Darwinism’s Influence on the Mormon View of Spirits – Part II
This is Part Two in a series. Part One briefly describes the history leading up to the Nov. 1909 Doctrinal Exposition, The Origin of Man. This post will cover the Exposition itself.
In November 1909, Joseph F. Smith, John R. Winder, and Anthon H. Lund issued one of the first doctrinal statements of the time titled The Origin of Man.1 This doctrinal exposition was forged in the polemic fires of religious America’s inevitable confrontation with Darwin’s Origin of the Species, published 50 years earlier on November 24, 1859.
Given the history leading up to the Exposition and the developments at Brigham Young University at the time (see Part One), it is clear that the Exposition’s main purpose was to demonstrate the complete incompatibility of Darwin’s theory of evolution with revealed truth:
It is held by some that Adam was not the first man upon this earth and that the original human being was a development from lower orders of the animal creation. These, however, are the theories of men.
How did the Exposition go about achieving its purpose? Like Protestants and Catholics in America at the time, the authors of the statement pointed to the biblical creation account and stressed that the answer was clear: “Man was created in the image of God.” (Genesis 1:27).
Preexistence Meet Darwin
However, the Church had something that other Christians did not possess in their theological arsenal: the doctrine of a premortal existence.
In his survey of preexistence in Western thought, Terryl Givens makes the following observation: “the Mormon doctrine of preexistence is, in many regards, unique. Its origin certainly is, insofar as, unlike virtually all other versions, it did not arise out of Smith’s engagement with any particular moral, theological, or philosophical dilemma. In that regard, it is as if Mormonism propounds the solution, but isn’t sure what the question is.”2
If the preexistence was a solution seeking a theological problem, it appears to have found it in Darwinism and the battle over the origin of man. The Exposition explains:
The doctrine of the preexistence—revealed so plainly, particularly in latter days—pours a wonderful flood of light upon the otherwise mysterious problem of man’s origin. It shows that man, as a spirit, was begotten and born of heavenly parents and reared to maturity in the eternal mansions of the Father, prior to coming upon the earth in a temporal body to undergo an experience in mortality.
A structural analysis reveals that the Exposition sought to attack Darwinism on two fronts; first, by appealing to the physical creation of man, and second, by appealing to the spiritual creation of man. Not only did God create the body of man in his image, but God also created the spirit of man in his image as well. Ergo, Darwin’s theory cannot be true.
The first argument was shared with fellow Protestants and Catholics; the second argument seemed to be uniquely Mormon.
Making the Case
To make this later argument, the Exposition marshaled the strongest scripture for the notion that God created the spirits of man in his image. The Exposition would hark back to the spiritual creation passages in the 1830 Book of Moses (Moses 3:5) which passages were consistent with a preexistencist view of spirits and compatible with creation out of nothing. It isn’t surprising that this would be the scripture of choice.
In addition to the 1830 Book of Moses account, the Exposition followed Orson Pratt’s 1872 suggestion that the Book of Ether (in the Book of Mormon) teaches that God creates the spirit of man in the image of God.3 Before Pratt, there is no record of any Mormon reading the Book of Ether in this manner.
Pratt’s reasoning was as follows: Jesus Christ explains to the Brother of Jared that men are created in his image, and because Jesus Christ appears as spirit before the Incarnation, then Jesus Christ must be referring to the creation of the spirit of man in the image of the spirit of God.
After employing Moses and Ether, the Exposition further bolstered Whitney’s biological terms found in his 1882 article, Man’s Origin and Destiny, in describing man’s spiritual origins by making the link between man and God even more direct.4 Man is the “direct and lineal offspring of Deity” and “literally the sons and daughters” of God. James E. Talmage had stressed the “literal relationship” in 1901 and 1905. Talmage, along with John A. Widtsoe, and George H. Brimhall reviewed the draft of The Origin of Man, and the language of the draft is consistent with his views.
Joseph, the Book of Abraham and Uncreated Spirits
Notably absent from the Exposition is any reference to the Book of Abraham which greatly influenced Joseph’s religious thought from 1835 to his death in 1844. Furthermore, no reference would be made to Joseph’s Nauvoo revelations on the spirit of man.
