[Times & Seasons welcomes the second in a pair of posts from Ralph Hancock this week, who previously guested with us in 2010] I argued in Part I that the move from “apologetics” to “Mormon Studies” requires a bracketing of truth claims that may serve legitimate scholarly purposes, but that carries with it certain significant risks. The New Mormon Studies presents orthodoxy as stifling and itself as intellectually liberating, but it risks purveying a more subtle and powerful conformism, the conformism of secular academic prestige and careerism. This is intended, not as a condemnation, but as an alert. We ought to embrace opportunities for rich and productive dialogue with those who do not share our Answers, but we ought not set aside our interest in Answers and thus in effect elevate human (especially professional) “dialogue” itself to the highest status. On with the bracketing, I say, but let us beware of the definitive brackets, those that will not allow themselves to be bracketed. The questions of Eternity should be the ultimate frame of reference to which we continually return to ponder the results of our bracketing, rather than succumbing to enticements to reduce our eternal concerns to the categories of professional scholarship. Of course thoughtless conformism is a danger inherent in our humanity, and one from which the pious are by no means exempt. But “traditional” believers have a certain advantage over professional bracketers in that they confess the existence of a truth…
Author: Ralph Hancock
Nothing to Apologize For (Part I)
[Times & Seasons welcomes the first in a pair of posts from Ralph Hancock this week, who previously guested with us in 2010] The recent unpleasantness at BYU’s Maxwell Institute has, the reader will have noticed, triggered much comment on the internet, including celebrations in some quarters over the supposed demise or at least eclipse of certain defenders of the faith at the Institute —characterized by some as apologists — who have been willing over the years to call out arguments they see as weakly reasoned and hold critics of the Church to account for their claims. Although I do not know enough to assert that my friends at the Institute have always been right or have always succeeded in striking the most appropriate tone, it will surprise no one to learn that I appreciate a spirited defense, when it is judicious and well-founded, and that I expect that celebrations over developments at the Institute by critics are likely premature. Happily, however, the upheaval has also sparked some genuinely thoughtful reflections on the past and future of “apologetics,” particularly in relation to the emerging academic field of “Mormon Studies.” Here I attempt a small contribution to such reflections. A persistent theme in a number of these online reflections has been the idea that, while an “apologetic” style associated with FARMS and owing much to the influence of the formidable Hugh Nibley may have had its uses in an earlier day, it is…
Interreligious — not Irreligious — Diplomacy
Before I sign off – or am run out of town – I might serve you well by offering a perspective on an extremely interesting conference held last weekend on the USC campus in LA. The conference was titled “Mormon Engagement with World Religions,” and was organized by Randall Paul, founder of the Foundation for Interreligious Diplomacy, and by Brian Birch, head of the LDS chapter of same Foundation. Randall’s vision of the inter-religious conversation is quite rich and distinctive. He is not interested in diluting or understating doctrines in order to commune lamely on some lowest common denominator of belief; rather, he believes we can get closer to the truth by being frank about our differences and talking together to figure out what they mean. I think he’s right, and this conference went some way toward proving such a proposition. Let me first say that this was a terrific conference, with very interesting and substantial presentations from in 7 sessions over 2 days. Elder Bruce D. Porter gave a clear and bracing keynote address in which he first expounded the expansiveness of LDS thought, its openness to all sources of truth, and then made clear our commitment to the essentials of the Restoration. Finally, he emphasized the interest of LDS in making common cause with other believers against aggressive secular trends in our Western societies. Panels followed that focused on general theological questions, on the current situation, and on…
Taking it to the Third Order
