Mormons Could Be Trinitarians

[Philo Sofee]

Kishkumen
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.

No, there is not. One cannot calculate up to infinity. One either starts there and is that, or is not. At least that is my understanding of it. Adding more knowledge from an infinite well will never get you to knowing infinite knowledge.

[Kishkumen]

No, there is not. One cannot calculate up to infinity. One either starts there and is that, or is not. At least that is my understanding of it. Adding more knowledge from an infinite well will never get you to knowing infinite knowledge.

If you could hie to Kolob! Right? Do you think that you could ever, through all eternity, find out the generation where gods began to be?

No, because human beings will never know the infinite. Even the gods do not know the infinite. Only God knows. Time in a creation narrative is a metaphor for limited creatures with limited minds. The creation happens infinitely and is only told in terms that simple minds can try to grasp. No human can really understand the infinite, so the myth stands in its place.

The ancient philosophers understood this problem, but many people never were able to grasp that. They fear and hate that which they do not understand. Socrates knew that he did not know, and in this he was better off than most of his peers.

[Philo Sofee]

Well said

[Gadianton]

DCP is a social trinitarian. He wants to to be a part of classical theism. He wants a "great tradition" of highfalutin scholarship as a rampart his attackers break themselves against. He rejects that man can become God in the way that Mormons understand it. In his way, vassals are kings because of their social relationship to the King. And so there is only one God in the sense PG is talking about, but yes, that God has a body. On this point, he probably follows some stuff Nibley said about the old church fathers not insisting that God doesn't have a body -- my memory on that point is a little shaky. Well, if God didn't have a body, he couldn't travel and eat and so what would be the point of anything?

[Philo Sofee]

DCP is a social trinitarian. He wants to to be a part of classical theism. He wants a "great tradition" of highfalutin scholarship as a rampart his attackers break themselves against. He rejects that man can become God in the way that Mormons understand it. In his way, vassals are kings because of their social relationship to the King. And so there is only one God in the sense PG is talking about, but yes, that God has a body. On this point, he probably follows some stuff Nibley said about the old church fathers not insisting that God doesn't have a body -- my memory on that point is a little shaky. Well, if God didn't have a body, he couldn't travel and eat and so what would be the point of anything?

LOL! Yeah that's pretty close to how I remember it as well.

[Kishkumen]

DCP is a social trinitarian. He wants to to be a part of classical theism. He wants a "great tradition" of highfalutin scholarship as a rampart his attackers break themselves against. He rejects that man can become God in the way that Mormons understand it. In his way, vassals are kings because of their social relationship to the King. And so there is only one God in the sense PG is talking about, but yes, that God has a body. On this point, he probably follows some stuff Nibley said about the old church fathers not insisting that God doesn't have a body -- my memory on that point is a little shaky. Well, if God didn't have a body, he couldn't travel and eat and so what would be the point of anything?

Interesting, Dean Robbers. I wonder in what sense God has a body in DCP's view. Divine beings have bodies in Clement's writings, but they are not bodies as we experience them here in human mortality. The higher the degree of divinity, the less those below would see them as physical, but to beings above them they would still appear more substantially embodied than those peering down at them. Interesting system. It is unclear to me what embodied means in the Neo-orthodox LDS sense.

[huckelberry]

I am not aware of any reason that the classic god,eternal, omnipresent, and spirit one substance not composite could not choose to relate to people by way of a physical image. Bible has images of the sort, throne etc.

Embodiment would be derivative, not essential. It could not be seen as a stepping stone or a change in god and still fit the classic accepted understanding of god.

[huckelberry]

kishkumen, just curiosity, where in Clement's writing are you referring to?

[Kishkumen]

kishkumen, just curiosity, where in Clement's writing are you referring to?

If I recall correctly, Stromateis.