Talk:Plan of salvation in Mormonism

Plan of salvation and Mormonism

It is erroneous to write about the Plan of Salvation only in context with Mormonism (Latter Day Saints). The LDS church is not considered Christian in its doctrines by traditional Christianity for many reasons, the chief being they do not recognize the divinity of Christ from eternity (meaning God the Son had no beginning and is co-eternal with God the Father). The Plan of Salvation is a from the Holy Bible and is laid out from Genesis to Revelation. Mormonism distorts the Biblical view by adding several other books to their "holy" library and by relegating the Bible to less than their own created books.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.172.233.152 (talk • contribs)

First, you clearly need to review the actual beliefs of the LDS Church. They absolutely believe that the Son had "no beginning" and was "co-eternal" with the Father; they simply have a different understanding of the implications of those terms. And they do not believe the Bible to be "less than" their other scriptures - they simply acknowledge the very real historical fact that the biblical texts have been mistranslated and miscopied over the centuries, and that the books contained therein were not the only ones written or in use by the various communities that produced them. The English "Bible" actually comes from the Greek word for "books" and was not originally intended to describe a single, monolithic fount of truth and wisdom - essentially making the Holy Bible used by Christians of every stripe a "created" book. Second, this page is no place for you to be attacking a religion you clearly know little about and have an effective personal vendetta against. Would you like a Muslim or a Coptic Christian making similar claims and opinionated attacks on a page related to your particular branch of Christianity? That's why Wikipedia has an NPOV policy. Third, the LDS Church is the only one to my knowledge which currently and consistently uses the term "Plan of Salvation" with any frequency; indeed, that phrase can be seen as an integral part of LDS doctrine, is a fundamental part of LDS parlance, and suffuses much of "Mormon culture". All that said, I'm glad you at least restricted your attacks to the discussion page. --Awakeandalive1, 20 January 2007

I don't believe that Awakeandalive1 is correct in saying that Mormons believe that Jesus Christ was co-eternal with the Father. It is my understanding that he is a Son of god, and an elder brother to humanity. If that is correct, then how could he be co-eternal with the father? Second, I have heard other churches use the term "Plan of Salvation" or "God's Plan" before - so Mormons don't have a monopoly on the term as far as I know - although they may be the largest group to consistently use the specific term. Finally, I think it is a documented fact that most mainstream Christian churches don't consider the Mormon church a "Christian" church and they have several specific reasons for it. All that having been said, I think the article is good as it stands now, unless a specific example of an alternative "Plan of Salvation" for another religion deserves mention.Descartes1979 03:42, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, Aaa1 was correct. Mormons do believe that Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father have always existed. The correct title of the church is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Members of this church are indeed Christians.68.3.67.180 (talk) 23:46, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

So Jesus Christ is not a spirit child of God the Father?--Descartes1979 (talk) 23:47, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

They believe he is. But, as I said, their understanding of the implications of that are very different from your own evidently. Awakeandalive1 (talk) 15:32, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

The opening argument of the original poster, namely, "It is erroneous to write about the Plan of Salvation only in context with Mormonism," is appropriate to the extent that The Plan of Salvation is interpreted as a general term describing any religion's schematic of eternity in the abstract. In the case of this article, the name refers to a very specific concept named "The Plan of Salvation" in Mormon Church canon. As such, it may be prudent to rename the article "Plan of salvation (LDS)" or "Plan of salvation (Mormon)". However, Wikipedia tradition is to make such differentiation only when an alternate article exists to which the same name would also apply. The argument over whether Mormons are "Christians" or not is irrelevant to this decision. -- Tylerl (talk) 03:10, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Agreed, why bring up that old chestnut about whether or not members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are Christians. It has nothing to do with the topic. Hot Dog (talk) 12:18, 24 January 2023 (UTC)

Stub or not a stub?

Do you think we can remove the "Stub" designation yet? The article has been almost completely overhauled and I think it's about the equal of any of the other LDS/Mormon-related articles on here (which, to be honest, isn't saying much). --Awakeandalive1, 14 June 2006

Yes, this is definitely more than a stub now. DavidBailey 12:12, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

The stub is removed. andersonpd 22:49, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Mormonism and LDS Church

I have some concerns about conflating Mormonism and the LDS Church in the article. Most Latter-day Saints (including me) are comfortable with using the terms interchangably 99% of the time but the Wikipedia community is more discriminating. And frankly I don't know what non-LDS Mormons teach with regard to the plan of salvation. Are all branches of Mormonism united on this topic?

