Nietzsche's Will to Power in the Theological Language of the LDS Supreme Power of Lecture #2 & Elect Mormons Growing from Exaltation to Exaltation

Joseph Smith was a powerfully willed man of strength and resolve. He once said:

Never be discouraged. If I were sunk in the lowest pits of Nova Scotia, with the Rocky Mountains piled on me, I would hang on, exercise faith, and keep up good courage, and I would come out on top.

His life was the embodiment of Nietzsche's will to power. It is no surprise then that his athletic bodily physiology and personality would filter into new Mormon Scripture a life affirming theology of the body. 

This short video presentation, Nietzsche and the Will to Power by Academy of Ideas (March 4, 2013), does a good job comparing the presocratic philosophers and atomism with Alfred Whitehead and Nietzsche combined. In this blog post I summarized a Mormon scholar comparing the Mormon Apostle Orson Pratt's theory of agential spirit atoms with Whitehead's ideas and processs theology. 

The video above explains that Nietzsche ascribed an inner will to the ground of being which is the will to power. As the author of the video explains at the 11 minute mark, the will to power is the idea that the basic elements have an inner will and are alive in a sense. Nietzsche provided a naturalistic explanation for the emergence of life. Similarly, Mormonism posits a materialist/naturalistic explanation of the emergence of life as spirit-atoms/matter (D&C 131:7-8): as a single omnipresent independent supreme power (Lecture #2) seeking to expand in dominion and power in the form of earthy globes and personages (Lecture #5 and #7); as this all powerful Fluid Mind and omniprsent material energy field (akin to Nietzsche's Will to Power), seeks to grow and expand through exalted beings which further expand the First God (Supreme Governing  Power) and all the forms and personages filled with the divine substance of spirit-atoms and glory (splendor). As Joseph Smith explains in the King Follett Discourse:

 Here then is eternal life, to know the only wise and true God. You have got to learn how to be Gods yourselves; to be kings and priests to God, the same as all Gods have done; by going from a small degree to another, from grace to grace, from exaltation to exaltation, until you are able to sit in glory as doth those who sit enthroned in everlasting power;

This is Nietzsche’s will to power in theological language. I find a profound correlation between original Mormonism and in particular Orson Pratt's theology, and the philosophy of Nietzsche and Whitehead.

Religion as Will to Power: How Competition for Territory, Status & Strength as a Tribe caused the Mormon People to Flourish

I think Joseph Smith actually intuited the truth about all religions and reality. We want to shy away from the attitudes and strategies found in books like The Prince and The 48 Laws of Power and the philosophy in the books of Nietzsche. But the truth is these books often represent the core reality of nature as-it-is, not just among the other apes and other animal species, but among we humans ourselves. 

This is why I find the work of Dr. Paul Dobransky M.D. so useful because he integrates the best of our ethics and ideals with the reality of biology and psychology in his Quantum Psychology and Mature Masculine Power 3.0 programs, that integrate our human instincts and higher ethical ideals. Dr. Paul is clear that there is an innate masculine drive for territory, rank and power; and that life is irritable meaning it makes decisions and seeks to grow and flourish.

Joseph Smith intuited the same ideas found in the work of Dr. Paul years before MindOS. Only Smith spoke in poetic language producing his own holy book called The Book of Mormon:  where he speaks of the reality that there are things that act and things that are acted upon, and there is an opposition in all things; while man is that he might have joy; and that Joy results from competition and triumphing over obstacles in a field of opposite forces and yin yang polarities. 

 The Book of Mormon is also full of sayings that supports the Nietzschean concept of Will to Power or antifragility, with passages like like: arise from the dust and be men, or I will make weak things become strong, and I will consecrate thy afflictions for thy good. In other words, there is a psychological energy of antifragility or self-overcoming Will to Power in Mormon Scripture. The Mormon Jesus waxes strong and doesn't say to pluck out your eye and be celibate but to be a sexual being and grow in power and dominion, which in turn honors the Father God over this earth. 

Meanwhile, in Mormonism God is not some bodyless nothing which makes Protestant and Catholic Christians despise their body because the highest being with ultimate status is a bodyless no-thing, which make their body something to despise. To counteract that, either consciously or unconsciously, Joseph Smith declared that God the Father has a physical and tangible fleshly body. This radical notion undermined centuries of Augustinian Christendom and affirmed the goodness of sensual body and the flesh; thus empowering early Mormons to overcome the shaming tactics of the priests and monks of Augustinian Christendom.

Joseph Smith also opposed the stale and docile notions of the Catholic and Protestant ideas of heaven. The Mormon Heaven is not some utopia with neverending harp playing on a cloud. Instead, God does not want you to grovel before him remaining permanently stagnant as an angel on a cloud forever. Instead, the Gods in the High God's Divine Council want others to also excel and become great like the Gods themselves. Thus one finds the energy of ongoing Will to Power with humans growing into gods and expanding the Divine Species of Gods: through their increase of lives and reigning over globes as exalted beings. Thus the biological drive for territory, status and power is affirmed in Mormonism.

 A key term used frequently in Mormonism to describe the highest rank of those in heaven as holy beings is the word exaltation; as those who become gods become exalted beings. The word exaltation in the 1828 dictionary is defined as:

 noun The act of raising high.

1. Elevation to power, office, rank, dignity or excellence.

2. Elevated state; state of greatness or dignity.

I wondered at my flight, and change

To this high exaltation

3. In pharmacy, the refinement or subtilization of bodies or their qualities and virtues, or the increase of their strength.

4. In astrology, the dignity of a planet in which its powers are increased.

Joseph encapsulated the Mormon will to power when he said in the King Follett Discourse:

You have got to learn how to be Gods yourselves; to be kings and priests to God, the same as all Gods have done; by going from a small degree to another, from grace to grace, from exaltation to exaltation, until you are able to sit in glory as doth those who sit enthroned in everlasting power; ...

 Joseph Smith postponed the second coming until at least he was 85 years old in order to discount the fear mongering of the Millerites of the time. For if people were demotivated from growing the Mormon Movement because they expected Christ would come back at any second, then their will to power would be squelched. So Joseph Smith removes these predictions of the second coming in order to open up the field of possibility and growth. Rather than emphasizing celibacy and wallowing in a cave awaiting Christ like other Christians, he instead brought Heaven to Earth here and now; by becoming clever and sealing friends and wives unto high ranking males in order to generate a People like Abraham did; and also to increase your territory, status and power into the eternities. For Joseph reasoned from the Bible that if we are to be co-heirs with Christ and Christ is a high status kingly figure, then Christians would likewise become high ranking gods and be exalted just like all kings gain access to greater territory, status and power.

The First God, or the supreme governing power, according to the Lectures on Faith is akin to a field of energy or an emergent formative power: that expands into forms and personages through competition and sacrifices: which is symbolized by Christ as the sacrificed redeemer. Christ is thus the ultimate example of antifragility. 

The idea that there was direct control of Joseph Smith's mind as if he were an antenna to God's will when forming his revelations and composing scripture, denies Free Will. The truth is Smith was all-too-human and tapped into the will to power. He outcompeted other religionists in the market place of religious ideas. The fact is there is competition even in religion. There was competition between Paul and the Jerusalem sect. There was competition between Jesus and the Pharisees. There was competition between Joseph Smith and the Protestants. There was competition between Brigham Young and Orson Pratt. There was competition between McMurrin and McConkey.

This screenshot of a YouTube video captures exactly what I'm talking about:

In the video, the Protestant with the hat tries to one-up the Catholic priest by maneuvering around the history of the compilation of the Bible -- being put together by the Catholic Church -- by saying men did not compile the books of the Bible but divine intervention did; and the books themselves are inspired, not necessarily the men compiling the books that make up the Bible. Clever move, except that the books of the Bible were also composed by men as well. The assertion that they are inspired is simply a power move, which cannot be proven rationally nor scientifically; but can only be appealed to subjectively based on faith and personal conviction. Such a Protestant will often, in turn hypocritically deny the subjective testimony of the Mormon in regards to their conviction that their scriptures are true.

 Religion is about territory, rank and power. It is all about the "authority" of the words and those who control the words with their ideology or creed and those who act out those selected words. The words are used to scare or inspire or control or liberate. No matter how the words are used they are part of the means of the attempt to gain territory, status and power.

