Appearance
Adam-God
The claim:
Brigham Young "taught that Adam is 'our Father and our God, and the only God with whom we have to do,'" that he "not only taught this doctrine over the pulpit in conferences" but "also introduced this doctrine as the Lecture at the Veil in the endowment ceremony of the Temple," and that subsequent prophets "since renounced the Adam-God theory as false doctrine."[1]
The CES Letter uses this to drive a broader argument: "Yesterday's doctrine is today's false doctrine. Yesterday's prophet is today's heretic."[2]
Brigham Young taught something. Later prophets rejected it. Therefore prophets can't be trusted.
What did Brigham Young actually teach, and how did the Church handle it?
What Brigham Young actually said
On April 9, 1852, Brigham Young addressed the Salt Lake Tabernacle:
"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!... He is our Father and our God, and the only God with whom we have to do."[3]
Twenty-one years later, in a discourse published in the Deseret News on June 18, 1873:
"How much unbelief exists in the minds of the Latter-day Saints in regard to one particular doctrine which I revealed to 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."[4]
Young also introduced elements of this teaching into the St. George Temple endowment in early 1877, in what is known as the "Lecture at the Veil." L. John Nuttall, Young's secretary, transcribed the lecture, which included: "Adam was an immortal being when he came on this earth; He had lived on an earth similar to ours."[5]
Young died on August 29, 1877 — seven months after the lecture's introduction.
These are real statements. The CES Letter isn't fabricating them. The 1873 "God revealed to me" language is harder to dismiss as casual musing — Young clearly believed what he was teaching.
What the CES Letter leaves out
The CES Letter presents these statements as the settled, central teaching of Brigham Young's presidency. The record is more complicated.
Frequency. References to Adam-God appear in roughly 20 of Young's recorded discourses.[6] This was not the drumbeat of his ministry.
Hedging language. In the same April 1852 sermon, Young said "I reckon that Father Adam was a resurrected being" — language that signals personal reasoning, not prophetic declaration.[3:1] "Reckon" is not the word a prophet uses to announce binding doctrine.
Internal contradictions. In other sermons, Young taught Adam and God as separate beings, consistent with standard Latter-day Saint theology. Matthew Brown documented that Young's own teachings on Adam are internally inconsistent — sometimes describing Adam as God the Father, sometimes clearly distinguishing them.[6:1]
Never canonized. The teaching was never submitted for a sustaining vote, never included in the standard works, and never presented to the Church through the established process for binding doctrine.
Orson Pratt pushed back — publicly
The CES Letter frames Adam-God as though the entire Church marched in lockstep behind it. One of the Twelve Apostles didn't.
Orson Pratt — philosopher, mathematician, theologian — rejected Adam-God from the start. He published his disagreement in The Seer and debated the issue publicly and privately throughout the 1850s and 1860s.[7]
On September 23, 1860: "I do not believe as Brother Brigham and Brother Kimball do in some points of doctrine and they do not wish me to acknowledge to a thing that I do not believe."[7:1]
Pratt was censured in 1860 and again in 1865. His response: "I am not a man to make a confession of what I do not believe. I am not going to crawl to Brigham Young and act the hypocrite. I will be a free man."[7:2]
He was never excommunicated.
Orson Pratt's dissent meant the Quorum of the Twelve lacked unanimous agreement on Adam-God. Under D&C 107:27, quorum unanimity is required for binding decisions. The teaching never cleared the bar.
