Mormonism and Lesser Gods

Mormonism and Lesser Gods

Kevin James Bywater

(An earlier version of this essay was published online 19 June 2006.)

It is a well-known fact (or at least it should be) that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (hereafter “LDS”; a.k.a., “Mormonism,” as in The Mormon Tabernacle Choir) is a pseudo-Christian religion. Many features of LDS theology exhibit this fact beyond reasonable doubt. But one feature of LDS theology, particularly as expressed in the words of the founder of the church, has always struck me as quite telling: how the Trinity was denied by Joseph Smith, the founder and first prophet of the LDS Church, and continues to be rejected by Mormon leaders and members. This quote illustrates the point:

Many men say there is one God; the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost are only one God. I say that is a strange God anyhow — three in one, and one in three! It is a curious organization . . . All are to be crammed into one God, according to sectarianism. It would make the biggest God in all the world. He would be a wonderfully big God — he would be a giant or a monster. (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 372)

Joseph first supplies us with a rudimentary, if inadequate, summation of the doctrine of the Trinity: one God, three persons. He then ridicules it as “a curious organization” and caricaturing it as “all are to be crammed into one God.” He even has the gall to describe the historic Christian churches, including the historic creeds, as “sectarianism.” That is terribly ironic.

But none of this is to the point. What is telling is what follows.

Joseph describes the implications of the Trinity thusly: “It would make the biggest God in all the world. He would be a wonderfully big God…” Thus Joseph discerns, if only for a moment, that the biblical God actually is wonderful and “big,” even “the biggest God,” so to speak. What is telling, however, is how Joseph Smith, a self-proclaimed and self-styled “prophet of God” then implicitly reveals his theological desires: he wants something less than the greatest. He wants to knock God down to the size of . . . well, Joseph Smith. Thus he dismisses the Trinity by calling our Trinitarian God “a giant or a monster.”

It is apparent that all along Joseph conceives of God in rather materialistic terms: “big,” “biggest,” “giant,” “monster.” Then again, this is a teaching of the Mormon Church: God is a human being, who once was a mortal man, yet who progressed to godhood. As someone has once said, Mormonism is built on the manhood of God and the godhood of man. As someone else once said (and this was a Mormon scholar from Brigham Young University): God and humans are of the same species, in Mormon doctrine.

So, that explains Joseph’s rejection of the Trinity. He doesn’t want a God who is more than a man, more than human. In this view, rather than permitting God to create humans in his image, Joseph has created God in his own image: a man with power and intelligence, but a man, nonetheless. Here are some further quotes from Joseph that illustrate his beliefs, and official Mormon doctrine.

First a statement denying biblical monotheism and suggesting that the Father and the Son are incarnate while the Holy Ghost is a spirit:

I have always declared God to be a distinct personage, Jesus Christ a separate and distinct personage from God the Father, and that the Holy Ghost was a distinct personage and a Spirit; and these three constitute three distinct personages and three Gods (ibid. 370).

Now a statement about how God was not always God:

. . . for I am going to tell you how God came to be God. We have imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity. I will refute that idea, and take away the veil, so you may see (ibid., 345).

Here’s a statement that reveals Joseph’s view of theology/anthropology, namely that God and humans are of the same species:

. . . he was once a man like us; yea, that God himself, the Father of us all, dwelt on an earth, the same as Jesus Christ himself did; and I will show it from the Bible (ibid., 346).

And, finally, a statement about how we can and should become Gods as well, just like others have:

Here, then, is eternal life — to know the only wise and true God, and you have got to learn how to be Gods yourselves, and to be kings and priests to God, the same as all Gods have done before you . . . (ibid., 346).

Without doubt, Mormonism is a pseudo-Christian religion: that is, while claiming to be Christian, Mormonism actually denies fundamental and distinctive elements of our faith.

Mormonism got off on the wrong foot at its beginning: by adopting the speculations and rationalizations of a man who did not desire, and rather despised, “the biggest God in all the world . . . a wonderfully big God,” Mormons ever since have settled for something less, something more mundane, something less than divine, a lesser god.

For further reading…

• Do Muslims, Mormons, and Christian Worship the Same God? — Here we explore the concepts of identity, idolatry, and blasphemy.

• I Am a Mormon . . . Aren’t Christians Mormons Too? — This is a composite recollection of my discussions with Mormon friends, illustrating that the Mormon claim to be Christian is no more sensible than a Christian claim to be Mormon. 

• Learning a Lesson from the LDS Newsroom — Even the Mormon Church objects with other groups use the name “Mormon.”  

• Mormonism: A Survey and Biblical Assessment — This is a larger-scale discussion of Mormonism, including a biblical assessment and witnessing tips. 

• Mormonism on the Fall — This essay illustrates the radical differences between the Bible and Mormon teachings regarding the fall of Adam and Even, and also of human nature. 

• Mormon Theology, God, and the Original Catch-22 —  In this essay we investigate the Mormon Church’s view of the fall of Adam and Eve, and how the church teaches that God gave them conflicting commands.