Joseph Smith claimed to speak for God and to restore authority that the Christian church had lost. I cannot accept that claim on the strength of a remarkable experience, a growing institution, or the sincerity of its members. We need to examine what he taught and whether it agrees with Scripture. That examination should be frank about false doctrine and equally careful about the people who have trusted it.
Testing Joseph Smith’s Claim by Scripture
But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in My name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die.
Deuteronomy 18:20
Moses warned Israel that speaking falsely in God’s name was a grave offense under the covenant God had given the nation. Deuteronomy 18 tests whether a prophet’s prediction comes true, while Deuteronomy 13 addresses the message itself: even a genuine sign cannot authorize worship of another god. We must therefore compare a claim of revelation with what God has already revealed, rather than accept it simply because something extraordinary reportedly happened.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is often abbreviated LDS. Its members have historically been called Mormons, although I will generally call them Latter-day Saints. Mormonism is a familiar name for the religious system that developed from Smith’s teaching. Knowing that someone belongs to the church does not tell me what he understands or believes about its teaching. One member may have studied its history extensively; another may know chiefly what family and congregation have emphasized.
Every Latter-day Saint is made in God’s image, and some are our relatives, neighbors, or friends. I need to listen before assuming what they believe, while being clear about the doctrines on which we disagree. Words such as God, Jesus, grace, and salvation can sound familiar even when their definitions differ substantially. I will use official LDS sources so that we can examine the institution’s own explanations rather than rely on rumor.
Smith organized his movement in the United States in the early nineteenth century. He taught that Christ’s church had broadly fallen away after the apostles, losing essential truth, priesthood authority, and saving ordinances. He claimed heavenly messengers restored these things through him. In LDS usage, priesthood authority means authority delegated by God to act in His name. That includes administering ordinances, religious ceremonies such as baptism and temple sealing.
The movement retained the Bible while adding the Book of Mormon as scripture. Doctrine and Covenants contains revelations and instructions associated with Smith and later leaders, while the Pearl of Great Price includes the Book of Abraham and other writings. These books form the LDS standard works. The church also teaches that its living prophetic leaders can receive further revelation.
This restoration claim asks much more of a Christian than adding a devotional book. If Smith was right, the church had lost essential truth and authority until he restored them, and Christians must submit to that authority. If he was wrong, later revelations have been allowed to govern the apostolic faith. Moral discipline, missionary effort, and strong family relationships cannot decide between those alternatives. We need to ask what his message says about God, Christ, Scripture, and salvation.
Smith said an angel directed him to buried plates containing a record of ancient peoples in the Americas. The Book of Mormon was published in 1830 as his English translation. The official LDS translation history describes two instruments used in the process: paired stones known as interpreters and a small seer stone. According to witnesses’ accounts, Smith placed an instrument in a hat to exclude outside light and dictated English words. The same history acknowledges his earlier use of a seer stone to search for lost objects and buried treasure.
The claimed process depended on revelation through an instrument, rather than ordinary translation through knowledge of a language’s grammar and vocabulary. A lack of formal language training therefore does not, by itself, answer the LDS claim. The question is whether God authorized Smith and whether the resulting message is true.
Smith was not the only person who said he had seen the plates. The official witness history distinguishes two groups. The Three Witnesses described an angel showing them the plates and a divine voice confirming the translation. The Eight Witnesses said Smith showed them the object and allowed them to handle it and examine its engravings.
The LDS account records that witnesses continued to affirm their testimony even after several separated from Smith’s movement. Their estrangement does not erase what they said they witnessed. We still have to distinguish their testimony from the conclusions drawn from it. Handling an object does not establish its date, language, or alleged contents. The Three Witnesses’ further claim of divine approval must itself be tested against revelation already given. I can acknowledge their testimony while rejecting the claim that their experience establishes the truth of Smith’s gospel.
Historical Claims and Prophetic Credibility
The Book of Abraham gives us surviving material to compare with Smith’s claimed translation. In 1835, Egyptian papyri were acquired for the movement, and Smith identified one roll as containing Abraham’s writings. Papyri are ancient writing sheets or rolls made from the papyrus plant. The Book of Abraham appeared in 1842 with reproduced Egyptian illustrations, called facsimiles, and Smith’s explanations. Surviving papyrus fragments were transferred back to the LDS Church in 1967.
The official LDS history acknowledges that Egyptologists inside and outside the church agree that the characters on those fragments do not match the English Book of Abraham. Its fuller essay identifies the fragments as Egyptian funerary texts, writings used in connection with the dead. Scholars disagree over some details of the illustrations, but that disagreement does not overturn the acknowledged mismatch between the surviving text and Smith’s translation.
LDS defenders commonly offer two explanations for that mismatch. The missing-scroll view places Abraham’s account on a portion of the papyri that has been lost. Since only fragments survive, their contents alone cannot disprove a claim about a missing portion. The catalyst view instead treats the papyri as the occasion for a separate revelation. On that reading, the English Book of Abraham was not a direct rendering of the Egyptian text, and translation has been given a broader meaning.
Neither explanation settles the problem with Smith’s published identifications of the illustrations. Those can still be compared with Egyptologists’ readings, and I find the disagreements a serious objection to his claimed gift. The possibility of a missing source does not verify his translation. Nor does saying that Egyptian writing prompted a revelation establish that the writing contained Abraham’s account. Neither defense gives me reason to accept Smith as a translator speaking for God.
The Book of Mormon’s claims about the ancient Americas also invite comparison with material evidence. Proposed locations for cities such as Zarahemla remain disputed, and its named peoples and claimed script lack broadly accepted archaeological identifications. The Bible, by comparison, has many connections with identifiable places, rulers, inscriptions, and excavated cities. Incomplete excavations cannot prove that no small migration ever reached the Americas, but the possibility of such a migration does not establish the Book of Mormon’s civilizations as historical.
The official LDS DNA essay acknowledges that the DNA examined so far points predominantly to Asian ancestry among Native Americans. It argues that evidence of a small West Asian group might disappear through intermarriage, population loss, and genetic drift. Genetic drift means random changes in how common inherited variants are within a population; over generations, particular markers may disappear.
Without DNA samples from an identified founding group, geneticists cannot settle every proposal about a small migration. The evidence does challenge the older sweeping assumption that Book of Mormon migrants were the principal or sole ancestors of Native Americans. I should not turn that challenge into a claim that genetics has answered every historical question. Scripture gives us grounds for assessing Smith’s message without exaggerating the scientific evidence.
Smith also predicted the building of a temple in Missouri. Doctrine and Covenants 84:4–5 describes the New Jerusalem and its Missouri temple and says the temple would be built “in this generation.” The official text adds that the generation would not all pass away before the house was built. That temple was not built in Smith’s generation.
Defenders have interpreted generation as an indefinite period, placed fulfillment in a future return to Missouri, or argued that disobedience delayed the promise. Each explanation must account for the passage’s stated time boundary. I do not see how moving the event into an unspecified future satisfies a prediction that the existing generation would not all pass away before the temple was built. A claim that fulfillment was conditional needs to explain that wording, rather than simply set it aside. Deuteronomy’s test asks whether the word attributed to God proves true.
