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SD, do you picture a God who is just or merciful – or a combination of both? I heard a wonderful little statement a while ago that I really like – more for it’s shock value than anything else, since it really made me stop and think. It says:
Quote:I asked God to give me what I deserve – so he slapped me and sent me to Hell.
What I really love about “pure Mormonism” is that it posits that, in the end, there really is NOTHING that is required except your best effort to live according to your own conscience and understanding – that mistakes are fine, as long as they were made in sincerity. (There’s a lesson in there for how we view our leaders – past and present – at all levels.) If that’s true of those who never heard the Gospel, it’s true of those who did. So, I agree with everyone else – and my advice is simple, but not easy:
Go with what seems like the right thing to you personally, and trust that God will accept your best effort.
Old-Timer wrote:SD, do you picture a God who is just or merciful – or a combination of both?
Obviously, from the Book of Mormon’s clear explanation of the law of justice and mercy, I believe in a God who is just, and merciful at the same time. He’s the greatest paradox of all time, capable of reconciling sin with righteousness, happiness with unhappiness, imperfection with perfection, justice with mercy.
SilentDawning wrote:Old-Timer wrote:SD, do you picture a God who is just or merciful – or a combination of both?
Obviously, from the Book of Mormon’s clear explanation of the law of justice and mercy, I believe in a God who is just, and merciful at the same time. He’s the greatest paradox of all time, capable of reconciling sin with righteousness, happiness with unhappiness, imperfection with perfection, justice with mercy.
According to Kabbalah, the three great continuums (continuuii?) are:label: . . . . . . . . . . . . Severity <
> BounteousnessAt the highest ‘reality’: Understanding <
> Wisdommid-level ‘reality’: . . . .Justice <
> Mercylower level ‘reality’: . . . Intellect <
> EmotionAnd the thing that balances these is Beauty, via atonement.
HiJolly
canadiangirl wrote:Tom,
What would an annual divestment of 110 of gross assets look like? One tenth of your home? One tenth of your furniture? One tenth of your boat?
Curious
If you look at the term technically, interest has three meanings. It can mean the amount of rent you pay on debt, like credit card debt. I can’t see anyone in their right mind defining tithing as 10% of the interest you pay. This is due to the Church’s constant encouragement to stay out of debt. If everyone got out of debt, the Church would have very little money to fund its operations because no one would be paying interest on which to tithe. Nonsense.
The other meaning refers to the amount you have invested in a particular enterprise. For example, one might say “I have a 50% interest in company X”. This means that you own a percent of a company or person’s equity. Now this meaning makes no sense either, because if your net worth remains constant year to year, it means every year you are giving away 10% of your net worth. On constant equity, it means your donations get smaller and smaller every single year. It also means you’re paying 10% of surplus that you paid 10% on the previous year. It makes no sense to me.
The third meaning is the interest you have in the surplus that comes from operating an income-producing exercise. You get a certain share of the income generated after tax. So, if you own 50% of the company, and it generates 100 Million, you get 50 Million dollars. You would tithe on that share of the income (your interest).
The latter definition makes the most sense to me.
Quote:No one on this discussion forum can tell me what decision is correct.
That’s not true. I said, “Pay what you think the Lord expects. Worrying about what your neighbor pays is not your problem.”
Brian said, “We simply have to decide or explore and figure it out. Our feelings and intuition (aka the Holy Spirit) will be our guide. Then we have to be OK with the fact we are doing the best that we can with the brain, heart and wisdom God has given us.”
Your problem is you don’t want to trust your own inspiration. You’d rather have someone else make the decision easy for you. As you have noted, people have different, contradictory definitions. In light of this, I think you have to try to gain a comfort level with your own decision making. This is the definition of faith. Faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of all things. You want a perfect definition (or perfect knowledge) of tithing. At this point, I think this is where you need to exercise faith. Faith is hard.
Quote:I think that deep down, I may even want validation from others that the specific path I eventually choose is somehow “OK”.
