Question for LDS folks.

[SteveVH]

I think he trying to show us what his “church” teaches and not what he thinks. But yes Steve, its pretty annoying that all he can do is post links that amount to, well, use your imagination

Yeah, I read, or started to read the reference. Sorry, but its complete garbage. That is why I want Gazelam to answer. God cannot be omnipotent and still be dependent. Its a simple point.

 

[twopekinguys]

Gazelam, with all due respect, would you mind just answering this in your own words, with your own thoughts. I can’t have a conversation with an article. Thanks.

Why use your own thoughts when you use this form of proseltyzing?

 

[lax16]

Why wouldn’t any of these teachings have “shown up” in the early writings of the Church?
The early Christians and Church Fathers were closest to those who knew Jesus Christ and
to those who passed on His teachings. How could this have been missed?

So, what the LDS believe today is what Jesus taught 2,000 years ago but it was *misunderstood?
*

mtolympus - With all due respect, isn’t it possible that Joseph Smith was not a prophet?

mtolympus- I am re-posting these questions. Thanks!

 

[lax16]

gazelam - what is the stage of intelligence like? What do you know?

What does it mean to be spiritually born into the pre-existence? What do you know?

What do you already know when we are physically born? (I am assuming something from the stage of intelligence).

thanks!

gazelam - I am re-posting these. Thanks!

 

[TexanKnight]

gazelam - I am re-posting these. Thanks!

they won’t answer the tough ones…and can;t answer the really tough ones.

 

[Janderich]

Yeah, I read, or started to read the reference. Sorry, but its complete garbage. That is why I want Gazelam to answer. God cannot be omnipotent and still be dependent. Its a simple point.

Steve,
This comes down to an issue of eternal laws. According to my understanding of Catholicism you believe God is outside of law. With this false notion in hand you say God is unbound, that he can do anything. You believe that somehow this gives Him power. However for one who seriously considers the matter it is an impossible position. It leaves God with no structure in which to work.

I once explained it to Rebecca this way. Let’s play a game. You start…

…

You can do nothing, there are no rules. The game cannot even begin. This is the problem with the Catholic view of Omnipotence it is simply cannot exist because it allows God no structure in which to work.

 

[kimg901]

Steve,
This comes down to an issue of eternal laws. According to my understanding of Catholicism you believe God is outside of law. With this false notion in hand you say God is unbound, that he can do anything. You believe that somehow this gives Him power. However for one who seriously considers the matter it is an impossible position. It leaves God with no structure in which to work.

I once explained it to Rebecca this way. Let’s play a game. You start…

…

You can do nothing, there are no rules. The game cannot even begin. This is the problem with the Catholic view of Omnipotence it is simply cannot exist because it allows God no structure in which to work.

Its God! He doesnt need any structure or matter or mass. This is the problem with you mormons, Always limiting God and Jesus. If you didnt, your false teachings wouldnt work. There is no place in Heaven for you so I guess you make up your own heaven(s) so you will think you and the rest of the mormons will have a place to go besides hell. IMO, you will not be forgiven for denying the Holy Spirit. N.G.G.F.Y.L

 

[Miriam1947]

Steve,
This comes down to an issue of eternal laws. According to my understanding of Catholicism you believe God is outside of law. With this false notion in hand you say God is unbound, that he can do anything. You believe that somehow this gives Him power. However for one who seriously considers the matter it is an impossible position. It leaves God with no structure in which to work.

I once explained it to Rebecca this way. Let’s play a game. You start…

…

You can do nothing, there are no rules. The game cannot even begin. This is the problem with the Catholic view of Omnipotence it is simply cannot exist because it allows God no structure in which to work.

God needs nothing. No structure is necessary for God. He is outside time. We are inside time and human so as much as we try we have but a paltry understanding of God.

 

[TexanKnight]

Steve,
This comes down to an issue of eternal laws. According to my understanding of Catholicism you believe God is outside of law. With this false notion in hand you say God is unbound, that he can do anything. You believe that somehow this gives Him power. However for one who seriously considers the matter it is an impossible position. It leaves God with no structure in which to work.

I once explained it to Rebecca this way. Let’s play a game. You start…

…

You can do nothing, there are no rules. The game cannot even begin. This is the problem with the Catholic view of Omnipotence it is simply cannot exist because it allows God no structure in which to work.

That is one of the silliest notions I have ever heard. IF God is unbound, and can do anything because he is omnipotent, then He can work within that structure.

That is the worst problem with Mormons…they try to place God into little boxes they can understand…to the extent of making him a sinful man who became God.

God tells us His ways are not our ways…why can’t you get that?

 

[twopekinguys]

Steve,
This comes down to an issue of eternal laws. According to my understanding of Catholicism you believe God is outside of law. With this false notion in hand you say God is unbound, that he can do anything. You believe that somehow this gives Him power. However for one who seriously considers the matter it is an impossible position. It leaves God with no structure in which to work.

I once explained it to Rebecca this way. Let’s play a game. You start…

…

You can do nothing, there are no rules. The game cannot even begin. This is the problem with the Catholic view of Omnipotence it is simply cannot exist because it allows God no structure in which to work.

