Plurality of Gods

The doctrine of deification is fundamental to understanding the topic of a plurality of gods. It is discussed in “Deification,” in volume 4, chapter 6 of Ye Shall Know of the Doctrine. It should be reviewed prior to undertaking a study of this chapter.

A missionary may be asked: Are Mormons “monotheists” or “polytheists”? Implicit in this question is an accusation. It is widely known that we believe in a plurality of gods. The term “polytheism” is a negative one that generally has reference to pagan deities to whom reverence, devotion, and worship are given.

We understand, of course, the scriptural concept of “one God.” We declare that there is one supreme God. He is God the Father. He is our God, and we are in subjection to him. Closely associated with him, and subservient to him, are his Son Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost. These three constitute the Godhead, the governing council of the universe. Each member of the Godhead is appropriately referred to as God. We also understand clearly the concept of a plurality of gods (without a capital “g”). This understanding does not constitute “polytheism” in its usual pejorative sense.

#Categories of “gods”

Man may become like God, in fact may become a god himself. Among orthodox Christians, one strong objection to our doctrine of deification is that it implies the existence of more than one God. If human beings can become gods and yet remain distinct beings separate from God, it makes for a universe with many gods.

An understanding of the definitions involved is essential. So let’s be clear on what we Latter-day Saints do and do not believe. We do not believe that humans will ever be equal to or independent of God. His status in relation to us is not in any way compromised. We do believe there is only one source of light, knowledge, and power in the universe. If through the gospel of Jesus Christ and the grace of God we some day receive the fulness of God (Ephesians 3:19) so that we also can be called gods, humans will never “catch up” with our supreme God. He will always be our God. We may one day sit on thrones exercising the powers of gods. But those of us who have become gods by God’s grace will remain eternally subordinate to the giver of that grace. They will continue to worship and serve the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost forever, and will worship and serve no one and nothing else.

I have already cited those ancient Christians who believed in the doctrine of deification (“Deification,” in Ye Shall Know of the Doctrine, volume 4, chapter 6). It should be noted that for them, as for the Latter-day Saints, the doctrine of deification implied a plurality of “gods” (small “g”) but not a plurality of Gods (capital “G”). Saint

Clement of Alexandria was surely both a monotheist and a Christian, and yet he believed that those who are perfected through the gospel of Christ “are called by the appellation of gods, being destined to sit on thrones with the other gods that have been first installed in their places by the Savior” (Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis, 7.10). This is good LDS doctrine. If Clement, the Christian saint and theologian, could teach that human beings will be called gods and will sit on thrones with others who have been made gods by Jesus Christ, how in all fairness can Joseph Smith and the Mormons be declared polytheists and non-Christians for teaching the same thing?

In harmony with widely recognized scriptural and historical precedents, Latterday Saints use the term gods to describe those who will, through the grace of God and the gospel of Jesus Christ, receive of God’s fulness—of his divine powers and prerogatives—in the resurrection. Thus, for Latter-day Saints the question “Is there more than one god?” is not the same as “Is there more than one source of power or object of worship in the universe?” For Latter-day Saints, as for Saint Clement, the answer to the former is yes, but the answer to the latter is no. For Latter-day Saints the term god is a title which can be extended to those who receive the power and authority of God as promised to the faithful in the scriptures. But such an extension of that title does not challenge, limit, or infringe upon the ultimate and absolute position and authority of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

Angels of God are referred to as “gods” in scripture. An angel may be defined as an individual in our round of creation that is qualified to be on God’s personally-appointed errand. These may be referred to as “gods” in the scriptures, particularly in the scripture as recorded in its original language.

Stephen E. Robinson, referring to glorified man who eventually, through persistent spiritual growth, becomes a god, wrote:

If the Latter-day Saints had chosen to refer to such glorified beings as “angels” instead of “gods,” it is unlikely anyone outside the LDS church would have objected to the doctrine per se. It seems that it is only the term that is objectionable. And yet the scriptures themselves often use the word god in this limited sense to refer to non-ultimate beings.

For example, in Psalm 8 the word gods (Hebrew elohim) is used in reference to the word angels in the King James version: “What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels [elohim], and hast crowned him with glory and honour”(verses 4-5). Though the Hebrew reads “gods” (elohim), translators and commentators from the Septuagint on, including the author of Hebrews in the New Testament, have understood the expression to refer to the angels (see Hebrews 2:7). The term gods is here applied to beings other than God.

