Adam-god - Evolution & Origin Of Adam

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Adam-god - Evolution & Origin Of Adam

Adam-God - Evolution & Origin of Adam

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EVOLUTION AND THE ORIGIN OF ADAM

by Keith H. Meservy
Associate Professor of Ancient Scripture
Brigham Young University

It has often been said that the Church has no doctrine
concerning organic evolution. This means to me that we have no
revelation that explains such things as the forms of life in the
strata of the earth, the dinosaurs, the skeletal remains of
manlike beings, the similarity in the embryological data, and
those behavioral aspects of human and other life forms that are
similar. On the other hand, it must be said that the Church
does have a doctrine on man and his origin that is based on the
scriptures as interpreted by the living prophets. In making
their formal statement in 1909 on the position of the Church
regarding the origin of man, the First Presidency said something
that I would like to use as the preface to my remarks. "In
presenting the statement that follows, we are not conscious of
putting forth anything essentially new; neither is it our desire
so to do. Truth is what we wish to present, and truth--eternal
truth--is fundamentally old. A restatement of the original
attitude of the Church relative to this matter is all that will
be attempted here." (Joseph F. Smith, John R. Winder, Anthon H.
Lund, "The Origin of Man," Improvement Era,
Nov. 1909, P. 75.)
It is important for us to be precise about origins, because
in origins we anticipate outcomes. The following ideas, I
believe, fairly represent the teachings of the Church on man.
1 . We believe that as man now is, God once was, and that
the big secret about God is that he is an exalted man (see
Joseph Smith, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, sel.
Joseph Fielding Smith [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1938],
p. 345). The form of man, therefore, existed
long

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before there was a man to till this earth (see Smith, Teachings,
P. 373).
2.We believe that the big secret about man is that God is
his Father, in whose image he is created; consequently, as God
now is, man may become (see Lorenzo Snow, cited in Daniel H.
Ludlow, ed., Latter-day Prophets Speak [Salt Lake City:
Bookcraft, 1948], pp.
71-72).
3. We believe that man's intelligence, the part of him that
identifies him as an individual, has always existed--it was not
created; it, along with God, had no beginning. Thinking
otherwise, in the view of Joseph Smith, lessened man. (See
Smith, Teachings, PP. 352-54.)
4. We believe that by a process of procreation man's
intelligence received a spirit body from a divine heavenly
Father and mother (Mark E. Petersen, "We Believe in God, the
Eternal Father," in Speeches of the Year, 1973 [Provo: Brigham
Young University Press, 1974], pp. 241-42.)
5. We believe that by a process of procreation his spirit
body received a physical body from an earthly father and mother
(see Moses 5:2).
6. We believe that this physical body will be resurrected
in the same form it has in this life--not one hair of the head
being lost, thus perpetuating the form of the mortal body in the
eternities (see Alma 40:22-23).
7.We believe that exalted resurrected beings will have
power in the next life to reproduce their own kind by a process
of procreation, which kind will be formed in their own image
(D&C 132, esp. vss. 30-31, 63).
8.We believe that this process--gods (exalted men and
women) who produce human offspring who grow up and become gods
(exalted men and women) who produce human offspring-has been an
eternal process. There never has been a time when there were
not men and gods, says Brigham Young. (See Discourses of Brigham
Young, sel. John A. Widtsoe [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co.,
1941], pp. 22-23.) Mind boggling? Yes! Who can comprehend
infinity? Who can comprehend God? And yet, one who does not,
says Joseph Smith, does not comprehend himself (see Teaching-St
P. 343).
9. We have no evidence to suggest that the form of man or
gods has changed in all that time. On the other hand, God has
shown his form to man and has emphasized the exactness of the
similarity between them. The form of the physical body is in
the fom of the spirit body, which is in the form of the divine
body (God's body). There was no need to evolve a special
human/divine form in order to have one for this earth. The
pattern has always existed. (Ether 3:15-16; JS--H 17.)
These ideas may be in the mind of a student who has studied
the scriptures and the teachings of the prophets as he reads
Genesis and then reads the evolutionary literature. It should
not be hard, therefore, to see why the prophets have taught that
spiritual as well as physical procreation of their own species
by the gods is the true explanation of the origin of man. What
a simple explanation this is, I.e., to the extent that explainng
birth is simple. And since our discussion deals with the origin
of Adam, this is how it is to be explained. First, the
scriptural evidence. Luke states simply that Adam was "the son
of God" (3:38). In the context of Jesust genealogy that he was
giving, going from Jesus back through the ages to Enos, who was
the son of Seth, who was the son of Adam, who was "the son of
God," it is evident he could have been referring only to
physical lineage. Adam, therefore, is called a son of God; and
regarding sonship, Joseph Smith has said this: "Where was there
ever a son

