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Bartholo
Guest
I will have to admit, that is a hole in my argument. I guess I won’t be using this line of reasoning next time I meet a Mormon missionary. Thanks.
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Bartholo
Guest
Fair enough. Looking back at my original post I can kind of see how that could be baiting. Just so I learn, do you have any suggestions how I should have asked it? Or is this something I just need to learn as I get used to forums?
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jane_doe
Guest
It’s not your word choice or phrasing that makes this a baiting question. Rather it is the basic premise: you’re setting up a false diactomy disigned so your next line can be “so I gotcha!” It is a dishonest approach on the forums and in real life.
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Horton
Guest
Read the verse in context with the rest of the chapter. Think about the audience Jesus is speaking to and what he is asking them to do. He is preparing them to take His church into the world, to implement His plan for Christianity. To continue what He started.
It’s not a hole in your argument. Many individual verses in the bible can be used to further an agenda. The reality is the verse must be taken in context with the chapter and who is the intended audience.
John 14:10-14, 10 Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on my own. The Father who dwells in me is doing his works. 11 Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else, believe because of the works themselves. 12 Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes in me will do the works that I do, and will do greater ones than these, because I am going to the Father. 13 And whatever you ask in my name, I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If you ask anything of me in my name, I will do it.
Jesus is talking to the 12 at the Last Supper. Read the whole chapter and you will see.
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Bartholo
Guest
Mormon missionaries are prepared before they go wander the neighborhood. I see nothing wrong with preparing myself a few arguments before hand. And CAF seems like a good place to test them out.
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jane_doe
Guest
Are you trying to evangelize the Catholic faith to them?
If so, this approach is doomed to failure. They will do nothing but walk away from you, irritated and concluding from your actions that you do not have Christ in your life.
The problem is your argument is straw man. It implies that Mormons believe Gods Church is not their Church. It purports that they believe God allowed His Church to die. That’s not the kind of statement that lends to dialogue.
Perhaps, “what do Mormons believe about God’s Church, and how does Joseph Smith fit into that?”
Jon
There are lots of arguments from Catholic teaching that are far more effective against LDS teaching than the polemic that started the thread. I’m not sure Mormon visitors would be anymore enamored with them.
Jon
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RebeccaJ
Guest
That is not a straw man.
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RebeccaJ
Guest
No, it is taking one scripture verse out of context. Something that you should prepare for. Mormons use a couple dozen Bible verses, that are regularly used in Mormon teachings, that they interpret as they will. They are proof texts. They will always be taken out of context of the Bible as a whole, and/or have an interpretation through a lense of non-Christain reference material.
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RebeccaJ
Guest
It’s simple, really, there is no good work that we do that is not a grace. That is, God working through us.
The misguided part would be thinking one is greater in spite of what God wills, known to us via divine Revelation. Every human suffers from this, and that would be the very definition of sin. BUT Mormonism teaches that God wills, in some circumstances, that what humans will is a greater than what God wills. Or perhaps, God has hidden desires that can only be fleshed out by sinful actions. Viewing human action that are opposed to the will of God, what has been Revealed especially in the Person of Jesus Christ, as the greater work, is misguided.
It is if they don’t actually teach that. I will let the Mormons here answer that question, but if one is asking them to defend something they do not believe, and if the question is devised in such a way as to misrepresent what the believe (intentionally or not) in order to making a defeat of that position easier, that is indeed a straw man.
Jon
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jane_doe
Guest
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Bartholo
Guest
Maybe I am misunderstanding the term ‘great apostasy’, and the ordination of Joseph Smith by Peter, James and John. Both of these “events” imply that there was no church for an undetermined amount of time, up until it was re-founded by or by revelation to Joseph Smith.JonNC;13958588:
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zaffiroborant
Guest
According the LDS church there was no “priesthood authority” on earth capable of performing saving ordinances. So there WAS NO CHURCH, Christ failed not once but twice, once in the Old World and once in the New World, to create a lasting church.
I don’t know if, from an LDS perspective, you are misunderstanding or not.
Perhaps it is best to let them explain it.
Jon
Jane_doe, or another Mormon, is this correct? If not, can you provide a correct explanation?
Jon
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IgnatianPhilo
Guest
I suppose the idea that the Church fell doesn’t call into question Christ’s ontological greatness. I mean Jesus is greater than he once was now in Mormonism. Jane said earlier that there was an apostasy because immoral people were in the Church and I suppose dominated it enough to the point where there was no longer a Church on earth. If this is true it would only go to show how sinful human beings are, but there are problems.
One problem arises in that God knew it was going to happen.God knew this Church, this body gathered around the person of Jesus out of the Old Israel and into the New Israel that this was going to fail. God knew that Paul’s missionary efforts would go on to produce a Church and then churches which would interpret his words wrongly and influence the course of human history. God knew that this false Christianity would be dominant.
Perhaps the God of Mormonism knows more than we do, perhaps this was the best possible solution since the world was not ready for the true revelation of Christ in Joseph Smith. Mormons can perhaps hold to this belief legitimately. What they can’t legitimately hold to is the idea that the Church become overwhelmingly immoral and as a result was corrupted. We can see how early Christians believed in the second century. Was Polycarp, Ignatius, Irenaeus, Clement and the like evil? If Mormons want to claim an apostasy they need to demonstrate it. As another poster said, they can’t.
One problem arises in that God knew it was going to happen.God knew this Church, this body gathered around the person of Jesus out of the Old Israel and into the New Israel that this was going to fail. God knew that Paul’s missionary efforts would go on to produce a Church and then churches which would interpret his words wrongly and influence the course of human history. God knew that this false Christianity would be dominant.
Perhaps the God of Mormonism knows more than we do, perhaps this was the best possible solution since the world was not ready for the true revelation of Christ in Joseph Smith. Mormons can perhaps hold to this belief legitimately. What they can’t legitimately hold to is the idea that the Church become overwhelmingly immoral and as a result was corrupted. We can see how early Christians believed in the second century. Was Polycarp, Ignatius, Irenaeus, Clement and the like evil? If Mormons want to claim an apostasy they need to demonstrate it. As another poster said, they can’t.
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iepuras
Guest
Full disclosure: I was born and raised Mormon but I am no longer a member of the LDS church.
Bartholo’s description here is accurate even though Mormons wouldn’t necessarily say it in the same way.
In Mormonism, the ‘Great Apostasy’ means that the leaders of the church Jesus founded became sinful and corrupted so Heavenly Father took his priesthood authority away from them thereby making it no longer the church of Jesus Christ. If that is not the “death” of the church, I don’t know what it is. According to Mormonism, the church of Jesus Christ was restored by Joseph Smith on April 6, 1830.
The holiness of Christians and Christian clergy from the point in time of the “Great Apostasy” to April 6, 1830 is not relevant to whether or not Heavenly Father’s authority was on the earth. Many Mormons believe there were plenty of good people between the “Great Apostasy” and April 6, 1830 who were even sometimes inspired by the Holy Ghost, but they still were not part of the church of Jesus Christ because there was no priesthood authority. And because there was no priesthood authority, all those good Christians need to have proxy baptism and other LDS ordinance work done in LDS temples.
While it is not necessarily an “official” interpretation, the teaching and belief that the “Great Apostasy” and “Restoration” of the church is symbolic of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is not uncommon within Mormonism.
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jane_doe
Guest
People sin, people leave the Church, and corruption happens. It happened in Noah’s time, Moses’s time, Christ’s time, etc. God always sends a messenger to correct it.
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