The KFD and the nature of God: resolved

[_karl61]

No, but I understand he was a CEO in the Carlyle Group.

try again: 6 April 1844

Do you think if Joseph Smith were pressed he would say that God was once a mason.

[_karl61]

does this make any sense: he is all over the place. and that's from someone as scattered as I:

"I shall comment on the very first Hebrew word in the Bible, Berosheit. I want to analyze the word; baith--in, by, through, and everything else. Rosh--the head. Sheit--grammatical termination. When the inspired man wrote it, he did not put the baith there. A man, a Jew without any authority, thought it too bad to begin to talk about the head. It read first, "The head one of the Gods brought forth the Gods"; that is the true meaning of the words. Baurau signifies to bring forth. If you do not believe it, you do not believe the learned man of God. No man can teach you more than what I have told you. Thus the head God brought forth the Gods in the grand council. I will simplify it in the English language. Oh, ye lawyers and ye doctors who have persecuted me, I want to let you know that the Holy Ghost knows something as well as you do. The head God called together the Gods, and they sat in grand council. The grand councilors sat in yonder heavens and contemplated the creation of the worlds that were created at that time. When I say doctors and lawyers, I mean the doctors and lawyers of the scripture. I have done so hitherto to let the lawyers flutter and everybody laugh at them. Some learned doctor might take a notion to say, "The scriptures say thus and so and are not to be altered." But I am going to show you an error. I have an old book of the New Testament in the Hebrew, Latin, German, and Greek. I have been reading the German and find it to be the most [nearly] correct, and to correspond nearest to the revelations I have given for the last fourteen years. It tells about Jachobod the son of Zebedee. It means Jacob. In the English New Testament it is translated James. Now if Jacob had the keys, you might talk about James through all eternity and never get the keys. In the 21st verse of the fourth chapter of Matthew, the German edition gives the word Jacob instead of James. How can we escape the damnation of hell except God reveal to us? Men bind us with chains. Latin says Jachobod means Jacob; Hebrew says it means Jacob; Greek says Jacob; German says Jacob. I thank God I have got this book, and I thank him more for the gift of the Holy Ghost. I have the oldest book in the world, but I have the oldest book in my heart. I have all the four testaments. Come here, ye learned men, and read if you can. I should not have introduced this testimony were it not to back up the word Rosh, the head, Father of the Gods. I should not have brought it up except to show that I am right. "

for futher information:

http://mldb.BYU.edu/follett.htm

[_Jason Bourne]

Which would present a torturous logical and conceptual problem in conceiving just how God came to be a mortal (if he followed the normative pattern as understood in the plan of salvation as revealed to us, and as followed by Jesus Christ himself, he would have at one time been "born", the son of a Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother, into a premortal existence as an "intelligence"; as a being not only possessing mind, intelligence, and sentience, but a spirit body, providing such intelligence with the property of self identity and differentiation, or individuation, from different selves. This spirit body then becomes the template for the physical, mortal body).

Why? Jesus was God prior to his earth life. Why could not the Eternal God of all other Gods have been an intelligence that was more intelligent than all other intelligences, realized that to progress he needed to be physical, created a world, populated it and been the Savior of that first world? This seems more plausible then an infinite regression of Gods which results in all sorts of absurdities.

I will preach on the plurality of Gods. I have selected this text for that express purpose. I wish to declare I have always and in all congregations when I have preached on the subject of the Deity, it has been the plurality of Gods. It has been preached by the Elders for fifteen years.

...Our text says "And hath made us kings and priests unto God and His Father." The Apostles have discovered that there were Gods above, for Paul says God was the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. My object was to preach the scriptures, and preach the doctrine they contain, there being a God above, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. I am bold to declare I have taught all the strong doctrines publicly, and always teach stronger doctrines in public than in private.

...If Abraham reasoned thus—If Jesus Christ was the Son of God, and John discovered that God the Father of Jesus Christ had a Father, you may suppose that He had a Father also. Where was there ever a son without a father? And where was there ever a father without first being a son? Whenever did a tree or anything spring into existence without a progenitor? And everything comes in this way. Paul says that which is earthly is in the likeness of that which is heavenly, Hence if Jesus had a Father, can we not believe that He had a Father also? I despise the idea of being scared to death at such a doctrine, for the Bible is full of it.

I am familiar with this quote. But I do not agree that the Bible is full of this concept accept in perhaps this one verse and the question is one of interpretation. Other LDS scriptures do not support this idea. In fact they conflict with it.

I've got Brother Ostler's criticisms here, and have read them, but find them unpersuasive for the reasons I've specified before, to wit: I see little merit in picking and choosing between doctrines taught by the Prophet simply on the basis of a personal, idiosyncratic philosophical problems with them, especially given the very fundamental and basic nature of the concepts and given their source, the Prophet of the Restoration, a substantial doctrinal contribution from whom, as it appears in, what to some is the controversial KFD, has now appeared in official Church sources.

If you can demostrate in fact the Church accepts this as official doctrine then you certainly have point. Crockett however disagrees that this is doctrine.

While isolated scriptures do support Ostler (and the EVs and Catholics) on this matter, the more extensive understanding of the pattern of the plan of salvation, and the eternal (not just infinite) nature of this plan, support Joseph as a restorer of a much more complete, detailed picture of the entire plan of eternal progression.

I do not agree that the passages are isolated scripture. There is really nothing in LDS canon that backs up this idea and the only place we have it is from these non canonized sermons. In fact LDS canon expliclitly refutes the idea that God the Eternal Father has a Father.

[_Jason Bourne]

Bump

[_Trevor]

I've got Brother Ostler's criticisms here, and have read them, but find them unpersuasive for the reasons I've specified before, to wit: I see little merit in picking and choosing between doctrines taught by the Prophet simply on the basis of a personal, idiosyncratic philosophical problems with them, especially given the very fundamental and basic nature of the concepts and given their source, the Prophet of the Restoration, a substantial doctrinal contribution from whom, as it appears in, what to some is the controversial KFD, has now appeared in official Church sources.

I agree with Coggins7 in his view that Blake Ostler's view of the God of Mormonism is unpersuasive. He (Ostler) wrests the KFD, simply put.