Nature and Grace

τὰ γὰρ ἀόρατα αὐτοῦ ἀπὸ κτίσεως κόσμου τοῖς ποιήμασιν νοούμενα καθορᾶται, ἥ τε ἀΐδιος αὐτοῦ δύναμις καὶ θειότης (Romans 1:20)

ἐν αὐτῷ γὰρ ζῶμεν καὶ κινούμεθα καὶ ἐσμέν (Acts 17:28)

I enjoy learning how things work. This is often a professional task in my day job as a chemical engineer but this curiosity extends to pretty much everything I encounter. Part of learning how things work is conceptual or physical dissection, dividing a thing into simpler components, but crucially, a comprehensive understanding also requires parallel reassembly, understanding how the components fit and work together. To understand most comprehensively what a thing is requires looking at it in several ways and I marshal a heavy arsenal of varied methods. This includes religious ways of looking at things.

For a secular audience using religious methods of understanding would seem to require some justification. The justification I can give with most confidence is pragmatic, that many aspects of my world of experience, my lebenswelt, are simply more comprehensible with these methods than without them. Not all things of course. Empirical and mathematical methods work just fine for learning about the design of devices and manufacturing processes. But understanding other kinds of things requires other kinds of methods, like literary, artistic, and philosophical methods. What a thing is is often more than its physical makeup, though it is also that. Paintings and photographs are physical objects with no meaning in themselves. But as objects we interpret they are representations, which in a sense transcend their physicality. Similarly a musical composition is more than just a sequence of sounds, though at one level it is that as well. Roger Scruton calls this possibility of looking at things in different ways “cognitive dualism”. He contrasts this with ontological dualism, the view that there are different kinds of things. Cognitive dualism by contrast allows for multiple and similarly acceptable ways of looking at a single type of thing, a difference in perspective rather than in nature.

Objects of religious interest like existence, life, death, and personal identity all have non-religious interpretations that can work just fine in practice but I happen to find that religious interpretations add something to the others. I don’t consider different approaches to an object to be in competition with each other but to have complementary relationships. One criticism I have of scientism and overreaching naturalism is that they presume to exhaust all legitimate perspectives on an object, dispeling all others. Free will is debunked because decisions are physical neurological processes. God is expelled from nature because nature operates according to self-sufficient physical laws. Things are nothing other than what science and naturalism say they are. Mary Midgley called this kind of reductionism “nothing buttery”, the tendency to see a thing as nothing but one particular view of it. My approach is not to deny the empirical, scientific perspective. I view things in that way too. Rather my approach is to see things from additional perspectives, including religious perspectives. Yes, the thing is that, but it is also this.

In many cases this leads me to see God in precisely those places from where he is thought to have been dismissed, particularly in the natural world. I see the natural and supernatural as distinct but not separate. In this I take a side in a significant, if somewhat technical theological debate within the Christian tradition. The direct focus of the debate is between realism and nominalism, which to explain with some simplification is basically a debate over the nature of abstractions (“universals” in medieval terminology), whether they have independent reality or whether they are useful fictions.

In a Platonic or Neo-Platonic conception of reality the physical world is patterned after and governed by a higher order populated by eternally existing universals or forms (εἶδος). Examples could be mathematical and physical laws. In the Christian Platonism these forms subsist in the mind of God. Because this higher order is, at least in principle, comprehensible the mind and nature of God are also comprehensible. Significantly nature, by being patterned after a higher order, is itself ordered and rational. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) understood this connection to be an operation of God’s grace in the created order. Nature is continually driven and directed by God’s power. And so to observe nature is also to see God’s hand in it. Paul of Tarsus, no stranger to Hellenistic thought, expressed this affinity between Gentile and Judaic ideas. For example he said of the Gentiles in his letter to the Romans that “ever since the creation of the world his [God’s] eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made” (Romans 1:20). He also  taught the people of Athens that God infused nature with life, quoting the Greek poets as saying, “In him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). 

William of Ockham (1280-1349) dispensed with universals in his metaphysics and in his theology saw God as much further removed from nature, unknowable, and unpredictable. This had important implications for Christian ideas about judgment and salvation that carried into the Protestant Reformation centuries later. In an application of his famous “razor” Ockham dispensed with the forms populating the higher order of reality as entities that had been multiplied beyond necessity. One benefit of this move in Ockham’s view was to make God absolutely free. Nature is not ultimately governed nor ordered by eternal law but by God’s pure will. God can change anything in nature as he sees fit and can make things opposite of what they are. Because of this it is not possible to learn anything essential about God by observing nature. God becomes more inscrutable, known through scripture alone.

As I said, I take a side in this theological debate on the side of Aquinas and the realists. There are various reasons for this but among them is a Christian sentiment that God is intimately involved in the world. I find this more satisfying both spiritually and intellectually. Admittedly that’s not a solid rational argument but it makes more sense to me. One implication of this is that I see the demystifying, debunking, and secularizing impulses of naturalism and scientism around any natural phenomena rather unthreatening to a religious perspective of the same phenomena. Because God’s grace is observable in the operations of the natural order any greater understanding of the natural order by science in no way displaces God. It is rather a fuller description of God’s activities in nature, one that is more comprehensible to a particular form of human understanding.

I think evolution is a good example of this. Historically no scientific idea has been more threatening to religious people because it provides a way to think about life developing in nature without God. But I think this was only a threat because of a historically contingent intellectual climate in which, centuries after Ockham, it was even possible to think of nature as a whole operating indepent of God. David Bentley Hart has argued that the theory of evolution would likely not have bothered ancient and medieval theologians at all had they known about it because in their view any operation in nature is also an operation of God’s grace. They may have simply seen evolution as “the natural unfolding of the rational principles of creation into forms primordially enfolded within the indwelling rational order of things.” In other words, if evolution proceeds by natural selection according to a predictable algorithm, to use Daniel Dennett’s characterization, this is simply the Platonic conception of nature following after the pattern of a higher governing order.

Because I see God and nature so closely related I don’t find certain views of the creationist or intelligent design movements especially compelling or necessary. You could say that I do subscribe to intelligent design in the most general sense of God being active in evolution, since God is active in all of nature and evolution is part of nature. But I don’t see a need to look for gaps in the fossil record or instances of irreducible complexity in molecular biology to carve out a space for God. There’s no need to carve out a space for God because God infuses the whole process from start to finish. Certainly there are gaps in the fossil record and instances of complexity in molecular biology that we can’t explain. But I believe these are simply instances of incomplete knowledge of the process rather than actual gaps in the process itself. For my aesthetic taste I hope that is the case. I would find the divine design of a seamless process that did not require periodic interruptions and fixes much more elegant.

I’m similarly unperturbed by neuroscientific descriptions of mental experiences and find "eliminative" interpretations of them quite unpersuasive. In an eliminative view, physical descriptions of our mental experiences eliminate the need for common-sense notions of mental experiences like fear, belief, anxiety, and desire, dispensing with these concepts as superfluous “folk psychology”. I find it improbable and impractical that one way of interpreting something, even if it is empirical and quantitative, should eliminate the utility and possibility of interpreting in other ways, especially ways that are primary to experience. I don’t know if concepts like fear and desire will be useful in the future of neuroscience but they are certainly useful in many other domains, especially in daily life.

