A Thought Experiment: Is Mormonism Ultimately Non-Theistic?

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_MrStakhanovite
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Re: A Thought Experiment: Is Mormonism Ultimately Non-Theistic?

Post by _MrStakhanovite »

asbestosman wrote:Infinite regress may not be very pretty from a philosophical point of view, but I don't see any logical prohibition of it as such.


It becomes a problem of logic when you are stuck trying to define God. If you make the mistake Blake Ostler makes and formulates a God who has to know every state of affairs in the past, he's stuck with a God who either doesn't know every state of affairs, or can never stop remembering.

Now if someone is willing to let go of omnipotence, the burden eases, but you still get stuck with a host of metaphysical problems. How do you even begin to transverse an infinite set for example?
_Darth J
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Re: A Thought Experiment: Is Mormonism Ultimately Non-Theistic?

Post by _Darth J »

The "problem," if you view it is a problem, is that in Mormonism, God is relative. Elohim is God relative to us, but not relative to the multiverse because there is a mechanism by which a human becomes a god. By definition, a god in Mormonism is a human who has successfully completed this process. God being "eternal" is relative, not absolute. No matter how big you want the number to be, at some point there had to be a first god because gods are not self-existing. Matter is self-existing in Mormonism, as are spirit and intelligence.

Man was also in the beginning with God. Intelligence, or the light of truth, was not created or made, neither indeed can be.


D&C 93:29

For man is spirit. The elements are eternal, and spirit and element, inseparably connected, receive a fulness of joy;

D&C 93:33

But a human being having the status of a god is not something that is self-existent or has no beginning.

The King Follett Sermon makes it clear that exaltation is not just becoming some super-powerful angel who is sort of a retainer to God the Father, but a god in the same sense that Elohim is God (and we would be under him in the pyramid scheme as gods). Gospel Principles, which is the LDS Church's basic overview of gospel principles (hence its name) is also very clear that people who are exalted become gods in the same sense that Elohim is, and that the way Elohim became God is the same way that we are supposed to be working toward becoming gods like he is.

Gospel Principles, Chapter 47: Exaltation

Our Heavenly Father is perfect. However, he is not jealous of his wisdom and perfection. He glories in the fact that it is possible for his children to become like him. He has said, "This is my work and my glory--to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man" (Moses 1:39).

Those who receive exaltation in the celestial kingdom through faith in Jesus Christ will receive special blessings. The Lord has promised, "All things are theirs" (D&C 76:59). These are some of the blessings given to exalted people:

1. They will live eternally in the presence of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ (see D&C 76).
2. They will become gods.
3. They will have their righteous family members with them and will be able to have spirit children also. These spirit children will have the same relationship to them as we do to our Heavenly Father. They will be an eternal family.
4. They will receive a fulness of joy.
5. They will have everything that our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ have--all power, glory, dominion, and knowledge. President Joseph Fielding Smith wrote: "The Father has promised through the Son that all that he has shall be given to those who are obedient to his commandments. They shall increase in knowledge, wisdom, and power, going from grace to grace, until the fulness of the perfect day shall burst upon them" (Doctrines of Salvation, 2:36).
..........

The Prophet Joseph Smith taught: "When you climb up a ladder, you must begin at the bottom, and ascend step by step, until you arrive at the top; and so it is with the principles of the Gospel--you must begin with the first, and go on until you learn all the principles of exaltation. But it will be a great while after you have passed through the veil [died] before you will have learned them. It is not all to be comprehended in this world; it will be a great work to learn our salvation and exaltation even beyond the grave" (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 348).

This is the way our Heavenly Father became God. Joseph Smith taught: "It is the first principle of the Gospel to know for a certainty the character of God. . . . He was once a man like us; . . . God himself, the Father of us all, dwelt on an earth, the same as Jesus Christ himself did" (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, pp. 345-46).


If our Heavenly Father became God, then necessarily there was a time when he was not God. You don't have to become something that you already are.

Doctrine and Covenants 132 teaches that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob have attained godhood. There was a time when they were not gods, as anyone who reads the Old Testament (and accepts it as history) can see. So here again is a demonstration that being an "eternal" god is relative, not absolute.

