Argument against the mormon view of God

[Pate]

Two mormons visited my apartment last night and during our discussion, it occurred to me that a variation the argument against infinite temporal/causal regression as it's employed by W. L. Craig in the Kalam cosmological argument, can also be used to argue against the mormon concept of God.

Mormons say that some time in the past, God was not omnipotent and omniscient, but now he is. Once he was finite, now he's infinite. Well, if he was a finite being with finite capabilities, then presumably he could only gain a finite amount of knowledge and power at once. The problem is that if he starts as a being with finite knowledge and power, then he'll never reach infinity by successively adding more and more of them, which of course contradicts the view shared by christians and mormons that God now has infinite power and knowledge.

They were unable to respond to this. I wonder whether there are sound responses available. One that I've now thought of would be the distinction between qualitative and quantitative infinity, but I'm not sure whether that will in itself solve the problem for the mormon view.

[John Powell]

POWELL:
Here's what I thought when I was still a believer.

JOHN MORMON:
Gods, devils, angels, and humans all come from the same origin: intelligences. Intelligences are eternal. They have existed "forever" (as long as anyone remembers) and are not created. Intelligences can be given spirit bodies, preferably by someone great like God. Spirits (i.e., intelligences with spirit bodies) can be given physical bodies by mortal parents.

God is temporally infinite just like we are in having existed as something (at least an intelligence) before anyone remembers and God is EXPECTED to exist forever into the future. Since not even God knows the future, this isn't certain, but it's believed with high confidence.

God is very powerful, very knowledgeable, and very good, but God is NOT the idealized superlatives of these characteristics. There are some things God can't do (such as create a square circle or create a stone so large He couldn't lift it AND REMAIN omnipotent afterwards). There are some things God can't know (such as the future free will choices of Himself and others). God seeks the maximum good, but he's not ALL-GOOD. He sometimes makes mistakes (such as putting Satan in a high position of power). If God were the philosophical superlative of power, knowledge, and benevolence then His existence would be either self-contradictory or it would contradict the facts of reality.

Not all Mormons agree with this view of God. Many will affirm that God is an Omnibeing, but I think they do so out of ignorance of Mormon doctrine. If God is as idealized perfect as philosophers suggest then Mormons don't stand much of a chance of becoming one themselves.

John Powell

[Pate]

JOHN MORMON:
Gods, devils, angels, and humans all come from the same origin: intelligences. Intelligences are eternal. They have existed "forever" (as long as anyone remembers) and are not created.

My main problem with a view like this would be (leaving aside the fact that such a view contradicts my own view) that it seems to postulate a very complex "ultimate reality" that has no further explanation. The mere fact of having (presumably) non-material intelligence as the ultimate reality is not so puzzling as such, but according to my intuitions, at least, the wide variety of intelligences with various potentialities, some of which are already actualized while some are not, is something that cries out for a further explanation. Or is it rather that all these "intelligences" start out as similar and relatively simple and continue to evolve to various directions?


Not all Mormons agree with this view of God. Many will affirm that God is an Omnibeing, but I think they do so out of ignorance of Mormon doctrine.

Well, at least those mormons with whom I talked yesterday, seemed to fully accept the properties of omniscience and omnipotence for their god. Perhaps they were just trying to minimize the differences between mormonism and christianity in order to make their message easier for me to accept. They even first agreed that a person who lacks those properties may not be properly called God (which lead them to a kind of contradictory position which I pointed out to them).



If God is as idealized perfect as philosophers suggest then Mormons don't stand much of a chance of becoming one themselves.


Yes, that seems obvious.

[John Powell]

JOHN MORMON:
Gods, devils, angels, and humans all come from the same origin: intelligences. Intelligences are eternal. They have existed "forever" (as long as anyone remembers) and are not created.

PATE:
My main problem with a view like this would be (leaving aside the fact that such a view contradicts my own view) that it seems to postulate a very complex "ultimate reality" that has no further explanation. The mere fact of having (presumably) non-material intelligence as the ultimate reality is not so puzzling as such, but according to my intuitions, at least, the wide variety of intelligences with various potentialities, some of which are already actualized while some are not, is something that cries out for a further explanation.


JOHN MORMON:
Those views I expressed change the ultimate reality from "complex entity called God" to "complex assortment of simple entities, called intelligences." They attempt to answer the question "who was the first God" by invoking an evolutionary model.

PATE:
Or is it rather that all these "intelligences" start out as similar and relatively simple and continue to evolve to various directions?


JOHN MORMON:
Sort of. The only way to progress is to gain more intelligence (by joining with others via the natural affinity one intelligence has for another). How fast this happens is variable. The first "god" may have just been the first of the intelligences to change into spirit form (an altered form of intelligence) or something like that. The God of our world may NOT have been this first god, but an intelligence that became a spirit later on.

These views, as I have expressed them, are NOT Mormon Doctrine, but they are based on Mormon scriptures and teachings of the leaders and at least parts of them are Mormon Doctrine.

JOHN MORMON:
Not all Mormons agree with this view of God. Many will affirm that God is an Omnibeing, but I think they do so out of ignorance of Mormon doctrine.

PATE:
Well, at least those mormons with whom I talked yesterday, seemed to fully accept the properties of omniscience and omnipotence for their god. Perhaps they were just trying to minimize the differences between mormonism and christianity in order to make their message easier for me to accept.


POWELL (the atheist):
Possibly. In recent decades Mormons have tried to become more like mainstream Christianity whereas prior to that they tried to be distinct from mainstream Christianity.

PATE:
They even first agreed that a person who lacks those properties may not be properly called God (which lead them to a kind of contradictory position which I pointed out to them).


JOHN MORMON:
I don't think they understand their own theology very well. One of Joseph Smith's important teachings is that God is a man, just like us, but better. We can become Gods ourselves.

JOHN MORMON:
If God is as idealized perfect as philosophers suggest then Mormons don't stand much of a chance of becoming one themselves.

PATE:
Yes, that seems obvious.


JOHN MORMON:
Apparently not to those Mormons you spoke with.

John Powell