AttributeTopic
Catholic PositionThe Catholic Church
LDS PositionThe LDS Church
Biblical WitnessScripture
I. Being & Existence
Eternality
Has God always existed as God?
Catholic
God is eternally and necessarily existent — the uncaused First Cause. He has no origin, no beginning, and is outside of time entirely. He is not a being among beings but Being Itself (ipsum esse subsistens).
Ex. 3:14 — "I AM WHO I AM"
✦ Aligns with Scripture
LDS
God the Father was once a mortal man who was exalted to godhood. He had a Father before Him, and so on eternally backward. He "progressed" to become God — He did not always exist as God.
"God himself was once as we are now" — King Follett Discourse (1844)
⚠ Contradicts Scripture
Biblical
Scripture consistently presents God as without origin: "Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the whole world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God" (Ps. 90:2). "I am the first and the last" (Is. 44:6). God has no predecessor.
Immutability
Does God change?
Catholic
God is absolutely immutable — He cannot change, improve, or develop. All perfection exists in Him infinitely and eternally. Change implies transition from potential to act; God is pure act with no unrealized potential.
Mal. 3:6 — "I the LORD do not change"
✦ Aligns with Scripture
LDS
God progressed to become God. The entire LDS system of eternal progression implies that God Himself once stood at a lower rung of the same ladder humans now climb. Change and growth are fundamental to LDS cosmology — even for deity.
⚠ Contradicts Scripture
Biblical
"Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change" (Jas. 1:17). "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever" (Heb. 13:8).
II. Nature & Substance
Corporeality
Does God have a physical body?
Catholic
God is pure spirit — utterly incorporeal. The Second Person of the Trinity took on a human body in the Incarnation, but God the Father and the Holy Spirit have no physical body. God transcends matter.
John 4:24 — "God is spirit"
✦ Aligns with Scripture
LDS
God the Father has "a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man's" (D&C 130:22). He is a glorified, resurrected, embodied being who resides near the star Kolob. The Father is spatially located.
⚠ Contradicts Scripture
Biblical
"God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth" (John 4:24). "A spirit does not have flesh and bones" (Luke 24:39 — Christ distinguishing His resurrection body from a spirit). God fills heaven and earth (Jer. 23:24).
Omnipresence
Is God present everywhere?
Catholic
God is omnipresent — present everywhere in His essence, power, and knowledge simultaneously. He is not contained by space but contains and sustains all things in being. He is "closer to me than I am to myself" (Augustine).
Ps. 139:7–8 — "Where can I flee from your presence?"
✦ Aligns with Scripture
LDS
Because God has a physical body, He cannot be omnipresent in the classical sense. LDS theology resolves this by saying God's influence (the "Light of Christ" or the Holy Spirit) is omnipresent — but the Father Himself is spatially located near Kolob.
⚠ Contradicts Scripture
Biblical
"Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him? declares the LORD. Do I not fill heaven and earth?" (Jer. 23:24). A physically embodied God cannot fill heaven and earth simultaneously.
III. Trinity & Persons
Unity of Being
Is there one God or three gods?
Catholic
There is one God in three divine Persons — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — who share one divine nature, one substance (homoousios). The Persons are really distinct but not separate beings. There is absolutely only one God.
Deut. 6:4 — "The LORD our God, the LORD is one"
✦ Aligns with Scripture
LDS
Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are three entirely separate and distinct beings — three gods, united in purpose but not in nature or substance. This is not Trinitarianism; it is social tritheism, or a form of polytheism. LDS scripture notes "countless" gods exist (Abraham 3:9).
⚠ Contradicts Scripture
Biblical
Scripture is emphatically monotheist: "I am the LORD, and there is no other; apart from me there is no God" (Is. 45:5). "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one" (Deut. 6:4). Yet Father, Son, and Spirit are each distinctly divine — demanding a Trinitarian framework, not polytheism.
Divinity of Christ
Is Christ truly and fully God?
Catholic
Christ is the eternal Son of God, the Second Person of the Trinity — fully God and fully man, sharing the one divine nature with the Father. He is not a created being, not a lesser god, and not a promoted human. He is homoousios with the Father (Nicaea, 325).
John 1:1 — "the Word was God"
✦ Aligns with Scripture
LDS
Christ is a separate god from the Father — an exalted, resurrected being. In LDS theology, Christ is the firstborn spirit child of Heavenly Father, who progressed to godhood. He is divine but in a categorically different way than Catholic Trinitarianism affirms. Lucifer is His spirit brother.
⚠ Contradicts Scripture
Biblical
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God... All things were made through him" (John 1:1,3). "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation" — "firstborn" as title of supremacy, not temporal priority (Col. 1:15). Thomas confesses "My Lord and my God!" (John 20:28).
IV. Divine Attributes
Omniscience
Does God know all things, including the future?
Catholic
God knows all things — past, present, and future — in one eternal act. He knows all possibilities, all contingencies, and all free choices before they are made, without thereby determining them. His knowledge is infinite and perfect.
✦ Aligns with Scripture
LDS
Some LDS thinkers (open theists within Mormonism) have argued that God's knowledge grows with time. Most LDS theology holds that God knows all things — but since God progressed to omniscience from a prior mortal state, His omniscience is acquired, not intrinsic.
⚠ Internally Problematic
Biblical
"Known to God from eternity are all his works" (Acts 15:18). "I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done" (Is. 46:9–10).
Creator of Matter
Did God create matter from nothing?
Catholic
God created all things ex nihilo — from nothing. Matter itself is a creature of God. Nothing exists apart from God's creative act. This radical dependence of all creation on God is fundamental to Catholic theology.
Gen. 1:1; John 1:3; Rom. 4:17
✦ Aligns with Scripture
LDS
God organized pre-existing, co-eternal matter — He did not create from nothing. Matter is self-existent and eternal, not dependent on God for its existence. God is more of an architect than an absolute creator. "Intelligence" also is co-eternal with God and uncreated.
⚠ Contradicts Scripture
Biblical
"By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible" (Heb. 11:3). "All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made" (John 1:3). No eternal, co-existing matter is contemplated.
The Fundamental Divide
The God of Catholicism and the God of LDS theology are not two descriptions of the same being. The Catholic God is eternal, immaterial, omnipresent, immutable, and the absolute Creator of all things from nothing. The LDS God is an exalted man — corporeal, spatially located, a product of prior cosmic processes, and a sculptor of pre-existing matter. These are not minor theological nuances. They represent fundamentally different ultimate realities. The Catholic God corresponds to the God described in Scripture; the LDS God corresponds to the God described in the King Follett Discourse of 1844, which departed significantly from the Book of Mormon's own earlier portrayal.