With regard to more comments from this:

Clark,

“I think it unfair to say LDS think the apostasy is due to Greek thought. Many people (including myself) think that one major problem is applying Greek absolutism to the concept of the Hebrew God. But the range of LDS views on apostasy is much more complex than it appears at first glance.”

Thanks for your comments. I found the links you cited interesting. Certainly, there appears to be a rich plurality of opinions on the apostasy spoken of in LDS circles. First, I would like to comment on some quotes from the article by Dave Banack (link):

“The simplest form of the narrative is that there was an original church from which something essential (doctrine, scripture, authority, priesthood, the Spirit) was lost.”

…

“Here’s the problem. Scholarship in the 20th century suggests that the original condition of Christianity in the decades following Christ’s death — the very beginning of the early church — was not any sort of essential unity but instead was radically diverse. In other words, there never was an early Christian Church, there were, at the very beginning, many different churches (and yes, I recognize that the term “church” is somewhat anachronistic in this early context, but that is sort of the point).”

…

“At some point you get early enough that the evidence no longer argues for an apostasy, it argues for the failure of an original church (from which the Christianity of later decades or centuries apostatized from) to ever be established or organized.”

“The Not-So-Great Apostasy”, February 8, 2012, By Dave Banack, (link)

I am in total agreement with the premise of this article. From my readings as well, there was no original early church. There were many sects oriented from Judaic to Helenistic to Roman and political to practical (in your words – “on the pragmatic side of the Atlantic”) to mystical. Even the texts whether canonical or not have lots of influences from and against these sects. The authorship of these texts also has major questions. It seems to me that reading a “proper origin” (arche), original church, is wishful thinking – or perhaps, ‘arche-thinking’ that must rely heavily on faith in divine authorship and not so much on the actual texts and archaeologies.

I think you may find this link interesting.

With regard to your belief in Hellenistic ‘absolutism’ and Hebrew and Dave Banck’s statement,

“Myth 2: The apostasy was caused by the hellenization of Christianity or the incorporation of Greek philosophy and culture into the teachings of the early church. [This happened a century too late to be a causal explanation.]”

I agree with Dave Banck’s assertion that the ‘apostasy’ cannot be attributed to this (as I think there was no original ‘church’ to be apostate from). However, I would suggest that you are correct that there was an incorporation of Hellenism into Christianity that vastly effected later history, I agree with Heidegger and Nietzsche that the Latin world misunderstood Aristotle on the issue of ‘absolutism’. Aristotle was not an ‘absolutist’. Maybe you could posit that idea from Parmenides and the Eleatic school (although that may be more problematic than at first glance). Plato and Aristotle argued against this school (The Parmenides, Physics). Heidegger’s earlier writings did accuse Plato of thinking the Idea in terms of a, what you might refer to as ‘absolute’, nous (mind, ratio – rationality) that was based on the reification of presence. However, even on this, he changed his mind later.

From my reading, I think the ‘absolutism’ of Judaism did get thought in terms of the reification of presence Heidegger refers to as “Platonism” (Neo-Platonism, Latin, Roman, early church fathers, etc.). In particular, I see this at the end of the first century (which is what I think Dave Banck alluded to) when the gospel of John and 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd John show up (90 to 120CE). Consider this,

“By the beginning of the Common Era, the Logos was a deeply felt and intricate part of Greek thought despite its mystical and sometimes confusing machinations. It was well established that the Logos was a divinely felt presence of God, but no philosopher could find a more practical implementation for how the Logos actually mattered to humans and their lives. The man who would provide this meaning and give personified substance to the Logos at the beginning of the Common Era was Philo.

Philo of Alexandria (30 BCE – 45 CE) introduced the concept of the Logos as an allegorical force of Yahweh. He was a Jew of the dispersion, and observed the mitzvot, yet like a lot of cosmopolitan Alexandrians of the time, worshipped the Greek gods too. Philo believed that the two worlds were not irreconciliable and the Logos was his attempt at melding Yahwism with the Greek vision of God.”

