Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 1338 ｜ DEBATE： Are Mormons Christians？ LDS Apologist vs. Evangelical Christian ｜ Jacob Hansen

00:00:00.400 Are Mormons Christians? Do we believe in the same gospel? Today, I've got Mormon apologist

00:00:06.620 Jacob Hansen on to debate this and so much more. You're going to love this lively debate and

00:00:12.820 discussion on today's episode of Relatable. This episode is brought to you by Kexy Cookies.

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00:00:38.660 off. Keksi.com, code Allie. Jacob, thanks so much for taking the time to join us. If you could just

00:00:53.160 tell everyone who you are and what you do. Yeah. My name is Jacob Hansen. I am a LDS podcaster.

00:00:59.140 I have a YouTube channel called Thoughtful Faith, where I talk about usually kind of worldview

00:01:04.320 apologetics, and I kind of compare the Latter-day Saint worldview with everything from atheism to

00:01:09.980 Islam. Well, I appreciate how willing you are to engage in conversation, especially with those that

00:01:14.820 you disagree with. Not everyone of any background, of any faith, is really willing to do that. And so

00:01:21.860 the fact that you're willing to come here and contend for what you believe or go on different

00:01:26.340 podcasts to debate, I just really appreciate that and respect that a lot. The goal today is for me

00:01:31.180 to clarify what the LDS Church teaches and what they actually believe. I've had people who have

00:01:36.720 left the Mormon Church on the podcast, and so I want to hear from you because you're still an

00:01:40.640 adherent to LDS beliefs, and I thought that you'd be a really good advocate for what you believe.

00:01:46.040 So I just have some questions for you, and I want to go all the way back, if that's okay,

00:01:49.540 to like some history. How did the LDS Church originate?

00:01:54.520 So the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints originated in the 1820s and 30s. It

00:02:01.240 officially was founded in 1830 in New York by Joseph Smith, who through a series of sort of

00:02:08.980 miraculous events that he went through, brought about what we believe is a restoration of the

00:02:14.400 original ecclesiastical sort of structure of Jesus Christ Church on the earth.

00:02:19.580 And so that's kind of where, I mean, it's a very long story, but that is essentially

00:02:24.280 where the church came from.

00:02:25.660 He was in the woods in upstate New York, and he claimed to have been met by God himself

00:02:31.040 and told that the church, all of the churches for 1800 years had been apostate.

00:02:36.180 He says that he prayed to God, what church should I join?

00:02:39.260 And that God said, look, all the churches have become apostate.

00:02:42.160 They're not teaching what they need to teach and reveal to him through golden tablets that

00:02:46.300 he found an angel Moroni led him to, um, that this is the new revelation from God.

00:02:53.600 And is that correct?

00:02:55.160 In, in, in a, in a sense.

00:02:56.560 So, so I would say that to, to kind of give the, the full story.

00:03:00.760 Um, so Joseph Smith was four, around the age of 14, he was trying to decide which church

00:03:05.520 he should join.

00:03:06.240 And so he's looking and like many of us today, you see various denominations and infighting

00:03:11.940 and things like that. And so he was confused about it. And so what he did is he went and read

00:03:16.620 in the Bible, the epistle of James, which says, if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God,

00:03:22.320 who giveth to all men liberally and abradeth not. And so what Joseph did was he went and he prayed

00:03:27.900 in a grove of trees. And what we believe is that he had a theophany, a vision of the Lord,

00:03:34.020 the Father and the Son appeared to him. And they essentially told him that the original church of

00:03:40.740 Jesus Christ was not in its fullness on the earth, okay? Which means that the—and the way that I

00:03:48.360 would understand that and the way that Latter-day Saints understand that isn't the belief that there

00:03:51.460 were no believers between the time of Jesus Christ and 1820, right? I did an entire debate on this

00:03:57.400 with Joe Heschmeyer recently, and it's the idea that the fullness of the ecclesiastical structure

00:04:04.480 of Christ's church was not on the earth. But we do believe that there has always been, since the

00:04:10.140 time of Jesus, sincere believers in Jesus Christ. So when we talk about the church, I think it's

00:04:15.880 important that we distinguish between the church as a body of sincere believers, which we believe

00:04:21.020 has had a continual existence, and the institution, which we believe is necessary to

00:04:27.720 govern those believers, the fullness of the institutional church. And that is what we believe

00:04:32.720 was lost. Okay. Help me clarify, is it just the ecclesia that needed to be restored,

00:04:39.420 just the structure of the church and the authority, my understanding, correct me if I'm wrong,

00:04:44.320 was that there was also a sense in Joseph Smith, at least, that there needed to be a restoration

00:04:48.780 of the gospel, that there needed to be a new revelation and a new message from God, because

00:04:54.200 there are differing beliefs that we have about creation, about even what these kind of essential

00:04:59.780 Christian doctrines and words actually mean. So there was a sense that no denomination or the

00:05:05.520 Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, had the fullness of the understanding

00:05:09.600 of the gospel.

00:05:10.440 Is that correct?

00:05:11.360 It is true in the sense that the fullness of the doctrine, we believe, there had been

00:05:15.280 corruptions of the doctrine over time.

00:05:17.500 For example, one of the main ones that Latter-day Saints believe is that the—so we would consider

00:05:21.840 ourselves, just so you know, we would consider ourselves Christians, but we will not consider

00:05:25.820 ourselves creedal Christians.

00:05:28.140 And by that, I mean the different creeds that came out in the post-biblical era.

00:05:33.420 The Nicene Creed, Apostles' Creed.

00:05:35.100 The Apostles' Creed actually is one that we would embrace.

00:05:37.880 I don't think that there's anything in the Apostles' Creed that we would have an issue with.

00:05:41.200 But when it comes to—and even the Nicene Creed, to be honest—95% of it we would believe wholeheartedly.

00:05:47.420 The area that we take issue with is the consubstantiality of Jesus Christ and the Father.

00:05:53.540 And so where the Latter-day Saint tradition—

00:05:55.640 And consubstantiality, for people who don't know, is that they are the same in substance.

00:06:00.620 And we can get into this later.

00:06:01.760 We don't have to get into the Trinity right now.

00:06:03.440 but I've heard your positions before is that you don't believe the Trinity as many as you would

00:06:07.800 call creedal Christians do. Just to clarify. That would be the primary distinction. So

00:06:13.000 what we believe is, is that once you have an understanding of God that distances his

00:06:21.540 relationship to us, because what the creeds essentially say is that there is this distinction

00:06:25.980 between God and man that is an unbridgeable ontological gap between God and man. And

00:06:32.480 Latter-day Saints believe that when Jesus Christ said that God is our Father and His Father,

00:06:38.240 like we believe that that is quite very much the case, that we are the same species as it were

00:06:43.880 as God. And so what we believe is that what needed to be restored was a proper understanding

00:06:50.580 of who God was and who man was in relationship to God. Now, as far as the gospel,

00:06:57.720 that needing to be restored it depends what someone means by the gospel you know latter-day

00:07:03.280 saints um in our um in our beliefs i mean joseph smith himself said that the fundamental principles

00:07:10.180 of our religion are the testimony of the apostles and prophets concerning jesus christ that he died

00:07:16.460 was buried rose again the third day and ascended to heaven and all other things which pertain to

00:07:22.580 our religion are only appendages to it. So my question is, because that does sound so similar

00:07:28.640 to what a Catholic or a Protestant would say is the gospel. And many people in the 19th century,

00:07:34.100 I mean, there had already been a great awakening and there was this unleashing of the gospel after

00:07:38.740 the Protestant Reformation and into the Americas, people believed that gospel. And there were a lot

00:07:44.560 of people preaching that gospel, not just some people, but a lot of people preaching the gospel.

00:07:48.780 There were certainly Baptist churches who were preaching that.

00:07:51.540 And so he says that he heard from God that the church, though, was basically apostate.

00:07:56.780 Not that there were no believers, but that no one denomination got it right, and that

00:08:01.280 he was going to get it right because he had the revelation from God.

00:08:04.180 But if it's essentially the same gospel, which is what he argued and what you're arguing,

00:08:08.400 then by what definition was the church apostate?

00:08:11.260 So we would say that what was missing was the priesthood authority and keys that were

00:08:14.900 given to Peter.

00:08:16.220 So we believe, in a similar way to what Catholics believe, that there were keys of authority

00:08:21.380 that were given to Peter to effectuate the ordinances of salvation as a means by which

00:08:27.140 we make covenants with our Father in heaven.

00:08:29.640 And so you don't have the fullness of the church without the fullness of the priesthood

00:08:35.020 that is necessary to govern that institution.

00:08:38.580 And we believe that was what needed to be restored.

00:08:40.780 Now, that is one aspect of the restoration.

00:08:42.740 There also are other things that we would say were restored as well as far as truth, specifically probably the most important one is our understanding of who God is and who humanity is in relationship to God and our potential as human beings.

00:08:58.860 Yeah. And that's something I really want to get into, because that's a really interesting

00:09:01.980 distinction. So would an LDS person, would you say that the church that I, as a Baptist,

00:09:10.000 as a Protestant or Catholics, we're still a part of the apostate church today? You would say that

00:09:14.960 I don't have the fullness of truth, that I don't understand the succession of apostolic authority

00:09:20.880 that the Mormon church has? What we would say, we have a very different entire framework around

00:09:26.440 all of this, okay? The fullness of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or the fullness

00:09:32.420 of the Church of Jesus Christ, is when you have both the body of sincere believers and the fullness

00:09:38.240 of the institution that governs those believers. We would believe that you are a full, sincere

00:09:42.900 believer in Jesus Christ, and we believe that you can reach a potential of relationship with Jesus

00:09:47.300 Christ through that sincere belief that you have. Indeed, we believe that you do.

00:09:51.840 What does that mean that I could reach a potential of a relationship with God through Jesus Christ?

00:09:57.260 So this is one of the big differences maybe between the two positions that we have.

00:10:02.540 So there's sort of a binary heaven and hell.

00:10:04.420 So you would, for instance, look at a Latter-day Saint and say that you're not saved.

00:10:08.020 If we follow sort of the LDS view that the eternity we have in store for us is hell.

