u/StAnselmsProof

For some time, I have been pondering the beginning and its implications. Not the beginning referred to in Genesis, but the beginning of the plan of salvation.

The worst portion of our eternal existence ended the moment God created us as his spirit children. I have no idea what the spiritual creation entailed, but it wrapped us in spiritual matter in the image of God's spirit and it drew us into his family and his presence.

And most important: it gave us hope.

Without hope, the scripture reads, we were in despair, an eternal despair. It's difficult to comprehend an intelligence being stagnant for an eternity without hope of deliverance, but the words "eternal, conscious, torment" seem apt. Since the Devil and his angels slipped back into that damned condition by failing to choose the plan of salvation, we have some sense of the nature of this eternal despair: misery, fire, torment are words the scriptures use to describe this state.

(BTW, I have come to see the donning the temple garment (the spirit body), receiving a new name (drawn into God's family), anointing and blessings (the promises of eternal progression) in the initiatory temple ordinances represent the glorious moment of deliverance when God created our spirits; from which we proceed to the pre-mortal counsel and the creation as depicted in the endowment.)

It seems to me that this observation about the eternal despair from which the Father redeemed us provides an answer to many theological questions:

• Why did the Father do anything at all? Because his goodness compelled him to take actions to deliver us from that state of despair.
• Why is there suffering? Suffering is the base state of our souls because we are eternal and unable to progress on our own. Also, as agents, we are able to harm each other.
• What's the Father's role in suffering? At every juncture, his actions are designed to minimize and deliver us from suffering.
  • The Pre-Mortal Existence involved less suffering than the prior eternal despair;
  • Our Mortal Existence involves less suffering than the Pre-Mortal Existence;
  • The Third Estate will likewise be a more joyous existence than this one.
• Why hasn't the Father eliminated suffering? Because some sorts of suffering cannot be externally removed; deliverance must be chosen and/or learned.
• Thus God
  • Seeks;
  • Invites (such as with the great counsel in heaven);
  • Teaches; and
  • Heals the harms we cause while we learn.

In this, then, the Father, The Father, THE FATHER, should be viewed as the Great Savior, the one to whom we all owe everything good. We sometimes think of Christ as not needing a savior. But in this model, Christ also needed deliverance. He is the First Begotten. The plan of salvation began with Christ's redemption from that prior eternal despair.

You can see why Christ recoiled when he was equated with the Father as "Good Master".

This perspective gives content and meaning to our worship of the Father. He is Great Savior, the Great Deliverer, the one who first loved us and drew from eternal despair to hope and joy.

Here's a thought-experiment:

>B, a benevolent billionaire, develops the technology to broadcast information into the minds of other people. He uses the technology to secretly broadcast useful bits of information, such as remember to bring an umbrella today; today is election day; road construction on HWY 10 today, you might take an alternative route; and so forth.

>C receives the broadcasts and, although each broadcast appears within the mind as an impression or thought, C identifies each broadcast impression/thought as something unique, i.e., different from his normal thoughts, something that seems like it comes from an external intelligence.

>C nevertheless believes these impressions are epiphanies, sudden, sometimes surprising, useful insights generated by his own mind.

>He reaches this conclusion because God has not been scientifically demonstrated as a possible source and, being unaware of the new technology, believes there is no other possible explanation for the source of the thoughts within his mind.

>When some of the impressions seem beyond his ken, C believes that his subconscious mind has learned the information and the impression is bringing that information to the fore as an epiphany. At times, he wonders if he might be a little crazy, but since the impressions are benign and socially constructive, he believes they are epiphanies.

It should be obvious that C's epistemological approach to B's broadcasts is a fair representation of the approach many of our critics (particularly the recently and vociferously deconverted who are so active on social media) take to the promptings of the spirit.

C has reached the wrong conclusion. Worse, the wrong conclusion was produced by the epistemology that C adopted: i.e., foreclosing certain beliefs b/c they had not been "scientifically demonstrated".

The knock out blow:

>If C's epistemology produces incorrect beliefs in this simple, yet plausible, thought experiment, it cannot be used to criticize a person who believes the "promptings of the spirit" have an external source.

When LDS thinkers approach the problem of pain, a common answer goes something like this:

>The suffering we experience in this life serves a worthwhile purpose--e.g., we learn to use our agency both (1) avoid harming other people and (2) provide succor to others. Both of these are attributes of God that we must learn in order to become like him.

That's one component of our response, but I think most LDS people would agree with these propositions, or something quite close to them.

But what if there's another component, consist with the foregoing, but altogether different?

