Elder Kevin S. Hamilton emphasizes importance of Christ’s organized church

[mfbukowski]

4 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Verse 3

... called and prepared from the foundation of the world according to the foreknowledge of God ..... holy calling being prepared from the fundation of the world

Repeated references to "from before the foundation of the world" meaning they existed BEFORE the earth was created.   I cannot see it any other way.     Please do not take that as an insult or any kind of derogatory statement.

 

[Navidad]

6 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Verse 3

... called and prepared from the foundation of the world according to the foreknowledge of God ..... holy calling being prepared from the fundation of the world

Repeated references to "from before the foundation of the world" meaning they existed BEFORE the earth was created.   I cannot see it any other way.  It seems totally obvious to me.

What is obvious to me is that God prepared a holy calling for us from before the time of the foundation of the world. It seems totally obvious to me!

[Navidad]

6 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

 

I understand that you cannot see it any other way. Please understand that I can. Receiving my interpretation doesn't mean you have to abandon yours.

Edited February 5, 2023 by Navidad

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, Navidad said:

I understand that you cannot see it any other way. Please understand that I can. Receiving my interpretation doesn't mean you have to abandon yours.

So what IS your interpretation?

If someone is blessed/ ordained "before the foundation of the world", what else could that mean, other than that in some sense he was existent before the foundation of the world?

Edited February 5, 2023 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

6 hours ago, Navidad said:

Sometimes things unseen aren't so good. Remember good old Aeschylus?  He was minding his own business outdoors one fine day when an eagle dropped a turtle unseen on his bald head, thinking it a rock and stone-cold (pun intended) killed him. Greece lost a great war hero and one of their preeminent poets/playwrights. I don't know why I wrote that or why it came to my mind. I guess it was something unseen he wasn't hoping for! I think of that story (it seems true) often because we have lots of eagles and turtles where I live. I always wear a camouflage hat when I go out so my head doesn't get mistaken for a rock. Of course some people think I am as dumb as a rock or that my head is as hard as a rock! Oh never mind!

Cute,

 

[Nofear]

31 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

So what IS your interpretation?

If someone is blessed/ ordained "before the foundation of the world", what else could that mean, other than that in some sense he was existent before the foundation of the world?

If God creates individuals ex nihilo, He can say, "I'll need such and such person in such and such year and plan it accordingly."

[Navidad]

2 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

So what IS your interpretation?

If someone is blessed/ ordained "before the foundation of the world", what else could that mean, other than that in some sense he was existent before the foundation of the world?

"I understand that you and your husband are planning on having a baby in the near future. I am sure with your love for each other, that child will be blessed as will you and your husband."
"Here are the plans for your new home. I am sure it will be a blessing for you both."
"Oh, you are starting a new company!" I am sure it will be a blessing to you and all who work there."

"I heard about your idea for a new cure for cancer! I am sure it will be a blessing for all it helps!"
The baby didn't exist yet, the home didn't exist yet, the company didn't exist yet, and the cure for cancer didn't exist yet." Those are my interpretations. The Godhead did exist. Humanity did not. But through fore-knowledge of the atonement, God knew that sinners would and could be blessed.

Edited February 5, 2023 by Navidad

[mfbukowski]

5 minutes ago, Nofear said:

If God creates individuals ex nihilo, He can say, "I'll need such and such person in such and such year and plan it accordingly."

Ok, but 1- the paradigm says God does nothing " ex nihilo", so there's a conflict there.  He "goes down" because "there is matter there"- so creation is accomplished by organizing matter, not ex nihilo. That would be contradicting the overall paradigm.

2- He was not talking about a person with characteristics a,x,h and g, he was talking about needing Nofear, a real person with a name in 2023.

It would be predestination to make a person to order in 2023 just LIKE Nofear, when he can call pre-existing Nofear on his mission in 2023.

3. Nofear is a person, not just a bundle of characteristics!

[mrmarklin]

12 hours ago, california boy said:

You are right.  I guess I was focused more on just clarification.  Maybe Elder Holland doesn't have anything to apologize for when using a violent metaphors against the LGBT community, one that is frequently targeted by gun violence.  I should have left that totally up to an apostle to decide if that was appropriate or not.

