Is orthodox Christian thought moving toward Mormonism?

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On a recent thread addressing an LDS doctrine a comment was made that the LDS Church was moving toward Christianity. So, I’m sharing this article (link below) by BYU professor emeritus David Paulsen which outlines areas in which some orthodox Christian thought is moving toward LDS theology. Note that the article is 94 pages long and I have not come close to reading the whole thing. (BTW, this PDF starts on page 35 and ends on page 128.)

This publication addresses these theological topics:
  1. Resumption of New Testament Charismata and Reopening of the Canon (page 38)
  2. God as Personal and Passible (page 52)
  3. A Social Model of the Godhead (page 62)
  4. Deification
  5. The Divine Feminine (page 96)
  6. God as Eternally Self-surpassing (page 107)
  7. The Fate of the Unevangelized (page 118)
Each topic is divided into 4 section: “Joseph Smith’s view”, “Christian Divergence and Criticisms”, “Contemporary Christian Convergence”, and “Conclusion”. Enjoy!

google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0ahUKEwiFv7S3vrPKAhVMcT4KHYi4A9oQFggiMAE&url=https%3A%2F%2Fojs.lib.byu.edu%2Fspc%2Findex.php%2FBYUStudies%2Farticle%2Fdownload%2F7087%2F6736&usg=AFQjCNFlaepgghUXxqlIHlOaG-PGZqM5-w&bvm=bv.112064104,d.cWw&cad=rja
 
I have always found a certain amount of interest in the LDS faith and in studying the movement and the socio-political factors surrounding the founding of the faith.

I will take a look at this article because at its center, it holds to very interesting claims regarding modern Christianity.

I look forward to reading other peoples critiques of this article
 
gazelam said:
On a recent thread addressing an LDS doctrine a comment was made that the LDS Church was moving toward Christianity. So, I’m sharing this article (link below) by BYU professor emeritus David Paulsen which outlines areas in which some orthodox Christian thought is moving toward LDS theology. Note that the article is 94 pages long and I have not come close to reading the whole thing. (BTW, this PDF starts on page 35 and ends on page 128.)

This publication addresses these theological topics:
  1. Resumption of New Testament Charismata and Reopening of the Canon (page 38)
  2. God as Personal and Passible (page 52)
  3. A Social Model of the Godhead (page 62)
  4. Deification
  5. The Divine Feminine (page 96)
  6. God as Eternally Self-surpassing (page 107)
  7. The Fate of the Unevangelized (page 118)
Each topic is divided into 4 section: “Joseph Smith’s view”, “Christian Divergence and Criticisms”, “Contemporary Christian Convergence”, and “Conclusion”. Enjoy!

google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0ahUKEwiFv7S3vrPKAhVMcT4KHYi4A9oQFggiMAE&url=https%3A%2F%2Fojs.lib.byu.edu%2Fspc%2Findex.php%2FBYUStudies%2Farticle%2Fdownload%2F7087%2F6736&usg=AFQjCNFlaepgghUXxqlIHlOaG-PGZqM5-w&bvm=bv.112064104,d.cWw&cad=rja
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Orthodox Christian thought, in the general sense of referring to Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants (of the magisterial reformation), will most likely not move towards Mormonism. God for us will forever be transcendent, he will not need a wife and theosis or glorification is different in Christianity than it is in Mormonism.

Perhaps groups on the fringes of Protestantism might embrace mormon views of a limited God, but Christianity on the whole? No, two thousand years of tradition cannot be displaced by mormon thought.
 
IgnatianPhilo said:
Orthodox Christian thought, in the general sense of referring to Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants (of the magisterial reformation), will most likely not move towards Mormonism. God for us will forever be transcendent, he will not need a wife and theosis or glorification is different in Christianity than it is in Mormonism.

Perhaps groups on the fringes of Protestantism might embrace mormon views of a limited God, but Christianity on the whole? No, two thousand years of tradition cannot be displaced by mormon thought.
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Boom mic drop
 
IgnatianPhilo said:
Orthodox Christian thought, in the general sense of referring to Catholics, Orthodox and Protestants (of the magisterial reformation), will most likely not move towards Mormonism. God for us will forever be transcendent, he will not need a wife and theosis or glorification is different in Christianity than it is in Mormonism.

