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By Don Bradley
The Latter-day Saints believe that Jesus Christ makes it possible for
men to become what God is. The
Bible teaches that the righteous will
become "partakers of the divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4) and become divine
themselves.
(John 10:34-35; 17: 22-28; 2 Cor 3:18; Eph 3:19; Rev 3:21, etc.)
The concept that men may become divine
is usually called "exaltation" by
Latter-day Saints, "deification" by Christian scholars, and "blasphemy!"
by anti-Mormons. To many this is Mormonism's most objectionable doctrine.
The Saints are constantly excoriated
by their opponents for holding this
belief. Some anti-Mormon writers go so far as to claim that the LDS doctrine
of
exaltation is not only un-Christian, but Satanic, founded on "Satan's
promise of godhood" to Eve in Genesis 3:5.
"Satan's Promise"
In Genesis 3 the serpent
persuaded Eve to partake of the forbidden fruit
by telling her "ye shall not surely die," as a consequence of partaking
of
the fruit, but rather, "ye shall be as gods." Ed Decker, director of
"Saints Alive inJesus," has written the following,
attempting to equate the
serpent's "promise" with the LDS doctrine of exaltation:
Jesus called Satan "a liar and the father of it" -i.e., the father of the
lie. No greater lie could be
conceived than that humans could become Gods. Eve was deceived by the Serpent's seductive offer of godhood. . . . It is astonishing
how thoroughly Mormonism has embraced Satan's promise of godhood! . . . [It] comprises the very heart of Mormonism. (The
Godmakers, pp.29 & 30).
Decker assumes that the doctrine of deification is an anti-Christian idea
which was first
formulated in the mind of Satan. It is interesting to
contrast the assumption of this anti-Mormon propagandist with the
views of
competent Christian scholars and theologians.
Protestant
With reference to a statement by the early Christian writer, Hippolytus
(170-236 A.D.), to the effect that through Christ
men could be "deified" and
"become God," Cleveland Coxe, an Anglican scholar and editor of the
American edition of
The Ante-Nicene Fathers, wrote:
This startling expression is justified by such texts as Pet. 1:4
compared with John 17:22,23,
and Rev 3:21. Thus Christ overcomes the Tempter (Genesis 3:5) and gives more than was promised by the "Father of Lies." (The
Ante-Nicene Fathers, Grand Rapids: Eerdman's, 1978, 5:153)
Dr. Coxe's meaning here is clear: Satan promised men that they could be as
Gods, but Christ made
it possible for men to be Gods! Christ really does
give more than was promised by Satan. The great advocate, then,
of the true
deification of men is not Satan, but Christ!
Roman
Catholic
Giovanni Papini, a Catholic scholar, after quoting Ps. 81:6 & John
10:34-35
("Ye are gods") writes,
We have, therefore, a double testimony that God considers and calls
certain men gods. . . . And what
else was it that the Serpent said to the first parents, if not something very similar: "You will be as gods." He was
promising,
then, what God Himself is ready to sustain.
And when Christ teaches the chosen to imitate God - "You are to
be
perfect, even as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Matthew 5:48) - is he not asserting that man . . . can achieve one
of the essential attributes of God, that is, perfection? To become perfect, as perfect as God, is that not perhaps like becoming
gods?
The Christian doctrine of "deification" is, in my opinion, profoundly
sublime and true . . .
(Giovanni Papini, The Devil, NY: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1954, pp. 44-46)
The Desire for Deification
Papini attributes the doctrine of deification, not to Satan, but to
Christ. Certainly, Satan is jealous of God's
power, and desires to be God
himself; but Satan's desire for "deification" is of an entirely different sort
than
that of the Christian who seeks to become like God. As Papini explains
(p. 46), while the Devil seeks divinity by trying
to rival God, the
Christian seeks to become divine by imitating Christ, developing a God-like
character, and submitting
his will to the Father's. This path to Godhood was
advocated and exemplified by Christ Himself.
Eastern Orthodox
The deification
doctrine has survived to some extent in the Eastern
Orthodox Churches. Georgios I. Mantazaridis, a Greek Orthodox scholar,
writes:
Deification . . . from the beginning has constituted the innermost longing
of man's existence. Adam, in
attempting to appropriate it by transgressing God's command, failed, and in place of deification met with corruption and death.
The love of God, however, through His Son's incarnation, restored to man the possibility of deification:
"Adam of old was
deceived
wanting to be God he failed to be God.
God becomes man, so that he may make Adam god."
[This latter quote is part of a doxastikon, or hymn of praise, from the
Feast of Annunciation. This
doxastikon about Adam's deification is still
sung today at this feast, as it is celebrated in Eastern Orthodoxy.] (The
Deification
of Man: St. Gregory Palamas and the Orthodox Tradition, Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1984, pp. 12 &
13)
Thus, according to a centuries-old Christian formulation, God the Son
condescended to
become a mortal man, to obtain for men what they had failed
to obtain for themselves - Godhood.
These
quotes are but a sampling of the acknowledgment by scholars of the
three main branches of Christianity that the early Christians
advocated
deification. This poses a dilemma for anti-Mormons: If the LDS concept of
exaltation is un-Christian and satanic,
must not the same be true of the
deification doctrine predominant in early Christianity? Were the early Christians
"satanic,"
also?
Rejecting Christ's Promise?
My
study of Biblical and early Christian teachings on deification has led
me to disagree strongly with those who denounce
it as a Satan-inspired
deception. Christ has made it possible for men to be one with Himself, to
partake fully of His
divine nature, and thereby become Gods themselves. It is
astonishing to me how thoroughly mainstream Christianity has rejected
Christ's
promise of deification to those who follow Him. But the Latter-day Saints have neither forgotten, nor rejected this
promise; so they continue to
put their faith in Christ, and strive to be perfect, even as He is perfect.
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