As of today there are at least five different positions in the Latter-day Saint tradition on divine ancestry and the regress of gods.
Infinite regress: Every divine son has a divine father, and every divine father is also a divine son.
Indefinite regress: Our divine father is a divine son to another divine father, but we do not know whether that ancestry is infinite.
Finite regress: Our divine father is a divine son to another divine father, but this regress terminates on the first of all divine fathers, who emerged as the first god.
Agnosticism over regress: We do not know if our divine father is a divine son to another divine father.
Denial of regress: Our divine father is not himself a divine son to another divine father.
Dominant view and modern dissonance
“The notion maintained by many early Mormon leaders”
Blake Ostler (2001):
“The Lectures on Faith are inconsistent with the notion maintained by many early Mormon leaders that the God whom we worship has a Father, and this Father of God also has a Father and so on ad infinitum.”1
What “almost all Mormons believed”
Blake Ostler (2008):
“I believe that until recently almost all Mormons believed that Joseph Smith taught that God progressed to become fully divine from a lower state of non-divinity. Thus, it was believed that God the Father became God; before that, he was something less than God. During the eternal time period before which he was ‘God,’ or fully divine, he worshipped and was subject to another God, who was more ultimate than he was.”2
What “Mormons commonly believe”
Blake Ostler (2005):
“I believe that Mormons commonly believe that God the Father became God through a process of moral development and eternal progression to Godhood. The corollary of this view is that there was a time before which God the Father was a god or divine.”3
Present-day dissonance
Blake Ostler (2008):
“There still remains some dissonance regarding several issues related to the status of the head God. These issues include: (1) whether the God and Father of Jesus Christ is a supreme God in some sense—a Most High God who is the God of all other gods; (2) whether the Father is just one in an infinite hierarchy of gods and thus not a head God or God of gods; and (3) whether this head God is in fact the God and Father of Jesus Christ or some other divine figure altogether. The alternative to the view that the Father is the head God, who is the supreme God of all other Gods, is the view that the Father was merely appointed to become one of the head gods and that there are, logically, Gods more supreme and ultimate than the Father.”4
Infinite regress
Orson Pratt (1853):
“We were begotten by our Father in Heaven; the person of our Father in Heaven was begotten on a previous heavenly world by His Father; and again, He was begotten by a still more ancient Father; and so on, from generation to generation, from one heavenly world to another still more ancient, until our minds are wearied and lost in the multiplicity of generations and successive worlds, and as a last resort, we wonder, in our minds, how far back the genealogy extends, and how the first world was formed, and the first father was begotten. But why does man seek for a first, when revelation informs him that God’s works are without beginning? Do you still seek for a first link where the chain is endless? Can you conceive of a first year in endless duration? Can you grasp within your comprehension the first mile in an endless right line? All these things you will readily acknowledge have no first: why, then, do you seek for a first personal Father in an endless genealogy? or for a first effect in an endless succession of effects?”5
Though this quote by Pratt promotes an infinite regress, elsewhere Pratt surmised a first deity (see below).
