Yesterday, I had two LDS missionaries come to my door. These sisters have
visited me before; they came to the door a couple of weeks ago asking me to sign
a birthday card for a neighbor which gave me the opportunity to engage them in
conversation. Both girls were in their early twenties and both had grown up in
Utah. Each had at least one parent who was a multi-generational Mormon.
As
we talked, I explained that I've spoken with Jehovah's Witnesses and others who
have come to the house. These folks were very sincere in their beliefs, but I
explained why sincerity isn't enough. I explained that there is
only
one good reason for believing anything, and that is it must be true. I then
said that a lot of people trust their feelings as a guide to know what's true,
but this is a terrible guide, for certainly the Muslims who blow themselves up
or fly planes into buildings are very sincere in their beliefs. I offered the
tape measure analogy as a better way to discover truth.
Lastly, I said
that for belief systems, the way one can objectively assess their truth value
was to look for two things: external correspondence and internal consistency.
That is any belief system or word view must be internally coherent and not hold
to contradictory beliefs and its claims must match the way we understand the
external world to really work. If a belief system is contradictory, then I
cannot see how it can be true.
Up to this point, the ladies were following
along pretty well and agreed with me. So I then raised the point of eternal
progression. I didn't want to talk about ancillary issues but focus on the
critical beliefs central to their faith, and eternal progression sits right at
the center of Mormonism. They agreed and also agreed that the God we now worship
had also progressed from being a man to a God. So, I said I had a difficulty
here as the Book of Mormon states in Moroni 8:18 that God is eternal and
unchanging (you can read the
entire argument here.) The sisters were taken aback at this passage and said
they would have to research it more. They took down my number and agreed to come
back with an answer for me. I gave them my thanks and our meeting ended.
A Question, a Contradiction, and a Response
Yesterday, the ladies returned with a response. They told me that it was
pretty difficult to get an answer to this question; they had to go all the way
up to their mission president to find one. As they explained it, all human
beings exist in a spiritual state prior to their earthy birth. (This I already
knew.) Their president had told them that our God, Elohim, then had existed with
his God attributes in this state and he still has them now. They pointed to the
teaching of Joseph Smith's King Follett discourse where there was a council of
the Gods called to create a plan of salvation for the people of earth and how
Jesus existed as God there even before he was born on earth.
1
They concluded that just like Jesus was considered God before his embodiment, so
too was Elohim considered God before his embodiment and thus has been God
forever.
The answer has several problems, two of which I pointed out
immediately. The first was "If God existed as God before his embodiment, then
why bother with the work of being embodied at all?" The whole concept of God
means a perfect being. That's why we worship him. If Elohim had all the
attributes necessary to qualify him as God, then he doesn't need to be improved
through bodily experiences where he can be shaped and learn. Either he was
something less than God in his premortal existence or He went through the
exercise for no purpose. Notice this is Elohim, not Jesus we're discussing.
Why Worship God and Not the Guy Down the Street?
The second reason is even more troubling. If their claim is true, that
Elohim was God in a premortal state, and he retained that even when he was
embodied and went through all the experiences and temptations, learning to
resist them on his planet then
it means that everyone who is in that embodied
state now is also God right now! Mormon theology makes no distinction between
Elohim's eternal progression and those Mormon missionary ladies who were
standing in front of me. So I asked them, "Why then should I worship Elohim and
not the Sister standing next to you right now if what you say is true? In fact
why should I worship
anyone if I'm a God in my earthy state?"
They
countered that we worship God because he created us, but that isn't right as we
existed as God prior to our embodiment. This is where Mormon theology becomes
hopelessly confused. According to LDS thought, all spirits existed eternally in
the past. There is no creation
ex nihilo for the LDS. Elohim and his spirit
bride gives birth to spirit children who are I guess formed into spiritual
bodies (their understanding here was vague) just as earthly parents then give
birth to physical children where that spirit joins with a physical body. But
given this view, it's just as legitimate to worship our physical parents as it
is to worship Elohim, who is our spiritual parent. Of course the sisters
were not at all eager to believe in worshiping other people. But that's the
logical conclusion if their explanation of Moroni 8:18 is right.
In order to
get out of the quandary, they appealed to the mysteries of God, quoting article
9 of their articles of faith: "We believe all that God has revealed, all that He
does now reveal, and we believe that He will yet reveal many great and important
things pertaining to the Kingdom of God."
2 They suggested
that he may reveal more, but we just must have faith and approach God sincerely.
At this point I reminded them of my first conversation with them, that the
truth is something more than sincerity; the 9-11 hijackers were very sincere. I
said this is more than a misunderstanding; it's an internal contradiction in
Mormon theology. And it isn't any little issue, either. It is the core of
Mormonism! Why should I reject historic Christianity for a system that shows
itself to be incoherent? (I didn't use those words, but that was the jist of my
question to them.)
I then asked how well they understood historic Christian
theology. They responded that they didn't know it very well. That gave me
the chance to tell them the Gospel and how Christianity is never about works
(article 3 of their Articles of Faith) but about a loving response to what God
has already accomplished in Jesus Christ.
I don't know if I'll see the
sisters again. I hope I do. But I pray even more that those bothering
contradictions that sit at the center of Mormonism will dog them. I pray that
the
Hound of Heaven will
pursue these ladies and they don't find rest until they rest in the one through
whom all real rest comes. Pray for them if you get the chance. I think God is on
their trail.
References