-Joseph Smith (1805-1844), founder of the Church of Latter-Day Saints

-by Catholic Answers

“Are Mormons Protestants? No, but their founder, Joseph Smith, came from a Protestant background, and Protestant presuppositions form part of the basis of Mormonism.

Still, it isn’t correct to call Mormons Protestants, because doing so implies they hold to the essentials of Christianity—what C. S. Lewis termed “mere Christianity.” The fact is, they don’t. Gordon B. Hinckley, a former president and “prophet” of the Mormon church, says (in a booklet called What of the Mormons?) that he and his co-religionists “are no closer to Protestantism than they are to Catholicism.”

That isn’t quite right—it would be better to say Mormons are even further from Catholicism than from Protestantism. But Hinckley is right in saying that Mormons are very different from Catholics and Protestants. Let’s examine some of these differences. We can start by considering the young men who come to your door.

They always come in pairs and are dressed conservatively, usually in white shirts and ties. As often as not, they get from place to place by bicycle. They introduce themselves to you as Elder This and Elder That. The title “Elder” does not refer to their age (many are not even shaving regularly yet), but means they hold the higher of the two Mormon priesthoods: the “Melchizedek” order. This priesthood is something every practicing Mormon male is supposed to receive at about age eighteen, provided he conforms to the standards of the church.

The other priesthood—the “Aaronic”—is the lesser of the two and is concerned with the temporal affairs of the church; and its ranks are known as deacon, teacher, then priest.

The Melchizedek priesthood is concerned mainly with spiritual affairs, and it “embrac[es] all of the authority of the Aaronic,” explains Hinckley. The Melchizedek ranks are elder, seventy, and high priest. At age twelve boys become deacons and thus enter the “Aaronic priesthood.”

If the terms for the various levels of the Mormon priesthood are confusing, still more confusing is Mormonism’s ecclesiastical structure. The basic unit, equivalent to a very small parish, is the “ward.” Several wards within a single geographical area form a “stake,” which corresponds to a large Catholic parish. The head of each ward isn’t called a priest, as you might expect, but a bishop. A Mormon bishop can officiate at a civil marriage, but not at a “temple marriage,” which can be performed only by a “sealer” in one of Mormonism’s temples.

Polygamy

Mormons try to attract new members by projecting an image of wholesome family life in their circles. This is an illusion—Mormon Utah has higher-than-average rates for suicide, divorce, and other domestic problems than the rest of the country. And if Mormonism’s public image of large, happy families and marriage bring to mind anything, it is polygamy.

Hinckley explains that “Mormonism claims to be a restoration of God’s work in all previous dispensations. The Old Testament teaches that the patriarchs . . . had more than one wife under divine sanction. In the course of the development of the church in the nineteenth century, it was revealed to the leader of the church that such a practice should be entered into again.” Although polygamy was permitted to Mormons, few practiced it. But enough did so to make polygamy the characteristic that most caught the attention of other Americans.

Mormonism: Made in America

If some of today’s Protestants are known for their belief that America is destined to play a key role in the events of the Last Days, Mormons are identified even more closely with America. The Mormons’ theory is that Christ also established his Church here, among the Indians, where it eventually flopped, as did his original effort in Palestine.

The situation is somewhat similar to that of the Anglican church. In England, the Anglican church is not just the church of Englishmen; it is the Established Church. In theory, and even at times in practice, Parliament can decide what Anglicans are to believe officially and can make and unmake clerics of all grades, from the lowliest curate to the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Just as Anglicanism is tied to England, so Mormonism is tied to the United States. Although it is not the established religion of this country, Mormonism has allowed itself to be modified by Congress.

“In the late 1880s,” says Hinckley, “Congress passed various measures prohibiting [polygamy]. When the Supreme Court declared these laws constitutional, the church indicated its willingness to comply. It could do nothing else in view of its basic teachings on the necessity for obedience to the law of the land. That was in 1890. Since then officers of the church have not performed plural marriages, and members who have entered into such relationships have been excommunicated.”

Before Congress acted, Mormons were convinced polygamy was not merely permissible, but positively good, for those “of the highest character who had proved themselves capable of maintaining more than one family.” Yet this position was dropped when Congress threatened to deny statehood to Utah. Similarly, and more recently, a “revelation” saying blacks would no longer be denied the Mormon priesthood was given to Mormon leaders when the federal government became involved.

