Christian Defification Doctrine

[DanGB]

Considering the Joseph Smith quote is pretty much the extent of our knowledge on the subject, I think Pres. Hinckley was right.

Why? Was JS ambiguous in his teaching? When he declares it as the "FIRST PRINCIPLE", he is very clear as to it's importance and then goes on in great detail of how God became God and how we will as well.

Why would their be any hesitation on behalf of any of our succeeding prophets? I read it and it is quote clear to me. Is there any reason to shy away from this teaching publically?

[WalkerW]

Why? Was JS ambiguous in his teaching? When he declares it as the "FIRST PRINCIPLE", he is very clear as to it's importance and then goes on in great detail of how God became God and how we will as well.

The first principle is knowing the character of God. Knowing the fine details of his mortal past is not the first principle.

Knowing for sure that we are literally in God's image is quite a distinction from the majority of Christianity, who struggle to explain the nature of the Trinity.

Why would their be any hesitation on behalf of any of our succeeding prophets? I read it and it is quote clear to me. Is there any reason to shy away from this teaching publically?

What more do you want him to say? We don't know anything about God's past, except that He had a mortal probation like Christ. That is the extent of the knowlegde we have.

[Daniel Peterson]

I'm unfamiliar with Joseph Smith's detailed account of how the Father became God. Is there a divine biography or autobiography available somewhere?

When you say "we", are you referring to the Church or the LDS apologetic community?

Although I'm not sure that I know precisely what "the LDS apologetic community" might be, and how its interests might diverge from those of the Church, I'm going to take a stab in the dark and say "both."

And when you say "well", how do you measure it? As convincing argument and/or thesis?

Wow. I hadn't realized that my simple statement was so abstruse.

I meant, obviously, that this is a Mormon claim that has excellent support in the ancient evidence.

I wonder on this because as members we know that Joseph Smith was very specific when he said:

"It is the first principle of the gospel to know for a certainty the character of God, and to know that we may converse with Him as one man converses with another, and that He was once a man like us; yea, that God himself, the Father of us all, dwelt on an earth, the same as Jesus Christ Himself"

I'm not clear as to why this causes you such wonderment, and don't quite see what you think this has to do with what I said.

And yet who will forget the national interview w President Hinckley on this very issue when he obviously wanted to avoid it's discussion and said "we don't know much about that".

I won't. Nor will I ever be permitted to.

But, again, I don't see the relevance, nor why this should plunge anybody into deep confusion as to what I said.

As a Church, we rarely discuss this in any depth or length either publically or within our own meetings. So I am interested in or by what perspective "we" (whoever that means) have done well?

I get the impression you're really straining here.

FMI, who is Father Vadja and what is his story? Have never heard of him or it before but sounds interesting.

He's a former Dominican priest turned Latter-day Saint who, while still Catholic, did a master's thesis on the Mormon doctrine of deification that has been published (and now placed on line) by the Maxwell Institute. Had you read it, perhaps you would find my remark somewhat less inscrutable.

[volgadon]

Not sure what you are getting at that comment.

Wasn't Christ tempted, did he too not have to go through the same ordeal in that regard, as does every man who ever lived? Does God not have to follow the rules he himself set?

[DanGB]

Wasn't Christ tempted, did he too not have to go through the same ordeal in that regard, as does every man who ever lived?

Forgive me, but still not following what specific point in this thread you are getting to with this comment.

Does God not have to follow the rules he himself set?

Interesting question. If, as JS clearly defines, God (our Heavenly Father) was a man like us first, (W)ho's rules was he following when he was a mortal man to get to His exalted state?

Is there any other answer than he was following his God at that time?

[DanGB]

I'm unfamiliar with Joseph Smith's detailed account of how the Father became God. Is there a divine biography or autobiography available somewhere?

Putting aside your flair for the dramitics, whose or what specific comment are you addressing here? I am unfamiliar with anyone, including myself making such a claim. I would like to know first before I respond to the rest of your post, but with dramatics, sacasm, and arrogance aside.

Thanks

[Daniel Peterson]

I would like to know first before I respond to the rest of your post, but with dramatics, sacasm, and arrogance aside.

Never mind. If your preference is to insult me and criticize my character, you can do so without my participation in the game. B-o-r-i-n-g.