The most inviting target for a naturalistic perspective of the brain is the soul. Do we have souls? Eliminativists and presumably many religious people must have a much more fragile understanding of what a soul is than I do because I cannot imagine what it would even mean for people not to have souls. I understand a soul to be the totality of the organism, its substance and its activities. At first glance this may seem to claim very little. If this is all a soul is then of course we have souls. Souls are what we are. But I maintain that on more thorough reflection the totality of the organism and its activities, particularly the human organism, is an incomprehensibly remarkable entity and that the soul, even understood in so seemingly minimal a way is just as miraculous as whatever maximal conception one might have of it. One need not refer to religious ideas to appreciate this. Two “problems” in the philosophy of mind will suffice. The first, “easy” problem of consciousness is the project to give thorough physical descriptions of the processes in the brain that produce conscious experiences. The easiness of this first problem is only easy relative to the second because it is quite difficult relative to current scientific capabilities. The brain is fantastically complex and the more I study neuroscience the more I come to see how far we are from understanding it as a physical system. Still, I can imagine it being solved eventually. The second, “hard” problem of consciousness is a more fundamental philosophical problem of how the physical material of the brain produces first-person, self-conscious experience, which would seem to be something immaterial. I cannot even imagine how this explanatory problem could be solved, even though the process it concerns obviously takes place.

From a religious perspective the soul has a spiritual origin and I find that perspective a perfectly adequate account for it. As in the case of many other things for me a religious perspective of the soul, of the totality of the organism, adds something to it, a certain way of seeing our connection to all things. The soul, as a part of nature, is not thereby separate from God or anything spiritual because in my theology God and nature are intimately connected through grace. God’s creative activity in nature coincides with his animating, life-giving activity that produces our souls. The Bible gives a sublime narrative and symbolic illustration of this. God breathed into the nostrils of man the breath of life and he became a living soul (Genesis 2:7). The breath or spirit of God is an important creative force in biblical text. On the first day of creation God’s breath or spirit moved or brooded upon the face of the chaos of primordial waters prior to bringing order to them (Genesis 1:2). Just as God infuses all nature, governing and directing it, God’s spirit inspires and animates all life. I find this a significant perspective to consider as a synthesis of all the information we might gather about the universe and ourselves. It all weaves together into a coherent whole and we are connected to all things in God.

Atheism in the Service of Theology

I find atheism quite fascinating. It’s not an outlook I’ve ever been able to stick with seriously for various reasons but I like to follow the conversations to see what’s being discussed. It's theologically interesting to consider what it might mean for atheism to be true, what implications would follow. Such speculations can show in relief the nature of the deity they deny, something of central theological interest. As with religion it's important to consider that atheism is not one thing but that there are rather many forms of atheism, a variety that makes its study all the more theologically fruitful.

I think I had an unarticulated sense before that there were many forms of atheism but I was pleased to see this idea fleshed out in detail in John Gray’s Seven Types of Atheism, published in 2018. Gray is an atheist but rather sectarian, having strong preferences for only a few select forms of atheism over several forms that he finds untenable. I divide up the possible types of atheism into different categories than the ones Gray uses but I nevertheless appreciate his general approach of making these distinctions. I like to organize forms of atheism and theism into complementary pairs, each sharing a similar conception of God that they either deny or affirm.

One form of atheism I find denies a conception of God as master craftsman, what Plato called a demiurge. This is a kind of scientific atheism that sees God as an explanatory hypothesis in competition with modern science, modern science understood here popularly as a kind of canonical set of laws and theories, as opposed to the technical meaning of a general method of empirical enquiry. To prefer the “God hypothesis”, as Victor Stenger called it, is to reject competing scientific hypotheses that have been confirmed by mass experimental evidence. I actually find the claims of this type of atheism rather modest. The world does not look much different today whether this craftsman God exists or not. It just has different origins. There’s no difference in observed reality, just different hypotheses for the origin and cause of its various features. The corresponding theism, belief in God as master craftsman, may be part of many people’s religion. Creationism and intelligent design see God as master craftsman. But most people’s religion is also much more than this and may not even include it or give it much attention. Allegorical interpretations of religious stories have been common for centuries among religious adherents. The story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden isn’t necessarily a competing hypothesis about human origins. Consistent with the indistinguishable universe that follows from either atheism or theism of this sort, religious believers with alternative or expanded forms of theism may completely accept many or all of the scientific explanations of observable reality without compromising anything. That’s another reason why this type of atheism seems to me quite modest.

Other forms of atheism are kinds of morally-focused atheisms and I see these taking two forms. In one form God is a superfluous law-giver, superfluous because we can derive moral law without God. Moral law and moral progress are real in this view but transcend God and even contradict what God is believed to have decreed. This makes it possible to condemn atrocities committed in the service of religion throughout history. This atheism would take the side of the Euthyphro Dilemma, proposed by Plato, that the gods love what is good because it is good independent of them and not that the gods make things good simply by saying so. There is something transcendent beyond God that grounds morality. This form of atheism makes space for something that would seem supernatural, though naturalized by other names. I still find this form of moral atheism quit modest because the moral world looks very similar to the moral world of theism, though with differences in the specific moral laws.

A more significant form of moral atheism is one that dispenses with moral law altogether, an amoral atheism. Here the moral worlds of atheism and theism look very different. Atheists accepting this form of amoral atheism may still behave in ways that would be considered moral. But there would be no moral fact of the matter, no real right or wrong. There might still be a sense of right and wrong as social convention but it would be of a different ontological category. I don’t find this form of atheism discussed as much though people might take it for granted and acknowledge it when pressed. Richard Rorty is one thinker who has explored this outlook quite thoroughly. Rorty defends liberalism and human rights but without recourse to any ultimate grounds of justification. Promulgating such Western values is a benign form of chauvinism, something other parties in the modern clash of cultures, such as China and Middle Eastern states, would agree with but view less favorably as unwelcome Western imperialism. I find the Rortian outlook quite fascinating and even attractive, especially in some climates of absolutist hyper-moralism that start to get exhausting. But it’s worth stressing some of the jarring implications of this. In an amoral world slavery and mass murder are not morally wrong from any absolute perspective. We can deplore them, declare them immoral in our own adopted morals, and make laws against them. But there’s no fact of the matter beyond that.

The complementary form of theism that amoral atheism denies grounds morality in God. This could be as a matter of divine fiat, as proposed by William of Ockham and divine command theory, or as something essential to God’s nature: God is good, as a fundamental axiom. Theists can appeal to the natural sense people have that there really are things that just are right and wrong to make the case that this moral reality has a transcendent origin. If the view that mass murder is no more immoral from an absolute perspective than selfless love seems implausible it undermines the plausibility of amoral atheism. Non-theists may object that a person doesn’t have to believe in God to be moral but that isn’t quite the same issue. It’s not a matter of whether belief in God leads to moral or immoral actions but whether God’s existence is necessary to make anything moral or immoral in fact, regardless of people’s beliefs. Again, the difference between atheism and theism here, what the world is actually like, seems significant.

One form of theism that, to its credit, would seem to have no possible complementary atheism is God as being itself, or Being with a capital B. This is the God of classical theism, sometimes called the God of the philosophers. David Bentley Hart gives an excellent overview of this classical theism in The Experience of God in which he sets out “simply to offer a definition of the word ‘God’”. One way I like to wrap my head around this ontological conception of God is to imagine, or try to imagine, what it would mean for this God not to exist. This is a God whose nonexistence would entail the nonexistence of everything else. If this God does not exist, nothing exists. And it’s important to be clear what this means. It’s not entirely clear, to me at least, what else about the nature of God follows from this, or if it overlaps with anything that religions have traditionally said about God. I think it does but it’s not obvious. The only thing immediately apparent here is that there is something underlying all of this, all reality. That could simply be the brute fact of the universe itself, basically pantheism, or something more than that, which I find more plausible. But if this is the most basic definition of God the difference between theists and atheists may amount to a preference of language, theists preferring traditionally and historically loaded terms like God, Brahman, and Dao, and atheists preferring more secular language like Immanuel Kant’s noumena, or just shelving the matter as something indulgently metaphysical and unscientific. For my part I accept the classical understanding of God, with a lot of contingent, scriptural features added on. That the personal God with whom I have an intimate relationship of love and trust is identical to the ground of all being is something that fills me with awe and reverence. I think awe and wonder in the face of the ultimate mystery behind all things is something available to anyone, regardless of their religious beliefs. But combining that with the intimacy and love fitting a personal God comes after the fact of accepting a particular religious narrative and doesn’t seem to be derivable or provable from metaphysical reflection alone.