Perhaps someone with more knowledge can clarify which of the information in the article is LDS-specific and which is generally true in Mormonism. Short of that, I suggest changing references to Mormonism to the CoJCoLDS until we're enlightened. --andersonpd 00:49, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

I think that's a fair point. This was initially a very confusing stub (I think it was written by a non-English speaker) which I overhauled; most of the information contained in the original and in the additions since made are LDS-specific. I tried to maintain the consistent use of "Mormon" rather than "LDS" since that was the way in which the original had been written, and I expected someone would come along and add non-LDS information. Since that hasn't happened yet, I think the change you propose would be very helpful. I also think we should work on including this as part of the general "Latter-Day Saint" category. Once this is established as an LDS-specific page, other people can set up articles addressing the beliefs of the other sects and denominations within the "Mormon movement," or we could add a section entitled "Similar Beliefs In Other Mormon Sects" and leave it blank for others to fill in. --Awakeandalive1, 16 June 2006

Thanks for your good work in fleshing out the article. I think your "plan" (get it?) is a good one. andersonpd 01:28, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Thank you, thank you. And let's not forget the hefty contributions of Reiddp! Give him a hand, everybody! ;) --Awakeandalive1, 16 June 2006

Does anyone want to add this to the overall Latter-Day Saint Wikipedia category? Seems like it's about time to do so, especially since it is no longer a stub and these beliefs are an integral part of the religion... --Awakeandalive1, 18 June 2006

Awakeandalive1, One of the principles of Wikipedia is to be bold! Go ahead and add the category. If someone disagrees they can revert it and tell you why on the discussion page. If you think it might be a little controversial put a note on the talk page yourself, stating why you did. Usually truly controversial subjects have a notice on the talk page about what has been agreed upon and what not to do. In the absence of a notice like that just do what you think is correct and reasonable. Don't be afraid to learn by making mistakes (although I don't think your suggestion is mistaken)! We've all done it. --andersonpd 01:04, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

Actually, the reason I haven't done it is that I don't remember how. No deeper motives. Just forgetfulness. --Awakeandalive1 18 June 2006

Doctrinal Questions & Accuracy

I have a question about a certain part of the article. It says, "Latter-day Saints believe that the total, final judgment of mankind will occur at various points during the Millennium, and that Jesus Christ is ultimately the Judge of all men." Where exactly does the doctrine that the final judgment will occur at "various points during the Millennium" come from? I have always thought of it as coming after the Millenium. Anyway, I think the source of this needs to be identified.Arthurlds 02:33, 22 June 2007 (UTC)Arthurlds

You're right. I actually haven't checked this page in a while and it looks like there've been a lot of...interesting edits. Frankly it feels odd to me to see God the Father refered to exclusively as "Heavenly Father" - any time "He" isn't in the article, it's because I wrote it. Also, I find it odd that, unlike most LDS sources, Jesus is refered to as a "Him" rather than a "him." But I think the author of the part you're mentioning was confusing the Judgment with the Resurrections, since the LDS Church believes in various resurrections taking place throughout the Milennial period. Awakeandalive1 03:09, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

POV tag

I tried cleaning up a few things, but realized there is a pervasive problem with POV wording in this article. Especially with the sections "Bible references...". In order to conform with NPOV it should state unequivocally that Mormons believe these doctrines, and should not have the tone that their interpretation is the only way to interpret the Bible verses in question.--Descartes1979 (talk) 20:58, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

I decided to go ahead and clean up the issues I saw on my own - as such, I am retracting the flag I put on the page. --Descartes1979 (talk) 23:21, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

This article is still a mess. It seems like pro-LDS and anti-LDS people alike are just using the page to vent and sneak in criticisms and unreferenced assertions. I'm going to be re-adding the NPOV and neutrality bits in the future. This article was originally intended to describe the LDS concept of the "Plan of Salvation" -- if you want to create a larger page about that sort of thing with relation to Christianity as a whole, go ahead, but you need to either link to this page or incorporate this page into it. As it stands however, this page needs MUCH work. Awakeandalive1 (talk) 15:36, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Additionally, three heavens are directly mentioned in the Pauline epistles: to ascribe that point to Swedenborg alone is to display a lack of proper research. The belief in multiple heavens (or tiers of heaven) was common among Jews of the Second Temple period (cf. "Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs" and the Dead Sea Scrolls for starters), with the usual numbers being either three (the symbolic number for heaven) or seven. Even today many rabbinic Jews believe in this ancient tiered-heaven cosmology.Awakeandalive1 (talk) 15:51, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

D. Michael Quinn

D. Michael Quinn is identified as an "LDS historian". If that means one who studies LDS history, then that is correct. If it identifies him as LDS, it appears that is no longer the case and is not correct. Some clarification would be helpful. Thanks, Alanraywiki (talk) 17:29, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

I edited it for clarification. I'd say that as it originally stood, his standing in the LDS Church was absolutely relevant; to argue otherwise would be disingenuous. But i've since changed it to the more neutral "historian." Awakeandalive1 (talk) 16:37, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree - I can see how it was a little confusing, as I read it, I understood it to mean he was a historian of the LDS church, not an LDS member who is a historian. Either way, the current wording is best to avoid confusion. --Descartes1979 (talk) 18:14, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Something to Consider

I wanted to get some input on this. But I think that it's relevant to note that the 37 cents for the book "Heaven and Hell" was, in relative terms, $8 comparatively. This would mean that for someone of Smith's occupation, it would be more than a week's wages to purchase. And that's if he didn't spend money on food, shelter, clothing, etc. Can someone suggest a sentence to add that would convey this point? Infero Veritas (talk) 20:35, 23 January 2009 (UTC)