Mike Ashfield

Although Latter-day Saints (LDSs) typically self-identify as Christian theists, the theism of their system is disputed. A.A. Howsepian goes so far as to accuse LDSs of atheism. In response, Blake Ostler laments the parochialism of Christian theism. So, in this chapter, I begin by offering a deliberately ecumenical and expansive explication of theism as Exclusive Agential Ultimacy (EAU), according to which theism is the proposition that the ultimate or fundamental level of reality is primarily ordered by few agential sources. Next, I apply EAU to illuminate the plausible non-theism of several popular LDS theological pictures, which closely resemble paradigmatically non-theistic positions, like Eric Steinhart’s ordinal polytheism, Pure Land Buddhism, and Jainism. However, contrary to Howsepian’s contention, LDS theology is not well understood as atheistic. So, I also consider the prospects for reformulating LDS theology theistically. I argue that in several respects, an LDS theism seems likely to bear greater resemblance to African Traditional Religion, Zoroastrianism, or Manichaeism, rather than the Abrahamic traditions of which it claims to be a restoration, though not in every important respect. Finally, I argue that while LDSs qua LDSs need not care whether they are theists, LDSs qua theologians and philosophers probably should.

A number of Christian theologians and philosophers have been critical of overly moralizing approaches to the doctrine of sin, but nearly all Christian thinkers maintain that moral fault is necessary or sufficient for sin to obtain. Call this the “Moral Consensus.” I begin by clarifying the relevance of impurities to the biblical cataloguing of sins. I then present four extensional problems for the Moral Consensus on sin, based on the biblical catalogue of sins: (1) moral over-demandingness, (2) agential unfairness, (3) moral repugnance, and (4) moral atrocity. Next, I survey several partial solutions to these problems, suggested by the recent philosophical literature. Then I evaluate two largely unexplored solutions: (a) genuine sin dilemmas and (b) defeasible sinfulness. I argue that (a) creates more problems than it solves and that, while (b) is well-motivated and solves or eases each of the above problems, (b) leaves many biblical ordinances about sin morally misleading, creating (5) a pedagogical problem of evil. I conclude by arguing that (5) places hefty explanatory burdens on those who would appeal to (b) to resolve the four extensional problems discussed in this paper. So Christian thinkers may need to consider a more radical separation of sin and moral fault.