What if God Actually Spoke?

Many people say they do not believe in God. But as I have written many times, belief has no bearing on whether there is or is not a God. The question is not what we believe or do not believe. The questions are:  Is there a God? Are there more than one God? Are Gods male or female, or both? Not, do you believe in God?

Man cannot prove either the existence or non-existence of a God or Gods. But if there really are Gods, they can certainly prove their own existence and much more about themselves. How? By communicating with man. In other words if God spoke to men or sent messengers to speak for Him, then His words can prove His existence.

What if God actually spoke to man? Would His words be important enough to record? And if so, how would they be recorded? If God had a plan for us, would He let man know of the existence of that plan, what specifically is the plan, and why the plan is necessary?

There are books that many claim contain the word of God, but just because some may claim it, their claim is no proof. Their insistence that these books contain God's word is also irrelevant to the issue of whether or not there is a God.

We as humans are ill equipped to know whether or not God has spoken to others. Our senses are limited to touch, sight, smell, hearing and feeling, and with these limited senses we cannot know of God's existence or whether some words were actually revealed by Him. 

But what if God not only has spoken, but what if He will speak to you? What if He said to you: "I am God. Hearken unto my voice." What if He has equipped us with other means (other than our senses) to know of His existence? What if we are equipped to receive instruction directly from God? Can light and knowledge be communicated directly to us, to our mind and intellect?  What if we do not need to depend on others to tell us whether God exists, and whether He speaks and has spoken to man, or what He has said? What if we are also spirits with intelligence co-equal with God's, can we come to know Him and Her?

Further, what if He has communicated to man some things about himself. For example, is He male? Are Gods plural, male and female? Does He have a body or not? Did He create the earth out of nothing or did He organize elements to form it? Is Jesus Christ His only begotten son in the flesh? If He did organize this earth, has He told us why He organized it and whether or not there is some purpose or plan for us being here?

But the concept of God has been so distorted it is little wonder that most do not know of the true God or whether they are equipped to know. It is easy to see why so many do not believe in God. ​When witnesses, according to written records, who knew God were persecuted to the point of extinction, their successors, who didn’t know God, decided what they thought God was like and formulated their ideas in official creeds, religious doctrines, and belief systems that persist to this day. It is remarkable that none of these definitions of God match up with the sum total of the written accounts but rather with parts and pieces, always taken out of context. As a consequence, what were intended as guideposts for the faithful ended up being false markers calculated to render ineffective whatever faith a believer could muster who wanted to know God personally as these witnesses knew him. 

P​hilosophical and religious ideas of an intangible God—a Greek or pagan god—were much closer to their own concept of him. For if they, the paragons of virtue and ecclesiastical authorities of the day, didn’t personally know God then surely no one could know him. The upshot of this was that their definitions of God became a standard for the common man to follow, for all practical purposes turning God into little more than an abstraction. This ensured that future seekers of God would likewise never know him, because exercising faith in a false concept of God contravenes divine law and could therefore never yield the desired result.​

​In truth, one can’t say enough about the disservice to humanity these modern Sadducees and Pharisees have perpetrated by “shutting up the kingdom” to those who would enter (Matthew 23:13). As they have ingratiated themselves in Eastern and Western society, immortalizing their false doctrines in its top schools and seminaries, the true character of God and the path to knowing him has been so lost sight of that few indeed there be who find it so long as the blind continue leading the blind.

Well spoke the prophet Isaiah of this state of affairs: that "darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people” (Isaiah 60:2).

So let's look at some of the written records. ​To begin at the beginning, and note that there are no written records of anyone before Adam and Eve, the Book of Genesis records that “God created man [adam] in his own image, in the image of God created he him: male and female created he them” (Genesis 1:27); “In the day God created man [adam], in the likeness of God made he him: male and female created he them. And he blessed them and called their name Adam in the day they were created” (Genesis 5:1–2). 

From these two passages we learn several things: (1) that God is a plural entity, as the word “God” (’elohim) is a plural term that literally means “Gods”; (2) that the term “God” denotes at least one male and one female, or the man and his mate could not have been created in his (and her) “image” and “likeness”; (3) that the singular pronoun “him,” referring to “man/Adam,” is interchangeable with the plural pronoun “them” when giving a more specific definition of “man,” as when referring to both Adam and Eve; and (4) that God’s “blessing” and “naming” of Adam attests to a covenant relationship with them.