The reason that Holland or Hamilton don’t “correct “ their remarks is that I don’t think that a handful of disbelievers on the forum are even on their radar screen. And, of course, maybe they intended the remarks to mean what they do, considering the context and audience to whom they spoke. 

[Calm]

2 hours ago, mrmarklin said:

a handful of disbelievers on the forum are even on their radar screen.

I would agree in regards to this forum, but it was and is a lot more than just this forum.  Reference to Elder Holland’s musket fire comment appeared in the Church News and other church related blogs and discussion sites like Reddit and Twitter, also the Trib, Slate, local and gay news sites and there is even one idiot producing it as a crossstitch pattern on Etsy.  And from what I have seen more of that is criticism rather than support (just googled “holland” and “musket” for my search)

Not saying that means he should or should not apologize or clarify or anything.  Just going for more accuracy.

I personally don’t believe he meant for even a hint of violent action, but was thinking in more of a determined defense in contrast to criticism from members he described as “friendly fire”.

https://www.thechurchnews.com/2021/8/23/23218683/elder-holland-byu-university-conference-love-lgbtq

Edited February 5, 2023 by Calm

[Nofear]

13 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Ok, but 1- the paradigm says God does nothing " ex nihilo", so there's a conflict there.  He "goes down" because "there is matter there"- so creation is accomplished by organizing matter, not ex nihilo. That would be contradicting the overall paradigm.

2- He was not talking about a person with characteristics a,x,h and g, he was talking about needing Nofear, a real person with a name in 2023.

It would be predestination to make a person to order in 2023 just LIKE Nofear, when he can call pre-existing Nofear on his mission in 2023.

3. Nofear is a person, not just a bundle of characteristics!

Don't disagree. Ex nihilo isn't LDS doctrine. Just tried to think how those that subscribe to it might view things. I personally think it one of the most pernicious theological concepts ever to afflict humaity.

[mfbukowski]

57 minutes ago, Nofear said:

Don't disagree. Ex nihilo isn't LDS doctrine. Just tried to think how those that subscribe to it might view things. I personally think it one of the most pernicious theological concepts ever to afflict humaity.

Well it's the filthiness of body and matter thing- perfect Platonism. Pagan Greek philosophy inserted into JUDAISM?  OY VEY!

[Teancum]

18 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

So what IS your interpretation?

If someone is blessed/ ordained "before the foundation of the world", what else could that mean, other than that in some sense he was existent before the foundation of the world?

Or God in God's omniscience foresaw and knew of the person's future existence and ordained them to some future thing.

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, Teancum said:

Or God in God's omniscience foresaw and knew of the person's future existence and ordained them to some future thing.

That would be predestination. What option would they have to NOT fulfill the "ordination" ?

@Calm

God knows our future but does not interfere with it in any way.  

But good question, I thought that one might come from @Navidad surely it was a very logical way to respond, and a possible flaw in my argument, and I think that was actually thinking about in his interpretation of "blessing" someone with a great family, or the discovery to cure cancer etc.

Every mistaken determinist raises the argument that "if God knows your future, then you are determined ", which of course makes no sense.  We would agree on that I think.

Yours is a good point but actually being ORDAINED to be anything is being PRE-ORDAINED.

We get around that one too, but ONLY because of pre-earth life, the lives of ALL began in the the pre-existence, we are ALL are co-eternal with God.  So it still could be that a person's righteousness in our LIVES BEFORE earth might qualify one to be a SAVIOR OR some other worker in the PLAN of salvation to be picked for a particular job, but of course when he gets here he might have changed.

If Lucifer was "sun/son of the morning" and yet fell, then one still obviously has the ability to NOT fulfill an ordination.

So pre-ORDINATION is not pre- DESTINATION.

Christ himself is one who was ordained but not destined! Also we know that because even Lucifer tried to make Him fall, so it must have been possible;

So the whole paradigm is still completely coherent logically.

"Truth" is another issue that can only be known thru testimony 

Edited February 5, 2023 by mfbukowski

[Teancum]

24 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

That would be predestination. What option would they have to NOT fulfill the "ordination" ?

Well there are a lot of Calvinists out there.

24 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

God knows our future but does not interfere with it in any way.  

If God knows our future but does not interfere can we change the outcome?  If not what is the difference between predestination and foreordination?

