Non-LDS view of God

[zil]

Jane, based on bytebear's comments, I'm guessing maybe PC meant, "Perhaps the LDS view raises the ante, declaring that God is begotten not only in Jesus, but also in each of us who are willing."  But I'm just guessing.

 

Meanwhile, PC, neither an LDS person nor an LDS view can possibly raise any ante - that would be against our religion (you know, no gambling, and all)!

[prisonchaplain]

I had in mind the LDS doctrine of exaltation   If I'm not mistaken, some here have even posted the idea that "we" are begotten of God--that we "really are children of God."  The take away I got is that LDS are more literal in the understanding that as children we can become what God is--that the traditional Christian view makes humans merely a higher form of animal, but not truly a child of God, since we are forever limited to something less than what God is.

 

I put it as a question because I'm sure there are learned members here who can fine tune, correct, or confirm what I've understood as an LDS idea.

[zil]

I had in mind the LDS doctrine of exaltation   If I'm not mistaken, some here have even posted the idea that "we" are begotten of God--that we "really are children of God."  The take away I got is that LDS are more literal in the understanding that as children we can become what God is--that the traditional Christian view makes humans merely a higher form of animal, but not truly a child of God, since we are forever limited to something less than what God is.

 

I put it as a question because I'm sure there are learned members here who can fine tune, correct, or confirm what I've understood as an LDS idea.

 

You have understood correctly.  We believe that our spirits are children of God the Father, and that, through worthiness combined with the Atonement, we can become as God now is.

[Jane_Doe]

I had in mind the LDS doctrine of exaltation   If I'm not mistaken, some here have even posted the idea that "we" are begotten of God--that we "really are children of God."  The take away I got is that LDS are more literal in the understanding that as children we can become what God is--that the traditional Christian view makes humans merely a higher form of animal, but not truly a child of God, since we are forever limited to something less than what God is.

 

I put it as a question because I'm sure there are learned members here who can fine tune, correct, or confirm what I've understood as an LDS idea.

 

You've been paying good attention 

 

Yes, Mormons do believe that we are literally children of God, and have the potential to grow up to be like Him.  

 

The traditional Christian view of (as you put it) humans being a nearly higher form of animal... personally I find this idea confusing and depressing.  

Edited January 1, 2016 by Jane_Doe

[Guest]

A Muslim friend and I were discussing religion.  He mentioned that the one unforgivable sin is to die with the belief "on ones' lips" that anything or anyone other than Allah has any Godly traits.

 

I responded, "Then you must really hate Mormons and Buddhists."

 

"What do you mean?"

 

"Well, you know that Buddhists believe that everything is 'God'. Do you know what Mormon's believe about our nature?"

 

"As man is now..."

 

"Yup.  So, is that belief not committing the unforgivable sin in Islam?"

 

"Yeah, I guess so."

 

"Well, I'm glad you're not going to kill me over it."

 

We both had a chuckle.

[prisonchaplain]

Carborendum captured my point precisely.  On a spectrum it might look like this:

 

Atheism: No gods.  Communists and some in science community who label any "design" discussion as religious fundamentalism

Agnosticism: 'soft atheism"-- the argument that God probably does not exist, and certainly is not knowable by any religion

Strict Monotheism:  Muslims and Jews--God is one, and cannot be begotten

Trinitarians:  God is one, but is three persons who are literally the same in substance

LDS Godhead / Human exaltation:  You know better than me.  :-)

Henotheism:  Though there may be other gods, only one receives worship/devotion

Polytheism:  There are many gods, and it is wise to be on good terms with the local one

Pantheism:  God is in everything so everything is sacred

Edited January 1, 2016 by prisonchaplain

[bytebear]

One thing to be clear about though, is that in LDS view, Jesus is the only begotten. We are not unique in the way Jesus is unique. We are spirit children, not the begotten children of God. And Jesus' atonement and his role (per-mortally, mortally and post-mortally) are not replaceable by any one else.

[LeSellers]

The LDS understanding of the Fatherhood of God and the Sonship of Jesus Christ is very different from that of orthodox, creedal Christians.

For us, the Father is, literally, the Father of Spirits, as we read in the Bible. This universality of His Fatherhood is spiritual for all of us save Jesus Christ, Who is His Son with both spiritual and physical meanings: Jesus shares Father's DNA and that of His mother, Mary.

He, Jesus, is thus the "only begotten of the Father".

In His station of "the Father of Spirits", our Father is the spiritual Father of all mankind (on this and all other planets He has created). But of those myriad of spirits, Jesus was the first, which makes Him "the First Born of all creation", or, more simply, the First Born.

