Getting the Cosmology Right

Abstract

Sporadically over the past few years I have been writing a personal document titled “What I Believe.” The reason for this is twofold. First, as I have learned more, my beliefs have shifted. This is unavoidable. As you receive more or better information, your beliefs will inevitably change. Second, I wanted to see if I could actually spell out in words a coherent belief system that made sense to me. So far, the results are not promising.The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a messy religion. Because we do not have a systematic theology, and because many of our doctrines are either unsettled or have morphed over time, it is probable that there are as many Latter-day Saint theologies as there are Latter-day Saints. Since I am not an expert in the theologies of other religions, I can't make any meaningful comparison between LDS beliefs and the beliefs of others, but that is not my project here. I am interested in exploring the LDS theological universe in an attempt to see if I can reconcile various apparent inconsistencies and bridge a few disconcerting gaps.In many instances, we are left to our own devices to make sense of the official and unofficial doctrinal statements of Joseph Smith and his successors. Because Joseph's theology expanded as he grew older, some of his early statements are impossible to reconcile with his later statements. He wasn't always building line upon line. Sometimes he reversed course. And sometimes his successors revised his teachings in significant ways. Doctrinal harmonizers such as Joseph Fielding Smith and Bruce R. McConkie have tried to create order out of the chaos of this ongoing theological project, but the results are usually unsatisfactory because they fail to account for the chronological unfolding of certain doctrines as well as the disagreements between certain authoritative voices.As I have approached my own theological venture, however, one thing has become clear to me. If we do not start at the beginning, we are hopelessly lost in our efforts to create a sensible belief system. And when I say “beginning,” I mean the fundamental question (or questions) upon which all others rest. I am not the deepest philosophical thinker, so what I am producing is certainly an amateur effort, but I suspect that my musings may be of value to others who are asking similar questions.So, what is the fundamental question? Perhaps there are several, and I'll bring up several questions in the course of this examination, but here I want to focus on the one that seems more basic than all the others. For some this question might be “Is there a God?” But I have had enough personal experience to feel comfortable answering that one in the affirmative.1 So, given that foundation, what is the idea that either determines or shapes all others? In my mind, it is the ethical query “Which came first, God or the moral law?” This is another way of asking what the nature of eternity is. In other words, it is a question about cosmology. And as Latter-day Saints, we certainly do not have a firm grasp on the answer to this question. We sometimes think we do, but the fact that our leaders and our scriptures often declare ideas that conflict with Joseph Smith's later teachings suggests that we need to return to this fundamental question and settle on an answer. Otherwise, we're in danger of getting the cart before the horse and perpetuating a doctrinal free-for-all that produces more smoke than light. So, if we are to have a cohesive and coherent theology, we first need to get the cosmology right. Now, I am not claiming to have the answer to this conundrum. I've already admitted that my own attempt to express a coherent belief system has not produced the desired result. My project here is more to ask questions that we need answers to, and those answers may be available only by revelation, not by reasoning.So which did come first, God or the moral law? Russ Shafer-Landau, paraphrasing Socrates through Plato, asks: “Does God command us to do actions because they are morally right, or are actions morally right because God commands them?”2 The first option suggests that the moral law is independent of God. God is God because he perfectly follows an eternal moral law. The second option is known as Divine Command Theory, in which God is the source and creator of everything. Therefore, he invented morality. Most religious philosophers, however, reject the Divine Command Theory, and so, apparently, did Joseph Smith, at least most of the time. Shafer-Landau points out the central flaw in this theory: Imagine the point at which God is choosing a morality for us. God contemplates the nature of rape, torture, and treachery. What does He see? Being omniscient (all-knowing), God sees such actions for what they are. Crucially, He sees nothing wrong with them. They are, at this point, morally neutral. Nothing, as yet, is right or wrong.But God did, at some point, make a decision. He forbade rape, theft, and most kinds of killing. If the Divine Command Theory is correct, then He didn't forbid them because they were immoral. So why did God forbid them?It may be presumptuous of us to try to answer that question. But we can ask a slightly different question: did God have reasons for His decisions, or not?If the Divine Command Theory is true, then there is trouble either way. If God lacks reasons for His commands—if there is no solid basis supporting His decisions to prohibit certain things, and require others—then God's decisions are arbitrary. It would be as if God were creating morality by a coin toss. But that is surely implausible. That sort of God would be arbitrary, and thus imperfect. . . . If God lacks reasons for His commands, then God's commands are arbitrary—and that renders God imperfect, undermining His moral authority.3Some theologians have attempted to explain Divine Command Theory in a way that removes this fundamental