It’s always fun to learn something new that is also kind of weird. Today’s entry is from Bruce R. McConkie, who while not very fun, was always weird. The other day while listening to a podcast on McConkie’s infamous Seven Deadly Heresies talk given at a BYU devotional in 1980, I found this gem from the talk:
Eternal progression consists of living the kind of life God lives and of increasing in kingdoms and dominions everlastingly. Why anyone should suppose that an infinite and eternal being who has presided in our universe for almost 2,555,000,000 years, who made the sidereal heavens, whose creations are more numerous than the particles of the earth, and who is aware of the fall of every sparrow—why anyone would suppose that such a being has more to learn and new truths to discover in the laboratories of eternity is totally beyond my comprehension.
McConkie, BYU Devotional, 1 June 1980
The above was part of his explanation why believing “that God is progressing in knowledge and is learning new truths” was a heresy, (number one on his list!). So there is that big number, 2, 555,000,000, the number of years that God has been God of our universe. Is that the age of God? Is it the age of the earth? Was it counted from the day God was set apart as our God? Who set him apart? Was he God before that time? I’m sure if Bruce had lived longer he might have answered those questions also.
What I found fascinating was how he came up with that number. First he took a literal reading of D&C 77:6
6 Q. What are we to understand by the book which John saw, which was sealed on the back with seven seals? A. We are to understand that it contains the revealed will, mysteries, and the works of God; the hidden things of his economy concerning this earth during the seven thousand years of its continuance, or its temporal existence.
D&C 77:6
So we have the number 7000. Now he takes another uniquely Mormon stripture, and uses the literal meaning again
4 And the Lord said unto me, by the Urim and Thummim, that Kolob was after the manner of the Lord, according to its times and seasons in the revolutions thereof; that one revolution was a day unto the Lord, after his manner of reckoning, it being one thousand years according to the time appointed unto that whereon thou standest. This is the reckoning of the Lord’s time, according to the reckoning of Kolob.
Abraham 3:4
OK, now we get to use some math. One year = 365 days. So in 7000 years (the life of the earth) there are 7000 x 365 = 2,555,000 days. If each of those days, as written personally by the hand of Abraham, is 1000 years, then 2,555,000 x 1000 = two billion, five hundred and fifty five million years (2,555,000,000).
Now McConkie realized that we have not quite reached the 7000 years, so being ever so carful to not get anything wrong, he used the word “almost 2,555,000,000” since we are not quite there yet.
This was all brand new to me, and it was truly a joy to learn something new this last week about this quirky religion that I was born into.
Did any of you know this about the age of the universe?
How come it is not more widely taught today in the Church, since it is still found on the Church’s (BYU) web site?
I did not know about the age of the universe! Admittedly, I have never tried to delve into the thinking of Young Earth Creationists. I had also never tried to determine the age of the universe based on the comparative orbits of Kolob and Earth. Fascinating. At least the universe is older than the earth.
Several years before I went inactive, I was a Primary teacher. During Sharing Time, when we were learning about the Old Testament and the creation story, a child raised his hand to say his schoolteacher said there was a Big Bang. The bishop himself, who was teaching this lesson, smiled kindly and reassured the child that there was no such thing as the Big Bang.
By this point in my life, I was viewing the OT stories as parables and metaphors. But I have to say, even back when I was TBM, I thought that maybe God set up the Big Bang and that’s the method he used to create the universe. But in any event, I was not impressed with the bishop telling the kid that the Big Bang just didn’t happen.
Ha. That feels about as sophisticated as some of the other number crunching I’ve seen other Christian groups do with Bible verses. It’s quite interesting that he uses “infinite” and “eternal” in the same phrase as a finite time. And I think that in an off itself is why we don’t teach it. Science so clearly demonstrates the universe to be older than that. And saying that would mean we really believe in a finite God that has very little overall control over things because he doesn’t have dominion over everything. It really is a very small conception of God. And man would the evangelicals (not that they care about the science part) give us even more hell for that if we taught it–because, and I would agree, those are not the attributes of an all powerful, all knowing, eternal god. And a god that has a beginning also has an end and wouldn’t it suck to be in that part of the timeline.
