The origin of sinners

[tana]

9 hours ago, Pyreaux said:

What if all of us, as originally uncreated "Intelligences", are just aspects of God's own mind and what He is punishing is Himself?

"There was Eru, the One... the Ainur, the Holy Ones, were the offspring of his thought" (J. R. R. Tolkien – The Silmarillion)

 

Oneness theory works for me. Jesus endorses it. Albert Einstein liked it. Throw in a little Roger Penrose, a champion for Idealism, and his take on 'one electron theory' and Quantum mechanics and yer in new age theorist heaven.

Edited November 24, 2024 by tana

[Dario_M]

Welcome back.

I believe that our souls are way older then only this life. So chances are that we have been to this earth a few times after another. That means that our real home is with God....but perhaps wanna return to earth to experience ...  things. Good things. Bad things. Maybe some souls have requested God to send them to earth to experience how it feels like to be homeless. Maybe some people have requested God to return them to earth to experience fame. Or feel how it would be like to be rich. Maybe there are souls that have requested an experience how it would feel like to grow up in a family that sucks. Etc. We don't remember that because God has probably erased our memory. And offourse we are also here for a purpose. And we need to fulfil that purpose. After all the work we have done on earth we are probably ready to return back to Gods lap. Because we are his children. This is just my imagination so i don't know or this is true. But i though that i've read something in the book of mormon about this. Maybe in Alma. Or Nephi. I don't know. 🤷‍♀️

Edited November 24, 2024 by Dario_M

[manol]

18 hours ago, Pyreaux said:

What if all of us, as originally uncreated "Intelligences", are just aspects of God's own mind and what He is punishing is Himself?

What if the whole "it's all about who gets punished" paradigm is a mistake on our part?  What if experience & progression & (re)union, rather than judgment & categorization & separation, are what it's really all about? 

What if we sat in a premortal classroom learning about choosing/embodying love regardless of external circumstances, and mortality is the "lab section" of the course, wherein we give it our best shot under what seem to be virtually impossible conditions?  What if everything actually does work together for our good, whether or not such is apparent in the moment? 

 

8 hours ago, tana said:

Oneness theory works for me. Jesus endorses it. Albert Einstein liked it. Throw in a little Roger Penrose, a champion for Idealism, and his take on 'one electron theory' and Quantum mechanics and yer in new age theorist heaven.

Bingo.  Not to mention the many near-death experiencers who return and report that Oneness is the fundamental reality, despite all appearances to the contrary.  Imo the information they convey is a primary source of "all that God does now reveal." 

"New age" tends to be a pejorative term in religious circles, but Joseph Smith's groundbreaking concepts arguably place him among the first "new age" prophets. 

And the "one electron theory" caught my eye too, as maybe it applies to us as well.  Perhaps "love your neighbor as yourself" is a more literal teaching than the Sunday School manual interpretation.

Edited November 24, 2024 by manol

[rpn]

18 hours ago, tana said:

thing about LDS beliefs is that eternal punishment may not actually be eternal

Eternal punishment is likely just the difference between what we chose to become and what we could have chosen and become so that we had more.  I can see weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth over the difference between what we chose and what we could have chosen.

[webbles]

38 minutes ago, manol said:

What if the whole "it's all about who gets punished" paradigm is a mistake on our part?  What if experience & progression & (re)union, rather than judgment & categorization & separation, are what it's really all about? 

What if we sat in a premortal classroom learning about choosing/embodying love regardless of external circumstances, and mortality is the "lab section" of the course, wherein we give it our best shot under what seem to be virtually impossible conditions?  What if everything actually does work together for our good, whether or not such is apparent in the moment? 

I do think the punished paradigm is incorrect.  I believe the only times that are referenced as punishment is for those who go into Outer Darkness and the time before the resurrection.  Both of those situations are related to accepting Christ's atonement, so there seems to be something related there that is a make or break situation for us.  But after being redeemed, I don't believe we are punished.  Are there any place that says that Tellestial or Terestial Kingdoms are a punishment?

To me, it feels less like a punishment and more like us discovering who we are and where we fit in the cosmos.  If God had simply assigned us to the kingdoms that we are capable of, I think we might have revolted.  So He is letting us discover for ourselves where we fit.

[Nofear]

22 hours ago, tana said:

The LDS theory of a pre-existence and a pre-pre-existence simply kicks the can down the road. If an entity has irredeemable personality traits, how did it acquire them? When? It had to be born with them.