The question, though, of how the Father is the Father of all spirits, and not forgetting that we also have a Mother in Heaven, Who is the Mother of the spirits of all mankind, and that we believe that we (including Them) have always been, and will always be male or female, it may seem reasonable to assume that there is some sexual component to Their creating us. However, there is no doctrine regarding the manner of our birth into "spirituality” from "intellectuality". We know that both Father and Mother were necessary to our births, but we have no information on the process They used, nor on anything equivalent to "gestation", nor much of anything related to it (beyond the requirement of Their both being part of it).

For example, if we were to assume that Mother got "pregnant", as so many do, we must imagine that spirit children could grow within Her physical body and take nourishment from Her, much like a fetus receives nourishment from his mother here on earth. We must also determine how this spirit could actually remain inside Her body, spirits being able to pass through physical substances. But None of this has a satisfactory solution.

Were we to hypothesize that our spiritual birth was something entirely other than spirito-sexual procreation, we still need to understand how Father became our Father, and how Mother is our maternal Parent.

The fact is that we do not have enough information from scripture or any other reliable and literal source to make any firm theory. So, in this, as in so many other cases, we should simply retire and say, "We don't know" and leave it at that.

The nature of God, to us LDSs, is that He is our Father and it is that Fatherhood that makes Him God, and, specifically, He is our God, forever and ever.

Our Savior, our Eldest Brother earned His calling as Redeemer, Savior, Lord and God, but this was His right, as the Eldest. But His earning it was just as important as His being so by birth. He loved us in our pre-mortal existence and because He did, we (most of us) loved Him. When He presented Father's "Great Plan of Happiness", and offered Himself as the sacrifice for our sins, we accepted because we loved Him. (Those who followed Satan were not pleased, but that's another issue entirely.)

Jesus earned His calling as Savior, etvc., byu being the most faithful, the most obedient, the most virtuous, the most perfect of all of Father;s children. Saan earned his calling as perdition by being the most faithless, the most disobedient, the most imperfect of all of Fahter's children. The rest of us earned our stations by being less perfect, less faithful, less perfect to greater or lesser degrees. We can suppose that there was a bell-shaped curve for each characteristic.

The Holy Ghost (or Spirit) is another calling within the Godhead. We know nothing of who He is, but we may assume that, like angels, He is connected to this earth in some way. Was He Micheal? Maybe He was Moses, or perhaps, Peter, or any of the other dispensational prophets? (It is my opinion that He is a composite of several of these great leaders and spokesmen of God's Church through the ages. Some were ante-mortal, other unresurrected prophets from the past. I do not know, but I can make a fair case in support it.)

The nature of God for us LDSs is one God in three Persons Who have a unique relationship to each Other by the fact that They have received callings to each of Their Priesthood offices. I think it fair to say that this knowledge is less confusing than the Nicean, or Apostolic (or any other) creeds. And it is also "fuller" than anything in the creeds in that it places us within the Family of God, and gives us the fundamental reason for our existence: He created us because He loved us even before we were born in His royal courts.

Admittedly, this is but a faint illustration of the total concept (who could understand the whole?), and some of it is based on conjectures, small and great, but it is a fair representation of the science of theology.

Lehi

Edited January 2, 2016 by LeSellers

[bytebear]

"Jesus earned His calling as Savior, etc., by being the most faithful, the most obedient, the most virtuous, the most perfect of all of Father;s children."

 

I disagree with this.  Jesus was always to be our Savior, always designated as one of the Godhead, and always to be Jehovah, always perfect.  Yes, there was a war in Heaven, and 1/3 rebelled, but they rebelled against the plan that was in place.  There was no vote.  There was no other option presented, and no one could replace Christ.  There was only rejection of the plan.

[LeSellers]

"Jesus earned His calling as Savior, etc., by being the most faithful, the most obedient, the most virtuous, the most perfect of all of Father;s children."

 

I disagree with this.  Jesus was always to be our Savior, always designated as one of the Godhead, and always to be Jehovah, always perfect.  Yes, there was a war in Heaven, and 1/3 rebelled, but they rebelled against the plan that was in place.  There was no vote.  There was no other option presented, and no one could replace Christ.  There was only rejection of the plan.

Had He been less than perfect, were He to have been disobedient, if He was incomplete, would He have become the Savior? No! He, too, had His agency, and could have been less than worthy of the calling He had received by birthright.

But, as you say, it was not His nature to have done so. Father and Mother knew this about Him prior to His spiritual birth, and chose Him as Their First Born (at least, this is how I read the scriptures). He would not fail, but He had the same agency to choose poorly that any of us did. Intelligences, too, have their agency, and He had done what needed to be done to prepare Himself to be that First Born.

