[Dale]

Originally Posted by bytor2112

The Trinity.....how do you make sense of the sensless? Who was the Savior praying tin Gethsemenee? Why was he praying to himself so often....... never made sense to me. Josephs prayer opened Heaven once again and a flood of truthwashed away alot of confusion.

With the Trinity idea don't misunderstand it as saying Jesus prayed to himself. Jesus the man was praying to God. And within the divine being three distinct centers of personal consciousness exist. So the distinct parts of God are aware of the other parts.

The idea of three separate beings does not fit the historic mono-theism of the current version of the Old Testament. (Deut.6:4:Isa.43:10) Try as i might i cannot see the 2nd person in the Godhead as claiming to be anything in the Old Testament , but what would make himself the very same Father he prayed to. Paul in 1 Cor. 8:5,6 merely expands upon the one God concept to treat the one God the Father and one Lord Jesus as the same Old Testament God.

With the Book of Mormon in Ether 3:15 it has a pre-incarnate spirit form for Jesus. The text left some ambiguity intact as it does not say the Father had similar spirit form. Certainly from my study of the Book of Mormon i do not get the idea they felt God and Christ were separate beings. They never taught more than one God. They never taught God the Father has a body, but only the Father we now know as Jesus now having a body. Though the text does make distinctons within that being they considered God that can fit the Trinity idea or the idea of distinct beings.

Joseph Smith can indeed see the personage of the Son in the First vision. Though his personality has to if they are one God as in the Trinity idea not be separate from the Fathers. In the Trinity idea a part of God is in Jesus created spirit form and physical body , but not the whole being of God. God in the Trinity idea as to his being is supposed to be everywhere present. But i do not see the idea of Joseph Smith seeing the resurrected Jesus in vision as contradicting the idea of the Trinity. Only Gods omni-present spirit part has to be uncreated and omni-present, and it would not prevent God from having adding to Jesus uncreated personality a pre-incarnate form.

As a member of the Community of Christ following the teaching of the 1835 Lectures on Faith see the Father as a personage of spirit. The lectures was published by the church in the 1835 edition of the Doctrine and Covenants.

Through common consent of our members in the RLDS Church we kept that above teaching. In the 1890's we held the idea of the plurality of Gods officially as an idea of man. We had some members that favored a bit of the idea and a decision needed to be made about it. Based on literal readings of Psalm 90:2 and Isa.43:10 we felt a need to teach only one uncreated God that never became God. By affirming that idea we rejected any idea that the Father can be seen with a physical body. We never interpreted the First Vision as Joseph Smith seeing two supreme Gods with bodies as that would conflict with Biblical mono-theism.

The RLDS who favored the idea of distinct persons in God simply equivocated on Jesus Deity. By doing that it was felt possible to make the Father alone the true and only supreme God Joseph Smith saw in his vision. It gave Jesus Christ the title of God, but did not make him more than one God which we felt would conflict with Book of Mormon teaching. So a book i have by an member of my church said Joseph Smith saw two personages in his vision but not two Gods. (Godhead V.H. Fisher, reprinted by Restoration Bookstore) Though i recall the same book calling Jesus a God as one of the Godhead.

The idea of Joseph Smith seeing a personage may, or may not preclude a Trinitarian idea of God. The Father could have assumed temporary form for the occasion. He could have also had created for himself a spirit form like was created for the pre-incarnate, pre-mortal Jesus. None of what i know about what he saw requires me to believe God had a beginning as God, or was once a man. Feeling Joseph Smith turned apostate in Nauvoo we just do not base our ideas of God on his King Follett sermon, or his speculative writings LDS later canonized with their edition of the D.&C. We felt such ideas did not clearly fit our canonized scripture so never got mixed up in such ideas as part of our official teaching.

Our difficulty was that the scriptures do not equivocate on Jesus Deity. Since we rejected some of Joseph Smiths later ideas as being of man, or the Devil we had to make a theological decision. We aready rejected the ideas i mentioned above that originated in the Nauvoo period of church history. To me if one wishes to hold God and Christ as two beings, but not to supreme Gods one has to equivocate on Jesus deity. But if your testimony becomes that such equivocation is improper when compared with the scriptures it only left us with the option of the Trinity idea. The only other option we felt that we rightly rejected through our study of the scriptures would be embracing a basic plurality of Gods idea.

With my church we have leading critics of our church like Ed Decker, and Hank Hannegraff who accept us as Trinitarian. To me although i favor the idea of the Father and Son being distinct persons i see wisdom in my leadership teaching the Trinity. It then wisely leaves room for having common ground with other Christians in atleast that one area. LDS can't get critics like we do who consider us almost Christian. LDS always through having to be different about God through that idea make God an easy target for Anti-Mormon mocking. My church through our views of God hardly if ever get our beloved God mocked.

Though Anti-RLDS critics try and say Joseph Smith through error about God could not have earlier been a true prophet. Though i do not see Deut.13:1-5 as precluding a true prophet from getting into other Gods later in life. The plurality of Gods idea teaches a different God than Moses would have considered his only God he knew about.