Updated Editor’s Note:  We are pleased to continue this once-a-week, all-summer-long series of familycentric essays from Richard Eyre. Today’s essay is number 11 of 12. Look at the “intermission essay” here which has links to the first 6 articles so that newcomers can catch up. And look at essays 7 here and 8 here and 9 here. and 10 here.  

As most Meridian readers know, the Eyres, for five decades, have focused their professional lives on strengthening families.  This focus has ranged from writing New York Times #1 bestselling books to speaking to parents in more than 60 countries around the globe.  But their true passion is for an Inclusive, Eternal Family Paradigm that can’t be fully understood without the insights of the Restored Gospel. And they feel that the reverse of that is also true:  The Restored Gospel can’t be fully grasped or shared until it is seen through an Inclusive, Eternal Family Lens which allows us to have more accurate and realistic expectations for the “means” that is the Church and to have more accurate and more hopeful aspirations for the “end” that is our eternal families.  And “family” is broadly defined so that each article speaks to us all, whether we are single or married, parents or siblings, aunts and uncles or grandparents.

Author’s Note: In this essay about progression, there are certainly no conclusions drawn, and no suppositions or attempts to create speculative doctrine. Rather, I am exploring some of the remarkable questions that the Restoration, with its illumination of God’s plan of happiness, gives us the great privilege of asking. Sometimes asking the right questions is more important than having complete answers. Please continue to send any inputs or feedback on any article in the series to my pen name email at dr*******@gm***.com . 

Eternal Progression (and a small personal story)

We hear (or say) “eternal progression” so often that we tend to lose sight of its radical significance.  It is the essential opposite of the traditional Christian conception of the eternal rest of heaven.

When we do stop and really think about it, eternal progression implies so much that it deserves all the pondering and wondering we can give it, even if it trends toward more questions than answers.

Sometimes our vernacular in the Church takes us to an even more radical concept—the audacious belief that “as God is, man may become”—a belief that gets us labeled by much of Christianity as heretics.

On my first mission as a young Elder in New York City, I once spent what seemed like a whole day trying to defend this doctrine to a Protestant Minister who had told me that this one single “Mormon teaching”—of man becoming like God, was enough to insure him that our church was not from God.  I remember fervently testifying to him that anytime anyone does anything good—that person becomes slightly, infinitesimally more like God who is perfect—who is good in all things.

It was a wasted day because he was more convinced than ever that we were heretics, and I was not wise enough to ask him about his own beliefs instead of trying in vain to get him to accept mine.

I may have done better if I had just stuck with the challenging and interesting idea of eternal progression and its provocative contrast with eternal rest.

But if we really believe in Eternal Progression, it opens so many possibilities and so many questions – and we begin to understand that each of us is an evolving and changing entity— and will be forever.

And while we may know or understand little of what that entails, we do know the direction of it.

True spiritual progression always points toward and leads in the direction of God, of becoming more like our Heavenly Parents who wish for us all that they have. And as we progress, we are participating in the fulfilling of God’s goal to bring about the immortality and eternal life of man.

And the way our theology in this area differs from that of traditional Christianity (aside from the difference between eternal progress and eternal rest) is that we believe that progression can actually lead us to live with God, and to be more like God, even to the point of being able to create and have spiritual offspring like God does.  (Thank goodness I did not try that part with my minister friend in New York.)

Entities  

“Entity” is an interesting word.  The dictionary defines it as “a thing with distinct and independent existence.” In the Church, we believe that we each are, and have always been, an entity.  But we are entities that change and progress, and perhaps transform into higher entities.

The earliest name that is given to your entity, or to mine, is “intelligence.” If we look up “intelligences” on the Church website, we find that the word refers to “the spirit element that existed before we were begotten as spirit children;” with a reference to D&C 93:29 “Man was also in the beginning with God. Intelligence, or the light of truth, was not created or made, neither indeed can be.”

Perhaps we could say that, for each of us, “Entity 1” was our existence as inteligences.

Then at some point, our intelligences became spirit children of God. We were born (some sources say “organized”) as spirit children of our Heavenly Parents.  Joseph F. Smith said “Man, as a spirit, was begotten and born of Heavenly Parents, and reared to maturity in the eternal mansions of the Father, prior to coming upon the earth in a temporal [physical] body”

“Entity 2” then, is a spirit child of God

After eons of time living with our Heavenly Parents, we continued our progression. According to God’s marvelous plan He allowed us to become mortals, living on this orbiting school we call earth.

As “Entity 3” we are souls (“The spirit and the body are the soul of man”) and exist on this earth.

The big question (which this essay attempts not to answer but to explore) is “What is Entity 4?”

We know, through our belief in eternal progression, that our entities will continue to expand, to grow, to gain new capacities.

