Heavenly Mother

[3DOP]

So "being" refers to "nature"? So when it is said that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are "one Being" or "of one being", that means they are of the same [divine] nature?

If so, would this be the same as saying that there is one human nature? Would it be analogous to the statement that Christ is consubstantial with the Father in His divinity, and consubstantial with us in His humanity? If so, how do you view that in relation to the difference between the LDS view of the Godhead and the traditional Trinity?

Christ Knight, re-read my post. Yes. That is exactly what I said! I don't think I have any problem with the LDS view unless they insist that the Son of God is made of an inferior nature. We don't speak the same language very easily. If we did, we could be in much more agreement than a lot of people on both sides think.

[halconero]

First, #2 doesn't allude to the fallacy of 3 beings, 1 god(head). In fact, the 3 points reject Modalism, Arianism and Tritheism.

For me, God is not created or an exalted being. He has been God from eternity to eternity. Because God is love (1 John), He created humans because without an object to love and be loved by then love would not exist.

Just out of curiosity Valentius, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't you an atheist a few months ago? Are you still, or have you become a Trinitarian Christian? I mean no malice, but I'm just wondering.

Also, I'm gonna be nitpicky here, and I'm pulling out one of my religion textbooks, so I can't give you the online source (Here's the reference anyways: Barth, Karl, and Geoffrey William Bromiley. 1975. The doctrine of the word of God prolegomena to church dogmatics, being volume I, 1. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark. Pages 348–9.) but to say that God could not love without humanity, and because He is love, that would say that he did not exist before the creation of humanity. A trinitarian belief solves this:

"The Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit" are not three different names for different parts of God but one name for God, because the Father can not be divided from the Son or the Holy Spirit from the Son. God has always loved, and there has always existed perfectly harmonious communion between the three persons of the Trinity. One consequence of this teaching is that God could not have created man to have someone to talk to or to love: God "already" enjoyed personal communion; being perfect, he did not create man because of a lack or inadequacy he had. Another consequence, according to Rev. Fr. Thomas Hopko, an Eastern Orthodox theologian, is that if God were not a Trinity, he could not have loved prior to creating other beings on whom to bestow his love.

Edited January 3, 2013 by halconero

[halconero]

Of course they are biblical concepts. The words are not present because of the way the Scriptures were written my multiple authors over centuries in everyday language. But there is nothing sinister about using philosophical terms, and even coining a vocabulary. That is what we do when we want precision in any field. Theology is the ultimate science. Do we dismiss other sciences because the use words and phrases not common outside the discipline? Why do we make new words to describe physical creation? You don't find those words except in texts and journals that are understood by those with a mind to study. Same thing here.

Well...according to St. Athanasius they would have preferred to use the scriptural terms, but those were being used by the Arian heresy to describe their doctrines as well, and so they were forced to adopt philosophical language.

[ChristKnight]

Christ Knight, re-read my post. Yes. That is exactly what I said! I don't think I have any problem with the LDS view unless they insist that the Son of God is made of an inferior nature. We don't speak the same language very easily. If we did, we could be in much more agreement than a lot of people on both sides think.

Thanks yep, I did see that you said the same thing . I just wanted to make it clear (not to you of course) that "substance" and "being" are referring to the same concept, since many times this understanding is lost in these discussions.

Also, I think that understanding that these words are referring to "nature" is part of the key to seeing why, in my opinion, the traditional Trinity doctrine is not more monotheistic than the LDS Godhead doctrine.

[Darren10]

Foundational Truths:

1) There is ONLY one God

2) There as are 3 distinct Persons called God

3) Those 3 Persons are co-equal and co- eternal

"One" does not mean "numerically one" from the Bible. Nowhere in the bible does it use a word to describe the oness of the Godhead by a word which strictly means numerically one. It is the post biblical creeds which obligate readers of the Bible to conclude that "one" means "numerically one" and not "one in unity" which is what the LDS believe and, frankly, fits perfectly with the Hebrew and Greek words used to describe the oness of the Godhead.

Deuteronomy 4: 35, 39

Isaiah 43:10, 44:6-8

Psalm 90:2

John 8:58

John 1:1

John 14-16

Here's Amulek's response to Zeezrom:

26 And Zeezrom said unto him: Thou sayest there is a true and living God?

27 And Amulek said: Yea, there is a true and living God.

28 Now Zeezrom said: Is there more than one God?

29 And he answered, No.

30 Now Zeezrom said unto him again: How knowest thou these things?

31 And he said: An angel hath made them known unto me.

32 And Zeezrom said again: Who is he that shall come? Is it the Son of God?

33 And he said unto him, Yea.

34 And Zeezrom said again: Shall he save his people in their sins? And Amulek answered and said unto him: I say unto you he shall not, for it is impossible for him to deny his word.

