Dr Val Larsen thinks Lehi was not a monotheist! That’s quite a statement! Val holds two Ph.D. ‘s, one in English and the other in Marketing. He teaches at James Madison University. He shares how he thinks Lehi synthesized the Canaanite & Israelite religions and shares his insights into theosis/exaltation in the Book of Mormon, divine mother, and lots of other interesting Book of Mormon topics. In this first segment, he talks about what mainstream Christianity gets wrong about God. Check out our conversation…
Val 08:12 So I want to frame the topic that I’m going to address today by alluding to one of your good friends, and a former guest, Steve Pynakker. Brother Pynakker is a Pentecostal who loves Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon, in part, because they literally saved his life. And I’m using literally here, literally. His story is really interesting. And I really appreciate his charitable attitude towards Joseph Smith and the restoration. But I’ve heard him say at a recent Mormon history gathering, he bore testimony of the Book of Mormon somewhat as follows. “I love the Book of Mormon, particularly because it doesn’t have any Mormonism in it.” And by this, he meant the Book of Mormon doesn’t contain any of the distinctive doctrines of the restoration. It’s just a powerful witness of Christ and the Trinity. And since he loves Christ, what’s not to like?
Val 09:06 So he’s building bridges with Latter-day Saints and shares a lot in common with us on his view. But this testimony was a playful dig at the Utah-based restoration branches that embrace and emphasize Joseph Smith’s most distinctive teachings. Steve’s views are more or less entirely in harmony with the essentially Protestant Reformation branches headquartered east of the Mississippi. He has no real disagreements with the Community of Christ folks or Sidney Rigdon’s Monongahela branch of the restoration. He’s preached in services of the Rigdonite Church there in Pittsburgh. But he likes to playfully poke us Brighamites, as some of the other folks call us, and would like to convert us to his and the eastern restoration branches, more orthodox Christianity because he thinks that’s true Christianity. We try to convert people. We can’t blame him for taking the view he does on that. My broad thesis is that Brother Pynakker is wrong. The Book of Mormon does contain distinctive doctrines of the restoration that we Utah/LDS regard as being both precious and true. So let’s briefly talk about what some of those doctrines are.
GT 10:27 Now you’re ticking off all my evangelical friends who are starting to be a little bit like, “Oh, maybe the Book of Mormon is not too bad.”
Val 10:34 Well, when I was talking to Steve at Book of Mormon Perspectives Forum, he’d laid all this out and I said, “I don’t want to steal any of your thunder with your Evangelical friends, because he’s trying to reconcile all them to the Book of Mormon. But I am. I’m essentially undercutting his position as he tries to sell the Book of Mormon to evangelicals.
GT 10:59 Ok, Steve’s friends, don’t listen to this.
Val 11:00 Yes, don’t listen to this. This won’t help his case. This dispensation the gospel opens with Lehi and Joseph Smith’s first visions, in which a prophet initially sees a pillar of fire or light, then sees the corporeal Father and corporeal son. And a lot of deep doctrine is implicit in that corporeal appearance of the father and son. It suggests that God is of a kind with us, rather than wholly different from us. His male body implies that we have a divine mother with a female body and the similarity of the father, mother and son to us suggest that we can become what father, mother and older brother are: divine beings. Both Lehi and Joseph Smith are told that contrary doctrines are an abomination in the sight of God. Both visions, use that word: abomination. And the core of the condemned abominable creed is the false idea that God is infinitely and eternally different from us. The idea that he exists outside of space and time as pure being, this is BEING with all capital letters, as the only entity that fundamentally unnecessarily exists, with all other things being created by him ex nihilo, out of nothing and existing only contingently.
Val 12:21 If we accept this Orthodox Christian premise, it necessarily follows as John Calvin understood and cogently argued that everything that happens in creation happens because God willed it to be so and caused it to be so. Fiona and Terryl Givens have written that this idea of God makes God a kind of monster, as much the author of evil and damnation as of goodness and salvation, which Calvin would basically concede; not concede it, but actually, argue it. If we accept this creed, the problem of evil becomes completely intractable. Every act of evil becomes an act of God because God’s outside of history and knows what every created being will do before he creates them. He has the option of creating only the subset of beings who will not choose to be monstrously evil. As the first and sufficient cause of all that exists, He can’t escape responsibility for the evil that exists in the world. Of course, none of this applies to LDS theology, because there’s a part of us that is uncreated. And God works with that. But I’m not going to get into all that today, the problem of evil, but it’s a big problem for Orthodox Christianity. It’s really not a problem for us for some of the same reasons of the points of doctrine I’m going to be talking about today.
GT 13:41 So wait a minute. So you’re saying that–I almost want to go with the problem of evil. Because God is in charge of everything, God is in charge of evil. You say that’s what Orthodox Christianity teaches?
