Earlier this year we explored some of the historical challenges for telling the story of “spirit birth” in Mormon theological history. In this post, we will turn our attention to the philosophical challenges raised by “spirit birth.” Again, here we are less concerned with tracing the teaching to Joseph Smith as we are examining the implications of spirit birth given our tradition. Some of the most detailed treatment of the topic is given by Parley P. Pratt and Orson Pratt. However, developing a coherent theology of spiritual birth is something Mormon theologians have not been interested in doing. Blake Ostler, for example, says little about this doctrine in his multi-volume series Exploring Mormon Thought, other than to conclude it probably does not originate with Joseph Smith. Indeed, others may feel little is to be gained from developing a theology of spirit birth. However, for those who are interested in developing a coherent theology of spirit birth several challenges exist.
1. Early Mormon thinkers believed that our spirits are fashioned from spiritual element or spiritual matter. Thus, God has complete control when he configures each of our spirits. Parley P. Pratt and Orson Pratt understood intelligence as an attribute of spiritual element. Thus, given this metaphysics, God is the one who determines the intelligence of our spirits, and therefore the question arises as to how fair it is to judge us according to our intelligence when this is predetermined by God when he creates us. Parley P. Pratt recognized this dilemma and argued that God does not create this intelligence. The level of intelligence, rather, is a function of the particular element used to form our spirits, and element differs in its level of intelligence. Pratt should be credited with acknowledging this dilemma even if his solution doesn’t quite solve the problem. One can presume that God still has control over the particular element used in the organization of our spirits. Isn’t there some consequence in how God creates our spirits? Is there any significant difference between God creating our spirits from preexisting spiritual element and God creating our spirits out of nothing? Doesn’t this lead to a kind of determinism?
2. Other Mormon thinkers emphasized that God doesn’t create us as much as he begets us. By God begetting our spirits, we “inherit” divine traits and attributes from God. This is couched in decidedly biological terms. Joseph emphasized the shared eternality between God and man. Thus, as the Word was “with God” in the beginning, “man also was in the beginning with God.” In contrast to this view, the model that traits are inherited via spiritual birth borrows from our scientific understanding of genetics. Yet, it isn’t clear exactly how or what we are inheriting.
3. Early Mormon thinkers, like Parley P. Pratt, believed the “spiritual body” was an exact facsimile of the mortal body, including all organs and anatomical structures. Yet, given our understanding of the function of human anatomy—taking the act of respiration for example, drawing oxygen from the atmosphere in order to oxygenate the blood—it isn’t clear exactly how an immortal spirit functions outside of a mortal environment.
4. Yet another problem is this: if our spiritual body looks exactly like our mortal body, and our mortal body is the result of specific combinations of genetic material, how does our spiritual body know what it is supposed to look like before we are born? This leads to a situation where if spiritual bodies are exact replicas of what our physical bodies will look like, and if what a physical body looks like is the result of unique gene combinations from our parents, then we are faced with a situation where God must predetermine every sexual union in the universe, or to put it in other words, that the future has already been decided, once more leading to a kind of spiritual determinism.
5. Early Mormon understanding of a “spiritual body” was that it was an organization of spiritual element that either is calculated to receive intelligence (Brigham Young) or reflects the attribute of intelligence in greater or lesser degrees (Orson Pratt). After B.H. Roberts redefined intelligence to mean a personal entity, the spirit body was re-conceived as a receptacle for this intelligence. Roberts explained that “Spirits are uncreated intelligencies inhabiting spiritual bodies,” but intelligences “pure and simple” is without a spiritual body. Roberts’ project was to attribute to intelligences essentially every power that a spirit has minus a “spiritual body.” Unfortunately, Roberts never explained the nature of a spiritual body or its function. Indeed, his project was not to formulate a coherent doctrine of spirit bodies but to infuse Mormon theology with personal eternalism.
nicely done. I’ll come back with something more substantial later.
I think a few mentioned in the BCC thread last year that originally the idea was that God literally made us out of himself. It was an emanationist model fundamentally. Then when the more neoPlatonic conception became physicalist with the idea spirits are matter this needed to shift. An obvious way of maintaining a lot of this is the idea of spirit birth. Throw in the various comments that life in heaven is like life here and pushing the power of analogy far leads to something like a spirit birth.
