De Lamar Jensen, “Seventeen Centuries of Christianity,” Ensign, Sep 1978, 51
The story of Christianity is not simple to tell or easy to comprehend.
It contains cruelty as well as kindness, tragedy as well as triumph. It is the story of human endeavor to pursue a divine purpose without fully understanding what that purpose is: having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof. (JS—H 1:19.) Many church leaders over the centuries were miscreants of the worst kind, sowing seeds of confusion and corruption in the church.
But many others were worthy people who paid attention to the “still small voice,” who understood at least in part the teachings of the Savior, and who promoted love, goodness, and obedience to God’s commandments. These are the ones who responded to the light they had received and helped prepare for the day when God would restore the priesthood and gospel in its fulness.
The Primitive Church
The primitive church of Christ, composed both of loyal Jews who had heard the message of the Savior and many gentiles converted to Christianity through the missionary labors of Paul and others, spread quickly around the perimeter of the eastern Mediterranean.
By the time of John’s exile to the Isle of Patmos, Christian communities existed in Syria and Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, North Africa, Greece, Macedonia, and Italy. The instructions of Jesus to his apostles to go forth and teach all nations were followed faithfully. The people of God no longer belonged to a single nation but to a universal church.
Expansion continued during the next century, and congregations of Christians were dispersed as far eastward as Arbela in Persia, and westward to Vienne and Lyon in Gaul (modern France). Obviously, the political, linguistic, and cultural diversity of these communities was enormous, and the problem of communication overwhelming. Yet they all had two things in common: a testimony of the resurrected Christ, and the perennial threat of persecution.
For three hundred years Christians were scorned and persecuted, first in Jerusalem by their Jewish countrymen and later by official proscription throughout the Roman Empire. Free exercise of the Jewish religion was permitted under Roman rule, and as long as Christians were considered as part of Judaism they were unmolested by Roman authorities. But it soon became evident, from their rejection by the Jews and the rapid influx of gentiles into their fold, that the followers of Christ were not included among the followers of the Mosaic law.
Christians’ refusal to worship and sacrifice to the Roman emperor condemned their faith to the status of an illicit religion under Roman law. Official state persecution began with Nero in the first century a.d. and was sporadically renewed and intensified under subsequent emperors. Besides physical persecution, Christians were also subjected to extreme social discrimination and continuous suspicion and hatred.
Despite all of these oppressions, Christianity continued to grow in strength and number. As it did, it encountered more pernicious threats from the infiltration of Eastern mystery cults and religious philosophies that seeped into Christianity during the second and third centuries a.d. Christians fought these influences, but similarities between them and Christian beliefs made it difficult at times to distinguish between the philosophies.
Had the people been able to seek the counsel and inspiration of prophetic leaders they might yet have maintained a constant course. But with the death of the apostles, general priesthood leadership was lost, and with it the vision of divine direction and purpose. Members and local leaders were left to their own resources to solve their mounting problems, although the channel of communication with God remained open for anyone who was worthy and willing to use it.
Alteration and Dissent
The original organization of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers, elders, bishops, and deacons underwent gradual change as situations and personnel altered and as people’s views and customs varied. Likewise, doctrines grew more diverse as conflicting opinions arose over the content and meaning of Christ’s teachings.
To arrest such tendencies, Christians tried to establish norms of belief and behavior. They began the search for authentic documents from the time of Jesus and the apostles to serve as guides. Even then disagreements arose as to the authenticity and propriety of many of the sources uncovered, and some were never found at all.
By the close of the second century, however, agreement was fairly widespread that the four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, along with a number of Paul’s epistles and some from James, Peter, and John, should be recognized as the New Testament. In 367 a.d. the present collection of twenty-seven books was accepted.
Another attempt to conserve the faith appeared in the so-called Apostles’ Creed, a concise statement of doctrinal belief in God the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ, intended specifically to repudiate some of the tenets of Marcionism, another Eastern religion with similarities to Christianity.
In the meantime, several individuals rose to defend the faith against heretical influences. In so doing they introduced such philosophical subtleties and hair-splitting definitions that it became difficult for ordinary Christians to comprehend even basic beliefs. Among these well-meaning but misleading early church fathers was Tertullian of Carthage (Circa 150–220 a.d.), a learned lawyer whose definition of the Trinity as three in person but one in substance initiated the Christian confusion over the Godhead. Others included Clement of Alexandria (Circa 150–215 a.d.), who employed Greek philosophy to describe the nature of Christ (the Logos, or Word, always existed as the “face” of God); and Clement’s prize pupil, Origen (Circa 185–254 a.d.), a pious and brilliant teacher who held that Christ is the Logos in flesh, coeternal with but subordinate to the Father and associated in dignity with the uncreated Holy Ghost.
Dissension continued, particularly concerning Christ’s nature and his relationship to the Father, until these controversies led to a major schism among Christians. Arius (Circa 250–336), a priest in the church of Alexandria, believed and taught that although God is without beginning or end, the Son had a beginning and is therefore neither God nor man, being a creation of God. Arius’s views spread rapidly into the eastern part of the empire where violent controversy quickly followed.
Emperor Constantine, who had converted to Christianity in 312 a.d. and lifted the imperial ban against Christians, feared that the Arian controversy might divide the empire he had so recently united. He convened the first general council of the church in Nicaea, near Constantinople, in 325 a.d. The council did not end doctrinal strife, but it did condemn Arianism and issued the Nicene Creed, which declared universal belief in “one God, the Father Almighty, … and in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only-begotten of the Father, that is, of the substance of the Father, … begotten, not made, of one substance with the Father.” Despite this pronouncement, the controversy continued to plague the church as the Nicene Creed was alternately accepted and rejected by subsequent emperors.
These myopic gropings emphasize the futility of comprehending spiritual matters without the gift of the Spirit. They also underline the doctrinal and regional fragmentation of the church during the decay and breakup of the Western Roman Empire between 300 and 600 a.d. By 787 a.d., no fewer than seven councils had convened to try to solve the theological arguments.
The Latin Fathers
The theology of the Western portion of Christendom was strongly influenced by four men of the fourth and early fifth centuries: Ambrose, Jerome, John Chrysostom, and Augustine, known collectively as the Latin Fathers.
As bishop of Milan, Ambrose (Circa 340–397) struggled to proclaim and maintain the independence of the church from the encroachments of the state.
Jerome (Circa 345–420) is remembered as the scholarly ascetic who translated the Bible into the Latin version (the Vulgate) that is still used by the Roman Catholic Church.
After years as a monk, John Chrysostom (347–Circa 407) became the most eloquent preacher in the early church (Chrysostom meaning “golden mouth”).
Augustine (354–430), bishop of Hippo in North Africa, wrote several works: The Confessions, revealing his own life in the light of God’s grace; The City of God, setting forth his philosophy of history as the dichotomy between the kingdom of man and the kingdom of God; and On the Trinity, giving final form to the Western church’s teaching of the divine Trinity. Heavily influenced by paganism, Augustine expounded a view of man and God that was hardly complimentary to either.
