The Nature of God in Mormonism.

[Catholic_Dude]

(cont 2 of 2)

1. What seems to have been going on, May said, was that when these ancient authors said “nothing,” they didn’t mean “absolute nothingness.” They just meant “nothing important,” or nothing with a principle of organization.

“nothing important”? That is a purely relative term. There were piles of matter tossed around the universe as if they were ore deposits? What is “principle of organization”? Was there Oxygen atoms floating around or were they unorganized electrons floating around? If your church is going to have a theological and intellectual foundation to build from it has to be able to address such issues along with the theological ramifications of them. The Catholic Church has already done this through its great thinkers and theologians and makes the theological and philosophical case that “nothing important” regardless of how unimportant is still incompatible with the Nature of God.

Consider our own language. If someone asked me, “What are you doing?” I might answer, “Oh, nothing.” But I might be watching TV, or meditating, or at the very least breathing. The point is that people say “nothing” all the time when they don’t actually mean “absolute nothingness.”

But you are speaking in another context, outside of theology and creation. The term can be used absolutely and relatively.

In fact, it has been pretty rare for cultures to have come up with the concept of “zero,” at all, so this should hardly be surprising.

The concept of zero has always existed, when the food is gone or the money is gone they are very aware of the concept of zero.

1. Given the cultural and linguistic context, how can we find out when people first started talking about creation out of absolute nothingness? May reasoned that an ancient author would have to be very explicit about the “absolute nothingness” part for anyone to understand what they were talking about. The first such passages only start popping up in the mid-second century A.D. Scholars differ about who the first one was, but candidates include the Gnostic teacher Basilides, the Christian philosopher Tatian, or St. Theophilus of Antioch. These guys were really, REALLY explicit about believing in creation from absolute nothingness.

No, an ancient author would not have to be “very explicit,” especially if the writing was not in the form of systematic theology.

1. The reason for the development of this doctrine among Christians was the Gnostic teaching that matter is evil. What better way to counter them, than to say that God created it out of nothing? How could it be evil, then?

This actually goes against his thesis for that means the Gnostics were actually advocating matter created either apart from God or that God created evil.

1. The doctrine of creatio ex materia hung on for quite a while before it became general in Christianity. A couple early holdouts include St. Justin Martyr (mid-second century) and St. Clement of Alexandria.

“And we have been taught that He in the beginning did of His goodness, for man’s sake, create all things out of unformed matter . . . .” (St. Justin Martyr, First Apology 10, in The Ante-Nicene Fathers 1:165.)

“Out of a confused heap who didst create This ordered sphere, and from the shapeless mass Of matter didst the universe adorn . . . .” (St. Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor 3:12, in The Ante-Nicene Fathers 2:296.)

Regarding Justin’s quote, I would say he either could be simply wrong, or the term “unformed matter” could actually be his way of saying uncreated matter or even created elements (hydrogen and oxygen) subsequently formed into other things (water).

The Clement quote appears to be actually a poem, not a doctrinal statement, so it could be artistic license, or he could also be mistaken.

Around the turn of the third century, Tertullian expressed an explicit belief in creatio ex nihilo, but he allowed for the earlier usage where “nothing” didn’t mean “absolute nothingness.” (Obviously there were still “orthodox” Christians around who still adopted this usage.)

By the mid-third century, Origen (who also believed in creatio ex nihilo) that there were still many Christians who believed in creatio ex materia.

I havnt done an indepth look into the Fathers to say much on this.

Next time I update this, I’ll get into some particular Biblical passages, but I thought I would start with this argument, because it supports the way Mormons interpret the words. It turns out that the Biblical scholars say that we interpret them the same way everyone did before the 2nd century A.D.

I havnt looked into the ECFs in depth on this issue, this could be a teaching that didnt develop until later but only existed in seedling form at the time. I dont think there are Bible passages that show creation ex materia, in fact there are ones that indicate quite the opposite.

I also want to add that this is veering away from the philosophical/theological realm which I originally had in mind. Your argument above was essentially what a history scholar said and not really about philosophy/theology.

