But Luke did not write “right hand side”. Instead he wrote “saw the glory of God and Jesus standing on the right hand of God”. Which is the same right hand with power and glory that Luke used in Luke 22:69 "Hereafter shall the Son of man sit on the right hand of the power of God. "
Excellent post, Thank You!
Oh Jay my dear friend, all of this “religion” stuff has made me nuts & sometimes I just can’t type straight…
Pam, you make me chuckle!!
You mean that you now have Parkers opinion on file now and now claim that all of mormonism makes this claim that parker wrote? I think not. Parker has his own opinions but he does not represent all of mormonism.
That was quite a stretch Paul. Protestantism also makes that claim. I think that parker got his understanding from protestantism but not from mormonism.Jay,I appreciate your patience and insight here, but none of this clarifies this issue for me. I just don’t get it. I just don’t see where anyone before Joseph Smith and Mormons believed and taught that God the Father had flesh and bones. You’ve given me one or two lines out of scripture that you say support this belief, but they are not as clear cut as you would have me believe and I haven’t see any evidence that they were ever interpreted the way Joseph Smith interpreted them. In fact I see the opposite.
I don’t see where Moses said anything about flesh and bones and God having previously been a man like us. As I pointed out with my personal experience in speaking with God “face to face” in Eucharistic Adoration, and given the lack of any other writings or teachings regarding this concept, I’m inclined to believe that Moses’ experience was not as literal as Mormons would have people believe.
Would it be the Mormon contention then that Moses believed God was once a man, the rest of the Israelites didn’t accept this and so no one else believed this until Joseph Smith received his revelations? Are there any other prophets that taught this concept/belief?
Many nonmormons do not realize this but what the lds church has about what Joseph Smith said, is reported speech by people who were taking notes when he was talking. This makes accuracy highly problematic. It is no different for the quotation that Paul presented.
Are you saying that the quote below is NOT true to what Smith said…??
And if the man said this, WHY would you want to change your historical records to sugar coat your movement?
At this moment, mormons are studying the teachings of Joseph Smith and the lds church has provided a manual for this. But if one looks at the references to Joseph Smith’s words, one would see that it is basically something that Joseph Smith reportedly said from notes that a church leader took when Joseph was talking. They should be reliable but who knows? I don’t think that Joseph Smith was a great record keeper. He seldom appreciated writing something down on paper. So, we must trust the notetakers. That was my point.
No one is sugarcoating anything. I am just saying that what Joseph Smith said is most likely reported speech from notes by someone in the audience, most likely a trusted church leader at that time. But did he get it exactly right, that is the question.
Thank you for your (name removed by moderator)ut, Parker. Based on the discussion thus far I have to conclude that Joseph Smith was flat out wrong and has misled Mormons into believing something false (that God the Father has flesh and bones). I have seen no credible evidence to actually believe this doctrine. Is this a critical doctrine that all Mormons must believe to remain faithful to the church?Jay,
You could look at the Pearl of Great Price and read about Enoch and Abraham as well as Moses if you wish, and learn of their interaction with God on a personal basis.
Two things that relate to your question come to my mind:
Please clarify. What do you mean by a “forced” system of belief?
- The prophets wrote down what they were guided by the Spirit to write. I think Isaiah did that as well as any prophet, but didn’t describe God in any specific way that I am aware of.
- As I had noted before, I think it is God’s intent that humankind be allowed agency with a full range of choices, yet with the access to knowledge from the Holy Spirit. I think it would have run counter to God’s purposes for a great many declarations by prophets of the nature of God and His origin or the fact that He is a resurrected Person. That would have brought about a “forced” system of belief.
Part of me I guess is stuck, because if God the Father was flesh and bones and was once a man like us - then to me it follows that He was created by someone or something which is contrary to everything I have ever learned about God and to me seems contrary to scripture.
