Heavenly Parents

[mtolympus]

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.

Yes, hearsay. Thanks for the correction.

I could have sworn that I saw someone else point out that

If you have information with equal authority to the scriptures please let me know. Please give references.

 

[whatistrue]

please let me know

Such has been provided multiple times by many people and you simply refuse to accept it. No, I am not going to play that game.

 

[Stephen168]

Here-say? Do you mean hearsay?

Yes, hearsay. Thanks for the correction.

Could you kindly point out where interpretation and understanding are hearsay?

….

mtolympus failed to answer the most salient question.

 

[mtolympus]

In the same way?

Good eye, Ruthanne. Let me rephrase that: Man is in the image and likeness of God in the way that Adam’s son Seth is 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)

 

[Horton]

I prefer listening to the scriptures, rather than to here-say.

Yes, hearsay.

Heresy such as men can become gods? Heresy such as a man must be married to obtain exultation? Heresy such as women are unable to obtain exultation? Heresy such as Joseph Smith found a “new” book of scriptures? Heresy such as Jesus visited America? Heresy such as the inhabitants of the Americas were of Jewish tribes?

 

[whatistrue]

Heresy such as men can

Hearsay (report of another person’s words by a witness), not heresy (holding opinions contrary to doctrine, or rejection of doctrine).

 

[Horton]

I know the difference. I was making a point.

 

[whatistrue]

Probably would have been more effective without the apparent error.

 

[Horton]

It wasn’t an error, it was an intentional use of the word. Thank you very much but please from now I’ll do my own editing.

 

[mtolympus]

I use the Bible to make my point because I don’t expect Catholics to accept Joseph Smith or modern revelation.

 

[whatistrue]

You may note that I said “apparent” error, as in it looked like one whether it was or not. A deliberate word choice that did not appear to be an error.

 

[RebeccaJ]

RuthAnne:

In the same way?

Good eye, Ruthanne. Let me rephrase that: Man is in the image and likeness of God in the way that Adam’s son Seth is 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)

In “Mere Christianity”, Lewis devotes a whole chapter to explaining the difference between begotten and created. I recommend his book.

Jesus is begotten, God from God. Seth was begotten, human from human.

We are created by God (Holy Trinity), not begotten. So no, being created in the likeness of God is not the same as begotten of God.

Being created by God is not the same of a human likeness to a human parent. Or of a human being begotten of a human. One thing (God) is not like the other (human).

God is divine. If you were in the literal likeness as you are interpreting, then you would be divine. Yet obviously, you are not.

 

[mtolympus]

mtolympus failed to answer the most salient question.

I didn’t answer the question because I never said that interpretation and understanding are hearsay. His whole comment was hearsay.

I could have sworn that I saw someone else point out that “likeness” is not the same as “mirror image” or “exact copy”.

 

[whatistrue]

No, that’s not an example of hearsay. That is an example of recollection.

 

[mtolympus]

God is divine. If you were in the literal likeness as you are interpreting, then you would be divine. Yet obviously, you are not.

Perhaps not me, but according to a quote from the original post, Latter-day Saints believe that our young women are:

I found this interesting. In their recent world conference they said that the theme of the young women was changed from something like heavenly father to heavenly parents.

“I am a beloved daughter of heavenly parents , with a divine nature and eternal destiny."

 

[Stephen168]

I didn’t answer the question because I never said that interpretation and understanding are hearsay. His whole comment was hearsay.

Are you claiming no Catholic ever 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.

As the Catholic Christian understanding of Genesis 1:26?

 

[gazelam]

“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.

Do you also believe that John 3:6 means that born-again disciples do not have a physical body and that 1 Corinthians 15:45 teaches that the resurrected Christ does not have a physical body? Both are referred to as “spirit” in these New Testament verses.

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.”

Colossians 1:15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.

If Christ is the image then why can Christ be seen? And how come Moses could see God face to face? Numbers 12:6-8. God is only invisible to those of us who haven’t yet seen Him.

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).

Do you believe that Christ is God? Does He currently have a body? (Philippians 3:21) Is He limited by that body?

(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.)

This is nothing more than an uncharitable statement.

 

[RebeccaJ]

Obviously you are not divine and obviously there is a goddess in your belief system (polytheism).

 

[gazelam]

Obviously you are not divine and obviously there is a goddess in your belief system (polytheism).

CCC 460 The Word became flesh to make us " partakers of the divine nature ": “For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God.” “For the Son of God became man so that we might become God.” “The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods.”

 

[Stephen168]

CCC 460 The Word became flesh to make us " partakers of the divine nature ": “For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God.” “For the Son of God became man so that we might become God.” “The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity , assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods.”

As history shows, Mormonism started as a Christian religion. Joseph Smith and the early Mormons taught the Trinity, there is only one being who is God, the Father was a spirit, God was the uncreated creator of everything, and man was part of his creation. So in its earliest days, Mormons would agree with paragraph 460 of the Catholic Catechism. They would have agreed that man can only share in God’s divinity, not actually become God as Joseph Smith and Lorenzo Snow later taught. We can only share because there is only one God; the uncreated creator, and we are his creation. Mormons now reject Christian deification for their own polytheist theology, of a Council gods, God was once a man, and that they can actually become as God is now.