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without a father? And where was there ever a father without
first being a son? Whenever did a tree or anything spring into
existence without a progenitor? And everything comes in this
way." (Teachings, P. 373.) Elder Bruce R. McConkie's commentary
on Luke 3:38 typifies how this scripture, often referred to by
the Brethren, has been interpreted: "This statement, found also
in Moses 6:22, has a deep and profound significance and also
means what it says. Father Adam came, as indicated, to this
sphere, gaining an immortal body, because death held not yet
entered the world. (2 N(?. 2:22.) Jesus, on the other hand, was
the Only Begotten in the flesh, meaning into a world-of-
mortality where earth - already- reigned." (Doctrinal New
Testament Commentary, 3 vols- [Salt Lake city: Bookcraft.,
1965-731, 1:95; emphasis added.) As indicated by Elder McConkie,
Adam's descent from God appears in Moses 6:22 and very
appropriately in God's pedigree where a "genealogy... of the
children of God" appears (Moses 6:8). Having traced Adam's
posterity down to Enoch, the author then said, "And this is the
genealogy of the sons of Adam, who was the son of God" (Moses
6:22). Thus, "a genealogy was kept of the children of God"
(Moses 6:8). We are linked to Adam, and he is linked to God;
therefore, we are all linked to God. Thus, Brigham Young could
say, "We are flesh of his flesh, bone of his bonett (Journal of
Discourses, 9:283; hereafter cited as JD).
Responding to the question, "Did Christ create man?" Elder
Bruce R. McConkie says:

Jehovah-Christ, assisted by "many of the noble
and great ones" (Abr- 3:22) . . . . did in fact
create the earth and all forms of plant and animal
life on the face thereof. But when it came to
placing man on earth, there was a change in Creators.
That is, the Father himself became personally involved
. . . . In the spirit and again in the flesh, man was
created by the Father.
There was no delegation of authority where the
crowning creature of creation was concerned . . . .
[When God proposed the creation of man, he said to his
Only Begotten,] "Let us make man in our image, after
our likeness; and it was so." (Moses 2:26.) But when
the plan becomes a reality and the proposal an
accomplished fact, then the record personalizes the
occurrence and centers it in the Supreme Head. "And
I, God, created man in mine own image, in the image of
mine Only Begotten created I him; male and female
created I them." (Moses 2:27.) That is, God himself,
personally, created man, although he continued to
honor the Son in that the creature of his creating
came forth in the image of both the Father and the
Son, as necessarily must have been the case because
they were in the image of each other." [The Promised
Messiah (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1978),
pp62-63]

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From the scriptures and divinely inspired interpreters we
learn then that Adam was a son of God. The scriptures also
teach us that man was created in the physical image of his
divine parent (Hebrew selem: image means an exact counterpart).
Having this image is regularly understood by the Brethren as a
consequence of sonship. From Joseph Smith to the present
prophets, these ideas have been taught.
Benjamin F. Johnson, in a letter to George S. Gibbs, said
that the Prophet Joseph Smith "taught us that God was the great
head of human procreation, [and] was really and truly the father
of both our spirits and our bodies" (The Benjamin F. Johnson
Letter to Elder George S. Gibbs [n.p., n.d.], pp. 18-19).
Brigham Young, who often acknowledged Joseph Smith's role as his
teacher, emphasized this great truth. "When Moses wrote and
said that

