Heavenly Father Doesn’t Have a Magic Wand


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Sometimes I think we get Heavenly Father and Dumbledore a little confused. I don't mean that we think He's a huge fan of "Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans" or that He has a pet phoenix named Fawkes — but I do think we sometimes imagine that He's in heaven waving a magic wand around to grant all our requests. But that's not how heaven works. There aren't magic wands and Heavenly Father doesn't typically grant wishes like a genie with no questions asked. Our Father in Heaven has the power to do everything for us, but He doesn't — because He wants us to become like Him. He didn't become God by having everything done for Him. He helps us to achieve our own desires, but He doesn't wave a magic wand and give us everything we've ever asked for. He wants so much better for us than simple wish fulfillment. God Wants Us To Help Ourselves I think of this principle kind of like teaching a child to clean up after themselves. If...

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Didn't read the article, just the opening paragraph.  I found this to be another one of those articles written for style and forgetting reverence so I couldn't open the article to read it.  When talking about our Heavenly Father, we should not talk about him as to speak for Him on what He will and will not do in the work of  individual salvation.  For example, "Heavenly Father doesn't wave a magic wand to..." .  We don't speak of Our Heavenly Father and put limitations on Him.  Rather, we speak of Heavenly Father as the creator of all things and if it is His will to wave a magic wand in the work of salvation, it is not for us to limit Him and say He won't.  I understand the thought the writer was trying to portray - that God doesn't simply grant us what we pray for because we wished for it.   But saying, "He wants us to Help Ourselves" is missing the mark.  The proper statement is - He wants us to align our will to His such that what we pray for and desire is what God wills for us.

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The overall article strikes me as solid.  I think, in describing the false concept of God that many have, Santa Claus would be a more apropos comparison than Dumbledore, since Dumbledore actually does sit back and let Harry do quite a lot on his own.  

But, Santa Claus doesn’t get clicks like Dumbledore does . . . ;) 

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I kind of get where she is coming from, I just finished reading the article, and the an extent I agree. Her main point seems to be that in order to receive blessings we have to be actively engaged in a good cause, and striving to follow the commandments, which is true. 

The problem I have with her statements is that God very often does do miraculous things for us, or waves a magic wand as she puts it, that are beyond anything we deserve. I've had powerful experiences in my life where God has miraculously intervened, and I haven't always been actively engaged in a good cause at the time these things happened. God is our Father. Just like I, an imperfect and fallen mortal being, sometimes do good things for my daughter just because I love her, so too does the infinitely better Father of us all do good things for his children just because he loves us. So while I do get where the author is coming from, and to an extent I agree, I feel like she's leaning a little too heavily on good works, and forgetting the Grace of Christ in the process. But a good article overall, that's just my little nitpick☺.

Edited by Midwest LDS
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Guest Mores

Amy, Amy, Amy.  You're beautiful just the way you are -- no rom-com makeover required.  Don't worry about it.  Just ask your husband.  He'll tell you.

I kind of wonder what your chronic illness is.  I have a relative with a chronic condition.  And no one has been able to figure it out.

For the article.  I got the point.  And I see a couple of disagreements here.  But like many points of the gospel, it is a matter of balance. It's rarely all one sided.

  • We can't always be capable of dealing with it on our own.  We need help.
  • But God helps those who help themselves.
Edited by Mores
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On 6/18/2019 at 7:52 AM, Just_A_Guy said:

The overall article strikes me as solid.  I think, in describing the false concept of God that many have, Santa Claus would be a more apropos comparison than Dumbledore, since Dumbledore actually does sit back and let Harry do quite a lot on his own.  

But, Santa Claus doesn’t get clicks like Dumbledore does . . . ;) 

The implication seems to be that Good sits back...?

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This is another of these articles where, after reading it, I say to myself, "Self, that was a pretty good article, and I mostly agreed with it, but I wouldn't have put it that way."

One of my Muslim friend's articles of faith was that Allah could do anything. Literally anything. He was I Dream of Jeannie God. You name it, he can do it. In contrast, our scriptures leave no doubt that there are things God cannot do. Not merely chooses not to do, but cannot do, like save people in their sins. My Muslim friend would undoubtedly have said that God can save whomever he wants, including infidels, but that for the most part, he chooses not to. Allah could save the sinful people into a wonderful paradise if he chose to do so.

