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Steve's Primordial Soup: God and the Universe
Last spring BYU biologist Steven Peck (i.e. SteveP of Mormon Organon and BCC) had an article published in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought titled, "Crawling Out of the Primordial Soup: A Step toward the Emergence of an LDS Theology Compatible with Organic Evolution" (PDF). His is one of the few (maybe only?) serious attempts I know of to explore how LDS theology can embrace evolution. The article focuses on broad concepts rather than particular scriptures or General Authority statements.
When I first began writing this post I started by summarizing the paper. However, I found that I was wasting a lot of pixels simply re-stating what was already written in the article. So instead I am going to split this into several posts and focus on parts of the article of interest to me.
First let's look at five general views Steve describes as to how God may relate to the universe.
Flat Religious Naturalism - There is no supernatural. God = nature.
Evolving Theistic Naturalism - God is an emergent property of nature.
Atemporal Theism - The traditional view the God exists outside of time and transcends the universe.
Temporal Theism - God is God, but he can be influenced by the world. He can see all logically possible futures, but no particular future is predestined.
Eschatological Theism - God intervenes to assure that contingent events occur as needed in order to fulfill his purposes.
Surprisingly (to me), Steve sees Flat Religious Naturalism as potentially compatible with Mormon theology, but not Evolving Theistic Naturalism. With our doctrine of the eternal nature of matter in mind, he writes:[M]atter could be broadly conceived to include God, spirits, and intelligence as part of the “finer” or “purer” matter thought to make up the extended “universe.” In this context, flat religious naturalism might be conceivable in the LDS faith, as it has few answers to questions about why the universe exists as it does and embraces the idea that its constituent substances are eternal. This matter includes the intelligences that eventually became God by taking on His mantle. Therefore, mystery and awe at this scale may be the only appropriate response.
That seems like a better fit with Evolving Theistic Naturalism to me. Where did gods begin to be? How about somewhere out in the multiverse, eternal elements came together through a process of Darwinian selection in such a manner that gods emerged, propagated and spread into new universes. To my mind, this fits Evolving Theistic Naturalism but is in the same spirit of how Steve sees LDS theology fitting with Flat Religious Naturalism. So what is the real distinction here? Is it just a matter of defining terms, or whether we're talking about our universe or the multiverse, and our God versus some ancestor god? What am I missing?
Further posts in this series:
Steve's Primordial Soup: An Embodied God
Steve's Primordial Soup: Natural Evil
Steve's Primordial Soup: Teleology
Steve's Primordial Soup: Odds and Ends
25 comments:
"His is one of the few (maybe only?) serious attempts I know of to explore how LDS theology can embrace evolution."
Actually I think the first major reconciliation with evolution and God in the ways suggested in this post is explained in detail by Orson Pratt in the bood The Seer written in the 1850s.
Orson did not know about darwinian evolution and thus gets a lot of science wrong but one ultimate crux of the book (even if some of the scientific details are wrong) is Orson shows from scriptures that God appears to be a tabernacle of elements which has undergone eons of progression in "evolutionary type" ways that at some has point in the eternities has embraced every true principle power and attribute thus becoming a temple containing the fulness of truth which being Orson defines as God.
The fulness of truth, attributes, and powers resides in the tabernacle on the Father and is also in Christ: in this sense the Father is in Christ and Christ in the Father and if our tabernacles will become temples to this fulness of truth then we will also become Gods as they are. And these tabernacles are the result of eons of progression of the elements.
D&C 93
So again, to Orson the elements have gone through revision after revision over eons of time until a tabernacle was prepared to become a temple for the Fulness of all truth and that being, that uniting of body and spirit becomes God.
And if that doesn't sound akin to God being the product of evolution I don't know what does, so if I find out that at least this general concept is correct (even if some details are wrong) I am giving the credit to the Apostle Orson Pratt, who came to these conclusions without studying modern evolution one day in his life (by that time at least.)
Of course, our LDS doctrine absolutely rejects the idea that Gods came into being because of nature evolved them. Thats ridiculous. Our doctrine teaches the exact opposite of if there were no God there could be no nature- God is the author of nature.
rob osborn.
rob osborn,
Then I encourage you to read the book The Seer by Orson Pratt because he goes to great lengths to show how there is actually no contradiction. You just might find something interesting and greater then that which you could have ever supposed.
