to bring about his will. Also, “the Lord God doth work by means to bring about his great and eternal purposes” (Alma 37:7). And when the scriptures say “the Lord knoweth all things” (1 Nephi 9:6) and “the Lord knoweth all things which are to come” (WoM 1:7) it means that God knows the past, present, and all possible futures. Also, when God says, “my wisdom is greater than the cunning of the devil” (D&C 10:43; 3 Nephi 21:10), it sounds like God outsmarts the devil, which could imply temporality to God.

Scriptures supporting the traditional view of omniscience are: “all things are present with me, for I know them all” (Moses 1:6); “[I am Alpha and Omega,] The same which knoweth all things, for all things are present before mine eyes” (D&C 38:2); “But the Lord knoweth all things from the beginning” (1 Nephi 9:6; I quoted this one in the above paragraph).

The Attributes of God: part II

The Attributes of God
Part II: Omniscience and Fate

Related Posts: Immutable, Omnipresence ; The Fall of Man Part II ; Election ; Creation ex nihilo ; Omniscience and divine Learning ; Whence God? Talking about God

Immutability leads to timelessness, and timelessness to ubiquity. God is omnipotent and free from all spatial and temporal limitations. God is also omniscient. In contrast, the LDS belief in spiritual omnipresence does not entail timelessness or immutability, and it still allows us to believe God knows all things.[1]

A typical definition of omniscience is that God knows all truths and holds no false beliefs. Traditional omniscience includes God’s certain knowledge of past, present, and future. Of knowing past, present, and future, absolute knowledge of the future is most controversial.

In this post I explore how omniscience affects beliefs about freedom, moral responsibility, and the nature of man. If one billion years ago God knows that today I have a veggie sandwich for lunch, and because God cannot be wrong, I have no choice but to realize my fate. If God knows me completely, does that mean I am a mechanism? If I am a mechanism and/or my future was determined without me, can I be held morally responsible for my actions?

Explicating Omniscience
The Encyclopedia of Mormonism mentions three ways of believing about the foreknowledge of God (“Foreknowledge of God,” Encyclopedia of Mormonism). (1) God knows all things past, present, and future, and yet humans are free. According to this belief God knows what will happen but doesn’t make it happen. God simply knows how each of us will freely choose; foreknowledge is simply knowledge and is distinct from causal and logical necessity. I should point out that in traditional Christianity “foreknowledge” is an anthropomorphism, a human concept used to refer to God’s knowledge of events we perceive as happening in time. However, in the Mormon conception God exists in time, so foreknowledge is truly fore-knowledge. (2) God has perfect knowledge of the past and present. He also knows every possible future along with the probability of each being actualized but does not know which will be actualized. The future is open. According to this way of believing God is omniscient because the unknowable does not qualify as knowledge: “Because the future is yet undecided—propositions about the future are neither true nor false” (Blake T. Ostler, “The Mormon Concept of God,” Dialogue, vol. 17, no. 2, 1984).[2] In this view God has absolute knowledge he will bring about his purposes because he is the so-called unbeatable chess player. And finally (3), God has perfect knowledge of past, present, and future, and free will is an illusion.

Mormons overwhelmingly reject (3). Most believe in (1), which puts them closer to traditional Christian philosophers such as Augustine and Anselm. Many believe in (2). In addition, there is another view which uses the language of (1) and the theology of (2); it’s a kind of synthesis between omniscience, perfection, and an open future, but I'll save that for a later post in this series.

For myself, I do reject (3), but am undecided between the others. While many Mormons believe God knows the future, they are uncomfortable with the idea it is fixed. Traditional omniscience implies a fixed future, and at the very least, that we are under God’s providential control—Few theists would accept that God knows all things and yet that history is beyond his control.

Non-traditional omniscience (2) involves an open future, and that we are under God’s providential guidance. In this view God knows the past, present, and all things that could yet happen, but not which will happen. Because the future has not yet happened, propositions about future events have no truth value. For example, in September 2008 it was not true that Barack Obama was to be inaugurated as 44th president of the United States. Back then it was possible John McCain will have won the race. The proposition, “The 2008 election results select Barack Obama to be President of the United States,” did not become true until election results made it true. The statement, “Today I will go to the public library,” is made true by my going to the public library today; before that it had no truth value. But, as with all philosophical propositions an open future has its difficulties. In particular, when exactly do propositions regarding the future acquire truth value? For example, which of the two following propositions is true: (i) admiral A wins tomorrow’s sea battle and admiral B looses; or, (ii) admiral B wins and admiral A looses. (Ignoring for now the possibility of a stalemate.) Do they acquire truth value when the battle is over? when one fleet is mortally wounded? or has retreated? Do they acquire truth value near the beginning, middle, or end of the battle? If a proposition acquires truth value at a given moment in time, it is not at all obvious how a nano-second before that moment the proposition was neither true or false, and a nano-second after it is true.

However, if God knows A wins then (i) is always true and (ii) is always false. But again, the future is fixed. On the other hand, if before the battle (i) and (ii) have no truth value then the future is genuinely open. Eventually, however, either (i) or (ii) happens. And if admiral A wins it could be argued that (i) is always true and (ii) is always false. If propositions about the future have no present truth value the future is open. If propositions about the future have fixed truth value the future is closed.

Fate
With a locked-in future one must deal with the issue of fatalism. This is the belief that no matter what you do, the future is foreordained. It cannot be other than what it is. Fatalism has a strong and weak sense. (I’m going to use these senses very loosely.) For example, if three witches tell me that tomorrow I shall fall into a pit and die, then no matter how I try to avoid it, I will stumble into a pit and die. In trying to avoid my fate I unavoidably, and accidently, encounter it. That is weak fatalism. Strong fatalism is somewhat different. Suppose the Angel of Death decides that tomorrow I shall die. Despite my efforts to evade him, he hunts me down and frees me from my mortal coil. But suppose I am unaware of Fate’s decision? Suppose the witches don’t tell me of their prophecy? With weak fatalism I encounter my fate, whether or not I am conscientiously trying to avoid it. With strong fatalism, Fate encounters me, regardless. Maybe both, one, or none of these is true. But the kind of fatalism I am most bothered by is strong fatalism—weak fatalism involves accidents and it’s easy to believe in accidents. With weak fatalism exactly how I shall encounter my fate is unknown. With hard fatalism Fate finds me and forces his choice on me. With weak fatalism there is a sense of “What’s going to happen is going to happen. I will encounter my fate. Que sera sera.” But with hard fatalism I am not an active participant in bringing about my fate, hence there is a sense of, “Life happens to you, so why try. Fate will find me.” With weak fatalism I am participatory in bringing about my fate. With strong fatalism I am its hapless victim.

