DiscussMormonism.com

What do participants here think is Mormonism’s most significant departure from the Christian Faith?

And when I say Christian Faith, I mean those doctrines common to that Faith, Protestant or Catholic (e.g., the Trinity, the Incarnation, the hypostatic union, salvation by grace), not secondary matters disputed between Christian sects (e.g., infant vs. believer baptism, infused vs. imputed righteousness, the five points of Calvinism). For those unclear on the distinction I’m making and in need of a refresher, C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity is a good resource for understanding the common elements of the Christian Faith.

A couple years ago, I probably would have identified the LDS denial of the Trinity as their most significant heresy. But on further consideration, I think their denial of God’s Creation Ex Nihilo is even more profound. That denial effectively blurs the distinction between God and Creation. It opens the door to the radical LDS claim (by Christian standards) that Jesus is not God Eternal, but rather came into being as an “organized intelligence.” Indeed Mormonism, with its apparently endless chain of men & women becoming gods spawning men & women becoming gods, together with its claim that physical matter has always existed denies the very existence of an ultimate, maximally powerful God— a view closer to Atheism than Christianity. LDS gods are creature-gods, meaning they are created beings (in the LDS sense of being organized from pre-existent matter/intelligences) much like you and me as the LDS Church teaches. And so worship of LDS gods is idolatry by definition (idolatry defined as worship of created things, as opposed to worship of the Creator God). The implications of denying Ex Nihilo are not small.

And next to that, disputing the nature of the Godhead or Trinity seems altogether inconsequential.

Thoughts on this? Agree/disagree? Is there a more significant heresy that I’m overlooking?

--Erik

My nominee for most profound heresy against the Christian faith is believing and then not treating others with kindness, respect and love. It is like the central message has been missed and a judgmental nature and behavioral harshness have been substituted in its place.

Erik, this heresy seems to occur in both randomly and sporadically throughout all varieties of Christian adherents.

I've been working so much on the Midichlorian heresy that I haven't had time to explore much else.

And once I've wrapped up that research, I'm likely to tackle the many heresies found in the movie adaptation of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy before moving on to the Ex Nihilo Denial heresy.

Familolotry - worship of the nuclear family.

It opens the door to the radical LDS claim (by Christian standards) that Jesus is not God Eternal, but rather came into being as an “organized intelligence.”

The LDS claim is both.

Indeed Mormonism, with its apparently endless chain of men & women becoming gods spawning men & women becoming gods, together with its claim that physical matter has always existed denies the very existence of an ultimate, maximally powerful God— a view closer to Atheism than Christianity.

The early orthodox Christians viewed God as a material Being. So rather than being closer to Atheism:

"One can think what one wants of this doctrine of progressive deification, but one thing is certain: with this anthropology Joseph Smith is closer to the view of man held by the Ancient Church than the precursors of the Augustinian doctrine of original sin were, who considered the thought of such a substantial connection between God and man as the heresy, par excellence." Benz, E.W., Imago Dei: Man in the Image of God, in Madsen, ed., Reflections on Mormonism, 215-216

Thoughts on this? Agree/disagree? Is there a more significant heresy that I’m overlooking?

I would agree that the heretical nature of the Creedal trinity is the most significant difference. The Bible is correct about it's doctrine of LDS Theosis or it is not. So here is the real link to Atheism: If the LDS Church isn't true, then all Chrsitianity is false and there is nothing left but....Atheism.

A couple of years ago I believe I concluded that the early christian acceptance of creation ex nihilo was the beginning of their theological errors concerning how to define God.

I guess in that we aren't that far apart in our thinking on this delicious topic.

bcspace wrote:
The early orthodox Christians viewed God as a material Being.

Sorry, but no. I suggest you expand your horizon beyond Mormon "scholarship."

The early orthodox Christians viewed God as a material Being.

Sorry, but no. I suggest you expand your horizon beyond Mormon "scholarship."

LOL! I didn't know E.W. Benz was a Mormon, let alone that we had any professors at the University of Marburg in Germany......

You'll certainly have to abandon Tertullian and Theophilus as neither would have accepted the creedal trinity. But speaking of the material (as opposed to the heretical abstract) God, let us first start with "christian" teaching:

"In short, to use the forbidden word, the biblical God is clearly anthropomorphic--not apologetically so, but proudly, even militantly. Cherbonnier, E. LaB., "In Defense of Anthropomorphism," in Madsen, ed., Reflections on Mormonism: Judaeo-Christian Parallels, 162; cf. G.E. Wright, God Who Acts (London: SCM Press, 1952), 49-50.

and

"The Hebrews . . . pictured the God whom they worshipped as having a body and mind like our own, though transcending humanity in the splendour of his appearance, in his power, his wisdom, and the constancy of his care for his creatures." Christopher Stead of the Cambridge Divinity School, Philosophy in Christian Antiquity, 120.

