Christianity and Mormonism

On why the one is not the other

Lately, Mormons have become more vocal on social media, both through adverts and just general presence. And one thing that seems particularly prevalent is their attempts to come off as “normal” Christians. We can see this particularly in their insistence that we stop calling them Mormons, opting for “Christians” who are members of “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” But in this post, I intend to show that if we examine their doctrine of God and of creation, it is evident that they are not and have never been Christians. Mormonism is closer to ancient paganism but also, interestingly, modern transhumanism.

For those who know Mormon doctrine, Mormons claim to believe in the Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. They believe that the three persons are distinct in personhood but also in essence, which amounts to polytheism or at least tritheism. Joseph Smith himself said it explicitly:

I have always declared God to be a distinct personage, Jesus Christ a separate and distinct personage from God the Father, and the Holy Ghost was a distinct personage and a Spirit: and these three constitute three distinct personages and three Gods. If this is in accordance with the New Testament, lo and behold! we have three Gods anyhow, and they are plural; and who can contradict it?¹

But where this view may seem consistent with certain polytheist religions, their “god” is actually a creature. They hold that the Father, whom hey call “Elohim”,² was once a human being who was exalted to divinity. In a collection found at the Latter Saints website, it says:

God Himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens! That is the great secret. If the veil were rent today, and the great God who holds this world in its orbit, and who upholds all worlds and all things by His power, was to make Himself visible,—I say, if you were to see Him today, you would see Him like a man in form—like yourselves in all the person, image, and very form as a man; for Adam was created in the very fashion, image and likeness of God, and received instruction from, and walked, talked and conversed with Him, as one man talks and communes with another.³

Seen from the perspective of Christianity, Mormon doctrine is not monotheistic, not even tritheistic, because it teaches that we can all achieve the same “godhood”, which means that it is indeed polytheistic. But if we take it to its logical conclusion, it is not even theistic, since they do not believe even the supreme “god” is more than an exalted creature. Yes, Christians believe that through the Incarnation God does indeed have a body, since He assumed a human nature in Jesus Christ, but as the Chalcedonian definition teaches us, in Christ divinity and humanity are united “without confusion, change, division, or separation.”⁴ The Christian doctrine takes as its starting point that God is triune – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit – but also that God is simple and beyond being.⁵ From this perspective, the Mormon doctrine of “god” is just a repackaged paganism. But I would say that it is also close to modern transhumanism.

Transhumanism teaches that humans can evolve into something “higher”, usually from an atheistic, agnostic, or secular humanist perspective. In many ways, it is a natural development of Nietzsche’s Übermench philosophy, though usually phrased more positively. It seems to me, however, that when combined with a Mormon doctrine of “god”, you end up with the same. As I, admittedly quite uncharitably, have said on social media: “[The Mormon] view of God is just Nietzsche’s übermench in quasi-Protestant drag.” Transhumanism, however, is just the same in Western progressive drag. The difference between the two is just that one is politically progressive, and usually atheistic, agnostic, or secular humanist, while the other is politically conservative, combined with a pagan theology in American Evangelical veneer. What it is not, however, is Christian. The basic Mormon doctrine that God is that God is just an exalted creature, a view which is antithetical to Christianity. These views couldn’t be further apart.

1. Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, ed., Joseph Fielding Smith (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book, 1938, hereafter: TPJS), 370 (emphasis added). David L. Paulsen and Hal R. Boyd have likened this to “social trinitarianism”, which I find unfair, although I do think social social trinitarianism tends towards a problematic view of the Trinity. See Paulsen and Boyd, “The Nature of God in Mormon Thought”, in The Oxford Handbook of Mormonism, eds., Terry Givens and Philip L. Barlow (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 246–259, here, p.253: “Therefore, the Mormon conception of the Godhead is more akin to what contemporary Christian theologians call Social Trinitarianism.” Also see Paul E. Dahl, “Godhead”, in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, ed., Daniel H. Ludlow (New York, NY: Macmillan Publishers, 1992), 552–553. For relevant critiques of social trinitarianism, see Karen Kilby, “Perichoresis and Projection: Problems with Social Doctrines of the Trinity” (New Blackfriars 81:957, 2000): 432–445; Simon Oliver, “The Holy Trinity and the Liturgical Subject”, in The Liturgical Subject: Subject, Subjectivity and the Human Person in Contemporary Discussion and Critique, ed., James G. Leachman (London: SCM, 2008), 226–241 (esp. 229–240).

2. See ‘elohim’, at the dictionary at Mormonism Research Ministry. The problem here is that elohim is just the Hebrew word for ‘god’ or ‘gods.’ In the Old Testament, it is used both for God Himself (not just the Father) but also gods in general. It is not used as a name the way “Father” is. But I guess is sound “mysterious” for those who do not know.

3. Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith, chapter 2 (emphasis added).

4. The Acts of the Council of Chalcedon, vol. 2, trans., intro. and notes, Richard Price and Michael Gaddis (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2007), 204. Also see Michael J. Gorman, Aquinas on the Metaphysics of the Hypostatic Union (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 73–125.

5. I have written on this a few times, focusing on the apophatic dimension. See Kjetil Kringlebotten, “Apofasis, teurgi og kristologi: Om delaktigheit i den ukjente Gud” (Teologisk tidsskrift 13:4, 2024): 213-226 (open access); Kjetil Kringlebotten, Liturgy, Theurgy, and Active Participation: On Theurgic Participation in God (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2023), 19-20. Also see this post here, on this blog. Also see these blog posts by Edward Feser: “Trinity Sunday” (7th June, 2009) and “Trinity and mystery” (10th February, 2010).