I remember when I was in high school, part of PE (Physical Education) was we had to be in a school tournament where we all wrestled for rank. Before the tournament, I remember how I kept pinning my classmates while wrestling in PE class. We were sophomores. They said I kept pinning them because I had strong legs, not wanting to give me any credit for my upper body strength. Lacking wrestling training outside my PE class, in the tournament I won some matches but then lost to those who had wrestling training. That is the way it goes. So it is with religion, its a competition for territory, rank and power.

The truth is even early Christianity is engaged in the pursuit of territory, status and strength. For example, Paul appeals to the ego of his religious clients by telling them that they are going to be elevated to the status of a god or holy one because they will be over the angels and judge them as gods in Jehovah's Divine Council. Paul outcompetes the leaders of the Jerusalem sect by claiming that his divine message (gospel) did not come from them by word of mouth (i.e. he didn't  learn it from mortals) but it came directly to him through revelation (that is he channeled the voice of resurrected Christ).

The Book of Revelation does not have a kingly CEO coming down from the sky and putting the bad guys in prison and setting everything in order peacefully and "civilly" by modern standards. Instead, the divine King of kings rides on a war horse and unleashes terror and catastrophe and annihilates his enemies and rules over them by forcing them to bow before him. This is not the language of passivity or kumbaya peace on earth utopianism. This is Alpha God behavior and a will to power. 

When you begin to see religion through the eyes of biology and Nietzsche's philosophy and MindOS (or Quantum Psychology) by Dr. Paul, everything makes sense. You cannot divorce the masculine lifeward drive for territory, rank and power (as Dr Paul puts it). You cannot remove psychological boundaries. Religion is just another realm in life's arenas of competition for territory, status and strength. 

Whatever is empowering to the religious group as a whole, whatever expands its territory and elevates the status of the members, is good from the perspective of Life. This is again why Paul says that his fellow Christians should stop squabbling with each other and taking each other to court by appealing to their pride and saying that they're going to be elevated to such a high status that they will be above the lower angels as superior holy ones; which meant they would have a deified body like the gods in Jehovah's Divine Council. 

This is the clue to understanding all religion and in particular Mormonism. If Mormonism was only about peace, humility and unity, then it would have disbanded in order to avoid the constant chaos and discord caused by its beliefs which annoyed their Protestants neighbors. Joseph Smith and his movement was a Will to Power: it was an attempt to expand in territory and elevate their rank as a religious group among the competing religious ideas of the time. The story of Mormonism is thus a story of a People gaining greater territory, status and power. It is a story of success and grit and determination. It is not a story of only pacifism and kumbaya peace on earth goodwill toward men. If that was really what Mormonism was all about, it would have disbanded to avoid any conflict. Joseph  Smith (and later Brigham Young) were not going to do that; for at the core of Mormonism was a theology of opening your mouth and assertively speaking up in order to convert people to the movement.

  According to the Lectures on Faith, at the core of the LDS Movement was the belief that all reality is grounded in an independent material substance or being (Deity) with the attributes of seeking power and dominion through faith as a principle of action; the Lectures conclude with the idea that those attributes are to be imitated by the LDS Christian who learns to sacrifice in order to regrow into a deified Christian: who then is eventually exalted in  dominion and power like mighty Jehovah. 

So for me, to study Mormonism is in part to study the psychological mechanisms of the will to power, that a group like the LDS utilizes to become a powerful and flourishing people.

The Farmhands & The Zookeeper Types as a Metaphor for Two Kinds of Mormons

Today we live in a concrete jungle. There is a growing lack of a morality or an ethical code with the rise of secular nihilism. There is less ethical norms as the idea of might makes right in a dog eat dog world is becoming more normalized. In our secular age, there are more and more unethical ruthless people who are not loyal to any higher standard or ethical code of conduct. They make up a growing number of people  raised in the amoral concrete jungle of the secular world. This secular jungle is full of poisonous snakes (robbers and cheats) and vicious gangs in the form of currupt corporations or street gangs; and there's various forms of quicksand such as nihilism and the path of criminality. When you go it alone you more quickly sink for without helping Hands to pull you up you are easy prey to gangs and secular ideologies and there's no one there to remove the poison if you're bit by a secular concrete version of a snake. So in my opinion a religious culture provides an oasis from the degeneration of the secular age.

The Zookeeper Types

There are many Mormons who I think unconsciously treat the Mormon Church as if it were a Zoo and take part in the Zoo-complex: which means they think that LDS members need to be treated like caged animals, only not a literal cage but a mental cage that operates like the story of the Elephant and the rope. The Zoo-complex is held up by the Zookeeper type Mormons who seek to produce mentally confined Mormons like the Elephant and the Rope. Like the elphant in the story, LDS members are confined by the dogma and policy policers and closed-door "worthiness" interviews. The goal is to shame and tame and confine the member through the correlated material and testimony-conformity.

Then there is the LDS Zookeeper Worldview, where the human is caged and trained to do tricks for the zoo masters who hold the keys to their shackles. Like in the movie Instinct where there is a scene where Anthony Hopkins' character breaks the illusion of someone he thinks he has control. Later he points outmhow a gorilla in a cage had his will broken, losing some of his masculine vitality. 

McConkie represented the best example of this zookeeper mentality in my opinion. He sought to control the membership with a heavy emphasis on right dogma and published his book Mormon Doctrine which provided “certainty” for some rigid types;  with concise meanings and definitions which could be used to control and set straight lines in the sand, or "bars" keeping everyone in the metaphorical cage of “Mormon Orthodoxy.” 

The two extreme vices as I see it are the amoral concrete jungle and the ecclesiastical zoo. Neither one is the most healthy environment for producing a healthy human psyche or civilized team of trustworthy loyal friends.

One way to look at the zookeeper types is to compare them to the controlling figures in the movies The Matrix, The Truman Show, The Village, and Pleasantville. The zookeeper types are the powerful controllers in those movies who wish to sheild their subjects from reality. Of these movies, the one I like best as a useful comparison to LDS zookeeper cutlure, is the movie The Village. Warning, spoiler alert, if you don’t want to know the plot of this movie skip the rest of this paragraph. In the movie The Village, the Elders of the village have good intentions trying to protect their loved ones from the grief they experienced in the “towns.” They are able to preserve a level of innocence in the Village. Yet the movie asks, how long can one preserve innocence with falsehoods? I view zoo keeper LDS leaders like the Elders in the Village. I see most of the leaders of the modern LDS church and the rank and file members allowing the zoo keepers to keep doing what they do because of a Parent to Child mentality, an atttude of the parental leaders telling the dependnent congregant how to think, feel, and behave in order to feel secure in the controlling arms of the parental leader. It is as if they want to be caged mentality by the zookeeper types, because they feel an existential security in that. Thus Mormon Culture can be at times and in certain wards an isolated culture walled in from the outside world by by the zookeeper type Mormons.

Every religion and also secular organizations have those who are stuck with a Zoo-complex. In the New Testament, Jesus himself spends much of his time criticising the Zookeeper types in his Jewish Faith, which he calls pious pretenders or fakers, "hypocrities"  in most translations. They were those who preached The Tradition of the Elders that added to the Torah. See Jesus And The Traditions Of The Elders (Matthew 15:1-20) by Dr. Allen Ross.

Jesus would have said the Zookeeper types are those who burden people with a heavy yoke while being religous fakers or pious prtendenters. The KJV and other translations don't cature what Jesus is talking about with the term hypocrities in Mathew 23: 13-36. The TPT translation does a better job rendeirng it frauds and pretenders. 

The LDS Farm and the Farmhands

In my view, the ideal metaphor of the LDS Chruch at its best, or any Smithian Restoration sect functioning ideally, is that it is ideally like a Spiritual Farm.

A farm is an organic place of tending to and growing things. Animals are born and raised and cows are milked. Seeds are planted and soil tilled and crops harvested. A Farm is less top-down and more of a bottom-up organic synergy as Stephan Covey would put it. On the Farm there is the family in the home and then there are farmhands. Definition of farmhand:

1 : a farm laborer; especially : a hired laborer on a farm

2 : a player on a farm team

(Source)

In this metaphor, the God Farm is owned by God and LDS are farmhands, hired laborers in the Kin-dom of God which is God's Garden Realm: planting, reaping, and harvesting high-character or principle-centeredness. So farmhand types see the Church as like unto a Spiritual Farm. The Farm Mother and Father in charge of the farm have adopted the farmhands as members of the family on the same team, who are then destined to be co-heirs of the Father's Son's inheritance. No one is better than the others on the God Farm, they all just have different roles, talents and duties. Some raise the animals, some plant seeds, some till the soil, and some manage the farm's finances, etc. Everyone is free to go as they please, no one is carralled or caged; reciprocal love is what bonds them, love of the work and a good harvest, and love of Farm Life itself.

