Is God our literal Father? (debate; LDS/evangelical)

[@grayareafaith3534]

Thanks so much Aaron and Devon for allowing me to participate!

[@theKnightsofGod]

Another point, Devin adds a lot to the Scriptures he quotes. Adam never said I WILL LEAVE my father and mother.

[@jope2123]

Right after eve was given.. Gen. 2:24 "Therefore shall A MAN leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh." Says "a man" but Adam was the only man... So it is him that will leave his father & *mother*

[@theKnightsofGod]

@@jope2123 Adam wasn't referring to himself. He spoke of what every son of his would do afterward. Cleave to their wives like he did. That's it. To imply anymore is a complete reach.

[@theKnightsofGod]

@Aaron Shafovaloff Genesis 2 21And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. 22Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man. 23And Adam said: “This is now bone of my bones And flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken out of Man.” 24Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. Adam never makes the implication that he left his father's house. Devin was adding a lot to the texts he was quoting. My only criticism of this debate is that Aaron didn't have his sword drawn here and was doing it off the top of his head. Which was incredible in most respects lol He has a GREAT memory. But yeah, checking him in scripture would've been great here

[@AaronShafovaloff1]

Good criticism, brother. Thanks.

[@theKnightsofGod]

@@AaronShafovaloff1 you did great bro :) thank you for your work

[@cub3head]

The whole analogy on Adam leaving his father is strange to me. I agree with Aaron that when I leave my biological father’s house the relationship changes. But, I think he is thinking too much from a legal perspective. Of course, when I leave my biological father’s house, legally, he has no authority over me. But, from a spiritual point of view, the relationship doesn’t change. My father still has a spiritual responsibility to guide me. Being 18 is irrelevant. After I leave my father’s house, I still respect him and listen to his counsel. I frequently contact him and go to him for support and guidance, not because I am forced but because I love him and respect the fact that he has more experience and wisdom than I do.

[@Misa_Susaki]

I love LDS theology!

[@doejohn215]

The sophistry of this guys is amazing. Impressed by your scholarship on their teachings. Encouraged brother.

[@BenjaminRushton-hp5jl]

God made man by the dust of the earth then woman by Adam’s rib. We are not children by Father and mother God. Genesis 1 and 2. We are created by a Holy God that has know end or beginning from everlasting to everlasting

[@hoover8699]

Aaron, et al, any feedback would be helpful to me. At about 104:50 Aaron asked Devin, “Can God create matter?” Devin: “I don’t know?” Aaron: “Can God create the individual intelligence of man?” Devin: “Maybe” The Bible is VERY clear in answering both of these and other such questions. Is matter eternal? Do you believe in a Heavenly Mother? Do you believe Jesus and Lucifer are Spirit-Brothers? Colossians 1:16-17 answers all these questions: “For by him [Jesus] ALL things were created, in HEAVEN and on EARTH, VISIBLE and INVISIBLE, whether THRONES or DOMINIONS or RULERS or AUTHORITIES -ALL things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is BEFORE ALL things, and in him all things hold together.” Since Jesus created ALL things, then does that mean he also created matter and intelligences and sprits and Lucifer and Heavenly Mother? Since he is BEFORE ALL things, then is he also BEFORE matter and intelligences and Heavenly Mother, etc.? If an LDS responds that the Father created other worlds and Jesus is the creator for this Earth, and/or the Father is the God of Heaven and Jesus is God for Earth, listen to Deuteronomy 4:39: “know therefore today, and lay it to your heart, that the LORD is God in HEAVEN above AND on the EARTH beneath; there is no other.” (See also Joshua 2:11, 1 Kings 8:23). Keep in mind that according to The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter Day Saints web-page, Topical Guide, for the entry, “God the Father,” it says, “Elohim.” For “Jesus Christ,” it says, “Jehovah.” Keeping these definitions in mind with the fact that Elohim is translated as “God,” and “Yahweh” is translated as LORD (or Jehovah) in Deuteronomy 4:39, let’s see if this makes sense per LDS definitions: “know therefore today, and lay it to your heart, that the LORD (“Jehovah” = Jesus) is God (Elohim” = the Father) in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other.” Try using LDS definitions for numerous in passages in Isaiah (42:5, 43:3, 10-15: 44:6-8, 44:24, 45:3-6, 45:18-23, 46:8, 48:12-17).

