Letter to a Mormon from a Realist

Dear J. D.,

Lately, I’ve been trying to learn more about LDS teachings. To be up front, as I’ve shared before, I’m a dyed-in-the-wool baptist, so my interest in LDS is just for apologetics and to better understand the viewpoint of my LDS friends.

I found it somewhat startling to see the similarities between my view of traducianism (and realism) and the LDS idea of spirit propagation.

As a reminder, I hold to traducianism (an older Christian idea that children are propagated in whole as it relates to their being–deriving both their bodies and their spirits from their parents; an idea dating back to Tertullian and Augustine, held in the 19th century by William Shedd and A. H. Strong, and held now by Albert Mohler and Millard Erickson, among others). Realism is the idea that because of traducianism, all men shared a morally responsible being in the person of Adam. In the words of Augustine, “we all were that one man.” So from this perspective, which is held by only a small minority among Christians, I was surprised to find that the LDS doctrine divides the propagation of children between the physical propagation and the spiritual propagation–with the two different sets of parents. But it seems to me as if Heavenly Father and which ever Spirit Mother He is propagating with in the case are unable to produce the physical side of the propagation and so they are using what appears to be physical surrogates. Please understand that nothing I say here is intended to be disrespectful–I’m just trying to set out these things accurately. But would you say I was far off from the truth, as you see it? Needless to say, I find the dual system to be superfluous and, as Okham would say, it “multiplies entities unnecessarily” (the simplest answer, generally, is more likely to be true). It is my belief (and I’m prepared to provide a biblical argument for it) that J. D.’s physical children are J. D.’s spirit children–and the same principle applies to all fathers and their children.

One more thought I wanted to share. I’ve heard Evangelicals say that LDS is a polytheistic religion, but I don’t think that’s accurate. According to the personal history, personal development and origin of anyone whom you define as having attained godhood, your definition of a god (or God, if you prefer) is–in the light of Evangelical theology–only a demigod. Again, I mean no disrespect whatsoever–I’m just speaking as a baptist about how LDS teaching sounds to us. To Evangelicals (such as Baptists), there are certain attributes and characteristics and truths about God that are definitional–God cannot be God without these. Omnipotence, Omniscience and Omnipresence, for example: take any of these away and you no longer have a God you are dealing with. We find in the Bible, in places too numerous to list, that God has created all things, everywhere. “The heavens display the glory of God” because as far as we can peer into them (even if we could see to the end of the universe), God has made all of it. Even time itself was created by God, who is Himself outside of time and eternally immutable. That is what God is, and it is that God who will not share His glory with anyone, but who created all things for His glory. And if you will bear with me and permit me to say it, that is the God that LDS adherents know nothing of.

Have you never wondered who created the laws relating to Eternal Progression, Priesthood, etc? LDS doctrine does have an interesting process by which all past and future move, with men becoming Gods, propagating spirit children, organizing a world, filling that world with men, and some of those men attain godhood and the process begins again (with near infinite parallel processes going on in other places in the universe). LDS goes to great lengths to explain what is and has been going on, but LDS does nothing to explain why and how it began and who created this process and these laws. And the fact that the LDS Church does not think it is the purview of religion to address this question of ultimate origin is inexplicable. That should be a primary role of religion. Common sense as well as competent reasoning begs for the answer: Who created this eternal process and put it into effect? Have you ever considered–even given that the rest of LDS doctrine is true–that there might have been some forgotten or unknown God at the very beginning who was greater than all the gods who came after him and who created the very matter and spirit out of which our universe and spirit beings have been ultimately derived? I would like to challenge you that, if such an ultimate God existed at the beginning (and reason itself demands that He must have), then the very greatness of such a God would also demand that He still exists–and the LDS Church has left Him out of the picture and is robbing Him of the glory He deserves. Instead of appropriately giving glory to such a God for what He has created, the LDS Church is ignoring Him since they have no information about Him. Therefore, I must conclude that the LDS religion is agnostic regarding God as defined in Christian theology. But again, these are just the perceptions and reasonings of a baptist. I hope you will not be offended by any of this. I think that even though we disagree on certain things, we can still discuss them in such a way as to understand each other better.

Be blessed!

Ken Hamrick

*[For more information about Christian Apologetics and how Christians should understand and respond to LDS and Mormon doctrines, I recommend Dr. James White and Alpha and Omega Ministries, to whom I am indebted.]