The Fullness of Time

The Catholic understanding of salvation history is fundamentally pedagogical. God is a teacher who gradually educates humanity, revealing more of Himself and His plan as humanity becomes capable of receiving it. This is not because God withholds truth arbitrarily, but because revelation is relational — it unfolds within a covenant relationship where each stage builds upon the previous and prepares for the next.

A. The Biblical Architecture of Progressive Revelation

The "many and various ways" are not failures or corruptions. They are the patient, deliberate stages of a divine education. God's speech through the prophets was real and authoritative, but it was also partial, oriented toward a fullness not yet arrived.

This progressive structure is embedded in the Old Testament itself. In Exodus 6:2–3, God reveals His covenant name YHWH to Moses, explicitly stating that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob did not know Him by this name. This verse is critically important: if even the divine name was revealed in stages, how much more the full mystery of redemption?

The patriarchal era represents the first great stage of covenantal revelation. God deals with individuals and families — Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. Abraham knows God as El Shaddai and receives the foundational promise of blessing for all nations (Genesis 12:1–3). But Abraham does not know the Trinity. He does not know the name of Jesus. He does not practice baptism or the Eucharist. This is not a deficiency to be explained away; it is exactly what the biblical text presents.

The Mosaic era introduces the Law, the Levitical priesthood, the sacrificial system, and the tabernacle — all of which are real and divinely ordained, yet all of which the author of Hebrews describes as "a shadow of the good things to come, not the true form of these realities." The Law is not a degraded version of something Adam possessed; it is a divinely appointed stage in the education of Israel, suited to the people's capacity and preparing them for what is to come.

The prophetic era deepens Israel's understanding dramatically. The prophets introduce the Suffering Servant of Isaiah, the New Covenant written on hearts foretold by Jeremiah, the Son of Man who receives an everlasting kingdom in Daniel's vision. Yet even these revelations come in images, poetry, oracles, and types — not systematic exposition. The prophets themselves "searched and inquired about this salvation," Peter tells us, "inquiring what person or time was indicated by the Spirit of Christ within them." They knew something was coming. They did not know its full shape.

Finally, the Christological fulfillment arrives. When Christ comes, He does not merely repeat what was already known. He fulfills — and fulfillment means bringing to completion something that was genuinely incomplete. "Do not think that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to abolish them but to fulfill them." The sacraments He institutes are genuinely new. Baptism is not a continuation of some primordial practice; it is a new creation reality made possible by Christ's death and resurrection. The Eucharist is not a continuation of Old Testament sacrifice; it is the one sacrifice of Calvary made sacramentally present. The Church is not merely a restoration of something Adam had; it is the Bride of Christ animated by the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

B. The Patristic Witness

Irenaeus specifically rejected the Gnostic claim that a primordial knowledge had been lost and needed secret restoration — a claim that bears striking structural similarity to LDS dispensationalism. Justin Martyr, writing around AD 155, argued in the Dialogue with Trypho that the Old Testament ceremonies were given specifically because of Israel's weakness and tendency toward idolatry — not because they represented an original fullness that had decayed. The Law was medicinal and preparatory, not a degraded substitute for what the patriarchs had once possessed.

Clement of Alexandria developed the image of God as the great Pedagogue who leads humanity through stages of instruction, each suited to the learner's capacity. For Clement, even Greek philosophy served as a "schoolmaster" for the Gentiles, just as the Mosaic Law did for the Jews — both leading toward Christ, as Paul himself taught in Galatians. Augustine of Hippo likewise distinguished carefully between the signs and sacraments of the Old Covenant and those of the New, arguing that while both pointed to Christ, they did so in fundamentally different ways — the former in promise and figure, the latter in fulfillment and presence. Thomas Aquinas synthesized this patristic tradition in the Summa Theologiae, arguing that the Old Law was imperfect not by any fault but by divine design — it was proportioned to the state of the people and ordered toward the perfection of the New Law of grace.

The Latter-day Saint model of salvation history operates on a fundamentally different logic. Rather than progressive revelation building toward a climax, it posits a cyclical pattern of dispensations in which the fullness of the gospel — including specific knowledge of Jesus Christ by name, baptism, priesthood ordinances, and temple covenants — was given to Adam at the very beginning and then repeatedly lost through universal apostasy and restored through new prophets.

This model, when examined carefully, reveals several deeply problematic features that undermine its theological credibility. The following sections address these problems systematically.

If Adam and the patriarchs possessed Christian baptism and knew Jesus Christ by name, then the entire Old Testament as we have it becomes inexplicable. The text never mentions baptism in the name of Jesus Christ at any point prior to the New Testament era. The prophets use titles and descriptions for the coming Messiah — Suffering Servant, Branch, Immanuel, Son of Man, Anointed Prince — but never the specific compound name "Jesus Christ." The name "Jesus" (Yeshua in Hebrew, meaning "God saves") was given by the angel Gabriel at the Annunciation. "Christ" is the Greek rendering of Mashiach (Anointed One). No Old Testament prophet combines these into the name that the LDS Book of Moses claims was known to Adam.

