Monday, July 30, 2018

The Tanners Advocating Modalism in Mormonism: Shadow or Reality?

Some critics of the Book of Mormon claim that Mosiah 15:1-4 and Ether 3:14 teach Modalism. This has been refuted by myself and other LDS scholars, including:




Notwithstanding, many critics of the Book of Mormon who read these and other texts as teaching that God is a single person is reflective of true theology (i.e., reflects the theology the authors hold to). This is the case with the Tanners, showing that they are ignorant of Trinitarianism and are Modalists (to be fair, probably out of theological ignorance than conviction).

As they write in a chapter entitled “The Godhead”:

The Book of Mormon also teaches that Christ was God himself manifest in the flesh. In Mosiah 15:1, 2 and 5 we read the following:

And now Abinadi said unto them: I would that ye should understand that God himself shall come down among the children of men, and shall redeem his people. And because he dwelleth in flesh he shall be called the Son of God, and having subjected the flesh to the will of the Father, being the Father and the Son--. . . . And thus the flesh becoming subject to the Spirit, or the Son, to the Father, being one God . . .

This is in harmony with the Bible, for in 2 Corinthians 5:19 we read as follows: “To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, . . . “ (Jerald and Sandra Tanner, Mormonism: Shadow or Reality? [5th ed.; Salt Lake City: Utah Lighthouse Ministry, 1987, 2008], 163, emphasis in bold in original, emphasis in highlighter added)

That the Tanners believed (errantly) that Mosiah 15 teaches that the Father and Son are one and the same person is seen in comments they make in their chapter on the First Vision:

The Book of Mormon, which was first published in 1830, taught that there was but one God:

And now Abinadi said unto them: I would that ye should understand that God himself shall come down among the children of men, and shall redeem his people. And because he dwelleth in flesh he shall be called the Son of God, and having subjected the flesh to the will of the Father, being the Father and the Son-- . . . And thus the flesh becoming subject to the Spirit, or the Son to the Father, being one God, . . . (Book of Mormon, Mosiah 15:1, 2, 5)

The Book of Mormon tells of a visitation of the Father and the Son to the “brother of Jared.” The Father and the Son mentioned, however, are not two separate personages. Only one personage appears, and this personage says:

Behold, I am he who was prepared from the foundation of the world to redeem my people. Behold I am Jesus Christ. I am the Father and the Son. In me shall all mankind have light, . . . (Ether 3:14) (Ibid., 163, emphasis in bold in original, emphasis in highlighter added)

If anything, apart from poor exegetical skills (both of the Bible and the Book of Mormon), the Tanners, in their magnum opus, where ignorant of the Trinitarianism their Protestant theology teaches, and were, functionally, heretical, even according to Trinitarian theology.