Why Did The Son of God Became Man?

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I have found it hard to try to show Mormons where there beliefs are wildly in error, being an ex-Mormon in a Mormon family I pray that one day our Mormon brothers will be united with the One,Holy,Catholic and Apostolic Church. So, instead of trying to show them where their beliefs err, I firmly defend that the Eucharist is the Body,Blood,Soul and Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ.

and yes, you can try to refute that with the Bible, Church Fathers, Didache, Doctors of the Church or ANY saint or pope.

The Eucharist, to me, seems to be the reason “Why The Son of God Became Man”
 
The problem is that Mormons come across writings of the Church Fathers and see a justification for their doctrine of exaltation, which is different from the theosis of which the Fathers were speaking. Theosis does not involve becoming God in any sense other than entering into union with God (union not to be confused with the idea of a pantheistic union) and thus “becoming gods” through that union.
 
Rebecca just stated very well the problem, Mormonism is trying to put a square peg into Catholicism…and using teachings that Christ remained among us.

The Mormons teach that essentially true Christianity passed away after the death of St. John the Apostle, and they use St Paul’s farewell address to one of the church as proof.
They call this the Great Apostasy.

You also have to look at the practices of Mormonism in terms of its followers with their bishops, the view and value of women in Mormonism, their process of initiation…as how they integrate their beliefs into every day life.

Beliefs and practices go together.
 
mwok said:
I have found it hard to try to show Mormons where there beliefs are wildly in error, being an ex-Mormon in a Mormon family I pray that one day our Mormon brothers will be united with the One,Holy,Catholic and Apostolic Church. So, instead of trying to show them where their beliefs err, I firmly defend that the Eucharist is the Body,Blood,Soul and Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ.

and yes, you can try to refute that with the Bible, Church Fathers, Didache, Doctors of the Church or ANY saint or pope.

The Eucharist, to me, seems to be the reason “Why The Son of God Became Man”
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I think you’ve hit on a very important point. God (Jesus) came down from Heaven, and took on all of the weaknesses of our human flesh to become “One with us” (Emmanuel, aka ‘God with us’). He lived His whole life on earth in the same way as any other man. He suffered from the heat, the cold, the rain and all of the other things that we have to deal with on this earth. He was the Invincible God, reduced to the form of an ordinary man, yet He still remained True God. As a pure gift of love for us, He instituted the Holy Eucharist so that He could *remain *with us throughout *all *time, so that all generations could physically enjoy His Real Presence, even though we are still here on this earth.

In essence, whenever we receive the Eucharist at Mass, we become “one with Him” in a very special and real way, by eating His Flesh and drinking His Blood. It’s almost impossible to explain how profound that gift of the Eucharist is, to people that do* not* believe that it is truly the Body & Blood, Soul & Divinity of Jesus Christ. They can only find out just how profound it really is, when they are willing to take that ‘leap of faith’ and experience it for themselves. They truly have no idea what they’re missing when they see It only as a ‘symbol’, and their ministers don’t have the special power of the Priest to make it anything more than that. I really pity them for their loss. They don’t, and can’t, understand what they’re missing. 😦
 
I note that as well…the OP was using our teachings that refer to the Eucharist, the Son of God become Man…but use it to try to show their Mormon teachings are not extreme…they just become gods instead…

Yes, Christ become Man…man is the highest of God’s creation, and God came to Man to reconcile us to Him…so if Tony went a bit farther with our resources, he would come to the Eucharist…so it was ironic what he used and how far he went with them.
 
Tony, you are one of the very few sola scriptura Mormons I have encountered on this forum (shades of Zerinus). You say that if it is not in the quad, then it is not LDS doctrine. It seems that you do not accept the fundamental LDS principle of continuing public revelation. Every other Mormon I have encountered accepts that if the current prophet teaches it and publishes it in the lesson manuals then the Mormons should believe it as doctrine.

The Mormons really need a catechism. But we know that will never happen.

Paul (formerly LDS, now happily Catholic)
 
PaulDupre said:
Catholics understand “partaking of the divine nature” as referring to the Eucharist, in which we actually, physically “partake” of the nature (“body, blood, soul and divinity”) of Jesus Christ. When we eat regular food, we change that food into us. But when we eat the food that is the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ, He changes us into Him. It is our hope that He will increase, while we decrease, until there is nothing left of our sinful and fallen will and all that is left in us is His perfect divine will.

That is what it means. It has nothing to do with the ego-maniacal Mormon idea of exaltation.
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Paul, Please provide me with doctrinal references that support your belief.

I question you because the CCC 460 seems to be explicit, and it’s not referring to the Eucharist.
 