 

[Catholic_Dude]

“I beg you, child, look at the sky and the earth; see all that is in them and realize that God made them out of nothing, and that man comes into being in the same way.” (2 Maccabees 7:28)

Lets look at the last part of the passage, where it says either that “man” (meaning individual men) comes into being out of nothing, or that “the human race” comes into being out of nothing. It seems likely to me that she was talking about individual men, because a few verses earlier the woman says to her sons,

“You appeared in my womb, I know not how; it was not I who gave you life and breath and set in order your bodily frames. It is the Creator of the universe who moulds man at his birth and plans the origin of all things.” (2 Maccabees 7:22-23)

So how does a person appear in the womb? Even the ancients had figured out that you need a man’s “seed” inside the woman to make a baby. And notice that she says that God “set in order” their bodies and “moulds man at his birth.” All of this presumes an unorganized, pre-existing substratum.

You are ahead of yourself though, and missed what v23b was saying:
Therefore, since it is the Creator of the universe who shapes each man’s beginning, as he brings about the origin of everything, he, in his mercy, will give you back both breath and life, because you now disregard yourselves for the sake of his law. (NAB)

23 But the Creator of the world, that formed the nativity of man, and that found out the origin of all, he will restore to you again in his mercy, both breath and life, as now you despise yourselves for the sake of his laws. (DRB)
There certainly is a component here that comes directly from God, breath and life, that is not given by the Mother directly. God creates humans both directly (instantaneously creating a immaterial soul) and indirectly (by Providentially guiding the biological factors in mother’s womb).

But what if she was referring to the human race? Undoubtedly, this Jewish woman got her belief about that from Genesis, where it says God formed Adam “from the dust of the ground.” Obviously, the human race was not formed out of absolute nothingness.

The dust of the ground was created out of nothing, and the passage says God “breathed life into” Adam, which again shows that God creates both directly (soul) and indirectly (forming created matter into something else)

So anyway, for these reasons, all those scholars I mentioned consider the 2 Maccabees passage to be an example of an early use of the language of creation from nothing that clearly did not mean “absolute nothingness” to the original authors.

The main theme there is that life (the living soul) comes directly from God and that they will be resurrected again if they obey. God creating other things out of created matter is not an issue in the woman’s mind.

Consider also this other passage from the Apocrypha:

“For thy almighty hand, which created the world out of formless matter, was not without further resource.” (Wisdom of Solomon 11:17 NEB)

The term “formless matter” does not automatically mean pre-existing. It can easily mean God created the elements and after that formed them into various creations. This “formless matter” described could easily mean Gen 1:3 where God created the Heavens and the earth but the earth was a formless wasteland.

But even if you wanted to argue pre-existing matter, the Bible only speaks in terms of God’s absolute power over matter, which theologically is impossible if that matter existed before or alongside God without his consent.

 

[Catholic_Dude]

Hi guys,

In my previous two installments, I argued for creatio ex materia in the following ways.

1. In post #13 I pointed out that the biblical scholars who have worked specifically on the origin of creatio ex nihilo have uniformly come to the conclusion that it was not taught in the Bible, and indeed, was not taught by anyone in the ancient world until the mid-2nd century A.D.

I addressed this the best I could already.

1. In post #24 I argued that 2 Maccabees 7:28 is not a counterexample to point 1, but rather an example the scholars I mentioned use to show that some ancients talked about “creation from nothing” when they obviously didn’t mean “absolute nothingness.”

I addressed this as well.

1. In that same post, I also pointed out that Wisdom of Solomon 11:17 specifically teaches creation from formless matter.

Now I want to start at the beginning, namely, Genesis 1:1-2. Most older Bible translations render the passage something like this:

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” (King James Version)

The phrase “formless matter” can simply mean God originally created the world (ex nihilo) but not immediately with its form as we know it (trees, rocks, animals, etc). He took the unformed and barren world and formed its elements into trees, land, etc.

This seems to imply that God created heaven and earth, and THEN the earth was without form, etc. I won’t get into all the gory linguistic details, but a lot of Hebrew scholars have pointed out that this is probably a mistranslation, and so many of the newer translations render it something like this:

“In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.” (New Revised Standard Version; see also the New English Bible, for another example)

In this rendering, it seems that the Earth was ALREADY a formless, watery chaos in the beginning, when God got around to creating the heavens and the Earth. This is appealing to many of these scholars, because many of the cultures surrounding the Israelites had mythologies that included creation from a watery chaos. So it makes sense that the Israelite creation story would have common elements like this.