That first phrase he uses: “Eternal progression consists of living the kind of life God lives and of increasing in kingdoms and dominions everlasting”–he’s made capitalism a sacred theology. Being a god means spending eternity doing stuff to get more stuff. Coming here to earth is an IPO of sorts. I’m guessing that as one of the hardliners in the Q15, he never stopped to ask himself the question: do I actually want any of this stuff? I’m not that old, but I’ve lived long enough in this modern age to realize that eternal progression actually sounds like hell to me. It’s a vailed “I’m not good enough yet” message enshrined in theological drag–and not only that, but “eternal progression” is the top prize of the celestial kingdom. And not only are missionaries here convincing people to get on that merry-go-round, but you could be a missionary in the afterlife doing the same hard sell for even longer. It is crazy how much western thought has been encoded into Mormonism. Ha, Britt Harley hits it on the nose when she says that if you can tell her about a people’s agriculture, financials and other things, she can then tell you what kind of god they believe in. And man if “eternal progression” isn’t western capitalism and perfectionism rolled up into one ugly exhausting package–it’s blessing-maxxing. It’s like those video games where you go through it and “win”, but then you continue playing it just so you get all the achievements and side quests you missed along the way…….for some pointless reason.
I must say, at least during his era, there was still some doctrinal exploration and exposition, but it seems he and HBL shut that all down with correlation. So now we’re left with legalist approaches to scripture pigeon-holed through a restoration lens and approved by committee. No wonder temples are the push. They serve as the last vestige of mystery in all of Mormondom. Man what I wouldn’t give to have real trained philosophers and theologians in the Q15 to push back on and get rid of correlation–ones that have seen and experienced the world and its people on their own terms and been changed by all that. I don’t think that will ever happen. The businessman, lawyer, and doctor vibe is too strong.
Interesting. I would have simply passed that off as poetic or hyperbolic reminder that God is so, so much older than us. Plus, I’ve been taught from time to time that 1000 years for us is a day for God. That verse from Abraham seems to point that way as well, but maybe I’m totally misunderstanding or misreading
To the points from Chris (and I’ve alluded to this in a few recent posts, including his own, so forgive the repetition), a somewhat limited or finite God subject to certain laws is actually part of what I find so appealing about LDS theology. I take more comfort in knowing a loving Heavenly Father is doing all in His power to bring me back into His presence than I do in a God who entirely set up a relatively hostile universe for me to have a cosmic Darwinian experience. I wish we emphasized that more, but agree that evangelicals would have a heyday.
I agree with McConkie in the sense that the only real way God really progresses is through His posterity. What a wonderful way to progress though. With each child I had, I realized that love is really only one of the few infinite things we can experience in mortality, and we’re just getting started.
To equate that to capitalism seems to entirely miss the point. In a quick defense of capitalism, however, the few entrepreneurial friends I have seem to get as much or more joy out of the service they’re providing than they do the money that comes from it, but maybe I just hang out with a better crowd. I know there are abusers. I do think Heavenly Father is providing the greatest service possible, and I’m sure He enjoys it.
“No wonder temples are the push. They serve as the last vestige of mystery in all of Mormondom”
And yet every new “adjustment” to temple script and practices makes it less mysterious and more and more banal and didactic.
Yes Eli, when you try to make sense of nonsense, it get confusing. Yes, the verse seems to say one day to God is 1000 years to us. By that understanding it has only been seven days for God. Bruce has is bass akwards, but has made an argument for a old earth. His numbers mean that God has been around 7000 years, but for earth it has been 2,555,000,000 years, a pretty old earth!
Eli,
The need for “progress” is such a western way of thinking though. I’m curious what point you think is being missed. Fundamental to LDS theology is the idea that God’s sole purpose is to bring about the immortality and eternal life and man. But why? Well, as you’ve pointed out, fundamental as well is “eternal progression” as that is the only option left for a god–god making everyone else. And why do that? Well, because it seems that the only way to be a god is constantly be acquiring more dominion and glory. I don’t think it really matters if HF is providing a “service” and is enjoying it–he’s still getting “paid” for it. It’s fundamentally a transaction–western capitalism at it’s finest. The only thing we’re really lacking is a free market of gods that can compete for our attention and worship.
