Timing of Practicing Polygamy

[clbent04]

One of the most controversial topics of Mormonism, Polygamy, has troubled me for some time, but for different reasons than what most people get hung up on.

My issue: Why would God introduce Mormons to the practice of polygamy only to restrict it, and then say the restriction is only temporary and that Polygamy is indeed a true eternal doctrine to be embraced by those worthy and willing at a later time? 

When has God ever introduced something as a true eternal doctrine only to later restrict it until further notice?

This kind of back and forth practising of eternally true doctrine does not follow the nature of God as I know and understand it. 

Some have said that the Lord had to restrict Polygamy because while it is a true eternal doctrine, had the Church continued to practice it, it would of led to the Church's demise considering the United States was very close to shutting down the Church back in the 1800's. But how does this type of thinking make sense?

Since when has God been dependent on man in the timing of his designs?  Why would Polygamy need to be embraced by popular consent of man in order to be allowed to be practiced?  When has God ever done anything that was popular to the mainstream?  Did he send His son Jesus Christ to Earth during a time that it was safe and popular to accept someone as the Savior of mankind? Did King Harold not command all new born male babies be killed? Why then would Mormons and the Church be sparred from persecution by no longer needing to practice polygamy?

Even if the Lord hasn't revealed why He decided we should stop practicing polygamy for a period of time, it's reasonable to question if it makes sense in relation to who we understand God to be. Is God a god of consistently, is He not always in control even if the odds are stacked against His chosen, and where in the Bible have we ever seen anything similar to an eternally true doctrine being introduced only later be restricted until further notice?

[Sunday21]

Here is an interesting perspective on polygamy 

 

[Sunday21]

The first of a number of interesting discussions on pologamy

 

[zil]

7 hours ago, clbent04 said:

When has God ever introduced something as a true eternal doctrine only to later restrict it until further notice?

There was this time when Moses came down off the mountain with the higher law...

7 hours ago, clbent04 said:

Since when has God been dependent on man in the timing of his designs?

The scriptures are full of examples of God allowing man his agency.  I submit this is no different.

[Sunday21]

3 minutes ago, zil said:

 

When has God ever introduced something as a true eternal doctrine only to later restrict it until further notice?

When God introduced the United Order and then withdrew it and introduced tithing instead.

[Sunday21]

2 Some Pharisees came and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” 

3 “What did Moses command you?”he replied. 

4 They said, “Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away.” 

5 “It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law,”Jesus replied. 

6 “But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.

Mark 10:2-6

Edited August 5, 2017 by Sunday21

[zil]

13 minutes ago, Sunday21 said:

When God introduced the United Order and then withdrew it and introduced tithing instead.

I don't think tithing was "instead" - rather, I think it was kept and the United Order ended (I think they both existed at the same time).  But yes, the United Order is an example.

[zil]

Also, D&C 124:49.

[Vort]

7 hours ago, clbent04 said:

My issue: Why would God introduce Mormons to the practice of polygamy only to restrict it, and then say the restriction is only temporary and that Polygamy is indeed a true eternal doctrine to be embraced by those worthy and willing at a later time? 

When has God ever introduced something as a true eternal doctrine only to later restrict it until further notice?

When has he not?

• As zil has pointed out, the events surrounding Moses and the children of Israel are exactly that, entailing not only a radical change in divine plan as carefully laid out previously, but the definition of a theretofore unknown Priesthood! (At least I know of no mention of the "lesser" Priesthood before its being declared for the sons of Levi.)
• The inheritances of the children of Israel, declared to be eternal, have languished for thousands of years. Only now are the first tentative steps finally being taken that might -- MIGHT -- eventually result in their restoration, and even that is unknown at this point.
• The events surrounding the inheritance of Jackson county in Missouri, and those of the later Nauvoo period, are also obvious examples of divine, eternal promises first enacted, then delayed.
• One could argue that the events of the garden of Eden and their implications for the resulting history of the entire human race are exactly such a thing. I certainly see them as such.

Our very lives, the fact that we lived with God in the realms of eternity and seek to return there, our repentance (and lack thereof), and the building up of our families follow this exact same pattern of blessings promised and sometimes extended, then withdrawn until later -- sometimes much, much later.

8 hours ago, clbent04 said:

Since when has God been dependent on man in the timing of his designs?

Since the beginning. You should review the history of God's many attempts to bless mankind. Focus especially on what follows after men's (common) decision not to accept God's blessings.

8 hours ago, clbent04 said:

This kind of back and forth practising of eternally true doctrine does not follow the nature of God as I know and understand it.

Then this is strong evidence that you don't know and understand God's nature very well.

8 hours ago, clbent04 said:

Some have said that the Lord had to restrict Polygamy because while it is a true eternal doctrine, had the Church continued to practice it, it would of led to the Church's demise considering the United States was very close to shutting down the Church back in the 1800's. But how does this type of thinking make sense?

President Woodruff informed the Saints of his time that one of the consequences of continuing plural marriage would have been the destruction of the Church. He did not say that was the reason for his (Woodruff's) decision to end polygamy, only that it was presented to him as a part of the full picture. God could not fight the Saints' battles in this thing, because the Saints had not fulfilled the covenant.

