What Is the Adam-God Doctrine?

Brigham Young taught that Adam was an exalted being who came to earth from another world. His teachings are often called the “Adam-God theory” or “Adam-God doctrine,” though Young didn’t use either term. While The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has distanced itself from Young’s teachings, the Adam-God theory remains a point of debate among scholars, fundamentalist groups, and critics of the faith. In this interview, author Samuel Weber explores the evolution of Brigham Young’s teachings about Adam and God.

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Origin and Context
Brigham Young’s Teachings
Rejection and Controversy
Lasting Impact

Origin and Context of the Adam-God Theory

What is the Adam-God theory, and why does it matter?

For a significant portion of his presidency, Brigham Young taught the innovative but controversial doctrine that Adam and Eve had previously experienced mortality, achieved exalted god status, bore spirit children, and became the gods of planet Earth.

Although the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has distanced itself from this teaching, some fundamentalist groups continue to adhere to it, and quotes identifying Adam as God have long been fodder for anti-Mormon publications.

Did Joseph Smith ever teach anything similar to Adam-God?

Although Joseph Smith never explicitly taught the Adam-God theory, he did make several statements that brought Latter-day Saint conceptions of God and man close to each other. Smith taught that human spirits have existed eternally, “co-equal with God himself.”¹

Smith described God the Father as having “a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man’s” (D&C 130:22), highlighting God’s similarity with man. This closure of the gap between the human and the divine achieved its fullest expression in Joseph Smith’s King Follett discourse, summarized by Lorenzo Snow in the couplet:²

As man now is, God once was; As God now is, man may be.
Lorenzo Snow

How did early Latter-day Saints understand Adam’s role before Brigham Young’s teachings?

Early Latter-day Saints would have considered Adam the first man on earth and father to the human race. Additionally, Joseph Smith received a revelation that gave an expanded celestial role to Adam, dubbing him “prince of all, the ancient of days” and identifying him with the archangel Michael (D&C 27:11).

Learn more about Brigham Young’s teachings about Adam and God in this Gospel Tangents interview with Rick Bennett, David Patrick, and Benjamin Shaffer.

Brigham Young’s Teachings on Adam and God

When did Brigham Young start teaching this?

Brigham Young introduced the Adam-God doctrine in 1852. In his first published sermon espousing this teaching, Adam was identified as “our father and our God, and the only God with whom we have to do.”³

Although a mixed reception to this teaching among church members and leaders led Young to be less vocal about Adam-God teachings in his later years, he did espouse the doctrine publicly as late as 1873 and incorporated Adam-God principles in the Saint George temple’s “lecture at the veil” in 1877 shortly before his death.⁴

How Was the St. George Temple Built?

How did he conceptualize Adam/God coming to earth?

Brigham Young taught that Adam, as Heavenly Father, was transplanted to this earth from another world. In 1856, he declared: “Adam was made from the dust of an earth, but not from the dust of this earth.”⁵

And in 1859, he reiterated: “Mankind are here because they are offspring of parents who were first brought here from another planet.”⁶

Did he accept a literal reading of the Old Testament that Adam was made from the “dust of the ground?”

No, Brigham Young believed that human life began due to a natural birthing process. “When you tell me that father Adam was made as we make adobes from the earth, you tell me what I deem an idle tale.”⁷ “[Adam] was made as you and I are made,” Young explained in 1856, “and no person was ever made upon any other principle.”⁸

If Brigham Young identified Adam with God, how does Adam/God relate to the rest of mankind?

Brigham Young taught that God the Father came to earth as Adam, becoming the physical progenitor of the human species on earth.

Speaking in 1862 in the Salt Lake Tabernacle, Young said:⁹

Man is the offspring of God…. We are as much the children of this great Being as we are the children of our mortal progenitors. We are flesh of his flesh, bone of his bone, and the same fluid that circulates in our bodies, called blood, once circulated in His veins as it does in ours.
Brigham Young

Did he suggest how immortal beings could become the parents of mortal humans?

According to Brigham Young, God had to partake of the fruit of this earth to create bodies made from the substance of our earth.

