Glorons

One of the greatest, but perhaps most controversial, doctrines of the gospel of Jesus Christ is that of man’s infinite potential: our ability to become like God. Early Christians called this concept “apotheosis” or “deification,” but most modern Christians are ignorant thereof. Of the few non–Latter-day Saints who have even heard of it, many actually view it as hubristic, that we believe we’re going to become equal to God or even surpass Him! Of course, nothing could be further from the truth.

All this being said, I came up with an idea, many years ago, that explains my personal understanding of eternal progress (apotheosis, etc.). I don’t know if it will make sense to my readers, but it certainly makes sense to me. And before I begin, a warning: if you’re not a math geek like I, you may want to bail out now, before your head starts spinning. ;-)

We begin with a somewhat familiar concept, that of a pyramid scheme. For those who are unfamiliar with the concept, a pyramid scheme is a business wherein each person receives pay for every person below him or her in the hierarchy of the organization. The person at the top is the highest and thus receives the most benefit. The people second from the top also benefit, but not as much as the one on top. The people third from the top benefit a bit less, then the fourth from the top, etc..
Eventually you get to the point where there’s little to no benefit at all—which is why pyramid schemes are generally illegal.


Now, let’s change the paradigm a bit. Imagine that, instead of a finite pyramid, we have a pyramid is of infinite size, with an infinite number of people therein. It’s a hard concept, but one which forms the basis of all that I’m about to say. 
God is above us in this pyramid, and always will be. However, He’s not at the top, because there is no top; and while we are at the bottom, we aren’t required to be there forever. The bottom of the pyramid can extend down from us infinitely, throughout time and space.
 Hopefully this makes sense, even if it’s overwhelming and/or hard to envision.

So now, let’s switch gears for a moment. 
We always hear that we’re here to glorify God, but no one really knows what that means. What we do know is that “the glory of God is intelligence” (Doctrine and Covenants 93:36), and that “[His] work and [His] glory [is] to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man” (Moses 1:39).
 But what, exactly, is glory? How can we give it? And can it be measured?


The answer to this last question is found in 
1 Corinthians 15:40-41, which states that “the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory.”
 So obviously, glory can be measured. I don’t know how to measure it, and I’m guessing no one else on earth does, either. But it seems like it can be.
The scriptures even speak of things having “great glory” or even “greater glory,” which further solidifies the idea. 
So let’s assume that glory can be measured, even if we don’t know how to do it.


So, if glory can be measured, let’s come up with a standard unit of measurement. For our purposes, we’ll call it a gloron. 
My assumption—and remember, this is only an assumption, but it makes sense to me:

The glory of any individual a is equal to the sum of the glories of all individuals (b, c, d, z, etc.) over whom that individual a has stewardship.

Let’s imagine, for a moment, that every human being that has ever lived, now lives, or ever will live, has a maximum of one gloron per person. In fact, to make the math easy, we’ll say that we each have exactly one gloron. If we imagine that in the history of this earth, there will be 25 billion people, that means that God’s glory is at least 25 billion times greater than mine.

Jeff = 1

God = 25,000,000,000

In other words, God is not quite infinitely greater than me, but for all intents and purposes, he’s pretty close.

Now let’s imagine that out of those 25 billion people, my wife, Anna, and I are the only ones who ever make it to godhood. (A ridiculous assumption, of course, but let’s run with it.) How many glorons does is take to be considered a god? I don’t know. You don’t know. It’s a made-up unit of measurement, so it can be whatever we like. So, let’s say 10 billion. Anna and I make it to 10 billion each, and the other 24,999,999,998 of us are still at 1.


Now, remember: God’s glory is equal to that of everyone over whom He has stewardship.
So if Anna and I have a combined 20 billion glorons, and the other 24,999,999,998 of us have one each, that means:

Jeff = 10,000,000,000

God = 44,999,999,998

For that matter, our Heavenly Mother also has 44,999,999,998, because She has the same stewardship as Father. Even if Anna and I were the only two who ever become gods—again, a truly ludicrous proposition—we’d still never come close to catching up with our Heavenly Parents.
 In short, we can never be equal to God, because the more glory we have, the more They have.


Now let’s extend this even farther. With every one of our spirit siblings that is blessed to become a god, the gulf in glory becomes numerically (though not necessarily statistically) larger. If only a mere 10 billion of us eventually make it to godhood, that means our Heavenly Parents now have (15 billion × 1) + (10 billion × 10 billion). Now here’s the tally:

Jeff = 10,000,000,000

God = 10,000,000,015,000,000,000

But wait… this isn’t the only planet God has created! What about the people on other planets? There are probably trillions, quadrillions, quintillions of children of God who have been, or will be, blessed with the great gift of the Atonement and their ensuing deification. Now the numbers become:

Jeff = 10,000,000,000

God = 10,000,000,015,000,000,000,000,000,000

And of course, if my glory ever increases through the apotheosis of my own spirit children, my Heavenly Parents’ glory will increase in tandem—and probably by several more orders of magnitude than my own!


The point is that our Heavenly Parents will always be our Heavenly Parents, and they’ll always be so much greater than we that if we stop to think about it, it will totally blow our minds. Of course They want us to grow up to be like Them, but that doesn’t mean They’ll ever stop being greater than we.
 As a friend of mine put it, “We strive to be like Them, to gain glory and bring them more glory.”


So, there you have it, folks. My perceptions on glory, all courtesy of a completely made-up unit of measurement. Hope it makes sense. ☺︎