🌩 Theology¶

Estimated time to read: 10 minutes

LDS God¶

Quick note: For clarity's sake, I'm referring to God the Father as Elohim. That ~~name~~ word appears in Hebrew transcripts, and even in the LDS Topical Guide. Its etymology suggests that El may be singular, the suffix -im is plural and masculine. I surmise this is why the Nicaean Counsel took more than five minutes to settle on trinitarianism— the Hebrew transcripts are not monotheistic, as mentions of Elohim literally do not refer to one being, but a plurality of deities.

LDS Theology, for some reason, has settled on the idea that the Hebrew word for "two or more male gods" means the name of one individual. Christian denominations that use English, including LDS, have a grammatical hurdle here: God as a proper noun, the name of a unique individual to be identified, is the same word as "god" as a concept, a noun, a role or title. This wouldn't be too troublesome if we didn't use that same lower-case word "god" to refer to both Jehovah the son, and Elohim the father. Since I'm a monolingual American, I can't really speak to Christian flavors outside of English language & culture.

The plan¶

This is a gross oversimplification of LDS doctrine:

Elohim created all of our spirits, but 1/3 didn't pass quality control and couldn't progress to stage two of creation. Did He do a bad job of instilling morals into us?
This life (stage two) is a test, and Elohim wiped our memories beforehand so we wouldn't remember the correct answers.
Elohim then sent Lucifer and the 1/3 failed spirits down to Earth to confuse us and lead as many astray as possible.
But Elohim really does want us to believe in him, so he withholds all demonstrable evidence and requires that we rely on nebulous warm fuzzy feelings amid logical fallacies and coincidences.

God gives us feelings that must be interpreted as telepathic communications from your divine creator living on an exalted planet tens of thousands of light years away, instead of being interpreted as a known demonstrable chemical processes occurring in your brain (which brain He designed and created.)

God has His only perfect son murdered so He could convince Himself to forgive you for failing His test, for which you were set up to fail. God will then use the blood of the Jesus to save you from His consequences for failing! As long as you symbolically drink the blood and eat the flesh of God's son every week, and covenant to give everything you have, "including our own lives if necessary" to one specific church. You also must learn the right handshakes to enter to go back to live with your loving heavenly father. Hope you’ve been wearing right kind of underwear! If you don't like this plan, spirit prison is waiting for you on the other side.

After everything is said and done, the success rate of Elohim's plan will be significantly below 1%. He's omniscient and omnipotent, and I conclude that He must know how to do a better job, but chooses not to. I am left to assume that God simply doesn't want to do better. Within Mormonism, this is packaged into the pretext that God is our father who loves us, from whom you can expect no mercy if you step out of line.

If it's all true, then Elohim is either the most incompetent god or the most evil god in all of mythology. Either way, he's not worthy of my time or consideration. God requires justice, but can't bring himself to forgive outright. So, he needs a blood offering to be happy with us. Think of that. The God of Christianity requires suffering for sins, and we're made to sin. We're imperfect enough that it's inevitable. God made us this way! He requires blood to be happy with His creations!

Hierarchy¶

Who is God's God? Is there a higher power or authority than Elohim?

The vague workaround I have been presented with during my attendance of Institute classes is "maybe, but don't worry about it." Since any hypothetical authority is beyond the scope of our wimpy, futile understanding, outside the purview of our purpose here on earth, not pertinent to salvation, and so it isn't worth thinking about, so don't think about it.

I will observe one passage in the Book of Mormon that carries some indirect implications about this very topic. What could dethrone God? I suppose any authority comparable to, or greater than God could influence or diminish His divine power.

Alma 42:25 describes that if God didn't properly balance mercy and justice, God wouldn't be God anymore. ... But why? Who enforces this rule? Peer, co-equal gods? This carries some implications about what godhood is. If Elohim doesn't balance it just right, do the God-police come and rescind His license? He is subject to some set of rules that, if broken, affect His divine authority and power. Did He make those rules? Why would breaking one rule make Him "cease to be God"? Is He not eternal and unchanging? It becomes a conundrum at that point—if God were to improperly balance mercy and justice, he would no longer be eternal and unchanging. Is that the key characteristic?

