Orson Pratt on Theosis

Mormonism, to me, is but another name for God’s truth, and to find the fullness of that truth we would have to bring together and aggregate the truth of all religions, adding thereto all others that God would or could reveal.

Truth is truth, where’er `tis found,

On Christian or on heathen ground.

This religion called Mormonism is no new thing. According to our view it is the oldest of all religions.  It has been upon the earth in different ages, being revealed from heaven from time to time as often as it became necessary to renew the sacred fire upon the altar of the human heart, and revive in men’s souls the knowledge of truth which they had turned from and forgotten. Its object from the first has been man’s salvation⁠—the salvation of all men, who are universally the children of God.  You who have supposed that Mormonism is a narrow and exclusive faith, have not understood it aright.  If I knew of a religion that was broader and better I would embrace it.  But to me it is the broadest, the best, the most reasonable of all religions, and consequently I remain a Mormon. My religion proposes to save all men, but to save them upon just and consistent principles; not the rewarding of one soul for the good done by another, nor the punishment of the innocent for the misdeeds of the guilty, nor the never-ending punishment of any soul; but the judging of all men according to their works, and their salvation according to their merits in different degrees of glory.

Mormonism teaches that God was once just like ourselves; that the eternal part of Him was enshrined in mortal flesh, subject to mortal ills and earthly pains and toils.  I do not now refer to the experience of the Savior in the meridian of time. I mean that in the far away aeons of the past God once dwelt upon an earth like this, and that through its trials and vicissitudes and the experience they afforded He became a more intelligent being than before, ascending finally by obedience to certain principles, ennobling and exalting in their nature, to the plane which He now occupies. These truths, forming the ladder up which He climbed to celestial heights, up which we too are expected to climb from earth to heaven, from mortality to immortality, from a world where grief and sorrow reign, to a better and brighter sphere where sorrow and suffering are unknown⁠—these truths are self-existent and eternal.  God did not create them. Intelligence, the light of truth, cannot be created. But by means of His superior intelligence, which is his glory and which makes Him God He instituted laws whereby the rest, the lesser intelligences, might advance like Himself. These laws we call the Gospel, the plan of salvation, formulated in the heavens before this world was, and revealed again and again to the children of Adam for their salvation.  We hold that men are literally the sons and daughters of God; that He intends we shall become like Him; and it is certainly reasonable to expect that the child will eventually develop to the status of the Parent.  We are divine beings in embryo, and it is only a question of time when we shall blossom in perfection.