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man was formed precisely in the image of God he wrote the truth.
We are the children of our Father--his offspring, of the same
family." (Discourses, p. 102; JD, 14:280.) "And God said, let us
make man in our own image, after our likeness: and let them have
dominion. So God created man in his own image, in the image of
God created he him." [Genesis 1:26-27] I believe that the
declaration made in these two scriptures is literally true. God
has made His children like Himself to stand erect, and has
endowed them with intelligence and power and dominion . . . . He
created man, as we create our children; for there is no other
process of creation in heaven, or on the earth... or in all
the eternities, that is, that were, or that ever will be. . . .
There exist fixed laws and regulations by which the elements are
fashioned... and this process of creation is from
everlasting to everlasting." (JD, 11:122.) "He [Adam] was made
as you- and I are made, and no person was ever made upon any
other principle" (JD, 3:319)"These bodies were formed-by him,
and through him, and of him, just as much as the spirit was; for
I will tell you, he comenced and brought forth spirits; and
then, when he completed that work, he somenced and brought forth
tabernacles for those spirits to dwell in. I came through him,
both spirit and body." (JD, 6:31.) "Man is the offspring of God.
. . . We are as much the children of this great Being as we are
children of our mortal progenitors. We are flesh of his flesh,
bone of his bone . . . . As the seeds of grains, vegetables and
fruits produce their kind, so man is in the image of God." (JD,
9:283.) "The Father actually begot the spirits, and they were
brought forth and lived with Him. Then He comenced the work of
creating earthly tabernacles, precisely as He had been created
in this flesh himself, by partaking of the course material that
was organized and composed this earth, until His system was
charged with it, consequently the tabernacles of His children
were organized from the course materials of this earth." (JD,
4:218.)
Many of the early brethren taught related ideas. Elder
Parley P. Pratt, for example, believed that Adam was a son of
God who came from a heavenly colony with his beloved spouse.

When Paradise was lost by sin; when man was
driven from the face of his heavenly Father . . . .
when heaven was veiled from view; and, with few
exceptions, man was no longer counted worthy to retain
the knowledge of his heavenly origin; then, darkness
veiled the past... man neither knew himself, fran
whence he came, nor whither he was bound . . . .
[Moses tried to lead his people to know God] face to
face. But they could not receive his heavenly laws,
or bide his presence.
Thus the holy man was forced again to veil the
past in mystery, and, in the beginning of his history,
assign to man an earthly origin.
Man, moulded from the earth, as a brick!
Woman, manufactured from a rib!
Thus, parents still would fain conceal from
budding manhood the mysteries of procreation, or the
sources of life's ever-flowing river, by relating some
childish tale of new-born life. . . . O man! When wilt
thou cease to be a child in knowledge?
Man, as we have said, is the offspring of Diety
(Key to the Science of Theology, 10th ed. (Salt Lake
City: Deseret Book Co., 1966), pp. 55-561

The First Presidency (Joseph F. Smith, Anthon H. Lund,
Charles W. Penrose) quoted approvingly Brigham Young's teaching
that "father Adam--that is, our earthly father--the progenitor
of the race of man, . . . was not fashioned from earth like an
adobe, but 'begotten by his Father in Heaven.' Adam is called in
the Bible

