I'm going to take a break from the more technical philosophy for a while to return to some religious issues. First up the next chapter and a half from Blake's book. I decided to do a chapter and a half since the first chapter is primarily about historic issues and debates regarding the theology of original sin. I don't have a whole lot to say there. Like Blake I agree original sin is pretty implausible and problematic. The next chapter is primarily about Blake's consideration of atonement and the LDS notion of "natural man" which, while similar to original sin, has quite a few significant differences. If you're not up on original sin and haven't read Blake's book the Catholic Encyclopedia's entry is worth a read.
Like Blake, I tend to find the fundamental problem with a notion of original sin to be the idea that we can be guilty for someone else's actions. Ultimately many discussions reify guilt and then act as if it was something like a monetary debt that can be justifiably moved around. That just doesn't make much sense and I'll not waste a whole lot of time discussing it. Blake does a very good job.
What I did find interesting was that there were historic views that, while not quite the LDS view, were fairly similar. The idea that what Adam brought was a loss of some capability rather than some taint of sin. This capability would be the ability to choose in a fashion unlike how we choose today. Of course, as Blake notes in the next chapter, the LDS notion makes a lot of sense as it tend to privilege our material mortal bodies. The "loss" is wrapped up in the manner of our embodiment. For a strong scientific materialist like myself this is tied to the nature of the brain. But talk of "original sin" just makes no sense.
The other non-Mormon view which I found interesting was Millard Erickson's. There he offers something akin to a social contract where "Adam acted on behalf of all people." However without the LDS notions of the purpose of life as a test and the necessity of being weak, ignorant beings, it seems that this approach can offer the typical Christian little. It's the additional aspects of a notion of a plan of salvation where being mortal is important and useful and that we chose to come here that makes Adam's fall make sense. And of course LDS ritual emphasizes this connection of Adam acting on our behalf. We act as Adam in ritual.
Blake's second chapter is where the interesting issues are. He's not really going that far beyond what most of us are familiar with in our general reading. So I think the approach I'll take here is to raise a few points.
First the issue of emergence. "A new 'nature' arises out of the united spirit/body complex as persons grow - the 'natural man'. That is, with the challenges that arise from the sensuous experiences of the body and the traditions and behavioral patterns that already exist in the world into which we are born 'original sin' conceives in the human heart as persons grow from childhood to young adulthood." (148) He then quotes Moses 6:54-55 with the key phrase being, "sin conceiveth in their hearts" but with the addition in the JST of the pragmatic utility of this. Now I think Blake's view is somewhat wrapped up with his view of emergence. That was a prominent topic in the prior volume albeit primarily in connection to the nature of God.
Now I'll admit that I'm pretty skeptical about what is called ontological or radical emergence. (Roughly the idea that a whole contains properties or capabilities not explainable in terms of the parts, the relationship of the parts, and the laws of the universe) So while I'm pretty open to the idea that we are a combination of a spirit (whatever that is) and our physical body and that this clearly produces a consciousness and "person" different from what we were as just a spirit. In the same way that a lobotomy produces a different sort of person. But I'm not sure the spirit-body combination is really relevant here.
I think all we need to point out is the role of context and brain. According to LDS theology prior to our birth we were in God's presence. So contextually we didn't have the same "freedom" we do here. Clearly being around God is different from say being raised in the middle of a war in Somalia which is different from being raised in a middle class American home. It biases how we think and choose. More importantly though is that our brain, which is pretty key to who and what we are, genetically tends to desire and choose things that would be characterized as a sin. One could even argue that to the degree these choices are caused by our brain structure that we can't be responsible for our acts. So we may "choose" on one level sin, the issue of responsibility is different.