The New Testament can be encapsulated in the Gospels' metaphor about a Vineyard owner (God) who hires vine workers and rewards them for their labor for planting seeds and producing what Paul called the Fruit of the Spirit. This Vineyard mysticism is at odds with the Zookeeper mentality of the Pharisees, Scribes and Sadducees: who seek to inflate their egos with fake piety and pseudo-religiosity; who sit on Moses's seat and control and manipulate with their man-made traditions.

I also like the term farmhands because it invokes the concept of unity and how many hands working together produce great things. This is what the metaphor of the "body of Christ" is all about, which is that we are all the same limbs on the same torso or body. 

The God Farm represents ethical standards, commitments to the group, and loyalty to one's farm team. The best example I have seen thus far of the ideal LDS farmhand is Patrick Q. Mason, author of the book Planted. Also see Mason's talk Embracing Mormonism in a Secular Age - Patrick Mason - 2016 Fair Mormon Conference. 

In his book Planted, Patrick Mason represents an organic faith as he focuses heavenly on the ideals of the Johanine Community, just like John Spong does in his book The Fourth Gospel: Tales of a Jewish Mystic. To understand how different Patrick Mason's pastoral apologetics is from the other forms of LDS apologetics in the past, see Mormon Stories #804-805: An Overview of Mormon Apologetics and Neo-Apologetics. By the way, this metaphor of the zookeeper type and the farmhand types can be applied to any of the Christian church, from the Evangelicals to the Catholics, etc.

The Controllers vs. Transformers

Another way to describe the Zoo Keeper types and Farmhand types is the Controller types and Transformative types. The Controllers seek to force a top down cookie cutter mold by controlling LDS member's behavior through control tactics and manipulation; while the transformative types seek to influence members from the inside out by setting a good moral example to imitate and being encouraging and edifying through stories and spiritual exercises, etc.

So among the LDS there are the Farmhand Mormons: who are planting seeds of inner transformation of character, meaning that they seek to transform themselves and others more and more into the image of Christ. They are spiritual planters who plant seeds by their example and embodied virtuousness; so that seeds of faithfulness will grow within those around them and in their midst.

The controlling Zookeeper types are more like puppeteers, they tend to have controlling personalities and are less interested in setting an example or having open discussions and genuinely listening and asking questions; or invoking faithfulness by their good example even behind closed doors. Instead, they tend to be pious on the outside or in public but unchristian behind closed doors where they tend to be controlling, manipulative and authoritarian and seek to pull your strings to move your mind and behavior as they wish.

If they sense any resistance to their puppeteerng or caging and controlling ways, as you seek healthy boundaries, they may appeal to their religious authority and position of power and bully you ecclesiastically which some Mormons and exMormons have complained about.

People in Mormon Culture talk of "leadership roulette" in that when you talk to the LDS leadership (who have power over you if you are an active member) you never know if you're going to get a zookeeper type or a farmhand type.

Of course, to be fair, the same types of personality dynamics exists in all organizations, like at one's job or career or business. I have dealt with zookeeper type bossess in secular jobs. The difference is that the LDS Church leaders have the power to label you "unworthy," and in the pay-to-play format (pay tithing and obey us to go to the temple), you can be told you can't be exalted basically unless you step into their metaphorical cage and let them carrall you into submission. Hence, unless you have a significant other who is completely on board with your point of view, such an Institutional system could cause a rift in any romantic relationship where one person is a proponent of zookeeper type leaders and the other is not.

So how do you avoid the concrete jungle and benefit from the God Farm? You steer clear of the Zookeeper types as much as possible and set boundaries. In the LDS system, avoiding the Zoo-mentality means putting up healthy boundaries and not giving your power away. A simple and easy example of healthy boundaries is discussed in the article, The Mormon Therapist: Neither a Sin nor a Transgression By Natasha Helfer Parker. Parker explains that a Zookeeper type Mormon asking if you masturbate behind closed doors is basically violating your boundaries when that is none of his business and he does not have the doctrinal or policy right to even go there.

When I look back at my life when I was a Mormon, I was always a farmhand Mormon and never a confined Zookeeper type Mormon. In my teenage years I would go to church but then sneak away to make out with my girlfriend. On my mission I was not a zoo minded Mormon because I would watch movies with my companions many times; unless of course they were Zooish Mormons. After my mission I went to church irregulary but regularly attended the social activities and enjoyed the goodness of the LDS God Farm culture. I enjoyed the friendship and comradery and from experience it is better than the concrete jungle in my opinion.

To be clear, I believe in Chesterson's fence and a perimeter, just as a Vineyard has fences to produce the best vine. I believe in the safeguarding of the flock from the wolves. I believe in the strong and powerful Sheepdog that protects the sheep from the wolves. But I also believe in planting seeds of faith and the harvest of moral fruition; the making of spiritual wine that floweth over from the boundles Vine of mytical-oneness; by working together and putting your shoulder to the wheel and pressing on with the interconnecting interdependence in a spiritual Farm-like community producing goodness by the barrel.

If we apply the metaphors of the jungle, the farm, and the zoo, to the times of Jesus: then we see that Jesus was not an individualist jungle dweller but the shepherd of his flock seeking to spiritually farm the kingdom-garden that was like unto a mustard seed growing into a tree. Jesus protested the zookeeper types of his day who burdened his fellow Jews with the heavy yoke of the Tradition of the Elders. Yet he also believed in the importance of guidelines and ideals and rituals. He was a Torah observant Jew after all. 

Paul was a farmhand type seeking to plant and grow Christ-like holy ones amidst the jungled-ones.

So the goal for me is to benefit from the team-power of the spiritual farm and farmhand type Mormons without allowing the zookeeper-types to shame and tame and mentally cage me. The goal is not to give your power away to either those of the Jungle or to the zoo masters and fearmongers with chains in hands seeking to lure the weak and suggestible into their mental cages.

Now some reject the God Farm all together and learn to swing from branch to branch in the concrete jungle and practice the philosophy of Machiavelli and Robert Greene. All the power to them I say. Yet religion did not evolve in a vacuum but originates from the collective unconscious according to Jung, and is universal. So those who reject the God Farm and the Zookeepers and stick with the jungle often experience an underlying existential anxiety and loss of team-power without the hiving power of being a member of a tribal family.

So the balanced path, I believe, is the path of the spiritual farm while realizing the viciousness of the jungle and the mental slavery of the dogmatic zoo-comlpex; thus staying clear of those latter two extremes while joining the middle way of the organic spiritual farm.

The Coporate Godhead vs. The Smith-Pratt Godhead: How the Godhead Affects the LDS Trinity, Grace, Atonement, Leadership, Purity and Worthiness, etc.

In this post I will compare and contrast the more beuacratic Godhead -- and resulting Corporate Church (or Coporate View) based on Brigham  Young's autocratic leadership style and Joseph Feliding Smith's Protestant-Fundamentalist mentality -- as compared to Smith's more science-based Hebrew mysticism and Widstoe and Pratt's more rational theology (or what I call the Smith-Pratt paradigm). 

In my view, the Coporate Church began to develop with Brigham Young presenting a more bureaucratic godhead by reformulating the temple ritual based on his "pet dogma" that Adam is god. I think Young was intimidated by LDS scholars and thinkers, after lacking the intellectual ability to study Hebrew in the School of the Prophets with the others. Instead of learning Hebrew Young focused on construction of the Kirtland temple. Young came to represent the bureaucratic leader who is not scholarly and lacking in Joseph's mystic qualities. Bringing Young is more construction oriented and business minded, focusing on becoming wealthy and in fact he became one of the richest men in Utah. Orson Pratt was then snubbed from his rightful place as the next Church President. Therefore a future LDS Leaders after Young, eventually become anti-science like Joseph Fielding Smith (who was Bruce R. McConkie father-in-law). From this line of Leaders, the trajectory changes from Joseph Smith as a mystical poet philosopher and Parley Pratt as poetic philosopher and Orson Pratt as science educator and theologian forming Church doctrine and the scripture canon, to instead a series of LDS leaders who are mostly lawyers and businessmen. This is a result of the more bureaucratic godhead and interpretive lens of Young on down down to McConkie. In recent times, there's been resurgent of LDS scholarship and poets like a Terryl Givens. But the top LDS leadership remains mired in the Brigham-McConkie mindset and the a corporate structure. I began to notice this on my mission in the 1990s, where there was a kind of business structure and salesmanship quality, a focus on "numbers" over a more slow amd genuine conversion or character development in the missionary himself. Some of my companions lacked Christian character but being good salesmen were promoted and approved of by my Mission President. 

