Thanks for this cosmic reduction from mysterious non-beginning to what we interrelated, mystified humans just know/feel in our very lively soul-guts—despite all veils. Yes to interpersonal, (not universal)love! For LDS love between infinite particular, unique dynamic souls is the way that optimizes the telos of continual joyful existence. At least among the loving Kolobian Gods who try to emulate their intense desires to expand (in depth and breadth) their respective loving experiences together as pro-creative (ever originating) societies. Our Gods love to love more for the joy of it. (The Gods we worship are radical free desiring social ‘persons’ that could choose not to love. Thus they are not love, but lovers—nor is love God. There are indeed Gods many . . . some strange doubtless. . . but enough for now. There are more things in heaven and earth, Terryl, than are dreamt of in my theology. Warm wishes, R
Hi Randall, I think you make an important point regarding the logical consequences of drawing a one-to-one identity between love and God - if God *is* love, there's an implication that God lacks the agency to *not* love.
I'd like to propose a different way of understanding that phrase which, I think, meets this objection.
We are referred to, in the scriptures, as 'The Body of Christ'. What if we take the notion of a body of bodies - a body of agents - as more than metaphorical?
Indeed, the notion of a political body is a common one historically; what if the celestial kingdom and the Body of God are one in the same?
I don't mean to get diverted into questions of whether Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father, or Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother, are one body or multiple - I think the scriptures clearly imply that both can be true simulataneously: two distinct persons can be 'of one flesh'. Thus, each heavenly citizen can be a distinct personage who, being of one heart and one mind with the others, is also part of the larger body.
I would suggest that no set of prescriptive laws could keep a political state going strong on an eternal timescale, and with a potentially infinite number of citizens. Instead, such a state would need to self-organize at various scales: small teams or families coordinating dynamically with one another; handfuls of larger teams coordinating dynamically with one another; handfuls of larger units still, doing the same, all the way on up.
(I don't mean to imply there would not be top-down direction, but that many things don't require top-down direction.)
I would further suggest that love is the single greatest mechanism for self-coordination. When people love one another, they listen closely; they share whatever information they recognize others may need from them, even if it's vulnerable or might otherwise be embarrassing. When people love one another, they want to serve one another, collaborate (play!) together, and be part of something together. When people love one another, and the group as a whole, they will lead with humility and accept wise direction. In other words, nothing coheres and coordinates a group of individuals into a body like love.
Where am I going with this? Well, in such a body, each individual has total agency, but they are only *part* of the body if they organize and navigate their existence via love. Only when love is one's north star, motive force, and the engine behind one's spontaneous reactions is one part of and co-ordinated with this body.
In this view, God is love because God is the body of personages defined by love. The boundaries of God are love; if one is not full of love, one is no longer part of God. The descriptive laws of the internal behavior (behavior among parts) of God is love. The descriptive laws of the external behavior of God are love.
Thus, every god in God is an agent, but anyone who isn't full of love is not part of God. Agency is preserved, but love still defines and describes God.
Thanks for this thoughtful continuation of Terryl’s post. I think you are seeing like Whitehead a reality described as dynamic, infinitely ‘nested’, intra/interrelated actual entities from the minutest event/thing to the latest (immense) whole event/thing. Speaking of the definition of a group event of loving personal Gods as ‘love’ might work as you describe in your last paragraph. I prefer love to be what persons do/think/feel by choice together ‘as lovers’ rather than their identity. But I see how lovers and love might conflate in ecstasy. I do resist an either/or love metric. There are (it seems) degrees, amounts, intensities, concentrations of stuff nested within and thus around all that is. The borders are themselves permeable so to speak. The selves are never quite unrelated beyond the skin. So the highest God(s) are in a dynamic process of defining what love they experience next, and it is ‘more or less’ —not for sure as ‘loving’ as the last experience. More wars IN heaven are possible, but what you describe above for loving practice should make them rare!
