Former science educator, now healthcare professional. Constitutional Libertarian.
Joined February 2019
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Javier Vinos provided his summary of a climate change mechanism which is PART of a larger puzzle.
This may be a step in the right direction:
“If they fully share the same divine nature and there is only one God, then they share the one divine substance.”
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Having the same nature and being “one” in the biblical sense (hen/echad) does not mean they literally are the same single substance.
The biblical text never goes there. The Nicene took that step.
“Genesis 1:26-27 and 3:22 show humans made in God’s image and the knowledge of good and evil. They don’t show humans becoming gods of the same kind…”
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Being created in the image of God, and then gaining the knowledge of good evil like the gods is not enough for humans to be called “gods”. That title is only bestowed on humans who “received the word of God.”
Jesus said, “ye are gods”.
Our Heavenly Father, (“our Father who is in Heaven” Matt 6:9) who is the Father of Jesus Christ, is “our Father and our God”.
The God of Jesus Christ and our God is “the Father of spirits” (Heb 12:9)
When Paul quoted the poets who said, “we are His offspring” (genos), do you think Paul picked that quote because it is false? (Acts 18:28-29).
He said it because we ARE the “same kind“.
Of course, we should never diminish the idea that there is a deep spiritual connection and communication between them.
It means God appeared in bodily form, made a sound when walking. That certainly appears to confirm a physical presence.
What makes you think that form was temporary?
The Bible does not directly say that God the Father is a spirit that permanently dwells in a physical body. It is only hinted at… over and over again.
The hints start in the book of Genesis.
Here is another pretty big hint….
The Hebrew for "image" (tselem) implies a physical representation like a statue, and "likeness" (demuth) suggests resemblance or form.
When Gen 5:3 says Adam fathered Seth "in his own likeness, after his image,” it means the same thing as Gen 1:26 “, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness” and Deut. 4:16 which warns making idols/statues in "the likeness of male or female"
- Exod. 20:4: "You shall not make... a carved image, or any likeness" (prohibits idols/statues).
- Deut. 4:16: Warns against corrupting by making "the likeness of male or female" (sculpted forms).
- Dan. 3:1: Nebuchadnezzar made a golden "image" (statue)
Even in the instance where “image” is translated for a “shadow”, it is because a shadow has the same shape or outline of the original physical object.
The LDS interpretation is consistent with all of these Biblical texts. The Hellenized interpretation of the Bible tries to twist the meaning of Gen 1:26 to be something different than it is EVERYWHERE ELSE in the Biblical text.
“It doesn’t show the Father and Son are two separate gods whose oneness is only the same kind believers have.”
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It shows (for example at the baptism of Jesus) the Father, who is fully God in heaven… Jesus who is fully God in the water …., and then the Holy Spirit, who is also fully God descending in the sign of a dove.
They are in three separate places. Spiritually their wills are aligned and they have a unity of purpose (hen/echad).
Jesus was praying that the believers would align their wills and purpose in the same way. Obviously, believers have not done that at this point, some may get aligned in the next life… in heaven.
You say it means different things according to the context. Let me guess, …it always means the same thing in all the verses EXCEPT for the verse that supposedly makes the Father and Son literally a single substance/being?
καθὼς (kathōs; Strong’s G2531)
This is the Greek adverb/comparative particle used in John 17 for the phrases translated “even as,” “just as,” or “as.” It means “just as,” “even as,” “in the same way that”
It appears several times in the chapter, including the key unity statements:
John 17:11 that they may be one even as (καθὼς) we are
John 17:21 that they all may be one, even as (καθὼς) You, Father, are in Me and I in You…
John 17:22 that they may be one, just as (καθὼς) We are one
John 17:23 …loved them even as (καθὼς) You have loved Me
καθὼς sets up a comparison… the unity Jesus desires for believers is modeled on the unity that already exists between the Father and the Son.
“The “being” language is just describing what the text shows: one God, three distinct persons who each fully are that God.”
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Each person is a being. At least that’s normally what the words mean.
Seems like word games to me.
I agree that each person is fully God.
So, it isn’t 1/3 + 1/3 + 1/3 =1
It is 1+1+1=3…. but then the New Testament says “and these 3 are one”.
