Mormons: Do you believe that God the Father sinned, or had the potential to?

[RebeccaJ]

More doublespeak to explain doublespeak. God is fully divine yet became fully human…

Do you see that according to your logic if he is fully human he is not divine and that if he is divine he does not need to learn anything? It is amazing such teaching ever caught hold.

We accept what God has revealed about Himself. Yes, we “caught hold” of Jesus Christ. God, who became man. The Incarnation is a central Christian doctrine.

John 1:1In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God,
and the Word was God.

John 1:14And the Word became flesh
and made his dwelling among us,
and we saw his glory,
the glory as of the Father’s only Son,
full of grace and truth.

Col 2:9 For in him dwells the whole fullness of the deity bodily,

Phil 2:6-7
Who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God something to be grasped.
Rather, he emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
coming in human likeness;
and found human in appearance

 

[Tarquin]

He wasn’t promoted. He became God through growth. Just as Christ was perfected as Paul tells us, “And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him” (Heb 5:9).

Salvation is not growth, nor is it “becoming God”.

You seem to be conflating the Mormon concept of God the father with God the Christ.

No. God cannot sin. But I believe that eons and eons ago he had the potential to sin.

God once had a power and a freedom that he no longer has. A God with lost powers. An admittedly deficient God.

The Holy Ghost is a person like us but of a more refined substance, he can only be in one place at one time. The Father and the Son can likewise only be in one place at one time.

The Spirit Elder McConkie speaks of is not a person but a power that pervades the universe. When a being taps into this power he can communicate across the universe and can be present at all times and in all places. Thus the Godhead accesses this power and through it is omnipresent.

Omnipresent means being everyplace at once.
omnicommunicable is *not *“omnipresent”.
For which I remind you of your words

More doublespeak to explain doublespeak. God is fully divine yet became fully human…

Paraphrasing the double-speak: God is omnipresent yet he is not present everywhere, he is just omnicommunicating. Since sentient beings can hear(?) him, wherever there are sentient beings who can hear(?), He is there, or will be presently. But he will not be where there is no receiver to receive his communication. God is both omnipresent and selectively present, depending on the reception.

“The Holy Ghost is a **person like us **but of a more refined substance”
and
“The Spirit Elder McConkie speaks of is not a person but a power that pervades the universe.”
Who is that “person”? Is it Joseph Smith?
What is “substance,” what is “more refined substance,” and what is “intelligence”? Is it all just matter? That’s all there is, matter? Double-speak?

#82
Intelligence was not created and indeed cannot be. The core of who we are is eternal both forwards and backwards.

What is that “core”? Anything? What is that “intelligence”? Is “intelligence” just another word for ‘matter’? Is “core” just another word for ‘matter’? Is “intelligence” the “core” or is there something more? Mormons used to tell me they were going to answer the question, “Where do we come from?” They have not done very well answering that question. Ultimately all they can say is what other denominations say: “God created us.” Other than that, they have no special knowledge.

 

[RebeccaJ]

It is amazing such teaching ever caught hold.

As for this, you have a long habit of making jabs at Christian teachings with an eye towards questioning the sincerity of faith of Christians. I think we have indulged this long enough and have reported your post.

 

[Stephen168]

Interesting. How do you interpret this scripture:If Jesus asks us to be perfect isn’t there a contradiction between the Catholic concept of perfection since we as imperfect beings cannot be perfect?

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers,* what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be teleios, as your heavenly Father is teleios.*Teleios-be all you can be; achieve the end goal. In this case; love humanity as God loves humanity.
Perfect- without flaw are defect.

God asks us to be all we can be; which is never perfect. God is all he can be; which is perfect.

Christians are monotheists who believe in one God.

A Catholic understands the potential to sin as a defect. Therefore, the Mormon God(s) is not perfect.

 

[Stephen168]

He wasn’t promoted. He became God through growth. Just as Christ was perfected as Paul tells us, “And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him” (Heb 5:9).

In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. And being made teleioó he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, being designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek.

teleioó- complete the process; achieve the goal.
Christ completed his life on earth and is now the High Priest, who comes to us in the form of bread and wine like (in the order of) Melchizedek brought bread and wine to Abram; Genesis 14:18-20.

Are you saying crucifixion is a requirement to be God?

 

[Janderich]

Salvation is not growth, nor is it “becoming God”.

You seem to be conflating the Mormon concept of God the father with God the Christ.

No the Father and the Son are distinct, separate, beings. But the path the Son trod, was first taken by the Father. As Jesus himself said, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise” (John 5:19). Because of this I can take what the Son did as a template for what the Father accomplished a long time ago.

