Scientific aspects of Mormonism; or, Religion in terms of life

Front matter

Brigham Young University Harold B. Lee Library

GIFT OF Monte C. Groesebeck

IN MEMORY OF J. Roe Groesebeck

Preface

THIS book is offered to the consideration of sane people, — people not willing to hold convictions the premises of which lie in other men's brains; especially when such convictions affect their attitude toward a considerable portion of their fellow-citizens. Needless to say, this is a new kind of "Mormonism Exposed," — written from the point of view that Mormonism is good, and true, and beautiful ; and that, consequently, its detractors should improve their judgment, or mend their manners.

Mormonism claims to be, not a sect, but a religion,— the religion of Jesus Christ. The distinction between a sect and a religion lies in the fact that the sect has no philosophy, no way of looking at the cosmos differently from that of the family of beliefs to which it belongs. Christians generally insist that Mormonism is not to be classed among the sects — or, to use the softer expression, the churches, — of Christianity. In this judgment Mormons willingly concur. Neither in the background of philosophy, nor in the foreground of its doctrine and ritual, does it more than distantly resemble modern Christian churches.

iii iv

Preface

But that it is therefore not the religion of Christ ; that it is therefore not built upon the revelations of the Bible, as well as the teachings of modern science, Mormons by no means concede.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints may be studied from two aspects: from the external aspect, by which are meant its organization as a church and its rites, doctrines, ceremonies, and practices as a social body; or from the internal aspect, by which is meant its philosophy or fundamental principles, — the principles that must be, in order that its forms as a religion may exist.

To enter upon the first aspect would, in this day, be a thankless task. The age of religious polemics is gone. Time was when to prove a doctrine scriptural was to prove it true; now it is merely to prove it scriptural. People are weary of wrangles concerning interpretation. Suppose you show that the Bible is on your side. What then? You have merely shown that the Bible is on your side. The vital question is not, Does this doctrine square with Scripture? but, Does it square with life as interpreted in that newer revelation of God, the book of nature ?

I shall therefore discuss the subject from its second or philosophic aspect, and attempt to show what answer Mormonism gives to the questions, "Whence came man?", "Why is he here?", "Whither does he tend?"; at the same time

Preface

V making comparisons step by step with what modern scientific thought teaches along the same lines.

N. L. N.

Provo, Utah, May 2, 1904.

CHAPTER XXX Conclusion: Mormonism Destined to Have

the Last Word 311

Advertisement: "Social Aspects of Mormonism" 321

APPENDIX A Spiritual Proofs of Pre-Existence . . 323

APPENDIX B

Contradictions Resulting from the Attempt to Christianize the God of Buddha 330

Index 339

" The time is wracked with birthpangs; every hour Brings forth some gasping truth, and truth new-born

Looks a misshapen and untimely growth,

The terror of the household and its shame,

That some would strangle, some would only starve;

But still it breathes, and passed from hand to hand,

And suckled at a hundred half-clad breasts,

Comes slowly to its stature and its form,

Calms the rough ridges of its dragon-scales,

Changes to shining locks its snaky hair,

And moves transfigured into angel-guise,

Welcomed by all that cursed its hour of birth,

And folded in the same encircling arms

That cast it like a serpent from their hold."

xi

SCIENTIFIC ASPECTS OF MORMONISM

Chapter I The Occasion For Writing This Book

" It [the Mormon Church] is not to be educated, not to be civilized, not to be reformed — it must be crushed. No other organization is so perfect as the Mormon Church, except the German army." — A prominent Christian clergyman before the general assembly of his church.1

DURING the last three quarters of a century, remarks like the above quotation have formed the staple commentary on Mormonism; and the animus so expressed, bolstered, indeed, by whatever facts could be impressed into such service, has found its way into dictionary, cyclopedia, and general history. It need not be pointed out here that these harsh judgments have almost invariably originated with those guardians of our moral and spiritual civilization, the ministers of the

1 The author has considered it desirable to avoid for the most part specific mention of living people.

i

Gospel ; nor need it be wondered at therefore that the Mormons credit the unbalanced zeal of the preaching fraternity with being a prime cause of all the mobbings and drivings which have marked them out as the persecuted religion of the nineteenth century.

To the extent that we Mormons are Latter-day Saints, we smile at such ministerial zeal and forget ; for our religion teaches us to "do good to them that hate and revile us, and to pray for them that despitefully use us, and speak all manner of evil against us."

But to the extent that we are merely Mormons, that is to say, human beings trammelled by church forms, we keep tab on such utterances — and the deeds which often follow them; whence it happens that by every human law of offense and reprisal, the sins of the clerical profession against the Mormons should have accumulated by now past all hope of their ever establishing among us those bonds of fraternal sympathy which are indispensable to proselyting work among any people.

As mere human beings, we cannot forget that it is their prejudiced views and mistaken zeal that have propagated the hundreds of lurid "MoTmonisms Exposed," which have come to be as necessary as narcotics to many good people. Naturally enough, too, we resent the air of superior sanctity, with which these same men condemn our religion unheard. And if our confidence in them is shattered, by the way in which

Harsh Methods they misrepresent us, — from mere fragmentary and often misquoted passages ; and if our respect follows our confidence, when we see the obvious connection between our periodical besmirchment by them, through the eastern press and pulpit, and their ardent need of funds for the " Mormon Crusade," is it not precisely what would happen with any other people under like provocation?

Now if this animus of meddling clergymen stopped with the godly men themselves, one might regard it as a necessary evil, — a sort of escape-valve for the lingering spirit of Adam in them; but it spreads, — much faster than righteousness could, — as any message winged by hate always will ; so that more than once in the history of Mormonism a whole continent has been inflamed against an unoffending people behind the Rocky Mountains.

One can readily imagine the mental process by which the opinions of the pastor become the convictions of the congregation. Accustomed — not without good reasons — to consider his judgment as the standard of righteousness, the flock can only reason that what excites godly anger in the shepherd must be bad indeed ; and on no other form of sin does the good man usually wax so righteously eloquent as on what he is pleased to call the delusions of Mormonism.

And yet, on the other hand, one cannot help wondering that, in an age of psychic analysis, several palpable phases of this wholesale denunciation are overlooked by the laity in coming to a conclusion. First, the spectacle of a reverend gentleman turning red in the face and breaking out into anathemas against other interpreters of the religion of Jesus Christ, ought in itself to excite a cautious wonder; secondly, the fact that hatred (of Mormons) can temporarily unite sects which love (of Christ) has never hitherto brought together, ought at least to raise a small doubt as to the real source of the inspiration ; thirdly, the fact that Mormonism thrives in spite of this combined assault of the other religions, ought to suggest that righteousness may possibly form a considerable part in the system which this ministerial anger denounces; since, by the growing wisdom of the age, sin is coming to be regarded as weak, transitory, wholly incapable of cohesion, — righteousness alone being vigorous enough to form and perpetuate an organic system.

All this negative agitation by ministers of the Gospel could be overlooked, however, as what we ourselves might do under similar circumstances; but it will not down even with the best of us, the fact that in all the drivings, mobbings, and sanguinary tragedies, which have accompanied the ostracism of this people, the sanctified figure in black has invariably turned up as the immediate plotter and arch-villain.

If, on the whole, therefore, Mormons do not rush to fill the sectarian churches established in our midst; if the advances of sectarian ministers are

Harsh Methods received with an undercurrent of distrust and suspicion ; if they fail to interest, let alone convert us, — the evident reason lies, in part at least, in their general attitude of contempt for us; and especially in the history of their dealings with us as a people.

