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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Wayne Grudem
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March 15 - December 27, 2021
In Mormon theology, just as Jesus has a Father, so the Father allegedly has a Father. . . . There is a Father of the Father of the Father of the Father, ad infinitum. . . . There is also a heavenly wife (or wives) for each. . . . All of this is part and parcel of the polytheistic world of Mormonism. Mormons believe...
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6. HUMANS ARE CREATURES AND NEVER BECOME GODS
According to Mormon teaching, “the ultimate goal in Mormonism is godhood.” Rhodes quotes Mormon leaders as teaching that we were created “to become gods like unto our Father in heaven.”
known as attaining ‘eternal life’...
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7. JESUS IS GOD, NOT THE SPIRIT-BROTHER OF LUCIFER
Mormons teach that Jesus was begotten as the first Spirit-child of the Father (Elohim) and one of his unnamed wives (“Heavenly Mother”). Jesus was allegedly the first and highest of all the spirit children.
Jesus progressed by obedience and devotion to the truth in the spirit world until he became God. This allegedly took eons of time. . . . [Mormons] do not worship or pray to Jesus. What this means in terms of Mormon theology is that Jesus is not really unique.
Jesus “atoned for Adam’s sin, leaving us responsible only for our own sins.”
Mormonism once again shows itself to be a completely different religion from Christianity.
8. SALVATION IS BY GRACE THROUGH FAITH, NOT BY WORKS
Mormons typically define “sin” as a wrong judgment, a mistake . . . thus removing the moral sting.
Because of what He accomplished, we will all be resurrected. When Mormons talk about “salvation” . . . they essentially mean resurrection. . . . Jesus did His part, and now it is up to us to do our part to prove ourselves worthy of exaltation to godhood. Mormons reject the doctrine of justification by faith.
9. THE AFTERLIFE INVOLVES HEAVEN AND HELL, NOT THREE DEGREES OF GLORY
According to Mormon teaching, after this life people will end up in one of three kingdoms: the “celestial kingdom” which “is inhabited by faithful Mormons.
The second level is “the terrestrial kingdom,” which is reserved for “non-Mormons who live moral lives as well ...
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The third level is the “telestial kingdom,” which is “where the ma...
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10. JESUS CHANGED MY LIFE FOREVER
Ron Rhodes emphasizes the importance of personal testimony. He says, “I bring this up because in your personal testimony to a Mormon, a pivotal part of it must be that you are sure of going to heaven precisely because you have a personal relationship with Christ. You have meaning in your present life not because you obey rules (like the massive list of rules the Mormon must heed during mortality), but because you are Christian. Indeed, you have a personal relationship with Christ.”
Creation Why, how, and when did God create the universe?
the doctrine of creation as follows: God created the entire universe out of nothing, it was originally very good, and he created it to glorify himself.
A. GOD CREATED THE UNIVERSE OUT OF NOTHING 1. Biblical Evidence for Creation out of Nothing
2. The Creation of the Spiritual Universe This creation of the entire universe includes the creation of an unseen, spiritual realm of existence.
angels and other kinds of heavenly beings as well as animals and man.
3. The Direct Creation of Adam and Eve The Bible also teaches that God created Adam and Eve in a special, personal way.
narrative clearly portrays Eve as having no female parent: she was created directly from Adam’s rib while Adam slept (Gen. 2:21).
4. The Creation of Time
God’s eternity means that he has a different kind of existence, an existence without the passage of time, a kind of existence that is difficult for us even to imagine
5. The Work of the Son and of the Holy Spirit in Creation God the Father was the primary agent in initiating the act of creation. But the Son and the Holy Spirit were also active.
B. CREATION IS DISTINCT FROM GOD YET ALWAYS DEPENDENT ON GOD
The term transcendent is often used to say that God is much greater than creation.
The technical term used to speak of God’s involvement in creation is the word immanent, meaning “remaining in” creation.
Another difficulty is that ultimately most pantheistic systems (such as Buddhism and many other eastern religions) end up denying the importance of individual human personalities: since everything is God, the goal of an individual should be to blend in with the universe and become more and more united with it, thus losing his or her individual distinctiveness.
God’s character are denied. The biblical account also rules out dualism. This is the idea that both God and the material universe have eternally existed side-by-side. Thus there are two ultimate forces in the universe: God and matter.
One example of dualism in modern culture is the series of Star Wars movies, which postulate the existence of a universal “Force” that has both a good and an evil side. There is no concept of one holy and transcendent God who rules over all and will certainly triumph over all.
Most “New Age” religion is dualistic.
Deism is the view that God is not now directly involved in the creation.
Many “lukewarm” or nominal Christians today are, in effect, practical deists, since they live lives almost totally devoid of genuine prayer, worship, fear of God, or moment-by-moment trust in God to care for needs that arise.
C. GOD CREATED THE UNIVERSE TO SHOW HIS GLORY
D. THE UNIVERSE GOD CREATED WAS “VERY GOOD”
This knowledge will free us from a false asceticism that sees the use and enjoyment of the material creation as wrong.
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SCRIPTURE AND THE FINDINGS OF MODERN SCIENCE
the lesson of Galileo, who was forced to recant his teachings and who had to live under house arrest for the last few years of his life, should remind us that careful observation of the natural world can cause us to go back to Scripture and reexamine whether Scripture actually teaches what we think it teaches.
Scientific investigation has helped Christians reevaluate what earlier generations thought about the age of the earth, for example, so that no evangelical scholar today would hold that the world was created in 4004 BC.
When All the Facts Are Rightly Understood, There Will Be “No Final Conflict” between Scripture and Natural Science
Evolution Has No Power to Create New Genetic Information.
do not contain the creative power to generate the new genetic information that is necessary for the creation of new proteins and new forms of life.
Axe concluded that “for every DNA sequence that generates a short functional protein fold22 of just 150 amino acids in length, there are 1077 nonfunctional combinations—1077 amino acid arrangements—that will not fold into a stable three-dimensional protein structure capable of performing a biological function.”
there are only 1065 atoms in our entire Milky Way galaxy.
1/1037 is the chance of random mutation producing only one fairly simple new protein structure. (The average protein is much more complex, about 300 amino acids in length,25
Meyer concludes that there would be approximately one chance in 1037 for a new functional protein fold to develop by random means. Then Meyer adds, “And, of course, the building of new animals would require the creation of many new proteins, not just one.”
