Is Edward Herrmann a Mormon

Answer 1

No. Edward Herrmann is not a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (commonly called the "Mormon" Church). His wife is LDS (Mormon) a faith he respects. He himself is actually a Roman Catholic having converted to that faith after years of study and searching for a spiritual home. Most of his Roman Catholic friends were surprised he became a Catholic voluntarily. It is a difficult path to walk if one is a cradle Catholic but to enter upon it by choice? Nevertheless he practices the ancient Faith with some care.

It may seem contradictory to his Catholic religion, but his main interest philosophically is in the writings of Alfred North Whitehead, the English logician and metaphysician who wrote most of his seminal works while teaching at Harvard in the 20's and 30's. One of the most fruitful, profound and humane minds of the 20th Century, he is at the center of the movement generally known as Process Philosophy. While most of the brilliant young men and women of the first half of the century followed Wittgenstein out of Hamlin into the intellectual sea of no return crying "death to philosophy!", Whiteheads work was gradually eclipsed. As he himself wrote:

"Sceptics and believers are all alike. At this moment scientists and sceptics are the leading dogmatists. Advance in detail is admitted. Fundamental novelty is barred. This dogmatic common sense is the death of philosophic adventure. The Universe is vast."

He points out that science is fundamentally a methodology, one of humankind's greatest achievements. But as a habit of mind it prohibits the search for value, aim and meaning in the Universe. It is precisely because Whitehead laid so much emphasis on meaning and value that he evolved a metaphysical scheme that included God. The primordial nature of God is a hierarchy of value. This aspect of the nature of God is persuasive and not compelling. It constitutes what he calls "a lure to the good." He is under no illusion that the Good and Religion are synonymous. Quite the contrary. Yet no intellectually respectable philosopher of the past century has given such weight to the fundamental concerns of religion. As he puts it: Religion is what the individual does with his own solitariness.

The new century may witnessing a turning of the worm, though I may be wrong. European philosophers who historically have found English philosophy a bit too comforting, not intellectually cruel enough, are beginning to find A.N.W. complex enough to be intriguing. At any rate Wittgenstein has less of a hold on current thought, though he has done great damage. There may be hope for the re-emergence of the classic search for meaning in the Creation. That this search was largely abandoned as futile after WW I is understandable. Indeed, the "Tractatus" was written under shell fire on the Italian Front. Smug assumptions of a benign Universe were very hard to sustain. Science is so much easier and more exciting, and logic so much more amenable to clear conclusions. But the gnawing question remains: Why? This is where Process Philosophy and Religion overlap and where E. Herrmann wends his solitary way.