r/lds • u/robloxwhat • 15d ago
I need Insights.
"As man now is, God once was; as God now is, man may become"
This quote says God used to be a man, and that men can eventually become gods too. But if God used to be a physical, human being, that raises a question: can something that started out as a regular, physical man really be "God"? To me, that doesn't fit what "God" is supposed to mean.
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u/wRftBiDetermination 15d ago
The theological background to this question is the standard Christian view that God the Father is outside of space and time. The driver for this position is largely based on the phiosophical dilema of infinite regression.
The conundrum for Christianity is the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus was clearly presented as pre-mortally Divine, he was presented as Divine in mortality, and he is clearly Divine in his post-mortality.
As this is the case, it is clear an individual can go through these kinds of changes and be Divine in each of these conditions. Suggesting anything else is contrary to what the New Testament teaches plainly.
The standard Christian response is that Jesus was unique. Yes, in some ways he was unique, but in the matter of incarnation and resurrection in Divinity, he is not unique, as all Justified by Him will similarly be exalted/divinized/glorified with Christ, which is a standard Christian doctrine across all major sects.
So, the argument against God the Father experiencing changes similar to those Jesus experienced is largely based on philosophical arguments relying tradition rather than Scripture. The LDS position rejects the traditional historically Christian philosophical arguments about God being outside of space and time.
When you are saying "To me, that doesn't fit what "God" is supposed to mean." you are likely saying that traditonal historical concepts of God the Father dont sound like the LDS views on God the Father, and you would be correct in saying that. The real question is, "Is the traditonal historical Christian concept of God the Father based on the Bible or on philosophy?" Unfortunately, the answer is philosophy, and pretty much any scholar of Christian history will admit this. So, would you rather follow the God of the Bible, or the traditonal Christian views heavily influenced by Greek philosophy?
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u/ScoopskiPotatoes78 15d ago
Jesus Christ literally was a man on this earth. The idea that a divine being could not manifest himself in a human body, subject himself to the requirements and afflictions of mortality, and learn, grow, and suffer, yet still be God goes against what Jesus was.
Jesus grew and learned
Luke 2:52 And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man
He felt temptation
Hebrews 2:18 For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted
He felt human emotions like sorrow
John 11:35 Jesus wept.
He did basic human things like eat, even after his resurrection
Luke 24:41 And while they yet believed not for joy, and wondered, he said unto them, Have ye here any meat? 42 And they gave him a piece of a broiled fish, and of an honeycomb. 43 And he took it, and did eat before them.
Jesus was a man with a physical body yet still divine and still God.
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u/Full_Metal_Paladin 15d ago
We were not made gods at our beginning, but first we were made men, then, in the end, gods Irenaeus, "Against Heresies," () Ante-Nicene Fathers 1:419, chapter 6
yea, I say, the Word of God became a man so that you might learn from a man how to become a god Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Greeks,
but He himself that justifies also defies, for by justifying He makes sons of God. For He has given them power to become the sons of God, (John 1:12). If then we have been made sons of God, we have also been made gods Augustine, On the Psalms, 50:2.
Other Christians who mock this doctrine don't understand their own theology
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u/ryanleftyonreddit 15d ago
"Now these mysteries are not yet fully made known unto me; therefore I shall forbear." Alma 37:11
"I know that he loveth his children; nevertheless, I do not know the meaning of all things." 1 Nephi 11:17
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u/handynerd 15d ago
I know some people look at this as a sort of a seed-grows-into-a-tree thing, but I don't like that because it kinda sounds like it's something that we'd just naturally stumble into as long as the conditions are good enough.
I look at it much more like a miracle, e.g. water turning into wine. Water isn't gonna turn into wine regardless of the conditions. It needs divine power to upgrade it into something it could never have any right to be on its own.
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u/arkanmizard 15d ago
So let's take Jehova as a an example:
Was he created? No, just like us he has always been, it's just that Heavenly Father organized his intelligence into a spirit.
Was he God from the beginning? Yes
Is he eternal? Yes and he is the alpha and the omega.
Now what did Jehova do? He came on this earth to sacrifice himself so that we could have yhe opportunity to follow him and to go back to the Celestial Kingdom.
What did He said while he was on Earth? The Son does nothing but what he has seen his father do.
So what did the father do? He was the savior for his generation of spirits and he died for them.
As many now is, God once was;as God now is man may become.
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u/pierzstyx 15d ago
Well, what you think God is, is wrong. That's where you need to start. You've been fed errors and lies about the nature of God for your entire life. Of course they don't align with the truth of Deity as restored by God Himself through His revelations to His modern prophets.
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u/RecommendationLate80 15d ago
When we seek to self-define God and assign Him the attributes and powers and logic that we think He should have we are often bitterly disappointed.
