LDS LDS Jesus Could Have Lost His Godhood

Peter1000 said:

Show me 100% of Chrsitians that understand the scriptures and the fathers as you do.

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Ah, but has that ever been my standard, or is that something you are once again assuming or putting into my mouth?

Here's the thing, Peter: unlike any of the Fathers or other saints whom you abuse in the name of your religion, I'm here right now. You can ask me what I mean and I'll tell you. But instead of doing that, you very rudely continuously insist that I am saying something that I have never said. In fact, I am confident that if you go through my past posting history in any of the topics we have discussed, you will find me appealing overwhelmingly to the basics held to by all Christians, because it is Mormonism's violation of those very basics that places it outside of being able to plausibly be considered any kind of Christianity. So it would be a bit silly for me (or anyone, really) to say "100% of Christians must understand the Scriptures and the Fathers as I do, or else _____ (something)." That's never the standard. I'm not here to assert the correctness of Orthodoxy over any other type of Christianity, because that's not what we're talking about. I consider it a blessing to share this place with my Christian friends of many different traditions, and even with you and He Is The Way and other non-Christians. I just don't let non-Christians get away with perverting the traditional sources of Christian knowledge to the supposed good of their non-Christian religions. That doesn't mean I'm saying that everyone must agree with me to be Christian. That is entirely unrelated. Any person of any kind can read HH St. Athanasius, or St. Justin Martyr, or any other father and see that you Mormons are doing a hatchet job on them. And when they do, you can't blame me. I don't make you guys make such transparently ridiculous claims that no one else here agrees with. It's not like if a Christian showed up here one day and started agreeing with you Mormons I or anyone else could somehow stop them from doing so. The only rule this board has concerning Mormonism is that you cannot argue that Mormonism is a kind of Christianity, as it does not affirm the Statement of Faith of this website. And none of us here wrote that statement. That was given to us by the Fathers of Nicaea and Constantinople, and to them by the Holy Spirit.

So who are you really against -- me, or Him?

dzheremi said:

Here's how I can tell you are not reading the fathers for illumination's sake, but for the sake of abusing them in propagating your false religion, just as He Is The Way is: You tell your fellow LDS member to "read (St. Justin's) Dialogue with Trypho" after quoting his post which contains a snippet of St. Justin's Dialogue with Trypho! How could you make such a blatant mistake if you actually knew the text? Clearly you people just run to whatever you can when you think that there's something in the early Church (this early Church marred by "apostasy", mind you...funny how that goes out the window as soon as you see some chance to proclaim 'your guy' present in times before he ever actually existed; and you wonder why I compare Mormons and Muslims! ) that supports your view, without considering it in its own context or for its own sake. NO. Everything just exists to buttress your claims and the claims of your guy even if in every other aspect but the shallow quote mining that you do, it would be impossible to present these early sources that way! Notice how "He Is The Way" does not even argue concerning HH St. Athanasius the Aposotlic after being presented with more of the work he himself had quoted, which shows that it is in no way supportive of Mormonism.

Gee, imagine that! You can either take single quotes or single paragraphs out of an early Church writing (the Holy Bible, the Didache, the writings of the Early Church Fathers, etc.) and present them as though they support your view when they actually do not, or you can read the entire work, consider it in its context (which is never Mormonism, as Mormonism did not exist until the modern era), and decide better of it so as to not say something stupid that can be shot down with two seconds of research (even less if you actually know the text that the Mormon is referring to ahead of time; I know HH St. Athanasius' most famous work, On The Incarnation, quite well; HH is probably the most famous Pope in my Church's history, together with St. Mark the Apostle and St. Cyril). It's your choice, Mormons, I just don't understand why you consistently decide to do the former as though no one else around you can also look up those works, read them in their entirety, and see how you are either LYING or deluded.

