LDS Doctrine According to LDS and Non-LDS

[inquirer_Jn1717]

Whoo hoo! Back online! I live and work at my Church as a youth pastor and last week the tech-squad from our parent-church put a password on our once open wireless network, but neglected to send me the memo! So I apologize for being MIA this past week after starting a discussion.

I won't lie and tell you that I've never read "anti" LDS literature trying to expose their true doctrine and so on. That was where I started, but as my library and "favorite list" online grows I am more able to get at "pro" LDS teaching. 100% of what you have postd jives with what I've read, but it really does seem like only 99% of the picture.

I will focus on the nature of God, which is tied in with the end goal of Salvation in LDS Doctine, because the rest of what you posted I know to be "kosher" :-) LDS doctrine, and I would never dispute that most if not all Mormons understand salvation the same way. I always get the same answer on that score. And as far I know, evangelicals like me also have a fairly clear understanding of salvation according to LDS doctrine, and strongly disagree!

You said (and by "you" I don't mean just katzpur) that God is an [one of many] exalted [advanced] man [human] with a flesh and blood body. Really, we could just stop there and debate whether or not the Scriptures teach that, or instead if they teach that God is not human, but immaterial, everywhere present and the only one of His kind.

But to affirm that 1) God is an exalted man and 2) that the fullness of salvation is to live in God's presense forever, is only half of what Joseph Smith said in the KFD. I warned you that I would bring that up! There are also certain comments from Brigham Young in my mind as well. Now when I bring up quotes from those sources I usually hear, "we don't believe that..." and so on, hence the frustration.

So what is the criteria? In the KFD for example, Joseph Smith fully expected his congregation to accept what he said as the truth, yet LDS I talk to tend to distance themselves from the teachings in it.

That is one question to consider. Here is something else related to it:

The nature of God and the goal of Salvation in LDS theology as "inquirer" understands it from reading the D&C, Joseph Smith and Brigham Young (without any specific source quotations for now):

1. God our Heavenly Father (Elohim), himself had a Heavenly Father, and he had a Father before him and so on, all through eternity back in time.

2. Elohim lived on an earth like ours, was a normal man like the rest of us except that he excelled in obeying the celestial law. He even laid down his life to save the people on his world, because for every world there is a tempter, so on every world there is sin, and therefore every world needs a Savior.

3. Elohim progressed and continues to progress, and fathered us all as spirit children before our mortal life here on earth. We were sent here in order to follow in Elohim's steps; the goal for each of us is to become a God just like him with the same power, though always subordinate to him as he is to his Heavenly Father. We will never surpass him as we progress because he is always progressing.

4. As a God living in the Celestial kingdom, you will not only retain your own family but grow it as you continue to procreate, the unique priviledge of those who attain that degree of Salvation. When tyour children are ready, they too will be sent to an earth which you create and they will worship you as their God.

5. But sin will have to enter that world too, otherwise the process of normal humans learning to become Gods will stop for that world. So one of your children will have to be the tempter, doomed to outer darkness and likely to take many others with him. Another of your children will have to die a likely gruesome death to purchase salvation. Not all of your children will make it to the Celestial kingdom to be with you, but many will be kept in the lower kingdoms.

6. While that world will be redeemed eventually, and those who repent will no longer experience evil, suffering or death, the next world will; and the one after that, and the one after that.

7. Sin and Death will never actually be conquered, they are necesarry for the cycle of exaltation to continue.


You see, if God is human, and my goal is to become a God just like him, then even if I succeed my future is bleak. Besides that, I would see it as immoral to participate in cycle where committing sin was actually necesarry to the process. That is far different from a God who can hijack the evil caused by sin and turn it around for good. Also, if I seek to become a God who is exclusively worshipped by my own children, then I see something wrong there too.

So, is this a strawman argument? Have I misrepresented LDS Doctrine in points 1-7? Is my conculsion way off base?

[Worshipper]

Hi, Inquirer!

