Heavenly Parents

  • Thread starter Thread starter RuthAnne
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
mtolympus said:
God said that man was made in the likeness of God in the same way a son is made in the likeness of his father.
Click to expand...
A non sequitur.

Let us think rationally. The Father is Spirit. We are not gods, we are creatures. Therefore it is self evident that we are in the likeness of God, and not a mirror image of God. Only Mormons interpret likeness as “exactly made”.

Our immortal souls are created in the likeness of God.

Jesus is the only begotten Son. God from God. We are loved and valued as adopted children of God, but we are not begotten as a son is of a father.
 
Last edited:
Stephen168 said:
A person is an individual substance of a rational nature.

A being is anything that is.

A brick is a being and not a person.

A human is a being and one person.

God is a being with three persons.
Click to expand...
mtolympus said:
However, I see no scriptural basis for this explanation. Indeed, I see a serious contradiction: Then God said, “Let us make man in our own image, after our likeness ”. (Genesis 1:26)
Click to expand...
Stephen168 said:
There is plenty of biblical support including Genesis 1:26. I can understand your confusion, because as I said in my post to Ruthanne; Mormons have the same meaning for being and person.
Click to expand...
mtolympus said:
The point of Genesis was to reveal to us that man was created to be like God. A one person being is not like a three person being, no way.
Click to expand...
mtolympus said:
The first thing the missionaries teach is that Joseph Smith saw God the Father and Jesus Christ and that they are two separate beings.
Click to expand...
mtolympus said:
“Which Father, Son and Holy Ghost are one God, infinite and eternal, without end.” D&C 20:28.

…, it makes more sense to me that three persons can be one God, than it does to say that three persons must be the same being to be one God.
Click to expand...
RebeccaJ said:
Yes we know Mormonism is not rational. Three distinct beings cannot be one god without redefining the word one to mean “one or more”.
Click to expand...
Exactly. And again they believe D&C 20:28 while ignoring D&C 20:19
mtolympus said:
God would not say let us make man “after our likeness” if He wanted to make man to be different than Himself. What then would be to point of God saying let us make man “after our likeness” ?

God said that man was made in the likeness of God in the same way a son is made in the likeness of his father.
Click to expand...
I know, I already explained in what way Christians have always believed we are ‘like’ God. In the mean time you’ve not been about to explain how we are ‘like’ God. You seem to be conflicted on whether man is one being or more than one being. My personal experience is that man is one being yet Genesis says “our likeness.”

D&C 20 proves Mormonism started as a trinitarian religion and then Joseph Smith led the Mormons into apostasy.
 
RebeccaJ said:
A non sequitur.
Click to expand...
It’s very sequitur.
RebeccaJ said:
Let us think rationally. The Father is Spirit.
Click to expand...
Let’s do so right from the Good Book. I’ll assume that you’re basing your statement that “Father is Spirit” from John 4:24. (Please correct me is I’m wrong. You could be using the CCC or something Aquinas wrote.)

Where else are individuals referred to as spirit?

John 3:6 refers to a born-again disciple as spirit. Those disciples clearly have physical bodies.

What is born of flesh is flesh and what is born of spirit is spirit.

1 Corinthians 15:45 refers to Christ, who has a resurrected body, as a “life-giving spirit”.

So, too, it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living being,” the last Adam a life-giving spirit.

Since these two verses refer to embodied beings as spirit, we can and must assume that the Father has a physical body based on John 4:24.
RebeccaJ said:
We are not gods, we are creatures. Therefore it is self evident that we are in the likeness of God, and not a mirror image of God. Only Mormons interpret likeness as “exactly made”.
Click to expand...
John 10:33-35

The Jews answered him, “We are not stoning you for a good work but for blasphemy. You, a man, are making yourself God.”

Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, ‘I said, “You are gods”’?

If it calls them gods to whom the word of God came, and scripture cannot be set aside
RebeccaJ said:
Our immortal souls are created in the likeness of God.
Click to expand...
In the likeness of the embodied God.
RebeccaJ said:
Jesus is the only begotten Son. God from God. We are loved and valued as adopted children of God, but we are not begotten as a son is of a father.
Click to expand...
Acts 17:29 Since therefore we are the offspring of God

The underlying Greek of the word “offspring” here is “genos” meaning of the same race, stock, or kin. Paul was addressing the non-Christian Athenians here when he used this verbiage so they weren’t yet adopted children of God.
 
Once again my advice is to read the Bible as a whole and to stop proof texting…and go reread the numerous threads where these diversionary topics are discussed.

Ps: it is self evident that you are in fact not a god. If you believe yourself to be a god, perhaps you should seek out a mental health expert.
 
Last edited:
RebeccaJ said:
Once again my advice is to read the Bible as a whole and to stop proof texting…and go reread the numerous threads where these diversionary topics are discussed.
Click to expand...
We all love the ECFs around here. Let’s see what Origen said regarding the Gospel of John.

If, therefore, we hear these words plainly, and do not take more pains about them, we are bound to say God is a body. (Robert E. Heine, trans., “Origen Commentary on the Gospel of John Books 13-32,” in The Fathers of the Church (Washington DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1993), 89:93-100)

There are no Bible verses that can lead one to conclude that the Father is composed solely of an immaterial spirit essence. Nowhere does the Bible state that God is bodiless.
 
gazelam said:
There are no Bible verses that can lead one to conclude that the Father is composed solely of an immaterial spirit essence. Nowhere does the Bible state that God is bodiless.
Click to expand...
Yes I know that is what you believe. As I’ve said before, Mormons LOVE the idea of being a god.

