A Response Part II: Setting the Record Straight

 In the previous post, I began a critique of a blog post shared with me by the author, an online acquaintance.  I linked back to the blog I'm discussing there, and this will be part 2.  As before, I'm not going to copy/paste every quote, but only the highlights necessary to make my points.  I provided the link to the original there so that one can see the source.

To be clear, I don't accept the premise that somehow Protestantism counts as the default version of Christianity and is thus some kind of gold standard by which to judge other Christian traditions. 

So, continuing through the blog, we go now to section 1C.

We're treated to another passage from the anti-LDS website that appears to be the exclusive source for this blog.  The passage references some of the LDS teachings regarding the pre-existence and the afterlife.  It then jumps to a discussion of our relationship with Adam's transgression.  GethN7 asserts the following, claiming it to be a contradiction in LDS theology:

"Mormon doctrine argues our premortal existence was essentially blanked out so we live our lives without a conscious remembrance of it, rendering it superfluous. This does not mesh with how the Bible says it was appointed unto man only once to live and die, and how upon reaching the age of accountability will our actions for or against God be weighted against us."

It isn't obvious to me what contradiction he's referring to here.  We do get one mortal life.  Having lived with Heavenly Father before our birth on this world is not a contradiction to that statement.  We get one life, we live it, and we die.  There's no argument here.

Further, the age of accountability has nothing to do with the preexistence.  It's the age at which one is old enough to be responsible for their own actions, and thus be able to answer for them.  That's typically the age at which many Christian traditions baptize, though there isn't one age common to all of them.  (For Latter-Day Saints, it's 8 years old, in case you're curious.)

"The Mormon concept of a premortal existence we are not aware of has seen use in another form in the beliefs of Scientology, which has a variant on the concept being memories of a past life. Again, if this premortal state is effectively irrelevant to how we are judged in the eyes of God, then its mention is effectively without a point. The entire concept falls apart on this basic logic error."

So we get a little tidbit about some similar thing in Scientology, which isn't particularly relevant, but appears to be an effort to poison the well so the reader will associate LDS with Scientology.  More relevant is the discussion of the preexistence.  Basically, what GethN7 is saying here is that if we lived in the preexistence and are unable to remember it, then the whole thing is irrelevant.  He evaluates this as a logic error but doesn't explain how exactly it's illogical.

Of course it's relevant to know about the preexistence.  It informs us about our true nature as the spiritual sons and daughters of Heavenly Father, and gives us insight into our creation.  It provides a context for why we live in this world and what we're meant to return to when we die.  It may not make a whole lot of difference in how one lives day to day, but it's hardly a logical error to teach the concept.  This just seems nitpicky to me.  

Still doesn't somehow disqualify Latter-Day Saints as Christians.  If it does, then some explanation would be useful here.

"The essential concept of salvation is that humanity CANNOT save itself. By the fall of Adam, man became marked as unregenerate without the intercessions of God to save us from our own inquiry. Mormons accept the basic backstory of the Garden of Eden and the events of its resulting aftermath, yet essentially reject the key result of Adam's action reflecting on humanity. If we take this logic at face value, humanity has nothing to prove, atone for, or have to accept we are flawed beings in need of outside intervention."

The conclusion being drawn here does not follow from the statements before it.  Adam's and Eve's sin resulted in them being cast out of Eden.  From there, they went on to have children and start building.  Did the children get to go back to Eden?  No.  Has anyone, ever, as far as we know, been able to return to Eden?  No.  So I don't see how that makes us disconnected from that sin.  We live in a fallen world now.  More on that below.

He elaborates:

"Mormons essentially argue that the Garden of Eden was a failure of the direct participants in those events and affected no one else. This, despite God in the very same event making clear Adam and Eve's fall from grace, would place the curse of their sin on their descendants having to endure suffering and being denied eternal life free from toil and hardship such as was enjoyed in the Garden."

