The Plan of Salvation: My Brief Overview

[_Coggins7]

In the premortal sphere, the "first estate" of our eternal progression (the phase in which our eternal, uncreated intelligent essence, or entity, was fused with a spirit body, allowing us a sense of individuation, personality, selfhood, and differentiation from other selves, we were faced, at some point, with a choice.

As a unique, individuated self, sentient, self conscious, and possessing the gift of agency, or free will, we participated in the framing and acceptance of a plan for our achieving of our ultimate potential as literal sons and daughters of heavenly parents: what has been called the Plan of Salvation, or the Plan of Happiness.

The Plan of Happiness involves the concept of eternal progression, which involves the principle that spirit sons and daughters of God are, precisely as they appear to be, infant or immature forms of their parents; they are imbued, inherently, with the powers, attributes, qualities, and potential to become a fully mature example of their kind. To achieve that full potential, to be mature, in an ultimate sense, is to become like our Heavenly Father, and his son, Jesus Christ.

Such, however, cannot be achieved as pure spirits. There must be, for each, a trying, testing, and refining (as in scriptural symbolism, a crucible or furnace), through which we may, through the connection of our spirits with element, find our own level of light, knowledge, and intelligence that we are comfortable with and willing to receive. This, let's use the psychological term and just call it our spiritual "comfort zone" will be the determining factor upon which our eternal destiny, and the level of progression at which our full potential will be either realized or abridged, will be grounded.

Although God is understood to be omniscient, LDS theology does not subscribe to a transcendent kind of foreknowledge of the type that would forgo free will entirely, as do many othe religions, including major forms of sectarian Christianity. Although God may have precise knowledge of large scale future events, and highly accurate knowledge of what each individual will probably do under given circumstances, the preeminent importance of our agency implies that God, just as he cannot create square circles, decree that logic be illogical or that two and two equals 9, does not have absolute, transcendent, and decisive knowledge of what each of us will ultimately choose in any specific case.

This implies that when we say that God has "all power", we do not mean that he can do anything. In similar fashion, when we say that God "knows all things", we meant to say that God knows all things that can be known.

God can do everything, but not anything, just as he can have all knowledge, but not know that which is beyond that boundary. The one thing, and, perhaps, the one thing only-the one "wild card" beyond his knowledge, is an absolute predictive understanding of what choices we might make under given circumstances, and what patterns this might set for our future. He has a highly accurate understanding of each of us and what drives and animates us to the very core of our beings and personalities, but even this carries with it a probabilistic barrier. This was, in all essentials, James Talmadge's understanding of God's foreknowledge regarding us as individuals (leaving aside his foreknowledge of larger events and patterns, which can be exact and inexorable).

Previous claims that our mortal probation is not really a test because God has an absolute, certain knowledge of who is to succeed and who is to, at relative levels, fail, collapses here (returning us to from the restored Gospel to the God of Calvinism and Augustine) because it assumes the universe and all actualities and occurances within it to be a kind of cosmic VHS tape, running forward from start to finish with all the actions, choices, and outcomes determined beforehand by God himself.

And yet, LDS theology supposes no such determinism, or closed, self contained cosmos in which causes cannot be disentangled from effects and in which all causes and influences, and all choices made in interaction with them, are predetermined and hence, morally, ethically, and ontologically meaningless.

Once rendering our choices meaningless (and we can do this through philosophical naturalism or through metaphysical determinism of the Augustinian/Calvinist kind (with similar ideas present in some eastern religious concepts)), our mortal probation disintegrates and we are nothing more than pawns in the parlor games of a sovereign God who creates some to be damned and some to be saved at the outset, knowing beforehand the outcome of his actions for each individual.

Strangely for this view, it was the revelations Joseph received that once and for all shut the door on this kind of metaphysical determinism and brought the full telos of our existence into full view and made comprehensible what had been logically and conceptually consternating up until that time.

God cannot deny us our free agency to choose light or darkness. This is core LDS doctrine. This being the case, God cannot, therefore, have the power to choose our moral, ethical, intellectual, and spiritual preferences, and hence eternal destiny, for us. It follows from this that God cannot (though he knows all things), have an exact, precise knowledge of what our ultimate choices will be and the end to which this will lead us. Were he to have such knowledge, such knowledge would negate our agency and our existence would then have no more intrinsic meaning than the world conceived of by reductionistic metaphysical naturalism of the Dawkins or Sagan variety.

The idea that the Plan of Salvation is a cosmic "eugenics program" is unintelligible in light of what the Church actually teaches regarding our purpose in life and the nature of God. A cosmic eugenicist would forcibly isolate and extract certain traits from a larger group and breed his children to exhibit these traits. What the Gospel actually teaches, is, of course, nothing resembling such a concept.

All intelligence is capable of progression, advancement, and perfection, and hence, all of God's sons and daughters are, in potential, gods themselves. The wild card in the universe is, again, free will, a principle that, yet again, through God has all power, he has no power to circumvent or negate (lest he cease to be God, by contradicting the very eternal laws by and through which he became and continues to be, God).

A cosmic eugenicist would choose traits, attributes, and characteristics for his children. What LDS doctrine actually says is that all intelligence, eternal, uncreated, and coexistent with God, exits at vastly differentiated initial states. Our intelligence does not exist at the same level, or state, in the very beginning, and as it progresses though various stages of development, it progresses at different rates, along different trajectories, and encompassing different levels of focus, consistency, and preserverence (valiance, in LDS terminology).

