Church of Heavenly Father

[_scripturesearcher]

So you address the Father in prayer but in your mind you have one entity in mind? This being would be the same we read about in the New Testament?

Yes. I pray to the Father in Jesus Christ name as he is the mediator to the Father.

In essence, you have a "relationship" with a single God?

Yes.

It is not intuitive or easy for me to build a relationship with God this way. It is hard enough for me to believe in him, let alone have some complicated poly-relationship thing. It would be nice to just to believe in God and talk to God. You know, like Fiddler on the Roof. Can't we have that?

I don't think of it as being complicated, I just think of God as a different type of relationship similar to a friend. Where I might call a friend on the phone or email them, etc., I would pray to communicate with God.

Sorry, I am not familiar with Fiddler on the Roof, so I don't know anything about that.


Here is one other analogy to relate to the Trinity:
Think about Water (H20)
It can be a solid (ice)
It can be a liquid (water as we most commonly think of it)
It can be a gas (steam, precipitation)
Also water can change from one form to another and back again.

Whether it is solid, liquid, or gas, it is still H2O regardless of its form and how we view it.

[_zeezrom]

When I said it is not intuitive, I meant the way I've been doing it.

When I pray, I address the Father. Always have. It seems our desire would be to build a relationship with the God of this world. Seems that would be Christ. Having been taught that the Father and Christ are two separate beings - exalted humans - with flesh and bone, I find it difficult to think of any other way to pray.

Indeed, I could just let go of everything and not pray at all. But assuming I'm not willing to go that far, I would like to continue building this relationship. Believing in just a single God seems foreign to me - but I feel I need this to simplify things.

I think Joseph Smith made things worse by conjuring up this doctrine of the Father and Christ as two exalted humans. It is too confusing and doesn't fit with the God that I'm trying to hang on to. It is a magical and inspiring idea - for it puts God on a level that we can relate to.... until we try to start praying to him as our own God.

[_msnobody]

Now I'm seeing why the idea of Jesus being God Himself come down to earth as being so interesting to me. It is so new and possibly simpler for a monotheist.

Zee.

:) Several years ago while doing a Bible study on Israel and the Minor Prophets and reading Old Testament Scripture passages, over and over again as I read about the attributes of God, I was left with the conclusion or confirmation that Jesus is indeed God.

[_scripturesearcher]

When I said it is not intuitive, I meant the way I've been doing it.

When I pray, I address the Father. Always have. It seems our desire would be to build a relationship with the God of this world. Seems that would be Christ. Having been taught that the Father and Christ are two separate beings - exalted humans - with flesh and bone, I find it difficult to think of any other way to pray.

Indeed, I could just let go of everything and not pray at all. But assuming I'm not willing to go that far, I would like to continue building this relationship. Believing in just a single God seems foreign to me - but I feel I need this to simplify things.

I think Joseph Smith made things worse by conjuring up this doctrine of the Father and Christ as two exalted humans. It is too confusing and doesn't fit with the God that I'm trying to hang on to. It is a magical and inspiring idea - for it puts God on a level that we can relate to.... until we try to start praying to him as our own God.

Zeezrom,
I accept the biblical concept of the Trinity.
Ironically the Book of Mormon itself seems to also support the Trinitarian view.
It was Joseph Smith and some of the other teachings that seemed to change this later on.

One suggestion that I have that I have heard that others have said has helped them is to try to look at it from another point of view.
Pretend you are reading the Bible for the first time.
Try reading some passages from the Bible itself.
While reading it through keep thinking about how to interrupt the scripture if there was 1 God.

I believe that God designed us in a way that we can't comprehend some things such as heaven, God himself, how creation happened. I believe that he did that on purpose so that we would be drawn closer to him to try to learn more about these things and to have a relationship with him.

Be comforted that God knows your heart and if you are sincerely working at a relationship with him, then he already knows that before you even pray.

I wish you the best of luck!

[_harmony]

When I say I have a relationship with God, my relationship is not with Christ. At least, not directly. I pray to God, my Father, and my relationship is with him. I would never pray to Jesus. That seems backwards, considerly he is the intermediary between us and Father, not Heavenly Father.

[_why me]

Zee, please read the Bible dictionary in the scriptures under the heading God. It explains it quite well there. I see no confusion. However, if one wishes to get confused, he or she will. We are to have a personal relationship with our savior because he taught us while on earth. He set the bar and gave us the example of how to do life. But I would also say that through prayer we can have a personal relationship with the Father. Jesus is our elder brother.

There is nothing to prevent people from having a personal relationship with the father and the son. One through prayer and one through example. And since the purpose of the father and the elder son is one, it does make a lot of difference. But the structure was set during the Lord's Prayer in how to pray. We say Our Father....

[_zeezrom]

Zee, please read the Bible dictionary in the scriptures under the heading God. It explains it quite well there.