…

“Philo never explained clearly what his Logos was, but it often took on the form of the essence or divine nature of God. Philo’s Word was extremely popular among Jews and non-Jews alike, successfully splitting God into multiple personifications that pagan worshippers would later refine further from Bi- to Trinitarian concepts that we are familiar with today. We first see the application of the philosophy of the Logos in the prologue of the Gospel of John which begins by proclaiming Philo’s triumph:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God …. The same was in the beginning with God … and the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father [God].” (John 1:1-14)”

While I am not in so much agreement with this article’s notion of Greek thinking I think it is correct concerning the Greek influence of the writer of 1 John. The epistle argues against the Ebionites that were a more Judaic branch of Christianity. They thought that Jesus did not exist before Mary and the writer of 1 John seemed to want to use the synthesis of Philo between Hellenism and Hebrew to establish the divinity of Jesus by associating Jesus as the logos.

The conversion of logos into a Being named Jesus not only misunderstood Plato, Aristotle, Heraclitus (that first used the notion of the logos) but it also made Yahweh into Being from Hebrew thought. The misunderstanding of Logos as nous is central to Heidegger and Nietzsche (The Birth of Tragedy). Moreover, this confusion of Being with logos is essential for logocentrism and Derrida. Speech (rationality = consciousness of the speaker, presence, the secondary position of writing, etc.) is the ‘word of God’. I do not think postmodernism can be understood without thinking from (as against) this deification of presence even on this side of the Atlantic. This is not to favor mystification but to listen attentively to what is not said…cannot be said from correctness.

“Nietzsche has obviously some Mormon dislike due to his self-labeling himself as the anti-Christ. However I think among Mormon thinkers the view is much more positive. Many of Nietzsche’s criticisms of Christianity parallel a lot of Mormon criticisms of traditional Christianity (including the Greek Absolutism angle). Furth http://timesandseasons.org/index.php/2012/02/the-not-so-great-apostasy/er I think Mormon concepts of development make Nietzsche’s criticism of charity somewhat sympathetic to Mormons. Even Nietzsche’s concept of the superman has parallels to Mormon conceptions of deification. However there are some big differences. Nietzsche elevates power and the seeking after power in a way Mormons fundamentally reject. Further the existence of God in Mormon thought obviously undermines much of what Nietzsche does from a Mormon perspective. I think Nietzsche can have a positive place for Christians by helping clean away false ideas within Christianity.”

“The Antichrist” was NOT Nietzsche’s “self-labeling himself as the anti-Christ”. It is Nietzsche’s criticism of historical Christianity (“Jesus was the only true Christian”) – the slave morality inherited from Judaism and made into a fine art by orthodoxy. He found this extremely anti-Greek. He would NOT have excluded the LDS from this ‘slave morality’. The slave, the oppressed, the downtrodden, the care for the sick and the poor was everything Nietzsche detested in Christianity – it valued egalitarianism and democracy instead of ‘will to power’ and historically creating the master narrative (History is a tale told by the victors). Modern day neocons love Nietzsche for these reasons (I call them chest-beaters). I think the neocons are even more detestable than the slave morality of Christianity as they talk the talk but dare not walk the walk but that is another essay.

I understand the physical embodiment that LDS has for God but almost all scholars I can think of think that the antichrist and the Übermensch are not physical beings but refer to the death of God – the historical demise of the meta-language of presence, divinity, rationality, etc. and the ‘resurrection’ of another reading of the Greeks or ‘creation ex-nihilo’ (viz. nihilism).

For Nietzsche it was not about false ideas in Christianity but that Christianity ITSELF is false -in essence. It cannot be ‘redeemed’ by some kind of straining process between true and false ideas. It essentially sets the stage on which true and false can even happen AND it does it exhaustively from heresy and apostasy because Jesus WAS the only ‘true’ Christian. I think that homogenizing the text until it is sort of a new-age’y affirmation of LDS or pragmatic reading is a logocentric, canonical reaffirmation of the Greeks, Heidegger, Nietzsche, Derrida and postmodernism.

“As for your last paragraph I’m not entirely sure what you mean. One way to read Derrida is that we never can escape metaphysics. In this view the postmodern move really isn’t a move out of modernism but a recognition of the crisis of the modern world yet simultaneously how we are trapped within it. Thus Derrida’s various impossibilities.”

