If God the Father has a Father, and if the concept of “Godhead” isn’t infinitely expandable to include all Gods, then our Father belongs to two Godheads, one of which Jesus is not a part of. If God the Father does have a Father, and if the Godhead is infinitely inclusive of all exalted Gods, then the Godhead that is “one” is potentially comprised of an infinite number of Gods.
Also, if Jesus becomes a Heavenly Father with his own “Firstborn Son”, and if the concept of “Godhead” isn’t infinitely inclusive of all Gods, then Jesus will belong to a Godhead that our Father doesn’t belong to.
If the concept of “Godhead” isn’t infinitely inclusive of all Gods, just how many Godheads can a God in the Mormon universe belong to?
Can you imagine Jesus saying to the Father, “I’ll be hanging out with my other Godheads this weekend”?
live4jc wrote:
“So [Adam & Eve] eat the fruit, and according to LDS doctrine, now they can be like God because they know good from evil. They even quote Genesis 3:22 to prove this belief. So ultimately Satan was telling the truth and God was lying. Satan is the author of their salvation because he is the one who gave them the truth allowing them to know right from wrong and be like God.”
Wow, sorry but this is a perversion of what the LDS Church, and all of its leaders, have always taught. Satan lied saying they would not die. So God did tell the truth. God, not satan, then goes on to say they ARE in fact become like the gods, knowing good and evil. To say this incident and passage make satan the author of our salvation is a horrible distortion. The book of Mormon, in a verse often quoted in part by non-LDS critics, says:
23 For we labor diligently to write, to persuade our children, and also our brethren, to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God; for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do…
26 And we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins. (2 Nep 25:23, 26)
Doesn’t sound like we look to satan to me. Where is a source of a leader or scripture which has taught as you assert? I think this could be fruitful to see how you justify your position.
BTW, renowned anti-Christian, pagan endorsing http://www.Crosswalk.com lists multiple versions of Bibles which think having the most accurate Bible text translated is a good idea. Of course, us pagans probably corrupted all of them too, huh? NRSV, ESV, NET, NLT. As NET translation note says: ““Sons of God” is undoubtedly the original reading; the MT and LXX have each interpreted it differently.” Yes, all those pagans. http://net.bible.org/verse.php?book=Deu&chapter=32&verse=8
Heiser’s affirmation of “many divine beings” only comes after expanding and loosening the very definition of “divine”. So Mormons end up equivocating and misleading by using Heiser, for example, to imply the Old Testament somehow allows for the idea that any other of these divine beings were of the very same species as Yahweh, or to imply that the Old Testament does not preclude the idea that God the Father was once a horrific, wretched, embarrassing sinner before he somehow became a God.
Anyhow, the same question I had for Mantis I have for Vook/Robert:
Which position do you take, that of many Godheads, or just one giant Godhead with millions of upper-case-G Gods? Does your Father belong to one or many Godheads?
Or put it this way: If the Father has a Father, does that indicate the existence of multiple Godheads, or simply that the Godhead has more than three Gods?
Or at the very least, if we can become Gods, does that indicate the existence of multiple Godheads, or simply that the Godhead has more than three Gods?
By the way, Ralph, I really appreciated your forthright answer on the whole topic of the original post. While I disagree with you the straightforward comment only increases my respect for you.
Yeah Vook, that BoM passages that quotes from Ephesians 2:8,9 (and distorts it by the way) and speaks of Christ (Anglicanized Greek xristos) couldn’t have come from the KJV bible that JS had access to. It’s pretty coincidental that Nephi quotes Paul about 600 years before he was born and before the Greek language even existed. Before you give me the FAIRLDS excuse for why NT verses appear in the BoM, remember that JS did not “interpret” the BoM using language of his day which was filled with biblical phraseology. The reformed Egyptian symbol appeared on his rock, then the English phrase appeared. If it was not written correctly then in would not disappear until it was correct. JS “translated” while the plates were “hid up in the woods”, so his supposed interpretation is not valid.
As far as the translations of Deut 32:8 goes, it’s your eisegesis that insists that “sons of God” or “children of God” means other deities, not the intent of the writer of the scripture. Those who use those texts to support their pagan beliefs are the pagans, not the biblical texts or those that use the biblical texts according to its grammatical historical reading. The NRSV is the only translation that I could find that renders it “according to the number of the gods.” The last two words in verse 8 of the LXX are “angelon Theou” (8 ὅτε διεμέριζεν ὁ ῞Υψιστος ἔθνη, ὡς διέσπειρεν υἱοὺς ᾿Αδάμ, ἔστησεν ὅρια ἐθνῶν κατὰ ἀριθμὸν ἀγγέλων Θεοῦ), which has been rendered “sons of God.” That hardly points to the angels or messengers of God as being gods themselves.
Falcon,
The Bible is not clear on who God is. That is why there are at least 4 different views on who God is from the Bible. That is the whole reason for the meeting in Nicea 1600 years ago, because of all the different ideologies about who God was at that time. There are even Christian groups today that believe in the Trinity, but have the courage to say that the doctrine of the Trinity is not found in the Bible but is an interpretation of the Bible only. So you show the same tenacity as us LDS do with holding onto the belief system you have bought into and the topic is closed with your fact that you are right and anyone else who does not believe the same as you (ie the LDS) are not.. And thus your mind is closed.
RickB,
There is none greater than Heavenly Father for us and His creation. Did you not read what I have written about families? Are you going to tell me that your father is a greater authority over your wife and children than you are? Does your father make the rules and determine the punishment in your house? Does he tell them what to do and they have to follow it, even if you are trying to get them to do something different? The same goes for the LDS belief – there is none other sovereign/higher than Heavenly Father – He is the only authority for us. So He did not lie when He said there is none higher than He.
