{"id":6931,"date":"2009-02-03T10:04:39","date_gmt":"2009-02-03T15:04:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=6931"},"modified":"2009-02-07T12:11:56","modified_gmt":"2009-02-07T17:11:56","slug":"intellectual-conversion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2009\/02\/intellectual-conversion\/","title":{"rendered":"Intellectual Conversion"},"content":{"rendered":"

Seven Storey Mountain<\/em> is Thomas Merton\u2019s autobiographical account of his increasing restlessness with a worldly life. He converts to Catholicism and eventually enters one of the most strict (the strictest?) Catholic orders: a Trappist monastery. What has fascinated me\u2014and I\u2019m not done with the book yet\u2014is that his conversion is highly intellectual. He loves Catholic doctrine and the philosophy long before he changes the heavy drinking and carousing that marks his life as an undergraduate and graduate student at Cambridge and later Columbia.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

After reading William Blake, for example, he comments that he became aware of the \u201cdead, selfish rationalism which had been freezing [his] mind and will for the last seven years.\u201d That author and others convinced Merton that \u201cthe only way to live was to live in a world that was charged with the presence and reality of God\u201d (208). \u00a0<\/span>And yet he is quick to note that he doesn\u2019t \u201cwant to say it in a way that conveys more than the truth\u201d because his \u201cintellectual realization\u201d was far from \u201cstr[iking] down into the roots of [his] will\u201d (209). It takes him quite awhile to decide he has to change his behavior.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

While all of us probably understand that the \u201cspirit indeed is willing but the flesh is weak,\u201d Merton did not\u2014at least at the time of his baptism\u2014recognize the need for the flesh to act differently; his conversion was a thing of the mind.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In my limited experience, Merton\u2019s is an unusual process and one not readily adapted to Mormonism. What is your take? I am trying to think of anyone I know who was converted intellectually to the doctrines of the Restoration before an emotional or spiritual\u00a0or even social conversion. Even a conversion that relies mainly on doctrine seems to typically rely on an emotional response to a particular doctrine (ie, eternal family relationships). \u00a0<\/span>Not that there is anything wrong with that, in my opinion. I believe God will bring people to the gospel with whatever means appeal to them.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So those are my thoughts and questions: are people easily converted to the intellectual depths of LDS theology? (or is the conversion more emotional\/spiritual\/etc.?) Do we not have enough of a philosophy to attract minds like Merton’s? Oops. Let me rephrase that: what is the philosophical attraction of Mormonism for those of you who are brilliant like Merton?<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

[side note: Merton does have a brief\u2014one sentence\u2014run in with Mormonism; he reads \u201ctwo pamphlets on the Mormons . . . but the story of the holy books discovered through revelation on a hill in upper New York State did not convince me and I was not converted\u201d (128).]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Seven Storey Mountain is Thomas Merton\u2019s autobiographical account of his increasing restlessness with a worldly life. He converts to Catholicism and eventually enters one of the most strict (the strictest?) Catholic orders: a Trappist monastery. What has fascinated me<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":109,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-philosophy-and-theology"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6931","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\/109"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6931"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6931\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6967,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6931\/revisions\/6967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}