THE MORMON GODS, PAST AND PRESENT
If our ideas about God are wrong
then we'll be wrong about our other doctrines too,
because ultimately all our beliefs stem from our view of God.
THE ORIGINAL LDS GOD
Most Mormons are unaware that the LDS church has worshipped three
different deities at various times since their inception. Should
they wish to do so, they can check up on this fact for themselves
in the LDS archives.
According to the 1835 printing of Doctrine and Covenants, their
initial teachings on deity were similar to those of protestant
Christianity:
"..... We shall, in this lecture speak of the Godhead: we mean
the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. There are two personages..... They
are the Father and the Son: The Father being a personage of
spirit, glory and power: possessing all perfection and
fullness: the Son, who was in the bosom of the Father, a personage
of tabernacle..... And he being the only begotten of the Father
..... possessing the same mind with the Father, which mind is the
Holy Spirit." (1835 Doctrine and Covenants, Lecture Fifth
of Faith, 5:1-2, pages 52-53, First edition.) (Writer's italics)
It is the practice of the LDS church to sanitize or to deny any
aspects of their history that may reflect negatively on them.
They even have a name for this practice. They call it, Lying
for the Lord. Consequently, they vehemently deny having
worshipped different deities at various times in the past. They
maintain that the above quote was only the personal opinion of one
of their early members. But this excuse is invalidated by the fact
that it was included as official doctrine, and part of their canon,
in their 1835 printing of Doctrine and Covenants.
The following is an extract from an article on Wikipedia,
that reveals that the above Lectures of Faith genuinely represented
the beliefs of Joseph Smith and the early LDS church:
The Lectures were selected for that volume by a committee appointed
on September 24, 1834 by a general assembly of the church to arrange
the doctrines and revelations of the church into a single volume.
That committee of Presiding Elders, consisting of Joseph Smith,
Jr., Oliver Cowdery, Sidney Rigdon, and Frederick G. Williams,
stated that the Lectures were included "in consequence of their
embracing the important doctrine of salvation," and that the
Lectures, together with the church-regulatory sections that followed,
represent "our belief, and when we say this, humbly trust, the
faith and principles of this society as a body." (See 1835
D&C, Preface.) Accordingly, the church body accepted the
committee's compilation on August 17, 1835 as "the doctrine and
covenants of their faith, by a unanimous vote." (History of the
Church 2: 243-6).
Furthermore, Marvin W. Cowan, in his Mormon Scripture, Doctrine
And Covenants, Part II, reveals that although the First
Presidency of the LDS church had voted on the inclusion of the
Lectures, as they represented the doctrines of their faith; because
of the changes that were later made to their doctrines over the
years, the time came when the Lectures on Faith no longer
represented the LDS's teachings. So in 1921, eighty-six years later,
they were finally deleted from their doctrinal records:
Although the LDS founding Prophet, Joseph Smith, stated that he
prepared those lectures for publication in the Doctrine and
Covenants and the LDS General Conference held in 1835 unanimously
voted to accept them as "the doctrine and covenants of
their faith," they were deleted in 1921 by the First
Presidency without any vote at a General Conference. Thus 75 pages
of what had been LDS scripture from 1835 until 1921 were
uncanonized, making the current Doctrine and Covenants a much
smaller volume! Some LDS General Authorities in 1921 knew that
conflicting teachings about God in the Doctrine and Covenants was
confusing members, so the First Presidency deleted the Lectures on
Faith in order to eliminate the confusion........... Thus the
Lectures on Faith taught that God the Father was a Spirit Being
but the Son had a body of flesh, while Section 130:22 of the
Doctrine and Covenants declared that both the Father and Son have
bodies of flesh and bones. Since both teachings originated with
Joseph Smith, it should raise some questions about his
revelations.
Although the LDS vehemently denies that Joseph Smith ever taught the
above, the following verses that are recorded in the LDS's 1981
printing of Doctrine & Covenants, clearly indicate that at the
time they were written (it says in 1830), Joseph Smith taught that
God had always, eternally, been God, and that he had created
mankind:
By these things we know that there is a God in heaven, who is
infinite and eternal, from everlasting to everlasting, the same
unchangeable God, the framer of heaven and earth, and all things
which are in them; And he created them male and female ....
