I am having an argument with a Mormon who claims that the LDS church has never taught this, and those who think so simply "do not understand or interpret the doctrine correctly". I know there are people here much better versed in Mormon doctrine than I am. I've found a few quotes by people such as James E. Talmadge, Milton R. Hunter, and even one from Joseph Smith, which to me clearly illustrate that this was a doctrine that was believed and taught. But I would like to hear what RfM knows about this subject.

I know I was definitely taught that I could become a goddess in the next life, both by my parents and teachers. It is incredibly frustrating to have this woman keep insisting I don't know what I'm talking about, and that I'm interpreting it incorrectly. Please help!

Thanks

Answer for you Anathema

T.P.J.S -Section Six 1843-44, p.346

Here, then, is eternal life--to know the only wise and true God; and you have got to learn how to be Gods yourselves, and to be kings and priests to God, the same as all Gods have done before you, namely, by going from one small degree to another, and from a small capacity to a great one; from grace to grace, from exaltation to exaltation, until you attain to the resurrection of the dead, and are able to dwell in everlasting burnings, and to sit in glory, as do those who sit enthroned in everlasting power.

"""Learn how to be Gods yourselves"""

JB

19 And again, verily I say unto you, if a man marry a wife by my word, which is my law, and by the new and everlasting covenant, ...Ye shall come forth in the first resurrection; ...and shall inherit thrones, kingdoms, principalities, and powers, dominions, ...and they shall pass by the angels, and the gods, which are set there, to their exaltation and glory in all things, as hath been sealed upon their heads, which glory shall be a fulness and a continuation of the seeds forever and ever.

20 Then shall they be gods, because they have no end; therefore shall they be from everlasting to everlasting, because they continue; then shall they be above all, because all things are subject unto them. Then shall they be gods, because they have all power, and the angels are subject unto them.

21 Verily, verily, I say unto you, except ye abide my law ye cannot attain to this glory.

22 For strait is the gate, and narrow the way that leadeth unto the exaltation and continuation of the lives, and few there be that find it, because ye receive me not in the world neither do ye know me. (Doctrine and Covenants 132:19-22)

http://www.utlm.org/onlineresources/mormonshopetobecomegods.htm

Put simply, he is full of it. Tell this guy that knowingly lying about "holy" doctrine will make him a Son of Perdition.

The first time this was taught to a crowd was in the "King Follet" discourse (although JS had been teaching it to a select few for years). Just google "King Follet" and you'll find it.

As mentioned above the teaching is in D&C 132, and all throughout the JoD.

If you do a search on "As man is, God once was; as God is, man may become" on LDS.org, you should be able to find an ensign article by SWK. It has been taught even more recent than that, but SWK taught it multiple times.

Attaining godhood is the ultimate goal for every mormon male:

http://blog.mrm.org/2008/12/progression-to-godhood-mormonisms-god/

http://blog.mrm.org/2011/01/classic-mormonism/

The lesson on exaltation:
http://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=7eab7befabc20110VgnVCM100000176f620a____&vgnextoid=32c41b08f338c010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD

JS:
"God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted Man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens. That is the great secret... It is the first principle of the Gospel to know for a certainty the character of God and to know...that he was once a man like us. Here, then, is eternal life--to know that only wise and true God, and you have got to learn how to become Gods yourselves, and to be kings and priests to God, the same as all Gods have done before you. .. God himself, the father of us all dwelt on an earth the same as Jesus Christ."
- The Prophet Joseph Smith, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 342-345, also quoted heavily by the church, see Gospel Principles, Chapter 47.

More D&C
D&C 132:37
"Abraham received concubines, and they bore him children; and it was accounted unto him for righteousness, because they were given unto him, and he abode in my law; as Isaac also and Jacob did none other things than that which they were commanded; and because they did none other things than that which they were commanded, they have entered into their exaltation, according to the promises, and sit upon thrones, and are not angels but are gods."



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/10/2011 08:15PM by Heresy.

What kind of crack is your friend on??!!
Its taught all over the place by the LDS Church.