Conquest and Conversion
For five hundred years after the death of Augustine the Western church was ravaged and desolated by the decay of the protective Roman Empire, by the ensuing invasions from the north (Goths, Vandals, Saxons, Franks, and Vikings), and by the conquests of a vigorous new religion from the Middle East—Islam. Carried throughout Arabia, Mesopotamia, Persia, Syria, Palestine, North Africa, and into Europe through the Iberian peninsula, Islam spread until, by the middle of the eighth century, half of Christendom had come under Islamic rule. Christianity survived, however, though weakened and reduced, and began the slow process of recovering its losses and conquering the conquerors. Step by step, the barbarian invaders were converted to Christianity: the Franks first, then the Anglo-Saxons, the Frisians, and the other Germans. Goths, Lombards, and Burgundians were assimilated into Latin Christendom, as were the vagrant Norsemen. By the end of the eleventh century, Christian crusaders were returning to the East to “redeem” the Holy Land.
A Professional Clergy
Perhaps the most significant change during those “dark ages” was the complete split between the Eastern and Western churches, and the rise of a professional, hierarchical clergy in the West, culminating in the powerful papacy.
The growth of papal power was slow but inexorable. In Constantine’s time, the bishop of Rome was only one of many bishops, with no more authority in the church as a whole than the bishops of Alexandria, Antioch, or Constantinople. But by the thirteenth century, as pope, he boldly proclaimed his supremacy over all the world and its kingdoms.
Constantine and each of his immediate successors had been head of the church—making it an imperial theocracy that continued in the East until 1453. The bishops of Rome, however, contested the imperial supremacy and pronounced their own “primacy” on the ground that Rome was the “Apostolic See,” the center established by the apostle Peter.
In the fifth century Roman bishops began using the title pope (father) to emphasize their superiority to other bishops, a position strongly asserted by Leo I “The Great” (440–61) and expanded by several strong-willed successors. By the middle of the eighth century, when Pope Stephen II sought and received the protection of the Frankish king, the papacy had fully freed itself from imperial authority and resumed its climb to Europeanwide power.
The medieval church was governed by an intricate hierarchical system consisting of the pope at the top, archbishops and bishops in the middle, and parish priests at the bottom. In addition to their jurisdictional functions, priests administered seven sacraments (baptism, confirmation, marriage, ordination, penance, eucharist, and extreme unction). These sacraments were believed to be the channels by which divine grace was imparted to man.
Religious Orders
Separate from these ecclesiastical officers was another group who provided educational and social services and encouraged certain ascetic and personal expressions of Christian piety. These were the orders of monks and nuns, whose lives were regulated by their respective orders, and who took upon themselves formal vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.
Medieval monasticism had evolved through a long history, beginning in the third century with early hermits like St. Anthony, who took literally Christ’s injunction to the rich young man to “go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor.” (Matt. 19:21.) Later monks lived communally in monasteries under strict rules, attempting to live in the world but not be of it.
Another kind of religious order, the mendicant friars, came into being in the thirteenth century. Rather than secluding themselves in monasteries, they sought to carry the Christian message by teaching and good deeds.
The first of these orders was the Franciscan, or Friars Minor, founded in Italy by St. Francis of Assisi (1182–1226). Francis’s own life was one of simple and sensitive devotion to God and unselfish service to mankind. A kind-hearted and gentle man, he urged others to love God and neighbors, to forgive freely, and to abstain from all vices of the flesh.
The Dominican Order, or Friars Preachers, was founded by a Spanish priest and student, St. Dominic (Dominic de Guzman, 1170–1221). The mission of this order was to preach to the weak in spirit, to convert the non-Christians, and to teach repentance to the wayward.
Reaction against the Clergy
Many wayward souls did respond to Dominic’s efforts, but others believed the church possessed neither the true gospel nor the authority of God. Such a religious group was the Cathari (“pure ones”) of southern France (known also as Albigenses, after the city of Albi which was their center).
The Cathari, like the earlier Manichaeans, believed the material world was evil and only the spiritual realm was good. They accepted the New Testament (being from God), but they rejected the Old Testament (inspired by Jehovah, creator of the wicked world) along with many teachings and interpretations of the Roman church, including the sacraments. They sharply criticized the growing wealth and power of the clergy. Politics and economic jealousies soon entered the picture until a full-scale crusade was launched against them in 1209.
Another movement branded as heretical was the Waldenses, followers of Peter Waldo (Valdez) of Lyon. The Waldenses, like the Cathari, also spread across southeastern France, northern Spain, northern Italy, and southern Germany. They went in simple garb, two by two without purse or script, teaching their version or the gospel to all who would listen. Forbidding oaths and rejecting masses and prayers for the dead, they soon came under condemnation, and like the Cathari (with whom they disagreed), they suffered persecution and death.
The presence of these and other heresies in the medieval church gave added incentive to the development of “scholastic” arguments for refuting doctrinal error and unbelief. Scholasticism developed in conjunction with the rise of the universities and provided a broad philosophical base for the verification of church dogmas.
This introduction of reason and logic into Christian theology, to serve as an adjunct rather than an enemy to faith, was one of the triumphs of medieval thought. The greatest of the schoolmen was Thomas Aquinas (1225–74), a Dominican teacher whose Summa Theologica, a masterpiece of scholastic reasoning making great use of Aristotelian logic, overcame the apparent conflicts between natural and revealed thought and provided logical proofs of Christian doctrines for the people of the time.
Corruption and Disillusionment
But logic was no more effective than the sword in maintaining religious unity when the leadership of the church itself was steeped in error and engrossed in sin. Of course, not all of the clergy were unworthy. Many priests and monks were sincere, hard-working, and honest; but too many of them were not. By the fourteenth century clerical corruption and abuse were widespread. Absenteeism, venality, concubinage, and slothfulness were common among prelates at every level.
Unfortunately, involved as it was with “high politics,” competing with the secular rulers, the papacy did little to retard this process of deterioration. When Pope Boniface VIII issued the bull (or edict) Unam Sanctum in 1302, which reiterated the papal claim to universal supremacy, he not only infuriated the French king but also alienated many others. Consequently, the Roman see was abolished and the papacy was transplanted to Avignon, in France, where the King could keep a close watch on it. Seventy years later the Great Schism began—a succession of rival popes at Avignon and Rome each denouncing and excommunicating the other, while corruption and confusion ran rampant.
Meanwhile, most honest believers were bewildered and disillusioned. The church was an integral part of their lives and promised the only recognizable path to their salvation. Yet in many ways it was a remote, even hostile, stranger to them.
In a very real sense there were three Catholic churches, and only one of these touched the lives of people in a meaningful way. There was the church of the upper clergy (especially the bishops and cardinals), vying for influence and prestige in a world of power and violence. There was the church of the scholastics and monks, where doctrines were more highly esteemed than morals. And there was the devotional church of the fifty million lay members whose contact with religion came through the mass and other sacraments, and through pilgrimages, prayers, rosaries, relics, and intercessional appeals to the Virgin Mary and to early saints.
