Jesus, Eternally God?

[Maidservant]

I do agree that the template of "the debt" is not the best understanding, but I suppose I have never really had that glom into my mind at all, so I haven't wrestled with it one way or the other.

We are all innocent when we enter the world. We suffer (and die spiritually) in this world due to the sins of others, and in time as we grow, we cause others to suffer due to our sins. We cause the death of others through our sins (spiritual death). However, when we know the Savior and his atonement, and live by it, free ourselves both of our own sins and the effects of others' sins, we also operate to free those who have sinned against us. When they finally realize within themselves on what they have done, and they experience that torment, we can go to them, and say, "See? I am whole again. I have risen from the dead. What you did is no longer with me, and you are forgiven." Jesus, through his atonement, showed us how to do this, and also his grace and spirit literally changes our souls (body and spirit).

But all of this is not an easy work. It will take all of time and some eternity for all of us to become One in charity.

Les Miserables is amazing. Also I like the movie The Buttercream Gang where at the end the troubled boy is destroying the grocery store and trying to hold up the storekeeper and take all his cash. And the storekeeper says, "How much do you need? Here, here is the money." And the troubled boy says, "Don't you GET IT??! I am trying to rob you!!" And the storekeeper says, "You cannot steal what I am giving to you."

I also find that the symbolism of the Old Testament law of stoning people to death for breaking the law to be overwhelmingly powerful to me. I have come to realize that WE HOLD THE STONES. WE picked them up. Someone who is condemned by the law, is condemned because we are willing to THROW STONES UNTIL THEY ARE DEAD for their struggles and mistakes and even sins. This is not what should be nor what has to be.

Hmmm. I think I have helped to kind of change the subject on the thread . Maybe I should start another thread more related to the mechanics of the atonement.

[Cobalt-70]

Ostler suggests that the actual and real pain we suffer as a result of our own immoral actions is real, and physical, and remains with us unless we release it. That this pain causes self-justification and shame that keeps us from being willing to walk into God's presence - that nobody is keeping us from walking back to God but ourselves. He suggests that Christ invites us to release that pain, and let it 'go to him' to suffer, and that this willingness to suffer to express how much he already loves and forgives us is powerful enough to allow us to do so, and to actually release our former pain and suffering, and allow us to stop walking away, and actually see ourselves walking towards God, and thus begin on that journey.

In this scenario, it wasn't a debt that was demanded by anyone by ourselves, and he let us know, there really wasn't any debt imposed, and invited us to remove the consequences of our own self-imposed debts onto him. This frees our souls, hearts, and minds, and creates love within ourselves.

Whether or not it expressed metaphysical truth, this image paints a far more useful and powerful picture of the Atonement for me than any 'He settled the debt of suffering imposed by God/The Universe/etc' imagery.

I would say that Ostler's explanation here is consistent with Joseph Smith's King Follett sermon, where he said that it was our own mind that damns us, and our own sense of guilt. He implied that God himself did not punish, but that we punish ourselves. Yet, when we accept the gospel of Jesus and commit to follow him (and accept baptism), whether in this life or in the afterlife, our guilt is suddenly swept away, and then we are on a path (through the acquisition of knowledge) to exaltation.

I think this differs, however, from the more conservative model of punishment for sin presented in the Book of Mormon, which is a much more Protestant (specifically, Calvinistic) perspective. The Book of Mormon models salvation more along the "penal substitution theory" of Atonement. According to the Book of Mormon, God's sense of justice requires that no unclean thing can inherit salvation, and as retribution for our sins, God will have to cast us into a lake of fire and brimstone. However, Jesus suffered as a substitute for our sins, and his Atonement pays the price for each person's sins, and thereby "satisfies the demands of justice."

Between the Book of Mormon model and the King Follett model, I think the latter, as reflected by Ostler, is the more progressive, quintessentially-Mormon model.

[Maidservant]

The Book of Mormon models salvation more along the "penal substitution theory" of Atonement. According to the Book of Mormon, God's sense of justice requires that no unclean thing can inherit salvation, and as retribution for our sins, God will have to cast us into a lake of fire and brimstone.

I disagree that this is the only, or even the best reading, of the material presented in the Book of Mormon, even the passages that use phrasing as you are referring to such as the lake of fire and brimstone (for example, no where (?) is there the word 'retribution' used; that is a secondary, and unwarranted in my opinion, reading).

