Gospel Topics: Becoming Like God

[Cold Steel]

My opinion...my personal opinion, and not necessarily that of the church, is that there are trillions of gods throughout the cosmos, and by cosmos I mean throughout the entire gamut of existence, a space which currently has no name. If everything is a system in the midst of like systems, where does it end? If our universe is a universe in the midst of like universes, where do they reside? The only word I can come up with is “cosmos.”

 

To understand anything of a religious nature, it often requires a clean sheet of paper. Throw away everything you knew or thought you knew; throw away all your predilections and theories and think BIG. When we speak of our Father, the one who is our ONLY Father, what is His domain? Does He rule our galaxy, as some have theorized? Or should we think BIG and see Him as the God of the Universe? In my limited understanding, I see our God and Father as not only the supreme ruler of our universe, but one of trillions of other gods, each engaged in the same work, to wit, to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. Thus, all these trillions of gods are ONE, because they’re all engaged in the same work, perhaps in their own universes. So would that make me a monotheist or a polytheist?

 

Or perhaps it’s more of a family affair. As sons of the Eternal Father of this universe, perhaps our work begins here until a point far in the future where we, also, are given dominion among the host of universes. No one knows.

 

Traditional Christians would be appalled at this sort theology; however, the limitations they’ve placed on their own minds prevents them from seeing things as they are. But they can’t criticize my view because their continuum, while exponentially smaller, still is comprised of multiple beings — the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So if they call Latter Day Saints polytheists (and they do), they're hypocrites. Even with our finest telescopes, we still have no idea what’s out there, nor do we know how far it goes. We’re like proverbial frogs in the bog who wanted a king. So he gave them a log. I don't mean to imply that the Lord has given us a log, but we have only a miniscule knowledge of what lies beyond our bog.

 

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[Scott Lloyd]

It says:

It would have been cool if they included the entire quote from President Hinckley. Or they could have said "Since that sermon, known as the King Follett discourse, the doctrine that humans can progress to exaltation and godliness has been taught within the Church, except for the period of time that President Gordon B. Hinckley was attending Church classes."

President Hinckley's words, properly understood, reflect what is stated in the new Gospel Topics essay. Contextually, he was referring to the first half of the couplet, not the second.

Viewed with that understanding, he was right: We don't teach what we don't clearly understand in the absence of further revelation.