Among contemporary religions, Latter-day Saints are truly unique in affirming that God has a body. 

Many other religions have taught that their gods have physical forms. Ancient Greek and Roman Religions depicted their gods with human-like forms and attributes. Gods like Zeus or Jupiter were described in myth as having human characteristics and appearances. In Hindu belief, gods often take on physical forms, or avatars. A well-known example is Lord Vishnu, who is believed to have ten avatars, including Rama and Krishna, to protect dharma (cosmic order). The Ancient Egyptians, similar to the Greeks and Romans, depicted many deities as having human forms with animal features or attributes, like Ra or Anubis.

But modern religious belief, such as that found in mainstream Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, is a different story. In Islam, Allah is considered completely transcendent and not embodied. God has no physical form and is beyond human understanding in traditional Islamic belief. In modern Judaism, God is generally understood to be incorporeal, meaning without a physical body. This belief is rooted in traditional Jewish teachings and texts which emphasize God's incorporeality, omnipresence, transcendence, unity, formlessness, and incomparability. These attributes align with Jewish monotheism, emphasizing a singular, unmatched God.

Modern, mainstream Christianity is quite unique. God is seen similar to Islam and Judaism in affirming that God is immaterial and exists partly outside of space and thus time. They affirm that God, notwithstanding His immateriality, is three persons of one substance. This doctrine is often referred to as the Trinity. To quote the Athanasian Creed: “We worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity, neither blending their persons nor dividing their essence. For the person of the Father is a distinct person, the person of the Son is another, and that of the Holy Spirit still another. But the divinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one, their glory equal, their majesty coeternal.” This creates a logical contradiction: how can God be said to be three distinct persons made of one, immaterial substance? That God is immaterial seems to imply that there can be no distinction between the persons. But there is another, deeper contradiction in mainstream Christian belief, rooted in understanding the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost as being God. Mainstream Christians believe that Christ was resurrected and maintains His body to this day. How can God simultaneously be corporeal (in Christ) and incorporeal?

For Latter-day Saints, God’s embodiment was first taught in the Book of Mormon. In 3 Nephi 28:6–10, the Three Nephites desire to never taste of death and continue to preach the Gospel. The Savior grants them their wish, and tells them “ye shall have fulness of joy; and ye shall sit down in the kingdom of my Father; yea, your joy shall be full, even as the Father hath given me fulness of joy; and ye shall be even as I am, and I am even as the Father; and the Father and I are one.” The Risen Christ, a man with a perfect body that would never see death or be corrupted draws an equivalence between how he is, how the Three Nephites will be, and how the Father currently is. The Book of Mormon teaches God’s embodiment. Interestingly, the phrase “fulness of joy” is used in Doctrine & Covenants 93:33 to refer to the body and spirit inseparably connected.¹¹⁰

Latter-day Saints do not deny every aspect of the Trinity. Indeed, the Doctrine & Covenants as well as other scripture affirms that the “Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are one God, infinite and eternal, without end. Amen” (Doctrine & Covenants 20:28; cf. Mosiah 15:1–5). What Latter-day Saints affirm is that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are the superintending trio that govern the earth on which we now live. Their union is formed by a recognition and use of the “Light of Christ”––described in the Doctrine & Covenants as “[t]he light which is in all things, which giveth life to all things, which is the law by which all things are governed, even the power of God who sitteth upon his throne, who is in the bosom of eternity, who is in the midst of all things” (Doctrine & Covenants 88:13). This light allows each member of what Latter-day Saints call the Godhead to have a deep, perfect knowledge of the subjective experience of each member and to act in perfect, loving unity with each member. The unity of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, is one in consciousness, love, truth, purpose, and action rather than substance. These doctrinal statements appear to overcome the logical contradictions in affirming the distinction between the persons of the trinity as well as their immaterial nature.

In line with Latter-day Saint teaching, scholarly consensus affirms that all of the biblical texts we read today, no matter the Bible one is reading and its respective collection of texts, teach that God is materially-embodied.¹¹¹

How are our lives different knowing that God is like us in a way and thus knows something of our experience intimately? How are our lives different knowing that we, as fragile as we are as human beings, are like God?