LDS Mormons, who is Heavenly Father?

Ignatius the Kiwi said:

Well his indirect influence through the Holy Spirit. Since Heavenly Father is a man of flesh and bone as is limited in his location to where his body is, he has to command another entity (the Spirit) do the things he wants done on earth. So your analogy makes sense in that way I suppose. Although it was originally a Christian analogy.

Click to expand...

It was and I agree

Ignatius the Kiwi said:

Your view of God is certainly different from mine and not for the better I believe. I just want to comment on some of the key passages you have pointed out and that I have found within the discourse which tell us about this man called Heavenly Father.

“God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens!”

What does the particular phrase I’ve highlighted mean if Heavenly Father is not like us now in regards to all aspects? Let’s exclude sin, even though I think it a possibility, but add other points. Was God once like us in that we are weak, lacking supernatural ability, ignorant and the like? This statement of Joseph Smith’s is not a simile but a definitive statement concerning the ontology of God, he was once as we are now. We need only look at ourselves now then to see who God once was.

“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.”

Joseph Smith has the idea that God was not always who he is today. This is coherent with his previous connection between God being as we are today at a certain point in time.

“The first principles of man are self-existent with God. God found himself in the midst of spirits and glory, and because he was greater, he saw proper to institute laws whereby the rest could have the privilege of advancing like himself-“

I find this a curious statement, the sort of ultimate origin story of God. Is it wrong to ask where Heavenly Father’s body came from? Do Mormons believe that flesh and bone can appear ex nihilo or that out of the chaos of the random universe a body was formed (somehow) and an intelligence knowing about it, seized the opportunity and grafted itself to that body thus becoming the first God? This is akin to the myths of ancient antiquity in which the gods emerge out of chaos. If the cosmos (all reality) could produce a being like Heavenly Father seemingly out of the existent elements, why couldn’t it happen again?

Doctrines and Covenants 93:29 “Man was also in the beginning with God. Intelligence, or the light of truth, was not created or made, neither indeed can be.”

This only confirms what I said about God’s eternality not being such a big deal, since we are in effect all immortals who existed alongside each other. Yet it goes further and definitively refutes the idea that God is self-sufficient or all good. Not in that your God goes against what is good, but that he simply follows what is good, since a law of morality predated his mortal existence and constitutes an aspect of the cosmos he draws upon for his own personal deification rather than is good from the start.

The ultimate conclusion of these ideas concerning God in Mormonism would lead me to think that Heavenly Father is not necessary for salvation if Heavenly Father achieved his own deification on his own. He might help you achieve it quickly but since Heavenly Father was able to do it (if I am understanding you correctly) without any help, why do you need Heavenly Father at all? Because he said so?

Also, how do you know you have only one heavenly Mother? Your Prophets don't talk about her at all and we see in the case of Joseph Smith and many Old Testament saints that they were married to multiple women. Joseph Smith was even sealed to multiple women, will the multiple sealed marriages not carry over to the next life for Joseph Smith? Would it be wrong for Heavenly Father to have taken on many wives?

Click to expand...

*This is akin to the myths of ancient antiquity …..

I see the concept of an immaterial god as a huge myth! It’s a god which can wave his magic wand and poof there is whatever.

Our God is much more logical than that!


*Do Mormons believe that flesh and bone can appear ex nihilo

We do not believe in ex nihilo, we believe that all matter has always existed.

“All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.” John 1

We take that to mean there are things which are not made, they just are.

In the creation story it never says let there be water, the earth and the water are just there. Speaking science wise it was a closed system, and void of life. When God said let there be light he opened the system and life began.

The Hebrew word for create is bara and means to make fat, ya have some cattle you add some feed and you fatten them up. God fattened up the earth.

Biblical Hebrew E-Magazine


*The intelligence seems to be part of the elements of the universe mixed with the light of God. It has a personality, a will of its own and gender.

