Becoming like God: meaty doctrine

One of the doctrines that differentiates my church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, from mainstream Christianity is the doctrine of eternal progression, or becoming like God. I think all Christians accept that through Christ’s grace He can make us more like Him, although the nature of that gift can be understood in different ways. 

For example, John 14:20 says "At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you." In John 10:34 Christ says "Ye are Gods," quoting Psalms. Paul teaches in Romans 8:16-17 "The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together."

These scriptures are moving and powerful, but of course can be interpreted in different ways. The teachings of modern prophets guide us to take these doctrines more literally than is typical of mainstream Christianity. We take literally that God is our Heavenly Father. If He is our Father, then we are of the same species and in our spiritual maturity we have the potential, through His grace and glory, to become as He is. Joseph Smith taught that the glory of God is not just being the greatest among far inferior creations, but to be the creator of creators, or to be “a King of a King of Kings.” Even as we as parents seek for our children to be great, so God aims to raise us up if we are willing. Lorenzo Snow boiled this down further with the couplet “As man now is, God once was. As God now is, man may be.” The Church website has a nice essay giving more information.

These are powerful and aspirational doctrines. This vision helps to clarify God’s plan for us and why we are here to learn and prepare and grow in this mortal state. But the idea of eternal progression or deification is foreign and challenging for many outside of the LDS tradition. Kyle Beshears, an evangelical posting draft chapters online of a book about the Church that he is working on, makes some interesting comments:

Presently, Latter-day Saints tend to hold this doctrine, whatever its form, close to the chest, a reserved posture to (apparently) prevent the casting of a theological ‘pearl’ into the sty of criticism. To many Latter-day Saints, eternal progression is either too mysterious or too meaty a doctrine to feed spiritual juveniles and outsiders, so it’s best discussed in-house privately. This posture is partly to blame on critics of the LDS Church who critically and relentlessly pounce on it, but concealing such an essential doctrine is unnecessarily reactive and evidently contrary to Smith’s intentions for it.

Though it is a foundational doctrine of our faith, Beshears is right that we tend not to discuss eternal progression or becoming like God openly very much, and rarely in detail even within the church. Beshears mentioned not casting pearls before swine (Matthew 7:6), but I think an even more appropriate reference is milk before meat (see 1 Corinthians 3:2). Beshears’ note that critics “relentlessly pounce on it” is accurate. The doctrine is easy to mock and mischaracterize, and there have been many efforts to poison the well in this area. Even within the church we are cautious about how we talk about becoming like God. In part this is because we just don’t know much about what it will look like and we are wary of drifting into speculation (“too mysterious,” as Beshears says). To the extent that members of the Church avoid talking about eternal progression due to a fear of or personal experience with being mocked or challenged by critics, or after coming across defamatory material online (possibly a non-zero contribution), we would be wise to make this doctrine more a part of our lessons and conversations, still taking care to stay on solid doctrinal footing and not speculating beyond the limited revelations we have been given. Hecklers ought not have veto power over our teachings. If we understand this doctrine we will better comprehend the scale and scope of the plan God has for us, we should feel an increase in gratitude to Him for his love toward us His children, and we should feel an increased desire to follow Him and to strive to live our lives in the image of God.

For my mainstream Christian friends, please be aware that much of the discussion of this doctrine that you will find online or in commentary by critics contains gross misrepresentations of our beliefs. Beshears is exemplary in that he takes pains to represent the Church accurately and fairly (though of course he takes a different side on many issues including this one), but most commentators are not so well informed or so scrupulous.