Within the limits of possible knowledge, epistemologically speaking, I am as certain as a person could reasonably be that Mormonism is not True. Assuming, arguendo, the truth of Christianity, I believe that Mormonism’s claims to truth cannot possibly be true because of fatal flaws in the fundamental Mormon teachings about the Great Apostasy and the Restoration. As the new “discussions” reflect, Apostasy and Restoration are Mormonism’s lynchpins: without a Great Apostasy there was no need for a Restoration, and without a Restoration, Mormonism’s self-justifying truth claims fall apart.
For the Apostasy-Restoration to have happened, the following must be true:
1. Priesthood authority must indeed work the way the Mormon Church claims it does. This actually means that, in fact, the concept of priesthood authority is actually the most fundamental Mormon doctrine, because Apostasy-Restoration presupposes the existence of a priesthood authority that functions the way Mormonism teaches. The thing is, there is almost no evidence from the apostolic era or before (i.e., from the Bible or other contemporary sources) that priesthood authority–if it exists at all–works like that. Mormon scriptures do not count, because for them to be acceptable, Mormonism must be true which means that priesthood must work the way Mormonism says it does (which is what we’re trying to decide in the first place). That is, unless Mormon scripture was somehow independently verifiable, which it most certainly is not.
2. Said priesthood must have been lost in the manner that Mormonism claims. This requires us to believe a claim of Mormonism at face value, which we have no reason to do unless we first accept that Mormonism’s concept of priesthood authority is true and that the Apostasy-Restoration actually happened. Again, if we could verify this loss of priesthood independently, Mormonism would be more credible. But we can’t. Change in doctrine does not evidence loss of priesthood authority, because that requires us to first accept a Mormon understanding of how priesthood works. Ditto for basically every other Mormon evidence of the loss of priesthood leading to the great apostasy. The Bible verses appealed to by Mormonism do not really help, either: taken alone, without presupposing Mormon priesthood authority, and Apostasy-Restoration, they do not by any means necessarily mean what Mormonism says they mean. The fact that the idea of a Great Apostasy was common in the 19th century is also not dispositive. Nobody thinks that anymore. A vague semi-consensus among some–but by no means all–Protestant Christians in the 1800s that something like the Great Apostasy had happened cannot possibly be credible evidence now that it actually did happen. Furthermore, Mormon claims about the loss of priesthood–and what would have had to have happened for such a loss to occur–are facially implausible. Even if we do accept Mormon ideas about priesthood authority and how it works, the likelihood that it would be lost while Christianity would survive is completely unbelievable. I wrote a post awhile back explaining exactly why. I think it is well worth the read.
So we have no reason to believe that priesthood works the way Mormonism says it does or that a Great Apostasy happened, except for circular logic that requires us to first assume the truth of Mormonism. That means Mormonism’s claims are simply not credible unless we believe Mormonism’s claims of authority based on nothing but… Mormonism’s claims to authority. Even the official Way To Truth (read, pray, feel-the-spirit-confirming-the-truth-and-banishing-all-doubt-and/or-contrary-evidence, rinse, repeat ad nauseum) requires us to begin by assuming that Mormonism is right regarding how you find out what is true. Unless you independently think that the Mormon Way To Truth is the right way to truth, or even one of several reliable ways, we have no reason to trust Mormonism when it tells us the way to truth, since it does it based on its own authority, which is what we’re trying to verify in the first place. This is textbook circular reasoning.
As far as independently thinking–i.e. based on something other than Mormonism’s teachings–that the Mormon Way To Truth is in fact the right way, I have a lot to say about that. But for the moment I will merely point out that no other religion or religious leader teaches it. If it was independently verifiable or somehow self-evident, the chances are pretty good that someone would actually have come up with it on their own (and then if Mormonism was really true, it would have to lead them to Mormonism). Good luck trying to argue that this in fact happens.
Sailing to Byzantium 
I would recommend the book “Early Christians in Disarray” ed. Noel B. Reynolds.
It is a work by LDS scholars revisiting the Mormon idea of apostasy and identifying and challenging the following common Mormon myths about the apostasy:
1. The apostasy happened because of outside persecution.
Quite the contrary, the collapse of early Christianity was a primarily internal affair that had little to do with the mere fact of the apostles dying off. It seems fairly apparent to me that early Christianity completely went to pieces in the first 100 years of its existence and was already in process of collapse while Peter and Paul were still alive.
2. The apostasy was caused by the hellenization of Christianity or the incorporation of Greek philosophy and culture into the teachings of the early church.
Actually, Greek philosophy didn’t even really make an appearance in early Christianity until Justin Martyr (second quarter of the second century) used it in some of his writings. And even he was only using them in a sort of apologetic function to argue with the dominant Roman pagan culture.
At that point, Christian theology was already wildly diverse and confused. Greek philosophy was wedded to Christian doctrine (specifically neo-Platonist ideas) in an attempt to salvage the mess that Christianity had become and unite it under one doctrine.
