What Exactly Did God Promise?

[Anonymous]

Roy wrote:

So, things fell apart and I began to examine Gods end of the bargain and discovered that … He hadn’t made one.

This is the realization I’m waking up to. I’m trying to resolve these things in my mind. Some people may object to this interpretation, and I understand if they do. But I feel a little like someone who has bought a product from a traveling salesmen, and the salesman made a lot of verbal promises about the product’s performance that weren’t in the contract. When the product didn’t preform as the salesman said it would, I went to the salesman to get him to deliver on his promises, but he tells me that he never made any of those verbal promises and can only honor promises that are in the written contract.

I don’t think at all that these promises that never existed are limited to Mormonism or even to religious people. I think that a desire for reciprocity is entirely human: if I scratch someone’s back, I expect them to scratch mine, and when they don’t, I feel like an agreement has been broken, even though such an agreement may never have been made. People make deals with God all the time, but with no knowledge of whether or not God puts his signature on the deal. They just assume that he does.

Recently in church I heard someone tell a story about how they were miraculously provided with a scholarship so they could continue to attend college. At this point, I’ve determined that God probably didn’t provide that scholarship for that person, because God didn’t miraculously provide a scholarship for me or for the millions of other people who would love to have such a lucrative scholarship. That scholarship probably came entirely without God’s help. When people in testimony meeting say, “God did this for me, God did this for me, God did that for me,” I have to think at this point that God probably didn’t do any of those things for that person, because God failed to take the same actions in the lives of other people who also needed those things done. Of course I can’t say for sure what is happening in the lives of others, and I have a few experiences that I have thought were divine intervention, though I’m leaning towards naturalistic explanations for those now. It’s helping me form a more congruent worldview.

So whatever promises God makes, it seems reasonable that he would make them and keep them for everyone. Since a lot of people say that they didn’t get the things that they thought that God promised them, I would venture to say that it makes sense that God probably doesn’t make temporal promises. If God makes promises, they must be spiritual.

RagDollSallyUT wrote:

You realize you really are alone in the universe and the cosmic safety net you thought was there does not exist.

This incredibly unsettling realization has gripped me for the last several months. It’s truly the greatest horror I have ever faced. I’ve actually been kind of moody recently and have been avoiding my friends a little because of it. I’ve realized that maybe, just maybe, we are all on our own in this life, and this life is perhaps all we get. Others may have experiences that lead them to believe differently, and I’m OK with that. But the loss of the feeling of a divine safety net is very unnerving. I get a little comfort from the fact that the divine safety net was probably never there; it was always an illusion, and I have still made it to this point OK. I got through thousands of athletic games and practices and thousands of hours driving in a car and flying on airlines and through spending time in questionable neighborhoods and I’m still alive and healthy, and I got through it all without a divine safety net.

Old-Timer wrote:

I can’t understand that disconnect and never have been able to do so. I don’t get it intellectually in any way other than to turn to the unacceptable answer to others that I just don’t know but still believe that blessings are given – largely because there have been a small number of experiences in my own life that I can’t count as anything accept divine blessings.

This is one of the reasons that has stopped me from declaring myself an atheist. The number of experiences is very small, but they seem real. It doesn’t make any sense that God would have intervened at those times and not at all the other times that I and others could have used a favor. But the experiences seem real enough to be worth looking at.

As far as the Church continuing to teach about promised blessings that are probably unrealistic or unsupported by evidence, I think that it’s a combination of genuine belief, wishful thinking, confirmation bias, and retention effort. Plus the promises really do come true for a few people, kind of like an infomercial 🙂 The ethical value of continuing to teach those things is something I won’t address here.

[Anonymous]

InquiringMind wrote:

I get a little comfort from the fact that the divine safety net was probably never there; it was always an illusion, and I have still made it to this point OK.

Well, InquringMind, at least you have that. I hope you can do good things with that.

I am so far very healthy, especially for my age, other than the stress has caused fibromyalgia that flares on my really bad days or weeks. My kids are also healthy. These blessings are indeed huge to me. But other than that, Life has not been very nice to me so far. It seems at least 3 times a week some major disaster strikes. It is too unreal to believe. If I was a paranoid person I would think that I was on some twisted reality show that I don’t know I am on and “the people behind the curtain” are creating monsters just to send them to torture me, like in Hunger Games or the Cabin in the Woods. Nearly every problem I have at this point can be traced to who I am tied to and so I keep thinking if I can just find a way out of this TV show I will be able to breathe, yet though I have tried so many times to escape just to have the invisible forces steal my tools, blow up the bridge and send me right back here.

