Patriarchal Blessings and the Foreknowledge of God
I received my Patriarchal Blessing just before I turned eighteen. It was truly a powerful experience and I will forever cherish it. Such wide spread dissemination of prophecy is rather unique to the Mormon Church (I believe). This prophetic distribution is a strength to the members, but it also raises many interesting issues.
A large issue is how we deal with blessings that apparently do not come to fruition. Again, I am not sure how I will come out on the whole Foreknowledge of God debate, but it seems that this is yet another laboratory to broaden our perspective.
There seems to be several scenarios that could explain blessings that seem to be unfulfilled:
Foreordination
In this scenario, before this world was, we earned the right to certain opportunities and were foreordained to receive them. Our Patriarchal Blessings (PB) are simply a reiteration of what was already promised to us on condition of our worthiness.
God could have absolute foreknowledge that an agent might not fulfill that which they were foreordained to attain. Yet because the agent “earned” the opportunity, he gets it and the consequent PB.
This scenario does not require God to have absolute foreknowledge. He could just as well foreordain agents and let them choose and the PB would remain the same.
Blessing and Prophecy
It is possible that PB are not based on foreordination, but are blessings by the spirit of prophecy. That is to say that the Lord pronounces blessing that are contingent on faithfulness. This seems to limit the foreknowledge of God. Why would he bless us with something that He knows we will not receive?
Millenarian Resolution
This is not a scenario per se, but a tool that is often employed by people to “fix” their PB. This is the practice of relegating resolution of unfulfilled promises to the millennium or to exaltation.
Despite having a fair amount of friends who have lived stellar lives and employ this to resolve their PB, I am a little wary. Notably, this is often used by women who traversed this mortal sphere without ever having a family of their own. If a PB says that an agent will receive a blessing and that agent remains faithful, to say that the PB meant something different than what is written is to deny the blessing. No? If this is true, God does not have absolute foreknowledge; moreover, he doesn’t follow through. While I can conceive of the former, the latter is untenable.
Lastly, looking at some of my posts lately, it could be perceived that I am not approaching some issues with as much faith as might be appropriate. Let me affirm that I have a profound belief in the restored gospel and intend to build it up rather than create stumbling blocks.
This does bring up interesting applications to the foreknowledge question. It is easy to come to whatever conclusion we want when we engage in a a priori free-for-all. But what if we approach the topic of foreknowledge with a a posteriori approach. Does every prediction God makes come true? Hardly. Lots of them do come true but not all.
Now of course excuses can be made, but this should be our starting point on the matter, not a few asides which can be dealt with later.
Comment by Jeffrey Giliam — 3/10/2005 @ 2:48 pm
My belief (based partly on statements in my patriarchal blessing) is that the blessings contained within are not automatic, but must be worked for. This allows for wiggle room in which some blessings may not come to pass.
I believe that a patriarchal blessing given to me now would be quite different than one given to me as a teenager, over 10 years ago.
Comment by Karl Butcher — 3/10/2005 @ 3:10 pm
Another question is how much of the blessing is from God and how much from the Patriarch.
The Patriarchs are doing their best, but just like the General Authorities, they aren’t infallible.There are some unusual blessings out there that I wouldn’t want to attribute to God.
I don’t think we should hold God accountable for the mistakes of his Patriarchs.
Comment by NFlanders — 3/10/2005 @ 3:24 pm
Karl: That seams like the foreordination scenario. If what you mean by “worked for” enatail righteousness.
NFlanders, I don’t doubt that there are some inconsistancies out there. I have some limited first hand experience even. But, I also have a pretty strong belief in the process and I accept that as a rule, blessings are pronounced in “good faith” and are honored by the Lord.
Comment by J. Stapley — 3/10/2005 @ 3:35 pm
I guess I’ve always been comforted by the “it’ll happen in the Millenium” fulfillment excuse. To me the Millenium is just a natural extension of this life with a little twinkle or a stop in paradise depending on when the Millenium starts.
Why can’t most, all or some of the promised blessing be fulfilled there? 1,000 years to get it right, seems to give me a lot better chance than the 70 years I hope I’ll have here now.
I feel if a blessing is promised, then it can be had…either now or later depending on my circumstances, righteousness and God’s timing.
We should be praying for the Millenium to start!
Comment by Don — 3/10/2005 @ 4:25 pm
Jonathan said: “Millenarian Resolution: This is not a scenario per se, but a tool that is often employed by people to “fix” their PB. This is the practice of relegating resolution of unfulfilled promises to the millennium or to exaltation.” Not exactly sure what side you are falling on with this thought. By saying “fix” their blessings it implies to me that you are not in agreement. Yet this position is actually doctrinal fact.