35 Now Zeezrom said unto the people: See that ye remember these things; for he said there is but one God; yet he saith that the Son of God shall come, but he shall not save his people—as though he had authority to command God.

Alma 11: 28;35

Here's a verse from the church of the lamb and church of the devil Nephite creed:

41 And they must come according to the words which shall be established by the mouth of the Lamb; and the words of the Lamb shall be made known in the records of thy seed, as well as in the records of the twelve apostles of the Lamb; wherefore they both shall be established in one; for there is one God and one Shepherd over all the earth.

1 Nephi 13

And more from Nephi:

21 And now, behold, my beloved brethren, this is the way; and there is none other way nor name given under heaven whereby man can be saved in the kingdom of God. And now, behold, this is the doctrine of Christ, and the only and true doctrine of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, which is one God, without end. Amen.

2 Nephi 31

There's several more.

the LDS very much believe in one God and that one God are the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. What the LDS do not believe and outright reject are the post biblical creeds which obligate people to conclude that "one" means numerically one. the LDS declare that "one" in these biblical and Book of Mormon passages means "unity".

[Darren10]

Also, Jesus' baptism in Luke doesn't allude to a Tritheism.

But it does allude to a supreme Father being pleased with his Son for His Son did (and does) his will and the Holy Ghost confirming the truth of the Father and of the Son. It also confirms that the entire Godhead is involved in true baptism.

[Darren10]

"God" can qualify anything. As my thinking continues to seek out "God" it does not seem invalid to ask these kinds of questions.

Mormonism is the product of Joseph Smith's religious questions having (tentative) answers applied to them. Compare Lectures on Faith with his theology of 1843 and the progression of his theological pondering is instructive. This is not "line upon line, precept upon precept", it is "this line and precept have replaced the earlier line and precept". There is no way that directly contradictory and mutually exclusive statements defining "Godhead" can be kept together: 1843 replaced 1835; yet 1835 was kept around as contradictory "canon" until 1921 (when Lectures was quietly dropped from the scriptures).

If GtF is the most intelligent being we know of, even as asserted, "more intelligent than they/we all" (I assume, combined intellect is being spoken of here), that still does not answer the ultimate question, "why existence at all instead of nothing?" Some uncaused Cause is responsible for the existence of eternal matter and intelligence. As intelligence cannot be a trait not possessed by the Necessary Cause, it follows that that intelligence trumps GtF's intelligence, even if his intelligence is greater than the combined total of our intelligences. So why would GtF not revere the NC above all other intelligence? That is all I am asking to do: I don't want to pray to a lesser god; I want to know and pray directly to THE "God"....

you're arguing the unmoved mover which is also a philosophical argument used for Deism. I think you've made philosophy your doctrine which i find unfortunate and I think will cause to never find answers regarding God. According to LDS doctrines, God the Father is the first of all things, period. Regardless of what were discussed or declared in Lectures of Faith, the doctrines still stand.

[CV75]

"why existence at all instead of nothing?"

Becsue there is an opposition in all things.

[Darren10]

Worship as veneration is fine; as long as the object/person of our worship is kept in place: i.e. there are levels of worship. I am sure that I venerate God the Father. But it can't be the same thing as seeking intimate knowledge of the Necessary Cause.

And here's my take on that:

Wherefore, I give unto them a commandment, saying thus: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy might, mind, and strength; and in the name of Jesus Christ thou shalt serve him.

D&C 59:5

Compare Mathew 22:36-38:

36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law?

37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt ^alove the Lord thy God with all thy ^bheart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy ^cmind.

38 This is the first and great ^acommandment.

I say woship the father with all your heart and soul and answers to His nature will come. They will come in the lord's own time and not necessarily during this mortal life.

[Darren10]

Just out of curiosity Valentius, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't you an atheist a few months ago? Are you still, or have you become a Trinitarian Christian? I mean no malice, but I'm just wondering.

That's what I was wondering.

[Darren10]

In credal formulae, every single thing is not a being. Being refers to a unified nature. That is why in biology we reproduce "after our kind" according to our natures. It isn't a new kind of nature that comes into existence in biological reproduction. The same one nature is always reproduced in a different animal, plant or person. If Jesus is truly the Son, we HAVE to insist that He has the Father's being, the one divine nature. Otherwise his sonship to the Father is less authentic than that which holds in biology.