Namely:

>Our net condition in this life--our joys, our sorrows, our pleasures and our sufferings--is better than our condition in the premortal life.

(I am the source of both these quotes, having made them up in the process of writing the OP; I used the quote block for ease of reference.

Here a few reasons to believe this might be true:

• The line between this frame of our existence and the prior frame demarks progress.
  • All of us here are better people than we were before this life.
  • Although we have left God's presence (materially speaking), we are, all of us, closer to him than we were before this life because we are closer to being like him.
  • And, to be like him is inhabit a fulness of joy, so our condition is more joyous to that degree.
• We have a physical body; our scripture describes the lack of a body as a bondage, so whatever that bondage represents, God delivered us from it through our mortal birth.
• In the same vein, merely by entering this life entitles us to be eternally united with a physical body.

By simple analogy, when I left home for college, I was better off than had I chosen to stay stagnant in my parent's basement, even though I faced new challenges that my parent had hitherto sheltered me from. My contentment, my independence, my engagement, my satisfaction--every metric by which happiness is measured were greater. And I wouldn't have gone back, it was so good to be on my own.

The bottom line: at each step in our progression, God's actions deliver us from suffering, opening the door even more progress and growth.

The second commandment is like unto the first: loving our neighbor as ourselves. This commandment contains both an injunction to (1) love ourselves as we love God and (2) love our neighbor in the same way.

The example of this love given by Christ was alleviating/remitting undeserved suffering reads thus:

>And went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. And on the morrow when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee.

Likewise, in his condemnation of those on his left hand, Christ says:

>Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.

Likewise, in D&C 104:

>Therefore, if any man shall take of the abundance which I have made, and impart not his portion, according to the law of my gospel, unto the poor and the needy, he shall, with the wicked, lift up his eyes in hell, being in torment.

(Yes, I know D&C 104 is from the context of the United Firm)

King Benjamin

>And now, for the sake of these things which I have spoken unto you—that is, for the sake of retaining a remission of your sins from day to day, that ye may walk guiltless before God—I would that ye should impart of your substance to the poor, every man according to that which he hath, such as feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and administering to their relief, both spiritually and temporally, according to their wants.

Honestly, I could go on and on and on, along this theme. I've quoted some of the most gripping of these passages, but only just scratched the surface.

Well, duh, you might be thinking. By culture or conversion, these concept is taken as a given among us.

But why is this the rule?

For example, building intergenerational family wealth could be the rule. Taking care of one's tribe/nation by dominating all others could be the rule.

I've been working on a theory, that goes something like this:

• Our default condition--i.e., before God got involved with us--is actually a state of suffering, of bondage, due our inability to progress on our own.
• All of God's work can be seen as delivering us from this bondage.
• Since our objective is to become a being like God, we must learn his work.

And when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.

Was he different after the atonement? It's hard to imagine that an experience like that wouldn't change a person, but he was God before the atonement, perfect before the atonement. Could he be any more perfect afterward?

Alma 7 teaches that Christ is able to succor us because he suffered what we suffered. This suggests that without the atonement, perhaps he wouldn't have been able to succor us. The experience seems to have enabled him to something more.

In D&C, he describes his role as advocate, saying "Father, behold the suffering and death of him who did no sin". That's a role he couldn't played but for the atonement, suggesting that the atonement was necessary for him to mature into his full role within the Godhead.

Also, if the atonement didn't change him, it almost reduces the atonement to a mere gesture. Yes, yes, I'll save you with a wink of my eye.

There's probably more, that suggests Christ was changed by the atonement.

What do folks think?

I have been exploring various aspects of the "problem of pain" in my last few threads. One idea that has come up is the notion that suffering is harm.

I offer that physical suffering often helps our souls grow and progress. Also, the physical suffering we experience here was built into the system by God, for the express purpose of helping our souls grow.

Here's an example:

We all should be well-acquainted with the extent Christ's suffering.

Was his soul harmed by it? Or was his soul perfected by it?

Is this proposition true?

>God has designed this life such that the amount suffering experienced by each human and by humanity in the aggregate is the minimum amount needed to give each person sufficient opportunity to develop/progress in the way we hoped to develop in this life?

If you agree in general concept, but disagree with the formulation, please take a crack at making it better.

I can't think of any passage of scripture directly on point, but I do think it's implied by the atonement of Christ, since any suffering inflicted upon Christ in excess of that amount would be purely gratuitous.

Can anyone think of scriptural support?

