Mormons are Henotheistic

[Utah_Ken]

Living here in Utah among the large Mormon population presents us Catholics with many challenges and opportunities. Perhaps the greatest challenge is in the definition of terms, the Mormon church has co-opted the language of mainstream Christianity and changed slightly. When speaking with them, they often wait for the chance to jump at a position with cries of persecution. I have learned to define my terms and definitions at the begininning to prevent this from happening and foster good discussion. A charge often leveled at them is that their belief regarding God is polytheistic.

Strictly speaking, The Mormons are not polytheistic, and certainly not Monotheistic. They are Henotheistic.

Henotheism: The worship of a particular god without disbelieving in the existence of others. Random House College Dictionary

 

[darcee]

You might run into trouble with Henotheistic as well. LDS beleive there is only one God for this incarnation.

-D

 

[Utah_Ken]

Good point, I should have been more clear, in that I would not say to a Mormon, “you are henotheistic” because that of course brings the persecution response. In my case it is helpful to understand it myself so that I can choose my words carefully, and also as a clear reminder that the words that we share often have different definitions.

 

[AmandaPS]

But they believe that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are three seperate beings; Heavenly Father & Jesus having seperate, tangable flesh and bone bodies, and the Holy Ghost is spirit only.

I think my brain’s run away from too much boggling…

 

[Katholikos]

Aren’t Mormons only polytheistic (Webster: a doctrine of belief in more than one god or in many gods)? My dictionary defines henotheism as worship of a particular god without disbelieving in the existence of others.

It’s Mormon doctrine that Heavenly Father is the only god of earth, but he is one among many gods of the universe. In fact, the Council of Gods had a meeting and they came down and collectively created the earth and chose Heavenly Father to be god of this planet. They claim they are **monotheists **because the god of earth is the only one they worship (go figure). But they believe that Jesus is also God, and the Spirit is also God, and that they are separate Gods, so that’s polytheism. Do they claim to be henotheists, or have we ascribed that to them?

I live in Arizona, where we have almost as many Mormons as Utah.

(See my thread “The Many Gods of Mormonism” – I think that the name of it.)

JMJ Jay

 

[Zski01]

They claim to be a lot of things, despite the geographical, historical, and fundamental logical flaws in all of their doctrine.

Mormons are polytheists. They believe in many gods, whereas we are under one of them, who used to be a man who was a good Mormon (despite the scripture calling God “eternal”). But yes, they are polytheistic.

 

[FightingFat]

Ken I’ve been having a quite involved discussion with a young Mormon lady from Utah. I managed to convince her to go to mass! She went with a friend and was completely ignored. I thought she probably would be, but still, it’s such a shame!