The disavowal timeline
The CES Letter correctly reports that later prophets rejected Adam-God. What it doesn't show is how systematic the correction was — a decades-long institutional process, not a sudden reversal.
| Year | Leader | Action |
|---|---|---|
| 1877 | Brigham Young dies | Lecture at the Veil confined to St. George Temple |
| 1897 | Joseph F. Smith | Private letter: "The doctrine was never submitted to the councils of the Priesthood nor to the Church for approval or ratification, and was never formally or otherwise accepted by the Church."[8] |
| 1902 | Charles W. Penrose | Improvement Era: "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has never formulated or adopted any theory concerning the subject."[9] |
| ~1905 | Temple leadership | Adam-God elements removed from the endowment[10] |
| 1912 | First Presidency | Improvement Era: "Speculations as to the career of Adam before he came to the earth are of no real value."[11] |
| 1916 | First Presidency & Quorum of the Twelve | "The Father and the Son" — a formal doctrinal exposition signed by all 15 senior leaders, defining Elohim as God the Father, distinct from Adam.[12] |
| 1976 | Spencer W. Kimball | October General Conference: "We denounce that theory."[13] |
| 1980 | Bruce R. McConkie | BYU devotional: called it one of "The Seven Deadly Heresies."[14] |
The 1916 "Father and the Son" deserves emphasis. It wasn't a passing remark at a pulpit. It was a formal doctrinal statement, approved and signed by every member of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve, that established precisely the theological distinction Adam-God had blurred. That is how a healthy institution handles theological error.
What scholars think Brigham Young meant
Scholars — both LDS and non-LDS — disagree about what Young was actually teaching. The CES Letter treats Adam-God as straightforwardly absurd ("God's name is not 'Adam'"). The interpretive landscape is more complicated.
| Framework | Core idea | Proponents |
|---|---|---|
| Adam as patriarch | Young meant Adam as the presiding priesthood holder over humanity — "God" in a functional, hierarchical sense, like Moses called "a god" to Pharaoh (Exodus 7:1) | Charles W. Penrose, Joseph Fielding Smith |
| Brigham was simply wrong | Young taught error. "He expressed views that are out of harmony with the gospel... Brigham Young contradicted Brigham Young." | Bruce R. McConkie[15] |
| Anomaly | An unexpected data point that can't be explained by existing frameworks but doesn't overturn the whole system | Stephen E. Robinson[16] |
| Veiled language | Young intentionally obscured his meaning, similar to scriptural parables or "dark sayings" | Matthew B. Brown[6:2] |
| Scribal error | Transcription mistakes by shorthand reporters may have distorted Young's original meaning | Mark E. Petersen |
| Two Adams | Young used "Adam" as a name-title for both God the Father and the man Adam, comparable to "Elias" applied to various people | Elden Watson[17] |
The McConkie position — Brigham was simply wrong — is the most common faithful response today. McConkie wrote candidly in 1981: "Yes, President Young did teach that Adam was the father of our spirits, and all the related things that the cultists ascribe to him. This, however, is not true."[15:1]
He then stated a broader principle: "A prophet is not always a prophet, only when he is acting as such. Prophets are men and they make mistakes. Sometimes they err in doctrine."[15:2]
No single framework resolves every statement Young made. That itself is telling — Young's own teachings on Adam are not internally consistent, which makes the CES Letter's "he taught X as settled doctrine" framing an oversimplification.
The CES Letter truncates the "sermons as scripture" quote
The CES Letter quotes Brigham Young: "I have never yet preached a sermon and sent it out to the children of men, that they may not call scripture."[18]
Read in isolation, this sounds like Young claimed everything from his mouth was binding scripture. The CES Letter omits what comes next.
The full quote: "I have never yet preached a sermon and sent it out to the children of men, that they may not call scripture. Let me have the privilege of correcting a sermon, and it is as good Scripture as they deserve."[18:1]
Two prerequisites: Young needed to review and correct the sermon first.
Nine months later, Young clarified further: "When they are copied and approved by me they are as good Scripture as is couched in this Bible."[19]
Young's conditions for calling a sermon "scripture":
- He needed to review and correct it.
- It had to be explicitly approved by him.
Few of Brigham's sermons went through this process. The Journal of Discourses itself carried a preface disclaimer acknowledging transcription limitations.[20] Read in full context, Young did not claim his every sermon was inerrant or automatically authoritative.
Even granting the most expansive reading, individual prophets don't get to unilaterally canonize teachings. The canonization process requires collective consent (D&C 26:2, D&C 28:13).