I think Galen Strawson (an atheist) has an excellent argument which he calls The Basic Argument.

(1) Nothing can be causa sui—nothing can be the “cause of itself.”
(2) In order to be truly morally responsible for one’s actions one would have to be causa sui, at least in certain crucial mental respects.
(3) Therefore nothing can be truly morally responsible.

Creatio ex nihilo fails this argument hard. LDS theology evades this by asserting that our the core of our identity is self existent, uncreate, and thus causa sui. If I understand your objection to this is by saying we just "kick the can" down the road. Sure, I might be self-existent but I didn't exactly "choose" my self-existence. Therefore, how can I be culpable. Two basic responses:

A) If a self-existent entity is not culpable for its own actions, than literally nothing can be responsible for its own actions. We create an existence where there is no accountability whatsoever.
B) The technology of the Atonement allows the self-existent beings, by free choice of itself, to act in a manner to fundamentally change its nature from less-than-good to good. God enables, but does not force us, to choose to become better than are primal self-existent state. God isn't about punishing us. Our divine parents are all about enabling us.

While, either A) or B) by itself would evade the conundrum, I think both A) and B) are true. It is not official LDS theology though. Some LDS philosophers will attempt to evade all of this by invoking some kind of compatibilism. Being a physicalist myself, I am unswayed by their hand-waving.

[Calm]

1 hour ago, rpn said:

I can see weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth over the difference between what we chose and what we could have chosen.

But that ends for all but the Sons of perdition and we don’t know what happens to them. So what takes place so there is no more gnashing of teeth? Reconciliation to being lesser than we could be or my preference…we make choices that lead us to becoming the best that we could ever have been and more (because God helps us become more than we could be on our own).

Edited November 25, 2024 by Calm

[Buckeye]

Tana,

If you can grasp the possibility that life has no end, it’s no harder to grasp that life has no beginning. For me, it’s difficult to imagine one without the other. There’s either both or neither. 
 

In the sermon in the grove, Joseph used a ring to analogize eternity. A ring has no beginning or end. If you cut it so that it has a starting part, in that same act you also create a terminus. 

 

When I think of “creation” I think of a material or an intelligence improved. The creator doesn’t being anything into bring ex nihilo - either particles, planets, or people - he (rather they) find them and show a better way. 

Edited November 25, 2024 by Buckeye

[Vanguard]

On 11/23/2024 at 5:33 PM, tana said:

How can an entity be personally responsible for having a bad core processor it couldn't possibly have itself created?

That entity can only be responsible for the growth capacity range of their own core processor and no more. Everyone's core processor capacity range is different and therefore will look different to the naked temporal eye. It is a blessing of immeasurable value that the Godhead does not look on us with a mere temporal eye.

[Dario_M]

2 hours ago, Vanguard said:

That entity can only be responsible for the growth capacity range of their own core processor and no more. Everyone's core processor capacity range is different and therefore will look different to the naked temporal eye. It is a blessing of immeasurable value that the Godhead does not look on us with a mere temporal eye.

No God not. But the fact that people are doing that all the time should be a sin by itself. 

[Nofear]

"The first principles of man are self-existent with God. God himself, finding he was in the midst of spirits and glory, because he was more intelligent, saw proper to institute laws whereby the rest could have a privilege to advance like himself. The relationship we have with God places us in a situation to advance in knowledge. He has power to institute laws to instruct the weaker intelligences, that they may be exalted with Himself, so that they might have one glory upon another, and all that knowledge, power, glory, and intelligence, which is requiite in order to save them in the world of spirits." -- Joseph Smith

We are indeed all different (see Abraham 3:19). God, for whatever reason, saw it proper to afford opportunity for and help other intelligences become better. For that, I personally am quite grateful, to put it mildly.

[tana]

15 hours ago, Nofear said:

I think Galen Strawson (an atheist) has an excellent argument which he calls The Basic Argument.

(1) Nothing can be causa sui—nothing can be the “cause of itself.”
(2) In order to be truly morally responsible for one’s actions one would have to be causa sui, at least in certain crucial mental respects.
(3) Therefore nothing can be truly morally responsible.

