The Lectures on Faith introduces us to 6 characteristic and 6 attributes about God. But is there a clue right there in the scriptures that inform us about the attributes of our Heavenly Mother?
We’re going to dive into it and explore some different ideas. This one is mostly just a thought experiment where I’m thinking out loud but perhaps you might have some additional thoughts or ideas to take things further.
5 Comments
Having discovered your website a while ago, I began listening to your podcast today while walking to my philosophy classes at Brigham Young University Provo. I found it was really insightful to put some of my ideas through the paradigms you present. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
Thanks for your comment, if you have any further insights from your thinking, please share.
On basing judgment on only one component, the nature of knowledge, understanding, and faith is to grow incrementally, from lesser to greater, line upon line. Further knowledge or understanding may resolve a mystery or seeming contradiction.
To stop midstream to emphasize a perceived fault highlights a limited understanding. Such a perspective often relies on a simplistic line of reasoning. With variables not included or remaining unknown, the problem cannot be solved, thus offending one’s sensibilities. And how often is there a larger context from which to proliferate perspectives?
Comfort with contradictions is a key to maintaining faith. Contradictions are typical of Eastern thought. Ostensibly, Israelites were not and Jews are not uncomfortable with them, as evinced in the peppering of contradictions throughout the Hebrew Bible alone. Whereas when some moderns are confronted with contradictions, they can, as it were, fly to pieces like glass.
To judge, or evaluate, based on multiple components requires work and the sacrifice of time, energy, and perhaps pride. It’s possible to rectify contradictions without employing cognitive dissonance. And for everything else, it’s possible to have a strong enough “shelf.”
Thanks for your thoughs. A minor tweak but I would say “comfort with paradoxes” because I am not comfortable with contradictions that are clearly identifiable as such. Sometimes we incorrectly judge a paradox to be a contradiction which aligns with what you are suggesting by saying “seeming contradiction.” A paradox is defined as “A tenet or proposition contrary to received opinion, or seemingly absurd, yet true in fact” and truth is often much stranger and absurdly seeming than fiction.
Paradoxes used to discomfort me but I’ve come to realize that they are more often than not the containers of very interesting treasures.
“Paradoxes” is what I had it mind but “contradictions” manifested. (Feel free to edit my post accordingly.)
Indeed, not all contradictions are irreparably contradictory. And somewhere in between paradoxes and contradictions are opposites. :)