The Mormon Doctrine of EternalProgression

First, God himself, who sits enthroned in yonderheavens, is a man like unto one of yourselves, that is the great secret. . . .I am going to tell you how God came to be God. We have imagined that God wasGod from all eternity. . . God himself; the Father of us all dwelt on an earththe same as Jesus Christ himself did, . . . You have got to learn how to beGods yourselves; to be kings and priests to God, the same as all Gods havedone; by going from a small degree to another, from grace to grace, fromexaltation to exaltation, . . . Joseph Smith, Times and Seasons, Vol. 5, pp. 613-614

Mormonism claims that all nature, both on earth andin heaven, operates on a plan of advancement; that the very Eternal Father is aprogressive being; that his perfection, while so complete as to beincomprehensible by man, possesses this essential quality of true perfection– the capacity of eternal increase. That therefore, in the far future,beyond the horizon of eternities perchance, man may attain the status of a God.Yet this does not mean that he shall be the equal of the Deity we worship, norshall he ever overtake those intelligences that are already beyond him inadvancement; for to assert such would be to argue that there is no progressionbeyond a certain stage of attainment, and that advancement is characteristic oflow organization and inferior purpose alone. We believe that there is more thanthe sounding of brass or the tinkling of wordy cymbals in the fervent admonitionof Christ to his followers – ‘Be ye perfect even as your heavenly Fatherwhich is in Heaven is perfect’ James Talmadge, Articlesof Faith

The principle of eternal progression cannot beprecisely defined or comprehended, yet it is fundamental to the LDS worldview.Lisa Ramsey Adams.

This gradually unfolding course of advancement andexperience -- a course that began in a past eternity and will continue in agesfuture -- is frequently referred to as a course of eternal progression. ElderBruce R. McConkie.

Lorenzo Snow, who was President of the MormonChurch, wrote the following in a poem entitled "Man's Destiny":

Still,tis no phantom that we trace

Man'sultimatum in life's race;

Thisroyal path has long been trod

Byrighteous men, each now a God:

As Abra'mIsaac, Jacob, too,

Firstbabes, then men--to gods they grew.

As mannow is, our God once was;

As nowGod is, so man may be, --

Whichdoth unfold Man's destiny. . . ."

(The Gospel Through The Ages,by Milton R. Hunter, 1958, p. 113)

WhereDoes This Doctrine Come From?

The logicpursued by the Mormons I have spoken to seems to be based on the idea thatchange and progression are natural principles, therefore they apply to God asthey do to the rest of creation. The idea that God’s invisible qualities arevisible in creation is supported in Romans 1:20 and Mormons interpret thefather-son relationship between the Heavenly Father and Jesus as pointing toother father-son relationships before and after this world. Mormonism assertsthat because we are the children of God, it is our destiny to progress in thislife and the next in order to attain the perfection that God himself presentlyenjoys.

Asregards the progress of the Saints and their attaining perfection, there aretwo main NT references;

1. Matt: 5:48 (as quoted by Talmadge) Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. In context, it is clear that Jesus is delivering a damning criticism of the Pharisees because they conveniently limited God’s directive; the Pharisees were teaching “love your neighbour but hate your enemy”. The original command in Lev 19:18 does not make this distinction; “You shall love your fellow man as yourself. I am the LORD” (Prof Robert Alter’s Translation of the Five Books of Moses). Jesus is not preaching ontological perfection (as Talmadge asserts), but that our love should be as perfect as God’s, which extends even to his enemies.

2. Heb 10:14 states that the one sacrifice of Christ has made perfect forever those who are being made holy. In context, the writer is contrasting the old system, which can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship (Heb 10:1). The use of the past tense is crucial in this verse. It says the saints have been already made perfect, but nowhere in the NT do we find sinless saints, not even Paul and John (by their own confession). The perfection mentioned in Hebrews, therefore, cannot be an ontological perfection. The verse, however, makes sense when we understand it to mean being made perfectly acceptable to God, or being made ‘whole’ in our union with Christ. The saints are perfectly acceptable to God not by their own merit, but by the merits of Christ in whom they enter the Holy of Holies. The perfection of the saints is in the past tense because it was achieved in the past, at the cross of Christ.

There isno support in the Canonical Bible for the notion that human beings can become,in their very nature, as God is now.

TheologicalImplications – the Orthodox View

Theorthodox view is that God created the cosmos, and it exists within him. John1:3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made thathas been made. Col1:16 For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth,visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; allthings have been created through him and for him. This is ex nihilo creation, which Mormonismexplicitly rejects.

Theorthodox view states that there can only be one God, because there can only beone ultimate origin of everything. God is the unchanging datum, from whom achanging universe is created. He is answerable to no-one, and owes his being tono-one. Only such a God could say, as Jehovah said to Moses, I will be whatI will be (Ex3:14). Only such a God could claim to be the alpha and omega (Rev1:8 and 22:13)within which all time and space is bracketed. Being subject to no higherauthority, God is truly a law unto himself, but he will not act in a way thatdenies his own nature.

TheologicalImplications – the Mormon View

In polarcontrast, the Mormon view is that God emerged from the cosmos, and lives as aninhabitant of it, subject to principles and laws that were not of his ownmaking. Further, there is not one God, but an infinite number, all of whom areprogressing in experience, knowledge and intelligence, though we need onlyconcern ourselves with the God who rules the universe that we inhabit (which ishenotheism).

