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From the book: Of Faith and Reason: 80 Evidences Supporting the Prophet Joseph Smith
by Michael R. Ash
Joseph Smith taught that we are of the same lineage and race of God. As God’s children, we have the potential to reach spiritual maturity and become like him. Most other Christians are shocked or outraged at such a suggestion. But this is what the scriptures tell us. The Psalmist wrote: “Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High” (Psalms 82:6). Many ancient Christians in the primitive Church also understood that we are to follow Christ’s example in a literal sense. Gregory of Nazianus taught: “I may become God to the same extent as He became man”. Likewise, the early Christian Irenaeus wrote that Jesus Christ became “what we are, that He might bring us to be even what He is Himself”. Even as late as the early part of the fourth century, Athanasius said that Christ “was made man that we might be made God”.
Michael R. Ash is the author of: Of Faith and Reason: 80 Evidences Supporting The Prophet Joseph Smith. He is the owner and operator of MormonFortress.com and is on the management team for FairMormon. He has been published in Sunstone, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, the Maxwell Institute’s FARMS Review, and is the author of Shaken Faith Syndrome: Strengthening One’s Testimony in the Face of Criticism and Doubt. He and his wife live in Ogden, Utah, and have three daughters.
Julianne Dehlin Hatton has worked as a News Director at an NPR affiliate, News Anchor, and Airborne Traffic Reporter. She graduated with an MSSc from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University in 2008. Julianne and her husband Thomas are the parents of four children.
Music for Faith and Reason is provided by Arthur Hatton.
