[image from http://www.churchofjesuschrist.org]
Joseph Smith said, “If men do not comprehend the character of God, they do not comprehend themselves” [source].
In Primary, I learned that we are the children of God. Kittens grow up to be cats. Puppies grow up to be dogs. And the children of God grow up to become Gods. To understand ourselves, we must understand God’s nature.
And yet I believe our theology gets something about God’s nature entirely wrong.
Last week, while still high on the drugs the doc gave me, I waxed poetic and developed a theology for the Goddess of Balance, whom I had somehow offended and she therefore cursed me with severe vertigo. It goes like this: Balance is only one of her aspects. In full, she is the Goddess of Gravity. Balance only matters because we walk in gravity. The movements of the planets and stars are her domain. Ballet dancers are her disciples; ballet wouldn’t be nearly so ethereal and graceful if not for the gravity the dancers seem to ignore. Worship services for the Goddess include the most incredible ballet ever choreographed, portraying the movement of the stars and galaxies, all of which is designed by Gravity. Physicists are her prophets and calculus is her scripture.
Vertigo is her displeasure. The asteroid that killed the dinosaurs was thrown from her hand. She is both black holes and supernovas; the eventual collapse of our own sun is already written by her laws. The elderly take care not to offend her and risk a broken hip. The slow slippage of the tectonic plates follows her laws and earthquakes are her will.
Then the drugs wore off.
Here’s the point: the Goddess of Gravity isn’t just the good stuff, the ballet dancers and galaxies. She’s also earthquakes and broken hips. She’s the good and the bad, or One Great Whole.
The Christian God is not one great whole. He is exclusively love and goodness. This results in a lot of theological pretzels.
- If God is good, why do bad things happen? Well, say his disciples, we have to suspend our understanding of good and bad and accept that for God, good and bad mean something entirely different than how humans define those words.
- If God is just, why do terrible things happen to good people? Well, say his disciples, it’s because of this idea we’re going to try and explain that really doesn’t make much sense but let’s pretend it does.
- If God loves me, why can’t I feel it? Well, say his disciples, it’s a mental illness called depression. The rhetorical question that asks if God can create a rock so big he can’t lift it is answered in depression. Yes, God can create an illness so terrible that his love can’t reach us.
I’ve been reading “The Origin of Satan” (still haven’t finished it; it’s one of those books where you have to stop and absorb the ideas). The Christian concept of Satan developed in the written Gospels is unnervingly connected to the believers. Satan is the enemy who is part of the community of saints. Satan doesn’t exist apart from the Christians. And yet, theologically, Christians teach that Satan is wholly separate from God. God is the good; Satan is the bad. God is justice; Satan is the bad guy getting away with it. God is love and safety; Satan is apathy and danger. God is health and happiness; Satan is sick misery.
This isn’t Whole. If all truth can be circumscribed into one great whole, then how do we split God and Satan? I was taught that they aren’t balanced. God is all-powerful; Satan inevitably loses. Satan is under God’s control and cannot exceed God’s permissions to torment us. That’s not just in Job’s story, where God gives Satan permission to test Job. It’s also in Elder Maxwell’s quote that, “the Lord knows our bearing capacity.” Is it God sending us terrible trials to test our faith? Is it Satan attacking us to damage our faith? If we can’t tell them apart, then should they really be seen as separate?
They ought to be the same deity. The same way the Goddess of Gravity is goddess of both the orbit of our beautiful moon, and the terrible destruction of a body when a hiker falls off a cliff.
Wholeness.
We, God’s creations, are neither wholly evil nor wholly good. I know that, for myself, accepting my selfishness and fears went a long way in helping me find peace. I could better handle the selfishness and fears once I quit trying to eradicate them and instead accepted them as part of my humanity. If I have to give up my humanity to be exalted, I’m going to miss it.
The worst person you know has some good parts. The best person you know has some bad parts. If we are neither wholly evil nor wholly good, and we are created in God’s image, then why do we insist that God must be wholly good?
This is where I think the Greek gods and goddesses have an idea worth exploring. The gods of Mount Olympus weren’t loving and good. They presided over both the good and bad in their domains. Demeter was the goddess of both harvest and famine. Apollo was the god of both sickness and health.
