From: Troy Waller <>
Subject: Mormonism 1.2
Date: Mon, 5 May 1997

Continued from 1.1

An Issue That ‘Really Matters’-One’s View Of Christ

After attempting to answer many charges and alleged misrepresentations, Robinson thinks he gets down to the core issue in his ‘Conclusions’ (111-14): ‘Surely by now it will have dawned on the discerning reader that of all the various arguments against Latter-day Saints being considered Christians, not one-not a single one-claims that Latter-day Saints don’t acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord. Consider the enormous implications of this fact. The only issue that really matters is the only issue that is carefully avoided!’ (111)

The error in this sweeping statement becomes evident upon examining what Mormons mean when they say ‘Jesus is Lord.’ In 1966 my chapter on ‘The Bible, the Christian and Latter-day Saints’ asked: ‘Do you believe that Jesus is the Christ (the anointed Messiah) who was God (John 1:1) and became flesh (1:14)?'[2] All of these beliefs are entailed in the biblical affirmation that Jesus is Lord. Mormons holding official church doctrine do not exclaim with Thomas, ‘My Lord and my God’ (John 20:28).

For Robinson, the fact that Mormons have an exalted view of Christ is sufficient for classifying them as Christians:

In fact, to use the terminology of biblical scholars, the Latter-day Saints have a very high Christology. That is, for the Latter-day Saints Jesus is not merely a good man, a teacher, or even a prophet; he is not merely a human being; he is not the son of Joseph and Mary who later became God’s Son. In common with other Bible-oriented Christians, the Latter-day Saints believe that Jesus is the pre-existent Word of the Father who became the literal, physical, genetic Son of God. As the pre-existent Word he was the agent of the Father in the creation of all things. As the glorified Son he is the agent of the Father in the salvation of all humanity. We believe he was conceived of a virgin by the power of the Holy Ghost. We believe he led a sinless life, that he was morally and ethically perfect, that he healed the sick and raised the dead, that he walked on the water and multiplied the loaves and the fishes. We believe he set a perfect example for human beings to imitate and that humans have an obligation to follow his example in all things. Most important of all, we believe that he suffered and died on the cross as a volunteer sacrifice for humanity in order to bring about an atonement through the shedding of his blood. We believe that he was physically resurrected and that he ascended into the heavens, from which he will come at the end of this world to establish his kingdom upon the earth and eventually to judge both the living and the dead (113).

This ‘high Christology’ may be impressive, but it is more like that of the ancient Arians who believed there was a time when the Word was not (a view similar to that of contemporary Jehovah’s Witnesses), than the view espoused by historic Christianity. Robinson’s Jesus remains a creature with a beginning in time and not the Creator who is worthy of worship as God. Jesus’ oneness with God the Father and His distinctness from the Father are best accounted for by the Trinitarian teaching of oneness in essence and distinctness in persons. It is true, as Robinson points out, that affirmations of Jesus’ oneness in purpose with God (as opposed to oneness in nature with God) account for some passages on the functional unity of Father and Son (e.g., John 17:11). But this is not the case with other passages, such as John 1:1: ‘The Word was with God and the Word was God.’ Only if Jesus was of the same nature and being as God could the same divine attributes apply. Jesus said, ‘No one can snatch them out of my hand’ (John 10:27), and ‘No one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand’ (v. 30). When Jesus explains that ‘I and the Father are one’ in this context, He teaches more than mere agreement of purpose; He makes clear their oneness in sovereign power. The later creeds did not ‘invent’ the concepts of Christ’s divine and human natures, as Robinson argues (86); they found the Bible teaching His human and divine characteristics and integrated that teaching coherently.

If the Christ of a Mormon is not the one true God (John 17:3) who is eternal (John 1:1; Heb. 1:8-12; 5:6; 13:8), the object of worship is a creature and worship itself becomes idolatry. If the Christ of a Mormon is a spirit-child who has been procreated- like countless other spirit children by the flesh-and-bone Father and one of his wives-then he is not uniquely of the same nature as the Father, as the Bible and the historic church teach. If the LDS Christ is our finite brother, not different in kind from us, he is therefore not uniquely Immanuel-‘God with us’ (Matt. 1:23). The Christ of the Bible is the unique God-man-incarnate, crucified, and risen once-for-all. Only if He was infinite God in human flesh could His blood have infinite value for the justification of all the billions of people who have ever sinned.

