If you have ever compared the two creation
accounts in the Pearl of Great Price you have probably been struck
by the dramatic difference in the way they speak about Deity. The
creation story in the Book of Moses chapters 2-3 speaks repeatedly
of one God who "created" the heavens and earth. By contrast,
the Book of Abraham speaks of a plurality of Gods who work together
to "organize" or "order" the world (the word
"create" is never used of Divine activity in the Book
of Abraham).
The opening verses of the creation account in Moses
read:
And the earth was without form, and void; and
I caused darkness to come upon the face of the deep; and my Spirit
moved upon the face of the water; for I am God. And I, God, said:
Let there be light; and there was light (Moses 2:2-3).
Expressions such as "I, God, created,"
"I, God, saw," and "I, God, caused" occur no
less than 50 times in chapters 2-3 of the Book of Moses.
The creation story in the Book of Abraham (chapters
4-5) is strikingly different in the way it describes Deity. It speaks
of a plurality of Gods who formed the heavens and earth. Abraham
4:2-3 reads:
And the earth, after it was formed, was empty
and desolate . . . and the Spirit of the Gods was brooding upon
the face of the waters. And they (the Gods) said: Let there be
light.
Expressions such as "the Gods called,"
"the Gods ordered," and "the Gods prepared"
occur 45 times in Abraham 4-5. Taken at face value, these two Latter-day
scriptures present contradictory teachings regarding the nature
of Deity. Increasingly, many contemporary Mormon historians are
acknowledging that Joseph's doctrine of Deity changed in ways that
cannot simply be harmonized away.
Joseph Smith monoteisti
There are four major stages in the development of
Joseph Smith's doctrine of Deity. The earliest stage is represented
by the Book of Mormon (1830), the Book of Moses (1830-31), and the
Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible (1833). Mormon author Boyd
Kirkland does not hesitate to label the doctrine of Deity in these
early works ''monotheism'' (one God).1 For example, in Alma
11:26-28 we read:
And Zeezrom said unto him: Thou sayest there is
a true and living God. And Amulek said: Yea, there is a true and
living God. Now Zeezrom said: Is there more than one God? And
he answered, No.
Taken at face value, this passage clearly teaches
monotheism. The "Testimony of the Three Witnesses" that
appears in the Preface to the Book of Mormon supports such a monotheistic
interpretation. It concludes with the statement, "And honor
be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, which is
one God. Amen." The belief that there is only one God
anywhere in this, or any other, universe agrees with the
teaching of the Bible. There are 27 biblical passages the explicitly
state that there is only one God.2 One of these passages,
Isaiah 44:6,8, states:
Thus saith the LORD the King of Israel, and his
redeemer, the LORD of hosts; 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.
It is notable that when Joseph Smith produced his
Inspired Revision of the Bible, also known as the Joseph Smith Translation,
or JST, these verses declaring that there is only one God were left
unchanged. Thus, the JST is an additional witness to Joseph Smith's
original monotheism. The Book of Moses in the Pearl of Great Price,
completed in 1831, is a further example of Joseph's original teaching
of one God. In addition to the implied monotheism of its creation
account noted above, Moses 1:6 clearly affirms that there is only
one God:
And I have a work for thee, Moses, my son; and
thou art in the similitude of my Only Begotten; and mine Only
Begotten is and shall be the Savior, for he is full of grace and
truth; but there is no God beside me, and all things are present
with me, for I know them all.
Onko Jeesus Isä?
While Joseph initially held the historic Christian
belief that there is only one God, he departed from orthodoxy by
denying that there is a clear distinction between the Persons within
the Trinity. A number of passages in the Book of Mormon present
Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ as the same Person. Theologians
call this modalism, because Father and Son are understood, not as
distinct persons, but merely as different modes in which the one
God has manifested Himself at different times. Mosiah 15:1-3 presents
such a modalistic view of the Father and Son:
And now Abinadi said unto them: I would that ye
should understand that God himself shall come down among the children
of men, and shall redeem his people. And because he dwelleth in
flesh he shall be called the Son of God, and having subjected
the flesh to the will of the Father, being the Father and the
Son The Father, because he was conceived by the power of
God; and the Son, because of the flesh; thus becoming the Father
and the Son.
Similarly, Mosiah 16:15 declares that Jesus is the
Father: "Teach them that redemption cometh through Christ the
Lord, who is the very Eternal Father." A modal view of Father
and Son is also evident in Ether chapters 3:14: "Behold, I
am he who was prepared from the foundation of the world to redeem
my people. Behold, I am Jesus Christ. I am the Father and the Son"
(see also, Ether 4:7,12; Helaman 14:12).
The Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible (JST),
completed in 1833, also shows a tendency to minimize, if not eradicate,
the distinction between the Father and Son. Compare the King James
Version of Luke 10:22 (a literal rendering of the original Greek
text) with that of the JST:
KJV: All things are delivered to me of
my Father: and no man knoweth who the Son is, but the Father;
and who the Father is, but the Son, and he to whom the Son will
reveal him.
JST: All things are delivered to me of
my Father; and no man knoweth that the Son is the Father, and
the Father is the Son, but him to whom the Son will reveal it.3
The JST changes verse 22 into a direct statement
by Jesus' that He and the Father are the same Person. Joseph Smith
made similar changes to Matthew 11:27,4 a parallel passage.
There is no manuscript evidence for these or any of the hundreds
of other changes the JST makes to the biblical text.5
The modalistic view of the Father and Son in the
early Mormon scriptures is sharply at odds with the historic Christian
doctrine that Father and Son are distinct persons within the one
Divine Being. Nevertheless, elsewhere the Book of Mormon does appear
to support a monotheistic view of Deity, since Father, Son, and
Holy Ghost are presented as one God, not three separate Gods, as
in later Mormonism.
Muutoksia Mormonin kirjassa
In addition to the evidence from the early Mormon
scriptures, there are also historical reasons for believing that
Joseph Smith was a monotheist at the time he produced the Book of
Mormon, and that only later did he come to believe in the plurality
of Gods. One historical reason is the well documented fact that
significant alterations were made to key passages in the original
Book of Mormon which have the effect of accommodating Joseph's later
teaching of the plurality of Gods.6 The box below presents
a side-by-side comparison of four key Book of Mormon passages on
Deity. Notice that in each case the original 1830 version refers
to Jesus as "God," while the current, altered version
changes this to ''Son of God.'' The most reasonable explanation
for these changes is that they were made to avoid a troublesome
contradiction with Joseph Smith's later teaching of the plurality
of Gods.
Changes To The Book Of Mormon
Key passages on Deity in the original 1830 text of the Book
of Mormon were changed in the 1837 edition to reflect Joseph
Smiths changing doctrine of Deity. He originally taught
that Jesus and the Father were the same person, but later
developed the idea that they are separate Gods, each with
a tangible body.
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Original 1830 Text
|
Current, Altered Text
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And he said unto me, Behold, the virgin whom thou
seest is the mother of God,after the manner of the flesh.*
[View the 1830 BoM text.]
|
And he said unto me, Behold, the virgin whom thou
seest is the mother of the Son of God. (1 Nephi
11:18)
|
And the angel said unto me, behold the Lamb of
God, even the Eternal Father!
[View the 1830 BoM text.]
|
And the angel said unto me, behold the Lamb of
God, even the Son of the Eternal Father! (1 Nephi
11:21)
|
And I looked and beheld the Lamb of god, that
he was taken by the people; yea, the Everlasting God, was
judged of the world.
[View the 1830 BoM text.]
|
And
I looked and beheld the Lamb of god, that he was taken by the
people; yea, the Son of the Everlasting God, was
judged of the world. (1 Nephi 11:32)
|
These last records . . . . shall make known to
all kindreds, tongues, and people, that the Lamb of God is
the Eternal Father and the Savior of the world.
[View the 1830 BoM text.]
|
These last records . . . . shall make known to
all kindreds, tongues, and people, that the Lamb of God is
the Son of the Eternal Father and the Savior of the world.
(1 Nephi 13:40)
|
*The 1830 text did not have verse divisions.
Is it possible to harmonize the monotheistic passages
in the Book of Mormon with Joseph's later teaching of the plurality
of Gods, by saying that, while there are many Gods, "there
is only one God with whom we have to do, or whom we worship?"
Must this not be considered a faulty rationalization in light of
God's clear affirmations in passages such as Isaiah 44:8
"Is there a God beside me? yea, There is no God; I know not
any" (see also Isaiah 43:10-11; 45:21-22; 46:9). If the God
of the Bible declares that He does not know of any other Gods, how
can anyone claiming to speak as His prophet teach that there are
other Gods?
