Criticism of Mormonism/Books/Mormonism 101/Chapter 1

FAIR Answers—back to home page

Response to claims made in "Chapter 1: God the Father"

A FAIR Analysis of: Mormonism 101 A work by author: Bill McKeever and Eric Johnson

Chapter 2: Jesus

23

Claim

• The fallacies of the author's logic become apparent in the opening paragraphs of the chapter. They begin with a quote from Spencer W. Kimball:

Men with keen intelligence got together ... [at] Nicea and created a God. They did not pray for wisdom or revelation. They claimed no revelation from the Lord. They made it just about like a political party would do, and out of their own mortal minds created a God which is still worshiped by the great majority of Christians.
President Spencer W. Kimball,
Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, 426.

If the above quote from Mormonism's twelfth president is correct, then the God proclaimed by the Mormon Church is not the same God who is worshiped by millions of Christians today. Few would debate that the concept of God is paramount in any belief system. If two people hope to consider themselves of the same faith, they need to agree on their definition of the Almighty God. If they cannot agree on this vital point, they would be deceiving themselves and others to say that their faiths are the same.

Despite Kimball's claim, many laypeople in the Mormon Church insist that the God they worship is the same God worshiped by millions of Christians throughout the world. The problem with this assumption is that it does not concur with many statements made by the LDS leadership.

• The authors claim that "many laypeople in the Mormon Church insist that the God they worship is the same God worshiped by millions of Christians throughout the world.

Author's source(s)

• Spencer W. Kimball, Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, p. 426.

Response

• The authors' first fallacy is the use of ambiguous terminology. They wish to confuse a differing understanding of who God is with worshipping another god altogether. To understand the tactic used by the authors, consider the city of Cleveland, Ohio. One of the historical black marks against the city was the pollution quite evident in Lake Erie. Cleveland certainly became a different city once the lake was cleaned up. By the reasoning of the authors, one would conclude that Cleveland, Ohio became Cleveland, Tennessee once Lake Erie was cleaned up.
• Secondly, the authors beg the question by assuming that doctrines first canonized in the Nicene and related creeds (with which President Kimball profoundly disagreed) were entirely biblical. Leaving aside the truth or falsehood of those creeds, this reviewer has yet to read any biblical text that equates nonbelievers in the creeds with nonbelievers in Christ.
• For a detailed response, see: Jesus Christ/Latter-day Saints aren't Christians

24

Claim

• LDS leaders have stated that "worship of the God of Christianity's creeds will not result in salvation." Joseph Smith described these creeds as "an abomination in his sight."

Author's source(s)

• Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 2d ed. p. 270.
• Bruce R. McConkie, A New Witness for the Articles of Faith, p. 55.
• Bruce R. McConkie, "Our Relationship with the Lord," speech given at BYU devotional, 2 March 1982, p. 3.

Response

• For a detailed response, see: Jesus Christ/Worship different Jesus

25

Claim

• The authors make the following claim:

"To be sure, historical Christianity has never advocated the belief in a tangible deity."

Response

• Is Jesus not God? (John 1꞉1-3)
• Did the Apostles and others not touch Him, after His resurrection? (Luke 24꞉36-39)
• For a detailed response, see: Nature of God/Corporeality of God

Not Eternally God

25-27 - "the LDS Elohim sexually created spirit children with his heavenly wives"

The author(s) of Mormonism 101 make(s) the following claim:

*The authors assert the Mormons do not believe that God is "Eternal," citing Joseph Smith's King Follett discourse. This is interpreted by the authors as describing "the limitations that Mormon leaders place on God."

• In endnote 8, page 286, the authors also make the following claim:

"Being a polygamist, the LDS Elohim sexually created spirit children with his heavenly wives. All spirit beings in existence were produced this way. The Heavenly Mother doctrine finds no scriptural support within any of the four LDS scriptures."

Author's sources:

• Joseph Fielding Smith, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 345.
• Orson Pratt, The Seer, p. 132.
• Orson Hyde, Journal of Discourses 1:123.
• James E. Talmage, The Articles of Faith, p. 430.
• Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 3:93.
• Spencer W. Kimball, Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, p. 26.
• Spencer W. Kimball, The Miracle of Forgiveness, p. 2.
• Ensign (June 1993), p. 10.

FAIR's Response

Question: Do Latter-day Saints believe in a practice called "celestial sex," and that this is the manner in which "spirit children" are formed?

