That quote is so flippantly logical, the sheer common-seniscality of it blows my mind, to say nothing of its content. I can hear Pratt thinking: “Of course Jesus COULD have prayed to Heavenly Mother. But he didn’t. The Holy Ghost could have been his Father. But he wasn’t. He prayed to Heavenly Father. So we should too. It’s that simple.”

Beautiful logic. Of course Protestants and especially Catholics will just say, “well, seeing that the Trinity was really Unity, it doesn’t matter anyways who exactly Jesus prayed to, because it all goes to the same place anyways. Besides, the reason why you don’t have any instance of Jesus praying to the Holy Ghost is because he is teaching his followers to pray to Heavenly Father not Heavenly Spirit.” At least, if I were a Catholic, that would be my reply based on the Nicean creed.

The typical Christian concept of the Holy Ghost, if I remember correctly, is that it proceeded forth from Jesus Christ.

Seth – actually, that’s a major point of contention in Christendom. Around the tenth century the western and eastern churches split over the filioque (literally “and from the Son”) clause of the Nicean creed. The West argued that the Holy Spirit preceded from the Father and the Son; the East rejected this and maintained the primacy of the Father.

I liked this passage because, in part, of what Jacob pointed out; Pratt is dealing quite bluntly with some sensitive issues of Mormon Christology. For creedal Christians, it’s imperative that Christ be both fully God and fully man; for Mormons, because of our ideas about embodiment, it’s very important that Christ be the Only Begotten of the Father in the flesh.

box, I wonder if you’d treat a passage from the work of, say, Dallin Oaks that you disagreed with as flippantly as you do Pratt. Pratt was, after all, an apostle, and an important figure in the development of our theology. He’s dealing with important ideas here. I assure you, from my reading of his work, he knew the scriptures as well as anybody I know.

box – thanks for your graciousness, and I agree that’s there’s been significant development in the way we think about these sorts of things over the past century or so. I’m not entirely sure what to ascribe that to.

“… she being a virgin, a precious and chosen vessel, who shall be overshadowed and conceive by the power of the Holy Ghost, …”

The verb “conceive” is an active verb, and is an action being performed by Mary. She is doing the conceiving, just as she is the one who was to be overshadowed. The parallelism is obvious.

“by the power of the Holy Ghost” is an adverbial phrase which modifies both “overshadowed” and “conceive,” the latter being the verb which Mary is doing. This is an obvious parallel to “be overshadowed …. by the power of the Holy Ghost.”

In other words, the phrase means that the Holy Ghost enabled her or gave her the power in order to conceive.

If the Holy Ghost were the father then the words “by the power” would not be there to apply to the verb “conceive.”

Any and every mortal human must be overshadowed or strengthened by the power of the Holy Ghost to be in the presence of Heavenly Father. At Joseph Smith’s first vision, where he saw the Father and Jesus, the Holy Ghost was there too. If the Holy Ghost had not overshadowed or strengthened or “fallen upon” Joseph he would not have been able to withstand the presence of the Father, and would have been burned to or withered to a crisp. Moses mentions something similiar in the Book of Moses.

The New Testament passages may need a bit more nuancing to support this interpretation, but Alma 7:10 does not say that the Holy Ghost is the father of Jesus. The Holy Ghost gave her the power or ability to conceive.