Is A ‘High’ Christology Sufficient?

The first Christians believed that Jesus was Lord and Christ (Acts 2:36). They also believed in one God, and Jesus was included in the Godhead. A ‘high Christology’ is not necessarily enough to fit the evidence that He was far more than the first or highest being in creation; He is the God-man.

Robinson claims that the Nicene Creed ‘not only differs from, but adds new concepts to, the biblical view’ (73). He admits that the Bible teaches oneness and threeness, but maintains that ‘the scriptures themselves do not offer any explanation of how the threeness and the oneness are related’ (72).

Here Robinson fails to appreciate the careful reasoning behind the creed. Certainly the Scriptures do not explain how God can be three persons in one being, but they do lead us to the conclusion that He is . Both the Old and New Testaments deny polytheism (the belief in many gods) and teach that there is one God. Thus the Bible’s teaching forbids a view of the threeness that leads to more than one God. However, a word study of ‘one ‘ in Scripture shows that in any one family, nation, or church, we may expect a plurality of persons. Husband and wife are ‘one’ flesh; Israel is ‘one ‘ nation with many people; the church is ‘one’ body with many personal members. The Bible’s teaching on God’s oneness excludes polytheism but includes the possibility of diversity in unity. The Bible also makes clear that within the unity of the Godhead are the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It further teaches that each of the three is God and each thinks, feels, wills, and relates in personal ways.[3]

Three types of passages need to be accounted for in one’s Christology. (1) Some passages speak of the limitations Christ assumed when He took on a human nature in order to purchase man’s redemption. From this human perspective Christ could say, ‘the Father is greater than I’ (John 14:28). (2) Some passages refer to His eternal personal distinctness from the Father as Son (John 3:16), Word (John 1:1), radiance (Heb. 1:3), and so forth. (3) Some passages speak of His essential oneness with the Father in being and attributes (John 10:30). The conclusion that the three persons are one in both purpose and in essence best accounts for the Bible’s teaching that there is one divine Being and that the fellowshiping Father, Son, and Spirit subsist as distinguishable personal consciousnesses within that oneness.

A Trinitarian statement such as we have in the Nicene Creed on oneness of being and threeness of co-equal persons is not something foreign to Scripture, but derived from it. The Trinitarian doctrine most coherently integrates the varied lines of teaching about God’s oneness and threeness in Scripture. We ask Mormons to believe the doctrine on scriptural authority alone. As B. B. Warfield said, ‘The formulation of the doctrine, although not made in Scripture, is not opposed to Scripture. When we assemble the…[separate parts of Scripture] into their organic unity, we are not passing from Scripture, but entering more thoroughly into the meaning of Scripture.'[4] These ‘separate parts’ of Scripture include the New Testament teaching that (1) there is but one God; (2) the personality of Jesus Christ is God manifested in the flesh at Bethlehem, and the personality of the Holy Spirit is God manifested at Pentecost. ‘What we mean by the doctrine of the Trinity is nothing but the formulation in exact language of the conception of God presupposed in the religion of the incarnate Son and outpoured Spirit.’

The doctrine that Jesus Christ is one person with two natures one truly divine and the other truly human-is a more coherent account of the biblical data than a Mormon formulation in which he is not essentially God. Similarly, the doctrine that God is one in essence and subsists in three persons-Father, Son, and Holy Spirit-is more coherent with the teaching on the oneness and threeness of God than a committee of two separate flesh-and-bone gods. (Although Mormons argue that to be persons the first two needed flesh-and-bone bodies, the third ‘personage’ in this triumvirate, the Holy Ghost, is not flesh and bone.)