It is the critics of the Church that invented and use the offensive term "celestial sex"

This is not a term used by Latter-day Saints. It has, in fact, never been used by Latter-day Saints. The use of the term "celestial sex" by critics is intended to be demeaning and shocking to Latter-day Saints or interested readers. The use of such tactics may say much about the mainstream culture's preoccupation with sexual behavior. However, it says nothing about the actual beliefs of Church members.

Critics of the Church twist LDS beliefs into a form that makes them look ridiculous. Quotes made by early LDS leaders are often used to support the claim that Latter-day Saints believe in “Celestial sex.” It should be noted, however, that LDS leaders have never used the term "Celestial sex." This phrase was coined by critics of the Church, likely for its “shock value” in portraying the following concepts in LDS belief:

1. The belief that God the Father has a physical body.
2. The belief that there exists a Heavenly Mother who also possesses a physical body.
3. The belief that our Heavenly Father and Mother together are capable of creating “spirit children.”

Critics take these ideas and combine them, leading to a declaration that Latter-day Saints therefore believe in “Celestial sex.” Various anti-Mormon works then use this idea to mock LDS beliefs or shock their readers—though this claim does not describe LDS beliefs, but the critics' caricature of them.

One of the earliest uses of the term "celestial sex" was in the anti-Mormon film The God Makers

For example, the 1982 anti-Mormon film The God Makers makes reference to “engaging in celestial sex with their goddess wives." One woman in the film, who is claimed to have once been a Latter-day Saint, expresses the idea that the primary goal of women in the Church is to "become a goddess in heaven" in order to "multiply an earth" and be "eternally pregnant." The claim that Latter-day Saints expect to have "endless Celestial sex" in order to populate their own planet is very popular among critics of the Church, though members themselves would not explain their beliefs in that way.

The critics' assumptions simply take what we know about our physical world and naively apply it to the afterlife. When one examines the critics’ point further, a key question ought to be raised: How does the union of two immortal beings in a physical manner produce spirit offspring? Latter-day Saint belief is that “spirit children” only receive a physical body upon being born on earth.

This question, of course, cannot be answered. It is pointless to speculate on the exact manner in which “spirit children” are produced, and to assume that this occurs through “Celestial sex” and being "eternally pregnant" is to apply a worldly mindset to a spiritual process. The bottom line: Latter-day Saints do not know the mechanism by which “spirit children” are produced, and no LDS doctrine claims that "celestial sex" and being "eternally pregnant" are the means.

Question: Do Latter-day Saints believe in a female divine person, a "Heavenly Mother" as counterpart to God, the Heavenly Father?

Latter-day Saints infer the existence of a Heavenly Mother through scripture and modern revelation

Because LDS theology rejects the doctrine of creation out of nothing (creatio ex nihilo) as a post-Biblical addition to Christian belief, and because they see God as embodied in human form while rejecting creedal Trinitarianism, having a female counterpart to Our Heavenly Father seems logical and almost inevitable. This is especially true given the LDS embrace of the doctrine of theosis, or human deification. Thus, the Heavenly Mother shares parenthood with the Father, and shares His attributes of perfection, holiness, and glory.

There is evidence for this doctrine in ancient Israel, and within the Book of Mormon.

As early as 1839, Joseph Smith taught the idea of a Heavenly Mother. Eliza R. Snow composed a poem (later set to music) which provides the most well-known expression of this doctrine:

In the heav´ns are parents single?
No, the thought makes reason stare!
Truth is reason; truth eternal
Tells me I´ve a mother there.
When I leave this frail existence,
When I lay this mortal by,
Father, Mother, may I meet you
In your royal courts on high?

In 1909 the First Presidency, under Joseph F. Smith, wrote that

man, as a spirit, was begotten and born of heavenly parents, and reared to maturity in the eternal mansions of the Father [as an] offspring of celestial parentage...all men and women are in the similitude of the universal Father and Mother, and are literally the sons and daughters of Deity....

The 1995 statement issued by the First Presidency and the Council of the Twelve Apostles, entitled The Family: A Proclamation to the World, states that all men and women are children of heavenly parents (plural), which implies the existence of a Mother in Heaven.

All human beings—male and female—are created in the image of God. Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and, as such, each has a divine nature and destiny.

