Orson Pratt
Our Father in Heaven was begotten on a previous heavenly world by His Father; He was begotten by a still more ancient Father; and so on from generation to generation, from one heavenly world to another.
John A. WidtsoeOne of the leading doctrines of the Church resembles the spirit of the law of universal growth so nearly that one is forced to believe that the great truth embodied by this doctrine [eternal progression] is the truth shadowed forth by the law of evolution. … Joseph Smith taught [with regard to humans] a doctrine of evolution which in grandeur and in extent surpasses the wildest speculations of scientific evolutionists.
IrenaeusIf the Word became a man, it was so men may become gods.
The time of creation has ever been a subject of much comment and dispute. Yet I challenge anybody to produce from the Bible itself any finite limitation whatsoever of the periods of creation. By strained inferential references and interpretations men have sought to set the time in days or periods of a thousand years, but I feel sure that no justification of such limitations is warranted by the scriptures themselves.
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.
The great temple of science must be erected upon the solid foundations of everlasting truth; its towering spires must mount upward, reaching higher and still higher, until crowned with the glory and presence of Him, who is Eternal.
The study of science is the study of something eternal. If we study astronomy, we study the works of God. If we study chemistry, geology, optics, or any other branch of science, every new truth we come to the understanding of is eternal; it is a part of the great system of universal truth. It is truth that exists throughout universal nature; and God is the dispenser of all truth—scientific, religious, and political.
The Gods who dwell in heaven . . . were once in a fallen state . . . they were exalted also, from fallen men to celestial Gods.