What President Woodruff did not say in the so-called Manifesto, but what comes through (to me) in the historical accounts both of plural marriage and of its end, is that the practice of plural marriage was not then being lived in the manner God had commanded, and never really had been. It had been an attempt to implement a revealed higher law -- something that is always required of us when we receive revelation of law. But reading historical accounts of plural marriage reveals that, in most cases, it was a nonstop trial, and that its participants -- men and women alike -- seemed to miss the central celestial, uniting features that plural marriage should have provided to those families. The Saints having failed to implement the law as it had been revealed to them, the Lord accepted as sufficient their sacrifice in their struggles and allowed his prophet to lead the Church in another direction. And so the covenant was taken, as well as the blessings associated with it.

Had the United States not been threatening to, in effect, destroy the Church itself, would the commandment for plural marriage have been taken from them? That's speculative, of course. My speculation is that, no, it would not have been taken at that time. But if the Saints had continued not to live the law of plural marriage in the manner and Spirit intended, it probably eventually would have been taken.

8 hours ago, clbent04 said:

Since when has God been dependent on man in the timing of his designs?

Since the beginning.

8 hours ago, clbent04 said:

Why would Polygamy need to be embraced by popular consent of man in order to be allowed to be practiced?  When has God ever done anything that was popular to the mainstream?  Did he send His son Jesus Christ to Earth during a time that it was safe and popular to accept someone as the Savior of mankind? Did King Harold not command all new born male babies be killed? Why then would Mormons and the Church be sparred from persecution by no longer needing to practice polygamy?

I believe you are not considering the ideas I presented above.

8 hours ago, clbent04 said:

Even if the Lord hasn't revealed why He decided we should stop practicing polygamy for a period of time, it's reasonable to question if it makes sense in relation to who we understand God to be. Is God a god of consistently, is He not always in control even if the odds are stacked against His chosen, and where in the Bible have we ever seen anything similar to an eternally true doctrine being introduced only later be restricted until further notice?

I think that it is reasonable for you to investigate the foundations of your own testimony. This work is indeed of God, and the Church is in very fact the kingdom of God upon the Earth. If you don't understand that, then of course any questionable element of the Church's history will not ring true to you. The defect does not lie in the Church's history or in God's actions.

[Sunday21]

58 minutes ago, zil said:

I don't think tithing was "instead" - rather, I think it was kept and the United Order ended (I think they both existed at the same time).  But yes, the United Order is an example.

Elder Marion G. Romney, then a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, explained how the law of tithing prepares us to live the law of consecration:

“The principles underlying the United Order are consecration and stewardships and then the contribution of surpluses into the bishop’s storehouse. When the law of tithing was instituted four years after the United Order experiment was suspended, the Lord required the people to put ‘all their surplus property … into the hands of the bishop’ (D&C 119:1); thereafter they were to ‘pay one-tenth of all their interest annually. …’ (D&C 119:4.) 

Doctrine and Covenants and Church History Student Study Guide, (2005), 135–137

 

[Guest]

42 minutes ago, Vort said:

I think that it is reasonable for you to investigate the foundations of your own testimony.

I interpret this OP and the other thread he started to mean that he is not LDS.

[Just_A_Guy]

I wish I could remember the source; but about five years ago I came across a paper suggesting that through most of the territorial period, women tended to convert to Mormonism more than men did; so polygamy could be practiced in utah without creating the "lost boys" problem faced by the FLDS (gender ratios in Utah Territory as a whole were roughly equal; but that was because of a surfeit of non-LDS soldiers and miners starting around the time of the Civil War; and most LDS girls wouldn't have considered these men "marriageable" anyways). 

But by the 1880s-1890s, the LDS male-to-female ratio was leveling out; and continued widespread polygamy would have started to create significant issues.

[Sunday21]

@Just_A_Guy. I am sceptical.

In most frontier societies, there have been fewer women than men. Women tended to die in childbirth and were less able and more reluctant to move to the frontier. I recall a recent 12 year old survivor of the Donner party being proposed to due to the shortage of women. 

What little education, I have had on this subject refers to Canada not Us. There are significant differences eg in C, we sent law enforcement and government before people but still...

[Just_A_Guy]

5 minutes ago, Sunday21 said:

@Just_A_Guy. I am sceptical.

In most frontier societies, there have been fewer women than men. Women tended to die in childbirth and were less able and more reluctant to move to the frontier. I recall a recent 12 year old survivor of the Donner party being proposed to due to the shortage of women. 

What little education, I have had on this subject refers to Canada not Us. There are significant differences eg in C, we sent law enforcement and government before people but still...

Ordinarily, yes; because single women had little impetus to wander off into Indian country.

But in Utah the driving factor for migration was religious belief, and since Mormon converts skewed female, Utah became something of an aberration.

[clbent04]

@zil the Law of Moses was never an eternally true doctrine. God did not intend for "an eye for eye" to be practiced forever.

[zil]

1 minute ago, clbent04 said:

@zil the Law of Moses was never an eternally true doctrine. God did not intend for "an eye for eye" to be practiced forever.

