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The BoM is pretty clear that what we do in this life has eternal consequences. I have tried to put myself in the shoes of God with billions upon billions of people who died unfaithful and are condemned to the terrestrial and telestial kingdoms because what they did in what I call “The Blip” in our eternal existence — earth life.
My personal conclusion is that I would not want to keep people with potential stuck in sub-celestial worlds because of how they behaved during this earthly blip in our eternal existence — at least, not forever. Some would be truly penitent once they know the full story, first-hand, about our eternal existence and what drives salvation, and what doesn’t. As a Heavenly Father, I would want to give them another chance. I also hope there is allowance for people like me who have been treated like @#$% in this earthly life by other church members, and leaders, as well burned out from the oft one-sided experience of serving in the church.
[Aside, I had a friend who was a Bishop for 10 years, and he said toward the end of his term, he started looking at having the financials and records up to date as the most important thing he did, with all the other “stuff” we do as something he could take or leave. He wasn’t abdicating in these things, but he said he grew realistic about what he could achieve with unpaid volunteers. This was how he coped in a rather transient Ward with very few talented people to assume critical positions].
I also have had experience as a teacher with policies I want everyone to believe and policies I actually implement — particularly on late assignments. We have a standard policy that nothing is accepted after 5 days from the due date, and that the student loses 5% a day they submit work late. I publish that policy, but when the students write to me needing more time, I never impose the late penalty. No one complains that I do this — not the managers who dreamed up the policy, and certainly not the students or even my peers. Is it perhaps that way in the eternities as well? Does God want us to believe it all hangs on this short part of our mortal existence, when later, we may well find there is a lot more leniency than we hoped?
But back to my opening question — to what extent do you believe salvation hangs on what we do in this life?I view life as less of a test and more as an opportunity to have experiences that facilitate growth. I hesitate to get into the concept of justice because of how nebulous the concept is, justice for one person can be an injustice for another, it gets complicated quickly. With the disclaimer out of the way, I believe in a just god. I can’t know what is just and unjust in the eyes of god, I can only project my ideas of justice onto god.
I imagine that circumstances weigh heavily on any judgement. Let’s say you’re a project manager on a construction site and you hire someone for an entry level position to be a forklift operator. You give them 2 seconds of training and send them on their way. They inevitably have questions, you either don’t answer at all or you give general answers that could apply to any job on the construction site. The new hire could break the forklift, the forklift’s payload, or worse – have an accident that results in injury or death.
I made the person a new hire to correspond to our concept of the veil of forgetfulness. We’re not born with life experience, we have to gain it little by little.
You mentioned that this life is a blip. That’s why I gave the new hire 2 seconds of training. Nowhere near enough to expect the new hire to do a good job. When compared to eternity, the average human lifespan is even less than those 2 seconds. It wouldn’t be just to expect an untrained person working with extremely limited knowledge to perform a highly skilled task.
Or another example where two scientists are given the goal of growing bacteria. One scientist is given a Petri dish, the other is given a bottle of rubbing alcohol.
That’s life as well. Tasks that are trivial for some are near impossible for others because of factors that are beyond their control. Brain chemistry. How you were raised during your formative years. Other physical or mental disabilities. We’re all on a gradient somewhere.
Circumstances matter. Even the people that “know” the gospel don’t truly know, they’re operating with the same limitations that others that don’t know what they know are operating under.
It’s not just to impose a one-time judgement on someone with limited knowledge, experience, and ability. In fact I wonder whether this whole judgement and kingdom sorting isn’t more for the benefit of humans that operate in a world where they can’t help but compare themselves to others and seek what’s “just” for them. It could also be a motivational tool.
Doctrine and Covenants section 19 might be worth a revisit. It introduces the concept of the world “eternal” as being more of an adjective meaning “from god” than something that has endless duration and how god uses the word “eternal” to influence our decisions.
Quote:But back to my opening question — to what extent do you believe salvation hangs on what we do in this life? – SilentDawning
I don’t. I think that if there is existence after this life, that we will spend some time in spiritual introspection figuring out how much of our decisions were made because of our mortality (which is most of them). If there is a point where our spirit is housed in a body again, or the soul gets a more solid/massive matter boost – I think it would be loosely a reincarnation form with our spirits having the chance to take whatever was really important from this life into that life in some form.
