Mormons and Catholics

I was looking for a book that would help give me a framework to understand Catholic objections to Mormon polygamy when polygamy is all over the Old Testament as a divinely sanctioned practice. The most comparable Mormon book is More Wives Than One by Kathryn Daynes. But there is already current discussions going on in the CA forums and Times and Seasons about polygamy, so lets confine the discussion (if any) to what the Dr. Buckley book is more about: development on divorce and marriage and building an argument to reform solutions to impasses created by divorce and remarriage.

This book marks the first Catholic authored book on Catholicism that I have made it completely through. I previously started reading Theology and Sanity by Frank Sheed as a mission preparation book but lost interest, as it was heavy into philosophy and I identify with this fellow Mormon engineer, and only learn enough philosophy to get by. I still remember contemplating if God can build a rock too big for him to lift, which set the stage for me to accept Blake Ostler’s maximally powerful God sometime later. While reading the classic Sheed book, everything hinged on ex nihilo creation assumptions and my thoughts on physics at the time prevented me from suspending disbelief for long. This lack of fortitude for philosophy puts me at a disadvantage in many discussions with on the ball Catholics.

I want to add some comparisons of Catholic and Mormons marital theology and make other tangents inspired by the book. To aid readers who might be only be interested in some of the topics, I will make abrupt topic changes and try to keep each topic independent of the others.

The Mormon Divorce and Marriage Guide for Dummies

To help Catholic readers to draw their own comparisons between our respective marriage doctrines, I offer some of the teachings a first year convert to the Mormon church will encounter. The main one is the third link, but the others add more contextual completeness.

Gospel Principles, Unit Eight: Family Salvation, 36: The Family Can Be Eternal, 231

Gospel Principles, Unit Eight: Family Salvation, 37: Family Responsibilities, 236

Gospel Principles, Unit Eight: Family Salvation, 38: Eternal Marriage

Gospel Principles, Unit Eight: Family Salvation, 39: The Law of Chastity, 247

To see what Mormons leaders teach about divorce, a few Ensign articles might be helpful:

David B. Haight, “Marriage and Divorce,” Ensign, May 1984, 12

“Why must one who has been married in the temple and divorced civilly be cleared by the First Presidency before he or she is permitted to go back to the temple?” Henry D. Taylor, “I Have a Question,” Ensign, Feb. 1976, 34

Note: I do not know if instructions have changed since 1976. If any Mormon bishop or someone more resourceful than I can check in on this for me, I would be very grateful.

In Luke 16:18 and 3 Ne. 12:32, we read that both the man who “putteth away” his wife and the man who marries “her who is divorced” commit adultery. What is the meaning of these scriptures? Jonathan M. Chamberlain, “I Have a Question,” Ensign, Jan. 1993, 59

Parting at Death

The main difference between the marital theologies is over whether death can break up a bond truly established by God. This tenant has rather immediate ramifications on marital practices. For example, if Catholics thought that eternal marriage was the optimal heavenly state, I don’t think they would have celebate Priests. This of course raises questions of why celibacy got established in the first place, when some elements of Jewish Christianity envisioned marriage continuing in the next life. LDS blogs have noted that Mormon rhetoric against other church’s belief or nebulous beliefs about the afterlife have been a little insensitive. One pointed out Peter Kreeft’s speculative article in Christianity Today entitled: What Will Heaven Be Like? It is worth quoting some portions:

3. Will we recognize our loved ones in Heaven?

George Macdonald answers this question with a counterquestion: “Will we be greater fools there than here?” Of course we will know our loved ones. This is a divinely designed, essential part of our joy. We are not designed to be solitary mystics, lovers of God alone, but to be, like God himself, lovers of men and women as well.

Just as Jesus on Earth loved each person differently and specially—he did not love John as he loved Peter, because John was not Peter—so we are designed to love people specially. There is no reason why this specialness should be removed, rather than added to, in eternity. Our family and special friends will always be our family and special friends. In this life a child begins to learn to love by loving mother, then father, then siblings, then pets. The concentric circles of love are then gradually expanded, but the beginning lessons are never abandoned. There is no reason to think God rips up this plan after death.