We can see very clearly the difference between being and person when we move away from the creeds relating to the divine nature and look at the Council of Chalcedon. The same formula is used to show Christ's unity with man through human nature. They even use the word translated consubstantial. Jesus is consubstantial with us through his humanity. One nature/being can be human, divine or angelic, with multiple persons.

Of course this is repetitious, but its a New Year so...there goes. Have at it.

3DOP

Here's the way I see it:

I am a human being aswell as you. We are human beings in part, as you have identified, because we are of the human race. Here "Being" does mean unity. But you and I are also individualy beings and stand separately as beings and both of us are human.

going along with the biological analogy, I can be and in some ways am one with my biological father. I can talk and think as he and in many ways I do. But regardless of our oness my father is and always will be greater than I. If for any other reason than I myself conceed that he is greater, than he is. Likewise we of the LDS believe that Jesus Christ is and always was and always will be the Son of the Father. We believe that Jesus Christ is one with the Father and premortally, known as the great Jehovah, was one with the Father. He is one because He has and always will submit His own will to that of the will of the Father. The Son is subject to he Father. This doesnaturally lead one ot conclude that the Father, as per Jesus' own words, greater than Jesus. Jesus showed mankind the perfect example of how to be perfect: by submitting otthe Father. We submit to the Father through the Son whose sacrifice and teachings made it possible to come unto the Father and to be more like Him.

[Damien the Leper]

Just out of curiosity Valentius, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't you an atheist a few months ago? Are you still, or have you become a Trinitarian Christian? I mean no malice, but I'm just wondering.

Also, I'm gonna be nitpicky here, and I'm pulling out one of my religion textbooks, so I can't give you the online source (Here's the reference anyways: Barth, Karl, and Geoffrey William Bromiley. 1975. The doctrine of the word of God prolegomena to church dogmatics, being volume I, 1. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark. Pages 348–9.) but to say that God could not love without humanity, and because He is love, that would say that he did not exist before the creation of humanity. A trinitarian belief solves this:

"The Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit" are not three different names for different parts of God but one name for God, because the Father can not be divided from the Son or the Holy Spirit from the Son. God has always loved, and there has always existed perfectly harmonious communion between the three persons of the Trinity. One consequence of this teaching is that God could not have created man to have someone to talk to or to love: God "already" enjoyed personal communion; being perfect, he did not create man because of a lack or inadequacy he had. Another consequence, according to Rev. Fr. Thomas Hopko, an Eastern Orthodox theologian, is that if God were not a Trinity, he could not have loved prior to creating other beings on whom to bestow his love.

Halconero, you are correct. But try as much as I could, atheism wouldnt completely fit for me. Then I watched a sermon that completely annihilated my atheistic worldview. I say this because the person giving the sermon said that the good and moral life that atheists live ASSUMES the Christian worldview. Simply put, I was wrong to abandon faith and it made me question whether or not I ever truly believed in the first place.

I hope this makes sense.

[Damien the Leper]

"One" does not mean "numerically one" from the Bible. Nowhere in the bible does it use a word to describe the oness of the Godhead by a word which strictly means numerically one. It is the post biblical creeds which obligate readers of the Bible to conclude that "one" means "numerically one" and not "one in unity" which is what the LDS believe and, frankly, fits perfectly with the Hebrew and Greek words used to describe the oness of the Godhead.

Here's Amulek's response to Zeezrom:

Alma 11: 28;35

Here's a verse from the church of the lamb and church of the devil Nephite creed:

1 Nephi 13

And more from Nephi:

2 Nephi 31

There's several more.

the LDS very much believe in one God and that one God are the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. What the LDS do not believe and outright reject are the post biblical creeds which obligate people to conclude that "one" means numerically one. the LDS declare that "one" in these biblical and Book of Mormon passages means "unity".

But when scripture says ONE GOD and reaffirms it, there isn't an allusion to other gods as part of some pantheon. I have to reject such notions because I don't see Biblical evidence for it.

Quoting the Book of Mormon to me isn't going to hold water because I don't recognize it as scripture. However, if you could provide a Biblical response that would suggest as you quote then I would be willing to consider the argument.

[Damien the Leper]

But it does allude to a supreme Father being pleased with his Son for His Son did (and does) his will and the Holy Ghost confirming the truth of the Father and of the Son. It also confirms that the entire Godhead is involved in true baptism.

The Trinity is apprehendable but incomprehensible. There is only one God. Remember, this is about Him and not us. The more we try to make God like us the further away we get from truly understanding Him.