CHRISTINE77 said:
I would say that the highest “exultation” a human being can achieve after death is sainthood. This means that that human, while alive, live a life very much in the path of Jesus’s teachings and became very holy and sanctified as a result.

However, none of our most blessed saints in heaven are on a par with the blessed Trinity. Even Mary, the mother of God, is not a god!
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Christine, I respect your humulity but you are putting limits on what God may choose to do with us, You thus appear to be in conflict with the teachings of the RCC and the ECF.in that regard.
 
wmscott said:
To be more specific, doesn’t Mormonism teach that after we die we get to become a god of our own planet?
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As I’ve stated elsewhere, the RCC clearly teaches All Catholics may receive posh mansions and live around the corner from the throne of God after we die

In as much as you believe my logically created RCC doctrine, we can also believe your statement on the LDS.

The metaphore of God’s house has many rooms, works fine in the modern age, where God’s Universe has many galaxies with billions and billions of planets.
 
Tony888 said:
Paul, Please provide me with doctrinal references that support your belief.

I question you because the CCC 460 seems to be explicit, and it’s not referring to the Eucharist.
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PaulDupre will answer this quite sufficiently I’m sure, so I"ll just say, believe it or not, the Catechism of the Catholic Church isn’t open to interpretation.

The Eucharist is clearly taught as the Body of Christ (us), partaking in the Divine Nature of Jesus Christ. The Sacraments are clearly taught as prefiguring our life to come in Heaven. The connection for a Catholic is obvious…including Early Church Fathers, who I’ll remind you once again, weren’t Mormon, they are Catholic.

All of this is taught clearly in the CCC. If you’d stop quote mining it and actually read what the teachings of the Catholic Church are, you just might succeed in looking less foolish when discussing Catholic teaching.
 
RebeccaJ said:
PaulDupre will answer this quite sufficiently I’m sure, so I"ll just say, believe it or not, the Catechism of the Catholic Church isn’t open to interpretation.

The Eucharist is clearly taught as the Body of Christ (us), partaking in the Divine Nature of Jesus Christ. The Sacraments are clearly taught as prefiguring our life to come in Heaven. The connection for a Catholic is obvious…including Early Church Fathers, who I’ll remind you once again, weren’t Mormon, they are Catholic.

All of this is taught clearly in the CCC. If you’d stop quote mining it and actually read what the teachings of the Catholic Church are, you just might succeed in looking less foolish when discussing Catholic teaching.
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Rebecca,
I’m not disupting you the individual see a connection, I’m just asking if it is really doctrine, and from where.

None of the supporting quotes in CCC 460 indicate the Eucharst. Nor do the ECF quotes I included in my OP
 
Ahimsa said:
Yes, your quote is accurate, but it must be understood correctly.

Eastern Catholics would use the phrases “God’s Energies” and “God’s Essence”, but most Catholics are not Eastern, but Latin.

Among Latin Catholics, St. Aquinas is very important. Aquinas also distinguished God’s Essence from God’s Energies, but Aquinas uses different terms. Aquinas “made a distinction between ‘uncreated grace’ – the very inner life of the Trinity – and ‘created grace’ – the effects that being drawn into that life of love have on humans…[Created grace] enables persons to share in the relationship of mutual friendship with the trinitarian mystery of God. What is ‘natural’ to the Trinity is extended to humans ‘by adoption’” [578, “Grace”, *The HarperCollins Encyclopedia of Catholicism
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].

The key idea here is that, in Catholicism, whether the language is of Essence/Energies, or of uncreated/created grace, a human being may “become God” only in the sense of sharing in God’s Life (Energies, or created grace), and not by becoming God Himself (Essence, or uncreated grace), thus keeping human “integrity and autonomy” while entering into union with God – thus, in that sense, “becoming God” or “becoming gods”.

Whereas in LDS, a human being, though never replacing God, becomes himself a God, having the same essence as God, while still being a separate God.

Ahimsa, you are pointing out the important nuances that differentiate how Catholics and LDS interpret these same quotes from the ECF. We both believe the quotes are accurate, we just vary on the starting point and what it means “to become.”

It really boils down to different starting points in the process
  • LDS believe our spirits are in effect, the same species as God, thus it is possible for God to “make us god”
  • Catholics believe our spirits are a different species than God, hence God can share his energy but cannot make us god
Clearly Catholics should patronize and mock the LDS for beleiving we are the same species as God, not for believing the shared doctine - Christ became man so that man might become God
 
Telstar said:
I think you’ve hit on a very important point. God (Jesus) came down from Heaven, and took on all of the weaknesses of our human flesh to become “One with us” (Emmanuel, aka ‘God with us’). He lived His whole life on earth in the same way as any other man. He suffered from the heat, the cold, the rain and all of the other things that we have to deal with on this earth. He was the Invincible God, reduced to the form of an ordinary man, yet He still remained True God. As a pure gift of love for us, He instituted the Holy Eucharist so that He could *remain *with us throughout *all *time, so that all generations could physically enjoy His Real Presence, even though we are still here on this earth.

