Has Jesus always been a God?

[hooberus]

It is interesting that you DON'T answer the question but respond with an irrelevant question. But to play your game, a person who is "Omnipotent" does have all power at least at the time at which the title "Omnipotent" is applied to him.

So with that, can a person be a God without having all power?

To answer your question, a person who is God does have all power, in the contextual sense of power defined as the attribute of omnipotence.

[Tarski]

In fact it is not "sophistry", and the word games are not "meaningless". But yes, I do think that Wittgenstein was completely on point when he speaks of "language games" to refer to a specific context in which words have meaning, and the fact that the confusion of these lead to confused thinking.

I submit that you are indeed confused.

The fact that we use the word "eternity" ambiguously is not my fault- it is the "fault" of the nature of language itself.

I wasn't complaining about any well known ambiguities but just the way YOU are using it.

I totally agree that it is contradictory to speak of a time "before time", but notice when I do so, I always put quotes around it to hopefully convey my awareness that I am not speaking literally of a time before time, but indicating a type of second-order meta linguistic context in which I am speaking ABOUT THE PHRASE "before time".

So it is a meta linguistic context rather than a linguistic context? Not a hierarchy of languages but a hierarchy of... what exactly?

Certainly we can speak ABOUT the phrase "before time". I'll do it now:

"before time" is a meaningly phrase.

There. I spoke about it? In what way were you speaking about the phrase? It seems to me that you were employing the phrase as if it had some meaning that we were supposed to intuit or already be familiar with. Do you think it means anything in the context of your ramblings?

In speaking about time, we must imaginarily place ourselves as it were "outside" time.

Ya fine. I was doing that myself and do it all the time when discussing spacetime. But so what? It doesn't address my many criticisms above. Successive eternities? "Next eternity"? Think about it!

If God was not a god in the "previous eternity" [sic] then that eternity is prior to this one for God and thus a past time. Thus Elohim was not always a God being less than one at a previous time.

It is as if someone claimed in court that they gave everything to their ex-wife but later pointed out that they had several separate "everythings" only one of which was given to the ex-wife. Notice that such a game does a dihonest violence to the meaning of the word "everything".

That's metaphysics for you. It was pure speculation of course. Call it poetry if you like.

Minus the aesthetic value?

Or better yet, call it cosmology- that's just as speculative. If you can't prove it, you can't prove it.

Oh come on. Cosmology is not just nonsense or a meta linguistic context or metaphysics or poetry. It strives to make logical and physical sense (thus the math) and it strives to match known facts. It submits itself to rational criticism.

And as for proof, do you think it is the business of science to offer deductive proofs? Like what?

[Tarski]

If a tree falls in the forest does it make a sound?

This is not as trivial a question as it seems. It is a question about language itself- if no one hears the vibrations caused by a falling tree, can those vibrations properly be called a "sound"?

It depends on whether you mean "sound" to refer to physical vibrations or to the auditory experience of an animal. This isn't hard once we take Wittgenstein seriously and stop abusing language. Again I am amazed.

Similarly, what does "all power" mean? Does God have to have powers we do not know about in order to be "omnipotent"?

If there are powers that we don't know about then yes. Notice: I know that there are numbers higher than any I have or will ever explicitly think of.

Another way of saying this is: If God "only" has all the powers we can know about, can he still be called "omnipotent"?

Not really. All we need to talk about this is the notion that there are powers which we do no know about. We need not have a specific list. I know that there are numbers higher than any I have or will ever explicitly think of. How is that possible?

If you answer "no"- tell me, what power is it precisely which he is lacking?

He is lacking any of the powers that we do not know about which are assumed to exist by the question. If I have dug up all the pennies in my yard that I know about, does it follow that I have dug them all up?

So in a sense, as long as he has every power we can imagine, he IS omnipotent.

Oh brother.

And in my opinion, he does have every power we can know about, and is omipotent.

How do you know that he has every power you can know about? What is the rationale for that assertion?

[Vance]

To answer your question, a person who is God does have all power, in the contextual sense of power defined as the attribute of omnipotence.

Just to make sure I understand, to the question "can a person be a God without having all power?", your answer is NO.

Is it logically reasonable to say that, if there was a time that Jesus didn't have all power, then there is a time when He wasn't a God?

[mfbukowski]

So it is a meta linguistic context rather than a linguistic context? Not a hierarchy of languages but a hierarchy of... what exactly?

Certainly we can speak ABOUT the phrase "before time". I'll do it now:

"before time" is a meaningly phrase.

There. I spoke about it? In what way were you speaking about the phrase? It seems to me that you were employing the phrase as if it had some meaning that we were supposed to intuit or already be familiar with. Do you think it means anything in the context of your ramblings?

Regarding the Liar's Paradox:

Possible resolutions

Alfred Tarski

Alfred Tarski diagnosed the paradox as arising only in languages that are "semantically closed", by which he meant a language in which it is possible for one sentence to predicate truth (or falsehood) of another sentence in the same language (or even of itself). To avoid self-contradiction, it is necessary when discussing truth values to envision levels of languages, each of which can predicate truth (or falsehood) only of languages at a lower level. So, when one sentence refers to the truth-value of another, it is semantically higher. The sentence referred to is part of the "object language", while the referring sentence is considered to be a part of a "meta-language" with respect to the object language. It is legitimate for sentences in "languages" higher on the semantic hierarchy to refer to sentences lower in the "language" hierarchy, but not the other way around. This prevents a system from becoming self-referential.

[mfbukowski]

If I have dug up all the pennies in my yard that I know about, does it follow that I have dug them all up?

It might as well. You don't get to spend any more do you? What good is that missing penny that you don't know about?

I'm surprised you would argue that things we cannot experience are "real".

[Vance]

So when an ancient apostle writes that God created all things, does that mean (assuming you believe in God);

A) all of the things that apostle was aware of (excluding God),

B) all of the things that apostle was aware of including God,

C) all of the things that we are currently aware of (excluding God),

D) all of the things that we are currently aware of including God,

E) all possible things (excluding God),

F) all possible things including God,

G) other?

edited to add,

In other words does "all" mean "all" or does the world the apostle lived in affect the meaning.

[Tarski]

Regarding the Liar's Paradox:

A link to a blurb about the liar's paradox (a topic of dubious relevence)??. That's it?

Again you fail to address my criticisms in a straightforward manner.

I am pretty sure that Tarski' treatment of the liar's paradox (which I don't need to be schooled on) doesn't do anything to add meaning or coherence to the stuff you were coming up with. It is just not the issue.

[Balzer]

As far as we're concerned, or IOW from our vantage point, yes. He has always been part of the Godhead to us.

Sorry, I know my answer is vague. But the doctrine of what you're really looking for, is vague.

Wait a sec. In another thread in which I asked about the LDS doctrine of eternal progression and specifically asked whether or not Jesus had progressed and that was what made him God, you said "We are all spirit offspring of God. Jesus was the first. Due to his "pinnacle of intelligence, devotion and obedience" to God the Father, he was given a great calling or assignment. He offered to do it because of His love for God and for us. He offered to deliver us all from spiritual and physical death, which both were forthcoming necessary consequences of the fall of Adam. He was also instrumental in the creation of the earth under the direction of the Father. At what point He became part of the Godhead, I don't know. But He did progress somehow and some way, just as we all progress. We really don't details though"

LeSellers, BCSpace, and kamenraider all agreed.

And I think it was McConkie who said

[mfbukowski]

So when an ancient apostle writes that God created all things, does that mean (assuming you believe in God);

A) all of the things that apostle was aware of (excluding God),

B) all of the things that apostle was aware of including God,

C) all of the things that we are currently aware of (excluding God),

D) all of the things that we are currently aware of including God,

E) all possible things (excluding God),

F) all possible things including God,

G) other?

edited to add,

In other words does "all" mean "all" or does the world the apostle lived in affect the meaning.

How about everything humans can possibly know about?

[Rob Bowman]

mfbukowski,

I am still 700 miles from home and facing some new problems even before I get back, but I happen to have Internet access and think I will try to offer a few responses. It may be late tomorrow or even a few days before my next opportunity to post.

You wrote:

Was God "always" God before he created time?

Before there was time, was there an "always"?

Don't blow this off- I promise to keep nagging you until you answer. This is the answer to your question. We have teachings about things you don't even dream of.

As you are no doubt aware, there is some difficulty in speaking of anything "before" time. So I'm worried, frankly, that your question is designed to derail the topic of this thread rather than to answer my question directly.

If you agree that time had a created beginning, then you will have to maintain that God's eternity is not a literal, linear infinite regress (i.e., that God is infinitely "old" because his existence goes back endlessly in a linear temporal fashion). This would be the Augustinian view of time, or at least some variation of that view. In this context, to say that God has "always" been God means that God's existence as God transcends the whole temporal order. It means that when time began, God already existed as God without any beginning. This classical Christian theistic concept is well known. God is the transcendent One whose existence and nature transcends the finite boundaries of the space-time creation. He is infinite/transcendent with respect to time (eternality), space (omnipresence/immensity), and energy (omnipotence).

This doesn't seem to be the usual LDS view. It certainly wasn't Joseph Smith's view, particularly toward the end of his life. From your later post, it becomes clear that you don't really hold that God (let alone Christ) transcends time--only that he transcends the temporal matrix of this particular universe, outside of which you posit something called successive eternities.

[Rob Bowman]

mfbukowski,

You wrote:

Rob

As always, you have chosen to ignore me.

Once again, you have been proven wrong.

You wrote:

When you see quotes speaking of "becoming" God, those are referring to "times" "before" this "current eternity". They could be "after" this current eternity for that matter, but it makes it easier to think about if we stick to the idea that they were "before".

This sounds paradoxical, which in a sense it is. But the paradox is easily explained by reference to something called the "Liar's Paradox"- which you can google if you actually want the logical proof behind it all.

The point is, one must take a point of view "outside" the paradox in order to resolve it.

So stepping outside of any time reference, one can resolve the above apparently contradictory quotes by seeing each eternity as "one eternal round"

There are successive "eternities" on this view- as some scientists are now postulating there are successive Big Bangs.

So one could "become" a God in one "eternity" and then rule over the next "eternity" as an eternal God for that particular eternity.

So the references to God being the same "forever" refer to THIS eternity alone, while those which refer to Jesus "becoming" God refer to a previous "eternal round".

This is highly simplified, but I wanted to be as direct as possible to explain what the others here are alluding to. I don't know why this concept is so clear to members of our church but creates such a problem for creedal Christians.

It's so simple really.

Of course. Successive eternities is an extremely simple concept, just like square circles.

By stipulating novel, nonsensical redefinitions of terms, one can make words mean anything one likes, but the result is still nonsense.

You seem to agree with me that in LDS doctrine, Jesus Christ has not always been God. You simply want to redefine terms so you can say he has always been God while not meaning it.

You wrote:

But note that you still have not answered my question above, and I will keep repeating it til you do. As the thread progresses, it will become clear you are not facing the issue, and then you will disappear as usual and start a new thread asking the same sort of questions all over again.

Usual stuff. I wish the people who follow your website could actually see your avoidance in action.

Again, I have proved you wrong.

[Rob Bowman]

Vance,

You wrote:

I wonder if Rob can answer this question.

Can a person be a God without having all power?

This is so obviously an attempt to set up a "gotcha" that I would be justified in ignoring it. This thread has a very specific topic. I asked the LDS here to answer a question. Your question is not germane to the thread, or if it is then its relevance needs to be explained.