Now we’re to the part where I swear I could explain this idea more eloquently while I was high, but it goes something like this: Our idea of an all-loving, all-powerful, all-benevolent God is counter-intuitive. If we look at the world we actually live in, this world that we believe God created, there isn’t anything that is wholly good, or wholly bad. Everything we need for life can also destroy, whether it’s rain, sunshine, bacteria, animals, birth, even ourselves.
“For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so, my firstborn in the wilderness, righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one.” 2 Nephi 2:11.
If God created this world of wholeness, this world in which the good and bad are inextricably connected, then why do we teach that God’s good is wholly separate from Satan’s bad? How could God create a world that is so different from his own nature? To get the bad stuff into the world, did Satan have to participate in the act of creation? Or if not, if God created the bad stuff in this world, then is Satan really a part of him?
Theodicy is the name we give the mountain of words that try to explain why, if God is good, there is so much evil in the world. Well …. maybe we should stop trying to insist that God is entirely good. I have not studied the other major religions in the world. Does anyone know if any other major religion teaches that their deity (those that have a deity) is all-loving, all-powerful, and all-good? Islam, Buddhism, Hindu, Judaism, Sikhism, Zoroastrianism, Shinto, Taoism, Confucianism. Does any religion besides Christianity put their deity up on a pedestal like we do?
Questions:
- I already asked a bunch in the post. Feel free to pick one and share your thoughts.
- Would it make more sense to you if a deity admitted to ruling and reigning over both the good and the bad?
- If you want to believe in a god that is wholly good, why?
- Would you be willing to worship a god that is both good and bad? Are we worshiping power or benevolence?
- Do you believe it’s possible for a person to be either wholly good or wholly evil?
- Would it be easier to discuss these questions if we had words without moral connotations like good and bad?
Wheat & Tares 
My compliments on your article, Janey; very thoughtful AND thought provoking!
Personally, I’ve moved away from a “belief in a God on a pedestal” – and all of the challenges (holding such beliefs) entails. I haven’t gone the full atheist route yet – but rather, I’ve become an “intelligent design” sort of guy. Of course, I’m not sure what that “intelligent design” might be……but it sure feels like we’re all part of something much greater than ourselves…..
Thanks again.
This is a wonderful opinion piece. It reminds me of the words of the Door Mouse: “Don’t try to make life a mathematics problem with yourself in the center and everything coming out equal. When you’re good, bad things can still happen. And if you’re bad, you can still be lucky.”
There is no one on the planet who is wholly good or wholly bad. The Church does its members a disservice in creating the impression that life is a vending machine—if you put good works, thoughts, or feelings in, then you get good blessings out. This is not how life works.
Most things in life simply happen with no Divine guidance. The good lose their cars keys just as often as the wicked, and God simply doesn’t care either way.
i appreciate the work to produce this article. Here is my thought.
God created a mortal world — things happen in a mortal world, both “good” and “bad” — for example, rain falls in many places in this mortal world, and naturally, it falls on both the just and the unjust — similarly, everyone (just or unjust, or whatever other dichotomy one wants to use) is subject to sickness and death.
Satan does not deserve blame for every “bad” thing or happening– many “bad” things are simply products of our mortal world — plus, many men and women are capable of evil in this mortal world all by themselves and without Satan’s prompting or other involvement.
I cannot quantify, but I think much (most?) human suffering comes because of the facts or our mortal world and the decisions of other people. Similarly, many (most?) blessings come because of the facts or our mortal world and the decisions of other people.
It is with this understanding that I read D&C 59:5-9, Psalm 100, and so forth.
You would hope that if Joseph Smith was really visited by God the Father and his son Jesus Christ, he would have a clear recollection of that fact. So it’s troubling that the 1832 version of the First Vision (the very first version and the only one in his handwriting) did not describe these two individuals. It’s also troubling that JS seemed to believe in the Trinity even AFTER the First Vision which is reflected in the BOM until it was later modified.
I guess my point is that if we (the COJCOLDS) can’t even get the nature of the Godhead straight until various iterations, why do we think we could get straight the nature of God himself?
