Mormons Could Be Trinitarians

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Mormons Could Be Trinitarians

Post by Kishkumen »

I remember when I started to become aware that LDS theology was different from orthodox Christian theology. It was basically by being taught to make fun of orthodox Christian theology by fellow Mormons. This disdain for orthodox Christian theology was reiterated within the context of Mormonism's most sacred rites in the temple. Over time, I have learned a lot more about both Mormonism and orthodox Christianity, and, after thinking about it a while, and I am sure I have a lot more thinking to do, I really don't see the advantage of holding onto a kind of King Follett Discourse idea of God writ large.

The King Follett Discourse has, when you reflect on it carefully, a kind of "turtles all the way down" approach to answering the big questions. It doesn't really answer them, except to say that everything keeps going on forever. Gods, creations, patriarchal chain, you name it. Unfortunately the question of why or how it all came to be is left unanswered. The eternities are like one huge Santa's workshop with Santa being a graduated elf who no longer makes toys but tells others to make toys according to his specifications to dole out to those he finds worthy of getting them for being nice and not naughty.

That said, the idea of eternal progression is not wholly irreconcilable with a Trinitarian Deity. There is nothing to say that Trinitarianism cannot be compatible with the idea of human beings ever progressing in the next life to become more like God. At the same time, there is a huge gap in contemporary Trinitarian theology between Deity and humankind. Jesus fills that gap, certainly. Theologically Christ bridges the divide, but there is something empty about the laser-like focus on the Trinity in orthodox Christianity. Even Orthodoxy and Catholicism at least fill that space with angels and saints. Oh, Protestant Christians believe in angels and demons, but the whole system is so hazy that you hardly have anything to hold onto.

So Mormonism could be more like Orthodoxy and Catholicism in populating its afterlife with a wider array of beings, or, to put it another, more LDS way, wider gradation of beings. That does not mean, however, that the god of Adam-God is the Trinitarian Deity. The god of Adam-God is obviously a lower level divinity who treats with humankind on this planet as an avatar or representative of the big Trinitarian Deity. People can aspire to be gods, but these gods would be more like super-angels who are closest to God without being God. In other words, there is plenty of room for Mormons to be a distinctive kind of Christian without looking to rewrite completely the great book of Western theology, so to speak.
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Re: Mormons Could Be Trinitarians

Post by drumdude »

It seems like the church can’t figure out if it wants to be different than mainstream Christianity or not.

Some decades it celebrates its differences. Other decades it tries to blend in and not draw any attention to its differences.

Mormon Doctrine is so wishy washy and malleable that you can really do almost anything to it. Remove core doctrines, add new ones, reinterpret until you’re blue in the face. The only doctrine that is non negotiable is the absolute authority of church leaders.
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Re: Mormons Could Be Trinitarians

Post by huckelberry »

Kishkumen, this opening post make sense to me. Several times I have posted hinting at this direction of thought but found no response. There could be several reasons. First I am no expert on LDS theology only have the standard basics. (my seminary classes covered Lectures on Faith, got copies, and King Follette discourse. Adam God was touched on.)

Without a lot of detail I am aware that there was some experimenting in the past with an eternal divine power or glory which is the source of all divine power and makes eternal progression possible. I have noticed that there are LDS believers who see one God as the source . It may be culturally out of expectation to use the trinity formulae. People have trouble with the arithmetic though that is a bit of an acquired narrowness of view.

To my understanding the only reason Christianity adopted the trinity formulae (beside just having an agreement to slow or stop all the arguments) is to establish the idea that the atonement was God being the sacrifice and not just some human scapegoat. I do not think there is a reason that could not fit in LDS thought as a clarification of ambiguities in tradition.

Not sure who would be capable of making such a change or clarification of doctrine.