It would be worth reading or rereading as need be James E. Faust, “Priesthood Blessings,” Ensign, Nov. 1995, 62. Quoting Elder John A. Widtsoe, “It should always be kept in mind that the realization of the promises made may come in this or the future life. Men have stumbled at times because promised blessings have not occurred in this life. They have failed to remember that, in the gospel, life with all its activities continues forever and that the labors of earth may be continued in heaven.”
Comment by Mark — 3/10/2005 @ 8:10 pm
Although, the days will come, that heaven and earth shall pass away; yet my awords• shall not pass away, but all shall be fulfilled.
JS-M 1: 35
Two remarks, with that said.
First, I think that this is one of the reasons that foreknowledge is absolutely essential. God makes promises, not good guesses. The scriptures would, I think, make it clear if this were not so. And patriarchal blessings are probably the most visible place that it becomes clear that he doesn;t only make promises in a broad, sweeping sort of a way, but in an individual, personal way. Monday, if not before, I’ll post on jsut this–not because of this post, but because I was thinking about it anyway.
Second, I think that we take the contingency of the promises the Lord makes in a lump sort of way. I don’t htink that any one of these scenarios presents a totalizing explanation. Some promises take longer than we expect them to to be fulfilled. Some others may be denied because we were not faithful–or beacuse we were not faithful enough. Take for example a very committed man who is promised he will have children. He gets very involved in his career–something also mentioned in his patriarchal blessing. In the process, he misses for a time the improtance of children. Later in life he marries–not too late, but perhaps later than the Lord would have had it. He marries a good woman, later in her child-bearing years. They try, but do not have children. the man is very disappointed.
I do not know this man. I just made him up. What I am getting at, though, is that very good people can overlook the blessings they have coming to them, or let things interfere without becoming “unfaithful” in any sense that implies them falling away. On the other hand, the Lord does take into account the shortcomings we all have. Bro Packer recently presented the idea at a BYUH devotional that we will never loose a significant blessing through making a mistake without the spirit warning us first. I am not implying that we can just wander by the most imporant things in our lives, that our futures are contingent on trivialities. What I am implying is that we all do wrong things, and it is possible for those wrong things without becoming evil or not ever seeking the blessings we were originially entitled to.
Which blessings are deferred, and which are those missed out on because we were not dilligent enough? I don’t know. Incidentally, I don’t think that we need to take missing out on those blessings as some condemning failure. The prophet Joseph ignored the Lord’s counsel about the manuscript pages and lost blessings, but was still a stand up guy in my book.
So, I guess what I’m saying is that the details we can’t judge, but the doctrine is that the Lord fulfills his promises. There might be many reasons it would be unclear to us how he is doing so, but he does.
Comment by S. Hancock — 3/10/2005 @ 8:59 pm
I’ve always thought that the Millennial “fix” was a cop-out, used by people to explain something that makes no sense otherwise. Some blessings are simply irrelevant in the Millennium, so if they are not fulfilled in mortality, what was the point of giving the promise?
For example, I know of a woman whose patriarchal blessing promised that if she would live the Word of Wisdom, she would live a long and healthy life. Sadly, Huntington’s disease confined her to a rest home and took her life while she was in her thirties. Huntington’s is genetic. Nothing she could have done would have prevented her early death. And a promise of a long and healthy life in the Millennium is redundant since we will all have perfect bodies.
My sister’s patriarchal blessing promises her easy pregnancies and deliveries. She has had gestational diabetes, which is not anyone’s definition of an easy pregnancy. What good is that promise in the Millennium?
My opinion is that patriarchs tend to give similar blessings to everyone, with similar promises. Whether or not they actually happen is based on a roll of the dice and the law of averages.
Comment by Janey — 3/11/2005 @ 2:01 pm
Mark: I wanted to give due diligence before I responded. I reread the talk by Faust (a beauty) and found no specific reference to the Millenarian resolution of blessings. The Widtsoe quote (Evidences and Reconciliations pg. 323) is interesting, but I find one of the preceding paragraph even more telling:
And the immediate sentences after your quote:
I guess what I am edging at, is that your presumption that Millenerian resolution of blessing is “fact” has not a lot of support. I can’t find any in fact.
I think Steve has crystallized well the dynamism at play. Just because we might not have “earned” a blessing does not mean we are not heirs.