The use of claimed revelation also needs examination in Smith’s plural marriages. In LDS teaching, a sealing is a covenant administered by priesthood authority to bind people eternally. The official essay on plural marriage acknowledges confidential plural sealings, Emma Smith’s opposition, and sealings to women already married to other men. Helen Mar Kimball was fourteen, several months short of her fifteenth birthday, when sealed to him.
We do not know the nature of every relationship. Some women described marriages for time and eternity, others bonds for eternity alone. The essay places Helen’s description in the latter category. We should not assume sexual relations in every sealing when the evidence does not establish that. These limits do not resolve the secrecy or religious pressure surrounding plural marriage.
The essay describes Emma’s changing responses, including temporary approval of some marriages and opposition to the practice. It also explains the claimed revelation’s demand for her obedience and its exception to the requirement for a first wife’s consent when she rejected plural marriage. Smith claimed authority for additional marriages while legally married to Emma. I reject this teaching as a restored requirement for exaltation. Old Testament accounts of plural marriage and its sorrows do not authorize it for the church. Jesus appealed to Genesis 2:24, where one man and one woman are joined in marriage.
Smith’s use of civic power became especially clear in the dispute over the Nauvoo Expositor. By June 1844, he was Nauvoo’s mayor as well as its founding religious leader and held substantial militia authority. Dissenters published an issue criticizing plural marriage, his newer teaching about God, and his use of power. The city council declared the newspaper a nuisance, and Smith ordered the marshal to destroy the press and printed copies.
The LDS history of the Expositor presents the council’s legal reasoning and acknowledges scholars’ conclusion that destroying the press itself may have exceeded its authority. The action intensified the conflict and led to riot charges. Later that month, a mob stormed Carthage Jail and murdered Joseph and Hyrum Smith. Their murder was wicked, and responsibility belongs to the mob. Condemning it does not excuse Smith’s earlier order to destroy the press.
I will not use his death as an occasion for contempt. Being murdered does not establish that someone was God’s prophet, and attempting to resist an attacker does not disprove his religious claim. The question remains whether Smith’s message came from God. His exercise of authority belongs in that examination, but Scripture must decide whether his teaching is true.
The One Eternal God and His Eternal Son
“You are My witnesses,” says the LORD, “And My servant whom I have chosen, That you may know and believe Me, And understand that I am He. Before Me there was no God formed, Nor shall there be after Me. I, even I, am the LORD, And besides Me there is no savior. I have declared and saved, I have proclaimed, And there was no foreign god among you; Therefore you are My witnesses,” Says the LORD, “that I am God. Indeed before the day was, I am He; And there is no one who can deliver out of My hand; I work, and who will reverse it?”
Isaiah 43:10-13
Through Isaiah, the LORD says no god was formed before Him and none will be formed after Him. He is not one god assigned to this world among others. Isaiah 44:8 likewise says He knows no other Rock. Monotheism means that only one God exists. Worshiping one member of a larger order of divine beings makes a different claim, however devoted that worship may be.
That distinction brings us to the official LDS Godhead overview. It describes the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost as separate beings united in purpose and doctrine. The Father and Son have tangible bodies, while the Holy Ghost is a spirit personage. Biblical Christianity confesses one divine being, eternally existing as three distinct, coequal and coeternal Persons. The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God; they are personally distinct without being three gods.
This is the doctrine of the Trinity. The Father is not the Son, and the Son is not the Spirit, so their distinction is real. Their unity also goes beyond cooperation toward a shared purpose: they are the one uncreated God. Describing three separate divine beings who work together therefore changes the doctrine, even when the same names are used. The study on The Trinity develops these biblical distinctions.
The LDS essay on becoming like God teaches that humans can progress toward godliness and receive God’s fulness. This highest destiny is commonly called exaltation. The essay recounts Smith’s teaching that God was once as humans are and Lorenzo Snow’s later teaching that humans may become as God is. It acknowledges that little has been revealed or taught about God’s earlier state. I reject this progression to godhood because Isaiah reveals the one eternal Creator, before whom no God was formed and after whom none will be.
Christians do expect to become like Christ in holiness and to receive incorruptible resurrection bodies. God adopts redeemed people as His children and promises their glorification, making them free from sin and bodily decay. However glorious that future, we remain His creatures and worshipers. We do not become another God of the same order. Saying that exalted people will continue worshiping the Father does not resolve the disagreement, because the question is whether creatures can become what God eternally is.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.
John 1:1-3
John identifies the Word as already existing in the beginning, personally with God and Himself fully God. Everything that came into existence was made through Him. That includes the spirits He created. I cannot therefore place Jesus within a family of spirits as though He and His creatures shared the same origin.
According to LDS teaching, before Jesus’ earthly birth He was the Father’s firstborn spirit Son within a family of spirit children, with Lucifer another spirit son who rebelled. The church’s overview of premortality describes that framework. LDS teaching also regards the intelligence underlying human existence as uncreated, so saying that it teaches every spirit was made from nothing would misrepresent it. Even with that qualification, its account of a premortal spirit family does not preserve John’s distinction between the eternal Word and all that He made.
Jesus did not advance into deity. He is the eternal, uncreated Son, fully God, who became fully man through the virgin birth and lived without sin. He received worship before His death and rose bodily afterward. Colossians 1 calls Him the “firstborn” and explains that all created things were made through Him and for Him. The title therefore expresses His supremacy and inheritance, rather than making Him part of creation. Frequent use of His name cannot reconcile a different account of His identity with the Creator John and Paul proclaim.
Scripture, Grace, and the Apostolic Gospel
But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.
2 Timothy 3:14-15
All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness,
2 Timothy 3:16
Paul reminds Timothy that the sacred writings make a person wise for salvation through faith in Christ. Because they are inspired by God, they teach doctrine, expose error, correct wrongdoing, and train His people in righteousness. Verse 17 completes the explanation: Scripture equips the man of God for every good work. The church receives and teaches God’s Word, whose authority rests on the God who gave it.
Differences among handwritten copies are called textual variants, and the Bible’s abundant manuscript evidence allows those differences to be examined. Their existence does not establish that the apostolic gospel disappeared or that a lost priesthood must be recovered through Smith. Nor do they provide evidence that teaching about a premortal family of gods, temple endowment, or eternal sealing was removed. A claim of corruption needs evidence for what was supposedly lost.
Jude calls believers to contend for the faith once for all delivered to the saints. The New Testament warns of apostasy, but it does not predict the disappearance of Christ’s gospel and authority until a nineteenth-century restoration through Joseph Smith. When a later revelation contradicts the Bible in context, I receive inspired Scripture as the final authority. Accepting Smith’s restoration claim would instead allow later revelation to overrule the apostolic message.
For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.
Ephesians 2:8-9
Paul goes on to describe good works in Ephesians 2:10 as the result of salvation. Believers are God’s workmanship, created anew in Christ to do the good works He has prepared. Obedience belongs in the Christian life because God has made us new; it cannot become the ground on which He justifies us. Grace produces a life of obedience, while salvation remains God’s gift received through faith.
The LDS use of salvation needs careful attention because the word has more than one meaning in its teaching. It can refer to the universal resurrection made possible through Christ, salvation from sin, or exaltation in the highest celestial glory. The General Handbook lists ordinances of salvation and exaltation: baptism, confirmation and the gift of the Holy Ghost, priesthood conferral and ordination for men, temple endowment, and temple sealing. Temple ordinances are tied particularly to exaltation, the highest destiny described earlier.
