View source for Mormonism and the nature of God/Deification of man

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|L=Mormonism and the nature of God/Deification of man
|H=Mormon belief in the deification of Man
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|L1=Gospel Topics: "Latter-day Saints see all people as children of God in a full and complete sense"
|L2=Question: Do Latter-day Saints believe that they will one day 'supplant' God?
|L3=Question: What were the views of early Christians on the deification of man?
|L4=Question: Was the Latter-day Saint concept of deification derived from Greek philosophy?
|L5=Question: What Biblical scriptures discuss the doctrine of the deification of man?
|L6=Question: If a person faithfully practices Mormonism during this life, do they become a god after they die?
|L7=Question: Do Mormon men believe that they will become "gods of their own planets" and rule over others?
|L8=Question: If God was once like us, does that mean that God was once a sinner?
|L9=Question: What do Mormons believe regarding the nature of angels?
|L10=Theosis
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{{:Source:Gospel Topics:Becoming Like God:Latter-day Saints see all people as children of God in a full and complete sense}}
{{:Source:Webb:BYUS:2011:10:Preexistent Jesus and a divinized humanity‎}}
{{:Question: Do Latter-day Saints believe that they will one day 'supplant' God?}}
{{:Source:Webb:BYUS:2011:21:Joseph Smith's theosis does not supplant God or veer into polytheism}}
{{:Question: What were the views of early Christians on the deification of man?}}
{{:Source:Webb:BYUS:2011:15:Christian beliefs do not need to have Neo-Platonic influence to be true‎}}
{{:Source:Webb:BYUS:2011:6:Mormons retrieved early Christian beliefs rejected by creeds}}
{{:Question: Was the Latter-day Saint concept of deification derived from Greek philosophy?}}
{{:Question: What Biblical scriptures discuss the doctrine of the deification of man?}}
{{:Question: If a person faithfully practices Mormonism during this life, do they become a god after they die?}}
{{:Question: Do Mormon men believe that they will become "gods of their own planets" and rule over others?}}
{{:Question: If God was once like us, does that mean that God was once a sinner?}}
{{:Question: What do Mormons believe regarding the nature of angels?}}
{{:Theosis}}

{{Critical sources box:Mormonism and the nature of God/Deification of man/CriticalSources}}


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{{Critical sources box:Mormonism and the nature of God/Deification of man/CriticalSources}}

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	In an early Jewish document (mid. Alpha Beta dir. Akiba, bhm 3.32) the concept of
deification can be found. “the Holy One... Will in the future call all of the pious by their names,
and give them a cup of elixir of life in their hands so that they should live and endure forever.
..and He will also reveal  to all the pious in the world to come the ineffable name with which new
heavens and a new earth can be created, so that all of them should be able to create new
 worlds.” (The Messiah Texts, pg. 251)

The catechism of the Catholic Church, part 1 Profession of Faith reads “The Word became flesh
 to make us "partakers of the divine nature": (2 Peter 1:4) "For this is why the Word became man,
 and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the
 Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God." (St. Irenaeus, Adv.
 haeres. 3, 19, 1: PG 7/1, 939)"For the Son of God became man so that we might become God."
 (St. Athanasius, De inc. 54, 3: PG 25, 192B) "The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make
 us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods." (St.
 Thomas Aquinas, Opusc. 57, 1-4)


	The noted Christian author, C.S. Lewis, also expressed his views on the deification of
man. “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.” (In Cross and Livingstone, Oxford
Dictionary of the Christian Church, pg. 1319)

	Again he states “It is so very difficult to believe that the travail of all creation which God
Himself descended to share, at its most intense, may be necessary in the process of turning finite
creatures (with free wills) into--well, Gods.” (C.S. Lewis’ letter to Mrs. Edward A. Allen, 1 Nov.
1954, in Letters of C.S. Lewis, pg. 440)

	He also writes “the command be ye perfect  is not idealistic gas. Nor is it a command to
do the impossible. He is going to make us into creatures that can obey that command. He said (in
the bible) that we were ‘gods’ and He is going to make good his words. If we let Him-for we can
prevent Him, if we choose-He will make the feeblest and filthiest of us into a god or goddess,
dazzling, radiant, immortal creature, pulsating all through with such energy and joy and wisdom
and love as we cannot now imagine, a bright stainless mirror which reflects back to God
perfectly (though, of course, on a smaller scale) His own boundless power and delight and
goodness. The process will be long and in parts very painful; but that is what we are in for.
Nothing less. He meant what he said” (Trinitarian Controversy, pg. 6, Mere
Christianity, p.174)

