The Reality of the Plurality of Gods
Utah Missions Inc.
www.umi.org	Ron Rhodes and Marian Bodine

As is typical with many cults, the Mormons utilize Christian terminology but they pour their own cultic meanings into those words. The word Trinity is an example. Though some Mormons may use the word in describing their own view of God, they do not define it as orthodox Christians do.

Mormonism teaches that the Persons of the Trinity are not three Persons in one being, as historic Christianity has always taught (from the Bible); rather, Mormons say the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three separate beings — they are three separate, distinct Gods (Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, p. 319).

In what way, then, are the three Persons of the Trinity one? Some Mormons say the three Persons are united in their common purpose. Others say they are "united as one in the attributes of perfection" (Mormon Doctrine, p. 319). Either way, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not viewed as one being.

Bruce McConkie reasons that "as each of these persons is a God, it is evident, from this standpoint alone, that a plurality of Gods exists. To us, speaking in the proper finite sense, these three are the only Gods we worship. But in addition there is an infinite number of holy personages, drawn from worlds without number, who have passed on to exaltation and are thus gods" (Mormon Doctrine, p. 576).

Did Joseph Smith teach the doctrine of the plurality of Gods? Though references in the Book of Mormon (published early in his prophetic career) attest to the existence of only one God, Smith eventually went on to teach the plurality of Gods not only in his writings but also in his public speaking. In one message Smith said this:

I will preach on the plurality of Gods. . . . I wish to declare I have
always and in all congregations when I preached on the subject of the
Deity, it has been the plurality of Gods. It has been preached by the
Elders for fifteen years. I have always declared God to be a distinct
personage, Jesus Christ a separate and distinct personage from God the
Father, and that the Holy Ghost was a distinct personage and a Spirit:
and these three constitute three distinct personages and three Gods. If
this is in accordance with the New Testament, lo and behold! We have
three Gods, anyhow, and they are plural; and who can contradict it?
(Joseph Fielding Smith, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 370).

Joseph Fielding Smith adds that "Joseph Smith taught a plurality of gods, and that man by obeying the commandments of God and keeping the whole law will eventually reach the power and exaltation by which he also will become a god" (Doctrines of Salvation, 1:98).

Spencer W. Kimball, a former president of the church, made the following remarks to a group about how they can become gods: "Brethren, 225,000 of you are here tonight. I suppose 225,000 of you may become gods. There seems to be plenty of space out there in the universe. And the Lord has proved that he knows how to do it. I think he could make, or probably have us help make, worlds for all of us, for every one of us 225,000" (The Ensign, November 1975, p. 80).

Brigham Young said, "How many Gods there are, I do not know. But there never was a time when there were not Gods and worlds, and when men were not passing through the same ordeals that we are now passing through. That course has been from all eternity, and it is and will be to all eternity" (Discourses of Brigham Young , arranged by John A. Widtsoe, pp. 22-23).

Mormon apostle Orson Pratt said, "If we should take a million worlds like this and number their particles, we should find that there are more Gods than there are particles of matter in those worlds." (Journal of Discourses, 2:345).

It is critical to recognize that in Mormon theology, just as Jesus has a Father, so the Father allegedly has a Father, and the Father of Jesus' Father has a Father. This endless succession of Fathers goes on and on, up the hierarchy of exalted beings in the universe.

Joseph Fielding Smith expresses the Mormon logic behind the concept: "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. Where was there ever a son without a Father? ... Hence if Jesus had a Father, can we not believe that he had a Father also?" (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, pp. 370, 373). Smith ponders, "Is this not a reasonable thought, especially when we remember that the promises are made to us that we, may become like him?" (Doctrines of Salvation, 1:12). Hence, there is a Father of the Father of the Father of the Father of the Father, ad infinitum.

(Excerpted from Reasoning from the Scriptures with the Mormons, Harvest House, 1995, 243-245, used by permission).