But this, after all, is only the minor, the superficial reason for our mutual antagonism. For we are not morbidly sensitive, nor do we hold a grudge. Were we a secluded or insular people, sect-narrowness might perpetuate the memory of wrongs and stimulate the desire for revenge, as it no doubt did in the older days ; but what with two thousand Elders constantly on missions, and returning every two or three years laden with ideas and observations from even.' quarter of the globe, we are fast becoming the most cosmopolitan people under the sun ; and a cosmopolitan people are not likely to cherish sect-resentment.

Besides, we are too often buffeted and bruised to harbor our injuries long. Let any minister meet us fairly and squarely on the plane of equality, and there is no house of worship throughout Mormondom that would be closed against him, as many notable incidents of this kind already attest.

The real reason why the ministers and the Mormons are as oil and water, lies deeper. What the reverend gentleman says, contains a substantial truth. If being "educated, reformed, civilized," means being converted to his way of looking at things, then, indeed, the solution that he suggests is the only one that will be effective ; and if it will ease the gentleman's conscience in advocating it, I may add, that Mormons would prefer it as decidedly the lesser of two evils.

The reverend preacher of Christian love and charity must not think, however, that his reasons for crushing us are either new or novel ; for such a justification has invariably been the working basis of every religious crusade that has darkened the history of the world; save, perhaps, that where the bigots of former times proceeded in the name of God, this later Dominie invokes the name of civilization.

It is by no means impossible that we are on the eve of a new crusade; especially in view of the painful memories of Mormons still living. Do you think the thorns and thistles of the Middle Ages forgot to cast their seed? Neither did the Inquisitors and witch-burners. The present universal prate about liberty of conscience signifies nothing. No persecutors ever proceeded as conscious persecutors ; nor did contemporary popular sentiment recognize them for what they were.

Religious bigotry is discernible, save by a few, only in perspective. It is ever a past, never a present vice of any people. Couched in the cant phrases of the prevailing popular movement, it seems the very incarnation of purity and progress. The one persistent element in it, if, indeed, we may not call it the motive power, is hate — an element which should make even enthusiasm

Harsh Methods 7 pause; but then this very quality itself masquerades as the supreme religious virtue, — a righteous valor against iniquity.

Now as the crushing process has more than once been tried against the Latter-day Saints, why should it not be tried again? And as the "reform" demanded of us in the past, has merely meant "conform," and consequently has failed, — I am grateful for the opportunity of pointing out in this book why any new attempt to crush ought not to be made, and if made, why it ought to fail, as it surely will.

In other words, I am grateful for this opportunity of putting the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints into sharp contrast with the isms whose efforts thus far, instead of having added to the extremely small sum of Christian patience and long suffering in their promoters, have so far as I have been able to learn ended only in balked and vindictive rage.1

Mr. Elbert Hubbard (Cosmopolitan, October, 1902), in reviewing with Philistine pen the factors that would make for the Millennium, places this condition first: "Men will decline to join any social club that calls itself a 'Church'."

1 Let me disclaim any intention of arraigning ministers of the Gospel in general, save as they resemble those in Utah. These latter have declared war on us, and are therefore legitimate targets for counter attack. Unable to agree among themselves on tenet and doctrine, they have yet found, deep in their spiritual bosoms, a common bond of union — hatred of the Mormons.

I do not take it that Mr. Hubbard condemns churches in toto — only those which have degenerated into fashionable clubs, and so are hindering social progress. Let us, then, take this admirable criterion of the fitness of any Church to survive : viz., its social effectiveness or inherent power to help usher in the Millennium ; not on some worldto-be, but here on the third planet of the solar system. And by the result of such a comparison, let it be judged whether Mormonism ought to be crushed or cultivated.

Chapter II Mormoxism A Scientific Religion

SCIENCE and religion have so long been thought of in contrast, that is, as systems of thought more or less irreconcilable, that I shall perhaps provoke a smile from the critical reader when I unite the two concepts as I have done in the title of this introductory chapter. I shall even commit myself further, however, by taking the ground that a religion which is not scientific is scarcely worthy the credence of our enlightened age.

