Isaiah’s "Denial" Verses, Incomparability and the Divine Council

[The Nehor]

7 hours ago, theplains said:

Deuteronomy 4:35 — "the LORD he is God; there is none else beside him."
Deuteronomy 6:4 — "The LORD our God is one LORD."
Isaiah 43:10 — "Before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me."
Isaiah 44:6 — "I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God."
Isaiah 45:5 — "I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me."
Isaiah 45:22 — "I am God, and there is none else."

Some of these are bad translations, some are more about who Israel should worship and not claiming that there are no other gods, and some are rhetorical hyperbole. You can find hymns of praise to various other deities of the time that are part of a pantheon and it talks about their superiority in similar terms. You can find similar language in the Bible for other things such as having Babylon claim its supremacy and saying there is none beside it. That clearly means the city of Babylon is superior, not that Babylon is the only city that exists.

There are a lot of obstacles to reading strict monotheism into the Bible and into the Old Testament in particular.

Deuteronomy 10:17 “For the LORD your God is God of gods…”

That is an incredibly stupid statement if Adonai is the only god that exists. You’re the best of the gods when you are the only god? No.

Also you have Psalm 82 when Adonai breaks the divine council and expels the other deities because they forsook justice and exiled his people. So Adonai was expelling non-existent deities? And no, the traditional interpretation of Christians that this is about mortal judges failing doesn’t make sense. That is a rationalization that was imposed on the text to preserve monotheism.

And then there is 2 Kings 3 where the King of Moab sacrifices his son to a Moabite deity and divine power intervenes and the Moabites win. Apologists do all kinds of gymnastics to dodge the plain meaning of that text where the God of Israel lost to another deity.

[GoCeltics]

On 10/2/2026 at 10:46 AM, Pyreaux said:

Whether I use an acorn and an oak tree, a horse zygote and a 1,200-pound stallion, or a human and God, the point remains identical. Developmental distance does not alter their species kind.

You’re trying to make a species-difference between a human and a God.

God is taught to be an exalted human. His offspring are also humans; the same species. So, technically, humans are Gods now.

[GoCeltics]

On 10/2/2026 at 10:09 AM, InCognitus said:

It is when God the Father (the God of gods) appoints you to rule and reign with him, correlating with what it says in Revelation 3:21 and others.

If that’s what makes a person a god, are the gods of Psalm 82 children of a different Father?

[Pyreaux]

13 hours ago, GoCeltics said:

You’re trying to make a species-difference between a human and a God.

God is taught to be an exalted human. His offspring are also humans; the same species. So, technically, humans are Gods now.

Not at all, the Bible and I clearly said humans are the same species as God, but a god is clearly at a different developmental stage just like anyother thing of the same species can be compared to in my analogy. A human is the image and likeness of God, but not a god until they have all the necessary qualities of a god, just as a newborn horse is the same species as an adult horse, yet a newborn horse is not an adult horse. Being the same species does not make a later stage of development the same as your current state of development. The analogy is pretty simple, I don't know what the problem is.

Edited yesterday at 03:05 AM by Pyreaux

[Calm]

7 hours ago, GoCeltics said:

You’re trying to make a species-difference between a human and a God.

God is taught to be an exalted human. His offspring are also humans; the same species. So, technically, humans are Gods now.

Is God a species or a role?   If a role like a judge, just because all judges are human, doesn’t mean all children or even all adult humans are judges.  

Edited Tuesday at 08:44 PM by Calm

[The Nehor]

On 10/6/2026 at 10:37 AM, Pyreaux said:

Not at all, the Bible and I clearly said humans are the same species as God, but a god is clearly at a different developmental stage just like anyother thing of the same species can be compared to in my analogy. A human is the image and likeness of God, but not a god until they have all the necessary qualities of a god, just as a newborn horse is the same species as an adult horse, yet a newborn horse is not an adult horse. Being the same species does not make a later stage of development the same as your current state of development. The analogy is pretty simple, I don't know what the problem is.

The Bible absolutely does not clearly say that humans are the same species as God.

[longview]

38 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

The Bible absolutely does not clearly say that humans are the same species as God.

You have a nasty habit of being absolute. If we were with God in the pre-existence, then that would be powerful evidence of our intimate relation with Him - - -

Proverbs 8:22.The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old.

23.I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was.

24.When there were no depths, I was brought forth; when there were no fountains abounding with water.

25.Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth:

26.While as yet he had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world.

27.When he prepared the heavens, I was there: when he set a compass upon the face of the depth:

28.When he established the clouds above: when he strengthened the fountains of the deep:

29.When he gave to the sea his decree, that the waters should not pass his commandment: when he appointed the foundations of the earth:

30.Then I was by him, as one brought up with him: and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him;

31.Rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth; and my delights were with the sons of men.

[Pyreaux]

27 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

The Bible absolutely does not clearly say that humans are the same species as God.

My wording is a bit different than I intended. When I said "the Bible and I clearly said," at first I meant to just say I clearly said humans are the same species as God, and then went back to try refer back to the biblical use of genos in Acts, which I understand is an interpretation and not so clear, but it does support the idea of a shared kind/stock, but doesn't easily lead into things like modern biological categories of species and genus.

