LDS: Jesus always God?

[pinay]

So Parker,

When you said “First Born” does the LDS church deny that Christ is co-eternal with God the Father?

Does the LDS Church believe that God the Father is Eternal to Eternal?

God Bless

Something that LDS believe differently than Catholics is that the spirit is eternal. That’s all spirits including you.

So, before you and I were born to our parents, our spirits have existed from alpha to omega. We chose according to our free will to pass mortality following the plan laid out by Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ for our progression. Lucifer had a different plan - to strip all spirits of free will so all will follow God and none will get lost. 1/3 of the spirits followed Lucifer. So, everybody on this planet - including Hitler - made that choice to follow Christ before they were born on earth. Hence, everybody who are born on earth are born with the light of Christ (a conscience, if you will) that gives them that instinctive knowledge to know right from wrong. Mortality is our test to choose good according to our free will to qualify to live with God in heaven for the rest of eternity.

Heavenly Father and Jesus, of course, are eternal.

 

[KathleenGee]

Pinay…how much catechesis did you get in Philippines…a priest told me so many years back that many times, while adhering to the Catholic faith, much of the Philippines is nominal Catholic for lack of catechesis…there are very profound areas of faith in the Philippines that greatly exceed whatever is lacking.

Who taught you that we do not believe in the immorality of the soul? God Himself created the human soul with His Spirit…

I have read numerous Catholic books throughout my life and never did I read such a thinking or ever see such a thought in the Catechism. Our day to day decisions all stack up to the direction we will chose before God on judgment day.

 

[pinay]

We look to the Gospel of Christ Himself, Pinay…Christ spoke to the Good Thief that he would be with Him in paradise…the Lord said there is no marrying in heaven…we are called to the banquet table…in God there is no need.

Our reward in this life is God Himself and having all our relationships in Christ restored. Let the living here on earth procreate the world as God intended.

I’m sorry, I must have missed something. Is this still part of this thread or is this for a different thread?

I thought we were talking about Jesus Christ’s Divinity?

I’ll PM you a full response to this so I don’t derail the thread. Hope this helps.

 

[pinay]

Pinay…you are one of those who do not know the history of Mormon thought. Watch out, because some parts are becoming more and more like Catholics in basic thought. You do not think we are nice people either.

Some day you may find yourself returning to the true Church instituted by Christ 2000 years ago.

Kathleen, you don’t know me so I will give allowance for that. I’m not one to jump into something as important as religion with blinders on.

I love Catholics. I love the Catholic Church. If it were not for the Catholic Church, I wouldn’t be Mormon now. It was a major foundational stepping stone to my journey to Christ that I will forever be grateful for. My entire side of the family are Catholics. Excellent people, if I may say so. You should meet my parents. Devout Catholics living the perfect definition of Christian life.

Kathleen, the church did not start 2000 years ago. It started when Adam was created in the Garden of Eden. The church of Abraham, the church of Moses are not different churches than the Church of Christ. It is one church. In the beginning there was the Word… and all that.

 

[PJM]

=dcana;8740305]In asking this question I mean no disrespect to our LDS brothers and sisters. I ask for your forgiveness in advance if I offend anyone. I am just interested in this point of LDS Christology. Here is the question:

When Jesus was born in Bethlehem was He fully God (or a god, whichever you prefer)? By this I mean was He equal in all ways to the Father? Lying in Mary’s arms did He possess infinite wisdom, power, glory, goodness, mercy, and justice, ever to be worshiped and adored, equal to “Heavenly Father” in all things, considering the totality of His person, fully human and fully divine? Was He to be worshiped lying in the manger?

Thank you &
Merry Christmas!

Everything in the Bible and in Sacred Tradition proclaims jesus as FULLY GOD!

Luke 1: 34-35

"And Mary said to the angel, “How shall this be, since I have no husband?” And the angel said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.

Strange you should ask. I had a couple of LDS visit yesterday who claimed that a passage in psalms disproves this claim of OUR Catholic and many Christian Faith.

I forgot the number; I just told them that is their view; unsupported by Fact. Jesus was, IS, and shall always be TRUE GOD; They left.