[Saint Bonaventure]

18 hours ago, Nofear said:

If God creates individuals ex nihilo, He can say, "I'll need such and such person in such and such year and plan it accordingly."

If God created ex nihilo, but God existed within time, I could follow such reasoning. Perhaps such a position is tenable for Latter-day Saints, given the creation accounts in Genesis.

Creedal Christianity places God outside of time, though. In Creedal Christianity's framework, God is eternally present in, and has absolute knowledge of, every moment. There's no need for planning in Creedal Christianity's framework.

 

[InCognitus]

8 minutes ago, Saint Bonaventure said:

If God created ex nihilo, but God existed within time, I could follow such reasoning. Perhaps such a position is tenable for Latter-day Saints, given the creation accounts in Genesis.

Creedal Christianity places God outside of time, though. In Creedal Christianity's framework, God is eternally present in, and has absolute knowledge of, every moment. There's no need for planning in Creedal Christianity's framework.

 

I think he was saying that God plans things to occur within the timeline of human existence (which makes no difference if God exists within time or outside of time).   Jesus was "foreordained before the foundation of the world" to be the "Lamb" that would be slain (1 Peter 1:19-20).  And "eternal life" was "promised before the world began" by God (Titus 1:2).  In Genesis and John 1, there is said to be a "beginning", and other verses speak of an "end".  God declares "the end from the beginning" (Isa 46:10).  There are others verses too, but all of this indicates some type of anticipation by God of events that would play out on earth in a timeline, with a "beginning" and an "end" in that timeline. 

But if God creates people ex-nihilo, at the point at which they come into the world, then who was God promising eternal life to before the world began?  The angels?

[Navidad]

3 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

That would be predestination. What option would they have to NOT fulfill the "ordination" ?

God knows our future but does not interfere with it in any way.  

But good question, I thought that one might come from @Navidad surely it was a very logical way to respond, and a possible flaw in my argument, and I think that was actually thinking about in his interpretation of "blessing" someone with a great family, or the discovery to cure cancer etc.

Every mistaken determinist raises the argument that "if God knows your future, then you are determined ", which of course makes no sense.  We would agree on that I think.

Yours is a good point but actually being ORDAINED to be anything is being PRE-ORDAINED.

We get around that one too, but ONLY because of pre-earth life, the lives of ALL began in the the pre-existence, we are ALL are co-eternal with God.  So it still could be that a person's righteousness in our LIVES BEFORE earth might qualify one to be a SAVIOR OR some other worker in the PLAN of salvation to be picked for a particular job, but of course when he gets here he might have changed.

If Lucifer was "sun/son of the morning" and yet fell, then one still obviously has the ability to NOT fulfill an ordination.

So pre-ORDINATION is not pre- DESTINATION.

Christ himself is one who was ordained but not destined! Also we know that because even Lucifer tried to make Him fall, so it must have been possible;

So the whole paradigm is still completely coherent logically.

"Truth" is another issue that can only be known thru testimony 

I think you may be confusing fore-knowledge with predestination. I do not believe they are one in the same. I am clearly not a Calvinist. I believe God knows what people will do and how they will respond. This is not because He makes them respond that way (predestination), but because as God, He knows how they will respond prior to responding, or frankly prior to even being. Foreknowledge has nothing to do with predestination in my mind. It is simply foreknowledge of event prior to their happening, not causing them to happen. 

[InCognitus]

3 minutes ago, Navidad said:

I think you may be confusing fore-knowledge with predestination. I do not believe they are one in the same. I am clearly not a Calvinist. I believe God knows what people will do and how they will respond. This is not because He makes them respond that way (predestination), but because as God, He knows how they will respond prior to responding, or frankly prior to even being. Foreknowledge has nothing to do with predestination in my mind. It is simply foreknowledge of event prior to their happening, not causing them to happen. 

This is how the Latter-day Saints view foreknowledge, I think.  But this has a different twist to it if one believes in a God that creates all things ex-nihilo, since under that scenario God created the person out of nothing with God having complete foreknowledge of the person's future actions.  As such, God is fully responsible for either the good or evil that comes about because of the person's actions (because he's the one that created them that way).

[Saint Bonaventure]

1 hour ago, InCognitus said:

I think he was saying that God plans things to occur within the timeline of human existence (which makes no difference if God exists within time or outside of time). 