Reforms
During the Renaissance (from about 1350–1550), pressures mounted to reform the church and reduce its abuses. This was not the first genuine attempt at reformation. In the tenth century, a revitalization of the monastic system was triggered at the monastery of Cluny, north of Lyon. The cluniac reforms, stressing service, obedience, and piety, had a wide effect which was renewed two hundred years later by Bernard of Clairvaux and the Cistercians.
Even the papacy felt these fresh winds of reform under the indomitable Hildrebrand (Pope Gregory VII, 1073–85), but it did not last. Frequently during the next four centuries pious and well-meaning clergy tried to eliminate abuses within their own jurisdictions, but the problems were usually too interrelated to be successfully attacked piecemeal. Churchwide action was needed but was not forthcoming.
Many people turned to mysticism both for personal catharsis and for churchwide spiritualization. Some formed into societies, such as the Friends of God in the Rhineland and the Brethren of the Common Life in the Netherlands. From one of these groups came the most influential devotional book of the Renaissance, Thomas a Kempis’ Imitation of Christ.
Some of these mystics were sainted (St. Bridget of Sweden, St. Catherine of Siena, San Bernardino of Siena, and San Giovanni Capistrano), while others were charged with heresy. John Wyclif of Oxford and John Hus of Prague were among the latter.
During the final years of the Great Schism (1378–1415), as the divided papacy continued to degenerate, the cry was increasingly heard to convene a general council of the church. This movement gained momentum until it boldly asserted that the supreme governing body of the church was not the pope but a general council representing all Christendom.
The Council of Constance thus convened in 1414. During the next three years it deposed all three rival popes; chose a new one of its own (intended to be a figurehead); charged, heard, condemned, and then brutally killed John Hus; and hesitatingly approached the task of reforming the church “in head and members.”
Yet it did not accomplish its goals. A newly established Renaissance papacy quickly regained its position of primacy. The execution of Hus, instead of ending heresy, caused the Hussites to take up arms for the next half century, devastating much of central and eastern Europe. For the council, reform of the church soon became a dead issue.
It was not a dead issue, however, for all those who saw and were offended by the continuing corruption. Among the more outspoken of these were the Renaissance humanists, men whose devotion to the church was not compromised by their open criticism of its abuses.
Humanism was mainly a scholarly and literary movement whose admiration of classical languages and culture made it suspect in the eyes of many churchmen. The humanists were critical of scholasticism because of its irrelevance, and were vigorously opposed to the immoral lives of the clergy. “What point is there in your being showered with holy water if you do not wipe away the inward pollution from your heart?” chided Erasmus, the greatest of the humanists. “You venerate the saints and delight in touching their relics, but you despise the best one they left behind, the example of a holy life.”
Sir Thomas More echoed that sentiment in his Utopia and in other writings. The humanists held a more optimistic view of human nature and the dignity of man than did the theologians, and placed more trust in the words of scripture than in the subsequent commentaries of the scholastics. Yet they did not wish to harm the church nor divide it; they hoped to unite and strengthen it. To do that, they advocated study, prayer, and a thorough reformation of the lives of the clergy.
Protestantism
One of the clergy, an Augustinian monk and doctor of theology named Martin Luther, was less disturbed by the profusion of immoral conduct (although he condemned that too) than by what he called “the deliberate silence regarding the world of Truth, or else its adulteration.”
In a desperate endeavor to attain salvation through the conscientious performance of meritorious works prescribed by the church, Luther concluded that no man can merit salvation, that it is a gift of God given freely to whom he wills, not as a reward for good deeds but according to divine pleasure. By this simple pronouncement, Luther launched the Protestant Reformation and began the process that would lead first to a split and then a complete fragmentation of Christianity.
If mankind does not need works, indulgences, or sacraments for salvation, he reasoned, then the entire hierarchical system of the Roman church is superfluous and perverse. Indeed, he declared, the pope is not only a hoax, he is the very anti-Christ! Leaning heavily on Augustine’s definition of “original sin,” which declared all mankind to be wicked, depraved, lustful, and an enemy to God, Luther expounded the idea of salvation by grace alone (sola gratia), whereby God chooses some, regardless of their works, to repentance, faith, and salvation through Jesus Christ. Thus redeemed from their own wickedness, the “true believers”—the invisible church of Christ—become righteous doers of good for the right reasons.
Lutheranism spread into many states of Germany and beyond into Scandinavia and eastern Europe. Others quickly took up the Bible to proclaim similar views. Luther believed that no matter how many people read the scriptures, they would all reach the same conclusion if they used good reason and followed their conscience.
But, alas, it was not so. Some groups refuted clerical and monastic vows, others destroyed images, while still others, such as the “Zwichau prophets,” declared the immediate advent of the Lord.
In Switzerland, Ulrich Zwingli renounced the tithe, repudiated clerical celibacy, and abolished the mass. In England Henry VIII rejected the pope and declared himself “the only supreme head in earth of the Church of England.”
John Calvin, a lawyer-theologian from France, carried Protestant doctrines to their logical extreme in his Institutes of the Christian Religion, unabashedly pronouncing the predestination of the elect to salvation and the rest to damnation. At Geneva he established a tightly organized theocracy from which ardent pastors and teachers carried Calvinism into France, the Netherlands, England, Scotland, Germany, Bohemia, and Poland, thus providing the principal theological base of Puritanism, Presbyterianism, Congregationalism, and Dutch, French, and German Reformed faiths.
From the eddies of this Protestant upheaval other groups of reformers emerged. Some of these were called Anabaptists (rebaptizers) because they rejected the practice of infant baptism practiced by both Catholics and Protestants and proclaimed instead baptism by immersion, following conversion and repentance, as a sign of entrance into God’s kingdom.
They usually referred to themselves as “brethren,” or “saints.” Because they came largely from the lower classes, believed in a complete separation of church and state (including refusal to take civil oaths, bear arms, or pay taxes), and had extreme beliefs about the end of the world, they are frequently spoken of as the Radical Reformers. But for the most part they were peaceful and devout followers of Christ.
They believed in a restitution of the primitive church with its organization and communal life. They had no paid ministry, believed that every believer received divine help in understanding the word of God, and rejected the Protestant doctrine of salvation by grace alone, teaching instead salvation by faith and works.
Because they were so different, and their theory of church and state considered dangerous to society, they were feared and ruthlessly persecuted by Catholic and Protestant alike. Most of those who survived did so by fleeing to the east where, under the looser jurisdiction of the rulers of Moravia and Poland, they retained their unique identity and devotion.
Obviously, the Protestant Reformation did not reform the church; it fractured and divided it. Christendom was hopelessly fragmented by the middle of the sixteenth century. Recrimination, persecution, and bloodshed followed. Sincere Catholic reformers—men like Bishop Matteo Giberti and Cardinal Gasparo Contarini—could not prevent the Counter Reformation from over-reacting to the Protestant threat. The Inquisition was revived in a vain effort to wipe out heresy.
