There was a recent comment that was very interesting. You can read it here. Below is my reply to that comment.
Natalie,
Sorry I’m just now getting back to you, I’ve been very busy. I think we agree with each other in many ways. I’m happy you don’t believe in the calvinist view that once you are saved you cannot fall from grace.
It’s true that motives can be wrong and works alone will never get us to heaven. Jesus is the only one that can make that happen. King Benjamin taught that we are all beggers and that no matter what we do it will never be enough.
Mosiah 4:19
19 For behold, are we not all beggars? Do we not all depend upon the same Being, even God, for all the substance which we have, for both food and raiment, and for gold, and for silver, and for all the riches which we have of every kind?
I can assure you I didn’t purposely withhold the entire verse when quoting Paul.. it’s one of my favorite verses. King Benjamin in the same sermon referenced above also makes the point that we have no reason to boast in our own works:
Mosiah 2:20-24
20 I say unto you, my brethren, that if you should render all the thanks and praise which your whole soul has power to possess, to that God who has created you, and has kept and preserved you, and has caused that ye should rejoice, and has granted that ye should live in peace one with another—
21 I say unto you that if ye should serve him who has created you from the beginning, and is preserving you from day to day, by lending you breath, that ye may live and move and do according to your own will, and even supporting you from one moment to another—I say, if ye should serve him with all your whole souls yet ye would be unprofitable servants.
22 And behold, all that he requires of you is to keep his commandments; and he has promised you that if ye would keep his commandments ye should prosper in the land; and he never doth vary from that which he hath said; therefore, if ye do keep his commandments he doth bless you and prosper you.
23 And now, in the first place, he hath created you, and granted unto you your lives, for which ye are indebted unto him.
24 And secondly, he doth require that ye should do as he hath commanded you; for which if ye do, he doth immediately bless you; and therefore he hath paid you. And ye are still indebted unto him, and are, and will be, forever and ever; therefore, of what have ye to boast?
Having said that, there are a couple of reasons that works are important, namely:
1. They are evidence of our faith. If we are not bringing forth fruit meet for repentance, then we don’t have true faith in Jesus Christ, and therefore, do not have access to His divine grace to save us. This is the kind of faith both you and I belive in. We don’t believe that a person who is willfully commiting murder etc is a true deciple of Jesus Christ, and thus is a parkator of His gift of Mercy and Grace.
2. God has made us so that we can do good things and He expects us to use that power. We might disagree in this point but I would like to spot-light the differences below…
Your statement “A Mormon seeks to gain access (and glorify themselves) through service.” may be true for some, but is not what the Church teaches as the right motive. The Church and the Savior Himself teaches that service should grow out of our love for Jesus and His incredible gift to us. It is evidence of our faith in Him and evidence of the sanctification that is taking place in our hearts through the Gift of the Holy Ghost.
But service is something good we CAN do. Mormons don’t believe that we are all born inherently evil. That is a fundamental difference between Calvinist belief and the LDS faith.
My presbytiern minister friend really did believe that a saved person would still be saved even if they murdered. That may not be what you believe, but it follows Calvinistic thought correctly. (Calvinists are found mostly today in the Presbyterian, Southern Baptist, and Evangelical branches of Christianity)
Point 4 of John Calvins Genevan Confession says:
IV. Natural Man
“We acknowledge man by nature to be blind, darkened in understanding, and full of corruption and perversity of heart, so that of himself he has no power to be able to comprehend the true knowledge of God as is proper, nor to apply himself to good works. But on the contrary, if he is left by God to what he is by nature, he is only able to live in ignorance and to be abandoned to all iniquity. Hence he has need to be illumined by God, so that he come to the right knowledge of his salvation, and thus to be redirected in his affections and reformed to the obedience of the righteousness of God.”
As bolded above, they believe the man is incapable of good works and is full of perversity of heart…
This doctrine has led to the idea that because Men and Women cannot do good, They also cannot fall from grace once they are saved. In other words, once they are saved, they now cannot do anything bad in the eyes of God. They believe that we are culpable for Adams sin and that every infant child is born a sinful creature full of guilt. Also every saved person is not accountable for their works anymore. That isn’t to say they believe saved people should go out and sin, but only if they did, it would not matter.
Mormons do not believe this. Our second article of faith is:
“We believe that man will be punished for his own sins and not for Adams transgression.”
Here is how it works:
Everyone is born into the world innocent. They inherit a fallen nature from Adam and Eve (not a sinful nature, but a fallen nature that is subject to temptation and the appetites of the flesh) They also inherit a divine nature from Heavenly Father because before this life each child was literally begotten of the Father who is the Father of our spirits.
