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Who is the Mormon God?
Posted: Thu May 09, 2013 11:21 pm
by _Fence Sitter
How does the average Joe/Jane sitting in the pew visualize God when he/she talks about God? Which of the following three assessments of God best describes what you believe to be the normal Mormon concept of God?
1. A finite, procreated being with a procreated spirit and tangible body of flesh and bones who exists as part of an infinite lineage of like Gods, who possesses finite-though sufficiently perfected-- attributes and qualities, and who is eternally progressing in knowledge and power.
2. An infinite, eternal and (biologically and spatio-temporally) transcendent being with infinite knowledge and power who is immanent, though not physically, through the power of his spirit.
3. Some combination of the first two choices.
The question is of interest to me since I believe he is represented both ways in Mormonism and I think they cannot overlap. I also think we want him to be both ways, our divine father with an exalted body, who we want to be just like someday and our God who will always be THE Creator.
Re: Who is the Mormon God?
Posted: Fri May 10, 2013 12:29 am
by _Fence Sitter
In spite of GBH's declaration to the contrary my father would respond to the above question that, as long as he is faithful to the end, he can eventually be one of those Gods.
Is he wrong?
Re: Who is the Mormon God?
Posted: Fri May 10, 2013 12:35 am
by _Quasimodo
Fence Sitter wrote:In spite of GBH's declaration to the contrary my father would respond to the above question that, as long as he is faithful to the end, he can eventually be one of those Gods.
Is he wrong?
I think (from an outsider's point of view) that your #1 best describes the Mormon God.
1. A finite, procreated being with a procreated spirit and tangible body of flesh and bones who exists as part of an infinite lineage of like Gods, who possesses finite-though sufficiently perfected-- attributes and qualities, and who is eternally progressing in knowledge and power.
I wonder what a potential God's resume would look like. Who makes the decision for the winning candidate?
Re: Who is the Mormon God?
Posted: Fri May 10, 2013 2:08 am
by _Tobin
Quasimodo wrote:I wonder what a potential God's resume would look like. Who makes the decision for the winning candidate?
His wife?
Re: Who is the Mormon God?
Posted: Fri May 10, 2013 2:14 am
by _Fence Sitter
Tobin wrote:His wife?
Which one?
Re: Who is the Mormon God?
Posted: Fri May 10, 2013 8:28 am
by _Bazooka
Well, according to Joseph Smith he was just some bloke that did really well, I mean REALLY WELL, when He was on earth.
And, as God, He created the earth that He lived on before He became God....wait...what?
Re: Who is the Mormon God?
Posted: Fri May 10, 2013 11:15 am
by _ludwigm
Tth Mormon god is a character from a scifi novel.
In 'Could God the Father have been a horse thief?' thread I wrote:Last year there was one home teaching of my wife; traditionally I take part in them.
Fortunately they scheduled only one or two per year.
The teacher is a biologist, with his father who is an accountant.
Topic: exaltation in the style of King Follett sermon (however it is unknown for them).
The summary of the explanation was that those aliens who have begun their evolution (??) and development a few million years before us, can own attributes and abilities we could get as divine; we would call them gods, as they can do "miracles".
As usual, they asked for my opinion. As usual, I've said it...
--- what about the gods of these aliens? were they another aliens?
This leads to the "turtles all the way down"
and don't explain anything, only delays the explanation.
--- what about respect, esteem, fear?
Should I - we! - venerate somebody,
because he/she/it was simply more lucky in the cosmic lottery and began to exist five million year or five minute before me?
Why are the kings kings? Because their seventy seventh ancestor was more crafted - or more lucky - in a battle?
--- last but not least, what about the christian god?
The one, the only one, who created everything. Even I don't believe in gods, that explanation is far more logical.
My wife's conclusion was that this is why she don't like my participation in home teaching.
The teacher's concusion was that we will revert to the topic.
We didn't - it was in last April.
More than one year ago.
Re: Who is the Mormon God?
Posted: Fri May 10, 2013 2:49 pm
by _Fence Sitter
Re: Who is the Mormon God?
Posted: Wed May 15, 2013 9:03 pm
by _Fence Sitter
Come on Sub!
You can offer something here can't you?
Re: Who is the Mormon God?
Posted: Thu May 16, 2013 2:06 pm
by _subgenius
Fence Sitter wrote:How does the average Joe/Jane sitting in the pew visualize God when he/she talks about God? Which of the following three assessments of God best describes what you believe to be the normal Mormon concept of God?
1. A finite, procreated being with a procreated spirit and tangible body of flesh and bones who exists as part of an infinite lineage of like Gods, who possesses finite-though sufficiently perfected-- attributes and qualities, and who is eternally progressing in knowledge and power.
2. An infinite, eternal and (biologically and spatio-temporally) transcendent being with infinite knowledge and power who is immanent, though not physically, through the power of his spirit.
3. Some combination of the first two choices.
The question is of interest to me since I believe he is represented both ways in Mormonism and I think they cannot overlap. I also think we want him to be both ways, our divine father with an exalted body, who we want to be just like someday and our God who will always be THE Creator.
First
the "turtles all the way down" is a sophmoric argument..easily rebutted with the notion that if a vulture can hover in the sky with a snake in its grasp for various lengths of time, then how hard is it to realize that a powerful being such as God could not hold up the earth for billions of years?
Second
I am often fascinated with what variouspeople consider as being the "nature of God". I often consider many atheists to be amusing in how they promote their disbelief in God when they do not even understand correctly who, or what, God is...that type of irony can't be bought in any store.
This is why 1 Cor 3:1-2 is so applicable on this topic.
https://www.LDS.org/topics/god-the-father?lang=eng"God the Father is the Supreme Being in whom we believe and whom we worship. He is the ultimate Creator, Ruler, and Preserver of all things. He is perfect, has all power, and knows all things. He “has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man's” (D&C 130:22)."But what about the believer?
1 Cor 2:5,9
"That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God...
..But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him."now follow closely
"But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God...
..Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned."