Gramps,

If we are monolithic and believe in only one god. Please explain the mention of the”council of the gods” in the preexistence.

Justin, from Dale City, Virginia

Dear Justin,

God is our Eternal Father-in other words, the Father of our spirits. We have only one Father, thus only one God. However, God, in His generation is not alone in the universe. He has His Father as His God before Him, and so on without end.

Even in our Father’s generation, His Son, Jesus Christ, or the great Jehovah, is also a God, so also is the Holy Ghost. At least these three would have been included in the council of the gods.

Paul preached about a multiplicity of gods. He said,

As concerning therefore the eating of those things that are offered in sacrifice unto idols, we know that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is none other God but one. For though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth, (as there be gods many, and lords many,) But to us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we in him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him (1 Corinthians 8:4-6).

One or our hymns, No. 257, explains the doctrine of many gods clearly.

If you could hie to Kolob in the twinkling of an eye,

And then continue onward with that same speed to fly,

D’ye think that you could ever, through all eternity,

Find out the generation where Gods began to be?

Or see the grand beginning, where space did not extend?

Or view the last creation where Gods and matter end?

Methinks the Spirit whispers, “No man has found ‘pure space,’”

Nor seen the outside curtains, where nothing has a place.

The works of God continue, and worlds and lives abound;

Improvement and progression have one eternal round.

There is no end to matter; there is no end to space;

There is no end to spirit; there is no end to race.

Gramps