Does the LDS church teach that men can evolve into a God?

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No--and neither are offspring of a different species than their Father:

Acts 17:29---King James Version
29 Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device.

Hebrews 12:9---King James Version
9 Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?
Is offspring in the Bible always used literally--that they're the literal offspring of the one who begot/birthed them? And of the exact same "species", so to speak?
 
No, you’re simply wrong. Any statement related to “as man now is, God once was, as God now is, man may become” ALL tie back to the King Follett Discourse, given 2 months before Joseph Smith’s death.
The cognitive dissonance are by those who are motivated for the Church to be wrong because it would mean that they need to repent. That’s why they have to “teach Mormons what they really believe”. It’s just a straw man argument, because it exposes how phony their religion is by denying the Holy Ghost and the necessity of apostles and prophets as shown in the Bible.
What do we need to repent of? Not believing in Joseph Smith as a prophet sent by God? Not being baptized into your church?

And Where does the NT say apostles and prophets are necessary? NECESSARY?

It is Mormons who need to take repent of following a false prophet, false apostles, and believing in a false Jesus Christ, who is Satan's actual brother in the supposed pre-Mortal existance. May they stop resisting the Holy Spirit before it is too late.
 
Is offspring in the Bible always used literally
What do you mean by literally? It always refers to offpsring, literally. Do you have any examples where it doesn't mean offspring? Care to make one up?
that they're the literal offspring of the one who begot/birthed them? And of the exact same "species", so to speak?
Yes. The exact same species, so to speak.
 
So--how did the Early Church Fathers say it?

Tertullian - Adv. Hermogenes 5 Well, then, you say, we ourselves at that rate possess nothing of God. But indeed we do, and shall continue to do—only it is from Him that we receive it, and not from ourselves. For we shall be even gods, if we shall deserve to be among those of whom He declared, “I have said, Ye are gods,” and “God standeth in the congregation of the gods.” But this comes of His own grace, not from any property in us, because it is He alone who can make gods. (ANF 3.480).

Justin - Dial. 124 ...thereby it is demonstrated that all men are deemed worthy of becoming "gods", and of having power to become sons of the Highest. (ANF 1.262).

Irenaeus - Adv. Her. 5.Pref ...the Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, who did, through His transcendent love, become what we are, that He might bring us to be even what He is Himself. (ANF 1.526).

Clement of Alexandria - The Instructor 3.1 It is then, as appears, the greatest of al lessons to know one's self. For if one know himself, he will know God; and knowing God, he will be made like God...But that man with whom the Word dwells does not alter himself, does not get himself up: he has the form which is of the Word; he is made like to God...and that man becomes God, since God so wills. Heraclitus, then, rightly said, "Men are gods, and gods are men." (ANF 2.271).

Athanasius - De Incarnation 54 For He was made man that we might be made God. (NPNF, second series, 4.65).
Don't Mormons teach all these men were living in the Apostacy, so why would Mormons repeat their words as valid ?
 
Don't Mormons teach all these men were living in the Apostacy, so why would Mormons repeat their words as valid ?
Again, you make a very valid point. After the first century, doesn't the LDS church teach that the entire church went into apostasy? After the last eye witness to Jesus Christ had died?

But then, that would make a liar out of Jesus Christ, Who said that the gates of hell would NOT prevail against His church...but Mormonism claims it DID, for nearly 1830 years.
 
What do you mean by literally? It always refers to offpsring, literally. Do you have any examples where it doesn't mean offspring? Care to make one up?

Yes. The exact same species, so to speak.
Why would I need to make one up? But I can make up a couple. Like saying....obesity is the offspring of overeating....peace and joy are the offspring of those who are truly in Christ Jesus our Lord....both of these are examples of "offspring" being used figuratively.

Here is another one:

Is. 42, NASB:

This is what God the Lord says,

Who created the heavens and stretched them out,
Who spread out the earth and its offspring,
Who gives breath to the people on it
And spirit to those who walk in it...

I checked and the Hebrew word used here does mean "offspring".

So did the earth literally give birth to everything on it? Did it give birth to animals and plants? Did it have relations with another planet and then have labor pains and pop out plants and animals? Are plants and animals the same "species" as planet Earth? IF offspring is always meant to be taken literally in the Bible?

And do not forget--another meaning of "offspring" is "children." And children certainly is used metaphorically in the Bible. So is "sons" sometimes. And "Father." It depends upon that old bugaboo of Mormonism--context. AND taking the entire bible into account and not isolating verses.
 
It's like a bad Abbott-and-Costello routine.... :(
Abbott nor Costello wrote the posted "routine"

Acts 17:29---King James Version
29 Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device.

Hebrews 12:9---King James Version
9 Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?"

Care to address the scriptures?
 
Abbott nor Costello wrote the posted "routine"

Acts 17:29---King James Version
29 Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device.

Hebrews 12:9---King James Version
9 Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?"

Care to address the scriptures?
Why don't you remember that we HAVE? Many times? Do you think you will change our minds, if you repeat yourself all the time?

Are we by nature children of God?
 
Abbott nor Costello wrote the posted "routine"

Acts 17:29---King James Version
29 Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device.

Hebrews 12:9---King James Version
9 Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?"

Care to address the scriptures?
We become offSpring by adoption

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We become offSpring by adoption

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Since we are NOT God's children in the flesh, but children of the promise, then it stands to reason that we are the metaphorical offspring of God in our spiritual LIVES. We are His BY ADOPTION. IF we were by nature, children of God, we would not need that adoption. But Paul tells us in Eph. 2 who, by nature, we are children of--and it isn't God! IF we WERE by nature, children of God, then why would we need the right to BECOME the children of God, as per John 1?
 
And there it is... the old “you must have sinned“ accusation. “You want the church to be wrong so you won’t have to repent.“ “You left the church because you must have sinned.”
No...I didn’t say that.
Guess what... we all have to repent, no matter what. And it doesn’t have anything to do with what is true and what’s false.
I agree.
Mormon leaders from the time of Joseph Smith all taught the concept that “as man is God once was, and is God is man may become.” It was everywhere... talks, lesson manuals, church publications. They had displays on temple square that said it. Church movies were made about it.

It was actually started by Lorenzo Snow, but Smith told him it was a revelation, and it was doctrine.

“As man now is, God once was:”

“As God now is, man may be.”

“I felt this to be a sacred communication, which I related to no one except my sister Eliza, until I reached England, when in a confidential private conversation with President Brigham Young, in Manchester, I related to him this extraordinary manifestation.” (Eliza R. Snow, pp. 46–47; italics added. Brigham Young was President of the Quorum of the Twelve at the time.)

President Snow’s son LeRoi later told that the Prophet Joseph Smith confirmed the validity of the revelation Elder Snow had received: “Soon after his return from England, in January, 1843, Lorenzo Snow related to the Prophet Joseph Smith his experience in Elder Sherwood’s home. This was in a confidential interview in Nauvoo. The Prophet’s reply was: ‘Brother Snow, that is a true gospel doctrine, and it is a revelation from God to you.’” (LeRoi C. Snow, Improvement Era, June 1919, p. 656.)

The Prophet Joseph Smith himself publicly taught the doctrine the following year, 1844, during a funeral sermon of Elder King Follett: “God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens! … It is the first principle of the Gospel to know for a certainty the Character of God, and to know that we may converse with him as one man converses with another, and that he was once a man like us; yea, that God himself, the Father of us all, dwelt on an earth, the same as Jesus Christ himself did.” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, sel. Joseph Fielding Smith, Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1938, pp. 345–46.)

Thanks for backing up my point. Lorenzo Snow backing up Joseph Smith on the KFD. Actually, it was Eliza R. Snow, who has no authority.
Regardless, God being a man isn’t in the scriptures. So, true or not, we can set it aside.
 
What do we need to repent of? Not believing in Joseph Smith as a prophet sent by God? Not being baptized into your church?

And Where does the NT say apostles and prophets are necessary? NECESSARY?
In the NT, I can only draw from inference.

First, by your own standard. If you believe a God not described in the scriptures, is equivalent to worshipping an idol, and the Trinity is not in the Bible, but rather God the Father, and the Son, being Jesus, who didn’t come in His own name (John 5:43) then you stand guilty. (Matt 7:2)

Second, if the Church is an actual Church, (not an ominous body of people who profess to believe Christ,) led by Jesus Christ via apostles and prophets (Eph 4:11) then you have not entered “in by the door” (John 10:2).

Third, if you once read the BoM and felt the Holy Ghost, but are now denying it. That’s denying the Holy Ghost. (Matt 12:31-32)

If you made a covenant, and joined the Church, you are a covenant breaker...
It is Mormons who need to take repent of following a false prophet, false apostles, and believing in a false Jesus Christ, who is Satan's actual brother in the supposed pre-Mortal existance. May they stop resisting the Holy Spirit before it is too late.
Your entire argument rests on a statement that doesn’t even exist in Mormon scripture. It sounds like to trust your salvation to the judiazers of Mormonism.
 
In the NT, I can only draw from inference.

First, by your own standard. If you believe a God not described in the scriptures, is equivalent to worshipping an idol, and the Trinity is not in the Bible, but rather God the Father, and the Son, being Jesus, who didn’t come in His own name (John 5:43) then you stand guilty. (Matt 7:2)

Second, if the Church is an actual Church, (not an ominous body of people who profess to believe Christ,) led by Jesus Christ via apostles and prophets (Eph 4:11) then you have not entered “in by the door” (John 10:2).