The Law of Moses isn't the thing that was revoked.  It was the temporary replacement.

[Sunday21]

@Just_A_Guy. This may be the article to which you were referring which does indeed support your point!

https://www.fairmormon.org/blog/2010/10/12/go-west-young-man-and-sex-ratios

[clbent04]

@zil the Law of Moses was built upon with a higher law, correct? this is not the same as introducing an eternally true principle and then restricting the practicing of it until further notice

Edited August 5, 2017 by clbent04

[clbent04]

@Sunday21 the United Order is a good example, but I was looking for an example outside the Mormon religion. it's not really supporting example if it's coming from the same source. Is there an example in the Bible where God introduces an eternally true principle and then restricts the practicing of it until further notice?

Edited August 5, 2017 by clbent04

[Just_A_Guy]

17 minutes ago, Sunday21 said:

@Just_A_Guy. This may be the article to which you were referring which does indeed support your point!

https://www.fairmormon.org/blog/2010/10/12/go-west-young-man-and-sex-ratios

I believe that's the one.  Thanks!

[Sunday21]

6 minutes ago, clbent04 said:

@Sunday21 the United Order is a good example, but I was looking for an example outside the Mormon religion. it's not really supporting evidence if it's coming from the same source. Is there an example in the Bible where God introduces an eternally true principle and then restricts the practicing of it until further notice?

Supporting documentation from outside Mormonism? Well to me all revelation to people anywhere is part of lds theology.

Not really support if it comes from the same source? Fine for writing an academic paper but...we are discussing the nature of divinity so of course it comes from the same source. To a practising Mormon, all revelation comes from the same source. 

However, Mark 10:2-6, referenced in this thread. 

[clbent04]

@Sunday21 I don't think Mark 10:2-6 is a a good example.  Divorces were permitted as part of a learning curve for mankind, not something that was meant to be eternally practiced. Polygamy is meant to be eternally practiced  

[clbent04]

22 minutes ago, Sunday21 said:

Supporting documentation from outside Mormonism? Well to me all revelation to people anywhere is part of lds theology.

@Sunday21 The United Order was a good example from your point of view embracing all Mormon teachings.  But from my point of view, someone wanting to understand how Mormonism makes sense in relation to the Bible, I remain skeptical when the only other relevant examples lie within the Mormon church

[clbent04]

@Vort thanks for the thoughtful reply. I really like your perspective on considering other factors that may have led up to the ban on practicing polygamy.

As far as your response to when has God ever introduced something as a true eternal doctrine only to later restrict it until further notice, most of your examples are not doctrine or principle specific, they are blessings or promises.  While some may say the practicing of Polygamy is a blessing, it is not simply a blessing, it's an eternal principle.  

I have yet to find an example in this thread that is on point to other instances outside the Mormon Church where God has introduced something as a true eternal principle only to later restrict it until further notice

4 hours ago, Vort said:

When has he not?

• As zil has pointed out, the events surrounding Moses and the children of Israel are exactly that, entailing not only a radical change in divine plan as carefully laid out previously, but the definition of a theretofore unknown Priesthood! (At least I know of no mention of the "lesser" Priesthood before its being declared for the sons of Levi.)
• The inheritances of the children of Israel, declared to be eternal, have languished for thousands of years. Only now are the first tentative steps finally being taken that might -- MIGHT -- eventually result in their restoration, and even that is unknown at this point.
• The events surrounding the inheritance of Jackson county in Missouri, and those of the later Nauvoo period, are also obvious examples of divine, eternal promises first enacted, then delayed.
• One could argue that the events of the garden of Eden and their implications for the resulting history of the entire human race are exactly such a thing. I certainly see them as such.

 

 

[Just_A_Guy]

31 minutes ago, clbent04 said:

@Sunday21 I don't think Mark 10:2-6 is a a good example.  Divorces were permitted as part of a learning curve for mankind, not something that was meant to be eternally practiced. Polygamy is meant to be eternally practiced  

But then, your fundamental assumption here has to be that marriage wasn't meant to be eternally practiced, either.  In fact, if you take Paul the way most Christians (not us) choose to interpret him, it is *singleness* that is the divine eternal ideal; and marriage that is the temporary withdrawal of the commandment due to human weakness.

In a larger sense, it seems to me that we're drafting questions very artfully here.  If the question is "Does God have ideal in mind for us that He puts into abeyance due to our own weakness?", then the answer is clearly "yes" even from a Biblical perspective--see, e.g., fall of Adam, Law of Moses, governance of Israel (kings vs judges), marriage, common ownership of property, thousand-year reign of Jesus over the earth, et cetera.

The *real* questions here, and the ones I think you're driving at, are whether God would explicitly tell us that He plans for some of us, someday, to be doing something that we aren't doing now; and whether He would let us take a stab at living a higher standard knowing ab initio that we would fail.

This preoccupation over "eternal principles" strikes me as a red herring.  Polygamy, we believe, will exist in the hereafter; but it won't be universally practiced.  If I say that horticulture will exist in the hereafter--does that become an "eternal principle", and should it trigger a crisis of faith if the Church farm decides not to plant barley this year?

Edited August 5, 2017 by Just_A_Guy