The last complementary set I consider may be one of convergence in mysticism, where atheistic and theistic complements do not differ all that substantially, particularly in their practice if not in belief. I wouldn’t have considered this convergence until I read Gray’s book but I find it quite interesting. He proposes that “some of the most radical forms of atheism may in the end be not so different from some mystical varieties of religion”. This may be one of those cases where opposite directions on a curved linear spectrum wrap around and meet again. Mysticism isn’t a form of religious practice I adopt yet myself but it feels like something I might save for retirement when I’ve retreated to a tranquil villa somewhere. Mysticism has competing definitions but I think of it as direct, relational encounter. In religious mysticism this is direct and immediate communion with God at a personal level. A relationship with any person who is not me holds unbridgeable mystery but to recognize this and to see another person as another person with their own consciousness and perspective is to see them more profoundly than in any other way. The mystery and the intimate knowledge coexist and reinforce each other. There’s a kind of factual unknowing in this new way of relational knowing that coincides, if not with atheism then with an agnosticism that’s open to the ultimate mystery of reality. That’s one reason it seems particularly fitting for old age, after I’ve have figured out how much I don’t know.

Atonement Theory, Part 2: In Christ

If there is one thing to understand about Jesus it is that he was a man, a real human being.  Jesus did not float above the ground as he moved form place to place.  He walked like anyone else and his feet got dirty.  He did not have a halo hovering over his head but looked like everyone else around him.  He got dirty, tired, hungry and thirsty.  Sometimes in our efforts to emphasize Christ’s divinity we gloss over one of his most important attributes—his humanity.  I believe that to understand the Atonement it is crucial to understand that Jesus was a real human person just like us.

The Book of Mormon says: “And he [Jesus] shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people.  And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities.  Now the Spirit knoweth all things; nevertheless the Son of God suffereth according to the flesh that he might take upon him the sins of his people, that he might blot out their transgressions according to the power of his deliverance; and now behold, this is the testimony which is in me.” (Alma 7:11-13)   I believe this passage from the Book of Mormon is the most complete and descriptive explanation of the Atonement anywhere.  Jesus, the man, learned in the experiences of mortality how to succor his people.

Earlier, I reviewed some of the historical theories of Atonement.  They can all work very well as analogies.  But with the exception of Ostler’s Compassion Theory they all seem to be using the Atonement as an answer in search of a problem.  My main critique here is of the Penal Substitution Theory because I think it is the most common and because it is the understanding of Atonement I grew up with.  The critical question is this: why can’t God just forgive sins?  Why are death, blood and suffering required?  Many of the theories construct elaborate conceptual scaffolding around the issue to make the suffering of Christ seem more necessary.  But these explanations are generally extra-scriptural; making the issue more complicated then it needs to be. 

Here I’d like to invoke the insights of William Ockham (1288-1348).  The famous principle of Ockham’s razor states: “Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate” meaning “Plurality must never be posited without necessity”.  The basic idea is that you generally should not add additional layers of complexity to explain something; rather a simple explanation is more likely correct.  Ockham was one of the earliest nominalists, maintaining that universals like “Justice” do not exist as actual entities but rather are descriptions of common traits held by particulars like a just man or a just God.

Something held in common with the Satisfaction Theory, the Governmental Theory, and the Penal Substitution Theory is the use of some universal like Honor, Law, or Justice.  Justice is almost personified as an entity more powerful than God himself.  Since this ethereal entity of Justice is so unbending even to God, he must sacrifice his Son to meet its demands.  This relates strongly to the Problem of Universals.  When Justice is understood as an actual entity it’s as though the conservation of mass and energy apply: all this sin and guilt have to go somewhere, so Christ absorbs it for us.

The way I learned the Penal Substitution Theory was something like this.  We are sinners and have offended God and deserve his punishment.  God cannot deny justice or he would cease to be God (Alma 42:13).  So God sent Jesus to suffer for our sins to fulfill the demands of justice.  Therefore, Jesus suffers the penalty for our sins so we don’t have to.  This allows God to satisfy both Justice and Mercy.  Justice is satisfied because Christ has paid the penalty.  Mercy is satisfied because we are not punished for our sins.

This theory seems to work pretty well with scripture.  But it also begs certain questions.  The first question, again, is why does God have to punish somebody at all?  Why can’t he just forgive?  This gets into the question of what justice actually is.  Another question is this—how is it just to punish someone for a crime they didn’t commit?  Isn’t that the very epitome of injustice?  Then again there is the Problem of Universals.  Is Justice actually something that exists in itself, independent of the particulars it describes?  Does it actually have power over God?  My own experience is that I can simply forgive someone who has offended me.  I don’t have to require punishment.  I would never even think of punishing a person for someone else’s crime.  And I don’t believe that Justice, as a universal, as an entity, actually exists.  Rather, justice is a word used to describe just things and just people.

Of course, all understanding of the Atonement is going to employ analogy and metaphor to some extent.  This is why I don’t want to disparage the classical theories of Atonement, because they have good insights that we can learn from.  The idea of Christ taking the punishment for us is very emotionally compelling.  But I think there are other ways to understand the Atonement that work better with scripture and with our most basic moral sensibilities.

In the Book of Mormon, Amulek explicitly contradicts idea of Penal Substitution: “Now there is not any man that can sacrifice his own blood which will atone for the sins of another.  Now, if a man murdereth, behold will our law, which is just, take the life of his brother?  I say unto, Nay.  But the law requireth the life of him who hath murdered; therefore there can be nothing which is short of an infinite atonement which will suffice for the sins of the world” (Alma 34:11-12).  I believe this verse, if taken at face value, rejects the Theory of Penal Substitution. 

Now, one could object that Christ wasn’t really a man, so this condition doesn’t apply.  The divine and human nature of Christ, the hypostatic union, has been a hot topic in Christian history.  However, I believe there is a wealth of scripture to support the real, actual humanity of Christ. 

Another objection could be that punishing one man for the sins of another is normally not allowed, but since the Atonement of Christ is infinite, it is an exception.  In other words, an infinite atonement is super special and will directly contradict the other imperative in this verse—that no person can be punished for the sins of another.  But first, this doesn’t sit well with me simply because of the direct contradiction.  More importantly, there is no evidence in scripture that this is what “infinite” means.  The word “infinite” is never used to mean something capable of making the impossible possible.  Rather, in this verse, the word “infinite” is used in the same way it is always used.  It means without limitation, duration, or bounds.  The Atonement is infinite in its scope—it is “infinite for all mankind” (2 Nephi 25:16).  The Atonement is infinite in love, mercy, and compassion.  It reaches all who have ever lived and all who ever will live.

So what of the man who murdereth?  If the law requireth the life of him who hath murdered and will not allow another to take his place, how can this man be spared?  The answer is forgiveness and mercy.  I come back to the critical question: why can’t God just forgive sins?  Actually, I believe that is precisely what he does.  And that is what the Atonement is.  Atonement is reconciliation, an at-one-ment with God.  Christ came to live on earth as a man to bring us back to God.  The suffering of Christ is not a substitute for our punishment, because God can’t forgive us.  Rather, Christ suffers precisely because he forgives us.  Entering into a close intimate relationship with broken, sinful beings like us causes him tremendous pain.  All the pain and suffering of the world affect Christ just like they do everyone else.  And it is through this shared experience that Christ is able to succor his people and transform them.