Not least, the Book of Mormon presents Isaiah, and Isaiah tells of, at once, a mystical, transformative redemption as well as an immediate, personal love and relationship with a passionate and wounded God.

[BCSpace]

Am I suggesting that Jesus Christ was in no way "God" from all eternities? No. I believe in some respects he was, while in other respects he wasn't.

This thread is devoted to discussing both the way in which we each may believe he was and wasn't God eternal, and this with the intent of better understanding what Joseph Smith meant when he spoke about God the Father in the King Follett Discourse.

I have no problem reconciling that Jesus was a God, relative to us, in the premortal life and yet not a God like the Father until after his resurrection. I call upon Abraham 3:19 as my witness.

[Cobalt-70]

I disagree that this is the only, or even the best reading, of the material presented in the Book of Mormon, even the passages that use phrasing as you are referring to such as the lake of fire and brimstone (for example, no where (?) is there the word 'retribution' used; that is a secondary, and unwarranted in my opinion, reading).

Not least, the Book of Mormon presents Isaiah, and Isaiah tells of, at once, a mystical, transformative redemption as well as an immediate, personal love and relationship with a passionate and wounded God.

True, the word "retribution" does not appear in the Book of Mormon, but the word "punishment" does, which is the same concept: "Wherefore, the ends of the law which the Holy One hath given, unto the inflicting of the punishment which is affixed, which punishment that is affixed is in opposition to that of the happiness which is affixed, to answer the ends of the atonement." 2 Nephi 2:10. This says that it is God who inflicts the punishment. See also Alma 42:1: "And now, my son, I perceive there is somewhat more which doth worry your mind, which ye cannot understand—which is concerning the justice of God in the punishment of the sinner; for ye do try to suppose that it is injustice that the sinner should be consigned to a state of misery."

Again, I see this as just one of many possible models of salvation consistent with Mormonism. The one in the Book of Mormon is particularly conservative and Calvinistic. Joseph Smith later developed much more universalist and progressive theologies, including the three degrees of glory idea, and the later King Follett sermon theology, which I think are much more quintessentially "Mormon."

[mfbukowski]

Thus, God is a condition or state of being (which however does not exclude us from using the word for other things, such as the idea of investiture that I mentioned in another post). But the conditions upon which Godhood may be entered do not change. We must be clean. We must be just. We must be merciful. We must be full of charity. etc. In fact, "entry" may be better said as "becoming".

(In my personal understanding, I do not conceive of there being any ethers or essences outside of Being. Being is the source of anything additional that may be created.)

Thanks for helping me thinks some more on the subject, to make sure I knew what *I* even wanted to say, ha ha.

Well if you don't mind me making suggestions, I would like to suggest that your first sentence equivocates- you don't mean that God is a "state of being" because that leads to the Platonic stuff- but perhaps instead of phrasing (and thinking in terms of) it in terms of "Godhood" being a state of being- ithink of being "Godlike" as an adjective. It's the difference between making a state of being into a noun, like the difference between a blue car possessing "blueness" (a noun which makes it sound like "blueness" is a real thing itself) versus just having a property of blueness which doesn't exist by itself.

It's not a car which represents a Form of "Blueness"- it's just a blue car.

God is not God because he is a "state of being" of "Godhood" - he just has the qualities of Godliness.

I don't know if I made that horribly clear, but it is the difference between turning a quality into a noun as if the quality is a thing in itself, as opposed to just using a quality as an adjective, as we use it in most contexts.

In its most extreme form, this basic idea could turn someone's "just" act into, perhaps an embodiment of "Justice" as an abstract thing, or if you really want to take this idea to its furthest extreme, we get the personification of Justice itself into a god itself- like the well-known representations of Justice as a blindfolded woman holding scales etc.

So if I were going to say what you said in the above quote, I would, I hope, say it this way:

But the conditions upon which Godhood may be entered characteristics of becoming a God do not change. We must be clean. We must be just. We must be merciful. We must be full of charity. etc.

I hope you don't mind me making these suggestions. In fact, I wish I could find someone to help me say what i want to say more clearly- and I only did it because it seemed from the above quote that you would not mind.

But the way we speak about these things is incredibly important because speaking clearly about them is all we have. If we think there are "things" out there somewhere called "Justice" because we can speak that way, we can easily talk ourselves back into 2000 years of errors based on that kind of thinking!