To demonstrate that Mormonism is such a religion is perhaps too large a task for the limit which I have allowed myself in this volume. The utmost I can hope to do, is to show that its basic data are not out of keeping with those general laws of nature on which all the conclusions of scientists rest.

To begin with, the fundamental conception of Reality is alike in science and Mormonism. Joseph Smith defined Mj^ith as an account of "things as they are} as they y\gvp. heen} and as thev will be J' In other words, truth is not a mystical something behind and below phenomena ; truth is nothing else than the impression made on the mind of man by phenomena.

But phenomena are merely appearances, not realities. Theosophy and Christian Science — in fact all idealistic schools of philosophy — will demonstrate this fact, that phenomena are illusory Airtr-Trnot things, but the shadow of things. Well, in spite of such demonstration, science proceeds to build up these illusions, — these shadows, — into a great many correlated classifications, known as astronomy, geology, biology, chemistry, and so on, through the long list of human investigations. All things seen, heard, smelled, tasted, and felt may, in fact, be illusions, — "wrought of such stuff as dreams are"; but while human nature is organized as it is, they are extremely satisfactory illusions, worthy of all study, and capable, when properly manipulated, of bringing out other and still more satisfactory illusions, which we sum up in the name of enlightened civilization.

Besides, if science were to give up dealing with phenomena, it would have to go out of business for want of raw material. These unrealities — if such they are — constitute the only reality in the universe that man, as man, is fitted to apprehend. Scientists might follow the example of Buddha, or Mary Baker Glover Eddy, and weave a marvellous system out of the entrails of that mystical thing called mind. But the product would not be science ; it would be, — well, a web woven from the entrails of that mystical thing called mind.

A Scientific Religion 1 1

"Things as they are, as they have been, and as they will be" — let them be shadows, illusions, or what not — will therefore continue to be the warp and woof of science. It cannot afford to give up hungry facts for hectic fancies, no matter what dire predictions hinge on the consequences.

And no more can Mormonism. It finds mankind located in a most beautiful world, albeit a world of phenomena, or illusions, — if you will. It finds those phenomena wonderfully and progressively related. It finds, moreover, that they are always consistent with themselves, and may be absolutely relied upon. If they vary, it is only during vast cycles, — cycles quite beyond the range of any one generation; so that the farmer plants beans absolutely without any lurking fear that the crop may turn out squash.

It finds on the other hand that man is primarily and most emphatically fitted to apprehend these phenomena, and but dimly fitted — perhaps not at all — with powers for apprehending the occult ; and to the extent that he forms harmonious correspondences with these same illusions, it finds that he grows in wisdom, power, and happiness. And so it reasons that the objects of sense proclaim their own mission — the development of man; and consequently that the experiences of this world constitute a fabric entirely worthy of religion, — especially as there is no other, save the gauze material of metaphysical dreams.

Thus it will be seen that science and Mormonism see things in this world primarily in the same way, and also reason as to the purpose of things in the same way; the one naming its product civilization, the other religion; both coinciding in the final generalization, viz: The uplifting of the human race.

(But Mormonism does not forget that "things as they are, as they have been, and as they will be " result, when interpreted by man, only in relative truth — truth subject to constant modification) Absolute truth it defines to be "things as they are, as they have been, and as they will be," when interpreted by God. And right here rises the problem of religion — the only reason, in fact, for its existence. Can man come into possession of absolute truth? In other words, can he come to look at things from God's point of view? For, if he cannot, then science is the very best religion he can have.

Here the two systems of thought divide : Science is sceptical, Mormonism confident. Briefly generalized, the teachings of Mormonism on this point are: (i) that apprehension of truth is the means whereby man is perfected (is made like unto God) ; (2) that God makes use of relative as well as of absolute truth to this end; (3) that while God's point of view might guide men in all their investigations (should God so will), the unity of His purpose respecting the race would preclude such divine guidance, save only as man directs his attention to what God would have him learn next ;

A Scientific Religion 13

(4) that relative truth, resulting from man's point of view, and absolute truth, resulting from God's point of view, are both concerned with the much contemned phenomena, or so-called illusions of our senses — such phenomena having in fact been created for no other purpose.