Oh wait, you’re being serious aren’t you. :newidea:

Here’s a thought. Support your position.

 

[Janderich]

As I said, this is the crux of the difference with this discussion of omnipotence. Either a God with no structure, mass, outside of time, and unbound. Or a God who obeys eternal laws and works within those laws to fashion worlds. A God who differs by degrees from man(albeit extremely large ones) or a God who is a completely different in substance.

 

[lax16]

I once explained it to Rebecca this way. Let’s play a game. You start…

…

You can do nothing, there are no rules. The game cannot even begin. This is the problem with the Catholic view of Omnipotence it is simply cannot exist because it allows God no structure in which to work.

Hello Janderich - There is so much already discovered by science. Here is an excerpt from: www.harvardhouse.com/universe_began.htm

Science Supports that
. . . the Universe had a Beginning
(Discoveries made between the 1920s to 2003)
Section One

In the 1920s, scientists began to obtain data that supports the universe had a beginning or that the universe was created. The supporting evidence for these conclusions comes from web sites at NASA, Harvard, Berkeley and others. This information is simplified into five general subjects on this page as shown a few paragraphs below.

The science-based story about the universe having a beginning started with an astronomer named Edwin Hubble. He aimed the most advanced telescope of the 1920s at star systems with millions or billions of stars called galaxies. Hubble found out that most galaxies are moving away from each other at very high speeds. The further away a galaxy is from earth, the faster it is moving away from us. Other scientists looked at the stars, reviewed the data, and agreed with Hubble. These findings led Hubble to think that the universe is expanding. It soon became a fact that distant galaxies move away from one another at very high speeds. This led to a revolutionary idea that is commonly referred to as the “Big Bang” theory.

What is so important about the Big Bang theory?

The most important idea is that it tells us the universe had a beginning. (click on link for more! )

 

[lax16]

As I said, this is the crux of the difference with this discussion of omnipotence. Either a God with no structure, mass, outside of time, and unbound. Or a God who obeys eternal laws and works within those laws to fashion worlds. A God who differs by degrees from man(albeit extremely large ones) or a God who is a completely different in substance.

Where do Mormons get their view of God and His abilities?

The Bible says:

Isaiah 40:28
King James Version (KJV)
28 Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding.

Psalms 90:2
King James Version (KJV)
2 Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.

Exodus 3:14
King James Version (KJV)
14 And God said unto Moses, I Am That I Am: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I Am hath sent me unto you.
Revelation 21:6

New King James Version (NKJV)
6 And He said to me, “It is done![a] I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give of the fountain of the water of life freely to him who thirsts

 

[TexanKnight]

As I said, this is the crux of the difference with this discussion of omnipotence. Either a God with no structure, mass, outside of time, and unbound. Or a God who obeys eternal laws and works within those laws to fashion worlds. A God who differs by degrees from man(albeit extremely large ones) or a God who is a completely different in substance.

No…the difference in this discussion is a belief system that believes the God of the Bible, or one that believes the god of Joseph Smith. The God who is all powerful, or the one Mormons fit into a little human, understandable form.

 

[lax16]

As I said, this is the crux of the difference with this discussion of omnipotence. Either a God with no structure, mass, outside of time, and unbound. Or a God who obeys eternal laws and works within those laws to fashion worlds. A God who differs by degrees from man(albeit extremely large ones) or a God who is a completely different in substance.

from magisreasonfaith.org/ask_spitzer.html#ask3

How do we know that the direct creator of the physical universe is the unrestricted intelligible reality and not a creation of the unrestricted reality?

That’s an excellent question. Your question reveals that you have read Chapter 4 of “New Proofs,” which deals with Lonergan’s proof for God’s existence, and your question logically flows from the possibility left open by Lonergan because an unrestricted intelligible reality (UIR) could have created a creator of our universe. Lonergan’s proof shows that the UIR must be the ultimate creator of all that is, however, it does not say that the UIR has to be the proximate creator of our universe. It only has to be the ultimate creator of our universe. Are there other creators in between? There could be, but if we operate by Occam’s Razor (the assumption that the most elegant solution with the least number of assumptions is the best one until proven otherwise) then we might assume that the UIR is both the ultimate and proximate creator of our universe. Longergan has shown that there has to be one and only one creator which is at once timeless, and unrestrictedly intelligible. I think Lonergan has proven this quite well in his book “Insight: A Study of Human Understanding,” Chapter 19. He has asked anyone in the intellectual community to critique his reasoning and has been met mostly with silence.

 

[KathleenGee]

Janderich,…are you a former Catholic?..

Anyway, the game stops here.

You have to find a Bible translation that has been in use for almost 2,000 years that includes Solomon’s Book of Wisdom. Solomon asked not for money, power, sex, but asked the Lord to give him wisdom. He reflected on the nature of the universe, its organization, its force of elements, the world’s beginning, end and mid points…Ch 7 of Wisdom.

Going back to Chapter 1, Solomon speaks of God as Creator 13 - 15, God Who did not make death, but that 'He fashioned all things that they might have being, and the creatures of the world are wholesome, and there is not a destructive drug among them, nor any domain of the nether world on earth for justice is undying.