conundrum.4 But in my opinion, they all ultimately fail to account for the notion that God must have some sort of rationale for declaring some actions good and others evil, otherwise his law is arbitrary.The inevitable fruit of this arbitrary option turns up here and there in LDS scripture and thinking—for instance, in God's command for Nephi to kill Laban and in Joseph Smith's purported letter to Nancy Rigdon, attempting to persuade her that polygamy was right by insisting that some actions can be right in one circumstance but wrong in another5—but it is invariably problematic. So, if God must have reasons for declaring some things right and others wrong, then some kind of moral law must precede God, and he merely recognizes its validity and commands accordingly. If this is true, are we to worship God or venerate instead the eternal law that controls or at least guides his choices? According to human logic, then, the principles of good and evil, moral and immoral, precede the existence of God, or are at least independent of him. If this is true, what need have we of God, if we do not need him to be the author of an eternal moral law?Joseph Smith gave an answer to this question. Joseph's view of eternity, at least as it unfolded primarily in his Nauvoo sermons, is that God could not possibly be the source of everything, moral law included, because he was once as we are now, a mortal human being living on a planet somewhere in the already existing universe. He therefore had a God who guided him in his progress, and that God likewise had a God, and so on, ad infinitum. This may not have been spelled out explicitly by Joseph, but it is inevitable in the description of God he has given us. In Joseph's theology, then, God's “job” was to help us along a path to perfection, which must mean complete conformance to an eternal moral law. But this idea may not answer the chicken-and-egg question asked above. It's a bit more complicated than we might suppose at first glance.Joseph's view of eternity is compelling in that it seemingly circumvents the problems inherent in the Divine Command Theory. But his explanations also seem to come up short. If God did not create the moral law, who did? His Father? His Father's Father? A distant God ten billion times removed? No, because each of them would have faced the same dilemma our God would have encountered in producing an arbitrary law. So where did it all start? Joseph's answer appears to be that it simply didn't. Eternity is, well, eternal. It has been going on forever. There was always a previous God who perfectly understood and applied the eternal moral law and is bound by such notions as love and justice and mercy. The problem here is that the human mind cannot comprehend such a state of affairs. From our perspective, it had to start somewhere. Scientific evidence suggests a beginning, the so-called Big Bang, but cosmologists are always exploring other possibilities, including some that posit no beginning and no end. Of course, the Big Bang theory does not explain why the universe came into existence or what came before. But if there was a beginning, a point at which all things began, was the moral law created in that instant, along with the spirit intelligences who would evolve into a race of gods? Or did the law in some way precede whatever beginning there may have been? If so, then where did it come from? Is it the foundation of all eternity? Does it somehow determine the shape of our universe and how it expands and evolves?If the moral law has existed forever—if it preceded even the existence of the first divine being—then what is it exactly? Is it a set of principles carved without hands into the bedrock of eternity, into the atoms and photons and quarks that produce light and matter? Do good and evil exist independently of any class of conscious beings? If so, how did the first conscious being ever come to recognize this eternal law and interpret it? Law is generally, well, quite general. It can be interpreted in a variety of ways. Take the commandment “thou shalt not steal.” What does this mean in millions of circumstances? It must be interpreted to define what is permitted and what is forbidden. Certainly, the millions of permutations of this law are not spelled out somewhere in an eternal criminal code book. So, how did the eternal notions of moral and immoral first get interpreted and applied? And by whom? Or are there principles that are one layer deeper than the moral law, principles that guide divine beings in interpreting the law? If so, what are these principles, and why have they not been revealed to us? Certainly, they constitute the fabric of morality.We might ask what the difference is between moral law and the physical laws we observe in the universe (the repetition of observable patterns in matter and energy). Are physical laws simply an inevitable part of our material universe, or are they implemented in some way and in certain spheres by intelligent beings? What about moral law? Is it also somehow a feature of our physical universe, or was it implemented by intelligent beings? Further, what is the consequence of breaking a physical law? There is always a natural physical consequence. But what is the consequence of breaking the moral law? We can break the moral law without breaking any physical laws, so there is no inevitable physical consequence. What then are the consequences of breaking the moral law? Often these consequences take the form of a disruption in the connections that bind us together as social beings. We often also impose punishments on each other for breaking the moral law, and sometimes these punishments produce physical pain. But that is not because these physical punishments are necessary. Or are they? We'll explore that question later. But for now, let's return to the issue of the moral law's origin.Just for the sake of argument, let's assume for a moment that Joseph's view of