3 Nephi: Penance & Catholic Confession

Penance is one of those issues within Christianity that has caused much upheaval. 

Catholicism's Sacrament of Penance can be placed within the Governmental Theory of Atonement--Christ died for humankind, every member within a social order, but as members of that social order, not necessary as individuals. That is, Christ did not suffer for each sin committed by each human being, which statement would have been a tremendous relief to my pre-teen self. 

(My mother made the Governmental Theory argument when I express horror at causing Christ pain, but I think she did so from what I will call the Mythic Version of the Atonement: Aslan dies for Edmund but not in some legalistic sense. He dies to free Edmund, not to even an imaginary score, whatever others claim as their rights towards Edmund.) 

In the "yes, but" approach to theology, despite the Sacrament of Penance being potentially tied to the social order, confession is an individual act. I visited a Catholic Church with a friend a few years ago and witnessed individuals cued up for the confessional. The priest could only speak to one person at a time. My friend later showed me a modern confessional, which was two chairs separated by a transparent screen in a larger office. It was more therapy-session-like even than the image.

But it was two chairs, not a group meeting. 

Protestants in nineteenth-century America were entirely opposed to the Sacrament of Penance as presented through the Confession. They argued that it involved priests forgiving sins--and only God can forgive sins. The Catholic priest does utter the words, "I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." Contrary to criticisms of antimonianism (Catholics can do whatever, once absolved!), this absolution refers only to the offering of grace. The temporal consequences remain and may extend into the next life. 

Love those 19th-century titles!

However, even the use of priests (and, of course, a pope) was anathema to early Protestants. One ex-Catholic at the time, Charles Henry Wharton, wrote that confession (alongside the claim of papal infallibility, which claim took off in the nineteenth century) was based upon "the lust of dominion and the rage for dogmatizing." 

Protestants also objected to the intimacy of the confessional. Ex-Catholic Joseph Blanco White, writing in the 1820s, sounds almost modern on the subject: "There is something in auricular confession which has revolted my feelings [from childhood]...as a protection to my life and liberty, with scorn and contempt in my heart." Another, Antonio Gavin, writing in the eighteenth century, objects to the close questioning of the penitent by the religious leader. He declares that priests have been told not to be so nit-picky, yet they are "motivated in practice primarily by...curiosity."

And still more Protestants and ex-Catholics published lots and lots of (largely false, though not entirely) "news" about Catholic priests taking advantage of the confessional to get women pregnant. 

The truth of most of these stories is debatable but the underlying reality remains: the confession was personal and intimate. Even today, according to Wikipedia, "Phone absolutions are considered invalid."

In terms of doctrine, while rejecting the Sacrament of Penance, early Protestants in America were conflicted. The problem "okay, that person said sorry and asked for forgiveness--but how do we KNOW!?" couldn't be shaken. There is something (not altogether tasteful) within the human spirit that insists that "good" people can't just say they are good. The social order has to accept them as good. 

After all, Protestants in New England had thrown out the easiest way to KNOW: actions. They had a reason to throw out that easiest way--actions so often turn into performances and indulgences, markers of goodness rather than actual goodness--but the Calvinists didn't make their lives any easier by wanting some other type of proof. In her book on Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Ann J. Lane comes closest to explaining this "proof" as any writer I've encountered so far:

Only those few who underwent an experience of "conversion" might be among the elect and thus permitted to enter heaven...[conversion was] an experience of affirming the Calvinist religion...[which] probable membership [in the church indicated]. 

I cannot speak for current-day Calvinism, but this "true" conversion was a factor in early American Calvinism and with the arrival of the Enlightenment, came down to a specific moment, a recognized instantaneous epiphany/change followed by an authentic public confession (how to recognize the confession's authenticity was a matter of some debate). There was a great deal of worry over children of parents who were born into the faith but who hadn't "truly" converted. Should the children be accepted or not?

Note the passive voice. Still--

The language "truly penitent," which appears in The Book of Mormon four times, would have been familiar to nineteenth-century readers. The idea of public confession (common in Calvinism; for those who enjoy connections to the Salem Witch Trials, one of the girls who made accusations made a public confession/apology as an adult) also appears in The Book of Mormon. As with Calvinism, confession and baptism is the standard for admittance into membership. Forgiveness is reserved to an act between the sinner and God.

But what about that proof!? 

The Sermon on the Mount in The Book of Mormon emphasizes that neither the confession as a sacrament nor the exact type of conversion is the criterion for final judgment. We are drawn to what we want and create: “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also” (3 Nephi 13: 21).