Now if you are going to say that it was Jesus talking in that verse its fine. Jesus is Heavenly Father’s mouthpiece and mediator between Him and man. As such He has the authority to talk for Heavenly Father and say things in the first person. Just like an emissary when reading out a king’s words (or reciting them) can speak in the first person for the king.
vook,
I went to your website. Is there a way to dialogue? Or, is it just your opinions your presenting without discussion?
Peace…
Ralph,
We all know that the trinity, as a word, is not in the Bible. I don’t see what you’re trying to get at. The idea of trinity has evolved based on biblical studies. It is man’s way of trying to describe God as revealed through the biblical text. Personally, I have no problem saying that I haven’t a clue how the Trinity works. It’s what is called “mystery.” It’s something my finite mind can’t wrap itself around. But, I will believe in something I can’t truly grasp as opposed to believing in the nonexistent god taught by JS. You believe what he taught, which is that God had a beginning, and that there was a time when He was not God. That, Ralph, is pure heresy. He taught that God merely organized pre-existing materials rather than creating “ex nihilo.” Again, more heresy. So, you quibble about the Trinity, which is rooted in biblical study, and choose to believe in a god that has been invented by a false prophet so he could teach the false doctrine that men can become gods. He taught a god that has not the power to save souls, but needs help by the souls he died for, which is their good works. You should praise God for His prevenient grace, for while you pray to a god that doesn’t exist, the True God understands you have been misled and still listens to your prayers. He’s amazing that way. He extended His grace to me while I prayed to the false god taught by JS. He’s bringing you the Truth, Ralph. As you read what the Christian posters write, you are experiencing God’s grace as He uses His human servants to reveal the Truth of God’s Word to you. I know it’s a tough thing to admit that you’ve been believing a lie all your life, but God will bring you through it, Ralph. It takes courage, but God will equip you with the courage you need.
Praying for you…
I think Aaron’s quite right to chip away at his query.
I mean, if the orthodox Judeao/Christian tradition has got it wrong with its “One God” idea, then what’s right?
Sigh, if only we had a living prophet who could talk to these Gods and explain it all to us.
I’m going to burn a few quick posts here…
What a terrible bind she’s in! If the LDS revelations are to be believed, then firstly, she’s got to share her husband with a number of other heavenly mothers.
I guess her and Heavenly Father hook up every nine months or so, then she gets the joy of being pregnant. I’m not knocking the pregnancy/motherhood thing, but what happens next? Her spirit children get transported to earth, where they are not allowed to speak to her. They aren’t even allowed to talk about her.
Ralph and other Mormons I have talked to use the “human family” metaphor to “prove” the “heavenly family” and the relationship between us, Heavenly Father, Heavenly Mother(s) and heaven knows what other cousins, half brothers, step-sisters there might be.
The relationships that this metaphor tries to prove are anything but heavenly, especially the situation that Heavenly Mother finds herself in. Its as if she were locked away in a back-room by a capricious and cruel Heavenly Father, condemned to be separated from her children. In this context, I am reminded of Jer 31:15, as quoted in Matt 2:18
Henotheism in the Bible
OK, firstly let’s acknowledge that the Bible is not a homogeneous block of text, but it was accumulated over a long period of time by a large number of different people from a variety of sources (the counter-orthodox guys would like that).
So, it should not be a surprise if it presents a variety of perceptions when it addresses “other” gods. I mean, we can probably run the full spectrum from “other” gods being an existential reality to something that someone considers to be a “god” (as in the modern idiom that refers to elite sportsmen as “gods of sport”, or whatever).
Further, if some of Biblical texts were adapted from pagan traditions, it should not be unexpected to see “relics” of those traditions in the texts. The most obvious would be the retention of a plural term to describe the Divine dimension (e.g. “Elohim”).
For example, there are striking parallels between the Flood narrative in Gen 7-9 and the tale of Utnapishtim in the Gilgamesh Epic. However, these traditions use the tale to present mutually exclusive views of heaven. Genesis presents a singular God who directs events to redeem humanity, Gilgamesh presents a bickering family who don’t like human beings.
This point seems to be lost on the counter-orthodox guys. Even if the Biblical texts were derived from pagan traditions, and even if they retain some relics of those traditions, then we still need to acknowledge that they were captured and subordinated to a monotheistic agenda.
Substitute “story” for arguments, pretentions and thoughts and…
2 Cor 10:5
Polytheism and polygamy
Finally, we need to wonder why Joseph Smith abandoned the monotheism of the BoM and headed towards the polytheism of the Book of Abraham.
To me, the dots are so closely spaced they almost join themselves; JS needed to introduce the idea of a Heavenly Father with multiple Heavenly Wives to justify his accumulation of multiple earthly wives.
Joseph Smith had good reasons to introduce a polytheistic agenda; about 34 in fact, starting with Fanny Alger.
Just to make a comment about me saying that its my opinion – I question things and research and come up with my own conclusions based on the research. I especially did this as a teenager. One of the things I came up with turned out to be totally incorrect. It took me a couple of years to find that out. During that time I never said anything about what I thought, I kept it to myself. When I found out I was wrong after reading a talk from one of the GAs, I thought how lucky I was that I didn’t tell anyone and now have to face them and tell them it was wrong.
So here, I give my opinion and make sure you all know it is my opinion and it could be wrong. As far as why there is no info about some things – we are only told by the GAs what we need for our salvation. That is all we find in the scriptures. That is why we are told that Heavenly Father went through something similar to us, but are given no details – all we need for our salvation is that He knows what we are going through and can help and identify with us to help us to get where we are going. That is why we say that all references in the scriptures to one God are for this creation only – and that is taking it in the right context.
JackG,
I never said anything about the word ‘Trinity’, I said that doctrine is not found in the Bible. It’s good to see that you are willing to admit that the doctrine came from an evolution of thought based on the Bible, rather than it being in the Bible. That’s a healthy step towards the truth. that’s more than others on this site are willing to do.
