You asked about Paul’s apocalyptic; I highly recommend Christiaan Beker’s Paul’s Apocalyptic Gospel. It’s short, poignant, and provocative. And it’s based on his longer study of Paul, which I’ve not yet read, but is on my list.

I don’t have anything in particular to recommend when it comes to pre-modern conceptions of causation, but I’m sure there’s plenty to read….

I’m not expert on the literature on Christian conceptions of freedom and responsibility, but I have been reading Simon Critchley’s Faith of the Faithless lately, and his (lengthy) chapter on Rousseau and civic religion is fascinating and speaks to these issues. I think you’d find it rewarding.

Regarding typology vs. allegory, I’m intrigued by the distinction that Alan and Joe suggest between these two types (…) of reading, although I confess I’m a tad skeptical about making as sharp of a distinction as they want to. (But, alas, I don’t have time right now to work through a stronger argument to justify my skepticism — so, I’ll just concede preemptorily concede that it’s surely useful to distinguish between approaches that are more or less careful about historical issues, I just worry that drawing a sharp distinction will end up playing into some of our modern neuroses re historicism….)

Regarding wisdom, I’m very interested in these issues, including what’s been discussed as well as how the development of the wisdom tradition in the Old Testament worked together with (and against) the law and the prophets. W. Brueggemann has written some fascinating things on this topic.

Regarding virtues, here’s an interesting Modern Theology article that recapitulates John Milbank’s very Anglican attempt (drawing on John Henry Newman) to diagonalize/mediate disagreements between Catholics and Protestants over the concept of participation. And I see the debate regarding theological virtues as crucially hinging on how participation is conceived. But rather than trying to summarize the article more here, I’ll try to better sell the article instead, by adding that the article does a very nice job of defending Calvin against Milbank’s criticisms of a unilateral conception of grace. (These defenses also amount to a way to defend Marion’s unilateral account of givenness/grace against Milbank’s criticism, since Milbank argues that both Calvin and Marion are both guilty of a similar kind of unilateralism). I don’t know much about Calvin, but I found the defense of Calvin in this article to be very helpful and insightful.

(P.S. Since no one volunteered to write a post for this week’s reading, I’m planning to do it. However, I won’t get to it for another 2-3 days or so — unless someone wants to volunteer to write something sooner….)

Thanks for your comments about wisdom in Genesis 2-3. That’s most helpful, and I’m very eager to hear your paper at the Seminar conference. I’ve been struck before by the unmistakable links between Romans 7 and Genesis 2-3, so I think what you’re assembling here should prove very helpful.

And it sounds like we’ve got the same questions about the medieval discussion. I’ve been wrestling with these questions, but I’m as yet without any real answers….

Does Paul ever speak of death as the root of sin? I don’t think he does. I’m bringing that in from latter-day revelation and making my own leap. He quite clearly believes that sin is the root of death. Indeed, I think he believes that if we did not sin, then we would not die physically.

Thanks for recommending the discussion of the fall.

You may hear Aristotle in what I say. I like Aristotle’s Ethics a lot and may well be unconsciously influenced by it in the pages you point to. But I had in mind the Genesis 2-3 text itself. I’ll probably say more about this in my Mormon Theological Seminar paper next month, but I believe that the question in Genesis is one of wisdom. (At least in the Genesis text) listening to the serpent, Eve misunderstands what wisdom is and seeks to have wisdom as autonomy. Adam joins her in that quest. They believe that God has autonomous wisdom, and they want the same kind. But it isn’t available to them in the way that the serpent has suggested, so they are cast out of the Garden for overreaching. In the world, they have the kind of wisdom the serpent tempted them to get. They are autonomous, but without real wisdom (which they had in the Garden only because they walked and talked with God). (Going beyond the Genesis text): they can act for themselves, but on their own they are unable to know what is genuinely good. In the world, they will learn the limits of the wisdom possible through autonomy, which I take to be a way to describe the theme of Romans 7. As Paul says there and in chapter 8, the only solution to the dilemma that autonomous freedom puts them into (knowing what the good is and being unable to accomplish it) will be life by the Spirit. In other words, the only way to escape the result of the fall is to walk and talk with God again, which the Gift of the Holy Ghost makes possible.

