REPLY TO ELDER ROBERTS' MORMON VIEWS OF DEITY,^[A] BY REV. C. VAN DER DONCKT, OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, POCATELLO, IDAHO.

[Footnote A: The following note preceded Rev. Van Der Donckt's reply, when published in the Improvement Era: "In the first two numbers of the present volume of the Era, an article on the Characteristics of the Deity from a 'Mormon' View Point, appeared from the pen of Elder B. H. Roberts. It was natural that ministers of the Christian denominations should differ from the views there expressed. Shortly after its appearance, a communication was received from Reverend Van Der Donckt, of the Catholic church, of Pocatello, Idaho, asking that a reply which he had written might be printed in the Era. His article is a splendid exposition of the generally accepted Christian views of God, well written and to the point, and which we think will be read with pleasure by all who are interested in the subject. We must, of course, dissent from many of the deductions with which we cannot at all agree, but we think the presentation of the argument from the other side will be of value to the Elders who go forth to preach the Gospel, as showing them what they must meet on this subject. It is therefore presented in full; the Era, of course, reserving the right to print any reply that may be deemed necessary.—Editors."]

I.

I am very grateful for the privilege of being allowed space in your magazine to reply to Mr. B. H. Roberts' defense of the "Mormon Views of the Deity."

1. First, Mr. Roberts asserts: "Jesus came with no abstract definition of God." He certainly gave a partial definition of God when declaring: "God is a spirit" (John 4:24). Now, although we must believe whatever God reveals to us upon one single word of his, just as firmly as upon a thousand, nevertheless, I will add that St. Paul, who solemnly testifies that he received of the Lord that which he delivered unto the Christians, (I Cor. 11:23) also states: "The Lord is a spirit" (II Cor. 3:17).

I am well aware that the Latter-day Saints interpret those texts as meaning a spirit clothed with a body, but what nearly the whole of mankind, Christians, Jews, and Mohammedans, have believed for ages cannot be upset by gratuitous assertions of a religious innovator of this last century. Again, the context of the Bible admits of no such interpretation. And if anyone should still hesitate to accept the universally received meaning of the word spirit, our risen Savior settles the matter. As his disciples, upon first seeing him after his resurrection, were troubled and frightened, supposing they beheld a spirit, Jesus reassured them, saying, "A spirit hath not flesh and bones as you see me to have" (Luke 24:37-39).

2. Another very strong and explicit statement is: "Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona [son of John] because flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in heaven" (Matt. 16:17). As Christ has asked, "What do men say the Son of Man is" (Matt. 16:13). There is an evident antithesis and contrast between the opinion of men and the profession of Peter, which is based upon revelation. The striking opposition between men, flesh and blood, and the Father, evidently conveys the sense that God hath not flesh and blood like man, but is a spirit.

3. That God is a spirit is proved moreover by the fact that he is called invisible in the Bible. All material beings are visible. Absolutely invisible beings are immaterial or bodiless: God is absolutely invisible, therefore God is immaterial or bodiless.

Moses' unshaken faith is thus described by St. Paul: "He was strong as seeing him that is invisible" (Heb. 11:27).

"No man hath seen God at any time" (1 John 4:12).

"The King of kings—whom no man hath seen nor can see." (I Tim. 15:16).

In the light of these clear, revealed statements, how shall we explain the various apparitions of God mentioned in the Bible? Tertullian, (A. D. 160-245), Ambrose (330-397), Augustine (354-430) and other Fathers, whose deep scholarship is acknowledged by Protestants and Catholics alike, informs us that God the Father is called invisible because he never appeared to bodily eyes; whereas the Son manifested himself as an angel, or through an angel, and as man after his incarnation. He is the eternal revelation of the Father. It is necessary to remark that whenever the eternal Son of God, or angels at God's behest, showed themselves to man, they became visible only through a body or a material garb assumed for the occasion (see Cardinal Newman's "Development of Christian Doctrine," 9th edition, pp. 136 and 138).

I am well aware of St. Paul's, "We now see as through a glass darkly, but then face to face." (I Cor. 12:13.) "In thy light we shall see light." (Ps. 35:10.)

The first and chief element of the happiness of heaven will consist in the beatific vision; that is, in seeing God face to face, unveiled as he really is. The "face to face" however is, literally true only of our blessed Savior who ascended into heaven with his sacred body. Otherwise, as God is a spirit, he has no body and consequently no face. In paradise, spirits (angels and our souls) see spirits. We shall see God and angels, not with the eye of the body, nor by the vibrations of cosmic light, but with the spiritual eye, with the soul's intellectual perception, elevated by a supernatural influx from God. As in ordinary vision, the image of an object is impressed on the retina, so in the beatific vision, the perfect image of God will be reflected on the soul, impressing on it a vivid representation of him. We shall thus enjoy an intellectual possession of him, very different from our possession of earthly things.

