D&C 131<\/a> reads: <\/p>\n 1 In the celestial glory there are three heavens or degrees;
\n 2 And in order to obtain the highest, a man must enter into this order of the priesthood [meaning the new and everlasting covenant of marriage];
\n 3 And if he does not, he cannot obtain it.
\n 4 He may enter into the other, but that is the end of his kingdom; he cannot have an increase.<\/p>\n
Does this mean, only paired, married couples in Heaven? Maybe. But it’s complicated. Let’s run through some ways in which an odd number of people could get to Heaven: <\/p>\n
1. The possibility of a gender-specific rule. <\/p>\n
The D&C only says that men who aren’t sealed don’t-go to the highest degree. So maybe women who aren’t-sealed are eligible for the highest degree just fine. <\/p>\n
Of course, this might be an area where the male pronoun is meant to include both. But it might not. If church members believe that men and women have different sets of rules in lots of areas, why not here? <\/p>\n
2. The possibility of celestial polygamy and\/or polyandry. <\/p>\n
Yeah. We’ll just mention this one and move on.<\/p>\n
3. The possibility of part-Heavenly pairings. Take a look back at section 131. A person needs to be sealed, to get to the highest degree. But that doesn’t necessarily imply that their partner will be going to the highest degree with them, does it? Suppose we have a couple, Amalickiah and Eliza, one of whom is righteous and the other of whom is not. They’ve been sealed. I think the sealing means that Eliza can progress to the highest degree, even if Amalickiah cannot. At least, that’s what the D&C would seem to indicate. No? <\/p>\n
—<\/p>\n
Of course, all of this illustrates that when it comes to Mormon doctrine on sealing, there are a whole lot of uncertainties. We don’t really _know_ much about how Heaven will work. But I do think that we can’t say that church doctrine definitely rules against the possibility of a number of odd people — err, an odd number of people — going to Heaven. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Well, if they’re Mormons, there will definitely be a number of odd people in Heaven! ::rimshot:: So, let’s see. There’s a popular LDS belief that only married couples get to Heaven. But is that really church doctrine? And could there be an odd number of people in Heaven? Sort of. Maybe. Ish. D&C 131 reads: 1 In the celestial glory there are three heavens or degrees; 2 And in order to obtain the highest, a man must enter into this order of the priesthood [meaning the new and everlasting covenant of marriage]; 3 And if he does not, he cannot obtain it. 4 He may enter into the other, but that is the end of his kingdom; he cannot have an increase. Does this mean, only paired, married couples in Heaven? Maybe. But it’s complicated. Let’s run through some ways in which an odd number of people could get to Heaven: 1. The possibility of a gender-specific rule. The D&C only says that men who aren’t sealed don’t-go to the highest degree. So maybe women who aren’t-sealed are eligible for the highest degree just fine. Of course, this might be an area where the male pronoun is meant to include […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corn"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24423"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24423\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24439,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24423\/revisions\/24439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}