(Doctrine & Covenants Section 20:17, 18 (revelation
through Joseph Smith, the Prophet, April, 1830.)
The Book of Mormon (written by Joseph Smith before he had changed
his mind about his doctrines on God), also teaches the trinitarian
deity; that God was a spirit being; and that there always
had been only one eternal, unchanging God:
And I do this that I may prove unto many that I am the same
yesterday, today and forever. (2 Nephi 29:9)
For I know that God is not a partial God, neither a changeable
being; but he is unchangeable from all eternity to all eternity
(Moroni 8:18).
And then Ammon said: Believest thou that there is a Great Spirit?
And he said, Yes. And Ammon said: This is God. And Ammon said unto
him again: Believest thou that this Great Spirit, who is God,
created all things which are in heaven and on the earth? And he
said Yes ........ (Alma 18:26-29)
And the king said: Is God that Great Spirit that brought our
fathers out of the land of Jerusalem? And Aaron said unto him:
Yea, he is that Great Spirit, and he created all things both in
heaven and in earth ..... (BOM Alma 22:9-11)
..... Christ the Son, and God the Father, and the Holy Spirit,
which is one Eternal God..... (Alma 11:44)
..... the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost are one .....
(3 Nephi 11:27)
..... to dwell in the presence of God in his kingdom, to sing
ceaseless praises with the choirs above, unto the Father, and unto
the Son, and unto the Holy Ghost, which are one God..... (Mormon
7:7)
Now Zeezrom said: Is there more than one God? And he answered, No.
(Alma 11:28-29)
..... there is but one God (Alma 11:35)
As part of their trinitarian teaching, in line with the Bible, the
Book of Mormon maintains that the Lord Jesus is the eternal God:
It must needs be that the Gentiles be convinced also that Jesus is
the Christ, the Eternal God (2 Nephi 26:12)
Mormon doctrinal books now teach that the godhead consists of three
separate Gods, and that although the Holy Ghost is a spirit
personage, like their God the Heavenly Father, he can only be in
one place at any one time (LDS Apostle McConkie, Mormon Doctrine,
page 359); whereas the Spirit "fills the immensity of
space", and permeates all nature (Gospel Doctrine, Volume 1,
page 94). They also maintain that the Holy Ghost is a literal son
of God.
THE SECOND MORMON GOD
Shortly after the establishment of the LDS church, Joseph Smith
began introducing teachings that distanced Mormonism further and
further from biblical Christianity. And a fair number of his
newer teachings/revelations contradicted or didn't fit in with
their own Book of Mormon, which he had maintained contained the
fullness of the "everlasting" gospel, was the most
correct book on earth, and the keystone to their religion.
On the 6th April, 1844, in what became known as the King Follett
Discourse, Smith proclaimed:
"We have imagined and supposed that God was God from all
eternity. I will refute that idea, and take away the veil, so
that you may see ..... God himself was once as we are now,
and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens!"
(Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, page 345, compiled by
Joseph Fielding Smith). (Italics inserted by editor.)
The above speech was addressed to Mormons fourteen years after the
establishment of the LDS church. And Smith's wording, "We have
imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity,"
reveals that they had, in fact, originally believed that God had
always, eternally, been deity (which is confirmed by the Book of
Mormon). So the emphatic denials by the LDS about having worshipped
different Gods at various times, don't make sense.
In in the 1844 LDS publication, "Times and Seasons,"
volume 5, pages 613-614, Smith reiterated that God was only an
exalted man (with a body of flesh and bone), and that ordinary,
mortal men could also become Gods. LDS teachings on this
exclusively Mormon God are well documented. Here are a few
examples:
God is a perfected, saved soul enjoying eternal life. (Second
Counselor in the First Presidency, Marion G. Romney, as per Salt
Lake Tribune, April 3, 1977.)
The Father is a glorified, perfected resurrected, exalted man who
worked out his own salvation by obedience to the same laws he has
given to us so that we may do the same (LDS Apostle Bruce McConkie,
in "A New Witness for the Articles of Faith," page 64)
God and man are of the same race, differing only in their degree
of advancement (Mormon Apostle, Dr. John Widtsoe (1872-1952),
member of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles in "Gospel Through
the Ages," page 107).
