Dorian

Okay, if all you mean by co-eternal then is that the "stuff" Jesus is made of has always existed and that that goes for you, myself, and everyone else then when you profess Jesus as co-eternal with the Father you're using the same word but with a completely different meaning than the rest of Christianity. That's all I was trying to understand.

Wait, how can you say that Jesus is co-eternal with the Father but also believe that Jesus proceeds Him and the Father was perfect first? Wouldn't co-eternal mean they exist alongside each other simultaneously and always have. There was never a time when One was that the Other was not. Or when you say they're eternal do you mean as an intelligence but not as God?

This is great. Thanks! Okay, that makes sense. So the idea of God as a man who was resurrected on another planet is what we'd call theological opinion rather than dogma? That makes sense. But what about the eternal nature of God? Is the King Follett discourse regarded as dogmatic because when Joseph Smith states: " God and how He came to be so; for I am going to tell you how God came to be God. We have imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity. I will refute that idea, and take away the veil, so that you may see." Surely that is explicitly teaching that 1) God "came to be" something that He wasn't before, ie. divine. and 2) That God is not God from all eternity (which means He had a beginning in time). So surely if one accepts the above from JS as dogmatic then that logically requires one to believe that God was not always God? Substance is the English translation of the Latin translation of the original Greek. The direct Greek - English translation is "essence" and was used to re-affirm the co-equal and co-eternal nature of the Son with the Father. So when the Council Fathers teach that the Son is "homoousis" with the Father they're teaching His equality in divinity. I find it easier to understand what this means when thinking about the historical context, ie. the Council is condemning doctrines that taught Christ was a demi-God below the Father (Arianism) or that the mortal man of Jesus acquired His divinity at the moment of His baptism by John (adoptionism). Does the LDS Church agree with the Catholic Church on the nature of Jesus as co-eternal and co-equal in all things with the Father? Because on another thread someone said that Jesus (who they called Jehovah) was "made" a God by God the Father before Old Testament times, so that Jesus is a God but hadn't always been a God alongside the Father (basically that He was made and not begotten). Sorry, I know that's really all convoluted and complex, I'm just trying to get my head around the intricacies of LDS belief. Thanks for your patience !

Wait, so you guys have an entirely different definition of "spirit"? Because in common parlance "spirit" is inherently immaterial. The opposite of spirit is matter, so to speak of "spirit matter" is an oxymoron. Wouldn't that just be very, very fine matter that is invisible to the eye (like particles of dust or gas)? Also it's odd that D&C says there's no such thing as "immaterial matter" - obviously, the two are mutually exclusive and the opposite of eachother. The claim is that there are things that exist that are immaterial and not matter.

Okay, this is a lot so I'll try to address what I think are the main points and maybe clarify my beliefs a bit more. That way the discussion can be more fruitful when our wires aren't crossed. I'm just here because I want to understand LDS beliefs because I find them interesting. No, it's not. "existing non-existence" is an oxymoron. By the term "a time when He was not God" I was attempting to illustrate a difference in my conception of God and yours (general you): I believe God has always existed as God (as opposed to believing He always existed as intelligence and then became God). By "time" I don't merely mean since the creation of this world, or since humanity began measuring time and history, but that God has always been God and exists outside of all measurements of time. He didn't become God, He doesn't have His origin in another God or on another world. This isn't a meaningless contradiction in terms, actually, but a fairly well thought out philosophical concept called aseity; a quality that my religion applies to God. Aseity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia It means God had no beginning and has no end, given that Joseph Smith appears to have taught that God did have a beginning and "became" God (became implying a change from one state to another) then it seems clear that the Mormon conception of God isn't of one that is eternal, and if the word eternal is used then it is done so with a different meaning. Joseph Smith explicitly denied that God has been God from all eternity: I will go back to the beginning before the world was, to show what kind of being God was. . . . God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens . . . it is necessary we should understand the character and being of God and how he came to be so; for I am going to tell you how God came to be God. We have imagined and suppose that God was God from all eternity. I will refute that idea[/I], and take away the veil, so that you may see. Put it this way: do you think that Heavenly Father has existed in His current state for the entirety of His existence? Has there ever been a time when He was anything other than divine? My answers are yes to the first and no the second. If your answers are different then I think that illustrates the distinction I was trying to capture with the term "Mormon God". Can I suggest that just because you're unfamiliar with the meaning of a word doesn't make it meaningless? The term substance here doesn't indicate something that God is "made out of" in the same we we are made out of matter. It means that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost share the same nature and together are the same one God rather than distinct gods. The term used in the creed is "consubstantial". Unless you're a philosophical materialist (which generally requires atheism) then it's not meaningless. Don't you believe that the Holy Ghost is a personage of spirit and doesn't possess a material body? Edit after Dravin's post: It's not meaningless wordplay at all. Something like "immaterial matter" is oxymoronic, "immaterial existence" indicates that there are things in existence that aren't "made" out of matter. Whether you believe that or not it's not meaningless wordplay but a concept that's held by pretty much every religion other than your own.

