Blake Ostler and “Kingship Monotheism”
Kingship Monotheism: There are many gods, but all of the gods are subordinate to a Most High God to whom the gods give ultimate honor and glory and without whose authority and approval they do not act in relation to the world. (Blake Ostler, Exploring Mormon Thought, vol. 3: Of God and Gods [Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2008], 43)
D. Charles Pyle and “Relational Monotheism”
Many have attempted to define the so-called “Mormon Doctrine of Deity,” but all terms that have been coined thus far have failed . . . many Evangelicals who have engaged in Latter-day Saints in a critical manner have preferred to label Latter-day Saint belief as polytheism, even thou the term does not really fit the situation. It is an easy label, readily available to throw around to cause offense to Latter-day Saints and also derision toward us among Evangelicals who hear that word. Many do it for shock value rather than out of a genuine desire to get to the truth. Latter-day Saints do not worship many gods . . . Some have tried to use the term tritheism but that definition really does not address the reality of the situation in LDS belief. What to do with the other gods who have been made gods by the Father and the Son? The tri- in tritheism means “three.” Yet there are many more gods that exist in the full context of LDS belief structure. The rather ineffective term tritheism just doesn’t fit the reality.
Many Latter-day Saints have attempted to define their own doctrines using theological terms (already having been coined by theologians for such purposes), but those attempts also have failed. Henotheism is a term most frequently used but this term also fails because of its historical background as well as the primary reasons why the term was coined. Henotheism sometimes is thought a good term for use because it posits a single God for worship while acknowledging the existence of other gods. Unfortunately, that is not the real meaning of the term. It actually refers to a nation having a national god, while acknowledging that the gods of the other nations exist as real beings, too. That term also doesn’t work for Latter-day Saint beliefs. It doesn’t really address the doctrine well at all. Our God is not a mere national God. Our God is the God of this universe. The Mormon Doctrine of Deity has defied all definition thus far attempted, as Van Hale suggested in 1985 (Van Hale, Mormon Miscellaneous Reprint Series [#6]: Defining the Mormon Doctrine of Deity [Sandy: Mormon Miscellaneous, 1985], 11-12).
The current author, on the other hand, has coined a term that has been a work in progress of sorts, and which he has used from time to time over the decades of his life. This term is relational monotheism. While other gods do exist, who have been made gods, Latter-day Saints do not worship them or serve them. To us there is one God and one Lord. In relation to us there is but one God whom we serve, through one Lord Jesus Christ, although other such beings also called gods exist in heaven. (D. Charles Pyle, 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 (Revised and supplemented) [CreateSpace, 2018], 136-37, italics in original)
