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Currently reading and all I can say is beautiful. I’m only in chapter 1 or 2 and already highly recommend this to everyone! Sent from my SGH-T889 using Tapatalk 2
Having had it sat on my bedside table for a few weeks I finally picked it up this morning. Wow! And I’m only in the introduction. I’m going to post a few favourite quotes, but would strongly recommend getting your own copy.
“Whether we consider the whole (earth/universe) a product of impersonal cosmic forces, a malevolent deity, or a benevolent god, depends not on the evidence, but on what we choose, deliberately and consciously, to conclude from that evidence.”
Here’s a few of my favorite quotes so far. Quote:Faith often asks us to turn a blind eye to the incongruities and inconsistencies of belief in the divine. But reason comes up short as well in accounting for those moments of deepest love and yearning, of unspeakable calm in the midnight of anguish, of the shards of light visible to the inner eye alone
Quote:A supreme deity would no more gift us with intellect and expect us to forsake it in moments of bafflement, than He would fashion us eyes to see and bid us shut them to the stars.
Quote:What we choose to embrace, to be responsive to, is the purest reflection of who we are and what we love
Quote:The greatest act of self-revelation occurs when we choose what we will believe, in that space of freedom that exists between knowing that a thing is, and knowing that a thing is not.
Quote:Gratitude is an illogical response to a world that never had us in mind as an audience; but it is the fitting tribute to an original Creator who anticipated our joy and participates fully in it
Again, highly recommend this book!
Yes, just getting into it from what I see I HIGHLY recommend it to any “thinker” personality, and maybe everyone else as well. If you are looking for a model of “mature” faith, this book is as good as anything else I’ve seen.
I was recently reading reviews of a modern “anti” book that calls the church a cult and fraud — if those arguments were put up against the type of faith bro. Givens outlines they would fall totally deflated.
Read this book!:clap: :thumbup: 
I have just finished reading it all the way through. It needs to be the fifth part of the standard works!
I don’t often mark books, but I had to re-sharpen the red pencil I was using as so much is a highlight.
I feel I’ve discovered a new understanding of the significance of the clarity of Joseph’s theology.
The word restoration is probably a good one because through whatever process actually happened, the output is a clarification and distillation of some of the ponderings and deep thinking of the past 3000 years.
It addresses the big questions of life and why it is the way it is. It embraces life and its opportunities and identifies the pure purposes.
It has so many wonderful quotes and sources that paints a picture of universalism.
It also has several parts that should help the complacent mormon remember they don’t have a “heavenly hall pass.”
It is, in a word, brilliant.
Been very impressed by Givens work. But I thought Terryl was a woman’s name! Maybe I’m thinking of Daryl Hannah. I read this book recently and thought it was very good. Some very thought provoking concepts, I am going to re-read and take notes this time around. I substituted this for Sunday School attendance for a few weeks, it was a very good trade for me. I’d recommend this book to anyone, it is good.
Great book written from an honest perspective. I found it very refreshing after reading Gerald Lund’s dogmatic analysis of the Spirit in “Hearing the Voice of the Lord”. :yawn: I just want to point out that, while I like and am drawn more to the Givens’ perspective, I am quite certain Lund’s is just as “honest”. People really do see things differently, and it’s REALLY important to recognize and accept that simple fact. So many times when people feel lied to, it’s nothing more than a manifestation that people’s minds really do work differently. Old-Timer wrote:I just want to point out that, while I like and am drawn more to the Givens’ perspective, I am quite certain Lund’s is just as “honest”.
I concede. “Honest” may not have been the best wording. I suppose all I was getting at was that the Givens’ perspective seems more vulnerable, less “knowing” and more “this is how we feel about the evidence (or lack thereof).” Like you said, I just see things differently I guess.(posting the following to a new thread)
http://forum.staylds.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=4212 ” class=”bbcode_url”> http://forum.staylds.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=4212 While reading The God Who Weep,s as I read certain paragraphs I would feel my heart race with a sense of joy. I would be sitting as I read but find myself standing. When I read this sentence in particular ” If God takes as much care with the destinies of human souls as with the planets they inhabit, surely they too gain in splendor and glory through the cycles of eternity” I wanted to shout for joy. Never has any teaching rung truer to my heart than that of eternal progression. The idea that my many inactive loved ones won’t be condemned to a lesser heaven with visitation rights only from those who made it higher, makes my soul sing. The fact that this book is sold at Deseret Book gives me hope that I won’t be alone in embracing this idea. This teaching illustrates the God I love and worship. My heart and mind came together as I internalized the idea of a more effective plan of salvation than what I have previously thought. I have to believe that the feeling that seemed like an adrenalin rush as I read portions from this book, was the spirit confirming to me that this is truth. As I work through my faith crisis, the teaching of eternal progression gives me the hope I need to keep going. Thanks to this blog I discovered this book, and just finished reading it. I am blown away by its explanation of
How Mormonism makes sense of life. While little of it was new to me, Givens masterfully pulled together many disparate teachings and made them into a solidly coherent Gospel (neither of which the Correlation Committee has been able to do.) Givens skillfully spans his the breadth of subject while still plumbing its depths. Free agency, pain and suffering, Fall of Adam, Atonement, Godly love and sorrow, sin, eternal progression, the justice to infants who die and adults who never had the opportunity to learn of Christ, etc.
One of my favorite passages:
Quote:Guilt is how we know we are free to choose.
Nothing else we can say about our identities is as certain or fundamental. We are not born good or evil. We are born free. We may feel the prick of conscience, the demands of duty, the weight of heredity, all guiding us through–or onto—the shoals of life. Still, we are free to regard our circumstances, and to respond to our predicament, in accordance with a set of desires we have the power to school and shape.
Our lives are more like a canvas on which we paint, than a script we need to learn—through the illusion of the latter appeals to us by its lower risk. It is easier to learn a part than create a work of art. The mystery is, how can I be free to shape my own desires, how can I be responsible for the inclinations of my heart, for my tendency to love light or darkness, if God created my spirit out of nothing, calling me into existence by His sovereign power, only at the moment of my birth or conception?
Thanks for that quote – beautiful and true I think. ps Was just thinking about you
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