[Moksha]

I thought this post from Bill at the LDS Forum of Beliefnet might be helpful. It aimed to address whether Mormons were monolatrists, monotheists or henotheists.

Mormons are not monolatrists. Confusion naturally arises from the twin LDS beliefs in the separate identity of Christ as the Son of God, and not simply as God in different clothing, along with the concept of eternal progression. Simply put, Mormons believe that God, the Father, is people call him: the Supreme Being, but that his relationship with humanity is much more than that between a boy and his dog. To devout Mormons, God is our father in a very real sense. The purpose of life is to progress toward becoming like him. While that doesn't mean that human beings die and then become gods, it does mean that this life is critical to a much larger process of moving in that direction.

John spoke of this:


Quote:
"Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure." 1 John 3:2-3


The problem is in the use of the term, "gods." That term is so loaded, it provokes a great deal of confusion. There are at least two uses, both of which are related, but which are distinct enough to merit clarification. A "god," as the term is popularly used, is an object of worship. On the other hand, a "god" may also be something or someone with great power, even if not worshiped. References to angels, demons, seraphim, archangels, spirits and the like are throwbacks to polytheism, with its assortment of supernatural beings. The Greeks and Romans, along with the Egyptians, Mesopotamians and Celts, had a buffet of gods, which were like characters in a soap opera. In some cases, these gods were amusing explanations for natural phenomena. In others, they represented a virtue or a vice.

Zoroastrianism may have been the first to go after polytheism in a big way, though Egypt had Akhenaton (who reduced all the gods to a single deity, the disc of the sun) and Israel had Moses (whose Yahweh started out as the god of the Hebrews and later became the one true and living God). Zoroastrianism posited two gods - Ahura Mazda and Ahriman - one good, the other evil. This went well with the Persian campaign to take over the world and assert control over the armies that had troubled its people. In the Persian mind, life was a struggle between good and evil, between the sons of light and the sons of darkness. Technically speaking, Zoroastrianism wasn't even monotheistic, but its emphasis on a duality took a hammer to the many gods of polytheism. As far as the Persian god, Ahura Mazda, was concerned, if you weren't with him, you were against him. Everybody else was in league with Ahriman, the Prince of Darkness, a figure who would later morph into the Devil.

Christianity has mopped this up, Christianizing a lot of paganism. Festivals based on the zodiac have been Christianized, including Christmas, Easter, Candlemas (which is known in America as Groundhog Day), All Saints Day (which has given way to Halloween), et cetera. Local deities have been replaced by the names of early Christians, but their worship continues as the veneration of saints. Christianity has struggled to reaffirm the basic monotheism of Judaism while deifying a human being: Jesus of Nazareth. For most Christians, the culmination of this effort has been the doctrine of the Trinity, whereby God becomes one god, but in three forms. When he's in Heaven, he's God; when on earth, he's Jesus; when he dwells in your heart, he's the Holy Ghost.

Mormons have upset the applecart by insisting that Jesus was not God, the Father, that his conversations with God were not cunning acts of ventriloquism, that when (at Jesus' baptism), God said, "This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased," Jesus wasn't resorting to blue smoke and mirrors. Jesus was not a flesh puppet, nor was he throwing his voice. Nor was Jesus an illusion, as some once contended, in their effort to work out the math. Mormonism envisions one "God" but uses the term, "godhead" to speak of God as a kind of heavenly bishopric or First Presidency. God, Jesus and the Holy Ghost are three distinct and separate entities but they form one "God" in the sense that they are a council, perfectly unified in all things.

Jesus told his disciples, "If ye have seen me, ye have seen the Father." To many Christians, that was a hint that Jesus was the Father. But later, in the same Gospels, Jesus prayed to his Father and said, "Not my will but thine be done." He also prayed that his disciples would be "one, even as we are one." Unless God is indecisive, and has multiple personalities, what Jesus was referring to was a unity of thought, not two hamsters in a microwave.

If Jesus was like God and we are to be like Jesus, the logic inevitably leads to something Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount: "Be ye therefore perfect even as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect." Our bumbling, groping, existence is a kind of infancy, where we learn to walk by faith and make wise choices, growing in power as we grow in understanding. The gifts of the spirit are divine powers, lent to us as the occasion may demand, to go beyond our human limitations in the service of others. To paraphrase something Joseph Smith once said, the only form of human aggrandizement that can be justified is the development of self that occurs in the service of others.

Mormons aspire to be superheroes without capes. I've known a few. In every case, these people have redirected any awe, glory or appreciation towards their source of strength: God, the Father. Jesus once spoke to his disciples about branches and the vine, telling them that the branches could have no power without the vine. His disciples sat at his feet because Jesus sat at the Father's.

That said, the term, "gods," is an awkward one, maybe even recklessly thrown around, though Joseph Smith did in order to get the attention of his generation - which wasn't nearly as squeamish as our own. Joseph would ask them what they thought Jesus meant when he told his disciples to "Seek ye first the kingdom of God." To contemporary Jews, it obviously meant a political kingdom - like Mexico or the Netherlands - but I think Jesus and his contemporaries saw something greater. To Christians during the Middle Ages, it meant the successful takeover, by the Church, of a spiritual turf the size and limits of the old Roman Empire. Today's ecumenicalists might make it the set of all Christians, regardless of their tradition or denomination. To Joseph Smith, it was the Church, and the divine government of the world, but it was also the power of God - not to be taken by force but to be inherited by his sons and daughters by following the path laid out for them.

But where laws of inheritance normally require the death of the testator, eternal progression requires the death of what Paul called "the old man." Each must become a new creature in Christ. Each must cease to see himself or herself as a son of man and begin to see themselves as the sons and daughters of God. Mormons believe that spiritual development, and control over the self, will result in powers and privileges, as well as a treasure and inheritance, that are out of this world.

By human standards, that would make "gods" of us all. Living forever in indescribable glory, we'd be hard-pressed not to see ourselves as such. But that term is misleading since it implies that human beings might become objects of worship, or become rivals to God, the Father. If so, there might be reason to call Mormons "monolatrists." In fact, Brigham Young took heat for his musing on the matter, a little subject known as the Adam-God Theory (Brigham imagined that, by now, Adam would be a god, and if so, he could have been the actual father of Jesus Christ if God, himself, simply came down as the man Adam, much the same way Jesus - who is viewed by many as God - came down as the son of Mary).

But Adam-God was not good doctrine, and was repudiated by later Church leaders. It has been reaffirmed, time and time again, that the only object acceptable for worship is God, the Father. Mormons don't even pray to Jesus so much as pray to God in Jesus's name (though the 12 Nephite disciples in the Book of Mormon did pray to Jesus). Mormons do not see any individual as being on par with God, the Father. While they do hope and pray to live up to their own potential, Mormons never envision a day when they will not bow to God as their Father.