Adam as God in Evolution

Having already established two possible versions of Adam worth accepting, Adam as symbolic myth and Adam as (first) prophet, it's become clear that some what even more. Saying that Adam was merely the first father of the faithful, similar to Abraham, doesn't seem to go far enough. We want him to to have had a real fall. A fall which is more meaningful than our fall into mortality. A fall which actually effects us and the world in some way.

The final version of Adam that we will consider can, in fact, accomplish this. Not only that, but prophets have actually taught this version of Adam in the past, something which cannot be said for the other two versions. The draw back, however, is that this version of Adam has long since fallen into disrepute. We are having a hard enough time as it is trying to get members to believe in one theory which many if not most church leaders reject (evolution). How could we ever get them to accept another with it (Adam-God doctrine)?

I will not attempt a full expose of the doctrine and its difficulties here, except as applied to evolution. For those who want to discuss the merits and demerits of the doctrine in general should go to my site here where I have launched a preemptive strike of sorts.

It was Hugh Nibley who first indirectly pointed to the possibility of this version of Adam as related to evolution: "One of our biggest stumbling blocks is not knowing how Adam relates to other beings, earthly and heavenly. That is the root of the Adam-God misunderstanding. (Until we care to look into the matter seriously, I will keep my opinions in a low profile.)" A tantalizing quote to say the least.

The main proponent of the A/G doctine by any account was Brigham Young. Though others did believe and teach the doctrine as well, Brigham had the clearest concepts regarding what this doctrine entailed. Brigham was, by all accounts, the origin of the doctrine in everybody else who believed it with one notable exception. Brigham Young claimed on numerous occasions to have recieved the doctrine from Joseph Smith. Joseph's plural wife, Helen Mar Whitney backed up this claim by Brigham. While some of Joseph's later teaching seem to point in the A/G direction, we have no record of him actually reaching the A/G in his teachings, so we will focus instead on Brigham's ideas.

It might be profitable to here look at Brigham's ideas concerning evolution since he seems to have maintained a very different view of the creation of man compared to the rest of us today.

"I am not astonished that infidelity prevails to a great extent among the inhabitants of the earth, for the religious teachers of the people advance many ideas and notions for truth which are in opposition to and contradict facts demonstrated by science, and which are generally understood.
"You take, for instance, our geologists, and they tell us that this earth has been in existence for thousands and millions of years. They think, and they have good reason for their faith, that their researches and investigations enable them to demonstrate that this earth has been in existence as long as they assert it has; and they say, 'If the Lord, as religionists declare, made the earth out of nothing in six days, six thousand years ago, our studies are all in vain; but by what we can learn from nature and the immutable laws of the Creator as revealed therein, we know that your theories are incorrect and consequently we must reject your religions as false and vain....'
"In these respects we differ from the Christian world, for our religion will not clash with or contradict the facts of science in any particular. You may take geology, for instance, and it is a true science; not that I would say for a moment that all the conclusions and deductions of its professors are true, but its leading principles are; they are facts—they are eternal; and to assert that the Lord made this earth out of nothing is preposterous and impossible. God never made something out of nothing...
"If we understood the process of creation there would be no mystery about it, it would be all reasonable and plain, for there is no mystery except to the ignorant... How long it [the Earth] had been organized is not for me to say, and I do not care anything about it. As for the Bible account of the creation we may say that the Lord gave it to Moses, or rather Moses obtained the history and traditions of the fathers, and from them picked out what he considered necessary, and that account has been handed down from age to age, and we have got it, no matter whether it is correct or not, and whether the Lord found the earth empty or void, whether he made it out of nothing or out of the rude elements; or whether he made it in six days or in as many millions of years, is and will remain a matter of speculation in the minds of men unless he gives revelation on the subject" JD 14:115-117

