Alma and God's Free Will

Post by **_John Larsen** » Thu Mar 06, 2008 7:52 pm

In the Book of Mormon, Alma chapter 42 an interesting theological discourse is given. The summary is that if God did not act in the most right way, He would cease to be God. God is therefore constrained to be perfect. Or in other words God is good because he acts good. It is not the opposite which would be that good is good because it comes from God. God’s actions are not good by default but only good in as much as they are intrinsically good.

God is also omniscient. He can thus see all of the consequence of any of his action. Where you and I are oblivious to seemingly unrelated or trivial consequence of our actions, God is not. God would be aware of every chain of event through the eternities.

In order to not cease being God, God must always choose the course of action that is the most good and just à la Alma 42. Otherwise He would be choosing the course of action that, even in a tiny degree, would lead to evil or injustice. God thus has no free will in any sense of the term because He is imprisoned by always choosing the most correct path.

The last dimension of this prison is that in Mormonism, merely thinking the wrong kinds of thought is a sin. Alma Chapter 45 verse 16 tells us: “the Lord cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance.” This means that God cannot even entertain the though of taking an action other than the most perfect.

This describes a being that is perfectly deterministic, no different than a simple state machine, an existence that can be described as nothing else then hellacious.

As a last note, traditional Christians do not have this conundrum because they would define good as whatever God says it is. Mormons cannot do this because, since God was once a man, Goodness must pre-date God and be independent of God’s will.

Post by **_Canucklehead** » Thu Mar 06, 2008 8:07 pm

This is a very interesting topic and one that I often thought about when I was a Mormon. It's because of this passage that I conclude that "the gospel" is about complete and utter conformity. Free thought is not allowed in the church because some thoughts are "sinful". As John quoted, god can't look upon sin with the least degree of allowance. So, even though we can get away without being perfect in this life, eventually we're gonna have to give up thinking for ourselves and eating fruit out of season.

Those who have been on missions know that being "righteous" according to the church means conforming to every detail of every edict that is issued from "The Brethren". EVERYTHING on a mission is regimented: the style of your hair, the colour of your shirt, etc. etc. To stray from the mission rules is to sin. ZIP-A-DEE-DOO, even the WAY IN WHICH YOU'RE ALLOWED TO LAUGH is dictated by the church when you're on a mission. I kid you not, my mission president gave a talk about "quiet dignity" and demonstrated how we should laugh in order to keep the "spirit". Apparently, anything other than a close-mouthed, nose-chuckle is sinful.

THIS, to me, is the very definition of hell. I've said it before ... my mission was the main thing that made me begin to question the veracity of the church. If people want to claim that I left because I wanted to sin, then I suppose that's true. I want to SCHMENGIE laugh the way I naturally laugh, not the way some self-designated "man of god" told me to laugh.

Edited to add: I tried to look to see if profanity is allowed in Terrestrial but couldn't find anything ... if it's not, I'll change my "F*cks" to "Flips" or some such acceptable analog.

_Yoda · Post by **_Yoda** » Thu Mar 06, 2008 8:23 pm

(Moderator Note)

The F word is not allowed in the Terrestrial Forum. Neither is sh*t. You may use these words freely in Telestial, however.

Post by **_Canucklehead** » Thu Mar 06, 2008 8:32 pm

liz3564 wrote:(Moderator Note)

The F word is not allowed in the Terrestrial Forum. Neither is sh*t. You may use these words freely in Telestial, however.

Duly noted. Like I said, I tried to find a set of rules (albeit briefly) regarding this, but the only thing I relied on was that Terrestrial is "PG-13". I figured that I hear the F-word in enough PG-13 movies .... anyway, I'll change it up.

Post by **_The Nehor** » Thu Mar 06, 2008 11:28 pm

Your thesis assumes that there is only one 'most good' choice.

Post by **_John Larsen** » Fri Mar 07, 2008 12:24 am

The Nehor wrote:Your thesis assumes that there is only one 'most good' choice.

You are right. I would be interested to hear your argument against that presumption.

Post by **_Imwashingmypirate** » Fri Mar 07, 2008 12:33 am

But everything God does will be perfect! God does nothing. Without humankind, there is no God. So whatever he does it will be perfect because that is what we made him to be. Even if God is a deity of supreme power and being and can exist without humans providing the energy, he will still be perfect. The LDS explanation I was once given was that in order to become a God he would strive for perfection and so be perfect in heaven and I believe I once heard that if a human becomes a God he would do the exact same things our God did because that would be all there is to do because our God is perfect.

Am I making sense?

Post by **_The Nehor** » Fri Mar 07, 2008 1:00 am

John Larsen wrote:
The Nehor wrote:Your thesis assumes that there is only one 'most good' choice.

You are right. I would be interested to hear your argument against that presumption.

My argument is that there are a large, perhaps infinite, number of 'most good' choices to an omnipotent, omniscient being. Having never been such a being myself, I am only speculating. However even now I have choices that have no moral difference to choose between them and select one. I would imagine if I were a lot smarter, knew everything, and could take any action, I would have a lot more of them.

Post by **_The Nehor** » Fri Mar 07, 2008 1:02 am

Imwashingmypirate wrote:But everything God does will be perfect! God does nothing. Without humankind, there is no God. So whatever he does it will be perfect because that is what we made him to be. Even if God is a deity of supreme power and being and can exist without humans providing the energy, he will still be perfect. The LDS explanation I was once given was that in order to become a God he would strive for perfection and so be perfect in heaven and I believe I once heard that if a human becomes a God he would do the exact same things our God did because that would be all there is to do because our God is perfect.

Am I making sense?

Pirate, when did God need humans to provide him with energy?

Post by **_Imwashingmypirate** » Fri Mar 07, 2008 1:21 am

Erm, since he was a bastard and cast out of the counsil of the real heaven. LOL.

Without man there is no God. Without life there is no God, without matter there is no God without matter there is no man, without matter there is very little energy, without energy there is no man.

Another way:

With man there can be God, with God there can be man, without God there can be man, without man there is no God.

There needs to be people capable of thought and rationalisation to know of God in order for God to exist otherwise God is void. Nothing.