Continuing Revelation

These continuing revelations are not exceptions to Mormon practice. “We believe all that God has revealed, all that he does now reveal, and we believe that he will yet reveal many great and important things”—this is the ninth article of faith for Mormons and is an official statement of doctrine.

Hinckley notes that “Christians and Jews generally maintain that God revealed himself and directed chosen men in ancient times. Mormons maintain that the need for divine guidance is as great or greater in our modern, complex world as it was in the comparatively simple times of the Hebrews.” Thus, revelation continues.

It might be added: public revelation continues. Catholics hold that public or “general” revelation ended at the death of the last apostle (Catechism of the Catholic Church 66, 73), but private revelations can be given still—and have been, as Marian apparitions at such places as Fatima and Lourdes testify (CCC 67). But such revelations can never correct, supplement, or complete the Christian faith, which is precisely what Mormon “revelations” claim to do.

Mormonism’s Debt to Puritanism

“Mormon theology,” says Hinckley, “deals with such widely diversified subjects as the nature of heaven and the evils of alcohol. Actually, in this philosophy the two are closely related. Since man is created in the image of God, his body is sacred. . . . As such, it ill becomes any man or women to injure or dissipate his or her health.” So alcohol (as well as tobacco, tea, and caffeine) is out for the believing Mormon.

Here we have an example of Mormonism borrowing from Puritanism. The emphasis on “temperance”—which, to the old-line Protestants, meant not the moderate use of alcohol, but outright abstinence—is one such borrowing. The curious thing is that this attitude is contrary to the Bible.

Jesus Wasn’t a Teetotaler

The ancient Jews were a temperate people—temperate used in the right sense. They used light wine as part of the regular diet (1 Tim. 3:8). Jesus, you will recall, was called a wine-drinker (Matt. 11:19), the charge being not that he drank, but that he drank too much (that, of course, was false, but the charge itself reflects the fact that he did drink alcoholic beverages, such as the wine that was required for use in the Jewish Passover seder).

The New Testament nowhere says the Jews claimed Jesus should have been a teetotaler. Wine was used also at weddings, and our Lord clearly approved of the practice of wine drinking, since he made wine from water when the wine was depleted at Cana (John 2:1–11).

Something Mormons seldom refer to is wine’s medicinal uses (Luke 10:34). You will recall that Paul advised Timothy to take wine to ease stomach pains (1 Tim. 5:23). Such apostolic admonitions coexist uneasily with Mormonism’s strictures against wine.

Mormons practice tithing, yet would be shocked to learn that in a key Old Testament passage where tithing (the practice of donating 10 percent of one’s income for religious use) is discussed, God says: “you shall turn [your tithe] into money, and bind up the money in your hand, and go to the place which the Lord your God chooses, and spend the money for whatever you desire, oxen, or sheep, or wine or strong drink, whatever your appetite craves; and you shall eat there before the Lord your God and rejoice, you and your household” (Deut. 14:25-26). We’re also told, “Give strong drink to him who is perishing, and wine to those in bitter distress; let them drink and forget their poverty, and remember their misery no more” (Prov. 31:6–7).

Often when founders of new religions get an idea, they take it to an extreme. So Joseph Smith confused the misuse of wine with its legitimate use. The Bible does condemn excessive drinking (1 Cor. 5:11; Gal. 5:21; Eph. 5:18; 1 Pet. 4:3), but the key here is the adjective “excessive.”

Plural Heavens

Mormonism teaches that practically no one is forever damned to hell. Aside from Satan, his spirit followers, and perhaps a half-dozen notorious sinners, all people who have ever existed will share in heavenly “glory.” Not, mind you, all in the same heaven. There are, in fact, three heavens.

The lowest heaven is populated by adulterers, murderers, thieves, liars, and other evildoers. These share in a glory and delight impossible to imagine. Their sins have been forgiven, and they now enjoy the eternal presence of the Holy Ghost.

The middle heaven contains the souls and bodies of good non-Mormons and those Mormons who were in some way deficient in their obedience to church commandments. They will glory in the presence of Jesus Christ forever.

The top heaven is reserved for devout Mormons, who go on to become gods and rulers of their own universes. By having their wives and children “sealed” to them during an earthly, temple ceremony, these men-gods will procreate billions of spirits and place them into future, physical bodies. These future children will then worship their father-gods, obeying Mormon commandments, and eventually take their place in the eternal progression to their own godhood.

Mormons think this doctrine is a strong selling point. They point out (erroneously) that only their church offers families the chance to be together forever in eternity. But read the fine print. The only way you can have your family with you is if each one of them has lived a sterling Mormon life. Otherwise, a spouse, parent, or child may be locked forever in a lower heaven. Indeed, the faithful Mormon wife of a lukewarm Mormon man will leave him behind in an inferior place while she goes on and is sealed to a more devout Mormon gentleman. These two will then beget and raise their own, new family.

The LDS slogan, “Families are forever,” means fractured families.

NIHIL OBSTAT: I have concluded that the materials
presented in this work are free of doctrinal or moral errors.
Bernadeane Carr, STL, Censor Librorum, August 10, 2004

IMPRIMATUR: In accord with 1983 CIC 827
permission to publish this work is hereby granted.
+Robert H. Brom, Bishop of San Diego, August 10, 2004″

Love & truth,
Matthew

-Mormon temple

-by Catholic Answers

George Orwell, in his novel 1984, did Catholic apologists a great favor by coining the term “doublethink,” which he defined as “the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.” For an illustration of doublethink one need look no further than the Mormon church’s doctrines about God.

Joseph Smith, Mormonism’s founder, taught the doctrine of a “plurality of gods”—polytheism—as the bedrock belief of his church. He developed this doctrine over a period of years to reflect his belief that not only are there many gods, but they once were mortal men who had developed in righteousness until they had learned enough and merited godhood.

The Mormon church uses the term “eternal progression” for this process, and it refers to godhood as “exaltation.” Such euphemisms are used because the idea of men becoming gods is blasphemous to orthodox Christians.

Although he softened his terms, Smith minced no words in explaining his beliefs. “I will preach on the plurality of gods. 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” (King Follett Discourse).

True to his word, Smith took away the veil of misunderstanding, only to replace it with a monolithic wall of doublethink. After all, to teach that the all-sovereign God, the infinite and supreme being, the creator and master of the universe, is merely an exalted man is a fine example of what Orwell had in mind.

Progressive Revelation to Smith

In 1844, shortly before his death in a gun battle at a jail in Carthage, Illinois, Joseph Smith delivered a sermon at the funeral of a Mormon named King Follett. The King Follett Discourse has become a key source for the Mormon church’s beliefs on polytheism and eternal progression. It’s short and can be purchased at any LDS bookstore for about a dollar.

To appreciate the extent of Smith’s departure from traditional Christian thought, it’s important to realize that his doctrines weren’t “revealed” to his church all at once or in their present state. From his first vision in 1820 until his death in 1844, Smith crafted and modified his doctrines, often altering them so drastically that they became something else entirely.

Early in his career as “prophet, seer, and revelator” of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Smith wrote the Book of Mormon, which he claimed to be the “fullness of the everlasting gospel.” In it are passages that proclaim there is only one God and that God can’t change.

The next time you speak with Mormon missionaries, cite these verses:

“I know that God is not a partial God, neither a changeable being; but he is unchangeable from all eternity to all eternity” (Moroni 8:18).

“For do we not read that God is the same yesterday, today and forever, and in him there is no variableness, neither shadow of changing? And now, if ye have imagined up unto yourselves a god who doth vary, and in whom there is shadow of changing, then ye have imagined up unto yourselves a god who is not a God of miracles” (Mormon 9:9-10).

It’s hard to be more explicit than that. In his early years Smith did not believe in the “law of eternal progression.” He had an orthodox understanding of God’s immutable nature. But at some point in his theological odyssey, he veered into the land of doublethink.

Contradictory Views

Remember, Smith maintained the inspiration and truth of the Book of Mormon at the same time he believed the following: “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 the veil were rent today, and the great God who upholds all worlds and all things by his power, was to make himself visible—I say, if you were to see him today, you would see him like a man in form—like yourselves in all the person, image, and very form as a man; for Adam was created in the very fashion, image, and likeness of God, and received instruction from, and walked, talked and conversed with him, as one man talks and communes with another” (King Follett Discourse).

Fourteen years after penning the Book of Mormon, he contradicts his earlier writings with this sermon—but he doesn’t throw aside his earlier teaching. Both are to be accepted.

The Missionary’s “Testimony”

If you question a Mormon missionary, he’ll be familiar with the King Follett Discourse, and he’ll have a “testimony” about the truth of the doctrine of eternal progression. If you have both the Discourse and the Book of Mormon on hand, read these passages to the missionary. Ask him how it’s possible to hold both positions. Mormons revere Joseph Smith as the highest authority in their church. What he said is scripture, and they’re stuck when it comes to this topic. These two teachings from the prophet obviously don’t agree with each other. This is where doublethink kicks in.

