In my post from last week, The Real Reason Mormons Aren’t in the Christian Club, I talked about theology, which is the “study of the nature of God and religious truth.” Several commenters mentioned that discussions about the nature of God are irrelevant. Perhaps it is as useless as arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, but the discussion sparked a thought for me that I dropped into a comment on that thread and want to expand on.
Back in 300-400 A.D., people were so agitated by theological questions that it caused massive civil unrest, more than a few deaths and riots, banishment, and some drastic changes in the government as differing factions passed power and influence back and forth. Some 1700 years later, we can shake our heads and cluck our tongues about how they made a mountain out of a molehill. Surely theology didn’t matter enough to fight about it like that!
Well.
Welcome to 2022, in which the culture wars that are fracturing the USA are rooted in theology. Do we have autonomy over our own bodies? Or do Christian notions about sex and reproduction get to control questions like abortion, gay sex, transitioning genders and even whether men can dress up like women? When does God send a spirit to a fetus? Will it corrupt children to know that some people don’t enjoy the only kind of sex God sanctions, i.e., procreative sex? Will it harm us all if there are a few people who want to live as a different gender than the one they were assigned at birth? Will God destroy the USA for its moral wickedness? Who will save us??? [fn1]
The discussion about the nature of God (theology) is very much alive and well today. According to conservative Christians, today’s God is pretty obsessed with sex and gender presentation. According to liberal apostates, God ought to be more obsessed with economic equality and ending racism, and he certainly emphasizes unconditional love over conformity to manmade rules.
Which brings me to the mirror on the Church wall. Who is the God you worship? And just how much is that God a reflection of you?
I posit that theology is a mirror. Your opinion about what you think is most important to God says more about you than it says about God. How similar are you and your priorities to the God you believe in? I’d bet good money that your opinions on those topics line right up with the opinions you believe that God holds on those topics.
They seek not the Lord to establish his righteousness, but every manwalketh in his own way, and after the image of his own god, whose image is in the likeness of the world, and whose substance is that of an idol. D&C 1:16.
The warning in this verse is that people are not really seeking the Lord; instead, we each create God in our own image. Not infrequently, a W&T commenter will say something like, “I couldn’t worship a God who [fill in the blank.]” We want God to be worthy of our worship, and so we make a God worthy of our worship, a God who reflects our own priorities and what we think deity should be.
Here are a few statements of theology:
- Person A: God gives commandments and it’s our job to obey them. “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” Pretty simple. President Nelson is a prophet and what he says is the word of the Lord. Sure, you can repent, but you’re better off to keep the commandments in the first place. It’s like he told Nephi, “I will give you no commandment save I prepare a way for you to keep it.”
- Person B: God is love, not the issuer of a bunch of nitpicky rules that don’t have much to do with how we treat people. The two great commandments are to love God and love our neighbor, and we love God BY loving our neighbor. Obedience to a checklist of rules doesn’t matter when compared to how we treat people. “Wo unto you who pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin and neglect the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy and faith!”
- Person C: I know God’s will for humanity! God has called me to save this sin-filled and Godless world. I’m right and I’m going to pass laws forcing everyone to live by my religious beliefs. You’ll thank me on Judgment Day!
- Person D: Maybe there’s a God. I don’t really know. Sure, he probably loves us, but he’s not really that involved. Can we all just talk about something else?
Of the composite persons I listed, which person best describes you? Which type of person would you rather be friends with? Which person describes your parents? Which person are you more likely to ask for help?
I’d say that Elder Oaks is most like Person A, while Elder Uchtdorf is more of a Person B. Most of the Utah state legislature sounds like Person C. Meanwhile, Person D just wants everyone to chill out and talk about something real.
I read somewhere that lots of people unconsciously base their ideas about God on their father. This was certainly true for me. My father is a “Person A” sort of person and I was raised to believe that God was like that too. My relationship with my father was full of pressure and emotional pain. I spent a few years getting over the problems caused by my relationship with my father, and during that same time period, my concept of God underwent a seismic shift as well. I came out of that experience with a “Person B” idea about God. (Along the way, I lost a lot of respect for my father. He’s not super impressed with me anymore either.)
