iguy2314

^^^ Reading messages like the one above always, always makes me thirst for real sense. From C.S. Lewis, "The Four Loves." "God is love. Again. "Herein is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us." (John 4, 10). We must not begin with mysticism, with the creature's love for God, or with that wonderful foretastes of the fruition of God vouched for some in their earthly life. We begin at the real beginning, with love as the Divine energy. This primal love is Gift-Love. In God there is no hunger that needs to be filled, only plenteousness that desires to give. The doctrine that God was under no necessity to create is not a piece of dry scholastic speculation. It is essential. Without it we can hardly avoid the conception of what I can only call a "managerial" God, a Being whose function or nature is to "run" the universe, who stands to it as a head-master to a school or a hotelier to a hotel. But to be sovereign of the universe is no great matter to God. In Himself, at home in the "land of the Trinity," he is Soverign of a far greater realm. We must keep always before our eyes that vision of Lady Julian's in which God carried in His hand a little object like a nut, and that nut was "all that is made." God, who needs nothing, loves into existence wholly superfluous creatures in order that He may love and perfect them. He creates the universe, already foreseeing - or should we say "seeing?" there are no tenses in God - the buzzing cloud of flies about the cross, the flayed back pressed against the uneven stake, the nails driven through the mesial nerves, the repeated incipient suffocation as the body droops, the repeated torture of back and arms as it is time after time, for breath's sake, hitched up. If I may dare the biological image, God is a "host" who deliberately creates His own parasites, causes us to be that we may exploit and "take advantage of" Him. Herein is love. This is the diagram of Love Himself, the inventor of all loves." This will be my last message here. I urge anyone investigating the LDS Church, or Christianity in general, start with C.S. Lewis, one of the finest minds of the 20th century, who believed in the Nicene Creed, who believed in the Trinity and all the foreknowledge and treasured doctrines of early Christianity. Investigate with all your mind the true doctrines of the LDS Church, the history of Joseph Smith and the historical basis for their claims. Read, pray, and truly ask if God could ever abandon his people, if the followers of Christ could fail so easily, or if so much good could come from something deemed so uncharitably "abomination." God doesn't work like that, not in history, not in our lives and not in His Son and the Church he built. God bless fellow pilgrims!

This is absolutely ridiculous. Thanks for info guys, but I won't be around here anymore. Best of luck.

1. Likeness of something implies inherently that it is NOT that thing. 2. Christ was man by essense, as he is fully man and fully God. That's the incredible paradox of the incarnation. 3. The Trinity recitifies this. 4. This doesn't logically follow. Are aspects of God separate from God? No. 5. Again, the Trinity answers this. 6. This is the implicit difference between the LDS God and the God of Israel/Christian God the Father. He stands uncreated and the universe serves no other purpose than Him. The Fall of Man has everything to do with Jesus, it's why the Catholic Church calls him the "Second Adam." He is Man as Man was meant to be, which is why he called himself the Son of Man. Again, the Trinity recitifies your problems with this. How could Christ possibly forgive sins if he is somehow separate, in essense and existence, from God?

Except that the story in Exodus actually deals with historical facts and peoples. The miracles/plagues/wonders are all things to be believed in faith, but not whether the Egyptians actually enslaved Israelites, not whether the Israelites were a real people in a real place. Christ coming here and teaching to the Indigenous cultures is not backed up by one iota of historical/archealogical evidence and does an extreme disservice to the ingenuity and uniqueness of their cultures. Honestly, it's 19th century white-savior complex being induced on a spiritual/theological level. The Aztecs, the Mayans, the Toltecs and hundreds of other cultures stand on their own merit. Why didn't Christ appear in South Africa? To the Australian aborigines? To the Chinese? To the Philipines? Mary appeared to devout catholics, not to Egpytians or Muslims or Buddhists, IE somebody outside of their faith. Why would anyone care if a 14 year old who is a super catholic is supposedly hearing stuff from the Virgin Mary? If I was not Catholic, I would not care. But if I started my own sect of Christianity that started espousing (without any evidence) that Christ had appeared in the 600's to Muhammad, or to any of the great dynasty's of China and teaching this as fact, I would be injecting my "beliefs" into somebody's history and culture. I am almost done with my investigation into the LDS Church and I'm sorry if I've offended anyone here. It's cool that you guys believe Christ appeared here, but that is a belief that must be purely a matter of faith, much like the resurrection or the assumption. It's different that believing that Christ was a historical figure and a Jewish teacher that walked the earth and was crucified, which has been established historically. There is no historical establishment of any Christian/Mormon kingdom here in the New World. My indiginous background DOES help me because it's a part of who I am. I have studied my culture as much as any person from England would study theirs, as any American historian would delve into what happened using facts/reason/evidence. A Mormon missionary telling me that Christ appeared here and that there were Christian kingsdoms here is, and will always be, extremely offensive without an ounce of data, or ANY professional historian/archealogist backing it up.