"How pleased we would be to place these thing before the people if they would receive them! How much unbelief exists in the mind of the Latter-Day Saints in regard to one particular doctrine which I revealed unto them, and which God revealed to me--namely that Adam is our father and God--I do not know, I do not inquire, I care nothing about it. Our Father Adam helped to make this earth, it was created expressly for him, and after it was made he and his companions came here, He brought one of his wives with him, and she was Called Eve, because she was the first woman upon the earth. Our Father Adam is the man who stand at the gate and holds the keys of everlasting life and salvation to all his children who have or whoever will come upon the earth. I have been found fault with by the ministers of religion because I have said that they were ignorant. But I could not find any man on the earth who cold tell me this, although it is one of the simplest things in the world, until I met and talked with Joseph Smith.
[In clarifying certain remarks made by his brother, Joseph Young, the President said:] "My brother said that God is as we are. He did not mean those words to be literally understood. He meant simply, that in our organization we have all the properties in embryo in our bodies that our Father has in his , and that literally, morally, socially, by the spirit and by the flesh we are his children, Do you think that God, who holds the eternities in his hands and can do all things at his pleasure, is not capable of sending forth his own children, and forming this flesh for his own offspring? Where is the mystery in this? We say that Father Adam came here and helped to make the earth. Who is he? He is Michael: a great Prince, and it was said to him by Elohim, "Go ye and make an earth." What is the great mystery about it? He came and formed the earth. Geologists tell us that it was here millions of years ago. How do thy know? They know nothing about it but suppose it was here, what of it? Adam found it in a state of chaos, unorganized and incomplete. Philosophers, again, in talking of the development of the products of the Earth, for instance, in the vegetable kingdom, say the little fibers grew first, then the larger vegetation. When this preparatory stage was completed then came the various orders of the animal creation; and finally man appeared. No matter whether these notions are true or not, they are more or less speculative. Adam came here and got it up in a shape that would suit Him to commence business. What is the mystery about it? None that I have seen.
"Adam came here, and they brought his wife. "Well," says one, "why was Adam called Adam?" He was the first man on the earth, and its framer and maker. He, with the help of his brethren, brought it into existence. Then he said, "I want my children who are in the spirit world to come and live here. I once dwelt upon an earth something like this, in a mortal state. I was faithful, I received my crown and exaltation.. I have the privilege of extending my work, and to its increase there will be no end. I want my children that were born to me in the spirit world to come here and take tabernacles of flesh that their spirits may have a house, a tabernacle or a dwelling place as mine has, and where is the mystery?
"Now for mother Eve. The evil principle always has and always will exist. Well, a certain character came along, and said to Mother Eve, "The Lord has told you that you must not do so and so, for if you do you shall surely die. But I tell you that if you do not do this you will never know good from evil, your eyes will never be opened, and you may live on the earth forever and ever, and you will never know what the Gods know." The evil told the truth, what is the mystery about it? He is doing it today. He is telling one or two truths and mixing them with a thousand errors to get the people to swallow them. I do not blame Mother Eve, I would not have had her miss eating the forbidden fruit for any thing in the world. I would not give a groat it I could not understand light from darkness." Deseret News, June 18, 1873

I should note that the things which Brigham considered so speculative more than a century ago are no longer very speculative. Brigham Young was somewhat skeptical of evolution for a number of reasons: 1) the false theory of social darwinism which was being taught in relation to evolution was directly contrary to the United Order he was at that time trying to establish. 2) Darwin's book didn't come out until very late in his life and it doesn't appear that he ever gave the book a read through. 3) Brigham was like most religious people at the time and was very skeptical of theories which did not exactly conform to the revelations he considered true. Luckily for us, he wisely allowed the theory some elbow room just in case further investigation demonstrated its validity.

It should also be noted that when Apostle Orson Hyde in a general conference talk in October 1854 said: "The world was peopled before the days of Adam.When God said, Go forth and replenish the earth, it was to replenish the inhabitants of the human species, and make it as it was before," Brigham commented: "I do not wish to eradicate any items from the lecture Elder Hyde has given us this evening... We have had a splendid address from brother Hyde, for which I am grateful. I feel in my heart to bless the people all the time, and can say amen to brother Hyde's last remarks."

That said, we must confess that all of Brigham's ideas surrounding A/G can fit into our evolutionary model. We must deal with the preexistence and spirit birth and the fall. After that, I will attempt to present a version of the A/G theory which some may find acceptable.

We have already seen that accepting a literal spirit birth while up holding evolution is very difficult if not impossible. The same holds for BY's views. He believed Adam to be the father of us all, both spiritually and physically speaking. While it is not what BY believed it is still possible to "socialize" our spirit birth by saying that we were adopted by A/G in the preexistence.

With regards to the fall, some of BY's will also need to be modified. For one, the earth has always been fallen. If we take the second quote from BY seriously though, this does not present to big of a problem either. Where the problem does arise is in the fall of man, but this is also where the strength of this version of Adam comes into play. Adam already was our father when He fell, therefore His fall actually could affect us somehow. We need, however, to be more specific than "somehow". The fall introduced four things: 1) spiritual death, 2) physical death, 3) procreation and 4) knowledge.

With regards to spiritual death, Brigham's views are rather murky. He doesn't seem to have believed that Adam sinned in eating the fruit. He continued to maintain that Adam transgressed a commandment but he strongly felt that it was intended by God and Adam that this would happen. This is not sin by anybodies definition. It seems that BY was slightly modifying his statements or perhaps his beliefs in order to better accord with scripture. What I am suggesting is that under BY's doctrine, Adam didn't really suffer a spiritual death in the same way that we do because He never actually sinned. He was separated from the "presence of God", but this should be clarified since He was God. Put another way, He was separated from the presence of the Gods in heaven, the same as we are at birth. It would seem, then, that Adam suffered the same spiritual death that babies do at birth and nothing more. (It should also be noted that this was the same spiritual death which Jesus also suffered.) This is interesting because it almost suggests that BY believed exactly what we have already said in previous posts, namely that spiritual death is almost entirely an individual process.