God, angels, and men are all of the same species, one race, one
great family (Mormon Apostle Parley P. Pratt, in Key to the
Science of Theology, 1978 Edition, page 21).
How many Gods there are, I do not know. But there never was a
time when there were not Gods .... (2nd LDS President and Prophet
Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 7:333).
This turnabout in Smith's theology, which emanated from his doctrine
of eternal progression, is one of the main reasons why Doctrine and
Covenants contradicts the earlier Book of Mormon in so many places,
and also why the Pearl of Great Price contradicts the Book of
Mormon. But you will never stumble across the truth as to why these
discrepancies exist by listening to the imaginative excuses that
are put forward by the LDS church. They are merely smoke screens
designed to prevent their membership from realizing that the
contradictions are there simply because their doctrines, and the
teachings of their prophets, have changed radically over the
years.
The main ingredient of truth is its consistency. It is eternal,
and never changes. That's why we can always rely on it. Biblical
Christianity still teaches exactly the same doctrines as did the
apostles of Christ, which were recorded in the Bible, for all to
see. But Mormonism of today bears no resemblance to their beliefs
at the start.
THE THIRD MORMON GOD
Brigham Young, the second president and prophet of the LDS church,
introduced the teaching that not only was the LDS God an ordinary,
exalted man of flesh and bone, but that he was one man in
particular, i.e. Adam (see Journal of Discourses, Volume 1, pages
50-51 and Deseret News June 18, 1873). The LDS tries to cover this
up by insisting that his sermon was wrongly reported. But that
wasn't the only time that their prophet proclaimed that Adam was the
LDS God. According to the LDS's own records, he taught this
doctrine extensively and consistently over a period of about twenty
five years.
Speaking in the Tabernacle on the morning of October 8, 1861, Young
remarked: "I will give you a few words of doctrine, upon which
there has been much inquiry, and with regard to which considerable
ignorance exists. Br. Watt will write it, but it is not my intention
to have it published therefore pay good attention, and store it up
in your memories. Some years ago, I advanced a doctrine with regard
to Adam being our father and God, that will be a curse to many of
the Elders of Israel because of their folly. With regard to it they
yet grovel in darkness and will. It is one of the most glorious
revealments of the economy of heaven, yet the world holds it [in]
derision. Had I revealed the doctrine of baptism from the dead
instead [of] Joseph Smith there are men around me who would have
ridiculed the idea until doomsday. But they are ignorant and
stupid like the dumb ass." (Manuscript Sermon, "A Few
Words of Doctrine," Brigham Young Collection, Church
Historian's Office, Salt Lake City.)
The following three quotes were featured in the article The
Mormon Church Claims to Receive Modern-day Revelation, on
Michael Davis' Mormonism Homepage:
"Concerning the doctrine that Adam is our Father and God ...
the prophet and Apostle Brigham has declared it, and that is the
word of the Lord" (F. D. Richards, Millenial Star,
August 26, 1854, vol.16, p.534).
"When Brigham Young proclaimed to the nations that Adam was our
Father and God ... he made the most important revelation ever
oracled to the race since the days of Adam himself" (Mormon
Edward W. Tullidge, The Women of Mormondom, p.79,179,
196-197, 1877).
"If the President makes a statement it is not our prerogative
to dispute it ... when I first heard the doctrine of Adam being
our Father and God, I was favorably impressed — enjoyed and
hailed it as a new Revelation" (Mormon A.F. McDonald,
Minutes of the School of Prophets, Provo, UT, 1868-1871,
p.38-39).
(Note the period between the dates of the abovequoted
publications.)
In all fairness one must admit that this was a very unpopular
teaching. And apparently Mormon Apostle Orson Pratt opposed the
Adam God doctrine right from the start. But the LDS has a strict
rule, and that is that nobody criticizes their prophet, as he is
divinely led by God. They also extend this same rule to their other
leadership. Whenever their members have questioned this, they have
been assured that God will never permit the prophet or the
leadership to teach false doctrine or to lead the LDS church into
error, or words to that effect. Apostle Pratt was duly warned that
he was on the brink of apostasy. When that didn't bring an end to
his opposition, he was sent on a mission to the eastern United
States, effectively removing him from the Salt Lake area.
