Mormonism's Biggest Belief Has A Fatal Flaw

The other day I was looking at the LDS Church website and I saw this. It's this thing right here. It's the very first item in a list of distinct LDS beliefs. It says, "Understand what it means to be a child of God." So, there you have it. You've looked at the title of this video and you thought, "That's not true." And lo and behold, right on the LDS Church's website, it says, "Latter-day Saints believe that we're all children of heavenly parents." In fact, this is probably one of Mormonism's most widely held and agreed upon beliefs. Most Latter-day Saints I've spoken to absolutely agree that we are all children of heavenly parents.

Missionaries talk about it. It's all over LDS manuals. And it even says so right here, in the Family Proclamation, which LDS Apostle Ronald Rasband identified as doctrinal recently in General Conference. The Proclamation on the Family is, as President Hinckley stated, doctrine, my dear brothers and sisters. So, now here's my controversial hot take that got you to click on this video. I believe that historic Christianity teaches that we are all children of God in a more substantial sense than Mormonism teaches. Yes, Christians deny the existence of a heavenly mother and a pre-existence and spirit birth.

In fact, I've even made videos explaining how we're not all children of God. On the other hand, Latter-day Saints believe in literally all of these things and in addition believe that family unit is kind of the most basic relational unit in the cosmos. And yet, despite all of these things, I'm still arguing that Latter-day Saints do not substantially believe that we are all children of God. Now, stop. Before you all go down in the comments and accuse me of misrepresenting the LDS faith, let me explain what I mean by this. There are two reasons that I say this. And the first reason has to do with LDS beliefs.

First, let's talk intelligences. Yes, Mormonism does teach that we are all literal spirit offspring of heavenly parents. You can see that right here at the Family Proclamation and here and here and in a lot of other places. So then, is that where we began to exist is our heavenly spiritual birthday kind of the starting point of our very being and existence? Hold on, not so fast. Many Latter-day Saints believe that we existed before even being born as spirit children in the form of intelligences. Though there's a lot that hasn't officially been revealed about this, intelligence is the most essential, most basic part of us.

It predates and preexists even our premortal life with Heavenly Father. In other words, you could say that it preexists our preexistence. Right before he was killed, founding LDS prophet Joseph Smith taught this. God never did have the power to create the spirit of man at all. He could not create himself. Intelligence exists upon a self-existent principle. It is a spirit from age to age and no creation about it. For most Latter-day Saints then, we are an eternal intelligence made into a spirit child who's then later given a physical body. But this seed part of us, this intelligence, is coeternal with God.

Joseph Smith also said, "Man existed in spirit. The mind of man, the intelligent part, is as immortal as and is coequal with God himself. I know that my testimony is true." He then goes on to teach that man is self-existent with God, without beginning or end. You even find this idea that intelligence is eternal in LDS scripture. Man was also in the beginning with God. Intelligence, or the light of truth, was not created or made, neither indeed can be. Now, some Latter-day Saints believe that intelligence is the base materials out of which we are made. Others believe that our intelligence is our most essential self.

Whichever scheme you take, there's various views here. Here's the key thing. Our intelligence, whatever that is, is uncreated, eternal, immortal, and self-existent with God. 10th President Joseph Fielding Smith said this, "There is something called intelligence, which always existed. It is the real eternal part of man, which was not created nor made. This intelligence combined with the spirit constitutes a spiritual identity or individual." Here's my big question. How are we all children of God if we are not essentially from God? Latter-day Saints make it sound as though we are born of God, as though our very existence and self comes from him, as though our heavenly parents are the source of what we are.

But ultimately in this scheme, God is not the source of our existence. In Mormonism, God is only the father of part of us. Number two, let's look at what the Bible says. On one occasion, the Apostle Paul was speaking to the Greek philosophers, the intellectuals of his day. This is what he said to them, "Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, to the unknown God. What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you." Paul then goes on to explain to them who this God is that they don't know.

James 1

He is the God of gods, the Lord of lords, the ruler and creator, the God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. Did you catch what he said there? He says that God is not a receiver. God does not take anything cuz he doesn't need anything. Rather, God is the giver. He's the one who gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. There is nothing that we have. There is nothing that we are which is not from God.

James 1 similarly talks about how every good gift comes down from the Father of lights. Every single one. Existence is a gift. Life is a gift. In other words, you and I have no existence apart from God. He upholds the universe by the word of his power. Paul tells these men, yet he is actually not far from each of us. For in him we live and move and have our being. As even some of your own poets have said, for we are indeed his offspring. In him we live, we move, and we have our being. Our being comes from God. We are indeed his offspring, created in his image to bear his authority and take dominion over the whole earth.

Because of this, we possess a measure and a reflection of his own attributes. The capacity to think, the capacity to love, the capacity to spiritually relate to him, the capacity to judge and the capacity to rule. When Paul says that we're his offspring, he's quoting a pagan poet, but he's taking that pagan concept and he's applying it to a distinctly Christian framework. We are from God. We derive our being from him. He is our father in that he is the creator of everyone. This is why Paul says elsewhere, for from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. All things are from him.

He says in Colossians that Christ was the creator of all things, things in heaven and things on earth, visible and invisible. That includes us. And in Revelation, God receives worship for this. "Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things and by your will they existed and were created." God is the one who calls into existence the things that do not exist. He did not receive anything, but he gives everything. This is why I say that Christians meaningfully and substantially believe that we are from God. Every part of us is from God. I am because he made me to be.

James 2:10

After this, Paul moves from speaking about us as the offspring of God to calling these pagans to repentance. "Stop worshiping idols of gold and stone. God is not like that. A hunk of stone cannot give man existence." God calls everyone everywhere to repent because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed. Scripture teaches that we're all children of God, if you want to use that term, in the sense that we're all created by God, but it does not say that we all relate to God as though he is our father. If you want to know God like a father, you have a serious problem.

Sin has caused a separation between us and God so that we cannot have fellowship with him like he's our father because we are under his wrath on account of our evil deeds. And all of us have done evil deeds. Even the smallest sin is as though we've broken the whole law. James 2:10 says, "If we break even the smallest part of God's law, we failed in all of it." So, if we've committed the smallest, tiniest sin, we are deserving of the full brunt of his wrath. And that keeps us from knowing him like a father. But this is part of why Jesus came. Jesus came to make us a part of God's family, to bring us in as one of his own, to rescue us from the day of judgment through his death on the cross and his resurrection from the dead.

The Bible tells us that the Holy Spirit can make us sons of God by adoption. Not only is God my creator and judge, but being as sinful as I am, as rebellious as I am, God has chosen to adopt me, to make me his son, to be not just my creator, but my father relationally. This is what John means when he says, "But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God." You can know God as your father when you place your faith solely in Christ. Paul talks about this also when he says that we've received the spirit of adoption, and that now God's spirit bears witness with our spirits that we are sons of God, sons by adoption.

I maintain that Mormonism teaches that we are only partially God's children, that a part of us is from him. But the most essential part of who and what we are is as eternal as God is. But Christianity teaches something very different, that in him we live and move and have our being, that we can be brought into God's family through faith in Christ, adopted, seated with Christ in the heavenly places, made co-heirs with him, given eternal life. Not because of who we are, not because of what we are, not because of what we've done, but because God is the giver of all good things. It's because of love.

It's because of grace. And all we do is receive this grace. We receive, receive, receive as God gives and gives and gives. He gives life, he gives breath, he gives eternal life, grace upon grace upon grace. And that is good news.