Creatio ex nihilo fails this argument hard. LDS theology evades this by asserting that our the core of our identity is self existent, uncreate, and thus causa sui. If I understand your objection to this is by saying we just "kick the can" down the road. Sure, I might be self-existent but I didn't exactly "choose" my self-existence. Therefore, how can I be culpable. Two basic responses:

A) If a self-existent entity is not culpable for its own actions, than literally nothing can be responsible for its own actions. We create an existence where there is no accountability whatsoever.
B) The technology of the Atonement allows the self-existent beings, by free choice of itself, to act in a manner to fundamentally change its nature from less-than-good to good. God enables, but does not force us, to choose to become better than are primal self-existent state. God isn't about punishing us. Our divine parents are all about enabling us.

While, either A) or B) by itself would evade the conundrum, I think both A) and B) are true. It is not official LDS theology though. Some LDS philosophers will attempt to evade all of this by invoking some kind of compatibilism. Being a physicalist myself, I am unswayed by their hand-waving.

 Nice to see you again Nofear.  I kinda figured that if you were still posting on here you would show up and poke holes in my story. I don't think you were totally successful this time tho.

Both of your responses, A and B rely on it being axiomatic that existence is deity based and this is a testing station, when there are many other options available for theories of existence.

Edited November 25, 2024 by tana

[Dario_M]

21 minutes ago, Nofear said:

"The first principles of man are self-existent with God. God himself, finding he was in the midst of spirits and glory, because he was more intelligent, saw proper to institute laws whereby the rest could have a privilege to advance like himself. The relationship we have with God places us in a situation to advance in knowledge. He has power to institute laws to instruct the weaker intelligences, that they may be exalted with Himself, so that they might have one glory upon another, and all that knowledge, power, glory, and intelligence, which is requiite in order to save them in the world of spirits." -- Joseph Smith

 

Oh boy. I must say that i feel like Joseph Smith must have been a very intelligent man. With much knowledge. God has given Joseph Smith this beautiful gift. 

21 minutes ago, Nofear said:

We are indeed all different (see Abraham 3:19). God, for whatever reason, saw it proper to afford opportunity for and help other intelligences become better. For that, I personally am quite grateful, to put it mildly.

Yeah. But unfortunately not everyone. Not everyone seems te be eligible to get a glimse of Gods intelligence. You have those really unintelligent people who are so far away from God. Really unpleasant people. People who only believe in their own stupidities. I even believe that those people can be dangerous. Especially when those people reunite together as a large group. A strong dangerous group that will destroy everything in their path that they don't like. This world is full of those people. These days more then ever. Look at the crime rates. They only go up up up. This world has became a really nasty place and it only will get worse. Mark my words. Oh my, God forbid. 

Edited November 25, 2024 by Dario_M

[Nofear]

2 hours ago, tana said:

 Nice to see you again Nofear.  I kinda figured that if you were still posting on here you would show up and poke holes in my story. I don't think you were totally successful this time tho.

Both of your responses, A and B rely on it being axiomatic that existence is deity based and this is a testing station, when there are many other options available for theories of existence.

You are right, the self-existence of man is axiomatic. One can't "prove" it. As Joseph Smith put it, "We say that God himself is a self-existing God. Who told you so? It is correct enough, but how did it get into your heads? Who told you that man did not exist in like manner upon the same principles?"

That God is benevolently endeavoring to help  us is, while not specifically axiomatic, something that one has to experience for themselves. The scriptures do provide plenty of testimony to that end, but ultimately each individual has to come to that conclusion themselves.
 

[Vanguard]

13 hours ago, Dario_M said:

No God not. But the fact that people are doing that all the time should be a sin by itself. 

Could you clarify what you mean here? I'm not following you.

[Dario_M]

7 minutes ago, Vanguard said:

Could you clarify what you mean here? I'm not following you.

Yeah offcourse. You said that  Everyone's core processor capacity range is differend. 

And that therefore will look different to the naked temporal eye of the human being.

With other words: people look differend at other things. Other people then the way God looks at things, people with his naked eye. But people look at another person and meight judge that person. Thinks negative things about that person. Etc. That's what the naked eye of humanty sees. God doesn't see people like that with his naked eye. God only sees the truth. 

But anyway...that people are like that should be a sin, that was what i meant. That was my point. Because i find that how people see the world can be the wrong way of seeing things.

I hope you can follow me now? 🤷‍♀️ 

[Vanguard]

9 minutes ago, Dario_M said:

Yeah offcourse. You said that  Everyone's core processor capacity range is differend. 