You appear to be saying the earth pre-existed as a formless void and God came along and created trees, land, etc from it. But the traditional reading fits just as easily, if not better. Consider the “heavens” being mentioned, no hint they were already existing.

“They deliberately ignore this fact, that by the word of God heavens existed long ago and an earth was formed out of water and by means of water.” (2 Peter 3:5, New Revised Standard Version)

So in the New Testament, there is clear evidence for creation from the watery chaos, but no clear evidence for creation from absolute nothingness.

It says here “by the word of God heavens existed,” meaning God spoke them into existence. There is no equivalent to “now the heavens were a formless void.”

Next, it says the “earth was formed out of water and by means of water” but what precisely does this mean? I think it is describing Gen 1 where it talks of God dividing the waters to create land, clouds, atmosphere, etc.

Also the use of the term “water” actually helps the Catholic view. Because all you can argue from this passage is that water pre-existed, not that water itself came from pre-existing atoms. And if you argue water pre-existed that is equivalent to the pagan pantheist notions of the elemens of fire, water, etc being the force of life and the universe.

 

[BDawg]

Hi CDude,

So as to avoid ginormous posts, I’ve snipped the quotes below down to the parts that seem most relevant to me. If I missed anything you thought I should respond to, please point it out.

This is where theology comes in because how we understand the Nature of God plays a direct role in how we understand other issues like creation.

That should be our next topic: “WHAT is God.” I think you are right that how we view “omnipotence” is directly related to that.

This is going to be tough because we understand terms and concepts very differently. For example in the creation account where it says God created man “in His image,”

We should definitely discuss this when we hit the topic of what God is. Should we do the “creatio ex nihilo” discussion here, and then make a new thread for the next part of the topic? (I just hate to make people wade through hundreds of posts in a single thread.

This quote is irrelevant, it is quoting of scholars (secular?) who have no business discussing LDS or Catholic theology.

I don’t understand your point of view, here. Isn’t the historical/cultural background of the scriptures important for understanding their meaning? I thought that’s what the Pontifical Biblical Institute was about, for instance, and in fact I quoted a Catholic scholar who published through there in one of my posts.

And the claim this arose in Christianity in the 2nd century goes against passages like Heb 11:3Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.

I don’t understand why you think this passage must be interpreted as referring to creatio ex nihilo. Here’s the NAB translation, which is easier to read.
By faith we understand that the universe was ordered by the word of God, so that what is visible came into being through the invisible.So here it talks about God “framing” or “ordering” the universe

Combine this with passages (eg Jn 1:3) that say without Jesus nothing came into existence and it is clear the concept of pre-existing matter was never on the radar.

This passage says that Jesus made everthing that was made, as Zerinus already pointed out.

This has no authority in this discussion, from the very sound of it it is of a secular/liberal (and probably atheist) scholar, not a Catholic or Mormon theologian. Such works are “standards” because anti-Christian groups dominate the printing presses.

I don’t expect you to accept this point of view based on an argument from authority. I tried to outline some of the evidence these scholars use to make their case, though. I would hope that this evidence carries some weight with you.

“nothing important”? That is a purely relative term. There were piles of matter tossed around the universe as if they were ore deposits? What is “principle of organization”? Was there Oxygen atoms floating around or were they unorganized electrons floating around? If your church is going to have a theological and intellectual foundation to build from it has to be able to address such issues along with the theological ramifications of them. The Catholic Church has already done this through its great thinkers and theologians and makes the theological and philosophical case that “nothing important” regardless of how unimportant is still incompatible with the Nature of God.

But you are speaking in another context, outside of theology and creation. The term can be used absolutely and relatively.

I agree. That was my point. These scholars say that the ancients gave no indication whatsoever, that they were using it in an absolute sense when talking about creation. In fact, many texts explicitly say otherwise.

I havnt looked into the ECFs in depth on this issue, this could be a teaching that didnt develop until later but only existed in seedling form at the time. I dont think there are Bible passages that show creation ex materia, in fact there are ones that indicate quite the opposite.

In some of my later posts I discussed some of the Biblical evidence. Paul Dupre seems to agree that creatio ex nihilo might have been a dogma that developed over time. Since Catholics make allowances for “doctrinal development,” ala John Henry Newman, it seems like a good Catholic could hold that position.

