Posted on 11/10/2007 7:22:46 AM PST by Gamecock
God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens! That is the great secret. If the veil were rent today, and the great God who holds this world in its orbit, and who upholds all worlds and all things by his power, was to make himself visible,I say, if you were to see him today, you would see him like a man in formlike yourselves in all the person, image, and very form as a man; for Adam was created in the very fashion, image and likeness of God, and received instruction from, and walked, talked and conversed with him, as one man talks and communes with another.[1]
There are few passages in all of LDS literature more often cited, quoted, and discussed, than this one. This, and the two paragraphs that follow, rank right next to the First Vision in their impact upon LDS theology to this very day. The first phrase, God himself was once as we are now, has been so often repeated that it has become a given in LDS teaching. This, and the saying of Lorenzo Snow that we will examine later, “As man is, God once was; as God is, man may become,” have attained a status in Mormon theology that ranks them as carrying as much authority as any other statement about God.
God himself was once as we are now. The full impact of this statement must be understood. Here we have a man who is claiming to stand as a prophet of God, as a Christian prophet, who is proclaiming that God once existed in a corporeal, human state. God was once a man like us. A number of things must then be true. First, God has not eternally been God. From this we develop the idea of exaltation, a process that even God Himself has undergone. Secondly, if God has not eternally been God, then obviously there must have been a God or gods before Him (unless one embraces the idea that the universe sprang into existence without divine assistance).[2]
“God is an exalted man.” From this assertion we see the coming together of the thought process we observed in the earlier sections of the Doctrine and Covenants, that being the exaltation of man to a high status. God and man are the same species, the same kind of being, differing in level of exaltation. We are not yet exalted; God has undergone this process, and this is why He differs from us. But, since He was once where we are, obviously the door is opened for us to undergo the same process and hence, someday, become a God as He is.
God has a physical body, for He is an exalted man, just as the 1838 edition of the First Vision had asserted. This physical body is not just an unnecessary addition or accessory. It is definitional of God Himself, just as our body is vital to what it means to be a human.
These statements would have been enough, but Joseph Smith was just warming up. He leaves us with no room for misunderstanding his intent.
In order to understand the subject of the dead, for consolation of those who mourn for the loss of their friends, it is necessary we should understand the character and being of God and how he came to be so; for I am going to tell you how God came to be God. 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. These are incomprehensible ideas to some, but they are simple. It is the first principle of the Gospel to know for a certainty the Character of God, and to know that we may converse with him as one man converses with another, and that he was once a man like us; yea, that God himself, the Father of us all, dwelt on an earth, the same as Jesus Christ himself did; and I will show it from the Bible.[3]
When speaking of the character of God, Smith insists that God came to be God. This continues the idea that God was once something other than what He is today. Smith then strikes directly at the heart of Christian orthodoxy–at a belief held by Christians from the very beginning–in saying that he will refute the idea that God has been God from all eternity (Psalm 90:2). Obviously, then, it is perfectly permissible to understand Smith as positively saying that God has not eternally been God.[4] How else could it be? The drive to make it possible for man to become exalted must of necessity result in this kind of assertion about God Himself. The God of Christian orthodoxy, because He is eternal, unchanging, and exhaustive of every category of perfection, power, and being, simply leaves no room for the kind of future Smith envisioned for man. Hence, the God of Christian orthodoxy had to be refuted.
We cannot lightly pass over Smith’s assertion that it is the first principle of the Gospel to know for a certainty the Character of God, and to know…that he was once a man like us. I have often heard LDS say that we shouldn’t discuss such deep issues as exaltation to godhood, yet Smith says it is the first principle of the Gospel. It is clear that Joseph Smith did not view this as an optional belief at this point in his life and teaching. This is not just a side-issue upon which we may or may not agree with him. This is doctrine, pure and simple, and it is not something upon which a person can disagree and remain a follower of the Prophet.
Further, we cannot miss the emphasis upon the similarity of the pre-exaltation existence of God with our own current earthly lot. Smith insists that God’s time as a man is parallel to the life of Christ here upon earth. Obviously, then, Smith means what he says: God was a man like we are men, human beings, going through the same experiences of life that we are.[5] Some modern LDS are uncomfortable with the clarity and force of such statements. Some wish to pull the veil back across the Prophet’s teachings so as to not have to defend such doctrine. But this is his teaching, without question.