Janey brings up some terribly difficult scenarios. And while I do think that, on occasion, a Patriarch or two has interjected something of their own, I have to believe that the overwhelming majority are in “good faith”. That said, I simply don’t know how to respond to these difficult cases.
Comment by J. Stapley — 3/11/2005 @ 2:28 pm
J,
What about Mark’s quote doesn’t say that blessings may be resolved after this life? I’ll admit it doesn’t mention the millenium specifically, but ti does mention eternity, of which the millenium is a part.
I would add the following from the same talk:
The patriarch who gave my father his blessing had spiritual vision to see beyond this life. The dividing line between time and eternity disappeared.
. . . neither death nor the devil can deprive us of the blessings pronounced. They are blessings we can enjoy now and forever.
Comment by S. Hancock — 3/11/2005 @ 3:15 pm
I was aware of the quote from Elder Widtsoe continuing. The additional information seemed to be a second point, so I omitted it. Tying the two together seems important but I don’t think that the one negates the other. I mean I don’t think that the fact that blessings are in some respects “earned” (even though they really are given through the grace of Jesus Christ) negates the fact that Elder Widtsoe said the blessings continue into the “future life.” Why doesn’t the furture life include spirit world, millennial reign, and/or Celestial kingdom? Hmm, I think Jonathan the onus is on you to prove otherwise since in context President Faust is saying that Patriarchal blessings continue into the future life. There is no reason to believe they do not continue into the millennium as that is part of all of our future lives (whether we are transfigured or resurrected beings during the period). Am I missing your point?
Comment by Mark — 3/14/2005 @ 11:35 pm
Perhaps I am simply uncomfortable with the millenarian approach as apposed to general celestial fulfillment. It seams like it packs the millennium full the unfulfilled lives of those who have already lived. I just don’t see any evidence for that.
Now saying that you will have a family in the eternities even though you were unable to in mortality seems quite plausible. I do think that our perceptions are extraordinarily limited and consequently, I’m hesitant to project our conception of “life” onto the eternities.
Comment by J. Stapley — 3/15/2005 @ 1:18 am
[…] t I present this with some of the ideas presented in connection with patriarchal blessings here, at least my comments, as examples of a sense that God does know the end from the begi […]
Pingback by Splendid Sun » Forknowledge, Power and Love: Part I — 3/15/2005 @ 1:30 am
I had a friend who’s Patriarchal Blessing promised him world-wide recognition for his talents, with the implication being that his musical talents would make him famous. To my knowledge, he still has never taken a music lesson, picked up an instrument, or made any effort in any way to develop this talent.
I believe that all blessings are predicated upon the faith we have in them and the diligence we extend in fulfilling them. With perfect faith we can accomplish all things, By faith, Peter walked upon water, raised the dead, healed the sick and afflicted. My personal opinion regarding unfulfilled blessings is that there is a lack of faith, rather than flaws in the pronouncement.
That being said, I have not perfected the walking on water thing yet, except when it’s frozen. I don’t blame that on the water. I believe what God promises He delivers, according to our faith. The perfect faith that moves mountains, parts the veil and reveals the finger of God is rare indeed, but ultimately it will be our own faith that frames the boundaries of our blessings.
Comment by Peter Cyngot — 4/8/2005 @ 11:18 am
Maybe someone can help me understand something. My sister’s PB states that she will “Be a mother in Israel. As an instrument in providing earthly tabernacles for spirits yet unborn, assigned to receive physical bodies in this generation, to lead, guide, and assist them on the road to eternal life.” She is getting older and is not yet married. She is terribly concerned that this promise will not be fulfilled. She was in a relationship recently where she thought it was going to work out, but he ended up leaving her. She blames herself and the mistakes she made in the relationship which caused him to leave. She is terribly distraut that because of her mistakes she made in the relationship that caused him to leave, that the blessing will not ever be fulfilled. My question is: Is the Lord that demanding of our perfection in order for a promised blessing to be fulfilled? Doesn’t the Lord take into consideration our human follies and still allow us to enjoy the blessings he has promised? Or is it that because this man left her, it was simply his agency and although the Lord would love to fulfill that blessing, he can’t because of everyone’s agency? And if that is the case, why would the Lord promise her something, when he knew in the end things would never really work out for her, only to have her hopes to be completely dashed?
Comment by Terri — 6/3/2005 @ 4:02 pm
Terri –
This really is where the rubber hits the road. Eh? It is a lot harder to deal in these matters outside the abstract and hypothetical. Not knowing your sister, I don’t know what has happened, but I believe there are a number of possibilities and still many ways for that promise to be fulfilled.