00:10:13.700 um we would actually say that because we have this many people have heard of this sort of a

00:10:19.580 an idea of heaven more like a spectrum than a binary is a way to think of it there's three

00:10:24.600 celestial kingdoms and then there's hell right well we would call it to there's quite a bit to

00:10:29.880 get into that but there is what we would say is that there is outer darkness those are people

00:10:33.320 who don't want any light at all those people just reject the light who qualifies um those who are

00:10:39.440 basically the way I've heard it put is that it's like someone who sees the sun and the light and

00:10:46.600 like doesn't want it it's like you have a perfect knowledge of God and you hate God all the same

00:10:52.520 with a perfect knowledge of who he is are there any concrete qualifications like I mean what

00:10:59.340 qualifies someone is bad enough to go to outer darkness it's like my belief is that it's all 1.00

00:11:05.260 non-Christians. You know, Acts 4.12 says, there's no other name in heaven or earth by which one 1.00

00:11:11.560 must be saved. Jesus says, John 14.6, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to

00:11:16.200 the Father except through me. And so it's like, that's the distinction, but it doesn't sound like

00:11:21.700 you're drawing the distinction between Christians or non-Christians, those who are in Christ and

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00:12:27.900 you're talking about a level of bad that qualifies you to get sent to the outer darkness but you

00:12:39.260 don't have any examples of what that could be i would say well when it comes to the specific

00:12:43.260 examples like i don't judge individual people i leave that to god ultimately like i don't want

00:12:48.100 to make a judgment call on who it is the person that goes to hell but the analogy that i would

00:12:51.900 use is a person who has a full knowledge of god and doesn't want him maybe judas we could use

00:12:56.460 Judas is an example, I think might qualify as a son of perdition in our tradition. But 0.95

00:13:01.360 the idea here is where maybe you look at me and think that, Latter-day Saint, you're going to 0.74

00:13:06.440 hell, you're going to suffer in hell unless you change your ways. I would say that, or the way

00:13:12.580 that our faith views things, is that there are different levels of light that people are willing

00:13:16.960 to accept, right? And the fullness of the light is to come into a full covenant relationship with

00:13:23.000 Jesus Christ through his church, through the ordinances that put you into a covenant relationship

00:13:29.780 with Jesus Christ. So a person can have a very deep and meaningful relationship with Jesus Christ

00:13:35.280 and in the next life experience great joy and happiness, maybe even the heaven that you kind

00:13:40.440 of imagine it to be, where what we would say is that if you want a fullness, to reach the fullness

00:13:47.180 of your own potential, that you would need to enter into a covenant relationship with Jesus Christ

00:13:52.020 because only through him can we reach the fullness of our potential.

00:13:56.080 Okay, can you help me understand exactly what those ordinances are?

00:14:01.540 Because I think you would agree, like at least semantically, you would say Jesus died for our sins

00:14:07.500 and that his sacrifice on the cross paid for our sins so that we could be reconciled to God.

00:14:12.340 I've heard those in the LDS church say that.

00:14:14.940 And when I read that, like I read Ephesians 2, for example,

00:14:18.120 by grace through faith you have been saved, and this is not your own doing.

00:14:21.620 It is a gift of God, not a result of work, so that no one can boast.

00:14:25.960 And that we were dead in sin, we were made alive in Christ, and that we were reconciled

00:14:29.700 to God.

00:14:30.200 Right there, we have the fullness of relationship with God, not through any particular denomination

00:14:35.100 or any particular tradition, but because of the belief that we have in Christ's sacrifice.

00:14:39.980 That was the fullness of everything that I needed to be qualified for a relationship

00:14:44.860 with God and access to God.

00:14:46.680 But it sounds like you're saying there's something else too, that Christ's sacrifice

00:14:50.880 wasn't quite enough, that you also need to enter into ordinances, your word, to have the fullness

00:14:56.820 of a relationship with God in heaven. So tell me what those ordinances are and why they have to be

00:15:03.900 added to Jesus's sacrifice. So I'd start it like this. I use this analogy to understand kind of

00:15:09.200 the way that we would view salvation and specifically where the ordinances kind of fit

00:15:12.860 into that. The first thing is, I would say that imagine that we're all in a car and this car is

00:15:18.960 on a cliff and we being dumb teenagers decided to drive our car around the cliff. And our parents 0.53

00:15:24.280 told us not to, it's our fault. And the brakes all of a sudden go out and our car is heading

00:15:28.540 downhill towards the cliff. It's our fault. Like we're heading towards the cliff. There's nothing

00:15:33.700 we can do to save ourselves. We're going to go off that cliff. And then Jesus shows up with a

00:15:38.920 helicopter and he reaches his hand out and he says, take my hand and I'll get you out of this mess.

00:15:45.060 right and now what we would say is that there involves a choice there you have to choose jesus

00:15:51.740 christ you have to take his hand and there's a question well what does that look like what does

00:15:56.660 it look like for us to accept the gift that jesus would give to us because the other alternative is

00:16:02.320 and i know that certain protestant models have this it's that jesus reaches into the car he

00:16:06.840 grabs certain people out of the car as his elect and then he puts them in the helicopter he flies

00:16:10.820 away with them he leaves the other people to go off the cliff because he's sovereign and it's like

00:16:14.500 well, he gets to pick who he wants to save, and the other's going to go off the cliff.

00:16:18.040 Our view is different. Our view is that we have to do something to reach up to take his hand.

00:16:23.420 And what I would base that on is actually what happened at Pentecost. At Pentecost in Acts 2,

00:16:35.680 Peter is preaching to the people, and they feel the Spirit of the Lord. In verse 37, it says,

00:16:42.360 Now, when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart and said unto Peter and to the rest

00:16:47.460 of the apostles, men and brethren, what shall we do? So these are people that believe they want

00:16:54.100 to follow Jesus Christ, but now they're asking, well, what do we need to do? And what Peter says,

00:16:59.000 he says, repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of

00:17:05.020 sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. So our view is, is that our repenting,

00:17:11.620 being baptized, which is where we make this covenant with Christ, opens us up to receive

00:17:17.620 the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands by those who have authority.

00:17:21.320 And then basically at that point, we're in a covenant relationship.

00:17:24.620 We've taken his hand.

00:17:25.420 And the only question is, are we going to hold on?

00:17:27.540 Are we going to continue to place our faith in Jesus Christ and seek to follow him? 0.56

00:17:31.580 Okay, I have a couple of things on that, because I don't want to quibble about Arminianism

00:17:35.800 versus Calvinism with you, because I think our differences are a little bit bigger and

00:17:39.800 more fundamental.

00:17:40.480 But I will say, yes, according to Ephesians 2, we are dead in the trespasses and sins

00:17:45.520 in which we once walked.

00:17:47.140 We follow the prince of the power of the air, which is now at work in the sons of disobedience.

00:17:51.000 That's what Ephesians 2 says, that we are spiritually dead.

00:17:53.960 Dead people can't reach.

00:17:55.400 Dead people can't clean themselves up.

00:17:57.320 Dead people can't say, please, God, help us.

00:17:59.320 A dead person has to be revived.

00:18:01.300 And so, yes, I do believe that we contribute nothing to our salvation.

00:18:04.820 I just want to clarify my stance there.

00:18:06.380 But my further question for you is what you've described, there are a lot of Arminians that

00:18:13.260 would believe that, maybe a lot of Protestants who would believe, yes, there is part of a

00:18:18.140 choice there that we reach out.

00:18:19.520 What you haven't clarified for me is what are the Latter-day Saints ordinances that

00:18:25.800 are required for us to have the fullness of the relationship with God?

00:18:30.040 Because there are a lot of Christians who are not LDS, who have done exactly what you

00:18:35.280 said.

00:18:35.480 They follow Christ.

00:18:36.180 They were repented, they were baptized, they're filled with the Holy Spirit.

00:18:39.500 But according to what you just said, they don't have the fullness of the ordinances,

00:18:43.340 so they don't have a fullness of a relationship with God, according to your theology, I think.

00:18:47.820 Well, in our theology, all of the ordinances have to be done through the priesthood.

00:18:54.220 So what are the ordinances that is required for someone to have the fullness of their

00:18:59.440 relationship with God, according to Mormonism?

00:19:00.960 So our fourth article of faith says,

00:19:04.360 The first principles and ordinances of the gospel are first, faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, second, repentance, third, baptism by immersion for the remission of sins, like Peter said, fourth, the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands.

00:19:18.360 I may have misquoted a little bit there, but it's essentially that, right?

00:19:21.320 So these are the things that we do that bring us into a relationship with Jesus Christ.

00:19:24.680 Now, these are what we would refer to as the ordinances of salvation.

00:19:28.000 These are the things that basically get us out of this mess.

00:19:30.860 Now, within the Christian world, there's sort of this notion of salvation versus sanctification, right?

00:19:35.940 That sanctification is something that happens over time, if I'm not mistaken, or at least some traditions do.

00:19:40.280 By Christian world, you're talking about my world.

00:19:41.600 Yeah.

00:19:41.980 Well, I mean, when I'm talking about the Christian world, I'm talking about the creedal Christian world.

00:19:46.400 Let's put it that way.

00:19:47.540 Because I would consider myself a Christian, just not a creedal Christian.

00:19:50.580 And that's the way that Latter-day Saints tend to view themselves.

00:19:53.500 So, yes, I would say that this already is something within Christian thought, that after

00:20:00.220 someone has been saved, that there is a process of sanctification that people go through throughout

00:20:05.800 their lives to be made more perfect, right?

00:20:08.340 To become what God wants them to be, right?

00:20:12.360 And so we would have those—we actually have ordinances, and this is what our ordinances

00:20:16.620 that are in the temple are about.

00:20:18.400 They're sort of like the second half, right?

00:20:20.400 And these are things such as the endowment is something that we have.

00:20:26.880 We have the celestial marriage where people can be sealed to their families for eternity.

00:20:32.920 And these are things that help us to reach the fullness of our potential in Christ is the way that we view it. 0.64

00:20:38.100 Okay, so everything that you listed before, like the five things that you must do to be saved, are all things that happen in a Baptist church. 0.56

00:20:44.900 But you're not Baptist.

00:20:46.900 So, like, what is the distinction there?

00:20:49.620 Because according to you, like I'm a Baptist and, you know, I've done all of those things and yet I won't go to the fullness, the highest celestial kingdom and have that relationship with God if I don't enter the LDS church.

00:21:03.680 So I would say that the idea here is priesthood authority.

00:21:07.600 It's that the ordinances of the priesthood have to be administered by those who have the authority to then minister those.

00:21:15.780 And that's only LDS.

00:21:17.240 That is something that the Lord always in his original church, it wasn't like you could go and just be baptized by anyone.

00:21:25.680 There were specific people.

00:21:27.180 There's a reason, for example, that Jesus went to John the Baptist.

00:21:30.260 And so there is an idea of an ecclesiastical structure that governs the covenants that people make with Jesus Christ.

00:21:36.560 So it's not just people, you know, in a Protestant denomination that are like, hey, well, my Jesus allows for gay marriage and, you know, lesbian preachers.

00:21:43.820 So there's an idea, and it's very similar to what Catholics have.

00:21:49.080 Our similarities with Catholics are very strong in the sense that we believe in an ecclesiastical structure and priesthood that governs the ordinances that enable us to enter into the fullness of covenant relationship with Jesus Christ.

00:22:05.700 And what qualifies someone?

00:22:08.980 Please, correct my vocabulary if I'm not saying this correctly.

00:22:11.840 So there's three levels of heavens.

00:22:15.680 There's the outer darkness.

00:22:16.940 Sons of perdition go there.

00:22:18.320 We don't know who. 0.98

00:22:19.580 Bad, really bad people.

00:22:20.900 Whatever really bad, whatever really bad means.

00:22:23.220 Judas, let's say Judas.

00:22:24.240 Okay, I think that's a little, that's confusing.

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00:23:35.380 okay so there's three levels of heaven what are most non-lgs people like what are they going to

00:23:42.840 go to who qualifies for what so we would generally say that that again and i'm kind of generalizing 0.64

00:23:48.760 here think of it in terms of light we use an analogy of sun moon and stars right so the stars

00:23:54.920 have light but it's a lesser light than what one could could enjoy the moon has a different level

00:24:01.660 okay, of light that a person could enjoy. And then the sun is kind of the fullness of light,

00:24:08.340 right? And so what we would view is that the people in the lowest kingdom of glory are basically

00:24:12.940 your normal kind of bad person. They just aren't people that, you know, want to do what's right.

