gdemetz wrote:Do you know the exact reasons why Orson or others objected to it? It may have been because Brigham Young taught that Adam was a god over us! Do you think Brigham Young is a complete idiot, who would one day teach that Adam, as well as all of us are the offspring of our Heavenly Father as I have plainly quoted, and the next day state that Adam is our Heavenly Father?!? That assumption is ridiculous!!!
Well, his teachings about black people are pretty explicit and they seem pretty idiotic to me.
“We look to not only the spiritual but also the temporal, and we believe that a person who is impoverished temporally cannot blossom spiritually.” Keith McMullin - Counsellor in Presiding Bishopric
"One, two, three...let's go shopping!" Thomas S Monson - Prophet, Seer, Revelator
The kingdoms he possesses and rules over are his own progeny. Every man who is faithful and gets a salvation and glory, and becomes a King of kings and Lord of lords, or a Father of fathers; it will be by the increase of his own progeny, Our Father and God rules over his own children. Wherever there is a God in all the eternities possessing a kingdom and glory and power it is by means of his own progeny.
Journal of L. John Nuttall
Adam was an immortal being when he came. On this earth he had lived on an earth similar to ours he had received the Priesthood and the Keys thereof. and had been faithful in all things and gained his resurrection and his exaltation and was crowned with glory immortality and eternal lives and was numbered with the Gods for such he became through his faithfulness. and had begotten all the spirit that was to come to this earth. and Eve our common Mother who is the mother of all living bore those spirits in the celestial world. And when this earth was organized by Elohim. Jehovah & Michael who is Adam our common Father. Adam & Eve had the privilege to continue the work of Progression. consequently came to this earth and commenced the great work of forming tabernacles for those spirits to dwell in.
"Any over-ritualized religion since the dawn of time can make its priests say yes, we know, it is rotten, and hard luck, but just do as we say, keep at the ritual, stick it out, give us your money and you'll end up with the angels in heaven for evermore."
William Clayton in a letter to BY regarding the controversy and Orson Pratt:
There is also another subject which has occupied much of the time, and in which the difference in opinion seems to be wider, and more firmly established than the baby resurrection; and that is in regard to Adam's coming on this earth; whether he came here with a resurrected body and became mortal by eating the fruits of the earth which are earthy, or he was created direct (that is his mortal tabernacle) from the dust of the earth, according to the popular opinion of the world. On this subject brother Pratt and mysel( have rather locked horns, he holding to the latter opinion, and I firmly believing the former; but there can be no difficulty between us, as he is my superior and I shall not argue against him; but if it were an equal I should be apt to speak my feelings in full. There are difficulties on both sides, take it which way we will, and he is unwilling to express anything more than his opinion on the subject.
"Any over-ritualized religion since the dawn of time can make its priests say yes, we know, it is rotten, and hard luck, but just do as we say, keep at the ritual, stick it out, give us your money and you'll end up with the angels in heaven for evermore."
These are interesting quotes, Fence Sitter, showing how even certain brethren in the church had varying opinions concerning those confusing statements by confusing statements by Brigham Young.
Actually, according to that last quote, both of the brethren were wrong since Adam was never de-resurrected, nor was he sprung out of the earth cartoon style, but he was as Luke 3:38 and Moses 6:22 state, the son of God (Elohim). Also, I will not attempt to polish the church's image at the expense of the truth as the CES and certain other apologists seem to do. Yes, Brigham Young did teach that the blacks were cursed. However, so were many other people such as the Lamanites and, in fact, all the gentile nations. However, this is not due to God being a racist. It was due to our pre-mortal judgment. That is why I was born as a poor redneck. LOL!
1 And then the Lord said: Let us go down. And they went down at the beginning, and they, that is the Gods, organized and formed the heavens and the earth. 2 And the earth, after it was formed, was empty and desolate, because they had not formed anything but the earth; and darkness reigned upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of the Gods was brooding upon the face of the waters. 3 And they (the Gods) said: Let there be light; and there was light. 4 And they (the Gods) comprehended the light, for it was bright; and they divided the light, or caused it to be divided, from the darkness. 5 And the Gods called the light Day, and the darkness they called Night. And it came to pass that from the evening until morning they called night; and from the morning until the evening they called day; and this was the first, or the beginning, of that which they called day and night. 6 And the Gods also said: Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and it shall divide the waters from the waters. 7 And the Gods ordered the expanse, so that it divided the waters which were under the expanse from the waters which were above the expanse; and it was so, even as they ordered. 8 And the Gods called the expanse, Heaven. And it came to pass that it was from evening until morning that they called night; and it came to pass that it was from morning until evening that they called day; and this was the second time that they called night and day. 9 And the Gods ordered, saying: Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto bone place, and let the earth come up dry; and it was so as they ordered; 10 And the Gods pronounced the dry land, Earth; and the gathering together of the waters, pronounced they, Great Waters; and the Gods saw that they were obeyed. 11 And the Gods said: Let us prepare the earth to bring forth grass; the herb yielding seed; the fruit tree yielding fruit, after his kind, whose seed in itself yieldeth its own likeness upon the earth; and it was so, even as they ordered. 12 And the Gods organized the earth to bring forth grass from its own seed, and the herb to bring forth herb from its own seed, yielding seed after his kind; and the earth to bring forth the tree from its own seed, yielding fruit, whose seed could only bring forth the same in itself, after his kind; and the Gods saw that they were obeyed.
