Trinity and Mormon godhead

[BDawg]

The Invisible God

Another objection often raised is that God the Father can’t really have a body in human form, because John said, “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him” (John 1:18; cf. 1 John 4:12). Maybe some people did have visions of God the Father, where he appeared in human form, but that must have simply been some kind of visionary image to help people relate to God. For instance, Stephen said he saw “the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God” (Acts 7:55). The Father must have had some kind of human-like form for Jesus to be seen on his “right hand.” Likewise, John saw the Father seated on the heavenly throne in Revelation 4. If these visions represented physical reality, why did John repeatedly say that “no man has seen God”?

It must first be understood that although Mormons always talk about how some men (including Joseph Smith) have seen God the Father, we technically don’t believe that a “man” can see God. Rather, humans must be transfigured–i.e. transformed into a heavenly being to withstand the presence of a celestial being. For example, in the Book of Moses, part of the LDS book of scripture, the Pearl of Great Price, it says, “And he saw God face to face, and he talked with him, and the glory of God was upon Moses; therefore Moses could endure his presence” (Moses 1:2). But when Satan appeared to Moses, he was rejected because Moses did not have to be transfigured to see him. “For behold, I could not look upon God, except his glory should come upon me, and I were transfigured before him. But I can look upon thee in the natural man” (Moses 1:14).

This solves a significant riddle in the Bible, which is described in the Oxford Companion to the Bible.

A deity’s physical manifestation is seen by human beings. The appearance of gods and their involvement with humans are common motifs in acient Near Eastern and classical mythology. That similar phenomena are found in the Bible seems problematic at first, for a persistent tradition in the Hebrew Bible affirmed that death comes to any human who sees God (Gen. 16:13; 32:30; 24:10-11; 33:20; Deut. 5:24-26; 18:16; Judg. 6:22-23; 13:22; cf. Exod. 20:19; Isa. 6:5). In most of these contexts, however, the narration undermines this sentiment by depicting the pleasant surprise of those who survive. The text presents this perspective as a misperception to which human beings subscribe, for no humans in the Bible ever die simply because they have seen God. On the contrary, throughout the Bible God wants to communicate intimately with humans. the problem of how God can adequately show himself to humankind without harm is a conundrum that is never really resolved in the Bible. (Samuel A. Meier, “Theophany,” in Metzger and Coogan, eds., The Oxford Companion to the Bible, 740.)

But if the Bible never offers a solution to the conundrum, is our solution the correct one? It turns out that the Clementine Homilies (the same early Jewish Christian work mentioned above that teaches God has a body in human form,) gives essentially the same explanation for how a person can see God the Father.

For I maintain that the eyes of mortals cannot see the incorporeal form of the Father or Son, because it is illumined by exceeding great light. . . . For he who sees God cannot live. For the excess of light dissolves the flesh of him who sees; unless by the secret power of God the flesh be changed into the nature of light, so that it can see light. . . . (Clementine Homilies 17:16.)

This kind of thing was actually pretty common in the Jewish and Jewish Christian periods, especially in apocalyptic literature like the Enoch texts, the Ascension of Isaiah, and so on. The visionary was changed into a heavenly being (sometimes in stages if there was more than one heaven), and then had a vision of God on the throne. Sometimes God’s face couldn’t be seen, however, because of the overpowering Glory. For more information on early Jewish and Christian texts that talk about ascension through the heavens, and transformation of the visionary into heavenly beings that could behold God’s form, see Methodist scholar Margaret Barker’s book On Earth As It is in Heaven: Temple Symbolism in the New Testament.

All of this, of course, cannot guarantee that the mainstream Christian doctrine of God wasn’t a legitimate development. However, I think it does add plausibility to Joseph Smith’s claim to have restored some ancient knowledge about God.

 

[nebula]

bdwag,

Since no proof is bulletproof, that means any belief we have about anything, according to you, is ‘mere speculation’. Bummer. It’s a wonder you aren’t agnostic.

Yes, bdwag, I agree, you can wrangle yourself out from this. You will always be able to no matter what is presented, because all that you need to do in your own mind is to make Mormonism un-falsifiable so that you can plead for the primacy of your ‘personal experiences’. So be it. I don’t see how doing the same dance with you all over again relates to my OP in the least.

 

[nebula]

I guess the real question has to be from my point of view, why should Mormonism be taken seriously? Most people know not to take apocalyptic visions as presenting literal truth, that’s not interpreting the genre correctly. Since when does the word spirit mean the same thing as spiritual? Most people know that if you read enough material, you will find enough quotes to support any position you desire, at least a little- the plausibility you mention (and this was precisely Nibley’s problem).

