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Daniel_Marsh
Guest
Utah LDS do you really believe that you will become a God? How exactly does that work? exhaltation means to you?
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Daniel_Marsh
Guest
bump
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Catholic4aReasn
Guest
What does “bump” mean?
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kparlet
Guest
It means you’re trying to get the topic “bumped” back up to the top of the list.
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Catholic4aReasn
Guest
Sorry to be an idiot, but bumped back up to the top of what list?
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flameburns623
Guest
The list of threads on this sub-forum. In case you hadn’t hadn’t noticed, threads which are not posted in gradually drift to the bottom of the sub forum and then move on to new pages. Most people don’t spend a lot of time checking out more than the first thre pages or so of a forum. The first page always has the most readers, and threads near the top get more readers than threads that appear towards the bottom. So people ‘bump’ threads to the top of the first page if they are hoping for more responses.
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Paul_G
Guest
Daniel Marsh:
Daniel are you addressing this question only to LDS that live in Utah? Are you aware that there are more LDS that live outside the USA than in it?Utah LDS do you really believe that you will become a God? How exactly does that work? exhaltation means to you?
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Catholic_Dude
Guest
Daniel Marsh:
From what I have read its called “eternal progression” where they develope during this life and in the end become a godUtah LDS do you really believe that you will become a God? How exactly does that work? exhaltation means to you?
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meggy11386
Guest
I am LDS but am seeking the Catholic Church. It isn’t that we are going to be GODS it is that we will become like Gods. We will live among our Heavenly Father (GOD), and our Brother, Jesus Christ
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Catholic4aReasn
Guest
It’s my understanding that y’all will get your own planet to be god of. God was once a good Mormon so got his own world (ours) to be god of. Is that how it works?
In Christ,
Nancy
meggy11386:
In Christ,
Nancy
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Daniel_Marsh
Guest
by Elder Bruce R. McConkie
Endowed with agency and subject to eternal laws, man began his progression and advancement in pre-existence, his ultimate goal being to attain a state of glory, honor, and exaltation like the Father of spirits. During his earth life he gains a mortal body, receives experience in earthly things, and prepares for a future eternity after the resurrection when he will continue to gain knowledge and intelligence. (D. & C. 130:18-19.) This gradually unfolding course of advancement and experience – a course that began in a past eternity and will continue in ages future – is frequently referred to as a course of eternal progression.
It is important to know, however, that for the overwhelming majority of mankind, eternal progression has very definite limitations. In the full sense, eternal progression is enjoyed only by those who receive exaltation. Exalted persons gain the fullness of the Father; they have all power, all knowledge, and all wisdom; they gain a fullness of truth, becoming one with the Father. All other persons are assigned lesser places in the mansions that are prepared, and their progression is not eternal and unlimited but in a specified sphere. There will be truths such persons never learn, powers they never possess. They are “ministering servants, to minister for those who are worthy of a far more, and an exceeding, and an eternal weight of glory,” and they so continue “to all eternity, and … forever and ever.” (D. & C. 132:16-17.)
Those who gain exaltation, having thus enjoyed the fullness of eternal progression, become like God. It should be realized that God is not progressing in knowledge, truth, virtue, wisdom, or any of the attributes of godliness. He has already gained these things in their fullness. But he is progressing in the sense that his creations increase, his dominions expand, his spirit offspring multiply, and more kingdoms are added to his domains. (Doctrines of Salvation, vol. 1, pp. 5-10.)
Mormon Doctrine, p.239
Orson Pratt’s quote on Heavenly Fathers
We were begotten by our Father in Heaven; the person of our Father in Heaven was begotten on a previous heavenly world by His Father; and again, He was begotten by a still more ancient Father and so on, from generation to generation, from one heavenly world to another still more ancient, until our minds are wearied and lost in the multiplicity of generations and successive worlds, and as a last resort, we wonder in our mind, how far back the genealogy extends, and how the first world was formed, and how the first Father was begotten.
(Orson Pratt, The Seer, Washington, D. C., 1854, page 132.
Pratt also said we shouldn’t bother ourselves worrying over how far back the genealogy extends for, ”. . .in worshipping any one of these Gods, we worship the whole.”
Ibid, p. 132.
yrulds.com/home/progression/pratt.htm
lightplanet.com/mormons/basic/afterlife/progression_eom.htm
I refer to Utah to distinquish from RLDS as origin of Sect.
