Adam-God Makes Sense To Occultists

Alan · October 15, 2015

Status? Blech!
What's important is the kind of person we are. How intelligent, and how much we love, and how well we do what we do.
The idea that our "job" gives us a high or low status is repulsive to me, especially when we're talking about serving other members of our family.
But then again, yeah, parents should be considered a step up above their children. Right?

Adam got the job because of the person he was, his intelligence, and the extent of his love.

JLHPROF · October 15, 2015

Adam got the job because of the person he was, his intelligence, and the extent of his love.

If you don't accept Adam-God then this is as good an explanation as any. He has some pretty high authority.

thesometimesaint · October 15, 2015

Status? Blech!
What's important is the kind of person we are. How intelligent, and how much we love, and how well we do what we do.
The idea that our "job" gives us a high or low status is repulsive to me, especially when we're talking about serving other members of our family.
But then again, yeah, parents should be considered a step up above their children. Right?

The only real difference between me and my children is that I have at least 21 years more of mortal experience than they do.

SmileyMcGee · October 15, 2015

That doesn't even make sense in LDS Theology. Adam holds the key to his dispensation on earth. Which is all of us. At Adam-ondi-Ahman he will turn over his keys to Christ. It is Christ alone who holds the keys to Everlasting Life and Salvation .

For it to be doctrine in the Church it must be accepted by the unanimous agreement of the Church. The Adam God theory never met that test. Everything done in the Endowment is at least alluded to in our Scriptures especially the promises we make. I see nothing in it that even alludes to Adam is our God.

Not to derail, but can you provide references for the need for unanimous acceptance by the church for something to be doctrine? Can you more clearly define what constitutes "unanimous agreement?" Every member? Every leader above a certain level? How frequently does this agreement have to be made? Since past leaders and members are subject to being victims of the time and culture in which they live, should we be constantly taking a vote for what constitutes doctrine? Is this how the church has always operated? I don't seem to recall votes being taken in the the BOM or the Bible...

Edited October 15, 2015 by SmileyMcGee

Zakuska · October 15, 2015

Are you saying that you don't believe that Brigham Young attempted to add his Adam/God teachings to the endowment? I didn't think that was even in question.

Do a search for "lecture at the veil" and read the information on it. I won't post any links because of board rules here.

Here's this quote from FairMormon:

I don't think previously unpublished information breaks the board rules.

Doctrine of the Priesthood Vol 2 No. 1 - Unpublished Adam-God Discourses of Brigham Young

(Diary of L. John Nuttall, February 7, 1877 Special collections, BYU Library)

https://books.google.com/books?id=IuI-MnVYTR4C&pg=PA65&lpg=PA65&dq=lecture+at+the+veil&source=bl&ots=fo9xFGdwqM&sig=Z733RbP0ybu1J4jmHwoKgaiDEgY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CFsQ6AEwDWoVChMI2-2C5_7EyAIVAvVjCh3oVQvl#v=onepage&q=lecture%20at%20the%20veil&f=false

Edited October 15, 2015 by Zakuska

SmileyMcGee · October 15, 2015

repeat

Edited October 15, 2015 by SmileyMcGee

thesometimesaint · October 15, 2015

Not to derail, but can you provide references for the need for unanimous acceptance by the church for something to be doctrine? Can you more clearly define what constitutes "unanimous agreement?" Every member? Every leader above a certain level? How frequently does this agreement have to be made? Since past leaders and members are subject to be victims of the time and culture in which they live, should we be constantly taking a vote for what constitutes doctrine? Is this how the church has always operated? I don't seem to recall votes being taken in the the BOM or the Bible...

Common Consent

SEE https://www.lds.org/scriptures/gs/common-consent?lang=eng

I've been a member a long time, and I remember quite clearly voting to sustain the BOM and the Bible. Of course we sustain all leaders, and callings in their respective authority. Usually it is at the Ward level, then Stake, then General Authorities of the Church level. IE; Unless your in my Ward a calling to the Sunday School Presidency in my Ward is normally outside your purview.

Ahab · October 15, 2015

If you don't accept Adam-God then this is as good an explanation as any. He has some pretty high authority.

Same authority as anyone else with the fullness of the priesthood. And he has the same stewardship over his children as any other man has over his children. He just has more children than any of his children do.

