Posted on 09/06/2010 1:57:21 PM PDT by restornu
Excerpt
Question
Some of my non-LDS Christian friends have told meResponse
Almost invariably when someone claims Mormons are polytheists, they are not seeking a clear explanation of Mormon thought on the nature of God, but are simply using a word with negative connotations in our religious culture as a club to intimidate or confuse others.
Consider, for example, a conversation that Evangelical Christian author Richard Abanes, in his book Becoming Gods (pp. 107-8), claims to have had with a LDS bishop:
Abanes: "Don't you believe in the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost?"
Bishop: "We certainly do, and they are one God."
Abanes: "Don't you believe the Father is a god?"
Bishop: "Yes, of course."
Abanes: "And the Son is a god?"
Bishop: "Yes"
Abanes: "And the Holy Ghost is a god."
Bishop: "Yes"
Abanes: "That's three gods."
Bishop: "No, they're one God."
The author goes on to describe that he felt he had entered some sort of Twilight Zone scenario, and goes on to declare all Mormons "polytheists." Yet, any Latter-day Saint, upon reading the conversation outlined above, would recognize the creation of a simplified version, or "strawman," of LDS belief.
One might also seriously consider how an Evangelical Christian would answer these same questions. The reality is certainly more complex than the "strawman" above would lead us to believe.
There really is not a single word that adequately captures LDS thought on the nature of God. Pertinent key technical terminology includes the following:
Monotheism (belief that there is only one God)
Tritheism (understanding the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost as distinct Gods)
Polytheism (worship of, or belief in, more than one God)
Henotheism (worship of one God without denying the existence of other Gods; also called Monolatry)
Trinitarianism (belief that God consists of three Persons in one substance)
Social Trinitarianism (belief that the oneness of the three Persons is not one of substance but is social in nature [e.g., unity of thought, etc.])
Modalism (belief that there is only one God that does not exist as three separate Persons but rather manifests itself in three different "modes" [i.e., as Father, Son, or Holy Ghost])
Usually the very same people who are pressing the case that Mormons are polytheists are some stripe of Evangelical Christians who claim to be monotheists. But Trinitarians are not Monotheists by definition (just ask a Jew or Muslim).
The facts that the LDS do not believe the Father, Son and Holy Ghost are one in substance, and believe in deification/theosis (that humans may eventually become deified and become partakers in the divine nature), has been used to paint Mormons as polytheists.
When we examine the technical terminology above, though, it becomes clear that a key point of demarcation is worship versus acknowledgment of existence.
If members of the Church worshiped an extensive pantheon like the Greeks or Romans, then the label would be appropriate.
In the context of doctrinal differences over the relationship among the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, however, or the doctrine of deification (which is a profoundly Christian doctrine and not just a Mormon one), use of the word "polytheistic" as a pejorative is both inaccurate and inappropriate.
Instead of using a single-word label, one must actually articulate the belief (using fully-developed sentences or paragraphs). The single-word label that will adequately describe the full breadth of LDS thought on the nature of God has yet to be coined.
Are Christians monotheists?
Any discussion with Jews or Muslims will quickly demonstrate no Christian is, strictly speaking, a monotheist.
One of the chief objections by Jews and Muslims is Christians are polytheists. Most brands of Christians insist on the divinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
In addition, the very word those who crafted the great ecumenical creeds used to describe the deity of Jesus, his Father and the Holy Spirit is "trinity," meaning three.
Additionally, they insisted the three Persons should not be confounded, as such would be deemed modalism (one of the primary heresies that led to the formation of the ecumenical creeds and various confessions).
Modalism often insists the one God merely appears to us in three different ways (i.e., as Father, Son and Holy Spirit), and this is exactly what the creeds deny.
Human deification and monotheism The New Testament has language indicating human beings can put on the divine nature and be called "gods" (see John 10:33, 34; Ps. 82:6, Deut. 10:17, etc.). They are instructed to become one with Jesus just as he is one with his Father.
The key point is to realize the existence of other beings with godly attributes has no effect on who Latter-day Saints worship. According to Jeff Lindsay, a popular LDS online apologist:
We worship God the Father in the name of Jesus Christ - not glorious angels or Abraham or Moses or John the Baptist, no matter how great they may be in the kingdom of heaven as sons of God who have become "like Christ" (1 John 3:2).
