I was recently emailed by a Reformed (Calvinistic) Protestant who attends a “non-denominational” church here in Cork, Ireland I had originally met him in person when he was being taught by sister missionaries in my branch, and I passed onto him my email address, being well-read in Reformed and Trinitarian theologies and histories. Based on what has to be a ten-second google search from either him and/or his friends, he emailed me a series of questions about Latter-day Saint theology, and I responded, not just to the questions, but the (false) underlying assumptions informed by his Reformed and Trinitarian theology. I do hope that my reply (no response has been received from him) will be beneficial to readers who wish to understand the biblical-exegetical basis for LDS theology, especially our rejection of metaphysical/creedal Trinitarianism (errors in spelling and diction from both of us have been retained).
Initial Email
Hi Robert,
It was great chatting with you also. I was just wondering do you hold fast to the the statement "As man now is, God once was; as God is now man may be.”
I find that to be a very controversial statement compared to Biblical teachings as:
1Timothy 1:17; To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen"
Isaiah 43:10: "Ye are my witnesses, saith the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me."
Isaiah 44:6, 8: "Thus saith the LORD the King of Israel, and his redeemer the LORD of hosts; I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God."
Psalm 90:2: "Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.
And interestingly enough the book of Morman holds to this also.
Moroni 8:18: "For I know that God is not a partial God, neither a changeable being; but he is unchangeable from all eternity to all eternity."
If as is clearly laid out here that there is only one God from everlasting to everlasting. Then Jesus is either fully God or not God at all and was a mere man who in that might would look like a liar and a lunatic.
Jesus either was fully God or not, I don't think there is room for "demi god" status or any other type of god for that matter.
I'd be interested to know do you hold to that line of teaching "As man now is, God once was; as God is now man may be.”
My Response
Hi Sean,
Couple of things:
1. Christologically, if one follows the New Testament, one is in the same "problem." We know from Phil 2:5-11, for instance, that Jesus emptied Himself of divine attributes (kenosis) to become truly human; that this is the case can be seen in Mark 12:32 (cf. Matt 24:36; see also Luke 2:52) where Jesus did not know when the parousia (his coming in glory/"second coming") would be. I know some Trinitarians (e.g. James White; Sam Shamoun) argue that this was the "human will/nature" of Jesus speaking or that Jesus "veiled," for a mysterious reason, his own omnipotence this one moment, but to claim such, and divorce such from the person of Jesus is actually counter to Trinitarian understandings of the hypostatic union and/or to make Jesus deceptive; furthermore, it results in Nestorianism, where the humanity and divinity of Jesus are, for all intents and purposes, two people, not one, again, antithetical to Trinitarian (as well as Latter-day Saint) Christologies. The temptation scenes in the gospels (esp. Matt 4:1-11, the fuller version of this scene in Jesus' life) portrays Jesus as truly suffering and being truly tempted by the tempter; if one holds to traditional Christologies, Jesus was not truly tempted, as there was no real chance of him sinning, which, however way one cuts it, is docetic (i.e., Christ appearing to be human; but in reality [at least with respect to being tempted] was not)--again, such runs in the claims of Heb 2:17-18, which necessitates Jesus' temptations to be real, but ones that he overcame sinlessly. Interestingly, in Phil 2:5-11 [cf. D&C 93:1-20 in the LDS canon], after the ascension, Jesus is exalted and given a name above all other names (Yahweh [Phil 2:9]). However, if Trinitarian Christology is true, this is nonsensical, as Jesus was "fully divine" a la the Trinitarian understanding of this concept, merely "veiled" his divine attributes during mortality while still retaining them, and "unveiled" them post-ascension.
Speaking of Hebrews, you might want to read Heb 1:8-9
But unto the So he saith, Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever; a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom. Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore, God, even thy God, hath anointed three with the oil of gladness, above thy fellows.