I agree that postmodernism is a reaction against modernism. First, modernism itself was a reaction against conservative realism (rationalism, Enlightenment, materialism and positivism – the violence of progression). Postmodernism was a reaction to modernism, structuralism, collectivism, positivism, realism, formalism and metaphysics. Yes, we can never ‘escape metaphysics’ but that does not mean it is a sort of Sartre-ean ‘no exit’ situation or a mere repetition of metaphysics – it is not an unqualified affirmation of metaphysics – there is an essential difference (differance – spatially defer and temporally deter) . It is very much like Heidegger suggesting that we have not yet learned to listen. If we simply listen to meta-language (as in the terms I previously used… resurrection, creation ex-nihilo, redeemed) and believe it as the history of ‘truth’ there is no need for postmodernism – just take the tradition as is. The ‘truths’ and their essential (essence-ing) falsities, heresies, apostacies, etc.) which must always accompany them in bi-polar oppositions (even if held as such in aufhebung…synthesis) have become impotent to the point of being ‘strange’ in postmodernism. Of course, you may think that postmodernism is not strange at all but only yet another affirmation of metaphysics (in whatever way you want to re-structuralize, synthesize, ‘pragma-cize’, winnow, etc.) but that is not an exercise in postmodernism it is only a pre-postmodern perspective dressed up in the words of postmodernism. What I was trying to say in the last paragraph was that you COULD do that in an ironic way and perhaps not simply ignore the text of postmodernism but to simply make postmodernism as part and parcel of analytic philosophy or LDS or whatever loses the radical trace that uncannily undoes the text in its inescapability.

I do not think Levinas is capable of being understood without understanding the setting adrift of metaphysics in postmodernism, Derrida, Heidegger, Nietzsche and the other reading of the Greeks.

“I should note I reject the label postmodernism but that’s primarily because of all the idiocy done under the term the last 30 years. (I don’t think Derrida ever accepted the label either)”

I think Derrida had the problem with the ‘deconstruction’ label.

I don’t think this changes what truth is. The way I read Derrida is with a strong realism and acceptance of truth. However truth is primarily the selection by greater powers (the Nietzschean move) yet trapped within a kind of perspectivism. But some statements and views can survive in a relatively unscathed way as one moves between contexts. (The graftings) So I think we have to be careful with irony. I reject the way someone like Rorty took Heidegger, Derrida and Dewey for instance. Interestingly Rorty’s wife was LDS – one of my philosophy professors in college actually home taught him. (Home teaching is a month visit within the Church to ensure people don’t have any problems they need help with, to fellowship them, and to give a short devotional message – I’ve always wished I could have heard some of those discussions with Rorty.

I think Derrida did not accept ‘truth’ or ‘realism’. It seems like you are searching for an analogous way of thinking about it but I am not sure the analogy holds – it seems to reverse the thought. I do not the ‘grafting’ is from one truth to another but between signifiers that simply point to other signifiers without any ‘thread of truth’.

To write means to graft. It’s the same word. The saying of the thing is restored to its being-grafted. The graft is not something that happens to the properness of the thing. There is no more any thing than there is any original text. (Derrida, 1972a: 389)

The graft is not a ‘proper’ understanding that leads to another ‘proper’ understanding of the text.

BTW – I agree that Christianity corrupted Greek thinking just as Greek thinking corrupted Christian thinking. As I discussed in my rejoinder to Bill Vallicella I think the fundamental error of traditional Christian theology was to see one and the same “object” for the questions of Greek philosophy (the absolute) and the questions of Hebrew faith (the interventionist God).

Agree. However, what do you mean by “the fundamental error of traditional Christian theology”? –Does this leave room for non-traditional theology, i.e., LDS, to see different ‘objects’ for Hellenistic and Hebrew as opposed to unpacking what is meant by ‘object’?

More comments from this…

Interesting…I had no idea there was a LDS faithful, continental strain at BYU. Of course, I would have believed there were continental philosophers there but without any necessary allegiance to Mormonism as Catholic Universities like DePaul have fantastic programs in continental philosophy but from my personal experience there I knew none that thought of themselves as Catholics much less do apologetics for it.

I did read some of the links you pointed me towards. It does appear that these thinkers are comfortable with Heidegger, Derrida Levinas, etc. – I did not see anything on Nietzsche though – hmm. What would LDS philosophers think of Nietzsche – he did seem to have a lot of criticisms of Christianity and postmodernists seemed to have found him essential, Heidegger in particular…and Derrida.