Endowed with agency and subject to eternal laws, man began his progression and advancement in pre-existence, his ultimate goal being to attain a state of glory, honor, and exaltation like the Father of spirits. During his earth life he gains a mortal body, receives experience in earthly things, and prepares for a future eternity after the resurrection when he will continue to gain knowledge and intelligence. (D. & C. 130:18-19.) This gradually unfolding course of advancement and experience – a course that began in a past eternity and will continue in ages future – is frequently referred to as a course of eternal progression.
It is important to know, however, that for the overwhelming majority of mankind, eternal progression has very definite limitations. In the full sense, eternal progression is enjoyed only by those who receive exaltation. Exalted persons gain the fullness of the Father; they have all power, all knowledge, and all wisdom; they gain a fullness of truth, becoming one with the Father. All other persons are assigned lesser places in the mansions that are prepared, and their progression is not eternal and unlimited but in a specified sphere. There will be truths such persons never learn, powers they never possess. They are “ministering servants, to minister for those who are worthy of a far more, and an exceeding, and an eternal weight of glory,” and they so continue “to all eternity, and … forever and ever.” (D. & C. 132:16-17.)
Those who gain exaltation, having thus enjoyed the fullness of eternal progression, become like God. It should be realized that God is not progressing in knowledge, truth, virtue, wisdom, or any of the attributes of godliness. He has already gained these things in their fullness. But he is progressing in the sense that his creations increase, his dominions expand, his spirit offspring multiply, and more kingdoms are added to his domains. (Doctrines of Salvation, vol. 1, pp. 5-10.)
Mormon Doctrine, p.239
Orson Pratt’s quote on Heavenly Fathers
We were begotten by our Father in Heaven; the person of our Father in Heaven was begotten on a previous heavenly world by His Father; and again, He was begotten by a still more ancient Father and so on, from generation to generation, from one heavenly world to another still more ancient, until our minds are wearied and lost in the multiplicity of generations and successive worlds, and as a last resort, we wonder in our mind, how far back the genealogy extends, and how the first world was formed, and how the first Father was begotten.
(Orson Pratt, The Seer, Washington, D. C., 1854, page 132.
Pratt also said we shouldn’t bother ourselves worrying over how far back the genealogy extends for, ”. . .in worshipping any one of these Gods, we worship the whole.”
Ibid, p. 132.
yrulds.com/home/progression/pratt.htm
lightplanet.com/mormons/basic/afterlife/progression_eom.htm
I refer to Utah to distinquish from RLDS as origin of Sect.
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Daniel_Marsh
Guest
by Lisa Ramsey Adams
The principle of eternal progression cannot be precisely defined or comprehended, yet it is fundamental to the LDS worldview. The phrase “eternal progression” first occurs in the discourses of Brigham Young. It embodies many concepts taught by Joseph Smith, especially in his King Follett discourse. It is based on the proposition that “there is no such thing as principle, power, wisdom, knowledge, life, position, or anything that can be imagined, that remains stationary—they must increase or decrease” (Young, JD 1:350).
Progression takes many forms. In one sense, eternal progression refers to everything that people learn and experience by their choices as they progress from premortal life, to mortality, to postmortal spirit life, and to a resurrected state in the presence of God. Personal progression is possible in each of these states, but not the same kind of progression. Progression apparently occurred in the premortal life, for most spirits there chose to follow Christ and some were noble and great, while others chose to follow Lucifer. Entering mortality affords opportunities for further progression. Obtaining a physical body is a crucial step, enabling a person to experience physical sensations of all kinds and to progress in knowledge and understanding, all of which will rise with the person in the Resurrection (D&C 130:18). Brigham Young taught that even in mortality, “We are in eternity” (JD 10:22), and the object of this existence is “to learn to enjoy more, and to increase in knowledge and experience” (JD 14:228). “When we have learned to live according to the full value of the life we now possess, we are prepared for further advancement in the scale of eternal progression—for a more glorious and exalted sphere” (JD 9:168).
Life is never static. “One must progress or retrograde. One cannot stand still. Activity is the law of growth, and growth, progress, is the law of life” (A. Bowen, in Christ’s Ideals for Living, O. Tanner, ed., Salt Lake City, 1980, p. 368). A person’s attitude about "“eternal progression’ will largely determine his philosophy of life…exalting, increasing, expanding and extending broader and broader until we can know as we are known, see as we are seen” (Young, JD 16:165).