God Bless,
Pat

 

[SteveVH]

Hi, TriumphGuy,

Perhaps you are familiar with John’s teaching in 1 John 3:2-3 which says:

“Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.”

Verse one also lets the reader know that “the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not” and speaks of “what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us”.

So the words “we shall be like him” are part of the teachings of the apostle John. Also, Jesus taught “be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48)

Latter-day Saints receive those teachings as being attainable through the atoning grace and power of Jesus Christ and through the mercy and love of God the Father. To become “like him” would mean to be a “joint-heir” with Him of “all things” just as Paul and John taught (Romans 8:17 and Revelation 3:21 and 21:7).

One aspect of this that seems to always be left out is this: Jesus is the Father’s only begotten Son. He is God from eternity. We are not begotten of the Father, we are created and become his sons and daughters through adoption. Out of his goodness and mercy we will become (and are already) joint heirs with Christ, but we can never confuse this with being equal with Christ. He is God. We are not. We will share in the life of God, not because of who we are, but because of who He is. He always has been and will always be God. We will always be his creatures, even when we share in His divinity.

 

[pinay]

Pinay…how much catechesis did you get in Philippines…a priest told me so many years back that many times, while adhering to the Catholic faith, much of the Philippines is nominal Catholic for lack of catechesis…there are very profound areas of faith in the Philippines that greatly exceed whatever is lacking.

Who taught you that we do not believe in the immorality of the soul? God Himself created the human soul with His Spirit…

I have read numerous Catholic books throughout my life and never did I read such a thinking or ever see such a thought in the Catechism. Our day to day decisions all stack up to the direction we will chose before God on judgment day.

I went to Catholic Schools from Kindergarten all the way to graduation from a Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering. Catechism and Religious Education is 3 credits per semester every single year of that. And that’s in addition to the weekly traditional stuff and seasonal Catholic calendar stuff - like Wednesday mass in addition to the family Sunday mass complete with discussion of all 2 or 3 gospel readings plus psalms, advent discussions throughout the advent calendar, lent discussions between ash wednesday and easter, etc. etc. And then there’s my mother…

I didn’t say Catholics do not believe in the immortality of the soul. There is a difference though because Catholics believe that the soul is not eternal. That is - it may have no end, but it does have a beginning. It starts at mortal birth. LDS believe that the spirit is eternal - no beginning, no end. The spirit joins the body between conception and birth.

 

[pinay]

One aspect of this that seems to always be left out is this: Jesus is the Father’s only begotten Son. He is God from eternity. We are not begotten of the Father, we are created and become his sons and daughters through adoption. Out of his goodness and mercy we will become (and are already) joint heirs with Christ, but we can never confuse this with being equal with Christ. He is God. We are not. We will share in the life of God, not because of who we are, but because of who He is. He always has been and will always be God. We will always be his creatures, even when we share in His divinity.

LDS believe the same.

 

[pinay]

A post just came up on another thread on Mormonism, providing another ongoing witness…shared by Miriam, post 107, on how a Mormon woman was taught and is now becoming a Catholic. Go back and verify thread…‘A Catholic Look at Mormonism’…

I read materials at the Deseret bookstore and follow up’s…very unusual thinking… and Mormonism is pulling the links…

People most inclined to believe in Mormonism – now – are people born outside of the USA because they are not aware of its traditional beliefs like Americans are.

I find covering up very dishonest…Paul DuPre and PeterJohn are excellent in providing verifiable teachings, beliefs and practices of Mormonism…up until the present time of the internet and open, online information, free to the public. There are many American Mormons leaving their religion because of the expose…and it is likewise causing the Mormon sophists to standardize their teachings now to keep their members.

This is a warning to people…best you check out Mormonism’s history before jumping in with both feet and believing everything they say.

Do you know your Catholic History??? If you’re going to use that as a measuring stick, you’re going to be like the pot calling the kettle black… or something like that.

If there’s anybody who should denounce Catholicism for its history it would be Filipinos. The King of Spain colonized the Philippines under the guise of Catholicism fully sanctioned by the Pope, killing people for failure to pay tithes among other hideous things. Yet, you see that 75% of Filipinos are Catholics. Why? Whatever answer you come up with is the same answer Mormons come up with after checking out LDS History and bouncing it against the doctrine.

 

[pinay]

Everything in the Bible and in Sacred Tradition proclaims jesus as FULLY GOD!

Luke 1: 34-35

"And Mary said to the angel, “How shall this be, since I have no husband?” And the angel said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.

Strange you should ask. I had a couple of LDS visit yesterday who claimed that a passage in psalms disproves this claim of OUR Catholic and many Christian Faith.

I forgot the number; I just told them that is their view; unsupported by Fact. Jesus was, IS, and shall always be TRUE GOD; They left.

God Bless,
Pat

Not sure who you were talking to because LDS believe that Jesus was, is, and always will be God. True God even.

There’s no difference in the Nativity Story between LDS and Catholics. They both believe Jesus was born divine, they both believe Jesus was born of God by a virgin by the power of the Holy Ghost. They both believe Jesus may not have been born exactly on December 25 and they both believe the angel didn’t really have wings.

So whatever passage in Psalms they were referring to, I’d like to see it - because it’s either they misunderstood you or you misunderstood them. That is if - they were truly LDS in the first place… there are other LDS spin-offs out there too.

 

[bogeydogg]

Something that LDS believe differently than Catholics is that the spirit is eternal. That’s all spirits including you.

So, before you and I were born to our parents, our spirits have existed from alpha to omega. We chose according to our free will to pass mortality following the plan laid out by Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ for our progression. Lucifer had a different plan - to strip all spirits of free will so all will follow God and none will get lost. 1/3 of the spirits followed Lucifer. So, everybody on this planet - including Hitler - made that choice to follow Christ before they were born on earth. Hence, everybody who are born on earth are born with the light of Christ (a conscience, if you will) that gives them that instinctive knowledge to know right from wrong. Mortality is our test to choose good according to our free will to qualify to live with God in heaven for the rest of eternity.

Heavenly Father and Jesus, of course, are eternal.

So, just to be clear, our spirits are not created? Is that right?

By eternal do you mean that there never was a time in which they were not (as in their spirits being eternal) or do you mean there was a time in a pre-exalted life that God the Father was a perfect man who became God?

 

[SteveVH]

I went to Catholic Schools from Kindergarten all the way to graduation from a Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering. Catechism and Religious Education is 3 credits per semester every single year of that. And that’s in addition to the weekly traditional stuff and seasonal Catholic calendar stuff - like Wednesday mass in addition to the family Sunday mass complete with discussion of all 2 or 3 gospel readings plus psalms, advent discussions throughout the advent calendar, lent discussions between ash wednesday and easter, etc. etc. And then there’s my mother…

I didn’t say Catholics do not believe in the immortality of the soul. There is a difference though because Catholics believe that the soul is not eternal. That is - it may have no end, but it does have a beginning. It starts at mortal birth. LDS believe that the spirit is eternal - no beginning, no end. The spirit joins the body between conception and birth.

For all of your years in Catholicism, you seem to have not paid great attention to some very basic stuff. I’m not sure what “Wednesday mass” is, but Wednesday holds no greater position than any other day in our Church. We have Mass every day, with Sunday holding the greatest position and being a day of obligation. There are not 2 or 3 gospel readings. There is a reading from the Old Testament, during ordinary time, or the Acts of the Apostles or one of the Epistles depending on the season, a Psalm, and one reading from one of the Gospels; Matthew, Mark, Luke or John, depending upon which cycle you are in (A, B or C).

As for the immortality of the soul, the great error in LDS theology is that you equate the human soul with the eternal existence of God, believing that we are co-eternal with Him. You completely miss the fact that we are created by God, therefore we could not have been co-eternal with Him, otherwise we would be equal with Him and not be his creation. LDS theology also holds that matter is co-eternal with God, which completely conflicts with his omnipotence, making God dependent upon something other than Himself in order to “create” or “organize”. It never answers the question as to the origin of pre-mortal souls or pre-existent matter. I am amazed that if you actually grasped Catholic teaching that you could buy into the Mormon position. There is nothing in the scritptures to support it, unless one twists and turns the words found there into something unrecognizable by all other Christian scholars.

 

[KathleenGee]

Pinay…thank you for sharing your stand in regards to the Catholic Church, to your parents…I remember some time ago that caused me to react…today is today…so we restart here.

The Spanish temporal rulers did not work in bringing Christ to native people; the missionaries did…the celibates who did not marry to work for Christ’s kingdom.

The word ‘church’ never came up in Scripture until Christ Himself used it…and He refers to the rebuilding of the new Temple in 3 days…we are Church through Christ…Who came at the fulfilled time. There was no church at Adam and Eve…but broken relationship with God.

You say you have an engineering degree…fantastic!..

If you can, please research the evolving beliefs of Mormonism…it claims an apostasy happened at the death of the last apostle, that an unknown angel appeared to Smith…there is consistency in the writing of the Book of Mormon showing one author…but there is credible references that Smith did not write but had Rigdon write the Book of Mormon.

Jesus Christ is God. Always was, always will be, of the same substance in God. He was spirit but became man for our sake, and He established His church on Peter and the apostles…through the Holy Spirit.

The Church did not begin with Adam and Eve…that is a new spin…The Church began through the Holy Spirit working through the Apostles, and all those present in the Upper Room, all sent forth with their various charisms to begin. There was no apostasy…some say today we are witnessing rather a great turning away from God throughout the world in spite of conversions in various places.

 

[pinay]

For all of your years in Catholicism, you seem to have not paid great attention to some very basic stuff. I’m not sure what “Wednesday mass” is, but Wednesday holds no greater position than any other day in our Church. We have Mass every day, with Sunday holding the greatest position and being a day of obligation. There are not 2 or 3 gospel readings. There is a reading from the Old Testament, during ordinary time, or the Acts of the Apostles or one of the Epistles depending on the season, a Psalm, and one reading from one of the Gospels; Matthew, Mark, Luke or John, depending upon which cycle you are in (A, B or C).

Point taken. All a matter of dictionary words, though. I used the word gospel to include OT and Acts. In LDS, they’re all “bible” as opposed to “book of mormon” or “pearl of great price” or “doctrine and covenants” so I’ve gotten used to looking at the OT/NT as one big lump of stuff.

Wednesday mass is the mass held by Catholic schools for the students. It is tradition. Well maybe only in the Philippines, don’t know. The reason I mentioned it is because, Wednesday readings are different than Sunday readings - therefore, we get to discuss in school 2 different sets of readings every single week.

As for the immortality of the soul, the great error in LDS theology is that you equate the human soul with the eternal existence of God, believing that we are co-eternal with Him. You completely miss the fact that we are created by God, therefore we could not have been co-eternal with Him, otherwise we would be equal with Him and not be his creation. LDS theology also holds that matter is co-eternal with God, which completely conflicts with his omnipotence, making God dependent upon something other than Himself in order to “create” or “organize”. It never answers the question as to the origin of pre-mortal souls or pre-existent matter. I am amazed that if you actually grasped Catholic teaching that you could buy into the Mormon position. There is nothing in the scritptures to support it, unless one twists and turns the words found there into something unrecognizable by all other Christian scholars.

Of course you consider it an error. It is different than what you believe in. But, LDS do believe we are created by God. We just separate the creation of the body from the spirit.

Having all the answers is not the end-game while we are mortal. Let’s take energy for example - energy, as we all know is neither created, nor destroyed - well, that’s what scientists believe. Catholics, of course, believe differently because God is the beginning of all things - ex nihilo. Therefore, energy started as God’s creation. Does that make scientists wrong? Not really. They just have a different explanation of energy based on all its observable characteristics using all the knowledge they have of it not counting those that require a leap of faith.

LDS is the same. We believe Spirits, like energy, are eternal. We believe a different explanation of spirits based on all its observable characteristics using all the knowledge we have of it not counting those that are not divinely revealed. What is accepted as the authority on the proper interpretation of the Bible is what is different. For something to have no end, it doesn’t make sense to an LDS for it to have a beginning.

