Three Heavens or Degrees of Glory

[_ClarkGoble]

Swedenborg taught multiple heavens and some of his followers taught that various planets, within and outside our solar system, were the actual locations.

That’s old and fairly standard Neoplatonic notion. It had made a big comeback and almost certainly was an influence on Swedenborg along with hermeticism and other variants. While it’s possible Swedenborg was an influence on Joseph, Steve Fleming has largely convinced me direct platonic texts are the stronger influence. (Although I’ve become more skeptical of his telestic as the source for telestial)

by the way I had a T&S post a while ago on the topic of the OP.

https://shrtm.nu/zhra

[_ClarkGoble]

And here’s the other point about eternity, decision making is irrelevant. Because eternity. You literally don’t need to make any decision because there’s no time relationship. You just are, forever.

Eternity can mean of unending duration (of time), atemporal, or just some property that is infinite. Or just hyperbole pointing to one of those. While some will push for atemporality that's hard to reconcile with Mormonism and requires God be a kind of platonic entity of some sort.

While one can always debate the texts, typically God even in heaven is portrayed as acting, having feelings and doing things and thus being temporal. The main reason some lay Mormons get confused is because of the KJV of Rev 10:6 as "And sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer." This is generally just seen as a bad translation. The NIV puts it as "And he swore by him who lives for ever and ever, who created the heavens and all that is in them, the earth and all that is in it, and the sea and all that is in it, and said, "There will be no more delay!"

There are arguments against endless duration that go back to the medieval era of course. The Stoics thought the problem with infinite duration is that eventually you get repetition. (Thus the Eternal Return that later Niezsche made use of) However there's no real reason to assume the size of the set of time durations is the same cardinality as the set of possibilities.

[_ClarkGoble]

Mormons teach God is not all knowing , even thou the Book of Mormon says he is

God himself is increasing and progressing in knowledge, power, and dominion, and will do so, worlds without end." Wilford Woodruff, Journal of Discourses Vol. 6:120

2 Nephi 9:20 O how great the holiness of our God! For he knoweth all things, and there is not anything save he knows it.

There's different types of knowledge. There's knowledge of propositions. There's experiential knowledge. There's familial knowledge. To see the difference consider the sunrise tomorrow morning. I know what it will be like. But that's not the same as the knowledge of experiencing it. Likewise even if I know what my experiences of knowing someone would be like, that's not the same as knowing them and being in a relationship with them. Finally there's know-how which isn't the same as knowledge-that. It's easy to conflate these types of knowledge.

It's quite possible God could be complete in one of these and incomplete in others.

However even if one just sticks to propositions, it's quite possible he could know all the knowable propositions at T1 but there be new propositions at T2. So one could have all knowledge yet the set of knowledge still increases with time.

[_Maksutov]

And here’s the other point about eternity, decision making is irrelevant. Because eternity. You literally don’t need to make any decision because there’s no time relationship. You just are, forever.

Eternity can mean of unending duration (of time), atemporal, or just some property that is infinite. Or just hyperbole pointing to one of those. While some will push for atemporality that's hard to reconcile with Mormonism and requires God be a kind of platonic entity of some sort.

While one can always debate the texts, typically God even in heaven is portrayed as acting, having feelings and doing things and thus being temporal. The main reason some lay Mormons get confused is because of the KJV of Rev 10:6 as "And sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer." This is generally just seen as a bad translation. The NIV puts it as "And he swore by him who lives for ever and ever, who created the heavens and all that is in them, the earth and all that is in it, and the sea and all that is in it, and said, "There will be no more delay!"

There are arguments against endless duration that go back to the medieval era of course. The Stoics thought the problem with infinite duration is that eventually you get repetition. (Thus the Eternal Return that later Niezsche made use of) However there's no real reason to assume the size of the set of time durations is the same cardinality as the set of possibilities.

Interesting. When we speak of "God", which god are we talking about? Is there a chain of supreme beings without beginning? Beings which must exist within time don't sound like they transcend it and so they are still subject to greater forces.

[_moksha]

Perhaps eternity could be defined as being one Celestial Day, which is the interval between big bangs.

Wonder if that definition could be ratified by the Brethren and codified in the Encyclopedia of Mormonism and the Ensign? Such a definition would give a big boost to our peculiarity.

[_ClarkGoble]

Interesting. When we speak of "God", which god are we talking about? Is there a chain of supreme beings without beginning? Beings which must exist within time don't sound like they transcend it and so they are still subject to greater forces.

I'd say this is much more open in Mormon theology than most realize. Most Mormons views are at best established by reading the harmonized King Follet Discourse. However the original notes out of which the published version arose make it a little less sure than some assume. That's why you can have on the major theologians in the Church, Blake Ostler, fully rejecting a Brigham Young or Orson Pratt styled endless regress of gods

Now I'll admit I favor the more traditional interpretation from early Utah. But I have to admit that theologically things are more open than many realize.