Your theology likely comes through in how you treat your children. Theology is a very practical question; it’s not a matter of dry discussion with no bearing on our actual lives. What you think about God affects how you treat other people, how you relate to authority, how you exercise authority, and what you think are the most pressing problems facing the world today.
Questions:
- How has your theology changed over your lifetime?
- Do you notice this match between theology and priorities in yourself? In others?
- Do you think it’s possible to have an understanding of God that’s entirely separate from our own priorities and self-image? Meaning – can anyone really know God without putting him through the filter of ourselves?
[fn1] Human nature being what it is, there are large swathes of the population who just want everyone to calm down. That’s as true today as it likely was in 350 A.D. Their silence is lost to history.
[fn2] Free photos about mirrors on church walls are pretty scarce, and the one I photo-shopped looked even freakier than this one I actually used. If someone has a picture of a mirror on a prickly, carpeted wall, let me know and I’ll swap it out.
Wheat & Tares 
Theology is a myth created by humans to provide them with answers to questions (the recipients) or to provide them with money and control (the providers). It’s amazing how much in common different religions have in common across the globe (there are roughly 4,000 religions) or across time (aprox 110 billion people have lived on the earth). If you study history (time) or travel within the US or internationally (place), you notice very quickly what I’m talking about.
To those of you who are faithful TBMs and believe in LDS theology I have one simple question: isn’t it absolutely amazing to you that you just happened to come across the one true religion and theology given that 99.8 % of the world’s population isn’t a part of this faith and given that 99.99999% of the population of the world over time never had a clue either? Do you really think you stumbled upon the one true religion? Statistically it just seems so utterly improbable. It’s certainly very exclusive.
When I was younger, I used to think that God interacted with the affairs of man on a daily basis. Now? Not so much. I don’t think God tweaks our lives like a distant puppet master. We have to accept that part of mortality involves us being AWAY from God and that we have to figure things out for ourselves. Though we are not totally alone (promptings of the spirit, scriptures, and gospel principles), it’s up to us to be the driving force for change in our own lives and in the lives of others.
I think that that’s a spiritually healthier outlook than seeing everything in life as either punishments or rewards from an unseen deity.
The God in the Mirror, sounds like a good name for a song.
My parents and how I was raised was a mix of both A and B and it was with a mix of religious and political ideas all mixed in. As I grew older, I first looked really hard at the political stuff and realized that the right wing BS I was raised with didn’t fit the religious stuff. See this also caused me to start looking at the church much closer and asking questions like why we never know where tithing goes, why the church is run like a corporation, why so many temples are built and then looking at what that would cost and comparing it with what the church says it spends on helping the poor and seeing a huge gap and finally a total disconnect with how laws in Utah are made in the name of doing what’s right with the reality that these same laws both hurt and forget a large portion of our population. Then in the past couple of years looking at how many people in Utah vote for people and support issues that seem to contradict the gospel all the while acting as if it’s the will of God.
So I agree that the God people believe in is the God in the Mirror and for me, that God sings the blues for than he sings hymns.
I am a B. I find the A and C positions to be essentially immoral. I find the D position to be more moral than A and C.
My parents are also B. My spouses parents are more A. Because of this he has suffered greatly with his connection with God and his sense of personal worthiness. I find this to be essentially an evil use if the gospel of Christ.
I want the church to change and quit injuring so many people. I am trying to be part of that, however I hold my own spiritual authority firmly.
When the church as a community brings people to Christ and gives me opportunities to bring people to Christ I am all in. When they damage people with check off the box theology, I have to act and speak with care. My loyalty is not to the church as an institution but to Jesus Christ and all people.
The more I learn about Joseph Smith’s life, the more his version of God and Heaven and theology makes sense. Dan Vogel in particular characterizes much of his theology in the BoM, the temple and sealing ceremony, etc etc as playing out his own family conflict and it’s pretty compelling to me.
I remember the first time it hit me: oh, so the church is run by white men and our god is a white man who says white men should be in charge? Like I couldn’t believe that coincidence had never struck me before.
