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 October 7 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 October 6 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 Thursday at 01:22 PM by GoCeltics

[Pyreaux]

23 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 god, these are developmental metaphors about the predication of godhood. They attribute godhood to humanity in terms of its potentiality. 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 a god without any qualifiers" It doesn't. The whole point of Kimball's embryo metaphor is that the present state and the mature state are different. Humans are genuinely capable of becoming gods, they are still different, except some meaningful continuity between them. Believers will undergo a genuine ontological transformation into some sort of non-human, more like God than human, "We are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is." (1 John 3:2)

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 or office 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 Friday at 12:45 PM 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.

[GoCeltics]

22 hours ago, Pyreaux said:

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,

Which Mormon scriptures clearly identify gods being exalted humans (humans being made gods) instead of only receiving divine titles and authority?

[GoCeltics]

17 hours ago, Calm said:

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.

When President Kimball referred to humans as gods in embryo, doesn’t this mean we are gods right now, but progressing to become more mature ones?

[Pyreaux]

On 10/9/2026 at 9:14 AM, GoCeltics said:

Which Mormon scriptures clearly identify gods being exalted humans (humans being made gods) instead of only receiving divine titles and authority?

D&C 132:19-20 "Then shall they be gods, because they have no end; therefore shall they be from everlasting to everlasting... Then shall they be gods, because they have all power, and the angels are subject unto them."

D&C 132:37 "they have entered into their exaltation, according to the promises, and sit upon thrones, and are not angels, but are gods."

The Bible says Christians become "partakers of the divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4), given "glory" (1 Corinthians 15:43), made "like" God (1 John 3:2). Sitting on God's throne (Revelation 3:21) and exercising dominion over angels (1 Corinthians 6:3).

LDS scripture, including the Bible, is not exclusive in its definition of all beings called gods. We clearly believe Jesus was God before he became human, therefore logically an exalted human cannot be the exclusive definition of a god. A godhood status existed in pre-mortal entities.

Ether 3 and John 1:1 says Jesus is pre-mortally "God", which is divine investiture. He carried the Father’s title and authority. 

D&C 93:12-14 says Jesus "received not of the fulness at the first, but continued from grace to grace, until he received a fulness". His ultimate exaltation was only completed through his mortal embodiment and physical resurrection.

Philippians 2:5-11, Jesus had a pre-mortal title of "God" but "he emptied himself [ekenosen], by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death... Therefore God super-exalted him [hyperypsosen]" and so is still an exalted embodied human above His previous status, and all Christians are promised to be also.

The Book of Abraham says human spirits were in the council of gods at creation,

Abraham 3:22-24 "Now the Lord had shown unto me, Abraham, the intelligences that were organized before the world was [human spirits]; and among all these there were many of the noble and great ones [nobles even as human spirits]... And there stood one among them that was like unto God [Jesus], and he said unto those who were with him: We [Jesus and noble human spirits] will go down, for there is space there, and we will take of these materials, and we will make an earth whereon these [other human spirits] may dwell."   

Human spirits were present in the council of the gods before the earth was framed.

Abraham 4:1, 26 "And then the Lord said: Let us go down. And they went down at the beginning, and they, that is the gods, organized and formed the heavens and the earth."

The Creation is explicitly carried out by "the gods" (elohim), a council with noble humans operating under the direction of the Father and the Lord, including premortal spirit beings acting as agents.

Job 15:7-8 "Are you the first man ever born [Adam]? Were you brought forth before the hills [before Creation]? Have you listened in the council of God [sod elohim]?"

Job 38:4-7 "Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth [at Creation]?... When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God [bene Elohim] shouted for joy?"

Genesis 1:26 "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness"

Genesis 11:7 "let us go down, and there confound their language"

The "council of the righteous" (Sod Yesharim / Adat Tzaddikim) is a prominent motif in classical rabbinic literature from Psalms 1:5 and Psalms 111:1. Jewish midrash interprets Genesis 1:26, where God says, "Let us make man in our image." as commonly thought to be referring to "the souls of the righteous with whom He took counsel before creating the world." Genesis Rabbah 8:7

Midrash Kee Tov says Adam, Noah, Abraham, and Moses were among the council of the righteous and were present before creation
Ruth Rabbah 2:3 says the council of the righteous associated with God's decision to create the world 

Edited Saturday at 04:24 PM by Pyreaux

[GoCeltics]

On 10/9/2026 at 1:05 PM, Pyreaux said:

D&C 132:19-20 "Then shall they be gods, because they have no end; therefore shall they be from everlasting to everlasting... Then shall they be gods, because they have all power, and the angels are subject unto them."

D&C 132:37 "they have entered into their exaltation, according to the promises, and sit upon thrones, and are not angels, but are gods."

Do the gods of Psalm 82 have these qualities?

[GoCeltics]

On 10/9/2026 at 1:05 PM, Pyreaux said:

Abraham 4:1, 26 "And then the Lord said: Let us go down. And they went down at the beginning, and they, that is the gods, organized and formed the heavens and the earth."

