Mormons: Question about God the Father

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ChristIsTheWay

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“As man now is, God once was, and as God now is, man may become.”

In my attempt to better understand this position, I’ve looked at Mormon apologetic material on the web. From what I can gather, most Mormons believe this means that God was at one time the same as your average Joe. By obeying the principles set forth by his Heavenly Father, he was exalted to godhood and became our Heavenly Father. There is a sort of infinite regress of Heavenly Fathers, begetting spirit children, exalting some, who then continue this process.

I found an alternative explanation that went like this: God the Father has always been God and He had no Heavenly Father. When Lorenzo Snow said “as man now is, God once was, and as God now is, man may become,” it could be interpreted as meaning that God the Father underwent a mortal experience. It would have been like when Jesus Christ took on a mortal body. In this sense, God was God before this experience and has always been so. In this sense, God is unchanging in that He is always God but He does (or did) undergo physical changes.

Following this line of reasoning, it does not necessarily follow that when some humans are exalted to godhood, that this will one day entail becoming “heavenly fathers” in their own unique creations.

My question is, is this alternative understanding permissible in the Mormon Church and how many Mormons might be proponents of it?

Here is a link to the article that explained it: en.fairmormon.org/Mormonism_and_the_nature_of_God/Infinite_regress_of_Gods

I hope I have been accurate in presenting this information. I apologize for any errors or misunderstanding. Thanks for any help you can provide.
 
ChristIsTheWay said:
“As man now is, God once was, and as God now is, man may become.”

In my attempt to better understand this position, I’ve looked at Mormon apologetic material on the web. From what I can gather, most Mormons believe this means that God was at one time the same as your average Joe. By obeying the principles set forth by his Heavenly Father, he was exalted to godhood and became our Heavenly Father. There is a sort of infinite regress of Heavenly Fathers, begetting spirit children, exalting some, who then continue this process.

I found an alternative explanation that went like this: God the Father has always been God and He had no Heavenly Father. When Lorenzo Snow said “as man now is, God once was, and as God now is, man may become,” it could be interpreted as meaning that God the Father underwent a mortal experience. It would have been like when Jesus Christ took on a mortal body. In this sense, God was God before this experience and has always been so. In this sense, God is unchanging in that He is always God but He does (or did) undergo physical changes.

Following this line of reasoning, it does not necessarily follow that when some humans are exalted to godhood, that this will one day entail becoming “heavenly fathers” in their own unique creations.

My question is, is this alternative understanding permissible in the Mormon Church and how many Mormons might be proponents of it?

Here is a link to the article that explained it: en.fairmormon.org/Mormonism_and_the_nature_of_God/Infinite_regress_of_Gods

I hope I have been accurate in presenting this information. I apologize for any errors or misunderstanding. Thanks for any help you can provide.
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You haven’t misunderstood or presented any of it inaccurately. That is what Mormons believe in a nutshell when it comes to Heavenly Father. 🙂
 
ChristIsTheWay said:
“As man now is, God once was, and as God now is, man may become.”

In my attempt to better understand this position, I’ve looked at Mormon apologetic material on the web. From what I can gather, most Mormons believe this means that God was at one time the same as your average Joe. By obeying the principles set forth by his Heavenly Father, he was exalted to godhood and became our Heavenly Father. There is a sort of infinite regress of Heavenly Fathers, begetting spirit children, exalting some, who then continue this process.

I found an alternative explanation that went like this: God the Father has always been God and He had no Heavenly Father. When Lorenzo Snow said “as man now is, God once was, and as God now is, man may become,” it could be interpreted as meaning that God the Father underwent a mortal experience. It would have been like when Jesus Christ took on a mortal body. In this sense, God was God before this experience and has always been so. In this sense, God is unchanging in that He is always God but He does (or did) undergo physical changes.

Following this line of reasoning, it does not necessarily follow that when some humans are exalted to godhood, that this will one day entail becoming “heavenly fathers” in their own unique creations.

My question is, is this alternative understanding permissible in the Mormon Church and how many Mormons might be proponents of it?