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'The Son of God' (Luke 3:38)." (James R. Clark, comp., Messages
of the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints, 6 vols. [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1965-751,
4:266; this in turn was quoted approvingly by Joseph Fielding
Smith in Man: His Origin and Destiny [Salt Lake-City: Deseret
Book Co., 19541, pp. 344-45. Jesus Christ was the Only Begotten
Son born in mortality. Adam was not mortal before the Fall.)
In the context of these kinds of ideas the testimony of
President Joseph F. Smith at the Maricopa Stake Conference, 7
December 1913, is very significant: "I know that God is a being
with a body, parts and passions and that his Son is in his own
likeness, and that man is created in the image of God. The Son,
Jesus Christ, grew and developed into manhood the same as you or
I, as likewise did God, his father, grow and develop to the
Supreme Being that he now is. Man was born of woman; Christ the
Savior, was born of woman and God, the Father, was born of
woman. Adam, our earthly parent, was also born of woman into
this world, the same as Jesus and you and I." (Deseret News, 27
Dee. 1913, sec. 3, P. 7.)
In the Church News, 19 September 1936, under the heading
"Man, a Child of God," appeared this introductory comment: "That
man as a descendant of Adam, is, in a most literal sense, a
child of God is emphatically explained in the following group of
brief excerpts from Church records" (p. 2). The first quotation
is the testimony of President Joseph F. Smith given immediately
above. It is followed by two quotations of President Brigham
Young (JD, 8:67; 4:218); then comes Luke's statement about
Jesus' pedigree going back to Adam, who "was the son of God."
Next comes a quotation of Elder Orson F. Whitney: "Revelation
cannot bow to tradition . . . . It did not come into the world
to be mutilated. Truth is the standard-truth as Heaven reveals
it--and the opinions and theories of men must give way. The
Gospel's accessories are no substitute for the Gospel." (P. 8.)
The implication is clear which revealed truth the editor feels
cannot bow either to tradition or the opinions and theories of
men.
Elder Mark E. Petersen adds his own witness that Luke 3:38
teaches the truth (see Adam: Who Is He? [Salt Lake City: Deseret
Book Co., 19761, pp. 5, 13, 16). Elder Joseph Fielding Smith
quoted Brigham Young's teachings on the same concept (see Man:
His Origin and Destiny, PP- 344-466.)
With these quotations as examples of how inspired leaders
have interpreted what being created in the image of God means,
it becomes evident why Elder Joseph F. Merrill could
matter-of-factly say in a general conference of the Church, "The
Church teaches the fact that each of us is a child of God, both
in spirit and in the flesh. [He then emphasized the implication
of this fact.] Since in the realm of life, like begets like, we
normally must possess, even though in ultramicroscopic
quantities, the attributes of God our Father. And a
characteristic teaching of the Church is that I as God now is
man may became--a statement in poetic language of our
magnificent doctrine of eternal progression. Man is in very
deed the acme of creation." (Conference Report, Apr. 1945, P.
113.)
Leaders of the Church, then, teaching "the fact that each
of us is a child of God both in spirit and in the flesh," has
emphatically denied that man has come from anything less than
God. Its leaders have insisted time and again that Adam was the
"first man of all men" on the earth (Moses 1:34); that he was
the primal parent of our race; that he was the head of human
procreation, "our great progenitor"; and that all men on the
earth descend from him (see "Origin of Man," p. 80; Abraham 1:3;
Moses 3:7; 4:26; 6:45). They have emphasized the idea that like
begets like: Adan was like his progenitor, made in his image,
and all other creatures were