Perhaps groups on the fringes of Protestantism might embrace mormon views of a limited God, but Christianity on the whole? No, two thousand years of tradition cannot be displaced by mormon thought.
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The better question is Mormonism moving toward Christianity? They’d have to have several new “revelations” to become Christian but with ever changing doctrine it’s possible.

Otherwise you are spot on. There is no way Christianity as a whole would ever accept LDS theology.
 
David Paulsen is an articulate LDS thinker, and his defenses in any work of his I’ve found highly comprehensive. But the common LDS rhetoric that Nicene Christianity reduces God to a deity comparable to a bland rock has gotten old. Dr. Paulsen suggests that Christianity is lately bringing God back into the context of personality through charismatic movements, but one can see how an American born out of a transcendental, emotionalistic heritage that stretches back to the earliest days of congregationalism would see God as being personal only if He were temperamental. At least, that’s what I felt Paulsen was describing this convergence as: toward a temperamental God.

Please excuse me, but neither Catholics nor Orthodox consider God void of passion. His passion is, however, perfect and complete. For more than a few years before Joseph Smith came on the scene did the Church teach that man was made in the image of God. That entails God’s wit, His intellect, His love, etc. And let’s not forget the development of the Trinitarian doctrine as taught by the Church; notice the emotionally-charged language: Lover, Beloved and the Love that binds them. Please tell me when the Church diverged from “the true Church” by ceasing to teach true love, as found only in God Himself.

Paulsen also makes the point of realizing how a belief system described outside of the context of culture, people etc., is not very withstanding. I most firmly agree, and it would do Dr. Paulsen and Elder Holland well to look at the organic Church’s ability to invade all cultures, as it has done, by the permeation of its message of God’s love. I’m sorry, but where is “orthodox Christian thought” missing the reality of God’s passion for humanity?

There are other points of disagreement, but this one sat with me.
 
Tannhauser_1509 said:
David Paulsen is an articulate LDS thinker, and his defenses in any work of his I’ve found highly comprehensive. But the common LDS rhetoric that Nicene Christianity reduces God to a deity comparable to a bland rock has gotten old. Dr. Paulsen suggests that Christianity is lately bringing God back into the context of personality through charismatic movements, but one can see how an American born out of a transcendental, emotionalistic heritage that stretches back to the earliest days of congregationalism would see God as being personal only if He were temperamental. At least, that’s what I felt Paulsen was describing this convergence as: toward a temperamental God.

Please excuse me, but neither Catholics nor Orthodox consider God void of passion. His passion is, however, perfect and complete. For more than a few years before Joseph Smith came on the scene did the Church teach that man was made in the image of God. That entails God’s wit, His intellect, His love, etc. And let’s not forget the development of the Trinitarian doctrine as taught by the Church; notice the emotionally-charged language: Lover, Beloved and the Love that binds them. Please tell me when the Church diverged from “the true Church” by ceasing to teach true love, as found only in God Himself.

Paulsen also makes the point of realizing how a belief system described outside of the context of culture, people etc., is not very withstanding. I most firmly agree, and it would do Dr. Paulsen and Elder Holland well to look at the organic Church’s ability to invade all cultures, as it has done, by the permeation of its message of God’s love. I’m sorry, but where is “orthodox Christian thought” missing the reality of God’s passion for humanity?

There are other points of disagreement, but this one sat with me.
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Gavin,
I think you have missed what Christianity was for a thousand years in your above statement. “Neither Catholics nor Orthodox consider God void of passion.” The preaching of God’s love is done in ways that those who hear it celebrate it. But among theologians, this “love” is not the same as the two way communion that happens between a human father and a human son that we call love. God cannot and does not love like this in Patristic Thought.