But orthodox Latter-day Saints simply do not believe such things. God is indeed limited, not by a deficiency of power or of knowledge, but by our agency and by the simple meaning of words. Thus, God CANNOT "save" a sinful, unrepentant man, because the term "salvation" implies sinlessness—it's sin we are being saved from.

Far from being a deficiency in God's power, it's just a word game: God "can't" create a rock so big that he "can't" lift it, because if he did, it would mean there's a rock too big for an All-Powerful God to lift. So either God is deficient in lifting power of sufficiently huge rocks, or else God is deficient in his ability to create such sufficiently huge rocks.

Baloney. This is no longer a discussion of God's abilities, but of how we choose to define and parse words. There are plenty of meaningless "things" that God can't "do". One of those "things" might be "do something for someone that he can do for himself but refuses to do." One non-existent thing that God for sure cannot do is give us a blessing from heaven without our having fulfilled the divine law attached to that blessing.

Bottom line: God isn't I Dream of Jeannie. We would do well to come to grips with that simple fact.

barbara_eden_i_dream_of_jeannie_photo_by

(Not God)

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4 hours ago, Vort said:

Bottom line: God isn't I Dream of Jeannie. We would do well to come to grips with that simple fact.

barbara_eden_i_dream_of_jeannie_photo_by

(Not God)

But a lot more men would be willing to bow down and worship, if that were so. :P

Edited by Mores
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10 hours ago, Vort said:

This is another of these articles where, after reading it, I say to myself, "Self, that was a pretty good article, and I mostly agreed with it, but I wouldn't have put it that way."

One of my Muslim friend's articles of faith was that Allah could do anything. Literally anything. He was I Dream of Jeannie God. You name it, he can do it. In contrast, our scriptures leave no doubt that there are things God cannot do. Not merely chooses not to do, but cannot do, like save people in their sins. My Muslim friend would undoubtedly have said that God can save whomever he wants, including infidels, but that for the most part, he chooses not to. Allah could save the sinful people into a wonderful paradise if he chose to do so.

But orthodox Latter-day Saints simply do not believe such things. God is indeed limited, not by a deficiency of power or of knowledge, but by our agency and by the simple meaning of words. Thus, God CANNOT "save" a sinful, unrepentant man, because the term "salvation" implies sinlessness—it's sin we are being saved from.

Far from being a deficiency in God's power, it's just a word game: God "can't" create a rock so big that he "can't" lift it, because if he did, it would mean there's a rock too big for an All-Powerful God to lift. So either God is deficient in lifting power of sufficiently huge rocks, or else God is deficient in his ability to create such sufficiently huge rocks.

Baloney. This is no longer a discussion of God's abilities, but of how we choose to define and parse words. There are plenty of meaningless "things" that God can't "do". One of those "things" might be "do something for someone that he can do for himself but refuses to do." One non-existent thing that God for sure cannot do is give us a blessing from heaven without our having fulfilled the divine law attached to that blessing.

Bottom line: God isn't I Dream of Jeannie. We would do well to come to grips with that simple fact.

barbara_eden_i_dream_of_jeannie_photo_by

(Not God)

One of the Beauties in LDS Teaching which are integral to my conversion is the teaching of what GODHOOD is.  2 Nephi 2 is my favorite scripture for this reason.  God CAN do anything - he has perfect knowledge.  The non-Trinitarian teaching that what makes Him God is not his substance (ousia) but His WILL is a lightning to the brain of this former Catholic who believes God is all powerful.  God CAN save unrepentant infidels.  But God does not WILL it.  Willing so would make him cease to be God.

And that's why our free will was absolutely necessary to our salvation.  We cannot be Gods like our Father if we do not freely WILL that which is God's as the Father does.  And therefore, God does not grant us what we will, even as he has the power to grant it, if such desire brings us farther from Godhood.

Edited by anatess2
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10 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

God CAN save unrepentant infidels.  But God does not WILL it.  Willing so would make him cease to be God.

This is the same as saying God can't do it. Because God cannot and will not "cease to be God"—which is exactly why that turn of phrase is used in scripture. It's a type of argumentum ad absurdum.

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40 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

God CAN save unrepentant infidels.  [...] Willing so would make him cease to be God.

If He can do anything, then how come He couldn't WILL Himself to not cease to be God after willing the saving of unrepentant infidels?

Edited by The Folk Prophet
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1 hour ago, The Folk Prophet said:

If He can do anything, then how come He couldn't WILL Himself to not cease to be God after willing the saving of unrepentant infidels?