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also in the image of their progenitors. In this conceptual
framework the earth was seeded with forms of life from parent
stock taken from an older creation.
Darwin published his Origin of the Species in 1859, so
there was no occasion for Joseph Smith to comment on his ideas.
Other General Authorities, however, have spoken about the
implications of this idea for the scriptural doctrine on man.
Knowing by revelation what they do about man's origin, they have
consistently taught the true idea about man's origin is a son of
God, so that the theories of men do not confuse the Saints about
who they are and why they are here on the earth. Take these
teachings as typical: While acknowledging that geology was a
true science, President Brigham Young also said: "Teach the
people the faith of the Gospel. Teach them what God is, and
what his work is, and that there never was a time such as many
of our philosophers speak of, who drift back and back, and come
to this theory and that theory, and go back, and back to the
time when we were all reptiles." (Discourses, p. 53; JD, 19:49.)
Surely one couldn't believe that we came from reptiles and still
believe, as President Young taught, that Adam was a son of God.
President George Q. Cannon also said that President Brigham
Young "unmistakably declare[d] man's origin to be altogether of
a celestial character--that not only is his spirit of heavenly
descent, but his bodily organization too,--that the latter is
not taken from the lower animals, but fran the originally
celestial body of the great Father of Humanity. . . . 'Look on
this picture'--Man, the offspring of an ape! - 'And on
this--Man, the image of God, his Father." (Millennial Star, Oct.
1861, p. 654.) President Cannon himself taught, "We did not have
monkeys for ancestors, nor any inferior order of beings. We
descended from God. Man was created in His image. He is our
Father." (Gospel Truth 1:1; see also vol. 2, p. 1.) President
John Taylor emphasized how each "kind" in the animal and
vegetable kingdom reproduces by certain laws.
These principles do not change, as represented by
evolutionists of the Darwinian school, but the primitive
organisms of all living beings exist in the same form as when
they first received their impress from their Maker . . . . and
if we take man, he is said to have been made in the image of
God, for the simple reason that he is a son of God . . . in
whose likeness, we are told, he is made. He did not originate
from a chaotic mass of matter, moving or inert, but came forth
possessing, in an embryonic state, all the faculties and powers
of a God. And when he shall be perfected, and have progressed
to maturity, he will be like his Father-a God; being indeed His
offspring. As the horse, the ox, the sheep, and every living
creature, including man, propagates its own species and
perpetuates its own kind, so does God perpetuate His. [The
Mediation and Atonement (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Co.,
1882), 164-651]
The Prophet Joseph Smith also emphasized the idea that kind
must reproduce kind. "It is a decree of the Lord that every
tree, plant, and herb bearing seed should bring forth of its
kind, and cannot come forth after any other law or principle"
(Teachings, p. 198).
At the time of the Scopes trial in Tennessee, Elder George
Albert Smith said, "I'm grateful that in the midst of the
confusion of our Father's children there has been given to the
members of this great organization a sure knowledge of the
origin of man, . . . that man came, not as some have believed,
not as some have preferred to believe, frm sme of the lower
walks of life, but our ancestors were those beings who lived in
the

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courts of heaven. We came not from some menial order of life,
but our ancestor is God our heavenly Father." (Conference
Report, Oct. 1925, p. 33.)
If any man appreciated the evidence of the geologic record
as well as the import of the scriptures, it was Elder James E.
Talmage, a trained Ph.D. geologist, who showed his appreciation
of the value of geology in his famous 1931 talk in the
Tabernacle. However, when he referred to man then, he, just as
Brigham Young did, separated himself from the conclusions of
many in the field of geology by denying in so many words that
man had evolved. Said he, "I do not regard Adam as related
to--certainly not as descended from--the Neanderthal, the
Cro-Magnon, the Peking or the Piltdown man. Adam (name as
divinely created, created and empowered, and stands as the
patriarchal head of his posterity--a posterity, who, if true to
the laws of God are heirs to the Priesthood and to the glories
of eternal lives." ("The Earth and Man," Church News, 21 Nov.
1931, p. 8.) The fact that Elder Talmage refused to accept
Adam's descent from or relation to the standard evolutionary
types recognized by scientists in 1931 clearly shows he rejected
the evolutionary explanation of man's origin.
Elder B. H. Roberts, who is recognized by many as an
erudite writer in the Church, explicitly expressed his
disbelief--in evolution. "The claims of evolution... are
contrary to all experience so far as man's knowledge extends.
The great law of nature is that every plant, herb, fish, beast
and man produces its kind." (The Gospel, an Exposition of Its
First Principles and Man's Relationship to Deity, 8th ed. [Salt
Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1946], p. 282.) If scientists can
show that the earliest strata of the earth have the simplest
foms and the latest the most complex, "until it [the earth]
[was] crowned with the presence of man--all that may be allowed.
But that this gradation of animal and vegetable life owes its
existence to the process of evolution is denied." (Gospel, p.
282.) But what about the evidence for prehistoric man, or pre-
Adamic races? Scientists "have hung the heaviest weights on the
slenderest of threads; and I am inclined to the opinion that
Adam was the progenitor of all the races of men whose remains
have yet been found." (pp. 283-84). He concluded that Adam was
"brought forth by the natural laws of procreation in sane older
world" (Gospel, p. 280) and was a "son of God" (Luke 3:38). He
noted that "one other objection" could be "urged against the
theory of evolution.... ; it is contrary to the revelations
of God. the revelations which speak of the atonement of Jesus
Christ . . . . if the hypothesis of evolution be true, if a man
is only a product evolved fran lower forms of life, better still
producing better... then it is evident that there has been
no 'fall,' such as the revelations of God speak of; and if there
was no fall, there was no occasion for a Redeemer to make
atonement for man... ; then the mission of Jesus Christ was
a myth, the coinage of idle brains." (Gospel, p. 266.) He
concluded that the Christian religion can be harmonized with
evolution "on the same principle that the lion and the lamb
harmonize, or lie down together--the lion eats the lamb"
(Gospel, p. 267).
Many of the Brethren have explicitly opposed a theory that
makes man less than from divine origins. I have not attempted
to be exhaustive in citing those who have expressed themselves
this way. Many sermons by past and present leaders, many
editorials in the Church News over the years, the writings of
Elder John A. Widtsoe in Evidences and Reconciliations (pp.
153-169), and, perhaps the most obvious opponents, Elder Joseph
Fielding &nith and Elder Bruce R. McConkie under "Evolution" in
Mormon Doctrine show the reservations of Church leaders on this
question. In

