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(Selections of the following e-mail was leaked from Cassius University and circulated on the FAIR Skinny-L. Because of our strict policy of transparency, the e-mail in its entirety is now being published.)

Dearest Daniel,

It is your favorite correspondent, Alfonsy Stakhanovite, writing to you from within the bowels of the Brutus Rectory here on the sunny campus of Cassius University. I just happen to find myself sitting among the books, journals, manuscripts, fragments, and other bric-à-brac that make up the Borgesian Archives of Moral Science, pondering your latest cinematic triumph. I know, I know, the designation of the Archives is unwieldy and also terribly dated. I just couldn’t help myself. Truly the story of how I got funding comes straight out of the cowboy years of F.A.R.M.S. You know what I speak of, back during the early to mid 90s when the world made more sense to us than it does now and the Evangelicals never saw you coming.

The real credit belongs to our mutual friend, the noble caretaker of the Rectory, Most Reverend Kishkumen. I had enlisted the aid of Dean Robbers to lobby the Board of Trustees on my behalf during a luncheon and with no foreknowledge of my conspiracy, His Grace offered up the vacant sub-basement of the Rectory to house the Archives. The Board was hapless, I tell you, caught in a pincer maneuver between Dean Robbers and Most Reverend Kishkumen while trying to enjoy their beef Wellington (paired with a sensible 20 year Haut-Médoc, of course). I felt just like Hannibal at the Battle of Cannae! By the time Dr. Scratch had returned from Zurich the deal was, as Stevie Wonder put it, “signed, sealed, and delivered!”. You should have seen the look on the old man’s face when his assistant passed him the paperwork. Ha!

Enough of me playing Jumpin’ Jack Welch at academic checkers though, I’m not here to burden you with tales of Cassius. I’d rather speak about your film! I must regret that I have not had a chance to see it yet, the University wasn’t able to secure the chance to screen it here on campus and I’ll probably have to wait to stream it from whichever platform it will undoubtedly be made available on. I have heard it on good authority that ‘Witnesses’ is an aesthetic masterpiece, it easily scales the dizzying heights that is Mormon cinema where Mark Goodman has undoubtedly replaced Richard Dutcher as reigning cock of the walk. One adjunct from Weber State University told me it was as if Paul Thomas Anderson’s ‘There Will Be Blood’ had been based on the book ‘Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses’ and the script was written through the collaborative efforts of Northrop Frye and Elder LeGrand Richards. Doubtless another feather in your cap, right next to the Middle Eastern Texts Initiative.

I know you’ll never come to believe this, but the box office success of ‘Witnesses’ has positively lifted the spirits of everyone still on campus during the summer break. You may deny it, but here at Cassius we truly believe that your successes are our success as well and we celebrate them as they should be celebrated. The recent attempts to review-bomb the film are sad in particular to me, that such petty activity is the go-to response for some only demonstrates their lack of proper virtue. You have my full sympathy.

It is clear to me that the film is oriented towards the skeptics; the marketing strategy since the conception of this momentous project has been the laying down of an ornately decorated steel gauntlet. However there has been a subtle trend in your recent writings that have given me pause and there is a gnawing concern growing in the back of my mind that your indomitable spirit is flagging.

I think the genesis of my concern began on the 11th of October in the year of our Lord 2020, you posted a blog entry that was titled ‘How to be a Good Apologist’. The content of this post was largely responding to another blogpost made by Tarik LaCour at the now defunct blogspot ‘Mad Dog Naturalist’. While Tarik’s original post is now regrettably lost to us, the spirit of it was captured in your response like an anopheline mosquito from the eocene period encased in so much Dominican amber :

Daniel Peterson wrote:Now, my friend Tarik LaCour, who is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in philosophy and a master’s degree in neuroscience at Texas A&M University, has published an interesting item on his own blog that I commend to your attention…

That should refresh your memory, you go on to say:

Daniel Peterson wrote:I must, however, quibble with his advice to “Take on the heavyweights”—at least, to the extent that he means by that advice that (as he actually says) apologists should ignore intellectually unserious challenges like the notorious “CES Letter” and the bestselling “New Atheists.”

I readily grant that “New Atheists” like Richard Dawkins and the late Christopher Hitchens—to say nothing of the unfortunate “CES Letter”— aren’t exactly “heavyweights” of the kind that Brother LaCour commends to our attention. Their facts are often cherry-picked, when not altogether fictional, their interpretations are all too often caricatures, their logic is slipshod, and so on and so forth. I absolutely agree.

