3rd Article of Faith

[pam]

There have been many investigators using this website to get some basic doctrinal information about the Church. Each week I will post an Article of Faith so that the discussion of each can be done. Keep in mind..this is based on LDS doctrine and debating of that will not be tolerated.\

We believe that through the Atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel.

[Traveler]

...

We believe that through the Atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel.

As always I believe the Articles of Faith are specifically divinely inspired and designed to make sense and draw attention to the uniqueness of the LDS understanding of scripture. Many attempt to modify the concept of salvation. The word salvation comes from the same root understanding as salvage. When we go through a salvage process we separate that which is of value and worth from that which is useless.

G-d does not salvage (save) wickedness. He does not salvage (save) that which is worthless and of no eternal value. G-d will only save (salvage) the good that exists in mankind. The only way to establish the goodness in our lives, that G-d will freely and universally salvage, is by being obedient to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel given to us by G-d.

So simple, so exact, so correct and so true - the Articles of Faith are without question part of modern prophesy, revelation and the great restoration - to prepare us for being part of the Kingdom of G-d when the king, Jesus Christ returns.

The Traveler

[Bensalem]

We believe that through the Atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel.

Sounds very Christian to me. The BOM speaks more of the Atonement than does the Bible. This Article of Faith clearly bases salvation on the act of Atonement, which was the mission of Christ. He did not come to earth to offer us grace. The free gift of the Atonement is His offering to us. But salvation does not come to all unconditionally. It requires action. Likewise, He did not cure all of those with aliments; He cured only those whose faith brought them to Him (or to the waters of baptism).

Repentance brings us to the forgiveness earned by Christ's Atonement for man's sin.

Faith alone is died without the work of obedience.

This revelation corrects and clarifies the misplaced emphasis by other churches on salvation by grace, which minimizes Christ's emphasis on a baptism of repentance and a continued change of heart and the importance of good works.

[cryophil]

My question about the atonement is, why did God create us with flaws only to have someone else have to pay for the mistakes we make due to those flaws?

[Just_A_Guy]

That seems rather like asking "why did my parents create me unable to speak only to have to spend the next two decades raising me and putting me through college?" God couldn't just say "voila!" and automatically give a person experience and every good attribute that experience brings--each one of us had to come down to earth and get it. God can (and does!) help us with that learning process, but apparently He cannot exempt us from it.

To put it more succinctly: We are not created "with flaws", but we are created as incomplete beings. We can only be completed/perfected through a learning process in which we will inevitably make mistakes.

[HiJolly]

My question about the atonement is, why did God create us with flaws only to have someone else have to pay for the mistakes we make due to those flaws?

I've heard this complaint before. Yech.

HJ

[Blackmarch]

My question about the atonement is, why did God create us with flaws only to have someone else have to pay for the mistakes we make due to those flaws?

Because if we were perfect and then sinned, we could not be saved at all.

Edited April 25, 2012 by Blackmarch

[cryophil]

Because if we were perfect and then sinned, we could not be saved at all.

That doesn't make any sense to me. If we were perfect we couldn't sin. We would be exactly like God. Perfection isn't some loose thing. If there are absolute laws (moral & scientific), then perfection would be defined down to the nth degree. Sin (moral law) would not be included.

[cryophil]

God couldn't just say "voila!" and automatically give a person experience and every good attribute that experience brings...

I don't understand that reasoning. God is omnipotent and omniscient. God could have created every person exactly the way they would become in the end. He could have created us with the exact memory of every experience and every moment of sin, repentence, forgiveness we would have had. The end result would be exactly the same. We would be no different had we done it than had we been given the knowledge/memory of it. He knows us perfectly. He creates perfectly. He knows exactly the outcome. If he doesn't, then he isn't God.

He could have done that. He chose not to. Why would a perfect God create imperfect/incomplete humans?

The test isn't to see what we will do. He knows that. The goal isn't to create us into perfect beings. He could have done that at any moment.