Obviously, the experiment was wildly successful and the victors went on to write the history books. But that doesn’t make it true.
3. The Roman Catholic Church specifically is the “great and abominable church” spoken of in Nephi’s vision.
The authors show that Nephi’s vision shows the great and abominable church as arising as a contemporary of the “true church.” Since the Roman Catholic Church did not arise until centuries later, it cannot be what the Book of Mormon is talking about.
Anyway, it’s an interesting book, and it’s nice to have something with a little more modern scholarship than James E. Talmage or B.H. Roberts (both of which have horribly outdated scholarly sources).
Yeah okay, but none of that is directly relevant to my post. The organization of the church should have been able to completely collapse without an actual loss of priesthood power, which is passed from individual to individual (and, according to Mormon doctrine it passes even if the ordain-er is unworthy for some reason, which is how Alma the Elder got the priesthood; c.f. Noah using the priesthood to curse his offspring while drunk).
Disarray–even total collapse–of the Church organization (if there even was such a thing), does not get you to the Great Apostasy in Mormon terms.
Now to address your actual post:
“Priesthood authority must indeed work the way the Mormon Church claims it does.”
I have no idea what you have in mind by this statement and you don’t really explain what you think that the LDS Church teaches on this subject. So there’s really no response to be made at present.
“Mormon scriptures do not count, because for them to be acceptable, Mormonism must be true which means that priesthood must work the way Mormonism says it does (which is what we’re trying to decide in the first place).”
This statement seems patently false to me. Of course Mormon scriptures could still be true even if priesthood didn’t work the way “Mormonism says it does” (whatever you mean by that very, very vague statement). Always judge scripture on its own merit and not on the merits of the scaffolding people have erected around it.
“Said priesthood must have been lost in the manner that Mormonism claims.”
Again, no idea what you mean by this. What exactly does Mormonism claim?
“The fact that the idea of a Great Apostasy was common in the 19th century is also not dispositive. Nobody thinks that anymore.”
I’m starting to wonder if you’ve been paying any attention at all to the last couple decades of Biblical scholarship. If anything, the idea of a collapse of early Christianity is even MORE common today than it was in the 1800s. The idea of an incredibly diverse and confused early Christianity collapsing, with a much different animal arising out of the ashes at Nicea is pretty-much the common SECULAR interpretation of the history. It’s only faithful Christian scholars who try to deny this narrative (for obvious reasons). The evidence for apostasy is actually better than it’s ever been.
Revise your statement to “nobody within the Christian establishment thinks that anymore” and I’ll agree with it. But as it stands, it’s rather selective in which early Christian scholarship it pays attention to.
I read through your other post you linked to and wasn’t really swayed. First, most of it really boils down to accusations of “pot calling kettle black” which I find irrelevant to our discussion of the objective possibility or reality of an apostasy. Secondly, the rest of it seems to repeat the Mormon myth that Priesthood was lost purely by virtue of the apostles dying-off. As I’ve mentioned in the above post, that is simply a popular myth within the LDS population. Doctrine and Covenants 64:8 reads:
“My disciples, in days of old, sought occasion against one another and forgave not one another in their hearts; and for this evil they were afflicted and sorely chastened.”
Then check D&C 121:34-37:
34 Behold, there are many called, but few are chosen. And why are they not chosen?
35 Because their hearts are set so much upon the things of this world, and aspire to the honors of men, that they do not learn this one lesson—
36 That the rights of the priesthood are inseparably connected with the powers of heaven, and that the powers of heaven cannot be controlled nor handled only upon the principles of righteousness.
37 That they may be conferred upon us, it is true; but when we undertake to cover our sins, or to gratify our pride, our vain ambition, or to exercise control or dominion or compulsion upon the souls of the children of men, in any degree of unrighteousness, behold, the heavens withdraw themselves; the Spirit of the Lord is grieved; and when it is withdrawn, Amen to the priesthood or the authority of that man.
So, whatever the popular folk doctrine among modern Mormons may be, these passages make it pretty clear that (1) there was trouble a-brewing among the TOP leadership of the early Christian Church and (2) Just having the Priesthood formally passed on lineage-wise doesn’t amount to a hot cup of jack squat if it’s being abused or used incorrectly.
Not to mention that Paul’s epistles are absolutely laced with panicked calls for the early Christians to stop preaching heretical doctrines and rebelling. Prime biblical evidence of big problems in the early church if there ever were any.
The problem Kullervo, is that you are approaching the idea of a Great Apostasy from the perspective of the popular Mormon folk doctrines you were raised up in. But the folk doctrine is not supported by actual Mormon scripture. And as long as the scriptures lead me to one conclusion, I really don’t give a damn what everyone else in my Gospel Doctrine class thinks.
I think the collapse of early Christianity is better documented today than it ever has been in history – whatever you think about the validity of Mormon claims.