Thus the Corporate Church unfortunately is more likely to produce a pharisaical type of Mormon, just like Jesus battled among the pharisaical Jews of his day with Jesus being a more mystical poetic Jew telling parabolic stories about caring for "the least of these."

As I discussed in this blog post, the fact that Orson Pratt attempted to insert new scripture into the D&C in the 1870s and 1890s, proves to me that in actuality the Scriptures itself promotes more the Smith-Pratt paradigm. 

Let's begin with a brief summary comparing the two worldviews. The Coroprate view being a product of Young to McConkie:

Coporate View:

Anti-science 

Smith-Pratt View:

Pro-science

Coporate View:

A concept of a companion Holy Ghost as marker of feeling "worthy" in contrast to feeling inadequate and "unworthy" based on a perfectionist path with zero security of what actually earn's one the status and label of perfect worthiness.

Smith-Pratt View:

The Holy Ghost as acting out a process of a fiery alchemy type transformation via the baptism of fire: as the literal transformation into a pneumatic ("noomatic") body by being saved by grace through faith and the merits of Christ alone; while enduring to the end as in growing more anti-fragile.

Coporate View:

The Godhead based on Brigham Young's early formation of a more bureaucratic council where Adam is our God.

Smith-Pratt View:

The Godhead as personages constituted by spirit atoms as a mystic-oriented empowering Godhead; similar to the ideas of Thomas Dick, Emerson, the Stoics, and Nietzche, etc. 

Coporate View:

The emphasis on the Spirit producing more feminine emotions in men in order to encourage more obedience to the male leaders.

Smith-Pratt View:

The Spirit as Fluid Nooma as both masculine and feminine energy, producing both the Strength of the Lord and Zion.

Coporate View:

Anselm and Calvinist Penal Substitutionary Atonement Theory

Smith-Pratt View:

Skousen's Atonement Theory

 As I was doing the research for this blog series, I began to realize that everything changes when you start with the Smith-Pratt Godhead. For example, if you start with Jehovah is our Heavenly Father -- and not the new God "Elohim" as invented by Brigham Young through his version of the temple ritual: in order for him to present a more bureaucratic Godhead with Michael (Adam) as God -- and instead return to the Godhead of Scripture as produced by Joseph Smith and the theology of Orson Pratt, you get a less bureaucratic godhead and everything changes from there. 

With the Smith-Pratt Godhead, Jehovah is our Heavenly Father (as the LDS scholar Blake Ostler points out). Elohim is a word for the Council of Gods described in Abraham 4. Jesus becomes the literal son of Heavenly Father (Jehovah) and Heavenly Mother. Thus, Jesus says things like he who has seen me have seen the Father. He says this because they look almost identical, as He has the same divine genes of the Father-Jehovah, hence they look alike. This would by why the LDS painting The First Vision by Del Parson depicts Jesus and Father-Jehovah looking alike, as the painter likely based the painting off of the many descriptions of the Father and Son looking alike in scripture.

The Smith-Pratt Godhead also better explains the will of the Son being swallowed up by the will of the Father in Mosiah 15, as this would mean -- based on Pratt's theory of miny intelligences as self-moving powers -- that when Jesus' material body was being formed in the womb of Mary, the mini intelligence (agential spirit atoms) composing his human form began to contain the "will" of Father-Jehovah. For the miny intelligences constituting the personage of Father-Jehovah were expanded into the body of Jesus of Nazareth, thus he became "the Father and the Son," because He had a mixture of Mary's spirit atoms and Father-Jehovah's self-moving or willful spirit atoms. 

After doing a deep drive into what the Scriptures actually say about sex and purity, I realized that you not find the Protestant Purity Culture within the LDS Scriptures. Instead, The Protestant Fundamentalism of those like Joseph Fielding Smith was transposed onto Mormon Sculpture reinterpreting it. All that changes when you begin with the Fortunate Fall of the Book of Mormon and it's defining of sin based in the levitical law of the Old Testament (not Augustinian dogma of the Puritans); as the people of the Book of Mormon are still Jewish following the Mosaic law for most of the content of the Book of Mormon. Then with D&C 130, 131, 132, as added scripture by Orson Pratt, you have a complete reevaluation of morality where Protestant Puritanism is rejected, and the Old Testament sexual ethic is restored. This leads to the Happiness Letter and Parley Pratt's essay Intelligence and Affections. For with God the Father Himself having a body of flesh, the sectarian god without parts or passions (which caused the Christian believer to despise their own body) is corrected and Bodily Life is affirmed through Pratt canonizing D&C 130:22. When this combined with the D&C 131:7-8, that all matter or atoms are spirit matter or spirit atoms, then you don't not have room for the Augustinian Calvinist dogma of All Flesh is depraved; for All Flesh is holy being composed of the Holy Spirit as miny intelligences. So the Augustinian idea of inherited sin through the sex act itself is rejected not just in the Book of Mormon but in the Articles of Faith. Furthermore, atonement theory is recalculated as well and there is no more room for penal substitutionary atonement with the theory of many intelligences as Cleon Skousen explains in his Talk. 

This removes any space for perfection-seeking of a "worthy" title, because as I explain in my blog series on true theosis or deification, what is actually happening during the process of salvation and exaltation, is the miny intelligence or spirit atoms are morphing the material atoms human soul into a glorious noomatic soul beginning after the baptism of fire. 

When one understands that Orson Pratt was likely trying to curb any autocratic tendencies in future Leaders by canonizing D&C 121, with the section on condemning unrighteous dominion, you can see that Pratt likely did this based on his theory of spirit atoms. As in, according to this blog post summarising Andrew Miles, LDS theology would have it that God works within a relationship with the spirit atoms in an up-building synergistic process; so not through domineering and manipulating,  but through building a relationship of trust, gentle persuasion and voluntary compliance. 

Even plural marriage is re-understood, becoming in my view the process of up-building a People, by actually selecting for certain genes and personality traits in order to better up-build a core base for what would become the Mormon People, which I discuss in my blog series Respecting your Heritage & The Selective Birthing of the Mormon People as a Quasi-Ethnic Cultural Identity and a Peoplehood. From this point of view, the meaning of mini intelligences working within cells and DNA, would be in part a selection process of higher men, noblemen, practicing polygamy in the 1800s in order to filter the noblest mini intelligence or genomes into future generations of Mormons. This would explain why the Book of Mormon speaks of polygamy being allowed only for raising up a righteous seed (i.e. "good genes"); and it's why the Book of Mormon describes the "seed" of one set of brothers (Laman and Lemuel) growing into spiritually dark and degenerative people or culture, and Nephi's seed producing a people that at first flourishes in righteousness. Yet, descending from a righteous seed or pioner stock does not guarantee that you will not degenerate into wickedness as well. However, it does mean you will inherit certain spiritual traits that will give you a "leg up" in my opinion. We in fact have evidence of this as a discussed in my birthing the Mormon People blog series, where I show that in fact LDS are more agreeable and conscientious, i.e. more Christian or civil, kind, giving, charitable, and capable of orchestrating a Peoplehood. 

So it's not about a top-down bureaucratic corporate control system, but a ground up, up-building of spirit atoms and cells and DNA to produce the Mormon People. Producing a People with a deep rooted devotion to their ancestry, turning the minds of the sons to the fathers and the fathers to future sons, etc. So it does not need as much top down control because there is a genealogical devotion to one's ancestry and Future People. In other words, the individual soul with free will and the Great God -- via miny intelligences within righteous human genomes who worship (i.e. revere the attributes of) the personages of the Father and Christ -- all orchestrate something closer to the ideal of Zion. 

According to scholars, Brigham Young tried to snub Orson Pratt from his rightful line in seniority of succession to becoming one of the next LDS Pesidents, because Young was trying to position his own sons into leadership and block Orson. As I cover in this blog post, Orson was likely trying to course correct this process of "leadership worship" -- and undying loyalty to the President which could result in authoritarianism -- by publishing D&C 121 as scripture. Unfortunately, Brigham Yong ignored the new scripture against "unrighteous dominion" and went on to establish his the concept of the godhead as more of a bureaucratic structure. So when James Talmage was commissioned to deal with the tension in ideas between Orson Pratt and Brigham Young, he went more with Brigham Young and the establishedment, and kept the godhead structure of Brigham Young for the most part. 