Joseph,
It goes against every fiber of my being to suppose that nature, by itself created the race of the Gods (us). No, God created nature. We are the products of God, not nature.
rob osborn.
rob osborn,
Like I said, you may find it interesting that both are true at the same time. You want God to have created the universe/multiverse and what is interesting is you will find this is still the case. The Mystery of Godliness is quite interesting.
Joseph Smith taught that every fiber of your being is eternal and uncreated.
But it is true that by create I do not mean ex nihilo so if you are expecting that from God you may be disappointed. Some things are even beyond his creative power. Again see D&C 93.
Joseph,
Thanks for your comments. I've never read The Seer in detail. I know Brigham Young had some real problems with it, though perhaps not the concepts you are talking about.
Jared*,
The Seer is very interesting and yes probably half of it is incorrect in some way or another. :) (For one, the majority of the book is trying to prove that polygamy is the true order or marriage and so I'm sure the modern church isn't going to jump on endorsing it.)
And actually, some of the things related to God Brigham did object to as Brigham was worried the book was worded in a way that seems to put the attributes of God on a higher pedestal than God the Father Himself. That and Orson says some things about the temple that probably went too far.
Still, like I mentioned Orson was convinced God was essentially a temple containing the Fulness of all truth, powers and attributes. Or like D&C 93 says "The elements are the tabernacle of God; yea, man is the tabernacle of God, even temples;" And the elements making up this temple went through eons of "progression" before they were prepared to be the temple of the Fulness of all truth. And the Son was likewise a tabernacle that eventually was also filled with this Fulness having gained this Fulness receiving it grace by grace.
Say what you will about specifics he got wrong, but that general concept to me sounds a lot like evolution and he does a very convincing job showing a lot of scriptural support for this idea.
As Brigham said "Whenever brother Orson Pratt has written upon that which he knows, and has confined himself to doctrines which he understands, his arguments are convincing and unanswerable; "
But I guess we will see. My own personal opinion is that, Orson realized that God's body, like our own, *must* be the result of eons of some type of progression *cough*... perhaps evolution by natural selection until it was advanced enough to embrace all true principles... *cough* and so I will not be at all shocked if I find evolution was somehow involved.
And may my own tabernacle, a result of years of evolution, one day be prepared to be the receptacle of all true principles is my prayer.
Jared* Thanks so much for doing this. It means the world to me when people take seriously my work. And when that person is you it makes me happier still!
The reason I rejected Evolving Theistic Naturalism (ETN) is that (and I did not make this clear in my paper, but it is found in Gregersen's original paper) it sees God as emerging from physical processes, like consciousness is thought to emerge from neural interaction by strict materialists. In this reading God is kind of universal consciousness, rooted in and emerging from the physical processes themselves. God is something that supervenes on physical reality in the same way mind does brain. A kind of universal consciousness. I rejected this as a Mormon view in that even if in some sense as you point out God's body evolved somewhere, there is an element that he is not just a thing that emerges just from the natural workings of the universe. So this model would be based on an emergent property of, say, this whole universe and the interactions taking place, that bubbles up from all the workings at the micro scale (I hope that makes sense). Flat Religious Naturalism let's you get agents evolving within the big-U universe in the sense that I think Mormon's would be comfortable with.
Rob's comment is a constant confusion I hear from people reading the creationist literature, that we believe in the classic monotheistic God who is the ground of all being. No we don't believe that God is the cause of nature. God, us, nature are all co-eternal. This is an important part of Mormon Theology that cannot be ignored. Rob's attempt to make us classical monotheists just misunderstands Joseph Smith's wonderful revelations about the nature of God.
Ok Joseph, you talked me into it. I'm going to break down and read The Seer
SteveP,
Good luck. And, I just want all people to know I warned you that Orson's book is crazy, mostly about polygamy and has scientific inaccuracies. (So be prepared.)
However, the book is very interesting. Think: the Journal Of Discourses on steroids. :)
Steve,
Thanks for the clarification. So let me see if I've got this right. Under ETN, God is a product of the whole universe and exists as a kind of mystical and abstract hologram. In contrast, under FRN, God is a product of components of the universe and exists as a concrete object within the universe.
Is that about right?
Jared*,
I forgot to say this before but I really enjoyed this post as it got me thinking and also led to me reading SteveP's article and which takes me to:
SteveP: I appreciate you taking the time to write articles such as these.