That man could have left for a number of reasons, least of which was your sisters “worthiness”. While I do believe that one can forsake promised blessings through sin, relationships have a lot more variables than one’s righteousness.
More than anything, I would hope that, regardless of your sister’s current relationships, she find confidence before the Lord through the Gospel.
Comment by J. Stapley — 6/3/2005 @ 5:23 pm
Well here is a nice “believe it or not” patriarchal blessing story from Mexico. It was told to me by a man I worked with for a short time who had been a bishop and whose father had also been a bishop. My friend has since gone on to be a councelor in a stake presidency. The story seemed to be confirmed by my friends father and I just got a funny look from his mother when I asked about it in the company of all three.
It seems my friend’s mother was concerned that her husband was not doing his geneology work. All he would say was, “my patrichal blessing say nothing about that” So she prayed real hard and on day he happend to look at it again and it had been changed to include enough about this to get him working on the matter.
I would also like to say that I have had dreams come true for me on 3 or 4 occasions within a matter of a few days. Sometimes a few of the details were different but the important things were there.
On one occasion I had a dream about a bunch of eucaliptus poles which had fallen out of the back of a big truck. A few years before that I had been without a means of securing the load I had seen in my dream on the same truck. So I had taken a bunches of poles at either side and pulled them backwards so that they stuck out and I could wrap a roap around each of them and then pull the two bunches together with a truckers hitch. It worked great so it seemed strange that I would have a dream about them being strewn everywhere and a sence of uregency as varios people in our branch showed up. Finally, at the end of the dream the branch president showed up and suddenly everyone was all smiles.
Two or three days later we were in a small pickup headed up a mountainous road with lots of blind curves. A memeber in our ward who was in the dream shot past us and within a matter of 30 seconds we saw him pulled over as he had lighly rear ended someone who was stopped because of a mishap.
The mishap consisted of the fact that a man with a trailer load of square tubing which still had slippery soluble oil on it had spilled his load on the road. It was getting dark fast and there was no room to transfere the steel to another vehicle. So we all loaded it back in the trailer and then I did what I had done a couple of years earlier to what I had seen in my dream a few days before. Just as I was done and everyone was ready to move on, the branch president. He was fellowshiping the man with the trailer load and opon showing up, said to his friend. “What’cha doing, (I forget the mans name)… You know these people helping you are all Mormons don’t you”?
Suddenly everyone had a smile in their face and we all got underway without causing any more pileups.
Now regarding agency, I don’t know why everyone worries about humans all the time. In fact, I think they use the wrong word. I think the word the really should be using when they are worried like that is “independance.”
Going down to the quantum level there is unpredictablity, but the law of averages tranceds this unpredictablity so that trasistors can switch on and off, our eyeball lenses can refract light well enough to let us read and drive and do all kinds of wonderfull things to better suit our sence of purpose and so forth.
We are told in the 93rd section of the D&C that “All truth is independant in that sphere which God has placed it to act for itself as is all intellegence also. otherwise there is no existence.”
So far I don’t think agency is envolved. for though on the UTAHKRISHNAS web radio station a few days ago I heard a record of this statement prononced by Krishna upon the heads the demigods, still I belive it also applies to mice and ants and fleas and so forth.
But in the next verse we read. “Behold herein is the agency of man and also his condemnation in that that which was from the beginning is plainly manifest unto them and they recive not the light.”
So regarding a patriachal blessing, these seem to me to embue the recipient with a quality of “truth” that was not there before. Thus the way we act in our sphere is expanded. And we are told in the book of Mormon that we will have all of our desires wheather righteos or otherwise “restored”
So I would say that holding this to be true, a blessing is more than a prophecy. A prophecy would seem to me to infringe on our independance to act.
I feel that life in this realm is a kind of “quantum” existence on account of the number of spheres containing indepentant truth that interact. On an atomic scale it is not hard to see how the character of phyiscal law as “Feynman” puts it in a book by that title, is consistent for given particles over time notwithstanding the chaotic and unpreditable nature of each interaction.
Now we know that for the governing plantets there is a longer time frame. This is our heratige and we should not be distressed that the chaotic/quantum nature of our present existence which must allow for the independant existence of other spheres driven by seperate, independant truth, might not alway go the way or sence of entitelment in this existince might seem to indicate that it should. To me, an atom which has been “blessed” to be an atom, will always be one… even though the structure might be destroyed, much of the character is preserved, because there is an eternal correlation between matter and intellegence or “light and truth” and the agency of man seems to be rather unique amoung the creations of God in terms of “recieving more light and truth” and thus reprogramming the charater of the possesor of that agency to exert causitive will in a higher plane of intellegence.
