As with everything I write, I do not intend this to be accepted as authoritative, only as a (hopefully) reasoned opinion.
Ground work first:
Doctrine & Covenants 93: 10 God was in the beginning, all things were made by God.
-- vs. 23, 24 We were also in the beginning, our spirits, the core of truth that is the individual.
-- v. 26 The Spirit of Truth is the Spirit of God
-- v. 29 Man was also in the beginning with God. Intelligence, or the light of truth, was not created or made, neither indeed can be.
-- v. 30 All truth is independent in that sphere in which God has placed it, to act for itself, as all intelligence also; otherwise there is no existence.
If I understand this correctly, we are of the same stuff as God. But so are the animals, plants, and rocks, and so are the atoms and subatomic particles.
In fact, so are our engineering constructs, scientific theories, and mathematical automata, to the extent they are functional. So are our thoughts and ideas themselves, to the extent they are true.
Borrowing, for a moment, from computer science theory, I will use automata as the basis of a model of complexity. (Bear with me, there is reason to this.) Thus:
- Simple levers are an example of your simplest, context-free class of automata. A given input always results in a given output.
Machines that implement such automata are usually fairly easy to design and test, although, if they contain enough levers (or the electronic equivalent, transistors), a thorough brute-force test might require a really long time.
- Push-on, push-off switches kind of sit at the boundary of the simplest class and the next class. Also, those one-button controls which, by pressing the same button, sequence through a series of selections (for example, bright/dim/night-light/off) are at this boundary.
These can be harder to design and test. A current 64-bit CPU register, for example, cannot be sequenced through every possible combination before we expect our sun to shift out of the main phase. Perhaps I don't need to point this out, but the register itself will fail first.
We generally use some testing strategy other than brute-force in such cases. - The next level of complexity is where one or more inputs interact with the current state and the previous state to produce the new state. A laundromat washer controller which allows selection based on the number and kinds of coins and bills inserted to present a set of allowed selections would be an example.
Again, the difficulty of design and testing increases. Even though some of the simpler examples, like the washing machine, can be fairly straightforward, it can be easy to discover failure modes in such machines that prevent further operation and even prevent further testing -- or even cause the machine to self-destruct. - The third level of complexity is where you have an ordered memory (memory stack) that allows a machine to try to determine the correct response state by recording input, trying candidate states in some order, comparing them to the input up to a certain point, and backing up to try another if the current candidate state fails. Recursive descent parsers such as those used by computer languages are arch-typical of this class of automaton, although they usually cross over into the next class of complexity because of the complexity of language itself.
For what it's worth, this is the class of automata where testing begins to be really difficult. Thorough testing of these automata generally requires more time than we have -- more than we have time-to-market, longer than we can expect the machine to remain functional, longer than known life of the universe.
So we use test strategies in our designs, and we expect to find failure modes during operation. - The fourth level requires multiple ordered memories and other features that can easily become impossible to design correctly, much less test well.
All natural human language is in this class.
If we analyze animals from the point of view of automata, animals are at this level or beyond. - We do not know if there are levels beyond the fourth level.
Our mathematicians seem to have proven that two memory stacks should be sufficient for anything we can describe beyond the third level, and we are confident of the math in the proof, but we are not fully confident in the assumptions.
Anyway, we know that we, ourselves, are at the fourth level or beyond.
The solar system, if analyzed from this point of view, is also at the fourth level or beyond. If it's meaningful to analyze the universe as an automaton, for us inside the universe, it is definitely at the fourth level or beyond. I'm leaving out even the high-level description of why we can think this is so, but I am confident of it.
Any God that could exist and be really God must also be capable of behavior beyond our level of complexity, thus at or above the fourth level. Some mathematicians assert, probably in jest, that God must be at a fifth level.
- And (drum-roll): laws. The laws which we make to run our society, and the rules we make to live by, tend to start at the lowest level of complexity, and then quickly escalate into the fourth.
All of that kind of glosses over the differences between ideal automata and real machines, but I think it is enough for the present discussion.
** Except. I must note here that computers are essentially very large first-level complexity devices into which structures which mimic third- and fourth-level behavior -- within certain limits -- have been constructed. Specifically, they contain memory which can be accessed in an orderly way, allowing stacks and other lists to be constructed.
They have limits on the sizes of those stacks and lists, but as long as those limits are not exceeded, they can behave at the higher levels.
** Well, I should also note here, that our behavior, human behavior, occurs at all four levels of complexity. What we call deep, multi-dimensional personality is fourth-level complexity.