Personally, I think you’ve identified the crux of your issue here: validation. Validate yourself. Trusting in the validation of others is a recipe for disaster, and isn’t truly exercising faith. As you said, “However, ultimately, that still won’t be enough to make me feel good about it. To feel good about a decision to define tithing as something less than 10% of gross or net, I would have to have overwhelming peace from God, or to simply come up with my own reasons/rationalizations that I convince myself are OK. And I’ll never be sure if I’m right.”
Exactly. Trust your own inspiration.
I don’t believe your scenario of standing before God and accounting for your tithing will happen the same way you’ve outlined. It seems a bit to legalistic to me. Eternity is a long time, and I expect this life is just a portion of our probation. God will be merciful and just, but your scenario seems to emphasize justice at the expense of mercy. I could well be wrong, but I’m giving you my inspiration on the subject. I hope you gain some comfort level with the ambiguity of inspiration.
Quote:I came to this conclusion after studying the question out in my mind. I took my decision to you, and felt nothing. So, I went ahead on the basis of what I thought was best.
I think you’ve eloquently described how inspiration works sometimes. I hope you can become at peace with the ambiguity. Have faith in God, and have peace in your ability to receive inspiration.
mormonheretic wrote:
Your problem is you don’t want to trust your own inspiration. You’d rather have someone else make the decision easy for you.SD – this is EXACTLY what I think the issue is – with many of the topics you’ve discusses on this board and private message with me. You received answers, now trust in them. Best of luck and hang in there.
Cwald — I believe you’re correct. I stumbled across an article recently that I think bears on just how much validation we should be seeking from our leaders. The answer I get from this article is that beyond the teaching of general principles, much of our questions need to be worked out between us and God: I think I’ve deferred to what other men think for too long now. Here’s an article I stumbled upon that describes what an Apostle thinks about general principles vs private interpretation.
In this talk, Oaks made some blunt statements to men that it was time to grow up and get married. Then he said this:
Quote:Elder Dallin H. Oaks: Now, brothers and sisters, if you are troubled about something we have just said, please listen very carefully to what I will say now. Perhaps you are a young man feeling pressured by what I have said about the need to start a pattern of dating that can lead to marriage, or you are a young woman troubled by what we have said about needing to get on with your life.
If you feel you are a special case, so that the strong counsel I have given doesn’t apply to you, please don’t write me a letter. Why would I make this request? I have learned that the kind of direct counsel I have given results in a large number of letters from members who feel they are an exception, and they want me to confirm that the things I have said just don’t apply to them in their special circumstance.
I will explain why I can’t offer much comfort in response to that kind of letter by telling you an experience I had with another person who was troubled by a general rule. I gave a talk in which I mentioned the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” (Ex. 20:13). Afterward a man came up to me in tears saying that what I had said showed there was no hope for him. “What do you mean?” I asked him.
He explained that he had been a machine gunner during the Korean War. During a frontal assault, his machine gun mowed down scores of enemy infantry. Their bodies were piled so high in front of his gun that he and his men had to push them away in order to maintain their field of fire. He had killed a hundred, he said, and now he must be going to hell because I had spoken of the Lord’s commandment “Thou shalt not kill.”
The explanation I gave that man is the same explanation I give to you if you feel you are an exception to what I have said. As a General Authority, I have the responsibility to preach general principles. When I do, I don’t try to define all the exceptions. There are exceptions to some rules. For example, we believe the commandment is not violated by killing pursuant to a lawful order in an armed conflict. But don’t ask me to give an opinion on your exception. I only teach the general rules. Whether an exception applies to you is your responsibility. You must work that out individually between you and the Lord.
I share this not because it’s about dating, but he said something really important — that he explains general rules, and that certain rules do have exceptions. The key here is:
Quote:Don’t ask me to give an opinion on your exception. I only teach the general rules. Whether an exception applies to you is your responsibility. You must work that out individually between you and the Lord.
