I recently read this excellent article, which defends the idea that female identity is essential to God’s plan of happiness. One line in particular struck me as especially relevant for a train of thought that dominates some online discussions: an obsession with parsing speculations about Heavenly Mother.
[T]o assume that absence of mention is the same as absence is a logical fallacy…. it is possible to assert that whenever Elohim is mentioned, as it is in the creation story of Genesis (and by extension, the Pearl of Great Price), we are speaking of God, and “God” means an exalted woman and an exalted man married in the new and everlasting covenant of marriage (D&C 132…).
Quite right. Those who demand more insight into and some kind of interaction with Heavenly Mother have completely misunderstood the nature of God. We can already know everything there is to know about her.
We know that exaltation requires a sealed marriage, and we also know that exaltation requires the kind of perfect unity enjoyed by Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father. Consider that in Jesus’s great intercessory prayer, he asks that the disciples might “be one, even as we are one” (John 17:22). Indeed, the total union of thought, feeling, and purpose between the Father and the Son is a well-understood tenet of LDS belief. As my wife recently put it in explaining our concept of God to a couple of non-Mormons, the Father and the Son are so alike that they are practically interchangeable.
So too with the Father and the Mother. To speak of one as meaningfully distinct from the other is not to know them at all. Other than being physically separate and, presumably, different in appearance, they could have no unique distinction.
If one wants to know their Heavenly Mother, they must learn more about their Heavenly Father, for they are one.
You know those cute old couples who have been married for 50, 60, 70 years, and who seem connected by emotional bonds stronger than the rest of us have? Who can’t bear to be apart, and who might even start looking a bit more alike as they age? As with so much else about mortal families, I wonder if this is a precedent for our eternal mission to become like God by becoming united with him and, by extension, those others who also become like him. What better way to imagine this progression towards perfection that in the harmonious bliss of that little old pair of lovebirds?
We often think of eternity in terms of a chain of families, but I think that metaphor falls short. Ultimately, we should be a community of equals on an infinite plane. I don’t know how to conceptualize that better, but it’s certainly a lofty vision.
