The Latter-day Saint conception of heaven is different from virtually every religion on earth. Latter-day Saints believe that there are multiple degrees of heaven in the next life and that hell is more of a state of mind.

The degrees of glory were first revealed to Joseph Smith in 1832. That revelation is canonized as Doctrine & Covenants 76. That revelation was given in February 1832 and informs us that there is the celestial kingdom (the highest), the terrestrial kingdom (typically understood as the middle kingdom), and the telestial kingdom (typically understood as the lowest kingdom). Several months later, in December 1832 and January 1833, Joseph Smith received a revelation that informs us that “there are many kingdoms; for there is no space in which there is no kingdom; and there is no kingdom in which there is no space, either a greater or a lesser kingdom” (Doctrine & Covenants 88:37). Exactly how many kingdoms are there? We aren’t sure. A set of instructions given by Joseph Smith in 1843 and canonized as Doctrine & Covenants 131 says that “[in] the celestial glory there are three heavens or degrees” (Doctrine & Covenants 131:1). This has, for most of the Church’s history, been interpreted to mean that the celestial kingdom has three sub-degrees.

Some have challenged the “three sub-degree interpretation” of Doctrine & Covenants 131, citing a perceived lack of historical evidence from either Joseph Smith or his contemporaries that they understood that there were three sub-degrees.¹⁶⁵ How we are to understand Doctrine & Covenants 131 is ultimately not known.

What we can be sure of is that there are at least three kingdoms and that this is a massive gift in understanding that differentiates those of the Latter Day Saints Movement from other religious faiths and helps us to answer many questions that have vexed “traditional” Christianity and their theologians for thousands of years.