The only thing I question regarding this post is that your first two points are primarily based upon your own reflections, thoughts and personal belief system as to how and why You personally do not believe and accept the doctrine of a Universal Apostasy and loss of Priesthood Authority.
Essentially, all you are sharing is your own peculiar viewpoints without any empirical evidence.
What I mean by this is simple stated in this manner: I believe the sky is green because I see it as being green and any person who says it is not green is false because they can’t see what I see.
It is a weak argument.
Now, that you have made the claim why you don’t believe. What is your evidence? Where is your reason? What readings and studies have you conducted? Have you examined the issue from both perspectives to arrive at a most objective reasoning for your position?
Your post does no such thing.
Quite the contrary, the collapse of early Christianity was a primarily internal affair that had little to do with the mere fact of the apostles dying off. It seems fairly apparent to me that early Christianity completely went to pieces in the first 100 years of its existence and was already in process of collapse while Peter and Paul were still alive.
I’m no biblical scholar, but that doesn’t stop me from getting the feeling that you’ve reinterpreted the scholarship to benefit your personal beliefs. What you see as a collapse of true Christianity into chaos, I understand as the coalescing of a coherent doctrine out from a chaos of many ideas. I’m not aware of any evidence that there was anything resembling a single Christian doctrine prior to Nicaea. If you’ll allow the comparison, it’s kind of like Mormonism prior to Correlation: people believed that Joseph Smith was a prophet, but things started to get fuzzy after that.
…you are approaching the idea of a Great Apostasy from the perspective of the popular Mormon folk doctrines you were raised up in. But the folk doctrine is not supported by actual Mormon scripture.
The old it’s-not-doctrine defense. 🙂 It’s no help using the LDS scriptures as the gold standard of LDS doctrine because their views of priesthood are all over the map. This is something that has bothered me for a very long time, not just now that I’ve stopped believing in Mormonism. The priesthood of the Old Testament is considerably different than the priesthood of the Book of Mormon. In turn, the BoM priesthood slightly resembles the priesthood in Joseph’s church prior to 1835, but after 1835 things have only gotten progressively stranger. Even the LDS church realized things had gotten off track when it pulled the Seventies quorums out of the stakes.
I don’t blame you, Kullervo, for speaking from the “folk doctrines” that you’d learned (from the leadership of the LDS church). They seem as good a place to start as any.
I don’t even care to discuss the Apostasy from the framework of priesthood. It’s such an incoherent idea. I’d much rather discuss the supposed Apostasy from the viewpoint of doctrines, and as I’ve mentioned, I don’t think that there was any one doctrine to apostatize from. Just compare at face value Paul’s epistles with Peter’s epistles or with the Gospels and you get radically different ideas about Christianity. Who were the apostates: Paul? Peter? John? Mark?
“What you see as a collapse of true Christianity into chaos, I understand as the coalescing of a coherent doctrine out from a chaos of many ideas. I’m not aware of any evidence that there was anything resembling a single Christian doctrine prior to Nicaea.”
I think you are conflating two different stages in early Christian development.
The first century, as you note had no real unity of doctrine. Isolated congregations developed their own ideas separate from the others. Thus you get Marcionites, Gnostics, Valentinians, and their consumate critic Irenaeus. Your analogy to pre-correlation Mormonism is probably apt to a point. The difference was there was no real mechanism for making a course correction (as in the LDS Church) until Constantine made Christianity an apparatus of the state and forced all the major Bishops to sit down together and hash it out.
The tool used in Nicea was the framework of Hellenization. Absent any claim to revelation, the best the participants could do was appeal to a rational theology. And here, we get a systematized Christian theology for the first time. A logical framework, by which all other heresies or innovations could be judged. Theology took over the vacancy left by revelation.
I think it is unquestionable that any claim to revelation had ceased by the time of Nicea. All appeals were made by lights other than revelation.
Just a side note Jonathan, I get really tired of people dismissing any attempt to advance Mormon understanding of scripture as “the old ‘it’s not doctrine’ defense.”
It’s like our opponents have treasured up some static notion of Mormonism and get all bent out of shape whenever we try to change this precious effigy they have constructed of the faith.
Well, I have to point out the obvious – this ain’t your religion anymore.
But it is mine. And I have to live with it. You don’t.
So I’ll thank you not to tell me what I can and cannot do with it. If I have found a superior reading of the scriptures to what you experienced in your Gospel Doctrine classes, then hallelujah! Why shouldn’t I believe that instead? Why should I throw it out just because of your assertion that Mormonism is more of a mausoleum than a living working faith?
It’s like those people who leave the small farming town of their childhood for college and the big city, and then, once they get older, subscribe to the town newspaper out of a sense of nostalgia, and constantly write outraged letters to the editor every time the town council wants to put in a new stoplight, or level an aging building. It’s like the people who actually still live in the town have to constantly tiptoe around this sacred unchanging memory in order to placate “the exiles.”