Here's a link to the OFFICIAL LDS church website and a quote from their CURRENT GOSPEL PRINCIPLES manual they study from church.

http://lds.org/manual/gospel-principles/chapter-47-exaltation?lang=eng

"Those who receive exaltation in the celestial kingdom...will receive special blessings...These are some of the blessings given to exalted people:...2.They will become gods (see D&C 132:20–23)...They will have everything that our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ have—all power, glory, dominion, and knowledge (see D&C 132:19–20)."

I don't know how much clearer it can be!

In the same section it also gives the Joseph Smith quote about men becoming Gods. It was also in the previous Gospel Doctrine manual - the one being used to teach investigators about the Church at the time the Mormon Prophet Gordon B Hinkley stated in a public interview "I don't know that we teach that"...

including all of those sources. If she emails me back, I will update.

Thank you for the help! I knew I could count on RfM. :)

"'Our conviction is that God, our Heavenly Father, wants us to live the life that He does. We learn both the spiritual things and the secular things so that we may one day create worlds and people and govern them' (see The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, ed. Edward L. Kimball [1982],386)...."

http://seminary.lds.org/quotes/


"Those who receive exaltation in the celestial kingdom through faith in Jesus Christ will receive special blessings. The Lord has promised, 'All things are theirs' (D&C 76:59). These are some of the blessings given to exalted people:

"1. They will live eternally in the presence of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ (see D&C 76).
"2. They will become gods.
"3. They will have their righteous family members with them and will be able to have spirit children also. These spirit children will have the same relationship to them as we do to our Heavenly Father. They will be an eternal family.
"4. They will receive a fulness of joy.
"5. They will have everything that our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ have--all power, glory, dominion, and knowledge. President Joseph Fielding Smith wrote: 'The Father has promised through the Son that all that he has shall be given to those who are obedient to his commandments. They shall increase in knowledge, wisdom, and power, going from grace to grace, until the fulness of the perfect day shall burst upon them' (Doctrines of Salvation, 2:36)."

http://lds.org/library/display/0,4945,11-1-13-59,00.html


"President Kimball ... taught that the gospel is 'a way of life, the plan of personal salvation, and is based upon personal responsibility. It is developed for man, the offspring of God. Man is a god in embryo and has in him the seeds of godhood, and he can, if he will, rise to great heights.'

...

"We understood also that after a period varying from seconds to decades of mortal life we would die, our bodies would go back to Mother Earth from which they had been created, and our spirits would go to the spirit world, where we would further train for our eternal destiny. After a period, there would be a resurrection or a reunion of the body and the spirit, which would render us immortal and make possible our further climb toward perfection and godhood."

http://lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?hideNav=1&locale=0&sourceId=9629862384d20110VgnVCM100000176f620a____&vgnextoid=88021b08f338c010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD

not only has the church taught it, they are teaching it currently.

“God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens! That is the great secret.... It is the first principle of the Gospel to know for a certainty the Character of God, and to know... that he was once a man like us.... Here, then, is eternal life – to know the only wise and true God; and you have got to learn how to be Gods yourselves... the same as all Gods have done before you...”

- Prophet Joseph Smith, Jr., “King Follett Discourse,” Journal of Discourses, v. 6, pp. 3-4, also in Teachings of the Prophet of Joseph Smith, pp. 345-346.


"... the whole design of the gospel is to lead us onward and upward to greater achievement, even, eventually, to godhood. This great possibility was enunciated by the Prophet Joseph Smith in the King Follet sermon (see Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, pp. 342-62; and emphasized by President Lorenzo Snow. It is this grand and incomparable concept: As God now is, man may become! (See The Teachings of Lorenzo Snow, comp. Clyde J. Williams, Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1984, p. 1.)."

- Prophet Gordon B. Hinckley, "Don't Drop the Ball," Ensign, November 1994, p. 46



“The Lord created you and me for the purpose of becoming Gods like himself.”

- Prophet Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, v. 3, p. 93.


“... God... is a personal Being, a holy and exalted man...”

- Apostle Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 1966 ed., p. 250.