The reason this means that Mormonism is at its root non-theistic is because Mormons believe in gods, not God (since there is a god over Elohim and Elohim is "eternal" and "omnipotent" and "omniscient" relative to us, just as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob would be "eternal" relative to their own spirit children---no ultimate Being who is in charge of the multiverse). But accepting LDS theology where it goes is only a problem if you feel compelled to insist that Mormonism is a traditional theistic religion like mainstream Christianity. As MrStak observed, Mormons try to chain themselves to traditional theism because they care too much about what everyone else thinks. The response should be that this is what we believe the nature of God is, and if you don't like it, who cares?
Last edited by Guest on Tue Nov 23, 2010 2:37 am, edited 1 time in total.
_Darth J
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Re: A Thought Experiment: Is Mormonism Ultimately Non-Theistic?

Post by _Darth J »

MrStakhanovite wrote:ETA: I was poking around FAIR and they are setting up people for failure.

It should be noted too that the problem of an infinite past is also an issue for any believer in God. Anyone who believes that God has existed forever, and created the universe ex nihilo out of nothing must also confront similar difficulties about infinite past, infinite regression, and the like. An improper or unsophisticated approach to infinities could also make the idea of a God that existed "forever" seem illogical. Critics are often quick to see their own stance as "reasonable," while believing that the Latter-day Saint view is incoherent.


It's like they have zero idea about contemporary philosophy. Any Christian thinker who reads up on the philo of religion would take this apart easy, hell even William Lane Craig packages an answer in his books.


This quote is an example of why Mormon apologetics is very poorly equipped to deal with what Simon Belmont has called "roadblocks to faith." The above is just another tu quoque pat answer that, as sock puppet said in another thread, does not give someone a reason to believe in Mormonism, but instead a reason to be skeptical about theism altogether.

Mormon apologetics as an endeavor tends to approach every single issue in Mormonism is if it is a "criticism" from an Ed Decker/The Godmakers countercult ministry type of attack. That functional fixedness, coupled with apologists contradicting and/or dismissing the teachings of the LDS Church as a matter of course (while claiming to defend the Church), is how they set struggling LDS members up for failure.
_floatingboy
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Re: A Thought Experiment: Is Mormonism Ultimately Non-Theistic?

Post by _floatingboy »

asbestosman wrote:Actually, I've wondered if the chain of gods might be infinite in length but connected back to itself like a torus. The torus would also fit nicely with the idea of a ring which Joseph Smith mentioned in the King Follett discourse. Consider the set of rational points bounded by 0 <= x,y < 1. In other words the unit square but with 1 connected back to 0 on each side--a torus.


I had to drive one of those as a work car a few years ago. Got me from A to B, but pretty lackluster.

But seriously, does this argument lead logically to reincarnation?
-"I was gonna say something but I forgot what it was."
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Re: A Thought Experiment: Is Mormonism Ultimately Non-Theistic?

Post by _Darth J »

asbestosman wrote:
Darth J wrote:This is why I invite one and all to try this thought experiment. The only way I can see out of this paradox is that the first man who became a god had no God over him and had no savior unless he was his own savior (because the savior has to be a god to work out an infinite and eternal atonement). The second part of what I said is also a paradox, however, because this man would already have to be a god to become a god (by being his own savior). So in some way, it seems that the first god somehow progressed from being a man to being a god with no god superior to him, and no savior to intervene. It would be like the complete realization of some Nietzschean superman.

How about if there was no first God.

What's the smallest positive rational number?

Infinite regress may not be very pretty from a philosophical point of view, but I don't see any logical prohibition of it as such.

Actually, I've wondered if the chain of gods might be infinite in length but connected back to itself like a torus. The torus would also fit nicely with the idea of a ring which Joseph Smith mentioned in the King Follett discourse. Consider the set of rational points bounded by 0 <= x,y < 1. In other words the unit square but with 1 connected back to 0 on each side--a torus.

