Let’s say you are God of your own world, and have billions of spiritual offspring. You want them all to live with you. Would you just let them all live with you, or would you winnow the crop somehow to only let some live with you. What criteria would you pick? How would you judge them?
We can’t know God’s reasons, but it seems like the Plan of Salvation (AKA Plan of happiness) is very complected as the attached shows.
From the graphic above, or any graphic showing the Plan of Salvation, it is almost like people were making things up to explain why things are like they are. If you can’t remember living with God? That is because he made you forget. Somebody did something really bad? Satan made him do it. Why is Satan ticked off? God rejected his plan. What happens when babies die? They get saved automatically.
So, if you were starting from scratch, what would your plan of salvation look like? Can you think of the simpler way to figure out who should live with you. Since you are god, and are omnipotent and omniscient, you can make up any rules you want, which begs the question on why an omniscient god even needs to have a plan. Can’t he just “know” what his offspring are capable of, and make his selection that way? Go ahead, give it your best shot!
Wheat & Tares 
People tend to look at “Plan of Salvation” charts like the one in the OP as being definite and authoritative. Trouble is, the whole plan isn’t laid out that way in any single place in the scriptures. Rather, it took a lot of study and theorizing to assemble it together out of disjointed concepts and teachings – and the fact that it took so much intellectual effort to put that chart together means that it could have potentially been put together in A LOT of different ways.
J. Stapley over at BCC has a whole menagerie of different “Plans of Salvation” in his post of May 2017 here:
https://bycommonconsent.com/2017/05/22/plans-of-salvation/
The gist of it is that the way we conceptualize the progression of the soul has changed a lot over the years, both during and after the life of the Prophet, and we shouldn’t feel at all confident that the one we’re getting in our lessons today is the “right” one.
I remember that chart. Some of us thought it definitive. Having learned a great deal more and “knowing” a great deal less, it now seems almost comical. Among other things, its apparent ranking of rules (or whatever?) along the “straight and narrow” (which is not at all straight and leaves no room for repentance (all in the past at the gate) seems a bit misleading. Did it mean to limit the second estate to couples with cars in the western hemisphere? This may be the comic or caricature version of a fairy tale — not even the CliffsNotes version of the scriptures. I don’t think I could draw a picture of my description of a plan: do your best to turn to God; take the natural consequences of your actions; find yourself where you will be the happiest you can be; and repeat in eternal pro or re-gression, depending on your choices. Tomorrow (or in 5 minutes) I might have a different description. I wonder.
What’s striking is how many of the signposts on the Freeway to the Celestial Kingdom are institutionally-focused: Loyalty (to the Church), Duty (to God, expressed by doing things for the Church), Tithing (paying money to the Church), and Word of Wisdom (doing what the Church tells you to do, even if it doesn’t make sense). The map is not so much a map to heaven as a map inclined to create loyalty and obedience to the Church in the here and now.
It’s also interesting to reflect on how a non-Mormon views such a chart. They are likely to see it as simply a diagram showing good Mormons go to heaven (the Celestial Kingdom) and everyone else goes to nice hell (the Terrestrial Kingdom) or ugly hell (the Telestial Kingdom). It’s hard to argue against that view when LDS doctrine decrees that anyone, no matter how good and moral and Christian, can’t get above the Terrestrial Kingdom unless they become Mormon, in this life or the next.
The idea that God is “omnipotent and omniscient “ is the problem. I don’t believe God is either. Nor do I believe I will be when I become a god.
I should have said “if” not “ when.” It was little presumptuous of me.
The plan of salvation as described has always struck me as very unChristian. Nowhere on that chart is love of God or neighbor. There is a word of wisdom check mark, but no feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick check mark. So, the Pharisee Mormons make it to the top of the CK, even if they are like some “good Mormon’s” that I know who can check all the Mormon boxes, but they are not very nice people. Others can be wonderful, kind, loving, but not very good Mormons. Maybe they have some vice like drinking coffee that hurts no one. But to say the kind loving person is going to a lower kingdom than the straight arrow, but unkind guy is just backwards. It is why so many Mormons joke that if the CK is anything like Church, they want to go to the lower kingdom. It will be a lot more fun where the unbelievers who are *good people* go.
