Mormons: Do you believe that God the Father sinned, or had the potential to?

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Hatikvah

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I’m asking this in light of the traditional Mormon doctrine of eternal progression, but do you believe (individually or collectively, I’m not sure whether there is a consensus) that God the Father sinned, or had the potential to sin?

I’m not trying to question this doctrine in writing this, but I’m curious about it. I’ve asked questions about eternal progression here before and got answers from both Mormons and non-Mormons, which was great.

Thanks! 👍
 
Hatikvah said:
I’m asking this in light of the traditional Mormon doctrine of eternal progression, but do you believe (individually or collectively, I’m not sure whether there is a consensus) that God the Father sinned, or had the potential to sin?

I’m not trying to question this doctrine in writing this, but I’m curious about it. I’ve asked questions about eternal progression here before and got answers from both Mormons and non-Mormons, which was great.

Thanks! 👍
Click to expand...
(My personal thoughts below)

Shrug Don’t know, don’t care. It’s of no consequence.
 
Generally, at least today, LDS believe that if Heavenly Father did live on an earth at some time, Heavenly Father was sinless in the same way that Jesus Christ was sinless while on earth.
 
In the Gospel Fundamentals manual, Chapter 36, we read:

"It will help us to remember that our Father in Heaven was once a man who lived on an earth, the same as we do. He became our Father in Heaven by overcoming problems, just as we have to do on this earth. However, the Prophet Joseph Smith said we will not learn everything we need to learn while in this world. It will take us a long time after we complete this life to know all the things we need to know in order to become like our Father in Heaven."
lds.org/manual/gospel-fundamentals/chapter-36-eternal-life?lang=eng

And of course in that same chapter is:

"To live in the highest part of the celestial kingdom is called exaltation or eternal life. To be able to live in this part of the celestial kingdom, people must have been married in the temple and must have kept the sacred promises they made in the temple. They will receive everything our Father in Heaven has and will become like Him. They will even be able to have spirit children and make new worlds for them to live on, and do all the things our Father in Heaven has done. People who are not married in the temple may live in other parts of the celestial kingdom, but they will not be exalted."*
 
Mormonism Research Ministry with Aaron Shafovaloff
mrm.org/god-never-sinned

What Kind of Sins did a Mormon God Once Perhaps Commit?

If our Heavenly Father (or any Heavenly Father in ultimate reality) was once perhaps a sinner, only sins which permanently disqualify or disable a person from achieving full Celestial exaltation unto godhood are sins that he absolutely never committed. Or to put it another way, any sin that doesn’t permanently disqualify or disable a person from achieving full Celestial exaltation unto godhood is a sin that a Heavenly Father in Mormonism may have committed. The only sins which traditional Mormonism says permanently disqualify or disable a person from achieving godhood are murder (some Mormons even limit this to post-temple-covenant murder) and blasphemy against the Holy Ghost.

Think about it. What are some sins that you find especially gross and heinous that a person can repent over unto Celestial exaltation and godhood? Those are the sins that the God of Mormonism may have committed, and those are sins that other Gods (either in the past ancestry of the Gods or the future lineage of Gods) may have committed. The Gods of Mormonism (including ours) may have one been involved in:

Adultery
Arrogance
Bestiality
Blasphemy
Bitterness
Bribery
Callousness
Child abuse
Coveting
Cowardice
Cruelty
Drunkenness
False prophecy
Gossip
Hatred
The practice of homosexuality
Idolatry
Laziness
Leading children astray
Lovelessness
Lust
Lying
Pedophilia
Pornography
Rape
Resentment
Spousal abuse
Stealing, ponzi schemes
Unfaithfulness
Unjustified anger
Violence
Voyuerism
Witchcraft
“What if I don’t care?”

“If the great things of religion are rightly understood, they will affect the heart. The reason why men are not affected by such infinitely great, important, glorious, and wonderful things, as they often hear and read of, in the word of God, is undoubtedly because they are blind; if they were not so, it would be impossible, and utterly inconsistent with human nature, that their hearts should be otherwise than strongly impressed, and greatly moved by such things.” – Jonathan Edwards

“But our church doesn’t have an official position on whether God the Father was a sinner.”

That is part of the very problem. Mormonism claims to be the most clear and bright beacon of doctrinal clarity, particularly on things that matter.** Yet Mormonism’s traditional worldview has fostered confusion on the most important thing in all of reality. Mormonism has historically taught, “As man is God once was, as God is man may be.”** (I was a Mormon for 22 years and I can testify that we were taught unequivocally that God used to be a man on another earth and that we had the capacity to progress on and become a God just like Our Heavenly Father, with our own worlds to populate and govern!)