In particular, in regards to his atonement and resurrection Joseph says:

The scriptures inform us that Jesus said, as the Father hath power in himself, even so hath the Son power—to do what? Why, what the Father did. The answer is obvious—in a manner to lay down his body and take it up again. Jesus, what are you going to do? To lay down my life as my Father did, and take it up again. Do you believe it? If you do not believe it you do not believe the Bible.

God once had a power and a freedom that he no longer has. A God with lost powers. An admittedly deficient God.

God obviously did not lose power or freedom. I said “cannot” but perhaps it is better to say “will not”. Let me give an example. Let’s suppose I find a rotten apple. I’m hungry so I eat it. The next day I am retching and miserable. I decide then and there that I will never eat another rotten apple. Does that mean I cannot eat it? No. Does that mean my “freedom” is limited? No, I can eat the apple, if I so desire, but I know the consequences so will not do it again. God has learned the consequences of sin and will not sin.

Omnipresent means being everyplace at once.
omnicommunicable is *not *“omnipresent”.
For which I remind you of your wordsParaphrasing the double-speak: God is omnipresent yet he is not present everywhere, he is just omnicommunicating. Since sentient beings can hear(?) him, wherever there are sentient beings who can hear(?), He is there, or will be presently. But he will not be where there is no receiver to receive his communication. God is both omnipresent and selectively present, depending on the reception.

You have limited my words to communication only. It is much more than that. He is in all and through all things by the power of the Spirit. In the following modern day scripture this power of the spirit is called the “light of truth”. Speaking of Jesus it reads:

He that ascended up on high, as also he descended below all things, in that he comprehended all things, that he might be in all and through all things, the light of truth; which truth shineth. This is the light of Christ. As also he is in the sun, and the light of the sun, and the power thereof by which it was made… And the light which shineth, whitch giveth you light, is through him who enlighteneth you eyes, which is the same light that quickeneth your understandings; which light proceedeth forth from the presence of God to fill the immensity of space - the light which is in all things, which giveth life to all things, which is the law by which all things are governed, even the power of God who sitteth upon his throne, who is in the bosom of eternity, who is in the midst of all things." (D&C 88:6-7,11-13)

“The Holy Ghost is a **person like us **but of a more refined substance”
and
“The Spirit Elder McConkie speaks of is not a person but a power that pervades the universe.”
Who is that “person”? Is it Joseph Smith?
What is “substance,” what is “more refined substance,” and what is “intelligence”? Is it all just matter? That’s all there is, matter? Double-speak?

What is that “core”? Anything? What is that “intelligence”? Is “intelligence” just another word for ‘matter’? Is “core” just another word for ‘matter’? Is “intelligence” the “core” or is there something more? Mormons used to tell me they were going to answer the question, “Where do we come from?” They have not done very well answering that question. Ultimately all they can say is what other denominations say: “God created us.” Other than that, they have no special knowledge.

You and I have a veil placed over I minds and cannot see the beginning, so obviously I cannot explain everything. But let me correct a significant error in your above comments.

Unlike other denominations we do not believe God created the essence of what makes us who we are. It has been called intelligence and sometimes spirit. It is immortal and eternal. There is no creation about it. As our scriptures say, “Man was also in the beginning with God. Intelligence, or the light of truth, was not created of made, neither indeed can be.” (D&C 93:29). Joseph uses other words to discribe who we are. He says:

I take my ring from my finger and liken it unto the mind of man - the immortal part, because it has no beginning. Suppose you cut it in two; then it has a beginning and an end; but join it again, and it continues one eternal round. So with the spirit of man. As the Lord liveth, if it had a beginning, it will have an end; and if that doctrine is true, then the doctrine of annihilation would be true. But if I am right, I might with boldness proclaim from the housetops that God never had the power to create the spirit of man at all. God himself could not create himself. Intelligence is eternal and exists upon a self-existent principle. It is spirit from age to age, and there is no creation about it. (TPJS p.354)

We, like God are eternal, from everlasting to everlasting, without beginning of days or end of years.

 

[Stephen168]

Unlike other denominations we do not believe God created the essence of what makes us who we are. It has been called intelligence and sometimes spirit. It is immortal and eternal. There is no creation about it. As our scriptures say, "Man was also in the beginning with God. Intelligence, or the light of truth, was not created of made, neither indeed can be." (D&C 93:29). Joseph uses other words to discribe who we are. He says: We, like God are eternal, from everlasting to everlasting, without beginning of days or end of years.

The original “revelation” was basically a series of trinitarian quotes form the Gospel of John; the Father and I are one, In the beginning was the Word and Christ is the Word. So we know in 1835 Joseph Smith and Mormonism was still a trinitarian Christian religion.

Later Joseph Smith added ‘man was also in the beginning’ to align with he new belief about the nature of God and eternal progression.