JLHPROF · October 15, 2015

Same authority as anyone else with the fullness of the priesthood. And he has the same stewardship over his children as any other man has over his children. He just has more children than any of his children do.

No, I think he has some pretty specific authority not held by every man who receives "fullness of priesthood".

But I agree with you about the stewardship.

Ahab · October 15, 2015

No, I think he has some pretty specific authority not held by every man who receives "fullness of priesthood".
But I agree with you about the stewardship.

We probably agree on the other part too if we allow for a variance in semantics.

If authority is defined as what his and our Father has authorized someone to do then yes I am sure Adam has been authorized to do some things that others of us who have the fullness of the priesthood haven't been authorized to do, yet.

JLHPROF · October 15, 2015

We probably agree on the other part too if we allow for a variance in semantics.
If authority is defined as what his and our Father has authorized someone to do then yes I am sure Adam has been authorized to do some things that others of us who have the fullness of the priesthood haven't been authorized to do, yet.

Well take this quote -

"Adam holds the keys of the dispensation of the fullness of times; i.e., the dispensation of all the times have been and will be revealed through him from the beginning to Christ, and from Christ to the end of all the dispensations that are to be revealed. …

“… [God] set the ordinances to be the same forever and ever, and set Adam to watch over them, to reveal them from heaven to man, or to send angels to reveal them." - Joseph Smith

So Adam presides over ALL dispensations.

Adam authorized the revealing (restoration) of ALL ordinances necessary for exaltation.

Adam will receive ALL that the other dispensation heads preside over at the Council of Adam-Ondi-Ahman (and then turn it over to his heir Jesus Christ).

This helps us understand why the Church of the Firstborn (those of us who reach the Celestial level) is first Adam's Church (Abraham 1:3) and then becomes Christ's Church (D&C 93:21-22).

Basic family law and inheritances.

Edited October 15, 2015 by JLHPROF

SmileyMcGee · October 15, 2015

Common Consent
SEE https://www.lds.org/scriptures/gs/common-consent?lang=eng
I've been a member a long time, and I remember quite clearly voting to sustain the BOM and the Bible. Of course we sustain all leaders, and callings in their respective authority. Usually it is at the Ward level, then Stake, then General Authorities of the Church level. IE; Unless your in my Ward a calling to the Sunday School Presidency in my Ward is normally outside your purview.

The word "consent" in the term "common consent" is quite the misnomer. Consent implies that one's position on a matter can affect the outcome. Both you and lds.org give sustaining officers (lds.org gives this as the only example) as an example of common consent in action. However, the opportunity to sustain and the opportunity to consent are not the same. In addition, I still haven't seen an example of common consent as it pertains to the ratification of a teaching as doctrine, nor, in my lifetime, have I ever been asked to vote on whether the scriptures or teachings of modern prophets are doctrine. This notion of common consent regarding doctrine is nonsense. Edited October 16, 2015 by SmileyMcGee

JLHPROF · October 15, 2015

This notion of common consent regarding doctrine is nonsense.

Nor does it affect truthfulness in any way. True is true with or without common consent. False is false even with common consent.

People are fallible last I checked.

Ahab · October 15, 2015

Well take this quote -
"Adam holds the keys of the dispensation of the fullness of times; i.e., the dispensation of all the times have been and will be revealed through him from the beginning to Christ, and from Christ to the end of all the dispensations that are to be revealed. …
“… [God] set the ordinances to be the same forever and ever, and set Adam to watch over them, to reveal them from heaven to man, or to send angels to reveal them." - Joseph Smith
So Adam presides over ALL dispensations.
Adam authorized the revealing (restoration) of ALL ordinances necessary for exaltation.
Adam will receive ALL that the other dispensation heads preside over at the Council of Adam-Ondi-Ahman (and then turn it over to his heir Jesus Christ).
This helps us understand why the Church of the Firstborn (those of us who reach the Celestial level) is first Adam's Church (Abraham 1:3) and then becomes Christ's Church (D&C 93:21-22).
Basic family law and inheritances.

Yes, I see it as a family reorganization, too

All of us started out as (spirit) children of our Father in heaven, just one big happy(?) family, with all of us (the children) having the same Father in heaven. None of us (the children of our parents) were parents at that point, since we had had only one birth at that point.