. . .The traditional and majority Mormon view (to which Mormons lean, without definitively affirming) is that while Jesus is unique and special for obtaining godhood in pre-mortality and for living a mortal life sinlessly, Heavenly Father obtained godhood more like we can: he experienced a mortality replete with sin, yet still progressed unto exaltation and godhood. Some Mormon authors essentially appeal to this “one eternal round” as a point of comfort for members. Whether or not the Mormon institution has an official position on the issue, it still bears responsibility for letting such blasphemy persist among members. Individual Mormons still bear responsibility for acquiescing to the institution’s lack of repentance over the issue.

“I have never heard a Mormon Church leader teach that God was once a sinner.”

They don’t have to. What we are talking about here is a natural extension of the traditional Mormon worldview, a worldview that Mormon leaders are responsible for fostering and acquiescing to.

“This doesn’t really matter.”

Jesus Christ prayed to the Father, “this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3). Eternal life is to know God. Do you want to know God? Then it matters!
 
jane_doe said:
(My personal thoughts below)

Shrug Don’t know, don’t care. It’s of no consequence.
Click to expand...
Apparently your church thinks you should care and it does matter.

mrm.org/god-never-sinned

*“What if I don’t care?”

“If the great things of religion are rightly understood, they will affect the heart. The reason why men are not affected by such infinitely great, important, glorious, and wonderful things, as they often hear and read of, in the word of God, is undoubtedly because they are blind; if they were not so, it would be impossible, and utterly inconsistent with human nature, that their hearts should be otherwise than strongly impressed, and greatly moved by such things.” – Jonathan Edwards
*

*“But our church doesn’t have an official position on whether God the Father was a sinner.”

That is part of the very problem. Mormonism claims to be the most clear and bright beacon of doctrinal clarity, particularly on things that matter. Yet Mormonism’s traditional worldview has fostered confusion on the most important thing in all of reality. Mormonism has historically taught, “As man is God once was, as God is man may be.” The traditional and majority Mormon view (to which Mormons lean, without definitively affirming) is that while Jesus is unique and special for obtaining godhood in pre-mortality and for living a mortal life sinlessly, Heavenly Father obtained godhood more like we can: he experienced a mortality replete with sin, yet still progressed unto exaltation and godhood. Some Mormon authors essentially appeal to this “one eternal round” as a point of comfort for members. Whether or not the Mormon institution has an official position on the issue, it still bears responsibility for letting such blasphemy persist among members. Individual Mormons still bear responsibility for acquiescing to the institution’s lack of repentance over the issue.
*
*“This doesn’t really matter.”

Jesus Christ prayed to the Father, “this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3).** Eternal life is to know God. Do you want to know God? Then it matters.
These are comments found this site regarding an article. I’ve X’d out the names of the posters.
mormondna.org/mormon-beliefs/mormons-universe-started.html

*Posted by: XXXX on September 2, 2010 at 1:44 am
Follow up: Is God eternal? Can God sin according to mormon doctrine?
Thanks so much.

Posted by: XXXon September 2, 2010 at 4:27 am
Is God eternal?
Yes, he has always existed, and will always exist.
Can God sin according to mormon doctrine?
No, God is perfect and if he sinned he would cease to be God, assuming he could sin. He can’t, or rather, he never would, because if he ever would then he never would have become God in the first place.

Posted by: XXX on September 6, 2010 at 5:03 am
** I think you need to clarify that we believe God used to be a man like us, and that he progressed to his perfect state, which now precludes him from sinning**.

Posted by: XXX on September 6, 2010 at 5:43 am
So does that mean that God was once a sinner, but he can’t sin now?

Posted by: XXX on September 6, 2010 at 6:58 am
** In a sense. Of course he wasn’t “God” when he was a sinner, so in a way you can say God never was a sinner, and in a way you can say he was**.*
 
jane_doe said:
(My personal thoughts below)

Shrug Don’t know, don’t care. It’s of no consequence.
Click to expand...
Are you going to demonstrate that it’s not of any consequence?

On a related note, is there any such thing a Mormon systematic theology? You know – like a Mormon Summa Theologiae, or more generally some sort of Mormon scholasticism?
 
jane_doe said:
(My personal thoughts below)

Shrug Don’t know, don’t care. It’s of no consequence.
Click to expand...
God never sinned. It’s not a case of “Don’t know, don’t care.” God cannot ever sin. He is God. Mormon cosmology utterly distorts God. So much so that it seems as if Mormons worship a foreign god other than the one of Judaism and Christianity.
 
Anthony_V said:
Are you going to demonstrate that it’s not of any consequence?