But the Book of Mormon does say “the work of justice could not be destroyed; if so, God would cease to be God” (Alma 42:13).  But what exactly is the work of justice?  One interpretation is that every sin that has ever been committed must be punished, even if the offender repents.  At the end of our lives, even if we have repented we will have collected so much sin and guilt that we will be damned unless Christ takes the punishment for us.  But this begs the question—why does this guilt from our past sins follow us around even after repentance?  Are sins like ghosts hovering over us even after we have forsaken them?  I don’t think this is correct.  Alma explained the concept of justice, that for every sin there was a punishment (Alma 42:18-20).  But then he says: “But there is a law given, and a punishment affixed, and a repentance granted; which repentance, mercy claimeth; otherwise, justice claimeth the creature and executeth the law, and the law inflicteth the punishment; if not so, the works of justice would be destroyed, and God would cease to be God” (Alma 42:22, italics added). 

It is important to understand what Alma is actually saying.  There are three operatives: law, punishment, and repentance.  The problem with the Penal Substitution Theory is that it leaves out repentance.  God is just to punish sinners but it would not be just at all to punish people who have repented.  In fact, for the penitent, justice demands that they not be punished.  It is implied that if God were to punish people after they repented he would cease to be God.  Alma says “mercy claimeth the penitent” and all men are brought back to the presence of God “to be judged according to their works, according to the law of justice” (Alma 42:23).  God still acts justly towards the repentant, but now justice works in their favor.  “For behold, justice exercises all his demands, and also mercy claimeth all which is her own; and thus, none but the truly penitent are saved” (Alma 42:24).  God is both just and merciful.  He is justified to punish the sinners, but if they repent and reform he is merciful to them, and justly so.  Again, I understand the personal pronouns here to be figurative descriptions of God’s attributes rather than separate entities of Justice and Mercy.  However, I do like the subtle use of the masculine for Justice and the feminine for Mercy.  A nice little tidbit.

Blake Ostler, in The Problems of Theism and the Love of God, writes: “God could justly punish us now for our sins, but he is merciful in placing us on probation instead and giving us time to repent before judging us.  Because we will be judged at the end of this probationary period, God is both just and merciful.  The entire discourse of atonement focuses on the central truth that the purpose of life is to give us a space in which we can choose to freely enter into relationship with him or reject him.  The atonement is construed as God’s every mode of being in relationship with us in every moment, with Gethsemane and Calvary as the preeminent instances of a supremely loving being sharing our mortality with us.  Such a view avoids the problems of the penal substitutionary view of the atonement, which I believe is a morally reprehensible way of explaining God’s love and reconciliation through atonement” (p. ix-x)

So why does Christ have to suffer?  The short answer is that he suffers because we suffer.  The Atonement is not about substitution; it’s about union.  Christ doesn’t step out in front of our burdens and deflect them, he shares them as an intimate companion.  Jesus said, “take my yoke upon you” (Matthew 11:29).  The yoke is a symbol of union, being joined in our labor and finding rest in his strength.  Jesus called himself the bridegroom (Matthew 25:1-13).  It is helpful to think of union with Christ like a marriage.  Husband and wife share in each other’s burdens and sorrows as well as their happiness and joy.  Christ, as God incarnate, weeps with us, sorrows with us, and if we allow it, rejoices with us.

To be in Christ is to be in it for the good times and the bad.  Paul said, “we are children of God; And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together” (Romans 8:16-17).  To be in Christ means that we suffer with him and that he suffers with us, but we will be glorified to together.  This union, Atonement in Christ, is symbolized in baptism as we symbolically die and are buried in his death but then rise in the likeness of his resurrection.  “Now if we be dead with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him” (Romans 6:8).  This union is completely transforming: “Therefore, if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17).  By the Atonement, we are actually transformed into the likeness of Christ.  We are conformed to his image (Romans 8:29) and receive his image in our countenances (Alma 5:14). 

To see how the Atonement of Christ is significant it is important to understand the other part of Jesus’ nature—his Godhood.  The Atonement doesn’t work unless Jesus is everything that we are and feels everything that we feel.  But in Christ we also see God as a man, descending to earth to live among us and to see what it is like to be one of us.  Jesus showed us what God is truly like (John 1:18).  God is not off in an ivory tower looking down from on high.  God is down here with us.  He doesn’t just send us down to live in the gutter and then wish us good luck.  He is here, in it with us for the long haul.  And God is on our side.  “What shall we then say to these things?  If God be for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31).

It is important to state here that the Atonement is absolutely necessary for us.  The Atonement is essentially the union and reconciliation between God and man.  If the Atonement does not happen there is no union or reconciliation and we are cut off from God forever.  Furthermore, it was necessary for Christ to be born, live, and die in the world.  The Atonement is Christ reaching for us and sharing his life with us.  Not only is it essential for us; it is also essential for him.  “For verily he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham.  Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people.  For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted” (Hebrew 2:18).

My understanding of the Atonement is very similar to the Compassion Theory of Blake Ostler.  This theory takes advantage of additional scripture of the Book of Mormon, which I really like (we should take advantage of it).  I think it is also consistent with the Bible.  I totally recommend checking it out.  You can read more about it in his book, The Problems of Theism and the Love of God, or in a shorter paper I have linked at the bottom.  Any theological doctrine is going to be an approximation and will need further development.  But that shouldn’t prevent anyone from keeping away from the discussion.  The most important thing about Atonement theory is its ability to help us appreciate the Atonement in a way that is meaningful to us.  Ultimately, I don’t know exactly how it happens.  It defies comprehension. But I am grateful that it does happen.

Reference

Atonement in Mormon Thought by Blake Ostler

http://blakeostler.com/docs/AtonementInMormonThought.pdf

Atonement Theory, Part 1: A History

It might be surprising to find out that something as foundational as the doctrine of the Atonement has been interpreted very differently throughout history.  Here I would like to review the history of Atonement theory in Christianity.  It would be interesting to extend this back into the history of Judaism but that is another topic on it’s own.  In Reform Theology and in most LDS discussion the dominant theory of Atonement is that of Penal Substitution.  However, this theory was not developed until the Reformation.  There had been several other theories before this one.   I’ll go through some of these theories here as well as one more modern theory.  Later on, I will discuss my own understanding of the Atonement.

The Ransom Theory

According to the Ransom Theory, Christ’s Atonement was a ransom payment made to the devil to deliver our souls from Hell.  Satan was tricked into thinking that he could keep the soul of Christ captive after this transaction.  But since Christ is divine Satan was unable to hold him captive.  Scriptural basis for the theory comes from a few sources.  In Mark, “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45).  From Paul, “For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all men—the testimony given in its proper time” (1 Timothy 2:5-6).  This theory was promoted by Origen (185-254) as well as Irenaeus (d. 202) and Tertullian (160-220).

The Satisfaction Theory

According to the Satisfaction Theory, Christ suffered to satisfy the demands of God’s honor and merit.  This theory is best understood in terms of the feudal society in which it developed.  This theory was put forward by Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109).  Anselm compared God to a feudal lord who had been wronged by his surfs and needed to maintain his honor.  No mere mortal, or surf, could satisfy the injury to the honor of a lord.  Only a lord, or God, could satisfy God’s honor.  This theory emphasizes God’s justice, which must always be satisfied.  It’s emphasis on justice makes it very similar to the Penal Substitution Theory.

The Governmental Theory

This theory is very similar to the Satisfaction Theory and the Penal Substitution Theory.  The Governmental Theory says that God is the great lawgiver and that he must uphold the law.  Whenever a law is broken there must be a punishment to sustain order in the universe.  Christ thus suffers the penalty for the broken law.  This Theory was developed by Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) who was, incidentally, a jurist.

The Moral Theory

In this theory, Christ’s sacrifice is not so much intended to affect God the Father at is intended to affect us.  The Atonement of Christ demonstrates the supreme love of God for us and thus moves us to repentance and love for God.  This theory was developed by Peter Abelard (1079-1142).  A similar idea was promoted by Faustus (1539-1604) and Laelius Socinius (1525-1562).  They saw the Atonement was the most beautiful demonstration of God’s love.  It also an example of supreme love for God, inspiring us to love God to the same degree.  “To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his footsteps” (1 Peter 2:21).