Because He is not God because of what He can do.  He is God because of what He Chooses to do.  Quite simple really.

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2 hours ago, Vort said:

This is the same as saying God can't do it. Because God cannot and will not "cease to be God"—which is exactly why that turn of phrase is used in scripture. It's a type of argumentum ad absurdum.

There's a contextual difference - as is my issue with the article - between Can't - denoting a lack of ability and Won't - denoting a choice.

The context is important when we talk reverently about Heavenly Father (which is the only proper way of talking about Him).  Reverence requires that we do not presuppose what God Will and Will not do for the salvation of individual souls as an acknowledgment of our limitations of knowledge.  Rather, we acknowledge that God CAN do anything if He so Wills it and acknowledge the things that He does and does not want US to do.

Edited by anatess2
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Guest Mores

So, if Jeannie (of I Dream of Jeannie) and Djinni (of Aladdin) were to get into a fight, would Dr. Strange have to form another infinity stone with Tony Stark's nanites manufactured out of a vibranium-uru alloy?

Edited by Mores
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5 hours ago, The Folk Prophet said:

If He can do anything, then how come He couldn't WILL Himself to not cease to be God after willing the saving of unrepentant infidels?

Better answer:  God can do anything that is possible; He cannot do everything that is imaginable.  Some things are imaginable, but not possible; other things are possible although we may struggle to understand or even imagine them.

EDIT:  Reasonable Extrapolation:  God did not raise himself up to be God; He is God because he lives according to the laws upon which such is established.  Similarly we will not raise ourselves up to inherit celestial glory, but will attain it by living according to the laws upon which such is predicated.

Edited by person0
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Just now, person0 said:

Better answer:  God can do anything that is possible; He cannot do everything that is imaginable.  Some things are imaginable, but not possible; other things are possible although we may struggle to understand or even imagine them.

Right. The point I'm getting at is @anatess2's claim that God could save infidels, it's just not His will to do so.

The idea has clearly not been thought out well on her part.

If by "save" we mean "exalt" (which we do), and if by exalting they become gods (which they do), and if one of the requirements of being a god is that said individual's will is godly, then how is it, logically, that if God would cease to be God by having a certain will, that the gods he'd theoretically save into godhood wouldn't fail to be gods by their wills, and therefore not be saved afterall?

@Vort used the making a stone so large even He could not lift it wordplay idea -- But it's more like using two ideas that are mutually exclusive. They aren't saved by virtue of what they are. An unrepentant sinner cannot be saved because to be saved is to be repentant. To be a god is to be made perfect. To be unrepentant is not perfect. It just doesn't work.

It's basically saying that God could make evil good if He had the will to do so.

Why do we suppose God would cease to be God if His will and/or actions turned a certain way? Because God is synonymous with good, truth, right, honor, and holiness. It's not like there's some ultra-god that would strip Him of His power if He did something wrong. He cannot do things that are unholy because He IS holiness.  It is what and who He is. Completely, totally, eternally holy.

People tend to talk about the "would cease to be God" thing as if it's an option rather than a literary device. Like God might someday cease to be God because of a choice He makes.

No.

God IS God. Forever, and always. He will never cease to be God because it is what and who He is and we can have absolute, perfect confidence in that one thing if nothing else.

Yes, it is by His will. He's not forced. But by that same virtue, he cannot therefore force others. Therefore -- He cannot save unrepentant infidels.

CANNOT!

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26 minutes ago, person0 said:

EDIT:  Reasonable Extrapolation:  God did not raise himself up to be God; He is God because he lives according to the laws upon which such is established.  Similarly we will not raise ourselves up to inherit celestial glory, but will attain it by living according to the laws upon which such is predicated.

But there is something more to it as well -- because we could live according to the laws upon which such is predicated and we would still remain unsaved without Christ.

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12 minutes ago, The Folk Prophet said:

we would still remain unsaved without Christ

Because of the covenants we make at baptism and various stages throughout our lives, I was including the role that Christ fulfills as part of the 'upon which it is predicated'.

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FA1957EC-08B9-4E52-8C03-DC91BDE48518.gif.d676d53d869714bddafb2fe4b4d4e275.gif

Good thing God isn’t Jeanie.  Otherwise the Universe would have self annihilated a long time ago...

I like Asimov’s character R. Daneel Olivaw for a fictional character to represent Almighty.  He might be eternal, can read minds, lives by a code to protect humanity, and is continually learning.  He also influences mankind by manipulating society from the background.

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