LDS Godhead...or Trinity?

[Chris-WA]

mormon fool:

Did you not see my earlier post about interchangeable titles? In LDS theology titles such as “the Eternal Father” can be shared, but not substance.

Interchangeable titles? Where does this idea come from, and when did it originate? Mormon fool, I respect your valiant efforts to defend LDS beliefs on a Catholic website, but c’mon man, sooner or later you’ve got to see some of these inconsistencies for what they truly are. I know reason can’t explain everything concerning matters of faith, but I am begging you to inject some reason here.

The more plausible answer is that Joseph Smith believed in the trinity when he wrote the Book of Mormon, but later changed that belief as he switched to the idea of three separate beings in the Godhead. In order to reconcile the two, LDS had to retroactively create this idea of shared titles without shared substance.

Any one who reads the Book of Mormon will never come to the conclusion that the Godhead consists of three separate beings. You will come to the same conclusion that the Catholic Church has taught for 2000 years.

 

[3DOP]

Hi Mormon Fool,

You said:

In LDS theology titles such as “the Eternal Father” can be shared, but not substance.

How do LDS understand substance, that it would not be shared between parents and their children? What kind of a Father begets a Son that would be of a different substance? What kind of a mother bears a Son that would be of a different substance? Are Latter Day Saints not of the same substance as their own parents?

In the Latin, Catholics say we believe that Christ is “consubstantialem Patri”. This is translated, “one in being with the Father” in the English. Mormons have misunderstood the English to be saying, “same being”. But we are not schizophrenic modalists who believe that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are one entity with mutliple personalities. Rather, three Persons share the same substance.

I fear the problem in understanding what we mean by substance, is exacerbated because Mormons are accused by Protestants, and sometimes Catholics for being polytheistic. What is not admitted by some Catholics, is that in the strictest and most rigorous sense, we ourselves are open to the charge of polytheism…say from Moslems. But I do not believe that the Gospel message is that we have discovered that the strictest form of monotheism is true. I believe that Christ’s coming helps us to see that the Jewish monotheism which rejects local idols, is to be retained, but modified by seeing that the Blessed Trinity which Catholics adore is both One and Three. One Substance, Three Persons.

I think the following hymn, which is sung by the universal church in Her Divine Office for Terce, clearly displays that we acknowledge that there is a sense in which we understand God to be one, to be balanced with a sense in which God is three:

Firmly I believe and truly
God is three and God is one
And I next acknowledge duly
Manhood taken by the Son

by John Henry Cardinal Newman

I hope this helps you understand us better, and why I think that LDS theology must accept that substance can be shared. It happens every time a robin emerges from an egg. The nature of substance, and nature’s law (pointed to in Genesis) that a species procreates, “after its kind”, brings tremendous light to the Gospel. The wonderful news that God has a Son, who also became man was intended to show us how dearly God wishes to unite Himself with us, who He created in His own image, and indeed can have a share in the same substance, or as St Peter put it, to be “partakers of the divine nature”.

 

[mormon_fool]

Chris-WA:

Interchangeable titles? Where does this idea come from, and when did it originate?

I would say that it originates in the Book of Mormon in Mos. 15 as cited in the first post of this thread. There we see that Jesus is called both the Son and the Father and justification for both titles is given. The Father title there is used for two different beings who can be referred to as one God.

As I noted earlier on this thread, Joseph Smith changed 5 passages referring to God to the Son of God in later editions, but left other references to God intact, such as the Alma passage. So clearly he viewed the titles as interchangeable. I think I have to dispel the notion of Joseph being a strict trinitarian, because he claims to have seen two distint personages before the translation. However I will allow for Joseph’s knowledge of the Godhead to progress through time as he had further visions and revelations.

Any one who reads the Book of Mormon will never come to the conclusion that the Godhead consists of three separate beings. You will come to the same conclusion that the Catholic Church has taught for 2000 years.

I will have to politely disagree. We need extra-scriptural hellenistic concepts to come up with the substance sharing aspect of the trinity. The most parsimonious reading from the Book of Mormon text itself supports title sharing and not substance sharing. If there is any cause for confusion from the text itself, its translator seems to have cleared it up long ago.

Thanks for youir thoughtful response and allowing me to clarify my views.

Later,

fool

 

[Chris-WA]

mormon fool:

I would say that it originates in the Book of Mormon in Mos. 15 as cited in the first post of this thread. There we see that Jesus is called both the Son and the Father and justification for both titles is given. The Father title there is used for two different beings who can be referred to as one God.

