On Wednesday, USU philosophy professor Richard Sherlock explained why he left Mormonism and converted to Roman Catholicism. For those of us who couldn’t make the presentation, we are indebted to my friend Will for recording it. You can download the audio file of both the lecture and the Q & A period below.
Dr. Sherlock’s conversion story
Dr. Sherlock began his talk by saying that one should only belong to and believe in a religion if that religion is true. And by true, Sherlock means that which comports with a “mind-independent reality.”
So for a religion to be true, then, it cannot simply be useful and invoke warm feelings. Religion should be rational. There needs to be a conversion of the heart, sure. And Sherlock shared a few profound, emotional religious experiences he enjoyed within a Catholic context. But there must also be a conversion of the mind—something he always felt was lacking in his testimony of Mormonism.
Those who knew Sherlock well weren’t terribly surprised at the news of his becoming a Catholic. He joked that he was among the last to know of his own conversion! Sherlock had long been familiar with and largely convinced of Catholic theology. Because he subscribed to several Catholic tenets, Sherlock, even as a self-identifying Mormon, rejected the corporeality and plurality of gods (beliefs many Mormons regard as essential).
Why then did he ever identify as a Mormon, given these heresies? “Life intervened.” he said. Family and career—these things forced him to shelve his doubts. Only in the past year or so has he been able to fully attend to that critical inquiry. And from it, he’s concluded that Catholicism makes better sense of religious and scientific questions alike, from the problem of evil to the Big Bang. That’s more or less the thesis of his talk.
I’d encourage you to listen to his entire talk. SHAFTers will appreciate many things Sherlock said, like his exhortation to believers to read atheist thinkers like Dawkins and Nietzsche. I agreed with a number of his criticisms of Mormonism, like that—at least in its popular iteration—Mormonism is too emotional and anti-intellectual.
I was underwhelmed by some of Sherlock’s arguments, however. I don’t, for instance, think that Catholicism fares better on the problem of evil than Mormonism. If anything, it probably fares worse. I think Sherlock was also guilty of cherry-picking Bible verses to make the case for the Catholic god; a Mormon could just as easily adopt a similarly selective reading of the Bible to defend their understanding of god(s). And finally, he was too quick to make definitive statements about Mormon doctrine, saying “Mormons have to believe X” (which is ironic, given how unorthodox a Mormon he was).
Those minor disagreements aside, I really enjoyed the talk and wish Sherlock well in his new faith tradition.
I look forward to your take on his talk and conversion.
Dr. Kleiner et al. — I have appreciated the various views here. These are of course matters regarding which folks are passionate. That is what makes this all very interesting.
I was invited to discuss my views (my books) in Dr. Sherlock’s classes when he was still LDS. I consider him a friend — and still do. I definitely advocate for an LDS view (or at least one of many possible within Mormonism). I believe that it is appropriate to challenge college students with the full range of views and especially from those who espouse them as long as it is understood that one is an advocate for that view. I don’t believe it is appropriate to pretend some kind of objectivity when in fact one holds strong views on the issues being discussed. That is misleading and self-deceiving.
However, Dr. Sherlock’s supposed inconsistent triad doesn’t present a logical inconsistency. Formal logic is a very exacting subject and he doesn’t approach the issue with anything like the formal presentation needed to show a logical inconsistency. I would have expected someone to point that out. In fact, the view that God created the universe isn’t inconsistent with God being a material being at all or the big bang together — especially given the prevailing rejection of the Standard Big Bang theory in favor of multiverse theories. I would expect anyone dealing with these issues to point that out as well.
Richard claims to deal with what “established science shows to be true.” But he isn’t dealing with established science. His view of the Big Bang is incredibly ill informed, misleading and out-dated.
Nor is he dealing with the scholarly consensus regarding the reading of Genesis and other Hebrew scriptures that maintain that God created by organizing chaos — and the Hebrews didn’t even have a concept of creation “of the whole universe” because they had no notion of a universe in the modern sense. If one assumes the Catholic doctrine of creation, one could as easily show that it is inconsistent with every prevailing view of multiverse creation theory (the present theories regarding big bang cosmology) and with the teachings of the Hebrew Bible. Further, I believe that I have shown that creatio ex nihilo is inconsistent with free will of any stripe (both compatibilism and libertarianism).