Not Immutable

28 - The authors ask if it is the Church's position that God did not know whether Adam and Eve would transgress His commandment

The author(s) of Mormonism 101 make(s) the following claim:

The authors ask if it is the Church's position that God did not know whether Adam and Eve would transgress His commandment.

FAIR's Response

• Such a question rather ridiculous, since the Evangelical interpretation of the biblical text implies that the Atonement of Jesus Christ was an afterthought to undo the ill effects of Adam's sin. The LDS position, most succinctly stated in the Pearl of Great Price, is that God counseled with His spirit children concerning the plan and that Jesus Christ's Atonement is not "Plan B." (Moses 4 and Abraham 3)

Question: What to Latter-day Saints believe regarding the concept of "original sin"?

Latter-day Saints believe that "original sin" as commonly understood in many branches of western Christianity was not a doctrine taught by the Bible, Jesus, or the apostles

The Second Article of Faith states that "We believe that men will be punished for their own sins, and not for Adam’s transgression." There is a form of "original sin" in LDS theology, but it is a matter that has been resolved through the atonement of Christ:

And our father Adam spake unto the Lord, and said: Why is it that men must repent and be baptized in water? And the Lord said unto Adam: Behold I have forgiven thee thy transgression in the Garden of Eden. Hence came the saying abroad among the people, that the Son of God hath atoned for original guilt, wherein the sins of the parents cannot be answered upon the heads of the children, for they are whole from the foundation of the world. (Moses 6꞉53-54, emphasis added.)

Thus, LDS theology explicitly rejects the idea that Adam's "original sin" results in a condemnation of the entire human race. Efforts to insist that all of humanity is thereby tainted, all desires are corrupted, or all infants are damned without baptism are untrue. Because of temptation and the instinctive desires of physical bodies, human beings wrestle with the desire to sin (Matthew 26:41; Mosiah 3꞉19), but Adam's actions in the Garden of Eden have no bearing on this.

As Wilford Woodruff taught:

What is called the original sin was atoned for through the death of Christ irrespective of any action on the part of man; also man's individual sin was atoned for by the same sacrifice, but on condition of his obedience to the Gospel plan of salvation when proclaimed in his hearing.”

Concluded Elaine Pagels:

Astonishingly, Augustine’s radical views prevailed, eclipsing for future generations of Western Christians the consensus of the first three centuries of Christian tradition.

Original sin is the innovation. It is a post-biblical novelty without scriptural support.

Given that the doctrine is explicitly repudiated by modern revelation, the Saints feel no need to accept it.

Clearly, any effort to exclude the Church from Christendom because they reject original sin must also exclude several hundred million Eastern Orthodox and Anabaptists. Clearly, such a standard would be nonsensical.

Original Sin in the Book of Mormon?

Critic Grant H. Palmer asserts in his book Insider's View of Mormon Origins that "[h]uman beings, according to the Book of Mormon, are evil by nature[.]" Palmer asserts that the Book of Mormon's view of man is one in which man has become sensual, carnal, and devilish by cause of the Fall and that man is either a sinful degenerate or one who has put on the image of Christ--a strict binary between good and evil. Palmer asserts that the Book of Mormon's view of man as essentially evil is a far cry from Joseph's Nauvoo theology where man is seen as essentially good and with the potential to become like God. There are several problems with this theological evaluation of the Book of Mormon:

1. To assume that a person can change at all would assume that a person has the potential to be good. Thus, being good must be a part of someone's essence. The Fall thus gives man the potential to do bad since he knows what being bad constitutes. The Book of Mormon many times assumes that being this way is one in which a person "persists" (Mosiah 16:5). Salvation is a process by which one must "come unto Christ, and be perfected in him[,]" and "search diligently in the light of Christ that [one] may know good from evil[.]" In the end a person is "saved by grace, after all [she] can do." (2 Nephi 25:23). It should be noted that "after" is not construed temporally but as a (i.e. "after all you can do, then grace intervenes") but in the sense of "even after all you can do." If indeed the Book of Mormon viewed people as born intrinsically evil, then it could not issue such strong condemnations of things such as infant baptism (Moroni 8).
2. The Book of Mormon does not see man as either one thing or the other. When it speaks of the natural man, it refers to those that are "without God" (Alma 41:11). A person that does not have God at all is in this natural state. Only a person who "yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of live, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon hum, even as a child doth submit to his father." (Mosiah 3:19)
3. The Book of Mormon assumes in a couple of noteworthy passages that people can become deified.

