I think a discussion of law and symmetry is pretty important.

I do think though you touch upon the Euthyphro dilemma quite well and note it relates to natural law as well. While I’m skeptical of some approaches Blake takes in his books I think his treatment of the Euthyphro dilemma and God is something I fully agree with him upon.

1. Natural, invariant, and inviolable (physical law)
2. Natural, invariant, and violable (natural ethics)
3. Ordinate, variant, and violable (ordinance, custom, legality)

Neither (1) nor (2) have anything to do with a power calculus, in the modern sense of the term. Power is a temporal construct, and (1) and (2) are invariant by definition. If you empty categories (1) and (2) by pushing both physical law and natural ethics into the realm of divine ordinance bad things happen.

Those who say the laws of nature are divine ordinances (or decrees) are effectively claiming that the laws of nature aren’t natural. Those who claim that ethics have no natural basis are likewise effectively claiming that there is no such thing as divine nature. Personally, I find the idea that divine nature is a power construct positively abhorrent.

I think this must be understood as a part of the plan of progression. That is to say, in order to become as God (which is our pre-existent goal) we must go through certain stages of development. One is the acquisition of bodies. Evidently that can only be accomplished in a terrestrial environment. That is God’s law and if He were to change it He would cease to be God. The implication of that is that as terrestrial beings we will become unclean and thus cannot return to God. Salvation means a method by which this state will no longer keep us from God. Salvation = being saved from the fact we are terrestrial being and can now return to God.

Rich

God decreed that no unclean thing may enter His presence. By becoming terrestrial beings, it is inevitable that we sin and become unclean. We are forever damned. Yet the pre-existent plan of salvation was a way of returning to him as physical beings rather than spirits that we were. So here we have God’s law precluding our successful return. Rather than changing the law, He instituted the Atonement by which we can become clean or reconciled to God through the sacrifice of Christ. The law was not changed but a way was created for us to return to Him.

I grew up with the idea that all the miracles mentioned in the scriptures were accomplished by the manipulation of the laws of nature, rather than by transcending or breaking them. Who better to manipulate the laws than the creator of those laws.

Rich

However, in this case I think Occasionalism is beside the point, rather the question is to what degree is divine activity timelessly eternal and invariant, and to what degree is it effectively particular and interventionist. To a Thomist, nature itself, in all its eternal aspects is a reflection of divine rationality, and for God to change the laws of nature would be tantamount to divine irrationality. Calvinists don’t really bother with any such constraints except a more general notion of divine character. Everything is a matter of sovereign decrees which while planned timelessly in advance are interventionist to some considerable extreme.

Since there is a healthy sense of free will and self determination in Arminianism and Mormonism, both tend to be interventionist as well, far more than the Thomists. Interventionism is a definining characteristic of Protestant theology.

Like Protestants, most Mormons don’t care very much about the theological implications of the nature of the laws of nature. The general idea is that God authored them and can suspend them at will. I maintain that idea is theologically incoherent for reasons ultimately related to the Thomist objection.

The big issue here is related to the denial of creatio ex nihilo – if you say God created the (first, primal) nature of all things, that denial is pointless. Mormonism as a theology doesn’t really work unless the first/primal nature of things is self existent and uncreated. Salvation from what?

If you say that God has arbitrary control over primal nature of things (those governed by the laws of physics for example) the whole idea of a *plan* of salvation is meaningless, and Mormonism quickly acquires all the weaknesses of run of the mill Arminianism – theodicy, inexplicability of a suffering Atonement, with none of the strengths of classical Thomism (a basis for natural law and natural philosophy, among other things). Theodicy doesn’t make any sense if God can suspend any law (including the ones governing experience and character) at any time.

From a Thomist point of view, the death of nature is the death of reason and everything that flows therefrom. Anything goes. The same point applies to Mormonism, albeit in a different fashion. Wickedness never was happiness? Says who and for how long?

That sounds like the law of the Medes and the Persians (cf. story of Daniel in the OT). God may voluntarily choose to be bound by his own decrees, he may be constrained by his own honor and reputation, but I don’t think it makes any sense to say the decrees themselves bind him.