“Bah” says I.
As for your point about the competing Christianities of Paul and Peter, I actually agree. I’ve sometimes heard Paul described as “the first Christian heretic.” It is hard to say for sure who in the early Church was off the reservation or not. But I do think it’s pretty clear that by the late 2nd century, all lifelines to heaven other than the scriptures and (arguably) pure human reason had been severed.
If that’s a self-serving read of history, so be it. That doesn’t mean I’m not right.
Sorry if I got snippy with you Jonathan. You’re getting the brunt of a bunch of frustrations I’ve built up elsewhere.
Seth said:
Not to mention that Paul’s epistles are absolutely laced with panicked calls for the early Christians to stop preaching heretical doctrines and rebelling. Prime biblical evidence of big problems in the early church if there ever were any.
So now you think orthodoxy is important?
But I do think it’s pretty clear that by the late 2nd century, all lifelines to heaven other than the scriptures and (arguably) pure human reason had been severed.
Wait a second, where do you get this from? Are you saying the gifts of the spirit were gone and that Christians had no individual communion with the Holy Spirit? Where are you getting that from? Are you saying that just because they weren’t willing to equate their own literature to the authority of the Apostles? Without equivocation I dare say that the 3rd century Christians were hearing more from the heavens than today’s quorum of the 12. The best Hinckley could come up with was a small, subtle influence.
Seth,
I get your frustration with people trying to define your religion for you. And I get frustrated when my ideas about Mormonism are deflected by denying them doctrinal status. As far as I can tell, there is no such thing as official doctrine in the LDS church, no iron clad way of pinning down doctrine. So when people tell me that the Mormonism that I grew up with isn’t doctrinal, there’s nothing to say but “Neither is yours. 😛 ”
So can we agree to avoid bringing up the divide between official doctrine and folk doctrine? It apparently only serves to frustrate us both.
Problem is Jonathan, Kullervo’s post is entitled “Why I am Sure Mormonism is False.”
He didn’t say – “the version of Mormonism I grew up with.” Or “the version of Mormonism most Mormons believe.” Or any other clarification like that.
No, he implied that ALL versions of Mormonism are false. Which means he has to address MY version too. And my version takes most of the statements of General Authorities as inspired commentary on the scriptures – most of the time. My touchstone for belief is the standard works. If you can show something from those books, I don’t give two straws what everyone else thinks – even Bruce R. McConkie.
I don’t mind people attacking the version of Mormonism they know, or even attacking Mormon fringe doctrines like Adam-God or whatever else – as long as they acknowledge that that is what they are doing. But usually people do not acknowledge that this is what they are doing. They instead try to make more grandiose claims to having refuted an entire religion.
Whenever I encounter this, I call them on it by presenting them with a version that they have not refuted. I demand that if you are going to make an ambitious and dramatic claim to refuting an entire faith tradition that you PROVE that you have refuted its strongest positions, not just its weakest. Otherwise, you are just claiming glory you haven’t earned.
Tim,
The statement on Paul wasn’t as careful as it should have been. As I look at Paul’s statements against “heresy” (as I imprecisely termed it) he was always attacking doctrines that led to bad behavior. So my emphasis on correct action remains.
But that said, I do not take the position that correct belief is irrelevant. I just don’t think it is sufficient. And I think the corpus of correct beliefs is much smaller and limited than traditional Christianity has tried to make it (usually by extemporizing from human philosophical systems).
Secondly Tim, do you have some evidence that the participants at Nicea claimed a direct line to God? I haven’t found any, but I have read statements to the contrary. It just seems apparent to me that Nicea was primarily a matter of philosophy wedded to exegesis of existing scripture. I have never heard anyone claim that revelation was involved (other than that already embodied in scripture).
Seth, you’ve laid out why Mormonism is so strong and why critics find it so frustrating. Lacking a defined, coherent, public creed, it is free to mutate to evade the attacks leveled against it. As long as Mormons are willing to discard past doctrines, Mormonism can accommodate new evidence. That in itself is a virtue. It sounds like what science aspires to.
However, Mormonism goes further. Its claim to fame and its Achilles heel is the assertion that it alone receives authoritative revelation from God. If this assertion is shown false, then Mormonism is just another heterodox Christian sect. Perhaps people would choose to be Mormon as a matter of religious taste, but it would no longer compel devotion as the sole arbiter of God’s will. Change the doctrines all you want, but if the cord of authority has been severed, then Mormonism becomes nothing special.
I think that is the sense in which Kullervo is saying that Mormonism is false: its Big Claim is false. So unless you already believe in an ecumenical Mormonism where there are many paths to God, all Kullervo needs to do to attack your personal version of Mormonism is to show that Mormonism doesn’t have special authority for God.
Personally, I doubt the existence of a Great Apostasy because I don’t see any evidence for a coherent original Christian doctrine from which to apostatize.
