J
Jim_Dandy
Guest
To Paul Dupre:
:bowdown::bowdown::bowdown::clapping:
:bowdown::bowdown::bowdown::clapping:
- Status
B
BrotherJohn7
Guest
Lies
““We believe the Bible to be the word of God, as far as it is translated correctly; we also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God.”
A) There are dozens of Bible translations, are there not?
B) The Bible (my opinion based on fact) is not a text book handed to us by God himself but rather a collection of texts that people in power decided to include, or not. There are many texts/books that were once a part of Bible which have been removed.
C) The Council of Nicaea convened in 325 A.D. in an ATTEMPT to form consensus in the church, meaning that only 325 years after the coming of Christ there wasn’t consensus on numerous issues therefore a council of MEN attempted to sort it out. At that there was dissension resulting in the excommunication of many who felt they got it wrong.
Gentlemen, it took a council THEN to decide whether Heavenly Father, Jesus and the Holy Ghost were one in the same or if they were three distinct parts of the Godhead. MEN voted for the idea of the Trinity.
Frankly the ideas that “God exists as three persons but is one God” . . . that Jesus was praying to himself in the Garden of Gethsemane . . . that when Christ was baptized “And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” is nothing short of lunacy to me.
And there’s plenty more.
There is no question that the Bible is a document that has the hands of man all over it. And there is considerable reason to believe the story is incomplete.
Again, let’s get this much right:
“We believe the Bible to be the word of God, as far as it is translated correctly; we also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God.”
Stephen168
New member
You say lies, but then you agree.
S
SteveVH
Guest
One thing I have never understood about this scenario is that if Jesus and Lucifer were competing for the right to come to earth to save us, from what were we being saved if Satan had not yet come to tempt man? Jesus came to defeat Satan. The Mormon scenario means that God conspired to bring evil to the world and then send either Jesus or Lucifer to save us from that evil. This is absolutley ludicrous. I mean, at the time this purported conversation was taking place Lucifer was still a “good” angel, right? So from where did the evil come that we would need to be saved by Lucifer before he became Satan?
D
DCNBILL
Guest
Note that the First Council of Nicaea did not decide God is Trinity (this was taught by Christ,) but rather described via a Creed about how God is Trinity as revealed to the Church by the Holy Spirit.
Make fun of it as you will this is the God of Christianity.
K
KathleenGee
Guest
BrotherJohn,
It came to our attention that Deseret News was saying that it wasn’t a scandal, that Joseph Smith’s revelation was a true miracle in that he described ‘theosis’ held by Catholics and Orthodox in particular, that we all want to become gods…the Mormon professor, with a ph.d., used his sourced discipline to bring to light very early apologists St. Justin the Martyr, St Ireneaus and St. Athanasius uphold this concept.
In reality, he was referring to just a few sentences, and not the actual position of these ancient scholars, thus implying the Mormon professor was not following universally recognized objective scholarship.
You are drawing from compromised sources regarding the Council of Nicea and the development of assembly of Sacred Scriptures from ancient times. Mormonism constantly changes, and people here bring forth Mormon teachings from the past that are always being challenged and refuted.
It makes me hold the position Mormons are not really clear what is their revelation today…and oh well, revelation is always changing…let’s move on. ‘Or, I don’t know about this teaching our religion has teaches, but I do know this…’
The Church episcopacy had been established between 150-160 AD. The issue of that time was Gnosticism…claims to secret knowledge about God, about Christ. St. Irenaeus used Rome ‘as the pre-eminent example of a church whose fidelity to the original deposit of faith was guaranteed by the facts its bishops were the direct successors of Peter and Paul; moreover, they spoke in agreement with the bishops of other sees who were successors to the apostles.’
One of the great falsehoods of Mormonism implies the Apostles had no interest in establishing successors, that after witnessing Christ, His teachings, miracles, daeth and resurrection…some now they were slack kneed in having any integrity in laying down their lives for the Church so that it would continue. Yet, 1800 years later, the Mormons could do it. And a presumption of itself condemning Christianity with a sweep of the hand.
In these same times, the Church worked to guarantee the integrity of its traditions by recognizing certain texts, writings as ‘Scripture’. Any devout and thoughtful believer would certain recognize in the Apostles and their successors to carrying on the truth of Jesus Christ to each succeeding generation. The Mormons do not believe this for us, but only for themselves.
The Mormons project that these same apostles and their successors were also slack and fragmented to go every which way in what Christ taught and the Holy Spirit guided. Joseph Smith’s writings are so contrary to the Bible, to the practice of ancient Christians, to even his use of spectacles and a hat to find truth. What happened to the light of Christ in early America? Were the people of that era only able to draw on stories reflecting folklore of that time to re-explain what happened in Christianity for 2,000 years, and now create a new story without any connection to the Apostles?
Why would you want to believe in one man, of dubious character? Why didn’t our Lord follow suit with 12…atleast He had a band rather than to depend on one man, for Scripture tells us not to trust any man.
‘These writings were set apart as sacred was momentous, for it meant that the Church would forever be subject to them as an abosolute norm for its life and faith.’
‘This canon was based on a consensus of the Church that all the books listed were associated with an apostle in some way and were orthodox in doctrine. Judgment about the authenticisity of the canonical writings was based on the idea that the tradition of the Church in this matter was trustworthy in general, although it could be wrong in detail.’ This is because man is the instrument God uses to pass His Word to His people.
‘The scholars did not accept the tradition uncritically; they did their best to verify whether the books in question were actually written by the apostles or those in touch with the apostles. As long as there were uncertainty about apostolic authorship, there was relunctance to accept books as canonical. Thus, St. John’s gospel was not readily accepted at first, and it was only after St. Irenaeus after sufficient proof was this canonically accepted.’ …‘the Epistle to the Hebrews, which writers in the Western churches refused to quote for nearly two hundred years.’ Thus the interaction between Church and Scriptures began at the beginning, approximating the lives of the Apostles, authentic witnesses to Jesus Christ.
‘The living community was constantly checked and controlled by the basic testimony of the apostle. At the same time, written records were checked and controlled by the living community as one scholar put it, "simply because by that time it contianed within it, or among its leaders, a sufficiently firm and uniform tradition to constitute it corporately a preserver of the tradition…’ The canon was complete in the early decades of the 2nd century…the Gospel of John and Epistle of the Hebrews the exception but not finalized until 380-90, and later in the East.
St. Ireneaus never taught that we would be come gods. He was most faithful to the authentic teachings of Jesus Christ, and was the one who affirmed the Gospel of St. John as authentic.
We had uniformity of belief, constancy, and unity…all based on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ…
Source, ‘A Concise History of the Catholic Church’…
It came to our attention that Deseret News was saying that it wasn’t a scandal, that Joseph Smith’s revelation was a true miracle in that he described ‘theosis’ held by Catholics and Orthodox in particular, that we all want to become gods…the Mormon professor, with a ph.d., used his sourced discipline to bring to light very early apologists St. Justin the Martyr, St Ireneaus and St. Athanasius uphold this concept.
In reality, he was referring to just a few sentences, and not the actual position of these ancient scholars, thus implying the Mormon professor was not following universally recognized objective scholarship.
You are drawing from compromised sources regarding the Council of Nicea and the development of assembly of Sacred Scriptures from ancient times. Mormonism constantly changes, and people here bring forth Mormon teachings from the past that are always being challenged and refuted.
It makes me hold the position Mormons are not really clear what is their revelation today…and oh well, revelation is always changing…let’s move on. ‘Or, I don’t know about this teaching our religion has teaches, but I do know this…’
The Church episcopacy had been established between 150-160 AD. The issue of that time was Gnosticism…claims to secret knowledge about God, about Christ. St. Irenaeus used Rome ‘as the pre-eminent example of a church whose fidelity to the original deposit of faith was guaranteed by the facts its bishops were the direct successors of Peter and Paul; moreover, they spoke in agreement with the bishops of other sees who were successors to the apostles.’
One of the great falsehoods of Mormonism implies the Apostles had no interest in establishing successors, that after witnessing Christ, His teachings, miracles, daeth and resurrection…some now they were slack kneed in having any integrity in laying down their lives for the Church so that it would continue. Yet, 1800 years later, the Mormons could do it. And a presumption of itself condemning Christianity with a sweep of the hand.
In these same times, the Church worked to guarantee the integrity of its traditions by recognizing certain texts, writings as ‘Scripture’. Any devout and thoughtful believer would certain recognize in the Apostles and their successors to carrying on the truth of Jesus Christ to each succeeding generation. The Mormons do not believe this for us, but only for themselves.
The Mormons project that these same apostles and their successors were also slack and fragmented to go every which way in what Christ taught and the Holy Spirit guided. Joseph Smith’s writings are so contrary to the Bible, to the practice of ancient Christians, to even his use of spectacles and a hat to find truth. What happened to the light of Christ in early America? Were the people of that era only able to draw on stories reflecting folklore of that time to re-explain what happened in Christianity for 2,000 years, and now create a new story without any connection to the Apostles?
Why would you want to believe in one man, of dubious character? Why didn’t our Lord follow suit with 12…atleast He had a band rather than to depend on one man, for Scripture tells us not to trust any man.
‘These writings were set apart as sacred was momentous, for it meant that the Church would forever be subject to them as an abosolute norm for its life and faith.’
‘This canon was based on a consensus of the Church that all the books listed were associated with an apostle in some way and were orthodox in doctrine. Judgment about the authenticisity of the canonical writings was based on the idea that the tradition of the Church in this matter was trustworthy in general, although it could be wrong in detail.’ This is because man is the instrument God uses to pass His Word to His people.
‘The scholars did not accept the tradition uncritically; they did their best to verify whether the books in question were actually written by the apostles or those in touch with the apostles. As long as there were uncertainty about apostolic authorship, there was relunctance to accept books as canonical. Thus, St. John’s gospel was not readily accepted at first, and it was only after St. Irenaeus after sufficient proof was this canonically accepted.’ …‘the Epistle to the Hebrews, which writers in the Western churches refused to quote for nearly two hundred years.’ Thus the interaction between Church and Scriptures began at the beginning, approximating the lives of the Apostles, authentic witnesses to Jesus Christ.
‘The living community was constantly checked and controlled by the basic testimony of the apostle. At the same time, written records were checked and controlled by the living community as one scholar put it, "simply because by that time it contianed within it, or among its leaders, a sufficiently firm and uniform tradition to constitute it corporately a preserver of the tradition…’ The canon was complete in the early decades of the 2nd century…the Gospel of John and Epistle of the Hebrews the exception but not finalized until 380-90, and later in the East.
St. Ireneaus never taught that we would be come gods. He was most faithful to the authentic teachings of Jesus Christ, and was the one who affirmed the Gospel of St. John as authentic.
We had uniformity of belief, constancy, and unity…all based on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ…
Source, ‘A Concise History of the Catholic Church’…
K
KathleenGee
Guest
The second issue is how you are relating to us our Council of Nicea…of course with bias and misunderstanding, without context or sense.
Certainly your Mormon religion has changed and evolved.
Besides our hierarchy and having authentic Scripture, the third is our creed, our rule of faith. Again, the writings of St. Irenaeus stand out, asserting faith in one God, the Father and Creator of all things, the incarnation of God in Christ Jesus, and the Holy Spirit that moved through the prophets to bear the coming of the Messiah, Jesus Christ.
There remained the issue of how individual churches related to one another. I do not mean temples or cathedrals or buildings…but regions or dioceses of the local believers with their bishops, having their own charism of culture, race, tongue, to identify common problems and find common solutions for the work of communion, this synod happening between 160-175.
Some churches were given authority over other churches; some became metropolitan elevating them over churches in a province, to those with primacy over metropolitan churches…this being Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch…Politics affected these differentials. In this a bishop would have higher authority than other bishops.
There is nothing abnormal or wrong about such actions, but demonstration of good leadership ensuring common faith and practice…That is in part what the Council of Nicea was about–the primacies of Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch.
Which now brings us to St. Athanasius, who has lately been used by the Mormons to support polytheism.
The main thrust of the Council of Nicea was a presbyter, akin to today’s priest, challenged his bishop. Jesus Christ is also viewed as ‘Logos’, especially in those times, meaning, ‘the Word’.
Christ Himself is The Word, is the Incarnation of the Word of God…again this is total opposite to beliefs of Mormonism…you use the same words taken from us but make them into something else.
Christ is the Word Made Flesh, distinguishes between God the Creator and God the Word. Son of God means not only the historical Jesus but clarifies Christ as the Son of God. Arius, however, used Proverbs 8:22-31 as his starting point, “God” absolutely one, the only unbegotten, the only eternal without beginning…the monad and the principle of creation of all things’…God did not share this with anyone or with even the Word of God.
Arianism parallels Mormonism in this one thought…For Arius, the Word had a beginning and an end, even liable to change and sin!! Again this reflects ideas about Mormonism and changing god qualities.
Arianism at this point was essentially denying all finality to the revelation of Christ and opening the way to resurgence of pagan polytheism…as well as intermediate gods!!
