Are Mormons' Christians?

[PD1]

LOL, we can believe in a God who tells us who He is.

[PD1]

The laws already where. No one needed to "establish" them.

Yeah, I know that's what the LDS believe, but, it doesn't make sense to have laws without an intelligent lawgiver to base them upon. Yet, the Mormons believe, as you've just stated, that the laws are eternal, assuming that they actually precede the lawgiver, which is ludicrous. In fact, it is tantamount to what was pointed out in another post in which I spoke of the backwardness of the Creator in LDS theology being created in the image of the creation, except in this instance, the Lawgiver is created after the law, which had no creator to base them upon to begin with.

Sorry, but once again you've only merely provided another classic example of the ineptitude of just who the Mormon God is. He needs the laws to exist as God, because the laws are actually superior to him as a being, and yet they're impersonal! And just how much more backward can one get when the impersonal is superior to the personal? I'm sure that the more we discuss this, the more likely the LDS will provide the answer to that as well.

[Teancum]

PD1,

My view is the LDS official doctrine is the canon. I may also add official doctrinal statements under the heading of the FP of the Church.

Others may disagree. Apparently Lund does.

I stated that due to its use the KFD has quasi official status.

I also pointed out that one can conclude that God was a savior for a world and thus was always God.

Anyway, you cabin that aseity is biblical. Certainly there are biblical passages that can be used to defend that theosophical conclusion. But here are other passages that may contradict it.

For example, if God needs nothing then one must conclude that God is impassable. Do you believe God is impassable. Thus God does not love nor does he need the love of his creations. He feels entirely nothing if we all love and accept him or if we entirely reject him. Nothing moves God.

Your conclusion are highly influences by Thomas Aquinas. Other disagree and conclude such from the bible. Hartshorne is a process theology proponent. He disagrees much with Aquinas in regards to aseity, immutability, impassability and so on. The social Trinitarian are also another group that may not be so hung up about aseity.

Anyway, you claim that to be saved one must accept theological ideas that may have been presented in the Bible but are still be wrangled about now.

I have great difficulty accepting the fact that one must get a total theological understanding about what God is in order to be saved. This strikes me odd because the EV community says there are not works involved in our salvation. But you say even though I believe everything the Bible says about God and His Son, if I do not have the right theology I have an idol and am thus not saved. Do you really think Aquinas would agree with you?

Teancum

[PD1]

If God is love, doesn't He need something to love, even if it's Himself?

If God is, then there is no inherent need. You said that God is love, and you are correct. Therefore, regardless of whether or not there is something external to himself to love, God would still be what he is. So, to answer your question more directly, God doesn't NEED to love, because he is the epitome of love.

Conversely, if "all things are governed by law: nothing is exempt" (Mormon Doctrine, 433), then would that not mean that love is governed by law as well? And as a LDS proponent recently pointed out, the laws are eternal and do not need to be established. Therefore, the law governing love preceded the person of God, and God needs to abide by it in order to be what he is. In other words, love is not predicated upon the person of God, but some impersonal something from somewhere, and there is the potential that God could quit loving, as someone stated that Gordon Hinckley believed that God could quit being God, meaning that love is not an inherent attribute of the man who became the LDS God. It is something that he complies with, however imperfectly, due to legal obligation.

So, as you can hopefully see, there is BIG difference between needing to do something in order to be God, and already being God, and giving being to everything that exists, love included.

[Zakuska]

The laws already where.  No one needed to "establish" them.

Yeah, I know that's what the LDS believe, but, it doesn't make sense to have laws without an intelligent lawgiver to base them upon. Yet, the Mormons believe, as you've just stated, that the laws are eternal, assuming that they actually precede the lawgiver, which is ludicrous. In fact, it is tantamount to what was pointed out in another post in which I spoke of the backwardness of the Creator in LDS theology being created in the image of the creation, except in this instance, the Lawgiver is created after the law, which had no creator to base them upon to begin with.

Sorry, but once again you've only merely provided another classic example of the ineptitude of just who the Mormon God is. He needs the laws to exist as God, because the laws are actually superior to him as a being, and yet they're impersonal! And just how much more backward can one get when the impersonal is superior to the personal? I'm sure that the more we discuss this, the more likely the LDS will provide the answer to that as well.

Who ever said they proceeded the Lawgiver?

They are just as eternal as he is because he is Eternal as are we all.

[PD1]

The laws already where.

[Tanyan]

Just my 2 cent's worth, the Hebrew word for Eternal, "Olam" does not constitute a meaning of foreverness or neverending in its meaning.

[PD1]

Just my 2 cent's worth, the Hebrew word for Eternal, "Olam" does not constitute a meaning of foreverness or neverending in its meaning.

And your Hebrew linguistic skills brought you to that conclusion?