So I think it is fine for you to choose what you personally wish to believe, given the choices that are available to you, about the nature of God. I personally seek to do that by inspiration and revelation and interaction with God that is one-to-one. I think that is what He intended for us on this earth, and that is attested by the teachings of Christ and the apostles, especially John.
I absolutely agree. As I have said (multiple times now), I interact with God “face to face” in Eucharistic Adoration, and also through prayer and celebration of Mass. I have had numerous prayers answered, one significant one answered directly by Jesus through a novena to St. Therese. What has been “revealed” to me by and through the Holy Spirit is that the Catholic Church is the Church that Jesus founded. I still have seen no evidence of an “Apostasy”. I simply see gross misinterpretations of scripture designed to fit Joseph Smith’s beliefs. Perhaps, as Marie said, it is because I am viewing Mormonism through the lens of traditional Christianity so Mormonism appears to be a different gospel than what was preached before, and thus subject to automatic rejection.
I was trying to at least understand where Mormons are coming from with some of their beliefs.
I have no idea whether Moses believed that God the Father was “once a man”, other than that when He saw Him, He saw a Person whom he spoke with face to face. Maybe he assumed God had existed eternally from the eternal past in that likeness to man, and was content with that assumption.
Would that be similar to Islam’s hadiths vs. the Quran?
It sounds like it to me Jay, but I’ll let the person answer that.
ParkerD claims he is highly enlightened because only he and those like him are one-to-one with God. Everyone else just haven’t evolved yet to this spiritual understanding of the nature of God.
Jay,
You are still not getting it. Much of what mormons have of Joseph Smith was reported speech, taken from notes by lds leaders as Joseph was speaking. We have at this moment very little that he actually wrote or said. It is basically taken from someone else’s notes. Now the Joseph Smith Papers are being published by the lds church and I am hoping that they contain his actually words and not just reported speech by others.
I don’t know. It is just that what we have of Joseph Smith is reported speech based on notes that were taken when Joseph was speaking. And so, I always know that what I am reading is reported speech. But did he actually say those things and can I trust the notetaker is the question that I always have. And it doesn’t matter if the reported speech paints him in a good or bad light. It is still reported speech and not the exact words, perhaps.
I don’t know. We do have a lot of elitism here on this section of the forum. I have seen catholics speak of catholic doctrine as if they are the definitive opinion of the catechism. Could this be cultish behavior also? I prefer to call it amaturish intellectualism on both sides which can but not always translate into a perceived elitism.
Jay,
Based on any discussion I have ever had and any scriptures I have ever read when Trinitarians try and support their belief in the Trinity as described by the Nicene Creed through a use of Bible text, then I conclude that “they are flat out wrong” also. But that is totally fine with me. They can choose whatever belief they want to choose, nor do I feel “forced” to believe such a completely unfounded and unintelligible doctrine as that is.
Since this isn’t a thread about the Trinity I’ll let this go other than to say that your last comment is wrong and rather uncharitable given what I’ve read of your other posts.
As to your “if” and “then it follows” logic, I suppose that makes sense except when compared with the doctrine that Christ always existed and is uncreated, yet came to earth with a physical body and is now resurrected with a resurrected body. If that is true for Christ, then why can’t it be true for God the Father?
- But based on my interaction with people on the internet, some present their views in such a way as to convey a sense of “forced” belief, meaning that if one doesn’t believe in such and such a way they are not “Christian” or are believing “heresy”. Those are attempts of the use of a forced logic, and I don’t buy into it at all.
Because God the Father and Jesus and the Holy Spirit are One.
Same to you.
- Your experience is your own, and mine is my own. I have experiences with the Holy Spirit that differ with what you have experienced, and I’m not bothered by that circumstance at all. One of us could be wrong, or we could both be right, as long as we’re headed in a direction that worships God with all of our heart, might, mind and strength and seeks to love our neighbor as ourselves, and seeks the forgiveness that Christ offers to all. Peace to you in your pursuits of doing that.
No.
