I think about God a lot. He's important to me. As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, He ought to be. There are some pieces about God that don't make sense to my feeble mind (which fits nicely into the Isaiah 55: 8-9 verses), which is fine as far as it goes. What really confuses me is that what confuses me doesn't confuse others. Like, there are some questions that nobody has really figured out ("Can God create a burrito so spicy even He couldn't eat it?") and that may ultimately be absurdism. Most everyone in my religious tradition recognizes that there are things we don't know about God, and we're all in the dark together.
But there are other things where I get the sense that others don't really understand, but they confidently assert that they do. An example of that would have to be the tension between what Mormons (and other philosophical and religious traditions) call agency and most everyone else considers free will. An absolute about Mormonism is that agency explains evil. The solution to the most vexing questions of reality-as-created-by-God, the issue of theodicy, is swallowed up by that simple answer: People may choose to do the right...or the wrong.
Again, my feeble mind gets really stuck on this because I'm part of Mormonism, which not only believes in prophecy, but in continued revelation via oracles, called "prophets, seers, and revelators". That means that the ability to perceive God's will and make proclamations about future events is within the purview of those authorized servants within the Church.* Modern, living prophets--in the unbroken succession from Joseph Smith, Jr.--have been giving additional divine pronouncements since the early 1800s. This expanded Christian canon contains more commandments, deeper explanations of God, and a broader view of the cosmos and humanity's role in it. To put it baldly, Mormonism embraces a larger expanse than many other religions.
Within such a tradition, there are declarations that are echoed throughout Christendom, but have, perhaps, a double varnish of emphasis on the prophetic declarations that are hinted at in the Bible but given greater explanations within the Mormonic canon. The one that I'm thinking of is found in Doctrine and Covenants 76:111. The context for this scripture is simple: In describing the different attributes of heaven, Joseph Smith reveals here that those who are in one area of heaven, called the "telestial kingdom", will, after the Final Judgment, be compelled to worship God:
And that's what's baffling to me. Throughout all the books I consider scripture is a declaration that there will come a time when people--all people, every single one--will kneel, confess, and worship God. I mean, I think of some of the New Atheists or devout Buddhists, the near-countless other believers and nonbelievers throughout all human history. They all will be compelled to do that? If the removal of agency is okay at the end of time, why not at the beginning of time?
Mormon theology parallels some of Paradise Lost in terms of conceptualizing and believing in a literal War in Heaven, led on one hand by Lucifer and opposed by Christ and Michael on the other. Where we differ from Milton is the cause of the schism. For Milton, Satan's pride is wounded at the thought of no longer being the best angel in heaven and having to submit himself to the newly-created Son of God. In Mormonism, we understand Satan to have proposed an alternative plan to the one set forth by God. Satan's modification was to compel humans to obedience and, therefore salvation. In exchange, Satan would gain God's glory. Since God's plan didn't want to do away with agency, there was a bit of a kerfuffle about what to do, leading to an angelic war. (Sadly, there's no Mormonic thought on what that looks like. Fortunately, we have Book VI of Paradise Lost, which is pretty much the coolest bit of poetry you're like to read in your life.)
For Mormons, the crux of celestial violence (perhaps one of the strangest paradoxes I've ever written) resides fully within the concept of free will. Can mankind choose? God says yes; Satan says no. Those are the lines of the battlefield (another problematic image that I'll opine on some day, I daresay). Choice and compulsion.
So I get this strange tension that agency's value is so great that God has allowed all the misery that He could have prevented (due to His omnipotence), from famines and natural disasters to war crimes and genocides, from cancer in babies and the ignominy of dementia, to flourish on our fallen world. It's Milton's argument, it's Mormonism's argument: The ability to choose is so great that it is worth the immense cost. That's a powerful doctrine, and it's humbling to consider what a gift choice can be.
Yet, the "every knee shall bow" becomes all the more puzzling to me in light of that doctrine. Agency's worth all of Creation, it seems, but only at the beginning? At the end, it can be subverted? It's clear from the way the disagreement between God and Lucifer unfolds that agency is a precondition to life on Earth. It was there before Adam and Eve were even Adam and Eve. But what changes? Why would everyone now acknowledge God?
