This glorious truth [salvation for the dead] is well calculated to enlarge the understanding, and to sustain the soul under troubles, difficulties and distresses. For illustration, suppose the case of two men, brothers, equally intelligent, learned, virtuous and lovely, walking in uprightness and in all good conscience, so far as they have been able to discern duty from the muddy stream of tradition, or from the blotted page of the book of nature.
One dies and is buried, having never heard the Gospel of reconciliation; to the other the message of salvation is sent, he hears and embraces it, and is made the heir of eternal life. Shall the one become the partaker of glory and the other be consigned to hopeless perdition? Is there no chance for his escape? Sectarianism answers "none." Such an idea is worse than atheism. The truth shall break down and dash in pieces all such bigoted Pharisaism; the sects shall be sifted, the honest in heart brought out, and their priests left in the midst of their corruption. (Joseph Smith, History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 7 Vols. 4:425-26)
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Friday, July 20, 2007
The Race Question
To clinch the Bering Straits argument, it is usual to point out that the Indians are Mongoloid and therefore cannot possibly be of the racial stock of Lehi. Again an unproven hypothesis is set against a false interpretation of the Book of Mormon. As to the hypothesis, it is fairly well known by now that the predominant blood-type among the Mongols is B, a type which is extremely rare among the Indians, whose dominant blood-type is O, that being found among 91.3 percent of the pure-blooded North American Indians. "Here is a mystery," writes Beals commenting on the disturbing phenomenon, "that requires much pondering and investigation." fn
But if we are to take the Book of Mormon to task for its ethnological teachings, it might be well at first to learn what those teachings are. They turn out on investigation to be surprisingly complicated. There is no mention in the Book of Mormon of red skins versus white; indeed, there is no mention of red skin at all. What we find is a more or less steady process over long periods of time of mixing and separating of many closely related but not identical ethnic groups. The Book of Mormon is careful to specify that the terms Lamanite and Nephite are used in a loose and general sense to designate not racial but political (e.g., Mormon 1:9), military (Alma 43:4), religious (4 Nephi 1:38), and cultural (Alma 53:10, 15; 3:10-11) divisions and groupings of people. The Lamanite and Nephite division was tribal rather than racial, each of the main groups representing an amalgamation of tribes that retained their identity (Alma 43:13; 4 Nephi 1:36-37). Our text frequently goes out of its way to specify that such and such a group is only called Nephite or Lamanite (2 Nephi 5:14; Jacob 1:2; Mosiah 25:12; Alma 3:10;30:59; Helaman 3:16; 3 Nephi 3:24;10:18; 4 Nephi 1:36-38, 43; Mormon 1:9). For the situation was often very mobile, with large numbers of Nephites going over to the Lamanites (Words of Mormon 1:16; 4 Nephi 1:20; Mormon 6:15; Alma 47:35-36), or Lamanites to the Nephites (Alma 27:27; Mosiah 25:12; Alma 55:4), or members of the mixed Mulekite people, such as their Zoramite offshoot, going over either to the Lamanites (Alma 43:4) or to the Nephites (Alma 35:9—not really to the Nephites, but to the Ammonites who were Lamanites who had earlier become Nephites!); or at times the Lamanites and Nephites would freely intermingle (Helaman 6:7-8), while at other times the Nephite society would be heavily infiltrated by Lamanites and by robbers of dubious background (Mormon 2:8). Such robbers were fond of kidnapping Nephite women and children (Helaman 11:33).
The dark skin is mentioned as the mark of a general way of life; it is a Gypsy or Bedouin type of darkness, "black" and "white" being used in their Oriental sense (as in Egyptian), black and loathsome being contrasted to white and delightsome (2 Nephi 5:21-22). We are told that when "their scales of darkness shall begin to fall from their eyes" they shall become "a white and delightsome people" (2 Nephi 30:6; "a pure and delightsome people,"edition), and at the same time the Jews "shall also become a delightsome people" (2 Nephi 30:7). Darkness and filthiness go together as part of a way of life (Jacob 3:5, 9); we never hear of the Lamanites becoming whiter, no matter how righteous they were, except when they adopted the Nephite way of life (3 Nephi 2:14-15), while the Lamanites could, by becoming more savage in their ways than their brother Lamanites, actually become darker, "a dark, filthy, and a loathsome people, beyond the description of that which ever hath been . . . among the Lamanites" (Mormon 5:15). The dark skin is but one of the marks that God places upon the Lamanites, and these marks go together; people who joined the Lamanites were marked like them (Alma 3:10); they were naked and their skins were dark (Alma 3:5-6); when "they set the mark upon themselves; . . . the Amlicites knew not that they were fulfilling the words of God," when he said, "I will set a mark on them. . . . I will set a mark upon him that mingleth his seed with thy brethren. . . . I will set a mark upon him that fighteth against thee [Nephi] and thy seed" (Alma 3:13-18). "Even so," says Alma "doth every man that is cursed bring upon himself his own condemnation" (Alma 3:19). By their own deliberate act they both marked their foreheads and turned their bodies dark. Though ever alert to miraculous manifestations, the authors of the Book of Mormon never refer to the transformation of Lamanites into "white and delightsome" Nephites or Nephites into "dark and loathsome" Lamanites as in any way miraculous or marvelous. When they became savage "because of their cursing" (2 Nephi 5:24), their skins became dark and they also became "loathsome" to the Nephites (2 Nephi 5:21-22). But there is nothing loathsome about dark skin, which most people consider very attractive: the darkness, like the loathsomeness, was part of the general picture (Jacob 3:9); Mormon prays "that they may once again be a delightsome people" (Words of Mormon 1:8; Mormon 5:17), but then the Jews are also to become "a delightsome people" (2 Nephi 30:7)—are they black?
At the time of the Lord's visit, there were "neither . . . Lamanites, nor any manner of -ites," (4 Nephi 1:17;see also 3 Nephi 2:14) so that when the old titles of Lamanite and Nephite were later revived by parties deliberately seeking to stir up old hatreds, they designated religious affiliation rather than race (4 Nephi 1:38-39). From this it would seem that at that time it was impossible to distinguish a person of Nephite blood from one of Lamanite blood by appearance. Moreover, there were no pure-blooded Lamanites or Nephites after the early period, for Nephi, Jacob Joseph, and Sam were all promised that their seed would survive mingled with that of their elder brethren (2 Nephi 3:2, 23; 9:53; 10:10, 19-20; 29:13; 3 Nephi 26:8; Mormon 7:1). Since the Nephites were always aware of that mingling, which they could nearly always perceive in the steady flow of Nephite dissenters to one side and Lamanite converts to the other, it is understandable why they do not think of the terms Nephite and Lamanite as indicating race. The Mulekites, who outnumbered the Nephites better than two to one (Mosiah 25:2-4), were a mixed Near Eastern rabble who had brought no written records with them and had never observed the Law of Moses and did not speak Nephite (Omni 1:18); yet after Mosiah became their king, they "were numbered with the Nephites, and this because the kingdom had been conferred upon none but those who were descendants of Nephi" (Mosiah 25:13). From time to time large numbers of people disappear beyond the Book of Mormon frontiers to vanish in the wilderness or on the sea, taking their traditions and even written records with them (Helaman 3:3-13). What shall we call these people—Nephites or Lamanites?
And just as the Book of Mormon offers no objections whatever to the free movement of whatever tribes and families choose to depart into regions beyond its ken, so it presents no obstacles to the arrival of whatever other bands may have occupied the hemisphere without its knowledge; for hundreds of years the Nephites shared the continent with the far more numerous Jaredites, of whose existence they were totally unaware. fn Strictly speaking, the Book of Mormon is the history of a group of sectaries preoccupied with their own religious affairs, who only notice the presence of other groups when such have reason to mingle with them or collide with them. Just as the desert tribes through whose territories Lehi's people moved in the Old World are mentioned only casually and indirectly, though quite unmistakably (1 Nephi 17:33), so the idea of other migrations to the New World is taken so completely for granted that the story of the Mulekites is dismissed in a few verses (Omni 1:14-17). Indeed, the Lord reminds the Nephites that there are all sorts of migrations of which they know nothing, and that their history is only a small segment of the big picture (2 Nephi 10:21). There is nothing whatever in the Book of Mormon to indicate that everything that is found in the New World before Columbus must be either Nephite or Lamanite. On the contrary, when Mormon boasts, "I am Mormon and a pure descendant of Lehi" (3 Nephi 5:20), we are given to understand that being a direct descendant of Lehi, as all true Nephites and Lamanites were, was really something special. We think of Zarahemla as a great Nephite capital and its civilization as the Nephite civilization at its peak; yet Zarahemla was not a Nephite city at all: its inhabitants called themselves Nephites, as we have seen, because their ruling family were Nephites who had immigrated from the south.
There were times when the Nephites, like the Jaredites, broke up into small bands, including robber bands and secret combinations, each fending for itself (3 Nephi 7:2-3). And when all semblance of centralized control disappeared, "and it was one complete revolution throughout all the face of the land" (Mormon 2:8), who is to say how far how many of these scattered groups went in their wanderings, with whom they fought, and with whom they joined? After the battle of Cumorah, the Lamanites, who had been joined by large numbers of Nephite defectors during the war, were well launched on a career of fierce tribal wars "among themselves" (Moroni 1:2). It would be as impossible to distinguish any one race among them as it would be to distinguish two; there may have been marked "racial" types, as there are now among the Indians (for example, the striking contrast of Navaho and Hopi), but the Book of Mormon makes it clear that those Nephites who went over to live with Lamanites soon came to look like Lamanites. An anthropologist would have been driven wild trying to detect a clear racial pattern among the survivors of Cumorah. So let us not oversimplify and take the Book of Mormon to task for naive conclusions and images that are really our own.
(Hugh Nibley, Since Cumorah, 2nd ed. [Salt Lake City and Provo: Deseret Book Co., Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1988], 219.)
But if we are to take the Book of Mormon to task for its ethnological teachings, it might be well at first to learn what those teachings are. They turn out on investigation to be surprisingly complicated. There is no mention in the Book of Mormon of red skins versus white; indeed, there is no mention of red skin at all. What we find is a more or less steady process over long periods of time of mixing and separating of many closely related but not identical ethnic groups. The Book of Mormon is careful to specify that the terms Lamanite and Nephite are used in a loose and general sense to designate not racial but political (e.g., Mormon 1:9), military (Alma 43:4), religious (4 Nephi 1:38), and cultural (Alma 53:10, 15; 3:10-11) divisions and groupings of people. The Lamanite and Nephite division was tribal rather than racial, each of the main groups representing an amalgamation of tribes that retained their identity (Alma 43:13; 4 Nephi 1:36-37). Our text frequently goes out of its way to specify that such and such a group is only called Nephite or Lamanite (2 Nephi 5:14; Jacob 1:2; Mosiah 25:12; Alma 3:10;30:59; Helaman 3:16; 3 Nephi 3:24;10:18; 4 Nephi 1:36-38, 43; Mormon 1:9). For the situation was often very mobile, with large numbers of Nephites going over to the Lamanites (Words of Mormon 1:16; 4 Nephi 1:20; Mormon 6:15; Alma 47:35-36), or Lamanites to the Nephites (Alma 27:27; Mosiah 25:12; Alma 55:4), or members of the mixed Mulekite people, such as their Zoramite offshoot, going over either to the Lamanites (Alma 43:4) or to the Nephites (Alma 35:9—not really to the Nephites, but to the Ammonites who were Lamanites who had earlier become Nephites!); or at times the Lamanites and Nephites would freely intermingle (Helaman 6:7-8), while at other times the Nephite society would be heavily infiltrated by Lamanites and by robbers of dubious background (Mormon 2:8). Such robbers were fond of kidnapping Nephite women and children (Helaman 11:33).
The dark skin is mentioned as the mark of a general way of life; it is a Gypsy or Bedouin type of darkness, "black" and "white" being used in their Oriental sense (as in Egyptian), black and loathsome being contrasted to white and delightsome (2 Nephi 5:21-22). We are told that when "their scales of darkness shall begin to fall from their eyes" they shall become "a white and delightsome people" (2 Nephi 30:6; "a pure and delightsome people,"edition), and at the same time the Jews "shall also become a delightsome people" (2 Nephi 30:7). Darkness and filthiness go together as part of a way of life (Jacob 3:5, 9); we never hear of the Lamanites becoming whiter, no matter how righteous they were, except when they adopted the Nephite way of life (3 Nephi 2:14-15), while the Lamanites could, by becoming more savage in their ways than their brother Lamanites, actually become darker, "a dark, filthy, and a loathsome people, beyond the description of that which ever hath been . . . among the Lamanites" (Mormon 5:15). The dark skin is but one of the marks that God places upon the Lamanites, and these marks go together; people who joined the Lamanites were marked like them (Alma 3:10); they were naked and their skins were dark (Alma 3:5-6); when "they set the mark upon themselves; . . . the Amlicites knew not that they were fulfilling the words of God," when he said, "I will set a mark on them. . . . I will set a mark upon him that mingleth his seed with thy brethren. . . . I will set a mark upon him that fighteth against thee [Nephi] and thy seed" (Alma 3:13-18). "Even so," says Alma "doth every man that is cursed bring upon himself his own condemnation" (Alma 3:19). By their own deliberate act they both marked their foreheads and turned their bodies dark. Though ever alert to miraculous manifestations, the authors of the Book of Mormon never refer to the transformation of Lamanites into "white and delightsome" Nephites or Nephites into "dark and loathsome" Lamanites as in any way miraculous or marvelous. When they became savage "because of their cursing" (2 Nephi 5:24), their skins became dark and they also became "loathsome" to the Nephites (2 Nephi 5:21-22). But there is nothing loathsome about dark skin, which most people consider very attractive: the darkness, like the loathsomeness, was part of the general picture (Jacob 3:9); Mormon prays "that they may once again be a delightsome people" (Words of Mormon 1:8; Mormon 5:17), but then the Jews are also to become "a delightsome people" (2 Nephi 30:7)—are they black?
At the time of the Lord's visit, there were "neither . . . Lamanites, nor any manner of -ites," (4 Nephi 1:17;see also 3 Nephi 2:14) so that when the old titles of Lamanite and Nephite were later revived by parties deliberately seeking to stir up old hatreds, they designated religious affiliation rather than race (4 Nephi 1:38-39). From this it would seem that at that time it was impossible to distinguish a person of Nephite blood from one of Lamanite blood by appearance. Moreover, there were no pure-blooded Lamanites or Nephites after the early period, for Nephi, Jacob Joseph, and Sam were all promised that their seed would survive mingled with that of their elder brethren (2 Nephi 3:2, 23; 9:53; 10:10, 19-20; 29:13; 3 Nephi 26:8; Mormon 7:1). Since the Nephites were always aware of that mingling, which they could nearly always perceive in the steady flow of Nephite dissenters to one side and Lamanite converts to the other, it is understandable why they do not think of the terms Nephite and Lamanite as indicating race. The Mulekites, who outnumbered the Nephites better than two to one (Mosiah 25:2-4), were a mixed Near Eastern rabble who had brought no written records with them and had never observed the Law of Moses and did not speak Nephite (Omni 1:18); yet after Mosiah became their king, they "were numbered with the Nephites, and this because the kingdom had been conferred upon none but those who were descendants of Nephi" (Mosiah 25:13). From time to time large numbers of people disappear beyond the Book of Mormon frontiers to vanish in the wilderness or on the sea, taking their traditions and even written records with them (Helaman 3:3-13). What shall we call these people—Nephites or Lamanites?
And just as the Book of Mormon offers no objections whatever to the free movement of whatever tribes and families choose to depart into regions beyond its ken, so it presents no obstacles to the arrival of whatever other bands may have occupied the hemisphere without its knowledge; for hundreds of years the Nephites shared the continent with the far more numerous Jaredites, of whose existence they were totally unaware. fn Strictly speaking, the Book of Mormon is the history of a group of sectaries preoccupied with their own religious affairs, who only notice the presence of other groups when such have reason to mingle with them or collide with them. Just as the desert tribes through whose territories Lehi's people moved in the Old World are mentioned only casually and indirectly, though quite unmistakably (1 Nephi 17:33), so the idea of other migrations to the New World is taken so completely for granted that the story of the Mulekites is dismissed in a few verses (Omni 1:14-17). Indeed, the Lord reminds the Nephites that there are all sorts of migrations of which they know nothing, and that their history is only a small segment of the big picture (2 Nephi 10:21). There is nothing whatever in the Book of Mormon to indicate that everything that is found in the New World before Columbus must be either Nephite or Lamanite. On the contrary, when Mormon boasts, "I am Mormon and a pure descendant of Lehi" (3 Nephi 5:20), we are given to understand that being a direct descendant of Lehi, as all true Nephites and Lamanites were, was really something special. We think of Zarahemla as a great Nephite capital and its civilization as the Nephite civilization at its peak; yet Zarahemla was not a Nephite city at all: its inhabitants called themselves Nephites, as we have seen, because their ruling family were Nephites who had immigrated from the south.