They can’t believe that God is at once immutable and changing, that from all eternity he was as he now is, yet he evolved from a mere man. To Mormons this theological contradiction poses no problem because they don’t think through its ramifications. Your job as an apologist is to show them there is a problem and then to offer a solution to it.

It’s not enough to say God is eternal and to leave it at that. We need to take his infinite perfection into account. This is where the Mormons falter. They believe that although God is perfect now, he wasn’t always so. Once he was imperfect, as a mortal, and he had to arrive at perfection through his own labor.

Jesus Christ

According to Mormon teaching, at one point in the eternities past, this man-become-God, or “Heavenly Father,” begat the spirit body of his first son. Together with his heavenly wife, the Father raised his son in the council of the gods.

Before the creation of this world, Jesus Christ presented to his father a plan of salvation which would enable the billions of future human beings the opportunity of passing through mortality and returning to heaven, there to become gods of their own worlds. At the same time, another son of the Heavenly Father and brother of Christ offered a competing plan. When Christ’s was chosen, the rejected Lucifer led a rebellion of one-third of the population of the heavens and was cast out.

In time, Mormons believe, the Heavenly Father came to earth and had physical, sexual intercourse with the Virgin Mary. Rejecting both the testimony of Scripture (Luke 1:34-35) and the constant teaching of the Christian Church, Mormons believe Christ was conceived by the Father, and not by the Holy Spirit (Journal of Discourses 2:268).

Moreover, Mormons teach that Christ is a secondary, inferior god. He does not exist from all eternity. (Nor, for that matter, does his Father.) He was first made by a union of his heavenly parents. After having been reared and taught in the heavens, he achieved a certain divine stature.

Mormons now believe that Christ’s divinity is virtually equal to that of his Father’s. As we have seen, this is a compromised godhood: Jesus Christ merely joins the end of a long line of gods who have preceded him, an infinite “regression” of divine beings whose origin Mormons cannot explain.

The Holy Ghost

The LDS church teaches that all men must pass through mortality in human bodies before they can reach godhood. Yet their third, separate god, called the Holy Ghost, has not yet received a mortal body, even though he is considered to be another god. Mormon theology typically does not address this contradiction.

However, that’s not to say that the Holy Ghost is without any body. In fact, he has a “spiritual body,” in the actual shape of a man, with head, torso, and limbs. He can be in only one place at once (in this he’s no different from his two superiors in the Mormon “Godhead”).

Though to the Holy Ghost is now ascribed the power of each Mormon’s individual “testimony” or feeling concerning the truth of Mormon doctrines, he was not always so honored. In fact, Joseph Smith originally acknowledged only two divine personages, referring to the Holy Ghost merely as the “mind” of the two (Lectures on Faith, 48-49).

Latter-Day Saints do not believe that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are the only three gods there are. Rather, they believe in a “plurality” of gods, gods without number, each one ruling his own creation. Thus, the three separate gods who rule our universe are finite in power—they sustain and govern only a tiny portion of all that exists.

The other gods have either preceded or followed the Heavenly Father who organized our world. In fact, men living today on this planet will one day become gods of their own universes. As such, they will mate with heavenly wives, beget spirit children, populate new worlds, and receive the worship and obedience we are now expected to give to our particular, current God.

Smith—and All Men—to Be Gods

The Mormon founder taught that faithful Mormon men can ascend to divinity. In the King Follett Discourse, Joseph Smith said, “My Father worked out his kingdom with fear and trembling, and I must do the same. And when I get to my kingdom [godhood], I shall present it to my Father, so that he may obtain kingdom upon kingdom, and it will exalt him in glory. He will then take a higher exaltation, and I will take his place, and thereby become exalted myself.”

In any discussion with a Mormon about Mormonism’s conflicting teachings on the nature of God, you have to get to the central facts. Just show them how the Book of Mormon conflicts with Smith’s later teachings. If he was right about God, when was he right? Take your pick, but you can’t pick both, and neither can a Mormon, except if he uses doublethink. If a Mormon chooses either teaching as correct and admits the other must be wrong, Smith’s credibility as a prophet collapses.

Don’t Aim to Win an Argument

Be forewarned that your first discussion about the nature of God won’t produce any visible change in your Mormon acquaintance. Be patient as you help him see these theological “black holes.”

