Faith Vs Law of Attraction - compare and contrast

[JLHPROF]

I was reading a book about faith recently and it struck me how our approach to faith often takes a law of attraction approach.
In fact, I have come to notice this convolution of two ideas more and more.  I see it in internet memes about God's help, in people's recommendations about thinking positive, etc.
Terms like "prosperity gospel" are perfect examples of blurred lines.

I wanted to get some feed back from the group.  Where do you see the line existing?  Is exercising Law of Attraction principles just a more telestial application of the principles by which faith works?
Does God require positive thinking and affirmations of faith before blessings are sent?  Does positive thinking and self affirmation have any measurable effect if God is left out?
What say you?  Where is the line and what principles apply to both or are exclusive to only one?

[cinepro]

I do believe that generally, "faith" works about as well as "The Law of Attraction", so they do have that in common.

Or, as we said on my mission, "Trust in God but always lock your bike."

[CA Steve]

My firm belief that I would someday play in the NBA never seemed to happen.

[JLHPROF]

13 minutes ago, CA Steve said:

My firm belief that I would someday play in the NBA never seemed to happen.

Is that because you didn't believe enough?  Or that belief wasn't backed up by faith that God would make it happen?

[CA Steve]

22 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

Is that because you didn't believe enough?  Or that belief wasn't backed up by faith that God would make it happen?

Well I am not really sure. As the years pass my memories of how good I was in my 20's keep getting better.   Right now I am sure I was good enough. Back then I suspect it had something to do with being 6'-1", a  22" vertical jump and a 6.8 second 40 yard dash.

[bluebell]

If whatever you are trying to have faith in (to achieve or make happen) isn't God's will, then no amount of positive thinking is going to make it happen.  Faith is about aligning our will to God's, not aligning God's will to ours.

Edited February 22, 2018 by bluebell

[CA Steve]

8 minutes ago, bluebell said:

If whatever you are trying to have faith in (to achieve or make happen) isn't God's will, then no amount of positive thinking is going to make it happen.  Faith is about aligning our will to God's, not aligning God's will to ours.

Are we not capable of influencing God's will? Isn't that part of  what prayer is about?

Edited February 22, 2018 by CA Steve

[Kenngo1969]

57 minutes ago, CA Steve said:

Are we not capable of influencing God's will? Isn't that part of  what prayer is about?

I know this isn't going to be a popular position with some hereabouts, but, in my opinion, prayer isn't about aligning God's will with ours. It's about aligning our will with His.

P.S.: Boo-bell beat me to it!  

Edited February 22, 2018 by Kenngo1969

[Robert F. Smith]

35 minutes ago, bluebell said:

If whatever you are trying to have faith in (to achieve or make happen) isn't God's will, then no amount of positive thinking is going to make it happen.  Faith is about aligning our will to God's, not aligning God's will to ours.

What about free agency?  Are we coeternal with God, or are we just His tools and artifacts?

[JLHPROF]

37 minutes ago, bluebell said:

If whatever you are trying to have faith in (to achieve or make happen) isn't God's will, then no amount of positive thinking is going to make it happen.  Faith is about aligning our will to God's, not aligning God's will to ours.

 

4 minutes ago, Kenngo1969 said:

I know this isn't going to be a popular position with some hereabouts, but, in my opinion, prayer isn't about aligning God's will with ours. It's about aligning our will with His.

 

This assumes that God has a specific will in all things.
Like when both football teams pray that God will let them win the big game.
Do we think God has a "will" which will win and therefore one team is aligning and the other is not?

I think the "aligning" argument is a correct principle misapplied to cover lack of faith.  And I can give numerous examples where God has honored the faithful request of his servants, even when it seems very unlikely to have been God's will.  Part of our having agency is God giving us what we choose, even if he has something better for us.

[stemelbow]

I often wonder what people are thinking when they say "it's about aligning our will's with God's and not about aligning God's will with ours".  In the sum it seems to be the same thing.  God seems to be nothing more to a person then what that person wants him/her to be.  

I suppose we can say God's will is found in scripture, but then what we would arrive at in the sum of it is a contradicting mess and people would be stoning others for the simplest of things, while simultaneously loving them.  But if it is true God tells us through our impressions, like in the case of God telling Nephi to murder Laban, then its all dependent upon whether we can really understand clearly enough.  Did God really impress Nephi to kill or did Nephi feel it was God after thinking it was the only way to get the plates?  It makes ya wonder when you throw in obvious difficulties to this stuff.  Like when the leaders of the Church made up reasons for the priesthood ban and sold those reasons as God-inspired to the masses, but after they are gone we are told that the leaders were wrong and their inspiration really amounted to their own biases.  

