“None of these make any sense except to view the Father and Son and separate individuals.
Separate *persons*. Not separate beings.”
A person is a being, there is no such thing as a being consisting of more than one person, no such arrangement is taught in the Bible.
Disagree? Tell me what functional difference there is between two individual persons and one being consisting of two persons. What can one do that the other can’t? How could an objective observer tell the difference and where is that difference displayed in the actions of Christ and/or the Father?
“The Scriptures are...let me say this again....not a FULL and COMPLETE manual of Christianity...There’s a lot of stuff they simply didn’t cover.”
I agree, reading the NT is basicly reading other people’s mail, only getting one part of the conversation and no discussion of things already known to both sides.
The question is, who has authority to ‘fill in the blanks’. I seriously question the wisdom of relying on councils of men assembled by a pagan emperor for doing that. I also see no wisdom in relying on traditions passed on that really are nothing more than hearsay that may have little resemblance to the original message. God’s pattern has been to call prophets and have his living prophets lead his people by revelation.
“I have no idea how one can make that claim, considering the church was *founded* by those apostles and passed on *their* teachings as preserved in the Scriptures.”
I assumed by ‘church’ you meant the Catholic Church. I don’t see the Catholic Church as being the same as the church was originally founded by the apostles.
Even so, Matthew was written by Matthew, not by the church. Likewise each other book in the NT has it’s own individual author. That is just a fact. I’m grateful to the Catholics for preserving what they did of their writings, but they don’t get credit for writing them in my book and I wish they had preserved more, and preserved them better.
“Second of all, there were tons and tons of spurious/apocryphal writings floating around in the 2nd century.”
And also there were people going about altering legitimate manuscripts too. When you consider that the vast majority of Biblical manuscripts date to the period AFTER all this, it makes it legitimate to question how pure the manuscripts we have really are. http://www.fairlds.org/pubs/conf/1999GeeJ.html
“So how did we end up with the particular books we ended up with? ... By comparing the doctrine that was *in* those Scriptures with what those same bishops had always taught.”
By relying on the wisdom of men and a politicized process where there were many disagreements and debates, not on revelation from God.
“Whether you realize it or not, everytime you even use the word “Scriptures” you are relying on the authority of the Church that defined those Scriptures once and for all.”
No I’m not. I don’t consider the Catholic Church to have any authority to declare something as scripture or not as scripture. The word of God is the word of God independent of what Catholics say of it, for or against. I don’t need Catholic ‘authority’ to validate the Bible, or the Book of Mormon, Doctrine & Covenant, or Pearl of Great Price. IMHO, the authority to declare something scripture or not rests in the living prophet and apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
“Now for some strange reason, you want to say that the Church apostasized early on, and that its teaching was not right on the Trinity. Yet you accept its teaching on the Scriptures.”
There is good reason to assert there was an apostacy, partly because the Bible says it would happen. If you want to read a good book or two on it, try these, the full text of each is online at the link:
THE GREAT APOSTASY
Considered in the Light of Scriptural and Secular History
by James E. Talmage
http://www.cumorah.com/etexts/greatapostasy.txt
and
Restoring the Ancient Church:
Joseph Smith and Early Christianity
by Barry Robert Bickmore
http://www.fairlds.org/Restoring_the_Ancient_Church/
Also, we don’t accept the Catholics view of the Scriptures, we don’t hold the Bible to be perfectly infallible and complete, and we don’t accept the idea of a closed cannon. We don’t use a Catholic Bible, but the KJV. We also view it as more important to have a true and living prophet of God than to have the records of dead prophets. A living prophet can restore anything lost from historical records, but a Bible without a prophet is prone to being misinterpreted.
“If an Apostate Church decided wrong on the Trinity, then it decided wrong on the Scriptures as well,”
That doesn’t logical flow from the premise. Being wrong in some things doesn’t mean they must be wrong in every thing. The BoM testifies of the Bible and confirms the truth of it, it also helps to restore many of the plain teachings that have been lost.
“and you have no reason to consider the Gospel of St. John any more canonical than, say, the Shepherd of Hermas or the Gospel of Judas.”
You overlook that we have a living prophet of God and are not dependent on Catholic authority to validate anything.
“if the pagan Greeks got something right, bully for them!”
And if the early church imported false Greek ideas, shame on them.
“Really? The Church fell apart BEFORE the Gospels?”
No, before the Nicean creed and other creeds of that era. That is the ‘stuff’ I was talking of. Sorry for the confusion.
“And by the way, the Bible does say the Church is infallible. “For you are Peter.....and upon this rock [petra], I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” It also calls the church of the living God “the pillar and ground of the truth”.”
Neither of those say the church was infallible. You captialize ‘church’ in you quote from Matt 16, but that is wrong, it is a reference to the people following Christ, not the the organization they attach themselves to. Those individuals who know Jesus is the Christ by revelation (just as Peter knew it to be so) will not have the gates of hell prevail against them, meaning they will not go to hell after his life.
Also, the verse from 1Tim you reference describes the current state of the church, with no promise it would always remain like that. As the church adopted false teachings and changed the very ordinances of the gospel, it ceased to be ‘the church of the living God’.
"God’s pattern has been to call prophets and have his living prophets lead his people by revelation." The Apostles are still urging and the Holy Spirit indwelling those faithing in Christ is still leading His people; Jesus is The High Preist for our Church Age and for ALL ETERNITY.
Reverting to the pre-crucifixion pattern God used in Judaism is a form of denying Jesus as The Propitiation, the Propitiator, The High Priest forever, denying that He fulfilled the Law, and denying His plan to indwell those who believe He is the Christ and that God has raised Him from the dead. All the high-sounding spin the Apologists for Mormonism can post will not erase the denials of Christ's Lordship inherent in their heresies regarding 'restoration'.