ErikJohnson wrote: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
In matters of LDS theology it has yet to be attempted to rationalize all its parts and make them agree. Well, that is not entirely true. I personally accomplished just that thirty years ago and was roundly dismissed out of hand without a due hearing. So it still has not been done acceptable.
Let me just state for you OP. Jesus Christ was not one of the Organized Intelligences. Indeed, he it was who spoke the will of the Father and commanded the Light of Truth to bring forth the several independent spheres of existence and hence, as the Book of Mormon testifies, he is also one with and fully The Very Eternal Father, The Eternal God, from all eternity to all eternity.
D&C 20: 17, 28
17 By these things we know that there is a God in heaven, who is infinite and eternal, from everlasting to everlasting the same unchangeable God, the framer of heaven and earth, and all things which are in them;
• • •
28 Which Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are one God, infinite and eternal, without end. Amen.
The silly speculations of the unwashed defilers of holy things will never square with what is written. And there is enough to LDS mysteries of godliness to entice the old school to wonder. If they ever get a chance to hear about it that is.
Oh, and exaltation is only the continuation of the seeds both in the world and out of the world. It never can have the right or power to organize intelligence or create by the word of power.
Joseph Smith said Christ was on the same track as the Father. When he said we need to learn to become a god he was not putting us on the same track as the Eternal God. That makes reason stare. In scripture there is plainly delineated separate rounds for God and those who are exalted. Call me on it!