Brigham Young (1854):
“I believe the gods never had a beginning, neither the formation of matter, and it is without end; it will endure in one eternal round… Consequently, when you hear philosophers argue the point how the first god came, how intelligence came, how worlds came, and how angels came, they are talking about that which is beyond their conception; about that which never was, and never will be[,] worlds without end. It manifests their folly. It shows they know nothing of such matters; and if they do know some things they have a right to know, there are things they have no right to know; this applies to all classes of mankind.”6
Heber C. Kimball (1857):
“We must be grafted into the true vine, and continue to partake of its fatness, and then we shall go back to our Father and God, who is connected with one who is still farther back; and this Father is connected with one still further back, and so on…”7
Brigham Young (1859):
“He is our Father—the Father of our spirits, and was once a man in mortal flesh as we are, and is now an exalted Being. How many Gods there are, I do not know. But there never was a time when there were not Gods and worlds, and when men were not passing through the same ordeals that we are now passing through. That course has been from all eternity, and it is and will be to all eternity. You cannot comprehend this; but when you can, it will be to you a matter of great consolation.”8
B. H. Roberts (1895):
“The Prophet Joseph Smith corrected the idea that God that now is was always God… But if God the Father was not always God, but came to his present exalted position by degrees of progress as indicated in the teachings of the prophet, how has there been a God from all eternity? The answer is that there has been and there now exists an endless line of Gods, stretching back into the eternities, that had no beginning and will have no end. Their existence runs parallel with endless duration, and their dominions are as limitless as boundless space.”9
B. H. Roberts (1933):
“Of course, such views as those expressed above involve us in the reality of a pluralistic universe, and a plurality of Gods; but the once terrifying horror of being open to such a charge as this has passed away now, in the new knowledge we have of the immensity of the universe and the localization of the revelations to man and his world. Indeed, it is held by some philosophical writers that the universe has outgrown God, at least as conceived in orthodox Christianity…
“All this, however—this extent and splendor of the universe—does not hinder the consistent conception that there have been appointed certain exalted, glorified and perfected intelligences, who have attained unto a participation in, and become partakers of “the Divine Nature” (II Peter i:4), who have been appointed as Presidencies over worlds and world systems who function in the dignity of Divine Intelligences, or Deities. Even as to our world and its heavens there has been appointed a Godhead, as taught by St. Paul…
“As in our earth and its heaven so in other worlds and world systems, there are doubtless appointed other Divine Councils that function in like capacity, or Godheads or Holy Trinities. Moreover, it is not inconsistent with Divine procedure to appoint intelligences to be Gods even on this world, and in this our mortal life…
“Thus exalted intelligences who have become “partakers in the one Divine Nature,” being united in brotherhood with others of like nature may be regarded as available for assignments to presiding stations among the Presiding Intelligences of the universes of the Gods—the sons of Gods, to preside in worlds or systems of worlds as may be required. This by the process marked off by our scripture lesson of this discourse in which we witness the Christ praying, namely, that he might be made One with God, the Father; that His Apostles might be made one with Him, as he and the Father were ONE. Neither did His prayer end there; but He prayed that those who became disciples of the Apostles—believers—might become one with them as they were with the Christ and Christ with God, the Father. “That they all might be one as Thou Father art in Me, and I in Thee, that they may be one in US. . . . I in them, Thou in Me, that they may be made perfect in One, that the world may know that Thou hast sent Me, and hast loved them as Thou hast loved Me.” All these that are thus united in one will have become partakers of the One Divine Nature—the God Nature. Of such are the Brotherhood of Intelligences of the Universe, the redeemed of celestial worlds. Of such may be chosen sons to preside as Deities over worlds and world systems as the Gods of eternity may determine or appoint. Therefore, let the universe be as extended and splendid as scientists or prophets conceive it to be, yet its extent and grandeur is paralleled by the glory of the Brotherhood of Exalted Intelligences everywhere governing within it, either in separate worlds or world groups, as a reign of law may determine. Splendid, I say, as the material universe may be, it has not outgrown the universe of “Mind” incarnated in the Personal Intelligences that hold all this manifest glory and awe-inspiring power in balance, giving direction and purpose to the whole. That the Church of the New Dispensation is officially committed to such a conception of the Gods of eternity as this, is evident from an official action in a signed document by the First Presidency of the Church and of the Apostles of the year 1865.” (emphasis in the original)10
LDS scholar Matthew Bowman on the teaching of Joseph Smith and many subsequent LDS leaders (2021):
“In a funeral sermon popularly known as the ‘King Follett Discourse,’ Smith offered a series of statements that seemed to indicate that God had once been a man like human men and had progressed to achieve Godhood and that this was to be also the fate of his listeners… In both this sermon and the so-called ‘Sermon in the Grove,’ preached two months later, Smith extended these ideas, teaching that there were generations of gods extending backward into eternity…
“Throughout the nineteenth century, many Church leaders embraced the notion that God had achieved godhood through a process of maturation, learning, and growth… Young took Smith’s meaning at its most frank, imagining a long chain of divine parents…
“For the Apostles James E. Talmage and John A. Widtsoe and the Seventy B. H. Roberts… it made much sense that God became God the same way that species evolved, through effort and education, and for thinkers influenced by Spencerian-modified Darwinism, Young’s emphasis on inheritance and lineage seemed appropriate.”11
LDS philosopher Joseph Lawal on a common LDS belief (2021):
“I think most people who think God is an exalted man actually think there is an infinite regress of Gods, so there was no first.”12
LDS apologist Hayden Carroll (2022):
“I take the more… traditional LDS view of: God was once a man, and that there is a never-ending line of deities who have become what they are today.”13
LDS scholar Stephen O. Smoot (2025):
“Infinite regress… has been the dominate [sic] reading of the sermon since Brigham Young. Both of these are theological inferences based on teachings in the KFD. I happen to think the infinite regress reading is probably the most logical reading of the sermon…”14
Indefinite regress
In these quotes some regress is indicated, but the extent of regress is not specified.
