Note: This is the first in a six-part sub-series examining some reactions from selected apostles to a false historical/doctrinal theory.
Although
the so-called “Adam-God theory” might be losing some of its presence and
staying power in modern times, it is still continually dug up, dusted off, and falsely
pronounced to be Mormon doctrine by anti-Mormons, cultists, and other critics of
the Church.[1]
Each group has its own agenda: some who believe it seek its acceptance by the
Church, others seek to embarrass the Church with it, and a third group seeks to
jeopardize Brigham Young’s standing as a prophet of God with it. Each of them
has failed in their efforts. Most Latter-day Saints have never heard of it and
are (thankfully) ignorant of the much-ado-about-nothing fuss being made.
Introducing the theory
Because of
the internet and the ever-growing number of websites run by antagonistic and critical
activist groups, it is increasingly possible for average and often uninformed Latter-day
Saints to encounter what must seem to them to be one weird and incomprehensible
bit of theorizing; also to encounter explanations and bias that hinders instead
of helping. Just when a person needs the best light and understanding they can
get for proper contextual inoculation, the self-serving
activist/critic/cultist/ignorant evangelical throws them a curve ball hoping to
shake their testimony and faith in whatever way they can.
For this
reason, before getting to then-Elder Harold B. Lee’s explanations, we can
profit from author Stephen E. Robinson’s excellent overview as a means of
introducing the infamous Adam-God theory:
A classic
example of an anomaly in the LDS tradition is the so-called "Adam-God
theory." During the latter half of the nineteenth century Brigham Young
made some remarks about the relationship between Adam and God that the
Latter-day Saints have never been able to understand. The reported statements
conflict with LDS teachings before and after Brigham Young, as well as with
statements of President Young himself during the same period of time. So how do
Latter-day Saints deal with the phenomenon? We don't; we simply set it aside.
It is an anomaly. On occasion my colleagues and I at Brigham Young
University
For the
Latter-day Saints, however, the point is moot, since whatever Brigham Young
said, true or false, was never presented to the Church for a sustaining vote.
It was not then and is not now a doctrine of the Church, and—like the chemist
who can neither explain nor reproduce her results—the Church has merely set the
phenomenon aside as an anomaly.
Nevertheless
anti-Mormon critics have not only interpreted Brigham Young's remarks; they
have also elevated their own interpretation, the "Adam-God theory,"
to the status of official LDS doctrine. Once again our theology is being
dictated to us by our critics. According to them Brigham Young taught that
Adam, the husband of Eve and father of Cain, is identical to that Elohim who is
God, the Father of spirits and the Father of Jesus Christ. But for Latter-day
Saints this interpretation has always been simply impossible. It contradicts
the LDS scriptures; it contradicts the teachings of Joseph Smith; it
contradicts other statements by Brigham Young made during the same period of
time; it contradicts the teachings of all the prophets since Brigham Young; and
it contradicts the sacred ordinances of the LDS temples, with which Brigham
Young was intimately familiar.
The
point is that while anti-Mormons can believe whatever they want, the Latter-day
Saints have never believed that Brigham Young taught the "Adam-God
theory" as explained in anti-Mormon literature, and that whether Brigham
Young believed it or not, the "Adam-God theory" as proposed and
interpreted by non-Mormons simply cannot be found in the theology of the
Latter-day Saints. I do not believe it; my parents do not believe it; and
neither did their parents before them. Yet there are few anti-Mormon
publications that do not present this "Adam-God theory," the doctrinal
creation of our opponents, as one of the most characteristic doctrines of the
Latter-day Saints. This is certainly misrepresentation; I believe it is also
dishonest; and when used to justify a charge that Latter-day Saints aren't
Christians, it is another example of condemning the Latter-day Saints for
things they do not believe or teach. (As quoted in Are Mormons Christians?
[Salt Lake City :
Bookcraft, 1991], 19-20.)
With such a
strange and untenable notion floating around and having supposedly originated with
a prophet, it is no wonder that letters of inquiry would reach various of the
Brethren, as well as becoming a subject of curiosity and research for others in
the Church.
We might therefore conclude that
the subject is one that has been grappled with in one way or another by many. One
might also imagine that for busy general authorities running a vast
multi-million-member church, such antiquated distractions represent an annoyance
that they spend precious little time worrying about. (It will be interesting to
see if one day the church makes this theory the subject of one of its Gospel Topics
essays.)
