Tag: Mormonism

Deeper Waters Podcast 8/17/2013: The Mormon Research Ministry

What’s coming up Saturday on the Deeper Waters Podcast? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters!

There you are sitting at home perhaps enjoying reading a novel or one of your favorite TV programs (Yes, it’s always during your favorite TV program) when there’s a knock at your door. You look out the peephole and see these two nice looking gentlemen in white shirts with black name tags on that identify them as elders from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

That’s right. The Mormons.

Who are these people? Well, there are few that will dispute that Mormons are some of the nicest people that they meet and they seem to be sincere and they say they believe in Jesus, so surely we should count them as Christians. Right?

Or maybe not.

Not according to my guest this Saturday, Bill McKeever, who runs the Mormon Research Ministry. Bill has spent decades studying Mormonism and when it comes to those who want to read the best critiques of the Mormon worldview, I point them to the Mormon Research Ministry.

If you think that the Mormons are just another branch of orthodox Christianity, I hope you’ll be listening to this show. There are many beliefs that many Christians don’t realize that Mormons have. In fact, it could even be that there are many beliefs held in orthodox Mormonism that many Mormons don’t know are held to.

Naturally, something that must be discussed is the story of how Mormonism came to be. What is it that really happened to Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism? Is he really the kind of person that we can trust? Did he have any aspects to him that could cause us to be suspicious of him? Are the charges true that he practiced polygamy? Did he raise up his own army? Important for us Christians, since he claimed to have visions, what makes him different from someone like the apostle Paul?

What about the Book of Mormon? Is it really a testimony to events that happened here in the Americas several centuries ago? Has it been handed down reliably? Is there anything to the charge that racism existed in the original BOM?

We can also discuss what about Mormonism and their views on God and Jesus. Do they believe just what Christians believe about both, or do they hold to views such as the idea that God was once a man as we are and became God through eternal progression? Is Jesus really the spirit-brother of Lucifer?

And of course, a great one to discuss is McKeever’s point about the impossible gospel of Mormonism. What must a Mormon do to be saved and if they go that route, is it really going to be possible for them to be saved?

I hope you’ll join me for this episode to learn much about this group that could well be on its way to being the next world religion. The show time is 3-5 EST on Saturday, August 17th. My guest is Bill McKeever, and the call-in number is 714-242-5180.

The link can be found here.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

A Response To Khan

Does creation ex nihilo present a problem for the problem of evil. Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

A friend sent me a video from a Mormon on YouTube who goes by the name of Khhaaan1. The video can be found here. I will refer to the producer as Khan from here out. The video is an attempt to show that if you accept creation ex nihilo, you have a problem with the problem of evil.

Khan says at the start that there was no official statement on creation ex nihilo from the church until the 4th Lateran Council in 1215 A.D. This is true, but the reason is why was it mentioned then? It was because of the Albigenses, a sect much like the Manichaean teaching that Augustine dealt with years ago. Matter was seen as the creation of an evil power and spirit was good and the creation of the god of the NT.

Noteworthy at the start is that Khan in this video does not address biblical verses used to support ex nihilo. Perhaps he has done so elsewhere, but in this video there is nothing.

Also, I will state at the start that I have no marriage to creation ex nihilo. It has been a principle I have followed for some time that my Christianity is not dependent on my doctrine of creation but on the essential, the resurrection. I do hold to ex nihilo, but I am open to a better interpretation if one can be found that fits the facts. An eternal universe would not shake my faith. Neither would a multiverse or any scientific discovery like that. I leave that area to the scientists anyway.

Khan goes on to say that the church has been wrong before and uses Galileo as an example. I do not think this is the best example. The church had not entirely closed the door on heliocentrism. Copernicus had had his book on it dedicated to the Pope and the Pope had no problem with it. The problem with Galileo is that Galileo was egotistical, refused to admit any errors, spoke on theology and Scriptural interpretation without being trained in that area and while being asked to not do so, and wanted immediate acceptance of his ideas instead of waiting for more evidence. It didn’t help that he also mocked the Pope, who I think was frankly quite egotistical himself.

I do not doubt the church handled it poorly, but Galileo is really an exception to the normal way the church handled scientific advancement. We can look back and say “They were wrong,” but we must also be frank and admit that the evidence really was not in conclusively yet. A great problem for heliocentrism, Obler’s Paradox, was not even answered until the 19th century. It is easy for us to look back and say they were wrong, but we can be sure some scientists centuries from now will look back on and us and wonder how we missed some truths that they deem to be obvious. We should approach the past with as much charity as we want the future to approach us.

When we start getting to the heart of the matter, Khan to his credit does give a definition of evil. He says evil is an act or event whereby existence would be better if it had not occurred.