I think that after/during that period of introspection and before going spiritually “elsewhere”, that any conversation with the Divine would be more like a comfortable counseling session with a guidance counselor that took as long as it took and the agenda was the soul’s progress.
I’d like to think that there are oasis rooms where individuals can talk through their experiences and hopefully lance any trauma that got inflicted in the soul so that that soul has a degree of peace and can move on.
I believe that we are all going to the same place. I am open to wide interpretations of what that place may be like. I think this is the most consistent with the human life cycle as we know it. We all get old and die.
Regardless of how we behave, nobody is sprouting wings or halos or turning into butterflies. The good, the bad, and the ugly – all of us follow the same pattern and will go to the same place.
I do think that there was some desire for hyperbole to prevent bad people from doing bad things. To the degree that this hyperbole created civilization with laws and standards where people generally treat each other with mutual respect and dignity, I’d say that it has been reasonably successful.
nibbler wrote:
Doctrine and Covenants section 19 might be worth a revisit. It introduces the concept of the world “eternal” as being more of an adjective meaning “from god” than something that has endless duration and how god uses the word “eternal” to influence our decisions.
Here is the meat of the quote:
Quote:
6: Nevertheless, it is not written that there shall be no end to this torment, but it is written endless torment.7: Again, it is written eternal damnation; wherefore it is more express than other scriptures, that it might work upon the hearts of the children of men, altogether for my name’s glory.
This implies that a lot of the hyperbole we read about the importance of this life as the driver of our eternal salvation is there to motivate us, even though it may not be completely true.
However, I asked this question of an EQ a while back — that the punishment seems temporary. The Stake President happened to be in the class that day, and he piped up. He said the way this was explained to him — the part about punishment not being endless — that we will not like it at first but we’ll “get used to it” and it won’t seem as much like punishment anymore, but it will still be punishment, and there will not be eternal increase and the other blessings of the celestial kingdom.
Traditional members have an answer for everything it seems, all to point you in the textbook Mormon path. There is so much I wish I knew firsthand.
The official position of the church is that there is no official position on whether people can progress from kingdom to kingdom. That tells me that it would be wrong to definitively say you can and it would be wrong to definitively say you cannot. There are quotes from historic church figures that support either side.
In support:
Second hand
Quotes recorded by Franklin D. Richards, Words of the Prophets, p. 24, Church Historians Office. wrote:Hiram [Smith] said Aug 1st. Those of the Terrestrial Glory either advance to the Celestial or recede to the Telestial or else the moon would not be a type, [because] it ‘waxes & wanes.’
Second hand
Wilford Woodruff, August 5, 1855 journal entry, Church Historians Office wrote:“He [Brigham Young] though they [those in lower kingdoms] would eventually have the privilege of proving themselves worthy and advancing to a celestial glory but it would be a slow process.
Against:
Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation 2:31 wrote: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.
It would be interesting to see which scriptures he’s referencing. Maybe it cites them in Doctrines of Salvation. This is just a quote I found, I didn’t extend the research to see if he was specific.
SWK, The Miracle of Forgiveness pp 243-244 wrote: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.
The motive behind those against the idea seems clear. They’re worried that such a teaching would lead people to hold the attitude that they can do whatever they want in this life and just make up for it in the next life. BRM lays it out plainly:
Bruce R. McConkie, Brigham Young University Devotional Address, 1; June 1980 wrote:Heresy five: There are those who say that there is progression from one kingdom to another in the eternal worlds or that lower kingdoms eventually progress to where higher kingdoms once were. This belief lulls men into a state of carnal security. It causes them to say, ‘God is so merciful; surely he will save us all eventually; if we do not gain the Celestial kingdom now, eventually we will; so why worry?’ It lets people live a life of sin here and now with the hope that they will be saved eventually. The true doctrine is that all men will be resurrected, but they will come forth in the resurrection with different kinds of bodies–some Celestial, others Terrestrial, others Telestial, and some with bodies incapable of standing any degree of glory. The body we receive in the resurrection determines the glory we receive in the kingdoms that are prepared.