My understanding is that LDS belief is that God the Father is a resurrected man who attained Godhood from His own Heavenly Father. If God was once mortal and then attained Godhood then that means He isn't eternally God (even if you believe He existed eternally as an intelligence, but that doesn't make Him much different to you or me). Isn't this the doctrine expressed in the King Follett discourse and the Snow couplet? Maybe I've got it wrong, but I've seen it expressed numerous times on this forum and by other Mormons. My use of the term "Mormon God" was only meant to distinguish between the conception the LDS church has of Who God is and what mainstream Christianity believe Him to be. For example: - Mainstream Christianity teaches God has always been and will always be, there was never a time when He was not God. LDS believe He attained Godhood at some point in time in another world. - Mainstream Christianity teaches that God is a trinity of three persons sharing in the same divine substance whereas LDS teaches the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are three different, independent beings united in one Godhead. I think you also believe that the Son is subject to God the Father whereas we believe Him to be co-equal with the Father. Perhaps this is why you don't pray directly to Jesus, whereas most other Christians do? - LDS believe that God the Father is a physical being and that His spirit is localised within His body whereas mainstream Christianity believe God is immaterial and omnipresent. My use of the term Mormon God was just a way of differentiating between these rather different conceptions of Who God is, no offence was intended and I hope the members here understood that :)

I have to say it doesn't sound too appealing to me. The idea of being an eternal family is nice; but creating worlds and populating it with my own spirit offspring who will then look up to me as God isn't my idea of Heaven. I guess it also conflicts fairly sharply with my idea of exactly Who God is - the idea of "becoming" a god just makes no sense to me because the whole idea of God is that He just "is" eternally God without beginning and without end. Now I have a question about Jesus Christ. I know you guys believe He is divine but do you believe He has always existed with the Father and always been divine. That in Heaven before he was born in Bethlehem He was divine, that as a baby He was divine, that as a teacher, a carpenter, etc, He was divine throughout all of this. Or do you think that He acquired divinity after His resurrection in the same way Mormons hope to become gods in the future? If you guys believe the latter (He acquired His divinity after His death) then does that mean you believe that the Godhead originally consisted of only two divine persons and a third (the son) was added after the resurrection? So throughout the entirety of the Old Testament the Godhead was only two persons, and Christ was added on after His exaltation? Sorry if it seems like I'm prying too much but I find whenever I've tried to ask missionaries these questions they just give me a text book answer that is clearly written to appear as mainstream as possible and gloss over pretty big differences (like when asked if they believe there's only one God they'll respond by saying "we WORSHIP only one God" which is technically true but kind of a deceptive response, really), whereas you guys seem pretty open about the differences between my Christianity and yours & that's what I find interesting.

Okay, another question. You guys are sealed together as eternal families, right? So if your current kids become exalted and gods in the next life and you and your wife/husband also achieve exaltation in the next life then that means you, your spouse, and your kids are all gods with your own god/goddess spouse creation your own worlds and populating it with your own spirit children. So will you still be sealed and living eternally with your children if they're gods and sealed with their own spouse and children? Does that mean you'll also be spending eternity with your daughter/son in law and your grandkids? If this is the case - and you come from a long line of faithful Mormons - wouldn't you also be with your parents (presuming you're sealed to them too) and they with their parents (presuming they're sealed to them), etc, etc, So Heaven would be like one big extended family reunion? How does this all work in with each individual being a god and creating their own worlds?

I was reading Mormonism and the nature of God/Deification of man - FairMormon and noticing that the website uses a lot of quotes from the Early Church fathers that speak about the process of theosis to support LDS belief in the literal deification of mortals. I do see how one could use certain quotes from the Early Church to support the LDS position however my question is if the LDS doctrine goes further than the Early Church's conception of theosis. For example the Early Church view of deification never included anything like this: "The Father has promised us that through our faithfulness we shall be blessed with the fulness of his kingdom. In other words we will have the privilege of becoming like him. To become like him we must have all the powers of godhood;' thus a man and his wife when glorified will have spirit children. who eventually will go on an earth like this one we are on and pass through the same kind of experiences, being subject to mortal conditions, and if faithful, then they also will receive the fulness of exaltation and partake of the same blessings. There is no end to this development; it will go on forever. We will become gods and have jurisdiction over worlds, and these worlds will be peopled by our own offspring. We will have an endless eternity for this." —Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, Vol.2, p.48 So, questions 1) is it LDS belief that deification isn't limited to becoming like God and living in communion with Him for eternity but also includes inheriting the power to create and populate other worlds? 2) Do Temple Worthy Mormons expect to one day be worshipped by others just as we worship God the Father? When you're an exalted god will you still worship your current God? 3) If God the Father went through this process does He still currently worship His God in addition to being our God?

A lot of people are probably familiar with the process of putting forward rational philosophical arguments for the existence of God. For example here's a link to the popular 'argument from contingency': Most of these arguments seem to utilise a few common principles; such as the necessity of having a "first cause" that always was and always will be in order to avoid an infinite regress of causes, or the order and design in the universe pointing towards a designer behind it. However the LDS conception of God seems to contradict a number of those principles (God isn't eternally God, God didn't create the world ex nihilo, God isn't transcendent spirit, etc). For example the argument given in the video above cannot be applied to the Mormon God because He too is just one contingent being in a long chain of causes. So I was wondering if Mormons put forward their own arguments for the existence of God in the same way that Protestant and Catholic Christians do?

Hello, I'm a new member here on the forums. I'm Australian, 23, & converted to Catholicism from agnosticism in my first year of university. I'm really interested in the LDS religion (though I have no intention of leaving the Catholic Church), so I'm just here to discuss and engage in a bit of good old ecumenism. I also get really excited whenever I see a Mormon missionary which they seem to find entertaining. Nice to "meet" you all.