Later scriptures in 3 Nephi continue to emphasize the same idea. Regarding a passage that has been taken radically out of context, the church of Christ is defined as follows:

If it be called in my name, then it is my church if it so be that [the church as a group of people is] built upon my gospel. Verily, I say unto you that ye are built upon my gospel; therefore, ye shall call whatsoever things ye do call in my name; therefore, if ye call upon the Father [on behalf of] the church, if it be in my name, the Father will hear you. And if it so be that the church is built upon my gospel, then will the Father show forth his own works in it. 

But if it be not built upon my gospel and is built upon the works of men or upon the works of the devil, verily I say unto you, they have joy in their works for a season and by and by, the end cometh, and they are hewn down and cast into the fire from whence there is no return. For their works do follow them. (3 Nephi 27:8-12, my emphasis)

In the end, the argument in The Book of Mormon is quite similar to Paul's argument in Corinthians (along with the notable second emphasized line from Revelations)--that whatever is built in the name of Christ will eventually burn away, leaving only the foundation of Christ. Paul is more accepting of human variation. But the conclusion between Joseph Smith and Paul is the same. 

Ultimately, people are not "saved" by proof. They are saved due to "their faith, and their repentance of all of their sins, and their faithfulness unto the end” (3 Nephi 27:19).

3 Nephi: Atonement Uncomplicated

Jesus Christ descends to the Americas in 3 Nephi. The New World is tied to the Old. 

Linking Europe and the Americas to Jerusalem and the Mediterranean world was part of Millennialism, which movement I will address when I reach the Book of Ether. 

For now, 3 Nephi is notable not only for a recounting of the Sermon of the Mount but for what it doesn't include.

In the early nineteenth century, Reverend Alexander Campbell stated about Joseph Smith:

"He decides all the great controversies--infant baptism, ordination, the trinity, regeneration, repentance, justification, the fall of man, the atonement, transubstantiation, fasting, penance, church government, religious experience, the call to the ministry, the general resurrection, eternal punishment, who may baptize, and even the question of free masonry, republican government, and the rights of man." (in Harrison 184)

The above passage is correct (though it lacks the caustic bite that surely must have entered the reverend's voice when discussing Joseph Smith; the passage's context is a complaint). However, what I find most impressive is when Joseph Smith goes "off-script." Joseph Smith's step-by-step argument against infant baptism is entirely in keeping with his times (the unorthodox position was becoming rapidly more orthodox). 

Regarding the Atonement, however, his writings and The Book of Mormon evince a remarkable (and blessed) lack of obsession with exactly how it occurs (there is little focus on counting drops of blood). 

Page's points about

Gnosticism are spot-on.

A great many of the theologies running through America's beginnings (and earlier) come down to how exactly God operates. When people blame the Enlightenment for things, they have usually focused on the movement's secular attitudes. But entirely unnecessary and daft religious ideas like Creationism also arose from the Enlightenment. The need to bring God down to a human level, to explain His works/deeds as if they belong in a self-help "you can too" book have resulted in astonishing levels of cognitive dissonance. 

The impulse goes back further than the Enlightenment, of course. Check out Gnosticism, which was not as feminist, edgy, or "advanced" as some modern theologians want to claim. Once the premise "God couldn't possibly like physical matter!" is accepted, the conclusions to that premise (regarding a deity also presented as the creator of physical matter) get stranger and stranger and stranger. 

 

But I am straying into the issue of who or what God is, an issue I will address in a different post. 

 

Here, the issue is what God does, specifically when and how and why God forgives sin. 

 

From a "humans are weird and do dumb stuff" perspective, the issue of sin and, therefore, needed forgiveness doesn't seem that complicated. But theologians immediately made it complicated. What worried them the most was (1) why God would create sin or encourage sin or make sin possible; (2) what happened to humans after being forgiven.

 

If sin is a given, then once He forgives, why would any propitiation (even being sorry) be necessary, especially if He already knows who is saved? And, anyway, why would the elect even be able to sin? They might have tendencies towards sin (though some Calvinists debated this possibility), but they could not have the nature to sin because God would never do that to one of his elect. 

 

Congregationalists spent an unreal amount of time trying to figure out the problem of the above bolded statement and the arguments (because Calvinists loved to argue with each other) often came back to the first problem--that is, was sin something a person did or something a person thought or something a person might do but didn't or something that a person didn't do because that person was one of the elect? And if the person was one of the elect, was that person's behavior not sin because that person was already granted grace? Or because that person was created not to be that way? Was sin the product of choice or the product of inclination/nature and if the latter, where did that inclination come from?

 

My amateur historian's brain suffers a "gap" problem here. I think messing up is natural and human and (mostly) the product of choice. I don't think it needs to be explained. It just is. And I don't see why God has to be blamed.