For you to say that you have 'read' St. Justin's dialogue with Trypho, which I believe even though I don't know what good it does you since you apparently can't remember it when it is right in front of your face and you are quoting a post that contains part of it (again, this is what happens when you're reading the fathers as an ignorant propagandist), makes it all the more obvious that you are deluded or at best engaging in wishful thinking when you say that it is like reading JS in the nineteenth century. Other than the belief in the preexistence of matter (which, as we have discussed in the past, is something that the early Church itself rejected, due to its being inconsistent with the scriptures and the faith that had been received; if you'll remember, St. Justin came to Christianity from a pagan philosophical background, and that is a likely remnant of that background), I don't see anything alike between the two.

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You simply read things differently than I do. Everything I read of the bible and the fathers is a reconciliation of the words given to these men by Jesus and the words given to JS by Jesus. They should be similar, there can be differences but they should be similar.

What father before 130 spoke of no preexisting matter?

Peter1000 said:

You simply read things differently than I do. Everything I read of the bible and the fathers is a reconciliation of the words given to these men by Jesus and the words given to JS by Jesus. They should be similar, there can be differences but they should be similar.

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Of course I don't read it that way, nor would any Christian, as Joseph Smith is not a Christian prophet. Stop trying to make it out to be something personal between you and me. It's not. The fact is that your religion is not Christian, so it doesn't really matter how you would read the scriptures of Christianity or the Christian fathers, except to warn people who are Christians (or otherwise investigating Mormonism) of Mormon manipulation of the Holy Scriptures and the fathers.

You are reading your theology into the past, where it wasn't. Notice again how the entire Church did not accept St. Justin's philosophical speculation concerning the preexistence of matter.

What father before 130 spoke of no preexisting matter?

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Why does it have to be before 130 when the conflict over creation ex-nihilo went on long after St. Justin? Other early writers (who may variously be considered fathers or not, depending on the particular church you're looking at) such as St. Theophilos (+185) and Origen of Alexandria (+253) advanced it. Origen was condemned in his day for this belief, which shows that by the third century it was condemned, at least in Alexandria. By the 4th century, it would be condemned basically everywhere, because of the problems of the association of Platonic thought with the rise of the Gnostics (who were especially prevalent in Egypt, so it makes sense that Egypt took the first hard stance against them, even at the cost of condemning one of her greatest Biblical exegetes).

And anyway, long before any of these figures we have the message in 2 Maccabees 7:23 "I beseech thee, my son, look upon heaven and earth, and all that is in them: and consider that God made them out of nothing, and mankind also".

2 Maccabees was probably written in Alexandria, Egypt c. 124 BC (it concludes with the defeat of the Seleucid general in 164 BC), and is part of the canon of the Old Testament in the Orthodox and Catholic Churches, but not included in the canon by most Protestants (some I believe have it included in a separated section for what they call the 'apocrypha'), or Jews.

So since the 120s Before Christ we have had this message in our scriptures. Is that early enough for you?

If you are actually interested in this topic for its own sake, and not for the puffing up of Mormonism, you could look to the writings of early saints such as St. Irenaeus of Lyons' (130-200) Against Heresies, in which he devotes the tenth chapter of the second book to refuting the pagan philosophical idea of preexistence of matter. Or St. Basil of Caesarea's (330-379) Hexaemeron, which calls the idea of God creating out of preexisting matter "the summit of wickedness" (showing that it was still around at such a late date, but roundly rejected even by those who used a sort of Platonic language and insisted upon a less allegorical/more literal understanding of Genesis, as was the case with this particular saint).

Peter1000 said:

Then 50% of Christians have the same problem as we do. So there is a lot of folks going around thinking they are saved, and they are not because they do not believe in the same Father, Son, or Holy Spirit that you do. So good going, you have eliminated 50% of your friends from being saved.

The Holy Spirit is the Holy Spirit, it testifies of things that are true. It has testified to me that what we teach is true. I believe I have been baptized of the Holy Spirit, you have no say in the matter, only that we will see you in heaven or we won't.