But that didn't stem the opposition to this doctrine. In the
November and December issues of their "True Latter-Day Saint
Herald," the break-away RLDS Church printed a refutation of
Brigham's Adam-God doctrine, using the same arguments and
scriptures that Pratt had. And they went as far as to urge the LDS
church to return to the true God. In his diary under the date of
February 3, 1861, John D. Lee, adopted son of Brigham Young,
recorded the following:
"Eving attendd Prayer meeting & instructed the Saints on
the points of Doctrine refereed to by the true Latterday Saints
Herald & their Bombarding Pres. B. Young for Saying that Adam is
all the god that we have to do with & to those that know no
better, it is quite a stumbling Block... " (A Mormon Chronicle:
The Diaries of John D. Lee, The Huntington Library, 1955, Volume 1,
page 293.)
As soon as Brigham Young passed away so did his divinely revealed
doctrine on the LDS God being Adam. It was soundly refuted by the
church leadership and is still a source of great embarrassment to
them. So much so that they have done their utmost to cover it up,
to the extent of denying outright that there ever had been any such
doctrine in the LDS church.
After Young's death, they reverted to worshipping their second God,
i.e. an ordinary, exalted man of flesh and bone.
These three contradictory teachings on the God the LDS
worshipped cannot all be correct. At least two of the three
teachings, involving both their first and second prophets, must be
wrong. Why then does the LDS church persistently maintain the
facade that God would never permit their leadership to teach them
error, and that their prophets are divinely inspired by God?
The LDS prophet Brigham Young had declared that God Himself had
revealed this doctrine on Adam being their God, to him. And as the
LDS has taken a very firm stand on his revelation on God being
wrong, it is akin to their having declared him to have been a false
prophet. In an attempt to cover this up, they insist that Brigham
Young was wrongly quoted. However, their own records invalidate
this excuse.
In Joseph Smith's case, he claimed from the start that he was
leading the LDS church under God's guidance, and that as God's
prophet, when he spoke it was the same as if God had spoken. Yet
his doctrines changed consistently. And truth cannot change.
THE PRESENT MORMON GOD
The doctrine that God was once a man and has progressed to become a
God is unique to this church. (Official LDS Lesson Manual, 1997,
page 34, "The Teachings of Brigham Young")
The Mormon God, whose name is Elohim, had the same origins as did
mankind. In line with the LDS doctrine of eternal progression, he
had at first existed as intelligent matter. Then he took on the
form of a spirit being by being born into the family of an
already existing God, the same as they say we did in our
pre-existence. After that he progressed to the stage of a mortal
man. and lived in obedience to
LDS laws and ordinances. Then after he had gained the requisite
amount of knowledge/intelligence, he was exalted to godhood.
Although he is now in the heavenlies, Elohim is not a spirit being,
but an exalted man with a body of flesh and bone. He lives near a
planet called Kolob with his wife/wives. They have bred a myriad of
spirit children. The Lord Jesus was their firstborn and his birth
was followed by the births of Satan, the angelic beings and the
whole of mankind.
..... God the Father had a plurality of wives, one or more being in
eternity, by whom He begat our spirits ..... (Orson Pratt, an
original member of the LDS's Quorum of Twelve Apostles, The
Seer, page 172)
When Elohim's offspring had progressed far enough,
the earth we live on now was created so that we could also be born
to human parents and take on bodies of flesh and bone, to enable
us to progress eternally, in the same way as he had done.
Although he is only one amongst an innumerable number of other
gods that exist in the universe, all of whom achieved their godhood
the same way as he did, Elohim is the only God with whom we have to
do.
According to
our dictionaries, the word "eternal" means without
beginning or end of existence, ceaseless and unchangeable. But in
order to fit their deity of eternal progression in with biblical
terminology, the LDS teaches their followers that the word
"eternal" is only God's title, and not His description.
