AboutRomy Brown Expertise I`ve been a member of the mormon church my whole life.
I know that the morman church is the only true church,
because of personal and spiritual experiences.
Experience I can tell you about our belief's and where in the scriptures.
you can find them,and if I don't have an answer for you I am determined to find an answer for you.
I can answer most anti-morman questions.
Organizations I'm a member of the Church Of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
(the Mormons)
Question I see you have taken the scriptures out of context and you have twisted the wording to make it work to your "doctrine". You may consider looking outside your church walls to find the real answers, as I am sure you are discouraged in doing. Just to quote one section of scripture you misinterpreted, Acts 17:29 is Paul telling the gentiles in Athens not to worship false idols made of gold or silver, as they were doing, as those are "things made by mans hands, not of God". If you look you will see verse 29 starts with the word "Therefore," or "Forasmuch" which tells you that Paul the author is finishing a statement. Verse 23, he is angered because he found an altar with the inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Biblical Christianity knows Jesus is God, and heaven will be a time where any 'work' we do will be 'laid at His feet as a crown'. We do not seek glory for ourselves or dare to fathom to 'become Gods ourselves ourselves'. The God I serve, who created the heaven and earth, is no one I could think to become 'equal to'. I pray you seek the truth someday, before it's to late. Although you would be cast out, the bible says you will be 'cast into the lake of fire' Rev. 20:14.(which is separation from God forever). What if your wrong?
Answer Actually we believe the scriptures literally, and we have a better understanding. We do believe that Jesus is God, as our father in Heaven. We accept the Bible and its apostolic teachings as God's word but reject many later interpretations of the Bible that express Greek philosophical concerns—they accept John and Paul but reject Augustine. For example, we accept both the threeness of God and the oneness of God as biblical teachings. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three divine personages who together constitute one Godhead. But Mormons reject the attempts of post biblical, nonapostolic Christianity to define how the oneness and the threeness of God are related. We accept the biblical doctrine of the Trinity, but we reject the philosophical doctrine of the Trinity as defined at the Council of Nicaea and later. In short, we reject the authority and conclusions of theologians and philosophers to define or interpret what the Bible, apostles, or prophets have not. We accept biblical Christianity, but not its extension in extra biblical creeds and traditions.
To those Christians who have welded the Bible to its later interpretation and cannot separate Plato and Augustine from Peter and Paul, and cannot think of "true" Christianity in first-century categories, LDS doctrine may seem iconoclastic in separating biblical texts from their later "traditional" interpretation. Nevertheless, Latter-day Saints feel that New Testament Saints would have been just as uncomfortable with the philosophical creeds of later Christianity as they themselves are.
LDS rejection of much post biblical Christianity is based on belief in an ancient apostasy that is both predicted and chronicled in the New Testament (2 Thes. 2:1-5; 3 Jn. 9-10). Apostolic authority ceased just after the New Testament period, and without apostolic leadership and authority the Church was soon overwhelmed by alien intellectual and cultural pressures. The simple affirmations of biblical faith were turned into the complex propositions of theology. Though subsequent churches were still "Christian," in the LDS view they no longer possessed the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ or apostolic authority. We would agree with Catholics and "high church" Protestants that apostolic authority is essential in the true church but would also agree with other Protestants that apostolic authority was lacking in medieval orthodoxy. A close parallel is presented by Protestant rejection of Roman Catholic claims to binding apostolic authority. While Latter-day Saints trace the Apostasy to roughly the second century and reject subsequent orthodoxy, most Protestants would place it somewhere nearer the fifteenth century and then reject subsequent Catholicism.
Protestants who denied the necessity of apostolic succession, or who did not believe its links were severed by the Reformation, generally held that the fullness of the gospel could be achieved by reforming the Roman Church. Latter-day Saints, who insist on the necessity of apostolic succession but believe its links were severed early, see a reformation as inadequate for recovering the fullness of the gospel and reestablishing original Christianity. Only a total restoration of apostolic doctrines and authority could reestablish the pure Christianity of the first century. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints sees itself as constituting this Restoration.
LDS rejection of Hellenistic philosophy in matters of doctrine accounts for many characteristic differences between Latter-day Saints and other Christians. For example, Latter-day Saints reject the Platonic spirit-matter dichotomy, which holds that spirit and matter are opposed and inimical to each other. They believe instead that spirit is refined matter and that both spirit and matter are eternal, being neither created nor destroyed. The Prophet Joseph Smith taught that "there is no such thing as immaterial matter. All spirit is matter, but it is more fine or pure, and can only be discerned by purer eyes" (D&C 131:7).