Acts 17:28
28 For in Him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.
No child is accountable for any decisions made before the age of accountability. This is because they do not understand fully what they are doing wrong. All children who die before the age of 8 years old are automatically saved by Jesus Christs atonement. After the age of 8, they are accountable and everyone who has ever lived has chosen wrong or sinned at some time or another in their life except for Jesus Christ. No matter what they do, they cannot be saved without the mercy and Grace of Jesus Christ. The way to access this Grace is to:
1. Have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ
2. Repent of your sins
3. Be Baptized and enter into a special covenant with Christ
4. Receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost by the Laying on of hands by those who have authority
5. Endure faithfully to the end of their mortal lives.
Everyone who has ever lived in this world (even those who lived before Christ) will have a chance to accept His gospel in this life or the next. If they have the chance in this life but do not accept it, they will not be saved in His kingdom. If they do not have the chance in this life, but accept it in the next, they will be saved in His kingdom.
Mormonism gives the opportunity for everyone equally who has ever lived on this earth to hear the Gospel message and to accept or reject it.
Because we have a divine nature, being the literal offspring of God, we have inherited the ability to do good. It is expected that we will use this divine inheritance to show our faith in Jesus Christ and to grow to become like our Father in Heaven. When we do this, we show the evidence of our faith and because our faith is pure, we are encircled in the arms of Jesus’ grace and mercy and made clean. We also change. We become better. We go through the process of sanctification. We eventually will become like our Father in Heaven.
That is the fundamental difference. Calvinists believe we are all born sinners. We believe we are born innocent but can and do sin (often in my case!). Calvinists believe unsaved people are incapable of doing good of their own free will. We believe that God has given everyone agency to choose between the good and the evil, and the ability to repent and be forgiven of the sins we commit through the mercy of Jesus Christs atonement. Adams sin is swallowed up in Christ and no one is accountable for it. This means we are only accountable for those things that we have control over.
Calvinists beleive that once in a state of grace, there is nothing a person can do to fall from that grace. We believe that just as Adam and Eve fell we too can fall, and do fall, so we need access to the Saviors atonement to be forgiven and to be saved. After Baptism we embark on a life of learning, repentance, and sanctification. If we stay on this path we are guaranteed salvation through the merits and mercy of Jesus Christ alone.
I hope this clarifies where we agree and may disagree. I believe you are a sincere follower of Christ and may He bless you. I testify that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is His church. I testify that the authority to baptize is found within this church. I also testify that baptisim is a pre-requiste of Salvation. If you would like to know more here is a link: CLICK HERE
In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
I see from other blog posts that you have children.
I am therefore at a loss for how you could think that children are *not* born sinful.
Their first and most frequent willful act is defiance (“No!”) and they must be taught all the hallmarks of an un-selfish life (sharing toys, not hitting, biting or kicking you or other kids) with great patience and perseverance as you well know!
It may (or may not) be that their sins are not counted against them before the age of atonement, but they are very clearly sinning *well* before this age and it is not a great conceptual leap to say that they are born into sin.
-A Passing Calvinist
I hope you don’t mind an outsider to your faith making a comment. I happened upon this site because my good friend and colleague is an LDS member, and I wanted to know if Mormons were Calvinistic or Armenian?
I am an Elder from another stream of the Christian expression.
I recently was giving Ephesians a read and noticed two things there that might make for a good discussion. In chapter 2:1 it says,
“And you [hath he quickened], who were dead in trespasses and sins; (King James Version)
So, do all people sin and trespass as a result of the ‘fallen nature’ you refer to? I assume by your comment further about your own sinning means that we all eventually sin, even if born innocent and make it past the age of eight.
What Paul seams to be saying here to the Ephesians “And you [hath he quickened], who were dead in trespasses and sins” Is that we have the deliberate acts of trespassing, where we know the law and decide to cross it anyway, or sin, where we want to follow God’s decrees but can’t. for instance, a Mormon like any other person could suffer from a sexual addiction, that would be an example of sinning, where you want to serve God and do good, but keep going back to the sin. Paul talks about wanting to do the things of God in Romans 7 but the sin in his flesh kept causing him to sin.
Paul does seem to be talking about two different things here… sins and trespassed. Paul says the result is that we are ‘dead’ … I kind of see a picture of a person who’s heart has stopped. They need a defibrillator… but since they are ‘dead’ they can’t do that themselves. In the same way, I am not sure a person who is dead spiritually can call out to God for help… it would seem God has to come to them to restore them from this spiritual death that is a result of their sins and trespasses.
When I studied this a while back I ended up looking into the original Greek and the original Greek word for dead is
“Nekros” and here is what the Stong’s Greek dictionary says (not sure if you folks recognize Strongs, so yo may want to research that) but it defined it as
metaph.
a) spiritually dead
1) destitute of a life that recognises and is devoted to God, because given up to trespasses and sins
2) inactive as respects doing right
b) destitute of force or power, inactive, inoperative
So, it would seem that the King James translators did get it right here.
The whole debate in our circles has been, does God call us or do we choose him? Realizing the LDS doctrine differs in many ways, I am not sure how you folks deal with that question.
Also, it never occured to me until I read you article (thanks by the way, it clarified some things for me) to ask this question: If an LDS person does murder, then dies, and comes back through another life, then does that un-atoned sin make them not born innocent that time?
Anyway, if you read down to here, thanks for you time.