Here is a Catholic author’s assessment AND rejection of the trend Dr. Paulsen refers too:
firstthings.com/article/2001/11/does-god-suffer

Do not get hung up on the “SUFFER” word here. LDS would acknowledge that in a sense God does not suffer. But as Father Weinandy says, “From the dawn of the Patristic period Christian theology has held as axiomatic that God is impassible—that is, He does not undergo emotional changes of state, and so cannot suffer.”
To be “impassible” is to be “void of passion.”
To better understand Weinandy, I read his book of the same title and The Suffering of the Impassible God: The Dialectics of Patristic Thought (Oxford Early Christian Studies) by Gavrilyuk.
I think divine impassibility is essential to the debates on the Trinity. I also think it is false. Weinandy says, “Toward the end of the nineteenth century a sea change began to occur within Christian theology such that at present many, if not most, Christian theologians hold as axiomatic that God is passible, that He does undergo emotional changes of states, and so can suffer.” I believe this change is a positive, but it also unmoors those theologians from many of the considerations the ECF pondered upon as they developed the doctrine of the Trinity.
Charity, TOm
 
Sorry that idea is unorthodox, therefore the idea that Orthodox Christianity is moving toward LDS theology is wrong. Only certain emotion driven unorthodox modern movements would even give that idea a second thought
 
TOmNossor said:
Gavin,
I think you have missed what Christianity was for a thousand years in your above statement. “Neither Catholics nor Orthodox consider God void of passion.” The preaching of God’s love is done in ways that those who hear it celebrate it. But among theologians, this “love” is not the same as the two way communion that happens between a human father and a human son that we call love. God cannot and does not love like this in Patristic Thought.
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If only God were big enough to be the object of His own love. Oh, wait! He is! I’m sorry, but what’s the point of referring to the persons of the Trinity as Father and Son if the Church did not consider that inner-relationship to be intimate? Maybe you don’t like it because it’s not sappy enough for you, but God is bigger than the analogy of human relationship can articulate the inner workings of His mind.

Let me also acknowledge that the debate about the consequences of God’s aseity still carries on within the Church. But Mormonism, rather than solve the problem, only multiplies reason to distrust the Deity. As Isaiah would tell us, God’s thoughts are not our thoughts. It’s terminologically hindering to speak of God “feeling” things because we can’t perfectly relate to the way God is self-satisfying.
 
SyroMalankara said:
Sorry that idea is unorthodox, therefore the idea that Orthodox Christianity is moving toward LDS theology is wrong. Only certain emotion driven unorthodox modern movements would even give that idea a second thought
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That is my thinking as well. I didn’t closely read every page of the article, but went through a lot of it. Most if not all of the examples of Christians moving towards LDS theology are unorthodox and/or Protestant. I saw little if any understanding of Catholicism or Orthodoxy.
 
Tannhauser_1509 said:
If only God were big enough to be the object of His own love. Oh, wait! He is! I’m sorry, but what’s the point of referring to the persons of the Trinity as Father and Son if the Church did not consider that inner-relationship to be intimate? Maybe you don’t like it because it’s not sappy enough for you, but God is bigger than the analogy of human relationship can articulate the inner workings of His mind.
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Did you read Weinandy’s treatment? I don’t think of myself as a sappy guy, but perhaps I am wrong.

I find the concept of love between God the Father and God the Son difficult within modalism and neo-modalism, but as a Social Trinitarian I do not see an issue. And even love within a modalistic God does not require that the One God does not exist A Se. Love within the Trinity is not a problem for an impassible God.

The problem I have with God’s impassiblity and indeed with His existence “a se” is that I do not feel it is love if God is totally unaffected by me and my free will choices. When I move from rejecting God to accepting and loving God, I truly believe God should notice in some way. I do not expect Him to be in tears because I turn away and then overjoyed because I turn to Him. I do not advocate that God would be so overcome by sorrow that the building (ie the world) is burning that He cannot act to put out the fire (ie carry out the atonement) {this is Gavrilyuk’s picture}. I believe that the superabundance of joy that exists within the Trinity is so overwhelming that He will be solidly on the joy side even if the whole world turns away, even if we all go to war and hate eachother and Him. But, for me to believe God loves as scripture tells me He loves, He must be affected by our free choices. For God to exist “a se”, for God to be impassible, for God to be absolute unchanging perfection, He cannot rejoice even a little BECAUSE I freely (and personally) choose Him or lament even a little BECAUSE I freely (and personally) curse and reject Him. The cause that is my choice cannot have an effect upon God. This IMO is not how God is and this is not love.

