Joseph Smith’s Doctrines Vindicated. II: The Existence of a Plurality of Divine Intelligences

IMPROVEMENT ERA. Vol. XIII. APRIL, 1910. No 6.

Joseph Smith's Doctrines Vindicated. BY B. H. ROBERTS.

II.

The Existence of a Plurality of Divine Intelligences-

The trend of teaching by professors in universities of America is supporting the ideas expressed by Joseph Smith in relation to Deity; not by direct affirmation, of course, but by natural impli- cation, they sustain his doctrines in relation to Deity. Let me call your attention to what the prophet taught on the subject of Deity, by quoting one paragraph from a discourse delivered by him in 1844. I think this one paragraph presents in one view the essential things the prophet had to say about God:

What sort of a being was God in the beginning? Open your ears and hear, all ye ends of the earth God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens. That is the great secret. If the veil was rent today, and the great God

who upholds this world in its orbit, and who upholds all worlds and things by his power, was to make himself visible — I say if we were to see him today, you would see him like a man in form, like yourself in all the present image and very form as a man: for Adam was created in the very fashion, image, and likeness of God, and received instructions from

4S2 IMPROVEMENT ERA. and walked and talked and conversed with him, as one man talks and communes with another. •

This doctrine met with the cry of " Blasphemy!" even more pronouncedly than the Prophet's doctrine respecting man. The general conception of orthodox Christendom in relation to God was that he was an incorporeal being, that he was without body; by which they meant that he was not matter; that he was immate- rial and without form. They adopted the old pagan idea that God was without parts, without passions; that he was without quality, as a matter of fact, if these other descriptions of him were true. What is the inevitable outgrowth of the doctrines of these professors in our universities, from what was said in part I, of this treatise? It is that there is in man a divine spirit: that man is "God manifested in the flesh." From this, the question very Do men become immortal? Are there any means naturally arises: by which men may become eternal entities — immortal individuals? If so, would they be any less incarnations of a divine spirit in their immortal state than they are now as mortals? The answer is obvious; and if only it be admitted that man may become immor- tal, then the doctrine of Joseph Smith respecting God receives strong support by necessary implication from the aforesaid teachers of the universities; for if it be true, as we now are assured it is by these "man is God made manifest;" that teachers, that "focused in the mind of man are all the dynamic forces of the uni- verse" — then truly it is that such doctrines cannot be far removed from the bold announcement of Joseph Smith, that "God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens. " To make complete the support of Joseph Smith's doctrines from the teachings of the universities, it only becomes necessary to say that the individual man persists; that he becomes as man, body and spirit, immortal. Let these declara- tions be made: The spirit in man is divine — he is an incarnation of God; man will become immortal. Say this and then the whole doc- trine of Joseph Smith, both as to man and as to God, receives per- fect support from the trend of university teachings, as repre- sented by Mr. Bolce's papers here being discussed; and there is

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no escaping that conclusion. Hold to the first proposition, namely, that the spirit of man is divine, then the question resolves itself merely into Is there such a thing as resurrection from the this:

dead for man? The Christ answers, Yes; and proclaims himelf to be the "resurrection and the life;" and the "first fruits of the resur- rection." Paul most eloquently argues for the reality of the resurrec- tion from the dead; indeed, his whole ministry had this as its

foundation. You will rememher how he argues the question in the 15th chapter of First Corinthians; wherein he masses the Chris- tian testimony for the resurrection of the Christ; and after mass- ing it he then declares that if Christ was not raised from the dead, then the faith of the Saints was vain, and men were still in their sins, andwere without hope in the world; for it is only through Christ that men might hope for the resurrection from the dead. Not only does the Christ and Paul argue for this great fact yet to be realized in man's experience, but you will find very many Christian philosophers who are arguing today for the same truth. Among these scientists is one who is among the first scientists of the English speaking people of today, Sir Oliver Lodge, who, in speaking upon the subject of the resurrection, in his

recent work, Science and Immortality, says:

It is clear that Christianity, both by its doctrines and its ceremo- nies, rightly emphasizes the material aspect of existence. For it is

founded upon the idea of incarnation; and its belief in some sort of bodily resurrection is based on the idea that every real personal existence must have a double aspect, not spiritual alone, nor physical alone, but in some way both. Such an opinion, in a refined form, is common to many systems of philosophy, and is by no means out of harmony with science.