All these changes, all this growth is an ongoing part of a plan that progresses toward completion, toward the perfection and joy that exists in our fully completed Heavenly Parents.

To ponder it all floods the mind with questions—glorious questions that the doctrines of the restoration give us the great privilege of asking and reflecting upon and wondering about.

And “wondering” may be the best word, because it is with great and reverent wonder that we ponder questions like these…:

Does this progress toward completion, and our progression from one stage to another, come about through changes-in-degree or changes-in-kind? Is this earth a courtroom or a classroom? Is agency the single thing we have that God did not give and cannot take away? Does that make it the one thing we can give to God? How does abundant time (so much that there is none) contribute to fairness and the equality of all entities through the eternities? Are our entities as they currently exist perfectible? And if not, what has to happen to them to make them so?

Changes-in-degree and Changes-in-kind.

Let’s start with the first question in that list. Are we always the same entity—that can progress and improve, but is still only our original self; or can we actually become new entities?  Can our progression come only by gradual changes in degree, or are there great leaps of progression that involve a change in kind?

The dictionary says that “different in kind” means “of another sort” or “falling into a different category.” And from another internet source, “Everything flows and changes, and most of it is unnoticeable and gradual—a change in degree—a quantitative change. But sometimes change can be radically disruptive. When these disruptions are not simply more or bigger but involve a fundamental difference, they are termed ‘change-in-kind.’ A change in kind is always a qualitative change.”

As children of God, certainly there are many changes-in-degree within each phase of what and who we are, but we know of some changes that are so dramatic and God-given that we would be hard pressed not to call them changes-in-kind.

As Entity 1, we must have progressed through changes-in-degree as intelligences—learning, expanding, grasping, understanding—as that part of our existence went on. And perhaps some progressed faster and in different ways than others, just as we do on this earth, and perhaps some were, in the wisdom of God, ready to become His spirit children sooner than others. (But again, the word “sooner” loses some of its competitive implications when viewed in eternity where there is no deadline or end.)

As Entity 2, living with our Spiritual Parents, learning from Them and progressing as They intended, there must have been continual changes-in-degree as we developed, each in our own way and at our own pace, under Their guidance.

As Entity 3, here on this earth, we again each progress uniquely, some faster in one area and some in another, according to our situation and opportunity.  And the Restored Gospel gives us the wonderful assurance that our probationary estate extends through the Spirit world and into the Millenium, and that all of us will have every opportunity for growth toward the immortality and eternal life that is God’s goal for us.

Our earthly progression as mortals can properly be viewed as a long and gradual process composed of ongoing changes-in-degree. So can our earlier progression as intelligences.  And so can our subsequent progression as premortal children of God. Within our existence as each of those three entities, we grew and progressed, degree by degree, according to our choice and agency.

But the big transitions, from intelligence to spirit child of God, and from premortal spirit to physical humanity on earth—surely these are better termed changes-in-kind.

In other words, changes within one Entity can be called changes-in-degree, but changes from one Entity to another are better called changes-in-kind.

We can only imagine that first change-in-kind—the changes involved in transitioning from an intelligence to a literal spirit child of God.  We know much more about the second change-in-kind that brought us from our heavenly home to this earth which involved leaving the presence of our Heavenly Parents, taking on for the first time a physical body, receiving a type of agency never known before, and  incorporating the opportunity to go beyond our role of “child” to the role of parent—a role that had until then belonged only to God.

As we ponder eternity’s changes-in-kind, it is well to remember that these are additive progressions.  We did not give up anything that we had or were as intelligences when we became spirit children of God, we simply added to what we were (or God added to it in ways too wonderful and beautiful to understand.) We became the new entity of God’s spirit children, and that entity included and encompassed the Intelligences we had always been.

And of course, in our progression into this mortal world, to become Entity 3, we remain within ourselves, all that we had become in our premortal life.

As we progress, are we undergoing a completing process and becoming new entities, each one more like God than the previous one?

What is the Next Change-in-Kind? What is Entity 4?

What of the next life—the next place or condition of our existence—the Spirit World and the Millenium?  Do they constitute another change-in-kind in which we become new and different Entities?  Certainly, the Millenium and the Resurrection and the Judgement and residence in a Kingdom of Glory will entail changes-in-kind in terms of who and what our Entities become.

But perhaps the Spirit World and the maybe some early stages of the Millenium may be better thought of as dramatic changes-in-degree, where we remain ourselves—the same Entities (though in the Spirit World temporarily without our bodies)—but move on to new dimensions where all who have not heard the fullness of the Gospel hear it, and where the opportunity for parenthood and families of our own continues until complete fairness reigns.