Some of the General Authorities and
others who have privately commented on the Adam-God theory have noted that they
have concerns about the accuracy of the supposed Adam-God quotations found in
LDS literature, such as the Journal of
Discourses and the Deseret News.
See the previous blog #19 for a discussion confirming the validity of these
concerns.
A letter from a former First Presidency
As will be
seen, in his own personal and unofficial response to an inquiry, Elder Lee
referred to a commonly reproduced and circulated unofficial letter prepared by
a past First Presidency on the subject. The text of the referenced letter is
here reproduced:
Your
question concerning Adam has not been answered before because of pressure of
important business. We now respond briefly, but, we hope, plainly. You speak of
"the assertion made by Brigham Young that Jesus was begotten of the Father
in the flesh by our father Adam, and that Adam is the father of Jesus Christ
and not the Holy Ghost," and you say that Elders are challenged by certain
critics to prove this.
If you will
carefully examine the sermon to which you refer, in the Journal of Discourses, Vol. 1, you will discover that, while
President Young denied that Jesus was "begotten of the Holy Ghost,"
he did not affirm, in so many words, that "Adam is the father of Jesus
Christ in the flesh." He said, "Jesus, our elder brother, was
begotten in the flesh by the same character that was in the garden of Eden and
who is our Father in Heaven. Who is our "Father in Heaven"? Here is
what President Young said about him; "Our Father in heaven begat all the
spirits that ever were or ever will be upon this earth and they were born
spirits in the eternal world. Then the Lord by his power and wisdom organized
the mortal tabernacle of man." Was He in the Garden of Eden? Surely He
gave commandments to Adam and Eve; He was their Father in Heaven; they
worshiped Him and taught their children after the fall to worship and obey Him
in the name of the Son who was to come.
But President
Young went on to show that our father Adam—that is, our earthly father—the
progenitor of the race of man, stands at our head, being "Michael the
Archangel, the Ancient of Days," and that he was not fashioned from earth
like an adobe, but "begotten by his Father in Heaven." Adam is called
in the Bible "the son of God" (Luke 3:38). It was our Father in
Heaven who begat the spirit of him who was "the Firstborn" of all the
spirits that come to this earth, and who was also his Father by the Virgin
Mary, making him "the only begotten in the flesh." Read Luke 1:26-35.
Where is Jesus called "the only begotten of the Holy Ghost?" He is
always singled out as "the only begotten of the Father." (John 1:14;
3:16, 18, &c) The Holy Ghost came upon Mary, and her conception was under
that influence, even of the spirit of life; our Father in Heaven was the Father
of the Son of Mary, to whom the Savior prayed, as did our earthly father Adam.
When President
Young asked, "who is the Father?" he was speaking of Adam as the
father of our earthly bodies, who is at our head, as revealed in Doctrine and
Covenants, Section 107, verses 53-56. In that sense he is one of the gods
referred to in numerous scriptures, and particularly by Christ (John 10:34-36).
He is the great Patriarch, the Ancient of Days, who will stand in his place as
"a prince over us forever," and with whom we shall "have to
do," as each family will have to do with its head, according to the holy
patriarchal order. Our father, Adam, perfected and glorified as a God, will be
the being who will carry out the behests of the great Elohim in relation to his
posterity. (See Daniel 7:9-14.)
While, as Paul
puts it, "there be gods many and Lords many (whether in heaven or in
earth), unto us there is but one God the Father, of whom are all things, and one
Lord Jesus Christ by whom are all things." The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints worships Him, and Him alone, who is the Father of Jesus
Christ, whom He worshiped, whom Adam worshiped, and who is God the Eternal
Father of us all.
Your brethren,
Joseph F. Smith
Anthon H. Lund
Charles W. Penrose
At the time
the First Presidency wrote this letter, it was not yet known that President
Young had given more sermons identifying Adam as God than the one or two
references in volume one of the Journal of
Discourses (a twenty-six volume collection of early sermons) that critics and
cultists first pounced on. Since then, and especially in the last few decades, perhaps
an entire volume worth of Adam-God-related teachings by Brigham Young and
others have surfaced (although all of them are now subject to question of
accuracy). Therefore, the explanations given by Church leaders that responded
to inquiries are necessarily narrowly focused on the quotations in the one 1852
sermon (probably poorly rendered) then known about (see JD 1:50). The letter’s main
value is that it teaches true doctrine about the position of Adam in the over-all
plan of salvation. Obviously if what was known today was known in Joseph F.