And that therefore will look different to the naked temporal eye of the human being.

With other words: people look differend at other things. Other people then the way God looks at things, people with his naked eye. But people look at another person and meight judge that person. Thinks negative things about that person. Etc. That's what the naked eye of humanty sees. God doesn't see people like that with his naked eye. God only sees the truth. 

But anyway...that people are like that should be a sin, that was what i meant. That was my point. Because i find that how people see the world can be the wrong way of seeing things.

I hope you can follow me now? 🤷‍♀️ 

Yes, I do now understand. We are in agreement. ; )

[Dario_M]

16 minutes ago, Vanguard said:

Yes, I do now understand. We are in agreement. ; )

But you could have understood this from my first post already offcourse. I was as clear as possible you see. 😌

Edited November 25, 2024 by Dario_M

[JVW]

On 11/23/2024 at 8:05 PM, tana said:

Well, I haven't posted on here in quite a while so, Hello then. Just a short qualifier: This post is going to be critical of Deity based existence theory. If it's of any help, I also don't believe in physicalism theory. So there's that.

idk what "deity based existence" theory is or "physicalism" theory. Hopefully my ignorance doesn't show too much in my response.

Quote

When, where and how did souls acquire the undesirable personality traits that require they be tested, rated and sorted. If god is making souls from scratch, putting them in bodies and sending them off to trials, wouldn't he make them all identical and perfect? Why would he then need to examine them by putting them through such unequal, cluttered up, low quality trials? It appears to me it's more like he is just testing bodies.

I've asked myself a flavor of this question before, "With His infinite power and foreknowledge, why did God enable Lucifer to become one of His spirit children?" I don't believe that the devil is necessary in order for God's plan to work. I've seen a few Christian responses to this question, and I've enjoyed listening to various arguments. My current belief regarding this question is that it's better to exist and be cast out into outer darkness for all eternity in misery than to have never existed at all as one of God's spirit children.

It is strongly implied that God does not create our personalities, and that He has no power to change it (or doesn't want to change it) with His power.

I know in the LDS community it is commonly believed that we were intelligences > born to God as spirit children > given mortal bodies. But I don't believe that. We have always existed as spirits. There is no beginning. I do like the quote from Joseph Smith that's been previously quoted in this thread. That basically God saw a bunch of homeless spirits and gave us a home.

Before we were gathered by God, there were no such thing as "undesirable" personality traits. We didn't exist under God's law so I don't think anyone could argue that any of us existed eternally as faulty products before coming under God's umbrella.

It is also important to bear in mind that in view of eternity our plan of salvation is incredibly limited in scope. It is entirely possible that the plan of salvation isn't a 3 act play, but is, instead, an infinite act play.

I also think you discount the trial that is mortality. I think life is fair in that it gives everyone an equal amount of crap to deal with. And I think we severely underestimate the intensity of an experience that mortality is for our souls. It could very well be that our spirit is something akin to a raw material, and mortal life is an incredibly intense furnace used to purify and mold our raw material into something more.

Quote

If entities must be rated and sorted to permanent disposition, then obviously they must have something about their base component, or their hard wiring that cannot be fixed. Ever. If entities can move through existence gaining knowledge and experiences. If Intelligence can be added to entities, then it can be taken away. It is all then superficial to some sort of blank slate hard drive.

How can an entity be personally responsible for having a bad core processor it couldn't possibly have itself created?

The LDS theory of a pre-existence and a pre-pre-existence simply kicks the can down the road. If an entity has irredeemable personality traits, how did it acquire them? When? It had to be born with them.

Firstly, everyone who was ever born is getting rewarded for coming to Earth, even sons of perdition. We will all end up in a much better place than where we were before we became participants in God's plan.

Secondly, there is a lot of language you are using here that indicate that we have "unfixable", "bad core", "irredeemable" traits. There is no quality that any of us have that is unfixable or beyond God's power to redeem. God has the power to heal anything if we truly want to be healed.

I'll reiterate here, there is no beginning. A lot of your ponderings are framing eternal nature in a temporal manner. It doesn't work to do that. I know all we can do is type and use human words to communicate about these grand eternal ideas, but our human mind is ultimately incapable of grasping anything eternal. Have you had a conversation with God about these questions? He can open up your mind to understand eternal matters, if only for a moment, in ways that you would be unable to communicate with anyone else. These kinds of questions you are asking are similar to the kinds of questions I was asking, as an atheist, when God revealed Himself to me with an answer.