It would be false to say Latter-day Saints teach salvation without Christ. Official LDS teaching repeatedly attributes salvation to His grace and atonement. The disagreement concerns its requirement for restored priesthood ordinances and covenant performance. Biblical justification means God declares the believer righteous in Christ. We receive that standing through faith, not by completing ceremonies available only through a restored institution. No claimed priesthood can make such ceremonies a condition of the justification God gives freely.
For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures,
1 Corinthians 15:3-4
The apostles preached what the real Jesus had accomplished through His perfect life and willing sacrifice. Wicked men tortured and killed Him, but He gave Himself voluntarily to be slain as the perfect sacrifice for our sins. His sinlessness and the offering of His innocent life give His sacrifice its saving worth. The Father did not punish, curse, abandon, strike, bruise, or pour wrath on His Son. Father, Son, and Spirit acted in unity in our redemption; the cross did not break their fellowship.
Jesus’ earlier anguish and submission in Gethsemane preceded His arrest and crucifixion. His saving sacrifice through His shed blood and death was complete before He was buried and rose bodily. The resurrection was necessary to the gospel the apostles preached: He truly conquered death and lives as our Savior. It was not an additional payment for an unfinished sacrifice. Christ died for the whole world, so God’s offer is genuine for every person, even though people can resist His grace and reject Him.
Everyone who repents and believes in Jesus is forgiven, justified, and born again. The Holy Spirit indwells and seals every genuine believer, who is eternally secure in Christ. That security gives no permission for lawlessness, and a shallow profession does not prove new birth. Neither does new birth mean a believer never stumbles. The new life bears fruit in obedience, but that obedience neither earns nor keeps the salvation God gives through faith. Because Christ’s sacrifice is complete, I cannot make salvation depend on the restored priesthood Smith claimed to possess.
But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed.
Galatians 1:8-9
Paul’s warning includes even an angel from heaven, so an angelic appearance cannot place a message beyond examination. In Galatians 1:6, heteron euangelion means a different gospel. The next verse explains that this distortion is no valid alternative way of salvation. The identity of the messenger cannot make a changed gospel true.
The reported appearance of Moroni, the angel Smith said directed him to the plates, must be judged by that standard. We do not have to prove that every reported experience was fabricated before comparing its content with the apostolic gospel. Even a glorious appearance or a powerful sense of certainty must be tested by the message God has already given.
Smith’s teaching changes the identity of God, places the Son within a premortal spirit family, and gives additional scriptures and continuing prophets authority to govern the Bible. By claiming to restore a lost priesthood, it also makes ordinances under that authority necessary for salvation and exaltation. These changes alter what the apostles taught about God and how sinners receive His salvation. They cannot be accepted as harmless additions to their gospel.
Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
1 John 4:1
Latter-day Saint missionaries commonly invite people to read the Book of Mormon and pray for spiritual confirmation. I would listen carefully to someone describing such an experience. John nevertheless commands us to test spiritual claims, because sincerity does not protect a person from misunderstanding an impression. A feeling of peace cannot establish that a teaching about God or His gospel is true.
The Holy Spirit does not contradict the Word He inspired. John gives specific tests in 1 John 4:2–3 and 6: what is confessed about Jesus Christ coming in the flesh, and whether the apostolic witness is received. A vivid dream, an unusual coincidence, or a reported vision must be examined by that revelation. I cannot use an experience to decide which parts of God’s Word I will accept. The study on False Teachers develops this responsibility to test doctrine.
Speaking the Truth With Care
In a conversation with a Latter-day Saint, I would begin by asking what he actually believes, then read a complete passage together. Isaiah 43 or John 1 gives us room to discuss the identity of God and Jesus, define the words being used, and listen to the answer. Rapid-fire accusations can prevent that careful discussion. The person needs to understand the biblical reason for our disagreement, rather than simply hear how many criticisms we have collected.
If someone says the Bible was corrupted and needed restoration, ask what was lost and what evidence establishes the loss. We can examine textual variants together and ask whether they show that the distinctive LDS doctrines were once present in the biblical text. If an answered prayer is presented as final proof, read 1 John 4 and consider the tests John gives. If becoming like God is equated with Christian glorification, explain why becoming holy and receiving a resurrection body do not make a creature another God. These questions allow us to discuss the texts honestly without trying to trap someone.
A strong family and a life of service deserve appreciation. They do not establish that Smith spoke for God, any more than missionary sacrifice or institutional growth can prove a false doctrine true. I can commend genuine kindness while explaining why the identity of Christ and the basis of justification remain decisive. Loving a person includes being honest about disagreements that affect whom he trusts for salvation.
Leaving the LDS Church may strain a marriage, damage family trust, cost friendships, and unsettle someone’s sense of belonging. We should not treat a person facing those losses as a trophy from a successful argument. Patient friendship and an invitation into Christian fellowship can help as he examines what he has believed. He needs more than reasons to reject Smith’s authority; he needs to trust the true Savior. How to Witness to a Mormon develops this kind of conversation further.
My Final Thoughts
I cannot receive Joseph Smith as God’s prophet. His translation claims, the unfulfilled Missouri temple prediction, secret plural marriages, and exercise of concentrated authority raise serious objections. His message about God, Christ, and salvation is the decisive objection. It cannot be reconciled with the one eternal God, the uncreated Son through whom all things were made, and justification through faith in His completed sacrifice. We must still describe the witnesses and historical uncertainties honestly, because a false accusation gives someone good reason to distrust the rest of our case.
My hope is that Latter-day Saints will turn to the eternal Son revealed in Scripture, fully God and fully man, who shed His innocent blood, died for sinners, and rose bodily. He gives salvation to those who repent and believe. We can trust Him to give the eternal life that no ceremony, institution, or accumulation of good works can purchase.
A Latter-day Saint can speak sincerely about loving Jesus, depending on His grace, and believing the Bible while meaning something quite different from what I mean by those words. Before I agree or disagree, I need to hear what the person actually believes. Then we can open Scripture and examine who Jesus is and how a sinner receives eternal life. My responsibility is to explain the gospel faithfully and care about the person hearing it, even when the disagreement is substantial.
Begin With Prayer, Listening, and Accurate Definitions
Continue earnestly in prayer, being vigilant in it with thanksgiving; meanwhile praying also for us, that God would open to us a door for the word, to speak the mystery of Christ, for which I am also in chains, that I may make it manifest, as I ought to speak. Walk in wisdom toward those who are outside, redeeming the time. Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one.
Colossians 4:2-6
Paul asked believers to pray that God would open a door for him to speak the Word clearly. He was in chains, yet his request concerned the opportunity to make Christ known. If Paul depended on God for that opportunity, I should not approach someone as though a prepared argument were all I needed. Prayer also reminds me that bringing a person to repentance requires more than getting him to concede a point.
Paul’s instruction about gracious speech does not require us to avoid disagreement. Two people can say they believe in one God while understanding His identity very differently. They can also agree that salvation comes through Christ without agreeing about what salvation includes or how it is received. If I rush past those differences because the conversation sounds friendly, I may leave the other person thinking I affirm a gospel I actually reject.
