“And There Is Not Anything Save He Knows It”

Joseph F. McConkie, Robert L. Millet

The notion that our God is still progressing in knowledge—that he is gaining new truths—seems to have come from a faulty interpretation of the Prophet Joseph Smith’s King Follett Sermon and a misunderstanding of what is meant by eternal progression, God progresses in the sense that Ins kingdoms expand and his dominions multiply (see D&C 132:31, 63; Moses 1:39).

Joseph Smith described our Father’s progression in the King Follett Sermon. Speaking as Christ might speak, the Prophet said: “I do the things I saw my Father do when worlds came rolling into existence. My Father worked out his kingdom with fear and trembling, and I must do the same; and when I get my kingdom, I shall present it to my Father, so that he may obtain kingdom upon kingdom, and it will exalt him in glory. He will then take a higher exaltation, and I will take his place, and thereby become exalted myself.” The Prophet therefore concluded: “So that Jesus treads in the tracks of his Father, and inherits what God did before; and God is thus glorified and exalted in the salvation and exaltation of all his children” (Teachings, pp. 347-48)

The idea that God progresses in any manner other than through the exaltation of his children is without scriptural support. “I believe that God knows all things,” President Joseph Fielding Smith testified, “and that his understanding is perfect, not relative. I have never seen or heard of any revealed fact to the contrary. I believe that our Heavenly Father and his Son Jesus Christ are perfect. I offer no excuse for the simplicity of my faith.” (Doctrines of Salvation 1:8.)

Doctrinal Commentary on the Book of Mormon, Vol. 1

References