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Your percentage is a lashing out and bogus.
Seems when we tell you the truth that ACCORDING to the Holy BIBLE the Mormons destiny of their eternal soul is not heaven bound--- because you are following a False Prophet . Because of how Joseph Smith professed DIFFERENT "gods" & different Jesus , different heaven, different creation, different Gospel then what IS revealed from the Scripture, you just react by bitterly attacking Christianity , or the basic fundamental Christian teachings of Christianity or the denominations / churches, or born again Christians themselves.

Peter1000 said:

In just this small paragraph, you made 3 mistakes about us.
1) we are not a cult, 20,000,000 people are not a cult. We are a going concern, dynamic and growing with every passing day, all over the world.
2) we do not believe in a secret knowledge of the scriptures.
3) we believe men and women have the opportunity to be gods and goddesses to rule and reign in righteousness.

So get it right and stop telling people wrong things about us.

You never answered my question about your reign. You believe you are going to rule and reign on the earth. Who will you reign over? Will they worship you?

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You want to sift gnats??
Mormonism was created as a corruption of Christian teachings.
1. The definition of a Cult has absolutely NOTHING to do with size.
2. You are twisting it. Give me a break! Mormons do believe that THEY have the spiritual TRUTH and the other Christians don't.
3. Men become gods , women do not become gods like men who rule planets & are worshipped according to the Mormon false teachings.
But WHO cares? They worship different a god & follow a different Jesus and Mormonism does not know the Holy Spirit.
The ETERNAL LORD GOD was Never a man!
it's all deceiving spiritual falsehoods to lead people AWAY from the TRUE JESUS of the BIBLE to the FALSE Christ of Mormonism by the demonic realm, that was the only spiritual realm JS was intouch with.
I can't even believe we are having this conversation about humans becoming "gods" it is such a Satanic deception.
I honestly can't come to grips that any intelligent human would believe this nonsense even logically, but on the other hand, I know that this is what happens when people come under enthrallment of demonic spirits , they will be convinced of anything they have been told.
Other false religions have been deceived by devilish spirits from the demonic realm to believe other falsehoods--> that include Extra-Terestrials , reincarnation, rebirth, Gaia, Witchcraft, native spirituality, becoming ascended masters, multi universes, reaching nirvana, etc, etc..blah blah blah blah----all other Spiritual paths Are Wrong Paths that lead Away from the True GOD of heaven. Only the True Gospel of Christ Jesus SAVES only it is the narrow gate, but ALL other spiritual beliefs are the WIDE gate which leads to God's judgment and spending eternity in hell.

mmksparbud said:

Yes, I've always said God allowed Satan to csrry out his plan---that is a far cry from saying God planned it. He allowed Satan to hurt Job---God did not plan it to injure him. Love requires free will, else it is not love but force. God has plan A--we choose plan B---God goes to plan C--He doesn't run out of plans. It is not that everything that happens is the best thing that could have happened--it is that Gold makes the very best out of what has happened. God can see the end result -- we can not. It was not the end result of what Adam and Eve choose, it is what God could do with their choice---it brought Jesus to our salvation. The torture of Jesus was not the best thing that could have happened, the best thing that could have happened was that Adam and Eve never sinned. But God then did the best thing by then bringing salvation to the world through His Son. God does not force His will, He works out His will through our choices. Is He able to force His will on us?---absolutely---He chooses not to. He does use circumstances to help us to do the right thing---He provided Jonah a fish and time in it to change his mind---Jonah could have just stayed in that fish and died there instead of changing his mind and doing what God wanted. Job could have cursed God and died--he choose not to.

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OK so you believe God had plan A, (A&E with their billions of future children all in a sin free garden, living forever in bliss.) Then satan stepped in with his plan B, (get A&E to partake of the forbidden fruit and introduce sin into the garden, ruin God's A plan, and set in motion satan's B plan.) God then has to rethink and comes up with plan C. (he will save all his children from sin by using his son to atone for their sins and they can have eternal life that way.)

Is this what you believe?

