Trapped in eternal progression?

[Hagoth]

So even though we "don't emphasize it," the core doctrine of the church, the only thing that isn't milk I suppose, is eternal progression (not counting Second Anointing of course). Up until it became too embarrassing to preach it out loud LDS prophets taught that God was once a man who attained godhood by following the rules.

So my question is did Elohim get released from his covenants when he graduated to godhood? Obedience is the first law of heaven, so in order to move up the ladder you must maintain unflinching obedience to the expectations of your God, whoever that may be.

Does Elohim still kneel down before bedtime and pray to his god? Does he pay 10% of this universe in tithing? Does he do his monthly ministering to other gods in nearby universes? The Book of Mormon tells us that it is possible for God to cease to be God if he doesn't obey certain rules (like sending people to hell) so we must assume that he's still toting bales for a higher authority. I'm asking this tongue in cheek, of course, but this is a genuine consequence of actually thinking about the doctrine.

Followup question: can I just go over Elohim's head and worship the next guy up the chain of authority? If I pray to him will his Holy Ghost answer my prayers? I'm concerned that maybe I was just barking up the wrong tree all those years and I'll get better answers from a more powerful god. Maybe that is true enlightenment, to set your sights higher. I wouldn't know what to call him. Maybe Our Father of Our Father Who Art In Heaven?

[Palerider]

Here's my TBM hat understanding.

There is a point where God ceases to progress in intelligence. If He didn't (according to Joseph Smith) He wouldn't be able to profer salvation/exaltation to his children. If God doesn't comprehend all things he cannot offer salvation because it would then be possible for him to be surprised by something he didn't know, which could possibly change the requirements for salvation.

So as far as power, knowledge and omnipresence goes God does reach an "end".

However he continues to add glory and "increase" to Himself eternally by those who he continues to save and who glorify him.

More on this later......I'm tired.

[moksha]

I think the creators of the Mormon chain of Gods were simply following the principle of "turtles all the way down" in describing how God came to be. If ideas are ultimately untenable, it is really no skin off our nose if LDS leaders decide to abandon those ideas. Seems like the Church could still have an eternal progression without requiring absurdities to be injected into this progress.

[Hagoth]

There is a point where God ceases to progress in intelligence. If He didn't (according to Joseph Smith) He wouldn't be able to profer salvation/exaltation to his children. If God doesn't comprehend all things he cannot offer salvation because it would then be possible for him to be surprised by something he didn't know, which could possibly change the requirements for salvation.

And this opens up an entire other can of worms. There are presumably a set of requirements that must be met to achieve godhood. You must be tested by earth life, you must gain a body, participate in saving ordinances, you have to live without direct memory of God to gain true faith, etc, etc. Mormon Jehovah/Jesus makes no sense in these regards. He was just just like the rest of us but SOOO much better that he got promoted to full godhood even before he got a body. Does that mean he reached the limit of his spiritual/intellectual progress before he was ever incarnated? Did the patriarchs know they were dealing with a larval wannabe god?

Why not just wait another million or so years and let everyone else catch up and avoid all of the blood and horror of earth history. If it's possible to skip so many of the required credits, as Jehovah demonstrated, then why not just keep teaching the kids all the right stuff until they are ready to go straight to a paradisaical planet to get their bodies. If Elohim had exercised just a little more patience maybe he wouldn't have lost a third of his kids.

What's funny is the ancients pretty much took it for granted that Jehovah was a physical being. Moses even saw his badonkadonk, Jacob wrestled with him, Abraham sat around the campfire with him. Now nobody believes that, including Mormons.

I know we've discussed this a lot in the past but I still can't get over the idea that the Mighty Smiter and genocidester of the Old Testament instantly transformed into meek and forgiving Jesus. Then when he visited the Americas Elohim had to step up from hiding out in the background and do all of the smashing, burning, and killing.

[Corsair]

These are interesting discussions, but I think that much of the idea of eternal progression was put in place as a way to either hide or redeem the "Adam-God Theory." Brigham once stated that the Heavenly Father and Jesus we know are the only gods we need to worry about. The "higher order" gods are acknowledged, but we do not need to be concerned with them.

