I truly appreciate your participation in these responses. We tend to have far more non-Mormon commentors, so having another LDS voice is a valuable addition. Please come back as often as time permits.

I’ve got additional responses to this I’ll post soon.

There are all kinds of scriptures that could be referenced that instruct us to do what Christ taught. If we love Him we obey his commandments, we should be doers of His word and not just hearers. We will be judged by our works, faith without works is dead. We must repent of our sins. And on and on. These things illustrate our part, and we must choose to do them and act upon that.

So I could list scriptures that I interpret to match my religious ideas, and you can list scriptures and interpret them to match your religious ideas. Where would that get us? An argument I suppose.

We really need to take the ‘whole panorama’ of scriptures together as a whole. And this leads us eventually to a philosophy or theology of religious belief. There is a reason there are so many different churches out there that base their beliefs on the Bible. This is a big reason we need additional scripture and modern day revelation.

Determinism and Calvinism are just words, and have no need to be scarry. They are only scarry if they fit your religious beliefs and you realize that those beliefs are not entirely logical, rational, charitable, scriptural, and don’t feel right. Some absolute God who is responsible for every event in everybodies life, with mankind being completely depraved seems to be what you base things on. The scriptures you use and how you use them suggest this.

Anyway, this is Rusty’s blog, and I have probably intruded long enough. If you want to understand Mormonism, which I kinda doubt – but this is a Mormon blog, then understanding that Mormons take free will / free agency very seriously is an important piece of information. This, combined with our rejection of much of the dogma surrounding original sin might make us seem preoccupied with our own sins and behaviour. Our view of the atonement is that Christ makes salvation possible – there is no other way. Yet, we must do things like have faith in Christ, repent of our sins, and be baptized, in order to have a fullness of salvation. But salvation is very generous and inclusive. Christ has overcome the affects of the fall, and thus all but a few sons of perdition will be saved from death and hell.

Anyway, I don’t have much time for blogging, so I probably will not be following up on this soon.

Best wishes everyone.

Ephesians 2

“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins…

…and were by nature children of wrath…

…But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ— by grace you have been saved…

…For by grace you have been saved through faith. AND THIS IS NOT YOUR OWN DOING; it is the gift of God, NOT A RESULT OF WORKS, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

Who makes those dead in trespasses (all humanity) alive? Do the dead raise themselves? How do those who are BY NATURE children of wrath choose to do that very thing which is most opposed to their nature – love and obey God?

It is curious that your rebuttal to my scripture references is not an argument from scripture, but a tossing out of scary words like “determinism” and “Calvinism”, as if the mere assignment of these labels makes your case.

Yet I might say that your God is so absolute that one wonders what the point is? If God is in complete control of every detail than who is saved depends on God’s arbitrary whims. Which begins to come back to Rusty’s post.

So is man saved by his own choice – or by the unconditional election of God?

So you think life is basically deterministic. Every detail ordered by God? Is it correct to assume you are basically Calvinistic?

“God knew that we must have free agency, but he also knew that for free agency to “work”, we must also have an adversary. Hence the opposition to all good was indeed part of the plan. Just like opposition makes us stronger, or more humble, or brings our minds to god. Good can come from evil.”

The Bible never describes evil doings or evil persons as necessary counterparts of “free agency” or “free will”. God did create Satan and, in a sense, is responsible for all that happens – good and evil. God does not sin, but certainly planned for sin to enter the world. If God planned the cross from before the foundations of the world, He certainly would have had to plan sin. Consider:

Deut. 32:39 – See now that I, even I, am he,
and there is no god beside me;
I kill and I make alive;
I wound and I heal;
and there is none that can deliver out of my hand.

1 Sam. 2:6-7 – The LORD kills and brings to life;
he brings down to Sheol and raises up.
The LORD makes poor and makes rich;
he brings low and he exalts.

Job 12:6-10 – The tents of robbers are at peace,
and those who provoke God are secure,
who bring their god in their hand.
But ask the beasts, and they will teach you;
the birds of the heavens, and they will tell you;
or the bushes of the earth, and they will teach you;
and the fish of the sea will declare to you.
Who among all these does not know
that the hand of the LORD has done this?
In his hand is the life of every living thing
and the breath of all mankind.

Psalm 33:10-11 – The LORD brings the counsel of the nations to nothing;
he frustrates the plans of the peoples.
The counsel of the LORD stands forever,
the plans of his heart to all generations.

Psalm 115:3 – Our God is in the heavens;
he does all that he pleases.

Psalm 135:6 – Whatever the LORD pleases, he does,
in heaven and on earth,
in the seas and all deeps.

Isa. 14:26-27 – This is the purpose that is purposed
concerning the whole earth,
and this is the hand that is stretched out
over all the nations.
For the LORD of hosts has purposed,
and who will annul it?
His hand is stretched out,
and who will turn it back?

