How much has history show that even when light and knowledge was freely available to people, time and time again, they reject the prophets because of pride and vain imaginations and follow their own learning and wisdom…eventually to their own end? Too often it is not the complexity of the gospel for which people miss the mark, but the plainness of the way.

There are mysteries. There is deepness. But there is also a human and historical tendancy to miss the mark by habitually taking up sophistry and philosophies in contradistinction to the plain and precious knowledge that comes from the right approach.

Nephi reminded his brothers who were confused and disputing about their own father’s words, of the Lord’s directive regarding things they wanted to understand better, “If ye will not harden your hearts, and ask me in faith, believing that ye shall receive, with diligence in keeping my commandments, surely these things shall be made known unto you”.

Discuss what you want here. I’m simply observing a trend on this board regarding unneccessarily complicating things more than they are, that is as much a failing of mormon thought as anything.

However, you seem to discount the value of further light and knowledge regarding God and His creations both for its own sake and as a source of motivation to continue to choose the right—to continually enact the first principles and ordinances of the gospel.

To adapt an argument of CS Lewis, Mormons will read the scriptures, and Mormons will have literature and philosophy. The question is whether Mormons will understand well their own scriptures—and whether Mormons will understand well and contribute to literature and philosophy.

Particular individuals may be able to avoid intellectual work and still be saved, but I do not believe we can afford to have a mass allergic reaction to complexity.

A diversion from what? Reading the scriptures?

If the scriptures are so exceedingly plain and simple they exclude the need for discussion, exploration, and so forth (as you seem to claim, especially in your sniffy dismissal of the current thread), why must we read them so often? Why must I, e.g., go back to D&C 88 or Moses 7 or Abraham 1 again and again and again — and why do I find new things in them each time, added layers of complexity, deeper levels of profundity? Why, if the scriptures have the sort of ABC clarity that you suggest, do we misunderstand them so often? Why do we need official interpreters — i.e. the prophets — and why do the interpreters themselves disagree now and then (to put it lightly)?

I suggest that your ideas on the failings of Mormon thought are themselves a little simple.

Take a look at the history of the JST and you realize that Joyce and Proust have nothing on the Old and New Testaments as far as ambiguity, subtlety, and sheer artistry and poetry go. Borges’s labyrinths are nothing as compared to the million passages and doorways of the Book of Mormon.

Thank God for the possibility of conversation with sincere, intelligent, well-meaning Saints. Thank God for agreement and disagreement, point and counterpoint. Faith, hope, and charity, after all, may be exceedingly plain and simple precepts — but I botch them all the time.

Also, please give me a few pointers on how to stifle my vanity long enough to make Paul and Isaiah as easy as 123.

The gospel is simple, but not simplistic. Our perceptions may be corrupted by any number of things, not just our vanity–and I agree that vanity” choketh the word”. But, lets make a little room for the traditions of our fathers, shall we? Or the scales before our eyes that we inherit along with the coarseness of the flesh.

The sophistries of man feed his vanity. The vanity of man corrupts his perception. The perception of man influences his choices. The choice between wrong and right is hardest for him who fails any longer to recognize the difference between right and wrong.

Frankly, the confusion on this topic is indicative of the failings of mormon thought. The plain and simple answers are found in the scriptures. This blog seems to be a diversion.

I agree with you that Gender will be a difference between the Gods. See Proclamation on the Family (“All human beings—male and female—are created in the image of God. Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and, as such, each has a divine nature and destiny. Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose.”)

Also, although it is not clear to me whether this is a permanent situation, it appears that there may be different degrees of development among exalted beings. See D&C 130:18-19 (“Whatever principle of intelligence we attain unto in this life, it will rise with us in the resurrection. And if a person gains more knowledge and intelligence in this life through his diligence and obedience than another, he will have so much the advantage in the world to come.”)

These (and potentially other) differences aside, it is interesting to note that becoming perfect and complete — obtaining unity with God — means becoming the same as God and other exalted beings in many ways.

Quite frankly, I don’t follow your argument. It seems to be this, however: If we exercise our agency and choose to follow God, we are indeed giving up our agency.

I find that comment somewhat odd. We have all heard that if we want to become like someone, we would do best to immulate him or her. Are we then giving up our agency? Or are we exercising our agency? If we want to become like God, is it not best to do as He does, to think as He thinks, to conform our will to His? If I choose to do so of my own free will, am I not exercising my agency in an effort to become someone better than I could possibly be following my own imperfect path?