I also want to add that this is veering away from the philosophical/theological realm which I originally had in mind. Your argument above was essentially what a history scholar said and not really about philosophy/theology.

LDS view “theology” differently than you might. I’m a scientist, so I’ll use that as an analogy for how we view it. Scientists make observations (collect data) about the world, and then we try to make up explanations for what we see. Afterward, we try to make other observations that our explanations also predict or preclude, in order to test our theories. We never consider any of our theories the “final truth,” because past experience has taught us that it is very likely we will someday make observations that will force us to revise our explanations.

Latter-day Saints approach “theology” in much the same way. Our “data” is revelations from God (in the Bible, etc.) When we “do theology,” we are trying to fit all the data together into sort of a coherent story that explains everything. However, we can’t ever call any of these theological explanations the “final truth,” because it may be that God will reveal something else that will force us to put the puzzle pieces together in a different way to make sense of it all.

Catholics, on the other hand, don’t believe in new public revelation, so “doing theology” takes on much greater significance. So if you want to go off into theological reflections with us, that’s fine, but you should realize that we probably won’t take it as seriously as you do.

So I hope you don’t mind if we follow some other angles, as well. I brought up a historical angle, and Paul Dupre just posted about a scientific angle–Big Bang theory. Earlier you complained that some of the scholars I quoted don’t have any “authority” in either of our traditions, but I think that sort of misses an important point. The entire issue rests on who has the authority to interpret the scriptures, and we can’t agree on that. On the other hand, we all think scholarly and scientific work is useful (although not perfect) for finding out things, so why can’t our discussion be framed around this kind of common ground? We can all make arguments, and we will either find them persuasive, or not.

 

[BDawg]

The phrase “formless matter” can simply mean God originally created the world (ex nihilo) but not immediately with its form as we know it (trees, rocks, animals, etc). He took the unformed and barren world and formed its elements into trees, land, etc.

Hi CDude,

I’m not going to argue much about your alternate interpretations. How we read these scriptural passages depends on the assumptions we make going in. There are usually a number of ways to make sense of scriptural passsages. So although I acknowledge that your interpretations are possible, I make the following points.

1. Modern biblical/historical scholarship tends to heavily favor the view that creatio ex nihilo was a post-biblical development.
2. There are many ancient passages (including a few I pointed out in the Bible) that explicitly talk about God creating the world out of pre-existing matter. You can read in the idea that they really meant God created that matter out of nothing, first, but they don’t say that.
3. The one or two Bible passages that say God created out of nothing, or that which did not exist before, could have been using the term in the relative or absolute sense, as you pointed out. If it was the relative sense, that fits with creatio ex materia, and all the other ancient documents that explicitly teach that. If it was the absolute sense, they never really made that explicit, so this interpretation is based SOLELY on your preconceptions.

 

[Nan_S]

Zerinus: If we said that there is being greater than God who created something out of nothing, and God took that and made the rest, then you would be right.

Nan S: Please explain. Who or what is this being greater than God?

Zerinus: I did not say that there was such a being. Evidently you did not read my post carefully enough. I suggest you read it more carefully before replying.

zerinus

You most certainly DID say there is such a being. I quoted your exact words without changing even a punctuation mark.

I suggest you be honest and answer the question. Who or what is this being greater than God?

 

[BDawg]

BDawg,
You have done a fine job of showing that the bible teaches that the earth was formed from pre-existing matter. I agree with you that it does.

But that is a non-issue. The matter in the universe is about 14 billion years old but the earth is only about 4 billion years old. When God created the earth, the matter he used was indeed pre-existing (by about 10 billion years) but it was matter that God originally created out of nothing. The most recent advances in cosmology bear this out.

It is no surprise that the Big Bang theory was first proposed by Georges Lemaître, a Roman Catholic priest. That explanation for the beginning of the universe and all the matter and energy that make it up is now widely accepted (except by Mormons, I presume).

Hi Paul,

Some Mormons are ok with Big Bang theory, and others aren’t. Usually the ones who are against it are the ones who are against evolutionary theory, as well, and vice versa. So it isn’t really Mormons who have a problem with it–just young earth creationists in general.

Anyway, I’ll respond to your question by making the following two points.

1. The original Big Bang theory did require that “nothing” preceded the event, but that version has run into various problems, and the more recent versions do not postulate “nothing” at any point.