Even Ignatius Loyola’s new religious order, the Jesuits, founded in 1540 to teach the young and convert the heathen, was soon turned into an instrument for fighting Protestantism. The council of Trent (which ended in 1563) hardened the lines of religious division, and the Papal Index of Prohibited Books further constricted Christian thought. In a few years the spread of Protestantism was checked, but at an enormous cost.
Still the proliferation of new faiths within Protestantism continued. The rigors of Calvinism in the Netherlands soon generated a reaction there in the form of Arminianism, which tried to moderate the harshness of absolute predestination and “irresistible grace” with a more liberal interpretation of God’s foreknowledge and man’s free will.
In Germany, after the Thirty Years War (1618–48) had taken its gruesome toll, a movement known as Pietism deepened the spiritual life of many Lutherans by cultivating high moral standards and promoting organized works of charity and service.
And in England, George Fox (1624–91) founded the remarkable Society of Friends, known popularly as the Quakers, resembling the earlier Anabaptists in many ways: spiritual revelation, non-professional ministry, rejection of oaths, titles, and war. True Christians, they felt, will be known by their fruits—a consecrated, simple, spiritual life.
While all of these movements met with immediate distrust, anger, and violence, eventually even the fanaticism of religious war subsided and in the pluralism of post-Reformation Europe religious toleration began slowly to appear.
The Enlightenment
That progress toward toleration was aided in the eighteenth century by the spirit of the Enlightenment, particularly the rise of rationalism and “natural religion” (or Deism). According to Deist views, God exists; he created the world, which is then governed by its own natural laws. God should be respected and praised, and men should repent of their sins and do good to one another. The emphasis throughout was on virtue and conduct instead of theology. How foolish it is, noted Voltaire, the most famous of the French Deists, for men to torture and kill one another over the definition of a word or the phrasing of a creed,
Reason and morality were the watchwords of “Enlightened” society. Yet something essential to Christianity was missing in this rational religion: the intimacy of God and the divinity of Christ. Christianity without the miracles of the birth, Resurrection, and Atonement is not Christianity at all. The new humanitarianism can only be praised—for too long it had been ignored by partisan theologians—but the Deist rejection of theology, although making room for greater toleration of different Christian sects, was a criticism of Christianity itself.
Partly in response to the Deist influence came a wide-ranging evangelical awakening, especially in England. It stressed the fundamentals of Christian devotion and particularly the renewal and revitalization of life which results from a full commitment to Christ.
A notable product of this evangelicalism was a new society called Methodism, whose chief architects were John (1703–91) and Charles (1707–77) Wesley. Methodist emphasis upon “conversion” and cultivation of the Christian life, including service to others, contributed materially to a revival of Christianity and to the active promotion of social reforms, such as the abolition of the slave trade in the British Empire in 1807.
And thus for seventeen centuries Christianity struggled through trials of every kind, from persecution to prosperity, from harmony to discord and disintegration, groping for answers to questions asked and unasked. As its proponents ignored or misunderstood the teachings of Christ and his apostles, Christianity foundered. As they responded to glimmers of that original light, Christianity during these centuries helped prepare men and nations for the fulness of the restored gospel.
Showing posts with label Christianity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christianity. Show all posts
Friday, October 10, 2008
“Mom, Are We Christians?”
Gary J. Coleman, “‘Mom, Are We Christians?’,” Ensign, May 2007, 92–94
I am a devout Christian who is exceedingly fortunate to have greater knowledge of the true “doctrine of Christ” since my conversion to the restored Church.
Christianity celebrates the life and ministry of Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God the Eternal Father. Christian churches with great variations of doctrine dot the land the world over. When 14-year-old Cortnee, a daughter of a mission president, entered a new high school as a freshman, she was asked by classmates if she was a Christian. They scoffed at her response that she was a Mormon, a common reference to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Upon arriving home she asked her mother, “Mom, are we Christians?”
Growing up in my family, we lived as devout members of another Christian faith. I was baptized a member of that church shortly after my birth. Our family went to church each week. For many years my brothers and I assisted the pastors who conducted our Sunday services. I was taught the importance of family prayer as our family prayed together each day. I thought that someday I would enter the full-time ministry in my church. There was no question in our minds that we could define ourselves as devout Christians.
When I was a university student, however, I became acquainted with the members and teachings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a Christian faith centered on the Savior. I began to learn about the doctrine of the Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ in these latter days. I learned truths that I had not known before that changed my life and how I viewed the gospel. After much studying, prayer, and faith, I chose to embrace beautiful restored truths found only in this Church.
The first restored truth that I learned was the nature of the Godhead. The true Christian doctrine that the Godhead consists of three separate beings was known in biblical times. God bore witness of Jesus, His Only Begotten Son, on several occasions. He spoke at Jesus’s baptism: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”1 Jesus Himself testified of God, His Father, when He said, “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.”2 After Jesus’s death and Resurrection, we learn that Stephen, “he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, and said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.”3 What a dramatic testimony of the Godhead from that disciple of Christ.
The knowledge of God and His physical separateness from His Son and the Holy Ghost was lost after the death of Christ and His Apostles. Confusion and false doctrines about the Godhead were fashioned out of the Nicene Creed and Constantinople councils, where men declared that instead of three separate beings, the Godhead was three persons in one God, or the Trinity. Just as Christian Protestant reformers struggled with these creeds of men, I did as well. The teachings about the Trinity that I learned in my youth were incomprehensible to me.
However, when I was introduced to the glorious truths of the First Vision experienced by the Prophet Joseph Smith, it was a stunning awakening for me to finally understand the truth about the nature of God the Eternal Father and His Only Begotten Son. Joseph declared: “I saw two Personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the other—This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him!”4 This heavenly vision restored the wondrous yet plain and precious knowledge of God and His Son to the earth again, dispelling at once the teachings I had learned about the Trinity.
I know that heaven-sent revelations have replaced the gross errors of man-made doctrines concerning the Godhead. I know that God is our Heavenly Father. His Son, Jesus Christ, is my Savior. The Holy Ghost testifies of the Father and the Son. I express my profound gratitude to God for introducing the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ to mankind in these last days. The Savior lives; He has been seen; He has spoken; He directs the work of His Church through apostles and prophets today. What magnificent truths He has taught as the Good Shepherd who continues to look after His sheep.
The second restored truth I learned as an investigator of this Church was the reality of additional scripture and revelation. The prophet Isaiah saw in vision a book that he proclaimed was part of “a marvellous work and a wonder.”5 I testify that the Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ is that book. It is a sacred record written by prophets of God to persuade all people to come unto Christ, and it helps to reveal the gospel of Jesus Christ in its fulness. The Book of Mormon tells of prophets and other faithful members of the Church who took upon themselves the name of Christ, even before the Savior’s birth.6 This book tells of the resurrected Christ teaching men what they must do to gain peace in this life and eternal salvation in the world to come. What could be more Christian than seeking to take His name upon ourselves and follow His counsel to become like Him?
