Trinity and Mormon godhead

[TOmNossor]

Unfortunately, both trains of thought seem to nullify the love of God, and turn His beloved children into some sort of great experiment.

I do not see how allowing for and anticipating “the fall” and “the apostasy” mean that God does not love His children. In fact, love is only expressed by those who are free. If we are not free to love or reject God we CANNOT actually love Him because love must be a choice. I actually have significantly greater problems understanding the fall if God created ex nihilo than with the LDS pov. Before embracing what I think Michael Almeida (a Catholic philosopher) shows (that creation ex nihilo results in determinism AKA the absence of “significant freedom”), I found it easy to suggest that God created Adam and all the nature and nurture that influenced Adam. From this it seems quite clear that God is responsible for the fall. With Almeida’s work, it seems that there is much to the idea that God created a determined universe and like a clock it ticks second by second in perfect pre-determined precision.
Where I a Catholic, I would reject this and embrace “significant freedom” despite seeing no errors in Almeida’s position. It would be just another “mystery” or violation of logic that I felt it necessary for me to embrace.
Charity, TOm

 

[AshleyBelle]

If you try to explain it away, and suggest that the church on earth is somehow “separate” from the church in heaven, then you are suggesting that the body of Christ is not One.

We believe the Body of Christ extends to the church militent, the church suffering, and the church triumphant. (on earth, purgatory, and in heaven.)

When Christ proclaimed that even the gates of hell would not prevail against it, He meant it. He didn't mean "the gates of hell would prevail against PART of it and then it would get put back together again..  "  He didn't even imply that the "parts" are seperate. The Body of Christ is One. 

You also assume that the understanding the church held about this teaching was flawed..which ALSO goes against Christ's promise.  You want to claim that the church went apostate... or rather, that the church on earth, the church militant went apostate. But you don't tell us HOW or when.

If the church needed to be "restored" what happend to it in the first place?  Who failed? Why did they fail?

You can’t answer any of these questions…you can only theorize as to what “might” be and what “could” be…

Our faith in the Christ and His church is not about speculating and theorizing what things “could be.” It’s about trusting in God’s promise that the Church would be the pillar and the bulwark of the Truth.

 

[BDawg]

You can’t take the Catholic idea, read the words of the Catholic idea, and yet not accept the Catholic understanding of it.

That would be like a Pagan picking up a Bible, seeing the word “God” and assuming we meant Zeus.

Nothing I say is going to illustrate to you how we believe God created us before the fall, until you understand the difference between mormon deificiation and the Catholic understanding of theosis.

Ashley, I’m asking you to explain something about your belief about theosis. If Adam and Eve are destined to be “gods” in a Catholic sense, were they “gods” before the Fall? Or, does just living in heaven make you a god (in the Catholic sense).

 

[TOmNossor]

If the church needed to be “restored” what happend to it in the first place? Who failed? Why did they fail?

You can’t answer any of these questions…you can only theorize as to what “might” be and what “could” be…

Our faith in the Christ and His church is not about speculating and theorizing what things “could be.” It’s about trusting in God’s promise that the Church would be the pillar and the bulwark of the Truth.
But, I can answer this question. I think B-Dawg offered a similar answer recently. I have answered it on CAF a number of times.
Towards finding the apostasy, I recommend to Catholic and non-Catholic From Apostles to Bishops: The Development of the Episcopacy in the Early Church by Father Francis Sullivan AND Robert Eno’s The Rise of the Papacy (which was recommended to me by Father Sullivan. If one is not allergic to reading non-Catholic books, Nibley’s Apostles and Bishops in the Early Church and Barker’s Apostasy of the Divine Church is a good companion to the two Catholic books above and presents many of the same facts with of course a different interpretation of their meaning.
I contrast these four books with a book like Jesus, Peter, and the Keys by Butler Dahlgren, and Hess. It seems to me that most Catholics including CA Apologists speak of the early church in ways like Butler, Dahlgren, and Hess do. The facts acknowledged by Sullivan, Eno, Nibley, and Barker do not support such a simplistic view. It is unlikely there was a singular Bishop of Rome until the middle of the 2nd century instead Rome was lead by a group of presbutyrs/episcopos. It was significantly later that this singular Bishop began to exercise primacy even approaching the type claimed by Rome today. Sullivan and Eno acknowledge this DEVELOPMENT. Nibley and Barker present similar data and point to this as the break between Peter/apostles and Pope/Bishops. I do not think Sullivan’s and Eno’s positions are ridiculous. I do think it is problematic that most Catholics I discuss these things with are so opposed to Sullivan’s and Eno’s understanding. Without a strong sense of development you cannot get the Catholic authority structure or modern Catholic doctrine.
So, the apostasy occurred when the Peterine authority was not passed beyond the apostles to Bishops or specifically to the Bishop of Rome. Peter was most likely in Rome. But Peter, Paul, Linus, Cletus, and Clement were all church leaders who were present in Rome at the same time. Documents like the Didache suggest that Peter and Paul’s responsibilities were very different than were the responsibilities of Linus, Cletus and Clement. In the decades after the apostles died or ceased their public ministry, Barker delineates the gradual movement from Bishops at the heads of cities. To Bishops at the head of central cities with subordinate areas surrounding them. To metropolitans. To Patriarchates. To the prime Pope. Barker claims this is not the way the divine church operates. Christ selects His apostles and they select co-workers and local leaders (Bishops/Priests).
IMO this is a good LDS argument. That being said, I do not think Sullivan and Eno’s ideas are without merit either.
Again, either divine development or divine restoration.

