Some critics
have argued that God the Father in LDS theology, as he is embodied, is nothing
more than the deities one finds within Roman mythology which featured many “super
men” deities. This is (frankly) a stupid argument for many reasons, including
(1) the
overwhelming biblical evidence for God being embodied in the Bible; (2) in
Trinitarian Christology, Jesus will remain embodied forever, per the
Hypostatic Union as defined at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 A.D. If
Trinitarian critics wish to be consistent,
the same argument applies to their Christology and (3) LDS teaching on God the
Father is alien to that of Greco-Roman mythology and its theology of the various
gods, showing that those who make this claim (e.g., Jason Wallace) are clueless
about both “Mormonism” and Greco-Roman mythology. Take, for instance, the following overview of the first three
generations of the deities in Greek mythology and how there is no real match
with LDS theology:
The First
Generation: Ouranos (Sky) and Gaia (Earth) and their Titanic and Monstrous
Offspring
According to Hesiod, Khaos (Latinized to
Chaos) came into being first of all, and did so by an unspecified, asexual
process. Clearly, the Greek gods were not mighty enough to create the world by
themselves . . .
The Second
Generation: Kronos and Rheia
The generation of Kronos and Rheia seem to be
a transitional period: the Sun, Moon, Stars, Rivers and Winds all come into
existence, as do personifications such as Themis (Divine Justice), Mnemosyne
(Memory), Metis (Cunning Intelligence), Zelos (Glory), Nike (Victory) Kratos (Strength)
and Bie (Violence).
Because of the prophecy that he would be
dethroned by his own son, Kronos chose not to incarcerate his children in their
mother’s body as his father had done, but to shut them up in his own.
Accordingly Hestia, Demeter, Hera, Hades and sometimes Poseidon were all duly swallowed
at birth. But when Rheia fell pregnant with Zeus, who is often known by the
epithet Kronion or Kronides (‘Son of Kronos’), she begged her parents, Gaia and
Ouranos, to find a way of hiding the birth of her son and bringing the Erinys
(Fury) down on Kronos. They advised her to go to Crete and give birth to Zeus
there, and it has been suggested that this aspect of Zeus’ mythology could go
back to Minoan civilization in the second millennium or even earlier, since he
looks more like a primitive Mediterranean deity who embodies the processes of
fertility within the earth, then the Indo-European sky god who rejuvenates them
with life-bringing rain . . .
The Third
Generation: Zeus and the Olympians
Zeus now had permanent control of the
universe, but his authority did not remain unchallenged.
Apollodoros tells us that despite their
marriage Metis turned into many shapes to avoid Zeus’ advances. Zeus got her
pregnant with Athena even so, but it was prophesied that after giving birth to
her, Metis would then bear a son who would supplant Zeus as King of Heaven. To
forestall this disastrous outcome Zeus swallowed Metis, so that she could ‘counsel
him in both good and evil plans’. He regularly carried the epithet Metieta, ‘the
Counsellor’, and by ingesting his spouse he assumed the responsibility for
giving birth to Athena, the highly intelligent grey-eyed goddess. When the
gestation period was complete, in an incident that was very popular with vase
painters and which adorned the east pediment of the Parthenon at Athens,
Hephaistos split Zeus’ head open with an axe and Athena sprang forth fully
armed. His head-born daughter posed no menace to Zeus, and the son who might
have superseded him was never conceived. (Stephen P. Kershaw, A Brief Guide to the Greek Myths: Gods,
Monsters, Heroes and the Origins of Storytelling [London: Constable and
Robinson Ltd., 2007], 28, 32-33, 37)