[Tanyan]

PD1, I hope that last post was not intended as a sarcastic rock thrown my way from you as one who proclaims Jesus as your Master. My post was on research on the word, thats all. Try Humility/Charity Please. Thanks. In His Grace/Debt, Tanyan.

[PD1]

PD1, I hope that last post was not intended as a sarcastic rock thrown my way from you as one who proclaims Jesus as your Master. My post was on research on the word, thats all. Try Humility/Charity Please. Thanks. In His Grace/Debt, Tanyan.

That's what I thought.

Tell me something T, since you obviously believe that olam, and whatever other Hebrew phrase/word you've "researched" dealing with eternity, has as time element to it, then what prevents anyone from concluding that, once again, the LDS God is imperfect, given his need for finite, increments of time to exist within? In other words, since the LDS God became God at some point in time, then time actually precedes God, and without it, he doesn't exist. In fact, would not finite time logically imply a finite beginning? If not, then how is it possible for the LDS God, or man for that matter, to exist at all, given the impossibility of being able to traverse an actual infinite number of moments in something that either does not exist (time), or without a first moment to start the clock running? Did you think about those things when doing your "research" on olam?

[Teancum]

PD1

Plesae review my last post. I am intereted in your comments about how aeisity leads to impassibility and how we can have an impassable God based onthe biblical passages about His emotions?

Also what are your thoughts on my comments that much of what you are positing comes from Aquainas.

Lastly, what are your thoughts on process theology and the ideas of social trinitarianism.

Teancum

[PD1]

PD1

Plesae review my last post.

Sorry, T, but you're trying to cause a diversion away from the topic without ever finalizing who is right when it comes to LDS theology. You've stated that God needs nothing to exist as God, while your leaders say just the opposite. You can't have it both ways. In fact, you can't even quote "LDS canon," because your leaders are using the same canon to draw completely different conclusions. So, who's right? Which ever direction you go will have to include a denouncement of the other position as doctrinally in error. Do you have the courage and intestinal fortitude to say that Joseph Smith, Joseph Fielding Smith, Gerald Lund, et al, were wrong in their theological construct? Or are you going to agree with them in the sense that some man became who you believe is God, and is in fact, contingent upon a Father, Mother, physicality, laws, being married, having children, an infinite line of gods and goddesses, finite moments of infinitude, the necessity of sinning, redemption from the necessity of sinning, and on, and on, and on, just to be what he supposedly is today?

[Teancum]

PD1

Plesae review my last post.

Sorry, T, but you're trying to cause a diversion away from the topic without ever finalizing who is right when it comes to LDS theology. You've stated that God needs nothing to exist as God, while your leaders say just the opposite. You can't have it both ways. In fact, you can't even quote "LDS canon," because your leaders are using the same canon to draw completely different conclusions. So, who's right? Which ever direction you go will have to include a denouncement of the other position as doctrinally in error. Do you have the courage and intestinal fortitude to say that Joseph Smith, Joseph Fielding Smith, Gerald Lund, et al, were wrong in their theological construct? Or are you going to agree with them in the sense that some man became who you believe is God, and is in fact, contingent upon a Father, Mother, physicality, laws, being married, having children, an infinite line of gods and goddesses, finite moments of infinitude, the necessity of sinning, redemption from the necessity of sinning, and on, and on, and on, just to be what he supposedly is today?

Some may have trouble with my view but I believe the canon trumps. Based on my understanding of how and what is canonized in the LDS Church the canon could be changed or added to. But there are statements to the effect that if what is said by ANY LDS leader does not agree to the canon then it can be laid aside. Certianly JFS, HBL and BH Roberts held this view.

Thus, I hold to MY OWN position that the canon is correct and if I cannot confirm it from the canon then it is not "official" and I need not be bound by it.

And PD1, I am well aware of the concdrum this creates.

Teancum

[Tanyan]

PD1, I hope that last post was not intended as a sarcastic rock thrown my way from you as one who proclaims Jesus as your Master. My post was on research on the word, thats all. Try Humility/Charity Please. Thanks. In His Grace/Debt, Tanyan.

That's what I thought.

Tell me something T, since you obviously believe that olam, and whatever other Hebrew phrase/word you've "researched" dealing with eternity, has as time element to it, then what prevents anyone from concluding that, once again, the LDS God is imperfect, given his need for finite, increments of time to exist within? In other words, since the LDS God became God at some point in time, then time actually precedes God, and without it, he doesn't exist. In fact, would not finite time logically imply a finite beginning? If not, then how is it possible for the LDS God, or man for that matter, to exist at all, given the impossibility of being able to traverse an actual infinite number of moments in something that either does not exist (time), or without a first moment to start the clock running? Did you think about those things when doing your "research" on olam?

