American Embassy, Beijing March 25, 1991 Professor Sterling McMurrin University of Utah Dear Professor McMurrin: I took a philosophy class from you at the U many years ago, but have come to your Theological Foundations of the Mormon Religion only recently. In your introduction you say it was designed to be read in conjunction with five other books, only the first and second of which were (as of 1965) still in published form. Hoping that all six may yet be republished, if indeed this had not recently occurred, I am writing to pass on a couple of ideas which came to mind as I read for the first time your Foundations. First of all, I think you distance Mormonism altogether too much from Existentialism. Existentialism has after all a deistic version. And I have come to think of Mormonism as among the varieties of Deistic Existentialism. As good existentialists, Mormons accept the world pretty much as it is and have set ourselves to live in it, accepting its imperfections and hardships as unalterable facts of nature. Unlike those who have been unable to reconcile Existentialism with a belief in God because of their inability to resolve the problem of God and Evil, Mormon doctrine accepts the "harsh, cruel world" without either rejecting God or hiding behind his inscrutability. Mormonism takes it as given that our probation here, tough though it sometimes is, is the time-proved method of selecting those who've demonstrated a capacity for self-disciplined handling of the powers of godhood without going off on tangents or trying to improve on the unimprovable (as Lucifer wanted[s] to do). At a later point you assert that Mormonism is a form of Pelagianism. Yes, and no. You yourself insist that Mormonism teaches that man cannot save himself whatever his good works. As I understand Pelagianism, he thought that good works were the stuff of salvation, while Mormonism believes that "As in Adam all men die, so in Christ shall all be made alive" without regard to their works. In a revision of your Foundations you might wish to develop the novel Mormon distinction between Salvation and Exaltation. We teach that all mankind (with the exception of the Sons of Perdition) is saved by the Grace of Christ. But whatever degree of Exaltation one may achieve is due to the good works one performs during his lifetime. So far as I am aware, Pelagius did not grasp or teach this distinction. Your treatment of Mormon materialism is classic. I've never seen a more lucid presentation of the relationship of Mormon thinking to the materialist thought of ancient Greece. I've recently run across an idea in Adler's Ten Philosophical Mistakes which might lend weight to your treatment of the important Mormon notion that there is only a difference of degree, not kind, between the spiritual and the temporal. Adler indeed has almost re-invented Joseph Smith's teaching in this regard: Says Adler: "If we assign the same mode of existence to the particles ia cyclotron and to the particles that enter into the constitution of an actual chair, the conflict between nuclear physics and the philosophical doctrine that affirms the reality of the material objects of common experience ceases to be merely an apparent conflict. It is a real conflict, and an irresolvable one, because the conflicting theories are irresolvable. But if they are assigned different modes of existence, the theories that appear to be in conflict can be reconciled. "Not only is the conflict between the view of the physical world advanced by physical science and the view held by common sense reconciled. We also reach the conclusion that the perceptible individual things of common experience have a higher degree of actual reality. This applies also to the sensible qualities -- the so-called "secondary qualities" -- that we experience these things as having. They are not merely figments of our consciousness with no status at all in the real world that is independent of our senses and minds. "With this conclusion reached, the challenge to the reality of human existence and to the identifiable identity of the individual person is removed. There can be no question about the moral responsibility that each of us bears for his or her actions." (Adler, op. cit . pp 189-90) I have at times allowed myself to wonder whether the quarks of which my physicist brother-in-law is far more knowledgeable than I -- yet who insists that all he can do is describe them in mathematical terms -- may not be the "more refined matter" of which spirits (or perhaps even intelligence ) is comprised. Adler speaks only in terms of "different modes of existence", leaving open the question whether he is talking of quarks, or some of the additional dimensions of the noumenal world about which current string physics is beginning to talk. A final point. You allude to the difference between Brigham Young and Orson Pratt over whether God is to be worshipped as a person, or whether one need adore only the perfection of his attributes. This, as you know, became a serious problem between Elder Pratt and President Young. As I have come to view it, and you may wish to consider this view for inclusion in any future edition of, this is not unlike discussions of quantum theory, i.e. whether light is a particle, a wave, or a packet. Each describes a valid view of reality. Orson insisted that it is the embodiment of moral perfection which makes God worthy of worship and adoration, not his material body. Brigham rightly considered that worshipping nominalistic concepts rather than the substantial being of Deity diminishes the importance of God's exercise as a person of Agency in the pursuit of moral excellence. And that it is God's person exercising Agency which made him worthy of worship, rather than the abstract principles he has succeeded in mastering (after all worship means "man honor" not "idea honor"). I'd have liked to have had the opportunity to sit down with the two to try to thrash out an accommodation. As a later First Presidency said about whether Priesthood had been validly conferred if the Office was bestowed before the Priesthood itself, "It is a distinction without a difference." Both Brigham and Orson had important and significant insights and each was correct in insisting that he was expressing a profound truth. Too bad they lived before the era of understanding that the Light of Truth can be both a wave and a particle. I do hope you'll re-edit and republish your Foundations -- as well as the other related works no longer in print. I'd like to read the rest of them. With all the current publishers of Mormon writings I suspect there'd be enough purchasers to cover costs for the University Press. Sincerely,