Switching to proof texting the ECF isn’t a better alternative.
 
Last edited:
gazelam said:
There are no Bible verses that can lead one to conclude that the Father is composed solely of an immaterial spirit essence. Nowhere does the Bible state that God is bodiless.
Click to expand...
“God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” -John 4:24.

God is spirit means that God the Father does not have a human body. God the Son came to earth in human form (John 1:1), but God the Father did not.

To say that God is spirit is to say that God the Father is invisible. Colossians 1:15 calls God the “invisible God.” First Timothy 1:17 praises God, saying, “To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever.”

Theologically, God must be a spirit in order to be infinite. If God was limited to a physical body, He could not be omnipresent (in all places at once). God the Father is not limited to the dimensional restrictions of created things but can exist in all places at one time. Gos is infinite, the uncreated First Cause that is the power behind all other beings. Angels are finite disembodied beings, pure intellect, no physical body, pure spirit.

(The problem with Mormonism is that people have put their faith Joseph Smith, a man who has been shown to be a charlatan and a fraud. But that’s a different thread.)
 
RebeccaJ said:
Our immortal souls are created in the likeness of God.

Jesus is the only begotten Son. God from God. We are loved and valued as adopted children of God, but we are not begotten as a son is of a father.
Click to expand...
We are physically created in the likeness of God in the same way a son is in the likeness of his father.
 
RebeccaJ said:
Yes we know Mormonism is not rational. Three distinct beings cannot be one god without redefining the word one to mean “one or more”.
Click to expand...
Since “of the same substance” is not biblical, it is just as irrational to say that the three persons of the Godhead are one being.
 
gazelam said:
I’ll assume that you’re basing your statement that “Father is Spirit” from John 4:24.
Click to expand...
I would base it on the fact the Christians have always believed the Father is spirit.

Origen believed that if God is invisible, immutable, eternal, and omnipresent he must not be confined to one place or composed of matter. Christians are rational.
gazelam said:
We all love the ECFs around here. Let’s see what Origen said regarding the Gospel of John.

If, therefore, we hear these words plainly, and do not take more pains about them, we are bound to say God is a body. (Robert E. Heine, trans., “Origen Commentary on the Gospel of John Books 13-32,” in The Fathers of the Church (Washington DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1993), 89:93-100)
Click to expand...
Books 13-32 are fragments of Origen’s commentaries. Considering the cherry picked text you copied and pasted is the opposite of Origen’s belief, I would assume that the statement was Origen presenting a false conclusion he then later refuted.
 
mtolympus said:
Since “of the same substance” is not biblical, it is just as irrational to say that the three persons of the Godhead are one being.
Click to expand...
It is irrational to believe that because “of the same substance” is not in the bible, it has any bearing on the Christian belief in the trinity.
 
Stephen168 said:
My personal experience is that man is one being yet Genesis says “our likeness.”
Click to expand...
If God is one being and plural persons, “Let us make man after our likeness” means they intend to make man as a being with plural persons.

If Jesus is discussing the creation with the Father, as we believe, “Let us make man after our likeness” means they intend to make man as a being of a single person, and as a son is like his father.
 
Stephen168 said:
I know, I already explained in what way Christians have always believed we are ‘like’ God. In the mean time you’ve not been about to explain how we are ‘like’ God. You seem to be conflicted on whether man is one being or more than one being. My personal experience is that man is one being yet Genesis says “our likeness.”
Click to expand...
mtolympus said:
If God is one being and plural persons, “Let us make man after our likeness” means they intend to make man as a being with plural persons.

If Jesus is discussing the creation with the Father, as we believe, “Let us make man after our likeness” means they intend to make man as a being of a single person, and as a son is like his father.
Click to expand...
Therefore Mormons are polytheists, while Christians are monotheists. As I said before, Genesis 1:26 is consistent with Christian belief in the trinity.
Stephen168 said:
D&C 20 proves Mormonism started as a trinitarian religion and then Joseph Smith led the Mormons into apostasy.
Click to expand...
mtolympus said:
…
Click to expand...
 
mtolympus said:
If God is one being and plural persons, “Let us make man after our likeness” means they intend to make man as a being with plural persons.

If Jesus is discussing the creation with the Father, as we believe, “Let us make man after our likeness” means they intend to make man as a being of a single person, and as a son is like his father.
Click to expand...
I could have sworn that I saw someone else point out that “likeness” is not the same as “mirror image” or “exact copy”. Man is like God in that we have a rational soul, not that we are also a Trinity or that God has a physical part that looks like us.
 
whatistrue said:
I could have sworn that I saw someone else point out that “likeness” is not the same as “mirror image” or “exact copy”. Man is like God in that we have a rational soul, not that we are also a Trinity or that God has a physical part that looks like us.
Click to expand...
I prefer listening to the scriptures, rather than to here-say.

The scriptures clearly explain what is meant by “image and likeness”. Man was created in the image and likeness of God in the same way that Adam’s son Seth was born in the image and likeness of his father.
“When God created man, he made them in the likeness if God; 2 he created them male and female. When they were created, he blessed them and named them ‘man’. 3 Adam was one hundred and thirty years old when he begot a son in his likeness, after his image; and he named him Seth.”(Genesis 5:1-3)
Click to expand...
 
mtolympus said:
I prefer listening to the scriptures, rather than to here-say.
Click to expand...
Here-say? Do you mean hearsay? Could you kindly point out where interpretation and understanding are hearsay? And a literalistic interpretation is not always the best.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top