The only reasonable definition of polytheism requires that plural gods be worshiped - but the beings that Christ calls "gods" are not who we worship at all. In terms of worship, we are properly called monotheists.[1] Additionally, there is abundant evidence of deification being taught by various commonly accepted Christians.
If belief in theosis makes one a polytheist, many Christians would have to be so labeled - including such figures as C. S. Lewis and John Calvin. Clearly, this is not the way in which the term "polytheist" is normally used, but critics of the Church are often willing to be inconsistent if the Church can be made to look alien or "unchristian."
"Monotheism" is sufficiently broad to include the kind of oneness enjoyed by the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, as well as that promised to those who become one with them when fully sanctified.
Conclusion Latter-day Saints are not polytheists in any reasonable sense of the term that does not also exclude most other Christians who deny the Modalist heresy. Trying to reduce LDS thought to a simple term or "slogan" in this way distorts LDS doctrine.
The Saints worship one God. There are no competing divinities in whom they put their trust. LDS scripture contains such language (1 Nephi 13:41, 2 Nephi 31:21, Mosiah 15:1-5, Alma 11:26-37, Morm. 7:7, D&C 20:28, Mos. 1:20), but it is qualified in somewhat the same way that Creedal Christians have found a way of saying "three"—as in Trinity—and yet also one.
“This is how I separate most cults in my mind. “
First of all in days yonder like England and Europe all Religions were called cults
“I believe in one God in three persons.”
“I will never become a ‘god’”
My point and undersanding it makes no different how we understand the word god in gerneral.
The spirit nevers dies just like Lucifer/Satan he is a wicked god!
My spirit your spirit never dies therefore a god
“I am adopted into the family of God by the saving grace of the gospel which is the death, burial and resurrection of Christ Jesus.”
Now this is different when one is adopted into the family of Heavenly Father GOD you would be joint heirs a member of the enternal family of gods.
I beleive like we are today we will be there only learning more as righteous child of God we will always be humble beings unto the Father, Son and Holy Ghost!
Do I give this any thought here no I just try to do the Lord will as the scriptures say
Matt 6
31 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?
32 (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.
33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
34 Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.
Jesus gave us the instruction and that is where man focus should be
Matt 25
40 And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
1 Cor 9
17 For if I do this thing willingly, I have a reward: but if against my will, a dispensation of the gospel is committed unto me.
18 What is my reward then? Verily that, when I preach the gospel, I may make the gospel of Christ without charge, that I abuse not my power in the gospel.
Mosiah 2
16 Behold, I say unto you that because I said unto you that I had spent my days in your service, I do not desire to boast, for I have only been in the service of God.
17 And behold, I tell you these things that ye may learn wisdom; that ye may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God.
I am trying to understnd your post but it is vague in some areas.
I beleive in the Hevenly Father and His only begotten Son Jesus Christ and Holy Ghost
I believe that Jehovah aka Jesus Christ is the God of Isaac, Abraham and Jacob!
My faith has nothing to do with the gnostici every one is trying to pigeon hole to fit a concept but it just is not so!
Apostle Dallin Oaks on PBS
When Apostle Dallin Oaks was interviewed on July 20, 2007, for the PBS special The Mormons, he candidly spoke of Joseph Smith’s doctrine that God was not always God but progressed from mortality. The following is taken from the LDS web site and is part of his interview with PBS producer Helen Whitney:
D[allin] H O[aks]: Before the close of his ministry, in Illinois, Joseph Smith put together the significance of what he had taught about the nature of God and the nature and destiny of man. He preached a great sermon not long before he was murdered that God was a glorified Man, glorified beyond our comprehension, (still incomprehensible in many ways), but a glorified, resurrected, physical Being, and it is the destiny of His children upon this earth, upon the conditions He has proscribed, to grow into that status themselves. That was a big idea, a challenging idea. It followed from the First Vision, and it was taught by Joseph Smith, and it is the explanation of many things that Mormons do — the whole theology of Mormonism.
H[elen]W[hitney]: Is it the core of it?
D[allin H O[aks]: That is the purpose of the life of men and women on this earth: to pursue their eternal destiny. Eternal means Godlike and to become like God. One of the succeeding prophets said: “As man is, God once was. And as God is, man may become.” That is an extremely challenging idea. We don’t understand, we’re not able to understand, all [about] how it comes to pass or what is at its origin, but it explains the purpose of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which is to put people’s feet on the pathway to a glorified existence in the life to come that is incomprehensible, but far closer to God than the Christian world generally perceives.
