Progression across Kingdoms?

I don’t try.

Kingdoms in a literal sense don’t make any sense to me for eternity. We just try to express things in ways our minds can try to comprehend them. Kingdoms are a great teaching to expand a more simplistic Heaven and Hell, or purgatory. But expanding biblical doctrine an inch or two, still leaves miles of the mysteries of God to yet be revealed.

Struggling to prove a doctrine with our current scriptures and doctrine is healthy for flexing our spiritual muscles in the search and thinking. But doesn’t prove anything.

I think we end up wherever we end up, with the vast majority reaching the top (whatever that means), but I think we have all eternity to get there.

The kingdoms are almost completely symbolic to me.

I don’t know if any of you have read the book “The Backslider” by Levi S. Peterson, but it is one of the most enjoyable books I have ever read. But it just reminded me of something that I really learned about how I viewed God back when I was young. I have come to realize I felt God was someone like a drill sergeant who’s role was to push me and find my weakness. The really funny (and simple minded) main character took this even further and viewed God as someone that (if I remember the quotes correctly) “Had their rifle scope pointed right at me” and also referred to God as, “That SOB in the sky”.

I have realized that my view of God has drastically changed. I feel now that if God isn’t full of love for his children and while wanting us to improve and do good he will still give them the most blessings he can. If God isn’t like that, then I feel I am a powerless pawn in some silly game and I have to throw my hands up and say I don’t know what my actions or even my life mean. So I choose to believe in a God full of love.

It certainly is the orthodox view that there is no progression between kingdoms, but there really is no scriptural evidence for that idea that I am aware of. I agree with what others here have said – literal kingdoms make no sense (and they are therefore symbolic) and we have eternity for it to be worked out.

Yep. I can see someone really being depressed or upset if they hear, “Guess what, you are the most righteous person in the terrestrial kingdom! If you just would have smiled at that one sister that one time she needed some cheer, then you would have been in the celestial kingdom. Soooo close, but too bad!”

DH and I were just talking about this last night. I just dont believe in a God that will not allow us to progress after judgement. What happened to God being the same yesterday, today and forever? I believe in that God. I believe in a God that is loving and is like my Dad. Who would never shun me and say, sorry, you were a big idiot on earth and so now I will never see you again. If before this life we progressed, in this life we progress, I dont believe it just stops all of a sudden. I believe we keep progressing and I choose to believe that we can move up in the kingdoms. I choose not to believe in the God D&C speaks of in those scriptures SilentDawning used. There is no other substantiating evidence in my eyes other than those couple scriptures, and so I believe we just don’t have the answers right now. The merciful God Joseph describes, where he said we cannot even comprehend how merciful He is, thats who I believe in. I just have to. Or else my testimony string will break.

we cannot even comprehend how merciful He is, thats who I believe in. I just have to. Or else my testimony string will break.

This has been my line of thinking lately and it had brought so much peace into my life, this too would devastate me if for whatever reason I learned that God is unmerciful. There is just too much evidence in my life that he is more merciful than I can comprehend!

I have repeated a line very much like this in talks I have given, and I have heard my SP repeat a similar line. I, too, believe in this merciful God who is full of grace. I don’t undertsand how the atonement works or any of the other associated stuff – but I believe it’s true.

Dieter F. Uchtdorf (emphasis added):

I marvel to think that the Son of God would condescend to save us, as imperfect, impure, mistake-prone, and ungrateful as we often are. I have tried to understand the Savior’s Atonement with my finite mind, and the only explanation I can come up with is this: God loves us deeply, perfectly, and everlastingly. I cannot even begin to estimate “the breadth, and length, and depth, and height … [of] the love of Christ.

One more quote for the road.

Orson F. Whitney – General Conference April 1929 “Our Heavenly Father is far more merciful, infinitely more charitable, than even the best of his servants, and the Everlasting Gospel is mightier in power to save than our narrow finite minds can comprehend.