Take Care
Doug
Doug,
What a great comment. Thank you for your thoughtful questions and please forgive that I’m just now getting around to attempting to answering them. I’ll give it my best try, Latter-day saints believe that when Adam and Eve were cast out of the garden that they experienced a spiritual death. The definition of spiritual death to a latter-day Saint is to be separated from God. However, even though they were cast out, they still were able to keep the one benefit of partaking of the fruit, and that was the ability to know the good, from the evil, and have the power to choose between the two. As for your first question:
Q: So, do all people sin and trespass as a result of the ‘fallen nature’ you refer to?
A: Everyone except Christ sins. I’m not sure that it’s a result of the fallen nature, but rather everyone eventually gives in to the temptations that come from having a fallen nature and from Satan. If a person went their whole life without giving into the temptations (like Christ did) they would not need a redeemer for their personal sins, but would still need Adams sin atoned for in order to overcome the effects of Adams transgression, namely becoming mortal, and physical death (the separation of the spirit with the body). In Romans 5:14-15 we read…
14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come.
15 But not as the offence, so also is the free gift. For if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many.
We would interpret that scripture as saying that the consequences of Adams fall came upon us all, (fallen nature (i.e. this mortal state), and death.) even though none of us “sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression.” Also, the gift of the Resurrection is for all a free gift given regardless of what we chose in this life, Christ in that sense redeems everyone from the fall.
You wrote: “Paul talks about wanting to do the things of God in Romans 7 but the sin in his flesh kept causing him to sin.” We would interpret the scripture a little differently. We would not say this his flesh is causing him to sin here, rather that his flesh is tempting him to sin. In our eyes, it is only a sin if we have control over it and choose to give into temptation. In his book “Come unto Christ” Ezra Taft Benson says that we are not always guilty of what comes into our minds, rather what we do with that thought when it gets there. (not an exact quote). So we might have thoughts flash through our minds that are sinful, but if we run them out of our minds quickly then we are not guilty of sin. Just like if someone offers me some drugs and I say no, I’m not guilty of anything.
However, we are also told that every one of us does give into the temptations of the flesh and Satan and do sin:
Rom. 3:10
There is none righteous, no, not one
Rom. 3:23
all have sinned, and come short of the glory
Rom. 5:12
death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned
Rom. 7:18
in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing — Notice here Paul specifically mentions “that is, in my flesh” because his Spirit had been redeemed but he was still awaiting the full redemption that comes at the Resurrection when his body will be perfected.
Q: does God call us or do we choose him?
A: God calls us, and has called all of his children to come unto Him, however we get to decide weather or not to answer that call. He will force no one to heaven.
Q: If an LDS person does murder, then dies, and comes back through another life, then does that un-atoned sin make them not born innocent that time?
A: I’m assuming that you mean the Resurrection when you say “comes back through another life”. Here is the answer… If a person dies and has not repented(accessed the blessings of the atonement of Christ) of any sin, let alone murder, then they will have to suffer for those sins before they can be Resurrected. There is a scripture in the Doctrine and Covenants that says:
D&C 19: 16-19
16 For behold, I, God, have suffered these things for all, that they might not suffer if they would repent;
17 But if they would not repent they must suffer even as I;
18 Which suffering caused myself, even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit—and would that I might not drink the bitter cup, and shrink—
19 Nevertheless, glory be to the Father, and I partook and finished my preparations unto the children of men.
After these people have suffered the consequences of their sins, they will be resurrected. But they will not receive the same glory as those who did have faith in Christ, Repented of their sins, were baptized, received the Holy Ghost, and endured in faith until the end of their mortal lives.
I hope these answers helped you understand us a little better. I have great respect for you and all others who interpret the scriptures differently than I do. In my mind there is only one way that we can know who is interpreting the scriptures correctly, and that is by asking God. (James 1:5-6) I know that he has answered my prayers concerning the truth of the Book of Mormon and the Bible. I know that anyone can have those same blessings if they will sincerely ask Him (the author of truth) was is true.
Thank you!
I beg your pardon for the typos! 😀
Christopher, sin is only sin if one knowingly is going against the will of God. A child does not fully understand right and wrong unless they are taught. Thus, God has given childhood as a time where we an learn the basic difference between right and wrong. If the Child is not taught, then the sin is put in the heads of the parents.
The Book of Mormon clarifies this in 2 Nephi 9:
25 Wherefore, he has given a law; and where there is no law given there is no punishment; and where there is no punishment there is no condemnation; and where there is no condemnation the mercies of the Holy One of Israel have claim upon them, because of the atonement; for they are delivered by the power of him.
26 For the atonement satisfieth the demands of his justice upon all those who have not the law given to them, that they are delivered from that awful monster, death and hell, and the devil, and the lake of fire and brimstone, which is endless torment; and they are restored to that God who gave them breath, which is the Holy One of Israel.
27 But wo unto him that has the law given, yea, that has all the commandments of God, like unto us, and that transgresseth them, and that wasteth the days of his probation, for awful is his state! (Book of Mormon, 2 Nephi, Chapter 9)