4. That angels as well as God are bodiless beings, is also clearly proved by Holy Writ. To which of the angels said he at any time: "Sit on my right hand till I make thy enemies thy footstool? Are they not all ministering spirits sent to minister for them who shall receive the inheritance of salvation?" (Heb. 1:13, 14.) Again, "Our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness" (Eph. 6:12).

Could plainer words be found to teach that angels, both good and bad, are spirits, devoid of bodies? Now, the Creator is certainly more perfect than his creatures, and pure minds are more perfect than minds united to bodies (men). ["The corruptible body is a load upon the soul, and the earthly habitation presseth down the mind" (Wis. 9:15.) "Who shall deliver me from this body of death?" (St. Paul).] Therefore, the Creator is a pure spirit.

5. It is a well known fact that all men, after the example of the inspired Writings, make frequent use of the figure called anthropomorphism, attributing to the Deity a human body, human members, human passions, etc.; and that is done, not to imply that God is possessed of form, limbs, etc., but simply to make spiritual things or certain truths more intelligible to man, who, while he tarries in this world, can perceive things and even ideas only through his senses or through bodily organs.

That even the Latter-day Saints thus understand such expressions is evident from their catechism (chapter 5: Q. 9). Yet it is from certain expressions of the same inspired Book that they conclude that God has a body. Now I contend that, if we must understand the Bible literally in those passages God created man in his own image, (Genesis 1:27, and Genesis 32:24, etc., and Exodus 24:9, etc.) from which they attempt to prove that God has a body, we must interpret it literally in other similar passages: so that if Moses, etc., really saw the feet of God (Exodus 24:10), then we must hold that the real hand of God is meant by David in (Psalm 138) (Hebrew Bible Ps. 139; 13:9; 9; 10): "If I take my wings early in the morning, and dwell in the uttermost part of the sea, even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me." And as the Psalmist says also: "Whither shall I flee from thy face? If I ascend into heaven, thou art there; if I descend into hell, thou art there" (Psalm 139:7, 8). Have we then according to "Mormon" standards, not the right to infer that God has such a long hand as to extend to the uttermost parts of the sea, and such an extremely long face, reaching from heaven to hell? To this, I am sure, even the gloomiest Protestants would object. By the way, should we not also conclude that David had wings? ("If I take my wings early in the morning, and fly," etc.) unless we admit that the royal Prophet anticipated our modern scientists, the Brazilian Santos-Dumont, Professor Zahm of Notre Dame, Ind., etc., in experimenting with flying machines.

6. A sixth proof of the truth that God has not a body, and therefore is not an exalted man, is the fact of the incarnation of the Son of God. The "Mormons" admit that Jesus Christ is the Great I Am, (from all eternity to all eternity) therefore, God (Doctrine and Covenants section 39). By the by, I see no mention of this fundamental Christian truth of the incarnation, in the sacred books of the Latter-day Saints, not even in their catechism. Yet what is more capable of winning cold hearted, careless people to the love of God than the exposition of this mystery which has been hidden for ages and generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: (Col. 1:26) "God so loved the world as to give us his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him may not perish but may have everlasting life" (John 3:16.)

So the "Mormons" admit that Jesus Christ is God for all eternity. The Bible teaches that Jesus Christ became a man at a specified time; therefore, Jesus Christ, or God was not man before that specified time.

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us" (John 1:1-14). It is plain that the Son of God became flesh only at the time of his sojourn on earth. Now, had he been flesh, or man, before, as "Mormons" hold, how could he become what he was already from all eternity? No; not from the beginning of the world, but only now once, at the end of ages, he (Jesus) hath appeared for the destruction of sin, by the sacrifice of himself. When he came into the world, he said: "Sacrifice and oblation thou wouldst not, but a body thou hast fitted to me." Then said I: "Behold I come" (Heb. 9:26 and 10:5, 7). "Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form (nature, glory, majesty) of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God (deemed it not fitting to assume to his human nature the glory and majesty due him without labor and suffering) but emptied (stripped) himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men and in habit (in his whole exterior) found as a man" (Philip. 2:5), etc. Again: "In him (Christ) dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead corporeally" (Col. 2:9). Had God a body (Latin corpus) what sense would there be in St. Paul's corporally or bodily? All save "Mormons," understand St. Paul to mean that in Christ the true God manifested himself in the flesh, or as man.