So yes, you can interpret the word one how you wish, you can interpret eternal as not what is normally meant to mean eternal, and on and so forth. I’ve been there and done that. But why? Why go through the extra trouble? Why should anything Joseph Smith said about religious truth be even worthy of serious consideration? (surely you don’t think everyone who claims to be a prophet is worthy of serious consideration… you’d never have a free moment from studying their supposed revelations)

 

[BDawg]

I guess the real question has to be from my point of view, why should Mormonism be taken seriously? Most people know not to take apocalyptic visions as presenting literal truth, that’s not interpreting the genre correctly. Since when does the word spirit mean the same thing as spiritual? Most people know that if you read enough material, you will find enough quotes to support any position you desire, at least a little- the plausibility you mention (and this was precisely Nibley’s problem).

So yes, you can interpret the word one how you wish, you can interpret eternal as not what is normally meant to mean eternal, and on and so forth. I’ve been there and done that. But why? Why go through the extra trouble? Why should anything Joseph Smith said about religious truth be even worthy of serious consideration? (surely you don’t think everyone who claims to be a prophet is worthy of serious consideration… you’d never have a free moment from studying their supposed revelations)

Hi neb,

I didn’t mean to offend with the “speculation” comment. I was just working in a little rhetorical effect, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, let’s start with your questions about why one should go through the “extra trouble” of interpreting the Bible the way I do. In that essay I posted, I gave considerable evidence that early Judaism taught that God had a body in human form. In my opinion, if a revelation was given to/through a particular culture or set of people, we ought to interpret that revelation like they did, unless we have a darn good reason. “Original intent,” and all that. So the only “extra trouble” involved is a little historical research to figure out the probable “original intent.” I don’t see why that should be considered less valid than interpreting in light of some later culture, even our own.

Another example. You complained, “Since when does the word spirit mean the same thing as spiritual?” Fair enough, but why did Paul say, “But he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit” (1 Cor. 6:17), if saying someone is a spirit is the same as saying he/she is disembodied. “Spirit” was very commonly thought of as a rarefied material substance in the ancient world, in any case. But I guess it’s too much extra work to consider anything but what the word commonly means 2000 years later?

How about the word, “eternal”? If you pick through all the occurrences of the word “olam” in the OT, you will find some that could be interpreted in the absolute sense, but others that absolutely cannot, especially if you are a Christian. E.g., the one that says circumcision is an “eternal” covenant.

Now let’s consider your question of why Joseph Smith should be taken seriously, at all. Well, think back 2000 years, and ask yourself why Jesus Christ should have been taken seriously. Was there some philosophical proof that the first Christians followed after? I think not. Read the New Testament, and you will find people joining the Christians because of a whole lot of personal experiences. Yes, some people can be deceived by that sort of thing, but my HOPE is that God will help out those who sincerely seeking. Thus, I don’t consider myself responsible to follow after everyone else’s personal experiences. In any case, ask yourself this. Is God really there, and can we really encounter Him? If not, then I don’t see much value in religion, anyway.

I have many other reasons for taking JS seriously, but those are the most important–the ones I consider to be most convincing. I could go on, if you like.

 

[BDawg]

Jesus said, “My sheep will hear my voice.” Yes, some people will be deceived, but presumable those are not “his sheep.”

 

[nebula]

bdawg,

I’m always using words for rhetorical effect, so I can’t begrudge you that. I think I’m more exhausted with the word ‘speculation’ than anything else.

One spirit would be like saying one flesh. I dont’ see what you prove there.

Yes, olam *could *be interpreted as just a really long time. Or, it could be interpreted as truly eternal too.

The idea of Christ had better make a lot of sense and fit into the picture. HEre’s the thing, I’m not sure whehter or not I will accept the idea of Christ in the end or not, but I will say is this: only if Christ is the incarnated God does any of this make any sense. It’s obvious that Christ did not fit the mold of what a Messiah should be (he was neither a kingly redeemer of the physical lands or did he restore the temple to pure priestly practices), so it had better be something bigger, beyond what was expected. And, if he is the incarnated God, then it also makes sense that all revelation worthy of canonization would stop with the generations who first got to hear him speak and teach and saw him resurrected. Extras would be extremely inappropriate as competing with the ultimate revelation of Christ as God.

So yes, people had personal experiences, I never deny that as an ingredient, but they also heard from others their testimonies of actually seeing and hearing Christ. They shared discourse reinterpreting Jewish scriptures as prefiguring Christ (because no, that is not obvious) and going through their reasoning. THey spend a lot of time reasoning about things, and we see that immediately in the New Testament, the writings all grappling with Christ’s identity and the reasonable implications of it (does a follower of Christ become a Jew first? Paul says emphatically-- NO).

