{"id":20613,"date":"2012-05-23T12:06:04","date_gmt":"2012-05-23T17:06:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=20613"},"modified":"2012-05-23T12:06:04","modified_gmt":"2012-05-23T17:06:04","slug":"exploring-mormon-thought-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2012\/05\/exploring-mormon-thought-love\/","title":{"rendered":"Exploring Mormon Thought: Love"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a> I\u2019m more than happy to be turning from the divine attributes to the question of divine love. I wasn\u2019t particularly concerned about whether God possesses the several \u201comni\u2019s\u201d before beginning this project, and, for all I\u2019ve learned along the path laid out by Ostler\u2019s first volume, I\u2019m no more concerned now than I was before. Of course, I think in the end that Ostler himself would have to say that he shares my sentiments in this regard—at least to some degree. His project as he describes it in the prefaces to the several volumes of Exploring Mormon Thought<\/i> is one of putting up with the sorts of ontotheological questions the tradition raises in order eventually to get to what he takes to be the beating heart of Mormon theology: the love of God. As with Ostler, the question of God\u2019s love—and especially the question of grace—is one to which I\u2019m not only willing but thrilled to give my attention.<\/p>\n

Ostler opens the first chapter of The Problems of Theism and the Love of God<\/i> with exactly the right question: \u201cIt is commonplace in Christian theology to start from metaphysical concepts, such as the notion that God is a perfect being or that God is the metaphysical explanation of all existence. \u2026 What if, instead, we started from the most basic commitment of Jesus\u2019s teachings—that God is the type of being who can enter into loving relationships of mutual reciprocity and intimate self-disclosure with us?\u201d (pp. 1-2). I couldn\u2019t agree more with Ostler that \u201csuch an approach [is] the appropriate starting place for Mormon \u2018theology\u2019\u201d (p. 2).<\/p>\n

That said, let me dedicate this post to outlining what I believe will be the<\/i> difference between my own thinking about love and Ostler\u2019s. I\u2019ll let Adam speak for himself, but I suspect that he largely shares my position.<\/p>\n

As is the case in The Attributes of God<\/i>, The Problems of Theism and the Love of God<\/i> attempts to think relationships starting from Martin Buber\u2019s distinction between \u201cI-Thou\u201d and \u201cI-It\u201d relationships. But whereas in The Attributes of God<\/i> this was a relatively minor point, mentioned only on occasion and in the course of doing philosophical work on other questions, it is the official starting point in The Problems of Theism and the Love of God<\/i>. And I think there are some major problems with this starting point.<\/p>\n

My worry about Buber is his Kantian grounding. Ostler himself identifies this grounding: \u201cImmanuel Kant elucidated an ethical imperative that arises in human relationships: We must never treat persons as mere means, as mere objects, but always also as ends in and of themselves. The reason for this imperative is that if we use persons merely to accomplish some other purpose, then we have subordinated a person having absolute value to some \u2018thing\u2019 else less valuable. Buber\u2019s view of persons also arises out of the commitment that, when persons are used, they cease to be persons and become mere things for us\u201d (p. 15). There are reasons—good<\/i> reasons—to be critical of Kant\u2019s basic conception. <\/p>\n

The question that has been—and has again and again to be—put to Kant is this: Whence the \u201cabsolute value\u201d of persons?<\/i> Kant, of course, had an answer to this, but it\u2019s an answer few philosophers would be likely to agree with: the presence of rationality. If that answer is to be rejected, both because rationality has been shown to be far more conditioned and constructed than Kant was willing to allow and because it isn\u2019t clear why rationality should be regarded as an end in itself, what is to takes its place as the guarantee of the \u201cabsolute value\u201d of persons? The implicit Buberian answer to this question is, I think, clearly at work in Ostler\u2019s thought: particularity<\/i> or uniqueness<\/i>. In Ostler\u2019s words: \u201cWhat I bargain for in a covenant relationship is you as the person that you are\u201d (pp. 12-13); \u201cIt is you as the very person you are in your uniqueness that I desire to engage in mutual fellowship\u201d (p. 14); \u201cNo one else can take your place for me because it is you as a person that I relate to\u201d (p. 15). If it isn\u2019t the other\u2019s share in rationality, which is an end in itself, that obligates me ethically to her, it would seem that it\u2019s her not-being-anyone-else, her particularity.<\/p>\n

This answer is just as philosophically problematic as Kant\u2019s. First, it isn\u2019t clear why particularity or uniqueness—put most radically: unsubstitutability—should make something lovable. Second, and more important in my eyes, some kind of account needs to be provided justifying the supposed unsubstitutability of individual persons. <\/p>\n

