As a follow up to our chapter's cross-examination of the doctrines and theology of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (a.k.a. Mormons), I wanted to delve a little deeper into the philosophical problems with their conception of God. For proper context, please note that Latter-Day Saints believe in continued special revelation, and their leadership, whether it be their president or their apostles, speak authoritatively.
According to the Encyclopedia of Mormonism, in an article linked from the official website of the Latter-Day Saints,
All individual human spirits were begotten (not created from nothing or made) by the Father in a premortal state, where they lived and were nurtured by Heavenly Parents.…Gods and humans represent a single divine lineage, the same species of being, although they and he are at different stages of progress. This doctrine is stated concisely in a well-known couplet by President Lorenzo Snow: "As man now is, God once was: as God now is, man may be"…Out of preexisting chaos, matter unorganized, the Father created an orderly universe. Out of preexisting intelligence, he begat spirit children” [emphasis mine].1
The founder of the Latter-Day Saints, Joseph Smith, Jr., says
There is no such thing as immaterial matter. All spirit is matter, but it is more fine or pure, and can only be discerned by purer eyes; We cannot see it; but when our bodies are purified we shall see that it is all matter.2
Latter-Day Saint philosopher Blake Ostler writes,
…the Mormon God did not bring into being the ultimate constituents of the cosmos…the personal God of Mormonism confronts uncreated realities which exist of metaphysical necessity. Such realities include inherently self-directing selves (intelligences), primordial elements (mass/energy), the natural laws which structure reality, and moral principles grounded in the intrinsic value of selves…[emphasis mine].3
As even Ostler admits, such a view of God is utterly different than the historic Christian view of classical theism where God is self-existent and the ultimate cause of everything that exists other than Himself. Ironically, it is shocking how similar the Latter-Day Saint view of reality is to many modern day materialistic atheist thinkers. For example, Richard Carrier, a popular internet atheist, says in his materialistic tome Sense and Goodness without God,
Now, by "nature” we mean…nothing more than space, time, material, and physical law…if there are other materials, these would again be nothing more than mindless things populating the cosmos in just the same way as particles of matter and energy or the extension of being.…something must exist without any explanation at all, so it may as well be the multiverse [an ensemble of universes that account for all of physical reality]. For if a god can exist unexplained, with all his convenient attributes, then so can the multiverse. Both solutions leave the same questions unanswered. But we find the god hypothesis leaves far too many more questions unanswered. So we take the multiverse instead, as our ultimate 'brute fact.' In fact, the multiverse is a simpler explanation than god, because it has all those attributes of god sufficient to ground its own being and cause this universe to exist [emphasis mine].4
Aside from the "preexisting intelligence," whatever that is even supposed to mean, both the Latter-Day Saint view and Carrier's view hold that matter is eternal and accounts for its own existence as "our ultimate 'brute fact.'" Regardless of what the Bible says about this, and aside from any debate regarding big bang cosmology adequately concluding that physical reality began to exist a finite time ago, is such a view that matter exists eternally with no explanation philosophically tenable? And if not, what implications does that have on the Latter-Day Saint view of God?
I think it has been successfully argued that time cannot be past eternal. That is, if there were an infinite number of moments prior to this moment then we would never arrive at this moment since, even after passing through an infinite number of moments, there would still be infinitely more moments to pass through before arriving at this moment. William Lane Craig is perhaps the most accomplished Christian defender of this argument.5 Unbelieving scientists have argued similarly that even the multiverse must have an absolute beginning in the finite past.6 Nevertheless, the 13th century philosopher and theologian Thomas Aquinas did not think one could prove that the universe isn't infinitely old or began to exist. He didn't actually think that it was, but he simply didn't think such a conclusion could be arrived at philosophically. Thus, his metaphysics (i.e. the study of being/reality as such) as well as his arguments for God's existence grant the possibility of the universe, or matter, being eternal. I prefer Aquinas' approach because, regardless of the latest scientific findings or theories, his arguments rest on premises at a more fundamental level, things that science must take for granted to even get off the ground. The question for Aquinas is, can some eternally existing matter, universe, multiverse, or any such changeable being account for its own existence? And the answer is, no.