What Doth Athens have to do with Jerusalem ?.

[Tanyan]

PD1, I hope that last post was not intended as a sarcastic rock thrown my way from you as one who proclaims Jesus as your Master. My post was on research on the word, thats all. Try Humility/Charity Please. Thanks. In His Grace/Debt, Tanyan.

That's what I thought.

Tell me something T, since you obviously believe that olam, and whatever other Hebrew phrase/word you've "researched" dealing with eternity, has as time element to it, then what prevents anyone from concluding that, once again, the LDS God is imperfect, given his need for finite, increments of time to exist within? In other words, since the LDS God became God at some point in time, then time actually precedes God, and without it, he doesn't exist. In fact, would not finite time logically imply a finite beginning? If not, then how is it possible for the LDS God, or man for that matter, to exist at all, given the impossibility of being able to traverse an actual infinite number of moments in something that either does not exist (time), or without a first moment to start the clock running? Did you think about those things when doing your "research" on olam?

What Doth Athens have to do with Jerusalem ?.

Lets also add to the mix the following :

http://www.angelfire.com/az3/LDC/Topics.htm

Then click Bible, click :Hebrew, Early Judaic,and Christian Thought by Roger Cook. Have fun.

[PD1]

Some may have trouble with my view but I believe the canon trumps.  Based on my understanding of how and what is canonized in the LDS Church the canon could be changed or added to.  But there are statements to the effect that if what is said by ANY LDS leader does not agree to the canon then it can be laid aside.  Certianly JFS, HBL and BH Roberts held this view.

You believe the canon trumps, but your belief does not fall in line with what has been shown to you as the accepted process among the Mormon elite when it comes to the canonization of LDS doctrine. Secondly, you're admitting that Joseph Smith, "JFS," et al, taught false doctrine. So, are you really a LDS?

Thus, I hold to MY OWN position that the canon is correct and if I cannot confirm it from the canon then it is not "official"  and I need not be bound by it.

In other words, the president of the LDS church can get up and teach false doctrine, have it accepted church-wide, and be written on as being true to Mormon beliefs, but when it comes down to having to answer for those beliefs, and if they're not codified in one's own writings, then conveniently excuse those beliefs as being "unofficial doctrine," because if one were to follow through on the discussion, then one would have to admit to the error. And instead of admitting the error and making the proper lifestyle adjustments, it is more noble to carry on the ruse. T, has it ever occurred to you that by taking such an approach to truth that the only person you're really fooling is yourself?

And PD1, I am well aware of the concdrum this creates.

Then why persist in the foolishness? Do you really think that your eternal destiny is worth sacrificing from something as obvious as this?

[PD1]

PD1, I hope that last post was not intended as a sarcastic rock thrown my way from you as one who proclaims Jesus as your Master. My post was on research on the word, thats all. Try Humility/Charity Please. Thanks. In His Grace/Debt, Tanyan.

That's what I thought.

Tell me something T, since you obviously believe that olam, and whatever other Hebrew phrase/word you've "researched" dealing with eternity, has as time element to it, then what prevents anyone from concluding that, once again, the LDS God is imperfect, given his need for finite, increments of time to exist within? In other words, since the LDS God became God at some point in time, then time actually precedes God, and without it, he doesn't exist. In fact, would not finite time logically imply a finite beginning? If not, then how is it possible for the LDS God, or man for that matter, to exist at all, given the impossibility of being able to traverse an actual infinite number of moments in something that either does not exist (time), or without a first moment to start the clock running? Did you think about those things when doing your "research" on olam?

What Doth Athens have to do with Jerusalem ?.

Everything.

[PD1]

PD1, I hope that last post was not intended as a sarcastic rock thrown my way from you as one who proclaims Jesus as your Master. My post was on research on the word, thats all. Try Humility/Charity Please. Thanks. In His Grace/Debt, Tanyan.

That's what I thought.

Tell me something T, since you obviously believe that olam, and whatever other Hebrew phrase/word you've "researched" dealing with eternity, has as time element to it, then what prevents anyone from concluding that, once again, the LDS God is imperfect, given his need for finite, increments of time to exist within? In other words, since the LDS God became God at some point in time, then time actually precedes God, and without it, he doesn't exist. In fact, would not finite time logically imply a finite beginning? If not, then how is it possible for the LDS God, or man for that matter, to exist at all, given the impossibility of being able to traverse an actual infinite number of moments in something that either does not exist (time), or without a first moment to start the clock running? Did you think about those things when doing your "research" on olam?

What Doth Athens have to do with Jerusalem ?.

Lets also add to the mix the following :

http://www.angelfire.com/az3/LDC/Topics.htm

Then click Bible, click :Hebrew, Early Judaic,and Christian Thought by Roger Cook. Have fun.

