Thank you for your reply to my question, Peter. I rated it "informative" because you give a detailed answer, but some parts of it are still confusing. Would you mind addressing the following, when you have the time? Thank you.
It is not exactly the same, but it is an extension of this mortal world. The paradisaical side of the spirit world will be busy.
Why do you say paradisaical 'side'? Is the spirit world further divided into paradisaical and non-paradisaical sections? Or is this world in some aspect a part of paradise? I don't understand what this means.
There will be much teaching, because billions of people that came and left mortality never even heard the name Jesus Christ. So they will have to learn in the spirit world what you learned here in mortality.
Is this in the non-paradisaical 'side' of the spirit world, then? Or does Mormonism have a different teaching on paradise than Christianity, whereby people can be in paradise but still need more teaching/information/whatever you'd call it? Because to me it makes no sense to say "these people are in paradise, but they still need to be preached to" (though, again, I'm not sure that's what you mean; in fact, I'm fairly certain you don't mean that, but this is the first I've heard of different 'sides' to the Mormon spirit world, let alone that one them is paradisaical, so that opens up a lot of questions).
Even those in the 'spirit prison' will have the opportunity to learn about Jesus Christ, and the gates will be opened and they will come forth with a knowledge of the Lord for the first time in their life.
So what then does Mormonism make of the harrowing of Hell (written of in, e.g., 1 Peter 4:6), when Christ descended into Hades and preached to those there? Please note that it says that the gospel "has been preached" to the dead, not "will be preached". In Christianity, this is a one-time event, with eternal weight and consequences (e.g., by this
Christ offered life to those who were in the tombs, to borrow from the Byzantine Troparion), such that it doesn't need to be repeated over and over, just as Christ's death (the harrowing of Hell is said to have happened during His time between His death and His resurrection) doesn't need to be repeated over and over for every new generation.
All must have the opportunity to know Christ, not just a few that lived when his name was known and his gospel was known, but all.
His name is known now, and the gospel is known now, and it always has been -- it, like the Church, was never "taken from the earth" by anyone or anything. He is the One of Whom the prophets wrote and foretold, as is confirmed by St. John the Baptist, St. Justin Martyr, and all of the fathers and mothes. There will never be a time when He is not known, as there is never a time when God is without His Word/Wisdom (Logos). So I do not understand this position. Maybe if Christianity had never grown outside of its Middle Eastern/North African cradle this would be a point, but look around you, Peter: there are clearly millions of Christian churches around the world, in every place.
There are half a dozen churches in Antarctica,
and people don't even live there! (It doesn't have a permanent human population, only researchers in some times of the year.) There are Somali Christians even though their country has not had a functioning church or an established Christian presence since 1989 (there are individuals, of course, but it's too dangerous to have a church there now, and the churches that were there have been destroyed in the civil war). They are brave and produce many martyrs at the hands of the Islamists who kill them for having left Islam, as that is the punishment according to Islamic law, and some Somalis are fanatical about being a "100% Muslim nation", so they will kill anyone who leaves or says that's not true, even though it is clearly untrue.
Are you seriously going to tell me that in a world where you will be killed on the spot for being a Christian and people
still come to Christ that there is some kind of need for additional instruction from Mormon missionaries, either now or after death? Do you believe that the Somali martyrs mentioned by name in the video are now in the 'spirit world'. being taught and accepting Mormonism?
The Book of Mormon is not even available in Somali, so how exactly is this accomplished? Are there Somali-speaking angel-missionary-teachers in the spirit world?
This is even happening today in nations where Jesus is not taught, because of the traditions of their fathers. The only way that happens is that this mortal life and the spirit world are part of 'this world'. Then all can come to know Christ.
Name one place in the world where people are not still coming to Christ despite restrictions, please. I just showed you evidence of what people go through in the second most dangerous country to be a Christian in the entire world. My old parish received a Saudi Arabian woman (sadly, after I left, so I never got to meet her), who clearly risked much to come to Christ, as the Saudis are also famously officially a 100% Muslim people (even though they aren't, just as in the Somali case; it is just the idea they have of their nation and people, not the reality on the ground). I don't believe that there is any place where people cannot or do not still come to Christ, even if their circumstances may prevent them from being very public about it (as in Somalia, Saudi Arabia, North Korea, etc).
