We have now finished the first objective,
and if you are still reading, perhaps it means that you have “seen
through” the veneer of CO&I and are ready for better
and truer alternatives. Today’s column is all about number
2, because it is important to have a good frame of reference for
the three new attitudes or approaches to life that will be presented
next week. (A “frame” sets something off, holds it
together, and presents it in its clearest and most attractive
light, and that is what I want to do with the three alternatives,
so bear with me! More on the concept of a framework later in today’s
column)
The “Good Things”
about the Three Deceivers
I have criticized and put down the
concepts of CO&I so strongly over the past several weeks,
that what I am going to say now will surprise many of you: Control,
Ownership, and Independence are an important part of God’s
plan for His children. Just as they are (or should be) a
part of our goals for our children.
Think about it. As we raise our kids,
we want them to learn to control many things — their tempers,
their money, their habits. We want them to assume ownership, and
thus learn responsibility for their toys, their clothes, their
education, their decisions. And we want them, gradually, to achieve
the kind of independence where they don’t need us anymore
(in a sense, the goal of parenting is to work yourself out of
a job!)
Could God’s goal be similar
with regard to His children? Heavenly Father wants us to progress,
and mortality is a part of His plan for achieving that —
for moving us along a path that leads to us being more and more
like Him (and He, of course, has fully achieved Control of all,
Ownership of all, and can operate in a sphere of complete Independence.)
In our pre mortal state, living with Him, we had little need (perhaps
little concept) of CO&I, and this earth life opens their possibilities
to us.
So if CO&I is what we all want
to teach our children, and what God wants to teach us, how can
they be the Three Deceivers?
Simply because we take each of them
too far, and fail to understand them as gradual, progressive gifts
of God.
If we deceive ourselves by thinking
we can control what only God can control, or own what only God
owns, or if we feign independence from Him on whom we depend for
every breath, we misunderstand the pace of God’s plan and
forfeit the very help we must have from Him to become what we
need to be in order to receive these gifts in eternity.
On this earth, options and
agency are given to us so that we can begin to learn, like children,
to choose and decide wisely. Mortality thus becomes a training
school for the skills and discernment that will one day afford
us control. On this earth, we are entrusted with things
that teach us responsibility and prepare us for a time when we
will, like God, have ownership. On this earth we are
given the freedom and agency that can prepare us for independence.
Like children in school, we have
many progression possibilities, but the Teacher is the one with
the knowledge and the power, and we must learn from Him and depend
on Him and acknowledge his sole control and ownership and independence.
We cannot simply possess or assume these things; we can only learn
and receive them from Him according to His timing and His curriculum.
The Three Deceivers deceive us not
because they are inherently and eternally wrong, but because we
can get their timing wrong.
Levels
Think with me for a moment about
“levels.” There are three basic levels of law by which
men and women on this earth can live.
Sometimes these three levels of law
are associated with the Telestial, Terrestrial, and Celestial
Kingdoms, but not altogether accurately, since we know all three
kingdoms are kingdoms of glory, and thus must all possess elements
of atonement. But certainly Christ’s laws and teachings
are the highest level of law and bring the deepest joy and peace.
This column is not about these levels
of law, but it is about somewhat similar levels of attitude, or
paradigm, or perspective. The level of how we view the world and
how we see ourselves within the world makes a great deal of difference
regarding our happiness and even regarding the level of law we
are capable of (and feel natural within).
Wrong and spiritually immature attempts
to control others and to make everything happen the way we want
it to put us in the jungle. So do coveting and pride and wanting
to own more than others own. And the jungle is all about independently
surviving at the expense of others. We know there are much higher
laws, and we learn of them in the gospel and in the temple. What
are the attitudes and approaches to life that can allow us to
live by them in this telestial world? How can we be in this world
but not of it?
Plans of Dependence and Independence
Let’s step back for a minute
and take a little different perspective. CO&I can’t
be that bad. After all, they were at least an implied part of
the plan of agency presented to us all in the pre existence. And,
in one way of thinking, the opposing plan presented by Satan was
the opposite. He wanted us to be dependent on him and to put our
fate in his hands
God’s plan, to some extent,
put our fate in our hands and gave us agency and choice
for now, with the chance to gain independence, ownership and control
at a future point in our eternity.
God’s plan contemplated a movement
toward independence; Satan’s was based on a kind of forced
dependence.
God’s plan included an earth,
and a mortality not where we would have agency, options, choices,
and consequences that would allow us to progress and become, little
by little, more like Him. Satan, having lost the vote and been
cast out, now has many counter-plans, all aimed at disrupting
the Plan. One of these counter-plans is to deceive us into thinking
that we already have what in fact we are only in training for.
The more we think that we already have, or should want and do
anything to get CO&I, the more we will be centered on self
and the less we will be centered on the Lord and His spirit.
Children
Many parents try to raise responsible
kids by giving their children the early illusion of ownership
and control and independence. We might give our young kids allowances
so they can buy things and think of them as their own and thus
take better care of them. We might give preschoolers the choice
of which shirt to wear or what color of juice to have in the morning
so they can begin to feel some independence and control.
But of course they are still children,
still completely dependent on us as their parents. And there is
so much more to teach them.
This earth gives us, as children
of God, our first illusions of control and ownership and independence,
and the agency and choices we have here facilitate our progression,
but how important it is to humbly recognize how totally dependent
we are on Him, to acknowledge His ownership of all, and to put
our lives in His control.
Both
There are some parallels with the
classic argument between “works” and “grace.”
One view (most of Christianity, actually) says, with scriptural
backing, that “it is by grace ye are saved,” and the
other view favors the scripture “faith without works is
dead.”
