Mormonism Reveals the Divine Humanism of New Atheism

It has been said that the greatest achievement of our species would be to know ourselves. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a Hungarian psychology professor and author, has added: “And to understand ourselves — what we are made of, what motives drive us, and what goals we dream of — involves, first of all, an understanding of our evolutionary past. Only on that foundation can we build a stable, meaningful future” (xvi).

There are many visions of human potential, some “more consistent with the evolving momentum” of the universe than others (Givens 136). One religious example that can be argued constitutes a holistic paradigm on the evolutionary majesty of human intelligence, and can rationally accept New Atheism as part of a divinely anticipated ideology, can be found within the revolutionary doctrines of the Mormon Church. Understanding how Mormonism reveals the New Atheism as a divine and very much necessary friction for better birthing human potential is to understand what implications can be drawn from the history of western secularization, which, as Hart has suggested, “is nothing less than the history of human freedom itself, the grand adventure of the adulthood of the human race” (33).

Though most Mormons do not use the kind of vocabulary New Atheists often employ to describe this “grand adventure,” one imbibed on education, freedom, democracy, and individualism — in short, waking up — Mormon teachings do reflect a much more cosmically panoramic language of what it means to “grow up” that is not altogether inconsistent with New Atheism’s own fecundated narrative. Grasping these allegations will now require that I flesh out the Mormon vision of theosis.

Mormon tradition teaches the eternalism of human intelligence, which “was not created or made, neither indeed can be” (D&C 93:29). Intelligence is the oldest stuff of existence, without beginning or end, though liable to gradual, step-by-step improvements over time. In an ecumenical parallel, Harris allowed himself to entertain this point in secular terms: “Every chain of explanation must end somewhere — generally with a brute fact that neglects to explain itself. Perhaps consciousness [or intelligence] presents an impasse of this sort” (57).

From the self-existing principle of intelligence, Mormonism affirms that human beings, as embodiments of intelligence, are intended to be as independent in their sphere of existence, as heavenly beings would be in theirs (D&C 93:30). Like the process of secularization, wherein the basic questions of human existence are no longer taken for granted, this begins the lofty, almost terrifying process of making all human beings accountable for their own spiritual welfare; where we humans learn to become agents unto ourselves, and learn “to act and not just be acted upon” (Bednar). “Enlightenment means,” after all, said one philosopher, “learning to take responsibility for your own actions” (Dreyfus 140). Or in Dostoevsky’s words, we cannot expect or ask “someone to keep our conscience” (271).

Such existential responsibilities are often feared, leaving many unmoored from tradition and other sources of authority. In Mormonism, such responsibilities are empowered by the burden — the gift — of choice. “The power is in them,” reads the Mormon scripture, “wherein they are agents unto themselves,” implying that what we choose to become will ultimately grow out of principles of spiritual self-reliance (D&C 58:28). Mormon literary scholars Terryl and Fiona Givens add: “That agency, that moral independence, reveals an authentic self.” (115). The challenge, then, and the engaging opportunity, is revealed in our freedom to decide how we will live this day. From the viewpoint of western secularization, this condition implies having the resolve and courage to make of ourselves what we wish to be — self-created men and women — even if we freely choose to open ourselves to be drawn from without. “What we choose to embrace, to be responsive to, is the purest reflection of who we are and what we love,” remind the Givens (4).

Mormon doctrine approves of the ideals of Enlightenment individualism insofar as it disagrees with their full implications that teach we should necessarily resist the discipline of communal settings. Mormonism sees human autonomy best appropriated not in terms of giving pure unfettered play to our wills, but in placing cooperative bounds upon them. For “without restraint there can be no freedom at all” (Howe 96). The liberty of choice is best preserved, paradoxically, not when we conclusively ignore the weight of history or tradition. Liberty is augmented when we authentically choose to be bound within loving families and communities — work to make them better than what they currently are — thereby allowing them to “socialize, reshape, and care for [us] individuals who, if left to [our] own devices, would pursue shallow, carnal, and selfish pleasures” (Haidt 92). That is why, according to socioligist Émile Durkheim, “Man cannot become attached to higher aims and submit to a rule if he sees nothing above him to which he belongs. To free himself from all social pressure is to abandon and demoralize him.”

