- ReTx on “Moral Luck” and Time of Death: “Maybe God judges us our final character (who we are as a person) rather than on our final relationship with the rules of living a certain way (how well we keep the commandments). Character isn’t going to change in the final week/s or month/s of a life regardless of whether we sudden convert or leave the church, etc.” May 19, 14:46
- on “Moral Luck” and Time of Death: “If there really is a law irrevocably decreed in heaven upon which all blessings are predicated upon then God cannot simply have a charitable grading scale. Rather he’s going to need an infinite grading period whereby people can repent and use the atonement to grow.” May 19, 13:28
- on “Moral Luck” and Time of Death: “Perhaps the most blatant example of this is Ammon telling Lamoni’s father in Alma 20 that if he died right then his soul could not be saved, but the fact that he lived four more chapters apparently changed everything. One option is assuming God makes sure people die at the right time–though if you accept the premise that Amasa Lyman lost his exaltation at the bitter end that may not be the time that’s most favorable to us. That feels to me like God choosing who will be saved or not, so I’d prefer to think that while the Nephites had an incredible amount of light and knowledge about the atonement of Christ or the scattering and gathering of Israel, their understanding of what comes after this life was limited. We need to let go of the idea that God sent us here so he can learn something about us. One of the things God wants us to know about him is that he can see the future. He makes the point over and over again in the scriptures. I get where Last Lemming is coming from, but in my mind this differs from Calvinism in two very important ways: 1) We choose our final outcome; God just knows what our choice will be, and 2) God does not set up anyone to fail. Even the Telestial Kingdom is a major step forward from our previous state. (Yes, outer darkness raises interesting questions.) We’re here so that we can learn, in particular to learn by our own experience to distinguish good from evil and choose between them. Those choices are always filtered through our cultural baggage and the light and knowledge we have at the time. I don’t think God really judges us on hypotheticals: he knew how Alvin Smith would respond to the restored Gospel by observing how he responded to the light and knowledge he did have. I firmly believe that what God cares about is not what we’re like on the day of our death, or whether we accumulated enough points over the course of our mortal life (i.e. The Good Place), but what we will be in a billion years and all the eternities that follow. And given infinite time and the infinite power of the atonement, that comes down to what we really want. Now, if we’re putting off becoming someone better because we don’t really want to be better, a billion years won’t change that. But we do have plenty of time for mistakes and false starts. Mortal life is a time of particular moral clarity, and I think it’s tenable to say God’s judgement is basically predicting our future based on what we do in mortality. But he could be just looking at what he already knows we’ll become.” May 19, 12:55
- on “Moral Luck” and Time of Death: “It is difficult for me to state how much I dislike this conversation. I am reminded of a well-intentioned Seminary teacher who promised to pay $100 (this was in 1995) to any student who read the entire BoM during the school year. They were so excited, and they all did it. I’m sure he believed that doing the right thing for the wrong reason is still a good thing. But I disliked that so much. First, it gives the students this idea: “The BoM is so boring, or stupid, or possibly worthless that I will read it only if I am paid to do so.” What is the reward for reading the BoM? It is reading the BoM. What is the reward for being good? It is that being good is, er, good. It is its own reward, and is not related to the here-after. Didn’t King Mosiah talk about this? That we are instantly rewarded for doing good things, so we can’t run up a “debt” to God. How are we rewarded for being good? Goodness is its own reward. I am not honest because I believe it will promote my well-being in the next life. I am honest because honesty promotes good relationships. And other things. Being honest is both the goal AND the reward. If we think that we are earning our way to the Celestial Kingdom, we don’t understand. (In my opinion.) We don’t sacrifice in this life in order to obtain a bigger bonus in the next life. We really don’t understand the next life. Anyone who says they do is not being fully honest, or doesn’t understand that they are just guessing about many things. Joseph Smith taught that whatever intelligence we obtain in this life, will rise with us. Intelligence, again, is its own reward. Joseph told us that the relationships we form in the life will follow in the next. The relationships are their own reward. We don’t form friendships in order to pave the way to more friends in the life to come. We form friendships because true friendship is its own reward. Go back and watch “The Good Place” again, which makes it clear (yes, I am quoting a sit-com) that doing good for the sake of earning “points” in the next life is futile. We don’t get points if we do it just to get points.” May 19, 11:05
- on What Would an “Open Borders” American Church Look Like? Affirmative Action, Munch N Mingles, and Polyglot Patriarchs: “@RL: I’ve been in stakes that have been very intentional about ward boundaries in the spirit of what you describe in order to mix things up. For example, one popular approach in urban areas is the pie slice approach, where a ward will have a slice of the inner city along with the suburbs, instead of a suburb ward and an inner city ward.” May 19, 10:01
