For she did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, which they prepared for Baal. Hosea 2:8, KJV Do we believe this verse of scripture? Do we think that our God will give us all that he can, even when we are using those things to honor another God? Do we believe that God gives good to those who do wrong?

The story of Gideon in Judges 6 provides a narrative for discerning magical thinking from faith. What I love about Gideon’s story in Judges is how it helps me understand where faith and reason can help us break down the magical thinking often bubbling to the surface in Sunday lessons and our lives. Remember from my previous post that magical thinking is the idea that by a grand sacrifice, magical action, or special connection, you can earn special privileges to information or prevent causally unrelated misfortunes to you or others.

In December 2020, I had a pointed post on how a religion teacher at BYU was teaching a false truth that God doesn’t change in a relationship with us. It related to his interpretation of the Bible Dictionary’s definition of prayer. Prayer is the act by which the will of the Father and the will of the child are brought into correspondence with each other In that post, I said

And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. … And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost Acts 2

If you look, the blessing of wind is scattered throughout the scriptures. However, wind is also used to identify cursings and the influence of Satan. I see the wind as a fascinating metaphor used by God to represent covenants.

I suppose that the wind was the source of cooling, movement, power, and destruction most often experienced by the ancients. They didn’t have jet engines, air conditioning, guns, or bombs that responded to their commands. They depended on and succumbed to the wind and gave it metaphorical powers.

In D&C 82:8-10 we learn that God wants to bind himself to His Zion people. He is kind enough to provide insight on how we can ‘act before him’ to become as He is. Maybe it is just my thinking when I hear this verse read; However, I often hear this verse imply a type of inverse slave/master relationship between God and us. In the second half of verse 10, I understood that God would throw us to the lions if we didn’t do what he said.

One unique phrase that Joseph Smith brings into The Church’s vocabulary is ‘one eternal round.’ He translates that English phrase three times in The Book of Mormon and uses it in two revelations in the Doctrine and Covenants. At the end of Joseph’s life, he brings the phrase front and center in one of his final sermons titled, ’The King Follet Sermon.’ I have heard this phrase misused to imply that God is timeless and thought it would be worth referencing here to provide the correct context.

In Moroni 7:33-37, Mormon speaks on the power of faith. The middle two verses are full of questions to push us to ponder the reaches of God’s omnipotence and the power that comes from having faith in Him. Mormon’s final question includes, ‘Or will he, so long as time shall last?’ about God. Did Mormon think that time had an end? The full set of questions from verses 35 and 36 include;

In our conversations of Adam and Eve, we often see the first sin as the partaking of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. However, if we believe in a fortunate fall, then partaking of the fruit was the progression that God desired, not something in opposition to Him. Also, it seems that they could not sin while in the Garden (see 2 Nephi 2:23; Moses 5:11) which implies that anything that happened before and up to the partaking of the fruit could not be a sin.

A Greek woman had an ailing daughter who arrived at Jesus’ feet to beg for His miracles in her family. Jesus responded, ‘Let the children first be filled: for it is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it unto the dogs.’ His response seems to say that His mission did not involve her or her people. He had a plan, and it did not involve miracles for her as a Greek woman. She then responds in humility, ‘Yes, Lord: yet the dogs under the table eat of the children’s crumbs.’ This response gives Jesus insight into His mission and His interaction with her. He responds, ‘For this saying go thy way; the devil is gone out of thy daughter.’ Did the Greek woman change Jesus’ mind?

There are a few of us that would believe outlandish lies. People have differing beliefs on Big Foot’s reality, whether we landed on the moon, or if COVID-19 is a health pandemic. What makes the belief of those concepts different from believing in God the Father? The fascinating relationship between all of these beliefs is humanity’s inability to comprehend rare occurrences. What we often refer to as possible outcomes instead of probable outcomes is hard to imagine.

As you read all commentary in General Conference about Jacob 4:14, you will notice that they focus on our part of the relationship with God - our role and how we have ’looked beyond the mark’ in rejecting the Christ. Jacob 4:14 provides details on God’s part in the relationship that causes our ‘stumbling’, which offers insight about God’s work with each of us. It helps us understand ‘stumbling’ within the complexity of partners in a relationship.

