I have a question for you all. Do you think 2 Nephi 2:25 qualifies as a metaphysical claim about our eternal souls? Here is the well known verse:

Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy.

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“Oh Lisa, vampires are make-believe, just like elves, gremlins, and Eskimos.” (Homer)

Many of the different uses of the word “faith” in the scriptures can be accounted for by recognizing that belief itself is a complex phenomenon with many facets. The question of whether or not to believe in the existence of God is significantly different than the question of how to fully trust in the God whose existence is accepted. Despite these differences, both are questions of faith. The scriptures run the gamut from talking about faith at the most rudimentary level as a simple “desire to believe,” to talking about the faith of Abraham, whose trust in God was such that he was willing to slay Isaac, his only begotten son of promise, despite the obvious immorality of human sacrifice.
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[This guest post was submitted by Matt W., a regular contributor to discussions here at the Thang.]

Sometimes I like to pretend I am pretty smart about my faith and religion. At other times, I accept that I am just an eight year old in the Church. This is one of those times.

In a recent thread, Blake made a statement which has bothered me. He noted that one article on Agency “hasn’t been accepted by common consent…” as a basic way of debunking what was said therein. This bothered me not because I didn’t agree with Blake on that point, but because I have a hard time following the reasoning that Mormon Doctrine only equals those things sustained by common consent in General Conference. (more…)

[Edit: In this post I should have written that we generally live “as if” we were causally determined beings. Later discussions showed this mistake of mine confused a lot of people.]

There was an interesting article in the New York Times this week called “Free Will: Now You Have It, Now You Don’t” (Hat tip to the BCC sideblog). The author gives a quick review of the scientific arguments against the concept of Free Will (and in favor of causal determinism). I recommend you check it out.

There was one section and specifically one conclusion the author drew that I want to focus one in this post. The author recounted a now-famous experiment that has been brought up around these parts before (by some of our local science guys like Jeff G., Christian C., and Clark if I remember correctly). Here is the passage from the article:
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It is no secret that Open Theists read scriptures with different operative principles of interpretation than those who maintain classical theology. Open theists generally argue that scriptural passages demonstrate that God changes his mind, relents, repents or feels sorrow for things that have occurred. If they are correct, then at least to the extent such scripture is regarded as disclosing what is true of God, then God cannot be, as classical theists maintain: (1) immutable in the strong sense that none of God’s intrinsic properties is subject to change; (2) impassible in the sense that nothing outside of God influences him or otherwise has no feelings comparable to human feelings; (3) timeless in the sense that God is outside of any type of temporal succession; (4) prescient in the sense that God has infallible foreknowledge.
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I distinctly remember trying to come up with the biggest number as a child. I would say something like one-hundred-trillion-billion-quazillion, and then my older brother would torment me by saying one-hundred-trillion-billion-quazillion-and-one. I can’t wait to torment my kids with that when they get to the right age. (more…)

D&C 19:4-12 is a humdinger of a scriptural passage. In it the Lord confirms what people had surely been suspecting about various doctrines for thousands of years: “He has to be kidding about that doctrine, right?” Apparently the answer to their question in at least one case was “yup”. The specific misleading doctrine that the Lord tells us he had allowed people to buy into until section 19 was given in 1830 is the doctrine that “endless torment” and “eternal damnation” are actually endless and eternal in duration. Rather, the Lord admits, such punishments usually do have an end. God just allowed his people to believe otherwise because having people believe such punishments last forever was a useful form of motivation. In his words:

wherefore it is more express than other scriptures, that it might work upon the hearts of the children of men, altogether for my name’s glory. (verse 7)

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There has been some interesting action around these parts while I have been away. It started with some exchanges between Jacob and Mogget about the general subject of theology. Late in one of those threads at Mogget made an interesting comment:

Two points about our info on the post-mortal existence:

If it’s something that is known only by revelation, then let’s admit that it’s so.

If we’re going to speculate about it, then it needs structure and organization.

Now it seems that there are folks that think three kingdoms, and folks that think “many kingdoms.” Interestingly enough, both sides seem to think they have logic, exegesis, and revelation on their side.

So let’s take a step back in the whole process and talk about how to distinguish between competing claims in general before we work on this issue. It would seem that the tough one is competing claims of revelation, no?

Anybody got any ideas? Something reasonably objective?

The point she brings up about competing revelations a difficult but highly important one. (more…)

I walked right into it by using the word fair in the same sentence as judgment. It was a rookie mistake. (more…)

Over at FPR, Her Mogesty asked me about my angle on impassibility. Since I was already wearing out my welcome over there, I thought I’d take a quick stab at it here.

Impassibility is one of lesser known words in a long list of fancy words theologians use to bore us when talking about God. As a Mormon, I don’t run into it much unless I’m reading about the apostasy and the influence of Greek philosophy on early Christian thought. Even so, it’s not a bad word to know, so read on. (more…)

In my last post which outlined the newly named Royal Empathy theory of atonement I mentioned that one important assumption of that theory was the notion taught by Joseph Smith that our Father in Heaven was a savior on a previous world. J. Stapley chimed in with support for the theory and also provided some of the quotes from Joseph Smith that teach the idea that Jesus only became as the Father is by performing an atoning work for us as the Father did before him on a previous world. Here are the key quotes as Stapley presented them in that thread: (more…)