With me, as I mentioned, in my case, there were not just perceived promises but ones that were actually issued out of the mouths of people who were supposed to speak for God. And in the case of my patriarchal blessing blessing, it WAS in writing. Yet as I hold this contract to the heavens no answer comes, and as I try to figure it out I am essentially being told it’s OK– those people are allowed to make whatever promises they feel at the time, even in writing, but it never meant anything and if I have a problem with it I should just get over it.

I keep going on the hope that God will actually reach through this world and send me the white knight He promised speckled throughout these contracts. He is long, long, overdue. And I still try to work on finding a way out of here on my own. But is it so wrong to realize that sometimes we can’t do everything on our own? Is it so wrong to be trying so hard and climbing mud walls that collapse while my fingers bleed to wish and wish that someone would just hear me, that God would just open a freaking door that I can’t??

Really if God does not promise to provide anything in this life, I really just wish His messengers would teach that and not be allowed to make so many promises that will never be honored all in the name of good fun. I am not finding this fun.

[Anonymous]

Hercules wrote:

Well, obviously a church can’t think, talk or profess itself to be anything. However, it’s leaders can and have. That’s what I mean when I say “what the church professes to be”. Of course we can just conclude that the leaders were wrong, but then we are just throwing out one of the most central aspects of the Church: modern day revelation. I don’t think inspired leaders could have been wrong so often.

Lets look closer here, I think there is something very important hiding in this. Leaders are in fact part of the membership, and they are in fact human. Yes they are in a position to speak authoritatively to the church through revelation, but I believe it is proper doctrine that each member is then tasked with the responsibility to seek out their own personal confirmation on what the leader said. As recently as the last general conference we were reminded that not everything that a leader says will represent true doctrine. I would even submit that a consensus view may in fact represent a limited understanding. I see several examples in our history of widely held views (justifications for the priesthood/temple ban for one) that have since proven to be in error. In summary, “modern day revelation” simply isn’t as clean and error-resistant as most of us have assumed. It is more human, more prone to interpretation based on our limited current view and ability to understand.

Your statement “I don’t think inspired leaders could have been wrong so often” illustrates perfectly the crux of the problem. Most of us have developed expectations about revelation that are proving to be out of line with reality. Does that mean there is no such thing as revelation at all? I understand how some distressed members fall to that conclusion and lose all hope in spiritual things. I however, don’t believe that is the only reasonable conclusion. I think it is possible to see revelation as subject to human understanding, which makes the process messy and prone to some error, but still valuable in many ways. I would even say more valuable because it then necessitates a personal searching that greatly contributes to personal growth.

Hercules wrote:

I don’t profess to know. You misunderstand me. I am challenging what people say on these forums. I am not trying to convince anybody of anything. I am trying to see if anyone can come up with a good counter-argument. Hey, if they do I might just go with it.

Misunderstandings abound. I actually don’t remember assuming you professed to know, but my responses may have been interpreted along those lines. I agree discussions and digging is what its all about. :thumbup:

Hercules wrote:

I am seeking truth. However, I am starting to fear that I will never find it.

Fear not. Be open to finding truth no matter what it looks like. Be open to the fact that it is often misunderstood, even through the very lens that (you or “I”) look through.

Hercules wrote:

Again, I think you have to seriously think about what claims our inspired leaders have made and what they have taught over the years. I really think it is a cop out to take the position that the ideas proven to be wrong were just assumption made by members.

Yes, I agree we need to look very seriously about what has been claimed and taught, and how it compares to “further light and knowledge”, to gain an understanding of what we should hold to and what we must release. I think it is not a cop out, but it is essential that we understand where any assumptions that have been made in the past that have since been proven short sighted.

It may help you to understand my definition of doctrine is actual verifiable truth. Yes, we don’t fully understand what that is in all its detail, but that understanding is what we should be moving toward. My Mormonism is my vehicle to truth, even if my personal understanding looks vastly different from the majority of the membership. To say that the leaders have taught error at times and thus my personal Mormonism has been proven invalid is totally and completely nonsensical. The revelation of their error contributes to the foundation of my personal truth – which is my Mormonism. Maybe that can be a first glimpse into how we are coming from different perspectives.