The foregoing severely complicates Palmer's conception of Book of Mormon anthropology.

Not Self-Existent

31 - "Mormonism's view of God is both implausible and unbiblical"

The author(s) of Mormonism 101 make(s) the following claim:

The authors claim that

"Mormonism's view of God is both implausible and unbiblical. It is also illogical since it raises several questions as to how the first intelligence was able to elevate himself to the position of diety."

Author's sources:

• Brigham Young, Discourses, 22.
• Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 7:284.

FAIR's Response

Question: Does the doctrine that God has a physical body contradict the Bible?

A growing consensus of scholars recognizes that God, as depicted in the Bible, is embodied

The overwhelming academic consensus is that God, as depicted in the Bible, is embodied. Several books that you can read bare this out:

• Kamionkowski, S. Tamar and Wonil Kim, eds. Bodies, Embodiment, and Theology of the Hebrew Bible. New York: T&T Clark International, 2010.
• Halton, Charles. A Human-Shaped God: Theology of an Embodied God. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2021.
• Wilson, Brittany E. The Embodied God: Seeing the Divine in Luke-Acts and the Early Church. New York: Oxford University Press, 2021.
• Wagner, Andreas. God's Body: The Anthropomorphic God in the Old Testament. Trans. Marion Salzmann. New York: T&T Clark, 2019.
• Markschies, Christoph. God's Body: Jewish, Christian, and Pagan Images of God. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2019.
• Sommer, Benjamin D. The Bodies of God and the World of Ancient Israel. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
• Stavarakopolou, Francesca. God: An Anatomy. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2021.

This last book, God: An Anatomy, was helpfully reviewed by Latter-day Saint scholar and apologist Daniel C. Peterson. Peterson commends and gives some cautions regarding the book that may apply more generally to the books just listed. We recommend seeing his review cited below.

It is incorrect to imply that God cannot be in human form, since a fundamental doctrine of Christianity is that Jesus is God, made flesh

Mormons believe that God has a physical body and human form. Does scripture which says that "God is not a man" (e.g. Numbers 23:19, 1 Samuel 15:29, Hosea 11:9) contradict this idea?

These scriptures read (emphasis added):

• "God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man [i.e., a human being], that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?" - Numbers 23:19
• "And also the Strength of Israel will not lie nor repent: for he is not a man, that he should repent." - 1 Samuel 15:29
• I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger, I will not return to destroy Ephraim: for I am God, and not man; the Holy One in the midst of thee: and I will not enter into the city. - Hosea 11:9

The first passage, in Numbers, not only says that "God is not a man", but it also says that God is not "the son of man." If a Christian were to claim from this passage that God is not a man, they would have to consistently claim that God is also not a "son of man." This of course contradicts many New Testament statements about Jesus (who is God) to the contrary. Though there are many examples, one should suffice. Jesus says, "For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." Matthew 12:40 Therefore, we know that the passage from Numbers is not suggesting that God is fundamentally not a "son of man", but rather that God is not a "son of man" in the sense that God doesn't have need for repentance. The next logical step requires us to conclude that the passage is not suggesting that God is fundamentally "not a man", but that God is not a man in the sense that God does not lie.

These verses say nothing about the nature or form of God—they merely assert that God is not like man in certain ways

God will not lie or change his declared course, unlike humans. As the NET translation of 1 Samuel says, "The Preeminent One of Israel does not go back on his word or change his mind, for he is not a human being who changes his mind.”

It is incorrect to imply that God cannot be in human form—the fundamental doctrine of Christianity is that Jesus is God, made flesh. One would have to assume that these verses also apply to Jesus, when they clearly do not. Jesus may be in human form, but he will not sin, or change his mind from doing his father's will.

Not Transcendent

32 - The authors compare their idea of LDS theology with the Evangelical doctrine of God's transcendence

The author(s) of Mormonism 101 make(s) the following claim:

The authors compare their idea of LDS theology with the Evangelical doctrine of God's transcendence:

God is distinct from His creation and the universe. When discussing the transcendence of God, we need to consider a number of aspects. Not only is the 'person' of God unlike human beings, but His moral character is also unique. He is infinitely exalted above that He has ever created.