I'm not even sure how to respond to this. The "Christian Conquerers" you so aptly named do not represent the doctrine/authority of Catholicism. They represent Colonialism and the temporal power of nation-states. Many religions, great/minor/crazy have dealt with, often through myth or storytelling, some aspect of immortality. This is as old as death itself. What distuingishes Christ from all others is that he defeated death by death, and didn't just seek an infitite stopper to death and a continution of this life, but one beyond it. Linking a legend of the fountain of youth, which could probably be found in 10 other regions/cultures in Africa/Asia/anywhere simply by googling, does not in any historical/theological way show that Christ came here. I believe all of those legends and myths have been pointing to God, because man has been made for God, and can yearn for him with his imagination and intellect. What you are proposing is unhistorical and baseless. You're seeing what you want to see. Christ never came to the Americas, and as someone with an indiginous background, I find it very offensive to say otherwise. Is the "Fountain of Youth" myth actually a part of LDS history and scholarship? Did the newest Indiana Jones movie consult anyone about it? And you never addressed how the doctrines of Catholicism established the dignity and equality of all people from the New World.

Can you expand on this? The 19 year old missionary that explained this to me told me much of what this article pushes forth. The "small rock" thing vs Jesus the bedrock doesn't really hold up when you account that (in Matthew) the Greek was translated from Aramaic, which we have documented records of from the early Christians like Eusebius of Caesarea. The world today has the Greek translations of the New Testament, but the scholarship behind the compilation/translation of the Bible shows that you MUST have a working knowledge of Aramaic to get a faithful translation. Otherwise, you have 19 year old boys telling the world that the Greek word for little stone was just a huge misunderstanding and causing lots of head shakes for linguists. In Paul's epistles, five times in Galatians and four times in 1 Corinithians we have the Aramaic form of Simon's new name - which translates into English as Cephas. That is NOT Greek. It's the Anglized version of Kepha (Kephas in its Hellenistic form). It means rock or bedrock, the same as Petra, which the young man explained to me made all the difference. It doesn't mean little rock or pebble. Christ is literally calling Peter the Rock of the Church. Why does Matthew use Petros then? Because Greek and Aramaic have different grammatical structures. In Aramaic you can use Kepha in both places. In Greek, you encounter the whole nouns having differing gender endings, IE you wouldn't give Simon a female name. Overall, I was very much disappointed with the LDS explaination. Much of it is explained here: http://www.catholic.com/tracts/peter-the-rock

Why should God build his Church on revelation? Revelation was only one aspect of the Israelite people/faith. Prophets were extremely important, especially when the Israelites were screwing up, but there were also Kings, High Priests, as well as Prophets. Christ's Davidic/Messianic/sacrificial personhood fulfilled all three, he is King, Priest and Prophet. Wouldn't John the Baptist have been a much more prophet-y prophet than Peter?

