Take their (Mormon) polytheism for example: as oddly fascinating and even appalling a doctrine as it is, you have to get behind it to understand its implications. Behind it is something called "the eternal progression": the god who created this world — the God of the Bible, they claim — was once a man living on a planet created by his father god, who was once a man living on his planet created by his father god and so forth. Now there is a philosophical problem with this: there is no beginning point — it is an infinite regress. But there can not be such a thing, because if you have to go back an infinite number of times, you never get to a beginning and without a point at which to begin, you never get to now and today. That is an insurmountable philosophical (logical) problem.
But more pertinent to the political question is the moral problem it generates. According to Mormon doctrine, the way that each god gets to become a god is by following the "law of the gospel." To Mormons, law (not god, or God) is eternal and law is prior (although "prior" has no real meaning when one is talking about an infinite regress) to god (or to God). God has not created law, it is not "of Him" or "from Him," rather, "law" — impersonal and uncreated -- has made the gods gods (made Him God).
This is not merely a radical departure from the Judeo-Christian concept of God, it is a radical deformation of the concept of law, both natural law and the positive (promulgated) laws that flow from it:
The natural law, the Creator's very good work, provides the solid foundation on which man can build the structure of moral rules to guide his choices. It also provides the indispensable moral foundation for building the human community. Finally, it provides the necessary basis for the civil law with which it is connected, whether by a reflection that draws conclusions from its principles, or by additions of a positive and juridical nature (CCC 1959).
Behind the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution stands precisely this Judeo-Christian concept of natural law as the participation of the human conscience in the eternal law of God. It is eternal because it "is the work of divine Wisdom" (CCC 1950), and has as its source an eternal Being, God. It is this concept of natural law from which positive law (ecclesiastical and civil) derives its just authority and its appeal to human reason. Furthermore it is exactly this concept of law that allows us to insist that no law can ever make abortion or euthanasia or embryonic stem cell research lawful.
http://www.catholicexchange.com/node/68487
Perhaps a philosopher could flesh out some of these thoughts a bit, but as I understand it, the natural law is rooted in the eternal law. As Mary pointed out, the Mormon idea of an infinite chain of causes is logically absurd. A proper understanding of causality requires a first cause to trigger everything else into existence. But what is the relationship between God's essence, which is eternal, and his eternal law? I would answer that while God is the source of the eternal law, both have coexisted from all eternity. Would the correct terminology be "attribute", with regard to the relationship between law and God? Perhaps I'm not being clear: The eternal law is an attribute of God's eternal and divine nature. I may require some fine tuning with regard to taxonomy here.
ReplyDeleteIf Boethius is correct in defining "eternity" as the: "possession, without succession and perfect, of interminable life" (interminabilis vitae tota simul et perfecta possessio), then God's law is, like His essence, eternal. But as Mary said in her piece, Mormons go wrong in placing law prior to God's existence, when in fact the eternal law depends on God's existence. So God and His law, which derives from and depends wholly on his eternal essence, have coexisted from all eternity.
An interesting discussion, but hopefully you realize that the "progression of gods" doctrine that you're talking about is not a central doctrine of Mormon theology. There were early leaders and members of the Church who speculated on the topic as you're doing, but a quick check of the topic at official Mormon sites such as lds.org and mormon.org will demonstrate that it is definitely not at all a central belief.
ReplyDeleteThe current leader of the Mormon church recently gave a major address on the topic of the Mormon theology of the Godhead