Pros and Cons of Mormonism

[Jerusha]

Three things should be noted here.
First, LDS thought has a rich past. Agreed (giggling)

In fact, The New Mormon Challenge (a book critical of the CoJCoLDS) suggests that Mormonism attracted converts because of the intellectual answers it provided. (Raised eyebrows) Mormonism has historically attracted converts with minimal literacy skills-- reading the book of Mormon and being able to see through it-- critical reading skills-- being crucial. BF Roberts, one of the greatest LDS scholars, for example, came from an illiterate, or minimally literate family. It is mormon intellectuals of multiple-generation LDS families who are on the leading edge. I regard you as being either a fake or an anomaly.

Reisach views Mormonism as quite a ridiculous theology, but in many ways that logical result of American Protestantism.
Most definitely.

Second, nothing could be more obvious from history than the fact that Catholic theology developed in response to heretical ideas (or arguably soon to be heretical ideas).
Learning from doctrinal errors is a very important part of spiritual development, both organizationally and individually.

How can you be Catholic and criticize Mormonism for such things. I was born in 1950. Catholics learn from history, and the disorganization that followed Vatican II can be used as an example of what is happening to LDS, only more profoundly.

And don’t forget my point to Chris above, the CoJCoLDS boldly declares that the President of the Church can receive new revelation like Peter but unlike the Pope. So are you Mr. Monson in disguise? How long can LDS people live in a culture that holds onto multiple contradicting “truths”? New doctrines in Catholicism can be pronounced “ex cathedra”, but they are deeply implied in previous teachings, therefore they are not truly new. How long will LDS new revelations be regarded as doctrine?

Charity, TOm

 

[TOmNossor]

I have another question. How can God be infinite and eternal yet subject to time? In another thread you said you believe that since God is embodied that he is subject to time. How can infinity be limited by time?

I am not sure how far reaching your question is. At present I embrace a view held by William Lane Craig in opposition to a view held by Blake Ostler (shocking!!!). I discuss this some later in this thread:
http://www.defensorveritatis.net/?p=861
Unfortunately, I have not been privy to the interplay between Ostler and Craig with regard to this question except for what was reproduced by a poster who didn’t realize I had already embraced Craig’s view.
The problem of an eternal God in time is solved by Craig in that God is in time when He instantiates the universe. I consider Blake’s God in time always and the Catholic God never in time to be more problematic than Craig’s view.
When Blake was dialoguing with Elder Maxwell about God’s time/timelessness, he used that embodiment of God to argue that God was in time. Since Blake and I both embrace a view that an eternity ago God was not embodied (indeed all LDS in consideration of D&C 93 should recognize this), this argument for God being in time an eternity ago is not of concern. It is for this reason that I leaned towards Craig’s view before I knew it was Craig’s or that Ostler was opposed to it.

To be honest, the God outside of time view of Aquinas IMO is the least coherent and least Biblical of all the options. God cannot be in genuine relation with humans in time if He is timeless. He may respond to us a computer would (and this seems to be a solution offered by a number of folks), but He cannot love us in any sense of the word. In addition to this the Biblical witness is that God interacts in time and responds to our FREE choices. This is the message of the Bible. The timeless God is immutable (He must be) so He is impassible (if immutable then impassible) so thus the timeless God cannot interact with us (and if He knows what we did yesterday, today, or tomorrow; what we did was not something we chose ourselves). For more on this see this thread:
http://forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=217932

So, Craig acknowledges that there are thorny issues for his view. I find it likely that Ostler would acknowledge that there are thorny issues for his view. But in concert with Ostler and Craig, I say that the God out of time is the most problematic (and it does not do justice to the Biblical record).

Charity, TOm

 

[TOmNossor]

That is fascinating, TOm. I was viewing Mormonism as a monolithic religion, but you are teaching me that there are perhaps great differences of opinion within the pale of the Mormon faith.

Are there many Mormons who, like you, believe that Joseph Smith was not infallible in everything he said?

If i’m not misunderstanding you, i think your form of Mormonism might be easier to adopt by a skeptic than that of those who believe every word of Joseph Smith was the word of God.
Certainly Mormonism is not monolithic in our theology.
To your second question, I think almost all LDS would claim that Joseph Smith and the present prophet are not infallible. As you may be able to tell from the witness of the former LDS here, it is a little more complex than this.

There is a joke told by folks ignorant of what it is to be a Catholic that goes like this:

Mormon theology teaches that the prophet is not infallible, but no Mormons believe it;
Catholic theology teaches that the Pope is infallible, but no Catholics believe it.

So, as you can see from folks who have left the church they suggest they had problems when they discovered that Joseph Smith was not infallible. There are certainly LDS who would tell you that Joseph Smith was not infallible, but would be troubled when they discovered examples of his fallibility.
I myself find Joseph Smith to be an incredibly faithful representative of what I believe to be the best read of LDS scripture and doctrine. I find a number of his successors to be less in agreement with me.
But, Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, Moroni, and other leaders have tried to teach that God’s prophet is not infallible.

Charity, TOm

 

[TOmNossor]

"Jerusha:

It is mormon intellectuals of multiple-generation LDS families who are on the leading edge. I regard you as being either a fake or an anomaly.

I presume you mean by “fake” that I am not really a convert, but play one on TV (or rather on message boards). You are mistaken. Of course you may mean I am a “fake” intellectual, which I will not argue about.
In addition to this, I know others who are converts who dive deeply into these intellectual questions.
It is nice that you recognize that there are multi-generational LDS who are Mormon intellectuals, some prefer to say that there are no intellectuals within Mormonism. It would seem to me your point is that it is only those heavily invested in the error that is Mormonism that seem to offer (or attempt to offer) intellectual reasons for our teachings.

I would advocate that my ideas and the ideas of multi-generational LDS be evaluated upon the merits of the reasoning and not other factors.
And I do believe that you are losing the battle and do not know it
Mormon Scholarship and Evangelical Neglect: Losing the Battle and not Knowing It.
cometozarahemla.org/others/mosser-owen.html

Jerusha:

I was born in 1950. Catholics learn from history, and the disorganization that followed Vatican II can be used as an example of what is happening to LDS, only more profoundly.

Are you a Vatican II rejecter?
Also, the view that Mormonism is falling apart (or that post Vatican II Catholicism is falling apart) is quite overblown by my observation.

Jerusha:

How long can LDS people live in a culture that holds onto multiple contradicting “truths”?

It is my considered opinion that to be a LDS is to have the freedom to seek resolutions to what may be or seem to be “contradicting ‘truth’”. As I point out in this thread, I do not think the Catholic can escape from “contradicting ‘truth.’” That said, few Catholics and few LDS (and percent wise, I would certainly think that the Catholic has not engaged “contradicting ‘truth’” to a greater extent that the LDS) engage these “contradicting ‘truth.’”
http://forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=217932

In fact it is specifically the “contradicting ‘truth’” that I cannot solve as a Catholic that I find MOST troubling. Here is the original introduction for the thread I just linked:

I mentioned in another thread presumably started by a philosophically minded fellow, that it is the philosophical underpinnings of Catholicism that I consider to be problematic to a disqualifying extent. I believe that Catholic doctrine has developed significantly, but many Catholics acknowledge this and still believe. I believe that the monoepiscopate developed from local churches originally lead by a group of presbyters, but many Catholics acknowledge this and still believe. I believe that the primacy of Rome developed only after a number of centuries, but many Catholics acknowledge this and still believe. I also believe that Catholic apologists, including folks like Patrick Madrid and Jimmy Akin are either unaware of the degree to which the above issues are true or so deemphasize it in their writings that I could think they are unaware. All that being said, I probably could be a Catholic like Cardinal Newman (development), Father Sullivan (mono-episcopate), and Robert Eno (Papacy). I do not believe I possess more evidence than these Catholic men, I just believe I see an option few of them consider. And, the Protestant option is IMO so in opposition to the evidence that I couldn’t choose it. So for all these issues, I could still be a Catholic, I think.

