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An essay I read on "Dying with Dignity" reports a "crescendo
of concern" about dying and death. (1) The concern shows up in books, journals, conferences,
television programs, societies. Yet, at the same time, it is
observed that, whereas the facts of life were hidden from youth
in a former generation, the facts of death seem to be a conversational
taboo today. How does one reconcile this deliberate avalanche
of discussion and studied silence?
A score of writers would argue that this paradox arises because we try
to make death a "thing" outside of us -- vague, anonymous,
removed -- an escape from the gnawing awareness in all of us
that we must die. Our preoccupation can be deliberately ignored
as it is in silence, or it can emerge in all kinds of brave verbal
objectifications.
If Latter-day Saints are unimpressed by these trends, it is not due, I
suspect, to isolation or insulation from the real world. It is
because there are root assurances that go deep and overbeliefs
that go high; these preside over and temper all of our attitudes.
In this paper I wish to address ten such roots of Mormon assurance
which are powerful in their patterning effect.
My title uses the word "distinction." The first question is,
are the distinctions distinctive? In three ways they are not:
First, if one looks deeply into historic religions, he can find
precedent, parallel, and in some cases identity in the teachings
of this dispensation and those of former ones. Second, the response
to death, both in individuals and in institutions, undergoes
change. Our great-grandfathers may have had significantly different
attitudes about death, though they belonged to the same or a
most similar religious movement. Third, the doctrinal or teaching
core of the Church on this theme is overlaid with multiple ever-expanding
cultures. Many of the variable customs and traditions
of other cultures may or may not be harmonious with this gospel
outlook but continue to have residual influence on the convert.
Plurality
One striking insight in the Mormon scriptures on death is that there are
many kinds. The word itself is often used in the plural, "deaths," in
exact juxtaposition to the word "lives." The point
here is not simply that there are many ways of reaching the final
event of mortality; it is, rather, that while we are more or
less alive here, there are many possible dyings. Without being
too precise, one finds in the scriptures at least four characterizations
of death: (1.) Death is absence from the presence of God. (2.)
Death is the wages of sin -- the loss of life intensity. It is,
for example, darkness of mind, hardness of heart and numbness
of conscience. These are the deaths in the self which may precede
death of the body. The deceased is diseased spiritually. (3.)
Death is the separation of the spirit from the body. (4.) Death
is the discontinuation of life powers. This is the opposite of
what Section 132 calls "the fullness and continuation of
the seeds" -- a delimitation on creative and pro-creative
power.
The role of Christ is to overcome all of these deaths in us, both as prevention
and redemption. To gain victory over every form of death is the
essence of life. Preoccupation with the third kind, the event,
is a sign of confusion: soul-sickness. "Salvation consists
in overcoming all one's enemies. The last enemy is death."
Death and
God
In the world's major religions, the question of God and the question of
immortality are often separate: one may affirm the one and deny
the other. Belief in immortality has never been strong among
the Jews, for example, yet belief in God has been vigorous. Among
philosophers, Charles Hartshorne is not alone in affirming a
life-giving and fully perfected God who not only permits but
requires that man disappear forever. On the other hand, there
are those who affirm immortality and deny God. Scientists today,
by no means mad scientists, seriously reach for the dream of
Ponce de Leon. Some say we will be capable of immortality before
the turn of the century. We may even opt to die with tentative
rights for a rerun on the demand of our survivors -- blanking
out for periods and blinking in for other periods. Then the folk
witticism would be practical: "If the rich could hire others
to die, a poor man could make a living." (2)
Mormonism, whatever the triumphs of the scientists, equates God, immortality,
and resurrection. Life in its highest mode requires all three.
There is a difference between surviving forever and living forever.
One who achieves eternal life must have become like the eternal
who has mastered life -- he must be perfect.
What Death
Does to Life
In contemporary discussion, opposite attitudes arise as one faces imminent
death. For Martin Heidegger, man at his best is committed to
whatever he does as Sein-zum-Tode --
being unto death. For
him, the consciousness of death at this level is intertwined
with the sense of the passing of time, projects, and guilt. On
different grounds, Jean-Paul Sartre and Camus affirm the essence
of "living on the underground," the constant threat
of death as somehow leading to the existential virtue of authenticity.
One is most alive when he is closest to death. On other grounds,
Viktor Frankl recalls his prison camp experience as his clearest
and closest understanding of love.
For Joseph Smith, death is indeed the outside limit and sometimes the
cost of a Christ-like mission. There may be slow martyrdom, as
when one "wastes and wears out his life" in bringing
to light hidden things of darkness. "Be faithful, even if
you should be slain," he was told early. Or death may fulfill,
atone, redeem. "Do not be alarmed, brethren, for they can
only do what they did to the ancient saints. They can only kill
the body." To the degree that this statement of Joseph Smith
in the menace of a mob comforted his brethren, they had caught
the vision. But notice that for Joseph Smith death was not a
mere incident because the body is finally indestructible. The
quality of man's resurrection depends upon his response to the
way of Christ. To preserve the mortal body by betrayal of Christ
is a death worse than death.
The Body
as Enemy
In many religions, ancient and modern, the body is viewed as an impediment
to the spiritual life, a prison or as Plato put it, "an
outlandish slough," a Gnostic prison. Among Buddhists the
body or skhanda is finally recognized as inferior
and even as unreal. So likewise in Christian Science. In the
religions of escape in the Far East, persistence of life in the
body is viewed as the extension of karma,
a kind of punishment. And where the objective is not utter annihilation,
the body is to be deprived and mortified but with the high air
to achieve the extinction of desire. In monastic Catholic traditions
and pious Protestant ones, there is a similar effort, often ascribed
to Paul that takes initiative in asceticism. Gandhi expressed
two world traditions, occidental and oriental; in saying he wished
he had never experienced fleshly impulse.
Contrary to these views, much Greek philosophical theology, and the flesh-disparagements
of Augustine and Calvin, Mormonism teaches:
1. That "we came into the world to receive a body and present it
pure before God in the Celestial Kingdom." That oppression
in our pre-embodied condition arose because we lacked a body.
"All beings who have bodies have power over those who have not." (3)
As Joseph Smith put it, "The express purpose of God in giving it
(the spirit) a tabernacle was to arm it against the power of
darkness."(4) And
elsewhere he taught that unembodied intelligences did not have
power to defend themselves against those that had a tabernacle.
It is a privilege to be in the body, even crippled, handicapped,
diseased body.
2. That the purpose of life is
not to transcend the flesh but to transform it. "The great
principle of happiness consists in having a body."
3. That a fullness of joy is impossible
without the inseparable connection of spirit and body. "When
separated man cannot receive a fullness of joy."(5)
4. That we should improve the time of this mortal probation because, "A
man can do as much in this life in one year as he can do in ten
years in the spirit world without the body."(6)
5. That the strong will to endure
life, even in the midst of pain, has been divinely planted in
us in order that we might cling to life and thus accomplish the
designs of our Creator. So said Joseph Smith to Wilford Woodruff.
(7)
6. That there is some truth in
the comment, "The good die young," because, as Joseph
speculated, they are "too pure, too lovely to live upon
the earth." (8) Yet in the long view Joseph Smith taught, "I
do not like to see a little child pass away, for it has not filled
the measure of its creation and gained the victory over death."(9) Children,
of course, are innocent, but they are not experienced. They will
yet have opportunities of reckoning in the flesh with experience
and contrast, if only in the post-millennial struggle. They are
assured salvation in the celestial kingdom, but only when they
have fulfilled the conditions, will they enjoy the highest exaltation.
7. That desire, fulfillment of
desires and increased refinement of desire, are eternal processes.
8. That death as a separation
process is an enemy. The spirit may properly crave death (due
to the decline of age, disease, and the imprisoning effects of
sin), but we will look upon the absence of our spirits from our
bodies as "bondage."(10)
Selective
vs. Universal Immortality
Many world religions hold that death is universal but that immortality
is extremely selective, reserved for the elite, the few, the
144,000, the fit, the enlightened ones, or whatever. (Some religions
deny that some men even have souls and have certainly excluded
animals and the lower forms of life.) Joseph Smith said, "All
are born to die. And all men must rise." "All must
enter eternity." Man is not an endangered species.