So we can see from LDS scripture that Adam was one of the God's because it was he, under his old name of Michael, that created the earth along with one of the other Gods.
Adam-God is not a theory it is a doctrinal fact.
“We look to not only the spiritual but also the temporal, and we believe that a person who is impoverished temporally cannot blossom spiritually.” Keith McMullin - Counsellor in Presiding Bishopric
"One, two, three...let's go shopping!" Thomas S Monson - Prophet, Seer, Revelator
gdemetz wrote:These are interesting quotes, Fence Sitter, showing how even certain brethren in the church had varying opinions concerning those confusing statements by confusing statements by Brigham Young.
I think the debate going on at the time BY was teaching Adam-God was very interesting and, like now, there was a lot of opinions from both sides, though BY tended to crush anyone who publicly disagreed with him. If anything, Orson Pratt's theology was more radical than BY's. By introducing the concept of worshiping Divine attributes Pratt's is attempting, in my opinion, to reconcile what he thought Joseph Smith taught with Brigham' attempt to insert Adam as a God between Elohim and us. That way one could worship a single ultimate principal and have the plurality of Gods that Adam God embodied.
"Any over-ritualized religion since the dawn of time can make its priests say yes, we know, it is rotten, and hard luck, but just do as we say, keep at the ritual, stick it out, give us your money and you'll end up with the angels in heaven for evermore."
Hi Fence Sitter! I have been looking into this Adam-God theory quite a bit lately, and I have seen so many quotes from Brigham Young and his contemporaries. I have now come to the conclusion that the Elden Watson explanation is insufficient, and as Bruce McConkie previously stated; "Brigham Young contradicted Brigham Young." At times he would state inspirational truths concerning this which were consistent with the scriptures. However, he also apparently believed in the "decelestialization" and "unresurrection" of Adam and Eve. However, as I have written in another place here, prophets and apostles can sometimes be wrong. I agree totally with the following comments by president Joseph F. Smith in his letter which was drafted by president Woodruff:
"President Young no doubt expressed his personal opinions or views. What he said was not given as a revelation or commandment from the Lord. The doctrine was never submitted to the councils of the priesthood nor to the church for approval or ratification and was never formally or otherwise binding upon the church nor upon the consciences of any of the members thereof."
So, it seems like BC is making good points when he always states that something is not really church doctrine.
Last edited by Guest on Mon May 07, 2012 6:20 am, edited 2 times in total.
The number of references to Adam God being taught, supported, or mentioned is well into the thousands. To focus on BY 1852 speech is to glimpse only a very small portion of the issue.
I think there are two primary reasons that Brigham Young contradicted himself about Adam God.
First would be he was trying to reveal new doctrine and was working it out as he went. (If Orson Pratt had been prophet instead of BY we might be talking about the "Attribute God theory" now instead of Adam God.) I would be interested to see if anyone has examined how exposed BY was to Cabala and Hermeticism and if, like Joseph Smith before him, he was trying to incorporate those traditions into Mormonism via his Adam God teachings. There are actually a few accounts where BY claims that Adam God was taught by Joseph Smith.
Secondly I think, after a time, say around 1860ish, BY realized Adam God was not only a lightning rod for criticism from outside the Church, it also was not being enthusiastically accepted by the membership. As a result I think he reverted to teaching the more orthodox view of God publicly while he continued to teach Adam God privately right up until the end of his life when he inserted it into the temple ritual at St George.
While future prophets/apostles may claim it was not revelation from the Lord, I think it is pretty clear BY thought it was, and in BY's time he really didn't ask approval from anyone else, it was his way or out of the Church. That he taught it at the temple is indication enough he considered it doctrine.
"Any over-ritualized religion since the dawn of time can make its priests say yes, we know, it is rotten, and hard luck, but just do as we say, keep at the ritual, stick it out, give us your money and you'll end up with the angels in heaven for evermore."
Yea, he obviously really believed it, but was wrong. That really shook up a member on another blog, but I told him that prophets and apostles weren't perfect, but that God would right the ship eventually as he did with Nathan when Nathan told David to build a temple, and God had to correct him about that. However, that was done much faster since God did not want David to have a hand in building the temple at all.