Pedra said:

You want to sift gnats??
Mormonism was created as a corruption of Christian teachings.
1. The definition of a Cult has absolutely NOTHING to do with size.
2. You are twisting it. Give me a break! Mormons do believe that THEY have the spiritual TRUTH and the other Christians don't.
3. Men become gods , women do not become gods like men who rule planets & are worshipped according to the Mormon false teachings.
But WHO cares? They worship different a god & follow a different Jesus and Mormonism does not know the Holy Spirit.
The ETERNAL LORD GOD was Never a man!
it's all deceiving spiritual falsehoods to lead people AWAY from the TRUE JESUS of the BIBLE to the FALSE Christ of Mormonism by the demonic realm, that was the only spiritual realm JS was intouch with.
I can't even believe we are having this conversation about humans becoming "gods" it is such a Satanic deception.
I honestly can't come to grips that any intelligent human would believe this nonsense even logically, but on the other hand, I know that this is what happens when people come under enthrallment of demonic spirits , they will be convinced of anything they have been told.
Other false religions have been deceived by devilish spirits from the demonic realm to believe other falsehoods--> that include Extra-Terestrials , reincarnation, rebirth, Gaia, Witchcraft, native spirituality, becoming ascended masters, multi universes, reaching nirvana, etc, etc..blah blah blah blah----all other Spiritual paths Are Wrong Paths that lead Away from the True GOD of heaven. Only the True Gospel of Christ Jesus SAVES only it is the narrow gate, but ALL other spiritual beliefs are the WIDE gate which leads to God's judgment and spending eternity in hell.

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I know you know what it is like when people come under enthrallment of demonic spirits. We all know how that works when we read the story of the 2nd council at Ephesus on wikipedia. The unjust, revengeful judgements, the harassing of bishops that did not agree with the president of the council.
The bullying, and beatings of people that the president of the council did not like. And finally the murder. Talk about demonic spirits.

Pedra said:

Your percentage is a lashing out and bogus.
Seems when we tell you the truth that ACCORDING to the Holy BIBLE the Mormons destiny of their eternal soul is not heaven bound--- because you are following a False Prophet . Because of how Joseph Smith professed DIFFERENT "gods" & different Jesus , different heaven, different creation, different Gospel then what IS revealed from the Scripture, you just react by bitterly attacking Christianity , or the basic fundamental Christian teachings of Christianity or the denominations / churches, or born again Christians themselves.

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I do not bitterly attack. I use your same logic on you. Are you serious that every Christian thinks exactly how your think? Some of how Christians think is as foreign as what we think.

Maybe not as foreign as we think, but far enough away from you that you would have the same in-your-face blasting to them as you do to us. So really, don't complain of my bitter attack, you are the queen of the bitter attack.

You will not discuss the doctrine, so all you and I can do is attack. Not a good forum for knowledge.

Peter1000 said:

OK so you believe God had plan A, (A&E with their billions of future children all in a sin free garden, living forever in bliss.) Then satan stepped in with his plan B, (get A&E to partake of the forbidden fruit and introduce sin into the garden, ruin God's A plan, and set in motion satan's B plan.) God then has to rethink and comes up with plan C. (he will save all his children from sin by using his son to atone for their sins and they can have eternal life that way.)

Is this what you believe?

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God did not plan for there ever to be sin---sin was already in the universe when Satan took 1/3 of the angels---it did not start with Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve brought sin to mankind. Satan was the originator. I've said everything already several times now---if you have a problem with what I said, then maybe you should state what your problem is. God's ultimate plan for the redemption of man was set in place before the fall, but God let A&E make the decision.

dzheremi said:

If you are actually interested in this topic for its own sake, and not for the puffing up of Mormonism, you could look to the writings of early saints such as St. Irenaeus of Lyons' (130-200) Against Heresies, in which he devotes the tenth chapter of the second book to refuting the pagan philosophical idea of preexistence of matter. Or St. Basil of Caesarea's (330-379) Hexaemeron, which calls the idea of God creating out of preexisting matter "the summit of wickedness" (showing that it was still around at such a late date, but roundly rejected even by those who used a sort of Platonic language and insisted upon a less allegorical/more literal understanding of Genesis, as was the case with this particular saint).