Here’s the thing, if Mormon doctrine is really a restoration of early Christianity (and who doesn’t make this claim, right?) I’ expect to see unique Mormon doctrine in these writings wiht some kind of emphasis. For instance, the highest ritual in Mormonism is celestial marriage. I don’t see a jot about that, and the only things I do see written about marriage appear to contradict that idea (yes you can wriggle your way out of it, you can always, but that isn’t my point). At some point I have to ask myself how Mormonism is really different from the Millerites, Mary Baker Eddy or the rest. I don’t spend all my time reading Science and Health to see if God will reveal to me its truth. If I read it with the expectation that God is going to tell me something, and spend time thinking and praying about it- seriously, chances are I’ll have an experience confirming its truth. That’s the way humans are. That’s why I am unmoved by testimonies of feeling the SPirit when reading the BoM, I am unmoved even by my own past experiences, because they were born out of the expectation that I would feel something. There is nothing extraordinary about that.

But don’t you find it interesting that we’re back to the exactly same topic as always? My OP only had to do with exploring how the trinity could be derived if certain assumptions were already granted and comparing that to the Mormon notion of the godhead, and yet we barely got going before you are defending the sanctity of your experiences. Why?

 

[ronald_g_w]

Ronald, you touch here on the Hypostatic Union. Briefly put:

The Man JESUS did not exist until the Incarnation; but as the Son of God He Is from all eternity. That is a change external to the Divine Person; iow, nothing of the Divine Person changed by virtue of the Incarnation; rather, it was Man who changed by being brought into friendship with God in and through the God-Man.

 

[BDawg]

Since no proof is bulletproof, that means any belief we have about anything, according to you, is ‘mere speculation’. Bummer. It’s a wonder you aren’t agnostic.

To some extent, we are always connecting the dots. And that is exactly WHY I think that you have to give preference to reasoning based on the familiar, rather than on things that are far beyond human experience. Therefore, I see reasoning that is heavily constrained by “experience” as much more reliable than reasoning that is not.

Yes, bdwag, I agree, you can wrangle yourself out from this. You will always be able to no matter what is presented, because all that you need to do in your own mind is to make Mormonism un-falsifiable so that you can plead for the primacy of your ‘personal experiences’.

Falsifiability is not really that plausible for complex theories, because there are so many intertwined “auxiliary hypotheses” involved. Read Imre Lakatos’s critiques of Karl Popper to get some perspective on this.

Like I said, I feel like I have some good reasons for giving primacy (although not unrestrained) to experience. Science started making big advances when scientists started insisting on a more comprehensive program for checking theory against observations.

So be it. I don’t see how doing the same dance with you all over again relates to my OP in the least.

Look, somebody else brought up Divine Simplicity. I just followed it up. I pointed out that I don’t see how anyone could come to that conclusion from the Bible, and so I concluded that it must have come from Greek philosophy, where it was a commonplace idea. If we are discussing what God is, how God is one, and how God is more than one, how can we possibly make any progress without clearly defining where we get the complex of ideas that we use to interpret Bible passages?

And we aren’t the only two people in on this discussion. So we’ve talked about this before. As I mentioned, I wondered if any of the Catholic posters on the thread had any different arguments than strictly philosophical ones. Who knows? Maybe some of them place different weight on philosophical vs. experiential considerations than you (or I) do.

 

[RebeccaJ]

Scientific method emerged from the likes of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. Guess we should be lamenting the “Hellenization” of science?

During the Islamic middle ages, the scientific method was improved upon by Islamic scientists. Their work was brought to the West and translated into Latin, by Robert Grosseteste, a Catholic bishop in England. At Grosseteste death, Roger Bacon, and Franciscan friar, picked up on his scientific work. The pope invited him to write to him on scientific matters. He wrote three treatise, one opus majus contained the rules of the scientific method we use today (from wikipedia):

• Part I (pp. 1-22) treats of the four causes of error: authority, custom, the opinion of the unskilled many, and the concealment of real ignorance with the pretence of knowledge.
• Part VI (pp. 445-477) treats of experimental science, domina omnium scientiarum. There are two methods of knowledge: the one by argument, the other by experience. Mere argument is never sufficient; it may decide a question, but gives no satisfaction or certainty to the mind, which can only be convinced by immediate inspection or intuition. Now this is what experience gives.
• Experimental science, which in the Opus Tertium (p. 46) is distinguished from the speculative sciences and the operative arts, is said to have three great prerogatives over all sciences:
  1. It verifies their conclusions by direct experiment;
  2. It discovers truths which they could never reach;
  3. It investigates the secrets of nature, and opens to us a knowledge of past and future.
  4. Roger Bacon then illustrates his method by an investigation into the nature and cause of the rainbow, as a specimen of inductive research.[28]
     So yes, Catholics are very well versed in scientific method. We however, do not view the Biblical canon as a scientific volume of work.
  All this, yes, Greek philosophy has had a great impact on science, and also philosophy. But the Catholic Church did not cease to exist then. There are contemporay philosophers that are not Thomisists. Pope Benedice XVI is one of these. So though you can focus in on one era, it is not what Catholics have done or continue to do.
  