At the Resurrection and Judgment, people will be assigned a degree of glory. Further progress is believed possible within each degree. Marriage and family life, however, continue only in the Celestial Kingdom, allowing “eternal increase” through having spirit children (see Eternal Lives, Eternal Increase). “All this and more that cannot enter into our hearts to conceive is promised to the faithful, and are but so many stages in that ceaseless progression of eternal lives” (Young, JD 10:5).
No official Church teaching attempts to specify all the ways in which God progresses in his exalted spheres; “there is no end to [His] works, neither to [His] words” (Moses 1:38). God’s glory and power are enhanced as his children progress in glory and power (see Moses 1:39; Young, JD 10:5). Ideas have been advanced to explain how God might progress in knowledge and still be perfect and know all things (see Foreknowledge of God; Omnipotent God).
The concept of eternal progression is a salient feature of the gospel of Jesus Christ, readily distinguishable from traditional Christian theology. The philosophical views of the Middle Ages were basically incompatible with such a concept, and the idea of progress that emerged in the eighteenth-century Enlightenment was that of social evolution (Bury, The Idea of Progress, London, 1932). The traditional Christian view has held that those in heaven enter “a state of eternal, inactive joy. In the presence of God they would worship him and sing praises to him eternally, but nothing more” (Widtsoe, p. 142). Latter-day Saints, however, constantly seek personal and righteous improvement not only by establishing Zion in this world, but by anticipating the continuation of progression eternally.
Bibliography
Widtsoe, John A. “Is Progress Eternal or Is There Progress in Heaven?” IE 54 (Mar. 1951):142; see also Evidences and Reconciliations, pp. 179-85, Salt Lake City, 1960.
Encyclopedia of Mormonism, Vol. 1, Eternal Progression
The principle of eternal progression cannot be precisely defined or comprehended, yet it is fundamental to the LDS worldview. The phrase “eternal progression” first occurs in the discourses of Brigham Young. It embodies many concepts taught by Joseph Smith, especially in his King Follett discourse. It is based on the proposition that “there is no such thing as principle, power, wisdom, knowledge, life, position, or anything that can be imagined, that remains stationary—they must increase or decrease” (Young, JD 1:350).
Progression takes many forms. In one sense, eternal progression refers to everything that people learn and experience by their choices as they progress from premortal life, to mortality, to postmortal spirit life, and to a resurrected state in the presence of God. Personal progression is possible in each of these states, but not the same kind of progression. Progression apparently occurred in the premortal life, for most spirits there chose to follow Christ and some were noble and great, while others chose to follow Lucifer. Entering mortality affords opportunities for further progression. Obtaining a physical body is a crucial step, enabling a person to experience physical sensations of all kinds and to progress in knowledge and understanding, all of which will rise with the person in the Resurrection (D&C 130:18). Brigham Young taught that even in mortality, “We are in eternity” (JD 10:22), and the object of this existence is “to learn to enjoy more, and to increase in knowledge and experience” (JD 14:228). “When we have learned to live according to the full value of the life we now possess, we are prepared for further advancement in the scale of eternal progression—for a more glorious and exalted sphere” (JD 9:168).
Life is never static. “One must progress or retrograde. One cannot stand still. Activity is the law of growth, and growth, progress, is the law of life” (A. Bowen, in Christ’s Ideals for Living, O. Tanner, ed., Salt Lake City, 1980, p. 368). A person’s attitude about "“eternal progression’ will largely determine his philosophy of life…exalting, increasing, expanding and extending broader and broader until we can know as we are known, see as we are seen” (Young, JD 16:165).
At the Resurrection and Judgment, people will be assigned a degree of glory. Further progress is believed possible within each degree. Marriage and family life, however, continue only in the Celestial Kingdom, allowing “eternal increase” through having spirit children (see Eternal Lives, Eternal Increase). “All this and more that cannot enter into our hearts to conceive is promised to the faithful, and are but so many stages in that ceaseless progression of eternal lives” (Young, JD 10:5).
