Godhood and Agency

[Anonymous]

These are some hypothetical questions I’ve been mulling over for a while now. Thought I’d toss them out here and see what your thoughts and opinions may be 🙂

There is this Mormon concept that we can become exactly like God. When this happens, and we’ve achieved a state of exaltation, do we no longer obey/answer to Heavenly Father? Do we make up our own rules? If not, then we would be lesser gods still subjected to the All-Powerful. Is there a point when we no longer have to follow rules or worry that we’ve done the wrong thing? Can our actions someday be right because we are good and they were done by us? This is how I imagine it is for God. If he decides to plague a village or strike someone down, it’s cool, because He’s God and He’s good.

There is another Mormon concept that Earthly families mirror the structure of Heavenly families. I’ve been thinking about the way Earthly children develop and mature, eventually leaving home and starting their own independent lives. They choose where to live, what to do, who they want to become, who they marry, and how they raise their children. They never turn out exactly like their parents. They usually take the parts they admire about their parents and leave the rest behind (or attempt to ). There comes a point when Earthly children stop following their parents and start being themselves (which usually includes bits and pieces of their parents).

Earthly children don’t normally have to choose which sibling to be in allegiance with. Sometimes it happens, but they are still not identical. Earthly children are not usually required by their parents to sacrifice themselves to allow their siblings to live with their parents again. Life just continues, progresses, changes.

So I wonder where Heavenly parenthood ends? I’m not a parent, but I know there naturally comes a time when children leave home and separate themselves from their parents. It is to be expected, even encouraged. I don’t want my children to stick around forever. I want them to find the path in life that’s right for them, the one that brings them the most happiness and success. I’m sure it will be different from the path that works for me. I understand that parents will always be parents, that parenthood never *really* ends, but there is a point where children become independent.

Once all the heavenly children have left home to go start their eternal families, what do you do for the rest of eternity? Do you have another litter of spirit children and start all over again? Can you take a break in between litters?

I hope this isn’t too confusing or roundabout. My biggest question boils down to this: what is godhood without Agency?

Being a god would be hell for me if everything I did was dictated and overseen by my own God. If I had to spend eternity with someone I didn’t love just because my God wouldn’t allow non-member exaltation, I’d rather spend eternity on a lesser level of glory with my beloved. That would be my choice, and because I choose it, I would be happy knowing I was not forced into anything, but allowed to be a free agent of my own destiny.

I guess one explanation would be that there are Laws of Godhood like Laws of Nature that God must follow, just as we are compelled to obey the Law of Gravity. I can definitely accept that. I do wonder where those laws came from though, if that is the case, but this is just a lot of speculation about “unanswerables” anyway! It doesn’t really change anything whether I understand these things or not. But speculation is fun To be honest, I don’t know of a surety that any of these concepts are even truth (nature of God, our relationship to Him, our destiny as His creations/children, etc.), but I enjoy thinking about possibilities.

So what do you think? What is your perspective on the nature of Agency within Godhood?

[Anonymous]

Let’s try to focus this discussion on the central idea of godhood and agency, since we’ve had a bunch of other discussions about the general concepts of godhood and eternal progression. I will provide links to some of those other discussions, with the most recent being first, in case anyone wants to look at those posts and threads:

“Will Our State in the Final Judgment Be Temporary?” (http://forum.staylds.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2152&hilit=exaltation#p25454)

“Is Eternal Progression Possible?” (http://forum.staylds.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=2058&hilit=exaltation#p24126)

“The Afterlife” (http://forum.staylds.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=2041&hilit=exaltation#p23880)

“The God Question: Is God Eternally Progressing?” (http://forum.staylds.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1168&hilit=exaltation#p13193)

“Eternal Progression” (http://forum.staylds.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=220&p=1902&hilit=exaltation#p1884)

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