Allie Beth Stuckey sat down with Latter-day Saints podcaster Jacob Hansen for a long, probing conversation that dug into where Mormon and evangelical Christian beliefs collide and where they overlap. They zeroed in on one core question about the nature of divine and created beings, and how that question reshapes everything from the identity of Jesus to the fate of Satan. The back-and-forth mixed sharp theology with plainspoken moments, and listeners get a clear picture of why the issue matters.
The episode unpacks whether God, humanity, angels, and Satan are fundamentally the same kind of being or categorically different. That distinction isn’t abstract; it influences how each side reads Scripture and thinks about salvation, authority, and the image of God. For Stuckey and Hansen, the debate gets personal and theological all at once, touching on scripture, tradition, and doctrinal logic.
Allie frames the clash by pressing on origins and relationship: “There seems to be a little bit of a different origin story, though, that both Jesus and Satan were created in eternity past … that Satan and Jesus were brothers, [and] that we also — all of humankind — are brothers and sisters of Satan and Jesus. Is that correct?” she asks, pointing to the core Mormon claim that divine beings and humans share a familial link. The question forces a contrast between two ways of seeing the cosmos: one strict Creator/creature divide and one more relational, developmental view of exaltation.
Hansen answers with a mix of humor and directness: “I would say that Jesus and Satan are brother and sister in the same way that you and Nancy Pelosi are sisters,” he jests, using a provocative image to underline his point about shared parentage under God. He then leans on biblical passages to build the case, noting how early scriptural language can be read to place beings like Satan within a wider family of divine attendants: “In Job 1, it says that the sons of God approached God and Satan was among them, right? So, okay, Satan is one of the sons of God, and Jesus is called the Son of God. So isn’t there some sense in which there’s some relationship there?” he continues.
Stuckey pushes back by appealing to the classical reading of Scripture that separates angels from human beings and identifies Satan as a fallen angel. “How do you square that with the origin story that we read in Scripture that Satan was a fallen angel? … Jesus even says that he saw Satan fall like lightning from the sky, that he led his own army of rebellious angels who were demons in hell. And we don’t read that he was this being that was a brother to Jesus,” she counters, emphasizing a traditional evangelical lens. That approach treats angels and humans as distinct categories with different ontologies and destinies.
Hansen refuses the strict-species view. “[Christians] would view angels as a totally different species from human beings, as some totally different creature. We don’t hold to that sort of view. We believe that angels are also the same species as human beings,” Hansen says, summarizing the LDS perspective that spiritual and embodied states are variations along a continuum. He sees scripture and tradition through a different metaphysical framework where embodiment may change but identity remains continuous.
Stuckey responds by calling attention to biblical hints of difference in perspective and longing: “Scripture says that angels long to see what we see, that they long to know what we know. And so there does seem to be a distinction there,” Allie disputes, pointing out passages that suggest angels and humans occupy different roles in redemptive history. The dispute is not merely semantic; it shapes how each side imagines growth, glory, and the ultimate shape of persons.
Hansen acknowledges room for nuance while resisting categorical separation: “Perhaps they’re pre-embodied beings or they’re post-embodied beings that are no longer embodied,” he says, “but we don’t make this distinction that there’s all these different sort of species of creatures that are out there. … We are all children of God.” That formulation tries to account for scriptural mystery while keeping the family metaphor central to LDS theology.
He points listeners to Christ’s language about relationship with God as an example: “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God,” and uses that verse to argue for continuity between Christ and believers in relation to a heavenly Father. For Hansen, such wording supports a reading in which divine status and filial language carry implications for humanity’s potential and the nature of the Godhead.
Allie presses one more sharp theological test: “You’re kind of almost equating humans to God or that we can ascend to god-like status, and is that a belief that the LDS church has?” The question captures the heart of evangelical concern about exaltation theology and the risk of collapsing Creator and creature. To hear Hansen’s answer, watch the episode above.