Penal Substitution Theory

This is the dominant view in the Reform Tradition and probably the most common explanation of Atonement given today.  According to Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology, penal substitution is “the view that Christ in his death bore the just penalty of God for our sins as a substitute for us” (p. 1251).  “This view is sometimes called the theory of vicarious atonement.  A ‘vicar’ is someone who stands in the place of another or who represents another.  Christ’s death was therefore ‘vicarious’ because he stood in our place and represented us.  As our representative, he took the penalty that we deserve” (ibid. 579).  This theory was largely developed by John Calvin (1509-1564).

These are the major theories of Atonement throughout the history of Christianity.  However, there is one more theory I would like to mention since it is my favorite and the closest to my own view.  It is called the Compassion Theory, developed by Mormon theologian and philosopher Blake Ostler in the second volume of his series Exploring Mormon Thought: The Problems of Theism and the Love of God.

Ostler defended his theory in another paper titled Atonement in Mormon Thought (see link below).  In this paper he listed five questions he felt that any theory of Atonement should address:

1. How are Christ’s life, death and resurrection either necessary or uniquely beneficial to expiate or eradicate the effects of sin in our lives so that we are reconciled to God here and now?

2. Why can’t we just be forgiven without someone suffering?

3. Why does Christ’s suffering and experience atone for our sins in a way that the Father and the Holy Ghost do not?

4. How could Christ “bear our sins” or “take our sins upon him” that we commit in the here and now in a way that caused him to suffer?

5. How do the ordinances of sacrament and baptism (among others) signify what occurs in atonement?

He also proposes that any theory of Atonement should meet Abelard’s Constraint, that is to say it be “neither unintelligible, arbitrary, illogical, nor immoral.”

Compassion Theory

The Compassion Theory takes advantage of the meaning of the word “com-passion” which etymologically means “feel in union with”.  In The Problems of Theism and the Love of God, Ostler says: “The purpose of Atonement is to overcome our alienation by creating compassion, a life shared in union where we are moved by our love for each other.  ‘The Passion’ also refers to Christ’s suffering—and thus com-passion is to share in Christ’s suffering and he in ours, that we might share also in the unsurpassable joy of each others’ lives… The purpose of the atonement in LDS scripture is to ‘bring about the bowels of mercy’ so that God is moved with compassion for us and we are moved with gratitude to trust him by opening our hearts to him.  The result of the Atonement is that we are free to choose to turn back to God, and he is free to accept us into a relationship of shared life.  Atonement removes, casts out, and releases the guilt that alienates us; and it also brings us together into shared life.  When we let go of our past and release the painful energy of alienation, Christ experiences that release and receives into himself the pain that we have experienced to be transformed by the light of his love.  If we refuse to let go of our past histories and the pain that arises from our sins, we will continue to experience pain.  If we let go of that pain; however, then Christ experiences the very pain that we release, but we no longer have to.  In his Passion we find compassion.  He literally feels our and pains is thereby filled with compassion for us.  In this sense, Christ suffers for our sins and bears our iniquities” (235-236).

So there is a brief review of the major theories of this most important doctrine.  Later, I will talk about my own understanding of the Atonement in response to scripture and in response to personal experience.

Reference:

Blake Ostler’s Atonement in Mormon Thought

http://blakeostler.com/docs/AtonementInMormonThought.pdf

Temple Theology

In the year 70 Roman armies entered the city of Jerusalem and destroyed what was most important to the Jews they were conquering, the temple.  When the temple caught fire a cry of horror arose from the city as some threw themselves onto the Roman swords or some into the flames.  Once the Romans had destroyed the temple they had conquered the Jews.

The Jewish world in the time of Christ was very diverse.  There was no single orthodoxy and there was an abundance of scripture and interpretations.  Everybody agreed, however, that the temple was central to their faith.  But not everyone had positive feelings about the temple then standing.  This was the period known as Second Temple Judaism because the temple in Jerusalem was the second temple built.  The Second Temple stood from 516 B.C. to 70 A.D.  The first temple was Solomon's Temple which stood from 960 B.C. to 587 B.C.  The Second Temple was very different from Solomon's Temple.  The Second Temple lacked the Ark of the Covenant, The Urim and Thummim, the Holy Oil, and most importantly, the Shekinah.  The Shekinah was the divine presence of God.  The writers of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Essenes, were very critical of the Second Temple and looked anxiously for a Restoration.

Margaret Barker, in her book Temple Theology, argues that the temple is critical to understanding the culture in which Jesus spent his ministry.

One thing has become quite clear: the original gospel message was about the temple, not the corrupted temple of Jesus' own time, but the original temple which had been destroyed some six hundred years earlier.

Barker, uses texts from the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian gospels to support her theory that the temple was of major concern to the Jews of Christ's time and to the Jews who we now call the early Christians.  The seemingly cryptic book of Revelations is much better understood when viewed from the understanding of a temple theology.  But it is this temple theology which has been lacking in scholarship.

Before, many apparently non-Jewish elements in the New Testament were theorized to originate from Greek philosophy.  As an example, the phrase 'On earth as it is heaven' was posited to be inspired by the concept of Platonic forms.  This is no longer necessary when the Christian roots of the temple are recognized.  The temple was itself understood to represent the entirety of creation.  The sanctification of the Holy of Holies was simultaneously a sanctification of the earth.

Solomon's temple was completely destroyed and no archeological artifacts remain to study this ancient temple.  Cultural artifacts remain however, in ancient texts and in Christian tradition.  For example, the role of the royal high priest was to carry away the sin and uncleanness of the people so they could be restored to the covenant.  This image is clearly seen in Isaiah 53, which is cited often in the New Testament.  Two temple rituals were performed exclusively by this high priest.  The first was carrying blood into the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur.  The second was eating the most holy Shewbread on the Sabbath.  Both of these ancient temple ordinances were combined in the Christian Eucharist.

Learning about the importance of the ancient temple to the Israelites certainly gives me a richer appreciation for the temples in the LDS faith.

The Theology Program Podcast

I want to put in a little promotion for a podcast I found on iTunes.  I have a bit of a commute to and from work each day so I have to find ways to entertain myself or I go crazy.  So I often listen to podcasts.  Anyway, I found a great podcast called “The Theology Program” put on by Reclaiming the Mind Ministries.

The name of the ministry is explained in their mission statement: “We believe that God has called us to have an impact on the church and culture by taking back what rightly belongs to God – the mind. We live in a time of anti-intellectualism, skepticism, and confusion. Our goal is to reclaim the mind by energizing the church providing resources for intellectual engagement.”  In their first podcast they explain their worry that sometimes sermons have been dumbed down for the congregants because there is not sufficient education in basic theology.  They seek to provide the same education of the layperson as professional ministers receive in seminary.

I like this approach of intellectual engagement.  It reminds me of the scripture that says “thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind” (Matthew 22:37).  Sometimes we forget that in addition to loving God with the heart we should also love him with the mind.

The instructors present theology and its development throughout history.  They compare many different views and offer their own views coming from an Evangelical perspective.  It is very interesting and a great resource for anyone who wants to get some background in Christian theology and history.

The Council of Gods, Part 3 - The Divine Couple

Worship of goddesses is not uncommon in religious history, especially in polytheistic religions where the presence of female deities seemed as natural as the presence of women here. Yahweh, however, has long been understood to be a very different kind of god, very different from humans. The twelfth century Jewish philosopher Maimonides said “God is not a body, nor can bodily attributes be ascribed to him” and then added further “He has no likeness at all.” [1] It must be noted however that Maimonides lived in the twelfth century after Christ and not the twelfth century before Christ. The people of Ancient Israel had a very different understanding of God. As noted in previous posts, ancient Israelite conceptions of the heavens involved a council of Gods. There is also evidence of a divine family of gods including the worship of a Hebrew goddess.

