Mormonism'S Anthropomorphic God: Why Is This A Problem For Other Theists?

[Rob Bowman]

Dan,

For everyone’s convenience I’ll start by quoting the passage again.

"I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. 24 Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. 25 O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. 26 I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them" (John 17:20-26 ESV).

You wrote:

You cannot assert that John is not indicating multiple senses of oneness with God without presupposing that John accepts multiple senses of oneness with God, and I don't see any indication John acknowledges anything other than a oneness of glory.

I don’t see the logic of your argument here. To assert that John is not indicating multiple senses of oneness does not presuppose that he accepts multiple senses of oneness! I really don’t even know why you are barking up this particular tree.

I wrote:

“John 17 should be read in the context of the entire Upper Room Discourse (John 13-17). Throughout this lengthy part of the Gospel, love is quite obviously a dominant theme. The word love itself occurs 34 times in these five chapters (John 13:1, 23, 34, 35; 14:15, 21, 23, 24, 28, 31; 15:9, 10, 12, 13, 17, 19; 16:27; 17:23, 24, 26) and 23 times in the rest of the book. Glory is of course also a significant theme; the words glory and glorify occur 16 times in these five chapters (John 13:31, 32; 14:13; 15:8; 16:14; 17:1, 4, 5, 10, 22, 24) and 17 times in the rest of the book. So both receive some emphasis in John 13-17, but love clearly more so.”

You replied:

But you're just extending the boundaries of the text in order to draw in more occurrences of "love" so they outnumber the occurrences of "glory," but this is a quite self-contained chapter. Love may be the broader theme of the collection of chapters, but in Christ's intercessory prayer, glory is more central. There is no need to transgress the boundaries of the textual unit.

Viewing John 13-17 as a literary unit is common in Johannine scholarship. Some more particularly define the unit as beginning at John 13:31 and running through the end of chapter 17 (which would mean slightly amending my statistic to 32 references to love and 16 to glory). Raymond Brown’s Anchor Bible commentary and George Beasley-Murray’s Word Biblical Commentary were the first two mainstream exegetical commentaries that I consulted and both discuss John 13(:31)-17:26 as a literary unit in the genre of farewell addresses. Your objection is at odds with this standard view in Johannine studies.

If we restrict our attention to John 17, the numerical difference between five occurrences of “love” in John 17 and eight occurrences of “glory” and “glorify” in the same chapter is insignificant; both are clearly important themes in that chapter. But notice that all five occurrences of “love” in John 17 come in the part of the passage we are discussing (vv. 23-26), whereas only two of the eight occurrences of the “glory” words come in those verses. Five of the eight references to glory come in verses 1-5, where Jesus is asking the Father to glorify him just as Jesus glorified the Father. Love dominates the closing part of Jesus’ prayer in the same way that glory dominates its opening. But again, the exegesis of what Jesus means by “one” depends on more than a statistical analysis of the dominant themes.

I had written:

“First, Jesus says here that he has given (past tense, specifically perfect indicative) to the disciples the glory the Father had given to him (v. 22a), so they already have this ‘glory,’ whatever it is.”

You replied:

Yes, but there are stages evidenced in the chapter. We can look to vv. 11-12 for another example of a condition Christ produced that he then asks God to produce himself. Specifically, he says he has "kept" those given to him in God's name. He also asks God to keep them in his name.

Yes, for the obvious reason that Jesus is about to die and he is therefore entrusting the care of his disciples to the Father. There are no “stages” in evidence here.

You wrote:

We know that glory is directly associated with the oneness because v. 22 states unequivocally that Christ gave them that glory in order that they may be one with him as Christ is one with God. This is a purpose clause, not a result clause.

No disagreement here, though it would be more precise and Johannine to say “as the Son is one with the Father.” You continued:

The reception of glory is what makes possible the bringing about of the state of oneness with God, but it seems from the text that that oneness is something that God must establish. It is not Christ's prerogative. Christ would otherwise not be praying for it.

I don’t see how this claim functions in your argument. Jesus is praying that the work he began in the disciples would continue and progress after his death and departure. He has already spoken of the impending coming of the Spirit to facilitate such further development of the apostles’ relationship with the Father and of their ministry to the world on the Son’s behalf. But again, I don’t see how your statement functions to show that the oneness is a oneness of glory as distinguished from a oneness of love.