So how could the hard Mr. Fate force me to encounter his chosen plan? Suppose during Tuesday’s lecture I inform my students that Thursday’s lecture is canceled and that they needn’t come to class on Thursday. Telling my students not to come to class is normally sufficient to bring it about that they don’t come to class. But if Fate says it is true that my students do come to class on Thursday then it’s impossible for me to bring it about that they don’t come. Without the effect of my students not coming to class I can’t cause that they don’t come. I cannot cause a future event if the event doesn’t exist. If Fate decided to deny the effect then it cannot be caused. This argument can be applied broadly. Suppose every event in the universe is based on cause and effect; without effects there are no causes. Because effects are yet future and causes live in the past the necessity is in the future. Consequently, it is a form of strong fatalism. Fate determines effects; fate chooses what I can cause; there are no accidents and my actions are constrained. If God knows the history of the universe before the universe existed then our actions are determined by God’s vision of the future. Before the universe came into being its entire history was an effect, and that is the only history than can be caused.

Fate and Mechanization
As I mentioned, Mormons (like most people I suspect) tend to dislike fatalism; but they are especially allergic to strong fatalism. They also tend to believe God knows with certainty all future events. One popular workaround to strong fatalism is the idea that God knows our future choices because he knows us so well. Divine foreknowledge is then analogous to predicting the weather or a parent knowing what their child will do. If the patterns of the past are the patterns of the future then foreknowledge of a person’s choices is drawn from knowing that person. James E. Talmage (Apostle; d. 1933) wrote in his very influential book Articles of Faith (still required reading for missionaries),

God’s foreknowledge concerning the natures and capacities of His children enables Him to see the end of their earthly career even from the first…God’s knowledge of spiritual and of human nature enables Him to conclude with certainty as to the actions of any of His children under given conditions; yet that knowledge is not of compelling force upon the creature. (p. 173)

He also said,

Can we be consistent in saying that because he [a father] has thus studied his son, learned his nature, and thus knows what is approaching, that his knowledge determines that that son shall sin?… If I examine the barometer, the hygrometer…[and] I am able to say, “there will be a rain within a few hours…can you say that I cause the rain…If this be true, ignorance is not only bliss, but much to be preferred, for practical reasons. God’s foreknowledge showed Him exactly what our first parents would do under given conditions, but He did not cause them to fall; He did not cause them to disobey; He gave them their freedom and their agency to do as they chose to do. (Conference Report, October 1914, Third Day Morning Session, p.104)

Elder Talmage has a good point: If foreknowledge determines our choices then ignorance is better; at least then we would be free (from that). And if foreknowledge is derived from knowing our natures then foreknowledge does not force our choices any more than knowing that a clock ticks makes it tick. With this kind of fatalism I am an active participant in bringing about my fate. If God knows that I put on blue socks today then putting on blue socks today is not forced on me because I participate in bringing it about. His foreknowledge is an extrapolation based on what he knows about me.

However, this soft approach seems to imply a different kind of fixed future just as disturbing as hard fatalism. If predicting human behavior is like predicting the weather we are dealing with causal necessity. The implication of which is that free will is illusory. If all events can be traced back through a chain of causality—A caused B, B caused C, C caused D, etc.—then all events are determined by causal laws and antecedent conditions. If God’s knowledge of our future actions is extrapolated with certainty from physical, spiritual, and behavioral laws then our actions are merely the latest event in a chain of causal necessity. “If God can know me absolutely—as I know my children partially,” argued Marden J. Clark, “then this must mean that I am a knowable creature: absolutely knowable…To be absolutely knowable, predictable, I must be an absolute mechanism” (“Some Implications of Human Freedom,” Dialogue, vol. 5, no. 2, 1970). Mechanisms do only what they can mechanistically do, consequently they are perfectly predictable. If Dr. Talmage is correct, I mechanistically participate in bringing about my foreknown choices.

Stronger fate
But doesn’t logic dictate some kind of stronger necessity to the foreknown future? If God foreknows my future intentions, how can they be free? If before the foundation of the world God knows that on a given day I shall intend to put on blue socks, how was I an active participant in making that true? And if God created me in toto the issue of mechanization can’t be avoided. Consider the following argument. Let E stand for putting on blue socks.

(i) I have no free will before I exist because what doesn’t exist can’t make choices or have intentions.
(ii) It is timelessly true that I intend to do E at time t.
(iii) Before I exist I do not participate in making it true that I intend to do E at time t.
(v) It was determined without my participation that I shall intend to do E at time t.

Therefore,
(vi) We are back to strong fatalism and/or mechanization.

I have no formal training in philosophy so I suspect the argument is simplistic. But it does have intuitive value. If my intentions are known timelessly then I am non-participant in those intentions. At least it seems that way. A typical out for the traditional theologian is that God foreknows my actions because he knows how I will freely act. God cannot know that I freely act without my acting freely. Suppose he knows, “While living I freely choose to do E at time t,” and consequently he foreknows, “I will do E at time t.” If knowing what I freely choose is somehow epistemically prior to foreknowing that choice then foreknowledge might not necessitate strong fatalism.

Intelligence
But this is unnecessary for Mormons. We believe that intelligence is not created. “Intelligence, or the light of truth, was not created or made, neither indeed can be. All truth is independent in that sphere in which God has placed it, to act for itself, as all intelligence also; otherwise there is no existence” (D&C 93:29-30); “[intelligences] have no beginning; they existed before, they shall have no end, they shall exist after, for they are…eternal” (Abr. 3:18). If part of me is uncreated then, if God knows me completely, he foreknows my intentions, and I alone am the source of my intentions (Luke 16:15; Alma 18:32). God's foreknowing I intend to put on blue socks today can be compatible with my freely choosing to put on blue socks today. There is quite a lot more that could be written about this. Is intelligence mechanistic and/or completely knowable? If intelligence is at least partly unknowable to both God and man then whether or not it is mechanistic cannot be settled, nor could the question of fate. But I’ll leave it for now.