Right? And what would that first birth be? Our entry as spirits into the presence of God in the pre-mortal realm. Now, here's a syllogism for you:

• If intelligence is eternal; and
• A first birth occurs at a fixed point in time, then
• Our intelligences existed before the first birth.

This is in response to those who argue "intelligence" and "spirit" are interchangeable terms within our theology.

The notion of God as the "punisher" has become somewhat démodé in some faithful LDS circles. You've probably heard believing LDS folks describe the source of suffering as:

1. Resulting from our free will, which God cannot remove and which is essential to our development;
2. The material world itself, not coming directly from God, but just a part of the system

In this formulation, consequences for sin are not "punishment" inflicted by God, but rather the natural consequence of our action. For example, if we sin, the Spirit of God withdraws from us, not because God is punishing us but b/c his spirit cannot dwell in unholy places. Or, if we tell a lie, the distrust dishonesty engenders is itself the punishment.

These ideas, I think, are a response to the distaste we feel toward a "punisher" God--especially in a day when punishment by human parents is also démodé. God can't be worse than us!

But is this sort of thinking correct?

Why wouldn't God punish us, for the purpose of teaching us?

This passage comes to mind:

>Therefore I command you to repent—repent, lest I smite you by the rod of my mouth, and by my wrath, and by my anger, and your sufferings be sore—how sore you know not, how exquisite you know not, yea, how hard to bear you know not.

It is taken from what many consider to be the only insider's view of the atonement--Christ himself sharing his POV of the atonement. Smite, wrath, anger.

As most of you know (or suspect) there are many, many, many more instances in which mortal suffering is described by God as punishment for sin.

Should we add a third category to the list above?

>3. Punishment inflicted by God himself, by way of correction, instruction or disciple.

One interesting aspect of the war in heaven account: both sides of the debate wanted out of the pre-existence. No faction was arguing like children before church: we don't want to go!

Rather, the debate was over the way out.

Yes, I know the accounts are spare and possibly metaphorical, and so not too much certain doctrine can be extracted from them.

That said--if this observation has significance, it becomes another aspect of our robust theological answer to the problem of suffering.

• The war in heaven--standing alone--introduces the notion of informed consent; if we suffer in this life, we consented to it; those who did not consent, were not forced into it; and the choice was persuasive--a full third chose it!
• But this OP introduces another element; we all wanted to leave the pre-mortal realm; even the naysayers wanted out.
  • This suggests that we viewed our mortal life here as an improvement upon our condition in the pre-mortal life;
  • This suggests that the plan of salvation wasn't foisted upon us by God;
  • This suggests that, instead, God saw our desire/need and acted to deliver us to a better state of existence.
• This is important because it demonstrates that within the plan of salvation, every intervention by God--from our birth as spirits, to our birth as mortals, to our resurrection--can be viewed as an act of deliverance from suffering.

Eternal conscious torment is thought of as the worst that can be inflicted upon a person. But what if an eternal conscious state of eternal intellectual stagnance is very akin to eternal conscious torment? Such as that experienced by our intelligences as they floated about the universe unable to progress. For me personally, such a condition would, sooner or later, become eternal conscious torment.

In that case:

• The Father's victory in becoming the first to find the way out, the first to emerge places him as the greatest, the greatest, the greatest, the greatest representative of our ontological species, the greatest among trillions upon trillions.
• And his decision to then assist the rest of us--if we are willing--makes him our Greatest Savior, greater in saving than even Christ himself.*
• Any suffering we experience at any step in his plan is:
  • Better than the alternative had he not acted and we not taken that step;
  • Minimized to include only that amount necessary to permit us to learn what he learned so that we ourselves can emerge from that eternal stagnance;
  • Undone in every sense by the atonement of Christ.

*Someone on this sub (I'm sorry, I forget who) introduced an idea to me--that at some point in our eternal progression, the Father performed an act of deliverance for us akin to the atonement of Christ and it was that act Christ referenced when he said he only did what he had seen his father do.

I find that a beautiful idea, one that is in harmony with the ideas I'm mulling over in this post. For instance, perhaps, the step in delivering our intelligences from that eternal stagnace required an atonement of some kind. As Christ's atonement became the bridge between the pre-mortal life and our resurrected/exalted state, perhaps the Father's sacrifice was the bridge from our intelligence-only existence into the pre-mortal life as his spirit children.