While Oaks was candid about Snow’s couplet, others have deliberately evaded discussion of their doctrine of God with non-members. When Joe J. Christensen, of the Presidency of the Seventy, addressed a Utah audience in 1995 he told of side-stepping the topic with a non-Mormon professor. The Deseret News reported on his speech:
He [Christensen] told of speaking to a university class in the Southwest on the Church during a Religion in Life Conference. After the class, the [non-Mormon] professor approached him [Christensen] and asked him if he believed the statement, “As man is God once was, and as God is man may become.”
“I had purposely not used that statement during my remarks to the class because I felt that I could raise more dust with that one than I would be able to settle in one class period,” he recalled. “After circumlocuting around and around the question, I finally said, ‘Yes, we believe that.’ “ (”Prophet Joseph Taught ‘Powerful Ideas’,” LDS Church News, Deseret News, Feb. 4, 1995.)
Couldn’t one simply be honest and answer “yes” to the question? Willful “circumlocution” on doctrinal issues does not lead to clarity.
http://www.utlm.org/newsletters/no110.htm
Hinckley’s “I don’t know”
For over 150 years the LDS Church has defended the doctrine that God evolved to godhood and that man has the same potential. When President Gordon B. Hinckley was asked in 1997 about their doctrine of God he seemed to be dismissing the doctrine. In the San Francisco Chronicle interview, Hinckley was asked,
Q: There are some significant differences in your beliefs. For instance, don’t Mormons believe that God was once a man?
A: I wouldn’t say that. There was a little couplet coined, “As man is, God once was. As God is, man may become.” Now that’s more of a couplet than anything else. That gets into some pretty deep theology that we don’t know very much about (San Francisco Chronicle, April 13, 1997. p. 3/Z1).
That same year in an interview in Time magazine President Hinckley again downplayed the idea of God having once been a man or that man could become a god: “It’s of course an ideal. It’s a hope for a wishful thing.” He later added that “yes, of course they can.” Further on in the article we read:
On whether his church still holds that God the Father was once a man, he sounded uncertain, “I don’t know that we teach it. I don’t know that we emphasize it . . . I understand the philosophical background behind it, but I don’t know a lot about it, and I don’t think others know a lot about it” (Time, Aug. 4, 1997, p. 56).
Joseph Smith seemed to be certain about the doctrine. One wonders why President Hinckley would equivocate on a doctrine that is central to LDS theology? It appears to be a public relations effort to hide true LDS beliefs from the public. (For more examples of Hinckley’s “I don’t know” statements, see
http://www.i4m.com/think/leaders/Hinckley_dontknow.htm
http://www.utlm.org/newsletters/no110.htm
To avoid derailing this thread I'll leave the issue of gnosticism alone as much as possible and restate my questions.
Does God the Father possess a physical body?
If God the Father possesses a physical body what is the origin of that body?
Does God the Father have a wife who also possesses a physical body? What is the origin of her body and what is the origin of her being?
Is the physical body of God the Father integral to his person or is it merely a (for lack of a better word) "meat bag" with which he interacts with the physical world?
Did God the Father have an origin? Is his being now, or was it ever, contingent upon another?
I hope that's not vague. I think the problem is Catholics and Protestants are convinced the the God that Mormons profess belief in was created by another God... even if that happened outside of or above the present universe that's pretty much polytheism.
Oh and kolob, we get the chuckles about kolob. Can't help it really, we laugh about Scientology too... well, when we're not crying about it.
Do you have a mormon source for that statement? For all the years I was a mormon, the saying was often repeated from the pulpit..."as man is, God once was, as God is man may become". Other than Hinckley's remark, "I don't know that we believe that", I'd like to see something that backs up your statement.
Two different prophets differ with this statement.
"Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith" (TPJS) record that, on April 6, 1844, LDS Church founder Joseph Smith preached to a congregation of 20,000 saying, "Here then is eternal life - to know the only wise and true God; and you have got to learn how to be Gods yourselves, and to be kings and priests to God the same as all Gods have done before you" (JOD 6:4; TPJS p.346).
"Brigham Young, the second prophet and president of the Mormon Church, delivered a message in the Salt Lake Tabernacle on August 8, 1852, in which he affirmed this teaching when he said, "The Lord created you and me for the purpose of becoming Gods like Himself" (JOD 3:93).
