re Supers: ” think it is safe to say that Mormonism accords a greater base potential for divinity to humanity at large in addition to a higher level of human participation in the process of exaltation.” How so? I don’t see any base potential difference, but there might be something to the participation part (but wouldn’t this get into Arminianism etc? and thus include other Christians?).

re TEDS: don’t underestimate the value of living in graduate student housing, with neighbors who understand your (and your family’s) situation….

None of these superhero movies are perfect analogies for either system because none allows for actual intervention from God, and like I said, I don’t want it to be taken that I’m implying Mormons believe in becoming gods on their own apart from God. I just think Superman, Spiderman, and Batman present a much more positive view of human potential than Watchmen.

PC & Katie ~ If we’re talking about why men weren’t actually ordained to fill the literal office of apostle throughout church history, two reasons:

1) I realize that Mormons like to cite the ordination of Matthias after Judas’s death as proof that the office of apostle was meant to continue, but that argument doesn’t look at all of the biblical evidence. The Apostle James died in 44-45 A.D. (Acts 12:2), several decades before the alleged universal apostasy would have been complete, yet Acts doesn’t record a replacement being ordained. I also don’t know of any Christian tradition which names a replacement, though my knowledge on that isn’t exhaustive. The lack of a replacement for James can just as easily be seen as an indication that the office of apostle was not meant to continue. It seems likely to me that they were simply moved by the Spirit to not continue the office.

2) Paul makes it clear in 1 Corinthians 9:1 that one of the qualifications for being an apostle was having witnessed the resurrected Jesus Christ (”Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?”). Once there were no longer men around who had literally witnessed the resurrected Lord, there could not be any more apostles. Or in other words, we think the office of apostle ended because Jesus stopped making special appearances as He did with Paul.

I can answer the broader question of why not have priesthood authority at all, but I’ll have to get back to you later today or tomorrow.

I took Latin for 1.5 semesters in college. I liked it, but it seriously kicked my ass–which is why I dropped it after I took a Bulgarian test and had enough foreign language credits to graduate without it. Part of me wishes I’d kept with it, though. A very small part.

Did I mention that my last Latin class was in Fall 2003, and while I’ve done plenty with Greek and Hebrew since, I’ve pretty much ignored my Latin?

Excuses, Excuses!
J/k. I know no Latin, Little Hebrew, and less Greek. Give me a Hamiltonian and a wavefunction any day.

If we assume the Protestant viewpoint re apostolic succession is in teaching not office, by what precedent do they do that? That is, if the example of the original Apostles was to fill in the vacancy of Judas, why did it stop? I’ll agree that the record isn’t clear enough to include as statement like “there must always be a replacement”, but that’s really a lack of evidence, and not a statement justifying the lack modern day apostles.

Re; deification. I’m glad you recognize that Mormons neither save nor exalt themselves. I’d agree that Mormon theology requires a greater level of human participation in the process of exaltation. Yet at the same time, I can also agree with

the only potential humans have for divinity is that which is granted by God Himself through grace and as such we are completely hopeless without Him.

as long as we agree we are looking from the problem as the fallen humans. While I believe non-fallen creatures wouldn’t need to be redeemed, I don’t think any scripture in Mormonism could teach a belief that unfallen beings work to achieve exaltation by their own merits.

In any event, I think the superhero viewpoint is missing one valid piece of data. Neither Superman or Spiderman became what they were of their own power. Superman was born an uebermensch, and Spiderman received powers through a freak accident of nature. An argument could even be placed that Bruce Wayne could not have down what he did without the legacy of riches left to him by his parents. And those facts certainly blur the distinction between what the superhero earned and what they were given. The viewpoint of unfallen-humanity as a Bruce Wayne, gifted because of their inheritance from their parents is still a far cry from self-exaltation. Besides, unfallen humanity doesn’t exist. So we revert back to the common belief of gods by grace.

Nominatives, actually. I was thinking of prophets in the sense that it’s used in Matthew 11:13 in the Vulgate, and the thought didn’t even occur to me to take sola scriptura as an ablative, but I should have seen that.

I’m also seeing now that propheta is one of those weird words that is masculine even though it has traditionally feminine endings, so I really screwed it up. It would have been “primi prophetae vivi” for nominative, wouldn’t it?

Ah well. I really am out of practice here. I think I’ll just switch it to yours and not say anything further. Did I mention that my last Latin class was in Fall 2003, and while I’ve done plenty with Greek and Hebrew since, I’ve pretty much ignored my Latin? *crawls under her desk and hides just the same*

Also- “primae prophetae vivae?” Are those datives or genitives?

I’d probably say “imprimis prophetis viventibus” (to follow the ablative of “sola scriptura.”

And imagine that: an insufficient number of American Evangelicals interested in history… You have your work cut out for you, ma’am.