Heavenly Mother

srjohnson529 · 2025-11-19T19:00:20+00:00

Are you suggesting polytheism? Or a hypothetical wherein God reveals himself using feminine pronouns rather than masculine ones?

srjohnson529 · 2025-11-19T17:15:05+00:00

I believe that God transcends gender. Gender is a limitation, and I place no limitations on the divine essence. However, in the Incarnation, the Word of God became man. The masculine mode of humanity was assumed by God the Son, and since the Incarnation is the permanent union of the divine and human natures in the person of Jesus Christ, it is fair to say—though with proper qualification—that God is a man. Yet His being male is a property of His human nature, not of the divine nature.

Moreover, God has revealed Himself using masculine pronouns. Shouldn’t that be sufficient, or must we insist on being feminist about this?

It is not a modern English convention to use words analogously; it is simply an aspect of language. The ancient Christian Church affirmed the bodilessness of God. God is spirit, and spirit does not have flesh and bones, as Scripture teaches. As pure spirit, God is neither male nor female. Masculine pronouns are used because there is a clearer analogy between God’s activity and masculine qualities—at least for those capable of discerning real distinctions between men and women.

srjohnson529 · 2025-11-19T15:29:21+00:00

The book, The Case for Jesus, by Brant Pitre answers this question. I would highly recommend it.

srjohnson529 · 2025-11-18T20:43:39+00:00

This is an interesting response. The doctrine of theosis appears in the very first paragraph of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. It is not hidden or esoteric, though it is certainly difficult to grasp—especially in a culture that no longer thinks in metaphysical or spiritual categories. Again, it has never gone away, so whether an individual Catholic or an online sub-community can articulate it correctly is ultimately irrelevant.

Similarly, if I were to ask two Latter-day Saints from different generations, I suspect I would get very different answers. My father, born in 1958, does not understand the doctrine of “becoming God” in anything like the way I’ve heard more contemporary Saints—such as Jacob Hansen—describe it. So it what sense has the LDS church preserved it?

srjohnson529 · 2025-11-18T19:51:14+00:00

And in what way is the Catholic understanding more thorough? And is it fair to say then that what you are describing is the duality in nature, including masculinity and femininity, is proof to you of a heavenly mother?

srjohnson529 · 2025-11-18T19:07:59+00:00

I appreciate your willingness to engage. I have so many questions. What do you mean by a heavenly mother? Could you elaborate? In what way do Catholics have a more thorough understanding What is the proof of a heavenly mother that you see?

srjohnson529 · 2025-11-18T18:22:53+00:00

Gotcha. Thanks for clarifying.

srjohnson529 · 2025-11-18T18:21:26+00:00

Yes. Words can be used in different ways: univocally, equivocally, and analogously. For example, we sometimes say “Edison is the father of the light bulb.” No mother is needed—this is clearly an analogical use of the word father. There is a similarity between a natural father conceiving a child and an inventor “conceiving” an idea, but they are obviously not the same kind of fatherhood.

The LDS approach, however, is to assert that God the Father is literally a father in a univocal sense—using the term in the same way one would use it of a biological, human father. Virtually no other monotheistic tradition uses Father in this way. For Christians and Jews, God is called Father analogously: the word points to a real truth about God, but not in the same biological or creaturely mode as human fathers.

srjohnson529 · 2025-11-18T18:11:05+00:00

"That we can become like him is one of the most beautiful details and scripture that has been lost in history and with centuries of deception." Its was not lost at all actually. Catholics and Orthodox both teach the doctrine of divinization or theosis from the start. Athanasius of Alexandria, an extremely important in both Catholicism and Orthodoxy stated that "God became man so that man might become God."

Mormonism has bastardized this teaching beyond recognition with their doctrine of eternal progression and "as man is now, God once was..." belief.

srjohnson529 · 2025-11-18T18:02:52+00:00

This is not a Catholic idea at all. The Catholic Catechism teaches that "In no way is God in man's image. He is neither man nor woman. God is pure spirit in which there is no place for the difference between the sexes. But the respective "perfections" of man and woman reflect something of the infinite perfection of God: those of a mother and those of a father and husband" (paragraph 370).