////
as Shulem explains on the other thread,
"The concept of *infinity* with reference to Smith's penis bearing Man-God is impossible and is contradicted by his other teachings that Heavenly Father was once a mortal man who obtained exaltation under the ordaining hands of his own Father. How is that not an unchangeable God? The Book of Mormon declares "God is not a partial God, neither a changeable being; but he is unchangeable from all eternity to all eternity." Infinity cannot be experienced between peoples. Space and time cannot contain the infinite! Infinity is outside space and time! I don't believe the infinite can be counted, numbered, or known -- it is magical at base and is within the realm where potentiality is manifested via Big Bangs which hosts universes in a realm of time and space. The Mormon Man-God who totes a penis cannot be infinite and is representative of a finite being that is counted and known. *That* is not infinity!"
/////

Kishkumen is suggesting coherence can be found viewing these as two different beings,
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Re: Mormons Could Be Trinitarians

Post by Kishkumen »

Yes, I think Shulem has something there, that rascal! Mormonism does not offer a first cause or a ground of being. So something is definitely missing in the Mormon cosmos. The Trinitarian Deity does offer that, but the space between human life and that Deity is practically empty for most Christians. Let’s go back to the writings of Clement of Alexandria where we see that human beings progress to a point where they rest in the bosom of Deity enjoying eternal contemplation of God. Talk about a far cry from where Protestantism is today!
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Re: Mormons Could Be Trinitarians

Post by DrStakhanovite »

Salutations Reverend!

I hope the spirit of Thanksgiving has found you and yours not only in mirth, but also in good health. I’m appreciative of the OP, it asks a lot of good (and frankly, difficult) questions that are not really getting asked in the broader world of Mormon Studies. Interestingly, I found myself in stark disagreement with some of the sentiments you expressed here which probably speaks to the complexity of the topic at hand.
Kishkumen wrote:
Wed Nov 23, 2022 3:37 pm
This disdain for orthodox Christian theology was reiterated within the context of Mormonism's most sacred rites in the temple. Over time, I have learned a lot more about both Mormonism and orthodox Christianity, and, after thinking about it a while, and I am sure I have a lot more thinking to do, I really don't see the advantage of holding onto a kind of King Follett Discourse idea of God writ large.
I’ve slowly come around to the opinion that there is actually more potential in the theological speculations of Joseph Smith (and others) than I previously thought and that something intellectually interesting and spiritually robust could come from the analysis of those works and in the informed contemplation of them. Especially over and against historical Christianity as expressed in the Eastern Churches, the Latin Church, and the Protestant movement and her children.
Kishkumen wrote:
Wed Nov 23, 2022 3:37 pm
The King Follett Discourse has, when you reflect on it carefully, a kind of "turtles all the way down" approach to answering the big questions. It doesn't really answer them, except to say that everything keeps going on forever. Gods, creations, patriarchal chain, you name it. Unfortunately the question of why or how it all came to be is left unanswered. The eternities are like one huge Santa's workshop with Santa being a graduated elf who no longer makes toys but tells others to make toys according to his specifications to dole out to those he finds worthy of getting them for being nice and not naughty.
Initially I think that is the case, Joseph Smith didn’t really have a talent for developing his grand ideas into a plausible formulation that can withstand the passage of time. There have been conceptual advancements in few different disciplines that could be used fruitfully to add needed dimension and rigor to the KFD.
Kishkumen wrote:
Wed Nov 23, 2022 3:37 pm
That said, the idea of eternal progression is not wholly irreconcilable with a Trinitarian Deity.
Wholly? No, it isn’t irreconcilable. What gives me a moment’s hesitation is that the traditional Christian theology of “historic” Churches like those in the East and West were built upon an edifice of Hellenistic philosophy and cultural thinking that they inherited and then subsequently utilized not only to develop ecclesiastical hierarchies and settle theological disputes, but to place God as the fundamental bedrock of reality.

The notion there is a collection of beings undergoing a transfinite progression is going to be an awkward fit for a ground of being that is not composed of parts. It cuts across a lot of different lines of systematic theology, it would be a radical reorientation just to make it feasible. Radical is sometimes necessary, but other times it can be like forcing a round peg into a square hole.
Kishkumen wrote:
Wed Nov 23, 2022 3:37 pm
There is nothing to say that Trinitarianism cannot be compatible with the idea of human beings ever progressing in the next life to become more like God.
There are going to be some hard limits though, theological doctrines impinge on each other and shifts of belief concerning one doctrine can have consequences on other doctrines. Really, this is at the heart of all those controversies the Church in antiquity struggled with concerning the nature of Jesus and the doctrine of God. What Christ’s nature was is going to influence how you understand his death, burial and resurrection, which then spills over into issues concerning salvation and how/when it is obtained.

I kinda see the doctrine of the Trinity as the unique allen wrench that is used to fix the entire web of Christian theology into place, a culmination of centuries of debate that was carefully formulated to keep everything in balance.