There were times when the Nephites, like the Jaredites, broke up into small bands, including robber bands and secret combinations, each fending for itself (3 Nephi 7:2-3). And when all semblance of centralized control disappeared, "and it was one complete revolution throughout all the face of the land" (Mormon 2:8), who is to say how far how many of these scattered groups went in their wanderings, with whom they fought, and with whom they joined? After the battle of Cumorah, the Lamanites, who had been joined by large numbers of Nephite defectors during the war, were well launched on a career of fierce tribal wars "among themselves" (Moroni 1:2). It would be as impossible to distinguish any one race among them as it would be to distinguish two; there may have been marked "racial" types, as there are now among the Indians (for example, the striking contrast of Navaho and Hopi), but the Book of Mormon makes it clear that those Nephites who went over to live with Lamanites soon came to look like Lamanites. An anthropologist would have been driven wild trying to detect a clear racial pattern among the survivors of Cumorah. So let us not oversimplify and take the Book of Mormon to task for naive conclusions and images that are really our own.
(Hugh Nibley, Since Cumorah, 2nd ed. [Salt Lake City and Provo: Deseret Book Co., Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1988], 219.)
The Plurality of Gods
Actually the real objection in modern Christian churches to the doctrine of deification is often that it implies the existence of more than one God. If human beings can become gods and yet remain distinct beings separate from God, it makes for a universe with many gods. Surely C. S. Lewis realized this implication; so did the early Christian saints. Yet like the Latter-day Saints they did not understand this implication to constitute genuine polytheism.
For both the doctrine of deification and the implied doctrine of plurality of gods, an understanding of the definitions involved is essential. So let's be clear on what Latter-day Saints do not believe. They do not believe that humans will ever be equal to or independent of God. His status in relation to us is not in any way compromised. There is only one source of light, knowledge, and power in the universe. If through the gospel of Jesus Christ and the grace of God we receive the fulness of God (Eph. 3:19) so that we also can be called gods, humans will never become "ultimate" beings in the abstract, philosophical sense. That is, even as they sit on thrones exercising the powers of gods, those who have become gods by grace remain eternally subordinate to the source of that grace; they are extensions of their Father's power and agents of his will. They will continue to worship and serve the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost forever, and will worship and serve no one and nothing else.
If the Latter-day Saints had chosen to refer to such glorified beings as "angels" instead of "gods," it is unlikely anyone outside the LDS church would have objected to the doctrine per se. It seems that it is only the term that is objectionable. And yet the scriptures themselves often use the word god in this limited sense to refer to nonultimate beings.
For example, in Ps. 8 the word gods (Hebrew elohim) is used in reference to the angels: "What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels [elohim], and hast crowned him with glory and honour." (Vv. 4-5.) Though the Hebrew reads "gods" (elohim), translators and commentators from the Septuagint on, including the author of Hebrews in the New Testament, have understood the expression to refer to the angels (see Heb. 2:7). The term gods is here applied to beings other than God. Deuteronomy 10: 17, Josh. 22:22, and Ps. 136:2 all insist that God is a "God of gods." Clearly this doesn't mean that there are divine competitors out in the cosmos somewhere; rather, these passages probably also refer to the angels in their divinely appointed roles. If the angels can, in some sense, be considered divine beings because they exercise the powers of God and act as his agents, then the one God they serve is correctly considered a "God of gods." Scholars have long known, and the Dead Sea Scrolls and other literature of the period have now proven, that the Jews in Jesus' day commonly referred to the angels as "gods" (Hebrew elim or elohim) in this nonultimate sense.fn This is not because the Jews were polytheists, but because they used the term god in a limited sense to refer to other beings associated with God whom he allowed the privilege of exercising divine powers.
But human beings are also called "gods" in scripture, probably for the same reasons that the angels are-they, as well as the angels, can exercise the powers of God and act as his agents. Thus Moses is designated a "god to Pharaoh" (Ex. 7:1). This doesn't mean that Moses had become an exalted or ultimate being, but only that he had been given divine powers and was authorized to represent God to Pharaoh, even to the point of speaking God's word in the first person. If the scriptures can refer to a mortal human being like Moses as a "god" in this sense, then surely immortal human beings who inherit the fulness of God's powers and authority in the resurrection can be understood to be "gods" in the same sense.
In Ex. 21:6 and 22:8-9 human judges are referred to in the Hebrew text as elohim ("gods"). In Ps. 45:6 the king is referred to as an elohim. Human leaders and judges are also referred to as "gods" in the following passage from the book of Psalms: "God standeth in the congregation of the mighty; he judgeth among the gods .... I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High. But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes." (Ps. 82:1,6-7 Jewish and Christian biblical scholars alike have understood this passage as applying the term sods to human beings. According to James S. Ackerman, who is not a Mormon, "the overwhelming majority of commentators have interpreted this passage as referring to Israelite judges who were called 'gods' because they had the high responsibility of dispensing justice according to God's Law."fn
In the New Testament, at John 10:34-36, we read that Jesus himself quoted Ps. 82:6 and interpreted the term gods as referring to human beings who had received the word of God: "Jesus answered them, 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; say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?" In other words, 'If the scriptures [Ps. 82] can refer to mortals who receive the word of God as "gods," then why get upset with me for merely saying I am the Son of God?' The Savior's argument was effective precisely because the scripture does use the term gods in this limited way to refer to human beings. According to J. A. Emerton, who is also not a Mormon, "most exegetes are agreed that the argu- ment is intended to prove that men can, in certain circumstances, be called gods .... [Jesus] goes back to fundamental principles and argues, more generally, that the word 'god' can, in certain circumstances, be applied to beings other than God himself, to whom he has committed authority."fn
And that, in a nutshell, is the LDS view. Whether in this life or the next, through Christ human beings can be given the powers of God and the authority of God. Those who receive this great inheritance can properly be called gods. They are not gods in the Greek philosophic sense of "ultimate beings," nor do they compete with God, the source of their inheritance, as objects of worship. They remain eternally his begotten sons and daughters -therefore, never equal to him nor independent of him. Orthodox theologians may argue that Latter-day Saints shouldn't use the term gods for nonultimate beings, but this is because the Latter-day Saints' .use of the term violates Platonic rather than biblical definitions. Both in the scriptures and in earliest Christianity those who received the word of God were called gods.
I don't need to repeat here the views of Christian saints and theologians cited above on the doctrine of deification. But it should be noted that for them, as for the Latter-day Saints, the doctrine of deification implied a plurality of "gods" but not a plurality of Gods. That is, it did not imply polytheism. Saint Clement of Alexandria was surely both a monotheist and a Christian, and yet he believed that those who are perfected through the gospel of Christ "are called by the appellation of gods, being destined to sit on thrones with the other gods that have been first installed in their places by the Savior."fn This is good LDS doctrine. If Clement, the Christian saint and theologian, could teach that human beings will be called gods and will sit on thrones with others who have been made gods by Jesus Christ, how in all fairness can Joseph Smith be declared a polytheist and a non-Christian for teaching the same thing?
In harmony with widely recognized scriptural and historical precedents, Latter-day Saints use the term gods to describe those who will, through the grace of God and the gospel of Jesus Christ, receive of God's fulness - of his divine powers and pre-rogatives-in the resurrection. Thus, for Latter-day Saints the question "Is there more than one god?" is not the same as "Is there more than one source of power or object of worship in the universe?" For Latter-day Saints, as for Saint Clement, the answer to the former is yes, but the answer to the latter is no. For Latter-day Saints the term god is a title which can be extended to those who receive the power and authority of God as promised to the faithful in the scriptures; but such an extension of that title does not challenge, limit, or infringe upon the ultimate and absolute position and authority of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
When anti-Mormon critics interpret Exodus ?: 1, Deut. 10:1 ?, Ps. 8:5 (in Hebrew), Ps. 45:6, Ps. 82:6, or John 10:34-36, they go to great lengths to clarify that these scriptures use the term god in a limited sense and that therefore they do not involve any polytheism-there may be more than one "god," but there is only one God. When they discuss Latter-day Saint writings that use the term god in the same sense, however, the critics seldom offer the same courtesy. Instead they disallow any limited sense in which the term gods can be used when that term occurs in LDS sources, thereby distorting and misinterpreting our doctrine, and then accuse us of being "polytheists" for speaking of "gods" in a sense for which there are valid scriptural and historical precedents.
Other Christian saints, theologians, and writers-both ancient and modern-have believed human beings can become "gods" but have not been accused of polytheism, because the "gods" in this sense were viewed as remaining forever subordinate to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Since this is also the doctrine of the Latter-day Saints, they also ought to enjoy the same defense against the charge of polytheism. Since these other Christians and the Latter-day Saints share the same doctrine, they should share the same fate; either make polytheist heretics of the saints, theologians, and writers in question, or allow the Latter-day Saints to be considered worshippers of the one true God.
President Snow often referred to this couplet as having been revealed to him by inspiration during the Nauvoo period of the Church. See, for example, Deseret Weekly 49 (3 November 1894): 610; Deseret Weekly 57 (8 October 1898): 513; Deseret News 52 (15 June 1901): 177; and Journal History of the Church, 20 July 1901, p. 4.
Irenaeus, Against Heresies, bk. 5, pref.
Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 4.38. Cp. 4.11 (2): "But man receives progression and increase towards God. For as God is always the same, so also man, when found in God, shall always progress towards God."
Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Greeks, 1.
Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor, 3.1. See also Clement, Stro-mateis, 23.
Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, 124.
Athanasius, Against the Arians, 1.39, 3.34.
Athanasius, De Inc., 54.
Augustine, On the Psalms, 50.2. Augustine insists that such individuals are gods by grace rather than by nature, but they are gods nevertheless.
Richard P. McBrien, Catholicism, 2 vols. (Minneapolis: Winston Press, 1980), 1:146, 156; emphasis in original.
Symeon Lash, "Deification," in The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Theology, ed. Alan Richardson and John Bowden (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1985), pp. 147-48.
For a longer treatment of this subject, see Jules Gross, La divinisa-tion du chrétien d'aprè les pères grecs (Paris: J. Gabalda, 1938).
Paul Crouch, "Praise the Lord," Trinity Broadcasting Network, 7 July 1986.
Robert Tilton, God's Laws of Success (Dallas: Word of Faith, 1983), pp. 170-71.
Kenneth Copeland, The Force of Love (Fort Worth: Kenneth Copeland, n.d.), tape BCC-56.
Kenneth Copeland, The Power of the Tongue (Fort Worth: Kenneth Copeland, n.d.), p. 6. I am not arguing that these evangelists are mainline evangelicals (though they would insist that they are), only that they are Protestants with large Christian followings.
C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses, rev. ed. (New York: Macmillan, Collier Books, 1980), p. 18.
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: Macmillan, 1952; Collier Books, 1960), p. 153. Cp. p. 164, where Lewis describes Christ as "finally, if all goes well, turning you permanently into a different sort of thing; into a new little Christ, a being which, in its own small way, has the same kind of life as God; which shares in His power, joy, knowledge and eternity." See also C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, rev. ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1982), p. 38, where the tempter Screwtape complains that God intends to fill heaven with "little replicas of Himself."
Lewis, Mere Christianity, p. 154.
Lewis, Mere Christianity, pp. 174-75. For a more recent example of the doctrine of deification in modern, non-LDS Christianity, see M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978) pp. 269-70: "For no matter how much we may like to pussyfoot around it, all of us who postulate a loving God and really think about it even- tually come to a single terrifying idea: God wants us to become Himself (or Herself or Itself). We are growing toward godhood."
Most critics are surprised to know how highly the thinking of C. S. Lewis is respected by Latter-day Saint readers.
See, for example, John Strugnell, The Angelic Liturgy at Qumran -4 Q Serek Sirot 'Olat Hassabat in Supplements to Vetus Testamenturn VII [Congress Volume, Oxford 1959], (Leiden: Brill, 1960), pp. 336-38, or A. S. van der Woude, "Melchisedek als himmlische Erlösergestalt in den neuge-fundenen eschatologischen Midraschim aus Qumran Höhle XI," Oudtestamentische Studiën 14 ( 1965): 354-73.
James S. Ackerman, "The Rabbinic Interpretation of Ps. 82 and the Gospel of John," Harvard Theological Review 59 (April 1966): 186.
J. A. Emerton, "The Interpretation of Ps. 82 in John 10," Journal of Theological Studies 11 (April 1960): 329, 332. This was also the view of Saint Augustine in writing of this passage in On the Psalms, 50.2: "It is evident, then, that he has called men 'gods,' who are deified by his grace" (cf. also 97.12).
Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis, 7.10.
(Stephen E. Robinson, Are Mormons Christians? [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1991],
For both the doctrine of deification and the implied doctrine of plurality of gods, an understanding of the definitions involved is essential. So let's be clear on what Latter-day Saints do not believe. They do not believe that humans will ever be equal to or independent of God. His status in relation to us is not in any way compromised. There is only one source of light, knowledge, and power in the universe. If through the gospel of Jesus Christ and the grace of God we receive the fulness of God (Eph. 3:19) so that we also can be called gods, humans will never become "ultimate" beings in the abstract, philosophical sense. That is, even as they sit on thrones exercising the powers of gods, those who have become gods by grace remain eternally subordinate to the source of that grace; they are extensions of their Father's power and agents of his will. They will continue to worship and serve the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost forever, and will worship and serve no one and nothing else.
If the Latter-day Saints had chosen to refer to such glorified beings as "angels" instead of "gods," it is unlikely anyone outside the LDS church would have objected to the doctrine per se. It seems that it is only the term that is objectionable. And yet the scriptures themselves often use the word god in this limited sense to refer to nonultimate beings.
For example, in Ps. 8 the word gods (Hebrew elohim) is used in reference to the angels: "What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels [elohim], and hast crowned him with glory and honour." (Vv. 4-5.) Though the Hebrew reads "gods" (elohim), translators and commentators from the Septuagint on, including the author of Hebrews in the New Testament, have understood the expression to refer to the angels (see Heb. 2:7). The term gods is here applied to beings other than God. Deuteronomy 10: 17, Josh. 22:22, and Ps. 136:2 all insist that God is a "God of gods." Clearly this doesn't mean that there are divine competitors out in the cosmos somewhere; rather, these passages probably also refer to the angels in their divinely appointed roles. If the angels can, in some sense, be considered divine beings because they exercise the powers of God and act as his agents, then the one God they serve is correctly considered a "God of gods." Scholars have long known, and the Dead Sea Scrolls and other literature of the period have now proven, that the Jews in Jesus' day commonly referred to the angels as "gods" (Hebrew elim or elohim) in this nonultimate sense.fn This is not because the Jews were polytheists, but because they used the term god in a limited sense to refer to other beings associated with God whom he allowed the privilege of exercising divine powers.
But human beings are also called "gods" in scripture, probably for the same reasons that the angels are-they, as well as the angels, can exercise the powers of God and act as his agents. Thus Moses is designated a "god to Pharaoh" (Ex. 7:1). This doesn't mean that Moses had become an exalted or ultimate being, but only that he had been given divine powers and was authorized to represent God to Pharaoh, even to the point of speaking God's word in the first person. If the scriptures can refer to a mortal human being like Moses as a "god" in this sense, then surely immortal human beings who inherit the fulness of God's powers and authority in the resurrection can be understood to be "gods" in the same sense.
In Ex. 21:6 and 22:8-9 human judges are referred to in the Hebrew text as elohim ("gods"). In Ps. 45:6 the king is referred to as an elohim. Human leaders and judges are also referred to as "gods" in the following passage from the book of Psalms: "God standeth in the congregation of the mighty; he judgeth among the gods .... I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High. But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes." (Ps. 82:1,6-7 Jewish and Christian biblical scholars alike have understood this passage as applying the term sods to human beings. According to James S. Ackerman, who is not a Mormon, "the overwhelming majority of commentators have interpreted this passage as referring to Israelite judges who were called 'gods' because they had the high responsibility of dispensing justice according to God's Law."fn
In the New Testament, at John 10:34-36, we read that Jesus himself quoted Ps. 82:6 and interpreted the term gods as referring to human beings who had received the word of God: "Jesus answered them, 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; say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?" In other words, 'If the scriptures [Ps. 82] can refer to mortals who receive the word of God as "gods," then why get upset with me for merely saying I am the Son of God?' The Savior's argument was effective precisely because the scripture does use the term gods in this limited way to refer to human beings. According to J. A. Emerton, who is also not a Mormon, "most exegetes are agreed that the argu- ment is intended to prove that men can, in certain circumstances, be called gods .... [Jesus] goes back to fundamental principles and argues, more generally, that the word 'god' can, in certain circumstances, be applied to beings other than God himself, to whom he has committed authority."fn
And that, in a nutshell, is the LDS view. Whether in this life or the next, through Christ human beings can be given the powers of God and the authority of God. Those who receive this great inheritance can properly be called gods. They are not gods in the Greek philosophic sense of "ultimate beings," nor do they compete with God, the source of their inheritance, as objects of worship. They remain eternally his begotten sons and daughters -therefore, never equal to him nor independent of him. Orthodox theologians may argue that Latter-day Saints shouldn't use the term gods for nonultimate beings, but this is because the Latter-day Saints' .use of the term violates Platonic rather than biblical definitions. Both in the scriptures and in earliest Christianity those who received the word of God were called gods.