Ralph,
jackg has done a good job answering your address to me so I won’t do a rerun. But here’s the thing Ralph, you know that the LDS church lies in what it says about the purpose of Nicaea and you also know that the position of the Church from the time of the apostles and the subsequent Church Fathers was that of monotheism; One God, three distinct persons, the doctrine that was labeled the Trinity. You’re problem Ralph is that you deal in incomplete information and suppositions that are based on your false Mormon belief system. You need to get some better sources for information.
BTW, I have sitting on top of my stack Issue 85 Winter 2005 of Christian History titled “Debating Jesus’ Divinity: The Council of Nicaea and its bitter aftermath”. You see Christians are straight forward and honest about the history of the Church and it’s teachings where as the LDS church sees fit to deal in half truths, innuendo and creative storytelling; not to mention sanitizing its history and leaders.
You need to get serious Ralph and get a grip on what Mormonism is all about and how it isn’t even heresy but a cultic religion.
Ralph,
You said,
” ….we are only told by the G.A.’s what we need
for our salvation.”
Therein lies your problem Ralph. Evaluating what
your G.A.’s have said about God, and salvation,
reveals a very clear pattern: they have proven
to be unreliable in their interpretation of the
Scriptures.
Also, I think you may have misunderstood what
Jackg said about the Trinity.The word vrs the
doctrine etc.
Martin,
Your comments on Heavenly Mother were great.
Pretty well sums that LDS doctrine up.
One thing that is pretty clear and that is that the LDS church is more comfortable with heretics then it is with historical orthodox Christianity. And even at that, the LDS church wouldn’t be all that comfortable in the heretic camp. The reason of course is that the LDS types never seem to be able to provide any evidence that even the heretics believed or practiced Mormonism. We know the primitive Church didn’t so Mormonism is left sort of floating out there on its own without a home. Which of the heretics proclaimed millions and billions of gods, that men will progress to becoming gods, that polygamy must be practiced to achieve super duper deification status and that putting a magic rock in a hat and putting one’s face in the hat is a sure fire technique to finding truth and enlightenment.
Let’s face it, Mormons don’t know how to interpret scripture or even draw proper conclusions from Church histories.
Mormons are so duped by Smith’s hocus pocus and creative tale telling that any kind of logical thinking is not in their program. To them, the LDS church is true so don’t sweat the details.
Now one would think that if any religious group, heretic or orthodox Christian, would have been practicing Mormonism, we’d get at least a hint of this. Like all things Mormon, it’s pretty tough, dare I say impossible, to find Mormonism any where. Has anyone ever uncovered a Christian temple where the members practiced Free Masonry rituals? Can a case be made for an office in the early Church for the Mormon priesthood? The NT clearly lays out the offices/positions and the gifts, but no Mormon priesthood. Zippo!
And is there any Mormon teachings regarding the existence of multiply gods that came to be as a result of doing certain activities to progress to becoming gods? No! Using Mormon methods and logic, a case can be made for just about anything because it’s based on “revelation” which sounds like a pretty exciting technique except that it’s unreliable as practiced by Mormonism.
We have a good paper trail regarding what the Church went through in the process of articulating the doctrine of the nature of God. It’s all out there to be examined by anyone who’s willing to take a serious look at it. Unfortunately, Mormons are incapable of doing just this. Mormons can’t prove their view on the nature of God by trying to disprove the doctrine of the Trinity. All they can do is argue against the orthodox point-of-view. This doesn’t make their point of millions and billions of gods and men becoming gods and ruling their own planetary systems along with their multiple wives who they procreate spirit children into eternity.
No, Mormonism is the brain child of an occultist with a magic rock who kind of made it up as he went along and was able to find gullible enough people to embrace his warped fantasy.
My reaction to Henotheism (this will take 3 posts…)
Dear sirs,
Please save me from the current gods in our universe.
You may or may not know what’s been happening down here, but I am appealing to you to save me from the current management. It’s incompetent and it keeps interfering with my efforts to ascend to heaven, where I hope to join you.
Firstly, let’s address the problem of which of these gods we are talking about. It’s a profound problem for us to identify the main culprits because when we asked one his name, he just replied with some garbage about how he didn’t need a name because he was whatever he was (1). Surely you gave him a name, so I trust you will know whom we are talking about.
What makes it more confusing is that the Father appears to have passed on this secret name to his Son (2). I can only presume that this was a poisoned chalice and the Father wants the Son to carry the blame for the mess he created. What else is the meaning of the scapegoat (3)?
Thankfully, one of your appointed prophets, Milton R Hunter, has detailed the program needed to ascend to heaven, stating that God became God…by absolute obedience to all the eternal laws of the Gospel (4).
That’s fair enough, but the clowns who are currently in charge, cannot make up their minds about which laws are actually eternal. Firstly there was physical circumcision, brought to us through Abraham (5), then we were told that we don’t need to be circumcised but we actually need faith (whatever that is) (6). More recently, we were told that we need to get several wives to ascend to heaven (7)(8), but now we are encouraged to keep only one.
Be assured, I intend to hit all these targets. Even so, the current regime seems unable to acknowledge the efforts of even the best of us (9), which is a sad indictment of their shoddy record-keeping.
…ctd…
…ctd…
Secondly, there is obviously some internal friction in the current management. One of them (we can’t be sure which one) has repeatedly claimed that he’s the only one (10), which can’t possibly be true if you’re reading this letter. We are at a loss as to why the others did nothing to correct this gross misinformation. Most probably they were inexperienced, and were still learning the job at hand.
Now, I’m not objecting to some standing instructions that say we should only deal with one of them (every organization needs its line of command), but if we should only deal with the Son, why does the Father keep sticking his finger into the pie? Or vice versa? And if that’s not enough, it seems that the cousins turn up and stick their fingers into the pie on occasion, too (11). Can you do something to stop these various parties from interfering with each other? Obviously, the current managers are incapable of doing it by themselves.
Finally, the nail in the coffin for these incompetents has to be the episode when the Son came to visit our planet. We all know that it was his job to recruit some disciples, and organize a Church that would stand the test of time. Instead, the Father arranged it so the Son got killed before he could complete this critically important task.