The fact that God is mean and cruel in the Old Testament and kinder and gentler later on is the least of our invented contradictions.
I can’t speak for the rest of Christianity, but the Mormon God is playing by different rules than any other because, according to Joseph Smith, He is not a creator–He is an organizer. He did not create the matter or energy that makes up the universe, nor did He create our “intelligences”–they are all co-eternal with Him. He organized the matter and energy into what we know as the universe–same with this Earth, but He did not create it. He organized our intelligences into spirits and, later, bodies, but He did not create us. And he organized some of the evil intelligence that he found into Satan, but He did not create Satan or the evil the Satan encompasses.
Some would argue the because God “organized” Satan, He is somehow complicit in Satan’s evil, making Him less than good. I don’t quite see it that way–I believe that organizing Satan was the best way to manage the pre-existent evil. Furthermore, because I reject an omnipotent God, I don’t feel like I’m pedestalizing Him.
Janey, I guess I am weird, but I never split God into all good. He obeys the laws of physics. Just like your God Gravity. And I really like this Goddess of Gravity idea, more on that later. He obeys the laws of Free agency.
There IS no Satan. Satan is a human invention so we could blame our mistakes on somebody else. The good ol’ Satan made me do it. No idiot, you decided to do it and only you are responsible for your choices. There may have even been compelling reasons, even a gun to your head, but you decided.
Our Christian God is “the God of this earth” which means He is the God of volcanos and earthquakes and sickness and whatever that is on this earth. Not that God picks Janie out of everybody else to make her dizzy. Just that God doesn’t STOP whatever laws of human biology that has stopped functioning properly in your body.
Those stories you heard in primary about how “God answers prayers” and protects you from a car accident? Bunk. Those stories about God protected Trump because he is going to save America? Bunk. God doesn’t interfere in the goings on of this earth. Nope, that is a human fantasy because we are SO so so desperate to be able to control the bad things that happen. I mean, you know that prosperity gospel is bunk, right. So is the rest of it.
God comforts us and teaches us if we are open to listening. Other than that, He can’t and won’t change the laws of physics to protect tRump from a speeding bullet. He can’t and won’t change the laws of human body malfunctions to protect Janey from dizzy. He didn’t protect my husband from dizzy either. Having lived through my husband’s dizzy, I really feel bad for you and wish I could help. Maybe God gave you that idea of the Goddess of gravity to teach, who knows.
I think God is a perfect parent, but just like our human parents could not change the laws of physics, neither can God or the Goddess of Gravity.
I don’t think God plays favorites and protects his future prophets from a tree falling on them (story from primary that made me start thinking these stories are bunk) and lets other children get beaten by their abusive parents. Otherwise, I have to accept that I am not one of God’s favorites and 80% of other kids who don’t have parents that beat and rape them are more favorite than me. I don’t think He CAN. Because of the laws of physics and the laws of free agency and the laws of biology and the laws of evolution. God is actually kind of helpless.
It is we humans who want “all powerful” and perfectly good and loving and protects the good and makes them rich and answers prayers by making cookies and punch “nourish and strengthen our bodies.” Bunk.
I have always wanted to shake people who say
opps. Cut off there in the middle of a thought. I want to shake the people who say “if God is good, how can He allow me to hurt?” Well, He might by Good, but He isn’t all powerful and He obeys the laws of physics.”
This is great, Janey! Thank you!
I think the Hindu trinity helps me wrap my head around the wholeness of God better than the Christian one. Brahma/Saraswati-Shiva/Parvati-Vishnu/Lakshmi get me thinking about the wholeness and balance of God and humanity. Creation/Wisdom-Destruction/Power-Salvation/Abundance covers it pretty well. I met a guru in India once who told me that you had to think of the trinity as both male and female(not Brahma-Shiva-Vishnu only) and as encompassing the whole range of human capacity and feeling.