I haven’t given any thought to how the medieval discussion of natural and supernatural virtue fits into my story. For example, do I think that justice is a virtue to be had without the Holy Ghost? Do I think, in contrast, that love is possible, fully, only with that presence? I’m not sure because it seems to me that Paul’s letter teaches that there is an important sense in which no virtue is fully possible for the person without the Spirit and every virtue is fully possible with that divine Gift. “Fully” is an important word in that sentence, of course. Reading Paul as I’ve suggested is one way to account for the doctrine of the utter depravity of humankind. Obviously I don’t want to go that far, thus the necessity of the word “fully.” But I’m not sure how to say more than that.

http://ldsanarchy.wordpress.com/2007/10/20/the-law-of-tithing-part-1/

The “usual interpretation” is, I think, closely linked to Mormon institutional hierarchy. That is, Mormons like to “follow the Brethren,” and although I wouldn’t say that what you are suggesting here is inconsistent with what the Brethren say, I would say you’re suggesting something that is fairly different in tenor and style, if not substance, from the Brethren — at least over the past several decades.

How would you respond to this question/concern (“steadying the ark” would be a starker way to express this concern…)?

1. More temples, meeting house, museums, malls(oops) etc…
2. Members would be blessed spiritually

Line 1 is not motivating for me, and I would assume the majority of the members. Line 2, well, we all know we would be better not in the rat race. But the sheer terror of everyday financial life is enough to want us to ditch D&C 89 and drink every night.

I liked that the church is donating 400,000 trees to Haiti, and that inspires me to dontate more money. But, in some sense I want to see some control over the money, by leaving it in the Stake. The exhiliration of being in a meeting deciding how our stake is going to spend its’ money to help the world is very appealing. Say, 10% of our tithing money is left in the stake to do as our stake sees fit. Whether sending volunteers to Africa or building a battered womens shelter, etc…I think as members “see” their money being used they will be more apt to hand over their surplus. I see this as one way to get the people to want to create Zion. I don’t want to build another stake center.

Given this proper prospective, it becomes important that we learn the will and perspective of the Lord in all things and champion it, so that we become wise and others become wise stewards and so that no one loses their reward. What delights the Lord, then, is of, or should be, of prime importance to everyone, for when He is delighted, He shares that delight with all of creation. The principle “not my will but thine” accords with the law of reciprocity, so we need not worry that by putting God’s delight in first place we will somehow be short-changed.

This principle of God sorrowing over His loss is seen plainly in Zenos’ allegory. Although the house of Israel was perishing and would suffer themselves, the Lord of the vineyard was more concerned about His own loss, showing the intimate connection God has to all of us.

[The law of chastity] makes no differentiation between consensual sex vs. non-consensual sex. This is why is why Mormon said that they were deprived of chastity and virtue. Chastity is a state of being, in relation to the physical body. Although a women may not have voluntarily broken the law herself, it still has been broken in respect to her by someone else. Thus, she has been deprived of chastity and virtue (being in a certain physical state).

From the Lord’s perspective, there is no difference between temporal and spiritual commandments, for they are all spiritual and all spirit is matter, so it’s all the same to him. Therefore, although the law of chastity deals specifically with the physical body, it is nonetheless a spiritual law. Regardless of how it was broken, of by whom, it still is viewed as broken. The tendency to say, then, that no one can be forcefully deprived of their chastity and that one can remain chaste while being raped, is a misunderstanding of what chastity is. Our modern usages and connotations of the word chastity, or of what it means to be chaste, do not apply to the doctrines given in God’s word. We moderns view being chaste or keeping the law of chastity from a strictly consensual point, and thus make chastity into a purely spiritual state of mind, meaning that because a women did not consent, the rapist cannot deprive her of her chastity, for she remained chaste in her thoughts, but this is erroneous, for chastity is a law about the bodily state, not one’s spiritual or mental state.

That said, there is no reduction of self-worth implied by the Lord’s laws against rape or the non-consensual breaking of the law of charity. Nevertheless, all sin causes heartbreak and sorrow, both for the sinner and the one sinned against.

King Benjamin taught: “And I would that ye should remember, that whosoever among you borroweth of his neighbor should return the thing that he borroweth, according as he doth agree, or else thou shalt commit sin; and perhaps thou shalt cause thy neighbor to commit sin also.” (Borrowing and not returning is theft.)

All sin committed against another is a form of theft. You are forcefully deprived of property, freedom, comfort, bodily integrity, a good reputation, life, etc. Being sinned against in any of these ways does not diminish the worth of the victim. Just as a person who has been robbed doesn’t need to repent of being robbed, so a woman who is raped doesn’t need to repent of being raped. But that doesn’t mean that bad feelings, misery, regret, etc., don’t ensue as a result of another’s actions. (And sometimes, as King Benjamin said, being sinned against causes the victim to sin, creating a cycle of sin.) Loss is loss and its feeling is quite painful. Whether the loss be personal property, chastity, a loved one, or freedom, if the thing lost was cherished as precious, the painful feeling of the loss will be that much more acute. The less cherished or valued the item, the less pain is felt at the loss.