I don't need to repeat here the views of Christian saints and theologians cited above on the doctrine of deification. But it should be noted that for them, as for the Latter-day Saints, the doctrine of deification implied a plurality of "gods" but not a plurality of Gods. That is, it did not imply polytheism. Saint Clement of Alexandria was surely both a monotheist and a Christian, and yet he believed that those who are perfected through the gospel of Christ "are called by the appellation of gods, being destined to sit on thrones with the other gods that have been first installed in their places by the Savior."fn This is good LDS doctrine. If Clement, the Christian saint and theologian, could teach that human beings will be called gods and will sit on thrones with others who have been made gods by Jesus Christ, how in all fairness can Joseph Smith be declared a polytheist and a non-Christian for teaching the same thing?
In harmony with widely recognized scriptural and historical precedents, Latter-day Saints use the term gods to describe those who will, through the grace of God and the gospel of Jesus Christ, receive of God's fulness - of his divine powers and pre-rogatives-in the resurrection. Thus, for Latter-day Saints the question "Is there more than one god?" is not the same as "Is there more than one source of power or object of worship in the universe?" For Latter-day Saints, as for Saint Clement, the answer to the former is yes, but the answer to the latter is no. For Latter-day Saints the term god is a title which can be extended to those who receive the power and authority of God as promised to the faithful in the scriptures; but such an extension of that title does not challenge, limit, or infringe upon the ultimate and absolute position and authority of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.
When anti-Mormon critics interpret Exodus ?: 1, Deut. 10:1 ?, Ps. 8:5 (in Hebrew), Ps. 45:6, Ps. 82:6, or John 10:34-36, they go to great lengths to clarify that these scriptures use the term god in a limited sense and that therefore they do not involve any polytheism-there may be more than one "god," but there is only one God. When they discuss Latter-day Saint writings that use the term god in the same sense, however, the critics seldom offer the same courtesy. Instead they disallow any limited sense in which the term gods can be used when that term occurs in LDS sources, thereby distorting and misinterpreting our doctrine, and then accuse us of being "polytheists" for speaking of "gods" in a sense for which there are valid scriptural and historical precedents.
Other Christian saints, theologians, and writers-both ancient and modern-have believed human beings can become "gods" but have not been accused of polytheism, because the "gods" in this sense were viewed as remaining forever subordinate to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Since this is also the doctrine of the Latter-day Saints, they also ought to enjoy the same defense against the charge of polytheism. Since these other Christians and the Latter-day Saints share the same doctrine, they should share the same fate; either make polytheist heretics of the saints, theologians, and writers in question, or allow the Latter-day Saints to be considered worshippers of the one true God.
President Snow often referred to this couplet as having been revealed to him by inspiration during the Nauvoo period of the Church. See, for example, Deseret Weekly 49 (3 November 1894): 610; Deseret Weekly 57 (8 October 1898): 513; Deseret News 52 (15 June 1901): 177; and Journal History of the Church, 20 July 1901, p. 4.
Irenaeus, Against Heresies, bk. 5, pref.
Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 4.38. Cp. 4.11 (2): "But man receives progression and increase towards God. For as God is always the same, so also man, when found in God, shall always progress towards God."
Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Greeks, 1.
Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor, 3.1. See also Clement, Stro-mateis, 23.
Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, 124.
Athanasius, Against the Arians, 1.39, 3.34.
Athanasius, De Inc., 54.
Augustine, On the Psalms, 50.2. Augustine insists that such individuals are gods by grace rather than by nature, but they are gods nevertheless.
Richard P. McBrien, Catholicism, 2 vols. (Minneapolis: Winston Press, 1980), 1:146, 156; emphasis in original.
Symeon Lash, "Deification," in The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Theology, ed. Alan Richardson and John Bowden (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1985), pp. 147-48.
For a longer treatment of this subject, see Jules Gross, La divinisa-tion du chrétien d'aprè les pères grecs (Paris: J. Gabalda, 1938).
Paul Crouch, "Praise the Lord," Trinity Broadcasting Network, 7 July 1986.
Robert Tilton, God's Laws of Success (Dallas: Word of Faith, 1983), pp. 170-71.
Kenneth Copeland, The Force of Love (Fort Worth: Kenneth Copeland, n.d.), tape BCC-56.
Kenneth Copeland, The Power of the Tongue (Fort Worth: Kenneth Copeland, n.d.), p. 6. I am not arguing that these evangelists are mainline evangelicals (though they would insist that they are), only that they are Protestants with large Christian followings.
C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses, rev. ed. (New York: Macmillan, Collier Books, 1980), p. 18.
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: Macmillan, 1952; Collier Books, 1960), p. 153. Cp. p. 164, where Lewis describes Christ as "finally, if all goes well, turning you permanently into a different sort of thing; into a new little Christ, a being which, in its own small way, has the same kind of life as God; which shares in His power, joy, knowledge and eternity." See also C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, rev. ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1982), p. 38, where the tempter Screwtape complains that God intends to fill heaven with "little replicas of Himself."
Lewis, Mere Christianity, p. 154.
Lewis, Mere Christianity, pp. 174-75. For a more recent example of the doctrine of deification in modern, non-LDS Christianity, see M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978) pp. 269-70: "For no matter how much we may like to pussyfoot around it, all of us who postulate a loving God and really think about it even- tually come to a single terrifying idea: God wants us to become Himself (or Herself or Itself). We are growing toward godhood."
Most critics are surprised to know how highly the thinking of C. S. Lewis is respected by Latter-day Saint readers.
See, for example, John Strugnell, The Angelic Liturgy at Qumran -4 Q Serek Sirot 'Olat Hassabat in Supplements to Vetus Testamenturn VII [Congress Volume, Oxford 1959], (Leiden: Brill, 1960), pp. 336-38, or A. S. van der Woude, "Melchisedek als himmlische Erlösergestalt in den neuge-fundenen eschatologischen Midraschim aus Qumran Höhle XI," Oudtestamentische Studiën 14 ( 1965): 354-73.
James S. Ackerman, "The Rabbinic Interpretation of Ps. 82 and the Gospel of John," Harvard Theological Review 59 (April 1966): 186.
J. A. Emerton, "The Interpretation of Ps. 82 in John 10," Journal of Theological Studies 11 (April 1960): 329, 332. This was also the view of Saint Augustine in writing of this passage in On the Psalms, 50.2: "It is evident, then, that he has called men 'gods,' who are deified by his grace" (cf. also 97.12).
Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis, 7.10.
(Stephen E. Robinson, Are Mormons Christians? [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1991],
The Doctrine of Deification
It is indisputable that Latter-day Saints believe that God was once a human being and that human beings can become gods. The famous couplet of Lorenzo Snow, fifth President of the LDS church, states:
As man now is, God once was;
As God now is, man may be.fn
It has been claimed by some that this is an altogether pagan doctrine that blasphemes the majesty of God. Not all Christians have thought so, however. In the second century Saint Irenaeus, the most important Christian theologian of his time, said much the same thing as Lorenzo Snow:
If the Word became a man,
It was so men may become gods.fn
Indeed, Saint Irenaeus had more than this to say on the subject of deification:
Do we cast blame on him [God] because we were not made gods from the beginning, but were at first created merely as men, and then later as gods? Although God has adopted this course out of his pure benevolence, that no one may charge him with discrimination or stinginess, he declares, "I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are sons of the Most High."... For it was necessary at first that nature be exhibited, then after that what was mortal would be conquered and swallowed up in immortality.fn
Also in the second century, Saint Clement of Alexandria wrote, "Yea, I say, the Word of God became a man so that you might learn from a man how to become a god"fn-almost a paraphrase of Lorenzo Snow's statement. Clement also said that "if one knows himself, he will know God, and knowing God will become like God .... His is beauty, true beauty, for it is God, and that man becomes a god, since God wills it. So Heraclitus was right when he said, 'Men are gods, and gods are men."fn
Still in the second century, Saint Justin Martyr insisted that in the beginning men "were made like God, free from suffering and death," and that they are thus "deemed worthy of becoming gods and of having power to become sons of the highest."fn
In the early fourth century Saint Athanasius-that tireless foe of heresy after whom the orthodox Athanasian Creed is named-also stated his belief in deification in terms very similar to those of Lorenzo Snow: "The Word was made flesh in order that we might be enabled to be made gods .... Just as the Lord, putting on the body, became a man, so also we men are both deified through his flesh, and henceforth inherit everlasting life."fn On another occasion Athanasius stated, "He became man that we might be made divine"fn-yet another parallel to Lorenzo Snow's expression.
Finally, Saint Augustine himself, the greatest of the Christian Fathers, said: "But he himself that justifies also deifies, for by justifying he makes sons of God. 'For he has given them power to become the sons of God' [John 1:12]. If then we have been made sons of God, we have also been made gods."fn
Notice that I am citing only unimpeachable Christian authorities here-no pagans, no Gnostics. All five of the above writers were not just Christians, and not just orthodox Christians -they were orthodox Christian saints. Three of the five wrote within a hundred years of the period of the Apostles, and all five believed in the doctrine of deification. This doctrine was a part of historical Christianity until relatively recent times, and it is still an important doctrine in some Eastern Orthodox churches. Those who accuse the Latter-day Saints of making up the doc- trine simply do not know the history of Christian doctrine. In one of the best works on Catholicism, Father Richard P. McBrien states that a fundamental principle of orthodoxy in the patristic period was to see "the history of the universe as the history of divinization and salvation." As a result the Fathers concluded, according to McBrien, that "because the Spirit is truly God, we are truly divinized by the presence of the Spirit."fn
In The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Theology, which is not a Mormon publication, the following additional information can be found in the article titled, "Deification":
Deification (Greek theosis) is for Orthodoxy the goal of every Christian. Man, according to the Bible, is 'made in the image and likeness of God'.... It is possible for man to become like God, to become deified, to become god by grace. This doctrine is based on many passages of both OT and NT (e.g. Ps. 82 (81).6; 2 Pet. 1.4 and it is essentially the teaching both of St Paul, though he tends to use the language of filial adoption (cf. Rom. 8.9-17 Gal. 4.5-7 and the Fourth Gospel (cf. 17.21-23).
The language of II Peter is taken up by St Irenaeus, in his famous phrase, 'if the Word has been made man, it is so that men may be made gods' (Adv. Haer V, Pref.), and becomes the standard in Greek theology. In the fourth century St Athanasius repeats Irenaeus almost word for word, and in the fifth century St Cyril of Alexandria says that we shall become sons 'by participation' (Greek methexis). Deification is the central idea in the spirituality of St Maximus the Confessor, for whom the doctrine is the corollary of the Incarnation: 'Deification, briefly, is the encompassing and fulfilment of all times and ages',... and St Symeon the New Theologian at the end of the tenth century writes, 'He who is God by nature converses with those whom he has made gods by grace, as a friend converses with his friends, face to face.' ...
Finally, it should be noted that deification does not mean absorption into God, since the deified creature remains itself and distinct. It is the whole human being, body and soul, who is transfigured in the Spirit into the likeness of the divine nature, and deification is the goal of every Christian.fn
Whether the doctrine of deification is correct or incorrect, it was a part of mainstream Christian orthodoxy for centuries, though some modern Christians with a limited historical view may not be aware of it. If this doctrine became "the standard in Greek theology," and if "deification is the goal of every Christian," then the Latter-day Saints can't be banished from the Christian family for having the same theology and the same goal. If Saint Irenaeus, Saint Justin Martyr, Saint Clement of Alexandria, Saint Athanasius, Saint Cyril of Alexandria, Saint Maximus the Confessor, and Saint Symeon the New Theologian all believed that human beings can become gods, and if these good former-day saints are still to be counted as Christians, then the Latter-day Saints cannot be excluded from Christian circles for believing the same thing. In fact this doctrine is not pagan, nor is it foreign to the larger Christian tradition.fn Since it is found among the theologian/saints from Justin Martyr in the second century to Simeon the New Theologian in the eleventh century, Joseph Smith obviously did not make it up.
There is often much more to the history of Christianity and of Christian doctrine than just what seems familiar and comfortable to twentieth-century conservatives. Yet even among conservative Protestants the doctrine of deification is still occasionally found. Paul Crouch of the Trinity Broadcasting Network says: "I am a little god. I have His name. I am one with Him. I'm in covenant relation. I am a little god. Critics begone."fn Robert Tilton, a Texas evangelist, says that man is "a God kind of creature. Originally you were designed to be as a god in this world. Man was designed or created by God to be the god of this world."fn Kenneth Copeland, also of Texas, tells his listeners, "You don't have a god in you. You are one!"fn He writes that "man had total authority to rule as a god over every living creature on earth."fn
Now, in fact, the Latter-day Saints would not agree with the doctrine of deification as understood by most of these evangelists, for in the LDS view we receive the full divine inheritance only through the atonement of Christ and only after a glorious resurrection. Closer to the Latter-day Saint understanding of the doctrine are the views expressed by C. S. Lewis, an individual whose genuine Christianity is virtually undisputed: "It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you[sa[w] it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship.fn
Elsewhere Lewis writes that the great promise of Christianity is that humans can share Christ's type of life (Greek zoe rather than bios) and thus can become sons and daughters of God. He explains:["[Christ] came to this world and became a man in order to spread to other men the kind of life He has-by what I call 'good infection.' Every Christian is to become a little Christ."fn In words reminiscent of those used by the Christian Fathers as well as Lorenzo Snow, Lewis succinctly states: "The Son of God became a man to enable men to become sons of God."fn
In a fuller statement of his doctrine of deification, Lewis practically states the LDS view:
The command Be ye perfect is not idealistic gas. Nor is it a command to do the impossible. He is going to make us into creatures that can obey that command. He said (in the Bible) that we were "gods" and He is going to make good His words. If we let Him-for we can prevent Him, if we choose-He will make the feeblest and filthiest of us into a god or goddess, dazzling, radiant, immortal creature, pulsating all through with such energy and joy and wisdom and love as we cannot now imagine, a bright stainless mirror which reflects back to God perfectly (though, of course, on a smaller scale) His own boundless power and delight and goodness. The process will be long and in parts very painful; but that is what we are in for. Nothing less. He meant what He said.fn
If C. S. Lewis can think of human beings as "possible gods and goddesses," if he can maintain that "He will make the feeblest and filthiest of us into a god or goddess," and if he is still to be considered a Christian-then how can the Latter-day Saints be excluded from the Christian family as rank pagans for believing exactly the same things?fn
Critics of the Latter-day Saints may respond that the early Christian saints, the later Greek theologians, and C. S. Lewis all understand the doctrine of deification differently than the Latter-day Saints do, but this is untrue in the case of the early Christians and C. S. Lewis. Anyway, such a response amounts to a quibble, for it retreats abjectly from the claim that deification is a pagan doctrine wholly foreign to true Christianity. It argues instead that deification is a Christian doctrine misunderstood by the Latter-day Saints (and abandoned by most others, I might add). But if that is true, then the doctrinal exclusion is no longer valid when based on this doctrine, for-whether the Latter-day Saints interpret it "correctly" or not-deification is not a doctrine they made up out of thin air or borrowed from ancient paganism, nor is it totally foreign and repugnant to true Christianity, nor does it violate the broad limits of what has historically been considered Christian.
It should be noted here that the LDS doctrine of deification is often misrepresented. Despite what our critics claim, the Latter-day Saints do not believe that human beings will ever become the equals of God, or be independent of God, or that they will ever cease to be subordinate to God. For Latter-day Saints, to become gods means to overcome the world through the atonement of Christ (1 Jn. 5:4-5; Rev. 2:7, 11). Thus we become heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ (Rom. 8:17; Gal. 4:7) and will inherit all things just as Christ inherits all things (1 Cor. 3:21-23; Revelation 21:?). There are no limitations on these scriptural declarations; we shall inherit all things-including the power to create and to beget. In that glorified state we shall look like our Savior (1 Jn. 3:2; 1 Cor. 15:49; 2 Cor. 3:18) we shall receive his glory and be one with him and with the Father (John 17:21-23; Philip. 3:21). Sitting with God upon the throne of God, we shall rule over all things (Luke 12:44; Rev. 3:21 ).
Now, if the Christian scriptures teach that we will look like God, receive the inheritance of God, receive the glory of God, be one with God, sit upon the throne of God, and exercise the power and rule of God, then surely it cannot be un-Christian to conclude with C. S. Lewis and others that such beings as these can be called gods, as long as we remember that this use of the term gods does not in any way reduce or limit the sovereignty of God our Father. That is how the early Christians used the term; it is how C. S. Lewis used the term; and it is how the Latter-day Saints use the term and understand the doctrine.
President Snow often referred to this couplet as having been revealed to him by inspiration during the Nauvoo period of the Church. See, for example, Deseret Weekly 49 (3 November 1894): 610; Deseret Weekly 57 (8 October 1898): 513; Deseret News 52 (15 June 1901): 177; and Journal History of the Church, 20 July 1901, p. 4.
Irenaeus, Against Heresies, bk. 5, pref.
Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 4.38. Cp. 4.11 (2): "But man receives progression and increase towards God. For as God is always the same, so also man, when found in God, shall always progress towards God."
Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Greeks, 1.
Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor, 3.1. See also Clement, Stro-mateis, 23.
Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, 124.
Athanasius, Against the Arians, 1.39, 3.34.
Athanasius, De Inc., 54.
Augustine, On the Psalms, 50.2. Augustine insists that such individuals are gods by grace rather than by nature, but they are gods nevertheless.
Richard P. McBrien, Catholicism, 2 vols. (Minneapolis: Winston Press, 1980), 1:146, 156; emphasis in original.