Further, the idea of Apostolic succession as a priesthood lineage seems extra-Biblical, a later invention by the Bishop of Rome. I confess my ignorance on this, so I would be grateful if anyone can point me to historical information about the idea that the apostleship is a matter of succession rather than of being an eyewitness of Jesus’ life and of selection by Jesus.
On top of that (to go along with your post, Kullervo), I see no evidence that the current LDS model of priesthood organization reflects the organization of the primitive church, aside from the use of some of the same names of church offices. I see no mention of stake presidents, for example.
“Personally, I doubt the existence of a Great Apostasy because I don’t see any evidence for a coherent original Christian doctrine from which to apostatize.”
Who said the apostasy was primarily a matter of organized doctrine and its loss? I never said that. I don’t think there was ever an organized doctrine to begin with either (as I noted above). Apostolic Christianity was very-much a work in progress as far as organized doctrine. Organized theology didn’t even appear until much later when Origen made his first attempt modeled off of Aristotle’s treatises.
But frankly, there wouldn’t be such an urgent need for an organized theology if the revelatory line to God was still in full force and in effect throughout the Church. Divine course corrections could be made directly. The fact that an organized theology at Nicea was necessary is a good piece of evidence that this direct conduit was not sufficient and a disciplined philosophical framework was necessary to fill the gap. People needed a common point of reference. If revelation could no longer fill it, theology was probably the next best substitute if you wanted something enduring.
“Further, the idea of Apostolic succession as a priesthood lineage seems extra-Biblical…”
If you ignore the Old Testament, I guess I could see that too…
It’s not so much that Priesthood lineage and stuff is spelled out in the NEW Testament, so much as it is a an assumption dragged from the OLD Testament that you are supposed to be going into the New Testament narrative with. Ask yourself – does the Bible give any good reason why we should NOT assume a continuation of Priesthood on the Old Testament model?
Secondly, I think the specific organization of the Priesthood is of secondary importance. It doesn’t really matter if Priests were responsible for blessing the sacrament in ancient Jerusalem, or if teachers are supposed to collect fast offerings, or if the Bishop of Antioch had an Executive Secretary or whatever else. What is important is that the authority continued. The form that authority took would, of course, have to mold itself to serve the time and needs of the living people within the Church. So starting with the obvious assertion that there were no Stake Presidents in Peter’s Jerusalem is going about the matter in completely the wrong way. It focuses on the trappings and incidentals of the Priesthood rather than it’s fundamental essence.
Seth,
I wouldn’t say that the majority view is that early Christianity “collapsed” or that it was “confused.” Nor would I say that there is much in contemporary scholarship to support a strong claim of discontinuity between pre-Nicea and post Nicea. I’d argue that you’d be hard pressed to find substantial support among the majority of scholars. Furthermore, looking at the practice of pre and post Nicene Christianity, there isn’t any substantial difference in terms of worship and morality, which are often found to be substantially different from the LDS. There were still Bishops, priests and deacons, a fairly set liturgy, infant baptism, the eucharist was central, etc. Plenty of textual and archaeological finds bear this out.
As for Greek philosophy, what people like Justin and Origen were trying to do was use the best science of the day to explicate Christian theological concepts, which is something LDS philosophers of religion do today as well. When both go beyond the confines of their respective traditions, complaints arise. That isn’t a sufficient basis to argue for the presence of entirely different religious bodies.
The various forms of Gnostics like the Marcionites, Valentinians, etc. are no support for the claim that there was no unity of doctrine for a number of good reasons. These groups did not hold the leadership in the church and were rather eclectic. They were so much so that it is hard today for contemporary scholars of Gnosticism to create an adequate taxonomic designation for them. It is not as if the Valentinians had a church you could go to down the street. Further, we’d need a reason for identifying any of these groups as Christian. True, they employed Christian writings and concepts to some degree or another, but they also employed the writings of Plato and other figures in the same way. They revered Christ, but they also placed him along side Plato and other popular figures. They incurred the wrath not only of Ireneaus, but of philosophers like Plotinus and that isn’t proof that there was no unified body of doctrines among the Platonists.
In the first century it does seem that you not only had an agreed upon body of doctrine but of practice as is made apparent in Acts 15 with a church council. That was the pre-existing mechanism employed by Constantine.
The Nicene and post Nicene contenders on both sides regularly appealed to revelation and then gave arguments as to why their readings were the best. In fact, the key term of Nicea, while a Greek philosophical term, carried no philosophical content at all for the Nicene and post Nicene theologians, for the simple reason that they by and large adhered to the idea that God was beyond being and ad intra incomprehensible. No one did know nor could know what God was so that it was not possible for Ousia to have any philosophical content. Without philosophical content, hellenization is impossible. Nicea then is quite ant-hellenistic since it precludes the kind of hellenization that Origen, Lucian and Arius favored.
