posted
I remember that there's this place in India where backstabbing, murder, betrayel, and all sorts of anti social behavior, to them it was all perfectly normal, when a missionary came by and showed them te bible they were big fans of Judas, they felt he was the hero of the story.
Moral is, how do we know what is good/evil if in some cultures such actions ARE to them good and perfectly socially acceptable.
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quote:*I* think Satan does indeed get powers for siding with evil, from a source I know nothing of. I don't think God granted him any power.
Are you that much of a polytheist? *blink*
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quote:That is, you believe that free will must be libertarian: our choices cannot be influenced by anything (such as, say, God) if they are to remain perfectly free.
Isn't that the only common-sense approach to free will possible that still manages to address the Problem of Evil? To argue otherwise is to say that God could intervene in more cases to prevent evil, but does not for reasons which are not related to Free Will.
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Tom: why would you be surprised? Many members of the LDS church are vague polytheists, for obvious reasons.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
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Yeah, but there's a difference between being "vague polytheists" of the "there are multiple aspects of the same God" stripe and being a polytheist of the "there is some source of supernatural power which Satan taps by being evil that doesn't come from God" stripe.
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According to the lds faith, didn't God grant Satan certain dominion(s)? Isn't that like granting him power?
Posts: 3936 | Registered: Jul 2000
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quote:Originally posted by Mucus: More focused on Catholics actually. IIRC, during the early days of the Reformation, there were pretty harsh words exchanged about the nature of the trinity between Protestants and Catholics.
You do not recall correctly. Protestants and Catholics did not differ on the doctrine of the Trinity.
quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: [QB] [QUOTE]*I* think Satan does indeed get powers for siding with evil, from a source I know nothing of. I don't think God granted him any power.
quote:Are you that much of a polytheist? *blink*
Is there something in your eye?
Look I just think it follows that if Mormons do not believe that God is the only God that has ever existed then Lucifer is likely not the only devil who has ever existed. But hey I could be wrong this is pure speculation. Also just because somebody has power does not make them a deity. Mormons believe the priesthood is the authority to act in the name of God and to utilize His power for good. That does not mean everyone who is ordained to the priesthood is a God or even anything approaching such a state.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Mucus: More focused on Catholics actually. IIRC, during the early days of the Reformation, there were pretty harsh words exchanged about the nature of the trinity between Protestants and Catholics.
You do not recall correctly. Protestants and Catholics did not differ on the doctrine of the Trinity.
I do not think that is entirely true. However, I did some checking, I'm not sure which course/text I heard the initial reference to but I can find several quick links in Wikipedia which seem to back up my memory.
A)
quote:Unitarianism is the belief in the single personality of God, in contrast to the doctrine of the Trinity (three persons in one God). It is the philosophy upon which the modern Unitarian movement was based, and, according to its proponents, is the original form of Christianity. ... The Protestant Reformation of the 16th century saw in many European countries an outbreak, more or less serious, of anti-Trinitarian opinion. Suppressed as a rule in individual cases, this type of doctrine ultimately became the badge of separate religious communities, in Poland (extinct), Hungary and, at a much later date, in England. Compare to Sabellianism.
Along with the fundamental doctrine, certain characteristics have always marked those who profess unitarianism: a large degree of tolerance, a minimizing of essentials, a repugnance to formulated creed and an historical study of scripture.
Martin Cellarius (1499–1564), a friend of Luther, usually appears as the first literary pioneer (1527) of the movement; the anti-Trinitarian position of Ludwig Haetzer did not become public until after his execution (1529) for anabaptism.
B) As an example of the harsh words to which I referred:
quote: ... According to Priestley's Corruptions of Christianity, published in 1782, and many other of his books, the teachings of Jesus and his human character were obscured and obfuscated in the early Christian centuries. As the Church Fathers adapted Christianity to Mediterranean-primarily Greek-forms of thought, they contrived doctrines altogether foreign to Biblical thought, such as the doctrine of the Trinity. Jefferson assumed that a thoroughly reformed Christian faith, true to Jesus' teaching, would be purged of all Greek influence and doctrinal absurdity.
which lead to
quote: Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is the mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus. -- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Francis Adrian Van der Kemp July 30, 1816
C) As a second example
quote: Though he is better known for his love of science, the Bible was Sir Isaac Newton's greatest passion. He devoted more time to the study of Scripture than to science, and said, "I have a fundamental belief in the Bible as the Word of God, written by those who were inspired. I study the Bible daily." ... Newton is generally thought to have been Arian, not holding to Trinitarianism. He listed "worshipping Christ as God" in a list of "Idolatria" in his theological notebook.
