Our Mormon Brothers? Part 12 (Jesus and Lucifer are spirit brothers?)

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Jesus and Lucifer are spirit brothers?

Another way of saying Mormons do not believe in the Trinity Creed.

While it is true that Mormons don’t believe in the historic Christian and biblical doctrine of the Trinity, there is more here than that.

This Mormon teaching speaks to the origin of Jesus, to the origin of all life, to the nature of God’s Fatherhood, and to eternity.

Since the Nicene Creed was first adopted in A.D. 325, it seems clear that there were many Christians in the first centuries following the resurrection of Christ who did not use it. Those who oppose calling the Latter-day Saints "Christians" need to explain whether Peter and Paul are "Christians," since they lived and practiced Christianity at a time when there was no Nicene Creed, and no Trinitarianism in the current sense.

Critics may try to argue that the Nicene Creed is merely a statement of Biblical principles, but Bible scholarship is very clear that the Nicene Creed was an innovation.

Was Nicean Trinitarianism always a key part of Christian belief?

There is abundant evidence that Ã‚Â“TrinitarianismÃ‚Â”, as now understood by the majority of Protestants and Catholics was not present in the Early Christian Church.

When we turn to the problem of the doctrine of the Trinity, we are confronted by a peculiarly contradictory situation. On the one hand, the history of Christian theology and of dogma teaches us to regard the dogma of the Trinity as the distinctive element in the Christian idea of God, that which distinguishes it from the idea of God in Judaism and in Islam, and indeed, in all forms of rational Theism. Judaism, Islam, and rational Theism are Unitarian. On the other hand, we must honestly admit that the doctrine of the Trinity did not form part of the early Christian-New Testament-message. Certainly, it cannot be denied that not only the word "Trinity", but even the explicit idea of the Trinity is absent from the apostolic witness of the faith. The doctrine of the Trinity itself, however, is not a Biblical Doctrine...^[1]

What were early Christian beliefs on the nature of God?

We do know that Christian orthodoxy before Nicaea was not the Trinitarian creeds now popular:

'Subordinationism', it is true, was pre-Nicean orthodoxy.^[2]

Ã‚Â‘SubordinationismÃ‚Â’ is a doctrine which means that Jesus and/or the Holy Ghost are Ã‚Â‘subordinateÃ‚Â’ or Ã‚Â‘subjectÃ‚Â’ to God the Father. In subordinationism, Jesus must be a separate being from the Father, because you canÃ‚Â’t be subject to yourself! This was the orthodox position before the Nicean council. Ideas that were once orthodox were later considered unacceptable after the councils altered and added to the doctrine.

Writers who are usually reckoned orthodox but who lived a century or two centuries before the outbreak of the Arian Controversy, such as Irenaeus and Tertullian and Novatian and Justin Martyr, held some views which would later, in the fourth century, have been branded heretical...Irenaeus and Tertullian both believed that God had not always been a Trinity but had at some point put forth the Son and the Spirit so as to be distinct from him. Tertullian, borrowing from Stoicism, believed that God was material (though only of a very refined material, a kind of thinking gas), so that his statement that Father, Son and Spirit were 'of one substance', beautifully orthodox though it sounds, was of a corporeality which would have profoundly shocked Origen, Athanasius and the Cappadocian theologians, had they known of it.^[3]

And:

It [subordinationism] is a characteristic tendency in much Christian teaching of the first three centuries, and is a marked feature of such otherwise orthodox Fathers as St. Justin and OrigenÃ‚Â…Where the doctrine [of the Trinity] was elaborated, as e.g. in the writing of the Apologists, the language remained on the whole indefinite, and, from a later standpoint, was even partly unorthodox. Sometimes it was not free from a certain subordinationism.^[4]

So, Christians whose ideas were completely orthodox earlier would have been considered Ã‚Â‘hereticsÃ‚Â’ (i.e. going against the accepted doctrine) after the Nicean councils. This seems to be clear evidence that the doctrine was radically changed.