SilentDawning wrote:The answer I get from this article is that beyond the teaching of general principles, much of our questions need to be worked out between us and God:…I think I’ve deferred to what other men think for too long now.
Yeah, I think so. I have made this mistake myself.
Quote:— that he explains general rules, and that certain rules do have exceptions. The key here is:
Quote:Don’t ask me to give an opinion on your exception. I only teach the general rules. Whether an exception applies to you is your responsibility. You must work that out individually between you and the Lord.
Great post SD – I love the article and I love the message.
This is helping me quite a bit, this discussion. I was posting in another thread, and it dawned on me that my exercise in defining what a full tithe means for myself may well lead me to something I’ve never really had — a testimony of tithing. Ghandi wrote a book called “My Experiments with Truth”, where he described his own process of arriving at truth. I feel that my grapplign with this issue of tithing, and my redefinition of its meaning is one such an experiment for me personally.
I will experiment with my own definition, and see what the outcome is. I will see how I feel after I act on it. I will observe whether there seems to be punishment if that definition is less than the SMA 10% net/gross belief.
And I will learn in the process. So, I have this feeling that my decision to pay on a figure that makes the most sense to me may well not be a permanent decision — it’s pending the outcome of the experiment….
Fwiw, there is relatively little about which I feel I have reached a perfect, permanent understanding. Silent Dawning, I love the Elder Oaks quote you gave. That is perfect!!!!!! Thanks for that Oaks quote SD. Simply brilliant! Thanks everyone for the kudos on the quotation — much appreciated. I have a follow-up question about tithing. Tithing is a requirement for the maintenance of temple covenants, I assume. You have to be paying it to hold a temple recommend worthily, and a temple recommend is required for entering the Lord’s house. Is payment of tithing necessary for salvation in the lowest level of the celestial kingdom? As Doctrine and Covenants says — that without the ordiance of eternal marriage, you can’t have an increase, can’t enter into the highest level of the celestial kingdom.
Can you be baptized, stay active in the Church, and obey all the commandments except tithing, and still be saved in the lowest level of the celestial kingdom, without eternal increase? Or is this another one of those “open to interpretation” — “can’t be answered” questions?
Here is my source, D&C 131:
Quote:1–4, Celestial marriage is essential to exaltation in the highest heaven; 5–6, How men are sealed up unto eternal life; 7–8, All spirit is matter.
1 In the celestial glory there are three heavens or degrees;
2 And in order to obtain the highest, a man must enter into this border of the priesthood [meaning the new and deverlasting covenant of marriage];
3 And if he does not, he cannot obtain it.
4 He may enter into the other, but that is the end of his kingdom; he cannot have an increase.
Comments welcome.
I am trying to remember when the change happened, but I don’t think tithing was a temple recommend question in the 1800’s. It seems like Bored in Vernal did a post on temple recommend interview changes, but I can’t find it. I think the change came following Lorenzo Snow’s “Windows of Heaven.” Quote:Can you be baptized, stay active in the Church, and obey all the commandments except tithing, and still be saved in the lowest level of the celestial kingdom, without eternal increase?
I don’t know why anyone would target a kingdom other than the highest, but I think you’re probably right.
Silent, your question assumes everyone has the same acceptance or belief of degrees of heaven that you have. I’m guessing that’s not the case. This is off-topic, but has anyone ever considered “Degrees of Glory” using different definitions of the word “degree”? If it has to do with temperature, I don’t want the highest… give me something in the middle, 70’s would be nice. If it has to do with angles, I guess I’ll take obtuse… maybe there would be more room.
I think tithing works best when you make plenty of money and you let your wife take care of it. When asked “Are you a full tithe payer” and I answer, “I don’t know, what did my wife say?” does that REALLY make me a full tithe payer? I mean, if she weren’t around, would I pay as much as I do now? Probably not. Ergo… am I really answering the question honestly?
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