[Hagoth]

Seems like the Church could still have an eternal progression without requiring absurdities to be injected into this progress.

And that opens up yet another worm can. There is another option. Joseph gave two entirely different explanations for the genesis of God. There was the turtles-all-the-way-down version and the version where we were all just intelligences (but wait! he also gave us two very different definitions of intelligences!) drifting around the cosmos but one was more intelligent than the other so he came up with a plan to help the rest of us catch up. There are also a lot of aspects to this one that don't make sense. For one thing, if he really was so much brighter than the rest of us couldn't he have thought of a plan that didn't require so much torture and chaos, and one that didn't scratch a third of us off the list from the get-go? I think anyone reading this post could.

It seems like the church, if they had to make a statement right now (they never will) would probably disavow the King Follett version and embrace the friendly ghost version. But in all likelihood they will just avoid the topic altogether because it's a rock-and-a-hard-place situation. They like to appear proud of our differences but deep down I think they just want to not be the last kid chosen for the team. I think they really wish they could lose the Talmage doctrine altogether and just quietly merge into mushy vanilla nondescript Christianity. If they could get people to stop noticing their weirdness it would be easier to quietly amass the trillion$ they need to help Jesus build the New Jerusalem/Shopping Complex.

[Hagoth]

These are interesting discussions, but I think that much of the idea of eternal progression was put in place as a way to either hide or redeem the "Adam-God Theory." Brigham once stated that the Heavenly Father and Jesus we know are the only gods we need to worry about. The "higher order" gods are acknowledged, but we do not need to be concerned with them.

And by Heavenly Father you mean Adam, right? I think Brigham had a hard time figuring out who Jesus was and how he fit into the whole thing. For a prophet who learned everything he taught from the great latter-day revelator, he seemed pretty confused. For Brigham, Jesus seems to be a different kind of being from Adam-God and Grandfather Elohim. And then, just to muddy the waters further, he had Joseph's "Jehovah Elohim" character to deal with, and the completely different godhead from the Lectures on Faith. Interestingly, you would think it would have been Brigham who removed the Lectures of Faith from the D&C, but they were in there until 1921, six years after Talmage's Jesus The Christ was published. I imagine it took that long for the church spin the new godhead up to speed to the point that people reading the LoF started saying, "hey, wait a minute..."

[Ghost]

What would it look like for God to cease to be God in the middle of a soul progression cycle? Would someone else have to step in? Either the next god up or a temp from elsewhere who isn't currently running a batch through?

I seem to remember Brigham Young explaining that the elements obey God because of His perfection, thus allowing Him to control things the way He does.

I wonder whether there will come a time when we again teach and emphasize eternal progression. Without it, there sure doesn't seem to be much to do in the hereafter. The Jehovah's Witnesses may have the next best thing, as opposed to generic Christian singing praises forever. They'll at least get to grow gardens and play with pandas.

[jfro18]

I know we've discussed this a lot in the past but I still can't get over the idea that the Mighty Smiter and genocidester of the Old Testament instantly transformed into meek and forgiving Jesus. Then when he visited the Americas Elohim had to step up from hiding out in the background and do all of the smashing, burning, and killing.

This one I never understood... the inconsistency between Old Testament, New Testament, and Book of Mormon just never made sense.

I also never understood the eternal progression thing. So my kid would get his own planet assuming he goes full TBM... but if I got my own planet as well then I would be separated from my family as he handles his own? Or is there some breakroom where Gods hang out and discuss the sufferings going on in their planets? And if I created a world, I'm sending my spirit babies there but not my kid from this life? That makes one go cross-eyed when thinking about it.

[Hagoth]

I know we've discussed this a lot in the past but I still can't get over the idea that the Mighty Smiter and genocidester of the Old Testament instantly transformed into meek and forgiving Jesus. Then when he visited the Americas Elohim had to step up from hiding out in the background and do all of the smashing, burning, and killing.

This one I never understood... the inconsistency between Old Testament, New Testament, and Book of Mormon just never made sense.

I also never understood the eternal progression thing. So my kid would get his own planet assuming he goes full TBM... but if I got my own planet as well then I would be separated from my family as he handles his own? Or is there some breakroom where Gods hang out and discuss the sufferings going on in their planets? And if I created a world, I'm sending my spirit babies there but not my kid from this life? That makes one go cross-eyed when thinking about it.