[Bart Burk]

The Virgin Mary is our Heavenly Mother:

http://www.ewtn.com/library/MARY/FATIMA.htm

[pogi]

The Virgin Mary is our Heavenly Mother:

http://www.ewtn.com/...MARY/FATIMA.htm

The Virgin Mary didn't stay a virgin you know. She did mary Joseph and have other children with him. Does that mean Joseph is our Heavenly Father, or was our "Heavenly Mother" practicing polyandry?

Don't think so.

[Damien the Leper]

The Virgin Mary didn't stay a virgin you know. She did mary Joseph and have other children with him. Does that mean Joseph is our Heavenly Father, or was our "Heavenly Mother" practicing polyandry?

Don't think so.

Agreed.

[3DOP]

Thanks yep, I did see that you said the same thing . I just wanted to make it clear (not to you of course) that "substance" and "being" are referring to the same concept, since many times this understanding is lost in these discussions.

Also, I think that understanding that these words are referring to "nature" is part of the key to seeing why, in my opinion, the traditional Trinity doctrine is not more monotheistic than the LDS Godhead doctrine.

No argument from me Christ Knight. If I understand Catholic belief, there is a sense in which Catholics are less monotheistic than Jews or Muslims. Why? Because we allow Three Persons in the Godhead. Of course they are mistaken if they insist that we are in no sense monotheistic. The unity of the divine nature is the sense in which we think God has revealed that all Three Persons are One.

I've never perceived the need to prove that my monotheism is the more pure than anybody else's. Nowhere in anybody's revelation do I learn that the strictest monotheist wins. My monotheism adequately fits the revelations that Jews and Muslims reject. If Jews and Muslims took the New Testament more seriously, they would soften their view too. Of course its easier for them to be more monotheistic. They don't believe what we do about God having a Son or what seems to be revealed about the Holy Ghost.

Edited January 3, 2013 by 3DOP

[3DOP]

Darren10

Here's the way I see it:

I am a human being aswell as you. We are human beings in part, as you have identified, because we are of the human race. Here "Being" does mean unity. But you and I are also individualy beings and stand separately as beings and both of us are human.

3DOP

Agreed. We aren't one in every respect. You are using the word being in two different ways up above which would ordinarily be a monkeywrench in discussion. However, I follow your reasoning and accept it.

Darren10

going along with the biological analogy, I can be and in some ways am one with my biological father. I can talk and think as he and in many ways I do. But regardless of our oness my father is and always will be greater than I. If for any other reason than I myself conceed that he is greater, than he is.

3DOP

You make a very important distinction here. Jesus as Son is inferior to the Father NOT as to the quality of the life or existence that He has. The inferiority and thus the subordination is due to relationship. We could say the same thing about the drill instuctor who is lord over the candidates for basic training. In what way is he superior? Relationship. No one denies, and in fact, I insist that Fatherhood is superior to sonship, and thus when the New Testament Scriptures speak of One God, it is often the Father, and not necessarily the ontological Trinity. We cannot lose sight of the truth that all glory and honor and obedience is ultimately due to the Fount of all things, God the Father.

However...I don't believe that Jesus' divinity, the nature He received as a Son is inferior. Jesus is equal to the Father in nature as the recruit is equal to the drill instructor.

Darren10

Likewise we of the LDS believe that Jesus Christ is and always was and always will be the Son of the Father. We believe that Jesus Christ is one with the Father and premortally, known as the great Jehovah, was one with the Father. He is one because He has and always will submit His own will to that of the will of the Father. The Son is subject to he Father. This doesnaturally lead one ot conclude that the Father, as per Jesus' own words, greater than Jesus. Jesus showed mankind the perfect example of how to be perfect: by submitting otthe Father. We submit to the Father through the Son whose sacrifice and teachings made it possible to come unto the Father and to be more like Him.

3DOP

The relationship is eternal. I agree. I'll go you one further. Jesus was obviously of a superior nature to St. Joseph and the Blessed Virgin. And yet He was obedient to them too. Why? Same reason---relationship. He was in a position of inferiority to His mother and foster father. By the way, that is a key to why Catholics ask favors of those two saints more than any other. Jesus does what they say. He obeyed them and He still honors them as His human parents. Most of the Catholic theology that people get bent out of shape about when it comes to Mary and Joseph stems precisely from a recognition that these two human beings are unique in all the universe, in that they are in a position of superiority to the Son of God by relationship. This relationship will endure forever. As creatures, they are infinitely below Him as to the nature He receives from his Heavenly Father, but we can never ignore the importance of relationship.