Now, while I think the LDS view is compelling, I would not reject the Catholic Church because it DEVELOPED authority in a way that seems very different from the way that the Bible outlines. However, I think there is much within the early CoJCoLDS that is better explained via appeal to supernatural origins. Most LDS have little idea of just how much discontinuity can be documented in the Peterine chain of authority. Instead, they see the evidence of the restoration and believe the apostasy because of this. I think this is valid too.

Charity, TOm

 

[BDawg]

**RA: **So tragic…And you have no idea. The blindness is unrelenting. You are not even functioning in the realm of reality, my friend. You’re creating worlds, and arguments, and sub-pseudo-realties that have no substance. practicing for godhood? Tragic. Utterly tragic.

So I guess your answer is, “No, I will not respond to any actual arguments”?

That’s what I thought. And thanks for the dance. Weren’t you once a dancer?

 

[Richard_Abanes]

ToM: I am a former Catholic. If I ever become convinced that I should not be a LDS, I will be a Catholic immediately AND I will be at reconciliation in <24 hours. . . . Either God guided the DEVELOPMENT of theology and Catholicism is His church and the Pope is the Vicar of Christ OR God RESTORED His church and the President of the CoJCoLDS is His Prophet.

**RA: **Then, go be a RC again. Please. Go be a RC.

As it stands, you now have the wrong God, the wrong Jesus, the wrong Gospel.

Dear Catholics, I pray you well in your dealings with Tom. And pray that he’ll return to the fold from which he came.

My best wishes are to you, Tom. If that’s how you feel, then I encourage you to speak to the RCs here, and open up your heart to their words. Go back to the church.

Tom: No ECF before Nicea when talking about human deification (human theosis / “men becoming gods”) placed any limits on the FINAL state of deified man. Instead, they along with modern LDS boldly stated that through the grace of Christ we would become gods.

RA: Tom, please listen very carefully. And I pray you read this very slowly and thoughtfully. I am trying very hard here for you:

1. Regarding the pre-Nicene fathers, the term *theosis *was used inconsistently at best and we don’t possess a CLEAR, DEFINITIVE, CLOSED-END definition of it.

2. Because no CLEAR, DIRECT definitions of the term exist, we need to go to indirect methods of understanding THEIR use of the word – we must make inferences based on other information that is present.

3A. The overarching framework for *theosis *is PRIMARILY against the backdrop of Jewish monotheism – i.e., there is ONLY ONE true and living God. Any interpretation of *theosis *and theosis-related statements must be read within this paradigm.

3B. The overarching framework for *theosis *is SECONDARILY against the backdrop of Greek Philosophy – i.e., to be a “God” or “deity” or “divine” was equal to being IMMORTAL. Consequently, the whole “promise of receiving immortality in Christ was expressed by the idea of deification” (D.L. Balas, “Divinization,” in E. Ferguson, ed., Encyclopedia of Early Christianity, vol. 1, p. 338, cited in K.K. Ng, “A Reconsideration of the use of the Term ‘Deification,’ in St. Athanasius,” Coptic Church Review, 2001, vol. 22, no. 2, p. 2).

5. The whole idea of theosis, divinization, godhood, deification, etc. was linked to imperishability/incorruptability. Union with Christ was seen as inheriting his deity (i.e., his incorruptability) based on the Greek concept that a “God,” in order to take human form, had to deify the flesh.

