Posted on 03/16/2009 6:19:18 AM PDT by Alex Murphy
What!?
You didn't get the memo?
Children of the Lord are councel to maginfy, uplife, and build
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4AuN6pN1kY
Sigh... it appears that being WRONG about what the BIBLE says is indemic amoung SOME Mormons...
2 Corinthians 10:4-5
4. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.
5. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
I was certainly uplifed by that video.
It appears that being wrong about Mormons is endemic among sectarian Christians. BTW Elsie, I have question for you. What Bible did Peter and the ancient apostles use to lead the Church in their time? What Bible did Jesus preach from?
Which Bible verse told Peter that the gospel should be extended to Cornelius and the Gentiles? What passage witnessed to John the Baptist that he baptized the Lamb of God? What Bible passage told Paul that Jesus is Lord? What Bible verse told Peter that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God? Revelation was the foundation of the Church anciently. Thus it is today in the Restored Church.
If I recall what the Bible says, it was the Pharisees who used their scriptures to try to disprove living oracles of God. That’s an all too familiar situation today as sectarians use their Bible to disprove the living oracles who speak for God today. Jews today use the same scriptures you do to support their position that the Messiah has not yet come. People will interpret the book however they wish.
You have more in common with Annas and Caiaphas than you do with Peter or Paul. It will always be the case that prophets of God will be opposed by people like you who place the written word before the Living Word in precedence.
If you would like to test my knowledge of scripture, I would invite you to debate me at www.spamlds.org. How confident are you? If you’re interested, just contact me and we’ll decide the terms for the debate. I assure you that you’ll be treated fairly and your dignity will be respected. How about it?
What is baptism? If you answer that question for me, then we might be able to start to have a conversation about it.
Do not use potty language - or references to potty language - on the Religion Forum.
TomH| 3.16.09 @ 10:21AM
Jeremy:
If you’re going to be critical of the Mormon view of God, the very least you could do is actually make an accurate comparison?
There is something very strange with your comparison. Mormon prophets counsel members to “avoid” R-rated movies and “the Watchmen” is probably one of the worst R-rated films out in theaters right now. So, for Mormons who don’t frequent poorly crafted R-rated movies, or who don’t read comic books, you’re silly critique of and attempt to ridicule the Mormon view of God will not resonate with them.
The modern doctrine of deity involves two important areas of study: the reality of existence (the nature of matter and energy) and necessary theological foundations that are in agreement with it.
And Jeremy, why choose Hopkin’s book as the definitive comparative text?
How about “The Mormon Doctrine of Deity,” by B.H. Roberts, or “The Theological Foundations of the Mormon Religion,” by Sterling McMurrin, and how about this one - “The Doctrine and Covenants,” which is official Mormon scripture?
The Mormon doctrine of deity has more to do with the Old and New Testament than it does with the comic book, “The Watchmen.” Why not make those comparisons? Oh, right, because your analogy would fail. Got it.
To all:
Jeremy advances the “classic view” of God as “spirit only” but runs into an impenetrable “flesh and bone” wall when we must account for the literal resurrection of Jesus Christ.
If Jesus Christ was literally resurrected, and ascended to heaven as such, then, “houston, we’ve got a problem:” God is no longer only “a spirit” but is spirit, flesh, and bone.
The resurrection “localizes” God inside the universe - in space and time - related to reality in the universe - not according to human understand only.
Creation:
The classic theological view of the creation of all things (ex nihilo) is incompatible with the laws of conservation and energy. Simple put – matter cannot be created or destroyed. To argue that this is only our perception is to argue that God is faking us out – or using a deception to “test” whether or not we’ll continue to believe that “God is no where but everywhere, that he is so small he can dwell in our heart but so large that he fills the immensity of space.” Such was the debate for centuries in early Catholicism and those sympathetic to the Hellenized view of God, ultimately won the debate and New Testament Godhead theology was snuffed out until 1820.
The classic theological view of the creation is only an untenable theological position. Why? When we reduce this view of God from before the creation, we see only a pure consciousness – ever existing in an eternity past – ever perfect but never creating. This “consciousness” has consciousness in itself. However, this is a stolen concept from reality. The purpose of consciousness is to be conscious of “something.” The something is “existence” or matter and energy. To be conscious only belongs to the reality where in there is existence co-dwelling with a consciousness.
Omniscience:
The classic view of omniscience only works if God has “eyes.” Since it is said that he is outside the “universe” bubble and can “LOOK” into the bubble, he must have “eyes” to peer into this bubble. But not just one eye, millions of eyes, so he can see the bubble from all angles and perspectives. And, what evidence do we have that such “eyes” can even accomplish such a thing in the first place?
But, if he’s everywhere INSIDE THE BUBBLE, (omniscience) then he’s really not exclusively outside space and time is he? See the problem? Mormons define omniscience as knowing all truth in existence: things as they were, as they are, and as they will be – God remembers all laws and events in existence (reality), knows all current events and processes in existence, (reality) and knows what future events or processes will occur in the future. The real question should be, How does the Mormon God do all of that without existing outside space and time? The answer: through God’s glory and his connection to all matter and energy in the universe.
Omnipresence:
No, Jeremy, Mormons do not believe that because God is corporeal he is subject to the same limits AS HUMANS. Your “watchmen” analogy just failed, again.
In Mormonism, God is perfect which does not refer only to a perfection of form but a perfect of substance. God has overcome all inherit weaknesses of human flesh and therefore, all things are subject to him – he is not subject to them. While God’s physical body is localized, his glory and influence fill the immensity of space, and the Holy Spirit and his influence also testify and witness throughout space of the reality (literal existence) of the Father and Son.
Change:
No, Jeremy, Mormons do not claim that God is “ever-evolving.” Mormons claim that God is perfect and has been perfect for longer than we can comprehend – there is no increase to his perfection, but only that his glory and dominion expand because of his NEW creations.
Classic theists hold a very curious position when it comes to God’s “unchanging nature.” Ultimately, it is an untenable position. Why? Remember what we did above when we reduced the classic view of God to a pure consciousness originating from outside space and time? Where God dwelled – ever perfect and never creating? If God’s perfection was complete in such a state, then why did he “change” and start creating? The view of God as a static non-creator turned creator only 6000 years and 6 days ago, is the most recent and dramatic theological change in history and would categorize the Christian God as the “newest” creator on the cosmological block. In Mormonism, God has been creating for billions upon billions of years - the earth isn’t his first creation wherein he has “peopled” a planet and saved and sanctified its inhabitants - his children.
Corporeality:
True, Mormons do not agree with traditional Christianity’s view that God is “spirit” only. But, that position is inconsistent with the message of the Old Testament and New Testament witnesses of God. So where did this “spirit only” idea come from? Early Catholicism. From there doctrine stuck by creedal declaration and it was inherited centuries later by Protestants and passed down until today.
You see, when a person holds to the position that God is everywhere and nowhere or outside space and time – then God cannot be corporeal – at least according to classical metaphysics of the 3rd and 4th centuries. However, those theologians didn’t understand the true nature of matter, energy, and light.
Ultimately, this is a philosophical debate of whether the Mormon view of God is more compatible with the Bible.
Recently, it would seem that Christian scholars are unwittingly making concessions, that Mormon revelation on the creeds and the nature of God is correct, by demonstrating that the Orthodox Trinity doctrine is not a biblical doctrine. What scholars?
First, allow me to introduce Dr. Emil Brunner.
Emil Brunner was born near Zurich. He studied at both the universities of Zurich and Berlin, receiving his doctorate in theology from Zurich in 1913. Brunner insisted that Jesus was God incarnate and central to salvation. Brunner undoubtedly holds a place of prominence in Protestant theology in the 20th century and was one of the four or five system builders. Dr. Brunner is not an enemy of Orthodox Christianity. He is an Orthodox Christian scholar of the most upstanding type. He found:
“When we turn to the problem of the doctrine of the Trinity, we are confronted by a peculiarly contradictory situation. On the one hand, the history of Christian theology and of dogma teaches us to regard the dogma of the Trinity as the distinctive element in the Christian idea of God, that which distinguishes it from the idea of God in Judaism and in Islam, and indeed, in all forms of rational Theism. Judaism, Islam, and rational Theism are Unitarian. On the other hand, we must honestly admit that the doctrine of the Trinity did not form part of the early Christian-New Testament-message. Certainly, it cannot be denied that not only the word “Trinity”, but even the explicit idea of the Trinity is absent from the apostolic witness of the faith. The doctrine of the Trinity itself, however, is not a Biblical Doctrine…” Emil Brunner, The Christian Doctrine of God (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1949), 205, 236.
Second, The new “Godhead” conceived in the Nicene Trinity was not taught in the Church prior to the Council in 325 A.D. Edwin Hatch, (bio here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Hatch) an emeritus professor of Ecclesiastical History at the University of Oxford taught,
“And if the doctrine of God now espoused by the various sects is foreign to the thought of the primitive Church, what was the Godhead of the early Church like? Indeed, we find in the early Church the true doctrine of a Godhead consisting of three distinct persons who are completely separate in substance, but one in will - the Father presiding over the Son and the Son over the Spirit.” [Hatch, E., The Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian Church, (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1957,) p. 124.]