00:24:20.100 These are—and they will only enjoy that which they are willing to receive.

00:24:25.360 In the middle is sort of what we would call like the good people that—but that aren't willing for

00:24:29.660 one reason or another to embrace the fullness of Jesus Christ, to accept his sacrifice into their

00:24:33.600 life and enter into covenant relationship. But they're kind of good? What was that?

00:24:37.380 They're kind of good people? I would say, well, no, I'd say they might be very good people,

00:24:40.880 but just because you're a very good person doesn't mean that you've necessarily decided to accept

00:24:44.400 your cross and bear what Jesus Christ wants to give you. The simplest way to put it is this,

00:24:50.860 you will get eternally what you really want. And if you don't want Jesus Christ,

00:24:56.720 then you'll sell yourself short of your potential. And so we don't believe that God will take

00:25:02.660 someone who's lived a good life as a Latter-day Saint, served their neighbors, raised a good

00:25:07.340 family, and then internally torture them in hell for that decision. We believe that they're going

00:25:13.460 to be able to retain whoever they are, whether they're within our church or without, that they're

00:25:17.820 going to be able to retain whatever light and goodness that they are willing to accept, God will

00:25:23.360 give them, but there's a fullness. And that fullness of light that a person will be enabled

00:25:30.380 to enjoy, it's all predicated on them and their willingness to follow Jesus. Because the path

00:25:36.200 that Jesus is calling us to, as you would know, is not an easy path. But it has to go through the

00:25:42.740 LDS church to get that fullness of light in eternity. When you say the church, I would say

00:25:48.200 It has to go through the priesthood structure that Christ has organized on earth.

00:25:52.720 Is there any other sect out there that has the priesthood ordinance?

00:25:56.180 The fullness of the priesthood, no.

00:25:57.860 Okay, so it is just through the LDS Church.

00:26:00.460 Well, it would be through the fullness of the priesthood that has been restored in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

00:26:05.420 Do Baptists have that or Presbyterians or the Catholics?

00:26:07.540 No, those were churches ultimately that were not started fundamentally by God.

00:26:12.260 they broke away from the Roman Catholic Church, started their own movements, and basically denied

00:26:18.740 even the need for priesthood structure and authority. And so these were churches that

00:26:23.440 fundamentally were organized by men. But you don't believe that Catholics have the right 1.00

00:26:29.080 apostolic succession either? See, the Catholics, and that was if my whole debate with Joe Heschmeier

00:26:33.760 was about that, is if they do. I believe that the Catholic Church is the remnants of the original 0.89

00:26:38.760 Church, along with the Orthodox, by the way, who don't have the fullness of that authority

00:26:44.180 because the apostolic authority that actually belonged to the original apostles wasn't passed

00:26:50.080 on into those traditions.

00:26:52.400 So that is a view that we have.

00:26:52.980 So someone does have to go through LDS Church in order to reach the highest level of heaven

00:26:58.960 according to your theology.

00:27:00.340 To reach the fullness of their potential, they have to have a covenant relationship

00:27:03.200 with jesus christ and that and to do that on earth requires that you make that covenant through

00:27:09.960 the priesthood ordinance which only lds church has right correct okay so yes yes you have to go

00:27:15.460 through the lds church to get to the highest form of heaven so it's not enough for someone to believe

00:27:20.040 by grace through faith in jesus's death burial and resurrection for the forgiveness and remission of

00:27:24.280 their sins and reconciliation to god that's not quite enough to get you there to have fullness

00:27:28.860 of relationship with God.

00:27:30.140 It's not that, as Scripture says, Jesus gives us boldness and access confidently to go before

00:27:35.900 the throne of God.

00:27:36.600 That's not enough, according to Mormon theology.

00:27:38.760 It is also going through the Mormon Church.

00:27:40.360 Well, I would say that those are necessary but not sufficient conditions, because as 0.99

00:27:43.360 Jesus said to Nicodemus, except a man be born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the

00:27:48.580 kingdom of God. 0.96

00:27:49.300 So we believe that ordinance, at least at the very minimum, Catholics would hold to

00:27:54.020 this view as well, that baptism is a necessary ordinance to enter the kingdom of God. God,

00:28:00.180 in our view, is trying to organize his— But Catholics aren't going to the full 0.76

00:28:03.060 kingdom of God, according to your theology. But that's simply because they don't have 0.99

00:28:06.500 the fullness of the priesthood authority, because they don't have the apostolic keys.

00:28:09.460 So I'm just trying to understand the formula, because it's not just faith and baptism,

00:28:13.680 but it's also faith, baptism, the fullness of the ordinances, which is only found in the LDS

00:28:18.240 Church. So that's what I want to understand is, like, the gospel or the plan of salvation according

00:28:23.780 to the Mormon Church. It's not just grace, faith, which I believe, or Catholics believe, grace,

00:28:29.520 faith, baptism, but it is grace, faith, baptism, plus going through the Mormon Church.

00:28:35.300 You have to go through the priesthood. The priesthood authority has to be there.

00:28:38.700 Christ very clearly, in the original church that was organized in the first century,

00:28:44.480 had authorized people that were authorized to do certain things within that structure.

00:28:51.300 There were apostles and prophets, and there were various people that were ordained under their hand

00:28:57.160 to administer the baptism, for example, to the believers.

00:29:03.540 So if you believe in a kingdom of God that is actually organized as a kingdom,

00:29:08.880 it will have the structure of a kingdom and that is largely what we believe has been restored

00:29:15.260 to the earth uh and it's it's in many ways very very similar to what what the catholics have

00:29:21.820 where they believe that there is no salvation outside of the catholic church and they have

00:29:25.700 that and they believe that because when you go back and you follow the apostolic tradition back

00:29:29.780 that seems to be the sort of structure that existed in the early church there was no

00:29:33.360 anyone could just baptize anyone. Well, I'm not a Catholic, and so I could debate with Catholics

00:29:39.700 about that, but I'm more interested in what you believe and why you believe it. So I'm glad that

00:29:44.560 we clarified that. I would love to get down to, which you referenced earlier, like who God is

00:29:50.700 in accordance with LDS theology and specifically who Jesus is. Because you, Joseph Smith, we have

00:29:57.000 a lot of the same language. But as far as I understand, the origin story of Jesus is different

00:30:02.940 within Christianity than in Mormonism.

00:30:04.500 So can you tell us the origin story of Jesus

00:30:06.960 according to your theology?

00:30:08.220 So I would say that Jesus has,

00:30:11.680 Jesus is the only begotten of the Father.

00:30:16.120 And that means that in some sense,

00:30:17.820 he has his source and origin in the Father.

00:30:19.720 I would actually refer to St. Basil, put it interesting.

00:30:24.680 He said, since the Son's origin is from the Father,

00:30:28.440 in this respect, the Father is greater as cause and origin.

00:30:31.240 This is why the Lord says, my father is greater than I. Indeed, what else does the word father

00:30:36.080 signify unless being the cause and origin of that which is begotten of him? So in some sense,

00:30:43.100 the father is the source and origin of the son, but within our theology, there isn't a lot of

00:30:49.080 detail besides essentially the same kind of idea that someone like Basil has, that the father is

00:30:57.780 the, he is the father of the son, but the son is fully divine. So the way I would make sense of

00:31:03.800 this, and this is me, this is kind of, there are certain things that Latter-day Saints sort of have

00:31:07.140 revealed and that are in our canon of scripture. And then there's some things that we're doing

00:31:10.800 theology just like anyone else does. My personal take on it is that the father, son, and the Holy

00:31:16.380 Spirit have always dwelt into eternity past in a fullness of loving relationship with one another.

00:31:21.920 But not as one, so not a trinity.

00:31:23.720 Well, not as one in the sense that they are the same person or being.

00:31:29.240 Yeah.

00:31:29.540 Well, we believe in three persons, one being, you know, the eternal Godhead, but you do

00:31:36.440 believe in three separate beings who are simply in communion with one another.

00:31:40.060 Correct.

00:31:40.660 But I would put it more that we believe that they are three persons who share one nature,

00:31:45.720 right?

00:31:46.120 That they all share the fullness of the divine nature, just like we're two people, but we

00:31:50.760 both share the fullness of human nature, like we are both fully human beings. And so it doesn't

00:31:56.880 make—I don't have any issue with the idea of two persons that share the same nature. But when

00:32:01.240 people begin to say that you have two persons, me and you, but we share the same being, I have a

00:32:05.840 hard time with that because it seems to me that what makes you your own person is to have your

00:32:11.820 own being. So I—and I mean this, I'm very open to being convinced of the Trinitarian formulation

00:32:19.020 of God. I genuinely don't know what people even mean when they say that you have two persons that

00:32:24.320 share the same being. I always thought that having your own being is what made you your own person.

00:32:29.120 How do y'all interpret John 1, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,

00:32:33.580 and the Word was God? He was in the beginning with God. So that's a lot of prepositions there.

00:32:40.380 But yeah, the Word was God, and obviously we go on in the rest of John 1, we're introduced to

00:32:46.660 Jesus at the beginning of John's gospel. So how do y'all interpret that? The Word was God.

00:32:52.300 So I would probably actually agree with Dr. James White, who I just recently had a debate with.

00:32:57.460 He had a discussion with Dale Tuggy or a debate, and he said,

00:33:00.940 in John 1 you have, and the Word was God. What is being said is that the Word is as to his nature

00:33:08.140 deity. The Logos, or Jesus, has eternally been deity. So if we break down the verse, it's,

00:33:15.320 In the beginning was the Word, right? Jesus. So, in the beginning was Jesus. And Jesus was with God. And we would say in that instance, God is referring to the Father. So, it's in the beginning was Jesus. And Jesus was with the Father. And the Word was God.

00:33:32.400 Now, we can't say, and Jesus was the Father, because obviously that would be modalism, and Jesus was fully divine.

00:33:39.520 So the way I would look at John 1-1 to interpret it is, in the beginning was Jesus, and Jesus was with the Father, and Jesus was fully divine.

00:33:47.760 That is the way that I would, and I believe Latter-day Saints would view that.

00:33:51.320 And we do believe that Jesus was fully divine.

00:33:53.380 I wonder why it doesn't say that.

00:33:55.920 Well, the word God can be used in different ways.

00:34:01.560 So, for example, if it was, like, I guess I would want to understand how do you understand

00:34:06.540 that verse if that isn't it?

00:34:07.680 I'm open to a different interpretation.

00:34:08.900 How do you interpret when Jesus says, I and the Father are one?

00:34:12.100 In the same way that he does in John 17.

00:34:14.400 In John 17, he explains in what way is one with the Father, and he says that he desires

00:34:18.900 that his disciples will be one with him in the same way that he is one with the Father.

00:34:24.620 As you know, in the Bible, it talks about husband and wife, right?

