"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).
"For do we not read that God is the same yesterday, today and forever, and in him there is no variableness, neither shadow of changing? And now, if ye have imagined up unto yourselves a god who doth vary, and in whom there is shadow of changing, then ye have imagined up unto yourselves a god who is not a God of miracles" (Mormon 9:9-10).
"Here, then, is eternal life--to know the only wise and true God. And you have got to learn how to be Gods yourselves--to be kings and priests to God, the same as all Gods have done--by going from a small degree to another, from grace to grace, from exaltation to exaltation, until you are able to sit in glory as do those who sit enthroned in everlasting power." - King Follett Discourse
Moroni and Mormon describe God as immutable and unchanging. TheKFD shows something else. How can you believe that God is at the same time immutable and changing, that from all eternity he was as he now is, but he somehow evolved from a mere mortal?
God evolved or he didn't. Mormans seem to have it both ways.
How is this possible?
It appears that Joseph Smith copied much of the BOM from the KJV of the bible when he created his new religion. In his later years, he made up the "man become god" part, and this just doesn't work with a singular god.
Over the years, I have recieved answers to this contradiction ranging from "multiple eternities" to "And hence, in response to the kind of philosophical and/or metaphysical thought you forward in your argument, we’re happy to say things like, “I don’t know much about that” and not worry one whit about it. Sorry." (This last quote was from a discussion I had on the FAIR site)
I can appreciate a devine mystery, but I can't understand how a thinking person can live with such obvious contradiction in reason. I could not vote for someone who bets his eternal soul on something so obviously wrong.
Don’t you, as a Christian (I assume), believe something similar? An “unchanging” God who “changed” from being solely “nonmaterial” to “partially material” with God the Son assuming materiality 2000 years ago?
As I wrote in my book:
[MORMONISM. The Faith of the Twenty-first Century. Volume 1. Edward K. Watson. (Liahona Publications. Copyright © 1998 Edward K. Watson.) pp. 117-120. MORMONISM: Section 1, Chapter 12. All rights reserved.]
CHAPTER 12
Is God Unchanging? Did He Create Everything?
A) Is God unchanging?
Despite the misrepresentations of our opponents, the Latter-day Scriptures teach God is immutable. He’s unchangeable from eternity to eternity and is the same yesterday, today and forever (1 Ne 10:18; 2 Ne 2:4; 26:12; Alma 11:38-39,44; 3 Ne 24:6; Morm 9:9-10,19; Moro 7:22; 8:18; D&C 20:12,17,28; 35:1-2; 76:4; 78:16; Mos 1:3) which is identical to what the Bible says (Deut 33:27; Ps 90:2; 93:2; 102:24-27; Hab 1:12; Mal 3:6; Heb 1:12; 6:17-18; Jas 1:17). Wouldn’t it be foolish for Joseph Smith to teach a doctrine that would contradict what God taught numerous times in the Bible and the Latter-day Scriptures? God doesn’t change. He’s consistent, always reliable and trustworthy. He keeps his side of the covenant even if man doesn’t.
On the surface it appears that our belief that Heavenly Father was once a man like ourselves who developed into the God he currently is seems contradicted by our other doctrine that he is unchanging. Let us examine this doctrine in depth.
The Traditional Christian view of God understands him as possessing three persons but being one essence. God is immutable, he doesn’t change according to the Bible but at the same time describes a changing God!
Heb 13:8 Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.
Is Jesus, “God”? We say yes. Is he the same yesterday, today and tomorrow? We say yes (also see Moro 10:19). But, did he change? Yes! He was an incorporeal (not nonmaterial) spirit being for billions of years before being born to Mary 2,000 years ago. Jesus (God) changed from being completely nonhuman to human! He changed from an embryo to a fetus, to an infant, to a child, to an adolescent, to an adult. He changed! Since Jesus is God, and Jesus changed, it means God changed! God changed physically and in essence (purely nonhuman to part-human).
Luke 2:52 And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.
Did Jesus increase in wisdom? Did he change? Isn’t an “increase” a “change”?
John 5:19 Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.
What did Jesus do? Did he do what Heavenly Father did before him? If God the Son changed and replicated what God the Father did before him, did God the Father change? If not, Jesus is a liar.
Our opponents claim to be the true followers of Christ but they don’t believe what Jesus said about his emulation of the Father, the significance of the humanity of Jesus or the implications of his incarnation. Neither do they seem to understand how God can be unchanging and changing at the same time. Their argument in reality isn’t with us Mormons, it’s with Jesus and the NT. We are merely believing what is clearly espoused in the Bible.
