Editing Openai/691a45a6-8ed0-8010-a7d9-24657a41a9aa (section)

=== Assistant: That’s essentially the axis of disagreement, yes — but the real difference is why each side tells the story the way it … ===
That’s essentially the axis of disagreement, yes — but the real difference is why each side tells the story the way it does.

Let me unpack it in a way that keeps the logic clean.

==== The Latter-day Saint worldview assumes: ====
# Jesus established a very specific church structure. Think: clear hierarchy, priesthood offices, authority tied to individuals.
# That structure depended on living apostles with unique “keys.”
# When those apostles died, no one on earth held the same authority.
# Christianity kept going, but minus the essential ingredient. It still talked about Jesus, still produced theology, but it lacked divine authorization.
# Result: a “Great Apostasy,” not in the sense that all goodness vanished, but that the authorized church vanished.
# Solution: God restarts the system through Joseph Smith.

This is a clean, mechanical model.
It only works if early Christianity was relatively uniform and highly centralized under apostolic authority. That’s why LDS teachings often portray the first-century church as tightly organized and the second century as a sudden free-for-all.

==== In Catholic (and Orthodox) thought, the continuity is not a fragile line that snaps when the last apostle dies. It’s more like a living organism: ====
# Jesus establishes a community, not a blueprint. The details develop as the community learns and adapts.
# Authority is handed down through apostolic succession. The successors aren’t apostles in the same sense, but they preserve continuity.
# Diversity in early Christianity is normal, not evidence of collapse.
# Doctrines mature through councils, debate, and sometimes major course corrections.
# No single moment counts as “the end” of the true church. Even deep corruption or political entanglement affects individuals, not the church’s continuity as a whole.
# So by their view, the Church of the 200s, 500s, 1000s, and 1500s is still the same entity, changing but unbroken.

This model only works if early Christianity always was varied and evolving — which the historical record supports much more clearly.

==== Each system is trying to solve a different theological problem. ====

The LDS model solves:
“If God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, why don’t modern churches look like the New Testament? And why do non-Christians outnumber Christians?”
Answer: because the original church ended and required restoration.

The Catholic/Orthodox model solves:
“If Christ promised the gates of hell would not prevail against the Church, what happened after the apostles died?”
Answer: the Church continued, even if bruised and confused.

==== Once you see these as two different theories of Christian history, the debate becomes cleaner: ====
* LDS: The story is discontinuous — rupture, then re-creation.
* Catholic/Orthodox: The story is continuous — development over time.

The historical evidence tilts toward the continuity model, because the early Christian world never looked as uniform and centralized as the LDS model assumes.

But the restoration model isn’t trying to match modern historiography; it’s trying to make theological sense of why Joseph Smith’s story would be necessary.

If you want, I can map out exactly where the historical record diverges from the typical LDS “Great Apostasy” timeline — it’s pretty revealing.