If you look up on Rick Grunder’s “Mormon Parallels” you will find quite a few interesting sources for Mother in Heaven and two separate personages. One minister wrote that four out of five “ordinary” people believed in separate personages in 1812.

3 Nephi 26:18: And many of them saw and heard UNSPEAKABLE THINGS which are not lawful to be written;

3 Nephi 16:16: even babes did open their mouths and utter MARVELOUS THINGS; and the THINGS which they did utter were forbidden that there should not any man write them

3 Nephi 26: 9 and if it shall so be that they shall believe THESE THINGS then shall the GREATER THINGS be made manifest unto them

3 Nephi 26: 6 and there cannot be written in this book even a hundredth part of the THINGS which Jesus did truly teach unto the people

D&C 100:11 and he shall be a revelator unto thee, that thou mayest know the certainly of ALL THINGS pertaining to the THINGS of my kingdom on the earth

Acts 1:3 being seen of them forty days, and speaking of THE THINGS pertaining to the kingdom of God

D&C 90:5 And all they who receive the oracles of God, let them beware lest they are accounted as a LIGHT THING

Ephesians 1:10 That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one ALL THINGS in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him

D&C 124: 42 And I will show unto my servant Joseph ALL THINGS pertaining to this house, and the priesthood thereof, and the place wheron it shall be built.

Matthew 17:11 Elias truly shall first come, and restore ALL THINGS

One would think that a better descriptive word could be used than THINGS in all these cases. Why couldn’t Matthew have said something like “Elias truly shall first come, and restore all prinicples and ordinances of the gospel necessary for salvation and exaltation”? Yet it (“things”) seems to be used for sacred matters rather consistently. Perhaps it is related to the three levels of information that Hawk described. I do like the reference to the “oracles of God”. If one is an oracle as defined by Webster, he is held to give divinely inspired answers or revelations. D&C 90:5 explains that if one who receives the oracles of God holds them as a light thing, they are brought under condemnation. This may not explain what was discussed in Josephs private conversation with God, but it may explain why it is not shared.

Indeed.

Could it be that these kind of speculations might lead to greater spiritual insight? Are we not supposed to ponder upon the scriptures, or is that only for prophets to do? After all, couldn’t section 138 of the D&C be considered a speculation of Joseph F Smith?

I have also become more aware of the phrase “the eyes of our understanding,” and how literally things witnessed through them should be understood and accepted.

David — The Arians may have won the Father-Son separation point, but they definitely did not win the “Jesus was created” point. At least a few Arians wanted to make Jesus the new kid on the god-block so they could make him younger and, by implication, inferior to gods like Zeus, who had been around a long time. That aside, I find your points quite interesting. The more I’ve learned about Trinitarianism, the more I’ve seen the same problems you’ve raised, and I’ve wondered about how many people who nominally believe in the Nicene Creed actually believe in the details of the Trinity. I’ve found it amusing that the Trinity can’t really be comprehensibly explained, but that I’m not a “Christian” because I don’t believe it, but somebody who doesn’t understand it is because they do.

There are other times when people have had things revealed to them that they were told to keep to themselves. Mary “kept these things and pondered them in her heart”, the Book of Mormon prophet (whose name escapes me at the moment) who had a vision of the last days and was told not to write it because that was someone else’s stewardship (John’s as he wrote the book of Revelations) are just two such examples. Some things are so deeply spiritual they cannot be spoken or written. (See 3 Nephi 17:16-17.)

We live in a time in which we feel we have a “need to know” or a “right” – so much so that we often speculate on those things we know exist but are kept from us. It’s difficult for us to let those things be, but particularly when those things are of such a sacred nature, leave them we must. If we truly do need to know, then we will be told.

The fact is, we can speculate from now until the millenium, but it won’t bring us closer to the Lord. It will more likely take us from the things we really do need to spend our time pondering. Would it be interesting to know? Sure. But if he didn’t see fit to tell us, then we’re better off dropping it and getting on with our lives – and learning the lesson we were really meant to learn from that statement, namely: There are things that will happen in your life, too, that are too sacred or personal to be shared, so don’t.

