25 comments

  1. Eve not the fall guy, Heavenly Mother,
    postmortem missions, Jesus my brother,
    God’s not omniscient, theodicy,
    These are some ideas I like to see.

  2. Life everlasting with purpose and meaning,
    Scrubbing out earthstains (that repentant cleaning!)
    Knowing that each one can share in Christ’s light,
    These are the doctrines that keep my hope bright.

  3. “Eve not the fall guy”

    Kevin, a truly glorious doctrine, that. More inspired words may never have been uttered.

  4. Well, shoot. I must have missed the Larry King interview during which President Hinckley denied that we teach much on the omniscience of God.

    I looked up the wildcard word “omniscien*” in GospeLink (just the “General Authorities” book subset) and came up with 197 hits. Neal A. Maxwell scores 101 of those hits all by himself, and nails a big one by quoting from the “Lectures on Faith”:

    “God is the only supreme governor and independent being in whom all fullness and perfection dwell; who is omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient.” (Lecture 2, paragraph 2.)

    But, neither “omniscient” or “omniscience” is to be found in any of the 4 books on the list of books authored by President Hinckley. FWIW.

  5. Thanks, Kevin and Ardis. I’m sorry, though. I wasn’t trying to say that you had to use the same format to comment, although I do like your answers.

    Like Eve (not surprisingly) I like your vote, Kevin, for Eve not being the fall guy. I just read a thoroughly silly novel, Good Omens, in which the anti-Christ is accidentally raised as a regular kid and he’s not ready to play his role in the end of the world. Anyway, there’s some discussion at the end between an angel and a demon near the end about the value of the Fall, about Eve not being the fall guy, in effect.

  6. Degrees of happiness in the afterlife,
    no eternal “hell” (except for the very few who choose perdition),
    the emphasis and connectivity on agency and suffering and responsibility and repentance and forgivenss and growth,
    “other” tribes and the promise of more revelations/scritures yet to come.

    (it is so tempting to bring Stephen out to answer these questions — he’d have a lot of fun with it).

  7. Mark N., the omniscience thing is controversial, and I agree that lot of Mormons believe in omniscience. But I do not, and there is a healthy strain of Mormon thought that rejects it.

    On Elder Maxwell’s common use of the term, there is a footnote in Blake Ostler’s Dialogue article “The Mormon Concept of God” in which Blake recounts asking Elder Maxwell about it. Elder Maxwell was using the word in a “sounds good and impressive over the pulpit way,” not in a philosophically precise way.

  8. Elder Maxwell was using the word in a “sounds good and impressive over the pulpit way,” not in a philosophically precise way.

    When I saw how many of the hits were attached to Elder Maxwell’s writings, I fully expected to see the word used alliteratively a bunch of times. I was disappointed to learn that it didn’t seem to be the case.

    And even though the “omni*” words show up twice in the Lectures on Faith (whose authorship may have been farmed out by Joseph Smith to others), there are only two other hits that are associated with Joseph’s writings, and only one of them is attributed to Joseph (the other is in a letter written to Joseph by Harvey Whitlock).

  9. Ok, so I’m not sure I understand the discussion about rejecting God’s omniscience. Can anyone direct me to other threads where this is discussed more in depth? (I’d hate to threadjack this post)

  10. Jessawhy — The question of omniscience usually boils down to how much can be known even by God. Blake Ostler has made what I consider to be rock solid arguments that if we really have free will then the future is not among the things that can possibly be known. See several posts on foreknowledge (where Blake participated extensively) here. So if the term omniscience preclude exhaustive foreknowledge then there is much less of a theological debate on the subject I believe.

  11. So Admins… what’s the deal with the no outbound link setting? Not even one is allowed without being dropped into moderation? (My comment got gobbled up again)

  12. This is really the first I’ve seen of the “God is not omniscient” strain of beleif. I’m not very comfortable with that thought at all. What are the pro’s and con’s of divine omniscience? What is the unbreakable link between human free will and divine omniscience? So in this model, would God have to excersize faith in thigs he does not know? I have wondered things like this before, but never taken those thoughts very far, and have never seen/heard others talk much about them. I’m curious what you think.

  13. Well, Kevin and Ardis set the bar pretty high for comments (Ziff’s verse was great, of course, but I expect that level of greatness from a post, not usually from the comments).

    My favorite doctrines are probably (1) the supremacy and inviolable nature of agency, (2) near universal salvation given enough time, (3) that same sociality that exists here continuing in the eternities, and (4) the limited God which allows for Him to be a genuine person (omniscience being only one of the many “omnis” which needs qualification).

    Now, can someone put those to verse for me? j/k

  14. Alright Jacob, I’m throwing down the gauntlet:

    Agency is what matters the most
    In the end we are all saved… almost
    I’ll hang out with dead people like me
    God’s as omni as omni can be

  15. Or if I am doing it VonTrap style (as I should have if I were paying more attenting the first time around):

    Free agency is what matters the mostest,
    We are all sav-ed through Jesus, almostest
    I want to hang with with dead people like me,
    God can see everything that God can see…

    (If you can’t tell, I’m very bored and in a hotel room in Singapore — I’m sure there are worse things I could be doing.)

  16. When the stones peep,
    Polyandry,
    When I’m feeling shammed.
    I simply remember my favorite things
    And then I don’t feeeeeeeeel
    so damned

    (Sorry — couldn’t help myself)

  18. Glenn, that is so awesome!
    I think it should be the bloggernacle theme song.

  19. Thanks Jess. You know, your bro-in-law Nate told me that he invited you to come and play, but I haven’t seen you in the sandbox yet. He’s posted a few times from France you know.

  21. Peepstones and Danites and spiritual wivery,
    Zelph, mountain meadows, and Des’ret beehivery,
    I’ve found that, even at it’s wacki-est,
    Mormonism seems to suit me the best.

  24. Here’s a link to a song about testimonies that I read last year. It was a finalist in a song contest about Utah Life:

    These are a few of the testimonies

    My favorite stanza:

    There’s unchaste movies at Wal-Mart in Layton
    Hillary Clinton’s a minion of Satan
    God loves you just a bit less if you’re gay
    These are some nuggets I’ve picked up today

  25. To hear the incomparable Kristine of BCC sing (yes, sing!) some bits of this thread, you can download the 2007 Sunstone session on the bloggernacle here. The entire session is definitely worth listening to, as Kristine, Kaimi and Russell Arben Fox of T&S, and fMhLisa (of fMh, of course) address the question of how effectively the bloggernacle represents Mormonism.

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