Despite the Father’s rather cruel machinations, the Son had obviously earned enough credit to pull a neat trick and resurrect himself back to life, thus cheating the Father of a well-earned victory. It seems that the Father was not too pleased about this, and after a short period of forty days, pulled the Son back out of our world before he could do any further damage (12).
…ctd…
Following this debacle, both the Father and the Son have remained distant, preferring to communicate to us through the medium of the Holy Ghost. Though we know that this “Holy Ghost” is simply an impersonal projection of the power of the Father and the Son, some of the early disciples seemed to treat it as if it were a “him” (13). Their confusion only demonstrates the conflicting communications we have been getting from the Father and the Son.
Be that as it may, it is plainly evident that the communications to earth have been garbled, as if Father and Son were squabbling over the correct transmission frequency, or the correct mix of ingredients. The evidence is plain to see, because the plain and precious Gospel had been driven from the earth for about 1800 years (14) until one of our own managed to “tune in” to the right transmission. What a waste! Thank goodness our people have started to fix up the mess that the Father and Son have created.
I trust that you can see our quandary. We have been subject to a management that has completely baffled the best of us by their incompetent communications, and they have played dangerously with our precious salvation with their experimentations (some of which ended disastrously). It is only the efforts of some of our own that have saved us from total annihilation.
I sincerely doubt that the current gods will listen to my complaints. I therefore appeal to a higher authority, to you, to save me from them.
Your humble servant,
Wormwood
…ctd…
References for the above;
(1) Exodus 3:13-14
(2) Phil 2:9
(3) Lev 16:21-22
(4) Milton R Hunter on eternal progression, from an LDS website, citation needed.
(5) Gen 17:10
(6) Romans 3:30
(7) Doctrines and Covenants 132
(8) Brigham Young, “The only men who become Gods, even the Sons of God, are those who enter into polygamy”, Journal of Discourses 11:269, 1866
(9) Romans 4:2
(10) Deut 32:39, Isaiah 43:11, Isaiah 45:22
(11) Inferred from the use of “Elohim” as a plural word for “gods” in Psalm 82:1
(12) Acts 1:9
(13) Eph 4:30
(14) James E Talmadge, Articles of Faith
Ralph,
Healthy steps toward the Truth, guided by the Holy Spirit, led me out of Mormonism. Even thought the word “Trinity” is not found in the Bible, the concept is. Let’s examine a foundational Mormon doctrine: God was once a man. Not even is there no word for this, but the concept is not to be found in the Bible.
So often, Mormons refer to the early church fathers as men doing their own thing. This presupposes that Jesus lied and that the Comforter did not lead humanity in all truth. Mormons refer to such men as evil and wicked who took away precious truths from the Bible. What these men did was work from within the parameters of the biblical text, with none of them refering to themselves as a living prophet. JS worked from outside the parameters of the biblical text, and to do this he had to proclaim himself to be a prophet of God and to develop the 8th AOF.
So, Ralph, I pray that you have the courage to take healthy steps toward the Truth. When you do, you will find that you cannot help but walk away from the Mormon Church.
Martin,
Excellent posts!! Keep up the good work. I also love the writings of C.S. Lewis. Can you imagine the startling cry when Mormons realize that God is neither male nor female, but God, and that He embodies both masculine and feminine qualities? Adam was of the same cloth, and Eve is the perfect complement since she was taken from Adam. But, that’s another discussion.
Falcon,
Keep on plugging away, friend. Your thoughts are clearly communicated!
Blessings…
The Mormons and Jehovah Witnesses and other cults that are critics of the divinity of Jesus love to attack the Council of Nicaea as some sort of tool of imperial manipulation. They are fond of looking to this gathering of Christian Bishops and not the Bible as the source of the doctrine of the Trinity. In typical cult fashion, they do a brain flip and charge that the Council was a triumph of heresy over orthodoxy rather than the opposite.
So in the cult narrative, the Emperor Constantine forced the Bishops at the Council to accept the word “homoousios” as a descriptor of the equal divinity of the Father and the Son.
So who was running that show anyway, the Emperor or the Bishops of the Church? The Emperor had power, there’s no doubt about that. But when it came to matters of faith, there were clear boundaries regarding where the power and authority of one stopped and the other began. There are four points that summarize the relationship that existed between the Emperor’s and all of the convened Councils.
1. The Emperors convened the Councils. The organization and proceedings were a pattern of the Roman Senate. The Emperors role was to confirm the election of bishops, convening or preventing church councils, they presided over the councils to some extent with the bishops, insured that order and security were maintained, ratified the decisions and enforced them. Constantine, for example, was not a theologian. His goal in the Council of Nicaea was to have imperial unity. It must be remembered that if Constantine had forced orthodoxy on the council, we would not see the long debates and proliferation of theological parties in the years after Nicaea.
The main point is that Constantine was not the author of the term “homoousios”. That word that described the relationship between the Father and Son had been circulating in the Church for at least a hundred years prior to Nicaea. The Council did not accept this term at the command of Constantine.
Aaron,
Heiser is a believing trinitarian Christian who tries to harmonize the fact there are “gods” in an orthodox context within the historic Israelite system of beliefs, so he must “equivocate” in your view since he acknowledges they exist. However, he calls them all “elohim”, meaning they are gods. He asserts there was a highest Elohim who through some historic evolution was Jehovah. (Historic evolution simply because El was the highest god in Canaanite beliefs, and that role became Jehovah.)
In any case, the word “divine” means, and has at its etymological root “god”. These are gods, not in a pagan context, but a designation of the nature of certain heavenly beings and of course the destiny of man (man’s goal being the ‘imago dei'(Gen 1:26, Ps.8:4-8)). Since the false understanding of history and the Bible of trinitarians is there is only one mystical god without the potential of there being any other divine beings, everything is “watered down” for those who reject that theologically driven view of history.