00:34:30.340 they'll become one flesh. Oneness can refer to a type of indwelling relationship between two

00:34:36.920 totally separate individuals. And so I would see that it seems that in scripture, that's the way

00:34:41.900 that it's being used because, you know, do you think that when Jesus invites his disciples to

00:34:47.700 become one with him in the same way that he is one with the father, I mean, I wouldn't think

00:34:52.480 that that means that they're going to be the same being as Jesus. So you believe in community and

00:34:57.320 communion in full agreement, kind of co-workers working together, not one as in he is part of

00:35:04.160 the Godhead. Just to clarify. I would say that I don't understand what it means to say that there

00:35:09.180 is one as you can be while still being your own person. If you and I are— Yeah, we do believe

00:35:15.200 in three persons. Yeah, and I guess— One God. In what sense can three persons be one? I just

00:35:20.720 don't understand that. I think that the Trinity is a bit mysterious and has been for a long time.

00:35:24.540 Almost every single metaphor or analogy for the Trinity falls apart because we end up

00:35:29.820 kind of with polytheism.

00:35:33.320 We end up creating these three divine beings, which is not what we believe, of course, in

00:35:37.140 the beginning.

00:35:38.120 Like we read God say, like the Lord, your God is one.

00:35:42.160 It's a monotheistic religion.

00:35:44.760 And of course, we read in Hebrews 13, 8, that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today

00:35:48.520 and forever.

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00:36:45.180 i think according to the mormon belief is that jesus was actually conceived and and born right

00:36:54.900 and that he was before he actually came to earth before he was actually incarnate emmanuel that he

00:37:02.360 actually had kind of a human origin story and then attained that divinity is that correct

00:37:08.360 i wouldn't hold to that view um there are some latter-day saints who do um but there's nothing

00:37:14.500 in our canon of scripture that suggests that in fact um the the idea in our canon of scripture

00:37:20.700 like in doctrine and covenants 20 uh 17 it says by these things we know that there is a god in

00:37:26.880 heaven who is infinite and eternal from everlasting to everlasting the same unchangeable god um so

00:37:34.840 there is i mean you have to recognize just as there are discussions within christianity about

00:37:39.780 differing theology over the same canon of scripture. Amongst Latter-day Saints, you can

00:37:44.620 get different views. But the idea that, like, for example, the notion of spiritual birth

00:37:50.300 is something that is, you know, it's widely discussed amongst Latter-day Saints.

00:37:56.600 But even amongst Christian, there's a challenge when you deal with Jesus Christ being begotten

00:38:02.360 of the Father. Like, that's a Christian teaching. And so, does that mean that Jesus ultimately has

00:38:09.260 his like is his origin from the father like and what does what does that mean so it isn't just a

00:38:15.640 latter-day saint issue to sort of have to deal with who god or or in what sense is jesus begotten

00:38:24.200 of the father and so just as christians have disagreements over that latter-day saints are

00:38:28.940 kind of all part of that same discussion there seems to be a little bit of a different origin

00:38:32.760 story, though, that both Jesus and Satan were created in eternity past, or maybe you wouldn't

00:38:39.380 use that phrase, but they were created in their form a long time ago, that Satan and Jesus were

00:38:45.620 brothers, that we also, all of humankind, are brothers and sisters of Satan and Jesus. Is that 0.52

00:38:51.080 correct? I would say that Jesus and Satan are brother and sister in the same way that you and

00:38:56.860 Nancy Pelosi or sisters. Like it's not in a meaningful sense. No, but if, if, if, as it says,

00:39:04.440 if we are children of God, right. And if in the Bible, it talks about this idea of,

00:39:14.320 for example, the sons of God is something that it talks about in the old Testament. For example,

00:39:20.740 in Job 1, it says that the sons of God approach God and Satan was among them, right? So, okay,

00:39:29.680 Satan is one of the sons of God and Jesus is called the son of God. So isn't there some sense

00:39:36.580 in which there's some relationship there? I'm not sure that that's what that means. You said

00:39:40.760 the sons of God and Satan was among them. It doesn't necessarily say that Satan was a son of

00:39:45.440 God. How do you square that with the origin story that we read in scripture, that Satan was a fallen

00:39:49.820 angel, that he was the day star, that he was the morning star. Jesus even says that he saw Satan

00:39:54.340 fall like lightning from the sky, that he led, you know, his own army of rebellious angels who

00:40:00.220 were demons in hell. And we don't read that he was this being that was a brother to Jesus.

00:40:07.740 And so how does Mormonism square that with what we read in scripture and Isaiah?

00:40:12.160 Well, angels, for example, you guys would view angels as a totally different species from human

00:40:17.960 beings as some totally different creature. We don't hold to that sort of view. We believe that

00:40:22.760 angels are also the same species as human beings. Yeah, scripture says that angels long to see what

00:40:30.020 we see, that they long to know what we know. And so there does seem to be a distinction there.

00:40:35.400 There is a distinction, absolutely, in the sense that we are mortal and we're in this life and

00:40:39.100 we're participating in the experience that we have. Well, not currently. Perhaps they're

00:40:44.460 pre-embodied beings or they're post-embodied beings that are no longer embodied. But we don't

00:40:51.780 make this distinction between that there's all these different sort of species of creatures

00:40:57.420 that are out there. We believe that we are all human beings, angels, even God, that we are all

00:41:07.700 children of God is ultimately what it says. Okay, wait, even God, what do you mean?

00:41:10.820 So we believe—here's a real radical Latter-day Saint doctrine.

00:41:16.900 It is that we are all, every single person is a child of God, that you, Ali, have a spark

00:41:22.940 of divinity within you, within your spirit.

00:41:25.200 Okay.

00:41:26.040 And we would look at, for example, you know, in Acts 17, Paul is talking to the pagans,

00:41:32.300 and he says that God hath made of one blood all nations, of men to dwell on the earth

00:41:40.300 or to dwell on all the face of the earth for we are also his genus do you know the word genus

00:41:49.860 means in greek are you familiar with that type exactly kind or type so if we were to look at

00:41:56.480 this it says that we are also his kind or type genus that's the word that paul uses

00:42:03.980 Ephesians 4, he says, there is one God who is the father of all. In Genesis, right? We're made in

00:42:13.140 God's image and likeness, right? Everyone knows that. But what does that mean to be in God's

00:42:18.060 image and likeness? Well, in Genesis 5, 3, Adam has children. And it says, when Adam had lived

00:42:24.060 130 years, he had a son in his own likeness and in his own image. So when we look at this idea

00:42:32.420 of image and likeness in the context of the book of Genesis itself, it's talking about a relationship

00:42:37.780 like the relationship between a parent and a child quite explicitly. And so when I look at the

00:42:46.400 overall message of scripture, like Jesus, for example, in John 20, he says,

00:42:51.740 I ascend to my father and your father. If we both have the same father, that would seem to be some

00:42:59.620 sort of a sibling relationship and he says and to my god and to your god so when jesus talks about

00:43:05.180 his relationship to the father and our relationship to the father he uses the same terminology

00:43:09.840 that of a father and so i'm not saying that these are these prove anything i'm kind of confused with

00:43:16.500 what that means with satan why does that make satan jesus brother if satan is one of the fallen

00:43:23.060 angels, if he's one of the sons of God—

00:43:26.640 And in your belief, angels are pre- or post-embodied beings.

00:43:28.920 They're humans who ascended to angel-like status or will be humans one day?

00:43:37.720 Yes, something like that.

00:43:38.800 Something to that effect.

00:43:39.900 I would say that there's nothing in the Bible that suggests that they're of a different

00:43:46.480 genus.

00:43:47.140 In fact, when we look at the explicit scriptures, it seems to say, I mean, Paul quite literally says that we are of, speaking of God, his genus.

00:43:57.980 And so I think that a lot of the post-biblical sort of tradition has come up with interpretations around scripture that create these sort of ontological gaps that I don't see in the Bible itself.

00:44:11.880 How do you interpret John 44 when we read that God is spirit or like in 1 Timothy 1.17 when God is described as immortal and invisible or Colossians 1.17 that Jesus is the image of the invisible God?

00:44:27.280 Yeah.

00:44:27.540 Well, one, I would say that I am spirit fundamentally.

00:44:31.280 Like I'm not fundamentally my body.

00:44:34.480 So I would see that.

00:44:36.640 And then number two.

00:44:37.700 I think that we would probably quibble over that or not even quibble.

00:44:40.800 I think that we would disagree with that, that you are body and spirit, that they are inextricably—maybe not inextricably, but they are intertwined, and that that is a key part of our identity.

00:44:49.940 So, again, I don't think that—it's kind of—you're kind of almost equating humans to God or that we can ascend to God-like status.

00:44:58.520 And is that a belief that the LDS Church has?

00:45:01.520 Well, I would—again, I would go back to the earliest Christians on that subject.

00:45:06.900 Um, Athanasius, for example, one of the early church fathers said that God became man so

00:45:12.460 that man might become God.

00:45:14.940 Cyprian of Carthage says what man is Christ was willing to be so that man may also be

00:45:22.400 what Christ is.

00:45:24.180 Irenaeus said our Lord Jesus Christ through his transcendent love became what we are so

00:45:28.960 that he might bring us to be even what he himself is.

00:45:34.000 There's also, now, the Church actually, we get a lot of sort of caricatures around our

00:45:40.200 doctrine of theosis, and the Church released a statement that said, and I thought they

00:45:44.780 summed it up well, it said,

00:45:45.880 Latter-day Saints believe that God wants us to become like Him, but this teaching is often

00:45:51.560 misrepresented by those who caricature the faith.

00:45:54.620 The Latter-day Saint belief is no different than the biblical teaching in Romans 8, 16,

00:46:00.200 and 17 which states the spirit beareth witness with our spirit that we are children of god and

00:46:06.540 if children then heirs heirs of god and joint heirs with christ if it so be that we suffer with him

00:46:13.620 that we may also be glorified together and then it goes on to say through following christ oh sorry

00:46:20.760 just finished real quick this is one last line uh through following christ teachings latter-day

00:46:25.320 saints believe all people can become, as Peter, 2 Peter 1.4 says, partakers of the divine nature.

00:46:33.460 Okay, I don't really understand how Romans 8 there, which is a wonderful chapter,

00:46:39.220 agrees with the assertion that we can ascend to God-like status. And you listed all of those

00:46:44.960 church fathers, I have no problem disagreeing with church fathers. I would have to see the

00:46:50.020 scripture to back up the idea. Yes, I agree with Romans 8, that we are heirs with Christ,

00:46:54.660 that we have been bought with a price, which, by the way, I would say that Mormonism adds to that, 0.88

00:47:00.880 that I'm not really a total heir with Christ because I haven't gone through the Mormon church

00:47:05.940 because I don't have all of the ordinances and the authority.

00:47:08.440 So I would actually say that your doctrines deny that that is sufficient to be reconciled to God

00:47:13.820 and to become a friend with God.

00:47:15.240 You're welcome to come and get baptized.

00:47:16.980 Yeah, see, that is the necessary thing.

00:47:18.920 I've actually already been baptized, but I know that's not enough for the gospel 0.97

00:47:22.720 that the Mormon church puts forth.

