Absurdities of immaterialism

In Short

Published in 1849 as an ideological counter-attack against a critic named T. W. P. Taylder, Orson Pratt’s philosophical pamphlet systematically dismantles traditional Christian orthodoxies regarding the immateriality of God and the human spirit. Drawing on Enlightenment natural philosophy, classical logic, and LDS theology, Pratt argues that claiming God exists "without body, parts, or passions" is indistinguishable from atheism. Because anything real must possess extension, location, and motion, spirit is simply a refined, intelligent form of matter. The work endures as a primary foundational text of early Mormon materialism and rationalist theology.

The Story

The treatise opens as a direct, uncompromising rebuttal to T. W. P. Taylder, a Protestant minister who published a critique attacking Latter-day Saint doctrines as irrational. Pratt establishes his thesis immediately by tackling the fundamental question of truth, arguing that truth exists objectively in the physical relationships between things, completely independent of human perception or biblical revelation. From this foundation, Pratt addresses Taylder's assertion that the mind is inherently non-physical while matter is purely mechanical. Rejecting the dualism of traditional Christian theology, Pratt contends that human experience—such as memory, hope, and perception—does not require an unextended, immaterial soul. Instead, he proposes that the spirit is an actual material substance that inhabits the physical body, survives death, and will eventually reunite with the flesh in a literal resurrection.

Moving deeper into his argument, Pratt targets the classical philosophical theories of mind and perception advanced by thinkers like René Descartes, Thomas Brown, and Joseph Priestley. He exposes what he views as the central absurdity of immaterialism: if a spirit or a deity occupies no space and has no extension, it is functionally equivalent to nothingness. Therefore, Christian ministers who preach an immaterial God without parts are unknowingly preaching a form of disguised atheism. To explain how a physical God can remain omnipotent throughout the cosmos, Pratt presents his theory of the Holy Spirit. While God the Father and Jesus Christ are distinct, material personages with defined physical boundaries who can only be in one place at a time, the Holy Spirit is an all-pervading, highly refined fluid or substance. Diffused across the cosmos like light or electricity, this intelligent material agent acts as the medium through which God governs the universe, executes miracles, and sustains natural law.

Pratt closes his work by systematically addressing Taylder's specific theological objections, including miraculous biblical events like the parting of the Red Sea and the incarnation of Christ. He resolves these by demonstrating how material spirit interacts with coarse matter. Dated July 31, 1849, in Liverpool, the text concludes with a confident assertion that Mormon cosmology provides the only truly rational, scientifically cohesive framework for understanding God, nature, and human consciousness.

How It Unfolds

The nature of objective truth Pratt initiates his defense by defining truth as an eternal, necessary relationship between physical entities that exists independently of human or divine thought. He refutes Taylder's claim that truth was inaccessible prior to the New Testament, proving that mathematical and physical realities exist eternally in space and time.

Spirit as material substance Turning to the human mind, Pratt denies that spirit is an unextended, non-physical phantom. He argues that mental operations like memory and perception require a real, substantial entity—a material spirit that existed before mortality and continues to exist after the physical body dies.

The absurdity of non-extension Pratt systematically dismantles the concept of an immaterial God by applying spatial logic. He contends that anything lacking extension, parts, or location is identical to non-existence, arguing that theologians who define God as having no body or parts are functionally preaching atheism.

The Holy Spirit as a cosmic medium To explain divine omnipresence, Pratt details how the Holy Spirit functions as an omnipresent material fluid similar to light or electricity. This intelligent, highly refined substance fills the spaces between coarse matter, allowing physical divine beings to govern the universe and perform miracles across infinite distances.

The People

• Orson Pratt — The author and a Mormon Apostle who serves as the central voice of the text. Driven by a desire to defend his church's doctrines against contemporary Protestant attacks, he seeks to construct a totally coherent, rational philosophy of religion. He encounters resistance from conventional Christian theologians who view Mormonism as heresy, and he ends the work having established a detailed materialist alternative to classical Christian orthodoxy.
• T. W. P. Taylder — A Protestant pamphleteer and primary antagonist whose book criticizing Mormon materialism triggers Pratt's response. He seeks to expose Latter-day Saint theology as irrational and unscriptural, but his reliance on traditional immaterialist assumptions leaves his arguments vulnerable to Pratt’s relentless, physics-based critiques.
• Dr. Thomas Brown and Joseph Priestley — Enlightenment-era philosophers and scientists cited throughout the text. Their theories of mind, matter, and determinism are used by both Taylder and Pratt as battlegrounds to argue whether thought is a mechanical output of the brain or an intrinsic property of a distinct material spirit.

In Its Own Voice

"Truth is the relation which things bear to each other. Knowledge is the perception of truth. Truth may exist without knowledge, but knowledge cannot exist without truth."

Pratt lays down his core philosophical definition, establishing that reality is grounded in the physical relationships between existing entities rather than abstract human ideas.

"The infidel says, God does not exist anywhere. The Immaterialist says, 'He exists Nowhere.' The infidel says, There is no such substance as God. The Immaterialist says, There is such a substance as God, but it is 'without Parts.'"

In this sharp rhetorical turn, Pratt equates orthodox Christian theology with secular atheism, asserting that defining God as non-physical is logically identical to denying his existence.

"An omnipresent person is impossible, but an omnipresent substance, diffused through space, is not only consistent, but reasonable."

Pratt resolves the paradox of a localized physical God by separating individual divine personages from the expansive, material medium of the Holy Spirit.

What It's Really About

Underneath its polemical debate with a forgotten British minister, the text is a radical attempt to reconcile religious faith with 19th-century scientific materialism. Pratt refuses to let religion hide behind mystery or non-physical metaphysics. He insists that if God, spirits, angels, and miracles are real, they must obey the fundamental laws of geometry, physics, and logic. The book explores the deep philosophical tension between classical theological definitions of an infinite, unchangeable God and the demands of empirical logic. By asserting that spirit is simply a finer, more intelligent form of matter, Pratt seeks to banish the supernatural entirely, replacing it with a vast, interconnected universe governed by physical, spiritual substances operating through natural law.

Why Read It Today

This text will captivate readers interested in religious history, the history of science, and nineteenth-century American philosophy. It offers an extraordinary, rare glimpse into the intellectual vigor of early Latter-day Saint thinkers as they sought to define their movement against traditional European Christianity. Reading Pratt feels like watching a sharp, self-taught mathematician apply the cold rules of geometry and Newtonian physics to spiritual dogmas, stripping away centuries of abstract theological terminology with precise, aggressive logic.

The primary difficulty for modern readers lies in its dense, dated style. It is written as a strict, line-by-line pamphlet rebuttal, filled with lengthy citations of obscure nineteenth-century theological tracts and Enlightenment philosophy. Readers must wade through detailed arguments regarding fluid dynamics, atomic theory, and formal logic. Yet what remains with you is the sheer boldness of Pratt’s vision: a universe where nothing is supernatural, where God has a physical body, and where the spiritual world is made of real, tangible matter flowing through time and space.