Another LDS Pre-Existence Question!

[NewSeeker]

Anyone who believes that Mormonism is primarily about reaching Heaven simply to procreate (“like a stapler or pencil performs a function”) has utterly and completely missed the point. Yes, we believe that we may have children after this life and we marvel at the vastness and extent of it all. But even here on this fallen Earth it should be obvious to anyone that love is what binds a family together and without it only heartache and misery remain. It is love between a parent and a child and between a husband and a wife which is magnified in the eternities.

What Mormons fail to grasp is that the perfected love that will be experienced by all of us in heaven reflects the kind of love that God has within himself eternally, where there are no gradations or degrees. Perfect love radiates out equally and infinitely in all directions, transcending both space and time. All are loved equally and perfectly. As I understand such a mystery, the earthly idea of “I love my wife” will be meaningless in that context. Of course I will love my wife. But in the next world I will love my wife exactly the same as I love everyone else. That kind of perfect love is the kind of love that God loves us with and that is the kind of love that we will possess - once we are fully transformed into the image of Christ. This is not the kind of love we have now for our families. Marriage and family is a training ground for acquiring that kind of love, only completed through the action of the Holy Spirit. I love my wife and children. I want them with me for eternity. As I said, what will the statement “I love my wife” even mean in a context where all love is perfected and takes on the character of the love God possess within himself? Does God love His Only Begotten more than he loves us? Is God’s love for Jesus qualitatively distinct from his love for us? I don’t think so. The apostles taught us that God IS love; he doesn’t HAVE love. We have love only in finite amounts. Categories of more/less and differences in degree do not apply to infinite, perfected love, the kind of love that God has and that we will be given. Will the earthly concept of marriage even apply? In a way, it seems to me that we will all be married to each other, as all relational bonds will be perfected. The Mormon notion of eternal marriage neglects this truth. It seems it really does come down to the sex question. For Mormons, it’s all about the license to have eternal increase with your eternal spouse. Just as my marriage to my wife now allows for licit sexual relations for the sake of creating children. Food for thought: if we weren’t married but lived completely celibate lives, is there sin in living in the same house? Sharing the same room? Sleeping in the same narrow bed?

 

[garyo49]

So you do have children. You should now consider the second question. Why do you have children?

If you could honestly and truly answer that question then you might catch a glimpse of what we mean be eternal families. And it is clearly not to have eternal sex. Such comments are blasphemous, meant to degrade, and they are extremely unfair. I am continually amazed at what I see coming from religious people on this site.

Jesus said:
“For in the resurrection they shall neither marry nor be married; but shall be as the angels of God in heaven” Mathew 22:30. No need for your temple ceremony with all of the Masons hand shakes and temple garb borrowed from the them. No more sacred underpants.

If you could truly and honestly answer this question: How could anyone be as gullible as you mormons are to stake your whole salvation on the words of a man that translated some Egyptian papyri that every Egyptian scholar that wasn’t mormon and some that were mormon said were common book of breathings probabably written around 130 B C. Do you know when Abraham lived? What a joke?

If you could truly and honestly answer this question. Why did the mormon church, for 150 years, say that the “lamanites” were the “principle ancestors” of the American indians, then all of a sudden in the still of the night add the word “among” to that statement? Remember in the Book of Mormon it says that when brother Lehi and his band rowed here from Jerusalem this land was kept from the knowlege of “all other nations”. There was no one else here. No intermingling of seed. Why the change? Could it because DNA proved that the lamanites weren’t of hebrew origins? Looks like brother Joseph blew another one.

How about the Kinderhook plates? Why don’t you go to the Maxwell Institute website, or what ever they call it now, and and have them reasure you that brother Joseph didn’t blow that one also.

You are staking your whole salvation on the words of proven liar and necromancer, Jan. Why would you do that? Are you that gullible?

Why don’t you take your heterodox ideas, your “eyes of faith”, and your religion and go preach to the choir? Jesus Christ founded our religion, gave us the keys and authority and said that he would see that the gates of hell wouldn’t prevail against it. At the end of Mathew he told the apostles he would be with them always, even to the end of time. That’s always, always, not to to the of the apostles, but ALWAYS. So, no complete apostasy, no need for a “restoration”, and no need for Joe Smith and the mormons.

