Q: Does the Mormon Church believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God?
A: Mormons believe Jesus Christ is literally the Son of God, the Savior and Redeemer, who died for the sins of humankind and rose from the dead on the third day with an immortal body. God, the Father, also has an immortal body.
Q: Does the Church believe in the divinity of Jesus?
A: Mormons believe Jesus Christ is literally the Son of God, the Savior and Redeemer, who died for the sins of humankind and rose from the dead on the third day with an immortal body. God, the Father, also has an immortal body.
Q: Does the Church believe that God is a physical being?
A: Mormons believe Jesus Christ is literally the Son of God, the Savior and Redeemer, who died for the sins of humankind and rose from the dead on the third day with an immortal body. God, the Father, also has an immortal body.
This is the same, rote answer I received when I was debating the nature of Christ with my Mormon visitors. You'll notice how they do not believe, as virtually all Christians do, that Christ is eternally begotten of the Father, that is to say, coequal in all things with the Father. They believe that the Father predated Christ, who came into being at a certain point in time. Now, when speaking exclusively of Christ's human nature, one can say that He entered history at the exact moment of the Incarnation. But Christ, in his Divine Nature as Logos, has existed from all eternity together with the Father and Holy Spirit. Mormons reject this entirely. This is why most Christians scoff at the assertion that Mormonism is a legitimate Christian church. The Church of Jesus Christ of Later Day Saints is rather a newfangled religion of bizarre, science-fiction-like teachings. It's extremely frustrating that Mormons are not more candid regarding this theological distinction. And the manner in which these three distinct questions were answered, with a lackadaisical cut-and-paste response, is regrettable. They may see it as a subtle thing, a distinction without a difference, but it's not that easy.
Have you not considered that the term "eternally begotten" is like a "square circle?" They cancel each other out. "Begotten" refers to a point in time, and "eternal" means outside of time. Of course Mormons reject such philosophical absurdities. "Eternally begotten" is nonsensical and doesn't appear in sacred scripture.
ReplyDeleteI should have relied on the original Latin here. Many problems arise from the language in translation and from a poor understanding of what the original text meant to convey. The English does not do justice to the Church's official teaching. It's always advised to go to the Latin when you're looking for an answer regarding the particulars of Church theology. Difficulties are aplenty when debating such intricacies with Protestants because they seem to forget that the Scriptures and early Councils relied on Latin and Greek, not English.
ReplyDeleteHere is the original text, from 381AD:
Et in unum Dominum Jesum Christum, Filium Dei [unigenitum], natum ex Patre ante omnia saecula [Lumen de Lumine], Deum verum de Deo vero, natum [genitum], non factum, consubstantialem Patri
The line in question more accurately reads, "Generated, not made or created, of the same substance as the Father."
So it is very clear that the Son as Logos, has never in the history of the early Church been understood to have been created. Are you claiming, as a Mormon or Protestant, to have more insight into Christology that those who immediately followed Christ and his apostles? There's something to be said for an unbroken line of teaching that stretches back 2,000 years.
We also need to do a little definitional work here, as your understanding of "begotten" is too narrow and myopic. "To beget", according to Webster, means to "give rise to". So "Eternally begotten" merely means to have forever given rise to..." Guided by a correct understanding of the word to begin with, there is no contradiction present.
God is eternal, outside of time. If God's essence is understood to be Love, (Deus Caritas Est) His Love, similarly, has no marked point of genesis. This Love is not self-contained, no authentic love can be, but rather this love generates forth from itself in total gift. This eternal generation of eternal Love is the Son, the Logos, the Word of the Father. Saint Athanasius, writing in the 4th century, puts it in the following terms: "And if he is called the eternal offspring of the Father, he is rightly so called . . . It is proper for men to beget in time, because of the imperfections of their nature; but the offspring of God is eternal because God's nature is ever perfect" (Discourses against the Arians 1:14 [A.D. 358]).
You mention the "square circle" analogy/contradiction. But God cannot contradict Himself nor the laws He has established. How could His self-giving Love, which is eternal, be said to have started at a certain point in time? That would be the only contradiction. Fortunately, Catholic theology shows us the answer.
Noted Catholic theologian Fr. John Hardon put it thus:
"The term 'begotten not made' means that the Second Person does not proceed from the First Person by creation. When a human being is conceived, the body comes from the father and the mother; the soul is created immediately from nothing by God. The Second Person of Trinity was not created by God the Father. In theology, we reserve the verb "made" for what is created. God the Son was not created by the Father. The Father is not the cause of the Son."
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Nor is the Catholic teaching a novel one, as stated earlier. Read over this list of citations from Church Fathers:
Council of Nicaea
"We believe . . . in our one Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God, the only-begotten born of the Father, that is, of the substance of the Father, God of God, light of light, true God of true God, born, not made . . ." (The Creed of Nicaea [A.D. 325]).
