Forgive One Another Your Trespasses

Matt. 6: 14-15
14 For if ye ^aforgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you:    15 But if ye ^aforgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

This post answers the question, "Why must I forgive others their trespasses in order to secure God's forgiveness of my trespasses?"

One answer could be merely because God says so.  I don't know that this answer is wrong.  However, it may be wrong or, at the least, incomplete.  The answer I give involves the resolution of a fundamental tension in the mechanism underlying application of the atonement.  We are taught that Christ is "standing betwixt them and justice; having broken the bands of death, taken upon ^ahimself their iniquity and their transgressions, having redeemed them, and ^bsatisfied the demands of justice" and that " God himself ^aatoneth for the sins of the world, to bring about the plan of ^bmercy, to appease the demands of ^cjustice, that God might be a ^dperfect, just God, and a ^emerciful God also."  Thus it seems that Christ's suffering pays the price for our sins.  This principle is neither new nor earth shattering.

However, though these scriptures show how the price was paid, there remains another demand of justice.  Justice requires not only that the price be paid, but that it be paid by the transgressor! 

  11 Now there is not any man that can sacrifice his own blood which will atone for the sins of another. Now, if a man murdereth, behold will our law, which is ^ajust, take the life of his brother? I say unto you, Nay.

  12 But the law requireth the ^alife of him who hath ^bmurdered; therefore there can be nothing which is short of an infinite atonement which will suffice for the sins of the world.

Justice requires that those who generate costs or harms should pay for them.  Nemo punitur pro alieno delicto "no one is punished for the crime of another."  Thus, though Christ paid the price, He did not the transgression, and thus justice is not yet fully satisfied.  Justice requires that the sinner pay for his own sins.  Even a willing scapegoat does not fully satisfy justice.  What then is the mechanism that enables the miracle of the Atonement?

I have seen two candidate work-arounds that purport to resolve this tension.  Though neither may prove the case, both are related to the requirement that the atonement be infinite: "not a ^bsacrifice of man, neither of beast, neither of any manner of fowl; for it shall not be a human sacrifice; but it must be an ^cinfinite and ^deternal ^esacrifice."

1) At-one-ment is the first work-around.  The idea that you and Christ become one, such that the punishment justice requires that you experience can go to Christ since the two of you are now one.  Much as it's just to flog a thief's back for the crimes of his hand, because the thief is a single entity- so becoming one with Christ allows Him to be wounded for our transgressions, thus fully satisfying justice.  The sacrifice must be infinite because either A) were there any end to the two of you being one, justice would still require a narrowly tailored punishment to the more culpable member, or B) only an infinite sacrifice could bind a mortal and an immortal such as you and Christ.

2) The second work around is the idea of basically getting all of creation to "look the other way."  First, let's look at the relevant stakeholders when you sin. Who is harmed, and who can forgive those harms?  God, ourselves, the earth, and each other come to mind as harmed entities.  Also, every intelligence which has a sense of justice will have that sense offended if the sinner is not justly punished.  Let's take each stakeholder class in turn.

-God: He can forgive of his own volition the harm against Him.  It seems He usually does so.

-Ourselves/each other: We, like God, can forgive or refrain from forgiving, harms against ourselves.  This includes self-inflicted and externally-inflicted harms. More on this category below.

- Earth: I'll lump the earth in with all non-sinning, justice-capable intelligences, which I now address.  Presume every creation of God has intelligence.  Those creations which have a sense of justice, which sense of justice would be offended if God did not punish sinners for their sins, must also have a sense of mercy (why these senses must be paired I have yet to establish- for the moment presume if a creation has the one, it also has the other).  Well then, perhaps God persuades all these intelligences to fire their mercy neurons (remember, justice and mercy are here depicted as senses) to the exclusion or at least overpowering of their justice neurons.  Perhaps their compassion at viewing the immeasurably torturous atonement (presuming they have a compassion sense, which isn't asking much presuming the senses of justice and mercy already) moves them to refrain from demanding justice.  Only a being as great as Christ suffering to the extent He did would be sufficient to cause all of these innocent intelligences to be so moved (hence the requirement of infinite sacrifice).  Under this work-around, the requirement of forgiveness makes the most sense.  You must forgive others their trespasses against you, like these intelligences voluntarily "forgave" an offended sense of justice and, because of God's sacrifice, embraced mercy, allowing you to forever escape punishment.  By a similar principle you must be willing to forgive for the Atonement to work in your case.