I find this troublesome due to the largely subjective nature of the claim. If someone does not want to donate to Deeper Waters for instance, does that mean that is an evil since I think existence would be better if that had occurred? What about all of creation? Would it have been better if God had not created at all, even if the Mormon view was correct and there were spirit children with God? How about eternity? Would Heaven be better if there were one more person in it? If so, then one would have to create an infinite quantity, an impossibility, for there not to be evil there.

For my view, there is no problem, since I think the mistake is that Khan nowhere defined good. There are so many problems you can dispense with at the start if you have a definition of good, such as the so-called Euthyphro dilemma. The good is that at which all things aim.

The good is that at which all things aim said Aristotle, which means that it is something that is desirable. Aquinas took this then and said that something is good insofar as it is an instance of its kind. To be perfect, it must be actual and insofar as it is actual, it is perfect. Since everything desires perfection and that which is the most perfect is the most actual, then we see that goodness and being are the same thing. Goodness just speaks to the thing being desirable. (See Feser’s book “Aquinas” for more.)

Now there is something that must be said about desirable. This does not mean a conscious desire as Aristotle said all things aim for the good, but very few things are conscious in the grand scheme of things. So how do they aim? It is based on their final cause, that is, the end for which they are meant. For Aristotle, this was the most important cause of all. Unfortunately for many of us today, it is the least important cause.

To give an example, a plant has no conscious nature that we know of, but the plant still moves towards water and towards the sun. The plant wishes to be even if it does not realize that or do so consciously. Our cat here often gets scared and will run away when someone he doesn’t know or trust comes over. Why? He naturally wants to live even if he is not consciously thinking “I want to live.” We can also have an end we were made for and actively resist it and try to find it elsewhere. For instance, in Christian thought, we were all made to reflect God and His love and rule with Him forever. Many of us deny this and seek our good in other places like sex, money, power, etc.

As far as I’m concerned, the lack of really establishing a philosophy of good and evil is the Achilles’s heel of Khan’s argument. Note in fact that by my definition, one has an explanation for moral goodness and evil, but also goodness of nature.

So what is evil then? Evil is the privation of that which should be present but is not. If goodness is being, then its opposite, evil, is a kind of non-being, and nothing positive can be said about non-being. We must be clear on this point here. It is not evil that a rock does not have sight, since it is not in the nature of a rock to have sight, but it is an evil that a man has blindness, since it is of the nature of a man to have sight. Blindness is not a positive principle in something, but it is an absence of a good that should be there, the good of sight. It is a name given to a specific absence, but not an existent reality on its own.

I’m also concerned about Khan’s definition of omnipotence. Can God create a square circle is a question He asks. I do not know from his talk if he means this seriously or not, but the answer is no. God cannot do that because that involves a contradiction, and omnipotence has not been historically understood to mean that contradictions can be done. The following lengthy quote from the Summa Theologica, q. 25, article 3, will show Aquinas’s stance.

“It remains therefore, that God is called omnipotent because He can do all things that are possible absolutely; which is the second way of saying a thing is possible. For a thing is said to be possible or impossible absolutely, according to the relation in which the very terms stand to one another, possible if the predicate is not incompatible with the subject, as that Socrates sits; and absolutely impossible when the predicate is altogether incompatible with the subject, as, for instance, that a man is a donkey.

It must, however, be remembered that since every agent produces an effect like itself, to each active power there corresponds a thing possible as its proper object according to the nature of that act on which its active power is founded; for instance, the power of giving warmth is related as to its proper object to the being capable of being warmed. The divine existence, however, upon which the nature of power in God is founded, is infinite, and is not limited to any genus of being; but possesses within itself the perfection of all being. Whence, whatsoever has or can have the nature of being, is numbered among the absolutely possible things, in respect of which God is called omnipotent. Now nothing is opposed to the idea of being except non-being. Therefore, that which implies being and non-being at the same time is repugnant to the idea of an absolutely possible thing, within the scope of the divine omnipotence. For such cannot come under the divine omnipotence, not because of any defect in the power of God, but because it has not the nature of a feasible or possible thing. Therefore, everything that does not imply a contradiction in terms, is numbered amongst those possible things, in respect of which God is called omnipotent: whereas whatever implies contradiction does not come within the scope of divine omnipotence, because it cannot have the aspect of possibility. Hence it is better to say that such things cannot be done, than that God cannot do them. Nor is this contrary to the word of the angel, saying: “No word shall be impossible with God.” For whatever implies a contradiction cannot be a word, because no intellect can possibly conceive such a thing.”

In essence then, God cannot do a contradiction since that would involve being and non-being both and God can only do that which is possible. As C.S. Lewis said in “The Problem of Pain.”

“His Omnipotence means power to do all that is intrinsically possible, not to do the intrinsically impossible. You may attribute miracles to Him, but not nonsense. There is no limit to His power.