As for other forms of life, Joseph Smith taught, "Every living thing
that knows enough to run when you point your finger at it will
be resurrected."(11) That
means not just beasts, fish, and birds; it means ants, beetles
(of whom there are nine thousand known species), and mosquitoes.
Joseph taught that John's apocalypse speaks of beasts in heaven,
not only in rich symbolisms, but in literal description: there
are beasts in heaven. He taught, according to Benjamin F. Johnson,
that all the animal kingdoms resurrected "would remain in
the dominion and therefore the stewardship of those who, with
creative power, reach out for dominion through the power of endless
lives." He expected, he said, to meet his black horse Joe
Duncan and his faithful dog Major.
The Earth
Glorified
If life is precious in animal form, it is also precious in plant and mineral.
God commends all life. The earth itself is organic, somehow alive.
In the sense of separation of spirit and body, it will eventually
die. It will die, moreover, innocently. Unlike rebellious man,
the earth flawlessly fills the measure of its creation -- obeys
the law of its organizer. Too often man has not replenished but
exploited, not sanctified but polluted, not redeemed but corrupted
the earth. The earth has been baptized my immersion; it will
likewise be baptized in the Spirit by fire, be renewed to its
paradisiacal state, and glorified to a beauty beyond description.
(12) It will then return to its position in the cosmos from which
it was removed after the fall of man. It will be "rolled
back into the presence of God." Not the least but the most
righteous will inherit it.
Thus the history of Mother Earth recapitulates the history of sanctified
mankind. And it is a type, a foreshadowing, of more and more
worlds that are more and more alive, abundant, and abounding.
Christ and the resurrected Saints will reign upon it during the
one thousand years, but not permanently, for they will thereafter "come
and go, visiting and governing the earth." So Edward L Stevenson
heard Joseph say. (13) The
kinship of life and life will be complete. There will be no need
for C.S. Lewis's imaginative proposal for rewarding insects. "A
heaven for mosquitoes could be combined with a hell for man." Heaven
will be the same for both.
Is All
of Real Man Immortal?
It is not uncommon in world religions to hold that only one aspect or
fragment or faculty or mode of man will live on. For Plato, this
is the immaterial soul. For Aristotle, it is nous or
reason. For the Buddhists, it is the ultimate nature of the enlightened
bodhi in a distinctionless nirvana. For the Christian Scientists,
it is pure mind.
Joseph Smith taught that all of real man is immortal: mind, spirit and
body. Therefore the analogy of similarity between the conditions
we know here and the conditions hereafter is thorough-going.
But there are crucial differences. The most vital change between
the present corruptible body and the incorrupt resurrection is
that the glorified body will have within it not blood, but a
spirit fluid. "Flesh and blood cannot go there, but flesh
and bones quickened by the Spirit of God can."(14) For Joseph Smith, there are everlasting spirals of unfolding involvement,
self-sacrificing love -- "all heights and all depths." Eternal
lives will include the contemplative, the active, and the creative
modes, greatly intensified into the magnificence of celestial
joy.
The notion of transmigration of souls or of successive mortal rebirths
or of switching species was labeled by Joseph Smith as "a
doctrine of the devil."(15)
The doctrine is wrongheaded for three reasons: First, "All men must
die and all must rise" (in their own bodies). This is the
law. It cancels out all variations of doctrines of body switching
or soul sleeping, as also of annihilation. Second, there is no
cross-over of kinds. Men do not become cockroaches, nor vice
verse; sacred cows do not become gods. Our body, the body we
have now in its essential elements is ours forever. The decision
to accept embodiment was voluntary. Now that it is made, it is
irreversible. Your body is as permanently yours as you are permanently
you. Even the sons of perdition will be resurrected.
Third, there is only one mortal probation, and it is crucial. There are
stages before and stages after, and one may indeed move in the
cyclic spiral, but not in repetition and not in a circle. The
seriousness, the risk, and the glories of mortal life are undercut
the moment one supposes he will have a million or more subsequent
probations of the same sort. It is a spurious comfort to be told,
as was the weeping wife at the cremation of her husband in India, "Do
not weep, he has been through this a million times before." Physically
and metaphysically that is impossible.