[Blackmarch]

That doesn't make any sense to me. If we were perfect we couldn't sin. We would be exactly like God. Perfection isn't some loose thing. If there are absolute laws (moral & scientific), then perfection would be defined down to the nth degree. Sin (moral law) would not be included.

Sinning is choosing to go against gods laws.

supposing we are given freedom of will, then sin will always be an option- even God could choose to sin if he so decided to.

If we had a perfect body/immortality then when we sinned we would always be forever trapped in a fallen state-this is one of the reasons the tree of life was guarded after adam and eve partook of the tree of knowledge.... as also it would pose a problem with world population and things of that nature.

If we had perfect knowledge and then sin, then we would be cast out as were all those who chose to go against God in the war in heaven.

The thing in question is our wills, and that whether or not God can perfect the wills of others, himself i don't know, however fortunately he lets us have our own wills, so it is up to us to perfect it.. and along the way we'll make mistakes.

[cryophil]

You originally stated that if we were perfect and then sinned, we could not be saved at all.

I stated that to be perfect means to be without sin, a desire to sin and a reason to sin.

I also want to bring up another point: why could we not be saved if after being made perfect we then sinned? An omnipotent being could do that. Right?

Sinning is choosing to go against gods laws.

supposing we are given freedom of will, then sin will always be an option- even God could choose to sin if he so decided to.

If we had a perfect body/immortality then when we sinned we would always be forever trapped in a fallen state-this is one of the reasons the tree of life was guarded after adam and eve partook of the tree of knowledge.... as also it would pose a problem with world population and things of that nature.

If we had perfect knowledge and then sin, then we would be cast out as were all those who chose to go against God in the war in heaven.

The thing in question is our wills, and that whether or not God can perfect the wills of others, himself i don't know, however fortunately he lets us have our own wills, so it is up to us to perfect it.. and along the way we'll make mistakes.

The first part of what you wrote does not really answer my original question, which was why God created us with flaws in the first place. If we can sin, whether or not our bodies are perfect, we are not spiritually perfect. There's no logical case for why a perfect supreme intelligence who is all-powerful and all-knowing would then create imperfect beings knowing full well exactly what they would do.

Your second point is that we have agency and that God does not create perfect "wills" for whatever reason. Where did agency/free will come from?

D&C 93:38 " Every spirit of man was innocent in the beginning; and God having redeemed man from the fall, men became again, in their infant state, innocent before God. "

Apparently we all started on the same "innovent" level and yet we also had different levels of intelligence Abraham 3:18 "if there be two spirits, and one shall be more intelligent than the other, yet these two spirits, notwithstanding one is more intelligent than the other, have no beginning; they existed before, they shall have no end."

So if we started with equal innocent, and different intelligence, and light-n-truth help us avoid sin, then it seems the deck was stacked no matter what we did.

Apparently, the differences we have between us are things we cannot control and were given to us by God (genetics, environment, etc) and the one thing we always had (intelligence). But we don't have control either or any of these things. How we think, act, choose comes down to those three things, and we cannot claim them as ours--either they always were that way or they were pushed on us at birth and in our life-condition.

It does seem to come down to agency and free will. Apparently, this is an area in which either free will is an illusion or God is not truly omnipotent/omniscient.

Whether we truly have free will or not is not really well understood.

What about God? Does God have free will? You stated that God could choose to sin. Could he? Is the desire or the reason to sin in God?

Edited April 25, 2012 by cryophil

[Guest]

I don't understand that reasoning. God is omnipotent and omniscient. God could have created every person exactly the way they would become in the end. He could have created us with the exact memory of every experience and every moment of sin, repentence, forgiveness we would have had. The end result would be exactly the same. We would be no different had we done it than had we been given the knowledge/memory of it. He knows us perfectly. He creates perfectly. He knows exactly the outcome. If he doesn't, then he isn't God.

He could have done that. He chose not to. Why would a perfect God create imperfect/incomplete humans?

The test isn't to see what we will do. He knows that. The goal isn't to create us into perfect beings. He could have done that at any moment.