I will normally use Latter-day Saint for a person and LDS teaching for the institution’s doctrine. The word Mormon in the title is familiar to many readers, but I have no reason to use a name someone dislikes as a way of provoking him. Being considerate about how I address someone does not prevent me from examining his beliefs frankly.
And who is he who will harm you if you become followers of what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness’ sake, you are blessed. “And do not be afraid of their threats, nor be troubled.” But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear; having a good conscience, that when they defame you as evildoers, those who revile your good conduct in Christ may be ashamed. For it is better, if it is the will of God, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil.
1 Peter 3:13-17
Peter joined readiness to defend our hope with meekness, reverence, and a good conscience. I need to understand the passages I cite and answer honestly, including admitting when a question needs more research. Insulting someone or misrepresenting his beliefs may provoke hostility, but that hostility does not prove I have defended Christ well. Peter expressly distinguishes suffering for doing good from suffering for doing evil.
An individual may not know or accept every explanation found in official LDS material. Ask what he means instead of assigning him a whole set of beliefs before he has spoken. Does he understand the Father to have always been God? In what sense does he believe the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one? When the discussion reaches salvation, ask what he believes is necessary to receive eternal life. Give him time to answer one question before moving to another.
Listening keeps me from spending the conversation refuting something the other person never said. It also gives him a fair opportunity to understand what I believe. He is made in God’s image, and a conversation about the Savior should never become an opportunity to humiliate him.
But avoid foolish and ignorant disputes, knowing that they generate strife. And a servant of the Lord must not quarrel but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient, in humility correcting those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them repentance, so that they may know the truth, and that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will.
2 Timothy 2:23-26
Paul told the Lord’s servant to correct those who oppose the truth, so patience does not mean treating contradictory claims as equally sound. We should explain where a teaching conflicts with Scripture without becoming quarrelsome. When we need to establish what the LDS Church teaches, its own official publications are better evidence than a sensational quotation circulated without its context. Reading the source together also gives the other person an opportunity to correct a misunderstanding before I build an argument on it.
The Bible Reveals One Eternal God, Not a Chain of Exalted Gods
The LDS Church’s official Godhead overview describes the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost as three separate beings united in purpose and doctrine. It says the Father and Son have tangible bodies of flesh and bones, while the Holy Ghost is a personage of spirit. Although we use the same names for the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we need to establish what we each mean before assuming we agree about God. Moses’ words in Deuteronomy 6 give us a starting point for that comparison.
“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one! You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. “And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
Deuteronomy 6:4-9
Moses instructed Israel to worship the LORD as they prepared to enter a land whose peoples worshiped many gods. Biblical monotheism means that only one God exists. Israel was not being told to choose its own deity from a family of genuine gods and leave the others to their own worshipers. The LORD alone is God, and their worship and everyday obedience belonged to Him.
When I speak of the Trinity, I mean that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are distinct Persons who fully and eternally share the one undivided divine being. Person identifies who we are speaking about: the Father is not the Son, and the Holy Spirit is distinct from both. Being identifies what they are. Each is fully God, equal in deity and without beginning. Three separate gods cooperating perfectly would still be three gods, whereas Scripture reveals only one.
“You are My witnesses,” says the LORD, “And My servant whom I have chosen, That you may know and believe Me, And understand that I am He. Before Me there was no God formed, Nor shall there be after Me. I, even I, am the LORD, And besides Me there is no savior. I have declared and saved, I have proclaimed, And there was no foreign god among you; Therefore you are My witnesses,” Says the LORD, “that I am God. Indeed before the day was, I am He; And there is no one who can deliver out of My hand; I work, and who will reverse it?”
Isaiah 43:10-13
Through Isaiah, God called Israel to testify to who He is. No God was formed before Him, and none would come afterward. He alone is Savior, and no one can reverse His work. I cannot reconcile those claims with the idea that He advanced into deity or that human beings will eventually join a succession of gods. He has always been God; His existence and authority do not depend on an earlier deity.
“Thus says the LORD, the King of Israel, And his Redeemer, the LORD of hosts: ‘I am the First and I am the Last; Besides Me there is no God. And who can proclaim as I do? Then let him declare it and set it in order for Me, Since I appointed the ancient people. And the things that are coming and shall come, Let them show these to them. Do not fear, nor be afraid; Have I not told you from that time, and declared it? You are My witnesses. Is there a God besides Me? Indeed there is no other Rock; I know not one.'”
Isaiah 44:6-8
Isaiah 44 continues God’s answer to idolatry. The LORD calls Himself the First and the Last, then asks whether another God exists and answers that He knows none. His claim reaches beyond the question of whom Israel should worship. He denies that another true God exists at all.
The official Becoming Like God essay teaches that human beings can progress to exaltation and godliness. It also discusses Lorenzo Snow’s teaching that God was once like man and that man can become like God. The essay says little has been revealed about the first claim, so little is taught about it. It also says exalted people will continue to worship God, without replacing Him or competing with Him. I disagree with its teaching about human divinity, but I need to include those qualifications when explaining it.
Those qualifications do not resolve the disagreement over whether people can become gods. Scripture promises redeemed people a glorious future: God adopts them into His family, raises them bodily, frees them from sin, and conforms them to Christ. They will inherit with Christ and enjoy unbroken fellowship with God. I should gladly explain those promises, because Scripture does call believers to become like Him in holiness.
Being made holy, however, does not turn a creature into another god. Believers receive life from God and will always depend on Him for it. They never acquire His uncreated divine nature or a right to receive worship. When I compare exaltation teaching with Isaiah, I am asking whether it preserves the difference between the eternal Creator and the people He redeems.
Jesus Is the Eternal Creator and Son
That difference also governs how we understand Jesus. The LDS premortality overview describes Him as the Father’s Firstborn spirit Son and Lucifer as another spirit son who rebelled. Latter-day Saints distinguish Jesus sharply from Satan in character and authority; saying that they regard the two as equals would misrepresent them. The question is whether their account of shared premortal parentage agrees with what John says about the Son’s eternal identity.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. This man came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all through him might believe. He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. That was the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. John bore witness of Him and cried out, saying, “This was He of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me is preferred before me, for He was before me.'” And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace. For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has seen God at any time. The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has declared Him.
John 1:1-18
John begins before creation and says the Word already existed. The Word was with God, so He is personally distinct from the Father, and the Word was God. Everything that came into being was made through Him. Jesus cannot belong among the creatures when every creature owes its existence to Him.
Only after establishing His eternal deity does John explain that the Word became flesh. Jesus did not begin to exist at Bethlehem or progress toward becoming God. The eternal Son took on true humanity while remaining fully God. His humanity does not diminish His deity, and His deity does not make His humanity any less real.
Latter-day Saints also speak of Jesus as Creator, so agreeing on that title is only the beginning of the discussion. John’s explanation identifies the Creator as the eternal God, through whom everything was made. Lucifer belongs to the creation over which Jesus is Lord. They do not share the same divine nature.
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence. For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross.
Colossians 1:15-20
Paul explains what he means by “firstborn over all creation” in the sentence that follows: Christ created everything in heaven and on earth. That includes the entire invisible order, however exalted a spiritual being might appear. Everything was made through Him and for Him; He existed before it and continues to hold it together. Reading firstborn as though Paul meant the first creature would contradict Paul’s own explanation.