Keep in mind your ultimate goal isn’t to win an argument, but to win a soul for Christ. You need sound logic, but also patience that’s sustained by charity. Above all, you need to pray that God will use your efforts to prepare your acquaintance’s soul for the gift of faith. Doublethink isn’t invincible.

You need to do some homework first, of course. You need a solid understanding of God’s nature. We recommend reading the appropriate passages in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Fr. John Hardon’s Catholic Catechism, and Frank Sheed’s Theology and Sanity.

You should also have on hand a copy of the Book of Mormon and of the King Follett Discourse. If you have your references already marked in these books, you’ll be ready the next time a Mormon missionary comes to your door.”

Love & truth,
Matthew

-temple in Salt Lake City, Utah, which I have visited.

I worked for Mormons during high school and college summers. I had lovely discussions with them. Received my “Book of Mormon” and “Pearl of Great Price” from them back when they gave out physical books instead of a card with a link on it. Visited their stake. Lovely, lovely people.

-by Patrick Madrid

“As man now is, God once was. As God now is, man may become.” This aphorism, coined in 1837 by Mormon apostle Lorenzo Snow, neatly summarizes the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ doctrines relating to the nature of God and the nature of man.

The words give hope to the Mormon, promising him divinity in the next life and the rule over his own universe, which, with his wives, he will people, just as God peopled this universe with his children after having progressed to godhood.

The overarching principle, expressed so compactly by Snow, is known to Mormons as “eternal progression” and is a synthesis of several interlocking doctrines:

1. God is not eternally divine but was once a mortal man, living on a planet other than Earth, who was judged worthy to be divinized.

2. God, although now divinized, is merely an exalted version of his former self – a glorified man.

3. God is mutable, eternally evolving into a more exalted being.

4. God has a god above him, who has a god above him, who has a god above him, ad infinitum. There are countless gods.

These doctrines were not originally part of Mormon theology. In fact, Mormonism’s teachings on the nature of God metamorphosed dramatically over time, much like the continuously evolving god whose nature they supposedly explain.

Joseph Smith, Jr., who founded Mormonism in 1830, claimed God chose him to be the prophet of the new dispensation, charging him with restoring the true gospel, which had been lost in a complete apostasy of the Church in the second or third century. Among the things that needed restoring, Smith said in The King Follett Discourse, was the proper understanding of God’s nature:

“I will prove that the world is wrong, by showing what God is. I am going to inquire after God; for I want you all to know him and to be familiar with him; and if I am bringing you to a knowledge of him, all persecutions against me ought to cease. You will then know that I am his servant; for I speak as one having authority. I will go back to the beginning before the world was, to show what kind of being God is. What sort of a being was God in the beginning? Open your ears and hear, all ye ends of the earth, for I am going to prove it to you by the Bible.” 1

In spite of his teasing promise of biblical corroboration for eternal progression, Smith finished the Discourse without mentioning a single verse in support of it. He did, though, elaborate on his ideas about God’s nature: “God himself was once a man as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens! That is the great secret.”

It’s also the great dilemma of Mormon theology: If God was once an ordinary man who evolved into exaltation, or godhood, then he is merely a contingent being, reliant upon a god above himself both for his own making (Mormons believe God cannot create anything ex nihilo, not having the power to do so, but merely “creates” or fashions from pre-existent matter 2 and for approbation. In other words, God couldn’t have become a god unless the god above him had judged him worthy to advance.

As Mormon theologian Gordon Allred explains, “Service is, in fact, the fundamental purpose of God’s existence. ‘God himself,’ said Joseph Smith, ‘finding he was in the midst of spirits and glory, because he was more intelligent, saw proper to institute laws whereby the rest could have a privilege to advance like himself’ ” (History of the Church, 6:312)….Here indeed is a divine being with whom one may identify, in whom he may repose complete trust, to whom he may pray with full faith and conviction. Consider the empathy with which God the Father must view our own struggles, for he journeyed the entire course, knows every stone, pitfall, and obstacle. He has groped his way in storm and darkness, swum the rivers, traversed the barren desert and the teeming wilderness, found at times his place of respite, and surmounted the final peaks into sunlight [godhood].3

Such a description more aptly fits Indiana Jones or the grizzled hero of a Louis L’ Amour novel, but not the sovereign God of the universe.