No official Church teaching attempts to specify all the ways in which God progresses in his exalted spheres; “there is no end to [His] works, neither to [His] words” (Moses 1:38). God’s glory and power are enhanced as his children progress in glory and power (see Moses 1:39; Young, JD 10:5). Ideas have been advanced to explain how God might progress in knowledge and still be perfect and know all things (see Foreknowledge of God; Omnipotent God).
The concept of eternal progression is a salient feature of the gospel of Jesus Christ, readily distinguishable from traditional Christian theology. The philosophical views of the Middle Ages were basically incompatible with such a concept, and the idea of progress that emerged in the eighteenth-century Enlightenment was that of social evolution (Bury, The Idea of Progress, London, 1932). The traditional Christian view has held that those in heaven enter “a state of eternal, inactive joy. In the presence of God they would worship him and sing praises to him eternally, but nothing more” (Widtsoe, p. 142). Latter-day Saints, however, constantly seek personal and righteous improvement not only by establishing Zion in this world, but by anticipating the continuation of progression eternally.
Bibliography
Widtsoe, John A. “Is Progress Eternal or Is There Progress in Heaven?” IE 54 (Mar. 1951):142; see also Evidences and Reconciliations, pp. 179-85, Salt Lake City, 1960.
Encyclopedia of Mormonism, Vol. 1, Eternal Progression
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Daniel_Marsh
Guest
So, do LDS believe they will become a God? to make and populate their own world, to be worshipped by their offspring?
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Daniel_Marsh
Guest
In 1949 Apostle Joseph F. Merrill stated:
Now there is another personality of which I desire to speak, … that person is Satan, the Devil. But according to our understanding and teachin, Satan is a person with a spirit body, in form like that of all other men. He is a spirit brother of ours and of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is our Elder Brother in the spirit world. The earth was in course of development for the abode of man in mortality. A Redeemer was to be sent down and make it possible for the Father’s children to return to him. (LDS Conference Report, April 1949, p. 27)
Speaking in 1857, Apostle Joseph Young taught:
Who is it that is at the head of this? It is the Devil, the mighty Lucifer, the great prince of the angels, and the brother of Jesus. He left the province of his Father, and took with him a third part of his Father’s kingdom, and there was no other alternative but to banish him. God would have saved him if he could; but he could not. (Journal of Discourses, vol. 6, pp. 207-208, October 11, 1857)
Jesus and Satan are brothers?
You LDS need to explain your theology because it does not line up at all with the God of the Bible or with Historic Christian Theology.
Now there is another personality of which I desire to speak, … that person is Satan, the Devil. But according to our understanding and teachin, Satan is a person with a spirit body, in form like that of all other men. He is a spirit brother of ours and of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is our Elder Brother in the spirit world. The earth was in course of development for the abode of man in mortality. A Redeemer was to be sent down and make it possible for the Father’s children to return to him. (LDS Conference Report, April 1949, p. 27)
Speaking in 1857, Apostle Joseph Young taught:
Who is it that is at the head of this? It is the Devil, the mighty Lucifer, the great prince of the angels, and the brother of Jesus. He left the province of his Father, and took with him a third part of his Father’s kingdom, and there was no other alternative but to banish him. God would have saved him if he could; but he could not. (Journal of Discourses, vol. 6, pp. 207-208, October 11, 1857)
Jesus and Satan are brothers?
You LDS need to explain your theology because it does not line up at all with the God of the Bible or with Historic Christian Theology.
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flameburns623
Guest
Paul G:
I took the title of his thread to mean that he is addressing those LDS who belong to the Utah-based (actually, the Salt Lake City-based) Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, as opposed to one of the splinter groups such as the RLDS (now called the Community of Christ), which reject the doctrine of eternal progression.
Paul:
I took the title of his thread to mean that he is addressing those LDS who belong to the Utah-based (actually, the Salt Lake City-based) Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, as opposed to one of the splinter groups such as the RLDS (now called the Community of Christ), which reject the doctrine of eternal progression.
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flameburns623
Guest
Daniel Marsh:
Daniel Marsh:
. Stalin. Pol Pot. And Bill and Hilary Clinton, and the whole Bush clan. :bigyikes: All in all, a very shabby family tree for all of us.