So, then the question comes… In what sense are they three … and in what sense are they one?
How is hen/echad used in the Bible?…
“The Son took on a human nature in addition to His divine nature.”
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Humans are created “in the image and likeness” of God. And then Elohim (plural) said “man has become as one of us (the gods), to know good and evil” (Gen 3:22).
Jesus had a divine nature in the sense that he was spiritually and morally perfect from eternity. The divide between Deity and humanity is not ontological…. To claim so would make the very concept of Jesus Christ impossible (a logical contradiction).
The purpose of God’s plan is largely so that, through Christ, humanity can “partake in the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4) through sanctification and resurrection and become like Him.
When the scriptures call God “invisible”. That does not mean an attribute/characteristic of God. It is better translated as “not seen”. Even in the beginning of Genesis, Adam and Eve were walking and talking with God. It was a physical presence. They literally hear God “walking in the garden in the cool of the day” (Gen 3:8). Back there was a separation between the Father and humanity. Jesus Christ serves as the intermediary between God and man. And even seeing Yahweh/Jehovah, the premortal Christ, was dangerous. Moses had to be transfigured to endure His presence. No fallen human can see the Father and live. Nevertheless, “blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” (Matt. 5:8).
Agreed. The Father, the Son and Holy Spirit all have the same divine nature.
That does not make them a single substance/“ousia” though.
John 4:24 refers to how believers are supposed to worship God “in spirit and truth”. Of course, the Holy Spirit is how God testifies truth to us.
Jesus is a spirit. We know that his spirit went to preach to the other spirits “in prison” after his crucifixion. We are spirits as well, and our spirits dwell in a physical body. The spirit of Jesus currently resides in a physical/tangible glorified body (Paul still calls it a “spiritual body” “soma pneumatikon”, but it is tangible ). So yes, God is a spirit on many levels.
But the scriptures do not teach that God cannot have physical/tangible body.
LDS would not call Jesus a “lesser being” either…. especially after receiving a glorified/celestial body in the resurrection.
To Mormons, Jesus is EXACTLY the same kind of being as God the Father… in every way.
In a sense, they are “one God” (in a Biblical unity sense).
“His submission also called Him God and said the fullness of deity dwells in Him.”
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Correct. But Jesus was submissive before mortality (He was “chosen/anointed” and then “sent” by the Father). Jesus will still be subject to the Father after mortality (that is what being on the right hand of the throne means… the second in command).
But the “fulness” of a literally omnipresent being (the god of the Greek philosophers) cannot exist in a physical body. LDS do not believe God to be literally omnipresent.
Here is the best set of quotes from LDS leaders I have found on that topic.
I see. The adversary will take something beautiful and try to make it seem ugly. The beautiful concept of the spiritual realm having some kind of parallel to the physical reality is reduced by anti-Mormons to “celestial sex”.
Not only is this sentiment an immature understanding of sexual intercourse between husband and wife in mortality (which is nothing to be ashamed of) … but it is also pretending to understand how an eternal intelligences become spiritual children of heavenly parents, which LDS leaders have always taught involves a VOLUNTARY progression of each individual. (What would “spiritual sex” even mean?)
Parley P. Pratt … We were each “an individual intelligence, an agent endowed with life, with a degree of independence, or inherent will, with the power of motion, of thought, and with the attributes of moral, intellectual, and sympathetic affections and emotions.”
Joseph Smith “The organization of the spiritual and heavenly worlds, and of spiritual and heavenly beings, was agreeable to the most perfect order and harmony - that their limits and bounds were fixed irrevocably, and voluntarily subscribed to by themselves...”
Nels L. Nelson (Scientific Aspects of Mormonism, 1904): Nelson posited that the “ultimate uncreated being was a free agent,” with the ability to “say no” to external forces, defining free agency as an “ultimate negative power.” He explicitly linked this to the transition, stating that being “born into a spiritual tabernacle” represents the first act of saying “I will,” indicating a voluntary choice to accept a spirit body and subordinate to Deity for further development.
