posted
I know one difference between LDS and other Christian denominations, of course: the Book of Mormon. But LDS people have suggested there's a basic philosophical difference, and I think it's to relate to Greek philosophy. Mormons here: what's that difference? Or have I heard wrong?
(I tried to read the book How Greek Philosophy Corrupted Christianity (title may be wrong), but it wasn't exactly clear.)
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One obvious difference is in the nature of God. Instead of believing that he is everywhere and nowhere, we believe that he is a single being with a physical body that is in one specific location at a time. We also believe that the trinity (Father, Son , and Holy Ghost) is three separate beings, united in purpose.
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posted
You haven't heard wrong, but it is not exactly clear in LDS thinking either how much philosophy has to do with the difference. I am one of the majority who feel that the introduction of Greek philosophy was part of what Mormons consider "The Great Apostacy," or losing of vital theology and religious authority.
The idea goes something like this. When Christianity was first introduced there was a distinct relationship existing between it and Judeaism. The first "attack" had to do with the new teachings themselves. Many concepts of Jewish practices were no longer considered religiously important. There was a movement within the earliest Christian church to remain practically Jewish. The Christian leaders, although sympethetic at first, began to see the most Jewish members as rejecting fundimental differences. Particularly, they thought living the strict laws of Moses were against the beliefs that Jesus died for the Sins of humanity. This much many non-LDS scholars more or less acknowledge.
Where Mormons start having a different interpretation is the introduction of Christianity to a pagan world. This had an even more profound effect as ideas were introduced by Greek influenced members. Paul wasn't imune to this as he tried to explain Christian concepts in Greek terms. Trying to bridge the gap for understanding shouldn't be a bad thing.
However, members started to do more than just explain things in a way that could be better understood. They introduced Greek philosophies that "explained away" original Christian teachings. Over time, Mormons believe, Christian theology was replaced by Greek philosophy. The ultimate finish to original Christianity was Constantine and the development of official creeds.
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Is there any connection between Mohammed being born in 570 and precisely 1260 years later Joseph Smith starting the Mormon church?
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One time I took some really good LSD and couldn't stop philosophizing all night. Oh wait...i misread your title. Posts: 8741 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
That particular bit of doctrine is found in the Book of Mormon, book of Doctrines and Covenants as well as interpretation of certain Bible passages.
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quote: we believe that he is a single being with a physical body that is in one specific location at a time.
Is that found in the Book of Mormon or is that an interpretation of things in the Bible?
It's mostly from the Doctrine and Covenants, a book of scriptures containing modern (1800s and later) revelations.
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Would you know off the top of your head which passages in the Bible refer to that? I'd like to take a look.
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That's one of the things I can't stand about (non-Mormon) Christianity, especially Catholicism: so many of its teachings are based, not on the Bible or ancient Christian traditions, but on "right reasoning" that is only one of many possible accounts.
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posted
Omega, please consider for a moment how you would feel about a post beginning "That's one of the things I can't stand about Mormonism . . ." and then making a gross generalization about your religion.
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Zgator- I suppose that I should once again make explicit the obvious disclaimer that these passages could easily be (and are) interpreted differently than they are by LDS:
Genesis 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all he earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. (see also Genesis 5:1, 9:6)
Genesis 32:30 And Jacob called the name of the place Peniel: for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.
Exodus 33:11 And the LORD spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend. And he turned again into the camp: but his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, departed not out of the tabernacle.
Luke 24:39 Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.
John 14:9 Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?
Acts 7:55-56 But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God,
56 And said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.
Phillip 2: 5 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:
Hebrews 1:2-3 Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;
3 Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;
James 3:9 herewith bless we God, even the Father; and therewith curse we men, which are made after the similitude of God.
First epistle of John 3:2 Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.
Omega- that was a rather silly thing to say in polite company.
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quote:That's one of the things I can't stand about (non-Mormon) Christianity, especially Catholicism: so many of its teachings are based, not on the Bible or ancient Christian traditions, but on "right reasoning" that is only one of many possible accounts.
I'd be interested to see a list of Catholic teachings that are based on "right reasoning" and also not grounded in the Bible or ancient Christian tradition.
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Dag- if I were you I would just ignore that foolish thing that Omega said. Otherwise it is sure to do nothing more than start a row.