That is the declaration of one of the foremost scientists of our day! Continuing he says:

Christianity, therefore, reasonably supplements the mere survival of a discarnate spirit, a homeless wanderer or melancholy ghost, with the warm and comfortable clothing of something that may legitimately be spoken of as a "body;'' that is to say, it postulates a supersensually appreciable vehicle or mode of manifestation, fitted to subserve the needs of terrestrial

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life;anetherialor other entity constituting the persistent "other aspect," and fulfiling some of the functions which the atoms of terrestrial matter are constrained to fulfil now. And we may assume, as consonant with or even as part of Christianity, the doctrine of the dignity and sacramental character of some physical or quasi-material counterpart of every spirit- ual essence.

In other words, Sir Oliver evidently believes in something equivalent to the resurrection of man; that there will be some sort of quasi-material substance that shall form the future cloth- ing of man's spirit, suitable to the future states of its existence and experiences. Now, my friends, the point is this: If our professors, as we see they do, insist that there is incarnate in man a divine spirit, and we get men through the veil of death, and they become immortal men, possessing immortal tabernacles, what have you here but the "superman" of the professors, or the "exalted man" of Joseph Smith's doctrine? And if we postulate for these immortals, as both Joseph Smith and the professors do, a limitless opportunity for progress and development, then indeed it is not impossible that man may approach, somewhat, even to the excel, lence of his Father and of his elder brother, Jesus Christ. This brings me to the consideration of another thought in

connection with Joseph Smith's doctrine, namely, the doctrine that there is a plurality of divine intelligences in the universe — "Lords many and Gods many," as Paul would say. It was supposed that Joseph Smith was guilty of great blas-

phemy, when he announced to the world that in the great vision of God, given to him, he beheld two personages, each resembling the other, and that they spake to him; and one said to the other, calling the prophet by name, "This is my beloved Son; hear him." Since Joseph represented that there were two divine personages —Father and Son —separate and distinct, one from the other, he was

charged with having uttered a great blasphemy. Such a statement was at variance with the orthodox conception of Deity. It had been held in the creeds of men —notwithstanding they professed belief in

God the Father, and God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit— that somehow or other the three persons of the Godhead were but one essence or substance: were but one entity, and not three sepa-

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rate and distinct personages or individuals. But if the doctrine considered in part I of this treatise be true as to the spirit

in man being divine; and if that spirit goes through the resur- rection and becomes an immortal personage —still divine what — is the result? The result must be that there are a multitude of divine intelligences; which is only another way of saying with Paul, and Joseph Smith, that there are "Lords many and Gods many." And so the inevitable result of the teachings in our uni- versities leads to the support of this doctrine that was announced to the world by the Prophet Joseph Smith, that there are a multi- — angels and arch-angels; tude of divine Intelligences in the heavens — David's "congregation of and Gods who meet in solemn councils the mighty," where God "judgeth among the Gods" — to generate the wisdom that is present through the universe that has been brought from chaos into cosmos by the wisdom and power of these divine intelligences. But as "pertaining to us," there is one God- head appointed to preside from among these Intelligences — the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. And this Godhead, or grand presidency, does preside over our world and the spheres that are associated with it: with our earth and its heavens. This doctrine of the existence of a plurality of divine Intelli- gences has further support by a very eminent professor — no less

a personage than Professor James, late of Harvard university. Within the year, his lectures before Oxford university, England, have been published, and this work bears the title A Pluralistic Universe. The outcome of Professor James' learned discussion of all the questions involved in this subject is to the effect that instead of the universe being, as he satirically speaks of it, when referring to the monistic view of it — "a solid block," it is a plur- alistic universe. One of his passages runs as follows:

I propose to you that we should discuss the question of God, without entangling ourselves in advance in the monistic assumption. Is it prob- able that there is a superhuman consciousness at all, in the first place?

When that is settled, the further question whether its form be monistic or pluralistic is in order (page 295).

This question as to their being a "superhuman consciousness" the professor decides in the affirmative as at least probable; and

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then he announces that the only way to escape from the incon- sistenciesof other theories "is to be frankly pluralistic and assume that the superhuman consciousness, however vast it may be, has itself an external envelopment, and consequently is finite" (page 311). "The line of least resistance, then, as it seems to me," he adds, "both in theology and philosophy, is to accept, along with the superhuman consciousness, the notion that it is not all-embracing, the notion, in other words, that there is a God, but that he is

