Creedal Trinity misunderstood by LDS

[_Mittens]

The Articles of Faith is the Mormon Creed, but rather than telling people the Mormon beliefs it masks them, so people think it agrees with Evangelical Creeds

[_gdemetz]

Mittens, the articles of faith are inspired and well written even though they do not go into great detail. As a Mormon, one of the last things I would want is for someone to get the impression that we believed some of the strange mystical doctrines of the evangelicals!

[_Valentinus]

The Articles of Faith is the Mormon Creed, but rather than telling people the Mormon beliefs it masks them, so people think it agrees with Evangelical Creeds

Well, I'm sure your brand of "evangelical" doesn't believe about 99% of what the AoF say in any form. So since you don't believe in God the Father, His Son Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit...what do you believe?

[_Mittens]

E. Calvin Beisner
God in Three Persons
The Christian Church throughout history has found in order to remain faithful to the teachings of the New Testament regarding the person and work of Christ, it had to affirm at least the following doctrines:

The doctrine of the Trinity----that in the nature of the One True God, there are three distinct persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, each fully God, Coequal and Coeternal

When we have said these three things, then—that there is but one God, that the Father and the Son and the Spirit is each a distinct person—we have enunciated the doctrine of the Trinity in its completeness.

We may condense this into a somewhat shorter statement, one which is more precise: In the nature of the God, there are three distinct persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit ( or substance ) of the one true God, there are three distinct persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit p 24
“The Nicene Creed, then, with centuries of theological discussion and controversy behind it, still teaches of the Trinity as the New Testament does: that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, while distinct from each other personally, are the same God” p 153


It is this relation of Christ to the Father and the Spirit which Dr John Robinson takes as one of the strong-est indications of triunity in the Godhead:
At the Incarnation… the Godhead is revealed for the first time as existing in three distinct relationships. It is these differences of relation that make necessary a doctrine of the Trinity, not differences of “character” or modes working. The Old Testament, too knew God in different “characters” but it was not forced to a Trinity Theology…We cannot begin with God creating, God redeeming, God sanctifying, or any such collection of attributes, and proceed to identify these with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit…Rather, one must start with the three Persons, no more and no less, which are required by the three relations at the Incarnation
When we have said these three things, then---that there is but one God, that the Father and the son and the spirit is each God, that the Father and the Son and the Spirit is each a distinct person---We have enunciated the doctrine of the Trinity in its completeness.
Page 40


Perhaps the most famous Trinitarian reference from the second century is the statement of Theophilus [ 116-181], another writer who is only shortly removed from the last of the apostles. His is the first use of the word “trinity” in Christian literature which is extant:
In like manner also the three days which were before the luminaries, are types of the Trinity, of God, and His Word, and His Wisdoms.” Vol 2 pp 100 101 Epistles to Autolycus,II WV
Page 53


The concept of Trinity in unity, three distinct persons who are the one God, is then firmly entrenched in Christian thought by the middle to second century
Page 54


Thus the connection of the Father in the Son, and of the Son in the Paraclete, produces three Co-herent Persons, who are yet distinct One from Another. These Three are one essence, not one Person, as it is said, “ I and my Father are One “ in respect of unity of substance, not singularity of number. Roberts and Donaldson, anti-Nicene Fathers Vol. 3, p. 621, against Praxeas, xxv
Page 57


The New Testament teaches us that there is one God and that this God is three distinct persons, the Father the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and that these persons are co-equal and co-eternal. This is also the only possible interpretation of the Nicene Creed as it was intended by its authors. Therefore, the doctrine of the Trinity as taught in the Nicene Creed is an accurate representation of the teachings of the New Testament” pp 155-156
E. Calvin Beisner


Trinity

The doctrine of the Trinity in the godhead includes the three following particulars, viz. (a) There is only one God, one divine nature; (b) but in this divine nature there is the distinction of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, as three (subjects or persons); and (c) these three-have equally, and in common with one another, the nature and perfection of supreme divinity. It was the custom in former times for theologians to blend their own speculations and those of others with the statement of the Bible doctrine. It is customary now to exhibit first the simple doctrine of the Bible, and afterwards, in a separate part, the speculations of the learned respecting it.

(from McClintock and Strong Encyclopedia, Electronic Database. Copyright © 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006 by Biblesoft, Inc. All rights reserved.)

[_LittleNipper]

Mittens, the articles of faith are inspired and well written even though they do not go into great detail. As a Mormon, one of the last things I would want is for someone to get the impression that we believed some of the strange mystical doctrines of the evangelicals!

Think about some guy translating scripture by looking in his hat and then read again what you wrote above...

[_Mittens]

Here's strange

The LDS Church teaches that animals and plants also have spirit bodies—and that all animals will be resurrected from the dead.

In the Book of Moses, a revision of the early chapters of Genesis produced by Joseph Smith in 1830 and early 1831—within the first year after publishing the Book of Mormon—Joseph taught that God created all things spiritually before he created them naturally in the earth.

“For I, the Lord God, created all things, of which I have spoken, spiritually, before they were naturally upon the face of the earth. For I, the Lord God, had not caused it to rain upon the face of the earth. And I, the Lord God, had created all the children of men; and not yet a man to till the ground; for in heaven created I them…. And I, the Lord God, formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul, the first flesh upon the earth, the first man also; nevertheless, all things were before created; but spiritually were they created and made according to my word…. And out of the ground made I, the Lord God, to grow every tree, naturally, that is pleasant to the sight of man; and man could behold it. And it became also a living soul. For it was spiritual in the day that I created it; for it remaineth in the sphere in which I, God, created it, yea, even all things which I prepared for the use of man; and man saw that it was good for food” (Moses 3:4-5, 7, 9, emphasis added).