2 Cor 5
1 For we know that if our earthly house (our bodies) of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God (our spirits), an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
2 For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven: (the resurrection)

Note that the spirit is also called a house.

We believe God the Father takes an intelligence and places it into spirit matter, thus making him the Father of lights and spirits.

D&C 93
33 For man is spirit. The elements are eternal, and spirit and element, inseparably connected, receive a fulness of joy;
34 And when separated, man cannot receive a fulness of joy.
35 The elements are the tabernacle of God;…..

Jesus often called his body a temple . In Rev 21 it speaks of the New Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven.

“And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes..”

He can wipe away their tears because he has the hands to do it.

*You said; (somehow) and an intelligence knowing about it, seized the opportunity and grafted itself to that body thus becoming the first God?

I don’t know, that is a mystery for which the answer has not been given.

There are some who don’t believe there is a beginning but that it is an eternal round;

1Nephi 10
19 For he that diligently seeketh shall find; and the mysteries of God shall be unfolded unto them, by the power of the Holy Ghost, as well in these times as in times of old, and as well in times of old as in times to come; wherefore, the course of the Lord is one eternal round.


* You said; “Yet it goes further and definitively refutes the idea that God is self-sufficient ….”

Why must God be self-sufficient? Must be a very lonely god.

Eph 3
14 For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
15 Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named,

Families are interdependent, they need each other.

1 Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee:
2 As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him.

4 I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.
5 And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.
10 And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them.

The Father shares his glory with the Son who in tern gives his glory back, he then is glorified in us. We are interdependent.


*You said; Not in that your God goes against what is good, but that he simply follows what is good, since a law of morality predated his mortal existence and constitutes an aspect of the cosmos he draws upon for his own personal deification rather than is good from the start.

I’m afraid you lost me there.

*You also said ; The ultimate conclusion of these ideas concerning God in Mormonism would lead me to think that Heavenly Father is not necessary for salvation if Heavenly Father achieved his own deification on his own.

Heb 1
8 But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom.
9 Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity; therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.

As I said there does seem to be some greater intelligences which are God without having to go through what the rest of us do. For example we believe that children who die before the age of eight are perfect spirits, they don’t need to go through the trials of mortal life. All they needed was to gain a body.

*You asked; how do you know you have only one heavenly Mother?

I don’t know, one of those mysteries.

Phoebe Ann said:

Where did you read that?


You also must add in our belief that Jesus was Yahweh and a God before he walked upon the earth.

How did the Mormon Jesus earn his godhood? No one gets exalted without a physical body and a marriage for time and eternity; plus he had to do the work for his deceased ancestors.

Click to expand...

Less well understood, however, is the fact that God is an exalted man who once lived on an earth and underwent experiences of mortality. The Prophet Joseph Smith refers to this as “the great secret.” (Times and Seasons 5:613[15 Aug. 1844]. See also Joseph Smith, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 345.) The progression of our Father in heaven to godhood, or exaltation, was strictly in accordance with eternal principles, for he who is not able to abide the law of a celestial kingdom cannot abide a celestial glory.” (D&C 88:22.)
Achieving A Celestial Marriage Student Manual, p. 129

“Enter ye in at the strait gate: …” said our Lord, “because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.” (Matt. 7:13–14.)
Delbert L. Stapley, The Path to Eternal Life
The Path to Eternal Life - Ensign Jan. 1974 - ensign

Doctrine and Covenants 132
22 For strait is the gate, and narrow the way that leadeth unto the exaltation and continuation of the lives, and few there be that find it, because ye receive me not in the world neither do ye know me.


Therefore, my brothers and sisters, these conditions then meet the requirements for the narrowness of the way. It involves receiving the temple ordinances and sealings, keeping all the commandments of God, remaining faithful and devoted to the end of mortal life, which then earns the great gift of eternal life.

