It’s also funny, how you say “take another look at these scriptures without pre-
It appears your answer is Yes, totally ignore what Isaiah said, for
It’s also funny, how you say “take another look at these scriptures without pre-
It appears your answer is Yes, totally ignore what Isaiah said, for
Yes, that is what I see as well.
It seems to me all you did was to kick the question down the road a little further. What is Divinity with a capital D? How are progression and Divinity linked? I am afraid we’ll have to go into a definition of terms and then somebody will eventually say “ontological” and kapow.Well we know what happens when you assume…
The answer was already given in this post:
"Catholics and other orthodox Christians believe that when God the Son Incarnated, He was both fully God, and fully man. Therefore, He could learn, grow, and be a human, since He was fully human. However, He did not grow in Divinity, since He was already fully Divine (and never was not-God). "
As Catholics, we believe that Jesus Christ was both fully God and fully man while here. He certainly increased in wisdom and stature (noting that some translations give “stature” as “years”), as any man would. However in His Divinity, there was nothing for Him to learn, since He was God (and for Catholics, there are no gradations of Godhood which one progresses through).
Further, when those verses are read in context, one sees that it has nothing to do with Jesus becoming more God, or progressing in Divinity (as if He was less God/Divine prior). Is that how you read them?
Immortality and eternal life do not necessarily translate into divinity. There is only one who is eternally divine and that is God, not you or me.
Nice distinction.
Progression and Divinity are not linked because God is ontologically unique.
We are arguing about whether a rock can progress to become god.
God is uncreated, we are created. God can not make us uncreated. Yes, I’ve been told by another Mormon that something created can be uncreated. It is irrational but it isn’t the only irrational thing Mormons believe.
Eternal life is being with God, not becoming God.
I must say, this string of interactions with you has been very odd. You keep changing the issue being discussed, without answering questions asked of you. It began when I responded to you that the issue is not just the LDS belief that the Father was once a man (since Catholics have no issue with Christ’s Incarnation), but the belief that the Father was a man that progressed or achieved Godhood. You then responded that you don’t know if that was ever said, as well as mentioning Christ and whether He progressed to Godhood (which isn’t what I was talking about). To which I responded twice with evidences supporting this generally known LDS idea (although not all LDS may believe it, it is certainly a theologically allowable teaching). You then asked about how I understand Jesus growing from grace to grace, and Luke 2:40, 52, to which I responded in the previously linked to post, though I’m not sure what it had to do with anything. I also asked you how you understand those verses, which you haven’t responded to yet. Now you saying that “all you did was kick the question down the road a little further”, whatever that means, or whatever that has to do with anything. Now you’re talking about exaltation…
Very odd.
) or “nature”/“kind” difference between God and man. God is God, man is man. There is a difference in nature, if you will, between us. In contrast, Latter-day Saints believe that man is the literal spiritual offspring of Heavenly Parents, and are of the same “kind” or type of being as Heavenly Father and Mother. The difference between us and them is one of progression. They are further ahead than us.lol…that is how all mormons discuss things…they change, deflect, back off, turn around, put their left leg in, put their left leg out, and do the Hokie Pokie and turn themselves about…I must say, this string of interactions with you has been very odd. You keep changing the issue being discussed, without answering questions asked of you. It began when I responded to you that the issue is not just the LDS belief that the Father was once a man (since Catholics have no issue with Christ’s Incarnation), but the belief that the Father was a man that progressed or achieved Godhood. You then responded that you don’t know if that was ever said, as well as mentioning Christ and whether He progressed to Godhood (which isn’t what I was talking about). To which I responded twice with evidences supporting this generally known LDS idea (although not all LDS may believe it, it is certainly a theologically allowable teaching). You then asked about how I understand Jesus growing from grace to grace, and Luke 2:40, 52, to which I responded in the previously linked to post, though I’m not sure what it had to do with anything. I also asked you how you understand those verses, which you haven’t responded to yet. Now you saying that “all you did was kick the question down the road a little further”, whatever that means, or whatever that has to do with anything. Now you’re talking about exaltation…
Anyway, here is a summary of my thoughts on these matters:
-Catholics and Latter-day Saints approach the nature of God and man from two different theological perspectives. Catholics believe that there is an ontological (yes, there’s that word, ya know, a theological word used in theological discussions
-Latter-day Saint theology, as already demonstrated, allows for the idea (and various leaders and manuals have taught it) that God the Father was not only a man (interesting when this opens up the question of the existence of humans somewhere else before God created man), but was a man that progressed to and/or achieved/attained Godhood. Joseph Smith, in his King Follett Discourse, “refute[d]” the idea that God has always been God from all eternity. Such an idea is not allowable at all in Catholic theology, which posits that God has always been God for eternity, and that God has eternally existed as three distinct Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
-In Catholic theology, Jesus Christ, God the Son, the Son of God, has eternally been God. There never was a time when He wasn’t fully God. He did not stop being God when He Incarnated. When He came to this earth, He was both fully God and fully man. Because He was fully man, He could grow, learn, increase in wisdom, etc. This does not mean that there was some change in His Godhood, since He has always been God.
-In Catholic theology, through God’s grace, we can participate in His very life. This is known as theosis, or deification.
TexanKnight, I know you still love me, despite all my Mormonisms. I figure I’m a guest here, I only try to provoke people to think. I’m not a Mormon apologist because none of you are having it and I have too much respect for you all to attack. Yeah, we have our differences but I’m pretty sure we’d all be pretty good friends if we were to meet off the battleground.
But isn’t that the point? Did you read what you wrote? God became man, man did not become God. Or do you believe that Jesus was first a man who progressed to godhood and then decided to regress back to a man? I am not trying to be flip here. It is a serious question. What do you believe about the progression/regression of Jesus?
Do you worship Jesus Christ? What about the Holy Ghost?
Let us not forget sinless!!!
No, I worship God the Father. I approach the Father through the Son by the power of the Holy Ghost.
no…you worship A god…one of many…who was once a sinful man.
Not even a god, you know, just a super human.
This was one of the most difficult struggles I faced as an active member - how to appropriately address/view Jesus. I felt that he was relegated in a way to a demi-god of sorts based on the teaching that he was spiritual offspring of God and our “elder brother.” The fact that He was at one point our equal in a sense bothered me.
Joseph F. Smith
Gordon B. Hinckley
and then to make it more confusing:
The Book of Mormon was written by monotheist believers in the one triune God.
What you think is the result of Joseph Smith leading his people away from Christianity into a polytheistic apostasy. Had Joseph Smith been faithful to the book he “found” this would never have happened.