However, it is incompatible with a robust sense of free will – i.e. where individuals originate and are ultimately responsible for their own actions, because it would be impossible for God to even become aware of actions that originate external to Himself without being logically affected by them.

Your answers are somewhat evasive, which is fine and wise. I admit the which comes first, God or eternal law is a chicken and egg sort of thing.

Whether you admit it or not, you are on as thin of ice as any of us. To deny spirit birth is just as speculative as to assert it. Section 131 and 132 do suggest this in a few spots, McKonkie was certainly convinced of it.

You are misunderstanding the word “passion” as it is used in the creed and some confessions (WCF 2.1). This is understandable, to modern ears to be “without passions” is synonymous with “emotionless,”. The word “passions” is a derivative of the translation from Latin and its use in the theological language. To put it plainly the understanding of “passion” in this case stems from its “theological use” and not its common meaning.

“without passions” is trying to convey that God cannot be acted upon by any force outside Himself and caused to react to it, not that He does not have emotions. For God to be moved by an outside force would imply that something outside of God can control Him and is superior to Him.

You may still disagree that God is “without body, parts, and passions”, but I thought you should know that “passions” is not referring to emotions.

I agree that we can move out into speculatory thin ice. It is interesting to see your point of view.

My ten year old son has for a while been trying to grasp an eternal regression of Gods, with quite a bit of emotional angst. He, and I, have a hard time getting our minds around it. I also remember mentally struggling with it. I have settled in myself that it is something that I will fully understand only after this life. It is enough to accept the love and help of my Father in practicing the life he would have me walk.

Some say that the most important thing they learned in school was how to learn. The most important thing I can learn while in my school on earth is how to repent. I will exercise my faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. I will be willing to accept the teachings I get from Him. I will practice what I learn to obtain attributes God has like patience, kindness, service, hard work and love. Everything else I will learn and obtain if I have learned to turn to God.

Recorded also at http://richalger.blogspot.com/2009/07/exaltation.html

I do believe that God intends Christ to be an example of what we can become through His atonement. Christ intends to make us what He is, if we will allow it. However, what does that really mean? What does it not mean? For one thing, I know it does NOT mean that we will somehow have to perform our own “atonement” and/or relive a mortality with 23 chromosomes from a mortal mother and 23 from an immortal Father. So whatever it means to become like Him and share in all he has, there will still be a distinction between us. Christ was the Savior; I was not. He was already God when he took upon himself flesh and became a mortal; I’m not God, and I need His grace to become divine and exalted.

The Father and the Son invite us to be “one” with Them (see John 17), but we’re left to speculate on what that really means. I believe that it will be glorious and a relationship of unity based on love. But I don’t go so far to speculate that being one with Them will make us an independent God of our own world. That would be a contradiction! Yes, He will share with us all that he has. This may even include powers of creation and participation in creating other planets or what not, but like I said–it will be an extension of God’s power, not my own.

As to your other questions:
“What is your view of the purpose of eternal marriage?”

Broad question here. Hmmm. I’ll keep this one short and sweet: To bring us joy and exaltation–the kind of quality of life God enjoys.

“What is your view of the purpose of eternal gender?”

Beyond what the Proclamation on the Family says, I don’t really have any other views to add.

“Do you believe that exalted couples will be able to experience a continuation of the ’seed’? i.e. have their own spirit children?”

I’m not really sure how to interpret D&C 132:19 and the “continuation of the seeds”. You seem to interpret it to mean having spirit children after the resurrection. I’m not sure that we can definitively say we know what it means or how it will work. Heck, I’m not even sure precisely how we’re “spirit children” of God and how that actually works–especially when you remember that Joseph Smith taught that spirits are co-eternal with God and uncreated.

I do know there’s more than one way to understand “Father” and even “Mother” (including in an adoptive sense, or simply nurturing an advancement of our intelligence, etc.), and the truth is we simply don’t know exactly how we became children of heavenly parents. I do know more, however, about how we are begotten children of God through the atonement of Jesus Christ (see, for example, Mosiah 5:7).

I personally don’t believe in a viviparous “spirit birth”, especially when Joseph Smith said over and over again that spirits are uncreated and eternal. I know that a lot of people synthesize these conflicting ideas by believing in the Tripartite model of existence (from intelligence to spirit to mortality), but Joseph never made any distinctions between eternal intelligence and spirit, and there are other concerns with the Tripartite model.

Whatever the “continuation of seeds” means, I don’t believe it involves a viviparous “spirit birth”. There are still too many unknowns, so I think I’ll simply decide to stop while I’m on firm doctrinal ground and not skate out on thin speculatory ice.

No, the Orthodox do not necessarily rebaptize all converts. Those received from a body which practices a Trinitarian baptism are or can be received by Chrismation, which renders their baptism “valid.” The baptisms of schismatics becomes “valid” upon reception and not before.

As for LDS teaching authority and other groups related to Smith, that is what I thought. But they also go further than that via the first vision don’t they and label the existing Christian traditions as apostate and adhorrent to God? I am not sure why the Smith and the LDS get to exclude other bodies like that. Rhetoric is a two way street.

It has been my experience, albeit anecdotal that the LDS do not extend the tittle Christian to say the JW’s, Two by Two’s or lots of other groups. So this is why perhaps that explains why historically pre-existing Christian bodies have been unmoved by that rhetoric. Word have a history after all.

Incidentally, the LDS church has very specifically denied the term “Mormon” to members of other LDS traditions. Not very many LDS splinter group members have wanted to be known as “Mormons,” but polygamous LDS groups do, and the church actively tries to stop people from identifying them as such.

It’s pure speculation, but if the LDS church were 812 million members strong and having to compete with a powerful, rapidly growing LDS splinter group who claim that the current LDS church is apostate and corrupt and brag about “baptizing an LDS ward every week,” I really, really don’t think the church would be rolling over and benignly acknowledging such a faction as their fellow Mormons and co-followers of Joseph Smith.

As for theosis, whatever the LDS doctrine is, the Orthodox doctrine is distinguished by the concept of divine energies and its relation to the virtues. Without grasping the patristic doctrine of divine energies one won’t grasp the Orthodox view of deification.

As for who gets to define what constitutes Christian teaching, perhaps someone could explain the LDS view. Does the LDS Church get to define what is and is not LDS teaching, such that one who chooses to believe contrary is defined as outside LDS teaching? If so, then I am not sure why those churches like the Catholic or the Orthodox are not free in principle to do the same. But perhaps I am missing something and someone could clarify for me.