But what if you refuse to forgive another's trespasses, but instead insist that justice extract the uttermost farthing from him or her?  Ironically, it is you that is punished for the greater sin: "34 And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him.

  35 So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts ^aforgive not every one his brother their trespasses."  

I'm not sure how the second work-around accounts for that comeuppance. Sorry to leave you with an unanswered question.

In conclusion, there may be a deeper, Atonement-rooted explanation for the requirement that we must forgive in order to be forgiven.  That explanation might be found in the second work-around I've articulated here, though it might not derive from either work-around.

Two Wrongs Don’t Make a Right: a post on the Atonement

“Two wrongs don’t make a right.” Where had I heard that phrase before? I don’t remember, but I was thinking hard about it yesterday. A week earlier I had asked a friend of mine, Jeff, a question about justice when I ran into him over by the Jamba Juice on BYU campus, perplexed about a problem I couldn’t get quite straight in my mind- I problem I will introduce you to in a minute.

First, let’s see if we’re on the same page about what justice is. Robert comes up to a stranger on the street, Trevor, and punches him hard in the arm, after which he runs off in the crowd. What does justice require in this case? Most friends I ask this question to respond that Robert should get punched in the arm too. If Robert gets punched in the arm, then justice is served.

Now let’s think about that punch in a mathematical way. I’ll use the French word, “tort,” meaning a twist or injury. We could say that Trevor, who started out with 0 “tort units,” then had a violation of his rights: an injury, or tort. We’ll arbitrarily say that Trevor, after the punch, now has a balance of -10: the punch imposed a -10 tort on Trevor. Justice is satisfied if Robert also has a punch imposed on him in the same relative amount: Robert and Trevor are the same age, size, etc. so a -10 punch to Robert makes them equal.

Here’s the problem I posed to my friend Jeff. A certain first grade teacher, Mr. Hopkins, pulls aside six-year-old Jenny for a private talk. “Jenny, I’ve been teaching you all this year,” Mr. Hopkins says. “I just don’t think you’re very smart. You’ll probably never learn to read, school will always be very difficult for you, and you’ll always be a slow learner.” As Jenny’s self-esteem plummets, few would contend that an injury has not been done to Jenny. Let’s say Jenny went from 0 to -20 tort units. Let’s also say that somehow a comparable tort is done against Mr. Hopkins such that his self-esteem is similarly abused- he’s now at -20 tort units. I asked my friend Jeff if justice has been done in this case. The answer is that yes, our concept of justice may be satisfied, but all is not yet right. Consider Jenny. The inflicting of a tort on Mr. Hopkins does nothing to restore her to her initial condition- her self-esteem is still much lower than it was. I think that the human spirit will not consider this situation “right” until Jenny is restored to the level of self-esteem she enjoyed before the abuse. Enter Robert and Trevor again.

Earlier we concluded that justice had been satisfied when Robert was punched in the arm after he slugged Trevor. Here we consider the phrase again: “two wrongs don’t make a right,” or, as we might say, “two equivalent torts don’t make the situation right.” Here we can also see that Trevor is still punched and has a bruise, even though justice has been served. Considering the universe as a whole, adding up Robert and Trevor now equals a net tort account of -20 (-10 + -10), not zero. Part of the human spirit’s conception of “rightness” demands that Robert be “unpunched,” or somehow returned to his original condition. Unpunching someone, though, is about as easy as unrearing a child or unchewing a banana. What can we call this “restoring to initial condition,” the unpunching of Trevor, or the confidence boost to Jenny?