 

[Tarquin]

Posted by Tarquin: *Salvation is not growth, nor is it “becoming God”.
You seem to be conflating the Mormon concept of God the father with God the Christ. *

No the Father and the Son are distinct, separate, beings. But the path the Son trod, was first taken by the Father. As Jesus himself said, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise” (John 5:19). Because of this I can take what the Son did as a template for what the Father accomplished a long time ago.

Apparently I misconstrued how you were intending to connect “perfection” with human salvation, the method used by Jesus to provide salvation, and Hebrews 5:9. Apologies.

In particular, in regards to his atonement and resurrection Joseph says: * “The scriptures inform us that Jesus said, as the Father hath power in himself, even so hath the Son power—to do what? Why, what the Father did. The answer is obvious—in a manner to lay down his body and take it up again. Jesus, what are you going to do? To lay down my life as my Father did, and take it up again. Do you believe it? If you do not believe it you do not believe the Bible.” *

(King Follette sermon again? When it pleases a Mormon, it is quoted. When it displeases a Mormon, we are reminded “It isn’t scripture.” It is what Joseph Smith believed, and Joseph Smith was both Founder, Leader, and Expositor of Truth for the Church, so I accept it as what he believed, taught, and claimed by divine right to be true. Mormons who reject any of it are in effect rejecting Joseph Smith and crucifying him anew on their own account. “For his word ye shall receive, as if from mine own mouth, in all patience and faith” (D&C 21:4–5).

Joseph Smith continued,

and when I get my kingdom, I shall present it to my Father, so that he may obtain kingdom upon kingdom, and it will exalt him in glory. He will then take a higher exaltation, and I will take his place, and thereby become exalted myself.

So Jesus will take God’s place!? And God will move upwards? Levels of Gods? If Jesus moves in where God was, and God moves out from where he was, again there is a loss. God loses his position. He could hold both positions, but yields one. Even if he gains a higher position, he has lost the position now occupied by Jesus. God suffers too many losses under Mormon teachings.

“the Father hath power in himself, even so hath the Son power”

Power? Or life? ζωὴν is what appears in John 5:26 “For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted (ἔδωκεν = gave) the Son also to have life in himself.” God gave life to Jesus; Jesus did not “learn” to have life by watching God performing rites on alien planets. So this seems not to support, as far as I can tell, the point you seem to be trying to make, namely that Jesus was doing what he had mysteriously literally seen, before his birth, what God the Father did, when God the Father was not God, but at best a son of God, on an alien world.

One might wonder how such a marvelous pedagogical program was initially instituted! Did God the Father also do what he had seen his father do? Well how did that one learn – from his father? And so on? Constantly learning from another, generation after generation, without anyone ever having given the first lesson on which the entire series is based? Such thinking requires us to believe that counting begins at 2, or 200, or at twice infinity. Generations multiply. If there were no beginning, and each generation of gods multiplies in the billions (our earth currently has over 7 billion inhabitants plus however many are waiting for the resurrection), then the number of ‘people’ currently alive in the universe . . . is … beyond numbers. The concept of infinity itself is diminished by comparison.

It is unreasonable and illogical not to believe that there can be any linear series without a first item.

It would be important to know what maintains this system. Are an infinite number of different divine personalities all so agreeable? That’s fine. But why should it be so? Why should a newly ordained god follow this pattern. Newly ordained apostles break the rules. Spirit children in the pre-existence violated the rules. Obviously some people don’t want to follow rules. Including presidents, generals, and church leaders. How long will it be till someone goes through the process, becomes God, thinks about it, and decides, “Ah, heck, Lucifer was right after all. I would lose none of my children, and I really love them a lot, if I forced them to believe in me. From now on, that’s how I’ll do it!” Since gods can be tempted, and since gods can sin, this is possible. And given an infinite number of years, generations, gods, and choices to be made, is it only a matter of time till it happens? Unless some outside force prevents it from happening. What force is stronger than God’s free will?

 

[Tarquin]

Tarquin" God once had a power and a freedom that he no longer has. A God with lost powers. An admittedly deficient God.

God obviously did not lose power or freedom. I said “cannot” but perhaps it is better to say “will not”. Let me give an example. Let’s suppose I find a rotten apple. I’m hungry so I eat it. The next day I am retching and miserable. I decide then and there that I will never eat another rotten apple. Does that mean I cannot eat it? No. Does that mean my “freedom” is limited? No, I can eat the apple, if I so desire, but I know the consequences so will not do it again. God has learned the consequences of sin and will not sin.

Obviously to the contrary, God most certainly did lose power and freedom. But now you say it is not that he “cannot” but that he “will not”.

