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Exploring Mormon Thought: Volume 1, The Attributes of God
In this, the first volume of a planned series of works on Mormon thought, Blake T. Ostler explores Christian and Mormon notions about God. Written for both Mormons and non-Mormons interested in the relationship between Mormonism and classical theism, his path-breaking Exploring Mormon Thought: The Attributes of God is a critique of classical theism regarding some of the central concepts that have formed the Christian understanding of God. He deals with questions of traditional philosophical theology including free will and foreknowledge, the nature of God and Christology. The approach to these questions is from the analytic philosophical tradition and includes detailed arguments relating to the coherence of Christian belief, scripture and practice. However he recognizes that religious faith is far more a product of intimacy with the divine than of ultimacy of reason, more a product of relationships than of logical necessities.
He provides an overview of the most influential Christian notions of deity, exploring themes and resources within this discourse that might be helpful to Latter-day Saint explorations. Also highlighted are various perspectives within Mormonism itself including a detailed analysis of Joseph Smith's Lectures on Faith and discussion of the thought of Orson and Parley Pratt, B. H. Roberts and John Widstoe. Earlier Mormon thought is demonstrated to have included a concept of God as a being in process. He suggests areas in which Mormon approaches to questions about free agency and God's omnipotence might suggest resolutions to some of the difficult issues that have troubled theologians and philosophers for centuries. For the first time ever Ostler formulates a systematic Mormon Christology.
554 pages, Hardcover
First published October 1, 2001
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
November 29, 2020
I read volume 2 of "Exploring Mormon Thought" a few years ago, and volume 1 is in my opinion even better. Ostler's book is very philosophical - to the point that this is not an easy or recommended read for the lay reader. Yet, and occasionally in spite of but mostly because of the sometimes lengthy logical arguments, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and recommend it to anyone who wants to delve more deeply into Mormonism from a deeper philosophical and theological perspective.
This book discusses the attributes of God using the analytic method - dissecting and arguing for the coherence or incoherence of various arguments to eventually arrive at general principles. Front and center are traditional Christian understandings of God versus an understanding of God based on process theology versus an understanding of God based on Mormon scripture. Some of the key questions are whether God is truly omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, immutable, timeless, and whether infallible divine foreknowledge is compatible with free will.
In the process, Ostler argues convincingly (at least to my mind) that the traditional Christian understanding of God as an immutable, timeless, impassible, omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent being is contrary to scripture and a corruption of original Judaic-Christian principles through their mixture with Greek philosophy. The Old and New Testaments presents a God who is affected by his interactions with humanity, who changes his mind when people repent, and who is located within this spatiotemporal world. Greek philosophy mixed with Christianity, on the other hand, resulted in a divinity of abstract philosophical perfection removed from this temporal and material world, living in an eternal present, and not influenced by our actions. The amalgamation of Christianity and Greek philosophy correlates neatly with the LDS teaching of the Great Apostasy - with the Restoration scriptures correcting these theological corruptions and pointing us back to the nature of God as found in the original Hebrew scriptures. (Interestingly, Ostler also covers the differences in understanding of the nature of God between various LDS leaders and how prior church leaders predominantly saw God as still progressing in power and knowledge. Whereas Joseph Fielding Smith and Bruce R. McConkie moved towards a more traditionalist understanding of God, in a way paralleling the move from the Hebrew understanding of God to the one informed by Greek philosophy).
Ostler spends a great deal of time arguing that infallible foreknowledge is not compatible with free will. Instead, he argues that God has "maximal" knowledge and knows all that is past and present, but does not know the future infallibly - only the potential futures and their probabilities. I find the argument of this incompatibility convincing, although I see the concept that God has maximal knowledge as a statement of belief that can be argued from the perspective of those church leaders who believed that God still progresses in knowledge. I also think that the arguments serve to show how a traditional understanding of Christianity really doesn't fit well with the concept of free will, thus making Calvinism the logical culmination of a God who knows the future infallibly.
The book is not a philosophical argument for the existence of God nor does it delve into how God intervenes in our world. Instead, the book takes for granted that there is a God, uses logic to argue for an understanding of what attributes God can or cannot logically have, and then ties these arguments into LDS scripture and the teachings of Joseph Smith. While the book therefore mostly includes extensive propositional logic, it also to some extent assumes or incorporates its arguments within an LDS understanding of divinity as consonant with LDS scripture. Surely Ostler's "Exploring Mormon Thought" series is not the final word but it is a strong rigorous foundation that engages Mormon theology at a level not often done before.
This book discusses the attributes of God using the analytic method - dissecting and arguing for the coherence or incoherence of various arguments to eventually arrive at general principles. Front and center are traditional Christian understandings of God versus an understanding of God based on process theology versus an understanding of God based on Mormon scripture. Some of the key questions are whether God is truly omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, immutable, timeless, and whether infallible divine foreknowledge is compatible with free will.