You wrote:

Love is only ever mentioned in connection with this oneness as a state that that oneness evinces. That God sent Jesus is another condition that is described as equally evinced by that oneness.

These are assertions only—and assertions I have difficulty reconciling with the texts. I could with more justice assert that glory is only ever mentioned in connection with this oneness as the precondition which has that oneness as its purpose (v. 22).

You wrote:

He also explains that that glory is the very same glory that the Father has given Christ. Love is also described as preceding that oneness, but only glory is directly described as the proximate cause for it.

The Father’s love for the Son is mentioned as preceding that oneness, but the love of the disciples for each other is not said to precede that oneness. Rather, that love is described in terms parallel and equivalent to the disciples’ oneness for which Jesus prays, as I explained (see below).

You wrote:

That oneness is in part intended to manifest that Christ was sent by God, and that God has loved Christ and his followers. Love is never described as the nature of the oneness.

That is a very strange claim, given that the text specifically compares the love of the Father and the Son to the oneness of the disciples. Hence, I wrote:

Second, Jesus explains that the oneness is in fact a oneness of love. He concludes his prayer by praying “that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them” (v. 26). Notice how this prayer parallels the prayer “that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me” (vv. 22b-23a). Jesus actually prays here that the Father’s love for the Son will be in the disciples. In both cases he prays “that” something “may be” (hina followed by the verb in the subjunctive), something that is not yet but he prays will be true about the disciples during their moral lives. In both cases Jesus prays that this may become the case, and “I in them” (ego en autois). Christ will be truly “in them” as this oneness is realized in their lives, as the Father’s love for the Son comes to be in them as well. In context this “oneness” appears then to be equated with love.

You replied:

There is some conceptual overlap here, but glory is also described as the attribute that God has given to Christ, that Christ has given to his followers, and that produces a state of oneness. Notice earlier in the chapter Christ talks about the glory that the two of them shared before the creation of the earth. In v. 24 Christ says that God has given Christ glory because he loved him from before the creation of the earth. It seems to me that glory is the salient concept, and love is the conduit.

I don’t know what “love is the conduit” means, but again, my view accepts both glory and love as related to the oneness for which Jesus prays. The glory that Christ gave his disciples had that oneness as its intended result; the love of the Father and the Son is the primary characteristic of their oneness that Christ prays the disciples will embody. As I explained:

Third, the crucial reason that Jesus gives for his prayer should be given careful notice: “so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me” (v. 23b). This is not the first time that Christ spoke about the world knowing because of something about the disciples. Toward the beginning of the discourse Jesus tells them, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:34-35 ESV). When the disciples have love for one another, that will have the result that people in the world will know that they are followers of the one who came to bring the Father's love. But this is just what Jesus prays for in John 17:23—that the world may know that the disciples are people who have experienced the Father’s love for the Son whom they are following.

You commented on the above paragraph:

And in that instance it is God's glory that produces that knowledge.

Not directly; it is the glory that the Father gave to the Son to give to the disciples that has oneness (characterized by love) as its result that produces the knowledge among people in the world that the disciples are representatives of the Son who came to bring people the love of the Father.

I wrote:

“By the love of the disciples for one another, the world will know that they are people who have experienced his love, which is the love that the Father and the Son have for one another. This thematic connection proves that it is a oneness of love that Jesus prays the disciples will have, a oneness of love that will persuade people that the love of the Father and the Son is real.”

You replied:

It shows that love is intimately connected with the process, but it identifies God's glory as directly responsible for oneness.

Again, I don’t disagree. Glory is the cause or precondition of the oneness; love is the primary characteristic of that oneness.

You wrote:

This discussion is really tangential to my main point, which is that the oneness that Jesus shares with God throughout John is the very oneness that Christ seeks to extend to his disciples. John does not describe any other kind of oneness. In John 10 when Christ says "I and the father are one," there is simply no indication he is indicating any other oneness than that oneness sought for on the part of the disciples in John 17. This is supported not only in the lack of any distinction, but in the Jews' assertion that he is claiming to be divine and in John 1:12's insistence that those who receive Christ can be begotten by God and become "children of God," or divine.

