S
soren1
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I haven’t claimed that they did. That is, they never used so many words, and I made a point to explain how Mormons use that as a plausible justification for an alternate theory.
Absolutely right. A central theme here is the “literal sonship” of Jesus. Sonship in Mormonism is a relationship from physical begetting by a man and woman. (Although in Catholicism the reverse is true! Physical parenting is figurative and divine generation is literal.) So if Christ is the “only-begotten” of the Father, Mormons to take it physically. This gets problematic when you find Mary conceiving by the Holy Ghost, so you need another account. Melvin Ballard, an LDS Apostle, explains it more clearly than most others:
Mary told the story most beautifully when she said that an angel of the Lord came to her and told her that she had found favor in the sight of God, and had come to be worthy of the fulfilment of the promises heretofore made, to become the virgin mother of the Redeemer of the world. She afterwards, referring to the event, said: “God hath done wonderful things unto me.” “And the Holy Ghost came upon her,” is the story, “and she came into the presence of the highest.” No man or woman can live in mortality and survive the presence of the Highest except by the sustaining power of the Holy Ghost. So it came upon her to prepare her for admittance into the divine presence, and the power of the Highest, who is the Father, was present, and overshadowed her, and the holy Child that was born of her was called the Son of God.
Men who deny this, or who think that it degrades our Father, have no true conception of the sacredness of the most marvelous power with which God has endowed mortal men-the power of creation. Even though that power may be abused and may become a mere harp of pleasure to the wicked, nevertheless it is the most sacred and holy and divine function with which God has endowed man. Made holy, it is retained by the Father of us all, and in his exercise of that great and marvelous creative power and function, he did not debase himself, degrade himself, nor debauch his daughter. Thus Christ became the literal Son of a divine Father, and no one else was worthy to be his father.
This text not only argues for a harmony between the siring of Christ by Elohim and the action of the Holy Spirit, but also uses that word “virgin.” Yet one must ask (since Mormon leaders have given an alternative definition of “virgin”), why is he concerned that people might think that what he is describing debases God? Why must he clarify that it involves no degradation or debauchery? Why does he clarify not by denying sex, but by denying lewdness? This leads to your next point:
They had a reason to be measly-mouthed. The begetting of the Jesus was to them an action of such sacredness that they didn’t want to give people an impure impression of something so holy by putting it bluntly. Talmage is eloquent: “That Child to be born of Mary was begotten of Elohim, the Eternal Father, not in violation of natural law but in accordance with a higher manifestation thereof.” Indirect language keeps people’s thoughts on that “higher manifestation” rather than the brute image that would otherwise come to mind.
If you can support that definition of virgin from official LDS teaching, it would help your case. We have seen one Apostle giving a less strict definition. I ask then, where in official LDS teaching can I find a definition of Mary’s virginity that amounts to “woman who has not had sexual intercourse”?
Actually, sex doesn’t tickle my ears that hard. I can see from the texts above how in a Mormon worldview, the account of Christ’s physical conception could be viewed as non-obscene. I can take Melvin Ballard at his word. The core problem with that teaching as well as its alternative interpretations is not that it is salacious, but that it is materialistic. It describes a creaturely way of creating, rather than the grandeur we see in Genesis 1, of the God who creates by the word of his power: “For he commanded and they were created.” (Ps. 148:5)