Can the Fifth Lecture on Faith be agreed to D&C 130

[_The Nehor]

And thus the wheat and chaff are differentiated. Praise God for his wisdom.

I have always found it a sad thing when members make this statement. Do they really glory in the idea that so many of their brothers and sisters may not be with them because they are chaff? Do they really praise God as a Father that will sift his children in such a way? I know you are not a Father but I have no desire to treat my children as wheat and chaff.

I also find that it's a sad thing that there is chaff. However, I have power only to decide which I will grow to be. Putting my head in the sand and pretending that there is no chaff would be willful ignorance. Take the world as it is and hope for a better one one day.

You may have no desire to see your children this way but if one, despite all your efforts, is an irresponsible reprobate are you going to pretend that they are not?

[_Jason Bourne]

I also find that it's a sad thing that there is chaff. However, I have power only to decide which I will grow to be. Putting my head in the sand and pretending that there is no chaff would be willful ignorance. Take the world as it is and hope for a better one one day.

You may have no desire to see your children this way but if one, despite all your efforts, is an irresponsible reprobate are you going to pretend that they are not?

This is is a topic for another thread.

[_The Nehor]

I also find that it's a sad thing that there is chaff. However, I have power only to decide which I will grow to be. Putting my head in the sand and pretending that there is no chaff would be willful ignorance. Take the world as it is and hope for a better one one day.

You may have no desire to see your children this way but if one, despite all your efforts, is an irresponsible reprobate are you going to pretend that they are not?

This is is a topic for another thread.

Probably, but you're the one who analyzed my largely inane comment. :)

[_guy sajer]

You're not using the mind God gave unto you to work through this. You are thoroughly dedicated to seeing only an intractable problem here, for whatever reason, and will accept no plausible interpretation other then one that coincides with your own. Whatever the explanation, unless it preserves your idea of an irreconcilable official doctrinal difference, it will be unwelcome.

What he can't accept is that God being described as a personage of spirit does not preclude adding to that description later. The fact of the matter is that the only way for there to be a conflict is if having a body does not allow one to have a spirit also.

But most anti's heads spin anyway at the thought that the LDS Church might actually believe it's own doctrine. Such destroys too many of their chestnut arguments.

And these 'chestnut arguments would be . . . ?

The issue is not whether the Church (and its members) believe its own doctrine (I am happy to concede that they do), but just what the hell that doctrine is. Notwithstanding your smug and naïve assertions that the doctrine is plain, anyone reasonably in tune with the rank and file membership (which excludes you) will discern that there is substantial confusion as to what that doctrine is.

[_Droopy]

You are delusional and still don't deal with the issue. Both you abd BC simply parrot the same thing and do not deal with what the words say. I am 48 and have no doubt I am just as well read if not better, on things LDS than you are.

Neener, neener, neener. In any case, God the Father, Jesus Christ, and all of his sons and daughters (us), are similar along certain dimensions. One of those is that all of us are spirits fused with physical bodies generally corresponding to the form of the spirit. In other words, we are all personages of spirit as well as physical organisms composed of the grosser, denser matter of the physical universe.

Your so called doctrinal contradiction is nothing more than:

1. A theological distinction between the Father and the Son emphasizing the Son's mortal messiahship (corporeality) and minimizing the Father's physical body (for the sake of the point being made, and for no other reason).

2. Rhetorical flourish that simply ignores certain attributes of one at the expense of another. The New Testament is full of such hyperbolic language use.

3. Rigdon didn't fully comprehend the plan of salvation and the relationship of the Father to us as his literal children at the time. This should not cause any problems for faithful Latter Day Saints, as the New Testament makes clear that the Apostles didn't really comprehend much of what Jesus taught them, including the nature of his death and resurrection, up until the time that he actually showed himself to them as a matter of empirical proof.

Your extreme leap to an official doctrinal contradiction is not required.

[_Jason Bourne]

Neener, neener, neener.

Intelligent responese.

In any case, God the Father, Jesus Christ, and all of his sons and daughters (us), are similar along certain dimensions. One of those is that all of us are spirits fused with physical bodies generally corresponding to the form of the spirit. In other words, we are all personages of spirit as well as physical organisms composed of the grosser, denser matter of the physical universe.

Yes I understand that from 1844 forward this is what the Church teaches. In 1835 the Church did not teach this and it taught that God was spirit, not that he was spirit and body.

Your so called doctrinal contradiction is nothing more than:

1. A theological distinction between the Father and the Son emphasizing the Son's mortal messiahship (corporeality) and minimizing the Father's physical body (for the sake of the point being made, and for no other reason).

It is not a simple distinction down playing the father incorporeal nature. It is a statement of fact about the Father-he is a spirit, as contrasted to the son who is tabernacle. This is what the words say. The idea of God, Jesus and all of us being spirit and body came much later.

2. Rhetorical flourish that simply ignores certain attributes of one at the expense of another. The New Testament is full of such hyperbolic language use.

A cop out argument if I ever saw one.

