Where God is

Among the singular claims made by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is that God dwells within our universe, not beyond it.

Perhaps that is hard doctrine for some. But, as Jesus once asked his disciples when some grumbled about His hard doctrine and left, "Wilt thou also go away?"

To believe that heaven exists within our universe does not change the omnipotence or the omniscience of God.

I have begun to read a little book entitled the Kolob Theorom, by LDS author Dr. Lynn Hilton. He goes so far as to assert - and is careful to note that he alone is responsible for his opinion -- that the dwelling place of God, Elohim, is in the center of our galaxy, a region of blazing stars that our probing technology has not been able to penetrate.

Perhaps.

The concept of space, with its billions of stars and its unfathomable distances between them, and even the possibility of infinite worlds, is very exciting to me.

A question

Jesus identified Himself clearly in the New Testament as I Am, which any Jew of the time knew meant Jehovah. Therefore, they took up stones to execute Him for blasphemy.

So a question to believers in the Trinity: How can Jesus be God but not the Heavenly Father if God the Heavenly Father is Jehovah -- I Am -- but not Jesus?

In the image of God

We look like God.

Does that bother you?

It shouldn't.

Genesis says that we are created in His image. The Apostle Paul boldly declared that we are His offspring.

Of course, as mortals, we are but pale shadows of His perfect and eternal image. No man can look upon His glory and live -- unless transfigured, strengthened as it were for the purposes of God. He which is of God, he hath seen the Father ...

Does Genesis refer only to a spiritual image, personality or something non-physical? Not likely. The Hebrew word is tselem, and it is used elsewhere in scripture to refer to the carved idols that pagans made which they believed to be the very likenesses of their gods. It does not have reference to some airy allegory.

The emotions of God

Jesus wept.

So the scriptures say. But He was both man and God.

Does the Father weep?

The scriptures speak often of the anger of God.

And the Prologue to the Quran of Islam also speaks of the poor souls who have "earned the anger" of God.

Is this anger of the same type that we feel when confronted with injustices? If so, it almost seems that God Himself would be the most miserable of beings, cognizant of billions of daily injustices against His children all over the world.

Or is this anger simply a human way of attempting to describe the actions of God when confronted by sin? Man sins, God punishes according to divine law, impartially, like a courtroom judge, without emotional involvement.

Is God without passions, as the creeds of historic Christianity declare? Could such a God, though, truly love His children? Could I run to such a God when I reach heaven, and throw my arms around Him, as He throws His arms around me, and love Him and be loved by Him?

Whence the unknowable God ...

I am currently reading "Lives," the magnum opus of the 1st century Roman writer Plutarch.

In his account of Numa Pompilius, the legendary successor to Romulus, Rome's first ruler, Plutarch speaks of the Greek Pythagoras thusly:

"[He] ... conceived of the first principle of being as transcending sense and passion, invisible and incorrupt and only to be apprehended by abstract intelligence ... all access to God [was] impossible except by the pure act of the intellect."

This doctrine of the Greeks found its way into the apostate Christian church through Greek converts steeped in the tradition, as it had earlier found its way into the Jewish church through the likes of such as Philo, and it reigns supreme today.

How refreshing and daring the declaration of Joseph Smith, supported by John 17, that we can know God, we MUST know God and that we, as Paul declared in Acts, are veritably His offspring. Though we are mortal and flawed and He is immortal and sinless, yet He declares throughout scripture that we are His children.

God, continued

I visited a blog today whose author subscribes to the Athanasian Creed, as do most -- but not all -- Christians. Latter-Day Saints are among those who do not feel bound by this post-Biblical exposition.

It reads thusly:

"Whoever wants to be saved should above all cling to the catholic faith.
Whoever does not guard it whole and inviolable will doubtless perish eternally.
Now this is the catholic faith: We worship one God in trinity and the Trinity in unity, neither confusing the persons nor dividing the divine being.
For the Father is one person, the Son is another, and the Spirit is still another.
But the deity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one, equal in glory, coeternal in majesty.
What the Father is, the Son is, and so is the Holy Spirit.
Uncreated is the Father; uncreated is the Son; uncreated is the Spirit.
The Father is infinite; the Son is infinite; the Holy Spirit is infinite.
Eternal is the Father; eternal is the Son; eternal is the Spirit:
And yet there are not three eternal beings, but one who is eternal;
as there are not three uncreated and unlimited beings, but one who is uncreated and unlimited.
Almighty is the Father; almighty is the Son; almighty is the Spirit:
And yet there are not three almighty beings, but one who is almighty.
Thus the Father is God; the Son is God; the Holy Spirit is God:
And yet there are not three gods, but one God.
Thus the Father is Lord; the Son is Lord; the Holy Spirit is Lord:
And yet there are not three lords, but one Lord.
As Christian truth compels us to acknowledge each distinct person as God and Lord, so catholic religion forbids us to say that there are three gods or lords.
The Father was neither made nor created nor begotten;
the Son was neither made nor created, but was alone begotten of the Father;
the Spirit was neither made nor created, but is proceeding from the Father and the Son.
Thus there is one Father, not three fathers; one Son, not three sons; one Holy Spirit, not three spirits.
And in this Trinity, no one is before or after, greater or less than the other;
but all three persons are in themselves, coeternal and coequal; and so we must worship the Trinity in unity and the one God in three persons.
Whoever wants to be saved should think thus about the Trinity.
It is necessary for eternal salvation that one also faithfully believe that our Lord Jesus Christ became flesh.
For this is the true faith that we believe and confess: That our Lord Jesus Christ, God's Son, is both God and man.
He is God, begotten before all worlds from the being of the Father, and he is man, born in the world from the being of his mother --
existing fully as God, and fully as man with a rational soul and a human body;
equal to the Father in divinity, subordinate to the Father in humanity.
Although he is God and man, he is not divided, but is one Christ.
He is united because God has taken humanity into himself; he does not transform deity into humanity.
He is completely one in the unity of his person, without confusing his natures.
For as the rational soul and body are one person, so the one Christ is God and man.
He suffered death for our salvation.
He descended into hell and rose again from the dead.
He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again to judge the living and the dead.
At his coming all people shall rise bodily to give an account of their own deeds.
Those who have done good will enter eternal life,
those who have done evil will enter eternal fire.
This is the catholic faith.
One cannot be saved without believing this firmly and faithfully."

What, I wonder, is the definition of "being" as described here, and how is it different from a person?

Who is God?

"We believe in God the Eternal Father and in his son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost."

-- First Article of Faith, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

One God in purpose, but three Beings. The Godhead -- a valid, New Testament term.

Or one could imagine drawing a circle around God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost and labeling God that which is within the circle. Both Latter-day Saints and other Christians can do this without violating their respective beliefs about deity.