———————————————
[1] Ibid., p. 345. Italics in the printed edition.
[2] Many Christian philosophers have pointed out the obvious flaw in such a concept: if every God was once a man, then, what about the first God? If the law is inviolable, did not this God have to be a man before becoming a God? Some LDS have said that there was never a first, but that the regression is eternal. But such an argument is irrational on many grounds. The simplest means of demonstrating this is to point out that the number of exalted beings is increasing as time passes. If the number increases with the passing of time, and cannot then decrease (Gods don’t cease to be Gods, do they?), then as we go back in time the number decreases. Eventually, one must come to the first God who began the process. That this idea has been found in LDS writings is fairly simple to document. Mormon Apostle Orson Pratt noted in his book, The Seer, p. 132 (from September of 1853):
We were begotten by our Father in Heaven; the person of our Father in Heaven was begotten by a still more ancient Father and so on, from generation to generation, from one heavenly world to another still more ancient, until our minds are wearied and lost in the multiplicity of generations and successive worlds, and as a last resort, we wonder in our minds, how far back the genealogy extends, and how the first world was formed, and the first father was begotten. But why does man seek for a first, when revelation informs him that Gods works are without beginning? Do you still seek for a first link where the chain is endless? Can you conceive of a first year in endless duration? . . . The Fulness of Truth, dwelling in an endless succession of past generations, would produce an endless succession of personal Gods, each possessing equal wisdom, power, and glory with all the rest. In worshipping any one of these Gods we worship the whole, and in worshipping the whole, we still worship but one God; for it is the same God who dwells in them all; the personages are only His different dwelling places.
It seems to me that Pratt here goes well into the realm of speculation, though again, the Mormon is left to deal with the difficulty of an Apostle teaching on religious truth and yet, in so doing, not providing authoritative counsel and doctrine.
[3] Ibid., pp. 345-346. Italics in printed edition.
[4] Hence, when one sees LDS writers referring to God as eternal, they are normally referring to God’s existence en toto, that is, on the same level as being able to say, as Mormons do, that man is eternal as well.
[5] K. Codell Carter, writing on the subject Godhood in the Encyclopedia of Mormonism, (New York: Macmillan Publishing, 1992), Latter-day Saints believe that God achieved his exalted rank by progressing much as man must progress and that God is a perfected and exalted man. He then cites from the King Follett Discourse as evidence of this belief.
I've often had LDS friends try to tap dance around this false doctrine. Can't say that I blame them for trying to sidestep the issue.
Single word change in Book of Mormon speaks volumes
By Peggy Fletcher Stack
The Salt Lake Tribune
Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated:11/08/2007 09:52:47 AM MST
The LDS Church has changed a single word in its introduction to the Book of Mormon, a change observers say has serious implications for commonly held LDS beliefs about the ancestry of American Indians.
Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believe founder Joseph Smith unearthed a set of gold plates from a hill in upperstate New York in 1827 and translated the ancient text into English. The account, known as The Book of Mormon, tells the story of two Israelite civilizations living in the New World. One derived from a single family who fled from Jerusalem in 600 B.C. and eventually splintered into two groups, known as the Nephites and Lamanites.
The book's current introduction, added by the late LDS apostle, Bruce R. McConkie in 1981, includes this statement: "After thousands of years, all were destroyed except the Lamanites, and they are the principal ancestors of the American Indians."
The new version, seen first in Doubleday's revised edition, reads, "After thousands of years, all were destroyed except the Lamanites, and they are among the ancestors of the American Indians."
LDS leaders instructed Doubleday to make the change, said senior editor Andrew Corbin, so it "would be in accordance with future editions the church is printing."
The change "takes into account details of Book of Mormon demography which are not known," LDS spokesman Mark Tuttle said Wednesday.
It also steps into the middle of a raging debate about the book's historical claims.