The various levels of salvation, or degrees of glory (and of no glory at all), achieved by varying individuals in eternity, are manifestations, not of a cosmic eugenics program, but a cosmic obstacle course, much like those encountered in military basic training. It matters much less what one begins with,in such circumstances, as much as what one does with the characteristics and attributes one has. It may take one only a few tries to overcome some of the obstacles, while others may take far longer. In the Gospel, the potential is the same for all (in an ultimate sense, not in this life per se), even thought the initial states were varied and God did not, with forethought, choose these initial states and characteristics for us, rigging the ultimate outcome.

The Gospel also encompasses the concept of grace, which is the power of Christ to enable and empower us to transcend our inherent mortal (and perhaps, with respect to other intelligences, initial ontological ) limitations and move beyond the intrinsic imitations on growth and progression each of us brings to our mortal experience.

Amantha's alternative proposal appears to have been spun from whole cloth, and bears no resemblance to actual Church doctrines on these matters. Whatever they may be, they do not reflect anything resembling a coherent, fair minded understanding of these concepts. One may disagree, of course, but one should not set up strawmen that the slightest breeze can knock down in doing so. One should engage the concepts on their merits.

[_Coggins7]

And furthermore...

Well, so much for a stimulating discussion on a substantive topic. Well, back to character assassination...

[_Trevor]

And furthermore...

Well, so much for a stimulating discussion on a substantive topic. Well, back to character assassination...

Well, it is better to play to your strengths anyway, Coggy.

[_Coggins7]

Thanks for the substantive analysis.

[_Mister Scratch]

Such, however, cannot be achieved as pure spirits. There must be, for each, a trying, testing, and refining (as in scriptural symbolism, a crucible or furnace), through which we may, through the connection of our spirits with element, find our own level of light, knowledge, and intelligence that we are comfortable with and willing to receive. This, let's use the psychological term and just call it our spiritual "comfort zone" will be the determining factor upon which our eternal destiny, and the level of progression at which our full potential will be either realized or abridged, will be grounded.

Actually: No. As I pointed out on the other thread, the 2nd Anointing is a major-league hole in this argument. The ordinance completely does away with the "trying, testing, and refining."

[_Trevor]

Thanks for the substantive analysis.

Show me substantive work deserving of substantive analysis. Your ramblings on Mormon doctrine do not qualify.

[_Coggins7]

Such, however, cannot be achieved as pure spirits. There must be, for each, a trying, testing, and refining (as in scriptural symbolism, a crucible or furnace), through which we may, through the connection of our spirits with element, find our own level of light, knowledge, and intelligence that we are comfortable with and willing to receive. This, let's use the psychological term and just call it our spiritual "comfort zone" will be the determining factor upon which our eternal destiny, and the level of progression at which our full potential will be either realized or abridged, will be grounded.

Actually: No. As I pointed out on the other thread, the 2nd Anointing is a major-league hole in this argument. The ordinance completely does away with the "trying, testing, and refining."

No, it quite patently does not. Otherwise, the astonishingly rare number of adults who receive it would not have been here in the first place.

Joseph said the following:

The other Comforter spoken of is a subject of great interest, and perhaps understood by few of this generation. After a person has faith in Christ, repents of his sins, and is baptized for the remission of his sins and receives the Holy Ghost, (by the laying on of hands), which is the first Comforter, then let him continue to humble himself before God, hungering and thirsting after righteousness, and living by every word of God, and the Lord will soon say unto him, Son, thou shalt be exalted.

[When the Lord has thoroughly proved him, and finds that the man is determined to serve Him at all hazards, then the man will find his calling and his election made sure, then it will be his privilege to receive the other Comforter, which the Lord hath promised the Saints, as is recorded in the testimony of St. John, in the 14th chapter, from the 12th to the 27th verses.

Having one's calling and election made sure is the end point of a process of development, testing, and refining.

This is why many of us think your claim to be a Mormon is like many of your other claims. Hokum.

Homework first Scratch. Post later.

[_Coggins7]

Thanks for the substantive analysis.

Show me substantive work deserving of substantive analysis. Your ramblings on Mormon doctrine do not qualify.

The term for this individual, it must be stated, is one I've used before. The term is "poseur".

I'll leave it at that.

[_Trevor]

The term for this individual, it must be stated, is one I've used before. The term is "poseur".

I'll leave it at that.

"This individual"? Hah! Your opening bears all the marks of the writing of a pretentious nitwit!

Your insult was fatally compromised before you even reached it.

[_amantha]

This implies that when we say that God has "all power", we do not mean that he can do anything. In similar fashion, when we say that God "knows all things", we meant to say that God knows all things that can be known.

This is just a sample, but notice how, throughout Coggin7's theological diatribe, the natural and accepted meaning of words need to be skewed and altered in order to create the illusion of reasonableness.

"All Power" doesn't mean "All Power," it means X.

God can have all knowledge yet there are things which he does not know because he only knows the things which can be known. Huh?

God can do everything but not some things.

And all this confusion is supposed to inspire us to get on our knees for decades so that we can shore up our struggling testimonies with continuous confirmation from what we hope is a supernatural being (that corresponds to the teachings of our elders of course) in order to maintain our belief in these tortured sentences.

You must be exhausted.