Why is this interesting? This is one of only a few places in the New Testament where Jesus has the term "God" (Greek: θεος theos) predicated upon him (others would incude John 20:28 and probably, based on grammar, Titus 2:13 and 2 Pet 1:1], and yet, post-ascension, Jesus is differentiated, not simply from the person of the Father (ambiguously tolerated in Trinitarianism [there is an internal debate to this day within Trinitarian circles with respect to "person" and its definition for the members of the Trinity, as I am sure you know]), but a differentiation from God (literally, the God [ο θεος ho theos]), something not tolerated in Trinitarianism. Furthermore, this can be further seen in the fact that this is a "midrash" of Psa 45:6-7, a royal coronation text presented to the Davidic King, of whom Jesus is the ultimate fulfillment (cf. 2 Sam 7); both the Hebrew and the Greek LXX predicates "God" upon the king, and yet, there is a God (i.e. God the Father) above him. The LXX reads the same as Hebrews; the Hebrew literally reads "elohim, your elohim" (alt. "God, your God" [ אֱלֹהִ֣ים אֱ֭לֹהֶיךָ (elohim eloheyka)].
The Christology of Hebrews poses many problems for the more "traditional" views of Jesus, as the author clearly held to a post-ascension subordination of the Son and what one would label "divine embodiment" (flying in the face of the doctrine of "divine simplicity" [God is without parts], an important building block for the Trinity). In Heb 1:3, we read:
Who being in the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the majesty on high.
A careful, succinct exegesis of this text from the Greek was presented by D. Charles Pyle in his FAIR Conference paper from 1999, "I have said, 'ye are gods': Concepts Conducive to the Early Christian Doctrine of Deification in Patristic Literature and the Underlying Strata of the Greek New Testament Text" (btw--this would be a good paper to read up on the "human" side of the Lorenzo Snow couplet you quoted from, i.e., the LDS doctrine of "eternal progression")
There is also scripture that can used to potentially support the idea that God could have a physical body. One of these is Hebrews 1:3. Christ could only be the exact representation of the Father if the Father himself possessed a body of some sort. In fact, some who wish to avoid what I feel is the plain meaning of Hebrews 1:3 actually go so far as to separate the natures of Christ or declare that the passage could not possibly infer that the Father is embodied.
Those who criticize this meaning thus, however, do not take into account the fact that there is not one portion of the passage that differentiates between the divine or human nature of Jesus. Secondly, the particle wn on indicates being
Further, many grammarians have severely misunderstood the Greek apaugasma apaugasma (
Why? Because the second portion of the couplet indicates that Jesus is the exact representation of the Father’s substantial nature, not that he is synonymous with that nature. Since this passage is a couplet, with the second portion being passive in nature, the first portion must be understood as having a passive sense as well. Thus, Jesus is properly to be seen as he “who is the reflection of the glory (of God) and the exact representation of the substantial nature of him (i.e., the Father).”
In short, the glory of God reflects from Jesus rather than having Jesus as its source, according to the theology of the author of Hebrews. Thusly, Jesus exactly represents God as he exists in all aspects of Jesus’ existence. The passage does not allow differentiation of Jesus’ divine and human natures in relation to God. Quite the opposite is in view here, although I doubt that Evangelicals will wish to agree with my assessment of the passage. Nevertheless, if it is true that Jesus is the exact representation of the Father’s substantial nature in all aspects, the Father must have possession of a physical body. Otherwise, Jesus is not and could not be the exact representation of the Father, for the two would differ. This fact is further strengthened by another pertinent fact: the Father is never said to be bodiless in any place within the text of the Bible. That was for a later generation to develop.
[me again]
I am sure you will ask, "What about John 4:24?"; please see my exegesis here.
That there is a "plurality of Gods" can be seen in a variety of texts, such as Deut 32:7-9 from the Dead Sea Scrolls, which places Yawheh as one of the Gods to whom jurisdication of a nation is given and even in the book of Genesis (20:13), where elohim is coupled with a verb in the plural, meaning plural gods (elohim is irregular in Hebrew; it has a plural ending, but when coupled with a verb in the single person, it means "One G/god"; however, when coupled with a verb in the plural [as in Psa 82:6] means [plural] G/gods).