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Sending a soul to eternal ouchies because somehow, someway a scoop of entity DNA was dolloped onto a cookie sheet from a vat with cooties in it would be like sending an Irishman to prison for having red hair. Right?

Yes, that would be the case if we didn't have agency, and if there were aspects about us that couldn't be redeemed. Both of which are thankfully not the case.

Quote

Well, because of another thought experiment, logic problem I see with the concept of heaven. A place of only good, no bad. In this place one can't like George more than Jerry. Tacos aren't better than hamburgers. 70 degrees f. more than 69. How can you have hot with no cold? So, everyone and everything would have to be eternally equal.

That is an interesting thought experiment. My initial thought is that Earth life may suck so much that it compensates for a potential eternity of bliss to keep us grounded. That seems like a stretch to me, but I haven't really thought about this before. All I know is that heaven is a place of pure incomprehensible love. And I can't wait to experience living there someday, regardless of which kingdom I end up in.

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An entity, whether created from scratch or not created but just is, must consist of some distinct personality traits. LDS theory has it moving through incarnations and growing. That would indicate a starting point for it when it had minimal personality traits. But, it still had to consist of something - What? How did it make itself?

There is no beginning. Official LDS doctrine is: we existed in heaven with God before we were born, we are alive now, we will die and go to heaven one day. The three act play. That's not many incarnations. People add on the pre-pre-existence, which is not doctrinal. And there definitely are implications for many "rounds" of life, but that, I think, is way beyond the scope of this conversation. I have no idea how many plans we've been a part of or will be a part of, but I do know that we've always been.

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Right. God did not make intelligences. But, neither did the intelligences make themselves, yet here we have intelligences being rated and sorted for being faulty.

We each distinctly chose to enter a realm in which God's laws apply to us. Before His laws were introduced there was no rating or sorting. And the rating and sorting is not based on how faulty we are, it's based off of what kind of relationship we have with Deity. It is our own fault that we will be subject to a final judgment someday, because we chose to support God's plan in the Grand Council.

Quote

I did not posit a hypothetical maker. I agreed with you. I said, god did not make them, they (themelves) did not make them. No one made them. They just are. They are still being held accountable for how they just are, even though they have no hand in being how they just are. Until they fell into the LDS timeline theory of moving through incarnations.

We aren't accountable for how we simply are. We are accountable for the choices we make and what we choose to believe. God obviously would take our innate dispositions into account when placing us on Earth in our families and presenting us with tailored trials. He is not evil and vindictive. He only wants to bless and help in any way He can.

Quote

Talk about logic error. How does an eternal being that just is start moving through a timeline?

The only timeline that exists is the one that we are currently in on Earth. Time is the same as space, it's just a measurement based off of physical objects. There is no time in the eternities. That's another one of those incomprehensible eternal things that you should talk to God about and see if He'll give you a little peek into His realm.

Just my two cents. I hope you enjoyed reading my thoughts. You've asked some really interesting and thought provoking questions.

[Vanguard]

28 minutes ago, Dario_M said:

But you could have understood this from my first post already offcourse. I was as clear as possible you see. 😌

No, I tried to understand it but could not. Your 2nd post made it clearer.

[Dario_M]

15 minutes ago, Vanguard said:

No, I tried to understand it but could not. Your 2nd post made it clearer.

Oh really? 

[Vanguard]

1 minute ago, Dario_M said:

Oh really? 

Yes.

[Dario_M]

15 hours ago, Vanguard said:

Yes.

Okay. 

[Nofear]

18 hours ago, JVW said:

idk what "deity based existence" theory is or "physicalism" theory. Hopefully my ignorance doesn't show too much in my response.

Physicalism is the idea that everything is stuff. Dualism is a leading alternative (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind–body_dualism) and asserts that there is the mental which is not-physical. Theologically, "spirit" stuff is a variation of dualism.

Latter-day Saint theology doesn't come down on whether or not there is non-physical stuff, but we do reject the "spirit" variation of dualism. For us, spirit is matter. Not the same kind of matter as the Standard Model of Particle Physics tells us about, but matter nonetheless.

PS: I am a physicalist. I believe that everything is matter. I just believe in additional forms of matter than secular physics currently allows for.

