The King Follett Discourse — What Kind of Being Is God?
Joseph Smith's most radical sermon — and why it is scripturally defensible.
What Was the King Follett Discourse?
On April 7, 1844, Joseph Smith delivered the funeral sermon for King Follett, a member of the Church who had died in a construction accident. It became the most theologically significant sermon of Joseph's ministry — a bold, unguarded statement of the nature of God, the eternal nature of man, and the destiny of the human soul.
He had about ten weeks to live. He knew it. He had been saying for some time that he did not expect to survive the year. The King Follett Discourse reads as a man saying what he needed to say before the opportunity passed — not guarded, not hedged, not softened for outside audiences. It is Joseph Smith's fullest statement of his theology.
Two statements from that sermon have drawn more controversy than any other teaching of Joseph Smith. They deserve careful examination — not defensive dismissal, not apologetic retreat, but direct engagement with what was said and what the scriptures say.
“As Man Is, God Once Was”
Joseph taught that God the Father, in some sense, passed through a progression that included a mortal existence. This is the statement that critics find most objectionable: the idea that God has a history, that He was not always what He now is, that He progressed to His current state of omnipotence and perfection.
This teaching is not found in the standard four volumes of scripture in the explicit form Joseph stated it in April 1844. It is a prophetic teaching, delivered by a prophet in full possession of his authority and reasoning from the principles he had received. It is not in D&C 130, not in the Articles of Faith, not in the Pearl of Great Price. It is the King Follett Discourse — a sermons, not a canonized revelation.
The Church has not disavowed this teaching. It is part of the Latter-day Saint theological tradition. But it is held with appropriate understanding: this is prophetic teaching that goes beyond what is canonized, and members are permitted to reason carefully about it without claiming more than the text supports.
What is clear from scripture is that God is an exalted, glorified, embodied, eternal Being whose nature is not the abstract philosophical absolute of classical theology. Whether He progressed to that state through a mortality of His own is a matter of prophetic teaching that the canonized scriptures point toward without fully articulating.
“As God Is, Man May Become”
The second half of the couplet is better supported in scripture, more explicitly stated in canonized sources, and more directly defended by the Bible. The idea that men and women can become like God — sharing in His nature, His life, His glory — is not an LDS invention. It is ancient Christian teaching that was suppressed as orthodoxy hardened in the fourth and fifth centuries.
D&C 132:20
“Then shall they be gods, because they have no end; therefore shall they be from everlasting to everlasting, because they continue; then shall they be above all, because all things are subject unto them. Then shall they be gods, because they have all power, and the angels are subject unto them.”
This is canonized scripture. This is not a stray prophetic teaching delivered in a single sermon. The doctrine of exaltation — that the faithful will receive “all power,” that all things will be “subject unto them,” that they shall be “gods” — is in the Doctrine and Covenants. It is official, canonized, doctrinal.
The question is not whether this is what the Church teaches. The question is whether it is what the Bible teaches. And it is.
Is This Blasphemy or Scripture?
The Protestant objection to deification — the teaching that humans can become divine — is usually that it blasphemes God by blurring the Creator-creature distinction. This is a serious objection and it deserves a direct answer.
The early Christian tradition — before Augustine, before Aquinas, before the Council of Nicaea — taught deification as orthodox doctrine. Irenaeus taught it. Athanasius taught it. The Eastern Orthodox tradition has never stopped teaching it. Theosis — the process of becoming like God, participating in the divine nature — is not an LDS innovation. It is ancient Christianity.
Key Scriptural Witnesses
- Psalm 82:6 — “I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High”
- John 10:34 — Christ quotes Psalm 82 and defends it as scripture
- Acts 17:29 — We are the offspring of God
- Romans 8:16–17 — Joint-heirs with Christ of the inheritance of God
- Genesis 1:27 — Made in the image of God
What Paul Said
Paul's language in Romans 8 is as radical as anything in the King Follett Discourse. He does not say we will be near God or grateful to God or saved by God. He says we will be joint-heirs with Christ:
Romans 8:16–17
“The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.”
An heir inherits. A joint-heir inherits everything the primary heir receives. Christ — the Son of God — receives all power, all glory, all that the Father has. Paul says we receive the same, as joint-heirs. What does Christ have? He has the nature of God. He is exalted above all. To be His joint-heir is to receive what He has received.
Paul said this, not Joseph Smith. The King Follett Discourse is Joseph Smith's exposition of Paul.
What Jesus Said
When the Pharisees accused Christ of blasphemy for calling Himself the Son of God, He responded by citing Psalm 82:
John 10:34–35
“Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods? If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken — Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?”
Christ's defense of His own divinity was to cite the scriptural statement that human beings can be called gods. He used the divine potential of mortals as a defense of His own divine nature. If Psalm 82 is not blasphemy, then neither is Jesus claiming to be the Son of God. And if Jesus's divinity is not blasphemy, then neither is the teaching that humans can receive the same nature through the covenant process He died to make possible.
Why This Doctrine Elevates, Not Demeans, God's Glory
The common objection to deification is that it makes God less special — if everyone can become like God, then what is special about God? This objection mistakes the nature of glory. A king who produces no heirs has a kingdom but no legacy. A father who raises no children to adulthood has lived but not reproduced his life. God's glory is not diminished by having children who become like Him — it is expressed in it. It is exactly what a parent's glory consists of.
The God of classical theology — an absolute, changeless, impassible monad who created beings that can never approach His nature — is a God who has subjects but no family. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob — the God of the King Follett Discourse — is a Father. His glory is not threatened by His children's exaltation. Their exaltation is His glory.
This is what Moses 1:39 means when it states the purpose of God’s work: “to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.” That is not a project God undertakes as a hobby. It is the purpose of His existence. And the King Follett Discourse is the fullest statement of what that purpose, carried to its conclusion, actually looks like.