All that said I think you raise some good philosophical points regarding pre-determinism. (The idea God establishes our future rather than the idea that our future is established) I think it safe to say that the Church has been anti-Calvinist in that regard through most of its history. Even the KFD with the idea of co-eternal spirits heads in that way.
If spirits in some sense were uncreated yet in some sense were created it is an obvious move to simply make a split between the uncreated part and the created part. This isn’t necessary logically as the created part can be seen as organization in a more straightforward way. However the idea of organization as “adding parts” is a pretty natural one. It’s unsurprising that the Pratts make that move. (Especially since Orson had been exposed to the Scottish Renaissance on his mission and probably had encountered the monadology or at least mention of Leibniz. Leibniz and Spinoza were still big in both Scottish philosophy as well as German idealism)
The problem of the shape of the spirit body is a big one in LDS theology. I think the assumption of it looking like our current body is based upon Ether 3. However no one quite wants to own up to how it would look like our present body which has problematic implications. (i.e. about our choices and our knowledge of choices) The alternative view that a spirit is amorphous and can look like anything is also problematic. There are echoes of it in 19th century LDS thought as well with the idea that it is akin to a liquid that fills our body.
One thing I don’t think has been addressed enough is how much Mormon thought is caught up in what I’ll call “folk phenomenology” of spirits. i.e. the way people appear to see spirits (whether accurately or not) versus more formal philosophizing based upon agreed upon premises and logic. Even in the Renaissance philosophers like Telesio started doing philosophy based more upon these folk views of quasi-material spirits as opposed to the more Thomist views that informed philosophy and formal theology.
Once you accept the place of folk traditions you see that ghosts typically are quasi-material. Like a gas (smoke) which is material but fine yet has a distinct shape. It’s not too hard to move from the traditional view of ghosts to Joseph’s comments about material spirits. I think there is a tendency to over philosophize the fine material comments (and I do this too). More precisely I’m not sure it’s fair to read them too neoPlatonically although it is interesting when we do so.
Roberts is interesting in how he deals with the tripartite model. Of course his view is not quite what we call the tripartite model (and Pratt’s earlier model is more tripartite than some want to admit). I’ve come to agree more with the view you espouse that Robert’s view just isn’t that fleshed out. In the past I was probably guilty of reading more into Robert’s views that was warranted.
Fundamentally the main issue of spirit birth in Mormon theology is the question of how much heavenly society is like ours. The second issue is the relationship between man and God. Is it just one of God aiding us or is there a more close bond? I think it unarguable that the latter is the main view of the Church. The problem with getting rid of anything like a spirit birth is that it seems to separate that bond. The relationship becomes more one of teaching. I think that in some ways it’s an uniquely Mormon question of Grace in the pre-existence. The anti-spirit-birth view might be analogous to Pelegianism while the pro-spirit-birth view more the idea of a strong ontological connection. As I suggested this goes back to the emanationist view in the 1830′s that continues to indirectly affect how we view the relationship between God and man. (As such it might be seen as an extension of the questions raised by rejection of creation ex nihilo)
To add, fundamentally beyond the creation ex nihlo issue the issue becomes why should one accept an emanationist model? Especially if man is co-eternal with God.
Am I the only one who sees a lot of room for agreement between the explanations? It’s like describing two sides of the same coin. Sure they look different, and on one hand you could be describing an eagle, and on the other hand describing a man, but at the end of the day they’re each describing a quarter.
Could you explain Chris how these are superficial differences? I confess I don’t see it. I can see people arguing that these issues don’t matter to us right now. I’d agree to a point but would add that they may have practical effects now. (i.e. how we see our families)
1 – Yes this leads to some type of determinism. That is why I prefer the Roberts eternal intelligence explanation.
2 – How is analogous to other offspring relationship inheritance. What is divine attributes.
3 – The need for exactness is overblown. It sets an unnecessary imposible standard. Same general shape seems to be enough to me.
4 – See 3. Unnecessary problems.
5 – Again, I prefer Roberts. Details of any of this are necessarily speculative.
I like Clark’s point of emphasis: Fundamentally the main issue of spirit birth in Mormon theology is the question of how much heavenly society is like ours. The second issue is the relationship between man and God.
Great post, aquinas.
D&C 130:2 suggests a parallel society.
Yes, but how parallel in the question.