Moral Responsibility
What about moral responsibility? Suppose Mr. Dodds intends to murder his compassionate friend. If God knows Mr. Dodds intends to murder his friend, and will not be prevented from carrying out the diabolical crime, then Mr. Dodds shall murder his friend and that is that. The distressing thing is this. The day following the murder we are shocked and outraged that Mr. Dodds did such a terrible thing to a friend who was only trying to console him; his friend did not deserve this. But if the murder is foredoomed are our feelings of outrage superfluous? Can Mr. Dodds be justly punished? Perhaps. But only if he is the source of his intentions and he is not a mechanism. If he can be known completely then he is a mechanism: He killed because he is what he is. So why punish a mechanism?[3] Can he accidentally encounter his fate as in soft fatalism? No. How could he accidentally encounter a premeditated crime? or accidentally premeditate the crime? But if the murder is determined by hard fate then something besides Mr. Dodds foredoomed the crime. So Mr Dodds is merely the unfortunate puppet. Moral responsibility is easier if some part of Mr. Dodds is unknowable, even by God. And for some Mormon thinkers this fits easily within their belief about the nature of man.

Apathy
What about foreknowledge and apathy? If God knows the future we must grapple with either soft or strong fate. Both can engender pessimism. What will be cannot be otherwise. LDS Apostle Neal A. Maxwell warned, “The combined doctrine of God’s foreknowledge and of foreordination is one of the doctrinal roads least traveled by…Isolated from other doctrines or mishandled, though, these truths can stoke the fires of fatalism, impact adversely upon our agency, cause us to focus on status rather than service, and carry us over into predestination” (Meeting the Challenges of Today, p. 151.) In the Calvinist view foreknowledge and predestination are intimately connected. Hence the Westminster Confession contains this caution, “The doctrine of this high mystery of predestination is to be handled with special prudence and care” (Westminster Confession 3:8).




End Notes_______________________
[1] Mormonism teaches that God has perfect knowledge (2 Ne. 2:24; 2 Nephi 19:20; Alma 7:13; D&C 38:2).

[2] Mormon General Authority B.H. Roberts (Seventy) wrote,

God is [not] Omniscient up to the point that further progress in knowledge is impossible to him; but that all knowledge that is, all that exists, God knows. He is Universal Consciousness, and Mind-he is the All-knowing One, because he knows all that is known. (Seventy’s Course in Theology, vol. 4, p. 70-71)

[3] One might say, “Why not punish a mechanism.” But if Mr. Dodds is pure mechanism then we are too. If people are like pocket watches then why should we fret over smashing a few pocket watches? Our sense of moral responsibility recoils at the thought.

Attributes of God: part I

The Attributes of God
Part I: Immutable; Omnipresent; Impassible

Related posts: Omniscience and Fate ; Omniscience and divine learning ; The Fall of Man Part II ; Whence God? Talking about God

In this six part series I explore Mormon conceptions of the attributes of God and compare them to traditional Christian beliefs. By conceptions I mean that Mormonism has no prescribed conception of the attributes of God. There are guidelines but few specifics. We don’t adhere to the traditional belief that God has one essence and three personal distinctions; we don’t accept God’s plurality and unicity. Not in any traditional sense at least. We believe the Godhead consists of three separate persons, each a God. (See Godhead: God or Gods?) Though we believe they share an intimate unity such that they may be spoken of as God, our language is along the lines of social trinitarianism; generally, that is the sense of our unqualified monotheistic language. In the posts comprising this series, when I use the word God in an LDS context it is in this generic sense.

Conventional Christian theology asserts that God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, and omnibenevolent. Omnipotent: God has all power, or infinite power. Omniscient: perfect knowledge of all things past, present, and future. Omnipresent: is free from all spatio-temporal limitations. Omnibenevolent: possesses perfect love for all his creatures. While these omnis evoke a sense of awe and wonderment they also provoke very difficult theological questions. If God is benevolent how could he allow wars to happen? or the Jewish holocaust to have occurred? If God cannot be wrong and foreknows history, where does that leave free will? Does God play with his human toys? If the future is as God knows it to be, is he powerless to change it?[1] If God created all things, did he create evil? And why doesn’t he, according to Philip Appleman’s so-called humble advice, “make the bad people good—and the good people nice”?[2] Or is it as Nickles complained in the play J.B., “I heard upon this dry dung heap that man cry out who cannot sleep: ‘If God is God, he is not good. If God is good, he is not God. Take the even, take the odd, I would not sleep here if I could.’”[3] In a more formal statement, “The problem is this: God is omnipotent; God is wholly good; and yet evil exists” (J. L. Mackie, “Evil and Omnipotence,” Mind, vol. 64, no. 254, April, 1955).

Philosophers and theologians have been wrestling with those questions for centuries. If the answers were easy the debate would have ended long ago. Though the Mormon belief about God doesn’t resolve all difficult theological questions, it accords to the LDS philosopher a straightforward way in approaching many of them. In reading this post it will quickly become obvious that in many ways the Mormon conception of God differs from the traditional Christian one. Yet there are similarities. I hope the reader will realize our understandings of God are reasonable, not irrational, and even satisfying on many levels.

These posts will focus on the omnis already mentioned as well as the problem of evil as illustrated above. These topics are highly interrelated so discussing one tends to involve the others. Each of the topics covered is quite a large subject, so my treatment of them is very pedestrian—which is all I’m presently qualified to do. The point of this blog is to give people a sense of how Mormons think and believe, not to provide polished presentations of theology—not that there are many of those in Mormonism anyway. I have written this series as much for myself as for others.