Question: did Joseph Smith ever comprehend the character of God? Throughout his discourses on the nature of God over time, he seems all over the place. I will grant him one thing, though. Jesus and God in the NT are separate, not one as Trinitarians claim. There is no evidence that Jesus claimed to be God except in the Book of John, which was written later. Joseph Smith’s venturing into Godhead theory was a better interpretation. However, the idea that we can all become gods and that God was once as we were seems to undermine the idea of God in the beginning and as an omnipotent being. For that idea would suggest that there is a God overseeing God and that that God has a God overseer as well. Does god have an origin? That seems to be Joseph Smith’s later thinking. Trinitarian thinking scoffs at such an idea and claims God to be the origin itself.
At any rate, I’m more with the Trinitarians as far as the question of origin and God. God is the origin. But then ultimately I agree with Spinoza that God and nature are synonymous. There is no supernatural. Only natural. God isn’t transcendent (in defiance of known laws of physics) but is only immanent (we see god all around us and within us). To live in peace with nature is to live with god. To seek supernatural remedies to problems is to seek in vain. There are only natural remedies to problems. But nature is fascinating, has so much more to be discovered, and human minds have probably only begun to scratch the surface of understanding nature.
Great and thoughtful post, Janey. I no longer believe in a god or a system of binaries anymore. I like what the Neoplatonists (who did, it must be said, believed in dualities) thought about happiness (what they called eudaimonia). If we take a look in the Enneads of Plotinus, we see a theory of evil and goodness that’s based on proximity and on unity with the One (or Monad), rather than a moral choice that must be made between good and evil. In other words, Neoplatonists didn’t believe in evil as a thing in itself that was diametrically opposed to good; rather, they saw evil as simply the absence of light (or the absence of good).
I like that idea because it means the achievement of happiness is based less on some fear-mongering notion of an evil, scary Satan who will tempt me to snort coke or rob a bank or whatever, and is based more on a kind of contemplative intentionality to recognize or unite with the One through contemplating and experiencing beauty. I just think that’s a much better way to go. Even when Mormonism does talk about Good and Evil, it’s rarely in a compelling or meaningful way. Mormonism is quite resistant to really examining the consequences of its own beliefs; it would rather just use the God/Satan binary to scare its members into falling in line.
I’m half way through the book “The dark side of the light chasers”. It’s a book about embracing your shadow side, and it goes right along with the ideas of this post.
One idea that has stuck out to me is that as humans, we all share all human attributes. The courage that I admire in someone else, I have that within me too. The selfishness or cruelty that I see in someone else, I have that within me too. Once I realize this, it makes it easier not to judge people for their negative characteristics, realizing that I also have that same characteristic. (The characteristics I judge people for the most, are probably the ones that affect me the most, but that I’m trying my hardest to repress).
The goal isn’t to repress or get rid of the negative characteristics, the goal is to accept that they are part of us, and learn to work with them. Janey says, “I know that, for myself, accepting my selfishness and fears went a long way in helping me find peace. I could better handle the selfishness and fears once I quit trying to eradicate them and instead accepted them as part of my humanity.” It’s a perfect example of the book’s thesis (Janey, have you read that book?)
Matthew 5:48 says “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect”. The LDS church’s website says, “In the New Testament, the Greek word for perfect means complete, whole, or fully developed, having reached an end-goal.”
I took have stopped striving for 100% goodness, because I don’t think that’s the goal. And instead, I’ve been going for “wholeness”. As I accept my wholeness, I find it easier to love and accept others as well.
Perhaps God has accepted his wholeness, and that is why God loves us unconditionally.
Anna,
I am right there with you. Don’t tell me God made my son deformed “for a reason” while he made me without significant deformities on purpose as well. I don’t believe it. There’s no good reason except that’s just the terms of the universe we live in. God is responsible in that They made the universe, They set the terms. But I don’t believe They are up there pulling puppet strings.
I have heard our life on earth referred to as a test. In the best tests you aren’t guaranteed what questions you are given. But you are graded on how you respond to the difficulties you are faced with, whatever they are.
I don’t believe anyone is more special in God’s eyes than any one else. That includes “the rising generation”. I am certainly not more loved by God than my mother. I am not more or less loved than my son with the deformities.
