Blake

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Everything posted by Blake

  1. I used to translate for General Conference and the talks were delivered to me ahead of time, pre-written by the GAs and preapproved by the first presidency. Sometimes a GA would accidentally stumble and omit a word in reading his own talk, but the written version was always the official version which received the Prophet's approval and endorsement and went into church publications. The Prophet and Apostles are the most united group of men I have ever witnessed in my life. They support one another implicitly.
  2. I have a slightly different take on this. I do not think that President Benson was acting on his own opinions before becoming the prophet and then changed to start speaking only the Lord's will afterwards. I think He always spoke the Lord's will and that the Lord's will for what he would speak changed when he became prophet. I think the Lord's appointed role for him to play changed, but I feel strongly that everything he taught both before and after his calling as president was very much what the Lord wanted him to say. I feel the same way about all of the apostles and prophets. What the 15 members of the first presidency and the quorum of the twelved teach is what the Lord wants them to teach, whether or not we want to hear it or like it. We cannot in good faith pick and choose what we will accept from the words of the prophets and apostles. We are called not to test the veracity of their words, as though we had more authority than they, but rather to gain a witness of them so that we can follow them faithfully. We do not decide whether they speak truth, we only decide whether we will follow.
  3. Elder Bruce R. McConkie in Mormon Doctrine makes it quite clear that the assertion that Brigham Young was claiming that Adam and Elohim are the same person is patently false. Mc Conkie points out that the term "god" as applied to Adam is used in the same sense as in the Book of Elijah, when the Saints are called "gods", a verse quoted by Christ himself to substantiate his right to claim he is the Son of God. McConkie made the argument that all heirs of exaltation can be rightly called "gods" since that will be their final glory. Adam has already attained his glory and has been deifiied. So Brigham Young was correct in stating that we will all answer to Adam as our God. That does not mean Adam does not in turn answer to Jehovah, who in turn answers to Elohim. There is a heirarchy of divine persons, with Elohim at the top, then Jehovah, then Adam, and so forth. Adam (Michael) is the God of this particular world. Jehovah governs this world along with countless others, each with its own Adam, while Elohim is the great King of all his creation. It is the misquoting and misinterpretation of Brigham Young's statement that led people to invent the Adam-God theory, which stated that Adam was Elohim. Please read all of Elder McConkie's entry on "Adam-God Theory" on pages 18-19 of Mormon Doctrine.
  4. It was really clear to me right from the beginning that what Rosabella was trying to say is the same as what Finrock so eloquently stated. Other people are trying to put words in her mouth, I suppose so that can have someone to fight with. I posted a lengthy statement on page five that asserted and supported pretty much the same thing as what Rosabella has been saying all along on this thread. Again, it was pretty clear to me that she was merely asserting that earthquakes are under God's control and so he must have higher purposes in allowing them to happen (such as calling people to repentence, stimulating compassionate service, executing his wrath on mankind collectively, or merely signifying the end of times). We've got to retain an eternal perspective on mortality and understand that mortal death and even mortal suffering is not to be feared and should not be used as an excuse for turning away from God or reinventing church teachings.
  5. If you feel you will get a response from Rosabella with your jab about her sticking her head in the sand, I highly doubt you will. What specific stance are you referring to Rosabella defending? I have personally come out in support of a number of her statements so she is by no means the only one defending her position. Is it her claim that the Prophet and apostles are telling the truth when they say, as they do, that earthquakes are a sign from God calling men to repentance? She supported that claim with a plethora of quotes from current and past church leaders. I could add even more. Perhaps you are referring to her claim that doctrines don't change. Your assertion that doctrines change could possibly be based on a rather different definition of the word "doctrine". Some tend to think that policies and public relations verbiage count as doctrine. They do not. I believe that is what Rosabella was trying to say when she said that core doctrines do not change. She was only reiterating the official church position. This is an LDS forum after all, so her orthodox viewpoint should not be a big surprise. The burden of proof is not on her, but on the dissident. She did answer your question. She said that core doctrines do not change. You cannot ask her to explain why doctrines change, when she does not believe that they do. Here is evidence that Rosabella's position is in line with the church. Again, since you are the one disagreeing with an official church position on an LDS forum, I think the burden of proof rests on you, not on Rosabella.