Insofar as there are many admirable New Atheists who do not interpret this process of secularization — that is, what we are to existentially become — as Mormons might, it necessarily implies that to live “in a secular age in the modern West is to say that even religious believers face existential questions about how to live life” (Dreyfus 21). How are we to interpret this? One way is to admit the burden of choice as inevitable, that New Atheism mandates what many religions take for granted: Freewill, in other words, allows us to function independently, to choose our own lights, wherein nothing outside of us — God, creed, text or custom — can guarantee or authoritatively determine the meaning of our existence. Each of us must decide for ourselves how to live with a sense of purpose and belonging in the world. As Nietzsche saw it, the “free spirit” in us that creates meaning in an apparent meaningless universe requires us to assume “the traditional position of God” (46, 204).

Mormon tradition affirms that the purpose of life is for humans to become fully divine, fully awake, fully autonomous grown ups immersed in, and freely bound within, divine, loving communities. Each person, no matter race, creed, or cultural background, is “divine in origin, nature, and potential” (Becoming Like God). As children of divine heritage, we are to become divine ourselves.

We are to become, religiously speaking, gods.

Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, taught that God is a glorified, exalted human who “was once as one of us,” who has a body of “flesh and bones as tangible as man’s,” and that the human family is likewise “susceptible of enlargement” (The King Follett Sermon, D&C 130:22–33). Lorenzo Snow, the fifth president of the church, declared in June of 1840 the famous Mormon couplet: “As man is, God once was; as God is, man may become.” Both God and Man, taught the apostle Parley P. Pratt, are “of one species, one race, one great family” (23). The difference between them is one of degree, not kind, since one is self-realized and the other is still awakening. In harmony with the evolving universe, divine beings and divine communities are twined in flesh and bone and are “the result of cosmic evolution spanning eons of time,” to which we ourselves are beginning partakers (Givens 135). We “have got to learn how to become Gods [our]selves,” Smith said, if we are to see the fulfillment of what religion has meant to inspire in humankind (The King Follett Sermon). Snow complemented this principle as well: Children at play who currently make mud worlds will soon develop in knowledge and power until they learn to organize worlds as gods themselves (658–59). We humans are thus striving towards a model of excellence the gods already embody.

Smith most likely understood that the evidence for such claims could not yet be comprehensively justified. The reason was not for want of imaginative explanations, but rather owing to human nature still in process unveiling itself. We are still “going from one small degree to another,” climbing a divine ladder, so to speak, which makes all final evidentiary claims currently inchoate (The King Follett Sermon). This is passably similar to when quantum physicist Max Planck claimed, “Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature [or self] because in the last analysis we are part of the mystery we are trying to solve.”

We are still becoming.

We are part of the evidence we are seeking to explain.

We, for so long enmeshed in ignorance, straining to find our place in the cosmos, cannot easily comprehend the gravity of our sacred existence. We might say we are like fish who have yet discovered water. Such capacious feelings were certainly understood by the apostle Paul: “For now we see through a glass darkly,” but, in due process of time, “then shall [we] know even as also [we are] known” (1Cor 13:12). In human terms, “we are the mystery yet to be revealed” (Givens 38). And, while many interpretations have been given to our timeless, mysterious situation, some premature, others glum, Smith understood our search for selfhood as an embryonic wrestle in discovering our higher, better selves. He states: “If [we] do not comprehend the character of God [we] do not comprehend [our]selves” (King Follett Discourse).

One of the better criticisms of religion, and theosis particularly, is its implications are too vague to understand in practical terms. Too lacking in evidence, the critics say, to have any real meaning for what future outcomes will be possible. The evidence required in holding beliefs of the caliber of Smith’s future seem different to the required evidence needed to hold claims about the present. The New Atheists rightly ask about the value of believing in such ideas, principally when Mormons themselves (like everyone else) are in the middle of an unfinished evolution and therefore in no position to evidentially grasp what will be ontologically possible in later futures. This is exactly what Harris meant when he said that some people “will leap off [the] train before it leaves the station” (Should We Be Mormons In The Matrix?).