In John 10:30, the oneness of the Father and the Son is a oneness characterized as uniquely divine powers and prerogatives (see vv. 28-29 for the immediate context of Jesus’ claim). I have discussed this point at some length in a series of essays on the Parchment and Pen blog. Part Two of that series presents the core positive argument for my position. By contrast, Jesus is not praying in John 17:20-26 that the disciples will be one with the Father in the sense of having uniquely divine powers or prerogatives. Thus, the way oneness is realized or expressed differs in the two passages. They are related inasmuch as in both passages the oneness is characteristic of the Father and the Son, but this does not mean that the disciples’ oneness will be expressed by the uniquely divine powers and privileges that the Son shares with the Father (see also Part Four of that blog series). It is literally glorious that believers in the Son may experience and exhibit the oneness of the Father and the Son by their love for each another. By no means do I wish to diminish the significance of what Jesus said. But the passage does not teach that we are to become gods, i.e., to become beings of the same ontological nature, metaphysical powers, or divine prerogatives of the Father and the Son.

Edited March 21, 2012 by Rob Bowman

[Rob Bowman]

Mr. Bukowski,

You wrote:

Whatever is that supposed to mean? You are being unnecessarily snarky while I am on my best behavior.

I don't think I was being "snarky." Here's my point. You don't like it when some evangelicals say that Mormons are not Christians. If you feel that others should not tell you that you should not call yourselves Christians, then to be consistent you should not tell evangelicals that they should not call themselves orthodox Christians.

[Vance]

Mr. Bukowski,

You wrote:

I don't think a Mormon really wants to start telling others what religious labels they should not apply to themselves, do you?

Humm,

I don't think the attempt to deny some being "Christian" is the same as denying that someone is "orthodox" Christian.

Just saying.

Otherwise, it should be totally acceptable for us to call ourselves "true evangelical Christians", and you should be ok with it too.

Just saying.

[Zakuska]

Log,

Two questions: (1) Is it your personal belief that God is not omniscient? (2) Are you LDS?

Not to Answer for Log but:

In light of your question, one must ask... Why would an "omnicient" God have to shuffle through several "alternate future realities" before coming up with the future that would actually be?

Amos 7

1 Thus hath the Lord God shewed unto me; and, behold, he formed grasshoppers in the beginning of the shooting up of the latter growth; and, lo, it was the latter growth after the king’s mowings.

2 And it came to pass, that when they had made an end of eating the grass of the land, then I said, O Lord God, forgive, I beseech thee: by whom shall Jacob arise? for he is small.

3 The Lord repented for this: It shall not be, saith the Lord.

4 ¶Thus hath the Lord God shewed unto me: and, behold, the Lord God called to contend by fire, and it devoured the great deep, and did eat up a part.

5 Then said I, O Lord God, cease, I beseech thee: by whom shall Jacob arise? for he is small.

6 The Lord repented for this: This also shall not be, saith the Lord God.

7 ¶Thus he shewed me: and, behold, the Lord stood upon a wall made by a plumbline, with a plumbline in his hand.

8 And the Lord said unto me, Amos, what seest thou? And I said, A plumbline. Then said the Lord, Behold, I will set a plumbline in the midst of my people Israel: I will not again pass by them any more:

9 And the high places of Isaac shall be desolate, and the sanctuaries of Israel shall be laid waste; and I will rise against the house of Jeroboam with the sword.

10 ¶Then Amaziah the priest of Beth-el sent to Jeroboam king of Israel, saying, Amos hath conspired against thee in the midst of the house of Israel: the land is not able to bear all his words.

11 For thus Amos saith, Jeroboam shall die by the sword, and Israel shall surely be led away captive out of their own land.

12 Also Amaziah said unto Amos, O thou seer, go, flee thee away into the land of Judah, and there eat bread, and prophesy there:

13 But prophesy not again any more at Beth-el: for it is the king’s chapel, and it is the king’s court.

14 ¶Then answered Amos, and said to Amaziah, I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet’s son; but I was an herdman, and a gatherer of sycomore fruit:

15 And the Lord took me as I followed the flock, and the Lord said unto me, Go, prophesy unto my people Israel.

16 ¶Now therefore hear thou the word of the Lord: Thou sayest, Prophesy not against Israel, and drop not thy word against the house of Isaac.