That isn’t to say historical notions of Sanctification can’t accommodate the spirit of what you’d like to see, but I think it would fall short of also catching the authentic feel of Mormonism.

Kishkumen wrote:
Wed Nov 23, 2022 3:37 pm
In other words, there is plenty of room for Mormons to be a distinctive kind of Christian without looking to rewrite completely the great book of Western theology, so to speak.
I think the extended canon has already rewritten the theology, it just never gets talked about because the focus almost always gets drawn to the debate about historicity and authorship. The debate over the rite of baptism between paedo baptism and credo baptism was forcefully settled in favor of credo baptism and with such gusto that it washes into the debate in soteriology between synergism and monergism, which Mormons skip right over siding with Erasmus over Luther and knock Augustine over in their rush to embrace Pelagius. To say nothing of D&C’s explicit and full-throated endorsement of metaphysical materialism.

If historical orthodox Christianity can be thought of as a tree, then Mormonism not only prunes a good many branches, it also grafts on branches from all sorts of other trees. I don’t think it is just a variant like Coptic Christianity or Socinianism, I think it is a full on amalgamation of so many things that it probably functions more like a Gnostic rival than anything else.

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Re: Mormons Could Be Trinitarians

Post by Kishkumen »

DrStakhanovite wrote:
Fri Nov 25, 2022 4:31 am
Salutations Reverend!

I hope the spirit of Thanksgiving has found you and yours not only in mirth, but also in good health. I’m appreciative of the opening post, it asks a lot of good (and frankly, difficult) questions that are not really getting asked in the broader world of Mormon Studies. Interestingly, I found myself in stark disagreement with some of the sentiments you expressed here which probably speaks to the complexity of the topic at hand.
Likewise on the Thanksgiving wishes. Excellent, DrStak! It is refreshing when one of my attempts at a provocative post actually succeeds at provoking a response from someone whose knowledge in these areas far exceeds my own.
I’ve slowly come around to the opinion that there is actually more potential in the theological speculations of Joseph Smith (and others) than I previously thought and that something intellectually interesting and spiritually robust could come from the analysis of those works and in the informed contemplation of them. Especially over and against historical Christianity as expressed in the Eastern Churches, the Latin Church, and the Protestant movement and her children.
I am intrigued, Dr. I would be interested to know where you see the potential. I see potential, but I am guessing we are seeing it in different areas, although I can’t be sure at this point.
Initially I think that is the case, Joseph Smith didn’t really have a talent for developing his grand ideas into a plausible formulation that can withstand the passage of time. There have been conceptual advancements in few different disciplines that could be used fruitfully to add needed dimension and rigor to the KFD.
Fascinating! I am all ears! This is one of the many places where your knowledge can help me see new possibilities.
Wholly? No, it isn’t irreconcilable. What gives me a moment’s hesitation is that the traditional Christian theology of “historic” Churches like those in the East and West were built upon an edifice of Hellenistic philosophy and cultural thinking that they inherited and then subsequently utilized not only to develop ecclesiastical hierarchies and settle theological disputes, but to place God as the fundamental bedrock of reality.

The notion there is a collection of beings undergoing a transfinite progression is going to be an awkward fit for a ground of being that is not composed of parts. It cuts across a lot of different lines of systematic theology, it would be a radical reorientation just to make it feasible. Radical is sometimes necessary, but other times it can be like forcing a round peg into a square hole.
I can only dimly grasp, kind of, what you might be alluding to here. If God is infinite, would there be not be no end to the possibilities of progression for finite beings? I’ll just throw out that question to seek a place to start getting schooled.
Kishkumen wrote:
Wed Nov 23, 2022 3:37 pm
There is nothing to say that Trinitarianism cannot be compatible with the idea of human beings ever progressing in the next life to become more like God.
There are going to be some hard limits though, theological doctrines impinge on each other and shifts of belief concerning one doctrine can have consequences on other doctrines. Really, this is at the heart of all those controversies the Church in antiquity struggled with concerning the nature of Jesus and the doctrine of God. What Christ’s nature was is going to influence how you understand his death, burial and resurrection, which then spills over into issues concerning salvation and how/when it is obtained.

I kinda see the doctrine of the Trinity as the unique allen wrench that is used to fix the entire web of Christian theology into place, a culmination of centuries of debate that was carefully formulated to keep everything in balance.

