Pastor Jeff of Hello Saints has just put out a short video in which he quotes and discusses a segment from a much longer interview he had with an LDS podcaster by the name of Jacob Hansen, of Thoughtful Faith channel. I watched both videos, the original one, as well as the shorter segment quoted above; and I found that I had more problems with what the LDS guy was saying, than what the Evangelical guy was saying. In the videos he expresses a lot of speculative opinions which he then equates with LDS beliefs and doctrines, which I had difficulty relating to. He keeps saying in the videos that “We believe” this, and “We believe” that, most of which I for one would not agree with. So let’s get into the video to see what we can find. Pastor Jeff commences the video by giving a very brief quote from Jacob Hansen as follows:
“And I guess this is where I kind of struggle a little bit with this, and I think a lot of Latter-day Saints too. We believe in Eternal Progression. Is a being all-powerful if they can’t change their own nature?”
I have serious issues with that right from the start. He has expressed two doctrines in there both of which are incorrect, and not sound, LDS doctrine. The first is the doctrine of “Eternal Progression”. This doctrine was originally proposed and enunciated by Brigham Young, meaning that God is constantly “progressing,” by which he meant that God was constantly increasing in knowledge, wisdom, intelligence, power, ability, influence etc.*, which of course is incorrect and has no scriptural basis—either in modern LDS scripture or in the Bible. Scripture teaches that God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, and is perfect in all of his attributes. He has all power, all wisdom, and all knowledge. He is not getting any wiser, smarter, more powerful, or learning anything new. That is the true LDS doctrine as expressed within the standard works—which is the official, authoritative source of Church doctrine. The second is what he calls God being able to “change his own nature,” which again of course is entirely incorrect, unscriptural, and unjustified on all accounts. How is God able to “change his own nature”? He can make himself taller, more handsome? He can make himself wiser, smarter, more intelligent? He can make himself more or less divine? He can make himself cisgender or transgender?! How is God able to “change his own nature”? Scripture teaches that God is immutable and unchangeable. He is “the same yesterday, today, and forever”. He does not change. See scripture references given below. Pastor Jeff then continues with his own comments as follows:
“Hello Saints, my name is Jeff. I am a pastor exploring everything I can about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; and for the past year, it has been a little bit of a solo journey. I mean, I have talked to Latter-day Saints here and there; but for the most part, I have been exploring on my own; and I have reached a point with the channel that I feel that it would be better if I would explore alongside Latter-day Saints from time to time. So I wanted to share with you a conversation I had recently on Thoughtful Faith, which is a Latter-day Saint YouTube channel run by a gentleman named Jacob Hansen. You might know who he is. And we had an extensive conversation about interfaith dialogue, about the relationship between Latter-day Saints and Evangelicals, and we even got into some pretty deep doctrinal and theological conversation. And I wanted to share an excerpt of this conversation with you, to show why I am wanting to have more conversations with Latter-day Saints. You will see how we are talking about some pretty deep things, as it pertains to the nature of God; but how that dialogue then leads us to have a really important conversation about the importance of who Jesus is, and what he came to do. A link to the entire conversation is below in the description. But let’s jump into this conversation, just to give you a little taste of the type of dialogue I am hoping to continue to have here on Hello Saints, check it out.”
Like I said, I watched the longer video, and I found that I had more issues with comments made by the LDS guy than by the Evangelical one. Then comes the next quote from Jacob Hansen as follows (image copied from the video, click to enlarge):
“I wanted to dig into this idea of–again if you–when you come from this view:
There is a big question mark that comes in that says, well, what is the nature of this hyper-reality, of this ‘otherly realm’? And what does it mean to even say that there is a ‘realm’ there at all?”
My answer to that is, Show me one scripture that talks about a “hyper-reality” or “otherly realm,” and I will take him seriously. He is engaging in a great deal of hypothetical speculation. That is not how the doctrine of the Church is derived, expressed, defined, or arrived at. Then Jacob continues as follows:
“And you said something interesting that, or that God has certain limitations based on his own nature, right? And we simply take that maybe a step further, to say that God exists within a hyper-reality, but that that hyper-reality is governed by law, and that that hyper-reality was not created by God. It is the realm that has always existed, always will exist, and exists of necessity, and therefore in that realm of the hyper-reality, there are what we would call in Latter-day Saint parlance, eternal law; and that God himself even is subject to the eternal nature of reality itself, or what we would call, eternal law. He simply has mastered the highest level of being within that hyper-reality, and he is trying to bring us into that higher level of being, and our conception of the kingdoms of glory is basically how far do you, within the hyper-reality space, like what sort of a life are you going to have in that reality.”
Again, he engages in a great deal of hypothetical speculation which have no scriptural basis, and therefore cannot be identified as genuine LDS doctrine; whereas Pastor Jeff’s theological comments have scriptural basis. Scripture indeed teaches that God “cannot lie”. But there is no scriptural basis for what he calls a “hyper-reality”. There is no scriptural basis for what he calls “eternal law”—independent of the existence of God. All laws are made and determined by God. There is no “law” independent of, or outside of the realm of the existence of God. Then Jeff continues with his own comments as follows:
“Yeah, but that is definitely a diverging distinction to how we view the nature of God. So what we would say is, ‘In the beginning God …’ What does that even mean? Again, we are placing that in a realm of mystery that we can’t fully understand, or that we can’t comprehend, I should say. But we don’t think that God … we believe in the aseity of Christ; the independence of, or the aseity of God; the independence—he is not dependent or subject to anything. … So in his holiness, and in his infinite vastness—though how that existence looked before he created the earth or the universe—what does ‘before’ even mean to a God who is outside of time, okay? So again, we get into these really mysterious places based on our cognitive abilities. But we don’t believe that there is a standard of holiness that God has attained to, or is subject to. We believe that he is the standard.”