Further, I am concerned with Dr. Kleiner’s claim that no one would recognize anything but the “First Cause” as god given that it has been a problem with the cosmological argument since medieval times that a first cause doesn’t give us a personal being. There is no way to leap from “First Cause” to “God” as understood in the Christian scriptures without an auxiliary argument from the ontological argument. I am prepared to argue (and have argued) that neither argument is sound — not even remotely convincing in my view.
I’ve discussed these issues from as many perspectives as I am capable of imagining in philosophy of religion classes that I have taught. But in the end we are all incapable of escaping our own skin and we have only the perspectives of which we are capable given where we stand within our own culture and experience. However, it is incumbent on us to try to imagine different perspectives and present the positions being critiques in as strong a position as possible. In my view, Richard miserably failed at the latter duties.
I agree with Ryan that Catholicism (and any give that adopts creatio ex nihilo) is far worse off in dealing with the problem of evil than Mormonism. I found Richard’s argument that Mormonism is worse off than Catholicism to be singularly unpersuasive — and just mistaken. Further, Richard didn’t even address the work done on the problem of evil that is not merely a soul-building theodicy. Indeed, David Paulsen and I have written on this very issue and rejected Hick’s soul-building theodicy if it stands outside the Mormon cosmology and commitments to pre-mortal existence that allow persons to consent t confront real and actual evils — not the mere absence of good (deficiency of being) discussed by Augustine and Aquinas. While I don’t believe that the argument from evil shows that it is logical necessary that the god of the creeds doesn’t exist, I find all of the premises that lead to that conclusion to be very persuasive and I haven’t seen anything within the tradition that even comes close to providing room for faith given acceptance of very persuasive premises. In fact, if one accepts that there are real evils (and not merely apparent ones like the majority of Catholic writers have adopted historically) then the premises of the argument from evil entail a logical proof. Does anyone have the guts to claim there are not real evils?
I have discussed all of these issues on my website. I suggest looking at my responses to the New Mormon Challenge regarding the issues of the big bang theory, creation and a corporeal God. You can find them by clicking on my name above. I suggest especially my arguments against the “big bang argument against Mormonism” in response to Stephen Parrish, William Craig and Paul Copan.
Here is my biggest concern. I have to believe that Richard was aware of my defenses to his big bang argument. That he would not present the responses that I give or even acknowledge them suggests to me that he has presented a straw man and not adopted the rule of charity to address the strongest arguments of one interlocutors. Then again, maybe he doesn’t consider the response to be definitive or even strong; but to fail to mention that there are such responses fails in the very basic duty of charity incumbent on those in the academy. Thanks again for the interesting conversation.
Let me end by saying that I would be willing to debate Richard (or anyone else willing) on these issues at a mutually convenient time and location.
Thank you for posting here, I am sure the SHAFT community is honored to have you. I have read some of your work as it has come highly recommended. It has allowed me, in some cases, to help my students embrace what seems to be a more nuanced and sensible Mormonism than the “McConkie Mormonism” that I often hear from my students. I am no expert on Mormonism, but your work has helped me to understand and help my students. So thank you for your contributions.
If I may ask you a question point blank. I pressed Kent Robson (who I am sure you know) the other day on whether he thought, or whether you thought, that God was a physical being. Robson was nuanced about it to the point that I really didn’t get a straight answer. I think I get it – it depends on what you mean by “physical”, etc, so the question is complicated. But let me ask it in this way: Is God, qua divine nature, extended in space and time? No need for a long answer. What I am really aiming for is this: is the belief that God is “extended substance” an “essential” LDS belief (or something close to it). Since you have, at least by reputation as reported to me by LDS students, one of the most nuanced and intelligent defenses of Mormonism around, I wanted to get as close to a straight answer to that question from you as I could.
In response to what you said above that was directed to me (as I have said, I am not interested in defending what Sherlock said in his talk): I entirely agree that the First Cause argument does not get us a personal being and that some “auxiliary arguments” will be necessary to make the connection. No question about that – Aristotle’s Unmoved Mover is not personal and is in fact not even the sort of thing that is or can be relational. Work will have to be done to show that the “god of the philosophers” is, or is at least compatible with, the God of the Scriptures.