Symeon Lash, "Deification," in The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Theology, ed. Alan Richardson and John Bowden (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1985), pp. 147-48.
For a longer treatment of this subject, see Jules Gross, La divinisa-tion du chrétien d'aprè les pères grecs (Paris: J. Gabalda, 1938).
Paul Crouch, "Praise the Lord," Trinity Broadcasting Network, 7 July 1986.
Robert Tilton, God's Laws of Success (Dallas: Word of Faith, 1983), pp. 170-71.
Kenneth Copeland, The Force of Love (Fort Worth: Kenneth Copeland, n.d.), tape BCC-56.
Kenneth Copeland, The Power of the Tongue (Fort Worth: Kenneth Copeland, n.d.), p. 6. I am not arguing that these evangelists are mainline evangelicals (though they would insist that they are), only that they are Protestants with large Christian followings.
C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses, rev. ed. (New York: Macmillan, Collier Books, 1980), p. 18.
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: Macmillan, 1952; Collier Books, 1960), p. 153. Cp. p. 164, where Lewis describes Christ as "finally, if all goes well, turning you permanently into a different sort of thing; into a new little Christ, a being which, in its own small way, has the same kind of life as God; which shares in His power, joy, knowledge and eternity." See also C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, rev. ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1982), p. 38, where the tempter Screwtape complains that God intends to fill heaven with "little replicas of Himself."
Lewis, Mere Christianity, p. 154.
Lewis, Mere Christianity, pp. 174-75. For a more recent example of the doctrine of deification in modern, non-LDS Christianity, see M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978) pp. 269-70: "For no matter how much we may like to pussyfoot around it, all of us who postulate a loving God and really think about it even- tually come to a single terrifying idea: God wants us to become Himself (or Herself or Itself). We are growing toward godhood."
Most critics are surprised to know how highly the thinking of C. S. Lewis is respected by Latter-day Saint readers.
See, for example, John Strugnell, The Angelic Liturgy at Qumran -4 Q Serek Sirot 'Olat Hassabat in Supplements to Vetus Testamenturn VII [Congress Volume, Oxford 1959], (Leiden: Brill, 1960), pp. 336-38, or A. S. van der Woude, "Melchisedek als himmlische Erlösergestalt in den neuge-fundenen eschatologischen Midraschim aus Qumran Höhle XI," Oudtestamentische Studiën 14 ( 1965): 354-73.
James S. Ackerman, "The Rabbinic Interpretation of Ps. 82 and the Gospel of John," Harvard Theological Review 59 (April 1966): 186.
J. A. Emerton, "The Interpretation of Ps. 82 in John 10," Journal of Theological Studies 11 (April 1960): 329, 332. This was also the view of Saint Augustine in writing of this passage in On the Psalms, 50.2: "It is evident, then, that he has called men 'gods,' who are deified by his grace" (cf. also 97.12).
Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis, 7.10.
(Stephen E. Robinson, Are Mormons Christians? [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1991], 65.)
As man now is, God once was;
As God now is, man may be.fn
It has been claimed by some that this is an altogether pagan doctrine that blasphemes the majesty of God. Not all Christians have thought so, however. In the second century Saint Irenaeus, the most important Christian theologian of his time, said much the same thing as Lorenzo Snow:
If the Word became a man,
It was so men may become gods.fn
Indeed, Saint Irenaeus had more than this to say on the subject of deification:
Do we cast blame on him [God] because we were not made gods from the beginning, but were at first created merely as men, and then later as gods? Although God has adopted this course out of his pure benevolence, that no one may charge him with discrimination or stinginess, he declares, "I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are sons of the Most High."... For it was necessary at first that nature be exhibited, then after that what was mortal would be conquered and swallowed up in immortality.fn
Also in the second century, Saint Clement of Alexandria wrote, "Yea, I say, the Word of God became a man so that you might learn from a man how to become a god"fn-almost a paraphrase of Lorenzo Snow's statement. Clement also said that "if one knows himself, he will know God, and knowing God will become like God .... His is beauty, true beauty, for it is God, and that man becomes a god, since God wills it. So Heraclitus was right when he said, 'Men are gods, and gods are men."fn
Still in the second century, Saint Justin Martyr insisted that in the beginning men "were made like God, free from suffering and death," and that they are thus "deemed worthy of becoming gods and of having power to become sons of the highest."fn
In the early fourth century Saint Athanasius-that tireless foe of heresy after whom the orthodox Athanasian Creed is named-also stated his belief in deification in terms very similar to those of Lorenzo Snow: "The Word was made flesh in order that we might be enabled to be made gods .... Just as the Lord, putting on the body, became a man, so also we men are both deified through his flesh, and henceforth inherit everlasting life."fn On another occasion Athanasius stated, "He became man that we might be made divine"fn-yet another parallel to Lorenzo Snow's expression.
Finally, Saint Augustine himself, the greatest of the Christian Fathers, said: "But he himself that justifies also deifies, for by justifying he makes sons of God. 'For he has given them power to become the sons of God' [John 1:12]. If then we have been made sons of God, we have also been made gods."fn
Notice that I am citing only unimpeachable Christian authorities here-no pagans, no Gnostics. All five of the above writers were not just Christians, and not just orthodox Christians -they were orthodox Christian saints. Three of the five wrote within a hundred years of the period of the Apostles, and all five believed in the doctrine of deification. This doctrine was a part of historical Christianity until relatively recent times, and it is still an important doctrine in some Eastern Orthodox churches. Those who accuse the Latter-day Saints of making up the doc- trine simply do not know the history of Christian doctrine. In one of the best works on Catholicism, Father Richard P. McBrien states that a fundamental principle of orthodoxy in the patristic period was to see "the history of the universe as the history of divinization and salvation." As a result the Fathers concluded, according to McBrien, that "because the Spirit is truly God, we are truly divinized by the presence of the Spirit."fn
In The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Theology, which is not a Mormon publication, the following additional information can be found in the article titled, "Deification":
Deification (Greek theosis) is for Orthodoxy the goal of every Christian. Man, according to the Bible, is 'made in the image and likeness of God'.... It is possible for man to become like God, to become deified, to become god by grace. This doctrine is based on many passages of both OT and NT (e.g. Ps. 82 (81).6; 2 Pet. 1.4 and it is essentially the teaching both of St Paul, though he tends to use the language of filial adoption (cf. Rom. 8.9-17 Gal. 4.5-7 and the Fourth Gospel (cf. 17.21-23).
The language of II Peter is taken up by St Irenaeus, in his famous phrase, 'if the Word has been made man, it is so that men may be made gods' (Adv. Haer V, Pref.), and becomes the standard in Greek theology. In the fourth century St Athanasius repeats Irenaeus almost word for word, and in the fifth century St Cyril of Alexandria says that we shall become sons 'by participation' (Greek methexis). Deification is the central idea in the spirituality of St Maximus the Confessor, for whom the doctrine is the corollary of the Incarnation: 'Deification, briefly, is the encompassing and fulfilment of all times and ages',... and St Symeon the New Theologian at the end of the tenth century writes, 'He who is God by nature converses with those whom he has made gods by grace, as a friend converses with his friends, face to face.' ...
Finally, it should be noted that deification does not mean absorption into God, since the deified creature remains itself and distinct. It is the whole human being, body and soul, who is transfigured in the Spirit into the likeness of the divine nature, and deification is the goal of every Christian.fn
Whether the doctrine of deification is correct or incorrect, it was a part of mainstream Christian orthodoxy for centuries, though some modern Christians with a limited historical view may not be aware of it. If this doctrine became "the standard in Greek theology," and if "deification is the goal of every Christian," then the Latter-day Saints can't be banished from the Christian family for having the same theology and the same goal. If Saint Irenaeus, Saint Justin Martyr, Saint Clement of Alexandria, Saint Athanasius, Saint Cyril of Alexandria, Saint Maximus the Confessor, and Saint Symeon the New Theologian all believed that human beings can become gods, and if these good former-day saints are still to be counted as Christians, then the Latter-day Saints cannot be excluded from Christian circles for believing the same thing. In fact this doctrine is not pagan, nor is it foreign to the larger Christian tradition.fn Since it is found among the theologian/saints from Justin Martyr in the second century to Simeon the New Theologian in the eleventh century, Joseph Smith obviously did not make it up.
There is often much more to the history of Christianity and of Christian doctrine than just what seems familiar and comfortable to twentieth-century conservatives. Yet even among conservative Protestants the doctrine of deification is still occasionally found. Paul Crouch of the Trinity Broadcasting Network says: "I am a little god. I have His name. I am one with Him. I'm in covenant relation. I am a little god. Critics begone."fn Robert Tilton, a Texas evangelist, says that man is "a God kind of creature. Originally you were designed to be as a god in this world. Man was designed or created by God to be the god of this world."fn Kenneth Copeland, also of Texas, tells his listeners, "You don't have a god in you. You are one!"fn He writes that "man had total authority to rule as a god over every living creature on earth."fn
Now, in fact, the Latter-day Saints would not agree with the doctrine of deification as understood by most of these evangelists, for in the LDS view we receive the full divine inheritance only through the atonement of Christ and only after a glorious resurrection. Closer to the Latter-day Saint understanding of the doctrine are the views expressed by C. S. Lewis, an individual whose genuine Christianity is virtually undisputed: "It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you[sa[w] it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship.fn
Elsewhere Lewis writes that the great promise of Christianity is that humans can share Christ's type of life (Greek zoe rather than bios) and thus can become sons and daughters of God. He explains:["[Christ] came to this world and became a man in order to spread to other men the kind of life He has-by what I call 'good infection.' Every Christian is to become a little Christ."fn In words reminiscent of those used by the Christian Fathers as well as Lorenzo Snow, Lewis succinctly states: "The Son of God became a man to enable men to become sons of God."fn
In a fuller statement of his doctrine of deification, Lewis practically states the LDS view:
The command Be ye perfect is not idealistic gas. Nor is it a command to do the impossible. He is going to make us into creatures that can obey that command. He said (in the Bible) that we were "gods" and He is going to make good His words. If we let Him-for we can prevent Him, if we choose-He will make the feeblest and filthiest of us into a god or goddess, dazzling, radiant, immortal creature, pulsating all through with such energy and joy and wisdom and love as we cannot now imagine, a bright stainless mirror which reflects back to God perfectly (though, of course, on a smaller scale) His own boundless power and delight and goodness. The process will be long and in parts very painful; but that is what we are in for. Nothing less. He meant what He said.fn
If C. S. Lewis can think of human beings as "possible gods and goddesses," if he can maintain that "He will make the feeblest and filthiest of us into a god or goddess," and if he is still to be considered a Christian-then how can the Latter-day Saints be excluded from the Christian family as rank pagans for believing exactly the same things?fn
Critics of the Latter-day Saints may respond that the early Christian saints, the later Greek theologians, and C. S. Lewis all understand the doctrine of deification differently than the Latter-day Saints do, but this is untrue in the case of the early Christians and C. S. Lewis. Anyway, such a response amounts to a quibble, for it retreats abjectly from the claim that deification is a pagan doctrine wholly foreign to true Christianity. It argues instead that deification is a Christian doctrine misunderstood by the Latter-day Saints (and abandoned by most others, I might add). But if that is true, then the doctrinal exclusion is no longer valid when based on this doctrine, for-whether the Latter-day Saints interpret it "correctly" or not-deification is not a doctrine they made up out of thin air or borrowed from ancient paganism, nor is it totally foreign and repugnant to true Christianity, nor does it violate the broad limits of what has historically been considered Christian.
It should be noted here that the LDS doctrine of deification is often misrepresented. Despite what our critics claim, the Latter-day Saints do not believe that human beings will ever become the equals of God, or be independent of God, or that they will ever cease to be subordinate to God. For Latter-day Saints, to become gods means to overcome the world through the atonement of Christ (1 Jn. 5:4-5; Rev. 2:7, 11). Thus we become heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ (Rom. 8:17; Gal. 4:7) and will inherit all things just as Christ inherits all things (1 Cor. 3:21-23; Revelation 21:?). There are no limitations on these scriptural declarations; we shall inherit all things-including the power to create and to beget. In that glorified state we shall look like our Savior (1 Jn. 3:2; 1 Cor. 15:49; 2 Cor. 3:18) we shall receive his glory and be one with him and with the Father (John 17:21-23; Philip. 3:21). Sitting with God upon the throne of God, we shall rule over all things (Luke 12:44; Rev. 3:21 ).
Now, if the Christian scriptures teach that we will look like God, receive the inheritance of God, receive the glory of God, be one with God, sit upon the throne of God, and exercise the power and rule of God, then surely it cannot be un-Christian to conclude with C. S. Lewis and others that such beings as these can be called gods, as long as we remember that this use of the term gods does not in any way reduce or limit the sovereignty of God our Father. That is how the early Christians used the term; it is how C. S. Lewis used the term; and it is how the Latter-day Saints use the term and understand the doctrine.
President Snow often referred to this couplet as having been revealed to him by inspiration during the Nauvoo period of the Church. See, for example, Deseret Weekly 49 (3 November 1894): 610; Deseret Weekly 57 (8 October 1898): 513; Deseret News 52 (15 June 1901): 177; and Journal History of the Church, 20 July 1901, p. 4.
Irenaeus, Against Heresies, bk. 5, pref.
Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 4.38. Cp. 4.11 (2): "But man receives progression and increase towards God. For as God is always the same, so also man, when found in God, shall always progress towards God."
Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Greeks, 1.
Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor, 3.1. See also Clement, Stro-mateis, 23.
Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, 124.
Athanasius, Against the Arians, 1.39, 3.34.
Athanasius, De Inc., 54.
Augustine, On the Psalms, 50.2. Augustine insists that such individuals are gods by grace rather than by nature, but they are gods nevertheless.
Richard P. McBrien, Catholicism, 2 vols. (Minneapolis: Winston Press, 1980), 1:146, 156; emphasis in original.
Symeon Lash, "Deification," in The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Theology, ed. Alan Richardson and John Bowden (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1985), pp. 147-48.
For a longer treatment of this subject, see Jules Gross, La divinisa-tion du chrétien d'aprè les pères grecs (Paris: J. Gabalda, 1938).
Paul Crouch, "Praise the Lord," Trinity Broadcasting Network, 7 July 1986.
Robert Tilton, God's Laws of Success (Dallas: Word of Faith, 1983), pp. 170-71.
Kenneth Copeland, The Force of Love (Fort Worth: Kenneth Copeland, n.d.), tape BCC-56.
Kenneth Copeland, The Power of the Tongue (Fort Worth: Kenneth Copeland, n.d.), p. 6. I am not arguing that these evangelists are mainline evangelicals (though they would insist that they are), only that they are Protestants with large Christian followings.
C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses, rev. ed. (New York: Macmillan, Collier Books, 1980), p. 18.
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: Macmillan, 1952; Collier Books, 1960), p. 153. Cp. p. 164, where Lewis describes Christ as "finally, if all goes well, turning you permanently into a different sort of thing; into a new little Christ, a being which, in its own small way, has the same kind of life as God; which shares in His power, joy, knowledge and eternity." See also C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, rev. ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1982), p. 38, where the tempter Screwtape complains that God intends to fill heaven with "little replicas of Himself."
Lewis, Mere Christianity, p. 154.
Lewis, Mere Christianity, pp. 174-75. For a more recent example of the doctrine of deification in modern, non-LDS Christianity, see M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978) pp. 269-70: "For no matter how much we may like to pussyfoot around it, all of us who postulate a loving God and really think about it even- tually come to a single terrifying idea: God wants us to become Himself (or Herself or Itself). We are growing toward godhood."
Most critics are surprised to know how highly the thinking of C. S. Lewis is respected by Latter-day Saint readers.
See, for example, John Strugnell, The Angelic Liturgy at Qumran -4 Q Serek Sirot 'Olat Hassabat in Supplements to Vetus Testamenturn VII [Congress Volume, Oxford 1959], (Leiden: Brill, 1960), pp. 336-38, or A. S. van der Woude, "Melchisedek als himmlische Erlösergestalt in den neuge-fundenen eschatologischen Midraschim aus Qumran Höhle XI," Oudtestamentische Studiën 14 ( 1965): 354-73.
James S. Ackerman, "The Rabbinic Interpretation of Ps. 82 and the Gospel of John," Harvard Theological Review 59 (April 1966): 186.
J. A. Emerton, "The Interpretation of Ps. 82 in John 10," Journal of Theological Studies 11 (April 1960): 329, 332. This was also the view of Saint Augustine in writing of this passage in On the Psalms, 50.2: "It is evident, then, that he has called men 'gods,' who are deified by his grace" (cf. also 97.12).
Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis, 7.10.
(Stephen E. Robinson, Are Mormons Christians? [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1991], 65.)
Is Christian Doctrine Always True?
Is Christian Doctrine Always True?
Those who employ the doctrinal exclusion also frequently confuse the issue of whether a doctrine is true with whether belief in that doctrine necessarily renders one a non-Christian. They confuse being Christian with being correct. Often the doctrinal excluder perceives only two categories of believers: "those who believe what I believe," and "those who are not really Christians." And yet a logical necessity of having a family of Christian denominations is that one Christian may believe things other Christians don't, and still be considered a Christian. Thus, despite the doctrinal excluder's dichotomized view of things, there must be a third category of believers-true Christians whose beliefs differ from one's own.