Now, I should note that one thinker—who was, it\u2019s worth noting, an important critic of Buber, despite being influenced profoundly by him—has attempted to respond quite fully to these two problems: Emmanuel Levinas. And it seems to me that Levinas\u2019 answers to these questions are not only consistent but compelling. But I wonder whether Levinas\u2019 answers to these questions can be adopted by the Latter-day Saint. Jim Faulconer is the resident Mormon Levinasian if there is one, and he himself has pointed out the difficulties of accepting Levinas directly into Mormon theology—pointing out the likely necessity of tempering Levinas\u2019 theism with a bit of Heidegger\u2019s \u201cpaganism.\u201d I\u2019ll leave to Faulconer the task of addressing these difficulties—my own philosophical itinerary takes me elsewhere. For now I\u2019m content just to agree that there are problems with adopting Levinas uncritically.<\/p>\n

Another thinker—one whose thought has sometimes, quite problematically, been equated with that of Levinas!—has addressed this whole business in a rather different way: Jacques Lacan. Lacan\u2019s entire project can be understood as an attempt to account for, precisely, the passage from the \u201cI-It\u201d to the \u201cI-Thou\u201d relationship—as an attempt to explain Freud\u2019s famous formula: wo Es war, soll Ich werden<\/i>; \u201cwhere It was, there I come to be.\u201d But rather than attempting thereby to justify<\/i> the Buberian conception of the absolute value of unsubstitutable persons, Lacan aimed only to account<\/i> for it.<\/p>\n

I won\u2019t go into the details of Lacan\u2019s account here, but I\u2019ll state his—in my book crucial—conclusions: the \u201cI-Thou\u201d relationship is ultimately the imaginary (read that: image-inary) side-effect of the inconsistent symbolic structure of discourse. The Buberian picture—even once it has been qualified and clarified by Levinas—is ultimately a distracting reflection of much more deeply rooted matters.<\/p>\n

Now, let me be quite clear (I know I\u2019m never clear, but I\u2019m trying hard here). To agree with Lacan on these points is not to reject the possibility of love. Rather, it\u2019s to claim that any account of love will have to begin from something other than the Buberian \u201cI-Thou\u201d relation. Love is something other than a kind of face-to-face affirmation of each other\u2019s intrinsic value. If we\u2019re going to get off the ground with love, with love in all its philosophical complexity, we\u2019re going to have to provide a rather different account of it.<\/p>\n

Now let me be quite clear about another point. I don\u2019t mean here to say that Ostler\u2019s account is simply wrong, or that it\u2019s unsophisticated. As I\u2019ve already pointed out, I think that the Buberian conception of things can be fleshed out in philosophical rigor, as it has been in Levinas\u2019 work. My concern is that I\u2019m not sure that the resulting picture is ultimately reconcilable with Mormon theological presuppositions. It seems to me that Ostler can indeed embrace a Buberian conception of love, but I wonder what Mormon commitments he\u2019ll have to give up along the way. (One quick example: I suspect it\u2019s largely because the Buberian conception has become so widely accepted that Latter-day Saints are more prepared today simply to dismiss early Mormon polygamy than they were in previous eras of Mormon history. I don\u2019t know that Mormon polygamy could make sense in a Buberian picture. That\u2019s to say neither that polygamy has<\/i> to be defended nor that some such incommensurability is reason enough<\/i> to dismiss the Buberian picture. I mean only to illustrate here, and then only between parentheses.)<\/p>\n

Obviously, there\u2019s a good deal more to be said about all that, and I\u2019m already out of space (and time!). Just as obviously, I have the responsibility to say something about what I take love to be, and I\u2019m still already out of space (and time!). As a result, all I\u2019m offering here is a kind of preliminary criticism, preparatory to a much more robust engagement—one that will likely have to take place at a later date.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m more than happy to be turning from the divine attributes to the question of divine love. I wasn\u2019t particularly concerned about whether God possesses the several \u201comni\u2019s\u201d before beginning this project, and, for all I\u2019ve learned along the path laid out by Ostler\u2019s first volume, I\u2019m no more concerned now than I was before. Of course, I think in the end that Ostler himself would have to say that he shares my sentiments in this regard—at least to some degree. His project as he describes it in the prefaces to the several volumes of Exploring Mormon Thought is one of putting up with the sorts of ontotheological questions the tradition raises in order eventually to get to what he takes to be the beating heart of Mormon theology: the love of God. As with Ostler, the question of God\u2019s love—and especially the question of grace—is one to which I\u2019m not only willing but thrilled to give my attention. Ostler opens the first chapter of The Problems of Theism and the Love of God with exactly the right question: \u201cIt is commonplace in Christian theology to start from metaphysical concepts, such as the notion that God is a perfect being […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corn"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/141"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20613"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20613\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20614,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20613\/revisions\/20614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}