What force constrains an individual who can choose between two things from refraining to choose one or the other? Every day you will be able to eat a rotten apple, no matter the effects. If someone were to offer you a million dollars, you would eat it. If someone were to offer God a million things that he likes (“kingdoms”?), if he would do this one little thing that is wicked (maybe give an innocent child a toothache), who knows, maybe he would accept it. Because he can be tempted, and he can sin.

What force constrains an individual who can choose between two things from refraining to choose one or the other? It cannot be his own will. If it is ‘his own will,’ then he can sin. He would not sin unless he was tempted; therefore he can also be tempted to do evil! This is contrary to reason. If God can be tempted, and has free will, you have no guarantee he will choose good when a future temptation arises, one even He does not know about, more appealing than all other temptations he has experienced combined! No, the only way you can say God “cannot” sin is if there is a powerful force – more powerful than God! – that takes the power of free choice from him, constrains him, keeps him on track, and prevents him from sinning when he is faced with the irresistible sin.

The idea of a god who can be tempted and who can sin is also contrary to a God of perfect goodness (not merely conditioned goodness). You claim God is conditionally good – He is good on the condition that He does not yield to temptation. But he might decide otherwise.

You have limited my words to communication only.

I think not. You did that. You yourself admitted first that God (Father) and Jesus (Son) can be in only one place at a time. To “only be in one place at one time” is being restricted in space, localized, present in one location, in other words not omnipresent:

The Holy Ghost ….can only be in one place at one time. The Father and the Son can likewise only be in one place at one time.

Attempting to explain how a being that can “only be in one place at one time” is omnipresent, you continue by adding “Spirit”, which, like “intelligences” is undefined, other than to say it is “a power”. And you say that to communicate is to be omnipresent:

The Spirit Elder McConkie speaks of is not a person but a power that pervades the universe. When a being taps into this power he can communicate across the universe and can be present at all times and in all places. Thus the Godhead accesses this power and through it is omnipresent.

This “power”/“Spirit” enables communication. What enables communication in the world of matter? (Everything is matter in Mormon cosmology.) Language takes sound waves. Signs, books, computers take light waves. What can travel speedily from one point in the universe to another? Light waves. Maybe tachyons, but I doubt their reliability. They are fastest when they aren’t going anywhere. Just when they need to slow down, they speed up.

No, let’s not look for sounds or lights. Let’s say instead, as McConkie did, the device or instrument through which God communicates is “a power that pervades the universe.” Through it God “can communicate across the universe”. When he says God “can be present at all times and in all places” he must mean in the same sense the President of the United States can “be in all your living rooms” when he speaks to the nation by radio as FDR did, or on television as Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan did. He is “present” in the sense that his voice can be heard and his image seen. Actually, it is not even really his voice nor his image. Those remained in Washington. What people heard and saw was sound and an image, the product of the conversion of electrical pulses into sound and light. None of those Presidents was ever really anywhere outside a studio or office. Presidents are not really omnipresent. Nor is the Mormon God.

I do not see how any embodied creature, including the man-God of Mormonism, can be “in all our living rooms” at the same time, any other way than that. That is not being omnipresent.

“A power that pervades the universe”? Is power matter? (“all things are made of matter; some are more refined than others”). Without it, God is stuck in a single place, unable to communicate without going in person to the person he wants to communicate with. God exists locally. This power exists throughout the universe (“pervades the universe”). This “power” not only has an ability that God lacks, but has an ability greater than God’s correlate ability: God can be in only one place at a time. This power was already everywhere at once before God became fully God. God is a dependent being. He depends on an outside force in order to communicate with his own family.

One wonders where this supra-deific power came from, and what exactly is it?

 

[Tarquin]

It is much more than that. He is in all and through all things by the power of the Spirit. In the following modern day scripture this power of the spirit is called the “light of truth”.

This is no less confusing. Yes, the “power” of that “Spirit” again. Since all things are matter, according to Mormon doctrine, that power and that Spirit are matter. So is the “light of truth.” Matter occupies space and changes over time. How does matter help God be everywhere at once? So now are you saying, like traditional Christians, that God “is in all and through all”? (“to say that the father and the Son dwell in a mans heart is an old Sectarian notion. and is not correct.” - Joseph Smith Diary)

Speaking of Jesus it reads:
He that ascended up on high, as also he descended below all things, in that he comprehended all things, that he might be in all and through all things, the light of truth; which truth shineth. This is the light of Christ. As also he is in the sun, and the light of the sun, and the power thereof by which it was made… And the light which shineth, whitch giveth you light, is through him who enlighteneth you eyes, which is the same light that quickeneth your understandings; which light proceedeth forth from the presence of God to fill the immensity of space - the light which is in all things, which giveth life to all things, which is the law by which all things are governed, even the power of God who sitteth upon his throne, who is in the bosom of eternity, who is in the midst of all things." (D&C 88:6-7,11-13)

“in all and through all things”? “In the sun”? “Is the light of the sun”? He “enlighteneth [my] eyes”? And understanding comes to me through the light that goes into my eyes? It takes more than a flashlight to get a college degree. Is that passage any more meaningful than “a God who is without body, parts, or passions; who sits on the top of a topless throne; whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere; who fills the universe, and yet is so small that he can dwell in your heart”. That passage really needs to be explained, as it is heavily symbolic or metaphorical. I don’t know the proper place to elaborate on it (probably not here), but if you send me a link, I will give it a read.