He has got that mostly right, except for the last bit. Scripture commands us to be holy, as God is holy (Lev. 11:44-45; 1 Peter 1:15-16). That means that there is a standard of holiness that God adheres to, and expects us to adhere to. It is the same standard for both. But there is a standard, otherwise God could not command us to be holy as he is holy. This does not mean that there is a standard of holiness that exists independent of God, or outside of the existence of God. God himself is the author of that standard. But once he has established that standard, he adheres to it himself, and does not deviate from it. In the same way that God “cannot lie,” likewise he cannot violate the standard of holiness that himself has established. To this then Jacob replies:
“He defines it, … he is the standard by which holiness is defined. His nature is that which we call holy.”
Not quite. There is a standard, otherwise God could not command us to be “holy as he is holy”—except that God himself is the author of that standard. It is not a standard that somehow exists independent of God. Jeff then continues:
“And the same thing goes for love, like there is not an idea of love that just so happens to exist out there. God is love; he is the one that by his very nature—through his character, who he is—he is the one that defines the reality of that. In a certain sense, his very existence is almost speaking all of this into existence for us. So that is a really important one because, God being independent, subject to nothing or no one, whether it be a higher being or even a higher law. We believe that he is the highest; and there is nothing higher, there is no one higher. He is Lord of lords Kings of … he is above all. So yeah, that would be a differing view in the nature of God; because we don’t think that when God Says, ‘I Am,’ we don’t see a God who is ‘becoming,’ we see a God who is ‘being;’ you know we are always ‘becoming;’ where[as] he ‘is,’ he is the ‘I am’.”
He has got that mostly right—and Jacob has got it wrong! God is indeed immutable and unchangeable. He is not changing, or “becoming” anything other than what he already is. Then Jacob continues as follows:
“But this, and I guess this is where I kind of struggle a little bit with this, and I think a lot of Latter-day Saints too, is that if God is not ‘becoming’—because we definitely believe that God is ‘becoming,’ we believe in Eternal Progression, that his glory can grow beyond where it is, and that makes him not static … is that it seems as though if he cannot change his nature, if God can’t alter what he is, then God in some sense … is a being all-powerful if they can’t change their own nature? Is that fair … you know, because I would … look at it and they say if God is all-powerful, then he must be free, as the Bible says, to do as he pleases. But if he has a nature that cannot change, well then, he is bound by that nature, and is in the ultimate sense not free.”
That is completely erroneous theology of course, for the reasons previously explained. The only additional thing to be noted here is that he is now redefining “Eternal Progression”. Eternal Progression does not mean that God is continuingly “adding to his own glory”. Scripture does indeed teach that God is continually “glorifying” himself by the works that he does. But that is not the same as “Eternal Progression,” as understood by those who initially came up with that idea in the first place. God is not undergoing any “change,” or “changing his own nature” by continually “glorifying” himself, as taught in scripture. Scripture teaches that we “glorify God” by doing good works (Matt. 5:16). That does not mean that we are “changing God’s nature” by doing good, and glorifying God. Then Jeff continues as follows:
“Here is how I would challenge that, I will challenge it with a word picture: That is the difference between viewing God’s ability to change—comparing El Capitan to the ocean; and here is what I mean by that: If I tried to change El Capitan, you know this giant wall of granite in Yosemite—I can’t. These are locked atoms that are not going as Granite, right? I can’t change that. That is not how I believe the Bible teaches God. He is not chiseled in granite, this sort of unchanging wall. He is more like the ocean. If you dove into the ocean, you are displacing within that water, where water once was; but there is no less water. Is God changing in that word picture? No, he is allowing himself to be affected, and he is making space for other beings. But it is not impacting the reality of that existence as an ocean.”
He is right to challenge it, but he is not going about it the best way. The right way to challenge it is to quote scripture which teaches the unchangeable nature of God (punctuation in LDS scripture quotes revised):
Psalm 102:
27 But thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end.
Malachi 3:
6 For I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.
Hebrews 1:
12 And as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed: but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail.
Hebrews 13:
8 Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.
James 1:
17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.
Mormon 9:
9 For do we not read that God is the same yesterday, today, and forever; and in him there is no variableness, neither shadow of changing?
10 And now, if ye have imagined up unto yourselves a god who doth vary, and in whom there is shadow of changing, then have ye imagined up unto yourselves a god who is not a God of miracles.
• • •
19 And if there were miracles wrought then, why has God ceased to be a God of miracles, and yet be an unchangeable Being? And behold, I say unto you he changeth not; if so, he would cease to be God. And he ceaseth not to be God, and is a God of miracles.
Doctrine and Covenants 3:
2 For God doth not walk in crooked paths, neither doth he turn to the right hand nor to the left, neither doth he vary from that which he hath said; therefore his paths are straight, and his course is one eternal round.
Doctrine and Covenants 20:
12 Thereby showing that he is the same God yesterday, today, and forever. Amen.
• • •
17 By these things we know that there is a God in heaven, who is infinite and eternal, from everlasting to everlasting, the same unchangeable God; the framer of heaven and earth, and all things which are in them.
Doctrine and Covenants 35:
1 Listen to the voice of the Lord your God, even Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, whose course is one eternal round; the same today, as yesterday, and forever.
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