Eric, are you saying that resurected beings likely live in societies and raise their spirit children together?
I would likely say families instead of societies, but yes, more or less.
Don’t you think that’s reading a lot into that verse? I admit a lot of people do read it that way. But I don’t think the verse itself is nearly as clear regarding children. After all it might be the same society for those of us with adult children.
I don’t think that I have heard that before, Eric. Interesting. I’d like to explore that a bit…do you think that these spirit children that grow up knowing each others parents recognize them as separate Gods? Actually, it may mesh better a la Orson Hyde’s diagram of the Kingdom of God where the spirit children look at a higher authority as God. What do you think?
Clark:
Certainly it is. It mostly comes down to whether one likes the results of the reading or not.
J:
I feel that is probably how most Mormons speculate about the Celestial Kingdom. Do you really think I am being unique here? I feel I am stating the obvious general beliefs.
I am not sure about CK neighborhoods, and I would be more comfortable with a lower case g, but I am more or less agreement with where you are headed in 13.
Eric, it is quite possible that I have just missed out on the right conversations. I think I assumed that most spirit birth proponents just overlooked that section. Under this model, would everyone on this planet be begotten by different parents or just one set of parents?
I think most would assume one set, but I don’t think that would be necessary.
aquinas:
1- Why lead with the Pratts? Their view, IMO, is the least favored of all in regards to spirit birth. I do think there is a good sized group that still holds onto something like the Brigham Young Model, but I think the past 20 years have seen Truman Madsen really drum up business for the BH Roberts model.I’d say it is of deep importance how we were created as spirits, as “where we came from” informs “why are we here”, “where are we going”, and “why were we atoned for”.
2- I think their is a spectrum of thought on this “begetting” going from deeply literally to totally metaphorical. I am a huge fan of thinking in terms of spiritual adoption in regards to this, where a change of state only need be from “one who is not identified as a child of God” to “one who is identified as a child of God.” My friend Eric and I disagree on this, and I do think there is room for his point of view.
3- This one is a tricky one, as Joseph Smith never described the spirit body as anything other than in the form of man, and because of the Book of Ether where the Brother of Jared sees pre-mortal christ. While I think it can be argued about “How exact” this spirit to physical self mirroring is, we don’t have any reason to argue against it.
4- See 3.
5.- I really see Roberts project as giving space for Joseph Smith’s teachings as well as those From Brigham Young and later leaders in his time. Personal Eternalism came from Smith, but primarily in the later stages of his ministry, and some of his teachings seem to have run counter to prior teachings (Abraham vs Moses). I’ve read on various blogs that Young and Others were skeptical of many of the recordings of these later sermons, as they ran counter to some of their own conceptions. BH Roberts really came in with History of the Church (around 1900) and through various sources really vindicated things like the King Follet Discourse. At the same time, in 1880, the Book of Abraham had been Canonized, and was being studied and harmonized with existing thought. This Harmony has three flavors, Roberts and Widtsoe, which were similar and more precise, and Talmage, which was much more vague on this point. I think the real philosophers’ challenge arising from this is “How could BY and JS have been so different on something so fundamental”. My opinion is that “it Didin’t matter that much, in the grand scheme of things, at the time.” such an idea though, is terrifying to me.
#17, Matt re your 5. I argue in the book (at least it’s in the present draft) in several places that the transition in thinking from JS to BY (and in some ways the Pratts are a flavor of BY for this purpose) was culturally and environmentally driven, representing more of emphasis and less of contradiction. Of course it’s more complicated than that, but that’s the gist. I don’t know if that will survive readers, but right now, I like it and it fits the data.
WVS- if you ever need someone to proofread your never-ending draft…(grin)
Funny, I was just reading Harold Bloom today and his criticism of this “weird” doctrine of spirit birth that did not originate from JS.
Also, what about the problem of how resurrected beings of flesh and bone conceive and gestate a spirit baby? (or did I miss that discussion?)
I have found the idea of spirit birth so weak that I’ve considered other heresies, such as a reincarnation model of spirit intelligence evolution through successive trips to earth, which, conveniently, meshes nicely with biological evolution and the handful of early quotes about “multiple mortal probations” and a recycling of spirit intelligence for failed runs here on earth.