Harris is somewhat right. Let us not fool ourselves into supposing we know the precise details of what may or may not aesthetically unfold. Let us not, as William James reminded, jump ahead of our subjective desires. But let us also not limit our imaginations to pragmatically blueprint what can and should be done here and now to interpret such possibilities. Of course, the paradox of imagination is twofold. Imagination needs constraints to give sanity and terrestrial discourse its intelligible meaning. But, believing ourselves to be chimerically impoverished is also a self-fulfilling prophecy that denies our ability to make a better world, make better selves, and to intimately feel it within our biological makeup.

Mormons who appeal to New Atheism seriously may be reminded of their pragmatic view of the world and the fulcrum of activity that characterizes their faith. Theirs is a faith that uses the evidence science is presenting to reinterpret and give new meaning to their sacred texts, as well as provoke in them a community with a “strenuous mood” of compassion (Cannon, Purpose of the Mormon Transhumanist Association). Smith actually defined faith as “the moving cause of all action,” something that empowers us to recognize potentials in ourselves, and others, yet to be developed (7). Nothing be taken on insufficient evidence, so long as members are faithfully committed to bearing each other’s burdens, working to alleviate human suffering, and striving to unfold creative and compassionate potential in their fellow neighbors. Like James Allen taught, just as the acorn sleeps in the oak, and birds in their eggs, so too does divinity await its unfoldment in humanity (“As A Man Thinketh”).

Mormons believe that when we have desires to develop our potential, or help others unveil theirs, we are having a god-like experience. We are being filled with the kind of “love,” said Smith, that is “not content with blessing his family alone, but ranges through the whole world, anxious to bless the whole human race” (History of the Church 4:227). Mormon scholar Charles Randall Paul follows: “So whoever you are — atheist, agnostic, religious — you are behaving ‘like the eternal gods’ when you act on your desire to freely and creatively [and I would add lovingly] join in common purposes with your fellow men and women” (Mormon Scholars Testify).

This is the Mormon faith in its most rational, pedestrian form.

When we consider the Mormon faith in the wake of New Atheism’s “age of reason,” we should make some attempt to understand what kind of faith the New Atheists are attacking, and to remember that, however fashionably they might caricature faith in general terms, they are selectively cherry-picking and decimating many versions of faith that Mormons would not assent to. Harris, for example, states he is only “criticizing faith in its ordinary, scriptural sense — as belief in, and life orientation towards, certain historical and metaphysical propositions” (65). Faith, construed as such, brings us back to the line dividing naturalism from supernaturalism. Harris’ position seems to instantiate a monolithic chasm between having faith in God (a supernatural and therefore unreasonable position) and having faith in Man (a natural and therefore reasonable position). In the case of Mormonism, however, no such chasm ultimately exists. For, as the Book of Mormon teaches: “When ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God” (Mosiah 2:17). In other words, there is no ultimate ontological schism between God (what we may become) and Man (what we currently are now).

For us limited mortals, this scripture — like the golden rule — reveals an attitudinal view of humanity. It imbues a kind of sacramental valence upon the human imagination — what it would mean, in other words, if we were to truly have compassion rooted in our hearts and to love our neighbors as ourselves. The scripture collapses the chasm between the godly and the humanly realms, revealing the New Atheistic proclivity for secular humanism as nothing more than a linguistic form of what Mormons would call divine humanism. This point merits some explanation. Harris, for example, has not exactly conceded the veracity of this mood, or state of mind, as Mormons do. He certainly however seems to glimpse the problem of translating our sacred perspectives into a rational tongue. In his latest book, “Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion,” Harris attempts to wrestle his own spiritual experiences into a humanistic vocabulary, claiming that if he were a Christian, Hindu or Buddhist he would undoubtedly interpret these experiences as they would, with a more mystical-divine lexicon (81–82). However, he claims he is not like his religious peers but is “simply someone who is making his best effort to be a rational human being,” and therefore will not fall prey to metaphysical predilections (Ibid).