"Because the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself in like manner hath been partaker of the same, that through death he might destroy him who hath the empire of death. For nowhere doth he take hold of the angels, but the seed of Abraham, he taketh hold, wherefore, it behooved him in all things to be made like unto his brethren" (Heb. 2:14-16). "Every spirit which confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God" (I John 4:2). "Many seducers are gone out into the world who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh" (II John 1:7). Why do the New Testament writers lay so much stress upon the taking of flesh by Jesus Christ? Evidently we must see in those expressions (the Word was made flesh, etc.) more than a Hebraism, for "He became man" (Gen. 6:12; Is. 40:5). The inspired authors want to teach us humility by impressing upon our minds the excessive abasement of the Eternal Son of God in uniting his Divinity, not to the nature of an angel, but to that of an inferior creature, as man is. They have still the further aim of impuning the heretics, of the early days of the Church the Docetae, Cerinthus, Ebion, etc., who, attributing the flesh to an evil principle, and therefore holding it as utterly polluted, maintained that Christ had not a real body of flesh but only an apparent body. This we learn from SS. Irenaeus, Jerome, Clem. of Alex., etc.

7. Another proof that God is not an exalted man; that is, that he was not what we are now, and became perfected into God, is the direct statement of the Bible: "God is not as a man that he should lie, nor as the Son of man that he should be changed" (Num. 23:19). "I will not execute the fierceness of my wrath because I am God and not man" (Psalm 11:19).

8. Another most striking proof is to be found in God's immutability. The Latter day Saints teach that God was once imperfect, as man is; the Bible teaches the very opposite: "Thou art always the self-same" (Psalm 101:26). "I am the Lord and I change not" (Mal. 3:6). "The Father of lights with whom there is no change nor shadow of alteration." (The Latin alter means other. So the Lord is never other from all eternity.) (James 1:17.)

9. Finally, the Latter-day Saints' theory of the Man-God supposes a past and present with God. The Bible excludes that succession of time, and speaks of God as the Everlasting Present "I Am Who Am." "Before Abraham was, I am." "From eternity and to eternity thou art God" (Psalm 89:2). "His power is an everlasting power" (Daniel 7:14).

PHILOSOPHICAL PROOFS OF GOD'S SIMPLICITY OR SPIRITUALITY.

The "Mormons" admit that God existed from all eternity; consequently, there was no time at which God did not exist. Therefore, the Eternal Being, or God, must be simple.

A compound is, at least by nature, posterior to its component parts. If God is a compound, he is posterior to his component parts. Therefore, he would not be eternal; therefore, not God.

Illustration. The Latter-day Saints believe that God creates the souls of men, long before their conception. Man is a composite being, spirit and flesh being the component parts. Man is evidently posterior to his elements; in other words, before a human being can exist, there must first be a spirit, a soul; and in the second place there must be the embryo (or foetus); and, thirdly, both of these existing elements must be united before a human being comes into existence. No need of more illustration. Fancy a clock, an engine, a shoe, or any composite being. The parts must exist before the whole. Then to have the compound, some one or something must do the compounding, or put the ingredients or elements together. Who then did compound the Eternal? Not himself, as no one can work before he exists: not another being, as no other being existed before it was created by God. God is the necessary Being; i. e. who could not not exist. Something exists; therefore, there exists the Necessary Being. Everything that exists is produced or unproduced. Now all things cannot be produced; for whatever is produced or made is produced by another, (otherwise it would have made itself, which is impossible, as nothing can act before it exists). This other (the producer) is either a necessary being or a produced being. If produced, it must have been produced by another. Thus we must finally come to a being that was not produced, or a necessary being. That necessary being (who was not made and who always existed) is God.

If God were an aggregate of parts, these parts would be either necessary beings or contingent (that do not necessarily exist); or some would be necessary and some contingent. None of these suppositions are tenable, therefore, God is not an aggregate of parts.

First supposition: If the parts of God were necessary beings there would be several independent beings, which the infinity of God precludes. God would not be infinite, if there were even one other being independent of him, as his power, etc., would not reach that being.

Second supposition: The Necessary Being would be the aggregate of several contingent beings. An unreasonable supposition: contingent beings cannot by their addition or collection lose their essential predicate of contingency; in other words, the nature of the parts clings to the whole.

The third supposition is equally absurd, for if some part exit necessarily, it must be infinite in every perfection; therefore, it would of itself be sufficient to constitute God, and could not be improved by the addition of other parts.