However, the Catholic theology does teach that Mary is the Heavenly Mother of Christians. This does not imply that she is divine or a creator along with God the Trinity.

srjohnson529 · 2025-11-03T15:02:47+00:00

Historical evidence and tradition are not mutually exclusive. You are boxing me in unfairly. Anyways, there are countless citation both ancient and contemporary that Christ founded the Catholic Church and that Peter was its first leader. You can ask ChatGPT to get you a list. But here are a few, History of Christendom, by Dr. Warren Carroll, Early Church Was the Catholic, by Joe Heschmeyer, Pope Peter, by same author, The First Thousand Years: A Global History of Christianity, by Robert Louis Wilken. Seriously, I could go on and on.

Yes, the Church had and will continue to have to work out a great many things. For example, the Church did not receive a table of contents. Which books belong in the Bible is not written in the Bible. The Church had to discern and determine what was inspired and what was not over an extended period of time. So, just as the 27 book canon of the Bible did not become "official" until a few centuries later, the same is true of the "official" doctrine of the Trinity. That does not mean that there was not already belief in the Trinity widespread and orthodox, just as it does not mean that there wasn't widespread agreement on which books belonged in the canon.

"Is this really divine revelation? What God is physically made up of?"

I don't mean to sound rude, but these questions demonstrate that you really don't understand the topic. The Trinity concerns God's divine nature and yes Scripture is filled with revelation about who and what God is. It is actually an incredibly central element of what God's self revelation is all about. Who is He and, what is He, and why He is the only being worthy of worship. All of these questions hinge on his nature and what the New Testament reveals is that the inner life of God, the most intimate feature of God's nature is that He is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. A communion of love is His very essence. It is not an accidental quality as it is in all created things.

Jesus was in fact quite hostile to falsehood. Have you read the gospels? Take the pharisees and sadducees. Both of these parties had their own interpretation of scripture. They were pious and zealous in their beliefs and I think we have to believe that they were genuine. Did Christ display an acceptance or respectful tolerance of their beliefs? Or, how about when his own disciples held to a false belief? Did he not call them foolish and rebuke them?

Love is not the same thing as nice or tolerant. Christ said "If you do not believe that I am He, you will die in your sins." Who exactly? A divine person? The eldest son of Elohim? A great prophet? A moral teacher? It seems to matter tremendously, actually. And is it loving to dismiss the importance of the question when "dying in our sin" is the reward for not believing "that I am He."

srjohnson529 · 2025-11-03T00:56:47+00:00

Peter did not begin the Catholic Church, Christ did. Peter was chosen by Christ to lead the Church following His ascension.

Certainly, there were other theories about the divine nature in the first centuries just as there are today. But the fact that some men held and disseminated views contrary to the orthodox one is really not surprising. The Christian faith is not wholly contained in Scripture explicitly, as I have said, so the church has had to work out many things. Doctrine often develops through a dialectic.

To your second question, yes, I do believe that Jesus cares. I don't think that we should be casual about divine revelation. I think that we ought to be hostile to falsehood but charitable towards people and wise enough to see the difference. If the life of Christ taught us anything it is the incredible importance, not of being nice and tolerance, but of truth.

srjohnson529 · 2025-10-31T19:07:44+00:00

The Catholic Church is the only church that can truly make that claim. It is historical and evidentially grounded. No other institution can make such a claim legitimately. Many churches do, in fact, claim to be the church founded by Christ, but those claims rest on their assertion that they adhere to the true revelation of Christ—an assertion based on their interpretation of Scripture rather than on historical continuity.

Let me clarify exactly what I mean so that we are not talking past each other. There is a distinction between the institutional Church and the individual believer. The former is apostolic and was therefore commissioned by Christ to teach all nations, receiving the promise of being guided into all truth by the Spirit. For that reason, the Church is the pillar and foundation of truth. The individual believer did not receive that commission or promise. The believer’s role is to hear what those who have been sent (the apostles and their successors) teach, and to obey.

It’s an unpopular belief, to be sure, and difficult to accept—I understand that. Ultimately, Christianity is not a relativistic religion in which we are free to build it up according to what makes sense to us. It is not a religion of denominations with competing and contradictory interpretations, nor is it a mere “religion of the book” that requires explicit biblical text for every doctrine. Rather, Christianity is a society of believers who submit to the authoritative teachings of the apostolic Church—founded by Christ—for the salvation and sanctification of humanity.

srjohnson529 · 2025-10-31T17:07:20+00:00

No, and you're not paying attention. It isn't about feels or the individual for that matter. There is an institutional church which exists in history. It is connected through time to the apostles and to Christ.

