I just had two very nice young men from the Mormon church stop by. They gave me their little presentation, and I mentioned what happened last time Mormons came by.We met with them for 7 weeks, so I could learn what their church teaches. Questions naturally came up based on our discussion, which they couldn't answer, like
- Do they believe God has a physical body? (They said one thing, the book of Mormon said the opposite)
- They say the best Mormons can reach the best level of heaven, and be the god-figure over a region in space, like God is here. Does that mean they teach that God was once a human-like being, born to a family on the planet of another Diety?
Now, I'm agnostic about many issues in my faith, but not something so significant like this. the question is: is God just a territorial spirit, like dagon was to the philistines? is God the creator of all things, or is he just another created being?
Mormons and Christians (Ok, Mormons call themselves Christians... Chrisitans who do not accept the authority of the Mormon church) use the same words but mean completely different things.
Hi Jon- stumbled upon your blog. My first thought was to suggest that you not base all your conclusions about Mormon theology on the ability or lack of ability for a particular set of young missionaries to answer all deep theological questions. The fact that most Mormons can engage in the conversation is impressive but each member should not be expected to be an expert on every nuance of doctrine. If you really want to understand all the fine details of theology I would propose that the responsibility will fall on you to spend more time in say the Encyclopedia of Mormonism or Talmage's Articles of Faith.
I also think the missionaries answer of "we don't know" to the second question is a legitimate one and I would argue a better answer than those who say they know 100%. There is actually very little in Mormon scripture to make definitive conclusions on the issue. The implications and possibility are definitely there but the details are not. The line of thinking that got Joseph Smith started on the topic actually comes from the New Testament; passages such as Jesus saying he can do "nothing of himself but what he seeth the Father do" or "if children then heirs." As another consideration, If the proportion of scriptures that talk about this issue versus other characteristics of God and how we should act in relation to him are any indication then I would say that the issue should not concern us until we have fully comprehended and implemented all the rest. And I think that is what you would find in Mormon meetings and conversations as far as percentage of time dedicated to this topic. Not that the topic should not be pursued, I believe we are commanded to search and seek more deeply into the mysteries of godliness, but if we pursue them leaving behind charity, for example, we are nothing.
Hi David,
Thanks for your note. Looking over this comment, I have to stop. I've re-written so much to try to fit it all in a comment, and now it's just too late I have to stop :).
The question of whether God is the creator or a created being is extremely basic and extremely important. If your god is not the creator, then your god is a created being, and the only god, and you're not even a monotheist.
If one isn't clear if they are a monotheist, it really makes me question if this person really knows much about their faith at all.
That 2 men, having been raised and taught in a religious tradition don't know if they are monotheists is troubling. They said they didn't know and they'd come back with an answer the next week. They came back, but not with an answer.
I'm not comfortable being agnostic on such a core foundational belief, and I'm surprised that any thinking people are comfortable with that.
There must be an answer - maybe it's just one Mormons won't talk about because it would sound "weird" to non-Mormons.
Thanks for the invitation to join the LDS church, but if they don't even know if they're monotheists, I can't have respect for their belief system. There are other reasons as well, I don't mean to say that there's one straw left to break the camel's back. I love learning about various belief systems, but it doesn't seem that knowing what you believe is really that important in your tradition, but I consider it extremely important.
Just one quick note to say that I'm not seeking for this to become a Mormonism discussion board.
Mormonism is a very young belief system, so certainly kinks get worked out in any belief system.
I just am surprised that where there is 1 God or a plurality of gods is still an open-ended question, which is the sense that I'm getting.
I wasn't meaning to come across as 'inviting you to become LDS', more so just that your post struck me as one that wanted greater depth than what you might be able to get from the missionaries as a student of different religions.
There are answers to your questions in Mormon theology but it is difficult to do justice to them in a 'soundbite' of a blog comment. I'll give the preview--
God as a creator or a created being... Mormonism rejects the idea of an ex nihilo creation, there was no beginning, we're talking eternity in both directions, in fact Joseph Smith puts an "s" on eternity, eternities. The elements are eternal, they can be mixed up, rearranged, organized- into galaxies, universes, our planet etc. but they have always existed. "intelligence" is also eternal that is the word used in LDS scripture for the material from which God formed the spirits of mankind, whether that is one large body of intelligence or individual intelligences is up for interpretation.