I just can’t imagine a God who cares about the little girl’s pigtail floating up during her baptism, when she is terrified of going under the water, or getting the words perfect on a sacrament prayer even if it embarrasses the poor kid who has to say it over three times. I just can’t worship a God who says to one of his children, “you rejected my missionaries because you were in a hurry to get supper on the table and the baby was screaming, so, it is off to hell you go.” I can’t worship a God who wants us to promise loyalty to church organization, even when it violates our personal conscience. There are just so many things about Mormon God that are unGodly.
When it comes right down to it, why does God need us to be dunked in water and some specific words said over us? The kid doesn’t understand the symbolism. Why does God need us to stumble through a ceremony in a pretty building that is a bunch of symbolic things that we don’t understand? The church says these things are important, but God hardly needs them done. And baptism at 8 is not that different than baptism at one month. The kid doesn’t understand the lifetime commitment, but just does it because he has been told it is important. And how can the symbols of the endowment be important to God when 90% of us had no idea what we were going to promise before we were in the situation with too much social pressure to back out if we had wanted to and no idea what all the symbolic mumbo jumbo meant. I really don’t think God needs any of that. And if he needs “signs and tokens” to recognize his own children, he is a lousy father.
So, to me it makes no sense that God sends some of his kids to hell because they were never dunked “by the proper authority” or never knelt at an alter and the wife give herself away like she is a cow the man owns.
So, if God is worth worshiping, there has GOT to be a better way.
“ … it is almost like people were making things up …”
Wow, great thoughts Anna! There is so much truth in what you said.
What is the value of doctrine for any denomination? If it is simply to set up a list of rules for entering eternity, the entire point has been missed; if it is simply to identify one church as more true than another church, the entire point had been missed.
The point of such is basic: what do we learn about the character of God? If we understand that God’s character of love and freedom is exemplified through what we call doctrine – great. If such is basically a set of rules, then we need to read Second Corinthians 13 again. Let’s avoid clanging cymbals that make a lot of noise and tell us nothing about God.
A few thoughts on Anna’s comment, not necessarily inspired:,
I joined the Church in 1974 at age 22, coming from what I now regard as a conventional evangelical “low church” Protestant background: “low” in the sense of little ritual. The Mormon Church first struck me as being similarly “low church”: Baptism, confirmation, and a weekly partaking of the Lord’s Supper, which Mormons call “the Sacrament.” That was it. Plain, unadorned chapels, lack of priestly robes, etc.
Then in 1976, I went to the temple.. In 1979 I was married in the temple. I was later sealed to my parents. I came to realize that the Church had definite “high church” elements: a lot of ritual, expressed in a variety of ways. Having come from low church evangelicalism, the temple ceremony took a bit of getting used to.
Although there are many unchurched Christians, there are few churches with no ritual at all. Almost all churches have baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Many have their version of confirmation.
I worked for many years as a temple worker. The temple is a place that requires rituals to be performed and worded exactly. We had periodic training sessions to teach us how to do things properly. But the Temple Presidency repeatedly emphasized that the Lord wants both exactness in performing the rituals, and for the rituals to be performed with love. It emphasized that if both were not possible, then love was more important than exactness. I can assure you that there are MANY mistakes made in the wording of temple rituals, yet these fallible human attempts are accepted by the Church is valid.
Which brings me to my response to Anna: I have also seen a few instances in which water-phobic people were baptized, and the ordinance had to be repeated; and more than a few sacrament prayers that had to be repeated. Some of these were excruciating to witness. But to focus on these instances is I think to miss the larger point of the ordinances.
the reason that the Church performs ordinances is that they serve as an outward manifestation of an inner commitment: to follow the Savior. I don’t necessarily think it is urgent to get every last word right, but the words ARE important, because words have meaning, and the MEANING of the baptismal and sacrament prayers is to follow Jesus. I do not think that our ultimate salvation hinges on whether we have been baptized, or gone to the temple, but the Lord commanded us in the NT to be baptized, and to partake of the Lord’s Supper. So we try and do it, and the beauty of the temple is that it gives dead people these ordinances, SHOULD THEY CHOOSE TO ACCEPT THEM.