The "prophets must be infallible" straw man
The CES Letter's logic runs: if a prophet teaches something false, he cannot be a true prophet.
That logic requires prophets to be infallible to be authoritative. The Church has never taught this.
| Source | Statement |
|---|---|
| Joseph Smith | "A prophet was a prophet only when he was acting as such."[21] |
| D&C 1:24 | The Lord gives commandments to his servants "in their weakness, after the manner of their language, that they might come to understanding." |
| D. Todd Christofferson (April 2012) | "A statement made by one leader on a single occasion often represents a personal, though well-considered, opinion, not meant to be official or binding for the whole Church."[22] |
| Neil L. Andersen (October 2012) | Doctrine "is taught by all 15 members of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve. It is not hidden in an obscure paragraph of one talk."[23] |
This isn't retroactive damage control. Joseph Smith drew this distinction in 1843. D&C 1:24 was canonized in 1835. The ninth Article of Faith treats revelation as ongoing and progressive, not frozen.
How doctrine gets established
The CES Letter treats a Brigham Young sermon as though it carries the same weight as canonized scripture. Latter-day Saint theology has a specific process for establishing binding doctrine — and Adam-God never went through it.
| Requirement | Adam-God |
|---|---|
| Presented to the Church for sustaining vote (D&C 26:2) | No |
| Included in the standard works | No |
| Taught consistently by the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve | No — Orson Pratt publicly dissented |
| Affirmed by subsequent prophets | No — explicitly rejected |
| Consistent with existing scripture | No — contradicted by Moses 6:50-52, D&C 27:11, D&C 107:54-55 |
A sermon does not become binding doctrine by being spoken at a pulpit. It becomes binding doctrine through canonization and sustained acceptance. Adam-God failed every test.
The honest difficulty
Worth Acknowledging
The strongest version of this criticism doesn't depend on prophetic infallibility. It runs like this: if a prophet can teach something he explicitly claims was revealed by God, teach it publicly at General Conference, publish it in Church media, and introduce it into the temple ordinances — and the entire thing turns out to be false — then how do Latter-day Saints distinguish genuine revelation from a prophet's personal speculation in the present?
That's a fair question. The answer isn't "it's easy."
It requires scriptural grounding, collective confirmation (is the Quorum unified?), personal spiritual witness, and sometimes patience. The Adam-God episode shows that following any single leader uncritically — without testing teachings against scripture and the collective voice of Church leadership — is a mistake.
But that lesson cuts both directions. The CES Letter asks you to reject all prophetic authority because one prophet taught something false. That's the same uncritical thinking in reverse — replacing "the prophet is always right" with "the prophet is always unreliable." Neither extreme matches the evidence.
Doctrinal correction is a feature, not a failure
The CES Letter frames correction as contradiction. The faithful frame sees it as evidence the ninth Article of Faith is operational: "We believe all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal, and we believe that He will yet reveal many great and important things."
No one argues that medical science is worthless because 19th-century doctors practiced bloodletting. The system corrected itself through better evidence and knowledge. The Church's doctrinal refinement process works the same way — a living institution guided by ongoing revelation, not a museum preserving every statement ever made.
The Adam-God episode shows that the Church's doctrinal safeguards worked:
- The teaching was contested in real time by Orson Pratt.
- It was never canonized.
- It was rejected by subsequent prophets, culminating in a formal doctrinal exposition signed by all 15 senior leaders (1916).
- It was removed from the temple.
- Modern leaders have publicly clarified the standard for binding doctrine.
That's not a system failing. That's a system correcting itself — even when the error came from its most powerful 19th-century leader.
Bottom line: Brigham Young taught ideas about Adam that contradicted the standard works, were contested by his own apostles, were never canonized, and were explicitly repudiated by later prophets. The CES Letter presents this as proof that prophets can't be trusted. It's actually evidence that the Church's doctrinal correction process works — a teaching that failed every test for binding doctrine was identified and rejected. The real question isn't whether prophets are infallible. No one has ever claimed they are.
