Can Men Become Gods? James White vs Martin Tanner

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The following presentation is a production of Alpha and Omega Ministries, Inc. and is protected by copyright laws of the

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United States and its international treaties. Copying or distribution of this production without the expressed written permission of Alpha and Omega Ministries, Inc.

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is prohibited. The subject of our debate this evening is Can Men Become Gods?

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We have with us two very distinguished speakers. I would ask that you show the respect that is appropriate for this kind of venue.

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Both men have graciously volunteered to appear here. They have asked nothing from us in return and it is our privilege to have them.

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Please hold all applause until the end when we can applaud both speakers for their presentations.

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If you have any questions, check with me during the break or afterwards. We have with us first Dr.

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Martin Tanner. He received a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Utah and obtained a doctorate in law at Brigham Young University.

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He has contributed to the Encyclopedia of Mormonism, recently published by Macmillan. He has contributed to various projects and articles produced by the

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Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, known as FARMS, down at BYU. He hosts

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Religion Today, a radio talk show which airs weekly on KSL Radio. We also have with us

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Dr. James White. He is the director of Alpha and Omega Ministries in Phoenix, Arizona.

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He is also a ruling elder in the Reformed Baptist Church there in Phoenix. He is the author of nearly 20 books, including

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Letters to a Mormon Elder, The Roman Catholic Controversy, and The God Who Justifies.

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It is our great privilege to have both of these men with us here this evening. As I said, the subject of our debate is,

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Can Men Become Gods? And we will begin with Dr. Martin Tanner. Thank you.

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It's a pleasure to be here with you this evening. This is a doctrine that needs a little bit of explanation perhaps for some.

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It's commonly called deification or theosis or by some divinization.

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It's the concept that salvation in the ultimate sense means that humans, if they are faithful, can become gods and thrown next below the

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Savior. This is not a concept, as some have said, that is exclusively

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LDS in nature. Far from it, this is a doctrine that goes back to the earliest days of Christianity.

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It is found universally amongst the early Christian church fathers.

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It is only discarded in Protestant circles today.

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It is believed, although not a forefront belief by Catholics and also the

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Eastern Orthodox. It's a doctrine that is absolutely widespread now and earlier in Christianity.

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There is even some evidence that in the earliest days of the

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Protestant Reformation, it was taught there. There is a Finnish scholar who has claimed that Martin Luther briefly taught it, although I have only briefly become acquainted with that source.

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I'd like to talk about some of the sources tonight because the sources that I will cite are not

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LDS. Not a single source that I'm going to give you tonight is from an LDS source.

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Every single source will be biblical, will be early Christian church fathers, will be current

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Christian church fathers. I'm just going to talk to you about a few of those very briefly.

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J .N .B. Kelly is a highly regarded scholar. He was principal at St.

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Edmund's Hall in Oxford, England. He's an internationally renowned scholar on patristics.

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He talks in his quite famous book, Early Christian Doctrines, about the concept of deification.

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He quotes early Christian church fathers such as Clement and others for the idea that, quote, the word became man so that you might learn from man how man may become

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God, close quote. Another Christian church scholar that is highly regarded is

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Hubert Cunliffe -Jones. He wrote a book that's also quite widely regarded in Christian circles,

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History of Christian Doctrine has the typical Christian cross on the front. It's published by Fortress Press, very well known to Christians.

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He, for a long time, was a minister in several congregations and then later began to teach.

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He talks about the doctrine in many, many places in his book that, quote, deification signifies that we, meaning

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Christians, become God's own gods by grace and by status but never by nature, close quote.

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In other words, God lifts us up to become like him and God but never to displace him.

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Here's another current source. This is by Jules Gros, Catholic scholar, highly regarded.

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He published this entire book. It's on divinization, theosis.

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There's nothing else in here other than that concept. He wrote this book in 1938.

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It was published as a thesis. It was authorized by the

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Catholic Theology at the University of Strasburg. So it was allowed by a

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Catholic university. In it, he takes the position after surveying all the statements of the early

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Christian church fathers, this concept of divinization or theosis or men becoming gods was universally taught in the early

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Christian church by some that I'm sure are regarded now as heretics and by others who are regarded now as absolutely

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Orthodox like Athanasius and St. Augustine. They talked a lot about divinization.

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Here's another book that has a great little segment in it on the idea of deification.

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Dictionary of Early Christian Beliefs. This was written by a priest, an

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Anglican priest who lives in Texas. He has spent years studying the early

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Christian beliefs. He has a section on the deification of man and quotes over and over many of the church fathers.

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It goes on for pages with quotes of them saying that men can become gods.

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There is another source that is widely regarded in Christian circles that talks all about the doctrine.

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An Encyclopedia of Early Christianity. In it, there are several pages worth of quotations from current and prior church fathers where they say that the ultimate goal of Christians is to become deified or to become like Jesus and like God.

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Then we get to a couple of sources that I don't have here today because they are so voluminous.

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There is a series of books, 37 volumes, 38 if you want to count the index. The Anti -Nicene, the

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Nicene and Post -Nicene Fathers series published by Eerdmans Press, highly regarded in the

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Christian community. In there, if you take the time, you can find hundreds and hundreds of statements by almost all the early church fathers where they say that the ultimate goal of Christians is to have salvation.

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What does salvation mean? It means that men can become gods.

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Not to displace Jesus, not to displace his father, but to become joint heirs with Christ, to have all of the powers and abilities that would entitle someone to be called a god.

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These are not my words, but those of the early Christian church fathers and those who are so faithful within the early

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Christian church would be called gods. There is another source, the

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Oxford Dictionary of Christianity that has several pages on deification talking about the ancient beliefs and the current beliefs on the subject within Christianity.

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There are several fine books and articles by Pelican and others that talk about this doctrine.

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This is a doctrine that is so widespread, literally the only major group within Christianity that speaks little or nothing of it is

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Evangelical Christians and some other Protestant groups. That basically happened because at the time of the

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Reformation there was a push by Martin Luther, by John Calvin, and by their successors within the ministry to talk in different terms than were the norm before, to talk about an unbridgeable gulf between God and man, to talk about God as being so far beyond humanity that it was hard to even imagine how he thinks what he is like.

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That's a very different concept than the one that Jesus first expressed. He prayed to Abba, his father.

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Abba is the Hebrew word that means daddy. It's a lot more tender and dear word than father.

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Jesus knew that his daddy was very close, his father in heaven was very close, and was like him.

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He said in the New Testament that he did nothing but what his father did. We have similar statements by Peter and by Paul who talk about faithful Christians as being the children of God, of being of the same genos or species as God.

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This was the way that the early apostles, the early church fathers, and their successors talked about our relationship to God and about what salvation actually meant.

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I have a couple of brief quotes here that I would like to discuss so that you'll understand exactly what

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I'm talking about and what these early church fathers referenced when they came up with these quotes and these statements about deification.

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They would quote Jesus as stated in Matthew 5, verse 48, that the disciple is not above his master, but everyone that is perfect shall ultimately be as his master.

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We have a quote from Psalm 106, that says, Psalm 8, chapter 5, quote, you made him, talking about humans, you made him lower than God for a little while, and then crown him with glory and honor, close quote.

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William Beck translation. We have the apostle Peter in 2

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Peter 1, verses 2 through 7, quoting here from the King James, which says that we will be given, quote, everything necessary for godliness, because we have come to know him who called us to share his own glory, and to become sharers in the divine nature, close quote.

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The apostle Paul said in 2 Corinthians 3, verse 18, that we are thus being transformed into his, talking about Jesus, into his very likeness, and that that's the work of the

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Lord. William Barclay translation. In Romans, chapter 8, verses 14 and 15, we are told that we are the children of God, and if children, then heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ, if it so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together, close quote.

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The apostle John had a number of different things to state here.

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He said that, quote, we shall reign on earth,

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Revelation chapter 5, verse 10, and to him that overcometh, talking about the faithful saints, will

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I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame and am set down with my father in his throne, close quote,

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Revelation chapter 3, verses 21 and 22. In Revelation chapter 21, verse 7, we hear this, quote, he that overcometh shall inherit all things, and I will be his

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God, and he shall be my son, close quote. If we say that being a god is not something that we should be inheriting, then this biblical statement would be false.

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A faithful Christian would not inherit all things. They would not. Now some other quotes by some of the early

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Christian church fathers. Clement of Alexandria was the bishop of the early church in Alexandria, Egypt.

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He said in his dialogue, or excuse me, and said as quoted in the early

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Nicene Fathers, that quote, those who have been perfected are given their reward and their honors.

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They have received the title of gods, since they are destined to be enthroned with other gods who are ranked next below the savior, close quote.

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Clement of Alexandria, very orthodox Christian. He also said, quote, the word became man, just that you may learn from a man how it should be that man should become

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God, close quote. Irenaeus, also of the second century and widely renowned early church father said, and how shall man pass to God unless God has passed to man, close quote, talking about the savior.

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He also said, and I think this is a fascinating quote, we were not made gods at our beginning, but first we were made men, then in the end, gods, close quote.

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Tertullian, a little bit later in the third century, quote, for we shall be even gods if we shall deserve to be among those whom he declared,

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I have said you are gods, and then he says on a little bit farther, but this comes of his own grace, not from any property in us, because it is he alone who can make us gods, close quote.

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So here we have Tertullian saying that it's by salvation that those who are faithful become gods.

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A number of other quotes. I could give you dozens and dozens.

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Origin in the third century, quote, the father then is proclaimed as the one true

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God, but besides the true God are many who became gods by participating in God.

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From him there are many who become gods, and from him there began the union of the divine with the human nature in order that the human, by communion with the divine, might rise to be divine.

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Hippolytus, Bishop of Portus, talks about those who are faithful in these terms, quote, for thou hast become

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God, whatever it is consistent with God to impart, these God has promised to bestow upon thee because thou hast been deified and begotten unto immortality.