In 1929 a French excavation team working in Ras Shamra, Syria discovered some religious texts of the ancient Ugarit. The Ugaritic religious texts gave tremendous insight into the beliefs of Canaanites who neighbors of the Israelites. The chief God of the Canaanite pantheon was named El. The name “el” is also used in Hebrew. As examples are several theophoric names: Israel “he will prevail as God”; Michael “who is like God?”; Immanuel “God is with us”. The female consort of El was Athirat. El and Athirat had seventy sons. A great resource on the Ugaritic Council of Gods, Divine Family, and their connection to Ancient Israel is Mark Smith’s The Origins of Biblical Monotheism. The Ugaritic Council of Gods could be broken down into three tiers. At the highest tier sat El and possibly Athirat. The second tier included the seventy sons of El and Athirat (bn ‘ilm). The third tier included messengers and craftsman.

The Israelite Council of Gods could also be understood in a three-tier structure. At the first tier sits Yahweh-Elohim. In the second tier are the Sons of God (bene elohim). The bene elohim are sometimes called the Morning Stars (kokebe boqer). The third tier was made up of angels (mela’kim) which literally means messangers. Some archeologists believe that Yahweh gradually came to fill the role held by El. Others understand that they may have been separate deities. Margaret Barker believes that Yahweh was originally the son of El [2]. This idea is consistent with the drama found in Deuteronomy 32: 8-9 in which the nations were divided and Yahweh was given charge over Israel. Of course, Yahweh would have become foremost among the bene elohim to have rule over all nations (Psalms 82). But what of Athirat? Does she have a place in the Israelite family of gods. There is evidence that Athirat, known in Israel as Asherah, in fact had a huge role in the faith of the people of Ancient Israel.

We can sometimes know what ideas or beliefs were popular during a given time period by the abundance of surviving documents condemning them. Goddesses do appear in the Hebrew Bible but almost always in a negative light. What are condemned most fiercely are the explicit representations of the Goddess. However, some of the more subtle and symbolic references to her remain. Asherah herself is a Semitic mother goddess. There is also an object called an asherah (lower-case) also known as an asherah pole. The asherah pole was a sacred tree or pole that stood near religious sites to honor Asherah, the goddess herself. In the King James Bible the word asherah is translated grove or groves (asherim). The word appears 39 times in the Hebrew Bible. It appears that these trees were everywhere. In fact they were often found in the temple itself. What is difficult to know is whether this was a good thing or a bad thing. Of course, for an objective historian this just shows the different factions within Ancient Judaism. But for believers this could be an important point to consider. What we have of the Bible is widely understood to be a collection of various texts, edited and revised by Deuteronomist scribes. A Deuteronomist is one who adheres to strict monotheism, eliminates any reference to any god besides Yahweh. It could be thought of as the “Yahweh-alone” movement. Anyway, King Josiah is the hero of the Yahweh-alone movement. He purged the temple and removed all the asherahs (2 Kings 23). However, it is important to get the other side of the story and understand who Asherah really was and what she meant to the people.

There are two archeological inscriptions that connect Asherah to Yahweh and suggest that they were a divine couple or at least related and amicable. The first was found at Kuntillat ‘Arjud on an 8th century BCE ostracon which reads: “I have blessed you by YHVH of Samaria and His Asherah”. Another was found at Khirbet al-Qom which reads: “Blessed be Uriyahu by Yahweh and by his Asherah; from his enemies he saved him!” However, the most abundant archeological evidences for Asherah worship in Ancient Israel are the figurines, over eight-hundred found to date. It is thought that these figurines were teraphim, small talismans thought to bring fertility and aid in childbirth. These figurines have been found all over Israel as evidence that belief in Asherah was widespread.

More subtle references to the Hebrew Goddess remain intact in the Hebrew Bible. These references are often understood as simple personifications of attributes of deity. For example, God’s wisdom is often personified in feminine form. The fallacy of reification is the error of treating an abstraction as if it were the real thing. But this is open to interpretation. Two feminine manifestations of God are the Shekhina and Hokhma. Shekhina is a term used in the Talmud to denote the “visible and audible manifestation of God’s presence on earth.” In Midrash literature, “the Shekhina concept stood for an independent, feminine divine entity prompted by her compassionate nature to argue with God in defense of man.” [3] The word “shehkina” however does not occur in the Bible itself. There was a trend in the late Biblical period of theology to interpose “personified mediating entities between God and man”. It is perhaps from this that Shekhina developed. These entities may have been originally emanations of God’s attributes that developed into angel beings who acted under the instruction of God. The most common of these emanations was Hokhma or Wisdom (Sophia in Greek). [4]

The most important Biblical text regarding Hokhma is probably in Proverbs. Here Hokhma (Wisdom) is speaking in first person about her relationship with Yahweh:

“The LORD possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was. When [there were] no depths, I was brought forth; when [there were] no fountains abounding with water. Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth: While as yet he had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world. When he prepared the heavens, I [was] there: when he set a compass upon the face of the depth: When he established the clouds above: when he strengthened the fountains of the deep: When he gave to the sea his decree, that the waters should not pass his commandment: when he appointed the foundations of the earth: Then I was by him, [as] one brought up [with him]: and I was daily [his] delight, rejoicing always before him; Rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth; and my delights [were] with the sons of men.” (Proverbs 8:22-31)

What is notable here is the role of Hokhma with Yahweh in the Creation. Near the end of this passage she says “I was brought by him, [as] one brought up [with him]”. The Hebrew word for “brought up” used here is “amon” which means “trained as a craftsman”. Hokhma plays an active role in creating the earth, the mountains, hills, fields, seas, and the sons of men with whom were her delights. In another text it reads: “The LORD by wisdom [hokhma] hath founded the earth; by understanding hath he established the heavens.” (Proverbs 3:19). In the previous verse, Hokhma is related the Tree of Life itself. “She [is] a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her: and happy [is every one] that retaineth her.” (Proverbs 3:18). It has been noted here that the Hebrew word for happy, “ushar”, may have been a play on words for Asherah, the mother goddess and giver of life. Margaret Barker proposes that the menorah itself, which stood in the first Israelite temple, was a tree of life and a symbol of the Mother Goddess, in fact, an asherah. She suggests that this was the very asherah that Josiah had removed from the temple. [5] Mormon scholar Daniel Peterson, proposed that family of Lehi would have been very familiar with the relationship of the Tree of Life to the Mother of God. Margaret Barker believes that the First-Temple Judaism understood Yahweh to be the son of God (bene elohim) and that he also had a mother. Daniel Peterson suggests that Nephi would have understood the symbol of the Tree of Life as a symbol of the Mother of God. [6] When the angel asked Nephi what he desired he said that he desired to know the interpretation of the tree that his father, Lehi, had seen. Interestingly, the angel did not offer an interpretation. Rather he showed him Mary, the mother of Christ. Nephi saw her and then the child in her arms. Then the angel asked him if he understood the meaning of the tree and Nephi answered without hesitation: “Yea, it is the love of God, which sheddeth itself abroad in the hearts of the children of men.” (1 Nephi 11:9-22).