As a result of the beuacratic godhead and punishing Orson Pratt with losing his seniority, one can see how things began to change historically: how many LDS Leaders had previously felt free to speak up and even disagree more freely. Joseph Smith himself is on record saying that he does not like to be tremelled and we do not have Creeds like the sectarians. Many leaders would question and doubt and even leave the Church and come back and not have that affect their seniority. But when Brigham Young changed things it struck fear into all future LDS Leaders and so you had less creativity and innovation, and more dogmatic rigidity. You had more leaders becoming businessmen and lawyers, people already likely to be more rigid and stiff in their personality, making it so Brigham Young's racist seed of Cain dogma he inherited from Protestantism, would last in the LDS church for over a decade. 

The good news is that when we return to the original Godhead of the Smith-Pratt paradigm, you begin to see that Mormonism comes alive and is bright and beautiful and less rigid, gloomy and pharisaical. 

We can see that this is flowering forth here and there, for example in 2021 an Area 70 condemned the Augustinian shaming puritanical attitude of past LDS leaders. You have many LDS Scholars publishing books through the Church owned Deseret bookstores, publishing books like the Givens' book All Things New, which aligns more with the concept of holy mini-intelligences and so we are not depraved and sin cursed. A lot of Scholars like Terryl and Fiona Givens are trying to counteract the former shame based puritanical culture, which grow out of Joseph Fielding  Smith's Protestant-Fundamentalism and Brigham's underlying bureaucratic structure: which became a business and like any business producing commercials that make people feel unworthy and inadequate unless they buy the product, Corporatized and Protestantized Mormonism through Brigham's godhead and Protestant-Fundamentalism, became a "purity culture" structure, a shame and tame loyalty or else system to a large degree. Members began to worship the "Brethren" more than the attritubutes of God and the gospel principles and values described in scripture. I call this Brethrenism. 

The bureaucratic structure in the correlation system and the policies began to shame the human body just like Augustine did and commericals do to sell a product. So books like All things New and this area 70 above, are trying to return to the original Mormon Doctrine and LDS scripture: where we are not punished for Adam's transgression, in other words we do not inherit an original sin; and so there is nothing to seek to be "worthy" of, as we are all made permanently worthy through the merits of Christ and the baptism of fire. So that the purpose of the Christian path is to simply grow into maturity in Christ having his divine genome and his sharing of his miny intelligences (spirit atoms) with our soul body; as we grow more and do good continually by walking in the dust of Rabbi Jesus. So it's not about chasing a worthiness label or status and trying to be pure or perfect but realizing we are good enough and enduring hardships gowing stronger through Christ who strengthens us. 

With the original Godhead from scripture produced by Smith and Pratt, it removes any sense of scrupuliosity, for one cannot feel unhealthy shame when they are composed of the Great God, the Holy Spirit. For if one is in fact composed of miny intelligences there is no room for feeling shame or scrupuliosity. For one's instictive drives are the product of the miny intelligences or spirit atoms, and so one is simply called to dominion, to undergo a process of learning to orchestrate and manage these natural drives so that one overcomes the "natural man," the impulsive, selfish, and greedy man, etc., and learns to do good continually and build the atmosphere of Zion. So that it's not as Augustine emphasized, a focus on despising the sexual organs, but a focus on building good character. 

The Smith-Pratt Godhead theology completely reorients things back to the original LDS Movement, when people did not even attend church chapels but met in homes or outside and the focus was on the temple itself which according to Don Bradley was ultimately about enforcing bonds of friendship. 

In this view of the Godhead, one can commune with God anywhere, as the diffuse substance of the Holy Spirit, the Deity of Lecture 2, is an omnipresent presence. Thus Jesus, through the omnipresent nooma, is wherever two or three are gathered together in His name. So you do not need to only go to a church chapel to commune with God. This is why some Restoration movements have formed home churches and take communion in each other's homes. This would fit with the Smith-Pratt model. It is only the corporate structure that demands one attend a chapel building to be considered "worthy," which again is a control mechanism (unrighteous dominion in my view) based on the corporate structure of the authoritarianism of personalities like Brigham Young. 

In the Smith-Pratt Godhead paradigm, people instead simply want to go to church and go to church of their own free will because there is ideally a genuine atmosphere of Zion and authentic bonding in genuine friendships. In such an atmosphere there would be less of a need to demand church attendance through unrighteous dominion: like making an LDS member feel like they could lose access to the temple or not be able to baptize their child with their priesthood removed, if an ecclesiastical leader deemed them "unworthy." I think this is why Pratt added D&C 122 to the canon, to avoid such coercive methods. 

Problem-solving 'intelligence' in cells & Molecular intelligence as Agential Material: A Case for Cells, Atoms, Quarks, Strings, & Spirit Matter

 In New intelligence model could upend biology, genetics, medicine and AI by Loz Blain, we learn about basically a form of intelligence in biology which adds some evidence to the possibility of agential "spirit atoms" as taught by the apostles Orson Pratt and John Widstoe. Consider these excerpts from the interesting article:

Picasso tadpoles" with scrambled facial features successfully rearrange themselves into normal-looking frogs, showing a flexible kind of problem-solving 'intelligence' as opposed to a rigid DNA-driven set of growth instructions ... 

 

... Levin and his collaborators have done on 'Xenobots' – freeing groups of cells from their organisms and allowing them to self-assemble into entirely new creatures, which use their cellular intelligence and bioelectrical communication to develop their own unique behaviors – or can be externally designed and programmed. ... 

 

Molecular intelligence

Levin's team has broadened its focus beyond just looking at living cells, finding that the subroutine patterns that can get part of a job done apparently nest all the way down to the molecular level.

"All of these levels," he tells Maynard, "are made up of sub-agents that solve problems in various spaces; anatomical space, physiological space, whatever – and they have different competencies and different agendas. Each layer is taking advantage of what I call this agential material – you have to engineer it very differently than you would engineer passive, or even active matter.

"And it goes even below cells. I mean, we're studying the learning capacities of molecular networks. Never mind whole cells, even the molecular networks have probably at least six different kinds of learning capacity.

"We need to have some kind of way of talking about molecular systems as having intelligence, because we have to be able to tell a story of scaling. We all start life as an unfertilized ova, a little blob of chemistry and physics. And there's no lightning bolt that at some point says 'ok, you were physics, but now you're a real mind.' We need a paradigm for how intelligence scales from simpler forms.

"The kind of intelligence that I'm talking about is the kind that William James defined as same goal by different means. So it's really a navigational intelligence. It's a publicly observable, perfectly empirically testable, problem-solving capacity. I am not talking about consciousness, I am not talking about self-aware meta-intelligence where you know how intelligent you are, I'm not talking about any of that. I'm talking about the ability to navigate a problem space and get your goals met, despite various new things that are going to happen."

 

Intelligence emerges at multiple scales - from the molecular, to the cellular, to the organism, to the swarm and even to the ecosystem level, writes LevinJeremy Guay/Peregrine Creative & Rosenbluth et al

 From this evidence, I don't find it hard to believe that below the cell is the atom and quarks and strings according to string theory and then agential spirit atoms. As pictured below:

(Source)

 

The Will to Knowledge and Power & Life Affirmation: Excerpts from "Toward a Mormon Metaphysics" by Andrew Miles

 The following are excerpts from Toward a Mormon Metaphysics: Scripture, Process Theology, and the Mechanics of Faith by Andrew Miles. Words in brackets are my own:

... In this essay I will reference two persons in particular, John A. Widtsoe and Parley P. Pratt. Both of these men sought to create a grand narrative which explained God, the universe, and everything in it.[1] ... 

