God once a man?

Me said:

I have a question.

Is it true that it is a LDS belief that God was once a man under another God? That it is possible for a human to become a god?

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Dan said:

My question is this: who has a problem with this doctrine and why?

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The reason I take acception to this doctrine is found in Isaiah 43:10

Isaiah said:

Ye are my witness, 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

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Mister Emu said:

The reason I take acception to this doctrine is found in Isaiah 43:10

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Hey, Mister Emu!

The Latter-day Saints are frequently accused of believing that they can, at some point in the future, become "Gods." Understandably, to many who do not fully understand our doctrine, the mere idea is out-and-out heresy.

But, let's start by changing “Gods” to “gods.” That lower-case “g” makes a world of difference in the meaning of the word (particularly in light of what Isaiah 43:10 states). Next, before we really get started, let's clear up two big, big misconceptions:

(1) We do not believe that any of us will ever be equal to God, our Eternal Father in Heaven. He will always be our God and we will always worship Him.

(2) Nothing we could possibly do on our own could exalt us to the level of deity. It is only through the will and grace of God that man is given this potential. And "with God, nothing is impossible."

We believe, as you may know, that ours is a restoration of the very Church Jesus Christ established during His ministry here on earth. It would follow, then, that we believe we are teaching the same doctrines as were taught then and accepted by Jesus’ followers. Throughout the New Testament, there are indications that this doctrine (known as deification or exaltation) is not one the Latter-day Saints invented, but that the earliest Christians understood and believed it, as well.

Romans 8:16-17, 2 Peter 1:4, Revelation 2:26-27 and Revelation 3:21 are the four I like best. Through these verses, we learn that, as children of God, we may also be His heirs, joint-heirs with Christ, even glorified with Him. We might partake of the nature of divinity and be allowed to sit with our Savior on His throne, to rule over the nations.

Now, if these promises are true (as I believe they are), what do they all boil down to? To the Latter-day Saints, they mean that we have the potential to someday, be “godlike.” One of our prophets explained that "we are gods in embryo." If our Father is divine and we are literally his "offspring", as the Bible teaches we are, is it really such a stretch of the imagination to believe that he has endowed each of us with a spark of divinity?

Finally, there is considerable evidence that the doctrine of deification was taught for quite some time after the Savior’s death, and accepted as orthodox. Some of the most well-known and respected of the early Christian Fathers made statements that were remarkably close to the statements LDS leaders have made. For example:

In the second century, Saint Irenaeus said, “If the Word became a man, it was so men may become gods.” He also posed this question: “Do we cast blame on Him (God) because we were not made gods from the beginning, but were at first created merely as men, and than later as Gods?” At about the same period of time, Saint Clement made this statement: “The Word of God became a man so that you might learn from a man how to become a god.” And Saint Justin Martyr agreed, saying that men are “deemed worthy of becoming gods and of having power to become sons of the highest.” Some two centuries later, Athanasius explained that “the Word was made flesh in order that we might be enabled to be made gods. He became man that we might be made divine.” And, finally, Augustine, said, “But He that justifies also deifies, for by justifying he makes sons of God. For he has given them power to become the sons of God. If then we have been made sons of God, we have also been made gods.” Even today, a similar doctrine is taught in some of the Eastern Orthodox churches.

Even the noted Christian theologian, C.S. Lewis, said much the same thing in his book Mere Christianity.

“The command Be ye perfect is not idealistic gas. Nor is it a command to do the impossible. He is going to make us into creatures that can obey that command. He said (in the Bible) that we were “gods” and He is going to make good His words. If we let Him – for we can prevent Him, if we choose – He will make the feeblest and filthiest of us into a god or goddess, dazzling, radiant, immortal creature, pulsating all through with such energy and joy and wisdom and love as we cannot now imagine, a bright stainless mirror which reflects back to God perfectly (though, of course, on a smaller scale) His own boundless power and delight and goodness. The process will be long and in parts very painful; but that is what we are in for. Nothing less. He meant what He said."

Finally, according to The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Theology, “Deification (Greek theosis) is for Orthodoxy the goal of every Christian. Man, according to the Bible, is made in the image and likeness of God…. It is possible for man to become like God, to become deified, to become god by grace.”

So, the "Mormons" really didn't come up with this doctrine. We only restored that which had been lost for many, many years.

I hope this helps you understand the doctrine better.

Kathryn

Yes it does.

What about the first part. About God being a man under another god before He was our God?

Mister Emu said:

Yes it does.