 

[stemelbow]

2 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

 

 

This assumes that God has a specific will in all things.
Like when both football teams pray that God will let them win the big game.
Do we think God has a "will" which will win and therefore one team is aligning and the other is not?

I think the "aligning" argument is a correct principle misapplied to cover lack of faith.  And I can give numerous examples where God has honored the faithful request of his servants, even when it seems very unlikely to have been God's will.  Part of our having agency is God giving us what we choose, even if he has something better for us.

I enjoy your point here, but I'm curious about "And I can give numerous examples where God has honored the faithful request of his servants, even when it seems very unlikely to have been God's will".  Do you mind sharing a couple so I better grasp what you mean?  

[Kenngo1969]

I gave up on the idea of God as Santa Claus, who gives blessings (presents) to His "good" children and lumps of coal (curses, withheld blessings, and so forth) to his "bad" children a long time ago:  https://greatgourdini.wordpress.com/2013/02/20/on-gods-injustice/.  It's easy to believe in God when things are going swimmingly (how would that be  ???), when we petition God for blessings and, lo and behold, He gives us exactly what we want, when we want it, and how we want it.

I don't think the trick is learning how to turn God into a candy machine: we put in $1, make our selection, and Presto!  Rather, the trick is continuing to have faith in Him even amidst mortality's seemingly-innumerable, baffling, bewildering, mystifying vicissitudes: "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in Him" (Job 13:15); "I know not the meaning of all things.  Nevertheless, I know that [God] loveth His children" (1 Nephi 11:17); "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46; has there ever been anybody in human history with less cause for God to forsake Him?  Yet, still, it happened); "Father, if Thou be willing, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt" (Matthew 26:39); God "maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust" (Matthew 5:45).

[blueglass]

D&Cov 88:40 

40 For intelligence cleaveth unto intelligence; wisdom receiveth wisdom; truth embraceth truth; virtue loveth virtue; light cleaveth unto light; 

Sounds like the qualities of a good marriage. 

 

[Kenngo1969]

14 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

This assumes that God has a specific will in all things. ...

No, it doesn't.  Believe me, I'm well aware that not everything that happens in life is consistent with God's will: One human's inhumanity to another, living in a fallen world, "hap crappening," and so on.  "All things" .... not just the "good" stuff, and not just the things we understand, but "all things" ... "work together for the good of them that love God" (Romans 8:28): Perhaps not in the short run, perhaps not even entirely in this life, but eventually, all things will work together for our good.   but I once heard a member of a Stake Presidency describe four possible answers to prayer: "Yes," "No," "Not yet," and "What do you think?"  There would be no need for faith, or for the fourth of those options, if prayer were simply a matter of discerning God's will and then executing it.

Brigham Young once said (paraphrasing, since I'm too lazy to look it up ), "If I ask God for guidance concerning my own course, or that of those who I preside over, and get no answer from him, proceeding to do the best that my experience has taught me, God is bound to honor that transaction, and will do so to all intents and purposes."

[JLHPROF]

11 minutes ago, stemelbow said:

I enjoy your point here, but I'm curious about "And I can give numerous examples where God has honored the faithful request of his servants, even when it seems very unlikely to have been God's will".  Do you mind sharing a couple so I better grasp what you mean?  

Well, I was thinking of David W. Patten's request to be a martyr, and Joseph's response that his faith would likely give him that blessing.  Do we believe that God wanted Patten to die and that his request was just an aligning of wills?

Or the 116 pages and Martin Harris.  God gave Joseph permission and even gave guidelines to be followed.  But first God had said no.

Or Jacob 4:14 But behold, the Jews were a stiff-necked people; and they despised the words of plainness, and killed the prophets, and sought for things that they could not understand. Wherefore, because of their blindness, which blindness came by looking beyond the mark, they must needs fall; for God hath taken away his plainness from them, and delivered unto them many things which they cannot understand, because they desired it. And because they desired it God hath done it, that they may stumble.

Also - I Samuel 8:4-7

[JLHPROF]

6 minutes ago, Kenngo1969 said:

No, it doesn't.  Believe me, I'm well aware that not everything that happens in life is consistent with God's will: One human's inhumanity to another, living in a fallen world, "hap crappening," and so on.  "All things" .... not just the "good" stuff, and not just the things we understand, but "all things" ... "work together for the good of them that love God" (Romans 8:28): Perhaps not in the short run, perhaps not even entirely in this life, but eventually, all things will work together for our good.   but I once heard a member of a Stake Presidency describe four possible answers to prayer: "Yes," "No," "Not yet," and "What do you think?"  There would be no need for faith, or for the fourth of those options, if prayer were simply a matter of discerning God's will and then executing it.