[@hoover8699]

About 21+ minutes in, Devin claimed “the church fathers also believe that we can become gods,” including Clement of Alexandria and Athanasius, etc. Aaron did not get a chance to address this, so I will. Stephen Robinson used the same argument in his book, “Are Mormons Christians?” (Salt Lake City, UT: Bookcraft, 1991). Over 20 years ago I responded to Robinson’s argument. Please bear with me as I answer this in the same way that I answered Robinson: “As man now is, God once was; As God now is, man may be.” This couplet, which was allegedly revealed by the Holy Spirit to the fifth president of the LDS church, Lorenzo Snow, is sufficient to show that Mormons are not Christians. The Bible clearly says over and over that there is only one God (Deut. 4:39; Josh. 2:11; Is. 44:6, 8; 45:5, 14, 21; Jn. 17:3; 1 Tim. 1:17; 2:5), and no one else is ever going to make it to godhood, not even temple-worthy Mormons (Is. 43:10). But many of the early church fathers, such as Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Athanasius, etc., believed in the doctrine of deification. If these early pillars of the faith believed in deification and are still considered Christians, then why are LDS excluded for “believing the same thing?” (Robinson, 61-63). To argue that the above Christians all understood the doctrine of deification differently than the Latter-day Saints is untrue and “such a response amounts to a quibble” (64). Let us now begin to “quibble” and see if what some of the early fathers believed about deification is even close to what LDS believe about it. Robinson offers the following quotes to show that some of the early fathers said some things about deification in terms very similar to that of Lorenzo Snow (60-61): Irenaeus: “If the Word became man, it was so men may become gods.” Clement of Alexandria: “Yea, I say, the Word of God became a man so that you might learn to become a god.” Athanasius: “The Word was made flesh in order that we might be enabled to be made gods.” These comments cause many of us to scratch our heads and wonder what these Christians could have meant. Unfortunately, sometimes they do not elaborate on the subject so we cannot figure out precisely what they meant by saying that men may become gods. Carl A. Volz also observes that while it is difficult to define precisely the doctrine of deification among the church fathers because it meant various things to different writers, he also recognizes, like I do, that the various views of the doctrine of deification did have much in common. In searching through the literature of the Ante-Nicene, Nicene, and Post-Nicene fathers, quite a few terms, such as holiness, perfection, immortality, and incorruption, kept consistently popping up over and over again in the context of deification. This leads me again to agree with Volz, who has reached a conclusion similar to mine that I am in full agreement with: “The deification of human beings does not imply an equality with God, or a participation in the godhead. There remains a distinction between God and humanity. The similarity lies in the sharing of qualities, such as holiness, incorruption, and immortality, but human beings remain creatures, and their godlike qualities, are the gift of God’s grace” For example, Anthanasius said man is “mortal and corruptible, but since the Word became man and having appropriated what pertains to the flesh…men no longer remain sinners, but having risen accordingly to the Word’s power, they abide ever immortal and incorruptible” (The Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers (NPNF) vol. lV, 411-412. See also 65, 386, 413, 415, 572, 576). In the second quote by Irenaeus that Robinson uses to support his case (60-61), Robinson cuts off a sentence midway through with a period, rather than continuing on. Here is the rest of the sentence; “and the corruptible by incorruptibility, and the man should be made after the image and likeness of God, having received the knowledge of good and evil” (The Ante-Nicene Fathers (ANF) vol. l, 522. See also 448-449, 489, 533). Again, similar comments like those above can be found by; Clement of Alexandria (ANF vol. ll, 196, 199, 215, 377, 538-539, 549); Hippolytus (ANF vol. V, 153, 237); Theophilus (ANF vol. ll, 105); Novatian (ANF vol. V, 624) Gregory of Nyssa (NPNF vol. V, 344); and Cyril of Alexandria (Pelikan, The Christian Tradition, 233). In many of these cases, including the references for Athanasius and Clement above, these people are talking about our weak human flesh that is still subject to the passions of sin being transformed into that which is like our redeemer, Jesus, who is not subject to the passions of sin (i.e. impassible). In any case, if all the Mormon means by becoming a god is for us to be transformed from being mortal to immortal, corruptible into incorruptible, and passable (subject to sin) into impassible, then there appears to be no problem in the concept of deification, for the concept is biblical (1 Cor. 15:35-58). However, despite Robinson’s attempt to water down the LDS concept of deification and his attempt to elevate the early fathers concept of the same, so the two concepts don’t seem to be much at odds with each other, the two concepts still remain light years apart from each other. Here again is Lorenzo Snow’s couplet: “As man now is, God once was; As God now is, man may be.” The belief set forth in the first line that God was once a man as we are now and has not always been God from all eternity is completely at odds with virtually all the early church fathers, because it is also at odds with the Bible itself (Ps. 50:21; 90:2; 102:25-27; Num. 23:19; Hos. 11:9; Mal. 3:6). Robinson may claim that “Latter-day Saints accept unequivocally all the biblical teachings on the nature of God” (88), and confess that he believes in “God, the Eternal Father” (71), but if he believes that God was once a man, who had a God before him (ad nauseum ad infinitum), and progressed to godhood, then he is not accepting “unequivocally” a biblical teaching on the nature of God. To say that God was once a man and then later became God at some point in time is to equivocate on the word “eternal” as it is used for God. Furthermore, in Mormon theology, God and man are of the same species. So line two of Snow’s couplet cannot be divorced from line one. In other words, line two of the couplet cannot be understood apart from an understanding of line one. But if God was once a man as we are now before he progressed to godhood, what is preventing others from being exalted to the same level as him? If there has always been a chain of gods before our God, why did it stop at our God being exalted to such a high level that he will never have an equal, as Robinson maintains (65)? Joseph Smith said that he was going to tell us, “how God came to be God” and that we “have to learn how to be gods yourselves.” What did he mean by this? Indeed, he even asks, “What is it?” He also answers his own question; “To inherit the same power, the same glory and the same exaltation, until you arrive at a station of a god, and ascend the throne of eternal power, the same as those who have gone before” (King Follet Discourse). (Without explicitly saying so, Robinson would seem to distance himself from Joseph Smith’s above quote). Because this blasphemous statement contradicts clear biblical teaching that God was always God and never a man (Ps. 90:2), and that there is, was, and always will be only one God (Is.43:10; 44:6; Rev. 22:13), Joseph Smith, and anyone else who embraces this false teaching is correctly labeled a polytheist and therefore, is excluded from the right to call himself a Christian.

