Not the Same

@G – I seem to be having trouble understanding you these days!

I did not ‘get’ what you meant by your original comment (The more individual and distinct we become, the more we become like each other.) in the sense that it seemed incorrect every way I could think about it, so I assume I was missing the point.

Now, I don’t understand the diversity/ equality comment by PH (it seems a non sequitur) – and I can’t understand how the point William Wildblood was making, and which I quoted, fits with the subject under discussion!

I only mention this incomprehension because I might not be unique in it – or there may be some inconsistency somewhere…

What I understood PH to be saying was that stripped down from all their accumulated cruft diversity and
equality are straightforwardly contradictions in terms.

Similar to the quote from Wildblood that equality is a property of undifferentiated substance.

I said that the more individual and distinct we become–equivalent to saying that the more life evolves and the freer it becomes–

The more we find ourselves having fellow feeling and really feeling we have something in common on a deep level with other people who have become more truly individual–ie, “there is also a spiritual oneness”

I am sorry to say that I am growing more gnomic and aphoristic. It has been coming on for a while. I’m very sorry for the it’s difficulty that may cause.

Like Dr Johnson never said, we are here to be the despair of our friends.

I see equality as the counterfeit of Unity, Unity is the coming together of multiple entities with unique gifts and talents coming together to form a larger entity. Starting with Paul’ analogy of the Church as the body of Christ if we are say cells, the equality version is a pool of amoebas or even just hydrocarbons, However, they both externally can appear as one thing, even tough one is constructed of unique components and the other isn’t.

If we think of Unity as a group virtue and Equality as the opposed group vice, I would put diversity as the opposed vice to equality, but maybe I am just prejudiced against the word due to its use a club against me and mine

If I may….

the farther along two beings progress in “fulfilling the measure of their creation” the closer they get to the Creator, and therefore the more joy they have in common. That can hold true whether they are beings of the same order/species progressing in their individual – and different – callings and gifts, or beings of different orders.

The high-powered corporate exec Stake President can have oneness with the humblest blue-collar recent convert. How great shall be their joy at their meet-up in the Celestial Kingdom.

You can also have a degree of spiritual oneness with the family dog. It fulfills the measure of a dog for your family. Your family fulfills the measure of caretaker for it. How great shall be your – and its – joy when you meet again in the Celestial Kingdom.

For very investigator, perhaps every person whom you contacted, from your mission, if they attain the Celestial Kingdom, you will meet them, and how great shall be their and your joy.

Perhaps that is a definition of Celestial: fulfilling the measure of one’s creation. Celestial also corresponds with a fullness of joy. And that could be the connection of oneness: Beings living in proximity with each other, all having a fullness of joy.

@G – I think the difficulty here is ‘spiritual oneness’ needs explaining in some way that takes account of the fact (I presume it is indeed true) of individuals becoming more different from one another.

‘Oneness’ is hard to disentangle from being subunits of a unity or being ultimately identical; which seems to contradict the eternal growth and development (evolution) of post-mortal life.

The way I made sense of it was by the simple analogy of an ideal family, who may develop each to be extremely different from the others, yet will always stay a family and always work together in harmony with the nature and purposes of God’s ‘plan’.

This needs two things: the individuals are held together by eternal love each for each other; and all the individuals point in the same direction and have a harmony of purpose because all love God and the evolving divine creation.

This, of course, matches up with the two great commandments; the decisive difference being that with resurrection we are made able to make an eternal commitment to live by love, and we ourselves become eternal beings.

All this fits quite naturally within Mormon theology because it is based upon a pluralistic universe, in which God, Jesus and all Men were individual beings from eternity — i.e. there never was a time of primal oneness, as envisaged by mainstream Christian theology.

For Mormon theology the ‘problem’ is to explain how many eternal and developing beings come to full harmony of purpose in a Heaven of eternal growth and development. I don’t think this has been made clear and explicit by Mormon theologians – but the explanation I give above flows quite naturally from the Mormon doctrines concerning The Family; and by assuming that the best families in mortal life approximate to the conditions of post-mortal life.

– the individuals are held together by eternal love each for each other; and all the individuals point in the same direction and have a harmony of purpose because all love God and the evolving divine creation.

This, of course, matches up with the two great commandments; the decisive difference being that with resurrection we are made able to make an eternal commitment to live by love, and we ourselves become eternal beings.

Well put