Dr Paul Allen

Does the Book of Mormon teach a Trinitarian concept of God? Some have assumed so because certain verses taken separately do seem to use Trinitarian language. However, taken as a whole, the Book of Mormon lends itself more to a modalistic understanding of God rather than Trinitarian. Modalism is an old heresy that attempts to defend monotheism, but does so at the expense of “confounding the persons” within the godhead. Modalists claim that God manifests himself in different  modes . For example, God is revealed as Father in creation, Son in redemption, and Holy Spirit as the giver of grace. Christianity affirms that there is one true and living God while also affirming that this one God exists eternally in three  Persons  — the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Father is not the Son. The Son is not the Holy Spirit, nor is the Holy Spirit the same person as the Father. All possess the same divine nature but they do not represent three separate Gods. There is no e...

An LDS (or “Mormon”) commenter showed up and we had a little back-and-forth.  I claimed that no other world religion has writings that claim “to actually be written by God by means of people who were writing on behalf of, and empowered and guided by, the Spirit of God himself.”  The commenter suggested that the book of Mormon did  indeed  claim to be inspired, as according to the above definition.  I asked for citation, and he gave a series of references that I challenged as insufficient.  He also gave a smooth-sounding argument for additional scripture, which I’ll summarize: 1. The people recorded  in  the Bible added  to  the Bible without violating the commands  of  the Bible. 2.  Men chose which books to include in the Canon of Scripture, but they learned  which  books were inspired because they prayed about it. 3.  You  too  can pray about it and discover whether  other  book...