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I read everything in the light of the restored gospel. I try to reconcile my beliefs to what the bible says and what the church fathers say. So yes I would like to address this topic, not for the puffing up of Mormonism, but to reconcile my Mormon beliefs to those of the early church.

Irenaeus would be a person of interest because he falls within the range of early fathers. Martyr is of interest to me because of the same reason. Basil is not as interesting, because he is way past the early fathers and his words are not as valuable because of the apostasy.

So if you have fathers works from 100 to 170, this is the crucial time that I feel that the doctrines of the bible and the doctrines of the fathers should be fairly compatible.

So right now, we have:
1) Justin Martyr (100 - 165)(wrote his First Apologies around 150) The First Apology of JM: Chapter 10. And we nave been taught that He in the beginning did of His goodness, for mans sake, create all things out of unformed matter.

2) Irenaeus (130 - 202)(wrote the Heresies 180) Book 2:10th chapter. The heretics do not believe that God, according to His pleasure, in the exercise of His own will and power, formed all things out of what did not previously exist.

Thus far in our research, we have a tie. Martyr says God created everything from unformed matter, and Irenaeus says he created matter out of nothing.

Martyr was 30 years closer to the apostles and wrote only 17 years after the ascension of Christ.
Irenaeus wrote 47 years after the ascension of Christ.

Justin was a eastern Christian.
Irenaeus was a western Christian.

If you know any other fathers that tell us about the forming of matter within the range of 100-170 let me know, I would be interested.

Phoebe Ann said:

You can't tell a Christian from a non-Christian, therefore you claim "Some of how Christians think is as foreign as what we think." Not all Mormons agree, yet you expect Christians to have zero differences. Does every new convert to Mormonism believe exactly as you do? Does every third-grader of any religion know every single lesson that a senior in high school knows? Does a high school graduate know what a medical doctor knows?

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We can boil it down to these two scriptures:

(Old Testament | Ecclesiastes 12:13 - 14)

13 ¶ Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.
14 For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.

Then we can search the scriptures and seek God in sincere prayer.

Phoebe Ann said:

Off-topic as usual.

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It was an answer to your question:
"Does every third-grader of any religion know every single lesson that a senior in high school knows?"

Yes they can know.

Peter1000 said:

I read everything in the light of the restored gospel. I try to reconcile my beliefs to what the bible says and what the church fathers say. So yes I would like to address this topic, not for the puffing up of Mormonism, but to reconcile my Mormon beliefs to those of the early church.

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Then why are you putting an arbitrary limit on what range you will accept? I would think if you want to do something to prove the prevalence of the idea of pre-existent matter in the early Church, then you would want to look at all such works in which it is addressed, so as to see on which side the consensus falls, and not mistake the early Church for the handful of early writers who address it positively, especially when writers of roughly equal antiquity (e.g., Irenaeus) reject it as pagan philosophy. Do you want the full picture, or only the things that you can reconcile with Mormonism? To be frank, I am not interested in helping you build you testimony for a false religion.

Irenaeus would be a person of interest because he falls within the range of early fathers. Martyr is of interest to me because of the same reason. Basil is not as interesting, because he is way past the early fathers and his words are not as valuable because of the apostasy.

So if you have fathers works from 100 to 170, this is the crucial time that I feel that the doctrines of the bible and the doctrines of the fathers should be fairly compatible.

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Are we to understand from this that you feel the apostasy had taken hold by 170? I ask because St. Theophilos is listed as one who argued for the preexistence of matter (though I can't off the top of my head remember where; he is referenced in various academic papers on the subject, so you'd have to look it up if you want the references to his original material), but he did not succeed Eros as Patriarch of Antioch until c. 169, so that would leave very little time for the 'right doctrine' to be established before everything started going haywire, according to this conception of Church history. I'm not even sure what if anything he had written before 170. His most famous work by far, The Apology to Autolycus, is dated to c. 180 (he is said to have passed away c. 183-85).

