--- title: Improvement Era description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930. authors: - Van der Donckt, C. collections: - periodicals tags: - magazine - improvement-era periodical: Improvement Era volume: 5 number: 11 published: 1902-09 publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations publisher_place: Salt Lake City language: en type: magazine reference: 'Rev. C. Van der Donckt, "Reply to Roberts’ View of Deity. II," *Improvement Era* 5, no. 11 (September 1902): 856–866.' source: url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0511unse transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers. identifier: improvementera0511unse start_page: 856 end_page: 866 rights: status: public-domain basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1902-09) source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera0511unse publication_year: 1902 note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1902, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright. --- # Reply to Roberts' View of Deity. II REPLY TO ROBERTS' VIEW OF DEITY. BY REV. C. VAN DER DONCKT OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, POCA- TELLA, IDAHO. 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 im- plies 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 not exist, nor exist otherwise.He cannot receive His existence, nor lose it. So He cannot change with regard to Hi3 existence; nor can He change with regard to His mode of existence. His perfections being in- finite 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 perfec- tion. 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 REPLY TO ROBERTS' VIEW OF DEITY. 857 changing, ever susceptible of improvement. What is finite can never become infinite. Supposing man grown or improved for bil- lions 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 lo3s" (Ecclesiasticus 18:2). * A being cannot be at the same time infinite and finite, neces- sary 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 ingen- ious 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 Presi- dent Roosevelt or Emperor William, or other soveriegns, ever give them an order to manfacture 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 thous- and 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 tran- sits 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: Please retard eclipse two "Belated by leak. hours that we may not miss -it." As well might all the telescope- men 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 be- fore 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 REPLY TO ROBERTS' VIEW OF DEITY. 859 the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as locusts: he that stretch- eth 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 The grass is withered, and the flower is fallen flower of the field. because the wind of the Lord had blown upon it. Indeed, the people is grass" (Isaiah 40: 17, 18, 22, 6, 7). "He that bring- eth 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. I. The first chapter of the Bible reveals the supreme fact that there is but 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, 860 IMPRO VEMENT ERA . faith in the one only living and true God has spread through Jerusalem, Christianity, and Mahometanism well nigh over the earth.* Primeval revelations of God had everywhere become cor- rupted in the days of Moses, save among His 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 man- kind, 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, f 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 wit- nesses 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" (1 Kings 2.) ("Mor- mon" 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). * "Hours with the Bible," by Geikie, Vol. 1, chapters 1, 2. t "Chips from a German Workshop," by Max Muller, vol. 1, p. 345-372. REPLY TO ROBERTS' VIEW OF DEITY. 861 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.* 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 any one 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, con- tradicts 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. There- fore, I most emphatically protest that there is no real contradic- tion 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 representa- tives 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 of representatives of God; secondly, that plural is generally put in opposition to the singular Jehovah or Lord, who is emphati- cally mentioned as the sovereign of the gods in every instance, alleged or allegeable.f * To the exclusion of another or a 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. f "There is none like thee among the gods, 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. Conse- quently, these very texts, instead of proving Mr. Roberts' conten- tion, 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 qualifi- cation: 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 were 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 their be light * * * and they [the Gods] com- prehended 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 those 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 termi- nations in the plural from the singular. REPLY TO ROBERTS' VIEW OF DEITY. 863 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 — am Jehovah" (Exodus I 6:2) If there ever was an occasion on which God should have dis- closed 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.* II. The Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost are one and th e same identical Divine Essence or Being. A. "I and the Father are one" (John 10-30). Christ as- serts his physical, not merely moral, unity with the Father. "My sheep hear my voice * * * an d I gj ve them ever- lasting 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' argu. * J. Corluy S. J. " Spicilegium" Volume 1. Com. 2. See also Smith's Bible Dictionary, word God. ment, 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 substan- tially,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. me seeth the Father also. How Philip, he that seeth sayest thou: Show us the Father. Do you not believe that / am in the Father and the Father in me? The words that I speak I speak not oj 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 REPLY TO ROBERTS' VIEW OF DEITY. 865 the words and the works of the Father, the Son and the Father are physically one; indivisible, inseparably one principle of action, there- fore, 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 testi- mony in heaven, and these three are one ([ John 5:8). As Christ proved his identity and unity with the Father by the texts quoted : "The words that I speak I speak not ofmyselj. 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 oj 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* Therefore I said because he : will receive of mine and announce it to you" (John 16:13-15). That the Holy Ghost is one with the Son, or Jesus, is proved also by the fact that the Christian baptism is indiscriminately * 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; 11 ; 42, etc.) As whatever the Father hath is the Son's, therefore, also, the knowledge of the future. called the Baptism oj 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 Fath- ers, among whom Tertullian ("Adv. Marc" IV. 25, and "Adv. Wax." 2), Athenagoras ("Leg" 10:24, 44), and Clement of Alexandria ("Strom" 111:12) 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.* III. Pagan Witness to the Unity oj the Christians' God. As the Roman historian Tacitus, in his account of the Jews, wrote: "The Jews have no notion of any more than one Divine * The manifestation of the three Divine Persons at our Lord's bap- tism could be interpreted as if there were three distinct beings in God, or three Gods, if such interpretation were not precluded by God's em- phatic 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.