LDS View of God Contradicts the Bible

By: Sandra Tanner; ©2012

LDS view of God compared to what the Bible says about God.

LDS View of God Contradicts the Bible

LDS Prophet Joseph Smith taught that God was once a mortal man:

“God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens! That is the great secret. …I am going to tell you how God came to be God. We have imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity. I will refute that idea, and take away the veil,…

It is the first principle of the gospel to know for a certainty the character of God, …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; …you have got to learn how to be gods yourselves, and to be kings and priests to God, the same as all gods have done before you, namely, by going from one small degree to another,… from exaltation to exaltation, until you attain to the resurrection of the dead, and are able to dwell in everlasting burnings. and to sit in glory, as do those who sit enthroned in everlasting power” (History of the Church, Vol. 6, Ch. 14, p. 305-6).

LDS President Brigham Young declared that God was once a finite being:

“It appears ridiculous to the world, under their darkened and erroneous traditions, that God has once been a finite being” (Deseret News, Nov. 16, 1859, p. 290).

LDS President Joseph Fielding Smith said that God had a father, a grandfather, etc.:

“Our father in heaven, according to the Prophet, had a father, and since there has been a condition of this kind through all eternity, each Father had a Father” (Doctrines of Salvation, 2:47).

LDS President Joseph F. Smith taught that God was born as a mortal on some other earth:

“I know that God is a being with body, parts and passions…Man was born of woman; Christ, the Savior, was born of woman; and God, the Father was born of woman” (Deseret News, Church News, Sept. 19, 1936, p. 2).

LDS Apostle Bruce R. McConkie taught:

“The Father is a glorified, perfected, resurrected, exalted man who worked out his salvation by obedience to the same laws he has given to us so that we may do the same” (A New Witness for the Articles of Faith, p. 64)

LDS Apostle Melvin Ballard explained that God has a wife:

“For as we have a Father in heaven, so also we have a Mother there, a glorified, exalted, ennobled Mother” (As quoted in Achieving a Celestial Marriage, LDS Church manual, 1976, p. 129).

LDS Doctrine and Covenants promises the faithful LDS couple that they can achieve godhood in the same manner as God the Father:

“…if a man marry a wife, and make a covenant with her for time and for all eternity,… they shall [have]…a continuation of the seeds [children] forever and ever. Then shall they be gods, because they have no end; therefore shall they be from everlasting to everlasting,… Then shall they be gods, because they have all power,… and continuation of the lives,… [endless procreation of spirit children]” (Doctrine and CovenantsSection 132:18-22)

LDS President Brigham Young taught that faithful Mormons can achieve godhood:

“Intelligent beings are organized to become Gods, even the Sons of God, to dwell in the presence of the Gods, and become associated with the highest intelligences that dwell in eternity. We are now in the school, and must practice upon what we receive” (Discourses of Brigham Young, p. 245).

LDS President Joseph F. Smith said:

“We are precisely in the same condition and under the same circumstances that God our heavenly Father was when he was passing through this, or a similar ordeal” (Gospel Doctrine, p. 54).

As recently as 2007 both Apostle Boyd K. Packer and Dallen Oakes, during an interview for PBS, explained that God the father has a resurrected body.  Apostle Packer stated:

“That vision [Joseph Smith’s 1820 vision] taught us some things. We learned about the personality of God the Father, a resurrected Being, as part of our gospel.”

Apostle Oakes used the same term when he was interviewed:

“The first revelation received by Joseph Smith was the appearance to him of the Father and the Son ­ embodied, separate, identifiable, tangible Beings who appeared to him in what we refer to as the First Vision. And that first revelation, concerning the nature of God as an embodied, glorified, resurrected Being, challenged the creeds of Christianity. Christianity describes God as a disembodied, incomprehensible, spiritual entity that fills the whole universe, and an indistinguishable Father and Son.”

LDS Apostle James E. Talmage taught that God progressed from a mortal to a god:

“We believe in a God who is Himself progressive, whose majesty is intelligence; whose perfection consists in eternal advancement — a Being who has attained His exalted state by a path which now His children are permitted to follow, whose glory it is their heritage to share. In spite of the opposition of the sects, in the face of direct charges of blasphemy, the Church proclaims the eternal truth: ‘As man is, God once was; as God is, man may be’” (Articles of Faith, Ch. 24, p. 430-431).

What the Bible Says About God

1. ALWAYS GOD – in the past as well as in the future.

“Art thou not from ever-lasting, O Lord my God, mine Holy One?” Hab. 1:12

“For I am the Lord, I change not.” Mal. 3:6

“…from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.” Psa. 90:2

“God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent.” Num. 23:19

“Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man,…who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever.” Rom. 1:22-25

The LDS god started as a finite man and progressed to godhood.

2. ALWAYS HOLY – Both in the past and future.

“…a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.” Deut. 32:4

“I am God, and not man; the Holy One in the midst of thee.” Hos. 11:9

“The Lord is righteous in all his ways and holy in all his works.” Psa. 145:17

“God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” 1 John 1:5

“Thy righteousness is an everlasting righteousness.” Psa. 119:142

The LDS god achieved holiness.

3. ALL KNOWING – Both in the past and in the future.

“Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord, or being his counsellor hath taught him? With whom took he counsel, and who instructed him, and taught him knowledge, and shewed to him the way of understanding? … There is no searching of his understanding.” Isa. 40:13, 14, 28

“Great is our Lord, and of great power: his understanding is infinite.” Psa. 147:5

The LDS god had to learn everything.

4. ALL POWERFUL

“The Lord God omnipotent reigneth.” Rev. 19:6

“…his eternal power and Godhead.” Rom. 1:20

The LDS god attained his power.

5. OMNIPRESENT

“The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool; where is the house that ye build unto me: and where is the place of my rest?” Isa. 66:1

“Am I a God at hand, saith the Lord, and not a God afar off? Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the Lord. Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the Lord.” Jer. 23:23-24

The LDS god can be in only one place at a time.

6. ACTED ALONE IN CREATION

“I am the Lord that maketh all things; that stretcheth forth the heavens alone, that spreadeth abroad the earth by myself.” Isa. 44:24

“By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth.” Psa. 33:6

“Thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth, and all things that are therein, the seas, and all that is therein, and thou preservest them all.” Neh. 9:6

The LDS god cooperated with the Council of Gods to create.

7. NO OTHER GODS

“I am he; before me there was no God formed neither shall there be after me. I, even I, am the Lord; and beside me there is no saviour.” Isa. 43:10-11

“I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God….is there a God beside me; yea, there is no God; I know not any.” Isa. 44:6 & 8

“To whom will ye liken me, and make me equal, and compare me, that we may be like?…for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me.” Isa. 46:5 & 9

“I am the Lord; that is my name; and my glory will I not give to another.” Isa. 42:8

The LDS God has a father and mother, grandparents, brothers and sisters, etc.

Sandra Tanner is the great-great granddaughter of Brigham Young, second president of the LDS Church. As a teenager, she was challenged on the truth claims on Mormonism, which eventually led Sandra and her husband on a quest for truth. This led her to leave the LDS Church and embrace evangelical Christianity. Together, Jerald and Sandra started and led a ministry to help other Mormons investigate their faith and embrace the Bible’s teachings. Sandra has published numerous books and appeared on many media programs on this topic. Find out more at Utah Lighthouse Ministry