Can the Book of Mormon be a divine work as well as fiction?
Can Joseph Smith have been a Prophet of God as well as a pious fraud?
These are the toughest questions for Mormons to answer, yet I believe that the answer is YES to both questions.
Some LDS thinkers, such as Richard Bushman, certainly realize the problems with the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith, but to keep to a believing position, do not set aside the idea that the Book of Mormon *could* have been historical. Instead, they focus on it as a Divine Work, and de-emphasize literalism and historicity without fully rejecting these. They leave open literal belief — and this is probably necessary, given the way the Book of Mormon is embraced by the Church.
The problem exists in the way the Church has painted itself into a corner on Book of Mormon historicity and literalism as well as a prevailing idea that God could not work through fraudulent means, because, well, God is perfect and unchangeable.
But were did we get this idea? Unfortunately, we let the creedal definition of God prevent us from accepting the possibility that God could do divine work through a fraudulently promoted Book of Mormon and a very fallible Joseph Smith.
Here’s why, in my opinion, we cannot embrace this paradox:
1. If God is the being defined in Christian creeds, that is, an all powerful, all knowing, ever present personal entity who creates all things and intervenes in the affairs of mankind;
2. If God is a supernatural entity who operates through angels and physical visitations, magic, seerstones, dousing rods, and comes with flaming swords to instruct his prophet to practice polygamy;
3. If God is perfect and unchangeable;
4. If God cannot lie;
5. If God cannot approve of a prophet who, though pious fraud, has promoted a divine scripture…
Then, indeed, the Book of Mormon must be a literal, historical work, and the founding narrative by Joseph Smith must be true in all of its details. As well, the Lamanites must be the principal ancestors of Native Americans, and those with dark skin are reflecting God’s disfavor with their ancestors, and they can become white if they are righteous enough. Polygamy, too, must have been a divine institution, for God demanded it of Joseph Smith through an angel with a sword.
What does the evidence show?
In my opinion:
1. The God of the Christian Creeds is a reflection of neoplatonism, in that He is the Form of the Good, the One, and cannot be physical or in any way a “man.” Yet from this context, Joseph had a theophany — a “First Vision”, where he came in contact with what he later believed to be a person just like us. God cannot be both; and in fact, the Mormon idea of God departs significantly from and thus rejects the Creeds. This is the message of the 1838 First Vision account.
2. The worldview of Joseph Smith was distinctly magical — this was his reality. We realize, today, that seerstones, magic, and dousing rods are a product of the superstitious mind. Yes, people *do* have visions — manifestations of the divine within their hearts and minds, and curiously enough, this is how Joseph Smith defined “revelation” in D&C 8:1-3.
3. If God is perfect and unchangeable, then how can God once have been man like us? How, then, does an unchangeable god define himself as spirit and one being in the Torah, three-in-one in the writings of the new testament, and three distinct gods among many gods in LDS doctrine? If anything, the evidence shows that god is unpredictable, arbitrary, and capricious.
4. If we define “withholding evidence” as a kind of lie, then God does that all the time. Our scriptures show that Abraham was told to lie by God.
5. The evidence behind the Book of Mormon as a nineteenth century work is conclusive. Could some aspect of it have been historical? Perhaps, but the contradictions against historicity make any historical connection equal in probability to random chance.
Yet, if we come to understand god differently, then the narrative of the Book of Mormon as a divine work makes all sorts of sense:
1. God is a human being, exalted, sure, but human nonetheless. This human has a calling to be God, and works with us, and through us in all of our limitations, to bring to pass a divine work.
2. God operates according to natural law, according to Section 88. Thus, “revelation” and “miracles” are indeed operations of law, not of supernatural effect. Revelation itself works within the mind and heart of the revealer — not as “merely” the working of the mind, but in fact, the working of the mind is a reflection of our divine nature as eternal beings.
3. If we separate the power of god from the being of god, then Joseph Smith’s ontology makes perfect sense. The power of god — that is, according to Section 88, the working of light and natural forces according to natural law, has existed through all time. Such power is not a person — it’s law. It is what Jesus called “the Way.” A God is a being who operates in perfect harmony with the Way; or as Jesus said, “I AM, the Way, the Truth, and the Life”. How could Jesus as a man be the Way? Because, through the Atonement, he is One with this power, as he clearly reflected in John 14-17. And, as well, he challenged and prayed for us to be One in exactly the same Way he is One with the Father. A God is an emergent being, not an apriori being, thus the existence of God emerges from the Way and not the other way around.
The Way is eternal, and operates consistently for the eternities. That said, the Way, itself, is in motion — it is the essence of Change. So when we observe the Changes in nature, the seeming random chaos that to us appears arbitrary and capricious, we realize that these forces are simply impersonal. Bad things happen because that is the Way of things.
A God changes that, not by changing the course of nature, but by calling us to be divine beings in harmony with this Way. This is what it means for us to be called to be Gods and Goddesses: we harmonize ourselves with the Way, and in so doing, become One. Then, the acts of nature become part of who we are, rather than something we fight or seek to change. We change, we thrive, we grow, we live in truth, because being one with the Way, we find life and truth.
4. Since the Way is beyond our full comprehension, our understanding of the Way is emergent and progressive. We learn, line upon line, precept upon precept, in an eternal progression of knowledge and truth. Thus, Scripture is a reflection of our ancestors understanding within their own language and worldview — we can grant them this worldview without requiring them to suddenly know everything by virtue of being enlightened in their time by the Way.
5. Our Prophets, indeed our Gods, are fellow travelers along the Way. We all make mistakes, we do what we think is best, and often err — we do the wrong things for the right reasons, and the right things for the wrong reasons — all the time. Why should we hold our Prophets to a standard that just because they get the special sauce, they are suddenly infallible?
Granted, Joseph Smith stretches the credulity of what a prophet might be, given his very flawed humanity. But what if this is the point? What if knowing his humanity helps us discard the idolatry of thinking that any man can be perfectly in harmony with the Way all the time?
I believe that the non-historicity of the Book of Mormon forces us to reconsider how God works with us — and should bring us to a singular conclusion:
***God works through our Mind and Hearts ***
***in the language of our limited understanding***
Realizing this, I can accept that the Book of Mormon is both a divine work AND complete fiction. I can accept that Joseph Smith was both a Prophet of God AND a pious fraud.