Jacob 4:14 states;

But behold, the Jews were a stiffnecked people; and they despised the words of plainness, and killed the prophets, and sought for things that they could not understand. Wherefore, because of their blindness, which blindness came by looking beyond the mark, they must needs fall; for God hath taken away his plainness from them, and delivered unto them many things which they cannot understand, because they desired it. And because they desired it God hath done it, that they may stumble.

Alma 13:7-9 includes multiple statements about God’s existence concerning beginnings and ends. The verses include references to his foreknowledge and Priesthood’s reality. In my previous post, I discussed Kathleen Flakes response to understanding no beginnings and no ends. This post looks at all of the verses with this reference and LDS commentary around this phrase.

In 1993 then Elder Russell M. Nelson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles shared a moving General Conference address titled Constancy amid Change. As I have discussed my ideas about Truth’s ability to progress from D&C 93:30 (post 1, post 2), I think some of my friends hear that nothing is constant. President Nelson’s talk helps me clarify a few points on Truth’s progression. In his 1993 address, he shares a conversation with Ruth and John, where they asked, ’What can we trust?

I admit that my views on jealousy may be more visually impeeding than others that read verses with the phrase, ‘jealous God’. When I hear the word ‘jealous’, I instantly see an abusive boyfriend in a wife-beater representing nothing of quality about love. Clearly, the term does not have to mean this when referencing God; But, I decided to remix the scripture verses that reference a jealous God with the definitions of jealous and zeal.

Korihor was one of three named teachers of religions against Christ in the Book of Mormon. He was the only one specifically called an Anti-Christ in Alma 30:6 and 12. His primary argument against Christ was that we could not know the future. His was hyper-focused presentism that was equally cynical of historical tradition as well. His argument against Christ sits on the concept that any knowledge future was impossible. Those that proposed such a knowledge were ‘frenzied’.

Alma 29:4-5 provides a few stunning statements about agency and God’s response to our agency. I ought not to harrow up in my desires the firm decree of a just God, for I know that he granteth unto men according to their desire, whether it be unto death or unto life; yea, I know that he allotteth unto men, yea, decreeth unto them decrees which are unalterable, according to their wills, whether they be unto salvation or unto destruction.

Joseph Smith’s translation of Fascimile 2 provides a few detailed insights into this question. In the facsimile, there are added numbers which the Book of Abraham labels as Fig. 1 through Fig. 21. Last week, the missionaries visited and brought up Fascimile 2 and asked what I thought about the statement, ‘Figures 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, and 21 will be given in the own due time of the Lord’?

Does God change his mind (Numbers 23:19 & 1 Samuel 15:29)? Too often, when we talk about changing another’s mind, the implication is that we moved them from a wrong belief to a correct understanding. Or maybe, that one was so persuasive that another moved from their current thinking - regardless of the truth of either position. There is a third space where minds or decisions change. A relational space where new actors enter the scene and others within the group, knowing there are multiple viable options, are willing to mold their plans to accommodate the new dynamic.

In 2 Nephi 3, Lehi shares with his son Joseph a fascinating revelation that Joseph of Egypt1 saw the Nephite day over a thousand years in the future as well as Joseph Smith’s day over 2000 years farther into the future. This example is often shared with me from my friends when we get farther along with the conversation about the openness of God. It is an excellent example to push us to think about God’s knowledge of the future and how He could know Joseph Smith’s name if His children made free choices from Joseph of Egypt’s day (1700 BC) to 1830 New England times.

In LDS culture, Matthew 24:36 is quoted as witnessing that God knows the exact moment of His second coming. Without the surrounding verses, it is powerful in its statement of God’s knowledge of the future. Jesus says, ‘But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.’ Two analogies wrap verse 36 about nature and seasons that strongly implies a relational view of the timing of the second coming instead of a stopwatch or Japanese train arrival view.

Nephi’s Story: In 1 Nephi 4:10, Nephi starts his truth reasoning about what he should do with Laban after finding him passed out drunk as he planned to obtain the brass plates that he was commanded to retrieve. And it came to pass that I was constrained by the Spirit that I should kill Laban; but I said in my heart: Never at any time have I shed the blood of man.