To me, the patriachal blessing will always have a place in that process. If I had time to talk about dissapointments in my own and how nevertheless I have felt trully blessed by it as I have looked at it over the years. I could go on at length but will stop after a illusion to something specific I would rather not specify here.
About a year and a half ago I got a blessing from a bishop in responce to something that was troubling me in which he told me to read my patriachal blessing over again and also to listen very carefully to the words of President Hinkley in the upcoming conference. I will say that would not be believing in the impression I got while reading my patriachal blessing today had it not been for the confirmation I got when President Hinkley said something which made me cry so as to hope no one was watching.
Well, its been great sharing all this. I hope I can find my way back to this thread or whatever it is called to clear up any remaining doubts I may try to do that soon
Richard E.
Richard E.
Comment by Richard E. — 10/14/2005 @ 12:08 am
The stories were great! They were even greater cause I was able to use one in my talk tommorow.
Comment by Nick — 12/3/2005 @ 3:02 pm
I enjoyed reading the comments posted in this thread. I have been searching for some answers myself regarding unfulfilled promises in my daughter’s and my patriarchal blessings. My 27 year old daughter (see LornaLister.com for the web site we created in her honor)was killed in a tragic accident on Oct. 5, 2006 up Provo Canyon. She was a righteous and outstanding individual. I have many questions on how specific promises of her patriarchal blessing that interact with specific promises of mine will come to pass. The specific wording of both implies blessings to be realized in this earthly life. Any thoughts???
Comment by Eve Hansen — 12/14/2006 @ 6:27 am
Eve, without knowing specifics it is hard to comment. Moreover, I think there would be a fair degree of impropriety in sharing details in such a forum.
I know that it is a persistent meme in Mormonism that everything that happens has a purpose. I am highly skeptical of such a position. The world is chaotic, and it is filled with individuals having various degrees of agency. We always hear the stories about how the Lord made the way open, and rarely the stories about how he didn’t. For example:
Comment by J. Stapley — 12/14/2006 @ 12:41 pm
I know this is an old thread but I was doing searches for topics on patriarchal blessings.
At times I’ve been inspired by my blessing and stories of others but in saying that I have also struggled sometimes.
I doing some research I’ve noticed that it has a lot to do with the patriarch. They all seem to have a certain personalized style and tend to give the same basic blessings and promises in all of them. Some give almost all 1 page blessings and others give 3-4 pages. Each patriarch differs from another.
Me and my brother have almost identical blessings with a few words different here and there. We are 3 years apart in age.
I’m troubled by examples from missionary companions who had in their blessings the fact that they would be called home from their mission to fight in the battle of arrmegeddon. That obviously didn’t happen.
I’m troubled by the blessings that say the person will still be living on the earth at the time of the second coming, yet they have since died.
I always loved the stories that people get about what they were like in the pre-exsistance and who they were.
There was a man in my old ward who was told in his patriarchal blessing that he would die young and leave his family behind. It actually came true several years later when he tipped over a tractor and it crushed him. Although that made everyone in our ward aprehensive to getting a blessing after that because they were scared of similar things happening to them.
I love the fact that it’s said in Pres.Woodruff’s blessing that he is one of the 144,000. That’s just awesome.
I love the story I’ve heard about a patriarch that went to Mongolia and found people from 9 different tribes.
I also find it funny that my father and his blood brother are from different tribes (ephriam and Manasseh). Complete german decent on both sides.
I find it intresting that our patriarch is visably weak for a couple days after doing some patriarchal blessings.
So it’s all very strange to me. I totally have faith in the lord and in these blessings but I often wonder if some things the patriarchs say are incorrect or thought up in their mind and are out to lunch.
What do you think about all of this?
Comment by Gunner — 7/12/2007 @ 12:45 pm
Gunner, I would recommend checking out Irene Bates and E. Gary Smith’s various papers, but especially ther book, Lost Legacy: The Mormon Office of Presiding Patriarch. Bates’, “Patriarchal Blessings and the Routinization of Charisma” in Dialogue might also be something to specifically look for. The history of patriarchal blessings and their substance is fascinating.
Comment by J. Stapley — 7/12/2007 @ 12:55 pm
Thank you for that recommendation. I found it very insightful and intriguing. I too would recommend it. It’s a great read. I guess it’s like anything else, it comes down to a question of faith.
Comment by Gunner — 7/22/2007 @ 8:09 pm