As man is God once was

[Anonymous]

Yes, I have had a problem with this as well. I figure that IF God had a God and , and that God had a God and etc,,,,then WHERE exactly did it all start? And shouldn’t that SOURCE of where all things came from, be that thing that we worship? I have to admit that praying to ” heavenly father” doesn’t feel right to me. I want to pray to the the SOURCE of all life, light, truth, and love.

I recently read a quote from Joseph Smith and it indicated that he thought God did not have the power to create our spirits, and he did not have the power to create his own spirit. This seems to say that Heavenly Father is NOT almighty. ( the book is called : teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith compiled by Joseph Fielding Smith it’s on page 354 and it says,” if I am right, I might with boldness Proclaim from the housetops , that God never had the power to create the spirit of man at all, God himself could not create himself.”

) This leads me to ask,,,,are we being short sighted by accepting that God is all powerful?

[Anonymous]

Quote:

if I am right, I might with boldness Proclaim from the housetops , that God never had the power to create the spirit of man at all, God himself could not create himself.

That quote comes from the King Follett Sermon.

In context I believe what he’s saying is that eternal things, like what we believe god to be, do not have a beginning or an end. God did not create man’s spirit or even create himself because that would give us and god a beginning. A beginning would imply an end and having an end would make us all something other than eternal in nature.

BeLifey wrote:

This leads me to ask,,,,are we being short sighted by accepting that God is all powerful?

I believe someone could make a case that the Mormon concept of Heavenly Father is not all powerful.

Yeah, yeah, JoD, but:

Journal of Discourses Volume 11; page 272 wrote:

…the Lord cannot violate his own law; were he to do that, he would cease to be God.

Do yourself a favor and don’t read that one in context. Besides, I believe that BY gets his ideas from Alma chapter 42. This introduces the concept that god could cease to be god. One could safely argue that “cease to be god” is just a poetic way of saying “this will never, ever, ever, ever, never ever happen… ever.” But there’s also this concept that god cannot violate his law.

To keep this short I’ll quote only one verse but surrounding verses provide additional context:

Doctrine and Covenants 88:38 wrote:

And unto every kingdom is given a law; and unto every law there are certain bounds also and conditions.

The notion that god is subject to the law. Does this not then make the law something more powerful than god? If god were to violate the law would god cease to be god… or, since it is god’s law to begin with, would god’s law change to circumscribe god’s behaviors?

Often I’ll hear people at church speak of god as a master scientist. God uses existing forces of nature and physics to carry out his work. They appear to be miracles to us simply because we do not understand the science behind the events. Under that interpretation it sounds like the laws of physics, etc. behave independently from god and is a force or rule set that god must work within.

There’s even:

Doctrine and Covenants 82:10 wrote:

I, the Lord, am bound when ye do what I say; but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise.

If we do what god says, we can bind the lord into taking specific actions. Or at the very least god is bound by god’s promises. I suppose god was free to make said promise, but there’s this notion that god is (duty) bound to act in certain ways.

There are alternate interpretations to everything but I wonder just how many religions truly have a concept of an all powerful god. An all powerful god would make for an unpredictable god. I think most religions like to give god some consistency, if I do this, then god will be pleased. Thing is, don’t we limit god’s all powerfulness just a little by trying to define ways in which god is consistent?

[Anonymous]

BeLifey wrote:

Yes, I have had a problem with this as well. I figure that IF God had a God and , and that God had a God and etc,,,,then WHERE exactly did it all start? And shouldn’t that SOURCE of where all things came from, be that thing that we worship?

It’s turtles, all the way down.

There’s a few different ways you can look at this. For example, as was talked about in another thread, Heavenly Father is often used interchangeably with “The Lord”. We worship Jesus, but we also worship God the Father. They’re really all the same “God”. So the difference between Heavenly Father and His Father doesn’t matter; they’re “one” too. What counts is that “God” is the source of all “life, light, truth, and love”, regardless of who happens to hold that particular title for us.