And then later all of us started coming here, gradually, with Adam and Eve being the first of us children to come here. They were with us before as our brother and sister, but then they started to gain an additional stewardship role as parents to all of the rest of us as we were eventually born through them as we were born again on this planet. Not that our original Father wasn't our Father anymore. We just gained additional parents as each of us were born through Adam and Eve either directly or through some of their other children.

So it's all one big family reorganization, with each of us still having our Father in heaven as the Father of all of us and then Adam and Eve also becoming the parents of all of us, too.

And now we have, what, how many fathers???

And to think we all started out as just children.

SmileyMcGee · October 16, 2015

delete

Edited October 16, 2015 by SmileyMcGee

Hillel2 · October 16, 2015

This is a good article on how Brigham Young's Adam-God doctrine is really about the Adam Kadmon from Hermetic Kabbalah.

http://church-discipline.blogspot.com/2012/03/thoughts-about-adam-god.html

"Joseph in teaching Adam Kadmon would have been teaching a lost doctrine of early Christianity (at least of some major sects) that is engaging in Christian restoration. His belief in this doctrine would be fully consistent with the 'bible is true in so far as it is translated correctly ' as this is a doctrine which comes directly from a good understanding of the originals. This doctrine justifies many of his other theological shifts. And the doctrine isn't even much of a stretch since, the idea of a heavenly Adam can easily be thought of as the 'spirit child Adam '.
I think it not just possible but likely that Brigham was preaching this, but being a bit loose on a few occasions about distinguishing between Adam Kadmon and material Adam. What's more Adam Kadmon in Judaism is the father of all human souls, which is Elohim's role in traditional Mormonism. As mentioned above Adam Kadmon is seen as either the father of the earthly Jesus, or earthly Jesus is an incarnation of Adam Kadmon. And equally material Adam is either the son or an incarnation of Adam Kadmon. So I can easily see how the roles in a few paragraph summary of Brigham's sermons got muddled. For example in the December 28 1845, Adam-God sermon Brigham talks about how Adam got his name from the 'more ancient Adam ', which would be confusing to anyone not familiar with this doctrine.
[...]

And so I propose:
a) That Joseph Smith ran across a very mainstream Hermetic Christian doctrine in his studies.
b) That Joseph Smith taught this theory to Brigham.
c) That Brigham gave a few lectures on it over a period of decades, but did not cite the Hebrew. Rather he used terms like 'father Adam' for Adam Kadmon and Adam/'our father Adam' for material Adam.
d) Because he did a bad job explicating this theory, the roles got muddled in the reports of these lectures and a folk Mormonism developed with these muddled roles / theology.
e) The muddled roles got passed on to fundamentalist sects and codified.
Is all you have to believe to fully believe the LDS church's version of events. What I would suggest is go back and read Brigham's reported sermons with this doctrine in mind, and you'll see how they suddenly make sense.

Hello Tsuzuki. I don't have it in front of me but in Briney's (sp?) the Adam-G-d Theory one of the members of the Twelve Apostles under Brigham Young (or it may have been BY himself) cites the "ancient Jewish belief" in Adam as G-d. While i can't give You the exact quote at the moment, i'm certain of it. I have always thought the AG theory was some kind of a permutation on Kabbalistic notions of Adam-Kadmon...it was one of the things that drew me to study LDS theology.

Zakuska · October 16, 2015

So I've been reading through the previously unpublished Adam God Doctrines of BY book from BYU special collections I linked earlier, and found something intresting. This apparently is from a letter of resignation that was tendered to the President of the Church at the time:

You teach that a faithful son of Adam's is called behind the veil and has no priesthood, God (Adam) cannot give him any. He must wait until he gets it from earth where you have all the power. If he has no wife or wives (and you teach that he must have at least three or he cannot have the highest glory), God (adam) is utterly Unable to help him. You have the keys and he must wait your leisure and pleasure.

https://books.google.com/books?id=IuI-MnVYTR4C&pg=PA65&lpg=PA65&dq=lecture+at+the+veil&source=bl&ots=fo9xFGdwqM&sig=Z733RbP0ybu1J4jmHwoKgaiDEgY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CFsQ6AEwDWoVChMI2-2C5_7EyAIVAvVjCh3oVQvl#v=onepage&q=lecture%20at%20the%20veil&f=false

So apparently the Apostles of the church at the time were teaching that to Attain the Highest degree in the Celestial Kingdom you had to have 3 wives? Can anyone shed more light on this interesting tid bit?