I’m a convert Person B raised a Person A. Plus I’m coming to terms that we do make God in our own image (a being or concept we create in order to relate or make sense of existence). I agree lots of people unconsciously base their ideas about God on their father, especially considering patriarchy where the one in charge, or presiding, is the adult male. Unfortunately, that results in so many of us fearing God, trying to keep a low profile so we don’t get zapped.
one thing that i do find interesting (maybe this isn’t helping in terms of the “does theology matter?” question) is that even though the different denominations have very different views of God, humanity, that does not necessarily mean you can predict their social and moral positions.
For example, though in the classical theism of Catholicism, the Father does not have a body, but in the theistic personalism of Mormonism, God is a super man with a body, both will insist (for different reasons) that same sex relationships are wrong, sinful, etc., They get there with different arguments, but they both get there. Like, I would have thought that God not having gender might lead to less emphasis on human gender roles, but nope, Catholicism in fact still maintains extremely strong gender roles, obviously.
Consider as well the word “love”. Both Person A and Person B in your typology use the word. Person A links “keeping the commandments” to love. Person B also does (e.g., “the two great commandments…”), but the two personae use “love” and “commandments” with very different implications!
So, there is something *more* here. Something…else.
Also, while I understand the inclination to say that God is defined in someone’s own image, I think there are enough examples of people believing in a form of God, commandments, etc., that from the outside would seem “contradictory” to their image. I am thinking about “side B” LGBT Christians (e.g., side B believes in traditional sexual ethics, and that therefore a gay Christian must be celibate). Is someone who is denying themselves (whatever that looks like) as a result of their faith doing so by making a God in their own image?
If no, would we feel comfortable saying that the only way to be sure you have not “made a God in your own image” is if your religion is a struggle, challenge, or fundamentally at odds with your basic intuitions, desires, etc.,?
@Josh H. “It’s amazing how much in common different religions have in common across the globe or across time.” I may just be a simple soul looking for something to make me feel better, but rather than interpreting that fact as “Everybody just makes up a myth of God to control others, and people believe to make themselves feel better”, I interpret it as “Maybe there is something there that humans across time have been drawn to – but that we can’t quite understand.” I don’t see the LDS faith as “the one and only true church”, but as part of a group of 4,000+ religions who are all part of God’s kingdom.
@Janey, I agree with your hypothesis, that everyone creates their own worldview (and their own image of God) based on what their top values/priorities are at the time. I think since that’s the way it is, maybe that’s the way that it’s supposed to be. Maybe there is something to the statement that everyone should “LIVE YOUR TRUTH.” Maybe everyone is supposed to create narratives that align with their inner self and core values and live by them. I don’t know.
The idea that we may unconsciously base our ideas about God on our fathers is interesting. I thought at first that wouldn’t apply to me because my father wasn’t religious but maybe it’s accurate considering my belief in a God has very much shifted. My mother was a convert to the church from a time when I was too young to remember. The church created rituals that don’t fit or benefit all segments of society. It challenges a view of a God that doesn’t provide for all mankind to be equal participants in his kingdom. For this reason I think I see myself as a B shifting to a D.
Thank you @Janey for a thought provoking post.
Aporetic1: I think you make a very interesting point. I’ve wondered if all the world’s major religions are influenced by the same supreme being and they then superimpose their cultural backgrounds on that influence. In this framework there’s no “one true church”, just folks trying to do their best. That sounds more pleasant than my take.
Josh H writes: “To those of you who are faithful TBMs and believe in LDS theology I have one simple question:”
To those of you who ask cynical and condescending questions to TBMs as if they’ve never ever considered these questions themselves before, are you capable of considering the fact that many TBMs have considered most or all the same questions you have and still believe the way they do, with an aptitude for reason that may still very well rival your own?
I’m probably a B and A mix, in all honesty.
I do think my theology has changed somewhat over time. I know the Church teaches that Earth was patterned after the premortal life, but although Heaven will be more glorious than we can imagine, I think I picture it more and more as life is now—maybe even more than most members do–just without the pain sorrow. Because of that, I feel like Heaven on Earth is far more obtainable than most of us think it is. It’s made me a little more of an optimist.