In April 1844, Joseph took a ring from his finger and observed that the ring has no beginning and no ending. Joseph likened this to the immortal spirit:
I take my ring from my finger and liken it unto the mind of man, the immortal spirit, because it has no beginning. Suppose you cut it in two; but as the Lord lives there would be an end.-All the fools, learned and wise men, from the beginning of creation, who say that man had a beginning, proves that he must have an end and then the doctrine of annihilation would be true. But, if I am right I might with boldness proclaim from the house tops, that God never did have power to create the spirit of man at all. God himself could not create himself: intelligence exists upon a self existent principle, it is a spirit from age to age, and there is no creation about it.5
Joseph was repeating the doctrine taught in the Book of Abraham: “if there be two spirits,” God told Abraham, “and one shall be more intelligent than the other, yet these two spirits, notwithstanding one is more intelligent than the other, have no beginning; they existed before, they shall have no end, they shall exist after, for they are gnolaum, or eternal.” (Book of Abraham 3:18).
The Gospel of John taught that “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” In 1833, Joseph revealed that “Man was also in the beginning with God.” Joseph rocked the Christian world by suggesting that man and God were both uncreated and eternal, thus shattering God’s monopoly on eternality. This point, however, was mooted in the Darwinian controversy. Over 75 years later, Joseph’s initial revelation on God and man’s uncreated nature, was set aside to make way for the argument that spirits are created by God, essentially reconfiguring man’s relationship through a spiritual biology.
Joseph’s teachings would not serve the Doctrinal Exposition’s purposes of arguing that God creates the spirit of man in his image, and could not support its assertion that all men women are “literally the sons and daughters of Deity.” If Joseph is right and the spirit is eternal and cannot be created, it is difficult to see how a literal son and daughter relationship could be possible. For Joseph, mankind becomes sons and daughters through covenant, not through biology.
Children of God by Covenant
On January 16, 1843, one year and five months before the martyrdom of the prophet, and after Joseph revealed that spirit has substance, the Times and Seasons ran an article titled “Sons of God.”
To be a son of God, is to be born of God, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh but of God: to be related to, and be the son of God. Paul says in writing to the Galatians, “now ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus6; for as many of you as have been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ7 … and if ye be Christs, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”8 We may here pause-and ask, what we inherit? says Paul, “ye are heirs of God, and joint heirs with Jesus Christ our Lord.”9 … and hence in Gal, iv: 4-7, it is written, “But when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth his son made of a woman-made under the law10, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.11 And because ye are sons. God hath sent forth the spirit of his son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.12 Wherefore thou art no more a servant but a son; and if a son. then an heir of God through Christ.”13 …
There is a depth, a dignity and glory connected with this subject that very few have had any idea of; but when rightly understood it has a tendency to enlarge the heart, expand the capacity, to give us just, and comprehensive views of the plans of Jehovah, and it justifies the ways of God to man. Narrow prejudice and bigotry flees at its approach, and haggard superstition hides its head in shame. It was a subject upon which the apostles loved to dwell; and Paul in writing to the Galatians concerning their departure from the simplicity of the gospel,-portrays the dignity, the freedom, the blessings, and the glory of the sonship in striking and vivid colors….14
This had been Joseph’s model from the beginning.15 We become sons and daughters of God by entering into covenant with God. In fact, in the very same chapter that Orson Pratt cites to prove the spirits are created, the Lord says: “In me shall all mankind have life, and that eternally, even they who shall believe on my name; and they shall become my sons and my daughters.” (Ether 3:4).
In the Book of Moses as well, God tells Moses “Behold, thou art one in me, a son of God; and thus may all become my sons. Amen.” (Moses 6:68). Joseph has the prophet Enoch exclaiming “Behold, our father Adam taught these things, and many have believed and become sons of God. (Moses 7:1).
The doctrine of becoming children of God through covenant pervades the Book of Mormon narrative. King Benjamin explains:
And now, because of the covenant which ye have made ye shall be called the children of Christ, his sons, and his daughters; for behold, this day he hath spiritually begotten you; for ye say that your hearts are changed through faith on his name; therefore, ye are born of him and have become his sons and his daughters. (Mosiah 5:7)
The notion that we become children of God through covenant gave way to an emphasis on a kind of spiritual biology where spirits are begotten in the image of God in a premortal realm.16
Orthodoxy Forged in the Battle Over Heresy
In this way, the Origin of Man sought out elements in the Mormon corpus of scripture that would be most useful in the battle against the theory of evolution. Joseph Smith’s theology based on the Abrahamic account would not provide the necessary ammunition. The Church did not create new doctrine ex nihilo to battle the Darwinian heresy, rather it drew upon certain concepts and ideas in the wellspring of Mormon thought, bolstered and refined them, and as a result, such ideas became dominant.