You can read a lengthy discussion of this, and how it is related to the question of creatio ex nihilo, here.

I remember reading something in Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time that I think illustrates this point well. Hawking said he had attended a conference about Big Bang theory hosted by the Vatican, and the Pope gave a speech there. He said the Pope encouraged them in their studies, but cautioned them that they shouldn’t delve into what happened at the moment of the event, because that was the work of God. Hawking said, “I was glad then that he did not know the subject of the talk I had just given at the conference–the possibility that space-time was finite but had no boundary, which means that it had no beginning, no moment of creation.”

2. Even though Big Bang theory hasn’t been going your way, recently, I urge caution on both sides. The theoretical calculations that go into the various scenarios about what it was like at the moment of the Big Bang, or before that, are highly speculative.

I think that there’s some pretty good evidence that some kind of “Big Bang” happened. (E.g., the red shift and the universal microwave background.) But when the astrophysicists start talking about their calculations of what happened during the first few moments, I get more cautious.

The reason for this is that the standard theory for calculating interactions of matter is Quantum Mechanics, and I have some experience doing quantum mechanical calculations. These calculations are EXTREMELY complex, and I have to use about 32 processors on a supercomputer, running for about 2 weeks, to calculate the interactions between maybe 100 atoms for about a picosecond. And that isn’t even using the most precise version of the theory. During the Big Bang, all the material would have been so compressed, that normal quantum physics would not have applied. So what are the astrophysicists using to calculate interactions during that period? I’m not entirely sure, but I’ll guarantee you two things. 1) It must be an extremely simplified theoretical treatment, and 2) the physicists who developed this treatment had to extrapolate FAR beyond any conditions they could possibly test experimentally.

So anyway, I think the Big Bang theory is an interesting angle on this discussion, but I don’t think it leads anywhere conclusive.

 

[BDawg]

You most certainly DID say there is such a being. I quoted your exact words without changing even a punctuation mark.

I suggest you be honest and answer the question. Who or what is this being greater than God?

Hi Nan,

Z said, “If we said that there is being greater than God who…” It’s a hypothetical statement. If x, then y would be the case. Since Z didn’t agree with conclusion y, in this case, then he obviously wasn’t saying that x was necessarily true.

 

[BDawg]

I don’t understand why you think this passage must be interpreted as referring to creatio ex nihilo. Here’s the NAB translation, which is easier to read. By faith we understand that the universe was ordered by the word of God, so that what is visible came into being through the invisible.So here it talks about God “framing” or “ordering” the universe.

Hi again, CDude,

I have a couple more comments on this verse (Hebrews 11:7). Some people claim this refers to *creatio ex nihilo *because it says that the visible world was created from the “invisible”. They say that the “invisible” must be nothingness.

However, it would be nice to know how Jewish people at that time would have interpreted this expression. (The target audience of the Epistle to the Hebrews was Jewish, obviously.) Well, it happens that 2 Enoch (also called The Secrets of Enoch) is a Jewish document that most scholars think was written in the late first century A.D.–about the same time as Hebrews was written–and it uses the same expression.
“Before anything existed at all, from the very beginning, whatever exists I created from the non-existent, and from the invisible the visible… For before any visible things had come into existence, I, the ONE, moved around in the invisible things, like the sun, from east to west and from west to east.” (2 Enoch, in James Charlesworth, ed., J. I. Anderson, trans. The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, New York: Doubleday & Co., 1983, 142.)The translator of this document explains,
The impression remains that God was not the only existent being or thing from the very first … God made the existent out of the non-existent, the visible out of the non-visible. So the invisible things co-existed with God before he began to make anything… Vs. 4 is quite explicit on this point: Before any of the visible things had come into existence, God was moving around among the invisible things. (see note f on p. 142)
So much for the “invisible” necessarily referring to nothingness.

 

[zerinus]

You most certainly DID say there is such a being. I quoted your exact words without changing even a punctuation mark.

I suggest you be honest and answer the question. Who or what is this being greater than God?

You can’t read plain English then. This is what I said:

IF we said that there is being greater than God who created something out of nothing, and God took that and made the rest, then you would be right. BUT THAT IS NOT WHAT WE ARE SAYING. What we are saying is that there are some things that are inherently impossible, that nobody and nothing can do, not just that God can’t do.

