gsa
Well-Known Member
Re: The debate over whether Mormonism is Christian. I think that the relationship between Mormonism and Christianity is similar to the relationship between the Alawites and Islam. While they describe themselves as Muslims, indeed Shiite Muslims, they also believe in a divine trinity and reincarnation, ritual use of alcohol and other doctrines and practices that move them so far past Islamic orthodoxy, Sunni or Shiite, that they are widely perceived as a separate religion.
Whether Mormons can justify their beliefs by referencing the Christian and Hebrew scriptures, it is clear they deviate considerably from the Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox doctrines and practices. This includes new revelations that discuss Jesus visiting indigenous Americans, a wife for Yahweh, literal descent from spiritual heavenly parents, rejection of creation ex nihilo and a fairly radical interpretation of deification. The question of whether it is scriptural or not seems kind of irrelevant, since the Trinity is not expressly described in the New Testament either, but is considered a fundamental requirement for Christianity by the vast majority of Christians.
This is what the Catholic Church says about the invalidity of baptism, and why the Trinitarian formula used by Mormons is insufficient to justify a baptism:
There is not a true invocation of the Trinity because the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, according to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, are not the three persons in which subsists the one Godhead, but three gods who form one divinity. One is different from the other, even though they exist in perfect harmony (Joseph F. Smith, ed., Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith [TPJSI,Salt Lake City: Desert Book, 1976, p. 372). The very word divinity has only a functional, not a substantial content, because the divinity originates when the three gods decided to unite and form the divinity to bring about human salvation (Encyclopaedia of Mormonism [EM], New York: Macmillan, 1992, cf. Vol. 2, p. 552). This divinity and man share the same nature and they are substantially equal. God the Father is an exalted man, native of another planet, who has acquired his divine status through a death similar to that of human beings, the necessary way to divinization (cf. TPJS, pp.345-346). God the Father has relatives and this is explained by the doctrine of infinite regression of the gods who initially were mortal (cf. TPJS, p. 373). God the Father has a wife, the Heavenly Mother, with whom he shares the responsibility of creation. They procreate sons in the spiritual world. Their firstborn is Jesus Christ, equal to all men, who has acquired his divinity in a pre-mortal existence. Even the Holy Spirit is the son of heavenly parents. The Son and the Holy Spirit were procreated after the beginning of the creation of the world known to us (cf. EM, Vol. 2, p. 961). Four gods are directly responsible for the universe, three of whom have established a covenant and thus form the divinity.
As is easily seen, to the similarity of titles there does not correspond in any way a doctrinal content which can lead to the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. The words Father, Son and Holy Spirit, have for the Mormons a meaning totally different from the Christian meaning. The differences are so great that one cannot even consider that this doctrine is a heresy which emerged out of a false understanding of the Christian doctrine. The teaching of the Mormons has a completely different matrix. We do not find ourselves, therefore, before the case of the validity of Baptism administered by heretics, affirmed already from the first Christian centuries, nor of Baptism conferred in non-Catholic ecclesial communities, as noted in Canon 869 §2.
My understanding is that virtually all Protestant and Orthodox communities have similar responses to Mormon theology. Perhaps the Catholic Church is wrongly quoting a Joseph Smith sermon on the Book of Abraham on some points, tough:
I learned a testimony concerning Abraham, and he reasoned concerning the God of heaven. "In order to do that," said he, "suppose we have two facts: that supposes another fact may exist--two men on the earth, one wiser than the other, would logically show that another who is wiser than the wisest may exist. Intelligences exist one above another, so that there is no end to them."
Section Six 1843-44, p.373
If Abraham reasoned thus--If Jesus Christ was the Son of God, and John discovered that God the Father of Jesus Christ had a Father, you may suppose that He had a Father also. Where was there ever a son without a father? And where was there ever a father without first being a son? Whenever did a tree or anything spring into existence without a progenitor? And everything comes in this way. Paul says that which is earthly is in the likeness of that which is heavenly, Hence if Jesus had a Father, can we not believe that He had a Father also? I despise the idea of being scared to death at such a doctrine, for the Bible is full of it.
Section Six 1843-44, p.373
I want you to pay particular attention to what I am saying. Jesus said that the Father wrought precisely in the same way as His Father had done before Him. As the Father had done before? He laid down His life, and took it up the same as His Father had done before. He did as He was sent, to lay down His life and take it up again; and then was committed unto Him the keys. I know it is good reasoning.
From what I have read from Katzpur and the others who deny that this is doctrine, it must be that the Catholic Church is reading this too literally? Or I guess that the Joseph Smith sermon is not doctrine as it is not necessarily inferred from BoA? The two articles from Fair Mormon highlight the vagueness Katzpur was discussing earlier: On the one hand, Hinckley appears to understand that God was once a man and agrees with it, and on the other hand the doctrine is not actually binding an is considered speculative. Anyway, the Catholic objections seem clear enough, and they do appear to regard it as an unusually strong departure from Christianity.