 

Nor do I see why people need to be lectured about something that seems reasonably obvious. Or, rather, I don't grasp the pleasure such lecturers get out of their self-appointed mandate: "The problem isn't me correcting my faults or trying not to be a jerk today. The problem is what other people are going around thinking about their fault-ridden selves." 

 

I understand the desire to spread "good news." I understand the desire to observe and comment on what is going on in the world. And I'm writing as someone who is literally paid to tell other people how to write better. But I still don't understand the (social media) desire to move from belief or concepts to slamming people's characters. I understand the desire to help people be better; I don't understand the desire to "help" a person by throwing an impersonal, theoretical label at that person's head. ("I don't know you, but I know what's wrong with you!")

 

However much I want to understand Congregationalism, I can't entirely overcome this mindset "gap." 

 

(But, then, I think social media and its accompanying mindset is mostly a waste of time.)

In truth, Congregationalists weren't all of a piece. Some argued against the desire to fix others. Accepting the providence of God meant full acceptance, including the inability to change anyone for the better. However, as the First Great Awakening approached and missionary work increased among Protestants generally, the approach of more proactive (extroverted) leaders took hold. Some of them softened Calvinist doctrines and adopted more Methodist ideas (Congregationalism was conflicted from the beginning by American versus Old World ideals). Some of them honestly saw missionary work as an extension of service--to educate and heal and support abolition because they were called by God. 

 

But some of the die-hards clung to the idea that people needed to be told stuff about themselves even if what they were being told was that some of them were doomed (the non-doomed needed to be awakened: I'm not sure why they needed to be awakened in a system based on election...and neither did anyone else). And they argued over ideas presented earlier in this post: how exactly God could/would let his elect be exposed to sin or the desire to sin or the possible damnation of personal sin or the expectation that anyone could get over sin. If Grace is working, then why is X, Y, or Z happening to us?...was the mantra.

 

Joseph Smith skips all of it. He was fundamentally an active, physical guy. Any theory that somehow dismisses sin *or* regulates it to metaphysical discourse wouldn't have made much sense to him. He seems to have spent little time worrying about the Ransom theory of the Atonement versus the Governmental theory versus the Christus Victor theory (which last I tend towards myself and Joseph Smith seems to have utilized: the primary purpose of the Atonement is that Christ conquered--was victorious--over death, which implies a need to be victorious over sin). 

 

For Joseph Smith, ultimately, the Atonement's purpose is to allow us to do stuff, to move towards something, to be saved (as George MacDonald would state) not in our sins but from our sins FOR something. (See Helaman 5:11.)

 

But, as referenced in earlier posts, to maintain this perspective, it helps to reject original sin or at least to propose that the purpose of life IS for us to mess up.

 

That is, God wants us to experience risk. Knowing that us + risk would result in us doing very dumb things, he provided an Atonement, which makes it possible for us to keep exploring and risking and trying and experimenting rather than turning into, say, Gollum, going round and round and round without stop (hollowness). Grace while we do stuff, not grace + what we do.

 

Joseph Smith was not, in the end, a man to shy from risk. He was also not a man who thought that constantly calculating the cost of sin was terribly useful. His primary response to messing up/sin was harrowing but it was the harrowing of a man who feels that he has disappointed/let-down a loving God, not that of a man who believes he is too low or "other" to be contemplated. 

 

He and Saint Paul (and George MacDonald) would agree. 

3 Nephi & Mormon 9 & Ether 12: Nature of God & The Trinity

A great deal of Christian history is groups struggling over the nature of God. That struggle increased when Christianity became the Roman Empire's official religion and the need for an acknowledged and standardized theology arose (Basil Studer does a respectable job balancing political needs against participants' beliefs, pointing out that the resultant dogma was accepted by many congregations for its own sake--though obviously not by all, as the Pelagians and future Millennialists demonstrate). 

The culture of the times and social/political needs immediately provided an outlet for people who like to debate about ideas. 

In many ways, the debates had a point. In many ways, they did not. 

They had a point because what we humans imagine God to be has a great deal to do with how we imagine ourselves to be--a vengeful God, a loving God, an inclusive God, an exclusive God, and so on. 

They didn't have a point because often trying to figure out the nature of God results in putting God in a box. As C.S. Lewis wrote, "He is not a tamed lion." Trying to tame God to a particular mindset or worldview strikes me as somewhat blasphemous. 

And yet, trying to get closer to God, to commune with God, to understand our purpose through God, is to a huge extent the purpose of religion. Charity can be accomplished through other means (though perhaps not as effectively). The modern era struggles with community to which religion is often a solution, but truthfully, these days, even religions struggle with community. Andy Griffith's churchgoers existed, in part, because the small-town/small-neighborhood world still existed. Cultures change. 

In the end, the consistent focus of religions is thinking and talking and acting on one's understanding of the divine.