Nephi, Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, true servants and prophets of God, by inspiration and revelation have interpreted and explained the significance of this important statement of the Savior. All who have repented and then been baptized and received the Holy Ghost by authorized servants of God have entered in by the straight gate. The narrow way can only be followed by obedience and faithfulness to all the sacred ordinances and requirements of the higher gospel plan, obtained in the holy temples of God.

This is the true doctrine of Christ. This is the order and law of the Holy Priesthood. There is no other plan nor way to obtain eternal lives, and a continuation of posterity.
Delbert L. Stapley, Conference Report, April 1955, pp. 65-68
Conference Report


Doctrine and Covenants 128
18 I might have rendered a plainer translation to this, but it is sufficiently plain to suit my purpose as it stands. It is sufficient to know, in this case, that the earth will be smitten with a curse unless there is a welding link of some kind or other between the fathers and the children, upon some subject or other—and behold what is that subject? It is the baptism for the dead. For we without them cannot be made perfect; neither can they without us be made perfect. Neither can they nor we be made perfect without those who have died in the gospel also; for it is necessary in the ushering in of the dispensation of the fulness of times, which dispensation is now beginning to usher in, that a whole and complete and perfect union, and welding together of dispensations, and keys, and powers, and glories should take place, and be revealed from the days of Adam even to the present time. And not only this, but those things which never have been revealed from the foundation of the world, but have been kept hid from the wise and prudent, shall be revealed unto babes and sucklings in this, the dispensation of the fulness of times.

Click to expand...

How did the Mormon Jesus earn his godhood? No one gets exalted without a physical body and a marriage for time and eternity; plus he had to do the work for his deceased ancestors.

Click to expand...

You must have had a bitter experience with the Mormon church to be so vitriol. You also have just enough knowledge to be dangerous. The Mormon Jesus and the mainline Christian Jesus are the same person, but our 2 beliefs are a little bit different from each other. Our beliefs are bent toward the Jesus of the NT. Your beliefs are bent towards the Jesus of the Nicean Council.

Let's see what the NT Jesus is like, with a couple of interesting scriptures from the NT. Tell me what you think. But if you disagree, you will be making my point.

The biblical Jesus was perfecting himself, even as he was on his earthly ministry. See Hebrews 5:8
Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered.
(if Jesus was a 'perfected' God, he would not be learning anything. But the biblical Jesus had to 'learn' obedience, just like you and I.)

The biblical Jesus was perfecting himself, even as he was on his earthly ministry.
See Revelations 3:21
To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.
(if Jesus was a 'perfected' God, he would not have had to overcome anything. But the biblical Jesus had to 'overcome' the world, just like you and I.)

I know you will come back with a cute phrase that includes the word 'blasphemy', but just remember, every scripture that I quote you comes directly, word for word, out of our Holy Bible. If you don't believe me, your argument will be with the Holy Bible, not JS.

Ignatius the Kiwi said:

Does the Mormon hesitation to defend what Joseph Smith and other LDS prophets have said about the manhood of God represent LDS embarressment for what some of their teachers have said? How does claiming what Joseph Smith said to be true, speculation, help us understand Joseph Smith's idea concerning God? Does the LDS have a different understanding of who God is than Joseph Smith? This would be implied when Mormons call his ideas (which he says were guided by the Holy Spirit) speculation.

Click to expand...

To Mormons, God is an immortal and glorified Man.

Fill in this question, and let's see what you believe? God is an immortal and glorified ______________.

Phoebe Ann said:

Did Joseph Smith say,"as Jesus was"? Or did you make that up?

Click to expand...

How many times do I have to give the exact quote?

Here's the quote as used by the LDS church itself on its official website in order to explain Joseph Smith's teachings about God the Father. I don't see anything about Jesus in there.

"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 holds this world in its orbit, and 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. …"

You must have a different quote in mind. May we see it, please?

withwonderingawe said:

How many times do I have to give the exact quote?

Click to expand...

How about at least once? I don't see where you even gave "the exact quote" one time - because I don't see a quote that says "as Jesus was", other than your speculative statement.

