The idea that God was once a man is one of the great Mormon ideas, born out of the idea of eternal progression. It is not unique or original to Mormonism, but it has no greater current proponent in an organized religion. If we are to progress eternally, is there a time at which we become Gods ourselves, acting perhaps in the same manner as the God with which we now deal? Is God now progressing as well, or is he firmly outside of the limits of “time” and therefore the nature of his progression different than we can understand, subjected, as we are, to linear thinking?
Reform Mormonism loves this concept, despite the fact that the rest of the world finds the subject to either be heretical or to have missed the point. This idea of eternal progression, applied equally to God and man, is one of the things that truly make Reform Mormonism its own tradition.
Other Mormon divisions do not embrace this concept with as much enthusiasm for its exploration, or at least, as much courage of their convictions. In the past decade the leader of the LDS church has stated that they “do not teach” the idea that God was once a man, and that they “do not know very much about it,” and as such, they seem to have moved away from its exploration. It is certainly held out within their doctrines as a “true” concept, and seems the goal of many a Mormon male (women are not permitted to become Gods) but it is apparently a troubling item for the LDS marketing department, in as much as it is one of the doctrines that firmly delineate Mormonism outside the boundaries of orthodox Christianity, and the LDS are nothing if not obsessed with being understood as Christian.
Reform Mormons are not as much interested in the marketing. We explore the subject with relish, trusting in our tenets that more knowledge is better than less, and that all exploration is exploration of God’s territory. If we are to be considered heretical or non-Christian for this, so be it.
Ultimately, a Mormon must come to terms with the orthodox Mormon idea that God was once a man, and that as God is, man may become. The LDS believe that God possesses a physical body, suggesting a limitation to his physical presence. His ability to be felt and manifest everywhere, required by his attribute of “omnipresence” (everywhere at once) is handled by the Holy Ghost, a being supposedly capable of such disbursement and universality.
Reform Mormonism tends to view physical representations of God, such as the one of an old man with white whiskers, sitting upon a throne, running things as a king would run a government, as an “objectification” of God, and therefore subject to useful personal application, but inherent error. Everything is fine, so long as the purpose of this objectification and its potential failure is understood. Idols, commanded against in the Old Testament, can be something made of stone or wood, or they can be ideas – an object that we think of when we mentally construct what is meant by the word “God.” Thinking of God as an old man is no less of an idol (object) than thinking of God as a plastic figurine, a Hindu statue, an animal, or a particular person such as Jim Jones (objects all.) If God is also to receive the attribute of “omniscience,” (all powerful, capable of all things) which he has been given by many a Mormon prophet and apostle, then we must ask ourselves if this commonly-accepted LDS objectification of God as an old, whiskered man is truly the nature of God or if it is a choice of God (God could have chosen any presentation he liked) or the person holding the objectification in their mind (Joseph Smith would have accepted or responded to God in no other presentation.)
Does this make God a man? Is God prohibited from presenting himself as a woman? Can God present himself in any form he likes?
Joseph Smith taught that until we understand the nature of God, we cannot understand ourselves. For myself, I continue to use the objectification of God as a man because it fits with my tradition, but I am fully prepared to acknowledge that my selection – my choice of that particular objectification – is merely a choice of mine, at this moment, and that the nature of God extends well beyond my choice in such incomprehensible ways that for me to tell another person that their selection of an objectification of God is unacceptable would be utterly ridiculous. In other words, my objectification of God is mine, useful for me – yours is yours, useful for you. God is neither of these objectifications, since he is actually far beyond them – but there’s little point, and in fact a good deal of damage to be wreaked – in my insistence that your particular objectification is no good because it isn’t mine. If any two Mormons were to sit down and draw a picture of God, each person’s picture would be different. Each would be valid, insofar as their personal conception of the image of God (their objectification) is concerned.
There is a strain of Mormon thought which believes that God is subject to a series of laws that even he cannot disobey; this suggests a higher authority than God. Only in the world of Mormon eternal progression could such an idea be held, and it’s an interesting one: who made up the rules by which God is constrained? If this sub-Mormon philosophy that God himself is subjected to rules is true (certainly not all Mormons agree with it) it does help explain the LDS (and Christianity in general’s) penchant for rules, laws, and obedience. Or is the idea that God is constrained by rules merely an extension of man’s perception of the need for rules here on Earth and that since Mormons believe that God was once a man, he must also have played by a set of rules, at least while learning to be God? The LDS are obedience and law-obsessed, clearly one of the more authoritarian religions the world has ever seen, and one cannot underestimate the power that certain assumptions about the universality of obedience have had in the construction of doctrines about the nature of God; pursuit of this line of thinking has helped the LDS enter the mainstream of religious behavior, where ideas around obedience and loyalty to authority have been the norm in Christianity since the orthodox eliminated the Gnostics in the first few hundred years of Christian existence.
While most Reform Mormons would never discourage inquiry into such areas, for we feel that it is within inquiry that people learn and teach themselves how to learn, it’s generally felt that the more we subscribe human traits to God the more we are merely making our particular objectification of God more palatable and understandable to ourselves or to other humans; such ascriptions cannot invalidate another’s experience of God via their own objectification. Such understandings serve us while conducting particular lines of study and spiritual exploration, but if we solidify these perceptions, as is often the case with the literalism so rampant in LDS society and administration, we run the risk of slowing our progression by becoming close-minded to new revelation.
Use your objectification of God to further your progression, to understand an aspect of God that helps you further understand yourself – but understand what you are doing when you do this, and never permanently lock God down into the objectification you have constructed. Such lock downs are anathema to you, because they will slow you, and you are designed to learn and accelerate (eternal progression) not slow or stop. God is beyond any objectification you care to make, or has ever been made, including the orthodox Mormon construction, or any postulation we can make within the freedom of the exploration of the subject offered us by Reform Mormonism.
The freedom to explore this aspect of God – the eternal nature of God – is one of the forces that continually drive our desire for more knowledge. The fact that God is eternal (beyond time as we understand it) and the fact that we exist in time mean that our attempt to understand the nature of God will always continue, at least until we are able to understand eternity. The ultimate decision anyone makes about God is whether or not to stop leaning more about God, satisfied with a particular objectification, or to continue to learn more about God, recognizing that stopping – while perhaps comfortable from a ego or laziness standpoint – defeats the purpose of life, and that continual exploration of God is a leaning process we are supposed to develop – part of the purpose in experiencing time literally.
A diet of milk alone will stunt you. Look around you and watch progression occurring – you will notice that it is natural, but that many people have stopped on particular plateaus for a variety of reasons. Step off the plateau of your present leaning and jump into the new knowledge that is awaiting your exploration. It is in these acts of exploration, not acts of obedience, that you qualify yourself for Godhood.