One also notes that Paul and the other New Testament writers would have been likewise Ã‚Â‘unorthodoxÃ‚Â’. Eusebius, an early Church historian, was even termed "blatantly subordinationist" by a Catholic author.^[5]

Even after the Trinitarian ideas were formed, there were three Ã‚Â‘campsÃ‚Â’ of believers that understood the matter in very different ways:

If such was the teaching of Athanasius and his allies [i.e. homousis as numerical unity of substance, rather than Ã‚Â‘the same kind of beingÃ‚Â’ in the three persons of the Godhead] , at least three types of theology found shelter at different times in the anti-Nicean camp. The first, indefinite, on occasion ambiguous on the crucial issues, but on the whole conciliatory, reflects the attitude of the great conservative 'middle party'.... It's positive doctrine is that there are three divine hypostases [i.e. persons], separate in rank and glory but united in harmony of will.^[6]

Thus, most believers initially believed that there were three persons with a united will. It was only later that this group was Ã‚Â“won overÃ‚Â” to Athanasius and his groupÃ‚Â’s brand of Trinitarianism, which is the basis for todayÃ‚Â’s understanding in most of Christianity. Indeed, Athanasius and his cadre were decidedly in the minority:

The victory over Arianism achieved at the Council was really a victory snatched by the superior energy and decision of a small minority with the aid of half-hearted allies. The majority did not like the business at all, and strongly disapproved of the introduction into the Creed . . . of new and untraditional and unscriptural terms.^[7]

And, there is a noted tendency for some Christian writers to assume that the way they understand the nature of God is the only way in which anyone could have understood it. An evangelical scholar notes:

The view of God worked out in the early [postapostolic] church, the "biblical-classical synthesis," has become so commonplace that even today most conservative [Protestant and Catholic] theologians simply assume that it is the correct scriptural concept of God and thus that any other alleged biblical understanding of God . . . must be rejected. The classical view is so taken for granted that it functions as a preunderstanding that rules out certain interpretations of Scripture that do not "fit" with the conception of what is "appropriate" for God to be like, as derived from Greek metaphysics.^[8]

Does the Bible contain also the necessary elements for Trinitarianism?

In order to argue successfully for the unconditionally and permanence of the ancient Trinitarian Creeds, it is necessary to make a distinction between doctrines, on the one hand, and on the terminology and conceptuality in which they were formulated on the other... Some of the crucial concepts employed by these creeds, such as "substance", "person", and "in two natures" are post-biblical novelties. If these particular notions are essential, the doctrines of these creeds are clearly conditional, dependent on the late Hellenistic milieu.^[9]

Note that this author says that many of Ã‚Â“the crucial conceptsÃ‚Â” are Ã‚Â“post-biblical noveltiesÃ‚Â”: that is, they are new ideas that arrived on the scene after the Bible was written. If the crucial concepts werenÃ‚Â’t around until later, then the doctrine wasnÃ‚Â’t around until later either. As the author notes, these ideas arose out of the Ã‚Â“Hellenistic milieuÃ‚Â”, that is: Greek philosophy.

It is clearly impossible (if one accepts historical evidence as relevant at all) to escape the claim that the later formulations of dogma cannot be reached by a process of deductive logic from the original propositions and must contain an element of novelty...The emergence of the full trinitarian doctrine was not possible without significant modification of previously accepted ideas.^[10]

Said David Noel Freedman:

So in many was the Bible remains true to its Ã‚Â“primitiveÃ‚Â” past [by accepting the strongly anthropomorphic understanding of God/Yahweh] and is less compatible with philosophical notions of an abstract being, or ultimate reality or ground of being. Just as there is an important and unbridgeable distance between Yahweh and the gods of Canaan, or those of Mesopotamia or Egypt or Greece or Rome, so there is at least an equal or greater distance from an Aristotelian unmoved mover, or even a Platonic Idea or Ideal. The biblical God is always and uncompromisingly personal: he is above all a person, neither more nor less.^[11]

New ideas and concepts were required.