First let me add my own personal concurrence to what Katzpur and the rest have said about LDS doctrine. That was all correct in my understanding.

One of the problems you're running into is the question is bigger than any answer can be. It's kind of tough to answer "What is the nature of God?" in an internet post or any of the other super-brief contacts that are so common in today's world. Lots of my fellow Saints have done a good job at covering the basics in this thread, but you can always find LDS doctrine on the question that goes beyond what they've discussed.

Another problem you run into is that Mormonism isn't as into orthodoxy so much as orthopraxy. It's far more important to do the conventional things than it is to think the conventional things. As long as we agree that Jesus is our Savior, that Joseph Smith was a prophet, and that the current President of the Church holds all the authority God has given to man to act in His name, we're all pretty much free to think (though not necessarily to preach) whatever we want about the rest of it. But we have to receive all the sacraments (we call them saving ordinances) properly. We have to attend our church meetings. We have to follow a number of established codes. Orthopraxy over orthodoxy.

As a result of the diminished importance of orthodoxy, you will find a great deal of variation in what individual Mormons say. It doesn't necessarily mean they're lying and it doesn't necessarily mean they're ignorant of their own religion. It could very well mean that they simply don't believe what the Mormon sitting next to them in the pew believes. And that variation in belief is fine in the Church.

Now for your seven points:

Originally Posted by inquirer_Jn1717

1. God our Heavenly Father (Elohim), himself had a Heavenly Father, and he had a Father before him and so on, all through eternity back in time.

That sounds like stuff I've heard plenty in church. It's not emphasized all that much, but it's part of what gets taught in church from time to time. I personally believe it.

I don't believe that the term Elohim refers exclusively to our Father, since it is after all a plural word, but that seems kind of irrelevant to your discussion.

2. Elohim lived on an earth like ours, was a normal man like the rest of us except that he excelled in obeying the celestial law. He even laid down his life to save the people on his world, because for every world there is a tempter, so on every world there is sin, and therefore every world needs a Savior.

Our Father lived on a world like ours as a normal man. Yep, that's stuff I've heard in church and that I believe.

I wouldn't say that he excelled in obeying a celestial law, because that sounds too self-saving to me, and I don't think anyone can save himself. But I suppose it's an acceptable way of saying it.

I don't know that I've heard that he himself was a Savior. I tend to believe that there have been other Saviors on other worlds, and other tempters as well. I don't think about it much. I spend a hundred thousand times more time thinking about my Savior. I don't believe that our Father was a Savior on another world, but if I die and He tells me I was wrong about that, I won't be too upset or surprised.

3. Elohim progressed and continues to progress, and fathered us all as spirit children before our mortal life here on earth. We were sent here in order to follow in Elohim's steps; the goal for each of us is to become a God just like him with the same power, though always subordinate to him as he is to his Heavenly Father. We will never surpass him as we progress because he is always progressing.

I was with you, both in having heard this before and in believing it personally, up until you talked about eternal subordination to God. I don't believe that, and I don't know that I've ever heard it.

I have heard about how heavenly organization will be patriarchal, but I don't believe that implies subordination. When a child grows up, he ceases to be subordinate to his parents, despite the continued love and respect he shows them — the change seems to lie in the now-equal respect that the parent shows the child and the now-equal love that the child shows the parent. But I can definitely see how other Mormons might believe differently from me on this point, thinking that patriarchal organization means eternal subordination. If they do, I disagree with them on that.

4. As a God living in the Celestial kingdom, you will not only retain your own family but grow it as you continue to procreate, the unique priviledge of those who attain that degree of Salvation. When tyour children are ready, they too will be sent to an earth which you create and they will worship you as their God.

I have heard all of this, and I believe most of it.

I do not believe that eternal procreation is a unique power of exalted beings. At the same time, I do not believe that non-exalted immortal beings will procreate. I have no opinion so firm on the issue that I could call it belief.

Also, when you say "an earth which you create," I can accept that only if the you is plural.