The Atonement, of course, can heal absolutely everything, even restoring one’s lost virginity, through application of the healing and other gifts, which have power to fully restore a physical body to a virginal state, a mind back to a state without guilt and anguish, a spirit to a state of innocence, etc. The power of the Atonement is not just for the sinner, but also for the sinned against, restoring all, according to their faith, back to a state of wholeness, or excellence. This is what the “restoration of all things” refers to, after all.

So, although wicked men will commit abominations in society, and in particular against women, that does not excuse us in lowering the value that God places upon chastity in our own eyes. We ought to hold it just as high in our estimation as He does, for this is what emulating Christ is all about. Such a strategy will increase our pain at its loss, if ever it is lost, but that is how it is supposed to be, that we may more fully understand and adopt our God’s perspective.

This is only loosely related to Brian’s additional comments (#10), but I wonder to what extent we might understand Jacob’s words saying that God “delight[s] in the chastity of women” (Jacob 2:28) in relational-covenantal terms. That is, rather than thinking in terms of God’s personal delight, I’d be inclined to understand this expression as saying that such behavior fulfills the purpose of God’s covenantal relationship with his people.

One problem of this kind of covenantal view is that it would seem to exclude non-covenantal people. I can think of two responses to this objection/concern.

(1) If understood w/r/t the covenant with Noah, I think it pertains to all of humanity.

(2) Admitting this is a problem, perhaps more of a “common good” approach could be taken, but in a similar vein. Chastity, on this view, must be understood not just in terms of individual effects, but in terms of the larger community and culture. This is not to say the individual concerns (pain, heartache, misery, etc.) aren’t of primary importance, but the community itself also suffers. So, when God says he delights in something or is offended/pained by something, this doesn’t take away from the kind of concern for the victim (better: survivor) who is pained by the action, as Brian rightly emphasizes must be prioritized — but, it is a way to explicitly recognize that the sinner and the person sinned against are not the only people who suffer.

Chastity is, on this view, a kind of public value that is upheld or violated by a whole community: when a sin occurs. the whole community suffers.

I’d thought briefly about these issues when I chose to use the phrase “rape culture” in the original post. I think culture is a really important part of all of this, and it’s easy to blur the individual vs. communal issues at work.

If God were offended by the Nephites, he could be offended by their rejection of him, his blessings, his laws. Many of the things the Nephites did surely were intended as deliberate blasphemy. But for God to be upset because he lost his delight in the chastity of women strikes me as wholly selfish when considering what the victims lost. As a father of daughters, I imagine myself in this situation: true, I hope that my daughters will remain chaste, but I hope so for their sake, not mine. If they lose their virginity due to their own poor choices, I will sorrow for them, not for myself. And if they should ever be the victim of any kind of abuse, I would sorrow for them, not for myself.

It’s like when one of my daughters is sick in the night: Do I grieve because she suffers, or do I grieve because I will have to stay up all night and miss out on a good night’s sleep? I think my “loss” is clearly insignificant in comparison.

I’m trying to think of any other crime where the victim is said to have “lost” a virtue. For example:

- the victim of theft…lost his generosity?
- the victim of assault…lost her courage?
- the victim of slavery…lost his temperance?
- the victim of slander…lost her honesty?

I can’t think of any—none that I have heard and none that make sense. Certainly the victims in the examples above lost something—property, freedom, life, limb, sense of security, etc.—but not virtue.

I know that some people, when they say that a victim of rape “lost his/her virginity,” really mean something more along the lines of what Rameumptom says: “The girls were still innocent, but their view of the world, sex and love would never be the same again.” I think this is the correct view.

Unfortunately, I think many more people use that phrase in an entirely straightforward manner: the victim lost something that is virtuous and therefore valued by society—and by God. This is my understanding of LDSAnarchist’s view: “Now, chastity and virtue, referred to the loss of sexual purity, which purity they considered excellent…. In [God's] perspective, all things live and all things die, but not all things have sexual purity.”

I reject this definition of the word “virginity.” Or rather, if this is what is meant by “virginity,” then I reject it as being of any value at all. As mentioned above, societies that value virginity in this way inevitably ostracize, blame, and/or devalue the victims. I reject the idea that the victims lost even one bit of their purity or virtue. I’m reminded of 1 Samuel 16:7: “The LORD does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” The victim’s heart is broken, not impure.

Anarchist, I agree that chastity is as highly ranked as you describe. What troubles me is how this attitude can be squared with a robust conception the divine worth of rape victims. (Nate Oman has a nice post that nicely articulates my concern.)

Rameumptom, amen to your comments on charity. Whenever I write something or speak to others, I always worry I won’t be read or heard charitably. It makes me feel empathy for the BoM writers. And it is very gratifying when others do read or listen charitably. Thanks.

Regarding atonement (Jim, Brian, and JPenny), your comments nicely frame what I increasingly think is the key underlying issue (which I didn’t see very clearly before). JPenny gets at this very clearly: “It was no doubt of little comfort to her that she did not ‘lose’ it: it was taken.” If that which is “most dear and precious” can be taken by others, Mormon’s words shake my confidence in (or at least my understanding of) the atonement, regardless of how the atonement is understood (though I do like and agree with your suggested critiques of, and improvements on, my “heal all wounds” mischaracterization of the atonement).

In this light, I esp. like JPenny’s suggestion to read Moroni 9:9 as virtue going out “of all of humanity” (and I think Anarchist might’ve been getting at this idea too). And by following this thought up with thoughts from Alma 7 (esp. coupled with Jim’s and Brian’s thoughts on atonement) — yes, I think this a really productive way to frame this . I’ll have to ponder this a lot more. Double thanks.

This passage has always struck me as being forcefully critical of the violence itself: of a patriarchal notion of ownership, in particular. Similar passages in Jacob suggest the same. But of course the very real concern here is whether or not if, in the act of chastising men for doing violence against virtuous women, Mormon’s rendition of that feeling of outrage does further damage to women who might themselves be the objects of similar violence.

At dinner, I asked a friend what he thought about this, and he said “of course ‘virtue’ is used in the Book of Mormon in its Victorian sense: as equated with virginity,” and if this is so, then that is “all” Mormon means: their virginity had been taken by force and could not be given back, and God (and Mormon) are angry about this.

Well, two additional questions arise: 1) What, if any, were the additional consequences for the women who had been violated? 2) Does this limited definition of virtue help or hinder our use of this passage in the context of chastity?

1) I don’t know. If LDS Anarchist is right (and of course that comment is made problematic by the degenerate state of Nephite society 350 years on), then hopefully not. Hopefully they were taken back into the care of their families and helped to recover, at least physically, from the trauma they had suffered. Hopefully this did not mark them as impure or broken or undesirable or any of the other things our metaphors tend to suggest. But the Middle Eastern societies with which I am familiar do suggest that a certain degree of ostracization might occur, and that trauma begets trauma.

How would God respond to this cultural abuse? With that same anger, compounded, I should think. But I am mindful that much of the Old Testament (the “much” I personally consider a cultural record and not the revelation of God’s mind and will) suggests otherwise. That is, some societies have, under the auspices of purity law, felt not only justified but compelled to remove the offended party from society. Doubly heart-breaking.

2) It seems to me that thinking of “virtue” as virginity merely in this passage has the potential to make matters worse if, as Smart felt, losing her virginity, regardless of agency, meant losing that which was “most dear and precious above all things,” and permanently. It was no doubt of little comfort to her that she did not “lose” it: it was taken. (And the implication–a tired and frankly offensive notion we heard in the eighties over and over again–of some of what Anarchist says above–that she ought to have fought to the end of her life to preserve it as more valuable than her life itself–flies in the face of Christ’s own treatment of the woman taken in adultery, or the woman who washed his feet with her tears. He restored what he could to them: dignity, value, confidence before God.) In other words, a person whose virginity is taken, and not with their permission, but by deceit or force, may feel that they can no longer be dear or precious.

But I can’t accept that reading, because I sense in Mormon’s outrage that the dearness and preciousness of virginity is the dearness and preciousness of sexuality as, ideally, the site of love and creativity. When it is compromised, “virtue goes out” of all of humanity. We are all of us implicated. And we all ought to share alike in the shame and the pain in order to motivate us to root out the evil and to comfort and bless the wounded. This passage is not, in other words, intended as a moral judgment of the women, but is clearly framed as a moral judgment of the men who injured them, and of the society that allowed it.

So what’s the answer? As I think about this more and more, I think we need to attend to the frame better. This passage is important. It is loaded with pathos–God’s pathos, I think: it deserves better and fuller treatment, better and fuller imaginative attention, clearer and more charitable interpretation and explication, or it does, indeed, risk doing damage. And that sin will be on our heads. “If there are errors,” after all, they are ours.

