The Cardston Alberta Temple (LDS.org)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
From Fiona Givens and Terryl Givens, The Christ Who Heals: How God Restored the Truth that Saves Us<\/em> (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2017), 17-18:<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
An early casualty of the confluence of two factors \u2014 Greek philosophy that disparaged materiality and Jewish monotheism that embraced only one divine being \u2014 was the absorption of Christ the divine into Trinitarian models. \u00a0Some Church Fathers, like Justin Martyr, saw the divinity of Christ as clear evidence that there were two Gods worshipped by Christians. \u00a0The God who appeared to Abraham and Moses, he wrote, was \u201canother God and Lord.\u201d*<\/strong> \u00a0In this way, he and other Christians understood \u2014 in terms remarkably familiar to Latter-day Saints \u2014 that \u201cthe name \u2018god\u2019 need not be restricted to the supreme deity. \u00a0Jesus . . . might be described as a god, but in such a way that one could speak of two gods.\u201d**<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\nOpponents of early Christianity as well recognized that Christians were worshipping two deities. \u00a0It was difficult to refute the charge of the pagan Celsus, who fumed that \u201cif the Christians worshipped only one God they might have reason on their side. \u00a0But as a matter of fact they worship a man who appeared only recently. \u00a0They do not consider what they are doing a breach of monotheism, rather they think it perfectly consistent to worship the great God and to worship his servant as God.\u201d***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\nThis conception of two separate Gods was clearly the norm. \u00a0In fact, scholars recognize \u201chow deeply the conception of a plurality of divine Persons was imprinted on the apostolic tradition and the popular faith.\u201d****<\/strong> \u00a0Origen stated the case simply: \u00a0\u201cWe worship, then, the Father of truth, and the Son who is the truth. \u00a0And they are two separate persons, but one in unity and concord of mind.\u201d*****<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
*<\/strong> \u00a0Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho<\/em> LVI, in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1977), 1:223.<\/span><\/p>\n**<\/strong> \u00a0Denis Minns, Irenaeus<\/em> (London: T. & T. Clark, 2010), 58.<\/span><\/p>\n***<\/strong> \u00a0Celsus, On the True Doctrine<\/em>, cited in Roger E. Olson, The Story of Christian Theology<\/em> (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1999), 34.<\/span><\/p>\n****<\/strong> \u00a0J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines (San Francisco: HarperSan Francisco, 1978), 88.<\/span><\/p>\n*****<\/strong> \u00a0Origen, Contra Celsum viii.12, in The Early Christian Fathers<\/em>, ed. and trans. Henry Bettenson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1956), 243.<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
[St. Justin Martyr (b. AD 100, Flavia Neapolis, Samaria; d. AD 165, Rome)]<\/p>\n
[Clement of Alexandria (b. ca. AD 150, Athens; d. ca. 215, Jerusalem)]<\/p>\n
[Origen (b. ca. AD 184, probably Alexandria, Egypt; d. ca. AD 253, probably Tyre, Phoenicia)]<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 From Fiona Givens and Terryl Givens, The Christ Who Heals: How God Restored the Truth that Saves Us (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2017), 17-18: \u00a0 An early casualty of the confluence of two factors \u2014 Greek philosophy that disparaged materiality and Jewish monotheism that embraced only one divine being \u2014 was the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-61538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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