Gordon B. Hinckley interviews
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[edit] On God being a man and mans potential to become a god
- Q: There are some significant differences in your beliefs. For instance, don't Mormons believe that God was once a man?
- A: I wouldn't say that. There was a couplet coined, "As man is, God once was. As God is, man may become." Now that's more of a couplet than anything else. That gets into some pretty deep theology that we don't know very much about.
(President Gordon B. Hinckley with Don Lattin, the San Francisco Chronicle religion writer. The article was dated Sunday, April 13, 1997) [1]
- Q: Just another related question that comes up is the statements in the King Follet discourse by the Prophet.
- A: Yeah
- Q: ... about that, God the Father was once a man as we were. This is something that Christian writers are always addressing. Is this the teaching of the church today, that God the Father was once a man like we are?
- A: I don’t know that we teach it. I don’t know that we emphasize it. I haven’t heard it discussed for a long time in public discourse. I don’t know. I don’t know all the circumstances under which that statement was made. I understand the philosophical background behind it. But I don’t know a lot about it and I don’t know that others know a lot about it.
(Time magazine of August 4, 1997, in an article titled "Kingdom Come," page 56) [2]
Interestingly enough, Hinckley said the following in the 1997 October General Conference:
- "I personally have been much quoted, and in a few instances misquoted and misunderstood. I think that's to be expected. None of you need worry because you read something that was incompletely reported. You need not worry that I do not understand some matters of doctrine. I think I understand them thoroughly, and it is unfortunate that the reporting may not make this clear. I hope you will never look to the public press as the authority on the doctrines of the Church."
[edit] On Brigham-Young's Adam-God theory
"Brigham Young said if you went to Heaven and saw God it would be Adam and Eve. I don't know what he meant by that." Pointing to a grim-faced portrait of the Lion of the Lord, as Young was called, Hinckley said, "There he is, right there. I'm not going to worry about what he said about those things." I asked whether Mormon theology was a form of polytheism. "I don't have the remotest idea what you mean," Hinckley said impatiently." - Hinckley Interview in "Lives of the Saint", New Yorker, January 2002 [3]
- See main page: Adam-God theory
[edit] Quotes
- "I think it's a topic he didn't want to discuss on national television. I don't blame him. I have a sense of the sacred; I would be surprised if he doesn't, too. I do think he bobbled the question slightly. His response was a bit awkward. But he wasn't wrong. We don't know much about the doctrine that the Father was once a man beyond the bare minimum basic statement encapsulated in Lorenzo Snow's couplet, and we very rarely teach much about it. (What on earth would we teach?) I have, personally, never heard a sacrament meeting speech devoted to the topic of human deification, let alone to, say, the early years of God the Father when he was a mortal. I've certainly never given one. Do I "teach" the doctrine? Yes and no. I believe in it. Absolutely. I've affirmed it. I've referred to the doctrine and defended it on several occasions. But I don't really "teach" it in the same way that I teach the Book of Mormon, or teach the resurrection and atonement of Christ. I've never "emphasized" it in any speech or Sunday School lesson. It has never been a principal focus or even a secondary or tertiary focus. (What, again, would I say if it were? I know nothing about it.) I speak on faith and baptism and the importance of remembering God's acts in our lives and evidences for the Book of Mormon, but I've never given a speech on the biography of God the Father prior to his exaltation. And, barring further revelation on the topic, I can't imagine that I ever will." - Daniel Peterson[1]
- "Well, it seems that Joseph Smith would have said exactly that (namely that God was once a man) and just before he tells the King Follett funeral congregation that God was once a man, he exclaims that he 'will prove that the world is wrong, by showing what God is. I am going to enquire after God; for I want you all to know him, and to be familiar with him.' And so whereas Hinckley seems to think that we don't know very much about whether God was once a man Joseph Smith thinks that not only did he know it but that he could bring the members of the Church to know it as well. And to rebut the charge that we don't actually teach the doctrine that JS proclaimed consider the fact that that in the Jan. 1989 issue of the Ensign Cannon, Dahl, and Welch quote the very King Follett passage found above in an attempt to emphasize the differences between Mormon theology and traditional Christian theology. Keith earlier said that Hinckley's comment was not a 'taking back' of earlier doctrine. But I am hard-pressed to see that it is not. The Joseph Smith of 1844 clearly thought that God's having been a man was central to understanding God's nature and our nature. And given other revelations, he clearly thought that knowledge of God was essential to salvation. I don't see how the God-Man doctrine could be more central to Mormon theology than that. I would worry that I am exaggerating because I happen to like those aspects of Mormon theology that are peculiar to it, but that can hardly be the case because it is right there in JS's writings. One can hardly escape it." - Dennis Potter[2]
[edit] See also
[edit] Notes
- ↑ http://www.mormonapologetics.org/index.php?s=&showtopic=23433&view=findpost&p=1208160265
- ↑ LDS-PHIL mailing list. August 2, 1997.
[edit] External links
- Larry King Live - Gordon Hinckley: Distinguished Religious Leader of the Mormons (Aired September 8, 1998)
- The 60 Minutes Interview of LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley (CBS TV, April 7, 1996)
- Transcript: National Press Club Q&A with President Gordon B. Hinckley (Questions from Jack Cushman, The New York Times)
- Road to Salvaton: Interview with Gordon B. Hinckley by Richard Ostling
[edit] Non-Mormon
- Dodging and Dissembling Prophet? (Institute for Religious Research)
- Speak Truth with Your Neighbor, by John Piper
- Historic Interview Flunks History 101: 60 Minutes and Mormonism, by Timothy Oliver
[edit] Mormon
- Does President Gordon B. Hinckley Understand LDS Doctrine?, by Michael W. Fordham
- Biography of Gordon B. Hinckley
- Links to various artlces, videos, and pictures of Gordon B. Hinckley
- Learning to Love Yourself, by Gordon B. Hinckley
- Downplaying the King Follett Discourse (FAIRWiki)
- When someone asks you if you’re a *God*, you say “YES”!, by Steve Evans