  And further, scientific method has no indication that truth is based on the experience of a single individual. Quite the opposite, scientific method indicates that the experience can be repeated, can be proven, can be tested, outside of a single experience.
  
  Miracles, revelations, are viewed the same in Catholicism. A single individual has their experiences, but they are not binding on the Church as a whole. If the Pope were to declare that he had a vision that indicated we should all start using the BoM, we wouldn’t. As no one would view this vision as binding on the Church. The only single person that has this influence in Catholicism is Christ, Himself.

 

[nebula]

Wait a second… I never said that experience shouldn’t be used in our reasoning process. If we never used experience, we wouldn’t get very far to say the very least! In fact it is only through experience that we assume that everything we see around us is contingent. I don’t think I’m saying anything radical by saying that we ought to try to reflect on, order, test the validity of our experiences. And it’s plain old nonsense to claim that we can have pure experience of God let alone a pure experience of the spirit telling us theological maxims! That’s naivete at its worst.

As to your second paragraph… and? I already said that you will always be able to protect Mormonism from falsifiability. Any clever enough person will always be able to. What I did NOT say is that unless you make Mormonism falsifiable it isn’t valid. I’m not a positivist.

The point of the post was not the assumptions. I took the assumptions for granted so that we could actually talk about the trinity. We will never get htere if everytime I am obliged to once again explain away the opening assumptions. I’ve already posted about that, we’ve already discussed it ad nauseam…

 

[mfbukowski]

mf,

The post seems off target. Are you confusing the word ‘person’ with ‘being’? Mortal, finite beings marry one person with one being. If there is infinite matter and infinite number of universes I suppose there cuold be an infinite number of these finite beings. What’s your point?

Thanks for the clarification.

I was raising issues with the words.

I don’t have a clue what they really mean, and I suspect you don’t either. Time for a little de-construction?

“To me, it is a mass of confusion…”

Not surprisingly, I agree that we should leave the Thomists behind and take on the biblical approach…

 

[FCEGM]

Rom. 8: 29
29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

If the son was always God the son, why did God the Father predestinate him to the image of his son that he might be the firstborn among many brethren. ?

Because what is not assumed is not saved. IOW, it is only because God the Son became Incarnate as the Man Jesus and raised that Body to share in the glory He had from the beginning that mankind is now able to be raised to participate in His Divinity. Because HIS Body is raised, now our bodies, too, will be raised to participate in His glory (or to everlasting separation from Him). So it is through His divine condescension that He came to earth to win mankind back for the Father.

1 Pet. 1: 19-20
19 But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot:
20 Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you,

If the Incarnation did not need to be, why was He foreordained before the foundation of the world ?

Do not confuse being foreordained with necessity. It was not necessary for God to create as He is totally sufficient unto Himself. In His love He created mankind to participate in that love, and foreknowing that these creatures would fall from the grace in which they were created He forever knew that the Son would be sent to bring back man to Himself - not from necessity but out of the fullness of Merciful Love.

Heb. 5: 8-9
8 Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered;
9 And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him;

If the Incarnation did not need to be, why did He go through this learning curve to be made perfect that He would become the author of eternal salvation ?

This is a consideration of His Manhood, not His Divinity. Jesus is made “perfect” in the sense that by becoming man and therefore being able to suffer and die He would be the perfect representative of Mankind. Born of the Ever-Virgin Mary, He grew as a man in wisdom and grace maturing as a man perfectly in obedience to His Father’s Most Holy Will. Christ as a healer must have what He is going to share, i.e., must be fully, i.e., perfectly human and Divine or He could not heal us. He gives us the health, as it were, He has. If He did not have this health we, being sick, could not receive healing. So it is not Christ Who is not fully human, it is we, in our fallen state, who are not yet fully human. Only when we by His merits are conformed to Him by divine grace will our humanity be all that it should be.

Christ is the Model and Goal for humanity, not vice-versa. By His obedience He is able to make (BE!) THE Perfect and Superabundant Sacrifice to atone for the sins against the Father. (Superabundant because the death of the God-Man far outweighs the sins of man against Him.) As a reward for His obedience, Christ as man is made Head of the Church and King of the Universe. It is in that sense that He is made “perfect” by the Father. This has nothing to do with any change in the Divinity of the Three Persons since nothing can be added to God’s Infinite Perfection.

continued. . .