Immutable; Omnipresent; Impassible
The doctrine of immutability entails that God cannot change. According to the New Unger’s Bible Dictionary, “To think of God otherwise than as unchangeable is to think of Him otherwise than as perfect.” Any change would deviate from perfection. God cannot be improved or diminished. Moreover, because change exists in time, God must be timeless and eternal. “The notion of eternity follows immutability, as the notion of time follows movement,” wrote Thomas Aquinas. Now suppose God has a physical body. If so, he could move from region A to region B, which happens in time; boundaries can also change in time. Consequently, if God is timeless he must be free from spatial and temporal boundaries. God is therefore omnipresent and incorporeal.[4]

An immutable being cannot change. An immutable God cannot change or be changed. So God is impassable, free from external influences that affect or change him, such as human suffering or petitionary prayer. God is perfectly happy to eternally contemplate himself. The Westminster Confession says “[God is] without body, parts, or passions... immense”—by passions it means susceptible to external influences. The 1905 Catholic Encyclopedia says, “[it is] God’s immutability that prevents Him from suffering” (“Sin”). On this subject Thomas G. Weinandy (author of Does God Suffer?) writes,

God is perfectly compassionate not because he suffers with those who suffer, but because his love fully and freely embraces those who suffer. The absence of suffering in God actually liberates God from any self-love that would move him to act to relieve his own suffering. The absence of suffering allows God’s love to be completely altruistic and beneficent. What human beings cry out for in their suffering is not a God who suffers, but a God who loves wholly and completely, something a suffering God could not do. [5]

What Mr. Weinandy has not answered to my satisfaction is how God’s suffering would diminish his love or make him selfish? He continues,

Michael Dodds has perceptively written that “if it were my friend’s compassionate suffering itself that brought me consolation, then I would be in the peculiar situation of reacting in quite the opposite way to my friend’s suffering from the way that he reacts to mine. For I would be taking some sort of joy in his suffering while he reacts rather with sadness at my own.”

Sadly, Mr. Dodds believes if he were to suffer emotional or physical pain, and his loving friend was pained by his suffering, he would be “taking some sort of joy” in his friend’s condolences. This is rather sarcastic, but Mr. Dodds’ friend would be better off with a new friend. Such empathy does not diminish love nor does being comforted by a good friend qualify as abuse. According to Weinandy, “Suffering is caused by the loss of some good.”

Needless to say, his belief is by no means universal. Dennis Ngien, Research Professor of Theology at Tyndale Seminary, wrote,

If love implies vulnerability, the traditional understanding of God as impassible makes it impossible to say that “God is love.” An almighty God who cannot suffer is poverty stricken because he cannot love or be involved… If friendship means allowing oneself to be affected by another, then this unmoved, unfeeling deity can have no friends or be our friend. (“The God who Suffers,” Christianity Today, vol. 41, no. 2)

And philosopher Alvin Plantinga wrote in his spiritual autobiography,

As the Christian sees things, God does not stand idly by, coolly observing the suffering of his creatures. He enters into and shares our suffering. He endures the anguish of seeing his son, the second person of the Trinity, consigned to the bitterly cruel and shameful death of the cross. Some theologians claim that God cannot suffer. I believe they are wrong…we don't know why God permits evil; we do know, however, that he was prepared to suffer on our behalf, to accept suffering of which we can form no conception.

Along those lines, the strongest argument for the passibility of God is the suffering of Jesus. Paul tells us that “Jesus Christ [is] the same yesterday, and to day, and forever” (Heb. 13:8). Yet Jesus wept (John 11:35; Luke 19:41-42), was moved with compassion (Matt. 19:36), and pleaded for relief (Matt. 26:39). Jesus was angry (Mark 3:5), distressed and troubled (Mark 14:33). And yet he is one with the Father (John 10:30). Jesus made it clear that he takes the suffering of others upon himself: “For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink” (Matt. 25:35).

If God is omniscient he knows my suffering. And it stands to reason that he knows how my suffering feels to me. If so, then God is affected by my suffering.

One way around the difficulty of how Jesus can suffer and yet God not suffer is the dual nature of Christ. Christ has two natures, one human (Jesus) and the other divine (God). Christ’s human nature suffers, but the divine nature does not suffer. God does not suffer as God. But as I pointed out above, the idea that God does not suffer is not universal in Christendom. The two natures of Christ is not a doctrine found in Mormon belief. (See The Nature of Christ.)

What do Mormons believe?
Divine immutability is intimately connected to ideas about divine perfection. God is perfect. If God changed he would be imperfect. But God cannot change. He is immutable, timeless, ubiquitous, and impassable.[6] The Mormon conception of deity is that of a God with body, parts, and passions. Dallin H. Oaks of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles said,

The consequences persist in the various creeds of Christianity, which declare a Godhead of only one being and which describe that single being or God as “incomprehensible” and “without body, parts, or passions.” One of the distinguishing features of the doctrine of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is its rejection of all of these postbiblical creeds. (Dallin H. Oaks, “Apostasy and Restoration,” Ensign, May 1995)

Now suppose God has boundaries; suppose he is corporeal.[7] If so, it follows that he can be in region A at time t, then in region B at time t+ .[8] God therefore exists in time. If God exists in time then perhaps he can change in other ways besides location. Firstly, Mormons do not believe that God’s person is ubiquitous. We believe the Father and Son are corporeal: “The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man’s; the Son also” (D&C 130:22).[9] But what about scriptures that say God fills heaven and earth? (Jer. 23:24.) We believe that God has an organic connection to all things, a kind of spiritual immanence. The Doctrine of Covenants teaches, “[God] comprehendeth all things, and all things are before him, and all things are round about him; and he is above all things, and in all things, and is through all things, and is round about all things; and all things are by him, and of him, even God, forever and ever” (D&C 88:41; see also Moses 1:6; D&C 93:35; 88:5-13; Jer 23:24). At first glance this appears the same as conventional omnipresence,[10] but conventional omnipresence arises from God’s freedom from all limitations of space and time. The Mormon conception of spiritual “omnipresence” is not related to the everywhereness and everywhenness of God. It simply means an “organic connection with the creation” (see footnote 10). I believe most Mormons would not accept that an organic connection extends to the past and future. God’s connection with creation does not extend to temporal immanence.

Mormons also believe that God’s feelings (and possibly his decisions) are affected by external influences such as human suffering and wickedness, and petitionary prayer. A good example of this is found in the book of Moses:

[Enoch] beheld Satan; and he [Satan] had a great chain in his hand, and it veiled the whole face of the earth with darkness…And it came to pass that the God of heaven looked upon the residue of the people, and he wept…And Enoch said unto the Lord: How is it that thou canst weep, seeing thou art holy. (Moses 7:25-31; compare to D&C 19:16-19)[11]

Evidence of divine passability is plentiful in the Old Testament: “God’s anger was kindled” (Num. 22:22); “the LORD was angry with me for your sakes (Deut. 4:21); “The LORD was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart” (NASB, Gen. 6:6); “O LORD God of hosts, how long wilt thou be angry against the prayer of thy people?” (Ps. 80:4); “You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in loving kindness, and one who relents concerning calamity” (NASB, Jonah 4:2); “the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God” (Ex. 34:14); “I [God] have had a change of heart; My compassion is stirred!” (HCSB, Hos. 11:8). (These passages also imply temporality to God.)

