The Confutation Of Mormonism: Part 6

 According to Mormonism, God has a body.

One foundational gospel truth about the body is the principle that having a physical body is a godlike attribute—you are more like God with a body than without. Our religion stands virtually alone in believing that God has a tangible body of flesh and bone and that our bodies were literally created in His likeness. In the Pearl of Great Price we read that “in the image of his own body, male and female, created he them” (see Moses 6:8 - 9). To become as God is requires gaining a body like He has and learning to correctly comprehend and use it. Those who chose not to follow God in the premortal state were denied mortal bodies. The Prophet Joseph Smith stated that  Satan’s lack of a body is a punishment to him.


The Book of Romans differs. 


What we have studied & taught & PAPC from the very beginning about the relationship between Leviticus 18 & Romans 1:18 - 32 speaks to this issue too. 


By way of review:


Romans 1:18 - 32 teaches also defines what Leviticus 18 teaches insofar as Leviticus 18 is case law & Romans 1:18 - 32 is didactic (teaching) commentary on Leviticus 18.


Leviticus 18:


Shema/Prologue (Lev. 18:1 - 5)


General & Specific Prohibitions (Lev.18: 6 -23) 


Document Clause, Witnesses, & Victory (Lev. 18: 24 - 30), which refers to statutes & rules & charges the people as witnesses & proclaims victory over the nations (& Israel should they behave like the nations)


Romans interprets Lev. 18 & vice versa.


Romans 1:18 - 32:


Paul is following the outline of Leviticus 18, following the form of a Hebraic lawsuit.


Shema and Decalogue (1:18 - 21) God’s Image testifies to His attributes & Law.


God created people. His temple bears His Image & runs according to His Law & Gospel.


Historical Prologue (1:22 - 23)


They suppressed God’s image & authority substituting their own, & made idols that looked & behaved like themselves.


Stipulations/Prohibitions (1:24 - 28)  In Canaan & Rome, people did heterosexual & homosexual sex for their gods.  At times they deployed animals too.  (Lev. 18: 6 - 23).  


Document Clause, Covenant Sanctions/Renewal & Witnesses, Victory (1: 29 - 32)


Kitchen sink immorality will lead to Rome’s burning, just as it did to Sodom, Egypt, Israel, Babylon, &tc.


The text is about how we are supposed to think/reason.  God’s created order testifies to His image & authority.   God indicts us for suppressing His image & authority & supplanting it with our own & other created images & reasoning accordingly.  When you teach that human anatomy, physiology, &/or psychology is a proper warrant for sexual ethics, you are teaching the opposite of what the Bible teaches.  


The idea that God has a body is the result of looking at the human image & doing faith & practice accordingly.     How so?


Mormons generally accept the tradition bound view on homosexuality, & the only road to that view inevitably entails looking to the VISIBLE attributes of the human image & doing theology, philosophy, & ethics accordingly.  


Romans 1:18 - 32 (& thus Leviticus 18) binds worship ethics, sexual ethics, & justice ethics together.    In other words, if the human image provides a sufficient epistemic warrant for ethical reasoning, then it is possible to reverse engineer sexual ethics from the VISIBLE human image. & it further follows that we can reverse engineer our theology of God the same way.   That is precisely the reasoning process that Paul labels “futility.”  


A Mormon might try to rescue his case for God having a visible body by arguing that God has a body based on their favorite prooftexts —- ie the created order is created in God’s image.    God has a body therefore we do.


By way of reply, if God has a body of flesh & bone, & if the purpose of the created order is to testify to God’s existence, attributes, & authority then we would expect the text to point us to God’s VISIBLE attributes as the basis of ethical reasoning.     The text however clearly & unequivocally states that the purpose of the created order is to testify to God’s INVISIBLE (not merely hidden from view) attributes.   


Romans 1:18 - 32 correctly understood according to its own grammar & syntax refutes the idea that God has a body.  Reasoning faith & practice from the visible attributes of the created order is a thoroughly irrational, pagan enterprise.  



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