I propose for the moment we call that healing or restoring to initial condition “mercy.” I define mercy as the opposite of a tort: an “uninjury” if we can imagine it. In Jenny’s case 20 “uninjury” units are required to restore her to her initial condition. I can now also conclude a narrow definition of justice, using the terms of the phrase we’ve already altered in part: “two equivalent torts don’t make a right” now becomes “two equivalent torts do make a justice.” (This is why we consider justice served if an assailant languishes for a while in jail. Sure, the assailant’s jail time doesn’t undo the wounds he inflicted on his victim, but if he’s injured in the same relative amount as he injured his victim, we consider that justice is served, even without the victim’s healing.) I have now separated a concept of rightness from dual constructions of mercy and justice. If we accept these two narrow definitions of justice and mercy, then we can make a third conjecture: the satisfying of both justice and mercy in any situation constitutes “rightness” in the tort category of human action. In the Jenny example, if Mr. Hopkins receives a -20 tort equivalent to that he imposed on Jenny (justice) and Jenny’s confidence is restored (say, her parents and other teachers praise her reading and talk about how smart she is and what a quick learner she’s turned out to be) 20 units (mercy), we would say that the situation is “right.”

So, how does this construction relate to the Atonement? “And now, the plan of mercy could not be brought about except an Atonement should be made; therefore God himself atoneth for the sins of the world, to bring about the plan of mercy, to appease the demands of justice, that God might be a perfect, just God, and a merciful God also” (Alma 42: 15). We commonly think that Christ “paid the price” for our sins. Let’s return to Mr. Hopkins and Jenny. Mr. Hopkins can be spared the 20 tort units that justice requires be imposed on him if Mr. Hopkins repents. In Mr. Hopkin’s case, not having 20 tort units imposed on him means he goes from an account balance of 0 to 0: Christ paid the 20 torts, and Mr. Hopkins gains a net 20 untorts (mercy). What about Jenny? Satisfying justice so that Mr. Hopkins can receive mercy has no effect on Jenny: her account is an entirely different matter.

Speaking of a sexually abused girl, Elder Richard G. Scott said: “She no longer suffered from the consequences of abuse, because she had adequate understanding of His Atonement, sufficient faith, and was obedient to His law. As you conscientiously study the Atonement and exercise your faith that Jesus Christ has the power to heal, you can receive the same blessed relief” (Richard G. Scott, “To Heal the Shattering Consequences of Abuse,” Ensign, May 2008, 40–43). He notes that even Satan “understands that the power of healing is inherent in the Atonement of Jesus Christ.” How is this so?

In physics class, students learn that there is an opposite and equal reaction to every action. Setting a book upon a table exerts a downward force of, say, 15 Newtons. The table exerts an equal and opposite force upward on the book of 15 Newtons- were it not so, the book would continue downward through the table. Similarly, justice requires an equivalent punishment whenever a tort is committed. For that punishment Christ, somehow, suffered in our stead. But what about the “power of healing” inherent in the Atonement? How does Christ “finance,” if you will, the restoring to initial condition of those injured, or as we termed it, the “uninjury” units that constitute the application of mercy? To answer, let’s consider another Book of Mormon scripture, Alma 7: 11-12: “And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people… and he will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities.” In this sense, then, perhaps the magnitude of the Atonement is about twice what we usually think: the 15 Newtons downward + the 15 Newtons upward = 30 Newtons total. Second example: not only did Christ suffer justice’s demanded 10 torts for Robert, who slugged Trevor: He also suffered the initial 10 tort punch: 10 + 10 = 20. This way, He can extend mercy to Robert, but he can also heal Trevor because he “financed” the uninjury units by “taking upon himself” the initial tort or affliction. At the risk of moving ahead too quickly, we can also observe that the Atonement is greater still because Christ took upon himself all injuries done to us, including those not inflicted by other people (example: a bacterial sickness, a genetic predisposition for heart disease or blindness, or infertility). Consequently, He can “succor his people,” or restore them to their initial/innocent condition: from our earlier illustration, literally unchew the banana. What an incredible power to heal and bestow mercy! What a skilled restorer! Where are the universities that teach this trade? How can I learn “the healer’s art?” The aggregate suffering of mankind is immense- yet God has the capacity, somehow, to restore self-esteem, undo offenses, and heal every injury. This, to me, is a substantial realization."