Smith continued in his Discourse:

“My Father worked out his salvation with fear and trembling, and I must do the same; and when I get my kingdom, I shall present it to my Father, so that he may obtain kingdom upon kingdom, and it will exalt him in glory. He will then take a higher exaltation, and I will take his place, and thereby become exalted myself.”

Here is the problem. Under the Mormon system, our God and all the gods who inhabit the universe are merely contingent beings, relying on something else for their own existence. As the late Mormon apostle and theologian Bruce McConkie explained, “The Father, who shall continue to all eternity as the God of exalted beings, is a God of Gods. Further, as the Prophet [Joseph Smith] also taught, there is ‘a God above the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ…. If Jesus Christ was the Son of God, and John discovered that God the Father of Jesus Christ had a father, you may suppose that he had a father also. Where was there ever a son without a father…[I]f Jesus had a father, can we not believe that he had a father also?’ (Teachings of Joseph Smith, 370, 373) In this way, both the Father and the Son, as also all exalted beings, are now or in due course will become Gods of Gods.”4

This amounts to infinite regress, an endless series of contingent beings, something manifestly impossible; There cannot be an infinite succession of finite creatures. Someone had to start the ball rolling – someone had to have been “the first god” from whom all the other gods got their start.

Mormon theologians attempt to stave off objections by saying, “We don’t really need to know how it all got started. What is important is that we worship the God of this planet. We’ll figure out the rest when we get to heaven.” The truth is that Mormon theologians have been unable to solve this theological conundrum; they have no idea who started everything.5

The record shows that as time passed Smith’s theology changed. Sometimes it changed in order to accommodate his personal circumstances and needs (e.g. polygamy; see Doctrine & Covenants 132), sometimes in order to incorporate elements of other religious systems he found appealing (e.g. the introduction of clandestine temple rituals nearly identical to those of Masonry; these were unknown in Mormonism before Smith became a Mason in October 1841) 6 , and sometimes simply to keep complications arising from previous revelations from getting out of control.

When Smith organized his church in 1830, eternal progression was not in his theological repertoire, at least not in any explicit form. The best evidence of this is the Book of Mormon, published in 1830. Besides being a mother lode of contradictions, historical anachronisms, and direct plagiarisms (especially of the King James Bible), the Book of Mormon reveals that Smith’s theology metamorphosed.

In his early days Smith’s theories about God were closer to orthodox Christianity than to the polytheistic strain of theology he was to expounded in later years. He promulgated a modalistic monotheism similar to the Monarchian heresy fostered by Praxeas around A.D. 200. Both Modalism and Monarchianism, in an attempt to reconcile the seeming contradiction between the Trinity and monotheism, maintained that in God there are no distinct persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit being simply modes or manifestations of a single divine Person.7

The Book of Mormon displays Smith’s monarchian-monotheism. One example is found in the exchange between Zeezrom and Amulek in Alma 11: 26-30, 32-33, 35, 38-39, 44, where we’re assured that there’s only one God, the “Son of God [who is] the very eternal Father,” through whom come all things in “heaven and earth, and all things which in them, are; he is the beginning and the end, the first and the last”; all men will be judged by “Christ the Son, and God the Father, and the Holy Spirit, which is one eternal God.”

Mormons are also inconvenienced by Mosiah 15:1-5: “God himself shall come down among the children of men, and shall redeem his people. And because he dwelleth in flesh he shall be called the Son of God, and having subjected the flesh to the will of the Father, being the Father and the Son – the Father, because he was conceived by the power of God; and the Son, because of the flesh, thus becoming the Father and the Son. And they are one God, yea, the very eternal Father of heaven and of earth. And thus the flesh becoming subject to the Spirit, or the Son to the Father, being one God.” (Cf. 2 Nephi 31:21; Mormon 9:11-12).

The doctrine of eternal progression undercuts this earlier Mormon doctrine of the unity of God. Smith came to hold that “[I]t 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 the idea, and take away the veil, so that you may see….These are incomprehensible ideas to some, but they are simple. If the veil were rent today, and the great God who holds this world in its orbit, and who upholds all the worlds and all things by his power, was to make himself visible – I say, if you were to see him today, you would see him like a man in form – like yourselves in all the person, image, and very form as a man; for Adam was created in the very fashion; image and likeness of God, and received instruction from, and walked, talked, and conversed with him, as one man talks and communes with another.”8

What’s incomprehensible is that no one in the audience jumped to his feet and asked Smith how he could reconcile his new theology of a changeable God with his earlier teaching found in the Book of Mormon:

“For do we not read that God is the same yesterday, today and forever, and in him there is no variableness neither shadow of changing? And now, if ye have imagined up unto yourselves a god who doth vary, and in whom there is shadow of changing, then ye have imagined up unto yourselves a god who is not a god of miracles….And if there were miracles wrought then, why [do some say] God ceased to be a God of miracles, and yet be an unchangeable being? And behold, I say unto you he changeth not; if so, he would cease to be God; and he ceaseth not to be God” (Mormon 9:910,19).