Seth,
I wouldn’t say that the majority view is that early Christianity “collapsed” or that it was “confused.” Nor would I say that there is much in contemporary scholarship to support a strong claim of discontinuity between pre-Nicea and post Nicea. I’d argue that you’d be hard pressed to find substantial support among the majority of scholars. Furthermore, looking at the practice of pre and post Nicene Christianity, there isn’t any substantial difference in terms of worship and morality, which are often found to be substantially different from the LDS. There were still Bishops, priests and deacons, a fairly set liturgy, infant baptism, the eucharist was central, etc. Plenty of textual and archaeological finds bear this out.
As for Greek philosophy, what people like Justin and Origen were trying to do was use the best science of the day to explicate Christian theological concepts, which is something LDS philosophers of religion do today as well. When both go beyond the confines of their respective traditions, complaints arise. That isn’t a sufficient basis to argue for the presence of entirely different religious bodies.
The various forms of Gnostics like the Marcionites, Valentinians, etc. are no support for the claim that there was no unity of doctrine for a number of good reasons. These groups did not hold the leadership in the church and were rather eclectic. They were so much so that it is hard today for contemporary scholars of Gnosticism to create an adequate taxonomic designation for them. It is not as if the Valentinians had a church you could go to down the street. Further, we’d need a reason for identifying any of these groups as Christian. True, they employed Christian writings and concepts to some degree or another, but they also employed the writings of Plato and other figures in the same way. They revered Christ, but they also placed him along side Plato and other popular figures. They incurred the wrath not only of Ireneaus, but of philosophers like Plotinus and that isn’t proof that there was no unified body of doctrines among the Platonists.
In the first century it does seem that you not only had an agreed upon body of doctrine but of practice as is made apparent in Acts 15 with a church council. That was the pre-existing mechanism employed by Constantine.
The Nicene and post Nicene contenders on both sides regularly appealed to revelation and then gave arguments as to why their readings were the best. In fact, the key term of Nicea, while a Greek philosophical term, carried no philosophical content at all for the Nicene and post Nicene theologians, for the simple reason that they by and large adhered to the idea that God was beyond being and ad intra incomprehensible. No one did know nor could know what God was so that it was not possible for Ousia to have any philosophical content. Without philosophical content, hellenization is impossible. Nicea then is quite ant-hellenistic since it precludes the kind of hellenization that Origen, Lucian and Arius favored.
Seth,
I not clear on your position on the priesthood, so I’m responding to the more familiar (and relevant in terms of numbers of Mormon believers).
When I look at the Bible with fresh eyes, without layers of Mormon exegesis, I notice a few things.
The prophetic calling had nothing to do with membership in the priesthood. Mormons surmise that the prophets’ priesthood was hidden, but there is no strong Biblical evidence for this, so it is just a supposition.
There is no evidence that only a single person was authorized to receive revelation for the body of the faithful. Moses is the only example that I can think of where this applies. Many prophets were operative during the same time during the Old Testament. Several Apostles contributed to the canon, not just Peter. The first that we hear of this idea is in D&C 28.
The Apostles weren’t connected to the Old Testament priesthood. There is little reason to believe that the the group of the Apostles were intended to be a perpetual body, passed on in a priesthood-like lineage. The qualification wasn’t an authoritative laying on of the hands by prophecy, but rather a personal witness of Jesus’ ministry and chosen by (prophetic) lots.
“Wherefore of these men which have companied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, Beginning from the baptism of John, unto that same day that he was taken up from us, must one be ordained to be a witness with us of his resurrection. And they appointed two, Joseph called Barsabas, who was surnamed Justus, and Matthias. And they prayed, and said, Thou, Lord, which knowest the hearts of all men, shew whether of these two thou hast chosen, That he may take part of this ministry and apostleship, from which Judas by transgression fell, that he might go to his own place. And they gave forth their lots; and the lot fell upon Matthias; and he was numbered with the eleven apostles.” (Acts 1:21–26, emphasis added)
Kullervo’s point about the priesthood and the authority for revelation not working as taught in correlated Mormonism is well founded in my estimation. It’s just not justified in the Bible.
Perry,
The various forms of Gnostics like the Marcionites, Valentinians, etc. are no support for the claim that there was no unity of doctrine for a number of good reasons. These groups did not hold the leadership in the church and were rather eclectic.
Then how do you explain the very Gnostic Gospel of John? 🙂
Jonathan,
I don’t take the gospel of John to be a gnostic text. It lacks marks distinctive of gnostic texts. And nothing we know of John or the men he commissioned in Asia minor would lead usto think he was Gnostic. None of the remaining Orthodox churches in Asia minor display anything distinctly gnostic either. 😛
It may lack some aspects of gnosticism, but it does appear to have others.
It’s never completely cut and dried when you are talking about early Christian history.
And I think you are unduly marginalizing just how influential, widespread, and prominent competing sects of Christianity were in that time period. For a certain period, it was rather touch-and-go and Christianity could have gone either way. You’re statement that the competing factions never held the leadership of the Church is not really accurate as far as I can tell. Many of the faction leaders were bishops, for instance.
