Who was God the Father's "wife"?

[fatima]

Changed, this is very troubling for me. As parents, none of us wills that our children come to know sin/evil. Earthly parents would do anything in their power to avoid knowing the evils of this world. When your children accept and continue to live a good, Mormon life, does it have more meaning because they know (have committed) some evil/sin; to the point that you prefer that they actually go out and sin before they come back to the faith? That sounds to me like exactly what you think God the Father did. Can you explain it any differently?
God gave us free will, yes, but His Will was that we would freely choose His Will as opposed to our own.

[changed]

Originally Posted by fatima

Changed, this is very troubling for me. As parents, none of us wills that our children come to know sin/evil. Earthly parents would do anything in their power to avoid knowing the evils of this world. When your children accept and continue to live a good, Mormon life, does it have more meaning because they know (have committed) some evil/sin; to the point that you prefer that they actually go out and sin before they come back to the faith? That sounds to me like exactly what you think God the Father did. Can you explain it any differently?
God gave us free will, yes, but His Will was that we would freely choose His Will as opposed to our own.

I wasn't posting about evil, but about a body. Sort of like asking - would you rather live underwater have gills breathe water? or would you rather breathe air? Until you have actually experienced living underwater like a fish, you will not be able to make an informed choice on which you would prefer. Would you rather live as a spirit or have a body? The answer from a spirit is "I don't know, let me try both out and see which is better, then I can tell you my choice." There are those few spirits who "choose" to come to Earth, but after all is said and done, "it were better for them had they not been born" - some rare few choose to live as spirits only with no bodies. I can hear them now - "I did not know what I was getting into, you put me into this without my will, I did not sign up for this!" and they would be right.

As far as experiencing evil in order to know what evil is - let me quote CSLewis

"You know the strength of something by standing up and fighting against it, not by laying down and letting it overpower you."
ie - you don't have to sin to know what evil is. Jesus understands what evil is better than any of the rest of us. I am NOT advocating that anyone should go out and "experience evil" in order to make an informed choice on it. They will come to a better understanding of what evil is by standing up and fighting against it than by laying down and being overpowered by it.

clear as mud?

[fatima]

I guess we've gone off a bit from the original topic, which still puzzles me. The LDS church teaches that "families are forever", and that you are sealed to your spouse for eternity. It is also my understanding that LDS believe that the men who reach exaltation will be God the Father (so to speak) of their own planets. Will they/could they be bearing children with earthly women as God the Father of this planet did with Mary? How do LDS women feel about this?
Did Mary effectively practice polyandry, being married to Joseph as well as bearing the Christ?

[Islander]

Originally Posted by fatima

I guess we've gone off a bit from the original topic, which still puzzles me. The LDS church teaches that "families are forever", and that you are sealed to your spouse for eternity. It is also my understanding that LDS believe that the men who reach exaltation will be God the Father (so to speak) of their own planets. Will they/could they be bearing children with earthly women as God the Father of this planet did with Mary? How do LDS women feel about this?
Did Mary effectively practice polyandry, being married to Joseph as well as bearing the Christ?

What you referred as "teachings" were parts and portions of sermons offered by the Prophet and others in the early times of the Church. There is a fair amount of speculation and tangential reasoning when it comes to those portions of doctrine of which no specific or detailed revelation exist.

What may or may not happen a trillion years from now has little to do with our salvation for which we are ALL dependent on Christ. What degree of exaltation and stewardship we are to receive in the kingdom of our God is up to our Heavenly Father. Sufice to say that we know next to nothing in regards to the subject.

[deseretgov]

Originally Posted by fatima

I guess we've gone off a bit from the original topic, which still puzzles me. The LDS church teaches that "families are forever", and that you are sealed to your spouse for eternity. It is also my understanding that LDS believe that the men who reach exaltation will be God the Father (so to speak) of their own planets. Will they/could they be bearing children with earthly women as God the Father of this planet did with Mary? How do LDS women feel about this?

Well I don't think God did any thing with Mary that would qualify as reproducing with her. We read it was the Holy Ghost that came upon Mary. The way I think of it is that God simply commanded the atoms within Mary to come together in a certain pattern. There wasn't a relationship involved.

Did Mary effectively practice polyandry, being married to Joseph as well as bearing the Christ?

I would say no since Mary wasn't married to God nor did she have a relationship with Him.

[fatima]

Originally Posted by deseretgov

Well I don't think God did any thing with Mary that would qualify as reproducing with her. We read it was the Holy Ghost that came upon Mary. The way I think of it is that God simply commanded the atoms within Mary to come together in a certain pattern. There wasn't a relationship involved.



I would say no since Mary wasn't married to God nor did she have a relationship with Him.

Okay, so "God commanded the atoms". I'm pretty sure you're using those terms for brevity sake, not to minimize.
Does that mean that LDS teaches that all of Christ's humanity came from Mary? IOW, my church (Catholic) does teach that because we believe God the Father is all spirit, and the union of the divine and the human we call the "hypostatic union". But LDS teaches that God has a physical makeup, right? And earlier it was said that God the Father and a heavenly mother created or begat the spirit child (don't know what else to call it) of Jesus? So, did the Father's physicalilty contribute to Jesus' physicality? (Did I ask that question earlier?) I mean, if you could do a DNA test on Jesus, we would only find Mary's DNA? No that such silliness really has any bearing on matters of faith.
Mortality and immortality, physical makeup and pure spirit makeup are all mutually exclusive from one another, and are combined to make up souls at different stages of their existence/progression?
I'm probably starting to not make sense (and I guess that's because I'm trying to get in a few posts what LDS have spent years studying, and I'm confused!)