​The interchangeable use of pronouns from singular to plural, and vice versa, applies to God himself (and herself), not just to the “man” Adam or to the “man” as Adam and Eve. While the idea of a lone or single God is inferred in part from the biblical use of singular pronouns and verb conjugations relating to God, there exist exceptions. Plural pronouns and verb conjugations appear alongside, and thus interchangeably with, singular ones: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (Genesis 1:26; emphasis added); “The man has become as one of us, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:22; emphasis added); “Let us go down and there confound their language” (Genesis 11:7; emphasis added). As when the term “man” signifies both Adam and Eve, these plural terms nuance the idea of deity, defining God as a plural entity—“Gods” (’elohim).*

​The idea of monotheism is further inferred from such declarations as, “Hear, O Israel, Jehovah our God/Gods, Jehovah is/are one” (Deuteronomy 6:4); “I am Jehovah, there is/are none other; besides me there is/are no God/Gods” (Isaiah 45:5). The contexts of these passages, however, warn against idols, the false gods of Israel’s neighboring nations (Deuteronomy 4–8; Isaiah 44–46). 

The idea of God’s oneness, however, doesn’t imply singleness as in the sense of denoting just one divine being. Rather, biblical accounts commonly define oneness in the sense of two or more persons or things being or becoming “one.” Examples include Adam and Eve being “one flesh” and Jesus’ prayer that his disciples might become “one” in him as he is “one” in the Father (John 10:30; 17:21–23). 

​The concept of God as a plural entity appears in these primary sources, while the idea of divine oneness reflects the Gods’ acting in unity of purpose so that when one speaks he speaks for all. Jehovah, for example, is called a “God of Gods and Lord of Lords, a great God [’el]” among the Gods (Deuteronomy 10:17; cf. Joshua 22:22; Psalm 136:2–3). 

Jesus declares, “This is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus the Messiah, whom you have sent” (John 17:3). ​The Judeo-Christian concept of monotheism thus paradoxically accommodates the implicit fact of a plurality of Gods who, by their very nature, act as one for the benefit of humanity under the auspices of the Father.

​This brings us to the divine concept of the “man” Adam being created in the image and likeness of the “Man” God, making God’s fatherhood of humanity an extremely rational idea—the opposite of God as a nebulous entity who exists everywhere at once and has no form or substance. 

Now suppose God is “a God of truth” (Exodus 34:6; Deuteronomy 32:4; Isaiah 65:16), then what he says of himself must be consistent, making God the ultimate Man and, at least for modern homo sapiens, the Missing Link. 

I​s it conceivable that there might be much more to the idea of God’s being a plural entity, so that in many respects he represents all the Gods with whom he is one? In other words, could the divine Father and divine Mother of the human race in actuality be one of many who are divine Fathers and divine Mothers of human races? 

We might surmise that a single glance at the Hubble and Webb Telescopes' views of deep space, with its billions of galaxies stretching into eternity, each with its billions of stars, ought to dispel people’s medieval idea about our local heavens and earth being the center of all creation. If that were the case, then this earth would constitute an anomaly of stupendous proportions, depreciating our idea of God’s omnipotence. But if even one star in a hundred galaxies had an earth like ours that was inhabited by the children of a divine Father and a divine Mother, there would still exist endless heavens and earths with endless inhabitants—literally as numberless “as the stars in the heavens and as the sands upon the seashore” (Genesis 15:5; 22:17).

Other records ​shed light on God and his creations. In one account God tells Moses, “Worlds without number have I created . . . . The heavens, they are many, and they cannot be numbered unto man; but they are numbered unto me, for they are mine. And as one earth shall pass away, and the heavens thereof, even so shall another come; and there is no end to my works, neither to my words. For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man” (Moses 1:33, 37–39). 

In a similar context, God showed Abraham greater and lesser stars etching into eternity, until “I could not see the end thereof” (Abraham 3:12). "So the Gods went down to organize man in their own image, in the image of the Gods to form they him, male and female to form they them" (Abraham 4:27).

Concerning this world, Isaiah depicts God’s sequentially forming the heavens, the earth, the nations, his people Israel, and—as his supreme goal—persons who “ascend” (Isaiah 40:12–31). ​A further thing Abraham saw were greater and lesser “intelligences” resembling in glory celestial bodies, God being the most intelligent of them all (Abraham 3:19). 