The doctrine of uncreated spirits, and the doctrine of becoming sons and daughters by covenant became recessive genes in Mormonism, not extinct but decidedly dormant.
While many observers have understood the doctrinal exposition as setting forth the Church’s view on evolution, perhaps the real lasting effect of the doctrinal exposition was not to present one coherent and unified understanding of evolution, but rather to configure the Mormon understanding of the nature of spirits for generations to come.
In the next post, we will examine what happened after the Exposition.
Notes
1. “The Origin of Man.” Improvement Era, Vol. 13, No. 1. November 1909. Reprinted in the “Gospel Classics: The Origin of Man.” Ensign. February 2002.
2. Terryl Givens. When Souls Had Wings: Pre-Mortal Life in Western Thought. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009, 217. (italics added).
3. Orson Pratt, “Pre-existence of our Spirits.” Journal of Discourses, vol. 15, p. 250. December 15, 1872.
4. Orson F. Whitney, “Man’s Origin and Destiny” Contributor, Vol. 3, No. 9. June 1882.
5. Conference Minutes. Times and Seasons, Vol. 5, No. 15. Nauvoo, Illinois, Aug. 15, 1844. Whole No. 99, p. 615.
6. Galatians 3:26
7. Galatians 3:27
8. Galatians 3:29
9. Romans 8:17
10. Galatians 4:4
11. Galatians 4:5
12. Galatians 4:6; See also Romans 8:15 “For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.”
13. Galatians 4:7
14. “Sons of God.” Times and Seasons, Vol. 4 No. 5, January 16, 1843, p. 74. Like many articles in the Times and Seasons the article is not signed. Joseph was in Springfield on January 5, 1843 for an appeals before the United States Circuit Court, receiving a favorable decision. Richard L. Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), 479. Joseph arrived back in Nauvoo on January 10, 1843 and was therefore in Nauvoo at the time of publication. History of the Church, 5:247-248. The author cites approvingly from Galatians 3:26-27, 29; Romans 8:17; Galatians 4:4-7, including the term “adoption of sons.” Joseph retained this language in the JST and nothing is inconsistent with Joseph’s thought.
15. Mosiah 27:25 “yea, born of God, changed from their carnal and fallen state, to a state of righteousness, being redeemed of God, becoming his sons and daughters”; Moroni 7:26 “and by faith, they become the sons of God. 48 that ye may become the sons.”
The theme is repeated several times in the Doctrine and Covenants. D&C 11:30 “But verily, verily, I say unto you, that as many as receive me, to them will I give power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on my name. Amen”; D&C 34:3 “that as many as would believe might become the sons of God”; D&C 35:2 “I am Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who was crucified for the sins of the world, even as many as will believe on my name, that they may become the sons of God”; D&C 45:8 “but unto as many as received me gave I power to do many miracles, and to become the sons of God; and even unto them that believed on my name gave I power to obtain eternal life”; D&C 42:52 “And they who have not faith to do these things, but believe in me, have power to become my sons.”
16. It is beyond the scope of this post to detail the development of this doctrine in Mormon thought. For a good overview of this topic see Blake Ostler. “The idea of pre-existence in the development of Mormon thought.” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, 15:1 (Spring 1982): 59-78. See also Van Hale, “The Origin of the Human Spirit in Early Mormon Thought,” in Gary James Bergera, ed., Line upon Line: Essays on Mormon Doctrine (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1989), 115-125.
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sideblog – delicious
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- Doctrine & Covenants in 2013: Introduction
- Studying the Doctrines of the Gospel in the D&C; and Church History this year by Jeffrey Marsh: A response
- The Pedagogy of Sunday School (part 1)
- The Burden of Church History and its implications for Mormon History
- Relief Society Lesson: The Life and Ministry of Lorenzo Snow
- How the Early Church Made Peace with Prosperity
- Its a Destructive Life: A Critique of George Bailey
- A Reply to Nate Oman’s Reply to my Reply to His Post on Liberal Mormons and Prophetic Power or Long Live the Bloggernacle
- Another Surreply: Nate Oman responds to critiques
- Mormons and Gays
- Another Liberal Mormon’s Response to Nate Oman
- New Church Website on Same-Sex Attraction Offers Love, Understanding and Hope
- Previewing 2013: A Look Forward to Exciting Books in Mormon History
Excellent post, aquinas. Well done.
