As Hugh Nibley has put it, what we are going to be judged on, ultimately, is the desire of our heart, our ability to forgive, and our ability to repent. I suspect, assuming that Darth Vader really does get to go to heaven (in the form of Anakin Skywalker, no less — but I guess that shouldn’t come as a surprise to us restoration-of-the-body believing Mormons), that ol’ Darthie went through a period of suffering for years and years, having been led to believe by the Emperor (Satan) that his fate was sealed, it was too late, there was no going back, no hope for him to ever regain his humanity (and his divinity) again. Darth may have been evil, but I think it was the Emperor who directed him (Darth comes across much more as a lapdog to the Emperor in movie 2 than he does in movie 1) in his evil possibly more than it being a case of Vader choosing that path for himself.

Nibley likened repentence to the direction one is facing at any given moment, so the guy at the bottom of the hill, but who is repentant and is facing the upward slope, is much better off than the guy at the top of the hill, but who isn’t repentant and who is now facing the downhill slope, and who will be (unless he repents) headed back downhill in short order.

For Vader to break free of his hopelessness and summon the will to toss the Emperor down the power shaft is an expression of the desire of his heart: he wants his freedom from slavery and sin back again, even if he’s not altogether convinced he can have it.

I used to be on the “Darth Vader got an easy pass into heaven” side of the fence, but I guess I changed my mind somewhere along the way.

Who knows: maybe Hitler is preaching the gospel to others in the Spirit World, having repented so far as he is able to do where he’s at…

Forgiveness for Alma did not come after he had reformed his life, it came before.

No, it didn’t. Forgiveness by itself is of no value. It is simply the culmination of the repentance process.

The point at which a body builder completes a lift of weight does nothing for him. The important changes that occur in his mind and in his body happen as he works to lift the weight (Alma’s three days of torment). It is the same with repentance.

Heavenly Father is not in the business of forgiving sin (lifting weight). He is in the business of exalting souls (growing the spirit/mind/body).

Le entiendo. Nosotros pudamos verlo, mire para mirar. De acuerdo.

~

If you look at the role of a prophet, particularly in the OT and BofM, one of the central roles (perhaps *the* central role) is to read the signs of the times and phrase God’s will in such a way that it will resonate with the people and motivate them to change specific actions that are leading them away from God. IOW, it is to find a way to motivate them to repent. The manner in which that occurs is a direct result of the condition of the hearts of the people – hence, Jacob’s recognition that only threats of hellfire and damnation worked for his people, while Nephi had focused more on teaching and enlightening and uplifting and inspiring. Each prophet addressed a specific situation he saw and tailored his admonitions to that spiritual threat.

I look at SWK’s description of gaining forgiveness as a process; I juxtapose it against the “free and easy”, “all is well . . . God will beat us with a few stripes” morals of the time (the spiritual threat that was forefront to him); I think I understand fairly clearly why he chose to focus on the process of perfect (“complete”) forgiveness – rather than focusing on the immediate forgiveness available to all as they initially accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior, as a prophet would whose people had been beaten over the head for years by hellfire and damnation sermons that told them they were unredeemable and had to grovel as worthless subjects. Different manifestations of apostasy require different presentations of forgiveness and repentance.

I think that Mormons (myself included) get it wrong when teach that we must return to the path that we have left through our own works, i.e. Recognition, Remorse, Restitution, Reformation, Resolution (The 5 R’s) in order to obtain forgiveness.

I believe that when we repent, as Alma did in his prayer, the power of Christ’s atonement moves the path to where we are. The 5 R’s are then steps (directly in front of us) along this new path which leads to exaltation. Because of repentance, there is no need to return to the path from where we left it. This would be sideways movement–Christ wants us to move forward and progress. Heavenly Father works with us from where we are–not where we were or where we think we should be.

Alma’s prayer seeking forgiveness resulted in a new path towards exaltation and was instantaneous.

Incidentally, I am not opposed to deathbed epiphanies and repentance. The problem, though, is how best to counsel those who are not approaching their deathbeds, which is what has worried even Evangelicals for a very long time. How do you keep the young on a straight and narrow path if they believe they have an escape pod (bending to Ronan’s obsession with science fiction kitsch) they can activate at any time?