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view of the Church teaching the fact that each of us is a child
of God both in the spirit and in the flesh, the following
response of Elder Marion G. Romney to a question on the beliefs
of the General Authorities makes explicit what might readily be
inferred. A student asked, "Are the General Authorities of the
Church in one accord on the subject of evolution?" Elder Romney
replied: "I don't suppose that any two minds in the world
understand exactly alike any statement on any subject. The
General Authorities of the Church are, of course, like all other
men, different in their personalities. However, on the
fundamentals they are in accord, and one of those fundamentals
upon which they are in accord is that Adam is a son of God, that
neither his spirit nor his body is a product of biological
evolution which went on for millions of years on this earth."
(Personal letter written by Elder Romney. Used by permission.)
Regarding Adam, then, as a son of God, it is evident that
unless God helps man to know the story, there is no way that any
human mind will ever discover this fact about the origin of
human life. The First Presidency of the Church (1909), in their
official statement on the origin of man, affirm this:
Man , by searching, cannot find out God. Never,
unaided, will he discover the truth about the beginning of
human life. The Lord must reveal Himself, or remain
unrevealed; and the same is true of the facts relating to
the origin of Adam's race--God alone can reveal them. Some
of these facts, however, are already known, and what has
been made known it is our duty to receive and retain.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,
basing its belief on divine revelation, ancient and modern,
proclaims man to be the direct and lineal offspring of
Deity. God Himself is an exalted man, perfected,
enthroned, and supreme . . . .

Man is the child of God, formed in the divine image [and
is therefore capable] through ages and aeons, of evolving into a
God. [Smith, Winder, and Lund, "The Origin of Man," pp. 80-81.]
This last statement suggests one reason why this knowledge is of
much more than mere academic interest. At stake is the view man
has of himself, as well as of the plan of salvation. Some may
say, "What difference does it make what one believes about man's
origin, if one knows that God created him? Maybe God chose to
use the method of evolution." I believe that Elder Romney
clearly saw the implication of this when he said, "The theory
that man is other than the offspring of God has been, and, so
long as it is accepted and acted upon, will continue to be, a
major factor in blocking man's spiritual growth and in
corrupting his morals" (Conference Report, Apr. 1973, p. 135).
A play review by Thomas Prideaux in Life magazine, 11
October 1963, shows his intuitive awareness of the truth
expressed by Elder Romney. Prideaux felt that the Broadway play
of Luther by John Osborne was different from the usual play on
Broadway which, in the 60s, often portrayed man as a groveling,
lost, and carnal man. He was much impressed that on Broadway at
that time there were three noble, dignified men, all of whan
were churchmen: Luther, Thomas Becket, and Thomas More. All of
these men had staked their lives on their principles.. "And on
Broadway their courage and integrity have been sure-fire
box-office. Why then," Prideaux wonders, "in this seller's
market, are there so few modern heroes, on the stage or in
books, from America or anywhere else? What's happened to the
image of man? Who cut him down, and what can be done to restore
him? Or does he deserve to be restored?"
He then wonders what would happen if one of America's top
public relations firms were to undertake the job