For Latter-day Saints there is no ultimate incompatibility between spirit and matter or between the spiritual and the physical realms. In LDS theology, the physical elements are coeternal with God. The idea that physical matter is transitory, corrupt, or incompatible with spiritual or eternal life is rejected. Latter-day Saints usually define "spiritual" as "infused with spirit" rather than as "nonphysical." This unitary understanding of spirit and matter allows them to accept the Father and the Son as the concrete, anthropomorphic beings represented in scripture and reject the definition of God as the abstract, "totally other" nonbeing of philosophical theology. For Latter-day Saints, God exists in the normal sense in association with time and space, rather than in the abstract Platonic sense of beyond time and space. The traditional disparagement of matter and of the physical state of being is not well grounded biblically, and Latter-day Saints believe it is a product of Hellenistic thought. We also think the concept of a God "without body, parts or passions" dismisses too much of the biblical data or allegorizes it excessively.
Since us as Mormons believe that the elements are eternal, it follows that we deny the ex nihilo creation. Rather, the universe was created (organized) out of preexisting elements that God organized by imposing physical laws. The Prophet Joseph Smith also taught that intelligence is also eternal and uncreated: "The intelligence of spirits had no beginning, neither will it have an end…Intelligence is eternal and exists upon a self-existent principle" (TPJS, pp. 353-54).
Just as God organized preexisting matter to create the universe, so he organized preexisting intelligence to create the spirits that eventually became human beings. Consequently, we do not view God as the total cause of what human beings are. Human intelligence is uncreated by God, and therefore independent of his control. Thus Mormons insist that human beings are free agents in the fullest sense, and deny both the doctrines of prevenient and irresistible grace, which make God's choice determinative for salvation or damnation. God will not coerce independent, self-existent wills. Though he desires the exaltation of all, and offers it equally to all, its achievement requires individual cooperation, a covenant relationship. In this way, LDS theology escapes the classical dilemma of predestination and theodicy imposed by believing that God created all things from nothing and is therefore solely responsible for the final products. Their radical doctrine of individual free agency also allows the Latter-day Saints to deny the theory of human depravity. The Fall of Adam did not totally incapacitate humans from doing any good thing—they remain able to choose and to perform either good or evil. Moreover, we accept the concept of the "fortunate Fall" (mea culpa). The Fall was a necessary step in the progress of humanity: "Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy" (Book of Mormon - 2 Nephi 2:25).
A positive view of the physical universe and of man also allows Latter-day Saints to anticipate a physical afterlife, the Celestial Kingdom, a community of physically resurrected beings transformed and perfected. Unlike many ancient church fathers, they do not long to escape the realm of the flesh, but rather to sanctify it. Hence, in the LDS view, even the physical relationships of family and marriage can continue in the eternities in a sanctified state. Thus there is little asceticism and no celibacy in LDS theology, which sees in both of these tendencies a denial of the goodness of God's physical creation (Gen. 1:31); and LDS theology avoids the traditional disparagement of the human body and the contempt for human sexuality that are largely due to the Neo-Platonism of late antiquity.
While common ground for Latter-day Saints and other Christians is an acceptance of the Bible and its teachings, issues of interpretation aside, Mormonism agrees with "high church" orthodoxy against conservative Protestantism on the doctrine of the sufficiency of scripture. Though we accept the Bible, Latter-day Saints, like Roman Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox, for example, do not believe that the biblical text alone is sufficient for salvation. Biblical teaching, while true and accepted, has been imperfectly preserved and can be fully reconstituted only through supplemental revelation. This is not because New Testament Christianity was defective, but because New Testament Christianity is only partially preserved in the modern Bible. Those doctrines that were not preserved must be restored; consequently, Mormons deny both biblical inerrancy and sufficiency. Since the apostles and prophets of earliest Christianity received direct revelation from God (Acts 10:9-16, 28), Mormons believe that any church claiming the fullness of the gospel must also enjoy this gift.
This crucial principle of continuing revelation is illustrated in the experience of the Prophet Joseph Smith, whose visions and revelations form the foundation of LDS doctrine. As the magisterium of the church is fundamental for Roman Catholics, and the scriptures are the fontes for Protestants, for Latter-day Saints the highest authority in religious matters is continuing revelation from God given through the living apostles and prophets of his Church, beginning with Joseph Smith and continuing to the present leadership.
