Mormon doctrine in a nutshell!

[Jerusha]

As for the Book of Mormon, I get more “Warm and Fuzzy’s” from reading Charlottes Web

The BOM gives me more cold pricklies. I had so much trouble reading it, I tore my first copy up and threw it away.

 

[why_me]

As per the topic. “Mormom doctrine in a nutshell”

Can you please explain the Official view of the Trinity? or more to the point, Where did God the Father come from in Mormom theology?

I ask this because two missionaries will be making a return trip to my home and I would like a clearer understanding of this doctrine. BTW, they are two of the nicest boys:thumbsup:

scriptures.lds.org/en/bd/g/43

This should help.

 

[why_me]

The BOM gives me more cold pricklies. I had so much trouble reading it, I tore my first copy up and threw it away.

Of course if you mock the book, you will not receive a witness. It is really meant for the open-hearted. But that being said, not all receive a special witness of the book.

 

[why_me]

In a nutshell.

How apropos.

It would be much better to address the quotations by Joseph Smith, especially the part that I darkened. Does he have a point?

 

[ralphinal]

scriptures.lds.org/en/bd/g/43

This should help.

I just read that link. i have questions

Is GOd a man who is fully exhalted?

 

[why_me]

So are you willing to deny the creed in order to agree with Joseph Smith about this? What part of the creed would you toss out?

If you are really Catholic you need to get in line.

Did I say that? I only made an observation that many people in this forum were hemming and hawing about the mormons having no catechism or official doctrine in a book. Now we know why. It has to do with truths yet to be discovered.

 

[Jerusha]

Of course if you mock the book, you will not receive a witness. It is really meant for the open-hearted. But that being said, not all receive a special witness of the book.

I have a “special witness” of about ten pages (other than what was quoted form the Bible). Total. It really took some digging to find that much.

 

[why_me]

So how does this not mean
that they can change it as they go along? Where is the proof that any of these new truths come from God?

No, but it does mean that more is yet to be discovered. Mormonism by christian standards is very conservative. The more liberal protestant sects seem to be jellyfish who are swayed and strayed by the tide. But mormonism holds fast to the iron rod.

 

[Jerusha]

Some Mormons hold fast to the iron rod. Others move about with the Liahona.

 

[why_me]

The Catholic Church teaches the truth which is true yesterday, today and forever. It is a firm foundation, where your faith is supported and deepened over time, so that you can draw closer and closer to our loving Lord, who is not a Lord of chaos and change. There are no limitations on how deep and abidding our Lord’s love for his children is, nor on truth. Our Lord taught the truth that abides, which is a safe haven for the soul. I believe my Lord, and He has no limitations.

May the Lord be praised, may He always be prasied.

That may be true. But for catholics the truth is limited to the catechism. That was the point. But not just catholicism. Many protestant sects are also enclosed in a box.

For mormons, god will still reveal more truths. He has not yet finished in governing his people, the human race.

 

[why_me]

Some Mormons hold fast to the iron rod. Others move about with the Liahona.

And others are home drinking coffee or having a beer. Such is life.

 

[scipio337]

Of course if you mock the book, you will not receive a witness. It is really meant for the open-hearted. But that being said, not all receive a special witness of the book.

Have you read the Qu’ran to attest to its authenticity? How about the Rigveda? The Kitáb-i-Aqdas?

 

[Isa_Almisry]

It would be much better to address the quotations by Joseph Smith, especially the part that I darkened. Does he have a point?

Ever hear of false advertizing?

The BoM and the whole lot call the Church an “abomination.” There’s no “openness” to truth. It there were, they would accept our baptism, but they don’t. No. For Mormons, what is truth is what J. Smith says, unless brother Bringham says otherwise. Talk about a tyranny of relativism.

 

[ibkc]

why me posted:
“I only made an observation that many people in this forum were hemming and hawing about the mormons having no catechism or official doctrine in a book. Now we know why. It has to do with -]truths/-] “revelations” yet to be -]discovered/-] pulled out our prophet’s posterior.”

(Hope you don’t mind my fixing a couple of things in your post, why me. You should pay me for my editing services!)

 

[ralphinal]

No, but it does mean that more is yet to be discovered. Mormonism by christian standards is very conservative. The more liberal protestant sects seem to be jellyfish who are swayed and strayed by the tide. But mormonism holds fast to the iron rod.

That does not prove the revelations came from God. Muslims are very conservative on some issues as well.

 

[Cairone]

why me,

Let me take a crack at this.

**In January 1843, Joseph Smith had a conversation with some people who were not members of the Church: “I stated that the most prominent difference in sentiment between the Latter-day Saints and sectarians was, that the latter were all circumscribed by some peculiar creed, which deprived its members the privilege of believing anything not contained therein, whereas the Latter-day Saints … are ready to believe all true principles that exist, as they are made manifest from time to time.”6 **

The particular flaw in Smith’s statement here is the belief that a creed circumscribes a section of truth and thus limits the believers to that particular truth. I feel this is more of a rhetorical argument, rather than anything substantive, so keep that in mind as I proceed. My response, obviously, won’t be free of bias.

To profess that a creed limits one in one’s religion presupposes that one is not permitted to believe in anything other than what the creed dictates, which is flat out wrong. At least, in the Catholic Church, you pick any creed, or even lump them all together, and the Church will still say there is plenty of truth not mentioned in those creeds, catechisms, and so on. The problem, of course, is that infinite truth cannot be contained in a finite number of pages.

In this regard, the Mormon Church and the Catholic Church aren’t any different. They both have a set of doctrinal beliefs they adhere to. They both state “this is the truth” when dealing with those beliefs, and they both state “there is more truth than what is printed here”. When Smith states “whereas the Latter-day Saints … are ready to believe all true principles that exist”, he states nothing different than what Catholics believe.

