Today's quotation for thought comes from an old LDS periodical called the Evening and Morning Star. In the July 1832 issue (volume 1, number 2), there was a discussion of "The Excellence of Scripture". On page 19 (listed as page 12 in the transcription linked earlier), there appears a fascinating brief paragraph that reads as follows:
The scriptures discover not only matters of importance, but of the greatest depth and mysteriousness. There are many wonderful things in the law of God, things we may admire, but are never able to comprehend. Such are the eternal purposes and decrees of God, the doctrine of the Trinity, the incarnation of the Son of God, and the manner of the operation of the Spirit of God upon the souls of men, which are all things of great weight and moment for us to understand and believe that they are, and yet may be unsearchable to our reason, as to the particular manner of them. (Evening and Morning Star 1/2 (July 1832): 19)
In other words:
- Scripture teaches "the doctrine of the Trinity" as well as "the incarnation of the Son of God".
- It is "of great weight and moment for us" to believe that these things - namely, the doctrines of the Trinity and the Incarnation - are true.
- Yet these are things that, in terms of the details, are incomprehensible and "unsearchable to our reason".
In short, this early mainstream LDS publication advocated both Trinitarianism and divine incomprehensibility, and it clearly taught the doctrine of the Trinity as being rooted in Scripture and as being important for us to believe. (Alternatively, they could have been using "the doctrine of the Trinity" in such a non-standard sense that I would struggle to call it anything but distortion.)
Thoughts?
And the First Vision doesn't appear to be at conflict with those concepts at this point in Mormon doctrine.
ReplyDeleteThe doctrine of the Trinity is important.
ReplyDeleteIt preserves Jesus as God.
Without Christ as God, then you can orbit the other two and never find the forgiveness of sins, life and salvation.