Infinite regress of Gods?

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This article is a draft. FairMormon editors are currently editing it. We welcome your suggestions on improving the content.

This page is based on an answer to a question submitted to the FAIR web site, or a frequently asked question.

Question

Is it true that LDS doctrine teaches a "genealogy of gods," in which God the Father had/has a God, and this God had a God, and so forth?

If so, how does LDS doctrine deal with the problem of an "infinite regress" of "great-great-grandfather Gods"?

Answer

This is a difficult question to address, partly because so very little is known about this issue in LDS scripture and doctrine.

The basis of this idea rests in the ideas which Lorenzo Snow encapsulated in his famous "couplet":

[A] As man now is, God once was, and

[B] as God now is, man may become. ^[1]

The implications of part [B] are clear, and relatively well laid out in LDS doctrine. This is the doctrine of human deification, or theosis. It formed a key part of early Christian belief, and is discussed elsewhere in the wiki. (See: Theosis/Human deification .)

However, the meaning and implication of [A] are much less clear. President Gordon B. Hinckley rightly indicated in a TIME magazine interview that while we accept the first part of President Snow's couplet, we do not understand or preach much about it. (See: Downplaying the King Follett Discourse?.)

Further reading

External links

Primary sources of interest

• Joseph Smith, Jr., "Sermon in the Grove," (16 June 1844): all versions available off-site