This also means that ontological suicide -- the craving for annihilation
-- is a will-o'-the-wisp. The positive gospel message is: we
must learn to live with ourselves.
The Quantity-Quality
Controversy
Many who believe immortality is an illusion, religious humanists for example,
insist that both suicide and euthanasia are a human right. If
there is, as Freud taught, a death wish, some claim that it is
more than a desire to end this predicament and indeed all predicaments;
it is a desire for "the catastrophe which ends all catastrophe." Will
Durrant says in effect, that after writing thirty-five volumes, "eternal
sleep will be welcome." Other
humanists argue that there is something hypocritical, spurious,
or projective about the religious notion that one should live
for the next life instead of for this one. Secular critics such
as Marx and Feurbrach plead for living exclusively in the here
and now.
No religion has been as effective as Mormonism in uniting the traditional
split between the here and now and the then and there. The spirit
and body are inseparably connected; so in the temples are heaven
and earth; so are joy and sorrow; so are life and death. When
Henry P. Van Dusen, President of Union Theological Seminary,
and his wife committed suicide, some defended their right. But
others, feeling this was a betrayal of both life and death, said
sadly, "We do not read in the New Testament that man has
a right, on his own, to decide when to lay down his cross." Mormons
share that conviction.
The Family
as an Individual
Much of Judeo-Christian theology doubts or denies individual immortality;
so do scientific materialists. The self is swallowed up in some
cosmic reservoir, as absolute as in Bertrand Russell's "vast,
total death of the solar system." Some have nevertheless
offered the comfort of "social immortality." This means
that one is replicated in his posterity, or at least in the memory
of friends.
We have observed that Joseph Smith teaches individual identity in perpetuity
in both directions. In this sense, our individual immortality
is in no way contingent on that of others. On the other hand,
the highest immortality is a family affair. In that sense we
are either exalted together or not at all. Thus, others are crucial
to the quality and intensity of our own eternal lives. Husband
and wife become "one" in their children. But parents
are themselves linked to an unbroken chain of forebears. This
is a clarification of the great Israelite insight that all Israel
and ultimately all mankind stand accountable and privileged before
God as one individual. We do not overcome what Joseph Smith called
the "last enemy," which is death, until we perceive
that "they without us and we without them cannot be made
perfect," hence the indispensability of sealing in its highest,
deepest sense. This is
the core of truth in the oriental notion that our ancestors may
both plague us and bless us. The positive truth is that to some extent
they may redeem us as we them, and that our highest transformation
is intertwined with theirs.
We may miss this crucial point when we say that the resurrection is unconditional,
but that redemption from sin is conditional upon Christ. In fact,
the thatness of a resurrection
is inevitable. But the when, the how, the where, and the by whom;
the witness of our and their resurrection, is contingent not
only on Brother Christ but on all brothers elder and younger,
the whole family of Christ. In no world religion is this theme
more central, more conscious, and more extensively carried out
in action.
Death and
Fatalism
Is the time of death preset? There
are determinist religions that say yes. Among the Greek Stoics,
submission to the necessity of death, including its timing, was
the essence of wisdom. Among the Romans, the Greek idea of moira or
destiny became the trump card of human courage. Shakespeare has
Julius Caesar say he has no fear because "Death, a necessary
end, will come when it will come." In the Orient there is Kismet (fate),
a denial at times of any chance or voluntary factors in the life
and death process. In America we are told that one of every five
citizens today believes somehow in astrology, and among the tings
the stars are believed to control is the time of death. The man
who asked the spiritualist where he was going to die exclaimed, "I'll
never go there!" But the point of Greek tragedy, as of modern
determinism, is that we have no choice.
Mormonism is not with the fatalists. It is true that modern revelation
speaks of being "appointed unto death." (16) And the
Prophet Joseph Smith was promised in Liberty Jail, "Thy
days are known, and they years shall not be numbered less."(17)
(The inference is also, shall not be numbered more.) The assurance
is not uncommon among Latter-say Saints that whereas the wicked
may shorten their lives, the righteous are taken only when "their
time" has come.