Latter-day Saints insist that both the canon of scripture and the structure of theology are always open-ended, and can always be added upon by God through revelation to his prophets. Through this means they have received clarification of biblical doctrines that are disputed in other denominations, for example, Christ's ministry to the dead in 1 Peter 3:18 and 4:6 (D&C 128; 137; 138). Also through modern revelation Latter-day Saints have received some distinctive doctrines that are not explicitly found in the Bible. In these cases modern revelation has not rehabilitated a doctrine that is unclear, but has restored a doctrine that was entirely lost.
Latter-day Saints share with most Christians the conviction that salvation comes only through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, which is representative, exemplary, and substitutionary in nature. Christ is the mediator of humanity to the Father instead of fallen Adam; he sets an example for humans to emulate; and he takes mankind's place in suffering for sins.
Latter-day Saints are Monophysite in their Christology; that is, we believe Christ has only one nature, which is simultaneously both human and divine. This is possible because the human and the divine are not mutually exclusive categories in LDS thought, as in the duophysite Christology of much orthodoxy. As Lorenzo Snow said, "As man now is, God once was: As God now is, man may be" (Snow, p. 46). Most Christians would agree with the first half of this couplet as applied to the person of Christ, but Latter-day Saints apply it also to the Father. The second half of the couplet is more orthodox in the denominational sense than either Protestants or Catholics, for Latter-day Saints share the ancient biblical doctrine of deification (apotheosis) with Eastern Orthodoxy. Several of early Christianity's theologians said essentially the same thing as Lorenzo Snow. Irenaeus said, "If the word became a man, it was so men may become gods" (Against Heresies, 4. Pref), and Athanasius maintained that "[Christ] became man that we might be made divine". Yet Latter-day Saints combine both halves of the couplet to reach what they feel is the only possible conclusion—human and divine are not mutually exclusive categories. We insist that the two categories are one: Humans are of the lineage of the gods. We would agree entirely with C. S. Lewis in Mere Christianity:
The Latter-day Saint concept of God, like that of other Christians, is rooted in what the Father has revealed about himself to his prophets and apostles, as well as in what can be learned about him from the earthly life and ministry of Jesus Christ.
With the vast majority of their fellow Christians, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believe in a God of love, who has all knowledge and all power (Book of Mormon - 1 Nephi 11:22; 2 Nephi 1:15; 2 Nephi 9:20; 1 Nephi 7:12; Alma 26:35Doctrine and Covenant - D&C 38:1-3; Pearl of Great Price - Moses 1:6;). His continued dealings with the world and with his children in it are chronicled in all four of the canonized "standard works" of the restored Church of Jesus Christ (the Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price).
We believe, with other Christians, in three divine persons-the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost-and we believe that they are three separate persons (Matthew 28:19; 2 Nephi 31:21; Alma 11:44; Articles of Faith 1:1). The accounts of Jesus' baptism at the hand of John the Baptist, for example, report that when Jesus emerged from the Jordan River, the Spirit of God de-scended like a dove from the sky, while the Father's "voice from heaven" testified to the divine sonship of Jesus (Matthew 3:13-17; Mark 1:9-11; Luke 3:21-22). The New Testament Gospels record several statements from Jesus indicating that he saw himself as separate from God the Father and subordinate to him (John 14:28; Matthew 20:23; 26:39; John 5:19; 8:17-18; 17:1-5). In its opening verses in the original Greek, John's Gospel appears to distinguish between the Father, who is "the God" and the Son, who is "God". The apostle Paul occasionally reserved the term God uniquely for the Father (1 Corinthians 8:6).
Latter-day Saints believe that Jesus, too, is divine (John 1:1; 20:28). Paul wrote of Christ that "in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily" (Colossians 2:9). The scriptures also teach, and Latter-day Saints therefore believe, that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are one (see 2 Nephi 31:21; Mosiah 15:4; Alma 11:44; 3 Nephi 11:36; Mormon 7:7; D&C 20:28). "I and my Father are one," said the Savior, declaring further that "the Father is in me" (John 10:30, 38).
How can this be? How can there be one God, yet three divine persons? Christian thinkers have wrestled with this issue for many centuries. The solution accepted by most Christians was reached through negotiations and debates in the great councils that were held over several centuries following the death of the apostles and their disciples. Borrowing concepts from the era's most advanced thought, Greek philosophy, and these Christian theologians attempted to describe the unity-in-multiplicity of the Godhead in philosophical terms.
