Since these teachings practically imply the definition that God is a superior intelligence evolved from a lower condition, there can be no logical objection to the idea that there are many Gods. Yet, "Mormon" theology acknowledges the supremacy of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. God transcends all human imagination. He is omniscient, and omnipotent; for His great knowledge enables Him to direct the forces of nature. He is full of love and mercy, because these qualities are attributes of intelligence, which God possesses in the highest degree. The "Mormon" idea of God, is delicate, refined, advanced and reasonable.
The interesting fact about this matter is, naturally, that in this conception of God, Joseph Smith was strictly scientific. He departed from the notion that God is a Being foreign to nature and wholly superior to it. Instead, he taught that God is part of nature, and superior to it only in the sense that the electrician is superior to the current that is transmitted along the wire. The great laws of nature are immutable, and even God can not transcend them.
This doctrine of God was taught by Joseph Smith early in his career. Can ignorance or disease produce such a logical climax of a scientific system of belief? Such a conclusion would be absurd.
CONCLUSION.
Chapter XVIII.
JOSEPH SMITH'S EDUCATION.
[Sidenote: Joseph Smith's early educational opportunities were very limited.]
Joseph Smith had few educational advantages during his life. His scientific teachings do not rest upon information gained in schools or from books. His parents fully appreciated the value of an education, but the pioneer lives which they led, and their numerous financial misfortunes, made it impossible for them to realize their desires for the education of their children. The Prophet's mother writes that when Joseph was about six years old, Hyrum, the elder brother, was sent to an academy at Hanover, New Hampshire, and the smaller children to a common school.[A] It is probable that throughout the wanderings of the family, the children were given such meager schooling as was possible. Joseph was a "remarkably quiet, well-disposed child," and his life up to the age of fourteen was marked only by those trivial circumstances which are common to childhood.[B]
[Footnote A: History of the Prophet by his Mother, Improvement Era,
Vol. 5, p. 166.]
[Footnote B: Ibid., p. 247.]