(composed September 2008)

From 0 to Exaltation: The Enabling Power of the Atonement

In the category of torts, we have shown how it might be that Christ can and does offer to us mercy: to the transgressor and the transgressed against, because of what He suffered and took upon himself. The application of mercy can restore us to our initial state- one of neutrality, with neither injuries scarring our souls nor sin staining them. However, a merely innocent condition (like that of Adam and Eve in the garden, or of each of us individually when we are born on this earth), is quite different from a condition of exaltation. Does the atonement help us bridge the gap?

We came to this earth with a primary purpose: to progress toward exaltation. The two-fold means of this progress can be generally categorized by learning through experience and choice-making away from God’s presence on the one hand, and gaining a body on the other. In that choice-making prong we all sin and fall, as did Adam: yet the Atonement can restore us, as we’ve shown, to a guiltless and uninjured condition. However, there is a gargantuan gap between exaltation (a life like God lives), which includes possession of attributes such as virtue, patience, charity, humility, knowledge, and power, each in their fullness, and the mere condition of being both whole and guiltless. God’s mercy bridges the gap between our sinful, injured state to a guiltless and whole state; God’s grace bridges the gap between a merely guiltless and whole state to an exalted state.

Although the scriptures do seem to connect grace with sanctification, forgiveness of sins, and other “tort-level” functions, it does more, as may be concluded from the Savior’s parable of the vine and branches found in John 15:1-11, which speaks of bearing fruit in addition to being clean. Ephesians 2: 5-10, which speaks of our salvation by grace, connects grace with the “good works, which God hath… ordained that we should walk,” supporting this construct of advancing the ball from 0 to exaltation through grace. We also observe several passages which distinguish mercy from grace, such as “O the wisdom of God, his mercy and his grace” (2 Nephi 9:8) or “because of grace and mercy… seed shall not be destroyed” (2 Nephi 9: 53). Progress along the pathway to exaltation (that state of doing and being very good), is substantiated further by John, quoted in D & C 93, who notes that he “received not of the fulness at first, but continued from grace to grace, until he received a fulness.” Moroni teaches of the connection between perfection and grace: “then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ” (10: 32). That most famous grace verse, “by grace we are saved, after all we can do,” (2 Nephi 25:23) also joins this set of canonical passages in connecting grace with either our best efforts, perfection, or fullness. Why is this an important association?

If this connection is a strong one, we may deduce that these efforts or “pressing forward” consist of good works and endeavors to be and do like God, beyond merely repenting of sin. Nephi seems to describe this concept in 2 Nephi 31, using the imagery of an initial gate followed by a strait and narrow path: “the gate by which ye should enter is repentance and baptism by water; and then cometh a remission of your sins by fire and by the Holy Ghost.” Only after this remission of sins “are ye in the strait and narrow path which leads to eternal life.” Nephi notes that to attain exaltation we must “press forward” and “endure” by “following the example of the Son of the living God,” who was clearly full of good works and substantive divine attributes.

How do we bridge this gap from mere innocence to become individuals of power, knowledge, wisdom, and benevolence, like unto God? Can we make this progress on our own? Elder David A. Bednar taught that grace connotes “a strengthening or enabling power: the main idea of the word is divine means of help or strength, given through the bounteous mercy and love of Jesus Christ” (Ibid.). Further, “the enabling and strengthening aspect of the Atonement helps us to see and to do and to become good in ways that we could never recognize or accomplish with our limited mortal capacity.” It seems that divine grace is the specific means constituting the “enabling power of the atonement,” specifically enabling of us to do and become good, far beyond what we could do and be without that grace.

Thus, it is indeed only through the grace of Christ afforded by the Atonement that we can “do and endure and overcome all things,” that crowning description of the exalted condition. The atonement does more that enable a full measure of mercy to each of us, for that would simply restore us to zero: rather, it “allows men and women to lay hold on eternal life and exaltation” (David Bednar, In the Strength of the Lord, Ensign, Nov. 2004, 76-78).