Tricky issues all around, thank heavens God gets to sort out salvation for every individual and none of us are invited to be on postmortal juries.

Alma’s conversion is more closely analogous to Spurgeon’s and Clifford’s than to Paul’s. Yes, Paul had a sudden visionary experience, but the obligatory guilt-racked anguish that appears in Alma and in these 19th-c. conversion narratives is I think a crucial feature. The preaching of the era was designed to instill a deep sense of guilt and sinfulness (and thereby a deep sense of the grace and forgiveness of God). The result was that this type of conversion narrative was fairly typical of the era. This model is probably largely traceable back to the model we find in Martin Luther’s conversion.

Not definitive, I know, but I only said that given a 19th-century-product model or a 19th-century-expansion model we can probably trace all or part of this narrative to the mind of the translator. (In my opinion it is unavoidable that at least one of these models must be adopted, but I recognize that not all will agree. I also recognize that if these models are not a given then my comparison here is only moderately persuasive).

Best,

-Chris

One thing I’ve learned is to be careful about reading a verse of scripture in isolation. For example consider the following verse:

41 And moreover, I would desire that ye should consider on the blessed and happy state of those that keep the commandments of God. For behold, they are blessed in all things, both temporal and spiritual; and if they hold out faithful to the end they are received into heaven, that thereby they may dwell with God in a state of never-ending happiness. O remember, remember that these things are true; for the Lord God hath spoken it. Mosiah 2:41

If this scripture is read in isolation an incomplete understanding is created in the mind of the reader.
It needs to be considered in the presence of other scriptures to gain a more complete understanding. The following verses for example:

20 And it came to pass that they did multiply and prosper exceedingly in the land of Helam; and they built a city, which they called the city of Helam.
21 Nevertheless the Lord seeth fit to chasten his people; yea, he trieth their patience and their faith.
22 Nevertheless–whosoever putteth his trust in him the same shall be lifted up at the last day. Yea, and thus it was with this people.
23 For behold, I will show unto you that they were brought into bondage, and none could deliver them but the Lord their God, yea, even the God of Abraham and Isaac and of Jacob.

If Mosiah 2:41 is read in isolation one would think that if you keep the commandments you’ll never have a problem. But Mosiah 23:20-23 reveals the doctrine of trials and testing and deliverance.

If you reverse things and read Mosiah 23:20-23 in isolation one might conclude that life is made up of endless trials and testing.

I was excited to find the following the other day:

Theodore M. Burton, “‘Blessed Are the Peacemakers’,” Ensign, Nov 1974, 54

…I am reminded of a concept President Lee taught the General Authorities. He warned us not to place our trust nor build our sermons on one single verse of scripture. He said that God is the greatest of all teachers and understands the value of repetition. If an idea is true, we will find that concept repeated again and again throughout the scriptures…

If anyone knows of other quotes like the one above please share.

Kent, in #39, makes a vital point. If we were evangelical, it would be appropriate to equate a moment of full forgiveness through a spiritual experience with ultimate salvation. For us, that moment is baptism. It’s what follows that initial experience of full forgiveness that counts in Mormonism – the renewing of full forgiveness each Sunday as we partake of the sacrament and our effort to witness our acceptance of that grace by aligning our actions to His will. That effort is the fruits of our repentance and shows the degree of our sincerity – if we truly are repentant or if we simply have been pricked momentarily by our conscience.

I’m running late to the meetings that are a part of my witness of my dedication, so I’ll be back later.

I suppose that if, by “forgiveness” one means achieving exaltation (recall LeGrand Richards’ advice that, for a Mormon, “salvation without exaltation is damnation”), neither Joseph nor Alma (nor Enos nor those in the New Testament whose sins Jesus purported to forgive) were in that state upon receiving a remission or forgiveness of sin. But the title of the book is the “Miracle of Forgiveness”, not the “Miracle of Exaltation.” I do not think that even Elder Kimball claimed that forgiveness only came upon achieving exaltation.