157–158: C.S. Lewis and Mormonism

Great post, Michael. Thanks! Lots to chew on here. I especially really like
the take on Atonement as possibly applicable to God’s containing (or their ability to
hold in perfect union) both justice and mercy. I haven’t heard that before.
Fresh. Fun to think about some more.

Your post has also made me think it’s time for another episode in the Mormon
Matters philosophy series! This time taking on arguments for the existence of
God, what it means for God to be God (necessary or sufficient qualities, etc.).
Will you be on it? Hope so! Whatever I say that follows will only be a start,
so it would be great to really go for it in a live conversation. (Let’s talk in
private about you being one of the panelist!)

Briefly here, let me say that I don’t dismiss as possible where you land
concerning God and qualities and locus for moral law, etc. I also see it as
capable of inspiring great trust in God, providing a solid foundation from
which to travel in spiritual seeking. Alas, however, in my own musings—equally
I’m sure a result of much “tooooo much” thinking!—I have not ended up very
close to where you have. And just as you have great touchstones with Mormon
thought and scripture in your sense of things, I think I do, too. Makes this
sort of back and forth lots of fun!

Here’s a basic thought ladder for me:

Fundamental stuff of the universe is uncreated (Mormonism and physical
sciences can both feel comfortable with this)

No dualism. Everything is ontologically “of the same kind.” Whatever
differences we note are differences in degree—or form, in the case of elements
that follow conservation of energy laws, etc. (Mormonism and physical sciences
shouldn’t have problems with this. Obviously room for discussion but shouldn’t
invite outright rejection.)

Whatever this fundamental stuff is, it has some ability to act/react (some
freedom). Whitehead also adds the idea that all of it is “experiencing,” which
I like as an analog to JS’s language of everything being “intelligent.” Now, of
course, we’re not talking self-consciousness/self-awareness at the most basic
levels (that takes quite a bit of organization of these fundamental entities to
create conditions that allow for consciousness or reflection). I also like to invoke at
this point, Smith’s language from the King Follett discourse that every piece
of this eternally existing element is “capable of enlargement.”

Side note: These claims above place me outside Plato’s camp. No universals.
No eternal “Forms” or Ideals that imbue or interact with matter. No “Catness”
Form that all cats participate in/are imbued with that makes them cats and not
dogs. Everything is particulars. If we notice family resemblances between
various creatures (including at the DNA level), WE are the ones who give the
label or make the claim about their “catness.” Same thing with Justice and
Mercy. Not eternal in any way that “in-Forms” certain acts here and make them either just or merciful. All things we call just or merciful are simply acts that we choose to call those things. No Forms that demand satisfaction if not honored. No Being needed, in my opinion, to have these be essential attributes.

So if not in any way “essential qualities” (and, hence, I also reject
morality as a “great making” quality and therefore don’t find much I respond to
in Anselm’s or any other ontological argument for existence of God), what does
make something moral or immoral, right or wrong, better or worse? For me, it’s
all simply a matter of these fundamental, eternal entities either interacting/collaborating and, in doing so, becoming larger, more
intelligent/having more and richer experience (even at very unconscious
levels), or remaining isolated and out of relationship with the rest. The
universe, in my view, is wholly a case of “particulars” all in a dance, with
some partnering up and, in so doing, gaining complexity and capacity for more
experience, more freedom, while others remaining wallflowers, not participating
as much as the others.

Moving to Mormon language here (though there are analogs in physical
sciences, I think), everything “acts for itself” (D&C 93:30); everything is
capable of moving from grace to grace (or backwards from graces).
Choosing/entering into “more relationship” (with everything else there is) is
the way of growth and richness, choosing against relationship is the way of
stagnation and decline. Pretty damn automatic. Basic processes of the universe.
Movement in either direction brings its own reward and punishment, and they are
purely expressed in that entities “power.” If you’re in relationship “with”
more other entities, you’re simply more powerful and capable of more freedom
than if you’re in relationship with fewer other entities or simply isolated.
Add your own “light begets light” and other fun metaphysical-playground
scriptural passages and phrases here.

“Good” and “morally right”=choosing greater richness and power (and, of course,
capacity for grief and pain). “Bad” and “morally wrong”=choosing against these
things/against one’s own best interest. No God deciding these, no God meting out
rewards and punishments. It’s all manifest at an energy level. Is the entity bigger
and capable of more or less when it chooses this or that?

It’s at all this “automatic” level/basic laws of existence given a universe solely
made up of uncreated particulars that the action plays out that eventually
allows the growth and richness and freedom that creates the conditions
for greater self-direction, consciousness, and ultimately self-reflection. When we get
to this level, we can begin to start imagining the emergence of Gods. And when Gods emerge, we can then talk about their being influential on all the other entities, but only in terms of calling and luring and “being big and attractive” to them, never coercive, ordering, impinging on freedom and the basic laws of empowerment that play out at the level of choosing more or less relationship with other things.

These kinds of principles and vision of the “stuff” that everything is and
might be if it acts in certain enlarging and enriching ways (despite all the pain
of being in relationships that are painful) are why I love Mormonism. It’s why I can
love a Mormon God.

The version you present, if I read you correctly, is not a God that has really achieved anything. If goodness and morality and mercy and justice are fundamental attributes, there is no attainment. I can love this God for creating me and for the experiences I have, but not as “Father and Mother” and me as heir and same stuff as them on same path just in a different generation.

______

Too long and not sure I’ve conveyed all that is essential to being
understood. Basic thing, though: all eternal, all particulars—no universals
(ontologically). Anything we think represents a universal is simply our
reifying as a class or group things from our own (collective) experiences.
Universe is churning energies driven by more or fewer, deeper or shallower
relationality between particulars. Gods cease to be Gods should they to choose
against bigger relationality. We choose to be Gods through processes of meeting
every reality with openness to it, even when it hurts. Eventually this opening
and opening simply becomes grooved/etched into our essence. Without compulsory
means, all empowerment simply flows…

I count all the above as Mormon. I think it’s a Mormonism that flows from JS’s
(and a few others’) more metaphysical musings. There are important other levels
in scriptures about God that seem to express different types of power: that God
is a judge, that God rewards/blesses and punishes/withholds, etc. I view those
as helpful in ways humans need sometimes, but when it all boils down to one’s
own spiritual development, I think that process is all about handling the powers of the
universe (powers of heaven) ourselves. Feeling the energy flow (mental,
physical, soulful) that changes when we’re in and out of alignment with the
basic laws of growth or diminishment. As we do that and stay in harmony/relationship, the law “becomes dead unto us,” and we simply operate out of our character built and re-built in our experimenting with relationship with others. Mormonism gives a great vision of a “be all that you can be” universe (and, in reverse, keep choosing against relationship and lose complexity such that you will end up as native element,
refusing all light/interaction with other entities—outer darkness). It is a universe with Gods, but they are guides and encouragers and exemplars only.

_____

Fight back! (Here or perhaps on a future episode!) Thanks, again, for drawing this crazy mess of ideas out of me. Fun to write it up, even rushed as it is.