First of all, there is a difference in mainstream Christianity's view of Human Life from the LDS view. In mainstream Christianity, God created Man - body AND spirit. In LDS doctrine, God only created the body, the spirit is eternal. That means, that our intelligence has always existed without beginning and without end. Another important difference to distinguish is that in mainstream Christianity, God and Man are of a different substance/species/ousia. In LDS doctrine, our spirits are of the exact same substance as God's spirit. That is - we are the same species just like my sons is the same exact species as me. Note: I am only talking about the eternal spirit. The mortal body that God gave us is what makes us mortal - different from God who is eternal and whose body is perfected.

Okay, so, before Adam was born, all the intelligences desired to progress and learn so they can be closer to God's perfection. God, because of his love for all of the spirits, wanted the same. So, a Plan was made wherein all the intelligences can go through a phase where they learn everything they need to learn to get closer to this perfection. And this Plan was Mortality. A weak body will be given to each spirit for the spirit to master. The body will give the spirit choices through mortal desires that are contrary to perfection so that the spirit may learn how to gain that perfection through challenges. And that's why we refer to it as a test. You can look at it as something like learning Math. You are taught to add and subtract and that's fine and good. But, until the time that you actually add and subtract something (may it be through a test paper, or having to figure out how much money to give a cashier - that is, by experience), you really can't fully learn Math.

Now, the Plan involves spirits having to go through mortality without having full knowledge of the Plan. They had to learn about the plan while on earth. This makes it so that the choices the spirit makes is purely the desires of that particular spirit. This kinda seems unfair, doesn't it? I mean - give me a test without knowing that I'm being tested just doesn't seem fair. But, if we give those who didn't get the opportunity to learn about God an automatic passing grade, then it is unfair to all those who did learn about God. Justice then calls for everybody to have the same outcome for each choice they make. But, because of God's mercy, he anointed his Son, Jesus Christ to pay the price to give everybody "salvation" whether they've had the opportunity to learn about God on earth or not. So, Jesus Christ came to earth and, not only taught us, but more importantly, showed us that the body may die but our Spirits are eternal. He went through a great sacrifice to show us that even when our bodies are beaten, cast out, mocked, and hung on the cross to die, our Spirits will rise up and live on. He also showed us that we can gain perfected bodies - not this body that is weak and mortal - but an eternal, perfect body.

Now Lucifer had a different solution to fulfill God's mercy. He wanted that the spirits will just be made to do all the good things - no choice necessary. This guarantees that all spirits will gain the same outcome and Justice is served equally. God nixed that idea and so Lucifer rebelled against God. 1/3 of the spirits followed Lucifer so they chose not to gain bodies and be challenged by mortality. They're stuck - they have no means to progress. So, they want everyone of us to be stuck with them too.

Now, why didn't God just give us perfection to begin with and not have to worry about all this mortal stuff? Cryophil... the difference is exactly this: A boy who is given everything he ever desires by his dad cannot appreciate what he has. Now, if his dad buys everything for him, puts it on a shelf for him, then tells him to mow the yard every week to earn every single one of those goodies, he will have learned to appreciate the value of all those stuff. And the boy who wouldn't put forth the effort to earn those goodies wouldn't have deserved to have them because he can't learn the value of them.

Now, a dad who worked hard to have everything then gives everything to his son will not... NOT... have a son that would take care of that everything. More than likely, he will have a prodigal son who will squander everything and end up losing everything.

Make sense?

Edited April 25, 2012 by anatess

[cryophil]

First of all, there is a difference in mainstream Christianity's view of Human Life from the LDS view. ...

Now, the Plan involves spirits having to go through mortality without having full knowledge of the Plan. They had to learn about the plan while on earth....

Now, why didn't God just give us perfection to begin with and not have to worry about all this mortal stuff? Cryophil... the difference is exactly this: A boy who is given everything he ever desires by his dad cannot appreciate what he has.

Make sense?

No, it does not make sense. Your argument is that we had to be created imperfectly to learn experience, fine-tune abilities, and develop appreciation.

