Since Mother’s Day is coming up this month, I decided to write a post about Heavenly Mother. I believe we know a lot about Her, since we know a lot about Heavenly Father. Surely whatever applies to Heavenly Father also applies to Heavenly Mother, since they are both Gods. Though we may know a lot about Her in our hearts, we don’t talk much about her at church, unless we say “Heavenly Parents.” To me, a God and a Goddess are equal in every way; the only difference is the gender.
Dictionary.com defines God as, “the one Supreme Being, the creator and ruler of the universe.” Does this refer to Heavenly Mother? Definitely! The Merriam-Webster dictionary further expounds godhood by saying, “the supreme or ultimate reality” and “the Being perfect in power, wisdom, and goodness who is worshipped as creator and ruler of the universe.” I believe that all these attributes apply to Heavenly Mother because she is a Goddess.
Heavenly Mother’s attributes:
- Omnipotent
- Omniscient
- Omnipresent
- Creator
- Exalted Being
- Loving
- Mother of our spirits
The Three Omnis
The first attributes of Gods are the three omnis: omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence. The word “omni” means “all.” Firstly, our Mother in Heaven is all-powerful. “…my joy is carried away, even unto boasting in my God; for [she] has all power, all wisdom, and all understanding; [she] comprehendeth all things, and [she] is a merciful Being, even unto salvation…” (Alma 26:35). Secondly, Heavenly Mother is also omniscient: she has unlimited knowledge, wisdom, and understanding. “But behold, all things have been done in the wisdom of [her] who knoweth all things” (2 Nephi 2:24). Thirdly, she is omnipresent. Though it may feel like she’s hidden, she is actually everywhere. “The light which is in all things, which giveth life to all things, which is the law by which all things are governed, even the power of [the Goddess] who sitteth upon [her] throne, who is in the bosom of eternity, who is in the midst of all things” (D&C 88:13, emphasis added).
Creator
Heavenly Mother was certainly a Creator. We know that a person needs a spouse in order to be a God and also that the Goddess is the mother of our spirits. Were Heavenly Father and Jesus the only ones who created the Earth and the heavens? I don’t think so. “And then the Lord said: Let us go down. And they went down at the beginning, and they, that is the Gods, organized and formed the heavens and the earth” (Abraham 4:1, emphasis added). At church we learn that all of us helped create the Earth. I think it makes sense that Heavenly Mother was also part of the council of Gods. The way I imagine it is that the leaders of the council of Gods were Heavenly Mother and Heavenly Father. I’m sure that Jesus and all of us created the Earth under the direction of our Parents.
Now, imagine Heavenly Mother talking to you and saying the following:
“And [she] said unto me: [my daughter], my son, (and [her] hand was stretched out), behold I will show you all these. And [she] put her hand upon mine eyes, and I saw those things which [her] hands had made, which were many; and they multiplied before mine eyes, and I could not see the end thereof” (Abraham 3:12).
Even better, read it below without the distracting brackets:
“And she said unto me: my daughter, my son, (and her hand was stretched out), behold I will show you all these. And she put her hand upon mine eyes, and I saw those things which her hands had made, which were many; and they multiplied before mine eyes, and I could not see the end thereof.”
Exalted Being
Joseph Smith taught that God used to be like us, and that we can become like God. I have made changes to his words so that it specifically talks about Heavenly Mother instead, but I left out the brackets, so as not to distract from the text.
“The Goddess herself was once as we are now, and is an exalted woman, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens! That is the great secret. If the veil were rent today, and the great Goddess who holds this world in its orbit, and who upholds all worlds and all things by Her power, was to make herself visible—I say, if you were to see her today, you would see her like a woman in form—like yourselves in all the person, image, and very form as a human; for Eve was created in the very fashion, image and likeness of the Goddess, and received instruction from, and walked, talked and conversed with Her, as one person talks and communes with another” (King Follett Sermon, changes made).
Lorenzo Snow said: “As man now is, God once was: As God now is, man may be.” I’d like to make some changes and apply this to women:
“As woman now is, the Goddess once was. As the Goddess now is, woman may be.”