Val 13:55 Calvin, who was a brilliant logician, conceded this whole point. The Calvinists will say, God created some predestined to damnation for His glory, and others predestined to salvation. And it really follows logically from a couple of premises. If God is the cause of all things, there’s nothing that exists before God acts. If God is outside of space and time. God knows everything that will happen before he ever causes it to happen. So anything that happens, happens only because God willed and caused it to be so.
GT 14:31 So Hitler happened because God knew.
Val 14:33 God knew what Hitler was going to do before He created him. Hitler was no surprise to God.
GT 14:38 Steve’s not a Calvinist though. He’s not going to like this.
Val 14:40 Well, I want to talk a little bit about that. Not about Steve. But yeah, he’s not a Calvinist. But the Calvinists are the most logically rigorous of the Orthodox Christians. So let me just go on and I’d say that it shouldn’t surprise us that The loving God that hundreds of millions of Christians, Jews and Muslims, and people like Steve, have known intimately reject–Well, God rejects this conception as an abomination. That’s not a true conception of him. Nor is it surprising that most of those believers, again, like Steve, defy logic, and accurately think of their god as an inherently benign being, who nurtures and blesses His children, and saves all of us who are willing to be saved, who’s not responsible for the evil that’s in the world. So, they don’t think God is responsible.
Val 15:37 But while members of the Abrahamic religion reject the impeccable logic of Calvin, it’s the logic of their own position, if they would actually dig into it deeply enough. Many of these Christians nevertheless insist that we have to share their conception of God to be classified as Christian, this is sort of the paradox. Their own position makes God the cause of both all good and all evil. A lot of them don’t believe that. But they do insist that we embrace their idea of God being outside of space and time.
Val 16:11 So our doctrine that our Heavenly Parents are of a kind with us, and that through Theosis, we can become fully like them separates Latter Day Saint Christianity from the other branches of Christianity. And that’s what motivates the common assertion that we’re not Christian. Orthodox Christians may and indeed, they must concede that The Restored Church of Jesus Christ doesn’t differ appreciably from their denominations, in its teachings about the earthly life and saving mission of Christ. We don’t differ from them on that.
GT 16:40 You’re talking about Eastern Orthodox Christians?
Val 16:42 I’m talking about all of them. I’ll focus on eastern orthodox in a moment here, but here, I’m just talking about their understanding of the earthly mission of Christ and our understanding. If our earthly Christology were the focus of their analysis, they would be obligated to classify the restored Church as a Christian church. They classify it as non Christian primarily because we reject the Trinitarian formulation of God, which is a variant of the Jewish Christian Muslim formation I just mentioned, in which God is a being outside of space and time, who is ontologically. It’s a fancy word for in his being in his essential nature, utterly different from humanity. Within this Orthodox Christianity, the eternal Trinitarian God may join humanity in history, incarnated as Christ, who mysteriously remains one with the father who is outside of space and time, but humanity can never transcend its contingent existence and join God as a self existent being as true companions, whose existence is like gods necessary and eternal.
Val 17:52 Now that’s true for their theology. It isn’t true for ours and Joseph Smith taught that we are uncreated in our essence, and in that sense, we are similar to God. We Latter-day Saints don’t believe in that unbridgeable separation between God and man. We believe in Theosis, human beings becoming what their divine parents are. So, a distinction is in order. We use the word Theosis, but we didn’t invent it. The word Theosis is a coinage of Eastern Orthodoxy that you were just mentioning, which is, by all accounts a branch of Christianity. Nobody denies that Eastern Orthodox are a branch of Christianity. In Orthodoxy, Theosis denotes the beautiful, compelling idea that the proper Tito’s, the proper end state of a contingent being, is to achieve through the ministrations of Christ and the Holy Ghost, mystical union with God. And mainstream Christians don’t think it’s heretical to affirm that humanity may become maximally like God within the narrow confines of what’s possible for a contingent being. But if, as they insist, God is the sole self existent being who exists outside of space and time, it is heretical to affirm and logically impossible to cogently argue that contingent beings, the created creatures of the uncreated God become as we LDS affirm, fully like their Creator.
Val 19:26 So while our LDS tradition is doctrinally closer to Eastern Orthodox Christianity than to any other branch of Christianity, we nonetheless remain very unlike them. And it’s no accident, that the Catholics who are very thoughtful about these kinds of things, insist that converts from our church be rebaptized if we become Catholic. Even though on the surface, we meet their one requirement that a person be baptized in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. They rightly claim that the words Father, Son and Holy Ghost don’t have the same reference for us that they have for them. Again, if the referent were only the mortal ministry of Christ, there would be no difference. No, difference between them and us. But for all of us, for them for us, for all of us, Christ is more than just as mortal ministry.
Do you agree with Val? Do mainstream Christians think God is the author of evil? If so, is that a theological problem?