The Necessary Being must be infinite, or illimitable. Nothing is done without a cause. No cause of limitation to the Necessary Being can be found.

If finite, or limited, he must be limited by his own essence, or by another, or by himself.

a. He cannot be limited by his own essence, for his essence, is actual Being or existence: I Am Who Am. No perfection is repugnant to that essence; for every perfection is some existence, something that is. No defect necessarily flows from that essence, for defect is in a thing only in as much as that thing is not in some sense or regard; now in the notion or in the concept of him who is Being itself (I Am Who Am) is not contained the concept that he is not in some regard; for something is limited not because it is, but because it is this or that, for instance, a stone, a plant, a man.

b. He cannot be limited by another, because he depends on no other, and has not received his being from another.

c. He could not be limited by himself as he is not the cause of his existence, but the sufficient reason thereof.

The Infinite Being is most simple, or not compound. Were he compound, his parts would be either all finite, or infinite, or one infinite and the others finite. None of these suppositions are possible, therefore, he is not compound.

1. Several finite things cannot produce an infinite or an illimitable, as there would always be a first and a last.

2. Many infinite beings are inconceivable; for, if there were several, they would have to differ from each other by some perfection. Now from the moment one would have a perfection, the other one lacks, the latter would not be infinite. Therefore, God cannot be a compound of infinite parts.

3. If one is infinite, nothing can be added to it. Finite parts could not belong to the infinite essence, else they would communicate their limitations to God.

Therefore, the Infinite Being is not composite, but simple or spiritual. Therefore, he is not, nor ever was, a man, who is a composite being.

II.

Above, I proved God's immutability from the Bible; now I prove it from philosophy, or the light of reason.

Mutation or change is the passing from one state into another. The Infinite Being is not liable to change, as change implies an imperfection in the being susceptible of it, as that being had not in the previous state what it has in the subsequent, or vice versa. God having all perfections must be unchangeable. Therefore, he is not a man grown into a God.

The Necessary Being is such that he could not exist, nor exist otherwise. He cannot receive his existence, nor lose it. So he cannot change with regard to his existence; nor can he change with regard to his mode of existence. His perfections being infinite cannot increase; nor can they wane or decrease, else there would be an imperfection in him, and he would no longer be infinite, or God. Therefore, God is unchangeable. Therefore, he never was what we are.

God is pure essence (I Am Who I Am), pure actuality or act.

Change implies potentiality, liability to become what it is not.

As God is infinitely perfect, all potentiality is excluded from him; in other words, there is no room for growth or more perfection. Consequently, no possibility of change. Therefore, God was never without the fullness of the Godhead, consequently, never a man.

NOR CAN MAN EVER BECOME A GOD.

Man is finite or limited in everything, ever changeable and changing, ever susceptible of improvement. What is finite can never become infinite. Supposing man grown or improved for billions of years; after that immense period, he could begin over again improving for billions of years, and yet ever remain short of infinite perfection, as no number of finite things can make the infinite. There is and always shall be a first and a last, to which could be added more and more. "When a man hath done, then he shall begin, and when he leaveth off, he shall be at a loss" (Ecclesiasticus 18:2).

A being cannot be at the same time infinite and finite, necessary and contingent, compound and simple, unchangeable and changeable, eternal and temporary, omnipotent and weak, actual being and potentiality, etc., etc.

Now if God were an exalted man, he would have all those contradictory attributes at the same time, which is absurd. Therefore, it is an utter impossibility that God should be an exalted man.

As to man becoming God, the idea is absurd. With far more reason might we contend that the gnat will develop into a lion, and the animalcules which we swallow in a sip of water will grow into gigantic giraffes and colossal elephants, as there is infinitely less distance or difference between those respective animals than between the most perfect creature and the Creator, the finite and the infinite. Bring all the scientists of the world together, the Darwins, the Huxleys, the Tyndalls, the Pasteurs, the Kochs, the Teslas, the Edisons, etc., etc., supply them with the most ingenious machinery, and the most complicated instruments, and with unlimited material, let them make, I will not say an imitation sun or moon, but simply a little worm as we often unconsciously crush under our feet, or let them produce not the magnificent lily or rose, but a tiny blade of grass. Before such a task, apparently so insignificant, those profound mathematicians, naturalists and chemists, will throw up their hands in utter impotence. Expert mixers can indeed make wines in their laboratories, but will President Roosevelt or Emperor William, or other sovereigns, ever give them an order to manufacture a little bunch of grapes or a few of the commonest berries?