Yes yes. I'm very familiar with this description. This subject is of course something I've heard since a child. (I read it again to appease you). People are likely rolling their eyes when they see my continued commentary on this thread. It is of elementary substance. I'm not super concerned or feeling sudden confusion about it all. I'm slowly coming to a realization that one of the core concepts that I always considered the best of doctrines (Godhead) is actually problematic. As a missionary I would think, "If they only could understand God the way I do!" Now I'm thinking, "I would like to understand God the way you do!"

In trying to create an "everyman's" doctrine that brings God closer to mankind by giving Him flesh and bones, Joseph Smith may have distanced all of us from the God of the Bible.

Look at the Old Testament. Jehovah (Christ) was working closely with the people. Jehovah was their God, was he not?

What if you are Francis Collins, the director of the US National Human Genome Research Institute and suddenly come to a realization that God may exist due to what he found in the human genome. He got a "glimpse of God." What makes God believable to him? It is not that he is an exalted human being. It is the wonder and the awe of it all that does it. Take the wonder and awe out of it and you end up with a terrestrial being that knows magic.

The Bible dictionary says,

Latter-day revelation confirms the biblical account of God as the literal father of the human family; as a being who is concerned for the welfare of mankind, and a Personage who hears and answers prayers.

Who is that? Who are we told in Primary hears and answers prayers?

Through prayer, I have learned over the years to think of the Father in my mind as I speak. That is who my relationship is with. Christ is on the sidelines. The God of the human race - the one who is charged to interact with humans is on the sidelines.

Even the Greeks would pray to the god they chose to have a relationship with.

Anyway, no big deal I guess. There will come a day in my life when I figure this one out.

[_why me]

Zee, please read the Bible dictionary in the scriptures under the heading God. It explains it quite well there.

Yes yes. I'm very familiar with this description. This subject is of course something I've heard since a child. (I read it again to appease you). People are likely rolling their eyes when they see my continued commentary on this thread. It is of elementary substance. I'm not super concerned or feeling sudden confusion about it all. I'm slowly coming to a realization that one of the core concepts that I always considered the best of doctrines (Godhead) is actually problematic. As a missionary I would think, "If they only could understand God the way I do!" Now I'm thinking, "I would like to understand God the way you do!"

In trying to create an "everyman's" doctrine that brings God closer to mankind by giving Him flesh and bones, Joseph Smith may have distanced all of us from the God of the Bible.

Look at the Old Testament. Jehovah (Christ) was working closely with the people. Jehovah was their God, was he not?

What if you are Francis Collins, the director of the US National Human Genome Research Institute and suddenly come to a realization that God may exist due to what he found in the human genome. He got a "glimpse of God." What makes God believable to him? It is not that he is an exalted human being. It is the wonder and the awe of it all that does it. Take the wonder and awe out of it and you end up with a terrestrial being that knows magic.

The Bible dictionary says,

Latter-day revelation confirms the biblical account of God as the literal father of the human family; as a being who is concerned for the welfare of mankind, and a Personage who hears and answers prayers.

Who is that? Who are we told in Primary hears and answers prayers?

Through prayer, I have learned over the years to think of the Father in my mind as I speak. That is who my relationship is with. Christ is on the sidelines. The God of the human race - the one who is charged to interact with humans is on the sidelines.

Even the Greeks would pray to the god they chose to have a relationship with.

Anyway, no big deal I guess. There will come a day in my life when I figure this one out.

Hello zee, information is also in True to the Faith. If you look at john 14: 7, 9 you will see the following: If ye had known me, ye should have known my father also...he that haveth seen me, hath seen the father. So says Jesus. We come to know the father and the son through prayer and by understanding and following what the savior taught and by putting these principles into our daily life.

We pray to the father because he is the creator but through christ he created the heavens and earth. This information can be found in the booklet True to the Faith.

[_just me]

Zee, I don't think anyone is rolling their eyes (maybe one or two). This is something a LOT of us had to figure out.

Honestly, the LDS Godhead never made perfectly flowing sense to me. I just accepted it. My DH admitted the same thing to me when I brought up all the scriptures that I posted on this thread. You are not alone with your confusion!

Now, some things I found really helpful as my concept of the Godhead evolved were:
The Lectures on Faith (used to be canonized in the D&C)
Strangers in Paradox by Margaret and Paul Toscano (written before they were X'd)
The Hero With A Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell (I cannot recommend this one enough!)

Here are some articles written about the evolution of the godhead in Mormon theology.
"The Reconstruction of Mormon Doctrine: From Joseph Smith to Progressive Theology" by Thomas G. Alexander
The Changing Nature of God in LDS Doctrine

Zman, good luck with your journey. I have personally come to the conclusion that it is all symbolic and that all the variations are still able to teach us something. Ultimately, it is all about you.