Critics of the Latter-day Saints frequently assume that if this or that LDS belief can be proved incorrect, it proves that Latter-day Saints aren't Christians. But the two issues (being correct and being Christian) are logically separate. Many Christian denominations hold views that are believed false by other Christian denominations. For example, Catholics believe in the Assumption of the Virgin and in her role as a mediatrix in heaven, while Protestants do not. Protestants generally believe that the Bible is sufficient for salvation, while Catholics do not. Surely these issues are doctrinally significant, and just as surely either Protestants or Catholics must be mistaken about them. Yet neither side (not counting ultraconservatives) insists that the other is non-Christian merely because of its beliefs on these issues. While there is no way to prove the doctrines either true or false, they must be one or the other. And one side or the other will turn out to be wrong. Each feels very strongly that the other is wrong, but in the meantime the denominations involved have agreed to disagree, and both sides of the question are tolerated as generically Christian points of view.
But if doctrinal diversity does not exclude from the Christian family those who disagree on these matters, how can it validly be applied to exclude the Latter-day Saints for disagreeing on others? If doctrinal variance is going to be tolerated in some degree between the older denominations, then in all fairness it cannot be used to selectively exclude the Latter-day Saints.
On the other hand, it has been argued that the diversity tolerated among other Christian denominations is a matter of flexibility within certain broad limits, and that some LDS doctrines are so foreign to either the New Testament or traditional Christianity that they violate even these broad limits and cannot therefore be tolerated. A close examination of the individual LDS doctrines most maligned by the critics on these grounds, however, produces some surprising results. Let's start with the issue that has received the most recent attention, the charge that the Latter-day Saints are pagan "god makers."
President Snow often referred to this couplet as having been revealed to him by inspiration during the Nauvoo period of the Church. See, for example, Deseret Weekly 49 (3 November 1894): 610; Deseret Weekly 57 (8 October 1898): 513; Deseret News 52 (15 June 1901): 177; and Journal History of the Church, 20 July 1901, p. 4.
Irenaeus, Against Heresies, bk. 5, pref.
Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 4.38. Cp. 4.11 (2): "But man receives progression and increase towards God. For as God is always the same, so also man, when found in God, shall always progress towards God."
Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Greeks, 1.
Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor, 3.1. See also Clement, Stro-mateis, 23.
Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, 124.
Athanasius, Against the Arians, 1.39, 3.34.
Athanasius, De Inc., 54.
Augustine, On the Psalms, 50.2. Augustine insists that such individuals are gods by grace rather than by nature, but they are gods nevertheless.
Richard P. McBrien, Catholicism, 2 vols. (Minneapolis: Winston Press, 1980), 1:146, 156; emphasis in original.
Symeon Lash, "Deification," in The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Theology, ed. Alan Richardson and John Bowden (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1985), pp. 147-48.
For a longer treatment of this subject, see Jules Gross, La divinisa-tion du chrétien d'aprè les pères grecs (Paris: J. Gabalda, 1938).
Paul Crouch, "Praise the Lord," Trinity Broadcasting Network, 7 July 1986.
Robert Tilton, God's Laws of Success (Dallas: Word of Faith, 1983), pp. 170-71.
Kenneth Copeland, The Force of Love (Fort Worth: Kenneth Copeland, n.d.), tape BCC-56.
Kenneth Copeland, The Power of the Tongue (Fort Worth: Kenneth Copeland, n.d.), p. 6. I am not arguing that these evangelists are mainline evangelicals (though they would insist that they are), only that they are Protestants with large Christian followings.
C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses, rev. ed. (New York: Macmillan, Collier Books, 1980), p. 18.
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: Macmillan, 1952; Collier Books, 1960), p. 153. Cp. p. 164, where Lewis describes Christ as "finally, if all goes well, turning you permanently into a different sort of thing; into a new little Christ, a being which, in its own small way, has the same kind of life as God; which shares in His power, joy, knowledge and eternity." See also C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, rev. ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1982), p. 38, where the tempter Screwtape complains that God intends to fill heaven with "little replicas of Himself."
Lewis, Mere Christianity, p. 154.
Lewis, Mere Christianity, pp. 174-75. For a more recent example of the doctrine of deification in modern, non-LDS Christianity, see M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978) pp. 269-70: "For no matter how much we may like to pussyfoot around it, all of us who postulate a loving God and really think about it even- tually come to a single terrifying idea: God wants us to become Himself (or Herself or Itself). We are growing toward godhood."
Most critics are surprised to know how highly the thinking of C. S. Lewis is respected by Latter-day Saint readers.
See, for example, John Strugnell, The Angelic Liturgy at Qumran -4 Q Serek Sirot 'Olat Hassabat in Supplements to Vetus Testamenturn VII [Congress Volume, Oxford 1959], (Leiden: Brill, 1960), pp. 336-38, or A. S. van der Woude, "Melchisedek als himmlische Erlösergestalt in den neuge-fundenen eschatologischen Midraschim aus Qumran Höhle XI," Oudtestamentische Studiën 14 ( 1965): 354-73.
James S. Ackerman, "The Rabbinic Interpretation of Ps. 82 and the Gospel of John," Harvard Theological Review 59 (April 1966): 186.
J. A. Emerton, "The Interpretation of Ps. 82 in John 10," Journal of Theological Studies 11 (April 1960): 329, 332. This was also the view of Saint Augustine in writing of this passage in On the Psalms, 50.2: "It is evident, then, that he has called men 'gods,' who are deified by his grace" (cf. also 97.12).
Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis, 7.10.
(Stephen E. Robinson, Are Mormons Christians? [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1991], 60.)
Those who employ the doctrinal exclusion also frequently confuse the issue of whether a doctrine is true with whether belief in that doctrine necessarily renders one a non-Christian. They confuse being Christian with being correct. Often the doctrinal excluder perceives only two categories of believers: "those who believe what I believe," and "those who are not really Christians." And yet a logical necessity of having a family of Christian denominations is that one Christian may believe things other Christians don't, and still be considered a Christian. Thus, despite the doctrinal excluder's dichotomized view of things, there must be a third category of believers-true Christians whose beliefs differ from one's own.
Critics of the Latter-day Saints frequently assume that if this or that LDS belief can be proved incorrect, it proves that Latter-day Saints aren't Christians. But the two issues (being correct and being Christian) are logically separate. Many Christian denominations hold views that are believed false by other Christian denominations. For example, Catholics believe in the Assumption of the Virgin and in her role as a mediatrix in heaven, while Protestants do not. Protestants generally believe that the Bible is sufficient for salvation, while Catholics do not. Surely these issues are doctrinally significant, and just as surely either Protestants or Catholics must be mistaken about them. Yet neither side (not counting ultraconservatives) insists that the other is non-Christian merely because of its beliefs on these issues. While there is no way to prove the doctrines either true or false, they must be one or the other. And one side or the other will turn out to be wrong. Each feels very strongly that the other is wrong, but in the meantime the denominations involved have agreed to disagree, and both sides of the question are tolerated as generically Christian points of view.
But if doctrinal diversity does not exclude from the Christian family those who disagree on these matters, how can it validly be applied to exclude the Latter-day Saints for disagreeing on others? If doctrinal variance is going to be tolerated in some degree between the older denominations, then in all fairness it cannot be used to selectively exclude the Latter-day Saints.
On the other hand, it has been argued that the diversity tolerated among other Christian denominations is a matter of flexibility within certain broad limits, and that some LDS doctrines are so foreign to either the New Testament or traditional Christianity that they violate even these broad limits and cannot therefore be tolerated. A close examination of the individual LDS doctrines most maligned by the critics on these grounds, however, produces some surprising results. Let's start with the issue that has received the most recent attention, the charge that the Latter-day Saints are pagan "god makers."
President Snow often referred to this couplet as having been revealed to him by inspiration during the Nauvoo period of the Church. See, for example, Deseret Weekly 49 (3 November 1894): 610; Deseret Weekly 57 (8 October 1898): 513; Deseret News 52 (15 June 1901): 177; and Journal History of the Church, 20 July 1901, p. 4.
Irenaeus, Against Heresies, bk. 5, pref.
Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 4.38. Cp. 4.11 (2): "But man receives progression and increase towards God. For as God is always the same, so also man, when found in God, shall always progress towards God."
Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Greeks, 1.
Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor, 3.1. See also Clement, Stro-mateis, 23.
Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, 124.
Athanasius, Against the Arians, 1.39, 3.34.
Athanasius, De Inc., 54.
Augustine, On the Psalms, 50.2. Augustine insists that such individuals are gods by grace rather than by nature, but they are gods nevertheless.
Richard P. McBrien, Catholicism, 2 vols. (Minneapolis: Winston Press, 1980), 1:146, 156; emphasis in original.
Symeon Lash, "Deification," in The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Theology, ed. Alan Richardson and John Bowden (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1985), pp. 147-48.
For a longer treatment of this subject, see Jules Gross, La divinisa-tion du chrétien d'aprè les pères grecs (Paris: J. Gabalda, 1938).
Paul Crouch, "Praise the Lord," Trinity Broadcasting Network, 7 July 1986.
Robert Tilton, God's Laws of Success (Dallas: Word of Faith, 1983), pp. 170-71.
Kenneth Copeland, The Force of Love (Fort Worth: Kenneth Copeland, n.d.), tape BCC-56.
Kenneth Copeland, The Power of the Tongue (Fort Worth: Kenneth Copeland, n.d.), p. 6. I am not arguing that these evangelists are mainline evangelicals (though they would insist that they are), only that they are Protestants with large Christian followings.
C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses, rev. ed. (New York: Macmillan, Collier Books, 1980), p. 18.
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: Macmillan, 1952; Collier Books, 1960), p. 153. Cp. p. 164, where Lewis describes Christ as "finally, if all goes well, turning you permanently into a different sort of thing; into a new little Christ, a being which, in its own small way, has the same kind of life as God; which shares in His power, joy, knowledge and eternity." See also C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, rev. ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1982), p. 38, where the tempter Screwtape complains that God intends to fill heaven with "little replicas of Himself."
Lewis, Mere Christianity, p. 154.
Lewis, Mere Christianity, pp. 174-75. For a more recent example of the doctrine of deification in modern, non-LDS Christianity, see M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978) pp. 269-70: "For no matter how much we may like to pussyfoot around it, all of us who postulate a loving God and really think about it even- tually come to a single terrifying idea: God wants us to become Himself (or Herself or Itself). We are growing toward godhood."
Most critics are surprised to know how highly the thinking of C. S. Lewis is respected by Latter-day Saint readers.
See, for example, John Strugnell, The Angelic Liturgy at Qumran -4 Q Serek Sirot 'Olat Hassabat in Supplements to Vetus Testamenturn VII [Congress Volume, Oxford 1959], (Leiden: Brill, 1960), pp. 336-38, or A. S. van der Woude, "Melchisedek als himmlische Erlösergestalt in den neuge-fundenen eschatologischen Midraschim aus Qumran Höhle XI," Oudtestamentische Studiën 14 ( 1965): 354-73.
James S. Ackerman, "The Rabbinic Interpretation of Ps. 82 and the Gospel of John," Harvard Theological Review 59 (April 1966): 186.
J. A. Emerton, "The Interpretation of Ps. 82 in John 10," Journal of Theological Studies 11 (April 1960): 329, 332. This was also the view of Saint Augustine in writing of this passage in On the Psalms, 50.2: "It is evident, then, that he has called men 'gods,' who are deified by his grace" (cf. also 97.12).
Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis, 7.10.
(Stephen E. Robinson, Are Mormons Christians? [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1991], 60.)
Which Is the "Christian Doctrine?"
Which Is the "Christian" Doctrine?
Suppose for a moment that the Latter-day Saints were to take seriously the demand that they conform in every particular to "Christian" doctrine, and that they then made the attempt to do so. Having complied with such a demand, would the Latter-day Saints find themselves in total agreement with Protestants or with Catholics? Would they believe in apostolic succession or in the priesthood of all believers? Would they recognize an archbishop, a patriarch, a pope, a monarch, or no one at all as the head of Christ's church on earth? Would they be saved by grace alone, or would they find the sacraments of the church necessary for salvation? Would they believe in free will or in predestination? Would they practice water baptism? If so, would it be by immersion, sprinkling, or some other method? Would they believe in a substitutionary, representative, or exemplary atonement? Would they or would they not believe in "original sin"? And on and on.
It is unreasonable for other Christians to demand that Latter-day Saints conform to a single standard of "Christian" doctrine when they do not agree among themselves upon exactly what that standard is. To do so is to establish a double standard; doctrinal diversity is tolerated in some churches, but not in others. The often-heard claim that all true Christians share a common core of necessary Christian doctrine rests on the dubious proposition that all present differences between Christian denominations are over purely secondary or even trivial matters-matters not central to Christian faith. This view is very difficult to defend in the light of Christian history, and might be easier to accept if Protestants and Catholics- or Protestants and Protestants, for that mat-ter-had not once burned each other at the stake as non-Christian heretics over these same "trivial" differences.
President Snow often referred to this couplet as having been revealed to him by inspiration during the Nauvoo period of the Church. See, for example, Deseret Weekly 49 (3 November 1894): 610; Deseret Weekly 57 (8 October 1898): 513; Deseret News 52 (15 June 1901): 177; and Journal History of the Church, 20 July 1901, p. 4.
Irenaeus, Against Heresies, bk. 5, pref.
Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 4.38. Cp. 4.11 (2): "But man receives progression and increase towards God. For as God is always the same, so also man, when found in God, shall always progress towards God."
Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Greeks, 1.
Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor, 3.1. See also Clement, Stro-mateis, 23.
Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, 124.
Athanasius, Against the Arians, 1.39, 3.34.
Athanasius, De Inc., 54.
Augustine, On the Psalms, 50.2. Augustine insists that such individuals are gods by grace rather than by nature, but they are gods nevertheless.
Richard P. McBrien, Catholicism, 2 vols. (Minneapolis: Winston Press, 1980), 1:146, 156; emphasis in original.
Symeon Lash, "Deification," in The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Theology, ed. Alan Richardson and John Bowden (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1985), pp. 147-48.
For a longer treatment of this subject, see Jules Gross, La divinisa-tion du chrétien d'aprè les pères grecs (Paris: J. Gabalda, 1938).
Paul Crouch, "Praise the Lord," Trinity Broadcasting Network, 7 July 1986.
Robert Tilton, God's Laws of Success (Dallas: Word of Faith, 1983), pp. 170-71.
Kenneth Copeland, The Force of Love (Fort Worth: Kenneth Copeland, n.d.), tape BCC-56.
Kenneth Copeland, The Power of the Tongue (Fort Worth: Kenneth Copeland, n.d.), p. 6. I am not arguing that these evangelists are mainline evangelicals (though they would insist that they are), only that they are Protestants with large Christian followings.
C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses, rev. ed. (New York: Macmillan, Collier Books, 1980), p. 18.
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: Macmillan, 1952; Collier Books, 1960), p. 153. Cp. p. 164, where Lewis describes Christ as "finally, if all goes well, turning you permanently into a different sort of thing; into a new little Christ, a being which, in its own small way, has the same kind of life as God; which shares in His power, joy, knowledge and eternity." See also C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, rev. ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1982), p. 38, where the tempter Screwtape complains that God intends to fill heaven with "little replicas of Himself."
Lewis, Mere Christianity, p. 154.
Lewis, Mere Christianity, pp. 174-75. For a more recent example of the doctrine of deification in modern, non-LDS Christianity, see M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978) pp. 269-70: "For no matter how much we may like to pussyfoot around it, all of us who postulate a loving God and really think about it even- tually come to a single terrifying idea: God wants us to become Himself (or Herself or Itself). We are growing toward godhood."
Most critics are surprised to know how highly the thinking of C. S. Lewis is respected by Latter-day Saint readers.
See, for example, John Strugnell, The Angelic Liturgy at Qumran -4 Q Serek Sirot 'Olat Hassabat in Supplements to Vetus Testamenturn VII [Congress Volume, Oxford 1959], (Leiden: Brill, 1960), pp. 336-38, or A. S. van der Woude, "Melchisedek als himmlische Erlösergestalt in den neuge-fundenen eschatologischen Midraschim aus Qumran Höhle XI," Oudtestamentische Studiën 14 ( 1965): 354-73.
James S. Ackerman, "The Rabbinic Interpretation of Ps. 82 and the Gospel of John," Harvard Theological Review 59 (April 1966): 186.
J. A. Emerton, "The Interpretation of Ps. 82 in John 10," Journal of Theological Studies 11 (April 1960): 329, 332. This was also the view of Saint Augustine in writing of this passage in On the Psalms, 50.2: "It is evident, then, that he has called men 'gods,' who are deified by his grace" (cf. also 97.12).
Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis, 7.10.
(Stephen E. Robinson, Are Mormons Christians? [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1991], 58.)
Suppose for a moment that the Latter-day Saints were to take seriously the demand that they conform in every particular to "Christian" doctrine, and that they then made the attempt to do so. Having complied with such a demand, would the Latter-day Saints find themselves in total agreement with Protestants or with Catholics? Would they believe in apostolic succession or in the priesthood of all believers? Would they recognize an archbishop, a patriarch, a pope, a monarch, or no one at all as the head of Christ's church on earth? Would they be saved by grace alone, or would they find the sacraments of the church necessary for salvation? Would they believe in free will or in predestination? Would they practice water baptism? If so, would it be by immersion, sprinkling, or some other method? Would they believe in a substitutionary, representative, or exemplary atonement? Would they or would they not believe in "original sin"? And on and on.