What frequent accidents are there on our railroads, despite most careful and most attentive trainmen! Yet a collision never occurred between the millions of suns, stars and planets that whirl, rush, tear and bound wildly along their prescribed pathways for thousands or millions of years, at the rate of over one thousand miles a minute (our earth), and three thousand miles a minute (the planet Arcturus). Notwithstanding the bewildering speed of their movements, the stars and planets float through space with such regularity and precision, and along such well defined paths, deviating neither to the right nor to the left, that astronomers can foretell to a nicety—to within a minute—at what point in the heavens they may be found at any future time, say, next month, next year, or even next century. They can indeed predict transits and eclipses; but suppose astronomers from New Zealand on their way to America to observe this fall's moon eclipse, meet with an accident in mid-ocean, would they at once send this wireless telegram to the United States' star-gazers assembled say at Lick Observatory: "Belated by leak. Please retard eclipse two hours that we may not miss it." As well might all the telescopemen in the world combined, attempt to fetch down the rings of Saturn for the construction of a royal-race track as pretend to control movements of the heavenly bodies.

The helpless babe of yesterday may indeed rival Mozart, Hayden and Paderewski, but tomorrow he may rise with lame hands and pierced ear-drums; and millions of worshipers of the shattered idol are powerless to restore it to the musical world. Still Jesus healed the blind, the deaf and the palsied, by a mere act of his will, even without speaking a word.

"We have this treasure in earthen vessels" (II Cor. 4:7).

"Seeing I have once begun, I will speak to my Lord whereas I am dust and ashes" (Genesis 18:27). "In the morning man shall grow up like grass and flourish, in the evening he shall fall, grow dry and wither" (Psalm 89:6). "Can man be compared with God, even though he were of perfect knowledge" (Job 22:2). "None is good but God alone" (Luke 18:19). "Of his greatness there is no end" (Psalm 144: 3). "All nations are before him as if they had no being at all, and are counted to him as nothing and vanity. To whom then have you likened God, or what image will you make for him? It is he that sitteth upon the globe of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as locusts: he that stretcheth out the heavens as nothing, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in. All flesh is grass, and all the glory thereof as the flower of the field. The grass is withered, and the flower is fallen because the wind of the Lord had blown upon it. Indeed, the people is grass" (Isaiah 40:17, 18, 22, 6, 7). "He that bringeth the searches of secrets to nothing, that hath made the judges of the earth as vanity—hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and weighed the heavens with his palm? Who hath poised with three fingers the bulk of the earth, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance" (Isaiah 40:23-12).

An Ingersoll might sneer and cry out: Surely Isaias had no idea of the size of the earth. Even though he did not know that the globe is such an immense ball, and that the volume of the sun is one million two hundred thousand times greater than the earth, and three hundred thousand times its weight, God who inspired the prophet knew infinitely more about it than our conceited astronomers.

I fear Mr. B. H. Roberts will be inclined to think God jealous because he gives man no show for comparison with him. This would certainly be a less blunder of the Utah man ("I will not give my glory to another") (Isaiah 42:8) than his contention, which is a mere echo of Satan's promise in Paradise; "You shall be as gods." (Genesis 3:5.)

Man is indeed capable of progress, but his forward movement is slow, and in some matters his attainments remain stationary; for instance, nothing has been added to philosophy since the days of Aristotle, and nothing to geometry since Euclid. Both of these geniuses lived over three hundred years before Christ. Conclude we, then, with the Psalmist: "All my bones shall say: Lord, who is like to thee?" (Psalm 34:10).

THE UNITY OF GOD.

1. The first chapter of the Bible reveals the supreme fact that there is One Only and Living God, the Creator and moral Governor of the universe. As Moses opened the sacred Writings by proclaiming him, so the Jew in all subsequent generations, has continued to witness for him, till from the household of Abraham, faith in the one only living and true God has spread through Jerusalem, Christianity and Mahometanism well-nigh over the earth.^[A]

[Footnote A: "Hours with the Bible," by Geikie, vol. 1, chapters 1, 2.]

Primeval revelations of God had everywhere become corrupted in the days of Moses, save among the chosen people. Therefore, the first leaf of the Mosaic record, as Jean Paul says, has more weight than all the folios of men of science and philosophers.

While all nations over the earth have developed a religious tendency which acknowledged a higher than human power in the universe, Israel is the only one which has risen to the grandeur of conceiving this power as the One Only Living God. If we are asked how it was that Abraham possessed not only the primitive conception of the Divinity, as he had revealed himself to all mankind, but passed through the denial of all other gods, to the knowledge of the One God, we are content to answer, that it was by a special divine revelation.^[A]

[Footnote A: "Chips from a German Workshop," by Max Muller, vol. 1, pp. 345-372.]

