Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: farkas%qual@sun.com (Frank Farkas) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Nature of the Godhead (was Re: Book of Mormon ... Mother of God) Message-ID: Date: 25 Sep 90 07:47:26 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Lines: 145 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article , fuzzy@portia.stanford.edu (Daniel Zappala) writes: I have deleted Daniel's and the moderators response, because it would have been too long to include them. However, I would like provide an explanation which could further contribute to the understanding of the nature of the Godhead. First of all, we are all familiar with the many comments Jesus made regarding his oneness with the Father. Now, if he wouldn't have provided any explanation regarding what he ment by it, I could understand our confusion. The fact is that he did explain it: John 17:11 ---------- "And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they be one as we are" John 17:20-21 ============= "Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me." Now, from these words of Jesus it is very clear that the Father is not one with his Son as far as the "substance" is concerned, but in fact they are one in spirit and purpose. Another scripture regarding this issue is Hebrews 1:6-14 where the Father speaks about his Son. The big question is, how is it possible that the Father is God, the Son is God and the Holy Ghost is God, and yet they are three separate beeings. We need to ask the question, who is God? We describe God by his atributes. Some of his atributes are: love, justice, mercy, omniscient, omnipotent, etc. Now, let me ask, would God be God if he would lack any one of his atributes? The answer is no! Let me ask the question, is it possible that more than one beeing possesses these atributes? The answer is yes! Another question, does the fact that more than one being possesse these atributes diminish either one? The answer is no! So, the question is, who is God? The answer is that all those who possesses God's atributes are Gods, even one God, because they all possess the same atributes to their perfections. For there is only one perfect love, one perfect truth, one perfect justice, etc. Now lets look at some Bible passages: Col 1:19 ======== "For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell;" Col 2:9 ======= "For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." What is this fulness which is mentioned in the above verses? It is nothing more or less than the atributes of God the father. Interestingly, these also explains why the LDS believes that those who will be exalted, will also become gods. Here are some of the passages regarding these issue: Romans 8:16-17 ============== "The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ:..." Ephesians 4:13 ============== "Till we all come in the unity of faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:" Rev. 21:7 ========= "He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son." The promisses for those who repent and follow Christ are great. I have difficulties with trying to understand what it means to be "joint heirs with Christ", to be able to come "unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ", and to "inherit all things". I am greatfull for what Jesus has done for me, that he is my Friend, Savior, Master, even my God. Now, you may ask, are our believes different than the "ortodox Christian" believes? In some cases yes, and other cases no. We do not believe the concept of Trinity. In fact, the concept of Trinity is not Biblical. I find it interesting that we LDS are accused of not believing that the Bible is the word of God, yet those who are saying this will deny what the Bible says about their false traditions, which they are not willing to give up. With brotherly love, Frank [I have a feeling we're looping here. I know I've explained all of this before. I'd rather not get involved in the question of "of the same substance", since the language was ambiguous from the beginning. I think in fact you probably misunderstand it. But rather than get embroiled in metaphysics, let me try to find a way to put things that isn't quite so philosophical (and which I think can be tied fairly closely to the Bible). So let me suggest that a better way to compare yourselves with orthodox Christianity is to look at the basic question of whether you believe that God is the source of all that is. If you're going to say that anything possessing God's attributes it God, I'm afraid that most of us would want to include that as one of God's attributes. As I understand LDS belief, there is at least some speculation that the Father is the source of this universe, but that Christ may end up having his own universe, and our Father may have played some other role in an earlier universe which had its own Father. It's not critical whether you actually believe this. I realize it's probably not official doctrine. But the question is whether you see it as at least possible according to your understanding of what it means to be a god. If you do, then I believe you have three separate gods, none of whom would meet the orthodox criteria for being God. Because our definition of God includes not just omniscience and all that, but being the source of all that is. Not just the source of one universe out of many possible ones, but the source of all that is. I don't see how there can be more than one of those. So if you accept that as being one of the attributes of God, and you want to say that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all really God, then you have to say that somehow they all together form a single source of all that is. Once you've said that, it's pretty easy to show that as you try to sharpen up your definitions, you end up with the Trinity. Note however that all of this is basically irrelevant to most of the Scripture references you have cited. You cited passages where Jesus talked about his unity with the Father. Remember that orthodox Christianity has two doctrines that talk about the relationship between Father and Son: the Trinity and the Incarnation. We consider humans to be a different kind of thing from God. The Trinity talks about the relationship between the Father and the preexistent Son -- the preexistent Logos referred to in the prolog to John and such passges as Colossians 1. The Incarnatino talks about the relationship between this preexistent Logos and the human being Jesus. The claim is that the Father and the preexistent Logos are of the same substance, namely "divine", and Jesus is of a very different substance, namely human. So in fact orthodox Christians agree with your assertion that the Bible doesn't claim that God and Jesus are of the same substance. The claim is that Christ has two separate substances: divine and human, which however are united in such a way that they form a single entity. --clh]