 

[FCEGM]

Did you take note He was “firstborn among MANY brethren”
and above “Though he were A Son”

That’s right; He is truly, fully human, not part human and part God. He is also truly, fully God. He is a “a Son” in this references as the Son of Man, i.e., the Full Man Who alone can redeem His many brothers precisely because He has taken on the likeness of sinful flesh to redeem that flesh. He is the “firstborn” from the dead and we will follow after Him in our own resurrection.

Why did Jesus take on / recieve an immortal body and just not return to the spirit one from whence he came ?

I touched on this in my first response above, but to expand a bit: We know that our body will be reunited with our spirit at the Parousia, our body to enjoy (or not) what our spirit has merited by its submission (or not) to God’s grace in our life. Our bodies are resurrected according to the pattern of Our Lord’s own Resurrection: He in His human vesture (which had a human will) merited the resurrection of His Body because of His faithfulness to the Father. He died with us; iow, He took upon Himself death which all men will face. If He did not return to Heaven with the human body His Person took upon Himself in the Virgin’s womb, then neither would our bodies participate in His Glory. As I said above, what is not assumed is not saved.

John Paul II:

“It was then that Jesus retorted: “Do you take offense at this? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending where he was before? It is the Spirit that gives life; the flesh is of no avail” (Jn 6:62-63). Jesus is speaking here of his ascension into heaven. When his earthly body is put to death on the cross, the Spirit “which gives life” will be manifested. Christ will ascend to the Father so that the Spirit may come. On Easter day the Spirit will glorify Christ’s body in the resurrection. On the day of Pentecost the Spirit will descend on the apostles and on the Church. By renewing in the Eucharist the memorial of Christ’s death, we may participate in the new life of his body glorified by the Spirit, and in this way prepare ourselves to enter the “eternal dwellings” where our Redeemer has preceded us to prepare a place for us in the “Father’s house” (Jn 14:2).” (General Audience, April 5, 1989)

St. Leo the Great says:

“In order, therefore, dearly-beloved, that we may be capable of this blessedness, when all things were fulfilled which concerned the Gospel preaching and the mysteries of the New Testament, our Lord Jesus Christ, on the fortieth day after the Resurrection in the presence of the disciples, was raised into heaven, and terminated His presence with us in the body, to abide on the Father’s right hand until the times Divinely fore-ordained for multiplying the sons of the Church are accomplished, and He comes to judge the living and the dead in the same flesh in which He ascended.”

and

“But when the disciples eyes followed the ascending Lord tO heaven with upward gaze of earnest wonder, two angels stood by them in raiment shining with wondrous brightness, who also said, “Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing into heaven? This Jesus Who was taken up from you into heaven shall so come as ye saw Him going into heaven.” By which words all the sons of the Church were taught to believe that Jesus Christ will come visibly in the same Flesh wherewith He ascended, and not to doubt that all things are subjected to Him on Whom the ministry of angels had waited from the first beginning of His Birth.”(Sermon LXXIV, On the Lord’s Ascension, II)

Quote:
So the Divinity of the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity did not/does not change; iow, His Divinity is not in any manner altered or aided by the fact of His Incarnation as Man;

In relation to the above I believe it did as he became perfect as he forfilled his Fathers will, whom he hath appointed heir of all things.

I ask the same question again why does he now have an immortal body ? that seperates Him from the Father. But if this is not something that seperates them, then what is the problem with the Father having an immortal body as well as surely this does not limmit them ?

This would be true if the fullness of the Son could be encompassed by His Body; iow, if He (and/or the Father) were only what they are within bodies of flesh, no matter how glorious. With Christ Jesus, the Person of God the Son is united to a Human Soul, but that Human Soul is not necessary for the existence of God the Son. By His immense condescension He took upon Himself a Human Body and Soul, but that does not change or limit the Person Who has united Himself to the Human Soul of Jesus.

The Son absolutely became Man for us, but not by suddenly not being God the Son and then becoming divine again at His Resurrection. God cannot be separated from Himself, but He can - and did - enter into the scene of man to raise man - literally in the Resurrection! The Son is/was never separate from the Father as they with the Holy Spirit are One. He is, however, distinct from the Father, as both are distinct from the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit distinct from Both. His Resurrected Body is in Glory, but the Son is not limited to that Body.

 

[BDawg]

And, if he is the incarnated God, then it also makes sense that all revelation worthy of canonization would stop with the generations who first got to hear him speak and teach and saw him resurrected. Extras would be extremely inappropriate as competing with the ultimate revelation of Christ as God.

