Where do we come from? The answer to this question has been hotly debated by some of the world’s greatest philosophers, scientists, and thinkers. Many religions, particularly Abrahamic faiths, teach that God is our father, a loving, all-powerful, and all-knowing being who created us and placed us on Earth for a specific purpose. These faiths generally share the understanding that life, for humans, begins at birth.

However, Mormonism claims a unique perspective among its religious peers. Like members of other churches, Latter-day Saints believe that God is the spiritual father of humankind. They commonly refer to him as “Heavenly Father,” addressing him as such during prayer. Unlike other faiths, Mormon doctrine teaches that everyone—Mormon and non-Mormon alike—lived with Heavenly Father before earthly birth, a period of time commonly referred to by Mormons as “premortality” or “the premortal life.”

In addition, Latter-day Saints are taught that God is not a single parent. We not only have a father in heaven, but also a mother. For cultural reasons, Mormons rarely mention Heavenly Mother, but the understanding that each of us has a divine parentage can profoundly shape our view of life and its purpose (see Divine Potential; Purpose of Life).

In the premortal realm, spirit sons and daughters knew and worshipped God as their Eternal Father and accepted his plan by which his children could obtain a physical body and gain earthly experience to progress toward perfection and ultimately realize their divine destiny as heirs of eternal life.

—The Family: A Proclamation to the World (1995)

Nothing is going to startle us more when we pass through the veil to the other side than to realize how well we know our Father and how familiar his face is to us.

—Ezra Taft Benson (1899–1994)

All human beings—male and female—are created in the image of God. Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and, as such, each has a divine nature and destiny.

—The Family: A Proclamation to the World (1995)

In the heav’ns are parents single?

No, the thought makes reason stare!

Truth is reason; truth eternal

Tells me I’ve a mother there.

When I leave this frail existence,

When I lay this mortal by,

Father, Mother, may I meet you

In your royal courts on high?

—Eliza R. Snow (1804–1877)

All men and women are in the similitude of the universal Father and Mother and are literally the sons and daughters of Deity. . . . Man, as a spirit, was begotten and born of heavenly parents, and reared to maturity in the eternal mansions of the Father, prior to coming upon the earth in a temporal body to undergo an experience in mortality. . . . Man is the child of God, formed in the divine image and endowed with divine attributes.

—The Origin of Man (First Presidency statement, 1909)

I am a child of God,

And he has sent me here,

Has given me an earthly home

With parents kind and dear.

—Naomi W. Randall (1908–2001)

God truly is our Father, the Father of the spirits of all mankind. We are his literal offspring and are formed in his image. We have inherited divine characteristics from him. Knowing our relationship to our Heavenly Father helps us understand the divine nature that is in us and our potential.

—Joseph B. Wirthlin (1917–2008)

It doesn’t take from our worship of the Eternal Father, to adore our Eternal Mother, any more than it diminishes the love we bear our earthly fathers, to include our earthly mothers in our affections.

—Rudger Clawson (1857–1943)

There can be no God except he is composed of the man and woman united, and there is not in all the eternities that exist, or ever will be a God in any other way.

—Erastus Snow (1818–1888)

Sometimes we think the whole job is up to us, forgetful that there are loved ones beyond our sight who are thinking about us and our children. We forget that we have a Heavenly Father and a Heavenly Mother who are even more concerned, probably, than our earthly father and mother, and that influences from beyond are constantly working to try to help us when we do all we can.

—Harold B. Lee (1899–1973)

In accordance with gospel philosophy there are males and females in heaven. Since we have a Father, who is our God, we must also have a mother, who possesses the attributes of godhood. This simply carries onward the logic of things earthly, and conforms with the doctrine that whatever is on this earth is simply a representation of great spiritual conditions of deeper meaning than we can here fathom.

—John A. Widtsoe (1872–1952)