Lesser Intelligences or Literal Offspring of God or Both?

[Biz]

You speak of our "creation/existence" as the same thing, and say you're left to believe that it has no beginning or end, but don't latter day saints believe that there are aspects to creation that had a beginning?

No clue! It appears it is more evolutionary in nature. Things may change therefore making it the "intelligence, or spirit, or physical body" different or newly created but yet out of the existence of something that was already there that had no beginning? That is why I am left to conclude it would almost be equally rewarding for my conscious or existence to end at the grave.

[Biz]

You didn't have a spirit body before you were born of heavenly parents, did you?

Didn't that body have a beginning?

I suppose! That is a main issue. Am I a separate unique intelligence subject to a higher intelligence who instituted laws that I am governed by because the more intelligent spirit has its way? Or, am I a unique loved literal spiritual offspring from Heavenly Parents as I am taught from the Family Proclamation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints? Or, both?

The beginning of the beginning of the intelligences that were organized by a greater intelligence is unknown or unknowable as intelligences always have existed and have no end or no beginning.

Biz

[Biz]

You don't have a ressurrected, immortal, incorruptible body of flesh and bone now, do you?

When you get one, wont it be new?

Wont it have a beginning?

As far as I know my body will die and is not immortal in its current form. My current body is corruptible as I get sick frequently.

When I get one will it be new? No it will be my current body that will have physically died and will be raised from the ground even if it had been turned to dust and it will be reunited with my spirit. God will quicken it or change its existence, he may add to it or he may allow new laws to apply to it. Frankly I have no clue, but essentially it would be evolutionary and not created from a beginning.

Biz

[Biz]

You weren't married for time and eternity until you were sealed in the Temple, were you?

As far as I know I am a agent unto myself and on this Earth could chose my spouse as I so please and I was not married before or destined to marry the one I chose.

Biz

[Biz]

If all these things had a beginning, and everything with a beginning has to have an end, how can any of these things be permanent?

My temple sealing would or will not last forever. Should I chose to live by the laws that govern its sealing bond I may be eternally married and it ill last forever. Should my wife chose to bail out on me, then it is over and has a end. So there is something at least one LDS member believes has a beginning and an end. Temple Marriage. Its beginning and ending are completely determined by the ability of both partners to the sealing to live by the higher laws God instituted.

Biz

[Biz]

If all these things had a beginning, and everything with a beginning has to have an end, how can any of these things be permanent?

How can what Joseph said in the King Follet sermon be true?

Some are permanent some are not. Temple Marriage is not, but has the potential to be. Our existence is permanent but always changing and has always been in existence and will never end. Should it end I would be content with that.

King Follet Sermon? Don't have a immediate answer I will have to study it again under scrutiny.

Biz

[Biz]

Of course, my reasons for believing this are deep... and nor perfectly logical... but I do believe them =).

Fire away, I let my madness out of the box. Haha! Well you don't need to but should you have any further insight go ahead and share. I feel I have already received a substantial amount of answers to put this one back on the shelf for a while.

Biz

[TAO]

Fire away, I let my madness out of the box. Haha! Well you don't need to but should you have any further insight go ahead and share. I feel I have already received a substantial amount of answers to put this one back on the shelf for a while.

Biz

Hmmm.... well let's just say, our spiritual bodies look like our physical bodies, no? (D&C 77:2).

And I guess it seems more correct to me to suppose that there would be little point for our spiritual bodies looking exactly like our physical bodies if it didn't retain all of the same... functions... except working with spiritual matter instead of physical matter. Thus... well to put it succinctly, I believe Father is the literal spiritual father of us. However, thinking of how our spirits are put in our bodies, I suppose there must be an 'intelligence' of some sort that is put in our spirits.

Thus I have this three layer thing... starting with lesser intelligences... than to spirits... than to physical bodies. Of course, in Abraham/Moses, spirits are often referred to as intelligences.

Again, I could be totally wrong with this though... and I would talk to God alot about it before you consider this alternative, because I am rather prone to mistakes, and so talking to God about it and developing your own perspective would be ideal XD.

And I know there are several who would disagree with me and use another method. I know Nack does, and I'm pretty sure Lehi does as well. They would have some interesting thoughts on the issue.

Erp... am not sure if I should have talked about this anyways... such is a very very private sacred thing and I feel like I'm almost infringing on God by talking about it =P.

[LeSellers]

You didn't have a spirit body before you were born of heavenly parents, did you?

Didn't that body have a beginning?

You don't have a ressurrected, immortal, incorruptible body of flesh and bone now, do you?

When you get one, wont it be new?

Wont it have a beginning?

You weren't married for time and eternity until you were sealed in the Temple, were you?

If all these things had a beginning, and everything with a beginning has to have an end, how can any of these things be permanent?

While each of these "things" had a beginning, they are not the kind of thing Joseph was speaking of.

His "things" were matter as a whole, and intelligences or individual beings. Changing something, as when we received our spiritual and then, later, physical bodies, were not beginnings, they were advances or progressions. A Marriage joins a man and his wife, both of whom existed prior to the marriage: they did not come into being at that point, they changed (each other).

How can what Joseph said in the King Follet sermon be true?

How can it be true that anything that has a beginning must have an end?

It is true because, as he demonstrated, all is an eternal round, although his ring was not the best example (given his use as a two-dimensional object, rather than a three-dimensional one). It is an eternal round because that journey repeatedly goes through the same "vertical" planes radiating from the center of the ring, but rises, like a spiral cutting through horizontal planes, at the same time.

Part of this we can understand through the use of what I have called the concept of His becoming a "GrandGod" as we become Gods ourselves. It is a progression. But, if we take the example of one of the ancient patriarchs, they had children of their own for centuries after they had become grandfathers, and even great grandfathers. I believe it is so with our Father and Mother, since we read that there is no end to His creations.

With each "round" He passes through the same kinds of experiences, and, at the same time (if time even applies to Him anymore), He rises to the next level by both those experiences and those that derive from our returing more glory to Him.

Lehi

[Questing Beast]

"God himself could not create himself."

This simple statement cuts to the core of the matter: as Necessary Cause, "God" cannot have rivals or other "causes" as original and necessary as "God". It follows logically that everything about the "world" originates ultimately from that Necessary Cause. Even the Void is contingent on the NC. All spirits, intelligences, sapient beings of any conception whatsoever, originate from the NC. And that NC, being "God", cannot be created but has always been. So in that sense nothing at all was created, i.e. had a beginning, since nothing can exist outside of the NC itself. All things, including our 'satiable sapience/imagination, are manifestations of the NC, which has no beginning or end, neither before or after. Even space-time itself is a manifestation of the NC, part of creation; or, as Einstein is reputed to have said, "Time is necessary to keep everything from happening at once" (words to that effect). So we sapient beings have always existed (since "God" has always existed and we are from "God"). Theoretically we could be annihilated from space-time, but our existence as part of "God" is simply a fact regardless of the perceptions of space-time. Since we know - by reading this, eating our breakfast at the same time, and breathing, and shifting in our chairs to get more comfortable, etc. - that we exist, and that "God" (that is to say the NC) exists without beginning or end: it must follow that we, as part of that Existence, also have no beginning or end....

[Cherubbish]

While each of these "things" had a beginning, they are not the kind of thing Joseph was speaking of.

It is true because, as he demonstrated, all is an eternal round, although his ring was not the best example (given his use as a two-dimensional object, rather than a three-dimensional one). It is an eternal round because that journey repeatedly goes through the same "vertical" planes radiating from the center of the ring, but rises, like a spiral cutting through horizontal planes, at the same time.

I really like this explanation!