To me this means that God can change in some ways, but also that he possesses essential qualities such as holiness, loving kindness, and mercy. God is ethically immutable. His compassionate qualities, such as love, mean he is passable. We believe, along with our more traditional Christian cousins, that “God is love.” And yet loving a person involves suffering because of the wrong actions or suffering of the one who is loved. I imagine that God’s suffering is analogous to that of a grieving parent who suffers with their suffering child.[12] They would not suffer if they did not love. And yet, because God’s goodness is immutable, because his eternal purposes cannot be frustrated, because he cannot do evil, because he has power to save those who believe in him, we can have total faith in him.



End Notes____________________________

[1] According to David Hume, Epicurus (supposedly) framed it thus: “Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able? then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing? then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? whence then is evil?” (This quote is from Hume’s “Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion” part 10.)

[2] “O Karma, Dharma, Pudding and Pie,” from Five Easy Prayers for Pagans.

[3] J.B. was written by Archibald MacLeish. It is a modern adaptation of the story of Job.

[4] If God is omnipresent, he must needs be omniscient; but he is omnipresent; this supposes the infinite and immensity of his being, from which follows the ubiquity of his presence; heaven and earth include the whole creation, and the Creator fills both (Jer. 23:24). (Matthew Henery’s commentary on Psalm 139:7-16)

[5] His argument could be problematic to a belief in the Trinity. If God is free from self-love and God consists of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and the Father loves the Son, then God is not free from self-love.

[6] Actually immutability does not require impassibility. If God knows all that will happen, and can feel all emotions simultaneously, then he can at once suffer for all sins past, present, and future. So long as the suffering never began and never ends then God can both passable and immutable.

[7] If from the local element entering into the description God's subjection to the limitations of space were inferred, then one might with equal warrant, on the basis of the physical, sensual elements entering into the representation, impute to the writers the view that the divine nature is corporeal (“Omnipresence,” International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, 1915).

[8] If God is visualized as a nebulous mass then one can believe God’s boundaries can be subject to change.

[9] I have said that God is corporeal, but what I specifically mean is that God has a physical body. Most Mormons would accept that the Holy Ghost is corporeal, but does not have a physical body.

[10] This is something LDS philosopher and General Authority B. H. Roberts (d. 1933) points out.

It may be thought that “immanence” is but the restatement in another form, of the attribute of omnipresence in Deity--simply an affirmation of his every-whereness; and it must be admitted that there is at least a close resemblance if not identity between the two things for which the two terms stand. And yet there is a difference between immanence and omnipresence. The latter means merely the every-whereness of God, “present in all places and at the same time.”

Immanence means that, too; but it means more than that. It means presence accompanied by power; or presence plus power; presence accompanied by doing, or act, leading to manifestations of God’s power. In modern philosophy the word is applied to the operations of a Creator conceived of as in organic connection with the creation…These declarations go at least as far as to establish the omnipresence of God, not of his bodily, but of his spiritual presence. (B. H. Roberts, Seventy's Course in Theology, vol. 5, p. 2-3)

[11] In the Book of Mormon, God gave his prophet Nephi tremendous power (Hel. 10:6, compare Gen. 18:23-33 and Matt. 16:19). When his people become embroiled in devastating wars he pleaded with God to bring a famine on his people to stop the bloodshead and hopefully save his people from destruction (Hel. 11:1-4). After the people relented and the war ceased Nephi prayed that the famine be abated:

O Lord, thou didst hearken unto my words when I said, Let there be a famine, that the pestilence of the sword might cease; and I know that thou wilt, even at this time, hearken unto my words, for thou saidst that: If this people repent I will spare them…O Lord, wilt thou turn away thine anger, and try again if they will serve thee? And if so, O Lord, thou canst bless them according to thy words which thou hast said. (Hel. 11:14-16)

[12] Some might say that God cannot have human-like emotions, or that it’s more appropriate to say human emotions are a bit like God’s emotions. Blake Ostler has argued that our way of understanding involves what we experience. If we try to speak of God as wholly unlike man then we strip ourselves of the possibility of any understanding of God.

Why Covenants?

Why do we make covenants to do things we are already commanded to do? For example, in the temple we make a covenant to obey the law of chastity. That is, no sexual relations outside marriage. We also make covenants to do things like obey God and to follow the Gospel. But these things are already commandments. So why are we making covenants to do things we are already obligated to do? That is the question I shall explore.

Related Posts: Mormon temple garments ; Justification ; Grace ; Election ; Faith and Charity ; Justification and Salvation

See also:“A closer look at the Draper Temple,” Mormon Times.

A covenant people
President Ezra Taft Benson once said, “We are a covenant-making people. The temple is one of the holy places in which the Savior commanded the faithful to stand. It is a holy place because it is a house of covenants” (The Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson, 250).

When God covenanted with Abram, Abram was given the name Abraham and was promised he would become the father of many nations (Gen. 17:1-8).[1] But why would God enter into a covenant with Abraham? Abraham was his obedient servant. If God commanded Abraham to do, Abraham would do. And God didn’t need to make any kind of promise to Abraham in order to make him the father of many nations. So why make a covenant with Abraham? or anyone else?

One of the analogies used to describe our relationship to God is the relationship between a master and servant. Jesus taught that when a master gives a command to a servant, “Doth he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him?” Jesus answers his own question with “I trow not.” In other words, “I think not.” (Luke 17:9-10.) It is the servant’s duty to obey his master. And so it is with us. We are obligated to obey God’s commandments. Naturally God will give blessings to his faithful servants, but technically they cannot earn it. A servant can serve with devotion and faithfulness, but obedience is still an obligation, not an offering. So every blessing God gives to his servants is a gift, given to each according to their capacity and God’s wisdom (Matt. 25:14-29).