Third, if you once read the BoM and felt the Holy Ghost, but are now denying it. That’s denying the Holy Ghost. (Matt 12:31-32)

If you made a covenant, and joined the Church, you are a covenant breaker...

Your entire argument rests on a statement that doesn’t even exist in Mormon scripture. It sounds like to trust your salvation to the judiazers of Mormonism.

And once again, the Mormons prove that they can't defend their bankrupt beliefs, so instead of even trying, they go OFF-TOPIC and try to attack Christianity.
 
No...I didn’t say that.

I agree.

Thanks for backing up my point. Lorenzo Snow backing up Joseph Smith on the KFD. Actually, it was Eliza R. Snow, who has no authority.
Regardless, God being a man isn’t in the scriptures. So, true or not, we can set it aside.
Perhaps you missed this part...

“The Prophet’s reply was: ‘Brother Snow, that is a true gospel doctrine, and it is a revelation from God to you.’” (LeRoi C. Snow, Improvement Era, June 1919, p. 656.)

Your founding prophet said it’s doctrine. But you say you can set it aside, true or not.

Do you even realize what you’re doing? Trying desperately to find a way to rationalize, justify, compartmentalize or excuse mormonism. That’s cognitive dissonance. Your conscience and your spirit realize that it’s wrong, but you keep looking for reasons to stay in it. I get it. I did that too. For way too long. It only poisons your soul and wastes precious time.
 
In the NT, I can only draw from inference.

But where does it actually say we must repent and follow JS? And Join your church?
First, by your own standard. If you believe a God not described in the scriptures, is equivalent to worshipping an idol, and the Trinity is not in the Bible, but rather God the Father, and the Son, being Jesus, who didn’t come in His own name (John 5:43) then you stand guilty. (Matt 7:2)

But I don't believe in a God not described in Scripture. God the Father in the Bible was NEVER a man on "an earth" who had to LEARN how to become a God! NOR is He one of millions! While the word Trinity is not in the Bible THE CONCEPT IS. "Trinity" is just the name given to what the Bible describes--we have other terms not found in the bible but which accurately describe something TAUGHT in the Bible--Incarnation, vicarious atonement, Virgin Birth are three I can think of off the top of my head.
The BoM itself shows the Trinity and several times states that Father, Son, and HG are "one God." ONE. Unfortunately Smith strayed into modalism elsewhere when he wrote that Jesus his very own Father.
Second, if the Church is an actual Church, (not an ominous body of people who profess to believe Christ,) led by Jesus Christ via apostles and prophets (Eph 4:11) then you have not entered “in by the door” (John 10:2).

Nowhere does the NT say we MUST have "apostles" and "prophets. In Eph. 4, Paul is simply describing church workers who help to bring about teaching the Gospel to unbelievers, and that everyone has a different "gift" in the church. And "apostle" in its broadest sense simply means "one who is sent out on a mission, a messenger." And that would be anyone who spreads the true Gospel of the true Jesus Christ of the Bible. But what NO ONE NEEDS are the false prophets and false apostles of the LDS church, who preach heresies and false doctrines found nowhere in the Bible?
Third, if you once read the BoM and felt the Holy Ghost, but are now denying it. That’s denying the Holy Ghost. (Matt 12:31-32)

Is this the "burning in the bosom" you are referring to? If so, since when is a very subjective feeling a litmus test for the truth?
If you made a covenant, and joined the Church, you are a covenant breaker...

NOT if one made a wrong covenant to a false god in a false church. IF a Hindu makes a covenant to one of his false gods, like Vishnu, and then becomes a true believer of the true Jesus Christ of the Bible, would he still need to keep his covenant to Vishnu?
Your entire argument rests on a statement that doesn’t even exist in Mormon scripture. It sounds like to trust your salvation to the judiazers of Mormonism.
Was this reply supposed to be to Magdalena and not me? But the Snow couplet does exist; I have seen it stated a number of times on your church's website.
 
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Perhaps you missed this part...

“The Prophet’s reply was: ‘Brother Snow, that is a true gospel doctrine, and it is a revelation from God to you.’” (LeRoi C. Snow, Improvement Era, June 1919, p. 656.)

Your founding prophet said it’s doctrine. But you say you can set it aside, true or not.

Perhaps it’s a mystery only known by personal revelation. I don’t know. I’d love to get a visitation by Joseph Smith and ask him for clarification, but unfortunately that’s not likely.
Would Joseph Smith be as loose with his terminology if he taught it over the pulpit? I don’t know. What I do know is in JS’s own words “A prophet is a prophet when acting as such.” and that every other following leader of the Church says doctrine must align with the scriptures and revelations.