Thanks for clarifying! Yeah, i think this is showing that it's extremely important to get one's terms correct as well, to make sure we're not talking about moving targets. From my friend's email (who is Catholic/completing his doctorate in philosophy) "What a catholic means by the term 'person' is 'an individual subsistence of a rational essence'. 'Individual' means that it is distinguished from some other, 'subsistence' means that it's real and continues to exist by fact of itself rather than inside of something else (the color red exists in a ball, a fictional character exists in a mind, but a human exists independently), 'rational' means intellectual or capable of apprehending truth, and 'essence' means the overarching and immanent principle which causes something to be the sort of thing that it is. On the other hand, a 'being' is 'an essence conjoined with an act of existence'. 'An act of existence' is the very reality of a thing. So, David, you came to exist before I did, and whichever one of us ceases to exist first won't cause the other to cease to exist. This is because, though our essence is the same (humanity), our acts of existence are separate. The reason that you can't see the logical coherency of the Trinity is because you're trying to make an analogy between how human persons are distinguished from one another and how the Divine Persons are distinguished. There isn't any analogy between the two. Our essence is conjoined to an act of existence according to the mode of efficient causation, ie we come to exist as human beings because of something outside of ourselves (our parents, space, etc). The Divine Essence is 'conjoined' to it's act of existence according to the mode of identity, ie God's essence and His act of existence are the same thing, so His essence is His act of existence. This is relevant because where one can err is in noticing that, in human persons, our acts of existence are and must be distinguished from one another, so no two human persons can 'share being'. In all instances and by definition two distinct acts of existence means two distinct persons for humans, and likewise, only one act of existence means only one person. This is different with God because His mode of being itself is different and disanalogous to how anything else exists. Not only do the three Divine Persons share the same essence, but they also share the same act of existence (since that is the essence after all). What individuates Them, therefore, is not what individuates human persons. Literally, the only thing which individuates Them is Their relationships with Each Other. They are the same being, since the act of existence is the same. God the Word and God the Father are One Being, identical in every respect of Their existence. How to understand the way that relationship can exist within one Being is fascinating as well, but I think I've used enough jargon for one facebook message . Feel free to ask for clarification; I've tried to distinguish the terms as best as possible, but I haven't really tried to explain them super specifically since that would have increased the size of this a lot."

I have no idea what you are talking about. We are all able to bless one another, to pray for one another, and the new covenant that God has created has been opened to all. I believe in authority, as seen in the Apostles and the primacy of Scripture/Tradition. For most of Christian history, the Church was not separate and there was no other "church". There was a universal Church with one faith, one line of bishops/priests, one laity, though many regional "rites" like the Roman/Western, the Eastern, the Alexandrian, the Armenian, etc. This authority was obviously granted to one head, to Peter, whose office has continued uninterrupted since Christ.

Your use of Triune is correct, I have just never heard it before. Thank you for clarifying that. But I don't see in the Catecism the use of "physical substance." God created matter separate from himself - He does not conform to matter, but matter conforms to Him. My use of essense is more in line with the thinking and economy of the Trinity. From the Catechism - The dogma of the Holy Trinity 253 The Trinity is One. We do not confess three Gods, but one God in three persons, the "consubstantial Trinity".83 The divine persons do not share the one divinity among themselves but each of them is God whole and entire: "The Father is that which the Son is, the Son that which the Father is, the Father and the Son that which the Holy Spirit is, i.e. by nature one God."84 In the words of the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), "Each of the persons is that supreme reality, viz., the divine substance, essence or nature."85 254 The divine persons are really distinct from one another. "God is one but not solitary."86 "Father", "Son", "Holy Spirit" are not simply names designating modalities of the divine being, for they are really distinct from one another: "He is not the Father who is the Son, nor is the Son he who is the Father, nor is the Holy Spirit he who is the Father or the Son."87 They are distinct from one another in their relations of origin: "It is the Father who generates, the Son who is begotten, and the Holy Spirit who proceeds."88 The divine Unity is Triune. 255 The divine persons are relative to one another. Because it does not divide the divine unity, the real distinction of the persons from one another resides solely in the relationships which relate them to one another: "In the relational names of the persons the Father is related to the Son, the Son to the Father, and the Holy Spirit to both. While they are called three persons in view of their relations, we believe in one nature or substance."89 Indeed "everything (in them) is one where there is no opposition of relationship."90 "Because of that unity the Father is wholly in the Son and wholly in the Holy Spirit; the Son is wholly in the Father and wholly in the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit is wholly in the Father and wholly in the Son."91