This is blasphemy, Jan. Mormons believe that their God was once a man as we are right now. Every time I hear that I wonder if he committed sins such as rape, buglary, fraud, assault, maybe even murder. Now thats blasphemy, Jan.

 

[RebeccaJ]

Anyone who believes that Mormonism is primarily about reaching Heaven simply to procreate (“like a stapler or pencil performs a function”) has utterly and completely missed the point. Yes, we believe that we may have children after this life and we marvel at the vastness and extent of it all. But even here on this fallen Earth it should be obvious to anyone that love is what binds a family together and without it only heartache and misery remain. It is love between a parent and a child and between a husband and a wife which is magnified in the eternities.

In contrast, GOD IS LOVE, clearly stated in the Gospel of St. John. This is what we understand is meant by “become perfect even as your Father who is in heaven is perfect”. Love perfectly. Which only God can do because He IS LOVE.

God’s love cannot magnify and grow, as He is GOD, and GOD is perfect. Always has been, always will be, as God does not change.

Our love does not magnify, it can only become perfected. Love does not grow, in the sense of becoming larger or greater, it can only be purified.

It is God’s love that purifies us, we cannot and will never be able to purify ourselves.

The most profound evidence of this Truth is the Cross.

Heaven is where we experience the immediate presence of God, WHO IS LOVE. We are perfected in and through Jesus Christ, the second Person of the Holy Trinity, Who IS GOD.

So it is, our hope is in Jesus Christ, who is our King, now and forever. Ruling over all who are in heaven, and all the baptized who live this life now: mothers, fathers and children. All as one Body, all as children of the Father.

We are sealed to Jesus Christ, by Baptism, Confirmation and Eucharist, and so are one Body through Him. Therefore, it is unneccessary to be sealed to any other.

 

[SteveVH]

In contrast, GOD IS LOVE, clearly stated in the Gospel of St. John. This is what we understand is meant by “become perfect even as your Father who is in heaven is perfect”. Love perfectly. Which only God can do because He IS LOVE.

God’s love cannot magnify and grow, as He is GOD, and GOD is perfect. Always has been, always will be, as God does not change.

Our love does not magnify, it can only become perfected. Love does not grow, in the sense of becoming larger or greater, it can only be purified.

It is God’s love that purifies us, we cannot and will never be able to purify ourselves.

The most profound evidence of this Truth is the Cross.

Wish I would have said that.

 

[RebeccaJ]

Thanks Steve.

A question for you Janderich, what are the two greatest commandments?

 

[Janderich]

Thanks Steve.

A question for you Janderich, what are the two greatest commandments?

All right, I’ll bite…

“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself.”

 

[Jerusha]

All right, I’ll bite…

“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself.”

VERY good. :clapping: And what is the LDS 11th article of faith?

I THOUGHT you were Brit. Your clock doesn’t run like mine.

 

[RebeccaJ]

All right, I’ll bite…

“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself.”

So I don’t see in this how you think love of family is the exclusive way to God. Certainly, all love is important, and our families are very important. But don’t you think Jesus is letting us know that we’re ALL in this together? All the way to heaven? And I mean heaven, where God dwells. Not a sub-level where He doesn’t.

 

[Miriam1947]

In contrast, GOD IS LOVE, clearly stated in the Gospel of St. John. This is what we understand is meant by “become perfect even as your Father who is in heaven is perfect”. Love perfectly. Which only God can do because He IS LOVE.

God’s love cannot magnify and grow, as He is GOD, and GOD is perfect. Always has been, always will be, as God does not change.

Our love does not magnify, it can only become perfected. Love does not grow, in the sense of becoming larger or greater, it can only be purified.

It is God’s love that purifies us, we cannot and will never be able to purify ourselves.

The most profound evidence of this Truth is the Cross.

Heaven is where we experience the immediate presence of God, WHO IS LOVE. We are perfected in and through Jesus Christ, the second Person of the Holy Trinity, Who IS GOD.

So it is, our hope is in Jesus Christ, who is our King, now and forever. Ruling over all who are in heaven, and all the baptized who live this life now: mothers, fathers and children. All as one Body, all as children of the Father.

