Oooh. Excellent way of putting that. I’ll have to remember that.

I can think of good reasons to wonder if Adam had a belly button, but I can’t think of any for the virgin birth.

In general, I thought it was an excellent article, though I wearied at hearing the whole Bethlehem/Jerusalem misunderstanding crop up again.

Which raises the interesting question: If we eventually come to partake of the divine nature, do we then have an existence in this outside timeless multiverse? If so, what are the implications for the doctrine of election?

I know some Mormons, particular in earlier times, made speculations giving substance to the claim that we deny the virgin birth. I believe these speculations directly contradict our own scriptures, and I don’t see it as necessary. Furthermore, if our crude medical technology can impregnate a woman without sexual intercourse, it should be a snap for the Holy Spirit to do so.

I think its more of an overstatement than a misstatement. Some Mormons did and do believe something like what he describes.

Books.,
if God exists in your outside timeless multiverse, then in some sense he’s always been God no matter what universe you are talking about.

I had a similar epiphany reading The Enchiridion by Epictetus. Epictetus helped me let go of things that I could not control, and relinquish them to Christ. Epictetus was only marginally Christian, but there is a lot of overlap between Stoicism (the philosophy principally associated with Epictetus) and Christianity.

I’ve come to a better (supposed) understanding of certain passages of the scriptures after reading about Stephen Hawking’s cosmology. If I understand him, our universe is a bubble in a much larger “multi-verse” in which time does not exist. Time only exists within the temporal bubble of the Universe. Time is measured from the Big-Bang up to the Big-Crunch. Outside of the bubble there is no time, before the Big-Bang there was no time, after the Big-Crunch there will be no time. However, the cycle eventually starts again. (And there may even be mini- or sub-cycles with bangs/crunches at the galactic level within the overall “Universe” level. As there appear to be black holes at the center of all observable galaxies.)

And that could be how the Eternal Father exists “from eternity” “to eternity”; from before the Big Bang (before time begins) through and continuing on after the Big Crunch (after time ends).

And that could be how non-exalted individuals suffer “eternal” death. When the universe goes through the Big Crunch, perhaps the exalted ones will have gotten off the merry-go round, and continue on in “eternity” outside of these temporal bubbles. I do not know the fate of non-exalted individuals in the Big Crunch. But perhaps it has something to do with Joseph Smith’s line of “one eternal round.”

Combining this with the King Follet discourse, that might be how the Eternal Father was _always_ God in this universe, from the _beginning_ of this universe, but His mortal probation and attainment of exaltation happened outside of our Universe bubble, in a Universe bubble pertaining to _His_ Heavenly Father, in a previous “eternity”, not this “eternity”. That way we can say He has _always_ been God, since the beginning of time, but the scope is still limited to “our” or “this” time, or the beginning of “our” Universe.

And to bring the scope down from macro to micro level, String Theory and theories of Dark Matter may end up shedding light on our theology of “spirit matter.”

“They also deny the virgin birth, since their materialism leads them to speculate that Jesus is literally begotten by the immortal Father rather than conceived by the Holy Spirit.”

Is one of the more salacious misstatements of Mormon belief routinely expressed by non-Mormon critics.

It’s a shame, because in other respects it’s a pretty perceptive essay.