Most people believe in a Supreme Being, although they may call him by different names. We know that God lives. We want to share with you our feelings about him. God is perfect, all-wise, and all-powerful. He is also merciful, kind, and just. We know that we can have faith in him. We can love him with all our hearts.
In those days, all Mormon boys were Boy Scouts and had memorized the Scout Law. So it was that, through the "full of sound financial structure" effect, a rookie missionary once came out with this:
God is perfect, all-wise, and all-powerful. He is also thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.
Fortunately, this happened during companionship study, not while actually teaching, and it made us laugh -- but why is it so funny? Isn't it curious that (a) God is understood to be morally perfect; (b) thrift, bravery, cleanliness, and reverence are virtues; and (c) it is ridiculous to ascribe any of those virtues to God? The fact that the missionary's flubbed line elicits laughter is proof that no one, not even God himself, can fully embody all that is good. As I wrote in "Ahuric vs. Devic, and eternal sexual identity,"
In fact, I believe that there are billions and billions of different and complementary ways of being good, and that each of us (potentially) contributes to the Good in a way that is unique and irreplaceable. If one being could fully embody every possible type of good, why would we -- why would anyone other than God himself -- even need to exist?
I think this is the main reason that God places such importance on preserving our free will. To make our full contribution to the Good, it is necessary that we act in harmony with God, but also that we act for ourselves -- as ourselves -- which means not becoming "clear glass through which God can shine" (Eckhart); not doing, saying, and thinking precisely what God or Jesus would do, say, and think (WWJD?); but realizing the Good each in our own unique way. Otherwise, why exist at all? Why not let God shine unfiltered even by clear glass?
As discussed in my post "Lives, the universes, and everything," this applies not only to individuals but to entire worlds and explains why God created so many worlds, including highly imperfect ones like that in which we live. There is no one "best of all possible worlds" (Leibniz) which would manifest all possible goods and nothing bad. In a world of perfect safety and peace, for example, courage could not exist.
I have said before that, although in theory Jesus Christ ought to be the epitome of every virtue, in fact he seems to be an essentially Ahuric rather than Devic character. I think the same must be true of God the Creator, since he created worlds such as our own, where evil is allowed so as to make certain manifestations of Good possible. In "Lucifer, Ahriman, and Ganymede virtue sets," the post which introduced the terms Ahuric and Devic, I characterized Ahuric virtue as "seeking good" and Devic virtue as "avoiding evil." The God who created this world must be fundamentally Ahuric, and Christianity is an Ahuric religion. The Devic religion par excellence, with the explicit goal of ending the suffering of all sentient beings, is Buddhism.