Wow this was loaded with useful and important information. I missed part I, but I’m glad I know it now. Thank you.
Adoption theology is fairly common across Christianity thanks especially to Paul. Sam is going to present on this (along with a number of other things) at MHA this spring as antecedent to Joseph Smith’s later Nauvoo cosmology and temple liturgy. Even the great Vision (section 76) taps into this idea, which was fairly well circulated in pre-Utah Mormonism.
I do think that it is important to note that, at least among Church leaders, the idea of procreative/viviparous was fairly ubiquitous by early-to-mid Utah.
Thanks for the comments everyone. J. Stapley, I look forward to hearing more about Sam’s paper.
Just discovered your blog and added it to my bookmarks.
Color me skeptical that theology develops only out of social questions. I think there was already in the air around Joseph from early on a form of pre-existence due to quasi-Platonic figures like Emerson or the various hermetic (typically quasi-Platonic) and Kabbalistic stuff. (Although I think their influence on Smith is heavily overstated by some) However the obvious place for a concept of pre-existence to develop was in the idea (present even in the Book of Mormon) of man becoming like God. The particular solution to the traditional debate over the two natures of Christ inexorably leads to man having a pre-existence if Christ did.
Clark, I appreciate the comment. I would never argue that the concept of pre-existence arose after Joseph Smith or even exclusively with Joseph Smith. See my post on Joseph Smith’s Revelations on Preexistence and Spirits. I think that would clear up a lot of misunderstanding. Also, I’m not arguing that theology develops only out of social questions, but I think it would be folly to ignore the social context that clearly plays a critical role in the evolution of religious ideas.
Like Jonathan, I’m skeptical about the idea of literally being the children of God arising in opposition to evolution. It seems to me it arose as a dominant position 30 – 40 years prior to evolution being a concern. If anything the Church was already starting to back off from too literal a reading of the biological on the spiritual by the time of JFS – primarily due to opposition to A/G and the rise of the fudamentalists. The turn to privileging the scriptures above theological teachings of GAs (for the same reasons) inexorably downplays the spirit birth teaching – even if most people still held it well into the 1970′s. (That is people still believe it, but don’t see it as quite as significant as it once was)
The other problem is Roberts who is attempting theological reconciliation of Young, Pratt and Smith (with the now more available major documents by Smith – albeit in an edited harmonized form). Roberts, arguably the focal point of some of JFS opposition with evolution, buys the idea of spirit birth. So as an opposition to spirit birth I’m not sure evolution makes much sense.
Clark, I think you are fundamentally misunderstanding my post. I’m not talking about the idea or the concept, I’m talking about the specific language used to describe the idea. These are two completely different issues. Notice my the language I’m using in my post: “The Church did not create new doctrine ex nihilo to battle the Darwinian heresy, rather it drew upon certain concepts and ideas in the wellspring of Mormon thought, bolstered and refined them, and as a result, such ideas became dominant.”
In your comment (98) on BCC, I understand you to be saying that a contextual approach is important and I couldn’t agree more. The adjective “literal” performs certain functions; it performs a type of work. Sometimes even after the work was performed it may be retained but now performs a different kind of work. Now, my understanding of the historical record is that the notion of spirit birth predated any usage of the term “literal” as a modifier for man’s relationship to God in Mormon thought. Thus, there was some kind of catalyst that prompted Mormon thinkers and preachers to employ the term “literal” to perform a certain work. When did it start and why? Identifying this catalyst, I think, is an important step in better understanding the historical development (not the origins) of doctrines relating to spirits (including spirit bodies, spirit birth, etc). I suggest that an important catalyst was the Darwinian heresy.
That is not to say that others after this event didn’t use the adjective for other purposes. One you have the language, you can use it for other purposes. It clearly was used in a polemical context against other Christian religions as well (i.e. we are literally spirit children but you are created out of nothing, our view is better than yours). In fact, Orson F. Whitney’s April 19, 1882 article titled “Man’s Origin and Destiny” this is exactly what he does.