Commandments go one-way. Covenants go both ways. When God offers a covenant relationship to his servants, they may accept or reject his proffer. This is very different from the treatment found in a master/servant relationship and tells us that God ultimately does not want servants. The Lord has said, “Come out from among them, and be ye separate…and I will receive you. And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters” (2 Cor. 6:17-18). The Book of Mormon teaches that “all mankind, yea, men and women…must be born again; yea, born of God…becoming his sons and daughters” (Mosiah 27:25). After entering into a covenant we become perspective children. God’s work and glory is to “bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man” (Moses 1:34). Thus he condescends to enter into an agreement with us, his servants, so that we may become his children and be exalted.

Covenants separate us from the world by changing our relationship with God. It’s only natural that we start out like servants, being told what to do and what not to do. But if we are being treated like servants how can we become sons and daughters? By entering into a covenant with God, God is no longer treating us like servants but like children. As sons and daughters we become heirs of God: “All those who have hearkened unto [the prophets]...and believed that the Lord would redeem his people...these are his seed, or they are the heirs of the kingdom of God” (Mosiah 15:10-11); “Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ” (Gal. 4:7); “And if children, then heirs; heirs of God”
(Rom. 8:17).

When entering a covenant one is put under solemn obligation to obey commandments received as a servant. And this makes perfect sense. As servants our obedience is an obligation. If we serve faithfully God will gift us greater things. We are offered a covenant relationship with God. We are put under solemn obligation to obey commandments we received as servants. God’s gifts become promises and we become children of the promise (Gal. 4:24; Rom. 9:8), children of the covenant.

But how does one enter into a covenant? The covenant is a holy contract between God and man and includes a set of terms. Basically, “If you do this then I’ll do that.” We enter into the contract with God by doing the required ritual: baptism, taking the sacrament, temple covenants. Doing the ritual is equivalent to putting your name to a document. But if a covenant is to be valid it must be officiated by an authorized person and witnesses must be present. So covenants are administered by priesthood authority and two witnesses observe the “signing” of the contract.
Because of the serious nature of covenants, if one is unable to keep such a covenant it would be better not to enter into it. Thus a baptismal interview is a prerequisite for baptism, and a temple recommend is a necessary condition for entering a temple and making temple covenants.

Elder Russell M. Nelson (Apostle) said,

Our Redeemer requires that His temples be protected from desecration. No unclean thing may enter His hallowed house. Yet anyone is welcome who prepares well. Each person applying for a recommend will be interviewed by a judge in Israel—the bishop—and by a stake president. They hold keys of priesthood authority and the responsibility to help us know when our preparation and timing are appropriate to enter the temple. Their interviews will assess several vital issues. They will ask if we obey the law of tithing, if we keep the Word of Wisdom, and if we sustain the authorities of the Church. They will ask if we are honest, if we are morally clean, and if we honor the power of procreation as a sacred trust from our Creator. Why are these issues so crucial? Because they are spiritual separators. They help to determine if we truly live as children of the covenant, able to resist temptation from servants of sin. These interviews help to discern if we are willing to live in accord with the will of the true and living God or if our hearts are still set “upon riches and … vain things of the world.” (“Personal Preparation for Temple Blessings,” Ensign, May 2001)

Again, Elder Russell M. Nelson taught,

The temple is the house of the Lord. The basis for every temple ordinance and covenant—the heart of the plan of salvation—is the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Every activity, every lesson, all we do in the Church, point to the Lord and His holy house. Our efforts to proclaim the gospel, perfect the Saints, and redeem the dead all lead to the temple… In the temple we receive an endowment, which is, literally speaking, a gift. In receiving this gift, we should understand its significance and the importance of keeping sacred covenants. Each temple ordinance “is not just a ritual to go through, it is an act of solemn promising.” The temple endowment was given by revelation. Thus, it is best understood by revelation, prayerfully sought with a sincere heart. President Brigham Young said, “Your endowment is, to receive all those ordinances in the house of the Lord, which are necessary for you, after you have departed this life, to enable you to walk back to the presence of the Father,… and gain your eternal exaltation.” (“Personal Preparation for Temple Blessings,” Ensign, May 2001)

Take an inside tour of a temple.

End Notes___________________________ [1] Abraham's name was changed: “My covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations. Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham” (Gen. 17:4-5).

More on gay marriage

Related Posts: Gay Marriage Again ; Gay Marriage ; Gay Marriage: The Iowa Supreme Court ; Idaho Test Oath ; Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act (1862) ; Edmunds Act (1882) ; Edmunds-Tucker Act (1887) ; Blacks and the Priesthood

I would like to add a few more thoughts on the gay marriage issue.

One of the claims I made in my previous two posts is that many people see gay marriage as a civil rights issue, consequently they will have to go all the way with it, even to the point of threatening religious organizations fighting to preserve traditional marriage.

Most gay marriage activists are adamant that gay marriage won’t force the Mormon church, or any church, to recognize, solemnize or perform homosexual marriages. Many on the religious right don’t have faith in those assurances—neither do I. (For several examples of the tactics being used see this article by William A. Jacobson, Associate Clinical Professor of Law at Cornell Law School in Ithaca, NY.) In a debate on gay marriage, Lorrie L. Jean, attorney of the L.A. Gay and Lesbian Center, made this chilling comment,

The real danger to religious freedom lies not in treating everyone equally under the law, but allowing any one religious belief to be imposed on everyone else. Thousands of religious leaders, churches and synagogues oppose Proposition 8 -- and they would never do so if their own religious freedom was endangered. (A gay-marriage Pandora's box?, Los Angles Times.)

She insists that gay marriage will not threaten churches, even quoting one California Supreme Court justice, “[same-sex marriage] will not impinge upon the religious freedom of any religious organization, official, or any other person.” But her belief is clear. Opposing gay marriage is opposing equality before the law, and religious organizations opposing equality are the true threat to religious liberty. As she points out, thousands of liberal churches and synagogues opposed Prop. 8, and they don’t feel threatened. What about those who supported it?