“Mormon prophets have continuously taught the sublime truth that God the Eternal Father was once a mortal man who passed through a school of earth life similar that through which we are now passing. He became God – an exalted being – through obedience to the same eternal Gosepl truths that we are given opportunity to obey.”

- Apostle Milton R. Hunter, The Gospel Through the Ages, p. 104


“God is an exalted man. Some people are troubled over the statements of the Prophet Joseph Smith... that our Father in heaven at one time passed through a life and death and is an exalted man...”

- Prophet Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, v. 1, p. 10


“There is a statement often repeated in the Church, and while it is not in one of the Standard Church Works, it is accepted as church doctrine, and this is: ‘As man is, God once was; as God is, man may become.”

- Apostle LeGrand Richards, letter to Morris L. Reynolds, July 14, 1966, cited by Tanner in Mormonism: Shadow or Reality, p. 164.


“First, we believe that God is a being with a body in form like man’s; that he possesses body, parts and passions; that in a word, God is an exalted, perfected man.
“Secondly, we believe in a plurality of Gods.
“Third, we believe that somewhere and some time in the ages to come, through development, through enlargement, through purification until perfection is attained, man at last may become like God – a God.”

- LDS Historian B.H. Roberts, The Mormon Doctrine of Deity: The Roberts-Van Der Donckt Discussion, p. 11


“God must have been engaged from the beginning, and must now be engaged in progressive development, and infinite as God is, he must have been less powerful in the past than he is today.... We may be certain that, through self-effort, the inherent and innate powers of God have been developed to a God-like degree. Thus he has become God.”

- Apostle John A. Widtsoe, Rational Theology, 1915, pp. 23-24


“The Father became the Father at some time before ‘the beginning’ as humans know it, by experiencing a mortality similar to that experienced on earth... Gods and humans are the same species of being, but at different stages of development in a divine continuum, and that the heavenly Father and Mother are the heavenly pattern, model, and example of what mortals can become through obedience to the gospel.... Knowing that they are the literal offspring of Heavenly Parents and that they can become like those parents through the gospel of Jesus Christ is a wellspring of religious motivation.”

- Encyclopedia of Mormonism


"The real question should be, is President Snow's couplet an accurate reflection of LDS doctrine? Everything Latter-day Saints teach about God is in agreement with the rest of the Christian world, with the exception of His nature. Joseph Smith said God is in the same form as we are, because we were created in His image as the Bible plainly and clearly tells us... But again, we do not emphasize Heavenly Father's past, but the possibility of our future.

- The Foundation for Apologetic Information & Research, http://www.fairlds.org/apol/misc/misc09.html


"That exalted position was made manifest to me at a very early day. I had a direct revelation of this. It was most perfect and complete. If there ever was a thing revealed to man perfectly, clearly, so that there could be no doubt or dubiety, this was revealed to me, and it came in these words: "As man now is, God once was; as God now is, man may be." This may appear to some minds as something very strange and remarkable, but it is in perfect harmony with the teachings of Jesus Christ and with His promises."

- Prophet Lorenzo R. Snow, Unchangeable Love of God, Sunday, September 18, 1898.


"We all know that like begets like and that for the offspring to grow to the stature of his parent is a process infinitely repeated in nature. We can therefore understand that for a son of God to grow to the likeness of his Father in heaven is in harmony with natural law. We see this law demonstrated every few years in our own experience. Sons born to mortal fathers grow up to be like their fathers in the flesh. This is the way it will be with spirit sons of God. They will grow up to be like their Father in heaven. Joseph taught this obvious truth. As a matter of fact, he taught that through this process God himself attained perfection. From President Snow's understanding of the teachings of the Prophet on this doctrinal point, he coined the familiar couplet: "As man is, God once was; as God is, man may become." This teaching is peculiar to the restored gospel of Jesus Christ."

- Apostle Marion G. Romney, General Conference, October 1964

Hinckley's half-assed public denial of it. But it's definitely still taught. Not to say your friend doesn't believe what she's saying. I have met a lot of converts, most of them from Protestant backgrounds, who could never quite wrap their heads around the Mormon concepts of God and eternal progression (such as they are).