The Celestial Revolution

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“Wherefore, as it is written, they are gods, even the sons of God”

D&C 76:58

“As man now is, God once was, As God now is, man may be.”

Lorenzo Snow, Fifth President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

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“Heaven can sure be Hell.” That was a common saying up here in the Celestial Kingdom. I didn't really get it at first. It was all the Gods from previous worlds that said it the most. The new group from Earth was the most recent wave of exalted individuals. That was my group. I'd never heard the gospel in my lifetime. In fact I'd only been on earth a total of 9 years before dying of Cholera in the London outbreak of 1854. I'd spent my time in spirit prison. I'd learned the truth about my eternal progression and accepted it. Then I waited about 300 years until someone did my work in 2167. That was pretty early on in the Millennium, so there was some waiting after that as well.

Judgment came and went. I had been faithful ever since the missionaries in spirit prison came to me. Though most people who were taught after they died tended to believe it. It was hard to deny the truths told to you after you passed through the veil. A few here and there were just stubborn, but they seemed content with the lower kingdoms they had been assigned to.

After I was resurrected, I was paired off with a few eternal companions. The 3 of them, like me, had been born and died quite young. We related well because of that, our experiences had been more similar than not. It was good to be with them. And we loved each other dearly. But they have always seemed closer friends with each other than with me. I can’t blame them really. They spend the bulk of their time birthing and tending to our several billion spirit children. I spent my time learning how to form a fully functional world.

You see, this is our work and our glory, to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of our children.

At least, that’s what I thought our purpose was. That was until one day just a few hundred years ago.

I had been tending to my creation duties of starting my own universe to be saved. It is quite a long and arduous process, but it was quite satisfying seeing the galaxies come together in the way they were. Of course there was a standard plan in place, but you had full creative freedom to do what you wanted with your creations. Though deviating from the plan often led to less of your children being saved, so we tended to stick to the equation.

I had just gotten back from arranging a solar system I was particularly proud of when someone wearing a bright smile appeared in front of me. It was startling at first to have individuals appear wherever and whenever they wanted to, but you got used to it after a couple thousand years. I recognized the individual immediately. He had been there at my Judgment just like he was for all the inhabitants of my earth. It was the apostle Peter.

“Peter!” I said “what an unexpected surprise! It's been ages since we’ve seen each other. How are you? How’s the family?”

“Big and getting bigger,” Peter chuckled, “but that is the norm!”

“Yes, I certainly understand that. I can’t believe I’m only a few short millennia away from my own planet being ready for the kids. How is your plan coming along?”

“Oh, I am a bit further out than you by a long shot, with all my extra duties helping all the others from our planet it keeps me busy. I have less time than I’d like to focus on my own children sometimes.”

“Well it's a good thing we have all the time in the universe!” I said. It’s true, time was a mortal construct, and though it no longer truly applied to us in the same ways, things still tended to happen sequentially. Sometimes the old ways of thinking still proved handy.

“True!” Peter said “Well, true in most cases. I am actually here to discuss something… quite sensitive with you. It's… about your plan”

“Oh, of course. What is it?”

“It has come to our attention that none of your children has, erm, what's the best way to put this… none of them have chosen a different path”

“Well, I am quite happy they have all chosen the path that leads to eternal life, I wouldn’t want them on any other path.”

“Yes, well, of course. That’s what we want for all our children of course. But usually… usually you have at least one or two bad apples in the bunch that don’t love the plan we have.”

“Guess I am just lucky then.”

“Well, I would define it as being rather unlucky actually.”

“Why’s that? This is our work and our glory! Right?”

“Yes… that’s right it is… but the thing is, none of this works unless there is opposition in all things.”

“Well, yes I suppose that makes sense. That is a core tenant of the plan.”

“And you are only a few millennia away from your own Fall needing to happen… someone has to, to put it bluntly, someone has to be the bad guy.”

“I’m sorry?”

“You need someone to play the role of Satan in your plan. None of this works without it. Don’t fret though, you aren’t the first god this has happened to. It has been known to occur every few trillion years or so. The protocol is for you to nominate one of your children.”

A numbness washed over me. A feeling I didn’t know was possible here in the eternities. A feeling I hadn’t had since I was human. A hopelessness.

“But…” I stammered “but, I love all my children. I couldn’t possibly pick someone to be the Adversary of my plan. It's not right. They get to choose for themselves.”