The same is true for ordinances for the living: some 8-year-olds understand what they are doing, when they are baptized; some do not. The same also holds for people baptized at 25 or 40. Likewise, if we take the Sacrament thoughtlessly, it doesn’t do us as much good as it could.
So I think Anna has a good point to make, but her loaded, negative wording (“dunked” and “mumbo jumbo”) in my opinion misrepresents the nature of the ordinances, and the reasons for doing them. Again, both exactness and love, but love trumps. Jesus wants these ordinances done, and we try to do that, however imperfectly.
BTW, Anna’s point about the Temple ceremonies is well-taken: many do go through it because of social pressure. But I would reply: many also go through the temple for better reasons. And the temple ceremony increases in meaningfulness, as one returns.
And, Anna is sadly correct when she points out that many of our Church’s best Christians cannot go to the temple, because of a WOW problem, or, more commonly, not paying a full tithe. These people are often the first on a neighbor’s doorstep to perform Christian service. I have given hundreds of temple recommend interviews in my life, and learned that many fine people go to the temple. Many Pharisees also go to the temple. Perhaps the latter will some day he converted.
I did not realize my first post did not show up, just the correction. Now I have the chance to comment on other comments too. Taiwan Missionary – thank you for those thoughtful insights. I also appreciate Anna’s thoughts. I am of the opinion, unlike most n the OP, that God is not omniscient, nor omnipotent. God is relational and our relationships are each a new event for God and for us (yes, this sounds like process theology, but Joseph Smith came up with it first). That said, as a God that is bound by certain laws , such as the law of justice in Alma 42, which dictates our eternal progression. This would include progression between the kingdoms (which is not “not a doctrine” but not taught as well). Everybody can get in, but God is not able to do it because of the laws of justice. If God made it easy to save all without any effort, then, “God would cease to be God” (Alma 42:13). To me it makes sense to have a non-omnipotent God, but it is not the God that is taught in church, just in the scriptures.
Taiwan Missionary, let me explain that negative tone. I turned 8 and like all BIC kids, expected that I would be baptized. But my father was inactive and wouldn’t/couldn’t do it. My grandfather had taken time off his normal shift work to baptize my brothers, so I assumed that I was as important to my grandfather as my older brothers and that he would arrange his shifts so he could have that magical Saturday before fast Sunday off to do it because that was the only time the stake filled up the font, then baptized about 20 of us at the same impersonal ceremony. I’m a baby boomer and there were just too many kids, so we got an assembly line baptism as fast as they could run them through. I asked every month if he could baptize me that month, and every month got told he had to work. So, my grandfather never bothered to get the night before fast Sunday off. My uncles couldn’t be bothered. The week before I turned 9 my grandmother came over and pitched a fit that if I was not baptized THIS weekend, I would be counted as a convert, not as a member baptism. I did NOT want to be baptized until someone who cared about me could do it. But apparently nobody cared about me. But Mom gave into her mother’s demands and made me go through with the dunking. So, I was dunked by some kid I had never seen before because someone said the practice would be good for him. See, I was never really baptized because it was never my choice. It was a horrible experience, when my mother drove me over to the stake center and nobody else even bothered to go, and all my friends were sitting there with their whole family with their father doing the baptism. Nope, I was never baptized, I was dunked. Against my will.
I could give you a similar story of my wedding day, and how shocking the endowment ceremony was back in the days when we mimicked slitting our throats, but I will spare you. There was no preparation and no explanation. Just a ceremony that I didn’t understand and could not back out of because my wedding depended on doing that first.
So, those ceremonies were not spiritual, but confusing, and left me feeling abandoned by God.