What I do not see is why the “auxiliary argument” connecting the two must needs be something from the ontological argument. It seems far from necessary that one draw from the ontological argument to do that work (after all, Aquinas rejected the ontological argument but he tries to make the connection). It seems to me that there are other available auxiliary arguments and moves. One could make an argument from religious experience. Or one might appeal to the design argument and argue that freedom is a necessary attribute of intelligent beings. If the design argument shows that the first cause is intelligent, that would also then entail that the first cause is free. From there, you’d need to argue that freedom/intelligence are always qualities of persons.
This is a very rough sketch. But I am not here trying to actually make the argument or convince anyone of it, I’m just trying to sketch some alternatives to the route you suggest is necessary. Now I readily admit that none of this would show us that the god of the philosophers is identical to the God revealed in Jewish-Christian Scriptures. But it at least moves you in the direction of compatibility. I don’t know how much further one could go than that, since “This alone is the true knowledge of God: to know that God is beyond knowing” (Aquinas).
It would be fun to have you debate Sherlock on the claims he made in his talk. I would invite you to contact him to see if he is interested. As for any further defense of the cosmological argument here, forgive me if I do not actively continue the discussion in this forum. My experience with this blog discussion has reminded me why I gave up engaging in blog debates a year or so ago. At the end of the day I don’t think blogs are a good way of discoursing with others – it is too easy to be misunderstood, tone is completely lost, and they almost invariably become caustic. I really don’t enjoy them, and end up feeling lousy after things fall apart. I think philosophical discourse should be characterized by charity and wonder. Both tend to be in very short supply on blogs. Perhaps Anonymous will think I am dodging a real philosopher here. Sorry for that; I am just not convinced that a blog is the best forum for it (in fact, I think it is one of the worst).
BTW I agree with Vince’s statement about the tenor of Mormonism. However, I believe that Joseph Smith’s vision is rationally defensible — and even rationally compelling.
how do I read the other 51 comments? looking for context…
Wouldn’t it be fun for Dr. Sherlock or Dr. Kleiner to aim their guns against a real philosopher rather than some young Mormon kids off missions. Oh, please… please… take up Ostler’s challenge!
Why would Dr. Kleiner of Dr. Sherlock debate a real philosopher? It can only cost them. Better for people to suspect that you’re full of it than actually know you are. My gut tells me that they’ll stick to debating undergraduates. Prepare for some excuses.
Sorry to disappoint, USU. But I hope you realize something – engaging with undergraduates is only a part of our jobs as college professors. A big part of our job is engaging with colleagues at conferences and through peer-reviewed research articles and books. This idea that Sherlock and I are some kind of intellectual bullies who never debate with colleagues is frankly quite silly. Those that employ professors do not measure their competence by how they fare in debates with undergraduates. Besides, I don’t see myself as someone who “debates” undergraduates, nor is it ever my intention to “destroy them” by “aiming my guns” at them. What a strange characterization. My job is to teach students (though this never means, for me, insisting that they agree with me).
But your post precisely demonstrates one of the things that is so awful about blogs. People hide beyond anonymous names and say nasty things that one would never (I should hope) say in person. The anonymity of the blogosphere is, I would argue, entirely destructive of genuine community and dialogue.
Dr. Kleiner: Thank you for your kind words. I’m honored that you would respond. In response to your direct question, I believe that resurrected bodies are temporal and extended — the kind that Jesus had that people could feel and touch. As a resurrected being Jesus could eat and ascend and so forth. Only temporal bodies having extension can do those sorts of things. God is not merely a body. He is much more as I explained in the papers on my website.
Your question is nuanced indeed, but I don’t know what you mean by “God qua divine nature.” I distinguish between fully divine and merely divine. As a human Jesus was fully divine and merely divine, but we are merely divine as mortals. I also distinguish between God as a Godhead and God(s) as individual persons. The Godhead (Trinity) is not corporeal. The divine nature is not corporeal. The Father and Son are corporeal with fully divine bodies now but haven’t always been.
