I wonder why no unclean thing can be in the presence of God?
Alma sites justice as the reason for being cut off from God forever, but
justice is only the application of predetermined consequences in my mind. When
I look up the definition of justice, it is just the quality of righteousness of
something. So Alma is really saying that because of God’s righteousness we
would be cut off, and if he stopped being righteous he would stop being God,
which makes more sense to me. That makes it easier to align with the idea that
this life is one where we use our agency to decide what we love and really want
for eternity. So what Alma is saying is that God does not take away that
choice? My mind tends to go to the punishment and reward definition of
everything, and I spent a lot of my life understanding the gospel that way. But
I have learned that is a way oversimplification and worldly view. It is hard to
change my assumptions about the meaning of scriptures and words, or even
recognize that I am making those assumptions (grateful for the thoughts about
that from this
talk today). Although Alma does talk in specific terms of punishment, but I
feel like those are the words he has to try and describe a bigger concept.
In the bigger context, then, laws are given so that we have
parameters to choose from. We had to know what choosing God and Eternal Life
looked like. Commandments and laws teach us how He is and how we can become
like Him. They are just a help for us to reach our goals, if our goals are
righteous. Without laws to choose to obey or not, there is not choice to make,
and we could not exercise our agency in any way that was meaningful, because we
would have no understanding. For there to actually be growth from choices,
there has to be conscious choice.
And the atonement allows us to keep choosing again. We choose
wrong and regret it, and Christ gave us the option to remake that choice. How
great is the mercy of our God, and love of our Savior!
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