My favorite concept of a Heavenly Mother is in the story of Creation. Granted you need to read between the lines a little, but it makes sense to me. First of all, Hokhma was understood to play a role in the Creation. Also, there is the issue of name of God, Elohim. In Mormonism there is an idea that there is no such thing as a single god, in fact all gods would be god pairs united to become one Elohim. The Doctrine and Covenants mentions a few ways people become gods. First, there is no deification without Christ: “They are they who received the testimony of Jesus... Wherefore, as it is written, they are gods... even the sons of God.” (Doctrine and Covenants 76:51-58). In another section deification comes by participation in celestial marriage: “If a man marry a wife by my word, which is my law, and by the new and everlasting covenant... Ye shall come forth in the first resurrection... Then shall they be gods, because they have no end...” (Doctrine and Covenants 132: 19-20). In another section it is also said that that the highest order of the Celestial Kingdom is for only those who enter into the “new and everlasting covenant.” (Doctrine and Covenants 131:1-4). Mormon apostle Erastus Snow put the concept this way: “There never was a God, and there never will be in all eternities, except they are made of these two component parts; a man and a woman; the male and the female.” [7]

After Elohim had made the Earth, the light and darkness, heavens, seas, land, plants, and animals, they set about to create mankind, in Hebrew “adam”.

“And said, Elohim, Let us make adam in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth.

“So created Elohim, adam in his image, in the image of Elohim he created him; male and female he created them.” (Genesis 1: 26-27, my translation)

This story brings up an interesting thought. Mankind, adam, was created in the image and likeness of Elohim, the gods. They were created male and female. It would seem here that Elohim has both a male and female image and likeness. This could mean that both male and female are compound in one being. That is one interpretation. However, I prefer the view that the Elohim are actually two beings, a father and mother. Man being created in the image and likeness of God the Father and woman in the image and likeness of God the Mother. There is a lot to consider here. Particularly important is the idea that these two divine beings live in such unity that they can be considered one God while still retaining their ontological distinctiveness. How could this serve as an example for earthly things? Can husbands and wives pattern their marriages after this kind of unity? Much can be gained from exploring these ideas.

References

[1] Patai, Raphael. The Hebrew Goddess. Wayne State University Press. 1990. p. 28.

[2] Barker, Margaret. Temple Theology: An Introduction. Society For Promoting Christian Knowledge. 2004. p. 7.

[3] Patai, p. 96.

[4] Patai, p. 97.

[5] Barker, p. 90

[6] Peterson, Daniel. Nephi and His Asherah. Journal of Book of Mormon Studies: Volume - 9, Issue - 2, Pages: 16-25. Provo, Utah: Maxwell Institute, 2000
See an online version here: http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/jbms/?vol=9&num=2&id=223

[7] Journal of Discourse 19:270

Further Study

Ostler, Blake. Exploring Mormon Thought: Of God and Gods. Volume 3. Kofford Books. 2008. pgs. 41-121.

Smith, Mark. The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel’s Polytheistic Background. Oxford. 2003.

Dever, William. Did God Have a Wife?: Archeology and Folk Religion of Ancient Israel. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. 2008.

The Council of Gods, Part 2

Lehi was a prophet of the highest caliber in Ancient Israel and Nephi made sure that his record clearly demonstrated this. Lehi’s contemporary, Jeremiah had to deal with several pseudo-prophets who claimed to speak in the name of the Lord and contradicted Jeremiah’s own prophesies. It seems that Nephi, having lived in this climate where a prophet’s credentials were suspect felt the need to verify his own father’s legitimacy. Lehi was a visionary man and one night when he was lying in his bed he was “carried away”.

“And being thus overcome with the Spirit, he was carried away in a vision, even that he saw the heavens open, and he thought he saw God sitting upon his throne, surrounded with numberless concourses of angels in the attitude of singing and praising their God. And it came to pass that he saw One descending out of the midst of heaven, and he beheld that his luster was above that of the sun at noon-day. And he also saw twelve others following him, and their brightness did exceed that of the stars in the firmament. And they came down and went forth upon the face of the earth; and the first came and stood before my father, and gave unto him a book, and bade him that he should read. And it came to pass that as he read, he was filled with the Spirit of the Lord. And he read, saying: Wo, wo, unto Jerusalem, for I have seen thine abominations! Yea, and many things did my father read concerning Jerusalem—that it should be destroyed, and the inhabitants thereof; many should perish by the sword, and many should be carried away captive into Babylon.” (1 Nephi 1:8-13)

Here Lehi was called into the council of the gods to counsel with the gods. These gods in turn worshiped the head God as they were “in the attitude of singing and praising their God. Granted, the text here does not say “gods” but “angels”. However, I will argue that angels can themselves be understood as gods in the council of gods. Consider this psalm:

“When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet” (Psalms 8:3-6).

When the psalmists said “a little lower than the angels” he actually says “me’at me’elohim” which means “less than the gods”. The Hebrew word for angels is “mal’akhim” while “elohim” is the word for gods. Perhaps it is not so incorrect of the English translators to use the word “angels” instead of “gods”. But whether mal’akhim or elohim, the angels with whom Lehi counseled were divine beings.

That Lehi had such an experience prior to his public ministry is important. As a prophet in Ancient Israel, an invitation to the council of gods was requisite. Jeremiah had many rivals. While Jeremiah warned Israel of impending destruction, others said “Ye shall have peace”. To these would-be prophets Jeremiah asked:

“For who hath stood in the counsel of the LORD, and hath perceived and heard his word? who hath marked his word, and heard it?... I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran: I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied. But if they had stood in my counsel, and had caused my people to hear my words, then they should have turned them from their evil way, and from the evil of their doings.” (Jeremiah 23:18-22)

Here the phrase “counsel of the LORD” is a translation of the Hebrew “sod Yahweh”. The word “sod” means both “counsel” and more especially “council”. Strong’s Dictionary defines it as “a session, i.e. company of persons (in close deliberation); by implication intimacy, consultation, a secret”. So the direct meaning of “sod” is a council, as in a group, but it is a more intimate and special group where important counsel is given. It is the kind of counsel a prophet receives.

Not only is prophet called to be such only by the convocation of the council of gods but Yahweh himself is also constrained to warn his people through this council before he does anything. The prophet Amos said:

“Surely the Lord GOD will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.” (Amos 3:7)

The word “secret” here is a translation of the same Hebrew word, “sod”. The verse could be translated this way:

“Surely the Lord, Yahweh will do nothing, unless he reveals his counsel/council to his servants the prophets.”

The basic idea here is that Yahweh will not work his wonders until he has called a prophet into his council to counsel him. And this pattern is seen several times. Consider the prophet Isaiah. He was called in a time of international threats similar to Jeremiah and Lehi. He too was caught into a heavenly council to stand before the presence of Yahweh.

“In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory. And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke. Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts. Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar: And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged. Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me.” (Isaiah 6:1-8)

This is a very interesting example of a divine council which bears a strong resemblance of Lehi’s own experience. Some things I find interesting here are the seraphim who present the Lord to Isaiah through their song of praise, “Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory.” The seraphim also present Isaiah to the Lord through purification. Then while sitting in council the Lord asks “Whom shall I send”? Isaiah as a participant in the council responds “Here am I; send me.” It is clear here that Isaiah and Yahweh are not the only ones in council. There are seraphim as well. Presumably, if Isaiah were the only one present, the Lord would not have to ask whom he should send. It has the feel of a formal meeting in which all the lines are previously written and in turn the participants give their prepared statements. But the council is important, the Lord must ask and the servant must offer himself. This is all very similar to what may be the most famous council of gods in Mormon theology, the premortal council.

The premortal council is recounted in Moses 4 and Abraham 3. In this council the Lord also asked who should be sent. The premortal Christ offered himself. This meeting also has the feel of a formal meeting with prepared statements, but Lucifer didn’t quite catch on to the protocol. The Father was supposed to ask the question and Christ was supposed to offer himself, but Lucifer jumped in and started offering his own ideas—and it didn’t go so well. Anyway, Christ was accepted and the plan of the council was put into motion. In Abraham, the council is composed of the “noble and great ones” of whom the Lord says “these I will make my rulers”. It appears here that many members of the council of gods were premortal spirits. Though they are not called gods here, the next chapter recounts the implementation of the very plan formulated by these noble and great ones.