Maybe giving all the “glory” to God is a human mechanism for reminding ourselves to remain humble in all circumstances–sort of a reflex to not let stuff go to our head. I suppose that’s fine if it actually works for someone. But I just wonder–in the same way that I’ve challenged in other comments on this blog, would God still do what he does if there was nothing in it for him? If there is was no more glory to be had, no more dominion to be expanded, would he still do what we think he does? If your capitalist entrepreneurial friends ceased getting paid for the service they provided, I’m confident their joy would dry up pretty quick and their service discontinued. They would then move onto something else that resulted in payment. Your assignment of “joy” to the service is the attempted moral flex here, but in reality is a nice-to-have and utterly unimportant when fundamentally “payment received” is the real desired outcome in all of what they do. And yet, this is typically how we view and talk about God–debts, payments, repayments, contracts, conditions, transaction, penalty, etc.
And maybe that’s the issue, we feel so certainty about what we THINK about God, but in reality haven’t the faintest clue other than some vague feels that assuage our own personal lived experience, identity and meaning.
I don’t know if you’ve heard it in the church, but I’ve often heard the phrase “if we aren’t growing, we’re dying”. What if that just isn’t the case with God? What if he is exactly where he wants to be? What if God is perfectly content with just being? I don’t know. What I’m fairly confident in though is that our ideas of God are formed from those cultural and ideological systems we’ve marinaded in. I just don’t think mostly anyone has remotely any grasp on God itself and what that really is and what it desires or cares about.
“a somewhat limited or finite God subject to certain laws is actually part of what I find so appealing about LDS theology”
And to me that is also read “fallible”, which then calls into question all moral and doctrinal foundations that pretty much all depend on a perfected, self-empowered, all-powerful God. Which then leads nicely into a problem you bring up next with HF doing all in his power to bring you back–what if he just doesn’t have enough power to save you, where does that leave you?
Helps me understand how gaslighting is so rampant with some church members.
BB
I guessed I failed to see the implication that Heavenly Father started Godhood with the creation of our world. I thought the scriptural implication was He’d been doing this long before we came around. So much of Mormonism actually makes a lot of sense to me. It’s easy to see why so many who leave become agnostic or atheist (well-intentioned evangelicals who use atheistic tactics aren’t always helpful either).
Chris,
Years of study and pondering have left me believing that Glory is almost synonymous with Love in these regards, but I may be an outlier. I don’t know that God “needs” glory in the other sense of the word. Do we, as a species (including God in there), require Love? I’m not certain, but in certainly makes existence much more pleasant. Do I think God needs love from us? Maybe not. Maybe He’s perfectly content being unloved. I’m guessing He finds existence much more pleasant with it, and I would not think any less of Him if He did require it for true progress.
I’m much less quick to make the jump to “fallible,” though I suppose that’s ultimately possible. I see God existing in a certain reality, constrained by it to an extent, but knowledgeable and powerful enough to use all of it to our advantage and exploit any and all “loopholes” He might find. I think it would be easy to assume that finding joy in selflessness is our ego simply craving that in the first place, but can ego be blamed entirely if that’s just a simple fact of reality and existence?
I understand your narrative. At some point, the admission of just “not knowing,” given the respective ways we’ve both experienced and tried to grapple with reality, almost seems to require an entirely different brand of faith, but on a comparable level.
Yes, Chris:
“And maybe that’s the issue, we feel so certainty about what we THINK about God, but in reality haven’t the faintest clue other than some vague feels that assuage our own personal lived experience, identity and meaning.”
A Heavenly Father? No thankyou- he doesn’t like women, non-binary, or non whites, or so I’ve been told!
I’m afraid I don’t trust anyone who claims to speak for god, to tell me who or what he is. Yes, I have a sunk-cost problem, but so be it. It wasn’t all bad, but it is transactional!
McConkie was following W. W. Phelps in calculating a timespan of 2,555,000,000 years. Phelps wrote to William Smith:
“Well, now, Brother William, when the house of Israel begin to come into the glorious mysteries of the kingdom, and find that Jesus Christ, whose goings forth, as the prophets said, have been from of old, from eternity: and that eternity, agreeably to the records found in the catacombs of Egypt, has been going on in this system, (not this world) almost two thousand five hundred and fifty five millions of years: and to know at the same time, that deists, geologists and others are trying to prove that matter must have existed hundreds of thousands of years;-it almost tempts the flesh to fly to God, or muster faith like Enoch to be translated and see and know as we are seen and known!”
The parenthetical “not this world” is Phelps’.
Appealing to this fringy number in a talk intended to rebut false doctrines seems pretty dicey to me.