Learning and appreciation are events that happen in the brain. The brain is biology/matter/energy,etc. There's no reason I can see why an omniscient, omnipotent being could not have created all of that along with us. Appreciation is a state-event in the brain. God could have put appreciation into the biology/neuronal patterns and it would be identical to what we have after that long experience.

So, no, it doesn't make sense.

[Guest]

No, it does not make sense. Your argument is that we had to be created imperfectly to learn experience, fine-tune abilities, and develop appreciation.

Learning and appreciation are events that happen in the brain. The brain is biology/matter/energy,etc. There's no reason I can see why an omniscient, omnipotent being could not have created all of that along with us. Appreciation is a state-event in the brain. God could have put appreciation into the biology/neuronal patterns and it would be identical to what we have after that long experience.

So, no, it doesn't make sense.

You did not read my entire post.

As opposed to... say, Catholic, belief, LDS do not believe that we are ENTIRELY created by God. Only our mortal BODY was created, our SPIRIT (consciousness, intelligence, whatever you call it) has existed since forever. God DID NOT CREATE our spirit - he only organized it from the state it was in to join His Spiritual Family.

So, why did God create our mortal BODY? Answer: So our spirits can "progress". Be closer to how God's Spirit is.

Did that make better sense?

[cryophil]

You did not read my entire post.

As opposed to... say, Catholic, belief, LDS do not believe that we are ENTIRELY created by God. Only our mortal BODY was created, our SPIRIT (consciousness, intelligence, whatever you call it) has existed since forever. God DID NOT CREATE our spirit - he only organized it from the state it was in to join His Spiritual Family.

So, why did God create our mortal BODY? Answer: So our spirits can "progress". Be closer to how God's Spirit is.

Did that make better sense?

I'm afraid I still don't get it. I did read your entire post. And I discussed the idea that intelligence with its free will is not a very good answer--see my response a few above to Blackmarch, where I quote D&C 93 and Abraham 3.

Just to add to that: God created our spirits from intelligence--spirit matter. So our spiritual talents are given to us by God. If we are to be judged for our sins (that result from spiritual weakness) then it seems unfair. No matter how you slice it, what we are came from God, except perhaps this eternal part of us. If that is true, then there is NOTHING we can do here that will alter an eternal part of us. It's eternal. If there were a change in it, it would no longer be what it's always been and it would cease to be eternal. God changed it, organized it, or something to it. He broke the eternal nature of it creating us. And now we are to be judged for that which we never had control over.

I'll submit that the idea that a kernel of us, as a seed of free will, existing forever and changing, makes some sense. But at some most basic fundamental point, we either were already seeds of sin or seeds of eternal life. We didn't choose to be at the most basic level a sinner or a saint. we just were always that. Anything that was added thereafter to that seed by our spirit and mortal creation is not under our control and was made by God.

Do you see the perplexity I have?

[Guest]

I'm afraid I still don't get it. I did read your entire post. And I discussed the idea that intelligence with its free will is not a very good answer--see my response a few above to Blackmarch, where I quote D&C 93 and Abraham 3.

Just to add to that: God created our spirits from intelligence--spirit matter. So our spiritual talents are given to us by God. If we are to be judged for our sins (that result from spiritual weakness) then it seems unfair. No matter how you slice it, what we are came from God, except perhaps this eternal part of us. If that is true, then there is NOTHING we can do here that will alter an eternal part of us. It's eternal. If there were a change in it, it would no longer be what it's always been and it would cease to be eternal. God changed it, organized it, or something to it. He broke the eternal nature of it creating us. And now we are to be judged for that which we never had control over.

I'll submit that the idea that a kernel of us, as a seed of free will, existing forever and changing, makes some sense. But at some most basic fundamental point, we either were already seeds of sin or seeds of eternal life. We didn't choose to be at the most basic level a sinner or a saint. we just were always that. Anything that was added thereafter to that seed by our spirit and mortal creation is not under our control and was made by God.

Do you see the perplexity I have?

I see it but it doesn't make sense to me. It could be that I just have trouble parsing your sentences (English is my 3rd language).