You and I have a veil placed over I minds…

Why would God gives us amnesia?

…and cannot see the beginning, so obviously I cannot explain everything. But let me correct a significant error in your above comments.

I cannot tell what significant error you believe I have made, in particular an error relating to what Mormonism teaches. Would you please identify it specifically. A link and quote would be best, if possible.

…Unlike other denominations we do not believe God created the essence of what makes us who we are. It has been called intelligence and sometimes spirit. It is immortal and eternal. There is no creation about it. As our scriptures say, “Man was also in the beginning with God. Intelligence, or the light of truth, was not created of made, neither indeed can be.” (D&C 93:29). Joseph uses other words to discribe who we are. He says: We, like God are eternal, from everlasting to everlasting, without beginning of days or end of years.

No. Spirit and intelligence are different. Intelligence precedes spirit. Mormons have always had to be secretive about their teachings. Even now, a majority of Mormons are unaware of the details of the Second Anointing in the Temple or even that there is one. It would not be surprising to learn that Mormon teachings about “intelligences” have changed a dozen times since Joseph Smith’s day. Years ago, church manuals taught many more esoteric details than now. The third and fourth years *Seventys Course in Theology * (1910, 1911) delved deep into “intelligences” , The Seventys taught that “intelligences” were “self-existing intelligent entities”, “both self-conscious, and conscious of an external universe not self” (p. 5), can reason, form judgments, and have volition, physical, mental and moral – “a power both to will and to do”. **“Spirits are uncreated intelligences inhabiting spiritual bodies; while ‘intelligences,’ pure and simple, are intelligent entities, but **unembodied in either spirit bodies or bodies of flesh and bone.” Although Mormonism teaches that individuals progress through choices they make, and that explains at least some apparent equalities, the Seventys taught that intelligences were inherently unequal: “… though Intelligences are equal in eternity of existence, it does not follow that they are equal in degree of intelligence. . . . Not only do intelligences differ in regard to the degree of intelligence, but they differ also in moral quality and greatness and nobility.”
(pp. 18-19)

If you think this is confusing, you’ve hit the nail on the head. Oh, for a prophet to give clarity!

 

[Janderich]

(King Follette sermon again? When it pleases a Mormon, it is quoted. When it displeases a Mormon, we are reminded “It isn’t scripture.” It is what Joseph Smith believed, and Joseph Smith was both Founder, Leader, and Expositor of Truth for the Church, so I accept it as what he believed, taught, and claimed by divine right to be true. Mormons who reject any of it are in effect rejecting Joseph Smith and crucifying him anew on their own account. “For his word ye shall receive, as if from mine own mouth, in all patience and faith” (D&C 21:4–5).

I do not reject it in the least. I take it as truth. You’ll have to take your issue up with someone else.

Joseph Smith continued, So Jesus will take God’s place!? And God will move upwards? Levels of Gods? If Jesus moves in where God was, and God moves out from where he was, again there is a loss. God loses his position. He could hold both positions, but yields one. Even if he gains a higher position, he has lost the position now occupied by Jesus. God suffers too many losses under Mormon teachings.

Let’s suppose you had a son and he eventually grows up and has a family. Do you consider it a loss that he has a family? Are you worried because he followed in your footsteps?

“the Father hath power in himself, even so hath the Son power”

Power? Or life? ζωὴν is what appears in John 5:26 “For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted (ἔδωκεν = gave) the Son also to have life in himself.” God gave life to Jesus; Jesus did not “learn” to have life by watching God performing rites on alien planets. So this seems not to support, as far as I can tell, the point you seem to be trying to make, namely that Jesus was doing what he had mysteriously literally seen, before his birth, what God the Father did, when God the Father was not God, but at best a son of God, on an alien world.

It appears you do not understand how God blesses a person. First, the person acts in accordance with the law God has set forth. Once he keeps that law God gives that person the promised blessing. God can give us all sorts of blessings but he cannot make us who he is, we must learn it for ourselves.