New concepts are added to Scripture, not by the creeds of Nicea and Chalcedon, but by Joseph Smith’s doctrine of a flesh-and-bone God (see, for example, Doctrine and Covenants 130:22). Robinson’s uncritical acceptance of Joseph Smith’s interpretation of an alleged vision makes it impossible for him to accept the Trinitarian teaching of the Bible. Is one young man’s interpretation of a poorly substantiated vision a reliable base on which to challenge the Bible’s consistent refutation of polytheism and support of one God who is spirit? If God’s eternal being includes a flesh-and-bone body, Solomon could not have said, ‘The heaven, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built!’ (1 Kings 8:27). The eternal Word added a human nature (made up of a human body and spirit) for purposes of incarnation and redemption in space and time; but remained truly divine. The body is the material aspect of His human nature, the divine nature forever remains spirit. So long as Mormons contradict Scripture by affirming more than one God they are not worshiping the one God whom Christians worship and serve.

It is not anti-Mormon argumentation that excludes the LDS from the Christian faith, but their own disbelief of the biblical teaching about Jesus. The Scriptures grant the right to be called ‘Christian’ to all who receive Jesus (John 1:12) as the eternal (not just pre-existent) Word who was continuously and personally with the one true God (v. 1) and was the one true God (v. 1) who became flesh (v. 14).

Do Christians Affirm Deification?

Generally speaking, Robinson accurately says, ‘No two denominations, and few individual Christians agree on every detail of Christian doctrine’ (57). Given the freedom people have in Christ, diversity of beliefs often appears in details. Robinson correctly reports that Christians ‘do not agree among themselves upon exactly what the standard is’ (58) — that is, there is no single, complete standard of Christian doctrine for all Christian denominations. Admittedly, ‘the doctrine of Christians is not always true ‘ (59). Christians affirm inerrancy only of Scripture.

In chapters 6 and 8, Robinson would appear to be arguing that since Christians can believe in doctrines that are neither biblical nor true, Mormons can be Christians! But it is not believing false, unbiblical doctrines that gives a person the right to be called a redeemed child of God.

Whether true or false, Robinson says, Christians have believed in self-deification. So Mormons should not be excluded from Christianity because of this doctrine. Robinson writes: Early Christian saints and theologians, later Greek Orthodoxy, modern Protestant evangelists, and even C. S. Lewis have all professed their belief in a doctrine of deification. The scriptures themselves talk of many ‘gods’ and use the term god in a limited sense for beings other than the Father, the Son, or the Holy Ghost . . . . If scripture can use the term gods for non-ultimate beings; if the early Church could, if Christ himself could, then Latter-day Saints cannot conceivably be accused of being outside the Christian tradition for using the same term in the same way (70).

For Robinson’s argument to hold, Mormons must use the term ‘gods’ in the same way as the Christians mentioned. But this is not the case. Robinson states the assumption behind the Mormon concept: ‘It is indisputable that Latter-day Saints believe….the famous couplet of Lorenzo Snow, fifth President of the LDS church, [which] states: 91As man now is, God once was; As God now is, man may be” (60).

Mormon apostle and theologian Bruce R. McConkie explains the frame of reference for this affirmation-the Mormon doctrine of eternal progression:

In the full sense, eternal progression is enjoyed only by those who receive exaltation. Exalted persons gain the fulness of the Father; they have all power, all knowledge, and all wisdom; they gain a fulness of truth, becoming one with the Father. . . . Those who gain exaltation, having thus enjoyed the fulness of eternal progression, become like God.[5]

Both Mormon and Christian writers seem sometimes to confuse being like God in some respects with becoming god. Christians may compare a person with God in holiness, mercy, or love, but they should never affirm that a person is God, or even a god. If Mormons were using the word ‘gods’ to mean beings with power over others in a nonultimate sense, as of Satan, the god of this world (2 Cor. 4:4), or of judges, as Jesus (John 10:34) and the Psalmist did (Ps. 82:6), there would be little difficulty. But the couplet of President Snow and the LDS doctrine of eternal progression have God evolving in the past as we are now. This is different than the Bible’s references to nonultimate gods.