Whether Mormons can justify their beliefs by referencing the Christian and Hebrew scriptures, it is clear they deviate considerably from the Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox doctrines and practices. This includes new revelations that discuss Jesus visiting indigenous Americans, a wife for Yahweh, literal descent from spiritual heavenly parents, rejection of creation ex nihilo and a fairly radical interpretation of deification. The question of whether it is scriptural or not seems kind of irrelevant, since the Trinity is not expressly described in the New Testament either, but is considered a fundamental requirement for Christianity by the vast majority of Christians.
This is what the Catholic Church says about the invalidity of baptism, and why the Trinitarian formula used by Mormons is insufficient to justify a baptism:
There is not a true invocation of the Trinity because the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, according to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, are not the three persons in which subsists the one Godhead, but three gods who form one divinity. One is different from the other, even though they exist in perfect harmony (Joseph F. Smith, ed., Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith [TPJSI,Salt Lake City: Desert Book, 1976, p. 372). The very word divinity has only a functional, not a substantial content, because the divinity originates when the three gods decided to unite and form the divinity to bring about human salvation (Encyclopaedia of Mormonism [EM], New York: Macmillan, 1992, cf. Vol. 2, p. 552). This divinity and man share the same nature and they are substantially equal. God the Father is an exalted man, native of another planet, who has acquired his divine status through a death similar to that of human beings, the necessary way to divinization (cf. TPJS, pp.345-346). God the Father has relatives and this is explained by the doctrine of infinite regression of the gods who initially were mortal (cf. TPJS, p. 373). God the Father has a wife, the Heavenly Mother, with whom he shares the responsibility of creation. They procreate sons in the spiritual world. Their firstborn is Jesus Christ, equal to all men, who has acquired his divinity in a pre-mortal existence. Even the Holy Spirit is the son of heavenly parents. The Son and the Holy Spirit were procreated after the beginning of the creation of the world known to us (cf. EM, Vol. 2, p. 961). Four gods are directly responsible for the universe, three of whom have established a covenant and thus form the divinity.
As is easily seen, to the similarity of titles there does not correspond in any way a doctrinal content which can lead to the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. The words Father, Son and Holy Spirit, have for the Mormons a meaning totally different from the Christian meaning. The differences are so great that one cannot even consider that this doctrine is a heresy which emerged out of a false understanding of the Christian doctrine. The teaching of the Mormons has a completely different matrix. We do not find ourselves, therefore, before the case of the validity of Baptism administered by heretics, affirmed already from the first Christian centuries, nor of Baptism conferred in non-Catholic ecclesial communities, as noted in Canon 869 §2.
My understanding is that virtually all Protestant and Orthodox communities have similar responses to Mormon theology. Perhaps the Catholic Church is wrongly quoting a Joseph Smith sermon on the Book of Abraham on some points, tough:
I learned a testimony concerning Abraham, and he reasoned concerning the God of heaven. "In order to do that," said he, "suppose we have two facts: that supposes another fact may exist--two men on the earth, one wiser than the other, would logically show that another who is wiser than the wisest may exist. Intelligences exist one above another, so that there is no end to them."
Section Six 1843-44, p.373
If Abraham reasoned thus--If Jesus Christ was the Son of God, and John discovered that God the Father of Jesus Christ had a Father, you may suppose that He had a Father also. Where was there ever a son without a father? And where was there ever a father without first being a son? Whenever did a tree or anything spring into existence without a progenitor? And everything comes in this way. Paul says that which is earthly is in the likeness of that which is heavenly, Hence if Jesus had a Father, can we not believe that He had a Father also? I despise the idea of being scared to death at such a doctrine, for the Bible is full of it.
Section Six 1843-44, p.373
I want you to pay particular attention to what I am saying. Jesus said that the Father wrought precisely in the same way as His Father had done before Him. As the Father had done before? He laid down His life, and took it up the same as His Father had done before. He did as He was sent, to lay down His life and take it up again; and then was committed unto Him the keys. I know it is good reasoning.
From what I have read from Katzpur and the others who deny that this is doctrine, it must be that the Catholic Church is reading this too literally? Or I guess that the Joseph Smith sermon is not doctrine as it is not necessarily inferred from BoA? The two articles from Fair Mormon highlight the vagueness Katzpur was discussing earlier: On the one hand, Hinckley appears to understand that God was once a man and agrees with it, and on the other hand the doctrine is not actually binding an is considered speculative. Anyway, the Catholic objections seem clear enough, and they do appear to regard it as an unusually strong departure from Christianity.