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00:48:24.580 But this idea that we ascend to God-likeness, I don't actually see in Scripture. We get this

00:48:29.980 gift of being reconciled to God. Our bodies will one day be resurrected. That's one thing why it's

00:48:35.580 so important, I think, not to just say that we are spirit the way that God is described. God is

00:48:40.080 described as spirit, but we're described as spirit and body. And there's a reason also why

00:48:45.760 Jesus took on flesh, we read, in John 1, and dwelt among us. But in your belief, the Father

00:48:51.860 is already flesh. So I am curious. I don't even have this written down, but what exactly is the

00:48:57.540 incarnation according to the Mormon belief? Is that what we're celebrating at Christmas,

00:49:03.600 for example, like if you already believe that God has a body?

00:49:06.400 Well, the incarnation of Jesus Christ is when he became fully mortal. That's where he, as Philippians says, emptied himself of the fullness of divinity to enter into kind of our world and our level.

00:49:20.820 So if there's kind of different levels, right? If Christ was at that level into eternity past, he descended and came among us so that he could experience what we experience and show us the way, right?

00:49:34.600 And what he's really doing, as we understand it, is he's teaching us how to love, right?

00:49:40.360 So it's sort of like, I could write you a book all about how to love people, but it's

00:49:46.540 very different if I were to come and walk hand in hand with you to someone who's suffering

00:49:51.180 and you watch me give that person a hug, you know what I mean?

00:49:54.540 So our view is that Jesus Christ descended from the fullness of divinity, as Philippians

00:50:00.660 2 says, I believe it's Philippians 2, it's in Philippians.

00:50:04.600 Um, and that is what we, we celebrate with, with the incarnation.

00:50:08.660 It's that, you know, as, as it would say, God, God was among us.

00:50:12.420 And can we ascend to God likeness?

00:50:14.940 Uh, I, we become gods ourselves.

00:50:18.220 Uh, I would go with what the Bible says on that.

00:50:21.380 It says, you know, in revelations three, two, it says to him that overcometh, will I grant

00:50:26.100 to sit with me in my throne?

00:50:29.460 Even as I also overcame, I am set down with my father in his throne.

00:50:36.320 And how does that mean that we have become gods?

00:50:38.900 It means that we have the full, we have, we, so I would use this example.

00:50:43.260 If an acorn is of the same species as an oak tree, right?

00:50:47.740 An oak tree, if you look at an oak tree and an acorn, you go, these things are totally different, but they're actually not.

00:50:51.860 There's a potentiality to rise to be, as Athanasius said, to be as God is within us.

00:50:59.400 Where does it say that in the Bible?

00:51:01.600 Well, I could use some of these verses.

00:51:04.880 For example, Psalm 82 says,

00:51:07.000 I have said, ye are gods, ye are the children of the Most High.

00:51:12.820 As I pointed out in Romans 8, that we're talked about as joint heirs with Jesus Christ.

00:51:18.180 Revelations 2 talks about how we will sit in the throne.

00:51:22.200 I mean, I'm curious, and I'm open to an alternative explanation.

00:51:25.160 Like, what do you think it means for us to sit down in the throne with Jesus?

00:51:29.560 Well, we do read that we have authority in Christ, that we are co-heirs with Christ,

00:51:35.660 but also that we will spend eternity worshiping him.

00:51:39.260 I don't think that we can conflate that to mean that we become gods,

00:51:43.620 Because from the very beginning, God has declared that he is one, that there is no one like him.

00:51:49.560 Like me, there is no other.

00:51:51.580 In Isaiah, he says, the prophet says to his people.

00:51:54.680 And if that is true, if he says, like me, there is no other.

00:51:57.420 There are no other gods before me.

00:51:59.300 There are no other gods around me.

00:52:00.580 I am the only one that exists.

00:52:01.980 Gosh, he repeats that over and over again to his people throughout the Old Testament.

00:52:06.020 And if that's the case, I just can't square that with the idea of, well, we also become gods.

00:52:10.900 Yeah, I think, actually, I would rely on it.

00:52:13.220 There's a great Christian scholar, Dr. Sidiwade, and he emphasized the scholarly consensus around

00:52:19.140 the notion of God as held in the Old Testament, and actually throughout the entire scripture.

00:52:24.020 He says, I want to emphasize the scholarly consensus.

00:52:26.680 Historians and biblical scholars, including Peter Heyman, Nathan MacDonald, Paula Fredrickson,

00:52:31.600 Michael Heiser, Larry Hurtado, and Richard Bachman, among many others, argue that ancient

00:52:36.260 Jewish monotheism was not a denial of other divine beings' existence, but rather an affirmation

00:52:44.360 of Yahweh's unique supremacy. Christianity conceived of divinity as a spectrum rather 0.89

00:52:51.440 than a binary. The key thing is that monotheism was not a numerical oneness, but a qualitative

00:52:57.340 concept about being the unique supreme deity amongst all other deities. So there is this

00:53:04.920 notion in the Old Testament of a head god of all other gods, Latter-day Saints do not believe that

00:53:09.700 I will surpass God the Father or something like that. You might talk about it in terms of capital

00:53:14.980 G God versus little g gods. But equal stature, equal status. Equal ontological level, but just 0.97

00:53:21.780 like— Break that down for us. Well, I would say that it is—you could have the fullness of the

00:53:26.160 divine nature, that you can have the fullness of divinity within you, but you will always have

00:53:32.060 depended on that from your father, from our father in heaven. He's the source of divinity,

00:53:38.140 but we can have the fullness of divinity through the Mormon church. Does that mean that there is 0.61

00:53:43.740 the ability, I truly say asking this out of just not knowing, does the Mormon theology teach

00:53:50.360 that if you reach the fullness of divinity, you're in the highest celestial kingdom,

00:53:55.400 that you have the same power that God has on earth? So this gets into a subject where a lot

00:54:01.620 of people are like, oh, are you going to get your own planet or something like that?

00:54:05.600 I haven't said that.

00:54:06.820 I haven't said that.

00:54:07.600 I know you haven't, but I know that a lot of people think that.

00:54:09.800 And I actually think that this is a very appropriate thing the church put out on this.

00:54:14.240 They said, do Latter-day Saints believe they will get their own planet?

00:54:17.940 It says, no, this idea is not taught in Latter-day Saint scripture, nor is it a doctrine of the

00:54:22.660 church.

00:54:23.080 This misunderstanding stems from speculative comments, unreflective of scriptural doctrine.

00:54:29.500 Latter-day Saints believe that we are all sons and daughters of God, and that allows

00:54:33.020 us to have the same potential to grow during this life and after this life to become like

00:54:37.900 our Heavenly Father.

00:54:39.360 The Church does not and is never purported to fully understand the specifics of Christ's

00:54:45.760 statement that in my Father's house there are many mansions.

00:54:50.100 C.S. Lewis famously said, you know, there are people that, in Mere Christianity, one

00:54:55.360 of my favorite books. He talks about people that kind of caricature heaven. They're like,

00:54:59.800 I don't want to go and spend eternity playing harps in heaven, right? And he says,

00:55:05.060 there's no need to be worried about facetious people who try and make the Christian hope of 0.80

00:55:09.480 heaven seem ridiculous by saying they don't want to spend eternity playing harps. The answer to

00:55:14.240 such people is that they cannot understand books written for grownups. They should not talk about

00:55:17.720 them. And the reality is, is that we don't know exactly what it means to have the fullness of

00:55:22.980 the divine nature and what that looks like in eternity. There's been people who speculate about

00:55:27.220 that. There are still people who speculate about that. But I generally go back to our canon of

00:55:31.000 scripture to try and get an idea of what's most solid. So how do you interpret Isaiah 43, 10,

00:55:36.800 that before me no God was formed, nor shall there be any after me? So I actually, I remember I heard

00:55:42.840 that verse and I remember it kind of troubled me until I did more research about the nature of

00:55:47.200 Hebrew idioms in the Old Testament. Including Psalm 82 when it says you are God's? Because

00:55:54.540 you take that literally. Well, yeah, I do. But what I'm saying is that— But not Isaiah 43.

00:55:58.220 But Isaiah 43. Well, there's very specific scholarship that's been done on this actually

00:56:01.720 by a Christian scholar named Michael Heiser. And he points out something really interesting.

00:56:06.720 He said, quote, saying there is no God other than the God of Israel is akin to someone from Green

00:56:11.660 Bay, boasting that there is no football team other than the Packers. Passages which say there

00:56:17.300 is no other God, these are not statements of denial, they are boasts of incomparability.

00:56:23.340 So, what I want to get to here is that there even are scriptures in the Bible, such as Isaiah 47,

00:56:29.080 where it says, where Babylon says, quote, I am and there is no one besides me. And then again,

00:56:36.560 in the book of Zephaniah, it says, this is the city of revelry that lived in safety and said

00:56:40.780 to herself, I am the one and there is none besides me. So obviously there were other cities.

00:56:47.660 What there was in that time period where there were these boasts that were being made,

00:56:52.260 especially by the rulers of other nations, saying there is none besides me, I am so great, right?

00:56:57.080 And what the Hebrew scriptures are actually doing is they're actually playing on those words that

00:57:04.140 are being said by other rulers, and they're essentially saying to them, like, they're putting

00:57:10.240 their words, ironically, in the mouth of God to say, like, I'm actually the greatest. Because

00:57:15.140 the ancient Israelites, and the scholarship on this is very, very clear, they did not believe

00:57:20.040 that no other gods exist. They even compared their god, Yahweh, to other deities. Like,

00:57:26.540 imagine comparing God to, like, a leprechaun or something like that would be ridiculous.

00:57:30.280 So they actually did believe that there were other deities that did exist, but they believed that

00:57:33.700 their God was the most high and ruler over all.

00:57:38.180 Okay.

00:57:38.700 So you don't believe necessarily in monotheism?

00:57:42.840 I would say that I believe what the Bible teaches, and in the Bible, it's very clearly

00:57:48.440 a henotheistic text or a monolatrist text.

00:57:52.480 Is there any other Christian denomination or Christian sect that believes in what you

00:57:58.120 call henotheism or I would call polytheism?

00:58:00.520 Well, I would say that, well, the Bible very much teaches that. 0.99

00:58:03.420 So, but the Mormons have it right, but we don't. The rest of the monotheistic Christians do not have it correct. 1.00

00:58:09.960 Even to call Christianity hard monotheistic metaphysically is a very difficult claim to justify. 0.99

00:58:19.160 Muslims, for example, will make that observation that if you want to say that you have three persons who are all fully divine beings that all have the divine nature, you have three things, not one thing.

00:58:30.820 and hard metaphysical monotheism, that must reduce to one single simple entity. 0.69

00:58:38.500 And if you can't, and I don't see how you reconcile one single entity that is simple

00:58:44.440 with no parts, no passions with the God of the Bible. 0.68

00:58:47.540 So your argument is that you agree with the Muslims, Christianity is not really monotheistic.

00:58:52.800 It shouldn't be, according to your theology.

00:58:53.920 I wouldn't say that I agree with the Muslims as much as I would agree with people like 1.00

00:58:59.100 Dr. Sejuade, Dr. Heiser, and others who point out that—

00:59:03.180 Is Dr. Heiser a polytheist?

00:59:05.020 No, he's a Christian.

00:59:06.320 He's a Christian who actually is a Trinitarian.

00:59:07.880 He actually recently passed away.

