Karen Armstrong used to be a nun; now she's made a transition increasingly popular in the modern world: she's "spiritual, but not religious." There's something to this, but it strikes me as possible but certainly not the inevitable or necessary dichotomy that it's often held up to be.
This book is a popular and fairly worthwhile introduction to the three monotheistic faiths, though it's useful to remember that it's written from the above perspective; that is, Armstrong is more attracted to the mystical and subjective in religion than she is in the doctrinal and concrete. She tends to sneer a bit at the latter and celebrate the former. In addition, though I, unfortunately, am not as well informed in the history of Judaism or Islam as I could be, I do have a number of quibbles with her interpretation of the origins and history of Christianity. We'll get to those.
Anyhow, this sort of overview is useful particularly for Mormons, I think, because there are some issues with the very concept of traditional monotheism that we either take so for granted that we don't recognize how extraordinary they are, or don't really grasp in the first place. Among these are:
1)Monotheism implies universalism; that is, there's one God for everybody. This is fairly radical, if you think about it, especially if you're an eighth century BC Canaanite who isn't convinced that the Persians are actually human beings.
2)The nature of God. Mormons, with our tangible and literally paternal God, often don't quite realize how much of an 'other' God is in the other monotheistic faiths. The impassibility and abstraction of God from his creation elevates the importance of Christ; as Aquinas argues, Christ is necessary for God to actually interact with human beings because he (to use a convenient but not accurate term) bridges the gap between us and the absolute divine. God is personal, to these faiths - that is, he has a personal identity and self awareness, but he is not a person, as we are. He does not experience the universe in the same ways we do. The Eastern Orthodox mystic Gregory of Nyssa said that we must realize that it is as true to say that "God is not" as it is to say "God is," because the concept of 'is' is insufficient to truly describe the nature of God.
In addition to these facts, the book itself raises some issues that John brought up, which are worth thinking about. If we are believers (as Armstrong no longer is), what does it mean to think about monotheism having a history in the way historians use the term - that is, developing and changing over time, driven by human situation and social change? Certainly Armstrong's history of God does not reflect the sacred history of "true" religion that we interpret the Bible to contain. How can we deal with this and remain true both to reason and to faith?
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4 comments:
Great post Matt. A nice way to start things off.
Would you say that Armstrong is a "non-believer" because she no longer beleives Jesus to be the Christ or because she sees a "History of God" in that Armstong see an evolution, possibly a progression, in humanity's perspective of the nature of God? I know that she was formerly a devout Catholic but I am not sure if she has abandoned the idea of Jesus being the Abrahamic Messiah?
On the very idea of there being a "History of God" I beleive is beyond doubt since it is clear that "God" and God's nature has evolved in the minds of humanity and that we are the historical product of this evolution is beyond doubt. Just the same, many a General Authority have noted the heavenly appointed times to appoint or change Church doctrine (which does not correlate to a change in the nature of God in Mormon doctrine) according to the temporal circumstances of the day whether it be the founding of the Church in the climate of the Second Great Awakening or the accepting of blacks as full members in the late 1970's. Of course a secular humanist would note these same instances and see an organization of its time, responding to and perhaps even creating the conditions in which it operates.
So the million dollar question, and Matt actualyl told me that he would give a million dollars to the person that answers it correctly, is given the definition tentatively given of "A History of God" denoting an evolution and perhaps progression in humanity's perception of the nature of God, does the LDS Church have its own "History of God"?
I would pose that we should hope for there to be a "History of God" in the LDS faith as is not a fundamental tenet of the LDS faith the idea of eternal progression? But does this open up LDS Doctrine to question since one might say "granted that is the doctrine now, but we will progress past it to something new. Hence the doctrine as it stands should not be followed?"
I am alot better at asking questions than providing answers so hopefully someone can take this and run with it.
I would say that if we are tracing the evolution of beliefs concerning God and all things theological in the LDS Church, then there is in fact an identifiable history of those beliefs. Yet we also accept the idea that Elohim himself has progressed to the state he currently exists in, so you might say that not only do we believe in a “history of God,” we believe in a stronger meaning of the phrase than someone like Armstrong, who seems to be more concerned with ideas about God than God per se.
It’s true that the LDS Church (because it accepts continuous revelation, a living church, an open canon, etc.) is more comfortable with the notion of humanity’s knowledge of the divine evolving over time than many churches, but this is so only insofar as the knowledge gained comes from the true revelations of God’s chosen prophets, seers, and revelators. The history of God that Armstrong seems to want to proffer is one that attributes ideas about God to broad socio-cultural developments, and could be taken to reduce the entire concept of God to anthropological factors. This version of the history of God I think we have every reason to be skeptical of as believing Latter-Day Saints.
I don’t really see how knowing that there is doctrinal progress absolves us of the responsibility to respect doctrine as it currently stands. The whole point is that we evolve along with it. We’re not in a position to claim that we have direct access to the eternal absolute truth, a position from which we might be able to counterpose the correct way to a supposedly inadequate and fallible evolving church tradition. It is precisely because we know we are in the process of being perfected as opposed to having already attained perfection that hitching our wagons to the locomotive of a progressing doctrine is important and justified.
I have not yet started to read Armstrong, but Matt’s introduction raises a few considerations. It’s true that an 8th Century BC Canaanite (although, weren’t the Israelites in Canaan by then?) might find the idea of swearing allegiance to anything other than his tribal God inconceivable. The Romans, however, were much more open to accepting the Greek pantheon. The medieval Catholic Church had a habit of venerating saints and specializing their roles to the point that there almost seemed to be a pantheon of Catholic saints reminiscent of the old polytheistic religions. So was there truly any grand, distinguishing philosophical separation between Catholic monotheism and the polytheism that preceded it? You might argue so from the discourses of the Scholastics, but much of these discourses piggy-backed on Aristotle, who had come up with the pristine philosophical conceptions of the Prime Mover and so forth living in pagan Greece.
I guess my point here is that the transition to Christian monotheism could be seen not as a revolutionary clean break from one thought system to another, but rather a gradual percolation of new ideas from subtle reframings of previously existing ones. This could be important from the perspective of Restorationists because it lends credence to the notion that the spirit of Christ’s ministry was in many respects confined to the period in which he lived and shortly thereafter, and subsequently engulfed by compromising apostatic trends already at work in the ancient world at large.
Hey, guys.
Mike - It's my impression that Armstrong, while she may consider herself a monotheist, no longer considers herself a Christian. For what it's worth.
On the question of God having a history, I think you folks put your finger on the key issue; what is it to say that God has a history? For all practical purposes, with respect to how we act and believe, Armstrong argues that the distinction between changes in the way we perceive God and the nature of God are irrelevant.
This has important implications, I think, for the way we think about this, and for the concept of revelation.
Good point, John, about the nature of monotheism. I'd argue that for salvation purposes, as opposed to the nature of God, the distinction becomes a bit more important. But this is stuff we can talk about.
John your comment is outstanding. It is late and I need to catch some shut eye but I promise to respond tomorrow. Thanks guys.
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