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of "improving the Image of i4an." After all, says he, "they have
created better images of automobiles and breakfast foods." So,
in a "wild flight of fancy" he suggests what might happen in a
conference where the "Big Boss" has gathered a dozen of his
smart young "Idea Men" to discuss this challenge. The Big Boss
poses their problem of improving man's image! Of himself. "How
do we build up his image? How do we make him feel as if he
really counted for something? How do we sell him to himself?"
They began by analyzing the weakness of "the product." They
identified his drab dress, his insecurity, his ruthlessness, his
lack of discipline, his soft living, without challenges,
frontifars, goals, or ideals. Concluding this discussion, the
Big Boss asked them to think positively. "How do we build him
up?"
The Idea Men respond: "Make him move faster, make him proud
of his goals--moon, outer space, comforts for his family, social
issues, annuities."
The Big Boss then said, "Good thinking. But what we need
is a kickoff phrase, something that will wrap up the idea. A
real image-builder."
"ANOTHER I.M.: Well, there's one we might consider.
It's--well-
"B.B.: Speak out!
"I.M.: Well, man was created 'in the image- and likeness of
God.'
"B.B.: Are you kidding?
"I.M.: But it comes from the-
"B.B.: I don't care where it comes fran. It doesn't wash.
"ANOTHER I.M.: agree. And besides it's poor taste.
"B.B.: (Darned) poor taste. Boys, we'll adjourn now and
meet tomorrow at the same time. And meanwhile think up a new
line. (Muttering to himself) 'The image and likeness of God.'
Why, it's blasphemous!" (p. 126.)
Small wonder that a modern man might cry out in protest for
someone in authority to tell him the real truth of his own
being, a truth that he feels intuitively--that he is
something more than the clamoring voices of many of society's
scholars and religious men say he is.
On the other hand, how often inspired men have told us to
remember who we are so we can attain the goal we are capable of.
The following is suggestive:

That man is a child of God is the most important
knowledge available to mortals. Such knowledge is beyond
the ken of the uninspired mind . . . .
The only means by which such knowledge can be had is
divine revelation. . . .
The aspirations, desires, and motivations of one who
accepts, believes, and by the power of the Holy Spirit
obtains a witness to the truth that he is a begotten son or
daughter unto God differs from the aspirations of him who
believes otherwise, as the growing vine differs from the
severed branch.
Knowing that he is a child of God, one does not doubt
whether to "deem himself a God or Beast." He is not of
"chaos . . . thought," driven by "passion" and "all
confused." He is not "fixed like a plant on his peculiar
spot, to draw nutrition, propagate, and rot." He thinks of
himself, as the scriptures teach, possessed of the innate
ability, as are all other reproducing offspring, to reach
in final maturity the status of his heavenly parents and
have "glory added upon [his] head for ever
and

227

ever (Abr. 3:26.) This is lifes goal [Marion G. Romney, in
(Conference Report, Apr. 1973, P. 136)

How often the brethren have emphasized this great truth.
Ideas mold people. True ideas mold truly. In origins we
anticipate outcomes. If we are to believe that we can became
somebody, we must believe that we have the potential. The
scriptures and the Brethren teach us that we are children of
God- `created in his image,' and that because of this, we may
become like him. There is no more powerful idea in the
scriptures. If the idea is denied, hope in attaining the
potential is denied also. If the idea is affirmed, it lifts
degraded men above the animal plane and makes them feel to say:
"What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man,
that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower
than the angels [Hebrew, God], and hast crowned him with glory
and honour." (Psalm 8:4-5.)
As religious teachers, it is especially important that we
know what the scriptures and the Brethren have taught about who
we are, so that we may never be confused about the truth. It is
important that we teach correctly even if we are not always able
to teach as plainly as we might want to. We must use wisdom and
discretion in all things. May the Lord bless us always in doing
our best to teach his truth by the Spirit, as we get it from the
scriptures, as interpreted by the Brethren, as we understand it
by the Spirit.

Adam-god - Evolution & Origin Of Adam

Adam-god Evolution Origin Adam - Mormon Doctrine Studies - Posted: 19th Oct, 2007 - 7:56pm

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