Lws329, Yes, even the stuff that is supposed to make me feel better than others like this special child was sent to me because God knew I could handle a child with disability. Or that God sent me into an abusive home to be a “chain breaker” because God knew I could heal from the abuse and not repeat the generational chain of abuse by abusing my own children.
I was immune to the “saved for these final days” crap because by the time I was old enough to hear that stuff, my mother had already expressed disbelief that we were in the very last of the latter days because her very dead great grandmother was promised in her patriarchal blessing that she was a special spirit saved for the last of the latter days and that she personally would see the savior return and help to build the New Jerusalem in Missouri. Yeah, didn’t happen.
And don’t even try the idea the one person was “more valiant” and they didn’t need to be tested so they were born with a Down’s syndrome or died before the age of 8. That is unfair because if they were valiant they would want the learning experience. Not to skip learning the hard stuff. Jesus came to earth as a fully human being so he could understand human experience so he could succor us. To really understand pain you have to have felt pain. Jesus HAD to learn these things in order to help us through them.
So, by giving that valiant spirit an exemption to the “test,” you deprive them of much of the normal human experience. If it was important enough that Jesus needed it so he could succor us, then shouldn’t everyone who will eventually become a god need to have it? But babies who die don’t get the experience, and mentally disabled don’t get the normal experience, so how could they ever become what Jesus became in understanding all human suffering? Big hole in Mormon theology. It isn’t *just* a test or even primarily a test. It is a learning experience. We learn about pain and suffering and mostly we learn about temptation. How can someone who has never been tempted understand and forgive the person who failed to stand up to temptation?
And the idiotic idea that we will never be tried beyond our ability or given too much to handle? I could accept if we are not judged as guilty when we were given more than we could handle. Sort of like killing in self defense isn’t first degree murder. You were put in an impossible situation of kill or die. The temptation to kill is too strong, so strong we don’t even *call* it temptation. What about a person who goes insane and hears voices telling them to kill? What about a mother suffering from post partum depression who kills her baby? They were all put in situations that were more than they could bare.
These are all things people have made up trying to make the world feel fair or safe. No, we don’t live in a fair world, let alone a safe world. Shit happens. It happens randomly and evil happens to innocent people. It isn’t as simple as God causing it to rain on the just and the unjust. God doesn’t *cause* the rain. Physics does. God allows it to rain on the just and the unjust while he hits others with a cat 5 hurricane. Rain on the just and unjust implies everybody gets wet equally. Nope. Some people get wet and others drown. It isn’t God causing it al all, just watching it happen and not protecting any of us if we happen to be where the hurricane hits.
You don’t have to be an atheist to accept that the world is nice to some and awful to others. You just have to let go of the idea that life is fair and fairy tales are true. And God makes sure life is fair and makes fairy tales come true. You just have to accept that our life experience is supposed to be what my family calls “an adventure”. An adventure that is kind of like walking through hell . . . barefoot.
You do have to understand that experience and learning are more important than some “test” that isn’t fair to begin with. If you focus on learning instead of wanting everything to be easy it becomes obvious that God would set up our learning experience to help us learn as much as possible, to give us hard experiences to learn and grow from. Think about building up muscles. Is it easy? No and if you try to make it supper easy you don’t succeed. It isn’t a test. It is a growing/learning experience.
Thank you for the thank yous! I’m feeling much better than last week, and that descent into something I didn’t understand at all at least produced some interesting thoughts.
lastlemming’s comment about God being the Great Organizer instead of the Great Creator triggered a thought. The Goddess of Gravity was the one who created the heavens and the earth. The way matter coalesces into stars, planets, nebulae is all the force of gravity. Objects attract each other. Gravity is, of course, morally neutral. Whether it causes us harm or benefit is a question of context.
So. God is morally neutral. He exists and creates/organizes the same way that the laws of physics exist and create and organize. He only has the moral authority that we give him; he is a blank slate upon which we project our values. He’s only as ‘good’ as his followers. He’s only as ‘bad’ as his followers.
Anna’s evaluation of God resonates with me, and I wish I’d come to those understandings earlier in my life. I am one of the people who grew up believing that God was all good and all powerful and if things were going wrong (or what I was taught was wrong) then the problem was my faith and obedience.