I am not an expert in Mormon History but I do believe that there was much more diversity in the early teachings of the church. Joseph F. Smith and later Bruce R. Mckonkie made significant impacts towards standardizing church doctrines towards their understanding. I believe that the progression between kingdoms idea was more common before these two came upon the scene. Joseph F. Smith makes reference to what he calls the false teaching analogy of the wheels on a train. The analogy goes that the later wheels will progress to occupy the space where the earlier wheels once were – even though the earlier wheels have since advanced to an even further space. It makes me wonder if belief in progression between kingdoms was deliberately stamped out as a possibly schism creating difference of belief.

Some Mormons seem to be under the impression that there is a chance to improve themselves beyond the grave; even though their mortal lifestyle may not qualify them for exaltation, give or take a million years or so, they too often believe they can eventually leave their originally assigned kingdom and advance up the ladder towards the celestial. In response to such a notion 10th President Joseph Fielding Smith said, “It has been asked if it is possible for one who inherits the telestial glory to advance in time to the celestial glory? The answer to this question is, No! The scriptures are clear on this point” (Doctrines of Salvation 2:31).

Twelfth President Spencer W. Kimball concurred. On pages 243-244 of his book The Miracle of Forgiveness, he noted, “No progression between kingdoms. After a person has been assigned to his place in the kingdom, either in the telestial, the terrestrial, or the celestial, or to his exaltation, he will never advance from his assigned glory to another glory. That is eternal! That is why we must make our decisions early in life and why it is imperative that such decisions be right.” (Also cited in The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, p.50; and Search These Commandments, 1984 ed., pp.81-82.)

In light of these comments, I personally can’t see why Latter-day Saints would look forward to entering their third estate. Doctrine and Covenants 25:15 warns LDS members to “Keep my commandments continually, and a crown of righteousness thou shalt receive. And except thou do this, where I am you cannot come.” If that passage is true, there is certain to be a lot of disappointed Mormons in the next life.

Bruce McConkie

“There is no such thing as a second chance to gain salvation. This life is the time and the day of our probation. After this day of life, which is given us to prepare for eternity, then cometh the night of darkness wherein there can be no labor performed.” (The Seven Deadly Heresies)

Joseph Fielding Smith

“NO ADVANCEMENT FROM LOWER TO HIGHER. It has been asked if it is possible for one who inherits the telestial glory to advance in time to the celestial glory? The answer to this question is, No! The scriptures are clear on this point. Speaking of those who go to the telestial kingdom, the revelation says: ‘And they shall be servants of the Most High; but where God and Christ dwell they cannot come, worlds without end.’ Notwithstanding this statement, those who do not comprehend the word of the Lord argue that while this is true, that they cannot go where God is ‘worlds without end,’ yet in time they will get where God was, but he will have gone on to other heights. This is false reasoning, illogical, and creates mischief in making people think they may procrastinate their repentance, but in course of time they will reach exaltation in celestial glory.

“KINGDOMS PROGRESS IN DIFFERENT DIRECTIONS. Now let us see how faulty this reasoning is. If in time those who enter the telestial glory may progress till they reach the stage in which the celestial is in now-then they are in celestial glory, are they not, even if the celestial has advanced? That being the case (I state this for the argument only, for it is not true), then they partake of all the blessings which are now celestial. That means that they become gods, have exaltation, gain the fulness of the Father, and receive a continuation of the ‘seeds forever.’ The Lord, however, has said that these blessings, which are celestial blessings, they may never have; they are barred forever! The celestial and terrestrial and telestial glories, I have heard compared to the wheels on a train. The second and third may, and will, reach the place where the first was, but the first will have moved on and will still be just the same distance in advance of them. This illustration is not true! The wheels do not run on the same track, and do not go in the same direction. The terrestrial and the telestial are limited in their powers of advancement, worlds without end.” (Doctrines of Salvation v. 2)

I do not wish to discourage anyone’s belief by providing these quotes. I just think it is worthwhile to be realistic about the current state of orthodoxy in the church.