I thought you were a Patristics scholar. You can’t be a very good scholar if you can’t make sense of the plainest of Engilsh. If you can’t understand this, how can you make sense of the complicated sentenses of Origen or St Augustine?

zerinus

 

[RAR]

BDawg, I think you should reel this little one in… he’s been up too late.

…

His kind of behavior gives Mormon’s a bad name and does little to otherwise convince those who wonder if Mormons intentionally avoid answering questions on their theology.

…

It comes down to AUTHORITY, the Catholic Church was given it as a gift so that the world would be guided into all truth.

Without this, all sorts of confusions arise… hence the discussion.

RAR

 

[RAR]

BDawg, I think you should reel this little one in… he’s been up too late.

…

His kind of behavior gives Mormon’s a bad name and does little to otherwise convince those who wonder if Mormons intentionally avoid answering questions on their theology.

…

It comes down to AUTHORITY, the Catholic Church was given it as a gift so that the world would be guided into all truth.

Without this, all sorts of confusions arise… hence the discussion.

RAR

 

[RAR]

BDawg, I think you should reel this little one in… he’s been up too late.

…

His kind of behavior gives Mormon’s a bad name and does little to otherwise convince those who wonder if Mormons intentionally avoid answering questions on their theology.

…

It comes down to AUTHORITY, the Catholic Church was given it as a gift so that the world would be guided into all truth.

Without this, all sorts of confusions arise… hence the discussion.

RAR

 

[RAR]

BDawg, I think you should reel this little one in… he’s been up too late.

…

His kind of behavior gives Mormon’s a bad name and does little to otherwise convince those who wonder if Mormons intentionally avoid answering questions on their theology.

…

It comes down to AUTHORITY, the Catholic Church was given it as a gift so that the world would be guided into all truth.

Without this, all sorts of confusions arise… hence the discussion.

RAR

 

[RAR]

BDawg, I think you should reel this little one in… he’s been up too late.

…

His kind of behavior gives Mormon’s a bad name and does little to otherwise convince those who wonder if Mormons intentionally avoid answering questions on their theology.

…

It comes down to AUTHORITY, the Catholic Church was given it as a gift so that the world would be guided into all truth.

Without this, all sorts of confusions arise… hence the discussion.

RAR

 

[BDawg]

His kind of behavior gives Mormon’s a bad name and does little to otherwise convince those who wonder if Mormons intentionally avoid answering questions on their theology.

Hi RAR,

I’m not sure what you are talking about. Do you have a problem with something I said in my posts?

 

[Nan_S]

You can’t read plain English then. This is what I said:

I thought you were a Patristics scholar. You can’t be a very good scholar if you can’t make sense of the plainest of Engilsh. If you can’t understand this, how can you make sense of the complicated sentenses of Origen or St Augustine?

zerinus

I caught you in a big admission and you want to backtrack. Sorry, chum. No getting out of this one. You said that God’s omnipotence is limited. Then YOU said a being breater than God created “something out of nothing” for God to use, and said that is correct. You went on to sidestep and say you were not discussing that point, but commenting on God’s limited onmiscience.

Some things are inherently impossible, even by God. This does not diminish God, or reduce His omnipotence; because those are things that nobody and nothing can do. If we said

that there is being greater than God who created something out of nothing, and God took that and made the rest, then you would be right. But that is not what we are saying. What we are saying is that there are some things that are inherently impossible, that nobody and nothing can do, not just that God can’t do.

The God of Mormonism is a limited God, dependent on matter and universal constants created by someone or something else. We’re right back to the Eternal Progression teaching, clearly spelled out by Joseph Smith and embraced by your church, which you also don’t want to defend.

And you’re trying to bolster your incomplete logic with insults. Insults simply display your lack of intelligence. You lose.

 

[ibkc]

This paradox arises out of attributing to God omnipotence in the absolute logical sense of the term, which is the product of philosophy not scripture. The truth is that God is omnipotent within the realm of what is possible. Some things are inherently impossible, even by God. This does not diminish God, or reduce His omnipotence; because those are things that nobody and nothing can do. If we said that there is being greater than God who created something out of nothing, and God took that and made the rest, then you would be right. But that is not what we are saying. What we are saying is that there are some things that are inherently impossible, that nobody and nothing can do, not just that God can’t do. That does not diminish God’s omnipotence. He still remains omnipotent because He can do anything He wants within the realm of what is inherently possible.