 

[Heuchler]

This is not true either. None of it.

I’d beg to differ. Let’s examine what I said and see if it matches up with the words of those who created mormonism. I said that Christ has the same soul as us (sorry that might have been phrased wrong but the only difference between ours and His to a mormon is that he is the first spirit child of God.), but The 10th prophet of your religion said, “We accept Jesus as the Only Begotten Son of the Father in the flesh, although we are all his offspring in the spirit, and therefore his children.” So, thats at least one ounce of truth

Next I said, His body was created by God the Father coming down and having sex with Mary instead of it being a virgin birth done by the power of the Holy Spirit. So, Young said, “The birth of the Saviour was as natural as are the births of our children; it was the result of natural action. He partook of flesh and blood—was begotten of his Father, as we were of our fathers,”

So, I’m pretty sure what I spoke was sound Mormon doctrine. If I am wrong please show me where instead of blandly claiming it is false.

 

[pinay]

SteveVH, this one is for you.

I compiled this to give to a couple of LDS missionaries to help them understand some of the questions from a Catholic investigator - just for them to know where she is coming from. It is, of course, addressed to an LDS missionary so it’s from that point of view that I didn’t have to explain LDS doctrine to them. But, I think it has enough information for a Catholic to understand where we are different - completely for informational purposes only. You already have a good grasp of the Mormon belief. I just want to show how the LDS interpret this particular concept through scripture.

You’re a good representative of the LDS doctrine - analyzing it truthfully and bouncing it against your own faith without malice. There is nothing more frustrating than having to correct a Catholic trying to explain Mormon doctrine without truly knowing what they’re talking about.

---

We are gods
(addressed to 2 LDS missionaries from a Catholic turned Mormon)

Psalm 82 and John 10 Catholic understanding is fairly straightforward.

The gods here are the chosen of God who are given the authority to judge. In OT times - that’s the highest seat of power in the church. In the first few verses of Psalm 82, it talks of God standing in the midst of the assembled gods. He then calls out all the assembly for their unjust actions. That they have been given the power (ye are gods, sons of the Most High) yet they abuse it. So, they will not gain special favor with God and will die like the common man, the ones not given the power.

So that, in John 10, Jesus uses this passage to remind the Pharisees that they consider themselves one of the gods yet they are ruling unjustly. He contrasts Himself from the corrupt Pharisees as having the true Godhood.

In summary - these 2 chapters in Catholic doctrine serves as a warning for church authority - that even if they have been given Priesthood power, they can lose it if they corrupt this authority.

Also, it serves as a warning to all men - that even though they count themselves as the elect, they can die as all others who are not elected through their inequity.

None of this Catholic understanding contradicts LDS doctrine, even if it is not complete.
As far as LDS theology on Psalm 82 it goes a lot deeper in meaning because it takes “gods” as divine and not just mortal. Therefore, the implication of God standing in the midst of an assembly of gods goes beyond just the mortal judges into the divine potential of man. So that, you can take the exact same explanation I gave to you from the Catholic perspective and apply it beyond just the priesthood authority of man into man’s potential for divinity; our potential to become gods ourselves.

John 10 then holds a more majestic meaning; that Jesus was pointing out the error of the Pharisees to charge him with blasphemy for stating that He is the Son of God, when it is in their scriptures that the Pharisees themselves are sons of the Most High.

Now, interestingly, this is not different from Catholic doctrine either. Because, Catholics do believe that man can become gods. But, there is a slight difference in nuance because of the difference in fundamental belief between LDS and Catholic on the nature of man. Because, LDS believe that God is of the same “species” as man (taking the “created in His image and likeness” much more literally than Catholics do) - whereas Catholics don’t. So that, when Catholics say man can become gods, they become divine by adoption and never become god in ousia.

---

 

[pinay]

Pinay…thank you for sharing your stand in regards to the Catholic Church, to your parents…I remember some time ago that caused me to react…today is today…so we restart here.

The Spanish temporal rulers did not work in bringing Christ to native people; the missionaries did…the celibates who did not marry to work for Christ’s kingdom.