This needs to be clarified. The immutability of God is in reference to his nature. His nature as God doesn’t change,1 in relation to the universe. Jesus was always “God” despite changing from being purely incorporeal to having a physical body.
If the Christian anti-Mormons truly believe God’s `unchangeness’ excludes a mortal incarnation and development; they have no other choice but to abandon Jesus as being God and member of the Godhead! They must abandon the NT since it clearly refers to Jesus as God and at the same time describes a “changing” (evolving) Jesus. (He did get circumcised and “grew” a beard didn’t he?) Their only options are to convert to either Judaism or Islam.
The real problem lies in the origin of God. How did God come into existence? From the Scriptures it can be gathered that the universe was created by God therefore he had to precede this universe. As I understand it, the church teaches that Heavenly Father was once a man like us and resided on a world similar to ours. He eventually attained Godhood, and then created this universe and everything within. Such an idea drives anti-Mormons to rage. “How dare you Mormons say that God was once a man! Blasphemy!” The thing is, why be on the defensive? We should put the ball back in their corner and ask them, “What did God do before he created this universe?” If they’re trained in philosophy, they’ll say there never was a period before the creation and God was a hypostasis present. (See Chapter 14 and MORMONISM: Section 4). Usually, they won’t be able to answer. “You don’t know? How can you then say that the Mormon concept is wrong when you don’t have an alternate idea?”
In order for an individual to say that this idea (God was once a mortal humanoid in another universe) is wrong, he or she must be able to prove why it’s false. Since we teach that this occurred before the universe was created in an ancestral universe, they must be able to show that he was always [a] God before the universe was made. Can they do it? Absolutely not, since there isn’t a single verse in the Bible that says what God was doing before he created the universe. All we have is when he created this heaven (universe? sky?) and earth.
The Mormon belief of God’s mortal origin is based upon what is now known as the “multiverse cosmology” which resolves the unchanging God passages with the changing God described by the incarnation. It shows the “unchangeable God” passages are about God’s status, not about a mortal evolution. He was God before creating time and the universe. he will still be God after time and the universe cease to exist.
[ENDNOTES]:
1.NIBD. Immutability.
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Did Joseph Smith copy SOME of the Book of Mormon from the Bible, most especially the Beatitudes? Most definitely! A comparative analysis shows a gradual convergence of the texts, with the greatest differences at the beginning.
Does this prove the Book of Mormon false? Of course not since EVERY NT WRITER, most especially PAUL, copied OT passages into their writings, often without credit.
(I have a chapter with a side-by-side comparison of fifty specific NT instances).
Why then do I still believe the New Testament is Scripture?
As I said in an article I wrote (Tanner Worship and Real Scholarship; FAIR journal):
“In my opinion, there isn’t any question Joseph Smith used the text from his AV Bible in writing parts of the Book of Mormon. A textual comparison of 3 Nephi 12-14 with Matthew 5-7 shows a gradual convergence of the texts with the greatest deviation existing at the very beginning of 3 Nephi 12. This gradual dovetailing reveals Joseph Smith “cheated”; not in the sense of committing fraud, but in shying away from the painstaking and difficult translation process of examining each engraved character, trying to discern what it meant by relying upon God’s inspiration, and then verbalizing the revealed impression. When he realized he was quoting the Beatitudes, he “popped open his Bible”; continued the slow translation but eventually acquiesced to a wholesale importation of the remainder of the Beatitudes after deducing minimal difference between the two accounts.
“This also explains the similarities of the Isaiah and Malachi quotations from what’s found in the AV and why some Book of Mormon passages that parallel those found in the Bible contain the same textual errors found in the AV. Does this mean the Book of Mormon is false? Of course not. Why should a later prophet’s unacknowledged usage of the writing of an earlier prophet be grounds for invalidating his own writings? Don’t the anti-Mormons know biblical writers frequently copied or paraphrased from earlier writers without acknowledging their “plagiarism”? [e.g., Heb 8:8-12 cf. Jer 31:31-34; Matt 13:13/Mark 4:12 cf. Isa 6:9-10; Heb 3:7-11 cf. Ps 95:7-11; Matt 10:35-36 cf. Micah 7:6; Luke 19:40 cf. Hab 2:11; Acts 13:41 cf. Hab 1:5; 1 Cor 4:13 cf. Lam 3:45; Jas 2:9 cf. Prov 28:21; 1 Pet 3:10-12 cf. Ps 34:12-16; Rev 1:15 cf. Ezek 43:2; 2 Kng 18-20 is actually copied from Isa 36-39 and Mic 4:1-3 is copied from Isa 2:2-4; etc.