The philosophical problems present when dialect reasoning is applied to the various council decisions however are insurmountable IMO.

Jerusha:

New doctrines in Catholicism can be pronounced “ex cathedra”, but they are deeply implied in previous teachings, therefore they are not truly new.

I think you should not use the term “New doctrine,” but I understand Newman’s theory of development.
Charity, TOm

 

[RebeccaJ]

Yes, i’ve often found God’s sense of timing in my own life to be unmistakable evidence of His presence. If this happened only rarely to me, i’d say it might be coincidence. Since it happens frequently, i can say it must be more than merely coincidence.

Thank you for the encouragement. I need more encouragers like you!



May God encourage you with the same gift you give to me and others, TS.

Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.

(1 Thessalonians 5:11 )

soc, I read John last night, from the points you said you were focusing on yourself. Powerful truths are found in there.

I also remembered a document that I read a few months ago. It is a homily given by Pope Benedict. I recommend it.

 

[majick275]

Tom you appear to have a double standard in that ECF’s (who have no authority to pronounce doctrine) are quoted by you and interpreted by you to show waht you claim to be catholic doctrine. yet when confronted with LDS prophets and apostles (who claim to be oracles of the lord) directing the LDS church as a whole in general conference you want to claim they are not binding doctrine and just wave off their teachings. LDS teaching has been very consistent on eternal progression and what it means over the years. the pattern is not only unmistakable it is spelled out in current lesson manuals. LDS doctrine teaches and endless progression and an endless regression. BY stated every earth has it’s tempter and it’s redeemer. anyone who has gone through the endowment knows just how far this goes and LDS scriptures back it up.

your claims on the Bible and ECF’s all refer to a sharing of the one and only divinity of the one and only God while remaining ontologically distinct.

 

[PaulDupre]

We become gods by grace where God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit were eternally God.

Yours is certainly not the orthodox LDS teaching. You seem to be at serious odds with your Church. I see nowadays a number of rank-and-file LDS deciding to believe that Heavenly Father was always God, in direct opposition to the repeated teachings of Joseph Smith and all of the GAs up to today. If Joseph Smith, whom you believe knew more of God than any man who ever lived, could be so wrong about something so fundamental and teach it as doctrine for so long, then how could he be anything but a false prophet?

Don’t try to pretend that JS meant anything other than what he plainly said and wrote - that God became God after going through what BY called an “earthly probation similar to ours” and then progressed to a state of godhood.

Your current Seminary manual teaches the same thing. Your disagreement is not so much with us as with your own leaders.

Paul

 

[Socrates4Jesus]

soc, I read John last night, from the points you said you were focusing on yourself. Powerful truths are found in there.

I also remembered a document that I read a few months ago. It is a homily given by Pope Benedict. I recommend it.

Thank you, Rebecca! I’d like to take credit for the idea of reading all that Jesus said from chapter 13 through chapter 17 of John’s gospel, but i believe the Holy Spirit deserves the credit for the idea more than i.

I find it interesting that Zerinus quotes most often from John’s gospel, which has always been my favorite book of the New Testament. I believe God knew what He was doing by having us meet, though at present He has not revealed what this purpose is.

 

[TOmNossor]

Tom you appear to have a double standard in that ECF’s (who have no authority to pronounce doctrine) are quoted by you and interpreted by you to show waht you claim to be catholic doctrine.

I apologize if I gave the impression that I believe the ECF can be used without much caution to define Catholic doctrine.
Irreformable Catholic doctrine is defined by 21 General Councils and 2 undisputed ex cathedra statements by popes.
Current Catholic doctrine outside of this irreformable core is contained in the magisterial teachings most importantly being the CCC.

That said, within Catholicism there is to be no new innovations. There has been no GC or “ex cathedra” statement by a pope concerning woman holding the priesthood. But the almost universal witness of history is that woman cannot be priests.

The ECF are critical for the Catholic because while not infallible, they are the witness of the deposit of Sacred Tradition. Denying the ability of the Pope to receive Supernatural Public Revelation the Catholic CANNOT depart from his past.

