QUOTE="smaneck, post: 68387941, member: 269871"]Mind you, I am asking Mormons this question not Nicean Christians. I'd like to see a genuine discussion of Mormon beliefs and practices as defined by Mormons themselves, not its detractors. And I hope we will all observe the rule about not degrading, belittling or mocking the religion of others. And please, no anti-Mormon vids.
Specifically I would like to know answers to the following questions:
Does God have a physical body?
If so, does He have white skin?
Does God live on another planet?
Does God have multiple wives?
I hope you will answer these questions in the spirit in which they are asked and I hope Christians will refrain from jumping all over members of the LDS.
Thank you.[/QUOTE]
These are interesting & fair questions. From a Mormon's perspectives, one that is a researcher, not an official representative, I offer some of my own insights here. First, to understand the bigger picture & whole point in having a physical body. 1st: Mormons believe that the gospel taught by Christ & his apostles was restored & refreshed by modern prophets & apostles, beginning with the Prophet Joseph Smith. Restored was not only doctrines & beliefs, but the spiritual gifts & positions of leadership, as in Christ's church, they were also restored too, (1 Cor. 12-13, Eph. 4:7-14, etc.) Thus, through modern revelation to modern Prophets & Apostles, the early beliefs have been clarified, & also enlighted, & the horizons of knowledge have been extended because of new revelations. The
restoration of the gospel has thus been interpreted & re-interpreted throughout Mormon history, as further clarifications have been offered & speculations on meanings offered by early to later leaders, members & LDS scholars. Some of those beliefs & speculations have been vilified by critics, & thus have been responded to, & repeatedly responded to as new insights come along.
One of the early beliefs was that Christ was in the image of God the Father, as man & women are in the image of God the Father, & Goddess the Mother. During the creation, there being a male & female made in "our" (plural) image, thus Adam (Male) & Eve (Female). The idea of a
family in heaven, as there is a family on earth, is part of the whole on going drama, (Eph. 3:15). Families often consisting of Fathers, Mothers, daughters & sons. As this earthly family has a long line of fathers & mothers that goes back through the generations, so also the family in heaven. (Eph. 3:15; Gen. 2:4-5). Mormon scholars & researchers have noted how earlier bibles begin with the concepts about a
family in heaven before the creation of the earth. In the generations of the heavens, before there was a man on the earth, (Gen. 2:4-5), lived the spirit sons & daughters of the
Divine Parents.
Divine Parents that have physical glorified perfected bodies. The pre-Adam life as spirits, is called
the pre-existence. In the
pre-existence, the spirits there had their free agency to choose to progress or retrogress. To have different types of life experiences by descending down to the world, earth, that was created for the purpose of offering a
physical world to live out a
physical life, as each spirit was thus to be sent down to gain their own
physical body through the birthing process. Even Christ went through this, being the only begotten Son of God in the flesh. But he is also the
first born spirit Son of God, in the family in heaven, & is even called the
first born in scriptures & in some of the writings of the early Christian fathers. (
Shepherd of Hermas, for example).* As the first born, he was in council with God the Father before the physical creation. Thus, Christ is called a fellow-council member with the Father. The whole point of us humans in being born into each our own physical body, was so that we could experience & learn physical lessons, & become as "one of us" the Divine Parents, in learning new experiences what we couldn't have learned, while just spirits. Thus, we have a physical body because God the Father & Mother each have their own separate physical bodies, but theirs' are glorified & perfected, ours' are not. But will eventually be resurrected, glorified & perfected, each according to the degrees of glory mentioned (1 Cor. 15). Christ being the highest example of
the whole process of deification, glorification, & the changes that came about in his physical body, born to Mary, growing up, & the resurrection, after his death on the cross, three days later, (1 John 3:1-3). The passages in the New Testament that make reference to Christ, as the only begotten son of God, are interpreted as being literal. (Even the early anti-Christians, like Celsus, 2nd cent., must have known this was interpreted as literal, for he mocked Christ's literal birth as being done by sex! Saying that Mary must have been such a beautiful woman for God the Father to want to have sex with her. (A. S. Garretson,
Primitive Christianity And Early Criticism, (Boston: Sherman, French & Company, 1912), R. Joseph Hoffmann, (translator)
Celsus On The True Doctrine, (A Discourse Against the early Christians), (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987). The references to the human family being sons & daughters of God are literal in that we are spirit sons & daughters. Christ sometimes also made reference to his Father & our Father in heaven as being & meaning that Christ's Heavenly Fathers is also ours. Which is why he had us pray, "Our Father, which art in heaven." The Jews didn't like Christ use of Abba-Father, for that is what the Jews called their own fathers. One of their complaints was how Christ was claiming he was the actual son of God the Father. To the Jews, this was one reason why Christ was "guilty" & should be punished, & crucified.
