In
the combox of the previous thread,
Tom has been postulating that a doctrinal development concerning the nature God
found in the writings of the majority of the early Church Fathers was a
corruption rather than a true development. In the first comment post of the
thread, Tom wrote:
...I thought to claim that
“preservation of type” was lacking in the CHANGE from an embodied God to a
totally incorporeal God.
And
in a later post, we read:
Now perhaps more important
to this discussion you said,
Rory:
Development cannot be used as a cover for contradiction.
TOm:
What could be a more perfect example of contradiction? Where once Jews and
Christians believed God was embodied, latter they DEMAND it is ridiculous to
believe God is embodied and He in fact is totally incorporeal.
In this thread, I am going
to propose that the phrase "totally incorporeal" lacks a certain
degree of clarity when describing the person and or persons termed
"God", as found in the Bible, writings of the early Church
Fathers—and importantly for this thread—in the LDS Triple Combination.
Before moving forward with
my proposition, it is necessary to delineate how the term "God" will
be used throughout this thread. I will be relying heavily on a number of
descriptions utilized by Blake Ostler in his,
Exploring Mormon Thought - The Attributes of God (2001).
First and foremost,
"God" will refer to a "class or kind of being", which
"kind K" has a certain set of properties that are:
"essential properties
of a natural kind" because anything that lacks such properties would not
belong to the kind...for anything to count as God, it would have to have
properties of a perfect being such as omniscience, omnipotence and
omnibenevolence etc. Moreover, God is understood to be that being who
possesses all great-making properties in their fullest. No other being could be
more powerful, or more wise, or more good...
The monotheistic use of
"God" presupposes that God must have each of his properties in a
special sort of way, i.e., perfectly and uniquely. Thus, the term God is such
that the individual that bears those properties must be the unique and
exclusive member of a unique and exclusive class. The notion that God must be
absolutely one seemed to be supported in the earliest years of Christianity by
both Jewish monotheism and Greek metaphysics. Despite the obvious subordination
of the Son to the Father in the Christian scriptures, the Jewish scriptures
contained statements of monotheism which did not permit any real competitor to
Yahweh: "I am Yahweh, and there is none else, there is no God beside
me" (Isa. 45:5, 21, 22). In addition that, the notion that God is
incomparable, literally in a class by himself, required that all contenders are
merely pretenders to divinity: "thou shalt have no other gods but the Lord
thy God." Here "gods" refers to beings who aspire to belong to
"God's" class, but there can be only one legitimate being in the
class, the God Yahweh. This usage is more or less equivalent to the Hebrew
meaning of Elohim and the English expressions such as "deity,"
"the Godhead," "the Almighty," "the Lord,"
"the Supreme Being." or "the Most High." These terms for
deity imply that there is a single, supreme member of the class "God
Almighty." (2001 - pp. 6, 7)
In the next page, Ostler
acknowledges another use of the term God, and its plural, Gods:
The very term
"God" has seemed to include in it the notions of supremacy and
perfection. Nevertheless, "God" or "Gods" is found in the
Hebrew scriptures referring to beings that are not supreme. For example, there
are divinities who are inferior or subordinate or divinities only by permission
of the head God. (2001 - p. 8)
The rest of this opening
post will focus on the "class or kind of being" identified in the KJV
and Triple Combination as the 'eternal God', 'everlasting God', 'one God',
'true God', 'Lord God', 'Lord Omnipotent', 'Lord God Omnipotent', 'LORD',
'Jehovah', 'Most High', "Most High God', 'Almighty God', 'God of Gods',
'Lord of Lords', etc.
Moving forward, note the
following from Oslter:
In 1832, Joseph Smith
received a revelation which elucidated God's immanence—the doctrine that God is
present to but is not identical with all realities. Immanence is more than
omnipresence or being present at all places.
Immanence includes the notion that God is: (1) present in terms of power
and awareness at all places; (2) able to effectuate his will at all places
without intermediary; and (3) the experience or information of every reality is
included within God's experience and knowledge. Put another way, all things
indwell in God and God indwells in all things. Immanence, as conceived by
Joseph Smith, is preeminently a reciprocal relation, for it is true that God is
in and through all things as that all things are in and through God. A
revelation to Joseph Smith referred to God's power and knowledge in terms of
supreme relatedness and immediacy to all aspects of the physical universe"
"He comprehended all things, that the might be in all and through all
things, the light of truth. . . . Which light proceedeth forth from the
presence of God to fill the immensity of space" (D&C 88:6, 12).