We are sealed to Jesus Christ, by Baptism, Confirmation and Eucharist, and so are one Body through Him. Therefore, it is unneccessary to be sealed to any other.

Wow, RebeccaJ, you are awesome.

Thanks be to God that when you realized Mormonism was untrue that you became Catholic. (Though there may have been one or two stops along the way. )

Thank you for being here and for making the truth known.

 

[RebeccaJ]

Wow, RebeccaJ, you are awesome.

Thanks be to God that when you realized Mormonism was untrue that you became Catholic. (Though there may have been one or two stops along the way. )

Thank you for being here and for making the truth known.

Yes, thanks be to God!

Thinking today on my drive home from work, about God perfecting us, in and through His love, Psalm 51 came to mind.

A clean heart create for me, God;

 

[Janderich]

So I don’t see in this how you think love of family is the exclusive way to God. Certainly, all love is important, and our families are very important. But don’t you think Jesus is letting us know that we’re ALL in this together? All the way to heaven? And I mean heaven, where God dwells. Not a sub-level where He doesn’t.

Who said the way to God is only through loving your spouse and children? I focused on this aspect because of the conversation about procreation. Thanks to eternal marriage and children, progression will continue without end. But boundaries cannot be put on love, I have read nowhere in scripture that it need be finite. Christ has shown love may be infinite in both breadth and depth. Not only has he shown it, but it appears he requires the same of us, “As I have loved you, that ye also love on another” (John 13:34).

As Paul says, “Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away” (1 Cor 13:8). After all prophecies have been fulfilled, after faith has turned into knowledge, and even after all learning has come to an end, pure love will remain.

 

[RebeccaJ]

Who said the way to God is only through loving your spouse and children? I focused on this aspect because of the conversation about procreation. Thanks to eternal marriage and children, progression will continue without end. But boundries cannot be put on love, I have read nowhere in scripture that it need be finite. Christ has shown love may be infinite in both breadth and depth. Not only has he shown it, but it appears he requires the same of us, “As I have loved you, love on another.”

As Paul says, “Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away.” After all prophecies have been fulfilled, after faith has turned into knowledge, and even after all learning has come to an end, pure love will remain.

It is not our spouses and families who perfect us, or our love for them. It is Jesus Christ. Mormonism teaches that a spouse is required to be in the presence of God in heaven,no? I’d say that makes your spouse as your way to heaven. Children “magnify”, to use a Mormon term, your ability to be what you teach is the meaning of perfection. So yes, your spouse and children are your way to heaven because it is heaven where we are perfected. What Catholics call sanctified, or made Holy. Marital status has nothing to do with how holy we are before God.

The two greatest commandments say nothing about being married or single, having children or not, but everything about what is important for our holiness before God.

I never said love is finite, I said that it doesn’t grow, it becomes perfected. The scriptures you site attest to this.

Love IS. You cannot put it on a scale and measure it, spread it out on a table for display, or quantify it.

We do not know how to love as we ought, only in Jesus Christ is our love perfected, because He IS God and God IS love.

 

[Janderich]

It is not our spouses and families who perfect us, or our love for them. It is Jesus Christ.

I agree we are perfected through Christ.

I never said love is finite, I said that it doesn’t grow, it becomes perfected. The scriptures you site attest to this.

I know you didn’t say it was finite.

Love IS. You cannot put it on a scale and measure it, spread it out on a table for display, or quantify it.

We do not know how to love as we ought, only in Jesus Christ is our love perfected, because He IS God and God IS love.

Fine.

 

[RebeccaJ]

If we knew how to love as we ought, there would be no sin. This is what the two greatest commandments are about, and the ten commandments as well. Loving God. Loving your parents. Loving others. Clarified quite beautifully, in the beatitudes. The “dont’s” of the ten commandments brought into a positive light.

You don’t steal from someone you love, you honor your parents because you love them, you don’t have any gods but GOD, because you love God.

No doubt, family is integral to the love we show others, as these are people we are closest to (usually). But Jesus never said to love our families in a different way than we do anyone one else, or that doing so would bring more blessings than in any other way. Quite the opposite, He just calls us to love. Period.