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While the Mormon concept of deity may be interesting to some, I find this "Christian" concept of deity far more perplexing. Let's take a closer look:

1. Personal and Incorporeal...God is also incorporeal. Unlike humans, God is not uniquely associated with one physical entity (i.e., a body). This is why the Bible refers to God as Spirit (John 4:24).

So does God have a body or not? Well, uh, sometimes. Christ came to earth as a mortal. He died and was resurrected. Did he later shed that resurrected body and become a "spirit" again? (We won't even get into whether a spirit is "incorporeal" or not.)

2. The Creator and Sustainer of Everything Else that Exists...the God of classical theism created the universe ex nihilo (out of nothing). Consequently, it is on God alone that everything in the universe depends for its existence (see Acts 17:25; Col. 1:16, 17; Rom. 11:36; Heb. 11:3; 2 Cor. 4:6; Rev. 4:11).

Check all the above references. Not a single "ex nihilo" in any of them. Perhaps this doctrine was created out of nothing.

3. Omnipotent. God is also said to be omnipotent or all-powerful. This should be understood to mean that God can do anything that is (1) logically possible (see below), and (2) consistent with being a personal, incorporeal, omniscient, omnipresent, immutable, wholly perfect, and necessary Creator.

Let's see now. God is all powerful, but he is not. He cannot do that which is logically impossible. Is God restricted by the illogical or merely the impossible? Perhaps "logical" and "impossible" are attributes which humans have assigned to God based on their own (mis)understanding of Him. At any rate, I find this whole argument logically impossible.

4. Omniscient. God is all-knowing, and His all-knowingness encompasses the past, present, and future.

The future? Been there done that.

5. Omnipresent. Logically following from God's omniscience, incorporeality, omnipotence, and role as creator and sustainer of the universe is His omnipresence. Since God is not limited by a spatio-temporal body, knows everything immediately without benefit of sensory organs, and sustains the existence of all that exists, it follows that He is in some sense present everywhere. Certainly it is the Bible's explicit teaching that God is omnipresent (Ps. 139:7-12; Jer. 23:23-24).

The above scriptures are used to illustrate that we cannot "hide" from God. He can "see" us wherever we are, or from wherever He is. That doesn't mean He is everywhere at all times.

6. Immutable and Eternal. When a Christian says that God is immutable and eternal, he or she is saying that God is unchanging (Mal. 3:6; Heb. 6:17; Isa. 46:10b) and has always existed as God throughout all eternity (Ps. 90:2; Isa. 40:28; 43:12b, 13; 57:15a; Rom. 1:20a; 1 Tim. 1:17).6 There never was a time when God was not God.

Did God's nature change when he "became" a mortal and suffered death on the cross? Did God really "die," and if so, how could he still be God?

7. Necessary and the Only God.

The Jews could also use this to argue that Jesus Christ is not God.

What surprises me most about this particular "Christian concept of God," is that not once is Jesus Christ mentioned. Is/Are not Jesus and God one and the same? Why have the left the Saviour out of their philosophy of God?

There are a few nuggets of truth here but it's mostly subjective interpretation, once again, of what someone outside the faith THINKS that "Mormons" believe.

For example, although you MIGHT take the view that God is "subject to external laws," in fact His "oneness" with divine laws is what MAKES Him "God" in the first place.

Also, the notion that there are "many gods" is a vast oversimplification.

We can posit that there are "co-equal gods" but that is mere speculation. In fact, for us there is but ONE God, our Eternal Heavenly Father. There is no other. We worship no other. We contemplate no other. We are connected with no other. So the notion of "plurality of gods" is an academic exercise only, akin to wondering where the end of the universe might be.

And although it is true that we know that God has a physical, tangible body, the notion that this "limits" Him somehow is itself a limitation of mortal, physical experience. In fact it is WE who are limited, not God. Simply because we are coincidentally physical AND limited in our reach or influence does not mean that physicality is the root cause of our limitation.

In short, attempts at making "lists" like this are such vast oversimplifications as to be almost meaningless.

From the table at the end of the article: 3. Omnipotent 3. Limited in power 4. Omniscient 4. Limited in knowledge 5. Omnipresent in being 5. Localized in space

Why does the author claim that this is what we believe? Talk about setting up a strawman and knocking it down!

If they cannot show it from the LDS Scriptures, they should not pretend it is what we believe.

>> CHRISTIAN MORMON

These headings are incorrect. They should read "Other Christians" and "Latter-Day Saints", since Latter-Day Saints are Christians no matter how many times others deny it.

This does not bode well for the rest of the article. Is this table part of the article? Written by the same authors? (I ask because the table follows the footnotes.)

We're pushing 300 posts and other than Wai-ming, I don't think there has been a single serious post addressing the issues presented in this article. Now the thread has deteriorated into a cartoon fest.

Having now taken the time to read this article, I believe that it presents a compelling case as to why, from a philosophical standpoint, the Mormon god is quite inferior to the God that is presented in the bible and that has been presented by Orthodox Judaism and Orthodox Christianity.

It is interesting that none of the mormons tried to refute this little quote. Maybe they missed it:

"Based on the statements of Mormon leaders, some LDS scholars contend that a premortal spirit is "organized" by God through "spirit birth." In this process, human spirits are somehow organized through literal sexual relations between our Heavenly Father and one or more mother gods, whereby they are conceived and born as spirit children prior to entering the mortal realm (although all human persons prior to spirit birth existed as intelligences in some primal state of cognitive personal existence).15 Since the God of Mormonism was himself organized (or spirit-birthed) by his God, who himself is a "creation" of yet another God, and so on ad infinitum, Mormonism therefore teaches that the God over this world is a contingent being in an infinite lineage of gods.16 Thus, Mormonism is a polytheistic religion."

Now this is my understanding of how little spirit children are "organized" in the premordial life. The footnotes point to these sources.

15 Bruce McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 2d ed. (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1966), 386-87, 516-17, 750-51.

16 See Joseph Smith, History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (hereafter HC), 7 vols., introduction and notes, B. H. Roberts, 2d rev. ed. (Salt Lake City: The Deseret Book Company, 1978), 6:305-12.

Does anyone care to refute this? Or is this an accurate statement of LDS theology? If it is incorrect, please correct us and show us the sources that you rely on for a differing opinion.