Isa. 45:7 – I form light and create darkness,
I MAKE WELL-BEING and CREATE CALAMITY,
I am the LORD, who does all these things.

God accomplishes all He intends to accomplish, including life, death, health, sickness, peace, war, well-being, calamity, etc. Consider Job: while Satan is the immediate agent of Job’s sufferings, God is the ultimate cause. God allows Job to be afflicted so that He will ultimately be glorified in Job’s faithfulness.

“Evil does not exist because of God, evil is inevitable in spite of God’s efforts to subdue it.”

Yikes! First, your God is awfully weak. Look around! Evil is everywhere. Everywhere is war, strife, hate, poverty, etc. Second, why is evil inevitable? If God is all-powerful, why couldn’t He prevent evil? “Free agency” won’t cut it, either. God would still be responsible for evil, even if He allowed it for “free will”.

God subdues all He chooses to subdue. Nothing and no one resists God.

First, I should have simply dropped the issue of stick/scroll. I’m not going to argue with you about the archaeological/historical significance of sticks or wood in the ancient Middle East. And frankly, it’s irrelevant. (I would maintain, however, that the word for “stick” in these texts is NOWHERE used in the Old Testament to refer to scrolls.)

But, for the sake of argument, let’s grant that these are scrolls. Who is to write on these scrolls? Some future individual or group of individuals? Nephi? No! The Lord instructed EZEKIEL to write on the scroll/stick. And what did He instruct Ezekiel to write? “For Judah, and the people of Israel associated with him” AND “For Joseph (the stick of Ephraim) and all the house of Israel associated with him.”

Everything to be written on these sticks/scrolls was written by Ezekiel. And the sticks are then held together to explicitly signify the reunification of the divided Kingdom. The sticks/scrolls CLEARLY symbolize these two groups of people, NOT actual scrolls or scriptures. This is the ONLY meaning of this text. NOTHING in the text refers to a future arrival of a second Holy Book.

(Though, if this text was prophesying a second Holy Book, wouldn’t the New Testament fulfill this? Wouldn’t the BoM be a third – and therefore illegitimate – book?)

Rusty, I would again reposit my challenge regarding this text, and this time more clearly: Show me ONE pre-Mormon thinker/theologian (Christian, Jewish or secular) who read from Ezekiel 37 a prophecy regarding a second scripture. (I am not asking you to defend the use of “stick” as a reference to a “scroll” – for the sake of this argument, I’ve granted that.) If there are none, you must ask yourself why, for millennia, did EVERYONE (Christians, Jews, secular scholars, etc.) miss this prior to the arrival of Joseph Smith?

Rusty, can you honestly say that without a Mormon preconditioning, you would read Ezekiel 37 and come away with an expectation of a future second scripture (let alone the BoM)?

I am NOT saying that God created Satan (in the ultimate sense). The essential part of what Satan (and all of us) is, is eternal and uncreated.

Jim B.

I am not saying that God is impotent. He opposes evil and combats it constantly. Often with great success. He is very much an active God who is involved in every aspect of our lives. His work and glory are to bring to pass our immortality and eternal life.

So he does influence people and events all the time. God intervenes. But not in a way that completely takes choice away from individuals.

Many times we do not understand when bad things can work out for good.

You asked me to name one Christian theologian or thinker who translates “stick” as book in Ezekiel. Moshe Greenberg, editor of the Anchor Bible. He expounds on Ezekiel and interprets “ets” as “lwch” or tablet, which he says refers to the hinged writing boards they used in their day. But in terms of the use of sticks to hold writing there’s prolific coverage on the subject, covering how they were used, when they were used, and why they were used. And this is not anything subject to interpretation, but with physical evidence of archeological discoveries and ancient writings (not all of them biblical) about the use of sticks. So feel free to challenge it, but you’ll need to take the challenge up with someone other than myself. The following URL lists extensively the use of sticks, quoting dozens, if not hundreds of sources.

Additionally, the Jews have always maintained that Ezekiel’s sticks were books. But simply the fact that Ezekial said they should write on these sticks, clearly indicates that he was referring to writing sticks of old.

http://www2.ida.net/graphics/shirtail/ezekiel.htm

Still, to your credit, you’re half right. Ezekiel’s prophecy of the sticks of Judah and Joseph actually has a dual meaning. It refers to the latter –day reunion of the kingdoms of Judah and Joseph (Isreal). But it also refers to the latter-day combining of the scriptural records of Judah and Joseph (Isreal).

If you’d like a full, and well organized presentation of the facts on the matter, including sources, you can go here:

http://www.lightplanet.com/response/BofM/EZEK37.html