I got this response in a comments section of a book I'm writing and posting to an online writing site. It was in regards to a chapter where a character who's an actual demon in a fantasy world setting is given a visionary audience with the god of that world. This reader somehow got the idea that it was somehow a Christian/Mormon fantasy, which confused hell out of me.


I'm probably asking for trouble, but does this make sense to any of you?

Don't know that one.

A high school friend of mine apparently became a "kalvinist Christian " and has fucked up a lot of friendships over the years trying to recruit people to his way of thinking.

Complicated subject to put it mildly. There's an awful lot of Christian sects each with their own traditions and rituals and hierarchies and whatnot.

But if you're writing a story about demons it probably shouldn't be too surprising that people will see religious themes. The Screwtape Letters by C S Lewis come to mind.

Does what make sense? That he thought you were writing about LDS doctrine or that his view of LDS doctrine is correct?

Anyway, LDS is polytheistic, specifically henotheistic. It is LDS doctrine that man can become a literal god.

As for "kalvinistic", I hope that was a typo, it's Calvinistic. Much of the 2 Protestant reformations were Calvinistic or Reformed. There are still many Reformed/Calvinistic churches around the world.

Not a bit, but I spend most of my free time  watching Annunaki documentaries.  I have a difficult time making sense of anything.

Gonna need more info to figure out why they thought that. Does the story feature native americans riding tapirs into battle or building wooden submarines?

The cognitive dissonance of getting this from a Calvinist is hilarious.

Ok you went down the path  …. And now you are wondering why the nut cases are trying to shape your fiction into their truth.
Good Luck with that.

Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) are not henotheists as we do not believe in gods outside of the one-ness of the Godhead.

Romans 8:17 talks about becoming heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. The best way to understand the LDS doctrine of man becoming gods, is that through faith in Christ who overcame the world, repentance, and obedience to His commandments we can become joint heirs and inherit all that the Father has. This might include some modicum of authority in His presence and under His direction, mirroring the oneness of purpose found in the Godhead.

This doctrine is often imagined to be, by those mostly outside the faith, as meaning that heirs of God will rule over their own planet. I don’t have an encyclopedic knowledge of my faith but know of nowhere in LDS canon where this is stated. It does say in the Doctrine and Covenants: “and shall inherit thrones, kingdoms, principalities, and powers, dominions, all heights and depths”. In light of being “heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ” this is not a hard doctrine for me to accept, but exactly what this means we really don’t know. Nor am I overly worried about it as I’m focused on overcoming the sins and weaknesses that daily plague me and that daily inspires my faith in Christ and the grace God offers us because of the merits of His only begotten Son. I’m just trying to be a disciple. I really suck at it but have hope in Christ.

haha, I guess he forgot the "I" in TULIP. Its like watching the videos of Ray Comfort walking up to drunks and telling them the gospel is to repent of all their sins

Satan (Accuser) who holds the book of the law and his Angels were thrown out of Heaven. God's right hand was cut off for our sake, and those Eyes / Watchers / Angels who fed the Accuser with knowledge of our Sins were also plucked out. I'm not aware of any redemption of the things associated with the Law or the Tree of Knowledge. On one hand you've got knowledge, law, sin, wrath .etc on the other hand the promised life that is a gift of love. Just as it was with Adam and Eve and their choice between two trees. However, only the tree of life is described in the New Heaven. This place has been made possible by the hand nobody can snatch us from.

But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, (Matthew 6:3)

If your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than to have two hands and two feet and be thrown into the eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell. (Matthew 18:8-9)

Henotheism. Henotheism (Greek "one god") is a term coined by Max M ller, to mean devotion to a single primary god while accepting the existence or possible existence of other deities. M ller stated that henotheism means "monotheism in principle and polytheism in fact".

It's one of those transported to another world to kill the demon lord stories. Isekai, is the genre. Think John Carter with demons instead of whatever those aliens were, and anime girls with big boobas.

The character in question is a devil girl/demon (remember those devil girl air fresheners we used to hang from the rearview of our 65 Impalas?) who's escaped from her demon lord master and has taken refuge on another world.

The God of this new world was given the world as a reward for valor on the battlefield during a past war between the gods of light and the gods of darkness. He's kind of a cross between a frat boy and an 0311.

I'm not sure if this guy's just giving me more credit than I deserve, or if he's mistaken about Christianity. Or if there's some sort of Christian sect that this reminds him of. Hence this thread.

Okay, point.

There is significant disagreement on this including books written on the topic. It ultimately doesn’t matter to me as the dance that has to be done theologically to try to reconcile the Godhead, I.e. God the Father, Jesus the Christ, and the Holy Ghost, into a monotheistic paradigm is quite amusing. I’m comfortable with classifying them as one in unity and purpose and any ‘heirs’ the same, or they would not be heirs.

This is sort of the theory behind the universe mythos of the book's world. A primary deity and lesser tiers of deities, all the way down to godlings, who might be akin to lesser angels. The Catholics treated it by making the other gods in the pantheon of their early adherents saints, subject to God.

In terms of mortal citizenry in this universe, demons are creatures who worship the dark gods on the worlds run by those dark gods. Basically human analogs. This is another trope of the genre, which more and more shows demons in a more favorable light than humans. Watching what's going on in the world, it's getting more and more likely we're headed in that direction, but that's a topic for another thread.

Yeah, being given the world as a reward has to be it. Mormons have various levels of heaven, Celestial/Terrestrial/Telestial and hell is reserved for people who leave the church. At the top levels they can be issued their own magic stones and given a world or kingdom to populate through celestial marriage as a reward. Could just be someone who watched the mormon cartoon and had that fresh in their head, because lots of WH40K fiction has stories about  demon lords being given planets, or people ascending to demonhood through subjugating planets

The problem with some people is they have issues and are attracted to the cult. It isn't just the cult. I had a roommate in college who was a Calvinist. He too had anti-social issues. If you study Calvin you find it was the extremists who took over who caused a lot of the problems.
Calvinism, Arminianism, and Lutheranism are not a cults. If you dig into different denominations you will find various influences from each.