The Destruction of God?

[Bernard Gui]

Lehi teaches Jacob about the need for opposition in all things. Without it, He says, the creation would have had no purpose. Then he makes this shocking statement:

Quote

2 Nephi 2:12 Wherefore, it [all creation] must needs have been created for a thing of naught; wherefore there would have been no purpose in the end of its creation. Wherefore, this thing must needs destroy the wisdom of God and his eternal purposes, and also the power, and the mercy, and the justice of God.

Opposition seems to be essential for existence. How would the absence of opposition destroy God? 

Edited February 2, 2018 by Bernard Gui

[ALarson]

8 minutes ago, Bernard Gui said:

Opposition seems to be essential for existence. How would the absence of opposition destroy God? 

I doesn't actually say that God will be destroyed.  It states "the wisdom of God", "his eternal purposes" and "also the power, and the mercy and the justice of God" would be.

But are you asking if God himself would be destroyed if all of those were destroyed?

Edited February 2, 2018 by ALarson

[mfbukowski]

Yep I think it is just saying the plan of God for mankind - "bringing to pass immortality and eternal life of man"- would be destroyed.

Subject of sentence- "This thing" meaning lack of opposition... "would destroy"...

What would that destroy?  Wisdom, purpose,  power,  justice and mercy, not God himself.

[Bobbieaware]

1 hour ago, mfbukowski said:

Yep I think it is just saying the plan of God for mankind - "bringing to pass immortality and eternal life of man"- would be destroyed.

Subject of sentence- "This thing" meaning lack of opposition... "would destroy"...

What would that destroy?  Wisdom, purpose,  power,  justice and mercy, not God himself.

In the previous verse, Lehi testifies If there were no opposition in all things even God himself would not and could not exist.

11 For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so, my firstborn in the wilderness, righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things (including God himself) must needs be a compound in one; wherefore, if it should be one body it must needs remain as dead, having no life neither death, nor corruption nor incorruption, happiness nor misery, neither sense nor insensibility. (2 Nephi 2)

Since God is a living, incorruptible, happy and sentient being, he could not exist unless all of the things listed above were eternal (read uncreated) realities.

 

 

Edited February 2, 2018 by Bobbieaware

[rongo]

Alma 42 mentions several times that God would cease to be God if he did anything unjust. I think this is the source of his power (D&C 29 says that God's honor is his power). His honor and the trust that all intelligences have in him are what make him God. I believe that this eternal tension drives the system and the process: you can't have a real victory without a real threat that it could fail. Brigham Young taught that each earth has its own savior and tempter. The opposition is essential to the process, and we could not attain exaltation without successfully (through the atonement) winning out over opposition. Without opposition, it doesn't work and things would fall apart. 

I believe that if God ceased to be God, everything falls apart. Protons decay, etc. The honor intelligences have for God is what holds everything together. 

 

[hope_for_things]

1 hour ago, Bernard Gui said:

Lehi teaches Jacob about the need for opposition in all things. Without it, He says, the creation would have had no purpose. Then he makes this shocking statement:

Opposition seems to be essential for existence. How would the absence of opposition destroy God? 

I wonder what contemporary sources may have also influenced this topic.  Does anyone know if there were 19th century discussions on this idea of opposition that may have any interesting parallels with these BoM teachings on opposition?  

[pogi]

12 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

I wonder what contemporary sources may have also influenced this topic.  Does anyone know if there were 19th century discussions on this idea of opposition that may have any interesting parallels with these BoM teachings on opposition?  

One possible source:

Quote

In Chinese philosophy, yin and yang (陰陽 yīnyáng, lit. "dark-bright", "negative-positive") describe how seemingly opposite or contrary forces may actually be complementary, interconnected, and interdependent in the natural world, and how they may give rise to each other as they interrelate to one another.

This verse does give rise to interesting questions about the nature of evil.  If it is required for the wisdom, purpose, and power of God, can it really be all that bad?  Well, it has to be bad, or there couldn't be good.  Yet because good is dependent upon the existence of evil, it is a required interdependent relationship, which is both good...and bad   It is both mutalistic and antagonistic at the same time. 

 

[JLHPROF]

It's important (as Bobbieaware addressed) to look at these verses in context.

• 11 For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so, my firstborn in the wilderness, righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one; wherefore, if it should be one body it must needs remain as dead, having no life neither death, nor corruption nor incorruption, happiness nor misery, neither sense nor insensibility.

  12 Wherefore, it must needs have been created for a thing of naught; wherefore there would have been no purpose in the end of its creation. Wherefore, this thing must needs destroy the wisdom of God and his eternal purposes, and also the power, and the mercy, and the justice of God.