Mother
Unlike the famous Greek gods and goddesses, the Goddess in Heaven is merciful, benevolent, and loving. 1 John 4:16 states that “God is love.” This goes along with another attribute that can’t be denied: that she is our Mother. “…all of you are children of the most High.” (Psalms 82:6) I won’t expound more on this since this is the one attribute we talk about the most at church when referring to Heavenly Mother.
Conclusion
Since Heavenly Mother is a Goddess, it makes sense that anything that applies to God also applies to her. Every power that God has, the Goddess also has. Gods and Goddesses are equally powerful and equally engaged in our lives. One day we will meet our Heavenly Parents and get to know them again.
References
Dictionary.com: http://www.dictionary.com/browse/god?s=t
King Follett Sermon: https://www.lds.org/ensign/1971/04/the-king-follett-sermon?lang=eng
Lorenzo Snow’s couplet: https://www.lds.org/manual/teachings-of-presidents-of-the-church-lorenzo-snow/chapter-5-the-grand-destiny-of-the-faithful?lang=eng#1-36787_000_05
Merriam-Webster dictionary: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/god
This is awesome and is what I believe too 🙂
This is wonderful. Thank you.
“And she said unto me: my daughter, my son, (and her hand was stretched out), behold I will show you all these. And she put her hand upon mine eyes, and I saw those things which her hands had made, which were many; and they multiplied before mine eyes, and I could not see the end thereof.”
My soul thrills at these gender-swapped verses. I didn’t realize just how hungry I was for the Divine Feminine until I read them. Thank you.
I’m sorry I don’t see the point of this. Where in our doctrine is there anything that say Heavenly Mother is less than Heavenly Father. However, they are two halves of the one whole.
This just attributes everything HF has done to HM. I very much doubt that that is the case. Unless you actually want to reduce HM’s role to being Spirit Mum and helping HF out of course. We are living in the Physical, Mortal realm. We have forgotten our pre-mortal existence. And everything we need to know about how we got here, and why we are here, is to do with overcoming our physical, mortal selves.
I imagine a Heavenly Mother who taught be how to use my new Spirit body. How to use it and the new power it gave me as I, formally a mere intelligence, grew in understanding and spirit capacity. She helped me learn about my potential. To understand my limitations and to be able to develop the talents that would be of use to me during my mortal probation.
I am sure that she was also instrumental in the creation of the physical place where I would grow. Just as I believe HF was instrumental in my spiritual development.
But I see a reason for gender, and I know that some here do not. I believe that gender is eternal – and that we will fully understand that in our next estate.
I don’t think that a one-to-one teaching relationship like earthly (well off, western) children and mothers have in our current era really scales to 108 Billion people (and counting).
There are a couple of pretty big leaps here that should be pointed out. There is nothing outside of feminist theory that stands for the assertion that the only difference between Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother is their respective genders. This is not supported anywhere in the scriptures without mangling the pronouns, and there is nothing in the teachings of the modern prophets that would support this, either. It just isn’t there. Your conjectures may be true to a point, but as of right now, that is all they are.
I also find it interesting that your reliance on dictionary.com also leads to a contradictory result. If our Heavenly Father is “the one Supreme Being, the creator and ruler of the universe” then that doesn’t leave much room for a Heavenly Mother at all, certainly not one that is also a goddess at least.
However, there are ample evidences that our Heavenly Father and our Heavenly Mother have different roles and characteristics beyond simply their gender. These can be found in the temple in spades (I know many of you hate that) and simply in the divine injunction from Jesus Christ that we should only pray to the Father. The fact that praying to the Mother isn’t even an option, being that Christ taught us to pray to no one other than the Father, clearly points us to an understanding that there are different roles for each.
Hi Mike, What did you learn about Heavenly Mother from the temple? I have only felt her absence there.
My point is that the Heavenly Parents are Gods, and so they have qualities that Gods have, such as omnipotence and omniscience. The dictionary definition talks about what Godhood means, but in our church we believe there are multiple Gods and that we can all become Gods.
In the temple, unfortunately, it makes it sound as if men will receive more Godhood than women, and that is just not true. That’s why I wrote this post. I also wrote it because we rarely talk about Heavenly Mother. And we learn at church that we will be joint-heirs with Christ and receive all that Heavenly Father has. If I am taught that I will one day receive all that Heavenly Father has, then I’m sure that the divine powers of our Heavenly Parents are the same.