	"For now the critical moment has arrived. Century by century God has guided nature up
to the point of producing creatures which can (if they will) be taken right out of nature,
turned into gods." (ibid. p.187)

He says in his book The Grand Miracle that “The people who keep on asking if they
can’t lead a good life without Christ, don’t know what life is about; if they did they would know
that ‘a decent life’ is mere machinery compared with the thing we men are really made for.
Morality is indispensable: but the Diving Life, which gives itself to us and which calls us to be
gods, intends for us something in which morality will be swallowed up. We are to be remade. All
the rabbit in us will be swallowed up-the worried, conscientious, ethical rabbit as well as the
cowardly and sensual rabbit. We shall bleed and squeal as the handfuls of fur come out; and then
surprisingly, we shall find underneath it all a thing we have never yet imagined: a real man, an
ageless god, a son of God, strong, radiant, wise, beautiful, and drenched in joy.” (The Grand
Miracle, by C.S. Lewis pg. 85)

	He goes on to say “Christ has risen, and so we shall rise. St. Peter for a few seconds
walked on the water, and the day will come when there will be a remade universe, infinitely
obedient to the will of glorified and obedient men, when we can do all things, when we shall be
those gods that we are described as being in Scripture.” (The Grand Miracle, C.S. Lewis, pg.
 65)
	"Sometimes, Lord, one is tempted to say that if you wanted us to behave like the lilies of
the field you might have given us an organization more like theirs. But that, I suppose, is
just your...grand enterprise. To make an organism which is also spirit; to make that
terrible oxymoron, a 'spiritual animal.' To take a poor primate, a beast with nerve-endings
all over it, a creature with a stomach that wants to be filled, a breeding animal that wants
to mate, and say, 'Now get on with it, become a god.' (A Grief Observed, p.84-5)

	Even Martin Luther spoke of the "deification of human nature," although in what sense it
 is not clear. (Jack R. Pressau, I'm Saved, You're Saved…Maybe (Atlanta: John Knox, 1977), p.
 57; A. Nygren, Agape and Eros, trans. Philip S. Watson (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press,
 1982), p. 734.)

	The seventeenth-century Anglican thinker Ralph Cudworth remarked, “The gospel is
nothing but God descending into the world in our form and conversing with us in our likeness
that He might allure and draw us up to God and make us partakers of His divine form, Theos
gegonen anthropos (as Athanasius speaks) hina hemas en eauto Theopoiese; ‘God was
 therefore incarnated and made man that He might deify us’’ that is (as St. Peter expresseth it)
 makes us partakers of the divine nature” (cited in Allchin, Participation in God, pg. 14)

	Another non-LDS clergyman named Father Jordan Vajda agrees with this doctrine when
he stated “Members of the LDS Church will discover that there fundamental belief about human
salvation and potential is not unique of a Mormon invention. Latin Catholics and Protestants will
learn of a doctrine that, while relatively foreign to their ears, is nevertheless part of the heritage
of the undivided Catholic Church of the first millenium. Members of Eastern Orthodox and
Eastern Catholic Churches will discover on the American continent an amazing parallel to their
own belief that salvation in Christ involves our becoming ‘partakers of the divine nature’” (as
quoted in FARMS Review of Books, vol. 13, pg. 14)

	Then referring to the anti-Mormon video the godmakers, Father Vajda said: “The
Mormons are truly ‘godmakers’: as the LDS doctrine of exaltation explains, the fullness of
human salvation means ‘becoming a god’. Yet what was meant to be a term of ridicule has
 turned out to be a term of approbation, for the witness of the Greek Fathers of the Church...is
 that they also believed that salvation meant ‘becoming a god’. It seems that if one’s soteriology
 cannot accommodate a doctrine of human divination, then it has at least implicitly, if not
 explicitly, rejected the heritage of the early Christian Church and departed from the faith of first
 millenium Christianity.”(ibid pg.94-95)

	Jaroslav Pelikan notes, "The chief idea of St. Maximus, as of all Eastern theology, [was]
 the idea of deification." (The Spirit of Eastern Christendom, p. 10.)