Yeah, it's pretty zany.

Jfro, are you forgetting that the essay called the idea that we each get our own planet is a "cartoonish image" of eternal progression? And then they just drop it there. They fail to mention the not-at-all-cartoonish actual doctrine that you won't only get your own planet, you'll get to create your own universe, complete with as many eternal wives as you want and trillions of children.

[Reuben]

What would it look like for God to cease to be God in the middle of a soul progression cycle? Would someone else have to step in? Either the next god up or a temp from elsewhere who isn't currently running a batch through?

"Hey, Jor-elohim? I messed up pretty bad, man. I let mercy rob justice. Yeah, yeah, they did. Sin all over the place up here. So... I'm going to cease to be God, the elements will stop obeying me, and I'll get a call to the office of the Even Bigger Man Upstairs, and you're their Godfather... no. Uh-uh. No, you won't have to, just the ones who want to marry you, and the rest will be given to another more deserving God. Yeah, I'm tired of doing it, too. Totally spent. But I won't have to worry about that anym- - oh, Me. Oh Me oh Me oh Me, I can feel it shrinking..."

[wtfluff]

Does this "eternal progression" thing have anything to do with "enduring to the end?"

An eternity of anything sounds like eternal boredom to me. (In other words: "endure to the end," but the end never comes...)

[blazerb]

So even though we "don't emphasize it," the core doctrine of the church, the only thing that isn't milk I suppose, is eternal progression (not counting Second Anointing of course). Up until it became too embarrassing to preach it out loud LDS prophets taught that God was once a man who attained godhood by following the rules.

So my question is did Elohim get released from his covenants when he graduated to godhood? Obedience is the first law of heaven, so in order to move up the ladder you must maintain unflinching obedience to the expectations of your God, whoever that may be.

Does Elohim still kneel down before bedtime and pray to his god? Does he pay 10% of this universe in tithing? Does he do his monthly ministering to other gods in nearby universes? The Book of Mormon tells us that it is possible for God to cease to be God if he doesn't obey certain rules (like sending people to hell) so we must assume that he's still toting bales for a higher authority. I'm asking this tongue in cheek, of course, but this is a genuine consequence of actually thinking about the doctrine.

Followup question: can I just go over Elohim's head and worship the next guy up the chain of authority? If I pray to him will his Holy Ghost answer my prayers? I'm concerned that maybe I was just barking up the wrong tree all those years and I'll get better answers from a more powerful god. Maybe that is true enlightenment, to set your sights higher. I wouldn't know what to call him. Maybe Our Father of Our Father Who Art In Heaven?

When I was young, I would sometimes go to "Know Your Religion" lectures with my parents. I remember one where the lecturer basically did say that Elohim was still worshiping his god, who was still worshiping his god, and so on. If we are faithful, we will always be offering up our services because the exaltation of our spirit children adds to the glory of Elohim, and the glory keeps on piling as you go up. It was very Amway. Trying to skip up the chain won't work for unknown reasons.

I can't remember if the obedience doctrine I understood came from Orson Scott Card or Cleon Skousen. In either case, here it is. Elohim is still obedient because he did not make the rules. The commandments are like laws of nature. If God stopped obeying those laws, then the atoms of the universe would cease to obey him because He would no longer be a trustworthy master. I have no idea how actual church leaders might explain it. They would probably just tell you to stop committing various moral transgressions.

The doctrines as expounded by early church leaders have serious problems. They never get discussed because they are "mysteries." So, the problematic stuff gets passed along without any examination. Even the doctrine that God was once a man gets shushed so no one really thinks about the issues involved. For example, if I start out not knowing everything, how can I ever reach a state where I know that I know everything? After all, if there is stuff that I am ignorant of now, how can I ever be sure even after Graham's number (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham%27s_number) of millennia that there is definitely nothing left to learn? Every one of these doctrines has issues like this.

[Hagoth]

I remember one where the lecturer basically did say that Elohim was still worshiping his god, who was still worshiping his god, and so on.

Well, at least it explains why Mormons are such suckers for multilevel marketing schemes.