As for Jim’s discussion of the Atonement: I agree that healing does not mean reversing, wiping away, undoing. Scars remain, but the symptoms and effects of both suffering and sin can be wiped away. He allows us to suffer so that we learn to suffer well–patiently, and in the hopeful expectation that we will be whole and pure “again,” restored to wholeness. And anyone who knows about restoration knows that the signs and symptoms of damage are healed, but the structure itself is original; that elements that were lost are brought back, re-knit, re-woven, imped, transplanted, etc. The structure–the person–is that same one that was damaged, but the damage has been attended to, for sinner (if repentant) and for sinned against (if receptive) alike. I can’t think of any better sermon on this than Alma 7.

Anyway, yadda yadda yadda. Thanks for giving me occasion to think this through a little more.

I do not know whether Mormon actually used the word “chastity” in discussing what raped women lose, whether the barely literate Joseph Smith chose a poor term in his translation, or what. I do know I disagree with the literal meaning of the statement in Mor 9:9. That said, when I stop placing that one statement in isolation, and place it within the context of other scripture and modern prophetic statements, I know that there is a better meaning I can take from the passage: the rapists terrorized the girls and stole their innocence from them. The girls were still innocent, but their view of the world, sex and love would never be the same again.

I am pretty sure that Elizabeth Smart, even without the horrid gum wrapper analogy, would have seen herself in a very different light after being raped. Such things can require years to recover from, even with the best counseling. In Mormon’s day, there was no counseling available, just more torture, rape and terror.

Mormon’s words bother me. A lot. I love the Book of Mormon, but dread reading the final wars, the violence, the rapes, the cannibalism, and the desecration. But, I need to know those things. Perhaps his words in some places were brutal, and in modern context definitely wrong. But, seeing that Moroni begs us to overlook the weaknesses of the book, we would miss out on some very important concepts and teachings if we repudiated all scripture, simply because we allow our modern weaknesses to trump their ancient weaknesses. It is because of Mormon’s charity towards us that we have the Book of Mormon today. I would hope that we consider being charitable to him in considering his words.

Mormon lived after the ministry of Christ, and thus knew all the laws of God and the full account of that ministry, and the society that lived after Christ’s ministry, which was based upon the most perfect and excellent laws, given personally by Christ, also knew these laws. So, when he says that “chastity and virtue was most dear and precious above all things,” this wasn’t merely an erroneous cultural thing, but a law of God thing, for their culture was, at these times, established upon all the laws of God. In other words, after Christ’s ministry, their culture = God’s laws.

We do not have the full account of Christ’s ministry and therefore do not have all the laws and principles they lived under, but we have enough (less than 1/100th part) in the Book of Mormon to understand that Mormon, living after the ministry of Christ, was judging these atrocities by the law of Christ given by Christ. This wasn’t an opinion, pulled out of his you-know-what, but an inspired assessment which allows us to glean how truly enlightened societies (for surely the Lehites who had the laws given by the Savior in His personal visit became the most enlightened society of all) view things.

But even before Mormon’s time, we see in the record that another prophet of God was also ranking sins. Alma, in his words to Corianton, says,

“And this is not all, my son. Thou didst do that which was grievous unto me; for thou didst forsake the ministry, and did go over into the land of Siron among the borders of the Lamanites, after the harlot Isabel. Yea, she did steal away the hearts of many; but this was no excuse for thee, my son. Thou shouldst have tended to the ministry wherewith thou wast entrusted. Know ye not, my son, that these things are an abomination in the sight of the Lord; yea, most abominable above all sins save it be the shedding of innocent blood or denying the Holy Ghost?”

So, sin ranking was taught both before and after Christ.

From these words, we can see that the ancients who were grounded in the doctrine of Christ, much more so than us Gentiles, for they had much more of that doctrine than we do, looked upon (and were taught to look upon) chastity in the same way that the Lord did. And how does the Lord view chastity? Jacob revealed the divine perspective with the words,

“I, the Lord God, delight in the chastity of women.”

The ancients, then, also delighted in the chastity of women. It was “most dear and precious above all things” to them because it was “most dear and precious above all things” to the Lord. After Christ’s ministry, they had all fully adopted the divine perspective.

Now, chastity and virtue, referred to the loss of sexual purity, which purity they considered excellent. Again, this was not a mere “cultural perspective,” but a divine perspective, for their culture had been altered and made divine after Christ’s visit. In other words, they had been patterned after the heavenly culture. So, Mormon’s words must be treated as coming from this same divine perspective. And so when he saw them go against these long established divine commandments, committing the abominations as a sort of middle finger raised to God’s face, for they had all been taught these heavenly principles, he was understandably upset, for they had been blessed more than any other people, including us.