So in cases like woman preist, it is (as determined by the best Catholic minds) absolutely impossible to ordain woman priests in Catholicism. This is just not true for the CoJCoLDS.

I work extremely hard to not declare Catholicism fatally flawed because it does not meet my LDS expectations for continuous revelation or …. I only wish Catholic critics would weigh the CoJCoLDS more consistently.

LDS doctrine teaches and endless progression and an endless regression. BY stated every earth has it’s tempter and it’s redeemer. anyone who has gone through the endowment knows just how far this goes and LDS scriptures back it up.

There is nothing in LDS scriptures to support the view of an “endless regression” of Gods IMO. There is nothing in the Temple to support this either, but I you know I will not share temple content.

Why don’t you show were LDS scriptures support endless regression?

your claims on the Bible and ECF’s all refer to a sharing of the one and only divinity of the one and only God while remaining ontologically distinct.

You are quite mistaken “ontological distinct” is not a Biblical concept and it is a later introduction into the ECF.
The fact that there is one divinity is clearly true from the Bible, the ECF, and unique LDS scriptures. It is your introduction of “ontologically distinct” that is the innovation (I am not saying it is not a valid development here, just that it is not evident in the Bible or the pre-4th century ECF) present in Catholic thought that God removed when He restored His church through Joseph Smith.

Individually distinct, yes, just like Christ and the Father. United as one God, yes just like Christ and the Father. Ontologically distinct, innovation!

In addition to the above, I offer the witness of the pre-4th century ECF AND the lack of irreformable (or even CCC level solid magisterial teachings) limits upon the state of the deified man; to invite Catholics to believe in “strong deification.” In some of the thread I have linked to there is a Catholic who makes the same invitation.

Charity, TOm

 

[Socrates4Jesus]

Soc, you have hit upon a very interesting fact, here. As LDS beliefs and “scriptures” come under attack, many among them morph their beliefs and understanding of their scriptures in order to stay within the convenience (and prison-- as in bread and water) of the social structure of their church.

I think that a church with a history of teaching many conflicting beliefs and views of history forces its members to to pick and choose, cafeteria-style. Such a church, also forced to change its beliefs, in a massive way, because of scientific discoveries also becomes threatened. Such a church can not long remain whole. If it does, it merely becomes a social organization, or perhaps a business organization. Those with common sense have only one option-- to leave as quickly as is safe and comfortable for them.

Hmmm, i’m not sure you, Jerusha, are correct that TOm, and others with the same beliefs, think the Book of Mormon to be fallible. So far, i only understand him to believe that the teachings of the Mormon prophets are sometimes fallible, as he admits they are sometimes in error.

I think that even in Roman Catholicism there is an idea that the Popes are only infallible when they speak ex cathedra.

Ex Cathedra (Latin: from the chair), the Chair of Peter. When a Pope speaks from the chair (cathedra) of authority as the visible head of all Christians, his teaching is infallibly Christ’s true teaching.At other times, a Pope’s teachings are said to be subject to fallibility, or human error, and thus may be untrue. I wonder if Mormons have a belief similar to the Roman Catholic teaching of ex cathedra.

 

[TOmNossor]

Yours is certainly not the orthodox LDS teaching. You seem to be at serious odds with your Church. I see nowadays a number of rank-and-file LDS deciding to believe that Heavenly Father was always God, in direct opposition to the repeated teachings of Joseph Smith and all of the GAs up to today. If Joseph Smith, whom you believe knew more of God than any man who ever lived, could be so wrong about something so fundamental and teach it as doctrine for so long, then how could he be anything but a false prophet?

Don’t try to pretend that JS meant anything other than what he plainly said and wrote - that God became God after going through what BY called an “earthly probation similar to ours” and then progressed to a state of godhood.

Your current Seminary manual teaches the same thing. Your disagreement is not so much with us as with your own leaders.

