Ummmmmmmm Great questions. They do not lend themselves to the nice neat little sunday school answers that we often try to apply to really great questions. These will be added to the many questions I have no answers to.

So important for our eternal salvation… ;)

Here’s a counter question. Where does one get the assumption that one has to have a physical body to qualify as part of the Godhead?

These are the kinds of questions that make me glad I will never be a High Priest.

My wife always found a certain emotional appeal in the possibility that the Holy Ghost might actually be female.

Bruce,

I’m under the impression that this and related questions are what have caused J.Stapley at BCC to reject elder brotherhood and insist that there is an ontological divide between us and Christ. Geoff J at New Cool Thang has taken a different tack, embracing multiple mortal probations as the solution to this problem. I’m pretty sure that both agree that the model of progression currently taught in the LDS Church doesn’t (and perhaps can’t) address this concern.

Guy,

Get off your high horse and your thread jack. This is a basic question of Mormon theology. Maybe you are the type of mindless follower that never thought to ask such questions? Were you the robot that you now hate?

I ‘just’ don’t see ANY practical application here, this has Nothing to do with (your assumption-conclusion-allegation that I’m on a ) ‘being on a high horse’,Nothing Whatsoever…

Dan–but do we? Is the Holy Ghost not a spirit?

*Possible Heresy Warning*

This is the type of Question that Adam-God (that damnable doctrinal pariah!) attempted to answer, by suggesting, as quoted above “multiple [hierarchical] mortal probations”. Having read up a fair amount on it, I see it as a possibility.

Other explanations I have heard include:

A line of Christs, from which one “borrows” saviors for their realm of creation
The right of the *firstborn*. Thus there is something to be said for Christ having the original birthright.

on the Holy Ghost:

I have heard it persuasively said the Holy Ghost, is an office that one fills only for a time. Thus many people could be, or have been the Holy Ghost.
Nephi asserts that the Holy Ghost is “in the form of a man” I don’t know if that precludes femininity or not.

Dan: Why do we assume that one must have a physical body to be a part of the Godhead?

We don’t, obviously, though we do tie exaltation to resurrection. But that wasn’t my point (and I can see that I worded things a bit ambiguously.) What I was asking is: what distinguished both Christ and the Holy Ghost from all the rest of us spirit children such that they were chosen and function in the Godhead? Why was Christ chosen to be the ‘firstborn’ of the spirit children? Why was the Holy Ghost chosen among all of us to act as such?

I pretty much put this in the “things I’ll find out later” list, but I was a bit startled in HP group meeting to realize that I had never really thought about this before. ..bruce..

Bah, there was supposed to be a line crossing out the “while still an unembodied spirit” part.

My #20 was written before Bruce’s #19. :)

I tend to peice things together starting from Alma 13- the implication that the pre-existence provided choices and demonstrations of faith which are “rewarded” with being called and/or chosen on Earth. It is evident that there were divisions of spirits by their merits- “noble and great ones”- as well as some reference to divisions among “birth order”- Jesus and Lucifer being “Sons of the Morning”.

I think it is therefore impossible to assume that both pre-existence and exaltation operate under egalitarian principles. Such has never been the case- though not birthright- rather by virtue, or faith exemplified by doing good. From that perspective, we can see a Christ who excelled above all others in his ability to do good and be good, and a logic would draw a similar conclusion for the Holy Ghost.

Thanks for the Post, Bruce.

nasamomdele,

My understanding of Abraham 3 is that that hierarchy is natural, and not dictated.

Christ was more valiant than us, all the way from the beginning. He is who He is because of the perfect choices and attitudes that he made from the beginning. Him being part of the Godhead in the preexistance was because he was like God. Not becasue he had a body like our Heavenly Father, but because of His perfect demeaner. This is the reason that He could be the Savior. From the beginning He did not faulter.

Ok Bruce, since you invited speculation, I’ll offer some. Note that it is PURE speculation. First, if anyone would have pondered this, it would be Blake Ostler. If anyone has his books, they should look through them to see what he’s said.

I think we can ask a question, “WHEN did Jesus Christ become part of the Godhead?” Do we know when that happened? Is there a “when” anyway, if, as it says in D&C, that all things, past, present, and future, are before God? The temporal element of progress seems to be important, and yet it also seems that time doesn’t really exist for God. But it is at least possible that Christ’s position in the Godhead wasn’t “ratified” until He performed His atonement. Anyway, in the Old Testament, there isn’t really this idea of the Godhead, but rather a Divine Council composed of many different beings. More than three. There are hints of this in the New Testament as well, like in certain translations of the first chapter of the Gospel of John, and Revelations.

So far as the Holy Ghost goes, I have a pet theory about that, also not very important in the long scheme of things and certainly not something I am very attached to. But I wonder if Lucifer wasn’t slated to be the original Holy Ghost. I get this idea mainly from his name; Lucifer means “light bearer.” Isn’t that what the Holy Ghost does, really? He lost that name when he fell, and now he is Satan. So, originally, the order was, Father-Son-Lucifer. Lucifer basically wanted to move up to number two, or maybe even number one, which is what caused him to launch his rebellion. Then, when Lucifer was thrown down from heaven, accordingly to my wild, far-out speculation, the fourth in line, the Being who is now our Holy Ghost, stepped in to fill the vacancy created by Lucifer’s fall.

Like I say, pure speculation. I hope Mike Huckabee isn’t reading, what would he make of THAT?

I don’t have ready access to my stash of Mormon books at the moment. Here’s my random speculation:

Agency is an eternal principle. We all had agency in the premortal life. Which means, in some way, there had to be right and wrong. Not sure if we can call it “sin,” as that connotes open, wilfull rebellion. But imagine a class of 1st or 2nd graders. Some of the kids are simply very clever, they don’t color outside the lines, their scissors cut shapes exactly, their handwriting is legible, etc. So, in this scenario, the Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost were kids in the class just like us, and our parents noticed they were really bright (along with Lucifer), and over time hierarchies emerged.

So we’ve got agency. Some people use it very well and are foreordained to do great things. Others use it awfully and become Satan’s minions. The rest of us are born into this world, and the act of being born absolves us of all our _______ (don’t want to use the word sins) from the premortal life, thanks to the Atonement. This line of thinking was once used to explain why some people were born in the covenant, and others born to miserable circumstances (or were born black). Think “Master who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” So our state in this life was determined by the premortal life, just as our postmortal life will be determined by our mortal life. (Estates).

But the big hole in this paradigm is that people then start to assume that where and when you’re born here is a result of past righteousness, and you jump to conclusions. “You’re Abraham’s seed…well I can make these rocks here Abraham’s seed too. Big deal.”

All a long way of saying either the Savior was the same as us but simply more pure, more righteous, and advanced further than we did (in which case we were all then judged in relation to how close we came to Him in perfection prior to even being born) or He and the Holy Ghost are, in fact, of some other genus altogether.

OK lunch break is over.