Orson Hyde (1853):
“God, our heavenly Father, was perhaps once a child, and mortal like we ourselves, and rose step by step in the scale of progress, in the school of advancement.”15
John Taylor (1874):
“The principles that we believe in reach back into eternity. They originated with the Gods in the eternal worlds, and they reach forward to the eternities that are to come. We feel that we are operating with God in connection with those who were, with those who are, and with those who are to come.”16
Charles Penrose (1884):
“But, if God is an individual spirit and dwells in a body, the question will arise, ‘Is He the Eternal Father?’ Yes, He is the Eternal Father. ‘Is it a fact that He never had a beginning?’ In the elementary particles of His organism, He did not. But if He is an organized Being, there must have been a time when that being was organized. This, some one will say, would infer that God had a beginning. This spirit which pervades all things, which is the light and life of all things, by which our heavenly Father operates, by which He is omnipotent, never had a beginning and never will have an end. It is the light of truth; it is the spirit of intelligence…”
“He is the perfect embodiment and expression of the eternal principles of right. He has won that position by His own exertions, by His own faithfulness, by His own righteousness. Jesus Christ, the only begotten son of God in the flesh, but His firstborn in the spirit, has climbed His way up in a similar manner.”16
Joseph F. Smith (1884):
“God has a tabernacle of flesh and bone. He is an organized being just as we are, who are now in the flesh…
“We must go through the same ordeal in order to attain to the glory and exaltation which God designed we should enjoy with him in the eternal worlds. In other words, we must become like Him; peradventure to sit upon thrones, to have dominion, power, and eternal increase…
“We are precisely in the same condition and under the same circumstances that God our Heavenly Father was when He was passing through this or a similar ordeal.”17
James Talmage (1899):
“We believe in a God who is Himself progressive, whose majesty is intelligence; whose perfection consists in eternal advancement; the perpetual work of whose creation stands ‘finished, yet renewed forever;’—a Being who has attained His exalted state by a path which now His children are permitted to follow; whose glory it is their heritage to share. In spite of the opposition of all other sects, in the face of direct charges of blasphemy, the Church proclaims the eternal truth, ‘As man is, God once was; as God is, man may become.’”18
Nels L. Nelson (1904):
“Since by this conception He is made to be- long to the same order of beings as Christ, His Son, — the same order, indeed, as man himself, — and must consequently have attained to Godhood or creative power, it becomes a pertinent question to consider how He reached such divine sovereignty, (i ) Was He elected to the supreme place ? Election may confer dominion, — it cannot add an iota to native ability ; but is not dominion part of divine supremacy? (2) Was Godhood conferred upon Him? Ordination may give place and opportunity, — it cannot give creative power. But are not place and opportunity vital relations in creative power? (3) Did He attain to Godhood by the gradual development of powers inherent in His very being?”