The deeper I get into LDS theology and teachings, the more I look outside myself. I fully realize that’s not a sentiment often shared here, but it appears to be working for me. As that horizon expands, I’ll admit it’s hard to feel I’m the main propagator of it.
When my younger son was in grade school (the elementary school closest to BYU-P) there was a serious problem with Mormon kids making nonmembers feel unwelcome and excluded. Some bullying was also involved. Many of the students at this school go there because their parents are visiting professors and scholars from around the world, and campus is just across the street from this school which makes it convenient for these parents to be close to the school in case of their child getting sick or being injured or in case of emergencies. Many of these visiting professors and scholars are also not LDS. As a parent I appreciated the international vibe celebrated at the school and the fact that my son would go to school with other students not of our faith. That’s an extremely rare occurrence in most of Utah. Too many times I’ve experienced the problem of the ignorance, Uber American patriotism and/or true believer mentality of church members causing real offense when traveling with BYU groups and other church members.
The principal of our school was inspired to hold a series of meetings for both the students and their parents to deal with the growing religious bullying and shunning problem. These programs were age appropriate and began with the kindergartners (because you can’t start to nip religious exclusivity and bullying in the bud too soon) and ended with the sixth graders. She invited a Catholic priest, an Episcopal vicar, pastors from various Protestant denominations, a Hindu priest, a rabbi, a Muslim imam and a Mormon bishop to lead the presentations. The goal of each presentation was to show the students and their parents just how much the religions that these men and women represented had in common. It was the perfect way to handle the issue.
After the presentation that I attended with my son I overheard several parents say that they’d had no idea that other religions had so much in common with our own. The presentations were also a hot topic of conversation at church and in the neighborhood. Frankly, I was appalled but not surprised by the abysmal level of ignorance many of these individuals revealed with regard to their knowledge of other religions. Some adults were actually bothered by the fact that we shared so many beliefs with other faiths because they had been taught since infancy and fervently believed with all of their hearts that The One True Church was obviously very different from all other faiths and that it couldn’t possibly have anything at all in common with all of those other false, corrupt religions. (No, thank you to Joseph Smith and his last version of the First Vision.) Most of the adults that I knew and some of my son’s friends were thrilled to discover the many things we had in common with other religions. I’m happy to say that these presentations DID make a big difference at school and in the school community.
As members of the church we need more of these types of presentations to help members understand the commonalities we share with people of other faiths. Imagine if our missionaries were armed with this kind of knowledge so that they would be more respectful of the existing beliefs of the people who they meet and teach and then use them as a bridge to greater understanding on both sides.
Elisa, I’m with you regarding JS. I’ve been reading “Method Infinite: Freemasonry and the Mormon Restoration” which was recently published. Freemasonry didn’t just affect the temple ceremonies (sometimes using the exact wording of FM ceremonies) but almost all of the doctrines that JS promulgated in the early church. His family, relatives, friends and neighbors were very involved in the Masonic movement of that time. We certainly were never taught this info at church, in seminary and in BYU/Institute religion classes. While it’s easy to see how Freemasonry affected every part of the early church and many of our cherished doctrines it’s still pretty shocking stuff at least to me. The information presented is such that this is NOT a quick and easy read. Many times I’ve had to stop reading in order to process as well as ponder what I have just read. The three authors are all active church members and two of them are Freemasons themselves. If you haven’t read the book I highly recommend purchasing it and reading it. PS. Todd Compton’s companion book to his important book about the polygynous wives of JS “In Sacred Loneliness” is also wonderful.
I wrote about this topic just last week on my own blog:
https://graduategrumblings.blogspot.com/2022/11/the-missing-circle-or-where-is-god.html?m=1
I am not sure what I believe about the nature of god anymore, so I am more like Person C. But I definitely used to be person A and B
Great comments, everyone.
Instereo’s comment bringing in the combination of politics and religion made me realize that I want to vote for Person D. Focus on the problem that actually exists, and govern to solve the problem. Politics trying to govern according to Christian (or any specific religion’s) morality and immorality is a disaster for a country.
lws, thanks for pointing out that raising a child with a “Person A” view of God not only damages their connection to God, but creates longterm problems with the child’s self-worth.