The change-in-kind incorporated in the transition into the mortality part of Entity 3 has many facets, many transformations.  Perhaps the most obvious are the gaining of a physical body and the opportunity to step into physical familial roles we have never experienced before—as parents, cousins, uncles and aunts, grandparents, and extended families with our spiritual siblings.

But there is one relationship, eternalized through the New and Everlasting Covenant of Celestial Marriage, that goes beyond all other relationships between God’s children—it is a relationship of spiritual creation that makes us powerfully more like our Heavenly Parents and qualifies us ultimately to live with Them and make our families part of Their family forever.  It involves the combining of the male and the female, and a progressing oneness between them that can make us potentially capable of becoming perfect as exemplified by our Heavenly Parents themselves.

Can this relationship, this covenant, this oneness constitute a change-in-kind that results in a new entity that is, unlike all our previous entities, perfectible, defined as having the capacity to become enough like God that we can live with Him—with Them—in the highest part of Their Kingdom of Heaven?

If so, could this combined, oneness entity be thought of as Entity 4—something that incorporates all that we were and are as Entity 3 but that adds the potential of Eternal Lives and the divine synergy of a powerful covenant that makes 1 + 1 equal more than 2, more than the sum of its parts, by becoming a new and perfectible entity with the power of creation and the privilege of living with and being like our Heavenly Parents?

We are, of course, incapable of perceiving the glories of God, or His perfection, but we know that our Heavenly Parents, when we lived with them in the premortal world, had progressed beyond us in kind. Theirs was a combined oneness entity. They were sealed together as one, capable of creation and spiritual offspring—and They wanted us to ultimately have those same joys.

We have no revelation on anyone else having achieved that combined male-female oneness entity, though some speculate that Michael, who helped create the earth and then occupied it as Adam, was already, beforehand, bound to Eve; and others speculate about Christ being married, wondering if perhaps all in the Godhead had progressed into this new, complete entity and that it was one of the sources of their power.

Some might say that it is natural to assume that Christ, who is perfect, is part of that kind of combined, perfected entity.  The same assumption could be considered regarding the Holy Ghost.  The question would be whether all of the Godhead, being perfect, had each long since reached the point in their progression that encompassed the combined creative power of completed oneness entities joining male and female. “The man is not without the woman, or the woman without the man, in the Lord.”

In light of that, is it instructive to consider the institutional Priesthood that men hold, and the familial Priesthood that men and women use in the Temple?

Perhaps they cannot be separated, but the first which is held by men, administers and operates within the Church, which is an institution of this earth and of mortality; while the second, the familial or temple Priesthood, is used by men and women, and operates in the family which is eternal.

It seems that, ever more frequently, we see Church leaders, on every level, speaking and acting as a oneness entity in their callings—standing and speaking together as husband and wife, answering questions together, serving together and in complement to each other.

When we move closer to understanding this more complete combined Entity of the male and the female, perhaps the ongoing restoration will show the way, even administratively.  A wonderful example of this is that Mission Presidents and their companions are now simply called together as Mission Leaders, suggesting that the leadership and greater capacities of that combined Entity is the right example to set for our young full-time missionaries. Could similar kinds of magnified, synergistic, combined leadership happen within our temples, within our stakes, within our wards?

The New and Everlasting Covenant of Marriage will always exist as an option allowing all who choose it to move toward this new oneness Entity during this phase as Spirit and Body Souls, and it will not be denied to any who want and seek it.  But that is not to say that all will choose to avail themselves of this opportunity—because the constant is agency. We should never pity or look down at one who chooses, either now and/or in the Spirit World and Millenium, to be single, to be independent, or to be, in the Gospel vernacular a “Ministering Angel.”

This term, Ministering Angel, as a spiritual designation in the eternities, is neither dismissive, demotional or derogatory, because in fact, it may suit the foreordination or the disposition or the desires of many individuals; and judging or hierarchizing in any form is not appropriate on our part, because all of us are God’s children but with different gifts, aptitudes and desires—each of us unique; and that is the way God made it and the way it is supposed to be.

Linda and I have one son who is single, and who is perhaps the most devoted and excellent third grade teacher in the world. Over the last 20 years he has impacted the life-course of more than 500 young students at or approaching the age of accountability.  Does that mean that he will never choose to marry?  No. But it seems to us that he has been, for these many years, the kind of ministering angel that could do things for these children to an extent and to a depth that may not have been possible if he was also looking after his own family.

Conclusion (or the closest this essay will get to one)

Perhaps even in our considerations of forever, our mortal minds are built to snap back to the now. Perhaps we need to balance our feeble attempts to imagine our unending story of eternal growth with daily attention to the moment—to the joy we can feel, the service we can give, and the love we can extend.

May we embrace expansive thought with its corollary of focused action, and have our faith strengthened by both.