Harris’ view will feel more familiar and natural to most, if not all, New Atheists and secular-humanists. The Mormon imagination is sympathetic to this view, in the sense of being able to understand it, but the New Atheism, contrariwise, does not return the same attitudinal response. Whereas New Atheism senses too much metaphysical baggage with equivocating terms like “humane” and “divine,” Mormons see them as just different names for the same reality. The Book of Mormon implicitly teaches this truth: Noble “hearts and minds are fixed” on different symbols, different languages, different modes of how to communicate our spiritual experiences (Randall Paul). God “speaketh unto [us] according to [our own] language, unto [our own] understanding,” for He loves all of His children, and He “knows each person will interpret differently according to their different desires and prior experiences” (2Nephi 31:3; C. Randall Paul).

That God, Shiva, Atman, Buddha, Allah — in short, whatever we might call the sacred, numinous realm — “speaks” unto us in our own language, according to our own understanding, points to the evolving language curtain that obfuscates religious and irreligious communication. This does not mean that varying textual or verbal or cultural intimations necessarily contradict the reality of the divine itself — or worse, that the divine is non-existent altogether. It means that humans, as a work-in-progress, are merely learning to grasp the same reality using different symbols. Thus, it can be said that human perceptions change and evolve — including human vocabulary — even if the divine itself remains constant. In fact, “all religions and spiritual practices,” as Harris insists, “must address the same reality” given that “all faiths have glimpsed many of the same truths” (20).

Mormonism mandates this conclusion in spite of our myriad interpretations of the divine on grounds that religious language (a kind of idol) was never meant to be taken as the truth; religious language has only ever meant to be a vehicle that points to the truth. Insofar that people from diverse religious persuasions choose to see their set of symbols as a conduit to the divine — and they thereby become involved in an intensely personal act of self-transformation as a result of those symbols — the same can be said promotes a kind of divine humanism. Harris, it seems, has merely tapped into the same liberal and humanistic assumptions as Mormons have about language when he admits “that human cognition and emotion runs deeper than [any one particular] religion” (Ibid).

In support of Mormonism’s “generous dispersal of [divine] influence beyond the reaches of a single institution,” the 1978 First Presidency, under the direction of Spencer W. Kimball, Eldon N. Tanner, and Marion G. Romney hinted at the ubiquity of divine voices throughout the ages when they released an official, worldwide, multicultural declaration stating: “The great religious leaders of the world such as Mohammed, Confucius, and the Reformers, as well as philosophers including Socrates, Plato, and others, received a portion of God’s light. Moral truths were given to them by God to enlighten whole nations and to bring a higher level of understanding to individuals” (Givens 88). The Mormon apostle Orson Whitney would go even further to support the plurality of divine voices. Other faith and secular tribes, he said, are “partners” alongside Mormons in the work of bringing theosis to life:

“God, the Father of us all, uses the men of the earth, especially good men, to accomplish his purposes…They are among the church’s auxiliaries, and can do more good for the cause where the Lord has placed them, than anywhere else…God is using more than one people for the accomplishment of His great and marvelous work. The Latter-day Saints cannot do it all. It is too vast, too arduous for any one people…We have no quarrel with [secularists]. They are our partners in a certain sense.”

If God does not exclude non-Mormons from assisting in His work, the New Atheists then, from this vantage, fixed on a specific set of rational symbols, may be seen as “partners” unaware in the work of theosis. They shed light upon those parts of the human condition that some religions may be overlooking. Joseph Fielding Smith supported the belief that divine inspiration “takes hold of the minds of men, though they know it not,” in order to more fully bring about divine purposes. The New Atheists, from a Mormon perspective, may very well be revealing their divine capitulations in their desire to “pluck the diamond from the dunghill of esoteric religion” (10). This desire leads them to continually define, redefine, rearticulate and give to the world’s varying religions a new rational outlook, even as they work to make new linguistic sense of ancient “spiritual phenomena, concepts and practices” that humans have long since struggled to articulate (7). Mormon tradition may affirm these desires as divine given that we can “combine religious titles with secular content” in order to resurrect the meaning of ancient, scriptural myths with a new secular-syntactical flavor (Cannon/West 112).