Elisa, I’m going to need to read Dan Vogel at some point. I’ve heard recommendations enough times now that I need to put a book on my TBR pile.
LHCA: I’ve got a story in response to your line here: “Unfortunately, that results in so many of us fearing God, trying to keep a low profile so we don’t get zapped.”
Talks/lessons about prayer seem to frequently chide listeners about only praying when you’re in trouble and not praying when things are going fine. That assumption mystified me. I was the opposite. I would pray multiple times a day when things were good. When I was struggling, my prayers were short and rote. After my Great Spiritual Awakening, I realized that’s because I was relating to God the same way I related to my father. My father was a rather cruel man when you needed help – he would help, but only after finding a way to blame you for your problems and shame you. It was better to struggle through on your own, and only interact with dad when you could meet his expectations.
Andrew S – interesting question. If believing in God makes us suffer and struggle, are we therefore believing in the real God? Hmmm. Your example about “side B” LGBT Christians actually sounded to me like internalized homophobia. God is still patterned after their disapproving father, and they’re trying to win his approval by rejecting themselves.
Your point about the same gender roles coming from very different ideas about God is also something a theology student ought to write a paper about. Of course, it could also be finding God in different mirrors. Men who like gender roles are developing both theologies, so they get to the same place because they like the same family structure. Just a thought.
josh h and aporetic1: Now that issue would be worth an entire book! I read The World’s Religions by Huston Smith years and years ago. I still remember a chapter about how every religion has a teaching that is basically the Golden Rule. Treat others as you want to be treated. Maybe there is a universal God, but we all lay a cultural and personal filter over him.
Poor Wayfaring Stranger – I would 100% support the Church adding lessons to the curriculum about the things we have in common with other religions.
@janey, the Vogel books are online for free at Signature Books’ website. But I would recommend listening to his interviews on Mormon Stories instead. There are a bunch of lengthy ones covering what’s in his books, and I think he’s a more engaging talker than writer.
I believe I was one of those commenters on Janey’s previous post on theology who said that those issues of theology don’t matter. I just want to clarify my position on that. First, I found Janey’s previous post on theology as well as this post to be interesting, well-written, and thought-provoking. Second, I was saying that the theological issues raised in the previous post weren’t important to *me*. I completely agree with Janey that many people find those issues to be *extremely* important to them. I am interested in learning more about why people believe the way they do and why they find those beliefs to be important. As Janey noted, sometimes other people’s beliefs about things I don’t consider to be very important can infringe on my life (for example, the culture wars stuff). I do care when that happens.
My father was an A/B combination growing up–maybe a little more A than B. My mother had some A but learned towards being a B. They’ve both changed since then. My mother is now almost entirely a B while my father is some sort of a B/D combination–at least, that’s where I think he stands. I’ve had some lovely conversations with my mother over spiritual matters as I’ve grown older, but my father really just completely clams up in these types of conversations, even when it’s just the two of us or the three of us (my mother is present). If my mom is there, she’ll try and prod him to speak up, but he won’t say a thing. My dad is fine with talking about Church topics and things, but whenever we get to talking about our own beliefs or thoughts is when he just shuts down. He would never tell me this, but I can tell that my father has gone through a big faith transition since I lived with him. He still attends church with my mom, and I can still tell that he has some form of spiritual beliefs, but I really don’t know where he stands on lots of things. My best guess is that my dad is now a B/D combination and no longer really believes many of the things he taught or made me obey while I was growing up. Since he raised me more as an A, while he doesn’t object to any of my nuanced positions on things, I think that he may still fear that he’ll completely destroy my faith if he tells me what he really thinks about things, and he doesn’t want to be responsible for that. That’s my best guess anyway–I could be way off. I’ve tried subtly reminding him that I’m now 50 and all of my kids are out of the house, so I can probably handle whatever it is he had to say, but so far no luck. My father is now about 80 and still in good health, but the clock is ticking. I feel like it would be really meaningful for me to have some spiritual discussions with my father before his health starts to fail because, like Janey said, we do get a lot of things from our fathers (and I really got a lot from my mother, too). Only time will tell.