Deuteronomy 10:17, Joshua 22:22, and Psalm 136:2 all insist that God is a “God of gods.” Clearly this doesn’t mean that there are divine competitors out in the cosmos somewhere. Rather, these passages probably also refer to the angels in their divinely appointed roles. If the angels can, in some sense, be considered divine beings because they exercise the powers of God and act as his agents, then the one God they serve is correctly considered a “God of gods.” Scholars have long known, and the Dead Sea Scrolls and other literature of the period have now proven, that the Jews in Jesus’ day commonly referred to the angels as “gods” (Hebrew elim or elohim) in this non-ultimate sense (see, for example, John Strugnell, The Angelic Liturgy at Qumran-4 Q Serek Sirot ‘Olat Hassabat in Supplements to Vetus Testamenturn VII [Congress Volume, Oxford 1959], (Leiden: Brill, 1960), 336-38, or A. S. van der Woude, “Melchisedek als himmlische Erlösergestalt in den neugefundenen eschatologischen Midraschim aus Qumran Höhle XI,” Oudtestamentische Studiën 14 [1965]: 354-73). This is not because the Jews were polytheists, but because they used the term god in a limited sense to refer to other beings associated with God whom he allowed the privilege of exercising divine powers.

But human beings are also called “gods” in scripture, probably for the same reasons that the angels are—they, as well as the angels, can exercise the powers of God and act as his agents. Thus Moses is designated a “god to Pharaoh” (Exodus 7:1). This doesn’t mean that Moses had become an exalted or ultimate being, but only that he had been given divine powers and was authorized to represent God to Pharaoh, even to the point of speaking God’s word in the first person. If the scriptures can refer to a mortal human being like Moses as a “god” in this sense, then surely immortal human beings who inherit the fulness of God’s powers and authority in the resurrection can be understood to be “gods” in the same sense.

In Exodus 21:6 and 22:8-9 human judges are referred to in the Hebrew text as elohim (“gods”). In Psalm 45:6 the king is referred to as an elohim. Human leaders and judges are also referred to as “gods” in the following passage from the book of Psalms: “God standeth in the congregation of the mighty; he judgeth among the gods . . . I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High. But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes” (Psalm 82:1, 6-7 Jewish and Christian biblical scholars alike have understood this passage as applying the term gods to human beings. According to James S. Ackerman, who is not a Mormon, “the overwhelming majority of commentators have interpreted this passage as referring to Israelite judges who were called ‘gods’ because they had the high responsibility of dispensing justice according to God’s Law” (James S. Ackerman, “The Rabbinic Interpretation of Psalm 82 and the Gospel of John,” Harvard Theological Review 59 [April 1966], 186).

In the New Testament, at John 10:34-36, we read that Jesus himself quoted Psalm 82:6 and interpreted the term gods as referring to human beings who had received the word of God: “Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods? If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken; say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?” In other words, “If the scriptures [Psalm 82] can refer to mortals who receive the word of God as ‘gods,’ then why get upset with me for merely saying I am the Son of God?” The Savior’s argument was effective precisely because the scripture does use the term gods in this limited way to refer to human beings. According to J. A. Emerton, who is also not a Mormon, “most exegetes are agreed that the argument is intended to prove that men can, in certain circumstances, be called gods. . . . [Jesus] goes back to fundamental principles and argues, more generally, that the word ‘god’ can, in certain circumstances, be applied to beings other than God himself, to whom he has committed authority” (J. A. Emerton, “The Interpretation of Psalm 82 in John 10,” Journal of Theological Studies 11 (April 1960): 329, 332. This was also the view of Saint Augustine in writing of this passage in On the Psalms, 50.2: “It is evident, then, that he has called men ‘gods,’ who are deified by his grace” (cf. also 97.12) (Are Mormons Christians? [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1991], 66-68).

So, we may easily summarize the LDS view. Whether in this life or the next, through Christ, human beings can be given the powers of God and the authority of God. Those who receive this great inheritance can properly be called gods. They are not gods in the Platonic philosophic sense of “ultimate beings,” nor do they compete with God as objects of worship. They remain eternally his begotten sons and daughters— therefore, never equal to him nor independent of him. Orthodox theologians may argue that Latter-day Saints shouldn’t use the term gods for non-ultimate beings, but this is because the Latter-day Saints’ use of the term violates Platonic rather than biblical definitions. Both in the scriptures and in earliest Christianity those who received the word of God were called gods.

