InCognitus

Depends on your point of view. Jesus called men gods in John 10:34-35, "Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods? If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken." But many of the early Christians considered it a process of "becoming", like what St. Hippolytus of Rome (c. 170–235 AD) taught in is work Refutation Book 10 Ch. 29: "For if He had willed to make thee a god, He could have done so. Thou hast the example of the Logos. His will, however, was, that you should be a man, and He has made thee a man. But if thou art desirous of also becoming a god, obey Him that has created thee, and resist not now, in order that, being found faithful in that which is small, you may be enabled to have entrusted to you also that which is great." And in Chapter 30 (of the same reference linked above) he indicates that this is not fully realized until we receive immortality (with a resurrected body): "And thou shalt possess an immortal body, even one placed beyond the possibility of corruption, just like the soul. And thou shalt receive the kingdom of heaven, thou who, whilst thou didst sojourn in this life, didst know the Celestial King. And thou shalt be a companion of the Deity, and a co-heir with Christ, no longer enslaved by lusts or passions, and never again wasted by disease. For thou hast become God: for whatever sufferings thou didst undergo while being a man, these He gave to thee, because thou wast of mortal mould, but whatever it is consistent with God to impart, these God has promised to bestow upon thee, because thou hast been deified, and begotten unto immortality."

Obviously not the same glory that God the Father "gave" to Jesus, as Jesus says in John 17:5, 22 and 24. The early Christians spoke of Jesus receiving these things only after he was begotten by the Father, i.e. "the first-born of all creation, who is the first to be with God, and to attract to Himself divinity, is a being of more exalted rank than the other gods beside Him" (Origen's Commentary on John, book 2 chapter 3).

"O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was." (John 17:5) And, "the glory which thou gavest me I have given them" (John 17:22), and "Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world." (John 17:24)

The spirits of men and women (which are sometimes called "souls") are the "kind" of being that God is, all the time. What it means to be "gods" is relative to that, and obviously not clearly defined as it was shown in that quote from the early Christian writings of Clementine Homilies.

I thought of another teaching in early Christianity that is relevant to your disagreement with the early Christian views on deity (as you say above). This is from Clementine Homilies, which is an anonymous third-century literary narrative that contains an account of a debate between the apostle Peter, and Simon Magus. In answering Simon's claim that Christ is not God but the Son of God, Peter responds with this: “Learn this also: The bodies of men have immortal souls, which have been clothed with the breath of God; and having come forth from God, they are of the same substance, but they are not gods. But if they are gods, then in this way the souls of all men, both those who have died, and those who are alive, and those who shall come into being, are gods. But if in a spirit of controversy you maintain that these also are gods, what great matter is it, then, for Christ to be called God? for He has only what all have.” (Clementine Homily 16, chapter 16)

I don't think anyone is saying the Holy Spirit was totally out of the picture during the period following the death of the apostles. The Book of Mormon says that the Holy Spirit was active in bringing about many of the purposes of God during this period of time (i.e. "And I looked and beheld a man among the Gentiles, who was separated from the seed of my brethren by the many waters; and I beheld the Spirit of God, that it came down and wrought upon the man", and "I beheld the Spirit of God, that it wrought upon other Gentiles" - 1 Nephi 13:12-13). But I see this similar to how God led Cyrus to cause the Jews to rebuild the temple at Jerusalem after the Babylonian captivity. I see God's hand in the creation of the Septuagint and in other factors that facilitated the spread of Christianity throughout the world. These are seeds being planted, but I don't think these things can be used to make claims about God preventing an apostasy from taking place. But they laid the groundwork for other things to happen later on.

See the response above from teddyaware.

