By Blake Giunta| Most of us have been visited at our door by the young bicycle-riding Mormons, with their white dress shirt, tie, and “Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints” name-badge. They are Christian-sounding enough, so why are they under the cult section of every Christian bookstore? What do they teach? You might be surprised.
1) God the Father started as a man on another planet.
In Mormon theology, God was originally a human on another planet, with his own God (like us). He turned into God later.
Milton R. Hunter: “Mormon prophets have continuously taught the sublime truth that God the Eternal Father was once a mortal man who passed through a school of earth life similar to that through which we are now passing. He became God – an exalted being. … He grew in experience and continued to grow until He attained the status of Godhood. In other words, He became a God by absolute obedience…” [The Gospel Throughout The Ages, 104, 114-15.]
Mormonism’s Official Curriculum Material
• “When we lived with our Heavenly Father, He explained a plan for our progression. We could become like Him, an exalted being… Joseph Smith taught: ‘[God] was once a man like us… God himself, the Father of us all, dwelt on an earth, the same as Jesus Christ did.’” [Gospel Principles (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, 2009), 275, 279.] [(cf. Teachings of Joseph Smith, 345.][Also History of the Church, Vol 6, 306.][Also King Follett Sermon, Ensign, April 1971]
Mormon Authorities
• Brigham Young (Mormonism’s 2nd president-prophet): “He is our Father—the Father of our spirits, and was once a man in mortal flesh as we are, and is now an exalted Being.” [Journal of Discourses vol. 7:333]
• Joseph Smith (Mormonism’s founding president-prophet): “it is necessary that 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 will take away and do away the veil, so that you may see. … 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.” [History of the Church, Vol. 6:305-306.] (From the famous King Follett Sermon)
• Heber C. Kimball (First Presidency Counselor): “God is a natural man… Where did he get his knowledge from? From his Father, just as we get knowledge from our earthly parents.” [Journal of Discourses vol. 8:211]
2) God the Father became exalted as “God” by obeying his god.
In Mormon theology, God started his life as a human on another planet, but later obtained godhood by worshipping and obeying his god.
• Joseph Smith (Mormonism’s founding president-prophet): “…you have got to learn how to be Gods yourselves, and to be kings and priests to God, the same as all Gods have done before you,” [Journal of Discourses, vol. 6:4.] (cf.History of the Church, vol. 6:476.)
• Brigham Young (Mormonism’s 2nd president-prophet): “the Father, after He had once been in the flesh, and lived as we live, obtained His exaltation, attained to thrones, gained the ascendancy over principalities and powers, and had the knowledge and power to create—to bring forth and organize the elements upon natural principles. This He did after His ascension, or His glory, or His eternity, and was actually classed with the Gods.” [Journal of Discourses, vol. 4:217]
• Joseph Fielding Smith Jr. (Mormonism’s 6th president-prophet): “God is an exalted Man… The Prophet taught that our Father had a Father and so on.” [Doctrines of Salvation 1:10, 12]
• Orson Hyde (Original President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles): “Remember that God, our heavenly Father, was perhaps once a child, and mortal like we ourselves, and rose step by step in the scale of progress, in the school of advancement; has moved forward and overcome, until He has arrived at the point where He now is.” [Journal of Discourses, vol. 1:123.]
• Brigham Young (Mormonism’s 2nd president-prophet): “[He] passed the ordeals we are now passing through; he has received an experience, has suffered and enjoyed, and knows all that we know regarding the toils, sufferings, life and death of this mortality” [Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Brigham Young (1997), 29.]
3) We can become exalted as gods with our own planets.
Mormonism teaches that God was originally mortal like us, but then he earned Godhood. It also teaches that we can now become Gods of our own planet(s) in the same way.
Mormon Scripture
• “if a man marry a wife… and it is sealed [etc.]… they shall pass by the angels, and the gods, which are set there, to their exaltation and glory in all things… which glory shall be a fullness and a continuation of the seeds forever and ever. Then shall they be gods, because they have no end; therefore shall they be from everlasting to everlasting, because they continue; then shall they be above all, because all things are subject unto them. Then shall they be gods, because they have all power, and the angels are subject unto them. Verily, verily, I say unto you, except ye abide my law ye cannot attain to this glory.” [Doctrines and Covenants 132:19-21]
• “They are they who are priests and kings, who have received of his fulness, and of his glory; … they are gods.” [Doctrines and Covenants 76:56-58.]
Mormon Authorities
• Joseph Smith (Mormonism’s founding president-prophet): “you have got to learn how to be Gods yourselves, and to be kings and priests to God, the same as all Gods have done before you,3 namely, by going from one small degree to another, and from a small capacity to a great one; from grace to grace, from exaltation to exaltation, until you attain to the resurrection of the dead, and are able to dwell in everlasting burnings … until you arrive at the station of a God, and ascend the throne of eternal power, the same as those who have gone before.” [Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith(1843-44), 346-47.]
• Brigham Young (Mormonism’s 2nd president-prophet): “The Lord created you and me for the purpose of becoming Gods like Himself. …to become Gods like unto our Father in heaven.” [Journal of Discourses, vol. 3, 93.]
• Brigham Young (Mormonism’s 2nd president-prophet): “We are now, or may be, as perfect in our sphere as God and Angels are in theirs.” [Journal of Discourses, vol. 1, 93.]
• Lorenzo Snow (Mormonism’s 5th president-prophet): “As man now is, God once was: As God now is, man may be.” [Oft repeated by Snow. E.g.Deseret Weekly, 3 Nov. 1894, 610;Deseret Weekly, 8 October 1898, 513;Deseret News, 15 June 1901, 177;Journal History of the Church, (Historical Department, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 20 July 1901), 4.]
• Lorenzo Snow (Mormonism’s 5th president-prophet): “‘President Brimhall, these children are now at play, making mud worlds, the time will come when some of these boys, through their faithfulness to the gospel, will progress and develop in knowledge, intelligence and power, in future eternities, until they shall be able to go out into space where there is unorganized matter and call together the necessary elements, and through their knowledge of and control over the laws and powers of nature, to organize matter into worlds on which their posterity may dwell, and over which they shall rule as gods.’” [Improvement Era (June 1919), 658–59, quoted in Presidents of the Church: Student Manual (2004), 90.]
• Spencer W. Kimball (Mormonism’s 12th president-prophet): “Jesus Christ, our Redeemer and Savior, has given us our map— a code of laws and commandments whereby we might attain perfection and, eventually, godhood. This set of laws and ordinances is known as the gospel of Jesus Christ, and it is the only plan which will exalt mankind.” [The Miracle of Forgiveness, 6.]
4) We will one day have spirit-children like God the Father did.
Official Curriculum Material
• “To live in the highest part of the celestial kingdom is called exaltation or eternal life. To be able to live in this part of the celestial kingdom, people must have been married in the temple and must have kept the sacred promises they made in the temple. They will receive everything our Father in Heaven has and will become like Him. They will even be able to have spirit children and make new worlds for them to live on, and do all the things our Father in Heaven has done. People who are not married in the temple may live in other parts of the celestial kingdom, but they will not be exalted.” [Gospel Fundamentals (2001), 201.]
• “We learned that if we followed His plan, we would become like Him. We would be resurrected; we would have all power in heaven and on earth; we would become heavenly parents and have spirit children just as He does… Because we are the spiritual children of our heavenly parents, we have inherited the potential to develop their divine qualities.” [Gospel Principles, Chapter 2: Our Heavenly Family (2011), 14]
Mormon Authorities
• Joseph Fielding Smith Jr. (Mormonism’s 6th president-prophet): “The Father has promised us that through our faithfulness we shall be blessed with the fulness of his kingdom. In other words we will have the privilege of becoming like him. To become like him we must have all the powers of godhood; thus a man and his wife when glorified will have spirit children who eventually will go on an earth like this one we are on and pass through the same kind of experiences, being subject to mortal conditions, and if faithful, then they also will receive the fulness of exaltation and partake of the same blessings. There is no end to this development; it will go on forever. We will become gods and have jurisdiction over worlds, and these worlds will be peopled by our own offspring. We will have an endless eternity for this.” [Doctrines of Salvation, vol.2, 48.]
• Spencer W. Kimball (Mormonism’s 12th president-prophet): “The time will come when we will not only create with our wives the mortal tabernacles which our earthly children occupy, but we will be able to expand our efforts and extend them and go out into the great eternities. And we will be able to produce great families of spirit children who in turn may return to that planet which you will have organized and will have made habitable. And those children will be permitted to go to those planets or earths, and there they will receive mortal bodies to have their schooling process so that eventually they also can return to their Heavenly Father.” [The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, 53.]
• Bruce R. McConkie (LDS ‘General Authority’): “Those who so obtain [Eternal Life] become like him [God] and are as he is. They live in the family unit and bear spirit children of their own … There will be those who, as mortals, provide bodies for the spirit children of the Father, for the spirits whose right it is to come to earth and gain houses for their eternal spirits, and those who, as immortals (Abraham is one), are already begetting spirit children of their own. …” [The Millennial Messiah, 645.]