This is a classic example of LDS doublethink.

“Omnipotent” is defined as ‘having unlimited or infinite power’. God cannot be both omnipotent AND limited. If He created everything, then he is omnipotent. If he is a product of the world like everyone else and limited to what is possible in this world, then he is not omnipotent. You cannot have it both ways.

And if the doctrine of eternal progression is true, then God is a created being, limited to the rules of the god who created him. That is not omnipotence.

 

[zerinus]

I caught you in a big admission and you want to backtrack. Sorry, chum. No getting out of this one. You said that God’s omnipotence is limited. Then YOU said a being breater than God created “something out of nothing” for God to use, and said that is correct. You went on to sidestep and say you were not discussing that point, but commenting on God’s limited onmiscience.

The God of Mormonism is a limited God, dependent on matter and universal constants created by someone or something else. We’re right back to the Eternal Progression teaching, clearly spelled out by Joseph Smith and embraced by your church, which you also don’t want to defend.

And you’re trying to bolster your incomplete logic with insults. Insults simply display your lack of intelligence. You lose.

That is sad, to see an intelligent person like you twist what someone else has said in order to win an impossible argument.

zerinus

 

[BDawg]

I caught you in a big admission and you want to backtrack. Sorry, chum. No getting out of this one. You said that God’s omnipotence is limited. Then YOU said a being breater than God created “something out of nothing” for God to use, and said that is correct. You went on to sidestep and say you were not discussing that point, but commenting on God’s limited onmiscience.

Hi Nan,

Go back and read Z’s post again. He did NOT say “that is correct.” He said that WOULD BE correct. It’s a hypothetical. Look it up in the dictionary.

The God of Mormonism is a limited God, dependent on matter and universal constants created by someone or something else. We’re right back to the Eternal Progression teaching, clearly spelled out by Joseph Smith and embraced by your church, which you also don’t want to defend.

Ooooohhhhhhh. Now we finally get to what you wanted Z to talk about. Why didn’t you just come out and ask about it, instead of engaging in this petty argument about what he was saying? Z was right about what he said, you know, and you’re sort of embarrassing yourself, here.

Let me set you straight, here. We do indeed believe that God the Father may have had a Father. That’s right out of Joseph Smith’s King Follett Discourse. We also believe that there are differences in glory among those Beings who are gods. After all, Jesus prayed to the Father, “For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory for ever” (Matt. 6:13). But even if there are differences in glory among Divine Beings, on the other hand, they all have the same power. “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth” (Matt. 28:18). Furthermore, all Divine Beings are completely ONE in mind, will, purpose, love, and covenant. Jesus prayed for his disciples, “That they all may be one%between%; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one%between% in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me” (John 17:21).

So there you have it. God the Father is the most “omnipotent” being around. And so is Jesus, since he inherited “all power… in heaven and in earth.” And any of us can inherit the same thing as Jesus. “And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together” (Romans 8:17). But it doesn’t matter that there is more than one omnipotent being, because they are all completely unified in will. In effect, there is really only ONE GOD, in this sense.

Our doctrine of God is similar to yours in the following respects:

1. We both believe there is One God (but in different senses of the word.)
2. We both believe that more than one Person is God.

Our doctrine of God is different than yours in the following respects:

1. We believe that more than one Being comprises the One God. And therefore, we are also comfortable talking about multiple “gods”. You believe that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one Being.
2. We believe that more beings/persons can inherit the Divine Nature, and so become gods, or part of the One God. You believe that there is an insurmountable barrier between human nature and Divine nature, so this is not possible.

Z and I have tried to get across that for us, “omnipotence” means having the power to do anything that is possible. I’m sure you have the same definition, but we disagree about what is possible in this Universe of ours. We understand that you think our definition of “omnipotence” isn’t broad enough, and in fact, we already mentioned this fact.

But I don’t see any point in going back and forth with, “Your definition of omnipotence isn’t omnipotent enough.” “Yes, it is.” “No, it isn’t.” “Yes, it is.” We should be arguing about which definition is the right one. And we are. If God can create matter out of absolute nothingness, then obviously the Mormon definition of omnipotence is too limited.

So can we get back to the point of the thread, please?