But it’s the “New Atheists” and the “CES Letter”—and other people and arguments on a similar low level—that are damaging testimonies and destroying faith among (especially) young Latter Day Saints, and rendering many people outside the Church inaccessible to our missionary efforts. It’s not the works of J.L. Mackie, Paul Draper, Alex Rosenberg, or David Hume.

I must confess that your frank admission that you wouldn’t seek to engage the substantive work of scholars living or dead festered in my heart. I’ve often wondered what happened to make you turn away from the mansions of philosophy, to abandon that carefully curated canon on intellectual history that gave your son his middle name of Thomas, and take up the cause of countering the crass populism that litters the New York Times bestseller lists.

You can imagine that my dismay only increased when I read ‘De Profundis’!

Daniel Peterson wrote:And the Gospel is all about urgently important and absolutely fundamental questions: Is God real? Does life have a purpose? Are moral values grounded in reality or merely arbitrary? Is there, somehow, genuine right and wrong, or are moral choices no more fundamental than questions of personal taste? Why are we here? Where did we come from? Where are we going? How should we live? What happens at death? Will our relationships continue beyond the grave? Will our personalities, and the personalities of those we love, survive? Is there hope for us from the tragedies, sorrows, sufferings, betrayals, failures, and injustices of this life?

True words my friend, but soon after you write:

Daniel Peterson wrote:The Gospel must not be misunderstood as an attempt at a philosophical system. It doesn’t purport to answer every question that might be raised by a graduate seminar in analytic philosophy. That isn’t its purpose. It need not define philosophically precise answers to questions about divine foreknowledge, the nature of preexistent personhood, or the ultimate origins of morality. Such definitions are no part of its intent.

The only word that I can summon to describe what you are doing here Daniel is simply “Retreat”. This appears to be nothing but a complete and total abdication of what you once stood and argued for. What happened to the Daniel of ‘Reflections of Secular Anti-Mormonism’ or even the Daniel of ‘The Reasonable Leap into Light’? Just a handful of years ago you were already talking about a sweeping three volume philosophical defense of Mormonism and now? You speak of docudramas and DVD releases.

Please Daniel, have you abandoned philosophical rigor for your apologetics? Will there now no longer be a robust reason for the hope that is within that barrel chest of yours? Is this what you offer those who are letting the Gospel slip through their fingers, DVD interviews with scholars?

I hope you get back to me soon and can resolve my fears by explaining this is all just one big misunderstanding and that no, you have no intention of selling your birthright for a pot of beans and producer credits.

Yours in Eternity,
Alfonsy Stakhanovite

(Attached image in original)

Daniel Peterson wrote:I must, however, quibble with his advice to “Take on the heavyweights”—at least, to the extent that he means by that advice that (as he actually says) apologists should ignore intellectually unserious challenges like the notorious “CES Letter” and the bestselling “New Atheists.”

I readily grant that “New Atheists” like Richard Dawkins and the late Christopher Hitchens—to say nothing of the unfortunate “CES Letter”— aren’t exactly “heavyweights” of the kind that Brother LaCour commends to our attention. Their facts are often cherry-picked, when not altogether fictional, their interpretations are all too often caricatures, their logic is slipshod, and so on and so forth. I absolutely agree.

But it’s the “New Atheists” and the “CES Letter”—and other people and arguments on a similar low level—that are damaging testimonies and destroying faith among (especially) young Latter Day Saints, and rendering many people outside the Church inaccessible to our missionary efforts. It’s not the works of J.L. Mackie, Paul Draper, Alex Rosenberg, or David Hume.

Peterson sets up a masterful false dichotomy here. One one side you have serious philosophers presented as the only legitimate challenges to Mormon faith. Then you have the "lightweights" like CES letter and the "New Atheists" who are supposedly leading everyone astray, even though they can be so easily dismissed by intelligent serious people.

He completely glosses over the fact that CES letter and the New Atheists are *windows* into legitimate scholarly research. CES letter depends on Fawn Brodie, Brent Metcalfe, Dan Vogel, Robert Ritner, Simon Southerton, on and on and on. He can't fathom that people who read CES letter actually go to the footnotes to verify the claims. He has to live in a fantasy world where they leave based solely on emotion and disinformation.

How do the Mormon apologists respond to those academics in the CES letter footnotes? With childish acrostics like "METCALFE IS BUTTHEAD" in their "scholarly" journals. Peterson, Nibley, Midgley, Gee, etc simply cannot deal with the heavyweights. They have to defend "Nephite archeology" and "Reformed Egyptian", things the entire rest of their non-LDS peers don't even consider worth considering. They have to set up their own "Journal of Mormonism" because nothing they publish there would be taken seriously in a non-LDS context. The Flat-Earth society could do the same thing, setting up a "Journal of Flat Earth" and it would be just as ridiculous.