The word ‘church’ never came up in Scripture until Christ Himself used it…and He refers to the rebuilding of the new Temple in 3 days…we are Church through Christ…Who came at the fulfilled time. There was no church at Adam and Eve…but broken relationship with God.

You say you have an engineering degree…fantastic!..

If you can, please research the evolving beliefs of Mormonism…it claims an apostasy happened at the death of the last apostle, that an unknown angel appeared to Smith…there is consistency in the writing of the Book of Mormon showing one author…but there is credible references that Smith did not write but had Rigdon write the Book of Mormon.

Jesus Christ is God. Always was, always will be, of the same substance in God. He was spirit but became man for our sake, and He established His church on Peter and the apostles…through the Holy Spirit.

The Church did not begin with Adam and Eve…that is a new spin…The Church began through the Holy Spirit working through the Apostles, and all those present in the Upper Room, all sent forth with their various charisms to begin. There was no apostasy…some say today we are witnessing rather a great turning away from God throughout the world in spite of conversions in various places.

The Church having started from Adam and Eve is not exclusively a Mormon doctrine. It is a Catholic one as well. “There is but one universal Church of the faithful, outside which no one at all is saved.” - Pope Innocent, I believe.

That doesn’t mean that Adam, Abraham, Moses, and everyone that came before and after all the way until Christ organized the rock on Peter was not saved. The Body of Christ is the Church - and he did not start to become Christ in Bethlehem. He was Christ from eternity to eternity.

Yes, I know everything about the history of the Mormon church. I studied Mormonism secularly for 3 years before I looked at it spiritually.

 

[SteveVH]

Point taken. All a matter of dictionary words, though. I used the word gospel to include OT and Acts. In LDS, they’re all “bible” as opposed to “book of mormon” or “pearl of great price” or “doctrine and covenants” so I’ve gotten used to looking at the OT/NT as one big lump of stuff.

Wednesday mass is the mass held by Catholic schools for the students. It is tradition. Well maybe only in the Philippines, don’t know. The reason I mentioned it is because, Wednesday readings are different than Sunday readings - therefore, we get to discuss in school 2 different sets of readings every single week.

Sorry if I was a little picky, but you bring up a point that is, actually, very important. The Bible is the story of salvation history, and in that sense it can be taken as a whole. But it is also important to realize the difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament. Jesus Christ was the fulfillment of the Old Testament. God made covenant after covenant with the Jews in the Old Testament due to their disobedience. When Christ came he gave us the new and everlasting Covenant. He is the new and everlasting covenant, there will be no other covenant. That is why the “Great Apostasy” could never have happened, regardless of what people did. He started a Church, of which He is the head. He was not and is not dependent upon sinful humans in order to perpetuate it. It is a divine, not a human institution. That is why he could promise that the gates of hell would never prevail, because it is he that is in control. From this basis alone, the Mormon claims as to an apostasy fall, and without an apostasy, the one legged stool on which Mormonism stands, it collapses entirely. I would encourage you to revisit your Catholicism, if only from a scholarly viewpoint, and then weigh the claims of a man, Joseph Smith, against the claims of Christ himself, the Lord and God of creation.

Of course you consider it an error. It is different than what you believe in. But, LDS do believe we are created by God. We just separate the creation of the body from the spirit.

How then can you believe in the omnipotence of God? If we, and matter, are co-eternal with him then he cannot be all-powerful.

Having all the answers is not the end-game while we are mortal. Let’s take energy for example - energy, as we all know is neither created, nor destroyed - well, that’s what scientists believe. Catholics, of course, believe differently because God is the beginning of all things - ex nihilo. Therefore, energy started as God’s creation. Does that make scientists wrong? Not really. They just have a different explanation of energy based on all its observable characteristics using all the knowledge they have of it not counting those that require a leap of faith.

Scientists can only observe and measure what is created. Science, by its very nature, does not and cannot observe or measure that which is not created, therefore it cannot answer the questions concerning the supernatural or the spiritual world.