However, the notion of matter in the context of Big Bang cosmology is not quite matter as we experience or conceive it in the macro world. It is more of a data holder in the context of mathematical equations and we don’t know what it is beyond the basic information in the quantum physics equations. God (the Father and God the Son as individuals) is not essentially a resurrected being with a resurrected body — each existed prior to resurrection. God may or may not be essentially a spirit body in Mormon thought — and I don’t know what the properties of a spirit body are. By “essentially” I mean that God is not necessarily these things of de re necessity. However, I assert that there is not a direct continuity between spirit matter and matter studied in physics. That makes the notion of spirit matter rather “mysterious” given your terminology. However, I see it as a basic limitation inherent in our epistemic position.
What do you believe? Do you believe that Jesus still has a resurrected body? Is his resurrected body temporal and extended? I believe that it is of the essence of Christianity to answer “yes” to these questions.
The reason that the cosmological argument requires the ontological argument is that, in its strongest form, the cosmological argument departs from the notion of sufficient reason. Every single fact requires a sufficient explanation and the argument extrapolates (a non sequitur in my view) that therefore there must be a sufficient explanation of the entire class of all facts. Except there is one fact not explained if god is the sufficient explanation of all else that exists — his own existence. So how is the existence of God explained given the view that all facts require a sufficient explanation? Not by reference to god’s volitional creation activity because god must first exist in order to have a volition at all. So god’s existence must be self-explaining. However, it requires an explanation to show that god’s existence is self-explaining — an ontological argument.
I don’t believe that the ontological argument gives us a personal god at all. It gives us something more like a principle of explanation than a person (something on the order of Aristotle’s god). Of course, I don’t believe the ontological argument is sound.
I think I can show that Catholics cannot adopt the view of sufficient reason that Sherlock trots out — in addition to its logical problems. If god’s decision to create is free and not necessary (as Catholic theology usually holds), then there is a fact that doesn’t have a sufficient explanation — god’s free decision to create. If the decision is fully explained by god’s nature, then the decision is necessitated by god’s necessary existence and isn’t free. If god’s decision is fully explained by something other than god, then god’s decision isn’t free because it is necessitated by facts outside of god. Either way, there is a big hole in the sufficient explanation argument.
BTW I agree with you wholly and completely about blogging and I gave it up for the same reasons. Yet here we are. However, after listening to Richard bully folks who asked him questions at his presentation, I think I’d like to press him on a few of these issues.
Yes, one other awful thing about blogs is their secret power to suck you in!
I see now what you had in mind with the ontological arg point. A few quick points and then I really am going to retire from the discussion:
1) I asked about God “qua divine nature” since Catholics believe Christ has 2 natures, not 1 (human and divine) and that Christ is, qua his divine nature, absolutely immaterial but is, qua his human nature, bodied. God the Father is, in Catholic theology, simply immaterial (because God is unlimited, infinite, and ultimate). To answer your question: As a Catholic I think Jesus still has a resurrected body that is in heaven (this is called the “ascension” in Catholic theology). But the ascension should not be understood in a very literal sense – as if the risen Christ went on a long journey “up” within space and time. Rather, the ascension is a journey out of space and time (as we know them) into a different dimension. We might think of the appearances of the resurrected Jesus as being a kind of event horizon wherein our dimension faces a transcendent dimension. Point is, on the Catholic view the resurrection and ascension are best understood metaphysically instead of physically. This can be difficult to understand given the limits of our language (bound as it is to our worldly experience) and so we are can only manage metaphor, symbol, and analogy when it comes to grasping a reality that is beyond our imagining. As you say, we have some scriptural evidence to give us a start in unpacking this mystery (Jesus could be seen and touched, he ate, but yet he could simply make himself present in places despite there being walls and such things “in the way”), but ultimately sorting out exactly what these resurrected/ascended bodies are like is difficult business.