As I noted earlier on this thread, Joseph Smith changed 5 passages referring to God to the Son of God in later editions, but left other references to God intact, such as the Alma passage. So clearly he viewed the titles as interchangeable. I think I have to dispel the notion of Joseph being a strict trinitarian, because he claims to have seen two distint personages before the translation. However I will allow for Joseph’s knowledge of the Godhead to progress through time as he had further visions and revelations.

Mormon fool, to make sure I wasn’t crazy, I looked up the Mosiah text on the LDS website and I’ve got to say that after reading it, the Book of Mormon teaches clearly here and elsewhere that Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father are the same being. Even after the changes Joseph made to what he claimed is divinely inspired scripture, the Book of Mormon still teaches that Jesus and Heavenly Father are the same being. The passage Alma passage is even more clear in this regard. I quote again:
38 Now Zeezrom saith again unto him: Is the Son of God the very Eternal Father?
39 And Amulek said unto him: Yea, he is the very Eternal Father of heaven and of earth, and all things which in them are; he is the beginning and the end, the first and the last.
What could be more clear than that? Amulek says that Jesus is the Eternal Father of heaven and earth. He doesn’t say Jesus shares that title with Heavenly Father–he says that Jesus is Heavenly Father. Do we really need to go over the definition of “is?”

Is the main reason you don’t accept this because of Joseph Smith’s first vision?
mormon fool:

I will have to politely disagree. We need extra-scriptural hellenistic concepts to come up with the substance sharing aspect of the trinity.

I will grant you that it took the church a few hundred years to define the trinity, but what to you mean by hellenistic concepts? I’ve heard LDS leaders say this in their explanation of the Great Apostacy, but I’ve never heard any specific examples of how Greek philosophy supposedly corrupted Christianity.
mormon fool:

The most parsimonious reading from the Book of Mormon text itself supports title sharing and not substance sharing. If there is any cause for confusion from the text itself, its translator seems to have cleared it up long ago.

There is huge cause for confusion from the text itself when compared to current LDS theology. Be honest here. If you handed a Book of Mormon to somebody who never heard of God before, I guarantee you they would come away thinking that God the Father and Jesus are the same being. That’s just how the text reads. It would take a scripture scholar doing all kinds of mental gymnastics to arrive at the “title sharing and not substance sharing” conclusion. Understanding the true nature of God is the most basic element of Christianity, and here we have clear cases of the Book of Mormon teaching something completely different from the LDS church, and you are trying to explain it away with “title sharing but not sharing of substance?” Your really stretching any sense of reason here, or am I being too Hellenistic?

 

[tkdnick]

mormon fool:

Did you not see my earlier post about interchangeable titles? In LDS theology titles such as “the Eternal Father” can be shared, but not substance.

So wait…If I say, “The Eternal Father” then I could actually be talking about God, Jesus, or the Holy Spirit??? Gosh if that isn’t the ABSOLUTE MOST CONFUSING doctrine I’ve heard of!!! So how do you distinguish between them if they can all share the same title? If I tell you that I want to discuss “The Eternal Father”, which person of the godhead do you assume I talking about? If someone told me they wanted to discuss “The Eternal Father” I would naturally assume we were going to talk about God the father NOT Jesus or the Holy Spirit.

 

[mormon_fool]

Chris-WA:

Mormon fool, to make sure I wasn’t crazy, I looked up the Mosiah text on the LDS website and I’ve got to say that after reading it, the Book of Mormon teaches clearly here and elsewhere that Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father are the same being.

Chris, I admire you for taking the time to look up the Mosiah chapter in the Book of Mormon. Please consider the article linked below as a more cogent response to the concerns that have been brought up in this thread.

fairlds.org/pubs/BoMTrin.pdf

Have a nice day,

fool

 

[mormon_fool]

edit: double post

 

[mormon_fool]

tkdnick:

If someone told me they wanted to discuss “The Eternal Father” I would naturally assume we were going to talk about God the father NOT Jesus or the Holy Spirit.

Me too. I would think that unless context implies otherwise.

 

[tkdnick]

mormon fool:

Me too. I would think that unless context implies otherwise.

Ok, so Jesus can be called the Eternal Father…doubt it, but I’ll concede. Still doesn’t answer the issue of Jesus and God being one God as shown in Mosiah.

Side bar -
Alma 11:39 talks about Jesus being the very Eternal Father of heaven and of earth and everything in them…I thought Jesus was only god of this earth and that God the father was over heaven. But here it says that Jesus is god over heaven as well. Also, how is Jesus, or God for that matter, the Eternal Father if God was once a created man somewhere else and Jesus is a literal spirit child of God? There has to be time associated with those “events” so they couldn’t possibly be “eternal”.