Brigham Young once said (paraphrasing, since I'm too lazy to look it up ), "If I ask God for guidance concerning my own course, or that of those who I preside over, and get no answer from him, proceeding to do the best that my experience has taught me, God is bound to honor that transaction, and will do so to all intents and purposes."

I really like the Brigham Young "quote".

So then when you say "prayer isn't about aligning God's will with ours. It's about aligning our will with His" you also recognize that sometimes we pray to receive blessings and God says "yes" but would not had we not prayed.

So our faithful prayer changes our situation.  And without it our situation might not change.  

[Kenngo1969]

3 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

I really like the Brigham Young "quote".

So then when you say "prayer isn't about aligning God's will with ours. It's about aligning our will with His" you also recognize that sometimes we pray to receive blessings and God says "yes" but would not had we not prayed.

So our faithful prayer changes our situation.  And without it our situation might not change.  

Yes, the realization of some blessings is made contingent on our asking for them.

Edited February 22, 2018 by Kenngo1969

[stemelbow]

2 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

Well, I was thinking of David W. Patten's request to be a martyr, and Joseph's response that his faith would likely give him that blessing.  Do we believe that God wanted Patten to die and that his request was just an aligning of wills?

Or the 116 pages and Martin Harris.  God gave Joseph permission and even gave guidelines to be followed.  But first God had said no.

Or Jacob 4:14 But behold, the Jews were a stiff-necked people; and they despised the words of plainness, and killed the prophets, and sought for things that they could not understand. Wherefore, because of their blindness, which blindness came by looking beyond the mark, they must needs fall; for God hath taken away his plainness from them, and delivered unto them many things which they cannot understand, because they desired it. And because they desired it God hath done it, that they may stumble.

Also - I Samuel 8:4-7

Thanks.  I forget about that passage in Jacob.  Kind scary.  "Hey kids, i'm going to mess with ya, because you simply ain't getting it.  It's what you want after all...just some messy crap thrown at ya to see how you handle it."  Makes ya wonder, did I ever give God the impression unbeknownst to myself that I cannot understand and need him to mess things up for me so I can be even more messed up?  

This truly makes the "I try to align my will to God's and try not to align God's to mine" sound a bit meaningless though.  

[bluebell]

1 hour ago, CA Steve said:

Are we not capable of influencing God's will? Isn't that part of  what prayer is about?

From what I understand, prayers can grant us access to blessings that it was always God's will to give us, but which were dependent upon us asking.  So in that sense we can influence how God interacts with us, but it's not because He changed HIs will.

[bluebell]

35 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

Part of our having agency is God giving us what we choose, even if he has something better for us.

From my perspective, this is still just an example of God's will manifesting in our lives.  

[stemelbow]

3 minutes ago, bluebell said:

From what I understand, prayers can grant us access to blessings that it was always God's will to give us, but which were dependent upon us asking.  So in that sense we can influence how God interacts with us, but it's not because He changed HIs will.

Makes ya wonder, if someone asks God for stuff and that person gets blessings or is granted access to blessings, is that person more blessed than the person who never asks?  

[bluebell]

41 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

What about free agency?  Are we coeternal with God, or are we just His tools and artifacts?

I'm not sure I understand the question.  But here is the teaching my first comment was based on-

As President Oaks taught-"We cannot have true faith in the Lord without also having complete trust in the Lord’s will and in the Lord’s timing. As a result, no matter how strong our faith is, it cannot produce a result contrary to the will of Him in whom we have faith. Remember that when your prayers do not seem to be answered in the way or at the time you desire. The exercise of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is always subject to the order of heaven, to the goodness and will and wisdom and timing of the Lord. When we have that kind of faith and trust in the Lord, we have true security and serenity in our lives."

[bluebell]

5 minutes ago, stemelbow said:

Makes ya wonder, if someone asks God for stuff and that person gets blessings or is granted access to blessings, is that person more blessed than the person who never asks?  

I suppose they would be.

[CA Steve]

6 minutes ago, bluebell said:

From what I understand, prayers can grant us access to blessings that it was always God's will to give us, but which were dependent upon us asking.  So in that sense we can influence how God interacts with us, but it's not because He changed HIs will.

You seem to want it both ways here. 

If his will was to give us those blessings and we fail to ask for them then we have influenced his will negatively have we not?

How about a person who is in a coma and is  physically unable to request a blessing? Is her recovery based on someone else seeking God's will or has it already been decided?