Paul
Please link me to the section in the current Seminary manual. The current Preisthood manual leaves out the section of the KFD that Thomas Bullock captured so differently.
Again here is what Thomas Bullock claimed that Jospeh Smith said in the KFD:

Thomas Bullock captured this section like this:
“friend it is necy. to understand the char. & being of God for I am going to tell you what sort of a being of God. *for he was God from the begin of all Eternity & if I do not refute it-*truth is the touchstone they are the simple and first princ: of truth to know for a certainty the char. of God that we may conv[erse] with him same as a man & God himself the father of us all dwelt on a Earth same as Js. himself did & I will shew it from the Bible”

Anyway, I am glad you are noticing “a number of rank-and-file LDS deciding to believe that Heavenly Father was always God.” As I pointed out 3-4 prophets ago we had Joseph Fielding Smith inviting caution when asserting that God the Father was once a man. I think I and the “number of rank-and-file LDS” are in good company.
And if find it curious that I get so much grief about this ONLY from critics of the church.

Here is a great section on how it is by grace that we become deified and how it is unity that deifies us (I know this is not the part that you wish we didn’t believe at this point in time, but I like it so here it is):

John Taylor, Mediation and Atonement, Ch.20

A man, as a man, could arrive at all the dignity that a man was capable of obtaining or receiving; but it needed a God to raise him to the dignity of a God. For this cause it is written, “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.” And how and why like Him? Because, through the instrumentality of the atonement and the adoption, it is made possible for us to become of the family of God, and joint heirs with Jesus Christ; and that as He, the potential instrument, through the oneness that existed between Him and His Father, by reason of obedience to divine law, overcame death, hell and the grave, and sat down upon His Father’s throne, so shall we be able to sit down with Him, even upon His throne. Thus, as it is taught in the Book of Mormon, it must needs be that there be an infinite atonement; and hence of Him, and by Him, and through Him are all things; and through Him do we obtain every blessing, power, right, immunity, salvation and exaltation. He is our God, our Redeemer, our Savior, to whom, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, be eternal and everlasting praises worlds without end.

That John Taylor sounds a lot like me (at least here). I seldom use the term “a God,” but I am a Social Trinitarian like a number of Catholic and Protestant scholars so it is not a horrible term.

Charity, TOm

 

[TOmNossor]

Hmmm, i’m not sure you, Jerusha, are correct that TOm, and others with the same beliefs, think the Book of Mormon to be fallible. So far, i only understand him to believe that the teachings of the Mormon prophets are sometimes fallible, as he admits they are sometimes in error.

I think that even in Roman Catholicism there is an idea that the Popes are only infallible when they speak ex cathedra.

Ex Cathedra (Latin: from the chair), the Chair of Peter. When a Pope speaks from the chair (cathedra) of authority as the visible head of all Christians, his teaching is infallibly Christ’s true teaching.At other times, a Pope’s teachings are said to be subject to fallibility, or human error, and thus may be untrue. I wonder if Mormons have a belief similar to the Roman Catholic teaching of ex cathedra.

The highest seal of truth for LDS teaching is canonization and acceptance by common consent.
Here is what President Harold B. Lee said when he was the president of the church.
Pres. Harold B. Lee:
If anyone, regardless of his position in the Church, were to advance a doctrine that is not substantiated by the standard Church works, meaning the Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price, you may know that his statement is merely his private opinion. The only one authorized to bring forth any new doctrine is the President of the Church, who, when he does, will declare it as revelation from God, and it will be so accepted by the Council of the Twelve and sustained by the body of the Church. And if any man speak a doctrine which contradicts what is in the standard Church works, you may know by that same token that it is false and you are not bound to accept it as truth.
By my understanding, at the highest level of “binding doctrine,” little of those things that folks use to criticize the CoJCoLDS is even present.

However, LDS do not even have inerrant scriptures. The BOM specifically claims that if it contains errors they are the errors of men not God. And just to head off some of the haranguing:
The most reasoned position concern in Mark 1:2-3 is that the author actually made a small error mixing the words of Malachi and the words of Isaiah. Later scribes “corrected” this error, but most Biblical scholars (not theologians) believe the original was almost certainly a mistake.