Jesus was an archetype of us. Hence, we are deified as we are joined with him and walk with him. Part of that divinization is also reflecting God’s divine virtues. But this does NOT mean becoming a full blown “God” like he is a “God.” That is a different issue entirely. That is the Mormon concept of eternal progression, which ends in polytheism, which cuts across the backdrop of #3A.

6. *Theosis *was viewed as a “mystical event” that transpired as the believer continued walking closer and closer to God and becoming more and more LIKE God, becoming a partaker of God’s nature.

But becoming a partaker, of course, doesn’t necessarily mean: a) that God is of our own same nature, but only more progressed (Mormonism); or b) that when we reach so-called “deification,” or are “divinized,” we become just like God, as much a true “God” as he is a “God,” able to do and be a “God” just like him (Mormonism).

Mormonism has traditionally espoused ontological deification – i.e., becoming a “god” that is the exact same kind of “god” that Heavenly father is.

The ECFs, when their comments, when read against the backdrop of Judaism and Greek philosophy, were expressing nothing more than the process of becoming immortal and godly. They were seeking to express in the Hellenistic world the process of salvation. In other words, they were expressing a monotheistic doctrine of deification, while Mormons are expressing a polytheistic doctrine of deification. Big difference.

I quote BYU professor Daniel Peterson: “[T]here are differences, even highly significant differences, between patristic views of *theosis *and the Latter-day Saint notion of eternal progression. . . . I have repeatedly said, in print, that the view of *theosis *in the Fathers is distinct from that held by Latter-day Saints.”

Now, what exactly are you trying to say with regard to theosis? Why speak of it at all since at this point? It seems fairly clear that this word – as used by the ECFs – meant one thing, while Mormonism has traditionally taught (and still teaches) something else. That ancient term – *theosis *-- meant something completely different than what Mormonism teaches about deification. So, IMHO, there is no reason for you to even discuss it or try to use it in connection to Mormonism.

R.A.

 

[Richard_Abanes]

BDawg: So I guess your answer is, “No, I will not respond to any actual arguments”?

RA: No. My answer is, “I won’t get into a back-and-forth insulting match with you. That’s a waste of precious time.”

Oh, and feel free, btw, to go ahead and use the standard “I’m rubber, and your glue, whatever you say, bounces off me and sticks to you” cliche argument. I’ve moved past that long ago.

R.A.
:dancing:
a former professional dancer, and proud of it… :yup:

P.S. I’m sure we’d get along much better eating a nice dinner at some FAIR Conference.

 

[TOmNossor]

ToM:

I am a former Catholic. If I ever become convinced that I should not be a LDS, I will be a Catholic immediately AND I will be at reconciliation in <24 hours. . . . Either God guided the DEVELOPMENT of theology and Catholicism is His church and the Pope is the Vicar of Christ OR God RESTORED His church and the President of the CoJCoLDS is His Prophet.

**RA: **Then, go be a RC again. Please. Go be a RC.

As it stands, you now have the wrong God, the wrong Jesus, the wrong Gospel.

I am unconvinced that if your concept of God, Jesus, and Gospel are correct that I do in fact have any of this sufficiently wrong. I regularly dialogue with Protestants and Catholics. It is not unusual for me to correct their modalistic or tri-theistic tendencies (usually modalistic), but if they make or do not make these theological mistakes, they recognize my views as orthodox. Except for Calvinist who are willing to tell Arminians they are likely hell bound, my view of faith, grace, and works is usually certified as sufficient and orthodox. This is the most common experience IRL. Then I mention that I am a LDS. Because of books that misrepresent my faith (books like yours and worse), often (but not always) this all changes. Suddenly what was well within the spectrum becomes heretical and unacceptable.
I am quite convinced that in the extraordinarily unlikely event that Protestantism (in a non-Calvinistic expression) has more truth than Mormonism or Catholicism, I will be saved by grace through faith.
What I stand outside of is the extraordinary vehicle of grace known as the 7 sacraments (if the Catholic Church is God’s church). This is worth considering (as is Mary, the communion of Saints, and …), but your “different Jesus” is a product of your imposing upon me what you perceive as the beliefs of LDS (you are regularly wrong about even the median or average position of LDS, but are certainly wrong about me).

Charity, TOm

 

[TOmNossor]

3A. The overarching framework for *theosis *is PRIMARILY against the backdrop of Jewish monotheism – i.e., there is ONLY ONE true and living God. Any interpretation of *theosis *and theosis-related statements must be read within this paradigm.
Jewish and Christian monotheism are not what you claim them to be.

The majority of Biblical scholars today do not believe ancient Jews (you know that folks who lived when the Bible was written and who wrote the Bible) were monotheistic in any type of modern sense. Most of the Old Testament is best read as teaching monolatry or monarchical monotheism. The Old Testament includes a little of social monotheism under monarchical monotheism. The New Testament is better read as Arian than as –ousia based monotheism, but I believe it is best read as advocating a Social Trinity. So, my monotheism is far more Biblical than the metaphysical monotheism of modern Jews and Moslems.
Christians attempt to be Trinitarian with metaphysical monotheism. Ultimately this position is indefinable, but it is not much less far from monotheism than is my position. So if the Jew or Moslem calls the Catholic, polytheist, they have much more warrant to do so than does the Christian who calls me polytheist. And all the labels aside, Biblical scholarship has been increasingly been supporting the type of monotheism I embrace.

I have acknowledged that as creation ex nihilo DEVELOPED it lead to changes in the view of the ECF. But, again most biblical scholars are now saying that creation ex nihilo is certainly not explicit in the Bible.

It is my position which should have been clear in my previous post to you, that –ousia based oneness is not Biblical and did develop. If this creates a problem for the BOLD declaration of the pre-Nicene ECF, perhaps it was not a divine development after all.
So, the bold declarations that men can become gods within the ECF stand upon the shoulders of Biblical monotheism. The retreat from this bold deification language stands upon developed metaphysical monotheism. You are anachronistically suggesting that the reason the bold language is not bold is because of metaphysical monotheism, but the ECF who boldly claimed “men can become gods” had not fully integrated metaphysical monotheism into their worldview (because it is not Biblical and not Apostolic). You argue that they must have not meant what they said, but you do it because you read into the foundation of their beliefs a monotheism that is not present in the FOUNDATION of their beliefs.

Richard_Abanes:
3B. The overarching framework for *theosis *is SECONDARILY against the backdrop of Greek Philosophy – i.e., to be a “God” or “deity” or “divine” was equal to being IMMORTAL. Consequently, the whole “promise of receiving immortality in Christ was expressed by the idea of deification” (D.L. Balas, “Divinization,” in E. Ferguson, ed., Encyclopedia of Early Christianity, vol. 1, p. 338, cited in K.K. Ng, “A Reconsideration of the use of the Term ‘Deification,’ in St. Athanasius,” Coptic Church Review, 2001, vol. 22, no. 2, p. 2).

5. The whole idea of theosis, divinization, godhood, deification, etc. was linked to imperishability/incorruptability. Union with Christ was seen as inheriting his deity (i.e., his incorruptability) based on the Greek concept that a “God,” in order to take human form, had to deify the flesh.
There is a lot of evidence that Greek thought entered into the Christian concepts. That being said, Keating and other Catholic (and non-LDS) authors specifically refute the idea that Christian deification is a product of contact with Greek thought. Christian deification is faithfulness to the Biblical witness that said Christ came so that through Him men might become as Christ is. We are to be conformed to the image of Christ. This is to become through Grace as He is, not to be a weak copy.

The Bible does not speak of communicable and incommunicable divine attributes!

Now, what Greek thought did do for (or against) the early Christians is invite them to embrace a God who was impassible. The Greeks concept of divinity demanded that God was unaffected by mere humans. He was immutable and absolutely unchanging (rather than the Jewish concept of unchanging in his covenantal faithfulness). This was part of the impetus that ultimately lead to the defined of God in ways that involved changeable mutable humans never becoming Gods. As non-LDS scholar Pelikan states, the Bible does not teach an absolutely unchanging God. This is the legacy of Greek though, not deification (and this I reject BTW).
cont…

 

[TOmNossor]

6. *Theosis *was viewed as a “mystical event” that transpired as the believer continued walking closer and closer to God and becoming more and more LIKE God, becoming a partaker of God’s nature.

But becoming a partaker, of course, doesn’t necessarily mean: a) that God is of our own same nature, but only more progressed (Mormonism); or b) that when we reach so-called “deification,” or are “divinized,” we become just like God, as much a true “God” as he is a “God,” able to do and be a “God” just like him (Mormonism).
Mormonism has traditionally espoused ontological deification – i.e., becoming a “god” that is the exact same kind of “god” that Heavenly father is.
There is much to be said about this little section. I will offer some of it.