I think the Pearl of Great Price is a great place to start, since the Joseph Smith History is in the Pearl of Great Price and it provides some essential background for the establishment of the church and the origin of the Book of Mormon. The Pearl of Great Price also includes doctrinal background for some of our unique doctrines like the council in heaven and Jesus being the Chosen one to redeem mankind from the beginning and Satan's rebellion (Moses 4:1-4, Abraham 3:27-28) and man's preexistence with God and Him providing the plan for others to progress (Abraham 3:22-26). Besides, it's the only book that has pictures too

I wanted to add one thing that struck me as I was reading the next paragraph of Origen's commentary on John 1:1. He said: "Now it is possible that some may dislike what we have said representing the Father as the one true God, but admitting other beings besides the true God, who have become gods by having a share of God. " (Origen's commentary on John 1, Book II, paragraph 3). Some may dislike it? It seems like most of the modern Christians dislike it. Now I'm not saying that all the earliest Christian Fathers had beliefs exactly the same as Latter-day Saints (I don't believe that). But the vast difference between their teachings and modern Christian teachings cannot go unnoticed. This underscores the reason for the need to restore the Church of Jesus Christ to the earth (and this being posted in a folder named "Great Apostasy Revisited").

Again, that's your modern definition. From an early Christian point of view there is obviously a difference in how this works. Look carefully at this teaching from Origen (185-254 AD), from Origen's commentary on John 1:1, and notice how he says Jesus is "the first to be with God, and to attract to Himself divinity": "2. IN WHAT WAY THE LOGOS IS GOD. ERRORS TO BE AVOIDED ON THIS QUESTION. "We next notice John's use of the article in these sentences. He does not write without care in this respect, nor is he unfamiliar with the niceties of the Greek tongue. In some cases he uses the article, and in some he omits it. He adds the article to the Logos, but to the name of God he adds it sometimes only. He uses the article, when the name of God refers to the uncreated cause of all things, and omits it when the Logos is named God. Does the same difference which we observe between God with the article and God without it prevail also between the Logos with it and without it? We must enquire into this. As the God who is over all is God with the article not without it, so "the Logos" is the source of that reason (Logos) which dwells in every reasonable creature; the reason which is in each creature is not, like the former called par excellence The Logos. Now there are many who are sincerely concerned about religion, and who fall here into great perplexity. They are afraid that they may be proclaiming two Gods, and their fear drives them into doctrines which are false and wicked. Either they deny that the Son has a distinct nature of His own besides that of the Father, and make Him whom they call the Son to be God all but the name, or they deny the divinity of the Son, giving Him a separate existence of His own, and making His sphere of essence fall outside that of the Father, so that they are separable from each other. To such persons we have to say that God on the one hand is Very God (Autotheos, God of Himself); and so the Saviour says in His prayer to the Father, "That they may know Thee the only true God;" but that all beyond the Very God is made God by participation in His divinity, and is not to be called simply God (with the article), but rather God (without article). And thus the first-born of all creation, who is the first to be with God, and to attract to Himself divinity, is a being of more exalted rank than the other gods beside Him, of whom God is the God, as it is written, "The God of gods, the Lord, hath spoken and called the earth." It was by the offices of the first-born that they became gods, for He drew from God in generous measure that they should be made gods, and He communicated it to them according to His own bounty. The true God, then, is "The God," and those who are formed after Him are gods, images, as it were, of Him the prototype. But the archetypal image, again, of all these images is the Word of God, who was in the beginning, and who by being with God is at all times God, not possessing that of Himself, but by His being with the Father, and not continuing to be God, if we should think of this, except by remaining always in uninterrupted contemplation of the depths of the Father." So being eternal isn't the definition of deity, or otherwise how did Jesus "attract to Himself divinity" according to these Christian teachings? (SO many teachings have changed through the years!)

I don’t see how understanding there being only one true God is connected with your belief we are the same kind of being God is. It's not just my belief that we are the same kind of being as God is, it was the apostle Paul's belief and teaching that we are the same kind of being as God. It's a Bible teaching. The "only true God" is God the Father as Jesus said in John 17:3. Since we are (as the Bible teaches) the same kind of being as God, it teaches us that we have a relationship with him and that he can relate to us. And Jesus provides the way for us to connect with him and come to know him. All are subject to him. All who become gods are subject to him. And Jesus is eternally subject to him as the Bible teaches: "And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all". (1 Corinthians 15:28). Jesus prayed, "Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are", and: "Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me." (John 17:11, 20-23) You can reason out the answer to the question you asked based on what Jesus said there.

You have never been able to demonstrate where the Bible teaches what you say above.

