"We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost." That is the first Article of Faith of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (whose members prefer the name Latter-day Saints). Isn't that the Trinity?
Short answer: Not in the historic Christian sense. Latter-day Saints believe the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are three separate beings who form one Godhead, "one in purpose and doctrine," and that the Father and the Son have bodies of flesh and bones. The Trinity is one God, one divine substance, in three distinct persons. Latter-day Saint leaders openly reject that second view.
Key verses on the one God
- "Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD alone!" (Deuteronomy 6:4)
- "Before me no god was formed, and after me there shall be none." (Isaiah 43:10)
- "Is there any God but me? There is no other Rock, I know of none!" (Isaiah 44:8)
- "God is Spirit, and those who worship him must worship in Spirit and truth." (John 4:24)
- "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." (John 1:1)
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, the Latter-day Saint view in its own words: "each member of the Godhead is a separate being. ... The Father and the Son have tangible bodies of flesh and bones, and the Holy Ghost is a personage of spirit. Although the members of the Godhead are distinct beings with distinct roles, they are one in purpose and doctrine" ("Godhead," Gospel Topics). Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, an apostle of that church, said they believe the three are one in every way "except believing Them to be three persons combined in one substance, a Trinitarian notion never set forth in the scriptures because it is not true" (October 2007).
The Catholic Church teaches: "We do not confess three Gods, but one God in three persons, the 'consubstantial Trinity'" (CCC 253). At the same time, "The divine persons are really distinct from one another" (CCC 254).
What Catholics do not teach:
- That Latter-day Saints reject the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. They believe in all three and pray to the Father in the name of Jesus Christ.
- That the Trinity is one person wearing three masks. The persons are "really distinct" (CCC 254).
- That this is about sincerity. The question is who God is, not whether our neighbors love Him.
The Biblical Case
1. Scripture counts one God, not a Godhead of several
"I am the first, I am the last; there is no God but me" (Isaiah 44:6). "Before me no god was formed, and after me there shall be none" (Isaiah 43:10). The prophets do not merely say God has no rival. They say no other God exists. St. Paul agrees: "there is no God but one" (1 Corinthians 8:4). Three separate divine beings, however united, is still a count of three. And St. Paul writes this in the very chapter that admits "there are, to be sure, many 'gods' and many 'lords'" in pagan belief, then answers: "yet for us there is one God, the Father, ... and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things are" (1 Corinthians 8:5–6). He places Jesus inside the Shema's "one," as the One through whom all things are.
2. The Word is God, not a second god
"The Word was with God" shows a real distinction. "The Word was God" shows He is the same God, not another (John 1:1). Now compare. The LORD says He "made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, I spread out the earth by myself" (Isaiah 44:24). Yet of the Word: "All things came to be through him" (John 1:3). God created "alone," yet through the Word. That fits only if the Word is within the one God. In Christ "dwells the whole fullness of the deity bodily" (Colossians 2:9).
3. The Holy Spirit is God
St. Peter told Ananias, "you lied to the holy Spirit," then, "You have lied not to human beings, but to God" (Acts 5:3–4). To lie to the Spirit is to lie to God. St. Paul's blessing names the three side by side as the one source of grace: "The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the holy Spirit be with all of you" (2 Corinthians 13:13).
4. One name, three persons
Jesus commands baptism "in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit" (Matthew 28:19): one name. At Jesus' baptism the Spirit descends and the Father speaks (Matthew 3:16–17). Catholics agree that scene shows three distinct persons. Scripture holds both truths: three distinct, one God.
5. God is Spirit, not an exalted man
"God is Spirit" (John 4:24). "God is not a human being" (Numbers 23:19). "For I am God and not a man" (Hosea 11:9). He is "the King of ages, incorruptible, invisible, the only God" (1 Timothy 1:17). "God is pure spirit" (CCC 370). The Son has a body because "the Word became flesh" (John 1:14), not because God needs one.
Objections Answered
(a) "Jesus prayed that we would be one as He and the Father are one. So their oneness is unity of purpose."
At its strongest: Jesus prays "that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you" (John 17:21). Believers will never be one being, so the Father and Son must be one the way disciples are: in heart and purpose. The Church's essay "Becoming Like God" reads the verse this way: the three, "though distinct beings, are unified in purpose and doctrine."
Answer: Catholics agree the Father and Son are perfectly united in will. But "as" marks likeness, not sameness. Disciples share God's unity by grace; they never become the Creator. And Scripture says more about the Son than shared purpose: He "was God," and all things were made through Him, though God made all things "alone." If the oneness were only agreement, "there is no God but me" would be false the moment a second divine being existed.
(b) "The Trinity came from fourth-century creeds, not the Bible."
At its strongest: Elder Holland quotes Harper's Bible Dictionary: "the formal doctrine of the Trinity as it was defined by the great church councils of the fourth and fifth centuries is not to be found in the [New Testament]." The Church teaches that "the true doctrine of the Godhead was lost in the apostasy" ("Godhead").
Answer: The council vocabulary did come later. Nicaea (325) confessed the Son "consubstantial" with the Father, "that is, one only God with him" (CCC 242). But a word can be new while the teaching is old. Points 1–4 are all Scripture, and Christians spoke of "one substance" long before Nicaea (see below). The council did not invent the faith; it defended against Arius the faith Christians already prayed and baptized in. Compare the Godhead article's own claim that the true doctrine "was lost in the apostasy" with the record: the earliest Christian writers outside the New Testament, from the Didache to Tertullian, baptize in the threefold name and confess one God. That is continuity, not loss. See also Is the Trinity in the Bible? and Was There a Great Apostasy?
(c) "Stephen saw Jesus at God's right hand. The Father must have a body."
At its strongest: St. Stephen "saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God" (Acts 7:55). Moses spoke with God "face to face" (Exodus 33:11). Elder Holland asks why, if "the idea of an embodied God is repugnant," Christianity centers on "the Incarnation, the Atonement, and the physical Resurrection."
Answer: Catholics find nothing repugnant in a body. We worship the risen Jesus, who said, "a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have" (Luke 24:39). But the Son took flesh in history; Scripture never says the Father did. St. Stephen saw "the glory of God," and Jesus. And nine verses after "face to face," God tells Moses, "no one can see me and live" (Exodus 33:20). "Face to face" describes friendship. "No one has ever seen God. The only Son, God, who is at the Father's side, has revealed him" (John 1:18).
(d) "Genesis says 'Let us make.' The Gods were plural from the beginning."
At its strongest: "Then God said: Let us make human beings in our image, after our likeness" (Genesis 1:26). Latter-day Saint scripture retells the scene: "And the Gods took counsel among themselves and said: Let us go down and form man in our image" (Abraham 4:26). The plural, they say, means a plurality of divine beings.
Answer: Read the very next verse: "God created mankind in his image; in the image of God he created them" (Genesis 1:27). The plural speech is followed by a singular Creator. The NABRE note explains the plural by God "presiding over an assembly of heavenly beings," not as several creators, and Isaiah says the LORD made all things "alone" (Isaiah 44:24). Christians from the second century saw in Scripture's plurality-within-oneness a hint of the Trinity: one God who speaks with His Word and His Spirit. Either reading excludes what exaltation needs: a second, separate God who creates. Scripture never once says "Gods" created the world. It says God did, and that all things came to be through the Word (John 1:3).
The Early Church Agrees
All of these wrote more than a century before Nicaea.
- The Didache (ch. 7, late 1st or early 2nd century): "baptize into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, in living water." (newadvent.org)
- St. Ignatius of Antioch (Letter to the Ephesians 7, c. AD 107): Jesus Christ is "God existing in flesh." (newadvent.org)
- Athenagoras (A Plea for the Christians 10, c. AD 177): "we acknowledge one God, uncreated, eternal, invisible, impassible, incomprehensible, illimitable," with "the Father and the Son being one." Christians "declare both their power in union and their distinction in order." (newadvent.org)
- St. Theophilus of Antioch (To Autolycus II.15, c. AD 180), the earliest surviving Christian writer known to use the word: "the three days which were before the luminaries, are types of the Trinity, of God, and His Word, and His wisdom." (newadvent.org)
- Tertullian (Against Praxeas 2, c. AD 213, approximate): the three Persons are "three, however, not in condition, but in degree; not in substance, but in form; not in power, but in aspect; yet of one substance, and of one condition, and of one power, inasmuch as He is one God." He calls this "the mystery of the dispensation" "which distributes the Unity into a Trinity." (newadvent.org)
One God, three distinct persons, one substance: the faith Nicaea defended was already being taught, even with the words "Trinity" and "one substance," generations before it met.
Conclusion
Latter-day Saints love Jesus Christ, and they rightly see that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are truly distinct. The real question is whether the three are one God, as Isaiah and St. John teach, or three divine beings united in purpose.
If you are a Latter-day Saint, read Isaiah 44:24 and John 1:1–3 side by side. How did the Lord who made all things "alone" make them through the Word? The Church's answer is the Trinity: one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Come home. The one God in three Persons whom Isaiah and St. John proclaim has been confessed from the beginning, and is still confessed today, in 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 Latter-day Saints believe the Holy Ghost is a person? Yes. Their scripture calls Him "a personage of Spirit" (Doctrine and Covenants 130:22).
Does the Catholic Church accept Latter-day Saint baptism? No. In 2001 the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith judged it not valid (vatican.va). A commentary by Fr. Luis Ladaria, posted with it, explained that in LDS teaching the three "are not the three persons in which subsists the one Godhead," and that the decision "obviously does not indicate a judgment on those who are members" (vatican.va).
Do Latter-day Saints consider themselves polytheists? No. Elder Holland said their view "is not to be guilty of polytheism." We take that sincerely; our question is whether there is one God or three united divine beings.
Sources
Scripture (NABRE, bible.usccb.org): Genesis 1:26–27 (with NABRE note); Exodus 33:11, 20; Numbers 23:19; Deuteronomy 6:4; Isaiah 43:10; Isaiah 44:6, 8, 24; Hosea 11:9; Matthew 3:16–17; Matthew 16:18; Matthew 28:19; Luke 24:39; John 1:1–3, 14, 18; John 4:24; John 17:21; Acts 5:3–4; Acts 7:55; 1 Corinthians 8:4–6; 2 Corinthians 13:13; Colossians 2:9; 1 Timothy 1:17.
Catechism of the Catholic Church (vatican.va): 242; 253; 254; 370; 816.
Other Church documents (vatican.va): Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Response to a "Dubium" on the Validity of Baptism Conferred by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (2001); Luis Ladaria, S.J., The Question of the Validity of Baptism Conferred in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Church Fathers (newadvent.org): Didache 7; St. Ignatius of Antioch, Letter to the Ephesians 7; St. Theophilus of Antioch, To Autolycus II.15; Athenagoras, A Plea for the Christians 10; Tertullian, Against Praxeas 2.
Latter-day Saint sources (churchofjesuschrist.org): "Godhead," Gospel Topics; "Becoming Like God," Gospel Topics Essays; Articles of Faith 1; Doctrine and Covenants 130:22; Abraham 4:26; Jeffrey R. Holland, "The Only True God and Jesus Christ Whom He Hath Sent," General Conference, October 2007.