This brings up another point. I also read that these LDS philosophers think of the apostate church (everyone not LDS) as rooted in the paganism of Greek thought. I certainly understand the ‘Platonism’ (Neo-Platonic) of the Latin world. However, Heidegger thought of this as a corruption of the Greeks and I agree. I am sure I need not remind you of his warnings of onto-theologizing. Any kind of other start from the Greeks would certainly not be a mere replay of the history of metaphysics. Heidegger even gave up the word ‘Being’ to make sure others knew he was not making Being, God. This lapse back into the reifying of presence (meta-language of conscious, Heidegger’s early thinking of Plato’s Ideas, substance, etc.) made the nous (ratio, reason) absolute, infinite, omniscient, omnipresent, etc. -the logos, and produced the unifying canon of violence that Derrida wrote so much about. I suppose I do not think Christians were corrupt because of Greek thinking but Greek thinking was corrupted by Christianity. I think this is the direction of Heidegger and Derrida for sure. Nietzsche went much further than this in thinking of decadency, the ignoble, the ingenious manipulation of Christian sheep by their Sheppard priests, etc. (The Antichrist, Beyond Good and Evil, Zarathustra, etc.). It seems to me the whole idea of continental postmodern thinkers is that God is dead – we have totally played out that metaphysical hand historically speaking.

Certainly, we know from Of Grammatology (and Gadamer) that writing ‘supplements’ speech by overturning and playing with it from the margins. I suppose this could give one liberty to find other readings of the text that are equally absurd (from the point of view of truth) as the canonical reading. However, if the reading once again ends up affirming logocentrism wouldn’t this iteration of the text simply ignore deconstruction altogether and simply once again affirm meta-theology? I suppose it could be done in irony with postmodernism in mind. However, I fail to see how anyone could take LDS seriously if this is the case. In any case, I found it very interesting that the discussions I read were not fatally shot done by the ‘chosen’ as would have been in fundamentalism…maybe, it is so far out they do not bother with it. Anyway, let me know if there are any postmodern, Mormon congregations in Boulder Colorado – would love to check it out.

With regard to Clark’s latest comment…

“I think when one is going through the texts doing phenomenology that the phenomena ends up being the same.”

I suppose this makes me think that Derrida might think about the ‘same’ here as the im-possiblity of the ‘same’ as he does of the im-possiblity of justice. We must decide in this impossibility as if justice were possible. I suppose we must think of irreconcilables in terms of phenomena; the impossibility of a meta-language to ‘justify’ the ‘same’ and yet we must. In “The Gift of Death” Derrida writes about the “messianic without the messiah”. He calls this the secret. Apotheosis arrives as the impossible event without theosis. He thinks of death in this fashion – the gift of death is its event in the face of its impossibility. I think the almost instinctive need to think the ‘same’ as the event of meta-language is a similar ‘gift’.

I must confess I am a bit curious about you and this site…in light of what you know about the impossibility of metaphysics ( a meta-language), how do you come by Mormonism and metaphysics? I have had interesting theological discussions with Mormons but none have ever tried to think Mormonism from post-modernism…seems to me like it is a bit like a curious twilight zone episode. Is this a case of you must? If so, I wonder how your brethren respond to this approach. Is there an official church position regarding alternate philosophical approaches to Mormonism? In orthodoxy, it seems to me this would simply be deemed heresy.

With regard to this:

Clark,

Thanks for your comments. I understand your comment about older writings and certainly experience the draught of Lethe, the ever forgetful retreat from Mnemosyne, at the ancient age of 55!

I agree with much of your thought on Levinas. I also have written and thought about the middle voice in Greek and Heidegger, Levinas, and Derrida (kairos).

With regard to this,

“I think part of this is how one reads Levinas but I think Levinas also reads Heidegger a bit unfairly. (Understandably so, all things considered) To me it is much more a difference of focus and emphasis rather than denying a phenomena. To the degree ones explication of the phenomena is always conditioned by ones stance then of course you are right. To the degree there is a phenomena then I think they are getting at the same thing.”