Ensimmäisestä näystä kertovien
juttujen kehitys
Another historical reason for believing that Joseph
Smith originally believed in only one God (and held a modalistic
view of Jesus and the Father), is that his original First Vision
story reflects such a view. Over the last thirty years LDS scholars
have discovered that Joseph gave several different accounts of his
First Vision, and that the earliest accounts are significantly different
than the version in the Pearl of Great Price (Joseph SmithHistory,
1:14-20).7 The differences in these successive first vision
accounts reflect an attempt to keep pace with changes in Joseph's
doctrine of Deity.
According to the official account of Joseph Smith's
First Vision, which dates from 1838, two divine personages in bodily
form appeared to him, whom he identified as Heavenly Father and
Jesus Christ. This is consistent with Joseph Smith's later doctrine
of Deity, namely, that the Father and Son are separate Gods, each
with tangible bodies.
However, as LDS historian Dean C. Jessee has documented,
the earliest known First Vision account, a document from 1831-32
in Joseph's own handwriting, describes the appearance of only a
single divine personage, Jesus Christ.8 This is highly significant
because it accords with the Book of Mormon's modal monotheism, described
above. It is understandable that when Joseph latter abandoned monotheism
and began to teach the plurality of Gods, he would change his original
First Vision story to make it consistent with the teaching that
Father and Son are separate Gods.
Luentoja uskosta
In 1834-35, during the Kirtland, Ohio period, Joseph
Smith made a major departure from the Book of Mormon emphasis that
the Father and Son are the same person. While still apparently maintaining
that there is only one God (monotheism), he began to teach that
there are two persons within the Godhead the Father and the
Son. Theologians call this "binitarianism." This second
stage in Joseph's teaching regarding Deity is spelled out in the
"Lectures on Faith." These seven "lectures on theology"
were approved for inclusion in the Doctrine and Covenants by a Conference
vote of the LDS Church on August 17, 1835. They appeared in all
English editions of the D&C until their unexplained removal
in 1921 without a General Conference vote.9 Lecture Five
explicitly teaches that there are two persons in the Godhead:
There are two personages who constitute the great,
matchless, governing and supreme power over all things
by whom all things were created and made . . . They are the Father
and the Son: The Father being a personage of spirit, glory and
power: possessing all perfection and fullness: The Son, who was
in the bosom of the Father, a personage of tabernacle, made and
fashioned like unto man.
A question and answer section in Lecture Five confirms
its binitarian view of the God:
Q. How many personages are there in the Godhead?
A. Two: the Father and the Son.
According to the Lectures on Faith, the Holy Ghost,
or Holy Spirit (the two terms were not distinguished at this stage),
is not a person, but is the shared "mind" of the Father
and Son. However, there is abundant biblical evidence to support
the historic Christian teaching that the Holy Ghost is a person.
For example, He teaches and comforts (John 14:26; 15:26; 16:7-10)
and He can be grieved and lied to (Ephesians 4:30; Acts 5:3). The
Bible does not support the belief that God is binitarian (two-in-one,
Father and Son), but rather, trinitarian (three-in-one, Father,
Son, and Holy Ghost). Thus, the doctrine of Deity in the Lectures
on Faith falls short of historic Christian teaching, even though
it is correct on the point that God the Father is spirit, and does
not possess a body (John 4:24).
Monijumalaisuus
Joseph Smith did not move directly from the binitarian
monotheism of the Lectures on Faith to explicit public teaching
of the plurality of Gods. There was a third, intermediate stage
represented by Doctrine and Covenants 121. This revelation, dated
March 20, 1839 (the early Nauvoo, Illinois period), without explicitly
declaring there are many Gods, holds this out as a possibility,
and predicts that future revelation will clarify the matter:
God shall give you knowledge by his Holy Spirit
. . . A time to come in the which nothing shall be withheld, whether
there be one God or many gods, they shall be manifest (D&
C 121:26,28).
Chapters 4-5 of the Book of Abraham, first published
in 1842, represent the fourth and final stage of Joseph Smith's
developing doctrine of Deity. Here, for the first time, is spelled
out in unambiguous words the doctrine of the plurality of Gods,
as noted in the quotations from Abraham at the beginning of this
article.