00:59:08.940 He's a great Christian scholar, widely respected.

00:59:10.980 So that's when you say you agree with him.

00:59:13.420 But they don't—

00:59:13.960 You don't.

00:59:14.480 The term monotheism, okay, is—

00:59:17.440 But you don't agree with Michael Heiser on the Trinity.

00:59:19.980 Well, the only thing I disagree with Michael Heiser on is that he makes an ontological

00:59:23.880 difference between God and man.

00:59:25.180 But Michael Heiser and I agree that the Old Testament clearly teaches the existence of multiple divine beings with Yahweh being the most high amongst those divine beings that are called gods.

00:59:36.320 Did Jesus ascend to godlikeness?

00:59:40.080 No, I believe he descended from eternity, passed into humanity, went through the mortal experience showing us how to love so that he could re-ascend to the place that he existed previously.

00:59:51.740 Okay, I'm not sure if I fully understand that, that he ascended in God-likeness when he was here on earth?

01:00:00.940 When he came to earth, he descended.

01:00:03.200 He emptied himself of the fullness of the divine nature, as Philippians talks about.

01:00:07.680 So he came to our level to live amongst us and showed us through a perfect life and example what it means to love God and to love one another.

01:00:15.920 And then through his death, resurrection, showed us the path that we too can take to rise to, as it says, be co-heirs with him, to sit on his throne with the Father.

01:00:30.720 So we read that in Philippians 2,

01:00:45.920 the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God highly exalted him. We also

01:00:50.920 read in Hebrews 13, 8 that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. We read in

01:00:55.900 Colossians 1 that by him, all things were made. Without him, nothing was made, which I think

01:01:00.760 Mormons would also agree with. And so to me, if we interpret scripture with scripture, 0.99

01:01:07.380 Philippians 2 doesn't mean that he descended in God-likeness and then re-ascended in God-likeness.

01:01:14.220 The incarnation doesn't mean that the nature of Jesus changed, that he did have the power, as Satan tempted him within the wilderness, to call upon the angels and to save him.

01:01:24.120 He chose not to do that, even though he had the power to.

01:01:27.500 He had the power to remove himself from the cross, and he chose not to do that.

01:01:32.340 But the Mormon belief is that he descended not only physically and became, you know, an embryo and was embodied, but actually that he descended in his nature and his godlikeness and then re-ascended in godlikeness to show us that we can also become gods.

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01:02:44.240 Yeah. So I would say that he descended into mortality, but there's sort of two categories

01:02:50.540 that you're creating that I don't believe that the Bible justifies. And that is that there is

01:02:56.280 that there is a different genus that God is, and then there's a genus that human beings are.

01:03:02.080 And so when Jesus came down, he came in the form of a man. And to this day, you do believe that

01:03:08.980 Jesus still has his body to this day. And you would agree that that body exists somewhere in

01:03:14.700 a physical space, right? Yes. He's at the right hand of the Father. Correct. And so this all

01:03:21.880 seems to suggest to me that like you have god who to this day is an embodied man in jesus christ

01:03:29.960 okay and so i don't the the the his dissension into his condescension his emptying himself as

01:03:39.240 philippians says what is he emptying himself of he's emptying himself of the fullness of divinity

01:03:44.320 to come down to where we are where we don't have the fullness of divinity in us

01:03:49.040 to show us the path, to fully realize our potential as human beings, which is to be fully—be joint heirs with him.

01:04:01.860 I mean, to sit on the throne, to go—to return to his father and our father.

01:04:07.160 Through the Mormon Church.

01:04:08.860 We believe that covenant relationship is part of that because ultimately Christ established a church,

01:04:13.460 and he had ordinances, and he invites—and we invite—all people everywhere to come and partake in these ordinances.

01:04:19.040 and to come into the fullness of the kingdom of God.

01:04:23.160 As man now is, God once was.

01:04:25.800 As God now is, man may be.

01:04:28.560 I know that's not in the Book of Mormon.

01:04:30.660 That's just a little maxim that an LDS president came up with.

01:04:34.660 As God was, so we are.

01:04:37.640 So God himself was like us and ascended to being God.

01:04:42.060 I always thought the whole premise of the Christian message was that God once became a man.

01:04:46.960 Yes, but we're talking before the incarnation.

01:04:49.780 Yeah, and there are people that hold to that view.

01:04:54.000 So the question here is, you know, was God the Father once a man?

01:05:01.100 There's nothing in our scriptures that, as you pointed out, that said that.

01:05:04.620 You have to separate the realm, and this is what a lot of people do in dealing with LDS.

01:05:08.860 They look at sort of theology that has been held, even by presidents of our church.

01:05:14.360 Who are considered prophets.

01:05:16.020 Correct. But we don't hold to prophetic inerrancy, okay? So we don't believe that everything that a

01:05:21.980 prophet ever said was right, because, you know, we could even look to, you know, Peter, who very

01:05:25.920 clearly was of the opinion that the works of the law of Moses were still necessary, even after

01:05:31.560 Jesus Christ. He even believed that people couldn't eat pork, for example, after the death of Jesus

01:05:37.200 Christ. It wasn't until God came and revealed something to him and gave him greater light and

01:05:41.040 knowledge that that teaching was corrected. So I would look at it as you have to recognize that

01:05:46.940 there's a realm of that which has been revealed by God through his prophets, and those are generally

01:05:52.700 where I go. And so there is a discussion amongst Latter-day Saints, just like there's discussions

01:05:57.380 among many different Christian groups on different subjects, about the nature of the Father into

01:06:03.000 eternity past. Those who are distinguished and named prophets in the Bible don't get something

01:06:09.920 incorrect. They don't predict something that doesn't come true. We just don't see that.

01:06:14.660 They're imperfect. And I actually think that's one of the beautiful things about the Bible and

01:06:18.320 why to me it is so trustworthy and reliable is because the writers of the Bible don't try to

01:06:23.420 make themselves look better. They're just like, this is how it was. We said something that was

01:06:27.660 wrong and then it was corrected. And I think that's important, but we don't actually see

01:06:31.480 that prophets from scripture when they are saying this is a prophecy are incorrect or something

01:06:36.660 doesn't come true. Go ahead. Could I press back on that a little bit? I mean, I would see like

01:06:40.700 Ezekiel predicted that Tyre would be destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, but it didn't happen. Even Jesus

01:06:48.760 in Matthew 24, and I'm not saying that Jesus got things wrong. I'm saying that maybe we don't

01:06:53.420 understand what he's saying. He says, truly, I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass

01:06:58.400 away until all these things have happened. And in that specific chapter, he talks about the

01:07:04.000 destruction of the temple of Jerusalem, which did happen in that generation, but it also said that

01:07:08.160 he would return in that generation. And so there are many instances in the Bible where it seems as

01:07:15.360 though prophecies are contingent. And also, as I pointed out, to say that they never get anything

01:07:22.400 wrong, you know, again, I would look at Peter and say, it seems as though, at least to me, that Peter

01:07:28.960 thought that you couldn't eat pork, for instance, for quite a while, even after

01:07:34.880 the ascension of Jesus Christ. Yeah, well, he was a human, and I don't think that we read there that

01:07:39.880 he prophesied that that was true, but he had a misconception. A lot of early churches did. But

01:07:44.620 in Deuteronomy 18, God says, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the

01:07:49.060 Lord has not spoken, and the prophet has spoken presumptuously. So I do think that any word that

01:07:55.000 comes from the Lord and actually comes from the Lord through a prophet has to come true

01:07:58.580 in order for God to not be a liar, which I think we agree he's not.

01:08:02.600 And I would agree.

01:08:03.540 I would just, I would nuance it a little bit with the idea that there are contingencies

01:08:07.000 in prophecy, that the Lord will, as he did with Jonah, with the city of Nineveh, that

01:08:14.520 Jonah prophesied that the city would be destroyed, but then the Lord changed his course of action,

01:08:21.720 Which is why I also believe that the sort of metaphysical view of God's unchangeability,

01:08:28.500 I don't think it's easy to square with scripture because if God is radically unchangeable,

01:08:33.800 then I don't know how to make sense of things like God changing his mind on the city of Nineveh.

01:08:39.680 Yeah, it does seem that at the same time, God is completely sovereign, that nothing

01:08:45.520 catches him off guard, that nothing takes him aback, that nothing surprises him because he is

01:08:50.880 suspended in the eternal now. He is not limited by time and space and on the linear timeline that

01:08:56.380 we are. And yet that is an interesting passage where he says he changes his mind. And maybe

01:09:02.200 that's a colloquial phrase to help us understand that he communicated one thing to Jonah and it

01:09:08.760 was his plan all along for redemption and salvation for his people. I'm not sure that

01:09:14.000 that supports the idea that his nature changes or that he is a changing one. Would you agree

01:09:20.640 with that. I would agree. I don't think God's essential nature changes. I don't think that

01:09:27.040 his love for us, for example, changes. I believe that God will adjust according to that which is

01:09:35.320 best to accomplish his purposes. But yeah, I'll leave that one there. Okay, I have three more

01:09:42.740 clarifying questions. Three more clarifying questions for you. Okay, so there is this

01:09:49.120 verse, 2 Nephi, am I pronouncing that correctly? Is it Nephi? Okay, 25, 23, it is by grace we are

01:09:55.800 saved after all we can do. Can you clarify that? Yeah, absolutely. So some people think of that

01:10:03.640 as, and especially if you go back to the language that was used in that time in the 1820s when that

01:10:09.840 was given, the idea is that it's not because of all we can do, but it's actually more like in

01:10:18.320 spite of all we can do, we're saved by grace. I would actually quote one of our recent apostles

01:10:22.680 who gave a talk on the idea of the gift of grace. He says, grace is a gift of God and our desire to

01:10:31.260 be obedient to each of God's commandments is the reaching out of our mortal hand to receive this

01:10:38.400 sacred gift from our heavenly father. I wonder if sometimes we misinterpret the phrase after all we

01:10:45.560 can do, and we must understand that after does not equal because of. We are not saved because

01:10:54.680 of all we can do. Instead, the Savior's grace allows and enables us to overcome sin. So the

01:11:02.400 idea here is it's not because of all we can do. It's after everything you do, Allie, it's still

01:11:09.820 grace that saves you. Kind of like the analogy with the car going down the hill. Don't think

01:11:14.340 because you took his hand that you're the one who got yourself out of the mess it's still him

01:11:20.900 who's taking you out of the mess but you made the good choice to choose him and that is something

01:11:26.540 that is an action that contributes to your salvation because you don't believe that he's

01:11:30.980 going to scoop us out of the car if we don't reach up well i mean do you would you believe

01:11:36.500 that god leaves some people in the car when he could save all of us but he just i believe that

01:11:40.640 we're dead in our sin apart from Christ, like Ephesians 2 says, and I don't know any dead

01:11:45.200 people who have ever reached up to you.

01:11:47.120 So, and maybe, and I would, I just look at that interpretation of that scripture and

01:11:51.500 I struggle with it because of other scriptures, like Joshua 24, 15, where he says, to everyone,

01:11:58.300 choose ye this day whom ye will serve.

01:12:01.340 Deuteronomy 30, 19 says, I have set before you life and death, therefore choose life.

