The reading club was organized to allow various people with different blogs a chance to read a book together and comment on it. To ensure that even non-philosophers or amateur philosophers can contribute, we've started by reading two introductory texts to LDS Theology. Feel free to write your own responses in the comments section or link to comments in your own blogs. Dave's Mormon Inqury has had several entries. I've linked to them in the various entries below.
Here's a list of our discussions thus far.
Reading McMurrin: 1 - 11: The introduction with a focus on
the "stuff" that God and the universe consists of.
Reading McMurrin: 12 - 18: Issues of permanence and change
along with universals and particulars.
Reading McMurrin: Misc: Responses to some of Dave's
commentary on McMurrin covering 1 - 18.
Reading McMurrin: 19 - 26: A discussion of creation and
creation ex nihilo.
Reading McMurrin: 26 - 35: A discussion of the absolute
in theology and philosophy along with the implications of being a
finite being.
Reading McMurrin: 36 - 40: A discussion on time and eternity
in LDS, Greek, and mainstream Christian theology.
Reading McMurrin: 40 - 47: A discussion on materialism and
nominalism.
Reading McMurrin: 49 - 57: A discussion on the nature of man.
Reading McMurrin: 57 - 77: Original Sin and Grace.
Reading McMurrin: 77 - 90: Free Will and the Atonement.
Reading McMurrin: 91 - 109: Evil.
Reading McMurrin: 110 - 113: Conclusions to the first part of the book.
A discussion on the task of theology.
Reading McMurrin: 115 - 140: On the thesis that God is a person.
Review: The Attributes of God: A basic
overview of the book done as a book review.
Reading Ostler 1 - 12: The first half of
the opening chapter dealing with God as a 'thing,' God as a name, and
God as a collection. I contrast his introduction with McMurrin's a fair
bit.
Reading Ostler 12 - 25: The second
half of the first chapter, mainly focusing in on the notion of what is
necessary for God to be and perfection.
Reading Ostler 27 - 47: The second
chapter focusing in on the apostasy and the inclusion of Greek thought
into theology. (Primarily Greek forms of Platonism)
Reading Ostler 48 - 67: The last
half of the second chapter primarily focusing in on process
theology, in opposition to Greek absolutism.
Reading Ostler 69 - 82: The third
chapter focusing in on the Lectures on Faith and Joseph Smith's
theology.
Reading Ostler 82 - 100: The second
part of the third
chapter focusing in on the theology of the Pratts, Widstoe, Roberts,
and McConkie.
Reading Ostler 105 - 133: Chapter 4. God's power.
Reading Ostler 137 - 144: Chapter 5. How God knows.
Reading Ostler 187 - 199: Chapter 6. The incompatibility of Libertarian free will and foreknowledge.
Reading Ostler 187 - 199: Chapter 7 Pt 1. Definitions of free will.
(Yes, I just realized I missed a few chapters, I'll go back and make those up this week)
Reading Pratt: Moreland on Pratt: A
discussion of Moreland's critique of Orson Pratt in The New
Mormon Challenge.
Reading Pratt: Pratt and Emergence: Whether
one ought to consider Pratt's notion of mind to be an emergent phenomena.
Reading Pratt: Divided Minds: A brief
discussion about whether minds are "simple" for Orson Pratt.
The first book we're reading and discussing is The Theological Foundations of the Mormon Religion by Sterling McMurrin. This is one of the "classic" texts on Mormon theology by a noted educator with a background in philosophy. Unfortunately it is, in many ways, a very overrated book. He tends to assume a bit too much familiarity with philosophy, in my opinion. He also tends to get Mormonism wrong in certain ways. To be fair though he is writing in the 1960's when there was not yet a lot of academic work done on Mormonism. His main approach is to compare Mormon theology with Greek philosophy of late antiquity, basic mainstream Christian theology, and then a little bit of American philosophy from the late 19th and early 20th century.
While, in my opinion, somewhat problematic as an introductory text, it is a very useful text to use as a springboard to discuss certain ideas or at least to criticize the "standard" interpretation of Mormon theology.
The second book is considerably better. It is Blake Ostler's Exploring Mormon Thought: The Attributes of God. This is, in my opinion a far better introduction as it starts with a few ideas and builds from there. It is far better focused and tends to engage with recent philosophy far better than McMurrin. About the only downside I can see to it is that it is one view of Mormon theology and not an overview of the different ways one can conceive of Mormon theology. Having said that though he does engage in most of the main interpretations of Mormon theology, so one does encounter them in his book. It really is a must read for anyone, philosopher or not, who wishes to understand Mormon philosophy. Having said that though the book definitely has a strong perspective and one may come away with it thinking that there aren't other positions. Which would be incorrect.
I also do selected readings at times from Orson Pratt's writings. He is probably the main theological figure in LDS philosophy, even if few of his ideas actually became adopted. Still he is an excellent figure to work off from even if one strongly disagrees with him. The best collection is Signature's The Essential Orson Pratt. I may in the future do readings from some of B. H. Robert's books on theology as well.
Enjoyed visiting and the links.
thanks for putting this up.
i think you should make an online book club on these books and on certain days you would go on the internet and talk about what you liked about the book what happened and so on. If you would have that i would definetly get into that club and sponser it on my web site. But on thing is for sure you should have it free because i never buy anything off the internet because i have gotten my credit card idenity stolen.
It would be nice if you had a free internet book club on some of those books. You would tell the people the book. They would get it from somewere such as the library and at certain days and times every one who is reading the book can talk about the book such as if they like it or don't or just about the book. If you would have a book club like that i will surly be in it.
Thank you
I think the volume of people interested in the above is such that it wouldn't work.
I really ought to return to Blake's book. I got busy back in the winter and haven't really done much on it. Although in the fall and winter it did engender some lively discussions across several blogs.
There is a new issue of the Southern Baptist Journal of Theology that addresses Mormonism as "another gospel" is found here http://www.sbts.edu/resources/publications/sbjt/2005Summer.php
It has articles by many of those involved in putting together The New Mormon Challenge. I thought that some of you might find it interesting.
Is there any place here to discuss the ideas that Ostler presents in his new book _Exploring Mormon Thought: The Problems of Theism and the Love of God_? Specifically, I would like to discuss (1) his views concerning the pre-existence and prayer and (2) his ideas concerning God's relationship to morality. Thanks.
Glove, I've been doing a reading club on that as well, although I've fallen behind and am not quite up to those sections. I was going to do my next post last night but have been rather ill with bad allergies. Here's my last post on the book.
Thanks!
I've closed comments in order to avoid spam since I don't check this older blog as much anymore.
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