The Hebrew of this verse uses plural verb structures and plural persons when discussing the (true) Gods who caused Abraham to wander. It is rendered (I will transliterate the Hebrew for convenience) –
Wyhy k'sr ht'w 'ty 'lhym mbbyt 'by ... (English: "And it came to pass when (the) Gods caused me to wander from my father's house..."). Another way to put it: "And it came to pass when they, (the) Gods, caused me to wander from the house of my father..." Not only is this consistent with LDS theology, but also supports the creation story in the Book of Abraham. If it had been the singular 'God', it would have been ht'h 'lhym rather than the plural ht'w 'lhym, consistent with the creation account of the Book of Abraham (Abraham 4:1ff) and LDS theology, though it blows strict forms of monotheism (whether unitarian or creedal triniarian) out of the water.
With respec to Deut 32:7-9, the NRSV (1989) of this pericope reads:
Remember the days of old, consider the years long past; ask your father and he will inform you, Your elders will tell you. When the Most High gave nations their homes and set the divisions of man, he fixed the boundaries of peoples in relation to Israel's numbers. For the Lord's portion is his people, Jacob his own allotment.
One will note that this differs from the KJV; the Mastoretic Text (MT) underlying the KJV OT reads "sons of Adam/Man," while the Dead Sea Scrolls, the oldest text of the book of Deuteronomy, has the reading "sons of god" (the Hebrew beni-elim) or, as Ancient Near Eastern scholars understand the term, "gods."
In the second edition of The Jewish Study Bible (Oxford University Press, 2014), we read the following note on page 419:
Most High, or “Elyon,” is a formal title of El, the senior god who presided over the divine council in the Ugaritic literature of ancient Canaan. The reference thus invokes, as do other biblical texts, the Near Eastern convention of a pantheon of gods ruled by the chief deity (Pss. 82:1; 89:6-8). Israelite authors regularly applied El’s title to Israel’s God (Gen. 14:18-22; Num. 24:16; Pss. 46:5; 47:3). [with reference to the variant in the DSS “number of the gods”] makes more sense. Here, the idea is that the chief god allocates the nations to lesser deities in the pantheon. (A post-biblical notion that seventy angels are in charge of the world’s seventy nations echoes this idea.) Almost certainly, the unintelligible reading of the MT represents a “correction” of the original text (whereby God presides over other gods) to make it conform to the later standard of pure monotheism: There are no other gods! The polytheistic imagery of the divine council is also deleted in the Heb at 32:42; 33:2-3, 7.
Kingship MonotheismThere are many gods, but all of the gods are subordinate to a Most High God to whom the gods give ultimate honour and glory and without whose authority and approval they do not act in relation to the world. (Blake Ostler, Of God and Gods [Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2008], p. 43).
Also, logically, one has to conclude a plurality of Gods, unless one wishes to explicitly reject at least one of premises a-c from the following:
A. There are at least three divine persons.
B. Every divine person is God
C. If every a = b, there cannot be fewer B's than A's
D. Conclusion: There are at least three Gods.
I am aware of the "three persons/one being" or "three 'whos' in the one 'what" idea--however, Trinitarianism also states:
Jesus = God
Father = God
Spirit = God
Jesus is not the person of the Father; the Father is not the person of the Spirit; the Spirit is not the person of the Son
Numerically, there is only one God
God = Father, Son, and Spirit
To put it into logical language:
Jesus = x
Father = x
Spirit = x
Numerically, there is only one x
Only by using one definition of "God" when speaking of the tri-une "being" of God and another definition of "God" when predicated upon the persons of the Trinity can one get away from a logical/mathematical impossibility (3 "x"'s equalling 1 "x") or a form of Modalism, where the Father, Son, and Spirit are the same person. The latter is condemned (rightfully) as heresy and antithetical to the biblical texts by Trinitarianism; the former, however, is not allowed, as the various person are said to be numerically identical to the "One God." This is not a "mystery" (something that cannot be understood perfectly, like the atonement of Jesus Christ), but a logical, mathematical, and I argue, a biblical-exegetial impossibility.
For more, see this insightful essay ("Re-vision-ing the Mormon Concept of Deity") by Blake Ostler, a leading LDS scholar who has focused a lot of his work on such issues.