You may very well be right about his intention. Where I'm coming from is that a notion of planning doesn't make sense for a God who is outside of time. Maybe some shared ground could be that people could experience God's creation as a plan? I'm willing to explore that idea.

1 hour ago, InCognitus said:

 Jesus was "foreordained before the foundation of the world" to be the "Lamb" that would be slain (1 Peter 1:19-20).And "eternal life" was "promised before the world began" by God (Titus 1:2).  In Genesis and John 1, there is said to be a "beginning", and other verses speak of an "end".  God declares "the end from the beginning" (Isa 46:10).  There are others verses too, but all of this indicates some type of anticipation by God of events that would play out on earth in a timeline, with a "beginning" and an "end" in that timeline. 

But if God creates people ex-nihilo, at the point at which they come into the world, then who was God promising eternal life to before the world began?  The angels?

I may be misunderstanding, but I don't have any difficulties reconciling 1 Peter 1:19-20, Titus 1:2, or John 1:1 with a God who exists outside of time. Rather, I view God as creating time, and so don't entertain any infinite regression ideas. Famously, Saint Bonaventure articulated the Kalam argument for the existence of God, which in short proposes that:

1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
2. The cosmos (or universe) began to exist (consider, as evidence, cosmic background radiation, red shift etc.).
3. Therefore, the cosmos has a cause (God).

I believe this is one of the stronger arguments for the existence of God as an uncaused cause. 

I think there may be a translation issue with the Titus passage in the KJV. I rely on people who understand Greek for these things, but my RSV translation (I have one with a Greek interlinear) indicates that a very direct translation is "promised a period of time before" or "promised ages ago" instead of "promised before the world began." Nevertheless, I believe in a God that is eternally present in every moment, past, present, and future, and so I don't see any theological issues. 

Something that might be clarifying is that while Catholics believe in creation ex nihlo, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters" (Gen. 1:1-2), Catholics also believe that, subsequently, creation is organized (i.e., creation is given form and content). Here's a quote to this effect:  

Quote

 

The opening line of Genesis reads, according to the Hebrew Masoretic Text and all ancient versions: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” (Gen 1:1). The Hebrew language has no exact word for “cosmos” or “universe”. “The heavens and the earth” expresses the same concept by means of a merism—a figure of speech by which the parts are used to refer to the whole. (Interestingly, in all of ancient Near Eastern literature, the merism of “heavens and earth” as a reference to the cosmos finds a parallel only in ancient Egyptian texts.) This grand opening line serves as a summary statement and suggests the calling into existence of the cosmos without the presence of any preexisting substance. Indeed, the Hebrew word bara’, “to create” (Gen 1:1), is only ever used in the Bible with God as its subject and never with an accusative of material indicating a substance from which he created. However, the newly existent creation is not called into existence in a finished state; the sacred author notes that it was “without form and void” (Gen 1:2). In the Hebrew language, “without form and void” is an onomatopoeic phrase, tohu wabohu (“formless and empty”). These two privations—lack of form and lack of content—will be addressed systematically in the succession of six days.

John Bergsma and Brant Pitre, A Catholic Introduction to the Bible: The Old Testament, vol. 1 (San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 2018), 96.

 

I could say more here, but really I just hope that I'm not confusing things. 

[Bernard Gui]

3 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

That would be predestination. What option would they have to NOT fulfill the "ordination" ?

@Calm

God knows our future but does not interfere with it in any way.  

But good question, I thought that one might come from @Navidad surely it was a very logical way to respond, and a possible flaw in my argument, and I think that was actually thinking about in his interpretation of "blessing" someone with a great family, or the discovery to cure cancer etc.

Every mistaken determinist raises the argument that "if God knows your future, then you are determined ", which of course makes no sense.  We would agree on that I think.

Yours is a good point but actually being ORDAINED to be anything is being PRE-ORDAINED.

We get around that one too, but ONLY because of pre-earth life, the lives of ALL began in the the pre-existence, we are ALL are co-eternal with God.  So it still could be that a person's righteousness in our LIVES BEFORE earth might qualify one to be a SAVIOR OR some other worker in the PLAN of salvation to be picked for a particular job, but of course when he gets here he might have changed.