I’ll quote Chris, too…
“And maybe that’s the issue, we feel so certainty about what we THINK about God, but in reality haven’t the faintest clue other than some vague feels that assuage our own personal lived experience, identity and meaning.”
Dogmatism is bad (un-Christian and uncharitable), and so is legalism. I hope the dogmatism (and error, as yes, McConkie did the math backwards) of McConkie is being left behind. Faith, hope, and charity are good. Dogmatism and legalism are bad.
Yes, LoudlySublime. I have kind of a sunk cost problem too. I understand the wisdom of fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Been there, done that, won’t fall for “trust me, I speak for God” crap ever again.
Cris, I am not sure if you are saying that according to our church, Eternal increase is basically capitalism. Or if that is how you think God really is. If you are saying that our church cannot see past any motivation beyond collecting money and kingdoms of people to rule over, then yes, I agree with you. Our church is very capitalistic and their hoarding wealth they do no need is part of that.
But then you say that nobody would keep a job if the pay stopped. Well, yes and no. If they need the money to live they have no choice. But, say they are already wealthy. Do they carry on like Musk and greedily collect billions or start giving the excess away? I have had a job that was totally unpaid and I was in it for the satisfaction of helping others. It is called volunteering. In fact, how much I earned as a social worker was never important. Probably a good thing because social workers are among the horribly underpaid for what they do, along with school teachers and nurses. The thing I got out of it wasn’t capitalistic at all. So, maybe God is more of a school teacher than a corporate ladder climber.
Your whole idea that “eternal progression” is the collecting of things and glory is just weird. But the church does kind of teach that, so I understand. The temple promises kingdoms and dominions—which would make Trump happy. Not me though.
Are you into parenting your kids for money, things and glory? If so you are in for a big disappointment. Maybe God is more of a parent and his joy comes in watching his kids grow.
Of course, some people take the temple crap of ruling over kingdoms as their goal. Me, I always thought that was motivation for the ….well, “capitalists” among us to keep them motivated until they grow up enough to feel the joy of raising children. Sort of like promising rewards is for the stage of motivation where children need to be given a reward because they have not grow up enough for intrinsic value and the satisfaction of being a good person. But instead of ending that motivation thing or moral reasoning there, like the dumb guy (Kohlberg) who came up with the theory, I noticed that women and some very kind men have a different moral reasoning and that isn’t to please others, but for the growth and well being of others. Sort of like the Hippocratic oath of “do no harm” (while you are trying to do good) or pagan beliefs of the highest morality is to not harm any living thing. But just as Kohlberg could not see past the development stage he was in, to see that other people got past him and most men, some people still need to be rewarded with money, and they are poor humanitarians and fail to give their wealth to help others. Joseph Smith wanted the kingdoms and dominions and ruling over people, but he didn’t get very far morally either. He was always a selfish twit.
But if you are going to have billions of children, then of course you need kingdoms or a world to put them on. So, ruling over a world is part of it, but it is not the motivation for being God.
Bill, I noticed his math was off and was going to point it out, but you beat me to it. As for the age of the earth, so far all we have proven is that Bruce was really bad at math. He flunked that story problem by multiplying when he should have divided. But he wasn’t very bright.
And why don’t we teach that, besides it is wrong? Well, his evidence is taken from two books that if we told the evangelicals, they would laugh in our face and tell us horrible things about Joseph Smiths money digging. I think Joseph knew enough to know the earth was not created in 7 days. So he said that a day to God is really a thousand years which sounds a bit more plausible.
The number is actually derived from the earth’s creative periods rather than its temporal existence–but it works out the same if you reverse the latter as Bill has demonstrated.
With regard to God’s progression in knowledge being heretical–I’m on both sides of the fence. I can understand Elder McConkie’s concern in that there might theoretically exist some unknown quantity that could unravel God’s entire creative enterprise if he wasn’t aware of all things. But on the other hand, I’m open to the idea that God knows all things–but in the sense that he knows everything that’s knowable. For example, I think it’s possible that he may not know every decision that every intelligent being will make with perfect accuracy. Even so, I believe that because his power to forecast possibilities is, for all intents and purposes, unlimited that he his able to prepare every needed contingency plan for said decisions–and that requires even more power, IMO.