There are some arguments, but I don't know if they're backed up in scripture or are simply used as an attempt to provide an explanation. One is that we'll be changed by a recollection of our deeds on Earth, so we'll be honest in our acknowledgment of God's superiority. But we have plenty of people on Earth now who are faced with overwhelming evidence about any number of things, yet they still abide by their own point of view. For the argument to succeed, people would have to become something different from what they are. And if they're different, what's actually being saved? If your soul is expressed through your personality, tastes, choices, and beliefs, having those change upon death and entrance into an afterlife means that what you were and what you are really aren't the same thing. In some ways, that seems like a cop out: "The sinner was the old me. I don't have that problem now, so I can't be punished for it." For me, at least, it raises the specter of the question, "Can a thief with perfect amnesia be responsible for what he stole?"**
Another argument is that we live in a fallen world. Postlapsarian Earth is flawed and problematic. That's 1) why I struggle trying to get my earthy brain to conceive of the celestial (though that's the entire point of Christ's mission, "To know thee the only true god" (John 17:3) so obviously we're equipped to know something of God); and 2) why so much stuff goes wrong. Our earthly manifestation is not what it will be in the afterlife, where our imperfections will disappear and we'll be how we truly are.
The second one works for me a little better, but there are vestiges of fatalism here. If I'm not really who I truly am, but will one day be something else entirely, I don't know why I'm putting any effort into trying to understand the world around me. Science is pointless, religion is empty, and all is vanity if reality is nothing more than a play, wherein a man plays many parts.
In a strange reversal of pessimism, I worry that a too strong addiction to post-mortal explication pushes excuses into a weird salvific nihilism: Where it's all nothing, nothing matters, and we'll have value after the fact. The thing is, there are plenty of things said by Jesus and later prophets that have put great worth into living in this life, relishing its beauties and bounties, and making our existence here worthwhile. So that tension again rears its head.
Despite all of these thoughts, I still think of God as good. I still think of Him as a Heavenly Father who wishes to see me happy, though He made me (or allowed me to be made?) with chronic depression. And I think thinking about God's goodness on a Sunday morning, even if it is bewildering, is a manifestation of His trust in me to try to figure things out.
----
* I recognize basically no one outside of the Church, and not even all of those within it, subscribes to these claims. I'm not interested in pursuing the validity of these truths here; it's a matter of faith that I'm using as a general starting point.
** I'd say yes, as a default, but that's probably a bit too thorny a tangent for this essay.
But there are other things where I get the sense that others don't really understand, but they confidently assert that they do. An example of that would have to be the tension between what Mormons (and other philosophical and religious traditions) call agency and most everyone else considers free will. An absolute about Mormonism is that agency explains evil. The solution to the most vexing questions of reality-as-created-by-God, the issue of theodicy, is swallowed up by that simple answer: People may choose to do the right...or the wrong.
Again, my feeble mind gets really stuck on this because I'm part of Mormonism, which not only believes in prophecy, but in continued revelation via oracles, called "prophets, seers, and revelators". That means that the ability to perceive God's will and make proclamations about future events is within the purview of those authorized servants within the Church.* Modern, living prophets--in the unbroken succession from Joseph Smith, Jr.--have been giving additional divine pronouncements since the early 1800s. This expanded Christian canon contains more commandments, deeper explanations of God, and a broader view of the cosmos and humanity's role in it. To put it baldly, Mormonism embraces a larger expanse than many other religions.
Within such a tradition, there are declarations that are echoed throughout Christendom, but have, perhaps, a double varnish of emphasis on the prophetic declarations that are hinted at in the Bible but given greater explanations within the Mormonic canon. The one that I'm thinking of is found in Doctrine and Covenants 76:111. The context for this scripture is simple: In describing the different attributes of heaven, Joseph Smith reveals here that those who are in one area of heaven, called the "telestial kingdom", will, after the Final Judgment, be compelled to worship God:
These all shall bow the knee, and every tongue shall confess to him who sits upon the throne forever and ever;This idea of compelled worship, "every knee shall bow", is repeated throughout Old and New Testaments, including a refrain in the Book of Mormon and a repeat in the Doctrine and Covenants.
And that's what's baffling to me. Throughout all the books I consider scripture is a declaration that there will come a time when people--all people, every single one--will kneel, confess, and worship God. I mean, I think of some of the New Atheists or devout Buddhists, the near-countless other believers and nonbelievers throughout all human history. They all will be compelled to do that? If the removal of agency is okay at the end of time, why not at the beginning of time?
