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],