Here is a link to the article that explained it: en.fairmormon.org/Mormonism_and_the_nature_of_God/Infinite_regress_of_Gods

I hope I have been accurate in presenting this information. I apologize for any errors or misunderstanding. Thanks for any help you can provide.
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Yes Marie is correct, HOWEVER you won’t find this in any of the current Sunday curriculum. It will be sort of tangentially hinted at but never stated.
 
ChristIsTheWay said:
“As man now is, God once was, and as God now is, man may become.”

In my attempt to better understand this position, I’ve looked at Mormon apologetic material on the web. From what I can gather, most Mormons believe this means that God was at one time the same as your average Joe. By obeying the principles set forth by his Heavenly Father, he was exalted to godhood and became our Heavenly Father. There is a sort of infinite regress of Heavenly Fathers, begetting spirit children, exalting some, who then continue this process.

I found an alternative explanation that went like this: God the Father has always been God and He had no Heavenly Father. When Lorenzo Snow said “as man now is, God once was, and as God now is, man may become,” it could be interpreted as meaning that God the Father underwent a mortal experience. It would have been like when Jesus Christ took on a mortal body. In this sense, God was God before this experience and has always been so. In this sense, God is unchanging in that He is always God but He does (or did) undergo physical changes.

Following this line of reasoning, it does not necessarily follow that when some humans are exalted to godhood, that this will one day entail becoming “heavenly fathers” in their own unique creations.

My question is, is this alternative understanding permissible in the Mormon Church and how many Mormons might be proponents of it?

Here is a link to the article that explained it: en.fairmormon.org/Mormonism_and_the_nature_of_God/Infinite_regress_of_Gods

I hope I have been accurate in presenting this information. I apologize for any errors or misunderstanding. Thanks for any help you can provide.
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And yet, the Mormons I have communicated with on this forum still maintain that God is “eternal” and “omnipotent”. No one or no thing is eternal or omnipotent if their existence depends upon someone or something else. I find this entire line of theology beyond heretical. It is, literally, unbelievable in my opinion.
 
Hm, that is interesting. So is there an official LDS teaching on this subject? The impression I get is that these two alternative understandings are, despite a common core, quite different. One has God being merely an exalted man while the other seems to posit some kind of additional earthly incarnation of a (potentially) eternal God the Father.
 
ChristIsTheWay said:
Hm, that is interesting. So is there an official LDS teaching on this subject? The impression I get is that these two alternative understandings are, despite a common core, quite different. One has God being merely an exalted man while the other seems to posit some kind of additional earthly incarnation of a (potentially) eternal God the Father.
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There is an element of relativism in this theology. They claim that the only God they will ever worship is the God of this world. They are pretty much silent on gods of other worlds, at least in my experience. Keep in mind that they also believe that “Heavenly Father” has a body of flesh and bone. There is even a distinction here that his body does not contain blood, as blood was a consequence of the fall. Add the whole “Adam/God” element and the whole thing is very confusing, even to Mormons. You end up going in circles.
 
Here is a quote from a post by RebeccaJ on another thread that touches on this subject:

***"Some years ago, I advanced a doctrine with regard to Adam being our father and God, that will be a curse to many of the Elders of Israel because of their folly. With regard to it they yet grovel in darkness and will. It is one of the most glorious revealments of the economy of heaven, yet the world hold derision. Had I revealed the doctrine of baptism from [sic.] the dead instead Joseph Smith there are men around me who would have ridiculed the idea until dooms day. But they are ignorant and stupid like the dumb ." (Brigham Young)
 
I heard recently, and it looks like it may have been around a while, that Adam was/is the earthly form Michael the Archangel.
 
Z_Ninja said:
I heard recently, and it looks like it may have been around a while, that Adam was/is the earthly form Michael the Archangel.
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I know that this is a belief held by the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Not sure about the LDS. Hopefully we will have a Mormon poster who can shed some light on all of this.
 
SteveVH said:
I know that this is a belief held by the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Not sure about the LDS. Hopefully we will have a Mormon poster who can shed some light on all of this.
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Mormons believe that, yes. It’s taught in the temple that Michael and Adam are the same person. And that Michael helped Jehovah (the premortal Jesus Christ) create the Earth.
 