It sounds more like you are letting the victors write the history books and letting Irenaeus be the one “in the right” simply because he is the one your faith acknowledges, while letting those he criticized be the ones “in the wrong.” But I see no reason to prize Irenaeus’ worldview over that of Marcion or the gnostics.
One faction won, and made sure that the history books marginalized the losers. End of story.
Seth,
All I can say to bald claims is, No. To the number of claims you make you need to give an argument. Victors don’t always write the history and even if they did, it doesn’t follow that what they write is false. We need a reason to think what what Ireneaus wrote was false. Further, when Ireneaus is writing, his position isn’t victorious. The entire line of reasoning is a genetic fallacy. As for one faction one, well that seems odd, since even after the “winning” there seemed to be lots of different groups and a variety of theological emphasis or outlooks. It seems just as specious to view gnosticism as part of Christianity as it does to view it as a part of middle and late platonism.
One way you could show that I am mistaken would be by pointing to clear examples of essential gnostic characteristics of the GOJ or by pointing out a prominent bishop or bishops in the pre-Nicene period who were clearly gnostic. You claim that many gnostic leaders were bishops. Such as? We can also add to this that there simply was no pre-christian gnosticism to draw from and what the Johannine and Pauline material is directed against is not full blown gnosticism in any case. Gnosticism was parasitic on other pre-existing paradigms.
As far as it being “touch and go” this depends on one’s philosophical and theological assumptions when evaluating the data. It is obvious that we do not share many presuppositions. I do not assume your ecclesiological outlook and I think there is strong historical and theological support for the idea of apostolic succession via the episcopate.
Here is an article on science and Mormonism that I published awhile ago in my blog “Interlingua multilingue”:
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Science and the Mormons
The Mormons are a religious sect that emerged from Christianity in the United States in the Nineteenth Century. They added to the Bible their own scripture, the Book of Mormon, translated by Joseph Smith from an original text in a language he called Reformed Egyptian. According to the mythology of the Mormons, in 1827 the angel Moroni gave Smith these texts, which were engraved on golden tables. Smith could understand them without learning their language through the divine magic of two special lenses that he used to read them while he translated them.
Smith and his followers were persecuted by traditional Christians, who forced them to travel slowly and with great sacrifices until they reached what is now Utah, where their descendants dominate the religious and social life of this American state.
According to the Mormons, the Indians of the Americas came from Egypt more than 2,000 (two thousand) years ago. They used this myth to convert many Indians to their religion. “We were taught that all the blessings of our Hebrew ancestors made us a special people,” said Jose a Loyaza, a lawyer in Salt Lake City, the capital of Utah. “And this identity gave us a sense of transcendental affiliation, a special identity with God.” But Loyaza gradually learned that there was another outrageous irony to his faith.
He rejected his religion after learning that evidence provided by comparative DNA studies between American Indians and Asians conclusively proved that the first humans that migrated to the Americas came not from the Middle East but from Asia.
For the Mormons this genetic confirmation of the origin of the Indians in the Americas is a fundamental collision of science against religion. It is in direct conflict with the Book of Mormon, which, according to their religion, is a completely error-free historical work that must be interpreted literally.
The Book of Mormon is also fundamentally racist. It narrates that a tribe of Hebrews from Jeruselem went to the Americas in 600 B.C. and split up into two groups, the Nephites and the Lamanites. The Nephites carried the “true” religion to the new world and were in constant conflict with the Lamanites, who practiced idolatry. The Nephites were white (in 1980 the Mormons changed the word to “pure”), and the Lamanites received from God “The curse of blackness.”
The Book of Mormon also narrates that in 385 A.D. the Lamanites exterminated all the other Hebrews and became the principal ancestors of the American Indians. But the Mormons insist that if the Lamanites returned to the “true” religion (Mormonism, quite naturally), their skin would eventually become white like the skin of the Nephites that their ancestors had exterminated.
But despite these outrageous racist insults, many Indians and Polynesians (who also, according to the Mormons, are the descendants of the Lamanites) converted to Mormonism instead of telling the Mormons to go fuck themselves. (Through some perverse mechanism in human psychology, these converts are like homosexual priests who support the Roman catholic church or other gay people who support any type of Christianity.)
“The fiction that I was a Lamanite,” said Damon Kali, a lawyer in Sunnyvale, California, whose ancestors came from Polynesian islands, “was the principal reason that I converted to Mormonism.” He had been a missionary for the Mormans before he discovered that genetic evidence proved that the Lamanites were only a religious myth, and he could not continue his efforts to convert others to Mormonism.
Officially the Mormon church insists that nothing in the Book of Mormon is incompatible with the genetic evidence. Some Mormons are now saying that the Levites were a small group of Hebrews that went to Central America and after many generations of marrying with the natives they met, their Hebrew DNA disappeared into the DNA of their neighbors.
