SMPT This Week

[_the narrator]

Dan or Narrator I would be interested in either one of your thoughts regarding the following.

McMurrin in"Theological Foundations" (pg 35) makes a point about how more often than not Mormon theological writing and sermonizing are replete with the vocabulary of absolutism because we like words that begin with 'omni' but that "like it or not, the Mormon theologian must sooner or later return to the finitistic conception of God upon which his technical theology and his theological myths are founded."

I know I have had discussions with other members about the nature of God and eternity. Any suggestion of a limited God seems to be met with horror and at the same time any suggestion of a timeless eternity is not understood. I don't think we spend much time nor understand very well, at the layman level, the concept of eternity or the infinite in the Church yet so much of what we are doing is working toward rewards that involve those concepts. Wouldn't a better understanding of both those concepts enhance our understanding of eternal rewards and progression?

McMurrin's point is that the embodied God of Mormonism, who did not create ex nihilo and co-exists with other uncreated free beings, cannot be omnipotent (all powerful) or omnipresent in the technical sense. (Whether or not God can be omniscient is debatable-- I think Blake Ostler makes a strong case against absolute omniscience if we accept as a premise that humans have libertarian free-will, though I question the latter). While some Mormon thinkers, such as David Paulsen and Blake Ostler, have argued for a finite conception of god, they have largely abandoned this rhetoric and replaced it with a discussion of omnipotence limited by certain premises. While most Xian theologians would argue that God is only limited by logical impossibilities (ie, God cannot make a 3-sided square), they expand this logical limitation to include logical limitations imposed by an uncreated reality and human free-will.

Personally, I'm all for just abandoning absolutist language, as I find them separating us too far from God and untenable given the existence of evil in the world.

Yesterday I read a passage from Slavoj Zizek (an atheist) that is related to this discussion:

What if eternity is a sterile, impotent lifeless domain of pure potentialities, which , in order fully to actualize itself, has to pass through temporal existence? What if God's descent to man, far from being an act of grace toward humanity, is the only way for God to gain full actuality, and to liberate Himself from the suffocating constraints of Eternity?

[_aussieguy55]

I notice that you once had Stephen Evans as a speaker at one of your sessions. I am reading his book on Kierkegaard. What interest do LDS have in this philosophers writings? ( Kierkegaard I mean)?Interesting comment on page 64 "If we demand intellectual certainity before we begin to live we will never live at all".

[_the narrator]

I notice that you once had Stephen Evans as a speaker at one of your sessions. I am reading his book on Kierkegaard. What interest do LDS have in this philosophers writings? ( Kierkegaard I mean)?Interesting comment on page 64 "If we demand intellectual certainity before we begin to live we will never live at all".

Many LDS thinkers find Kierkegaard's thoughts on faith, love, and the subjectivity fairly interesting and informative on LDS conceptions of love and personhood. I have been particularly interested in his conception on faith and whether or not it fits well with the authoritarian nature of traditional LDS divine command theory. Some LDS also find Kierkegaard's rejection of his contemporary organized Christianity interesting--though some fail to recognize that Kierkegaard would have most likely rejected the authoritarian nature of Mormonism as well.

Also, Soren's brother (I forgot his name) wrote an anti-Mormon pamphlet once.

My friend, Keith Lane, who teaches at BYU-H, wrote a dissertation on Kierkegaard, which was soon published through highly respected European press: http://www.mohr.de/en/religious-studies ... rship.html

[_mfbukowski]

Personally, I'm all for just abandoning absolutist language, as I find them separating us too far from God and untenable given the existence of evil in the world.

I believe you cannot use absolutist language and believe in personal revelation and a God who progresses and interacts with his children.

For me, clearly, we LDS need to adopt a more Wittgensteinian view of "language games" to differentiate these apparent "problems" between God being absolute in one context and "relative" in others. There are no theological problems in my opinion, only semantic ones.

Wittgenstein was, of course, a Roman Catholic and ultimately, a mystic. He understood that the way we speak things is ultimately what caused all the problems.

I think this approach is not well understood in LDS circles- I could be wrong though.

[_the narrator]

I believe you cannot use absolutist language and believe in personal revelation and a God who progresses and interacts with his children.

For me, clearly, we LDS need to adopt a more Wittgensteinian view of "language games" to differentiate these apparent "problems" between God being absolute in one context and "relative" in others. There are no theological problems in my opinion, only semantic ones.

I concur. I think the major problem is in failing to recognize expressions of worship as such. In particular for LDSaints, we need to recognize that much of J Smith's revelations--such as the discussion of the light of Christ--is intended as a poetic praise of God, and not an ontological account of the world

Wittgenstein was, of course, a Roman Catholic and ultimately, a mystic.

Wittgenstein was not a Catholic, and was even less of a mystic. In his own words, he was "not a religious person, but couldn't help seeing things in a religious point of view." A self-loathing Jewish antisemite, Wittgenstein's religious view was largely influenced by his frequent reading of Tolstoy's Gospel in Brief. He was rather dismissive of miraculous claims (he was amazed that any Catholic could believe in transubstantiation) and saw religion as a way of looking at the world to deal with life's struggles (Wittgenstein suffered from extreme depression and regularly had suicidal thoughts throughout his life). While he did have a Catholic burial, it appears that this was rather a token gesture to his Catholic friends and a final acknowledgement of the significance he found in religious life--even though he was not a religious "believer."

He understood that the way we speak things is ultimately what caused all the problems.

Kind of. More accurately, he would say that the way we speak is just dandy. The problem is confusing the different ways we speak (ie., confusing poetic praise for ontological claims; or confusing description of life (such as sin) into metaphysical entities).