P.S. To the extent I try to salvage a belief in a spiritually embodied preexistence, I would subscribe to something like what Eric Nielson is saying. Those spirit beings would be the product of many, many families and god-parents. No billions of spirit children coming from a single Father, no matter how many wives he might have. Might this also explain why Christ often said “my father” and “your father” but not “our father”? (except during the Lord’s prayer when he was assuming their voice for teaching purposes)
I really appreciate all the comments everyone. My response keeps getting longer and longer, but I’ll respond for now. I will see if I can put other ideas into another post rather than lengthy comments.
One of the philosophical challenges in developing a coherent theology of spirit birth is deciding on which specific tradition to establish one’s theological structure. I think we really need to understand the historical evolution of these ideas and the apologetic or polemical environment as well as the internal controversies that were concurrent at the time. One example that I raised in the post regarding historical challenges is the role that apologetics played in shaping our religious discourse. The fact that adoption theology was perceived as an attack upon spirit birth, in my view is one of the most significant pieces of theological history that has largely gone unnoticed. It galvanized spirit birth more than any thing else. I’ve also raised the issue of the Church dealing with Darwinism and the influence this had on spirits. We cannot understand the evolution of these ideas without recognizing that Mormon thinkers are writing within a particular environment and specifically responding to issues of their day.
Matt W ~ On that note, I emphasize Parley P. Pratt because I believe he was the first Mormon thinker to acknowledge the problem of inequality among the spirits. If the intelligence is ultimately decided by God, and if God has full control over the configuration of our spirits, how is it then fair to judge or rank based on intelligence? Parley P. Pratt deserves to be credited with this piercing observation and contribution to the greater dialogue. He stands alone among early Mormon thinkers in this regard. The vitality of Parley’s question is still in full force today. Whenever we claim that man’s existence is contingent on God’s creative act, we cannot escape the gravitational pull into the vortex of determinism. One cannot be rewarded nor punished from what God irrevocably determined in the moment of our creation. That is why we need to examine this problem. It doesn’t matter whether one rejects the details or the literalism of Brigham Young, Parley P. Pratt and Orson Pratt. If one accepts the premises upon which their theology is built they must still face this problem. This is why I think we need to view these perspectives as theologically whole-systems, for that is exactly what they are.
Two final thoughts that I can only briefly mention: The evolution of the concept of “spiritual body” or “spirit body” deserves a post of its own, or perhaps two. I don’t think the story of Roberts’ theological contributions in this area has been adequately told. I agree with Matt and WVS on the complexity of issues, and I too would like to see this fleshed out more. The story of spirit birth in Mormonism is a story of a pendulum swing between determinism and freewill. This was especially the case after Roberts, but I will have to leave this for another day.
Clark ~ Thanks for the comment and I’m glad we can continue our conversation somewhat in terms of Roberts’ views.
I still maintain, however, that the term “tripartite” is not very useful as a description.
Just wanted to chime in to say I’m enjoying the conversation. Impressed with the post, and particularly aquinas’ follow-up comments.
aquinas, I don’t see any reason at all to conclude that the views of Pratt or Young require the configuration of our spirits to be an immutable and unchanging one, or that configuration be destiny.
Any robust sense of free will contradicts the latter proposition. And if you don’t allow for libertarian free will, then it doesn’t matter how God pre-configured our spirits, because he was entirely epiphenomenal in the process.
Pratt in particular is less vulnerable to this criticism than Brigham Young because in his view spirit atoms were uncreated, quasi-personal, and with independent free will.
Although I radically disagree with both on certain aspects, I don’t see how this criticism has any power whatsoever unless one is a die hard determinist, in which case he or she has much worse problems to deal with. I have a very hard time seeing Pratt or Young as determinists in any case, although I suppose it is possible.
aquinas, I’ve come around to thinking the tripartite description, however well it represents folk belief, doesn’t do justice to Roberts. So you and a few others have definitely convinced me there. I think I was reading more into Roberts words than was there.
I also agree with Mark that I don’t see anything in either Pratt’s or Young’s view entailing much immutable about spirits.