I expect to see many folks here assure me that the God of Catholicism is not what I claim. That is what always happens. But, I have read Weinandy, Gavrilyuk, and Aquinas. It IMO is integral to the Trinitarians debates that God is impassible and exists A Se. If Huns Kung and Karl Barth are correct and historical Christianity is wrong, then I suggest the foundational arguments that lead to the Trinity are wrong. Of course I thought those were wrong before. But Weinandy and Gavrilyuk take the development of the Trinity seriously and thus they do not follow the “new orthodoxy,” at least in their intellectual life.

Let me also say that the God of Catholicism is not the impassible God. Nobody loves the impassible God, nobody is loved by the impassible God. When you sit in the pew and transcend the entire universe as you partake of the body and blood of God the Son who gave up more than we can understand to die on the cross for you, you know He loves you and you love Him and such is as it should be. When Aquinas encountered God in the Eucharist he too knew that everything he had ever written was as “straw” and Aquinas had no more to say (never explaining himself or writing more). The impassible God is the OBJECT that Catholic theologians analyze and dissect. The object that Aquinas wrote about his entire life. The God Aquinas met that day (three months before his death) is not the object of his theological understanding. To be Christian is to love and to be loved by God. To be in an I-Thou relationship with the creator of the universe.

As best I can discern, where I to become Catholic I would have picked up a huge millstone. On the one hand I would love and feel loved by the God of the universe; I would sit in communion and partake of His body and blood; I would ponder the love He has for me that He died for the horrors that are my darkest sins; and I would love Him so much…; but on the other hand my intellectual assessment of 2000 years of developed theology would tell me that God does not love like this. I find so much fewer intellectual disconnects in being a LDS than in embracing this. I have questions I cannot answer as a LDS, but this one eclipses those.

Charity, TOm
 
Tannhauser_1509 said:
Let me also acknowledge that the debate about the consequences of God’s aseity still carries on within the Church. But Mormonism, rather than solve the problem, only multiplies reason to distrust the Deity. As Isaiah would tell us, God’s thoughts are not our thoughts. It’s terminologically hindering to speak of God “feeling” things because we can’t perfectly relate to the way God is self-satisfying.
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Is there anything you could recommend that I read about this debate?
I would likely try to follow some Molinist thoughts and would need to know more about Balthasar’s thoughts, but so far I have been quite convinced by Aquinas, Weinandy, and others.
Charity, TOm
 
TOmNossor said:
Let me also say that the God of Catholicism is not the impassible God. Nobody loves the impassible God, nobody is loved by the impassible God. When you sit in the pew and transcend the entire universe as you partake of the body and blood of God the Son who gave up more than we can understand to die on the cross for you, you know He loves you and you love Him and such is as it should be. When Aquinas encountered God in the Eucharist he too knew that everything he had ever written was as “straw” and Aquinas had no more to say (never explaining himself or writing more). The impassible God is the OBJECT that Catholic theologians analyze and dissect. The object that Aquinas wrote about his entire life. The God Aquinas met that day (three months before his death) is not the object of his theological understanding. To be Christian is to love and to be loved by God. To be in an I-Thou relationship with the creator of the universe.
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God is love. God does not love us less or more based on us doing or not doing stuff. God loves the pious person in the pew, and the murderer on death row, unconditionally. Most people don’t believe God loves them, at some level. A lot of people don’t believe that God loves the murderer because they themselves, do not.

Accepting God’s love is one of the most, if not the most, major issues in the world. From my view, Mormonism does not resolve, but exacerbates this problem. As the Mormon God requires lists of stuff to do, in order to know God’s love. Otherwise, nope, God has left the building and abandoned you. That is what a mutable God is…precocious.
As best I can discern, where I to become Catholic I would have picked up a huge millstone. On the one hand I would love and feel loved by the God of the universe; I would sit in communion and partake of His body and blood; I would ponder the love He has for me that He died for the horrors that are my darkest sins; and I would love Him so much…; but on the other hand my intellectual assessment of 2000 years of developed theology would tell me that God does not love like this. I find so much fewer intellectual disconnects in being a LDS than in embracing this. I have questions I cannot answer as a LDS, but this one eclipses those.
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Charity, TOm
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The problem here is not God. I don’t mean that as a personal insult. Everyone with a few exceptional Saints, have this same problem. Self deception. God does not love like what?
 