... The Doctrine and Covenants records that “[m]an was . . . in the beginning with God,” then explains that “man is spirit.”[2] ... The Doctrine and Covenants also describes a second material existing alongside eternal spirits by stating that “[t]he elements are eternal, and spirit and element inseparably connected, receive a fulness of joy.”[4] ... The Doctrine and Covenants also describes a third aspect of existence, something it calls “intelligence.” “Intelligence,” which it defines as “the light of truth,” is likewise eternal, for it “was not created or made, neither indeed can be.”[5] ... a later revelation declares that “[t]here is no such thing as immaterial matter” and hence “[a]ll spirit is matter, but it is more fine or pure, and can only be discerned by purer eyes.”[6]

... In a book of LDS scripture, the book of Abraham ... [the] text describes Abraham as he learns the secrets of the universe from God. He is told that “there are two spirits, one being more intelligent than the other; there shall be another more intelligent than they; I am the Lord thy God, I am more intelligent than they all.”[7] Later in the same text, however, “intelligence” is used to indicate a distinct consciousness, a type of pre-mortal person. It records that Abraham saw “the intelligences that were organized before the world was,’ and then describes them as “souls” and “spirits” that have the characteristics of being “noble” and “good.”[8] Here “intelligence” is used to express the same idea typically conveyed by “spirit.” Hence the term is used both to refer to a type or primal, spiritual person and to describe the mental capacity of such beings.[9] ... As a synonym for “spirit,” it [an intelligence] refers to a type of being which is composed of the more fundamental material of matter, as noted earlier. Must we then conclude, despite references to the eternality of man, that the elements are the only permanent feature of the universe?

Here Smith’s non-canonical remarks provide useful clarification. On one occasion, Smith taught that “[t]he mind or the intelligence which man possesses is co-equal with God himself.”[10] This suggests a third way that the term “intelligence” can be used, namely as a referent to the cognitive capacities that constitute an individual’s personal essence (as opposed to her material spirit). According to Smith, it is the mind/intelligence of a person, not necessarily the material spirit, that is eternal.

... “Intelligence,” then, can refer to two different aspects of the universe, only one of which, the mindversion, can be considered fundamental. The other referent, the material spirit of a person, is composed of elements and hence cannot be a primary substance. ... 

... once the terminological confusion is sorted through, it seems apparent that intelligence, defined as the eternally-existing mind or minds of persons, stand alongside the elements [spirit matter/atoms] as a type of primary material in the universe. 

Two important Mormon thinkers, John Widtsoe and Parley P. Pratt, recognized the duality inherent in the fundamental components of the cosmos, and each formulated a metaphysics that sought to incorporate element and intelligence into a coherent narrative. Widtsoe’s approach is the more complete of the two and has had the greatest impact on mainstream Mormon thought. ... 

... Matter, which Widtsoe uses interchangeably with the term “elements,” is paired with energy such that “[i]t is not conceivably possible to separate them.” Although Widtsoe is reticent to distinguish too concretely between the two (instead leaving open the possibility that matter is a form of energy or vice versa), he is clear that the two are invariably joined. He is more confident in positing that they are ultimately controlled by a universal intelligence ... he mentions the idea, if only to state that it cannot be affirmed, that “a degree of intelligence is possessed by every particle of energized matter,” an interesting approach that would suggest that the elements have a measure of thinking-capacity and lean more toward an conception of intelligence as being eternally individual. The second idea, which he seems more confident of, is that “energy is only a form of intelligence, and that matter and intelligence, rather than matter and energy, are the two fundamentals of the universe!”[13]

[The Will to Knowledge & Power]

In Widtsoe’s mind, the universe is governed by fixed laws, and primal persons develop by asserting their wills to learn and master the principles by which the cogs of the cosmos turn. This, in turn, increases their power, for as they understand more of the laws, they are better able to manipulate and utilize them.[14] God himself evolves by the same means, and his position as sovereign of the universe is a result of intense effort in ages past that resulted in “a conquest over the universe, which to our finite understanding seems absolutely complete.”[15] God, in turn, offers assistance to less advanced intelligences by conveying the knowledge that they need in order to progress more readily.[16] In the end, intelligences have the capacity to learn all the laws as did God, though “the understanding that will give [them] full mastery over nature will come little by little, yet,” Widtsoe predicts, “in the end, man shall know all that he desires.”[17] For Widtsoe, knowledge is the key development and power, and can be gained by any intelligence that exercises its will toward acquiring it.

Like Widtsoe, Parley P. Pratt envisions a cosmos in which intelligence and elements are fundamental, and in which the former exercises power over the later. In his words, “[t]he whole vast structure of universal organized existence, presents undeniable evidences of three facts, viz. – First. The eternal existence of the elements of which it is composed. Second. The eternal existence of the attributes of intelligence, and wisdom to design. Third. The eternal existence of power, to operate upon and control these eternal elements, so as to carry out the plans of the designer.” [18] Intelligence and power work in concert to form the elements into created works (persons, planets, etc.). In Pratt’s mind, the elements have innate “energies, attributes, or inherent powers” that are the basis for the “love, joy,” and similar emotions that intelligent spiritual beings (which we must remember are composed of matter) enjoy.[19] Presumably Pratt means that the combination of matter in certain ways allows such sentiments to be felt. Pratt does not indicate whether or not he endorses a view of intelligence as the mind of humans, co-eternal with God, for his use of the term in outlining the three fundamental facts of the universe describes intelligence as an attribute. He does adopt a more personal definition later on when he describes man as “an organized individual or intelligence,” but this description better fits the idea of “intelligence” being synonymous with a created and material “spirit.” In any event, he agrees with Widtsoe that these intelligences are meant to progress and are bound by laws, though he does not posit a metaphysical connection between the two, i.e. that laws facilitate advancement. On the contrary, he seems to see them almost as hurdles to be overcome. In his view, laws are imposed by God as a test of obedience. In the end, those pre-mortal persons who obey the laws of God will advance to a mortal probationary period, followed by a post-mortal interim of similar purpose. Having passed all of these tests, they will be placed in a position in which “all the elements necessary to [their] happiness . . . are placed within [their] lawful reach, and made subservient to [their] use.”[20] Having proven themselves worthy, dominance over the elements will be given to them, presumably by God. Thus while Widtsoe views laws as the metaphysicallyfixed mechanisms for advancement, Pratt sees them more as test of a person’s willingness to follow God. It is nonetheless significant that even with these differences, both thinkers fixed on elements and some understanding of intelligence as fundamental, and that both described a relationship of power between them.

... Widtsoe, at least, indicates that the concept of eternal laws provides a means by which the power dynamic can be understood, theorizing that intelligences that learn the laws will be able to manipulate the elements through their use. ...

MORMON METAPHYSICS AND PROCESS THOUGHT

... Fundamental to process [thought] understandings of the universe, unsurprisingly, is the idea that all reality is in process, or in other words, in a state of becoming. ...

... Process thinker C. Robert Mesle explains that for the simplest occasions – e.g. those making up electrons- the “capacity to ‘decide’” might be limited to a choice “between moving this way or that way.” As these simpler occasions combine into “societies of occasions,” more complex beings are formed which in turn develop “the capacity for moral thought and significant moral freedom.” ... Widtsoe states that “man in his primeval as in his present condition, possessing with all other attributes of intelligence, the power of will, exercised that will upon the contents of the universe. The reaction of the will upon the material universe within reach enabled intelligent beings, little by little, to acquire power. By the use of this will upon the contents of the universe, man must have become what he now is.”[26] For Widtsoe, the task of progression is one of domination, of attaining to “an intelligent control of nature.”[27] The universe is filled with “contents” that are to be acted upon. ...

[Mind-intelligences and Bodily Affirmation]

... Widtsoe himself suggests .... Matter, he states, “is always associated with energy,” which energy serves to “vivif[y]” it. This energy might be seen as “only a form of intelligence,” or in other words, as a rudimentary form of self-determination. Thus the idea that “a degree of intelligence is possessed by every particle of energized matter” which he so quickly dismisses as speculative provides a metaphysical means of assigning freedom to the most fundamental components of the universe.[28] Individual intelligences, each joined to an element particle, would have the ability to hear God’s call and freely respond. God’s power could be truly persuasive. The implications of this idea for an LDS metaphysics are profound ...

... The Doctrine and Covenants states as much: “spirit and element, inseparably connected, receive a fulness of joy.”[29] ... This fits neatly with another LDS idea, albeit more speculative, that mind-intelligences were housed in material spirit bodies as one step in their progression.[30] Taking material form was seen as an advancement, not a hindrance. Consider also the vision of church president Joseph F. Smith who, in a vision of the afterlife, saw that “the dead . . . looked upon the long absence of their spirits from their bodies as a bondage.”[31] These spirits, though arguably still material beings, nevertheless craved the enhanced sensations that a physical body provided. The underlying theme in all three of these examples is that intelligences and the intelligent beings they grow into are more fulfilled through connection to the elements. ...