There are some clues:

• "man is that he might have joy", implies that without the plan of salvation our state would be less joyful;
• "and if you have no hope, ye must be in despair", suggests that without hope of obtaining a god-like outcome, our existence would involve despair
• The state of souls who chose not participate in god's plan is described as miserable, as fire and brimstone, etc.
• We also know that God himself chose to move along the same path he has laid out for us, meaning God thought there were advantages for himself in taking those steps. This suggests that God's prior state (like ours now) was less happy/good than it is now.

My friends, a good portion of Latter-day Saints believe:

• there are eternal moral laws floating about the universe;
• abiding by these laws allows us to become like God; and
• even God himself, if he fails to abide these laws, would cease to be God.

The source of these beliefs traces to two passages of scripture in the BOM.

My question for you is this: where does objective moral law exist?

The Exercise Analogy

Moral choice exercises our intelligences in ways that strengthens our intelligence. Just like using the Hansen Marathon Method can increase a marathoner's fitness, “choosing the right” increases our intelligence, both in scope and in its ability to project power over matter. Our intelligence has an almost infinite capacity to increase, such that choosing the moral good, over and over, can produce in us something approaching omniscience and omnipotence.

Likewise, poor moral choice weakens our intelligence, in the way sloth and refined foods weaken our physical bodies. So, not only do these choices prevent our growth, but they can result in our regression, even God’s regression should he make those choices.

Who likes that analogy? I like it. Does anyone dispute it?

Where do these objective moral laws exist?

If my analogy is correct, moral law exists as an attribute of our intelligence, not as some detached law floating out there in the universe. Moral law is just a descriptions of the essential character of our souls--a metaphysical, ontological statement about who we are, in our essence.

And since God is the fullest, most perfect expression of the sort of beings we are, moral law is just a description of the sort of choices he made that developed his soul into what he is. And, thus, when we study the "good", we are studying the attributes of God--the choices he would make, the choices that maintain the fitness of his intelligence as the greatest of all.

This does not make the good “subjective” to God

Within our theology, God is an object. If He permitted one to empirically study His soul, the attributes permitting it to grow in response to righteous choices would be objectively observable and measurable. When one asks: what is the tallest mountain in the world, identifying K2 doesn't make tallness "subjective to K2". Likewise, what is the highest moral good—it resides in the choices God made/would make.

There is no other way

A component of our theology (although not metaphysically necessary) is that there is no other way. The path followed by God, of moving from righteous choice to righteous choice in a way that develops our intelligence toward omniscience/omnipotence, is the only way for any of us to reach that outcome. That’s something we take on faith, based on the revelations we have received and upon the words of Christ himself during his mortal ministry.

Returning to the exercise analogy, it is as if the Hansen Marathon Method was the only way to become the greatest marathoner.

What difference does this make?

It means we can abandon the silly notion that God is subject to a mysterious, self-executing, moral law floating about the universe somewhere. Nothing has power over God. He is subject to nothing outside of himself. This is approach is far more consistent with the BOM passages than with the “external moral law that is binding upon God”.

So, I started reading The Moral Landscape by Sam Harris b/c I'm fascinated by the immense effort by the "New Atheists" to find objective morality. It's a problem for them:

• On the one hand, they criticize religious belief as being unsupported by evidence;
• And, in going further, they criticize religion because it is immoral; and yet
• Lack any evidence or other grounding for their own moral soapbox;

The Worst Possible Suffering for Everyone

Hence, the drive among them to find a "scientific" foundation for morality. Sam Harris expressly thinks he has.

>It seems uncontroversial to say that a change that leaves everyone worse off, by any rational standard, can be reasonably called “bad,” if this word is to have any meaning at all. We simply must stand somewhere. I am arguing that, in the moral sphere, it is safe to begin with the premise that it is good to avoid behaving in such a way as to produce the worst possible misery for everyone. I am not claiming that most of us personally care about the experience of all conscious beings; I am saying that a universe in which all conscious beings suffer the worst possible misery is worse than a universe in which they experience well-being. This is all we need to speak about “moral truth” in the context of science.

And, so, maximal human flourishing for everyone is good. And, hence, taking steps that moving away from that state is "good".

That's it. That's the extent of his argument.

He restates this concept numerous times, but never offers more justification. In another instance, we find this novel effort:

>[If] we cannot say this would be "bad", then I don't know what you could mean by the word "bad" (and I don't think you know what you mean by it either).

Without this concept--that worst possible misery for everyone ("WPMFE") is bad--his scientific moralism is meaningless.

Can You See the Embarrassing Logical Problems?