5. But sin will have to enter that world too, otherwise the process of normal humans learning to become Gods will stop for that world. So one of your children will have to be the tempter, doomed to outer darkness and likely to take many others with him. Another of your children will have to die a likely gruesome death to purchase salvation. Not all of your children will make it to the Celestial kingdom to be with you, but many will be kept in the lower kingdoms.

I have not heard this in church, but it's an obvious extrapolation from things I have heard. I agree with it generally, though I think you paint too dark a picture of it.

I don't think anyone is 'doomed' to outer darkness. I don't believe outer darkness is really all that bad. As I read the scriptures, it sounds to me like it's really just being on your own. Lonely, perhaps, but for those so inclined, it could be very enjoyable. The D&C even describes it that way — it uses the words "alone" and "enjoy" — and I think it's meant to be taken pretty literally there.

And when you say kept in the lower kingdoms, I think you're picturing too much force. It'll be their choice. They'll do what they want to do. The ones who want to be with their father will do it. The ones who wouldn't really feel comfortable or happy there won't. They'll do what they enjoy instead. Not everybody wants to spend eternity hanging out with his old man at a huge family reunion, and no loving father would force that on any of his kids.

6. While that world will be redeemed eventually, and those who repent will no longer experience evil, suffering or death, the next world will; and the one after that, and the one after that.

Again, that sounds fairly reasonable. I'll go along with it.

7. Sin and Death will never actually be conquered, they are necesarry for the cycle of exaltation to continue.

I don't know that I believe this. I don't know how many beings like us there actually are. It is possible, I suppose, that there are a finite number of intelligences to be clothed in spirit, in which case sin and death will eventually end. I'm inclined to believe that's the case.

It's also possible, though, that there is not a finite number, in which case the process (I wouldn't call it a cycle, since it's not cyclical) would continue indefinitely.

Also, I don't know that I would call sin and death necessary so much as inevitable.

You see, if God is human, and my goal is to become a God just like him, then even if I succeed my future is bleak. Besides that, I would see it as immoral to participate in cycle where committing sin was actually necesarry to the process. That is far different from a God who can hijack the evil caused by sin and turn it around for good. Also, if I seek to become a God who is exclusively worshipped by my own children, then I see something wrong there too.

So, is this a strawman argument? Have I misrepresented LDS Doctrine in points 1-7? Is my conculsion way off base?

I think you're basically right in points 1-7, though a bit dark. I think the problem is that you've perhaps not grasped the full picture. At least, there are some important points of my own personal belief that are missing from this picture and that would seem to brighten the whole image a bit.

A lot of what I'm talking about lies in a statement by Joseph Smith that I think is in the KFD. He talked about how the intelligence of the spirit of man is co-equal with God. A later editor decided that Joseph must have really meant 'co-eternal' rather than 'co-equal'. I disagree. If God once was as man is, then God must also once have been as man once was: an intelligence that had been born neither in spirit nor in flesh. Therein lies, I think, the co-equality of man with God in the beginning. And that co-equality can come, I think, full circle in the end.

Many Mormons don't agree with me on this. Quite a few do agree with me. I don't know if it's right, but it is what I firmly believe. And this seems to me to change the whole picture of what you're talking about. It erases anything cyclical (and thus somewhat pointless) about it. It changes the nature of evil and sin. It changes the relationship between God and man from one of megalomania to one of servitude. And it eliminates the darkness from the picture you've painted.

[Katzpur]

Originally Posted by inquirer_Jn1717

Whoo hoo! Back online! I live and work at my Church as a youth pastor and last week the tech-squad from our parent-church put a password on our once open wireless network, but neglected to send me the memo! So I apologize for being MIA this past week after starting a discussion.

Nice to see you again. I seriously thought you'd bailed.

I won't lie and tell you that I've never read "anti" LDS literature trying to expose their true doctrine and so on. That was where I started, but as my library and "favorite list" online grows I am more able to get at "pro" LDS teaching. 100% of what you have postd jives with what I've read, but it really does seem like only 99% of the picture.