The mainstream Trinitarian position is very marginal within modern Old and New Testament scholarship. How scholars define "monotheism," for example, is not how Trinitarianism *necessitates* it to be defined as; consider the following from a recent monograph:
I intentionally used the term “monotheism” with the full realisation of its controversial nature in scholarly discussions. I do not use this word with the understanding that there are no other spiritual beings, and I do not intend to imply that the gods of the nations do not exist (I read Isa 40-55 as hyperbolic expression). Rather, and I find that this view accords with the canon, by “monotheism” I mean that there is one Creator who reigns supreme over all, and this Creator is YHWH. The supposed “gods” do not rival the status of ‘elohim; instead, they are SHDYM [goat demons] (Deut 32:17). I prefer the word “monotheism” over “henotheism” because I do not believe that this latter word accurately captures the emic view of the canon; the Lord is not one God among many gods. The Lord reigns supreme over all. (Terrance R. Wardlaw, Jr. Elohim with the Psalms: Petitioning the Creator to Order Chaos in Oral-Derived Literature [London: Bloomsbury, 2015], 37 n. 67; comment in square brackets my own).
Additionally, even those within your own Evangelical camp are now coming to the realisation that their position does injustice to the biblical texts, such as the long-refuted claim that the elohim ("gods") in Pa 82:6 are human judges, not actual (plural) gods. Note the following from three Evangelicals in a conservative Protestant commentary series on the Old Testament:
Psalm 82: King of the Gods Psalm 82 places the modern reader in a very unfamiliar world. Modern thinkers hold to a monotheistic theology, meaning there is only one god and the gods of others simply do not exist. Ancient Israel did not have the same definition of monotheism. Indeed, for them not only did other gods exist, but these gods were active in the world.[1] This psalm gives us a window on the assembly of the gods, a place where the gods are gathered to make decisions about the world.[2] This council is part of the greater ancient Near Eastern mythology and would be a familiar image to ancient Israelites.[3] [1] A multitude of texts demonstrate this belief, e.g. Exod. 20:3-6; Deut. 4:15-20; josh. 24:14-15. In addition, many prophetic texts extol the people to love God alone and not go after other gods, e.g., Jer. 8:19; Hos. 11:2. In later texts, the theology seems to move more toward an exclusive monotheism; see. Isa. 41:21-24 . . . Verses 6-7 place the gods on equal footing with the humans. They have lost their immortality, hence their god status[4]. This ability for the Go of Israel to demote the others speaks of the power of the king of the council. The king alone can control all of the other gods. This divine trial also demonstrates the fairness of Israel’s god. This god is not capricious, but sentences the other gods for their refusal to act in ways that reflect the values of God’s kingdom . . . [Psalm 89:5-8] set the state in the heavenly council. In vv.5 and 8, God is praised by the heavens for God’s faithfulness, and this certainly continues the theme of vv.1-4 while also broadening God’s faithfulness to the whole world. The questions in v.6 are rhetorical, just as in Isa. 40:18 and Pss. 18:31 and 77:13, followed by the declaration of God’s clear supremacy among the gods (v.7). God is not only the God of Israel but is the chief god of the council, and all others bow before the Lord. [2] See 1 Kgs. 22:19-23; Job 1:6-12; Zech. 1:7-17. [3] See Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic, pp. 177-90. [4] The Gilgamesh Epic is a story that concerns Gilgamesh’s quest for immortality that will make him a god, indicating the importance of immortality in ancient myth. (Nanacy Declaissé-Walford, Rolf A. Jacobson, and Beth Laneel Tanner, The Book of Psalms [New International Old Testament Commentary; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2014], 641, 642, 680).
If you want a detailed analysis of Latter-day Saint Christology, one well-known text would be the book, Jesus the Christ (1915) by LDS apostle, James Talmage. While the historical information is dated (it was written prior to the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls and other discoveries), it does present a rather sound understanding of the person and work of Jesus in "Mormonism." A .pdf version of the book can be found here; if you want a readable .html format, however, let me know and I'll forward you one as an attachment.
In Latter-day Saint theology, “God” is a multi-valent term. In Latter-day Saint theology, by definition, God is the one supreme, absolute being, the ultimate source of the entire universe, the all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good creator, ruler, and preserver of all things (cf. Bruce McConkie, Mormon Doctrine [2d ed.: Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1979], p. 317). In LDS theology, this refers to--
(1) God the Father, the ultimate power and authority of the whole universe (e.g., D&C 121:32)
(2) The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, the three members of the Godhead, who are perfectly united as One God in that they share the same will, love, and covenant with one another (cf. Alma 11:44; Mormon 7:7)
Also, the term “God,” as well as divine titles are used of the person of Jesus Christ in LDS theology; as one example, D&C 19:1, 16-18:
I am Alpha and Omega, Christ the Lord, yea, eve I am he, the beginning and the end, the Redeemer of the World . . . For behold, I, God, have suffered these things for all that they might not suffer if they would repent. . .
The “oneness” of the persons of the Godhead is not a metaphysical oneness, a much later development in Christian theology, later ratified during the Trinitarian controversies of the fourth centuries onwards, but the same oneness Christ expects us to have with Him:
That they all may be one, as tho, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they may also be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou havest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one. (John 17:21-22)
The Greek fathers of the Christian church had a term “perichoresis,” basically meaning, “Dancing in unison,” to describe the inter- and intra-personal relationship between the members of the Godhead; such is similar to an informed LDS Christology. Furthermore, this matches the 1916 First Presidency statement on the relationship between the Father and the Son (entitled, “The Father and the Son”), one of divine agency (investiture); the following comes from section 4 of the statement:
4. Jesus Christ the "Father" By Divine Investiture of Authority
A fourth reason for applying the title "Father" to Jesus Christ is found in the fact that in all His dealings with the human family Jesus the Son has represented and yet represents Elohim His Father in power and authority. This is true of Christ in His preexistent, antemortal, or unembodied state, in the which He was known as Jehovah; also during His embodiment in the flesh; and during His labors as a disembodied spirit in the realm of the dead; and since that period in His resurrected state. To the Jews He said: "I and my Father are one" (John 10:30; see also 17:11, 22); yet He declared "My Father is greater than I" (John 14:28); and further, "I am come in my Father's name" (John 5:43; see also 10:25). The same truth was declared by Christ Himself to the Nephites (see 3 Nephi 20:35 and 28:10), and has been reaffirmed by revelation in the present dispensation (Doc. & Gov. 50:43). Thus the Father placed His name upon the Son; and Jesus Christ spoke and ministered in and through the Father's name; and so far as power, authority and Godship are concerned His words and acts were and are those of the Father.
We read, by way of analogy, that God placed His name upon or in the Angel who was assigned to special ministry unto the people of Israel during the exodus. Of that Angel the Lord said: "Beware of him, and obey his voice, provoke him not; for he will not pardon your transgressions: for my name is in him" (Exodus 23:21).
The ancient apostle, John, was visited by an angel who ministered and spoke in the name of Jesus Christ. As we read: "The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John" (Revelation 1:1). John was about to worship the angelic being who spoke in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, but was forbidden: "And I John saw these things, and heard them. And when I had heard and seen, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel which showed me these things. Then saith he unto me, See thou do it not: for I am thy fellow-servant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of them which keep the sayings of this book: worship God" (Rev. 22:8, 9). And then the angel continued to speak as though he were the Lord Himself: "And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last" (verses 12, 13). The resurrected Lord, Jesus Christ, who had been exalted to the right hand of God His Father, had placed His name upon the angel sent to John, and the angel spoke in the first person, saying "I come quickly," "I am Alpha and Omega," though he meant that Jesus Christ would come, and that Jesus Christ was Alpha and Omega.
Much more could be said about this, but I will focus on the other issues now.
