Alma 36 & 46: Exodus and Liberty

Calvinists maintained that although the Old Testament was superseded by Christ’s acts, the Old Testament was still worth reading because of its types and examples.

Types are stand-ins for Christ: that is, they are seen as forerunners to the coming of Christ (and latter-day events).

Examples are lessons about other things, such as leadership.

And, in truth, just about every "Sunday School" in the United States in just about every church of just about any denomination uses these two approaches. The Puritans in New England were more erudite about it and had a better grasp of context. But pointing to a scripture and saying, “Make this about whatever you want” is, let’s face it, way easier than pondering how and why it was written in the first place (and then what that means to a reader).

I personally think the type-and-example approach has gone too far in the navel-gazing-everything-is-relative direction.

However, I must concede that the story of the Exodus is impressively powerful as a type and example. And has been used by multiple American groups over the years, from the Puritans to African-Americans brought over as slaves. 

As a metaphor, it carries, much like Campbell’s Hero Myth. In Alma 36, Alma references the Exodus when he discusses his redemption from a sinful state. He is being literal--"brought our fathers out of Egypt"--while also quite deliberately embracing the image's symbolism: "[God] delivered them out of bondage and captivity, from time to time even down to the present day; and I have always retained in remembrance their captivity; yea, and ye also ought to retain in remembrance, as I have done, their captivity" (36:29).

"Captivity" was a memory for Americans. Release from captivity, for instance, was used by Revolutionary War pamphleteers. Stuart Halpern in “The Exodus: American’s Ever-Present Inspiration” points out that Thomas Paine and various ministers referenced the Exodus. King George was naturally Pharaoh, a viewpoint shared by much of Joseph Smith’s original audience.

The Title of Liberty raised by Moroni in Alma 46 is against a king. Even more importantly, the scene is associated with a piece of land:

[Moroni] named all the land which was south of the land Desolation, yea, and in fine, all the land, both on the north and on the south—A chosen land, and the land of liberty. (Alma 46:17)

Nineteenth century readers would have related--not only because they knew their Bible--and not only because of the Revolutionary War--and not only because nineteenth-century Americans were searching for links between them and the "Old World"--but also because land was still the operating indicator of freedom, as it has been through much of history.  Freedom = you get land for yourself.

Alma 42: God and Fairness, Part III

Original Sin

Original Sin gets a bad rap, in large part due to its (later) ties to sex. Although Augustine often gets blamed, the gnostics were equally if not more responsible. Augustine perceived life as beautiful but confusing. That is, creation was beautiful. Human beings were something else. 

A great deal of gnosticism, however--despite contemporary efforts to paint it as some kind of non-sexist, life-is-beautiful 1960's forerunner--was about as anti-the-physical-experience as intellectuals can (and still do) get. Gnosticism could also get intensely elitist.

Original sin, as Alan Jacobs points out, had the merit of at least being universal. Everyone--kings to peasants--was so tainted. And early Christianity was far less obsessed with the supposed logical ramifications (why would God allow us to be evil?) than later Christianity. Most people, from Paul to Erasmus, accepted that humans just, well, made mistakes and did dumb things. Of course, they required salvation!

The Protestant Reformation and the Enlightenment brought about an almost obsessive need to explain the origin of bad behavior in humans. The world seems to have split into those who said, "Well, sure, humans do bad things. Welcome to being human. Why else would we need grace?" and those who said, "But it doesn't make sense that a perfect pure God could allow so much nastiness. Therefore..."

And entire generations of believers tied themselves into knots. 

It occurred to some people to separate outcome from intent (transgression versus sin). But they were often shouted down by people who praised the majesty of God and then behaved as if God was something they had tucked into their back pockets (this blogger takes the view of C.S. Lewis: Deity is not a TAMED lion). 

The expulsion from the Garden of Eden consequently became a more and more contentious issue. While Early Christianity argued fiercely over the nature of God (half-human/half-God or all-human/all-God or something else), later Christianity was more concerned with the nature of humankind and that issue was heavily complicated by the problem of free will. Free will was always on the table. Paul takes it for granted. Later Christians, however, wanted to square it with a whole host of other ideas. 

Calvinism in America threw itself into the deep end by wanting to apply fate to people's souls beyond birth while embracing free will as well as rational explanations for stuff. And one of the easiest rational explanations (on the surface) has always been to figure out who is to blame.

Adam as the guy at fault (humanity would be so happy if only Adam and Eve hadn’t…) was omnipresent enough as a theological argument in the nineteenth century for the 3rd Article of Faith (written down by Joseph Smith and his early followers) to state, “We believe that men will be punished for their own sins, and not for Adam’s transgression.” 

Because, of course, blaming Adam didn’t really help matters either since, as mentioned earlier, Why would God allow Adam’s fault to impinge on us? Why would God set up humans to fail? Why would he give them natures that couldn’t get better? How far does grace go to wipe all that out? Is it fair to override people’s bad actions? Do murderers go to heaven? Why not? Doesn’t God want humans to be happy? (Happiness is a big issue in the nineteenth century.)

In Alma 42, Joseph Smith attempts to solve the problem of blame and the Garden of Eden, an approach that he brings into focus in the Book of Moses. 

To be continued...

Alma 42: God and Fairness, Part IV

In Alma 42, Joseph Smith attempts to solve the problem of blame and the Garden of Eden, an approach that he brings into focus in the Book of Moses. 

It may be an ideal--it is an extraordinary one.

Joseph Smith's Mythology

Joseph Smith’s approach to the problem of God, original sin, free will, and judgment is to do the following:

(1) Take free will to its logical conclusion: in sum, the whole point of life is for humans not just to have free will but to exercise it as a reflection of each human's individuality (to be "agents unto themselves");

(2) Negate the idea of inherited sin and define sin as contingent on knowledge (hence, all children are saved);

(3) Distinguish between “sin” and “transgression.” Adam and Eve didn’t yet know good from evil so they transgressed when they ate the fruit; they didn’t sin. They left the Garden of Eden because they needed to go. As mortal beings, they did eventually sin. But they weren’t inherently corrupt and neither are we. Messing up is normal. God already figured that out.

Hints of the above approach appear in Alma 42. 

Alma 42 first addresses antinomianism, likely because it is about to present what others would call antinomian arguments. So it first argues that God is just (fair) and consistent. Mercy can't override justice. 

The chapter goes on to present in outline, material that will appear in the Book of Moses, presented by Joseph Smith in the 1830s. In Alma 42,

• Adam and Eve become “as God,” knowing good from evil.
• They are “sent forth” from the presence of God, so they will die physically, which requires (“it was expedient”) a universal resurrection.
• They are separated temporally and spiritually from God, which requires an atonement.
• Sins arise from specific decisions made by individuals as they, expediently, “follow after their own will"—not from God’s punishment.

A VERY Mormon view of Adam and Eve

There is more than a hint of “it had to happen this way, so it could happen this way, so God could reveal His power”--a not unusual argument in the nineteenth century (and earlier). Joseph Smith's approach to the Garden of Eden will later be brought more in line with 2 Nephi 2:25 (hinting at Adam as Michael and ultimate hero): 

“Adam fell that men might be, and men are that they might have joy.”

“And now,” Alma writes his son, “I desire that ye should let these things trouble you no more” (Alma 42:29).

When Joseph Smith can side with actual reality over theory, he usually almost always does. After all, telling God who and when and why He can save is completely unnecessary. And possibly blasphemous.

On the other hand, having a story about God (myth = story; theology = argument in a positive sense) does influence HOW people carry out their beliefs in actual reality. Joseph Smith splits the difference.

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.