My guess is that you expect me to answer "no" and then you will reply by citing Matthew 28:18 KJV, where Jesus says "all power" was given to him. Do some study of orthodox theology as well as of Matthew 28:18 and you may be able to resolve the difficulty. You might also want to consider how to resolve the "contradiction" this verse would pose to your own theology, since LDS doctrine teaches that Jesus was Jehovah, a God, before the formation of the heaven and the earth!

In any case, your question presupposes that Jesus Christ has not always been God, yet elsewhere you insist that this is not the LDS doctrine. You are the one hopelessly mired in contradiction.

[Rob Bowman]

mfnukowski,

You wrote:

He has all the power there is available for a God to have without ceasing to be a God. So yes, he is "omnipotent". He can do anything that can be done.

Anything else cannot be done, because to do so would cause him to not be a God, and so he couldn't do it.

It is the same logical contradiction as making a rock so big he cannot lift it.

This is completely irrelevant to the present thread.

[Rob Bowman]

Richard,

Your characterization of the orthodox Jesus of the creeds is false. There is only one Jesus, the person who is eternally the Logos/Son and who became incarnate.

Hi,

What is simple to me is that the Father was truly a "father" and the Son was truly a "son". That further means that the Father is a Son to His Father. And so forth from all eternity.

My answer to the OP is simple: Jesus was a finite being like us. As such, he had to progress grace for grace until he gained his exaltation as the Son of God. But the lineage of Jesus has no beginning. There never has been a time that there was not a being like our Jesus.

In the creeds there are two Jesuses wrapped into one. The finite, physical, begotten (=created), mortal Jesus of Nazareth AND the infinite, immaterial, uncreated, immortal second person of the Trinity.

The uncreated immaterial Jesus must be thus the REAL Jesus. Having two Jesuses, one who is totally different than us, and who is not a Son in any normal sense of the word, is confusing to those of us who read about one physical Jesus in the Bible and think of Jesus in terms of what we read-- not in Greek philosophical reinterpretation.

Richard

[Rob Bowman]

Bernard,

You wrote:

Here is my understanding...you may disagree...

Every child of God possesses an eternal, uncreated life force.

Every child of God has the real and inherited potential of becoming like God.

In this sense, Jesus has been God from eternity to eternity, and so will those who are exalted because of His atonement

Bernard

You are equivocating. I didn't ask if Jesus has always had the potential of becoming like God, but whether he has always in fact been God.

[Rob Bowman]

Ben,

You had asked me if I believed that Jesus has always been God. I replied: "Yes, Jesus has always been God." You replied:

I find this an interesting response Rob. My understanding of traditional Christian theology is that Jesus could not always have been God. After all, Jesus is a man (just like us) as well as being God - and in your theology, mankind (including Jesus) must also be created. As Brendan Byrne once wrote:

I'll have to stop you right there. Byrne was not describing the traditional Christian theology, but rather critiquing it. So your quotation of Byrne is off the mark.

You quoted Byrne as saying:

By the same token, it is important to stress that in speaking of pre-existence, one is not speaking of a pre-existence of Jesus' humanity. Jesus Christ did not personally pre-exist as Jesus. Hence one ought not to speak of a pre-existence of Jesus. Even to use the customary expression of the pre-existence of Christ can be misleading since the word "Christ" in its original meaning simply designates the Jewish Messiah, a figure never thought of as pre-existent in any personal sense. But in view of the Christian application of "Christ" to Jesus, virtually as a proper name and in a way going beyond his historical earthly existence, it is appropriate to discuss the issue in terms of the pre-existence of Christ, provided one intends thereby to designate simply the subject who came to historical human existence as Jesus, without any connotation that he pre-existed as a human being.

The fallacy here is very simple to understand. Suppose I asked you how old President Obama is. You would hopefully respond that he is 49. If I were to claim that you were wrong because Obama didn't become President Obama until 2009, you would rightly dismiss my argument as the sophistical reasoning of a smart-aleck. When we say that President Obama is 49 years old, we mean of course that the person who bears that title and name has lived for 49 years, not that he has held the title "President" for 49 years. Likewise, when we say that Jesus has always existed, or that he preexisted his human life, we don't mean that the human nature of Jesus preexisted his human nature (!), or even that he has the name Jesus before his human birth. We simply mean that the person known to us in his humanity as Jesus Christ existed before he became a human being and before he bore those names in history.

The same sophistry is at work in Roger Haight's comments, which you also quoted.

[Storm Rider]

Bernard,

You wrote:

You are equivocating. I didn't ask if Jesus has always had the potential of becoming like God, but whether he has always in fact been God.

This really is a great question and an interesting set of answers. I may be taking a non-traditional LDS position, but to me, Jesus was always a member of the Godhead and thus always God. He is the Son of God, but not in a linear basis. I think it is beyond our comprehension how this all works out. I believe that Jesus is unique; where he was God, we may only become gods because of his Atonement. I reject the doctrine of the Trinity because "substance" seems to my puny brain an artifice in order to allow Christians to appear as if there is only one God and yet the Son of God is still divine. The purpose of creation is to make us like the Father and the Son; to bring to pass eternal life for all those willing to say yes and follow Him.

[Rob Bowman]

Vance,

You wrote:

The thing I have noticed about evangelical-anti-Mormons is that they make such a big to do about preceived "holes" in Mormonism, while being oblivious to the giant gaping holes in their own theology. When pinned down they resort to "you just have to have faith".

I have never done this.

You wrote:

But when Mormons go there, we get ridiculed by them. "Oh, all you can say is 'I have a testimony'?"

There is a big difference between saying that God is beyond our total comprehension and explaining away every difficulty in one's religion by appealing to one's subjective religious experience.

[Conejo]

We must remember that nearly all scripture and / or comments from prophets are teaching about man's relationship and experiences during THIS world. God does not teach about other worlds and their experiences because we have plenty to learn about from this world. Since the Hebrew word for "god" means a "judge" then yes, Jesus has "always" been a God to this world.

[Vance]

How about everything humans can possibly know about?

That thought, fleetingly, crossed my mind, I decided to ignore it. Perhaps I should include it.

So when an ancient apostle writes that God created all things, does that mean (assuming you believe in God);

A) all of the things that apostle was aware of (excluding God),

B) all of the things that apostle was aware of including God,

C) all of the things that we are currently aware of (excluding God),

D) all of the things that we are currently aware of including God,

E) all of the things that we can possibly be aware of (excluding God),

F) all of the things that we can possibly be aware of including God,

G) all possible things (excluding God),

H) all possible things including God,

I) other?

In other words does "all" mean "all" or does the world the apostle lived in affect the meaning.

[Vance]

This is so obviously an attempt to set up a "gotcha" that I would be justified in ignoring it.

So, in other words, you are afraid that your answer would be used against you, and you are afraid to take a position. So much for being confident in your position (which you are afraid to acknowledge).

This thread has a very specific topic. I asked the LDS here to answer a question. Your question is not germane to the thread, or if it is then its relevance needs to be explained.

I sense you squirming here. It is relevant to the topic.

My guess is that you expect me to answer "no" and then you will reply by citing Matthew 28:18 KJV, where Jesus says "all power" was given to him.

See, the question IS relevant to this thread. So the question is, was Jesus a God before He was given all power?

Just to be clear, this verse doesn't specify WHEN this gift was given, only that is WAS given.

This verse also obviously shows that there was a TIME when Jesus didn't have all power. (Doesn't that REQUIRE Him to be a separate being {not just person, but being} from God the Father.)

Do some study of orthodox theology as well as of Matthew 28:18 and you may be able to resolve the difficulty.

This is a problem for "orthodox theology" not LDS theology. It is your problem not mine.

You might also want to consider how to resolve the "contradiction" this verse would pose to your own theology, since LDS doctrine teaches that Jesus was Jehovah, a God, before the formation of the heaven and the earth!