[The Will to Growth & Glory]

 

... Widtsoe also believes in the possibility of self-limitation, for in describing spiritual beings he explains that “[t]hrough the exercise of their wills they grew, remained passive, or retrograded, for with living things motion in any direction is possible.”[33] The same idea is expressed in The Doctrine and Covenants, where a person’s eternal state of glory is determined by his thoughts and actions while on the earth. Those not marrying by priesthood authority, for example, “are appointed angels in heaven,” for they “did not abide [God’s] law; therefore, they cannot be enlarged, but remain separately and singly . . . forever and ever.”[34] In this view, intelligences stop progressing at different points due to choices that they make. ...

... Another possibility is that intelligences are innately limited. Such an approach might be indicated by a passage in the book of Abraham. One verse states that “[t]hese two facts do exist, that there are two spirits, one being more intelligent than the other; there shall be another more intelligent than they.” This description indicates that spiritual beings are not all equally intelligent, the implication being that this inequality creates a gradation of thought capacities and abilities. God governs because he is “more intelligent than they all.”[35] ...

... there is always the possibility that intelligences that end up as lesser beings originally had the potential of infinite progression but early on made choices that severely limited them, and only at that point were they assigned to be the spirits of animals and the like. In either case, whether intelligences are self-limiting or inherently limited, the important point is that the idea of intelligences being limited is not contradicted by LDS scripture and is, indeed, supported by it. 

... For our purposes, it is sufficient to note that reasons exist within LDS thought to believe that intelligences can be paired with the elements and, indeed, have a compelling reason for being so joined. More importantly, a union of intelligences with elements provides a metaphysical reason for believing that the universe, down to its smallest intelligence/element pairs, has some degree of freedom.

[Trusting "Spirit Atoms" & God's Righteous Dominion]

...  From a basic understanding of faith as trust and the power it apparently possesses, interesting questions arise. How is it that faith/trust relates to power? Can it be seen as a metaphysical mechanism for exercising influence? It is here that the ideas proposed in the previous section offer the greatest illumination. Recall that joining intelligences with particles of matter provides a means of affirming a basic level of self-determination to every component of the universe. This, in turn, allows for a God that works through persuasive influence rather than through domination. Consider the following scenario. God, wanting to “bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man,” decides to assist underdeveloped intelligences in their advancement.[45] Knowing that material existence is the path to progression and enjoyment, he urges an intelligence to join with a particle of some element.[46] The intelligence, at whatever level of thought it is capable of, decides that God is trustworthy. This may be because, as Widtsoe suggests, God “exercised his will vigorously . . . [and] his recognition of universal laws became greater until he attained at last a conquest over the universe” and this mastery reassures it of God’s competence.[47] Perhaps the intelligence also senses that God has its best interest at heart. In any case, it trusts God, so when he gives a command to or offers to pair that intelligence up with an element of matter, it consents. Furthermore, when God decides that several of these pairs need to combine to make more complex molecules and structures, each participating intelligence again decides to trust God, i.e. to have faith in God, and so they combine. (Similarly, if and when God commands the intelligences to break apart or perform some other action, they trust that God knows what is best and comply.) As more and more intelligence/element pairs combine, more complex structures are created to which more advanced intelligences can be joined, and so on up the intelligence chain until we see the formation of organisms that humans would recognize as having some ability to choose, like animals. Yet at no point is the freedom of intelligences circumvented, and they are forever able to choose for themselves. In such a scheme, God surely has power over the universe, but that power comes because intelligences trust and choose to follow him. God’s power comes from their faith in him. This is consistent with other descriptions of influence found in Mormon scripture. Section 121 of The Doctrine and Covenants describes the principles upon which power should be exercised. “[T]he powers of heaven,” it states, “cannot be controlled nor handled only upon the principles of righteousness.” Those who “undertake to cover [their] sins, or to gratify [their] pride, [their] vain ambition, or to exercise control or dominion or compulsion upon the souls of the children of men, in any degree of unrighteousness” are deemed untrustworthy, and their power is removed. Others, however, realize that “power or influence . . . ought to be maintained . . . only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned,” as well as by “kindness, and pure knowledge.” These attributes, in contrast to the previous set, make a person worthy of trust, and hence others can have faith in him/her. The result for those who so act is a “dominion [that] shall be an everlasting dominion, and without compulsory means it shall flow unto [them] forever and ever.”[48] Dominion by this definition is never forced, but comes as a voluntary offering of those being governed, persons who are content to obey because they have complete faith in the person they are following. While the principles described in this section are given as a description of mortal power relations, the fact that they can produce results that last “forever and ever” indicates that they also have application in the larger universe. Indeed, they complement the idea of God using persuasive power. If persons will willingly follow another human who displays noble characteristics, is it not reasonable to conclude that they, and all self-determining components of the universe, would be willing to trust and obey the being that possesses those attributes in perfection?

... Thus when Jesus and his disciples were caught in a storm on the Sea of Galilee, they were only seeing nature acting as it normally does. Yet when Jesus arose and “rebuked the wind and the raging of the water,” the pairs recognized him as an authoritative and trustworthy source, chose to comply with his command, and altered their normal activities. In this regard, Jesus’ calming of the seas need not be seen as a violation of natural law, but rather a manifestation of a higher principle. ... the prophet Jacob who said that with “unshaken” faith people can “command in the name of Jesus and the very trees obey [them], or the mountains, or the waves of the sea.”53 This method of exercising faith seems more direct, for the human agent directly commands the natural world with the anticipation that it will respond. In this scenario, intelligence/element pairs respond directly to a human, not to Christ who is acting at a human’s request. ...

Orson Pratt on The Oneness of God, the First Cause or Supreme Power of Lecture on Faith #2

From the forum thread, Orson Pratt On The Oneness Of God, started by wayfarer (retrieved July 3, 2024):

A wayfarer posts the following (words in brackets are my own):

Posted February 19, 2013

I am fascinated by Orson Pratt's explanation of the nature of pre-existent Gods, found in "The Seer", Volume 1, Number 2, "Preexistence of Man", paragraph 22:

22. All these Gods are equal in power, in glory, in dominion, and in the possession of all things; each possesses a fulness of truth, of knowledge, of wisdom, of light, of intelligence; each governs himself in all things by his own attributes, and is filled with love, goodness, mercy, and justice towards all. The fulness of all these attributes is what constitutes God [compare Lectures on Faith #5]. "God is Light." "God is Love." "God is Truth." The Gods are one in the qualities and attributes. Truth is not a plurality of truths, because it dwells in a plurality of persons, but it is one truth, indivisible, though it dwells in millions of persons. [Compare D&C 88, 93, and 131:7-8] Each person is called God, not because of his substance, neither because of the shape and size of the substance [of the Holy Spirit or Great First Cause], but because of the qualities which dwell in the substance.

Persons are only tabernacles or temples, and TRUTH is the God, that dwells in them. If the fulness of truth, dwells in numberless millions of persons, then the same one indivisible God dwells in them all. As truth can dwell in all worlds at the same instant; therefore, God who is truth can be in all worlds at the same instant. A temple of immortal flesh, and bones, and spirit, can only be in one place at a time, but truth, which is God, can dwell in a countless number of such temples in the same moment.

When we worship the Father, we do not merely worship His person, but we worship the truth which dwells in His person. When we worship the Son, we do not merely worship His body, but we worship truth which resides in Him. So, likewise, when we worship the Holy Ghost, it is not the substance which alone we worship, but truth which dwells in that substance. Take away truth from either of these beings, and their persons or substance would not be the object of worship.

It is truth, light, and love that we worship and adore; these are the same in all worlds; and as these constitute God, He is the same in all worlds; and hence, the inhabitants of all worlds are required to worship and adore the same God. Because God dwells in many temples. He frequently speaks to us, as though there were many Gods: this is true when reference is made to the number of His dwelling places; but it is not true, and cannot be true, in any other sense.

Therefore, in all our future statements and reasonings, when we speak of a plurality of Gods, let it be distinctly understood, that we have reference alone to a plurality of temples wherein the same truth or God dwells. And also when we speak of only one God, and state that He is eternal, without beginning or end, and that He is in all worlds at the same instant, let it be distinctly remembered, that we have no reference to any particular person or substance, but to truth dwelling in a vast variety of substances.

Wherever you find a fulness of wisdom, knowledge, truth, goodness, love, and such like qualities, there you find God in all His glory, power, and majesty, therefore, if you worship these adorable perfections you worship God.