Contemporary LDS apologists, including the current Prophet, seem to be quibbling on how they understand the doctrine of eternal progression. In some cases, the doctrine is couched in terms very similar to what I think the EO might intend by ‘theosis’–not to suggest that the two ideas are exactly the same, or start from the same understanding of who God is. Most Mormons, I think, understand that God the Father is still progressing even as humans are progressing, so that He will ever and always be ‘our God’. However, there is also a tendency to understand that as God now is–Creator and Lord of at least this one planet, Father of all souls which ever have or ever will exist here–so also will at least some faithful human souls eventually become. By that time I suppose that ‘our God’ will have progressed to have become the God of a galaxy or perhaps even of an entire universe. Which leads to the interesting question–who is the God over ‘our God’? And who is the God over that God? And how far back does this lineal progression stretch? And why can’t I worship the God of all Gods rather than some lesser Deity? This was one of the questions which I pursued as I squirmed my way out of the theology of the LDS Church.Utah LDS do you really believe that you will become a God? How exactly does that work? exhaltation means to you?
Daniel Marsh:
Well, in the pre-mortal existence, before this world was created, Lucifer (not Satan–I think the LDS distinguish between the Devil who was once Lucifer and Satan, but I could be mistaken) and Jesus were, as were all of us, spirit-children of God and of our Heavenly Mother. Offspring in some sense that is at least a direct corrollary of what we mean by the term ‘offspring’ in human terms. So yeah, Lucifer and Jesus were at least at one time brothers. Jesus proposed a plan of salvation which preserved human free will but placed at least some spirit-children of God at risk of an eternity in a lesser kingdom of Heaven or even in Outer Darkness. Lucifer proposed one which abbrogated free will but ensured the universal salvation of all spirits. Our Heavenly Father preferred the plan of Jesus over the plan of Lucifer and there was a falling-out. Lucifer, in anger, rebelled and led about a third of the hosts of heaven (others of our spirit- brothers and spirit-sisters) in a rebellion against our Heavenly Father. Presumably the upshot of this is that Lucifer has been disowned and is not, properly speaking, still the spirit-brother of Jesus. (I’m being speculative here, not citing any LDS sources which definitively state this). But look at the whole idea like this: not only is Lucifer the spirit-brother of Jesus but he is OUR spirit-brother as well. And so are Hitler
. Stalin. Pol Pot. And Bill and Hilary Clinton, and the whole Bush clan. :bigyikes: All in all, a very shabby family tree for all of us.
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flameburns623
Guest
(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)
Just in case someone missed the fact that I was making a funny.
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robins
Guest
One thing that I know about Mormons is that they get bonded on this earth to their spouse and children. I believe that would be their family when they get to whatever place they are going. Also you are including a lot of people in that list when if comes to the Bush clan - Kerry, the Queen and many others such as my husbands family, so remember you aren’t just talking about the folks on TV.
I have heard that the LDS came from an egyption divorce decree, has anyone else heard that?
I have heard that the LDS came from an egyption divorce decree, has anyone else heard that?
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Chris-WA
Guest
This has always been utterly bizarre to me. What is this nonsense about obtaining powers? What powers does one expect to obtain? The power of creation? The power of omnipotence? Only God will ever have these things. Though we are like Him in the sense that we will be eternal with Him, we are still creatures. We are created beings. He is not. We had a beginning. He did not. We are part of the universe. He is its creator.
LDS always like to use the emotional appeal of, “Don’t you think God the Father wants you to have everything He has?” My answer is simply “No, I don’t think that.” I think God wants us to be with Him forever in heaven, plain and simple, as part of His eternal family. I don’t think God wants to make me a god and give me godly powers or kingdoms, or planets or whatever ever else McKonkie is trying to explain. This may be attractive to some, but is repelling to me. The Christian concept of heaven is a simple one. The LDS concept of heaven requires a diagram chart to understand.
Eternal progression, as it is defined here, is not Christian. Christ did not preach different levels of heaven or exaltation. Heaven is heaven is heaven. There are not separate kingdoms or levels within it. I have no wish to be “exalted.” I only wish to live with God forever in heaven with all the saints.
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Chris-WA
Guest
Daniel Marsh:
Probably the most bizarre and troubling teaching of Mormonism, and also one for which you probably will not find much official support by present-day LDS. This concept, though, is a logical extrapolation of the teaching of eternal progression. This teaching by Orson Pratt is utterly non-Christian and non-Jewish. It is so far off the mark about who God is that it should be condemned as heresy by the LDS church, because its content is so fundamental to the proper understanding of God.
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