So yes indeed, the Biblical God is anthropomorthic and material. The abandonment of the Biblical notion can be traced early in the christian universal apostasy until finally Tertullian admits that God is now "the God of the philosophers" (Plato, Socrates, etc.). Tertullian, Against Marcion 2:27, in ANF 3:319

The doctrine of an Anthropomorphic and Material God was preserved in early orthodox Christianity for a while:

And Simon said: "I should like to know, Peter, if you really believe that the shape of man has been moulded after the shape of God." And Peter said: "I am really quite certain, Simon, that this is the case . . . . It is the shape of the just God." Clementine Homilies 16:19, in ANF 8:316.

God is cognizable only through the senses. A material implication:

Then said Peter: "Give us then, as I have often said, as being yourself a new God, or as having yourself come down from him, some new sense, by means of which we may know that new God of whom you speak; for those five senses, which God our Creator has given us, keep faith to their own Creator, and do not perceive that there is any other God, for so their nature necessitates them." Peter, in Clementine Recognitions 2:60, in ANF 8:114.

What is a spiritual body? It is corporeal:

By saying that God is spiritual, we do not mean that he has no body . . . but rather that he is the source of a mysterious life-giving power and energy that animates the human body, and himself possesses this energy in the fullest measure. Stead, Philosophy in Christian Antiquity, 98.

Even Tertullian argues strenuously that God is material:

"For who will deny that God is a body, although 'God is a Spirit?' For Spirit has a bodily substance of its own kind, in its own form." Tertullian, Against Praxeas 7, in ANF 3:602

And so on and so on. The evidence is devastating to trinitarians who erroneously believe that their doctrine originates with the Bible and was autmatically understood as opposed to being developed after rejecting the orginal true doctrines. There is no official LDS teaching on the subject of early orthodox Christianity other than they fell into universal apostasy. What I have just presented is merely historical fact and is exactly what one would expect if LDS doctrine is true as it appears to be.

bcspace wrote:
LOL! I didn't know E.W. Benz was a Mormon, let alone that we had any professors at the University of Marburg in Germany......

You'll certainly have to abandon Tertullian and Theophilus as neither would have accepted the creedal trinity. But speaking of the material (as opposed to the heretical abstract) God, let us first start with "christian" teaching:

"In short, to use the forbidden word, the biblical God is clearly anthropomorphic--not apologetically so, but proudly, even militantly. Cherbonnier, E. LaB., "In Defense of Anthropomorphism," in Madsen, ed., Reflections on Mormonism: Judaeo-Christian Parallels, 162; cf. G.E. Wright, God Who Acts (London: SCM Press, 1952), 49-50.

and

"The Hebrews . . . pictured the God whom they worshipped as having a body and mind like our own, though transcending humanity in the splendour of his appearance, in his power, his wisdom, and the constancy of his care for his creatures." Christopher Stead of the Cambridge Divinity School, Philosophy in Christian Antiquity, 120.

So yes indeed, the Biblical God is anthropomorthic and material. The abandonment of the Biblical notion can be traced early in the christian universal apostasy until finally Tertullian admits that God is now "the God of the philosophers" (Plato, Socrates, etc.). Tertullian, Against Marcion 2:27, in ANF 3:319

The doctrine of an Anthropomorphic and Material God was preserved in early orthodox Christianity for a while:

And Simon said: "I should like to know, Peter, if you really believe that the shape of man has been moulded after the shape of God." And Peter said: "I am really quite certain, Simon, that this is the case . . . . It is the shape of the just God." Clementine Homilies 16:19, in ANF 8:316.

God is cognizable only through the senses. A material implication:

Then said Peter: "Give us then, as I have often said, as being yourself a new God, or as having yourself come down from him, some new sense, by means of which we may know that new God of whom you speak; for those five senses, which God our Creator has given us, keep faith to their own Creator, and do not perceive that there is any other God, for so their nature necessitates them." Peter, in Clementine Recognitions 2:60, in ANF 8:114.

What is a spiritual body? It is corporeal:

By saying that God is spiritual, we do not mean that he has no body . . . but rather that he is the source of a mysterious life-giving power and energy that animates the human body, and himself possesses this energy in the fullest measure. Stead, Philosophy in Christian Antiquity, 98.

Even Tertullian argues strenuously that God is material:

"For who will deny that God is a body, although 'God is a Spirit?' For Spirit has a bodily substance of its own kind, in its own form." Tertullian, Against Praxeas 7, in ANF 3:602

And so on and so on. The evidence is devastating to trinitarians who erroneously believe that their doctrine originates with the Bible and was autmatically understood as opposed to being developed after rejecting the orginal true doctrines. There is no official LDS teaching on the subject of early orthodox Christianity other than they fell into universal apostasy. What I have just presented is merely historical fact and is exactly what one would expect if LDS doctrine is true as it appears to be.

I do not believe for a New York minute that you've gone beyond FAIR, FARMS, or Jeff Lindsay for these citations. (See, for example, here.) My comment was correct and, incidentally, posting material without attribution is not okay.

The nature of God, this includes the rejection of the Trinity, an acceptance of polytheism and a rejection of God as uncreated. It is foundational to every other error in belief that Mormonism has.