01:12:06.260 We don't believe that people don't have choices and they don't have responsibility and they

01:12:11.100 don't have a sense of agency, but we do believe that God is completely sovereign over salvation.

01:12:16.660 Now, again, that's like a Calvinist Arminianism debate that I'm not as interested in having

01:12:22.580 with you, just because I think that there are other things that we can debate about.

01:12:27.080 But I do think it's just an important distinction between what we believe, what grace accomplishes,

01:12:32.680 And when it actually kicks in, I think you believe, and there are some Protestants who

01:12:36.580 believe that grace kicks in a little bit later, and I believe it kicks in earlier.

01:12:40.240 Well, and we would view it very much—well, we believe that in all phases, it's God's

01:12:44.620 grace that's working on us.

01:12:45.820 We believe that it's only through Him reaching out to you.

01:12:48.400 Now, you have to respond to that.

01:12:49.940 We do believe that.

01:12:51.060 But I would agree.

01:12:52.280 We, Latter-day Saints, are not Calvinists.

01:12:54.300 We side with the 97% of Christians who are not Calvinists, and we believe that—

01:12:59.300 On that particular issue, on that issue. 0.91

01:13:01.600 Of course, you don't believe that a Baptist Arminian will have the fullness of relationship 0.99

01:13:07.120 with God because they haven't gone through the Mormon church. 0.93

01:13:09.940 I do want to just clarify something that I remembered that when you said that God's

01:13:13.760 nature changes, the Malachi 3.6 says,

01:13:16.020 For I, the Lord, do not change, and do not change.

01:13:18.820 Therefore, O children of Jacob, are not consumed.

01:13:21.760 So I just do think it's important that God himself describes himself as unchanging.

01:13:25.960 And I do—well, I'll give you the chance to respond because I don't want it to just

01:13:29.420 be like I said that.

01:13:30.220 So you can go ahead, and then I do have two more clarifying questions.

01:13:33.080 So no, I would agree with the idea that God doesn't change in his essential nature and love.

01:13:38.080 I think it's a difference in interpretation.

01:13:41.360 And we believe that God has different things for different times.

01:13:44.480 For example, in the Old Testament, it very clearly says,

01:13:51.140 if a man lies with another man, as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination, they shall be put to death. 0.98

01:13:59.160 Now, you believe that God doesn't want us to stone gay people to death. 0.97

01:14:03.760 And, you know, some people look at that and say, well, that's a change.

01:14:06.820 Now, I would think that God doesn't change, but that he can have certain commands for

01:14:12.220 certain times and in certain contexts.

01:14:14.680 And so what may look like a change isn't actually a change in his essential nature.

01:14:18.440 Well, Jesus fulfilled the law.

01:14:20.120 And so that's what we know, Jesus, that he became our cleansing.

01:14:23.120 He became our reconciliation.

01:14:24.320 The whole book of Galatians is saying, look, if you're trying to abide by any one law for

01:14:29.000 your salvation, you better be ready to abide by all of them because perfection is the only

01:14:33.380 thing that God accepts.

01:14:34.740 So you can try to do it through perfectly keeping the law, which none of you could ever

01:14:37.960 do, or you could do it through Christ who has fulfilled the law and has died for your

01:14:42.960 sins in accordance with the prophecies and the scriptures.

01:14:45.760 And so it's not that God changed.

01:14:47.900 It's that Jesus fulfilled the law.

01:14:49.580 It's not that, well, God sees homosexuality different.

01:14:51.780 I don't believe he does see homosexuality different.

01:14:54.320 Times change. We change. Yes, cultures change. We are not ancient Israel. We are not governed by the

01:15:00.400 same theocratic law that we were before. It's not God who changed. I don't think that he sees

01:15:05.640 homosexuality as any less of an abomination. But Jesus came, he fulfilled the law, he gave us a new

01:15:11.520 dictate. Same God, new dictate, go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in

01:15:16.300 the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. So we're not under the same dictates.

01:15:19.880 That doesn't mean the nature of God changed. I mean, do you believe God has changed when it

01:15:24.000 comes to homosexuality no i i would say i would say that god definitely has has a um

01:15:29.540 god's nature does not change but the circumstances under which he's dealing with us we change we

01:15:36.400 change we change and so he has god doesn't change you're right in his essential nature but sometimes

01:15:40.700 people can look at that and think that it's god changing when it isn't but you're saying that he

01:15:44.740 changes no i don't believe i would say he doesn't change in his essential nature which seems to mean

01:15:49.400 that he changes in some way. Well, he very clearly changed his mind about the destruction

01:15:54.800 of Nineveh. Yeah, we talked about that, but I don't actually believe that it is possible for

01:16:01.060 God to be controlled by a linear set of circumstances. Well, are there, I mean,

01:16:07.380 there are multiple times in scripture where God seems to be in a genuine relationship and a give

01:16:11.680 and take with a people. For example, Jesus looks over the city of Jerusalem and he says,

01:16:16.320 Jerusalem to Jerusalem, how often I would have gathered thee as a hen gathereth her chickens 0.52

01:16:20.040 under her wings, and ye would not. So the idea here is that there's a cooperation that needs

01:16:26.480 to happen between God and man. He will extend his hand, but that we need to take it. And when

01:16:33.220 someone fails, it isn't because God abandoned them, it's because they chose not to take the

01:16:40.640 hand that was offered. Yeah. We have this idea, theological idea, which maybe you do too, of

01:16:46.980 concurrence, where God is completely sovereign, that he's completely powerful. There's not

01:16:52.380 something I can do to stop God from doing what he sets out to do. But at the same time, which is

01:16:59.100 kind of strange, and this quandary is really explained in Romans 9, and even Paul himself is

01:17:04.700 like, we just kind of have to glorify God for his sovereignty and his wisdom and understanding.

01:17:08.580 At the same time, we do have a responsibility.

01:17:11.800 We do have consequences.

01:17:13.200 We do have agency.

01:17:14.600 We have choices that we are going to make at the same time he makes vessels of wrath

01:17:19.340 and vessels of mercy.

01:17:20.940 And then you have people, as Paul said in Romans 9, but how can a potter or how can

01:17:25.900 Clay say to the potter, why did you make me this way?

01:17:28.540 And so we've dealt for a long time with the seeming injustice of God's sovereignty and

01:17:33.780 yet our responsibility.

01:17:34.980 And we have to reconcile that with Ephesians 1, where it says, in love, he predestined

01:17:40.700 us for adoption as sons.

01:17:42.860 Romans 8, which you represented or which you articulated earlier, that those who were

01:17:47.820 predestined, he also called.

01:17:49.380 Those he called, he also equipped.

01:17:50.820 Those he equipped, he also glorified.

01:17:52.760 And so, yeah, we can go into a predestination debate maybe like another time.

01:17:57.220 Well, obviously, we have a different interpretation of Romans 9, but yeah.

01:18:00.880 And Romans 8 and Ephesians 1 and Ephesians 2.

01:18:04.160 we have a different interpretation of a lot of things. But you can answer, or if you just want

01:18:09.220 me to ask my last two questions, I can. I would just say the only thing I would say on the Romans

01:18:13.360 9 stuff, because I actually just was recently studying this in quite a bit, is that that

01:18:18.620 chapter is actually a meditation on the house of Israel. Yeah, I've heard that. At that time,

01:18:25.060 the gospel was being spread to the Gentiles, and there was sort of this idea that Paul is looking

01:18:29.840 at the chosen people, the Jews, and he is saying, and there's sort of a complaint, like, well, why is

01:18:36.360 the covenant being expanded outside of this group of people? And so we would look at that chapter

01:18:43.520 through the lens of, it's talking about corporate and groups of people. Not individuals. Not

01:18:48.420 individuals. So in love, he predestined us for adoption as sons, Ephesians 1.5. So predestined,

01:18:54.580 I would use it in this sense. Imagine that there's two planes. And from the beginning of the world,

01:18:58.440 god has ordained these two planes to go to the best location and the other one's going to the

01:19:02.780 worst location and and if if paul and and that is predestined to go there the question is just

01:19:10.100 who's going to actually get on the plane so when i look at that god doesn't know well i would say

01:19:14.840 no no i would say that imagine that what peter is doing or paul paul is as if he's on at the front

01:19:19.840 of the plane and he's addressing everyone in the plane and he's saying brothers like this has all

01:19:24.460 been predestined for us to go. So it isn't about individuals, it's the predestination or God's

01:19:29.840 intention. Does God know the individuals? Does God know the individuals? Does he know the

01:19:34.200 individuals that are going to get on the plane? I would say, and this is, I'm going to give,

01:19:40.260 my church has, it's kind of like within the Christians, how there's different views on

01:19:44.620 God's foreknowledge. I personally believe... Christians, my Christians. Well, I would say

01:19:48.840 amongst, let's just say amongst creedal Christians. Amongst creedal Christians, 0.88

01:19:53.700 there are discussions about the nature of God's foreknowledge. And amongst Latter-day Saints,

01:19:56.720 there also are discussions about that. And to a certain extent, I'm not comfortable enough with

01:20:01.460 the position that I have to argue for it. And so I'll kind of leave that one in the realm of

01:20:06.440 discussion. So we don't know if God knows everything, or you don't know if God knows

01:20:10.000 everything. The question is, is if God's knowledge of the future, does it actually determine someone's

01:20:13.880 actions? If God is all knowledgeable and all powerful, is it possible for someone to oppose

01:20:19.540 him well the issue is and then then that creates the issue where everything is predestined including

01:20:25.280 the death of anne frank in the camps and her eternity in hell for not accepting jesus and

01:20:30.880 are you saying god couldn't have stopped the holocaust if he wanted to what i'm saying is

01:20:34.500 well not if men have so he's not all-powerful if he doesn't have free will if he wants to it's it

01:20:40.040 creates a logical contradiction when you talk about someone being free like what god wants is

01:20:46.020 a loving relationship with us a loving relationship requires people to be free to choose that

01:20:51.620 relationship or to reject it otherwise it's not love and so in the nature of god's plan

01:20:58.780 is that men have to be free and so we do not believe that god is the uh we believe because

01:21:06.420 human beings are free as c.s lewis puts it um that is the reason that this that there is evil

01:21:11.740 in the world, because freedom is necessary for love as well.

01:21:16.020 In love, he predestined us for adoption as sons.

01:21:19.580 So it was loving for him to choose that.

01:21:22.220 And while I agree, he has sovereignly given us some freedom to choose and agency and consequences

01:21:28.960 and all of that, I do believe that God is all-powerful.

01:21:31.920 He could stop evil any time he wanted to.

01:21:34.620 And I agree, but would it accomplish the purposes of love is the thing.

01:21:38.940 is, is it loving to predestine someone before this world to go to hell? 0.86

01:21:43.320 I mean, was it loving for him to allow the Holocaust? 0.80

01:21:46.180 Well, I would say that the Holocaust was allowed because he gave men agency. 0.92

01:21:51.140 He gave us our agency and that allows us to do evil, but it also is the thing that allows 0.96

01:21:55.480 for good.

01:21:56.420 Yes, I would agree that God allowed it.

01:21:58.640 I think that we kind of got off track there when it seemed like you were saying God doesn't

01:22:03.220 know everything.