You are challenging Diatima’s wisdom: love is not the step up toward the ineffable good. It is both the way and the joyful end—and thus is the good.
Thanks for this cosmic reduction from mysterious non-beginning to what we interrelated, mystified humans just know/feel in our very lively soul-guts—despite all veils. Yes to interpersonal, (not universal)love! For LDS love between infinite particular, unique dynamic souls is the way that optimizes the telos of continual joyful existence. At least among the loving Kolobian Gods who try to emulate their intense desires to expand (in depth and breadth) their respective loving experiences together as pro-creative (ever originating) societies. Our Gods love to love more for the joy of it. (The Gods we worship are radical free desiring social ‘persons’ that could choose not to love. Thus they are not love, but lovers—nor is love God. There are indeed Gods many . . . some strange doubtless. . . but enough for now. There are more things in heaven and earth, Terryl, than are dreamt of in my theology. Warm wishes, R
Hi Randall, I think you make an important point regarding the logical consequences of drawing a one-to-one identity between love and God - if God *is* love, there's an implication that God lacks the agency to *not* love.
I'd like to propose a different way of understanding that phrase which, I think, meets this objection.
We are referred to, in the scriptures, as 'The Body of Christ'. What if we take the notion of a body of bodies - a body of agents - as more than metaphorical?
Indeed, the notion of a political body is a common one historically; what if the celestial kingdom and the Body of God are one in the same?
I don't mean to get diverted into questions of whether Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father, or Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother, are one body or multiple - I think the scriptures clearly imply that both can be true simulataneously: two distinct persons can be 'of one flesh'. Thus, each heavenly citizen can be a distinct personage who, being of one heart and one mind with the others, is also part of the larger body.
I would suggest that no set of prescriptive laws could keep a political state going strong on an eternal timescale, and with a potentially infinite number of citizens. Instead, such a state would need to self-organize at various scales: small teams or families coordinating dynamically with one another; handfuls of larger teams coordinating dynamically with one another; handfuls of larger units still, doing the same, all the way on up.
(I don't mean to imply there would not be top-down direction, but that many things don't require top-down direction.)
I would further suggest that love is the single greatest mechanism for self-coordination. When people love one another, they listen closely; they share whatever information they recognize others may need from them, even if it's vulnerable or might otherwise be embarrassing. When people love one another, they want to serve one another, collaborate (play!) together, and be part of something together. When people love one another, and the group as a whole, they will lead with humility and accept wise direction. In other words, nothing coheres and coordinates a group of individuals into a body like love.
Where am I going with this? Well, in such a body, each individual has total agency, but they are only *part* of the body if they organize and navigate their existence via love. Only when love is one's north star, motive force, and the engine behind one's spontaneous reactions is one part of and co-ordinated with this body.
In this view, God is love because God is the body of personages defined by love. The boundaries of God are love; if one is not full of love, one is no longer part of God. The descriptive laws of the internal behavior (behavior among parts) of God is love. The descriptive laws of the external behavior of God are love.
Thus, every god in God is an agent, but anyone who isn't full of love is not part of God. Agency is preserved, but love still defines and describes God.
Thanks for this thoughtful continuation of Terryl’s post. I think you are seeing like Whitehead a reality described as dynamic, infinitely ‘nested’, intra/interrelated actual entities from the minutest event/thing to the latest (immense) whole event/thing. Speaking of the definition of a group event of loving personal Gods as ‘love’ might work as you describe in your last paragraph. I prefer love to be what persons do/think/feel by choice together ‘as lovers’ rather than their identity. But I see how lovers and love might conflate in ecstasy. I do resist an either/or love metric. There are (it seems) degrees, amounts, intensities, concentrations of stuff nested within and thus around all that is. The borders are themselves permeable so to speak. The selves are never quite unrelated beyond the skin. So the highest God(s) are in a dynamic process of defining what love they experience next, and it is ‘more or less’ —not for sure as ‘loving’ as the last experience. More wars IN heaven are possible, but what you describe above for loving practice should make them rare!