Author: Steve Amato
Description: What the cults say
Keywords: cult, bible, mormon

Mormonism

# Mormonism

see also http://www.carm.org/dmormon.htm

- God
- Jesus Christ
- Holy Spirit
- Sin
- Redemption and Salvation
- Retribution

## God

- We believe in God the Eternal Father, and in His son Jesus Christ and in the Holy Ghost (Articles of Faith, 1).
- This cannot rationally be construed to mean that the Father, Son and the Holy Ghost are one in substance and in person (Talmage, Articles of Faith, p. 40).
- There are three Gods...separate in personality, united in purpose, in plan, and in all attributes of perfection (McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, p. 270).
- God is an organized being just as we are who are now in the flesh. He is a progressive being, and possesses the capacity of eternal increase. Perhaps once a child and mortal like ourselves; (Gospel Doctrine, p. 64; AF, p. 529; Journal of Discourses, 1:123).
- The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man's (Doctrine and Covenants, 130:ZZ).
- God is not ominipresent...cannot be "physically present in more than one place at a time" (Talmage, DC, p. 48).
- Every man who reigns in celestial glory is a god to his dominions (McConkie, MD, p. 322).
- There never was a time when there were not Gods and worlds (Young, Discourses, pp. 22-23)
- Each god, through his wife or wives, raises up a numerous family of sons and daughters (Pratt, The Seer, 1, no.3, p. 37).
- The doctrine of a plurality of Gods is prominent in the Bible. The heads of the Gods appointed our God for us (Teaching of the Prophet Jos. Smith, pp. 370-72).
- The eternal Father is a progressive Being...the capacity of eternal increase (Talmage, DC, page 529).

## Jesus Christ

- Among the spirit children of Elohim, the firstborn was and is Jehovah or Jesus Christ, to whom all others are juniors (Smith, GD, p. 70).
- By obedience and devotion He attained to the pinnnacle of intelligence which ranked him as a God, even in his preexistent state (McConkie, MD, p. 192).
- Jesus Chrit was the executive in the work of creation, aided by Michael (or Adam), Enok, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Peter, James, John Joseph Smith, and others (McConkei, MD ;. 169).
- He was born of the virgin Mary. Elohim is literally the Father of the Spirit and of Jesus Christ, and also of the body (Talmage, DC, p. 466)
- He is essentially greater than all others, by reason of His unique status in the flesh as the offspring of a mortal mother and an immortal, or resurrected and glorified Father. He died on the cross, rose again, and is coming again in power and glory to set up his kingdom on earth (Talmage, DC, p. 472).

## Holy Spirit

- The Holy Ghost is "a personage of Spirit." He does not have a body of flesh and bones, like the Father and the Son (DC, 130:22).
- He is "the influence of deity, the light of Christ, or of Truth" (Smith, GD, p. 60).
- He "can only be in one place at one time" although he "emanates from Deity" like "electricity, or the universal ether...which fills the earth and the air, and is everywhere present" (McConkie, MD, pp. 359, 753).

## Sin

- Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy (II Nephi 2:25).
- Adam deliberately and wisely chose (to touch the forbidden tree) and partook of the fruit (Talmage, DC, p. 65).
- Adam cried, "Because of my transgression my eyes are opened, and in this life I shall have joy" (Pearl of Great Price, Moses 5:10-11).
- We ought to consider the fall of our first parents as one of the great steps to external exaltation and happiness (Mormon Catechism).
- We believe that men will be punished for their own sins, and not for Adam's transgression (AF, 2).

## Redemption and Salvation

- We believe that through the atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel (AF, 3).
- The first priniciples and ordinances of the gospel are: Faith on the Lord Jesus Christ; repentance; baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; and laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost (AF, 4).
- Even the unbeliever, the heathen, and the child who dies before reaching the years of discretion, all are redeemed by the Savior's self-sacrifice from the individual consequences of the Fall (Talmage, p. 58)
- Included are "beasts, fowls of the air, and fishes of the sea" (DC, 29:23-25).
- The resurrection of the body (of every living thing) is one of the victories achieved by Christ through His atoning sacrifice (Talmage, p. 58).
- They who believe not your words, and are not baptized in water in my name, for the remission of their sins...shall be damned (DC, 84:74).
- Baptism is ...the very gateway into the kingdom of heaven, an indespensable step in our salvation and exaltation (Bennett, Why I Am a Mormon, p. 124).
- Baptism by proxy for the dead is a major activity. "The Saints are ... redeeming their (unbaptized) dead from the grasp of Satan" (Morgan, Plan of Savation, p. 8).
- Celestial marriage is the gate to an exaltation in the highest heaven within the celestial world (McConkei, MD, p. 118).
- Those who attain the highest sphere, the Celestial, will "have spirit children in the resurrection, in relation to which offspring they stand in the same position that God our Father stands to us" (MD, p. 257).
- The second sphere, the Terrestrial, will be inhabited by "accountable persons who die without law" or who "did not accept the gospel" or with LDS who "were not valiant" (MD. p. 784).

## Retribution

- Most of the adult people who have lived since Adam (having rejected Christ and live wickedly) will go to the "Telestial Kingdom" (MD, p. 778).
- Perdition is for Satan, and the Sons of Perdition, angels who rebelled with him. Also for men who commit the unpardonable sin (Talmage, DC, p. 410).
- "Endless punishment" is "God's punishment" and may endure for "one hour, one week, or one year, or an age" (Morgan, The Plan of Salvation).

Compiled by Keith L. Brooks

Revised by Irvine Robertson

The Berean Christian Bible Study Resources

Edition: