We know next to nothing for certain about the Divine Feminine. There is a long standing tradition in Mormonism that preaches of a Heavenly Mother to complement a Heavenly Father, but the details are lacking to say the least. So in this post I figured I would loosely sketch out a few theories that I have heard and felt were noteworthy.

Assumptions matter

Before I sketch these theories out there are several related and sometimes more fundamental issues that are also debatable which have a direct bearing on any theories about divinity. Here are some of them: (more…)

Next year’s manual for Relief Society/Priesthood will be Gospel Principles, and chapter 2 begins with the following quote:

“All men and women are . . . literally the sons and daughters of Deity. . . . Man, as a spirit, was begotten and born of heavenly parents, and reared to maturity in the eternal mansions of the Father, prior to coming upon the earth in a temporal [physical] body” [1]

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What constitutes good theology?

One might assume that good theology always equals true theology. But based on D&C section 19 I am not sold on that assumption. When I read section 19 I am reminded of the movie line “You can’t handle the truth!” . Further, I gather from section 19 that God has somewhat of a utilitarian view of good theology. That is, the revelation seems to indicate that God is more interested in our actions than our beliefs and if believing something that isn’t entirely accurate leads to right behavior God doesn’t mind the incorrect belief flourishing. If that is true, the best theology is the theology that leads to the best behavior in humans.

But even if the best theology is the theology that leads to the best behavior in humans, we must deal with the problem that people are not all alike. While theology X might be optimal for leading you to right behavior in your life, I might behave best by believing theology Y. So within Mormonism perhaps God goes with as close to a “one size fits all” theology as he can? That might explain the complete lack of a formalized and systematic theology in Mormonism too…

What do you think constitutes good theology?

Certainly, the greatest theological problem that plagues most individuals in our generation is theodicy, or why a good and all powerful God allows for evil to exist. We as Mormons can be trite and say, “Well that’s easy, people have agency,” as if that answered every possible objection. Of course there are additional issues that agency doesn’t answer, such as natural evils. An all powerful God could probably make a world with fewer earthquakes, diseases, etc.

Anyway, I’m not super interested in directly answering the problem of evil in this post, rather, I would like to discuss a thought experiment. I really enjoy following the links of the sideblog at By Common Consent which are often humorous and witty. A few weeks (or months) ago they linked to a blog post by Stephen Law titled The God of Eth, which I found wonderfully effective in illustrating the weakness of our common responses to the problem of evil. Stephen turns our premises on their heads by offering a mental exercise wherein professors on the planet Eth are debating whether they can defend their basic beliefs that the God of Eth is all powerful and all evil. He has his characters try and explain and defend a belief in an all evil being who allows some good to come through in the world. You see, they have to deal with the Problem of Good. Here is a short sample of the dialogue.
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I’ve been corresponding with a friend regarding the nature of God. I ended my last post saying there are some questions that I am not sure we have clear answers to. Since you are a bunch of smart people, thought I’d see if anyone had a persuasive argument for the answer to any of these questions being fixed in our theology. I don’t think they are.

1. The Divinity of Jesus Christ- Is he a God exatly like Heavenly Father is, or is he divinely invested with Authority by the Father?  What are the implications of this on our understanding of the atonement?

2. The Existance of a Heavenly Mother- Do you believe or not believe in her? If she is existant, is it like J. Stapley believes and she is not equal to the Father? What does her existance imply?

3. Is there a Father of Heavenly Father? What does that mean?

4. If God was once a man like we are now, but was also always God, are we also always God?

5. What does it mean to be the Most High God? Is it just smarter than the smarties?

6. What does it mean to be an eternal being? Are we Eternal in the sense that we have always been conscious?

Some people say the most universal language is math. With that in mind, I was goofing around this morning, trying to explain the atonement with math. Here’s my first attempt:

M = Me
J = Jesus
S = Achieving my exaltation
N = the time I’ve existed (infinity)
M^N < S
J <> S
M^N + J = S

Thoughts? Formulas?