With species being the weakest of possible meanings, when I should of just said "kind" or "genos". Paul certainly is not portraying God as an utterly unrelated category of being. Even being the same species still doesn't mean humans are presently equal to God. That's precisely why I used a species developmental analogy. A newborn horse and an adult horse can belong to the same kind without being identical in their present capacities or developmental state. LDS thoughts on theosis doesn't include that mortals are currently omniscient, omnipotent, glorified, etc.

[The Nehor]

8 hours ago, longview said:

You have a nasty habit of being absolute. If we were with God in the pre-existence, then that would be powerful evidence of our intimate relation with Him - - -

Proverbs 8:22.The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old.

23.I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was.

24.When there were no depths, I was brought forth; when there were no fountains abounding with water.

25.Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth:

26.While as yet he had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world.

27.When he prepared the heavens, I was there: when he set a compass upon the face of the depth:

28.When he established the clouds above: when he strengthened the fountains of the deep:

29.When he gave to the sea his decree, that the waters should not pass his commandment: when he appointed the foundations of the earth:

30.Then I was by him, as one brought up with him: and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him;

31.Rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth; and my delights were with the sons of men.

Proverbs 8 is a personification of wisdom speaking. Saying that Yahweh possessed wisdom before the earth was doesn’t say anything about premortality or the relationship between Yahweh and humans.

Are you imagining that the writer of this section of Proverbs was, despite making it clear that he is personifying wisdom, is secretly claiming that he had a premortal existence. Wholesale inventing the idea and then hiding it behind metaphor…..why?

[GoCeltics]

On 10/6/2026 at 4:44 PM, Calm said:

Is God a species or a role?   If a role like a judge, just because all judges are human, doesn’t mean all children or even all adult humans are judges.  

Could be both. “God” as a human (a species) and a role (judge).

Every offspring of a human (a species/a God) is likewise a God.

Having “God” as a role makes all the judges who serve in that role “Gods.”

[GoCeltics]

On 10/6/2026 at 11:37 AM, Pyreaux said:

Not at all, the Bible and I clearly said humans are the same species as God, but a god is clearly at a different developmental stage just like anyother thing of the same species can be compared to in my analogy. A human is the image and likeness of God, but not a god until they have all the necessary qualities of a god, just as a newborn horse is the same species as an adult horse, yet a newborn horse is not an adult horse. Being the same species does not make a later stage of development the same as your current state of development. The analogy is pretty simple, I don't know what the problem is.

Former President Kimball said “Man is [present tense] a god in embryo and has in him the seeds of godhood, and he can, if he will, rise to great heights.”

What are all these qualities that already makes [present tense] a man a god in embryo?

But if some future achieving of necessary qualities makes a person a god, are the gods of Psalm 82 children of a different Father?

Edited 6 hours ago by GoCeltics

[Pyreaux]

6 hours ago, GoCeltics said:

Former President Kimball said “Man is [present tense] a god in embryo and has in him the seeds of godhood, and he can, if he will, rise to great heights.”

What are all these qualities that already makes [present tense] a man a god in embryo?

But if some future achieving of necessary qualities makes a person a god, are the gods of Psalm 82 children of a different Father?

I don't think the Kimball quote actually corrects what I said. It pretty much reinforces the distinction I was making.

When Kimball says man is "a god in embryo" and has "the seeds of godhood" he's not saying that every mortal is presently a fully developed god. An embryo is precisely something that belongs to a particular kind or developmental trajectory while not yet possessing the mature characteristics of the adult, a worker honeybee larva has the exact same genetic code as a queen. Her "present quality" as a potential queen is her species and capacity, but she isn't yet and may never be a queen until she is fed royal jelly and given room to grow. One present continuity between God and man is that humans are created in the image and likeness of God. A "god in embryo" doesn't mean that man is presently a god in knowledge, power, glory, or other divine attributes.

So, when you ask, "What are all these qualities that already makes \[present tense\] a man a god in embryo?", I think you're mistaking "god in embryo" as though it means "already a fully-fledged god and justified in calling them so without any qualifiers" It doesn't. The whole point of Kimball's embryo metaphor is that the present state and the mature state are very different. Humans are genuinely capable of becoming gods, they are still very different, except some meaningful continuity between what a human is and what a god is. We share a bodily shape, and bodies were not given to the council of gods. 

And that's also why your Psalm 82 question doesn't refute the argument. If there are other beings called "gods" in Psalm 82, that doesn't establish that every being called a god has to have the same origin, developmental history, or relationship to humanity. A "god" can refer to a status, office, or category in different contexts without making every use of the word identical.

I'm not saying every being called a god is an exalted human. The council gods are real pre-incarnate spiritual beings who receive divine titles and authority, but are not the Father and ultimately are subject to judgment/mortality in Psalm 82. Exalted humans who can eventually receive godhood is a different route from these nation gods. 

None of this requires saying that a mortal human is presently identical to God. In fact, the "god in embryo" language makes the opposite distinction. Kimball is using an analogy based on essentially the same developmental distinction I was making.

Edited 13 minutes ago by Pyreaux

[Calm]

7 hours ago, GoCeltics said:

Could be both. “God” as a human (a species) and a role (judge).

Every offspring of a human (a species/a God) is likewise a God.

Having “God” as a role makes all the judges who serve in that role “Gods.”

I think you mean humans where it’s bolded…or you should.  Judges is a role.  A role as a role is mixing stuff up.  Of course, some humans could be both a judge and a God….as God is.  But how many would be based on what the role of God consists of and whether they meet that criteria, not because the judges are human.