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Thanks Jacare. Reading through those, I can see how they could be interpreted differently. Of course, that goes for much of the Bible.
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Let me point out that our belief that God has a physical body doesn't come from interpretation of the Bible -- it comes from clear and explicit passages in the Doctrine and Covenants, and then we interpret the Bible accordingly.
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quote: Let me point out that our belief that God has a physical body doesn't come from interpretation of the Bible -- it comes from clear and explicit passages in the Doctrine and Covenants, and then we interpret the Bible accordingly.
I thought is came from the First Vision, which predates the D&C.
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quote:One obvious difference is in the nature of God. Instead of believing that he is everywhere and nowhere, we believe that he is a single being with a physical body that is in one specific location at a time. We also believe that the trinity (Father, Son , and Holy Ghost) is three separate beings, united in purpose.
So is that the heart of the difference?
(Yes, I know you could spend the length of a dissertation discussing this stuff, but . . . as Einstein said, you don't understand something till you can explain it to a five-year-old. He exaggerated, but still, simplicity is good.)
If these are the major difference . . . do Mormons consider them significant? Maybe I would if I thought about the implications.
[ March 31, 2006, 04:17 PM: Message edited by: Will B ]
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As a Mormon myself, I don't think they are all that significant. I know that some Christian denominations find them extremely significant, however.
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The significant differences in Mormon Theology is not about how they (Mormons) perceive God, but rather the belief that God restored the power to act in his name (govern his "true" church) to the church leadership. Portions of this priesthood power percolates down to worthy male members.
The difference, from an LDS perspective, is about keys of the Priesthood being restored. It is usually non-Mormons who want to paint Mormons as not christians because of their perception of God. You need to understand "Restoration" if you want to understand Mormonism.
posted
I'm not really that interested in the differences between the IPU and the FSM, so I won't be contributing anything constructive to the thread; but can I have some kudos for not dobie-ing it with "Philosophy and LSD"?
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posted
To be precise, Mormonism rejects the application of Platonic reasoning about the nature of God that thinkers such as Augustine and Justin Martyr applied - that is, that God, as Anselm put it, "was that which nothing greater than could be imagined." This sort of reasoning naturally led to a rejection of an embodied God, as well as a God outside time, omnipotent, omniscient, etc, who makes the laws of the universe rather than being bound by them. Orson Pratt, a nineteenth century apostle, once proclaimed that God knew the future and was chastised in a formal letter from the First Presidency for it. Rather, I think traditional Mormon thought is that God knows all that there is to be known, and can do all that can be done, but there are natural laws governing both.
This is tremendously important, because the classic Christian view implies that there is an ontological division between God and man which the Mormon doctrine of deity denies - God and man in Mormonism are fundamentally of the same kind.
There has been, in the past eighty or ninety years or so, a movement that some people have dubbed Mormon neo-orthodoxy - embracing the otherness of God and re-applying to Him those principles of omniscience and omnipotence that were not present in earlier Mormon thought, like that of Brigham Young, Talmage, Widtsoe and BH Roberts. The main figures here are Joseph Fielding Smith, Bruce R. McConkie, and Neal Maxwell. I would say that it's been fairly influential in popular Mormon thought. I also think that this is something of a consequence of the we're-not-weird campaign, Mormonism's quest to integrate itself with the larger Christian community and downplay differences.
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quote:There has been, in the past eighty or ninety years or so, a movement that some people have dubbed Mormon neo-orthodoxy - embracing the otherness of God and re-applying to Him those principles of omniscience and omnipotence that were not present in earlier Mormon thought...I would say that it's been fairly influential in popular Mormon thought.
This is what Matt told me when I expressed the opinion that God knowing what we will choose and us having free will are simultaneously possible.
After a little bit of hashing, it became clear that the reason I think that's possible is because I think that God knows what our future selves have chosen, not necessarily what we will choose. It isn't foreknowledge, because he knows what we have chosen only because our future selves have already chosen it. So he simultaneously exists now, when we are unaware of what we will do, and in the very future, after we have made our decisions. That way, we are still choosing without pressure, but God can provide comfort and guidance to prepare us now for what will be coming.
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posted
I wonder how the idea of progress can be attributed to a God who stands outside of time. Progress is necessarily a linear concept.