[@howardparkes8787]

Wonderful conversation. At least we are getting to a good spot of active dialogue from apologists on both sides. But yeah, it was hard to watch him try to completely abandon the historical Mormon perspectives for the most liberal scholarship about the development of theology. Would love to meet you one day Aaron.

[@jacobsamuelson3181]

Abandon Historical perspectives? How do you know what these kind of perspectives looked like without living them?

[@theKnightsofGod]

Adopted as children of Jesus... he and all mormons didn't and don't read Ephesians 1 properly at all...

[@HaleStorm49]

If we could choose to be literal children of God, would we prefer the "yes" or "no" position?

[@cub3head]

Definitely yes! Fortunately, we don’t have to choose because Heavenly Father is already the literal father of all.

[@AaronShafovaloff1]

What does "literal" mean here?

[@HaleStorm49]

@@AaronShafovaloff1 It's from your video title. What did the word mean when you selected it?

[@AaronShafovaloff1]

Burden of definition here is on Latter-day Saints, who commonly use the adjective. See also the 1909 Origin of Man statement, and the 1916 "Father and Son" statement.

[@cub3head]

@@AaronShafovaloff1The dictionary says , “taking words in their usual or most basic sense without metaphor or allegory.” In this case, when the Bible teaches we are the Children of God, we actually are. We aren’t some other type of creature. As a baby will grow into an adult human, an adult human has the potential to become like God, including all His attributes, His authority, and His power. This doesn’t mean I replace God and stop worshipping Him, just like becoming an adult didn’t cause me to replace my biological father. I will continue to worship and express gratitude to Heavenly Father for eternity but I will take my place with Him in his kingdom. Paul taught by revelation that we will be joint heirs with Christ.

[@MVhowell87]

I loved every second of this.

[@Wubss]

It really is fascinating how they boast of having present day prophets and apostles and at the same time throw them Under the bus every chance they get

[@cub3head]

No one is boasting about having modern prophets. Also, we never claimed that everything a prophet says in public and private is prophetic. Just like there are prophets who lived in biblical times who were human and said things in private and public that weren’t taken as literal scripture. Your comment, unfortunately, comes from a place of misunderstanding our position. I’m sure Jesus himself had day to day conversations that weren’t prophetic or scriptural.

