omnipresent?

[Angel]

Is God present in... outer-darkness?
Why hast thou forsaken me... was God there, did not really forsake Jesus?

Curious minds want to know.

[Palerider]

Is God present in... outer-darkness?
Why hast thou forsaken me... was God there, did not really forsake Jesus?

Curious minds want to know.

I don't think God's presence is felt in outer darkness. God's influence brings light. Those who are in outer darkness are there because they rejected the light and so they are given what they preferred.

I reject the Mormon "concept" that during the crucifixion, the Father could no longer bear the sight of His suffering Son and had to turn away.

I'm convinced that as the Biblical scriptures state, the Spirit doesn't always abide constantly with man. But we read that in the Savior's case he was given the Spirit without measure or restraint throughout most of His life.

However we all have to face that time when we decide for ourselves and use our own power/will to do the right thing or go in the right direction without the direct aid of the Spirit. Since Christ was tested in all ways as we are, I believe the Father withdrew the Spirit and Christ finished His work of His own accord.

It may have been seen momentarily as a "forsaking" but in reality was a question that was asked and conclusively answered and an ultimate time of growth.

[moksha]

The LDS God in human form does limit traditional conceptions of omnipresence. Perhaps Outer Darkness is lead-lined and LDS God's x-ray vision cannot penetrate it.

[Cnsl1]

Based on what I remember learning in Sunday School (and maybe this was not necessarily doctrine, but some dude's opinion), the Celestial Kingdom was occupied by the trio of Godhead. HF and Jesus were there, playing badminton and teaching the trainiee gods and goddesses how to make mountains and real animals out of balloons. HF couldn't visit the Terrestrial Kingdom at all. If your ass landed in Terrestrial and you wanted to hang out with HF and jam some harp with Holy Moses and the Grails, you would be out of luck, buddy. You'd never even get to SEE the big man. Now, maybe you could catch Holy Moses, but you'd have to get tickets for sure. But Jesus is able to visit the Terrestrial, so you definitely get to see him, but he doesn't actually LIVE there, so he's gotta go back to the CK. I never heard how long the Jesus visits would be, but I got the idea that folks in the Terrestrial could walk and talk with him, and hang for a little while. I imagined that Jesus would be super cool and the absolute nicest dude, and when people tried to get him to tell them about the CK, he'd probably just kinda get them to appreciate where they are, so that after he left everyone would be feeling so good, and thinking man, we're so blessed we get to hang with that guy. He's the best.

But I was taught that Jesus was NOT able to go to the Telestial kingdom. If you were a Telestial type, you could only hear stories about Jesus, but don't cry too much... don't forget about that third member of the godhead. That's right, folks. The Holy Ghost! This is basically his place to hang out, but only as a feeling, of course, because as everyone knows, the Holy Ghost can be felt in lots of places, but is only AT one place at a time. Like the sun, right?

But, I kinda imagined that since the Holy Ghost basically runs the Telestial, he'd probably be doing some interesting things. Like some haha made you look kinds of things. You know, cuz who is going to tell on him from the Telestial?

So that leaves the Outer Darkness yahoos with nothing. No Godhead. No feelings of the holy ghost. Sure, they've got all manner of imps and demons, as well as the great Satan himself, which could be interesting if he'd finally answer some questions about masturbation. And of course the Outer Darkness probably has the best band, cuz God knows a helluva lot of guitar players sold their soul to the devil. Keith Richards and the Crossroads might even be the house band.

[Hagoth]

I think Palerider's explanation is much more coherent than anything taught in Mormonism.

The problem is that the LDS church has struggled constantly with the question of just who and what God is. This year marks the 100th anniversary of the removal of the Lectures on Faith from the Doctrine and Covenants (it should really just be called The Covenants, because they excised the doctrine part).

One of the of the most quoted verses in all of Mormonism is John 17:3 "This is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent."

So here's what we know about God, according to the restoration prophets (and might I just add: Holy Sh*t!):

1830: First edition Book of Mormon is more overtly trinitarian than the Bible
1832: Original First Vision account: one being, no mention of a physical body
1837: Book of Mormon is altered to make it less trinitarian
1835: Lectures on Faith added to D&C: Jesus has a body, God is a bodiless spirit, the Holy Ghost is not a person, but the mind of God(s)
1838: The God of the First Vision God has split into two people
1843: Revelation first reveals that God has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as Man's (and presumably armpit hair)
1844: King Follett discourse. God was once a human who is now exalted to a throne along with millions of other gods, including baby gods
1844-1915 (roughly): God is Adam, a polygamous exalted man who uses his own seed to populate worlds with his various wives. And he seduced Mary
1898-1901: Lorenzo Snow's tenure. He taught "as Man is God once was, as God is Man may become"
1915: Talmage reformats the Godhead: Jesus is Old Testament Jehovah. Elohim is his remote overseer who only appeared once in the Sacred Grove
1921: The Lectures on Faith removed from the D&C because it teaches the wrong God
The rest of the 20th Century: the deification doctrine is actively taught and emphasized in priesthood manuals
1997: Gordon B. Hinkley on the nature of God & Man: "I don't know that we teach it. I don't know that we emphasize it."
21st century: the church backs away from its doctrine, tries to blend in with Christianity while eschewing the Trinity - can't seem to get their story straight

And this from the people who claim to be the ONLY humans in the history of the planet who know "the one true God." All the rest are "playing church." I'd say it seems to be the opposite, that they have no idea who or what God is, compared to churches who stabilized their understanding of God 1500 years ago.

But then again, they are the same people who think they are authorized to define proper marriage to the entire world, while simultaneously trying to run away from their own monstrous distortion of marriage that was once required to reach the highest degree of heaven.

What a cluster... um... sealing.

[Hagoth]

The Mormon God is not even remotely omnipresent, in fact he is very specifically locally present. We know the name of the place where he lives. He sits on a throne. He has flesh and bones. So they had to reinvent the Holy Ghost as the god who is acting omnipresently on Elohim's behalf. But cans of worms are opening left and right. Then they had to invent a new, non-scriptural story to explain why only Mormons can make any kind of claim of the Holy Ghost's omnipresence. Others can only borrow it/him briefly from time to time. Knots tied into knots.

Speaking of flesh and bones, how could Joseph have known? Just because he putatively saw a guy with body parts doesn't mean anything. Moses saw Yahweh's butt. Mahonrimoriancomer saw first the finger of the Lord, and then his entire person. But wait, according to modern Mormon doctrine both were actually seeing he pre-existent Jesus who was still an unembodied spirit at the time. Apparently fleshless/boneless spirits are indistinguishable from gods with boney flesh. And yet LDS leaders like to say that their faith is superior to everyone else's because Joseph Smith saw two beings (depending on which First Vision account you read) made of flesh and bones. How could he tell? He didn't take his own advice and offer to shake their hands.

It would actually make more sense that Adam was the god of Moses and Moriancomwhatever because he would have already been born and attained a physical tabernacle.

[stealthbishop]

My POV:

The earliest gospel written is Mark (written probably around 70). It's there that we get the quote "my God, My God why have you forsaken me?" Mark's gospel suggests that Jesus was in a little shock and it was unexpected what was happening to him. Luke and Matthew use Mark as a source for their versions. The three are thus called the synoptic gospels because they have a relationship with one another in some way. Matthew retains the "forsaken" quote whereas Luke does not. Both Matthew and Luke strongly emphasize that the crucifixion was not a shock at all and Jesus predicts it much more strongly. The Gospel of John (probably written last out of the four), which uses different sources than the other three synoptics, does not have the forsaken quote and it shows Jesus very much being in full control and the crucifixion being predictable.

My sense is that Mark probably has the more accurate tradition because it is written first and it also has more of an "embarrassing" or dissimilar message that later Christians clearly did not want to have about Jesus.

Contextually a Jew at that time would have thought that God is still omnipresent (he's not hiding anywhere or unaware) but that Jesus saying this just means that Jesus wondered why he was going through this and that he wondered why God was not helping him. For Matthew, the writer, says that this is the Jewish Messiah and therefore he is going through it in fulfillment of Jewish Scripture. For Mark, like I said it is more of a shock that it is going down this way.

