Redefining "God"

[Anonymous]

So it’s a late night for me so far. I’ve been listening to good music thinking about my experiences in life and with the church. I eventually asked myself “Do I believe in God?” I have to say I definitely do. I work outside all day sunrise to sunset in Wyoming. It is absolutely beautiful here and I have seen some breathtaking scenery. I have to believe that there is a locus for all that is pure, beautiful, comforting and admirable. I believe that this locus is God.

Unfortunately, I also have some negative feelings about God. I am of the opinion that the way I perceive God in my life is extremely corrupted by the experiences I have had in the church. I often have felt guilty, unloved, damned and forsaken by what I thought was God. God would never treat me this way if I believe that He is the source of all good. So I am trying to redefine God and what I believe Him to be.

Have any of you thought about the way we perceive our Heavenly Father and whether or not that perception is wrong? I feel that if I am able to “fix” the way I perceive God and Jesus Christ then maybe I would be more apt to pray and do more spiritual things. I’m definitely struggling with this right now. I don’t think I have ever fully trusted God. I’ve always thought that he would take good things from me because it wasn’t his will. I’m tired of how I view him. I want to change. Any comments or insights would be very helpful!

[Anonymous]

Wow, Raygun, you and I are birds of a feather. Like you, I cannot look around me and believe there is no God, and I believe God is at least the Creator. I have questioned the existence of God and was nearly atheist and very agnostic for a time. I have also had experiences like yours where I have not felt any influence of God in my life and where I have indeed felt unloved by God. Fact is, I persist in that feeling. It does cause angst and internal struggle for me, and I don’t like what I believe about God because it doesn’t seem to be totally in sync with what we are taught about God. I am still in the midst of sorting out what is “gospel” as related to God and what is church teaching and/or Mormon myth about God. Part of that sorting out gets a bit confusing because the scriptures actually teach very little about God himself – most of it is actually about Jesus/Jehovah and it is sometimes not easy to tell when they are talking about Heavenly Father and when they are talking about Jesus and the Holy Ghost as God.

In order to keep my sanity, I adopted a deist view of God a few years ago and I have stuck with it. While I am not a deist per se, and I don’t subscribe to deism totally, I do believe that God has little, if any, interaction in our individual lives. Essentially I believe God created the earth (and the rest of our universe), and created us spiritually. He set things in motion and let it go. For a time I believed that in a plan like that there was no room or possibly not even a need for a Savior, but I have come to believe that a plan like that could still need a Savior/Redeemer to save us from our sins without God or the Savior necessarily being intimately involved in our personal lives. I do not understand the role or purpose of the Holy Ghost because my experiences with the interactions of the Holy Ghost and my emotions have had a very large impact on my own crisis – I could say that some of these interactions quite literally led to the crisis. I do not believe that God generally answers prayers (also part of my crisis of faith).

So, to answer your question, yes I have thought long and hard about my perception of God, especially as related to the general LDS perception of God and I think about it all the time. I’m not sure I’m right, but I’m also not sure LDS teachings about God are totally on target, either.

I’m glad you asked because each time I express my beliefs about God it does get clearer for me. I look forward to hearing what others here have to say. One of the things I love about this forum is that we’re not just going to get a Sunday School answer from anyone, and no one is simply going to spout selected scripture at us to prove how wrong we are.

[Anonymous]

raygun wrote:

Have any of you thought about the way we perceive our Heavenly Father and whether or not that perception is wrong?

Yes, I think we can confidently say that every human must have at least some detail of their perception wrong. I can’t imagine it being any other way. We are highly fallible mortal beings and combining the veil with our limitations we are bound to error in some degree.

I like you realized my old views on God were not working, and they must be wrong somewhere. I also started over with God = Good, Love, Truth, etc. and have tried to continue building an understanding with patience.

[Anonymous]

I personally like the idea of the trinity for a few reasons:

1) I love the idea of my HF personally condescending to save me and the trinity allows for that conception.

2) God is surely beyond my comprehension anyways so there is no harm in having only a vague concept with really blurry details.

3) In LDS theology the HG is as ethereal, unknown, and contradictory as the trinity is for most Christians. So I see no hypocrisy in applying those same “That is deep doctrinal speculation that we will not know in this life” to the whole of the Godhead.

4) Heavenly Mother – How does she fit into the Godhead? What role would a Goddess play alongside her God companion? HF and Jesus are definitely male as resurrected beings with reproductive parts. I believe that the idea of the trinity is flexible enough to include feminine and maternal traits.

In my crisis, the most terrifying possibility was that I might not have been good enough to fulfill my end of the covenant, That God didn’t love me because of my deficiency and was not “bound” to do anything for me, and finally that I had nobody to blame but myself for my unloved and unwanted state.

A concept emerged from deep inside of me of God’s unconditional love for me. The following songs really resonate with this concept.

Quote:

I love you more than the sun

And the stars that I taught how to shine

You are mine, and you shine for me too

“More” by Mathew West

So search your heart, you’ll find me there

I’ve heard your anguish, and every prayer

My love for you, will never end-

You’re still my servant, still my friend

“Still My Servant, Still My Friend” By Brett Raymond

Then he heard a voice somewhere deep inside

And it said “I know you’ve murdered

And I know you’ve lied

And I’ve watched you suffer all of your life

And now that you’ll listen I’ll, I’ll tell you that I…”

I will love you for you

Not for what you have done or what you will become

I will love you for you

I will give you the love, the love that you never knew

“What love really means” By JJ Heller

I have since found this re-conception of God to sometimes be at odds with LDS thoughts and motivations. Raygun, DJ, and Orson – My conception of God is mine alone but I do believe that “He” loves you each fully, deeply, and without conditions. Perhaps, as Elder Maxwell described, my imperfect lens can “produce refractions as the pure light of the gospel plays upon” it. I hope that someone can find my refraction of God’s pure love helpful.

[Anonymous]

In all honesty, I have solved the central dilemma simply by acknowledging that I don’t really know and avoiding any kind of dogmatic definition in the first place. Thus, I am free to take whatever I like from any and all views – even if that means I have conflicting, paradoxical “definitions” operating simultaneously.

It’s really liberating to be able to say, “I love the concept of God, the Father, but I also can see great value in Voltaire’s absentee clockmaker God – and that God condescended to become human to know us at the most basic, intimate level – and that God is a condition that allows all of us to be gods – and that god is collective unity – and that God is the spiritual unifying essence of the universe – and that God is a conceptual ideal for which we can strive – etc.”

I really don’t have “a definition” – or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that I accept a fluid, unrestrained definition that allows for alteration as I encounter new views from which I can take something that resonates with me.

Fwiw, that is my basic approach to pretty much everything that I can’t prove conclusively. It eliminates a lot of angst and adds wonderful surprises to my life.

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