eternity is correct. There was no beginning. There have always been divine beings and lesser intelligences, and there has always been a moral law. If so, then we are actually in the same boat as we would be in if the moral law preceded God. In essence, what we are saying is that the moral law was not created. It would then be either independent of or interdependent with the species of divine beings we recognize as gods. Either way, it is not dependent on God and did not originate with any divine being. If Joseph is right, then we can be certain that God did not create the moral law. Either it preceded the race of gods or both have always existed. We can be certain of this because the Divine Command Theory is virtually impossible to credibly defend. Morality cannot be arbitrary. If it is, then morality means nothing. It is only whatever God determined it to be, regardless of any preconceived notions of right and wrong, good and evil. So, if morality has always existed, what does that tell us about the nature of the universe we inhabit? Well, based on both Mormonism's and the broader Christianity's doctrine of punishment for sin, the universe is apparently a harsh taskmaster.For my purposes here, an important question is whether the moral law requires a punishment if it is violated. Lehi, in the Book of Mormon, answers in the affirmative (2 Nephi 2:10). So does Amulek (Alma 34:14–16). But does this make sense? Doctrine and Covenants 19 suggests that sin (the conscious violation of moral law) requires an excruciating physical and spiritual punishment—in other words, violence (D&C 19:16–18). But why? If no one created the moral law, does the law itself require violence if it is violated? Apparently, the scriptural answer is yes. This is a significant reason behind the proclaimed need for an infinite atonement. But why is such a drastic measure required apparently indiscriminately, regardless of the severity of the infraction?In this life, we have myriad examples of how people can reform and improve and become more perfect without horrific punishment and without even the threat of violence. If someone steals from me, feels remorse, and returns the stolen item, I do not need to require that person to be beaten with a cudgel as a payment for the misdeed. Neither do I need someone like Jesus to be beaten with a cudgel for that person's wrong. And the person does not need to be beaten to motivate him to not steal again. I can simply forgive the person and encourage him to live a moral life. And if he does, end of story, at least as far as I'm concerned. For reform and improvement to take place, there is often no actual need for a severe punishment, inflicted either directly or vicariously. This being true, why would an eternal moral law demand violence for every sin? This I find hard to understand. But if it is God who demands the punishment, the violence, rather than the law itself, we must still ask why. What reason would he have for exacting a painful punishment even when the sinner experiences remorse and desires to reform? Why must the sinner, or his vicarious substitute, experience a painful punishment for performing an immoral act (see D&C 19:16)? What would be the purpose of such violence?We read in the Book of Mormon that God has to be just. If he is not just, he is not God (Alma 42:13, 15, 22, 25). Note that God's need to be just is not dependent on his own arbitrary declaration that justice is a moral attribute. No, justice appears to be an independent standard that God must adhere to, otherwise he ceases to be God. He becomes something else if he is not just. Mercy is a similar attribute. “God himself atoneth for the sins of the world, to bring about the plan of mercy, to appease the demands of justice, that God might be a perfect, just God, and a merciful God also” (Alma 42:15). But does being just involve always meting out a horrible punishment for every sin, either to the sinner or to some innocent substitute? Alma insists this is so: “Repentance could not come unto men except there were a punishment” (Alma 42:16). Why is it impossible to repent without a punishment? What sort of eternal law requires this?Some Latter-day Saint thinkers have interpreted this notion of punishment as merely a disruption in the relationship between God and any of his sinning children. God suffers pain from this broken relationship, and the sinner suffers also. But D&C 19 does not frame the punishment in this way. It's much more than just the feelings of separation, of a broken relationship. Let's look carefully at the Lord's words to Martin Harris: “Therefore I command you to repent—repent, lest I smite you by the rod of my mouth, and by my wrath, and by my anger, and your sufferings be sore—how sore you know not, yea, how hard to bear you know not. For behold, I, God, have suffered these things for all, that they might not suffer if they would repent; but if they would not repent they must suffer even as I” (D&C 19:15–17). The Lord is not telling Martin Harris that he will simply feel the sorrow of a broken link between him and God. He is telling Martin that he will “smite” him in his “wrath,” in his “anger.” This is an inflicted punishment. Other scriptural passages indicate that God is required by his inherent justice to inflict this punishment, but D&C 19 suggests it may also be personal. The Lord is displeased, is angry, and will therefore cause Martin Harris to experience exquisite pain.An additional problem with the notion of severe and painful punishment for sin is that there are endless gradations of sin. And the idea that a person who tells a white lie that harms no one deserves the same awful punishment as a serial rapist simply does not make sense. In our mortal legal codes, we recognize the need for the punishment to fit the crime, and also for the punishment to vary—or even be expunged—according to all sorts of extenuating circumstances. Indeed, for some minor