As for the question about interacting with me, as Aaron can tell you, I am not a web-savvy guy. I have a blog, however, where I have interacted with folks about issues for many years. I am not here to advertise my stuff, so if Aaron wants to mention it, that is his call. Otherwise, I will occasionally stop by here, and try to remain topical. Thanks.
(cont.)
The Christian emperors had some control when it came to the machinery of the affairs of the Church. They could not, however, decide matters of faith. That was the responsibility of the bishops and their churches.
2. In a word, these councils were conservative. Neither the emperor or the Church Fathers saw innovation as a virtue. In-other-words, they were not looking to invent doctrine. What they were doing was “confessing” the doctrine. They continually appealed to the idea of “following the Holy Fathers” so that their would be a clearly articulated lineage of what had been believed and what had been passed down to them. If we look to the documents of the era, the very words, phrases and sentences of the Church Fathers were endlessly collected and cited and appear in the documents of that time.
3. The point of the councils was that they were to be witnesses to the truth. As such, what they were to do was not just be a type of forum to bring clarity to differences, but to be a manifestation of the church itself. The members weren’t their to determine truth by way of argumentation. The point was to deliver the consensus of what the bishops believed.
4. These councils were Spirit inspired events. They were not legal institutions. This limited the power of the emperors.
“Under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, Nicaea was a witness to the truth, in conformity with the Scripture as handed down in apostolic tradition. But its ecumenicity and authority would be determined only by whether the church received it. The ultimate authority of all the ecumenical councils was not the emperor, but the witness of the Holy Spirit among the faithful and their bishops……authority was to be found through the life of the Holy Spirit in the church. Thus the final authority was God himself, mediated through the body of Christ and its interpretation of the Bible. And thus the authority of the council was derived from its fidelity to Scripture.” (Bradley Nissif: “A Marriage Made in Byzantium”; Issue 85, Christian History).
Aaron,
Your question assumes a dichotomy that many Mormons do not hold to or believe to exist. Many Mormons may perceive of the godhead(s) in a fashion similar to the way I do. I have written about it here before:
http://blog.mrm.org/2007/10/like-stubborn-scotchmen-they-couldnt-get-adam-god-out-of-their-heads/
God is a quorum. As such there are many gods, many quorums, and many “godheads”. So an individual god could belong to multiple quorums, but would necessarily not belong to all. All the gods would as part of their “godness” belong to the great assembly of the gods (does this count future or potential gods?).
Your question (granted, making a point in a bit of a passive-aggressive fashion) is legit. Eternal Progression leads to absurdities, divides THE godhead (father, son, holy ghost), and is a teaching in Mormonism that is not flushed out but should be given the weight of it.
The truth really is a “cult buster” but cult members hold on to their false belief systems because they have been fed a constant diet of misinformation. The truth really isn’t that hard to get at, but for a cult member it requires some courage and the willingness to go outside the cult for information. Cult members are locked-in to a locked-down system that fears free thinking members. That’s why Mormons, for example, are taught that if something makes you “feel” bad, that means the spirit isn’t there and that Satan is trying to deceive them. With this type of conditioning and mind control, a Mormon will remain in a state of fear. Once a person is freed from the fear control mechanism of the cult, there is nothing left to hold them. Don’t fear the truth, but come to the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, who out of love, mercy and compassion of the Father, gave His life so that all who come to Him in faith will experience unexpressible joy. This is the Good News!
Vook,
I inadvertently clicked on your name, and it sent me to your blog site. I wanted to respond, but couldn’t find the way.
Peace…
Vook/Robert,
If Hesier is equivocating (which I don’t think he is, at this point anyway), he is not equivocating in the manner that Mormons are. Mormons take the range of meaning that Hesier uses for elohim and gods (which Heiser broadens to include any beings, no matter how superior or inferior, existing in the heavenly realms [including demons!]) and then smuggle in the Mormon idea the multiplicity of maximally powerful, etc., gods—a kind of attribute and potential Hesier only ascribes to the God of gods.
Hence, this is really just another example of Mormons taking a semantic range of meaning and manipulating it to mean something an author never intended for it to mean. It’s an another example of Mormonism trying to win an argument semantically, instead of actually meaningfully.
If you want to convince me that a whole host of real beings inferior to the Most High, including demons, can be called “gods”, then shoot, you got me. And if you want to call the Old Testament “henotheistic” because it affirms the existence of these inferior, created set of “gods”, then I won’t be passionate in opposing that. After all, at that point it’s really just classical monotheism by another name.
But you’re nowhere closer in convincing me that the Old Testament implies that I can become a Most High myself, worshiped by billions of my own adoring spirit children, or that my Most High has a Higher Most High, or that some Most Highs were once perhaps horrific, filthy sinners before being redeemed by other saviors than our Jesus Christ.
PS Feel free to put your personal blog in the “link” portion of the comment input box, or in the profile of your WordPress account. If that doesn’t make sense, I can help you more on that.
David, perhaps I’m not reading your comment rightly, but I’m not seeing the false dichotomy. Even Mormons that affirm a kind of unified assembly of all exalted Gods don’t necessarily equate that assembly with the Godhead itself. The nature of my question is whether or not there are multiple Godhead-quorums or just a one giant Godhead-quorum. Please clarify yourself to me if I am totally missing the point 🙂
Grace and peace, friends,
Aaron
vook wrote
.
…I’m not sure I understand the first part of this sentence, but the second is a clear misdirection.
The “imago dei” (image of God) is not, and never has been, the goal of man. Humanity already bears that image. The ony way to remove the imago dei from human beings is to make them into something that is not human. This transformation is never supported in scripture. I shudder at sentimentalist rubbish like “when I go to heaven, I’ll be an angel” or “Jesus wants me for a sunbeam” – no He doesn’t, He wants to you be a proper human being.
The Biblical view holds out that though we’ve got this image indelibly stamped into our nature, it has been obscured and vandalized by sin.