The way I see it, the view that gay marriage does not threaten churches rests upon a peculiar view of immediacy. If it can be shown that in the foreseeable future there is no compelling threat to churches, then any anxiety regarding gay marriage seems unfounded. If society goes along with evolution towards ever more liberal sexual mores, and if this evolution is slow enough, then at any given time the perception that society is headed toward moral morass seems far distant, and even overblown. If evolution from the present, to gay marriage being accepted as a civil right by a political plurality, to the churches accepting and performing gay marriages, is smooth and continuous there is little to worry about. The basically good religious people will eventually come around and realize there is nothing threatening about gay marriage.

The problem with this scenario is many religious organizations are fighting to preserve traditional marriage and they’re good at it. The religious right are very interested in preserving their way of life, passing it on to their children and grandchildren. This threatens the smooth transition scenario. The stubbornness of America’s churches will therefore provoke a degree of “self”-marginalization that otherwise wouldn’t have happened; by their stubbornness conservative churches harm only themselves.

To put it another way, being mugged is nonthreatening if you know that by “willingly” handing over your money you will escape unharmed. You risk harm only if you fight; so if you get hurt it’s your own fault for being stupid.

But gay marriage proponents don’t see it quite like that. To them it’s an act of justice, even an act of love. So conservative churches shouldn’t have the right to fight against what is good and just. Therefore any harm is self-inflicted and deserved. After all, the true threat to religious freedom lies in opposing equality under the law, not in gay marriage itself.

With this in mind I’m not sure what to make of arguments that churches wouldn’t be forced to perform or recognize homosexual marriages. Clearly “encouragement” to conform will be forthcoming. What they probably mean is laws intended to pressure churches to perform or recognize homosexual unions won’t come in the near future. Naturally that’s true. But then again, they believe history is on their side, making coercive tactics unnecessary.

What about the Mormons?
Justin Webb, BBC's North America editor, recently wrote on his blog,

The Mormon church itself - let us be blunt - did not do much for monogamous marriage in the early years of its existence; Mormons did not think much of black people until God told them (in 1978!) to change their ways. In the long term, He will be back...

The message he is trying to get across is that Mormons are basically good people and will eventually come around. The church abandoned polygamy and extended priesthood ordination to black men; the pattern will repeat. Eventually the church will change its stand on gays.

But few people know Mormon history well. Those two aspects of our history are often used to extrapolate what some believe is a likely future scenario. But if the past is a reasonable predictor of the future they’re in for a huge fight.

Misunderstanding our history
A few things can be said about the church’s abandoning polygamy and dropping its priesthood proscription.

The Official Declaration, which changed the priesthood policy, contains the phrase, “the long-promised day has come.” This “long promised day” refers to the expectation, going back to Brigham Young, that eventually the priesthood restriction would be dropped. In 1854 Brigham Young, who took over leadership after Joseph Smith was killed, gave his opinion that, as to the priesthood, “when all the other children of Adam have had the privilege of receiving the Priesthood… then it will be time enough to remove the curse from Cain and his posterity” (JD 2:143). He said this on several occasions and the idea endured in the church.[1]

The belief that there would be a change in the priesthood policy was repeated by other church leaders, but all their statements can be traced to Brigham Young. Whatever you want to make of those statements, the point I’m making here is that the long standing expectation that the priesthood restriction would be dropped facilitated the change in the church’s priesthood policy. (See Blacks and the Priesthood.) And it’s difficult to know how history would have unfolded without those statements by President Young.

Polygamy is another point of misunderstanding. There is an impression that the church abandoned plural marriage because the government applied modest pressure on the church. It was pressure, coupled with the church wanting to be accepted into the American mainstream, that brought about the demise of polygamy. In reality the church was facing a much more serious threat. The legislative campaign against Mormonism began with the Morrill Anti-Bigamy Act (1862), which made bigamy a crime and restricted church owned property to a value of fifty thousand dollars. But it didn’t have much of a bite because enforcement remained in the hands of the Utah Territory which was dominated by Mormons. After the transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869 many people believed the ever increasing number of non-Mormons would civilize us; Mormons would realize the folly of polygamy and abandon it. They were disappointed. It was the Edmunds Act (1882) and the Edmunds-Tucker Act (1887) that applied the real pressure. The Edmunds act says, “no polygamist, bigamist, or any person cohabiting with more than one woman, and no woman cohabiting with any of the persons described as aforesaid in this section…shall be entitled to vote.” The Edmunds-Tucker act made adultery punishable by three years imprisonment; also, “no illegitimate child shall hereafter be entitled to inherit from his or her father.” It also disincorporated the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Church leadership was forced into hiding—President John Taylor died in hiding in 1887. The government began seizing church property. In 1870 Utah was second only to Wyoming in granting women the right to vote. However, that all changed with the Edmunds-Tucker act: “it shall not be lawful for any female to vote at any election hereafter held in the Territory of Utah for any public purpose whatever.” In 1885 the state of Idaho passed a law making it illegal for Mormons to vote: “[no person] who is a member of any order, organization, or association which teaches, advises, counsels, or encourages its members…to commit the crime of bigamy or polygamy…shall be permitted to vote at any election.” (See Idaho Test Oath.) In 1887 Nevada amended its constitution to read, “No person shall be allowed to vote at any election in this State…who is a member or belongs to the ‘Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints’” (Statutes of the State of Nevada, 1887, p. 156, see also p. 107). In 1885 Arizona passed a law very similar to Idaho’s. It stated that “any person offering to vote may be orally challenged by any elector of the county, on the ground that he is a member of an order, sect or organization which teaches, advises or encourages the practices of bigamy or polygamy” (Laws of the Territory of Arizona, 1885, p. 214). The Arizona law was repealed without being tested. The Nevada law was repealed by the state supreme court in Whitney v. Findlay (1888). The Idaho law was upheld by the United States Supreme Court in Davis v. Beason (1890). (See Joseph H. Groberg, “The Mormon Disfranchisements of 1882 to 1892,” BYU Studies, vol. 16, no. 3.)

These laws were intended to pressure the church into abandoning polygamy—though disfranchising voters can be very politically advantageous. The church saw what was coming. They knew the temperament of the nation and saw clearly that the United States was willing to commit judicial religicide. Facing such a threat they had to bend.

So, contrary to what some people believe, the change in priesthood policy originated from a long standing doctrinal precedent going back nearly 120 years, and resistance to anti-polygamy laws was in fact three decades of civil disobedience ending only because of an existential threat to the church. (See Gordon C. Thomason, “The Manifesto was a Victory!” Dialogue, vol. 6, no. 1.)

