What planet do Mormons think God the Father was born on?

Question

In 2001, the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith decided that Mormon baptisms are not valid as far as Catholicism is concerned, because of certain doctrines of Mormonism that are problematic from a Catholic viewpoint. This articleby Fr Luis Ladaria, S.J. summarizes these problematic doctrines, and here is one of them:

God the Father is an exalted man, native of another planet, who has acquired his divine status through a death similar to that of human beings, the necessary way to divinization (cf. TPJS, pp. 345-346).

My question is, what planet do Mormons think God the Father is a native of? I didn't know that Mormons believe that there are or were humans on multiple planets.

By the way, TPJS refers to the LDS document "Scriptural Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith", and here is what I found on pages 345-346:

God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens! That is the great secret. If the veil were rent today, and the great God who holds this world in its orbit, and who upholds all worlds and all things by his power, was to make himself visible, — I say, if you were to see him today, you would see him like a man in form — like yourselves in all the person, image, and very form as a man; for Adam was created in the very fashion, image and likeness of God, and received instruction from, and walked, talked and conversed with him, as one man talks and communes with another. In order to understand the subject of the dead, for consolation of those who mourn for the loss of their friends, it is necessary we should understand the character and being of God and how he came to be so; for I am going to tell you how God came to be God. We have imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity. I will refute that idea, and take away the veil, so that you may see. These are incomprehensible ideas to some, but they are simple. It is the first principle of the Gospel to know for a certainty the Character of God, and to know that we may converse with him as one man converses with another, and that he was once a man like us; yea, that God himself, the Father of us all, dwelt on an earth, the same as Jesus Christ himself did; and I will show it from the Bible.

I think the fact that Joseph Smith says "an earth" rather than "the earth" is why Ladaria says "another planet".

In any case, do the Book of Mormon or any LDS documents shed light on the identity of this planet? Do Mormons believe that humans still live on that planet?

Answer 1

LDS believe in Worlds Without Number, and that the Earth has been patterned after other worlds. This is not the first time a world has been created for people to dwell on and face trials, and it will not be the last.

As for which planet God the Father may have been Born on, the only clue we have to speculate on is from the Book of Abraham:

2 And I saw the stars, that they were very great, and that one of them was nearest unto the throne of God; and there were many great ones which were near unto it;

3 And the Lord said unto me: These are the governing ones; and the name of the great one is Kolob, because it is near unto me, for I am the Lord thy God: I have set this one to govern all those which belong to the same order as that upon which thou standest.

We are taught that when the Earth has fulfilled it's purposes, that it will receive it's paradisiacal glory, and we will dwell on it. If God dwells near Kolob, then it may be reasonable to assume that he might have been born and lived there (or near there) as a man also, before it received its paradisiacal glory (assuming Kolob is actually a planet an not a star, there isn't a unanimous consensus on which it is).

As with many other mysteries about God, knowing where our Father lived as a man is not pertinent to our salvation. All that matters in this life is knowing that he exists, that he has sent us here for a reason, and that he has told us how to return to live with him in glory.

Answer 2

As others have mentioned, there is no official doctrine or even speculation on this point.

We believe that God created the universe (see, e.g., this talk, "Our Heavenly Father created the universe that we might reach our full potential as His sons and daughters.") As such, God could not have come from any planet in this universe.

Answer 3

LDS do not really concern themselves with useless speculation. The main point is that the Bible refers only to this planet, and God's dealings with the Hebrew people, we are never informed in it about God, His existence, or His origins. "In the Beginning" (is about this planet), In the beginning is not about God's beginning, it is only refering to our mortal existence, and How we can return to our Father's kingdom.