Put another way, fourth-level complexity tends to express itself as personality. There is a sort-of-equivalence, which I will offer but not prove here -- too much philosophy in one sitting.
** And one more point: Computer languages tend to cross over into fourth-level complexity for a very good reason. Mathematically speaking, there is nothing within the third level of complexity to assign meaning (semantics) to either symbols or language. This is why we can define, if we so choose, a constant called BLACK in a computer program which, when passed to a specific function, paints a white dot on a computer screen.
There is some disagreement about how symbols and semantics get attached, even in the fourth level. Or, rather, we can talk about etymologies, traditions, databases and all sorts of mechanical stuff, but we ultimately are not able, within science or mathematics, to explain why and how words communicate meaning.
In our current milieu, for instance, the word "love" is variously given meanings that range from "lust" to "preference" to "desire" to specific "desire for another person's happiness". What it means in any specific case is pretty much subject to both the intent of the speaker and the intent of the listener.
** And ,now, there is a question I must ask here:
The first two commandments of Mosaic law forbid the making of any god before God. What is that?
I'm going to leave out a lot more philosophical stuff here, but what we hold as our "gods" are the things we set at top priority in our lives -- the concepts, ideals, physical objects, people, etc., that we use to determine the rules which we choose to operate our lives by.
Hold that thought, okay?
The Devil
No one really likes to associate with habitual liars. Sure, they may be interesting for a while, but eventually you get tired of it.
But we need to know there is such a spirit, because not all spiritual influences are beneficial.
There is an influence that tries to convince us that deceiving others for fun and personal gain is a good thing. Talking about the devil too much is not productive, but it is important to note that that influence is real.
Among the common lies that the deceiver tries to get us to believe is that the devil is red of body, has horns and a tail, carries a pitchfork, and has all the fun.
Now, professional magicians do not all follow the devil, nor do all accountants, lawyers, and burlesque performers. Some apparently do, but not all. Maybe not even most.
In fact, many self-professed devil worshipers only think they are following the devil, while they are, in fact, not.
How does this happen?
The devil also has a particular habit of claiming that he is God. Then he might claim that God is like himself in some particular way. Then he might say, "But such a being is [fill-in-the-blank-negation]! It's stupid to believe in such a being. God does not exist!"
Why would he do this? He is a habitual liar. Apparently, he thinks to make some gain by deceiving us.
I bring this up here because many of the traditional descriptions of God are from the deceiver. I see no need to defend those. Nor to worry about them, once we have accepted that they are wrong.
Why does the devil exist?
The devil does play an important role. Without opposite charge poles, electricity does not flow. Without the gravity well, water does not flow down, nor does evaporated water rise.
Does that mean that we should pity the devil for taking that role and giving us necessary spiritual opposition? Not if it tempts us to follow the spirit of deception, at any rate.
The Progenitor:
(Traditionally called The Father in English because of limits inherent in the language more than gender or any other reason I know of.)
This is the generative principle, the set of principles by which the natural universe around us operates -- the Grand Unifying Principles which many physicists and other scientists suspect is there, and some seek to discover.
I don't know if there was a big bang, but, if there was, this set of principles would be the set of principles that formed the initial conditions at the moment of the big bang.
Does this set of principles have personality? Within the first few moments after the big bang, the universe developed enough structure to act as a collection of multi-stack automata, which puts the universe itself immediately right into that fourth level of complexity.
So, yes, the universe itself must have a personality, of a sort.
Since we can say that the conditions at the time of the big bang are expressed in the current physical structure of the universe, we can suggest that the nature of the universe is an expression of the personality of God.
Our scientists now have evidence to assert that the universe is probably larger than even a very-long-lived human stuck on earth for as long as the earth exists could ever observe the limits of. And, in fact, if said near-immortal continued to live, but were confined to the remnants of our sun in that far future, tens and hundreds of billions of years forward, the speed limit of light prevents such a person from seeing beyond a certain limit.
If that is true, there is no way any human, nor any institution of man's making, will ever be able to fully comprehend the universe.
And, given the tendency we mortals have to die, and the tendencies of our societies to self-destruct, we must always expect our science to reveal things which we hadn't known before.
Therefore, God is far too great for us to comprehend, and, even if we can say that there is a God who exists as a personage, if we claim to own that God, we claim a false God.
This is very important in the argument about whether God exists, so I'll repeat it:
Any God that a particular mortal person or group of mortal people can claim is uniquely theirs alone is by definition false.
God must be far greater than anything we can imagine or even attempt to define, but that does not mean that God does not exist.