The formal doctrine of the Trinity as it was defined by the great church councils of the 4th and 5th centuries is not to be found in the New Testament.^[12]

A Catholic encyclopedia notes that Trinitarianism doesnÃ‚Â’t really appear until the last 25 years of the 4th century:

Trinitarian discussion, Roman Catholic as well as others, presents a somewhat unsteady silhouette. Two things have happened. There is the recognition on the part of exegetes and Biblical theologians, including a constantly growing number of Roman Catholics, that one should not speak of Trinitarianism in the New Testament without serious qualification. There is also the closely parallel recognition on the part of historians of dogma and systematic theologians that when one does speak of an unqualified Trinitarianism, one has moved from the period of Christian origins to, say, the last quadrant of the 4th century.^[13]

A Jesuit [Catholic] scholar says this:

There is no formal doctrine of the Trinity in the New Testament writers, if this means an explicit teaching that in one God there are three co-equal divine persons. But the three are there, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and a triadic ground plan is there, and triadic formulas are there...The Biblical witness to God, as we have seen, did not contain any formal or formulated doctrine of the Trinity, any explicit teaching that in one God there are three co-equal divine persons.^[14]

The idea of Ã‚Â“threeÃ‚Â” is present: but not as Ã‚Â‘three co-equal divine personsÃ‚Â’ that are one being. An idea about the nature of God (or the Godhead) is present, but it is different from that which is taught as Trinitarianism.

Two authors even assert that the Apostle Paul, the four gospels, and Acts have no Trinitarian understanding:

...there is no trinitarian doctrine in the Synoptics or Acts...nowhere do we find any trinitarian doctrine [in the New Testament] of three distinct subjects of divine life and activity in the same God head...These passages [i.e. the Pauline epistles] give no doctrine of the Trinity, but they show that Paul linked together Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. They give no trinitarian formula...but they offer material for the later development of trinitarian doctrine...[Paul] has no formal Trinitarian doctrine and no clear-cut realization of a Trinitarian problemÃ‚Â…in John there is no trinitarian formula.^[15]

And:

This double series of texts manifests Paul's lack of clarity in his conception of the relation of the Spirit to the Son. Paul shares with the Old Testament a more fluid notion of personality than the later theological refinements of nature, substance, and person. His lack of clarity should be respected for what it is and be regarded only as the starting point of the later development.^[16]

So, Paul doesnÃ‚Â’t even Ã‚Â‘realizeÃ‚Â’ that there is a Ã‚Â‘Trinitarian problemÃ‚Â’. Could this be because for Paul there was no such problem, because the doctrine was unknown to him? It was not an issue in his era, because it was not taught by Jesus or the Apostles, and no one felt the need to reconcile divine revelation with Greek philosophy.

One author asserts that the Trinity is correct, but readily admits that:

The God whom we experience as triune is, in fact, triune. But we cannot read back into the New Testament, much less the Old Testament, the more sophisticated trinitarian theology and doctrine which slowly and often unevenly developed over the course of some fifteen centuries.^[17]

Are there new ideas necessary for creedal Trinitarianism?

Robert Casey wrote long ago that Ã‚Â“OrigenÃ‚Â’s development of Clement [of AlexandriaÃ‚Â’s] thought is characteristically thorough and systematic. He acknowledges that the doctrine of GodÃ‚Â’s immateriality is, at least formally, new, and asserts that the word asomatos ["no body" in Greek] had been unknown alike to biblical writers and to Christian theologians before his time.Ã‚Â”^[18] Casey also wrote that Ã‚Â“the Christian doctrine of God was becoming inextricably involved in a trinitarian theory, the substance and form of which would have been impossible but for Clement and Origen, whose immaterialist teaching it presupposed.Ã‚Â”^[19]

Jesuit Roland Teske states that Augustine turned to Manichaeism because he thought that all Christians believed in an anthropomorphic God, which he could not accept on philosophical grounds. Teske reports that Augustine believed that in accepting the Manichee doctrine he was joining a Christian sect which rejected the Ã‚Â“anthropomorphic interpretation of the scriptural claim that man was made in the image of GodÃ‚Â” as taught in Gen. 1:26.^[20]

In a footnote to the above statement Teske writes that Ã‚Â“prior to AugustineÃ‚Â…the Western Church was simply without a concept of God as a spiritual substance.Ã‚Â” Augustine apparently believed that the Catholic Church taught that God had a body similar to that of a mortal, and that belief prevented him from seeking truth within the Church.^[21] Augustine tells us in another work that it was the preaching of Ambrose of Milan who helped him see that there was another way to view God, which Ã‚Â‘spiritualsÃ‚Â’ alone could decipher.^[22]

What about John 10:30?