Smith’s time, such explanations would have recognized and dealt with the existence
other since-discovered possible Adam-God teachings.
(As a side note, even though
Charles W. Penrose was a skilled writer and former newspaper editor, at the
time this letter was sent [February 1912], Elder Orson F. Whitney was ghost
writing a great deal of the First Presidency’s correspondence and articles. It
is therefore entirely possible, though perhaps not provable, that Elder Whitney
wrote the above letter. Having stated that, those whose signatures are found on
it remain responsible for its contents.)
This brings
us to Elder Harold B. Lee’s astute explanations:
The so-called
“Adam-God theory” has risen out of a discourse delivered by President Brigham
Young recorded in the Journal of
Discourses, volume 1, page 50. There have been many and various attempts to
make it appear from these teachings that Brigham Young taught that Adam was our
Father in Heaven and the only God with whom we have to do.
We
have an organization who call themselves the Fundamentalists whom we choose to
call the “Cultists,” which I think better describes their organization. Three
people who are near converts of that organization had come in—a man and his
wife and his sister-in-law whose husband was killed in the last war. She is
almost persuaded that she should become his plural wife. These three, with
their bishop, came in and talked with me about some of these matters. In
addition to the discussion and teaching of plural marriage, they have adopted
as one of their pet teachings what they choose to call the Adam-God theory. At
the close of our discussion one of them asked, “Why has the Church abandoned
its teachings that Adam was our God?” I said, “The Church never did teach that
doctrine.”
Then
there grew out of that blank denial a very interesting discussion that
prolonged our visit another hour. In that hour, they brought forth some
writings from one of our Church leaders of a very early day in which he was
quoted as having said bluntly that Adam came and superintended the organization
of the world and the bringing of the seeds to plant, that one of his wives was
then brought to him from another planet, and that from this other planet there
were to come spirits which he and his wife before had created and organized.
My
answer was, “I am not sure whether he was correctly quoted by the one who wrote
it down, because in many cases they took their sermons down in longhand. We
have found, for example, that in reading the King Follett discourse there is a
footnote which suggests a mistake in the word ‘co-equal,’ which undoubtedly was
‘co-eval,’ conveying a wholly different thought and suggesting that the faulty
way of reporting sermons might have accounted for that seeming error. Now, that
same thing may well have been true in recording this sermon. I don’t know
whether this is exactly what he said.” And then I pointed out that in that same
sermon the speaker had contradicted himself, which evidenced the fact that he
apparently had not read over the report of his sermon before it was published
in the Deseret News.
Then
I said, “I am not sure whether the Deseret
News has printed accurately what was said, but the final thing I want to
say is that if such a doctrine was taught, it is incorrect because it does not
square with the scriptures. It would suggest that Adam and Eve were resurrected
beings and as resurrected beings had begotten spirits. They had afterwards come
here upon this earth and died the second time, which is contrary to what the
Lord taught to the prophet Alma as written in Alma and also in the Doctrine and
Covenants.” (“Relationship of God to Man,” Lecture Given to Seminary and
Institute Teachers, Brigham Young University, June 18, 1954, 36-38)
Further explanation
is found in a letter written by Elder Lee, which references a BYU master’s
thesis prepared by Professor Rodney Turner (formerly of BYU religious education,
now deceased) that examined the position of Adam in Mormon theology:
Your
letter expressed your concern over the statement of the First Presidency in a
letter to Elder Samuel O. Bennion; and again, a statement by Elder John A.
Widstoe in his book “Evidences and Reconciliations” to the effect that Brigham
Young never did teach that God, the Eternal Father is Adam. If you will read
carefully these letters you will find that what they do say is that in the
sermon contained in Vol. 1, page 50 of the Journal
of Discourses Brigham Young did not intend to teach the doctrine that Adam
was our God. Whether or not at other times he did or did not, was not the subject
of these particular writings to which you have made reference.
Inasmuch
as you have referred to Rodney Turner’s Thesis on the position of Adam in
Latter-day Saint scriptures and theology, I quote two paragraphs on page 54:
“There
are many instances where Brigham Young speaks of Adam on the one hand, and God
on the other; as, for instance, when he said ‘We believe that He made Adam
after His own image and likeness, as Moses testifies… Our God possesses a body
and parts and was heard by Adam and Eve walking in the garden in the cool of
the day.’” Journal of Discourses,
Vol. 10, page 231.
And
again, “the world may in vain ask the question, ‘Who are we?’ But the Gospel
tells us that we are the sons and daughters of that God whom we serve. Some
say, ‘We are the children of Adam and Eve.’ So we are, and they are the
children of our Heavenly Father. We are all the children of Adam and Eve and
they, and we are the offspring of Him who dwells in the heavens, the highest
intelligence that dwells anywhere that we have knowledge of.” (Vol. 13, page
311.) Then Rodney Turner makes this statement: “This certainly suggests that if
Brigham Young ever did entertain the Adam-God theory he has contradicted
himself in these statements.”
I
trust these comments may be helpful to you in clarifying your thinking on this
point of controversy. (Harold B. Lee Correspondence, 1963.)
In closely examining the master’s
thesis written by Professor Turner, I have been unable to locate the exact
quotation used by Elder Lee at the conclusion of this letter, though the first
two are found on the referenced page number. Perhaps the thesis underwent
revision or changes for some purpose. The copy of the thesis I examined does,
however, contain wording similar in substance to that used by Elder Lee, which follows:
Rodney Turner:
These
quotations bring us to grips with the apparent contradiction in his statements;
for how can he claim that Adam is “our Father and our God, and the only God
with whom we have to do” at one time, and yet assert that Adam and Eve heard
“our God” walking in the garden, and that they are the “children of our
Heavenly Father” at other times? We must either assume that he has contradicted
himself, or that he has not. If he has, then one of the other, if not both, of
his statements must be discarded as being false. (“The Position of Adam in
Latter-day Saint Scripture and Theology,” unpublished master’s thesis, Brigham Young University
Because of the
subject of his thesis, Rodney Turner continued to receive inquiries about the
theory as the years passed. This happened enough that he prepared a statement
that he could send to anyone asking his opinion. As part of that statement he
wrote: “Did Brigham Young identify Adam
with the Father of our spirits? The discourses, journals and other
materials available to me in 1953 convinced me that President Young did teach
that Adam and God the Father were one and the same individual. I also felt that
any subsequent information would only further substantiate that conclusion.
This has proven to be the case. While new data from now-available discourses,
journals and minutes of the Twelve have provided further confirmation, I don’t
know of a single contemporary item that has been found to refute it. Regardless
of any personal inclinations, integrity in research obliged me to state the
foregoing. So widespread is this information that a growing number of Mormon
historians no longer question it. . . .” (Neither Turner nor other historians
knew the extent to which the printed/published Adam-God quotations could not be
relied upon as verbatim accounts.)
Turner also
wrote: “Did Brigham Young explain his
views? For the most part, he did not. He made little effort to reconcile
them with the scriptures or with the then-held beliefs of the members as to
Adam’s place in the scheme of things. His statements are characteristically
categorical, being left to the hearer to accept or not as he or she saw fit.
His failure to make such a reconciliation has tended to create confusion in the
minds of those who wish to uphold him as a prophet while at the same time
preserving the integrity of the Standard Works. Just what did he mean? How did
it all relate to the roles and interrelationships of the Father, Son and
Michael/Adam? He did not say.”
Turner goes on to explain that the
general authorities did little with the theory for decades, but recognized that
it was out of harmony with the scriptures. He also noted that it was never
accepted as a doctrine of the Church. On the contrary, it was officially
labelled as false doctrine by President Spencer W. Kimball. Turner’s
conclusion: “No honest person will suggest that it is an official doctrine (a
dogma) of the Church. It should be viewed, like other concepts advanced from
time to time, as personal opinion or speculation” (“Adam-God Controversy,” Dr.
Rodney Turner, unpublished circular/memo, 1-2).
Elder Lee’s
brief reference is one of the first we have from a reputable authority
recognizing that Brigham Young contradicted himself with these teachings, if
the report is correct.
One arresting statement made by
President Young (that Professor Turner did not have but that has since come to
light) was given after he made some confusing comments about Adam as God. President
Young said: “I care little about those theories” (VanWaggoner, Complete Discourses, 2485). Seems like
good counsel for all.
[1] I
personally see and hear less about the Adam-God theory now than I did twenty to
thirty years ago, if that means anything. It may be that it is being
overshadowed or crowded to the side of the anti-Mormon stage by the much more
popular issues of gay marriage and feminist extremism being promoted and used
to bash the Church today. It is likely that these issues are seen by the devil
as more palatable and useful to lead people astray than sniping about the
meaning of old sermons. However, neither the devil nor his spokespeople miss a
trick when it comes to trying to weaken confidence in modern prophets and
revelation.
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