ON THE POLITICS OF REDEMPTION1 (from a letter to my children) Studies have shown that once one has acquired the basics of one's trade or profession, getting along with people is the most striking characteristic of success in one's career. One may know more, or even perform better on the job, but if one doesn't relate well to his bosses and co-workers, others will march ahead. In this limited sense the saying that "it's not what you know, but who you know (or at least how they know you) that counts", is undeniably true. As you can see from the enclosed Letter to the Editor of Sunstone , I have without consciously intending to do so, now rounded out my philosophy which started out with my doctoral dissertation inter-relating economics and politics, to now include religion -- the entire spectrum of human life. In short, I've rediscovered what the Savior told us two thousand years ago, that getting along with your neighbor is the most important thing in life and the objective of existence. What do you know? Our exaltation as well as our economic and political success depends on loving our neighbor! Extract from letter to Editor of Sunstone: I was struck by Gerry Ensely's letter that posed the rhetorical question about "Why, if traditional Christianity is correct, God doesn't simply forgive sin in the first place without the ritual immorality of punishing a totally innocent third party in the process." (Sunstone 16:3). While Irenaeus, as quoted by Ensely, comes closer than apostate Christianity to a reasoned response, I was disappointed that there was no citation of President John Taylor's Mediation and Atonement , which formulates in somewhat poetic, but persuasively argued terms, a more complete Restoration view of why Jesus had to die. President Taylor, heroically anticipating the contributions of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, contemporary Chaos Theory, and Bell's Theorem, saw reality as probabilistic, i.e. choice determined, rather than based on Newtonian determinism -- which still rules the backwaters of science (primarily the social sciences). Taylor drew upon the peculiarly Mormon notion of a finite God existing in the same universe with other uncreated intelligences of Nature -- stars, mountains, seas, and gardens -- which were organized into higher forms by Him. In their more evolved states these intelligences may become humans and other creatures. Such intelligence is coeval with God, not his creation ("Man also was in the beginning with God. Intelligence, or the light of truth was not created or made, neither indeed can be." [D&C 93:29]). God is thus the Great Catalyst, speeding up the evolution of natural processes rather than causing them. The great purpose of creation: "Men [in the form of highly organized intelligences] are, that they might have joy." (2 Nephi 2:25). 1. Published in Suunstone Magazine (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1991, Taylor went on to argue that Nature, which following the initial creative (organizational) act had been in full harmony with God's will and purposes, reverted to quasi-chaos when Adam and Eve, God's elect children, deliberately broke his law. By this act, death -- chaos in slow process -- came into the world, requiring a voluntary act by one "like unto God", willing to sacrifice himself, though himself without sin, to redeem his sinful brothers and sisters. Only thus could the rebellious intelligent matter of nature be persuaded to trust God once again, realigning itself with his purposes -- the rebellious elements of which the earthly tabernacle of which post-Adamic man now consists, agreeing with man's imperfect spirit to permit a glorious resurrection out of regained respect for the desire of the perfect Jesus, sinless Son of God, to extend his saving grace to his less perfect brethren. Thus, viewed in John Taylor's terms, Jesus did not die to satisfy an arbitrary concept of justice, but as a calculated and unavoidable strategy of remediation , bringing rebellious nature back into compact with God and his fallen children as outlined above. Compare this to the traditional story of the politics behind the War in Heaven. Projected into the experience of the material world, redemption is thus seen as more politics, albeit a curiously Mormon materialist, quasi-pantheistic politics, than as primitive magic, or even the doctrinal mystery accepted by traditional Protestant or Catholic theology. While some may argue that there's more poetry than mathematics in President Taylor's formulation, it is nevertheless miles ahead of Irenaeus in giving intellectual content to the Atonement, and light years ahead of traditional Christianity.