What Does it Mean to be a Child of God?

Traditional Christian doctrines revolve around the idea of deity that cannot reproduce itself. In some way Its creative powers are a mystery, or perhaps magic, and yet it only creates inferior beings like humans and animals. The Trinity of modern Christendom has no physical presence, no body, and no personification to speak of.  According to the 4th century creeds and early philosophical musings on which it is founded, the person of Jesus Christ was only a temporary manifestation of God in a state of flesh.

Latter-day Saints teach that we are children of God.  Our spirits are begotten in a way such that we are literal spiritual offspring of our Heavenly Parents.  The full nature of this has not been revealed up to this point. We believe that God the Father wants us to become like him. This is the sum expression of their love. 

Christian apologists recoil at the idea that we can be like God and call it blasphemy.  Referring to the fact that Satan was cast out of heaven, and Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden for desiring to have the power and knowledge like God, claiming that this is somehow an evil desire.  Yet, what does it mean to be like God? Isn't this the epitome of goodness. The fact is Satan did not want God's power.  He wanted his own evil power to take precedence over God.  Christian scholars do not understand the reason Satan was cast out. 

God had the knowledge of good and evil.  Satan also must have had this same knowledge. Adam and Eve gained this knowledge.  It isn't the knowledge that corrupts a person, it is the choices we make.

 

Latter-day Saints teach that God wants to bless his children through our mortal experience.  This is a necessary step to eventually have the fullness of joy that he has.  Many will seek and receive it, and many won't but none are condemned for all of eternity to a state that is worse than before they were created as humans.  Mainstream theology teaches that all were created from nothing and some will spend the rest of eternity in a horrible hell suffering for ever.

What is the essence of evil?  It is to take away or restrict the freedom of choice after receiving the knowledge of good and evil.  Where did evil come from if God had this knowledge for all of eternity past? Why have this knowledge if God is all good?

The meaning of the term "child of God" has two very distinct meanings in the realms of mainstream Christian thought and Latter-day Saint teachings.

When referring to our spiritual existence or the nature of our spirit, certain terms should be defined to better understand them.  When Latter-day Saints claim to be "literally" the offspring of God, we are referring to our spirit.  LDS doctrine also makes known that an eternal element of our individual make up is defined as intelligence, or light and truth, and it exists in infinite capacity in the unknown and endless universe.  

As my own way of describing intelligence, or light and truth, it is a form of eternally existing energy or life force.  (Here is another article that expands on the concept intelligence and light and truth.) As such it exists as a free standing uncreated, infinitely enduring energy source. Its exact nature has not been revealed as of yet.  Its existence forms a basis for creation that allows for individual souls to have free will and a decision making process that can and does stand apart from our God and Father. When given agency and a place and the freedom to act, our eternal character is manifest by exercising our will.  This is why God created the world.

I don't know that Mainstream theologians in their biblical scholarship have defined what spirit is other than to say it is mysterious and incomprehensible. Latter-day Saint scripture and prophetic insight have defined it.  

We teach that we are sons and daughters of Heavenly Parents. (See Proclamation on the Family) They are glorious, exalted individuals. In way yet to be revealed, their powers combine to create us as their offspring.  The result is that we are endowed with what could be called a divine DNA making us directly related to them.  Traditional dogmas state that we are creatures, mere created beings with no divine begetting and neither our spirit or our soul existed until conceived in the womb of our individual mother.

Mainstream or "creedal" Christian philosophers and theologians have developed and choose to adhere to a narrative of a mysterious incomprehensible force existing outside of space and time in the endless universe as God.  There is no reason why it stopped and created this particular solar system, created an earth, and then created people out of the "dust" of the earth.  Adam came into existence about 6000 years ago and the rest of humanity followed.

The solar system and dust/clay that formed the body of the first man had been created out of nothing, except for, perhaps, the thoughts in the mind of the Trinity.  God breathed a mysterious breath on the person of Adam and animated him. Realizing that it was "not good" for him to be alone, a woman was organized.  As such they were mere pawns of creation designed to have fellowship with and worship an incomprehensible creator that may have visited them randomly in the Garden of Eden. 

The creation process that took place before the earth was created was when the formation and existence of beings, often referred to as angels, with some of them turning bad and becoming devils.  The scripture says Satan was a liar from the beginning.  He was cast out of the heavens to live on the earth with the first two humans.  It was he who tempted them to eat from a tree that had power to bring death to the world.

Mainstream theology implies that the only purpose of the fruit of the tree of knowledge was to allow Adam and Eve to condemn themselves.  (LDS don't agree with this analysis.) Which begs the question as to why God placed it there?  Which they answer by saying, "to see if they would love God or reject him".  This one choice was somehow a test of their will, which in the eyes of mainstream theologians they failed. 

In this process sin entered for the first time among humans. Apparently sin didn't didn’t exist before this but God did know about it. Now that he had allowed it to come into existence he had to create salvation for the humans and their posterity by sacrificing a God. Rather than just say “sin go away” or removing the first two sinners, he waited until there were a few hundred thousand or a few millions and then drowned them all to start over.  This is simply an analysis of the logic of the doctrine found in mainstream teachings.

Even this wasn’t enough to stop the sin that caused the destruction of their predecessors as women continued to get pregnant and beget disobedient souls. With each new life comes a new personality unlike any others created.  Each is now destined to heaven or hell according to God’s unknowable purposes.  The ones that were unfortunate would end up in hell forever, simply for being born/created with less intelligence that didn’t allow them to choose the right belief system  that Bible scholars have been purportedly authorized to do.  The fact remains though most of the world would never hear about the Bible or Jesus.

What does it mean to be a child?  Shouldn’t the answers be be the same?  If not then why not.  The discussion should start with the question. What does it mean to be a child? We should also ask ourselves what does it mean to be a family? Where do our attachments run the strongest and why are family units ordained by God for our creation, nurturing and happiness?

I would imagine that most of us have heard the term "child of God" used by many in various discussions over the years.  I did an internet search on "What does it Mean to be a Child of God?"  to see what others were saying.  While the general use of  the term is meant to associate us mortal humans with God, the description and use of the term varies.

Because of this so does the concept where we might refer to each other as brothers and sisters or part of God's family.  Such terms are almost always used figuratively In mainstream Christian theological circles.

In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints a literal relationship to God is established.  All references to familial relationships to God in modern Christian teachings are metaphorical.  The non-LDS”biblical" apologists teach that mankind can’t comprehend their relationship to God and family metaphors are somehow the best way to help humans see how God might love us.  

Even though God ordained marriage, families, sex and all things related to family relationships, these ideas are somehow foreign to God itself because the Trinity apparently exists in a state where it cannot reproduce or chooses not to.  Therefore it only sees fit to only adopt into spiritual salvation the creatures it created on a selective basis.  These same apologists also teach that we will find greater eternal happiness, “married” to Jesus in eternity than to the spouses and families where we learned how to love and serve in mortality.