One might wonder how such a marvelous pedagogical program was initially instituted! Did God the Father also do what he had seen his father do? Well how did that one learn – from his father? And so on? Constantly learning from another, generation after generation, without anyone ever having given the first lesson on which the entire series is based? Such thinking requires us to believe that counting begins at 2, or 200, or at twice infinity. Generations multiply. If there were no beginning, and each generation of gods multiplies in the billions (our earth currently has over 7 billion inhabitants plus however many are waiting for the resurrection), then the number of ‘people’ currently alive in the universe . . . is … beyond numbers. The concept of infinity itself is diminished by comparison.

It is unreasonable and illogical not to believe that there can be any linear series without a first item.

Fair enough, but we do not yet know where it began. There are some things we have yet to learn.

It would be important to know what maintains this system. Are an infinite number of different divine personalities all so agreeable? That’s fine. But why should it be so? Why should a newly ordained god follow this pattern. Newly ordained apostles break the rules. Spirit children in the pre-existence violated the rules. Obviously some people don’t want to follow rules. Including presidents, generals, and church leaders. How long will it be till someone goes through the process, becomes God, thinks about it, and decides, “Ah, heck, Lucifer was right after all. I would lose none of my children, and I really love them a lot, if I forced them to believe in me. From now on, that’s how I’ll do it!” Since gods can be tempted, and since gods can sin, this is possible. And given an infinite number of years, generations, gods, and choices to be made, is it only a matter of time till it happens? Unless some outside force prevents it from happening. What force is stronger than God’s free will?

You have created a false conflict. God does not sin, that is why he is God. This does not negate his free will. He is free to act but he has chosen not to sin. This is true of all others before him. Additionally, you have falsely assumed some other outside force. There is no other outside force. God has conquered all enemies, and “the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death” (1 Cor 15:26). Please note that it is the last. Because we suffer through sin does not mean God does the same.

 

[Tarquin]

I do not reject it in the least. I take it as truth. You’ll have to take your issue up with someone else.

It was meant as an aside. That’s why I put it in quotes. I was warning readers unfamiliar with the issue that Mormons trying to explain Mormonism do not agree on the validity of the sermon.

 

[Tarquin]

Let’s suppose you had a son and he eventually grows up and has a family. Do you consider it a loss that he has a family? Are you worried because he followed in your footsteps?

I am not God. Unfortunately. The issue isn’t about my children starting their own families and maintaining their relationship with me, but whether I abdicate my position as head of household in my own home, handing my role of paterfamilias over to another.

I have no problem with my children starting families, having lots of children, becoming wealthy or noble or holy or wise, in *their *position relative to *their *families (the families in which they are a parent). I do hope, however, they won’t take over my home and force me to look elsewhere.

The point I was making was not that there was something untoward in Jesus having or ruling a kingdom. In Catholic terms, this would be “have or rule a kingdom as a Person in the Trinity”. But in Mormon terms, this would be “displacing God”. I was responding to part of the Follette sermon that followed your quote of the same:

and when I get my kingdom, I shall present it to my Father, so that he may obtain kingdom upon kingdom, and it will exalt him in glory. He will then take a higher exaltation, and I will take his place, and thereby become exalted myself.

What bothers me specifically is the phrase, “I will take his place”. This sounds wrong to me. If Jesus takes God’s place, Mormons believing them to be not just two Persons but two separate and independent Gods who are currently cooperating, and being embodied in some sort of spatially limited physical form, when Jesus “takes his (God’s) place”, God must must take *another *place. Or no place. Or create a new place. (But in Mormonism, Gods cannot create at all!) So it seemed to me, based on all that, that God loses something. He loses His position. He has less, not more, and not the same. Since nothing can be created, every time God withdraws from an area, or abdicates, giving his throne to another, there is a lessening of his realm, his authority, and his dignity.

 

[Tarquin]

It appears you do not understand how God blesses a person. First, the person acts in accordance with the law God has set forth. Once he keeps that law God gives that person the promised blessing. God can give us all sorts of blessings but he cannot make us who he is, we must learn it for ourselves.

But you refute yourself! So then you do agree with me that Jesus did not have power or life in himself, but was given life and power by God? Quoting Joseph Smith favorably, you had posted:

In particular, in regards to his atonement and resurrection Joseph says:
"The scriptures inform us that Jesus said, as the Father hath power in himself, even so hath the Son power—to do what? Why, what the Father did. The answer is obvious—in a manner to lay down his body and take it up again. Jesus, what are you going to do? To lay down my life as my Father did, and take it up again. Do you believe it? If you do not believe it you do not believe the Bible."

But now you write, in harmony with what I had early written about Jesus not having life (Joseph Smith mistranslated the word as “power”) within himself but having been given life by God, “First, the person acts in accordance with the law God has set forth. Once after] he keeps that law then, afterwards] God gives that person the promised blessing.”