	John Calvin said “From this follows the other point: since Christ exercises the office of
 Teacher under the Head [the Father], he ascribes to the Father the name of God, not to abolish
 his own deity, but to raise us up to it by degrees” (Institutes I.XIII.24)

	Around 1300 A.D., the Dominican Meister Eckhart preached the doctrine that “the seed
of God is in us. Given an intelligent farmer and a diligent farmhand, it will thrive and grow up to
God whose seed it is, and accordingly, its fruit will be God-nature. Pear seeds grow into pear
trees; nut seeds grow into nut trees, and God-seed into God” (Plancher, A History of Christian
Theology, pg. 169)


Origin (185-254) wrote “everything which, without being, ‘God in Himself’ is deified by
participation in his Godhead, should strictly be called ‘God’, not ‘The God’. The firstborn of all
creation, since He by being with God first gathered Godhood to Himself, is therefore in every
way more honored than others besides himself, who are ‘gods’ of whom God is the god, as it is
said, ‘God the Lord of gods spoke and called the world’. For it was through His ministry that
they became gods, since He drew divinity from God for them to be deified, and of His kindness
generously shared it with them. God, then, is the true God, and those who through Him are
fashioned into gods are copies of the prototype.” (The Early Christian Fathers, pg. 324)
 	
	Lactantius (about 325 A.D.) ,an ancient Christian scholar and apologist, affirms that the
chaste man will become ‘identical in all respects with God’ (The Mystery Religions and
Christianity, S. Angus,  pg. 106-107)

	Tertullian (160-230 A.D.) ,who was a Christian Apologist, and Theologian, wrote: “If,
indeed, you follow those who did not at the time endure the Lord when showing Himself to be
the Son of God, because they would not believe Him to be the Lord, then call to mind along with
them the passage where it is written, "I have said, Ye are gods, and ye are children of the Most
High;" and again, "God standeth in the congregation of gods;" in order that, if the Scripture has
not been afraid to designate as gods human beings, who have become sons of God by faith, you
may be sure that the same Scripture has with greater propriety conferred the name of the Lord.
 on the true and one-only Son of God.” (The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 3, p. 608.)
	He also said "The first-born of all creation, who is the first to be with God . . . is a being
 of more exalted rank than the other gods beside Him, of whom God is the God, as it is written,
 "The God of gods, the Lord, hath spoken and called the earth.' It was by the offices of the first-
born that they became gods, for He drew in generous measure that they should be made gods,
 and He communicated it to them according to His own bounty. . . . Now it is possible that some
 may dislike what we have said representing the Father as the One true God, but admitting other
 beings besides the true God, who have become gods by having a share of God. They may fear
 that the glory of Him who surpasses all creation may be lowered.”

	Clement of Alexandria wrote, "To him who has shall be added;" knowledge to faith, love
 to knowledge, and love to inheritance. And this happens when a man depends on the Lord
 through faith, through knowledge, and through love, and ascends with him to the place where
 God is, the God and guardian of our faith and love, from whom knowledge is delivered to those
 who are fit for this privilege and who are selected because of their desire for fuller preparation
 and training; who are prepared to listen to what is told them, to discipline their lives, to make
 progress by careful observance of the law of righteousness. This knowledge leads them to the
 end, the endless final end; teaching of the life that is to be ours, a life of conformity to God, with
 gods, when we have been freed from all punishment, which we undergo as a result of our
 wrong-doings for our saving discipline. After thus being set free, those who have been perfected
 are given their reward and their honours. They have done with their purification, they have done
 with the rest of their service, though it be a holy service, with the holy; now they become pure in
 heart, and because of their close intimacy with the Lord there awaits them a restoration to
 eternal contemplation; and they have received the title of "gods," since they are destined to be
 enthroned with other "gods" who are ranked next below the Saviour.” (Henry Bettenson, The
 Early Christian Fathers, London: Oxford University Press, 1956, pp. 243-244.)

	St. Cyril of Jerusalem “When thou shalt have heard what is written concerning the
mysteries, then wilt thou understand things which thou knewest not. And think not that thou
receivest a small thing: though a miserable man, thou receivest one of God's titles. Hear St. Paul
saying, God is faithful. Hear another Scripture saying, God is faithful and just. Foreseeing this,
the Psalmist, because men are to receive a title of God, spoke thus in the person of God: "I said,
Ye are Gods, and are all sons of the Most High." But beware lest thou have the title of "faithful,"
but the will of the faithless. Thou hast entered into a contest, toil on through the race: another
such opportunity thou canst not have. Were it thy wedding-day before thee, wouldest thou not
have disregarded all else, and set about the preparation for the feast? And on the eve of
consecrating thy soul to the heavenly Bridegroom, wilt thou not cease from carnal things, that
thou mayest win spiritual?” (St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Prologue to the Catechetical Lectures)-->
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[[de:Mormonismus und die Natur Gottes/Erhöhung des Menschen]]
[[es:El Mormonismo y la naturaleza de Dios/Deificación de los Seres Humanos]]
[[pt:Mormonismo e da natureza de Deus/Deificação do homem]]