As found in the Mormon Tribune on March 12th, 1870
Among the numerous charges that our orthodox brethren have brought against the New Movement, is that of denying that a personal God is the Creator and Supreme Ruler of the universe. To this charge we plead guilty; and while we feel our inability to do anything like justice to so profound a subject, we feel called upon, in vindication of our views, to offer a few thoughts upon it, and to compare the belief we entertain in the Infinite Omnipresent and Creative God of the universe with the ideas of President Young – who has taught the people to worship our progenitor, Adam, as their Heavenly Father and God, as the very being who formed the earth upon which we dwell, thousands of years before he came upon its face, and who, partaking of its earthly fruits, became a second-time mortal and again passed through the ordeal of death.
The following paragraphs in relation to this subject are taken from the Book of Doctrine and Covenants, and the Millennial Star:
“Harken and give ear to Him who laid the foundations of the earth, who made the heavens and all the hosts thereof, and by whom all beings were made which live and move and have a being”
Revelation to Joseph Smith, June, 1830:
“Behold, I am the Lord God Almighty, and Endless is my name, for I am without beginning of days or end of years. And worlds without number have I created.”
Referring to the creation of man upon this earth, the revelation continues.
“And the first man of all men have I called Adam.”
“And he is above all things and in all things, and is through all things and is round about all things and all things are by him and of him, even God, for ever and ever.”
The subjoined remarks on the same subject are extracted from a sermon delivered by President Brigham Young, on April 9th, 1852:
“Our God and Father in heaven is a being oof Tabernacle or in other words he has a body with parts the same as you and I have, and is capable of showing forth his works to organized being as for instance; in the world in which we live, it is the result of the knowledge, and infinite wisdom that dwell in his organized body. His son Jesus Christ has become a personage of tabernacle and has a body like his Father. The Holy Ghost is the spirit of the Lord and issues forth from Himself, and may very properly be called God’s minister to execute His will in immensity.”
After identifying this God as Adam, he continues:
“He is our Father and our God, and the only God with whom we have have to do.
Jesus our elder brother was begotten in the flesh by the same character as was in the garden of Eden and who is our Father in heaven. Now let all who may hear these doctrines. Pause before they make light of them, or treat them with indifference for they will prove their salvation or damnation.”
The language of these revelations carries with it the conclusion that they emanated from the Great Creator and that, in addressing the children of men, it had necessarily to be by the organ of speech. All this, from the education and faith of the Latter-day Saints, conveys the idea of the existence of a personal being as the embodiment of this creative power. A little reflection, however, will show that this great creative power cannot be circumscribed by any personal or organized being, whether he be called man or Deity. To accept such a theory would involve the necessity of this organized being having been self-created – which we conceive to be an utter impossibility. An organized being presupposes the existence of a preceding organizing or creative power, and we call the being thus created a creature, and it would be absurd in the extreme to endow the creature with the organizing power and thus convert him into a creator. Beings of personage, moreover, occupy but a mere atom of space and cannot be in two places at the same time; while the Supreme Controller of the universe must be, of necessity, omnipresent. To assume, then, that any “personal God” is the source of all light and life, the divine power whose external manifestations constitute the perfection of wisdom, harmony, and beauty, is to assume that which is at variance with reason and utterly inconceivable at least to the logical mind.
How, then, do we account for the use of the language of the revelation which purports , as already stated, to emanate from the Almighty? By assuming that the divine personage who then communicated with the Prophet was authorized to speak in the name of the great spirit of the universe, we can only give verbal expression to his thoughts to man through the instrumentality of organized beings.
President Brigham Young, whose very faith is supposed to be based upon this and other revelations given to Joseph Smith, has in direct contravention of them all, taught the startling doctrine that the divine being whom we should worship as God is none other than our progenitor, Adam! This man, says President Young, “is our Father and our God, and the only got with whom WE have to do.” This doctrine we dissent from as being fallacious and very injurious in its tendency. The worship of Adam is the worship of the creature; while every noble instinct of our being prompts us to the worship of Him who made the heavens and the earth.
Brigham Young affirms that our God is a man, while Christ declared that He was a Spirit. This doctrine becomes especially pernicious when taken in connection with the orthodox belief that the President of the Church is God’s vicegerent and mouthpiece upon the earth. If it be our duty to worship a man in heaven, it cannot be inconsistent to worship this man’s earthly representative – at least so far as he reflects the virtues and God-like attributes of our advanced progenitor. Already has it been declared that Brigham Young is as God to this people, and the only person on earth through whom light and intelligence can flow to the world of mankind. It is true that Brigham Young has also advocated the great truth of man’s progressiveness, both in this life and the life beyond; but the doctrine of Adam-worship does not appear to better advantage when received in the light of this divine principle. According to the doctrine of eternal progression, Adam – whoa few years since (for six thousand years is but a short period to an immortal soul) lived, toiled, and earned the bread he ate by the sweat of his brow – by this time he can only have reached comparative perfection. He is, beyond question, incomparably superior to the most advanced among us in the earth-life; yet according to the doctrine of eternal progression, he must be very far from absolute perfection. Yesterday, as it were, Adam was but an erring mortal; today he is but a progressive immortal – enthroned amid celestial glories, it is true – yet ever learning more and of the truths that abound throughout this illimitable, stupendous universe. Neither he nor any other created being is able to grasp all these glorious truths, nor to penetrate the depths of the Infinite Creator and Almighty Controller who alone, in the absolute sense, is GOD, and who alone should call forth the worship of the human heart, the speechless adoration of the soul divine.