This analysis implies that for those New Atheists who avidly seek spiritual meaning in their lives can begin to take seriously the evolving potential of human beings as presented by Mormonism, and how it can be accomplished. With an intense concern for human welfare here and now, Mormons ground their metaphysical narrative into real, physical circumstances, giving flesh to theory, body to spirit, fully cognizant that their faith means nothing if they are not anxiously responding to the needs of real, everyday human beings. In this sense, Mormonism is very much like what LDS educator Lowell Bennion called “humanism in a context of faith” (The Weightier Matters of the Law). When disaster strikes across the world, for example, taking form in earthquakes, famines, hurricanes, tsunamis, oil spills and other natural evils, this human-based faith, rooted in divine conviction, marshals and deploys overwhelming humanitarian aid to authentically bless the lives of those who stand in need of comfort. Mormonism, when lived for, provides a radically exalted picture of humanity — albeit divine-humanity — without besmirching the concrete reality of what the New Atheists would propose are “compliment[s] to humanism” (Hitchens 27). If anything, Mormonism promotes a radical humanism that leverages new insights for what it means “to be divine.”

Of course, such humanistic expressions and acts of love, compassion, and moral goodness do not constitute the kind of evidence the New Atheists would want in support of the Mormon vision. As Harris has been clear to argue: No amount of love for our neighbors can lend credence to any metaphysical claim that would suggest, for example, when serving others, we are indeed enacting “divine” works (44). But again, such reasoning wedges irrelevant dualisms into the Mormon faith that sees no ultimate difference between divine and humane activities. Divine activity, for Mormons, can neither be amputated from human welfare nor “rooted in concepts and principles, detached from the realities of life” (The Religious Experience of Mormonism). Divine activity must be morally tied to the well-being of ourselves but more importantly our neighbors. The two cannot be separated. For, as The Book of Mormon emphasizes: “Every man should esteem his neighbor as himself” (Mosiah 27:4). The official online Mormon Newsroom qualifies the scripture further: “And neighbor does not just mean a fellow member of the Church. It includes everyone in our interactions with society” (Why Religion Matters: The Salt of Society).

In Mormonism, we are to be the kind of manifestations of truth that would help console and heal others, lift their burdens upon ourselves, making even the most stubborn atheist pause from wanting to throw religious diatribes. Such is the good life. But such is also the heavenly true life, representative of true character. The Book of Mormon prophet Moroni equated the quality of goodness with the concept of truth when he taught: “And whatsoever thing is good is just and true” (Moroni 10:6 italics added). To become a loving subject in truth, not just a mere observer who skillfully reasons with truth, is to become the living-divine evidence needed to actualize theosis, vested by the empirical criterion which Christ set forth in the New Testament: By their fruits ye shall know them (Matthew 7:20). The great philosopher-theologian Jonathan Edwards sanctioned the evidence for theosis in similar terms: “The degree in which our experience is productive of practice shows the degree in which our experience is spiritual and divine.”

When we understand this existential mood of Mormonism, several things become recognizable. First, we see that such expressions and charitable acts constitute a necessary connection to the Mormon conviction that all humans should be treated as gods-in-embryo — for “the worth of souls is great in the sight of God.” (D&C 18:10). And second, we begin to sense the uncanny rapport that both Mormons and New Atheists share for naturalistic monism, humanitarian charity, and the propensity for spiritual communion, thereby creating heaven in our earthly homes and communities.

