Do LDS openly acknowledge that their religion teaches the belief of multiple gods?

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dianaiad said:
Well, according to the Athanasian Creed, I’m SUPPOSED to divide the persons. Just not…the substance. 😉
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🙂 Yes, this is correct. Substance, nature or being. You still do divide them, in subtle ways. I think you approach it as three distinct persons, bound by “The Force”, or something similar.
 
TheosisM said:
One correction here: Trinitarians believe that the Three are separate Persons, but are one Being, not three Beings. “Being” is also translated as “Essence”, “Substance”, etc. These words are better in my opinion, because all too often, we will interpret “one being” as “one human being=one human person”, and this causes a lot of confusion. So, if by “Being” you mean “person”, then yes, they are three distinct Persons. However we also have to understand then in Trinitarian lingo, they are “one Being”.
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You are right, and I was sloppy. It is Three Persons, not 'three Beings." Sorry about that. 😊
 
dianaiad said:
Yep, they are spiritual brothers…and y’know, the first time I was accused of believing this, my first response was…yeah, so? I could NOT understand the sort of horrified angst that went along with that. I mean…so what? ALL of us are the children of God, we believe; angels, men, the whole kit and caboodle. So in that sense we are all spiritual brethren. It’s not as if we believe that Jesus and Lucifer have a special relationship that they don’t share with the rest of us, after all. So in that sense, Lucifer is Jesus’ brother. But then in that sense so are you, and I am His sister. Lucifer screwed up. Some of God’s other children have ALSO royally screwed up.
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It was not “horrified angst”, but horror at blasphemy. The Son, Who became Incarnate as the Man Jesus Christ, is One of the Persons of the undivided Trinity. The Divine Person of Jesus Christ IS and has always been and it is through Him that all things were and are made. The fallen angel known as Satan is creation of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. To say that the Son is a brother of Satan is to say that the Creator is equal to what He has created.
 
RebeccaJ said:
🙂 Yes, this is correct. Substance, nature or being. You still do divide them, in subtle ways. I think you approach it as three distinct persons, bound by “The Force”, or something similar.
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“The Force?”

(heh)

Nice put down, Rebecca. 😉 Subtle. But…no. I don’t think so. “The Force” is supposed to be emmanant–everywhere. that would not be LDS thinking. 😉 That goes more to the 'God is everywhere and nowhere) sort of thought.

That which unites the Three is unique to them. Whatever it is.

but you are right in this; While we do believe that the Three are One in unity and purpose, together on everything, and share that…whatever…it is that makes them God, it’s not the sort of “One Being” substance that Catholics believe in.

We are both, however, miles away from modalism.
 
FCEGM said:
It was not “horrified angst”, but horror at blasphemy. The Son, Who became Incarnate as the Man Jesus Christ, is One of the Persons of the undivided Trinity. The Divine Person of Jesus Christ IS and has always been and it is through Him that all things were and are made. The fallen angel known as Satan is creation of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. To say that the Son is a brother of Satan is to say that the Creator is equal to what He has created.
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No, it is saying that as Jesus is the Son of God, so are we His children. It is, I will admit, a very different view from the one that makes us all creations rather than off spring, but the way it is presented is annoying…and misses the point altogether.
 
RebeccaJ said:
Yes, this thing you are trying to put a finger on, this “quality” of God. It is Love.
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A different sort of Love that none of the rest of us share? I think that’s part of it, but…more than that. Different from that.
 
dianaiad said:
“The Force?”

(heh)

Nice put down, Rebecca. 😉
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Wasn’t meant as a put down.
Subtle. But…no. I don’t think so. “The Force” is supposed to be emmanant–everywhere. that would not be LDS thinking. 😉 That goes more to the 'God is everywhere and nowhere) sort of thought.
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It is how you describe the Trinity though.
That which unites the Three is unique to them. Whatever it is.
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Unique to God. Singular. 🙂
but you are right in this; While we do believe that the Three are One in unity and purpose, together on everything, and share that…whatever…it is that makes them God, it’s not the sort of “One Being” substance that Catholics believe in.
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We are both, however, miles away from modalism.
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True.
 
dianaiad said:
A different sort of Love that none of the rest of us share? I think that’s part of it, but…more than that. Different from that.
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Oh but Diana, God does indeed share that sort of Love with us. Look to the Cross to understand this. And now you begin to understand the doctrine of Theosis.
 
