Interesting, Dean Robbers. One question: Does the Book of Mormon really say that God can sin? I’m guessing you’re referring to this passage from Alma:
I read this as a reductio ad absurdum argument: if there were no repentance, that would mean that God would cease to be God. But that would be absurd because God does not cease to be God. Therefore, there must be repentance.
When I asked LDS bot if God could sin, it stated without reservation that LDS God is omnipotent and omniscient. But that’s a problem for free agency. If God knew I that if I were born to my parents, that I would be raised LDS but leave the church at age 19, why didn’t God send me to earth at a different place or time? It’s God who has the free agency — not me.
MG’s solution is to change the nature of God. I don’t know how LDS God feels about that.
If God were to place everyone in an optimum world in which their choices didn’t have real meaning and always led to ‘correct’ outcomes, what kind of a world would that be?
Not just on an individual level but on a global level. If God was to make the one exception for you (placement for optimal outcome) what does that look like if done wide scale?
Would free will even be a thing?
As it was, you had a real choice. Right?
Regards,
MG
You're plowing old ground that we've been over. It's a dilemma that is built in to any claim that (1) God is omniscient; (2) Humans have free will; and (3) this life is an obedience test. You're not going to solve that by asking me questions.
It does you no good asking me about real choices. I've already told you that I'm agnostic on the issue of free will.
he/him we all just have to live through it,
holding each other’s hands.
Do you really think the LDS god is impotent? It's been a long time, so I'm fuzzy on what the actual doctrine says. I recall that Smith said that God could not create elements. What other limitations are contained in the scriptures or words of leaders?
In Mormonism, God participates with humans in a Universe He did not create and according to rules He did not make.
God cannot create or destroy matter.
God did not create our intelligences/spirits which are co-eternal with Him.
Human males can wield the same power God has (the priesthood) and can constrain Him with it.
And, divinization is still a thing in Mormonism. "You get a world and I get a world and everybody gets a world..."
Compare that God with one on whom everything depends and whose will controls everything.
So, yes, I do think the Mormon god is impotent.
The part about the human ability to constrain God doesn't ring a bell. Where is that found?
he/him we all just have to live through it,
holding each other’s hands.
Well, that's kind of the zeitgeist of the historical period in which it was formed. Did you go the temple pre-1990? If so, you may remember a description of the God that Mormonism rejected. It was, in part, to take a God that could not be comprehended and make him more understandable. I suspect that, in the eyes of the early Mormons, they were rejecting what they saw as mumbo jumbo and replacing it with a God that made sense.
And it took a while.
Regards,
MG
I don't understand what you mean.
he/him we all just have to live through it,
holding each other’s hands.
Human males can wield the same power God has (the priesthood) and can constrain Him with it.
The part about the human ability to constrain God doesn't ring a bell. Where is that found?
Mormons claim to wield the power to bind people here on earth and for eternity. Temple marriage and sealings have to be honored by God.
Additionally, Mormon leadership is still giving those they deem worthy an ordinance called the 2nd Anointing which basically is a get out of jail free card for those who are Anointed. It claims to seal up eternal blessings in the hereafter and God has to honor it regardless of what the recipient does after getting the blessing. It was one of the bribes Smith offered to the parents of teenage girls he wanted to marry. "Let me marry your underage daughter and I will make sure you are rewarded in the next life."
School of the prophets. Early 20th century adjustments. Jehovah. Elohim.
There was a guy from BYU a number of years ago that wrote a long book on the evolution of the LDS views towards God. I read the book but can’t remember his name right now.
If God were to place everyone in an optimum world in which their choices didn’t have real meaning and always led to ‘correct’ outcomes, what kind of a world would that be?
Not just on an individual level but on a global level. If God was to make the one exception for you (placement for optimal outcome) what does that look like if done wide scale?
Would free will even be a thing?
As it was, you had a real choice. Right?
Regards,
MG
You're plowing old ground that we've been over. It's a dilemma that is built in to any claim that (1) God is omniscient; (2) Humans have free will; and (3) this life is an obedience test. You're not going to solve that by asking me questions.
It does you no good asking me about real choices. I've already told you that I'm agnostic on the issue of free will.
OK. I’m interested, however, in how non religious folks might describe the ‘perfect God’. Without changing anything in the world or humanity as it is.
Because it is what it is.
So what kind of God would fit in with a world such as it is?
Just a mind exercise.
Regards,
MG
Last edited by MG 2.0 on Fri May 31, 2024 12:15 am, edited 1 time in total.
Interesting, Dean Robbers. One question: Does the Book of Mormon really say that God can sin? I’m guessing you’re referring to this passage from Alma:
I read this as a reductio ad absurdum argument: if there were no repentance, that would mean that God would cease to be God. But that would be absurd because God does not cease to be God. Therefore, there must be repentance.
When I asked LDS bot if God could sin, it stated without reservation that LDS God is omnipotent and omniscient. But that’s a problem for free agency. If God knew I that if I were born to my parents, that I would be raised LDS but leave the church at age 19, why didn’t God send me to earth at a different place or time? It’s God who has the free agency — not me.
MG’s solution is to change the nature of God. I don’t know how LDS God feels about that.
If God were to place everyone in an optimum world in which their choices didn’t have real meaning and always led to ‘correct’ outcomes, what kind of a world would that be?
Not just on an individual level but on a global level. If God was to make the one exception for you (placement for optimal outcome) what does that look like if done wide scale?
Would free will even be a thing?
As it was, you had a real choice. Right?
Regards,
MG
Some of our conversations are rather limited if I can’t ask a hypothetical question.
