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Timeless_Man
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Wow! That was fast. Either you did not read all of my post or you are so biased as to be blind. I don’t get your point, “…your premise fails”.
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SteveVH
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In truth, they are “Joseph Smithians”. They have nothing in common with Christianity as it was defined for the first 1835 years before their existence other than borrowing Jesus’ name for their own
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mtolympus
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I believe the Bible completely. In my 280 posts I have always tried to use the Bible to explain what I believe and why. I really do not try to prove anything, only that what I believe can be explained from the Bible. I hope my posts in this thread helped answer your questions.
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EcceAgnusDei
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Indeed. Here is what Joseph Smith had to say about it.
June 16, 1844
from: History of the Church 6:473-479; Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, pp. 369-376
weblink here: emp.byui.edu/jexj/courses/sermon_in_the_grove.htm
At least Joseph Smith was unhesitating in declaring that he always preached that there were three Gods. Mormons should do the same – it is the obvious logical conclusion to saying that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are three separate beings, hence Joseph Smith’s statement “who can contradict it?”
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TheExorcist
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Yes, but SHHHHH Steve, they don’t want anybody to know that. They are trying to mainstream and blend in, hiding and sometimes denying the stranger doctrines.
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SteveVH
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Hey, I just noticed that you had received your sacraments of initiation relatively recently. Gongradualtions. Our Church just bcame a little stronger.
God bless.
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SteveVH
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And now, the rest of the story.
Being one in purpose and authority does not equal one God. It equals three gods who have the same intention and means. Being one in purpose means just that; one in purpose, and that is all it means. Having the same authority, as two five star generals may have the same authority, does not make them one. It just means that they have the same authority.
God is truly one being whose very nature is that of a family, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Father has never existed without the Son and the Holy Spirit; the Son has never existed without the Father and the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit has never existed without the the Father and the Son. It is impossible because they are one and cannot exist apart from each other anymore than I can exist apart from my heart or my brain or my spirit.
I think that the true sumbling block here in communication is the Mormon vs. Catholic (Christian) idea of the nature of God which stems from the Mormon understanding of what being made “in the image of God” means. Mormons have come to the conclusion that it means that God must look like us, with a physical body of flesh and bone, after all we are made in his image. To view the Father and the Son as one divine Being is a difficult thing to do from this perspective.
From the Catholic perspective, God is eternally beyond our ability to grasp. Any thought we can have about God can only diminish his true glory and majesty. This glory and majesty, power and authority of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit was hidden in the human flesh of Jesus Christ. Where Christ was, there also were the Father and the Holy Spirit. “When you see me, you have seen the Father”. The Father is pure divine Spirit, not a physical Person. "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. There are many ways that we are made in God’s image, but God is not made in our image. God is not like us and His ways are not our ways.
You know, that sounds fine, but unfortunately we have quotes from your very prophet who explains very clearly what you are to believe, as EcceAgnusDei posted above:
*"I will preach on the plurality of Gods. I have selected this text for that express purpose. I wish to declare I have always and in all congregations when I have preach on the subject of the Deity, it has been the plurality of Gods. I has been preached by the Elders for fifteen years.
I have always declared God to be a distinct personage, Jesus Christ a separate and distinct personage from God the Father, and the Holy Ghost was a distinct personage and a Spirit: and these three constitute three distinct personages and three Gods. If this is in accordance with the New Testament, lo and behold! we have three Gods anyhow, and they are plural; and who can contradict it?"*
With all due respect, do you believe what Joseph Smith said or do you not?
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Miriam1947
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No it’s not. Are Mormons good citizens, loving people? Why, yes many are.
Just as we have unfaithful Catholics who bring shame to the Church, I am sure there are just as many Mormons who bring shame to their religion.
It is just as individual as that. My own personal opinion.
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Imcatholic7
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Like the becoming a god doctrine. And many many others.
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mtolympus
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Do you not believe in God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost? That sounds like three Gods to me.
The following scripture in Genesis provides biblical definition for the terms “image and likeness.” Here, man who was created in the likeness of God is compared to a son who was born in the image and likeness of his father.
“This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him; Male and female created he them; and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created. And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth.” (Gen. 5:1-3) emphasis added
Absolutly, Joseph Smith was simply stating the obvious. If there are three divine beings there are three Gods. Nevertheless, we worship the Father, the only true God in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ who was sent to us by the Father. (John 17:3) They are one God deriving authority from the Father to do the will of the Father.
The Father and Jesus Chirst are separate beings. Jesus was resurrected with a body of flesh and bones (Luke 24:36-39) That is the way Jesus was taken into heaven and that is the way he will return to the earth. (Acts 1:10:11) Jesus’ resurrected body of flesh and bones is permanent for He will never die again. (Romans 6:9) Stephen saw Jesus, who has a body of flesh and bones in heaven standing on the right hand of God. (Acts 7:55-56) Jesus with His body of flesh and bones is separate from the Father, and when Jesus was compared to the Father, Jesus was desribed as “being the brightness of his glory, *and the express image of his person.” *(Heb. 1:3) This all makes sense only because man was created in the image and likeness of God. “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.” (Gen. 1:26) emphasis added
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TexanKnight
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Your problem is, Joseph claimed the Son was flesh and that the Father was a “personage of Spirit”…how do you reconcile that?