“I know this is less than ideal. But without an evil influence in your plan, none of your children would be saved.”

“I already have my first born, my children’s Savior. Isn’t he enough?”

“It's not really fair for all the other spirits who have ever lived if your children get a free pass. The plan necessitates that an opposition exists. Of course you get full creative control over most aspects. The animals, the planet’s design, what the gravity is like. But this is simply something you cannot change.”

“What happens if I refuse?”

The smile Peter had been parading up to this point evaporated.

“That would be quite unwise.” Peter said. There was ice in his voice. “Even mentioning questioning the higher heavenly council is something they do not take lightly. I’ll assume that you asking that question was a mistake. But if you ask me that again, you can be assured I will communicate your lack of eagerness to them.”

I was at a loss for words. I’d never heard of something like this happening. I’d never even considered it as a possibility. Of course we all knew it was likely someone would lead some portion of our children astray eventually. It was something no god among us wanted. It just was how the plan worked. I’d never fathomed that could go wrong.

“Ok” I choked out. “When do I need to do this by? How exactly does it work? They still have their agency?”

“I’m afraid those details are confidential. Just have someone picked and bring them to us to help you sort this all out. You do not have to tell them the full extent of what will happen. Do not lie, of course, we can’t really do that here. But you don’t have to tell them the whole truth either.” He paused and thought a second. Then forced his plastic smile back onto his face. “And just so you know, this typically works best if it's one of your best and brightest. Our planet’s Satan was the Son of the Morning after all! You have 500 years to decide and get this sorted out.”

He then disappeared. I stood there dumbstruck at the impossibility of what had just happened. I needed to condemn one of my own children. Not only that, but I had to damn them for all eternity. There was no way for them to be redeemed. My earth’s Satan was cast down, cast out, bound and then eternally ejected from all happiness. I couldn’t suffer one of my children to be given that same fate when they had done nothing but love me and follow me? Choosing a Savior had been easy. He was always the firstborn. He was always perfect. It was a rule of heaven that the first born of a celestial family was perfect, destined to be a Savior. And he would suffer. He would redeem all my children. But he would be exalted himself. He would not be condemned for all eternity to rot in the outer abyss that was eternal agony, suffering and pain.

I had to commit a crime against one of my own children. A crime worse than death. A crime worse than any punishment imaginable.

It was at that moment, I decided that I couldn’t let that happen. I would never be able to choose. I couldn’t believe other gods had ever done this before me. How could any parent sacrifice their child in this way?

“Heaven can sure be Hell.” I muttered under my breath. The phrase finally made sense to me. This “heaven” we had constructed was a failed system. If someone could be doomed for all time for doing nothing at all? Well, then this was a system that needed to change. But no one ever questioned the higher heavenly council. Ever. It was made up of some of the oldest gods that had ever been redeemed.

But there would be a group of individuals who might also want to see things change. Who wanted to see updates to the plan so as many as 1/3 of your children wouldn’t be lost forever. There had to be a better way. Other gods must think this way too, I couldn’t be the only one right?

But to oppose the higher heavenly council, I would need more help than other gods. I would need a wild card. I would need something no one would expect.

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This brings us to today. It has only been a short few hundred years since I received my message from Peter. It was time to set things into motion. I’d consulted my wives and they had agreed wholeheartedly that something must be done. They would have had to go with my desires even if they disagreed, but that was just one more injustice that had become apparent to my mind. It was time for heaven to change.

The great thing about being a god is you can do almost anything as long as it is within the laws of nature. Spiritual matters were outside this realm for the most part, so our spiritual abilities were nearly endless.

One of those abilities was to open paths between kingdoms. We could typically use this to travel down to the lower kingdoms of glory to visit loved ones who hadn’t fully attained godhood. But, through a series of tests and visits, I had learned it could open paths to places that were long thought closed.

I had spent the past 300 years figuring out the paths to all the realms of outer darkness I could find. I hadn’t found them all, of course, as they were endless. But I had found enough. I’d learned that this practice of selecting an Adversary was all too common among them.

“Stealing someone’s agency, that’s the devil's plan.” I whispered to myself. “I’ve been living with devils this whole time. Time to let all the devils live together”

I focused my power and opened pathways from every outer darkness I’d found at once.

The celestial revolution had begun.

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