Thank you for making some things clearer for me. I have a deep respect for LDS and I don't believe that fostering on how other's beliefs are wrong is very healthy, spiritually speaking. I am searching for God with all of my knowledge and will, and also pray for the Holy Spirit to illuminate my path to Him. I also believe in continuning revelation, albeit on a more personal level, but for me all the public revelation needed has already been given to us in the form of our brother and savior, Christ, who has perfectly fulfilled the law and whom all the prophets have pointed us toward. Thank you and God bless.

I do not think you have a very sound basis of what the Trinity has been established to be. They do not share the same "physicality" but only the same "essense." Triune is not a term I am familiar with. God is not a cerberus but nor is he three separate/physical things, utterly independent from one another. "I and the Father are one." I realize this is hard to understand, but Aquinas and Augustine and the scholastics have all derived insights using scripture and philosophy/reason to understand the nature of God. The working knowledge of the Trinity and its applications show the basis of God being Love itself. If God is absolutely perfect, then he knows himself perfectly - this perfect self-knowledge is so complete and so real that it creates another essense, the mind of God, or the "logos" which is the Son. God loves the Son perfectly and the Son obeys the Father - and that love is so perfect that it creates another thing of the same essense, the Holy Spirit. In complete communion, the Trinity is One God, One Lord. This was a huge part of my investigation and I hope any Catholic/Christian who believes in the Creeds/Trinity can correct my understanding of this.

I cannot see the reasoning in linking and justifying the temporal limitations of the millions of souls from 100AD to 1800AD to the spatial limitations. I don't see God judging harshly a Hindu man living in poverty his entire life, having never been exposed to the Gospel or to Christ as rejecting His Son, or even to an Jew living in 400 BC that is unable to visit the Temple. God judges us accordingly, with mercy and with complete knowledge of us. That is NOT the same to me as God forsaking humanity for 1800 years after Christ came, gave authority to his Apostles, and promising this: "And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." God likes time, God likes history, God likes a storyline-like way for humanity to reach him. I don't think God has called us to "re-baptize" and rewrite history, by baptizing the dead or saving salvation for the afterlife. THIS is the life he has given us and our history, from the moment Christ was incarnated to the second he rose and was assumed to the Father - and nothing was ever taken away or restored. Christ is not a weak promiser. We fail him daily, but he has never failed us.

But your prophet said God said those words to him? How is that not teaching that? Is that not sacred Scipture/doctrine?

Not challenging, I respect the beliefs of all LDS, but I am investigating and wish to follow Christ. I am not Catholic or LDS, but the Catholic Church is the huge elephant in the room if one is looking for Christ's universal, united and Apostolic Church here on Earth. I appreciate the LDS's doctrine on respecting the truth of all religions and living in charity with others and their way of worshipping God. It truly shows that the LDS Church are following Christ as best as they can. The LDS Church's beliefs are certainly original and interesting, but they do not jive with my understanding of souls and immortality. I do not believe that matter and energy has always existed, that God simply "reorganized" everything to create the universe. I don't believe that Lucifer has a human soul, but is a spirit, a fallen angel and a tempter of man, a representation of sin and our free will's ability to reject God. I cannot believe in tiers of Heaven - this does not seem right to me, but I see the value in believing in it. My idea of hell is much more akin to C.S. Lewis's The Great Divorce - "hell" is not so much a physical place, but a separation from God, a created thing of pride and choice. But to get this back on topic, I cannot join a church that has God calling other faiths and other people's yearning for him as "abominations". I believe that God judges each of us individually, with mercy and compassion. The spatial and geographic limitations do not account for every way that we live our lives, our choices and our failures, or the times where we loved as he loved us, to the best of our abiliity/our culture/our time. But at the same time, Christ DID come here to create a Church, to place a mission with the Apostles to spread the gospel and welcome all peoples into the new covenant and welcome all into God's family.