St. Athanasius opposed Arianism, and he is another one misrepresented by Mormon ‘scholars’ as opposing a plurality of gods. Furthermore, the son of Constantine was to become the sole ruler the year following the council, and the temporal rulers…Constantine not a baptized Christian until on his death bed…could demand bishops to follow Arius, and not the Church.
St. Athanasius opposed polytheism, and it was he whose term will now be used from the Latin original, ‘consubstantial’ this coming Advent for the new English translation…
What St. Athanasius stated and this inserted into the Nicene Creed, was that 'Christ had to be divine in order to cause our divinization. Now, since the divine Son is eternally generated by the Father, they must share in the same nature, for the Godhead is unique, indivisible monad; but at the same time, they must be truly distinct, since the Father is Father and not Son, and the Son is Son, and not Father.
And St. Athanasius found only the term 'homoousius, meaning “identical in substance,” was adequate to convey both distinction and identity.
When we partake in Jesus Christ, it is the only means we can participate in the divine…which takes one to the liturgy…drawn from the past historical event of Jesus Christ, His death and Resurrection, who broke the power of sin, death, and linear time…to bring us new joy each day…Who at Mass is both present at our altars here on earth while glorifed in heaven next to the altar…
Where we can experience the divine life now on earth. There is no planet for us to rule or become gods.
Jesus makes heaven and eternal life present to us now at the Mass, the daily Sacrifice which Melchizedek prophesized thousands of years ago, Jesus Christ the High Priest, the only perfect sacrifice.
Thomas B okenkotter, ‘A Concise History of the Catholic Church’, used in our seminaries and higher education in parishes throughout our country.
Certainly your Mormon religion has changed and evolved.
Besides our hierarchy and having authentic Scripture, the third is our creed, our rule of faith. Again, the writings of St. Irenaeus stand out, asserting faith in one God, the Father and Creator of all things, the incarnation of God in Christ Jesus, and the Holy Spirit that moved through the prophets to bear the coming of the Messiah, Jesus Christ.
There remained the issue of how individual churches related to one another. I do not mean temples or cathedrals or buildings…but regions or dioceses of the local believers with their bishops, having their own charism of culture, race, tongue, to identify common problems and find common solutions for the work of communion, this synod happening between 160-175.
Some churches were given authority over other churches; some became metropolitan elevating them over churches in a province, to those with primacy over metropolitan churches…this being Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch…Politics affected these differentials. In this a bishop would have higher authority than other bishops.
There is nothing abnormal or wrong about such actions, but demonstration of good leadership ensuring common faith and practice…That is in part what the Council of Nicea was about–the primacies of Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch.
Which now brings us to St. Athanasius, who has lately been used by the Mormons to support polytheism.
The main thrust of the Council of Nicea was a presbyter, akin to today’s priest, challenged his bishop. Jesus Christ is also viewed as ‘Logos’, especially in those times, meaning, ‘the Word’.
Christ Himself is The Word, is the Incarnation of the Word of God…again this is total opposite to beliefs of Mormonism…you use the same words taken from us but make them into something else.
Christ is the Word Made Flesh, distinguishes between God the Creator and God the Word. Son of God means not only the historical Jesus but clarifies Christ as the Son of God. Arius, however, used Proverbs 8:22-31 as his starting point, “God” absolutely one, the only unbegotten, the only eternal without beginning…the monad and the principle of creation of all things’…God did not share this with anyone or with even the Word of God.
Arianism parallels Mormonism in this one thought…For Arius, the Word had a beginning and an end, even liable to change and sin!! Again this reflects ideas about Mormonism and changing god qualities.
Arianism at this point was essentially denying all finality to the revelation of Christ and opening the way to resurgence of pagan polytheism…as well as intermediate gods!!
St. Athanasius opposed Arianism, and he is another one misrepresented by Mormon ‘scholars’ as opposing a plurality of gods. Furthermore, the son of Constantine was to become the sole ruler the year following the council, and the temporal rulers…Constantine not a baptized Christian until on his death bed…could demand bishops to follow Arius, and not the Church.
St. Athanasius opposed polytheism, and it was he whose term will now be used from the Latin original, ‘consubstantial’ this coming Advent for the new English translation…
What St. Athanasius stated and this inserted into the Nicene Creed, was that 'Christ had to be divine in order to cause our divinization. Now, since the divine Son is eternally generated by the Father, they must share in the same nature, for the Godhead is unique, indivisible monad; but at the same time, they must be truly distinct, since the Father is Father and not Son, and the Son is Son, and not Father.