If you go that route, I would think that it would have made more sense for Christ to write down everything he wanted people to know in this “ultimate revelation,” and then cease any further revelation right there, ala Muhammed. Or, how about revealing it all in the beginning, and stopping there, instead of dinking around with preliminaries for thousands of years?

But suppose I grant all your above points, and say that public revelation ceased with the apostles. Even Catholic and Orthodox have to face the fact that their doctrines were not all explicity revealed in the apostolic age. So they postulate some kind of theory of “doctrinal development” that allows the Church to “organically” grow, finding what was “implicit” in the original revelation. Whatever. If nobody gets it, then I guess it’s not really “revealed.”

So yes, people had personal experiences… They spend a lot of time reasoning about things, and we see that immediately in the New Testament, the writings all grappling with Christ’s identity and the reasonable implications of it …

From my perspective, it looks like you are saying that a) they were confronted by an unexpected revelation, and b) they immediately had to go back to the previous revelations to see what they missed before. This is exactly what I’m trying to get across. All our theorizing is liable to go off track, given that we are working with woefully inadequate datasets. When we get some new information, we should usually give primacy to the data, rather than clinging to old theories that now don’t seem to work so well.

Here’s the thing, if Mormon doctrine is really a restoration of early Christianity (and who doesn’t make this claim, right?) I’ expect to see unique Mormon doctrine in these writings wiht some kind of emphasis. For instance, the highest ritual in Mormonism is celestial marriage. I don’t see a jot about that, and the only things I do see written about marriage appear to contradict that idea (yes you can wriggle your way out of it, you can always, but that isn’t my point). At some point I have to ask myself how Mormonism is really different from the Millerites, Mary Baker Eddy or the rest. I don’t spend all my time reading Science and Health to see if God will reveal to me its truth. If I read it with the expectation that God is going to tell me something, and spend time thinking and praying about it- seriously, chances are I’ll have an experience confirming its truth. That’s the way humans are. That’s why I am unmoved by testimonies of feeling the SPirit when reading the BoM, I am unmoved even by my own past experiences, because they were born out of the expectation that I would feel something. There is nothing extraordinary about that.

I think you make some good points here, and maybe we can do another thread on marriage and so on, so you can watch me wiggle. But that’s one of our weaker points, in that area. On the other hand, I think I have just made a fairly solid case for the proposition that God was originally seen by Jews and Jewish Christians (the cultures to whom the revelations came) as anthropomorphic. The New Testament included. So here we have a doctrine that is fairly exclusive to Mormonism, and seems to have been rampant among early Jews and Jewish Christians. In general, I think we can make a fairly decent showing when it comes our doctrines showing up in that cultural milieu, especially when you consider that our doctrines originated with a 19th century frontier farmer.

But don’t you find it interesting that we’re back to the exactly same topic as always? My OP only had to do with exploring how the trinity could be derived if certain assumptions were already granted and comparing that to the Mormon notion of the godhead, and yet we barely got going before you are defending the sanctity of your experiences. Why?

Because I don’t grant your assumptions, and I don’t want lurkers to go home thinking that those assumptions are even all that reasonable. It’s the 21st century, for Pete’s sake–I don’t see why I should grant that Anselm and Aquinas are the last word in philosophy. And because you question the sanctity of my experiences. Why should I let that go without responding?

I don’t have a problem with granting that your reasoning is pretty sound if your assumptions are true. So what am I supposed to do? Rubber-stamp it? No, I will point out why I don’t think your assumptions are likely to be true. My reasoning involves historical arguments, and arguments about why you should be careful with sweeping philosophical arguments about realms that are beyond normal human experience. And it involves the notion that these philosophical arguments need to be constantly checked against experience.

In other words, I’m trying to get to the heart of the issue.

For instance, I find no compelling reason to believe (in apparent contradiction to the Bible) that God is “simple.” Isn’t that one of the assumptions that you need to make your original reasoning work?

You can talk about God being “that than which nothing greater can be conceived,” and how if God had parts, one part would necessarily be greater than another. To which I ask why what I am capable of “conceiving” in some vague way necessarily has anything to do with Reality. And to which I ask why a whole can’t be greater than any of its parts. (Which is greater–a human head, or a human torso? Since neither can survive without the other, the question makes no sense.)

But maybe you have a different argument than that, so I’ll stop anticipating.

 

[nebula]

I was raising issues with the words.

I don’t have a clue what they really mean, and I suspect you don’t either. Time for a little de-construction?