infractions of the law, particularly when much time has passed and the violator has since lived a law-abiding life, no punishment is exacted. That eternal law would not do likewise is unthinkable to me. But section 19 of the Doctrine and Covenants presents just such a scenario.The circumstances that led to the revelation recorded now as section 19 are instructive. Martin Harris did not murder anyone. He did not rape anyone. He did not accuse Joseph Smith of being a false prophet. This was all about the printing of the Book of Mormon. Martin had agreed to mortgage his farm to pay Grandin, the printer, but he was apparently having second thoughts. This was, after all, a huge sacrifice on his part. According to Grandin's brother-in-law, “Harris became for a time in some degree staggered in his confidence; but nothing could be done in the way of printing without his aid.”6 Yes, there was a lot riding on Martin's agreement to pay the printer, but his hesitance is easy to understand. How many of us would not have similar second thoughts? Yet for this he was threatened with an unbearable punishment. If this revelation is a recitation of the Lord's words and not a text influenced by Joseph's frustration with Martin, it indicates that each of us will be subject to that same punishment for any and all sins we do not repent of. Is this the sort of cosmos we inhabit? One that demands excruciating pain for every single sin, no matter how severe? Why? And the only way we can avoid this pain is for someone else to suffer it for us? Again, what sort of universe would require such an arrangement? Who divined this intent in the eternal moral law? This argument relies, of course, upon a certain theory of atonement. I will address this presently, but for now we must acknowledge that LDS doctrine teaches excruciating punishment for sins, unless the sinner repents. But even then, Jesus had to endure this punishment in our stead.Some might argue that without the threat of a punishment, there is no incentive to change or reform or improve. I do not accept this argument, not in all cases, perhaps not even in most. Many people have shown that they will improve and change because they want to become better people. There is in many people an attraction to moral behavior and a revulsion regarding what we define as immoral behavior. Whether this attraction is a product of the Spirit or is somehow inherent in the eternal spirits of God's children is unknown. But this attraction to morality is common enough that when we encounter a completely amoral person, we are troubled. We assume something is fundamentally wrong with that person. Much of this may be attributed to culture and education, but where did this compulsion for moral education come from? Certainly not from the threat of violence. Many people are also motivated to improve because of the love of others. Indeed, love often seems a far better motivator than fear. So, this is one problem I see with the LDS doctrine of sin and the law.Another significant problem I see is Joseph's inconsistent insistence that an act in some circumstances is sinful, while that same act, in different circumstances, is not sinful. The most obvious example is Nephi's killing of Laban. But in Joseph's purported letter to Nancy Rigdon, an attempt to convince her of the appropriateness of plural marriage, he explained that whatever God commands is moral, regardless of how it might offend our moral sensibilities. But this sounds a great deal like moral relativism. It also returns us to Divine Command Theory, making the moral law arbitrary. Whatever God commands is good, no matter how repulsive, even according to blanket commandments God has given.So what is the correct cosmology regarding the nature and origin of moral law? We must choose among several eternal possibilities. Is there a moral law that precedes God? Or is there is a moral law that God created? Or do both exist eternally with no beginning and no source? Or is the moral law just a human construct that God has nothing to do with? Or is the moral law somehow synonymous with God—God is who he is, and morality is simply doing what God would do? Whatever the case, logic strongly suggests that God is not the author of the moral law. But each of the other alternatives presents difficulties. Perhaps because of these philosophical difficulties Joseph Smith was not consistent in his teachings related to this principle. We also find modern prophets and apostles teaching doctrines that derive from inconsistent cosmologies. Let's explore some implications of these inconsistencies.In the LDS Bible Dictionary, God is referred to as “the supreme Governor of the universe.”7 President Gordon B. Hinckley referred to him as “the great God of the universe.”8 A search on churchofjesuschrist.org for the term “Creator of the universe” yields several general conference talks and Church magazine articles by members of the First Presidency, apostles, and other General Authorities in which they refer to either God the Father or Jesus Christ as the Creator of the universe. This statement assumes a particular cosmology, one in which God is separate from the universe, predates it, and brought it into existence. The obvious question regarding this cosmology (and one that has been asked throughout the ages) is, of course, where was God when he created the universe? A related but less frequently asked question is, where were we? Did God just create us out of himself, or out of nothing?This particular manifestation of LDS theology is quite in line with a mainstream Christian view of God. But it is in direct conflict with the later teachings of Joseph Smith and some of his early followers. The most concise presentation of this uniquely LDS concept of God is Lorenzo Snow's famous 1840 couplet: “As man now is, God once was: As God now is, man may be.”9 Although it is inconsistent with certain statements made by more recent prophets and