If you choose to say, ‘God can give a creature free will and at the same time withhold free will from it,’ you have not succeeded in saying anything about God: meaningless combinations of words do not suddenly acquire meaning simply because we prifex to them the two other words, ‘God can.’

It remains true that all things are possible with God: the intrinsic impossibilities are not things but nonentities. It is no more possible for God than for the weakest of His creatures to carry out both of two mutually exclusive alternatives; not because His power meets an obstacle, but because nonsense remains nonsense even when we talk it about God.”

This then gets us into the free-will defense. To his credit, Khan does bring up Plantinga, Khan does argue that he does not believe that free-will exists, but will grant it for the sake of argument. I come from the approach that free-will exists and that divine sovereignty exists. How are these two reconciled? Much has been written on that question and I do not expect a clear answer. I just see Scripture teaches both and accept both of them. There are some who have God so sovereign that there is no free-will. I find this much more problematic as it makes God the ultimate cause of evil. There are some who say God is not all-knowing with regards to the future and man has free-will, but I find this to be a limitation on God with no metaphysical basis and not compatible with Scripture.

Khan says God could have created people to be more rational or more sensitive. If they were more of these, they would have made better decisions, but I question the premise. For instance, in order to make a person to be perfectly good in nature entirely and perfectly rational, God would have to make someone else like Him, but He cannot do that. He cannot make another being who has no beginning.

There is no other being that can Have being define its essence. Everything else partakes of God in some way. Each can only be a perfection of its kind. God is not looking to create a being exactly like Him. That’s impossible. He is looking to create a being that reflects Him, albeit imperfectly if one means not a total duplicate, but perfectly if we just mean, insofar as we are able.

Even if we granted other spirit beings, the problem would be the same. Michael the archangel cannot be exactly like God. Only God is goodness itself by nature and love itself by nature and being itself by nature. Everything else has being and is loving and good and existent insofar as it exists. (Even the devil. The devil has will, power, and existence, which are good things, and the devil seeks his own good, which is to say he loves his own good. The problem is that his will is bent morally)

So, if God wants to create beings who are to be good, that goodness is to be a choice for them, just as it was for Michael and the devil. If he creates spirit children supposedly, even those must choose for if love for us is to be a free decision, it cannot be a forced free decision. That is a contradiction.

Khan’s situation is problematic because to say we could be more rational means we are better able to think and know all the information needed, but eventually, one will have to reach omniscience, which we cannot, seeing as we are always going to be finite beings by nature and God alone is infinite.

If we go with spirit beings, we just push the problem back a step and then can just as easily say why God allowed these spirit beings who He knew to be evil to come to Earth and do evil here. Perhaps Khan will point to a greater good, but then I can just as well say “That is why God allows people to choose evil here. He uses their evil for a greater good.”

For the problem of evil to be shown to be a problem, it must be shown that God can have no good reason for doing it this way, and I do not think that that can be shown from Khan, though He is welcome to try. I also think that for a larger perspective on this, he might want to try the work “God and Evil” By Meister and Dew Jr.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

A Mormon in the White House?

Should Christians be concerned about a Romney presidency? Let’s talk about it on Deeper Waters.

A friend at church asked me to write about this topic. I am not writing about this as someone in politics but as an apologist dealing with the issues of Mormonism. I really don’t write on politics as politics in this blog, but I do comment on moral issues that can show up in politics. I understand the concern of many Christians. There are some that have a great fear with a Mormon like Romney getting into the White House. Let’s address that then.

First off, I will unequivocally state that in my view Mormons are not Christians. We have essential differences on the nature of God, the nature of Christ, and the nature of salvation. This does not mean that there is no common ground between us. For those of us who are thankful that we won the Prop 8 battle in California, it has been said, and I agree, that we could not have won that battle if the Mormons had also not taken part in it. On numerous moral and political issues, Christians and Mormons can work side by side.

Many of us know this because while we disagree with Mormons, they tend to be very good people to us. I’ve only met one to this day I can think of that really rubbed me the wrong way. When I lived with a roommate in Charlotte, we went out of our way to witness to the Mormons when they came by. We’d stop and get pizza for them and some gatorades and have them enjoy a meal with us. We even went out to eat one time with them. There was a time they weren’t showing up for some reason and I called them and they said they didn’t have good transportation. I asked where they were and came and got them myself. That had the added bonus of having them a captive audience in my car while I got to share the real gospel with them. One of them became friends with us on Facebook when his missionary journey ended. One Mormon we suspect was on the verge of conversion when they switched him out and we wonder to this day if we will see him in eternity. Hopefully someone will finish the work we started.

Therefore, my claim is clear. I am not going to claim Mitt Romney is a Christian. That does not mean I think he is a bad person overall. I just say that I do not trust him on religious issues. Thankfully, as I’ve told people before, I am not electing a pope or a priest. I am electing a president. What issues is it the president is supposed to reside over in our country? Let’s take a look.