Ah. OK. Yeah. I guess I did misread it. If you are saying only that so-called neo-Orthodoxy emphasized certain words due to its opposition (primarily BRM and JFS) to evolution I might agree. Although I think we’d have to then focus on the particular words in question. (And maybe you plan a subsequent post on that) For the broader question, when you say, “drew upon certain concepts and ideas in the wellspring of Mormon thought, bolstered and refined them” then I get a bit more nervous. I’d agree they refined them – primarily by embracing a kind of nominalism that characterizes both mid 20th century Mormonism and general 20th century American thinking. My own preferential way of characterizing this is that the philosophical background and thus context changed for the concepts leading to a kind of conceptual drift of meaning.
Of course relative to the term “literal” (which may be your primary target) I may agree. I can’t tell. I’ve agreed with much of what you said. And as I mentioned in the BCC thread I think that there has been a kind of Mormon hermeneutic to create or push a figurative reading and then take that new reading as literal. Jackson as the New Jerusalem being an obvious example. This is characteristic of many Isaiah readings of Joseph but clearly relates to other places. I don’t think this is going on during the rise of so called neo-orthodoxy though. There I think the word is primarily used as a kind of trump card. Further, as others have noted, general Protestant and Seventh Day Adventist apologetics tended to enter Mormonism with JFS. That brought in a certain linguistic tradition.
Regarding social question I certainly think it affects some ideas, although my bias is that I think most people overplay the social background as demanding questions. I think more often it’s just an obvious gap in explicit statements that leads to questions. I’m especially thinking here of some of the analysis of the Book of Mormon in light of the theological controversies of the 1820′s.
One place where I think social pressure did affect both language and theology is over the doctrine of grace. I’m pretty convinced that opposition to Protestant anti-Mormonism led Mormons to elevate works and talk less about grace, despite grace being a prominent theological doctrine. This didn’t change really until the 1980′s.
No problem. I don’t know when Mormon neo-orthodoxy arises exactly. I know the term arises with O. Kendall White and his “Mormon Neo-Orthodoxy: A Crisis Theology” (1987) and of course he borrows the term from Protestant developments. But this tends to illustrate my point. You can trace language and ideas and identify them in time. White was criticized for his usage of the term “neo-orthodoxy” not only because he was unsuccessful at identifying the “crisis” in Mormonism analogous to WWI, but also because the term was decidedly negative and brought in a whole set of connotations that simply confused the issue. When he pits “traditional Mormonism” against “Mormon neo-Orthodoxy” it’s clear which one is supposed to be the preferred version. In many cases, you need the linguistic infrastructure to move the discussion in new ways.
At this point in my post, BRM isn’t born yet and BH Roberts is just beginning to work on his historical writings for the Church. He has not yet published on the King Follet Discourse.
I don’t know that there is necessarily a significant or logical connection between literal readings of the bible and employing the term “literal” in religious discourse.
I don’t understand what you mean when you say “There I think the word is primarily used as a kind of trump card.”
I agree that the drive to systematize doctrine can also explain the extension of doctrine, but in this case, it is difficult to miss that Mormonism along with the rest of religious America is reacting to Darwinism.
I find neo-orthydoxy problematic which is why I kept qualifying it with “so called.”
What I mean by trump card is that for conservative interpreters literal is a trump card to indicate that others aren’t taking the text seriously. (i.e. they are turning to a figurative reading to avoid something they don’t like) To liberal interpreters literal is a trump card to indicate that others aren’t taking the text seriously (i.e. they are uncritically reading a text ignoring context or the like). In other words both sides use the term not in any kind of technical sense but to raise a more political sense that others aren’t serious.
Sorry, the line after that into on neo-orthydoxy got cut off by accident. I was going to say that I agreed with your comments on White but the term had more legs than I expected. It’s just odd to me that someone like Nibley and McConkie could be put under the same category. Chauncey Riddle I could see, although he’s anything but a nominalist like McConkie and Nibley is an outright Platonist.
(11) Thanks for the clarification. Just to clarify, White places Mormon neo-orthodoxy as arising in the 1960s. Nothing I say in this post (maybe not even in the next post) will enter into that time period so I’m not sure that Mormon neo-orthodoxy is relevant to the socio-historical context of the 1909 statement.
(12) Yes, I agree the scheme is odd because it places disparate people in the same group who really don’t have much in common.