[Bill “Papa” Lee]

But when scripture says ONE GOD and reaffirms it, there isn't an allusion to other gods as part of some pantheon. I have to reject such notions because I don't see Biblical evidence for it.

Quoting the Book of Mormon to me isn't going to hold water because I don't recognize it as scripture. However, if you could provide a Biblical response that would suggest as you quote then I would be willing to consider the argument.

Why put one above the other?

[Bart Burk]

The Virgin Mary didn't stay a virgin you know. She did mary Joseph and have other children with him. Does that mean Joseph is our Heavenly Father, or was our "Heavenly Mother" practicing polyandry?

Don't think so.

I think the assumption that the brothers mentioned as Jesus' brothers were Mary's children is unwarranted. You might want to look at this:

http://www.catholic....ren-of-the-lord

Today, the most commonly accepted view is that they were Jesus’ cousins. Of the four "brethren" who are named in the Gospels, consider, for the sake of argument, only James. Similar reasoning can be used for the other three. We know that James the younger’s mother was named Mary. Look at the descriptions of the women standing beneath the cross: "among whom were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joseph, and the mother of the sons of Zebedee" (Matt. 27:56); "There were also women looking on from afar, among whom were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome" (Mark 15:40).

Then look at what John says: "But standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene" (John 19:25). If we compare these parallel accounts of the scene of the crucifixion, we see that the mother of James and Joseph must be the wife of Clopas. So far, so good.

An argument against this, though, is that James is elsewhere (Matt. 10:3) described as the son of Alphaeus, which would mean this Mary, whoever she was, was the wife of both Clopas and Alphaeus. But Alphaeus and Clopas are the same person, since the Aramaic name for Alphaeus could be rendered in Greek either as Alphaeus or as Clopas. Another possibility is that Alphaeus took a Greek name similar to his Jewish name, the way that Saul took the name Paul.

So it’s probable that James the younger is the son of Mary and Clopas. The second-century historian Hegesippus explains that Clopas was the brother of Joseph, the foster-father of Jesus. James would thus be Joseph’s nephew and a cousin of Jesus, who was Joseph’s putative son.

This identification of the "brethren of the Lord" as Jesus’ first cousins is open to legitimate question—they might even be relatives more distantly removed—but our inability to determine for certain their exact status strictly on the basis of the biblical evidence (or lack of it, in this case) says nothing at all about the main point, which is that the Bible demonstrates that they were not the Blessed Virgin Mary’s children.

As for the idea that Heavenly Father could have been married to Mary, I wouldn't say that, but I seem to remember in "A Marvelous Work and a Wonder" that LeGrand Richards seemed to say that. When a Protestant minister questioned him about the belief that God had a wife, LeGrand Richards remarked to the minister, "He had a Son didn't he?"

I don't believe Mary was the pre-existent Heavenly Mother because I don't believe in such a thing. But there is no reason that Mary couldn't have been Heavenly Mother in the same way that Jesus was already the only begotten Son of God in the pre-existence in the context of Mormon doctrine.

Edited January 3, 2013 by Bart Burk

[The Nehor]

The Virgin Mary didn't stay a virgin you know. She did mary Joseph and have other children with him. Does that mean Joseph is our Heavenly Father, or was our "Heavenly Mother" practicing polyandry?

Don't think so.

What is so wrong about polyandry?

[Tacenda]

What is so wrong about polyandry?

Everything...

[Damien the Leper]

Why put one above the other?

That should be evident within my post. Darren is stretching the definition of one to advance a certain argument. I don't accept monolatry or henotheism to be accurate. It is odd that some may conflate God with godhead. They are not synonymous.

[pogi]

As for the idea that Heavenly Father could have been married to Mary, I wouldn't say that, but I seem to remember in "A Marvelous Work and a Wonder" that LeGrand Richards seemed to say that. When a Protestant minister questioned him about the belief that God had a wife, LeGrand Richards remarked to the minister, "He had a Son didn't he?"

I don't believe Mary was the pre-existent Heavenly Mother because I don't believe in such a thing. But there is no reason that Mary couldn't have been Heavenly Mother in the same way that Jesus was already the only begotten Son of God in the pre-existence if you look at Mormon doctrine.

I guess I don't know what you mean by "Heavenly Mother" than. If she was mortal, what makes her heavenly (divine)? And if she was heavenly, what made Christ able to succumb to mortality if both of his parents were divinely immortal? She had no claim to divine parentage as Jesus.