Do you even realize what you’re doing? Trying desperately to find a way to rationalize, justify, compartmentalize or excuse mormonism. That’s cognitive dissonance. Your conscience and your spirit realize that it’s wrong, but you keep looking for reasons to stay in it. I get it. I did that too. For way too long. It only poisons your soul and wastes precious time.
Likewise, you’re making a strawman argument so much to the fact that you think you need to teach active mormons what they REALLY believe. You can’t accept that the Church is a LIVING Church.

Your claims of my despairity are projection.
I know what I know. My argument is congruent, and the only way to prove me wrong is measuring against your own selective (not to mention subjective) criteria.
 
But where does it actually say we must repent and follow JS? And Join your church?
In the NT? Nowhere. JS wasn’t alive to be written about, silly.
The Book of Mormon does testify of the Church and the promise of the Elijah, who came to Joseph Smith. But I’m sure you don’t care to understand that.

But I don't believe in a God not described in Scripture. God the Father in the Bible was NEVER a man on "an earth" who had to LEARN how to become a God! NOR is He one of millions!
FYI - This isn’t found in Mormon scripture either, yet, you choose to pin in on our beliefs as canonized doctrine.

While the word Trinity is not in the Bible THE CONCEPT IS.
"Trinity" is just the name given to what the Bible describes--we have other terms not found in the bible but which accurately describe something TAUGHT in the Bible--Incarnation, vicarious atonement, Virgin Birth are three I can think of off the top of my head.
It also implicates being God a different species than man.
The Book of John is sufficient to describe the nature of the Godhead.

The BoM itself shows the Trinity and several times states that Father, Son, and HG are "one God." ONE.
I’ve already addressed this. It would be pointless to do it again if it’s just ignored.

Unfortunately Smith strayed into modalism elsewhere when he wrote that Jesus his very own Father.
What statement are you thinking of the justify this statement?

Nowhere does the NT say we MUST have "apostles" and "prophets. In Eph. 4, Paul is simply describing church workers who help to bring about teaching the Gospel to unbelievers, and that everyone has a different "gift" in the church. And "apostle" in its broadest sense simply means "one who is sent out on a mission, a messenger." And that would be anyone who spreads the true Gospel of the true Jesus Christ of the Bible.
What makes your interpretation/understanding authoritatively accurate over mine?

All your doing is validating the criteria of your religion against mine. Of course it’s going to fail to meet your standard.

But what NO ONE NEEDS are the false prophets and false apostles of the LDS church, who preach heresies and false doctrines found nowhere in the Bible?
Acting like Theo doesn’t become you.

Is this the "burning in the bosom" you are referring to? If so, since when is a very subjective feeling a litmus test for the truth?
It’s called the baptism of fire:
baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire, Matt. 3:11
same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost, John 1:33.
Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom, John 3:5.
ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost, Acts 1:5.
they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, Acts 2:4.
Being born again, not of corruptible seed, 1 Pet. 1:23.

NOT if one made a wrong covenant to a false god in a false church. IF a Hindu makes a covenant to one of his false gods, like Vishnu, and then becomes a true believer of the true Jesus Christ of the Bible, would he still need to keep his covenant to Vishnu?
That’s a good question. Do you see anywhere in the Bible that it’s ok to break your promises?

Was this reply supposed to be to Magdalena and not me? But the Snow couplet does exist; I have seen it stated a number of times on your church's website.
Yes, sorry.
When it’s used, it’s in the context of what we can become, not of teaching the deification of God the Father.
 
Perhaps it’s a mystery only known by personal revelation. I don’t know. I’d love to get a visitation by Joseph Smith and ask him for clarification, but unfortunately that’s not likely.
Would Joseph Smith be as loose with his terminology if he taught it over the pulpit? I don’t know. What I do know is in JS’s own words “A prophet is a prophet when acting as such.” and that every other following leader of the Church says doctrine must align with the scriptures and revelations.


Likewise, you’re making a strawman argument so much to the fact that you think you need to teach active mormons what they REALLY believe. You can’t accept that the Church is a LIVING Church.

Your claims of my despairity are projection.
I know what I know. My argument is congruent, and the only way to prove me wrong is measuring against your own selective (not to mention subjective) criteria.

Smith did teach it over the pulpit. April General Conference, 1844.
 
Smith did teach it over the pulpit. April General Conference, 1844.
Saying if he didn’t prove it by the scriptures he can be called a fallen prophet.
He mis-interpreted the scripture and died 2 months later.
To this day, it’s still not found in the Standard Works.
 
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