The problem I see in Steve's view is that he places "nature" as being on par intelligently with God, perhaps even to the point of "nature" being an element that "allows" for Gods to exist. It makes "nature" into something that God himself is not really in control of, just something that exists that he must work within. Basically it is saying that we thank "nature" for our existance, and not necessarily God.
Steve, you have yet to answer where your God fits into the Creation scientifically.
Creation needs God, evolution doesn't. Did God create our "nature" in order for us to be created? If he did, then doesn't that make you a creationist also? Or are you just absolutely godless when it comes to explaining our origins scientifically?
rob osborn.
Jared*,
Yeah, that's about it. The universe's processes create an overarching mind that emerges just from the elements zipping around doing their thing. But like an emergent process, it can return again and influencing the lower-level processes. Whereas Flat naturalism is more the idea that it is nature itself which just is all their is and God can either be parts of this, or just is that, but their is no talk of a universal consciousness.
Rob's reading of my work is bizarre, almost as if he's not read a thing I've written.
Thanks Joseph.
Minor quibble: "God = nature" is pantheism, not naturalism.
The idea that God is fully embedded in nature and is not in a position to suspend the most fundamental natural laws was perhaps most famously advocated by James E. Talmage, who argued that miracles are not such violations, only apparently so.
I agree with him, and maintain that the baseline LDS theology of the Atonement is incoherent without that constraint. To say nothing of theodicy, the Fall, and the "plan" of salvation. If God can make natural law be anything he wants, then Christ's suffering on the cross is more or less gratuitous.
Mark D.,
I agree, why would we believe the Atonement *must* happen if we at the same time believe God can force the laws of the universe to be whatever He wants.
It is as if the Atonement is needed because God realizes we have to do something clever to compensate for an eternal law He has no ability he has to change or will away.
Once again Steve has avoided my questions. Some people you just can't reason with or communicate with. It's like talking to a brick wall.
rob osborn.
After reading thepaper again I am convinced that Steve's Creator is "nature" itself. In explaining why there is life, it appears that Steve only uses the context of a Creator as one who just "allows" nature to do it's thing and that Darwinian evolution, absent of God completely can and does explain our existance.. Thus I am convinced that Steve's Creator is Nature itself and not Jesus Christ. His views are in my opinion far removed from LDS doctrine. Am I wrong?
rob osborn.
Steve said-
"For the purposes of this paper I will assume that evolution through
natural selection is a true description of how life arose on this planet and that life on Earth has emerged through a completely
Darwinian process; furthermore, throughout this paper, by “Darwinian,”
I mean evolution through natural selection."
Who is Steve's creator? Darwinian evolution void of god. Have you ever opened any biology book that allows for a Creator in Darwinian evolution? Didn't think so.
Reconcile it all you want Steve but the truth of it is that if you are Mormon, you must embrace the merits of ID over godless Darwinian evolution.
rob osborn.
Jared I want to thank you again for posting this.
Rob, One thing I admire about you is your obvious commitment to the gospel. That cannot be a bad thing.
Sorry to post again, but since we have discussed the Seer I wanted you say this last thing:
One of the biggest issues scientifically I have had with the book is Orson Pratt assumes the elements have free will and again tries to give scriptural suport. I've always rolled my eyes at this.
However, it was just brought to my attention some Princeton professor has published a theorem in a reputable journal called the Free Will Theorem that states "if we [humans] have a certain amount of "free will", then, subject to certain assumptions, so must some elementary particles. "
I'm not saying this for sure proves anything but: if we have free will, and if this theorem is sound then I guess I will chalk another one up for Orson. Not that he was the first to conceive this but that another major assumption in his theory for how the universe works seems to be confirmed
But maybe the proof is garbage or maybe we don't have free will after all.
You're welcome, Steve. Thanks for responding. There is more to come.
Rob,
You should carefully read the Encyclopedia of Mormonism article on matter:
http://eom.byu.edu/index.php/Matter
Your view of God's relationship to matter was explicitly rejected by both Joseph Smith and Brigham Young.
Many other Christians hold your view of creation and deride the Mormon view of creation for the very same reasons that you deride Steve's views.
I don't say any of these things to criticize anybody's view, only to help map out the territory a bit.
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