This post composed in September 2008

Endnote: I haven’t figured out the mechanism behind the application of grace, nor how the Atonement supplies the “infinite grace” (Moroni 8:3) that was “made possible by his atoning sacrifice (Bible Dictionary). I’d also like to learn how to “tap into” this grace more. Please send me any insight into these three matters.

Top Ten Paradigm Shifts of the Past Ten Years

In celebration of the dawning of a new decade tomorrow, I detail significant changes to the lens through which I view the world from the past decade:

1) The way I'm oriented toward/view other people matters, and is independent of behavior. I can perform the same act with at least two different ways of being. For instance, I can walk across campus lost in my own thoughts (in which case all the people I see are objects to me), or I can walk across campus and when passing people, occasionally focus on one person, reminding myself of the humanity of that person: he or she has hopes and frustrations and disappointments and uniqueness just like me. This shift came from reading "Leadership and Self-Deception" by the Arbinger Institute and helped me realize when I'm "in the box" toward people or not. Similarly, I can give a compliment with the exact same words and intonation and body language and everything, yet view that person as an object (means to an end) knowing that humans usually respond positively to praise. Alternatively, I could give the compliment in the second case identical in all external ways, yet be oriented toward/view the person as a person, just like me, with private thoughts and stresses and dreams and a background and relationships.

2) Leadership has primarily two focii: A) accomplishing group tasks and B) developing followers. People expect leaders to get things done. However, if a leader stops at results, I think that leader stands to gain from a broader view of leadership- leadership like that Christ exhibited. Christ probably could have accomplished many tasks more effectively and efficiently than His followers (e.g. by assigning tasks to angels); yet, He instead delegated to and trained His apostles and other disciples. He knew that leadership is about training and helping followers to progress as much or more as it's about ensuring the trains get to the station on time.

3) Most tenets of contemporary evolutionary theory are quite sensible. This insight is a product of lots of thought, reading a ton (including the influential "Finding Darwin's God" by Kenneth Miller), earning a bachelor's degree in biology, and fasting/prayer.

4) When a person expresses a feeling, he or she usually wants one of two things: thing 1- to be heard, thing 2- problem-solving advice. One of the most common mistakes people (especially men) make is to respond with advice when what is wanted is to be heard. I got to the point after talking about this insight with my sister that when one of the us expresses a feeling, the other just asks straight out if person A wants listening or problem solving help. This practice has helped me refrain from my strong impulse to propose solutions when listening to her and other friends.

5) People's expectations are usually a result of their zeitgeist (culture of their place and time), and most cultural norms are more arbitrary than intelligently designed (else why the prevalence of deleterious norms and the staggering cultural diversity evident in the world today and historically?). Folks generally want their expectations to be met more than they want any given person to behave authentically. Our expectations of ourselves and others derive from the agreements we make with the scripts we are fed during childhood. Most of us are thoroughly domesticated. (see http://gigamaster.blogspot

.com/2009/03/domestication-and-dream-of-planet.html (read the part starting with "What you are seeing and hearing right now is nothing but a dream"))

6) I can raise my commitments kept/commitments made ratio far above the status quo by using my palm pilot.

7) The majority of human experience of love and attachment is biological (specifically, neurochemical). I don't find this reality offensive, since learning to manage a body is a primary purpose of mortality. This insight derives from my education in the disciplines of anatomy, nutrition, evolutionary biology, social psychology, marriage preparation, and a bunch of ancillary research (such as Fisher's "Why we love: the nature and chemistry of romantic love").

8) My testimony of the Restored gospel of Jesus Christ has matured from what it was as a child; though it is still based on my faith in Jesus Christ and constituted by revelation from the Holy Ghost, that revelation is customized to my understanding, which is vastly different now that it was when I was ten. My thinking is more sophisticated- and often the revelation, though simple, fits in that framework in a way understandable to me and accompanied by feelings of peace and assurance.