In fact, these promises are all conditional. Life may be prolonged by
the united efforts of the faithful. Joseph's exact promise was
that if he hearkened unto the voice of the Spirit, he had about
five years to live. The "if" clause, as well as the
inexactness of the time, left room for his initiative. Promises
to the faithful of protection, of fulfillment of missions, of
safety arise not as an
independent, relentless, grinding fate, but as the result of
a free-will covenant relationship in which both the will of man
and the will of God collude. Only so long as one is true and
faithful does one have promise; otherwise he has none.
Mourning
Customs
The variations of meeting the dazing shock of death are almost infinite.
Among the Jews, the first response is a shiva, a seven-day period
of mourning. One remains at home, seated in the midst of sympathizing
friends. Then comes shloshim; one avoids places of entertainment
and follows ritual prayers. For parents this is followed by a
full year of mourning. Comparable practices exist in other world
religions.
Among the Mormons there is no valorizing or ceremonializing of mourning,
though there is a characteristic funeral. Modern revelation admonishes, "Thou
shalt weep for the loss of they loved ones, especially those
who have not hope of a glorious resurrection." The
promise "Those that die in me shall not taste [the bitterness
of] death, for it shall be sweet unto them"(18) extends
often to those bereaved. When death comes at a ripe climax of
a life well lived, there is a noticeable absence of agony, a
fervent sense of culmination, and even, at times, rejoicing.
Having worked four years in a cemetery witnessing funerals, graveside
rituals, and patterns of almost every nationality tradition,
and emotional tone, I can report this: the closest analogy to
a Mormon funeral at graveside is a missionary farewell. Here
is a group of loved ones, not hard-faced and stoical, not blank
and numb but sensitized. There is apparent grief, but not despair.
There is warmth and promise. This may be caught up in the words
of Wilford Woodruff and then in a list of impressions otherwise
unaccountable. First,
President Woodruff:
. . . I wish my body washed clean and clothed in clean white linen, according
to the order of the Holy Priesthood, and put into a plain, decent
coffin, made of native wood, with plenty of room. I do no wish any black made use of about my coffin, or about the vehicle
that conveys my body to the grave. I do not wish my family
or friends to wear any badge of mourning for me at my funeral
or afterwards for, if I am true and faithful unto death, there
will be no necessity for anyone to mourn for me . . . . Their
speech will be to the living. If the laws and customs of the spirit world will permit, I should wish
to attend my funeral but I shall be governed by the counsel I
receive in the spirit world.(19)
Now the list of impressions:
- The ancient mother who cheerfully sews her own white burial clothes.
- The widely
known speaker who tapes h is own funeral sermon and sparkles
it with his verve for life.
- A gathering, as death hovers close, to appoint
a celestial mailman. Messages to be delivered to loved ones on
the other side. "Give my love to Mother," or "Tell
Aunt Martha we're doing fine." Here is absent the curious
etiquette that forbids that even a husband and wife use the word "death" when
one knows clearly that one is on his deathbed.
- Humor that is neither grizzly nor forced,
that enables a man emerging from a stroke to wink his one good
eye and say to the family anxiously surrounding his bed, "I
fooled you!"
- Addressing the deceased at the funeral or
graveside as if she or he is present.
- The smile that so often attends the faithful,
as if the last mortal facial set was in recognition of a beckoning
loved one.
- The sense of mission in the military. Facing
death is the price of Christ's way.
- The music which resembles a hymnal rhapsody
rather than the darkening dirge. "And may there be no sadness
of farewell, when I embark." (Tennyson.)
- The jibe of a J. Golden Kimball: "I can't wait to die to see
if all this stuff we've been teaching is true," combined
with the sober testimony, "When I meet my Father, I know
he will understand me, and that is more than you have been able
to do."
- Prompt and some would say sudden remarriage.
Joseph Smith followed the early custom of thinking marriage within
three months was unkind to the memory of the dead but reversed
himself when he counseled his brother Hyrum to marry "without
delay."(20)
Sacred Ground
Is the burial place sacred? In many religions, yes. Trespass onto Indian
burial grounds is met with capital punishment. The excessive
luxuriance of the pharaohs in mummification, rich artifacts,
and pyramidal protection is an attempt to foil the sacrilege
of gravediggers. In many churches, Catholic and Protestant, over
the centuries the right to be buried in or near the churchyard
has functioned as a spiritual badge or as posthumous excommunication.