TheExorcist said:
Mormons believe that, yes. It’s taught in the temple that Michael and Adam are the same person. And that Michael helped Jehovah (the premortal Jesus Christ) create the Earth.
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So there is no distinction between “angels” and “men”; one can transform into another, and then into gods?
 
From what I gather, Angels are pre-existence humans, then when humans die, become angels again.

Am I correct as within Catholicism, angels are a separate species?
 
SteveVH said:
So there is no distinction between “angels” and “men”; one can transform into another, and then into gods?
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According to Mormon theology angels are either preexistent (like Adam/Michael) or postexistant (like Moroni).

“Angels. These are messengers of the Lord, and are spoken of in the epistle to the Hebrews as “ministering spirits” (Heb. 1:14). We learn from latter-day revelation that there are two classes of heavenly beings who minister for the Lord: those who are spirits and those who have bodies of flesh and bone. Spirits are those beings who either have not yet obtained a body of flesh and bone (unembodied), or who have once had a mortal body and have died, and are awaiting the resurrection (disembodied). Ordinarily the word angel means those ministering persons who have a body of flesh and bone, being either resurrected from the dead (reembodied), or else translated, as were Enoch, Elijah, etc. (D&C 129).” (LDS Bible Dictionary)
 
A good book discussing “orthodox”/ Evangelical/nominal Calvinism Christian belief with Mormon belief is “How Wide the Divide. A Mormon & Evangelical in Conversation”.

The gist is seeking to truly understand one another…we do have differences…but we have many similarities…and perhaps if we found a way to put “their thoughts and beliefs” into “our thoughts and beliefs”…we might understand one another better.

Mormons have compared “As Man is now, God once was, As God is now, Man may become…” to the concept of Othrodox “theosis”…of course some Orthodox deny the similarity…but the “concept” of the “deification of man” by “taking on the NATURE of Christ”…“we will be LIKE him”…

It’s a good book…explains a lot.
 
Z_Ninja said:
From what I gather, Angels are pre-existence humans, then when humans die, become angels again.

Am I correct as within Catholicism, angels are a separate species?
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Yes, you are correct. In fact, the angels are so unique even among themselves that each angel constitutes a different species. Angels are pure spirit and always will be. Humans are both spirit and flesh, and always will be (though our bodies will be glorified bodies).
The great distinction, however, is that both angels and humans are creatures, as opposed to divine beings. This distinction seems to be absent in Mormon theology. They believe both God and man are made from the same “stuff”.
 
Publisher said:
A good book discussing “orthodox”/ Evangelical/nominal Calvinism Christian belief with Mormon belief is “How Wide the Divide. A Mormon & Evangelical in Conversation”.

The gist is seeking to truly understand one another…we do have differences…but we have many similarities…and perhaps if we found a way to put “their thoughts and beliefs” into “our thoughts and beliefs”…we might understand one another better.

Mormons have compared “As Man is now, God once was, As God is now, Man may become…” to the concept of Othrodox “theosis”…of course some Orthodox deny the similarity…but the “concept” of the “deification of man” by “taking on the NATURE of Christ”…“we will be LIKE him”…

It’s a good book…explains a lot.
Click to expand...
I found that book particularly helpful in a better understanding of Mormon teachings. This whole doctrine of deification/theosis/exaltation seems at best that man might become like God; that it is God’s gift to his children. What these children “do” throughout the eternities is whatever the Father wants them to do. No one has a clear answer to what we may do after this life. Some Mormons have postulated that we participate in the creative process at the direction of God.

My opinion is that there are many opinions and at the end of the day everyone, Catholics, Orthodox, even Mormons, all acknowledge that it is a mystery that is unknown to us. There have been mystics that have approached this topic, but none has described what it means to be “like” God. Our Catechism does not explain it except to say in 460 "The Word became flesh to make us “partakers of the divine nature”:“For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God.” “For the Son of God became man so that we might become God.” “The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods.”

How can anyone limit what it means to be “sharers in his divinity”? No one has explained this in detail. However, if I even try to imagine what his divinity is like my mind is overwhelmed. As a result, I seldom criticize Mormons for their feeble attempts to describe Exaltation and I appreciate their acknowledgment that they really don’t know what exaltation is other than the possibility to be with God.
 
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