Here are few embarrassing logical problems. I don't see any redeeming his moral philosophy from these problems:

Assumes His Conclusion. "We simply must start somewhere". No, we mustn't. Harris expressly assumes a moral foundation, and then seeks to discover what it is. But one of the obvious and probable conclusions is that atheism/naturalism has no basis for morality, scientific or otherwise. It's an obvious omission, which Harris has either deliberately side-stepped aside (bad faith) or Harris is simply unaware of it (ignorant). I choose the latter, to be charitable.

Bald Equivocation. "Bad" can carry non-value judgements (that weather is bad--i.e., very intense) and moral value judgements (that man is bad).

• In a purely material, natural universe, the suffering of humankind, in amounts great or small, is of the first sort. It's nothing more than cosmic weather.
• And just as it makes no sense to say "the nighttime cold on Mercury is "bad" and the daytime heat on Earth is "good"", it also makes no sense in an atheist/natural universe to say "a greater quantum of human suffering is "bad" and a less quantum "good"--it's all just weather, inevitably proceeding from the chain of cause and effect that began with the big bang.
• But by labeling the cosmic weather of WPMFE "bad" in the moral sense, Harris is able to then to use this equivocation to declare that actions that reduce the bad weather are morally "good".
• This isn't an argument; it's an equivocation.

Uses Your Moral Intuitions to Proof of His Scientific Moralism. And how about this ju-jitsu of sophistry: "If we cannot say this is bad, then I don't know what you could mean by bad (and I don't think you know . . . either)."

• Since these words are directed at his theist critics, he is essentially using our morality as a starting point, by bullying us to concede his assumed starting point.
• Of course we agree WPMFE is bad! We're Christians who believe that every soul has inherent worth because every soul is child of God who loves them!
• Further, "we" are not saying WPMFE is bad or good;
• Rather, we are arguing that in his atheist/natural metaphysics there is no reason to say WPMFE has any more moral import than the weather on Mercury.

And for that Harris neither addresses the question, nor has any answer.

I recently attended the mission farewell of the daughter of a good friend. The parents (of my generation) are Nigerian-born U.S. citizens. They joined the church in Nigeria and then immigrated to the U.S. (for reasons unrelated to religion). All three of their children were born in the church and in the U.S. The older two served mission. This mission farewell was for their third child. It was a big African-style party. IYKYK

One fascinating aspect of our history that I have learned through them is that the Lord organized the church in Nigeria by Nigerians starting in the 1940s, in the thick of (and seemingly in spite of) the priesthood ban. For some Nigerian members, apparently this is a point of pride.

Here's a snippet from Time Magazine in 1965:

>Pending a new revelation, possible at any time, Mormons are committed to a certain degree of built-in segregation: Negroes cannot be admitted to the church's priesthood. For this reason, Mormon missionaries have never tried very hard to make converts in black Africa. Yet Mormons also believe that Negroes may be admitted to the priesthood in heaven. This apparently is good enough for 7,000 Ibibio, Ibo and Efik tribesmen in eastern Nigeria, who have gone ahead to organize their own branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. . . .

>One problem now is that in the absence of supervision from Utah the Nigerian Saints appear to be deviating somewhat from strict adherence to revelation. Some Nigerian Mormons practice polygamy—forbidden in the U.S. church since 1890—and the converts already seem to have established their own black hierarchy, priests and all. “I don’t have to wait for revelation to know that I am the natural head in Nigeria,” snaps Obot, who is accepted by his elders as their bishop. “Nigerian priests will run their own branch. This is their creation, and they are in their own country.”

To a modern saint accustomed to the systematic order of the institutional church, this sounds like the sort of defiance that leads to God's disapprobation. No man taketh this honor unto himself, after all. But it seems clear from the history that the Lord did not wait for 1978 to establish his church in Africa, and that he did it sua sponte in Africa, by Africans, run by Africans. Seven thousand active members is two stakes of Zion. And that was 12 years before the priesthood ban was revoked.

To my mind, rather, this has the feeling of Alma baptizing himself when he organized the church after fleeing King Noah, an act that is perhaps even more perplexing to we members of the well-ordered modern church.

I would love for this story and those like it--surely there are 1000s--to be told over the pulpit in general conference. I want to hear more from these members of our global community! If scriptures are written of our day, I would bet good money that these stories would be included.

It's my belief that a cultural shame on account of the priesthood ban has prevented us from seeing clearly the miraculous Nigerian restoration, and the great work the Lord has done and is doing with black people in Africa and throughout the world. I think, sometimes, we would rather avert eyes than engage deeply on this topic. Averting our eyes does permit us to look past the priesthood ban, but it also prevents us from seeing the miracles.