Anyway, so what did chastity refer to? It was “purity of the body; freedom from all unlawful commerce of sexes. Before marriage, purity from all commerce of sexes; after marriage, fidelity to the marriage bed.” And virtue meant “excellence.” Just as the law of Christ was more excellent than the law of Moses, so sexual purity was more excellent than sexual impurity.

Again, Mormon is giving us God’s perspective, not his own. This is how God viewed the issue, for He (God) had been robbed of this delight (for He delighted in the chastity and virtue of women) by these abominable Nephites, who knowingly rebelled against His revealed laws.

We Gentiles, not founded on these revealed laws of God, for we only have an abridgment consisting of less than 1/100th percent, are topsy-turvy in our perspective. We view life as more precious that sexual purity, but this is not how God views things. In His perspective, all things live and all things die, but not all things have sexual purity. Sexual purity, then, in His view, is more valuable.

And nice discussion, Robert!

First, I think Mormon is wrong here (though maybe if given the chance he would amend his words?). I don’t think there is a way to reconcile his words, but there may be a way to read it and understand why he would have written an equation that is so clearly imbalanced.

I start by pointing to the weight of the atrocities in verse 8 versus verse 9:

8: The Lamanites feed the women upon the flesh of their husbands, and the children upon the flesh of their fathers.

9: The Nephites rape the Lamanites, then torture them to death.

Mormon states that chastity and virtue are more precious than any other thing—presumably, more precious than not having to eat your father’s flesh or not being tortured to death. Set aside for a moment the question of whether someone’s chastity or virtue can be forcibly taken from them: all of the atrocities Mormon lists are off the scale atrocious.

Thus, I think to understand Mormon’s…hyperbole, we may have to recognize that he is more appalled by the Nephites than by the Lamanites because the Nephites had the Gospel. As he laments: “O my beloved son, how can a people like this, that are without civilization, how can we expect that God will stay his hand in judgment against us?” Greater light, greater condemnation.

I don’t agree with Mormon here, but after witnessing what he witnesses, I’ll cut him a lot of slack. You really can’t rank these crimes from bad to worst, but I won’t condemn him for doing so because, again, he actually saw it.

Second, about the atonement. I’ve often felt uncomfortable by the way we talk about the atonement “healing” or “making right” everything. I don’t know exactly why it bothers me. Perhaps because it feels like we’re talking about smoothing everything over in a way that robs us of our life experience. In that way, it reminds me of the argument that if we really believed that little children who die “go straight to the Celestial kingdom and godhood” then we would kill all babies—because, after all, it worked our well in the end, right?

As the scriptures say, we have to know the bitter in order to appreciate the sweet. If the atonement heals all the bitter by taking away the memory of it then we lose that knowledge. That doesn’t sit well with me. Like Joel Barish in “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” I don’t want my memories erased.

So what good is the atonement? I look at Christ and see that he still has his scars from the ordeal. Maybe that’s a signal to us? Maybe we keep all of our scars too, but the atonement helps us to not suffer any more from them. Christ’s unending, unyielding love for—read that as devotion to and acceptance of—us gives us an anchor; it let’s us know that whatever vulnerability we felt during our suffering, we are not ever alone or not understood. When one of my daughters, as a toddler, used to hit me, I told her every time, “I still love you. I will always love you.” When one of my other daughters is angry and screams, “Leave me alone!” I tell her, “No, I will never leave you alone: I will always love you. I will always try to help you for as long as I live.” I can’t speak for victims of extreme suffering, like Elizabeth Smart, but I think even she has spoken about finding peace through finding people (like her husband) who she knew were devoted to her. None of that requires the atonement to “make things right” in the sense of making things go away.

Presumably it brings us together in God’s presence in love. Presumably living in that community of love I will no longer care that I was wounded because I will have been taught how, like Christ, to truly forgive. I will have learned how to live beyond my sins as well as beyond the injustices I may have suffered, But the atonement isn’t a magical acts that makes them go away. It is something that changes me and my relationship with others and my past.

That, however, isn’t the same as healing all wounds–or at least it isn’t the same as our usual way of understanding what such healing would be like. There are ways of understanding what it means to change the present so that the past is different than it was, and I like to think of the atonement in those terms. (Those of you who are philosophers, think of Gadamer.) But I don’t think the atonement simply undoes that past.