This passage teaches that in some sense all human beings—“all the children of men”—existed “in heaven” before God made the first man, Adam, on the earth. However, it does not explain what this means. It is noteworthy that the text presents God as saying that he “created” human beings—and everything else—“spiritually.” This does not fit well with the LDS Church’s later view that we were God’s spiritual offspring in heaven. Nevertheless, for the first time Joseph was promulgating the idea that human beings existed in some way “spiritually” in heaven before becoming “living souls” here on earth. This idea eventually developed into the full-blown doctrine of “preexistence”—that all human beings lived in heaven as literal spirit children of God even before the formation of the physical universe.

Two years later in 1832, Joseph offered a comment on the “beasts” in the Book of Revelation, in which he indicated that the spirits of animals look like their physical forms:

“They are figurative expressions, used by the Revelator, John, in describing heaven, the paradise of God, the happiness of man, and of beasts, and of creeping things, and of the fowls of the air; that which is spiritual being in the likeness of that which is temporal; and that which is temporal in the likeness of that which is spiritual; the spirit of man in the likeness of his person, as also the spirit of the beast, and every other creature which God has created” (Doctrine and Covenants 77:2).

On the basis especially of this text, the LDS Church teaches that all plants, animals, and human beings existed in spirit form with their own spirit bodies—looking essentially like they look here—in heaven before the formation of this world:

“All living things—mankind, animals, and plants—were spirits before any form of life existed upon the earth (Gen. 2:4–5; Moses 3:4–7). The spirit body looks like the physical body (1 Ne. 11:11; Ether 3:15–16; D&C 77:2; D&C 129)” (“Spirit,” in The Guide to the Scriptures).

Consistent with this doctrine that all living things have spirit bodies, the LDS Church teaches that all animals will be resurrected to immortality along with human beings, a doctrine at least implied in one of Joseph Smith’s early revelations:

“And the end shall come, and the heaven and the earth shall be consumed and pass away, and there shall be a new heaven and a new earth. For all old things shall pass away, and all things shall become new, even the heaven and the earth, and all the fulness thereof, both men and beasts, the fowls of the air, and the fishes of the sea; And not one hair, neither mote, shall be lost, for it is the workmanship of mine hand” (Doctrine and Covenants 29:3-5).

http://www.irr.org/mit/GP-BSG-41-spi...ter-death.html

[_gdemetz]

Those were seer stones, Nipper! The same stones which the old prophets used! Will you criticize them also?!?

Mittens, it is the same doctrine which the New Testament teaches, but not the same as the Athenasian Creed teaches! They are worshiped as one God, but they are not three beings in one being! You can't seem to understand the difference!

[_gdemetz]

It's strange to you mittens because you don't understand the Bible! Try reading carefully the first and second chapters of Genesis and you will see that the account of the spirit creation is given first, and then an account of the physical creation is given after that!!!

[_Valentinus]

Mittens, the articles of faith are inspired and well written even though they do not go into great detail. As a Mormon, one of the last things I would want is for someone to get the impression that we believed some of the strange mystical doctrines of the evangelicals!

Think about some guy translating scripture by looking in his hat and then read again what you wrote above...

How shocking that no one wins. Now guys let's put away our rulers and ease up on the ego. Neither is more right than the other.

[_Mittens]

Mittens, the articles of faith are inspired and well written even though they do not go into great detail. As a Mormon, one of the last things I would want is for someone to get the impression that we believed some of the strange mystical doctrines of the evangelicals!

Think about some guy translating scripture by looking in his hat and then read again what you wrote above...

teachings of Mormons not found in Book of Mormon, The Articles of Faith “ Mormon Creed” or Bible.

1. The plurality of Gods (Mormon Doctrine pp. 576, 577)
2. The baptism for the dead done in holy temples (Mormon Doctrine pp. 72,73)
3. Celestial marriage which no unworthy member or outsider can attend (Mormon Doctrine pp. 117, 118)
4. Polygamy needed to become a God (Journal of Discourse, Vol. II p. 269)
5. Blacks were cursed with a dark skin (Mormon Doctrine p. 109)
6. You can become a God if you are worthy; celestial marriage required (Mormon Doctrine p. 118)
7. We were all pre-existent spirits (Mormon Doctrine p. 589)
8. God has a body of flesh and bones (Mormon Doctrine p. 289)
9. We have a Heavenly Mother as well as a Heavenly Father (Mormon Doctrine p. 516)
10. There are three levels of heaven. To go to the highest kingdom, you must be a Mormon. Honorable persons go to the Terrestrial kingdom. The dishonest, liars, sorcerers, adulterers and whoremongers go to the Telestial kingdom. (Mormon Doctrine pp. 420, 421)
11. God and his wife achieved a celestial marriage (Celestial Marriage Manual p. 1)
12. Heavenly Father died just like Jesus (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith p. 346)
13. God was once just like us and progressed to godhood (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith p. 345)
14. God has a father and His Father has a Father, etc. (Mormon Doctrine p. 322)
15. Jesus and Lucifer are spirit brothers (Mormon Doctrine p. 192)
16. Jesus and Lucifer each had a plan to people the earth. Jesus' plan was chosen and caused Lucifer to rebel and he and the angels that followed him were cast out of heaven. (Mormon Doctrine p. 193)
17. God lives near a star called Kolob (Mormon Doctrine p. 428)
18. Temple endowments are so sacred that you must be worthy to enter (Mormon Doctrine pp. 619, 620)
19. Jesus was not able to keep his church together (History of the Church Vol. 6 pp. 408, 409)
20. In the future, you will need Joseph Smith's consent in order to enter the celestial kingdom (Journal of Discourse Vol. 7 p.289)
21. Not everything you'll need to know concerning salvation will be recorded in the Bible but there will be additional scriptures (Mormon Doctrine p. 83)"