I've got a better idea, T. Why not just answer the questions? For surely if your "research" were valid, then the questions being asked of you should be like water off a duck's back, right?

[Tanyan]

Once again "What hath Athens To Do With Jerusalem ?". I dont live in your world of Greek/Neo-Platonic/Gnostic/Hellenistic/Rhetorical/Dialectic. Thanks for the invite however.In His Debt/Grace. Tanyan.

[Teancum]

Some may have trouble with my view but I believe the canon trumps.

[Tanyan]

PD1, I hope that last post was not intended as a sarcastic rock thrown my way from you as one who proclaims Jesus as your Master. My post was on research on the word, thats all. Try Humility/Charity Please. Thanks. In His Grace/Debt, Tanyan.

That's what I thought.

Tell me something T, since you obviously believe that olam, and whatever other Hebrew phrase/word you've "researched" dealing with eternity, has as time element to it, then what prevents anyone from concluding that, once again, the LDS God is imperfect, given his need for finite, increments of time to exist within? In other words, since the LDS God became God at some point in time, then time actually precedes God, and without it, he doesn't exist. In fact, would not finite time logically imply a finite beginning? If not, then how is it possible for the LDS God, or man for that matter, to exist at all, given the impossibility of being able to traverse an actual infinite number of moments in something that either does not exist (time), or without a first moment to start the clock running? Did you think about those things when doing your "research" on olam?

What Doth Athens have to do with Jerusalem ?.

Everything.

PD1, Everything EH ?, so The Early Israelites/1ST Century Christians were really Middle Platoist's ?. Your Evidence Please. What Does the Academy have to do with the Church, Temple, Synagogue , Philosophy with the Gospel, Tell us pray tell. In His Grace/Debt, Tanyan.

[Alexander]

You cannot believe in a God who has all kinds of needs to maintain his existence, and in the same breath claim to be worshiping and serving a perfect God.

I'm not jumping into the discussion you are having with Paul, but I want to use this part of your message to ask a question.

What are the attributes of a perfect God that make him perfect and what are the biblical supports for each attribute?

Alexander, if God is perfect (Matt. 5:48), then any attribute which God has revealed that characterizes his person is perfect as well. The Bible speaks of God needing nothing

[PD1]

Once again "What hath Athens To Do With Jerusalem ?".

And, once again, everything.

I dont live in your world of Greek/Neo-Platonic/Gnostic/Hellenistic/Rhetorical/Dialectic.

Sure you do. It's called Mormonism. You have men becoming gods, aeons ("intelligences") traversing through continuous cycles to try and get back to the Almighty, secret ceremonies and teachings that only the most privy are supposed to partake and be aware of, and you have all rhetoric one can stomach in the form of Joseph Smith's, Brigham Young's, Bruce R. McConkie's, et al, rantings against the Christian Church.

Thanks for the invite however.

Actually, it was an invite to accept the truth, instead of butt heads with it, and yet claim to be a part of it.

In His Debt/Grace. Tanyan.

Ah, you're not in debt to God and his grace. You're in debt to an idol which is going to afford you 0 (zero) return on your investment of time and effort. Furthermore, the idol that you're serving isn't even the same one the LDS leaders contrived years ago. Tanyan, there is a better way. I'm hoping that God allows you to find it.

[PD1]

Some may have trouble with my view but I believe the canon trumps.

[PD1]

PD1, I hope that last post was not intended as a sarcastic rock thrown my way from you as one who proclaims Jesus as your Master. My post was on research on the word, thats all. Try Humility/Charity Please. Thanks. In His Grace/Debt, Tanyan.

That's what I thought.

Tell me something T, since you obviously believe that olam, and whatever other Hebrew phrase/word you've "researched" dealing with eternity, has as time element to it, then what prevents anyone from concluding that, once again, the LDS God is imperfect, given his need for finite, increments of time to exist within? In other words, since the LDS God became God at some point in time, then time actually precedes God, and without it, he doesn't exist. In fact, would not finite time logically imply a finite beginning? If not, then how is it possible for the LDS God, or man for that matter, to exist at all, given the impossibility of being able to traverse an actual infinite number of moments in something that either does not exist (time), or without a first moment to start the clock running? Did you think about those things when doing your "research" on olam?

What Doth Athens have to do with Jerusalem ?.

Everything.

PD1, Everything EH ?, so The Early Israelites/1ST Century Christians were really Middle Platoist's ?. Your Evidence Please. What Does the Academy have to do with the Church, Temple, Synagogue , Philosophy with the Gospel, Tell us pray tell. In His Grace/Debt, Tanyan.

Since you don't get it, and it is nothing but another diversion, we'll just put that one on the back burner for now as well. But, a response to the questions about God and time would be helpful.