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| The Nature of God |
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One of the essential and distinguishing characteristics of God is that he is an eternal being: "D&C 20:17 By these things we know that there is a God in heaven, who is infinite and eternal. . ." While Mormonism shares this conception of God with mainstream Christianity, it differs in the concept of the nature of God's eternal existence. Comprehending the true nature of our Eternal God is requisite to understanding the nature of our own existence (not a knew thought, Joseph Smith put it this way: "If men do not comprehend the character of God, they do not comprehend themselves. TPJS p. 343). During one of my college years I was standing outside the door of the Institute Building discussing religion with a friend who had stopped by. As part of the discussion my friend felt it important to stress his atheism. I asked him "What changed your mind?" He didn't understand the question, so I explained. He had been brought up by religious parents, and although not strongly religious, the underlying teaching of the home held to a belief in God. Children develop their earliest understandings from the beliefs of their parents, and he was not an exception. He had once believed in God - simply, as a child does. I was asking him to tell me the nature of the intellectual struggle which resulted in his conscious decision to leave behind the teachings of his childhood. He thought for a moment and said "I can't believe in a God who would allow the Holocaust." It has been my experience with similar situations in the years since, that the answer to the question "What changed your mind?" will most often be answered with a sentence beginning "I can't believe in a God who...." The person will then point out some thorny issue of the relationship of God to man. The reason for the denial of God on these premises is the assumption that there is something in the nature of God that should have prevented the excesses. These people have all struggled with the definition of God as loving and caring when it appears that His loving and caring fade in the reality of the world. Since they cannot reconcile a loving God with the iniquities of His world, they find it simpler to deny God. The state of the world cannot be denied. I tell them that I entirely sympathize, because I cannot believe in the God they describe either. I do believe in God, but my God has other definitions and purposes which allow these thorny issues a theological justification, no matter how emotionally difficult they might be for mortals to experience. The answer is not to deny God, but to better understand God. The answer is not to discard an artificial reality that never did describe God, but to learn of Him as He really is. On August 15, 1844, during a funeral sermon for a man named King Follett, Joseph Smith turned Christian theology inside out with his forceful definition of God. "I will go back to the beginning before the world was, to show what kind of being God is... God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens! That is the great secret." (TPJS p. 345). There have been many revelations from God to man, but not since God's selection of Abraham and patriarch of the Chosen has the relationship between God and man been so profoundly effected. In a single statement, Joseph Smith not only declared God's eternal existence to be one of change rather than immutability, but intimately linked that change to us. The stark implication of this revelation is that there is an important relationship between man and God. God is not an entirely incomprehensible being. In fact, we must be prepared to see a little of God in each of us. While this principle will answer many questions, there is one question which should be answered before proceeding. If God says that He is "eternal" how can we reconcile that statement with Joseph Smith's teaching that God was himself once as we are now? How should we understand scriptural statements of the unchanging nature of God: "D&C 20:17 By these things we know that there is a God in heaven, who is infinite and eternal, from everlasting to everlasting the same unchangeable God, the framer of heaven and earth, and all things which are in them;" In LDS theology it is important to understand that Godhood is a state of being, not a particular being. In the state of Godhood, the essential definition of that state is the constancy and oneness with the Eternal Law, and hence God may rightfully proclaim his changelessness. With respect to Eternal Laws which govern our progression, God wavers not. With respect to his essential nature, God proclaims, as may we all, that we are of eternal stuff (recall the Principle of Eternal Existence). Hence all of these titles are appropriate to God as he is, and do not discount the way in which He became God. We learn a little more about the eternal nature of God in a close examination of the Genesis story of the creation; "God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them" (Genesis 1:27). While many have taken the phrase 'in his own image' to be figurative, it is quite literal. God having once been man creates us in the image of Himself, as He once was! It is interesting to note that the Hebrew term which we translate as image is the same term used to denote replicas. In a very real sense, God replicated himself through us. Part of the replication process involved the physical body in which our spirits are housed. God himself possesses a physical body, although perfected and exalted in form (DC 130:22). We exist in the form we do because it replicates the form and substance of God. The second implication of the Genesis creation statement is contained in the last clause. Moses indicates "..in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them" (Genesis 1:27). If the image is a replica, and the last clause is simply an expansion of the first (which is its literary function), then there must be something about God which provided the model of both the male and female which were replicated. While there is no other scriptural inference to a Mother in Heaven who stands alongside the Father in Heaven, it is clearly part of the unique Mormon theology. When Eliza R. Snow included a reference to a Mother in Heaven in her beautiful poem O My Father (since set to music and a beloved hymn) the phrase was allowed to remain. An early Apostle, Erastus Snow, attempted to clarify the concept. He used the analogy of a pair of scissors, which is clearly made of two parts, but requires both to function. For him, such was God. "In other words, there can be no God except he is composed of the man and woman united, and there is not in all the eternities that exist, nor ever will be, a God in any other way... There never was a God, and there never will be in all eternities, except they are made of these two component parts; a man and a woman; the male and the female" (JD 19:270). For those who disparage that there are so few references to our Mother in Heaven, Elder Snow's description provides the most acceptable answer. She is referred to equally as often as the Father, but only the Father's name is used. It is a very old linguistic convention in many languages that the male reference be used for a situation which contains a male and a female. Ancient Israel was definitely patriarchal, and certainly adhered to that terminology. Accepting Elder Snow's definition, the single term God forcibly includes both the Father and the Mother. It is perhaps only the misunderstandings of the ages that have excluded our Heavenly Mother from an acknowledge place in the title "God". The corporeal nature of God coupled with the Principle of Eternal Law places conceptual bounds on the traditional definitions of God as omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. Least affected of these is God's omniscience. In Acts we find scriptural backing for God's knowledge: "Acts 15:18 Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world." God's knowledge transcends time. We can easily understand how God might know things past, but we are unable to adequately grasp how God can know of things future. Alma reminds us that "Alma 40:8 . . . all is as one day with God, and time only is measured unto men." Regardless of our inability to comprehend the how of it, God's knowledge transcends our time limitations, and God can just as easily show us our future as our past. God's omnipotence is limited by the nature of Eternal Law. As explained when we discussed Eternal Law, God is God because He is complete accord with Eternal Law. To violate those Laws would remove God from his state of perfection and Godhood. That Eternal Law provides bounds for God's actions is clear, that such bound limit God's power would be an unwarranted conclusion, as God's power stems directly from his complete accord with them. As for God's omnipresence, that is bounded by the limitations of his corporeal nature. His physical presence cannot be in two places at the same time any more than any other matter can occupy the same space as other matter. Nevertheless, God's influence, comprehension, and knowledge are sufficient to provide us His benefits at any time, and in any place. As a statement of principle, Mormonism proclaims that God has an Eternal Existence, that He has always been. However, Mormonism simultaneously proclaims that the nature of Eternal Existence is one of change. The Eternal God in that Eternal Existence is a God who has undergone a change. How God moved from one stage of existence to another remains a divine mystery. However, how we move from one stage to another has everything to do with what God is all about. |
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| by Brant Gardner. Copyright 1998 |
God says of himself:
"Moses 7:35 Behold, I am God; Man of Holiness is my name; Man of Counsel is my name; and Endless and Eternal
is my name, also." Of course the naming of names here indicates much more that just the verbal identifier
for God. By naming his names, God is also (in this case) naming attributes which are his. The name isn't merely
associated with God, but in a sense is God. Man of Holiness describes His nature, Man of Counsel describes
is relationship to us, and Endless and Eternal describe an essential reality of God. God has no beginning, He has
no end.
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