Directly related to the doctrine of the plurality
of Gods is Joseph's teaching that Heavenly Father is an exalted
man who Himself has a Father, and whose Father has a Father, ad
infinitum. In a June 16, 1844 sermon recorded in the History
of the Church10 Smith described his new understanding
that there are many Gods and that Heavenly Father is Himself the
offspring of a more ancient Deity, who in turn is the offspring
of a still more ancient Deity. The Mormon prophet credited this
understanding to his study of the Egyptian papyrus from which he
produced the Book of Abraham in the Pearl of Great Price:
I want to reason a little on this subject [that
God himself has a father]. I learned it by translating the [Book
of Abraham] papyrus that is now in my house. I learned a testimony
concerning Abraham, and he reasoned concerning the God of heaven
. . . If Abraham reasoned thus If Jesus Christ was the
Son of God, and John discovered that God the Father of Jesus Christ
had a Father, you may suppose that He had a Father also.
According to Joseph Smith, the Book of Abraham teaches
that our Heavenly Father is but one link in this infinite ancestral
chain of Gods stretching back through eternity; He is thus only
one of innumerable Gods. This, in turn, leads to the Mormon Church's
teaching that human beings are the literal offspring of Heavenly
Father and one of His celestial wives, and that we are thus "Gods
in embryo" who have the potential to achieve exaltation to
divine status.
(These doctrines conflict sharply with the Bible,
which teaches that we are created by God, not procreated. Christians
do not believe that God was once a mortal man because the Bible
teaches that He is unchanging and has always existed as God. A free
scholarly article comparing the Mormon and historic Christian doctrines
of God is available on request from the Institute for Religious
Research.)
Onko mormonien jumalallinen ilmoitus progressiivista?
Because God is the source of all truth, and because
consistency is an essential characteristic of truthfulness, we instinctively
believe that God will be consistent in revealing Himself to humanity.
This is borne out when we examine the Bible. What God reveals about
Himself in the New Testament goes beyond Old Testament revelation,
but it builds upon what went before, without contradicting it (Matthew
5:17; Romans 3:21,31). Biblical revelation is consistent and progressive.
Are the successive phases of Joseph Smith's teaching
about God likewise progressive? The development from modal monotheism,
to binitarian monotheism, to the plurality of Gods could perhaps
be considered progressive in the sense that it moves in a consistent
direction. On the other hand, one might well ask: Can such changes
be accurately described as "progressive," or even as a
"development," inasmuch as they do not logically build
on one another, but, in fact, represent contradictory teachings
about the nature of God?
Joseph Smiths Changing Doctrine
of Deity
VIEWED IN SCRIPTURAL ORDER
The Mormon scriptures are not progressive. Viewed chronologically,
beginning from the most ancient period, they move from
teaching the plurality of Gods, to monotheism, then back
to the plurality of Gods.
|
Date
|
Book / Reference
|
Doctrine
|
2000 B.C. |
Book of Abraham 4:1-5:21 |
Plurality of Gods |
1400 B.C. |
Book of Moses 1:6; 2-3 |
Monotheism |
600 B.C. to
A.D. 400 |
Book of Mormon
Alma 11:26-28 |
Modalistic
Monotheism |
A.D. 1830 |
Early D&C, 20:17, 19, 28 |
Monotheism |
A.D. 1830 - |
Joseph Smith Translation |
Modalistic Monotheism |
A.D. 1834-1835 |
Lectures on Faith, 5th Lecture |
Binatarian Monotheism, or Bitheism |
A.D. 1839 |
Later D&C, 121:26, 28, 32 |
Possibility of Plurality of Gods |
A.D. 1844 |
[King Follet Discourse*] |
Plurality of Gods |
* History of the Church, vol. 6, pp. 302-317.
The movement from monotheism to the
plurality of Gods described in this article is based on viewing
the various LDS scriptures in the order they came forth from Joseph
Smith. However, since parts of the Mormon canon are supposed to
be restored, ancient revelation (Book of Abraham, Book of Moses,
and Book of Mormon), it is also necessary to consider how the doctrine
of Deity is presented in these scriptures when they are viewed in
the chronological order in which they were anciently given (with
the Lectures on Faith, Doctrine and Covenants, and Joseph's famous
sermon on the plurality of Gods, the "King Follett Discourse,"11
coming last, since they were first given in Joseph's day). Since
God cannot lie or contradict Himself, later revelation should be
consistent with and not contradict what came earlier.
Viewed from this perspective, however,
a perplexing pattern emerges, as the chart on this page shows. We
are asked to believe that after revealing the doctrine of the plurality
of Gods in Abraham's time (2,000 B.C.), Heavenly Father later sent
prophets beginning with Moses (1400/1300 B.C.) and through the end
of the Book of Mormon period (A.D. 400) who taught monotheism, only
to have Joseph Smith revert back to teaching the plurality of Gods
in the nineteenth century. Can such inconsistency and confusion
be attributed to the true and living God? It can be avoided only
by denying that the Book of Mormon, Book of Moses, and Book of Abraham
are authentic, ancient scripture.