Do you see now why I'm trying to tell you that it's foolish to restrict your references this way? You simply cannot make early Church history line up with the Mormon idea of the great apostasy, unless you are willing to be far more flexible in your idea of when it supposedly happened and what it entailed.

So right now, we have:
1) Justin Martyr (100 - 165)(wrote his First Apologies around 150) The First Apology of JM: Chapter 10. And we nave been taught that He in the beginning did of His goodness, for mans sake, create all things out of unformed matter.

2) Irenaeus (130 - 202)(wrote the Heresies 180) Book 2:10th chapter. The heretics do not believe that God, according to His pleasure, in the exercise of His own will and power, formed all things out of what did not previously exist.

Thus far in our research, we have a tie. Martyr says God created everything from unformed matter, and Irenaeus says he created matter out of nothing.

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This is not even how things work. If you are going to study the fathers, you cannot simply pit one against another like a pair of Rock 'Em Sock 'Em robots, so that there is a 'win', 'lose', or 'tie'. As the example of St. Justin should show you, a saint can be recognized as such and still have some of his ideas rejected by the rest of the Church. This was even so during the days of the apostles themselves, as when St. Paul withstood St. Peter to his face, because he was in the wrong concerning his actions with the Judaizing faction from Jerusalem (see Galatians 2). Do we say about that "Well, I guess we have a tie, because St. Paul says this is wrong and St. Peter obviously accepts it"? No! Of course not! That is ridiculous. And so those who wrote so soon after the apostolic times as to be counted reliable, as you say, will not be treated any differently, as it is precisely their closeness to the faith received from the apostles that makes them accurate witnesses to the variety of positions taken in early Christianity. They should also be witnesses, however, to which were ultimately adopted by the whole Church, which were not, and why.

If it were simply a big game of "who was first" or "who had the most people on their side", then presumably we would all be Arians (since the Nicene Creed was written in response to the spread of Arianism, so the Creed is obviously later), and we would follow the mutilated canon of the heretic Marcion (c. 140s), and not the actual canon given to us by our common father HH St. Athanasius the Apostolic (first laid down in the commonly-known 27-book form in his 39th festal letter of 367). Yet that's not what actually happened in either case.

If you think that this is evidence of the "Great Apostasy" at work, then I'll thank you to stop using the Biblical canon you have inherited from the Christian Church (make your own dang Bible), and the theological terms as well (stop talking about "God the Father", and "Jesus the Son" or "Jesus the Savior" or whatever; get your own theological terms). You can't have a "Great apostasy" that is only in effect to the degree that you want it to be, right?

Martyr was 30 years closer to the apostles and wrote only 17 years after the ascension of Christ.
Irenaeus wrote 47 years after the ascension of Christ.

Justin was a eastern Christian.
Irenaeus was a western Christian.

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None of that is what matters. You are missing the point entirely. See above concerning Arius, et al.

If you know any other fathers that tell us about the forming of matter within the range of 100-170 let me know, I would be interested.

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Again, I'm really not interested in strengthening your faith in Joseph Smith's lies, and none of the fathers can be honestly used for that purpose but by a gross misreading and/or misunderstanding of either what they wrote, or the place of their ideas in Christian history, or both. And I do not want to aid you in your gross misrepresentation of the Christian Church and Christian history.

When I said that you should look into these other people if you are interested in the matter for its own sake and not to puff up Mormonism, I meant that. But you apparently can't see how "reading everything in light of the restored gospel" is doing exactly that. Again, I'm not going to help you with that. Put down the BOM and read some actual history, for God's sake. (Seriously.)

Phoebe Ann said:

I asked nothing about anyone's ability. Your post was off-topic and now you want to divert. Have a nice night.

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In fact most of the posts here are off topic.