[Note *
The Shepherd of Hermas, tells how, Christ: "The Son of God is indeed more ancient than any creature; insomuch that he was in council with his Father at the creation of all things."
Hermas 3, Similitude 9:110, in
The Lost Books of the Bible & the Forgotten Books of Eden, (USA: World Bible Publishers, Alpha House, Inc., 1926), p. 255. Another translation reads: The Son of God is older than all His creatures, so that He was a fellow-councillor with the Father in His work of creation: for this reason is He old.
The Shepherd of Hermas, Book 3, Similitude 9, chapter 12.]
These early beliefs, of the physical aspects of "god(s)" evenually fell under attack & were rejected by the Jews, Greeks, Romans & others who couldn't accept the literalness of the doctrines. To the Jews, Christ being a man who maketh himself God, this was blasphemy, (John 10:24-39). To those who had anti-body beliefs, a physical resurrection was strange & to be rejected. In time, the physical aspects of the Godhead was challenged, rejected by many & argued over for centuries. How God the Father & His Son, Jesus Christ, & the Holy Spirit were to be depicted in art, became difficult issues too. Thus, symbolism & other ways to de-humanize God the Father, as not having a physical body, but spirit only, these became later issues & points of debates in later centuries of Christendom. The Godhead was depicted in art according to the Nicene Creed decrees, which resulted in different types of interesting symbols. The
three in one Godhead was thus later depicted as three rabbits in a triangle shape design, three triangles, three circles joined, three heads on one body, three faces on one headed body. But also three separate men, three identical men, three different aged men. Or just the hand of God extending, the dove, & Christ. The physical aspects of God the Son, also became issues to debate over. As Christianity spread, each culture often would depict Christ according to their own races. I've seen, for example, numerous examples of an Asian looking Christ. In Black homes, I've been in, I've seen Black versions of Jesus looking like an African-male. The Germans & English have their "Aryan-Christ" a white-man, & so forth. But these are just art works according to cultural representations.
When the restoration came about during the 1830s onwards, the modern prophets have testified that God the Father & Christ are separate beings with glorified & perfected resurrected bodies of flesh & bone, & that we are made in their images. Thus, the earlier issues still being argued over, have been a point of religious polemics between Mormons restored versions, & the traditional versions passed down through the centuries amongst Christians.
As to God being a polig., that is only speculative in the comments made by earlier Mormon leaders. The comments made during LDS days of poligamy, are often used by critics who continue to want to vilify Mormons in general. Why aren't Christians being bugged for their earlier Old Testament prophets' polig lives & wives, like Mormons are? It's ironic, especially when bible believing Christian-anti-Mormons continue to use this issue!
Does God live on another planet? Mormons can only speculate on that one, as Christians might also, for where is the resurrected Christ now living? Somewhere in the heavens? Who knows? For Christ to one day return, suggest that he's out there somewhere in time, space & realms. We know from early to later Christian history & art work that Christ travels & wanders the whole world, & goes in & out of different realms of existences too. He descended to earth to be born, he descended into the underworld (called also: hell, limbo, purgatory, the abyss, the pit), he ascended into paradise, & into heaven too (interestingly, a lot of depictions of Christ's ascension, show just the hand of God the Father extending down to clasp the hand or wrist of Christ's hand, as Christ is welcomed into heaven). Then, after his resurrection, Christ wanders, or went to visit many areas of the world too. So where does a physical God, a resurrected God live & stay? Who knows.