Mormon theology parallels some of Paradise Lost in terms of conceptualizing and believing in a literal War in Heaven, led on one hand by Lucifer and opposed by Christ and Michael on the other. Where we differ from Milton is the cause of the schism. For Milton, Satan's pride is wounded at the thought of no longer being the best angel in heaven and having to submit himself to the newly-created Son of God. In Mormonism, we understand Satan to have proposed an alternative plan to the one set forth by God. Satan's modification was to compel humans to obedience and, therefore salvation. In exchange, Satan would gain God's glory. Since God's plan didn't want to do away with agency, there was a bit of a kerfuffle about what to do, leading to an angelic war. (Sadly, there's no Mormonic thought on what that looks like. Fortunately, we have Book VI of Paradise Lost, which is pretty much the coolest bit of poetry you're like to read in your life.)
For Mormons, the crux of celestial violence (perhaps one of the strangest paradoxes I've ever written) resides fully within the concept of free will. Can mankind choose? God says yes; Satan says no. Those are the lines of the battlefield (another problematic image that I'll opine on some day, I daresay). Choice and compulsion.
So I get this strange tension that agency's value is so great that God has allowed all the misery that He could have prevented (due to His omnipotence), from famines and natural disasters to war crimes and genocides, from cancer in babies and the ignominy of dementia, to flourish on our fallen world. It's Milton's argument, it's Mormonism's argument: The ability to choose is so great that it is worth the immense cost. That's a powerful doctrine, and it's humbling to consider what a gift choice can be.
Yet, the "every knee shall bow" becomes all the more puzzling to me in light of that doctrine. Agency's worth all of Creation, it seems, but only at the beginning? At the end, it can be subverted? It's clear from the way the disagreement between God and Lucifer unfolds that agency is a precondition to life on Earth. It was there before Adam and Eve were even Adam and Eve. But what changes? Why would everyone now acknowledge God?
There are some arguments, but I don't know if they're backed up in scripture or are simply used as an attempt to provide an explanation. One is that we'll be changed by a recollection of our deeds on Earth, so we'll be honest in our acknowledgment of God's superiority. But we have plenty of people on Earth now who are faced with overwhelming evidence about any number of things, yet they still abide by their own point of view. For the argument to succeed, people would have to become something different from what they are. And if they're different, what's actually being saved? If your soul is expressed through your personality, tastes, choices, and beliefs, having those change upon death and entrance into an afterlife means that what you were and what you are really aren't the same thing. In some ways, that seems like a cop out: "The sinner was the old me. I don't have that problem now, so I can't be punished for it." For me, at least, it raises the specter of the question, "Can a thief with perfect amnesia be responsible for what he stole?"**
Another argument is that we live in a fallen world. Postlapsarian Earth is flawed and problematic. That's 1) why I struggle trying to get my earthy brain to conceive of the celestial (though that's the entire point of Christ's mission, "To know thee the only true god" (John 17:3) so obviously we're equipped to know something of God); and 2) why so much stuff goes wrong. Our earthly manifestation is not what it will be in the afterlife, where our imperfections will disappear and we'll be how we truly are.
The second one works for me a little better, but there are vestiges of fatalism here. If I'm not really who I truly am, but will one day be something else entirely, I don't know why I'm putting any effort into trying to understand the world around me. Science is pointless, religion is empty, and all is vanity if reality is nothing more than a play, wherein a man plays many parts.
In a strange reversal of pessimism, I worry that a too strong addiction to post-mortal explication pushes excuses into a weird salvific nihilism: Where it's all nothing, nothing matters, and we'll have value after the fact. The thing is, there are plenty of things said by Jesus and later prophets that have put great worth into living in this life, relishing its beauties and bounties, and making our existence here worthwhile. So that tension again rears its head.
Despite all of these thoughts, I still think of God as good. I still think of Him as a Heavenly Father who wishes to see me happy, though He made me (or allowed me to be made?) with chronic depression. And I think thinking about God's goodness on a Sunday morning, even if it is bewildering, is a manifestation of His trust in me to try to figure things out.
----
* I recognize basically no one outside of the Church, and not even all of those within it, subscribes to these claims. I'm not interested in pursuing the validity of these truths here; it's a matter of faith that I'm using as a general starting point.
** I'd say yes, as a default, but that's probably a bit too thorny a tangent for this essay.