God's ethical problem: consequences of God making our primordial spirits into Children of God, without our consent

My understanding (mostly derived from Mormon theology) is that human beings began as what could be called primordial spirits - which had existed from eternity; and the first step in our development was to become Sons and Daughters of God.

That was God's most important act of creation, because it was the first step towards Men potentially becoming divine, mini-gods of the same kind as the resurrected and ascended Jesus.


The ethical problem, as I see it, is that as primrdial spirits we could not, therefore did not, consent to being made children of God. We could not consent because, until we became children of God, we were not capable of consent.

As primordial spirits we were incapable of understanding what it meant to become children of God, therefore it was something done to us.

We had first to become children of God, before we were able to consent to or choose anything; therefore it was an essential first step - nonetheless, that first step was coercive.

To put this in a nutshell; God bestowed consciousness upon us. This consciousness then made it possible for us to be agents, to have free will. Until there was consciousness, we could not choose to be conscious - therefore we were compelled, by God, to become conscious.  


There is a close analogy with raising children - here in our mortal lives. Parents have to begin by doing things to children - without the child's consent. Good parenting entails considerable compulsion.

A young child is (at least quantitatively) unable to consent; and it is not until later in development that consent becomes possible (for some, not all, people).

The factor that transcends the compulsion and 'makes it good' is love. When the parent is behaving with love, the compulsion is taken-up by the greater reality of love and seen as a means to the ends of love.

But if love is denied, or was not present, then we are left with the perception of plain compulsion of the child by the parents; with the parent merely compelling the child to follow the parent's agenda. 

Only during adolescence, does a child becomes able to consent; and an adolescent will often become (implicitly or explicitly) aware that much of their childhood entailed compulsion. They may see this as having been necessary and done with love; or they may instead conclude that they have been oppressed or exploited by their parents.

The adolescent coming-into adulthood may choose consciously to return to a loving relationship with parents; or may choose to sever all ties and reject the parents.


The fact of compulsion during development therefore necessarily (and rightly) leads to a crux, a time of decision. The parent makes a decision on behalf of the child; but for the situation to become right the mature child needs to endorse the parental decision.

This happens in an ultimate and divine sense. We must, sooner or later, decide whether we endorse the decision of God coercively to make us his children - or reject it.

I think it is the result of this choice that leads people to Heaven or not. To choose Heaven means to endorse God's decision, to be grateful for consciousness, to regard God as having been motivated by love. It means to dwell with God in divine creation, and to participate - whether passively, actively and fully - or something in-between - in that continuous work of creation.

(It can be seen how such an understanding of Heaven depends on the situation of love.)


To choose hell means that we resent God's choice, we regard it as having been made un-lovingly, for God's own purposes with which we disagree. Hell is the denial that God acted with love, or the denial that love is a sufficient reason for God to act.

This hell is what happens when a person is angry at God, at God's primal act of 'making' us his child. It is to accept the consciousness that was bestowed by God, but to reject God's purpose for which consciousness was bestowed. 

To choose hell therefore means that we choose to retain our consciousness and agency - despite its having being forced-upon us; but (motivated by hatred and resentment against God) to use this consciousness in opposition to God's purposes.

Hell is to use our powers of agency against the agenda of God - and instead for our own agenda.


There is another possibility. Some people dislike being conscious, and therefore would prefer to reverse the act of bestowing Sons and Daughters of God. This is broadly the choice of people that may be Hindus or Buddhists. They disagree with God's agenda of raising Men to a divine level of Being; and instead prefer to revert to the primordial state of Being. Being without awareness - simply being.

In principle this choice may well be made with full acknowledgement of God's loving intentions; but simply based on the conviction that 'consciousness is not for me'. God has made us his children, made us conscious - and as spiritual adolescents we say 'Thanks, but no thanks; I would rather not become divine'.

To such persons, God (I believe) offers Nirvana - which is a reversion to the primordial state of minimal consciousness, but dwelling in a situation of divine love, of 'bliss'. Simply being, moment by moment, unchanging, in a pleasant and comfortable state.

(Hence the impersonality, the foundational abstraction of 'Eastern' religions. It somes from the preference not to be persons, not to relate to God as a person - because these depend on consciousness.)


In sum, there is a moral problem at the heart of divine creation; which is the moment in our personal history when we were made children of God.

This was unavoidable; but the problem is dealt with when we each must later choose how we regard this act of bestowing consciousness, how we interpret it, what to do about it...

Then there will be (it is unavoidable) a decision - which we can now make, being agents with free will: the decison whether to accept the agenda of spiritual development towards divinity for which God made us consciousness; or to reject it.

And if we reject it; the decision whether we then consciously fight against God's agenda (since we regard God as selfishly-motivated); or simply opt-out of being Sons or Daughters of God - handing-back to God his unwanted gift of consciousness.