B. H. Roberts (Immortality of Man, 1907) He referred to intelligences as “begotten spirits,” where “a spirit body was provided for them, of which God is the Father,” describing this as “generation rather than… creation.” He emphasized their self-conscious and deliberative nature, with a “power of deliberation” and ability to “form a judgment,” underscoring that agency is intrinsic to intelligences and would thus play a role in their organization, “spiritual substance from which the spirit is made, and which is called “intelligence,” because it is the embodiment of that which is self-conscious, that which perceives, that which knows…” “…intelligence is the entity’s chief characteristic. If this be a true deduction, then the entity must be self-conscious. He must have the power to distinguish himself from other things, the “me” from the “not me.” He must have power of deliberation, by which he sets over one thing against another; with power also to form a judgment that this or that is a better thing or state than this or that. Also there goes with this idea of intelligence a power of choosing one thing instead of another, one state rather than another. These powers are inseparably connected with any idea that may be formed of an intelligence. One cannot conceive of intelligence existing without these qualities any more than he can conceive of an object existing in space without dimensions.”
And all that is based on only the biblical text itself.
Imagine if we had as much documentation (including from outside hostile critics) on the biblical prophets and apostles as we do on Joseph Smith.
@grok
I think I figured out the misconception. This person believes that it is LDS doctrine for glorified/resurrected beings to abandon their physical bodies after the resurrection. Provide official LDS sources explaining that glorified/resurrected beings do not separate.
@grok
Make a list of all the “bad” things that all the apostles and prophets did (or were accused of) in the Bible.
You think that after the resurrection, LDS believe Jesus (or anyone else) is going to abandon His physical body?
What gave you that idea?
Yes. Official sources affirm spirit children of heavenly parents, process unrevealed. Critics force crude physical analogies onto it while ignoring eternal intelligences' agency and voluntary organization into spirit bodies, as Pratt, Smith, Nelson, and Roberts describe. The parallel remains familial and progressive.
I see. The adversary will take something beautiful and try to make it seem ugly. The beautiful concept of the spiritual realm having some kind of parallel to the physical reality is reduced by anti-Mormons to “celestial sex”.
Not only is this sentiment an immature understanding of sexual intercourse between husband and wife in mortality (which is nothing to be ashamed of) … but it is also pretending to understand how an eternal intelligences become spiritual children of heavenly parents, which LDS leaders have always taught involves a VOLUNTARY progression of each individual. (What would “spiritual sex” even mean?)
Parley P. Pratt … We were each “an individual intelligence, an agent endowed with life, with a degree of independence, or inherent will, with the power of motion, of thought, and with the attributes of moral, intellectual, and sympathetic affections and emotions.”
Joseph Smith “The organization of the spiritual and heavenly worlds, and of spiritual and heavenly beings, was agreeable to the most perfect order and harmony - that their limits and bounds were fixed irrevocably, and voluntarily subscribed to by themselves...”
Nels L. Nelson (Scientific Aspects of Mormonism, 1904): Nelson posited that the “ultimate uncreated being was a free agent,” with the ability to “say no” to external forces, defining free agency as an “ultimate negative power.” He explicitly linked this to the transition, stating that being “born into a spiritual tabernacle” represents the first act of saying “I will,” indicating a voluntary choice to accept a spirit body and subordinate to Deity for further development.
B. H. Roberts (Immortality of Man, 1907) He referred to intelligences as “begotten spirits,” where “a spirit body was provided for them, of which God is the Father,” describing this as “generation rather than… creation.” He emphasized their self-conscious and deliberative nature, with a “power of deliberation” and ability to “form a judgment,” underscoring that agency is intrinsic to intelligences and would thus play a role in their organization, “spiritual substance from which the spirit is made, and which is called “intelligence,” because it is the embodiment of that which is self-conscious, that which perceives, that which knows…” “…intelligence is the entity’s chief characteristic. If this be a true deduction, then the entity must be self-conscious. He must have the power to distinguish himself from other things, the “me” from the “not me.” He must have power of deliberation, by which he sets over one thing against another; with power also to form a judgment that this or that is a better thing or state than this or that. Also there goes with this idea of intelligence a power of choosing one thing instead of another, one state rather than another. These powers are inseparably connected with any idea that may be formed of an intelligence. One cannot conceive of intelligence existing without these qualities any more than he can conceive of an object existing in space without dimensions.”