Quote:
Originally Posted by Dove
Hello, everyone;
Traveler, I really appreciate your point of view and beliefs. It sounds like you have a lot of doctrinal references to back up what you are saying.
I strongly agree with you. You have said far better than I could have what I have already believed on this topic.
I was taught years ago in seminary that God is all-knowing. My seminary teacher taught us using a book and the law of gravity. A lot of the other students struggled with reconciling how God could know everything and yet not be responsible for causing our actions. Also, why should we go through earth life if He already knew the choices we would make.
I believed the lesson at face value at the time; meaning, I accepted it as true as much for it being taught as doctrine of the LDS church as for truly understanding the doctrine and its ramifications...
As I've studied the scriptures over the years, I am convinced of the teaching that God is all knowing/omniscient. I believe this both because of how often it is quoted in the scriptures and the several people I have met who have the gift of knowing me and my thoughts through means other than my telling them or them simply observing me. I.E. knowing things about me they could have only known from a spiritual realm.
I also was told in a priesthood blessing years ago that I had agreed to having diabetes in this mortal state. It makes sense to me that I agreed to all the trials/tribulations that I have in this state as well as the diabetes. It just makes sense to me......
As far as whether God created us out of nothing, or simply organised us out of eternal matter, I also take the LDS teaching of this on faith. That we were never created, but; are eternal. However, PC brings up a good argument about God still creating us to have free agency and therefore accountability. Otherwise, it becomes quite murky (I've struggled with this doctrine a great deal) to me about how necessary opposition is and how condemned satan is for simply fulfilling prophesy in presenting to us a necessary part for us to truly have agency....Why should he be condemned to eternal outer darkness for doing what was needed to be done in the first place?
One argument is that the adversary still chose to do this and had he not, we still would have had opposition in our lives, regardless.
Any thoughts on this would be most appreciated.
Dove
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the ultimate thing is no one actually had to sin really. we all made that choice. Satan just eggs us on. ultimately Satan didnt need to exist. Jesus didnt need to save us. but by virtue of our sinning we needed these people to do those roles. the whole point of Jesus's role is to save us because we sin. if we never sinned His role would not be needed.
one also must realize i think it was Enoch that sees this is the most wicked of all The Lord's creations....which is quite a telling statement to think this earth stands above all other earths in terms of sheer evil wickedness.
another way of seeing that is this group of people are so bad a Satan was bound to crop up. Lucifer just happened to be the one that wanted to do it.
now do other earths have a Satan? perhaps perhaps not. we do know during the 1000 years of peace we can still sin but sin is different and changed some sins wont exist any longer. i say some earths might lack a Satan because during that thousand years Satan is bound yet sin still exists.
ultimately the concept that God knows everything yet we have free will is murky and our mortal mind cant grasp it. unless youve been allowed to view things how God views them it is rather hard to grasp even then our mortal brains cant quite comprehend it and this is one of those things we really just had to take on faith and leave it at that. sort of how there was always at some point a God. there was never a point where a God did not exist. this concept is impossible for the human brain to figure out really that there always had to be a God to create things and life since God is the creator of all things it stands to reason a God that is also eternal like matter is eternal(as science and DC tell us) there must of always been a God.
in other words if we take our number system that goes on infinitely that is the closest we can get to applying this concept to God. or the number of pi which goes on infinitely as well.
ultimately God knows all. but gives us a choice in the matter. to choose the good from the evil and to obtain a body are the primary functions of earth.