The LDS church will continue hemorrhaging members as long as apologists and LDS leaders paint the narrative that it's only "lazy learners who don't read Hume" walking away.

Lol. Yes, it's funny that all the "serious" projects have been abandoned in favor of this Wiseau-esque pursuit of entertainment ventures. He's always been on a quest for recognition and respectability, but as you very rightly point out, Dr. Stak, this shift to moviemaking seems ill-advised for many reasons. I have to say, though, that it's been entertaining to watch him adopt the persona of an uneducated naif about the whole thing: "Golly gee, I don't know that much about this, but I've been told that opening weekend box office numbers are kind of important!"

You have to wonder if this abandonment has been on Peterson's mind for many years. Now that he's retiring he can implement his abandonment. He felt a bit trapped as a professor, pretending intellectual pursuits, in his defenses.

Another wonderful post!

Daniel Peterson wrote:The Gospel must not be misunderstood as an attempt at a philosophical system. It doesn’t purport to answer every question that might be raised by a graduate seminar in analytic philosophy. That isn’t its purpose. It need not define philosophically precise answers to questions about divine foreknowledge, the nature of preexistent personhood, or the ultimate origins of morality. Such definitions are no part of its intent.

Does it purport to answer any questions, though? If not the "ultimate origins or morality," what the hell does Mormonism offer that we can't get elsewhere?

Dr. Stakhanovite, forgive my ignorance, but my impression is that systematic theology is a descriptive enterprise, not a static intellectual tyrant that forecloses theological speculation or changing views. Am I wrong in that? I ask because Peterson and others who write about this supposedly vibrant, open, and ever expanding view of god Mormons supposedly have seem to assume the contrast is with the unchanging and unchangeable dogmas of this or that sect. But I think the only difference is really that Mormons haven't written a full and authoritative description of their dogma (McConkie's attempt excepted) which is no more changing or changeable than any other (probably less so).

I also wonder whether it is true that the Mormon gospel is not an "attempt at a philosophical system." Let's say I become an Epicurean, and so I indulge in behavior X but in a very moderate way that does not disturb my over all sense of serene happiness, just a like good Epicurean. But the then bishop says, "Sister-Brother Symmachus, I hear you are indulging in X, but that is contrary to God's law as revealed by the Church." And I say: "We're all just atoms in the void, bishop. As for god, I don't think overmuch about him." Well, doesn't that disapproval of these parts of my philosophical presuppose an attempt at a philosophical system for the Church, even if it's not written down somewhere in a systematic way?

I thank you kindly for correcting my errors.

Symm wrote:Does it purport to answer any questions, though? If not the "ultimate origins or morality," what the hell does Mormonism offer that we can't get elsewhere?

That's a great question. It doesn't answer any philosophical questions. And Peterson is wrong, it does try to. It tries very hard. That many leaders deride "Greek philosophy" just means they reject the "philosophies of men" because they think they have something better. I'll have to go back and find this for Stak if he didn't catch it, but some UK professor got a mention by LB over at SeN, and so I checked out this guy's blog, and he says basically mankind should drop everything and study the revolutionary philosophy found within Mormonism. I about died laughing for 17 seconds and was going to grab the link for Stak but I don't know what happened from there.

The present leadership of course doesn't try to answer anything. they just want to maintain it's true, pay your tithing, and everything else will somehow work out as we go along.

Peterson is in full retreat... I understand. Now that he will no longer be paid to write philosophical/historic defenses, there is no reason to carry on the charade of wishing to. Now he can relax. This is his way of gracefully saying see ya'll later, I'm gonna go relax!

Symmachus wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 25, 2021 8:43 pm

Dr. Stakhanovite, forgive my ignorance, but my impression is that systematic theology is a descriptive enterprise, not a static intellectual tyrant that forecloses theological speculation or changing views. Am I wrong in that? I ask because Peterson and others who write about this supposedly vibrant, open, and ever expanding view of god Mormons supposedly have seem to assume the contrast is with the unchanging and unchangeable dogmas of this or that sect. But I think the only difference is really that Mormons haven't written a full and authoritative description of their dogma (McConkie's attempt excepted) which is no more changing or changeable than any other (probably less so).

Your impressions are most correct Professor. The primary concern picked out by the term “systematic” is really nothing more than saying the study or examination of theology that is organized around topics or some other rational scheme. The unstated but heavily implied secondary concern is that systematic theologies are always done for pedagogical purposes. Systematic theologies are just attempts to clearly state and organize religious beliefs so they can be clearly communicated to an audience.