And St. Athanasius found only the term 'homoousius, meaning “identical in substance,” was adequate to convey both distinction and identity.
When we partake in Jesus Christ, it is the only means we can participate in the divine…which takes one to the liturgy…drawn from the past historical event of Jesus Christ, His death and Resurrection, who broke the power of sin, death, and linear time…to bring us new joy each day…Who at Mass is both present at our altars here on earth while glorifed in heaven next to the altar…
Where we can experience the divine life now on earth. There is no planet for us to rule or become gods.
Jesus makes heaven and eternal life present to us now at the Mass, the daily Sacrifice which Melchizedek prophesized thousands of years ago, Jesus Christ the High Priest, the only perfect sacrifice.
Thomas B okenkotter, ‘A Concise History of the Catholic Church’, used in our seminaries and higher education in parishes throughout our country.
K
KathleenGee
Guest
The Sacred Scriptures were given to us in ancient times, but their completion meaning here, including the Book of Hebrews was not used until some time later…but Sacred Scriptures completed nevertheless as dates given in my previous post.
The Lord Jesus said he would never leave us orphans. And the times up to Constantine were the worst ever experienced by the pagan Roman emperors Diocletian for one, who killed many bishops and priests, and Christians…we acknowledge these Christians today.
And I still wince when I hear Mormons accuse our faith in being corrupt…
Who in the Mormon religion questions and criticizes to discern whether or not a new revelation is from God?
Who ever among the Mormons ever rebuked Joseph Smith or Bringham Young? Were they shepherds of blind sheep?
The truth has come to us through the Apostles who actually witnessed Jesus Christ for 3 and a half years. We listen to no others, only those faithful to Jesus Christ and His apostles!
The Lord Jesus said he would never leave us orphans. And the times up to Constantine were the worst ever experienced by the pagan Roman emperors Diocletian for one, who killed many bishops and priests, and Christians…we acknowledge these Christians today.
And I still wince when I hear Mormons accuse our faith in being corrupt…
Who in the Mormon religion questions and criticizes to discern whether or not a new revelation is from God?
Who ever among the Mormons ever rebuked Joseph Smith or Bringham Young? Were they shepherds of blind sheep?
The truth has come to us through the Apostles who actually witnessed Jesus Christ for 3 and a half years. We listen to no others, only those faithful to Jesus Christ and His apostles!
S
SteveVH
Guest
There are some translations that are better than others, but the real problem is not in the translation, but in private interpretation of any translation. That is why Christ started one Church, with Christ as its head and the Holy Spirit as its guide, so that the truth handed down to us by the Apostles would be protected from the errors of man.
Please name just a few of the “many texts/books that were once a part of Bible which have been removed” since the Council of Carthage, or, for that matter, the Councils of Rome or Hippo? The only books that were removed were those removed by the “Reformers” and that is the version you have decided to follow.
The Councils were not convened out of a sense of confusion necessitating a need for consensus. They were convened in order to refute heresies which were becoming wide spread to preserve the deposit of faith given to the Church (before any of the New Testament was committed to writing). At the Council of Nicea the Church saw the need to define, in even more particular terms, just what it was that Christians believed. There was nothing new being introduced; rather it was putting down in words what the Church had always believed, leaving less room for misinterpretation of its foundational beliefs, the Trinity being one of those foundational beliefs.
Men voted for the idea of the Trinity in the same sense as men wrote the books of the Bible. The one, most important thing that you have left out is the role of the Holy Spirit in both of these. Jesus promised that he would send the Holy Spirit to guide his Church into all truth. That is exactly what he did, acting in and through the councils. Men did not do this independent of the Holy Spirit.
As you very well know, Jesus did not pray to himself in the Garden, he prayed to his Father. You are deliberately misrepresenting the Christian doctrine. The three Person of the Trinity are eternally distinct in relationship. The Father did not become a Father, he has always been “Father” in relationship to the Son. The Son has eternally been the Son, in relationship with the eternal Father. The Holy Spirit is the Father’s tangible Love for his Son and the Son’s for his Father, so real that he constitutes another Person. The Father is not the Son, nor the Son the Father, no the Father or the Son the Holy Spirit. They are three distinct Persons, in relationship, but one God in being and essence. This is one of Mormonism’s major problems, as I see it. It refuses to believe in a God greater then that of which it can conceive. This makes the Mormon God no greater than us, except in spiritual progress.