It's probably not even 99% of the picture, but it's a good start.

I will focus on the nature of God, which is tied in with the end goal of Salvation in LDS Doctine, because the rest of what you posted I know to be "kosher" :-) LDS doctrine, and I would never dispute that most if not all Mormons understand salvation the same way. I always get the same answer on that score. And as far I know, evangelicals like me also have a fairly clear understanding of salvation according to LDS doctrine, and strongly disagree!

Well, I've not met a whole lot of evangelicals "like you." I've met dozens, though, whose understanding of what the Latter-day Saints believe about God and about salvation is so far off base that it's not even funny.

You said (and by "you" I don't mean just katzpur) that God is an [one of many] exalted [advanced] man [human] with a flesh and blood body. Really, we could just stop there and debate whether or not the Scriptures teach that, or instead if they teach that God is not human, but immaterial, everywhere present and the only one of His kind.

How about, for started, we just stick to what I actually said and leave out your extrapolations? "One of many"? We have no idea how many "many" is, but Paul did teach that there were "gods many," so our teaching is pretty much in accordance with his. He also said that "to us there is only one God," which is what we, too, believe. I'm not sure where you got your understanding of the word "exalted" ("advanced" doesn't quite seem to cut it, in my opinion), but the scriptures speak of God as "exalted" on many, many occasions. "Human"? Well, in Genesis, we read that we were created "in His image, after His likeness." A couple of chapters later, we read that Adam had a son who was "in His image, after His likeness." What compelling reason can you give me to assume that one of these statements means essentially what it says (i.e. Adam's son looked like him), but that the other (i.e. God's children look like Him) means something else entirely? In the New Testament, Jesus Christ is described as being "the express image of His Father's person." We understand that to mean, the Son of Man looked like His Father. That's pretty straightforward and entirely Biblical.

We don't actually teach that God has "a body of flesh and blood," but "a body of flesh and bones." There is a difference. Do you believe that the resurrected Christ has a body of flesh and bones and that He ascended into Heaven looking exactly as He looked when He appeared to His Apostles after the Resurrection and pointed out to Him that He was a physical, although immortal, being? If he ascended into Heaven in human form, did He cast aside His body at some point? If He has a body of flesh and bones and can be "God" in spite of this supposed limitation, why can't the same be true of the Father, the individual in whose person the Son was the express image?

With respect to God being "immaterial," I suspect that you're referring to the verse that states "God is (a) spirit." Could you provide evidence that this means God is immaterial and that a spirit is not comprised of matter? Can you explain why the same word (pneuma) translated as "spirit" in that verse is translated elsewhere in the Bible as "life"? Can you explain why God can be "light" and "love" and "spirit" but cannot also be an exalted man? Why are "light" and "love" and "spirit" not mutually exclusive but exclusive of any other attributes?

I kind of figured I was going to run out of time when I started posting (I'm on my lunch hour and may not get back till tomorrow), so don't think I'm evading your other questions. There's just too much for me to cover in the time I have available right now.

[Orontes]

Originally Posted by inquirer_Jn1717

I will focus on the nature of God, which is tied in with the end goal of Salvation in LDS Doctine...

You said (and by "you" I don't mean just katzpur) that God is an [one of many] exalted [advanced] man [human] with a flesh and blood body. Really, we could just stop there and debate whether or not the Scriptures teach that, or instead if they teach that God is not human, but immaterial, everywhere present and the only one of His kind.

But to affirm that 1) God is an exalted man and 2) that the fullness of salvation is to live in God's presense forever, is only half of what Joseph Smith said in the KFD. I warned you that I would bring that up! There are also certain comments from Brigham Young in my mind as well. Now when I bring up quotes from those sources I usually hear, "we don't believe that..." and so on, hence the frustration.

