TRULY understanding Mormonism - Is it nobodies business?

I recently made a post called Truly understanding Jehovah's Witnesses, but now I feel the grace has presented itself for me to make a similar post on getting into the mind of a Mormon. In some recent discussions with Mormons, it finally became clear to me what the fundamental issue was, and how Christian apologetics has largely failed to address it. So for this post, I want to try to convey what the actual mindset of Mormons is, and thus know how to actually have a discussion with them. 

Catholic apologetics on Mormonism has largely centered around the Great Apostasy, which is the Mormon dogma that the Gospel was lost some time after the death of the last Apostle, almost 2000 years ago. Many other groups and Protestant denominations hold to a similar idea of Great Apostasy, since it gives them a basis to start up their own Church. And it makes sense, because why have a new Church if you have nothing new to present to people? Well, in this case, we need to see what it is that Mormons have that nobody else has. 

The main problem with the typical Catholic approach to Mormonism is that Catholics think that simply disproving the Great Apostasy is sufficient to win the debate. While it is easy to disprove and discredit the Great Apostasy, the Catholic fails to really get to the heart of Mormonism. Something bigger is at stake, and so just disproving the Great Apostasy doesn't actually shake the Mormon you're talking to at their core. Recall that the Jehovah's Witnesses have lots of tangential issues that Christians get hung up on (e.g. Trinity), never getting to the heart of things. So too, the Mormons have various tangential issues that Christians get hung up on (e.g. polygamy) that really don't get to the heart of things. So we must get to the heart of things.

The heart of things goes back to the year 1820, when Joseph Smith received his "First Vision". Most people are aware that the account goes something like this: Smith was walking alone in the woods, praying for guidance of what Church to join, when God the Father and Jesus appeared to Smith. Jesus told Smith none of the "churches" out there were true and that Smith was to restore the real Church of Jesus Christ. Most non-LDS simply write this off as a fake story of Smith and leave it at that. But they fail to see what in this vision makes all the difference for Mormons. Look at this screen capture below of the official Mormon website says the following under the lesson of "Godhead":

Source: Mormon website "Godhead"

Thus, the crucial thing that Joseph Smith saw at this vision was that not only did Jesus have a human body, but the Father had a human body as well! This means that everything Christianity had been teaching, which is that only Jesus had a human body, was wrong. It means Christianity had "lost" the precious fact that God the Father was himself a human, and he progressed into Godhood, just as Jesus started off as a human and progressed into Godhood. So in the Mormon mind, Christianity had perverted the most important teaching of history: the truth about Who God is. This means that from the Early Church Fathers, up through the Councils, to the present day, all these Christians had gone Apostate by not teaching the proper understanding of God the Father having a body. Being majorly wrong about God is a perfect reason for God to need a Restoration, hence why the Mormons are fully on board and don't worry about flaws in their apostasy claims.

Mormons see the Christian view of the Father as a pure spirit as a sort of Pagan Greek Philosophy. But this ignores the fact the pagans often viewed their gods as glorified humans. An, there's no reason why the Trinity debates of the early centuries needed to be so complicated, since the Early Church Fathers should have had no problem accepting an 'easy' truth such as the Father having a human body. The Mormons also see the Incarnation as something that isn't unique to Jesus, but rather is part of the experience of everyone. In their mind, everyone starts off as a spirit child of heavenly parents, and in due time that spirit child takes on a human body, and that human body is destined to progress into godhood. Of course, this runs into issues when it comes to things like death, since how does a person progress into godhood when their body is the key vehicle to make that progression? Is it technically re-incarnation for someone to get their body back, including the Resurrection of Jesus? 

And, more importantly, what of the Holy Spirit, to which the above quote and LDS theology admit the Holy Ghost does not have a human body? How can the Holy Spirit be God/Divine without a human body to progress into Godhood? I've asked some LDS on this, but they don't seem to have an answer, and I don't think they do. It either means the Holy Spirit cannot be God or else there really is more divine revelation not yet revealed - and either of those two "options" isn't feasible for the LDS, who are supposed to embody the fullness and restoral of all truth. Most LDS do not seem to care about the Holy Spirit not having a body, since the LDS is really fixated on one thing, which is of themself progressing into godhood.

Now you should have a good idea of the fundamental doctrine and mindset of Mormons. It doesn't really matter what you say to them, because they just look at you as being wrong about Who God is, and thus they don't see you as having any credibility. It doesn't matter to them that they have holes in their theology, so as an apologist you can only make so much 'progress' with them when bringing up this or that teaching. In my opinion, asking them about the Holy Spirit not having a body seems to be the strongest approach to take, since it exposes a serious inconsistency in their theology. But don't really expect to make much of an impact, since their theology is very emotionally based, and to leave Mormonism means they leave behind all their friends and family (similar to someone leaving the Jehovah's Witnesses).

It is noteworthy that this post is being written in the spring of 2020, because it was in the spring of 1820 that the LDS say Joseph Smith received this "first vision," so this is the 200th anniversary - an important year for Mormons, yet which they cannot really celebrate during this national quarantine.