Well, this leaves no doubt as to the priority of Mormon “scripture”. Do we believe more in a group of books which we believe have been corrupted (the Bible) or in a Book which we believe has not been corrupted (BoM)? To question the Bible’s validity may be necessary in order to justify the Mormon additions to “scripture”, but that does not make the Mormon postition true. It is still based upon the claims of a man, Joseph Smith. If we’re going with the claims of men, I’ll stick with those who can prove, not just claim, their succession back to the first appointed leader of the original Church. You can choose Joseph Smith if you like.
O
Onyx88
Guest
i also have to thank you ~ i was looking for a condensed explanation ~
O
Onyx88
Guest
get them to convert to catholicism
C
Crdl2Grv
Guest
Boom. Awesome.
T
Telstar
Guest
Agreeance! (sorry… it’s a nonsensical word from a past forum, but it works
)That entire post is 100% pure awesome! :clapping:
S
SteveVH
Guest
Agreeance! (sorry… it’s a nonsensical word from a past forum, but it works
That entire post is 100% pure awesome! :clapping:
Thanks to both of you.
J
Jim_Dandy
Guest
(A portion of Brother John’s post was deleted by JimD)
This is another example of Mormon double-think and double-speak. First you say you believe the Bible – “insofar as it is translated correctly.” Then you say you don’t, that the Bible is incomplete, has some writings removed, etc. Prove it!
And then you use the Bible to argue the “truth” of Mormonism!
Tell us, which parts of the KJV did Joseph Smith “restore” when he “corrected” it in his “Inspired Version”? He said the KJV was then complete with the changes he made to it. God must have told him what was missing so he could replace those writings and give Mormons a “true” Bible. What did Joe put back that had been taken out, as he alleged in the Book of Mormon, D&C, and elsewhere? Answer: Absolutely nothing. All Smith did was rewrite the KJV to make it say “Gods” instead of “God” plus other uniquely Mormon changes. And most Mormons don’t use this “purified, corrected KJV” that Smith altered. They use the original 1611 KJV. What’s up with that?
The only time anything was removed from the Bible was when Martin Luther, followed by all Protestants and Mormons and JWs, removed or approved the removal of seven books and parts of Esther and Daniel from the canon of the OT. He also removed Hebrews, James, Jude, and Revelation from the canon of the NT, but few Protestants (or Mormons, or JWs), know that.
Believe the Book of Mormon is “the word of the Mormon god(s)” if you wish. Just don’t call it Christian. It is the product of Joseph Smith, a glass looker by occupation, who was convicted of fraud in a New York court, charged with conning people out of money by telling them he could find treasure on their property by locating it through a peepstone in his hat. Did I already mention this?
Instead of believing the errors you have been spoon-fed about the Council of Nicea, why don’t you read the history of it, written by a real historian? Read the annals of the Council itself, and its decrees. The truth is quite different from your version.
Stop telling Catholics their history and doctrines as interpreted by come-lately Mormons with their agenda of supplanting the True Church with the one Joseph Smith invented.
Read the history of the Bible. Write from a position of knowledge, Here’s the url for a little book called Where We Got the Bible. It’ll tell you what you need to know.
catholicapologetics.info/apologetics/protestantism/wbible.htm
Jim Dandy
L
Lefty0908
Guest
Just some random questions that come to mind as a result of this erudite discussion:
- If the concept of “Trinity” is so self-evident in the Bible and so critical to our correct understanding of God’s nature, why is the term never used in scripture? Why must we wait until the late second century until we even encounter it (Theophilus of Antioch - and it’s doubtful he understood the term as we do today). Why do we wait more than an additional two centuries for its complete and correct formulation (Council of Chalcedon - A.D. 451)?
- How is it that mere theologians expand upon or correct the doctrine of the Apostles? Can theologians add to the scriptures? And if the defining of the correct concept of Tinity is not the result of theological wrangling (I’d like to see that demonstrated!), then why did its formulation take years and years of discussion to arrive at? Neither Jesus nor His Apostles propounded doctrine in that manner. They spoke as ones having authority. If one known to have that same authority was on the scene at the councils, why didn’t he assert it? Was he unrecognized? How could that be?