[@BillyBob-sm3ku]

14:49 the reason God exiled the Hebrews from Israel was because they said YHWH had a wife like Asherah: "Yahweh warned Israel and Judah by the hand of his every prophet, with every seer saying, “Turn from all of your evil ways, and keep my commandments and my ordinances, according to all the law which I commanded your ancestors, which I sent to you by the hand of my servants the prophets.” But they did not listen and they stiffened their necks, like the necks of their ancestors[f] who did not believe in Yahweh their God. They rejected his statutes, his covenant which he made[g] with their ancestors,[h] and his warnings which he gave to them; and they went after the idols, became vain, and went after all the nations which were all around them, which Yahweh had commanded them not to do as they did. They abandoned all the commands of Yahweh their God and made for themselves two molten calf-shaped idols; they made a pole of Asherah worship and bowed down to the army of the heavens and served Baal. They made their sons and their daughters pass through the fire, they practiced divination and read omens, and they sold themselves to do evil in the eyes of Yahweh to provoke him. So Yahweh was very angry with Israel and he removed them from his presence; none remained except the tribe of Judah alone." 2 Kings 17:13-18

[@MFTheEstranged]

Why would Adam leaving the presence of his father (GOD), have anything to do with abandoning Gods authority? You compared it to leaving your own father and cleaving to your wife, therefore your father no longer having authority over you. In your case, not knowing who your father is that wouldn’t makes sense. However, imagine that your father is the President of United States., if you will. Do you not continue to abide by his laws after leaving the home?

[@Jannylou100]

I am trying to figure out how he thinks Asherah, the goddess that Isreal worshipped in violation of Gods command, is His spirit wife.

[@Drollls]

Basically the theory is that the reforms of king Josiah and the deuteronomists were apostate reforms that corrupted the true religion of Israel. The theory is based on events and doctrines in the Book of Mormon before Lehi's family leaves the Old World mixed with the work of old testament scholars (nonLDS) like Margaret Barker. Dave Butler speaks a lot on this theory. It is not universally taught or believed by LDS members as it is only recently gaining popularity.

[@Wubss]

What a strange way to interpret 1 Cor. 15:45 from the mormons perspective

[@jimashman6251]

I really appreciated Devin's focus on LDS doctrine and not venturing into speculation about how our spirits were created or about whether Heavenly Father has a father. It felt to me like Aaron presupposed that those were core LDS beliefs when in reality they are far from that.

[@williamfarnbach9028]

This stood out to me as well. Though I don't think he did it maliciously, but when Devin said "you are teaching me stuff about my own faith", my first thought was "then you should dig into the official theology of the Church before agreeing with his representation of it."

[@jimashman6251]

@@williamfarnbach9028 It seems like critics of the LDS church place a lot more emphasis on things like the origin of God than LDS membership does. So I can understand Devin's view that although we know we are eternal beings, we don't know details of exactly what our existence was like as intelligences or how our spirits were created. While interesting, knowing these things is not critical to our salvation, in my opinion....so we try to stay focused on weightier matters.

[@cub3head]

Usually the goal of people like Aaron is to focus on the most fringe ideas and speculation of the Church of Jesus Christ to create a strange “otherness” about them. By doing so, he and other ill-intentioned scholars can scare Post-Bible Christians away from feeling a kinship with members of the Church of Jesus Christ.

[@cub3head]

@@williamfarnbach9028It was very blatant that he was doing it maliciously because he kept referring to Jesus Christ as “Superman” in a very irreverent way, and Devin called him out on it. It was interesting to watch Aaron try to justify his un-Christlike treatment of others.

[@AaronShafovaloff1]

The B. H. Roberts view (Jonathan Stapley calls it "tripartite existentialism") isn't "fringe" - it's the predominant LDS view today according to LDS scholars. I'd invite you to read any of the main chapters/essays which give a historic overview and development of this issue, whether by Blake Ostler, Van Hale, Brent Top, Roger Terry, Brian D. Hales, etc.

[@Drollls]

The only debate we need to be having with each other is on Sola Scriptura. Everything else we disagree on always just comes back to that.