Since my “second-order” questioning elicited little discussion (albeit 200+ responses), let me try to “take it up a notch,” as George Constanza might say (forgive the erudite cultural references). Herewith, the “third order,” the Meta-Meta Meditation on the problem of politics/morality/religion. (I gather my guest privileges will expire before we have a chance to go to the Fourth Order, which would start to make me a little nervous anyway, since I don’t know what the Fifth Order might be.) Anyway, here, from my forthcoming blockbuster, The Responsibility of Reason*, is a fragment of that third-order reflection. (Is it relevant to LDS concerns? Only, I suppose, if thinking about the relation between reason and revelation is relevant to us as LDS. You help me judge): Reason’s responsibility is a problem because the rule of simple reason is as impossible as it is inevitable. It is impossible because a clear and distinct grasp of the meaning and goodness of human existence eludes our natural powers, if only because we human beings are naturally aware of being part of some larger whole that exceeds our grasp. Thus an answer to the practical question of human purpose cannot be simply separated from the theoretical question of the way things are, of the nature or Being of what is highest or somehow ultimate. As Tocqueville saw with great clarity, human existence, considered personally or collectively, depends on “dogmatic beliefs,” and nothing can prevent beliefs or…
LDS & Public Square
OK, now that we’ve basically cleared up any confusion surrounding the ontological status of agency and atonement, let me see what you think about something a little more… political. For many years friends and I had considered the possibility of some kind of political-philosophy oriented educational foundation that would try to help religious people, and LDS in particular, to navigate the world of ideas as these concern politics, broadly understood. What finally got some of us off the dime with this concern was the controversy surrounding the Church’s efforts in favor of Prop 8 in California. Let me first satisfy your curiosity, if you have any, by stating simply that I favored and I favor the proposition, as well as the LDS Church’s efforts on its behalf. This has been much discussed, and we can discuss it more if you like. But maybe it will be useful to go back behind (or above, or beneath) this particular issue to some questions about religious convictions in the public square. Here is what I found in conversations with many young and smart LDS (BYU students and others) during or in the wake of the Prop 8 business: many were convinced (on religious and/or other grounds) that homosexuality is wrong, that homosexual “marriage” is not a good idea, and that it would be better if homosexual practices were not further encouraged/legitimized. But a good number, maybe most I talked to, also were very…
A Fortunate Fall and Ontological Agency, cont.
Thanks for some good suggestions, objections, discussion re. my first post. Let me try to kick the can down the road just a bit further with a few more reflections: First, the Fortunate Fall — that the Fall is good news, is extremely well attested in quite authoritative (or at least, to me, impressive) statements by LDS authorities. To put it simply: to be fallen and then redeemed is better than never to have fallen. I don’t have my sources here to document this – feel free to help me here if you wish – but I have little doubt of this. Beyond Eve’s beautiful celebratory statement in Moses, which seems to me without any very close parallel in any other Christian tradition, there are many statements that go further, affirming even that Eve knew perfectly well what she was doing in “transgressing” and that it was all for the best. Of course there are traces, and perhaps more, of the felix culpa idea before Milton in the Christian tradition. In Benjamin Britton’s Ceremony of Carols, for example, there is a beautiful text from some middle-English (I think) source celebrating Eve’s partaking of the apple. But the Augustinian association of the original sin of pride and sexuality as a disorder limit severely the theological development of any such notion. So it does seem to me that LDS resources are quite distinctive in this respect – thus, for example, the deep…
Agency and Atonement
Thanks, Marc for the introduction, and for the opportunity to converse with friends old and new at T & S. Before I annoy (at least some of) you with some political reflections, let me run past you some thoughts on agency and atonement that occurred to me in trying to teach Religion 121 (Book of Mormon Part 1) to BYU students. I’m not sure I connected with many of themwith these ontological meditations on Second Nephi 2, but I’m hoping somewhere out there in this cyberspace I might find some interested interlocutors. As I review the question of agency with reference to 2 Nephi 2, I notice three aspects of a rich and distinctive teaching on agency in the Restored Gospel: 1) agency is redeemed 2) agency is bodily & fruitful 3) agency is a principle of reality 1) Agency is Redeemed The Fall is finally good news (22-25) because it opens up the possibility of redemption through the Father’s loving sacrifice of His Son. The joy that is offered through the Son’s infinite atoning sacrifice is a joy of infinite possibility, the possibility of acting for ourselves and not being acted upon (v. 26) in the meaningful context of eternal life. In the present mortal probation we exercise our agency most fully by responding to this Sacrifice with our own gift of “a broken heart and contrite spirit” (7), and this free response opens the possibility of freedom on another…