On November 9th (2007) an article by Mathew N. Schmalz appeared in Commonweal Magazine. The article, titled “Meet the Mormons: From Margin to Mainstream,” discussed some interesting aspects of Mormonism, from Kolob to BYU. But one comment really caught my attention:

“Smith’s vision of the afterlife was also distinctive. It foresaw a place divided into three levels: the ‘celestial kingdom,’ for faithful Mormons and those who receive the full gospel of Jesus Christ in the hereafter; the ‘terrestrial kingdom,’ for less faithful Mormons and righteous non-Mormon ‘Gentiles’; and the ‘telestial kingdom,’ for murderers, adulterers, and apostates. In this tripartite scheme, those in the celestial kingdom labor to achieve ‘exaltation.’ Some Mormon prophets and theologians have speculated that those who attain exaltation become gods of their own planets and give birth to spirit children who pass from preexistence through corporeal life to the afterlife.”

Is this basic definition of the LDS doctrine of exaltation merely “speculation” from LDS prophets and theologians? Take a look at the teachings of LDS authorities throughout much of the history of the Mormon Church:

• “Each God, through his wife or wives, raises up a numerous family of sons and daughters; indeed, there will be no end to the increase of his own children: for each father and mother will be in a condition to multiply forever and ever. As soon as each God has begotten many millions of male and female spirits, and his Heavenly inheritance becomes too small, to comfortably accommodate his great family, he, in connection with his sons, organizes a new world, after a similar order to the one which we now inhabit, where he sends both the male and female spirits to inhabit tabernacles of flesh and bones. Thus each God forms a world for the accommodation of his own sons and daughters who are sent forth in their times and seasons, and generations to be born into the same. The inhabitants of each world are required to reverence, adore, and worship their own personal father who dwells in the Heaven which they formerly inhabited.” (Apostle Orson Pratt, The Seer, 37, March 1853)

• “Having fought the good fight we then shall be prepared to lay our bodies down to rest to await the morning of the resurrection when they will come forth and be reunited with the spirits, the faithful, as it is said, receiving crowns, glory, immortality and eternal lives, even a fullness with the Father, …Then will they become gods, even the sons of God; then will they become eternal fathers, eternal mothers, eternal sons and eternal daughters; being eternal in their organization, they go from glory to glory, from power to power; they will never cease to increase and to multiply, worlds without end. When they receive their crowns, their dominions, they then will be prepared to frame earths like unto ours and to people them in the same manner as we have been brought forth by our parents, by our Father and God.” (Second LDS Prophet Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 18:259, October 8, 1876)

• “We are the offspring of God, born with the same faculties and powers as He possesses, capable of enlargement through the experience that we are now passing through in our second estate… He has begotten us in His own image. He has given us faculties and powers that are capable of enlargement until His fullness is reached which He has promised — until we shall sit upon thrones, governing and controlling our posterity from eternity to eternity, and increasing eternally.” (Apostle Lorenzo Snow, Millennial Star 56:772, October 5, 1894)

• “So far as the stages of eternal progression and attainment have been made known through divine revelation, we are to understand that only resurrected and glorified beings can become parents of spirit offspring. Only such exalted souls have reached maturity in the appointed course of eternal life; and the spirits born to them in the eternal worlds will pass in due sequence through the several stages or estates by which the glorified parents have attained exaltation.” (A Doctrinal Exposition by the First Presidency [Joseph F. Smith, Anthon H. Lund, Charles W. Penrose] and the Twelve, “The Father and the Son,” Improvement Era, June 1916, 942, quoted in Achieving a Celestial Marriage Student Manual, 131, 1976)

• “What do we mean by endless or eternal increase? We mean that through the righteousness and faithfulness of men and women who keep the commandments of God they will come forth with celestial bodies, fitted and prepared to enter into their great, high and eternal glory in the celestial kingdom of God; and unto them, through their preparation, there will come children, who will be spirit children. I don’t think that is very difficult to comprehend and understand” (Apostle Melvin J. Ballard, Three Degrees of Glory, 10, 1922).

• “An essential requirement for exaltation is celestial marriage, for exaltation depends upon the continuation of the family in eternity and the power to populate other worlds as our Father did this one.” (Principles of the Gospel, published by the LDS Church, 1976)

• “The Father has promised us that through our faithfulness we shall be blessed with the fullness 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 fullness 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.” (Apostle Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation 2:48, quoted in Achieving a Celestial Marriage Student Manual, 132, 1976)

• “Exalted parents are to their children as our Eternal Parents are to us. Eternal increase, a continuation of the seeds forever and ever, eternal lives — these comprise the eternal family of those who gain eternal life. For them new earths are created, and thus the on-rolling purposes of the Gods of Heaven go forward from eternity to eternity.” (Apostle Bruce R. McConkie, The Millennial Messiah, 23, 1982)

With prophets, apostles, a Church-produced student manual and a doctrinal exposition by the First Presidency and the Twelve of the LDS Church all teaching “that those who attain exaltation become gods of their own planets and give birth to spirit children who pass from preexistence through corporeal life to the afterlife,” I wonder how the Commonweal Magazine journalist came to think of this foundational LDS doctrine as “speculative.”