In the comments section of another post, Jayleen asked:
Personally, I don’t think Satan can create anything. Therefore I must believe that God created sex. While Satan can pervert it, he can’t create it. So my question is this…
Dando, can God create something he has never experienced?
If families are forever but there’s no couples or sex involved in the eternities, and there is no heavenly mother…
Why didn’t he simply create Adam? Why would it not be good that man was alone if ‘femaleness’ isn’t eternal?
What would make God think it wasn’t good that Adam was alone?
Why not just have made everything self replicating instead of making a male and female of things?
What’s wrong with sex when it’s not perverted? Why would’t God have sex?
This question doesn’t really have anything to do with that other post, so I’m turning it into it’s own topic. Katy Jane also asked:
Dando, why do you believe that God doesn’t have a body? And that He doesn’t have a wife?
First off I’d like to clarify and agree with a number of things that Jayleen stated. I don’t believe that Satan has the power to create either. His own power is to twist and corrupt. Also I agree that sex is good (at least in my house).
I don’t understand how it follows that God can only create what he has experienced. There seems to be a chicken and an egg problem here. Does God need to experience something before he creates it? If so, how did He experience something He had not yet created? If it existed prior to His creation then, can you properly say that He created it? Or did someone else?
Even without that conundrum, does God experience his creation the same way we do? I don’t believe that God needs to eat so I don’t think he’s ever eaten a potato. Did He really create potatoes if He doesn’t know the experience of eating them? I don’t believe that God needs to breathe oxygen to live, so why did He create it if He doesn’t need to experience it? The answer to all of these things is that God created sex, potatoes and oxygen FOR US. He’s a good God and He gives us good things. For whatever reason He decided that He wanted to create us with the need and capability to experiencing these things. That’s all up to His own creative license (and I appreciate what a good job he did). God didn’t need to create Eve for Adam, but He chose to because He saw that Adam was lonely and loneliness wasn’t good. Notice that Eve’s creation wasn’t a solution to procreation, it was a solution to loneliness.
So why wasn’t God lonely Himself? I believe that the Bible teaches that God is a self-sufficient being. He doesn’t need anything for his own existence. He is contingent on nothing. God was already (and always) in relationship with Himself. That relationship is expressed in the doctrine of the Trinity; 3 personalities in continual relationship making up 1 essence. God doesn’t need anyone to love because the Father loves the Son loves the Spirit. The Creator doesn’t need his creation like the creation needs its Creator.
I believe that there is only one family that is forever. And that is Adam’s family. We are are all sons and daughters of Adam and Eve and thus will always be in relationship with ALL of our relatives in eternity. Why assume that we will only be limited to relationship with those we happen to be in legal proximity to here on earth? That seems to be selling the beauty of eternity really short to think otherwise. Why would you want to be just with your “family” the way it’s described in temporal terms? I think God’s offering us so much more than the way the LDS church describes “forever families”.
You can read more about my thoughts on this subject here Jesus, the smartest man to ever live and here Don’t You Want to Be With Your Family Forever?
LDS & Evangelical Conversations 
Sheeeeesh… You didn’t answer why he ‘created’ two sexes. I don’t believe we were created the same way you do so I’m trying to put it in your terms. Why not just Adam? Why two sexes? Why was it not good for Adam to be alone? Remember, I’m talking pre-fall…
Forever families for those who ‘qualify’ means learning all God Himself knows… learning to create and have eternal increase… Like a huge eternal Science lab forever learning and growing. Sounds pretty cool to me. And yes I believe in an Eternal Mother, I new that when I came to Know Christ as my Savior. Prior to even knowing Morman’s exsisted.
And just what do you think God experiences? I’ve asked you thid before and never did get an answer… how are we His children if we do not have the capability to become like him?
Oh sheeesh, ps – in case you haven’t figured this out, I’m Joy… I opened a new Photo blog and wanted to be linked to it… with my real name to keep it separate from my Grrr to There site and my nickname.
Didn’t mean to pop up posting as someone else, sorry.
That’s a lot of flippin “sheeshes” there Joy. =)
I’m sorry my answer did not satisfy. I’ll try again. God made men and women because he simply chose to. His reasoning for this may be deep and profound or it could be arbitrary, ultimately I don’t know. I believe that neither men nor women represent the full image of God. Only when we look at masculinity and femininity together can we start to get an idea of the character of God. He is both male and female.
God saw that loneliness was not good for men (the first thing God declares as “not good”). It was not good, because God created us to be in relationship. He created Adam from the beginning with the need for Eve.
Claiming the pre-existence doesn’t answer the question any better than that. All it does is push the question further back in time. Why were there men and women in the pre-existence? Why were Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother created as male and female? Who created them? Why did He/They/It create them that way? It puts you into an eternal regress.
Concerning an Eternal Mother, the burden of proof is really on you to show me why I should believe She exist. She is not mentioned anywhere in the Bible or even any LDS scripture. I’d be happy to look at any evidence you have for Her existence but right now all you are offering me is your own hunch. Perhaps I’m ignoring my own “Heavenly Mother” shaped hole, but I need something with some sort of spiritual authority to evaluate the claim that She is real. At this point that statement is no more meaningful than saying that God is really a cat (my cat thinks that she is a god).
I believe I have answered your question about our status as “children of God’; it is metaphorical. You can read my response again here: Children of God. I don’t believe you ever answer my question to you about how the Bible says that some can be called children of God and others are clearly not children of God. I don’t think this lines up well with you belief that we are all given a literal spiritual birth by our Heavenly Mother and Father.
