View source for Source:Webb:BYUS:2011:17:Creedal Christians can learn from Mormon views about Jesus and creation

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==Non-LDS Christian Stephen H. Webb: Creedal Christians can learn from LDS views about Jesus Christ and creation==
Non-LDS Christian Stephen H. Webb wrote:<ref name="webbID">"Webb is Professor of Philosophy and Religion at Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Indiana. He is a graduate of Wabash College and earned his PhD at the University of Chicago before returning to his alma mater to teach.   Born in 1961 he grew up at Englewood Christian Church, an evangelical church.  He joined the Disciples of Christ during  He was briefly a Lutheran, and on Easter Sunday, 2007, he officially came into full communion with the Roman Catholic Church."</ref>
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[In LDS doctrine] ''Matter as we know it has a beginning, an origin, in Christ, but matter as it can be, in its perfected form, is eternally an attribute of the divine.'' In this way, the eternity of matter can be conceived without falling into the trap of pantheism, and this possibility, I am convinced, is precisely what Joseph Smith saw, even if he did not put it into these words or this theological context.

Th Mormon Church stakes its whole theology on the coherence of the idea that God formed the world from a material substance that is not totally unlike his own divine nature. That makes Mormonism either a religious oddity in Western history or an utterly crucial metaphysical correction to our understanding of the role and value of matter in God’s creation of the world. At the very least, Mormonism presents a prod to theological thought at the precise time when materiality is more central to public awareness than ever before. Our relationship to the material world, whether it goes by the name of environmentalism, ecology, sustainability, or evolution has never been so urgently pressed before us as today. To respond to this urgency, we need not only an ethic but also a metaphysics of matter.

We cannot know how to treat matter unless we know what it is, and the nature of matter has to include but ultimately go beyond the specificities of science. We need to know what matter is for, where it comes from, and to what extent it is identical to what we are. These are the central questions of our time, and creedal Christians can answer them only in a self-critical and mutually beneficial dialogue with Latter-day Saints—and that dialogue has to begin with an assessment of the life and thought of Joseph Smith. <ref name="webbBook">{{Periodical:Webb:Godbodied}}</ref>{{Rp|94&ndash;95, {{ea}}}}</blockquote></onlyinclude>
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[[Category:Jesus Christ]]
[[Category:Christology]]
[[Category:Christians, Mormons are]]
[[Category:Interfaith issues/Sectarian anti-Mormons|Anti-Mormons: sectarian]]
[[Category:Doctrine/Matter and embodiment|Matter and embodiment]]

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