In the process, Ostler argues convincingly (at least to my mind) that the traditional Christian understanding of God as an immutable, timeless, impassible, omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent being is contrary to scripture and a corruption of original Judaic-Christian principles through their mixture with Greek philosophy. The Old and New Testaments presents a God who is affected by his interactions with humanity, who changes his mind when people repent, and who is located within this spatiotemporal world. Greek philosophy mixed with Christianity, on the other hand, resulted in a divinity of abstract philosophical perfection removed from this temporal and material world, living in an eternal present, and not influenced by our actions. The amalgamation of Christianity and Greek philosophy correlates neatly with the LDS teaching of the Great Apostasy - with the Restoration scriptures correcting these theological corruptions and pointing us back to the nature of God as found in the original Hebrew scriptures. (Interestingly, Ostler also covers the differences in understanding of the nature of God between various LDS leaders and how prior church leaders predominantly saw God as still progressing in power and knowledge. Whereas Joseph Fielding Smith and Bruce R. McConkie moved towards a more traditionalist understanding of God, in a way paralleling the move from the Hebrew understanding of God to the one informed by Greek philosophy).
Ostler spends a great deal of time arguing that infallible foreknowledge is not compatible with free will. Instead, he argues that God has "maximal" knowledge and knows all that is past and present, but does not know the future infallibly - only the potential futures and their probabilities. I find the argument of this incompatibility convincing, although I see the concept that God has maximal knowledge as a statement of belief that can be argued from the perspective of those church leaders who believed that God still progresses in knowledge. I also think that the arguments serve to show how a traditional understanding of Christianity really doesn't fit well with the concept of free will, thus making Calvinism the logical culmination of a God who knows the future infallibly.
The book is not a philosophical argument for the existence of God nor does it delve into how God intervenes in our world. Instead, the book takes for granted that there is a God, uses logic to argue for an understanding of what attributes God can or cannot logically have, and then ties these arguments into LDS scripture and the teachings of Joseph Smith. While the book therefore mostly includes extensive propositional logic, it also to some extent assumes or incorporates its arguments within an LDS understanding of divinity as consonant with LDS scripture. Surely Ostler's "Exploring Mormon Thought" series is not the final word but it is a strong rigorous foundation that engages Mormon theology at a level not often done before.
May 12, 2018
I first read second volume of Exploring Mormon Thought about 10 years ago. I came across powerful concepts that challenged my view of God and theology. In the intervening 10 years, I’ve studied the basics of theology and philosophy much more and have finally returned to these books. I now wonder what, if any thing, I took from these books the first time. Ostler does an incredible job of laying the philosophical and theological framework to evaluate Mormonism and its doctrines. He shares insights that have taken me years to develop and articulate. I don’t believe these are for everyone. And they do not represent the definitive philosophical response on Mormon thought. But they are an important contribution in the continuing dialogue about Mormon theology and highlight the unique and powerful ideas found in the faith.
May 22, 2025
4.5 stars!
This book was very thorough - which is deeply appreciated. Not super fun to read straight through though. For his other books in this series I am going to skim a lot more. He sets up a very detailed and well argued conceptual structure, but unless you’re really into analytical philosophy, it’s okay to skim the logical argumentation.
There were a few points of mild disagreement I had, and there were a few points where his a priori beliefs leaked into his rigorous arguments - but how can you not? Especially in such a great tome!
I hope this book gets picked up by more theologians - LDS theology is so wild and heretical, yet remarkably stable, fractal, and consistent.
This book was very thorough - which is deeply appreciated. Not super fun to read straight through though. For his other books in this series I am going to skim a lot more. He sets up a very detailed and well argued conceptual structure, but unless you’re really into analytical philosophy, it’s okay to skim the logical argumentation.
There were a few points of mild disagreement I had, and there were a few points where his a priori beliefs leaked into his rigorous arguments - but how can you not? Especially in such a great tome!
I hope this book gets picked up by more theologians - LDS theology is so wild and heretical, yet remarkably stable, fractal, and consistent.
September 16, 2020
4.5 ★
I would not necessarily recommend someone not trained in analytic philosophy try to read this book straight through. That said, Ostler presents many compelling arguments that the self-motivated autodidact can work through with potent conclusions for anyone interested in a systematic, coherent approach to Mormon theology.
I would not necessarily recommend someone not trained in analytic philosophy try to read this book straight through. That said, Ostler presents many compelling arguments that the self-motivated autodidact can work through with potent conclusions for anyone interested in a systematic, coherent approach to Mormon theology.