But I am here genuinely more interested in properly understanding Mormonism than I am in talking about Catholicism. So thank you for your answer. It was clear enough, but I want to push it a bit more since I don’t want to mis-represent Mormonism or saddle it with a belief that it need not hold. You said, “God may or may not be essentially a spirit body in Mormon thought.” You seem to think that God the Father, say, is corporeal (“The Father and the Son are corporeal …”) but that we need not think that. Let me put my question this way: Do you think one could be a Mormon while believing that God the Father is not corporeal in any sense at all (spirit body, resurrected body, or otherwise)? I have never encountered a Mormon who believed that (well, with the exception of Sherlock!), but I am wondering if you think it is a viable or permissible LDS position. If it is, then I think Mormonism can shed a whole host of philosophical problems I think it would otherwise be saddled with. The downside, if I can call it that, is that you’d have a Mormonism that apparently few if any actual Mormons believe.
2) In quick response to your points on the cosmological argument.
(a) I think a weaker form of the principle of sufficient reason would still run the cosmological argument and would avoid the problems you suggest.
(b) Regarding the freedom or necessity of creation: To sort this out I would have to define freedom properly and appeal to Divine Love. In brief: ex nihilo creation means God willed all else that is into being, but not out of need (necessity) but out of “want” – a willing that comes from pure generosity. The whole universe was loved into being. The creation of the world is a free expression of God’s love.
By the way, I don’t think the ontological argument is sound either. Cute and sort of fun, but not sound.
Perhaps we can discuss these things in person sometime if you come up to debate Sherlock. Until then, nice “e-meeting” you.
Thanks Dr. Kleiner. Thanks again for taking the time to respond and ask the good faith questions that you raise. I really appreciate the caring way in which you approach Mormons an others.
I have 3 chapters in my Exploring Mormon Thought series critiquing the two nature theory of Christology. I don’t believe it remotely works – for instance, how a corporeal and temporal individual (the human nature) is somehow identified with a nature that is somehow timeless and incorporeal (the divine nature). I think that Platonism is the guiding principle in such notions of timelessness and incorporeality not scripture. I also think that it is straightforwardly incoherent. Why say these things if we literally cannot convey coherent meaning? For instance, why assert that Jesus somehow ascended bodily but it means nothing like a an immortal human body at all — especially given that scriptures go to such lengths to affirm the corporeal reality of the resurrection?
For instance the notion that Jesus made “a journey out of space and time” seems straightforwardly incoherent and not merely a matter of limitations on language. How could a corporeal body the type encountered by the apostles, that could be felt and was rather obviously extended, ever make a journey out of space and time? The very notion of change involved in changing from a state of being in time to a different state of being out of time logically entails the denial of timelessness! How could the notion of a journey or anything remotely analogous be a timeless process? How could anything change from being one kind of body to another, or go from one state to another, timelessly? I know you are speaking metaphorically to the infinite power, but at some point it just makes sense to remain silent (as Augustine suggested) or admit that to say anything about it is nonsense pure and simple.
BTW I thought that Ryan made an excellent point about a Christian wanting his or her faith to be entirely compatible with science tout court. Isn’t the resurrection the ultimate statement that our science is just inadequate to account for the facts of Jesus and the revelation of divinity? Dead men don’t resurrect after 3 days of death — especially after hanging on a Roman cross. It is just biologically impossible. Isn’t that the whole point?
I believe that the notion that God is material is different than the notion that Jesus has a resurrected body that is nothing at all like the resurrected body revealed in the scriptural record. We don’t have a firm grasp on what matter is in quantum theory — or relativity theory for that matter either (pun intended). It is a pretty large scientific and philosophical question — and it is a matter of epistemic limitation that we don’t know what matter is essentially in physics. We don’t know what spirit matter is either simply because it hasn’t been fully revealed. Thus, I affirm that God (the Father and the Son each individually) is now corporeal having a resurrected body (and not merely identical therewith). However, as you acknowledge, we just don’t know a lot about the nature of such resurrected bodies — or a pneumikos body as Paul calls it. We don’t know much about spirit matter. I don’t think that one can begin to make arguments from physics the way that Sherlock has done based upon the nature of the of the divine corporeality — we just don’t know enough to make such arguments. Nor should we be expected to know such things. In other words, it doesn’t count against the Mormon view of God’s spirit/material body that we cannot fully define the physics of spirits because it is foolish to expect us to know such things.