So, it took me a while to figure out that God doesn’t need us to be baptized at all. He doesn’t need the endowment done for us either, not because it can be done for the dead. There is no purpose doing it for the dead. Because God doesn’t need it. In a better world than the one I grew up in, baptism is for us. We need to make the commitment to mourn with those who mourn and comfort those who need comfort, and to follow Christ and do the things for each other that Christ would do if he was on earth, and it helps if we have some kind of ceremony to mark our commitment. We need it not God. (As an adult, I made up my own ceremony for baptism since the church wouldn’t allow a do over)
I have not figured out why we need the washing and anointing, or endowment, and I really think it is love that “seals” us together, not “priesthood power”. But I just do not think God needs it done.
If my family and extended family had realized that my baptism was for me, needed to be meaningful to me or it had no meaning, and not something that God needed done for/to me, I think it would have gone better. Couldn’t have gone worse.
@Anna-What are your thoughts about Elder Hartman Rector Jr. thoughts shared in the Oct. 1990 General Conference?
“I do not believe there will be anyone in the celestial kingdom that is not nice. (See D&C 31:9; D&C 52:40.)”
Thank you Anna. It hurts me to learn about the things you had to deal with. I also ask the same questions and have the same feelings as you. May you be blessed in your journey. Love really is the answer.
Anna:
Appreciate your follow-on explanation, and sorry to hear of your experiences with baptism and the temple. What should have been heavenly ordinances were turned into unpleasant experiences by fallible and uncaring Church and family members. I hope things have improved over the years.
I also was unprepared for what I experienced in the temple, because everyone was so preoccupied with NOT talking about the Temple. As I said, it got better over time, and I have come to appreciate the temple very much, and was a temple worker for many year. The Church does a much better job now of preparing members for the temple, with the series of Temple Prep classes. But even in the temple, as wonderful as it can be, I have seen too many “terrestrial” experiences and even a few “telestial” ones. Most temple workers are loving and caring, but there are some who can be downright ….. nasty … .pretty much like anything else in the Church.
BTW, the single worst baptism experience I ever had was one that I did not experience personally at the time. I was the home teacher to a woman who had been taught the missionary discussions, and agreed to be baptized. But when she got to the chapel, she decided to back out and left. The missionaries literally pursued her into the parking lot and pressured her into going through the baptism—they wanted those stats! And our ward, already stretched thin, wound up trying to help a woman who should not have become a member in the first place .
It takes a thick hide to be a member of the Church! I am totally serious here. I have never been treated as badly in my life, as I have been by other Church members, but that is because my wife and I centered our lives around our ward. I once had a Stake President mistakenly accuse me of immoral behavior, and was he surprised when I bit his head off! He was thinking to have me for breakfast, but I had him for lunch, instead. He was not used to getting his ears pinned back! Maybe not a Christian attitude on my part, but when you are getting mugged in an alley, you hit where it hurts, in self-defense. I am not an early Christian martyr, who is happily fed to the lions. I fight back I need to.
I actually understand people who leave the Church, or take a vacation from it. Indeed, at times, it can be necessary to one’s mental and physical health. One of my daughters is on such a leave of absence; one of the reasons for her absence was being told in a TR interview that a good female member of the Church should submit to death, if need be, to avoid rape. Gag!
But the same Church that can be hurtful can also be a beautiful place of worship and Christian service to others. You are right, God does not need these ordinances. But Christ knows we do, even if they are given to us in an inferior and unworthy way.
Carmeron, I remember some of Elder Rector’s teachings that I did not then and still do not understand as “nice.” I had forgotten his niceness standard for admission to the celestial kingdom. Did he mean always nice? That would certainly leave out a lot of general authorities as well as a lot of the rest of us! I wonder — but not enough to research Rector or niceness.
Anna,
I truly am sorry for some of the things you have gone through. They sound pretty awful. I doubt telling you I don’t think that’s the norm will make you feel better, but I think even 8 year olds can have a sacred experience, given the right conditions.