Now, I’ll readily agree that there are some people out there who do limit themselves with creeds and whatnot. To avoid picking on anyone (and revealing my own ignorance of others’ religions), I’ll talk mathematics. Now, I could make my creed the Zermelo-Frankel axioms (with the axiom of choice). (This is is set theory, and highly technical, but hopefully you’ll see where I’m driving.) I can work with those and speak of as true everything I can derive from ZFC. But there are true statements I cannot derive, even assuming the truth of ZFC. (The self-referential statement “There is no proof this statement is true in ZFC” can actually be quantitatively defined.) Thus, if I only accept as true ZFC and anything derived from ZFC, I miss out on a lot of truth. And this is where Smith is right. Someone who limits himself to the exact statements of the creed or anything directly derived from the creed does limit himself.

However, it is wrong to then extrapolate from Smith’s position to the position of the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church has always held that we will never be able to state the fullness of truth–time limitations, if nothing else. What the Catholic Church does is define “this must be true” at particular occasions when it is necessary to have that clarification. But note, when the Church defines, for example, that Jesus was both fully human and fully divine–having a human nature and a divine nature–that still leaves a lot of truth unexplored. We now have a road-marker that clarifies a piece of the truth and protects those who wish to know the truth from stepping off the road into error.

To suggest that the Mormon Church is somehow free of this is puzzling. There are particular truths that the Mormon Church adheres to, and even if they don’t have a written catechism like the Catholic Church, they still insist on the truth of those doctrinal issues. They have to, else they fall into an “anything goes” mentality. Now, I appreciate the Mormon Church’s teaching on continual revelation, but certainly that helps exemplify my point. When that revelation touches on doctrinal issues, and not just disciplinary ones, the Mormon Church now has a truth to adhere to. If it is written down, so what? Writing down that truth will not somehow shackle people from deriving logical consequences from it. And if it seemingly contradicts some previous revelation, that might just mean there are further insights to be gleaned. But it is a truth to be adhered to, another marker on the road to help the faithful in their path to salvation.

When Smith proclaims that Mormons are free to live, witness, learn about, and experience all that is true, I can to an extent see how that applies to those who appeal to sola scriptura, but I fail to see how that distinguishes Mormons from Catholics. Let us compare:

Mormons believe in embracing all that is true. So do Catholics.

Mormons believe that the truth cannot be circumscribed by a creed or catechism. So do Catholics.

Mormons (I think, you can correct me on this) have doctrinal beliefs that have to be adhered to, while at the same time cautioning that, while these doctrines are true, are not themselves the fullness of truth. So do Catholics.

In fact, as far as dealing with the fullness of truth goes, the place where Mormons and Catholics depart is that Mormons believe they receive the fullness of truth in continual revelation, whereas Catholics believed they received the fullness of truth with Christ, and now has the difficult task of taking in and understanding that truth, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

In conclusion, no, I don’t find this helps explain Mormon doctrine in a nutshell. To me, it would show how little Mormons understand the Catholic view of truth, defined doctrine, and what you can print in a finite number of pages.

Cairone

 

[justinthemartyr]

I think the real danger for Mormons is the fact that there is Truth and it has absolutes.
The argument of "limits or boundaries, is rediculous, and just an excuse for the Mormon leadership to change a certain belief because they have been proven wrong and must change it. The leadership in recent years has even admitted that they(apostles) can change their doctrines at will, because it is supposedly god that is changing it through them. In other words, if a certain belief or doctrine is found to be false or contradictive to a previous teaching of theirs, they can change it again in order for it to fit whatever is politically correct at the time. One great example of this is the teaching on blacks, and that they can never be elders of the mormon church, yet when the pressure came down, guess what teaching was changed?

 

[nebula]

Mormon doctrine in a nutshell:

There exists laws of the cosmos that have existed for all of eternity, and there exists innumerable intelligences that through virtue of grasping these laws can become progressively embodied and perfected. The peak of perfection is call godhood. Heavenly father is an exception intelligence who obtained godhood before we mortals did, and will help us become as he is, but we must join the correct church that another god, called Christ, created and remain faithful to it.

 

[Ruthie]

For Catholics, the truth is in the catechism. No more room for more truth.

But the Mormons are more open-ended by claiming that more truth will yet be discovered.

We hold the Catechism to be true, and we also believe that more truth can be discovered about our doctrines; that our understanding of them can be expanded.

The big difference is that no new understanding will *ever *contradict previous truth. More may be understood about a doctrine - but the doctrine will *not *change.

We all know that two previous doctrines of the Mormon church, on polygyny and blacks in the priesthood, have changed.

The fact that these doctrines changed just in time to first, insure statehood for Utah, and second, to avoid losing non-profit status, do not seem to me to be a coincidence.

Right now, the Catholic Church is under fire from those who would *force *our medical charities to violate our beliefs by making them prescribe contraceptives and perform abortions. I doubt that even loss of non-profit status would force us to change those doctrines.

Big difference.

Ruthie

 

[RC_Matt]

Actually read it again. It says no such thing.

Ok, so I did, and it sure sounds mutable to me:

“Latter-day Saints … are ready to believe all true principles that exist, as they are made manifest from time to time.”

What it does say is that churches with confirmed doctrine can limit their understanding of truth since if it is not in the book, it must be untrue.

Awhile back you posted an LDS statement from Salt Lake City that stated Mormon confirmed doctrine is contained in the four standard works: the Bible (as long as it is translated correctly), the BoM, the DOC, and the PGP. How does this reconcile with the above?

But the mormon understanding is quite open-ended.

I have noticed that.