Mormons facing the Abusive God

[_Morley]

I have been struck lately with just how minute faith can be and still have power. Great faith is a speck like a mustard seed in size. Imagine that? It must be sub atomic size faith we mostly utilize. Background radiation faith. And still with that we almost thrive.

How are you defining faith?

[_KevinSim]

That aside, you seem to be basically be saying that 'it's all a mystery.' God is a mystery that we just have to accept and basically take on faith. Do I have it about right?

Many of the things that God does are mysterious; I'm very much aware of that. But the way I look at God, God's basic characteristics aren't that hard to understand. God is simply someone who recognizes Her/His conscience demands Her/Him to work toward the preservation of some good things, has figured out how to preserve forever some good things, and is, in concert with all those people who are trying to work with Her/Him, actively preserving some good things into the eternities. What's so hard about that concept?

You'll notice I never mentioned omnipotence once in that paragraph.

[_Morley]

Your answer to the problem of evil seems to be that God is limited--is not really omnipotent. This solution creates significant problems of its own. If God represents 'good' and God is not omnipotent, how do we know He (and good) will win against evil?

In one sense it doesn't really matter to me whether God will ultimately win against evil or not. Better to ally myself with the good deity who doesn't have power to win, than to ally myself with any of the evil supernaturally powerful beings who perhaps do have the power to win. How can a person with a conscience do anything else?

But another answer is that on the spectrum with the brand of literal omnipotence Christian orthodoxy tends to teach on one side and complete helplessness on the other end, the ability to "win against evil" is way towards the latter end; there's a huge gulf between the former end and the ability to win against evil. One clearly doesn't need to have the capacity to do literally anything one wants in order to be certain one can win against evil.

Ultimately, I believe God can eventually overcome evil, because I believe He has told me He can overcome it, and I trust Him.

The evil in the world is there because God is powerless to stop it. But he's told you that he'll eventually win. Have I stated that correctly?

[_KevinSim]

The evil in the world is there because God is powerless to stop it. But he's told you that he'll eventually win. Have I stated that correctly?

Give God some time. He'll stop it. So in one sense He's not "powerless to stop it."

On the other hand, I believe in a God that is capable of ushering into existence a world as complicated as the one we live in, but I do not believe that that God has the capacity to, at 11 am Mountain Standard Time on 18 March 2012, immediately eradicate all the evil that has made its way into that world. So technically you're right; God is powerless to immediately eradicate all evil at one critic-specified instant. God created this world with a plan for evil to be eventually done away with, and it's going to take that long for evil to be done away with.

God has told God's church "that he'll eventually win," so you've got that correctly.

[_Morley]

That aside, you seem to be basically be saying that 'it's all a mystery.' God is a mystery that we just have to accept and basically take on faith. Do I have it about right?

Many of the things that God does are mysterious; I'm very much aware of that. But the way I look at God, God's basic characteristics aren't that hard to understand. God is simply someone who recognizes Her/His conscience demands Her/Him to work toward the preservation of some good things, has figured out how to preserve forever some good things, and is, in concert with all those people who are trying to work with Her/Him, actively preserving some good things into the eternities. What's so hard about that concept?

You'll notice I never mentioned omnipotence once in that paragraph.

Except for "forever" and "into the eternities," the above paragraph could describe any adult on the planet. Every person on Earth is working toward "the preservation of some good things."

You're right, there's no omnipotence there.

[_Nightlion]

I have been struck lately with just how minute faith can be and still have power. Great faith is a speck like a mustard seed in size. Imagine that? It must be sub atomic size faith we mostly utilize. Background radiation faith. And still with that we almost thrive.

How are you defining faith?

This is turning out very interesting to me. Faith is not something nailed down and understood. But I am getting insights that are truly insights. I say faith is the substance of a gift of God that draws us to act. The experiences I have had with faith, being retro-analyzed, yield a peculiarity that tracts their substance as if seeing the imprints visually, yet only seen in the heart's eye. Not as vague as this may seem.