Cyril of Jerusalem
"Believe also in the Son of God, the one and only, our Lord Jesus Christ, who is God begotten of God, who is life begotten of life, who is light begotten of light, who is in all things like unto the begetter, and who did not come to exist in time but was before all the ages, eternally and incomprehensibly begotten of the Father. He is the Wisdom of God. (Catechetical Lectures 4:7 [ca. A.D. 350]).
Athanasius
"When these points have been demonstrated, then they [the Arians] speak even more impudently: `If there never was a time when the Son was not, and if he is eternal and co-exists with the Father, then you are saying that he is not a Son at all, but the Father's brother.' O dull and contentious men! Indeed, if we said only that he co-existed eternally and had not called him Son, their pretended difficulty would have some plausibility. But if while saying that he is eternal, we confess him as Son of Father, how were it possible for him that is begotten to be called a brother of him that begets? . . . For the Father and the Son were not generated from some pre-existing source, so that they might be accounted as brothers. Rather, the Father is the source and begetter of the Son. . . . And if he is called the eternal offspring of the Father, he is rightly so called . . . It is proper for men to beget in time, because of the imperfections of their nature; but the offspring of God is eternal because God's nature is ever perfect" (Discourses against the Arians 1:14 [A.D. 358]).
Gregory of Elvira
"[In Genesis 49:9 the Son] is called a [lion's] whelp so as to show that it refers not to the Father, but to the Son of God. For when both a lion and the whelp of a lion are named, both the Father and the Son are indicated. Their nature is not divided, but distinct Persons are manifested. For just as a lion is born of a lion, so too it is said that God proceeds from God and light from light" (Homilies on the Books of Sacred Scripture 6 [ca. A.D. 375]).
Basil
"What was in the beginning? `The Word,' he says . . . Why the Word? So that we might know that he proceeded from the mind. Why the Word? Because he was begotten without passion. Why the Word? Because he is image of the Father who begets him, showing forth the Father fully, in no way separated from him, and subsisting perfectly in himself, just as our word entirely befits our thought" (Eulogies and Sermons 16:3 [A.D. 379]).
Basil
"When I speak of one essence, do not think as two separated from one, but of a Son subsisting from the Father from the beginning, not of Father and Son emerging from one essence. Indeed, do not speak of brothers; we confess Father and Son. There is identity of essence because the Son is from the Father; not made by his decree, but born of his nature; not separated from the Father, but the entire shining forth while abiding still in the entire" (ibid. 24:4 [A.D. 379]).
Gregory of Nazianz
"He is called Son because he is identical to the Father in essence; and not only this, but also because he is of him. He is called only-begotten not because He is singular Son . . . but because he is Son in a singular fashion and not in a corporeal way. He is called Word because he is to the Father what a word is to the mind ... because of his union and because of his conveying information" (Orations 30:20 [A.D. 380]).
Ambrose
"[The Arians] think that they must posit the objection of his [Christ] having said, `I live on account of the Father.' Certainly if they refer the saying to his divinity, the Son lives on account of the Father, because the Son is from the Father; on account of the Father, because he is of one substance with the Father; on account of the Father, because he is the Word given forth from the heart of the Father; because he proceeds from the Father, because he is generated in the paternal bowels, because the Father is the source of the Son, because the Father is the root of the Son" (On the Christian Faith 4:10:132 [A.D. 380]).
Council of Constantinople I
"We believe . . . in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, born of the Father before all ages, light of light, true God of true God, begotten, not made, consubstantial with the Father" (The Nicaean-Constantinopolitan or "Nicene" Creed [A.D. 381]) .
Council of Rome
"If anyone does not say that the Son was begotten of the Father, that is, of the divine substance of him himself, he is a heretic" (Tome of Damasus, canon 11 [A.D. 382]).
Augustine
"In the way that you speak a word that you have in your heart and it is with you . . . that is how God issued the Word, that is to say, how he begot the Son. And you, indeed, beget a word too in your heart, without temporal preparation; God begot the Son outside of time, the Son through whom he created all things" (Homilies on the Gospel of John 14:7 [A.D. 416]).
Athanasian Creed
"The Father is not made nor created nor begotten by anyone. The Son is from the Father alone, not made or created, but begotten. . . . Let him who wishes to be saved, think thus concerning the Trinity. But it is necessary for eternal salvation that he faithfully believe also in the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. Accordingly it is the right faith, that we believe and confess, that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and man. He is God begotten of the substance of the Father before time, and he is man born of the substance of his mother in time. This is the Catholic faith; unless everyone believes this faithfully and firmly, he cannot be saved" (ca. A.D. 475).
Council of Constantinople II
"If anyone does not confess that there are two generations of the Word of God, one from the Father before all ages, without time and incorporeally, the other in the last days when the same came down from heaven and was incarnate . . . let such a one be anathema" (Concerning the Three Chapters, canon 2 [A.D. 553]).
To understand Christianity you have to familiarize yourself with Church history, and a little Latin wouldn't hurt either. Thanks Alma!