Onko tällä kaikella väliä?
So what if there are contradictions
between what the different LDS Standard Works teach about the nature
of God? And what if the Mormon doctrine of God is vastly different
from that of historic Christianity? Can't a faithful Mormon still
pray to a Heavenly Father, experience meaning and wholeness in religious
worship, and find consolation in faith when death takes a loved
one. What do the contradictions and differences matter?
There is reason to believe that a proper
understanding of the central truth of who God is does matter very
much. Jesus told the Samaritan woman mentioned in chapter 4 of John's
Gospel that truth was essential to salvation: "Ye worship ye
know not what: we know what we worship; for salvation is of the
Jews . . . . God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship
him in spirit and in truth" (John 4:22,24).
Sincerity is important but it is not
a substitute for truth. Jesus said, "the truth shall
make you free," not sincerity. The inconsistencies in Joseph
Smith's changing doctrine of Deity signal his departure from Biblical
truth and constitute one of the major reasons why the Christian
community rejects his claim to be a prophet of the true God.
Luke P. Wilson
Viitteet
- Boyd Kirkland, "The Development of the Mormon
Doctrine of God," Line Upon Line: Essays on Mormon Doctrine
(Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1989), pp. 35-36.
- Deut. 4:35,39; 6:4; 32:39; 2 Sam. 7:22; 1 Kings
8:60; 2 Kings 19:15; Neh. 9:6; Psa. 18:31; 86:10; Isa. 37:16,20;
43:10-11; 45:21; 46:9; Hos. 13:4; Joel 2:27; Zech. 14:9; Mark
12:28-34; John 17:3; Rom. 3:30; 1 Cor. 8:4-6; Gal. 3:20; Eph.
4:6; 1 Tim. 1:17; 1 Tim. 2:5; Jas. 2:19.
- Luke 10:22 in the King James Version Bible corresponds
to 10:23 in the Joseph Smith Translation.
- Matthew 11:27 in the Kings James Version corresponds
to Matthew 11:28 in the Joseph Smith Translation.
- Prof. Robert J. Matthews of Brigham Young University
acknowledges this in his article on the JST in the Encyclopedia
of Mormonism (2:763-69). The name "Joseph Smith Translation"
must be considered a misnomer. There is no reasonable basis by
which it can be considered a "translation," since, unlike
the King James Version, New International Version, and other Bible
translations, Joseph Smith did not base his work on any Old Testament
Hebrew or New Testament Greek manuscripts. A free scholarly paper
on the Joseph Smith Translation which documents that lack of manuscript
evidence for its changes to the biblical text is available on
request from the Institute for Religious Research.
- A photomechanical reproduction of the full text
of the original 1830 edition of the Book of Mormon is available
in vol. 1 of Joseph Smith Begins His Work, 2 vols. (Wilford
C. Wood, 1958). 1 Nephi 11 corresponds to 1 Nephi 3 in the 1830
Book of Mormon, which has different chapter divisions than current
editions, and no verse divisions.
- See Dean C. Jessee, "The Early Accounts
of Joseph Smith's First Vision," BYU Studies, Vol.
IX, No. 3 (Spring 1969), pp. 275-294 and, by the same author,
"How Lovely Was the Morning," in Dialogue: A Journal
of Mormon Thought, Vol. VI, No. 1 (Spring 1971), pp. 85-88;
also Paul R. Cheesman, "An Analysis of the Accounts Relating
Joseph Smith's Early Visions," M.A. thesis, Brigham Young
University, 1965, Appendix D.
- Jessee, ibid.
- For a helpful, scholarly article on the "Lectures
on Faith," see Richard S. Van Wagoner, Steven C. Walker,
and Allen D. Roberts, "The 'Lectures on Faith': A Case Study
in Decanonization," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought,
Vol. 20, No. 3 (Fall 1987), pp. 71-77. A photomechanical reproduction
of the full text of the Lectures on Faith is contained in volume
2 of Joseph Smith Begins His Work, 2 vols. (Wilford C.
Wood, 1958).
- History of the Church, 7 vols., 2nd ed.
(Salt Lake City: Deseret News, 1950), 6:473-479.
- History of the Church, 6:302-317.
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