I carried within me a gift of faith back in 1979. I did not know why it was there but did notice it for a few months puzzling upon it. Then something dire occurred and I needed it. I utilized it and it was gone immediately. I pined that it return as it was of great worth. It never did. If it ever does I will recognize it immediately.

I was standing upon a hillside in a Salt Lake City park singing with my guitar early in the morning of a Summer day. I had ever the slightest desire to call Zion forth from out of the holes of the rocks and where ever it may be hiding to become realized in the world to prepare for the return of Christ. It was a sung hope and desire that pushed me to act as if it might.

That was the beginning of what exploded before my eyes as the needed second witness against the sins of the LDS Church against the pure gospel of Jesus Christ and marking them lost amongst their abominations. And no less than a unimaginable validation of me personally as it has now turn to be. The faith behind this great event was but a whisper in me. Not as noticeable as that in 79. But there you are.

Christ was constantly praying to obtain faith from the Father to to his will. That is how it works according to our desires.

People think that they have no faith. They might have more than they can know because it is not well perceived at all until you get used to seeing the tracers of its comings and goings. It is not a constant. People say that they have faith like they own it. Impossible. Faith will pass through us when a connection is made though us of God. Only the misbehaving proud think that they own faith. They are unperceptive about it. Its worth needs to be valued much more highly and sought after as precious and sacred and dear. But not owned in arrogance but by meek subjection we crave it to ripple through our heart's mind to a fruition.

[Guest]

To address the original post from a different angle:

If you believe in the LDS Church and you believe in God, it hard to avoid the suspicion that God is out to humiliate the Church.

[_MrStakhanovite]

Let's not be so dramatic then. If you get cancer, heaven forbid, do you crumble?

No.

Do you concede that no good will come of it?

Relevant to the situation.

The fortitude of faith against all odds is insisted into existence by the sheer will power in those who win.

Not sure if you are working with a biblical notion of faith, what you are describing certainly isn’t Abraham or Job.

It is an accepted therapy and I bet the most successful. How's that for factual?

I doubt hope is that useful, hope is one of those things that embellishes life. Hope is related to courage as much as cowardice is related to humility.

[_Nightlion]

The fortitude of faith against all odds is insisted into existence by the sheer will power in those who win.

Not sure if you are working with a biblical notion of faith, what you are describing certainly isn’t Abraham or Job.

You cannot imagine that with every step up Mount Moriah Abraham was willing by sheer faith against all odds for God not to allow him to complete his task? Or that he was thereby proving unto God his obedience even against his own will? I say he always had that hope.

And Job, who had lost all hope, would not forsake his integrity against utter loss. These epic tales speak against wasted abuse. Abuse that crushes the soul to make up a jewel by not giving way but resisting mercilessly under the strain. None more that Christ alone at the last moment.

It is an accepted therapy and I bet the most successful. How's that for factual?

I doubt hope is that useful, hope is one of those things that embellishes life. Hope is related to courage as much as cowardice is related to humility.

Have you ever really needed hope at all? How would you know what it is otherwise?

[_MrStakhanovite]

You cannot imagine that with every step up Mount Moriah Abraham was willing by sheer faith against all odds for God not to allow him to complete his task? Or that he was thereby proving unto God his obedience even against his own will? I say he always had that hope.

I’m of the opinion that the original story actually had Abraham killing Isaac, and the part where the angel intervenes is a later addition by an editor that had theological motivations.

I didn’t see hope in the text, I saw a grim duty.

And Job, who had lost all hope, would not forsake his integrity against utter loss. These epic tales speak against wasted abuse. Abuse that crushes the soul to make up a jewel by not giving way but resisting mercilessly under the strain. None more that Christ alone at the last moment.

The text of Job explicitly denies any reason behind suffering, recall that Job was never told about Satan’s challenge to God. When Job finally met God in the whirlwind, all he was told was that God is so above him in status and he had to right or grounds to call God into question.

Have you ever really needed hope at all? How would you know what it is otherwise?

We all hope, each of us has hundreds of petty hopes each year. We hope for good weather, that our headache will go away, there is no traffic and out of all these hopes, how many do we forget? Hope is always rooted in a time to come, never in the present.