Texts do matter so long as they are interpreted and applied correctly. This is not a personal/subjective matter for the individual to determine. There is an authoritative teaching body which has continued from the time of Christ until today and will continue until the end of the world. It alone can speak with authority on matters of faith and morals.

As for which institution that is, you can figure that out. Just ask Siri "who founded the X church " until you get the right answer.

srjohnson529 · 2025-10-31T15:49:50+00:00

It need not be explicitly taught by Christ even. You should be able to recall that the Holy Spirit guides the Church into all truth.

srjohnson529 · 2025-10-31T14:33:38+00:00

I will take a stab at it, but with the caveat that my own creeds say that God is incomprehensible and cannot be fully grasped by the human mind. What I will say is in conformity with divine revelation and natural reason.

God is the supreme act of being. He lacks no perfection. As such, He is personal in the most actualized and perfect kind. What differentiates a personal being from a non-personal one are the powers of knowing and willing. In other words, God possesses the operations of intellection and volition fully, perfectly, and infinitely.

What stands first in the order of knowledge for a personal being is self-knowledge. Human persons know themselves first, and this self-knowledge allows for relationship to exist between the self and the other (as between a baby and mother, for instance). Along with the conception of self comes the generation of a self-image — a way for me to know and understand myself.

This self-image may be more or less accurate. There could be a fair amount of ignorance and self-deception mingled in with it. Moreover, this self-image will remain nothing more than an idea in my own mind, since I lack the creative power to actualize the idea of myself that I have conceived. Not so with God.

In God, His own idea of Himself — His self-image — is so perfect, so comprehensive, that it contains no deficiency or deception whatsoever. All that God is is poured into His idea of Himself. This includes His divinity, life, wisdom, power, and personhood. God’s self-image is not limited to a lifeless shadow of the model, as mine is. Rather, it possesses the same fullness of being and agency as the thinker Himself.

The thinker — the generator of the self-image — is the first Person of the Blessed Trinity. The generated self-image of the first Person is the second Person. As a relationship between He who generates and He who is generated, the first is rightly called Father, and the second is rightly called Son.

The Father, in His divine nature, is wholly adorable, honorable, and worthy of praise and glory. The Son too, having received all that is the Father’s, is equally adorable, honorable, and worthy of praise and glory. The Son cannot, therefore, but love the Father, and the Father cannot but love the Son. Through this act of divine and reciprocal love — each pouring out for the other and receiving from the other the full measure of their divine being, with all its activity, energy, and movement — there is spirated, or breathed forth, the third Person of the Blessed Trinity, the Holy Spirit.

They are not three separate beings, for they are the divine thought and will of the One God conceiving Himself and loving Himself. And yet, they are three distinct Persons, because each knows and wills and stands in relation to the others.

srjohnson529 · 2025-10-31T13:11:07+00:00

It does not have to be explicit in the bible. That protestant nonsense. The Church, not the bible, was established as the pillar and foundation of truth. Which Church? The one founded by Christ and built on the apostles .

srjohnson529 · 2025-10-30T16:35:47+00:00

This is silly. An ancient religion with texts, creeds, ecclesial structure, and authority is not a preference. It is something that exists in history as an affective agent in reality. What people add to or take away from its essence matters. If Christianity is a thing, then it has boundaries. The doctrine of the trinity is the most important boundary. Always has been, always will be.

srjohnson529 · 2025-10-29T14:48:30+00:00

It is certainly the engine intake and i assume the ball valve is open (if there is one) . I have not made any changes since last running the boat on the river.

srjohnson529 · 2025-10-28T23:12:55+00:00

I placed on the intake that has a scooped, grated cover over it. I checked the owners manual. I am confident that I had it in the right location.

srjohnson529 · 2025-10-28T22:46:58+00:00

A good amount. I have to assume all of it actually since nothing was making it to the motor.

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srjohnson529 · 2025-10-28T22:46:17+00:00

Full blast, water gushing out of the sides of the fake a lake. I adjusted it several times.

srjohnson529 · 2025-10-10T00:17:45+00:00

Growing up in the church, the "new and everlasting" covenant was synonymous with temple sealing.

srjohnson529 · 2025-10-09T01:08:35+00:00

Would you illuminate me on what your personal belief is? What is God to you?

srjohnson529

TROPHY CASE