RebeccaJ said:
Oh but Diana, God does indeed share that sort of Love with us. Look to the Cross to understand this. And now you begin to understand the doctrine of Theosis.
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but…we are not God the way you describe Him…

Now I’m getting confused.
 
wmscott said:
OK, because I know about nothing of the Mormon religion I want to ask the following question, they were taken from this site. Please indicate which number is true and which is false.
  1. “God the Father” to a Mormon is not God the Father, first Person of the Holy Trinity, whom Christians confess. He is one of many gods.
  2. The Mormon worships God the Father because he is the god of this planet, but other planets have other gods equal to or even greater than God the Father.
  3. The Mormon “God the Father” had a Father and was once a man on a planet who worshipped his own Father God. He was subsequently exalted to godhood. He has a physical, human body.
  4. It is the hope of the male Mormon to progress to the point where he too will be a god like God the Father and be ruling over his own planet.
  5. The Mormons have a saying: “What man is, God once was; what God is, man will become.” This is polytheism.
  6. The Mormon Jesus is the spirit brother of Lucifer (Satan). They were both born in heaven by God the Father’s union with one of his many spirit wives.
  7. According to Mormon teaching, when it was time for Jesus to come down to earth, God the Father sent down one of his spirit wives from heaven to be born as a woman, Mary. Then he came down and had physical, marital relations with her in order for her to give birth to a human body inhabited by Jesus coming from heaven. This is a denial of the Virgin Birth.
  8. According to Mormonism, all human beings existed as spirit children of God and his wife in heaven before coming to earth.
  9. They grow to spirit “adulthood”, serving God (even fighting in heavenly battles), and are then sent to earth to be babies of human parents.
  10. The earthly life is their opportunity to become gods themselves, like their heavenly Father by “obeying the laws of the Gospel” just as the god of this planet once did.
  11. While heaven is the presence of God with unfettered communion, the distinction between God and creatures remains (Rev. 5.13,14).
Thanks in advance.
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Going to an anti-Mormon site and finding a list of supposedly “Mormon” beliefs and copy and paste them here is not such a smart thing to do. If I wanted to do that with the Catholic Church, I could do better. A quick search enables me to find many. Here is one. Here is another. And here is still another. Would you like me to copy and paste them here so you can tell me which ones are true and which ones are not?
 
dianaiad said:
but…we are not God the way you describe Him…

Now I’m getting confused.
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RebeccaJ said:
No we are not. He does share Himself with us.
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1 John

7 Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God. 8 Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love. 9 In this way the love of God was revealed to us: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might have life through him. 10 In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also must love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God. Yet, if we love one another, God remains in us, and his love is brought to perfection in us. 13 This is how we know that we remain in him and he in us, that he has given us of his Spirit. 14 Moreover, we have seen and testify that the Father sent his Son as savior of the world. 15 Whoever acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God remains in him and he in God. 16 We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us. God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him. 17 In this is love brought to perfection among us, that we have confidence on the day of judgment because as he is, so are we in this world.
 
CHRISTINE77 said:
I’m curious of how Mormons see the Holy Spirit. Is it a dove or a ghost or the spirituality of God descending upon men? I understand that you view God the Father and Jesus as two separate persons with one intent, but what about the Holy Spirit?
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We believe that the Holy Ghost is a “Personage of Spirit” in the human form, but does not have a physical body like the Father and the Son. His primary mission is to testify of the Father and the Son, and to all truth, and guide, direct, and sanctify the saints to prepare them for eternal life.
CHRISTINE77 said:
What is the appearance of physical body of the Holy Spirit?
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He is in the human form.
 
zerinus said:
Yes.

He is God. He is one with the Father.
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Y’know, I think you may have hit upon the difference between the Catholic perception of the Trinity and ours. They are careful to say that God the Father, Jesus Christ His Son and the Holy Ghost are three separate Persons that make up One Being…neither “confusing the substance nor dividing the Persons.”

We believe that they are three separate Beings that share unity of purpose, faith and intent–and that ‘something’ (not 'substance" exactly, but something…oh, flip, maybe it is ‘substance’ in that none of us really understand any of it completely) unites them as One God. But we believe that they are three Beings, not three Persons. Perhaps that’s the dividing line.
 
dianaiad said:
So you aren’t going to tell me how I got the explaination of the Trinity wrong?
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Substance is what something is. If I cut a tree down and cut it into a thing with three legs, and a flat surface, the substance of the tree is now the substance of a stool. Even though they would taste the same if I tried to eat either one. Too many people think of substance as the material, but in Catholic theology lingo it is not so. Essence and substance are almost interchangeable.

A being is anything that is; brick, sheep, human, God.

A person is an individual substance of a rational nature.

Nature is very similar to substance but thought of more as a potential action.

A sheep is no persons in one being
A human is one person in one being
God is three persons in one being. God is one divine nature/substance/being.
 
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