Mark D ~ Thanks for the comment. There are many reasons to conclude that the configuration of spirits determines the nature of the spirit. First of all, in the theology as elucidated by Parley P. Pratt this definitely was the case, otherwise he wouldn’t have wrestled with the problem of inequality among he spirits and judging them based on their capacities. One could argue that his self-critique was completely misguided, but I argue he was correct to acknowledge this problem. Under Young’s theology, God is the only one who can organize spirit matter. Bringing in the concept of immutability in to the discussion does nothing to weaken my critique. For the sake of argument, I suppose God could choose to “re-configure” someone’s spirit but again, he is the one in control of that re-configuration, and the critique is still the same. I don’t see the result being much different under the theology of the Pratt Brothers.
You seem to argue that if we begin with the premise of a robust notion of free-will that subsequent inquiries would never change this fact. This logic makes no sense to me. Whether we have a robust notion of free-will is the conclusion one reaches after the inquiry in to the nature of reality, it is not the premise. The reason Joseph Smith can provide a robust nature of free-will isn’t because he just decides to make it a premise. It is because he explicitly teaches that spirits are not created and cannot be created. Working backwards doesn’t solve the problem in my view. If if did, why don’t we just begin with the premise of robust free-will and then subsequently accept the doctrine of creation out of nothing?
I’m not arguing that Young or the Pratt Brothers perceive themselves as determinists. I would imagine that most Mormon thinkers perceive themselves as champions of free agency. This isn’t about self-perception. We are looking at the implications of various ideas regarding the concept of spirit birth and whether those ideas lead to a kind of determinism.
aquinas, it doesn’t matter how we come to the conclusion, some rudiment of free will must be a fundamental aspect of reality for robust free will to exist at all. Libertarian free will is certainly not a property of a deterministic system, a stochastic system, or anything in between.
In a deterministic system, configuration is destiny. In a reductive deterministic system, it may rightly be said that configuration is all there is. However, this is not the case in a world where LFW is real. The entire point of LFW is that a being so equipped can change his will in a manner not completely predicated on the prior configuration of anyone or anything. In order words, contrary to deterministic naturalism, configuration is not destiny. Rather will is.
In the most general sense, a change of will, or a change of heart, is a change of configuration, and salvation can be seen in terms of a change of will, even if the material configuration (arrangement) of the spirit is immutable.
However, I consider the idea that the configuration of anything is immutable to be an extremely dubious proposition, as in there is no possible explanation for why that should be the case. That goes as well for the idea that God alone has the power to change some aspects of configuration, which is a proposition about as contrary to Mormonism as I can imagine.
It can’t possibly be a metaphysical necessity without making God into a member of a different species, and a practical necessity is no necessity at all, but more like a rule of thumb. I would be curious, however, to see a citation for anyone who made such a statement, whether Brigham Young, or Orson Pratt, or both.
While we have sketchy scriptural support for the idea of gradations of personal intelligence, I don’t believe there is any for the proposition that this gradation is a necessary and immutable one, and would further consider that the primary object of the plan of salvation is to eliminate this gradation as much as possible, not by destroying, but by lifting up (cf. Matt 20:1-10, D&C 78:5).
Mark D ~ I think I understand your propositions, but I don’t see traction between your propositions and what I’ve written. It sounds like we are playing completely different games. I don’t resolve problems by simply starting out deciding that a whole system is going to have libertarian free will and then changing history to make sure that this will always be the case. I look at the structure of a theological system and then make inquiries about the implications that flow from those structures. It’s fine that you don’t work that way, but it occurs to me that our exchanges will always lack traction. I perceive we have a different view of the role that the historical record plays in theological critique. I’m not sure I see any role for the historical record in your approach. I welcome different perspectives but I sense an impending tangential meta-discussion about something beyond the particular domain of this post.
But from our previous exchanges, my guess is that we have radically different notions regarding the entire plan of salvation so perhaps this explains some of that.
Well technically under Young’s theology any resurrected God acting as a father could. And the organization is somehow analogous to sex. Young most definitely adopts a more traditional reading of the King Follet Discourse. At least in terms of content. (I don’t think he actually was present for the discourse and I don’t know when or if he read it – but it seems clear he was familiar with the ideas)
I don’t understand this, perhaps because “robust free will” seems a bit ambiguous. (I don’t think we can say what Joseph understands by it, ontologically, for instance) In any case I don’t think uncreated intelligences necessitates anything about free-will.
Matt W ~ I appreciate your follow-up post. I’d like to unpack some of the models you are outlining and continue the discussion here. It seems to me that each of your models contains a statement on 1) the ontology of spirits and 2) nature of our relationship to God. I don’t know that every thinker has spent as much time elaborating on one versus the other. However, my view is that these two views are most often than not going to compliment each other and fit together as a system of thought.