Weaccept the fact that God is the Supreme Intelligent Being in the universe. Hehas the greatest knowledge, the most perfect will, and the most infinite powerof any person within the realm of our understanding. . . . 
Yet, if weaccept the great law of eternal progression, we must accept the fact that therewas a time when Deity was much less powerful than He is today. Then how did Hebecome glorified and exalted and attain His present status of Godhood? In thefirst place, aeons ago, God undoubtedly took advantage of every opportunity tolearn the laws of truth and as He became acquainted with each new verity Herighteously obeyed it. From day to day He exerted His will vigorously, and as aresult became thoroughly acquainted with the forces lying about Him. As hegained more knowledge through persistent effort and continuous industry, aswell as through absolute obedience, His understanding of the universal lawscontinued to become more complete. Thus He grew in experience and continued togrow until He attained the status of Godhood. In other words, He became God byabsolute obedience to all the eternal laws of the Gospel--by conforming Hisactions to all truth, and thereby became the author of eternal truth. Therefore,the road that the Eternal Father followed to Godhood was one of living at alltimes a dynamic, industrious, and completely righteous life. There is no otherway to exaltation. MiltonR Hunter.

Godearned the right to become a god by his own self-effort. The path to exaltationis a path of learning, experience, effort and industry (compare Gnosticism, forexample). Mormon teaching differs widely on the role of the cross of theSaviour in this journey of the saints, and it is noticeably absent from Hunter’sdescription of the path to exaltation.

If God(and Jesus) was a man like us, then did he/ they have need of a saviour? Icanvassed my Mormon friends with this question, and the answers I got were;

1. There has been no revelation from [the] prophets on any specificsrelating to these matters (from a Mormon Bishop)

2. Short answer, Yes , asfar as I follow it, they [sic] would have had a saviour (from an active memberof a Mormon church).

3. Our Heavenly Father was born and did live in mortality on another earth.Did He have need of a Saviour? Idon't know the answer to that question. I do know that He is my God, and that He knows and understands me.  He has reached perfection and desiresthe same for His children (from a Mormon Bishop).

The full version of answer 3 differentiates between Godthe Father, who was born on an earth, and Jesus, who was born in a spirit realmbefore coming to this earth.

WhatDoes It Mean To Us?

RalphBowles (Rector of St Stephen’s, Brisbane) once told me that the Trinity is the Gospel. I think there is muchmerit in this view and it aligns closely with the view of the Apostle John, inparticular. John opens his Gospel with the audacious claim that the creator ofthe cosmos became flesh. We can follow John’s train of thought in his Gospels,Letters and Revelation, through Jesus’ submission to death on a cross, to theresurrection, the present age of the Church and the Final Judgement. I thinkthat paramount in John’s mind was the question of why the omnipotent God, whowraps up skies and silences heaven, should purposefully set things up so thathe, himself, would have to die on the cross. The conclusion John reaches, isthat God is love. It is such a perfect love that it would have to give ofitself to thepoint where there was nothing more to give. If God had sent his 2IC, hislieutenant, or even a close relative, he would not be expressing this love, hewould be simply getting his credit card out; and that does not mean much to aGod who could create a thousand ‘sons’ in an instant (“What? Jesus is dead!Never mind, I’ll just make another one”).

Thedoctrine of eternal progression places God within the constraints of animpersonal universe, such that he is not free to submit exclusively to his ownlove for us, nor to his own justice (“I’d like to help, but my hands aretied”). It also flatters with the promise of divinity through a process ofexperience and knowledge (compare the serpent’s appealto Eve). The emphasis on earning our exaltation relegates the cross to amoral example; we salute the crucified Christ as we pass, and we are gratefulto leave our sins there, but the road ahead is one of advancement by a processof obeying the law. Finally, God is not God and eternity is not eternity.

PostScript: Ex Nihilo and Gen 1:1

There isjust enough play in the Hebrew of Gen1:1 to raise some interesting possibilities. Prof. Robert Alter translatesit as When God began to create the heavens and the earth… Also, the name used for God, Elohim, has a plural form and it isproperly used to describe ‘gods’ in some places in the Pentateuch as well as asingular ‘God’ in others.

Was Godup to something before the creation? The Bible does not tell us explicitly, soany answer must be speculative. If we understand the creation of the cosmos toinclude the creation of time itself, then the question of what happened before the beginning of time becomesmeaningless.

Does theplural name of God suggest a Council of gods? Some Mormon apologists argue thatthe idea of such a council is consistent with the ancient religion of Egypt (itis certainly true of Babylonian religion – see the Flood account in theGilgamesh Epic), and it is reflected in some ancient Jewish teachings. Theseapologists may be right, but we must question whom it is that we seek guidancefrom. Are we to take instruction from some ancient pagan religions (even the paganismpractised in ancient Israel) in preference over the Bible?

It mustalso be noted that there is not one sane translation that mentions more thanone God in Gen 1:1. The justification for these ‘one God’ translations is notfound solely in this one verse, but in context with the remaining corpus of thecanonical Bible, which is polemically monotheistic. In other words, if you wantto believe that more than one god was involved in the creation, you couldstretch the opening chapters of Genesis just far enough to fit your theory, butyou would have to ignore everything that follows it in the Canonical Bible.

I am he: before me there was no God formed neithershall there be after me. I, even I, am the Lord; and beside me there is nosaviour. (Isaiah43:10-11, KJV)

Thus saith the LORD the King of Israel, and hisredeemer the LORD of hosts; I am the first, and I am the last; and beside methere is no God…Is there a God beside me? yea, there is no God; I know not any.(Isaiah 44:6 & 8, KJV).

UsefulLinks

Thisone was written by senior Mormons; and this one waswritten by Sandra Tanner, one of the most prominent anti-Mormon apologists.Both sources are quoted above.

MartinJacobs 2006