The famous and so-called “Ecumenical Creeds” of antiquity are just statements about what groups of Christians believed concerning various issues that were not only meant to settle controversies, but didactically composed so that converts could memorize them. The fact that a geographically diverse council wrote them was only to give the contents of the creeds a sheen of authority. The Protestant Reformation created their own versions of the creeds, but elected to call them things like the Three Forms of Unity for Calvinists in Europe, or the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion for the Church of England, or the Westminster Confessions of Faith for the Presbyterians. All of the above are systematic theologies.

The more detailed systematic theologies are written for men and women undergoing training in preparation to take religious vows (monastic communities), become priests/ministers, or some other facet of ministry. Peter Lombard’s famous ‘Sentences’ is a great example of that, you can even dig up a facsimile of Peter Ableard’s ‘Sic et Non’ with critical annotations and find that the Library of Congress catalogues it as a systematic theology in its taxonomy.

To imply (as Daniel does) that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints headquartered in Salt Lake City Utah does not write, publish, and implement systematic theologies is demonstrably false. It is an international church that strictly enforces how it’s religious meetings proceed and the content of what is being taught in those meetings from children to adults. They even have a committee that functions almost exactly like the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in the Roman Curia, which makes sure everything printed with the church imprimatur is inline with the reigning orthodoxies of the day.

The book ‘Articles of Faith’ by James Talmage is as indisputably a work of systematic theology as Lombard’s ‘Sentences’ is. The same can be said of ‘A Marvelous Work and Wonder’ by LeGrand Richards, which explains why it was almost universally carried by the church’s missionaries for a generation. Blake Ostler probably has the most modern and comprehensive systematic theology currently in print of anyone in the Church that is living.

Consider the following from Daniel which comes from ‘De Profundis’ (bolding mine):

Daniel C. Peterson wrote:There are good reasons why Latter-day Saints have distinguished themselves in journal-keeping, the recording of history, and historical writing but have not produced systematic theologians.

B.H. Roberts, James Talmage, LeGrand Richards, Bruce McConkie, and Blake Ostler can all honestly be called systematic theologians. It is kind of a dick move for Daniel to state so openly that the church has produced no systematic theologians, but if the reputation he earned among his peers at BYU has any merit to it, then it is a kind of move Daniel is known for.

But I think Daniel had a different understanding of “systematic theologians'' than the one used by modern theological studies and intellectual/religious historians. He is basically saying, “There isn’t anyone who I want to just copy and paste into a word processor on the subject and subsequently publish”. I’ll get into that below...

Symmachus wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 25, 2021 8:43 pm

I also wonder whether it is true that the Mormon gospel is not an "attempt at a philosophical system." Let's say I become an Epicurean, and so I indulge in behavior X but in a very moderate way that does not disturb my over all sense of serene happiness, just a like good Epicurean. But the then bishop says, "Sister-Brother Symmachus, I hear you are indulging in X, but that is contrary to God's law as revealed by the Church." And I say: "We're all just atoms in the void, bishop. As for god, I don't think overmuch about him." Well, doesn't that disapproval of these parts of my philosophical presuppose an attempt at a philosophical system for the Church, even if it's not written down somewhere in a systematic way?

You are looking for a consistency in thought from a gentleman who doesn’t cotton to your notions of it. Daniel is in a bit of a predicament when it comes to the way he puts apologetics in to action.

The Church doesn’t have a reputation for producing philosophically robust works and there has never been a Mormon philosopher who has created a body of rigorous work that was also expressly dedicated to the articulation and defense of LDS beliefs. There are plenty of competent philosophers who are Mormons, sure, but by and large none of them seem to be interested in writing something within the realm philosophy of religion that has express uses for apologetics. There is no LDS equivalent of an Alvin Plantinga or Charles Swinburne in the world of academic philosophy, and there is no parochial equivalent to a J.P. Moreland or William Lane Craig at BYU. There is a serious dearth within the philosophy of religion of Mormon representation despite there being a population of LDS philosophers capable of doing the work.

Daniel cannot meet that need and he knows it, he simply doesn’t have the training and lacks any desire to acquire the requisite skills. Daniel tries to mitigate the impact this dearth has on his apologetics by supplementing his “reading” with the works of apologists from other religious traditions. If you take a look at the duo of blog posts Daniel did about the ‘Moral Argument’ in 2020, you’ll see that he is primarily drawing from Douglas Groothuis and C.S. Lewis; Daniel makes heavy use of ‘Christian Apologetics: A Comprehensive Case for Biblical Faith’ from InterVarsity Press to the point that he simply summarizes Groothuis and follows the exact steps Groothuis does in the text on laying out the argument and defending it. Nothing that is organic to Daniel in these posts adds anything substantive to the issue, he simply arranges portions of texts and at most provides his readers with a gloss of a page’s worth of material from Grootheius. Everything in these posts, from their structure and content, is almost entirely dependent on the Grootheius book.