It is my belief that the is only the One and no many can ever reach that height.
Yes it does my friend ,the God of the bible is a jealous God that will not share His glory..He cares
The spirit nevers dies just like Lucifer/Satan he is a wicked god!
And the brother of jesus and a spirit child of the father and one of his wives
Lucifer is a fallen angel.. he is god of this earth according to the scripture ...how many little gods are there on this earth?
So this planet has 2 gods? The heavenly father and jesus??
One does wonder....
I step in that quicksand...now and again, but generally regret it later.
Best FRegards,
Someone saying that little Mormon creedo and Jesus Christ saying “I and the Father are one”, are not the same thing.
Christ was saying He was God. That’s why they were going to stone Him. He didn’t say I was a man and attained godhood, and if you work like I did, you can too.
No Christian ever walks around and says “I and the Father are one.” We know that would be a lie. We are not God. We are spiritually adopted as His children, but we are not God nor are we little god(s) either.
Was that a yes, Mormons do become Gods?
Does God the Father possess a physical body?
****
Please tell me what you mean when you say physical body?
Conclusion Latter-day Saints are not polytheists in any reasonable sense of the term”
Key word in the first definition is the word "or"
–conjunction
1.(used to connect words, phrases, or clauses representing alternatives): books or magazines; to be or not to be.
For the statement to be considered true, one of the following must be true
1. Both statements on either side of the 'or ' are true
2. Only one side is true.
While mormons claim to worship only one 'god', they actually espouse belief in more than one 'god' Therefore the fundamental statement IS TRUE, mormons are polytheists. They may also fall into a subgroup - henotheists, but the bottom line is - by definition - mormonism is polytheistic.
Instead of defending the grossly dishonest redefinition of the terms, FAIR attacks the Monotheistic Trinitarianism. Sorry FAIR, the early church doesn't agree with you.
1- Do you have a mormon source for that statement?
For all the years I was a mormon, the saying was often repeated from the pulpit...
2- "as man is, God once was, as God is man may become".
***
It is my understand from what I read from LDS Standard works
It is explained in Abraham 3
17 Now, if there be two things, one above the other, and the moon be above the earth, then it may be that a planet or a star may exist above it; and there is nothing that the Lord thy God shall take in his heart to do but what he will do it.
18 Howbeit that he made the greater star; as, also, if there be two spirits, and one shall be more intelligent than the other,
yet these two spirits, notwithstanding one is more intelligent than the other, have no beginning; they existed before,
they shall have no end, they shall exist after, for they are gnolaum, or eternal.
19 And the Lord said unto me: These two facts do exist, that there are two spirits,
one being more intelligent than the other;
there shall be another more intelligent than they;
I am the Lord thy God, I am more intelligent than they all.
8 ¶ For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.
9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
I have never thought of it in that terms and I am sure other members have never thought of it in those terms.
What I have thought of was what a blessing if would be to be in the presents of God the Father and the Only begotten Son Jesus Christ the rest is beyond my mind for anything else would be speculation not knowledge.
I believe if one does strive to do the will of the Father to the best of their abilities one will be received.
John 14
6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
John 15
1 I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.
2 Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.
3 Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.
4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.
5 I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.
6 If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.
7 If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.
8 Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.
9 As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love.
10 If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love.
11 These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.
12 This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.
John 16
12 I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. (Milk before Meat)
13 Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.
14 He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine, and shall shew it unto you.
15 All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that he shall take of mine, and shall shew it unto you.
16 A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me, because I go to the Father.
Hmmmmm.....I wonder where I've heard that phrase before? Pun intended?
I know what I understand and somethings you asked the Lord has not spoken yet.
“Also, no matter how good you are in this life, if your husband doesn’t become a god you can not enter the celestial kingdom, so your ultimate salvation is dependant upon another human being, not yourself. How does that make you feel?”
The covenant was made by the husband to God and the wife to God if the husband was abusive or other reasons could not be receive the wife if she kept her covenant will be honored and vice versa.
Much of what you are asking is speculation yet when one sincerely takes it in prayer many thing of the question will be resovled or one will not be bothered by it.
There is an order to everything and like this too much has been taken out of order to confuse and that is not a good things that is why there is good advice milk before meat or it makes it that much longer to grow in understanding.
If one has no foundation in basic math should they be exposed to calculus first.
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