If Lucifer was "sun/son of the morning" and yet fell, then one still obviously has the ability to NOT fulfill an ordination.

So pre-ORDINATION is not pre- DESTINATION.

Christ himself is one who was ordained but not destined! Also we know that because even Lucifer tried to make Him fall, so it must have been possible;

So the whole paradigm is still completely coherent logically.

"Truth" is another issue that can only be known thru testimony 

What do you think “the first place”is?
 

Quote

3 And this is the manner after which they were ordained—being called and prepared from the foundation of the world according to the foreknowledge of God, on account of their exceeding faith and good works; in the first place being left to choose good or evil; therefore they having chosen good, and exercising exceedingly great faith, are called with a holy calling, yea, with that holy calling which was prepared with, and according to, a preparatory redemption for such.
4 And thus they have been called to this holy calling on account of their faith, while others would reject the Spirit of God on account of the hardness of their hearts and blindness of their minds, while, if it had not been for this they might have had as great privilege as their brethren.
5 Or in fine, in the first place they were on the same standing with their brethren; thus this holy calling being prepared from the foundation of the world for such as would not harden their hearts, being in and through the atonement of the Only Begotten Son, who was prepared—
6 And thus being called by this holy calling, and ordained unto the high priesthood of the holy order of God, to teach his commandments unto the children of men, that they also might enter into his rest—

 

[mfbukowski]

3 hours ago, Saint Bonaventure said:

Creedal Christianity places God outside of time, though. In Creedal Christianity's framework, God is eternally present in, and has absolute knowledge of, every moment. There's no need for planning in Creedal Christianity's framework.

For us, theologically, time is a human reference and linguistic convention.  Note in Genesis, God CALLS the cycle of light and darkness a "day", and in a sense also creates math at the same  time.

He gives the cycle a name and CALLS it "the first day", the second day etc.  Everything is created by the WORD, Jehovah/Yahweh.

So Jehovah is both inside and outside time- it is irrelevant to an eternal Being who lives in an eternal present seeing past present and future simultaneously, but we cannot fathom that, or imagine how that would be.  He is transcendent but is voluntarily immanent to be a real "father" to his spirit children.

And prophets write for humans, so they use human logic and are bound by human thought.

How God "actually" does things is beyond our understanding.  As a good Catholic apostate, I just call it all a " mystery". 🧐

 

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, Saint Bonaventure said:

Rather, I view God as creating time, and so don't entertain any infinite regression ideas....

Famously, Saint Bonaventure articulated the Kalam argument for the existence of God, which in short proposes that:

1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
2. The cosmos (or universe) began to exist (consider, as evidence, cosmic background radiation, red shift etc.).
3. Therefore, the cosmos has a cause (God).

I believe this is one of the stronger arguments for the existence of God as an uncaused cause. 

Well, in my opinion we should just  call it a mystery unless you want to go through the entire philosophical argument about "causation" theories beginning probably with Hume, who convincingly showed major problems in the whole concept of causation.

Furthermore there are multiverses etc.  Really it becomes the evolution argument all over again: did God make it all or was it a natural random process?

"We don't know" works for me, there are, as always, good arguments on both sides

https://plato.stanford.edu/search/search?query=Hume+Causation

https://plato.stanford.edu/search/searcher.py?query=Causation

 

 

Edited February 6, 2023 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

3 hours ago, Navidad said:

I think you may be confusing fore-knowledge with predestination.

No, I clarify that in the same post

 

[mfbukowski]

3 hours ago, InCognitus said:

This is how the Latter-day Saints view foreknowledge, I think.  But this has a different twist to it if one believes in a God that creates all things ex-nihilo, since under that scenario God created the person out of nothing with God having complete foreknowledge of the person's future actions.  As such, God is fully responsible for either the good or evil that comes about because of the person's actions (because he's the one that created them that way).

Agreed.

Yes, I well know the difference, and then there is Compatiblism, besides.

Just FYI, I though I clearly discussed the problem there ; that is philosophy sub-101, thanks for explaining it yet again.

Apparently I just do not communicate clearly with certain posters.

If you don't mind, please read my post in question, I am sure you will understand my position, or please tell me where I goofed. I trust your opinion and I am concerned if others might see it as my interlocutor has.