God in Mormonism

In orthodox Mormonism, the term God generally refers to the biblical God the Father, whom Latter Day Saints also refer to as Elohim or Heavenly Father, while the term Godhead refers to a council of three distinct divine persons consisting of God the Father, Jesus (his firstborn Son, whom Latter-day Saints refer to as Jehovah), and the Holy Ghost. However, in Latter Day Saint theology the term "God" may also refer to, in some contexts, the Godhead as a whole or to each member individually.

Latter-day Saints believe that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are three distinct beings, that the Father and Jesus have perfected, glorified, physical bodies, and that the Holy Ghost is a spirit without a physical body. Latter-day Saints also believe that there are other gods and goddesses outside the Godhead, such as a Heavenly Mother—who is married to God the Father—and that faithful Latter-day Saints may attain godhood in the afterlife. The term Heavenly Parents is used to refer collectively to the divine partnership of Heavenly Father and a Heavenly Mother. Joseph Smith taught that God was once a man on another planet before being exalted to Godhood.

This conception differs from the traditional Christian Trinity in several ways, one of which is that Mormonism has not adopted or continued to hold the doctrine of the Nicene Creed, that the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are of the same substance or being. Also, Mormonism teaches that the intelligence dwelling in each human is coeternal with God. Mormons use the term omnipotent to describe God and regard him as the creator: they understand him as being almighty and eternal but subject to eternal natural law which governs intelligence, justice and the eternal nature of matter (i.e., God organized the world but did not create it from nothing). The Mormon conception of God also differs substantially from the Jewish tradition of ethical monotheism, in which Elohim (Hebrew: אֱלֹהִים) is a completely different conception.^{[citation needed]}

This description of God represents the Mormon orthodoxy, formalized in 1915 based on earlier teachings. Other extant and historical branches of Mormonism have or had adopted different views of God, such as the Adam–God doctrine and trinitarianism.^{[page needed]}

Most early Latter Day Saints came from a Protestant background, believing in the doctrine of the Trinity that had developed during the early centuries of Christianity. Before roughly 1835, Mormon theological teachings were similar to those of mainstream Protestantism. Founder Joseph Smith's teachings regarding the nature of the Godhead changed during his lifetime, becoming fully developed in the few years prior to his murder in 1844. Beginning as an unelaborated description of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as being "One", Smith taught that the Father and the Son were distinct personal members of the Godhead as early as 1832. Smith's public teachings described the Father and Son as possessing distinct physical bodies, being one together with the Holy Ghost, not in material substance, but in spirit, glory, and purpose. Latter-day Saint scholar David L. Paulsen refers to this oneness as constituting "one perfectly united, and mutually indwelling, divine community". Together with other Mormon and non-Mormon scholars, such as Richard Bushman, Craig Blomberg, and Stephen H. Webb, they have described said oneness of the Godhead as social trinitarianism; Mormon critic Robert M. Bowman Jr. prefers tritheism or "ethical polytheism".

Mormons view their concept of the Godhead as a restoration of original Christian doctrine as taught by Jesus and the apostles in the New Testament. Mormons see the strong influence of Greek culture and philosophy (Hellenization) during this period as contributing to a departure from the traditional^{[according to whom?]} Christian view of a corporeal God in whose image and likeness humanity was created. These theologians began to define God in terms of three persons, or hypostases, sharing one immaterial divine substance, or ousia—a concept that some claim found no backing in scripture, but closely mirrored elements of Greek philosophy such as Neoplatonism.

The Book of Mormon teaches that God the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost are "one", with Jesus appearing with a body of spirit before his birth and a tangible body after his resurrection. The book describes the "Spirit of the Lord" "in the form of a man", speaking as a man would.

Before the birth of Jesus, the book depicts him as a spirit "without flesh and blood", with a spirit "body" that looked the same as he would appear during his physical life. Moreover, Jesus described himself as follows: "Behold, I am he who was prepared from the foundation of the world to redeem my people. Behold, I am Jesus Christ. I am the Father and the Son. In me shall all mankind have life, and that eternally, even they who shall believe on my name; and they shall become my sons and my daughters." In another passage of the Book of Mormon, the prophet Abinadi states,