More critically, Exodus 6:2–3 explicitly states that God was not known to the patriarchs by the name YHWH, revealing this name to Moses as something genuinely new. If even the divine name was disclosed progressively, it strains credulity beyond any reasonable limit to claim that the patriarchs already knew the far more specific revelation of the Son's incarnate name and possessed the full sacramental system of the New Covenant. The LDS model requires us to believe that the biblical text as transmitted is so thoroughly corrupted that it has erased all traces of this original fullness — which conveniently renders the claim entirely unfalsifiable.

Why would the prophets search and inquire about a salvation that their predecessors had already received in its fullness? The passage only makes sense if the prophets genuinely did not possess the complete picture — if they saw through a glass darkly, awaiting a revelation that had not yet come.

Perhaps the most devastating consequence of the LDS model is its destruction of the typological reading of Scripture — a hermeneutical method that is not merely a Catholic interpretive preference but is embedded in the New Testament itself.

A. The Nature and Logic of Typology

Typology is the theological principle by which events, persons, and institutions of the Old Testament are understood as divinely ordained prefigurations of their fulfillment in Christ and the New Covenant. The Flood prefigures baptism. The Passover lamb prefigures the Eucharistic sacrifice. The crossing of the Red Sea prefigures salvation. The manna in the wilderness prefigures the Bread of Life. The bronze serpent lifted up in the desert prefigures Christ lifted up on the Cross.

This is not allegory imposed from outside. The New Testament writers themselves establish these typological connections explicitly. Paul writes that the events of the Exodus "were written down for our instruction, upon whom the end of the ages has come." Peter draws a direct line between the Flood and baptism: "Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you." The entire argument of Hebrews 8–10 is built on the typological relationship between the old sacrificial system and the once-for-all sacrifice of Christ.

B. How the LDS Model Destroys Typology

If Noah was already practicing literal Christian baptism in the name of Jesus Christ, then the Flood is not a type of baptism. It is simply… more baptism. The typological connection Peter draws in 1 Peter 3:20–21 collapses, because there is no movement from figure to fulfillment — there is only repetition of the same thing. The Flood cannot "correspond to" baptism as a type corresponds to an antitype if baptism already existed in its fullness at the time of the Flood.

The same logic applies across the entire typological structure of Scripture. If Adam already possessed the Eucharist (or its equivalent), then the Passover is not a type of the Eucharist; it is a degraded version of a sacrament that was lost. If Abraham already had the fullness of the gospel, then the binding of Isaac is not a prophetic type of the sacrifice of the Son; it is merely an echo of knowledge Abraham already possessed. The entire forward-looking, anticipatory character of the Old Testament — its quality of pregnant expectation — is replaced by a backward-looking lament over what was lost.

This has catastrophic consequences for biblical interpretation. Paul's argument in 1 Corinthians 10, in which the events of the Exodus serve as "types" for the Christian community, presupposes that the Exodus events were genuinely different from their Christian fulfillment while also genuinely pointing toward it. The entire argument of Hebrews — arguably the most sustained typological argument in the New Testament — depends on the old covenant being a real but inferior preparation for the new. Under the LDS model, the old covenant is not an inferior preparation; it is a corrupted remnant of the same fullness. This fundamentally changes the character of salvation history from a story of growth and fulfillment to a story of repeated failure and recovery.

C. The Testimony of the Fathers on Typology

The patristic tradition unanimously supports the Catholic typological reading. The Fathers recognized Old Testament events as divinely intended prefigurations — not as degraded sacraments. Augustine's treatment of the Flood as a figure of baptism depends entirely on the Flood being something other than baptism itself. Irenaeus's theology of recapitulation — in which Christ takes up and perfects what Adam began — makes no sense if Adam already possessed what Christ came to give. The very concept of fulfillment requires that what came before was not yet full.

The New Testament writers consistently present what is happening in Christ as genuinely unprecedented. "The law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ." This contrast between Law and grace only functions theologically if the Christ event is a true novum — something that has never occurred before in this form.

The language is unmistakable: what has been revealed in Christ was genuinely hidden before. It was not known, lost, re-revealed, lost, and re-revealed again. It was hidden and is now, for the first time in its fullness, made manifest.

If the LDS model is correct — if the mystery was fully revealed to Adam, and then to Enoch, and then to Noah, and then to Abraham — then it was not hidden at all. It was merely periodically misplaced. Paul's language of hiddenness and manifestation, of mystery and revelation, becomes not just inaccurate but fundamentally misleading. The "fullness of time" in which God sent His Son ceases to be a unique moment in salvation history and becomes merely the latest in a recurring series — significant, perhaps, but not truly singular.