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As for “man become God” - I’m too tired to enter another discussion on it (need to go back to sleep) so just read my book on the matter at http://www.fortunecity.com/meltingpot/bicycleroad/21/id33.htm
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Lastly, I’m also the father of five (boys)!
Thank you for your honest, reasoned question. It's refreshing to hear such a thing on FR.
I believe the best way I can explain my approach to this mystery is to describe an event from my own life.
When I was in elementary school, I rode the bus with other kids of all ages. Some of them were in high school, and I looked upon them with great interest. They talked about classes that sounded much more advanced than what I had learned so far.
One day, after boarding the bus to return home, I happened to sit across the aisle from a high school aged girl who was taking algebra. She opened her book as the bus drove away and worked on her homework assignment.
I watched her work with great curiosity, because I had no idea what "algebra" even meant, though I deduced that it must be some sort of math. The cover of the book, as well as the open pages, did have numbers on them that appeared to be math problems.
But, as I looked more closely at the pages of her open book, I was increasingly and more thoroughly confused. This girl was doing math with letters! I couldn't fathom how this could be. Math had everything to do with numbers. I knew that much!
I remember wondering for a long time afterward just how letters could ever be used in math. I didn't understand, because that subject was beyond my learning.
I have since had many similar experiences, hearing things or seeing things that simply baffle me. But those experiences have also taught me to be less concerned about the phenomenon. In every case, when I have waited patiently and progressively gained the necessary knowledge and understanding, those mysteries have eventually become clear.
Today, algebra is no mystery, and the odd symbols of calculus aren't either. It was just a matter of learning.
Another analogy: flight. The law of gravity had for all time declared that man could not fly, prior to the Wright brothers. At least, that was the best understanding of mankind.
Wilbur and Orville demonstrated an important principle. There are laws of physics that are more powerful than other laws of physics. The laws of aerodynamics are able to overcome the law of gravity, at least for a time. It is a higher law.
Spiritual learning and principles are exactly the same in those ways. There are matters that are profoundly mysterious and confusing for precisely the same reason as algebra was to my young mind. Also, there are some spiritual principles that are higher, more powerful than others.
If the high school girl's algebra homework had been a religious doctrine instead, and if I were of the nature to do so, I might have mocked her. I might have laughed out loud and ridiculed the preposterous idea that you could use letters to do math. All manner of persecutions could be leveled against the girl, all because of my ignorance.
Many treated the Wright brothers with contempt as well.
Now, I fully realize that contempt and ridicule do not prove that the subjects of it are actually true. It's only to illustrate the usual consequences of close-minded ignorance.
Providing a satisfactory explanation for the apparent contradiction between these two LDS doctrines, which you have described more or less accurately, would be a difficult thing to do. Until you have a foundation of understanding of many underlying doctrines and principles involved, it would remain just as unpersuasive as ever.
I have "bumped up against" troubling doctrines and other stuff in my life in the LDS Church. I have learned that never is the problem permanent. As I grow and learn and study the Holy Scriptures, every one of those walls has melted away.
My faith in the Lord and His prophets, both living and dead, has grown sufficiently that I simply don't worry about things I don't yet understand. I note my lack of understanding, then I let it go for the time being. I hold to those things I do know for certain, and let the rest wait. In time, I invariably reach a level of knowledge that explains that particular mystery.
Among the things that I do know for certain is that Joseph Smith was a true prophet of God. He did actually see the Father and the Son and speak with them. I know for certain that the Book of Mormon is holy scripture, written by ancient prophets and translated by the power and gift of God. I have read it many times, as well as much of the Bible (I haven't gotten through the Old Testament from start to finish yet...) I am very, very comfortable with both volumes of scripture. They support, harmonize with and reinforce each other, as they both contain eternal truth.
I have had far too many deeply sacred experiences personally to ever deny what I know. The apparent contradictions and mysteries that crop up here and there no longer cause me any difficulty, because I know they will be clear in time.
If you're truly interested in learning and growing in LDS doctrine, you'll need to start in a lower gear. Milk before meat, and all that. God reveals and explains more truth as we accept and live up to the truths we have been given. That's how we progress.