President Gordon B. Hinckley has said, “I cannot understand why the Christian world does not accept this book.”7 I first read the Book of Mormon at the age of 21. I then asked God if it was true. The truth of it was manifested unto me by the comforting power of the Holy Ghost.8 I know that the Book of Mormon is a second testament of Jesus Christ. I join my testimony with the prophets of this sacred book to declare that “we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ.”9 I am deeply grateful for every word that He has spoken and for every word He continues to speak as He quenches our thirst with living water.
Another restored truth of the gospel I became acquainted with was the restoration of priesthood authority, or the power to act in God’s name. Former prophets and apostles, such as Elijah, Moses, John the Baptist, Peter, James, and John, have been sent by God and Christ in our day to restore the holy priesthood of God. Every priesthood holder in this Church can trace his priesthood authority directly to Jesus Christ. Men now possess the keys to establish the Church so that we can come unto Christ and partake of His eternal ordinances of salvation.10 I testify that this is the Church of Jesus Christ—the only church authorized with true priesthood authority to exercise the keys of salvation through sacred ordinances.
Cortnee asked, “Mom, are we Christians?” As a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, you are a Christian, and I am too. I am a devout Christian who is exceedingly fortunate to have greater knowledge of the true “doctrine of Christ”11 since my conversion to the restored Church. These truths define this Church as having the fulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Like other members of the Church, I now understand the true nature of the Godhead, I have access to additional scripture and revelation, and I can partake of the blessings of priesthood authority. Yes, Cortnee, we are Christians, and I testify of these truths in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Notes
1. Matthew 3:17.
2. John 17:3.
3. Acts 7:55–56.
4. Joseph Smith—History 1:17.
5. See Isaiah 29:14; see also vv. 11–12, 18.
6. See Alma 46:14–16.
7. The Marvelous Foundation of Our Faith,” Liahona and Ensign, Nov. 2002, 81.
8. See Moroni 10:4–5.
9. 2 Nephi 25:26.
10. See D&C 2; 13; 110; 112:32.
11. 2 Nephi 31:2; see also 3 Nephi 11:31–36.
I am a devout Christian who is exceedingly fortunate to have greater knowledge of the true “doctrine of Christ” since my conversion to the restored Church.
Christianity celebrates the life and ministry of Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God the Eternal Father. Christian churches with great variations of doctrine dot the land the world over. When 14-year-old Cortnee, a daughter of a mission president, entered a new high school as a freshman, she was asked by classmates if she was a Christian. They scoffed at her response that she was a Mormon, a common reference to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Upon arriving home she asked her mother, “Mom, are we Christians?”
Growing up in my family, we lived as devout members of another Christian faith. I was baptized a member of that church shortly after my birth. Our family went to church each week. For many years my brothers and I assisted the pastors who conducted our Sunday services. I was taught the importance of family prayer as our family prayed together each day. I thought that someday I would enter the full-time ministry in my church. There was no question in our minds that we could define ourselves as devout Christians.
When I was a university student, however, I became acquainted with the members and teachings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a Christian faith centered on the Savior. I began to learn about the doctrine of the Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ in these latter days. I learned truths that I had not known before that changed my life and how I viewed the gospel. After much studying, prayer, and faith, I chose to embrace beautiful restored truths found only in this Church.
The first restored truth that I learned was the nature of the Godhead. The true Christian doctrine that the Godhead consists of three separate beings was known in biblical times. God bore witness of Jesus, His Only Begotten Son, on several occasions. He spoke at Jesus’s baptism: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”1 Jesus Himself testified of God, His Father, when He said, “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.”2 After Jesus’s death and Resurrection, we learn that Stephen, “he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, and said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.”3 What a dramatic testimony of the Godhead from that disciple of Christ.
The knowledge of God and His physical separateness from His Son and the Holy Ghost was lost after the death of Christ and His Apostles. Confusion and false doctrines about the Godhead were fashioned out of the Nicene Creed and Constantinople councils, where men declared that instead of three separate beings, the Godhead was three persons in one God, or the Trinity. Just as Christian Protestant reformers struggled with these creeds of men, I did as well. The teachings about the Trinity that I learned in my youth were incomprehensible to me.
However, when I was introduced to the glorious truths of the First Vision experienced by the Prophet Joseph Smith, it was a stunning awakening for me to finally understand the truth about the nature of God the Eternal Father and His Only Begotten Son. Joseph declared: “I saw two Personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the other—This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him!”4 This heavenly vision restored the wondrous yet plain and precious knowledge of God and His Son to the earth again, dispelling at once the teachings I had learned about the Trinity.
I know that heaven-sent revelations have replaced the gross errors of man-made doctrines concerning the Godhead. I know that God is our Heavenly Father. His Son, Jesus Christ, is my Savior. The Holy Ghost testifies of the Father and the Son. I express my profound gratitude to God for introducing the resurrected Lord Jesus Christ to mankind in these last days. The Savior lives; He has been seen; He has spoken; He directs the work of His Church through apostles and prophets today. What magnificent truths He has taught as the Good Shepherd who continues to look after His sheep.
The second restored truth I learned as an investigator of this Church was the reality of additional scripture and revelation. The prophet Isaiah saw in vision a book that he proclaimed was part of “a marvellous work and a wonder.”5 I testify that the Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ is that book. It is a sacred record written by prophets of God to persuade all people to come unto Christ, and it helps to reveal the gospel of Jesus Christ in its fulness. The Book of Mormon tells of prophets and other faithful members of the Church who took upon themselves the name of Christ, even before the Savior’s birth.6 This book tells of the resurrected Christ teaching men what they must do to gain peace in this life and eternal salvation in the world to come. What could be more Christian than seeking to take His name upon ourselves and follow His counsel to become like Him?
President Gordon B. Hinckley has said, “I cannot understand why the Christian world does not accept this book.”7 I first read the Book of Mormon at the age of 21. I then asked God if it was true. The truth of it was manifested unto me by the comforting power of the Holy Ghost.8 I know that the Book of Mormon is a second testament of Jesus Christ. I join my testimony with the prophets of this sacred book to declare that “we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ.”9 I am deeply grateful for every word that He has spoken and for every word He continues to speak as He quenches our thirst with living water.
Another restored truth of the gospel I became acquainted with was the restoration of priesthood authority, or the power to act in God’s name. Former prophets and apostles, such as Elijah, Moses, John the Baptist, Peter, James, and John, have been sent by God and Christ in our day to restore the holy priesthood of God. Every priesthood holder in this Church can trace his priesthood authority directly to Jesus Christ. Men now possess the keys to establish the Church so that we can come unto Christ and partake of His eternal ordinances of salvation.10 I testify that this is the Church of Jesus Christ—the only church authorized with true priesthood authority to exercise the keys of salvation through sacred ordinances.
