FAIR is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing well-documented answers to criticisms of the doctrine, practice, and history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Mormonism and the nature of God/Characteristics of God
Mormon beliefs regarding the characteristics of God
Unchanging
Summary: Does the Book of Mormon refute Joseph Smith on the nature of God? Critics point out that the Book of Mormon never says God was once a mortal. In fact, it teaches that God was always God. Take for instance Moroni 8:18. It says God is "unchangeable from all eternity to all eternity." Joseph Smith, however, taught, "We have imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity, I will refute that idea, and take away the veil so that you may see."Elohim and Jehovah
Summary: It is claimed that Elohim, Jehovah, Adonai and other similar Old Testament Hebrew names for deity are simply different titles which emphasize different attributes of the "one true God." In support of this criticism, they cite Old Testament scriptures that speak of "the LORD [Jehovah] thy God [Elohim]" (e.g., Deuteronomy 4:2; 4:35; 6:4) as proof that these are different titles for the same God.Foreknowledge
Summary: Most Latter-day Saints hold to unlimited foreknowledge. This has been the traditional view of most Christians since the post-New Testament period, and it is one doctrine that Joseph Smith didn't seem to question, as there are no revelations that address it. Indeed, it appears that most LDS leaders and scholars simply haven't questioned its veracity."God is a man"
Summary: Some Christians object to the Mormon belief that God has a physical body and human form by quoting scripture which says that "God is not a man" (e.g. Numbers 23:19, 1 Samuel 15:29, Hosea 11:9).Mormonism and biblical statements that "God is a Spirit"
Jump to details:
- Question: Does the Mormon doctrine that God has a physical body contradict the Bible's statement in John 4:24 that "God is a Spirit"?
- Question: Does the Book of Mormon teach that God is a spirit?
- Question: Is the doctrine that God the Father and Jesus Christ have physical bodies not Biblical?
- Question: How would a statement that "God is a spirit" be interpreted in ancient Judasism?
- Mormons have "picked up" discarded beliefs of early Christians
- Mormonism does not use the Nicene Creed, and invokes earlier Christian ideas that were overshadowed by Plato
- Question: What are the Lectures on Faith?
- Question: What does Lecture 5 of the Lectures on Faith say about the nature of God?
- Question: Did Joseph began his prophetic career with a "trinitarian" idea of God?
- Question: What are modern Church leader's views on the Lectures on Faith?
Lecture of Faith 5 teaches the Father is "a personage of spirit"
Summary: Lectures on Faith, which used to be part of the Doctrine and Covenants, teach that God is a spirit. Joseph Smith's later teachings contradict this. More generally, critics argue that Joseph Smith taught an essentially "trinitarian" view of the Godhead until the mid 1830s, thus proving the Joseph was "making it up" as he went along.Joseph Smith's King Follett discourse on the nature of God
Jump to details:
- Question: Does what Joseph Smith taught about the creation of spirits contradict the scriptures?
- Question: What was Gordon B. Hinckley's opinion about the King Follett Discourse?
- Question: Why does TIME's report make it appear the Pres. Hinckley is downplaying Joseph Smith's statements in the King Follett Discourse?
- Question: Why didn't Gordon B. Hinckley say more about the King Follett Discourse in the TIME Magazine interview?
Do Latter-day Saints actually believe in a practice called "Celestial sex"?
Summary: Mormonism and the nature of God/"Celestial sex"
Jump to details:
- Question: Do Latter-day Saints believe in a practice called "celestial sex," and that this is the manner in which "spirit children" are formed?
- Question: What have Latter-day Saint leaders actually said about the method of procreation in the afterlife?
- Question: Did Bruce R. McConkie claim that our heavenly parents created our spirits "through some kind of sexual union"?
Dallin H. Oaks on God
Summary: Author Richard Abanes in his critical book One Nation Under Gods claims that Dallin Oaks told Mormons in 1995 "that so-called Christianity sees God as an entirely different kind of being." He cites Dallin H. Oaks, "Apostasy and Restoration ," Ensign, May 1995, 84. However, Elder Oaks made no such claim.Criticisms regarding the character of God
Jump to details:
- Elder Jeffery R. Holland: "it is a characteristic of our age that if people want any gods at all, they want them to be gods who do not demand much"
- Question: Why would God send poisonous serpents to kill the Children of Israel?
- Question: Do Latter-day Saints believe in a "part-time racist" and "psychopathic schizophrenic" god?
- Question: Does the Book of Mormon refute Joseph Smith on the nature of God?
- Question: Did Elder Dallin Oaks say that "so-called Christianity sees God as an entirely different kind of being"?
Mormonism and the belief in the corporeality of God
Summary: Some Christians object to the Mormon belief that God has a physical body and human form by quoting scripture which says that "God is not a man" (e.g. Numbers 23:19, 1 Samuel 15:29, Hosea 11:9). Some have also asked how God can be material and do things like float and move through walls.
Jump to details:
- Question: Why do the Latter-day Saints believe God has a body?
- Question: What are the common objections to a belief in God's corporeality?
- Question: Does the doctrine that God has a physical body contradict the Bible?
- Question: If only God the Father had a physical body at the time Adam was created, why did He say 'Let us make man in OUR image'?
- Question: Since Mormons believe that God possesses a physical body, does that mean that He cannot be omnipresent?
- Question: Is the doctrine that God the Father and Jesus Christ have physical bodies not Biblical?
- Non-LDS Christian view of Joseph Smith's theology of divine embodiment
- Non-LDS Christian Stephen H. Webb: The "sameness of Jesus" and humanity
- Non-LDS Christian Stephen H. Webb: Mormonism an exciting mirror for other Christians
- Mormonism does not use the Nicene Creed, and invokes earlier Christian ideas that were overshadowed by Plato
- Mormons have "picked up" discarded beliefs of early Christians
- Non-LDS Christian Stephen H. Webb: Revelation versus "historical guesswork" about Jesus
- Mormons are not Arians
- "Smith would have held his own in debating with" Neo-Platonists, Gnostics, and early Christian theologians
- LDS doctrine rejects Neo-Plantonic accretions, but this does not make them automatically false
- Augustine's views about matter are perhaps less coherent than Joseph Smith's
- Non-LDS Christian Stephen H. Webb: Creedal Christians can learn from LDS views about Jesus Christ and creation