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quote:Originally posted by Jacare Sorridente: I wonder how the idea of progress can be attributed to a God who stands outside of time. Progress is necessarily a linear concept.
I don't think that our minds are currently equipped to understand what anything would be like ouside of time.
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Didn't the missionary discussions (back in 92-94 at least) say that God was omnipotent and omniscient?
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We say that all the time, but we don't use the work in the exact same way. By omnipotent we don't mean "capable of doing anything" but "capable of doing anything that can be done".
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posted
We say that all the time, but we don't use the word in the exactly same way. By omnipotent we don't mean "capable of doing anything" but "capable of doing anything that can be done".
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quote: Didn't the missionary discussions (back in 92-94 at least) say that God was omnipotent and omniscient?
Yes they did. I went on a Mission in 94-96 and both those words were in my discussions. I remember clearly because I thought both words were super cool in both Korean and English.
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posted
I'm with Katie, for specific reasons that have to do with specific experiences I have had.
I used to think because the universe itself is indeterminate, that the future doesn't exist yet, and so it is unknowable. However, God contradicted me on this a few times, and I now stand corrected.
The theory I formed to explain this is that God is outside our time. He may have his own timeline or something, maybe. One way to picture what I mean might be to imagine a huge simulation (in which we each play ourselves) running on God's computer. Though we have complete free agency inside the timeline of the program, God could be outside our timeline and able to examine the entire run at will. He might even tweak things here and there (like changing the exact details of the random quantum fluctuations of the vacuum, for instance) and those tweaks could bubble up (via the butterfly effect) into macro effects. In this manner he could fine-tune this magnificent work of art we are all making together, the history of time and space in this universe. To us while we're in our corporeal material manifestation inside the run, we just experience this inside time, and don't notice if he halts the run, or tweaks things, or whatever.
All this is my fancy, and not any formal doctrine. Also, it's totally metaphorical, since we likely don't have the concepts necessary to understand what's really happening. But that's sort of how I think of it. I am willing to coexist peacefully with others who see things differently, and for sure don't want to fight any religious wars over it.
Another analogy might be when I'm practicing a piece on the piano, I have a lot of stops and starts, I might go back and practice one segment over and over, or slow down to half speed to work on a tricky bit of fingerwork. To someone outside in world-time, it sounds horrible and annoying, but to me my brain is stitching the parts together, and I'm experiencing the piece in the inner musical time of the work itself. So to me it might sound really good. And despite the fact that I know from the score how it ends, I experience the suspensions, the build-ups, and all the dynamics, as they happen. They surprise me to the extent that I still find them enjoyable. So again that's a different analogy to how different timeframes can interact.
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posted
I would say that God lives inside linear time, but he Experiences time in a completely uncomprehensible (for mortals) way. One way of saying this is that I believe God lives the ultimate Einstinian time-space existance. Tatiana's examples are pretty close to my own theories on the subject.
One of my favorite "time is relative for God" scriptures is Alma 13 where the first verse asks the listeners to look forward to an event of the past. This might seem to make no sense, but it does when looking at the whole chapter. The next verses talk about something that has happened in the past "prepared from the foundation of the world" in present terms. Then in vs. 13 the tense changes to present choices that could effect the future. And what happens in the future, according to the verses before, is the possibility of joining an event from the past. As a side note, its a great chapter for showing that the idea of a pre-mortal life is taught in the Book of Mormon.
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posted
lem> I guess this thread isn't too old. Can you expand on the "keys of the priesthood" business? How is it different from, say, the concept of Apostolic Succession?
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posted
Are you people trying to tempt me out of inactivity?
:::shakes his fist.
-----------
Jacare: I think that the neo-Orthodox response would be that God *doesn't* progress -- only his works do. Isn't that what the whole letter from Bruce. R. McConkie to Eugene England was about?
-------- Kat and Tatiana:
Okay, so I understand that your view of God outside-of-time is to reconcile that with your understanding of God and foreknowledge -- and that your form of foreknowledge takes a particularly 'strong' form.
How do you then reconcile that view with the concept of free will (or agency, rather)?
I'm still quite hazy on all of this myself.
I'm curious about what others say because it seems like I go in one direction and I get hung up on foreknowledge, and I go in another and I get hung up on free will.
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