The record of this divine revelation is to be found in the Bible: "Hear, Israel: Our God is one Lord." "I alone am, and there is no other God besides me" (Deut. 6:4 and 32:39). "I am the first and I am the last, and after me there shall be none" (Isaiah 44:6; 43:10.) "I will not give my glory to another" (Isaiah 42:8; 45:5, etc., etc.).

And as Mr. Roberts admits that our conception of God must be in harmony with the New Testament, it as well as the Old witnesses continually to One True God. Suffice it to quote: "One is good, God" (Matthew 19:17;) "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God" (Luke 10:27); "My Father of whom you say that he is your God" (John 8:54). Here Christ testified that the Jews believed in only one God.

"The Lord is a God of all Knowledge" (I Kings 2). ("Mormon" Catechism v. Q. 10 and Q. 11.)

"Of that day and hour no one knoweth, no not the angels of heaven, but the Father alone" (Matthew 24:36).

No one knoweth who the Son is but the Father (Luke 10:22).

Therefore, no one is God but one, the Heavenly Father.

In another form: The All-knowing alone is God. The Father alone is all-knowing. Therefore the Father alone is God.^[A]

[Footnote A: To the exclusion of another or separate divine being, but not to the denial of the distinct Divine Personalities of the Son and the Holy Ghost in the One Divine Being.]

From these clear statements of the Divine Book it is evident that all the texts quoted by Mr. Roberts do not bear the inference he draws from them; on the contrary, they directly make against him, plainly proving the unity of God.

First, then, if God so emphatically declares, both in the Old and in the New Testament, that there is but one God, has anyone the right to contradict him and to say that there are several or many Gods? But Mr. Roberts insists that the Bible contradicts the Bible; in other words, that God, the author of the Bible, contradicts himself. To say such a thing is downright blasphemy.

The liability to self-contradiction is characteristic of human frailty. It is incompatible with God's infinite perfections. Therefore, I most emphatically protest that there is no real contradiction in the Bible, though here and there may exist an apparent one.

Let me premise that the name God, Elohim, is applied (1) to the one true God; (2) to false gods and idols; (3) to representatives of God, such as angels, judges, kings; (4) to the devil, at least in this phrase: the god of this world.

I beg to observe, first, that whenever the plural gods occurs in Holy Writ, it is in sense (2) or (3); i. e., it is meant of false gods or representatives of God; secondly, that plural is generally put in opposition to the singular Jehovah or Lord, who is emphatically mentioned as the sovereign of the gods in every instance, alleged or allegable.^[A]

[Footnote A: "There is none like thee among the gods, O Lord" (Psalm 85:8). "Our God is not like their gods" (Deut. 32:31). "Who is God besides the Lord" (Psalm 17:32). "Their gods have no sense" (Baruch 6:41). "The Lord is terrible over all the Gods: because all the gods of the gentiles are devils; but the Lord hath made the heavens" (Psalm 95:4, 5). "Neither is there any nation so great that hath gods so nigh them as our God is present to all our petitions" (Deut. 4:7).]

Now, all these Bible expressions point to the clear inference that this Sovereign or Supreme God is the only true God. Consequently, these very texts, instead of proving Mr. Roberts' contention, plainly disprove it, demonstrating that there is but one God. "Thou alone art God" (Psalm 85:11).

Two of these texts, for instance, have the significant qualification: Being called gods. A man must not be a lawyer to know that the fact that not a few quacks and clowns are called doctors does not make them such. "Although there be that are called gods either in heaven or on earth (for there be gods many and lords many); yet to us there is but one God" (I Corinthians 8:5, 6). Jesus answered, referring to Psalm 82:6, "Is it not written in your law: I said you are Gods? If he called them gods to whom the word of God was spoken" * * * (John 10:34, 35). Neither Christ nor Paul say that they are or were gods, but simply that they are called gods. Bear with me for further quoting: "I have said you are gods, and all of you the sons of the Most High. But you shall die like men," etc. (Psalm 82:6, 7). How unlike the true God, the Immortal King of ages.

Wherever Elohim occurs in the Bible in sense 1, (meaning the True God) it is employed with singular verbs and singular adjectives.