“Whatever the answer shall be to these questions, one thing may be absolutely predicated on the start: He is God primarily by reason of supreme fitness; for Godhood, being omnipotence or the power to create in harmony with the infinite unity of the universe, is a thing, like brains, not conferrable by authority nor purchasable by money or influence. A being has either attained to this power, or he has not attained to it, by native self-effort. The universe itself could not give it to any man. A sufficient general answer, therefore, would be that God became God because He fulfilled the law of becoming perfect as His Father in heaven was perfect; or, in the terms of science, because He fulfilled the supreme requirements of psychic evolution.”19
Lycurgus A. Wilson (1905):
“As to the personage meant, one may say, There are many Gods, an almost endless chain of creators; to which one does the Prophet refer? We are not left in doubt, for he explains: “If the vail were rent today, and the great God, who holds this world in its orbit, and who upholds all worlds and all things by His power, were to make Himself visible,—I say, if you were to see Him today, you would see Him like a man in form.” And further: “My object is to find out the character of the only wise and true God, and what kind of a being He is.” With these prefatory remarks, the Prophet Joseph proceeds to tell how God came to be God, in what must appeal to one as among the divinest words ever uttered…
“Whether or not, in the vast eternities preceding the creation of Kolob, other plans had been tried and found wanting, we are not told; but the fact that, as the Prophet Joseph tells us, God “worked out His Kingdom with fear and trembling,” would indicate that He had seen many failures.”20
John A. Widtsoe (1915):
“We may be certain that, through self-effort, the inherent and innate powers of God have been developed to a God-like degree. Thus, he became God . . . attained by the use of his power in simple obedience to the laws he discovered as he grew in experience.”21
Joseph F. Smith (1919):
“The man who passes through this probation, and is faithful, being redeemed from sin by the blood of Christ, through the ordinances of the gospel, and attains to exaltation…
“The resurrected, righteous man has progressed beyond the pre-existent or disembodied spirits, and has risen above them, having both spirit and body as Christ has, having gained the victory over death and the grave, and having power over sin and Satan; in fact, having passed from the condition of the angels to that of a God. He possesses keys of power, dominion and glory that the angel does not possess—and cannot possess without gaining them in the same way that he gained them, which will be by passing through the same ordeals and proving equally faithful.”22
Milton R. Hunter (1945):
“How did the Eternal Father become God? . . . He became God by absolute obedience to all the eternal laws of the Gospel – by conforming His actions to all truth, and thereby became the author of eternal truth. Therefore, the road that the Eternal father followed to Godhood was one of living at all times a dynamic, industrious, and completely righteous life. There is no other way to exaltation.”23
Heber Snell’s conversation (~1951-52) with Joseph Fielding Smith as recounted (1986) by Sterling McMurrin:
“He raised a question with Joseph Fielding as to how he, Apostle Smith, could regard God as an absolute being in every sense of the word. (He used the word “absolute,” and Joseph Fielding [k]new what he meant. I could tell in his reply he knew roughly at least what Snell meant by “absolute.”) and still hold as he did that God used to be like we are now, and that he had to go through a process of schooling and progress up to the point of becoming a God. Snell said, “How can you reconcile these two things?” Joseph Fielding’s answer, I thought, was marvelous. He said, “God was,”–and he used the word “relative.” “God was a relative being just like we are now up until the moment that he became God, and then he became an absolute being.”24
Joseph Fielding Smith (1954):
“God is an exalted Man… The Prophet taught that our Father had a Father and so on.”25
Bruce McConkie (1958):
“Further, as the Prophet also taught, there is ‘a God above the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”26
Achieving a Celestial Marriage (LDS manual published in 1976 and 1992):
“Our Father in heaven was once a man as we are now, capable of physical death. By obedience to eternal gospel principles, he progressed from one stage of life to another until he attained the state we call exaltation or godhood. In such a condition, he and our mother in heaven were empowered to give birth to spirit children whose potential was equal to that of their heavenly parents…”
Robert L. Millet and Joseph Fielding McConkie (1986):
“Our Father’s development and progression over an infinitely long period of time has brought him to a point at which he now presides as God Almighty, He who is omnipotent, omniscient, and, by means of his Holy Spirit, omnipresent: he has all power, all knowledge, and is, through the light of Christ, in and through all things.”27
Finite regress
Wilford Woodruff records on June 26, 1847 a conversation with Orson Pratt:
“Then the question arose how did God receive his present formation? The Answer given by Professor Pratt was sumthing in the following language:
“He sayes I throw out my Ideas not as doctrin but for you to look at. You know when A Chemist goes to work to Analize or try new experiments they often have to try many times before they put a thing perfect & take certain processes which are unnecessary an are afterward laid aside And pursue the most perfect Course that can be [pursu]ed. It may reasonably have been the case with the first being [form]ed which may be Called God. As eternity was filled as it were with particles of intelligence who had there Agency, two of these particles in process of time might have joined their interest together exchanged ideas found by persueing this course that they gained [double?] strength to what one particle or intelligence would have & afterwards were joined by other particles & continued untill they formed A combination or body though through a long process.