THE main message of the Old Testament is monotheism. This doctrine was distilled in Israel’s creed, the Shema, which begins, “Hear, 0 Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is one God!” (Deut. 6:4), and the Jews were willing to go to war to defend this belief.

Jesus exhorted the Jews to remain faithful to the one true God (Mark 12:29). They took Jesus seriously and wanted to stone him for calling himself God: “Amen, amen, I say to you, before Abraham came to be; I AM” (John 8:58). When Jesus said, “The Father and I are one,” the Jews “picked up rocks to stone him saying, ‘We are not stoning you for a good work but for blasphemy. You, a man, are making yourself God’ ” (John 10:30-33).

The Book of Isaiah contains a series of verses devastating to the Mormon notion of the plurality of Gods:

“To whom can you liken God? With what equal can you confront him?” (40:18); “To whom can you liken me as an equal? says the Holy One” (40:25); “Do you not know, or have you not heard? The Lord is the eternal God, creator of the ends of the earth. He does not grow weary, and his knowledge is beyond scrutiny” (40:28); “Before me no god was formed, and after me there shall be none. It is I, I the Lord; there is no savior but me….I am God, yes, from eternity I am he” (43:10, 12); “Thus says the Lord, Israel’s King and redeemer, the Lord of hosts: I am the first and I am the last. There is no god but me. Who is like me? Let him stand up and speak; make it evident, and confront me with it” (44:6-7); “I am the Lord and there is no other, there is no God besides me…toward the rising and the setting of the sun men may know that there is none besides me. I am the Lord and there is no other” (45:5-6).

The standard Mormon rejoinder is to say, “I believe that. But those passages merely mean there’s only one God for this planet, and we are to worship only him.” But this eisegesis, however satisfying it may be to Mormons, is contradicted by Mormon teaching itself.

Mormons believe that God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit are three separate gods, the Father and the Son having bodies of flesh and bone and the Holy Spirit being pure spirit.9 This heavenly triumvirate is not one in essence, but only in purpose and function. All three “agree” with each other on everything and operate accordingly in a celestial partnership, administering the affairs of men. It is precisely here that a thorny problem develops for the Mormon when he tries to reconcile the emphatically monotheistic Isaiah passages with Mormonism’s teaching of the plurality of gods.

Joseph Smith taught, ostensibly by direct revelation of God, that one must worship God the Father (D&C 18:40). This is reiterated in another Mormon scripture, the Pearl of Great Price: “Worship God, for him only shalt thou serve…. [C]all upon God in the name of mine only begotten [Jesus] and worship me…. [Moses said] ‘Depart from me, Satan, for this one God only worship, which is the God of glory’” (Moses 1:15-20). The problem for Mormons is the Book of Mormon says one must also worship Jesus Christ, a separate god (3 Nephi 11:17,2 Nephi 25:29).

The Mormon Church teaches that two of the three gods running this planet should be worshiped (the Holy Spirit gets gypped under this plan), with no explanation why the third shouldn’t receive worship. Even with limiting worship to two deities, Mormonism still conflicts with the prohibition against false gods in Exodus 20:3 (God didn’t say, “Thou shalt have no other gods besides us”) and with the Isaiah verses cited above.

Mormons can’t have it both ways. When the Bible contradicts a Mormon doctrine they’ll attempt to evade the problem by invoking their Eighth Article of Faith; they believe the Bible is correct “so far as it is correctly translated,” thus dismissing a monotheistic passage as incorrectly rendered. Yet when they want to press a point, they selectively quote from the very Bible they regard as essentially untrustworthy (cf. 1 Nephi 13:28-29).

Mormon apologists have labored unsuccessfully to provide a coherent theology of the nature of God. Drawing on biblical and Book of Mormon passages and on supposed revelations from God to Joseph Smith and subsequent prophets, the Mormon Church has produced a body of doctrine which fails the rigors of philosophical and theological investigation.10

The majority of those arguing against Mormonism are Protestants. They may indeed refute the errors of Mormonism, but they supplant them with (lesser) errors of their own. They stumble in their efforts to defend the Trinity by arguing almost exclusively from the stunted perspective of sola scriptura.11 Their arguments are useful but insufficient.