Are we saved by works of by grace?
The answer, of course, is both. Those who say works only miss
the fact of our complete dependency on Christ’s atonement,
and those who say grace only miss the point of agency and the
purpose of this progressing mortality.
Only the balanced “both”
position brings happiness and maximized progress. The extreme
and exclusive “grace” position can make us fatalistic
and lazy. And the extreme and exclusive “works” position
can make us proud, demanding, and frustrated.
We need to find a similar balance
in our everyday lives between the self-reliant attitudes of CO&I
and the God and Spirit-reliant attitudes of Faith, Hope and Charity.
Paradigms
What are Control, Ownership and Independence?
Are they goals? Are they principles? Are they attitudes? Are they
approaches to life? Are they beliefs? Are they lenses through
which we view the world? Are they ideals or idols which we worship?
It’s hard to replace something
if you are not entirely sure what it is. Like parts in an automobile
or machine, you have to know what something is and what it does
before you can replace it correctly and accurately.
I don’t think CO&I are
principles or values or precepts, and they are certainly not commandments.
They are concepts or attitudes, and they have become, for most
people in the world, goals and objectives, the objects of our
pursuit. For many, they have become the idols we worship. Perhaps
the best thing to call them, the word that combines all of these
“things that they are” is paradigms.
The dictionary defines “paradigm”
as “A set of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices
that constitutes a way of viewing reality.” That is
really what we have with CO&I. They constitute a way of looking
at life, a set of assumptions about what we should be wanting
and about what makes us happy — concepts that determine
where we spend our energy and that are instrumental in determining
our values and our practices.
False paradigms are dangerous because
they stem from false assumptions and lead to false values and
practices. False paradigms (or half-truth paradigms) are an enormously
effective tool of Satan because once they are established and
accepted in our minds, they can lead to all kinds of mistakes,
wrong priorities, and sins.
The two ways to get rid of false
paradigms are to debunk, expose, and abandon them (the attempt
of the first 12 columns in this series) and to replace them (the
attempt of the columns that will follow, and the Three Alternatives)
A paradigm can be replaced only with
an alternative paradigm. You cannot replace a paradigm with a
principle, because they are not the same thing. If you are replacing
a faulty carburetor, you have to replace it with another (good,
working, improved) carburetor, or maybe with a fuel injection
system — something that does the same job better. Similarly,
if we are going to replace a paradigm, it had better be with another
paradigm — one that incorporates true principles and that
leads to where God wants us to be.
The Three Deceivers are a framework
for life, a way of looking at things, and it is this frame that
must be replaced.
The Leading “Guesses”:
Faith, Hope, and Charity (why these are NOT the Three Alternatives)
Thousands of Meridian readers have
responded to this column with hundreds of “guesses”
about the Three Alternatives. The most common guess (as you saw
in last week’s sampling of reader responses) and in many
ways the best guess, has been Faith, Hope, and Charity. These
are, of course, the most important and powerful principles of
the Gospel, and putting them into practice is the goal of every
true Christian and would certainly dispel the negative and self-centering
tendencies of the Three Deceivers.
But they do not directly replace
CO&I because they are principles rather than paradigms.
What we need as replacements are three separate new paradigms,
one to replace each of the three deceivers. We need three new
ways to view the world around us, three new approaches to living
out each day, three new frameworks in which we can see ourselves
and our lives on this earth, three new ways of dealing with the
materialism and shallowness and selfishness around us. And they
must be paradigms in which faith, hope and charity can work and
flourish and grow!
Things as They Really Are
One of Elder Maxwell’s books
is named Things as They Really Are (taken from Jacob
in the Book of Mormon). A true paradigm or set of paradigms would
represent things as they really are — the realities of our
dependence on God and of His ownership and control of all. A true
paradigm would allow us to see as He wants us to see and to progress
toward what he wants us to be. True paradigms would take into
account where we came from, why we are here, and where we are
going. True paradigms would be frameworks in which Faith, Hope
and Charity along with all other true principles of the Gospel
could flourish.
The Three Alternatives should be
a set of attitudes or perspectives or paradigms that help prepare
us to be like God, and to gain some of His characteristics, and
yet, at the same time, that acknowledges the correct current reality
of His complete control, total ownership, and entire independence
and our own humble lack of any of the three
Are there three perspectives or paradigms
that can make this earth the preparation it should be for living
with God and sharing in some of His privileges and prerogatives
and yet that keep us in the humility and receptive mode that allow
us to draw down his help and comfort? Can they contain the faith
of seeing what can someday be, but the humility recognizing how
FAR we still have to go?
I hate to say “join me next
week to find out,” but I guess that is what I am saying.
In the meantime, before next Friday, based on the new information
in today’s column, take your last guesses at by writing
to me at Richard@meridianmagazine.com.
Your responses up to how have been an invaluable help in writing
this column, and I hope you will continue.
This is no small thing we are looking
for together. We are seeking “bridges” that can allow
us to live in the world without being of the world. We are seeking
attitudes that maximize our progression on this earth as measured
by how close we get to God while we are here. We are seeking paradigms
that rid us of false gods and point us toward the eternities.
To take a guess
on what The Three Alternatives are, or to express your ideas or
feedback, write to Richard@meridianmagazine.com
As you make your own search for the Three Alternative, or
as you send them in to me, remember that they must preserve all
of the good aspects of CO&I (initiative, discipline, responsibility
and so on) but eliminate all of the negative aspects (judgment,
jealousy, conceit, presumption, envy, covetousness, and other
deceiving and damaging qualities). The Three Alternatives must
draw us closer to God rather than distancing us from Him.