Thanks for that correction. I’ve not read the paper since college and since many of the figures were my professors at the time I had a hard time taking it seriously. But that date issue is important. For some reason I had remembered him dating it more back to the Roberts/Smith debates. But I guess I was just plain misrecalling things.
All that said, while I think my comments about “trump” card probably do fit the latter movement from the 50′s onward I’m not sure they don’t fit the earlier movements. Albeit in a weaker way.
That said it still leaves open the question of why people take the reading they do (which may then be labeled as literal by proponents or foes)
Clark, I’m specifically referring to “Mormon Neo-Orthodoxy: A Crisis Theology” (1987) available online. White published a Master’s Thesis “The Social Psychological Basis of Mormon New-Orthodoxy” in 1967. He may have discussed something else there, but in his 1987 publication he does not mention the Robert-Smith debates at all. Either way, he places both Roberts and Fielding Smith in the category of “Traditional Mormonism” not in the category of “Mormon Neo-Orthodoxy” so I was completely puzzled why you raised the issue at all.
But as to why people take the literal reading, if you haven’t noticed, that actually happens to be the question I take up in my post. I’m suggesting that the battle with the Darwinian heresy is a large influence. I make my case in the original post above. Theology doesn’t occur in a vacuum. It often evolves as it responds to its surrounding ideological environment.
While Darwinism has often been considered by scholars of Mormonism in relation to how Mormonism reconciles faith and science, I have not seen any studies where Darwinism is considered a factor in the development of the Mormon view of spirits. Therefore, I believe I’m offering a novel and fresh approach to the subject matter.
Second, just to clarify something that I should have pointed out earlier, I don’t think the post of J. Stapley’s comment was that he was “skeptical about the idea of literally being the children of God arising in opposition to evolution” (which as I’ve clarified is not in fact what I’m arguing). Rather he points out the opposite, and notes that Adoption theology, which is the default position was fairly common in Christianity, pervaded early Mormonism. In fact, one is hard pressed to find any other position in Mormon scriptures and in Joseph’s sermons.
Now, what J. Stapley does point out is that “the idea of procreative/viviparous was fairly ubiquitous by early-to-mid Utah.” But I’ve never argued otherwise. I’ve never argued that the idea of premortal spirit birth all of a sudden appears out of nowhere and the Church invents it johnny-on-the-spot to deal with evolution. That would be, frankly, ridiculous (which may give you a clue as to why I don’t make that argument). I’m aware of the literature on the matter. As Ostler writes in his Dialogue article: “The view that man originated when spirit matter was organized into an individual through literal spiritual birth seems to have been the only view consistently elucidated from 1845-1905.” (p. 68).
Now, obviously, it would be illogical to argue that Darwinism was the sole cause of the idea of a “literal spirit birth” idea back in 1845. Why would that be illogical? Because that’s pre-Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859). Unless we posit Mormons are time-traveling, this would be a casual impossibility. This may give you a clue as to why I don’t take that position. So, I’m not saying Darwin is the only factor when it appears in the history, but when it appears in the history we should examine its influence not only on how Mormons think of science, but how they have developed their theological anthropology (i.e. the doctrine of man, which in Mormonism necessarily includes the preexistence and nature of spirits). Just as a reminder the title of my series is “Darwinism’s Influence on the Mormon View of Spirits.”
This series isn’t an attempt to set forth the whole history of spirit birth, as exciting and interesting as that may be, but rather as a brief outline of the history as it relates to Darwinism. As to the development before Darwinism, there are many possible reasons for original development of the literal spirit birth idea, and in the case of Brigham Young, clearly his Adam-God theology plays a major role in his theology of spirits. That seems to me without question, but it’s consistently overlooked and or ignored. Like any good scholar, I hope to build upon the work that has been done before, engage it, and offer something that extends the scholarship.
Right – that was what I meant. That my comments weren’t really disputing that larger point of your post. Sorry – I shouldn’t post late at night.
“In the next post, we will examine what happened after the Exposition.”
Did you ever get around to this and I’ve missed it? Is there more follow-up in the work re the question of Darwinism’s influence on Mormonism? Excellent two-parter, hoping for more!
raedyohed, thank you for your interest. I am still intending to wrap up this series (and the others as well). I have a little less time for writing these days but I’m happy to know people want to see the series continue. Thanks!