orthodox christian thought is not moving toward mormonism. we can take that to the bank.

as with so many religions that have no organic connection to Jesus, it is common for them to seek to normalize their teachings by pulling from the teachings of Jesus. this is far more common than a person might believe. mohammed did it. smith did it. bab and bahaullah did it. all of the followers of these three adopt their methodology and thus as clear errors are identified in their theologies, they tend to adapt their founders’ teachings so that they correspond more closely to Jesus. this allows them to continue proselytizing despite the need for corrections and reinterpretations.

this practice is most visible in mormonism. mormonism allows for earlier doctrines to be repudiated and replaced by the reigning apostle.

the question the non-christians never seem to ask themselves is, why is it so important for them to constantly adapt their belief system to the Gospel of Jesus.
 
No entity or the pope can change the doctrines of our faith. It can only be limited by our own decrease in population as Catholic believers.

You would have to change Scripture, its intent, its books and the context of Joseph Smith and how he could be considered a true prophet in light of the fact that the books of the bible were mostly approved by 100 AD.

You would have to throw out the Council of Trent catechism which is expounded upon by our new catechism promulgated by Pope John Paul II and so that would all have to be thrown out and then add Mormon illuminations.

You would have to end priestly celibacy in the Latin Church and those Orthodox priests and bishops who were ordained as single men, and so they would have to go out and find wives.

What else…there would be new symbols to add beyond fire, water, light, wind…to golden spectacles, Moroni the angel, the hills of Cumorah…but then the Vatican would want excavation done to see what was truly in the Indian mounds to see if it would back Smith’s claims…these the lost tribe of Israel, am I understanding this right?

And there are alot more…Catholic weddings with Mormonism combined would no longer allow non-Catholic/Mormon believers to attend the weddings of their grown children for the sealing ceremony.

Well it is getting late now.

I don’t think this could happen because all that we have as Catholics was given to us 2,000 years ago, Christ God’s final revelation to mankind.
 
Mormonism’s foundation is the Catholic Church in reverse.

I mean, Mormonism’s foundation teaches that the Catholic Church did not get it right. Then they did more study over time, and discovered the Eastern Orthodox Church. Then they found out about ‘Theosis’, and are trying to make it say what they want it to say rather than what it is intended which essentially is shared by all the patriarchs of the Universal Church.

So Mormonism’s foundation is actually the Universal Church in reverse.

If it is looking now for a God that is emotive, they have bypassed Christ.

If their God is emotive…then it is really more of creatures that will provide a certain emotive response that is of the human emotion, creature to creature.

The emotion of love we experience from God is that of the Heavenly Father through His Son Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit.

The primary vocation of the Universal Christian is to enter into the life of the Holy Trinity, this nurtured in us by our attendance at the Mass, or in making a spiritual communion. This communion is to draw us to examine ourselves, see where we are lacking, go to confession, and pray that we live out Christ more in our daily life through service animated by His power and grace. This can only be done by dying of self.
 
KathleenGee said:
No entity or the pope can change the doctrines of our faith. It can only be limited by our own decrease in population as Catholic believers.

You would have to change Scripture, its intent, its books and the context of Joseph Smith and how he could be considered a true prophet in light of the fact that the books of the bible were mostly approved by 100 AD.

You would have to throw out the Council of Trent catechism which is expounded upon by our new catechism promulgated by Pope John Paul II and so that would all have to be thrown out and then add Mormon illuminations.

You would have to end priestly celibacy in the Latin Church and those Orthodox priests and bishops who were ordained as single men, and so they would have to go out and find wives.

What else…there would be new symbols to add beyond fire, water, light, wind…to golden spectacles, Moroni the angel, the hills of Cumorah…but then the Vatican would want excavation done to see what was truly in the Indian mounds to see if it would back Smith’s claims…these the lost tribe of Israel, am I understanding this right?

And there are alot more…Catholic weddings with Mormonism combined would no longer allow non-Catholic/Mormon believers to attend the weddings of their grown children for the sealing ceremony.

Well it is getting late now.

I don’t think this could happen because all that we have as Catholics was given to us 2,000 years ago, Christ God’s final revelation to mankind.
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:eek: The Eucharist may change to white bread cubes and water
 
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