So what is the criteria? In the KFD for example, Joseph Smith fully expected his congregation to accept what he said as the truth, yet LDS I talk to tend to distance themselves from the teachings in it.

Hello,

If you wish to discuss what Mormons may believe about a given thing, the King Follet Discourse (KFD) may be a resource. If you wish to discuss Mormon Doctrine, then the KFD cannot be a resource. The KFD is not doctrinal. The reason why the KFD isn't doctrinal is, 1) it has never been put forward as doctrine before the Church for assent. 2) the KFD wasn't penned by Joseph Smith. 3) what constitutes the KFD are recollections of one of Smith's sermons. There are multiple versions and they are not consistent.*

That is one question to consider. Here is something else related to it:

The nature of God and the goal of Salvation in LDS theology as "inquirer" understands it from reading the D&C, Joseph Smith and Brigham Young (without any specific source quotations for now):

1. God our Heavenly Father (Elohim), himself had a Heavenly Father, and he had a Father before him and so on, all through eternity back in time.

2. Elohim lived on an earth like ours, was a normal man like the rest of us except that he excelled in obeying the celestial law. He even laid down his life to save the people on his world, because for every world there is a tempter, so on every world there is sin, and therefore every world needs a Savior.

3. Elohim progressed and continues to progress, and fathered us all as spirit children before our mortal life here on earth. We were sent here in order to follow in Elohim's steps; the goal for each of us is to become a God just like him with the same power, though always subordinate to him as he is to his Heavenly Father. We will never surpass him as we progress because he is always progressing.

4. As a God living in the Celestial kingdom, you will not only retain your own family but grow it as you continue to procreate, the unique priviledge of those who attain that degree of Salvation. When tyour children are ready, they too will be sent to an earth which you create and they will worship you as their God.

5. But sin will have to enter that world too, otherwise the process of normal humans learning to become Gods will stop for that world. So one of your children will have to be the tempter, doomed to outer darkness and likely to take many others with him. Another of your children will have to die a likely gruesome death to purchase salvation. Not all of your children will make it to the Celestial kingdom to be with you, but many will be kept in the lower kingdoms.

6. While that world will be redeemed eventually, and those who repent will no longer experience evil, suffering or death, the next world will; and the one after that, and the one after that.

7. Sin and Death will never actually be conquered, they are necesarry for the cycle of exaltation to continue.


So, is this a strawman argument? Have I misrepresented LDS Doctrine in points 1-7? Is my conculsion way off base?

I think the above is a fairly naive approach to any LDS understanding of the nature of God. Most of the content is flawed. If you wish to discuss the nature of God or any of the above I suggest you pick one point. This will allow more depth and rigor to be applied.



*Now, I think there is a lot of good stuff in the KFD, but if the topic is doctrine, then actual doctrine must be the standard.

[Katzpur]

Originally Posted by inquirer_Jn1717

But to affirm that 1) God is an exalted man and 2) that the fullness of salvation is to live in God's presense forever, is only half of what Joseph Smith said in the KFD. I warned you that I would bring that up! There are also certain comments from Brigham Young in my mind as well. Now when I bring up quotes from those sources I usually hear, "we don't believe that..." and so on, hence the frustration.

So what's the enormous fascination with the King Follett Discourse? I'm almost sixty years old and up until fifteen or twenty years ago, I'd never even heard of it. You really do need to understand this one point, Inquirer: The King Follett Discourse does not represent official LDS doctrine, nor has it ever represented official LDS doctrine. If you really want to know what we believe and what we teach, here is my list of recommended reading for you: (1) The Holy Bible (KJV), (2) The Book of Mormon, (3) The Doctrine and Covenants, (4) The Pearl of Great Price. If a teaching is found within the pages of one of those books, it's doctrine, pure and simple. Official Proclamations that are issued over the signatures of the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (all fifteen of them) may also be considered doctrinal. Individual commentaries by any one of these fifteen men (or any of the other "General Authorities") are useful in helping us to understand the meaning of the scriptures, but only to the extent that they do not contradict anything the scriptures say. Anything any of them (including the Prophet) may teach that cannot be substantiated by the scriptures may be considered to be the that individual man's personal opinion. That doesn't make the teaching false. It just makes it non-doctrinal. This really shouldn't be that difficult to comprehend.