Wheat & Tares 
There are some interesting ideas in here, but I’m not sure any of the cases Val makes are as straightforward as he claims. For example:
1) I agree that LDS conceptions of God have interesting implications for the problem of evil, but they certainly don’t solve it entirely. E,g., if God can smite Sherem dead, why not Hitler? I think Latter-day Saints have as much wrestling to do with this question as anyone else.
2) Asherah was often depicted as a consort of YHWH rather than El, which rather complicates the idea of her as a Heavenly Mother figure. Likewise, it’s true that “elohim” is technically a plural noun (“gods”), but in most places in the Hebrew Bible (presumably including Genesis 1), it takes singular verbs and is clearly a reference to a singular noun; it’s wishful thinking to see Genesis 1:1 as somehow inclusive of a Heavenly Mother.
There are some interesting ideas in here, but things aren’t as straightforward as Val makes them sound. For example:
1) Latter-day Saints have just as much work to do addressing the problem of evil as other Christians. I agree that LDS conceptions of God have interesting implications for this problem, but they certainly don’t fix everything. E.g., if God can smite Sherem dead, why not Hitler?
2) Asherah was often depicted as YHWH’s consort, not El’s, which rather muddles the idea of her as a Heavenly Mother. Likewise, it’s wishful thinking to read her into Genesis 1:1—it’s true that “elohim” is a plural noun meaning “gods,” but it’s most often grammatically treated as singular, as a clear reference to a single deity.
Yes, that is the logical outcome of a radical Calvinist position. But there are brands of modern Christianity that absolutely reject that position. Open Theism and Process Theology for starters. Even most Calvinists today (talk to your local Presbyterian minister) take more nuanced approaches to their theology.
Max Weber’s “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism” is likewise about the logical outcome of Calvinist thought, which results in everything we now identify as “prosperity gospel,” which even members of our own faith fall prey to. Ironically, the problem is that culturally (not theologically) we LDS still haven’t rejected Calvin enough.
Great interview btw, I really enjoyed reading it and hope to see more like it!
Regarding Asherah as El’s consort (not Yahweh) that is true. However, not only Val Larsen, but others including Dan McClellan think that at some point Yahweh and El were merged. The difference between Val and Dan may be when they merge happened. I believe Dan thinks it happened much earlier, like around 1000 bc.
I enjoyed the discussion. Thanks Rick for making this available.
On the problem of evil I agree with Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn who wrote: “The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either – but right through every human heart.” Solzhenitsyn was Russian. I don’t know if his view of good and evil is representative of Eastern Christianity or of his creation.
So evil lies within each of us. Good lies within each of us. The power of agency is we each have the ability to choose good or evil. I find it significant the Christianity taught in the Book of Mormon and by Joseph Smith emphasizes personal agency. In addition to Lehi’s instructions on agency in 2 Nephi 2, we have this very muddled verse in Alma 13:3 with this interesting phrase
” in the first place being left to choose good or evil; therefore they having chosen good…”
What was this “first place?”
As Val explains, the source of evil that is in man is solved by recognizing man was not created by God. The Book of Abraham is explicit about this – intelligence / our spirits were not created and cannot be destroyed. Rather the role of God was to organize our spirits and to be our leader. Evil and Good exist independent of God and God is Holy and Righteous because he perfectly chooses Good.
And yet, despite this originality, LDS theology wholly accepts the Garden of Eden story with the particular emphasis on Adam & Eve being naive, ignorant beings. The problem with this portrayal is agency can only be exercised with knowledge. So how are Adam & Eve able to make such a consequential choice to “eat the fruit” seeing they are ignorant until afterwards of the consequences of that choice?
I find this to be an inexplicable breakdown of LDS doctrine. On one hand we teach that in the preexistence we had a war in which we fought for the choice to come to Earth and experience the Plan of Salvation. The understanding being we knew in that war what we were fighting for. On the other hand, we believe that the trigger to allow the Plan of Salvation to go in motion was to have Adam & Eve naively encountering Lucifer and being tricked to disobey Elohim. I cannot reconcile these two views of agency. The former is what I believe. The latter makes mortality seem to be an accident.
If Evil is a THING, then it must have been created. However, if evil is just a description, then it does not have tangible existence. Evil is a word to describe what people DO; same that Good is a word also to describe what people DO.
I believe neither Evil nor Good have tangible existence, these are not created things. People, and God himself, choose what to DO and it is in the doing that actions are labeled or defined as good or evil.
It is obvious that God allows people to do things good and evil; and while he may know what you will choose, until you choose it, you do not know what you will choose. The beneficiary of this knowledge is each person.