Cortnee asked, “Mom, are we Christians?” As a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, you are a Christian, and I am too. I am a devout Christian who is exceedingly fortunate to have greater knowledge of the true “doctrine of Christ”11 since my conversion to the restored Church. These truths define this Church as having the fulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Like other members of the Church, I now understand the true nature of the Godhead, I have access to additional scripture and revelation, and I can partake of the blessings of priesthood authority. Yes, Cortnee, we are Christians, and I testify of these truths in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Notes
1. Matthew 3:17.
2. John 17:3.
3. Acts 7:55–56.
4. Joseph Smith—History 1:17.
5. See Isaiah 29:14; see also vv. 11–12, 18.
6. See Alma 46:14–16.
7. The Marvelous Foundation of Our Faith,” Liahona and Ensign, Nov. 2002, 81.
8. See Moroni 10:4–5.
9. 2 Nephi 25:26.
10. See D&C 2; 13; 110; 112:32.
11. 2 Nephi 31:2; see also 3 Nephi 11:31–36.
Friday, July 20, 2007
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.)
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
False Doctrines and Universal Apostasty
False Doctrines And Universal Apostasy
Apostasy from the Truth
A second great truth was revealed in the visitation of the Father and the Son to the Prophet Joseph Smith through the announcement made by the Savior of the world in answer to Joseph Smith's question as to which of the churches he should join. He was told he should
join none of them, for they were all wrong; and the Personage who addressed me said that . . . "they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof." (Pearl of Great Price, Joseph Smith 2:19.)
This pronouncement brought to Joseph Smith the information he so much desired, for, more than anything else, he wanted to know which of all the churches he should join, and it was to obtain this information that he went to the Lord in prayer.
Erroneous Teachings of Christian Churches
One erroneous teaching of many Christian churches is: By faith alone we are saved. This false doctrine would relieve man from the responsibility of his acts other than to confess a belief in God, and would teach man that no matter how great the sin, a confession would bring him complete forgiveness and salvation. What the world needs is more preaching of the necessity of abstaining from sin and of living useful and righteous lives, and less preaching of forgiveness of sin. This would then be a different world. The truth is that men must repent of their sins and forsake them before they can expect forgiveness. Even when our sins are forgiven, God cannot reward us for the good we have not done.
The prophet Mormon, who lived upon the American continent about A.D. 400, foretold the coming of the plates from which the Book of Mormon should be translated and described the condition of the churches that should then be found among the people:
Yea, it shall come in a day when the power of God shall be denied, and churches become defiled and be lifted up in the pride of their hearts; yea, even in a day when the leaders of churches and teachers shall rise in the pride of their hearts, even to the envying of them who belong to their churches.
Yea, it shall come in a day when there shall be churches built up that shall say: Come unto me, and for your money you shall be forgiven of your sins. (Mormon 8:28, 32.)
Doctrine of Predestination
Again, there is the erroneous doctrine of predestination, which teaches that without any act on our part, some are predestined to eternal life and some to eternal damnation, and that no matter in which class we find ourselves, there is nothing we can do about it. A complete analysis of this doctrine forces one to the conclusion that if it is true that all our acts, whether good or evil, were predetermined before our birth, God would be responsible for all sin and iniquity in the world.
In his effort to destroy truth, Satan could hardly have hoped to deceive men more effectively and completely than to take from them, through the teaching of such doctrines, a consciousness of their responsibilities.
One Heaven and One Hell
There is also the false teaching of one heaven and one hell, with the thought that all who reach heaven will share alike, and the same will be true of those who are assigned to hell.
The truth, as restored through the Prophet Joseph Smith, emphasizes the fact that every man will receive according to his works; that there is a glory like the glory of the sun, another like that of the moon, and still another like that of the stars, and that the glory to which one shall be assigned will be determined by the things he does and the kind of life he lives.
God Cannot Be a God of Confusion
Sane thinking leads one to the conclusion that God cannot be the author of confusion; that two contradictory organizations could not originate with him, for God cannot be divided against himself. According to Paul:
And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists: and some, pastors and teachers;
For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:
Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:
That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive. (Ephesians 4:11-14.)
When Joseph Smith commenced his search for truth, it soon became apparent that the Christian churches had not "come in the unity of the faith." Paul indicated they were "carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men." Hence the statement of the Savior to Joseph Smith that all their creeds were wrong.
In reading the scriptures, men would discover truths that were not to be found in the existing churches. They would gather a group together and then organize a church without any direct call or ordination from God. Hence, the Christian sects multiplied until they numbered hundreds. Such leaders would emphasize one certain principle and then organize a church around that principle: for instance, spiritual gifts, apostles, or worship on the seventh day.
The mission of the true church, under divine inspiration and leadership, should bring together into one church all the truths that are to be found in all other Christian churches, as well as those that have been overlooked or ignored, and to eliminate all error and man-made doctrines. This was what the Lord did in restoring his church to the earth through the instrumentality of the Prophet Joseph Smith.
Contemporary Opinions Affirming the Apostasy
The idea that the churches had gone astray and lost their vitality and authority is in agreement with the judgment of some of our greatest thinkers and with prophecies of the Holy Scriptures, as the following references will indicate.
In a work prepared by seventy-three noted theologians and Bible students, we read:
. . . we must not expect to see the Church of Holy Scripture actually existing in its perfection on the earth. It is not to be found, thus perfect, either in the collected fragments of Christendom, or still less in any one of these fragments. . . . (Dr. William Smith, Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1896.)
These seventy-three learned men, in effect, confirm the statement of Jesus to Joseph Smith—that all their creeds were wrong.
Roger Williams, pastor of the oldest Baptist Church in America at Providence, Rhode Island, refused to continue as pastor on the grounds that there was
no regularly-constituted church on earth, nor any person authorized to administer any Church ordinance; nor could there be until, new apostles are sent by the great Head of the Church, for whose coming, he is seeking. (Picturesque America, or the Land We Live In, ed. William Cullen Bryant, New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1872, vol. 1, p. 502.)
Had he been privileged to live to know the Prophet Joseph Smith and hear his message, he would have found that which he was seeking.
Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick, prominent American Baptist clergyman and author, described the decadent condition of the Christian churches of the first half of the twentieth century in these words:
A religious reformation is afoot, and at heart it is the endeavor to recover for our modern life the religion of Jesus as against the vast, intricate, largely inadequate and often positively false religion about Jesus. Christianity to-day has largely left the religion which he preached, taught and lived, and has substituted another kind of religion altogether.
If Jesus should come back to earth now, hear the mythologies built up around him, see the creedalism, denominationalism, sacramentalism, carried on in his name, he would certainly say, "If this is Christianity, I am not a Christian." (Liahona: The Elder's Journal, April 20, 1926, p. 424.)
These and similar statements of ministers from various nations would certainly seem to corroborate the statement of the Savior to Joseph Smith and should motivate thinking seekers after truth to want to hear the remainder of the Prophet's story.
Bible Predictions Foretelling the Great Apostasy
Now let us consider the scriptural predictions that the time and conditions we have considered would come.
This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.
For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,
Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,
Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;
Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. (2 Timothy 3:1-5. Italics added.)
Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him.
That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand.
Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;
Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God. (2 Thessalonians 2:1-4. Italics added.)