  6. I believe the fundamental issue being debated here is this: "Does God cause good or innocent people to be afflicted?" First I wish to point out that no soul on this earth above the age of accountability except for Christ is innocent or good in any absolute sense. But let us presume for the sake of argument that there are many people who are trying to be righteous, be they of whatever faith they may and let us allow that perhaps not all who suffer in this life deserve their suffering. The first question then is “Does God cause the suffering of righteously motivated souls?” The first way I look at this question is as follows. Whether God intentionally causes suffering or simply allows it to happen makes no difference. God is omnipotent and has the power to prevent any suffering that is not his will. His refusal to do so in numerous instances is evidence that he is partly responsible for much of the suffering in the world. He may not cause it in all instances, but if he allows it when he has the power to intervene, then he is responsible for it. No one can argue that many righteously motivated people suffer all manner of afflictions in this life, including untimely death. Since God could have prevented all this, then he must be willingly allowing it to happen, at the very least. How do I reconcile myself to a God who even allows “good” people to suffer or die? One may argue that much of the suffering and death comes about because of the free will of the unrighteous, which God is not willing to abrogate. Yet there are many instances of suffering due to natural causes that are not the result of the free will of any person or persons. I suppose wondering at the mercy of a God who allows earthquakes to drop bricks on the heads of pregnant women is no different than wondering at his mercy in allowing a sweet and faithful young mother in the church to die of a congenital heart defect, leaving her children and husband to mourn her, or the mercy of a God who allowed millions to die in the great plagues of Europe including many good and humble Christians. If God had the power to intervene, then why didn’t he? Where is his mercy? I believe that we place far too much importance on the length and quality of our mortal lives. We imagine that if God were to shorten or lives one year shy of what we think we deserve, then he would be unjust and unmerciful. If he were to knowingly allow us to contract a disabling illness that left us paralyzed from age twenty until the end of our life, then he would be unjust and unmerciful. I reconcile myself to this issue by remembering that the purpose of life is to be schooled in faith and holiness. These qualities are almost never developed by people who enjoy a long life of ease and comfort with no significant grief or suffering. On the contrary, suffering including the untimely death of a loved one can lead us to a crossroads, where we must decide whether we will curse God, reinvent God by imagining him powerless to intervene and denying his hand in all things, or embrace God as being wiser than we are who knows what is best for us. As Job said “Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him.” In Summary, my point is simply this. God allows a lot of unpleasant things to happen to good people, including untimely death. Allowing such things is for an all-powerful God no different than causing them. He is consenting to their happening. Either we regard this as cruel and reject faith in God altogether, preferring an atheistic world view in which all things are simply accidents, including man’s very existence, or we accept that God has wise and wonderfully loving purposes in allowing or even causing death and suffering in the world. I cannot embrace the idea of a God who is powerless over his own creation. The God I believe in has total executive control. He can even shorten the leash on the adversary if he wishes to. God has a wonderful plan for all of us and death and suffering, even of good people, serve the purpose of helping people develop faith and holiness. I know this to be true. I have had to reconcile myself to a great deal of suffering in my own life, suffering which could easily have led me away from God, but because I chose to trust in Him, has lead me closer to Him.
  7. We are the ones who incorrectly judge God to be Evil if he allows a good person to die early. From God's infinite perspective, it is not an injustice at all. Our lives belong to God, not to us. Lots of good people suffer untimely death for various reasons, any of which could be prevented by the Lord if he so willed it. That he does not always will it is evidence that His love for us is not attenuated by the fact that he sometimes ends a person's mortality early. If God is fulfilling his prophetic words that he would cause earthquakes and destructions in the last days as a testimony to the World and a call to repentence, then surely he has accounted for any good people that may die in these events and his plan for their individual lives takes their untimely death into account. A sweet and dedicated sister missionary over whom I had responsibility as a district leader on my mission was killed in an accident while serving. She did nothing to deserve this and I know God could have spared her if he had willed it. When I learned later that the Love of her life, a wonderful young man she had known in her home country, had been killed only a year before her mission began during a civil war, I began to understand that perhaps her untimely death was a way she could be reunited with him. Her death may have been truly a blessing for her, to ensure that she and her Love could be sealed. Death is not to be feared and is sometimes an act of mercy. Perhaps there are some who are not meant to face the intense persecutions of the final days and are mercifully taken off the earth by natural disasters before those persecutions begin. I trust Heavenly Father and Christ to make the right decision regarding the life span of every person. If God were to take my life, I would gratefully accept His will and trust that it was only in my very best interest and that of my family.
  8. Part of the difficulty is our tendancy to apply our mortal construct of linear time and cause-effect to eternal realities. From God's perspective all of time is one eternal NOW. That is why from earthly perspective one can say that God has always been God, because within the crucible of time in which this mortality burns, God has always been God. Outside of time are progressions and growth that are not time-governed. It is within this non-temporal plane that God can be said to have progressed from uncreated intelligence, through spiritual birth, then mortal birth, then resurrection and exaltation to his present state of perfection. The Lord describes his course as "one eternal round". This would lead me to think that progression in eternity is more like a great circle, than a straight line that proceeds from beginning to end. We tend to ask questions like "how did the race of gods begin?" because we are trapped within a linear temporal framework. Outside of mortality, I imagine such a question will prove to be utterly non-sensical.