Feel free to share the quote once and then another time or two before you become indignant towards those asking where you saw it.

ArmenianJohn said:

How about at least once? I don't see where you even gave "the exact quote" one time - because I don't see a quote that says "as Jesus was", other than your speculative statement.

Feel free to share the quote once and then another time or two before you become indignant towards those asking where you saw it.

Click to expand...

I think what is missing from your and other's understanding is our concept of just who man is, you fail to grasp the whole picture.

"First, God himself, who sits enthroned in yonder heaven, is a man like one of you. That is the great secret. If the veil were rent today and you were to see the great God who holds this world in its orbit and upholds all things by his power, you would see him in the image and very form of a man; for Adam was created in the very fashion and image of God. He received instruction from and walked, talked, and conversed with him as one man talks and communes with another.
......But it is the simple and first principle of the gospel-to know for a certainty the character of God, that we may converse with him as one man with another. God himself, the Father of us all, dwelt on an earth the same as Jesus Christ himself did, and I will show it from the Bible."

He then quotes John 5
"Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise. For the Father loveth the Son, and sheweth him all things that himself doeth: and he will shew him greater works than these, that ye may marvel. For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them; even so the Son quickeneth whom he will....For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself"

And he asks what did the Son do, why he died and was resurrected. From that passage and through revelation he developed the idea that Gods progress to full Godhood.


*There is another quote by Lorenzo Snow which I think gets confused with Joseph's. Snow felt it was given to him by God even before Joseph Smith taught it to him.

"As man is God once was as God is man may become"

Let me add here another quote from Snow (fifth president of the Church)

"We were born in the image of God our Father; he begat us like unto himself. There is the nature of deity in the composition of our spiritual organization; in our spiritual birth our Father transmitted to us the capabilities, powers and faculties which he himself possessed, as much so as the child on its mother’s bosom possesses, although in an undeveloped state, the faculties, powers and susceptibilities of its parent"

and now the Bible.
Ps 82: 6 I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High.
Mal 2 Have we not all one father? hath not one God created us?
Matt 5:48 Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.
John 20 Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.
Act 17 .....we are the offspring of God,
Rom 8:16 The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God
Eph 3:14 For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
15 Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named,
Eph 4 One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all.
Heb 12 shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits,

We are all spirit children of God and we have always existed. "As man is God once was..." God then is the eternally existing child of his Father with the nature of deity within him. He became a man as Jesus did and walked upon an earth like us.

In the BIBLE Jesus said on "the third day I shall be perfected."
and in Heb 5 it tells us
8 Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered;
9 And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him;

He was not perfect or thoroughly complete until the day of his resurrection, only then was he a perfect God with a perfect immortal body.

So yes we believe God walked the same path Jesus walked to receive his glory and exaltation from his Father, see John 5. However Jesus was always God in embryo. He unlike us was perfect in righteousness as was his Father before him and so in the time line of the Gods he was always God, the seeds of deity was always there.

Because we too are seeds of deity we have the potential to become as He is by bowing the knee to Jesus and following him. The sins which we have will be wiped away as if they did not exist in the first place and we will be perfected in him.

found this in the Ensign Feb 1982
"About ten years before his death, while serving as the President of the Quorum of the Twelve, President Snow incorporated his original couplet into a longer poem. He addressed the poem to the Apostle Paul, who had written the following to the Philippian Saints:
“Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:
“Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God.” (Philip. 2:5–6.)

Part of the poem reads:

The boy, like to his father grown,
Has but attained unto his own;
To grow to sire from state of son,
Is not ’gainst Nature’s course to run.
A son of God, like God to be,
Would not be robbing Deity.

Phoebe Ann said:

The true Triune God is the one revealed in the Bible and reiterated in the Nicene Creed that Joseph Smith deplored.

No, the Nicene Creed is biblical and you are rejecting it.

Click to expand...