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If therefore man has become immortal, he will also be God if he is made God by water and the

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Holy Spirit after his regeneration, and later he is found to be also a joint heir with Christ after the resurrection, close quote.

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Jerome in the fifth century talks in similar terms. Athanasius, I've already mentioned, but here's a very nice quote from him.

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He himself has made us, talking about Christ, sons of the father and deified men by becoming himself man, therefore he was not man and then became

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God, but he was God and then became man, and that to deify us, for he was made man that we might be made

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God, close quote. A number of other quotes by Athanasius.

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I'll skip some of those at this point, running out of time. There are many, many others.

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St. Augustine, very famous early Christian, for God wishes to make thee a

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God, not by nature as he is whom he has begotten, but by his gift and adoption.

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Another quote from Athanasius, it is evident then that he hath called men gods that are deified of his grace, not born of his substance, for he doth justify who is just through his own self, and many, many others.

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The point here is that this was not just some bizarre, small little doctrine tucked away in some wacko group of early

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Christians that believed in really weird things. This is a doctrine that was, according to these scholars, universally taught in the early

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Christian church that has survived well and intact in the

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Eastern church, that has survived well and intact in the Western church except in the evangelical and some

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Protestant circles where during the last few centuries it has not been something that has been taught.

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Thank you. My apologies. One of the things I neglected to ask earlier, if our speakers could stand at the lectern,

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I think it would be easier for people on the opposite side to see them. So, my apologies.

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We will now have an opening statement by Dr. White. I just love how that happens.

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Good evening and welcome. It is good to be with you this evening. In the brief time that we have together, obviously there is much that we could discuss, but I want to focus upon the main issues because we are here at the

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University of Utah in Salt Lake City, Utah. The issue here, as you see on the flyer, is a

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Protestant LDS debate. When we discuss the subject of deification, we obviously assume that it is within the context of that kind of a conversation.

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Therefore, we need to understand what it is that the Mormon church is saying about deification so that we may properly contrast that with what the early church fathers were saying about deification because the two are very, very different things.

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When I speak of the Mormon position, if I might very briefly just simply utilize a piece of literature that is published under the seal of the

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Corporation of the First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints. It is meant for Mormons, and hence

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I would assume the leadership of the church would teach to its own people perspectives that would be consistent with its own theology.

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This is the Achieving a Celestial Marriage Handbook. It talks about the nature of God beginning on page four.

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Specifically, we read such things as, God was once a man who, by obedience, advanced to his present state of perfection.

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Through obedience and celestial marriage, we have progressed to the point where we become like God. A number of quotes are given, just a few.

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For example, John Taylor, knowest thou not that thou art a spark of deity struck from the fire of his eternal blaze and brought forth in the midst of everlasting burnings?

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Elder B .H. Roberts, man has descended from God. In fact, he is the same race as the gods, plural.

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His descent has not been from a lower form of life, but from the highest form of life. In other words, man is, in the most literal sense, a child of God.

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This is not only true of the spirit of man, but also of his body. Now, this is the quotation that's provided, and then a conversation takes place between a more mature, older Mormon and a younger

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Mormon man, under the title of, God became God by obedience to law.

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Keeping that in mind, I would point out that you will not find any early church father anywhere who taught that God became

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God by obedience to law. You will not find any early church father who believes that God was once a man who lived on another planet and was exalted to the status of godhood.

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Hence, at the very beginning, we have a fundamental difference. But notice this statement in the midst of the discussion.

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This from the older Mormon man. He says, always, you are an eternal being.

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You were never created and you cannot be destroyed, but you can advance, progress, and develop by obedience to law.

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Now, this tells us both something about the nature of God, as the Mormon church teaches it to its own people, as well as the nature of man, that man is not a created being in any way, shape, or form.

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Now, with that as the context, then, I would like to present to you, first of all, the reason why men cannot become gods, in the sense that that is presenting, is twofold.

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I'd like to present two primary biblical pieces of information, and then we can discuss the patristic literature as well.

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That is, I would submit to you that the biblical doctrine of the nature of God precludes the idea that men could ever become gods in the way

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God is God, or that God himself became a god through obedience to law.

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And secondly, the biblical doctrine of the nature of man. The Bible's teaching that man is the creation of God, that Jehovah God creates the spirits of men, something that Joseph Smith said

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God never had the power to do at all, but that he creates and forms the spirits of men, demonstrates that they are creatures, and since they've come into existence at a point in time, then they are precluded, by definition, from being

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God the way God is, because God has eternally been God. He has never been anything other than God.

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Now, just to lay out a little bit of that biblical information, Jehovah God is unique.

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Jehovah God is not like anything else in the universe. He is the creator of all things.

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He alone is God. He is unique in his spirituality, unique in his being, unique in his eternity, and he is unique as the creator of all things.

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As we go through the testimony of the Bible, we see over and over again these threads being brought together into a testimony concerning who the true

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God is. The true God says, before me there was no God formed, there shall be none after me in Isaiah 43.

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In Isaiah 44, he says, is there any other God besides me? Yea, I know not any. He whose understanding is infinite says,

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I know of no other God. He claims to have created all things. Anything that exists in heaven and earth exists because Jehovah God created these things.

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These are things that could never be said of the most highly exalted creature because a creature will always remain a creature.

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A creature will always remain finite and God has never ever been finite in his being.

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The same thing must be said concerning man as far as his biblical doctrine, biblical teaching is concerned, and that is man fundamentally is the creature of God.

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He is the one that God has made. He is the one that God has formed for his own purposes and his own glory.

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As such, since he has not eternally existed, God has eternally existed, Psalm 90 verse 2, even from everlasting to everlasting thou art

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God. Never said of man, there is no reference to D &C 93 -89, the Bible, that man was in the beginning with God.

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It is the Logos, Jesus Christ who is in the beginning with the Father, not mankind. That concept of man likewise is unknown anywhere else in Scripture, and the biblical teaching is that man is one of God's creatures created in the image of God, created as the one who reflects the very glory of God when he is in right relationship with him, but he is still a creature.

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He is still that which has been made. Now keeping those basic things in mind, and we will obviously have to spend more time looking at those things,

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I would remind us of what Isaiah said in Isaiah chapter 55. He said, for my thoughts, this is quoting

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God of course, for my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, declares the

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Lord, that is Jehovah speaking. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

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We cannot limit God. We cannot limit God to what we can conceive of him. When we speak of his eternity even, we cannot limit him simply to a long duration of experience.

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Instead, we need to recognize that he is the very creator of time itself, and since time is so limited this evening,

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I would simply invite everyone here this evening to write down on a piece of paper, take home with you, we live in a blessed land of freedom.

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We all have access to the Bible, and I would ask you to read the 40th through 48th chapters of Isaiah's prophecy.

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It's not a long section. Many of us have to read much more than that for our work or something like that. Read Isaiah 40 through 48, and ask yourself the question, is this the

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God that I worship? This God who speaks about men as being mere grasshoppers?

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This God as being the one who has weighed the nations in a balance, who creates time and the generations of time themselves?

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Is this the God that I worship? If it is, then you can be thankful to God that by his grace, he has indeed opened your eyes to his truth.

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Now, keeping these things in mind then, we have to ask the question, well, are there not statements from early church fathers about men becoming gods?

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There is no question that the doctrine of theosis appears in especially the

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Eastern church fathers. You will not find it in many of the earliest fathers to say that it's universally presented amidst of easy refutation because you cannot find it in Ignatius, you cannot find it in Polycarp, you cannot find it in these particular sources.

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And when you do though, what were they talking about? And what are these passages in the Bible that talks about, for example, inheriting, being joint heirs with Jesus Christ?

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How do we understand these things? Well, of course, when we hold to sola scriptura and tota scriptura, that is scripture alone and all of scripture, we recognize that we cannot interpret the

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Bible to be contradictory to itself and we allow the authors to interpret their own words. For example, in Romans 8, one of the greatest promises that is given to us is that we will be joint heirs with Jesus Christ, and that is quite true.

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But you see, Christ has eternally been God, he did not inherit deity. And so to say, well, we will inherit everything that Christ has inherited, he didn't inherit his divine nature, he's eternally existed as God, it is plainly taught in Philippians chapter 2,

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Colossians chapter 1, John chapter 1, Hebrews chapter 1, that Jesus Christ eternally existed as God.

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The unique thing about Jesus Christ is that he, as God, entered into his own creation, the person of Jesus Christ, that he indeed took on human flesh, the word became flesh and dwelt among us,

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John says, in John 1 .14, so that he might become obedient to the point of death, even the death on the cross, to provide for the glorious work of salvation.

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This is a unique work, but he did not inherit his nature as deity, and therefore to say that, well, if we're joint heirs, then we'll inherit everything

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Christ has, is to completely miss the point of Romans chapter 8, we will be glorified with him.

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Romans chapter 8 says, those whom he foreknew, he predestined, called, justified and glorified.

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It is all God's work, that is the work of salvation. But that does not change the fact that I will be a glorified human being, not a glorified eternal deity.

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That is, of course, the difference. So when we look at this doctrine of theosis, we need to keep a few important things in mind.

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Patristic scholar G .L. Prestige said concerning this particular issue, all such expressions, the deification of man are, it must be remembered, purely relative.

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They express the fact that man has a nature essentially spiritual, and to that extent resembling the being of God, further that he is able to attain a real union with God by virtue of an affinity proceeding both from nature and from grace.

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Man, the fathers might have said, is a supernatural animal, in some sense his destiny is to be absorbed into God. But they would all have repudiated with indignation any suggestion that the union of men to God added anything to the

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Godhead. They explained the lower in terms of the higher, but did not obliterate the distinction between them.

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Not only is God self -dependent, he has also all those positive qualities which man does not possess, the attribution of which is made by adding the negative prefix to the common attributes of humanity.