17 Therefore thus saith the Lord; Thy wife shall be an harlot in the city, and thy sons and thy daughters shall fall by the sword, and thy land shall be divided by line; and thou shalt die in a polluted land: and Israel shall surely go into captivity forth of his land.

Also why would a mere mortal prophet have to remind God what he had promised Israel rather than wiping them off the face of the earth as in the days of Noah or Sodom and Gamorah?

Moses did the same thing:

Exodus 32:14

14 And the Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people.

Edited March 21, 2012 by Zakuska

[Log]

Log,

Two questions: (1) Is it your personal belief that God is not omniscient? (2) Are you LDS?

1. Do the scriptures say he is? If so, how do you answer Vox, who I linked to above? Examples from the Bible, it might be added, representing God in a fashion rather less than omniscient, can be multiplied beyond what Vox cited.

1a. If you concede the scriptures do not say God is omniscient, why do you hold to that anti-scriptural view?

2. Yes.

2a. As you know, examples of LDS affirming a belief in omniscience is not relevant to the question I have asked, so please, do not cite LDS General Authorities in an attempt to *prove* that the official LDS doctrine is that God is omniscient in the way you define the term as a rebuttal by way of tu quoque. The Church has no official position on this subject.

The bolded, underlined word is for BCSpace, who seems to think folk doctrine, repeated enough and in the "right" places, becomes official doctrine, kind of like how common-law marriages work.

Edited March 21, 2012 by Log

[Vance]

That is an invalid syllogism, because the word "one" is used in it with different and incompatible meanings. The fallacy becomes obvious if we ask the question: "Is it possible for the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost to form more than one Godhead?" The answer is obviously no! That means that when Jesus says that Him and His the Father are "one," Son, and Holy Ghost are it does not mean that they are "one" in the sense that they form "one Godhead," for the simple reason that they couldn't possibly form anything other than "one Godhead"! Therefore when Jesus says that He and His Father are "one," it means that they are "one" in ways other than them forming "one Godhead".

Again, see my rewording of the paragraph. A married couple certainly cannot be anything other than "one married couple;" but they may not be "one" in the most essential ways that they are supposed to be one, which is being in harmony with one another in their wills, desires, and aspirations. They may even be staying at the Divorce Hotel (in separate rooms of course)! So if a married couple said in conversation that they are truly "one," it couldn't mean that they are "one married couple," because they couldn't possibly be anything else even if they wanted to. So they must mean that they are "one" in ways other than being "one married couple". It means that they are in perfect harmony with one another in all aspects of their lives. They don't have fights, or quarrels, or disagreements an such like. The same logic applies to Jesus when He says that He and His Father are "one".

Excellent logic and reason.

Added to the fact that the "Godhead" is no where in the context, nor can it be reasonably forced in, makes the attempt to do so totally ridiculous.

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

Mr. Bukowski,

You wrote:

I don't think I was being "snarky." Here's my point. You don't like it when some evangelicals say that Mormons are not Christians. If you feel that others should not tell you that you should not call yourselves Christians, then to be consistent you should not tell evangelicals that they should not call themselves orthodox Christians.

I have no problem with this.

[Rob Bowman]

Log,

You wrote:

1. Do the scriptures say he is? If so, how do you answer Vox, who I linked to above? Examples from the Bible, it might be added, representing God in a fashion rather less than omniscient, can be multiplied beyond what Vox cited.

There are excellent articles and books easily found online by evangelical theologians and biblical scholars responding to the view that "Vox" represents (which appears to be the view known as open theism). Of the numerous such resources that could be cited, let me recommend a very brief article by John Frame from the Apologetics Study Bible. The Bible certainly teaches that God is omniscient. God perfectly knows everything (Job 37:16), including knowing the seemingly most insignificant minutiae (Matt. 10:30), knowing what is in people’s hearts (1 Sam. 16:7; 1 Kings 8:39; Ps. 44:21; 1 Chron. 28:9, 17; Ps. 139:1-4; Jer. 17:10; Luke 16:15; 1 John 3:20), and knowing all future events before they happen (Isa. 41:22-23; 42:9; 44:7; 46:9-10; Mark 13:32), as all of the predictive prophecies in the Bible illustrate.

But you did not answer my question, which was whether you personally believe that God is omniscient or not. Why not just answer the question?