It is unreasonable for other Christians to demand that Latter-day Saints conform to a single standard of "Christian" doctrine when they do not agree among themselves upon exactly what that standard is. To do so is to establish a double standard; doctrinal diversity is tolerated in some churches, but not in others. The often-heard claim that all true Christians share a common core of necessary Christian doctrine rests on the dubious proposition that all present differences between Christian denominations are over purely secondary or even trivial matters-matters not central to Christian faith. This view is very difficult to defend in the light of Christian history, and might be easier to accept if Protestants and Catholics- or Protestants and Protestants, for that mat-ter-had not once burned each other at the stake as non-Christian heretics over these same "trivial" differences.
President Snow often referred to this couplet as having been revealed to him by inspiration during the Nauvoo period of the Church. See, for example, Deseret Weekly 49 (3 November 1894): 610; Deseret Weekly 57 (8 October 1898): 513; Deseret News 52 (15 June 1901): 177; and Journal History of the Church, 20 July 1901, p. 4.
Irenaeus, Against Heresies, bk. 5, pref.
Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 4.38. Cp. 4.11 (2): "But man receives progression and increase towards God. For as God is always the same, so also man, when found in God, shall always progress towards God."
Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Greeks, 1.
Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor, 3.1. See also Clement, Stro-mateis, 23.
Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, 124.
Athanasius, Against the Arians, 1.39, 3.34.
Athanasius, De Inc., 54.
Augustine, On the Psalms, 50.2. Augustine insists that such individuals are gods by grace rather than by nature, but they are gods nevertheless.
Richard P. McBrien, Catholicism, 2 vols. (Minneapolis: Winston Press, 1980), 1:146, 156; emphasis in original.
Symeon Lash, "Deification," in The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Theology, ed. Alan Richardson and John Bowden (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1985), pp. 147-48.
For a longer treatment of this subject, see Jules Gross, La divinisa-tion du chrétien d'aprè les pères grecs (Paris: J. Gabalda, 1938).
Paul Crouch, "Praise the Lord," Trinity Broadcasting Network, 7 July 1986.
Robert Tilton, God's Laws of Success (Dallas: Word of Faith, 1983), pp. 170-71.
Kenneth Copeland, The Force of Love (Fort Worth: Kenneth Copeland, n.d.), tape BCC-56.
Kenneth Copeland, The Power of the Tongue (Fort Worth: Kenneth Copeland, n.d.), p. 6. I am not arguing that these evangelists are mainline evangelicals (though they would insist that they are), only that they are Protestants with large Christian followings.
C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses, rev. ed. (New York: Macmillan, Collier Books, 1980), p. 18.
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: Macmillan, 1952; Collier Books, 1960), p. 153. Cp. p. 164, where Lewis describes Christ as "finally, if all goes well, turning you permanently into a different sort of thing; into a new little Christ, a being which, in its own small way, has the same kind of life as God; which shares in His power, joy, knowledge and eternity." See also C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, rev. ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1982), p. 38, where the tempter Screwtape complains that God intends to fill heaven with "little replicas of Himself."
Lewis, Mere Christianity, p. 154.
Lewis, Mere Christianity, pp. 174-75. For a more recent example of the doctrine of deification in modern, non-LDS Christianity, see M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978) pp. 269-70: "For no matter how much we may like to pussyfoot around it, all of us who postulate a loving God and really think about it even- tually come to a single terrifying idea: God wants us to become Himself (or Herself or Itself). We are growing toward godhood."
Most critics are surprised to know how highly the thinking of C. S. Lewis is respected by Latter-day Saint readers.
See, for example, John Strugnell, The Angelic Liturgy at Qumran -4 Q Serek Sirot 'Olat Hassabat in Supplements to Vetus Testamenturn VII [Congress Volume, Oxford 1959], (Leiden: Brill, 1960), pp. 336-38, or A. S. van der Woude, "Melchisedek als himmlische Erlösergestalt in den neuge-fundenen eschatologischen Midraschim aus Qumran Höhle XI," Oudtestamentische Studiën 14 ( 1965): 354-73.
James S. Ackerman, "The Rabbinic Interpretation of Ps. 82 and the Gospel of John," Harvard Theological Review 59 (April 1966): 186.
J. A. Emerton, "The Interpretation of Ps. 82 in John 10," Journal of Theological Studies 11 (April 1960): 329, 332. This was also the view of Saint Augustine in writing of this passage in On the Psalms, 50.2: "It is evident, then, that he has called men 'gods,' who are deified by his grace" (cf. also 97.12).
Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis, 7.10.
(Stephen E. Robinson, Are Mormons Christians? [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1991], 58.)
Is Christian Doctrine Always Biblical?
Often those who apply the doctrinal exclusion confuse the terms Christian doctrine and biblical doctrine. Many Christian denominations believe and teach things for doctrine that are not found in the Bible. For example, some Protestants believe that dancing is a sin. Catholics believe in the immaculate conception of Mary. Both Protestants and Catholics believe the doctrinal pronouncements of at least some of the ecumenical councils, yet all such pronouncements are extrabiblical. The Nicene Creed insists that the Father and the Son are consubstantial (Greek homoousios), but neither the word nor the concept is biblical. Yet the Nicene Creed must certainly be considered Christian in the sense that it was written by Christians to help define their beliefs about Christ. Its doctrine is Christian in the generic sense, even though it is not actually biblical in its content.
President Snow often referred to this couplet as having been revealed to him by inspiration during the Nauvoo period of the Church. See, for example, Deseret Weekly 49 (3 November 1894): 610; Deseret Weekly 57 (8 October 1898): 513; Deseret News 52 (15 June 1901): 177; and Journal History of the Church, 20 July 1901, p. 4.
Irenaeus, Against Heresies, bk. 5, pref.
Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 4.38. Cp. 4.11 (2): "But man receives progression and increase towards God. For as God is always the same, so also man, when found in God, shall always progress towards God."
Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Greeks, 1.
Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor, 3.1. See also Clement, Stro-mateis, 23.
Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, 124.
Athanasius, Against the Arians, 1.39, 3.34.
Athanasius, De Inc., 54.
Augustine, On the Psalms, 50.2. Augustine insists that such individuals are gods by grace rather than by nature, but they are gods nevertheless.
Richard P. McBrien, Catholicism, 2 vols. (Minneapolis: Winston Press, 1980), 1:146, 156; emphasis in original.
Symeon Lash, "Deification," in The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Theology, ed. Alan Richardson and John Bowden (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1985), pp. 147-48.
For a longer treatment of this subject, see Jules Gross, La divinisa-tion du chrétien d'aprè les pères grecs (Paris: J. Gabalda, 1938).
Paul Crouch, "Praise the Lord," Trinity Broadcasting Network, 7 July 1986.
Robert Tilton, God's Laws of Success (Dallas: Word of Faith, 1983), pp. 170-71.
Kenneth Copeland, The Force of Love (Fort Worth: Kenneth Copeland, n.d.), tape BCC-56.
Kenneth Copeland, The Power of the Tongue (Fort Worth: Kenneth Copeland, n.d.), p. 6. I am not arguing that these evangelists are mainline evangelicals (though they would insist that they are), only that they are Protestants with large Christian followings.
C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses, rev. ed. (New York: Macmillan, Collier Books, 1980), p. 18.
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: Macmillan, 1952; Collier Books, 1960), p. 153. Cp. p. 164, where Lewis describes Christ as "finally, if all goes well, turning you permanently into a different sort of thing; into a new little Christ, a being which, in its own small way, has the same kind of life as God; which shares in His power, joy, knowledge and eternity." See also C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, rev. ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1982), p. 38, where the tempter Screwtape complains that God intends to fill heaven with "little replicas of Himself."
Lewis, Mere Christianity, p. 154.
Lewis, Mere Christianity, pp. 174-75. For a more recent example of the doctrine of deification in modern, non-LDS Christianity, see M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978) pp. 269-70: "For no matter how much we may like to pussyfoot around it, all of us who postulate a loving God and really think about it even- tually come to a single terrifying idea: God wants us to become Himself (or Herself or Itself). We are growing toward godhood."
Most critics are surprised to know how highly the thinking of C. S. Lewis is respected by Latter-day Saint readers.
See, for example, John Strugnell, The Angelic Liturgy at Qumran -4 Q Serek Sirot 'Olat Hassabat in Supplements to Vetus Testamenturn VII [Congress Volume, Oxford 1959], (Leiden: Brill, 1960), pp. 336-38, or A. S. van der Woude, "Melchisedek als himmlische Erlösergestalt in den neuge-fundenen eschatologischen Midraschim aus Qumran Höhle XI," Oudtestamentische Studiën 14 ( 1965): 354-73.
James S. Ackerman, "The Rabbinic Interpretation of Ps. 82 and the Gospel of John," Harvard Theological Review 59 (April 1966): 186.
J. A. Emerton, "The Interpretation of Ps. 82 in John 10," Journal of Theological Studies 11 (April 1960): 329, 332. This was also the view of Saint Augustine in writing of this passage in On the Psalms, 50.2: "It is evident, then, that he has called men 'gods,' who are deified by his grace" (cf. also 97.12).
Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis, 7.10.
(Stephen E. Robinson, Are Mormons Christians? [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1991], 58 - 59.)
President Snow often referred to this couplet as having been revealed to him by inspiration during the Nauvoo period of the Church. See, for example, Deseret Weekly 49 (3 November 1894): 610; Deseret Weekly 57 (8 October 1898): 513; Deseret News 52 (15 June 1901): 177; and Journal History of the Church, 20 July 1901, p. 4.
Irenaeus, Against Heresies, bk. 5, pref.
Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 4.38. Cp. 4.11 (2): "But man receives progression and increase towards God. For as God is always the same, so also man, when found in God, shall always progress towards God."
Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Greeks, 1.
Clement of Alexandria, The Instructor, 3.1. See also Clement, Stro-mateis, 23.
Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, 124.
Athanasius, Against the Arians, 1.39, 3.34.
Athanasius, De Inc., 54.
Augustine, On the Psalms, 50.2. Augustine insists that such individuals are gods by grace rather than by nature, but they are gods nevertheless.
Richard P. McBrien, Catholicism, 2 vols. (Minneapolis: Winston Press, 1980), 1:146, 156; emphasis in original.
Symeon Lash, "Deification," in The Westminster Dictionary of Christian Theology, ed. Alan Richardson and John Bowden (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1985), pp. 147-48.
For a longer treatment of this subject, see Jules Gross, La divinisa-tion du chrétien d'aprè les pères grecs (Paris: J. Gabalda, 1938).
Paul Crouch, "Praise the Lord," Trinity Broadcasting Network, 7 July 1986.
Robert Tilton, God's Laws of Success (Dallas: Word of Faith, 1983), pp. 170-71.
Kenneth Copeland, The Force of Love (Fort Worth: Kenneth Copeland, n.d.), tape BCC-56.
Kenneth Copeland, The Power of the Tongue (Fort Worth: Kenneth Copeland, n.d.), p. 6. I am not arguing that these evangelists are mainline evangelicals (though they would insist that they are), only that they are Protestants with large Christian followings.
C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses, rev. ed. (New York: Macmillan, Collier Books, 1980), p. 18.
C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: Macmillan, 1952; Collier Books, 1960), p. 153. Cp. p. 164, where Lewis describes Christ as "finally, if all goes well, turning you permanently into a different sort of thing; into a new little Christ, a being which, in its own small way, has the same kind of life as God; which shares in His power, joy, knowledge and eternity." See also C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, rev. ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1982), p. 38, where the tempter Screwtape complains that God intends to fill heaven with "little replicas of Himself."
Lewis, Mere Christianity, p. 154.
Lewis, Mere Christianity, pp. 174-75. For a more recent example of the doctrine of deification in modern, non-LDS Christianity, see M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978) pp. 269-70: "For no matter how much we may like to pussyfoot around it, all of us who postulate a loving God and really think about it even- tually come to a single terrifying idea: God wants us to become Himself (or Herself or Itself). We are growing toward godhood."
Most critics are surprised to know how highly the thinking of C. S. Lewis is respected by Latter-day Saint readers.
See, for example, John Strugnell, The Angelic Liturgy at Qumran -4 Q Serek Sirot 'Olat Hassabat in Supplements to Vetus Testamenturn VII [Congress Volume, Oxford 1959], (Leiden: Brill, 1960), pp. 336-38, or A. S. van der Woude, "Melchisedek als himmlische Erlösergestalt in den neuge-fundenen eschatologischen Midraschim aus Qumran Höhle XI," Oudtestamentische Studiën 14 ( 1965): 354-73.
James S. Ackerman, "The Rabbinic Interpretation of Ps. 82 and the Gospel of John," Harvard Theological Review 59 (April 1966): 186.
J. A. Emerton, "The Interpretation of Ps. 82 in John 10," Journal of Theological Studies 11 (April 1960): 329, 332. This was also the view of Saint Augustine in writing of this passage in On the Psalms, 50.2: "It is evident, then, that he has called men 'gods,' who are deified by his grace" (cf. also 97.12).
Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis, 7.10.
(Stephen E. Robinson, Are Mormons Christians? [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1991], 58 - 59.)
Jesus Christ: “The Way, the Truth, and the Life” Teachings of Presidents of the Church: David O. McKay
Christ is the Light to humanity.
Christ is the light to humanity. In that light man sees his way clearly; when it is rejected, the soul of man stumbles in darkness. No person, no group, no nation can achieve true success without following him who said:
“I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.” (John 8:12.)
It is a sad thing when individuals and nations extinguish that light—when Christ and his gospel are supplanted by the law of the jungle and the strength of the sword. The chief tragedy in the world at the present time is its disbelief in God’s goodness and its lack of faith in the teachings and doctrines of the gospel. 4
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believes that in his life and teachings Jesus Christ reveals a standard of personal living and of social relations that, if fully embodied in individual lives and in human institutions, would not only ameliorate the present ills of society, but would also bring happiness and peace to mankind.
If it be said that … so-called Christian nations have failed to achieve such a goal, we answer that all failure to do so may be found in the fact that they have failed to apply the principles and teachings of true Christianity. …
… The human family has suffered from unrestrained expressions and manifestations of selfishness, hatred, envy, greed—animal passions that have led to war, devastation, pestilence, and death. If even the simplest principles of the Savior’s teachings had been observed, history would have been changed. 5
When Christians throughout the world have this faith [in Christ] coursing in their blood, when they feel a loyalty in their hearts to the resurrected Christ, and to the principles connoted thereby, mankind will have taken the first great step toward the perpetual peace for which we daily are praying: Reject Him and the world will be filled with hatred, and drenched in blood by recurring wars. 6
The gospel of Jesus Christ is the crucible in which hate, envy, and greed are consumed, and good will, kindness, and love remain as inner aspirations by which man truly lives and builds.
Let men and women everywhere keep their eyes upon him who ever shines as a Light to all the world—for Christ is the Way, the Truth, the Life, the only safe Guide to that haven of peace for which people the wide world over are earnestly praying. 7
Christ taught and exemplified the way to the ideal life among our fellowmen.
“How can we know the way?” asked Thomas, as he sat with his fellow apostles and their Lord at the table after the supper on the memorable night of the betrayal; and Christ’s divine answer was: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. …” (John 14:5–6.) And so he is! He is the source of our comfort, the inspiration of our life, the author of our salvation. If we want to know our relationship to God, we go to Jesus Christ. If we would know the truth of the immortality of the soul, we have it exemplified in the Savior’s resurrection.
If we desire to learn the ideal life to lead among our fellowmen, we can find a perfect example in the life of Jesus. Whatsoever our noble desires, our lofty aspirations, our ideals in any phase of life, we can look to Christ and find perfection. So, in seeking a standard for moral manhood, we need only to go to the Man of Nazareth and in him find embodied all virtues that go to make the perfect man.
The virtues that combined to make this perfect character are truth, justice, wisdom, benevolence, and self-control. His every thought, word, and deed were in harmony with divine law and, therefore, true. The channel of communication between him and the Father was constantly open, so that truth, which rests upon revelation, was always known to him. 8
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints accepts as literally true the words of Jesus: “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” (John 10:10.) We believe, however, that this abundant life is obtained not only from spiritual exaltation, but also by the application to daily life of the principles that Jesus taught.
These principles are few and simple and may, if desired, be applied by every normal person. The first of these, and the foundation upon which a true Christian society is built, is: “And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength. …” (Mark 12:30.) A belief in a Supreme Being who lives and loves his children—a belief that gives power and vigor to the soul. An assurance that he can be approached for guidance, and that he will manifest himself to those who seek him.
Another is the acceptance of the truth that life is a gift of God and therefore divine. The proper use of this gift impels man to become the master, not the slave, of nature. His appetites are to be controlled and used for the benefit of his health and the prolongation of life. His passions are to be mastered and controlled for the happiness and blessings of others and the perpetuity of the race.
A third principle is personal integrity. By this I mean plain, everyday honesty, sobriety, and respect for others’ rights, such as will win the confidence of one’s fellows. This recognition applies to nations as well as to individuals. It is as wrong for a nation, because it is powerful, to steal from another and oppress it as it is for an individual to rob and kill his neighbor.