This is how LDS Apostle Bruce R. McConkie puts it:
Eternal life is the name given to the kind of life that our
Eternal Father lives. The word eternal, as used in the name
eternal life, is a noun and not an adjective. It is one of
the formal names of Deity (Moses 1:3, 7:35; D&C 19:11) and has
been chosen by him as the particular name to identify the kind of
life that he lives. He being God, the life he lives is God's life;
and his name (in the noun sense) being Eternal, the kind of life he
lives is eternal life. Thus: God's life is eternal life; eternal
life is God's life — the expressions are synonymous.
..... But only those who obey the fulness of the [LDS] gospel law
will inherit eternal life (D&C 29:43-44)..... Thus those who
gain eternal life receive exaltation ..... They are gods.
(Mormon Doctrine, LDS Apostle Bruce R. McConkie, page 237.)
However, in his King Follett Discourse Joseph Smith made it
clear that his LDS teachings on deity directly contradicted the
biblical teaching that God had always been God eternally,
when he said:
"We have imagined and supposed that God was God from all
eternity. I will refute that idea."
Eternal progression is unbiblical. The Bible consistently teaches
that God is eternally unchangeable, that He has always been the only
God, and that He will always continue to be the only God, eternally.
It also intimates that behind every other so-called god stands that
great deceiver, Satan.
THE MORMON GOD IS NOT OMNIPRESENT
According to LDS Apostle John Widtsoe, the Mormon God's omnipresence
is fulfilled through the Holy Spirit, which is not to be confused
with the Holy Ghost (Evidences and Reconciliation's, pages 76-77).
And Brigham Young, the second LDS Prophet and President, said:
"Some would have us believe that God is present everywhere. It
is not so" (Journal of Discourses 6:345).
Then too, LDS Apostle James Talmage stated that neither God the
Father, nor any other member of the Godhead, can be physically
present in more than one place at one time. (The Articles of Faith,
page 39). And Joseph Smith taught:
"The idea that the Father and the Son dwell in a man's heart is
an old sectarian notion, and is false" (Doctrines and Covenants
130:3).
Yet again the Book of Mormon contradicts Joseph Smith's teachings
on the second LDS God and also the teachings of Doctrine and
Covenants, maintaining that the Lord does dwell in the hearts of the
righteous. But bear in mind that it was published by Joseph Smith at
the time that he had taught that God was
Spirit. Here is what he wrote in the Book of Mormon before he'd
turned to the worship of an exalted man of flesh and bone:
"And this I know, because the Lord hath said he dwelleth not in
unholy temples, but in the hearts of the righteous doth he
dwell" (BOM Alma 34:36).
Contrary to present LDS teachings, the Bible teaches that because
God is Spirit (John 4:24) He is omnipresent; meaning that His
presence is everywhere simultaneously:
But will God indeed dwell on the earth? behold, the heaven and
heaven of heavens cannot contain thee; how much less this house that
I have builded? (1 Kings 8:27, KJV)
Am I a God at hand, saith the Lord, and not a God afar off? Can any
hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the
Lord. Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the Lord. (Jeremiah
23:23-24, KJV)
(The LDS cannot attribute that last statement as having been the
words of their version of the Holy Spirit, as they maintain that
the Holy Spirit is merely an impersonal force, and not an actual
person with a personality.)
THE LDS GOD IS NOT A UNIQUE, INFINITE BEING
Mormons maintain that we are of the same species as God. Therefore,
any fallen man is able to progress to godhood through obedience
to the laws and ordinances of the LDS church, in the same way that
God did. Brigham Young delivered a message in the Salt Lake
Tabernacle on August 8,1852, in which he said:
"The Lord created you and me for the purpose of becoming Gods
like Himself" (Journal of Discourses 3:93).
Both the Journal of Discourses and the Teachings of the Prophet
Joseph Smith record that, on April 6, 1844, the LDS prophet Joseph
Smith preached to a congregation of 20,000 saying:
"Here then is eternal life; to know the only wise and true God;
and you have got to learn how to be Gods yourselves, and to
be kings and priests to God the same as all Gods have done before
you" (Journal of Discourses 6:4; Teachings of the Prophet
Joseph Smith, page 346, compiled by Joseph Fielding Smith).
(Italics inserted by the editor.)