Latter-day Saints, by contrast, guided not by philosophers but by modern prophets and apostles, see the unity of the Godhead in the absolute oneness of purpose and will that characterizes Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Jesus sought to establish this same oneness among his disciples. In his famous prayer, the Savior implored "that they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us . . . that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one" (John 17:21-23).
We understand that God is literally the Father of the spirits of every human being (Numbers 16:22; 27:16; Matthew 6:9; Ephesians 4:6; Hebrews 12:9). "For," as the apostle Paul told the Athenians, "we are . . . his offspring" (Acts 17:28; compare 17:29). Because we are the children of such a Father, the Savior admonishes us to live up to our heritage, to "be . . . perfect, even as [our] Father which is in heaven is perfect" (Matthew 5:48; compare Book of Mormon - 3 Nephi 12:48; 27:27; 28:10).
Because God is our Father, we believe, he is not merely some distant judge who holds us to an abstract standard of justice. Far more perfectly than even the best mortal parents, he loves us and is concerned with our happiness and welfare (see Matthew 7:7-11). "For behold," he told Moses, "this is my work and my glory-to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man" (Moses 1:39).
Moreover, because he took upon himself mortal flesh and dwelt among us, our Redeemer, Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, understands us in all our human weaknesses, trials, and sorrows. The ancient Book of Mormon prophet Alma taught that Jesus would come to earth and submit himself to death and suffering, "that his bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that he may know according to the flesh how to succor his people according to their infirmities" (Alma 7:12). Both the New Testament and modern revelation received through the Prophet Joseph Smith testify that Christ's earthly mission was a triumphant success: "For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin" (Hebrews 4:15). "He descended below all things, in that he comprehended all things, that he might be in all and through all things, the light of truth; which truth shineth" (D&C 88:6-7).
We take literally the many passages in the Bible that describe God as having a physical form. God created Adam "in his own image" and "after [his] likeness" (Genesis 1:26-27), and Paul taught that ordinary mortal men were in the "image" of God (1 Corinthians 11:7). During his earthly life, Jesus Christ was said to be "the express image" of God the Father (Hebrews 1:3). When the Father and the Son appeared to Joseph Smith in the grove in 1820, the young boy "saw two glorious personages, who exactly resembled each other in features and likeness."3
For us God is both near and distant. He is perfect. We are not. He is infinitely loving, just, merciful, and wise. We are not. He has all power and glory. We certainly do not. But he is our Father, we are akin to him, and he wants to share with us all that he has and is. "To him that overcometh," said the Savior, "will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne" (Revelation 3:21). Accordingly, believers in the restored gospel are filled with love for God their Father, with deep gratitude and divinely inspired hope. "Beloved," wrote the apostle John, "now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is" (1 John 3:2).
Let me answer that statement which you wrote of becoming Gods ourselves.
First, you need to read the rest of Genesis chapter 3. In Genesis 3:22, it states "And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil... ". Therefore, as the Lord himself says, Satan told Eve a half-truth. The Adversary lied when he said that Eve would "not surely die", but he told the truth when he said that she would become "like God, knowing good and evil."
To spread the false notion that Latter-day Saints do not show proper reverence towards the Godhead, anti-Mormons often tell people that Latter-day Saints believe that they will become co-equal, or on the same level, with God and no longer worship him. This misrepresentation is a twisting of an LDS doctrine called exaltation, a doctrine which the Bible clearly teaches.
We believe our Heavenly Father has given us this mortal life to become more like him. Those who are true and faithful in all things will sit in the throne of Christ. (Rev 3:21) We will have the name of God the Father placed upon us (Rev 14:1) we believe that we shall be "heirs of God, and joint-heirs of Christ" (Rom 8:17). What shall the faithful inherit? ALL THINGS according to scripture (Heb 1:2)
"Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." (Matthew 5:48)
"For I [am] the LORD that bringeth you up out of the land of Egypt, to be your God: ye shall therefore be holy, for I [am] holy." (Leviticus 11:45)
"Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is." (1 John 3:2)
"Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater [works] than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father." (John 14:12)
We call anyone who sits in the throne of God, has God's name and attributes, and who has inherited all things (i.e. - power, dominion, knowledge) from God-----a god.
Hence the scripture, "God standeth in the congregation of the mighty; he judgeth among the gods....I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High." Psalms (82:1,6)
While we believe that the faithful will enjoy a life similar to our Heavenly Father, we also believe we will still be subject to and worship the God of Heaven, which is represented as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Furthermore, while we will be "gods, even the sons of God" (D&C 76:58), we will never be at the same level as them or stop worshipping them, but we will be like them and enjoy a quality of life similar to theirs.
Romy