So I think Elder McConkie’s concerns had some legitimacy–especially at a time when when both religion and the academy were less mature theologically. My guess is that what he didn’t want to see was belief in God destroyed by a sense that there might be some loose thread in the cosmic tapestry that could unravel the whole thing.
Anna,
“I am not sure if you are saying that according to our church, Eternal increase is basically capitalism. Or if that is how you think God really is.”
Everything I used to “know” about God was handed to me by the church. I’ve let a lot of that go as my lived experience does not remotely match the correlated description of God. Rather, I find God largely absent and uncaring about the goings on in this world. In short, I have not observed a God worthy of the attributes we and scripture assign him–although that doesn’t seem to stop us from repeating them so often as to keep ourselves convinced. I don’t actually know what or how God really is.
“But then you say that nobody would keep a job if the pay stopped. Well, yes and no.”
I get what you’re saying here. And I get that people can participate in something without expectation of reward–volunteering for the sake of others. And motivation is key here. I was only responding to Eli’s defense of capitalism in the sense that his friends experience joy in their work more than the money they get, but that fundamentally it is the money they are receiving in this setup that is the whole point. Volunteering is a system where you help another–there is no exchange of value. Capitalism is ultimately self-serving–a for-profit ideology. In this sense, if you look at how the church portrays God, is he really driven by love? Or is it something else? Because I find true love to be something entirely outside the transactional.
“Are you into parenting your kids for money, things and glory? If so you are in for a big disappointment. Maybe God is more of a parent and his joy comes in watching his kids grow.”
All I’ve ever experienced watching my own parents and being one myself tells me that God is a terrible parent. There is a level of basic engagement with kids required to be even the most mediocre of parents and it is a bar that God himself chooses not to hit. And that low bar is being present and somewhat responsive to the needs of the child.
I understand that motivations can be a mixed bag. When my wife and I started trying, we did want kids, but we were also doing that because the church taught us it was our duty to provide bodies for the innumerable spirits expecting them to progress. That last part is a terrible reason to choose to have kids. I realize that for my kids, reward systems are an effective tool for teaching them. But that teaching tool is entirely independent and separate from the love and the presence I bring. Ultimately, the rewards are meaningless. They are a motivation towards a behavior, a transformation, which is the purpose of the whole thing to begin with. I don’t much care about the reward as a parent, but they do so we have them. But I feel like we’ve made everything about the reward when it comes to the church and God. And I feel like the church teaches that the whole relationship is contingent on the reward being achieved, which is something as a parent I would never even consider.
Eli,
You’re right, experiencing love does make existence more pleasant. But, I think in this instance, Adam Miller’s work is correct in highlighting that love is not something that can be required or taken at will, it can only be freely given. I would think that God would have to be content with being unloved considering he chooses to remain hidden and generally unresponsive to human suffering. To me, right now, it is weird to even associate the word “love” or “good” to a being that rarely shows up, but then when he does expects gratitude and glory for doing so. God seems closer to a dad abandoning the family, but then expecting to be still adored when he pops in once in a blue moon. The whole notion of God as a loving parent falls completely flat for me. And maybe that is because in this church, we have brought God way too close. I really don’t know. I don’t know if God is bound by laws higher than him or if he put them there. I don’t know if he is all powerful and knowing. Ancient Israel didn’t seem to think so. In a word, the only thing I have in relationship to God is a set of ideas and a few spiritual experiences that don’t say a whole lot about God in the longterm. And studying for me stopped being useful as God, if he really exists, is not in a book.
“I would think that God would have to be content with being unloved considering he chooses to remain hidden and generally unresponsive to human suffering.”
I am deeply moved by the weeping God in Moses chapter 7 and also by the atoning Savior in Mosiah chapter 3. It may seem like God is unresponsive, but I believe that when all things are revealed and we look over the history of humanity we’ll discover that he has been much more involved with the lives of his children then we had imagined.
The age of the Universe is closer to 13.8 billion years. The age of the Earth, at 4.5 billion years, is nearly double McConkie’s 2.555 billion assertion.
McConkie, like his equally rigid and unimaginative father in law, was a very smart man but a very limited thinker. The two of them have had an outsized and unfortunate influence on modern Mormon thinking.
McConkie sounds like he understands that the evidence for the earth being older than 6000 years is pretty strong, so he’s found himself a clever way to hold onto his absurd level of scriptural literalism and also accept that dinosaurs are old.