I don't know how precarious of a balance that is, but if God is eternal, then He is eternally at risk of losing His status and position. It'd never not be a possibility. Would God still be God if He were to disregard mercy and focus heavier on justice? We as mortals wouldn't appreciate it much, but I don't know that it would make Him "cease to be God."

Worthy of Respect¶

If, somehow, all of my concerns with the LDS church were resolved, l still could not respect the God of Mormonism. That God gets so incredibly pissy about coffee. If you have a cuppa, you're jeopardizing your eternal standing, family relationships, and potential for fulfillment. Because of coffee. There are a thousand other substances that are so much more harmful, but God wanted to be abundantly clear about coffee. Well, I mean, God didn't actually say anything about coffee, He just said "hot drinks." Thanks to modern revelation through modern prophets, we interpret that phrasing to mean that Dunkin Donuts is a den of sin, influenced by Satan to sabotage your eternal well-being.

God must have felt pretty insistent about this one. This is important. Sure, there are some suspiciously specific things that God's one true church takes "no official stance" on, but dammit, coffee is what people need to know about. This word of wisdom was revealed in Joseph Smith's day, among some other very specific and timely revelations—God gave revelation about selling the copyright to the Book of Mormon, and revelation about the stocks for people buy and fund Joseph Smith’s mansion. But I am expected to believe that this same God, our loving heavenly father, was suspiciously quiet when Joseph was marrying underage girls. Or worse yet, was actively participating by sending an angel with a sword to "encourage" Smith to do it anyway.

Sure, anyone could be coerced into compliance with threats of eternal suffering and damnation over bean water, but it certainly wouldn't be done out of respect. But it's for your own health benefit! After all, God designed our bodies, so He knows what's good for it. God also made coffee appear to be beneficial to modern-day research, just to test your faith, I guess. God gave no clarification on macronutrients, sugar, or what exactly is wrong with those "hot drinks."

After all of that divine revelation on physical health, we find absolute silence about how to sanitize or purify water. We could have really done wonders for God's chosen people, had they been inspired to boil water—just so long as they don't put roasted, ground beans in there! Instead of prolonging the lives of God's chosen people in these last days, we'll instead just command church leadership to take on multiple wives. After all, we today know that God revealing plural marriage was very simple, straightforward, had no mixed messaging, and was not at all controversial.

If you thought that stance on coffee was harsh, wait 'til you hear about what happens to you if you think about touching your ding-dong. God made teenagers into a gross hormonal mess, and they will suffer for eternity if they indulge the basic human instinct that they were quite literally designed (by God) to have.

Representatives¶

I am expected to believe that these prophets speak for God, who decides that children of LGBT couples have to disavow and disown their parents in order to be baptized, but then God changed His mind 2 years later. Normally I'd posit my "what the hell, god?" bit, but no— I do not believe that God was involved with either of those policy changes. That trust is fragile.

God doesn't make mistakes. God doesn't run a pilot program to find out how people will react. If He did, He doesn't know us personally, and couldn't be called omniscient, nor a loving parent. If God is who Mormonism has led me to believe, God does not deserve my worship or respect. He's so petty, malicious even. You could assert that God loves us, to which I would retort that God's conditional love is not as warm as you think it is.

Trinitarianism¶

And we know that if we are faithful in Christ, we shall rid our garments of the blood of all men, and be found spotless before the judgment-seat of Christ, and shall dwell with him eternally in the heavens. And the honor be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, which is one God. Amen.

— The Testimony of Three Witnesses, Book of Mormon introduction pages

Excuse me? The church who proudly distinguishes itself by teaching nontrinitarianism has, in its introductory pages, an explicit testimony of the trinitarian God?

By revelation Joseph Smith came to know that the Father, Son and Holy Ghost constitute the Godhead. From the beginning Joseph Smith taught that the members of the Godhead are one in purpose, one in mind, one in glory, one in attributes and powers, but separate persons.

— What Latter-day Saints Believe About Jesus Christ

Oh. Thanks, that helps.