Had the "Mormon" Church leaders known Hebrew, the original language of the Book of Moses, and nearly the whole of the Old Testament, they would not have been guilty of the outrageous blunders perpetrated by the writers of the Pearl of Great Price and of the Catechism, as appears on pages 24, 25, 26, 27, of the latter book: "They organized and formed (that is, the Gods,) the heavens and the earth * * * and the Spirit of the Gods was brooding upon * * * What did the Gods do on the second day? etc. The Gods said, Let there be light * * * and they [the Gods] comprehended the light, for it was bright." (Whoever heard of a dark light? But even had the light lacked brightness, would the gods have been powerless to comprehend it?) The original had singular verbs in all these sentences and, unlike our imperfect English, which has the same form in the singular and in the plural, the Hebrew, the Greek, the Latin, the Syriac, etc., have different terminations in the plural from the singular.

Had Joseph Smith and his partners not been ignorant of those ancient languages in which were written the original text and the oldest versions of the Bible, their revelations would, at least in reference to the Creator have tallied with the revelations of Moses.

One of the strongest and clearest proofs of the unity of God, is God's solemn revelation of himself as Jehovah, prefaced by the emphatic statement: "I am Who Am. Thou shalt say to the sons of Israel: I Am sent me to you, (that is: The one who said, I Am Who Am, sent me to you)" (Exodus 3:14). "Jehovah, the God of your fathers—I am Jehovah" (Exodus 6:2).

If there ever was an occasion on which God should have disclosed his unity or his plurality, it was certainly then when Moses ventured to demand the credentials of his mission. God used singular verbs whenever referring to himself. He said: I am, not we are. He calls himself by the singular noun Jehovah, which, unlike the plural Elohim, is applied only to the one true God. This name Jehovah occurs one hundred and sixty times in Genesis alone.^[A]

[Footnote A: J. Corluy S. J. "Spicilegium," Volume 1. Com. 2. See also Smith's Bible Dictionary, word God.]

II. The Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost are one and the same identical Divine Essence or Being.

A. "I and the Father are one" (John 10-30). Christ asserts his physical, not merely moral, unity with the Father.

"My sheep hear my voice * * * and I give them everlasting life; and they shall not perish forever, and no man shall pluck them out of my hand."

The following argument by which Christ proves that no man shall pluck his sheep from his hand, proves his consubstantiality, or the unity of his nature or essence with his Father's:

My Father who gave me the sheep is greater than all men or creatures, (v. 29) and therefore no one can snatch the sheep or aught else from his hand. (Supreme or almighty power is here predicated of the Father.)

Now, I and the Father are one (thing, one being) v. 30. (Therefore, no one can snatch the sheep or aught else from my hand.)

To perceive the full meaning and strength of Jesus' argument, one must read and understand the original text of St. John's Gospel, that is, the Greek; or the Latin translation: Ego et Pater unum sumus.

If Christ had meant one in mind or one morally and not substantially, he would have used the masculine gender, Greek eis, (unus)—and not the neuter en, (unum)—as he did. No better interpreters of our Lord's meaning can be found than his own hearers. Had he simply declared his moral union with the Father, the Jews would not have taken up stones in protest against his making himself God, and asserting his identity with the Father. Far from retracting his statement or correcting the Jews' impression, Jesus insists that as he is the Son of God, he has far more right to declare himself God than the Scripture had to call mere human judges gods, and he corroborates his affirmation of his physical unity with his Father by saying: "The Father is in me, and I am in the Father," which evidently signifies the same as verse 30: I and the Father are one and the same individual being, the One God.

The preceding argument is reinforced by John 14, 8-11: "Philip saith to him: Lord, show us the Father, * * * Jesus saith: So long a time have I been with you and thou hast not known me. Philip, he that seeth me seeth the Father also. How sayest thou: Show us the Father. Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in me? The words that I speak I speak not of myself. But the Father who abideth in me, he doth the works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me. What things soever the Father doth, these the Son also doth likewise" (John 5:19).

These words are a clear assertion of the physical unity of the Son and the Father. It is plain from the context that Christ means more than a physical resemblance, no matter how complete, between him and his Father. Of mere resemblance and moral union could never be said that one is the other, and that the words uttered by one are actually spoken by the other.

To see the Son and the Father at the same time in the Son, the Son and the Father must be numerically one Being. Now Christ says: "He that seeth me seeth the Father." Therefore, he and the Father are numerically one Being.

