MostMovedMover it's about time.

J. Hathaway

March 28, 2021 - 4 minutes read - 823 words

Ok, it’s not really about time. It is about a relationship with God in time. However, as soon as we push the concept of God working with us in our mortal lives in a compassionate give and take relationship, it strikes the cords of a common Christian belief of God’s timeless perfection. This traditional Christian belief often aligns with members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I didn’t understand how far-reaching a timeless God assumption could infiltrate all other aspects of God’s nature.

Many want God to listen to our prayers only if it doesn’t change His ‘perfectly’ known future knowledge. The concept of timeless perfection as unchanging is what creates all of the mess. So, MostMovedMover.com and openness theologians are confronted with breaking down the dogmatic beliefs of God’s perfection, and timelessness before the conversation about His willingness to be moved by His children can be fully absorbed.

Divine Foreknowledge

My first post focused on quotes from two prominent and respected LDS philosophers who matter of factly agree that the two ‘communities are in just about the same place’ concerning divine foreknowledge. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy summarizes that place for openness theology.

The most important philosophical argument for Open Theism is based on the idea that God’s foreknowledge of one’s actions is incompatible with those actions being free because one does not have the power to bring it about that God has never known something that He does in fact know.

On the same topic, my second post provided more depth on the openness position described by Clark H. Pinnock and John Sanders. I then touched on conditional prophecy and the Wilford Woodruff revelation on polygamy to highlight that revelation doesn’t have to be seen as timeless dictates of the future.

I followed those posts with a strong argument from Elder Holland where he explains that the Brother of Jared entered Christ’s presence as an “uninvited guest’ which hints at a crack in the traditional Christian view of timeless foreknowledge.

In my next two posts (fifth, sixth), I connect teachings from Brigham Young and Jame Talmage with quotes John Sanders and Gregory Boyd (both openness theologians) on eternal progression and predestination. In few other posts, I highlight other Latter-day Saint views that align with openness theology - Terryl L. Givens, James E Faulconer, Steven Peck, and Deiter F. Uchtdorf.

For the early days of MostMovedMover.com I finalized my belief on a contingent future for God after I completed the research for the posts What are the Omniscience of God references in the LDS Topical Guide? and What is the foreknowledge of God? But I came back to topics related to verses discussed in those two posts a few more times during 2019 and 2020 (listed in release order).

I added another post describing the theological names for the varied views of Foreknowledge under Omniscience

God’s time

I finally got directly to the point when I asked, ‘Does God live within time?’ which has been referenced heavily in many other posts. With It’s about time (Abraham 3 and D&C 130) and Does God live in Greek time? (Experiencing time as growth) I built on that early post. After reading a book on God and Timelessness, I asked, ‘Can the angel Gabriel blow his horn while holding his breath?’. I had quite a few posts that went into depth on verses related to time.

Elder Maxwell and McConkie

To be as comprehensive on the topic of God and time, I discussed the quotes from the two Apostles that I most often hear quoted from Latter-day Saints who believe in a timeless God. Elder Maxwell is the most eloquent and articulate voice on a timeless God that Latter-day Saints reference. Elder McConkie, like his father-in-law, was firmly against certain forms of eternal progression that can often get intertwined with timelessness.