My last post was supposed to be a one paragraph introduction to this idea: The exaltation of the Gods depends on allowing us–Gods in embryo–to travel as many paths to Godhood as possible.
This conclusion follows closely the belief that Gods evolved. Evolutionary success depends on maximizing reproductive rates. If the universe is as complex as required for Gods to be loving, faithful, trusting, creative beings, then it is unlikely that there is a single, optimal path to godhood. Just as there isn’t a single way to become a healthy, productive adult, a single path to godhood is absurd. Again, I’m not denying some commonalities, but such commonalities will be limited to the bare essentials of productive and healthy godhood. Here’s why.
There are, as of yet, undiscovered ways for Gods to increase their reproductive rates. Gods are never going to escape from an evolving universe, especially since they are in part driving that evolution. This means that, even if some Gods were able to figure out the single, optimal way to create more Gods at a particular point in time, the universe will change and new solutions to the problem of reproduction will become more effective. Without changing to match the universe, the Gods will lose ground in the reproductive race. So to maximize reproductive potential, Gods must explore as much of the reproductive possibility space as they can. This means empowering individuals to take different paths. Thus, preparing us for that future where we each must boldly take the best path we can find, without anyone having been there before to tell us how it will turn out, requires teaching us confidence as soon as possible.
This means our Mormon God is in the business of doing only enough to keep humanity headed in the right direction while allowing the maximum amount of variation and freedom. As a loving God He’s got a plan to pick up the broken pieces along the way, but He can’t prevent even some intensely awful, temporary evil without losing reproductive fitness. So in one more way, atonement does not require making us the same, but bringing us to unity in a society of ever increasing diversity.
This raises the question, how can we have a society without any manner of “-ites” with the amount of diversity required in a successful community of Gods? One answer might be, we must cease defining different as other. We have to own variety.
So here is the sequence of questions for us Mormons to debate:
- Did Gods evolve? I say yes. If you say no, what kind of universe do you believe in? Is it really consistent with other tenets of Mormonism you believe in? Do you not believe that God had parents and they had parents? Do you believe God is not at all different from His parents, or only superficially different? Do you not believe God organized the universe rather than made it from nothing? And while God is a law maker or shaper, do you not believe there are laws that rule over God? Rules He could break that would make him cease to be God, perhaps?
- Is the universe (or multiverse, or sum of what was, is, and will be) complex or simple relative to the knowledge of the Gods? I say complex. If you doubt this supremely complex universe, do your other beliefs about God really support a belief in a simple universe? If so, have you considered all the other logical consequences of those beliefs? The consequences that require God to be predetermined, and that take away what most of us think of as agency?
- Does diversity contribute to the evolutionary fitness of the Gods? Yes, again. This seems to me unavoidable if you answer yes to the first two, but maybe it isn’t. I could be missing something.
Go ahead and think about these for as long as you need. There are other answers out there, but if you are with me to here, there is no way around the need to become one in diversity. While diversity is not a good for its own sake–most variations either have no bearing on godhood or lead away from it–I think we have a long way to go in embracing the varieties of goodness that God recognizes as paths to exaltation. My suspicion is that the “strait and narrow” is not the “same and narrow-minded”, but is as rich as all human goodness.
Holy cow! I’m new to the blogosphere but I have to say that this is a topic I figure I’ll worry about when I get the rest of my concerns of Mormondom figured out. It was enjoyable to see something on these blogs that was really different. Thank you for your thoughts.
I realize we are in the realm of theological speculation here. Inevitably, since we are currently operating in a mortal and fallen condition, this generates more heat than light. Finite minds trying to get infinity to make sense fills me with little confidence. And so I take issue with your argument here, Jonathan. What you are doing is projecting the rough-and-tumble of this current, mortal world and its universe into the eternal realms. You assume the one must resemble the other in its laws and operations; thus “evolution” operates similarly in both. Also taken as axiomatic is the notion that the Universe(s) is/are somehow independent of “the Gods”, that the Universe is going its own way on its own terms, is capable of changing under the Gods’ very feet, necessitating that they be ever vigilant so as to react to it, scrambling to keep up with what an independent, changing Universe may demand.
There is no reason to believe any of this. This world is fallen and as such is not representative of eternal realms.
My own opinion is this: The attempt by some LDS writers to reconcile science and religion by trying to fit all of God’s creations into the visible universe is misguided. Of all the planets, stars and galaxies we can see or could see with the most powerful telescope, none are eternal abodes of resurrected beings. The entire universe we see and study, vast as it is, is of the same kind of matter as that of our mortal bodies – that is, it decays – and is separate from the eternal realms. Kolob, which governs only one class of stars, is not in our visible galaxy, nor is God’s throne (which, as an aside, is said to be “nigh unto” – near – Kolob, not on it. God doesn’t live on Kolob. Paris isn’t “near” France.)