That isn’t to say historical notions of Sanctification can’t accommodate the spirit of what you’d like to see, but I think it would fall short of also catching the authentic feel of Mormonism.

I think the extended canon has already rewritten the theology, it just never gets talked about because the focus almost always gets drawn to the debate about historicity and authorship. The debate over the rite of baptism between paedo baptism and credo baptism was forcefully settled in favor of credo baptism and with such gusto that it washes into the debate in soteriology between synergism and monergism, which Mormons skip right over siding with Erasmus over Luther and knock Augustine over in their rush to embrace Pelagius. To say nothing of D&C’s explicit and full-throated endorsement of metaphysical materialism.
Is canon that important, really? Theology seems to operate in contradiction to the cannon, and hermeneutics are required to make the two work together. Of course, the Book of Mormon is explicitly aimed at solving some narrow problems that were of concern in the 1820s. In that respect, it is hard to read around it, but that may be no bigger a problem than people of the Roman Empire finding some way of holding onto Leviticus.
If historical orthodox Christianity can be thought of as a tree, then Mormonism not only prunes a good many branches, it also grafts on branches from all sorts of other trees. I don’t think it is just a variant like Coptic Christianity or Socinianism, I think it is a full on amalgamation of so many things that it probably functions more like a Gnostic rival than anything else.
Perhaps, but when I read Clement of Alexandria, it makes me hope that there could be some rapprochement between Mormonism and orthodox Christianity.
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Re: Mormons Could Be Trinitarians

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Kishkumen wrote:
Wed Nov 23, 2022 3:37 pm
There is nothing to say that Trinitarianism cannot be compatible with the idea of human beings ever progressing in the next life to become more like God. At the same time, there is a huge gap in contemporary Trinitarian theology between Deity and humankind. Jesus fills that gap, certainly. Theologically Christ bridges the divide, but there is something empty about the laser-like focus on the Trinity in orthodox Christianity. Even Orthodoxy and Catholicism at least fill that space with angels and saints.
I think the gap is really unavoidable. Being the God of mainstream theism is like being Chevy Chase: you either are or you aren’t.

In some ways, perhaps, humans are to God as fictional characters are to their author; but this understates the scale of the difference. Perhaps we are to God as a semicolon is to an author. Even this misses a crucial point, though: we and all created things are to God as a semicolon is to God. That would be true, in theistic theory, even of wildly superhuman Q-like beings who could twirl galaxies around their fingers. Even they would be semicolons. Between such beings and us there may be a long continuum, on which we might conceivably somehow ascend, but between creations and a Creator who is the author of reality there is no continuum that could ever be filled.

Whatever you think of it, that’s the theory of mainstream theism. Proposing that there could be a sequence of steps between us and God, on which we or other beings could stand, is never going to sound to any mainstream theist like a richer theology. It’s only going to sound like a smaller concept of God.
The god of Adam-God is obviously a lower level divinity who treats with humankind on this planet as an avatar or representative of the big Trinitarian Deity. People can aspire to be gods, but these gods would be more like super-angels who are closest to God without being God. In other words, there is plenty of room for Mormons to be a distinctive kind of Christian without looking to rewrite completely the great book of Western theology, so to speak.
Superhuman beings, even greatly superhuman ones, are certainly compatible with mainstream theism. The Quran speaks of angels and djinn. It may even be held appropriate by mainstream Christians to revere and obey such non-divine beings. It is perfectly Catholic to venerate the Archangel Michael as Saint Michael. So it seems possible to me for Young’s Adam-God to be downgraded to some superhuman but subdivine status and still play whatever role he ever played in Mormonism. Perhaps even Snow’s as-we-are-was God could be reclassified that way. The theistic God could remain as a remote Being far above these lesser entities, acknowledged in theory but ignored in practice, as Voodoo acknowledges Bondieu but pays all its attention to the loas.

It seems tricky in practice, however. Is the Lord of the Book of Mormon supposed to be the ultimate theistic God? Is Jesus in Mormonism an incarnation of one Person of the transpersonal ultimate God? If the answer to either of those questions is Yes, then whatever Young, Snow, and Smith in King Follett were talking about, it would seem to have been only a confusing little doctrinal squib that never actually went anywhere in a Mormonism that is just as much about the unreachably transcendent God as any Protestantism is.