I think those in favor of the teaching that you can progress from kingdom to kingdom are trying to apply a little mercy to imperfect beings.
Penn Jillette wrote:The question I get asked by religious people all the time is, without God, what’s to stop me from raping all I want? And my answer is: I do rape all I want. And the amount I want is zero. And I do murder all I want, and the amount I want is zero.
I think it comes down to what you believe about human nature. If you believe the threat of hell is the only thing keeping humanity from devolving into savage animals you’re probably going to be in the camp that likes to highlight the punishments for bad behaviors. People in that camp may be tempted to see mercy as something that makes the whole motivational tool fall apart.
@nibbler — I’m glad that at least there is some vagueness on this point. The thing is, one of the scriptures say that you get the degree of glory that you can “stand”. I have been a full-on, believing, overcommitted Mormon, so I know I can stand that level of existence. It might not be fun all the time, and wearying too, but I know I can do it. I just don’t want to right now. A person’s ability to stand something can change with time. I’m able to endure things I could not endure when I was much younger and there are things that I’m no longer willing to endure now that I’ve had more experience and am more acquainted with alternatives. Quote:I think it comes down to what you believe about human nature. If you believe the threat of hell is the only thing keeping humanity from devolving into savage animals you’re probably going to be in the camp that likes to highlight the punishments for bad behaviors. People in that camp may be tempted to see mercy as something that makes the whole motivational tool fall apart. – Nibbler
This makes sense to me.
One of the unexpected consequences of my faith transition was that there was an 180 turn from understanding the nature of God from an absolute “this is the fact” perspective that we “know” these properties of the nature of God to the perspective that everything that we say about God is probably something we are saying about ourselves (and may have nothing to do with God at all).
It gets super confusing because we are told “the worth of souls (any soul) is great in the sight of God” AND “man (taken to mean humans except when talking about porn) is a natural enemy to God” in our holy texts.
I think I follow Ross Greenburg (child development expert and writer). He stated that, “Children [and humans] do well when they can.” His book is called
The Explosive Childand deals with identifying factors preventing the child from doing well when they can so that they can access the skills of everyday living and communication (instead of ending up in seclusion and restraints). I have some disagreements with his processes and I think that he is further into the “environment & nurturing” camp then I am (mostly due to our “choice and accountability” religious tenets). But the default optimism that a human with a soul will make good, connective choices given the right opportunities to do so (and looking at environmental/sensory considerations is on the list) is something that I believe in.
I lean very Universalist* and I believe Joseph Smith was for the most part, especially later in his life, also a Universalist. His father and grandfather were also very Universalist oriented. While I won’t go so far as to say it doesn’t really matter what we do or don’t do in this life, I do believe it doesn’t matter all that much. Jews don’t have a real belief in Hell as a place of eternal punishment, or even that there is a hell at all. I’m not so sure that Hell isn’t a construct of later Christianity designed purely to instill fear. I believe in loving Heavenly Parents who do not punish us and that justice is much more about fairness than retribution. We are all going to get some measure of mercy, some more than others (and paraphrasing Jesus, who do you think will be more grateful?). It certainly may take some of us much longer to progress than others. I appreciate Nibbler’s research on the subject of eternal progression through kingdoms. I believe it is very possible, even likely that such progression is the way it really is/will be (with the caveat that such kingdoms even exist – I’m not sure they do). Prior to the “McConkie era” (as late as the 1970s) it was a common teaching, even from the General Conference pulpit, that we do indeed progress through kingdoms.
*Universalist in this case is the classic definition that all human souls will eventually be saved. (Every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus is the Christ.)
I believe in Eternal Progression, so I believe our actions matter – but I also believe in Eternal Progression, so I I believe it is the effort that matters most – including patience and not condemning ourselves and accepting the best we can do and acceptance of mistakes and different improvement paces and grace over judgment and on and on. To the direct question of the post title, no – but what we try to do (trying to the end) does – no matter what we actually do.
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