The choice of this book fascinates me because I think it tells us something about where Daniel’s mind is nowadays. This book is not something you’d see assigned in philosophy classes in Bible colleges or seminaries, it was written for a popular audience and is designed to be studied in groups (e.g. like in student clubs, or in church breakout groups). There are far more appropriate and deeper treatments of the Moral Argument available for free on the internet, why does Daniel need this book?

I think Daniel uses it because he is exactly at the skill level this book is oriented to. He needs someone like Groothius to walk him slowly through the basics of reasoning and to spell out simple implications, he doesn’t have the capability to pull up the relevant Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP) article and write a meaningful blogpost off of that. As I’ve mentioned before, the SEP is a top of the line reference work complete with exhaustive bibliographies and entries written by active philosophers. It is absolutely free and even undergraduate majors are expected to consult it when needed. I’ve come to the conclusion recently that the SEP is a resource beyond Daniel’s skillset to ever consistently utilize.

Daniel doesn’t want to dwell on a Gospel that is being discussed in “a graduate seminar in analytic philosophy” because that is a Gospel he doesn’t understand and it is a Gospel he cannot defend. Really it is just an expression of ye olde tyme Mopologetics: “If I can’t defend it, then it isn’t Mormonism ''.

Gadianton wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 25, 2021 9:46 pm

I'll have to go back and find this for Stak if he didn't catch it, but some UK professor got a mention by LB over at SeN, and so I checked out this guy's blog, and he says basically mankind should drop everything and study the revolutionary philosophy found within Mormonism. I about died laughing for 17 seconds and was going to grab the link for Stak but I don't know what happened from there.

If you do end up finding it, please drop the link here (or elsewhere) because I'd probably enjoy that.

dastardly stem wrote: ↑

Thu Jun 24, 2021 4:21 pm

You have to wonder if this abandonment has been on Peterson's mind for many years. Now that he's retiring he can implement his abandonment. He felt a bit trapped as a professor, pretending intellectual pursuits, in his defenses.

Philo Sofee wrote: ↑

Sat Jun 26, 2021 12:21 am

Peterson is in full retreat... I understand. Now that he will no longer be paid to write philosophical/historic defenses, there is no reason to carry on the charade of wishing to. Now he can relax. This is his way of gracefully saying see ya'll later, I'm gonna go relax!

Gentlemen, if this is a retreat then it is catastrophically bad one.

Here is Daniel Peterson in 2005:

Daniel C. Peterson wrote:On the basis of what moral principles do secularizing critics pronounce the church wanting? How were those principles chosen, and why should anybody else defer to them? Even if one were to grant the factual claims on which they stake their moral judgments, it is not at all clear that those moral judgments are capable of bearing any objectively real weight.

Daniel C. Peterson wrote:Thus, truly consistent secularist critics of Mormonism may have sawed off the limb on which they were sitting. They may have deprived themselves not only of a standard of moral judgment that cannot be dismissed as merely subjective, but of a coherent claim to be able to address questions of truth and falsity (with respect to Mormonism and every other topic). Some form of theism, or, at least, of nonnaturalism, may be required to save their position from being merely self refuting. (If it is not, this will have to be demonstrated.)

If you ever want to see Daniel deliver the above lines in real time, you can watch it on Youtube. He was so confident in his faith then, speaking as if he was brimming virility and gnosis. There is something absolutely delicious about an apologist in 2005 trying to challenge secular critics to produce a defensible account of morality and boldly suggesting that the adoption of naturalism might prevent them from ever being able to do so, only to have the same apologist in 2021 abandon the idea that the Latter Day Saint Gospel could ever do the same:

Daniel C. Peterson wrote:The Gospel must not be misunderstood as an attempt at a philosophical system. It doesn’t purport to answer every question that might be raised by a graduate seminar in analytic philosophy. That isn’t its purpose. It need not define philosophically precise answers to questions about divine foreknowledge, the nature of preexistent personhood, or the ultimate origins of morality. Such definitions are no part of its intent.

I wonder if Daniel will end up having to disavow the 2005 piece? I think an honest person who wants to at least pretend to have a pretense of scholarship would readily have to do so.