- on “Moral Luck” and Time of Death: “The D&C 19 principle (God will, at the very least, allow His word to be misinterpreted if that misinterpretation produces net-salutary effects) is really quite a bombshell. In this case it makes possible what jader3rd suggests – it’s better to believe in a bit of arbitrary moral luck which spurs actual action than the sentiment parodied by 2 Nephi 28:7-8. We should probably learn to apply “all models are wrong, but some models are useful” to religion.” May 19, 09:31
- on “Moral Luck” and Time of Death: “I don’t believe in moral luck and it’s turning me into a Calvinist and I absolutely hate that.” May 18, 21:30
- on “Moral Luck” and Time of Death: “President Kimball believed in moral luck. From The Miracle of Forgiveness: In an interview with a young man in Mesa, Arizona, I found him only a little sorry he had committed adultery but not sure that he wanted to cleanse himself. After long deliberations in which I seemed to make little headway against his rebellious spirit, I finally said, “Goodbye, Bill, but I warn you, don’t break a speed limit, be careful what you eat, take no chances on your life. Be careful in traffic for you must not die before this matter is cleared up. Don’t you dare to die.” I quoted this scripture: Wherefore, if they should die in their wickedness they must be cast off also, as to the things which are spiritual, which are pertaining to righteousness; wherefore, they must be brought to stand before God, to be judged of their works. …And there cannot any unclean thing enter into the kingdom of God; wherefore there must needs be a place of filthiness prepared for that which is filthy. (1 Ne. 15:33-34.) A slow death has its advantages over the sudden demise. The cancer victim who is head of a family, for instance, should use his time to be an advisor to those who will survive him. The period of inactivity after a patient learns there is no hope for his life can be a period of great productivity. How much more true this is of one who has been involved in deliberate sin! He must not die until he has made his peace with God. He must be careful and not have an accident.” May 18, 17:44
- on “Moral Luck” and Time of Death: “ji: Right, but the issue of how much repenting we can do exactly in the hereafter is still a little fuzzy, you can make a historical/theological argument for both perspectives. jader3rd: That’s a great point with the “eat, drink, and be, merry, for in the afterlife we can repent.” There are at least practical, self-improvement benefits to the idea that we need to resolve our issues in the here and now, so I kind of see the purpose for being somewhat ambiguous about the extent to which we are judged on our mortal life actions versus that plus afterlife decisions and actions. Anna: You make good points about an overemphasis on the moment of death versus the whole arc, even if we do believe in repentance.” May 18, 17:21
- on “Moral Luck” and Time of Death: “I am not really alright with the picture of the person who is righteous and loving and kind for 65 years, then for whatever reason turns his back on the church going to a lower kingdom than if he had “stayed faithful”. First of all, I think God judges us on how kind and loving we are, not on what exactly we believe about any organized religion. People don’t suddenly go from kind and loving into hateful and that is what God judges us on. Now, what a person thinks about organized religion can change because of a dishonest leader, or even the perception of a dishonest leader, so that can change all of a sudden for reasons outside f the person’s control. And a lot of people who are held up as examples of suddenly going evil turned against Joseph Smith because of polygamy. I happen to agree with them, that Joseph was wrong to ever start polygamy. I also think God will give us unlimited chances to follow Christ. So, if someone is good for that 65 years, then on their deathbed, oh, say in pain like Job was with the boils and losing his whole family and the curse God. Well, back to Job, did God judge him on those few hours when he was curing God wishing he had never been born? What if he had died just then? No, God judged him on his overall life. People can say or do all kinds of horrible things during moments of great distress, and death is one of those times. What is the person’s personality? Loving or hateful? That is what God will judge us on, not a few hours or weeks of bad behavior. Bad behavior can happen and I don’t think God is going to judge us on our worst time, even if it is at the end of our life. Now, deathbed repentance is another thing. Say you have a real jerk. In the last few hours of life they get scared and turn to Jesus. Is it sincere, or just because they got scared of hell? If they were not willing to *live* a Christlike life, who says that their “repentance” will last past “waking up dead” and then being tempted to be a jerk again. I just don’t trust “death bed repentance” to be a real commitment to live in a Christlike way. The old saying about there not being any atheists in foxholes applies here. When people are scared they do and say things that are out of character. I think “deathbed repentance” is just a reaction to fear and it doesn’t usually change their whole character. If they are a selfish twit for 80 years, then have a “deathbed repentance” experience, I just don’t think it changes them permanently. It *might*. I have seen people have a death scare where they swear up and down they are going to change. Then, say, the doctor cures their cancer and a year later, they are right back to being a selfish jerk. Their “deathbed repentance” just doesn’t last. So, it is a good thing I don’t have to judge people as to who really changes just before death and who doesn’t. Because I am going to trust the guy who is good until then last while to stay basically good, and want to know what happened to change his mind and I am going to strongly distrust the guy who gets scared and is afraid of going to hell on his deathbed.” May 18, 13:51
