The second prophet of the Church of
Jesus Christ of latter-day saints was
Brigham Young. President Young was known
as a pretty fiery guy. If he had
something to say, you can bet he was
gonna say it. Most of the time that was
great! Sometimes it wasn't. And sometimes
we really just have no idea what to do
with what he says. I don't understand a
word you just said.
One BYU professor, Stephen Robinson said,
"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."
So essentially what we have is Brigham
Young teaching a few different times
that Adam, as in Adam and Eve, was God the
Father in mortal form. In early
statements Brigham Young seemed pretty
sure about this, but as time went on his
language became a little less forceful
and a little more opinion based. For the
sake of time I'm gonna just throw up a
bunch of stuff he said and if you're
interested you can pause the video and
go through and read them. Now when you
just look at these quotes, it seems
pretty clear where Brigham stood on the
subject. And I'm personally just fine
with the idea that Brigham Young was
mistaken. But it's also not that simple,
because for every reference to Adam as
God, there are even more references where
Brigham Young teaches that Adam is just
Adam and God is God. Two separate beings.
Steven Robinson said, "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 statement 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." An apostle elder Bruce our
McConkey echoed that statement: "What I am
saying is that Brigham Young,
contradicted Brigham Young, and the issue
becomes one of which Brigham Young we
will believe. The answer is we will
believe the expressions that accord with
the teachings in the Standard Works." And
the fact is that the standard works do
not teach that Adam was God the Father.
It's not a doctrine of the restored
gospel.
It wasn't something Brigham Young
presented to the quorum of the twelve, in
fact, at least one of the apostles of
Brigham's day, Orson Pratt, pushed back
against the teaching. A later prophet,
Spencer W. Kimball denounced it. So the
next question is, if prophets can make
mistakes like this, then how can we trust
that anything the prophets say is true?
Keep in mind two things: First,
these early Saints including Brigham
Young, were all converts to the church.
Everyone, especially converts, and
especially in the early days of the
restoration, learn doctrine line upon line. That's a lifetime process.
We're all
ugly sharp rocks in a rock tumbler, and
over time those edges get smoothed out.
Nowadays there are checks in place to
make sure that all official doctrine is
unanimously agreed upon by the First
Presidency and Quorum of the 12. Second, I
reference another quote from Brigham
Young, "I am more afraid that this people
have so much confidence in their leaders
that they will not inquire for
themselves of God whether they're led by
him... Let every man and woman know, by the
whisperings of the Spirit of God to
themselves, whether their leaders are
walking in the path the Lord dictates or
not." We do believe God answers prayers. So
if you run into something you're not
sure about, study it out in your mind and
see if God has anything else to say
about it. Even the Church's official newsroom says: "Individual members are
encouraged to independently strive to
receive their own spiritual confirmation
of the truthfulness of church doctrine.
Moreover, the Church exhorts all people
to approach the gospel not only
intellectually but with the intellect
and the spirit, a process in which reason
and faith work together." So that's the
notorious Adam-God theory. It was a thing,
but... it's not a thing.
Let me know if you have any
questions, the link in the description to
our website might answer them. I'll also
throw in a few other resources in the
description, and have a great day!