The Eternities are not bound by space and time the way we are; they are “near” everything but kept from us in another dimension. From the eternities, all things in space and time – past, present and future – are “present” before God’s eyes; He doesn’t need a telescope to see faraway objects or a vehicle to travel to them; His outstretched hand can “hold” them and his eye can “pierce” them all; they are “round about” Him. As with a flat sheet of paper, upon which every point is in view to us, those in the eternities have access to any point in our mortal world regardless of walls or roofs; Moroni did not need a door or window to reach Joseph Smith. The eternities are composed of unchanging, permanent matter, and the experience there with time is wholly different. The Universe cannot race ahead of God in producing anything; it is not moving in a time ahead of where God is. God cannot fall behind time where He is. Our understanding – and experience – of time ends at the edge of eternity.
Modern cosmology (a fascinating topic) teaches not that the Big Bang spewed matter into the only universe there is (typically conceived of as the endless, empty space containing everything that can be), but that the Big Bang created this particular universe – both the time and the space we now live in. It’s difficult to grasp (though the author Brian Greene does a good job), but from it you can get a glimpse of the majesty and power of God. (There is also an insightful article from 1980 in BYU Studies (20:3) entitled “Some Thoughts on Higher-dimensional Realms.”)
You write that the Gods are “never going to escape from an evolving universe” again assuming a Universe that is evolving independent of them and is uncontrolled by them. In reality, there is nothing for the Gods to “escape” from. You write that without “changing to match the universe, the Gods will lose ground in the reproductive race.” Lose ground to whom? Or to what? Some other entity out there who/which might one day take over the Gods’ works in a sort of hostile takeover? Do you see the Gods as having problems reproducing? What race is there? But of course, you see an eternity following the same sort of laws of natural selection said to operate on fallen Earth.
As God is not evolving, He needs no strategy to evade a non-existent threat. Yes, the Universe is complex, but God is up to the task.
No, I do not believe that there are laws higher than God. No God is taking different, tentative, exploratory paths into a scary Unknown Universe, not knowing beforehand how this will turn out. However and whenever He attained his exalted state, upon reaching it our Heavenly Father became the author of all laws governing his creations. (D&C 88:41-42). Yes, projecting backwards in the chain of Gods certainly leads us into deep matters. The answer? We won’t get it here, but “. . . the day shall come when you shall comprehend even God, being quickened in him and by him” (D&C 88:49). “Quickening” is going to be required, and what we find much more frequently here on earth is quicksand.
The discussion on variety is fuzzy. Yes, of course there is variety. We have different personalities. Diversity on earth is to be embraced. There is no doubt even greater diversity on the other side. But for us, there is one thing from which there is no divergence: Who God is and who Jesus Christ is. Whatever it is the children of God choose to do, whatever paths they want to tread, whatever delightful things they opt for, all who are accountable must have faith in Jesus Christ, repent of their sins, be baptized and receive the Holy Ghost through authorized administrators to return to Heavenly Father. They have to do this even if they are dead and in the Spirit World. There is no other path back to Heavenly Father. None. And there is an iron rod. What there are, of course, are repeated opportunities to grasp it. Those on the path may be doing all sorts of different things, a variety of things – but they’re on The Path. The only way to eliminate “-ites” is to become reconciled to God through the only Gospel he has provided. When the Nephites were one with God, indeed, the “children of Christ” as in 4 Nephi, there were no “-ites”. When they again succumbed to Satan, their society fragmented. It is unrighteousness that produces “-ites.”
Speculation that other Gods have ordered their realms along completely different lines is done without foundation and is irrelevant. God is a member of a unified society of eternal beings. They are not operating to cross purposes. Even if another, foreign eternal realm exists (and again, I don’t believe it does), no one here can opt into it. I worry that speculation about a different Great Beyond may fuel the desires of those who want to evade what the Church teaches for some other, more lenient way back to God, a way that produces the same results but without the discipleship in a Church that may be an embarrassment to the “sophisticated” world in which they also want to retain membership. A way with more wiggle-room for sin. Some other, just-as-good way. There isn’t one.
Hi Tim,
Thanks for your response. It appears that you believe in Gods who don’t change and who are indistinguishable from their relative Gods for all practical, theological purposes. You may be right.
All I can do is point you back to my old series of posts (starting here: http://rationalfaiths.com/when-you-assume/). I don’t assume nearly as many things as you think, and I spend time justifying many of the assumptions over their alternatives. For example, I don’t limit God to within our observable universe. For another, the only race going on is between different lineages of Gods, like our Heavenly Parents and their distant relations. It is not a race to take over or destroy the competitors (necessarily), but simply a question of who will have the most offspring over vast time spans. I also make no assumptions about the how of Gods evolving, simply that they have and can, and that they can and do influence how the cosmos (universe, multiverse, whatever is) is shaped and ruled in iterative feedback loops. For a third, I don’t require a full understanding of the infinite, but simply a few well characterized mathematical properties of it.
I won’t go into an extended discussion, but there are logically necessary implications of placing God completely outside of time or space, broadly defined. I don’t require that God be within our time, simply within time. Otherwise you are logically compelled to an extreme of determinism (or perhaps lawlessness). Alternatively, you have chosen to believe in a God that is unknowable and a fundamentally different type of being from us. Of course that is possible, but that God is some form of credal Christian God, and not the God described by Joseph in the last years of his life, or the one described by Brigham Young. It is closer to the God of Orson Pratt and many more recent apostles (and perhaps prophets). I wrote a related discussion here: http://theyogrehunt.blogspot.com/2013/03/unchanging-god.html