Been there, done that. There is no "contradiction". {You seem to be under the delusion that, 1) you know that the possession of "all power" is required to do the creation and 2) you know WHEN "all power" was given.}

In any case, your question presupposes that Jesus Christ has not always been God, yet elsewhere you insist that this is not the LDS doctrine. You are the one hopelessly mired in contradiction.

This presupposes that being a divine being (a god/theos) is the same as being "God" (ho theos). You are the one hopelessly mired in contradiction.

There was a time when, the being we know as Jesus, did NOT have "all power" (a God), but there was no time when, the being we know as Jesus, was not a divine being.

[Vance]

I have never done this.

Well, yes and no.

The thing I have noticed about evangelical-anti-Mormons is that they make such a big to do about perceived "holes" in Mormonism, while being oblivious to the giant gaping holes in their own theology.

This you HAVE done.

When pinned down they resort to "you just have to have faith".

This you have NOT done. We won't bring up how you respond to being pinned down, at this time.

There is a big difference between saying that God is beyond our total comprehension and explaining away every difficulty in one's religion by appealing to one's subjective religious experience.

This is ironic on several levels.

You can't explain God because He is "beyond our total comprehension" and yet you have this beef, expressed in this thread, that Mormons aren't totally clear and consistent in their explanation of God/Godhood.

"explaining away every difficulty in one's religion by appealing to one's subjective religious experience"?

Really? "every difficulty"?

Please feel free to show where I have NOT done this.

Oh wait that would be too easy. How about showing where I HAVE done this.

[Rob Bowman]

Vance,

You wrote:

So, in other words, you are afraid that your answer would be used against you, and you are afraid to take a position. So much for being confident in your position (which you are afraid to acknowledge).

This is ridiculous, since I went on to state the "problem" that you were surreptitiously setting up.

You wrote:

I sense you squirming here. It is relevant to the topic.

You are wrong about me squirming. I am very comfortable with this subject. I have published extensively on it.

You wrote:

See, the question IS relevant to this thread. So the question is, was Jesus a God before He was given all power?

Just to be clear, this verse doesn't specify WHEN this gift was given, only that is WAS given.

This verse also obviously shows that there was a TIME when Jesus didn't have all power. (Doesn't that REQUIRE Him to be a separate being {not just person, but being} from God the Father.)....

Been there, done that. There is no "contradiction". {You seem to be under the delusion that, 1) you know that the possession of "all power" is required to do the creation and 2) you know WHEN "all power" was given.}

This presupposes that being a divine being (a god/theos) is the same as being "God" (ho theos). You are the one hopelessly mired in contradiction.

There was a time when, the being we know as Jesus, did NOT have "all power" (a God), but there was no time when, the being we know as Jesus, was not a divine being.

So, you now clearly take the position that "there was a time when, the being we know as Jesus," was not a God. Yet earlier in this same thread, and in a previous thread, you had asserted that this was a false claim. Make up your mind.

[Vance]

So, you now clearly take the position that "there was a time when, the being we know as Jesus," was not a God.

Gee, I wonder why you had to modify my quote.

What part of,

There was a time when, the being we know as Jesus, did NOT have "all power" (a God), but there was no time when, the being we know as Jesus, was not a divine being.

don't you understand?

Yet earlier in this same thread, and in a previous thread, you had asserted that this was a false claim.

I should have used the word "god" instead of "God". So sue me. After all I am not a professional "apologist".

I noticed that you ignored this.

This verse also obviously shows that there was a TIME when Jesus didn't have all power. (Doesn't that REQUIRE Him to be a separate being {not just person, but being} from God the Father.)....

Nothing like ignoring the huge holes in your theology and whining about supposed inconsistencies in others.

(Whining about being off topic to commence 5, 4, 3, . . . )

Edited to add,

Oh wait, . . . isn't this where I am supposed to resort to "appealing to [my] subjective religious experience"?