A fourth essential is social consciousness that awakens in each individual the realization that it is his duty to make the world better for his having been in it. 9
The Savior’s life was guided principally by … Individual Purity and Service. He kept himself wholly unspotted from the sins of the world, and devoted his life to the consideration of others, to salvation for the human family. He was always looking out for the oppressed, comforting the sick, healing the maimed and disabled, giving his life for the world. 10
There is imperative need of a drastic change in men’s dealings with one another. Never has there been a time in the history of the world when a change for the better was more imperative. And since rejection of Christ’s teachings has resulted in repeated disaster, with only intermittent periods of respite and peace and progress, why in the name of reason should people not be willing to substitute for selfish aggrandizement Christ’s principle of brotherly consideration, of fair dealing, of the value and sacredness of human life, of the virtue of forgiveness, of the condemnation of the sin of hypocrisy and of covetousness, of the saving power of love. 11
Members of the Church of Christ are under obligation to make the sinless Son of Man their ideal. He is the one Perfect Being who ever walked the earth; the sublimest example of nobility; Godlike in nature; perfect in his love; our Redeemer; our Savior; the immaculate Son of our Eternal Father; the Light, the Life, the Way. 12
I accept Jesus Christ as the personification of human perfection. 13
Christ’s teachings are applicable to everyday life.
I believe in every word that Jesus spoke, and to me the teaching is applicable in my life and yours. Keeping in mind the fact that we are the children of our Father in heaven, when we seek the kingdom of God, first, we become conscious of a new aim in life. … Only in the complete surrender of our inner life may we rise above the selfish, sordid pull of nature. …
For two thousand years, practically, men have considered [Christ’s teachings] as impractical—too ideal, they say, but if we sincerely believe in Christ’s divinity, that he is “the way, the truth, and the life” (see John 14:6), we cannot consistently doubt the applicability of his teachings to everyday life.
True, there are weighty problems to solve—evils of the slums, the ever-recurring conflicts between labor and capital, drunkenness, prostitution, international hatreds, and a hundred other current questions. But if heeded, Christ’s appeal for personal integrity, honor, fair-dealing, and love is basic in the proper solution of all these social and economic difficulties.
Most certainly before the world even approaches these ideals, men’s hearts must be changed. Christ came into the world for that very purpose. The principal reason for preaching the gospel is to change men’s hearts and lives. … Those who have been converted … can testify how the conversion has changed their lives. … By such conversion they bring peace and good will to the world instead of strife [and] suffering. 14
As a first step, … make truly applicable the simple injunction of putting one’s self in the other fellow’s place, the surest of all means of eliminating the bitterness that characterizes misunderstandings.
No thinking person can say truthfully that the application of this one simple act if practiced among individuals and nations would not bring about a better world!
Equally effective and applicable are His teachings regarding the value and sacredness of human life, the virtue of forgiveness, the necessity of fair dealing, His condemnation of the sin of hypocrisy, and of covetousness, His teachings regarding the saving power of love, and of the immortality of the soul. 15
Living the teachings of Christ leads to true greatness and happiness.
No man can sincerely resolve to apply in his daily life the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth without sensing a change in his nature. The phrase “born again” has a deeper significance than what many people attach to it. This changed feeling may be indescribable, but it is real.
Happy the person who has truly sensed the uplifting, transforming power that comes from this nearness to the Savior, this kinship to the living Christ. I am thankful that I know that Christ is my Redeemer. 16
The highest of all ideals are the teachings and particularly the life of Jesus of Nazareth, and that man is most truly great who is most Christlike.
What you sincerely in your heart think of Christ will determine what you are, will largely determine what your acts will be. No person can study this divine personality, can accept his teachings without becoming conscious of an uplifting and refining influence within himself. 17
By choosing him as our ideal, we create within ourselves a desire to be like him, to have fellowship with him. We perceive life as it should be and as it may be. 18
He promised no material rewards, but he did promise perfected, divine manhood. … “Be ye perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” [See Matthew 5:48.] And with that divine manhood comes the resultant happiness, true happiness. 19
The gospel, the glad tidings of great joy, is the true guide to mankind; and that man or woman is happiest and most content who lives nearest to its teachings, which are the antitheses of hatred, persecution, tyranny, domination, injustice—things which foster tribulation, destruction, and death throughout the world. What the sun in the heavenly blue is to the earth struggling to get free from winter’s grip, so the gospel of Jesus Christ is to the sorrowing souls yearning for something higher and better than mankind has yet found on earth.
What a glorious condition will be in this old world when it can truthfully be said to Christ, the Redeemer of mankind, “All men seek for thee.” (Mark 1:37.) Selfishness, envy, hatred, lying, stealing, cheating, disobedience, quarreling, and fighting among nations will then be no more! 20
We celebrate his birth in whose mission on earth (1) God is glorified; (2) earth is promised peace; (3) all men [are] given the assurance of God’s good will toward them!
If every man born into the world would have as the beacon of his life these three glorious ideals—how much sweeter and happier life would be! With such an aim, everyone would seek all that is pure, just, honorable, virtuous, and true—all that leads to perfection. … He would eschew that which is impure, dishonorable, or vile. If every man desired to show good will toward his fellow men and strove to express that desire in a thousand kind sayings and little deeds that would reflect unselfishness and self-sacrifice, what a contribution each would make toward universal peace on earth and the happiness of mankind! 21
What a more delightful world this would be if, for example, man earnestly strove to apply Christ’s advice: “If ye have aught against a brother, go to him.” [See Matthew 5:23–24.] Or, again, His admonition: “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness” [see Matthew 6:33], which means, simply, be not so anxious about worldly things as to make them of superior worth to spiritual attainment. 22
I feel, and know, that through him and through him only, and by obedience to the gospel of Jesus Christ, can we find happiness and salvation in this world and eternal life in the world to come. 23
Suggestions for Study and Discussion
• What are some of the major problems facing mankind today? What specific principles taught by Jesus Christ would help resolve these problems? How would they help resolve them?
• Why is faith in Jesus Christ essential to improve conditions in the world today? What does it mean to you that Jesus Christ is “the way, the truth, and the life”?
• What prevents people today from applying the Savior’s teachings in their lives? In what ways can we as a Church and as individuals promote His standards in the world?
• Jesus Christ said that He came into the world that we “might have life, and that [we] might have it more abundantly” (John 10:10; see page 4). In what ways has the Savior helped you have a more abundant life?
• President McKay testified of Jesus Christ as the “personification of human perfection” (page 5). What are some of the characteristics of Jesus Christ that make Him the example of perfection? (See pages 4–5.) To what extent are these characteristics realistically attainable in our lives? What can we do to make our individual lives more Christlike?
• President McKay taught that those who apply the Savior’s teachings will sense a change in themselves (see page 7). How have you seen this to be true in your life or the lives of others? What is the significance of President McKay’s use of the words “born again”? (See pages 7–8.)
Related Scriptures: Matthew 11:28–30; John 13:15–17; 3 Nephi 27:21–22, 27; D&C 84:49–54
Notes
1. In Conference Report, Oct. 1969, 8.
2. Cherished Experiences from the Writings of President David O. McKay, comp. Clare Middlemiss, rev. ed. (1976), 59–60; paragraphing altered.
3. In Conference Report, Apr. 1951, 157, 159.
4. Treasures of Life, comp. Clare Middlemiss (1962), 203–4.
5. “What Doth It Profit?” Improvement Era, Jan. 1970, 2.
6. In Conference Report, Apr. 1944, 124–25.
7. “Walk in the Light,” Improvement Era, Apr. 1954, 222.
8. In Conference Report, Apr. 1968, 6–7.
9. “What Doth It Profit?” Improvement Era, Jan. 1970, 3.
10. In Conference Report, Apr. 1918, 81.
11. “Walk in the Light,” Improvement Era, Apr. 1954, 221–22.
12. Treasures of Life, 210.
13. In Conference Report, Oct. 1965, 144.
14. In Conference Report, Oct. 1953, 10–11; paragraphing altered.
15. In Conference Report, Oct. 1942, 69–70.
16. In Conference Report, Apr. 1944, 124.
17. In Conference Report, Apr. 1951, 93.
18. In Conference Report, Apr. 1951, 98.
19. In Conference Report, Apr. 1953, 137–38.
20. In Conference Report, Apr. 1968, 9.
21. Gospel Ideals (1953), 36–37.
22. In Conference Report, Apr. 1944, 124.
23. In Conference Report, Oct. 1953, 9.^ Back to top
Christ is the light to humanity. In that light man sees his way clearly; when it is rejected, the soul of man stumbles in darkness. No person, no group, no nation can achieve true success without following him who said:
“I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.” (John 8:12.)
It is a sad thing when individuals and nations extinguish that light—when Christ and his gospel are supplanted by the law of the jungle and the strength of the sword. The chief tragedy in the world at the present time is its disbelief in God’s goodness and its lack of faith in the teachings and doctrines of the gospel. 4
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints believes that in his life and teachings Jesus Christ reveals a standard of personal living and of social relations that, if fully embodied in individual lives and in human institutions, would not only ameliorate the present ills of society, but would also bring happiness and peace to mankind.
If it be said that … so-called Christian nations have failed to achieve such a goal, we answer that all failure to do so may be found in the fact that they have failed to apply the principles and teachings of true Christianity. …
… The human family has suffered from unrestrained expressions and manifestations of selfishness, hatred, envy, greed—animal passions that have led to war, devastation, pestilence, and death. If even the simplest principles of the Savior’s teachings had been observed, history would have been changed. 5
When Christians throughout the world have this faith [in Christ] coursing in their blood, when they feel a loyalty in their hearts to the resurrected Christ, and to the principles connoted thereby, mankind will have taken the first great step toward the perpetual peace for which we daily are praying: Reject Him and the world will be filled with hatred, and drenched in blood by recurring wars. 6
The gospel of Jesus Christ is the crucible in which hate, envy, and greed are consumed, and good will, kindness, and love remain as inner aspirations by which man truly lives and builds.
Let men and women everywhere keep their eyes upon him who ever shines as a Light to all the world—for Christ is the Way, the Truth, the Life, the only safe Guide to that haven of peace for which people the wide world over are earnestly praying. 7
Christ taught and exemplified the way to the ideal life among our fellowmen.
“How can we know the way?” asked Thomas, as he sat with his fellow apostles and their Lord at the table after the supper on the memorable night of the betrayal; and Christ’s divine answer was: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. …” (John 14:5–6.) And so he is! He is the source of our comfort, the inspiration of our life, the author of our salvation. If we want to know our relationship to God, we go to Jesus Christ. If we would know the truth of the immortality of the soul, we have it exemplified in the Savior’s resurrection.
If we desire to learn the ideal life to lead among our fellowmen, we can find a perfect example in the life of Jesus. Whatsoever our noble desires, our lofty aspirations, our ideals in any phase of life, we can look to Christ and find perfection. So, in seeking a standard for moral manhood, we need only to go to the Man of Nazareth and in him find embodied all virtues that go to make the perfect man.
The virtues that combined to make this perfect character are truth, justice, wisdom, benevolence, and self-control. His every thought, word, and deed were in harmony with divine law and, therefore, true. The channel of communication between him and the Father was constantly open, so that truth, which rests upon revelation, was always known to him. 8
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints accepts as literally true the words of Jesus: “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” (John 10:10.) We believe, however, that this abundant life is obtained not only from spiritual exaltation, but also by the application to daily life of the principles that Jesus taught.
These principles are few and simple and may, if desired, be applied by every normal person. The first of these, and the foundation upon which a true Christian society is built, is: “And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength. …” (Mark 12:30.) A belief in a Supreme Being who lives and loves his children—a belief that gives power and vigor to the soul. An assurance that he can be approached for guidance, and that he will manifest himself to those who seek him.
Another is the acceptance of the truth that life is a gift of God and therefore divine. The proper use of this gift impels man to become the master, not the slave, of nature. His appetites are to be controlled and used for the benefit of his health and the prolongation of life. His passions are to be mastered and controlled for the happiness and blessings of others and the perpetuity of the race.
A third principle is personal integrity. By this I mean plain, everyday honesty, sobriety, and respect for others’ rights, such as will win the confidence of one’s fellows. This recognition applies to nations as well as to individuals. It is as wrong for a nation, because it is powerful, to steal from another and oppress it as it is for an individual to rob and kill his neighbor.
A fourth essential is social consciousness that awakens in each individual the realization that it is his duty to make the world better for his having been in it. 9
The Savior’s life was guided principally by … Individual Purity and Service. He kept himself wholly unspotted from the sins of the world, and devoted his life to the consideration of others, to salvation for the human family. He was always looking out for the oppressed, comforting the sick, healing the maimed and disabled, giving his life for the world. 10
There is imperative need of a drastic change in men’s dealings with one another. Never has there been a time in the history of the world when a change for the better was more imperative. And since rejection of Christ’s teachings has resulted in repeated disaster, with only intermittent periods of respite and peace and progress, why in the name of reason should people not be willing to substitute for selfish aggrandizement Christ’s principle of brotherly consideration, of fair dealing, of the value and sacredness of human life, of the virtue of forgiveness, of the condemnation of the sin of hypocrisy and of covetousness, of the saving power of love. 11
Members of the Church of Christ are under obligation to make the sinless Son of Man their ideal. He is the one Perfect Being who ever walked the earth; the sublimest example of nobility; Godlike in nature; perfect in his love; our Redeemer; our Savior; the immaculate Son of our Eternal Father; the Light, the Life, the Way. 12
I accept Jesus Christ as the personification of human perfection. 13
Christ’s teachings are applicable to everyday life.
I believe in every word that Jesus spoke, and to me the teaching is applicable in my life and yours. Keeping in mind the fact that we are the children of our Father in heaven, when we seek the kingdom of God, first, we become conscious of a new aim in life. … Only in the complete surrender of our inner life may we rise above the selfish, sordid pull of nature. …
For two thousand years, practically, men have considered [Christ’s teachings] as impractical—too ideal, they say, but if we sincerely believe in Christ’s divinity, that he is “the way, the truth, and the life” (see John 14:6), we cannot consistently doubt the applicability of his teachings to everyday life.
True, there are weighty problems to solve—evils of the slums, the ever-recurring conflicts between labor and capital, drunkenness, prostitution, international hatreds, and a hundred other current questions. But if heeded, Christ’s appeal for personal integrity, honor, fair-dealing, and love is basic in the proper solution of all these social and economic difficulties.
Most certainly before the world even approaches these ideals, men’s hearts must be changed. Christ came into the world for that very purpose. The principal reason for preaching the gospel is to change men’s hearts and lives. … Those who have been converted … can testify how the conversion has changed their lives. … By such conversion they bring peace and good will to the world instead of strife [and] suffering. 14
As a first step, … make truly applicable the simple injunction of putting one’s self in the other fellow’s place, the surest of all means of eliminating the bitterness that characterizes misunderstandings.
No thinking person can say truthfully that the application of this one simple act if practiced among individuals and nations would not bring about a better world!
Equally effective and applicable are His teachings regarding the value and sacredness of human life, the virtue of forgiveness, the necessity of fair dealing, His condemnation of the sin of hypocrisy, and of covetousness, His teachings regarding the saving power of love, and of the immortality of the soul. 15
Living the teachings of Christ leads to true greatness and happiness.
No man can sincerely resolve to apply in his daily life the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth without sensing a change in his nature. The phrase “born again” has a deeper significance than what many people attach to it. This changed feeling may be indescribable, but it is real.
Happy the person who has truly sensed the uplifting, transforming power that comes from this nearness to the Savior, this kinship to the living Christ. I am thankful that I know that Christ is my Redeemer. 16
The highest of all ideals are the teachings and particularly the life of Jesus of Nazareth, and that man is most truly great who is most Christlike.
What you sincerely in your heart think of Christ will determine what you are, will largely determine what your acts will be. No person can study this divine personality, can accept his teachings without becoming conscious of an uplifting and refining influence within himself. 17
By choosing him as our ideal, we create within ourselves a desire to be like him, to have fellowship with him. We perceive life as it should be and as it may be. 18
He promised no material rewards, but he did promise perfected, divine manhood. … “Be ye perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” [See Matthew 5:48.] And with that divine manhood comes the resultant happiness, true happiness. 19
The gospel, the glad tidings of great joy, is the true guide to mankind; and that man or woman is happiest and most content who lives nearest to its teachings, which are the antitheses of hatred, persecution, tyranny, domination, injustice—things which foster tribulation, destruction, and death throughout the world. What the sun in the heavenly blue is to the earth struggling to get free from winter’s grip, so the gospel of Jesus Christ is to the sorrowing souls yearning for something higher and better than mankind has yet found on earth.
What a glorious condition will be in this old world when it can truthfully be said to Christ, the Redeemer of mankind, “All men seek for thee.” (Mark 1:37.) Selfishness, envy, hatred, lying, stealing, cheating, disobedience, quarreling, and fighting among nations will then be no more! 20
We celebrate his birth in whose mission on earth (1) God is glorified; (2) earth is promised peace; (3) all men [are] given the assurance of God’s good will toward them!
