Friday, December 25, 2020

Mark A. Wrathall on Alma and the "One God" Controversy

  

Alma and the “one God” controversy

 

The peculiarly worded question—“Should we believe in one God?”—has a bite that is easily missed. To appreciate what is going on here, we need to pay attention to Alma’s and Amulek’s history with the phrase one God. This phrase had been at the very centre of a high-stakes theological conflict that had embroiled Alma and Amulek during their mission to the land of Ammonihah (see Alma chapters 10-14).

 

The “one God” controversy grew out of Zeezrom’s attempt (before his conversion) to trap Alma and Amulek in a theological contradiction. Zeezrom laid his snare with an apparently innocuous question:

 

Zeezrom said: “Thou sayest there is a true and living God?” And Amulek said: “Yea, there is a true and living God.” Now Zeezrom said: “Is there more than one God?” And he answered, “No.” (Alma 11;26-29)

 

As soon as Amulek confessed a monotheistic belief in one God, Zeezrom sprang his trap. He asked Amulek about the doctrine of the coming of Christ:

 

And Zeezrom said again: “Who is he that shall come? It is the Son of God?” And [Amulek] said unto him, “Yea.” . . . Now Zeezrom said unto the people: “See that ye remember these things; for he said there is but one God; yet he saith that the Son of God shall come.” (verses 32-33, 35)

 

This supposed contradiction provided the basis for charging Amulek with lying (which was a crime under Nephite law; see Alma 1:17).

 

The more part of [the people of Ammonihah] were desirous that they might destroy Alma and Amulek; . . . and they also said that Amulek had lied unto them; . . . And the people went forth and witnessed against them—testifying that [Amulek] had . . . testified that there was but one God, and that he should send his Son among the people. (Alma 14:2, 5)

 

It is obvious to the people of Ammonihah that you cannot consistently believe both that there is one God only and that God has a Son. In laying the trap, Zeezrom perhaps reasoned that Amulek’s contradiction would lead to an easy conviction for lying. After all, if someone makes two contradictory claims, at least one of them must be false. Thus, if a speaker knowingly asserts that a contradiction, that provides prima facie evidence that the speaker is lying. Of course, Amulek was not lying. For since the days of Nephi himself, the Nephite faithful had affirmed that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are “one God” (see 2 Ne. 31:21; Alma 11:44). Perhaps this doctrine was so familiar that they scarcely noticed its oxymoronic character. But it is not surprising that the people of Ammonihah saw in it a contradiction, and it is interesting to note that neither Alma nor Amulek make any effort to dispel the paradox. In any event, when the Zoramites ask whether they should believe in the “one God,” that precise phrase seems to be deliberately chosen to invoke the earlier controversy. By referring to Alma’s doctrine in this way, the Zoramites highlight the difficulties they experience in believing in one God who is three persons.

 

Once we recognize that the “one God” controversy lies behind the Zoramites’ question, we can see new depths in Alma’s response. When the Zoramites ask whether they should believe in “one God,” Alma’s immediate response is to invoke the scriptural authority of Zenos and Zenock, who both write about the Son of God. He completes the sermon by drawing an analogy between Moses’s brazen serpent and the doctrine of the coming of Christ. In the Book of Mormon tradition, a number of Israelites refused to look to Moses’s brazen serpent. Why? Well, perhaps it seemed incoherent to the Israelites that the God of the third commandment would now give them a “graven image,” let alone tell them to look to it for healing. “The reason [the Israelites] would not look,” Alma explains, “is because they did not believe that it would heal them” (Alma 31:20). But—and this is Alma’s point—whether the idea of the serpent made intellectual sense to them should have been inconsequential in the face of the fact of their healing. Similarly, the doctrine of the coming of Christ, the “one God” doctrine, may not make rational sense to the Zoramites. But worries about the incoherence will fade in importance if faith in Christ heals and redeems them. Alma’s proposed experiment is as simple as looking up at the brazen serpent: trust the doctrine of the coming of Christ and see what effects that has on your way of life. Alma’s “argument” in favor of the “one God” doctrine is: “Look and live”! (verse 19). (Mark A. Wrathall, Alma 30-63: A Brief Theological Introduction [Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University/Neal A. Maxwell Institute, 2020], 75-77)

 

Further Reading