Now, I am a functional inerrantist. This means that I believe the doctrinal integrity of the Biblical (and extra LDS scriptures) is present and thus no specific passage should be highlighted to question (not even the Comma Johanneum). LDS accept the scriptures by common consent so we should use them as we have accepted them.
Charity, TOm

 

[steve_b]

Thank you, Steve, i’ll take that as a compliment!

Good. that’s how it was meant.

Socrates:

Also, i find no fault with you not sharing my passion for learning the truth about Mormonism. Passion is fueled by desire; and if you are a partisan who believes he already has the truth, i could not expect you to have the desire i have.

I only gave those links because you had some specific questions you asked all the participants here to respond to.

I should qualify by saying that I don’t like hit pieces. Regardless of persuasion, no one likes to be misrepresented. Catholics are used to drive by shooters all the time, taking wild pot shots at the Church. Therefore I try and think first how materials I present might be received. I hope you find the array of articles informative and accurate, and none offensive.

In that spirit i would be interested in your thoughts on this article catholic.com/thisrock/2003/0305fea4.asp primarily because you asked about the validity of the BoM vis a vis the bible. I would be interested as well to hear from a Mormon if they ever heard that Joseph Smith got his inspiration for the BoM from a fictional novel.

Socrates:

I, on the other hand, are a philosopher, and so i realize that i will never have the whole truth but must keep seeking for a better understanding of Him. Jesus is the Truth, for He said of Himself:

I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.*(John 14:6)*So, like Paul:

I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.(Philippians 3:10-11)

May I suggest considering what Paul said to the Church of Rome

Rm 16:
***17 I urge you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and put obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned. Keep away from them. 18For such people are not serving our Lord Christ, but their own appetites. By smooth talk and flattery they deceive the minds of naive people. 19Everyone has heard about your obedience, so I am full of joy over you; but I want you to be wise about what is good, and innocent about what is evil. ***
***20The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. ***
The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you.

If Satan will be crushed under the Church of Rome’s feet,

• why be anywhere else
• also, with this promise, how can the Church of Rome have apostacized as Mormons say happened.

 

[zerinus]

I, on the other hand, are a philosopher, and so i realize that i will never have the whole truth but must keep seeking for a better understanding of Him.

That, I fear, is the real cause of the problem. Your methodology is wrong. You are trying to discover spiritual truths by the philosophical method, which cannot be. That can only be known and understood by revelation. You are ignoring the advice of Paul: "But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned" (1 Corinthians 2:14). That is where you are going wrong. You are trying to understand what is spiritual by the exercise of the natural mind, which is an impossibility.

Some months ago I was doing some research to find material for a talk I was preparing to give in the Church. I came across these words of advice that Elder Boyd K. Packer (one of the Twelve Apostles) gave to the young people of the Church whom he was addressing. I think it is applicable to you:

There are two parts to your nature—your temporal body born of mortal parents, and your immortal spirit within. You are a son or daughter of God.

Physically you can see with eyes and hear with ears and touch and feel and learn. Through your intellect, you learn most of what you know about the world in which we live.

But if you learn by reason only, you will never understand the Spirit and how it works—regardless of how much you learn about other things.

Prayer

You have your agency, and inspiration does not—perhaps cannot—flow unless you ask for it, or someone asks for you.

No message in scripture is repeated more often than the invitation, even the commandment, to pray—to ask.

Prayer is so essential a part of revelation that without it the veil may remain closed to you. Learn to pray. Pray often. Pray in your mind, in your heart. Pray on your knees.

Faith

The flow of revelation depends on your faith. You exercise faith by causing, or by making, your mind accept or believe as truth that which you cannot, by reason alone, prove for certainty.

The first exercising of your faith should be your acceptance of Christ and His atonement.

As you test gospel principles by believing without knowing, the Spirit will begin to teach you. Gradually your faith will be replaced with knowledge.

You will be able to discern, or to see, with spiritual eyes. [Emphasis added.] (Boyd K. Packer, “Personal Revelation: The Gift, the Test, and the Promise,” Liahona, Jun 1997, 8.)

zerinus

 

[Socrates4Jesus]

The highest seal of truth for LDS teaching is canonization and acceptance by common consent.
Here is what President Harold B. Lee said when he was the president of the church.