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In addition, insofar as humanity possesses broken lights of God, they are as far as possible from reaching the measure and perfection with which they are associated in the

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Godhead. Real power and freedom, fullness of light, ideal and archetypal spirit are found in him alone.

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The gulf is never bridged between creator and creature. Though in Christ human nature has been raised to the throne of God by virtue of his divine character, yet mankind in general can only aspire to the sort of divinity which lies open to its capacity through the union with the divine humanity.

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Eternal life is the life of God. Men may come to share its manifestations and activities but only by grace, never of right.

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Man remains a created being, God alone is uncreated."

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Now some of you might say, what's not the newest source? Well, I have a very new source here. This is published by the

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Foundation for Ancient Research in Mormon Studies. This is a Partakers of the Divine Nature, Comparative Analysis of Patristic and Mormon Doctrines of Divinization, copyright 2002.

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This is by a Dominican priest and in discussing the differences between theosis in the early church and the

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LDS doctrine, he makes the very same statement that I have emphasized many times in the past and I quote from page 43.

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The doctrine of theosis presupposes that there is a fundamental distinction between uncreated being and created being.

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God, that is, the three divine persons who are the one God are understood to be uncreated and eternal.

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God always has been divine and always will be divine. Human persons, on the other hand, are created from nothing, creatio ex nihilo.

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They are forever dependent on God for existence. Thus the divine nature, the nature of God is fundamentally different from human nature, the nature of human persons.

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In fact, one can speak of an ontological divide or chasm separating the two.

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The former is unoriginate, the latter is originate. Now notice it was said earlier that it was only with Calvin and Luther and others that this idea of a divide was developed.

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Actually, according to Prestige, Pelican and other scholars, this is part and parcel of the fundamental teaching of the early church fathers on the nature of God and the nature of man.

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God alone is God. God alone has eternally been God. Man is a creature.

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For example, Prestige quotes, some leading ideas about the nature of God may be illustrated in a few quotations from early writers.

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Tation writes, our God does not have his constitution in time. He alone is without beginning.

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He himself constitutes the source of the universe. God is spirit. He does not extend through matter, but as the author of material spirits and of the figures in matter, he is invisible and intangible.

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I have many, many, many quotes from the very same sources that establish this very same thing, but since we've already quoted from J.

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N. D. Kelly this evening, let me allow him to provide us with the foundation for understanding what he was saying in the quotations that were given.

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The classical creeds of Christendom, Kelly writes, opened with a declaration of belief in one

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God, maker of heaven and earth. The monotheistic idea ground in the religion of Israel loomed large in the minds of the earliest fathers.

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Though not reflective theologians, they were fully conscious that it marked the dividing line between the church and paganism.

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According to Hermas, the first commandment is to believe that God is one who created and established all things, bringing them into existence out of nonexistence.

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Sounds like Criatio ex nihilo. It was he who, by his invisible and mighty power and great wisdom, created the universe, and by his glorious purpose, closed its creation with comeliness, and by his strong word, fixed the heavens and founded the earth above the waters.

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For Clement, God is the father and creator of the entire cosmos, and for Barnabas and the Didache, our maker, his omnipotence and universal sovereignty were acknowledged, for he was the

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Lord Almighty, the Lord who governs the whole universe and master of all things. The reader should notice that at this period, the title

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Almighty connoted God's all -pervading control and sovereignty over reality, just as, notice this please,

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Father referred primarily to his role as creator and author of all things."

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End quote. Now why do I emphasize these foundational issues? Well, if you go into the court of law and you adjudicate a contract, those of you who have had to deal with those things know that most, especially lengthy contracts, have a section that lays out definitions, identifies the parties, defines terms, property, et cetera, et cetera.

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Then the contract goes on to discuss what's going to be done in light of this contract, and it may be a very lengthy thing.

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It may have many sections and many sub -clauses. If a person were to go into the court of law, and they were to attempt to argue based upon a much later section of the contract, upon a sub -clause later on, that a certain condition should be fulfilled, and that if their argument was completely based upon redefining the basic definitions laid out at the beginning of the contract, the judge is going to have to point out that the contract itself defined its own terms, and that to interpret a later section with ignorance of or in rejection of those initial definitions is, in fact, in error.

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To say that the doctrine of deification, as understood in the words that I cited from the

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LDS manual, or as understood in the King Follett funeral discourse, or as understood in chapters four and five of the book of Abraham, to say that that doctrine was shared by the early church is simply untrue.

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It is untrue because the early church did not believe that God had progressed to Godhood.

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They did not believe in a God who at one time had been a man who lived on another planet. They believed in the

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God of the Bible, who had eternally been God, who had never been anything other than God, and who created all things.

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Therefore, to understand what they meant is to understand their context. They lived in a day when paganism saw man as little more than an animal.

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And here we're saying that God actually entered into his creation to redeem a mere animal?

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No, of course not. Man is more than just a mere animal. Man, in fact, is a spiritual being.

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Man can achieve union with God, and that it is God's will in Jesus Christ to unite us to himself, have his

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Holy Spirit dwell within us, so that that term glorified can be used of us as we enter into his presence.

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And that is a wonderful thing, but none of that ever violates the chasm that exists between the creator and in the creation.

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In fact, to quote from Yaroslav Pelikan in talking about this doctrine of theosis, he said,

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A way had to be found, Palamas maintained, to preserve the reality of salvation as deification without implying the absurd and blasphemous idea that those who are deified became

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God by nature. So the question that we have to ask this evening, is

39:48

Elohim in LDS theology God by nature? Is he

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God by nature? Did he become God by a process? Can men become gods in the same way that God has become

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God? In other words, is that little couplet really true? As man is,

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God once was, and as God is, man may become. The early church fathers would never have used that terminology because they recognized that their

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God had eternally existed as God. Thank you very much.

40:29

Please hold your applause until the end when we can applaud both speakers. We will now have rebuttal from Dr.

40:36

Tanner. You know,

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I always enjoy it when James White and I get together for a discussion and I wind up quoting early

40:58

Christian non -LDS sources and he starts quoting all kinds of LDS sources. There's something nice about that,

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I guess. Reverend White is absolutely correct that when someone takes a look at a contract or a work that you cannot read little pieces of it in their own context.

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You can't read the scriptures that he quoted in Isaiah without looking at the earlier places in the

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Bible where it talks about divine counsels and about gods, and these are not idols.

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You cannot say that there is an unbridgeable gulf between God and man, which is language that is not found in the

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Bible, and also understand what we read in Ephesians where it says, quote, then shall we grow into mature manhood until we reach the stature of Christ in all his completeness.

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It doesn't say in all his completeness except being a god.

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It says in all his completeness. We can't read the section in Isaiah that was quoted without reading

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Colossians where it says, quote, for it was by God's own decision that the son has in himself the full nature of God.

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So if Jesus has the full nature of God and then we grow until we reach the stature of Christ in all his completeness, what do you have?

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Someone who has attained at least in some measure the status of God, and that is why the

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Apostle Paul said, and we can't read the section of Isaiah that Reverend White said and throw out 2

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Corinthians 3, verse 18 where it says, we are thus being transformed into his very likeness.

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It doesn't say partial likeness, or most of his likeness, or all the likeness except for Godhood.

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That language in the New Testament says into his very likeness, quoting from the

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William Barclay translation there. I also find it fun when the

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Reverend White, who usually likes to focus in on the New Testament, starts quoting from the

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Old Testament for the idea that nobody, nothing, never has, never will be, that there is anything other than one

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God. That's it. Nothing else could ever possibly happen. We have to read the scriptures as a whole, including the

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New Testament, including those earlier portions of the Old Testament that talk about divine counsels.

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What do we do with those? Whatever Reverend White would like to do to distinguish between the

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LDS version, or doctrine of God, and his

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Baptist version, or doctrine of God, this we know from the New Testament.

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And that is that according to Revelation chapter 5, verse 10, we shall reign on earth with him, that is talking about those who are faithful.

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According to 1 John chapter 3, verses 1 -3, we know that when he shall appear, those who are faithful, shall be like him.

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It doesn't say sort of like him, kind of like him, like him except in the sense that he's God. It says they shall be like him.

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And in Revelation chapter 21, verse 7, it says, he that overcometh shall inherit all things that are not his.

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All things. It doesn't say most things, or all the things except those that Reverend White would like to exclude because they don't fit his doctrine.

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It says all things. We have to read the Bible as a united whole the way it was supposed to be read.

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He doesn't like the idea that God was once a man. Well, I thought Jesus was fully God, and he was once a man.

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I don't know why that doctrine is so awful. The concept that he read out of the church, LDS Church's book, that we are children of God.

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Sounds a lot like Paul to me. Sounds a lot like Paul to me where he says that we are the children of God.

45:58

Let me quote J. N. D. Kelly so that you have a full idea of what he was saying about deification.

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It's on page 184 of his book. Who bestows immortality as well as knowledge?

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God's will, he remarks, is the knowledge of God, and this is its participation in immortality.

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So man is deified. The word became man so that you might learn from man how to become

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God, close quote. This does not mean, it's a straw herring, excuse me, a straw man or red herring for, straw herring, that's a new one,

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I'll keep that. It's a straw man to say that we can't become

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God. We can't become God's because God is unique. Of course he is unique. Everyone is unique. No LDS or other

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Christian group, past, present, or hopefully future, will ever say that by being deified as taught by the early

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Christian church fathers that somehow we supplant God, become equal to God, become somehow above God or Jesus, that's not part of it, or become part of the

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Godhead. That has never been expressed anywhere. The idea as is expressed by the early church fathers is that those who are faithful will become

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God's and thrown next below the Savior. What do we do with Psalm 82 verse 1 where it says, this is the

47:39

Good News Bible quotation, this is not some Mormon rendition, God presides in the divine counsel in the midst of the gods, adjudicates,

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God presides in the heavenly counsel in the assembly of the gods, he gives his decisions.

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We have several similar kinds of quotes that we could find from the

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Old Testament, Book of Job, all kinds of them. One of the things that is very important to know here is that Reverend White says we can't limit

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God. Well, if you say God could not elevate his children to the level that they would be called gods, isn't that limiting

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God? I don't choose to limit

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God, neither did the early church fathers. They all said that God could do all things, and one of those things that the apostles and the early church fathers said that he could do was that for the faithful, he could make them joint heirs with Christ and that they would inherit all things.

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So much for the unbridgeable gulf. If it is unbridgeable, there are some things which cannot be inherited.

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The comment was made by Reverend White, the

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New Worldly Church father says that God came from another planet.

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The Bible is silent about exactly where God came from.

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There has been a lot of speculation by a number of different faiths about where God came from, but it does not say where that was.

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The concept of the Latter -day Saints that God has always existed is a debate about in what form, not about whether he has always existed.

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The concept of whether or not we are created beings or in some form or another always existed is in large part a debate about the first portion of Genesis.

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Many, many translations talk about God creating out of nothing, and many talk about it as a creation out of pre -existing chaos and matter.

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In short, I came here tonight to debate not whether or not you all are going to believe the

50:43

LDS principle of God, but whether or not can men become gods, and according to the

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LDS view and the early Christian church fathers, that is something that is true.

50:57

I'll close with this quote by a renowned Lutheran scholar and minister.

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One can think what one wants of this doctrine of progressive deification, but one thing is certain with this anthropology,

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Joseph Smith is closer to the view of man held by the ancient church than the precursors of the

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Augustinian doctrine of original sin. We'll now have rebuttal from Dr.

51:28

White. I'd like to point out that the last quoted individual in Reflections of Mormonism also identified

51:40

Joseph Smith's perspective on God as a naive one. I would point out that his discussion there was on Christian marriage, and if you read the entire article,

51:49

I think you'll find it most enlightening. We have had a number of passages read to us from some interesting translations this evening, the

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Ecclesiastic translation, and William Barclay's come up, and some interesting things that you may have not heard of those passages before.

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For example, man made a little while lower than God. Most translations, of course, understand the

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Hebrew there as a little lower than God, not a little while lower than God. Ephesians 4 .13

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was cited, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to a mature man to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.

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Well, that doesn't make us gods, of course. The very term fullness, in fact, Colossians was cited, and the fullness of God was mentioned there.

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The problem is the fullness of deity is what Jesus Christ possesses eternally, Colossians 2 .9.

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Pleroma teis theatetas, that which makes God God. Theatetas is never used of man.

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Paul could have, why didn't he? He uses simply pleroma with not of deity when he speaks of the fullness that we are to have as believers, and that is a fullness that comes from our redemption, not from the changing of our created nature into an uncreated nature.

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Then we had 2 Corinthians 3 .18 that was cited to us as well. But we all with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the

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Lord are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord the Spirit.

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What is this again? The work of the Holy Spirit of God within us that is creating us anew, that is making us like Jesus Christ.

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Again, that ignores the fact that there is a fundamental and foundational difference between the fact that Jesus Christ has eternally been

53:34

God and the fact that we were created as men. We cannot become what

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Jesus Christ is by nature. There has never been a time when Jesus Christ did not exist as deity, and there was eons and eons of time when you and I did not exist at all.

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I know the Mormon scriptures say otherwise, but that is not a biblical teaching. Now, we were,

53:59

I was told, well, you know, why don't we use the New Testament? Well, there are plenty of passages in the New Testament we could go to.

54:05

We can go to 1 Timothy 1 .17, now the king eternal, immortal, invisible, the only

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God, be honor and glory forever and ever, amen. Interestingly enough, that phrase only God in Greek comes from two words, monos and theos.

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Monos and theos, when you put them together, means monotheism. That's what Christians are.

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We are monotheists. We believe there is one true and eternal God, not just one God for this planet, not just one main

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God for this planet, and certainly we recognize the vast difference there. And I point out to you that the vast majority of those early church fathers that have been cited were likewise monotheists.

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1 Timothy 6 .16, who alone possesses immortality, don't these other gods possess immortality? And dwells in unapproachable light whom no man has seen or can see, to him be eternal honor and eternal dominion.

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You see the New Testament writers believed in the God of the Old Testament, and that God of the

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Old Testament is the creator of all things. In fact, he is the creator of time itself.

55:08

Dr. Tanner wondered why I would have such a problem with the idea of men becoming gods, because Jesus Christ was certainly the

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God -man. The problem is, of course, the gospel is not that men can become gods, but that God became a man in the person of Jesus Christ.

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And that was a unique thing. That was a unique one -time experience where the creator himself, out of his great love for his people, enters into creation itself to be the

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God -man and to die a bloody death upon the cross of Calvary. That does not mean, of course, that we can have this iconcept that men can become gods in the sense that God is

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God. It has nothing to do with it, because it does not address the fact that God has eternally existed as God.

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He has never been anything else. And you'll notice, I pointed out, the early church fathers never teach.

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They never teach that God had progressed the status of Godhood. That was not even argued.

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Now, if you do not believe that God progressed the status of Godhood, then when you interpret what those early church fathers said about the eternity of God and about men becoming gods, don't you need to allow that to inform your interpretation?

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Well, of course, you must do so. Now, I would invite you, and we don't have time to do all this this evening, but Dr.

56:35

Tanner quoted from Irenaeus. And he didn't give the reference, but it's specifically from 438 of his first book,

56:44

Against Heresies. And this is a very common citation. Dr.

56:50

Stephen Robinson has quoted it. Drs. Peterson and Ricks have quoted it from Brigham Young University in their books.

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Interestingly enough, however, what is not quoted is the entirety of the quotation. In fact, let me read you specifically what was said right before.

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And if I could, let me remind you of the citation. This is all Dr. Tanner gave us.

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He said, for we cast blame upon him because we have not been made gods from the beginning, but at first merely men, then at length gods, end quote.

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Well, actually, the whole thing says, although God has adopted this course out of pure benevolence that no one may impute to him invidiousness or grudgingness, he declares,

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I have said, you're gods and you're all sons of the most high. That's normally how it's quoted in the LDS materials.

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What I've never found quoted in the LDS materials, Dr. Robinson doesn't do it, Dr. Peterson doesn't do it, we didn't have it this evening, is what appears one sentence prior to that citation.

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Here is what Irenaeus also said. Irrational, therefore, in every respect, are they who await not the time of increase, but ascribe to God the infirmity of their nature.

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Such persons know neither God nor themselves being insatiable and ungrateful, unwilling to be at the outset what they have also been created, men subject to passions, but go beyond the law of the human race and before that they become men, they wish to even now be like God their creator.

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And they who are more destitute of reason than dumb animals insist that there is no distinction between the uncreated

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God and man, a creature of today. One sentence before he says that, he introduces the very distinction that I have been emphasizing all along, and that is these early church fathers did not believe that God was once a man who became a god.

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They did believe, in fact, in this chasm, and as I quoted from Pelican, they want to avoid, in his words, the absurd and blasphemous idea that those who were deified became

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God by nature. They very carefully avoid bridging that very chasm because, as Kelly pointed out, that is the chasm that separates

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Christianity from, in his own words, paganism. But did

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I not read from the manual published by the first presidency? You were not created.

59:38

That chasm is denied by Joseph Smith. That chasm is denied in LDS theology, but that chasm exists in scripture, and that chasm exists in the early church fathers, and if you will but read them in their own context, you will see that they emphasized that very thing.

59:59

We have been told that there's much in the Old Testament about gods. The term does appear a number of times.

01:00:07

For example, in Psalm 96, verse 5, we read, for all the gods, the peoples are idols, but Jehovah made the heavens.

01:00:15

The gods are spoken of often in that passage in Isaiah, and God challenges those gods to do what only

01:00:22

He can do, demonstrate they created all things, tell us what the future is, tell us what happened in the past and why it happened.

01:00:31

No one but God can do that because, you see, the true God is the creator of time itself. And I remind you finally of the words of Jeremiah chapter 10, when the people were coming to God's people in captivity and telling them, come and worship our gods with us.

01:00:47

Jeremiah chapter 10, beginning of verse 10, but Yahweh, Jehovah is the true

01:00:52

God. He is the living God and the everlasting King. In His wrath the earth quakes, and the nations cannot endure His indignation.

01:00:59

Thus you shall say to them, the gods that did not make the heavens and the earth shall perish from the earth and from under the heavens.

01:01:09

What God do you worship this evening? Do you worship the God who created all things or only organized some things and did not ever have the power to create the spirit of man itself?

01:01:23

Zechariah 12, 1, Jehovah forms the spirits of men. He formed us for His glory and His honor.

01:01:30

Thank you very much. The format for the rest of the debate will be that we will have 15 minutes of questions, first from Dr.

01:01:43

Tanner to Dr. White. Then we will have 15 minutes of questions from Dr. White to Dr. Tanner. We will then have five minute closing statements by both men.

01:01:51

And then we will have questions from the audience. I underestimated the number of questions.

01:01:58

It appears there are still a few cards back here on this planner. Any piece of paper that you can find, if you need some,

01:02:04

Mike Wachowski has a pad of paper and we can just tear it into strips if need be. But if you have any other questions, we can take them up in a little bit.

01:02:15

But we're going to have questions from the audience to conclude. Now we have questions from Dr.

01:02:21

Tanner for Dr. White. First question

01:02:32

I would have here is since most of the new encyclopedias reference works on early

01:02:40

Christianity now include articles on deification, do you still believe that there is no such thing as a doctrine of deification in early

01:02:52

Christianity? I have never said there is not a doctrine of deification in early

01:02:59

Christianity. In fact, I was taught the doctrine of theosis as a seminary student at Fuller Theological Seminary.

01:03:05

It was presented. It's presented in all the standard works. It's found in Lauderette, Schaff, and the others.

01:03:12

My issue, of course, this evening is not that there was not a doctrine of theosis, but what it meant to those who taught it.

01:03:19

Okay, fair enough. Do you have an explanation for why it is, at least recently, only the evangelical works on Christianity that omit references to deification?

01:03:32

Well, you'd have to give us some specifics on evangelical references. I can't explain what you see as a trend.

01:03:40

I included an entire chapter on the subject in my book, Is the More of My Brother? As I mentioned to you,

01:03:45

Kenneth Scott, Lauderette, and others do have sections on it, so I don't know what you're referring to when you say that there is no reference to it.

01:03:53

Well, maybe I can ask it the other way. Can you think of an evangelical Christian that has written articles and does believe in deification in the sense that man can become gods?

01:04:05

Well, again, in the sense that the early church fathers meant it, yes, because anyone who believes that man is a spiritual being and that it is his goal to be united with Christ.

01:04:15

I think anyone here who's familiar, for example, with the writings of Jonathan Edwards is aware of the fact that Edwards spoke very much of the union of the elect with God in heaven and the ever -increasing relationship that exists between them, so much so that people, some people criticize him for that particular belief, and so I think you would have to include

01:04:36

Edwards as a rather major writer at that particular point, but again, I think it goes to what you understand this doctrine to mean and the context in which it was first enunciated.

01:04:51

You don't understand the Latter -day Saints or any other brand of Christianity to believe that humans on the earth who are

01:05:02

Christians or not are somehow gods now, do you? Are gods now? Yeah, you don't believe that anyone has ever taught that, do you?

01:05:10

Not in the sense of God being God, no.

01:05:15

Okay, wonderful. God's an embryo was the terminology that I quoted from the sources.

01:05:22

Correct, and that is what Latter -day Saints believe as well as early Christians, although rather than the word embryo, they use the word prototype, at least as the

01:05:32

Erdman's publication has translated it. Is that a question?

01:05:38

No, the question is, there was no question there, if we read, as I believe we do in Ephesians, that we will grow into mature manhood until we reach the stature of Christ in all his completeness.

01:06:02

Yes, if we have the word completeness in there, what does that leave of an unbridgeable gulf?

01:06:12

The term is pleromatos tu Christu, the fullness of Christ, and therefore you would have to understand what

01:06:19

Paul is referring to there. It seems that if you're asking me what I believe the fullness of Christ refers to, it does not mean my ceasing to be a man and becoming what

01:06:29

Christ is in his nature, but instead, as Paul teaches, the Holy Spirit is active in our life, conforming us to the what?

01:06:37

To the image of Christ, to the likeness of Christ. The whole purpose that Paul says in Romans 8 is that we are being conformed to the likeness of Christ.

01:06:46

We are being made Christ -like, and that's certainly what Christians believe. So do you take the idea that someone would be

01:06:56

Christ by nature to be a statement that they were a God now? Or I guess

01:07:01

I would like to know what you are trying to differentiate by your use of that term nature.

01:07:08

Are you talking about created versus uncreated or something else? Well, the Apostle Paul is very, very clear that Jesus Christ is extremely unique, and he differentiates between Jesus Christ and any other being, and any other created person.

01:07:21

And therefore, I allow him to keep that distinction when he talks about the fullness of Christ.

01:07:28

This fullness of Christ is within the context of discussion here of the work of the Holy Spirit in the body in conforming us to Christ's image.

01:07:35

And so therefore, I would understand as it continues on in verse 15, talking about truth and so on and so forth, growing up into Christ as our head.

01:07:46

We don't become the head of the church or anything like that. Do you take

01:07:52

Athanasius to be an Orthodox early Christian father? Yep. In most things, yes.

01:07:58

Do you believe his quote where he says, God became man so that man may become

01:08:03

God? In the context in which he stated it, which for Athanasius, as I've attempted to point out, was of a belief in God being uncreated, man being created.

01:08:15

And therefore, men becoming gods does not mean we become gods as God is a god. We are becoming gods in a sense as spiritual creatures.

01:08:23

We are united with Christ and partake of the divine nature. Okay. Well, in a sense,

01:08:28

I think that any other kind of reference would be to a straw man.

01:08:34

Do you take it that somehow Latter -day Saints or other branches of Christianity believe something different, that the faithful Christians will become gods some other way than the way that you've described?

01:08:53

Yes. In fact, as this publication I read from Farms points out, the author there demonstrates the difference in the means of exaltation in Mormonism and the means of divinization in the early church fathers.

01:09:05

That's one of the differences that he cites is that the very means by which this takes place is different.

01:09:11

And of course, he himself points out the vast chasm that exists between God and man on the level of ontology as well.

01:09:17

So yes, I believe as I read from the article that, for example, celestial marriage is required for divinization in LDS theology, and I am not aware of any group that would, for example, make that reference.

01:09:32

Certainly, Athanasius didn't. That would be true. But do you believe that any early church fathers who are orthodox had a view that men cannot become gods?

01:09:54

There were a number who did not address it in that language at all. I'm not aware of Tertullian addressing it.

01:10:00

Certainly, Ignatius did not. It wasn't an issue for them. As I've been trying to point out, the context in which they're even using the language is not a

01:10:08

Protestant Mormon context. It is the context of the paganism of their day that viewed man as a mere creature, not as a spiritual being.

01:10:17

Therefore, their emphasis is that salvation's real. Something really happens to the person who is saved.

01:10:25

There is a glorious future. It's not as the Greeks would say, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die.

01:10:32

There's something very special about mankind. So as to this topic here, can men become gods?

01:10:38

You would answer yes. In the context in which you're talking about the early church or the context of Mormonism, my whole point has been that the context of the early church is vastly different than the context of Mormonism.

01:10:52

Since Mormonism says that God himself became a man and that we are of the same species as God, the answer to that, of course, would be no, because God has eternally been

01:11:00

God and we have not been eternally God and will not eternally be gods. In the context of the early church fathers, we are spiritual creatures and as such are united with God in their language, then we can affirm that assertion.

01:11:12

Well, I am not asserting that Protestants are Mormons or Mormons are

01:11:17

Catholics or Mormons are Protestants. There are some distinctions, but I'm glad that we can both agree that in a certain sense, men can become gods, which was the issue of our debate tonight.

01:11:36

Can men become gods? Apparently, Reverend White thinks they can in a certain context and Latter -day

01:11:42

Saints believe it as well. Is that a question? Would you agree?

01:11:48

No, I think we're mixing context here, obviously. I do not believe that I would engage in a debate. So you don't believe then that men can become gods?

01:11:56

In the LDS context, no, men cannot become gods. But in a Protestant context, yes. And again, the only people who utilize that language are individuals who are working in an apologetic situation where they're dealing with individuals who did not believe that men were truly spiritual beings and that therefore they did not believe that it would be even rational that God would enter into the physical creation so as to redeem something as worthless as man.

01:12:19

In that context, to emphasize the meaning of glorification, I can understand the terminology that they utilized, yes.

01:12:25

Okay. Well, and I am not here to somehow say that you believe deification to be the same thing as any other person in this room or as any

01:12:37

Latter -day Saint or as any of the church fathers. You've said earlier that you disagree with some of their statements.

01:12:44

But I would take it then that in a certain sense, you would agree with Latter -day

01:12:51

Saints that men can become gods. Although you think the process and the result is different. No, I think

01:12:57

I've been very, very clear in stating so far that the LDS context is so completely foreign to anything that can be understood biblically or anything that can be understood in early church history as to put it into a context that the words now communicate something else.

01:13:15

As I've said frequently, repetitively, for an early church father who believed that God has eternally been

01:13:21

God, to say that men can become gods in the context in which they spoke was one thing. For Joseph Smith to say that men can become gods, that we need to learn how to dwell in everlasting burnings as God himself once did, is something completely different.

01:13:35

I think most folks can see the vast difference between those two statements. So I would not say that in the

01:13:40

LDS context, I would agree at all. But in a Protestant context, you would.

01:13:46

Well, I came here tonight to debate the concept of can men become gods. Apparently, you came here to debate

01:13:52

LDS doctrine. That's interesting. OK. What did you come here tonight to debate?

01:14:03

I came here to debate the topic of on the thing there. It says a Protestant LDS debate.

01:14:08

And here at the University of Utah, I think everyone, including those who are outside the temple today at the conference, knows that when a

01:14:16

Mormon apologist and a Protestant apologist get together to debate that particular statement, that the issue is going to be defined by the fundamental differences that separate us.

01:14:26

And those fundamental differences are on the nature of God and what it means when we even talk about gods. And so I think the meaning of the debate and the purpose of the debate is very, very clear.

01:14:36

I don't think anyone was confused about it before we came here. Do you believe that the Son has the full nature of God within him?

01:14:44

Eternally. And do you believe that certain Christians will grow until they reach the stature of Christ in all his completeness?

01:14:54

Actually, the term is, again, as I mentioned a few moments ago, pleromatos, the fullness of Christ, which in the context of Ephesians 4 .13

01:15:02

is not talking about the nature of Christ that is somehow communicated to believers, but the work of the

01:15:08

Holy Spirit within them, where the fullness of God's work is accomplished within them to where they are conformed to his image.

01:15:15

Do you believe that in the Bible, all references to God's plural are references to idols?

01:15:22

Primarily, you'd have to be specific. The vast majority of them are. There are a few places in Psalm 82,

01:15:29

Psalm 82 .6, where the context makes this very clear that we're talking about human judges for the very next word, very next verse says, but you shall die like men and fall like any one of the princes.

01:15:40

And the preceding verses establish the context of these individuals. If I can answer the question that these were individuals.

01:15:45

Well, I asked about Psalm 82, not Psalm 86. I said 82 .6, sir. In Psalm 82. I'm talking about Psalm 82, verse 1.

01:15:53

Yes. God presides in the divine counsel in the midst of the gods adjudicates.

01:15:58

Do you think that's a reference to idols? No, it's as I was just mentioning Psalm 82. Specifically, I looked at verse 6, but the entire

01:16:06

Psalm does mention this. Psalm 82 is about human judges because it says verse 2, which always follows after verse 1.

01:16:15

How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked, vindicate the weak and fatherless? All is a command to human judges in the

01:16:22

Old Testament context. Do justice to the afflicted and destitute. Even in Mormon theology, I have been told many, many times that the other gods that allegedly exist do not have anything to do with this planet.

01:16:31

And yet here you have commands these gods to do justice here upon this planet. That obviously indicates that these are the judges of Israel, who standing in the place of God using

01:16:41

God's law are to judge as God would have them to judge. Let's see if you think that the

01:16:50

Good News Bible quotation, which says that God presides in the heavenly counsel in the assembly of gods is a reference to earthly beings.

01:17:00

Well, I work on the New American Standard Bible, which says God takes a stand in his own congregation. He judges in the midst of the rulers.

01:17:07

And again, I prefer translating the Bible within its own context. And that context indicates in light of the command to vindicate the weak and the fatherless, et cetera, et cetera.

01:17:18

And then the statement in verse 7, nevertheless, you will die like men and fall like anyone of the princes, that this is a reference to human judges.

01:17:25

And any other understanding of Psalm 82 is to rip it out of its context and not see it in its fullness.

01:17:34

At about is my turn. We will now have cross -examination from Dr.

01:17:41

White to Dr. Tanner. Dr. Tanner, do you agree with the publication that I cited initially,

01:17:57

Achieving a Celestial Marriage from the LDS Church in regards to its teaching that God became

01:18:02

God by obedience to law? Yes, I do. I have no reason to disbelieve that. Okay.

01:18:08

So do you believe that God is God by nature, or did God obtain the status of godhood?

01:18:14

I believe that the answer to that question is not found in the

01:18:21

Bible. It doesn't say that in the Bible that God is God by nature or how he got there.

01:18:27

It does say from everlasting to everlasting. There've been a number of different interpretations about what that means.

01:18:36

I'll leave it there. Let you ask your next follow -up. I didn't fully understand. So did he obtain the position in light of LDS revelation?

01:18:45

Did God obtain his position as God? I think that there are Latter -day

01:18:50

Saints who would take both positions on that. I don't know that there is any hard and fast

01:18:57

LDS doctrine that one would have to believe. Myself, I think it's an open question, but I don't have any problem with the idea that has been expressed there.

01:19:07

Are you familiar with any early church father, especially amongst those you've cited, which would include

01:19:13

Irenaeus, Athanasius, Augustine, who believed that God became

01:19:18

God by obedience to law? No, that is not a subject or a question that they addressed at all.

01:19:25

They didn't discuss that. Did any of those early church fathers say that God had eternally been

01:19:31

God and that God was, in fact, completely different than man? Yes, and I think

01:19:37

Latter -day Saints would agree with that. You've taken the position here today that Latter -day Saints somehow don't believe that God is different by nature from the rest of us.

01:19:48

He certainly is. He is God. Now we are mere mortals.

01:19:55

So you believe that nature and position are the same thing? Well, let me change the question.

01:20:03

You have said that we are of the same genus species as God. Do you agree with the statement that we are gods in embryo?

01:20:11

What I quoted was Paul who said that, and he used the

01:20:17

Greek phrase genos, which is the same one genus species we are his offspring.

01:20:24

Yes, I believe that to be true. That we are gods in embryo? Yes, that's also a quotation from the early church fathers.

01:20:30

They believed that we were gods in prototype. They didn't use the word embryo like Latter -day

01:20:35

Saints. They used the word prototype. So if we are gods in embryo, as you just said, then is it not the case that we share the same nature as God, since he also is

01:20:47

God? Well, in a sense, we share the same nature as God, as we learn in the

01:20:53

New Testament. If we didn't share, in a sense, his same nature, we would not be said to be his children in the

01:21:01

New Testament. Are we incomplete of the same nature as God now?

01:21:07

Absolutely not. No one would take that position. Wouldn't you agree that the Lord Jesus said that to become the children of God, we have to believe in Jesus Christ?

01:21:16

Yes. Why would we have to become the children of God if we all are the children of God by nature?

01:21:23

Well, there's a difference between what we have been brought into the world as children of God through the fall of Adam and what we have the potential to be.

01:21:34

If you have a child, you probably have children. I'm sure you do.

01:21:40

We've talked about that many times. Your child has, to a certain degree, your nature as a child.

01:21:46

But he also has tremendous potential. And as he or she grows up, he can attain more and more of your nature.

01:21:55

As he does so. Would you agree with Joseph Smith that God never had the power to create the spirit of man at all?

01:22:01

I would believe, along with Joseph Smith, along with many Catholic and Orthodox scholars and many

01:22:08

Jewish scholars who believe that the beginning of Genesis speaks of a creation not out of nothing but out of existing elements and matter.

01:22:20

And I would also agree with many of the early Christian church fathers that there was a pre -existence of humans.

01:22:27

Could you explain what Zechariah 12 .1 says where Jehovah creates the spirits of men? Well, I think you have to do what you asked us to do earlier.

01:22:38

And that is to read the entire Bible in context. It does indeed talk about that in Zechariah.

01:22:47

It does indeed, at the beginning of Genesis, talk about a creation out of pre -existing matter.

01:22:53

Exactly how we are to meld those two together, I don't know. I do know that there are many

01:23:00

Old Testament scriptures that do talk about a pre -existence of man.

01:23:06

And that God knew about us from the beginning. As a matter of fact, one of the great doctrines of Calvin and of Luther that many here today believe is that from the beginning,

01:23:18

God knew what would happen with all of us. He knew about all creation from the beginning to the end.

01:23:26

Certainly in that sense, even in a Protestant context, we have all existed for all time.

01:23:33

God didn't, at one point, come up with some new knowledge or new idea, even from a

01:23:38

Protestant context, about humans. He knew of our existence forever and ever and ever.

01:23:44

In that sense, even in a Protestant context, we have always existed and always will. Are you saying there is no difference between the assertion that we pre -existed as spirit children in a heavenly realm and the

01:23:55

Reformed understanding that God, by his decree, forms all things, works all things after the counsel of his will, and therefore knows,

01:24:04

I'm not sure if you're referring to the term foreknow or just what it is, but are you saying there's no difference between them?

01:24:10

I did not say there was no difference. Okay, so what passages would you refer to that would indicate to you that the

01:24:16

Bible teaches that men existed in a spiritual form prior to their existence upon this earth?

01:24:24

I would point to the beginning of Jeremiah, where it talks about Jeremiah being known to God before.

01:24:33

I would also talk about the reference in the New Testament to the blind man, where Jesus is asked whether the blind man or his parents sinned that he was born blind.

01:24:45

That has to be some kind of a reference to a pre -existence in which, in some kind of a personal form, they existed.

01:24:54

In Jeremiah 1 .5, when it says, before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, and before you were born, I consecrated you,

01:24:59

I've appointed you a prophet to the nations. Why would you not believe that the parallel in the

01:25:04

Hebrew of knew is I consecrated you and I appointed you a prophet to the nations? Why do you believe that that requires

01:25:11

Jeremiah to have existed for God's sovereign decree to take place? You don't have to believe that he existed, but that is a clear reference in the way that most

01:25:22

Jews who have read this passage and who have written about it believed it.

01:25:28

Many Jews believe in a pre -existence. Many Christians who have looked at that subject believe in a pre -existence as well.

01:25:36

Some do not. If you would choose not to, that's your prerogative. And John chapter nine, could you not also understand that this is simply a reference to God's sovereign decree, that this man is in light of Exodus chapter four, where God makes the eye blind or the tongue dumb, that this man was born that way so that he might glorify

01:25:54

God in his healing at the hands of Jesus Christ? That is one possible reading without question. There are many, many ways that people can interpret the scriptures, which is why we have so many different Christian denominations.

01:26:08

You had said, my understanding was in your presentation, you said that the reformers, John Calvin and Martin Luther, really began emphasizing this gulf existing between God and man.

01:26:20

And yet I read from Irenaeus in the, just one sentence prior to that citation that you gave, where he specifically utilizes that very same language.

01:26:29

How could Irenaeus speak of this massive difference between the uncreated God and the created man when

01:26:34

Irenaeus lived a good 1300 years prior to the birth of John Calvin? I didn't say it didn't exist before Calvin and Luther.

01:26:43

I said that they brought it to the fore. They're the ones who really are the ones that began to emphasize that doctrine.

01:26:51

If that's not what I said, that's the way it is.

01:26:56

There were statements about that earlier. That was certainly not a major emphasis, but in Protestant doctrine, it has definitely become a major one.

01:27:06

Would you agree with the Lutheran scholar, Betz, who you cited earlier in reflections on Mormonism, that Joseph Smith's view of God was naive?

01:27:13

No, I would not. I think that for his day and his background and his knowledge and the information that he had, he had quite an amazing knowledge of God.

01:27:27

However, it is true that he did not have the works and the writings that you have and that I have to study.

01:27:34

So I guess in that context, you could say that he was naive in the sense that they weren't available.

01:27:41

But based on what he had available, I would not care to use the word naive. Is Yaroslav Pelikan in error when he specifically insists in discussing theosis that the early church fathers were avoiding saying that deification made a human being

01:27:56

God by nature? I think that's a broad oversimplification.

01:28:02

I think there are many, many different views from many, many different Christian church fathers, some of whom you would find orthodox, some of whom

01:28:10

I would, in some contexts and the same ones, I would not and you would not in others.

01:28:17

And so I think that's painting with a very broad brush. In Psalm 82 that you raised as being a reference to these gods, could you explain how these gods had judged unjustly and shown partiality to the wicked?

01:28:35

Do I know all the specifics behind that verse? No, I certainly don't know all the context behind that verse.

01:28:43

Okay, all right. Now, if I understand the position that you are enunciating then,

01:28:48

Dr. Tanner, you were asking me if I would agree with the

01:28:55

LDS that men can become gods. I didn't say that. I was just asking if you believe the concept that men can become gods.

01:29:03

I didn't say, I didn't ask if you believed with the LDS. I would never ask that question. Okay, well, however you stated the specific question, you were in essence saying, well, the debate is, can men become gods, a

01:29:16

Protestant LDS debate. In, is it not a fair statement, Dr. Tanner, that within the

01:29:23

LDS context, when we speak of God, we are speaking of an exalted man? I think that is the general belief, yes.

01:29:33

Okay, and would you not say that it's fair in the early church context that Athanasius was not referring to God as an exalted man?

01:29:41

No, I do not. I think that every Christian who believes that Jesus was crucified and resurrected and is an exalted man and is

01:29:51

God, believes to an extent that God is an exalted man.

01:29:57

Not in the same context that Latter -day Saints do, but they do believe that concept. Did Athanasius believe that Jesus had eternally been

01:30:04

God? I think that's something that he would believe, yes. And did Athanasius ever speak of God the

01:30:10

Father as an exalted man? No, he did not. That is a prime distinction,

01:30:16

I think, between Latter -day Saints, early Christians, and Protestants, is that belief.

01:30:23

In fact, would you agree with the conclusion of Dr. Norman? I'm sure you're familiar with his -

01:30:29

Keith Norman, sure. Yes, with his doctoral dissertation where he says, Athanasius' constant emphasis on participation or deification by grace as opposed to nature, safeguards against both polytheism on the one hand and pantheism on the other.

01:30:42

The deified Christian is never equal to God in essence and remains subordinate by nature, nor is one identified with God so as to lose his individual consciousness or activity.

01:30:50

The difference for Athanasius between Christ and a Christian is that what the Savior possesses, fusi cai alethaia, by nature, truly by nature, the saved attains thesi cai cariti.

01:31:01

They're emphasizing the concept of a gift of grace. Would you agree with Norman at that point? I would agree with Norman and with Latter -day

01:31:08

Saints that there's not one of us who is a

01:31:13

Latter -day Saint that believes that men can become gods other than by grace. So when we read

01:31:21

Joseph Smith and his statement that we have to learn to dwell in everlasting burnings and learn how to become gods that all the gods have learned before us in the

01:31:31

King Follett funeral discourse, would you not agree with me that that is a context completely foreign to that of Athanasius?

01:31:37

He would have had no way of understanding what Joseph Smith was saying. Absolutely not. I think one of the great distinctions between the

01:31:45

Protestant world today and the early Christians is on whom God will choose to bestow this greatest of all gifts.

01:31:55

There is a belief that's rampant now that if you just believe, that gift will be bestowed upon you.

01:32:01

The early church fathers had a very common saying, we don't think great thoughts, we do great things.

01:32:09

The emphasis was on doing what Christ said, doing what Christ taught, and to those who obey him, he would grant by grace that great gift.

01:32:22

But is it then still your assertion, however, that Athanasius, with his doctrine of who God the

01:32:27

Father was, having been eternally God, that Athanasius would have understood the words of Joseph Smith, that we have to learn how to become gods as God himself learned how to become a god?

01:32:38

Would he be agreed with Joseph Smith? Oh, I see. No, I don't think Athanasius would have believed that there was a time when

01:32:44

God the Father was a man. Okay, thank you. We'll now have closing statements from Dr.

01:32:55

Tanner. Appreciate being here tonight.

01:33:06

Appreciate your good pastor for giving me that opportunity. And Reverend White, he and I have taken a few jabs at each other off and on on the radio for a number of years, and I have a great deal of respect for him.

01:33:18

Although we certainly disagree on many fundamental points, I have great admiration and respect for him.

01:33:27

To me, the question that I came here today to debate is can men become gods?

01:33:34

My strong assertion is that according to the way that almost universally, the early

01:33:42

Christians understood the New Testament, the writings of Paul, the writings of Peter, the sayings of Jesus, the writings of John, can men become gods?

01:33:52

Yes. Can they become gods by nature? No. They are brought up to that point by salvation, by the extension of grace, based on obeying what they have been commanded to by God and Jesus.

01:34:14

The question of can men become gods is an affirmative yes by the vast majority of early

01:34:21

Christians, by the Eastern Orthodox Church today, by Latter -day Saints today, by the

01:34:26

Catholic Church today, and by some groups of Protestants.

01:34:32

And I do believe that as we read in Ben's, and I quoted once before, quote, one can think whatever one wants of this doctrine of progressive deification.

01:34:49

But one thing is certain, with this anthropology, Joseph Smith is closer to the view of man held by the ancient church than the precursors of the

01:34:58

Augustinian doctrine of original sin were. In short, are there differences between a

01:35:05

Latter -day Saint perspective of what God is, of who God is, what it means to be deified of the concept of theosis, divinization or deification?

01:35:18

There are unanimity there? Of course not. But that is a doctrine that we should all take a closer look at because I think it's been swept under the rug by many, many branches of Christianity for way too long.

01:35:34

And I for one would like to see it brought to the fore. Thank you. We'll now have a closing statement from Dr.

01:35:45

White. If I might also continue quoting from the same article.

01:35:58

Now this idea of deification could give rise to a misunderstanding, namely that it leads to a blasphemous self -aggrandizement of man.

01:36:08

That is the question this evening. For I read to you at the start a conversation between two

01:36:15

Mormons published in a official Mormon publication. It's not scripture, but it is published by the

01:36:21

Church of Jesus Christ, Latter -day Saints for its own people, where we are told, you were never created and you cannot be destroyed.

01:36:30

The most fundamental message of scripture is God is the only one who is not created and anything else that exists he made.

01:36:39

That includes you. That includes me. God is our maker. Jesus Christ is the one who made all things in heaven and earth, whether visible or invisible, principalities, powers, dominions, or authorities, all things created by him and for him.

01:36:52

And he is before all things. In him, all things hold together. He is my creator, not my spirit brother. And as such, when we talk about this question in a

01:37:00

Protestant LDS context, can men become gods? The early church fathers, I think we've seen very clearly did not mean that we can become gods the way

01:37:09

Joseph Smith meant that we can become gods. That I think has been established very, very clearly. But what do we leave here this evening with?

01:37:17

Just a clear understanding of early church fathers. Most of us don't really care much about Irenaeus or Ignatius or Polycarp or Tertullian or Tatian or Athanasius or anybody else really along those lines.

01:37:29

What do we leave here this evening with? Isaiah 29, 16 says, you turn things upside down as if the potter were thought to be like the clay.

01:37:40

Shall what is formed say to him who formed it? He did not make me. Can the pot say of the potter? He knows nothing.

01:37:48

It is a tremendously dangerous thing to turn things upside down in the relationship between the potter and the clay.

01:37:57

Romans 1 emphasizes the distinction between the creator and the creature. And isn't it interesting that in the dialogue between a

01:38:06

Protestant and Mormon scholar a few years ago and how wide the divide, that when

01:38:12

Dr. Blomberg emphasized Romans 1 and the distinction between God and man, Dr. Robinson said, this may be the fundamental difference between us because in Mormonism, we see

01:38:22

God's work as obliterating those differences that exist between us. Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and marked off the heavens by the span and calculated the dust of the earth by the measure and weighed the mountains in a balance in the hills and a pair of scales?

01:38:38

Who has directed the spirit of the Lord or as his counselor has informed him? With whom did he consult and who gave him understanding?

01:38:46

And who taught him in the path of justice and taught him knowledge and informed him of the way of understanding? To whom then will you liken

01:38:54

God? Or what likeness will you compare with him? Those inspired words are found in Isaiah chapter 40.

01:39:03

They are rhetorical words. There's no answer to be given. Who has directed the spirit of the

01:39:11

Lord? Well, whoever taught him, I guess, when he was, before he was exalted as a God. With whom did he consult and who gave him understanding?

01:39:20

Well, maybe it was one of those councils of God's. You see, Mormonism answers questions that the

01:39:28

Bible says have no answers. I too have a great deal of respect for Dr.

01:39:36

Tanner for being here this evening. I hope we have addressed this issue in a way that is understandable, clear.

01:39:44

We haven't been interrupted by commercials or newscasts either. But the only reason

01:39:53

I do this is for you, those of you who come here this evening.

01:40:00

If you already believe that there is only one true and eternal God, then hopefully your understanding of why that is so vitally important has been increased.

01:40:11

But if you're LDS this evening, I can only say to you what I said to the first two

01:40:16

Mormon missionaries I spoke to over 20 years ago now. Someday, you're going to need to know about a

01:40:23

God who does not change, who was never anything other than what he is today, who is the eternal, immutable, unchanging

01:40:31

God. And when that time comes, it is my hope and my prayer that you will turn to God's infallible, inspired word.

01:40:41

And there you will meet the one who said, before the mountains were brought forth, wherever thou hast formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art

01:40:50

God. Thank you. We're now going to have questions from the audience.

01:41:01

I have so many and we have so little time that I'm not going to be able to sort through any more at this point.

01:41:08

I'm going to go back and forth with you. If you can both please try to make your answers as brief as possible.

01:41:14

We only have 15 minutes for this section. So please try to keep things very concise. If you have additional questions, then get those to me and I'll try to pass those along for later reply.

01:41:29

We're going to now have questions from the audience. We're going to begin with a question for Dr. White. Dr. White, can't

01:41:35

God make man a God if he wants to as C .S. Lewis and others said he would? Well, that's of course like asking, can the eternal

01:41:43

God create a second God? And the answer to that would be no. It's like saying, can God create square circles?

01:41:50

Again, we're not talking about, can God bring us into a position where we share the divine nature and are united with Jesus Christ and conformed to his image.

01:42:00

What we're talking about here, at least in this context as I understand it, is to claim that men can become gods as God is

01:42:08

God, as God himself became a God. And C .S. Lewis never taught that God became a

01:42:13

God and therefore that context would be missing. So I would say no. God cannot create a second

01:42:20

God who is God in the same way he is because to be God means you have eternally been God. Dr.

01:42:26

Tanner, could you read and comment on Isaiah 43 .10? Isaiah 43 .10 talks about there being no other

01:42:34

God beside me. And I think that has to be read in context. The context that is being discussed there is whether or not the people should be worshiping other false gods.

01:42:47

And the clear answer to that is no. If we look in the Bible in many, many other contexts like Psalm 82 .1,

01:42:55

although Dr. White and I have a difference of agreement on that, in many other places there are clear references to gods.

01:43:03

If we don't read that he is the God of gods and Lord of lords as saying he is the

01:43:08

God of idols and the Lord of idols. He is God over other deity. That is something that is clear from other parts of the

01:43:17

Old Testament. I think that using that Isaiah quote to say there are no other divine beings is taking it out of context.

01:43:27

Dr. White, if there is no other God beside Jehovah, how do you explain what Stephen beheld in Acts 7 .55 or what

01:43:33

Paul wrote about in Hebrews 1 .3? Well, again, that refers back to the doctrine of the

01:43:38

Trinity where we have the fact that there is one being of God shared by three co -equal and co -eternal persons.

01:43:44

What Acts 7 records for us is the fact that Jesus Christ, who became flesh, who became the

01:43:51

God man, when he was resurrected, did not lay aside his physical body. In fact, I find it ironic.

01:43:57

We had a caller, I was listening to our programs, Dr. Tanner, and we had a caller, I guess he was a

01:44:02

Protestant, who argued that Jesus did somehow get rid of his body. And I disagree with him firmly upon that point.

01:44:09

Jesus Christ is an exalted man to this day, but he is the only exalted man because he's the

01:44:15

God man. And he was the one who came into flesh to die as a sacrifice for sins. Dr.

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Tanner, the Nicene Creed begins, I believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible.

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Do you find any support in any of the ecumenical creeds of the church for the position that you articulate?

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I don't know that I do in the creeds themselves, but that specific creed says that there is one

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God comprised of three separate persons who are of one undivided substance.

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Now, some of that, the undivided substance part is not biblical, but the three -in -one concept is certainly something that is found and is biblical, but that does not do away with the concept of adoption or of exaltation of people.

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In other words, it does not do away with the idea of Athanasius or any others who knew that of saying that men could become gods.

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Dr. White, could you explain what the image of God really means? The Imago Dei as discussed in Genesis is what separates man from the rest of creation.

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And specifically from the rest of living creation. Whatever the image of God is, it's what makes us different from an ape or a chimpanzee or a horse or a dog or anything else.

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And so obviously it's not a physical representation that is at point there, because obviously those other things have physical bodies.

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The image of God, which both man and woman have, is that which is our spiritual nature and allows us to commune with God and separates us from everything else that God created and made us very special in his sight.

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Dr. Tanner, how do you differentiate the LDS position from the sin of Adam and Eve in wanting to be as God?

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Well, there's a difference there. If you look in Adam and Eve, they sinned because they broke the commandment to partake of the fruit.

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The idea that they should become as God, knowing good and evil, and that their eyes were opened is something that God himself affirmed when it says in Genesis 3, verse 22, and the

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Lord God said, behold, the man is become as one of us to know good and evil.

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It's a quote from God. Dr. White, how do you understand

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Jeremiah 1 .5 and Job 38 .7 if there is no pre -existence? Jeremiah 1 .5,

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as it is exegeted in the actual text, tells us that God had assigned to Jeremiah a particular role.

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What I was trying to say in my questioning of Dr. Tanner was to bring that out, and that is specifically in the

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Hebrew parallelism of verse 5. Before I formed you in the womb,

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I knew you. Before you were born, I consecrated you. Consecrated is the parallel to that.

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I have appointed you a prophet to the nations. There is no reason to believe whatsoever that Jeremiah existed, that this was something that required

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Jeremiah's conscious existence as a spirit in that particular context whatsoever.

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And Job 30, was it 38 .7 was the reference that was given there? Yes. Thank you. Job 38 .7

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specifically makes reference to the morning stars and all the sons of God shouted for joy.

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These are standard Hebrew terms for the angelic creatures, not for pre -existent human beings.

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As I said, Zechariah 12 .1 says God creates the spirits of men. That is a, that's

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Jehovah who does that. That is a very clear assertion. Dr. Tanner, you appeal to origin, and yet he is also appealed to by Jehovah's witnesses since he would not equate

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Jesus with the Father and would refuse to call him Hotheos. How could it be both?

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Well, there are some ways in which origin was not considered orthodox by many, many, many people.

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There are many points with origin that I would have a disagreement on. But the concept that men can become gods, that basic concept that origin has, is shared by all of the orthodox church fathers as well.

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The idea of deification is one that's shared by nearly all of them.

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Dr. White, how is it that you can oppose what is described as the teaching of the

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Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches in regard to deification? Well, having debated

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Roman Catholics on numerous subjects, I'm not sure exactly what the foundation of that particular assertion is.

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Obviously, I disagree with Roman Catholicism, and by the way, I've never had a Roman Catholic apologist ever raise this issue or ever present this concept in any way, shape, or form.

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It is only the Eastern Orthodox, and then in a way that's very consistent with what I myself have said.

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In fact, they have all agreed with my understanding that there would be no support for the concept of Joseph Smith in that particular perspective.

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But if the question is, do I feel comfortable standing against Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism on any issue, well, given that they both deny sola scriptura and sola fide, yep,

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I feel quite comfortable doing that. Dr. Tanner, how is it that Moroni was just an angel and not a god?

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I'm not sure what the context of that is. He was an angel. No one has said that he was a god when he appeared to Joseph Smith.

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I'm not sure quite what to do with that one. Dr. White, when did Christ speak of the great chasm between men and the

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Father? When did Christ speak of it? Whenever he affirmed, of course, the entirety of the scriptures and said the scriptures could not be broken every time he made reference to the law of God and affirmed it as being normative.

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Every time he referred in John 17 to the fact there's only one true God. All these things are only understandable within the context of the wholeness of scripture, which

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Dr. Tanner has agreed with me on. We need to read all of it. Jesus, for example, said very little about the church.

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That doesn't mean the church is unimportant. It just means that the Gospels record certain aspects of Jesus' teachings and not all aspects of Jesus' teachings.

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Dr. Tanner, where in the Book of Mormon does it teach that men can become gods?

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That's not a scripture that comes to the forefront in the Book of Mormon. Latter -day Saints do not believe that every single doctrine is found in the

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Book of Mormon. They don't. There are doctrines that are found in other places as well.

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They complement the Bible. The Bible talks about deification.

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There are other places that do in the Doctrine and Covenants and in other Mormon scripture. Dr. White, if there is only one

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God, why is it that Paul says there are Lord's many and God's many? That passage is in 1 Corinthians 8.

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And when you read it, you will see that the specific utilization, the term he uses, those who are called gods.

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And in fact, a number of translations will even put that term called in quotation marks because he's talking about the idols of the peoples.

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And he says, but we know that there is only one God, the Father from whom are all things and we from him and one

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Lord Jesus Christ through whom are all things and we through him. And so we have, reading it in context, a very, very clear assertion, not only of Trinitarian monotheism, but also of the fact that the gods of the peoples, as Psalm 96 .5

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says, are idols. Dr. Tanner, how do you explain the history of the doctrine of the Trinity development?

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If the concept of becoming a God is true from the perspective of the early church fathers that were previously quoted?

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Well, I don't think the doctrine of the Trinity somehow being a later development contradicts with the concept of deification.

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The concept, the doctrine of the Trinity as noted by J .N .D. Kelly and a number of others is not found directly in the

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Bible. It was first enunciated at least as a church -wide doctrine in 325

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AD at the Council of Nice in Italy. And that's where that extra biblical language of one undivided substance came in.

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And that's where the full -blown Trinitarian concept of God first appeared. That does not contradict the idea of deification as it was explained in the

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New Testament. Dr. White, if we are not to become gods, what are we to become?

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We are to become exactly what God intended us to be, and that is he has created us for his own glory.

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The persons who receive the unmerited, in fact, demerited grace of God in Jesus Christ and are united with him by grace, not by anything that they have done in and of themselves.

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Those individuals are conformed to the image of Christ. Christ lives his life through them.

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And they are, as Ephesians 2 says, glorified, seated in the heavenly places with Christ.

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We become perfected creatures who have been redeemed in our Savior and who will spend eternity in the worship and adoration that flows from our perfect recognition of what

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Jesus Christ has done for us. Finally, Dr. Tanner, could you please explain how does a man become a god and then remain subordinate to Elohim?

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Certainly I can. As the early Christian church fathers said, those who are faithful become gods.

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Not to supplant God, not to push him out of the way, not to be his equal, but to be enthroned next below the

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Savior. In other words, the concept of deification is not one where somehow

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God is supplanted. He is always above us. He is always our God. Jesus is always our

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Savior. That's the way the early Christians understood it. That's the way I understand it. I would like to thank everyone for coming out this evening and especially our speakers.

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As I mentioned earlier, we will have some information on our church and also a sign -up list for mailing lists for future debates.

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Mike, if you could go ahead and slip back that way and stay out of the camera range.