John 10:30 was an important scripture in the early debates discussed above.

One author wrote of it:

[John 10:30] was a key verse in the early Trinitarian controversies. On the one extreme, the onarchians (Sabellians) interpreted it to mean "one person", although the "one" is neuter, not masculine. On the other extreme, the Arians interpreted this text, which was often used against them, in terms of moral unity of will. The Protestant commentator Engel, following Augustine, sums up the Orthodox position: "Through the word "are" Sabellius is refuted; through the word one" so is Arius.." [In the Gospel of] John... all these relationships between Father and Son are described in function of the one's dealings with men. It would be up to the work of later theologians to take this gospel material pertaining to the mission of the Son add extra and draw from it a theology of the inner life of the Trinity.^[23]

Note that Ã‚Â“oneÃ‚Â” in this verse is neuter, not masculine. In Greek, the masculine would be used to indicate a oneness of person or being, and neuter implies a oneness of purpose. So, read literally the verse merely says that Jesus and the Father are one in purpose or will: only a belief in the Trinity at the outset would lead one to read this as a Trinitarian passage.

Note also that later theologians had to contribute Ã‚Â‘extraÃ‚Â’ information to solve the problem. This extra eventually resulted in the Trinitarian formulae of today.

What about 1 John 5:7–8?

1 John 5:7-8 reads:

7 For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. 8 And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.

These verses are considered to have been added to the Bible text. Said one conservative reference work:

...the acceptance of this verse [i.e. the Johannine comma: 1 John 5:7-8] as genuine breaks almost every major canon of textual [criticism]^[24]

Historian Paul Johnson notes:

Altogether there are about 4,700 relevant manuscripts, and at least 100,000 quotations or allusions in the early fathers . . .Thus, the Trinitarian texts in the first Epistle of John, which make explicit what other texts merely hint at, originally read simply: 'There are three which bear witness, the spirit and the water and the blood, and the three are one.' This was altered in the fourth century to read: 'There are three which bear witness on earth, the spirit and the water and the blood, and these three are one in Christ Jesus; and there are three who bear witness in heaven, the Father, the Word and the Spirit, and these three are one.'^[25]

So, the early Christians never referred to these verses in their writings. The verse in the early Greek manuscripts simply says:

There are three which bear witness, the spirit and the water and the blood, and the three are one.

But, in the 4th century, the verse had words added to it to support the Ã‚Â‘newÃ‚Â’ orthodox doctrine of the Trinity:

There are three which bear witness on earth, the spirit and the water and the blood, and these three are one in Christ Jesus; and there are three who bear witness in heaven, the Father, the Word and the Spirit, and these three are one.

Why is 1 John 5:7–8 still in the Bible, then?

The writer Erasmus noted the problem with these verses in the 1500s, and did not include the addition change in his Greek New Testament:

On the basis of the manuscript evidence available to him, Erasmus had eliminated the passage [1 John 5:7] from his first edition of the Greek New Testament in 1516, but had restored it in later editions, responding to a storm of protest and to further textual evidence that was producedÃ‚Â—quite literally produced--in support of the text. Luther's translation of the New Testament into German, being based on the 1516 edition of Erasmus, did not contain the passage. Although the weight of textual evidence against it was seemingly overwhelming, the proof it supplied for the Trinity made an attack on its authenticity seemed to be an attack on the dogma [thus orthodoxy sought to wrongly restore the Johannine Comma].^[26]

This author explains that people were outraged that the verse was taken out. Erasmus replied that he would include it if they could show him a single Greek manuscript that contained it. Scholars believe that a forgery was produced, and (good to his word) Erasmus included the change in his next editions. People cared more about what their dogma, creeds, and councils had taught than what the word of God actually said. The above author continues:

The most pertinacious and conservative in various communions were still holding out for the authenticity of the "Johannine Comma" in 1 John 5:7, despite all the textual and patristic evidence [evidence from the Early Christian Fathers before Nicea] against it, but there was an all but unanimous consensus among textual critics that it represented a later interpolation.^[27]

Many Bible translations today omit this part of the text, since it is not considered to be authentic:

New American Bible:So there are three that testify, the Spirit, the water, and the blood, and the three are of one accord.^[28]

New American Standard Bible:For there are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement.^[29]

New Revised Standard Version: There are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood, and these three agree.^[30]

Why, then, was Nicean Trinitarian introduced at all?

Let us return to the second century, when it was first sensed that the formulations of the New Testament and the Apostolic Fathers were not sufficient to describe the nature of the divinity. A new way of doing this was attempted. Thus the so-called Monarchian controversy occurred... In addition to the Modalists (such as Sabellius), for whom Christ and the Holy Spirit were modes in which one Godhead appeared, there the Dynamists or Adoptionists, who conceived of Christ either as a man who was raised up by being adopted by God, or as a man filled with God's power.^[31]

Simply put, people tried a Ã‚Â‘newÃ‚Â’ way of talking about God because of disputes about the nature and mission of Christ. In the LDS view, this is because the loss of revelation to the Apostles (due to the apostasy) meant that Christianity was divided about key issues. No one had a good way to resolve the questions, and so they turned to the best intellectual tools they had—they merged Christian theology with Greek philosophy.

Father Charles Curran, a Roman Catholic priest, said,

We [the Christians] went through the problem of appropriating the word in the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries with the great trinitarian and Christalogical councils where we finally came to the conclusion of three persons in God and two natures in Jesus. Many people at the time said, Ã‚Â‘Well, you canÃ‚Â’t say that because those words arenÃ‚Â’t in the scriptures.Ã‚Â’ ThatÃ‚Â’s right, they arenÃ‚Â’t in the scriptures, they are borrowed from Greek philosophy, but they are the on-going account of the believing community to understand, appropriate and live the word of God in its own circumstances.^[32]

Is modern Trinitarianism all understood in the same sense?

Owen Thomas, a professor of systemic theology, noted that:

...our survey of the history of the [Trinity] doctrine in the text has indicated that there are several doctrines of the trinity: Eastern, Western, social analogy, modal, so forth. There is one doctrine in the sense of the threefold name of God of the rule of faith as found, for example, in the Apostle's Creed. This, however, is not yet a doctrine. It is ambiguous and can be interpreted in a number of ways. There is one doctrine in the sense of the Western formula of "three persons in one substance." However, this formula is also ambiguous if not misleading and can be interpreted in a number of ways. A doctrine of the trinity would presumably be one interpretation of this formula . . . let us assume that the phrase "doctrine of the trinity" in the question refers to any of a number of widely accepted interpretations of the threefold name of God in the role of faith.^[33]

So, there is ambiguity and disagreement still. This is not characteristic of revelation, but rather of manÃ‚Â’s imperfect intellectual efforts to define God according to philosophical criteria. Proponents of this view have even added text to the Bible and opposed the correcting of such errors when it was discovered.

As one current thinker about the Trinity writes:

The notion that in the Trinity one Person may be the font or source of being or Godhead for another lingered on to be a cause of friction and controversy between the East and the West, and still persists today. The main thesis of these lectures, I have said, is that the act of faith required for acceptance of the doctrine of the Trinity is faith that the Divine unity is a dynamic unity actively unifying in the one divine life the lives of the three divine persons. I now wish to add that in this unity there is no room for any trace of subordinationism, and that the thought of the Father as the source or fount of God-head is a relic of pre Christian theology which has not fully assimilated the Christian revelation.^[34]

There is no room in his doctrine for Ã‚Â‘subordinationismÃ‚Â’, but remember (already quoted above) that: "'Subordinationism', it is true, was pre-Nicean orthodoxy."

