Did God “come to be God” or not?
The final chapter in Blake Ostler’s new book is titled “God the Eternal Father” and is his treatment of two seminal sermons by the Prophet Joseph Smith in the final months of his life; the King Follett Discourse given in April 1844 and the Sermon in the Grove given less than two weeks before his death in June of 1844. Since these sermons have been the topic of discussion here as of late I am skipping ahead to cover chapter 12 now. Blake’s interpretation of these sermons is quite unusual and controversial I think. His conclusions include the following:
1) God did not come to be a God but has been divine and in the Godhead forever. This applies to the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost according to Blake.
2) While God, the Father of Jesus, did condescend to become a mortal on one of the innumerable previous inhabited planets, he is the ultimate Celestial Monarch and has no “Eternal Father” of his own. Further, Blake holds that the Father was not a Savior to the world to which he condescended.
I will address 2) in the next post and focus only on 1) here. Here are the arguments Blake uses to defend 1). (more…)