Again, if the speech and the acts of the Son are physically the words and the works of the Father, the Son and the Father are physically one; indivisible, inseparably one principle of action, therefore, one Being. Now Christ tells us that his words and works are physically the words and works of his Father. Therefore, the Son and the Father are one indivisible, inseparable principle, and therefore identical Being: Let no one object: Is not the word and the deed of the agent, the word and the deed of his master or employer? Christ is more than his Father's agent. An agent could indeed say that his utterances and his actions are dictated or prompted by his master, but he could never say what Christ said: The words I utter are actually, physically spoken by my Father while I speak them; and the works I perform are actually, physically, performed by my Father. Is the Son, then, like the phonograph or the machine, the instrument of the Father? Nay, he is more than that. Being together with his Father, the one equally intelligent and equally efficient principle of action, the words and works are simultaneously both the Son's and the Father's.

There remains to prove that the Holy Ghost is inseparably one with the Father and the Son. There are three who give testimony in heaven, and these three are one (1 John 5:8).

As Christ proved his identity and unity with the Father by texts quoted: "The words that I speak I speak not of myself. But the Father who abideth in me he doth the works," so he now shows his unity with the Holy Ghost by almost the selfsame sentences: "When the Spirit of Truth will have come, he will teach you all truth; for he will not speak or himself, but he will speak whatever he will hear, and will announce to you the things to come. He will glorify me, because he will receive of mine and announce to you: whatever the Father hath are mine.^[A] Therefore I said: because he will receive of mine and announce it to you" (John 16:13-15).

[Footnote A: In the Old Testament, the foreknowledge of future events was ever spoken of as an incommunicable attribute of Jehovah (Isaiah 41:22, 23; 44:7; 45:11; Daniel 2:22, 47; 13; 42, etc.) As whatever the Father hath is the Son's, therefore, also, the knowledge of the future.]

That the Holy Ghost is one with the Son, or Jesus, is proved also by the fact that the Christian baptism is indiscriminately called the Baptism of the Holy Ghost, the Baptism in or with the Holy Ghost and the Baptism of or in Jesus: "He [Christ] shall baptize in the Holy Ghost and fire" (that is the Holy Ghost acting as purifying fire) (Matthew 3:11); "have you received the Holy Ghost? We have not so much as heard whether there be a Holy Ghost." He said: "In what then [in whose name then] were you baptized?" Who said: "In John's baptism * * * Having heard these things they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus" (Acts 9:2, 5). "All we who are baptized in Christ Jesus" (Romans 6:3).

B. Although the systematic doctrine of the Blessed Trinity, that is, of three Divine Persons (not three Gods) in one God, is a gradual development in the Church, nevertheless the distinction of the human and divine natures in Christ is found in the writings of St. Ignatius, disciple of the Apostle St. John, and Bishop of Antioch, who, because of his faith, was devoured by lions by order of Trajan, A. D. 107. Fifty and sixty years later, different Fathers, among whom Tertullian ("Adv. Marc" IV. 25, and "Adv. Wax." 2), Athenagoras ("Leg" 10: 24, 44), and Clement of Alexandria ("Strom" III: 12) are the most famous, taught there are three Divine Persons in one God; that these three, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, are equal to each other and are one in substance.^[A]

[Footnote A: The manifestation of the three Divine Persons at our Lord's baptism could be interpreted as if there were three distinct beings in God, or three Gods, if such interpretation were not precluded by God's emphatic revelation of his Divine Unity. There was, on that memorable occasion, a twofold divine witnessing to Christ as Son of God come in the flesh to redeem mankind. In order to find in that event anything in support of the "Mormon" tenets, there should have appeared above the Son two glorious exalted men both pointing to him; whereas, only a voice was heard, and a dove was seen. Nor can we argue from the voice that the Father must have a mouth, and therefore a body; with greater reason might we maintain that the Holy Ghost is a pigeon, as a dove was visible; whereas, the organ of the voice was not.]

III. Pagan Witness to the Unity of the Christian's God.

As the Roman historian Tacitus, in his account of the Jews, wrote: "The Jews have no notion of any more than one Divine Being, and that known only to the mind." Other pagans bore similar testimony concerning the unity of God. In his letter to the Emperor Trajan, (A. D. 98-117) Pliny governor of Pontus, said among other things: "They [the Christians] assemble on certain days before sunrise to sing hymns of praise to Christ, their God. * * They submit to torture and death rather than invoke the gods."

And Celsus, the forerunner of our modern infidels, thus slandered the early Christians: "Confessing that these are worthy of their God, they desire to convert but fools, and vulgar and stupid and slavish women and boys."

One more. Caecilius wrote: "What monstrous notions * * * they [the Christians] fabricate that that God of theirs, whom they can neither show nor see, should be inquiring diligently into the characters, the acts, nay the words and secret thoughts of all men! * * * Most of you are in want, cold, toil, hunger, and your God suffers it."