See the difference?
One is about the restoration of that image, which is an ultimately humanizing and redeeming agenda. The other is about trying to become what we are not, which starts with the preposition that what we are in essence (not just our behavior) is not good enough.
If our Heavenly Father is the head of our Godhead and Jesus has become a god, and the Holy Ghost is somehow a god, but hasn’t come to Earth to be tested so he can receive a body and his exaltation, which god am I supposed to worship? Can some kind Mormon please tell me what I’m supposed to do with Philippians 2:5-11 and similar texts if I’m not supposed to worship Jesus as God? Revelation 5 also clearly describes all of creation worshiping both the Father and the Lamb, Jesus Christ as God.
Let’s say a bunch of the Mormons have and will become gods. Isn’t the message of the LDS church “forever families”? Obviously since Mormons believe in free agency some of those “gods” are going to have children that have been sealed to them who are just not going to make the LDS program. That means eternal separation, not forever family. What if a forever child becomes a god and his forever parents diss the Mormon church and totally apostsize? Does that make the sealing null and void? When those gods go off to become godheads of their own, what happens to the forever family of our Godhead? Didn’t our HF want us to be part of his forever family? What about forever grandparents and great-grandparents? Pretty soon the whole thing just becomes ridiculous and falls apart.
These are some of the answers that I want before I leave the clear teachings of the bible and start following the teachings of a bunch of 19th and 20th century Johnny-come-lately’s.
liv4jc,
You see the problem with Christians is that we ask all of these troubling questions instead of just accepting Smith’s fairy tale and going with it. It never ceases to amaze me how Mormons can find a reference of someone somewhere that said something that can be massaged to fit their narrative. If they can’t massage it, they use my favorite tool for fixing things around the house and just hammer it in.
The favorite technique of Mormonism, personal “revelation”, is about the least effect of means of determining if something is true. However it is fun and does make a person think and feel incredibly spiritual and superior. You see we stodgy old Christians depend way too much on the Bible, God’s revealed Word for guidance and direction as to what is or isn’t true regarding our faith and doctrine. I’m always wondering what Mormons think they are going to learn that’s new and improved over the Gospel of Jesus Christ that was once and for all delivered to the Saints?
The early Christians were Jews that believed in one God. It was within this framework that they explained the Son. It’s very simple actually: “In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God and the Word was God.” The Word than became flesh and dwelt among us. Let me try this and hopefully not get charged with heresy. The Godhead is the Father. The Son proceeds from the Father.
The early Church had these concepts but over a period of four centuries, developed the language, the theological terms to articulate it. If people are going to discuss something they have to have a lexicon from which to draw to converse.
Joseph Smith was a religious innovator. He developed a religion based on what he could borrow from a variety of sources. He established a tradition within Mormonism of definitive but ever changing speculation taken as truth and described as revelation. That’s why we have a religion in progression where anything goes if the “prophet” says it.
So, as I often say, I don’t really care what Mormons believe, however don’t say it’s supported by Scripture because it isn’t. This is a religion developed by a guy who spent way too much time starring in his hat at a magic rock. Whatever Smith didn’t like about Christianity, he would merely change and call it revelation. What a way to operate! He did this with the original Book of Commandments which he changed to become the Doctrine and Covenants. At that time, a bunch of the Mormon folks took exception to what Smith did because they realized what was going on. To them, Smith became a fallen prophet. You’d think that since they saw through his game that they would have dumped the entire program including his literary creation, the BoM.
Smith’s actions where classic cult leader standard operation procedure. He just kept pushing the envelope and whatever the people would accept, he’d take it to the limit. He hid his adultery for a long time testing his leadership for loyalty to his “revelation”. His basic techniques are still used by the LDS church today. Pimps do the same thing in breaking down the resistance of their potential hookers. It’s all psychological manipulation.
Why do we keep running into and hearing from folks who joined the Mormon church and had no idea about the basic fundamental teachings (of Mormonism) regarding the nature of God? It’s because people instinctively know it’s wrong. Andy Watson was telling me about a friend of his that didn’t know zip about the men-to-god program until he was about ready to take his first tour through the temple and the bishop came over to the house and dropped the information on him. It’s a major leap, I’d say, from thinking that your religion is the same as Christianity and all of a sudden someone let’s you in on the little secrets that there are millions and billions of gods and if you play your cards right, you could be one too.
Aaron,
For the record, I do not believe this stuff. I am just giving you the way I conceptualize the Latter-day Saint movement. I am guessing that there are Mormons out there that conceptualize Mormonism(s) the way I do.
To answer your question it is a case of both but more towards multiple quorums – there are multiple layers to this “god thing”. I do not think you created a false dichotomy just that some Mormons may see it that way.
I would say there are multiple quorums, godheads, in addition to the great assembly of the gods. Ultimately, on some cosmological level, the universe and its rules/principles/ are in a way the greatest god/godhead.
I have stated here many times that I believe that Mormonisms have a strong pantheistic orientation. I think the closest thing to it is the pantheon of Hindu gods. They all are gods, and are rightly worshiped in their own right. Some form quorums but all are incarnations of the great god force.
All humans (all beings?) are somewhere on the god continuum. We are all advancing and we advance in part by helping others advance. Ultimately we can achieve a type of god status but there will (might) be chances for further progression.
Aaron,
Heiser is actually emphatic in his characterization of Elohim-Jehovah being a “species unique” being, the creator of all other divine beings. This means his “equivocation” of what divine means, in his mind at least, is absolutely NOT diminishing Jehovah, but rather better defined because of the obvious existence of other real gods in the OT context. However, it also means that God can form/create gods.
Heiser also goes to great lengths in all of his writings to refute the rather parochial view of traditional trinitarians that there are “no other gods”, real gods/divine beings, by pointing out the various passages in the Bible where denying such results in God judging wood, balls of gas, or metal (see Deut 4:19-20, 32:8-9; Job 38:4-7; 1 Kings 22:19-23; Nehemiah 9:6; Ps 29:1-2Psalm 148:1-5, Ps 86:8; Ps 95:3; Ps 97:7, 9; Ps 135:5; Ps 136:2-3; and of course Ps 82).
