I believe dialogs like this one on your site are important due to Christ's prayer for the unity of those who follow him. In this light, I think it is first more important to understand one another than to agree. One cannot accept or reject anything unless one first understands.

I'm writing not only because I want to understand how the LDS view God, but because I have read in what you have said a possible misunderstanding of the Orthodox (for lack of a better word) conception of the Trinity. I've read where you have questioned how Jesus could be at the right hand of God and be the same God, how he could talk to himself at the creation of the world, or how he could be in Jesus, the dove, and the voice at Jesus's baptism at the same time.

What I present to you is taken from Dr. Gilbert Stafford's 1996 book Theology for Disciples pages 141-144. We misunderstand the Trinity because we think in spatial categories that we use in thinking of individuals rather than relational categories for thinking about persons. Individuals are known by the space they take up and their separation from other individuals; persons are known by the relationships they have with other persons. The Trinity is not three spatially separate individuals who have to, by definition, occupy three separate locations. They are three persons in relationship to one another. God is not everywhere in the sense that he occupies all space and leaves none for us. His presence is relational. Jesus may be where "all the fullness of God was pleas ed to dwell" (Colossians 1:19), but he could be in the dove and the voice at the same time. God was not fully exhausted in Jesus, but he was fully communicated in Jesus.

Our own social nature as human beings is a good model for the Trinity. We are each three persons in one: the mysterious person of private depth, the imaged person of our own perception, and the interactive person in contact with reality other than our own self-image. These persons do not take up separate spaces inside of us, but they are in dynamic relationship with each other. A simple theological statement about the Trinity might be "I AM (God the Father) This (God the Son) Relating To the other (God the Spirit)." God is the mysterious One who reveals himself through his Son and relates to us through his Spirit. And if God's Spirit (the Spirit of the Father and the Son) indwells us, does He not occupy many spaces at one time?

I am interested to understand and if I understood the views of Mormonism, I could defend it to those who misunderstood it whether I agre ed or not. Has what I have said added to your understanding of what some call the Trinity and how do LDS views compare to it?

I answered the previous email before I opened this one, so many of the points in that answer are repeats of previous answers to which you have responded here.

I think I understand what Dr. Stafford is trying to explain, and we do certainly believe that the influence of the Father, His Son Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost is omnipresent and is in all creations and can be felt by individuals anywhere at any time, but I cannot comprehend that there would be any attempt in the scriptures at confusing or deceiving us relative to understanding the nature of our Father in Heaven, his Son, Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost. I do believe the passage above that states that our eternal life is dependant upon understanding the Godhead and our relationship with them.

As you may have discovered in our Beliefs section, we refer to several scriptures that emphasize that "…we are the offspring of God…" (Acts 17 :29 ), that "…we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ;" ( Romans 8: 16 - 17), that he is "the Father of spirits…" (Hebrews 12 :9 ). As we believe in the scriptural passages taken together explaining the true nature of the Godhead, (The Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost) we also take these passages literally and know that it is a matter of eternal importance to know that we are offspring of God with divine responsibility and potential ourselves. This understanding permeates our very purpose of life which is to do all we can to follow the example of Jesus in an effort to "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." ( Matthew 5 :48 ) The resurrection unto immortality is a huge step in this process as is learning and living by divine truth.

Thanks again for the questions.

Sincerely,

Donny Osmond


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