-yes, the Nazi thing was a major ‘understandable’ difference but I think for Levinas the difference is much more fundamental and somewhat ambiguous. Levinas was fully aware that Heidegger’s early work was focused on ontology and the Greek hermeneutic. He also knew that aletheia was the alpha-privative of lethe (forgetfulness, concealment). However, as ‘phenomenology’ a certain kind of behind the scenes understanding of ‘kind’ accompanies closedness viz. the neutrality of phenomenon. The ‘it’ of phenomenon, even as concealed, already ushers in a disposition that Levinas would not want to mediate away. ‘It’ takes on a certain gnosis that already determines what is to be thought. As you know Levinas would not have any issue with the reconstitution of metaphysics – not as the privileging of the present but as the radical interruption of the Other. Heidegger’s ontology and less Ereignis still fashions a site for the ‘there’ of being that unifies (hen) as thrown and appropriates from many (polumeres – what cannot come to presence). However, this is not the Other of Levinas. With Heidegger we favor the ‘it’ over the ‘he’ or ‘she’ and according to Levinas lose the an-archic sense of Ethics. Phenomena (phainomenon – “that which appears or is seen”) is already self-referential (moreover, Kant understood noumenon, neut. passive of prp. of noein “to apprehend”) and made evident in polemus. Hegel as well thinks from neutrality as Truth viz. the Logic…perhaps, nous-centric. Levinas does not have to be believed or thought as sensible. However, I see a kind of maturity of Kierkegaard’s break with objective certainty and absolute passivity in the face of ‘my eternal happiness’ (for K.) in Levinas. Postmodernity has made the break with the metaphysics of presence but seems to me to languish in its un-deconstructed canon of neutrality. I think Derrida was fully aware of this and was fascinated with the Other. He knew the anthropomorphic was again entangled in the nous of the violence of the light but I think he could only articulate the rupture of Levinas in his later writings. The Hegelian ‘not’ neutralizes its antecedent. The Other has a face and interrupts my narcissism (and world historical Spirit).

I am not that familiar with Peirce but just curious, what do you make of Levinas’ third other and Peirce?

From the little I know I would think that Derrida does adopt semiotics. I am writing a post on Heidegger and Lacan with regard to some of these issues. I started including some of Peirce’s thought in it but realized I did not know enough about him and took it out. I would love to hear some of your observations about the post when it is done with regard to Peirce.

Santorum stated today that rights come from above (God) not man. He went on to say that health care is not a right given by God but by man (government – Obama). Let’s forget the fact that Jesus said he came for the sick and not the well and spent most of his time on Earth healing the sick and telling others to care for the sick and poor. So if health care is not from God but man and therefore, we should repeal ‘Obama-Care’ does this mean that we should have no health care? I do not think Santorum would suggest that we just let people die on the street without needed health care. So, as all good conservatives, he must think that the ‘free market’ should take care of the sick. Well, is the ‘free market’ a right given by God? If so, then I think that the ‘free market’ as a right given by God would mean that health care really is a right given by God viz. the ‘free-market’. So God does give us the right to health care but not by man by the ‘free market’. Correct me if I am missing something but isn’t this rhetoric extremely confused? And yet, all the little automatons today cheered vehemently as if they understood exactly what he was talking about – as though it made perfect ‘sense’. My question is where does the ‘sense’ reside, in the rhetoric? I would love for someone to tell me how the ‘sense’ resides in the rhetoric. From what I can gleam the ‘sense’ is not in the rhetoric but in the absolute hatred of the diabolic Obama administration. When a group hates they are bonded by that strong emotion. However, appealing to others that do not hate to join your ‘common sense’ is not effective. Santorum’s speech had no solution for health care only hatred for Obama. The choice is clear solutions or hatred.

A letter from Paul:

My religion believes in real ‘pro life’. We do not know when sub-dividing cells become human life but we do believe that cellular division at conception is NOT yet a ‘human life’ that merits legal protections. As such, our religious freedom has been trampled on by the fake ‘pro-lifers’ that mandated the government could NOT pay for abortions. The fake religion has trampled on the rights of our true religion using the power of the state. Since we know that 18 year olds are certainly human we also had our rights trampled by the state when we had to pay for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars with our tax dollars. We were forced by the state to sin against our pro-life values by paying for wars that killed our children. We also believe that criminals are human beings and capital punishment is murder by the state. Again, our tax dollars are spent on the much more expensive undertaking of the jurisprudence of capital punishment. We also believe that the human being that is alive can decide to end their life. The state will not allow euthanasia and has once again forced itself on us. The latest controversy about contraception is not really about religious freedom; it is about one arrogant religion legislating with the power the state what other religions must do.

                                                                                                                                                                                     Paul

I guess what we need to think about from Paul’s letter is that one religion’s ‘religious freedom’ may be another religion’s state oppression of religious freedom. I suppose there is a valid reason for the separation of church and state as is abundantly clear from history.