How does LDS reconcile progression to Godhood with the Genesis temptation of Adam to be like God?
Upvote:2
No reconciliation is needed.
Before partaking of the fruit Adam and Eve
- were innocent (didn't know good from evil, wouldn't* have children)
- immortal (wouldn't die, wouldn't progress)1, 2, 3
[God] then gave [the commandment not to partake of the fruit] (the opportunity of choice) to Adam and Eve, and he also gave them their free agency (the freedom of choice). Then, and this is a very important point, he did not hold Adam and Eve responsible for any transgression they committed in their state of innocence.
God knew before the earth was ever created that it would be necessary for Adam and Eve to fall so they “would have seed.” Thus, even before the earth was created, Jesus Christ had agreed that he would pay the penalty required by the law of justice for the transgression of the law that resulted in the fall of Adam and Eve.2
President Joseph Fielding Smith said:
Let’s thank the Lord, when we pray, for Adam. If it hadn’t been for Adam, I wouldn’t be here; you wouldn’t be here; we would be waiting in the heavens as spirits. …
We are in the mortal life to get an experience, a training, that we couldn’t get any other way. And in order to become gods, it is necessary for us to know something about pain, about sickness, and about the other things that we partake of in this school of mortality.
So don’t let us, brethren and sisters, complain about Adam and wish he hadn’t done something that he did. I want to thank him. I am glad to have the privilege of being here and going through mortality, and if I will be true and faithful to the covenants and obligations that are upon me as a member of the Church and in the kingdom of God, I may have the privilege of coming back into the presence of the Eternal Father; and that will come to you as it will to me, sons and daughters of God, entitled to the fullness of celestial glory.3
The Fall was necessary for progression to begin/be possible.
1 Genesis 2:17, 25, 2 Nephi 2:22-23
* not couldn't, they had the ability
Upvote:5
God confirmed that man (Genesis 3:22) "is become as one of us, to know good and evil", so this part of Satan's speech was actually not a lie.
- Satan claimed that Adam would not surely die. This was the overt lie.
- As the OP suggests, he maliciously insinuated that the reason for forbidding the fruit was that God was holding out and did not want Adam to become as the gods, knowing good and evil.
- Instead, he claimed that one could become like God by disobedience. This was the temptation.
- This was a lie by omission. The knowledge of good and evil alone was not sufficient to become fully like God. By disobeying, Adam became subject to the will of the devil. (D&C 29:40)
- Satan's intent was to trap mankind whether immortal or mortal in a state of misery, (Alma 12:26, 2 Ne 9:9), with a possible additional effect of nullifying God's decree and making him a liar (Alma 12:23)
The LDS view is that God does want his children to be become like Him, but that it must be done in His way and on His terms. Those terms include faithful obedience to his Only Begotten. They also include not claiming godlike knowledge, authority, or power before those have been granted, or in ways based on compulsion or deceit.
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