project mayhem

"if men do not comprehend the character of god, they do not comprehend themselves" - joseph smith

so yeah, i don't believe god is all-powerful or all-knowing in the classical sense. i'm a finitist...and thus blasphemous. god does not have an absolute knowledge of the future, nor is he all powerful. there are some things which he just cannot do. for example, we have agency. it's something that we've always had and always will have. god cannot control us. there are just some things out of his control. i think this is best exemplified in moses 7 where enoch sees god weeping and cannot understand how a might all-powerful god can weep. enoch learns that god is weeping because things are not all in his control. his children had turned evil and there was nothing he could do about it.

what does this all mean? why would anyone want to worship a finite deity that is not all-knowing or all-powerful? here is why. a god that is not in total control is a god that is actively in the battle with me. he constantly watches me, feels real pain when i fail him, a real joy when i succeed. this is only possibly when he does not absolutely know what i can do. my future is not guaranteed. life is not easy. i can't sit back and let the world happen and expect it to turn out in any way that i want. god is the same way. his plan is not guaranteed by his power. he needs to be an active part in the plan. he is just as much into this as i am. my challenges are his challenges. just as it is not easy for me, it is not easy for him. it is much harder for him. and i love him even more for perservering in helping me.

why else do i believe god is finite? because i will be like him. as i said in an earlier post, life would be boring and pointless if we had power to make things just as we wanted them. we progress though challenge. if progression and being like god means that i no longer learn, and that i have no more challenges, then count me out and send me to hell.