I originally wrote this with the intention that it would be my first post in my Gospel Principles series, but it is not quite what I wanted to say, so I am going to rewrite. Still, consider this draft 1, and come back around January for Draft 2.

Before thoroughly discussing who our Heavenly Father is, it is essential to understand a few basic concepts that are fundamental to LDS theology. The first of these is the eternal nature of matter, and thus, by implication, the eternal nature of the reality we exist in. Thus it can be said our faith “holds strictly to the conception of a material universe.” [1] Also, eternal laws bind this universe, and these laws bind anything within this universe. [2] [3]

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Remember that mini parable they used to teach in church about a delicious cupcake (or cookie or whatever) being just right except for that one nasty ingredient (cockroach, rabbit poo, or whatever)? The moral of the story was that the old “it is fine except for that one scene/lyric/part” excuse just won’t do.

Well the same message applies to the Mysteries of God. Don’t pollute the beautiful mysteries of God with poppycock (aka self-contradictory and incoherent nonsense).

Here are some examples of great mysteries: We don’t know how God hears our thoughts; We don’t know how God manages to speak to our minds; We don’t know how God heals the sick; We don’t know how God parts seas, moves mountains, causes or stops rains, converts water to wine, or any of the miracles we know of. The list of specific mysteries is innumerable.

But separate from mystery list is the paradoxical nonsense list. The thing that makes this a “nonsense list” is that by definition these things are self contradictory like the following: God can make a circular square or God can create a married bachelor. Remember that banal one they used to ask in elementary school? Can God create a rock so big that he can’t lift it? These are all part of the paradoxical nonsense list. Add to the list the claim that God can travel to or see our actual future and yet we still have real (libertarian) free will. The reasons why this last one is nonsense have been discussed ad nauseum here in the past. The simple explanation is this: If the future exists to be traveled to or known then it is fixed. If our futures are fixed then our stories are already written. If our stories are already written we are not writing them with our free will right now. Period.

On a side note, I am always amused at the way people get all huffy about this truth. Once cornered (and people always end up cornered when defending sheer nonsense) a popular response is to scream “Philosophies of men!!” and stomp off. But truth is truth and the fact that some men believe it shouldn’t be a problem.

[Note: I re-read this post and toned down the rhetoric a little. I was annoyed and in a hurry when I first wrote it.]

“Sorry” doesn’t put the Triscuit crackers in my stomach now, does it Carl? (Eric, Billy Madison)

If restitution is required for true repentance to take place, then we are all screwed. Sure, there are some sins for which restitution can be made. Stolen stuff can be returned. A relationship can be restored. But, for the vast majority of sins, it seems to me that robust restitution is really an impossibility. (more…)

My sense is that there are a lot of Mad Max Mormons in the world. Now admittedly I just made that term up, but what I mean by it is there seem to be a lot of Mormons who expect the world to get worse and worse until some massive calamity nearly wipes humanity out and just as we are in the verge of being forced to live like Mad Max in a post-apocalyptic dystopia Jesus will return and fix the world. And who could blame Mormons for such a world view? Not only are there plenty of prophesies in the Bible that seem to indicate that’s how it will come down prior to the second coming of Jesus, there are supporting modern revelations saying the same things in even more detail. The term “Latter-day” is in the official name of our church for cryin’ out loud. To most people that indicates that these are the very last days of the world. (more…)

This is the last installment in the series of the Plan of Salvation. Click here for previous posts in this series and why I’m writing this children’s book.

The process of becoming like Christ is called sanctification. As the Holy Ghost sanctifies us, we receive more light, knowledge, and love for others; which makes us happy because we also enjoy God’s presence in our lives. n order to be sanctified, God will ask us to sacrifice the temporary things of this world to choose the things of eternity. In order to strengthen us against the temptations we will face to cling too tightly to the things of this world, Christ has outlined, through His prophets, specific habits that focus our minds on life’s purposes and invite the Spirit into our lives. (more…)