I promise I will do a post on the first reading this weekend but for now, I have a question I can't fully understand so I was hoping I might have some of your help in getting to the bottom of as it is an extremely fundamental question that in the end might be nothing more than semantics.
So Christianity laregly claims itself as monothesitic, some say that the bible verse "gods and angels there are many but there is only one God" (I would cite my source right here but my bible is across the room and I am in bed, a moral dilemma if there ever was one but I think the passage is found in Romans) is a warning against all the false gods and angels and an affirmation that there is only one God. Others say this scripture points out that there is only one God who is omnipotent but other gods who are not omnipotent, so the title and beleif in monotheism hold true. Many claim the LDS church to not be Christian because LDS members believe that they can attain godhood but not Godhood.
If I understand LDS doctrine correctly, and please correct me if I am wrong, Mormons beleive that the Christ is to attain Godhood with a capital "G" while others can obtain godhood with a little "g". While the doctrine has never really been spelled out in detail, and if it has please point me in the right direction, it appears to me the LDS doctrine is extremely close to some polytheisitc religions, namely Hinduism, that believe that there is one divine being above all others (some might call this being God), but there are numerous other lesser beings, gods. The system prevalent in Hinduism is defined by the Smartha philosophy and sect; this theory allows for the veneration of numberless deities, on the understanding that all of them are but a manifestation of one divine power. In addition, many polytheistic faiths see their numerous gods as having many human attributes, some capable of right and wrong and none able to match the omnipotence of the one divine power, God. This seems somewhat comparable, there are many differences, to the LDS beleif in humanity, outside of the Christ or Messiah, to attain goodhood since all of humanity has sin and only one, himself a future God, has never commited sin.
What I have noticed is that in polytheistic relgions, at least some of them, what seperates gods from God is the degree of power they hold and this might be applicable to the LDS view of gods, goddesses and God given our beleif in the keys of the priesthood. This is not to mean that all Hindus or Buddhists would claim that the one over-encompassing power would be given the label God but I use the label for clarity here although many would dispute the label saying that the Christian or Islamic label of God does not fit.
This is jsut a very brief note on the subject but I hope it can lead to a worth while discussion. Now everbody go pray that the Broncos beat the Jaguars tomorrow.
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2 comments:
ike -
There are actually several verses in the Bible that point us to polytheism; the one you're thinking of is I Corinthians 8:5 - For though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth, (as there be gods many, and lords many.) - KJV.
Most other translations interpret this as Paul being skeptical about other faiths.
However, there's also Deuteronomy 32:8-9 implies that the God of Israel is only one of many Gods, and the nation of Israel was given to him particularly. There's also a few verses in the Psalms.
This all might point us to what Karen Armstrong is talking about.
Now:
If I understand LDS doctrine correctly, and please correct me if I am wrong, Mormons beleive that the Christ is to attain Godhood with a capital "G" while others can obtain godhood with a little "g".
I'm not quite sure about what the practical distinctions you're making between capital and lower case here are, and they're rather important.
In any case, this interpretation is one way to get at the King Follett Discourse; Joseph implies in there that Christ does only what he has seen his father do, which would, to some, mean that the Father was a Christ ona previous planet. This gives them a status that presumably we cannot attain, since we are not Christs.
Some thinkers in Mormondom subscribe to this, some do not, and argue that eventually we will attain the fulness of the Father's glory, as several scriptures seem to promise. Brigham Young believed that.
There's no official line on this; we're not even sure what Joseph actually thought. So we're all more or less free to believe what we'd like, I think.
You do, however, bring up a good point - that being that whether or not we subscribe to this particular interpretation of the King Follett Discourse, Joseph seemed to believe that our God had once been subject to his own God who still is out there, somewhere. Joseph described a divine council that supervised or delegated to our God the creation of the world.
This, however, seems to me closer to henotheism than to polytheism; Hinduism and other polytheistic religions might acknowledge a hierarchy of divinity, but they also acknowledge that lesser gods have some influence in our world. Mormons, however, believe as Brigham taught, that there is only one God with which we have to do.
This is henotheism; acknowledgment of multiple manifestations of divinity, but offering worship and association to only one.
You're getting at this in your second to last paragraph, I think.
You hit the nail on the head Matt, nicely done.
This is the pivoting point for me in your comment:
This, however, seems to me closer to henotheism than to polytheism; Hinduism and other polytheistic religions might acknowledge a hierarchy of divinity, but they also acknowledge that lesser gods have some influence in our world. Mormons, however, believe as Brigham taught, that there is only one God with which we have to do.
The notion of other worlds is really what keeps Mormonism out of the polytheistic category. I guess the question is how fundamental is the idea of other worlds and others gods to LDS doctrine?
It would seem that this has everything to do with the idea of a ''History of God'' if we want to stay with that thread which is not a bad idea but we can feel free to deviate if need be.
Mormons obviously believe in an eternal progression, although we must think about how eternal it can actually be since I am not sure Mormons are open to the notion of God progressing?
In the Euthphro dialogue, Socrates posts the question "Is what is just "just" because God says it is just or does God say it just because it is already just"? So the question is whether God creates justice or follows justice, or truth if you will and what role does eternal progression play in this because progression denotes a direction one moves towards.
It seems that if we beleive in progression, then we move toward an end point, and the very existence of an end point throws a wrench in the idea of eternal progression. But even if we beleive in progression then there has to be a standard to judge against against otherwise we have no idea what is progression and what is digression, what is right and what is wrong. Naturally if we apply the idea of progression to God, then God has a standard by which God progresses towards, hence God says it is just because it is just.
So if we are discussing a "History of God" then are we open to the idea of God progressing, especially given the LDS belief that God was as man now is?
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