In an 1852 sermon, Young explained that for Adam-God and Eve-God to bear earthly children, they had to “continue to eat and drink of the fruits of the corporeal world, until this grosser matter is diffused sufficiently through their celestial bodies to enable them, according to the established laws, to produce mortal tabernacles for their spiritual children.”¹⁰

Again, in 1857, Brigham Young stated that:¹¹

[T]he Father actually begat the spirits, and they were brought forth and lived with Him. Then He commenced the work of creating earthly tabernacles, precisely as He had been created in this flesh himself, by partaking of the course [sic] 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 coarse materials of this earth.
Brigham Young

What implications did Brigham Young’s teachings have for the rest of humanity?

Brigham Young indicated that the ability to bear both spirit and physical children was a special endowment related to achieving godhood. Young taught in 1872: “And when our spirits receive our bodies, and through our faithfulness we are worthy to be crowned, we will then receive authority to produce both spirit and body.”¹²

To summarize, Brigham Young taught that:

Mortality. Adam and Eve had previously experienced mortality and were exalted beings.
Transportation. To seed the earth with human life, Adam-God and Eve-God transported themselves from another world to planet earth.
Fruit. To prepare their celestialized bodies to create mortal tabernacles for their children, Adam-God and Eve-God ate the fruit of this earth.
Procreation. The physical bodies of mankind were birthed through a natural procreative process.
Ancestry. As the progenitors of mankind, humans are literal, physical descendants of gods.
Godhood. Humans that eventually attain godhood will likewise have the ability to create both physical and spirit children.

Rejection and Controversy in Latter-day Saint Theology

How did later Latter-day Saint leaders begin to distance the Church from Adam-God?

President Joseph F. Smith’s position on Adam-God teachings evolved over time, exemplifying how church leaders began to distance themselves from the teachings. Although Smith apparently accepted the Adam-God theory early in his career¹³, he later publicly backed away from it.

What’s in the New Joseph F. Smith Biography?

In a 1897 letter regarding the Adam-God theory, Joseph F. Smith wrote:¹⁴

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. It is therefore in no sense binding upon the Church. Brigham Young’s “bare mention” was “without indubitable evidence and authority being given of its truth.” Only the scripture, the “accepted word of God,” is the Church’s standard.
Joseph F. Smith

Upon receiving word of a missionary teaching that Adam was God in 1902, Smith advised that “the Elders should not make a practice of preaching upon these abstruse themes.”¹⁵

Both Joseph Fielding Smith (left) and his father (right) addressed the Adam-God theory in their teachings and correspondence.

In 1904, Smith stated:¹⁶

that Prest. Brigham Young when delivered that sermon [on Adam-God] only expressed his own views and that they were not corobirated [sic] by the word of the Lord in the Standard works of the Church. . . . Now all doctrine if it can’t be established by these standards is not to be taught or promolgated [sic] by members.
Joseph F. Smith

What were key moments in the Church’s rejection of the Adam-God theory?

Joseph F. Smith’s presidency saw the church distance itself from Adam-God teachings as outlined above. Later, church leaders outright repudiated the Adam-God theory.

Joseph Fielding Smith and Bruce R. McConkie vehemently opposed Brigham Young’s doctrine that Adam is God. Joseph Fielding Smith attempted to make a case for Brigham Young not believing or teaching Adam-God doctrine, stating that “in all probability the sermon was erroneously transcribed!”¹⁷

Joseph Fielding Smith went on to imply that Brigham Young could not have meant that Adam was God the Father, as Young:¹⁸

was thoroughly acquainted with the doctrine of the Church. He studied the Doctrine and Covenants and many times quoted from it the particular passages concerning the relationship of Adam to Jesus Christ. He knew perfectly that Adam had been placed at the head of the human family by commandment of the Father, and this doctrine he taught during the many years of his ministry.
Joseph Fielding Smith

What’s in the Joseph Fielding Smith Biography by Matt Bowman?