2. The 1 Tim 1:17 passage is speaking of the person of the Father, not (1) the Father, Son, and Spirit and (2) the "Trinitarian Being" of God (I will note that there is no instance in the OT and NT of any divine name or title ever being predicated upon this "being" of God --none--;). Unless you wish to absolutise this verse to preclude the deity of Jesus (and the Holy Spirit) like some use/abuse John 17:3 to teach strict unitarianism, this cannot be a valid verse to use against Latter-day Saint theology, barring, of course, you wish to be inconsistent, and inconsistency is a sign of a failed argument. I discuss the issue of "eternality" below with respect to Psa 90:2/Moroni 8:18. With respect to the term "invisible," it simply means "unseen" (ἀόρατος aoratos), and does not, in and of itsel, speak to the ontological nature of the Father (see comments above re. Heb 1:3). It is used, for instance, in Heb 11:27 ("By faith [Moses] left Egypt, unafraid of the king's anger, for he persevered because he saw [Christ] who is invisible [ἀόρατος ] NRSV) and Isa 45:3 in the LXX ("And I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden [ἀόρατος ] riches of secret places . . .) In both these instances, the term simply means "unseen," but does not speak of the person (Christ) or items (hidden treasures) being, by nature, invisible or without form. That Jesus was actually seen in OT times can be demonstrated when John 12:39-41 states that it was none other than the premortal Jesus the prophet Isaiah saw enthroned in the heavenly temple in Isa 6:1ff. If one were to argue that only the premortal Jesus, prior to the incarnation could be seen, but the Father could not be, by nature, then one is explicitly rejecting the belief the Father and the Son (as well as the Spirit) are the one essence (the concept of homoousios from Nicea in AD 325).
I think the following summary of the biblical data to be pretty spot-on (cf. D&C 67:11 and Moses 1:14 in the LDS canon):
If God cannot be seen, it is not because God is invisible, but because God hides himself or because “no one can see God and live.” The possibility of seeing God always remains; but it is qualified in numerous ways, due, perhaps, to the character and nature of God, to the virtue or status of the particular individual, or to the variety of ways in which “seeing” can be understood. (Marianne Meye Thompson, “Jesus: ‘The one Who Sees God’,” in Israel’s God and Rebecca’s Children: Christology and Community in Early Judaism and Christianity: Essays in Honour of Larry W. Hurtado and Alan F. Segal, eds. David B. Capes, April D. DeConick, Helen K. Bond, and Troy A. Miller (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2007], 215-26, here, p. 221).
3. Isa 43 and 44 are contrasts between Yahweh and the Canaanite deities of Baal and Asherah, as well as a decontruction of various concepts within the Canaanite and popular Israelite religions. I have exegeted those texts here.Furthermore, note that a person is speaking, not three persons or a "being" composed of three persons--again, absolutising those texts results in a form of Unitarianism (as well as eisegesis [wrenching texts out of their historical-grammatical contexts, in other words). Please read the exegesis and feel free to comment afterwards.
4. On Moroni 8:18 and Psa 90:2, I blogged on them here, but am happy to reproduce what I wrote:
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)
Many Evangelical critics of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its theology point to this verse, as well other similar verses in the Book of Mormon and other unique Latter-day Saint Scriptures (e.g., Mormon 7:22; Moroni 10:28; D&C 20:28) that Latter-day Saint scripture refutes the belief that the Father experienced mortality, as did the Son, as Joseph Smith taught in the King Follett Discourse, as well as the doctrine of eternal progression. How can Latter-day Saints harmonise their theology with such texts? Note a number of things that show Evangelicals are guilty of superficial reading of these texts:
- The attributes of deity have always existed, having no beginning and will have no end, regardless of who holds or shares these attributes.