I also found this interesting article on why God does not have a literal body. http://www.wcg.org/lit/God/god_body.htm
Thanks as always for the invigorating dialogue. You make this fun.
I’m sorry I’m not communicating well, I’m not feeling very good and my right hand is almost falling off from too much computer work… much pain and therefore I’m not processing up to speed and typing is quite painful. Not that it’s stopping me… I see you did answer but not what I was going for.
I guess what I meant to get at was for you to prove from the Bible that God doesn’t have sex, that Heavenly Mother doesn’t exsist, etc. My point being that most religions don’t answer these questions and base their own belief on nothing but what they presume.
Why wouldn’t God have sex? There’s nothing wrong with it when not perverted… why wouldn’t God have a wife? In Genesis the word Elohim is used… Gods, plural… how does that rule any of this out? I think many see these thoughts as blasphemous only because they’ve been taught that since a child. He’s still the Supreme being. It doesn’t cancel that out. Nor does it mean there will ever come a day we won’t worship Him. Just like for your kids, they may grow up but you’ll never not be their father.
The only thing that makes sense to me is actual families and being able to be like Him… which, btw I learned in the first Evangelical Church I attended after being ‘born again.’ It’s a huge one too. Grace Fellowship in Tulsa, OK. Pastor Bob Yandian. I don’t think he taught eternal families, but he did teach we become gods because we become like Him.
And I don’t expect you to accept having a heavenly mother. She loves you anyway. ;o) I believe in her because my intitial revelation that was my born again experience told me she exsists, and I cannot for the life of me see a Father and a Son with no mother. As one of our hyms says, “In the heavens are parents single, no, the thought makes reason stare.”
I see everything here as a type and shadow of what is in heaven, and that tells me that families are eternal. What would be the point down here? I’ve thought these things long before becoming Mormon. And much of it was through revelation just like I came to know Jesus as my Lord and Savior.
And I believe ALL humans here are spirit children of Heavenly Father… whether or not we choose to return home is up to us and the choices we make here in mortality. And yes, I do believe that Satan, Lucifer was a child of God in spirit, but chose rebellion and fell and became the Devil, the father of all lies. And I believe the only ones that end up with him are people who truly make the choice to follow him. Those that don’t wish to go to the Celestial Kingdom will end up in a lower glory. Not because God sends them there, it’s what they choose. D&C 76 explains that.
What in the Bible would preclude us being Spirit children?
My cats think they are gods too… LOL They don’t understand why anyone wouldn’t want to worship them any time they deem it. I always wonder what it would be like to have a self-esteem that told me all people would love me and want to pay total attention to me just by showing up. Funny.
I certainly disagree with the proposition that God can only create what He has experienced. That’s the whole point of creation: making something that didn’t exist before. Otherwise you’re really just sort of manufacturing.
I can write a story that I haven’t heard before. It might have themes and plots that are more or less universal, but the particular arrangement and perhaps even many of the plot devices will be something totally new.
I could invent a new poetic form, one that never existed before. I haven;t experienced it, which is exactly why I can create it.
Any creator or inventor creates something totally new, that they have never before experienced.
Dando, I think that the idea of Adam and Eve being created because of the importance of relationships is beautiful. And I know that in my life, my relationships with other people help me to better draw close to God.
Honestly, though, I don’t find the article you posted very convincing about God not having a literal body. I don’t necessarily think that He does–but just that I don’t think that we can know. And that’s okay by me. 🙂 I think that you can find scriptural evidence to back up anything that you think of (and I think that Kullervo used to do that for fun on his mission–think of wacky random things and look for scriptures to back it up…).
I think it’s hard with the Bible (or the BoM, really) to know whether to take scriptures as literal or figurative… and besides choosing arbitrarily (or based on what makes the most sense to you and your worldview–you being a general you) I don’t think that we can really do that effectively (or prove in any way that we are right.)
So, I’m left to conclude that I don’t know. And that it doesn’t matter. Maybe God has a body that he can transform. Who says that He would be stuck in one body? Why can’t He have a physical body that He can morph from a 6’4 man to a 5’2 one?
I don’t believe God ‘created’ sex… but evangelicals think we along with everything else were ‘created’… so I posed the question according to that and to prove it by the Bible. I also don’t think the eternal nature of male and female is ‘created’…
My point was to get people to think outside of traditional thoughts. To realize that most of all religion cannot be proven by Scriptures alone. Most all of religion is based simply on human thoughts and constraints and then scripture is found to back up whatever it is one wishes or thinks.
My other point was that the Bible cannot be used to prove that God doesn’t have sex, nor does it prove or disprove a heavently mother…
Just like Dando thinks he can prove God doesn’t have a body, I think I can prove he does… so now what? Everyone can prove anything they want using scriptures… just like Katy Jane said…
and I think that Kullervo used to do that for fun on his mission–think of wacky random things and look for scriptures to back it up…
Ah… the good old days of “The Cain Theory…”
jayleen, I think I agree with you that you can’t prove God’s gender or sexuality or corporeality with the Bible. You can certainly make inferences, and inferences mean something, but they certainly aren’t the same as a direct testimonial statement. Especially given the tenuous nature of inferences and implications, and the fact that you can draw multiple conflicting inferences from the same text.
I think we can actually know what to take literally and what to take figuratively in the Bible. I highly recommend a book How to Read the Bible For All Its Worth.
Joy, did you read ANY of the scriptural references I provided in my post on being Children of God?
I’ve read those references a zillion times. It can’t possible change what I KNOW… I am a spirit child of my Heavenly Father… I am not his ‘metaphorical’ child, but his actual offspring. I feel for you that you don’t understand the truth and implications of that. I pray some day you will know it.