To a different point, you had posted:

No the Father and the Son are distinct, separate, beings. But the path the Son trod, was first taken by the Father. As Jesus himself said, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise” (John 5:19). Because of this I can take what the Son did as a template for what the Father accomplished a long time ago.

How do you determine which “Father” (or “fathers”!) Jesus was referring to? He had several. Legal: Joseph. Spiritual: God the Father. Ecclesiastical: the high priest or a representative. Religiously: Moses. Historically: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

 

[Tarquin]

Fair enough, but we do not yet know where it began. There are some things we have yet to learn.

Merciful Minerva! Are you saying that you believe the system by which God/Gods progress, had a beginning!? That would mean there was a first God who adopted that system in its beginning in order that He could progress. That leads to a host of questions. But I just want to make sure you mean what those words seem to be saying. The system of education that leads mortals into mortality had a beginning? Some Being initiated its use? Some Being was the first to use it, and by using it, to become “more exalted” in some way??? Is that right?

 

[Tarquin]

You have created a false conflict. God does not sin,

Why not?
You had written: “God has learned the consequences of sin and will not sin.” Billions of people know “the consequences of sin” but sin anyway.

Knowledge is not a barrier to sin!

Janderich, you had written:

No. God cannot sin. But I believe that eons and eons ago he had the potential to sin.

I did not create a false conflict by asking about what you proposed concerning God’s *ability *(or willingness) to sin and God’s *inability *(or unwillingness) to sin. Whether we use “will not” or “cannot”, you say that God had the potential to sin. If so, he is a poor God, a wicked God, a God whose mind is sufficiently impure that He had “the potential to sin” (and for all I know, still has that potential to sin).

Your God has gone from possessing a potential to act on a temptation, such that He can carry out the sin it leads to, from there to *not *possessing that potential. I will not go into the Catholic concept of God being a Being of no potentiality, but only actuality. But that is something I think you would like to read about. The Catholic God has no potentials. The Mormon God was born in potentiality and has been striving ever since to become more than potential.

Additionally, you have falsely assumed some other outside force. There is no other outside force.

I assumed no outside force. I suggested that the only way a being with the freedom to sin would never sin would be because there was some outside force preventing him from taking action on his desire to sin. (My actual “assumption” is that God never could sin and never will sin, because it is contrary to His Nature, not because he finally grew up and decided to be good from now on.)

Since knowledge is insufficient to prevent sin, what - you do not agree with the use of words such as “force” or “power” here, but I have not yet been able to think of proper alternatives - prevents sin? Speaking about God - an intelligence that could choose wrongly, then a spirit who might follow a Lucifer rather than a Jesus, than a man who could be tempted and could sin, then a Savior on another planet who might or might not succumb to that Satan’s three temptations, then a God of dubious virtue - what prevents him from sinning? Knowledge doesn’t work. Smart people sin. Desire to do good doesn’t work. As St. Paul said, “I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.”

that is why he is God. This does not negate his free will.

“He does not sin” because “he does not sin” (“He is God and God does not sin,” and that is ‘why’ he does not sin") is not an explanation.

He is free to act but he has chosen not to sin.

He is free to act. Is he free to sin??? If he can be tempted, if he has or had the potential to sin, but cannot sin, then he is *not *free to act - or he is something greater than the Mormon image of God. If he can sin but does not, it is by some force or attraction or repulsion that is stronger than his potential will to sin.

There is no creature about which we can say - it can be tempted; it can succumb to temptation - and also at the same time - it will never sin. Unless there is an outside force. We can reduce the sins of a person by putting them in a cage and not letting them interact with other people. Or we can pay them money to not sin. But that doesn’t work. Baltimore is doing it and it isn’t helping. We can also prevent a creature from sinning by hitting it in the head with a small board every time it contemplates carrying out a sinful act.

Without the cage or small board - and even with the attractive money - no creature subject to temptation and possessed of free will can be guaranteed never to sin. If you know of a substantive guarantee - something that can explain how it is that we can know that such a creature will *never *sin in all the future countless ages of trillions upon trillions of years without end, you should say what it is.

This is true of all others before him.

How do you know about the “others”?

God has conquered all enemies, and “the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death” (1 Cor 15:26). Please note that it is the last. Because we suffer through sin does not mean God does the same.

Then, does God feel good when he is tempted, or just sort of neutral?, like if I see something beautiful I might want to photograph it, and if I see something ugly I might want to avert my eyes, but if I see some commonplace thing, like an unextraordinary rock, I might neither be drawn to it nor repulsed from it.

 

[Hatikvah]

No the Father and the Son are distinct, separate, beings. But the path the Son trod, was first taken by the Father. As Jesus himself said, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise” (John 5:19). Because of this I can take what the Son did as a template for what the Father accomplished a long time ago.

