"As man now is, God once was: As God now is, man may be." The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints quotes this couplet from Lorenzo Snow, its fifth President, in its own essay on becoming like God. Is it biblical?
Short answer: Scripture really does promise that the saved will "share in the divine nature" and be "like him," and the Church Fathers boldly called this being "made God." But they meant sharing, by grace, in the life of the one eternal God. The Bible rules out the rest of the couplet: God was never a man who became God, and "Before me no god was formed, and after me there shall be none."
Key verses on sharing God's life
- "so that through them you may come to share in the divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4)
- "we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." (1 John 3:2)
- "Before me no god was formed, and after me there shall be none." (Isaiah 43:10)
- "from eternity to eternity you are God." (Psalm 90:2)
- "The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him." (Revelation 22:3)
Scripture quotations are from the New American Bible, Revised Edition (NABRE), © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington, D.C. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
What Catholics Actually Teach
First, exaltation in Latter-day Saint words. "Exaltation is eternal life, the kind of life God lives. ... He is the Father of spirit children. He is a creator. We can become like our Heavenly Father. This is exaltation." The exalted "will become gods" (Gospel Principles, ch. 47). Their scripture says of those sealed in eternal marriage: "Then shall they be gods, because they have no end" (Doctrine and Covenants 132:20). Joseph Smith taught that God "was once as one of us" ("Becoming Like God").
The same essay says "Little has been revealed about the first half of this couplet." It insists "God's children will always worship Him," rejects "caricatures of having their own planet," and teaches that hope of glory comes "only through the Atonement of Jesus Christ."
Catholics also believe in a real divinization. The Catechism quotes the Fathers: "For the Son of God became man so that we might become God" (CCC 460). Grace "is a participation in the life of God" (CCC 1997), "the sanctifying or deifying grace received in Baptism" (CCC 1999). But God "is the fullness of Being and of every perfection, without origin and without end. All creatures receive all that they are and have from him" (CCC 213).
What Catholics do not teach:
- That heaven is clouds and harps. It is real sharing in God's own life.
- That divinization is earned. Grace is "free and undeserved" (CCC 1996).
- That Latter-day Saints expect to stop worshiping God. Their own essay says the opposite.
The Biblical Case
1. God has always been God
"Before the mountains were born, the earth and the world brought forth, from eternity to eternity you are God" (Psalm 90:2). "For I, the LORD, do not change" (Malachi 3:6). "God is not a human being" (Numbers 23:19). A God who "was once as one of us" would have a beginning as God. Scripture says He has none. Reason agrees: the first cause must be unchanged and uncaused (see Does God Exist? Five Arguments from Reason).
2. No god before Him, and none after
God anticipates the very idea of new gods: "Before me no god was formed, and after me there shall be none" (Isaiah 43:10). "I am the first, I am the last; there is no God but me" (Isaiah 44:6). Gods formed later from exalted humans are exactly what this verse excludes. (On the one God, see Do Mormons Believe in the Trinity?)
3. God alone is Creator; we are creatures
"I am the LORD, who made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens" (Isaiah 44:24). A Jewish mother, before Christ, told her son: "God did not make them out of existing things. In the same way humankind came into existence" (2 Maccabees 7:28). St. Paul praises the God who "calls into being what does not exist" (Romans 4:17). The Latter-day Saint essay says Joseph Smith taught that the intelligence at the core of each soul "was not created or made," "fully repudiating the concept of creation ex nihilo." The Catholic Church holds that God "needs no pre-existent thing" and creates "out of nothing" (CCC 296).
4. The promise is real, and it is a gift
Catholics take these verses at full strength. We will "share in the divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4). We are "heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ" (Romans 8:17). The victor will "sit with me on my throne" (Revelation 3:21). But notice the words: "share," "heirs," "with Christ." We receive "a spirit of adoption" (Romans 8:15). Adopted children share a family's life. They do not become its source.
5. Forever, the saved worship
In the new Jerusalem, "his servants will worship him," and "they shall reign forever and ever" (Revelation 22:3–5). They reign with God, as His servants. The Creator and creature never trade places.
Objections Answered
(a) "Jesus Himself said, 'You are gods.'"
At its strongest: The essay cites the Psalm, "Ye are gods," and Jesus' use of it in John 10. NABRE: "Is it not written in your law, 'I said, "You are gods"'?" (John 10:34). Jesus seems to treat the title as true of humans.
Answer: Read the Psalm. God stands "in the midst of the gods" to judge them, then says, "Yet like any mortal you shall die" (Psalm 82:1, 6–7). The NABRE notes read these "gods" either as lesser heavenly beings "stripped of divine status," or as Israel's judges, called "gods" because they judged in God's name. Either way, it is a rebuke, not a promise. Jesus argues from lesser to greater: if Scripture calls those "to whom the word of God came" gods, how can it be blasphemy for "the one whom the Father has consecrated and sent" to say, "I am the Son of God" (John 10:35–36)? The point is His unique status, not ours.
(b) "The early Church Fathers taught that humans become God."
At its strongest: The essay quotes St. Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, and St. Basil, and says deification "faded from Western Christianity" as creation from nothing took hold.
Answer: The Fathers did teach it, and the Catholic Church still does. The Catechism quotes St. Irenaeus, St. Athanasius, and St. Thomas Aquinas, "so that he, made man, might make men gods" (CCC 460). But read the Fathers whole. The same St. Irenaeus wrote: "God indeed makes, but man is made; and truly, He who makes is always the same" (see below). They meant God's gift of His life to creatures, never a God who was once a man. St. Augustine draws the line in one sentence: God "has called men gods, that are deified of His Grace, not born of His Substance." The Fathers' deification is the Catholic doctrine, quoted in the Catechism today. It is not exaltation.
(c) "Children grow up to be like their parents. Jesus said, 'Be perfect.'"
At its strongest: "So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect" (Matthew 5:48). The essay reasons, "Just as a child can develop the attributes of his or her parents over time," so can God's children.
Answer: Jesus says that right after commanding love of enemies (Matthew 5:44). It is a call to holiness, and Catholics embrace it. But Scripture separates the one Son by nature from children by adoption. Jesus is "The only Son, God" (John 1:18). We become children through "a spirit of adoption." St. Augustine put it exactly: "this is the effect of Grace adopting, not of nature generating."
(d) "Creation out of nothing is a later philosophical idea."
At its strongest: The essay argues that "the incursion of new philosophical ideas in the second century led to the development of a doctrine" of creation ex nihilo, and that "The earliest Jewish and Christian commentaries on the Creation assumed that God had organized the world out of preexisting materials." Genesis 1 itself describes God shaping a formless earth.
Answer: The doctrine is in Holy Scripture, written before any second-century philosopher. The mother in 2 Maccabees, in a book written before Christ, says plainly that "God did not make them out of existing things" (2 Maccabees 7:28). Hebrews: "the universe was ordered by the word of God, so that what is visible came into being through the invisible" (Hebrews 11:3). St. John: "All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be" (John 1:3). St. Paul: God "calls into being what does not exist" (Romans 4:17). And the first commandment of the Shepherd of Hermas, one of the earliest Christian writings outside the New Testament, reads: "First of all, believe that there is one God who created and finished all things, and made all things out of nothing" (see below). That is a Christian creed, not a borrowed philosophy. If all things, souls included, came to be through the Word, then nothing in us is uncreated, and no creature can ever become what God is by nature.
The Early Church Agrees
- The Shepherd of Hermas (Commandment 1, 2nd century): "First of all, believe that there is one God who created and finished all things, and made all things out of nothing." (newadvent.org)
- St. Irenaeus (Against Heresies V, preface, c. AD 180): Christ "did, through His transcendent love, become what we are, that He might bring us to be even what He is Himself." Yet: "God indeed makes, but man is made; and truly, He who makes is always the same," while "man receives advancement and increase towards God" (IV.11.2). (newadvent.org; newadvent.org)
- St. Athanasius (On the Incarnation 54, early 300s): "For He was made man that we might be made God." The Word became man; man is made God by grace. (ccel.org)
- St. Augustine (Exposition on Psalm 50, 2, c. AD 400, approximate): God "has called men gods, that are deified of His Grace, not born of His Substance." (newadvent.org)
Conclusion
The Latter-day Saint longing to be with God and like Him is a holy desire. Catholics share it more than many realize. God truly wants to give us His own life, forever.
But the God who gives that life was never one of us before He was God. He is the eternal Creator, and we are His adopted children. If you are a Latter-day Saint, compare Isaiah 43:10 with 2 Peter 1:4. The first says no god will be formed after Him. The second says we will share His nature. The Catholic faith holds both: one God, and creatures raised by grace to share His life.
Come home. The real sharing in God's own life that Scripture promises is given by grace, above all through the sacraments of the Catholic Church. Christ promised, "upon this rock I will build my church" (Matthew 16:18), and His Church never fell away or disappeared. It is the Catholic Church, governed by the successor of St. Peter and the bishops in communion with him. "It is through Christ's Catholic Church alone, which is the universal help toward salvation, that the fullness of the means of salvation can be obtained" (CCC 816). We invite you to come and see the Church Christ founded, and to enter her.
Your next step: Come to Mass this Sunday at your local Catholic church. You can find one near you at MassTimes.org. Everyone is welcome; if you're not yet Catholic, pray with us but don't receive Communion yet. When you're ready to become Catholic, call the parish office and ask about OCIA, the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults. They will walk you through every step. Read our guide: How Do I Become Catholic? Not ready yet? Get our free pocket guide below and keep learning.
FAQ
Do Catholics believe in deification? Yes, by grace. The Catechism calls sanctifying grace "deifying grace" (CCC 1999). We share God's life; we never become another God.
Do Latter-day Saints believe they will get their own planets? Their essay says "few Latter-day Saints would identify with caricatures of having their own planet." Catholics should not argue against a caricature.
Is "As man now is, God once was" official teaching? Church materials teach the idea: Gospel Principles quotes Joseph Smith, "He was once a man like us." But the Church's essay admits that "little is taught" about it.
Sources
Scripture (NABRE, bible.usccb.org): Numbers 23:19; Psalm 82:1, 6–7 (with NABRE notes); Psalm 90:2; Isaiah 43:10; Isaiah 44:6, 24; Malachi 3:6; 2 Maccabees 7:28; Matthew 5:44, 48; Matthew 16:18; John 1:3, 18; John 10:34–36 (with NABRE note); Romans 4:17; Romans 8:15–17; Hebrews 11:3; 2 Peter 1:4; 1 John 3:2; Revelation 3:21; Revelation 22:3–5.
Catechism of the Catholic Church (vatican.va): 213; 296; 460; 816; 1996; 1997; 1999.
Church Fathers (newadvent.org; ccel.org): Shepherd of Hermas, Commandment 1; St. Irenaeus, Against Heresies V, preface and IV.11.2; St. Athanasius, On the Incarnation 54; St. Augustine, Exposition on Psalm 50, 2.
Latter-day Saint sources (churchofjesuschrist.org): "Becoming Like God," Gospel Topics Essays; Gospel Principles, chapter 47, "Exaltation"; Doctrine and Covenants 132:20.