God is aware of or
"comprehendeth" all things because they are before him. However,
things are not merely present to God, but God is also to all things. He is not
merely present to, but actually through all things. (2001 - pp. 75, 76 - bold emphasis mine)
And just a bit later, we
read:
This revelation, and
others received by Joseph Smith use the terms "spirit,"
"intelligence," "power," "light." and
"law," as synonyms and mutually reinforcing notions. (2001 - p. 76)
With Ostler's reflections
in mind, I will now turn to a number of verses from the Bible and Triple
Combination which describe the attributes and nature of God:
Jeremiah
23:24 - Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith
the LORD. Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the LORD.
1
Kings 8:27 - But will God indeed dwell on the earth? behold, the heaven and
heaven of heavens cannot contain thee; how much less this house that I have
builded?
Chronicles 2:6 - But who
is able to build him an house, seeing the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot
contain him? who am I then, that I should build him an house, save only
to burn sacrifice before him?
Isaiah
66:1 - Thus saith the LORD, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is
my footstool: where is the house that ye build unto me? and where is
the place of my rest?
John 4:24 God is a
Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in
truth.
1 John 5:7 - For there
are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost:
and these three are one.
2 Nephi 31:21b - ...this is the doctrine of Christ,
and the only and true doctrine of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, which is one God,
without end. Amen.
Alma 11:44b - ...and shall be brought and be arraigned before
the bar of Christ the Son, and God the Father, and the Holy Spirit, which is
one Eternal God, to be judged according to their works, whether they be good or
whether they be evil.
3 Nephi 11:36 - And thus will the Father bear record of me, and
the Holy Ghost will bear record unto him of the Father and me; for the Father,
and I, and the Holy Ghost are one.
Mormon 7:7 - And he hath brought to pass the redemption of the
world, whereby he that is found guiltless before him at the judgment day hath
it given unto him to dwell in the presence of God in his kingdom, to sing
ceaseless praises with the choirs above, unto the Father, and unto the Son, and
unto the Holy Ghost, which are one God, in a state of happiness which hath no
end.
D&C 20:17 - By these things we know that there is a God in
heaven, who is infinite and eternal, from everlasting to everlasting the same
unchangeable God, the framer of heaven and earth, and all things which are in them;
D&C 20: 27, 28 - As well as those who should come after, who
should believe in the gifts and callings of God by the Holy Ghost, which
beareth record of the Father and of the Son; Which Father, Son, and Holy Ghost
are one God, infinite and eternal, without end. Amen.
D&C 88: 11-13 - And the light which shineth, which giveth
you light, is through him who enlighteneth your eyes, which is the same light
that quickeneth your understandings; Which light proceedeth forth from the
presence of God to fill the immensity of space. The light which is in all things,
which giveth life to all things, which is the law by which all things
are governed, even the power of God who sitteth upon
his throne, who is in the bosom of eternity, who is in the midst of all things.
The descriptions of God
in the above passages strongly suggest to me that those attributes which make
God 'eternal', 'everlasting', 'infinite', 'one God', 'fill heaven and earth',
'fill the immensity of space', 'in all things', 'Spirit', etc., are
descriptions of God's divine nature; a divine nature that sure seems to be
identifying a "class or kind of
being" who has a spiritual, infinite essence, rather than a corporeal,
finite one.
I can now delineate why I believe that the phrase
"totally incorporeal" lacks a certain degree of clarity when describing
the person and or persons termed "God". Though God's divine nature is
essentially "Spirit", this does not preclude Him from taking on
corporeal form. With that said, I cannot help but maintain a correct
reading of Scripture demands that we acknowledge God has in fact done so.
If the above assessment of mine is an accurate one,
it then seems to follow that the development of the doctrine of God—via the
reflections of the early Church Fathers—constituted a “preservation of type”,
and was not a corruption.
But then, this beachbum may have missed
somethnig...
Grace and peace,
David