For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;
And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. (2 Timothy 4:3-4.)
From the above it is evident that the apostle Paul was privileged to see our time and describe in advance the very conditions the Savior referred to in his denunciation of the churches to Joseph Smith, and as admitted by prominent ministers of the day. He indicated that these conditions were to exist "in the last days," that men would have "itching ears," and thus gather to themselves teachers after their own hearts and "turn away their ears from the truth." He stated further that men cannot look for the second promised advent of the Christ unless there be a "falling away first," so that all we have said is but an announcement that the events predicted have come to pass.
When the apostle John was banished upon the Isle of Patmos, he saw the power that would be given to Satan: "And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations." (Revelation 13:7.)
From this, it is evident that all kindreds, tongues, and nations should succumb to this evil power, which we understand more fully when we read that John saw the bringing back of the gospel to the earth to be preached to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people. (See Revelation 14:6-7.)
To understand this scripture properly, it should be remembered that the followers of Christ were called saints. (See Ephesians 2:19; 2 Corinthians 8:4; 1 Corinthians 14:33.)
Knowing how universal this departure from the truth should be enables one to understand some of the prophecies of the ancient prophets as recorded in the Old Testament:
Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord:
And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it. (Amos 8:11-12.)
In light of the words of Jesus, "Seek, and ye shall find" (Matthew 7:7), there can be but one explanation why men would not be able to find the word of the Lord, even though they would seek "from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east." The answer is, as Amos indicated, that the Lord would send a "famine in the land," a famine for hearing the word of the Lord.
The prophet Micah saw the day when there would be "no answer of God" and described the apostate condition of Israel:
Thus saith the Lord concerning the prophets that make my people err, that bite with their teeth, and cry, Peace; and he that putteth not into their mouths, they even prepare war against him.
Therefore night shall be unto you, that ye shall not have a vision; and it shall be dark unto you, that ye shall not divine; and the sun shall go down over the prophets, and the day shall be dark over them.
Then shall the seers be ashamed, and the diviners confounded: yea, they shall all cover their lips; for there is no answer of God.
The heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money: yet will they lean upon the Lord, and say, Is not the Lord among us? none evil can come upon us. (Micah 3:5-7, 11.)
Isaiah had a similar vision of what was to happen to Israel:
Behold, the Lord maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof.
And it shall be, as with the people, so with the priest; as with the servant, so with his master; as with the maid, so with her mistress; as with the buyer, so with the seller; as with the lender, so with the borrower; as with the taker of usury, so with the giver of usury to him.
The land shall be utterly emptied, and utterly spoiled: for the Lord hath spoken this word.
The earth mourneth and fadeth away, the world languisheth and fadeth away, the haughty people of the earth do languish.
The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinances, broken the everlasting covenant.
Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate: therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men left. (Isaiah 24:1-6.)
Isaiah understood the displeasure of the Lord that would rest upon the inhabitants of the earth for having "transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant"; and in the light of the destructive powers of the atom and other recent scientific developments of this nature, it is not difficult to understand that the predicted destruction could result in there being "few men left" upon the earth.
Paul also shared with the prophets a full understanding of the Lord's displeasure with those who should assume to change the truths of his gospel: "But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed." (Galatians 1:8.)
When Joseph Smith asked which church he should join, the Savior explained the condition of the Christian world, repeating the statement found in Isaiah 29:13, and then said that this condition was to be followed by "a marvellous work and a wonder" among the children of men:
Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men:
Therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvellous work among this people, even a marvellous work and a wonder; for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid. (Isaiah 29:13-14.)
Since the departure from the true gospel of Christ was to be universal, as the prophets foretold, and since such universal apostasy was confirmed in the statement of Jesus to Joseph Smith, it would follow that a restoration would be necessary. Such a restoration is the message of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
(Legrand Richards, A Marvelous Work and a Wonder [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1950], 32.)
Apostasy from the Truth
A second great truth was revealed in the visitation of the Father and the Son to the Prophet Joseph Smith through the announcement made by the Savior of the world in answer to Joseph Smith's question as to which of the churches he should join. He was told he should
join none of them, for they were all wrong; and the Personage who addressed me said that . . . "they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof." (Pearl of Great Price, Joseph Smith 2:19.)
This pronouncement brought to Joseph Smith the information he so much desired, for, more than anything else, he wanted to know which of all the churches he should join, and it was to obtain this information that he went to the Lord in prayer.
Erroneous Teachings of Christian Churches
One erroneous teaching of many Christian churches is: By faith alone we are saved. This false doctrine would relieve man from the responsibility of his acts other than to confess a belief in God, and would teach man that no matter how great the sin, a confession would bring him complete forgiveness and salvation. What the world needs is more preaching of the necessity of abstaining from sin and of living useful and righteous lives, and less preaching of forgiveness of sin. This would then be a different world. The truth is that men must repent of their sins and forsake them before they can expect forgiveness. Even when our sins are forgiven, God cannot reward us for the good we have not done.
The prophet Mormon, who lived upon the American continent about A.D. 400, foretold the coming of the plates from which the Book of Mormon should be translated and described the condition of the churches that should then be found among the people:
Yea, it shall come in a day when the power of God shall be denied, and churches become defiled and be lifted up in the pride of their hearts; yea, even in a day when the leaders of churches and teachers shall rise in the pride of their hearts, even to the envying of them who belong to their churches.
Yea, it shall come in a day when there shall be churches built up that shall say: Come unto me, and for your money you shall be forgiven of your sins. (Mormon 8:28, 32.)
Doctrine of Predestination
Again, there is the erroneous doctrine of predestination, which teaches that without any act on our part, some are predestined to eternal life and some to eternal damnation, and that no matter in which class we find ourselves, there is nothing we can do about it. A complete analysis of this doctrine forces one to the conclusion that if it is true that all our acts, whether good or evil, were predetermined before our birth, God would be responsible for all sin and iniquity in the world.
In his effort to destroy truth, Satan could hardly have hoped to deceive men more effectively and completely than to take from them, through the teaching of such doctrines, a consciousness of their responsibilities.
One Heaven and One Hell
There is also the false teaching of one heaven and one hell, with the thought that all who reach heaven will share alike, and the same will be true of those who are assigned to hell.
The truth, as restored through the Prophet Joseph Smith, emphasizes the fact that every man will receive according to his works; that there is a glory like the glory of the sun, another like that of the moon, and still another like that of the stars, and that the glory to which one shall be assigned will be determined by the things he does and the kind of life he lives.
God Cannot Be a God of Confusion
Sane thinking leads one to the conclusion that God cannot be the author of confusion; that two contradictory organizations could not originate with him, for God cannot be divided against himself. According to Paul:
And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists: and some, pastors and teachers;
For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:
Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:
That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive. (Ephesians 4:11-14.)
When Joseph Smith commenced his search for truth, it soon became apparent that the Christian churches had not "come in the unity of the faith." Paul indicated they were "carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men." Hence the statement of the Savior to Joseph Smith that all their creeds were wrong.