Branching more to the OP, I’d agree the diagram seems a little outdated. Anna also mentioned that nowhere on the chart is love of God or neighbor. I may not have the right attitude, but isn’t it also possible that that’s simply a given already? It seems like that’s a fundamental part of being a Christian, period. The chart seems to emphasize more what separates the Latter-Day Saints from the rest of Christianity. One could argue we don’t emphasize it enough, but half of Sacrament meeting today was blasting the point that without sincere, genuine charity, nothing else we do really matters. I’d agree that on the surface, the idea of God keeping someone out of the Celestial Kingdom for having a cup of coffee seems ridiculous (slightly more ridiculous than the idea that I would allow myself not to enter the Celestial Kingdom if it meant having a cup of coffee), but I think the idea is just to emphasize the separation.
No, Heavenly Father doesn’t need a plan of salvation or ordinances, but we do. I’ve found real power in them and, in the temple, occasionally find answers to things that seemingly have nothing to do with the temple.
On the surface, the plan of salvation makes a lot of sense, and is something the Spirit will readily bear witness about. I don’t know that I could improve upon it.
If I was Satan, however, (not a mindset I try to get into often) I will say that if I was encouraging apostasy, from day one I would do all in my power to erase, confuse, or twist knowledge of the plan of salvation as much as possible. That would create a range of people who don’t know the actual target exists, have a slightly deranged view of the target, find the target completely unattainable, or find the target utterly unappealing. I think he’s been fairly successful in those regards. I don’t find it all that unrealistic that our best description doesn’t come to us until Doctrine and Covenants.
Don’t we get baptized because Jesus did?
My wife always said this about the temple. That there was and is another way. Look at the source of the quote, lucifer himself.
Eve was deceived as are current church members stating that there “is no other way”
What I would do as a god is what I am doing right now. I am libertarian. I prepare my children as best I can but they are free to find and follow their own paths. It is unlikely we will arrive at the same destination. Hopefully where they arrive is where they intended to arrive. That goes for me as well.
T.M. writes “I have never been treated as badly in my life, as I have been by other Church members”
That, unfortunately, seems also to be my experience although somewhat confined to “Zion”. Bad people are plentiful elsewhere but there’s a unique quality to bad Mormons; an ability to lie, cheat and steal while being first in line to get their holiness certificates renewed.
Is there a purpose in this? Probably. I have noticed a tendency among people to point to someone and say, “Well HE does it!” as an excuse for doing whatever one wants to do, typically victimless crimes like making illegal copies of movies. Choosing to do right things for right reasons when all around you, even bishops and stake presidents, are engaged in minor and sometimes major dishonesties, is indeed a way to show God and yourself what you really are made of. Does he not already know? Maybe, maybe not. This is a way to find out for yourself what you are made of.
For those of you saying that God does not need the ordinances, but we do, I think you are misunderstanding me a bit. We don’t need them either. They can help us in our progression, if and only if they are done with love and the person getting them understands the meaning and what they are actually agreeing to.
Much too often we don’t. I have talked to so many women who still hate the endowment after many years of trying to understand. So, I know I am not alone when I say that even after 40 years as a temple going member, I still see no purpose or value in the temple. Nothing good, just sexist stuff I can’t get past. There is a failure somewhere, and since I gave it my best effort to understand, I put that blame on the institution. Either the temple really has no deep hidden meaning or we are doing a poor job of explaining. And for too many years it has been so insulting to women as to make many feel that they are somehow not children of God. The best I ever heard the feeling I got from the temple explained is that I was not a daughter of God, but just his daughter in law. My husband was important, but I was not. It is a bit better with the most recent changes, but too little too late for me.
I think there is a difference in something we need, and something that helps in our progression.
I do understand that some people like the temple. My husband does, but he also understands why, rather than helping with my progression, the temple was a huge stumbling block.
So, I don’t think any of us need any of the ordinances. I think they can help, or they can hurt. For most, I hope they help. But the God I worship doesn’t care about what words get said over us, by what authority. He judges us on other criteria, not whether or not we had certain ordinances. So, the God I worship may or may not be the Mormon God.
