Our Identity and Our Destiny | Tad R. Callister

As a literal spirit child of God, we each have a divine identity which comes with a divine destiny - the potential to strive for godhood and to become like our Father.

Sections:
Introduction - 0:34
Our Quest for Godhead - 7:44
Scriptures - 9:02
Early Christian Writers - 16:50
Poets and Authors - 19:21
Logic - 21:10
Voice of History - 23:35
The Divine Possibility Becomes a Divine Reality - 26:38

Read and download the full BYU devotional at the BYU Speeches website: https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/tad-r-callister_our-identity-and-our-destiny/

Tad R. Callister was a member of the Presidency of the Seventy of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when this devotional address was given on 14 August 2012.

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"Second, early Christian writers likewise wrote of our divine destiny.9 As early as the second century, Irenaeus (A.D. 115–202) noted: “We have not been made gods from the beginning, but at first merely men, then at length gods.”10 On another occasion Irenaeus clarified that exalted man would not be relegated to some type of glorified angel but literally become a god: “Passing beyond the angels, and be made after the image and likeness of God.”11

Clement of Alexandria (A.D. 160–200), a contemporary of Irenaeus, spoke of the reward of godhood that followed long preparation: “Being destined to sit on thrones with the other gods that have been first put in their places by the Saviour.”12 This same Clement of Alexandria then added this unequivocal statement about the man who lives a righteous life: “Knowing God, he will be made like God. . . . And that man becomes God, since God so wills.”13

Hippolytus (A.D. 170–236), bridging the second and third centuries, spoke of the unlimited potential of faithful Saints in this life: “And thou shalt be a companion of the Deity, and a co-heir with Christ. . . . For thou hast become God: . . . thou hast been deified,and begotten unto immortality.”14

Cyprian (A.D. 200–258), a well-known Christian leader of the third century, reaffirmed that men can become like Christ: “What Christ is, we Christians shall be, if we imitate Christ.”15

Origen (A.D. 185–255), also of the third century, wrote: “The true God [referring to the Father], then, is ‘The God,’ and those who are formed after Him are gods, images, as it were, of Him the prototype.”16

And in the fourth century St. Athanasius of Alexandria (A.D. 295–373) explained that “[God] was made flesh in order that we might be enabled to be made gods.”17

For several centuries this doctrinal truth survived, but eventually the Apostasy took its toll, and this doctrine in its purity and expansiveness was lost. The doctrine of man’s potential for godhood as taught by the Prophet Joseph Smith was not his invention—not his creation, not conjured up by some fertile mind. It was simply and solely a restoration of a glorious truth that had been taught in the scriptures and by many early Christian writers of the primitive Church."
-Tad R. Callister

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