Is This Compatible With Bom?

[inquiringmind]

Which point was that?

That there could be no life or order without the sustaining power of God's Holy Spirit?

Edited August 27, 2011 by inquiringmind

[zerinus]

That there could be no life or order without the sustaining power of God's Holy Spirit?

You have to show me the post. She said some things that I disagreed with, and some things that I didn't disagree with. I don't recall disagreeing with what she might have said to that effect.

[inquiringmind]

You have to show me the post. She said some things that I disagreed with, and some things that I didn't disagree with. I don't recall disagreeing with what she might have said to that effect.

The idea, IIRC, is that all order and life and light...come from God. If one completely cuts oneself off from God, one logically cuts oneself off from the source of order and life.., this leaving one with essentially only disorder, iow without an outside force of order inhibiting it, entropy becomes the 'natural' state of an object/being.

[HiJolly]

In the early days of the church this was referred to as throwing the misshapen clay back into the mass of clay that subsequently, God would reach into for more material to place on the wheel of formation. Old Testament symbology.

HiJolly

[inquiringmind]

In the early days of the church this was referred to as throwing the misshapen clay back into the mass of clay that subsequently, God would reach into for more material to place on the wheel of formation. Old Testament symbology.

HiJolly

But how would you explain the passage zerinus quoted (Alma 42:9,16, I think)?

Does that blow the whole idea out of the water?

Edited August 27, 2011 by inquiringmind

[zerinus]

The idea, IIRC, is that all order and life and light...come from God. If one completely cuts oneself off from God, one logically cuts oneself off from the source of order and life.., this leaving one with essentially only disorder, iow without an outside force of order inhibiting it, entropy becomes the 'natural' state of an object/being.

That is not identical to your paraphrase; and even the above passage is still a portion of all that she said. I was disagreeing with a lot of other things that she was saying, including parts of the above quote.

[inquiringmind]

That is not identical to your paraphrase...

There's no paraphrase.

The part I quoted I quoted directly from her post (all I did was leave out the word "energy," which seemed to be a distraction.)

[zerinus]

There's no paraphrase.

The part I quoted I quoted directly from her post (all I did was leave out the word "energy," which seemed to be a distraction.)

This was the paraphrase:

That there could be no life or order without the sustaining power of God's Holy Spirit?

And it leaves too many things out to be an accurate reflection of even a part of what she was saying.

[HiJolly]

But how would you explain the passage zerinus quoted (Alma 42:9,16, I think)?

Does that blow the whole idea out of the water?

v.9 I think Zerinus takes the meaning of Alma's comments further than Alma intended. For all intents and purposes the soul *doesn't* ever die. Getting into perdition & outer darkness was beyond the scope of Alma's discussion to his son. Look at the point of the whole discussion.

v. 16 I love because it clearly shows that Alma is talking about ETERNAL PUNISHMENT which is directly discussed in D&C 19:10-12. It is God's judgement, God's punishment, God's plan of salvation.

So no, I don't think it does any damage to the idea.

HJ

[zerinus]

But how would you explain the passage zerinus quoted (Alma 42:9,16, I think)?

Does that blow the whole idea out of the water?

It does. Let’s look at what D&C 19 says a bit more closely:

D&C 19

:

6 Nevertheless, it is not written that there shall be no end to this torment, but it is written endless torment.

7 Again, it is written eternal damnation; . . .

10 . . . For, behold, I am endless, and the punishment which is given from my hand is endless punishment, for Endless is my name. Wherefore—

11

Eternal punishment is God's punishment

.

12

Endless punishment is God's punishment

.

All that this says is that the punishment meted out by God (called “eternal punishment” etc.) is not literally endless. It will eventually come to an end (although perhaps after a very long time). That necessarily mandates against “dissolution” or “disorganization” of the spirit. If their spirits were “disorganized,” they wouldn’t be suffering any “torment” at all, would they? That would be like the proverbial “beating a dead horse”! If the horse is dead, you can beat it for as long as you like, it isn’t going to feel anything. If the spirit was truly “disorganized,” there would be no torment involved, would there? The very fact that they are going to endure “torment” (but not without end), militates against the idea of “disorganization”. Damnation and spiritual death does not equal “disorganization”. Exactly what happens to such souls at the end of that “torment” has not been revealed; but whatever happens to them afterwards, it is likely to be something better than the “torment” that they had been enduring before! So “disorganization” is not part of the program.

Returning to what Alma had been saying, it is possible that the doctrine that “eternal punishment” does not mean that “there is no end to this punishment” had not yet been revealed to the Nephrites at that time. But the fact that the “punishment” does not “last forever” does not equate to the “life of the soul” not “lasting forever”. It is the general understanding of all scripture that the spirit never “physically dies”. It can suffer “endless torment,” but it can never physically die—which Alma has correctly recognized and teaches.

Edited August 27, 2011 by zerinus

[HiJolly]

Z says "That necessarily mandates against “dissolution” or “disorganization” of the spirit."

Yet nothing he/she has said demonstrates that this is the case, IMO.

HiJolly

[inquiringmind]

Z says "That necessarily mandates against “dissolution” or “disorganization” of the spirit."

Yet nothing he/she has said demonstrates that this is the case, IMO.

HiJolly

Thank you HiJolly.

[Calm]

And it leaves too many things out to be an accurate reflection of even a part of what she was saying.

I absolutely do not think so.....he's spot on.

Edited August 27, 2011 by calmoriah

[zerinus]

I absolutely do not think so.....he's spot on.

Not according to my reading of your posts. This:

That there could be no life or order without the sustaining power of God's Holy Spirit?

Is in no way an accurate summary of this:

Probably someone who has observed the decomposition of bodies after physical death and interpolated spiritual death (ie. separation from God) to be something along the same lines since we are taught that spirit is a sort of refined matter.

The idea, IIRC, is that all order and life and light (ie. energy) come from God. If one completely cuts oneself off from God, one logically cuts oneself off from the source of order and life and energy, this leaving one with essentially only disorder, iow without an outside force of order inhibiting it, entropy becomes the 'natural' state of an object/being.

I am not saying this is correct, just that this position is a logical result of scriptural doctrine depending on how one chooses to interpret certain ambiguous statements.

As a possible approach, one could assume that the bonding of the spirit body to the physical body (which only applies to those who have lived mortal lives and thus been resurrected, not to Satan and those who followed him after his rebellion---as far as I know those who did not go through mortality have no 'promise' that there will be no separation of their elements on any level) only is relevant in the sense of the spiritual elements being fused with the physical elements that the resurrected form is made of and not the entire form, much like our physical body is composed of eternal physical elements that will never cease to exist in a sense, but the human body itself can still be decomposed into its individual components and is the natural end product when death occurs.

[Calm]

Not according to my reading of your posts. This:

Is in no way an accurate summary of this:

Then perhaps you should consider that you are reading my posts incorrectly. It seems the simplest and most likely possibility to my view considering the responses of both yourself and others on the board as well as my own about what I've said.

OTOH, if you continue to insist that your reading of my posts is actually what I meant---what is the truth of my posts---than I would consider that possibly quite the perfect example for Mark in the "what is truth" thread.

Edited August 27, 2011 by calmoriah

[inquiringmind]

I absolutely do not think so.....he's spot on.

Thank you calmoriah.