All material substances are composites of form and matter, and by implication, act and potency. This is the only means of making real distinctions between multiple instances of the same type of thing and the only means of accounting for change. In other words, act is simply the way X actually is, while potency is the way X potentially could be given the kind of thing X is and given that something actual acts on X to actualize that potential. For instance, a tree is potentially a pile of ash, but a potential pile of ash is not actually anything. Thus, something already actual must actualize the tree's potential to become a pile of ash. For Aquinas, something that is purely potential cannot actualize itself. As Edward Feser notes,
A potential is always a potential for a certain kind of actuality; for example, potential gooeyness is just the potential to be actually gooey. Furthermore, potency cannot exist on its own, but only in combination with act; hence there is no such thing as potential gooeyness existing all by itself, but only in something like an actual rubber ball. It is incoherent to speak of something as both existing and being purely potential, with no actuality whatsoever. But it is not incoherent to speak of something as being purely actual, with no potentiality at all [emphasis in original].7
Enter the notions of form and matter. Related to act and potency, form actualizes the potential of matter. As Thomistic philosophers George Klubertanz and Maurice Holloway say, “Substantial form is the determining and specifying principle of essence or substance. Primary (first) matter is the determinable and limiting principle of substance in material things and, thereby, is also the common subject of substantial change” [emphasis in original].8 The matter of the tree isn’t the tree itself since the matter could be many other different things, including a pile of ash. Likewise, the form of the tree (the ability to grow roots and leaves, provide shade, etc.) cannot be planted in someone's yard since it is simply an abstraction. The matter and form together constitute an actual tree and this particular tree as opposed to that particular tree.9 Furthermore, suppose the tree was cut down and burned. The pile of ash would no longer be a tree, and would thus not have the form of a tree. It would have the form of a pile of ash (form, here, is not to be confused with shape). Thus, a substantial change (as opposed to an accidental change like digging up the tree and planting it somewhere different) would have taken place from the tree to the pile of ash, yet the matter remains as that which survives the change. Any further distinctions of the wood of the tree, or its molecular structure, would simply be more combinations of form and matter at more basic levels.
In relation to the act/potency distinction, form is what actualizes matter to be the kind of thing it is. Matter in itself is pure potentiality since any actual matter just is this or that kind of matter having a specific form. It is important to note that form and matter cannot exist apart from the other in material substances, disembodied human souls and the pure forms of angels being special cases.10 Therefore, like it is possible to have act without potency, it is possible to have form without matter, but not matter without form. But in everyday material substances, form and matter do not exist outside the intellect apart from each other.11 Hence, contra Plato, forms do not exist in some abstract realm beyond us, and contra nominalism, forms are not mere conventions of the human mind but are one part of the whole of a substance which can be abstracted by the intellect so that it can be known as a universal (i.e. the “treeness” of the tree if you will).
Aside from the many rational problems with the Latter-Day Saint view of God, like whether it’s actually possible to have an infinite chain of God-begetting Gods or how any God initially self-organized from the eternal matter and intelligence, given what has been discussed, the notion of eternal matter or an eternal universe accounting for its own existence is impossible in principle, even if they exist in some necessary way.
All material substances are composites of form and matter, and by implication, act and potency, as we have seen. This is the only means of making real distinctions between multiple instances of the same type of thing and the only means of accounting for change. Taking this point into account, Feser says,
Note that prime matter cannot at any moment exist without form and a material form cannot at any moment exist without prime matter [the human soul being a special case]; they depend on each other at every moment in which they are conjoined together in a material substance. Hence the circularity inherent in explaining the existence of a material substance’s form in terms of its matter and the existence of its matter in terms of its form holds at any moment at which the substance exists, so that they require an external cause of their conjunction at any moment it exists.12
Therefore, even if matter or the multiverse exist eternally and form a complete circle of causality, if you will, there must be something outside the matter or the multiverse joining the form and matter together at every moment it exists. But that ultimate cause itself could not be a composite of form/matter or act/potency or it too would need a cause of its existence, and if it needed a cause for its existence then there must be something more ultimate causing it, ad infinitum. This is an essentially ordered casual series rather than an accidentally ordered causal series.13 That is, unlike a God begetting another spirit child that ascends to Godhood, and He begets another spirit child that ascends to Godhood, etc., and each God has independent ability to have his own son apart from the father God’s continued existence, an essentially ordered causal series means that each step in the series is simultaneously dependent on the prior member for its continued existence as what it is. It is more like music which relies on the musician.14 As the music plays, one does not ask, “What caused the music?” Rather, one asks, “What is causing the music?” Another way to think about is to consider a line of train cars, even an infinitely long line. Each train car’s potential movement is actualized by the train car in front of it. Such an infinitely long line of train cars would never actually move without something like an engine which contains actual movement to actualize the cars’ potential to move.
Like the music and train in the examples above, for eternally existing matter or the multiverse, there must be a cause who is pure actuality with no potentiality whatsoever, who’s very existence just is purely actual with no potential to be actualized, as the ontologically first member of this casual chain. Given that eternal matter or the multiverse is a composite of act/potency and form/matter neither can be the source of this essentially ordered casual series. Moreover, it will not do to continue positing more fundamental realms of material reality as the ultimate source of the constituent principles of the eternal matter or the existence of the multiverse, whether that be quarks, strings, or some basic energy, as if they constitute some type of “raw material.” Feser agrees and says, “In short, prime matter is not a kind of ‘raw material’ but the metaphysical precondition of there being raw materials in the first place; and substantial form is not some particular configuration of matter but the precondition of there being configuration, or any other attribute, in the first place.”15 Therefore, quarks, strings, basic energy, or what have you would also be form/matter and act/potency composites in need of a cause.
