Mormonism, in its very short history, has a rich tradition of theological speculation. The foundations of the Church were based on burning desires to know concrete answers about the great mysteries. The existing answers in the early 19th century felt stale or unsatisfying as the world was changing and new frontiers opened up. Formerly settled religious questions were thrown back into the ring for debate. This happened within a frontier tradition attempting to interpret and combine ideas from the newly forming materialistic sciences with the long-established magical world view held in western culture.












