To Redeem the World

Trusting in a Finite God

What does trusting in God look like? 

There are likely many ways to relate to, and gain strength from, God. Throughout life, our conception of God may change, and a comparative strength of the Restoration is that there is theological flexibility for us to creatively adapt our beliefs while still following the spirit, if not the law, of Mormon teachings. In this way theological ambiguity leaves open many doors for equally valid paths of discipleship.

 In this vein, I would specifically like to explore early Restoration teachings on the topic of divine finitude and our necessary role in the accomplishment of necessity in accomplishing his work.  

 The classical Christian understanding of humankind’s relationship to God is that humans were created ex nihilo. This entails that humans are contingent, rather than necessary, beings.  Meaning that as God is the ground of existence and, he cannot not exist, but that all of his creations could, depending on his will, at some point cease to exist.

 This existential dependence upon God, coupled with the traditional Christian understanding that, as LDS philosopher Sterling McMurrin describes, “sin attaches to humans by virtue of their humanness, the consequence of Adam’s fall,” leading either to the “loss of the gift of sanctifying grace” as Catholics interpret it, or “the depravity of man involving moral guilt” as fundamentalist Protestantism would have it—leaves humans in a difficult place. The place it leaves us in is neither, in my perspective, ennobling or empowering.

 On the other hand, in the Nauvoo period, Joseph Smith began expounding upon empowering concepts that are arguably only hinted at in the Book of Mormon—for instance, denying that the Fall was the disaster that Christianity has long asserted (2 Nephi 2:25). Banishing the concept of original sin also weakened the related concept of inherent depravity, that Mormonism was set to inherit from the era’s prevailing fundamentalist Protestant conceptions of human nature—and ambiguous passages in the Book of Mormon more in line with those conceptions (e.g. “the natural man is an enemy of God”).

 It should be noted that finite god theology (at least explicitly taught as such) is not currently emphasized in the LDS Church, which reflects the Church’s unsettled relationship with the teaching. Many LDS Church leaders have publicly pushed back on the concept, while others have found it enlightening and heartening, and written extensively on it. Nonetheless, I believe that there is value in focusing on aspects of Mormon theology that are still coming into focus. Moving beyond well-established doctrine and formulas can help us see with new eyes.

 LDS philosopher Sterling McMurrin defines a belief in a finite God it as a form of theism in which God is “described in non-absolutistic terms as a being who is conditioned by and related to the world of which he is a part and which, because it is not ultimately his creation, is not absolutely under his dominion.” This implies “that God is a being among beings rather than being as such or the ground of being, and that he is therefore finite rather than absolute.” 

 This “radical finitism” is described by American philosopher William James in the following extended thought experiment:

Suppose that the world’s author put the case to you before creation, saying: “I am going to make a world not certain to be saved, a world the perfection of which shall be conditional merely, the condition being that each several agent does its own ‘level best.’ I offer you the chance of taking part in such a world. Its safety, you see, is unwarranted. It is a real adventure, with real danger, yet it may win through. It is a social scheme of co-operative work genuinely to be done. Will you join the procession? Will you trust yourself and trust other agents enough to face the risk?”

 In such a formulation, importantly, there is still a wide spectrum of possibilities for how much power God can have. One can believe that such a God has only the power of persuasion at his disposal—making him extremely limited—or, one can believe that God still has an overwhelming amount of power, just not all power—making such a finite God effectively omnipotent.

This concept is useful and empowering in a variety of ways. One of its primary strengths is its response to what is called the problem of evil. For example, many assert that God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent. Kelly Potter frames the essential question like this: “If God were omnibenevolent, he would want to eliminate evil. If God were omnipotent, he would be able to eliminate evil. So why should there be any evil?” However, if we dispense with the notion that God is omnipotent, then not all evil that exists on Earth is not necessarily there because God let it exist, even for “soul-building” purposes (which still indirectly leave him responsible)—for one can still maintain that God is powerful while holding that there is some amount of evil that God cannot eliminate. Another of its strengths is the fact that it makes humankind’s role in accomplishing God’s work much more necessary and vital. Accepting some sense of a limited God means that there are goals that God needs to accomplish that he quite literally cannot accomplish without us.

 Adopting the view that God is, to some extent, limited—and not just because of natural laws that he cannot violate and still remain God—can prompt us to look harder for the spark of the divine (or oversoul) in the people around us. It could also lead to a greater embrace of the concept of Zion as we take seriously the small ways that they can work towards the building up of places where people live in true peace.

The despair that naturally results in observing the human capacity for selfishness and greed, and its consequences, is at least softened by glimpses of a finite God at work in individuals’ enlightened actions for common purpose and benefit. This desire to work closely for a common ideal runs deep in the LDS Church’s history. The building of roads, the digging of canals, and the striving for economic self-sufficiency in the Intermountain West through the end of the nineteenth century, all of these were framed as redemptive and essential actions—the building up of the Kingdom of God. The actions of LDS Church members today, though more dispersed and less concentrated in one geographic region, are just as vital. Working both within the LDS Church and across religious and cultural lines, we can have faith that trusting in God means first trusting in each other, and then working with each other for mutual benefit. This, I believe, is at least a part of what redeeming the world looks like. And it is this work that God cannot do alone. The literary critic Harold Bloom once wrote that what “[Walt] Whitman sang, Joseph Smith actually embodied. To be Adam early in the morning, confronting a God who had not created him, and who needed him.” What an empowering predicament to be in.