Could not eternally existing matter or the multiverse, or some other material entity, be pure actuality thus accounting for its own existence? Once again, we must answer no. Given that eternal matter or the multiverse (if it exists) is material and therefore limited, undergoes change, is a composed substance (form/matter composite), etc. it is impossible for either to be pure actuality and for either to have their necessity of themselves. Therefore, they would both require a sustaining cause conserving their existence at every moment they exist, and this cause could not be a composite of act and potency in need of actualization, thus this cause is Pure Act and therefore the uncaused cause of everything else that exists. As the first of the Twenty Four Thomistic Theses says, “Potency and Act divide being in such a way that whatever is, is either pure act, or of necessity it is composed of potency and act as primary and intrinsic principles.”16 To again quote Feser,
[Something that is purely actual] would depend on nothing else (e.g. matter) for its existence, since it would just be existence or being. But there could only possibly be one such thing, for there would be no way in principle to distinguish more than one. We could not coherently appeal to some unique form one such thing has to distinguish it from others of its kind, "because then it would not be simply an act of existing, but an act of existing plus this certain form"; nor could we associate it with some particular parcel of matter, "because then it would not be subsistent existence, but material existence," that is, dependent on matter for its being (DEE 4).17
While the theological implications require more time and space to work out than I have here, suffice it to say that Aquinas and many others have written thousands of pages detailing how the classical attributes of God necessarily follow from the above metaphysics. For our purposes, we can see that the Latter-Day Saint view of God is not God at all, but rather a limited being who is itself dependent on another for its very existence, and the eternal matter it is said to be made from is also dependent on another for its existence. The source of this existence is none other than the Pure Actuality of the Great I AM (Ex. 3:14). Feser concludes,
To show that an Unmoved Mover exists, then, is just to show that there is a single being who is the cause of all change, Himself unchangeable, immaterial, eternal, personal (having intelligence and will), all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good. It is, in short, to show that there is a God.18
As the source of all being other than Himself, and thus the source of all worth, He alone is worthy of our worship and He alone is rightly called God. See Eternal Matter(s) Revisted for more.
END NOTES
1. http://eom.byu.edu/index.php/God_the_Father
2. Doctrine and Convenants 131:7-8, https://www.lds.org/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/131?lang=eng
3. Blake Ostler, "The Mormon Concept of God," 67. Quoted in Francis Beckwith's Mormon Theism, the Traditional Christian Concept of God, and Greek Philosophy: A Critical Analysis, https://bearspace.baylor.edu/Francis_Beckwith/www/Sites/LDSGreek.pdf
4. Richard Carrier, Sense and Goodness Without God: A Defense of Metaphysical Naturalism (Bloomington: Authorhouse, 2005), Kindle Locations 1563-1935, Kindle Edition.
5. http://reasonablefaith.org
6. Audrey Mithani and Alexander Vilekin, “Did the Universe Have a Beginning?” http://arxiv.org/pdf/1204.4658v1.pdf (accessed May 1, 2012).
7. Edward Feser. Aquinas (Beginner's Guides) (Kindle Locations 293-297). Oneworld Publications (academic). Kindle Edition.
8. George P. Klubertanz and Maurice R. Hollowy, Being and God (New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1963), 117.
9. Aquinas (Beginner's Guides), Kindle Locations 312-314.
10. See ibid. for details.
11. Ibid., Kindle Locations 330-349.
12. Edward Feser, “Existential Inertia and the Five Ways,” American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 85, no. 2 (2011): 248. http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:5ZZSy7OXz- 4J:www.pdcnet.org/collection-anonymous/pdf2image?pdfname%253Dacpq_2011_0085_0002_0237_0267.pdf%252 6file_type%253Dpdf+%2522existential+inertia+and+the+five+ways%2522&hl=en&gl=us (accessed May 2, 2012).
13. Aquinas (Beginner's Guides), Kindle Locations 1198-1203.
14. I thank Dr. Richard Howe for this analogy.
15. Edward Feser, “ID theory, Aquinas, and the Origin of Life: A Reply to Torley,” The Edward Feser Blog, entry posted April 16, 2010, http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2010/04/id-theory-aquinas-and-origin-of-life.html (ac- cessed May 2, 2012).
16. Aquinas (Beginner's Guides), Kindle Locations 302-304.
17. Ibid., Kindle Locations 573-584.
18. Edward Feser. The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism (Kindle Locations 1929-1931). St. Augustine's Press. Kindle Edition.