Ok, so you do reject the Bible teaching that we are the same "kind" of being as God. I don't think you have a good definition of what is a "God", however, at least not from how they viewed it in Bible times. You denied the same thing when posting as theplains. But, remember, you also posted this: In Acts 17:28-29 Paul was speaking to a Greek pagan audience (the Athenians). So why in the world would Paul use a term (génos) that his Greek audience would understand in the way you described it if Paul did not mean it to be understood that way? How did Paul's audience understand what Paul was teaching them? Paul meant what he said. He wouldn't lie to them. He didn't use vague references to trick them into converting to Christianity, he had a specific purpose. Paul chose that quote using that specific word for a specific purpose, and he meant it. He used it to teach his Greek audience that we (all humans) are the same kind of being as God, and therefore we shouldn't think of deity to be like gold or silver or stone, because WE are not gold or silver or stone. God created gold and silver and stone. And God created humans too, but we are different because we are the same kind of being as God. It's right there in the Bible as clear as day, and you reject this biblical teaching. This changes the whole trajectory on our relationship to God. This is why the later development of the doctrine of creation ex-nihilo around 170 AD is so damaging to our relationship with God and why it contradicts the Bible. To quote Joseph Smith, "If we start right, it is easy to go right all the time; but if we start wrong, we may go wrong, and it be a hard matter to get right". The Bible teaches us that we are the same kind of being as God, and later on people rejected that and started to push God further and further away. And Paul's reasoning was this: “Therefore, since we are the offspring [génos] of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man's devising.” That is, since we are related to God (we are the same genus as he is, we are his offspring), it is illogical to even consider that God is stone, or gold, or silver, because we are not stone, or gold, or silver. If Paul was only saying that we are merely God’s creations, then Paul’s audience could easily reason that a god of any kind (gold, silver, or stone) could “create” anything it desires, and Paul’s point would be meaningless. But the strength of Paul’s argument is in the fact that we have a relationship to God as his offspring, we are the same kind of being as God, and thus to conceive of a god of any other kind is unreasonable. God is an eternal being, we are, at our core (our spirit) eternal beings (since we are the same kind of being as God). We don't currently have all the same attributes of God the Father, but we are the same kind of being going back eternally.

My heart goes out to you. I would love to hear your thoughts and point of view, but I understand. (Crazy technology sometimes - I just got off a call with someone trying to help them with a database server crash).

Is that what you believe? That the God of the Bible was not God before he created this earth? This all has to do with how we define "God". It has become popular these days to define God as anything that exists eternally, which is why later Christians (sometime after 170 AD) rejected the earlier Christian teachings that matter is eternal (because then it would be "God" according to their new definition of "God"). But the Bible indicates that there were other beings with God before creation began, so that can't be a valid definition of what is "God". It has to do with a lot more than just being eternal.

Did the Father work with others to create his world like Jesus did with Earth (who did what he saw the Father do)? Since God the Father is the most high God, he likely directed others in the work of creation of the world he dwelt on.

God the Father is not an exalted human man from another world. Being created in the image of God does not make us underdeveloped Gods. You didn't answer the question about what the Bible says in Acts 17:28-29. Do you reject that Bible teaching that we are the same "kind" of being as God? Those verses have nothing to do with being created in the image of God, they say we are the same "kind" of being as God, which is why it's foolish to worship a god of gold or silver or stone (other created things). We are not like the rest of creation because we are the same kind of being as God.

It says we are the same "kind" of being as God whether you believe the Bible or not. Doesn't that tell us a little about how we should understand "the only true God"? Did you read the verse? Remember, this is Jesus speaking: "And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." Who is "the only true God" in that verse? Jesus is talking to God the Father. All other Gods are subject to the "One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all" (Ephesians 4:6), and Jesus is included in that just as the Bible teaches. They have God's name put upon them. Jesus is "one" with the Father in the same way that Jesus prayed for all his disciples to be "one" with him and the Father.

That gives some weight to the idea that Bullock misheard or miswrote what was said. Exactly right.