“Ontological deification” is absolutely not something that “Mormonism has traditionally espoused.” I can see your POV, but I think it is significantly misguided. The CoJCoLDS forced to fit into your framework will not work. If the CoJCoLDS is true, it is true on its own terms with its own definition. Since LDS do not conceive of divinity in ontological terms, we could not be ontological deifiers.
Now leaving Mormonism in almost universal and moving towards ideas that I think are part of Mormonism, I will suggest that divinity in some respects is the emergent properties possessed by the divine communion of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. There is thus a singular divine nature which is the communed nature. This is what LDS believe we may partake of to a full extent and what 2 Peter means!

Non-LDS Christianity is the truly odd bird here. We are to become partakers of the divine nature, but it is precisely the ontological nature (that which defines divinity in non-LDS thought) that we cannot partake of. Keating does back flips to explain how Christ partook of our nature so that we might partake of His, but that his partaking was full and complete and our partaking is partial and derivative. I think this is an obviously and radically flawed position.

Richard_Abanes:
I quote BYU professor Daniel Peterson: “[T]here are differences, even highly significant differences, between patristic views of *theosis *and the Latter-day Saint notion of eternal progression. . . . I have repeatedly said, in print, that the view of *theosis *in the Fathers is distinct from that held by Latter-day Saints.”
I have spoken to Daniel Peterson (and in writing about just this). He acknowledges just what B-Dawg and I both acknowledged concerning creation ex nihilo. He also acknowledges that folks like Athanasius and Augustine are partial deifiers, but evidence suggests Irenaeus was not.
Finally, Dr. Peterson and I disagree in some points. I follow some of the distinctions made by Ostler in Exploring Mormon Thought and Dr. Peterson does not.

Also, Dr. Peterson has read former Father Vajda’s essay. He believes that some of the distinctions Father Vajda points to are not really present. So, while he recognizes distinctions, he thinks Father Vajda’s essay is of value in highlighting the volume of similar between ECF deification and LDS deification.

So, differences yes, but the LDS view is more clearly a restoration of the view of pre-Nicene ECF than is the developed view espoused by most Catholic and Protestants.

Let me offer this, this way:
Before Nicea ECF regularly and BOLDLY declared that men can become Gods. In doing this they placed no limits (ontological or otherwise) upon the FINAL state of deified man. They like LDS boldly declared that through the grace of Christ we could become gods. They are closer to LDS in what they assert for the FINAL state of deified man than are they to non-LDS Christians (and post Nicene Fathers).

BTW, thank you for the substantive post. I really think you miss a lot in your ideas on both Mormonism and the development of Christian doctrine, but at least you offered some info to which I could think about and reply.

Charity, TOm

 

[Richard_Abanes]

Tom,

To me, it seems like you’ve invented, and are continuing to invent, your own religion out of bits and pieces from here and there. If what you say is true, you are neither Mormon, nor Christian. You are a Nossorian. Well…oh well. I wish you all the best.

R.A.

 

[nebula]

Tom,

The issue is more about the nature of what deity is in the first place than whether or not we can become gods. Unless we define what we mean by God or gods, exactly, we’ll be talking past each other.

Theosis: belief that God is qualitatively different from us humans. God is other, absolutely infinite, absolutely eternal, and independent. It’s like comparing an adult person to a pebble. He is the continual source of existence for all creation. Theosis is the notion that God might condescend to us finite creatures and infuse us with divinity. Going back to the pebble vs person analogy, it’s as if the human crafts out of the pebble a work of beauty that the pebble itself could never grow into or attain by nature.

Exaltation: belief that God is quantitatively different from us. God is incredibly great to be sure, but by degree, not by nature. It’s comparing a newborn to a full grown king. The newborn requires the tender mercy and help of adults to grow up safely and become an adult, but it is in the nature of the newborn to grow up and become teh adult. So it is that we humans, with the mercy and help of God can grow up, so to speak,a nd become gods ourselves.

I hope that helps clarify the difference.

 

[Richard_Abanes]

TOM: the LDS view is more clearly a ***restoration ***of the view of pre-Nicene ECF than is the developed view espoused by most Catholic and Protestants.