This diminishment of Christ's uniqueness has implications that extend beyond academic theology. If the gospel has been given and lost multiple times, then Christ's establishment of His Church is not qualitatively different from Noah's or Abraham's dispensation. It is merely the penultimate attempt in a long series, destined itself to fail — as LDS theology claims it did in the "Great Apostasy" — until Joseph Smith accomplished what Christ's apostles apparently could not.

In the Catholic model, God's plan unfolds exactly as He intends. The progressive stages of revelation are not accidents or responses to failure; they are the deliberate unfolding of a divine wisdom that is always in sovereign control. The Old Covenant was never meant to be the final word. Its limitations were part of the plan, not evidence of its corruption. God is never caught off guard, never forced to start over, never frustrated in His purposes.

The LDS model paints a profoundly different picture. God repeatedly entrusts the fullness of His gospel to humanity, and humanity repeatedly loses it entirely, necessitating a complete restart. If God gave Adam the fullness of the gospel and Adam's posterity lost it, that represents a failure — not of Adam alone, but of God's plan as implemented. The same failure repeats with Enoch's dispensation, Noah's dispensation, Abraham's dispensation, and Moses's dispensation. Most dramatically, it repeats with Christ's own dispensation, which LDS theology claims fell into complete apostasy within centuries of the Resurrection.

The Catholic position holds that God's work does not fail. His covenants do not collapse. His Church does not disappear. The progressive model is a story of divine faithfulness — each stage accomplished what God intended, and the final stage, inaugurated by Christ and sustained by the Spirit, will endure until the Lord's return. The LDS model, by contrast, is a story of repeated divine frustration, in which God's best-laid plans are defeated by human infidelity again and again until a nineteenth-century farmhand from upstate New York succeeds where patriarchs, prophets, and the Son of God Himself apparently did not.

Consider what happens to the Old Testament under each model. In the Catholic understanding, the Abrahamic covenant, the Mosaic Law, the Davidic kingdom, and the prophetic oracles are genuine stages in God's plan — each with its own integrity, its own purpose, its own beauty. The Law is not a punishment or a stopgap; it is, as Paul says, a paidagogos — a tutor leading Israel to Christ. The sacrificial system teaches Israel about sin, holiness, substitution, and atonement in ways that prepare them to understand the Cross. The prophets train Israel's imagination to recognize the Messiah when He comes. Every element has purpose. Nothing is wasted.

Under the LDS model, all of this becomes debris. If the fullness of the gospel was available to Adam and was lost, then the Abrahamic covenant is not a genuine stage of development; it is an emergency measure after the collapse of the Adamic dispensation. The Mosaic Law is not a divinely appointed pedagogy; it is an inferior substitute — a band-aid on apostasy — given because the fullness had been lost yet again. Paul's entire argument in Galatians and Romans about the purpose and function of the Law becomes nonsensical if the real issue was simply that people kept losing the fullness of ordinances. Paul treats the Law as something that was never intended to justify — it was always meant to be preparatory. But under the LDS model, it is not preparatory at all; it is a diminished replacement for something better that once existed.

It is historically significant that the structure of the LDS model — a primordial fullness lost through corruption and recoverable only through special revelation to an elect few — bears a marked resemblance to the Gnostic systems that the early Church Fathers spent considerable energy refuting. The Gnostics claimed that a secret, original knowledge (gnosis) had been lost or suppressed by the institutional Church and was available only through their own teaching lineage.

The LDS claim that a "Great Apostasy" eliminated the true Church from the earth for nearly two millennia, requiring a complete restoration, is structurally identical to the Gnostic claim that the public Church had corrupted the original teaching. In both cases, the institutional Church is declared defective, and a new revealer arrives with the supposedly original truth. The Catholic response is the same in both cases: God's plan does not fail. His Church does not disappear. The truth He has entrusted to His people endures, as He promised it would.

The difference between these two models is not a minor interpretive disagreement. It goes to the very nature of how God relates to creation and to time itself.

The Catholic model takes history seriously. It affirms that God works within time, that His revelation genuinely develops, and that the Incarnation is a true climax — the "fullness of time" — not merely another restoration in a recurring cycle. It respects the Old Testament as a genuine and intended stage in God's plan rather than a degraded version of something better. It makes sense of why the sacraments are new, why the Church is new, and why Christ's coming changed everything. It preserves the typological structure that the New Testament itself builds. It upholds God's sovereignty over history. And it takes Christ at His word that the gates of hell would not prevail against His Church.

The LDS model, by contrast, collapses salvation history into a flat line where everything was known from the beginning and then lost through apostasy — the exact opposite of how both Scripture and the Fathers understood God's pedagogy with humanity. It renders the Old Testament incoherent on its own terms, destroys the typological fabric of biblical theology, diminishes the uniqueness of Christ's work, implies that God's plans are perpetually frustrated, and requires us to believe that Jesus' promise of an indefectible Church was broken for the majority of Christian history.

God's revelation is progressive because God is patient. It reaches its fullness in Christ because Christ is the goal toward which everything was always moving. And it endures in His Church because God is faithful — and His faithfulness does not fail.