"Eternal progression consists of living the kind of life God lives and of increasing in kingdoms and dominions everlastingly. Why anyone should suppose that an infinite and eternal being, who has presided in our universe for almost 2,555,000,000 years, who made the sidereal heavens, whose creations are more numerous than the particles of the earth, and who is aware of the fall of every sparrow -- why anyone would suppose that such a being has more to learn and new truths to discover in the laboratories of eternity is totally beyond my comprehension.
Cardinal Biggles wrote:Bruce R. McConkie wrote, to Eugene England:
"Eternal progression consists of living the kind of life God lives and of increasing in kingdoms and dominions everlastingly. Why anyone should suppose that an infinite and eternal being, who has presided in our universe for almost 2,555,000,000 years, who made the sidereal heavens, whose creations are more numerous than the particles of the earth, and who is aware of the fall of every sparrow -- why anyone would suppose that such a being has more to learn and new truths to discover in the laboratories of eternity is totally beyond my comprehension.
Anyone have any idea where McConkie came up with this figure?
"And that eternity [the one during which Christ's doings have been known], agreeable to the records found in the catacombs of Egypt, has been going on in this system [not this world], almost two thousand five hundred and fifty-five millions of years." Times and Seasons 5:758. William Phelps.
~Those who benefit from the status quo always attribute inequities to the choices of the underdog.~Ann Crittenden ~The Goddess is not separate from the world-She is the world and all things in it.~
Cardinal Biggles wrote:Anyone have any idea where McConkie came up with this figure?
I imagine his ability to speculate was finely honed while sitting in the parlor at the Joseph F. Smith home after Sunday dinners and pondering on the imponderables. The future Apostle probably came to the conclusion that if it can be imagined, it can be said with authority.
its "one eternal round" its 7000 years of god time. It actually sources out of Jewish Kabbala from the book Sefer Yetzirah (The Book of Creation)
See 4:15 Seven Universes (page 185)
the actual value is 2,556,750,000 "The Midrash says that each divine day is a thousand years, basing this on the verse "A thousand years in Your sight are as a but yesterday (Psalms 90:4). Thus 3651/4 days is 365,250 years * 7k is the 2.5 billion figure shown above.
"Others relate the Seven Universes to the Kabbalistic doctrine of Sabbaticals. This states that there are seven distinct periods of creation, each lasting seven thousand years" Thus "If we assume that the seventh cycle began with the Biblical account of creation, then this would have occurred when the universe was 15,340,500,000 years old. This is very close to the scientific estimat that the expansion of the universe began some fifteen billion years ago."