To the issue of time, transcendence gets tricky here. Consider for instance the notion of a multiverse that pops up in many speculative conceptions of physics. (PhysicsGuy can chime in here since I know he's an expert in string theory whereas I am anything but) What's the implications of a multiverse theologically? If we assume some kind of information flow as possible between universes yet their having a somewhat independent time line (say more Lee Smolin's multiverse in loop quantum gravity rather than branes in string theory) then you can have something both in time yet transcendent of a particular time.

The way to think of this I suspect is to consider each universe as "whole" at the moment of creation. That is you assume a more Einstein-like block universe. God might be transcendent to it temporally but also appear within it.

Again, not saying that's the case. I raise this just to note that the possibilities are much more open than they appear. Especially if we take physics seriously. Blake Ostler I should note tends to reject a realist interpretation to General Relativity. That's primarily due to his conception of free will which tends to be the ontological position with the highest commitment in his scheme. If you reject his conception of free will then a block universe is much less problematic and there's a lot more possibilities open theologically. Personally I think any theological position has to grapple with physics as we know it. Too much theology avoids such issues.

[Guest]

What's the implications of a multiverse theologically?

For LDS it's an absolute necessity due to the implications of an exponential growth rate of resurrected bodies with each new generation of gods giving birth to their own offspring and also due to the implications of the accelerating expansion of our own universe such that the reachable parts of it are decreasing in volume with the passage of time.

Currently there is no evidence of a multiverse but LIGO WMAP may discover something.

Especially if we take physics seriously.

Well if we don't, we better ditch the GPS app on our cell phones. ;)

Personally I think any theological position has to grapple with physics as we know it.

It also has to grapple with biology and geology as we know it. Careful, your black box might consume your backyard. If you accept biological evolution I'd like to hear how it's reconciled with your version of LDS theology. I've yet to hear anyone explain how it could possibly be a fit.

Effectively Sherem is asking for the theophany without being ready for it. And as Indiana Jones found out, that doesn’t work too well for the wicked.

I'd also like a primer on how glorified resurrected bodies fit in with the standard model of particle physics - if you have the time.

[_ClarkGoble]

What's the implications of a multiverse theologically?

For LDS it's an absolute necessity due to the implications of an exponential growth rate of resurrected bodies with each new generation of gods giving birth to their own offspring and also due to the implications of the accelerating expansion of our own universe such that the reachable parts of it are decreasing in volume with the passage of time.

It's not necessarily exponential growth. That presupposes each individual creates their own universe. While that's a popular view there's really no evidence for it and arguably some evidence that creation is a collective endeavor. In that case it'd be linear. Although of course when dealing with infinity the difference between linear and exponential doesn't matter much.

Currently there is no evidence of a multiverse but LIGO may discover something.

Yup. It's common in most unification models but there's zero empirical evidence for it. I'm not even sure what empirical evidence for it would look like

Personally I think any theological position has to grapple with physics as we know it.

It also has to grapple with biology and geology as we know it. Careful, your black box might consume your backyard. If you accept biological evolution I'd like to hear how it's reconciled with your version of LDS theology. I've yet to hear anyone explain how it could possibly be a fit.

I don't have a problem with evolution. I just think there were pre-Adamites. i.e. Adam is father by adoption not necessarily birth. Joseph might not have understood that, but then the law of adoption wasn't really well understood by him. (I'm still not entirely sure why) That really starts up with Brigham's vision of Joseph while in a fever but really becomes doctrine more after his death with Woodruff and later figures.

It is also interesting that contemporary "prophets" of Joseph Smith held to the idea of pre-Adamites. I can't recall his name but there was a Catholic German figure claiming to speak to Jesus who wrote a lot about that prior to the significant rise of Darwin. You then also have somewhat ambiguous comments by Hyrum Smith and others. Finally you also have racist theology of pre-Adamites as a justification for slavery that probably would have been known at the time. (It wasn't adopted the way Brigham adopted the questionable readings about Canaanites from southern slavery apologetics though)

I'd also like a primer on how glorified resurrected bodies fit in with the standard model of particle physics - if you have the time.

What problem do you see? To me the main issue is faster than light communication but I think a multiverse somewhat deals with that even if the implications might be troublesome for certain conceptions of free will.

I've no idea what a resurrected body is made from but it's presumably matter of some sort.

[_spotlight]

Thanks for the reply. So biologically we have some of Adam's DNA as well as DNA from other progenitors contemporaneous with Adam as well?

[_Themis]

I don't have a problem with evolution. I just think there were pre-Adamites. i.e. Adam is father by adoption not necessarily birth.

It never made sense if humans were already running around the earth why you would need Adam and Eve. The story is about how humans came about. Just like there was no tower of babel, but it was a story that came about explaining why we see so many different people and languages.