You wrote:

As you know, examples of LDS affirming a belief in omniscience is not relevant to the question I have asked, so please, do not cite LDS General Authorities in an attempt to *prove* that the official LDS doctrine is that God is omniscient in the way you define the term as a rebuttal by way of tu quoque. The Church has no official position on this subject.

As you admitted in extremely small type, and as the recent thread "What is considered 'official' LDS doctrine?" nicely illustrates, Mormons cannot even agree among themselves as to what constitutes the LDS Church's "official" position. So it's hard for a non-Mormon who knows this to take it seriously when Mormons criticize outsiders for supposedly getting it wrong.

The LDS Church's official website lds.org returns 58 hits for the word all-knowing, 68 hits for the word omniscient, and 136 hits for omniscience. I think you will find that every single one of these is affirmative of God having this attribute. You will also find some 90 hits in which it is affirmed that God "knows all things." In its official Guide to the Scriptures, the term omniscience is defined as "The divine trait of having all knowledge (Matt. 6:8; 2 Ne. 2:24)." The entry "God, Omniscience of" in the Church's Topical Guide lists over 100 citations from the four standard works in support of the doctrine. The site includes numerous speeches by General Authorities, including Presidents of the Church, in General Conference affirming that God is omniscient, as well as several statements in various LDS curriculum manuals also affirming this doctrine. If divine omniscience is not an official doctrine of the LDS Church, the whole idea of official LDS doctrine is meaningless. But hey, believe whatever you want.

[Log]

Rob,

Responding to your last point first: even though you knew beforehand that any response along those lines was, in fact, an exercise of the tu quoque fallacy, you chose to respond in that fashion anyways. This is hardly an example of intellectual integrity.

I will get around to your first point in a bit.

Edited March 21, 2012 by Log

[Rob Bowman]

Log,

You wrote:

Responding to your last point first: even though you knew beforehand that any response along those lines was, in fact, an exercise of the tu quoque fallacy, you chose to respond in that fashion anyways. This is hardly an example of intellectual integrity.

No, I was responding to your false claim that the omniscience of God is not official LDS doctrine. I was not arguing that Vox's objections to the doctrine were to be dismissed or ignored because the LDS Church teaches the doctrine.

You wrote:

I will get around to your first point in a bit.

How long does it take to say whether you personally believe God is omniscient? Or are you trying to decide?

[Log]

Log,

I was responding to your false claim that the omniscience of God is not official LDS doctrine.

My claim, which is that the Church has no official doctrine on whether God is omniscient in the sense under discussion, is not false; there does not exist a proclamation nor declaration that God is omniscient as you define it, and the scriptures do not say it.

As you are aware of my position on what constitutes official doctrine, having admitted to perusing the thread dedicated to precisely that issue in which I made my position abundantly clear, you should have refrained from attempting to show otherwise without a direct appeal to an official proclamation or declaration. This response indicates a lack of intellectual integrity on your part.

Edited March 21, 2012 by Log

[wenglund]

I don’t know what “love is the conduit” means,

To me, this is a key concept that needs to be understood in order to grasp not only what Dan is saying, but also to accurately conceptualize what Christ said in his prayer to the Father as well as what he said in his "farewell addresses."

To grasp this concept one needs to look at love, not in isolation, but as part of a processes. Love, like faith, is a principle of action (faith "worketh by love"--Galatians 5:6), which leads to the ends of that love. If we love the world and darkness, it will lead us to becoming worldly and spiritually dark. If we love God and light, it will lead us to become Godly and full of light.

Here, in part, is how that process works:

1. We are commanded to love God and our fellow man (John 13:34; 2 John 1:5;Jude 1:21)

2. This love of God, if unfeigned or without dissimulation, provokes us unto good works and causes us to obey God's commandments (Hebrews 10:24; 1 John 5:2-3;2 John 1:6)

3. Through obedience to Gods commandments, our love of God and man is made manifest (John 13:35; 2 Corinthians 8:24), and proves or confirms the sincerity of that love ( 2 Corinthians 2:8; 8:8), and causes us to love Jesus and our fellow man (John 8:42).