In reading the scriptures, men would discover truths that were not to be found in the existing churches. They would gather a group together and then organize a church without any direct call or ordination from God. Hence, the Christian sects multiplied until they numbered hundreds. Such leaders would emphasize one certain principle and then organize a church around that principle: for instance, spiritual gifts, apostles, or worship on the seventh day.
The mission of the true church, under divine inspiration and leadership, should bring together into one church all the truths that are to be found in all other Christian churches, as well as those that have been overlooked or ignored, and to eliminate all error and man-made doctrines. This was what the Lord did in restoring his church to the earth through the instrumentality of the Prophet Joseph Smith.
Contemporary Opinions Affirming the Apostasy
The idea that the churches had gone astray and lost their vitality and authority is in agreement with the judgment of some of our greatest thinkers and with prophecies of the Holy Scriptures, as the following references will indicate.
In a work prepared by seventy-three noted theologians and Bible students, we read:
. . . we must not expect to see the Church of Holy Scripture actually existing in its perfection on the earth. It is not to be found, thus perfect, either in the collected fragments of Christendom, or still less in any one of these fragments. . . . (Dr. William Smith, Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, Boston: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1896.)
These seventy-three learned men, in effect, confirm the statement of Jesus to Joseph Smith—that all their creeds were wrong.
Roger Williams, pastor of the oldest Baptist Church in America at Providence, Rhode Island, refused to continue as pastor on the grounds that there was
no regularly-constituted church on earth, nor any person authorized to administer any Church ordinance; nor could there be until, new apostles are sent by the great Head of the Church, for whose coming, he is seeking. (Picturesque America, or the Land We Live In, ed. William Cullen Bryant, New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1872, vol. 1, p. 502.)
Had he been privileged to live to know the Prophet Joseph Smith and hear his message, he would have found that which he was seeking.
Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick, prominent American Baptist clergyman and author, described the decadent condition of the Christian churches of the first half of the twentieth century in these words:
A religious reformation is afoot, and at heart it is the endeavor to recover for our modern life the religion of Jesus as against the vast, intricate, largely inadequate and often positively false religion about Jesus. Christianity to-day has largely left the religion which he preached, taught and lived, and has substituted another kind of religion altogether.
If Jesus should come back to earth now, hear the mythologies built up around him, see the creedalism, denominationalism, sacramentalism, carried on in his name, he would certainly say, "If this is Christianity, I am not a Christian." (Liahona: The Elder's Journal, April 20, 1926, p. 424.)
These and similar statements of ministers from various nations would certainly seem to corroborate the statement of the Savior to Joseph Smith and should motivate thinking seekers after truth to want to hear the remainder of the Prophet's story.
Bible Predictions Foretelling the Great Apostasy
Now let us consider the scriptural predictions that the time and conditions we have considered would come.
This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.
For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,
Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,
Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;
Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. (2 Timothy 3:1-5. Italics added.)
Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him.
That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand.
Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;
Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God. (2 Thessalonians 2:1-4. Italics added.)
For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;
And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. (2 Timothy 4:3-4.)
From the above it is evident that the apostle Paul was privileged to see our time and describe in advance the very conditions the Savior referred to in his denunciation of the churches to Joseph Smith, and as admitted by prominent ministers of the day. He indicated that these conditions were to exist "in the last days," that men would have "itching ears," and thus gather to themselves teachers after their own hearts and "turn away their ears from the truth." He stated further that men cannot look for the second promised advent of the Christ unless there be a "falling away first," so that all we have said is but an announcement that the events predicted have come to pass.
When the apostle John was banished upon the Isle of Patmos, he saw the power that would be given to Satan: "And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations." (Revelation 13:7.)
From this, it is evident that all kindreds, tongues, and nations should succumb to this evil power, which we understand more fully when we read that John saw the bringing back of the gospel to the earth to be preached to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people. (See Revelation 14:6-7.)
To understand this scripture properly, it should be remembered that the followers of Christ were called saints. (See Ephesians 2:19; 2 Corinthians 8:4; 1 Corinthians 14:33.)
Knowing how universal this departure from the truth should be enables one to understand some of the prophecies of the ancient prophets as recorded in the Old Testament:
Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord:
And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it. (Amos 8:11-12.)
In light of the words of Jesus, "Seek, and ye shall find" (Matthew 7:7), there can be but one explanation why men would not be able to find the word of the Lord, even though they would seek "from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east." The answer is, as Amos indicated, that the Lord would send a "famine in the land," a famine for hearing the word of the Lord.
The prophet Micah saw the day when there would be "no answer of God" and described the apostate condition of Israel:
Thus saith the Lord concerning the prophets that make my people err, that bite with their teeth, and cry, Peace; and he that putteth not into their mouths, they even prepare war against him.
Therefore night shall be unto you, that ye shall not have a vision; and it shall be dark unto you, that ye shall not divine; and the sun shall go down over the prophets, and the day shall be dark over them.
Then shall the seers be ashamed, and the diviners confounded: yea, they shall all cover their lips; for there is no answer of God.
The heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money: yet will they lean upon the Lord, and say, Is not the Lord among us? none evil can come upon us. (Micah 3:5-7, 11.)
Isaiah had a similar vision of what was to happen to Israel:
Behold, the Lord maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof.
And it shall be, as with the people, so with the priest; as with the servant, so with his master; as with the maid, so with her mistress; as with the buyer, so with the seller; as with the lender, so with the borrower; as with the taker of usury, so with the giver of usury to him.
The land shall be utterly emptied, and utterly spoiled: for the Lord hath spoken this word.
The earth mourneth and fadeth away, the world languisheth and fadeth away, the haughty people of the earth do languish.
The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinances, broken the everlasting covenant.
Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate: therefore the inhabitants of the earth are burned, and few men left. (Isaiah 24:1-6.)
Isaiah understood the displeasure of the Lord that would rest upon the inhabitants of the earth for having "transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant"; and in the light of the destructive powers of the atom and other recent scientific developments of this nature, it is not difficult to understand that the predicted destruction could result in there being "few men left" upon the earth.
Paul also shared with the prophets a full understanding of the Lord's displeasure with those who should assume to change the truths of his gospel: "But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed." (Galatians 1:8.)
When Joseph Smith asked which church he should join, the Savior explained the condition of the Christian world, repeating the statement found in Isaiah 29:13, and then said that this condition was to be followed by "a marvellous work and a wonder" among the children of men:
Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me, and their fear toward me is taught by the precept of men:
Therefore, behold, I will proceed to do a marvellous work among this people, even a marvellous work and a wonder; for the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, and the understanding of their prudent men shall be hid. (Isaiah 29:13-14.)
Since the departure from the true gospel of Christ was to be universal, as the prophets foretold, and since such universal apostasy was confirmed in the statement of Jesus to Joseph Smith, it would follow that a restoration would be necessary. Such a restoration is the message of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
(Legrand Richards, A Marvelous Work and a Wonder [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1950], 32.)
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