Is God Infinite or Immortal?

[Bini]

Is God infinite or immortal? Here's the analogies I came up with.. Infinite being time. Time has no beginning nor end - it just is and forever is. Immortal being the gears of a clock. At some point the gears began to rotate, thus having a beginning but never coming to an end, as the gears continue endlessly. Initially, I considered that all beings have a life cycle but when I thought about God, it wasn't so crystal clear. A life cycle requires BOTH a starting point and an ending point. It's my understanding that God will not expire and forever is. That voids Him of a life cycle. However, depending on speculation or otherwise, He is an infinite being or He is an immortal. Just pondering which definition best describes God. Any thoughts on this are welcomed - personal, LDS or other faiths.

[applepansy]

The simple answer is "He's both."

[Dravin]

From your description of infinite it sounds like the more apropos word is eternal, without beginning or end. Infinite means without limits or bounds in a more general sense. As far as your description of immortal, it sounds like unless one believes in an ex nihilo starting/creation point, everything is immortal. I'll be honest I'm not sure I understand what you're saying.

Your talk about life cycles sounds like, once boiled down, to be asking if God is changeable, and scripture tells us no. But you could get rather spirited debates of what qualifies as changeable as far as the scriptures are concerned.

Edited June 3, 2012 by Dravin

[Maureen]

I would say God is both infinite and immortal.

M.

[annewandering]

We are also infinite and immortal. Yes our body will die but we will not. We, including God, have always been and always will be.

[Bini]

We are also infinite and immortal. Yes our body will die but we will not. We, including God, have always been and always will be.

Hmm, although, man was created by God. Therefore, prior to this, our beings did not exist. Maybe I'm missing something?

[Dravin]

Hmm, although, man was created by God. Therefore, prior to this, our beings did not exist. Maybe I'm missing something?

In LDS theology/cosmology man was not created ex nihilo, we are eternal in some form even if that form has changed over time. Joseph Smith had this to say on the eternal nature of man:

“I am dwelling on the immortality of the spirit of man. Is it logical to say that the intelligence of spirits is immortal, and yet that it has a beginning? The intelligence of spirits had no beginning, neither will it have an end. That is good logic. That which has a beginning may have an end. There never was a time when there were not spirits. …

“… I take my ring from my finger and liken it unto the mind of man—the immortal part, because it had no beginning. Suppose you cut it in two; then it has a beginning and an end; but join it again, and it continues one eternal round. So with the spirit of man. As the Lord liveth, if it had a beginning, it will have an end. All the fools and learned and wise men from the beginning of creation, who say that the spirit of man had a beginning, prove that it must have an end; and if that doctrine is true, then the doctrine of annihilation would be true. But if I am right, I might with boldness proclaim from the house-tops that God never had the power to create the spirit of man at all. God himself could not create himself.

Link: Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith Chapter 17: The Great Plan of Salvation

Edited June 3, 2012 by Dravin

[Vort]

Hmm, although, man was created by God. Therefore, prior to this, our beings did not exist. Maybe I'm missing something?

Joseph Smith taught that we are "co-equal" with God in the sense that both we and God are uncreated, existing for all eternity. Roberts interpreted "co-equal" to mean "co-eternal", if that sounds better to you.

[Guest]

Hmm, although, man was created by God. Therefore, prior to this, our beings did not exist. Maybe I'm missing something?

Okay, since this is in the Christian Beliefs Board, I'm going to present to you 2 beliefs - the Catholic and the LDS.

Catholic - Man is not the same species as God. God created man from dust. Body AND Spirit. So yes, in Catholic doctrine, God is eternal (no beginning no end) but Man begins at conception, his body dies, but his Spirit lives on forever.

LDS - Man is the same species as God with eternal spirits. God organized our spiritual energies to give us direction - a progression. The Plan of Salvation is part of that progression. Out of this Plan, we are given mortal bodies that is a product of Jesus' Creation (how exactly it is created, we don't know), therefore, between conception and birth, our eternal spirits join our mortal bodies to fulfill this stage of progression. After death, our eternal spirits leave our mortal bodies to move on with the next stage. Our spirits then continue to progress in eternity either in the full presence of God or without it.

[Arnolt]

Let's see what science has told us: This universe is at least a four-dimensional continuum, you can call it "space-time". But there seem to be even more dimensions, as we have learned from the Quantum Theory. And the problem is to bring both theories, the Theory of Relativity and the Quantum Theory together, to create a "AUT" (German for "Allumfassende Theorie der Natur"), that means one theory about nature. There are several beginnings, such as the String Theory or the Superstring Theory. But the results have not been statisfactural. Well, if even the scientists don't understand how things work in this universe (or multiverse?) yet, how can we understand, as non-scientists? We talk about "time", we talk about "eternity", we talk about "immortality", but we haven't even understood the most profound principles of this universe and its nature. So, what are we talking about? We seem to be helpless. Our ability to imagine and to understand has not been developed far enough to understand.

Well, if we only could see and understand the Allmighty's. If our spirits will last forever or have been lasting "forever" (because "foreverness has no beginning and no end) is what God the Allmighty might intend with these spirits. There is always one question, people who don't believe in God ask quite often: "There are so many bad and crueful things that happen, so much evil, an why does God allow these things to happen?" The answer, in my opinion, is that God ist allmightyful! He is the master of all dimensions, the master of space and time, of "reality". He can make things unhappen! And these crueful things will only last in our personal imagination or memory. And the one beloved we might have lost will live on in one of the universes God has created! And it has never happened to him or her! So, one of the most important questions for me is: what is reality at all? An imagination? A probability? We should not take our view of reality as the one and only or absolute one. God keeps more secrets for us than we can imagine.

Is God infinite or immortal?... I think he ist infinite, in a way we don't understand. So he might be immortal. But "mortality" is a description that comes from biology, and so I wouldn't transfer it to describe God. A living thing, or being, is destinated to die, but this is a biological description of changing from one status to another, from cell-activity to non-activity, to death. Well, I'm afraid we don't use the right words for all that, and we mix it all up to a cocktail that at last doesn't come up to our wishes and expectations...

Edited June 11, 2012 by Arnolt

[mtman318]

In reply to the OP... I understand the distinctions you are making, and I will respond according to my understanding. First, God is certainly infinite as far as His existence is concerned, and so are we, as others have pointed out.

Second, I'm not sure if "immortal" is the right word to use for what you are describing (actually I'm not sure if any such word exists, in English at least). Whatever the word is, I think it accurately describes God's position as God, as well as His attributes, power, etc. In other words, as Joseph Smith taught, God was not always as He is now, but He went through the experience of mortality on another world (probably in another universe entirely), resurrection, etc. So His Godhood had a beginning, but it will not end.

I suspect there's far more that we don't know about these things than what we do know, like Arnolt pointed out.

[SteveVH]

LDS - Man is the same species as God with eternal spirits. God organized our spiritual energies to give us direction - a progression.

And who organized God?

The Plan of Salvation is part of that progression. Out of this Plan, we are given mortal bodies that is a product of Jesus' Creation (how exactly it is created, we don't know), therefore, between conception and birth, our eternal spirits join our mortal bodies to fulfill this stage of progression. After death, our eternal spirits leave our mortal bodies to move on with the next stage. Our spirits then continue to progress in eternity either in the full presence of God or without it.

So what you are saying is that, other than our mortal bodies, God really has little to do with our existence. We exist of our own power (eternal) and when we die we will continue to progress with or without God. Do I understand you correctly?