The Bishops court was held on January 17, 1885. This Letter was tendered to President John Taylor.

Edited October 16, 2015 by Zakuska

JLHPROF · October 16, 2015

So I've been reading through the previously unpublished Adam God Doctrines of BY book from BYU special collections I linked earlier, and found something intresting. This apparently is from a letter of resignation that was tendered to the President of the Church at the time:

https://books.google.com/books?id=IuI-MnVYTR4C&pg=PA65&lpg=PA65&dq=lecture+at+the+veil&source=bl&ots=fo9xFGdwqM&sig=Z733RbP0ybu1J4jmHwoKgaiDEgY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CFsQ6AEwDWoVChMI2-2C5_7EyAIVAvVjCh3oVQvl#v=onepage&q=lecture%20at%20the%20veil&f=false

So apparently the Apostles of the church at the time were teaching that to Attain the Highest degree in the Celestial Kingdom you had to have 3 wives? Can anyone shed more light on this interesting tid bit?

Some fundamentalist groups believe this - they consider three wives a "quorum". At least in my readings.

HappyJackWagon · October 16, 2015

So I've been reading through the previously unpublished Adam God Doctrines of BY book from BYU special collections I linked earlier, and found something intresting. This apparently is from a letter of resignation that was tendered to the President of the Church at the time:

https://books.google.com/books?id=IuI-MnVYTR4C&pg=PA65&lpg=PA65&dq=lecture+at+the+veil&source=bl&ots=fo9xFGdwqM&sig=Z733RbP0ybu1J4jmHwoKgaiDEgY&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CFsQ6AEwDWoVChMI2-2C5_7EyAIVAvVjCh3oVQvl#v=onepage&q=lecture%20at%20the%20veil&f=false

So apparently the Apostles of the church at the time were teaching that to Attain the Highest degree in the Celestial Kingdom you had to have 3 wives? Can anyone shed more light on this interesting tid bit?

That's correct. Fundamentalists still teach the varying levels of exaltation are connected with the number of wives you attain, 1-3-7+. The symbolism of the degrees of glory and the numbers of wives used to also be found on the temple garment in the form of the ribbons/lacing used to close the garment.

I'll try to find a reference for that but make no promises. I know I've also heard it referenced on the Year of Polygamy podcast in reference to fundamentalists.

thesometimesaint · October 18, 2015

The word "consent" in the term "common consent" is quite the misnomer. Consent implies that one's position on a matter can affect the outcome. Both you and lds.org give sustaining officers (lds.org gives this as the only example) as an example of common consent in action. However, the opportunity to sustain and the opportunity to consent are not the same. In addition, I still haven't seen an example of common consent as it pertains to the ratification of a teaching as doctrine, nor, in my lifetime, have I ever been asked to vote on whether the scriptures or teachings of modern prophets are doctrine. This notion of common consent regarding doctrine is nonsense.

SEE OD 1 and OD 2.

JLHPROF · October 18, 2015

SEE OD 1 and OD 2.

Ah yes. OD1.

Voted on by common consent. Passed by a percentage of the members (many abstained, a few nays).

And summarily ignored by most General Authorites as not binding despite the vote and considered to change no doctrine, and merely be administrative.

Common consent means nothing to the truth of a doctrine any more than a sustaining vote for or against changes the office of Pres. Monson. God's true kingdom is not a democracy, but people consent to accept or reject what God says and accept the consequences for good or bad.

thesometimesaint · October 18, 2015

Ah yes. OD1.
Voted on by common consent. Passed by a percentage of the members (many abstained, a few nays).
And summarily ignored by most General Authorites as not binding despite the vote and considered to change no doctrine, and merely be administrative.
Common consent means nothing to the truth of a doctrine any more than a sustaining vote for or against changes the office of Pres. Monson. God's true kingdom is not a democracy, but people consent to accept or reject what God says and accept the consequences for good or bad.

I agree. We are not a democracy. We don't vote for or against anything in the Church. The raising of hands is to personally confirm our support of the person/idea being presented. That being said all it takes is one person's objection to not have the person or idea accepted by the Church. However it must be a well substantiated objection.

Edited October 18, 2015 by thesometimesaint

volgadon · October 19, 2015

I was looking forward to reading the blog post in the OP, but it is terribly muddled.

Adam-God Makes Sense To Occultists

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