If this knowledge is gained in the spirit world, then by proxy they receive all the ordinances necessary to have eternal life.
Why is this necessary? I understand that in Mormonism this is how it works, but why is it
necessary? Why does anyone need these 'ordinances', which were unknown before Joseph Smith?
This proxy process is ingenious too, because as we go to the temple and do the proxy baptisms and giving the Holy Ghost and doing the endowment, and sealing in marriage, it help us remember our baptismal covenants, and our endowment promises and our marriage promises, because we hear them time and time again in the temple as we sit in as proxy for those who are in the spirit world. It makes us stronger and stronger in the covenants and promises we made the time we first took on these same covenants and made these same promises.
Alright, well...for the sake of not insulting your true religious belief, I will just remind you that in the past I provided evidence from the fourth century saint St. John Chrysostom that the sects which performed baptism of the dead were extremely bizarre Gnostics who were so far from anything resembling Christianity that the saint found it hard not to laugh at them and their silly ritual (I imagine I can probably find the exact quote and source from looking through my past posts if you need me to, but it was a long time ago and I don't remember the exact thread). Are these the kinds of people you want as your fathers -- the ones who were so far from Christianity that it was laughable, even in the fourth century?
It seems like you have two options: embrace that what Mormonism 'restored' was actually ancient extreme
heresies, and hence you have nothing to do with Christianity and never have, or maintain that by the fourth century the Church had become corrupted to the point that it didn't recognize its own 'pre-apostasy' practices. And that second position will require
period-appropriate evidence (not later 'revelation' JS or anyone else, but things from the time-period in which it supposedly happened among
Christians, not obscure Gnostic sects), because so far all I've seen regarding this particular practice is that it was engaged in by crazy people.
So we look to our fathers and our father look to us and we work hand in hand to build the kingdom of God in the land of the living and in the land of the dead which is an oxymoron meaning the living spirit world.
But see above: if your 'fathers' were actually Gnostics rather than Christians (NB: so-called "Christian Gnostics" were those whose stories incorporated Christian themes and characters, but were clearly following the Gnostic cosmologies and theologies rather than that of the Christian Church...hmmmmmmmm...
), then how is it that you can work for the restoration of their practices? How can you look to them in anything?
I get the feeling that you're sort of trying to 'speak my language' here, theologically, and I do appreciate it and don't intend to make fun of it in any way. That is a serious question regarding just who were the Mormon 'fathers' who you might look to throughout history, if Mormonism is supposed to be the restoration of the ancient Christian faith and Church before its apostasy, as it claims it is and as I'm sure you believe it is.
As you surely know by now, I appreciate historical sources that show what the Church
actually taught and believed, rather than our own (including my own) interpretations of what they
may have believed, which can be way out there if we do not stick to what they have left us (as the Bible tells us to
hold fast to what we are taught, whether by word or by epistle -- 2 Thessalonians 2:15). This is the entire point of relying on them in the first place. But of course this more or less axiomatically takes them to be reliable, which I am sure the Mormon must say that they are not (as by the time of our fathers like the uncontroversially-accepted saints HH St. Athanasius the Apostolic, or St. Basil, or St. Gregory, etc., the 'Great Apostasy' must've been underway, or else you would be confessing the Nicene Creed along with the Church). I know you can guess what my response to that would be, so instead I would just like to ask that if you know so surely that our (the Christian Church's) fathers are unreliable and affected by the 'Great Apostasy', then how can you know with a similar level of certainty that the same is not true of your own fathers, if you do indeed have a history that reaches back to pre-'Apostasy' Christianity? In other words, I want names and examples and explanations of particular people from early Church/pre-'Apostasy' history (i.e., not JS and Co.) who you would consider to be teaching Mormonism, and why they are reliable in the view of your religion. Since you are now appealing to fathers, please produce them and explain them.
Thank you.
