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I’m only asking because I have been single for 35 years of my life. I know there are people in this church you have been single longer. There have a been a few things in my life that are in my control that have kept me single. They’re pretty much resolved. Now are most things in my life that I can’t control that are still keeping me single. Now I know the church says if you’re faithful, if there were things that kept you single that were out of your control, and you died being single the Lord would make it possible for you be sealed to an eternal companion. That has be performed by proxy down here. Let’s say you were sealed by proxy, but in the spirit world you didn’t care for that person you were sealed to it. That’s a raw deal. What’s your views on this? I think JS opened up a can of worms when he invoked the eternal marriage concept. It raises so many questions like yours, and more that are impossible for anyone to answer in this life. So, you have to go by gut feel. I personally believe that God wouldn’t want two people who absolutely detest each other or who feel no natural chemistry or love to be together for eternity. Notwithstanding Brigham Young’s questionable statement that “any two people living the gospel can have a happy marriage”. My wife and I have lived the gospel our whole lives and it has not made an uber- happy marriage for various reasons.
So, regarding your question, you’re on your own in deciding exactly what one will receive and how exceptions will be handled in the eternities.
Not to destroy anyone’s faith, but a small percentage of me believes the eternal family concept may have been instituted to help promote stability in families to help the Church grow, minimize the drain on the church when single parents have trouble making ends meet, and to make a further incentive for people to obey the commandments so they can partake of temple blessings.
So, I tend to take eternal marriage as conceived by the LDS church with a partial grain of salt.
Being with those you love in the hereafter is not unique to Mormonism. Not sure why we think we have some kind of exclusive club and think it is unique to us. I bet if you asked alot of religious types they would tell you they believe they will be with their family in heaven. Mormon theology just wants to slap a bunch of rules on top of the concept. Well, if God is going to go through the trouble of providing for you in the next life, where you are supposed to experience a fulness of joy in a celestial world, why would He give you a raw deal? And if this provision is for the “righteous” and they are locked into miserable relationship, it would be more like hell than heaven. So according to LDS theology, the scenario of being paired unhappily doesn’t make sense.
What you have to decide is (1) do you believe in this theology of eternal marriages and (2) do you believe God would put you in an unhappy situation and leave you there eternally.
What if I really like being around my family, but we weren’t sealed. How would we be prevented from being together in heaven? Anything anyone here (or anywhere else, for that matter) can say about this would be pure speculation. My advice would be to concentrate on what israther that what might be in the future or in the afterlife. If you can find joy in being you, this moment, whether you’re single, married, or somewhere in between, then the other circumstances of your life (and your afterlife as well, I suppose) will take care of themselves. I readily admit that the following is speculation but I believe it to be officially sanctioned speculation: If you never marry in this life but “endure to the end,” your proxy sealing would need to wait until the millennium. During the millennium visiting angels may visit to fill in the blanks. Perhaps even you and your intended spouse (in spirit form) may be permitted to visit the temple, tell about your whirlwind romance in the spirit world and request your sealing by proxy.
Although this is not verifiable, if it helps you – then it is “true.”
Thanks for the comments. I really do believe that God wouldn’t allow any of us to be sealed to be for time and all eternity to people we can’t stand on this earth. Sealing is something we do ourselves – and it has nothing whatsoever to do with one’s religion in mortality.It’s incredibly important to teach it, so the temple theology is foundational and vital to me, but, ultimately, we teach that it’s going to happen (in one form or another) for every righteous person who ever has lived in the history of the earth.
God doesn’t do it; he allows it – largely, I believe, because he couldn’t disallow it and still be God. To frame it scripturally, I believe that what we (the gods within and among us) have sealed together, God will not divide assunder.
Seeing it that way changes just about EVERYTHING relative to the principle and concept – and it’s the reason I love that principle and concept so much.
Quote:Let’s say you were sealed by proxy, but in the spirit world you didn’t care for that person you were sealed to it. That’s a raw deal. What’s your views on this?
If we can have proxy, there must be plenty of other get out clauses. What about people who never get to marry, but should have been?
Most religious concepts like this are positive messages of hope. That’s how this started. But like most religious concepts, it tends to drift out of control over time (or so it seems). These ideas work really nice *IF* we fit the model *AND* we only take the positive meaning that was intended.
They quickly spiral into a mess when we try to reverse directions logically, or introduce complexities that don’t fit the ideal model.
In Reverse: If you are not sealed, you will be alone and/or separated from your loved ones forever and ever and ever and ever… That sounds more like hell than heaven. Better not screw up!
Add Complexity: You are sealed to someone who turns out to be a terrible person. Or you are in a blended family of all righteous people. Or… Or… Or… WHAT A MESS!
It’s best to just take these things for what they are, in my opinion: general messages of hope and goals to work towards. They can still hold a lot of power. They could still be true — but really only as long as you are comfortable and have faith that God really will work it all out. Everyone will get what makes them happy and complete in the end.
I have that hope.
Brian Johnston wrote:
In Reverse: If you are not sealed, you will be alone and/or separated from your loved ones forever and ever and ever and ever… That sounds more like hell than heaven. Better not screw up!
I see it a bit different, coming from my own family…what if you’re family is abusive and neglectful….you’ve forgiven them, but the thought of spending eternities with them would be hell and opting for outer darkness would be like heaven. The only people in my family I want to be around in the next lifetime are my kids…and that’s it.
As for never getting to get married in the temple in this life…I fully believe if a person so desires it they will have the opportunity (both male and female) at some point. Of course I don’t believe God is nearly as harsh as we humans make him out to be.
Yeah, Arwen, you are probably right about God not being as harsh some of us think. Arwen wrote:I see it a bit different, coming from my own family…what if you’re family is abusive and neglectful….you’ve forgiven them, but the thought of spending eternities with them would be hell and opting for outer darkness would be like heaven.
Yup. Sad but classic example of why complexity disturbs the ideal. You don’t want to be sealed forever to terrible people who are harmful. That never really gets addressed properly in the theology or in the primary lesson manual, does it? It makes you think too hard about the idealized model.
I hope this isn’t too negative, but someone mentioned this to me via email about temple marriage, which might help people who are not seeing marriage in this life as a real possibility: Quote:
We seem to assume that individuals that are married outside the church and then join can be sealed later and get THE SAME BLESSINGS ANYWAY! So for the couple, exactly what are the blessings here in mortality [of a temple wedding?]?1. They get to not have a normal wedding.
2. Many of their family and friends might not be able to attend
3. They feel more obligated to the church and each other than they might otherwise feel, and so they may be guilted into staying in a relationship that isn’t working.
4. Other than that I can’t see any blessing in mortality even if you believe everything that is promised in the blessings. You might as well be sealed AFTER you decide as a couple that all is great and you WANT to be together forever.
Are there detriments to being sealed early? Yes.
1. What if a temple wedding does end in divorce. The man can be resealed later, but the wife cannot be.
Now, there are a lot of blessings of temple marriage for those who approach it from that perspective, but some of us see a down side as well. So, if someone doesn’t have the opportunity for a temple marriage in this life, it’s not all bad.
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