An Outcome, Not a Foundation
Thoughts on The Disposition of Mormonism
This response arises from Oman’s theory that both belief and covenants function as gifts in LDS theology.
Oman posits that, for Latter-day Saints, “religious belief is a gift” that aids human reason to construct a “personal relationship with God.” Importantly, this gift and the subsequent relationship hinge on God’s revelation of himself: “even the first thought that there might be a being such as God comes because he reveals himself.” Using Adam and Eve as archetypes, Oman argues that believers’ relationship with God is a “status rather than contract”; the relationship carries a predetermined “bundle of rights and obligations,” plus “social roles” that God gifts to covenant-makers, transforming their status through relationship with him.
This framing of both belief in and relationship with God as a gift evokes a philosophy that shaped much of American religion in the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Restorationists, dispensationalists, fundamentalists, and other US Christians latched onto the idea that “every human [could] access metaphysical truths by God-given ‘common sense.’” Christian adherents to Common Sense Realism (CSR) “viewed themselves not as theological innovators, but as loyal spokesmen for the ancient church,” while still reserving room for legitimate scholarly inquiry (within certain bounds).
Without naming it, Oman’s essay identifies elements of Mormonism that reflect CSR—namely, the belief that people possess an inherent, God-given ability to recognize evidence (God’s self-revelation) that bridges past, present, and future believers through relationships with each other and with God. And, indeed, elements of CSR fit much of the way that Latter-day Saints interpret scripture and frame personal experiences of God. In some ways, these correlations make historical sense; after all, Mormonism emerged when CSR dominated swaths of American thought, and its tenets align well with democratic church movements.1
But another historical parallel also accompanies Common Sense Realism: It dominates theological movements that have what Oman calls a “conservative disposition.”
Is the “conservative disposition” Oman identifies within Mormonism fundamental to Mormon theology, or is it an outcome of a hermeneutic? I sense it is the latter. Much of the way Latter-day Saints (including Joseph Smith Jr.) have approached theology has reflected unnamed assumptions that align with CSR; Oman’s essay likewise appears to draw from those influences without fully identifying them.
But Oman’s essay also presents an opportunity (1) to name CSR as a potential influence on the development of Mormon theology, and (2) to probe the kinds of questions that other conservative American Christians have faced for years.2 Particularly, in relation to this essay: How does one recognize receipt of the gift of belief? How can one assess experiences of the self-revelation of God? How can a community of believers assess apparently contradictory experiences of God’s self-revelation (in scripture, in history, among themselves, etc.)? And how can a community of believers assess apparent changes over time to the “attached . . . social roles” inherent in the gift of covenants?
I am not convinced that Mormon theology carries an inherent conservative disposition; I am, however, convinced that hermeneutical influences—especially Common Sense Realism—situate many of the assumptions in early Mormon theology that have favored a conservative impulse. Naming these influences, exploring their parallels in other American Christian movements, and probing the questions that arise, mark the task of LDS historians and theologians. Nate Oman’s essay can assist in this task, if one reframes the “conservative disposition” of Mormonism as an outcome rather than a foundation.
This essay, part of the forum How Mormonism Sees the World, was written in response to Nate Oman’s The Disposition of Mormonism, published May 1, 2025.
Greer Cordner, Doctoral Student in History and Hermeneutics at Boston University whose writings on Substack can be found here.
Art by Helen Frankenthaler (1928-2011).
Nathan Hatch identifies Mormonism as such a democratic movement in The Democratization of American Christianity (Yale University Press, 1989).
Molly Worthen’s Apostles of Reason: The Crisis of Authority in American Evangelicalism (Oxford University Press, 2014) traces such questions in American evangelicalism.
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