Will Righteous Mormons Still Get their Own Planets?

Another essay has been posted on the LDS.org topics page, this one on “Becoming Like God.” Ostensibly seeking to clarify what is meant by the LDS doctrine that the righteous can someday be gods just like the God Latter-day Saints worship now, it only confuses the matter.

“Latter-day Saints see all people as children of God in a full and complete sense,” it announces—a much more euphemistic statement than the claim that “we are all literal spirit children of our Heavenly Father,” meaning that we were all conceived in the preexistence through some act of spiritual procreation. However guarded its wording, the essay does at least acknowledge LDS belief in a Heavenly Mother: “Latter-day Saints have also been moved by the knowledge that their divine parentage includes a Heavenly Mother as well as a Heavenly Father.”

The doctrine that male and female human beings may become gods has been absolutely foundational to LDS belief—it’s the reason behind the emphasis on family, since one point of becoming a god is that that status alone enables you to maintain family ties throughout the eternities. The essay acknowledges that this doctrine is grounded in LDS scripture “that linked exaltation with eternal marriage,” but edits the verses very carefully rather than quote them. Here is Doctrine and Covenants 132: 20: