The short answer
Joseph Smith’s June 1844 sermon discusses a Father for God the Father. Orson Pratt later described an endless genealogy of divine fathers. The Church’s current essay affirms exaltation and says little has been revealed about God’s prior history. What gives each member power and what explains the whole genealogy are separate questions.
Three distinctions to use in conversation
- History. The King Follett sermon discusses the Father living on an earth. The June sermon discusses divine ancestry. Pratt goes further by explicitly describing a genealogy with no first Father. Compare the historical sources
- Current teaching. The Church quotes Lorenzo Snow’s couplet and limits what is known about its first half. It affirms that we can become like God and will always worship Him. Becoming Like God
- Logic. Ask whether the critic means an endless family line, an endless series of powers borrowed from someone else, or the ultimate explanation for the whole line. Each claim needs its own argument. Work through the inference
What Joseph Smith and Orson Pratt taught
In Thomas Bullock’s notes of the April 7, 1844 King Follett sermon, Joseph Smith taught that the Father had lived on an earth as Jesus did. William Clayton also recorded Joseph teaching that God had once been as we are. Compare the reporters’ notes when assessing exact wording. In the June 16, 1844 sermon, Bullock records a further claim. Joseph reasoned from Jesus having a Father to the possibility of a Father for God the Father. He also spoke of intelligences ranked one above another without end. His analogy gives the ancestry argument real historical grounds. King Follett, Bullock’s notes · King Follett, Clayton’s notes · June sermon, Bullock’s notes
In 1853, Apostle Orson Pratt spelled out the stronger view in The Seer. He describes the Father as begotten by an earlier Father and treats the genealogy as endless. He also says the personal gods possess equal wisdom and power through the same fullness of truth dwelling in them. That is his attempt to explain their unity within the model. In 1865, the First Presidency and other apostles publicly objected to teachings in The Seer. Pratt’s account documents a historical view. The Church’s current essay addresses what has been revealed about God’s prior history more narrowly. Orson Pratt, The Seer, p. 132, §§108–109 · BYU bibliographical history of The Seer
What the Church teaches today
The Church’s essay Becoming Like God quotes Lorenzo Snow’s couplet, “As man now is, God once was: As God now is, man may be.” It says little has been revealed about the first half and little is taught. It affirms exaltation and says that God’s children will always worship Him. The essay leaves the Father’s prior history and the structure of any divine ancestry open. Becoming Like God
Latter-day Saint scripture calls God eternal and unchangeable and says intelligence, or the light of truth, was neither created nor made. Those are separate claims. Uncreated intelligence leaves a question about when someone holds divine authority or possesses divine attributes. The analogy with Christ shows that someone can live a mortal life without first acquiring divinity in that life. It cannot settle Joseph’s meaning by itself. In a reported 1842 discourse Joseph also spoke of the Father becoming the eternal God of a world He redeemed. Reconciling stronger readings of that teaching with God’s unchangeableness takes more work than applying the word eternal to both. Doctrine and Covenants 20:17 · Doctrine and Covenants 93:29 · John 1:1–3, 14 · Joseph Smith, January 1842 discourse
When would the regress be a problem?
Teologar’s objection is that a chain of fathers, grandfathers, and earlier divine ancestors conflicts with God’s eternal self-existence. Test three distinct steps in that argument. Teologar, 5 Heresias Mórmon, 8:51–10:08
- One predecessor. Saying the Father had a Father gives one link. Joseph’s analogy in June suggests the pattern could extend further. An endless chain follows if every divine Father has a distinct divine predecessor and the line never circles back.
- An endless genealogy. Pratt affirms that stronger premise. A genealogy orders predecessors. It leaves a separate question about whether each member’s present power depends on every predecessor supplying it.
- An endless chain of borrowed power. If each member can act only through power supplied by another, the critic asks what makes any of them able to act. Adding more dependent members leaves the question of a source of that power. To apply this argument, show why the proposed ancestry is a chain of dependence of that kind.
Thomas Aquinas explicitly distinguished an endless succession of parents from an ordered series of causes required together for an effect. He rejected the latter kind of infinite regress. His distinction helps identify the missing premise. A critic may also ask why the entire genealogy exists at all. That is a further question about ultimate explanation, even if each predecessor explains a particular successor. Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q. 46, a. 2, reply 7 · Aquinas, I, q. 2, a. 3
A Latter-day Saint response
“Yes, Joseph discussed a Father for God the Father, and Orson Pratt described an endless genealogy. I’d ask what the argument needs beyond ancestry. Does it say each divine being borrows the power to act, or that any chain of predecessors needs an explanation for the whole? Those are serious questions and need their own arguments. I worship God the Father through Jesus Christ. The Church teaches our divine potential and says little has been revealed about God’s prior history.” Becoming Like God