By my understanding, at the highest level of “binding doctrine,” little of those things that folks use to criticize the CoJCoLDS is even present.

However, LDS do not even have inerrant scriptures. The BOM specifically claims that if it contains errors they are the errors of men not God. And just to head off some of the haranguing:
The most reasoned position concern in Mark 1:2-3 is that the author actually made a small error mixing the words of Malachi and the words of Isaiah. Later scribes “corrected” this error, but most Biblical scholars (not theologians) believe the original was almost certainly a mistake.

Now, I am a functional inerrantist. This means that I believe the doctrinal integrity of the Biblical (and extra LDS scriptures) is present and thus no specific passage should be highlighted to question (not even the Comma Johanneum). LDS accept the scriptures by common consent so we should use them as we have accepted them.
Charity, TOm

I know i said this before, TOm, but i still find this fascinating!

You say, “I believe the doctrinal integrity of the Biblical (and extra LDS scriptures)” but that the LDS church “[does] not even have inerrant scriptures”. Do you mean that the Book of Mormon and the Bible are errant in historical details but not in doctrinal teaching?

 

[Socrates4Jesus]

Quote:Originally Posted by Socrates4Jesus forums.catholic-questions.org/images/buttons_cad/viewpost.gif Regarding Joseph Smith, i found this quote attributed to him online:God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted Man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens…I say, if you were to see him to-day, you would see him like a man in form – like yourselves, in all the person, image, and very form as a man…it is necessary that we should understand the character and being of God, and how he came to be so; for I am going to tell you how God came to be God. We have imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity, I will refute that idea, and will take away and do away the veil, so that you may see…and that he was once a man like us; yea, that God himself the Father of us all, dwelt on an earth the same as Jesus Christ himself did.(Journal of Discourses, Vol. 6, p. 3)

I’m assuming the Journal of Discourses is a sanctioned text of the LDS church, but i’m skeptical as to the accuracy of the quote. If you have access to the Journal of Discourses, will you look up page 3 of volume 6 for me and tell me if Joseph Smith was misquoted?If by “sanctioned” you mean that LDS must embrace what is contained in the JoD, then I would suggest it is not “sanctioned.” I have advocated on this thread that President Lee (who is just summarizing teachings from the D&C, Joseph Smith, and Brigham Young) taught clearly that things like the JoD do not produce binding doctrine.
The quote you offer has also been discussed on this thread here:
forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=3308869&postcount=251

Charity, TOm

I believe your insight is shedding light on the meaning of Jesus’ words in John, chapter 16:

12"I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. 13But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth."

For, everything Joseph Smith taught, you agree, certainly is not truth (his quote about God the Father once being a man like you or i being one example). So, it cannot be that even God’s prophets are always led to the truth by the Holy Spirit.

Why is it, then, if the Holy Spirit guides us into all truth did the Mormon prophet fail to see the truth on occasion? I do not think his teaching false doctrine was intentional, for i am giving him the benefit of the doubt until i have reason to believe otherwise. Would you say he was, at times, deceived?

 

[PaulDupre]

Please link me to the section in the current Seminary manual.

Here you go:
lds.org/library/display/0,4945,11-1-13-59,00.html

It says, in relevant part:

This is the way our Heavenly Father became God. Joseph Smith taught: “It is the first principle of the Gospel to know for a certainty the character of God. . . . He was once a man like us; . . . God himself, the Father of us all, dwelt on an earth, the same as Jesus Christ himself did” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, pp. 345-46).

Our Heavenly Father knows our trials, our weaknesses, and our sins. He has compassion and mercy on us. **He wants us to succeed even as he did. **
-Gospel Principles, chapter 47, “Exaltation”

I find that last part especially interesting. It implies that Elohim sinned as a mortal. Otherwise it would have said that he knows our temptations, as if often said of Jesus, but not our sins.