If we want to keep the metaphor of healing (and I admit to liking it), perhaps rather than speaking of the atonement healing all wounds we could speak of it healing them and showing us how to live proudly with their scars, loving those scars as part of us rather than as continuing signs of something evil in our past.

As for scripture, I reject the “dung in the brownies” analogy—but not for the reason you do. See, I kinda reject your reasoning too. Yes, the scriptures make it clear that “We are all nothing—scripture is emphatic about that.” But if we’re already in the mode of rejecting/questioning scripture, couldn’t I reject this part of scripture? In fact, as you point out, scripture itself rejects this idea: “just as [scripture is] emphatic that we are all of great worth.” Which is it?

I think the solution—in this case specifically—is to recognize where scripture overexerts itself to make a point, and accidentally makes several other off-target points as well. The “dung in the brownies” analogy doesn’t work here because no one would ever put dung in brownies for any good reason. I’m a pharmacologist, so let me use a drug analogy instead. Every drug has side effects, ranging from minor to major. But drugs with major side effects—think chemotherapy—are still used when their target is particularly pernicious. You wouldn’t tolerate the side effects of chemotherapy to combat a cold or a headache, but you would tolerate them if faced with life-threatening cancer. When King Benjamin convinces his people of their nothingness, I take his words as an aggressive assault on pride—a battle that he apparently views as so crucial he must “really drive home the point.” So maybe King Benjamin’s “you are nothing” drug was both effective and necessary for his people, at that time, but that doesn’t make it a universally applicable drug (at that dose, anyway).

Okay, but that drug analogy doesn’t address the other type of problematic scripture: any downright racist, sexist, etc. statement that really can’t be excused. Again, I reject the “dung in the brownies” because there is no way to pick out the dung and just eat the brownies. The dung is everywhere, equally mixed, unavoidable. Scripture is not like that. For example, Mormon could say something terrible but that doesn’t affect what John wrote. It also doesn’t affect other things that Mormon wrote. The desire to throw out all of scripture stems, I think, from our society’s unwillingness to associate with anything in anyway that is wrong—lest we be accused of supporting an evil person: you can’t eat at Chick-Fil-A because they support traditional marriage, you can’t work with a Democrat on a bill because then you must be pro-Obamacare, etc.

I think you provide the answer to this attitude:

Christ is the only exception. And Christ doesn’t repudiate us. He seems, in fact, to repudiate this logic of wholesale repudiation. He love us even though we are imperfect.

Exactly. Mormon can be wrong about “virtue,” Nephi can be wrong about race, etc. I don’t worship either of those guys (or their words), so I don’t need them to be perfect examples in all things.

In fact, I’m happy to see the mistakes in scripture—not the typos, but the mistaken/incomplete beliefs of scripture authors—because it serves as a lesson about how to act as an imperfect person in an imperfect world. I will make mistakes as I strive to do what is right. I will hold false/incoherent beliefs as I strive to comprehend the Gospel. So what? The scriptures show me that that is not a deal-breaker—at least as far as God is concerned.

I guess in this respect I would replace the “dung in the brownies” analogy with the “dung in the cattle” analogy: you see, every cattle has parts you really don’t want to eat, but if you’re careful you can still milk the cow or carve out uncontaminated steaks and roasts. And even that dung inside the cattle had an important purpose in the growth and development of the beast! You really would not ever want to eat or drink from a 100% dung-free cattle.

Jim says on page 242: “Adam’s transgression brought both spiritual and physical death. The two are inseparably connected, for spiritual death brings physical death, and if it is not overcome, physical death brings subjection to Satan, spiritual death. Paul is not distinguishing between physical and spiritual death; he uses the term death to encompass all its meanings.” This is a theme I’m most interested in; I’ve been working, on and off, on death theology for years now.

So, a question: Does Paul ever suggest that death is the root of sin? I entirely agree with what Jim says here, but I’m not sure that idea shows up in Paul. It clearly shows up in the Book of Mormon, and Jim’s footnote points to the most poignant passage to that effect (2 Nephi 9:4-13). But it seems that Paul more often—if not always—has in mind that the link between death and sin runs the other way: sin is the root of death. (I haven’t yet worked through all of Paul’s writings in the Greek with this question in mind, but the standard commentators always articulate Paul’s conception in this way.) Interestingly, the Book of Mormon always seems to have it the other way around: sin isn’t the root of death there, but death is the root of sin. Can we have it both ways, as Jim’s comment suggests? Or might we revisionistically read Paul: Jim’s comment on “for that” suggests that at least here in verse 12 there’s an ambiguity in the Greek about which (sin or death) is the root of the other. Maybe there’s a way of taking Paul as essentially agreeing with the Nephites. Maybe?