More revelation on Heavenly Mother would certainly be helpful. We do not have much information about her in the scriptures, temple, or from leaders. However, the conclusions Dani has drawn are just as valid as others’ conclusions until there is more revelation.
We know that as human beings, we are joint heirs with Christ and will receive all that the Father has. Christ is the model for men and women. He has received all the blessings of godhood and all of the abilities of a god. From this we know that faithful men and women will receive the same blessings and abilities.
Nowhere in the laborers in the vineyard parable does Christ tell us that men and women will receive differing rewards or rewards of the same value but in different currency. Faithful children of God receive all that He and Heavenly Mother have regardless of gender. It is perfectly reasonable to conclude that Heavenly Mother has the same godly qualities and abilities that Heavenly Father does. This is because we are taught that mortal women will one day have Heavenly Father’s qualities and abilities.
I’m sure that in heaven we will maintain our unique personalities, interests, and our unique natures as men and women. But having complementary natures as men and women does not mean women will not be exalted beings, creators, parents or not be omniscient, omnipotent, or omnipresent.
I completely agree! Thank you so much for your comments. You explained it perfectly.
Stop with the omnipresent. We do not believe God is Omnipresent. That is why the Holy Ghost is so important.
That is why we do not believe in a God that is so large that He can fill the universe, and yet so small that He can fit in the palm of our hands.
Where did that come from? That understanding of “omnipresent.” wasn’t implied at all. If you actually read the post, context makes it fairly obvious that “omnipresent” doesn’t have to be literal – it can mean that God’s hand is in everything and the evidence of Her work can be seen everywhere. Which is what is implied by the D&C verse that was actually cited.
Well nothing has to be literal. But clarifying, rather than hoping on implication, is always a good way to go. LDS do not believe in an omnipresent being, as many other Christians do.
Omnipresence doesn’t mean that God is everywhere. It means that everything is present before God. It goes with the omniscience.
Really? It doesn’t actually. Only in LDS Doctrine does it mean that. And since around these parts there is a tendency to reduce Doctrine to policy it would be wholly inappropriate to say that.
Look up the actual meaning of the word by all means. It means being everywhere at once.
Now since LDS policy is currently that God can’t be everywhere we have to be careful how we say things, IMO.
After all the ban on God being everywhere could be lifted, God can do what He wants after all – unless of course it was Heavenly Mother that introduced the ban in the first place, to keep HF in check.
Or, worse still, maybe the Heavenly Mothers (remember God can be polygamous under current LDS policy) council got together and introduced the ban to stop Heavenly Father being with one, or more of them, at the same time – eeck!
One thing I think we can be fairly certain of in regard to Heavenly Mother is that Her desires for Her children, Her inability to look upon sin with “the least degree of allowance” ( D&C 1:31 ), Her pain when we reject Her, Heavenly Father and Christ, etc., will be the same as Heavenly Father.
Also.
They are One! Neither can be a God, with all that that entails, without the other. Changing the pronouns in all of scripture, praying to Heavenly Mother instead of Father, or anything else that attempts to divide them seems pointless. What they expect of us is the same. What we have to do to live with them again is the same.
So we always default to the male. How typical. 🙁
Andrew, I suggest that you instruct your children (if you have any) to refer to you as their mother, since presumably your wife is one with you and pronouns don’t really matter. Your unique characteristics and experiences don’t really matter. All their communication with you should be directed to your wife, and she can relay messages to and from you. Because you are one with your wife, it shouldn’t matter.
Wait. Hang on. Your previous post was saying that it’s presumptuous to attribute the actions of Heavenly Father to Heavenly Mother. Now you’re arguing that since they’re one they shouldn’t be treated separately? I really don’t see how you can have both.
What I was trying to say is we don’t know what their roles are. I simply don’t believe that they do everything the same, and together. Nor do I believe they can do anything of themselves.
Which yes, seems difficult to resolve in our simple human terms. But we do not understand Eternal Marriage.
Yes, having male-only pronouns for God in the scriptures, which also divides them, does seem pointless. Praying to only Heavenly Father, which assumes they aren’t one, also doesn’t make sense to me. Wouldn’t it be great that whenever we spoke of God, we could accurately say “Heavenly Parents” or “Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother”?
But we can.
But you are not really asking if we “could”. You are saying that we should, always.