Martin seems to miss the point of the meaning of man’s status relative to god in the meaning of ‘imago dei’, or the image of god. Man was created in the image of God in Gen 1:26, but fell, becoming mortal, sinful and subject to the trials of human existence. Those attributes are not part of ‘imago dei’, but rather man, through Christ, can regain that status. Consider the comments by non-LDS scholar Ernst Benz, who studied the LDS beliefs in comparison to traditional Christian beliefs about deification:
“Thus, in the last analysis the concept of Imago Dei is the key to the fundamental law of the gospel: “Thou shalt love God and thy neighbor as thyself,” since thou shouldst view thy neighbor with an eye to the image which God has engraven upon him and to the promise that he has given about him.”
Ernst W. Benz, “Imago Dei: Man in the Image of God,” in “Papers Delivered at the Religious Studies Center Symposium” Brigham Young University
March 10-11, 1978, BYU Rel. Studies Ctr, Vol. 4 in Rel. Mono. Ser.,pp 201-22
1 Chronicles 16:25-26
“For great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised: he also is to be feared above all gods.
For all the gods of the people ARE IDOLS: but the LORD made the heavens.”
Is it just me? Or does anyone else wonder what is the point of “Vook”s conversation out here? Clearly, the position taken by him is not a Mormon one, but rather an anti-Christian one. What’s the deal with that, Vook?
“Heiser is actually emphatic in his characterization of Elohim-Jehovah being a “species unique” being, the creator of all other divine beings.”
Right, that’s my point. Thus, his recognition of semantic range in the linguistic category “divine” and “gods”, etc., doesn’t do anything theologically for Mormons. It gives you semantic ammo, not substantive ammo.
In fact, Mormonism doesn’t even really share the semantic range of meaning that Hesier does. For Heiser, the linguistic category of divine “gods” encompasses a diversity of beings of different kinds of species. Traditional Mormonism in contrast says that they are all one species and disaffirms a true, singular, ultimate Most High. It smuggles cosmic henotheism into localized henotheism.
PS Time to set aside a day or two? 🙂
Take care,
Aaron
David,
Sorry if I’m being block-headed, but you seem to have simply described one of the two views I wrote of. One affirms a multiplicity of Godhead-quorums, the other doesn’t—this matter being distinct from the issue of whether one affirms a kind of meta-assembly of all exalted gods
There are distinctly different Mormon views on this matter. Again, sorry if I’m not grasping your point 🙂
Grace and peace,
Aaron
vook wrote
Fair comment if I missed your point.
However, your earlier post appeared to present the achievement of the image of God as a goal, and that was what I reacted against.
As I commented earlier, that image is already stamped into us by virtue of our humanity. Without it, we are not human, therefore it must be the thing that defines us as human. If this is the case, it is meaningless to describe it as a goal. The “restoration” or “recovery” of that image, which has been obscured and covered over by sin, however, is the subject of God’s redemptive purposes in Christ.
Though this might seem like an esoteric, existential argument, there is an extremely important inference; God is intensely interested in us in our current state. This is quite different from God being only interested in a romanticized version of humanity, or even God being only interested in what humanity might become, given the right environment. These roads lead respectively to a failure to acknowledge sin, and a failure to love the ordinary, average person.
The proof of the pudding, for me, lies in such verses as John 3:16 and Romans 5:8 – God did not wait for humanity to achieve some optimum state before making His dwelling among us.
But this is the Gospel that so much LDS teaching militates against, with its insistence that we need to achieve something more than what we are, before the connection between humanity and God can be restored. Such teaching denies the fact that God can, and has, broken into our locked-down existence when we were powerless to break out.
I may not be explaining this very well, but the restoration of the image of God that is already in us, God’s redemptive plan for humanity, and the way He executes that plan are all equal facets of the same story.
Falcon, I understand what you are trying to say about the Godhead is the Father. I think it’s more accurate to say that the Godhead is Jehovah (since we’re speaking in the company of Mormons I’ll use the Anglicanized divine name). The Jews were monotheists. Even if, as some here insist, they were henotheists, they were certainly monolotrous, meaning they only worshiped One God. It’s important to understand who this One God Jehovah is. He is described as the creator of all things (Genesis 1:1, 1 Chronicles 16:26, Psalm 96:5, Isaiah 42:5, Amos 4:13), unique above all other things (Psalm 40:4-6, Isaiah 40:18, 46:5), and above all other gods (Exodus 15:11, 18:11, 1 Chronicles 16:25-26, Psalm 86:8, 95:3, 96:4, 97:7-9, 136:2 etc. too many to list). In fact, contrary to what Vook keeps stating, throughout the bible all other gods are said to be the work of the hands of men, who are unable to deliver anyone (2 Kings 19:19, etc.). For the sake of brevity, because I have other things to accomplish today, anyone who is interested in the nature of these other so-called gods of Israel can search for the word “gods” at biblegateway.com. You will quickly learn that they are not gods at all, but idols when compared to the only God Jehovah.
In his book <God Crucified, Jesus and the God of Israel Richard Bauckham lays out the premise that the second temple Jews of Jesus’ day included Jesus in the unique divine identity of Jehovah as Jewish monotheism understood him. There was only One God Jehovah, but Jesus shared His attributes, name, position, etc. This is the basis for the doctrine of the Trinity. There is One God Jehovah, but as the Apostle John writes in John 1:1 “the Word was with God, and the Word was God”. Here we see where the Mormons make a wrong turn. Not being monotheists, where we see two persons in the divine being God, they see two gods.
