Category: God
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BYU Professors Daniel C. Peterson and Stephen D. Ricks Think You’re a Prude if God Having Sex With Mary Is a Problem for You
If you object to the teaching of Mormon leaders that God the Father had physical sex with Mary, then BYU professors Daniel C. Peterson and Stephen D. Ricks say you have “a Neoplatonic and gnosticizing disdain for the material cosmos, a discomfort with the body and with sexuality.” Get ready for a roller coaster ride.…
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What is the Status of the First Half of the Lorenzo Snow Couplet in Mormonism?
By Aaron Shafovaloff“As man is God once was, as God is man may be.”Many non-Mormons make the mistake of either stereotyping Mormons as those who firmly believe in the entirety of the Lorenzo Snow couplet or over-generalizing Mormonism as strongly abandoning the belief. Based on the collective experience of myself and those in the ministry…
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Mormon Professors Confuse Doctrine and Rumor
If I want to know what Mormonism teaches about human beings becoming Gods and creating worlds, should I ask a Mormon? Last month (October 2011) New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd asked the planet question of two Mormons: Richard Bushman, the Visiting Professor in Mormon Studies at Claremont Graduate University, and Kent P. Jackson, associate…
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Is Jesus “The One” in Mormonism?
In an article for Tabletalk magazine author and pastor Kevin DeYoung wrote, “There is one foundational question each of us must face…This question is so important that if you get this one wrong, you are going to get most everything else that really matters wrong. The foundational question is the famous query Jesus posed to…
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How Many Mormon Gods for Us?
Last week on her blog, Religion Dispatches, Joanna Brooks wrote, “It’s a little-known fact: according to Mormon tradition, God is not an old man but rather a male-female couple: a Heavenly Father and a Heavenly Mother.” Ms. Brooks was referring to a long-standing but little-spoken-of Mormon doctrine that was recently highlighted in a BYU Studies…
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The Christ of Mormonism vs. the Christ of the Bible
Written by a local ex-Mormon Christian friend of mine: — This is the Christ of Mormonism: 1. He lives as a humanoid god on a star near Kolob along with his father god, bound by the physical world; he does not transcend the material. 2. He is the brother of satan. 3. He had to…
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All-Knowing God
The Bible reveals God as omniscient; that is, “God, being infinite, is able to be aware of all things, to understand all things, and to comprehend all things. He never learns anything or acquires new knowledge. The future as well as the past and present are completely known by Him.” (R.C. Sproul, Essential Truths of…
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The Other Gods of Deuteronomy
An LDS man who wanted to convince me that the Bible validates the notion of multiple gods used Deuteronomy 32:8 as a proof text. In the RSV (the translation he wanted to use for this verse) it says: “When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of men,…
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Do the Mormon Gods Belong to Multiple Godheads?
If God the Father has a Father, and if the concept of “Godhead” isn’t infinitely expandable to include all Gods, then our Father belongs to two Godheads, one of which Jesus is not a part of. If God the Father does have a Father, and if the Godhead is infinitely inclusive of all exalted Gods,…
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Mormon Theism
Christianity is a monotheistic religion, but what is Mormonism? Mormonism has been called monotheistic, polytheistic, henotheistic, tri-theistic, and more recently, monolatristic. I don’t know if there is a defined theistic category that fits Mormonism, but let’s look at what these five are, and see which seems best suited for the LDS belief system. I checked…
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The Nature of God Index
The Mormon doctrine of God is not the same as the historic Christian view. It holds that God and man are essentially of the same human species, and that God the Father is fundamentally a material being with a body of flesh and bones. He is not uniquely self-existent, transcendent, or eternal. Neither is he…
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God Never Sinned
God testifies of himself, “Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me.” (Isaiah 43:10). Inspired by the Holy Spirit, David testifies of him, “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.” (Psalm 90:2) It is…
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Heavenly Mother
As Gerald Lund once put it, many members simply assume that “the Church teaches many principles which are accepted as doctrines but which the First Presidency has seen no need to declare in an official pronouncement.” (“I Have a Question,” Ensign, Feb.
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The Impact of Mormonism on the Enjoyment of God as an Artist
C.S. Lewis once wrote, “It was when I was happiest that I longed most… The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing… to find the place where all the beauty came from.” – Till We Have Faces In his essay “Christianity and Literature,” he also wrote, “[An] author should never conceive of himself…
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Progression to Godhood — Mormonism’s God
The following quotes are from the LDS Church’s Achieving a Celestial Marriage Student Manual published by the Church Educational System, copyright 1976. — In the relationships of husband and wife and parent and child we begin to approach the divine calling of godhood. Our Heavenly Father and mother live in an exalted state because they…
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Before God Was God
“After circumlocuting around and around the question, I finally said, ‘Yes, we believe that.'”
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The Relationship Between Jesus and Lucifer in a Mormon Context
In a December 11, 2007 Associated Press article written by Libby Quaid, the question of whether or not Mormonism teaches that “Jesus and the devil are brothers” was addressed. In response to this inquiry, Quaid noted that a spokesperson for the LDS Church said such a “question is usually raised by those who wish to…
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Why No Crosses?
By Bill McKeever You may have noticed that Mormon temples are normally adorned with a golden angel rather than a cross. The fact is, crosses are never used on any Mormon buildings. Strangely enough, Mormon leaders have often pointed to the Garden of Gethsemane as the place where Christ’s atonement took place.
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The Law of Sacrifice as Opposed to Christ’s Perfect Sacrifice
Many scriptures remind us that our salvation has been purchased by the final, perfect sacrifice of Christ. However, in the article The Law of Sacrifice (Ensign, Oct 1998, pp. 6-13) LDS Apostle M. Russell Ballard reflects a different point of view – one more in keeping with the view that salvation must be earned. To…
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As God Is Man May Be?
By Bill McKeever