Author's sources:

• Hunter, The Gospel Through the Ages, 107.
• Parley P. Pratt, Key to the Science of Theology: A Voice of Warning, 21.
• Orson Whitney, quoted in Collected Discourses, ed. Brian H. Stuy, 4.
• Bruce R. McConkie, The Mortal Messiah, 35.
• Don Lattin, "Musing with the Prophet," San Francisco Chronicle, 13 April 1997, sec. Z1, p. 3.

FAIR's Response

• Leaving aside the authors creation of a straw man argument implying that Latter-day Saints gainsay that God is infinitely exalted above any and all mortal humans, they ignore the Book of Genesis, which states that man is created in God's image. (Genesis 1꞉27) Is it logical to think that man has zero in common with the Creator who chose to make mankind in His image?
• The authors implicitly criticize President Gordon Hinckley's quote of Lorenzo Snow's couplet. By this, they ignore I John 3:1-3. Do the authors disbelieve that Christians will be like Jesus?
• The authors disdain alleged LDS disbelief in God's omnipotence. Can God lie? If not, then He is not omnipotent. If He can, why are there scriptures that state that He cannot? (Titus 1꞉2) It is only in this sense that members of the Church disbelieve God's absolute omnipotence. Members of the LDS Church do not question whether God is mighty enough to create the universe, or to effect the Atonement.

33-34

Claim

• The authors state that Gordon B. Hinckley "made it not clear on whether such a concept was part of Mormon belief."

Author's source(s)

• Don Lattin, journalist from the San Francisco Chronicle in an interview with President Hinckley in 1997.
• David Van Biema, Time, 4 August 1997, p. 56.

Response

• For a detailed response, see: Nature of God/Hinckley downplaying the King Follett Discourse

Not Omnipotent

35

Claim

• The authors claim that Mormons believe that "God could stop being God."

Author's source(s)

• W. Cleon Skousen, The First 2,000 Years, p. 355-56.

Response

• Skousen's work hardly represents LDS doctrine. The authors had to look pretty far from the standard works in order to make such a claim.

Claim

• The authors claim that "Mormonism has reintroduced polytheism to the modern world."

Response

• For a detailed response, see: Nature of God/Polytheism

36

Claim

• The "Mormon God cannot create ex nihilo, or out of nothing." The authors claim that the "Mormon God" is limited to creating only out of existing matter.

Author's source(s)

• John Widtsoe, A Rational Theology, p. 12.

Response

• For a detailed response, see: Creation/Creatio ex nihilo

Not Omnipresent

37 - "God of Mormonism cannot be personally present everywhere because he dwells in a finite body"

The author(s) of Mormonism 101 make(s) the following claim:

According to the authors, the "God of Mormonism cannot be personally present everywhere because he dwells in a finite body." They quote Brigham Young:

Some would have us believe that God is present everywhere. It is not so.

Author's sources:

• Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 6:345.
• James Talmage, The Articles of Faith, 42-43.
• Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 359.

FAIR's Response

• The authors are implying that Mormons deny God's omnipresence. This is incorrect.
• More of Brigham's quote:

Some would have us believe that God is present everywhere. It is not so. He is no more everywhere present in person than the Father and Son are one in person. The Bible teaches that doctrine precisely as it is.

• Orson Pratt clarifies the concept of God's omnipresence:

He is omnipresent. Not personally; this would be impossible, for a person can only be in one place at the same instant, whether he be an immortal or a mortal personage; whether he be high, exalted, and filled with all power, wisdom, glory, and greatness, or poor, ignorant, and humble. So far as the materials are concerned, a personage can only occupy one place at the same moment. That is a self-evident truth, one that cannot be controverted. When we speak, therefore, of God being omnipresent we do not mean that His person is omnipresent, we mean that His wisdom, power, glory, greatness, goodness, and all the characteristics of His eternal attributes are manifested and spread abroad throughout all the creations that He has made. He is there by His influence—by His power and wisdom—by His outstretched arm; He, by His authority, occupies the immensity of space. But when we come to His glorious personage, that has a dwelling place—a particular location; but where this location is, is not revealed. Suffice it to say that God is not confined in His personal character to one location. He goes and comes; He visits the various departments of His dominions, gives them counsel and instruction, and presides over them according to His own will and pleasure. (Orson Pratt, Journal of Discourses 14:234.)

Notes

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