(cont)Where John explains in John 1:3 that “All things were made through him [Jesus], and without him nothing was made that was made” we see the working of the Godhead, including Jesus in the creation. Mormons teach that Heavenly Father empowered and directed Jehovah in the creation, just like the Jehovah’s Witnesses believe Jehovah empowered the angel Michael (shades of BY?). But looking back from the perspective of the NT we see that Jesus is the Messiah sent by the Father Jehovah into the world as promised in the OT. The Father is also present in the OT, and is even prayed to by Jesus, and called his God and the God of his disciples who were Jews. What other God would they know but the God of the Old Testament? Jesus being identified as the creator forces the modern Mormon church to define the God Jehovah in the OT as the pre-incarnate Jesus, which he is, but he is Jehovah in the sense that he is Jehovah along with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Mormons remove the Father from the OT and instead rename him Elohim, the head god. John goes on to say in 1:14 that, “the Word [God/Jesus] became flesh and dwelt among us.” Here we see the exact same thing that Paul says in Philippians 2:6-7, “who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.” Which of us can say that, although we were once God and equal with God, we humbled or emptied ourselves and took on flesh by becoming man? But this is what Mormonism teaches. We are the same spirit-children of Elohim who need to take on flesh to become gods. Does John 1:14 and Philippians 2:6-7 leave room for this in regard to Jesus? He did not become God by first taking on flesh, but has eternally existed as God and humbled, not exalted himself, by taking on flesh.
(cont) So why should we believe that we can exalt ourselves by taking on flesh to achieve a position, exaltation, that we have, and never will, possess? Paul goes on to say in Philippians 2:9-11 “for this reason God [the Father] has highly exalted him by giving him [Jesus] the name above every other name (Jews would have understood this as being the divine name Jehovah), so that at the name of Jesus,/i> every knee would bow…and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord [LORD/Jehovah] to the glory of God the Father.” Since Paul has just said that Jesus was equal with God before his incarnation we cannot believe that Jesus was exalted because he became a man. This is a remarkable passage that equates Jesus with none other than the OT Jewish God Jehovah in many aspects. Not only does it blatantly say it in verses 6 and 11, but it is also draws our attention to OT passages that define Jehovah alone as the Most High God. The Septuagint uses the phraseology of Philippians 2:9 in Psalm 97:9 (LXX 96:9), “For thou art Lord most high over all the earth; thou art greatly exalted above all gods.”, even using the same Greek word huperupsosen which means to super exalt. The declaration that Jehovah is the Lord most high over all the earth is the same as saying that to Jehovah ever knee will bow, but we also see this in another OT passage. To Jehovah every knee will bow and every tongue will confess in Isaiah 45:23. In Isaiah 45:22 Jehovah has just finished proclaiming that he is God and there is no other!. But in Philippians 2:11 we see that the exaltation of Jesus is to the Glory of God the Father, who being Jesus’ equal shares the divine name Jehovah.
This brings me back to John 1:18 which tells us one of the reasons for the incarnation of Jesus. As the New English Translation translates it, “No one has ever seen God. The only one, himself God, who is in closest fellowship with the Father, has made God known.” Throughout the bible we see no hierarchy in the Godhead other than positional in office. In the ontology of God we see equality. The Apostles were very careful to identify Jesus as the incarnate God Jehovah, but separate him from the Jehovah the Father and Jehovah the Spirit.
aowyn9
sorry this is so belated… just wanted to say “welcome!” hope you stick around 🙂
liv4jc,
That’s a very useful survey of the Biblical position. Good work!
Thank you Martin. I just pray that God is using it so that he will be glorified when it turns the light on in some one’s head.
liv4jc,
Unfortunately with a lot of Mormons, the lights are on, but no one’s home.
liv4jc,
The JST version of John 1:18 reads:
“No man hath seen God at any time except he hath borne record of the Son, which is in the bosom of the Father.”
I know you will dismiss the JST, but I thought I would point out just one “plain and precious” truth that was lost.
And although I know you will disagree, will you agree that the difference in that verse matters?
I bring this up simply because critics often say that there is no need for any clarification outside the Bible- There is no need for the BOM or other scripture or revelation. This is just one instance where it makes a huge difference.
Aaron,
I’ve loosely been following this thread and can
see how you caused us to think about another
conundrum created by Mormon leaders in their
teachings about our Creator.
Concerning the clear statements in the Bible on
who God is, in this case from Isaiah, where God
says that He is unique among all known gods, as
He is above them all, there is no god like Him.
LDS take this to say that this God is only the
God for us, for this earth, for our world etc.
The reasoning of Mormon authorities on this is
perplexing to me. I read where Heavenly Father
is this specific God.Then these authorities say
that Jesus is the God over THIS earth, it is to
Him that we worship and are accountable to. Then
another Mormon authority testifies that God
revealed to him that the God for this earth is a
different God, namely Adam.
Going further, I read in Church curriculum where
it is taught that there are 3 Gods who created
this earth. Mormon general authorities have
disclosed this doctrine. One of these creator
Gods was Michael (Adam). He was one of a 3 God
team (a Godhead?).
Considering the claims by Mormon leaders that
they espouse “pure doctrine” and that those who
submit to their authority as teachers will not
be led astray into false doctrine, I have to ask
LDS, where is the scriptural authority for the
above teachings?
” If you want to know what the word of God is,
go to the Council of the Twelve or the First
Presidency. They are the foundation of the
Church; they will keep you on the right track
so that you will not need to worry.” [Apostle
Mark Petersen,Teachings of the Living Prophets
1982, p.30 ]
Jim,
The JST version of Luke 10:22(23?)reads:
“All things are delivered to me of my Father; and no man knoweth that the Son IS the Father, and the Father IS the Son, but him to whom the Son will reveal it.”
I know you will dismiss the JST, but I thought I would point out just one “plain and precious” truth that was lost.
And although I know you will disagree, will you agree that the difference in that verse matters?
OJ,
Could you please tell me what manuscripts JS used for his translation? If he didn’t use any, then we are talking about an addition. But, that obviously doesn’t matter to you.
Praying for you…