Nor is anything comparable to the Mormon doctrine of eternal progression found in the church fathers. A statement from Irenaeus is typical-it may sound like it supports the Mormon view on the surface, but in reality it does not: ‘If the Word became a man, it was so men may become gods.’ In context, Irenaeus (like other church fathers) meant that regenerate sinners can become like God in some respects. We can become holy and loving as God is holy and loving. Irenaeus did not affirm that we can become gods through an eternal progression or evolution. He did not affirm that God was once as we are now. Athanasius wrote, ‘He, indeed, assumed humanity that we might become God. ‘ The Mormon view makes Christ a man who became divine;

Athanasius teaches that Christ was God who became man once-for-all. ‘For this reason, therefore, He assumed a body capable of death, in order that it, though belonging to The Word Who is above all, might become in dying a sufficient exchange for all’ (emphasis added).[6] For Athanasius all else is temporary, but ‘He Who remains is God and very Son of God, the sole-begotten Word.'[7] We must conclude that the Western church fathers are misunderstood if they are alleged to teach an eternal progression to literal godhood.

If Mormons want to teach early Christian doctrine they will follow Augustine in making a radical distinction between the Creator and the creation. They will affirm with Paul in Romans 1:25 that worship and service of the creature is sin. In the Eastern Orthodox Church a greater emphasis is placed on deification, but it remains distinct from the Mormon doctrine. The Eastern Orthodox emphasize renewal in the image and likeness of God in sharing His communicable attributes such as knowledge (Col. 3:10), righteousness, and true holiness (Eph. 4:24). But an Orthodox writer explains:

‘This does not mean that human beings are able to become God in his essence. But it does mean that they can become gods’ by grace even as they remain creatures of a human nature.'[8]

Thus, Eastern writers deny that humans can become equal with God as He is now. And there is no suggestion that God was ever as we are. There is a difference between being like God in some respects (communicable attributes) and being God by nature. 20 The Westminster Dictionary of Christianity says that deification is an Eastern Orthodox doctrine that we become like God by participation in divine virtues such as mercy and love or by sharing in divine energies. But we do not participate in God’s very essence, which remains totally mysterious and inaccessible. Mormons who claim that we become gods in essence find no support for this in the Eastern Orthodox doctrine of deification.

Robinson also claims that televangelists Paul Crouch, Robert Tilton, and Kenneth Copeland affirm deification. While it is true that these Word-Faith proponents speak of believers being ‘in the God class,’ they do not teach that ‘as man now is, God once was.’ In any case, Robinson does not strengthen his case by citing teachers who themselves are considered aberrant or heretical by many Christians.

Did C. S. Lewis support an LDS concept of deification? In The Weight of Glory, the imaginative writer uses figurative language to express the radical change in believers from the dullest and most uninteresting persons in this life to ‘gods’ and ‘goddesses’ in glory.[9] He must be understood metaphorically in view of his general defense of theism. Similarly, when in Mere Christianity he says we turn permanently into new little Christs sharing God’s power, joy, knowledge, and eternity,[10] he is speaking in terms of our likeness to God being renewed. And in The Screwtape Letters his claim that God intends to fill heaven with ‘little replicas of himself'[11] refers to replicas in certain qualities, not to becoming literal gods. When writing with less literary license Lewis refers to ‘the immeasurable difference not only between what He [God] is and what all other things are but between the very mode of His existence and theirs.'[12]

The ‘eternal progression’ doctrine of Snow and his fellow Mormon prophets is part and parcel of the evolutionary view of human stages and opportunities in eternal life-from pre-existence through the spirit world, mortal life on earth, and into the heavenly telestial, terrestrial, and celestial kingdoms. At its highest level, the latter involves godhood for those loyal to the church in this life. None of the listed sources in their proper contexts support the doctrine as Mormons hold it. Hence, these sources are not examples of people called ‘Christian’ who affirm self-deification in the Mormon sense.

Continued in 1.3

Troy Waller
PO Box 1091 Box Hill 3128 Australia
+61-3-9898-5672


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