Is eternal progression possible?

Only through an infinite number of realms, as of yet unrevealed. There is way too much that we don’t know about any existence outside of our earth life to effectively consider this question. The argument could be made that omnipotence/omniscience only relates to our earthly perspective, and is a perfectly valid statement to posit about God to humans.

Sam, fwiw, I think you’re splitting hairs a bit – but only from a non-Mormon viewpoint, ironically.

I believe omnipotence is possible theoretically, which is all I can say. So, yes, I believe eternal progression is possible theoretically – especially with the decidedly Mormon definition of “eternal” as “God-like”.

In Mormon theology, there is a difference between immortality and eternal life, which would be silly if “eternal” simply meant “never-ending”. That opens up the possibility that “eternal progression” doesn’t have to mean “always increasing knowledge and always increasing power” – that it simply can mean “reaching perfection (becoming complete, whole and fully developed) in a state of ‘godhood’.”

I can buy that.

SamBee,

I’m trying to figure out how to put all the background of my glorious heretical views into one post here. The short and, perhaps, more effective method is to speak some paradoxical, nonsensical esoterica. The other method is to try to lay the background, which is likely to wrap me into a pretzel.

Q: Is God progressing?

A: Am I a child of God?

Oh, how pure Mormonism is expansive and uncontainable! If we can just have one glimpse of heaven, it bursts our entire conception into a blinding supernova of glorious amazement.

A: Are you having fun yet?

😆 :clap: I want this question officially added to the “big 3”: Who am I , why am I here, where am I going?

After all, there is that little thing about man[kind] existing to have joy…..

Eternal progression makes absolute sense to me. I keep progressing as often as I put my mind and effort to it in this life — it makes sense that I can continue progressing in the size of my domain and also my personal abilities as I get older, even through eternity.

This is another strong part of pure Mormonism in my view. The part that sometimes gets me is the fact that the temple is between me and the eternal progression, with some of the rules that keep evolving in the TR interview questions, or the redefinition of tithing over the years, but that is another issue.

But the idea that progression continues in this life for eternity makes great sense to me. It’s another thing that keeps me believing, along with the PoS, baptisms for the dead, clean living, the BoM’s many interesting and uplifting passages, etcetera.

Any single activity or thought, even the pleasurable, done forever, eventually becomes meaningless and even torturous. At some point, the most valuable, beautiful and appreciated events are the unexpected — surprises.

I have a feeling that “free agency” and individual egos are evidence of this in the divine. Instead of choreographing everything to a stale perfection of efficiency, perhaps God is more interested in random surprises, the unexpected and unpredictable results of a chaotic universe that simply runs its course.

After a few hundred billion years, you can pick up all the pieces and throw them in the air again — see where they land.

Except in matters of Church policy. The CHI tends to be static and creates the very monotony you are describing. I would love it if we could implement the Renegade 1st Ward. Each stake has one. Here you get to break all the rules provided you stay consistent with a few bedrock, high-level principles and commandments. What would this Ward be like — exciting!!!!

I could see myself going there for a while until I started craving stability, and might return to my existing Ward refreshed and renewed.

Except in matters of Church policy.

Um, dude, think about that a little more. Church policy changes both radically and incrementally.

We don’t even have to look at massive shifts like polygamy and the Priesthood. This past revision of the CHI included something as simple as stating explicitly that men and women can say both Sacrament prayers, since some local leaders were adding their own twist to the former wording, and something as radical as almost neutering the PEC and placing the Ward & Stake Councils in its place as the top council at the local levels.

Also, missionary work was revamped about as radically as is possible with the publication of Preach My Gospel.

There are lots of examples of how Church policy isn’t static.

Ray, I’ve never really liked it when people call me dude — just so you know who you’re dealing with….[no offence intended in being so honest by the way, I enjoy a lot of what you write, so focus on that, but I thought I’d speak up on this one].

In fact, some of you later thoughts occurred to me when I wrote above. I suppose there are incremental improvements in the form of bulletins etcetera do allow some improvement and dynamic change, however, I find the large changes that we’ve seen in the last handbook to be infrequent and far between — when was the last time the CHI was revamped top to bottom? Decades ago? That’s what I mean. We’ve talked about this to death, I think, about the power of the Church culture, and much of it stems from the CHI, which, while valuable in areas where people don’t know what they are doing, is stfling to many of us creative types.

Case in point. As a priesthood leader, everyone was leaning on us because we weren’t generating enough investigators, and that we needed to baptize some leaders. We’d tried the Set a Date program, referral dialogues, family home evening visits with missionaries, tracting, visits to the homes of new move-ins scouring for non-members, you name it, I felt we’d tried it.

I then hatched a plan — we would stack Sacrament, Adult SS and a combined Priesthood/RS meeting some of the most compelling speakers (professionals where possible) we had in our Ward on practical life topics, and potentially the Stake, thus reaching beyond our boundaries if necessary. We would have a killer musical selection. We would then have a massive flyer drop in areas in our Ward that were likely to have leadership-capable people advertising the speakers and the three hour block. We would encourage the membership to bring their friends. I had support from a number of doers in our Ward to do the flyer drop, and had commitments from a family counsellor, a dynamic speaker, etcetera. They would speak/teach using principles unique to our religion to show its power to help people with their daily lives. People were tentative about it because it had never been tried. “You can’t bring people in out of the Ward” was one concern.

Anyway, the Bishop killed the idea because it’s “not the program of the Church”. And so we were stuck with the same old goading and harping about missionary work, as well as traditional programs we’d tried, and of course, not much changed.

Another case in point — I thought a sign at the front of the building advertising the event might work. I asked the Bishop and he said “No”. I asked why “He said, I don’t know, we don’t do that”. Then he looked up something in the CHI that had limits on signage.

So, while there may be an overhaul to the general handbook every few decades, and bulletins here and there — I have to confess, we are can be a slow, mechanistic organization, and that irks me.