It is interesting that ideas that were once perfectly orthodox within early Christianity (like subordinationism) are now classed as Ã‚Â“pre-Christian theologyÃ‚Â” which hasnÃ‚Â’t yet Ã‚Â“assimilated the Christian revelationÃ‚Â”. If anything, this looks like a Ã‚Â‘post-Christian theologyÃ‚Â’ that has Ã‚Â‘altered the Christian revelationÃ‚Â’. This observation is not intended to argue that subordinationism is correct in all particulars, but merely to point out that current creedal ideas are not what all Christians have always believed.

Conclusion

Some modern Christians wish to apply a "doctrinal exclusion" to declare who is or isn't Christian. Such definitions are generally self-serving, and not very helpful. With the Nicene Creed, critics are ironically in the position of using a definition that would exclude all Christians for more than two centuries after Christ from the Christian fold.

Thus the New Testament itself is far from any doctrine of the Trinity or of a triune God who is three co-equal Persons of One Nature.^[35]

The New Testament does not contain the developed doctrine of the Trinity.^[36]

There is in them [the Apostolic Fathers], of course, no trinitarian doctrine and no awareness of a trinitarian problem."^[37]

The Church had to wait for more than three hundred years for a final synthesis, for not until the Council of Constantinople [AD 381] was the formula of one God existing in three coequal Persons formally ratified.^[38]

These passages are succinct summaries. If a critic wishes to justify his or her belief in the creedal Trinity, they must rely on tradition and the creeds of the 4th century, and abandon claims of scriptural or historical support for such a belief in early Christianity, including among the apostles and those they taught.

Since the LDS believe in an apostasy from true doctrine, they see the creedal Trinitarianism—which is an admitted novelty in the centuries after Christ—as evidence of it.

http://en.fairmormon.org/Godhead_and_the_Trinity

While it is true that Mormons don’t believe in the historic Christian and biblical doctrine of the Trinity, there is more here than that.

Actually, while the doctrine of the Trinity is historic, it is not biblical. If it were biblical, it would be defined in the Bible, not in a man made creed several centuries after the Bible was written and compiled.

...the nature of man, the nature of sin, the nature of revelation, the nature of matter, the nature of genetics, the nature of truth, the nature of the virgin birth, the nature of spirits, the nature of prophecy, the nature of salvation, or the nature of whether or not someone is Christian just because Jesus is mentioned in their holy books, which is the point of the series.

Isa, the Muslim Jesus, is a large part of their book too! They actually come closer to the nature of God and man than the Mormons do, though they have yet to break off the ‘revelation’ that man should have more than one wife.

Funny how somewhere some religions think that the Word of God is mutable.

The trinity is the teaching of historic Christianity and is clearly evident in the Bible.

Far moreso than the teaching that God has a wife who gives birth to baby spirits.

The dangerous apostasy in adding unbiblical books from Joseph Smith is evident in your answer.

Just because Jesus is mentioned in their books does not mean one is a Christian.

If that were the case, then Richard Dawkins, noted atheist, would be one of the most Christian among us.

There are remarkable similarities between Mormonism and Muslimism.

When the Holy Trinity is rejected, then Christianity is left behind. We baptize in the “name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,” all of whom were present at Jesus’ baptism by John, and with whom, Jesus said that He is One.

So what? Any other view is ridiculous.

Please clarify.

The trinity is the teaching of historic Christianity and is clearly evident in the Bible.

As I said, the trinity is a teaching of historic Christianity, historic since several centuries after the Bible was compiled. As for it being Biblical, good luck finding it in the Bible, it is a post biblical belief found in man made creeds. It's source is a mixture early Christian belief and greek metaphysics.

>So what? Any other view is ridiculous.

The foolishness of God vs. the wisdom of man. The trinity is not something like the revelation that individuals of dark skin can now become elders in the Mormon church. It is not something which was pressured by outside forces on the church so it would not be sued out of existence. The fact that Mormon revelation changes with the times is proof that it is not the revelation of God.