First of all, that is a quote from a sermon that has some accuracy issues. Unlike the King Follet Sermon, our published text of the Sermon in the Grove relies primarily on the account of only one person, Thomas Bullock. And to top things off, the sermon was given during bad weather (it was raining and the sermon had to be cut short due to the rain). See my post on 05/26/2025 where I discuss some of the accuracy issues. I see from Thomas Bullock’s notes of that sermon that the discussion of God the Father having a father was in the context of God the Father’s mortal experience on an earth. His notes show that the statements about God the Father having a “father” are immediately followed by “I want you to pay particular attention to what I am saying. Jesus said that the Father wrought precisely in the same way as His Father had done before Him”. In other words, Bullock’s notes indicate that God the Father’s “father” would have been either his earthly father when he was born into mortality, or that God the Father (as the head of all other Gods) would have appointed some other God to produce him in the same way that Jesus came into mortality. But Bullock also seems to have repeated himself in part of those notes, so it’s hard to tell if Joseph Smith was restating something for emphasis, or if Bullock recorded it incorrectly, or if he did get it correct we need further information and context to draw any conclusions with certainty.

Who made that earth where God the Father lived on? You've seen me answer that question dozens of time, so why ask questions that you already know the answer to? Who made the earth where Jesus lived on? Obviously God the Father made the earth that he lived on. Joseph Smith taught that in the King Follet Discourse: "What did Jesus do? Why; I do the things I saw my Father do when worlds come rolling into existence".

They taught that Jesus became God. It sounds like they did. They didn't get into the means of how he was begotten any more than we do. We have no doctrine on the process by which God is the Father of spirits (Hebrews 12:9). Only that he is just that. Right, we all have all power and all authority and rule and reign over worlds and create worlds. You should see the one I created last night (not!). Is that what you mean by being "God" now? So it really depends on your definition of "God". Do you reject the Bible teaching that we are the same kind of being as God? It sounds like you do reject it.

It's really not sola scriptura, but paying attention to what scripture says and applying what it says. And it's not that we are the "offspring" of God, even though that's a respectable translation, but that's a word that might be taken figuratively or explained away some other way. The Greek word translated as "offspring" in those verses refers to the very "kind" of being that God is (which is what the Greek word génos means at its core). We are the génos of God. That's a word that has a family relationship meaning and isn't used figuratively. That same word is translated as "genus" in the Latin translations, which is a word that has taxonomical implications. How can we be the genus of God, the same "kind" of being that he is, and be created out of nothing? That has to refer to our spirit which came from God and wasn't created by God. I really appreciate you perspective, and I understand how our view might appear to your point of view. And I understand the appeal of your view. But I have a hard time accepting that view given what I described above along with other information I have discovered about the evolution of doctrine in Christian history. I say this to you with respect and care, because I really value your presence on this board.

The Bible teaches that all humans are the same “kind” of being as God (the génos of God, his offspring - Acts 17:28-29), so when people ignore that teaching and claim that God created us out of nothing instead, that will definitely distract from coming to know "the only true God", don't you think?

Jesus is an eternal being in that he has always existed externally in one form or another, but he has no existed eternally as God. The church (of which you belong) teaches he became a God. . Like the early Christians did. Why did later Christians abandon that doctrine? Christ is the only-begotten. Early Christians didn't mean offspring in the sense of a heavenly mother. How do you know what they meant by that? Justin Martyr (150 AD) wrote: “But this Offspring, which was truly brought forth from the Father, was with the Father before all the creatures, and the Father communed with Him; even as the Scripture by Solomon has made clear, that He whom Solomon calls Wisdom, was begotten as a Beginning before all His creatures and as Offspring by God..” (Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, Chapter 62). What did he mean? It's possible God can create matter out of nothing. It’s only possible if you believe that it’s possible for God to contradict the Bible. The Bible teaches that humans are the same “kind” of being as God (the génos of God) in Acts 17:28-29. And since humans are the same “kind” of being as God, we should not think of our relationship to God is like the created things (gold, silver, or stone). Our spirits came from God and existed with God prior to our mortal experience. So it’s really not possible, biblically speaking. And this fits with the earliest Christian views on creation, since the earliest Christians taught that matter is eternal and that God created all things from unformed matter. It wasn’t until around 170 AD that Christians began to adopt the creation out of nothing doctrine. The Jehovah’s Witnesses have tried to rid themselves of doctrines that (in their view) are based on Christian traditions, but they missed this one, and the idea of a closed canon of scripture is another one they missed.