The original reading of 1 Nephi 12:18 reads as follows:
And the large and spacious building which thy father saw is vain imaginations and the pride of the children of men. And a great and a terrible gulf divideth them, yea, even the sword of the justice of the Eternal God and Jesus Christ, which is the Lamb of God. [1]
In this passage, there is a numerical distinction between “the Eternal God” (i.e., God the Father) and Jesus Christ, showing them to be two persons, contrary to Modalism and other like-theologies. This provides further proof that the earliest Latter-day Saint Christology was not that of a variation of Modalism, contra Vogel, Charles, and other critics unless they wish to violate one of the most basic principles of logic, The Identity of Indiscernibles
[1] For a discussion of this verse and the variations in the manuscripts, see Royal Skousen, Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon, Part 1: 1 Nephi 1-2 Nephi 10, pp. 257-60
Update:
A rather misinformed critic wrote the following to a friend of mine on facebook:
Update:
A rather misinformed critic wrote the following to a friend of mine on facebook:
This is just the kind of apologia that is harmfull for the Church. You take one thing and make the wanted conclution of it. The Author should also have analysed these:1. It says on teh first page of BoM that JC is the everlasting God "And also to the convincing of the Jew and Gentile that Jesus is the Christ, the Eternal God..."2. After Alma 11:44 all members of godhead are one eternal God. "Christ the Son, and God the Father, and the Holy Spirit, which is one Eternal God".when looking at these 2 truths the conclution of the author seems totally unundersstandable.
As I wrote in response:
There is no problem with Jesus having the title "Eternal God" as such a title can be applied to more than one person, as with other divine titles and names, such as YHWH. However, 1 Nephi 12:18 differentiates between the Eternal God and Jesus, so the charge of Modalism is a non sequitur.
Alma 11:44 does not teach that the Father, Son, and Spirit are the one person--when read in context, Alma 11 distinguishes the persons of the Godhead. I have a few articles on this and other topics, including:
Another good article is by Ari D. Bruening and David Paulsen, The Development of the Mormon Understanding of God: Early Mormon Modalism and Early Myths