As Blake points out, by Jesus Christ's atonement in some way taking away this responsibility then we are free. I'll leave for the second half of the chapter exactly what freedom in this sense could possibly be. Blake's clearly going the Libertarian route tied up with his idea of emergence. While I don't reject Libertarianism the way I do radical emergence, I'm still reasonably skeptical of it. It seems hard to understand how we can be free in this life from the effects of Adam's fall. i.e. mortality. It seems we're free only in the sense that God doesn't judge us for the part of our actions caused by our physical state. (i.e. being in our context with the brains we have) Exactly how it is possible to separate our responsibility for any action so as to make a judgment of what is "ours" versus what is not seems deeply problematic and a huge philosophical problem yet unsolved. (IMO) (Although we'll be talking more about that in future chapters)
My own view is that the atonement "solves" the problem of the natural man primarily through the resurrection. That is we're promised freedom in the sense of at some future state not having a body that chooses sin in the fashion ours does. But note that this can't be the point of when we are judged since we're always embodied in the world. We're never free in an absolute sense. (Even a Libertarian like Blake would agree with that - he just thinks there's some aspect of freedom within the world but acknowledges the limits of that freedom) So having a body that cognitively chooses good isn't really "more" free than what we are right now.
The problem is that, as Blake notes, scripture talks about an ability to turn to God that overcomes the natural man. This, to me, is less about a real change than just a promise that God will judge you through Christ. That is the promise that he won't hold our sins against us. While we have two natures I'm not sure one should take Mosiah's dualism of natural man vs. child of God in terms of the two "bodies" we have - the mortal one we study in science and the (as yet) undiscovered spirit. Blake on page 152 suggests that our eternal nature we can choose in this dualism is "the uncreated and eternal intelligence of every human." I just don't think this correct. There's a relationship between the two, of course. But they aren't the same.
I think we choose acts that are more in harmony with the kind of life we lived versus the kind of life lived here. However while we can't fully choose that life, we can at a minimum make it our aim. While God judges us according to our works the atonement allows us the promise that we can be restored to the kind of body we want in the future. That is if we really like the kind of life we live now, we'll be resurrected in a body that gives us that. If we really would prefer the kind of life God lives we'll be resurrected into a body that gives us that. (Interestingly, given the discussions over Schelling, this is a point he taught in his philosophy)
So what this life does is give us an opportunity to experience a lot of things and decide what we ultimately desire. But we are always a mix of desires. So the issue is what, at death, we predominantly want and that will be rewarded us. But the atonement, in this sense, ends up being primarily about the resurrection and not sin per se. Which is not to neglect sin. But I'll cover that in the second half of this chapter.
I have to admit I haven't finished this chapter yet, and have become somewhat sidetracked from Blake's book as I have been indulging my new Widtsoe fetish.
Anyway, one thing I have found curious is that Blake denies original sin and promotes what seems to be something of a moral influence theory of sin in relation to the fall. On the other end though, based on what I've read online, Ostler rejects moral influence on the flip side when discussing the atonement in relation to sin.
Is this disparity solved, or am Imaking a false assumption that this is a disparity?
I don't know. I'm commenting on the book as I read it. So I've not read past the current location.
Sorry to be so late to the party (I'm about a month behind in everything, not just reading your blog!). Interesting idea you propose, Clark. Can you elaborate on what you think the "mighty change of heart" talked about in scripture is? It seems to me that on your view this amounts to merely a choice, rather than the kind of grace-effected experience that I'm inclined to read scripture as describing....
I'm not quite sure why you think I think this to be merely a choice. I think there can be a significant change merely that it is not significant enough. Having a desire not to sin is not the same as not sinning. But that, I suspect, gets into the issue of how we view desire. It's a good question and I'll have to think about it a bit.
Right, I think the more typical view is that when we have a mighty change of heart then our desires change (e.g. "no more desire to do evil"), yet you seem to be taking desire as originating in the body, and therefore something that will not be changed (at least completely) in this world. To think through this more carefully it seems we have to carefully differentiate the aspect (or kind) of desire that we are thrown into (e.g. originating in the body) from the aspect (or kind) of desire that we choose, with perhaps a "change of heart" affecting the former but not the latter.
(This reminds me of your post from quite a while ago about Jesus being tempted, since how we view desire seems to be importantly inter-related to how we view temptation, sin, and agency....)
The issue of "what" is an intention or what it's origin is tends to also be complex. Unlike some I don't see intentions as ideal objects (like a Fregean meaning) with an origin in some ideal actor ala Kant. Rather any particular intent is always made up of other intents which go back indefinitely. That is I see a problem of origin in the notion of intents. To separate out the body from some ideal actor is also a problem in my opinion since a body isn't something I have is is something I am.
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