Actually, Phoebe Ann, I have seen you and the other traditional Christian posters, and all the other Latter-day Saint posters go back and forth over this issue. Does the Nicene Creed represent what Jesus actually taught? Yes it does! No it doesn't! Yes it does! No it doesn't! Back and forth. I feel kind of like Joseph Smith said he did, hearing all these opinions. Everybody seems to make a certain amount of sense while s/he is talking; then the person who responds to her/him seems to make a certain amount of sense while s/he is talking. And on and on it goes. Wouldn't it be kind of nice if God would provide some way to know what His will really is regarding the Nicene Creed and other matters? Keep in mind that people like me have no understanding of what things meant in the original Greek or Hebrew. Although, even if I did, wouldn't it be nice if God would provide a way to know what His will really is regarding those matters, so that I don't have to put my faith in my ability to translate Greek or Hebrew?

John 17:1,3 New International Version (NIV)

After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed:

“Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you.

Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.


Who is to be believed? Jesus or you? The Bible or your pastors? The words of Jesus is sufficient, why won't you believe?

KevinSim said:

Actually, Phoebe Ann, I have seen you and the other traditional Christian posters, and all the other Latter-day Saint posters go back and forth over this issue. Does the Nicene Creed represent what Jesus actually taught? Yes it does! No it doesn't! Yes it does! No it doesn't! Back and forth. I feel kind of like Joseph Smith said he did, hearing all these opinions. Everybody seems to make a certain amount of sense while s/he is talking; then the person who responds to her/him seems to make a certain amount of sense while s/he is talking. And on and on it goes. Wouldn't it be kind of nice if God would provide some way to know what His will really is regarding the Nicene Creed and other matters? Keep in mind that people like me have no understanding of what things meant in the original Greek or Hebrew. Although, even if I did, wouldn't it be nice if God would provide a way to know what His will really is regarding those matters, so that I don't have to put my faith in my ability to translate Greek or Hebrew?

Click to expand...

We could look at providence and see the perseverance of one strain while others, Arianism, Montanism, Donatism and etc failed. One of these strains was the one which preserved the bible for us to read to day, it preached Christ to the ends of the world and only it has had a continual existence since the third century and that would be a Nicene theology.

In addition to withstanding the dead sects that Ignatius mentions above, it should also be noted that the Nicene Creed has withstood every schism that has happened subsequent to its initial drafting: at Ephesus (> Nestorians), at Chalcedon (> my own Oriental Orthodox communion), at the time of the so-called 'Great Schism' (> the Eastern/Western Chalcedonians, i.e., the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic churches), the proclamation of the 95 theses (> Protestants), etc. And not only did it withstand all of these, it did so in such a way that to this very day it still provides the very basics of what a Christian is to believe to every body that came out of one of these schisms, thereby providing them with a way to still recognize one another, at least in the most basic sense, as Christians. There is a reason, after all, why it functions as this very website's statement of faith, despite this website not professing any particular confessional or denominational allegiance. The Nicene Creed really is probably the one commonality that all who are Christian share, at least if we are looking at explicit statements of doctrine, rather than how this or that particular church or communion developed in its particular expression of some truth (read: other commonalities, e.g., the veneration of the cross, are still there, but I would argue that there is quite a bit of distance between the Roman Catholic approach to it as outlined in their post-schism hymns like "Stabat Mater" and hymns of the Eastern Orthodox like "Today is hung upon the tree" or the Oriental Orthodox like "We prostrate before the cross").

Phoebe Ann said:

The Mormon "Heavenly Father," an exalted man of flesh and bones, and one of his wives had spirit children without any flesh and bones. How logical is that?

Click to expand...

How logical is an immaterial substance?

withwonderingawe said:

How logical is an immaterial substance?

Click to expand...

Quite logical. You make your argument for materialism but there isn't anything intrinsically illogical about supposing an existence that goes beyond our finite comprehension, an immaterial world or being.