“Yet they had power over other intelligences in consequence of their combination, organization & strength And in the process of time this being body or God seeing the Advantage of such an organization desires company or A companion and Having some experience goes to work & organizes other beings by prevailing intelligences to come to getehr & may form sumthing better than at first. And After trials of this kind & the most perfect way sought ought it was found to be the most expeditious & best way to receive there formations or bodies either spiritual or temporal through a womb.”28
Agnosticism over regress
Casey Paul Griffiths (2024):
“If God was once a man, do we know the planet that God lived on? No. Do we know if he was a good kid in high school or a bad kid in high school? Do we know if he had a mother or father — is there a Heavenly Grandpa? Which would be awesome. If there’s a Heavenly Grandpa I’m first in line to give Heavenly Grandpa a hug.”29
Denial of regress
Blake Ostler (2006):
“While Joseph Smith did not have such a view of an eternal chain of gods, it appears to me that Brigham Young did. However, it seems to me that his view of the chain of gods is tied up in his Adam-God theology and ought to be rejected as unsound doctrine by Latter-day Saints.”30
Travis Anderson (2020):
“Aaron is often relying on the Doctrinal (sic) ignorance of those he interviews. He never presents King Follett in an accurate and complete context and draws conclusions our theology can’t support. For example, that God was not God at some point in the past. The reality as we see in the Hebrew texts and such texts as Ether, specifically Ch 3., is God’s (sic) have their Godhood bestowed before they become mortals… [The] regression of Gods idea is flawed for a number of reasons, among them being it is rejected by most scripture.”31
Other
This 1854 quote by Brigham Young may be about Adam-God, and not the regress of gods.
“You will not dispute the words of the Apostle, that he is actually the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the father of our spirits. You may add these words to it or let it alone, it is all the same to me: that he is not only the father of our spirits, but also of our flesh, he being the founder of that natural machinery trough which we have all obtained our bodies. Do you wish me to simplify it? Could you have a father without having a grandfather? or a grandfather without having a great-grandfather? … Does this unlock to your understandings how the Lord Almighty is our natural father? He set the great machine to working. If you cannot see this truth now, you will if you are faithful and patient.”32
References
Blake T. Ostler, Exploring Mormon Thought: Volume 1, The Attributes of God (Salt Lake City, UT: Greg Kofford Books, 2001), 15. ↩︎
Blake T. Ostler. Exploring Mormon Thought: Volume 3: Of God and Gods. Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2008, 23-24. ↩︎
Blake Ostler, “Re-vision-ing the Mormon Concept of Deity”, Spring 2005 in Element: The Journal of the Society for Mormon Philosophy and Theology. Link. ↩︎
Blake T. Ostler. Exploring Mormon Thought: Volume 3: Of God and Gods. Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2008, 24. ↩︎
The Seer, page 132. Link. Quoted by Matthew B. Brown in The Plan of Salvation, p. 9. Covenant Communications. January 2007. ↩︎
Brigham Young, “For This is Life Eternal” (October 8, 1854). Link. ↩︎
