From: slhw4@cc.usu.edu (Jason Hunsaker)
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: Mormon Claims Answered 8
Date: 26 Sep 92 15:09:45 MDT
Organization: Utah State University

In article <a9rd025I23Ra01@JUTS.ccc.amdahl.com>, 
agr00@ccc.amdahl.com (Anthony G Rose) writes:
[...]
>>> (4) Mormonism teachs that God was once a man and that we can become God.
>>
>> That God was once a man, is speculation, not doctrine.

I'll withdraw this statement, and add William Hamblin's.

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In article <92267.130318HISWJH@BYUVM.BITNET>
<HISWJH@BYUVM.BITNET> writes:
[...]
I responded to this just a few days ago.  I feel like I'm trapped
in a grade-B horror movie, "Night of the Undead Anti-Mormons,"
with hordes of anti-Mormon zombies attacking us; we chop off
their arms and legs, but still they keep coming, mindlessly
repeating over and over their same worn out arguments.

[...]
(4) Mormonism teachs [sic] that God was once a man and that
we can become Gods

Once again, I thought I just responded to this a few days ago.
Do the anti-Mormons ever read any response the LDS make?
Now it is true that Mormons believe that humans, through the
atonement of Christ, can progress to become like God, and
therefore could someday be called gods.  But this is nothing
other than good Biblical doctrine.

    Christ explicitly commands us, "Therefore, be perfect as
your Heavenly Father is perfect." (Mt. 5:48)  In other words,
Christ is telling us to be like God.  "I [Jesus] have given the
glory which you [the Father] gave me to them [the Apostles], so
that they may be one just and we are one.  I in them, and you in
me, so that they may be made perfect in one." (John 17:22-23)
Here Christ prays that the apostles might become one with him
just as he is one with the Father.  If Christ's unity with the
Father is in part that Christ is God just as the Father is God,
then is not Christ praying that the Apostles might also become
one with God, or become godlike?  This is exactly what
Mormons preach.  Paul tells us that "we are the children of God.
And if we are children, we are also heirs; heirs of God and
joint heirs of Christ; for we suffer with him that we might be
glorified with him." (Rom. 8:16-17)  "You are no longer a slave,
but a son; and if a son, then an heir through God." (Gal. 4:7)
Being a joint heir with Christ is not simply going to heaven.
"We know that when he [Christ] appears we will be exactly the
same as (Greek: homoio) him" (1 Jn. 3:2).  Note that the Greek
word homoios is likewise used in the Nicaean creed to describe
Christ being of exactly the same substance as the Father.  If
we are to become exactly like Christ, and Christ is exactly like
the Father, then we have become like God. (cf. 1 Cor. 15:49).
Paul elsewhere taught that we are becoming godlike through
Christ.  "But we all ... are being transformed into the same
image [as Christ] from glory to glory" (2 Cor. 3:18).  Peter tells
us that that we "might become sharers in the divine nature" (2
Pet. 1:4)  Christ himself approvingly quotes Ps. 82, telling us
that "you are gods [theoi este]; if he [God] called gods those to
whom the word of God was given, and the scripture cannot be
broken." (John 10:34-5).  Psalm 82, quoted by Christ, is very
interesting in this regard.  "God rules in the divine assembly,
he gives judgement in the midst of the gods [Hebrew: elohim]"
(vs. 1).  Who are these other gods with God?  The pagan
deities?  Rather, they are the children of God; "I [God] said, All
of you are gods (elohim) and the children of the Most High." (vs.
6)  Here being a child of God -- which all Christians can
become through Christ, (John 1:10, "he [Christ] gave the
authority to become children of God") -- is precisely equated
with being a god!  How can the anti-Mormons claim that this
LDS doctrine is non-Biblical?  Paul asks, "Do you not know that
we will judge angels?" (1 Cor. 6:3), again implying that the
righteous shall be given the godlike power to judge in the
hereafter. The culmination of all of this is that the faithful
will be enthroned in the heavens with God and Christ.  "To him
who overcomes I [Christ] will let him sit with me on my
throne, just as I overcame and sat with my Father on His
throne." (Rev. 3:21)  In other words, we will one day sit on the
throne of God.  Sitting on the throne of God is essentially a
metaphor for becoming a god.  Many Evangelical Christians may
choose to ignore the obvious implications of these passages,
but they can not claim that the LDS ideas are unbiblical.

   Of course, the Mormons are not just inventing all of this.
This was standard orthodox Christian doctrine in the first
centuries of Christianity.  Here is just a sampling of numerous
early Christian statements on the subject.  "If the Word
became a man, it was so that men might become gods." (Saint
Irenaeus, Against Heresies, bk. 5, preface).  "The Word of God
became a man so that you might learn from a man how to
become a god." (Saint Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the
Greeks, 1), and by "knowing God [man] will become like god"
(Clement, Instructor, 3.1).  Saint Athanasius, for whom the
Athanasian Creed was named, and defender of the Nicaean
Creed against the Arians, stated "The Word was made flesh in
order that we might be enabled to be made gods" and "[Christ]
became man that we might be made divine." (Saint Athanasius,
Against the Arians, 1:39; On the Incarnation, 54)  Saint
Augustine believed that "He [God] himself that justifies also
deifies ... If then we have been made sons of God, we have also
been made gods." (Augustine, On the Psalms, 50.2).  Examples
could be further multiplied, but it becomes clear that the early
Christians understood than mankind, through Christ, can
become gods.  Furthermore, C. S. Lewis believed in a type of
deification of mankind.  "It is a serious thing to live in a
society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the
dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one
day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be
strongly tempted to worship."  (see Lewis The Weight of Glory,
New York, 1980, p. 18; see also similar ideas expressed in
WorldUs Last Night  9 (1965): 14-15; Mere Christianity (1960):
38-40, 153-4, 174-5, 187)

   Now some anti-Mormons may not like the idea of human
deification.  That is their privilege.  They may interpret the
Bible any way they please and ignore the historical reality that
many non-Mormon Christians believed in the possibility of
human deification.  But it is grossly inaccurate to say that
those Mormons who believe in the doctrine are not worshipping
the God of the Bible, but are Satan worshippers.  The Bible
contains the doctrine, early Christians believed it, as do some
modern Christians like C. S. Lewis.  So why, when the Mormons
believe it, are we suddenly Satanic and unbiblical?  Those
wishing to read more detailed discussion of these issues
should see Stephen Robinson, Are Mormons Christian?,
(Bookcraft, 1991), pp. 60-69.

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Jason Hunsaker  -|-  Logan, Utah  -|-  Internet: slhw4@cc.usu.edu