“14 And it came to pass that when they had knelt upon the ground, Jesus groaned within himself, and said: Father, I am troubled because of the wickedness of the people of the house of Israel. 15 And when he had said these words, he himself also knelt upon the earth; and behold he prayed unto the Father, and the things which he prayed cannot be written, and the multitude did bear record who heard him.
16 And after this manner do they bear record: The eye hath never seen, neither hath the ear heard, before, so great and marvelous things as we saw and heard Jesus speak unto the Father; 17 And no tongue can speak, neither can there be written by any man, neither can the hearts of men conceive so great and marvelous things as we both saw and heard Jesus speak; and no one can conceive of the joy which filled our souls at the time we heard him pray for us unto the Father.”

Daivd, belief in a Heavenly Mother is part and parcel of Mormon theology. It’s kind of hard to avoid when eternal progression is described as “becoming like God as a sealed companionship” and “creating spirit children”. There’s not much in the way of official pronouncements ABOUT Heavenly Mother, but “heavenly parents” is mentioned often in General Conference by our apostles and prophets, in the Gospel Essentials manual used to teach the Sunday School class for investigators and new members, etc. As MH says in #6, it’s pretty much taken as a given.

If you are interested in doing some extensive reading, I would suggest going to lds.org, clicking on the “Search” button at the top of the page (or the search option within the “Gospel Library”category), choosing “All Church Content”, and typing in “Heavenly Mother” and “heavenly parents”. There are over 200 references (some of which are duplicates) that you can read.

An early Mormon pioneer by the name of Eliza Snow wrote a hymn called “O My Father.” Verse 3 states,

” I had learned to call thee Father, Through thy Spirit from on high,
But until the key of knowledge Was restored, I knew not why.
In the heavens are parents single? No, the thought makes reason stare!
Truth is reason, truth eternal Tells me I’ve a mother there. “

Many mormons believe in a Heavenly Mother, but there is not really an official church statement affirming such. The idea of family is so integrated in Mormon belief, that most Mormons consider it “common knowledge” that a Heavenly Mother exists. There is some interesting historical background at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O_My_Father

I just thought that was interesting. Obviously we don’t know much more than that of what else the Lord told Joseph in the first vision, but what a beautiful introduction to this dispensation.

- Chas
http://popcorn.willowrise.com

As to the separate beings, let me offer this perspective.(By way of disclosure, let me add that I am neither Trinitarian nor LDS.) Unitarians held this belief, though for them Jesus tended to be a man rather than a divine personage. Still, William E. Channing believed that Christ worked miracles and the like. A similar belief was held by Barton W. Stone, the founder of the Restorationist group known as the Christians. (They joined with Campbell’s Disciples of Christ in 1832.)

More relevant is the fact that few “orthodox” believers hold to true Trinitarian beliefs. Either they downplay the distinction among the Persons of the Trinity (so most Evangelicals, who go out of their way to prove, “Jesus is God”) or they functionally and mentally divide them. Note that a good deal of Western art portrays the Father as a separate and distinct person vis a vis Jesus. For that matter, I think the Bible does so as well. To put it in historical terms, the Trinitarians might have won the theological battle, but the Arians (who saw the Son as a divine being distinct from the Father) won the popular and conceptual war. The reason for this is simple enough: Trinitarian thought is far too complex (and I would personally add dubious) to enjoy widespread popular appeal. Consequently, I see Joseph Smith’s contribution as making explicit what many people before his time and since believe implicitly (even if they are unaware of the “heretical” nature of their understanding.)

The truly novel thing about Smith’s thought is not that the Father and the Son are distinct personages, but that the Father has a physical body. I think you would have to do a lot of digging to find someone in the Jewish/Christian Tradition who held such a view from the time of Second Temple Judaism on. That such a view was held in ancient Israel before that time is obvious from the stories of the Patriarchs and of Moses. There is also a good chance that the idea that Yahweh had a consort (in LDS terms, a Heavenly Mother) was also present in ancient Israel, though this takes a bit of reading behind and between the lines of the Hebrew Scriptures. (BTW, I haven’t seen much on the subject of the Heavenly Mother in LDS theology, but am not conversant enough with the subject to know if such material exists. Can anybody offer me some insight or a reference on this topic?)

Can you elaborate on this? I know that Joseph Smith was not the only one to experience “First Visions” of Jesus, but I am not aware of any examples of separate beings beliefs.