“To me, it is a mass of confusion…”

Not surprisingly, I agree that we should leave the Thomists behind and take on the biblical approach…

The Biblical approach. Right. Because it’s not as if you don’t read your philosophy of the world right into the text even by assuming there is a biblical approach…

In any case, mf, I differentiated between person and being in my original post. There isn’t any need to insult me. I frankly don’t see where your frustration is coming from.

 

[mfbukowski]

bdwag,

Since no proof is bulletproof, that means any belief we have about anything, according to you, is ‘mere speculation’. Bummer. It’s a wonder you aren’t agnostic.

Yes, bdwag, I agree, you can wrangle yourself out from this. You will always be able to no matter what is presented, because all that you need to do in your own mind is to make Mormonism un-falsifiable so that you can plead for the primacy of your ‘personal experiences’. So be it. I don’t see how doing the same dance with you all over again relates to my OP in the least.

Being agnostic has nothing to do with the view that it is only through faith that we can know anything about God.

The Catholic church even has a name for it (as a heresy), “fideism”.

It is interesting to note that catholics find most protestant groups to be these kind of heretics. In fact of nearly all Christian churches, only the Catholic church affirms that God can be known by reason.

 

[BDawg]

The point of the post was not the assumptions. I took the assumptions for granted so that we could actually talk about the trinity. We will never get htere if everytime I am obliged to once again explain away the opening assumptions. I’ve already posted about that, we’ve already discussed it ad nauseam…

But why would you involve Mormonism in the OP, if you wanted your assumptions to be granted so we could explore the Trinity?

What is it, exactly, about the Trinity that Mormons typically misunderstand, that is not directly related to these assumptions?

 

[BDawg]

Scientific method emerged from the likes of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. Guess we should be lamenting the “Hellenization” of science?

Hi Rebecca,

I enjoyed your post, and agreed with most of it. Nebula isn’t a Catholic, though, so that’s mainly where my comments were directed.

In any case, maybe the scientific method grew from the Greek tradition, but certain things about their approaches (especially Plato and Socrates–not so much Aristotle) actually inhibited the development of the modern scientific method for a long time. Things really got going in the late middle ages, when Catholicism started adopting more Aristotelian views that were more conducive to experimentalism.

 

[FCEGM]

I was raising issues with the words.

I don’t have a clue what they really mean, and I suspect you don’t either. Time for a little de-construction?

“To me, it is a mass of confusion…”

Not surprisingly, I agree that we should leave the Thomists behind and take on the biblical approach…

Not so fast. Regarding Being and Person. . .

Definition of terms: A being is anything that actually exists distinctly. There are non living beings that exist distinctly, ie a rock. There are living beings that have a principle of life (life-form) called a soul, which is material;

There are human beings whose principle of life or soul is** immaterial and immortal**, transcends matter and will exist forever. Every distinct living being is an individual by virtue of its particular organized matter; each human being having particular organized matter is thus an individual by reason of its particular organized matter (but so is a cow or insect).

What distinguishes human individuals from all other living material individual beings is the immortal Soul or life principle that is immaterial in each human individual from the start (fertilization).

The subject of that body-soul individual organism is a person, created as an end in him/herself, actually related to other human persons by nature as a value in him/her self andordered to the One God as the end or purpose of existence. (All other living individual beings with a material soul are ordered to the whole of their species, which themselves are ordered to the whole of the material creation and are ultimately created for the benefit of the human species by the One God. Human beings are body-persons individualized according to irreducible organic males or females.

There are also created Persons who are completely immaterial and are Spirit-Persons.These are called the Angels. They are not individuals at all, because they do not have for their existing natures any matter at all; they can use matter, but are not matter in their natures (in what they are). Thus they have no number in their species, but each one is his own complete species which is entirely spiritual, purely immaterial.

The nature of all Persons is to know and will and to will freely (especially to love) and to be essentially meant for relating to other Persons.

The nature of the Spirit Person or Angel is to Relate to God through themselves perceiving God sustaining their being created for Him. Since they have no matter to their natures they are without sex. Thus We can not call them by a pronoun that indicates sex, namely the female (the male pronoun can abstract from sexual meaning; the female pronoun cannotnot connote sex - females aremore sexual beings in their individualized nature than males).

The nature of a Spirit Person can use matter but cannot be a Body Person or Human Being, i.e., cannot be the matter it uses. The reason for this:

1. The Body Person’s nature is a substantial unity of the immaterial and immortal Soul in such a way that the immaterial or Spiritual Soul is created for the SP (all other living individual beings with a material soul are ordered to the whole of their species, which themselves are ordered to the whole of the material creation and are ultimately created for the benefit of the human species by the One God.

The organized matter of the Body is unique to that Person; thus **an Angel cannot incarnate his Person into a Human Being such that a substantial unity of nature results in Angel-man **(or woman).