[Gatorbait]

Probably all thought about this. The closest star being what- five light years away and all. Lots of space.

Boils down to this and we can't have it both ways. Either God has always been God, omni-everything or he was a man and evolved into what he is now. Got to be one way of the other as I see it, but not both.

Outer darkness- how about inner darkness? I've been in underground mines all of North America and parts of Europe and there's a lot happening underground and it is dark, but gravity is still the same. I've been in one of the deepest mines in North America and it is pretty hot down there when you get way down deep like I was. Question is, does God keep track of all that underground, inside and outside stuff? All the volcanoes, and the like?

We know he keeps track of how much rain we get in Utah, depending on how much we pray about it, and oh yes, pay our fast offerings. Heard that one in church last time I went by the high counsel speaker.

[Hagoth]

My sense is that Mark probably has the more accurate tradition because it is written first and it also has more of an "embarrassing" or dissimilar message that later Christians clearly did not want to have about Jesus.

Replace "Mark" with the "1832 account, and "Christians with Mormons."

Contextually a Jew at that time would have thought that God is still omnipresent...

Replace "a Jew" with "Joseph Smith."

[Angel]

So wish there were like buttons, laugh buttons, informative buttons on this forum, amazing replies everyone.

Man, there are a lot of scriptures about "Cast out from God's presence".

Adam, where art thou? ...

Omnipotence, Omniscience, and Omnipresence? Who is this God person again? This is just more and more confusing.

[2bizE]

God doesn’t really work for me anymore…. Is he omnipresent? No. He can’t be everywhere at the same time…there are too many keys to help find and poor and needy to ignore.
Omnipotent? No. He can’t control or overpower Satan. Omniscient? No. How could he not know that polygamy could not produce more children to build up the kingdom than one man and one woman.

[Cnsl1]

I'll see if I can stay on a more serious note. No promises.

First, I think it's intellectually immature of us to take a categorical approach when attempting to conceive the nature of God, including even whether or not God exists, which seems the most fundamentally categorical question of them all. But we still do it. What's a better approach? I'm not sure, but I believe that when we find ourselves at that categorical crossroad--it's either gotta be this or that--we should probably catch ourselves and rethink possibilities.

Second, why does omnipresent, omniscient, or omnipotent have to mean god is also omnicaring or omninvolved? It's our assumption that if God is everywhere, all knowing, and all powerful, that God is also all concerned, all loving, and all involved in our lives. Lots of believers explain God's lack of involvement as omniscience; God knows what's best so god is letting you deal with lost keys on your own this time because it will make you stronger. This viewpoint gets a bit rough when trying to explain God's hands off approach to all the needless pain and suffering in the world. I suppose it's only tough to swallow if we assume that God is all loving. Still believers find a way, cognitive loopholes. Those who suffer get their reward later. God must allow free agency because god is also bound by laws or rules (so maybe not omnipotent after all?). Or, the cringiest loophole: those who suffer are getting punished for earlier sins, mistakes, or misdeeds they did before they were even born. People think all sorts of things to try to settle their heads, to deal with the randomness of life, the dissonance between competing thoughts, and the fear of being alone in the dark. It helps to believe you have an all powerful ally. For me, I like believing in a god(s) because it can be a comforting thought that helps me feel better at times, and hopefully prompts me to be a nice person. It really doesn't matter to me if it's true and I don't get hung up in the details. Hoping is enough.

Next,... space. We have discovered that we can go out into space as far as we can and it never ends. Most of us can't really comprehend that thought, but that's what the evidence shows. We can't see it all, but from as far as we can see, it just keeps going, keeps getting bigger. We have also discovered we can go infinitely in the other direction as well. Atoms, subatomic particles, quarks. We can't see them but we know they're there. From a far as we can see, it just goes on and on.

I'm mostly ignorant on the details of the edges of our existence-- both way out and way in-- but when I look at the pictures, they kinda look similar-- round things circling other round things, which lead to me pondering a what-if one day. God is purported to have said, "world's without number have I created." Maybe our little planet is a quark within a proton in a potassium atom hanging around some dudes arm. He's our God.

I guess there are worse places we could be.