Quote:

” God himself could not create himself.”

That’s not the only thing God cannot do. God cannot create an object so heavy even He could not lift it. God cannot draw a circle that is also a square. God cannot count to infinity. What we’re dealing with is not a limit to power, but logical impossibilities.

BeLifey wrote:

And shouldn’t that SOURCE of where all things came from, be that thing that we worship?

You mean worship love? Or worship life? That sounds reasonable. But most people think Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ are the embodiment of love and life. As for an ultimate source, I don’t think there is one. It all cycles forever.

[Anonymous]

Quote:

Doctrine and Covenants 88:38 wrote:

And unto every kingdom is given a law; and unto every law there are certain bounds also and conditions.

The notion that god is subject to the law. Does this not then make the law something more powerful than god?

So I noticed that I keep coming across scriptures that allude to some ” universal laws” . That every blessing is predicated on some universal law. Now, after reading your thoughts I see that God is also subject to these laws. For me, this means he is not all mighty. If he has to play with in the limits of these laws the same as we do. So, leads me to my next question, if we are ” man” and held within these laws, and God was a ” man” and held in the laws,,,,,,and if he is now STILL held within the laws, what does it really mean today he is exalted? If he is not ” above the laws”……..what does ” exalted ” actually even mean?

[Anonymous]

Quote:

You mean worship love? Or worship life? That sounds reasonable. But most people think Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ are the embodiment of love and life. As for an ultimate source, I don’t think there is one. It all cycles forever.

Hmmmmm, this is very difficult idea for me to wrap my head around. Are there any notions that the Holy Spirit is actually the core of all things? I recently read where someone thinks the ” source” or core, is Vibration. In a molecular level, that Life and Love are are actually a sound vibration that also translates to music and color, and ” things” …..as in scripture it says ” the word” …..could this ” word” be sound? Music? Is this God?

[Anonymous]

BeLifey wrote:

Quote:

You mean worship love? Or worship life? That sounds reasonable. But most people think Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ are the embodiment of love and life. As for an ultimate source, I don’t think there is one. It all cycles forever.

Hmmmmm, this is very difficult idea for me to wrap my head around. Are there any notions that the Holy Spirit is actually the core of all things? I recently read where someone thinks the ” source” or core, is Vibration. In a molecular level, that Life and Love are are actually a sound vibration that also translates to music and color, and ” things” …..as in scripture it says ” the word” …..could this ” word” be sound? Music? Is this God?

If this is true, what happens when you are tone deaf or vibration deaf?

[Anonymous]

BeLifey wrote:

So I noticed that I keep coming across scriptures that allude to some ” universal laws” . That every blessing is predicated on some universal law. Now, after reading your thoughts I see that God is also subject to these laws. For me, this means he is not all mighty. If he has to play with in the limits of these laws the same as we do. So, leads me to my next question, if we are ” man” and held within these laws, and God was a ” man” and held in the laws,,,,,,and if he is now STILL held within the laws, what does it really mean today he is exalted? If he is not ” above the laws”……..what does ” exalted ” actually even mean?

The idea of becoming like God (in a Christian and LDS view) is to become complete (‘perfect’ in the KJV Matthew 5:48, ‘complete’ in the original Koine Greek of that work). It’s not to become all-powerful, but to become like him in personality, or to have the “spirit of God”. Paul wrote, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” In Christian theology, we become the children of God. In LDS theology, we are already children of God and if we follow him, then we become like God in a similar way to how children become like their parents and take over the family business if they don’t rebel.

As for all-powerful. Think of your favorite sport. I’ll use the example of golf. God is so good at golf that he can hit a hole-in-one on every hole. But he must stand in the tee-box and hit the ball. He can’t make a hole-in-zero, because by definition, no such thing exists. You and I can become like God if we work at it and seek divine help. We can get very good at golf and impress our friends, but we need God’s power to become like him and hit a hole-in-one every time.

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