In 2002, officers of the church started a trial to excommunicate Thomas W. Murphy, a professor of anthropology at Edmonds Community College in Washington, an American state at the extreme northwest of the continental United States.
His trial attracted a lot of attention in the American public communications media, which ridiculed the church and insisted that Murphy was the Galileo of Mormonism. The general contempt provoked by this publicity seriously embarrassed the officers of the church, and they stopped the trial.
I know this is a very old post, but I came across it today while searching for something on Google. If you don’t mind, I thought I’d share a few thoughts. I am an LDS grad student studying theology and I have been very interested in the Priesthood for the past couple of years. I have recently written some papers on the Melchizedek Priesthood in Old Testament and Intertestamental times, and how the idea of Christ’s Melchizedek Priesthood developed in the Epistle to the Hebrews in the NT. Based on my research, I believe that there is a lot about priesthood that is just not explained in detail in the Old or New Testament.
More specifically to your points about the priesthood, I don’t think its reasonable to conclude that the Mormon teaching on the loss of priesthood authority is false due to lack of evidence. There is a great paucity of historical documents in the first century and half after Christ that leaves all scholars somewhat in the dark as far as what was happening with the early Christian church. What we do know is that the apostles were all killed and the struggling church was bereaved of its principal leadership. We go from a unified church guided by apostles who had a high priestly authority and the gift of prophecy to a divided group of separate congregations run by bishops who did not claim the gift of prophecy.
You claim that a loss of priesthood authority is not possible, because (as Mormonism itself teaches) priesthood can easily be passed on from one individual to another. I agree that even if the apostles were all killed, the bishops would have been able to pass on the priesthood in this way. I would say, however, that this argument leaves out one essential factor for the functioning of priesthood authority: the “keys of the Kingdom of Heaven.” When (according to Mormon understanding) Christ gave Peter the priesthood (the power that what is bound on earth is bound in heaven, Matt. 16:19), he gave Peter the “keys” or authority to administer that power. While the priesthood could be passed on to others, the authority to use that priesthood was held by Peter and others exercising that priesthood only did so with authority delegated from the head of the church, who, in turn, was only acting on behalf of Christ’s authority. If you can accept this line of thinking, then it is not hard to understand why the priesthood authority was lost when the apostles, and especially Peter, died. There is no real evidence that indicates that Peter passed these priesthood keys on to the Bishop of Rome or any other bishop.
There is also evidence in the New Testament that the apostles held a higher authority than did other church officers. Philip–not the apostle, but one of the seven “evangelists” chosen in Acts 6–is able to baptize, but not confer the gift of the Holy Ghost. The apostles Peter and John have to be called to come and lay their hands on those who were baptized by Philip so that they could receive the Holy Spirit. Now if the seven evangelists, who seem to be closer in succession to the apostles than were the bishops, didn’t have sufficient authority to give the gift of the Holy Ghost (which, according to Mormons would be the Melchizedek Priesthood), then how would bishops have this authority? At what point are bishops elevated to the highest authority? Certainly not during the time of the apostles. In Philip 1:1, bishops are evidently of a lower class than the apostles and their assistants, being named in a class with deacons (as they are elsewhere).
Although there is definitely a lack of information about what went on during the first Christian century, I think that its quite clear that there was a break from the original apostolic pattern. From the evidence available, I see a loss of the Melchizedek Priesthood, along with the keys of the kingdom, and an attempt by the bishops (Aaronic Priesthood) to carry on church procedures in imitation of the apostles.
You state that changes in doctrine wouldn’t necessarily cause the loss of priesthood. However, a loss of the principal authority from which the authority of the others was derived would, I believe, cause an end, effectively, to the priesthood authority in general. Also, personal apostasy or rebellion on the part of any bishop would result in a loss of priesthood authority as well.
I could go on, but won’t take up any more space here. If you would like to pursue a discussion of these ideas, feel free to write to me. I’m sure you have many bigger reasons for deciding to leave the Church, but as you have used this topic of priesthood as one of your reasons for “knowing” that Mormonism is false, I just though I’d challenge you on that topic. There is too much that no one knows about the historical development of Christianity for you to dismiss the possibility that apostolic authority really was lost and the church was left to move on without it. Even if the bishops maintained some priesthood authority, it was not the higher authority needed to give the gift of the Holy Ghost or run the Church.
David
David,
It’s interesting to see how many LDS assumptions snuck their way into your analysis of history. One assumption among many is that the early Christian church was led by a unified group of priestly apostles.
You also assume that the Mormon concept of the keys spoken of by Isaiah and Matthew is supported by non-Mormon sources. There’s not even much reason to connect those keys with the priesthood. You use Mormon fabrications to justify the Mormon narrative.
Or perhaps I am assuming that you don’t have sources to back up Mormon ideas about priesthood keys. Care to share?