As to physical death, our response will be similar. While Adam came to earth an made Himself mortal, He didn't necessarily cause mortality in anyone other than Himself. The earth was already a fallen place and whenever it was that He came, there were already men and women living and dying in the world.

The same can be said for procreation, though there are further issues regarding procreation which must be addressed. In our posts on spirit birth and self-existing spirits Greg noted that we must account for the "continuation of lives" promises as found in section 132. We noted that Joseph never specified whether these would be spritual lives (in which case we can still adopt the "spiritual adoption" model) or physical. In fact, Nauvoo sources seem to indicate that Joseph believed that it would actually be a continuation of parenting physical children. Consider a few quotes:

"In teaching us the 'Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man', we could begin to see why we should 'love God supremely and our brother as ourselves' - He [Joseph] taught us that God was the great head of human procreation -was really and truly the Father of our spirits and our bodies." - Benjamin F. Johnson
"Now regarding Adam: He came here from another planet an immortalized being and brought his wife, Eve, with him, and by eating of the fruits of this earth became subject to death and decay and he became of the earth, earthly, was made mortal and subject to death." - Anson Call.
"A tenfold glory, that's the prize! Without it [Eternal Marriage] you're undone! But with it you will shine as bright as the bright shining sun. There you may shine like mighty Gods, creating worlds so fair, at least a world for every wife that you take with you there." - A satirical expose of Joseph's secret Nauvoo teachings printed in the Warsaw Message Feb. 7, 1844

In was because of this very doctrine that both Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball were preaching things which were very A/G-like only a couple of months after Joseph's death.

Here, I suspect, is the connection between what Joseph taught in Nauvoo and what Brigham taught in Salt Lake. Joseph believed that spirits are not created, they are co-eternal with God. He therefore believed that the "continuation of seeds" referred to physical birth. It was already clear well before Nauvoo that J.S. believed that Adam was a physical son of God. What B.Y. believed was that Adam was the God who had physical sons. The title of God was moved from Adam's father to Adam himself. Now did B.Y. do this or did J.S.? It is unclear, but it seems clear that Brigham strongly believed that either J.S. did it, or was definitely on his way to doing it himself. After all, which way helps God, whoever He is, continue His seeds more: coming to earth for a little bit and having one son named Adam or coming to earth for a long time and giving birth to many sons named Cain, Able, Seth, etc.?

With regards to the gaining knowledge part of the fall we can also see that Brigham's view would be different than most members'. Adam did not learn much of anything that He hadn't already learned elsewhere by partaking of the fruit. Brigham believed that a veil of forgetfulness had been drawn over Adam, but I would suggest that these statements, like those referring to spiritual death, refer to the symbolic Adam (meaning us) than to the Adam-God. We come here to learn, not God.

Why did Adam-God come here then? It depends on where we put Him. We could put Him as one of the Y-Chromosome Adam's. Remember, every single one of the most recent Y.A.'s male ancestors was also a Y.A. as well. Our Adam-God could have been anyone of those men. If such is the case then it would seem that Adam-God came here for one purpose, to procreate. As can be seen from our discussion, this is not necessarily a bad thing.

If we put Adam-God at about 6,000 years ago, as BY certainly would have, he could have come not only to procreate, but to teach, to bring the priesthood and do all the things which we attribute to Jesus in addition to his atonement. We would not, however, under this model be able to maintain that everybody is the descendant of God in the same way or to the same degree. This, as we have seen in other threads, can lead to rather unpleasant consequences.

There is a way out of this. It is not impossible for Adam-God to have fulfilled both roles. There is no contradiction in Him having come to earth twice. This does not necessarily mean that He had to fall twice by eathing the fruit. After all, according to Brigham, there was actually a third time when Adam-God came to earth to sire a child, namely Jesus. (For other questions regarding A/G's relationship to Jesus and the Atonement I would assume deal with those issues at my other site, for they have little to do with evolution as such.)

We can see that the Adam as God version has benefits as well. It is fully compatible with the "symbolic myth" and "(first) prophet" models. It establishes a closer connection with Adam, both physically and spiritually speaking. It also seems to establish a closer connection with God than we were left with in our discussion regarding spirit birth. It also seems to agree with Joseph's King Follett sermon to a large extent as well. It's just that some members are very uneasy with doctrinal renovations which must be made in their mind to accommodate such a doctrine.

Summary: While our previous versions of Adam were acceptable with evolution, they were never taught by any prophet. The version of Adam as God, however, has. While this version has its benefits, its doctrinal corralaries might simply be too much for most members.