Plurality of gods usually refers to a unique concept taught by Joseph Smith and several other leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It is believed to be based on interpretations of the Bible

Bible

The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...

, the Book of Abraham

Book of Abraham

The Book of Abraham is a 1835 work by Joseph Smith, Jr. that he said was based on Egyptian papyri purchased from a traveling mummy exhibition. According to Smith, the book was "a translation of some ancient records....purporting to be the writings of Abraham, while he was in Egypt, called the Book...

, the teachings

Teachings of Joseph Smith, Jr.

The teachings of Joseph Smith, Jr. include a broad spectrum of religious doctrines as well as political and scientific ideas and theories, many of which he said were revealed to him by God. Joseph Smith, Jr. is the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement...

 of Joseph Smith, Jr. and successor prophets

Prophet, seer, and revelator

Prophet, seer, and revelator is an ecclesiastical title used in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that is currently applied to the members of the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles...

 and by Latter Day Saints

Mormons

The Mormons are a religious and cultural group related to Mormonism, a religion started by Joseph Smith during the American Second Great Awakening. A vast majority of Mormons are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints while a minority are members of other independent churches....

.

Latter-day Saints believe in an eternal cycle where God creates children so that they may grow to be joint-heirs of Jesus Christ and thus become one with God or like God. This is commonly called exaltation

Exaltation (Mormonism)

Exaltation or Eternal Life is a belief among members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that mankind can return to live in God's presence and continue as families. Exaltation is believed to be what God desires for all humankind. The LDS Church teaches that through exaltation...

 with the LDS church. However, Gordon B. Hinckley

Gordon B. Hinckley

Gordon Bitner Hinckley was an American religious leader and author who served as the 15th President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from March 12, 1995 until his death...

, former prophet and president of the church, stated that we do not currently possess a clear understanding of what it means to be joint-heirs with Christ.

Previous prophets or leaders of the church have made statements about their personal beliefs about exaltation. Joseph Smith taught, and the Bible also states, that we are the sons of God

God the Father

God the Father is a gendered title given to God in many monotheistic religions, particularly patriarchal, Abrahamic ones. In Judaism, God is called Father because he is the creator, life-giver, law-giver, and protector...

. Joseph further stated in a single funeral talk that God was the son of a Father, and that the cycle continues for eternity. This teaching is also implied in a single LDS hymn

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints hymns

This article is about LDS church hymns in general, for the book, see Hymns of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Latter-day Saint hymns come from many sources, and there have been numerous hymn books printed by the Church since its organization in 1830...

 "If You Could Hie to Kolob" (written by William W. Phelps), which says,

"Do you think that you could ever, through all eternity,

Find out the generation where Gods began to be? ...

Or view the last creation, where Gods and matter end?"

LDS also believe there is evidence for this teaching in the Bible:

Revelations 1:6 - "And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen"http://scriptures.lds.org/en/rev/1/6#6 Joseph Smith interpreted this to mean that individuals were made kings and priests unto God, referring here to Jesus Christ, and to his Father.

The Godhead as three Gods

The two largest Latter Day Saint denominations disagree as to the nature of the Godhead

Godhead (Christianity)

Godhead is a Middle English variant of the word godhood, and denotes the Divine Nature or Substance of the Christian God, or the Trinity. Within some traditions such as Mormonism, the term is used as a nontrinitarian substitute for the term Trinity, denoting the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit not as...

. The largest and best-known, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, accepts Smith's teachings that the Godhead is composed of three individual beings that make one God as stated in the Book of Mormon. In the Book of Abraham, which Latter-day Saints believe Smith translated from ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt

Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...

ian papyri, the creation story refers to "the Gods" instead of "God": "And then the Lord said: Let us go down. And they went down at the beginning, and they, that is the Gods, organized and formed the heavens and the earth.

Smith taught that God the Father

God the Father

God the Father is a gendered title given to God in many monotheistic religions, particularly patriarchal, Abrahamic ones. In Judaism, God is called Father because he is the creator, life-giver, law-giver, and protector...

, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit

Holy Spirit

Holy Spirit is a term introduced in English translations of the Hebrew Bible, but understood differently in the main Abrahamic religions.While the general concept of a "Spirit" that permeates the cosmos has been used in various religions Holy Spirit is a term introduced in English translations of...

 were three Gods, and quoted the Apostle Paul in 1 Cor 8:5, who said, "there are gods many and lords many" to justify it. Smith rejected the trinitarian view of the Godhead:

"Many men say there is one God; the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost are only one God! I say that is a strange God anyhow—-three in one, and one in three! It is a curious organization. "Father, I pray not for the world, but I pray for them which thou hast given me." "Holy Father, keep through Thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one as we are." All are to be crammed into one God, according to sectarianism. It would make the biggest God in all the world. He would be a wonderfully big God—-he would be a giant or a monster. I want to read the text to you myself—"I am agreed with the Father and the Father is agreed with me, and we are agreed as one." The Greek shows that it should be agreed. "Father, I pray for them which Thou hast given me out of the world, and not for those alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word, that they all may be agreed, as Thou, Father, art with me, and I with Thee, that they also may be agreed with us," and all come to dwell in unity, and in all the glory and everlasting burnings of the Gods; and then we shall see as we are seen, and be as our God and He as His Father. I want to reason a little on this subject. I learned it by translating the papyrus which is now in my house. I learned a testimony concerning Abraham, and he reasoned concerning the God of heaven. "In order to do that," said he, "suppose we have two facts: that supposes another fact may exist—two men on the earth, one wiser than the other, would logically show that another who is wiser than the wisest may exist. Intelligences exist one above another, so that there is no end to them."

Man as gods

One way in which multiple gods are seen in Mormonism is that men are, in a sense, gods. In the King Follett Discourse

King Follett Discourse

The King Follett discourse, or King Follett sermon, was an address delivered in Nauvoo, Illinois by Joseph Smith, president and founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, on April 7, 1844, less than three months before his assassination...

, a sermon given by Joseph Smith a few months before his death, Smith taught the following:

• Humankind has no beginning, and "chaotic matter" had existed before God made the world from such matter.

"I take my ring from my finger and liken it unto the mind of man ... because it has no beginning"

"The pure principles of element, are principles that can never be destroyed." (Times and Seasons, 5:615)

• One should know what God is like and how to interact with Him.

"It is the first principle of the Gospel to know for a certainty the Character of God, and to know that we may converse with him as one man converses with another." (TPJS, p. 345)

"If the veil were rent today, and ... God ... (were) to make himself visible ... if you were to see him today, you would see him like a man in form -- like yourselves in all the person, image, and the very form as a man." (TPJS, p. 345)

• People have a potential to become Gods themselves.

Smith discussed the potential of mankind by referencing Romans 8:17 s:Bible, King James, Romans#Chapter 8, then stating that men may go: "...from one small degree to another, and from a small capacity to a great one; from grace to grace, from exaltation to exaltation ... until (they) arrive at the station of a God." (TPJS, p. 346-47)

Smith taught, "You have got to learn to become Gods yourselves, the same as all Gods before you have done."