With this brief general statement by way of justifying the title for this book, I am ready to pass on to more specific matters in the domain alike of science and religion. While this single fundamental instance of agreement could not have convinced the reader respecting the thesis of this chapter, I hope it may have served to arouse interest in other notable instances which are to follow.

Chapter III The Mormon Conception Of God

Thou shalt have no other God before me. — Jehovah.

Let God be true, even though it make every man a liar. — Paul.

T^HE virility of religion, as an ethical modifier

1 of the human family, lies, at the last analysis, in its conception of God. Faith dynamic enough to make for the betterment of the race, must be centred in a Being that can be both loved and feared. The first requisite, therefore, is that He be a Reality, not a metaphysical abstraction; and the second, that He be a sympathetic Reality. In the words of Paul, we must first believe that He is, and next that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.

In that word "rewarder" lie summed up the foremost qualities which a live faith requires in its Divine Source. There must be felt, first of all, a relationship equivalent to that of parent and child, with all the best qualities which our own lives have taught us to associate with father and mother ; mercy, forgiveness, daily guidance, anxiety, protection, a haven of refuge on earth, and ultimately an eternal home. And we must, moreover, feel that we can safely multiply these parent-qualities as many times in effectiveness, as we conceive God to be greater than man.

On the other hand, as a salutary restrainer of evil tendencies, we must feel God to be the omnipotent creator and preserver of all things; whose omniscient eye beholds even our secret thoughts, and whose omnipresent power and spirit pervade to shape towards righteousness— or else to nullify —all the aspirations and deeds of men.

Along with this conception of God, the man whose faith is to help remove mountains (of sin) must have a conception of mankind equally definite and clear. He must feel himself categorically a child of God; differing, indeed, in degree but not in kind from his Father in heaven; potentially free, as a moral agent, and actually free, to the extent that he has emancipated himself from sin; capable of "becoming perfect as God is perfect" (Matthew v.: 48)-

Such faith, and faith in such objects, is enjoined on almost every page of Holy Writ; and as long as mankind worshipped the God in whose image (physical as well as otherwise) man was created ; who walked as a man walks, in the Garden of Eden ; who conversed with Noah as one man converses with another ; whose glorified person Moses beheld on Mt. Sinai; whose voice said in articulate words: "This is my beloved Son"; whom Stephen, the first martyr, looking into heaven, saw side by side with the risen Redeemer ; whom John the Revelator saw, seated on a great white throne, — as long, I repeat, as mankind believed actively in the Christ -type of God, their faith was a living, virile force, which shaped their daily lives in directions known peculiarly to themselves and the eye of their Maker.

Then came the expansion of Man's idea of the physical universe, and with it the mistaken demands of reason for a conception of God commensurate with the new ideas of infinitude. Greek philosophy offered such a conception. St. John's remark, that "God is a spirit," 1 was accordingly made the scriptural point of departure from the " God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob," to the God of Buddha.

Into Buddha's cold abstraction, theologians have since been trying to inject the warm qualities of Jehovah, — with what success, from an academic point of view, let the contradictions of metaphysics bear witness; with what failure in the ethical betterment of the race, let the apathy and artificiality of the so-called liberal or intellectualized churches of to-day declare !

1 This passage, the only one that could be swerved into a support of the Indo-Graechic conception of Deity, ought, in all conscience to be understood in consonance with the rest of the Bible. "God is a spirit." Well, is not Christ also — are we not all spirits? The spirit is the man — the body is merely a house. If this interpretation does not satisfy, there is still another which would leave our Father in heaven a personal being. That is to consider the passage as referring to God, the Holy Ghost.