Or is the Lord of the Book of Mormon supposed to be only a senior demiurge of the Young-Snow pantheon? Is Jesus only a junior demiurge taking his promotion exam? If so, then Mormonism might be compatible with transcendent theism, trinitarian or otherwise, but it would seem in practice to pay very little attention to the ultimate God, and to focus instead upon immeasurably lesser beings. Even the supposedly saint-obsessed folk-Catholicism of stereotypical medieval peasants would seem to pay a lot more attention to the ultimate transcendent God than Mormonism does, in fact, if Jesus and Elohim are lesser beings in Mormonism.

Mainstream theism generally doesn’t just say that the ultimate God exists, but also that we should be trying to love or serve this ultimate God. So admitting the existence of an ultimate God, but ignoring that God completely, wouldn’t seem to me to be compatible with trinitarian theism.
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Re: Mormons Could Be Trinitarians

Post by Kishkumen »

Yes, I am not confused about any of those points, Physics Guy. As long as Mormons think that THE God is a being who progressed from some former humanity to be what God is today, then that proposition is completely at odds with classical theism. But, hey, let’s face it, there is no way that the Mormon God could be THE God anyway. The Mormon God by definition is a different and smaller magnitude of being altogether. And Mormons need to accept that. Mormons in the past simply felt that the God of classical theism was absurd and impossible, probably because most of them had very little idea about theology anyway. Their exposure to Christian theology was already an encounter with a veritable caricature. So, I hardly blame them.

But these days I don’t think anyone has such an excuse. It is possible to obtain some idea of what classical theism is about, and, in my small experience, it is not the caricature that others make it out to be.

As for ignoring the God of classical theism, I don’t know about that. I think all people worship that God to the extent they are able. If the Mormon God is some kind of pale reflection of that God, then Mormons worship God as much as they can. My guess is that most people who worship in orthodox Christian faiths have about as poor an idea of God as most Mormons do. They key difference is that they conjoin their imperfect practice of Christianity with creedal statements that were formulated to be authoritative and, as much as possible, communicate in a succinct way classical theism. But repeating those statements is not the same thing as grasping them.
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Re: Mormons Could Be Trinitarians

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I quite agree that people worship as best they can, and if that’s not good enough for God, then we are all in trouble, because none of us can really understand what God is like. I doubt that God is going to hold a confusion with Adam against any Mormon who tried to live right.

I don’t think God is going to be too upset with polytheists or animists, either. If the principle of worshiping to the extent one is able covers me, it will cover them. I still wouldn’t say, though, that mainstream Christianity is therefore compatible with Hinduism or animism. The incompatibility may not be such a big deal, spiritually, but it’s a fact about the bodies of doctrine, I think.
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Re: Mormons Could Be Trinitarians

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Physics Guy wrote:
Fri Nov 25, 2022 7:45 pm
I quite agree that people worship as best they can, and if that’s not good enough for God, then we are all in trouble, because none of us can really understand what God is like. I doubt that God is going to hold a confusion with Adam against any Mormon who tried to live right.

I don’t think God is going to be too upset with polytheists or animists, either. If the principle of worshiping to the extent one is able covers me, it will cover them. I still wouldn’t say, though, that mainstream Christianity is therefore compatible with Hinduism or animism. The incompatibility may not be such a big deal, spiritually, but it’s a fact about the bodies of doctrine, I think.
In imagining the possibility of a kind of reconciliation of Mormonism and orthodox Christianity, I understand that Mormons will not ever be exactly the same as the other Christian churches. I wouldn’t want it to be so, anyway. I just think that Mormon theology for the most part can fit within orthodox Christian theology in a number of ways. The goal is not to give up being distinctively Mormon. The idea is more to see where Mormonism is located within the many variations of historical Christianity so that it can be better articulated as a distinct form of Christianity as opposed to a mere frontier Yankee grab-bag of whims and “big ideas.” There is a huge gap between the One God and the world we live in. Different groups will fill that gap in different ways, but I don’t think leaving the question of the nature of ultimate reality untouched, which Mormonism in many ways does, is a sustainable situation. Mormon apologetics is that fight over historical trivia that one gets when methodical discussion of the big ideas is for the most part lacking.
Last edited by Kishkumen on Sat Nov 26, 2022 3:35 am, edited 1 time in total.
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