My personal definition of 'God' is The Creator. This entails that we inhabit a created reality - a created universe; and that this was created by a 'person'.
That definition is my understanding of what A God is.
While not universal, this basic definition is pretty widespread.
Then comes the nature of this personal God; which is perhaps unique to myself and has developed from a personal, intutive-revealed process. So I do not try to persuade others of the truth of it; it is up to each individual to discover such matters for himself. But for those who are interested...
My understanding is that God is not one individual but a dyad - specifically the eternal and loving creative relationship of Heavenly Father and Mother; our divine (actual, spiritual) parents.
This understanding also informs me of the motivation and method of God; in that the love of our Heavenly parents is what led to the purpose of creation being the procreation of spiritual children of God, and their developmental growth (via mortal life) into divine Sons and Daughters of God (as described in the Fourth Gospel). That is the motive.
The method is love: love is what makes creation possible, because it is love that transforms the primordial chaos into creation.
11 comments:
As a comment on the above; I would add that from our perspective *inside* creation; God seems to be one, rather than two - because that is the nature of creation. Because creation is a 'joint'-production, necessarily - then we just perceive the unity of the creative process.
As an analogy; think of being a performer of a role 'inside' an opera by Gilbert and Sullivan, or Mozart and Da Ponte. The work is a unity of words and music, and the performer is not 'aware' that these are the product of two minds in a creative collaboration (at a level of genius). It is not possible to dissect and separate the creative contribution at the level of the excellence, or impact, or artistic success - 'the work' is a single whole.
And there is no qualitative difference between such a performer and one who is inside an opera by Wagner or Tippett, where the music and libretto are the product of a single mind (W and T wrote their own librettos).
So, from our point of view inside the work, its creativity is of a unified and single nature; whether it comes form an individual or a dyad (or indeed several creative persons, as with the very best moves). Insofar as these are creative successes, they emanate from a single creativity - despite that more than one person is involved.
Thus, from inside God's creation, we see creation as emanating from a single creative unity - despite that (as I believe) the creative persons 'behind' creation are actually two. In different words, I know That God is a dyad, but I cannot (in principle) separate and compare the creative contributions of Heavenly Father contrasted with Mother.
Though I'm not a Mormon, I grew up in a very Mormon area of the United States, and they seemed to have a similar belief.
What do you think of the Trinity? The Mormons seemed to believe in the Trinity as well as God as father/mother, though at that point in my life I was an atheist and not really interested, so I never asked....
Not having any personal revelation on the matter I don't know whether you're right or not but the idea of a Heavenly Father and Mother Pro-Creating is exciting and it would put creation in a very new light, more in line with my intuition about heaven.
But I'm left wondering, if there is in fact a Heavenly Mother, and awareness of Her brings clarity to the plan of salvation, wouldn't Jesus have mentioned it? Or perhaps he did and it was never recorded (seems unlikely). I'm left wondering, why didn't Jesus write anything down himself?
I assume it was never necessary to have a perfected Gospel or he would have written one himself, and though we may delight in the 4th gospel or any other part of the New Testament, it is not at all necessary when the Spirit of Truth dwells in our hearts. The truth of the Heavenly Mother was revealed to you, presumably, through the Holy Ghost.
Interestingly in the Book of Mormon there seems to be a great emphasis on recording the word of the Lord for posterity.
Sorry I veered way off topic.
@EDF - It is not exactly what Mormon's believe but close
http://theoreticalmormon.blogspot.com/
As for the Holy Ghost - I believe that the Fourth Gospel tells us explicitly that 'it' is the spirit of the ascended Jesus Christ; not a separate personage.
@Sean - My general view is that this was one major reason why the revelations of Joseph Smith, the Mormon Prophet, were necessary - in order to bring extra revelations especially in relation to the family:
https://byustudies.byu.edu/content/mother-there-survey-historical-teachings-about-mother-heaven
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/the-family-a-proclamation-to-the-world/the-family-a-proclamation-to-the-world?lang=eng
But my reading of the fourth gospel (in my mini-book Lazarus Writes) tells me that the dyadic relation was replicated with Jesus and Mary Magdalene/ of Bethany, and that this would be brought to fullness after ascension; so this I regard as an indirect confirmation of the pattern.
I have always believed that my Heavenly Father and Mother are not all that different than my earthly father and mother. They both want the same thing for me.
It's a collaborative effort.
Not off-topic, I hope, here's some unified creation from Mozart and Da Ponte for your enjoyment:
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=frederica+von+stade+voi+che+sapete&&view=detail&mid=FFB3320FBB872E8E824CFFB3320FBB872E8E824C&&FORM=VRDGAR&ru=%2Fvideos%2Fsearch%3Fq%3Dfrederica%2Bvon%2Bstade%2Bvoi%2Bche%2Bsapete%26FORM%3DHDRSC3.
From Glyndebourne, 1973, Frederica von Stade with Kiri Te Kanawa and Ileana Cotrubas.
As for God as Dyad, the idea is very appealing. Is there something specific in Mormon scripture or teaching that points to it explicitly? If the true, super-Trinitarian, nature of God is dyadic, I should think there might be some hint of that in the Genesis creation narrative. Are there hints of it in the Bible that I'm overlooking? And does the Book of Mormon (which I've not read) introduce the concept?
Increasingly interested in what Mormons teach, as it seems to work very well for them at a time when very little else in the West does. But at the same time I haven't found reason to question the orthodox teaching of Christianity. Traditional Catholic teaching, not the weak tea dished up since Vatican II.
Sean, Jesus' big revelation was that God was our Father -- which, as I have documented on my own blog, was *not* a doctrine of the Old Testament religion.
https://narrowdesert.blogspot.com/2020/06/references-to-god-as-father-in-old.html
A Father clearly implies a Mother. (That's part of the definition of "father"; the parent in asexual reproduction is a mother, not a father.) Jesus planted that seed and left it for future generations to develop the idea.
@X - I am not going to expend my time answering questions when you don't listen to the answers, but just ask more questions. That's what trolls do: try to waste my time. You need to think for yourself.
HRS - See the references I suggested to Sean.
@WmJas I had read your post but it already slipped my memory. Thank you for directing me back to it. Your point is, I think, an excellent one. It's not dissimilar to the implications of us becoming sons and daughters of God, and what that actually means for our future. We really do have to think these things through (guided by our hearts). Jesus hardly seemed interested in spelling things out for us, did he?
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