Naturally, you may wonder why God created a person knowing the person would do evil things. As it is written above, there is inside each person a spirit or intelligence, something that God did not create ex-nihilo, it is eternal. It might choose evil things (selfish), it might choose good things (charity). Suppose God drew ONLY from the reservoir of Good Spirits. It seems likely this would unbalance the reservoir. Also, it is not JUST. Justice requires everyone to be given the same effective chance to choose good or evil even if, or especially if, God already knows who is going to do what.
Rather a lot depends on supposing God’s ultimate purpose. I believe God is doing what all life does; makes more like himself. This is a thing that cannot be simply magicked into existence. The supreme importance of getting it right means “free agency” is not only vital, examples of evil must be as prevalent as examples of good, so that you and I can CHOOSE from a meaningful smorgasbord of choices.
Conventional Christians expect and hope to live with God. Forever. 300 million years; maybe singing the same verse of Hosanna over and over and over and over…
Interesting discussion, but I don’t think Dr. Larsen proved his claim that the BofM espouses a contemporary Mormon theology, or account of the nature of God. (I assume there’s more to the discussion not included here?). The first red flag is he begins with the official account of the first vision, which clearly came about after the publication of the BofM. To me, the BofM presents an essentially trinitarian theology and anything else has to be read back into it. I guess I don’t see value, from a tbm perspective, off breaking down potential bridges between Mormons and evangelicals.
Mat, next week Val will discuss more about Book of Mormon theosis, or you can get a jump start by visiting my website or YouTube channel.
Rick B: Thanks, I will have to check out your YouTube page. There did seem to be a huge piece missing from his argument.
Old Man: Open-relational / process theists like Thomas Oord, for example are on the fringes of the type of Christians the OP was discussing.
I have all kinds of problems with this op. First, I ‘m not sure about the First Vision. To many different versions. Vision narratives seem to develop to match JS’s evolving theology.
As a missionary in the mid-1960’s, we started out discussions with the official version of the First Vision. After all the various versions of the Vision, I’m starting to think it was a vivid dream.
Next, I believe that good is the presence of God and evil is the absence of His presence. I don’t believe in satan or the War in Heaven. Good/Evil are like hot/cold water. Cold water is the absence of heat.
I really don’t want a building of bridges with the ecumenical community. We have separate and distinct beliefs. BRM tried taking on some ecumenical beliefs, but he was wrong to do so. And set back Mormonism decades.
A Disciple,
I think there are different ways of thinking about agency. One is the more common idea of having the power to make meaningful choices. Another is the–shall we say–more metaphysical idea of being self aware–which leads to the idea of having an immutable sense of self that cannot be forced to be what it isn’t. And yet another is what I would say involves the conditions that we find ourselves in. Think of a baby in swaddling clothes versus a child running through a field. I find this little quote from Wikipedia to be illuminating:
“In social science, agency is the capacity of individuals to have the power and resources to fulfill their potential.”
And so I think what the scriptures might be referring to in reference to the agency that was to given to Adam and Eve in the garden is this third kind. I like to the think of it as “head room.” They were given room to grow–and that’s what the adversary wanted to stifle more than anything else; their ability to progress.
I’m used to getting downvotes. I’ve gotten hundreds of them on this site. But I’m wondering why my last comment was downvoted. It could be that someone just disagrees with my take on the meaning of agency–and that’s fair. It could also be that I’m an annoyance to some folks here (and deservedly so) so no matter what I say I’m bound to get a downvote–and I guess that’s fair too. But even so, I fear it might be because some folks downvote anything that promotes belief. I hope that’s not the case. But if it is–then it’s utterly sad.
Actually, I wouldn’t take that one downvote seriously, Jack. Almost every comment here gets at least one downvote, it’s one of the quirks of this site. There are times I’ve wondered who our random downvoter is, as the most innocuous of comments will get 25 thumbs up and one thumbs down.
Although it’s also true that when I’m reading W&T on my phone I’ve accidentally hit the thumbs down a couple of times while scrolling and I’ve discovered there’s no way to undo that.
Mat: Go talk to some Presbyterian ministers. I have. They’ll push back on radical free will, but it is referred to by many of their congregants. Some ministers even offer a universalist slant. Others dabble with Process theology. I have yet to meet one who fully backs Calvin’s teaching of a “limited Atonement “. One even described Presbyterianism is having “roots” in Calvinist thought, but “the church has moved on from Calvin.” God is praised in absolute terms, outwardly in Augustine’s/Calvin’s tradition, but I don’t think the words mean what they used to mean to some ministers and worshippers.
Thanks, Margot–I think your probably right. My little take on the three ways of viewing agency is (IMO) about as innocuous as describing the three flavors of Neapolitan ice cream. But I guess–as they say–there’s no accounting for taste. 😀
That doesn’t make sense, Jack. If anything, God wanted Adam and Eve to remain as dependent children. He lied about eating the fruit; the serpent told the truth. And how were they ever to grow if they were rendered incapable of self awareness?