  13 And if ye shall say there is no law, ye shall also say there is no sin. If ye shall say there is no sin, ye shall also say there is no righteousness. And if there be no righteousness there be no happiness. And if there be no righteousness nor happiness there be no punishment nor misery. And if these things are not there is no God. And if there is no God we are not, neither the earth; for there could have been no creation of things, neither to act nor to be acted upon; wherefore, all things must have vanished away.

Opposition in this case refers specifically to opposition to law.
These verses appear to indicate that if there were no laws, then without obedience or opposition to those laws it would be impossible to tell good from evil, righteous from unrighteous.
God by definition according to Christ is God because of his obedience to these laws, his work to ensure both justice and mercy are satisfied, and his instruction to us concerning these laws.
None is good but God.  If there was no differentiating between good and evil, no laws to obey or oppose, there would be no such thing as a God or his work.

If there were no laws, how would we define God?  Remove the separation between good and evil, obedience to law and disobedience to law, opposition and sustaining, how would a being even be considered a God?  What would a God be without laws that can be obeyed and opposed - he would cease to exist.
Verse 12 tells us there would be no purpose in creation at all without law.
 

[Bernard Gui]

1 hour ago, ALarson said:

I doesn't actually say that God will be destroyed.  It states "the wisdom of God", "his eternal purposes" and "also the power, and the mercy and the justice of God" would be.

But are you asking if God himself would be destroyed if all of those were destroyed?

What would God be if he were bereft of his wisdom, purpose, power, mercy, and justice?

Edited February 2, 2018 by Bernard Gui

[Bernard Gui]

1 hour ago, mfbukowski said:

Yep I think it is just saying the plan of God for mankind - "bringing to pass immortality and eternal life of man"- would be destroyed.

Subject of sentence- "This thing" meaning lack of opposition... "would destroy"...

What would that destroy?  Wisdom, purpose,  power,  justice and mercy, not God himself.

Without wisdom, purpose, power, justice, and mercy, what would remain of God that would make him God? Without those attributes, how  could his place be secured in the Council of Gods? What would happen to his relationship with the Son?

 

Edited February 2, 2018 by Bernard Gui

[Bernard Gui]

1 hour ago, rongo said:

Alma 42 mentions several times that God would cease to be God if he did anything unjust. I think this is the source of his power (D&C 29 says that God's honor is his power). His honor and the trust that all intelligences have in him are what make him God. I believe that this eternal tension drives the system and the process: you can't have a real victory without a real threat that it could fail. Brigham Young taught that each earth has its own savior and tempter. The opposition is essential to the process, and we could not attain exaltation without successfully (through the atonement) winning out over opposition. Without opposition, it doesn't work and things would fall apart. 

I believe that if God ceased to be God, everything falls apart. Protons decay, etc. The honor intelligences have for God is what holds everything together. 

 

How would you connect this to the Council of the Gods and the plurality of Elohim?

[Bernard Gui]

33 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

I wonder what contemporary sources may have also influenced this topic.  Does anyone know if there were 19th century discussions on this idea of opposition that may have any interesting parallels with these BoM teachings on opposition?  

That would be a great topic for another thread. Why don't you start it?

[ALarson]

10 minutes ago, Bernard Gui said:

What would God be if he were bereft of his wisdom, purpose, power, mercy, and justice?

I don't believe that HE would be destroyed.  

Can a person have their power destroyed, but still exist?  I think the answer is "yes".  However, they would not be the same or have the same influence.

Good discussion here, though....

[Bernard Gui]

29 minutes ago, pogi said:

One possible source:

This verse does give rise to interesting questions about the nature of evil.  If it is required for the wisdom, purpose, and power of God, can it really be all that bad?  Well, it has to be bad, or there couldn't be good.  Yet because good is dependent upon the existence of evil, it is a required interdependent relationship, which is both good...and bad   It is both mutalistic and antagonistic at the same time. 

Considering Lehi's linking opposition with creation, what do you think of this observation by Jordan Peterson?

Quote

It is easy to assume that 'nature' is something with a nature - something static. But it's not: at least not in any simple sense. It's static and dynamic, at the same time. The environment - the nature that selects - itself transforms. The famous yin and yang symbols of the Taoists capture this beautifully. Being, for the Taoists - reality itself - is composed of two opposing principles, often translated as feminine and masculine, or even more narrowly as female and male. However, yin and yang are more accurately understood as chaos and order.

Or evil and good?

Edited February 2, 2018 by Bernard Gui

[Bernard Gui]

6 minutes ago, ALarson said:

I don't believe that HE would be destroyed.  

Can a person have their power destroyed, but still exist?  I think the answer is "yes".  However, they would not be the same or have the same influence.

Good discussion here, though....

If God had no purpose or power, what would he be? How would creation be sustained? If creation itself is contingent on opposition, then opposition must be part of the very nature of being a God? Or perhaps the knowledge of good and evil, as we are taught, is synonymous with opposition, without which God could not be God.

Edited February 2, 2018 by Bernard Gui

[pogi]

16 minutes ago, Bernard Gui said:

What would God be if he were bereft of his wisdom, purpose, power, mercy, and justice?

I think that is a good point.  Without evil, I don’t think that God could exist as God.  He would be as Adam in Eden in a state of amoral perpetuity.   Remember how God gained his knowledge?

[Bernard Gui]

29 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

It's important (as Bobbieaware addressed) to look at these verses in context.

• 11 For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so, my firstborn in the wilderness, righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one; wherefore, if it should be one body it must needs remain as dead, having no life neither death, nor corruption nor incorruption, happiness nor misery, neither sense nor insensibility.

  12 Wherefore, it must needs have been created for a thing of naught; wherefore there would have been no purpose in the end of its creation. Wherefore, this thing must needs destroy the wisdom of God and his eternal purposes, and also the power, and the mercy, and the justice of God.

  13 And if ye shall say there is no law, ye shall also say there is no sin. If ye shall say there is no sin, ye shall also say there is no righteousness. And if there be no righteousness there be no happiness. And if there be no righteousness nor happiness there be no punishment nor misery. And if these things are not there is no God. And if there is no God we are not, neither the earth; for there could have been no creation of things, neither to act nor to be acted upon; wherefore, all things must have vanished away.

Opposition in this case refers specifically to opposition to law.
These verses appear to indicate that if there were no laws, then without obedience or opposition to those laws it would be impossible to tell good from evil, righteous from unrighteous.
God by definition according to Christ is God because of his obedience to these laws, his work to ensure both justice and mercy are satisfied, and his instruction to us concerning these laws.
None is good but God.  If there was no differentiating between good and evil, no laws to obey or oppose, there would be no such thing as a God or his work.

If there were no laws, how would we define God?  Remove the separation between good and evil, obedience to law and disobedience to law, opposition and sustaining, how would a being even be considered a God?  What would a God be without laws that can be obeyed and opposed - he would cease to exist.
Verse 12 tells us there would be no purpose in creation at all without law.
 

If there were no opposition, there would be "neither sense nor insensibility." I understand this to mean no ability to perceive anything outside of one's being. If God were unable to sense anything outside his own being, he would cease to be God. Would he (we) also cease to be?

[Bernard Gui]

8 minutes ago, pogi said:

I think that is a good point.  Without evil, I don’t think that God could exist as God.  He would be as Adam in Eden in a state of amoral perpetuity.   Remember how God gained his knowledge?

How would you associate all this with moral agency?

[Bobbieaware]

23 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

It's important (as Bobbieaware addressed) to look at these verses in context.

• 11 For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so, my firstborn in the wilderness, righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one; wherefore, if it should be one body it must needs remain as dead, having no life neither death, nor corruption nor incorruption, happiness nor misery, neither sense nor insensibility.

  12 Wherefore, it must needs have been created for a thing of naught; wherefore there would have been no purpose in the end of its creation. Wherefore, this thing must needs destroy the wisdom of God and his eternal purposes, and also the power, and the mercy, and the justice of God.

  13 And if ye shall say there is no law, ye shall also say there is no sin. If ye shall say there is no sin, ye shall also say there is no righteousness. And if there be no righteousness there be no happiness. And if there be no righteousness nor happiness there be no punishment nor misery. And if these things are not there is no God. And if there is no God we are not, neither the earth; for there could have been no creation of things, neither to act nor to be acted upon; wherefore, all things must have vanished away.

Opposition in this case refers specifically to opposition to law.
These verses appear to indicate that if there were no laws, then without obedience or opposition to those laws it would be impossible to tell good from evil, righteous from unrighteous.
God by definition according to Christ is God because of his obedience to these laws, his work to ensure both justice and mercy are satisfied, and his instruction to us concerning these laws.
None is good but God.  If there was no differentiating between good and evil, no laws to obey or oppose, there would be no such thing as a God or his work.