On a related note, is there any such thing a Mormon systematic theology? You know – like a Mormon Summa Theologiae, or more generally some sort of Mormon scholasticism?
Click to expand...
No, they have ever changing doctrine and dogma.
 
jane_doe said:
God the Father is perfect, stated plainly in scripture.
Click to expand...
But the teaching of your church is that holy scripture (the bible) is fallible and the belief of it’s members is that God was once a man, like any other man, and they believe as a man God sinned.

Christians believe scripture is full & complete and without error. We also believe God has always been God, is holy, and incapable of sin. Up thread there are plenty of LDS sourced information what the LDS believe about God and his beginnings.
 
jane_doe said:
Short answer: no official one.
Click to expand...
No official systematic theology? That’s very difficult, in my view. I just don’t understand how theology – or even apologetics – can be done by mere ostension.

But you can be an official Mormon, right – it’s not just an ad hoc community? Presumably that involves adhering to official doctrines and going through official rituals. But, as it seems, there is no official, systematic explanation of those doctrines and rituals.

So, how would you officially defend such a position other than saying: “Here is a list of our official doctrines; they have no official explanation. You are free to officially take them or leave them”? We may as well flip official coins to determine membership.

While I may not agree with what I know about your doctrines, I would like to think that Mormonism is a bit more intelligible than that. Perhaps you are meaning the term “official” in a different way than I am. The Catechism, for example, has official explanations of various doctrines, but simply being an official explanation does not thereby make that explanation a doctrine. On the other hand, the variation on the first cause argument given by the lay apologist Joe Q. Public is probably not official in that same sense, because it is not part of the larger intellectual tradition of the Church.

(But pressing that further launches into another conversation concerning the development of doctrine:

The Development of Doctrine,Bl. John Henry Cardinal Newman)
 
Hatikvah said:
I’m asking this in light of the traditional Mormon doctrine of eternal progression, but do you believe (individually or collectively, I’m not sure whether there is a consensus) that God the Father sinned, or had the potential to sin?

I’m not trying to question this doctrine in writing this, but I’m curious about it. I’ve asked questions about eternal progression here before and got answers from both Mormons and non-Mormons, which was great.

Thanks! 👍
Click to expand...
The only point I’ll add to this thread is John 5:19 which states:

Jesus answered and said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, a son cannot do anything on his own, but only what he sees his father doing; for what he does, his son will do also.

This verse clearly offers the possibility of God the Father fulfilling a role as Savior in an earlier time living a sinless life among mortal beings, preaching truth, performing miracles, and atoning for their sins.
 
Anthony_V said:
No official systematic theology? That’s very difficult, in my view. I just don’t understand how theology – or even apologetics – can be done by mere ostension.
Click to expand...
I think I might have misunderstood your question before, for which I apologize. I shall try to remedy it with a more thorough answer here—

Before I thought you were asking if Mormons have something equivalent to the official CCC, to which the answer is no. But there is systematic theology, just no CCC. LDS epistemology differs somewhat Catholic, such as an open cannon, acknowledgment that there are things we do not know at this time, and stress on personally asking God for answers.
Anthony_V said:
But you can be an official Mormon, right – it’s not just an ad hoc community?
Click to expand...
Yes, there is an official LDS church, with official with official beliefs & doctrine, official membership, official rituals, etc.
 
Anthony_V said:
No official systematic theology? That’s very difficult, in my view. I just don’t understand how theology – or even apologetics – can be done by mere ostension.

But you can be an official Mormon, right – it’s not just an ad hoc community? Presumably that involves adhering to official doctrines and going through official rituals. But, as it seems, there is no official, systematic explanation of those doctrines and rituals.

So, how would you officially defend such a position other than saying: “Here is a list of our official doctrines; they have no official explanation. You are free to officially take them or leave them”? We may as well flip official coins to determine membership.

While I may not agree with what I know about your doctrines, I would like to think that Mormonism is a bit more intelligible than that. Perhaps you are meaning the term “official” in a different way than I am. The Catechism, for example, has official explanations of various doctrines, but simply being an official explanation does not thereby make that explanation a doctrine. On the other hand, the variation on the first cause argument given by the lay apologist Joe Q. Public is probably not official in that same sense, because it is not part of the larger intellectual tradition of the Church.

(But pressing that further launches into another conversation concerning the development of doctrine:

The Development of Doctrine, Bl. John Henry Cardinal Newman)
Click to expand...
It is both official and ad hoc. The LDS Church has authoritative teachings. Individual Mormons can believe very differently from one person to the next. Add in that the authoritative teachings change frequently, which adds to the diverse belief of individual Mormons.

There is no authoritative systematic theology in Mormonism. There have been close calls, with The Encyclopdia of Mormonism and “Mormon Doctrine”. For their most highly held practices and beliefs, found in their temples, there is absolutely no publication, let alone systematic theology. It’s very much what each person believes and builds on their own, within an authoritative framework.
 
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