9) By receiving the Atonement, I can learn from my experiences without being condemned by them. A fuller discussion of this principle is found in Bruce Hafen's "Covenant Hearts." By uniting (at-one) with Christ and the Infinite Atonement, my imperfections are subsumed. E.g.- if I unite my 35 cent debt with a 10 trillion dollar surplus, I haven't affected the net balance much. If instead I unite my finite imperfections and sins and trials with the infinite strength and absolving power of Christ's atonement, my deficit can truly become zero, much as a function may be considered to equal zero at some point if it approaches zero quickly enough without necessarily touching the x axis (the function's limit- see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limit_of_a_function and Tad Callister's "The Infinite Atonement"). Receiving the Atonement does more that compensate for faults or restore me to a guiltless state, however: it can also take me far above the impotent condition of an innocent babe to the level of an intentional, Christlike potentate like the prophets and men of God I admire.

10) #10 is a composite shift I entitle, "why we believe what we believe." First tenet: Rogerian persuasion is effective. I learned this method in a persuasive writing class I took. Instead of starting out by undermining your opponent's arguments, begin by affirming them. Make the opponent's strongest arguments first, make sure they're all out there on the table, and only then introduce your arguments. It's sort of a "yes, you have a good point that ____ and _____ - but have you considered..." approach. Because the person feels heard, he or she may be more open-minded about relevant factors not yet considered. This tenet leads into the second - tenet two: we exhibit a predilection to prematurely take positions on issues (i.e. weighing in before considering all relevant factors). Because we are 1) prone to overestimate our own certainty (ask me for a ten question quiz test you can take to see my point bradleycarmack@gmail.com), 2) generally ill-informed, 3) subject to dirty tricks of persuasion and manipulation (start with page 22 of http://www.brahmakumaris.info/download/Cult%20related/Fallacies.pdf and research foot-in-the-door, camel's nose, low-ball, bait 'n switch, that's-not-all and door-in-the-face compliance gaining techniques) and 4) likely to be influenced by dozens of substantial cognitive biases (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases), people should as a rule take only tentative, rather than emphatic, positions on issues (e.g. the performance of President Bush or abortion or global warming or the effects of eating close to bedtime or the parenting skills of your mother). Instead, people choose to take sides, establish positions, and offer resolved opinions and unqualified criticisms in all areas of life, thereby creating a psychological need to seek evidence supporting the position (confirmation bias) rather than ensuring an environment conducive to conforming one's views the closest available approximation of truth. This shift has led me to conclude that folks are almost universally more confident in what they believe than is merited. This conclusion has yet to be seriously upset by subsequent insights.

11) Okay, so I pledged 10 and this is eleven. I just really wanted to include it.

I can do anything I want, any time I want! Though this statement is an exaggeration, the scope of my agency from moment to moment truly is gargantuan. Right now I could jump up from the keyboard and arrange a trip to Bolivia, for instance. Or send a mass text insulting all my cell phone contacts. Or go throw a DVD case repeatedly at the back window of the neighbor's. Also, most behavior is constrained not by physical limits, but by norms. Example: a missionary says he can't contact an investigator. However, if you offered that same missionary 10,000$ to find the investigator, she would probably find a way to contact the investigator. (If you or a friend says "I can't..." try applying this "10K rule" test). It's not that there doesn't exist some physical means: it's just not customary to take many of the means that actually exist. Example 2 (another missionary one): inviting 30 people to be baptized. The norm is only to invite taught investigators to be baptized, so it'd take a week or more to accomplish that task: yet, one can conceive of dozens of ways to accomplish this objective outside of normative behavioral bounds (like asking the question as a GQ, or broadcasting an invite, or handing cards to people with that invitation). Usually you can do in a day what it takes most people a week to do.

Covenant Hearts: Marriage and the Joy of Human Love

Big Ideas from Covenant Hearts (Brad's perception)

- Part of the reason we should marry is to experience misery. The instructive value of misery and deep affliction and severe personal challenge endemic to eternal marriage can't be easily substituted for. (Good luck buying that level of punishment on ebay!) It would be akin to seeking to perform an Olympic-quality marathon run (exaltation) without going through Olympic-caliber training (a mortal marriage experience). Where's Rocky without Clubber Lang and Apollo Creed and Ivan Drago and training in Russianarctica? It's hard, and that's a big part of the purpose- no misery => NO JOY. (2 Nephi 2- "having no joy, for they knew no misery...") Marriage is about increasing the pain in the "no pain, no gain" growth model. "Connected inevitably with the whole [marriage and family] process is much of pain- physical, mental, and emotional. There is much of stress and struggle, of fear and worry... there seems to never be enough money... sickness strikes periodically. Accidents happen..." -Gordon B. Hinckley