If God and spirits have always existed, then they share the same attribute of being uncreated and eternal, but nothing demands that this requires a relationship between God and spirits. My reading of Joseph Smith is that God extends an invitation to enter into a relationship and spirits have the freedom to accept the invitation.
If God creates spirits, then spirits have not always existed, and spirits are always in a relationship with God of some kind, and no invitation needs to be extended because by default God unilaterally chose to create the spirit before the spirit’s existence and without the spirit’s consent. One never becomes a son or daughter of God by an act of freewill, because this is decided in the moment of their creation.
Should we decide we want to acknowledge an uncreated and created part within a spirit, this in no way allows us to escape the above predicament, we merely have to answer for it on both counts.
If we take the view that a spirit body is clothing that covers an intelligence, then the spirit body must have some function or purpose otherwise it is meaningless. If we say the function is form, then God determines all sexual unions because mortal form is a function of genetics. If we say the form doesn’t matter, then we must explain what function a spirit body has other than form. If an intelligence has all the attributes that Joseph Smith described spirits having, then the spirit body is an empty phrase. If on the other than, a spirit body determines capacity or intelligence, or ability, or gender, then God again has determined something about the spirit beyond the spirit’s consent or choice and we again are faced with some kind of determinism. In my opinion, these are some of the main philosophical challenges.
Clark ~ Under Young’s theology, our destiny is to eventually possess the power of organizing native element as God does. “[W]here we are out of the reach of death, and him that hath the power of it; then we are exalted to thrones, and have power to organize element.” JD 1:276. But again, this isn’t really relevant to my critique. I don’t see Young speaking about anyone reconfiguring their own spirits. He speaks rather of people organizing native element to create riches. But even if people could eventually reconfigure their own spirits, they can’t do it during mortality when they are being eternally judged for their moral performance.
The historical record indicates that Brigham Young was present for the April 1844 Conference. “History of Brigham Young, Cont.” Latter-day Saint’s Millennial Star 26 (Liverpool, 1864): 342. See also Manuscript History of Brigham Young 1801-1844 (Salt Lake City, Utah: Elden J. Watson, Publisher, 1968): 165.
Brigham Young’s connection to the King Follett Discourse goes beyond just being present at the event. More important than that, Young oversees the 1855 Grimshaw Amalgamation of the discourse, which contains the curious phrase “intelligence of spirits” that is not attested in any of the extant records recorded by any of the scribes. The phrase never appears until 11 years after the sermon was given. Strong evidence suggests that Young added this language to make the KFD conform to his own teachings regarding the origin of spirits. The Grimshaw Amalgamation becomes the text that B.H. Roberts uses in the History of The Church and the text from which subsequent theologians cited for Joseph Smith’s teachings. This is a good illustration of what happens when theologians base their theology on key phrases that turn out not to have any manuscript authority. There is more to this rich and complicated transmission history, but I will leave it at that for now.
In regards to your position that there is no relationship between being uncreated and possessing free will, you do realize that when we examine the corpus of Mormon apologetics, we find a very long and established tradition of Mormon apologists critiquing traditional Christian belief in creation out of nothing. It is argued that creatio ex nihilo makes God responsible for moral evil and prevents true free will. It is then explained that Joseph Smith’s teachings on man lead us out of these intractable problems. If however, you “don’t think uncreated intelligences necessitates anything about free-will” then perhaps this entire apologetic tradition is misguided. If you are right, and there is no logical nexus between uncreated beings and free will, then we should rethink this entire apologetic enterprise and cease from arguing that creation ex nihilo has philosophical drawbacks in terms of man’s free will.
I’d like to also point out another blogger who shared my questions on his blog. The questions are rewritten and restated in a way that I think is probably better than I originally wrote it.
Interesting aquinas. I hadn’t known that. I knew he’d been exposed to the ideas elsewhere but thanks for filling in those details.
I don’t think, by the way, creation ex nihilo entails God’s responsible for all evils. I think logically it allows for free will. However in practice God’s still responsible for a ton of evils. But that’s true within Mormonism too. I definitely think that while there are a lot of problems with creatio ex nihilo this isn’t a terribly bad aspect of it.