The Book of Mormon presents a view of God that differs in important ways from more traditional conceptions. In The Book of Mormon, passages such as Mosiah 4:9 teach: “Believe in God; believe that he is, and that he created all things, both in heaven and in earth.” Similar statements appear throughout the text (see also Alma 18:28–29 and Alma 22:10), consistently affirming that God created “all things.”
If “all things” truly includes everything that exists, then it is reasonable to conclude that God created not only the physical world but also time itself. Time, as we experience it, belongs to the created order. This idea is reinforced in Moroni 8:18, which describes God as “unchangeable from all eternity to all eternity.” Rather than merely having an unchanging purpose, God is described as an unchanging being whose existence is not confined within time.
This raises an important question: how can a being exist “from all eternity to all eternity” if time itself had a beginning? The simplest explanation is that God exists outside of time because He is its Creator. Time is not something that contains God; it is something that depends on Him. This perspective is echoed in Mosiah 3:5 and Moroni 7:22, both of which portray God as existing eternally—independent of temporal limits.
A related issue concerns space. If God created all things, does that include space as well? If so, then God is not bound by spatial limitations either. Physical bodies require space and time in order to exist, but God, as described in the Book of Mormon, is not dependent on His creation. He transcends both time and space, which resolves the apparent paradox of how He could exist prior to them.
Another philosophical challenge follows: how could God attain infinite power or knowledge within a finite timeline? If time has a beginning, it would seem impossible to accumulate infinite attributes through progression. However, the Book of Mormon suggests a different conclusion—God did not become infinite over time; He already possessed infinite power and knowledge before time began. As Moroni 8:18 emphasizes, He is eternally unchanging. One does not need to “arrive” at infinity if one has always been there.
Finally, the Book of Mormon acknowledges that God’s nature exceeds human understanding. Mosiah 4:9 teaches that while we are to believe that God possesses all wisdom and power, we must also accept that “man doth not comprehend all the things which the Lord can comprehend.” A finite mind cannot fully grasp an infinite one. If God were entirely understandable to us, He would not be infinite in the way these passages describe.
In this view, God’s transcendence—His existence beyond time, space, and human comprehension—is not a weakness in the concept but a defining feature of His divinity.