A Mormon cannot believe that God is now not physical or material in any sense at all. I would go further, no Christian can believe that God is not now material or physical in any sense at all given the resurrection and adamant scriptural record about Christ’s corporeality as a resurrected being. I’ll go further — no Christian can complain that Mormons believe that the Father is physical in the same sense as the resurrected Christ because if it is possible for Christ to have a resurrected body, then it is just as possible for the Father to have a resurrected body (and Aquinas affirmed as much).
I am going to use the term “material” instead of corporeal because I don’t believe that the issue is corporeality but whether God is essentially a material being in Mormon thought. “Corporeality” connotes having a body and it isn’t established in Mormon thought whether the eternal and essential part of every person, the intelligence, has a bodily form. However, I am not sure that a Mormon must believe that God is ESSENTIALLY physical or material. Ultimately God is essentially an intelligence without creation or beginning that is more intelligent than all of the other intelligences. But Mormon scripture doesn’t affirm that intelligences are material or physical and no Mormon scripture addresses that question. We don’t have sufficient revelation to fully answer the question that you quite rightly ask. I think on this issue we must await further light and knowledge from heaven.
Re: cosmological argument: what weaker version of the principle of sufficient reason do you believe is strong enough to make the argument go thru but escape my criticisms?
Whether god creates out of abundance or need isn’t the issue — it is whether god is free in so creating. He could create either out of need or out of love and do so out of necessity and thus unfreely. In other words, I don’t see how your observations really address the issue that I raised.
Thanks again for the challenging and interesting discussion.
Gentlemen, this is an outstanding discussion and I’m certain that those of us on campus who find ourselves debating these issues on a near daily basis are grateful. Perhaps this is wishful thinking on my end, but my hope is that the both of you will continue to unpack these crucial issues for us for just a bit longer. I’m confident that others feel the same. If not, then my great thanks to the both of you for treating us.
Ryan: I think that Dr. Kleins’ questions are the right ones that ought to be asked of Mormons. I’m willing to be pushed by this kind of enlightening and good faith dialog.
Dr. Klein: What is the “host of theological problems” that you believe Mormonism faces if God is embodied in some sense? I think that any Christian is going to have the same issues given that Christ still has a resurrected body. If the word “body” retains any meaning at all, then it seems that Christ now has the property of having a corporeal body extended in space and time. Further, if Christ can be embodied, then so can the Father as a contingent possibility. What issues do you see Mormons facing from divine corporeality that Christians who believe that Christ is embodied as a resurrected being don’t face?
I would also point you to David Paulsen’s article in Faith and Philosophy where he addresses the range of theological arguments against divine embodiment: Paulsen, David. Must God be Incorporeal? Faith and Philosophy (1989, 6:1) 76-87.
Dr. Kleiner: I hope that you don’t mind that I shortened it to Klein? I just got lazy.
I’ll make some rather quick comments – Personal rather than philosophical.
People like Kliener, Sherlock, & Barlow have expanded my faith, molded it, changed it, and overall made my religious experience far deeper and uniquer than I could have ever imaged a university experience doing.
For someone like myself that is deeply troubled by religious questions and concerns, I have never felt that arguments and counter arguments, given by different religious persuasions, have ever left me bored or unappreciative of the depth of religious experience. I haven’t minded, but rather enjoyed Sherlocks views in his bible class, Klieners thought-provoking religious arguments in his intro class, and Barlows push towards having a thoughtful faith. To avoid the diversity of religion expression in the liberal arts is to miss one of the most deep parts of being human.
Just thought i’d share some love.
Eric, while I agree with you in principle (I mentioned as much on the phone 10 mins. ago), the behavior in question isn’t requisite to your achieving that which you’ve discussed above — which is undeniably positive. I hold that we do well to keep our professors mindful –no matter the faith– of the fact that this is a state university and that their peculiar religious (or irreligious views), while important to them, are best left out of the classroom. Surly there can’t be any harm in such an approach.
Wow, as a newcomer to the Shaft blog, though a long receiver-of-emails, I am thoroughly pleased you would allow such an involved discussion about topics so wonderfully non-atheist; lets hear it for free thinking! I love this. Thanks!
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