Persons who most increase in intelligence attain the greatest oneness with God. The more they acquire his divine attributes, the more powerful they become with God and with humanity. Jesus’ words, “I seek not my own will but the will of the Father who has sent me” (John 5:30), express his oneness with God as a God—the same oneness with God all may grow into (cf. Isaiah 56:3–5; Matthew 12:50; John 17:19–23; 3 Nephi 11:11). 

​When John bows down to worship the angels who are talking with him, he sees that they are not a species apart from God and men but “fellowservants” and “of your brethren who have the testimony of Jesus” (Revelation 19:10; 22:8–9). Similarly, the angels who minister to Zechariah and Daniel are in each case described as a “man” (Zechariah 1:8–14; Daniel 9:21). Even Jehovah and two angels who visit Abraham and Sarah, who eat and drink with them, are called “men” (Genesis 18–19). This suggests that the difference between God, angels, and men isn’t so much in appearance as it is in divine power and intelligence. 

When Jacob wrestles with a “man” who names him Israel, he identifies him as “God” (Genesis 32:24–30). Moses, who, like Jacob, sees God “face to face,” describes him as possessing “hands” and “feet” (Exodus 24:10–11). The male aspect of God, however, can’t be considered exclusively, no more than the “man” Adam is exclusively man but includes also Eve (Genesis 5:1–2). 

​That God possesses a physical form in no way diminishes the fact that “God is a Spirit” (John 4:24). Perhaps a closer translation of this verse is that “God is spirit.” That sets him apart from the spiritless statues of wood that forms the context of Jesus’ words to the Samaritan woman: “You worship you know not what. We know what we worship,” namely “the Father, in spirit and in truth” (John 4:22–23). Thomas’ recognition of Jesus as “My Lord and my God”—after Jesus’ resurrection, when Thomas put his fingers into the prints of the nails (John 20:28)—shows that Jesus was a physical as well as spiritual God. Lastly, are God’s children also not “spirits”—spirits clothed in physical bodies—who resemble their Makers? If not, then who are the “spirits of just men made perfect” (Hebrews 12:23; Doctrine & Covenants 129:1–6)? ​If God in his male aspect, moreover, possesses a human form and exhibits physical characteristics as the Bible depicts, can we assume that he still lacks other essential male attributes? 

Or if Adam and Eve were physically as well as spiritually created in his image and likeness—male and female—shall God himself lack these physical traits, making the Creator less than the created? In other words, shall the “man” who is identified as “God” by those who met him as a physical person not be a full male but merely a quasi-male? Believers in God thus face a dilemma: either accept the scriptural account as the Word of God and believe in the God–Man of the Bible, or else fall back on the Greek philosophical idea of a disembodied and intangible God who is found nowhere in holy writ. 

Don’t those who subscribe to an unknowable God invariably never know him? Do they believe it more profitable to tailor their lives to such a flawed model—to “worship you know not what”—than to accept the truth? As men and women have testified down the ages, the act of believing in God as the scripture reveals him carries with it the promise of his manifesting himself to those who live by his word. Just as that applied to the past, so it does today. 

Were God to reveal all things to all men all at once—and not require them to exercise faith in him and in his word—many would refuse to believe from the outset, compounding their unbelief and bringing themselves under condemnation. Those who have come to know God personally, on the other hand—whether solely in his male aspect, or as male and female—have not done so all at once but rather through his manifesting himself to them by degrees according to their faith in God's righteousness. 

Their coming to know God as a divine Father and Mother ultimately transforms their faith into certain knowledge. ​If God is male and female, as the scripture says, could he/they rightly be considered male and female in any fundamental sense different than man is male and female? The testimony of reliable witnesses—that God possesses a human form and exhibits humanlike characteristics not unlike our own—may to some appear implausible but not to those who know. 

Without needing to resort to far-fetched, explanations of how we came into being, they acknowledge that we are indeed God’s “children” and that he is, in fact, our “Father” (in his male aspect), just as he informs us (cf. Job 38:7; Psalm 82:6; Isaiah 45:11; Hosea 1:10; Matthew 5:9; Luke 20:36; John 1:12; 11:52; Romans 8:14, 16, 19, 21; 9:26; Galatians 4:6; 1 John 3:1–2, 9–10; Mosiah 18:22; Alma 6:6; Doctrine & Covenants 46:26; Moses 6:8). 

Not a hint exists in God’s revealed word that the familial terms the writers use to describe our relationship to God aren’t literal. Nor is there anything preventing us from coming to know God, except perhaps a desire to know.

And there is a way to know. It starts with this experiment, which begins with the planting of a seed.

*Credit Gileadi's analysis of Genesis.