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EcceAgnusDei
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This is a flawed understanding of the Trinity. One old traditional way to catechize children on the Trinity is to use the example of a triangle. It is simple and therefore barely scratches the surface of the nature of the Holy Trinity, but it should work in this case to show how different the Mormon concept of Godhead is from the Catholic doctrine of the Trinity. A triangle has three sides but is one triangle. The Trinity has three Persons but only one Being. So there is side A, side B, and side C, but only triangle, just as there is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, but only one God. It would be silly to look at a triangle and say that because there are three sides there must be three triangles. They same applies to the Trinity; because there are three Persons does not mean there are three Beings.
The crux of the issue revolves around the understanding of person and being. Unlike our everyday experience, in the Trinity, a person and a being are not equal to each other. God has three Persons, but only one Being. In the Nicene Creed, the Second Person of the Trinity, the Son, is described as being “consubstantial with the Father,” which means He is of the same substance, the same being.
It is also important to note that the idea of Father and Son is not a literal one, as Mormons teach. As said above, God is so far beyond our ability to grasp and understand. Yet in His mercy and love, He has given us concepts that help us approach Him, and the idea of Father and Son is what He has decided is the closest way to describe Himself.
I know that Mormons hold C. S. Lewis in high regard. I suggest you get his book “Mere Christianity” and read the second part where he explains in a simple manner the doctrine of the Holy Trinity as believed by Christians. You will see that it differs vastly from what you have been taught about God in the Mormon church.
The summation is that Mormons are not Trinitarians. Joseph Smith clearly taught in multiple places that there are multiple Gods. And even if “Heavenly Father/Eloheim” is the only God that Mormons are to worship, that doesn’t change the fact that according to Mormon theology there are other Gods out there – most obviously Jesus/Jehovah and the Holy Ghost.
And just for full disclosure, I was raised in a very devout Mormon family (my father has been stake president and is now patriarch). I did the common two-step conversion: stop being Mormon and then later convert to Catholicism.
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jrtrent
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The statement you quote seems to come from the Lectures on Faith of 1834. There is an interesting article that goes into that at the link below. en.fairmormon.org/Mormonism_and_the_nature_of_God/God_is_a_Spirit/Lecture_of_Faith_5_teaches_the_Father_is_%22a_personage_of_spirit%22
“Whether Joseph Smith understood at this point that the Father had a physical body (as distinct from a spirit body upon which man’s body was patterned) is not entirely clear, although some, such as Bruce R. McConkie, believe there is a basis for such in the Lectures on Faith. One thing is for certain, Joseph clearly did not believe in the non-embodied God of classical trinitarianism.”
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twopekinguys
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EcceAgnusDei
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which is, of course, closely related to the doctrine that God used to be a man and subsequently became God, has a physical body, is married to at least one woman, and lives on a planet near the star Kolob.
Christians and Mormons may use the same words, but the meanings are vastly different. Any logical thinking person would conclude that words with different meanings don’t mean the same thing. Mormons aren’t Christian because their definitions of Christian words aren’t Christian.
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pismopal
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The LDS religion is built around and upon Joseph Smith and because of this…the religion collapses…not after close scutiny but after only casual observation. The pathetic plagerism of the KJ Bible language…the connection of Smith to Masonic rites and his insertion of these rites into his “revelations”…the bizarre unscientific “explanations” of history unsupported by any achaeological evidence of any kind. I have no quarrel with those who wish to take snake oil…just don’t try to sell it please.
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Bill_Pick
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Do Mormons believe that Jesus was married ,answer after you read journal od discourses ol 11 P269 and then give your answer
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Porknpie
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Olympus -
Here’s Genesis 1:25-26:
26 Then God said: Let us make* human beings in our image, after our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the tame animals, all the wild animals, and all the creatures that crawl on the earth.
27 God created mankind in his image;
in the image of God he created them;
male and female* he created them.
And Catholic commentary on what “image of God” and “us” (plural) means…this understanding is consistent across Christianity. Emphasis added.
- [1:26] Let us make: in the ancient Near East, and sometimes in the Bible, God was **imagined **as presiding over an assembly of heavenly beings who deliberated and decided about matters on earth (1 Kgs 22:19–22; Is 6:8; Ps 29:1–2; 82; 89:6–7; Jb 1:6; 2:1; 38:7). This scene accounts for the plural form here and in Gn 11:7 (“Let us then go down…”). Israel’s God was always considered “Most High” over the heavenly beings. Human beings: Hebrew ’ādām is here the generic term for humankind; in the first five chapters of Genesis it is the proper name Adam only at 4:25 and 5:1–5. In our image, after our likeness: “image” and “likeness” (virtually synonyms) express the worth of human beings who have value in themselves (human blood may not be shed in 9:6 because of this image of God) and in their task, dominion (1:28), which promotes the rule of God over the universe.
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mtolympus
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I understand completely. That is why I believe we should try to explain our own beliefs rather than try to define the beliefs of someone of a different faith than our own.
Here is another one: 1 + 1 + 1 = 3, but 1 x 1 x 1 = 1. These are clever ways to explain the three in one concept, but I prefer to find the explanation in the Bible.
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mtolympus
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This doesn’t explain why God the Son has a resurrected body of flesh and bones.
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