  9. Thank you for the positive feedback. I wish to clarify that I was not implying that anyone should seek out knowledge of mysteries beyond the doctrine as revealed through the prophet. My whole focus was on reaching a state of acceptance of doctrines that have already been revealed. The "Mother in Heaven" doctrine, while not clearly established by ancient scripture, has nevertheless been taught in the church since the time of Joseph Smith with full approval by the Prophet and was reaffirmed in the Proclamation on the Family. Even the book "Gospel Principles" which is an approved textbook of LDS doctrine asserts that we are born of Heavenly Parents. So for me, this doctrine is not something unrevealed that I gained through personal revelation, rather it is a standard church doctrine that I gained a testimony of through the process I outlined in my previous post. Thank you. My only desire here was to clarify my process of conversion on these matters and how I regard this teaching. Blake
  10. I have read some of the discussion on this thread and appreciate all the thoughtful comments and questions that have been submitted. This is a complex question. I had some ideas I thought I might add to the discussion. 1. I am a convert to the LDS church, having become a Christian several years earlier. The whole idea of an anthropomorphic God was strange to me at first and I initially struggled with many doctrines that are based on that principle (man becoming divine, God having a female companion, etc). What resolved it for me was simply taking the Bible on face value when it says we are children of God. I do not think the Lord would use a term like that in a purely metaphorical sense. It is such a loaded concept, that I don't believe a perfect God would use a term like this if he did not mean it literally. The corporeal nature of God is an essential doctrine upon which much of mormonism hangs. If God is a being of flesh and spirit combined, then believing that man is his literal offspring and that there is Mother in heaven is not theologically difficult. The fundamental problem lies in the question of whether God is a corporeal being, or a unversal spirit. 2. It always seemed to me that the definition of God being a universal spirit without body, parts or passions was not well-supported in the Bible. Saying "God is a spirit", as the bible does, does not preclude him from also having a body. Man is also a spirit at his core, but possesses a body as well. The teaching about a God who is omnipresent as a universal spirit seems to me to stem from the Nicene Creed, wherein God is described as a mystical and unknowable Trinity, a sort of Universal Spirit with three principle hypostases or avatars: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. When I as a Christian tried to contemplate this conception, I found it difficult to reconcile with my understanding. First, when Christ was baptised the Father spoke from Heaven, Christ was in the Water, and the Holy Spirit came down in visible form, like a dove. Clearly there were three beings here. Also in Gethsemane Christ learly distinguished between His own will and the Will of the Father saying: This quote leads me to believe that Christ and the Father have distinct wills, yet Christ always chooses to do his Father's will. To me, having separate wills testifies that they are separate beings. Second, The Nicene Council was convened hundreds of years after the death of the last apostle, after Christianity had fragmented. Even while the apostles were alive, they continually battled with the teachings of the Gnostics, who presented a spirituality that married Judeo-christian doctrines with concepts from outside of the judeo-christian framework, in particular the concepts of transcendancy and divinity within. I knew enough about Eastern religions to know that these concepts are found in the religions of India and the far east. Judaism had always taught that God was a personage, so corporeal that the old testament records: The East taught that God is a unviersal spiritual energy or essence that is present in all things. Eastern religions use this basis to encourage people to see themselves as avatars of a single God-essence, while Judaism taught the separateness of God and his creation. I wonder if it is possible that the Transcendental God described in the Nicene Creed owes its formulation to the influence of Eastern Thought, via the Gnostics and the Greek philosophers. Nevertheless, I am impressed with the outcome of the Nicene Council in that the Gnostic scriptures themselves were excluded from the canon. In spite of what my beliefs lead me to conclude were errors of interpretation, I am convinced that God definitely was watching over the council and helping guide the choices that were made there. The canon of scripture that was adopted was remarkably pure in its doctrinal content and its presentation of Christ as the unique Savior of mankind and the only Way to the Father. Centuries of faithful christians were blessed immensely by this as are Christians today including LDS.3. I believe that man resists the notion that he is a literal child of a corporeal God primarily because man appears so sinful and fallen. But if we allow the atonement of Jesus Christ to be powerful enough to overcome the effects of sin for all His repentant and humble followers, then it is not difficult to conceive that in the course of eternity, a disciple of Christ could become so purified and so holy, that he or she could be ready to be entrusted with the mantle of Divine Parenthood and Governance, which is essentially what makes God who He is. 4. Once I could conceive God the Father being a perfect, but very corporeal being, distinct from Christ and the Holy Ghost, then believing that he is married and has literal children was not difficult for me. This represents my own thought process of how I came to an understanding of these doctrines. I hope it might be useful to someone. I hope noone who disagrees with me will take offense, as it is not my intent to discredit anyone's beliefs. I have immense respect for people of faith and especially for other christians, who I consider brothers and sisters in the faith of Christ.