01:22:04.160 He can't do everything because you won't say whether or not he knows who is going to

01:22:08.220 be saved.

01:22:08.560 the question do anything well there's a question the question is is does him knowing something

01:22:14.200 cause that thing to happen or are people genuinely free but he knows like for example

01:22:20.480 i may know that if i put my child in a room with a cookie and they're hungry

01:22:25.400 that they're going to eat that cookie but i didn't make my child eat the cookie

01:22:30.800 Yes.

01:22:31.380 And so there is a question about the nature of foreknowledge as it relates to causality.

01:22:40.880 Yes.

01:22:41.320 And I would say that's a different question, but you can't tell me if God is all-knowing.

01:22:45.760 I would say he is as all-knowing as it is possible to know.

01:22:49.500 So as much as can be known, he knows.

01:22:52.480 So does he know who's going to be saved and who's not going to be saved?

01:22:55.480 Does he know who's going to, in your terms, get on that plane?

01:22:57.840 that is a debatable question that i don't know that i'm ready to answer because i know that no

01:23:03.840 no that isn't what i'm saying i'm saying that that is a question that is debated even amongst

01:23:09.720 latter-day saints and amongst creedal christians um and i i don't feel qualified to debate that

01:23:16.280 topic because i don't know it well enough okay um two other guys maybe only one we're over time

01:23:22.440 but that's okay it's super fun and i hope people have fun listening to it and watching it okay

01:23:26.520 this is i hope that this doesn't come across as silly i think this is a genuine mormon belief

01:23:32.600 do mormons believe that jesus's return will be to independence missouri um yes in essence

01:23:41.120 that's outside of branson we would i would but i would i mean i think it's it kind of has a shock

01:23:47.660 value because it's sort of like well okay why if he's going to return to somewhere else now grant

01:23:55.100 i would say he's going to return he is going to return to the earth and we believe that or at

01:24:01.200 least it was prophesied that the american continent would be where kind of the fullness of his kingdom

01:24:07.020 would be established prophesied not in the bible well you're right but i would say that and i would

01:24:11.700 say though that um because i also believe that prophecies are conditional i don't necessarily

01:24:16.600 believe that that any prophecy that's been made is necessarily set in stone because as we've seen

01:24:23.620 in the Bible with Nineveh and with Tyre, and I believe even with the prediction of Jesus coming

01:24:29.540 during the first generation of the disciples, which are all in scripture, that conditions can

01:24:34.780 change. And so I believe that that prophecy was made, but I don't claim to know exactly the way

01:24:41.400 that things are going to shake out in the end because conditions change. Okay. My last clarifying

01:24:46.840 question does the mormon church teach that wives that they have a secret name that is given to them

01:24:54.880 in the temple and at the resurrection their husband who is the only one who knows that name

01:24:59.020 will call upon them to go to heaven so this gets a little bit into our temple liturgy

01:25:04.340 which and so the temple liturgy is something that is um symbolic in nature okay so um there are

01:25:14.920 and in any liturgical process there's a question of how much of this is literal and how much of

01:25:19.660 this is figurative, right? And so within the temple liturgy there is an idea that a husband

01:25:29.500 will participate in the bringing forth of their family, and even other members of the family for

01:25:35.020 that matter, in the resurrection. So that is something that exists within our theology. Now

01:25:41.620 to be honest, I'm not an expert in that subject, really. But I will say that I know enough that

01:25:47.280 within the temple symbolism and the symbolism of that liturgy, that yes, there is a notion that

01:25:53.080 we will participate in the coming forth of those who we love.

01:25:58.540 Okay. So wives?

01:26:01.460 Men hold the priesthood. So this is something that, again, even in Christchurch, even in the 0.92

01:26:07.480 Old Testament, like the men were the ones who held certain sort of priestly offices

01:26:13.140 for a particular purpose that God has.

01:26:15.500 And as the resurrection is seen, at least within LDS thought, to be something that involves

01:26:24.780 the priesthood, that yes, that a husband would be involved in the helping to bring forth

01:26:32.240 of their family.

01:26:33.240 how do you interpret in matthew 22 30 where for in the resurrection no one will be married you

01:26:40.380 won't get married you won't be given in marriage well if you look at if you look at the verse

01:26:45.680 actually uh specifically it says that none will be married or given in marriage okay so you believe

01:26:53.480 that pre-existing marriages pre-existing marriages there are no no marriages that will exist after

01:26:59.400 the time of the resurrection. No new marriages will be performed at that point. If you look at

01:27:04.040 the verse, it doesn't say that no one in heaven will be married. We do believe that you and your

01:27:08.820 husband will still be a married couple in heaven if you so want to be. Well, the context of the

01:27:14.020 passage though is the Pharisees, right? Trying to trap him about marriage. The Sadducees, actually.

01:27:20.080 Thank you so much for correcting that. That does matter. It's a small distinction, but it does

01:27:24.160 matter. It does because they didn't believe in the resurrection. Right. Yes. So that's important.

01:27:27.840 And so they were trying to trap him about marriage.

01:27:30.420 And then in another part, like Matthew 19, he's asking the Pharisees, I believe in Matthew 19, are the ones asking, you know, who are we going to be married to?

01:27:41.820 Who are we going to be married to in heaven if someone gets married multiple times?

01:27:46.120 And that's how Jesus answers.

01:27:47.440 So I think that's why, if I'm not incorrect, that would be why so many Christians say, well, marriage must not, the earthly institution of marriage must not be recognized in the resurrection.

01:27:59.440 Yeah, and I've always, you know, it's funny, I've thought a lot about that sort of a view.

01:28:03.980 And to me, I've had a hard time understanding what marriage's purpose is if it's just for this life.

01:28:09.660 you know i understand the necessary to bring forth children into a family and stuff but but

01:28:14.420 the idea that the family structure disintegrates at death and that people aren't ultimately still

01:28:21.440 like will my wife still be my wife will my father still be my father the lds conception is that the

01:28:29.100 same sociality that exists amongst us here will exist amongst us on the other side but with a

01:28:34.220 greater degree of glory. Yeah. Jesus is answering this question from the Sadducees specifically

01:28:40.100 about people who have multiple wives here on earth, not together, but in succession. And that's 0.50

01:28:45.580 how he answers. They won't marry, nor are they given in marriage. So actually in context, it

01:28:49.340 doesn't seem like it's new marriages. They're talking because they're asking him about previous

01:28:52.800 marriages and current marriages, not new marriages. They're not saying, hey, well, we get married one

01:28:58.000 day. They're saying, what if you've already been married multiple times? That's how he answers.

01:29:01.300 So actually, in context, it doesn't seem to be talking about new marriages, just to clarify that.

01:29:06.420 Well, and I would look at it, and Jesus answered them, this is the specific words, and said,

01:29:11.500 You err not knowing the scriptures nor the power of God, for in the resurrection they neither marry.

01:29:17.760 Now, this is interesting, too, because the context is being used here.

01:29:20.720 They neither marry, so in the resurrection, men were the ones who married, and then it's talking about women, nor are they given in marriage.

01:29:30.360 But there is the gods of heaven.

01:29:33.360 So they're talking about who is he going to be married to in the resurrection.

01:29:38.800 And just so you know, the position of our church, the position of the Church of Jesus

01:29:42.320 Christ of Latter-day Saints is that no one in the next life will have any familial relationships

01:29:47.140 that they don't want.

01:29:48.340 They won't be coerced into anything.

01:29:50.060 And we don't claim to know exactly the way that all these things will shake out in every

01:29:53.740 instance.

01:29:54.540 But we do believe that our families can be together forever.

01:29:57.980 Okay.

01:29:59.120 Let's just end on this last clarifying note so that people understand.

01:30:05.640 We have so much of the same language.

01:30:08.220 Can you share what you believe the good news of the gospel to be?

01:30:13.580 Absolutely.

01:30:14.680 The good news of the gospel is for all mankind, not just the elect.

01:30:18.960 It is that Jesus Christ came to this earth.

01:30:22.720 He died for your sins, and he offers you his hand, the gift of grace.

01:30:27.560 to come into full relationship with him, to be reconciled to God, to overcome the fallen world

01:30:34.760 that we're in. The reality is, whether you're an atheist or whether you're a Latter-day Saint or

01:30:38.200 whoever you are, we all have to agree that we live in a fallen world. It's broken. We are broken.

01:30:43.660 It's unfair. It's unjust. And the only question is, is our way out? What Christ's atonement

01:30:51.200 represents and what Easter morning represents when he walked out of that tomb was that there's

01:30:57.240 hope, and that there is good news, that he overcame death, that he overcame sin. And my

01:31:04.200 belief as a Latter-day Saint, and my testimony, is that Christ is our Savior, that he loves every

01:31:10.580 one of us, and that he offers you a totally new life through him. And I believe that with all my

01:31:18.260 heart, and we often in our tradition say that we leave our testimonies in the name of Jesus Christ.

01:31:23.620 Amen.

01:31:24.640 And it's so close, because I believe that.

01:31:27.920 But in your belief system, I don't have in eternity, if I die as I believe now, if I

01:31:34.700 believe all of that, I don't get eternal communion with God.

01:31:37.980 It's not enough to you.

01:31:40.180 Well, in our view, you would get as much communion with God as you're willing to accept.

01:31:44.120 And what we are offering in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is that

01:31:48.300 people come and participate in the ordinances of the holy priesthood of God, which have

01:31:56.020 been restored to the earth, that allow for men to act as his agents on earth, to organize

01:32:01.160 his kingdom, and to bring those who believe in Jesus Christ and seek to follow him into

01:32:06.700 full communion with one another in his church, so that we can build his kingdom on earth

01:32:11.780 in preparation for his second coming.

01:32:14.300 Okay.

01:32:14.920 Here's what I would say, which I believe is better news, that by grace you have been saved

01:32:19.740 through faith, and this is not your own doing, that Christ's death, his sacrifice for you

01:32:24.260 on the cross is enough for you to have fullness of your relationship with God, both here and

01:32:29.080 in heaven, that there is no other name by which one can be saved, that's Acts 4.12,

01:32:35.280 and that according to Hebrews, Jesus paid the sacrifice once and for all so that you

01:32:39.940 could have access to God forever.

01:32:42.440 There aren't three levels of heaven.

01:32:44.160 There is full relationship with God.

01:32:46.340 And there is hell.

01:32:47.940 Those are the two options.

01:32:48.860 And thankfully in scripture, we're not given this very arbitrary and slippery, well, you

01:32:53.780 can be bad.

01:32:54.500 What is really bad?

01:32:55.560 No, it's in Christ or out of Christ.

01:32:57.240 It's dead and sinner made alive in Christ.

01:32:59.600 And the good news is that Jesus' death and resurrection is enough for you to have relationship

01:33:06.500 with God and to spend forever in his presence.

01:33:09.960 That is the really good news.

01:33:11.780 And I think that's true no matter what your background is.

01:33:15.560 That is the fullness of the gospel, and I just wanted to make sure that we distinguish that.

01:33:19.760 Thank you so much.

01:33:20.720 Thank you.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - April 27, 2026

Ep 1338 ｜ DEBATE： Are Mormons Christians？ LDS Apologist vs. Evangelical Christian ｜ Jacob Hansen

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