The president is to make sure that our country is kept safe. In our day and age, we know that there are forces that would like to see America fall. We’ve already seen it from Muslims such as happened on 9/11 in both 2001 and this year. There is much strife going on in the Middle East and it could wind up coming our way. N. Korea could one day build a weapon that could be capable of reaching us as well. Could Communism still be a threat. Wouldn’t surprise me.

Keep in mind when I speak of these threats, as devout readers of this blog will know, I am not speaking of a “Last Days” scenario with asking if this will be the president that will be the antichrist. That’s been thought about every president in recent history. I greatly admire Reagan and I know there were several who said he was the antichrist. After all, his name was Ronald Wilson Reagan. 6 letters in each name! 666! Reagan was the beast!

Well, no.

So when I write this, I do not have any fear about Romney being “The Antichrist” any more than I had or have fears about Obama being “The Antichrist” or any other world figure for that matter.

Oh but Nick! Don’t you know about the White Horse prophecy?

Yes. I do. It’s the idea that when the Constitution is hanging on a thread, the Mormon church will rush in and save the day. Then, the Mormons will control the government.

Some might think Mormons want to do that, but is it really feasible is the question? An expert in counter-cult apologetics has even informed me that he doesn’t think this will happen since the LDS church is crowing about the Romney candidacy. The truth is that Mormons, like Jehovah’s Witnesses, are in a much more precarious position today because of the internet. The information that their church would not let them get is now readily available for anyone to see.

To be fair, some would say that about Christians. The difference is many of us already know about said information and have responses to it. Also, we do not want to shield the church from this information. We instead want them to know about it and know what to say to it. This is not the same in the case of Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses. Granted however that there are a few in those camps who will go out and interact with the other side.

A Mormon presidency would bring Mormonism out into the open even more and in many ways, I consider that a good thing. Consider what I have said about the new atheists. I thank God for them. They are bringing the discussion of what Christianity is out into the open and doing their side a great harm with having people think that their arguments are just so destructive to Christians, not realizing the majority of us just laugh about them. I hope the new atheists add to their number of published books and keep it up. We’ll keep writing scholarly books that show the mistakes and errors and let their side deal with what they’ve done.

If we can start talking to Mormons more and witnessing to them, then that is all the better. I also think that if ever some group tried to force itself on the Constitution, we would not have to worry since this country has already had one revolution and could have a second. The Mormon church would be taking a huge risk to make a move like that and it is doubtful whether they would ever want to attempt it.

Another issue for us today that a president deals with is the economy. I do happen to think from an economic perspective that Romney’s ideas do work better. I recommend for people reading a book like Henry Hazlitt’s “Economics in One Lesson.” (If you can only read one book on economics, read that one.) From a Christian perspective, one can read the book of Ronald Nash “Poverty and Wealth.”

What about health-care? For those of us who want to do away with Obamacare, then we do need to support Romney. He’s said he will repeal it and the voters definitely expect that. For those who want to speak about pre-existing conditions, My Mrs. and I both have pre-existing conditions. Since moving, I had to go see my old doctor so the health insurance company could know that my Asperger’s is not a problem for my insurance.

Some might disagree, but this is a question that we have to ask. Which candidate is better equipped to help grow our economy?

Moral issues certainly play a part in how we vote and that was the main reason voters were voting in 2004. There are a number of issues we have coming up. The debate over redefining marriage is going on. Obama has already said his view is in support of doing that. Abortion is another major issue. We can be thankful that Mormons stand with us by and large on these issues. We need to especially get into the Supreme Court people who will support our views. Hugh Hewitt, a conservative radio talk show host, has said the most important rule is to be able to count to 5. I would even vote for a pro-choice Republican if I thought he’d put someone conservative on the Supreme Court who is more likely to overturn Roe V. Wade.

What we have to ask is not “Who believes like me the most in religion?”, but “Who is more capable of doing the job?”

If there is one area we should be concerned about, it’s that Christians unfortunately are not producing the best candidates. Christians are shying away from politics when we shouldn’t. There are several brilliant Christian minds that could make a difference in the world if we will allow them to do so.

I can end this no better I think than the way Bill McKeever and Eric Johnson of the Mormon Research Ministry did in their article from the Christian Research Institute. (Link below) It’s from 2008 but still valid.

It doesn’t appear that Romney’s Mormonism is causing many evangelical Christian leaders to oppose his candidacy. In fact, one group of Christians has even jumped on his bandwagon by hosting an Internet site (www.evangelicalsformitt.org). Perhaps University of Notre Dame sociologist Christian Smith summarized the precarious position of many when he said (Los Angeles Times, October 15, 2006), “Some evangelicals may think that Mormons are going to hell, but at the same time, they might think that it wouldn’t be too bad to have one in elected office.”

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Bill McKeever and Eric Johnson’s article can be found .