[tana]

18 hours ago, JVW said:

idk what "deity based existence" theory is or "physicalism" theory. Hopefully my ignorance doesn't show too much in my response.

I've asked myself a flavor of this question before, "With His infinite power and foreknowledge, why did God enable Lucifer to become one of His spirit children?" I don't believe that the devil is necessary in order for God's plan to work. I've seen a few Christian responses to this question, and I've enjoyed listening to various arguments. My current belief regarding this question is that it's better to exist and be cast out into outer darkness for all eternity in misery than to have never existed at all as one of God's spirit children.

It is strongly implied that God does not create our personalities, and that He has no power to change it (or doesn't want to change it) with His power.

I know in the LDS community it is commonly believed that we were intelligences > born to God as spirit children > given mortal bodies. But I don't believe that. We have always existed as spirits. There is no beginning. I do like the quote from Joseph Smith that's been previously quoted in this thread. That basically God saw a bunch of homeless spirits and gave us a home.

Before we were gathered by God, there were no such thing as "undesirable" personality traits. We didn't exist under God's law so I don't think anyone could argue that any of us existed eternally as faulty products before coming under God's umbrella.

It is also important to bear in mind that in view of eternity our plan of salvation is incredibly limited in scope. It is entirely possible that the plan of salvation isn't a 3 act play, but is, instead, an infinite act play.

I also think you discount the trial that is mortality. I think life is fair in that it gives everyone an equal amount of crap to deal with. And I think we severely underestimate the intensity of an experience that mortality is for our souls. It could very well be that our spirit is something akin to a raw material, and mortal life is an incredibly intense furnace used to purify and mold our raw material into something more.

Firstly, everyone who was ever born is getting rewarded for coming to Earth, even sons of perdition. We will all end up in a much better place than where we were before we became participants in God's plan.

Secondly, there is a lot of language you are using here that indicate that we have "unfixable", "bad core", "irredeemable" traits. There is no quality that any of us have that is unfixable or beyond God's power to redeem. God has the power to heal anything if we truly want to be healed.

I'll reiterate here, there is no beginning. A lot of your ponderings are framing eternal nature in a temporal manner. It doesn't work to do that. I know all we can do is type and use human words to communicate about these grand eternal ideas, but our human mind is ultimately incapable of grasping anything eternal. Have you had a conversation with God about these questions? He can open up your mind to understand eternal matters, if only for a moment, in ways that you would be unable to communicate with anyone else. These kinds of questions you are asking are similar to the kinds of questions I was asking, as an atheist, when God revealed Himself to me with an answer.

Yes, that would be the case if we didn't have agency, and if there were aspects about us that couldn't be redeemed. Both of which are thankfully not the case.

That is an interesting thought experiment. My initial thought is that Earth life may suck so much that it compensates for a potential eternity of bliss to keep us grounded. That seems like a stretch to me, but I haven't really thought about this before. All I know is that heaven is a place of pure incomprehensible love. And I can't wait to experience living there someday, regardless of which kingdom I end up in.

There is no beginning. Official LDS doctrine is: we existed in heaven with God before we were born, we are alive now, we will die and go to heaven one day. The three act play. That's not many incarnations. People add on the pre-pre-existence, which is not doctrinal. And there definitely are implications for many "rounds" of life, but that, I think, is way beyond the scope of this conversation. I have no idea how many plans we've been a part of or will be a part of, but I do know that we've always been.

We each distinctly chose to enter a realm in which God's laws apply to us. Before His laws were introduced there was no rating or sorting. And the rating and sorting is not based on how faulty we are, it's based off of what kind of relationship we have with Deity. It is our own fault that we will be subject to a final judgment someday, because we chose to support God's plan in the Grand Council.

We aren't accountable for how we simply are. We are accountable for the choices we make and what we choose to believe. God obviously would take our innate dispositions into account when placing us on Earth in our families and presenting us with tailored trials. He is not evil and vindictive. He only wants to bless and help in any way He can.

The only timeline that exists is the one that we are currently in on Earth. Time is the same as space, it's just a measurement based off of physical objects. There is no time in the eternities. That's another one of those incomprehensible eternal things that you should talk to God about and see if He'll give you a little peek into His realm.

Just my two cents. I hope you enjoyed reading my thoughts. You've asked some really interesting and thought provoking questions.

Yes, thank you for posting up your thoughts. I'm going to post a follow up to the OP, maybe that will address some of the things in your post