- The ancient Hebrews, Greeks, and Latins did not understand such terms in the same way as we do today. Our ideas on the meaning of "eternal" and its cognate terms are wholly modern ideas which were not believed as they are before the fourth century; indeed, the term we often translate as eternity (Hebrew: עוֹלָם Greek: αιων/
αιωνιος) and related terms, alongside having a qualitative meaning, meant an undetermined and unspecified period of time to the ancients. They were forced to use such words in repetitive phrases to come near the concept, but even then the meaning still had inherent time constraints. If we understand such phrases in the Book of Mormon as ancients understood them, the conflict vanishes. Our concepts of eternity and time are wholly modern concepts which ancient Semites and others did not hold to; they are later, post-biblical constructions. [1]
- The Book of Mormon (and biblical) authors cannot be speaking of metaphysical natures not being changed; if such were the case, this would contradict the claim that Jesus Christ emptied himself to become a man like us (cf. Heb 2:16-18 and Phil 2:5-11 where Jesus experiences a kenosis), notwithstanding Heb 13:8 stating that Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
- In Latter-day Saint theology, intelligences, and all the attributes inherent within intelligence (e.g., personality) have existed throughout all eternity (e.g., D&C 93:29); God the Father has existed in like-manner, according to the teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith[2]
- Note the language of D&C 132:20: “Then shall they be gods, because they have no end; therefore shall they be from everlasting to everlasting . . .”
As for Psa 90:2, the Hebrew reads:
בטרם הרים ילדו ותחולל ארץ ותבל ומעולם עד עולם אתה אל
The 1985 JPS Tanakh renders the verse thusly:
Before the mountains came into being, before You brought forth the earth and the world, from eternity to eternity You are God.
The Hebrew phrase אתה אל (“you are” and “[a] god”) appears elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible:
And she called the name of the Lord that spake unto her, Thou God [NRSV: You are El [god] Roi] seesth me . . .(Gen 16:13)
Verily thou art a God that hidest thyself, O God of Israel, the Saviour. (Isa 45:15)
And he prayed unto the Lord, and said, I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshiah: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil. (Jonah 4:2)
The literal meaning of the Hebrew is "you are a god." Latter-day Saints can reconcile this biblical passage with our theology of God the Father having experiencing a mortality of his own under the premise that, once he was perfected/exalted (similar to how Jesus was--Phil 2:5-11; Luke 13:32; Heb 1:4; 5:9, etc) to being "[a] God," he remained "[a] God" "from everlasting to everlasting" (cf. D&C 132:20, quoted above and the discussion regarding the ancient understanding of "eternity").
Notes for the Above
[1] For a thorough study of the meaning of the αιων/αιωνιος and their ancient meanings, see Ilaria Ramelli and David Konstan, Terms for Eternity: Aionios and Aidios in Classical and Christian Texts (Piscataway, N.J.: Gorgias Press, 2007). For the difference between Semitic and post-biblical Greek concepts of "time" and "eternity," see Thorleif Bornan, Hebrew Thought Compared with Greek (New York: Norton, 1970).
[2] As representative examples, taken from The Words of Joseph Smith: The Contemporary Accounts of the Nauvoo Discourses of the Prophet Joseph Smith (Provo: BYU Religious Studies Centre, 1980), ed. Andrew F. Ehat and Lyndon W. Cook; spelling errors in original text retained: "God was a self exhisting being, man exhists upon the same principle. God made a tabernacle & put a spirit in it and it became a Human soul, man exhisted in spirit & mind coequal with God himself . . . Intelligence is Eternal & it is self exhisting" (p. 346); "Intelligence exists upon a selfexistent principle" (p. 360); "I believe that God is eternal. That He had no beginning, and can have no end. Eternity means that which is without beginning or end. I believe that the soul is eternal; and had no beginning; it can have no end” (p. 33)
For Further Reading
Blake T. Ostler, Exploring Mormon Thought: The Attributes of God (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2001).
[me again]
And now the King Follett Discourse, which Lorenzo Snow's couplet is derived from. The "traditional text" can be found online here on the Church's official Website; I realise this email is already lengthy, but most of the points on this issue have already been discussed above with respect to Psa 90:2/Moroni 8:18. It is important to note that Joseph Smith likened the mortality of the Father to that of Jesus, not simply to any other mortal; note the following:
These ideas are incomprehensible 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 . . . he scriptures inform us that Jesus said, as the Father hath power in himself, even so hath the Son power—to do what? Why, what the Father did. The answer is obvious—in a manner to lay down his body and take it up again. Jesus, what are you going to do? To lay down my life as my Father did, and take it up again
Why is this important? In LDS (and NT) Christology, Jesus was divine prior to the incarnation when He emptied Himself to become a man, and yet, as a result of mortality, gained experiential knowledge (experiential knowledge, by definition, can only be gained by experience), as seen in Heb 2:10 (cf. vv.17-18); 5:8-9, and Luke 13:32; in the King Follett Discourse (which Lorenzo Snow based his couplet on), such can be said of the Father and his mortality (though the Church has never made any statement on it beyond that, as nothing has been revealed on such at present [viz. the Father, like the Son, emptied Himself to become human to gain a body and experience what it is to be mortal]. We also know that those who presevere are promised the same blessings Jesus has (Rev 3:21, which includes sitting on the throne of God, which in Jewish literature contemporary with the New Testament [e.g. The Testament of Job] was a divine prerogative; also see how worship [Gk: προσκυνεω proskuneo] is given to the saints in Rev 3:9).