What about the first part. About God being a man under another god before He was our God?

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Genesis starts out with the words, "In the beginning..." and goes on to explain that God created the heavens and the earth and populated the earth with His children, beginning with Adam and Eve. The remainder of the Bible discusses His interaction with humanity from that point forward. In other words, our universe did not exist before "the beginning," but God did. The Latter-day Saints have a belief concerning what God may have been before "the beginning," before the clock started ticking, so to speak. Since the Bible is silent about what God was doing and even about His existence before "the beginning," we don't see our belief on this subject to be contradicting scripture.

We believe that at some time prior to when the events described in Genesis took place, God became what He has been since before "the beginning." There has never been a time, with respect to His relationship to us, that He has not been Almighty God. However, we have no official doctrine concerning the details of this belief. In other words, you won't find the idea that God was once a man in the official LDS canon, the four books we call "the Standard Works." You will find unofficial statements to that effect taught primarily by our early leaders, such as Joseph Smith ("God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens.") and Lorenzo Snow ("As man now is, God once was; As God now is, man may be.") but again, these are unofficial statements by two men who spoke on the doctrine as they understood it.

Jesus Christ, obviously, was once a man who walked the earth, and yet His divinity was not compromised by His also being a mortal being. But, for some reason, most Christians find the idea that His Father was once a man to be utterly shocking. In John 5:19-20, Jesus said, "The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever He doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise. For the Father loveth the Son, and sheweth him all things that himself doeth." We know that the Son descended from Heaven, took upon Himself a physical body, died and rose from the dead. These verses seem to imply that He was following a precedent set by His Father.

I would say that the idea that God was at one time a man and is now God is a belief that is, more than anything else, the logical extention of the more canonical doctrine that He has endowed His children with the potential to become as He is. Let's look at the following example: "As her kitten is, the cat once was. As the cat is, her kitten may become." I am saying, in essence, that from a doctrinal standpoint, the second statement is "official." The first statement is generally accepted because it logically follows the second one.

Kathryn

What about Isaiah. I can see you saying the gods you become are not on the level of God, but obviously if God had a god above Him, than there would indeed be gods before Him.

Mister Emu said:

What about Isaiah. I can see you saying the gods you become are not on the level of God, but obviously if God had a god above Him, than there would indeed be gods before Him.

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Yes, but not within the timeframe covered in the Bible. Here's a story I once read that will maybe help put this belief into perspective:

Laura worked in a store of a large supermarket chain, climbing up the ranks from stocker, to cashier, to assistant supervisor, to supervisor, to assistant manager. After being assistant manager for a couple of years, she was transferred to a new store in a small town in a part of the country where this particular supermarket chain had never been before. The store was to open within a month and Laura was to be the new store manager.

Laura managed the store for 25 years and finally retired when the store was closed due to down-sizing. She was well-known, liked by her workers and customers in the community. She was known by everyone as the store manager since there was only one supermarket in town. At her retirement party, Joey, a life-long friend of hers spoke about working with Laura when they were both cashiers. People in the community were surprised since they'd always thought of Laura as a store manager and not a cashier. Those who only knew of Laura from the time she was a store manager ridiculed Joey, saying he was wrong since Laura was a store manager and was never a cashier. Joey also talked about Jeff and Peter who were also store managers, who were mutual friends of Laura and Joey. The people of the community were outranged the Joey said this "Jeff" and "Peter" were store managers when the only store manager they knew was Laura.

Here we have two seemingly contradictory views of Laura and her position. The community only understood Laura's relationship with their community, but Joey saw Laura's relationship from a different, and more expansive, point of view. The community only knew that Laura was always the store manager. There weren't any store managers before her and there would be none after her. Furthermore, she was there before the store opened and would continue to be a part of their community after it closed.

What was Laura doing before she became the store manager? No one in the community had ever even thought about this. They knew Laura from a perspective that did not allow for her existence outside of her position as the once-and-forever store manager.

I realize this isn't a perfect analogy. No analogy ever is. But maybe it will help some. Maybe another LDS poster will have something to add. I think I've just about exhausted my knowledge on the subject.

Kathryn

You've done pretty well Kathryn. What most find difficult to understand about the scriptures is that God speaks to us only concerning our own world. He doesn't tell us about anything outside the scope of our existence. God is a title and he is our God. The Isaiah scripture is saying basically this, "I am your God. You are my witness and my servant. You had no God before me and you will have none after me. I have always been and will always be your God."