Many Mormons, including several church presidents, have taught that the Americas were largely inhabited by Book of Mormon peoples. In 1971, Church President Spencer W. Kimball said that Lehi, the family patriarch, was "the ancestor of all of the Indian and Mestizo tribes in North and South and Central America and in the islands of the sea."
After testing the DNA of more than 12,000 Indians, though, most researchers have concluded that the continent's early inhabitants came from Asia across the Bering Strait.
With this change, the LDS Church is "conceding that mainstream scientific theories about the colonization of the Americas have significant elements of truth in them," said Simon Southerton, a former Mormon and author of Losing a Lost Tribe: Native Americans, DNA and the Mormon Church.
"DNA has revealed very clearly how closely related American Indians are to their Siberian ancestors, " Southerton said in an e-mail from his home in Canberra, Australia. "The Lamanites are invisible, not principal ancestors."
LDS scholars, however, dispute the notion that DNA evidence eliminates the possibility of Lamanites. They call it "oversimplification" of the research.
On the church's official Web site, lds.org, it says, "Nothing in the Book of Mormon precludes migration into the Americas by peoples of Asiatic origin. The scientific issues relating to DNA, however, are numerous and complex."
Mormon researcher John M. Butler and DNA expert further argues that "careful examination and demographic analysis of the Book of Mormon record in terms of population growth and the number of people described implies that other groups were likely present in the promised land when Lehi's family arrived, and these groups may have genetically mixed with the Nephites, Lamanites, and other groups. Events related in the Book of Mormon likely took place in a limited region, leaving plenty of room for other Native American peoples to have existed."
In recent years, many LDS scholars have come to share Butler's belief in what is known as the "limited geography" theory. By this view, the Nephites and Lamanites restricted their activities to portions of Central America, which would explain their absence from the general American Indian genetics.
Kevin Barney, a Mormon lawyer and independent researcher in Chicago, welcomes the introduction's word change.
"I have always felt free to disavow the language of the [Book of Mormon's] introduction, footnotes and dictionary, which are not part of the canonical scripture," said Barney, on the board of FAIR, a Mormon apologist group. "These things can change as the scholarship progresses and our understanding enlarges. This suggests to me that someone on the church's scripture committee is paying attention to the discussion."
-- Peggy Fletcher Stack can be contacted at pstack@sltrib.com or 801-257-8725. Send comments about this story to religioneditor@sltrib.com.
Salt Lake Tribune - Single word change in Book of Mormon speaks volumes
...your eyes will be opened...you will be like God... Satan.
If I understand the gospel correctly, this it self is in error. It presupposes that God is surrounded by a veil. Now maybe there is more then one veil spoken of in the Bible, but the only veil I know of is the one that was torn in half by God himself when he finally gave up his life at the cross. Would someone confirm for me or correct me if I'm wrong in this matter.
And then there's the matter of God being omnipresent everywhere so even though the Jews presumed that God was behind the veil, he was also on the other side too, except the inner sanctuary was designated as being a Holy place by God.
I'm interested in reading the whole article and the other parts of the series, but for now I'm going to have to put this on hold with the other hundreds of things to do and hopefully will get back to this thread and articles in the series and the comments on this article.
This is where the rubber hits the road. As a Mormon, I believed this doctrine, but I don't think I ever felt comfortable with it.
Quite frankly, the evidence suggests that Gordon Hinkley believes it, but it is clear that is is not comfortable with it. In fact the Time Magazine article suggests that he is actually embarrassed by the doctrine. But alas, he's getting a bit too old to get a Revelation rescinding this damnable heresy. Perhaps the next "prophet" will.
Mormonism desperatately wants to be accepted as a legitimate Christian religion, but this doctrine and the "Jesus is Satan's big brother" nonsense are the two big obstacles to any acceptance, even by such abberrant groups as the Episcopal Church (which would probably never accept Mormons because they (as a group) are so "intolerant" of gays).
Anything can be explained to sound like the stupidest idea ever if you want to explain it that way. I’m not going to attempt to explain any of it here because its not the time or place.
I guess my point is that we don't just sit around church talking down others and I don't understand the hate. You guys act like a bunch of missionaries rode their bikes up to the airport and hijacked the planes on 9/11. Wrong religion guys. Just ask yourself why you are so busy doing this when we should be encouraging everyone to hold to the conservative movement.