apostles,10 this couplet found its way into the 2013 Melchizedek Priesthood/Relief Society manual Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Lorenzo Snow.11 The distinctive doctrine it propounds also appeared prominently in previous manuals containing the teachings of Brigham Young and Joseph Smith. Joseph Smith is reported to have taught: “God Himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens! That is the great secret. If the veil were rent today, and the great God who holds this world in its orbit, and who upholds all worlds and all things by His power, was to make Himself visible,—I say, if you were to see Him today, you would see Him like a man in form—like yourselves in all the person, image, and very form as a man.”12Brigham Young was even more explicit: “The great architect, manager and superindendent, controller and dictator who guides this work is out of sight to our natural eyes. He lives on another world; he is in another state of existence; he has passed the ordeals we are now passing through; he has received an experience, has suffered and enjoyed and knows all that we know regarding the toils, sufferings, life and death of this mortality, for he has passed through the whole of it, and has received his crown and exaltation and holds the keys and the power of this Kingdom.”13In this particular take on cosmology, God did not create the universe. And he certainly does not control the whole universe. Indeed, he was once as we are now, living on a mortal world, gaining experience, working out his own salvation, with, presumably, a God of his own to guide him and a savior to redeem him. I suppose if we espouse a multiverse cosmology, then it may be possible to reconcile all these ideas, but neither Joseph Smith nor any of his followers have given any credence to such a cosmology. And a multiverse cosmology would not solve the problem of where the moral law came from. It would only multiply the problem.Both of these views of God and his place in the universe have many implications. As I have discussed in a previous article,14 if God did not create everything, especially us, then how does he have any authority over us? If, as Joseph Smith suggested several times, God is not capable of creating our spirits (or minds or intelligence or whatever Joseph meant by spirit), then he likely has authority over us only because we granted it to him. This places us in an entirely different relationship to him than we would experience if he had created us either from nothing or from himself or even from preexistent but insentient matter.These possibilities still all flow from the initial question I asked: Which came first, God or the moral law? Or, asked another way, did God create the moral law, or does it exist independent of him? A positive answer to either question creates difficulties. If God created the moral law without basing it on anything, then morality must be arbitrary, which is problematic. How could we possibly worship an arbitrary God? What sort of faith could we possibly have in such a being? But if the law was independent of God, then why does it seemingly require violence for its violation? How can the law require God to punish either us or some substitute who is willing to suffer torment for our mistakes? What sort of cosmos does this imply? The notion of an atonement for sin flows naturally from a universe in which the violation of an eternal law somehow requires a violent punishment.The LDS concept of atonement comes largely from the Book of Mormon, but this presents some unique problems, partially because atonement theology in the Book of Mormon is somewhat inconsistent, but also because the predominant doctrine suggests a cosmology we may not be entirely comfortable with. Historian Matthew Bowman made the following observation: “The atonement theory of the Book of Mormon is . . . complicated; it frequently describes the atonement in terms of ransom theory (2 Nephi 2:27; [2] Nephi 9:10), for example, and contains verses consistent with a subjective, moral influence theory (Alma 7:11). The most extended Book of Mormon discussions of the atonement, however, describe it in legalistic terminology, meeting the inexorable demands of natural law. See Alma 34 and 42.”15 If you look at the verses Bowman references for ransom and moral influence theories, however, the evidence is not very strong. For instance, 2 Nephi 2:27 does speak of “the captivity and power of the devil” and of “the great Mediator,” but there is no mention of a ransom being paid, although if there were a ransom, we must assume it would be paid to the devil, since he apparently holds us captive in some way. The preceding verse speaks of people being “redeemed from the fall” and becoming “free forever, knowing good from evil,” but again, there is no mention of a ransom. Likewise, 2 Nephi 9:10, which Bowman misidentifies as 1 Nephi 9:10, speaks of God preparing “a way for our escape from the grasp of this awful monster; yea, that monster, death and hell.” And the preceding verse speaks of our spirits becoming “angels to a devil” without the atonement. But there is no mention of our deliverance being made possible by God or of Christ paying a ransom to the devil for our release. The means by which we gain freedom from death and hell is not specified. Much can be read into these verses and others, but the Book of Mormon in general does not speak of the atonement as a ransom.Bowman's single reference to the Book of Mormon's support for the moral influence theory of atonement is even less convincing. Alma 7:11 states, “And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions 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.” In the next verse, Alma declares that Christ “will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know how to succor his people according to their infirmities.” According to Brigham Young University professor John Young, proponents of the moral inf