1. The specific spiritual nature of the Angel is distinguished from his act of existence but inseparable from it, thus neither from the side of human nature nor from the side of angelic nature is it possible for an angel to be a man (neither a man nor woman)

And from the above, neither can another angel subsist in the completely different species of another angel, as each angel is a totally different species from the next but inseparable from his own species as a Person who is nevertheless different from his own species.

Thus, only an infinite (without qualitative limitation) Being can subsist with more than one Person.

It can only be a direct Divine Revelation to us beyond what is knowable from Creation that indicates there are different Persons witin the One Infinite Being called God.

 

[nebula]

If you go that route, I would think that it would have made more sense for Christ to write down everything he wanted people to know in this “ultimate revelation,” and then cease any further revelation right there, ala Muhammed. Or, how about revealing it all in the beginning, and stopping there, instead of dinking around with preliminaries for thousands of years?

But suppose I grant all your above points, and say that public revelation ceased with the apostles. Even Catholic and Orthodox have to face the fact that their doctrines were not all explicity revealed in the apostolic age. So they postulate some kind of theory of “doctrinal development” that allows the Church to “organically” grow, finding what was “implicit” in the original revelation. Whatever. If nobody gets it, then I guess it’s not really “revealed.”

From my perspective, it looks like you are saying that a) they were confronted by an unexpected revelation, and b) they immediately had to go back to the previous revelations to see what they missed before. This is exactly what I’m trying to get across. All our theorizing is liable to go off track, given that we are working with woefully inadequate datasets. When we get some new information, we should usually give primacy to the data, rather than clinging to old theories that now don’t seem to work so well.

I think you make some good points here, and maybe we can do another thread on marriage and so on, so you can watch me wiggle. But that’s one of our weaker points, in that area. On the other hand, I think I have just made a fairly solid case for the proposition that God was originally seen by Jews and Jewish Christians (the cultures to whom the revelations came) as anthropomorphic. The New Testament included. So here we have a doctrine that is fairly exclusive to Mormonism, and seems to have been rampant among early Jews and Jewish Christians. In general, I think we can make a fairly decent showing when it comes our doctrines showing up in that cultural milieu, especially when you consider that our doctrines originated with a 19th century frontier farmer.

Because I don’t grant your assumptions, and I don’t want lurkers to go home thinking that those assumptions are even all that reasonable. It’s the 21st century, for Pete’s sake–I don’t see why I should grant that Anselm and Aquinas are the last word in philosophy. And because you question the sanctity of my experiences. Why should I let that go without responding?

I don’t have a problem with granting that your reasoning is pretty sound if your assumptions are true. So what am I supposed to do? Rubber-stamp it? No, I will point out why I don’t think your assumptions are likely to be true. My reasoning involves historical arguments, and arguments about why you should be careful with sweeping philosophical arguments about realms that are beyond normal human experience. And it involves the notion that these philosophical arguments need to be constantly checked against experience.

In other words, I’m trying to get to the heart of the issue.

For instance, I find no compelling reason to believe (in apparent contradiction to the Bible) that God is “simple.” Isn’t that one of the assumptions that you need to make your original reasoning work?

You can talk about God being “that than which nothing greater can be conceived,” and how if God had parts, one part would necessarily be greater than another. To which I ask why what I am capable of “conceiving” in some vague way necessarily has anything to do with Reality. And to which I ask why a whole can’t be greater than any of its parts. (Which is greater–a human head, or a human torso? Since neither can survive without the other, the question makes no sense.)

But maybe you have a different argument than that, so I’ll stop anticipating.

No you don’t need to rubber stamp my assumptions. An ‘if the assumptions are true, and by the way I don’t think they are, then…’ would do splendidly. I don’t use the ontological argument, so I don’t know why you are bringing that up. If God can somehow have a physical manifestation and yet still be immutable, eternal and truly- absolutely- infinite, then so be it. That’s not such a sticking point iwth me if the other things are granted. I cannot imagine such a being with a physical manifestation like a body, but hell, I can’t truly imagine God in his totality to begin with. I can’t imagine a lot of things which I know are true (via physics) so I also know that just because my imagination is limited doesn’t necessarily mean that therefore the thing I can’t personally imagine is impossible. Now it makes more sense and keeps things neater if God does not have a literal throne and visions are just that, visions, approximations fo God’s glory for our finite, physical brains. It semes to fit. But, if there really is some kind of physical (it would not be in any ordinary sense) throne that we can actually see (it would not be ordinary light so I don’t even know what this would mean exactly) so be it. I’m not going to quibble over that- as long as God’s infinite glory, his absolute infinite nature, is defended.