I was an A through most of my high school years. I transitioned to a full-blown B in my college and mission years. I’d say I’m still a B, but I’d prefer changing the wording of B a bit. Instead of saying “God is love”, I’d change it to “We live to love”. I’m not really sure who or what God is, but I do firmly believe that my purpose in life is to learn to love. God, the nature of man, the afterlife, the supernatural are all great mysteries to me. There are occasionally moments where I feel like I am somehow communing for a moment with the supernatural, but most of the time I feel like I’m mostly on my own with the rest of humanity. The mysteries only seem to get bigger and more profound as I get older. I know it sounds corny, but I’ve learned to just embrace the beautiful mystery of life and to just try to move forward with love. Is God one or three or many? It doesn’t matter to me–I can still love. Was I one of the valiant ones in the pre-existence? It doesn’t matter to me if there was a pre-existence–I can still learn to love while I’m here. Does God want gay people to be married? I’m not even sure who God is, much less what he thinks about sex, but I do know that gay people aren’t hurting me or anyone else, so I can love and accept the gay people around me.
To return to the question of the OP about whether I feel I have created God to reflect my own beliefs, then I suppose I’d have to say that the answer is yes. I don’t claim really claim to know exactly who God is or what He wants me to do, but I do feel strongly driven to love others, so if it turns out that God didn’t want me to love others in the way that I’ve chosen, then I guess I’m doing the wrong thing. That said, my experience so far has made me feel that my introspections, my heart, and my conscience, however fallible they may be (and they are!), are still the best source to turn to when making difficult decisions on how best to love others (loving gay people is easy for me, but there are many other situations that are more challenging–like my mother-in-law, for example). Scripture, Church leaders, theologians, philosophers, spiritual gurus, parents, friends, etc. can provide useful ideas and input, but only a “lazy learner” would accept them as 100% infallible and blindly follow whatever they say.
The Council of Nicea was not convened to resolved some form of street violence between competing Christian sects, divided roughly (there were, in fact, over a hundred denominations identified by historians within the Roman Empire) into the camps of Arianism and Homoousian, the “latter” (pun intended) later termed after the council as Trinitarianism. The council had, in fact, been convened by Emperor Constantine, as he saw that promotion of Christianity could prove the unifying force that the Empire of the time badly needed. The Empire had been for about a twenty-year period, rent into three parts (“Crisis of the Third Century”), with Diocletian’s solution of the Tetrarchy, with the Empire being effectively divided into Eastern and Western halves, with a Caesar ruling each, with a junior “Augustus” to succeed him upon his death, he, in turn, would appoint his Caesar. This arrangement barely survived Diocletian’s reign, indeed, he declined to come out of retirement to his villa at present-day Split, Croatia, preferring to tend to the cabbages in his garden. Constantine “Megas” (the Great) himself became sole Emperor shortly after defeating the “usurper” Maxentius in the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in 312, where he and his army reported seeing a glowing cross over the Sun, with also the phrase “Ev tούτῳ Νίκα!” (rough translation: in this, conquer!). Constantine was ambitious, for sure, moving his seat of government (motivated to avoid the intrigue of Rome, particularly
Arius, because although he attributed “godhood” to Jesus Christ, put Him in a lesser position to the Father, and although he had a substantial following within the Empire, and substantially more outside of it, especially among the Goths, had virtually no support among the various bishops and other clergy. It was for that reason that the Council rejected Arianism and declared his teachings heretical, Arius was exiled from the Empire until shortly before his death. However, Constantine himself remained unbaptized until shortly prior to his passing, and even then was baptized by an Arian bishop. His son, Constantius II, who ruled the empire for 24 years following his father’s death, openly promoted Arianism, which, again, probably had more political than theological motives, as by then the Roman Army was heavily dependent upon Germanic “Foderati”, indeed, many “Roman” generals were themselves “Barbarians”, mostly Goths and/or Suebi. Most of these Germans were Arians, with many converts having been made by Ulfilas, who developed an alphabet for the Gothic tongue and used it to translate the Bible for the Goths. The “Arian controversy” got a “breather” during the reign of Julian the Apostate, but after he was succeeded by Gratian and Valens, and finally another “Mega” emperor, Theodosius I, who was also the last Roman emperor to reign over the entire empire, it was again deemed heretical at the Second Ecumenical Council in 381; this more or less ended Arianism in the Empire. Part of the reason might also have been the crushing defeat of the Roman army at Adrianople in 378 wherein Emperor Valens was killed; the Empire was sorely vexed by the rampaging Goths for years, including the sacking of Rome itself in 410 by Alaric (himself a one-time Roman general). In general, most Arian “Barbarians” were tolerant of Trinitarian Christians, save for the Vandals, who were blamed for the death of Saint Augustine of Hippo. However, not only after the Western Empire “fell” in 476 AD, but as the various “barbarians” themselves became Romanized, Arianism fell out of favor and by the eighth century, virtually all of European Christendom was Trinitarian.
