Quote:
Originally Posted by Vanhin
For his own purposes, God has opted to bring about the restoration in this manner. He prepared and called a prophet, and revealed his will to him. Then, He commanded his prophet to share the message with others. From that stand point, Joseph Smith's experience is not unique. The Bible is full of the same pattern. Moses, for example, was called as a prophet, and given a message to share with the Israelites, and ultimately the world at large. So, if the Bible is used as a guide, then we must at least admit that an event like the First Vision is not only possible, but probable considering how long it had been since God had called a prophet.
It is evident from the scriptures that God reveals his will through righteous men called prophets. Indeed, the Bible plainly teaches us this fact:
Even the early Church, established by Jesus Christ, would be built upon a foundation of apostles and prophets, Christ himself, being the chief corner stone.
How do you suppose God reveals truth to us?
Sincerely,
Vanhin
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Thank you as well Vanhin,
I have seriously considered not making this post as to not seem argumentative but have decided to share in hopes that we can extend our thoughts to eachother in an even light for mutual benefit and fairness.
Your comments to me seem to take as FACT the prophet ( JS ), how God has chosen to restore his church. In addition you use the early Church to strengthen your claims.
There is indeed an alternate perspective on this, I will try and share mine with you while trying my best to be fair and respectful to your beliefs, as you have to mine.
The " restoration " was to restore the Church back to the early church days ( before the JS claim of great apostasy and due to the broken line of apostles ) agreed ?
Well IMHO ( with a hint of Catholic bias ) the early Church writers do not strengthen the LDS claim at all, Rather drastically weaken it, the early Church writers ( Ignatious, Eusebius, Clemente,Polycarp, etc ) Write nothing at all about this Great Apostasy, In addition, it is my further humble opinion that they also wrote nothing about much of the Mormon Doctrine that is claimed to be restored ( not to mention they seemingly never knew or heard of a Mormon ).
" How do I suppose God reveals truth to us "
IMHO, there are many ways, but the primary way that he did was to send his son to tell us directly from his mouth what we needed and should know through his teachings, love, examples,parables,. To be clear I ( Catholic ) believe God was the one who revealed truth to us directly from God )
God bless,
Carl