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#9 The Facts On The Mormon Church
9. What does Mormonism teach about God?
Mormons emphasize that they believe in the biblical God, and
they "believe in the Holy Trinity." But this claim is demonstrably false. We
compare and contrast the Mormon concept of deity with the Christian concept in
the following chart:
The Mormon God:
Many (polytheistic)
Evolving (changing)
Material (physical)
Sexual
Polygamist
Morally imperfect (e.g., requiring salvation)
The Biblical God:
One (monotheistic)
Immutable (unchanging)
Immaterial (spirit)
Asexual
Celibate
Eternally holy
Let us briefly examine these Mormons views of deity in
turn. First, the Mormon Church accepts and teaches what is known as
polytheism, a belief in many gods. This is contrast to historic, orthodox
Christian teaching that asserts there is only one God. Mormons will often claim
they believe in only one God and that they are not polytheists, but such claims
are false.
In his own words, Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, emphasized, " I
wish to declare I have always and in all congregations where I have preached on
the subject of deity, it has {been on} the plurality of Gods." In Mormon
Doctrine, McConkie declares, "There are three Gods-the Father, Son ,and Holy
Ghost." McConkie further confesses,
...to us speaking in the proper finite sense, these three
are the only Gods we worship. But, in addition, there is an infinite number of
holy personages, drawn from worlds without number, who have passed on to
exaltation and are thus Gods...This doctrine of plurality of Gods is so
comprehensive and glorious that it reaches out and embraces every exalted
personage. Those who attain exaltation are Gods."
In other words, not only are there three principal gods for
this earth, and not only are there an infinite number of gods throughout
infinite worlds, but every Mormon who is "exalted" will himself become a god-in
the fullest sense of that term.
But this is clearly not the teaching of the Bible. The God of the Bible says,
"Before Me there was no God formed, and there will be none after Me" (Isaiah
43:10). He also says, "I am the first and I am the last, and there is no God
beside Me...Is there any God besides Me...I know of none" (Isaiah 44:6,8).
Finally, God declares, "I am the Lord, and there is no other; besides Me there
is no God...There is none except Me" (Isaiah 45:5,21). What could be clearer?
When Mormonism teaches there are many gods-indeed an infinite number of
them-it denies what God Himself teaches in His Word.
Further, Mormonism teaches that each god is evolving. Even though God
himself has said, "I, the Lord, do not change" (Malachi 3:6; cf. James 1:17;
Numbers 23:19), Mormonism teachers that God was once a man, having been created
by another god. But by self-perfection, this man finally evolved into absolute
godhood. McConkie confesses Mormon belief when he teaches, "God is a Holy Man."
Joseph Smith likewise taught that "God Himself, the Father of us all...was once
a man like us. In his own words, Joseph Smith made his beliefs plain:
God Himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man
and sits enthroned in yonder heavens! That is the great secret...If you were
to see him today, you would see him like a man in form...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 take away the veil, so that
you may see...He was once a man like us...Here, then, is eternal life-to know
the only wise and true God; and you have got to learn how to be Gods
yourselves.
Nevertheless, the Bible is clear that God is an unchanging,
infinite being existing from all eternity-not a finite man who somehow evolved
into godhood (Job 9:32; Numbers 23:19). "For I am God, and not man-the Holy One
Among you" (Hosea 11:9 NIV).
Although the Bible affirms that "God is spirit" (John 4:24), the Mormon
Church denies what the Bible teaches and tells its members that God is not
spirit, but rather a physical human being. Joseph Smith declared, "There is no
other God in heaven but that God that has flesh and bones." Doctrine and
Covenants 130:22 teaches, "The Father has a body of flesh and bones as
tangible as Man's..." McConkie called God "a glorified resurrected Personage
having a tangible body of flesh and bones." But Jesus Himself taught that a true
"spirit does not have flesh and bones" (Luke 24:39) and therefore, if God is
"spirit," He cannot, as Mormons claim, have a tangible physical body as mankind
does.
Nevertheless, because Mormonism teaches that its gods are localized and
physical, it is not unexpected that they can have sexual intercourse. Mormonism
teaches that the gods are sexually active. For all eternity men have been
evolving into gods. Once they reach the state of godhood, they sexually beget
spirit children with their celestial wives. These spirit children then have an
opportunity to inhabit a physical body on a physical earth in order to attain
their own godhood and continue the process. McConkie taught:
We are offspring of God. He is our eternal father; we have
also an eternal mother. There is no such thing as a father without a mother,
nor can there be children without parents. We were born as the spirit children
of celestial parents long before the foundations of this world were laid.
One reason for early Mormon teaching favoring polygamy is
seen in the fact that Mormons were only imitating their gods.
But again, these gods produce spirit children who require physical bodies.
Thus, earths are "created" (materially organized) and populate with physical
bodies so that the spirit children might have the opportunity to progress to
godhood just as their parents did:
Just as men were first born as spirit children to their
Eternal Father and His companion, the children born to resurrected beings are
spirit beings and must be sent in their turn to another earth to pass through
the trials of mortality and obtain a physical body.
Here we see one of Mormonism's apparent theological
rationalizations for the early doctrine of polygamy. If one wife could produce
ten bodies for the spirit children to inhabit and thereby have the opportunity
to become gods, then 20 wives could produce 200 bodies for these spirits; the
more bodies the better; hence, the more wives the better. Brigham Young stated,
"The Lord created you and me for the purpose of becoming God's like Himself...We
are created...to become Gods like unto our Father in Heaven" so that we can then
create "worlds on worlds." Milton R. Hunter, a member of the First Council of
Seventy, taught that "God the eternal Father was once a mortal man... He became
God...He grew in experience and continued to grow until he attained the status
of Godhood."
But Mormonism also teaches that its gods were once imperfect, including God
the Father and God the Son. That is why even God the Father and Jesus Christ
(two of the gods of this earth) required salvation. If every god was once an
imperfect man who was saved through his good works, which exalted him to
godhood, then God Himself once required salvation. As Marion G. Romney
(1897-1988), a member of the First Presidency, observed, "God is a perfected
saved soul enjoying eternal life."
All of this is why the Mormon concept of God cannot possibly be considered
Christian. The Mormon Church may claim that Christians are in a state of
apostasy and have lost the true knowledge of God, but a careful examination of
Mormon teaching on God reveals otherwise. In essence, Mormonism is a religion of
pagan polytheism. The concept of physical, sexual, procreating gods defended by
the Mormon Church coincides with pagan and occult belief, not Christian belief.
Taken from The Facts On The Mormon Church, by John Ankerberg
and John Weldon, published by Harvest House Publishers.
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