Do Mormons believe in the Trinity?

Seeing that Mormonism makes such blasphemous statements as to God and the Lord Jesus, it is no surprise that they should teach evil things concerning the Holy Spirit. Parley P. Pratt in his Key to Theology tells us that, “The purest, most refined, and subtle of all is that substance called the Holy Spirit. This substance, like all others, is one of the elements of material or physical existence, and therefore subject to the necessary laws which govern all matter. … It is widely diffused among all the elements of space. … In short it is the attributes of the eternal power and Godhead.”

Never in all Scripture is there the slightest ground for saying that the Holy Spirit is an “element of material or physical existence,” but it uses language that can only apply to a Divine Person. We read in Hebrews 9:14 of “The ETERNAL Spirit.” The word, ETERNAL, in this connection, can only predicate Deity. God alone is eternal, a Being without beginning or end. Christians recognise the plain teaching of Scripture—God the Father; God the Son; God the Holy Ghost; not three Gods, for in the nature of things there can be only One supreme, uncreated, self-sustained Being. Christians believe, as taught in the Scriptures, not in a trinity of Gods, but in the triune God—One in Three and Three in One, a mystery beyond the creature’s comprehension, but not beyond the grasp of faith.

One of the strongest reasons that many critics reject the doctrine of the Trinity is that it makes Christ co‑equal with God the Father. The Trinity is the particular target of critics in religions like Judaism and Islam, and in cults such as Unitarianism, Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormonism. All of these groups reduce Christ to a created being who is "second‑in‑command" at best or just another teacher on the same par with Buddha, Krishna or Moses.

It will be an astonishment doubtless to some, who have been inclined to think charitably of this people and of their doctrines, to learn that according to the Mormon creed, there is “no God,” that is, no Divine Being such as the Scriptures reveal. Here is what the Prophet, Joseph Smith, says: “God Himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man.” “God Himself, the Father of us all, dwelt on earth the same as Jesus Christ did.” “The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man's.” And the following, by Brigham Young, leaves no doubt as to who this “exalted man” is, I who was “once as we are,” and is now a God. “When our father Adam came into the Garden of Eden, he came into it with a celestial body, and brought Eve, one of his celestial wives. He helped to make and organize this world. He is our Father and our God, the ONLY God with whom we have to do” (Journal of Discourses). This is blasphemy! What is the need of a Gospel to convert sinners to fallen Adam, as the “only God” with whom they “have to do,” or of “preaching elders” evangelising to bring converts to worship “an exalted man,” who formerly lived in Eden with one of his celestial wives? The Mormon creed goes on to say that Jesus Christ was Adam's son by ordinary generation, that the Fall was a necessity, “that men might be,” and that those who practise celestial marriage on earth, will “pass by the angels” and “be God's themselves. This brands the Mormon faith as Polytheism of the lowest and grossest kind.

Mormonism teaches that God used to be a man on another world and that he became a god by following the laws and ordinances of his god on his home world. He brought his wife to this world, a woman he had married on the other world. She is, essentially, a goddess. In his present god-state, he rules our world. He has a body of flesh and bones. Since god and his wife are both exalted persons, they each possess physical bodies. In their exalted states as deities, they produce spirit children that grow and mature in the spiritual realm. The first spirit born was Jesus. Afterwards Lucifer was born along with the rest of us. So, Mormonism teaches that we all pre-existed in the spirit realm having been produced from the union of god and his goddess wife. Therefore, we all existed in spirit form before coming down and entering the bodies of human babies that are being born on earth. During this ‘compression' into the infant state, the memories of their pre-existence are 'veiled.'

We begin our enquiry by asking, Who is God? What have the Mormons to say as to this? The late Brigham Young, one of their very ablest leaders, elected the second “First President” of their Church, answers,

In the Mormon plan of salvation there needed to be a savior: Jesus. But Jesus was a spirit in heaven. For him to be born on earth, Brigham Young the second prophet of the Mormon church said that instead of letting any other man do it, God the Father did it with Mary. He said that the birth of our savior was as natural as the birth of our parents. Essentially, what this means is that Brigham Young taught that ‘god the father' came down and had relations with Mary, his spirit daughter, to produce the body of Jesus. Though many Mormons will not entertain such incestuous thoughts about God and Mary, this is what Brigham Young taught and as far as we know, this has not been denied by the Mormon church. Nevertheless, Jesus was born, got married, and had children. [2]

The opening words of the first verse carry us back to the most remote moment that our minds are capable of conceiving: the moment when there began the first thing that ever had a beginning: the moment on the further side of which there was only — GOD. In that moment of "beginning" the Word "was," that is, existed. He did not begin then; He existed then. His eternal Being is proclaimed, and we are carried back before the opening words of Genesis 1. Further He was "with God." Our minds are still back at that remote moment, and we discover that then He was possessed of distinct Personality. The Word is not a title of the Godhead in a general way, apart from any special distinction, for in being "with God" a special, distinctive place is definitely stated.

This being so, the reasoning mind would be inclined to argue: then we cannot speak of the Word as being God in any full or proper sense; even if He is not exactly a creature, seeing He existed before creation. Such reasoning is flatly contradicted by the closing words of verse 1, "the Word was God." Essential Deity was His. Attempts have been made to weaken the force of this great statement, and translate it, "the Word was Divine," or, "the Word was a god," based upon the omission of the definite article; i.e., it does not say, "the Word was the God." But we are told by those who know the Greek that there is in that language no indefinite article, and the word translated "God" is a strong one, denoting proper and absolute Deity; and had it stated that the Word was the God, it would have confined Deity to the Word and excluded therefrom the other Persons of the Godhead. The words are chosen with Divine exactitude: the Word was properly and absolutely God.