14. Do differences include sexual differences? Is there sex in Heaven?

Of course. Sex is part of our divinely designed humanity. It is transformed, not removed, in Heaven. We will be “like the angels” in “neither marrying nor being given in marriage,” according to Christ’s answer to the Sadducees (Matt. 22:30), but not in being neutered. Sex is first of all something we are, not something we do. I do not think we will be “doing” copulation in Heaven, but we will be busy being ourselves, and that includes being men and women, not genderless geldings. Vive la difference!

Polygamy

Both our traditions have to deal with God flip-flopping on sanctioning polygamy in past history and this remains part of our canonical texts. Some Catholics deal with OT polygamy as being against the natural order of things and that He granted a special dispensation for the purpose of raising up righteous posterity, vindicating the complicity of prophets, patriarchs, and kings. Alternatively, polygamy can be thought of as a lesser, sub-optimal law that since has been updated by revelation. I think both of our faiths would respond that it is necessary to obey revealed commandments, so when Catholics criticise the former Mormon practice they are really restating a stance that the final and climatic revelation has already occured in Christ’s incarnation. Additionally, Catholics could point to hardship to women, irregularities in implementations, deviances from OT patterns to question the premise that a modern revelation did in fact occur.

Revelation and Reasoning

Since the final, normative revelation has already occured, Catholics turn to philosophy to correctly interpret and systematize that revelation. Mormon tend to be anti-philosophy, however that is changing. Philosophy is something you do when your church hasn’t canonized a new revelation lately or it can be a tool for preparing for a new revelation, by studying things out in one’s mind using formal methods.

In some ways the LDS mirrors the early Christian church, when inspiration that produced scripture was in abundance. At the death of the first generation of inspired men it became much less frequent. The founder’s inspiration became canonized and became a “great body of revelation” to draw from and tackle new problems. Current leaders don’t wish to upstage revelation instrinsic in awe-inspiring foundational stories by boasting of their own (if any). Schismatics produce rival leaders claiming to either be inspired or authoratative interpretators. This further increases the awe of past inspiration, because to be Christian means to value unity, so the common ground is sought out from the older inspiration to reclaim schismatics.

I think Gordon B. Hinckley made some profound comments on perceived differences between himself and Joseph Smith in his Newsweek interview last year.

If the necessity of new scripture has decreased with time in both eras of Christianity, the necessity to use reason to tackle problems increases. In Mormonism we are gradually seeing the rise of apologists like B.H. Roberts, Hugh Nibley, Daniel Peterson and the FARMS reviewers; theologians like James Talmage, Bruce McConkie, and Robert Millet; and philosophers like Blake Ostler, David Paulsen, and Clark Goble. We see early Christianity increasingly turning to intellectuals such as Justin Martyr, Ireneaus, Tertullian, Origen, and Augustine to perform these types of functions. It will be interesting to see how Mormonism develops, but I hope we will always leave room to accept new scripture and avoid having too much pride in our ability to reason.

Augustine’s Marital Goods

Since the final, normative revelation has already occured, Catholics turn to philosophy to correctly interpret and systematize that revelation. Mormon tend to be anti-philosophy, however that is changing. Philosophy is something you do when your church hasn’t canonized a new revelation lately or it can be a tool for preparing for a new revelation, by studying things out in one’s mind. Augustine postulated three goods that form a framework for moral theorizing in regards to marriage: fidelity, offspring, and the marital bond itself. Augustine doesn’t use a concept of inherent evil, instead he thinks in terms of levels of goodness and that some options are more good than others. For example, conjugal relations to produce offspring in the absence of concupiscence is better that with it. The optimal good is embodied by the most exemplary family: Joseph and Mary enjoyed a sacramental marriage bond, did not have conjugal relations, and yet offspring was produced through divine means.

So what are the goods in Mormon marriages and how do we juggle those goods when they seem to make conflicting demands?

[note: I haven't finished my musings inspired by Timothy Buckley's book yet, so check back if you are interested in any of the below]

Ignorance and Accountability

The Body of Christ Symbolism and Marriage

John Paul II on Reunification

Oikonomia