Third, Justin Martyr, a follower of Christ from 100-161 A.D. wrote that God abides
“in places that are above the heavens:” the “first-begotten,” the Logos, is the “first force after the Father:” he is “a second God, second numerically but not in will,” doing only the Father’s pleasure. He also maintained that the Son is “in the second place, and the prophetic Spirit in the third.” —[Justin Martyr, First Apology 13, in Davies, J.G., The Early Christian Church, (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1995,) p. 97.]
Fourth, another bible scholar states:
“...no doctrine of the Trinity in the Nicene sense is present in the New Testament ... there is no doctrine of the Trinity in the strict sense in the Apostolic Fathers ... to judge the Apologists by post-Nicene theology would be grossly unfair. Isolated passages could be cited to support the notion that the Apologists taught subordination within the deity”
- William G. Rusch, Lutheran Scholar (”The Trinitarian Controversy. Sources of Early Christian Thought”, Fortress Press, 1980, 2,3,6)
Fifth, “... it is absurd to imagine (as some fundamentalists seem to do) that Christians today, armed with no knowledge of Christian history but only with their Bibles, could arrive at orthodox theories of, say, the Incarnation or the Trinity ... tradition helps us to grasp - as we see preeminently with the doctrine of the Trinity - that a doctrine or idea can be deemed normative for Christians despite the absence of any clear proof texts specifically teaching it” [Stephen T. Davis, Conservative Protestant Philosopher, Professor of Philosophy and Religion, Claremont McKenna College, “Philosophy and Theological Discourse, St. Martin’s Press, 1997, 47-68]
Sixth, “... thus the New Testament itself is far from any doctrine of the Trinity or of a triune God who is three co-equal Persons of One Nature” [William J Hill, “The Three-Personed God”, Washington, D.C., The Catholic University of American Press (1982, 27]
I understand the need for Christians to worship God in their own way. I believe that all men must be permitted to worship God “according to dictates of their own conscience”.
However, that the doctrine of the Orthodox Trinity should be used as a measuring stick for God’s nature, or for Jeremy’s authority for ridiculing the Mormon view of God with a comic flair, is unbiblical and absurd.
Well said.
Wow. A very loud AMEN to that!
That was my favorite joke when I was LDS.
Well, at least HE admits to believing in the content of the “white horse” prophecy. A lot of LDSers don’t.
They are the same shepard.
Baptism is a means of grace (a concept the LDS don’t understand).
The denominations that practice infant baptism (where the child is baptized so that they may grow in faith) have the rite of confirmation, which is a public declaration of faith.
For the groups that do not practice infant baptism (they have baby dedications where a child is blessed so that they may grow in faith). Then baptism becomes a public declaration of faith.
Religion Moderator -
I have reviewed my two posts to this thread. They contain no such `potty’ language as you insinuate.
Please check your facts before you accuse!
However I have to wonder how long one who seems to be almost giddy in awaiting the failure of the US to show us heretics up and is using FreeRepublic to drive “victims” and other traffic to his own blog will last around here before the purple screen of shame is tied to their handle...
LOL...
What is baptism?
Stourme, please take the time to read this scripture Mark 10:28...
But Jesus said unto them, Ye know not what ye ask: can ye drink of the cup that I drink of? and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?
Was Jesus talking here of being immersed in water by one holding authority? Or was he talking about going though a total reformation. I think it is the latter.
A 2nd century author named Nicander wrote down a pickle recipe (remember Bedner’s conference talk) which illustrates the common use of the word. He first says that the pickle should be dipped (bapto) into boiling water, followed by a complete submersion (baptizo) in a vinegar solution. The cucumber was dipped (immersed in water) then baptizo (submersed until a change happens and the cucumber becomes a pickle. The word was also used to explain the process of submerging cloth into a colored dye to become a totally new and different color.
Christian Baptism is the mystery of starting anew, of dying to an old way of life and being born again into a new way of life, in Christ who fulfilled all righteousness. You can take a bath with someone who you say holds “authority,” and you may or may not be changed - but until that change happens you are not a Christian.
That’s why we must agree to terms. What YOU call baptism is not what I call baptism - and so yes - by my Biblical definition you must be baptized by fire to be saved. Water baptism (John’s baptism) is symbolic of the inner change.
That didn’t take long!
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