And no, I am not planning to vote for Mitt in the primary because he isn't conservative enough. If he is the one that gets picked though, I’ll vote for him over anything with a D behind their name any day.
No one doubts that Mormons aren't politically and socially conservative.
Are you capable of becoming god? That is the point of this thread.
I thought this was a political forum.
FWIW, this was posted in the Religion Section. If you want to discuss politics, go back to News/Activism or any of the other "political" sections.
So, can you become god?
“I find it strange that people spend so much time on here trying to run down a church that teaches hard work, independence and service to your fellow man (and yes military service). I thought this was a political forum.”
Although Free Republic is a political forum, the RELIGION Forum on Free Republic is a place where theological matters are routinely discussed, with the permission and acceptance of Free Republic’s management. Discussing the theology of this or that religion is a perfectly acceptable practice herein.
And bringing it up is really just a way on your part to change the subject.
The subject of this thread is whether members of the LDS believe that God was “once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens!”
If so, then the LDS organization is at complete odds with all those who worship the God revealed to Moses, at odds not merely with all Christians, but with all Jews (to whom the initial Divine Revelation was originally given), and even to all Muslims.
“You guys act like a bunch of missionaries rode their bikes up to the airport and hijacked the planes on 9/11. Wrong religion guys.”
Again, you’re changing the subject. Myself, I’ve known more than a couple of LDS folks in my life, and have pretty much liked and respected them all.
Nonetheless, the bottom line is that I believe that the foundation of LDS theology is entirely false, a false prophecy by a false prophet. I don’t believe that members of the LDS are Christians. I don’t believe that LDS baptism is valid, that it actually brings a person into the life of grace, into the family of God, into a real, ontological relationship with Jesus Christ.
This is because the being identified as "God" by the LDS is not ontologically the same being identified by all Christians, Jews, and Muslims as God.
And that’s the subject of this thread.
sitetest
I hope my kids grow up to be like me(in the good ways).
I dont see Mormons on here posting hit pieces on other churches.
Yeh, I was changing the subject, my question is why you guys need to run down the church all the time. What drives the need? I dont agree with your church either but you dont see me on here posting how wrong every one else is.
No problem, I’ll see if I can just filter out the “run down the LDS faith” category, so I can just get the news. I just wonder why some folks like to constantly attack their allies.
**(God is an exalted man)**
This is heresy.
Jesus Christ is true man and true God.
God is true God
The Holy Spirit is true God.
Why is pointing out LDS doctrine on a FR thread a hit piece?
Back to my question, can you become a god?
Amen
Paul told Timothy to “command certain men not to teach false doctrines...” (Is that “hate” or standing up for the truth?):
1 Timothy 1:3-7
“3As I urged you when I went into Macedonia, stay there in Ephesus so that you may command certain men not to teach false doctrines any longer 4nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies. These promote controversies rather than God’s work—which is by faith. 5The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. 6Some have wandered away from these and turned to meaningless talk. 7They want to be teachers of the law, but they do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm.”
***
We are also urged to “contend for the faith,” so we and fellow belivers will not be deceived by false doctrines:
Jude 3-4
“3Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints. 4For certain men whose condemnation was written about[b] long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord. “
Perhaps it's because while you may share my politics, you worship a false deity.
Pointing that out is pointing out a fact, not an attack.
“What drives the need?”
The “need” is merely a response to the LDS insistence that the LDS worship the same God as Christians (and Jews) worship.
“I just wonder why some folks like to constantly attack their allies.”
Most of us around here gladly acknowledge members of the LDS as our allies. But we do not recognize members of the LDS as generally sharing our religion, even broadly defined. From a Catholic perspective at least (I won’t endeavor to speak for non-Catholic Christians), the LDS “God” is ontologically further from the God Whom we worship than Allah.
Threads like this are a way of countering the LDS insistence that the LDS "God" is the same as the God Whom we worship.
sitetest
I just noticed that I didn’t say:
God the Father is true God.
But I think all understood what I was getting at.
Thanks for the ping on this!!!
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