What Do We Know Of Marriage From The Bible, Book Of Mormon, And Latter-Day Revelation?

[CV75]

What are these "fundamental differences and attributes" that each gender lacks? That's my question.

That which the other has, and which contributes to life and existence, whether physically, metaphysically or spiritually speaking, or whether eternally or temporally speaking.

[The Nehor]

What are these "fundamental differences and attributes" that each gender lacks? That's my question.

 

I have only the most remote ideas.

 

 

Interesting. This is certainly a unique perspective I am unfamiliar with.

I've read the scriptures that say "come into Christ and be perfected in Him" so I am aware that Mormons believe that only through Christ can an individual become perfect. I'm not aware of a scripture that specifies that marriage to a spouse of the opposite sex is a requirement for "perfection." Do you therefore believe that the 2/3 of unmarried inhabitants of the celestial kingdom won't have been "perfected" through Christ? That is, that even after becoming "perfected" by Christ enough to inherent the Celestial Kingdom, they still require a spouse to become truly "perfect"...?

 

I do believe that. There is an incompleteness in being single. I am not convinced that the highest degree of celestial glory will hold 1/3 of the people in that kingdom. I have heard it speculated that of the two lower kingdoms one contains men and one contains women who either rejected or failed to live up to their marriage covenants.

 

Christ does perfect. One vital method he uses is through the saving covenants we make including the covenant of marriage. It is not a matter of being perfected by Christ and then a spouse stepping in. Part of the process Christ uses is the marriage covenant.

 

 

How do you define "perfection"?

 

Becoming whole. Putting all enemies (internal and external) that impede you beneath your feet.

[CV75]

I've been thinking about the concept that male-male or female-female partnerships "lack the required male-female opposition."

 

What does that mean, exactly?

 

Specifically, I often hear assertions that males and females apparently universally "compliment" each other in a relationship in ways that same-sex couples universally don't or can't.  I'd be curious if anyone would be willing to attempt to specify what that means...?

Having a bit more time to add to my comment above, there is a reason we use the terms same-sex and opposite sex. Something very fundamental is going on to develop that terminology. Some of it is intuitive, and some of it rational.

 

I think most fundamentally here in the flesh, each gender on its own lacks the second chromosome held by the other gender and which activates the other individual attributes which, when combined, create and sustain new life (both quantitatively and qualitatively). I think there is a spiritual correspondence that explains why the Father has organized the human family along orders for same-sex grouping (“quorums”—not subject to sealing) and opposite-sex grouping (marriage—subject to sealing), each completing different life-sustaining purposes respectively with the two principles of cleaving and opposition. The patriarchal order combines the two in a chain or quorum of cooperating couples that both creates and sustains life (quantitatively and qualitatively).

Edited September 22, 2015 by CV75

[Daniel2]

Let's start with how men are men and how women are women. That's a fundamental difference right there. And no man can be a woman just as no woman can be a man, despite how the body of either can be made to seem that way through surgery or pills or whatever because a man is still fundamentally a man no matter what happens to him, and the same goes for any woman. She is a she and he is a he and always will be forever and ever.

 

Starting by simply saying that "men are men and women are women," and claiming that is a fundamental difference, doesn't add any substance to the question of what "differences are fundamental" (so far as marriage is concerned) beyond the obvious differences in "plumbing,"  The rest of your response really just begs the question.  When you say that "a man is still fundamentally a man no matter what happens to him," you haven't yet identified what "differences" or "traits" are fundamentally male vs. female.

 

Now add to that how one of each is needed to create offspring and you still will have only caught a glimpse of why a man needs a woman and why a woman needs a man to be able to be a complete complimentary unit able to create their own kingdom in heaven forever.

 

I am not convinced that in an eternal heavenly kingdom, biological procreation requires the union of two genders.  Especially since our crude (by omnipotent standards) mortal technology has already overcome this obstacle by using skin stem cells from same-gendered parents to create gametes capable of creating offspring in mammalian test subjects, and which is approximately 2 years (or less) away from implementation in humans,

 

That being said and laying it aside for the time being, let's give you the benefit of the doubt and say that two genders ARE necessary for eternal procreation.  Even conceeding that possibility, it doesn't answer why sealed same-sex couples cannot exist in the non-exalted sphere of the celestial kingdom, united for some other non-procreative purpose, in which they may not "create their own kingdom in heaven forever" (which I'm not sure is actual LDS theology, anyway...), but rather add to Elohim's glory through creative, but not necessarily pro-creative, expressions.  I have yet to have anyone explain to me why celestial partnerships must be limited to pro-creative pairings, and I haven't seen anything in LDS scripture that definitively says it must be so.  Instead, authors in this thread rely on vague (and, IMO, far-fetched) interpretations of scriptures about concepts they wrest to make them apply to excluding same-sex couples from eternal unions.

 

People of the same sex just can't do it all by themselves and will always be missing a necessary component without someone of the opposite sex to help them.

 

Again, our non-omnipotent medical science has and is demonstrating that your assertion above is becoming increasingly inaccurate.  If we presume that with God (who is omnipotent and has used his powers to assist in procreative processes which were previously limited by mortal infertility), then it becomes even more nonsensical to suggest that all things are NOT possible (espeically procreation by same-sex parents, which is already possible using our current limited medical technology).

 

Babies with two biological same-sex parents could become a reality in just two years

Molly Rose Pike, PinkNews

23^rd February 2015, 2:48 PM

 

 

Same-sex couples could have their own biological children (Photo by Don Arnold/Getty Images)

 

Researchers from Cambridge University have found that it is possible to make a baby using cells from two same-sex parents.

 

A stem cell research breakthrough has revealed that in just two years same-sex couples could have their own biological children.

 

Researchers from Cambridge University have discovered that it is possible to make a baby using skin cells of parents of the same sex.

The researchers have shown, for the first time, that human egg and sperm cells can be made from stem cells of two adults.

 

Researchers say the technique could mean same-sex couples could have babies in just two years time.

 

The scientists used stem cell lines from embryos as well as cells from the skin of five different adults.

 

Ten different donor sources have been used so far and new germ-cell lines have been created from all of them.

 

The team, from Cambridge, and the Weizmann Institute in Israel, was funded by The Wellcome Trust. They compared the engineered stem cells with human cells from foetuses to make sure they had identical characteristics.

 

Azim Surani, leader of the project, told The Sunday Times: “We have succeeded in the first and most important step of this process, which is to show we can make these very early human stem cells in a dish. We have also discovered that one of the things that happens in these germ cells is that epigenetic mutations, the cell mistakes that occur with age, are wiped out.”

[KevinG]

This discussion is now far afield of my original question, which was what do we know about the doctrines concerning marriage...  I was rather hoping to avoid yet another "why not gay marriage?" discussion in favor of the doctrinal discussion.

Edited September 22, 2015 by KevinG