Does God have wisdom? We discuss many other attributes of God which have a direct similarity in man but are more excellent with God. For example, Mortals understand limited ways to love but understand that God is better at love. Some humans can maintain massive amounts of information in their brains, but God can store an infinite amount. Humans have built technology that allows us to be in many places at once, but God can extend His reach to all locations.

Latter-day scripture has a curious phrase about wisdom that pops up quite often. It is the use of the words, ‘for a wise purpose’ about God working with a prophet on a current decision that affects the future. In 1 Nephi 9:5, Nephi is the first to introduce us to the phrase when he says, ’the Lord hath commanded me to make these plates for a wise purpose in him, which purpose I know not.

In 2 Nephi 26:23-28 we get a series of great questions about our relationship with the Lord to which all are answered with a ‘Nay’ from Nephi. Doth he cry unto any, saying: Depart from me? Hath he commanded any that they should depart out of the synagogues, or out of the houses of worship? Hath he commanded any that they should not partake of his salvation? Hath the Lord commanded any that they should not partake of his goodness?

I previously asked, What did Elder Neal A. Maxwell think about time and God? and proposed that he may have tempered his views on fixed future omniscience based on conversations with Blake Ostler. However, I have since found a few more quotes from Neal A. Maxwell after 1984 that are still fairly forceful and I want to add to the record on mostmovedmover.com about his views in this additional post. I hope to be respectful to his words while discussing how they relate to an openness view of God’s future.

Introduction During the early ’90s (I think), my church ran some commercials under the catchphrase, ‘Family, it’s about time.’ One of them is below. I always thought the ads had a great play on the wording. The phrase could imply that it is about time that we focus on the family or that you can’t be family without investing time. It is from those commercials that I build the premise and title of this post.

I have heard Abraham 2:8 often used as a description of the timelessness of God. When friends reference this verse, they have a look that says, ’need I say more about the timelessness of God’ when they say the phrase, ‘God knows the end from the beginning.’ However, that phrase does not need to imply anything about timelessness. I will use Deiter F. Uchtdorf’s See the End from the Beginning April 2006 conference talk and Russell M.

As I have studied specific verses around God’s knowledge, I don’t see fixed future omniscience coming from the scripture. Still, I do see how many verses could confirm a preconceived belief in fixed future omniscience. 1 Nephi 7:12-13 and 1 Nephi 9:5-6 are two scriptures blocks that might confirm fixed future omniscience at first read. One of the complicated issues of fixed future omniscience is that it is often a lens that most of Christian society looks through to interpret scripture.

In Romans 3:3, we encounter a bold statement from Paul about God. He says, ‘For what if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect?’ Paul’s question forces all readers of the bible to ask, ‘What is the faith of God?’ A quick search on the internet will leave a searcher wanting concerning any explanation about the ‘faith of God’ because any description of the attributes of God leaves out faith.

True and Living (D&C 1:30) In Doctrine and Covenants 1:30 the Lord says through Joseph Smith And also those to whom these commandments were given, might have power to lay the foundation of this church, and to bring it forth out of obscurity and out of darkness, the only true and living church upon the face of the whole earth, with which I, the Lord, am well pleased, speaking unto the church collectively and not individually

Two posts ago, I talked about truth progressing where I put forth the idea that truth changes in time. I want to take a little more time on this topic and make sure it is clear truth exists and that it is not relative. However, it is relational with us in time, and we must all work together to progress into greater truth. When I hear President Nelson say that “We’re witnesses to a process of restoration” 1, I think I hear progress into greater truth.

Under a timeless model of God, many LDS quote Doctrine and Covenants 93:24 as a statement of truth never changing as it is ‘knowledge of things as they are, and as they were, and as they are to come.’ There are 24 conference references to this verse alone. Many of the references to this verse emphasize truths as never-ending facts that are timeless1. Below are two examples from general conference that highlight how verse 24 is referenced.

In our Come Follow Me New Testament Reading for the last week of October, there is a section on Philemon 1:17-21. In these verses, Paul offers to cover Onesimus’ debts that might be owed to Philemon. In one section of this Come Follow Me topic, there are a series of questions that are asked to prod a conversation. You can see the questions in the screenshot below. I was visiting relatives while on a work trip, and one of their children was guiding the conversation.