But as for how all that (whew!) affected how I or anyone ought to “see” God, well, it seems mostly by example, starting with the Savior himself, declaring that He was simply doing that which he’d “seen” his Father do (John 5:19). Such was His identification with Heavenly Father that He told Thomas, “…he that hath seen me hath seen the Father..” (John 14:9, partial). I see these analogues in a more personal light, that is, my own Dad, 88 years old and still going strong. Although he’s certainly not perfect, his love for myself and my siblings and his grandchildren and great-grandchildren couldn’t be a better analogue of how our Father in Heaven feels about us.
I *do* think that people tend to believe in a god that reflects themselves and their values. This is even more true at a community level. A religion or church will tend to teach a god that reflects the values of that community. Even more importantly, religions that teach of such a god are more likely to thrive. Religions that do not reflect widespread community values (and a god that reflects those values) are destined to remain in the backwaters of the community or fade away.
I have been person A in my younger days and was person B for much of my early adulthood. Person C is super annoying. Does anyone think of themselves as person C? I bet person C always thinks they are person A or maybe B.
These days I’m most like person D. But unlike person D, I kind of think it is a contradiction to not believe in God and also believe that if he exists he probably loves us. I see the “loving god” as equally likely to an apathetic god. It’s hard to say if I come to that conclusion by reason or if it reflects my somewhat depressive personality.
I hear that a lot josh, but something about that analysis just doesn’t sit right with me. Assuming that there is such a thing as a true religion, do we need to accept as a premise that some large percentage of people will hold that belief? Apparently there are only three Shakers left. Does that say anything at all about the validity of their religious beliefs? I don’t think they were assigned a religion at random and just got lucky (or unlucky). Can’t Shaker beliefs be correct, even though there’s only three of them? Are we really using statistical probability to evaluate faith traditions based on the number of adherents?
There is a kokology quiz about a mountain with a hidden treasure, and ultimately the mountain is how you view your father. That’s similar to the idea that our notions of God are really about our notions of our father. I tend to see it that way, a benevolent yet removed figure. Benign neglect. There are some rules, but most of what I do goes completely unchecked for long stretches of time.
As to the idea of God, though, I always liked the Mormon theological view of God as a perfected human. It feels truthy to me. I love the idea of progress in terms of how much I understand, know, and how much I can align with my values. Bringing it back to your 4 options, though, I’m probably really a D, but when I feel like it a B. People who self-identify as religious tend toward A or C (or some other derivate of these–they seem more written for a conservative Christian mindset than other faiths), or so I would think.
Related to what Andrew said, how can we know if moral thoughts/prompting/inspiration/revelation is from God unless it contradicts our own thoughts and values? And to expand on that, how can we really know what our own thoughts and values are when they are often contradicted by our actions and later justified? For example, Nephi killing Laban is ostensibly an idea that wasn’t his own because he claims that he finds the idea reprehensible. But if you think about it, killing passed-out, drunk Laban is by far the safest way for them to get the plates. So was the idea “divine” in origin or was it just his own subconscious motivation?