As for the Book of Mormon's & other racial issues in Mormonism: Earlier Mormons were converts from different Christian sects. These different sects had their own racial beliefs that might have been so ingrained that some elements could have been the influences as to how converts to Mormonism looked upon the different races during the 19th & 20th centuries. Some of these Christian beliefs & superstitions were how the color black was associated with evil, the devil & demons. Demons & the devil, in art, lore & legends, were depicted wtih black skins, sometimes as a black man. Even centuries earlier, black skins were said to be the results of pre-mortal sins done during the pre-existence. Thus, if someone was born blind (John9:2), or with black skin, it was an early Christian belief that survived down to later centuries, that such a ones were so born as a consequences of their pre-mortal sins. In attempting to stop these beliefs, Emperor, Justinian threatened to anathma all those who taught that those born with black skins was a results of pre-mortal sins. He did this during the Council of Constantinople, 553 AD. But, by this time, Christendom had been flooded with the beliefs that later had ripple effects down through the centuries to the days of slavery.
Black skins turning white, or white turning black: These Book of Mormon concepts could best be understood in light of
studies on ancient ritualistic garment color symbolisms. Anciently, ritualistic garments were often made out of animal skins, thus to have your "skins" whitened, or blacked meant that the person was either racking up the spots, dirt, blood stains of sins to the point of blackening their "skins." Or they were changing their evil ways to thus have their "skins" purified, whitened, cleasned, washed, & changed for
white garments. The ritualistic types of these typologies are found in many cultures, but more so in historic Jewish, Christian & Book of Mormon typologies. Thus, what was once thought could be literal, by earlier LDS, as to actual racial skin changes in colors, is now being considered to be symbolic, & ancient ritualistic types.
While Mormons have a restored version on a
Mother in Heaven, as part of that family in heaven. Christendom has their own versions of a Mother in Heaven in the Santa Maria, the Virgin Mary. She is often depicted in art along the whole deification process. When her souls is passed on from Christ's hands, her soul is wrapped in a white garment, she passes through a heavenly cornation ceremony on her way to being crowned, enthroned & seated next to the other members in the Godhead, as the Queen of Heaven. She is deified as one in many deified female saints whom also became goddesses in historic Christian versions of deification, theosis & Christian moral perfection. Thus, though different than Mormons' restored version of exaltation, Christendom has their own versions.
Bibliography:
Alice K. Turner, 1993,
The History of Hell, (New York, San Diego, U.S.A.; London, England: Harcourt Brace & Company).
Angelo S. Rappoport, Ph. D.,
Ancient Israel Myths and Legends, (New York: Bonanza Books, 1987), 3 in 1 vols.
Anna D. Kartsonis,
Anastasis, The Making of An Image, (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1986).
A. S. Garretson,
Primitive Christianity And Early Criticism, (Boston: Sherman, French & Company, 1912).
R. G. Hamerton-Kelly, (Professor of the New Testament McCormick Theological Seminary, Chicago),
Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series 21,
Pre-Existence, Wisdom And The Son of Man, A Study of the Idea of Pre-existence in the New Testament, (Cambridge University Press; Cambridge, Great Britain, 1973).
Robert Louis Wilken,
The Christians As The Romans Saw Them, (Yale University Press; New Haven and London, 1984).
Roland H. Bainton,
Behold the Christ, (1974).
Stephen Benko
, Pagan Rome And The Early Christians, (Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1984).
Vincent Cronin,
Mary Portrayed, (London, England: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1968).
William G. Rusch,
The Trinitarian Controversy, (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1980).
William G.T. Shedd, D.D.,
A History of Christian Doctrine, (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, third edition, 1883).
DT rough draft article about
Christ's world wide treks.