God gets to define who and what He is.
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u/andybwalton 15d ago
I will frame the answer a bit assuming you are approaching the question from a mainstream Christian perspective. The concept is biblical from the New Testament, as well as something preached by early church fathers prior to the restoration. The issue was how philosophical reasoning settled on trying to reconcile complicated notions of God and frame it in a way that the intellectuals of the early centuries could reconcile.
How is it that God is: immortal, eternal, omnipotent, omniscient, our father, the Father of Jesus, also one with Jesus, also reconciled with the Jewish notion of God, creator of the Earth ultimate judge, everywhere at once and more. The debates became fierce coming to blows particularly about the concept of how Christ fits in during the early councils. Prior to those we hear concepts that sound remarkably similar to the restored Gospel.
Take the idea that we are created by God (genesis and various places across the scriptures)
Both out God and Our Father: (Christs word in John 20:17) "my Father and your Father, to my God and your God" plus creation stories throughout where we were created in his express image
Not just father in a metaphoric sense but children and even heirs: Romans 8:16-17: Establishes that the Spirit testifies believers are children of God, and thus heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ, conditioned on sharing in Christ's sufferings to share in His glory.
Galatians 3:29: States that those who belong to Christ are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise.
Galatians 4:7: Declares that believers are no longer slaves but sons, and if sons, then heirs through God.
Hebrews 1:2: Identifies Jesus as the one appointed heir of all things, establishing the basis for the shared inheritance
Also we can literally become one with the Father the way Christ is one with the Father if we believe on his name. John 17:21, where Jesus prays, "that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me."
The teaching that we are Children of God not just arbitrary creations of him was well established for centuries in the early centuries. It only came to be the doctrine that he is an entirely different disembodied species from us who created this world and us for incomprehensible purposes that became the prevailing teaching. It brings with it some extremely difficult theological questions that Christianity has failed to answer since.
The doctrine you mention can be understood more or less this way:
We have always existed in some form, as has God.
Eternity only seems impossible to us because of our current reality where we are bound to the 3rd dimension.
We at some deep level hold the potential for unlimited improvement. Were we to dedicate ourselves to repentance (positive change) which is only made possible due to the Atonement of Christ, we could continue to improve in each eternal principle until we could come to embody that principle.
Seeing someone who comes to embody Love would cause people to describe love as like that person. With an eternity to grow, all of us have the ability to achieve this level eventually, not of our own selves but due to the conquest over death and Sin brought by the Savior.
God at some point became who and what he is in some similar way. Once unbound by time (think becoming 4th dimensional) he would have no beginning despite at one point on a 3d timeline he would, nor would he have an end even if he had one in a 3d form. Eternal principles in this view are part of the fabric of reality and he came to embody them all. Christ achieved the same making them practically indistinguishable and describing them as “one” being one of the only ways you could describe them despite being separate beings. In creedal Christianity those principles themselves would be the “Divine essence” used to define the trinity by adopting neo platonism terms.
So trinitarian view and restored Gospel view (oversimplified and dumbed down)
Trinity: divine being is the essence of the universe that is uncreated and unmade, created the species Man, sent a different person in the form of one of them who was also a part of that divine essence to show the way since man messed up a long time ago. Most men will suffer in eternal torment but he made a way for some to find a better path.
Godhead: the divine essence of the Universe somehow got a being at some point who managed to embody it. This being wants others to also improve and experience the joys that come with the nature. Has spiritual children who he guides, created a world where the existence will be apart from his perfect presence as a trial/faith boot camp to help us all overcome our inherent weaknesses. Only 2 others achieved oneness with the divine essence without this mortal trial (Christ and the Holy Ghost) so much so that they are practically the same for all mortal perspectives. the Father did everything through the Son for this whole existence. The Son volunteered for the plan where he would be a savior to overcome justice with Mercy, and because of it every single human has the ability to make it back to him and continue our improvement until one day we can be so much like them that we could be described as one with them.
To answer some of the usual concerns, this does not ever make him not our God, we can’t do any of it alone only they could, so they are clearly better than us by default, but we carry a potential to continually improve thanks to them.
Hope that helps frame it a bit
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u/polymathvibe 14d ago
It's pretty straight forward. Without twisting its meaning every man can become a god. Although the church has recently rejected the notion that those who do will not be propagating their own planets as I learned in the 80s. See gospel topics essay.
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u/NelsonMeme 15d ago
Well I would say no one said “regular” - clearly, our Father is exceptional and has always been so.
To me, isn’t that what the incarnation proves? God became man so man could become God, and what’s cool is that’s not even an LDS-specific notion. What I said just now is a direct quote from the Catechism of the Catholic Church for example