THE INFERIORITY OF THE LDS GOD
Because the LDS deity had first lived as a mortal man prior to his
exaltation, this means that he only attained godhood after the
universe had already been created. So he played no part whatsoever
in its creation. Consequently, he never has been and never
ever will be even remotely necessary to the functioning of the
universe. Nor was he responsible for creating matter, energy,
space and time, and so on, either. He is, therefore, subject to
all these things, as opposed to being the creator and sustainer of
them. (The LDS teaches that far from creating matter, he merely
re-organizes it.)
On the other hand, the biblical God is the unique, self-existing,
unchanging, First Cause, who created the universe and all that is
in it, including time, space and matter. So everything that exists
is subject to Him and is sustained by Him (Hebrews 1:3).
Furthermore, as He is the only God who has ever existed, and is
both infinite and omnipotent, He is supreme over all.
We can only come to the conclusion that the LDS God is vastly
inferior in every way to the biblical deity. In fact, the only
difference between him and ourselves is that he has advanced more
than we have at this particular moment in time.
LDS teachings have brought a unique, pure and holy, omnipotent,
eternal Creator God of unimaginable glory, power, wisdom, holiness
and perfection down to the level of a fallen, created man. They
have denied God's spiritual essence and His eternal and infinite
nature, and have turned to the worship of a God made in their own
fallible, finite, and physical likeness.
When we substitute our own ideas about God we always detract from
His glory. Bound by the dimensions of time and space, man has a
very limited knowledge and understanding of eternal things. And in
trying to reduce an eternal, infinite and indescribably amazing and
powerful God who had created the dimensions of time and space and
who upholds and sustains the whole of the universe and everything
in it by his omnipotence, to terms that he could understand,
Joseph Smith simply denied the truth about Him in the same way
as did the pagan idolaters in biblical times.
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness
and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;
Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God
hath shewed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the
creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the
things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that
they are without excuse: Because that, when they knew God, they
glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in
their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed
the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to
corruptible man ..... (Romans 1:18-23, KJV) (Author's italics)
If you are a Mormon, I would ask you to meditate for a moment on the
fact that the Bible reveals that although people worship many and
varied gods, there is in reality only one true God. And it makes
it clear that to worship any of these other so-called gods is to
commit the sin of idolatry. Bearing in mind that the god of the
LDS bears no resemblance whatsoever to the God of the Bible (see
the article on the biblical God on this site), Mormons are
standing on very shaky ground. The fact that you are a sincere
person and have been misled by a false prophet, doesn't change
your status quo.
As someone who was once in your predicament, I am asking you not
to lose heart. I know all too well the disillusionment, deep hurt,
and anger that accompanies the realization that one has been
spiritually deceived. You probably feel that you could never ever
trust anyone again in the spiritual arena. So I wouldn't dream of
asking you to trust me either. You don't even know me. But you
can trust God's written word to you, the Bible. And I am asking
you in the name of the biblical Lord Jesus Christ, who loved you
enough to die for you, to turn solely to the Bible for spiritual
knowledge and teaching. I realize that you have been indoctrinated
to believe that God revealed to Joseph Smith that the Bible is
unreliable. But hopefully you have by now realized that Joseph
Smith was a deceiver. So if you have the will, you can give
yourself permission to "accept" that the Bible is a
true, accurate and reliable record of God's word to us.
It isn't easy for a Mormon to untangle his mind regarding what he
has been taught, because it is the LDS practice to mix selected
Bible teachings together with the teachings of their own
scriptures. And their system of indoctrination is powerful. So
trying to understand what the Bible actually teaches is initially
like trying to find one's way out of a maze. But God is the
greatest Teacher of all, and He can and will help you. I know
this is so, because He helped me when I was in that predicament.
All you need do is to humbly pray to the biblical God, and ask
Him to enable you to understand what the Bible truly teaches.
The following are links to articles on the LDS Holy
Spirit/Holy Ghost, and the Biblical God, as well as on the
reliability of the Bible:
The LDS Holy Spirit and Holy Ghost
Understanding the Biblical God
Corruption of the Bible is an LDS Smokescreen
You are welcome to write me at
reply@bibtruth.com
Copyright 2007, Mormonism and Biblical Truth.
All rights reserved.