- If accepting the concept of Trinity is pre-requisite to being allowed to refer to oneself as a Christian, what do we do with the early apologists for whom Trinitarianism had yet to be fully described? Justin Martyr (d. A.D. 165) and Clement of Alexandria (d. ca. A.D. 215) come to mind. They have been viewed through their writings as believing in two Gods, not three, and have been called by at least one scholar (not a Mormon) as being “binarian” (Justo L. Gonzales, A History of Christian Thought, 3 vols., Abingdon, 1970).
- Anybody got some good scriptures to support the doctrine of an abstract, absolute, transcendent, consubstantial, coeternal unity in trinity existing unknowably and incomprehensibly without body, parts, or passions and outside space and time? You all crack on the Mormons for claiming that some things may have been left out of the Bible. Apparently these clear concepts weren’t, so where are they? Every Evangelical and every Catholic with whom I have ever discussed Trinity finally admits that it is an incomprehensible mystery that must ultimately be accepted by faith. I have no problem with that … until I see Mormons being denigrated for wanting to accept some things from God that are beyond their own mortal minds’ ability to grasp but are nonetheless represented by their critics in crass, offensive ways. We got a double-standard here?
- If Mormons so loathe the Bible (as demonstrated by cherry-picking quotes and disregarding a comprehensive, contextual trreatment of the question), why do they then study the despised document for two of every four years in both their Sunday School courses of study for adults as well as their training of teen-agers? (The four year, repeating cycle of study is Old Testament, New Testament, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants. This is the required curriculum for all wards and branches in the LDS church).
- Recent studies of LDS doctrinal development demonstrate that in the 19th century, the preponderance of scriptural citations in sermons by Mormon leaders came from the Bible, not the Book of Mormon. Why do you suppose that would be if Mormons concurrently taught that the Bible was corrupt and of no value?
- Why all the smug, self-satisfied, but totally bogus claims that Latter-day Saints consider the Catholic Church to be the “great and abmoniable church” referred to in the Book of Mormon? Why are none of you “Mormon experts” aware of the fact that that interpretation, along with at least 1067 other assertions, were officially deemed as being doctrinally in error by church president David O. McKay when they first appeared in Bruce McConkie’s book Mormon Doctrine? (For an historical treatment of this issue, see David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism, by Gregory Prince and Robert Wright, p. 49-53). Or are you witholding that information because it doesn’t butress your criticisms?
- Has Edmund J. Fortman been kicked to the curb by all you savants? Given what I’ve read here, he most certainly should have been. Don’t know him? He’s the well-respected Jesuit scholar, who, after careful examination of the New Testament, gave us this quote: “There is no trinitarian doctrine in the Synoptics or Acts.” He also observes that in the New Testament, “nowhere do we find any trinitarian doctrine of three distinct subjects of divine life and activity in the same Godhead.” Fortman concludes "There is no formal doctrine of the Trinity in the New Testanent writers, if this means an explicit teaching that in one God there are three co-equal divine persons. But the three are there, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and a triadic ground plan is there, and triadic formulas are there … The Biblical witness to God, as we have seen, did not contain any formal or formulated doctrine of the Trinity, any explicit teaching that in one God there are three co-equal divine persons (all quotes from Edmund J. Fortman, The Triune God: A Historical Study of the Doctrine of the Trinity. Westminster Press, 1972).
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twopekinguys
Guest
I think we are all still waiting for you to back this statement up with references. (bolding mine)
You made the claim, you need to back it up. (in order to be taken seriously that is)
Stephen168
New member
It is not your objective either
L
Lefty0908
Guest
I would consider the development of the concept of Trinity an example of change that took place. It certainly has been a source of very much discussion over the centuries. But if you want me to bullet-point a bunch of junk from anti-Catholic websites as is too often done here relative to the Mormons, I’m not really interested.
My objective is to try and introduce sources for consideration that seem to be never otherwise addressed when it comes to the Mormons. Isn’t it reasonable to think that might be included in a section that purports to discuss non-Catholic religions? Or is that just a front for something else entirely?
My objective is to try and introduce sources for consideration that seem to be never otherwise addressed when it comes to the Mormons. Isn’t it reasonable to think that might be included in a section that purports to discuss non-Catholic religions? Or is that just a front for something else entirely?
Stephen168
New member
To Summarize your post: Your objective is to stop by every few days, tells us what Mormons believe about Catholic teaching, but are not able to substantiate those Catholic beliefs.
This does not lead to understand, but then, that is not your objective.
- Status