Does this mean that God was a Messiah to His own people (as is implied)? Also, does that mean that our God’s god was also a Messiah, and so on?

 

[jane_doe]

Does this mean that God was a Messiah to His own people (as is implied)? Also, does that mean that our God’s god was also a Messiah, and so on?

That answer is 300% in we-don’t-know-and-can-only-speculate territory.

 

[Tarquin]

Does this mean that God was a Messiah to His own people (as is implied)? Also, does that mean that our God’s god was also a Messiah, and so on?

The answer to that depends on whom you want to believe. Some modern Mormons have said there has been only one God.

A Mormon seminary teacher, himself a High Council member, told me several years ago, however, that it seems possible that the only mortals who gain full exaltation and become new Gods in their own right, in their own special “kingdom”, are those who have served as Messiahs in their mortality. A highly placed Seventy I knew at the time confirmed this belief.

There are a couple of Mormon sects that teach that a person or spirit must go through a number of stages. The LeBarons taught that a person would live his own life, be exalted, serve as a Messiah on another world, then as the Holy Ghost on another, and eventually get to be a God the Father. Yes, it was a sort of reincarnation.

While Brigham Young did not go that far, he did teach a sort of reverse type of reincarnation. He taught that a man is exalted into the Celestial Kingdom and then sets up a world of his own. However, at least in the case of our God, it is God who comes back to earth, as a mortal in a physical body, to begin the human race on this continent. Modern Mormons who continue to believe Young’s doctrines are called “fundamentalists”, but fundamentalists come in many varieties. Young said,

How many Gods there are, I do not know. But there never was a time when there were not Gods and worlds, and when men were not passing through the same ordeals that we are now passing through. (Journal of Discourses, vol. 7)

Joseph Fielding Smith Jr., another prophet whom modern Mormons read selectively, wrote in the second volume of his Doctrines of Salvation, in which many other strange teachings are to be found:

The Father has promised us that through our faithfulness we shall be blessed with the fulness of his kingdom. In other words we will have the privilege of becoming like him. To become like him we must have all the powers of godhood; thus a man and his wife when glorified will have spirit children who eventually will go on an earth like this one we are on and pass through the same kind of experiences, being subject to mortal conditions, and if faithful, then they also will receive the fulness of exaltation and partake of the same blessings. There is no end to this development; it will go on forever. We will become gods and have jurisdiction over worlds, and these worlds will be peopled by our own offspring. We will have an endless eternity for this.

Church historian and co-president of the Seventy B. H. Roberts wrote The Mormon Doctrine of Deity, in which he commended Orson Pratt’s description of heavenly life:

'We would find, were we to carry this subject from world to world, from our world to another, even to the endless ages of eternity, that there never was a time but what there was a Father and Son. In other words when you entertain that which is endless, you exclude the idea of first being, a first world; the moment you admit of a first, you limit the idea of endless. …
'Says one, “this is incomprehensible.” It may be so in some respects. We can admit, though, that duration is endless, for it is impossible for man to conceive of a limit to it. If duration is endless there can never be a first minute, a first hour, or first period; endless duration in the past is made up of a continuation of endless successive moments—it had no beginning. Precisely so with regard to this endless succession of personages; there never will be a time when fathers, and sons, and worlds will not exist; neither was there ever a period through all the past ages of duration, but what there was a world, and a Father and Son, a redemption and exaltation to the fullness and power of the Godhead.

I think modern Mormonism is making a very obvious move towards a monotheistic view. That will require re-articulating a number of beliefs, but I believe they leaders are capable of it, and the laity will submit.

 

[Hatikvah]

That answer is 300% in we-don’t-know-and-can-only-speculate territory.

Okay, that sounds like a reasonable thing. But, Jane, if I may ask, does the whole doctrine of eternal progression and its implications get confusing or complex at times for you? I’m not challenging that in writing this, nor am I trying to be rude, but it’s my question to you.

The answer to that depends on whom you want to believe. Some modern Mormons have said there has been only one God.

A Mormon seminary teacher, himself a High Council member, told me several years ago, however, that it seems possible that the only mortals who gain full exaltation and become new Gods in their own right, in their own special “kingdom”, are those who have served as Messiahs in their mortality. A highly placed Seventy I knew at the time confirmed this belief.

There are a couple of Mormon sects that teach that a person or spirit must go through a number of stages. The LeBarons taught that a person would live his own life, be exalted, serve as a Messiah on another world, then as the Holy Ghost on another, and eventually get to be a God the Father. Yes, it was a sort of reincarnation.

That seems foreign to traditional Mormon doctrine, though I’m aware that they were a sect. So perhaps we could think of it as “heterodoxy within heterodoxy,” not to make that into a necessarily pejorative term.