In the logic of heaven building, the Mormon faith challenges its members to continually “wake up and do something more, than dream of [their] mansion[s] above.” The most important opportunities in life are not found in theorizing beyond the grave but in considering ourselves living in eternity already, “fitting ourselves, our families, our communities, to be participants in a celestial society” (Givens 112). Heaven, in one sense, is an evolutionary development that requires time for its assimilation, comprehension, and realization; in another sense, heaven can be experienced here and now, without waiting for some nebulous, future reward. Mormon historical researcher Don Bradley explains that “with each constructive act, however small, we literally contribute to the creation of heaven…each choice that makes the earth cleaner, more beautiful, more fertile, and more in tune with its own harmonious cycles participates in its transformation into heaven.” Harris’ own view of heaven would seem no different: “We are ever in the process creating and repairing a world that our minds want to be in” (16, italics added).

Mormon tradition teaches that the project of heaven requires each person to work out his or her own divine potential (Alma 60, Mormon 9:27). This does not mean that Mormons become islands unto themselves; in fact, it’s the exact opposite. Pooling their intelligence, their work ethic into a common vision, Mormons join in loving communities and use the emerging means provided already in their culture and environment to engage in good, communal, heaven-building causes (1Nephi 3, D&C 58:26–29). Mormons look to science, technology, medicine, politics, law, history, geology, astronomy, philosophy and engineering to ecumenically define and redefine, contextualize and recontextualize their own historical, spiritual, and metaphysical claims (D&C 88:70–80).

Engaging secularism in this way becomes a recursive activity, too, one that enables Mormons to continually improve upon and better articulate esoteric doctrines and prophecies, line upon line, precept upon precept (2Nephi 28:30). In fact, because Mormonism is founded upon the principle of “continued revelation,” the meaning of doctrines can forever remain open, subject to change and revision until they gradually move “in our minds across the line from supernatural to natural” (Richards, O’Brian 170–1). This kind of faith moves individuals towards deeper and deeper understanding, always keeping them open to correction in light of new paradigms until they fulfill in themselves, and in others, the measure of their embryonic potential, even as gods themselves (D&C 132:19–20). Mormon scholar Eugene England contextualized the Mormon vision of theosis (and our basic need for evidence in it) as follows:

“If it is true that we are eternal intelligences, gods in embryo who can fulfill our infinite potential only in an ever-ongoing process of perfecting the very best of what we know and find joy in — love, marriage, friendship, service, integrity, learning, pursuing beauty, creating — then it is worth every effort, every sacrifice, to engage in the process sufficiently to find out. Certainly, short of convincing evidence that such a possibility does not exist, we would be foolish to turn our energies to the much lesser options, especially those, however brave-sounding, that are content to limit our vision and responsibilities to this mortal, that is to say, material and doomed, life. So I encourage us to keep trying, however long and difficult the way.”

With a vision of what theosis can look like, the Mormon view of human potential does not pass the buck to some “vague creative force or to a creator” to account for the active experience of making theosis an existentially human endeavor, albeit a divine one (Krauss 139). We cannot “unload responsibility for our spiritual direction onto other” (62). That means that no person or even God can make real our rabbit-hole potential except ourselves. Needless to say, the philosophical implications drawn about the significance of this responsibility will not go uncontested. Whether the drive to self-actualize is a fully human or fully divine enterprise still remains a contextually misguided dichotomy, if only because such divine-human contestation reveals how indelible our cultural language games have become.

While the New Atheists will continue to question what is reasonable to believe on the basis that teachings of theosis have, and do, inspire positive transformation in the lives of people, they will also be surprised to learn that much of their intellectual philosophy has already been anticipated within the wide purview of Mormon teachings and doctrine. In essence, whatever New Atheism has countenanced as admirably human in religion will be what Mormonism has always taught is deeply divine. Whatever ethical, biological, psychological or cosmological wisdom the New Atheists believe science has delivered us, while religion has failed to deliver us, will be what Mormonism has already foreseen. To accept the contraposition of these assumptions will be to reveal how the New Atheism works unknowingly in tandem with what religions have symbolized since time immemorial, leading us to a divine humanism that will no less be existentially ours.