[Anonymous]

RagDollSallyUT wrote:

especially in my case, when I was holding on so much to specific blessings I had been given through the years through father’s blessings, priesthood leaders and my patriarchal blessing.

RDSUT – I am a father. I relish the annual father’s blessings. I see them as blessings of hope for the year to come. In thinking about how outright reliance on specific promises made in blessings could result in bad decisions, I believe I will be reluctant to give any promises. My father’s blessings will be no less helpful as statements of hope and love for the child (what HF and I wish for the child to have in the upcoming year).

I don’t think the promised blessings route is entirely bad – it worked out quite well for me for the first 30 years of my life. Perhaps it was illusory, but if it could give me enough hope to get through the rough patches and sustain me long enough until something good happens then it could serve a purpose. Unfortunately the landing was hard – but I can only speculate how my life might have turned out without the standards of the church in my youthful years.

Most things seem to ba a combination of good/bad (though the ratio does vary). I work in the casino business and know a few things about statistics. The longer the losing streak the greater the chances of eventually winning. Not because any prior “spins” have any bearing on subsequent spins – just because it is increasingly rare to have longer and longer stretches of losing spins (like rolling the number 1 consecutively on a 6 sided die, after a while it just becomes improbable). Most everyone has to win sometime, and for that majority of the bell curve the hope in better things around the corner may serve a purpose.

RagDollSallyUT wrote:

I needed to think that after I had done all I could do, that God would open doors for me that I could not, and that there were going to be certain temporal blessings that I could look forward to. I needed to believe the things that were told to me in my blessings. I needed those things in my blessings. They were all righteous and good things.

You clung to them because you needed them and perhaps this would have worked out ok for you had the circumstances been different…had your first husband improved or had some other stroke of lasting good luck come your way. This is the edge of the bell curve – some people buck the trend either as big winners or big losers. We trumpet the big winners as success stories – either in life or gambling. We tend not to talk about the big losers, those that bet the farm and lost it all.

It sounds like you found yourself on the losing side of the bell curve – I grieve with you in my own limited way. There are limits to the casino statistics analogy but it helps me to remember that in the law of averages – some people’s experiences are definitely NOT average, either in an extraordinarily good way or extraordinarily bad way. This analogy also helps me to remember that for many people, perhaps even the bulk of people, they experience enough good luck to keep them playing – keep them hoping and working and raising families and “enduring till the end.”

Seeing how these promises work reasonably well for many people (including the GAs, otherwise they probably would not have become GAs), I don’t foresee a change in tactic anytime soon.

So what do I do about it?

I speak up in class to remind others that while living the gospel standards tends to increase happiness in this life it doesn’t always work out that way. I try to frame it as an effort to help anyone in class that may be feeling worthless because of their relative lack of blessings.

I try to reframe priesthood blessings (including patriarchal ones) as hopeful – not prophetical.

I try to be understanding and compassionate about what other people are going through and how they cope with it (including those that cope with life by smugly proclaiming that they have the truth).

I believe in a God that knows and loves me more and intervenes less (if ever). I think this helps with the feeling alone part.

I also find strength in lasting human relationships. They may not be able to significantly change the course of my life, but they make the journey more bearable – even enjoyable at times.

I have no cure-all answers, but I can share some things that have helped for me. Some days these things help better than others and other times I find myself falling back into the same assumptions and angst.

[Anonymous]

Quote:

realized that maybe, just maybe, we are all on our own in this life, and this life is perhaps all we get.

IMO this is why we need to help others. It is a terrible feeling knowing that there is no one there to help you, so we all need to help one another.

This week in church we were talking about the 2000 warriors, and the teacher was going on and on about how strong their faith was, how they were blessed because they believed, etc. I raised my hand and said: “I am more impressed with the faith of the Nephites. How do you think that they felt being told that God had protected these 2000 boys, yet God didn’t protect their sons, fathers, and brothers? Men who were also fighting for the right cause, men who probably also had faith and were believing but were still killed in battle.”

A sister in the ward responded with a story about how heartbroken she was when her baby brother died, even when she prayed constantly for him to live.