4. Through obedience to God's commandments, and by virtue of our labors of love (1 Thessalonians 1:3; Hebrews 6:10 ), it worketh to our good (Romans 8:28) and we grow reciprocally and are edified and abound unto perfect obedience, love, faith, righteousness, and joy, and unto the promise of eternal life and a fullness of God, thus fulfilling the law and commandments ( Romans 13:10; 1 Corinthians 2:9; Galatians 5:14; Ephesians 3:19; 4:16; Philippians 1:9; Colossians 2:2: 1 Thessalonians 3:12; Hebrews 1:9; James 1:12; 2:5; 1 John 2:5; Jude 1:2; 21).

Charity edifieth, and without it we are nothing (1 Corinthians 8:1;) 13:1-13).

This process is delineated in John 14:15-24; John 15:9-19; 1 John 3:1-24; and 1 John 4:7-21

In short, to become one in Godly love with the Father and Son, particularly perfect in that oneness of Godly love, is ultimately to become a God.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[Log]

Log,

How long does it take to say whether you personally believe God is omniscient? Or are you trying to decide?

Do I believe God is omniscient? If by omniscient we mean "knowing all that is possible to be known" then I think God is potentially omniscient.

I, however, am extremely interested to see how you answer Vox's questions in the aforementioned link.

Edited March 21, 2012 by Log

[Rob Bowman]

Log,

You wrote:

My claim, which is that the Church has no official doctrine on whether God is omniscient in the sense under discussion, is not false; there does not exist a proclamation nor declaration that God is omniscient as you define it, and the scriptures do not say it.

The LDS Church disagrees with you. Its official website lists numerous scriptures that it claims support the doctrine.

You wrote:

As you are aware of my position on what constitutes official doctrine, having admitted to perusing the thread dedicated to precisely that issue in which I made my position abundantly clear, you should have refrained from attempting to show otherwise without a direct appeal to an official proclamation or declaration. This response indicates a lack of intellectual integrity on your part.

Or, it could simply indicate that I disagree with your minimalist standard for determining what is official doctrine. You know, bud, it's possible for someone to disagree with you and still have intellectual credibility.

[Rob Bowman]

Log,

You wrote:

Do I believe God is omniscient? If by omniscient we mean "knowing all that is possible to be known" then I think God is potentially omniscient.

I'll take that as a No. And frankly, if God isn't already omniscient, he never will be, as the potential pool of knowable things is increasing exponentially.

You wrote:

I, however, am extremely interested to see how you answer Vox's questions in the aforementioned link.

I have already explained the general approach I take to the issue. I am not interested in continuing this sidebar discussion, especially since on this issue the LDS Church's official publications and most Mormons agree with my position!

[Rob Bowman]

Wade,

If to be a completely loving being is to be a God, then with that stipulated definition I hope by the grace of God to become a "God" myself one day. But of course that isn't the issue.

[Log]

Log,

I'll take that as a No. And frankly, if God isn't already omniscient, he never will be, as the potential pool of knowable things is increasing exponentially.

You can take it any way you like. Congratulations, I suppose.

I have already explained the general approach I take to the issue. I am not interested in continuing this sidebar discussion, especially since on this issue the LDS Church's official publications and most Mormons agree with my position!

So, yes, you are employing the tu quoque I described earlier, and, which I also hold, indicates a lack of intellectual integrity on your part. That you refused to answer some specific questions with specific answers also does not bode well for your intellectual integrity.

To be clear, the reason this got brought up at all was because you held omniscience to be a barrier to the LDS notion of theosis.

I fully expect to be fully like God the Father in many of these ways -- in character, righteousness, love, goodness, and so forth. I don't expect to be as intelligent or knowledgeable as God because God is eternally omniscient; he does not need to "learn" anything because he already knows it.

Edited March 21, 2012 by Log

[wenglund]

Wade, If to be a completely loving being is to be a God, then with that stipulated definition I hope by the grace of God to become a "God" myself one day. But of course that isn't the issue.

The way I stated it, it very much is the issue. Do you now understand what "love as a conduit" means?

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Edited March 21, 2012 by wenglund

[Rob Bowman]

Log,

That makes three times you have questioned my "intellectual integrity." Ironically, your newest pretext for doing so was my choosing not to respond to a web article by some unknown person arguing against a view held by most Mormons and repeatedly affirmed in official LDS publications. Meanwhile, you never could bring yourself to answer a simple yes or no question.

Matthew 7:1-5 comes to mind.