“And then the Lord said: Let us go down. And they went down at the beginning, and they, that is the Gods, organized and formed the heavens and the earth.” (Abraham 4:1)

This account of the creation is actually similar to the account in Genesis. The first verse of Genesis could be translated the usual way:

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”

But since the word here translated “God” is “elohim” the verse could also be translated:

“In the beginning the gods created the heaven and the earth.”

Scholars may argue over whether this is the plural form of “eloah” meaning god or if it is referring to the head God. Certainly the word “elohim” is used in other places to refer to a single being. But on the other hand, the creation account quotes Elohim speaking to someone using the first person plural:

“And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (Genesis 1:26).
“And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil” (Genesis 3:22).

To whom was Elohim speaking? The idea that Elohim was addressing a council of gods makes a lot of sense. The divine council was not uncommon in the Ancient Middle East. In fact, the divine council was a very common motif. Readers of the Bible who have a strict monotheistic background are accustomed to the idea of one single god or maybe three at most. But this idea, while common today, would be quite unusual in ancient times. Another surprising void in the modern, monotheistic conception of god is the omission of any female deity. It is in contrast to this void that we find what may be one of Mormonism’s most radical yet least explored doctrines: a Mother Goddess or Mother in Heaven. But this topic deserves its own post, next time.

The Council of Gods, Part 1

The religion of Ancient Israel has been called “monotheistic” which is understood to mean belief in one god and only one god. The Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament is filled with calls to give complete devotion to Yahweh and to none other. Consider the following passages:

“Is there a God beside me? yea, there is no God; I know not any.” (Isaiah 44:8)
“I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me... there is none beside me. I am the LORD, and there is none else.” (Isaiah 45:6-7)
“I, even I, am the LORD; and beside me there is no saviour.” (Isaiah 43:11)

If there is one storyline that is told again and again in the Old Testament it is that Yahweh blesses Israel, Israel goes after other gods, Yahweh warns Israel through his prophets, Yahweh punishes Israel, Israel repents, and Yahweh blesses Israel, and the cycle continues. In the LDS church this kind of repeated behavior within a society is called the “Pride Cycle” and is also found in the Book of Mormon. How then can we explain this statement by Joseph Smith?

“I will preach on the plurality of Gods. I have selected this text for that express purpose. I wish to declare I have always and in all congregations when I have preached on the subject of Deity, it has been the plurality of Gods.” [1]

This statement is seemingly very radical and strange to modern Christian sentiments, not to mention to Jewish and Muslim sentiments. In Islam, monotheism is the foundational principle of the faith. It is called the Shahadah: “I bear witness that there is no god but al-Lah and that Muhammad is his Messenger.” Jews have a similar proclamation of faith called the Shema: “Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God is one LORD” (Deuteronomy 6:4). Christians have a bit more difficulty with monotheism because Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Holy Ghost is understood to be God as well. What do we make of three Gods? The traditional solution is the Trinity as expressed in the Athansian Creed. Let me continue with the quote from Joseph Smith.

“I have always declared God to be a distinct personage, Jesus Christ a separate and distinct personage from God the Father, and the Holy Ghost was a distinct personage and a Spirit: and these three constitute three distinct personages and three Gods. If this is in accordance with the New Testament, lo and behold! we have three Gods anyhow, and they are plural; and who can contradict it?... the doctrine of a plurality of Gods is as prominent in the Bible as any other doctrine. It is all over the face of the Bible. It stands beyond the power of controversy. A wayfaring man, though a fool, need not err therein.” [1]

Joseph Smith makes a very good point here and it is often overlooked. When he called “Jesus Christ a separate and distinct personage from God the Father” he was in direct violation of the Athansian Creed which says “So are we forbidden by the Catholic Religion; to say, There are three Gods, or three Lords.” But though he may have been in violation of this creed he was on sure scriptural footing. I believe Joseph Smith was right to say that the plurality of Gods is “all over the face of the Bible”. However, an important point that he made and I shall make as well is this:

“Paul says there are Gods many and Lords many. I want to set it forth in a plain and simple manner; but to us there is but one God—that is pertaining to us; and he is in all and through all... I say there are Gods many and Lords many, but to us only one, and we are to be in subjection to that one, and no man can limit the bounds or the eternal existence of eternal time.” [1]

The New Testament has plenty to say about the Godhead but I would like to focus here on the Old Testament and the Council of Gods. One of the best treatments I have found on the Council of Gods in relation to Mormon doctrine is that of Blake Ostler in the third of volume of the series “Exploring Mormon Thought: Of God and Gods”. It is an excellent book that I would recommend to anyone interested in the subject. Ostler defines a term he calls “metaphysical monotheism”:

“There exists a simple, immaterial substance SS that: (i) is necessarily the sole of instance of the kind ‘divine’ and utterly unique in the sense that there are no other members in the class of being occupied by SS; (ii) alone has ontologically necessary actuality; and (iii) everything else that is actual in any way depends upon SS for its actuality.” [2]

Ostler proposes, however, that metaphysical monotheism is an anachronistic view of the Hebrew Bible and not the original understanding of the authors. While it is clear from the Bible that Yahweh is foremost and preeminent, the only God worthy of devotion—there are passages that suggest that he is not the only being of his kind, the only divine being.

One interesting passage is found in Psalms 82:

“Elohim takes his stand in the assembly of El, among the gods he pronounces judgement. How long will you judge unjustly and favor the cause of the wicked? Selah. Defend the lowly and fatherless; render justice to the afflicted and needy. Rescue the lowly and poor; deliver them from the hand of the wicked. They neither know nor understand, wandering about in darkness; all the world’s foundations shake. I have said, You are gods and all of you sons of Elyon, But you shall die like mankind, and fall like one of the princes. Arise, O Elohim, judge the earth: for yours are all nations.”

What is going on here? This psalm is best understood in the context of an ancient Israelite belief. After the Flood the descendants of the three sons of Noah spread abroad across the earth and became many nations, seventy to be exact. Seventy names are listed in Genesis chapter 10 and 11. These chapters constitute a “Table of Nations”. This organization of nations was later referenced in Deuteronomy:

“Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations: ask your father, and he will tell you; your elders, and they will tell you. When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel. For the Yahweh’s portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.” (Deuteronomy 32:8-9)

The passage above is a translation from the Masoretic text which date from between the seventh and tenth centuries of the Common Era. An older version, however, is found in the Dead Sea Scrolls which dates back to 200 BCE:

“When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he separated humanity, he fixed the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of divine beings. For Yahweh’s portion is his people, Jacob his allotted heritage.” (4QDeut 32:8-9)

The Hebrew phrase for “divine beings” in the Dead Sea Scrolls is “bene ‘elohim” which means “sons of God”. It is the opinion of many scholars that the Masoretic version of this passage was a product of some alteration that occurred in the interim—evidently in an effort to remove any inference that there were other divine beings along with Yahweh. But the message seems quite clear—this was an ancient belief. If the Israelite children were to ask their fathers or elders they could tell them the story. When the nations were divided up Yahweh was given charge of Israel.

But what happens in Psalms 82? All the other gods given charge of the other nations have not been doing their job. They have not taken care of the poor, the orphans. They have not exacted justice. So Elohim takes charge of all the nations of the earth. The other gods are sent down to earth to live and die as mortals and Elohim takes charge of all. “Arise, O Elohim, judge the earth: for yours are all nations.”

What is seen here is exactly what Joseph Smith had taught—there may be many gods, many divine beings but one is superior to them all. So was the understanding in ancient Israel. Among the gods there was but one who was worthy of worship and that is Yahweh. But what is the role of the other gods? What does the Council of Gods do? More on that for subsequent posts.

References

[1] Smith, Joseph Fielding. Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith. Covenant Books. 2002. p. 383-84.

[2] Ostler, Blake. Exploring Mormon Thought: Of God and Gods. Kofford Books. 2008. p. 42.