Now, as I said before, clearly the concept of the trinity has "won out" in mainstream protestant belief and the antipathy has died down a bit.
However, my main point was that belief in the trinity is not essential to being a Christian and (as an example) that protestants having been freed from papal authority were more free to advance beliefs that did not accept the trinity.
Edit to add: Perhaps we just have a miscommunication. When I say Protestant, I just mean "Those people that believe in the New Testament (more or less) and if not for the Reformation would probably be still in the Catholic Church." For me, where their beliefs came from is the most important (In scientific terms, I use monophyletic groups). However, I know there are Christians that would dispute whether groups such as Mormons, Deists, or Unitarians are Protestants or indeed whether they are "really" Christians.
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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Ah. Yes, we are using "Protestant" differently. I use it to mean, "those groups theologically decended from the Protestant reformers (Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, etc.) The "breaking of the monopoly" of the Roman Catholic church also allowed other groups to spring up.
Either way, it's incorrect to say that the idea of the Trinity is a "more focused on Catholic" doctrine. All the mainline protestant churches hold to it as well.
Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
Actually, fugu, Mormons are henotheists. Satan in Mormon theology, however (assuming he actually exists) is not a God, because he does not have a body. He may, however, possess the same knowledge and powers that the pre-existent Christ did. As to BB's rather Manichean speculation; it has very little grounding in Mormon theology. However, we may say that God is God and good because he understands all the rules of the universe; such knowledge may be to some degree morally neutral in and of itself, and it is certainly possible to speculate that Satan is possessed of it to a degree that exceeds our own.
Tom - I'm not sure why theories of free will must be related to theodicy (certainly they can be, but must be, as you imply?) Anyhow, as you note, libertarian free will certainly resolves theodicy. This is the normal path of Mormon thought, I think, and it's what I myself subscribe to. It is, however, perfectly possible to deduce from the raw material of Mormonism (as kat has done here), that our ability to make good choices is dependent upon God's guidance and still justify God. There are the normal ways: some folks, many Mormons among them, would argue that evil in the world is necessary for God's ultimate goals, which are good (such as the development, and moral responsibility, of the human soul). This probably is unsatisfying, I know, to you, but it's at least logically possible.
Other Mormons would argue that even gives the sort of determinism kat postulates, God is still finite; the level of his influence over our decisions extends to only particular things which he would have happen - but things which he does not will are still possible. That's very soft determinism, but still falls within the bounds of compatibilism.
I should also make another distinction: It is possible to support theological libertarian free will and be a cultural or biological determinist of some variety. Or vice versa.
Posts: 794 | Registered: Aug 2000
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MattB: I don't think that Manichean is a good adjective for what I believe. Certainly I do in many ways see the universe as a struggle between good and evil, light and dark. But I don't see matter as dark, and I certainly believe that light is far stronger then dark.
Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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BB - I used the term kind of loosely, to describe your implication that Satan is drawing on some sort of particularly 'evil' power independent from God. Certainly, the term shouldn't be taken to imply that you believe that that power is God's equal and opposite. Still, I think it's a fair description of that position, unless I've misunderstood it.
Thanks for giving me the opportunity to clarify.
Posts: 794 | Registered: Aug 2000
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quote:Originally posted by MattB: BB - I used the term kind of loosely, to describe your implication that Satan is drawing on some sort of particularly 'evil' power independent from God. Certainly, the term shouldn't be taken to imply that you believe that that power is God's equal and opposite. Still, I think it's a fair description of that position, unless I've misunderstood it.
Thanks for giving me the opportunity to clarify.
Oh well in that case I have no objections. Posts: 14316 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by dkw: Ah. Yes, we are using "Protestant" differently... Either way, it's incorrect to say that the idea of the Trinity is a "more focused on Catholic" doctrine. All the mainline protestant churches hold to it as well.
...wheras I would use something more like this this, except I would not really separate Restorationism (because of the monophyletic objection I noted earlier)
In any case, the key is I never said "mainline protestant", I just said "protestants". I wouldn't even be surprised if the trinity was used by so-called mainline protestants to discriminate between themselves and "non-mainline" protestants. I certainly saw it in that surreal (from my POV) debate between OSC and some Christian writer about whether Mormons (from my POV, just another group of Restorationists) were "really" Christians, let alone Protestants. *sigh*
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