Wayfarer follows this up with his view saying:

I think Pratt demonstrates that the universal attributes of God are what makes any given god[,] God. This idea, that the universals are what constitute the unchanging attributes of god[s] make it possible to speak of God as being one, while in fact a god-being is instantiated in the many. The fundamental premise is that the universals are truly the eternal Godness, and not the being of God.

This solves a number of problems in Mormon Theology, and I think that was what Pratt was trying to do. First, if we say that God the Father was once a man like us, then it begs the question, in at least one iteration, who was God's Father/God? Who was, then, the actual "First Cause" that philosophers and apologists (like William Lane Craig) proclaims as the original, necessary being? Was Elohim simultaneously a God who was once man and also the First Cause? Does that even remotely make sense?

Pratt makes the point that there cannot be disunity if any number of god beings [who] are united with the God universals. They, by definition, operate as one. One can say "God is One", knowing that at the same time, any being in possession of the universal attributes is one in mind and purpose with all that is. It isn't to say that this is a monad, nor is it pantheism, but rather, that the God attributes are indeed ubiquitious, but the beings that are gods are individual in both time and place.

To me it's a fascinating view. ...

 

... When we accept LDS principles on the nature of God, that he has an exalted human body, that there are a plurality of god beings, that we have an inherent, uncreated divine nature -- literally a substance (since all spirit is substance), that is uncreated, and that we may ultimately become gods, then coming to an understanding of how that might be the case is an effort worth pursuing.

Pratt was remarkably consistent in his understanding of Sections 88 and 131 of the Doctrine and Covenants. It's all there in the D&C.

This adds confirmation to my post here on how Orson Pratt himself was who made D&C 131:7 into canonized scripture! Wayfarer then says later:

The prevailing LDS (and Christian) paradigm of God is that "THE God" is the First Cause of all that is, either through organization (LDS) or ex nihilo (mainstream Christian). The reason for using the term paradigm is that this core concept becomes the basis of the entire ontology of that which we call god, and from that ontology, how we interpret prophecy, scripture, and priesthood.

Orson Pratt's statement in The Seer defines an alternative paradigm from the mainstream Christian god-concept. The universal attributes he describes as being 'God' are what makes a god, God. Therefore the universals are eternal, as is matter. When a being embodies the universals, that being is God, both "One" in the sense of common universal attributes, as well as distinctive in terms of a single god in time and space.

The alternative paradigm in Orson Pratt's statement is that the universals create the being of God, not the other way around. The collective aggregate of these universals, that is to say, the Way, the Truth, and the Life, is to be the fully-realized being of God: the I AM. We can say that these collective universals are "The Way", as that is what the original followers of Jesus Christ called themselves: Followers of the Way. And, by following the Way, gradually developing the universal attributes of Life, Truth, and Intelligence, the follower can "be" a god in this life in the moment (Jn 10, Ps 82), and become a god in the life to come. Thus, as God was and perhaps is also a 'follower of the Way', then the being that we know as God became God at some point in time and space.

This creates a fundamental, paradigmatic question: Does the Way preceed God or does God preceed the Way? Another way to put it: which came first, God? or The Way?

In the mainstream Christian ontology of God, an uncreated God decreed the universals and thus caused (Cosmological argument) all things in the universe according to his design (Teleological argument). He created all things, all law, all attributes "from nothing"/"ex nihilo". To the mainstream definition of God, God is beyond being, and was the First Cause of all that is, including the Way (whatever that is in Christian thinking, is unclear).

LDS theology (whatever that may be) materially (pun intended) differs from this point of view. God does not create ex nihilo. Elements are eternal, and 'The Gods" (as in the Book of Abraham) organized these elements. Mankind has both contingent as well as necessary being, in that at least a portion of man -- his intelligence, is uncreated and eternal.

Importantly, the term "intelligence" is singular in all of scripture EXCEPT in the book of Abraham. In section 93, intelligence is defined as both "Light and Truth" as well as being the glory of God. This defines "intelligence" clearly as a universal, not as a particular. When Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Abraham, he fundamentally added to the meaning of "intelligence", creating a particular instance of the universal "intelligence". This has profound theological implications as to the divine nature of mankind. If man is an etermal possessor of intelligence, than man is a necessary and not a contingent being. ...

... To say that the universal attributes exist independently of the person, and thus can be worshiped outside of the person indeed doesn't make sense, and that is not what Pratt is saying. Love is not a thing or a being that we can worship by itself. Pratt suggests we worship the attribute only as it exists within the person. As well, "intelligence" is not a thing (although the Book of Abraham conflates the term a bit), but rather an attribute of a being. When a being posesses the attributes of Love or Intelligence in large measure, we respect the being not because of the being itself, but the fact that the being possesses that attribute.

Pratt takes this to the ideal of the attribute. When a being possesses Love, Intelligence, etc., in infinite measure, then that being is God. He says the ideal attributes (to use another name "universals") are eternal and absolute. He says that a being can become a possessor of the universal, ideal attributes. In so doing, the being 'becomes' God, and is thus worthy of worship by virtue of the attributes alone.

Likewise, we honor the [LDS] Prophet -- we don't worship him, because we don't worship "men" in that way. We honor and respect, even to the point of exact obedience, when the Prophet does what prophets are supposed to do: Prophesy -- that is, speaks for the Lord. At that moment, when the Prophet is speaking for the Lord, he is essentially equivalent to the Lord. He possesses all the attributes necessary to speak for the Lord.

But unlike Gods who are inseparably connected between body and spirit, and inseparably imbued with the universals that make them gods, the Prophet, or any mortal man, is only able to be equivalent to the Lord in the moment -- there is no persistence of godness in man ...

... If...we have a paradigm that there are eternal attributes, collectively called "The Way", and that godness, indeed, all goodness, prophecy, priesthood, and structure in this life emerges from a harmony with the Way, then a host of things make sense:

- Scripture is not "top-down" declared, but rather, the light of the gospel emerges as holy men discover it through inspiration. Scripture is necessarily incomplete and insufficient to save us, as Jesus pointed out in John 5:39: "(Ye) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me." (The "Ye" at the beginning is most important, is implied in the greek text, and completely changes this from the LDS interpretation of a commandment to "Search the Scriptures" to the fact that the Pharisees and Saducees did that all day long and missed the entire point: The tesimony of Jesus Christ emerges from the scripture.) 

- Structure in the church is not a completed effort, but rather, emerges and evolves over time as we come to understand truth better and better.

[Compare D&C 1:24 where the Lord says His commands in scripture are given unto the reader in "their weakness, after the manner of their language, that they might come to understanding."]

- A snapshot of beliefs at one point in time (i.e. "The New Testanent", or "The Book of Mormon") is never going to be the definitive "gospel", because over time, our understanding improves as we learn.

- A single definition of the Gospel is never definitive, but rather, the gospel light may emerge from all expression of scripture to the extent that the writers of those scriptures are in harmony with the universal attributes of God. Hence the necessity of ongoing revelation in any church that carries the attribute 'true'. (As well, we define the "Rock" not as "Peter", but rather, as "Revelation of Jesus Christ". Paul defined this as the essential way to receive the Gospel - through revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ in Galatians 1).

- The oneness of God does not depend upon a dictatorial top-down structure, but rather is defined by the unity of being congruent with the Way. If God the Father and Jesus Christ both define themselves as congruent to the Way, then, mathematically, spiritually, and actually, God the Father = Jesus Christ = The Way in the unity of being God.

- Gospel truths are progressive rather than conservative. As Jesus progressed beyond the ritualistic aspects of the Torah and taught a new law, Paul went a step further to push toward an anti-nomian Church that the original 12 apostles were not initially capable of accepting. Likewise, Joseph not only restored the Church, but progressed it beyond where it was in the time of Christ. Such progressive increases in understanding and growth seem lacking today in a prevailingly conservative, dogmatic Church.

And most importantly, as we recognize that the divinity of our Prophets, Scriptures, priesthood, institutions are emergent rather than "designed", we can realize that many of the faults of our history, scripture, and current leadership are all inevitably part of being human. It's meaningless to say, for example, that "God wouldn't allow the prophet to lie," because God does not mandate. Agency, the ability to emerge order through learning from our own experience to discern the Way, becomes the fully operative model of this world. We can stop trying to defend a history that needs no defense. We can embrace the humanity of the Church and scriptures for what they are.

 

Wayfarer however, does make other comments in this thread that I disagree with, like him not thinking the Book of Abraham in The Pearl of Great Price should be canonized scripture. But I agree with what he has to say as quoted above.