3. Rigdon didn't fully comprehend the plan of salvation and the relationship of the Father to us as his literal children at the time. This should not cause any problems for faithful Latter Day Saints, as the New Testament makes clear that the Apostles didn't really comprehend much of what Jesus taught them, including the nature of his death and resurrection, up until the time that he actually showed himself to them as a matter of empirical proof.

THis may be the case. Nor did Joseph Smith. Or it could be this was the correct doctrine and the later incorrect.

Your extreme leap to an official doctrinal contradiction is not required.

I am simply supporting BCs position that whatever the Church publishes is doctrine. Oh and the small fact that this was actually part of canon. A small trivial matter after all.

[_Droopy]

Yes I understand that from 1844 forward this is what the Church teaches. In 1835 the Church did not teach this and it taught that God was spirit, not that he was spirit and body.

If this is the case, then the argument is now closed. If whomever wrote the Lectures was simply stating what he knew at the time as doctrinally true, and further revelation clarified God's nature in greater detail, then what we have here is not a standing official doctrinal contradiction but an instance of the Church evolving and developing doctrinally, what we always knew had occurred in the first place and which also occurred in New Testament times.

In this case, since the doctrine stated is, in fact true (the Father is a personage of spirit), but only incomplete, connecting the Lecture in question to later teachings fills in the blank and the question is answered.

You can now move on Jason, because you have found the answer to your own question without any further argument between you and bc or myself.

None of this, of course, rules out the distinct possibility that the author of the Lectures knew that God had a body, but declined to mention the fact for the sake of making what was for him at the time a more pressing point (that Christ was God in mortality and had a physical body as a core feature of his messiahship).

But the argument is, as far as I'm concerned, over.

[_Jason Bourne]

Yes I understand that from 1844 forward this is what the Church teaches. In 1835 the Church did not teach this and it taught that God was spirit, not that he was spirit and body.

If this is the case, then the argument is now closed. If whomever wrote the Lectures was simply stating what he knew at the time as doctrinally true, and further revelation clarified God's nature in greater detail, then what we have here is not a standing official doctrinal contradiction but an instance of the Church evolving and developing doctrinally, what we always knew had occurred in the first place and which also occurred in New Testament times.

In this case, since the doctrine stated is, in fact true (the Father is a personage of spirit), but only incomplete, connecting the Lecture in question to later teachings fills in the blank and the question is answered.

You can now move on Jason, because you have found the answer to your own question without any further argument between you and bc or myself.

None of this, of course, rules out the distinct possibility that the author of the Lectures knew that God had a body, but declined to mention the fact for the sake of making what was for him at the time a more pressing point (that Christ was God in mortality and had a physical body as a core feature of his messiahship).

But the argument is, as far as I'm concerned, over.

Well that is perhaps not an unreasonable conclusion. In fact it was the one I held for a long time. The problem is this. The doctrine that came forth in 1844 is so radically different than what is was in 1835 that it leaves one to ask two questions. How could it has been so wrong in 1835? Supposedly according to our leaders, Joseph Smith knew more about God when he walked out of the grove than all the theologians of the past 1800 years.

THe other question that this begs is what if the doctrine was right in 1835 and the newer more radical teachings in the 1840s incorrect? This was not a simple evolution but a radical change. God is now incorporeal, he is not omnipresent, he was God for all eternities now he once was a man with Gods before him in infinite regression.

Add to that the fact the BY tried to introduce other radical teachings about God and Adam that the Church quickly back peddled from after his death then one is left to wonder which God is the correct one to worship. Keep in mind that Joseph Smith taught it is the first principle of revealed religion to know the character and attributes of God. But it seems to me that they LDS leaders did not really have a good grip on this.

One answer is that revelation is just messy and does not come in a clean and succinct manner.. Ok but then what good is it then. I mean really, it seems pretty basic that the Prophet and apostles really ought to know who God is and what he is like.

You may view this as an ax to grind but it really is not. For me, the issues of God and his attributes is the first and most fundamental issue of religion.

[_Sethbag]

The issue is not whether the Church (and its members) believe its own doctrine (I am happy to concede that they do), but just what the hell that doctrine is. Notwithstanding your smug and naïve assertions that the doctrine is plain, anyone reasonably in tune with the rank and file membership (which excludes you) will discern that there is substantial confusion as to what that doctrine is.

Actually the issue for me personally is not what the hell the doctrine is - that question can be answered easily by any Mormon by just referring to the latest and greatest Prophet. The issue for me, with the LoF and the D&C conflicts is that it shows the manmade nature of the church. Members might say "line upon line", but it looks more like "made it up as they went along" to me. And I think it seriously undermines the credibility of the Prophets, Seers, and Revelators to be publishing such glaringingly conflicting statements. It shows that, at the very least, they weren't actually talking to God about this stuff, as most LDS are lead to believe.

[_Droopy]

I have always found it a sad thing when members make this statement.

I've always found it sad that members who are supposed to have a testimony within themselves of the truth graze in a cafeteria and then expect other members who's palates are more refined to subsist on the crumbs you leave us on the cafeteria floor.

I prefer the full coarse.