The Creation is explicitly carried out by "the gods" (elohim), a council with noble humans operating under the direction of the Father and the Lord, including premortal spirit beings acting as agents.

Abraham 4 mentions Gods. I don't see any noble humans (premortal spirit beings) being involved.

 

[Pyreaux]

1 hour ago, GoCeltics said:

Do the gods of Psalm 82 have these qualities?

They do have many of them except being everlasting with regards to their permanency but they do seem to have angels under them, even Satan has "his angels". I'm not certain they have a throne exactly, but they might. Jesus is one of them, I think he had a throne, and like them he became mortal, and had to be exalted again with a body and regain a throne.

1 hour ago, GoCeltics said:

Abraham 4 mentions Gods. I don't see any noble humans (premortal spirit beings) being involved.

But Abraham 3 does say Jesus suggested that "we" the noble and great spirits should make an earth and Abraham 4 "they, rather the gods" make the earth. Are they two separate groups?

Edited Saturday at 07:30 PM by Pyreaux

[GoCeltics]

On 10/10/2026 at 3:29 PM, Pyreaux said:

But Abraham 3 does say Jesus suggested that "we" the noble and great spirits should make an earth and Abraham 4 "they, rather the gods" make the earth. Are they two separate groups?

One group is the Gods (of Abraham 4).

The other group consists of organized intelligences who kept their first estate and would then come to earth to determine if they could keep their second estate (Abraham 3:24-26).

The word "gods" is not there.

[GoCeltics]

On 10/10/2026 at 3:29 PM, Pyreaux said:

They do have many of them except being everlasting with regards to their permanency but they do seem to have angels under them, even Satan has "his angels".

Which many of them?

You mentioned D&C 132 earlier.

“Then shall they be gods, because they have no end; therefore shall they be from everlasting to everlasting... Then shall they be gods, because they have all power, and the angels are subject unto them."

They (those of Psalm 82) are not deities; they lack permanency. Before that, the angels are not subject unto them; they lack “all power.”

[Pyreaux]

12 hours ago, GoCeltics said:

One group is the Gods (of Abraham 4).

The other group consists of organized intelligences who kept their first estate and would then come to earth to determine if they could keep their second estate (Abraham 3:24-26).

The word "gods" is not there.

Your making an error by trying to artificially sever Abraham 3 from Abraham 4 and ignoring how the literary narrative flows across these chapters. The exact word "gods" appears in Abraham 4, Abraham 4:1 is the direct narrative continuation of Abraham 3:24–28.

Who is the "we" in Abraham 3:24? The Lord and "those who were with him" (the noble and great spirits).

Who is the "they" in Abraham 4:1? The antecedent to "they" in 4:1 is literally the group that agreed to go down in 3:24.

Abraham 4:1 explicitly defines the antecedent, "and they, that is the Gods..." Abraham 4:1 is giving the structural title ("the gods") to the council of spirits ("we") introduced at the end of Abraham 3.

12 hours ago, GoCeltics said:

Which many of them?

You mentioned D&C 132 earlier.

“Then shall they be gods, because they have no end; therefore shall they be from everlasting to everlasting... Then shall they be gods, because they have all power, and the angels are subject unto them."

They (those of Psalm 82) are not deities; they lack permanency. Before that, the angels are not subject unto them; they lack “all power.”

You seem to be playing an "all-or-nothing" game by insisting that if a group called elohim in Psalm 82 does not currently possess 100% of the attributes of a fully exalted, perfected, resurrected god in D&C 132, then they cannot be considered real divine beings at all. In ancient Near Eastern Hebrew thought as well as in LDS theology a "god" is simply the category of heavenly/divine status or office, and not an "all-or-nothing" list of attributes. In biblical Hebrew, gods are not all defined as beings who are omnipotent or immutable, like Moses is an elohim, not all powerful, yet not a false elohim.

D&C 132:19–20 describes the final, perfected state of resurrected exaltation. Demanding that every elohim in scripture possess "all power" is like demanding that a human toddler possess a college degree to be called a "human" because his human father was a graduate.

The elohim of Psalm 82 DO possess real divine status and authority, as it explicitly calls them "gods" and "children of the Most High". They are divine sons sitting in the assembly of God in heaven. They were given administrative authority and domain over nations (cf Deut 32:8, LXX/DSS). That is real, delegated authority over lower domains.

Psalm 82:7 says, "But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes." They lose their standing, but you cannot fall from a divine status you never had in the first place. Their loss of permanency is their later judgment, not proof that they were mere mortal humans or non-divine all along. If these beings were just ordinary mortals or non-divine figures with zero real divine standing, saying "ye are gods" and "ye shall die like men" makes no sense.

Do any of these possess "all power" or absolute post-resurrection perfection? No. Yet the Hebrew text calls them elohim and sons. D&C 132 outlines the end result of faithful new sons who become new elohim to replace them.

Edited 3 hours ago by Pyreaux