[SearchDog]

None of us believes that any of us are going to become infinite.

I don't know how that statement can be attributed to either Christian/Catholic or Mormon doctrine.

We are infinite right now, in spite of being mortal. Our spirits are infinite. We existed before this life and we will exist after this life.

The point is that our spirits were not always Godly, but that through God's plan we can become as God is.

It's a big universe. What happened here on earth is not the first time God commissioned a Father/Son pair possessing His Spirit to create a family in God and Christ; and it will not be the last time according to LDS doctrine.

The stars and planets we see being formed will one day be allocated to righteous beings from the priesthood, just as the solar systems we see being destroyed were once inhabited by beings who were tested in the fires of human existence and refined into Gods and Lords in the Spirit of God.

God's family colonizes and grows and moves on to greater glories. Not all of His children make it, but even those spirits are not destroyed. They are left behind in eternal darkness, aka, an infinite separation from God.

Brigham Young: "[T]hat God the Father was once a man on another planet who 'passed the ordeal we are now passing through. . .'" Brigham Young, Teachings of the Presidents of the Church: Brigham Young, (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1997), 29.

Ditto; Brigham was right.

The words of Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, Pratt, and others. Smith and Young were prophets according to Mormons, so it's simply a matter of whether or not you believe what they taught.

I believe in the words of the prophets (over scholars) because their words are the word of God.

[DanGB]

Never mind. If your preference is to insult me and criticize my character, you can do so without my participation in the game. B-o-r-i-n-g.

Pot, kettle, black somewhere in there I see!!!

[SearchDog]

The first principle is knowing the character of God. Knowing the fine details of his mortal past is not the first principle.

Knowing for sure that we are literally in God's image is quite a distinction from the majority of Christianity, who struggle to explain the nature of the Trinity.

What more do you want him to say? We don't know anything about God's past, except that He had a mortal probation like Christ. That is the extent of the knowlegde we have.

Taking it up from Christ

[mfbukowski]

I don't know how that statement can be attributed to either Christian/Catholic or Mormon doctrine.

We are infinite right now, in spite of being mortal. Our spirits are infinite. We existed before this life and we will exist after this life.

The point is that our spirits were not always Godly, but that through God's plan we can become as God is.

It's a big universe. What happened here on earth is not the first time God commissioned a Father/Son pair possessing His Spirit to create a family in God and Christ; and it will not be the last time according to LDS doctrine.

The stars and planets we see being formed will one day be allocated to righteous beings from the priesthood, just as the solar systems we see being destroyed were once inhabited by beings who were tested in the fires of human existence and refined into Gods and Lords in the Spirit of God.

God's family colonizes and grows and moves on to greater glories. Not all of His children make it, but even those spirits are not destroyed. They are left behind in eternal darkness, aka, an infinite separation from God.

Ditto; Brigham was right.

I believe in the words of the prophets (over scholars) because their words are the word of God.

CFR on "colonizing other earths". And the spirits who "don't make it" going into outer darkness? Not Mormon doctrine.

It's a big universe. What happened here on earth is not the first time God commissioned a Father/Son pair possessing His Spirit to create a family in God and Christ; and it will not be the last time according to LDS doctrine.

Please show me that "doctrine" in the standard works. Chapter and verse please.

[WalkerW]

This is an excerpt from a letter I wrote to a local pastor, touching on this God as a man subject:

A Brief Note on God

[WalkerW]

I also wrote about God being anthropomorphic:

Anthropomorphism or Spirit Essence

In his famous, yet controversial King Follett Discourse, Joseph Smith declared, "If the veil were rent today, and the great God who holds this world in its orbit, and who upholds all worlds and all things by his power, was to make himself visible, -- I say, if you were to see him today, you would see him like a man in form -- like yourselves in all the person, image, and very form as a man; for Adam was created in the very fashion, image and likeness of God, and received instruction from, and walked, talked and conversed with him, as one man talks and communes with another."43 Yet, the Westminster Confession of Faith, a product of the Protestant Reformation, professed the immaterial nature of God without mistake: "There is but one only living and true God, who is infinite in being and perfection, a most pure spirit, invisible, without body, parts, or passions