Cameron,
I do think only nice people are going to make it. I think Christ is going to judge us by Christian standards and not Mormon standards. Well, the idea that it is Christian standards can be taken wrong too, because to some people that means accepting Jesus, more than living like he lived. I think a Buddhist can live like Christ lived, and never be baptized or even know who Christ is and still make the top layer of whatever there is.
You know that old joke about nonmembers having to be quiet going past the section of heaven where the Mormons are because they think they are the only ones there? Yeah, I think many Mormons are going to be surprised when they find out people made it to top of CK who they condemned, like my FIL, who smoked, but was one of the kindest people I ever met.
Honestly, if we’re really talking about how “Christian” the Plan of Salvation is, in comparing it to other religions, I can’t help but come away feeling it’s one of the most inclusive plans out there. The fact that it does so without managing to sacrifice truth is quite an accomplishment.
I really do feel the CK will be quite a bit fuller than some (both those in and out of the Church) might be led to believe. I think the fact that our mortal probation essentially extends into the Spirit world is one merciful aspect of it, since I think it allows a greater perspective on the other side as to how it informs our decisions.
Although I don’t think Heavenly Father has multiple personality disorder when it comes to saying what religious paths are valid, I do think there is ample opportunity for people to know the truth. It’s ludicrous to think someone would be condemned for slamming the door on the missionaries. But whether in this life, or the Spirit World, they’ll be able to make an informed decision as to whether they accept or reject the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
I have no doubt there will be plenty of (former) Hindus, Muslims, and Buddhists in the CK. Many of them will be able to learn the truth while essentially saying “I did pretty dang good with what I had. I’m ready for more.”
So, what is “nice?” Different people will have different standards for that term. What is nice for one person is not necessarily nice to another. Christ was not necessarily nice when he said to Peter, “Get thee behind me, Satan.”’ Peter, with good intentions, was trying to tell Christ that they did not want him to suffer His arrest, torture. and death. But Christ knew what He needed to accomplish, and what Peter wanted was not what needed to happen.
It is also an unfortunate fact of life that people who are curt, abrupt, rude, and difficult are often the ones that we need turn to, to get needful things done. “Nice” people are often not as effective. I love it when I come across nice AND competent, effective managers and leaders, but they are not in my opinion all that common.
I also believe that some personalities are disqualifying, and will prevent people from living with God, unless they repent: the bully, the scammer, the spreader of malicious gossip. Utah is notorious as a fraud Mecca, because scammers parlay their Church connections and friendships into a hunt for victims.
But just how do we define “nice?” I have not found it easy to do this, and would welcome others’ thoughts.
I have just finished reading the Letter of James in the NT. He says that true religion is to look after the fatherless and afflicted. And we know that the main commandment is to love God and our fellow men. That is why, even though I believe that ordinances are important, they are not the ultimate deciding factor in God’s judgment of us.
I love what John Wesley said: do all the good you can, in all the places you can, to all the people you can, as long as you can, etc. This is neither an exact nor complete quote, but you get the idea. THAT will cause our Father to open his arms to us.
Eli, I have sometimes said there also won’t be “Mormons” in Heaven. When we get there, those distinctions will be meaningless. Mormonism is a path I am on, more or less, it is not who or what I *am*. I have seen a tiny bit of it, and the only things that I could see is light and love, and how to get there requires light and love. But those are difficult concepts so I appreciate churches help. My Lutheran kinfolk tend to be pretty strong on faith, hope and charity. They have less sense of what they have faith IN, but that makes it more “faithful” in a sense, more trusting, more humble, less goal-seeking.
Bill, since only Michael 2 seems to want to bite on your question, I’ll play. Count me in for a sort of Greek mythology come true approach (maybe a just a TAD less sex, rape, torture, murder, sadism, etc.) with lots of physical interactions between a pantheon of gods and humans so there’s no doubt as to the gods’ existence. Heck even something Old Testament-like with God splitting seas, setting up fiery pillars, and sending avenging angels, plagues, and fiery chariots would more interesting than the current state of being able to deny God’s existence.
THERE IS NO. OTHER. WAY.