The Trinity is there in the Holy Scripture, in pieces, all across the Bible, in the OT as well as the NT. It is seen in Genesis, with a God who walks with Adam and Abraham, wrestles with Jacob, it is seen in Exodus in a God that is so holy that to be seen is death to man, Samson’s parents see the pre-incarnate God in Judges, it is sung about in Psalms, it is spoken about in Amos, as well as all the NT texts; really too many verses to mention in detail without more time than I have now. They all show pieces of the Nature of God, and when it is laid out, does make sense.

But there are so many things also in the OT and NT books that the Mormon church ignores that their rejection of the Trinity, is only a part of the problem.

My statement was quite clear.

We don’t have a problem. You seem to have a problem with us. That is your problem, not ours.

Evidentially it wasn’t.

I have already attested to its biblical nature in post #9.

It is evident in the Bible, in the writings of early Christians, AND it was NOTED by the writing of the creeds. It wasn’t created by those creeds.

Using your logic, the fact that no one in the bible mentioned Jesus’ visit to the Americas means that it did not happen, and that, therefore, your faith is false.

With the Nicene Creed, critics are ironically in the position of using a definition that would exclude all Christians for more than two centuries after Christ from the Christian fold.
I don't think that necessarily follows.

and (from the next post)

not in a man made creed several centuries after the Bible was written and compiled.
When does the LDS hold that the OT and NT canons were "compiled"?

I think the argument makes opposites out of things that are not clearly opposite, and thus oversimplifies the use of Nicene Trinitarianism as a 'test' for orthodox Christianity.

The first thing to get clear is that, as a rule, from the Apostolic Council in Acts down to Vatican II, councils are called in response to a crisis of some kind, and they generate "acts" or teachings or whatever to address and resolve the problem.

A less irenic presentation of the Mormon point of view would be that we Catholics are not Christians because we hold to the Spiritual guidance ( no matter what the circumstances were ) of the Nicene Council and to its conclusion, just as we also hold to the Councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon.

In other words, while the question was up in the air, it was possible and permissible to hold the "wrong" opinion. And the opinion would be wrong and thus hinder (but not necessarily prevent) a right relationship with God.

But once the Councils meet and act, then from the Mormon point of view, we Trinitarians follow an abomination (which I'm sure is a term of art, like 'anathema' and not as nasty as it sounds), while from our POV the LDS is mistaken and "anathema", and thus MAYBE Christian, but certainly not orthodox Christians.

This addresses (note: I did not write "answers") the question the argument claims that we "need" to address. Peter and Paul are Christians. But if Peter had left the Apostolic Council and said, "That's apostasy -- I'm certainly never again going to break bread with Gentiles!" what was one thing before the council becomes quite another after it.

Another of my concerns with this presentation is with
... several centuries after the Bible was written and compiled

When does the LDS teach that the Bible was "compiled"? There was not a canonical declaration about the OT canon for many centuries AFTER Nicea, and the New Testament canon was not settled much, if any, before Nicea. So I think this is a polemical overstatement.

More to the overall purpose of who gets to be "Christian" is the question of monotheism. My guess is that Mormons mean a VERY different thing from what, say, Catholic, Orthodox, Methodist, Lutheran, or Baptist Christians mean by that term.

Actually, while the doctrine of the Trinity is historic, it is not biblical. If it were biblical, it would be defined in the Bible, not in a man made creed several centuries after the Bible was written and compiled.

Actually, while the doctrine of the LDS Articles of Faith is rather new in comparison, it is not biblical. If it were biblical, it would be defined in the Bible, not in a man made creed 17-18 centuries after the New Testament was written and compiled.

There. With your logic you've just condemned your own Articles of Faith to outer darkness, abominations, apostasy-mongering, whore of Babylon status...and everything else LDS general authorities have called historic Christianity over the years.

So when Joseph Smith, the prophet of your god, said that all other churches were satanic, that was really just trumpeting ecumenicalism?

I do not have problems with any mormon, I have problems with the heresies that the LDS try and hide, and its obsfucation of what it teaches while proclaiming its ONE TRUE CHURCH-ness AND its Chrisianity at the same time.