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My wife was talking to me yesterday about what we’re taught about eternal progression and the implications of that and it occured to me that we’re not taught about it at all any more. Another I remember from my childhood was gathering in Missouri/Jackson County. There are doctrines that we take for granted as conventional wisdom but that aren’t part of curriculum and are never mentioned in conference addresses. Is it just me or do others think this is the case? Just wondering I think the “gods” thing is too disturbing for some. Hence we’re told to be like Christ.
I think it’s still there, between the lines though.
Our church has a peculiar history of doctrinal change. We never seem to post public creeds or even public discussion about the prudence of a church-wide viewpoint or interpretation. Instead, we just seem to quietly let some ideas fade by not talking about them anymore. Instead of coming out openly and saying “we no longer believe that way anymore,” we get subtle little passing phrases like “I don’t think we teach that, we don’t emphasize it…” (paraphrasing Pres. Hinkley from the famous Larry King interview when asked about becoming gods). That actually caused quite a problem even being that blunt, as round-about as it was. People who were paying attention all went HUH????!!!! and scratched their heads.
Speculation about the creation used to be pretty common in church meeting and classes and I think that even now among older members there’s an expectation of what is doctrine that relates to earlier days. One doctrine that sticks in my mind was when my bishop back when I was AP age back in the 50s told me that Jesus was conceived by actual union of the Father and Mary.
I think theological speculation in general is pretty much gone other than for bloggers and gospel hobb1ests (?sp).
We really don’t talk much about the mark of Cain or Lamanites being American Indians like was taught decades ago. Those are good things I’m glad we don’t talk about anymore. Of course, we do talk a lot about Word of Wisdom and chastity ad nauseum.
🙄 Even Pres Uchtdorf has acknowledged some “good ideas” become popular and then we start to accept them as eternal gospel truths through tradition and repetition. But there has always been a flux of things that are discussed and then de-emphasized when it goes beyond the mark, and needs to be reeled in and downplayed.
GBSmith wrote:we’re taught about eternal progression and the implications of that and it occured to me that we’re not taught about it at all any more.
GB, what do you mean by “we’re not taught about eternal progression” – specifically about becoming gods? We are still taught about damnation is not being able to continue to progress in the eternities, aren’t we?
Gospel Principles Manual, last chapter 47 on Exaltation reads:
Quote:Those who receive exaltation in the celestial kingdom through faith in Jesus Christ will receive special blessings. The Lord has promised, “All things are theirs” (D&C 76:59). These are some of the blessings given to exalted people:
1. They will live eternally in the presence of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ (see D&C 76:62).
2. They will become gods (see D&C 132:20–23).
3. They will be united eternally with their righteous family members and will be able to have eternal increase.
4. They will receive a fulness of joy.
5. They will have everything that our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ have—all power, glory, dominion, and knowledge (see D&C 132:19–20).
Heber13 wrote:GB, what do you mean by “we’re not taught about eternal progression” – specifically about becoming gods? We are still taught about damnation is not being able to continue to progress in the eternities, aren’t we?
Gospel Principles Manual, last chapter 47 on Exaltation reads:
Quote:Those who receive exaltation in the celestial kingdom through faith in Jesus Christ will receive special blessings. The Lord has promised, “All things are theirs” (D&C 76:59). These are some of the blessings given to exalted people:
1. They will live eternally in the presence of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ (see D&C 76:62).
2. They will become gods (see D&C 132:20–23).
3. They will be united eternally with their righteous family members and will be able to have eternal increase.
4. They will receive a fulness of joy.
5. They will have everything that our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ have—all power, glory, dominion, and knowledge (see D&C 132:19–20).
It had just occurred to me that I’d not heard a detailed lesson about eternal progression and that Pres. Hinckley was right when he said we don’t talk about that (becoming Gods) anymore. The gospel principles manual material is pretty general but I don’t believe I’ve seen or heard anything for along time about creating and populating worlds or what it means to have a fullness or joy. Another question is that if we’ll have everything the Father has, does that make us co equal with Him?
The other part of what I was alluding to are the implications of eternal progression. For instance if we have our own world who will be the savior of it, Jesus or one of our own offspring? And if Jesus is the Savior of all worlds, will he will he be born, live and be sacrificed for the sins of those individuals in a never ending cycle? If Heavenly Father was once like us then who was before him? I’m sure that someone has speculated on all these things and at one time spoke and taught about them. The Adam God business is a good example. It’s just that it all seems to be gone and what we have now is a version of protestant Christianity with a little on the side about eternal families, etc..
Another thing I like to look at is things we now talk about that we didn’t so much before. Emma Smith comes to mind. For a long time she was verbally exiled from church discussions. Now not only is she in the lessons but she is the one and only. What ever change of heart happened there the church did a 180. It makes me wonder if 30 years from now other “forgotten” topics will return or be resurrected.
Quote:Pres. Hinckley was right when he said we don’t talk about that (becoming Gods) anymore.
That’s not what he said.Just to be precise, Pres. Hinckley was not talking about becoming Gods (“As God is, man may become.”) in that interview. He was talking about God once being a man. (“As man is, God once was.”) I won’t go into it again in this thread, since we talked about it at length in another thread, but it’s important to remember.
GBSmith wrote:Another question is that if we’ll have everything the Father has, does that make us co equal with Him?
One way to look at this question is if we grow to adulthood, have a family and home of our own just as our father does that make us co-equal with him?
I never fully understood the comments I heard about each world having a savior – That Jesus was the savior for all of our Fathers children, that Father was the savior among his siblings, etc. It easily gets to a point where it’s hard to follow, or fully comprehend all the details. I think it’s a good idea to avoid such conversations in an official way because you get to a point where you can’t keep track of all the loose ends. Nobody could possibly have all those answers.