Runnells, CES Letter (2017), "Prophets," no. 1, pp. 62-63. ↩︎
Runnells, CES Letter (2017), "Prophets," p. 63. ↩︎
Brigham Young, discourse, April 9, 1852, Journal of Discourses 1:50-51. ↩︎ ↩︎
Brigham Young, discourse, June 18, 1873, published in Deseret News 22, no. 308. ↩︎
L. John Nuttall, journal entry, February 7, 1877. Nuttall was Brigham Young's private secretary and transcribed the Lecture at the Veil as Young delivered it in the St. George Temple. See David John Buerger, "The Adam-God Doctrine," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 15, no. 1 (Spring 1982): 14-58. ↩︎
Matthew B. Brown, "Brigham Young's Teachings on Adam," presented at the 2009 FAIR Conference. Brown classified Young's viewpoints into categories of "doctrine, theory, paradox, heresy, speculation" and documented internal inconsistencies across the sermons. https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/2009_Brigham_Youngs_Teachings_On_Adam.pdf ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
Gary James Bergera, Conflict in the Quorum: Orson Pratt, Brigham Young, Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2002). See also Bergera, "The Orson Pratt-Brigham Young Controversies: Conflict Within the Quorums, 1853 to 1868," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 13, no. 2 (Summer 1980): 7-49. ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
Joseph F. Smith, letter to Alfred Saxey, January 9, 1897. ↩︎
Charles W. Penrose, Improvement Era, September 1902. ↩︎
The Adam-God elements were removed from the temple endowment by approximately 1905. See Buerger, "The Adam-God Doctrine," Dialogue 15, no. 1 (Spring 1982): 14-58. ↩︎
First Presidency statement, Improvement Era, 1912. ↩︎
First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, "The Father and the Son: A Doctrinal Exposition," signed June 30, 1916, published in Improvement Era, August 1916. Reprinted in Ensign, April 2002. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2002/04/the-father-and-the-son ↩︎
Spencer W. Kimball, "Our Own Liahona," Ensign, November 1976. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/1976/10/our-own-liahona?lang=eng ↩︎
Bruce R. McConkie, "The Seven Deadly Heresies," devotional address at Brigham Young University, June 1, 1980. ↩︎
Bruce R. McConkie, letter to Eugene England, February 19, 1981. Published at the Eugene England Foundation. https://www.eugeneengland.org/a-professor-and-apostle-correspond-eugene-england-and-bruce-r-mcconkie-on-the-nature-of-god ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
Stephen E. Robinson, Are Mormons Christians? (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1991). Robinson characterized Adam-God as an "anomaly" — something unexpected that cannot be explained by existing theological frameworks but which does not constitute evidence for overturning the whole system. ↩︎
Elden Watson, "Different Thoughts #7 — Adam-God," eldenwatson.net. Watson is editor of the multi-volume Brigham Young Addresses and proposes that Young used "Adam" as a name-title for two different beings. ↩︎
Brigham Young, discourse, January 2, 1870, Journal of Discourses 13:95. The full statement reads: "I have never yet preached a sermon and sent it out to the children of men, that they may not call scripture. Let me have the privilege of correcting a sermon, and it is as good Scripture as they deserve." ↩︎ ↩︎
Brigham Young, discourse, October 6, 1870, Journal of Discourses 13:264. ↩︎
The Journal of Discourses included a preface by George D. Watt noting that sermons were reported "as near as it was possible" but acknowledging transcription limitations. The Church has never classified the Journal of Discourses as scripture or canonized material. ↩︎
Joseph Smith, quoted in History of the Church 5:265 (February 8, 1843). See also Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, sel. Joseph Fielding Smith (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1976), 278. ↩︎
D. Todd Christofferson, "The Doctrine of Christ," Ensign, May 2012. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2012/04/the-doctrine-of-christ?lang=eng ↩︎
Neil L. Andersen, "Trial of Your Faith," Ensign, November 2012. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2012/10/trial-of-your-faith?lang=eng ↩︎