Mormons, who have lost nearly all touch with the one true God, have succumbed unwittingly to the wiles of the first Liar, who promised godhood to those foolish enough to g.asp at it. They have no idea how intellectually, theologically, and historically tenuous their position is. Perhaps the best advice one can give them (other than suggesting they study the Catholic Church’s teachings on the Trinity) is to urge them to heed the warning Joseph Smith gave in The King Follett Discourse: “I advise all of you to be careful what you do, or you may by and by find out that you have been deceived.”

Endnotes

1.Joseph Smith, Jr., The King Follett Discourse, ed. B. H. Roberts (Salt Lake City: Magazine Printing Company, 1963), 4-5. Smith’s Discourse, a rambling sermon preached at the funeral of King Follett in April, 1844 – two months before he himself perished at the hands of anti-Mormons in Carthage, Illinois – is perhaps the most striking example of the evolution of Mormon theology. It represents the full flowering of Smith’s transition from the monarchian-monotheism presented in the Book of Mormon to polytheism and eternal progression. For a commentary on the Discourse from the Mormon perspective, see B. H. Robert’s explanatory footnotes in chapter eleven of God the Father, edited by Gordon Allred (Salt Lake City: Deseret, 1979),222- 242.

2 “The Scriptures plainly and repeatedly affirm that God is the creator of the earth and the heavens and all things that in them are. In the sense so expressed, the Creator is an organizer. God created the earth as an organized sphere; but he certainly did not create, in the sense of bringing into primal existence, the ultimate elements of the materials of which the earth consists, for ‘the elements are eternal’ (D&C 93:29)” (“The Father and the Son,” an official statement issued in 1916 by the First Presidency and the Council of the Twelve, ibid., 149). Joseph Smith went further in illustrating the smallness of his god: “The mind or the intelligence which man possesses is co-equal with God himself. . . . I might with boldness proclaim from the housetops that God never had the power to create the spirit of man at all.” Discourse.

3 Ibid., 17.

4 Mormon Doctrine (Salt Lake: Bookcraft, 1966), 322-323.

5 Mormons might equate their response with the Christian statement that the Trinity is a “mystery,” but the two are not really alike. The idea of eternal progression (and therefore of infinite regress) can in no way account for the existence of a series of uncaused beings. The doctrine of the Trinity,on the other hand, is translogical, meaning that it transcends our human ability to understand it completely, yet it is consistently logical to the extent it can be g.asped by the human mind. A rare, written debate on the question of a plurality of gods, held between a Catholic priest and a Mormon general authority, is found in B. H. Roberts, Mormon Doctrine of Deity (Bountiful, Utah: Horizon, 1903),44-169.

6 For the historical and liturgical connections between Masonry and Mormonism from the Mormon perspective, see Ivan J. Barrett, Joseph Smith and the Restoration (Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 1973),509-520 and John A. Widtsoe, Evidences and Reconciliations (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1987),357- 359. For a critical discussion from the anti-Mormon perspective, see Fawn Brodie, No Man Knows My History (New York: Knopf, 1979),279-283 and Jerald and Sandra Tanner, The Changing World of Mormonism (Chicago: Moody, 1980),38-66,173-177.

7 For concise descriptions and historical overviews of Monarchianism, Modalism, and related trinitarian heresies, see Michael O’Carroll, Trinitas: A Theological Encyclopedia of the Holy Trinity(Wilmington:

Michael Glazier, 1987), 162-163 and Ludwig Ott, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma (Rockford: TAN Books and Publishing, 1960),50-51.

8 Discourse.

9 “I have always declared God to be a distinct personage, Jesus Christ a separate and distinct personage from God the Father, and that the Holy Ghost was a distinct personage and a spirit; and these three constitute three distinct personages and three distinct gods” (Teachings of Joseph Smith, 370).

10 Gordon Allred’s God the Father is an example of the amateurish level of Mormon theology.

11 See my negative book review of Protestant author Robert M. Bowman’s Why You Should Believe in the Trinity, This Rock, February 1990, 30-32. For many Evangelical apologists the problem of sola scriptura is compounded by their ignorance of Church history and of the development of doctrines. ”

Love & truth,
Matthew