Also, if Elohim can be said to have “succeeded” in becoming God, then there was a chance that he could have failed. That is, his becoming a god was not a foregone conclusion. That puts him in the same league with all the rest of us poor schmucks who may or may not succeed. That means that prior to his earthly “probation”, Elohim was not God.

Jesus, who was God prior to his birth on earth, is never said to have been on “probation”.

Here is a great section on how it is by grace that we become deified and how it is unity that deifies us (I know this is not the part that you wish we didn’t believe at this point in time, but I like it so here it is):

That John Taylor sounds a lot like me (at least here). I seldom use the term “a God,” but I am a Social Trinitarian like a number of Catholic and Protestant scholars so it is not a horrible term.

Charity, TOm

I have no problem with the John Taylor quote for the most part. When he says “the dignity of a God”, I can see what he’s saying, though I recoil at the term “a God” because it implies that there is more than one. If I am suffused with the perfect holiness of God, I am sure that I would have a dignity much like his (in character though not in magnitude), since holiness is the only source of true dignity. I am not expecting to sit on Christ’s throne, but if he lets me once in a while that would be very cool.

That being said, I think this is an example of cherry-picking a quote that expresses some but not the full extent of the LDS deification doctrine. To pretend that this passage from JT represents the full LDS doctrine is a bit disingenuous. This piece sounds as if it were adapted to the weakest of the saints. There is nothing in there about “continuation of the seeds” or your spirit children who you send down to a planet who have the same relationship to you as you do to your heavenly father or heavenly father moving up to a greater glory and you taking his place or anything else that a well-informed Catholic would consider blasphemous.

Some LDS prophets are more circumspect than others when deciding how much of LDS doctrine is for public consumption.

BTW, please point me to some Catholic scholars who are social trinitarians.

Thanks,

Paul

 

[Socrates4Jesus]

I believe your insight is shedding light on the meaning of Jesus’ words in John, chapter 16:

12"I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. 13But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth."For, everything Joseph Smith taught, you agree, certainly is not truth (his quote about God the Father once being a man like you or i being one example). So, it cannot be that even God’s prophets are always led to the truth by the Holy Spirit.

Why is it, then, if the Holy Spirit guides us into all truth did the Mormon prophet fail to see the truth on occasion? I do not think his teaching false doctrine was intentional, for i am giving him the benefit of the doubt until i have reason to believe otherwise. Would you say he was, at times, deceived?

TOm:

Sorry, but i meant to say, “For, certainly not everything Joseph Smith taught, you agree, is truth (his quote about God the Father once being a man like you or i being one example). So, it cannot be that even God’s prophets are always led to the truth by the Holy Spirit.”

 

[Socrates4Jesus]

That, I fear, is the real cause of the problem. Your methodology is wrong. You are trying to discover spiritual truths by the philosophical method, which cannot be. That can only be known and understood by revelation. You are ignoring the advice of Paul: "But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned" (1 Corinthians 2:14). That is where you are going wrong. You are trying to understand what is spiritual by the exercise of the natural mind, which is an impossibility.

Some months ago I was doing some research to find material for a talk I was preparing to give in the Church. I came across these words of advice that Elder Boyd K. Packer (one of the Twelve Apostles) gave to the young people of the Church whom he was addressing. I think it is applicable to you:

There are two parts to your nature—your temporal body born of mortal parents, and your immortal spirit within. You are a son or daughter of God.

Physically you can see with eyes and hear with ears and touch and feel and learn. Through your intellect, you learn most of what you know about the world in which we live.

But if you learn by reason only, you will never understand the Spirit and how it works—regardless of how much you learn about other things.…

Zerinus:

Are you saying that faith is the opposite of reason?

 

[mjf001]

Yes, and you might like to include these in your reading too:

“But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, . . .” (John 14:26).

***“But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things.

“But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.*** (1 John 2:20, 27)

zerinus

Zerinus,
I believe you’ll get much more out of the bible if you read the text as a whole. On sentence can be interpreted many different ways. It becomes much clearer if you read the whole thing.
Just a thought,
Michael