So, while it was assured that He would become the Redeemer of the world, He earned that by the things He did and became in the pre-mortal existence.

Lehi

[bytebear]

Even the Father has agency, and could cease to be God if he chose, but being God means you are beyond such choices. (Mormon 9:19)  Similarly Jesus, although he pleaded for another way, He knew his mission and knew to fulfill it.  (Luke 22:42)

[LeSellers]

Even the Father has agency, and could cease to be God if he chose, but being God means you are beyond such choices. (Mormon 9:19)  Similarly Jesus, although he pleaded for another way, He knew his mission and knew to fulfill it.  (Luke 22:42)

We're not talking about Gethsemane. Our subject is pre-mortality.

Progression is eternal. We all came into spirituality from intelligenciality one similar, but varied, footings, just as we are born here on earth the same, but unique. Progression comes about solely by making choices and acting upon them. Jesus was very likely more advanced in Heaven than us, but He still needed to master spirituality, just as we did. Methinks that He progressed further, faster than any of us. He made no bad choices (what, here on Earth, we would call "sins"). He learned the concepts of faith, obedience, righteousness, and all the other key elements of Godhood. He earned His calling, even though there was no doubt He would do so, nor any question that He was the Chosen Son and would become the Only Begotten. But He had to become What He would need to be to be God, Redeemer, Savior, Law-Giver, etc. It is inconceivable that He would have just been born God, with all that entails. He had to master those foundational ideas and habits.

He did it perfectly; we, less so, Satan not at all (and even mastered the negatives traits, those that made him Perdition.

Lehi

Edited January 2, 2016 by LeSellers

[Maureen]

...I think it fair to say that this knowledge is less confusing than the Nicean, or Apostolic (or any other) creeds....

 

Seriously? You've gone to great lengths to try to explain your belief on how humankind are children of God with the bottom line being this is all speculation because "We don't know" the specifics. But you think your speculation can be considered knowledge that is less confusing than any of mainstream Christianity's creeds. I can definitely disagree with that. I can honestly say that your explanation of how mankind can be literal children of heavenly parents sounds confusing to me.

 

But since you think creeds are confusing read the Apostles Creed and tell me why you think it's confusing.

 

I believe in God, the Father Almighty,

Maker of heaven and earth.

And in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord,

who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,

born of the virgin Mary,

suffered under Pontius Pilate,

was crucified, died and was buried.

He descended into hell.

On the third day He rose again from the dead.

He ascended into heaven

and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty.

From thence He will come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,

the holy Christian Church,

the communion of saints,

the forgiveness of sins,

the resurrection of the body,

and the life everlasting. Amen 

 

I would imagine the only line you might have a problem with is "He descended into hell" but other than that the creed is very easy to follow.

 

M.

[LeSellers]

I would imagine the only line you might have a problem with is "He descended into hell" but other than that the creed is very easy to follow.

Actually, this is key to some of our doctrine. It's what Peter wrote about when he said that Jesus went to the spirit prison and preached to the dead there in order that they could repent and accept the Gospel.

Lehi

[Maureen]

Actually, this is key to some of our doctrine. It's what Peter wrote about when he said that Jesus went to the spirit prison and preached to the dead there in order that they could repent and accept the Gospel.

Lehi

 

OK, then what's so confusing about the rest of the creed?

 

M.

Edited January 3, 2016 by Maureen

[LeSellers]

OK, then what's so confusing about the rest of the creed?

Well, what does the creed mean?

What does "Father" mean? Son?

What is "the holy Christian Church mean?

The words in the creeds are fairly benign, but the catechism that goes along with it is not only confusing, but contradictory.

Lehi

[Jane_Doe]

Seriously? You've gone to great lengths to try to explain your belief on how humankind are children of God with the bottom line being this is all speculation because "We don't know" the specifics. But you think your speculation can be considered knowledge that is less confusing than any of mainstream Christianity's creeds. I can definitely disagree with that. I can honestly say that your explanation of how mankind can be literal children of heavenly parents sounds confusing to me.

 

But since you think creeds are confusing read the Apostles Creed and tell me why you think it's confusing.

 

I believe in God, the Father Almighty,

Maker of heaven and earth.

And in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord,

who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,

born of the virgin Mary,

suffered under Pontius Pilate,

was crucified, died and was buried.

He descended into hell.

On the third day He rose again from the dead.

He ascended into heaven

and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty.