The next comment was about sometimes the answer to a prayer is no, but that doesn’t really do much for me. When you are asking God to protect your children from suffering, to keep someone from being abused, etc. I can’t imagine any reason that a loving all-powerful God would refuse.

This question is really central to my faith crisis. It makes more sense to me to believe either there is no god, or that he doesn’t get involved than to believe that there is a god that sometimes saves people, but lets others suffer.

[Anonymous]

RagDollSallyUT wrote:

Really if God does not promise to provide anything in this life, I really just wish His messengers would teach that and not be allowed to make so many promises that will never be honored all in the name of good fun. I am not finding this fun.

I would tend to agree, and I’m going to attempt to respond to your statement with my explanation of the situation. Mormonism is a very demanding religion, and without promises of God providing us with things we want and need as a reward for our obedience, I submit that we wouldn’t have a religion that many people would join. In a book called Supernatural Selection, which is a book on the evolutionary psychology of religion, the author asserts that, at its core, religion is about relationships- relationships with god(s) and relationships with other people. We like relationships that are mutually beneficial: I scratch your back, you scratch my back. In Mormonism, God demands a lot from us: no coffee or tea, no philandering, etc. So it makes sense that we’d like a reciprocal relationship with God. If God demands things from us, we expect some reciprocation from God: I go on a mission to serve God, and I expect him to protect me while I’m out serving him. So a religion that demands a lot from its members must promise a lot to its members in return, or the members won’t feel they are getting a fair deal. People would say, “Why do I have to do all this stuff for God, but he doesn’t have to do anything for me?” I suppose that the phrase “you can’t get something for nothing” applies to our relationship to God, and if we feel that God is getting something for nothing from us, we feel shortchanged.

So if the Church taught people that they had a lot of responsibilities towards God, but that God didn’t have any responsibilities towards them, they would say that Mormonism is a lot of sacrifices with no benefits and isn’t a very good deal, and they wouldn’t join (or perhaps would leave if they were already members.)

Is it ethical for Church manuals/patriarchs/fathers/mission presidents/instructors etc. to make promises without any “accountability” for whether these promises are realized? I have some ideas, but I won’t discuss them right now. I’d put that in the same category as asking whether the Church has an obligation to teach some of the more controversial aspects of its history alongside its standard version of history.

rebeccad wrote:

This question is really central to my faith crisis. It makes more sense to me to believe either there is no god, or that he doesn’t get involved than to believe that there is a god that sometimes saves people, but lets others suffer.

This is indeed the crucible of my crisis as well, at least when it comes to believing in God. If we try to explain why God intervenes in some temporal situations but not others, we end up with a wildly complicated explanation that is confusing and leads to a lot more questions than answers. But a simpler explanation for what we observe is that God does not answer temporal prayers, does not grant temporal blessings, and does not intervene to prevent any temporal evils, so I think that Occam’s Razor is on the side of the God who does not get involved. As Ray pointed out, there seem to be some miracles that are not explainable naturalistically. I have one or two of those, and I’m not sure what to do with those yet. But I think that far and away most often (and perhaps always, I’m not sure) God does not answer temporal prayers and does not grant temporal blessings. Whether this means that God does not exist or that God is a “deist” God (or is something else entirely) is something that I have not determined yet.

[Anonymous]

InquiringMind wrote:

But a simpler explanation for what we observe is that God does not answer temporal prayers, does not grant temporal blessings, and does not intervene to prevent any temporal evils, so I think that Occam’s Razor is on the side of the God who does not get involved. As Ray pointed out, there seem to be some miracles that are not explainable naturalistically. I have one or two of those, and I’m not sure what to do with those yet. But I think that far and away most often (and perhaps always, I’m not sure) God does not answer temporal prayers and does not grant temporal blessings.

This is the conclusion that gives me peace. I am open to the idea that others can have what they perceive as miracles. I don’t try to prove them wrong or find logical explanations. I take at face value that they believe the hand of God was involved. But for me and my internal peace, even if a miraculous event were to happen to me tomorrow – I would interpret it as not being a miracle. To do otherwise would open the can of worms as to “why now but not before (when so much more was at stake)?”

Many people take great comfort in little miracles. The importance of the lost keys is dwarfed by the feeling of a God that is aware and concerned about you. But this would not work for me. So I have framed my worldview to eliminate this quandary while allowing others to have their miracles and the comfort they might receive from them.

[Author]

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