So we believe that we can become a god? But we no longer believe that God was once a man? Sadly, I think there are two gospels…the sanitized, unobjectionable (if that is even possible in Mormonism to some) gospel is the one the new members get, Gospel Version 1.0. This is the one that focuses on basic Christian principles, softened language like “we become like God” rather than saying outright we “become Gods” in most contexts. Rather than saying all religions are wrong except ours, we say “all religions have some truth, but we have ALL of it”. It tends to be extreme in proclaiming that we are one true Church, and heightens expectations by declaring our prophet is inspired, we have apostles and prophets, and are the only authority when it comes to acting in the name of God. JS was a prophet who did more save Jesus only for the salvation of man during the glorious beginnings of our Church. We learn about the finality of the final judgment, and the separating of the sheep from the goats into kingdoms one day. Then, enter life experience, and further study. We discover the highly entrenched belief in our culture that God was literally a man, and that most of the membership beliefs we will create worlds like God himself. We learn about the JS story in detail in which God himself is described a saying all other religions in JS day were “wrong” (blunt). Personal recognitions that our leaders often say things that aren’t necessarily true (not intentionally misleading, but subject to the same human error we all experience). We learn that prophets are only speaking the word of God “when speaking as a prophet”, and we see that many long-standing members question whether there will be a final judgment, but perhaps a long period of learning and testing before we all finally become “like God”. Some of us think the tent is far more open and wider in the eternal scheme of things than our claims to one true Church and one authority would have us think.
To this day, I feel a bit hoodwinked by all that, really. But I’m comfortable with version 2 of the gospel now, but it was jarring for a while. I actually prefer the second gospel, subject to my own blunting of certain beliefs and expansion of others to be more reasonable, less supernatural, and hopefully more forgiving of some of the idiocy we see that stems from the extremism we see in people who latch on to the literalism of Gospel Version 1.
cwald wrote:So we believe that we can become a god? Â But we no longer believe that God was once a man?
compare these two couplets:St. Athanasius wrote:“God became man so that men might become gods.”
Lorenzo Snow wrote:“As man is, God once was, as God is, man may become.”
On face value, there isn’t a lot of difference between these two statements. Â under the covers, though, there is a huge difference.Athanasius is of course the author of the trinitarian doctrine taught by orthodox Christianity. Â the unchangeable immaterial god of trinity manifest his person in the flesh as the incarnate Jesus Christ, who was fully man and fully god. Â
if someone is not familiar with the mormon rejection of the trinity, that god the father has a resurrected body, then I might say that lorenzo snow was just saying the same thing as Athanasius. Â he really isn’t saying the same thing, but it isn’t really fully clear how he interpreted some of JS or BY’s speculations as to the origin of god — there were so many.
in this context, think it is important to parse what GBH said in the 1997 interview:
Quote:Question: “Is this the teaching of the church today, that God the Father was once a man like we are?”
Hinckley: “I don’t know that we teach it. I don’t know that we emphasize it. I haven’t heard it discussed for a long time in public discourse. I don’t know. I don’t know all the circumstances under which that statement was made. I understand the philosophical background behind it. But I don’t know a lot about it and I don’t know that others know a lot about it.”
Official Mormon doctrine proclaims by the 1838 First Vision account and by section 131 that God the Father has an exalted body. Â nothing in Official Mormon doctrine explains how he got it. ÂGBH was exactly correct in his response: that elohim was once a man on some other world or any concept of how elohim got his body isn’t currently a standard teaching, it certainly isn’t emphasized. Â he didn’t deny that it was at least once taught, and that there is a philosophical background — and that he understood the background. Â yet he emphasized that he, as prophet, doesn’t know, and if so, knows by LDS doctrine, no-one else really knows either. Â
it’s a remarkable statement.
as for whether we can become gods, yes, LDS believe and actively teach that we can become gods. Â And in this belief, we have strong support from the bible and a lot of the church fathers as well as the early roman catholic and orthodox theologians. Â
St. Irenaeus of Lyons wrote:God became what we are in order to make us what he is himself.
St. Clement of Alexandria wrote:He who obeys the Lord and follows the prophecy given through him . . . becomes a god while still moving about in the flesh.
St. Cyril of Alexandria wrote:We are called ‘temples of God’ and indeed ‘gods’, and so we are.”
St. Basil the Great wrote:Becoming a god is the highest goal of all.
St. Gregory of Nazianzus wrote:Become gods for (God’s) sake, since (God) became man for our sake.”
Athanasius wrote:The Word became flesh … that we, partaking of his Spirit, might be deified
Cyril of Alexandria wrote:We have all become partakers of Him, and have Him in ourselves through the Spirit. For this reason we have become partakers of the divine nature.
Saint Augustine wrote:“To make human beings gods, He was made man who was God
Hippolytus wrote:Thy body shall be immortal and incorruptible as well as thy soul. For thou hast become God.
This has actually been quite a debate for years within the church. The last letter I read on this was from Bruce R. to prof. Eugene England, threatening to ex him if he spoke openly about eternal progression. J.S., Orson Pratt, and B.H. Roberts were also strong advocates for eternal progression. The idea also has those within the church that strongly disagree with the idea. I’m sure you and your wife can have many wonderful discussions about this! onahighnote wrote:…. I’m sure you and your wife can have many wonderful discussions about this!
Okay. That is pretty damn funny.
cwald wrote:Okay. That is pretty damn funny.
I’m not sure funny quite says it but that’s just us.
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