These latter are, indeed, fine places to be "respectable" in ; for which reason they are no longer social or racial workshops. It is not here that movements affecting the destiny of the race originate, but in clubs, guilds, unions, and other secular organizations. True, they still stand on the topmost branch of the social tree, by virtue of past growth ; but the vitality of the roots is running into lower branches.1

The trouble is, that philosophic theories have supplanted the living faith. That there is left any warmth or virility of faith whatever in such creeds, is evidently owing to the fact that the God of the Bible still lingers, though in a most contradictory fashion, in the person of Jesus the Redeemer. But how long — with the Buddhist conception for a Father — will it be before Christ, too, shall be spiritualized to an essence, boundless as the universe?

1 It does not follow, however, that because a man's religion becomes perfunctory he ceases to be a factor in social evolution. Rockefeller remained an irreproachable church member, so Miss Tarbell assures us, even during the dark days when the Standard Oil Trust was incubating. In view of the part trusts are to play in future civilization, who will say now that in part, at least, the motive dominating this far-seeing man, was not the ultimate good of mankind? Be this as it may, my point is, his church was evidently not his social laboratory, nor did its atmosphere pervade his business life. It was rather a high, clean, sun-bathed mountain, to which he could retire, at intervals, from the smoke-begrimed sin-bespattered, warring life in the social valley. So far from taking religion with them down into the plains of social and economic strife, men like him would perhaps be the first to say, "Let the Church keep her place!"

Looked at superficially, the question whether God is to be regarded as a boundless spiritualized essence, or as the personal Prototype of man, would seem to be immaterial. As a matter of fact, no question could be more vital to the unity of man's conceptions. It enters into and conditions for him the whole aspect of the universe, from large to small. Let us therefore examine the question more narrowly.

The only conception that any people can possibly have of Deity, is one which comes within their mental horizon — the horizon bounded by their experience. Into His personality they will think their highest and noblest ideals. What they love most, fear most, admire most, will somehow be found among his attributes. To the extent, and in the direction, that they are civilized and enlightened, to that extent and in that direction will He be idealized.

It was therefore a profound remark of our Saviour, that to know God is to have eternal life. Xo one can know Him save as he becomes like Him. To know Him absolutely, is therefore to be perfect as He is perfect, which of course could be nothing else than eternal life.

By the same reasoning, to know Him in part is to be like Him in part, and therefore to be saved in part; or, to generalize, we are saved (i. e., we have eternal life assured unto us) no faster than we learn to know God ; in other words, no faster than we become like Him.

But becoming like Him implies a progressive means of getting ideas about Him. Let us take time to see how this thought works out in practice.

To know God is to have adequate notions of His personality in, say, five different aspects: physically, intellectually, socially, morally, and spiritually. Manifestly these notions can come to man only as God reveals them. The germ ideas respecting His personality are to be found in Scripture ; but these are meaningless, save as man thinks into them the content of his experience. The real revelation of God to man is, therefore, to be found in that which gives man experience : in life — nature — law.

If a man would have the noblest ideal of God's physical personality let him master all that is known of physiology and hygiene — and conform his own life thereto; if he would realize His intellectual personality let him become familiar with the elements of intellect in man, then calculate what must be the Intellect that could create and control a solar system, with all the myriad forms of life and being therein manifested ; if he would know God's social personality, let him study sociology, determine what qualities in man lead to love and harmony: in the home, in the state, in the nation, in the world, — and then consider that God has so mastered these laws that heaven (ideal social harmony) is His eternal habitat; and so of God's moral and spiritual personalities: to the extent that man discovers and lives moral and spiritual law,-to that extent" he will know God. )

It follows therefore from the very nature of things, that the honest man's conception of God is a progressively growing ideal. As, day by day he discovers law (truth), and especially as he conforms his life to law (obeys truth), so must his ideal of the Ordainer of law change; and let no council of ecclesiastics presume to lay an embargo on his soul, by pronouncing once for all what God is or is not.