If every man born into the world would have as the beacon of his life these three glorious ideals—how much sweeter and happier life would be! With such an aim, everyone would seek all that is pure, just, honorable, virtuous, and true—all that leads to perfection. … He would eschew that which is impure, dishonorable, or vile. If every man desired to show good will toward his fellow men and strove to express that desire in a thousand kind sayings and little deeds that would reflect unselfishness and self-sacrifice, what a contribution each would make toward universal peace on earth and the happiness of mankind! 21
What a more delightful world this would be if, for example, man earnestly strove to apply Christ’s advice: “If ye have aught against a brother, go to him.” [See Matthew 5:23–24.] Or, again, His admonition: “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness” [see Matthew 6:33], which means, simply, be not so anxious about worldly things as to make them of superior worth to spiritual attainment. 22
I feel, and know, that through him and through him only, and by obedience to the gospel of Jesus Christ, can we find happiness and salvation in this world and eternal life in the world to come. 23
Suggestions for Study and Discussion
• What are some of the major problems facing mankind today? What specific principles taught by Jesus Christ would help resolve these problems? How would they help resolve them?
• Why is faith in Jesus Christ essential to improve conditions in the world today? What does it mean to you that Jesus Christ is “the way, the truth, and the life”?
• What prevents people today from applying the Savior’s teachings in their lives? In what ways can we as a Church and as individuals promote His standards in the world?
• Jesus Christ said that He came into the world that we “might have life, and that [we] might have it more abundantly” (John 10:10; see page 4). In what ways has the Savior helped you have a more abundant life?
• President McKay testified of Jesus Christ as the “personification of human perfection” (page 5). What are some of the characteristics of Jesus Christ that make Him the example of perfection? (See pages 4–5.) To what extent are these characteristics realistically attainable in our lives? What can we do to make our individual lives more Christlike?
• President McKay taught that those who apply the Savior’s teachings will sense a change in themselves (see page 7). How have you seen this to be true in your life or the lives of others? What is the significance of President McKay’s use of the words “born again”? (See pages 7–8.)
Related Scriptures: Matthew 11:28–30; John 13:15–17; 3 Nephi 27:21–22, 27; D&C 84:49–54
Notes
1. In Conference Report, Oct. 1969, 8.
2. Cherished Experiences from the Writings of President David O. McKay, comp. Clare Middlemiss, rev. ed. (1976), 59–60; paragraphing altered.
3. In Conference Report, Apr. 1951, 157, 159.
4. Treasures of Life, comp. Clare Middlemiss (1962), 203–4.
5. “What Doth It Profit?” Improvement Era, Jan. 1970, 2.
6. In Conference Report, Apr. 1944, 124–25.
7. “Walk in the Light,” Improvement Era, Apr. 1954, 222.
8. In Conference Report, Apr. 1968, 6–7.
9. “What Doth It Profit?” Improvement Era, Jan. 1970, 3.
10. In Conference Report, Apr. 1918, 81.
11. “Walk in the Light,” Improvement Era, Apr. 1954, 221–22.
12. Treasures of Life, 210.
13. In Conference Report, Oct. 1965, 144.
14. In Conference Report, Oct. 1953, 10–11; paragraphing altered.
15. In Conference Report, Oct. 1942, 69–70.
16. In Conference Report, Apr. 1944, 124.
17. In Conference Report, Apr. 1951, 93.
18. In Conference Report, Apr. 1951, 98.
19. In Conference Report, Apr. 1953, 137–38.
20. In Conference Report, Apr. 1968, 9.
21. Gospel Ideals (1953), 36–37.
22. In Conference Report, Apr. 1944, 124.
23. In Conference Report, Oct. 1953, 9.^ Back to top
A Testimony of the Son of God:By President Gordon B. Hinckley
A little more than 2,000 years ago the Redeemer of mankind was born in Bethlehem of Judea (see D&C 20:1). While yet an infant, He was brought to the temple in Jerusalem. There Mary and Joseph heard the wonderful prophecies spoken by Simeon and Anna about the tiny babe who was destined to become the Savior of the world.
He spent His boyhood in Nazareth of Galilee, and when 12 years of age He was brought to the temple again. Mary and Joseph found Him conversing with learned men, “and they were hearing him, and asking him questions” (JST, Luke 2:46).
The Great Jehovah
Later, as the Master stood on the temple’s pinnacle, Satan tempted Him as He began His ministry. Still later, the Lord drove the money changers from the temple, declaring, “My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves” (Matt. 21:13).
Jesus was in very deed the great Jehovah of the Old Testament, who left His Father’s royal courts on high and condescended to come to earth as a babe born in the most humble of circumstances. His birth was foretold centuries earlier by Isaiah, who declared prophetically, “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace” (Isa. 9:6).
This Jesus Christ of whom we solemnly testify is, as John the Revelator declared, “the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth.” He “loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever” (Rev. 1:5–6).
The Savior of the World
He was and is the Son of the Almighty. He was the only perfect man to walk the earth. He healed the sick and caused the lame to walk, the blind to see, the deaf to hear. He raised the dead. Yet He suffered His own life to be taken in an act of Atonement, the magnitude of which is beyond our comprehension.
Luke records that this anguish was so great that “his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground” (Luke 22:44), a physical manifestation confirmed in both the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants. The suffering in Gethsemane and on the cross of Calvary, just a few hundred meters from Gethsemane, included both physical and spiritual “temptations, … pain, … hunger, thirst, and fatigue, even more than man can suffer,” said King Benjamin, “except it be unto death” (Mosiah 3:7).
After the agony of Gethsemane came His arrest, His trials, His condemnation, then the unspeakable pain of His death on the cross, followed by His burial in Joseph’s tomb and the triumphant coming forth in the Resurrection. He, the lowly babe of Bethlehem who two millennia ago walked the dusty roads of Palestine, became the Lord Omnipotent, the King of Kings, the Giver of Salvation to all. None can fully comprehend the splendor of His life, the majesty of His death, the universality of His gift to mankind. We unequivocally declare with the centurion who said at His death, “Truly this man was the Son of God” (Mark 15:39).
Our Living Lord
Such is the witness of the testament of the Old World, the Holy Bible. And there is another voice, that of the testament of the New World, wherein the Father introduced His resurrected Son, declaring, “Behold my Beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, in whom I have glorified my name” (3 Ne. 11:7).
Added to all of this is the declaration of modern prophets: “And now, after the many testimonies which have been given of him, this is the testimony, last of all, which we give of him: That he lives!” (D&C 76:22).
No event of human history carries a more compelling witness than does the reality of the Resurrection. His followers on two continents testified of it. Uncounted millions of men and women through the ages have suffered, even unto death, for the witness in their hearts that He lives, the Savior and Redeemer of all mankind, whose Atonement came as an act of grace for the entire world. How long and how great is the concourse of brave and humble people who have kept alive the name of Jesus and a testimony of His Redemption!
Now He has come again, in the latter days, to bless us and warm our hearts, to quicken our faith and bring us sure and certain knowledge of His living reality. We, of all people, can sing:
Joy to the world, the Lord is come; Let earth receive her King! Let ev’ry heart prepare him room, And Saints and angels sing. (“Joy to the World,” Hymns, no. 201)
We honor Him, we worship Him, we love Him as our Redeemer, the great Jehovah of the Old Testament, the Messiah of the New Testament. The entire thrust of the testimony of the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants declares our living Lord before whom we kneel in humility and faith.
The Son of God
And so at this Christmas season, we sing His praises and speak our words of faith and gratitude and love. It is His influence in our lives that stirs within us more kindness, more respect, more love, more concern. It is because of Him and His teachings that we reach out to those in trouble, distress, and need wherever they may be.
It is proper during this season when we commemorate His birth that we remember the Lord Jesus Christ in reverence and with love. He has done for us what we could not do for ourselves. He has brought meaning to our mortal existence. He has given us the gift of eternal life. He was and is the Son of God, who was “made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).
God be thanked for the gift of His Son, the Redeemer of the world, the Savior of mankind, the Prince of Life and Peace, the Holy One.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Liberty: Joseph Smith
I want the liberty of thinking and believing as I please. It feels so good not to be trammelled. (Joseph Smith, History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 7 Vols. 5:340)
It is a love of liberty which inspires my soul—civil and religious liberty to the whole of the human race. Love of liberty was diffused into my soul by my grandfathers while they dandled me on their knees; and shall I want friends? No. (Joseph Smith, History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 7 Vols. 5:498)
No honest man can doubt for a moment but the glory of American liberty is on the wane, and that calamity and confusion will sooner or later destroy the peace of the people. (Joseph Smith, History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 7 Vols. 6:204)
It is a love of liberty which inspires my soul—civil and religious liberty to the whole of the human race. Love of liberty was diffused into my soul by my grandfathers while they dandled me on their knees; and shall I want friends? No. (Joseph Smith, History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 7 Vols. 5:498)
No honest man can doubt for a moment but the glory of American liberty is on the wane, and that calamity and confusion will sooner or later destroy the peace of the people. (Joseph Smith, History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 7 Vols. 6:204)
Laws of the Land:Joseph Smith
Laws of the Land
Make yourselves acquainted with the commandments of the Lord, and the laws of the state, and govern yourselves accordingly. (Joseph Smith, History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 7 Vols. 1:341)
All regularly organized and well established governments have certain laws by which, more or less, the innocent are protected and the guilty punished. The fact admitted, that certain laws are good, equitable and just, ought to be binding upon the individual who admits this, and lead him to observe in the strictest manner an obedience to those laws. These laws when violated, or broken by the individual, must, in justice, convict his mind with a double force, if possible, of the extent and magnitude of his crime; because he could have no plea of ignorance to produce; and his act of transgression was openly committed against light and knowledge. But the individual who may be ignorant and imperceptibly transgresses or violates laws, though the voice of the country requires that he should suffer, yet he will never feel that remorse of conscience that the other will, and that keen, cutting reflection will never rise in his breast that otherwise would, had he done the deed, or committed the offense in full conviction that he was breaking the law of his country, and having previously acknowledged the same to be just. . . . The laws of men may guarantee to a people protection in the honorable pursuits of this life, and the temporal happiness arising from a protection against unjust insults and injuries; and when this is said, all is said, that can be in truth, of the power, extent, and influence of the laws of men, exclusive of the law of God. . . .
It is reasonable to suppose, that man departed from the first teachings, or instructions which he received from heaven in the first age, and refused by his disobedience to be governed by them. Consequently, he formed such laws as best suited his own mind, or as he supposed, were best adapted to his situation. But that God has influenced man more or less since that time in the formation of law for His benefit we have no hesitancy in believing; for, as before remarked, being the source of all good, every just and equitable law was in a greater or less degree influenced by Him. And though man in his own supposed wisdom would not admit the influence of a power superior to his own, yet for wise and great purposes, for the good and happiness of His creatures, God has instructed man to form wise and wholesome laws, since he had departed from Him and refused to be governed by those laws which God had given by His own voice from on high in the beginning. (Joseph Smith, History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 7 Vols. 2:7, 15)
The Political Motto of the Church of Latter-day Saints: The Constitution of our country formed by the Fathers of liberty. Peace and good order in society. Love to God, and good will to man. All good and wholesome laws, virtue and truth above all things, and aristarchy, live for ever! But woe to tyrants, mobs, aristocracy, anarchy, and toryism, and all those who invent or seek out unrighteous and vexatious law suits, under the pretext and color of law, or office, either religious or political. Exalt the standard of Democracy! Down with that of priestcraft, and let all the people say Amen! that the blood of our fathers may not cry from the ground against us. Sacred is the memory of that blood which bought for us our liberty. (Joseph Smith, History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 7 Vols. 3:9)
Should any person be guilty of exciting the people to riot or rebellion, or of participating in a mob, or any other unlawful riotous or tumultuous assemblage of the people, or of refusing to obey any civil officer, executing the ordinances of the city, or the general laws of the state or United States, or of neglecting or refusing to obey promptly, any military order for the due execution of said law or ordinances, he shall, on conviction thereof as aforesaid, be fined or imprisoned, or both, as aforesaid. (Joseph Smith, History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 7 Vols. 4:307)
We will keep the laws of the land; we do not speak against them; we never have. (Joseph Smith, History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 7 Vols. 5:257)
The Constitution is not a law, but it empowers the people to make laws. . . .
. . . Powers not delegated to the states or reserved from the states are constitutional. The Constitution acknowledges that the people have all power not reserved to itself. (Joseph Smith, History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 7 Vols. 5:289)
If I lose my life in a good cause I am willing to be sacrificed on the altar of virtue, righteousness and truth, in maintaining the laws and Constitution of the United States, if need be, for the general good of mankind. (Joseph Smith, History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 7 Vols. 6:211)
The constitution expects every man to do his duty; and when he fails the law urges him; or should he do too much, the same master rebukes him. (Joseph Smith, History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 7 Vols. 6:220)
We have ever held ourselves amenable to the law; and, for myself, sir, I am ever ready to conform to and support the laws and Constitution, even at the expense of my life. I have never in the least offered any resistance to law or lawful process, which is a well-known fact to the general public. (Joseph Smith, History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 7 Vols. 6:526)
We are desirous to fulfill the law in every particular, and are responsible for our acts. (Joseph Smith, History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 7 Vols. 6:585)
Make yourselves acquainted with the commandments of the Lord, and the laws of the state, and govern yourselves accordingly. (Joseph Smith, History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 7 Vols. 1:341)
All regularly organized and well established governments have certain laws by which, more or less, the innocent are protected and the guilty punished. The fact admitted, that certain laws are good, equitable and just, ought to be binding upon the individual who admits this, and lead him to observe in the strictest manner an obedience to those laws. These laws when violated, or broken by the individual, must, in justice, convict his mind with a double force, if possible, of the extent and magnitude of his crime; because he could have no plea of ignorance to produce; and his act of transgression was openly committed against light and knowledge. But the individual who may be ignorant and imperceptibly transgresses or violates laws, though the voice of the country requires that he should suffer, yet he will never feel that remorse of conscience that the other will, and that keen, cutting reflection will never rise in his breast that otherwise would, had he done the deed, or committed the offense in full conviction that he was breaking the law of his country, and having previously acknowledged the same to be just. . . . The laws of men may guarantee to a people protection in the honorable pursuits of this life, and the temporal happiness arising from a protection against unjust insults and injuries; and when this is said, all is said, that can be in truth, of the power, extent, and influence of the laws of men, exclusive of the law of God. . . .
It is reasonable to suppose, that man departed from the first teachings, or instructions which he received from heaven in the first age, and refused by his disobedience to be governed by them. Consequently, he formed such laws as best suited his own mind, or as he supposed, were best adapted to his situation. But that God has influenced man more or less since that time in the formation of law for His benefit we have no hesitancy in believing; for, as before remarked, being the source of all good, every just and equitable law was in a greater or less degree influenced by Him. And though man in his own supposed wisdom would not admit the influence of a power superior to his own, yet for wise and great purposes, for the good and happiness of His creatures, God has instructed man to form wise and wholesome laws, since he had departed from Him and refused to be governed by those laws which God had given by His own voice from on high in the beginning. (Joseph Smith, History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 7 Vols. 2:7, 15)
The Political Motto of the Church of Latter-day Saints: The Constitution of our country formed by the Fathers of liberty. Peace and good order in society. Love to God, and good will to man. All good and wholesome laws, virtue and truth above all things, and aristarchy, live for ever! But woe to tyrants, mobs, aristocracy, anarchy, and toryism, and all those who invent or seek out unrighteous and vexatious law suits, under the pretext and color of law, or office, either religious or political. Exalt the standard of Democracy! Down with that of priestcraft, and let all the people say Amen! that the blood of our fathers may not cry from the ground against us. Sacred is the memory of that blood which bought for us our liberty. (Joseph Smith, History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 7 Vols. 3:9)
Should any person be guilty of exciting the people to riot or rebellion, or of participating in a mob, or any other unlawful riotous or tumultuous assemblage of the people, or of refusing to obey any civil officer, executing the ordinances of the city, or the general laws of the state or United States, or of neglecting or refusing to obey promptly, any military order for the due execution of said law or ordinances, he shall, on conviction thereof as aforesaid, be fined or imprisoned, or both, as aforesaid. (Joseph Smith, History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 7 Vols. 4:307)
We will keep the laws of the land; we do not speak against them; we never have. (Joseph Smith, History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 7 Vols. 5:257)
The Constitution is not a law, but it empowers the people to make laws. . . .
. . . Powers not delegated to the states or reserved from the states are constitutional. The Constitution acknowledges that the people have all power not reserved to itself. (Joseph Smith, History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 7 Vols. 5:289)
If I lose my life in a good cause I am willing to be sacrificed on the altar of virtue, righteousness and truth, in maintaining the laws and Constitution of the United States, if need be, for the general good of mankind. (Joseph Smith, History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 7 Vols. 6:211)
The constitution expects every man to do his duty; and when he fails the law urges him; or should he do too much, the same master rebukes him. (Joseph Smith, History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 7 Vols. 6:220)
We have ever held ourselves amenable to the law; and, for myself, sir, I am ever ready to conform to and support the laws and Constitution, even at the expense of my life. I have never in the least offered any resistance to law or lawful process, which is a well-known fact to the general public. (Joseph Smith, History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 7 Vols. 6:526)
We are desirous to fulfill the law in every particular, and are responsible for our acts. (Joseph Smith, History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 7 Vols. 6:585)
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