In Doctrine and Covenants 93:30-32 we read, All truth is independent in that sphere in which God has placed it, to act for itself, as all intelligence also; otherwise there is no existence. Behold, here is the agency of man, and here is the condemnation of man; because that which was from the beginning is plainly manifest unto them, and they receive not the light. And every man whose spirit receiveth not the light is under condemnation.

Background The story of Isreal’s relationship with the Gibeonites is an excellent example of relational theology. In this story, we see God call Joshua, command Joshua, then support Joshua in his calling. It is a fascinating story of how God works with His people in a mutual relationship of trusting decision making. The relational Story Joshua’s call and command In Deuteronomy 34:91, Joshua’s call to lead the people is signaled through the description of Moses laying his hands on Joshua and the children of Isreal’s willingness to hearken to Joshua’s words.

Having previously finished a book on timelessness (see my previous post) and a book about perceiving truth through metaphor and physicality (see my ‘Oh say, What is truth?’ post), I have been pondering the words that are used by God in scripture. In Doctrine and Covenants 93:24 the Lord says, ‘And truth is knowledge of things as they are, and as they were, and as they are to come;’ which is often quoted with Jacob 4:13.

In Luke 18:1-8, Jesus shares the parable of the importuning Widow and Unjust Judge (also called the parable of the persistent widow). In this parable, we learn that persistent prayers receive answers. The parable proposes that prayers can be answered through faithful wearying. The widow petitions the king, and the king ignores her. Finally, the king relents. Not out of compassion but because of her wearying. It looks like the rationale or justness of the request, the king’s character or the woman’s character is not justified or explained.

In Revelation 10:6 we read, And sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer: This verse coined the phrase ’that there should be time no longer’ and the context of Revelation 10:6 is around the second coming and the establishment of Zion.

If you Google ‘LDS views on time’ the first article that comes up is an article in LDS living by C. Robert Line titled ‘How Does God’s Time Work? How Can He Listen to All Our Prayers at Once? Robert initially wrote the article in September 2015. Robert repeats quite a few quotes out of context that we have discussed previously. See the following posts as a more detailed and alternate view of how he is referencing a few quotes and scripture.

In Doctrine and Covenants 130:7 we read; But they reside in the presence of God, on a globe like a sea of glass and fire, where all things for their glory are manifest, past, present, and future, and are continually before the Lord. This verse is often quoted as a statement of God’s timelessness by Latter-Day Saints1. However, few remember the question and answer in verses 4 & 5 of this same section.

Words of Mormon 1:3-7 The Book of Mormon consists of multiple books much like the Bible. Within the Book of Mormon there is a book called ‘Words of Mormon’. In Words of Mormon we get some commentary from Mormon about how he compiled the plates which Joseph Smith recieved from Moroni. In verse 3 Mormon discusses how he found a small record from Nephi, Jacob and others. Then in verse 4 we read some statements about prophecy and the future1.

Previously, I referenced Alma 40:8 when I asked Does God live within time? In this post, we will keep our focus on Alma 40:8. It reads; Now whether there is more than one time appointed for men to rise it mattereth not; for all do not die at once, and this mattereth not; all is as one day with God, and time only is measured unto men. This verse can get quoted out of context.

Background: When discussing the openness of God with my friends a few different chapters in the LDS canon pop up in the conversation. These chapters provide a fairly detailed narrative of future events. Sometimes, they even have verses with statements that many LDS have traditionally seen as statements of fixed future omniscience. Two of the most often referenced chapters include; Moses 7: Enoch foresees the coming of the Son of Man, His atoning sacrifice, and the resurrection of the Saints—He foresees the Restoration, the Gathering, the Second Coming, and the return of Zion.

Background: I wanted to pull all the references from the topical guide under God, Omniscience of to help us get a ‘deeper acquaintance with the word of God.’ In a future post we will look at the topic of God, Foreknowledge of (As a side note, I am developing a small R package to process items from the topical guide). The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has a Topical Guide to the Scriptures that was initially published in 1979.

Background In “Does God have a Future?” John Sanders explains the open theist view of omniscience and foreknowledge. Here are a few key quotes; I prefer to think of “perfect” in dynamic terms: relational perfection. God is always in perfect relationship with us, and as the relationship changes so God changes. -Pg. 90 First, let me say that Jesus did not experience “powerlessness.” Rather, he exercised the power of love and chose not to use other types of power available to him.