From thence He will come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,

the holy Christian Church,

the communion of saints,

the forgiveness of sins,

the resurrection of the body,

and the life everlasting. Amen 

 

I would imagine the only line you might have a problem with is "He descended into hell" but other than that the creed is very easy to follow.

 

M.

 

The Apostle's Creed I don't have a problem with (granted, I maybe don't have the same understanding of it as some people).  

 

The Nicean Creed and it's Trinity explanation... honestly I find it baffling, and have yet to meet a person whom remotely understands it (including asking dozens of self-proclaimed Trinity believers).  No offense intended, of course.

Edited January 3, 2016 by Jane_Doe

[Maureen]

Well, what does the creed mean?

What does "Father" mean? Son?

What is "the holy Christian Church mean?

The words in the creeds are fairly benign, but the catechism that goes along with it is not only confusing, but contradictory.

Lehi

 

I think you're trying to make this more complicated than it is.

 

The creed's words are not hard to follow, The Father is the Father, the Son is the Son (Christ) and the Holy Spirit is the Holy Spirit. And the holy Christian Church is the holy Christian Church.

 

The creed is also part of what is learned in the Lutheran cathecism.

 

I'll bite - why do you think its contradictory?

 

M. 

[bytebear]

The Apostolic creed is generally in agreement with LDS theology.  Other creeds have some statements of belief that are less so.  But the issue with the creeds isn't necessarily their content, but their origin and requirements by historic Christianity.  Mormons reject them because they are canon not authorized through prophets, and additionally they are so important that one is considered heretical if one does not adhere to them or recognize them as canon. 

 

This reminds me of a story where I was speaking to a friend who objected to Mormons non-use of the cross as a liturgical symbol.  After much debate, he finally acknowledge that salvation was not predicated on a physical liturgical cross in worship practices.  This is the same issue I have with the creeds.  They are not necessarily "wrong" but it is odd to consider them mandatory for worship.

[Maureen]

The Apostolic creed is generally in agreement with LDS theology.  Other creeds have some statements of belief that are less so.  But the issue with the creeds isn't necessarily their content, but their origin and requirements by historic Christianity.  Mormons reject them because they are canon not authorized through prophets, and additionally they are so important that one is considered heretical if one does not adhere to them or recognize them as canon. 

 

This reminds me of a story where I was speaking to a friend who objected to Mormons non-use of the cross as a liturgical symbol.  After much debate, he finally acknowledge that salvation was not predicated on a physical liturgical cross in worship practices.  This is the same issue I have with the creeds.  They are not necessarily "wrong" but it is odd to consider them mandatory for worship.

 

I know that the Apostles Creed is part of the Lutheran liturgy but I wouldn't say that creeds are mandatory for worship. Many Christian churches do not recite creeds during their worship services. Why do you think they are mandatory?

 

M.

Edited January 4, 2016 by Maureen

[Guest]

I know that the Apostles Creed is part of the Lutheran liturgy but I wouldn't say that creeds are mandatory for worship. Many Christian churches do not recite creeds during their worship services. Why do you think they are mandatory?

 

M.

 

They're mandatory in the Catholic Church.  Maybe that's why he thinks they are.

[Guest]

... I wouldn't say that creeds are mandatory for worship...Why do you think they are mandatory?

 

Mormons tend to get the impression that "belief in the Creeds" is mandatory because the parts of the creeds that we as Mormons find incongruous with our doctrines are the very points that many "Creedal" Christians use to accuse Mormons of not being "Real Christians."

Edited January 4, 2016 by Guest

[Jane_Doe]

I know that the Apostles Creed is part of the Lutheran liturgy but I wouldn't say that creeds are mandatory for worship. Many Christian churches do not recite creeds during their worship services. Why do you think they are mandatory?

 

M.

 

I've often been "informed" by creed-believers that I'm "not a Christian" because I don't follow the creeds (particularly Nicene).

Edited January 5, 2016 by Jane_Doe

[Maureen]

I've often been "informed" by creed-believers that I'm "not a Christian" because I don't follow the creeds (particularly Nicene).

 

That could be how they feel, but there is no law or rule that says you have to believe or recite a creed to be a Christian. Creeds tend to promote the Trinity, which is a very important belief/doctrine in mainstream Christianity.

 

M.

[Jane_Doe]

That could be how they feel, but there is no law or rule that says you have to believe or recite a creed to be a Christian. Creeds tend to promote the Trinity, which is a very important belief/doctrine in mainstream Christianity.

 

M.

 

I agree.  But I admit, at points the being told "you're not a Christian" does get wearisome (even if the people saying it are off-base).