Does Brigham Young realize that in teaching this doctrine he has actually dethroned the Almighty, and in His stead placed a progressive man? That he has ignored the worship of the GREAT SUPREME for that of a mere atom of His vast creation? Can he sense the fact that he has, on this mighty subject, outdone the Deists in his practical infidelity? The Deists question the truth of man’s immortality, but affirm the existence of “the great first cause” – the God of Nature, greater than nature, whose works of wisdom, harmony, and love are ceaselessly manifesting themselves through her operations. President Young believes in the immortality of the soul, but tells his people to not only recognize Adam as their earthly parent, and the father of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, but as the Deity they should worship, and the only God with whom they have to do; thus, as before stated, doing away with the worship of the Supreme Being who created the universe, and substituting a man who, however advanced he may be in the scale of intelligence, is but a mere speck, an infinitesimal portion of His vast creations, teeming as they are with untold myriads of immortal beings, the great majority of whom (according to Brigham Young’s belief in the doctrine of eternal progression) are higher in development than the very man we are taught to revere and worship as God.
Elder E.W. Tullidge said: To find out God has been the problem of all ages. In this effort the subtle, analytical efforts of the world have failed. Two distinct conceptions of God have confused the minds of men for thousands of years, involving the great question whether God is a personal or an omnipresent being. Many of you, no doubt, are familiar with Paley’s masterpiece of argument, in which he proved the existence of God from the manifestations of design. To prove this is the illustration of a watch was taken; and it was argued that, inasmuch as the design and contrivance manifested in the construction of the watch proved the existence of a designer, or of a watch-maker, so the manifestations of design in the person of man proved the existence of a designer who planned his organization. And this argument was irrefutable. Paley demonstrated clearly that there was a God – a Great First Cause. So long as he applied his argument to prove simply the existence of a God he could not be assailed. But when he undertook to demonstrate by the same argument that that God was a personal being he failed – he got mixed up with the other conception of God and confounded himself.
Holyoake, the great infidel lecturer and writer, took Paley up on his own grounds. He admitted that the construction of the watch proved a watchmaker, and that the organization of man in turned proved an organizer; and then went on to show that if God was a personal being, inasmuch as his organization must manifest still greater evidences of design, it must even still more abundantly prove the existence of a being who organized HIM; and thus he led Paley into a circle, from whence he could not extricate himself, unless he conceded that the Great First Cause was an impersonal being, or an unorganized being, which he was not willing to do.
In ancient days men in their rudeness naturally grasped at the idea of the man-god, and as a result set up idols to worship as representatives of their conceptions of Deity. This idea extended to the intellectual Greeks whose mythology is full of personal deities. Homer embodies these views of Deity in his works. Doubtless spiritual beings – personages, did appear to the ancients, and thus the idea of a personal God gained ground in the world. The Jews had already surpassed the world in their conceptions of God, for they struck upon the great truth of one supreme being; and when Jesus appeared he completed the doctrine by announcing that the ONE God was a spirit, and they that worshipped him must worship him in spirit and in truth.
Elder Harrison said: While the brethren have been expounding this subject of God, I have been reminded of a common saying, which is this: – “Truth lies in the happy medium between two extremes.” It is so in this case.
As representatives of the Church of Zion we present ourselves before the world to say, that the idea of a personal God, as well as that of a Great unorganized omnipresent being, are both true. Both conceptions are partially correct. They are opposite sides of one truth.
Thousands believe in a plurality of gods, and we say they are right in so believing. Thousands more believe in one God; we announce to them that they are right also. Large masses of mankind believe in a personal God and we declare that they have the truth. Just as many more hold that God is the Great Infinite Spirit of the Universe, and we contend they are also correct. The facts of the matter are, that there do exist myriads of personal Gods who, intellectually and spiritually, preside over the destinies of our race, whose intelligence and wisdom are beyond our comprehension; but who, with all their greatness, cannot create a drop of dew or produce a ray of light, except as a scientific experiment. On the other hand, there exists a Great First Cause, who is the Great Spirit of the Universe – the one, and only one creative God, who carries on all the operations of nature, and before whom the sublimest of organized persons bows in adoration and praise.
How did the idea of a personal God originate? We reply, very naturally. In the first place, all men’s conceptions of God are outgrowths of themselves. It was impossible for barbaric races to conceive of any God except in the form of man. Added to this, Angelic beings were actually seen from time to time by prophets and seers, who came speaking in tones of divine authority, and which beings were naturally supposed to be gods or God himself. This idea was encouraged or permitted to remain in the minds of men because it was the only conception of God upon which they could at that time lay hold. So far as the Christian world are concerned their ideas of an absolute supreme and personal God, can be traced, in degree, to a misconception of the teachings of Jesus. He declared he was the “Son of God,” He said “he that hath seen me hath seen the Father,” and “I and the Father are one.” His followers who, being Jews, had always supposed the Supreme God to be an organized person, naturally took for granted that if Jesus was the Son of God “the Father” must be a person also. But these words had an other and greater meaning. They were just as true as the words uttered by Jesus respecting the bread and wine, when he said: – “This is my body” – “This is my blood.” Not true in a literal, but in a higher sense. They that saw him did “see the Father” in his gentleness, his love, her mercy, and justice. And in the possession of these great qualities of Godhead he and the Father were one. But the God, “the Father,” he worshipped was the Supreme who was greater than all organized beings, for they were results of his operations and power.
Still, on the other hand, there are personal beings who are called Gods. They are the great ancestors of the race, who have for thousands of years been advancing in a knowledge of all great principles of endless truth. They govern the rise and fall of empires, the introduction of dispensations, the progress of the arts and sciences, the developments of spiritual progress; and are, in this sense, Gods to their mortal children in the flesh. They preside in power and intelligence. They are patriarchs, angels, and arch-angels. They have ascended up the ladder of progress and drunk deep of the qualities which belong to the Great Supreme. We shall arrive some day where they now are, and when we do we shall be able to say with Jesus and with them: – “The Father and I are one.”