Hope I am not being too obnoxious-

[wenglund]

Bringing back to the OP, I think too often we try too hard to reconcile scriptural expressions of different paradigms of place, culture, and time. I think a key part of the Restoration is to, piece by piece, strip away the cultural masks, and get at the underlying truth behind it, and an authority to declare it in a new and fresh way that at times is significantly different (and even contradictory) to how previous prophets explained, understood, and described it. Our cosmologies are different. Our governments are different. Our culture is different.

I look at it in a way analogous to the illuminating story of the blind men and the elephant. To a degree, both previous prophets and current prophets and members have their own respective cultural blinders. And, rather than assuming that the perspective of the ancients contradict our modern perspective, I find the horizons of my understanding broadened by considering both perspectives as consistently shedding differing and useful light on the underlining "truth."

Once I opened my modern Western mind to ancient Eastern thought, and once I began to listen to my heart as well as my mind (my left brain as well as my right), I discovered just how limited my previous perspective was, and what wonderfully meaningful "truths" I had been missing out on. While I reasonably considered my modern perspective as plausibly more evolved in some respects than ancient perspectives, I was surprised to learn that in many ways the ancients understood certain things in far more depthy and breadthy ways than me.

So, my presumed attempts at reconciliation are more about being epistemically inclusive (combining differing perspective) rather than exclusive (chauvinistically subtracting perspectives that differ and seemingly contradict mine). I am interested in what other blind men have to say about the elephant, and not just what I have personally experienced--for, there may be more to the elephant than what I may gather from my perspective alone.

It is for this reason that I find it edifying to read modern as well as ancient scripture, and to attend the Western-oriented priesthood and Sunday School classes as well as Eastern-oriented temple sessions.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Edited October 5, 2011 by wenglund

[mfbukowski]

When snow melts, where does the "state of being white" go?

[altersteve]

When snow melts, where does the "state of being white" go?

My dad says that was the first question he can remember me asking him.

[/offtopic]

[mfbukowski]

My dad says that was the first question he can remember me asking him.

[/offtopic]

Good story! That's a deceptively wise question! But it shows, I think, the central problems with Neoplatonism. Just as there IS no "whiteness" as a thing, there are no such "things" such as "substance" or "essence" or "nature".

Just because we can speak of the "Whiteness" of snow as if it is a thing, we have to remember that it is just an abstract description- nothing more, nothing less.

[mfbukowski]

I know that Blake Ostler's position is that that the Father - as the eternal Head God - is very much like Christ - was fully divine, then for a period took upon himself a mortal experience, and then continued beyond that following mortal death with further knowledge and compassion to guide his other associates through the process of developing a fulness of familial love and compassion.

If I understand him right, Ostler's position also isn't that the Atonement occurred to pay off some metaphysical Eternal Debt, but rather what was necessary for us to willingly drop our pain and sorrow from our own self-alienation and self-justifications and self-torment, and to recognize the forgiveness and love that God has given us even before we began walking towards Him. Conversion is turning towards the love of Christ in recognition that Christ loved us first, and has already forgiven us.

The Father would not have needed to be a savior, or to be saved. He learned through his experience the power of familial love, as well as powerful symbols and ways of expressing or communicating that love, and the power that comes from recognizing one is fully, thoroughly, and unconditionally loved. He pioneered the understanding of the exalting power of pure love.

The Savior's life is the expression and image of this unconditional love presented for us.

There is much that is extraordinarily attractive, beautiful, and logical about this perspective.

I think maybe the purpose of the doctrine we call the "atonement" is indeed so we can feel that love in action, but also perhaps the most important point in my life has been being able to forgive myself for my shortcomings.

I do my best to repent, but knowing that I am forgiven before I mess up yet again allows me to give up the self-condemnation that might ordinarily go along with the error.

Before I understood this principle, after messing up yet again, I would condemn myself and go through all the usual negative thoughts about how stupid I was, and etc. Now I am better at just blowing that off, knowing that I can just let go of it, and that I will do better next time.

And what is amazing, is that I do in fact do better next time.

The way we say that, the language we use to describe that process, is that repentance is an essential part of the atonement, that forgiveness and change go hand-in-hand, like two sides of the same coin, that "faith and works" are inseparable.

Using different language, we cannot progress and change our lives until we have forgiven ourselves, and know that errors and progress go hand in hand.

You can even apply that to the story of Adam and Eve; they would not have progressed without the knowledge of good and evil, that knowledge being that sometimes being mistaken, is part of eventually getting it right.

[Calm]

Considering how deadly all that white is to my still green trees today, I'd like it to go and only be left with the question.