Hi everybody! I have a question about something I read on the internet. Is it true that president Brigham Young taught that Adam is God the Father? The webpage where I read this cited a book called the Journal of Discourses. Thanks for your help!
2 Responses to “Hi everybody! I have a question about something I read on th…”
Samuel Delgado
2010-04-12 05:46:31
Hi friend. In The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, something is considered "doctrine" when the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles unanimously agree on its truthfulness. For example, if you were to ask each of the members of the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles if Jesus Christ is the divine son of God, each one would say, "yes." For this reason, Christ's divine sonship can rightfully be called a "doctrine."
Doctrine and Covenants 9:8 teaches that to receive revelation from God, one must first "study it out in your mind" and afterward ask God if it is right. In this process of "studying things out," we sometimes need to engage in some inspiration-guided speculation before asking God for clarification. Though scholars are uncertain exactly what Brigham Young meant when he suggested that Adam is the father of our spirits, it appears that his comments were part of this doctrinal speculation. God, through modern-day revelation to other apostles and subsequent prophets, has confirmed that this speculation is false. Adam is not our Heavenly Father. Rather, he is the father of our mortal bodies, the first man.
The Mormon scholar Stephen E. Robinson offered the following explanation in his book "Are Mormons Christian?":
"Yet another way in which anti-Mormon critics often misrepresent LDS doctrine is in the presentation of anomalies as though they were the doctrine of the Church. Anomalies occur in every field of human endeavor, even in science. An anomaly is something unexpected that cannot be explained by the existing laws or theories, but which does not constitute evidence for changing the laws and theories. An anomaly is a glitch.... 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 have tried to figure out what Brigham Young might have actually said and what it might have meant, but the attempts have always failed. The reported statements simply do not compute-we cannot make sense out of them. This is not a matter of believing it or disbelieving it; we simply don't know what 'it' is. If Brigham Young were here we could ask him what he actually said and what he meant by it, but he is not here.... 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...the Church has merely set the phenomenon aside as an anomaly."
Richard
2010-04-14 23:04:37
I've never heard of that.. Adam conversed with God the Father, and Adam is the father of all of mortality.
This isn't something the details need to be given for your indvidual salvation. Just know that God the Father and father Adam, the first mortal father, are not the same individuals.
Doctrine and Covenants 9:8 teaches that to receive revelation from God, one must first "study it out in your mind" and afterward ask God if it is right. In this process of "studying things out," we sometimes need to engage in some inspiration-guided speculation before asking God for clarification. Though scholars are uncertain exactly what Brigham Young meant when he suggested that Adam is the father of our spirits, it appears that his comments were part of this doctrinal speculation. God, through modern-day revelation to other apostles and subsequent prophets, has confirmed that this speculation is false. Adam is not our Heavenly Father. Rather, he is the father of our mortal bodies, the first man.
The Mormon scholar Stephen E. Robinson offered the following explanation in his book "Are Mormons Christian?":
"Yet another way in which anti-Mormon critics often misrepresent LDS doctrine is in the presentation of anomalies as though they were the doctrine of the Church. Anomalies occur in every field of human endeavor, even in science. An anomaly is something unexpected that cannot be explained by the existing laws or theories, but which does not constitute evidence for changing the laws and theories. An anomaly is a glitch.... 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 have tried to figure out what Brigham Young might have actually said and what it might have meant, but the attempts have always failed. The reported statements simply do not compute-we cannot make sense out of them. This is not a matter of believing it or disbelieving it; we simply don't know what 'it' is. If Brigham Young were here we could ask him what he actually said and what he meant by it, but he is not here.... 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...the Church has merely set the phenomenon aside as an anomaly."
This isn't something the details need to be given for your indvidual salvation. Just know that God the Father and father Adam, the first mortal father, are not the same individuals.