August 1, 2008
This is a book about Mormon and conventional Christian philosophical theologies. The following are some of the topics the author discusses: What does God's omnipotence entail (i.e., what is really within His power to make actual)? Are divine infallible foreknowledge and genuine human free will compatible? Was Jesus human, divine, or both? The discussion about the compatibility of infallible foreknowledge and free will was particularly interesting. The author argues that they are incompatible if God is in time, as Mormon theology seems to mandate. If time is real (the past has happened, the present is what is happening, and the future hasn't happened yet) then the future doesn't yet exist, so God cannot visually see it; He cannot see what does not yet exist. (The question could be asked, in visions are people seeing reality or not?) If humans have genuine free will then their decisions are not infallibly caused by external circumstances, and they can act out of character, i.e., character is not a perfect predictor of behavior. The author argues that God knows the past and present perfectly, and He knows all possible futures, and the probability that each of the possibilities will become actual. He also knows exactly what He will do to ensure that His purposes are fulfilled no matter what possibility becomes reality. But He does not know with 100% certainty which possibility will become actual. This does not mean that God is not omniscient. If it is impossible to know the future infallibly then omniscience does not entail infallible foreknowledge. It only entails knowing everything that is knowable. An analogy regarding God's omnipotence may be helpful here: even though God can't change the past He is still omnipotent, for it is impossible to change the past. The author obviously goes into much more detail. Whether you agree or not, the book is very interesting and insightful.
July 12, 2009
Taking Theology Seriously
I can't imaging granting 5 stars to any book on theology: there can be no devotional value in a critical dissection of divinity, and no intellectual sport in purely semantic speculation.
Yet Blake Ostler's heavy book Exploring Mormon Thought: The Attributes of God is a positive contribution to Christian intellectuals and students of comparative religion. The author presents a thorough and evenhanded survey of Christian intellectual conceptions of the nature of God and the relevance of all the Hellenistic absolutes (omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, timelessness, and impassivity). And with a relatively light touch, he positions Mormon conceptions of Deity and Christology within the spectrum of Christian thought.
As a faithful Mormon intellectual, I can confirm that Ostler's portrayal of Mormonism is authentic.
My only gripe is that in the one topic about which I can claim expertise (the temporal implications of Relativity) Ostler butchers his facts. But as Abraham said, between physicists and theologians there is a great gulf fixed . . .
I can't imaging granting 5 stars to any book on theology: there can be no devotional value in a critical dissection of divinity, and no intellectual sport in purely semantic speculation.
Yet Blake Ostler's heavy book Exploring Mormon Thought: The Attributes of God is a positive contribution to Christian intellectuals and students of comparative religion. The author presents a thorough and evenhanded survey of Christian intellectual conceptions of the nature of God and the relevance of all the Hellenistic absolutes (omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience, timelessness, and impassivity). And with a relatively light touch, he positions Mormon conceptions of Deity and Christology within the spectrum of Christian thought.
As a faithful Mormon intellectual, I can confirm that Ostler's portrayal of Mormonism is authentic.
My only gripe is that in the one topic about which I can claim expertise (the temporal implications of Relativity) Ostler butchers his facts. But as Abraham said, between physicists and theologians there is a great gulf fixed . . .
March 4, 2014
Blake Ostler tackles the standard and historic Christian schools of thought regarding the attributes of God and then places the teachings of the LDS church in context. Though Ostler does not speak in any official capacity for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I appreciate his insights into the characteristics and properties of the Godhead, both as a united trinity and as separate individuals. He makes me happy to belong to what I consider to be a living church with continuing revelation.
I read Ostler in the mornings with breakfast and quite often his words have more calories than my food. This is really heady stuff for someone without a background in logic or philosophy (such as myself), but I enjoy so much being able to start my day with such high and holy thoughts as he evokes.
I am eager to begin the second volume.
I read Ostler in the mornings with breakfast and quite often his words have more calories than my food. This is really heady stuff for someone without a background in logic or philosophy (such as myself), but I enjoy so much being able to start my day with such high and holy thoughts as he evokes.
I am eager to begin the second volume.
March 29, 2009
This book convinced me that freewill is incompatible with both determinism and with foreknowledge. This is my favorite volume of the series. Ostler is the first Mormon writer to situate Mormon theology within the larger world of philosophical thought, making the series very important for anyone interested in Mormon philosophy and theology.
September 3, 2009
Very heavy reading. Very heavy reading. Did I already say that? But plenty of food for thought- it will tax your logical reasoning capacity. It is profound because it looks at virtually every angle of the title subject.
April 11, 2012
One of the deepest doctrinal books I've ever read.
June 3, 2013
This is a thick book. Takes a while to get through, but the content is wonderful and very well thought out.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews