"Do Mormons believe in a limited, finite God, not the all-powerful, unlimited God of the Bible?"

Ever get that question? Sometimes we are accused of worshipping a limited, finite God because we believe He has a tangible body in whose image we were created (this is definitely a biblical teaching, by the way, per Gen. 1:26-27 and many other passages). So if that is a concern to a fellow Christian, we might in turn ask this: Was Jesus Christ suddenly less divine when we took up His physical body at the moment of the Resurrection? Did his divine powers shrink and his glory recede? Did His authority wane? We don't think so, and I don't think anyone teaching that Resurrection made Christ less divine could claim to have biblical support.

Through the majestic Resurrection, we believe Christ was actually adding to His glory and becoming more fully like the Father. In fact, the Resurrected Christ is said to be in the "express image" of the Father, meaning that He looks just like Him (Heb. 1:1-2; see also 2 Cor. 4:4 and John 14:9). God's power extends across the universe. He does not need to be a dilute incorporeal wisp of cosmic ether to have such power, nor does He need to comply with man-made Neoplatonic fiction about the philosophical advantages of lacking a body.

In fact, the glorious physical body of God apparently contributes to His power and majesty, if we are to believe the words of Paul in Philippians 3:21 as he foreshadows our own divine potential:
[20]  ... we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ:[21]  Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.
Through the workings of His glorious physical body, the Resurrected Lord is able to subdue all things. This sounds like an amazing tool, not a burdensome limitation. The loathing of the body is something some of our fellow Christians need to get over. Though enshrined in some versions of the post-biblical creeds manufactured by bickering philosophers long after apostolic revelation ceased, it is time to recognize their limitations and restore the ancient recognition that God has made us to look a little like Him because, after all, He is our Father and we are His offspring (Heb. 12:9-10; Acts 17:28-29).

God is all powerful, but that does not mean there are no limitations. He does not do evil. He does not do the logically impossible, such as making the circumference of a circle equal to twice its radius (the number pi is defined by mathematical reality, not by God, and cannot be changed by God). The idea that there might be some limitations on God should not be all that surprising. Indeed, we have clues to that effect in the Bible. In Mark 10:40, Christ tells James and John that there is something He cannot do: determining who will "sit on my right hand is not mine to give." And then in Mark 13:32, the all-knowing Son of God explains that there is something He did not yet know: "But of that day [the specific day of the Second Coming of Christ] and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father." These limitations on Christ did not make Him less worthy of our worship or less divine.

I should also add that even God cannot not dump unlimited amounts of money into a nation's economy without harming its economy and debasing its currency, making Him in the eyes of some to be far less majestic than Ben Bernanke. But I think God will prevail in this matter.


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