The idea that one can become something by virtue of existence is not something we believe. We believe that Spirits PROGRESS. Its progression is through learning. We learn from God. God doesn't just get this eternal energy and all of a sudden make it learned. God can put this eternal energy into situations where it will progress on its own path. So the "change in us" is not a change to our eternal nature. It is a change in our spiritual progression. From a mustard seed to a giant oak... or whatever... continually progressing, expanding in knowledge from eternity to eternity.

Seeds of sin or seeds of eternal life - that doesn't make sense to me either. Sin is a state brought upon by Mortality. So it only exists, as we know it, in this sphere of mortal existence. Before mortal existence, it's either we want to progress in the same path as God or we don't. It's not a sin against God to choose not to follow God then. It just means we didn't want to be in His organization. But, the fact that we are on earth today presupposes that we must have chosen to follow God's Plan in pre-mortal existence, and hence agreed to be subjected to the temptation of sin.

No, God does not MAKE us sin. God gave us opposition through mortality so that we can choose for ourselves if we choose sin over righteousness. Mortal weakness is created by God, yes. But what we do with that mortal weakness is completely our choice to make. And those mortal choices is the catapult to the next stage in our progression. If we progress in mortal state to the point that we are A students or something, we get to start up higher in the progression rung on the next stage of eternal life. If we progress as C students we get a different progression rung.

Also, another thing to note is that we believe that we are judged according to our understanding of the Plan. A person who sins after gaining a testimony of the truth of righteousness has a lot more to answer for than a person who sins without any knowledge that what he is doing is sinful. Each of us have our individual mortal challenge completely unique to our spirits. Hence Jesus' teaching that God does not give us a challenge that is more than we can bear.

Edited April 25, 2012 by anatess

[Maureen]

Because if we were perfect and then sinned, we could not be saved at all.

I am also curious why you think this is so.

And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. (Genesis 1:31)

After God made everything including mankind, he looked over what he had done and pronounced everything very good. To me that means God was pleased with what he had made. And since LDS believe that man's spirit is eternal and divine (like God), if God only made man's body, than how more perfect could you get? Sounds even better than how non-LDS Christians believe about man's nature (finite and human). But since God made man with the ability to choose, then it was really man who changed himself from perfect to sinful. And since God has the ability to save, he did just that through the atonement.

But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)

M.

Edited April 25, 2012 by Maureen

[Just_A_Guy]

God is omnipotent and omniscient.

I agree with the latter. With regard to the former ("omnipotent"), I view that through the same lens as I view my five-year-old daughter's pronouncments that Daddy knows everything--true to a limited degree from her own little perspective, possessing a certain charm of its own, and a belief that generally does more good than harm for someone at her stage of development--but not necessarily perfectly true in the most absolute sense.

God could have created every person exactly the way they would become in the end. He could have created us with the exact memory of every experience and every moment of sin, repentence, forgiveness we would have had. The end result would be exactly the same.

I disagree. I don't think there's anything in LDS doctrine suggesting that God has that level of omnipotence.

We would be no different had we done it than had we been given the knowledge/memory of it.

An interesting hypothetical. So, if I can make a guy think he's committed a crime, I can justly send him to prison whether he's actually committed the crime or not?

He knows us perfectly.

Agreed.

He creates perfectly.

Perhaps; but it does not follow that He creates all at once. The earth was not "perfect" after the first of seven creative periods (nor is it yet, though it someday will become so).

He knows exactly the outcome.

Agreed.

The test isn't to see what we will do. He knows that.

Agreed.

The goal isn't to create us into perfect beings. He could have done that at any moment.

I disagree, as stated above.

And, if I may briefly butt in with a thought re your conversation with Anatess:

What about God? Does God have free will? You stated that God could choose to sin. Could he? Is the desire or the reason to sin in God?

I have dim memories of hearing, in high school, about a guy named Kohler who came out with some kind of moral development scale. Supposedly he put Jesus at the top of the scale with the intriguing description (as paraphrased by my teacher) as "has free will but no choice".