Final Thoughts
Jerry Brown, attorney general of California, argued (see also here) that gay marriage falls under rights that are “part of fundamental human liberty.” But the idea that gay marriage is a fundamental human right doesn’t seem to work. The way I see it, fundamental rights do not originate with the government. The government has a duty to protect its citizen’s fundamental rights, but it can’t create or void them. Though a particular government might legalize slavery, such a law would violate the basic right to liberty. So arguing that gay marriage is a fundamental right, or part of fundamental liberty, is deeply flawed. They would have to argue for the existence of a fundamental right to government granted relationship validation. Because marriage is granted by governments and/or religious institutions it can’t be fundamental as it requires pre-existing institutions to grant the so-called fundamental right.

But civil rights is another matter. Proponents of gay marriage argue it is fundamentally about equality before the law. But the truth is we are not all equal before the law. Minors are typically given leniency when convicted of a crime. They are not expected to have the appreciation or maturity necessary to be held fully responsible for their actions. This makes perfect sense so the favorable treatment is justified. If the special purpose of marriage is subverted and rejected in gay marriage then there is, arguably, a good reason to oppose gay marriage.

Here is one way of understanding the argument. Q: Why gay marriage? A: So that gay couples are treated equally under the law. Q: Why should gay couples be treated equally under the law? A: To secure rights and privileges heterosexuals have. There are variations on that argument, but what it reveals is a new vision of marriage. By rearranging the priorities behind marriage they will have to find a way to fit procreation and traditional family into their new vision.

There is another point to be made here. If it’s argued that the purpose of gay marriage is to secure for gays equal treatment under the law, and that equal treatment under the law demands gay marriage, they are in a circular argument. Is marriage the means to an end? Or is it the end itself? If marriage is a tool to secure privileges then marriage is not the fundamental thing—privileges may be secured by civil unions or domestic partnerships. But if equality demands allowing two people of any gender to marry their fight is rooted, not in the right to lifestyle choices or securing particular material and social advantages, but rather to erase the distinction between homosexual and heterosexual relationships. But here’s the rub. If they gave reasons why the government should erase those distinctions they would be arguing that marriage is not the fundamental thing. So long as they don’t clarify which is fundamental—a new vision of marriage or benefits—their arguments appear consistent.

Alas, avoiding specificity is the politically smart move. Because the reasons for supporting or opposing gay marriage vary from person to person proponents will play these approaches to maximize their political advantage. But ultimately gay marriage advocates will never be satisfied so long as there is a legal distinction between heterosexual and homosexual relationships. Gays want to be thought of with equal regard; they want something that publicly says they are not other. So for them a new vision of marriage is fundamental.

But is the rightness of gay marriage true for you? Or true for all? If you are going to foist beliefs on others they better be true for all. And if they are true for all there must be some common standard against which to determine its veracity. But because it is difficult to reduce fundamentals it isn’t obvious any such common standard exists. So it must be approached in a non fundamental way. Historical precedents for example—but there is very little historical evidence that homosexual relationships were ever thought equivalent to heterosexual ones; this is true even in societies having no stigma against homosexuality.

In the gay marriage issue two very different worldviews are facing off. One denies traditional morality, traditional meaning and purpose, and seeks a new vision of marriage that permits two people of any gender to marry. Having rejected traditional values they see only the legal inequalities. So in their view opposing gay marriage is a denial of basic justice. The other worldview seeks to preserve traditional marriage, a traditional sense of meaning and purpose. A meaning and purpose we believe transcends individual desires and human capriciousness, which is why we resist the leveling process.

Equality and sameness; purpose and meaning. If one is taken to the extreme the other is excluded. In other words, the carpet isn’t big enough to cover the floor. No matter how you move it around something will be left uncovered. Heterosexual relationships propagate the human race; the divergent male/female sexuality has a stabilizing effect on heterosexual relationships, which helps with propagation. A home with a father and mother is ideal for children: daughters learn about fathers, sons learn about mothers. All of this is unique to traditional marriage.

As to the legislative campaign against Mormonism during the 19th century, one should remember why it was possible. The temperament of the nation allowed it. After three decades of “encouragement” the patience of the nation had become exhausted. Government seizure of church property was upheld in Mormon Church v. United States (1890). One section reads,

The pretense of religious belief cannot deprive Congress of the power to prohibit…[all] open offenses against the enlightened sentiment of mankind.

And that is REALLY scary.




End Notes_______________________________________
[1] In 1859 he said,

That curse will remain upon them, and they never can hold the Priesthood or share in it until all the other descendants of Adam have received the promises and enjoyed the blessings of the Priesthood and the keys thereof. Until the last ones of the residue of Adam's children are brought up to that favourable [sic] position, the children of Cain cannot receive the first ordinances of the Priesthood. They were the first that were cursed, and they will be the last from whom the curse will be removed. When the residue of the family of Adam come up and receive their blessings, then the curse will be removed from the seed of Cain, and they will receive blessings in like proportion. (JD 7:291)

In 1866 he said,

when all the rest of the children have received their blessings in the Holy Priesthood, then that curse will be removed from the seed of Cain, and they will then come up and possess the priesthood, and receive all the blessings which we now are entitled to. (JD 11:272)

He also said,

Cain shall not receive the priesthood, until the time of that redemption. Any man having one drop of the seed of Cain in him cannot receive the priesthood; but the day will come when all that race will be redeemed and possess all the blessings which we now have. (Wilford Woodruff: History of His Life and Labors, p. 351)

It is interesting to note that in his book The Way to Perfection (published 1949) Joseph Fielding Smith, then an Apostle, used the last two passages given above (p. 107 and 106 respectively), and the quote included in the main body of this post (p. 106), as a precedent for a forthcoming change in priesthood policy. He also used these quotes in his book Answers to Gospel Questions (originally a monthly series in the church magazine Improvement Era in 1953) for the same purpose. He wrote,

[the Negro] may be baptized for the remission of his sins and receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, and if true and faithful to the end, he may enter the celestial kingdom…Salvation in the Kingdom of God is open to him, with the promise that in the due time of the Lord, if he receives the gospel, all restrictions will be removed. (Answers to Gospel Questions, vol. 2, pp. 177-178)