If there were no laws, how would we define God?  Remove the separation between good and evil, obedience to law and disobedience to law, opposition and sustaining, how would a being even be considered a God?  What would a God be without laws that can be obeyed and opposed - he would cease to exist.
Verse 12 tells us there would be no purpose in creation at all without law.
 

Very good summary. One of the interesting aspects of Lehi’s discourse is that it answers the age-old ultimate question that posits, ‘who was the first God?’ The fact of the matter is that if Lehi is correct — and I know he is — there was no first God because there always had to be a God of eternal law because nothing (the absence of existence) cannot create anything.

[Bernard Gui]

3 minutes ago, Bobbieaware said:

Very good summary. One of the interesting aspects of Lehi’s discourse is that it answers the age-old ultimate question that posits, ‘who was the first God?’ The fact of the matter is that if Lehi is correct — and I know he is — there was no first God because there always had to be a God of eternal law because nothing (the absence of existence) cannot create anything.

Would you say, then, that opposition is greater than God? If his existence depends on it........

Edited February 2, 2018 by Bernard Gui

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, Bobbieaware said:

In the previous verse, Lehi testifies If there were no opposition in all things even God himself would not and could not exist.

11 For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so, my firstborn in the wilderness, righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things (including God himself) must needs be a compound in one; wherefore, if it should be one body it must needs remain as dead, having no life neither death, nor corruption nor incorruption, happiness nor misery, neither sense nor insensibility. (2 Nephi 2)

Since God is a living, incorruptible, happy and sentient being, he could not exist unless all of the things listed above were eternal (read uncreated) realities.

 

 

Yes there must be "opposition in all things" because that is the way we think.  No good without evil because we define one term in terms of the other.

The description "righteous" can only be explained as opposed to "unrighteous" plus of course we have the line "For that is the way Father obtained His knowledge".

Words are words, and yes there can be no black without white to describe what the word "white" does NOT describe.

Nowhere does the scripture actually include the words "God himself" that is your insertion into the scripture and your personal interpretation.  The way you have written it above appears as if those words are in the scripture and they are not.

There are no such things as "uncreated realities", adverbs and adjectives are parts of speech used to describe behaviors and mental states.  On the other hand none of reality is "created" since it is organized.  So what is an "uncreated reality"?

Just because I can coin a word or make it up does not mean I have created a thing which corresponds to it.  

It is not like there is an uncreated reality called "wickedness" - some cloud which is always physically wrestling with a different colored cloud named "righteousness"  it is more that we cannot describe one word without knowing the other.  Confusing words with entities is the cause of much confusion.

We must know good to know evil, pain to know pleasure etc.

[JLHPROF]

9 minutes ago, Bernard Gui said:

Would you say, then, that opposition is greater than God? If his existence depends on it........

No, law is greater than God.
And in order for there to be law, there has to be obedience and opposition (ie agency).  Or else the law could not exist.

[mfbukowski]

12 minutes ago, Bernard Gui said:

How would you associate all this with moral agency?

Words are human inventions and not Forces of Nature or even Forces of God.

Because we can make up the description "moral agency" to describe doing what we consider to be praiseworthy or blameworthy in our behavior does not make them Forces of the Universe which have to be somehow in Balance.  Justice does not need to Balance Mercy, we just need to be fair with each other.   Justice is at the bottom, fairness.  We do something wrong, then we should try to fix it and do our best to fix it because those are the rules which allow happy living among us.  Barring the ability to fix it, the wronged person should try to compensate the person wronged insofar as it is possible, in some other way.

So THAT is the way justice balances mercy- it does so in concrete human terms that operate between people.  There are no cosmic "scales" weighing "uncreated realities" there are just people doing what they can to get along and be fair.

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Bernard Gui said:

Lehi teaches Jacob about the need for opposition in all things. Without it, He says, the creation would have had no purpose. Then he makes this shocking statement:

Opposition seems to be essential for existence. How would the absence of opposition destroy God? 

Light, dark. Life, death. Peace, war. Joy, sorrow. Faith, fear. Good, evil. Without opposition, we would have no contrast, and no way to understand the world, be it physical or Spiritual. Even the elements around us would be unrecognizable, hot or cold, the earth and the universe, as we would have no frame of reference. Because God is all knowing, and he is so because of his wisdom, he more than anyone understands this "law". It is choice that makes all things possible or impossible. Without it, we could not know or even worship him, and it is this "choice" that allows us to understand and overcome opposition, and makes us "free agents". If this opposition did not exist, there would be no need of God, much less his wisdom.  

[stemelbow]

if there is an opposition in all things, what's the opposition of you?