Firstborn can describe the position of the principal heir rather than someone’s order of birth. Here Paul explains Christ’s supremacy over creation and His headship of the church. As firstborn from the dead, Christ also has preeminence in resurrection: He rose to a life death can never take from Him, and His people will share in that resurrection life. Read those surrounding sentences with the other person so you can discuss what Paul means, rather than argue over an isolated word.
Paul develops the Son’s distinction from the angels throughout Hebrews 1.
God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become so much better than the angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they. For to which of the angels did He ever say: “You are My Son, Today I have begotten You”? And again: “I will be to Him a Father, And He shall be to Me a Son”? But when He again brings the firstborn into the world, He says: “Let all the angels of God worship Him.” And of the angels He says: “Who makes His angels spirits And His ministers a flame of fire.” But to the Son He says: “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness; Therefore God, Your God, has anointed You With the oil of gladness more than Your companions.” And: “You, LORD, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth, And the heavens are the work of Your hands. They will perish, but You remain; And they will all grow old like a garment; Like a cloak You will fold them up, And they will be changed. But You are the same, And Your years will not fail.” But to which of the angels has He ever said: “Sit at My right hand, Till I make Your enemies Your footstool”? Are they not all ministering spirits sent forth to minister for those who will inherit salvation?
Hebrews 1:1-14
The Son made the worlds, upholds everything by His powerful word, and perfectly expresses God’s nature. The Father addresses Him as God and applies to Him words about the LORD who founded the earth. Creation will wear out, but He remains unchanged. The angels are servants whom God sends, and they are commanded to worship the Son. Worshiping Him is appropriate because He is God, not because an exalted creature has been promoted above his companions.
The chapter’s references to the Son’s inheritance and exaltation cannot mean He became God, because Paul has already identified Him as the eternal Creator. He receives honor as the incarnate Son who accomplished His work. That honor recognizes what He has done; it does not supply a divine nature He previously lacked.
In John’s Gospel, Jesus Himself speaks about His eternal identity during a confrontation concerning Abraham.
Then the Jews said to Him, “Now we know that You have a demon! Abraham is dead, and the prophets; and You say, ‘If anyone keeps My word he shall never taste death.’ Are You greater than our father Abraham, who is dead? And the prophets are dead. Who do You make Yourself out to be?” Jesus answered, “If I honor Myself, My honor is nothing. It is My Father who honors Me, of whom you say that He is your God. Yet you have not known Him, but I know Him. And if I say, ‘I do not know Him,’ I shall be a liar like you; but I do know Him and keep His word. Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad.” Then the Jews said to Him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?” Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.” Then they took up stones to throw at Him; but Jesus hid Himself and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them, and so passed by.
John 8:52-59
Jesus did not say, “Before Abraham was, I was.” He said, “I AM.” Abraham came into existence, but Jesus spoke of His own existence in terms that reach beyond merely being older than Abraham. I understand His words as a claim to divine identity, consistent with John’s opening description of the Word. The people confronting Him responded by taking up stones.
In the same answer, Jesus distinguished Himself from the Father, who honored Him. His relationship with the Father does not cancel what He said about His own divine identity. John records both, so we need to account for both when explaining who Jesus is.
After the resurrection, Thomas addressed Jesus as his Lord and God, and John records how Jesus received that confession.
Now Thomas, called the Twin, one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples therefore said to him, “We have seen the Lord.” So he said to them, “Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.” And after eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, “Peace to you!” Then He said to Thomas, “Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach your hand here, and put it into My side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing.” And Thomas answered and said to Him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him, “Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” And truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.
John 20:24-31
Thomas had refused the other disciples’ report that Jesus was alive, so Jesus invited him to examine the wounds of crucifixion. Thomas addressed Him as “My Lord and my God!” Jesus accepted his confession and pronounced a blessing on those who would believe without seeing Him. He did not rebuke Thomas for giving Him an honor that belonged only to the Father.
John immediately explains why he recorded these signs: his readers should believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and have life in His name. We must understand Son of God in light of the whole Gospel. John begins by declaring the Word’s full deity and later records Thomas addressing the risen Jesus as God. Calling Jesus the Son does not contradict either passage or make Him less than God.
The Holy Spirit Is God, and Scripture Judges Later Claims
The Holy Spirit also acts and speaks as God. Peter’s confrontation with Ananias identifies lying to the Spirit as lying to God.
But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, sold a possession. And he kept back part of the proceeds, his wife also being aware of it, and brought a certain part and laid it at the apostles’ feet. But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back part of the price of the land for yourself? While it remained, was it not your own? And after it was sold, was it not in your own control? Why have you conceived this thing in your heart? You have not lied to men but to God.”
Acts 5:1-4
Ananias and Sapphira kept part of the proceeds while presenting their gift deceitfully. Peter explained that the property had been theirs and that they could have decided what to do with the sale money. They were not being condemned for failing to donate every coin. Their sin was lying, and Peter’s description of the One they had lied to establishes the Spirit’s deity.
Elsewhere, the Spirit teaches, speaks, intercedes for believers, and distributes gifts according to His will. An impersonal force cannot explain those actions. He is a divine Person, distinct from the Father and Son, who shares their one divine being. The Trinity includes personal distinction without dividing God into three independent beings.
A Latter-day Saint may respond to these passages by appealing to later revelation that he believes clarifies the Bible. We then need to examine the authority behind that appeal. When a later teaching conflicts with Scripture, do we correct the teaching or reinterpret Scripture to accommodate it? Paul’s instructions to Timothy show why Scripture must judge the claim.
But you have carefully followed my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, longsuffering, love, perseverance, persecutions, afflictions, which happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra–what persecutions I endured. And out of them all the Lord delivered me. Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. But evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.
2 Timothy 3:10-17
Paul reminded Timothy that Scripture could make him wise for salvation through faith in Christ. Because Scripture comes from God, it has authority to teach, expose error, correct us, and train us in righteousness. The church receives and teaches that revelation; it cannot place itself above the Word and excuse a contradiction by claiming authority to interpret it.
The official LDS Standard Works overview includes the Bible, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price as scripture. Its Bible overview affirms the Bible as God’s word but says errors entered through compilation, organization, translation, and transcription. It also affirms continuing revelation through living prophets and denies that the Bible is God’s final written word. The disagreement concerns the authority of these additional sources as well as the doctrines they teach.
Scripture’s inspiration does not mean every copyist reproduced every letter perfectly. We can compare manuscripts and examine their differences openly without treating God’s original Word as mistaken. A copying error, however, supplies no proof that a later religious claim is true. If someone says an LDS doctrine was lost from the Bible, he needs evidence for that particular loss.
Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.
Jude 1:3-4
Jude calls believers to defend the faith already delivered to the saints. He warns about corruption within the church and tells Christians to resist it. He does not tell them to expect the apostolic gospel to disappear and await a nineteenth-century restoration. Apostasy means departure from the faith, and the New Testament’s answer is to remain in the truth already received.
That need to read passages in context also applies to our own arguments. Revelation 22 warns against adding to or taking from the prophecy of Revelation; it does not directly describe the later binding of the whole Bible into one volume. I would not make it say more than it does. Scripture’s authority and the apostolic gospel already require us to test later claims, rather than accept a new book or messenger merely because someone calls it revelation.
Grace Saves Apart From Ordinances and Human Merit
We also need clear definitions when discussing salvation. LDS sources use salvation in more than one sense, including the resurrection they teach Christ makes available to everyone born on earth. They distinguish that from exaltation, the fullness of eternal life with God. The General Handbook lists ordinances necessary for salvation and exaltation: baptism, confirmation and the gift of the Holy Ghost, priesthood ordination for men, temple endowment, and temple sealing. It connects receiving the blessings of eternal life with keeping the covenants associated with those ordinances.
I would misrepresent a Latter-day Saint if I said he believed he could save himself without Christ. Our disagreement concerns the requirements for receiving eternal life with God. We need to compare the LDS conditions of priesthood ordinances and covenant keeping with Paul’s explanation of grace.
And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
Ephesians 2:1-10
Paul describes people who were spiritually dead in sin, then explains that God made them alive with Christ. They did not make themselves worthy of that rescue. Salvation is God’s gift, received through faith, and no one can boast of having earned it. Only after explaining salvation apart from works does Paul describe the good works for which believers were created in Christ.
Paul’s order helps us answer questions about obedience. Someone born again has received new life and should obey God, but obedience grows from that life. It neither earns salvation nor keeps the believer saved; Christ has already completed the saving work on which that life depends. Paul explains the same mercy to Titus.
For we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
Titus 3:3-7
Paul includes himself among people who had been foolish, disobedient, and deceived, so he is not speaking as someone who deserved better than his readers. He credits their salvation to God’s mercy. Regeneration means being born again: the Holy Spirit gives a sinner new life. Justification means that God declares the believer righteous. Neither comes from the righteous works a sinner has performed.
Water baptism publicly identifies a believer with Christ, as He commands; it does not cause the new birth. Nor can confirmation, priesthood office, temple endowment, or temple sealing add to Christ’s completed saving work. This does not excuse disobedience. In Titus 2:11-14, Paul explains that grace trains us to reject ungodliness and live rightly. Christ saves us and teaches us to obey, without making our obedience the price of His acceptance.
Because salvation rests on God’s grace, Paul refused to accommodate a message that changed the gospel, however impressive its messenger might appear.
I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed. For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ.
Galatians 1:6-10
Paul subjected even himself and an angel from heaven to the gospel already preached. A supernatural appearance cannot authorize a contradictory message. That applies directly to claims that an angel brought additional scripture to restore the gospel. We need to examine what the messenger teaches about God, Christ, and salvation before accepting the claimed experience as evidence of God’s approval.
To make that comparison, we need to know what the apostles preached. Paul sets out the gospel the Corinthians received in 1 Corinthians 15.
Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you–unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve. After that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep. After that He was seen by James, then by all the apostles. Then last of all He was seen by me also, as by one born out of due time.
1 Corinthians 15:1-8
Christ died for our sins according to Scripture, was buried, and rose bodily on the third day. Paul names people who saw Him alive, including many who were still living when Paul wrote. Their testimony concerns events that happened to Jesus Himself, not private impressions that a later teacher could replace with a different religious experience.
Some Corinthians were denying the resurrection of the dead. In that context, I understand Paul’s warning about having “believed in vain” as exposing the emptiness of professing faith while rejecting the gospel’s bodily resurrection. He is not teaching that someone genuinely born again can later lose eternal life. We cannot affirm a gospel while denying the resurrection on which its promise depends.
When explaining Christ’s saving work, we should also address the place LDS teaching gives Gethsemane. The official atonement overview places His atoning sacrifice both in the garden and on the cross. It would be inaccurate to say LDS teaching simply rejects the cross. I disagree with its claim that Jesus began paying for sins through His agony in the garden. The apostles locate His saving sacrifice in His shed blood and death.
Jesus truly agonized in Gethsemane and willingly submitted to what lay ahead. After His arrest, wicked men tortured Him and put Him to death. He gave Himself to be slain as the perfect sacrifice for our sins, and the worth of His sacrifice rests on His own sinless perfection. His sacrifice through His shed blood and death was complete before His burial and bodily resurrection. The Father did not punish, curse, abandon, strike, bruise, or pour wrath on Jesus. Father and Son acted in unity throughout His saving work.
Paul directs us to the blood of Christ’s cross in Colossians 1:20. Christ’s burial and bodily resurrection also belong to the gospel, as the passage we have just read makes clear. I need to explain each part faithfully, without suggesting that His completed sacrifice awaits something a priesthood ordinance can supply.
Christ died for the sins of the whole world, so I can offer His salvation sincerely to the person in front of me. He can resist God’s grace, but if he repents and truly believes in Jesus, God forgives him, declares him righteous, and gives him new life. The Holy Spirit indwells and seals him, and his eternal life is secure in Christ. That assurance gives him no permission for lawlessness. Calling himself a Christian is not the same as being born again, and genuine new life should show itself in his conduct.
Keep the Conversation Centered on Jesus and Care for the Person
A Latter-day Saint may describe a powerful conviction received through prayer about the Book of Mormon or Joseph Smith. I would not ridicule that experience or try to outweigh it with a stronger feeling of my own. We need a way to judge whether such convictions are true, and John tells believers how to assess spiritual claims.
Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world. You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. They are of the world. Therefore they speak as of the world, and the world hears them. We are of God. He who knows God hears us; he who is not of God does not hear us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.
1 John 4:1-6
John wrote against false teaching that denied the true Christ. He required believers to test what a spirit said about Jesus and whether it agreed with the apostolic message. Someone can repeat Jesus’ name and acknowledge that He had a body while contradicting what the apostles taught about Him. We need to consider what he actually says about Christ, because the Holy Spirit does not reveal the Son in Scripture and then endorse a conflicting description through a private impression.
We need to apply that test to ourselves as well. Sincerity, a peaceful feeling, or a striking experience cannot make my interpretation true. If I ask a Latter-day Saint to let Scripture correct his beliefs, I must be willing to have mine corrected by it too. We should be able to read the same passage together and discuss what its words support.
For example, after listening to what the person believes about Jesus, ask whether he is willing to read John 1 with you. Follow John’s explanation from the Word’s eternal existence and deity through His work as Creator to His becoming flesh. Ask how that description fits the explanation of Jesus he has received. Allow him to answer instead of interrupting with another objection.
If the discussion concerns whether other gods exist, read Isaiah’s answer together. If the question is how a sinner receives eternal life, Ephesians 2 and Titus 3 explain grace, while 1 Corinthians 15 sets out Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection. Establish what each person means by salvation and exaltation before discussing ordinances. Stay with the question long enough to read carefully, rather than replacing that discussion with twenty disconnected proof texts.
Invite the person to continue reading John’s Gospel and meet again. If a question needs research, acknowledge it and return with primary sources that address it. I want to help him understand and trust the biblical Christ, and pressuring him for an instant admission may leave his actual questions unanswered.
When missionaries visit, be candid about the discussion you are willing to have. If you want to examine doctrine rather than receive their prepared lessons, say so respectfully and agree on the passage or question. They may be young people serving far from home, and offering ordinary hospitality need not imply agreement with their teaching. If two missionaries come, address both respectfully instead of trying to embarrass the one who seems less experienced.
Never record the conversation secretly or use their visit as material for online ridicule. Someone who offers to talk with us about religion has not thereby offered to become entertainment for an audience. I can be firm about false teaching without exploiting a person’s willingness to enter my home.
Patience also belongs in conversations with family. If every visit turns into an unexpected doctrinal challenge, relatives may stop trusting an invitation to spend time together. Ask when they are willing to talk, respect the agreement about the discussion, and continue caring for them when they disagree. Love cannot depend on how quickly someone accepts my explanation.
A person questioning LDS authority may fear harm to a marriage, family disapproval, or the loss of longstanding friendships and community. These consequences are not inevitable, but the possibility may weigh heavily on him. If I urge him to examine his beliefs, I should also listen when he explains what reconsidering them could cost. Practical help, steady friendship, and time to read the Bible should accompany doctrinal instruction.
Leaving an organization does not itself bring someone to faith in Christ. If religious leaders have disappointed him, he may also find it difficult to trust anyone who speaks about God. Help him distinguish their conduct from who Jesus is, and introduce him to a healthy local church with accountable leaders. He needs Christian fellowship with people who will know him, care for him, and make room for honest questions as he learns.
My Final Thoughts
When I speak with a Latter-day Saint, I need to take his beliefs and his welfare seriously. Let him explain what he believes, describe official teaching fairly, and read the Bible with him patiently. Being friendly cannot require me to affirm a gospel Scripture rejects, but disagreeing gives me no excuse to humiliate him. Keep returning to the eternal Son and the salvation He gives by grace through faith. If the person begins to question what he has been taught, continue helping him through the questions and possible losses. He needs to hear the truth about Christ from people who will also care for him.
When someone asks how we can know God exists, I want to know what led him to ask. He may have an objection no one has answered, or he may be trying to understand a painful loss. He may also be resisting what acknowledging God would require of him. Scripture gives us reasons to believe, but I will not answer someone well by assuming I already know everything going on in his mind.
What Kind of Proof Does Scripture Give?
The Bible begins with a direct statement: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). It presents God as the eternal Creator on whom everything else depends. He made us, including the minds with which we ask questions about Him. That means we are accountable to Him even while examining the reasons for belief.
His authority does not excuse a careless answer from me. Apologetics means defending the faith, which involves giving reasons and dealing honestly with objections. Scripture directs us to the created world and our moral awareness, then tells us what God has done in history. Its witness leads to Jesus Christ and His bodily resurrection. I want the person asking to know the living God through His Son, rather than leave impressed with my ability to argue.
We should also clarify what someone means by proof. A historical event is not established in the same way we solve a mathematical equation. We examine testimony and the evidence surrounding the event. A moral judgment cannot be weighed on a scale, but that does not make the difference between kindness and cruelty imaginary. Requiring every kind of knowledge to pass one particular test can prevent us from considering the evidence suited to the question.
What God makes known through creation and conscience is often called general revelation. It gives us reason to acknowledge Him, but it does not explain the whole gospel. The stars cannot tell us Jesus’ name or how His blood provides forgiveness. Psalm 19 itself moves from the heavens to the law of the LORD. We need His written Word to understand His promises, and we need Christ to rescue us from sin.
Creation Points Beyond Itself
David uses poetry to describe the heavens bearing witness to God. The sky does not speak with a human voice, yet day after day it displays a world we did not make and cannot sustain.
The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows His handiwork. Day unto day utters speech, And night unto night reveals knowledge.
Psalm 19:1-2
Learning how that world works does not remove its Creator. Explaining rainfall, gravity, or photosynthesis tells us something about the order He made. Scientific investigation depends on patterns stable enough to examine and minds capable of understanding them. We can discover how a process operates and still have to ask why such an ordered world exists at all. I do not need to reserve God for the things scientists have not yet explained.
We reason from effects to causes in ordinary life. A house gives us reason to recognize a builder, and a book’s contents point to someone capable of communicating meaning. Hebrews uses the familiar example of a house.
For every house is built by someone, but He who built all things is God.
Hebrews 3:4
Hebrews 3 compares Moses, a faithful servant in God’s house, with Christ, the Son over it. The verse belongs to that argument, but it also appeals to something the reader can recognize: a house does not build itself. A house and the universe differ in many respects, so the comparison is not a complete philosophical proof. Even with those limits, it helps us ask whether a proposed cause can account for what it produces. An explanation of the world needs to account for its matter and order as well as its living inhabitants.
Scripture identifies a personal, eternal Creator whose power and wisdom account for that world. Treating impersonal matter as the final explanation leaves further questions about rational thought, moral duty, beauty, and the people who recognize them. Describing the materials from which something is made does not by itself settle every question about its existence.
Living things add to this witness. The National Human Genome Research Institute describes DNA as carrying genetic information used in an organism’s development and functioning. The sequence of its chemical bases encodes instructions used to make proteins or RNA. Cells use this information as they grow, reproduce, and repair damage.
When I read the instructions in a recipe, I know someone arranged them to produce a particular result. I see a similar reason to recognize intelligence in the way living cells use biological information. A cell is not the same thing as a human artifact, and this comparison is not a substitute for studying the biology carefully. But learning how life works gives me further reason to share David’s gratitude to the God who formed him.
I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, And that my soul knows very well.
Psalm 139:14
His praise is not a laboratory account of embryology. Scientific study can describe how a human body develops without settling the ultimate question of why life exists in an ordered world. Scripture attributes that world to God’s creative work and continuing care, which gives us reason to join David in thanking Him.
The Eternal God and the People He Made
If creation requires an explanation, someone will reasonably ask why God does not need a creator too. If I claimed that absolutely everything had to be made by someone else, I would only have pushed the problem back another step. Scripture instead distinguishes the eternal God from the things that came into existence.
Before the mountains were brought forth, Or ever You had formed the earth and the world, Even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God.
Psalm 90:2
The question “Who made God?” treats Him as one more thing that began to exist. A being made by someone else would itself be a creature. The God revealed in Scripture is self-existent, meaning He depends on nothing outside Himself for His existence. He was not assembled from earlier materials and is not the first object somewhere inside the universe. The world had a beginning; He did not.
We also need to be precise about nothing. Absolute nothingness is not a hidden substance with laws or potential waiting to produce a universe. It has no power to act. The biblical claim is that the living God created, rather than that something caused itself to exist out of absolute nothing. Calling matter the ultimate reality still leaves us asking why it exists and has the order we observe.
We reason and communicate, form relationships, and grieve when someone we love dies. We remember our past and make plans for a future we can imagine but have not seen. We can regret a decision because we recognize that we ought to have acted differently. Genesis describes our personhood in relation to the personal God who made us.
Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
Genesis 1:26-27
God is spirit, so bearing His image is not a description of physical resemblance. We reflect Him as creatures capable of reasoning, language, relationships, and moral responsibility. The authority we exercise within creation is delegated by Him, and we answer to Him for its use. Sin has profoundly damaged our conduct without erasing His image. Human dignity therefore belongs to people from the womb through the end of earthly life, as the study on the sanctity of life explains further.
Conscious thought raises another question. The brain is physical, but measuring its activity does not by itself establish the meaning or truth of a thought. We can measure the sound waves carrying a sentence and still have to judge whether the sentence is true. I understand our ability to recognize and reason about truth in light of the God whose image we bear. Our Maker knows and speaks truth, and He made us as embodied persons who can know it too.
Our moral judgments concern more than personal preference. If I condemn betrayal or cruelty, I mean someone ought not to act that way, even if he enjoys it or his neighbors approve. People disagree about morality and sometimes rationalize terrible conduct, yet they still appeal to what they think is right. Paul describes this witness of conscience in Romans 2.
for when Gentiles, who do not have the law, by nature do the things in the law, these, although not having the law, are a law to themselves, who show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness, and between themselves their thoughts accusing or else excusing them
Romans 2:14-15
Paul is explaining why Gentiles as well as Jews are accountable to God. Gentiles did not possess the Mosaic Law as Israel did, but conscience could still accuse or excuse them. Jews who had received the Law were responsible to obey it, rather than merely hear it. Neither group could claim innocence. Paul’s argument proceeds to Romans 3, where everyone has sinned and needs justification through Christ.
An unbeliever can recognize kindness and condemn abuse; denying God does not erase the moral awareness God gave him. But conscience is not infallible, and it cannot save anyone. It may be misinformed, hardened, or wounded and needs correction from Scripture. If justice means only what a group prefers, we have no firm basis for saying the group itself is wrong. Scripture grounds moral law in God’s character and our worth in His image, so popular approval cannot make cruelty right.
Why People Resist the Evidence
These reasons for belief do not mean unbelief can be resolved simply by supplying more information. Romans 1 describes a moral response to what God has made known.
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them.
Romans 1:18-19
The word translated suppress conveys holding something down. Paul describes people resisting God even though they owe Him worship. He is not saying every unbeliever has studied every argument and deliberately lied about his conclusion. Someone may have been poorly taught, encountered religious hypocrisy, or suffered a devastating loss. I need to listen to those circumstances while taking Paul’s warning seriously: we are not innocent observers with no obligation to the God we are discussing.
Paul then explains how creation bears witness to Him.
For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse.
Romans 1:20
Humanity is without excuse because God has made His power and divine nature known through what He made. Creation directs us to worship its Maker, rather than the things He made. That witness condemns idolatry and leaves us accountable, but it cannot provide salvation apart from the gospel. We need to tell people about the Christ whom Scripture reveals.
I should answer someone’s actual question honestly, but I cannot assume one more argument will meet his entire need. He also needs God’s grace and conviction. A request for more information may be sincere, or continued postponement may become a way to avoid responding to truth already understood. We need to call people to repentance without pretending we can always identify their motives.
The Creator Has Revealed Himself in Christ
John takes us beyond belief in an unnamed Creator. The Word was with God in the beginning and was Himself God, and everything created came into existence through Him.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.
John 1:1-3
This eternal Word became flesh as Jesus Christ. The Maker entered His own creation, becoming fully man without ceasing to be fully God. Colossians describes the reach of His creative work and His authority over it.
For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him.
Colossians 1:16
All things were made through Christ and for Him, and the surrounding passage says they continue to hold together in Him. The Creator has identified Himself in the Son, so I cannot leave the discussion at an impersonal force. Our minds and the world we investigate belong to Him. History is moving toward His judgment and kingdom.
Paul makes that connection between creation and Christ in Acts 17:16–34. Athens was filled with idols, and philosophers brought him to the Areopagus to explain his teaching. He told them that the God who made the world gives every nation life and breath. This God does not depend on temples or human service to sustain Him. Paul even used words familiar from their poets to challenge the idea that the divine nature could be represented by an idol made through human art.
He then called his hearers to repent because God had appointed a day of judgment. Christ’s resurrection gave assurance that the judgment would take place.
because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.
Acts 17:31
Some mocked when they heard about the resurrection, others wanted to hear Paul again, and some believed. Paul reasoned from things his audience could recognize, but his appeal went on to the risen Christ. They needed to respond to Him.
The Judge is also the Savior sinners need. Jesus, born of a virgin and entirely without sin, willingly gave Himself to be slain as the perfect sacrifice for our sins. Wicked men tortured and crucified Him, and He shed His innocent blood and died for us. His sacrificial offering through that blood and death was complete before He was buried and rose bodily. The Father did not punish, curse, abandon, strike, bruise, or pour wrath on Jesus; Father and Son were united in providing our redemption. Our defense of belief in God should lead us to proclaim the One through whom guilty people can be forgiven.
Answering Objections with Truth and Humility
A difficult question does not threaten the truth, and I should not treat the person asking as though he has done something wrong by raising it. We may need to distinguish a created process from its ultimate explanation or discuss why an eternal Creator differs from a creature. A particular biblical question may need its own careful answer; the study on who Cain’s wife was is one example.
A person asking about evil may be grieving a terrible loss. If I begin with a lecture about moral standards before listening to him, I may fail to answer the question he is actually asking. Scripture gives room for lament in Job and the Psalms, and Jesus wept at Lazarus’s tomb. We should listen patiently and never assume that a particular illness or disaster proves the sufferer committed a particular sin.
When we call something objectively wrong, we mean more than that it offends our preferences. I believe the holy God provides the foundation for that judgment: evil violates His good order. Scripture traces evil to creaturely rebellion, including humanity’s fall and the activity of the devil. God remains in authority without becoming the author of sin.
Removing God does not resolve the suffering or give us a firmer basis for condemning it. His knowledge and authority ensure that no wrong escapes final justice, even when human courts fail to discover it. The cross also shows that He did not remain distant from human suffering. The sinless Son was betrayed and crucified by wicked men, yet God provided mercy through what He willingly endured without declaring their evil good.
I cannot tell someone why God permitted a particular loss when He did. I can point him to what God has done in history against sin and death, His promise of resurrection, and His coming judgment. He will defeat the devil and judge rightly. Those promises give us hope without requiring us to pretend that the suffering is less terrible than it is.
1 Peter 3:15 instructs believers to give a defense with meekness and fear, or gentleness and reverence. If I humiliate someone to show how foolish I think his question is, I should not congratulate myself on defending the faith. Plain speaking does not require cruelty, and patience does not require evasion. I also need enough honesty to say when I have not examined a question thoroughly, rather than bluff my way through it.
Someone can accept that a Creator exists and still remain unreconciled to God. Christ died for the whole world, and God offers salvation to everyone, although people can resist and reject Him. Whoever repents and believes is forgiven and born again. The Spirit indwells and seals that believer, whose eternal life is secure in Christ. For a fuller explanation of these truths, see the study of salvation.
When I speak with someone about Christ, I should also be praying for him. We ask God to open blind eyes, grant repentance, and work through His Word in the hearer. I can speak with conviction while recognizing that someone’s new birth does not rest on my skill as a debater.
My Final Thoughts
I believe Scripture gives substantial reasons to know that God exists. Creation bears witness to His power and wisdom, while our personhood and conscience are explained by the God whose image we bear. We can consider these things confidently without pretending a well-phrased argument can give someone new life.
The answer should lead to Jesus Christ, who made us, entered our world, and shed His blood for sinners. He rose bodily and will judge the world in righteousness. I want to speak plainly enough to call people to Him and patiently enough to hear what they are struggling to understand, trusting God to work through His truth.