Which doesn't mean some of the thinking and talking doesn't go too far. 

The Trinity

Early Christianity was not that invested in the trinity, one way or the other. Robert M. Grant points out in Gods and the One God that God, the Father; His Only Begotten Son; and the Holy Ghost were not originally presented as a trinity but a triad. In the earliest years of Christianity, there was no real attempt to explain exactly how the three beings interacted--any more than there was any real attempt to explain exactly how God created the earth. Basil Studer in his extremely dense tome Trinity and the Incarnation, makes the same point. 

The need to explain the exact relationship between God and Christ grew out of a reaction, in part, to the Arian controversy, whether, in sum, "Jesus and the Father were of 'one substance' [or] three distinct 'persons--Father, Son and Spirit" (Page). The issues are far too complex for me to explain in this post. Nick Page sums up the issues quite well in A Nearly Infallible History of Christianity:

"And what is interesting--and frankly, depressing--about the debate over Arianism is that it is the first major example of theology turning into brain surgery...At one stage, the debate becomes between two Greek words: homoiousios, which means 'similar essence,' and homoousios, which means 'same essence.'"   

I grew up hearing that the "angels dancing on the head of a pin" obsession here was the fault of the Nicaean Council. But, in fact, the Council(s) of Nicea (there was more than one) worked to resolve the matter. The Council ultimately came down on the side that, at the time, I likely would have favored myself. That is, the Council determined that Christ as a deity truly had lived as a human and truly had suffered and resurrected. It wasn't some kind of shell game. The material world did matter.

However, the idea that God would allow Himself or his Son to suffer still bothered people. Theologians also worried about how Christ or the Holy Spirit could save if they weren't God. So Christ became God and the Holy Spirit became God in order to make the matter work theoretically. 

This is where I stop praising the Council and just sigh. 

I suggest one reason early Christianity didn't care about how atonement/salvation works as a system or machine is because those early believers--including Paul--were in essence what I call mythologists. What mattered wasn't HOW God rescued human beings (exact number of blood drops) but the STORY of God's rescue/interaction with humans in mortality. 

In addition, the early Christian world was still thoroughly pagan in its understanding of gods, even within Judaism. The difference between Judeo-Christianity and paganism wasn't necessarily monotheism as moderns understand it. It was the belief (1) this god expects righteousness because this god is righteous and just; (2) this god is more powerful than all other gods and (by the early C.E. era) this god is the god of all people; (3) this god, according to Paul and others, no longer requires propitiation through any type of ritual sacrifice. Humans no longer have to bargain for their birth-rights.

In sum, God being both singular and all-important; God having a Son; the Son having a Mother was not in any way odd to the early Christians. They were quite familiar with Osiris-Horus-Isis.

For any number of reasons, including possibly a desire to break entirely with the pagan past and some of its more (in fairness) unpalatable practices, the need for a single all-in-one God became paramount in the 300 C.E. era. Again, it is to the credit of the Council of Nicea that a God with three faces (three functions that humans can relate to) was retained. 

Protestants like Calvin, however, took the need for monotheism to another level. The world became suddenly somewhat barren of angels and saints and other supernatural beings (except Satan), laying the ground for the Millennialists (post to follow). In any case, by the 1800s, a declared adherence to strict monotheism was a mark of adherence to a set of related beliefs.

The Book of Mormon starts out with a thoroughly monotheistic perspective. It quickly adopts the language of three acting as one. Christ's appearance in 3 Nephi is, like his baptism in the New Testament, heralded by a declaration: 

Behold my Beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, in whom I have glorified my name—hear ye him.

Further references to "my Father and I are one" can easily be interpreted as "one in purpose." Ether 12 references "the grace of God the Father, and also the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost."

In the end, Joseph Smith halved the difference between the Nicene Creed and the Arians. Everybody (gods and humans) is eternal and has always existed, including Jesus Christ and Mary and the Holy Spirit. God didn't "create" them or us. God "organized" them and us.

That is, Joseph Smith promoted a mythology rather than a theology. The mythology borrows from Arianism but avoids the dreary ex nihilo business of God creating stuff out of nothing as well as the underlying boredom of trying to put God in a box, tidy up a deity who is supposed to have agency.  Mormon 9 argues, "[W]hy [would] God [have] ceased to be a God of miracles and yet [continued to] be an unchangeable Being? And behold, I say unto you he changeth not; if so, he would cease to be God; and he ceaseth not to be God, and is a God of miracles” (19). 

In Joseph Smith's hands, God deals with the world all the time--as much as He can. Personality and change is the unchangeable constant.

In sum, a deity who has His own agency is the point--but then, like Joseph Smith, I'm a mythologist to my bones.