Nature of God

You Have Been Perfected Once And For All

What is God Like?

Did God Become God?

Can a Contingent Being Become a Necessary Being?

The nature of God is a very important issue. What qualities do we attribute to God when we think of “God”? Some qualities may include being powerful, intelligent, infinite, creative, loving, just, merciful, self-sustaining, perfect, etc. The God of the Bible is a great God. In fact, the Bible says that God’s greatness is beyond comprehension. Psalm 145:3 says, “Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised; and His greatness is unsearchable.” You can search and search for the end of God’s greatness, but you will not be able to find it. If you can imagine something greater than God, then what you believe to be God is not God. God’s greatness is found in every aspect of his being. It is found in is knowledge- God knows all things (Isaiah 40:13, Psalm 139:1-6); in his Power to Create all things (Psalm 33:6-9, Isaiah 44:24, John 1:3, Colossians 1:15-17). God is great in his being; God is a Spirit who can be everywhere at once (John 4:24, 2 Corinthians 3:17, cf. Hosea 11:9, Jeremiah 23:24, 1 Kings 8:27); God is a God who has always been God (Psalm 90:2, 1 Tim. 1:17), and self-sustaining. The God of the Bible rules over everything, and has created everything that exists (Romans 9:5; Isaiah 44:24). God cannot be anything less than the greatest thing you can imagine.

What has the LDS Church taught about God over the years? Joseph Smith taught that God is an exalted man:

I will go back to the beginning before the world was, to show what kind of being God is… God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens… For I am going to tell you how God came to be God. We have supposed that God was God from all eternity, I will refute that idea, and take away the veil, so that you may see (History of the Church vol. 6, 305).

There are important things to note about Joseph Smith’s view of God. First, he believed that God was a man just like us. Second, he believed that God is an exalted man. Third, he believed that God has not always been God. There are some significant theological issues that arise from this view of God. For instance, if God is a created being (i.e., a man born from heavenly parents), then there are some things that he did not create. For instance, He did not create the planet that he was born on, nor did he create the worlds that his heavenly parents created. Also, to say that God is a God that became a God is essentially saying that God is not a God by nature; Just like President Bush is not a president by nature, but by an attainment of office through an act of his free agency as well as ours in voting him in.

A nature is a type, sort, or kind of thing. If something’s nature allows for it to change, its nature will stay with it for the entire duration of its existence. For example, an apple seed has the nature of “apple-ness”, and if it changes into an apple tree it would still have the nature of apple-ness. The same goes with God. If God is God by nature, then He would always posses His nature as God. There would never be a point at which He had to obtain his “Godhood”; just like an apple seed did not attain its nature when it became a full grown tree, but had its nature even as a seed. Galatians 4:8 says we are not to worship gods that are not gods by nature. This is significant because the God of the Bible has revealed Himself to be God by nature (i.e., He has always been God). Psalm 90:2 says, “Even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.” Some may argue that God has always existed (i.e., in some from or another- like eternal matter), but it is important to note that the Bible says He has always existed as God. The distinction that lies in the Mormon concept of God, and the Biblical concept of God is that of ontology (i.e., the being of God). The God of the Bible is God because of who He is as a person, not because of who He is as a fulfillment of an office. The Mormon concept of God strips God for who He is as a person; it makes Him God only on the basis that he has attained an office. The Bible speaks of God as being God because of who and what He is. It would be blasphemous to think that God can only be God if He achieved, and maintained an office.

Also, the LDS Church teaches that God is a progressive being. According to Mormonism, God had to obey, learn, and perform certain duties to obtain the office of Godhood.

The Journal of Discourses states,

Remember that God, our heavenly Father, was perhaps once a child, and mortal like we ourselves, and rose step by step in the scale of progress, in the school of advancement; has moved forward and overcome, until He has arrived at the point where he now is (vol. 1, 93).

The problem with this view of God is that it goes directly against what the Bible says about God. Isaiah says,

Who has directed the Spirit of the LORD, or as His counselor has taught Him? With whom did He take counsel, and who instructed Him, and taught Him in the path of justice? Who taught him knowledge, and showed Him the way of understanding (Isaiah 40:13-14).

The God of the Bible did not have to learn and progress in order to become a God. If God had to learn in the “school of advancement”, then the end of God’s greatness can be seen at the very beginning point when God was “like us.” It is also difficult to reconcile a changing God with both the Bible and the Book of Mormon. The Bible says, “For I am the LORD, I do not change” (Malachi 3:6), and the Book of Mormon says, “For I know that God is not a partial God, neither a changeable being; but he is unchangeable from all eternity to all eternity” (Moroni 8:18).

One more issue that stems for Joseph Smith’s view of God is that God is a dependent being. God’s existence owes itself to his heavenly parents, and all the Gods that came before him. There is a chance that God might not even have existed if he was not born from his heavenly parents. Isaiah 43:10 clearly states that God is not a contingent being: “Before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me.” Colossians 1:17 also says, "And He is before all things, and by Him all things consist." God does not owe his existence to heavenly parents, nor anything else.

Only salvation comes form the great God of the Bible. The god of Mormonism can not save you because he is not the great God of the Bible, and is therefore only imaginary. Some may say that it’s not important to know where God came from, or how God came to be God. Joseph Smith thought it was: “Here then is eternal life—to know the only wise and true God” (History of the Church vol. 6, 306). Some may say that the quotes above are not “scriptural”, but only speculative ideas. The question that needs to be asked is “were they wrong.” Was Joseph Smith wrong when he said that God is not eternal? I don’t think he thought so. I hope this section has helped you learn who God is, and who He is not. Believe in the great God of the Bible who is ruler over all things, created all things, and has never been weak “like us.”

Please learn about the biblical concept of the Trinity.