1. The trinity is a false doctrine. (because Joseph smith saw two personages who were distinct from each other.)Lets discuss the trinity for a moment, woudldnt you agree that knowing gods nature is important if you are to woship him? (John 17:3And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.
2. God had not closed the heavens.
3. The true church did not exist on the earth at that time.
Finally Constantine, having conquered Licinius and become sole emperor, concerned himself with the re-establishment of religious peace as well as of civil order. He addressed letters to St. Alexander and to Arius deprecating these heated controversies regarding questions of no practical importance, and advising the adversaries to agree without delay.And
The emperor began by making the bishops understand that they had a greater and better business in hand than personal quarrels and interminable recriminations.Hippolytus Eusebius called him the most important theologian of the pre-Constantinian era. He was reportedly the great grandson of John the beloved. He wrote a set of ten books called refutation of all heresies
Such is the true doctrine in regard of the divine nature, O you men, Greeks and Barbarians, Chaldeans and Assyrians, Egyptians and Libyans, Indians and Ethiopians, Celts, and you Latins, who lead armies, and all you that inhabit Europe, and Asia, and Libya.6 And to you I am become an adviser, inasmuch as I am a disciple of the benevolent Logos, and hence humane, in order that you may hasten and by us may be taught who the true God is, and what is His well-ordered creation. Do not devote your attention to the fallacies of artificial discourses, nor the vain promises of plagiarizing heretics,6 but to the venerable simplicity of unassuming truth. And by means of this knowledge you shall escape the approaching threat of the fire of judgment, and the rayless scenery of gloomy Tartarus,6 where never shines a beam from the irradiating voice of the Word!So between the time that Hippolytus died in 236 and the Council at Nicea in 325 AD the view of the church swung from three entities acting as one God to one God made up of three manifestations. This is really not a HUGE change when you think about it, but it has many important ramifications.
You shall escape the boiling flood of hell's6 eternal lake of fire and the eye ever fixed in menacing glare of fallen angels chained in Tartarus as punishment for their sins; and you shall escape the worm that ceaselessly coils for food around the body whose scum6 has bred it. Now such (torments) as these shall you avoid by being instructed in a knowledge of the true God. And you shall possess an immortal body, even one placed beyond the possibility of corruption, just like the soul. And you shall receive the kingdom of heaven, you who, while you sojourned in this life, knew the Celestial King. And you shall be a companion of the Deity, and a co-heir with Christ, no longer enslaved by lusts or passions, and never again wasted by disease. For you have become God:7 for whatever sufferings you underwent while being a man, these He gave to you, because you were of mortal mould, but whatever it is consistent with God to impart, these God has promised to bestow upon you, because you have been deified, and begotten unto immortality.7 This constitutes the import of the proverb, "Know yourself; "i.e., discover God within yourself, for He has formed you after His own image. For with the knowledge of self is conjoined the being an object of God's knowledge, for you are called by the Deity Himself. Be not therefore inflamed, O you men, with enmity one towards another, nor hesitate to retrace7 with all speed your steps. For Christ is the God above all, and He has arranged to wash away sin from human beings,7 rendering regenerate the old man. And God called man His likeness from the beginning, and has evinced in a figure His love towards you. And provided you obey His solemn injunctions, and becomest a faithful follower of Him who is good, you shall resemble Him, inasmuch as you shall have honour conferred upon you by Him. For the Deity, (by condescension,) does not diminish anything of the divinity of His divine7 perfection; having made you even God unto His glory!7
Here is a little thought guide that Diamond posted on another thread. It is instructional, to say the least:
Who Raised Jesus From the Dead?
*GALATIANS 1:1 . . . God the Father, who raised him from the dead;) {cf. 1 Thess 1:10}
<>ROMANS 8:11 . . . the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, . . .
+JOHN 2:19 Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.
That is as clear as one can make it, but certain posters continue to try and make silk from pig's ears. The Apologist activist game is to sow doubt, to create a faith void into which the heresies of Mormonism may be injected. I trust you see this.
Thanks for your research. I am so proud of this thread - all of the posts.
I know I’ve said this before Delphi, but thanks again for all your work organizing these early Christian references!
The first visions message was very powerful and like many of gods messages to man it has many meanings. I will list just a few of the obvious messages in this Vision.1. The trinity is a false doctrine. (because Joseph smith saw two personages who were distinct from each other.)
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The first vision's message...
To which of Joesph Smith's accounts of the first vision do you refer; the suppressed 1832 account where he only mentions Jesus appearing to him or the 1835 account which mentions "angels" but not God or Jesus?
...because Joseph Smith saw...
You believe in the credibility of a man who said:
"Come on! ye prosecutors! ye false swearers! All hell, boil over! Ye burning mountains, roll down your lava! for I will come out on top at last. I have more to boast of than ever any man had. I am the only man that has ever been able to keep a whole church together since the days of Adam. A large majority of the whole have stood by me. Neither Paul, John, Peter, nor Jesus ever did it. I boast that no man ever did such a work as I. The followers of Jesus ran away from Him; but the Latter-day Saints never ran away from me yet...When they can get rid of me, the devil will also go."
(History of the Church, Vol. 6, p. 408, 409)
...two personages who were distinct from each other.
A flesh and bone Father, or a Father who is a personage of spirit?
Written by Joseph Smith in 1835, why was the following deleted in 1921?
There are two personages who constitute the great, matchless, governing and supreme power over all things - by whom all things were created and made, that are created and made, whether visible or invisible; whether in heaven, on earth, or in the earth, under the earth, or throughout the immensity of space - They are the Father and the Son: The Father being a personage of spirit, glory and power: possessing all perfection and fullness: The Son, who was in the bosom of the Father, a personage of tabernacle, made, or fashioned like unto man, or being in the form and likeness of man, or, rather, man was formed after his likeness, and in his image;... and is called the Son because of the flesh
(Lectures on Faith, Lecture Fifth, p. 53).
Since that was written in 1835 why does LDS today teach that that Joseph Smith discovered that both God the Father and the Son have bodies of flesh and bone when he saw them in his First Vision in 1820, and why did the LDS delete the passage in 1921?
The trinity was the creation of a pagan emperor named Constantine, who called the frist council at Nicea and with a combination of bribes, and threats got the church to agree on a creed that all of Rome could unite behind.
Why would anyone be inclined to accept a characterization of ancient church history from people who can't even get their own comparatively recent history straight?
Cordially,