**RA: **Ahhhhhh, there we go. Okay. Now that is the key. Thank you. The magick word - restoration. In all seriousness, I do thank you for saying that.

peace-out,

RA

 

[Stephen168]

The majority of Biblical scholars today do not believe ancient Jews (you know that folks who lived when the Bible was written and who wrote the Bible) were monotheistic in any type of modern sense…

I have acknowledged that as creation ex nihilo DEVELOPED it lead to changes in the view of the ECF. But, again most biblical scholars are now saying that creation ex nihilo is certainly not explicit in the Bible.

I reject these argumentum ad populum statements. There are many terms which seem to be open to spin. Majority? Ancient? Modern sense? Developed?

In the beginning was the Word (God) (John 1:1-5) and God created everything with his Word (Genesis 1:1-31.) The Word (God) became fresh (John 1:14).

‘I beg you, my child, to look at the heaven and the earth and see everything that is in them, and recognize that God did not make them out of things that existed. Thus also mankind comes into being.’ (2 Maccabees 7:28)

‘As it is written, “I have made you the father of all nations” – in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and call into existence the things that do not exist.’ (Roman 4:17)
‘For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen’ (Romans 11:36)

I know non-Catholics would not embrace Maccabees, but it is a second century BC writing.

Richard finally wrote what I’d been thinking: the writings of the early Christians presupposes monotheism. And monotheism seems to presuppose creation ex nihilo.

 

[Richard_Abanes]

Please support - ra

 

[Richard_Abanes]

That quote from JS simply indicates the obvious fact that all/most religions contain some elements of truth – even secular thinkers come up with various truths.

His remark does not negate his statements, and those of other LDS leaders, that Satan sits on the throne in Christianity. And that we non-Mormons:

1. believe in a false god we worship “in vain,”
2. follow “precepts of men” and
3. are disconnected from the “real God.”

That’s not vewy nice. :bighanky:

R.A.

 

[TOmNossor]

To me, it seems like you’ve invented, and are continuing to invent, your own religion out of bits and pieces from here and there. If what you say is true, you are neither Mormon, nor Christian. You are a Nossorian. Well…oh well. I wish you all the best.

Would you say that Blake Ostler the author of Exploring Mormon Thought books 1, 2, and 3; is the author of his own religion? Having read all three books he and I mostly agree.
Most of the folks at church thought I was a LDS.
You simply do not understand what it is to be a LDS and because of this you regularly misrepresent my faith.
Charity, TOm

 

[Richard_Abanes]

Is Blake Ostler a General Authority? No. You, and Ostler, and however many others in the LDS Church accept Ostler’s views does not make it Mormon. It makes it what Ostler has written. No more. Let me know when you’ve become a GA.

R.A.

 

[Richard_Abanes]

**Tsuzuki: **I am eager to see these quotes.

**RA: **Dear T., you seem to have swallowed a bit of Mormon PR and in your haste to be accepting, have limited your scope of research to a body of quotations that would seem to suggest Mormons have always viewed Christendom in a benign, if not a positive, manner. You are quite simply wrong. LDS leaders, since your church’s inception, have merciless attacked Christendom.

Even more recent LDS leaders, if you look hard enough through all the PR, have said that we, in Christendom, don’t have the correct concept of God at all! This is traceable to Joseph Smith, who began it all with his vision of God the Father (a man) and Jesus Christ (his literal Son, conceived in heaven by Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother). He asked “God” which church he should join. Here was his answer:

I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong; and the Personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt; that: “they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof.” (Joseph Smith History 1).

THAT, Tsuzuki, is at the heart of Mormonism. And the very men you cited saying one thing out of one side of their mouth, also said the following. You must read both to understand what was going on in the 19th century. It situation was not as you make it out to be.

There was a HUGE rift between Mormons and Christendom, beginning at the instigation of Smith (see above). This did not mean that LDS leaders were foolish enough to say that all in it was evil/satanic.

But in general, when it came to the doctrines of Christendom, and professed Creeds of Christendom (this, of course, would include the Apostles’, Nicene, and Athanasian) were abominations. And the actual people embracing, spreading, and defending such beliefs/creeds were doing the devil’s work:

R.A.

 

[Richard_Abanes]

JOSEPH SMITH (one more)
“Behold there are save two churches only; the one is the church of the Lamb of God, and the other is the church of the devil; wherefore, whoso belongeth not to the church of the Lamb of God belongeth to that great church, which is the mother of abominations; and she is the whore of all the earth” (Book of Mormon, 1 Nephi 14:10).

