Engaging the Mormon Doctrine of God With Some Mormons

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Here is a “discussion,” of sorts, I’ve been having today with some LDS (Mormons) on X/Twitter. I’m sharing this in hopes that it might be helpful for other Christians who engage with the LDS. Typically, you have to educate them on what they believe first before you can then compare, contrast, and defeat it as a viable “Christian” belief system. That is what I experienced with the following fellow, which of course is not unusual.

Brigham Young

Mormon 1. I am leaving the Catholic Church and joining The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints What an absolute BANGER I selected “If You Could Hie to Kolob” for the opening song of my LDS baptism on Sunday “The Spirit of God” to close YT Dei Misericordia Love you Saints!

My Response to Mormon 1. Dude. At least stay orthodox and become evangelical. LDS is based on demonstrable historical fabrications; it is polytheistic; and looks more like the Graeco-Roman pantheon of gods and goddesses than it does Christian.

Mormon 2. You don’t know what polytheism is. And the rest of Mormon 2’s Responses to Me (compressed). Well, you call us polytheists when we worship one God the Father. Full stop. Believing there is a Godhead doesn’t mean polytheism when two members of the Godhead work under the direction of God. We do not worship multiple gods aka, not polytheism. Yeah, maybe try not telling me what we believe. There is only one God. God the Father. And to misrepresent us in any other way is disingenuous to us, and quite frankly the Bible. You can call Monolatry if you want, but our “interpretation” is closest to the Biblical God.

My Responses to Mormon 2 (compressed). Sure, I do. My MA and BA degrees in bible theology ought to indicate as such. Help me out though. Explain it to me like I don’t understand what polytheism entails in a way that demonstrates you do. No, you believe Jesus and the Holy Spirit are lesser gods relative to the Father. But beyond that, you believe they are each distinct centers of consciousness, which entails a plurality of gods (of various degrees)—which “poly” signifies linguistically. You also believe that you too could one day become a Heavenly Father with your own celestial planetarium. Just because you rhetorically appeal to a monolatry doesn’t mean you don’t also affirm a functional polytheism; that isn’t even debatable. Eh. What you believe isn’t private, but public. Just as all idea systems are. I explained to you what polytheism is, and how it applies to LDS doctrine of God. If you are saying that Mormon teaching denies the notion that you can one day become a Father-God yourself, then I might recant to an extent. But you haven’t explained who the Son and Holy Spirit are in your theory of your godhead. I know what LDS doctrine teaches on that, and I haven’t misrepresented that. If I have show me how instead of just making brute assertions with no evidence or argument or even illustrations to the contrary. If you don’t recognize what I am saying about LDS doctrine then maybe you yourself don’t understand your own ostensible doctrine clearly; which wouldn’t be that strange, we have many Christians (most of them) on our historic Christian continuum who are in the same boat (don’t really know the doctrine they would say they affirm, only tacitly at best). In lieu of you offering substantial argument to counter my sketching of LDS doctrine vis a vis its ostensible polytheism, my claim still stands. PS. The very notion of your own future and potential Father-Godness inherently entails a polytheistic system of belief. If you, and your Mormon neighbor and his and his ad infinitum can be and/or will be Father Gods, this presupposes the notion, within Mormonism, the belief in poly (more than one) God in the Eschatological eventuation of the “Mormon hope.” Further, if Jesus and the Holy Ghost, in the Mormon notion of the godhead are considered distinct centers of consciousness relative to Father-God, as his own distinct center of consciousness, and even if you consider the Son and Holy Spirit to be lesser (in Christian heresiology we call this “subordinationism”) divine beings, then even so, you affirm a polytheism even in this instance. If your beliefs are insularly sacrosanct and without the possibility of being publicly critiqued, then yes, you’re in a cult. IOW, if only the initiate can understand LDS doctrine, then this is a cult; similar to the Gnostic cults that were present during the early days of the primitive Church. Pax Christi

Addendum:

𝐌𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐨𝐧 𝟐. I shouldn’t call it the “official doctrine” as I on Twitter do not speak in an official capacity.
Lastly the Greek word that is used often in “The Father and I are one” is “hen” meaning a unity in purpose, not a unity in being.
You can call us polytheists. I reject that label.
𝐌𝐲 𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐩𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐌𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐨𝐧 𝟐. I read the Greek, interestingly. As with any language meaning is determined by context (both near and broader context). In the total context of the Gospel of John, as I already shared, the very first verse of John (1:1) says that Jesus the Word *is* ontologically God. This sets the broader context for determining how the Son’s relationship to the Father (and Holy Spirit) are related. Jn 1:1 makes clear that they are one ousia (God), and John 10:30 makes clear that in their One ousia or being as God, they clearly share the same purpose (or we might say “will”), as in fact they are one God in a unity of being (not just will/purpose). And then just prior and in a nearer context to Jn 10, Jn 8:58 Jesus says ‘ego eimi’ I am, which is a clear reference to Exodus 3:14; He is claiming to be Yahweh in the flesh (see Jn 1:14 also). So the unity of purpose/will is contextually only because first they have unity of being as the One God.
As we are taught in biblical hermeneutics: context, context, context is king. Words, sentences, and paragraphs only have meaning within their given and broader contexts.
As far as polytheist: I use that for the LDS doctrine of God, because on a continuum or taxonomy for identifying features of God in disparate belief systems and religions, it is helpful for purposes of categorization, differentiation, and intelligibility. Some prefer Henotheist. I mean, that’s fine, but that is only really a subset of polytheism still. So.