If the set of rational points isn't appealing because there's no specifiable preceeding / folowing point, consider instead the set of points of the form 1/n where n is a positive integer.


So you mean kind of like how Kyle Reese was sent back in time and fathered John Connor in the past---the man who sent Kyle into the past---in The Terminator?
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Re: A Thought Experiment: Is Mormonism Ultimately Non-Theistic?

Post by _Darth J »

floatingboy wrote:
asbestosman wrote:Actually, I've wondered if the chain of gods might be infinite in length but connected back to itself like a torus. The torus would also fit nicely with the idea of a ring which Joseph Smith mentioned in the King Follett discourse. Consider the set of rational points bounded by 0 <= x,y < 1. In other words the unit square but with 1 connected back to 0 on each side--a torus.


I had to drive one of those as a work car a few years ago. Got me from A to B, but pretty lackluster.

But seriously, does this argument lead logically to reincarnation?


It seems to imply that time is not linear, which is hard to reconcile with the cause-and-effect idea behind eternal progression (that following the plan of salvation is the cause leading to the effect of attaining godhood).
_floatingboy
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Re: A Thought Experiment: Is Mormonism Ultimately Non-Theistic?

Post by _floatingboy »

oh, and i just caught that the chain of gods is infinite in length. so i guess infinite like a ring is infinite (in that it keeps looping), but with a finite number of gods? i.e. the guy at the end is the dad of the guy at the beginning? i'm no math whiz so that's about as sophisticated as i get with in my ability to express this kinda thing...
-"I was gonna say something but I forgot what it was."
-"Well, it must not have been very important or you wouldn't've forgotten it!"
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_TAO
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Re: A Thought Experiment: Is Mormonism Ultimately Non-Theistic?

Post by _TAO »

floatingboy wrote:oh, and i just caught that the chain of gods is infinite in length. so i guess infinite like a ring is infinite (in that it keeps looping), but with a finite number of gods? i.e. the guy at the end is the dad of the guy at the beginning? i'm no math whiz so that's about as sophisticated as i get with in my ability to express this kinda thing...


No infinite like recursion. With no Stack-Overflow Error to prevent it from recurring forever.
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Re: A Thought Experiment: Is Mormonism Ultimately Non-Theistic?

Post by _Calculus Crusader »

MrStakhanovite wrote:
MfBukowski rejects Platonic ideas about God and I think he has a point. The God defended today by Philosophers is not the God of the Bible...


Certain parts of the Bible, yes, but others are consonant with the God of the philosophers.
Caeli enarrant gloriam Dei

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Re: A Thought Experiment: Is Mormonism Ultimately Non-Theistic?

Post by _Calculus Crusader »

Darth J wrote:By the way, if you want to know what FAIR apologists think about my thought experiment, their answer is generally tu quoque.

Back to School by David Waltz

It is certainly true that Mormonism does not explain "how the first intelligence was able to elevate himself to the position of deity," but neither can McKeever and Johnson explain why God 12 to 15 billion years ago chose to create this universe. Why not earlier? What was God doing before He created this universe? And again, is God eternally creator? Are McKeever and Johnson "unbiblical" because they cannot answer these questions? If a question is not answered, do we then have a violation of logic?

In their next section "Not Omnipotent," McKeever and Johnson cite LDS authors who reject the classical view of omnipotence. They then write:

While many leaders have taught that their God Elohim is omnipotent (all-powerful), several factors belie this thought. Since Mormonism has reintroduced polytheism to the modern world, the question is, Who among the many gods is the "most powerful"?

If Mormons are polytheists, then so are the early Church Fathers. As I have shown above, Augustine was the first Christian theologian to explicitly reject plurality within the Godhead. McKeever and Johnson, either through ignorance or deception, are not willing to admit that in Mormon theology God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost share the same attributes-they are certainly more one than they are plural, which is exactly what the early Church Fathers taught.


Ah, yes, their useful idiot. Too bad he isn't around for me to vaporize.
Caeli enarrant gloriam Dei

(I lost access to my Milesius account, so I had to retrieve this one from the mothballs.)
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