Solomon’s wisdom has a prophetic passage in chapter 2: 15 - 22 describing the just one who teaches us right from wrong and who is despised by the wicked, who was shamefully put to death and mocked saying ‘God will take care of him’…wicked souls who do not discern innocence and holiness…

By the way, Wisdom is the action of the Third Person, the Holy Spirit, particularly Wisdom is the greatest fruit of the Holy Spirit.

Wisdom is NOT the writings of some pre-human, pre-mortal soul. A former Catholic now Mormon was attempting to debate this very point on pre-mortal existence here this past year.

Solomon trumps the Greeks who believed in pre-mortal existence in Ch 7 recalling the origin of his own conception and birth as a mortal and his forthcoming end as returning to dust, however stating as well that He made us in His image and likeness contrasting to the angels who were created to protect God’s creation.

The bottom line in Janderich’s game is answered in Ch 11, verse 20, --*** that the Lord ordered all things in measure and number and weight. ***

For God, Who created this world out of love and perfect benevolence, and then to go against His creation, which is death and He did not create death, would then make God a Hypocritical Creator Who does not sustain His own natural laws!!!

Our faith, going back to the use of Wisdom in earliest Christian times, verifies that the Church must document with the use of faith and also reason.

Without documentation, and no records of Mormon thoughts or beliefs or archaeological sites, such beliefs as Smith’s counteract God’s own natural laws by his claims of golden plates and lost Indian tribes and God creating an inferior black race.

*God is not a magician. God is not a hypocritical creator who creates something then, – like death – goes against the very thing he creates!!
*
He created the universe through natural law and He sustains and respects His own divine laws.

The number of people who have ever lived know most devoutly the Book of Wisdom vs those who followed the ancient Greeks and their writings because the Bible is the most read book of mankind.

Joseph Smith is no match to the ancient Greeks and their intellect and philosophies and he cannot even be compared to the teaching of King Solomon.

 

[twopekinguys]

Janderich,…are you a former Catholic?..

Anyway, the game stops here.

You have to find a Bible translation that has been in use for almost 2,000 years that includes Solomon’s Book of Wisdom. Solomon asked not for money, power, sex, but asked the Lord to give him wisdom. He reflected on the nature of the universe, its organization, its force of elements, the world’s beginning, end and mid points…Ch 7 of Wisdom.

Going back to Chapter 1, Solomon speaks of God as Creator 13 - 15, God Who did not make death, but that 'He fashioned all things that they might have being, and the creatures of the world are wholesome, and there is not a destructive drug among them, nor any domain of the nether world on earth for justice is undying.

Solomon’s wisdom has a prophetic passage in chapter 2: 15 - 22 describing the just one who teaches us right from wrong and who is despised by the wicked, who was shamefully put to death and mocked saying ‘God will take care of him’…wicked souls who do not discern innocence and holiness…

Wisdom is the action of the Third Person, the Holy Spirit, particularly Wisdom is the greatest fruit of the Holy Spirit, not an immortal soul as a former Catholic now Mormon was attempting to debate this past year. Solomon trumps the Greeks who believed in pre-immortal existence in Ch 7 recalling the origin of his own conception and birth as a mortal and his forthcoming end as returning to dust, however stating as well that He made us in His image and likeness contrasting to the angels who were created to protect God’s creation.

The bottom line in Janderich’s game is answered in Ch 11, verse 20, that the Lord ordered all things in measure and number and weight.

For God, Who created this world out of love and perfect benevolence, and then to go against His creation, which is death and He did not create death, would then make God a Hypocritical Creator Who does not sustain His own natural laws.

Our faith, going back to the use of Wisdom in earliest Christian times, verifies that the Church must document with the use of faith and also reason.

Without documentation, and no records of Mormon thoughts or beliefs or archaeological sites, such beliefs as Smith’s counteract God’s own natural laws by his claims of golden plates and lost Indian tribes and God creating an inferior black race.

God is not a magician.

He created the universe through natural law and He sustains and respects His own divine laws.

You go girl!! :extrahappy:

 

[RebeccaJ]

As I said, this is the crux of the difference with this discussion of omnipotence. Either a God with no structure, mass, outside of time, and unbound. Or a God who obeys eternal laws and works within those laws to fashion worlds. A God who differs by degrees from man(albeit extremely large ones) or a God who is a completely different in substance.

Who or what fashioned these “eternal laws”?

 

[RebeccaJ]

Rebecca, how do Mormons reconcile the complete absence of Mormon theology in the early church?

It goes like this:

• if something in Mormonism just happens to align to something in the early church, that is seen as evidence that Mormonism is the same as the early church.
• if something in the early church is not in Mormonism, it is a corrupt practice of the early church. Evidence for a great apostasy.

You have to remember, in Mormonism that everything centers on the claims of Joseph Smith.

 

[Janderich]

Who or what fashioned these “eternal laws”?

They of course are eternal and have always existed. While I know you disagree, I don’t think this should be much of a logical stretch for Catholics since you believe God is eternal and has always existed in his current state.