That's what being in a fallen world is, isn't it?  We have to work for our needs and must endure hardships such as are found in life, just like it says in Genesis 3:17-20.  We are also outside of God's immediate presence, and as a result of that state, we are subject to temptation, and all have sinned.  That's why we needed the Salvation offered to us by Jesus Christ.  His sacrifice on the cross is what enables us to atone, not for what Adam did, but for what we as individuals have done (and will do).  Of course we're flawed.  Jesus Christ is not, which is why He was uniquely qualified to be our Savior.

That sounds pretty Christian to me, and doesn't fit with what GethN7 wrote there.  Moving right along:

"If the Garden of Eden is just a burden on the direct participants alone, then that means Mormons argue God lied about the curse of sin having a knock-on effect on the descendants of the first man and woman. In short, their argument we are without innate depravity does not make sense."

That's absurd.  No Latter-Day Saint has ever asserted that God lied about anything.  The problem here is that GethN7 is examining it through the lens of a Protestant doctrine that says that mankind is inherently depraved and awful.  Basically, we're talking about Original Sin.  The Calvinist tradition is especially well known for this.  

Let me take a moment to talk about that.  It's true that Latter-Day Saints reject the notion of Original Sin.  It's in the Second Article of Faith.

"We believe that men will be punished for their own sins, and not for Adam’s transgression."

God is Just.  God will not hold someone else's sin against you.  Nor will yours be held against anyone else.  Adam's transgression obviously had a massive and lasting effect on every one of us, but that's a consequence we have to deal with.  Human beings are the children of a loving Heavenly Father.  It doesn't make any sense to me that anyone would be regarded as responsible for something Adam did hundreds of generations ago.  It would be like saying you're condemned to Hell because some ancestor of yours was a murderer.  

I don't see how that would somehow be an argument against Latter-Day Saints being Christians, but maybe that's just me.  Moving on...

"The rest is even more confusing. If we have an eternal nature that cannot be flawed while our mortal side can be flawed, they are effectively arguing for two entities in the same flesh, one of a mortal nature, and one of a divine, coexisting in the same mortal shell. Given they basically deny the innate sinfulness of man, this two-party entity in a mortal shell thus cannot be flawed by human weakness or evil, and thus renders any need to atone for sin irrelevant by their own doctrinal standards. The very last sentence is rather vague and also contradicts their own argument, saying we are in conflict with ourselves (which makes no sense if we cannot have our souls err and thus our mortal aspect is irrelevant to our immortal aspect) while also possessing infinite potential."

This is based on a lack of complete knowledge of LDS teachings regarding the spirit, the body, and human nature.  We can blame that anti-LDS source he's using, but it really isn't at all difficult to get the truth about what we believe without it being filtered through a source that's out to smear the LDS Church.

We don't teach that our spirit (the part of us that is eternal) cannot be flawed.  On the contrary.  Sin is what makes us unclean, both body and spirit.  It's why we can't return to Heavenly Father's presence without the Atonement we receive from the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.  I don't know where he's getting the idea that our immortal spirit cannot be flawed.  It most certainly can and is.  Even a basic understanding of LDS theology as it relates to what happens after we die would make this clear.

When he says "The very last sentence is rather vague..."  I'm not sure what he's referring to.  I looked over that section of the blog, and I can't tell which 'last sentence' he means.  Maybe it's just referring to something that was edited out, I don't know.  Maybe GethN7 will see this and clarify that part.

My goal here is not to try to convert, nor is it to attack anybody's particular flavor of Christianity.  My intent is to clarify.  If you want to say "I don't believe what those Mormons believe," that's perfectly fine, but if you're going to go out and publicly attack the LDS Church (or any entity, for that matter) then you do have a certain obligation to understand what it is you're disagreeing with.  To just fire off incorrect statements or accuse somebody of having heretical views, then you need to back that up with examples of what they actually believe.  Otherwise, you're just building a strawman.  

To be continued...