BRIGHAM YOUNG
“When the light came to me I saw that all the so-called Christian world was grovelling in darkness” (Journal of Discourses 5:73).

“The Christian world, so-called, are heathens as to the knowledge of the salvation of God” (Journal of Discourses 8:171).

“With a regard to true theology, a more ignorant people never lived than the present so-called Christian world” (Journal of Discourses 8:199).

“Should you ask why we differ from other Christians, as they are called, it is simply because they are not Christians as the New Testament defines Christianity” (Journal of Discourses 10:230).

“The religion of God embraces every fact that exists in all the wide arena of nature, while the religions of men consist of theory devoid of fact, or of any true principle of guidance; hence the professing Christian world are like a ship upon a boisterous ocean without rudder, compass, or pilot, and are tossed hither and thither by every wind of doctrine” (Journal of Discourses 10:265).

“… the time came when Paganism was engrafted into Christianity, and at last Christianity was converted into Paganism rather than converting the Pagans” (Journal of Discourses 22:44).

“Brother Taylor has just said that the religions of the day were hatched in hell. The eggs were laid in hell, hatched on its borders, and kicked on to the earth” (Journal of Discourses 6:176).

The Devil has the mastery of the earth: he has corrupted it, and has corrupted the children of men. He has led them in evil until they are almost entirely ruined, and are so far from God that they neither know Him nor his influence, and have almost lost sight of everything that pertains to eternity. This darkness is more prevalent, more dense, among the people of Christendom, than it is among the heathen. They have lost sight of all that is great and glorious–of all principles that pertain to life eternal. (Journal of Discourses 8:208, 1860)

We declare it to all the inhabitants of the earth from the valleys in the tops of these mountains that we are the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints–not a church but the church–and we have the doctrine of life and salvation for all the honest-in-heart in all the world. Who else has got it? Is it to be found in the creeds of Christendom? It is not. (Journal of Discourses 12:173).

JOHN TAYLOR:
“We talk about Christianity, but it is a perfect pack of nonsense…Myself and hundreds of the Elders around me have seen its pomp, parade, and glory; and what is it? It is a sounding brass and a tinkling symbol; it is as corrupt as hell; and the Devil could not invent a better engine to spread his work than the Christianity of the nineteenth century”(John Taylor, 3rd President of the LDS Church, Journal of Discourses, 6:167).

“What does the Christian world know about God? Nothing …Why so far as the things of God are concerned, they are the veriest of fools; they know neither God nor the things of God” (Journal of Discourses 13:225).

“What! Are Christians ignorant? Yes, as ignorant of the things of God as the brute beast.” (Journal of Discourses 6:25).

“And who is there that acknowledges [God’s] hand? …You may wander east, west, north, and south, and you cannot find it in any church or government on the earth, except the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” (Journal of Discourses 6:24).

GEORGE Q. CANNON
“I do not wish to say anything in relation to other forms of religion; I do not know that it is necessary that I should do so; but no thinking man can admit that Christianity so-called - I call it a false Christianity, untrue to its name - satisfies the wants of humanity at the present time. It is not a religion that satisfies” (Journal of Discourses 24:185).

“After the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized, there were only two churches upon the earth. They were known respectively as the Church of the Lamb of God and Babylon. The various organizations which are called churches throughout Christendom, though differing in their creeds and organizations, have one common origin. They all belong to Babylon” (Gospel Truth, pg.324).

B.H. ROBERTS
“Nothing less than a complete apostasy from the Christian religion would warrant the establishment of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” (Introduction to the History of the Church 1:XL).

“This view of God as an incorporeal, immaterial, bodiless, partless, passionless being is now and has been from the days of the great apostasy from God and Christ, in the second and third centuries, the doctrine of Deity generally accepted by apostate Christendom. The simple doctrine of the Christian Godhead, set forth in the New Testament is corrupted by the meaningless jargon of these creeds, and their explanations; and the learned who profess a belief in them are wandering in the darkness of the mysticisms of the old pagan philosophies” (History of the Church, 1:LXXXV).

PARLEY PRATT
Parley P. Pratt (Mormon Apostle)

“The false and corrupt institutions, and still more corrupt practices of Christendom,' have had a downward tendency in the generations of man for many centuries ...The overthrow of those ancient degenerate races is a type of that which now awaits the nations call Christian,’ or in other words, `the great whore that sitteth upon many waters” (Key to the Science of Theology, 1938 ed., pg.106).

MORE COMING…