finite, either in power or in knowledge, or in both at once. These, I need hardly tell you, are the terms in which common men have usually carried on their active commerce with God; and the monistic perfections that make the notion of him so paradox- ical practically and morally are the colder addition of remote pro- fessorial minds, operating in distans upon conceptual substitutes for him alone" (page 311). Professor James also explains that present day Monism carefully repudiates complicity with Spinozis- tic Monism, "in that, it explains, the many get dissolved in the one and lost, whereas in the improved, idealistic form they get pre- served in all their manyness as the one's eternal object. The absolute itself is thus represented by absolutists as having a plur- alistic object. But if even the absolute has to have a pluralistic vision, why should we ourselves hesitate to be pluralists on our own sole account? Why should we envolve our 'many' with the 'one' that brings so much poison in its train?" (Page 311). Addressing himself directly to Oxford men on the movement of late towards pluralistic conceptions of the universe, professor James says: "If Oxford men could be ignorant of anything, it might almost seem that they had remained ignorant of the great empirical movement towards a pluralistic panpsychic view of the universe, into which our own generation has been drawn, and which threatens to short-circuit their methods entirely and become their religious rival unless they are willing to make themselves its allies" (page 313). The professor also insists that by taking the system of the world pluralistically we banish what he calls our "foreignness" by which I understand him to mean our apartness from the world (i. e., universe). "We are indeed internal parts of God, and not

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external creations, on any possible reading of the panpsychic sys- tem. Yet because God is not the absolute, but is himself a part when the system is conceived pluralistically, his functions can be taken as not wholly dissimilar to those of the other smaller parts, — as similar to our functions, consequently. "Having an environ- ment, being in time, and working out a history just like ourselves, he escapes from the foreignness from all that is human, of the static, timeless, perfect absolute. * * No matter what the content of the universe may be, if you only allow that it is many everywhere and always, that nothing real escapes from hav- ing an environment, so far from defeating its rationality, as the absolutists so unanimously pretend, you leave it in possession of the maximum amount of rationality practically obtainable by our minds. Your relations with it, intellectual, emotional and active, remain fluent and congruous with your own nature's chief demands" (pages 318, 319). We have not time, of course, to enter into all the explanations and arguments that Professor James enters upon in treating this subject, but the purpose of his whole work is to establish the idea that the unity one discovers in the laws and forces of our universe, grows out of a "free harmony of individual entities;" that the absolute reality is a system of self-active beings forming a unity; and hence, he concludes the world to be 'a pluralistic

universe." With this view Professor Howison, of the University of California, agrees, if I understand him aright, in his contribu- tion to a volume on the Conception of God. And so this doc- trine of a plurality of divine Intelligences existing in the universe, as taught by our prophet, is receiving confirmation by the works and the philosophizing of some of the foremost learned men of our age and country, and, for that matter, of the world. Perhaps you will be putting to me the question: What of all this? Why discuss questions of this character? What spiritual or moral force may one gather from a contemplation of such themes? Well, in the first place, to Latter-day Saints, those who have faith in the dispensation of the fulness of times and in the Prophet Joseph Smith — does it mean nothing to you to find the inspi- rations of God in this man confirmed by the conclusions of plodding philosophers who come trailing in seventy-five years after

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the words of the prophet have gone forth to the world? After he has been denounced as charlatan, as false prophet and deceiver, for advancing the truths we have been considering — does it mean nothing to you to find that the truths which he stood for are per- meating the philosophies of men and receiving the sanction and approval of the learned? It means much to me; it gives confirma- tion to my faith; and I rejoice in the triumph that the truth is achieving. Then to all, whether Latter-day Saints or not, it seems to me that to have fixed in the mind, in the consciousness, the thought of the reality of things — the reality of God, the reality of the divine in man, the consciousness that this spirit within us is

of a divine nature, and that it is capable of attaining to some- thing really good and great— to something really worth while — to goodness, power and glory, to have that thought present to con- sciousness, as we go about the duties of life — to feel that "for a wise and glorious purpose God has placed us here on earth, " and has merely "withheld the recollection of our former friends and birth" — to be conscious of all this, I say, is to gather strength for the battle of life. To feel that we, in the essence of us, are one with God, and that he envelops us closely about by spiritual influences that we can call to our assistance — to be conscious of the fact that our life is part of God's life — to be conscious of this is to banish from us the thought of failing in life. We gather spiritual strength, and force and power to meet the responsibilities and duties of life, by contemplation of these high themes. This is the practical effect of these doctrines — we know that our life

touches the life of God; that our life is one with God's life, and this inspires to noble efforts, out of which may grow the highest and most glorious results possible to human life. (the end.)

Energy the Motive Power. The longer I live the more deeply am I convinced that that which makes the difference between one man and another— between the weak and powerful, the great and insignificant — is energy, invincible determi- nation — a purpose once formed, and then death or victory. This quality will do anything that is to be done in the world; and no two-legged creature can become a man without it. Buxton.