So God, the God of Abraham, became God, in Mormon understanding, in previous eternities and he then took from the "intelligence" to organize the spirits of mankind as we know it. He then introduced his plan for the these created spirits to progress eternally like him. One step in that process involved organizing this universe and earth and involved individual spirits coming to earth to receive physical bodies and to be tested.
So if we are talking about beginning of time, beginning of all elements, the beginning of gods, the Mormon answer is that there is no beginning. From there it can be inferred that our God has peers and from that statement it can be said that Mormons are therefore polytheistic. If we are talking about us specifically then there is a "beginning" line drawn when our spirits were organized by God, the God we worship, the God of the Old and New Testaments and Mormons would add the same God of the Book of Mormon and of the revelations given in the latter-days. God will always be our God, he is the creator of all we know. In this sense Mormons fall in line with other monotheistic religions of our day and age.
Practically all that concerns us in this life is the monotheistic part, the God of Abraham, and this creation. Theologically the potential number of gods is limitless in both directions.
A note on "monotheism", a quick look at wikipedia even if it's not the most authoritative source can show some of the history and development of the concept as it is defined today...namely one God uncreate before anything known was created and the God of it all. That has not always been the definition of monotheism or the God of Israel and even modern expressions of 'monotheism' are debated in such theological constructs as the Trinity. Things that threaten monotheism in modern Christianity such as Genesis 1:1 which uses the plural form of "god" in Hebrew, i.e. "In the beginning the Gods created..." are therefore not as threatening to the Mormon worldview.
So the very question, are Mormons monotheists? is difficult for Mormons to answer because we simply do not subscribe to the same definition of monotheism. You can also see from this quick overview that digesting those differences in definitions and constructs can take a lot of study of history, of scripture, and of commentaries which can obviously not be appropriately handled in a door-step introduction.
from a mormon missionary perspective when someone comes with a question of monotheism/polytheism it is normally in the spirit of contention. Since, practically speaking as I said before, the God of Israel is our one and only God then there is little reason to start out debating these large constructs and definitions of monotheism/polytheism when there are more fundamental principles of faith and repentance that we have a strong mandate to share. The mandate coming from God himself. It is not because there are not answers or that Mormons are 'hiding' something, it is a matter of milk before meat and of delivering the message we were commanded by God to share.
So, I hope all this was helpful in at least coming to know and understand one another. I also love learning about other religious traditions and getting down to these nitty gritty details to understand the religion through the eyes of a believer. I hope this also shows that your interaction was not as simple as "not knowing what you believe" or "mormon theology not being developed." Mormon theology is rich and incredibly expansive, and expanding knowledge, discovering all truth, and becoming, are all core values.
Wow, that was a lot, but I enjoyed gathering all my thoughts myself, but now it is way late for me. Thanks for sparking an interesting exchange. I wish us both the best in our theological journeys. Cheers.
David - thank you for the wonderful comment. You provided the answer to the question I had been asking for some time!
I completely understand that normally a question like this would come as an accusation, or out of contention. Hopefully you know that wasn't my intent.
Thanks for clarifying the distinction between definitions of time and eternity and the context in which you understand biblical passages.
The trinity and the plural word for the deity are easily responded to within my hermeneutic - your hermeneutic is different, so my explanations would not hold within yours. (Namely, that the trinity is based on the character of God being other, superior, surpassing the comprehension of created beings - though unlike animals we are created in God's likeness as everlasting beings with souls, free will, etc. The plurality of the term elohim in Hebrew, the -im suffix makes a word plural, is not a problem when the rules of the Hebrew language are understood. As a rule it's generally a bad idea to get theology by reading a foreign language with one's own language's grammatical rules.)
Like "monotheism," we use many words that have different meanings when you dig in just a little bit. Throw different theological traditions and hermenuetics on top of that, and there's a lot to learn in order to communicate appropriately with both love and understanding.
I think that's where a lot of the 'spirit of contention' comes in, because the missionaries don't want to get into the "meat" of LDS theology in a 1 hour visit, and the others may not understand the linguistic and hermeneutic differences.
Thanks again for your post. I wasn't seeking to cast blame or cause a fight or anything like that. I genuinely just wanted to know - it felt like the logical next step in "staircase" of the discussion, and it felt like I kept putting my foot up but never hitting the step.
I appreciate your time and your comments.
no problem, it was a good exchange, I think we both came away learning something new. God Bless.