- Also, it's no coincidence that that very 2 Nephi passage begins with "would have had no children...". Deduction? No children => no misery => no joy. Childbearing is promised to be done in sorrow. Moses 4: "Unto the woman I, the Lord God, said: I will greatly multiply thy sorrow... in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children." If the imperfections and behavior of the spouse don't amount to multiplied sorrow, then hopefully the kids will add sufficient bitterness- otherwise an easy marriage means you were gypped. Plus you should share your spouse's trials whether or not other sources such as children provide sufficient opportunity to "taste the bitter" (Moses 6:55).

- Eternal marriage is much more than a contract. It's ideally not quid pro quo; instead, it's a covenant to seek the other's interest at any and all self-sacrifice. There shouldn't be score-keeping: it looks more like reckless abandon to benefit the partner. It's a 110% from each party, rather than a 50/50 like a standard agreement. The parties marry to give, not to receive, so because their object is not personal benefit or happiness, they don't walk away when dissatisfied since their own happiness is not what was bargained for. Unqualified commitment is foreign to a contractual arrangement. Also, unlike most private contracts, the community and children have a significant stake in the outcome of the marriage (not just the two parties to the agreement). This third party interest is evidenced by attendance at weddings- you don't see community and family and friends coming to the signing of a business merger.

- Christ's story is one of giving the Atonement; Adam and Eve's is one of receiving the Atonement. The story of Adam and Eve is incredibly relevant to us (more so even than Christ's in the sense that we need to receive rather than give the Atonement). Their story illustrates how marriage fits into the three act play of our existence (Act I premortal, Act 2 mortal, Act 3 post-mortal).

- Because Adam and Eve received the Atonement, they were able to learn from their experience without being condemned by it.

- Through marriage we learn what it means to be a good shepherd to our spouses like Christ was the Good Shepherd to us and the church. Sorry monks, celibacy is a tainted fruit of the apostasy: you also miss out on the glimpse of what it means to fill the role of parent- like our eternal Parent, Father in heaven. Plus, you're obligated to fight the ineluctable onslaught of wolves (anything that threatens the union), which one concludes is a valuable skill.

- Eternal marriage is the classic love story of a man and a woman, children of diety with a premortal existence, using mortality as a time to learn and grow, and then apotheosis (deification) through marriage: achieving Godhood as the highest possibility of human life. (think Hercules, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings) Living happily ever after is not about being comfortable from the Adamic Love Story- it's glancing backward at comfort (the garden) and together facing an uncertain future [with the exceptions of 1) the requirement of hard labor and 2) the presence of thorns: both are quite certain] with desires now oriented toward each other, children, and a mutual future. They ask "what's best for our marriage, our family?" rather than "what's best for me?"

- No-fault divorce, extremist individualism, gay marriage, children's liberation, and a divorce culture are bad news. It's better to keep marriage transaction costs super high- easy in, easy out is bad news for marriage because that idea damages the irreversible reckless abandon that's best to go in and stay in with. Divorce is like a hireling fleeing the sheep - even when your spouse makes the shepherd's life very tough, the shepherd keeps working whereas the hireling cancels the contract and skips town.

- God's married, and Satan is single. Whose example will you follow? God experiences fullness of joy, and Satan is miserable. Part of the reason Satan is miserable is that our nature includes a need to belong. It's the at-one-ment, not the alone-ment. Sure, people are annoying- but when it comes down to it, we'd rather be with them than eternally severed from them. Separation from God, for instance, sucks. We want to be together- and no bond offers that togetherness like eternal marriage.

- Your single life is like a seed: be ready to slay and abandon it. "whosoever will lose his {single} life shall find it {a superior married life}." The seed has to die for the family plant to grow: "except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." John 12:24