LDS is the same. We believe Spirits, like energy, are eternal. We believe a different explanation of spirits based on all its observable characteristics using all the knowledge we have of it not counting those that are not divinely revealed. For something to have no end, it doesn’t make sense to an LDS for it to have a beginning.

So you base your theology on a discipline (science) that cannot possibly answer the questions of which we are speaking. It is like depending upon an accountant when discussing geology. This is an aspect of Mormonism that is a tell-tale sign of its human, rather than divine origin. Everything is thought of only in human terms, from your ideas of pre-mortal existence to the Father having a body of flesh and bone and basically having to evolve into a god. But we know from Sacred Scripture that God’s ways are not our ways. We cannot come to a determination of the nature of God through science or the human mind.

 

[Telstar]

His literal Father was God the Father, through Mary’s conception by the power of the Holy Ghost sanctifying her body to carry in her womb the Son of God, having conceived Him through miraculous divine means since she was a virgin and remained a virgin then and until after He was born.

Does the bold red part mean that she was no longer a virgin after Jesus was born, Parker? I know Kathleen seems to think that you’re saying that Mary remained a virgin, but I don’t think that’s what you’re really saying (in red). Is it?

BTW… Catholics believe that Mary was the only woman since Eve, that was born without the stain of Original Sin. So, she was already made perfect by the grace of God, from the time of her Immaculate Conception. All other men and women are made imperfect by the stain of Original Sin. But, Mary was born “full of grace” (without needing baptism to wash away Original Sin). Original Sin is the reason why all mankind (man and woman) needed a Savior, so they could once again have the privilege of entering Heaven after they died. It was the Holy Spirit that formed Jesus in Mary’s womb when the Power of God overshadowed her. Just an FYI.

 

[pinay]

SteveVH,

Here’s another one I compiled for the missionaries to give them a better understanding of the Trinity. Interestingly, the missionaries I gave this to don’t really have a good grasp of what the Trinity is and it was hindering their conversation with the Catholic. Kinda like this conversation: “Are you thirsty?”, “No, I’m not that old, I’m only 20.”…

---

Trinity versus Godhead
(addressed to 2 LDS missionaries from a Catholic turned LDS)

This is probably the most difficult concept to bridge between Catholic and LDS. But, once you understand the concept of the Trinity and the concept of the Godhead, you will find that the chasm is really not that vast.

One really need to understand the meaning of the words being used by Trinitarians especially because the Trinity doctrine is over 1000 years old, and therefore:

1. it wasn’t formulated by English speaking people
2. the words being used by us are translations (and translations of translations)

Therefore, it is always helpful to go back to the Greek or Hebrew and learn what those words mean. The most important word to understand is “being”. An LDS person would have no problem saying that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three separate beings (or use “person/personage” interchangeably with “being”), because they are using that word (“being”) in its modern usage, where “being” is used interchangeably with “person” (i.e. human being=human person).

This is not possible with the Trinity. A Trinitarian would have no problem with someone saying that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three persons, but they would probably get confused if you say God is three beings, because of what the word “being” means in its original context. The word translated as “being” in reference to the Trinity comes from the Greek word “ousia”, which means “essence, being, nature”. As you can see, it has nothing to do with “person”, and cannot be used interchangeably with “person”. Instead of saying “being”, the word “substance” is also used. Substance is a translation of the word “substantia” from Latin, which in turn is a translation of the Greek “ousia”. “Being” is actually a very important word in philosophy.

It is also important to realize that in the Trinity, the way in which the Persons are three is not the same way that they are one. What makes them three is not what makes them one. So saying that there are three things that are one thing isn’t too helpful, because it doesn’t say what makes them three, and what makes them one. Again, Personhood is not the same as Being (ousia) in Trinitarian speak.

So that is the crux of this divide. You have to remember that Trinitarians are not using the word “being” in its current meaning or usage (where it is used interchangeably with “person”), but the way that it was used over 1000 years ago when the Trinity doctrine came around, when the Greek word “ousia” was being used, and it was referring to the essence or nature of something. This is extremely important if one wants to understand what the Trinity is actually talking about.

… to be continued on next post…