Several of you commented about not believing God is all-good or all-powerful (grizzerbear, ji, Brother Sky). Stuff just happens. That’s probably a pretty common belief here at W&T, since most of us are nuanced believers if we still believe at all. Can you imagine if I dropped this post into a gospel doctrine lesson though? A class of faithful TBMs would really struggle with these concepts.
josh h – the difference between the OT and NT gods could be encompassed in the idea that God includes both good and bad, compassion and judgment, harsh and kind. It’s not something religions like ours teaches, but allowing God more breadth could reconcile the contradiction you point out. I’m moving away from the idea that the Bible is a “true” reflection of God’s nature and towards the idea that the Bible is a collection of humans who believe they interacted with God and didn’t really manage to create a cohesive theology.
Margie – thanks for that info about Hindu deity! I’ve wondered about how the non-Abrahamic religions deal with good and evil. I should take a comparative religions class or find some books.
Brad D – sounds like I need to read Spinoza. I’m coming to like the idea of God as the ultimate physicist. I may write an entire post on this sentence of yours: “To live in peace with nature is to live with god.”
aporetic1 – I have not yet read that book but I am giving it to myself for Christmas this year.
I really appreciate all the comments on this post and all the thought and effort that went into those comments.
I remade my ideas about God as all-good and all-powerful in response to life events, so I really appreciate lws329 and Anna for sharing their thoughts on how life shapes our ideas of God.
Janey, I approach these matters from a faithful perspective, so I do believe God is all-good and all-powerful — however, I do not believe that God actively involves himself in deciding the granting or denial of every blessing (or the imposition of every cursing). I believe that many (most?) things we might see as blessings, and many (most?) things we might see as cursings, are actually products of (1) our mortal or fallen world; or (2) the agency of men and women. That is part of the broad plan.
Even so, I want to thank the Lord in all things, and I believe that his grace is sufficient for all of us.
I disagree with some Latter-day Saints who say that every circumstance I face is part of a test exquisitely designed by God just for me. Elder Maxwell once said that God is in the details, and their may be some truth in that from a particular perspective, but it pains me to think of God deciding to inflict each and every instance of human pain and suffering as part of a great master plan for each individual. I look forward to the great millennium where God will wipe away every year and make everything right.
I think that we have to be careful about creating in our minds the God that we want, with the attributes that we want, and then worshipping that creature as God. Yet this is what religious leaders have always done: they have described the God that we are supposed to worship from their perspective. I think that it is like the story of the blind men with the elephant. One blind man can feel and correctly describe the trunk, while another feels and describes the ear, and another the tail, and another a leg, and another a tusk. All are right in their part, and yet all are wrong if their description carries any suggestion of wholeness or completeness. An example is those who preach that obedience is the first law of heaven. There are some scripture verses that can suggest this, but all scripture must be read as a whole. Thus when Moroni tells us “that faith, hope and charity bringeth [people] unto [Christ]–the fountain of all righteousness” (in this week’s CFM Ether 12:28), I read that faith, hope, and charity are more important than strict obedience (see also 1 Cor 13:1-3 and Matt 7:22-23). Do we speak with forkèd tongue when we proclaim exact obedience while also proclaiming daily repentance? Seems like the exactly obedient wouldn’t need that much repentance.
I do not believe that each act of individual suffering or pain is God-given and is purposefully designed to bless the life of the person suffering. Bad things happen to good people and to bad people alike, and this is a condition of the fallen world in which we live. While I accept a devil, he is not the cause of all pain. Men are capable of doing evil all of their own volition. A lot of pain is not caused by anyone, but is natural, as God’s rain falls on all: sometimes there are floods, and sometimes there are droughts, and neither man nor God is the cause. God does not cause children to be born with deformities to try the faith of the parents. Who sinned, the man born blind or his parents? Didn’t Jesus teach that neither had sinned? Women are not raped and children are not abused because God is working a miracle for those women or children. This I do believe: all that is wrong will be made right, all tears will be dried, all pain will be done away, and all wickedness will be punished. We won’t get to see it in this life, and I’m OK with that. I’m hoping for things that I cannot see, yet which I believe are true.