[Rob Bowman]

Wade,

You wrote:

The way I stated it, it very much is the issue. Do you now understand what "love as a conduit" means?

I prefer to let Dan speak for himself. As for the issue, I am not concerned with maverick Mormons who redefine exaltation to mean merely the attainment of perfect moral character. I am rather more concerned with traditional-minded Mormons who believe that exaltation means the attainment of divine metaphysical powers such as omnipotence.

[Zakuska]

Wade,

You wrote:

I prefer to let Dan speak for himself. As for the issue, I am not concerned with maverick Mormons who redefine exaltation to mean merely the attainment of perfect moral character. I am rather more concerned with traditional-minded Mormons who believe that exaltation means the attainment of divine metaphysical powers such as omnipotence.

Hmmm... Paul sure seems to pray for that very thing:

Eph 3

17 That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love,

18 May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height;

19 And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.

And another...

1 Corinthians 1:5

5 That in every thing ye are enriched by him, in all utterance, and in all knowledge;

There goes the "Mystery" of God as espoused by many traditional-minded Christians.

Edited March 21, 2012 by Zakuska

[Log]

Log,

That makes three times you have questioned my "intellectual integrity." Ironically, your newest pretext for doing so was my choosing not to respond to a web article by some unknown person arguing against a view held by most Mormons and repeatedly affirmed in official LDS publications.

Actually, the last one is a simple reaffirmation of the first, since you have indeed revealed, and reaffirm above, that you are knowingly deploying a tu quoque to avoid answering some specific questions with specific answers.

Meanwhile, you never could bring yourself to answer a simple yes or no question.

Have you, Rob, stopped beating your wife yet?

Edited March 21, 2012 by Log

[mfbukowski]

Okay, let me rephrase it to make it clearer. I will highlight the changes I have made:

That is an invalid syllogism, because the word "one" is used in it with different and incompatible meanings. The fallacy becomes obvious if we ask the question: "Is it possible for the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost to form more than one Godhead?" The answer is obviously no! That means that when Jesus says that Him and His the Father are "one," Son, and Holy Ghost are it does not mean that they are "one" in the sense that they form "one Godhead," for the simple reason that they couldn't possibly form anything other than "one Godhead"! Therefore when Jesus says that He and His Father are "one," it means that they are "one" in ways other than them forming "one Godhead".

Yep. That's the way I understood it.

[mfbukowski]

I don't think I was being "snarky." Here's my point. You don't like it when some evangelicals say that Mormons are not Christians. If you feel that others should not tell you that you should not call yourselves Christians, then to be consistent you should not tell evangelicals that they should not call themselves orthodox Christians.

The only problem with that is I really don't care if they call us Christians or not. The word has been co-opted and doesn't mean anything anymore. There are evangelicals who don't think Catholics are "Christians" which is about as weird a usage of the term as you can get. http://www.born-agai...o/catholics.htm

10 Scriptural Reasons Roman Catholics Are not Christian

Roman Catholicism is not Christian, it is a satanically inspired counterfeit of Christianity that has deceived billions into worshipping a false Christ. If you really love Catholics, you will gently show them the Truth so that they can decide who they will believe: The Vatican's Catechism, or The Holy Bible.

Image of the book Understanding Roman Catholicism

Such is the business of being in an anti-religious ministry. Sounds exactly like what those who say we are not "Christians" say about us.

So I guess we need another term for Evangelicals since it appears you cannot agree yourselves on what defines a "Christian"- I suppose it should just be "Generic Protestants", or as we often hear in the church, "Born-Agains".

That works for me. If we and Catholics are not "Christians" we need something to call you as well and that seems to work for me. I would hope it would not be offensive, but then again you guys don't seem to care about offending us, so I am not sure what to say about that.

It would be nice if we could get together in Christian charity, but I guess it's not possible. At least it isn't us who started the name wars.

Edited March 21, 2012 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

"God knows everything"

What qualifies as a "thing"? What does that phrase even mean?

Does he know what he hasn't created yet? How many "things" hasn't he created yet?

Could we be incorrect in counting the things he hasn't created?

My answer to this is just that this is a linguistic confusion - that the word "omniscient" doesn't really mean much when you think about it. But I think for those who take this all literally, this would have to be a real question.

So what is the answer?

Edited March 21, 2012 by mfbukowski