When anti-Mormon critics interpret those verses of scripture that contain the word “god,” (Exodus 7:1, Deuteronomy 10:1, Psalm 8:5—in Hebrew, Psalm 45:6, Psalm 82:6, or John 10:34-36) they go to great lengths to clarify that these scriptures use the term god in a limited sense. There may be more than one “god,” but there is only one God. When they discuss Latter-day Saint writings that use the term god in the same sense, however, the critics seldom offer the same courtesy. Instead they disallow any limited sense in which the term gods can be used when that term occurs in LDS sources, thereby distorting and misinterpreting our doctrine. Then they accuse us of being “polytheists” for speaking of “gods” in a sense for which there are valid scriptural and historical precedents.

I will conclude this chapter with an instructive incident in Jesus’s mortal life. It is recorded in John 10:22-38. According to the Gospel of John, Jesus was at Jerusalem during the Feast of Dedication, which took place in the winter. He was walking in the temple, in the area known as Solomon’s porch. At this point “the Jews,” probably the Pharisees, demanded to know “plainly” whether or not Jesus was in fact the Christ, or the Messiah. Responding in a roundabout way, Jesus answered that his good works would tell who he was, at least for those who were receptive to the truth.

But he followed that comment with a strong statement that clearly incensed his audience: He declared, “I and my Father are one.” At this point, the Jews took up rocks to stone him. The Greek word used for “one” here is hen which may be translated as “equal to” or “on a par with.” Jesus, here, was not claiming to be “the God” or the Father, but he was claiming to be “a God,” in other words divine.

Jesus then asked, in effect, “For which of my good works do you want to stone me” (verse 32)? His question was obviously and intentionally ironic, and it is clear that he actually knew the real reason for their anger. The Jews responded that they weren’t stoning him for good works, but “because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God” (verse 33).

Jesus then answered their charge by making two points.

Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods? If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken; Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God (verses 34-36)?

The first point is that the unbelieving Jews were silly to assault Jesus for so petty an offense as claiming to be the Son of God when the scripture itself, God’s own word, sometimes speaks of mere men as “gods” or “sons of God.” The second point is built upon that one. He says, in effect, “If there is a sense in which men can be spoken of as ‘gods,’ how much more may the term be used of him whom the Father has consecrated and sent!”

In saying, “is it not written in your law,” Jesus was referring to the Old Testament, Psalm 82. Jesus then returned to the testimony of the good works that he had performed and ended with the declaration that “the Father is in me, and I in him” (verse 38). Thereupon, provoked and angered once again by what they regarded as blasphemy, his audience again assaulted him, but he escaped unharmed.

Let us now look at Psalm 82:1-8, which Jesus cited in his conversation with the accusing Jews.

#1 God standeth in the congregation of the mighty; he judgeth among the gods.

verse 1 God the Father presides in this “congregation of the mighty” the members of which are called “gods.” What is this “congregation of the mighty”? The Hebrew phrase that is translated as the “congregation of the mighty” might be more accurately rendered as “the council of El” or “the council of God.” Latter-day scripture allows us to suggest that this is likely a heavenly council consisting of the “noble and great ones” (Abraham 3:22-24) who are actually premortal “intelligences”—actually spirit children of the Father. Members of this council are called gods and are given the stewardship of the nations of the earth—to judge and to watch over them. They are presided over and counseled—“judged”—by the Father.

The function of this council is at least in part a judicial one—to judge the people of the nations of the earth.

2 How long will ye judge unjustly, and accept the persons of the wicked? Selah.

verse 2 The Father finds need to counsel and correct at least some of the members of the heavenly council.

The word “selah” is a word which simply means a pause in the narrative.

#3 Defend the poor and fatherless: do justice to the afflicted and needy.

4 Deliver the poor and needy: rid them out of the hand of the wicked.

5 They know not, neither will they understand; they walk on in darkness: all the foundations of the earth are out of course.

6 I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High.

verse 6 By virtue of their elect status, the members of this council are referred to by the Father as “gods.” They are foreordained to be the Lord’s chosen on earth. 7 But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes.

verse 7 Their future lot is to inherit mortality and eventually “die like men.” 8 Arise, O God, judge the earth: for thou shalt inherit all nations.

verse 8 This final verse is the Psalmist’s exclamation after witnessing the proceedings of that heavenly court.