Of course there are Latter-day Saints who believe every word of the King Follett Discourse. There are other Latter-day Saints who would dismiss the entire sermon as being nothing more than conjecture on Joseph Smith's part. The same holds true for some of what Brigham Young taught. Neither of these men is around to clarify their remarks, and we have very little to go on in understanding them today. Had they ever been canonized, it would be a different matter. I suspect that this is why President Hinckley responded this way to the same question when posed by Time Magazine a few years back: "I don’t know that we teach it. I don’t know that we emphasize it ... I understand the philosophical background behind it, but I don’t know a lot about it, and I don’t think others know a lot about it." I think it can be stated unequivocably that President Hinckley understood LDS doctrine as well as any other human being in the world. If he said, "I don't know that we teach [or] emphasize it.... I don't know a lot about it," why do non-Mormons think they are going to get a single straightforward answer to the question on a religion forum or from a Latter-day Saint on the street?

If you really want to know what we teach today, listen to the four sessions of General Conference that will be broadcast via satellite worldwide this coming October 4 and 5. Focus on what is said during those eight hours. That's what the 13 million members of the Church will be focusing on, not on a single funeral sermon given nearly two hundred years ago that raises more questions than it provides answers.

[Katzpur]

Let's go on to each of the points you raised. (I agree with Orontes, however, that you are attempting to cover too much material in a single thread. Each of these points would make a good thread in and of itself, and could be examined in greater depth than is going to happen in a catch-all thread like this one.)

Originally Posted by inquirer_Jn1717

1. God our Heavenly Father (Elohim), himself had a Heavenly Father, and he had a Father before him and so on, all through eternity back in time.
2. Elohim lived on an earth like ours, was a normal man like the rest of us except that he excelled in obeying the celestial law. He even laid down his life to save the people on his world, because for every world there is a tempter, so on every world there is sin, and therefore every world needs a Savior.

Well, I guess I've already made it clear -- at least I hope I have -- that this is not official doctrine, even though it may be believed by a significant number of members of the Church. Personally, I do believe it. I think the King Follett Discourse is a powerful and beautiful sermon. Clearly, the teaching that our Heavenly Father had a Father, and that His Father also had a Father, etc. is not expressely taught in the Bible. On the other hand, it does not contradict anything the Bible has to say about Him, for the simple reason that the Bible is silent on the issue.

Consider the Hebrew and Greek words for "eternity" ("olam" and "aion" respectively). Neither of these words denote a linear time span that extends endlessly in both directions, no do they describe a state outside of time. Both of them denote an "age," an "epoch" or even a "lifetime" or "generation." Regardless of the length of time that is being described, it is a measurable period of time. During the time of Christ, and for the thousands of years prior to that time, these words were not understood to mean an endless time. It was only during the post-apostolic years when Greek philosophy began to influence Christian doctrine that they began to take on the meaning they have to most Christians today. When the scriptures state that God is "from everlasting to everlasting," they are referring to the period of time beginning with what is recorded in the Bible as "the beginning." The Bible doesn't even address the time "before the beginning." Obviously, though, there was a time prior to the creation of our universe when the universe did not exist but when God did exist. Yes, many of us believe something about what God may have been "before the beginning." That doesn't change the fact that God was God "in the beginning" as indisputably stated in the Bible. Even the notion that He once existed as a mortal being should not be so unsettling to non-LDS Christians. After all, Christ was with His Father "in the beginning" (as the Word) and even though He condescended to spend a number of years as a human being on this Earth, He did not suddenly begin to exist at His birth. "The Word" was God all along, before His birth in Bethlehem, during His mortality, and after His resurrection. Joseph Smith never said that the same was not true of God the Father.