Now, if you are bothered that the idea that the great mean God that your preacher taught was breathing hell-fire at you every time you turned around might actually exist, remember, if your preacher claimed some unique ownership to that God, it was false.
People get excited when they understand something new, and often forget that other things exists. That's part of the process of backing up on the memory stack and starting down another parse path. Preachers are no exception to this tendency, although some do try hard to remember that they are not yet perfect, as long as they are mortal.We'll be kind to your preacher and assume it was your preacher's misunderstanding.
In mathematics, two functions which parse the same set of symbols and produce the same results can be considered identical within the context of the specified set of symbols.
It does not follow in some logical causality, but it does help us understand that, if some immortal being were able to fully develop all of the personality and attributes of the Progenitor, that immortal being could stand in for the Progenitor in any interaction, and nothing would change.
That can't happen within a mortal lifetime, but the eternities are more than just a very long time.
Is there a specific Progenitor, with a personality and all?
I know a couple of things: One, the universe itself has a personality. And, two, my understanding of the scriptures indicates that there is a specific being that fully has all the personality and attributes of the Progenitor, distinct from the pre-mortal Jesus, with oversight responsibilities for the creation of our solar system and life on this earth. Also, I think I have scriptural basis to identify Jehovah of the Old Testament with the pre-mortal Jesus. Thus, this other being would be, relative to our earth, the Father, the Progenitor.
(And I will point out that Greek and other myths seem to contain a perversion of these ideas. The Father and the Son would not fight each other, because they would be entirely unified in purpose. The Father is not the one in opposition to the Son when the Son is pleading for us before the Father.)
The Son:
If there is a progenitor, there is a child. Moreover, the child is able to grow to become like the progenitor, and, if the child does succeed in becoming like the progenitor, the child can fully represent the progenitor.
Jesus asserted that He ascended to the Father after His death and resurrection. I won't get into the details of all of His teachings here, other than that I have scriptural reason to believe He did, and to believe He was therefore qualified and able to stand in for the set of principles by which this universe runs.
I will note this much of what He teaches -- repentance, or changing one's behavior to learn to be more like the Progenitor, falls rather neatly out of the understanding of the third and fourth levels of complexity. Part of the reason we have memory is so that we can back up and try other paths in our lives. Forgetting may be important, but so is remembering.
Oh, and I will refer you to the Beatitudes, Matthew 5, 6, and 7, or 3rd Nephi 11, 12, 13, and 14. These summarize much of His most important teachings, and are enough to give us confidence in the personality of God.
The Holy Spirit:
Remember that I mentioned that computer languages tend to cross over from the third level of complexity to the fourth, and that we still have trouble getting meaning into words.
In the Book of Mormon, 2nd Nephi 33: 1, we find this little morsel of wisdom:
... when a man speaketh by the power of the Holy Ghost the power of the Holy Ghost carrieth it unto the hearts of the children of men.
Since we have Ghostbusters and other jests which abuse the word "ghost", I'll use the word "spirit" instead, here.
This third member of the Godhead, the Holy Spirit, is that which is the medium of communication. Without some spiritual influence, it quickly becomes difficult to communicate. If a negative spirit pervades in a conversation, it can be very difficult to communicate anything positive.
Turning our own heart towards a positive spirit, towards, for example, a desire for the happiness and well-being of the other person, tends to make it much easier to communicate with positive result.
I'm not going to get too mystical here, but this Holy Spirit also functions at the fourth level of complexity or above, and also fully expresses the personality of the Progenitor principles.
This is what I mean by God, or these three are the Godhead that I worship. These define my intended priorities, and, to the extent that I am successful at implementing my intentions, my actual priorities. To the extent that I understand them, they define my behavior.
I do not own them. If I could, they would not be worth my worship.
I am trying to learn to be like them, but I am fully aware that I will only see, at best, modest, small successes at that in this life.
I have faith that, if I learn in this life to keep repenting when I find myself not following God, to keep learning more about God through studying the teachings of the Son, listening to the Holy Spirit, and to keep changing my life, behavior, and heart to conform to the attributes of Godliness to the best of my understanding, I will be able to continue in that path and stand with confidence before them after I die, and join in their work in the world to come.
If I fail to do that, what I will be able to do after I leave this mortal world will be limited.
I should provide scripture references to each point in the above, but my time is limited. More importantly, I don't want people to think I'm any sort of expert in this philosophy. Everyone needs to develop their own understanding of God, or, if they need to, of cosmology and the purpose of the universe and themselves without a God who has personality.