Heber C. Kimball, “Temple and Endowments, Etc.”, Journal of Discourses, vol. 5, p. 19, April 6, 1857. Link. ↩︎
Brigham Young, “Progress in Knowledge, Etc.”, Journal of Discourses, vol. 7, pp. 333, October 8, 1859. Link. Quoted by Turner, Rodney. “A Discussion of Lectures 3 and 4: The Imperative and Unchanging Nature of God.” In The Lectures on Faith in Historical Perspective, edited by Larry E. Dahl and Charles D. Tate Jr., 199–220. Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1990. Link. ↩︎
Roberts, B. H. In A New Witness for God, chapter 30. Salt Lake City: George Q. Cannon & Sons Company, 1895. Google Books. Project Gutenberg. ↩︎
B. H. Roberts, Salt Lake City Tabernacle, Sunday, January 23, 1932. Published in Discourses of B.H. Roberts of the First Council of the Seventy (Salt Lake City: Deseret Press, 1948), 93–94. Link. ↩︎
Bowman, Matthew (2021) “What Is the Nature of God’s Progress?,” BYU Studies Quarterly: Vol. 60: Iss. 3, Article 6. Link. ↩︎
Mar 7, 2021 post on X. Accessed March 20, 2025. Link. ↩︎
Caroll, Haydon. “Theology Talk Ep 1: Has God Always Been God? Blake Ostler Says Yes.” 5:26-5:41. Link. ↩︎
Comment in “The Calvary”, a Facebook group for LDS Missionaries. March 3, 2025. Accessed March 3, 2025. Link. Screenshot. ↩︎
Orson Hyde, in Journal of Discourses, 26 vols. (Liverpool: F. D. Richards, 1855–86), 1:123 (October 1853). Link. ↩︎
John Taylor, “Destruction of the Wicked, Etc.”, Journal of Discourses, vol. 17, pp. 206, October 7, 1874. Link. ↩︎
February 17th, 1884, Journal of Discourses 25:58. ↩︎
James Talmage, Articles of Faith, p. 430. Link. James E. Faulconer and Susannah Morrison write, “God’s progress to godhood is taught without reservation in James Talmage’s Articles of Faith.” (“The King Follett Discourse: Pinnacle or Peripheral?”, link). ↩︎
Nelson, Nels L., Scientific Aspects of Mormonism Or Religion in Terms of Life, 1904. Link. See chapter on mrm.org here. ↩︎
Wilson, Lycurgus A., Outlines of Mormon Philosophy or The Answers Given by the Gospel, as Revealed Through the Prophet Joseph Smith, to the Questions of Life, 1905. Link. ↩︎
Robert L. Millet and Joseph Fielding McConkie, The Life Beyond (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1986), 148–49. ↩︎
Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, Vol. 3, pp. 216-217. See also “Each Atom an Agent?”, by Steven L. Peck. Link. ↩︎
“BYU prof. unpacks radical truths of King Follett Discourse”, 26:41. December 6, 2024. Accessed March 18, 2025. Link. ↩︎
Blake T. Ostler, Exploring Mormon Thought, vol. 2: The Problems of Theism and the Love of God (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2006), p. 444, footnote 28. ↩︎
Quoted by Robert Boylan in “Travis Anderson on God the Father Never Having Sinned and Never Having Been a Salvific Saviour Figure.” July 27, 2020. Accessed March 20, 2025. Link. Travis is referring to the God Never Sinned interviews with Latter-day Saints. ↩︎
Brigham Young, sermon, October 8, 1854, MS D1234, Addresses, 1854, July–October, Brigham Young Papers, Church History Library and Archives, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City. Link. ↩︎
Yes, God the Father does have a Father (May 25, 2006) – a discussion between Geoff Johnston and others with Blake Ostler, who rejects the traditional LDS reading of the King Follett Discourse and Sermon in the Grove
You must be logged in to post a comment.