Mormonism both affirms and denies these traditions. On the one hand, Joseph
Smith praised and re-embodied the desires of the ancient Joseph
to have his bones brought back to the family tomb in Shechem.
Before he undertook the perilous Zion's Camp march, he charged
Brigham Young to bring his body back to Kirtland. "I command
you to do it in the name of Israel's God," and learning
that missionary Lorenzo Barnes was being buried on foreign soil,
he developed that theme. Late in 1844 he told his trusted brethren
Alpheus Cutler and Reynolds Cahoon that he wanted to be buried
by his father in a Nauvoo tomb, unless his enemies preempted
his body as they had threatened. Likewise, he made the same request
of Emma. John Taylor recalls his reason for this; it was future-oriented.
I heard Joseph Smith say at the
time he was making a tomb at Nauvoo that he expected when the
time came, when the grave would be rent asunder, that he would
arise and embrace his father and mother, and shake hands with
his friends. It was his written request that when he died, some
kind friends would see he was buried near his bosom friends,
so that when he and they arise in the morning of the First Resurrection,
he could embrace them, saying, "My father! My mother!"(21)
One reading of much that I have
said is that, for the Mormons, death is an illusion. There could
not be a more fatal mistake. The mortal predicament is not simply
that we have a deadline beyond which the body will temporarily
dissolve; it is that while still in the body, we may so imbibe
the poisons of sin that we suffer, in more or less degree, the
permanent blows of death. One key for understanding all of the
ordinances of the gospel, beginning with the rebirths or baptism
and culminating in the sealings of the temple, is that all are
instruments of overcoming both death of the body and death in
the body.
In Mormon theology the adversary
is the arch-destroyer; his diabolical objective is to clip the
wings of life. To the degree that he diminishes life he is winning,
as we are losing. It is a tragic confusion to suppose that his
winning is temporary. He has already won one-third of the hosts
of heaven against embodiment, plunging them into a lasting death.
He is in a life-and-death struggle with all of mankind on an
even broader scale. We may rejoice that "all will be saved
except the sons of perdition." But to be saved, even to
be exalted in a delimited condition is to be partially damned.
Jacob prays: "May God raise
you from death by the power of the resurrection, and also from
everlasting death by the power of the atonement, that ye may
be received into the eternal kingdom of God, that ye may praise
him through grace divine. Amen."(22)
Notes
1. Foreword to "The Favor
of the Gods," annual oration of the Society for Health and
Human Values, by Ronald Berman, San Francisco, California, November
11, 1976.
2- Sholem Aleichem.
3- From William Clayton's book,
p.8, MS 188, Brigham Young University Special Collections, Provo,
UT.
4- See Minute Book of William P.
McIntyre, January 8, 1840-April 20, 1845, MSC 1014, Historical
Department of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-say Saints,
Salt Lake City, Utah.
5- D&C 93:33.
6- See Oliver B. Huntington in They Knew the Prophet (Salt Lake City:
Bookcraft, 1974), p. 61.
7- See Diary of Charles L. Walker,
August, 1877, St. George,
P. 576, BYU Special Collections.
8- Joseph Smith, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith,
comp. Joseph Field Smith (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1938),
p. 196.
9- See Early History of Provo,
1849-1872; Utah Stake Bishop Meetings, July 17, 1868.
10- See D&C 45:17.
11- YWJ, V:490.
12- D&C 84:25-26.
13- Edward L. Stevenson, Life of Edward Stevenson, BYU Special
Collections, p. 104.
14- Joseph Smith, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith,
p. 326.
15- Joseph Smith, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith,
pp. 104-105.
16- D&C 42:48.
17- D&C 122:9.
18- D&C 42:46.
19- Mathias Cowley, "Wilford
Woodruff," Deseret
News, 1909, p. 622.
20- Joseph Smith, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith,
p. 120.
21- John Taylor, Gospel Kingdom (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft,
1943), p.23.
22- 2 Nephi 10:25.
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