Jim’s discussion of the fall on pages 242-247 is fantastic, and it deserves to be read widely and shared often. He points out the distance between the Christian idea of “the fall” and the biblical texts, and then highlights the irony of the fact that uniquely Mormon scripture draws on the language of the fall. At least in part this would presumably be a function of the translator and receiver of revelation (Joseph Smith used words common in modern Christian talk in rendering whatever it was the Nephites talked about, for instance). But, as Jim points out, even then Mormon scripture speaks of the fall in a unique way, different from what is assumed when the word appears in Christian discourse: “Comparison of the various ways that fall is used in the Book of Mormon show that it means ‘to be lost,’ ‘to be in sin,’ or ‘to die’” (pp. 243-244). Unfortunately, as Jim very nicely points out, the fact that we inherit talk of the fall often leads to confusion: “Without intending to, we may sometimes be teaching something that is difficult to distinguish from the doctrine of original sin” (p. 245). That’s very helpful.

Now, to turn to something very interesting about Jim’s final thoughts on this question. He says this: “Adam and Eve made it possible for us to enter a world in which we were cut off from the Divine Presence, a world in which we have nothing to rely on but ourselves. However, we are not sufficiently wise to live in such a world, so we sin” (pp. 246-247). It’s fascinating that Jim makes this a question of wisdom. I hear, naturally, strains of Aristotle in Jim’s words, and I imagine that I’m meant to hear them. It’s a subtle move, but an important and a good one. Jim wants us to think about the fact that the fall, as uniquely Mormon scripture presents it, isn’t about entering into an impossible state from which one has to be absolutely rescued (hence Jim’s careful discussion of the confusion of our talk about the fall). The fall is rather a matter of finding ourselves in a situation that calls for the development, through divinely granted grace, of wisdom. Jim’s fall is a fall into a situation in which we have to habituate ourselves to virtuous living, and in which we can only do so through divine assistance. Jim doesn’t specify the nature of that divine assistance, and that’s what leads me to raise a final question.

The Christian discussion of the fall—at odds, on Jim’s very good account, with Mormon scripture’s discussion of the fall—centers around the nature of the virtues and spiritual gifts. This is fully on display in the writings of Luther. On his account, the Scholastics (the late medieval Catholic theologians) believed that Adam and Eve had seven virtues, four natural (courage, wisdom, temperance, and justice) and three supernatural (faith, hope, love), and that the four natural virtues remains with them through the fall, while the three supernatural virtues were lost, and could only be given to human beings subsequently in the form of spiritual gifts. Luther’s account, on the other hand, was that all the virtues were lost in the fall (utter depravity) because, as is supposedly evident, human beings are not in any way naturally oriented to the good, even when it comes to the (supposedly) natural virtues. That’s the theological debate concerning the fall, as it launched the modern era, anyway.

Where does Mormonism come into all this? I think this question is important especially given Jim’s interest, in the preceding two readings, in hope. How do spiritual gifts fit into the Mormon story? How does virtue? What is the nature of the divine assistance necessary to develop wisdom (one of the natural virtues)? Or how do we think about all this?

Thank you for reminding us of the connection between spirit and breath. Greek and Hebrew make the same connection. English does too, but the connection between the two was long ago forgotten: spirit is from the Latin word spiritus which means “breathing.” The Latin verb is spirare, “to breathe.”

Second thought is that I have always been interested in discussing things that are sort of synonyms in different languages/thought processes. For example, there is much to think about chi/ki in eastern thought combined with breath and the flow of breath, and thinking about our spirits, as well as the influence of the Holy Spirit. This all is interesting to me when I think about the idea of breath being life-giving, as well as references we understand about “the breath of life” and creating “a living soul.”

In Russian the word (looks like dyxa but pronounced ducha, where ch is like X in Greek) means “breath” and “spirit”, and you have to get which meaning is implied from context. And in many contexts, both meanings are implied.

SO, thinking about your thoughts about receiving a kind of “life” from Jesus that he can only give us, I agree, and love to follow the connections between other languages and thought systems about this topic.

I think it’s interesting that when we enter into the baptismal covenant, there is no explicitly articulated covenant being made. We are simply baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, but there’s not covenantal content mentioned. Thinking about this in light of the zoe-bios distinction you emphasize, and Agamben’s other work on language (and infancy, and oaths), I find this fascinating. The life that we are baptized into is “explicitly” an unarticulated(/inarticulate?) life….