In essence, whenever we receive the Eucharist at Mass, we become “one with Him” in a very special and real way, by eating His Flesh and drinking His Blood. It’s almost impossible to explain how profound that gift of the Eucharist is, to people that do* not* believe that it is truly the Body & Blood, Soul & Divinity of Jesus Christ. They can only find out just how profound it really is, when they are willing to take that ‘leap of faith’ and experience it for themselves. They truly have no idea what they’re missing when they see It only as a ‘symbol’, and their ministers don’t have the special power of the Priest to make it anything more than that. I really pity them for their loss. They don’t, and can’t, understand what they’re missing. 😦
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Amen!!
The Eucharist is exactly why when asked by a mormon friend of mine why I won’t go back to mormonism. After knowing Jesus through the Blessed Sacrament, in the words of St. Pete “To whom shall we go Lord?”
 
Telstar said:
I think you’ve hit on a very important point. God (Jesus) came down from Heaven, and took on all of the weaknesses of our human flesh to become “One with us” (Emmanuel, aka ‘God with us’). He lived His whole life on earth in the same way as any other man. He suffered from the heat, the cold, the rain and all of the other things that we have to deal with on this earth. He was the Invincible God, reduced to the form of an ordinary man, yet He still remained True God. As a pure gift of love for us, He instituted the Holy Eucharist so that He could *remain *with us throughout *all *time, so that all generations could physically enjoy His Real Presence, even though we are still here on this earth.

In essence, whenever we receive the Eucharist at Mass, we become “one with Him” in a very special and real way, by eating His Flesh and drinking His Blood. It’s almost impossible to explain how profound that gift of the Eucharist is, to people that do* not* believe that it is truly the Body & Blood, Soul & Divinity of Jesus Christ. They can only find out just how profound it really is, when they are willing to take that ‘leap of faith’ and experience it for themselves. They truly have no idea what they’re missing when they see It only as a ‘symbol’, and their ministers don’t have the special power of the Priest to make it anything more than that. I really pity them for their loss. They don’t, and can’t, understand what they’re missing. 😦
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I see your logic, but we both now that is not how real doctrine is created.
  • Please provide a doctrinal reference that confirmes CCC 460 is about communion and not about after we diel
  • If you can’t provide doctrine, please provide a credible theological reference that explains CCC460 is about communion.
If you cannot priovdie either of the above, then you really should accept CC460 is saying exactly what it means to say, no hidden meanings or double speak included.
 
Tony888 said:
Paul, Please provide me with doctrinal references that support your belief.

I question you because the CCC 460 seems to be explicit, and it’s not referring to the Eucharist.
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Tony888,

Please take a few weeks to visit the website www.papalencyclicals.net there you will find a ton of actual spoken by the pope doctrines we Catholics are bound to believe if we are to be one with the Church.
 
mwok said:
Tony888,

Please take a few weeks to visit the website www.papalencyclicals.net there you will find a ton of actual spoken by the pope doctrines we Catholics are bound to believe if we are to be one with the Church.
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mwok, so you are admitting defeat and asking me to find doctrine for you?

CCC 460 is all about theosis, not about weekly communion.
 
Tony,

Do you know who Cardinal Levada is? He took the place of then Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger overseeing the orthodoxy of our faith…His appointment told us to add that notation…

Never in the teachings of our faith have we ever believed such things.

The Mormons were using CC460…without reading the footnotes of the context totally over their heads of those preceding this catechetical teaching on the subject of Christ Himself.

Yes, I am getting a letter off to him and our archbishop.

If you would use the CC for something over than the truth of Jesus Christ and the foundation of our faith, the summit of our faith, our history and practice…it would be different.

But you are using texts totally in opposite to what they mean. What is bad you are using our teachings to mean opposite of God Himself.

Having a mansion is a figure of language…never are we to become a god.

I don’t want to be eternally pregnant on some far away planet…so far we have not had any planets found with Mormons on them. And Tony, I doubt you won’t be out there either.
 
Yes, Tony…you are also reminding me of Zerinus…he was the character who was gleaning our thought and then towards the end of his time here showed us how he was using our site to build his treatise on the invalidation of Transubstantiation on his Mormon site.
 
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