The Father of Lights
the Father of lights—the veil shall be rent and you shall see me not with the carnal neither natural mind, but with the spiritual—no man has seen God except quickened—Ye are not able to abide the presence of God now….
There are these hints throughout the restoration of a spiritual physics. Where sin and goodness have substance and can be measured. A metaphysics that is not philosophy of which all our physics is but a local expression under mortal conditions.
I have discovered a common sense simple understanding of glory that illuminates the scriptures–glory is earned love or earned respect. But that definition it turns out is false. Glory is somehow both earned love and also a substance.
I don’t know why but the idea of a science of the spirit that is more like engineering than it is psychology moves me deeply. It gets me where I am to be got.
It is why I’m so strongly a fan of William Hope Hodgson’s the Nightland and John C Wright Awake in the Nightlands. They are restoration novels. They are fiction that is true to the Latter-Day Saint gospel.
The Burning Sight of God was inspired by all this.
Bookslinger
June 25, 2021
“Glory is somehow both earned love and also a substance.”
It’s also an attribute that can be applied to a wide range of substances, something akin to temperature. Two separate but identical objects can have different temperatures. Two individual and separate beings, physically composed of identical subtances, can have different glory.
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Here’s a wierd connect-the-dots: In the phrase “the glory of God is intelligence”, suppose “intelligence” is not strictly used in the knowledge+wisdom sense. Suppose intelligence in that statement is more along the lines of the “core being,” the soul of the soul, that which was “organized” and “clothed in a spirit body by Heavenly Parents.”
Glory might then be a measurable attribute of that core intelligence/personage, which then cascades outward to be a visible attribute of both the spirit-body and physical-body.
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“—no man has seen God except quickened—.” This is the explanation of how Joseph Smith could abide the presence of Heavenly Father in the first vision. (It was likely not a virtual or remote viewing.) The Holy Ghost had to have fallen upon Joseph, and thereby he was “quickened”, and not consumed/burned.
seriouslypleasedropit
June 25, 2021
“Glory as earned love” has always felt right to me, but so does this.
E.C.
June 25, 2021
My favorite Institute teacher had ideas like this. He taught – using scripture – that light, love, and truth are all substantive matter. Light radiates from Christ to fill the immensity of space as actual matter, and we, through righteousness, earn more of that light until we become like him. Light is also power. I suspect that glory is another aspect of that Light of Christ which quickens us and helps us grow. To paraphrase Aristotle, it’s an aim that, when sought, turns us to the highest end. I like that idea. It feels right to me.
Rozy
June 25, 2021
This sure helps me make sense of my grandpa’s declaration that it was easy to discern which spirits were righteous and which were evil, when the veil was withdrawn and he could see the spirit world (all around us, he said) while he served as a missionary.