The Godhead in Latter-day Saint teaching

Stub. Say what Latter-day Saints affirm before you say where Nicaea differs. They are not denying that Jesus is divine. They are defining divinity differently.

The question

Both communities baptize and pray in the language of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. A Latter-day Saint will often say they believe in the Godhead and may even use the word Trinity in a loose way. The teachings are not the same. Pretending they are is as unfair as pretending Latter-day Saints do not love Jesus.

A fair statement of the Latter-day Saint teaching

In the church’s ordinary teaching, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are three distinct beings, united in purpose, will, and love. Doctrine and Covenants 130:22 says the Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as ours, the Son also, and the Holy Ghost is a personage of spirit. Divinity is real, and it is not the Nicene claim that Father and Son are one being.

Later sermons of Joseph Smith, especially the King Follett discourse, press this further: God as an exalted man, and the possibility of human exaltation. Not every hallway conversation will start there. Do not drag it in to embarrass someone who has not brought it up. If they do bring it up, do not act as if you have never heard it.

“One God” in this teaching is oneness of purpose and glory, not one divine essence. Members are protecting a God who is personal, embodied, and the Father of spirits, against what they hear as a Greek abstraction.

A Christian starting point

Thank them for the clarity. Then read the creed of 381 and Matthew 28:19 and say the difference in one sentence: Nicene Christians confess one God — one being — who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; Latter-day Saint teaching confesses three beings who are one God in purpose. Those are both intelligible. They are not the same confession.

The argument that follows has to be about which confession the apostles’ writings will bear, not about who uses the word “Christian.” The Trinity is the positive Nicene account. The deity of Christ is where “divine” starts to split. John 4:24 (“God is spirit”) and the resurrection body of Jesus will both come up, because Latter-day Saints distinguish the Father’s embodied glory from a denial of spirit. Read the verses. Do not chant them.

Scripture to open together

• Matthew 28:19, which both of you know.
• Doctrine and Covenants 130:22, in their book, not from memory if you can help it.
• John 4:24 and John 1:1–3.
• The creed of 381, so they hear what you mean and not a rumor of it.

Keep reading

• The Trinity
• Joseph Smith and revelation
• The Book of Mormon