In his book,
Breaking the Mormon Code, Reformed
apologist Matthew Paulson claims that LDS apologists and scholars abuse the
patristics. To see how ignorant Paulson truly is about theology, including
early Christian theology and history, consider the following comment:
In AD 313 Arius of Alexandria began to teach that
Jesus did not exist before his incarnation. (Matthew A. Paulson, Breaking the Mormon Code: A Critique of
Mormon Scholarship Regarding Classic Christian Theology and the Book of Mormon [Livermore,
Calif.: WingSpan Press, 2006, 2009], 62)
Arius did not claim Jesus came into existence at
the Incarnation. Instead, Arius (and his followers, both ancient and modern vis-à-vis
Christology) believed that Jesus did not eternally pre-exist, but he did
pre-exist his conception/the incarnation. This is theology 101. It would be the
Socinians and others who would argue that Jesus came into existence at conception
(though they would not argue for Incarnation as they reject Jesus’ divinity).
Regardless, this is the type of amateur “scholarship” that is part-and-parcel
of Paulson’s book. If a theology student reproduced such a comment, they would get a "F" grade. For more, see:
As an aside, the following refutes the common claim that Latter-day Saints hold to an "Arian" Christology:
Is Latter-day Saint Christology "Arian"?
