The ‘Adam-God’ theory — Section 25
Representative of a Christian church:
I have here before me a discourse written by the second Mormon prophet, Brigham Young. It is commonly known as the ‘Adam-God’ discourse. It includes the following: “Gentiles, Saints, and Sinners — When our Father Adam came into the Garden of Eden, he came into it with a celestial body and brought Eve, one of his wives, with him. He helped to make and organize this world, he is Michael the Archangel, the Ancient of Days, about whom holy men have written and spoken. He is our Father and our God, and the only God with whom we have to do.” Thus, we learn that the Mormons worship Adam as God and as such, it would have been Adam who would have been the Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ. This ‘doctrine’ is simply wrong and unacceptable.
Missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints:
Gentlemen, I am going to put the words of the Apostle Paul on trial, as you have just put the words of Brigham Young on trial. You have just used ‘sentence separation’ or ‘scriptural rail splitting’ to take a some statements of Brigham Young out of context and put them together in a way that was not intended. In 1 Corinthians 7:1 Paul stated that, “…It is good for a man not to touch a woman.” We could easily do more research and find out the context in which Paul made this statement and what he wanted to convey, but we shall not do that. We shall do some ‘rail splitting’ of our own. Remembering that Paul suggested that men not touch women, we will now read in Genesis 1:28 where God commanded Adam to “…be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.” If Paul were on trial, we could state that Paul told us not to touch women, but God commanded us to multiply and replenish the earth. Who are we going to follow and believe, God or Paul? How can we have children without touching women? This pits Paul against God. You are, in essence, putting Brigham Young in the same situation as Paul appears to be. Let us present as clearly as we can, what Brigham Young probably meant with his statements about Adam.
We read in the Brigham Young discourse where Adam was subordinate to the Supreme Creator, as it states that Adam “helped to make and organize this earth.” Brigham Young also taught that there were three beings that created the earth — Elohim, Jehovah, and Michael. Notice that Michael’s name was listed third. The fact that Adam was a god is established in scripture, as is the fact that there was more than one person involved in the creation of the earth. God said, “Let us make man in OUR image”, indicating the plurality of persons involved in the Creation. In Genesis 3:5 we learn that Adam and Eve had become “as Gods, knowing good from evil.” Christ himself taught that a man could be and was a God. In John 10:34-35 we read, “Is it not written in your law, I said Ye are gods? If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken.”
Now we have established that Adam was a god, and we have proven from the discourse he was a subordinate to the Supreme Creator, and one of three persons involved in the creation of the earth. We can now examine why he “…is the only god with whom we have to do.” God, by his almighty powers, has created other worlds, in fact, worlds without number. Even science is now wondering about life on other planets. Adam was the father of the human race, in the sense of being the first physical father. Therefore, Brigham Young points out the fact that “Adam is our Father and our God”. Other worlds of God’s creations would have men such as Adam, who became as gods, knowing good from evil, and who were gods (as Christ mentioned) and in the sense we have mentioned, be ‘fathers’ over their worlds. As our physical father (to whom every living human can trace their lineage), Adam is, in this sense, “the only God with whom we all have to do.” Adam worshipped God Almighty, and we worship God Almighty also. Our first Article of Faith states that “we believe in God the Eternal Father, and in his Son Jesus CHrist, and in the Holy Ghost.” This perhaps was Brigham Young’s way of telling the story of the creation, only he used an unusual approach. Adam is our father, and the father of the human race. He is a God, and if Adam had not lived and brought forth seed, we would not be here today. He is the only man who ever lied to whom all of us can trace our genealogy directly, and therefore, is the “only god with whom we have to do”. We still believe that salvation comes by Jesus Christ (Acts 4:12), that we must worship God Almighty and his son Jesus Christ (Matthew 6:9-13), and we do have respect and love for Adam for what he was, the father of the human race.
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