There are a couple versions of this sermon for the simple reason is that there were a couple of individuals taking it down when the prophet gave this funeral address. Some interesting textual variants shed light on his overall theology on this issue and how such a “mortal probation” of the Father is similar to that of Christ’s.
From William Clayton's account of the sermon (Clayton served as Joseph Smith's clerk and scribe):
In order to understand the subject of the ded for the consolation of those who mourn for the loss of their friends necessary they should understand Going to tell you how God came to be God. We have imagined that God was God from all eternity—These are incomprehensible to some but are the first principle of the gospel. [1]
The following is the Thomas Bullock account of the sermon:
I am going to tell you what sort of a being of God. for he was God from the begin of all Eternity & if I do not refute it—truth is the touchstone they are the simple and first princ: of truth to know for a certainty the char. of God [2]
References for the above:
[1] The Words of Joseph Smith: The contemporary accounts of the Nauvoo Discourses of the Prophet Joseph Smith, eds. Andrew F. Ehat and Lyndon W. Cook (Orem, UT.: Grandin Book Company, 1991), 357. This book is a “text-critical” edition of Joseph Smith’s sermons during this time period (1839-1844). An online version can be found here.
[2] Ibid. 350.
In light of such variants, I do think the most consistent reading of Joseph Smith's theology is that the Father's mortality was similar to the Sons (God--emptied Himself to be mortal--now eternally embodied in a glorified body). The Blake Ostler article, linked above, discusses the issue from an LDS perspective (sections 62 onward of the article), but if you wish to discuss it further after reading Blake's section on it, I am happy to kibbitz on it. Do read the sermon in full, however, to better understand LDS theology (much of it is explicated in this sermon, such as the nature of creation and man in "Mormon" theology). So, to answer your question, yes, I do accept Joseph Smith (and Lorenzo Snow’s) teachings on this issue, notwithstanding how esoteric much of it remains (beyond Joseph’s comments and Snow’s aphorism, there is nothing beyond that in the broad scope of official LDS teachings, [barring non-authoritative speculations from some] nor has the Church authoritatively commented on the mortal probation of the Father).
You wrote:
==Jesus is either fully God or not God at all and was a mere man who in that might would look like a liar and a lunatic.==
This is similar to C.S. Lewis' "Lord, Lunatic, or Liar" (false) Trilemma in Mere Christianity. I am not a Socinian or Unitarian of any stripe, so I don't hold to the view that Jesus was a "mere man," but it is fallacious reasoning, and if you ever encounter an informed Unitarian (e.g. see here from one well-known Unitarian apologist), such a trilemma would be easily dismantled. On the issue of Christ, exegetically, the New Testament sides with my theology, not the various Trinitarian theologies (re-read the Epistle to the Hebrews, for instance). Furthermore, your comment ignores other Christologies, such as Arianism (though I reject such a Christology as biblically and theologically deficient). Just some friendly advise if you ever have to interact with informed Socinians. If you think this is a valid criticism against LDS theology, you are sorely mistaken; perhaps you should read D&C 93, which explicitly states much of LDS Christology authoritatively (it is part of the LDS canon).
I do hope what I have written add some food for thought; you do seem confused about some issues, including LDS theology and Christology. so hopefully some of this misgivings, understandable as you come from a different perspective, have been cleared up.
All the best,
Robert B.