In a sermon titled “The Seven Deadly Heresies,” Bruce R. McConkie came out in strong opposition to Adam-God teachings:¹⁹

There are those who believe or say they believe that Adam is our father and our god, that he is the father of our spirits and our bodies, and that he is the one we worship. The devil keeps this heresy alive as a means of obtaining converts to cultism. It is contrary to the whole plan of salvation set forth in the scriptures, and anyone who has read the Book of Moses, and anyone who has received the temple endowment and who yet believes the Adam-God theory does not deserve to be saved.
Bruce R. McConkie

Do Brigham Young’s Adam-God teachings persist in any form in the modern Church?

While the Adam-God theory has been rejected by the mainstream church, fragments of these teachings persist within the Church Educational System (CES). The persistent fragments include:

Human life originated on another planet.
Human bodies originated via a birthing process.
Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother are the original parents of humankind’s physical form.

Can you share any examples?

Here are just a few noteworthy examples from CES employees referencing these fragments of Brigham Young’s teachings on Adam-God:

Hyrum L. Andrus was director of religious studies at Ricks College and later became a professor of church history and doctrine at Brigham Young University. In his Doctrinal Commentary on the Pearl of Great Price, he outlined all three of these points: “Man’s pure, original, sanctified physical body descended from God, as the offspring of God, inheriting in birth the physical image, likeness, and attributes of his exalted parents… procreation is the key to the origin of human life, so far as the method of its organization is concerned, and transplantation is the key to how man arrived on earth.”²⁰

Keith H. Meservy, an associate professor of ancient scripture at BYU, delivered an address as part of the Church Educational System Religious Educator’s Symposium in 1979 titled “Evolution and the Origin of Adam.” In this address he reiterated that Adam and Eve were birthed to Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother: “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.”²¹

Robert J. Matthews had a career beginning in seminary and institute. Later, he taught in the Division of Religious Education at BYU. In his 1990 book, A Bible! A Bible!, Matthews testified to a belief in the celestial genealogy of Adam and Eve’s physical bodies: “I believe that Adam’s physical body was the offspring of God, literally (Moses 6:22); that he was begotten as a baby with a physical body not subject to death, in a world without sin or blood; and that he grew to manhood in that condition and then became mortal through his own actions. I believe that Adam’s physical body was begotten by our immortal celestial Father and an immortal celestial Mother, and thus not into a condition of mortality, a condition which would have precluded Jesus from being the Only Begotten of the Father in the flesh (D&C 93:11)–flesh meaning mortality. Jesus’ physical body was also begotten of the same celestial Father but through a mortal woman and hence into mortality.”²²

Institute teachers shared these views with me when I was a student between 2004 and 2007. Handouts compiling statements of these Adam-God fragments were downloadable from the BYU-Idaho website in 2016 when I was researching this topic. Although I suspect most church educators would reject the Adam-God theory in its entirety, those who continue to share these statements ensure that shards of the discarded theory endure.

The Lasting Impact of the Adam-God Controversy

What does the controversy reveal about doctrinal evolution in the Church?

I view the Adam-God theory as an interesting example demonstrating that revelation is not always a “straight line,” so to speak.

The revelatory process is apparently varied enough to include starts and stops (such as polygamy), the removal of deeply entrenched policy (such as the 1978 priesthood revelation), grassroots insights (such as Eliza R. Snow’s pronouncement of a Heavenly Mother), and expansive epiphanies (such as the vision of the three degrees of glory).

Brigham Young’s radical idea that Adam is God was something of a revelatory detour or a “dead-end,” in the words of Teryl Givens.²³ Ultimately, the teaching proved too theologically dissonant for church members and leadership.

Are There 3 Degrees in the Celestial Kingdom?

Why is the Adam-God theory still relevant?

People are still likely to encounter the Adam-God theory in online forums listing perceived problems with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This may be one piece in a puzzle contributing to the faith crisis or loss of confidence in church teachings and leadership that so many Latter-day Saints are experiencing in the internet age.

While not likely to be identified as the Adam-God theory, students attending Church Educational System courses may continue to receive exposure to Adam-God ideas. These are propagated through teachings about Adam and Eve being physically begotten children of Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother, as outlined above.

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About the Interview Participant

Samuel R. Weber is an author who has published in many of today’s leading Latter-day Saint history journals. His 2017 Sunstone article, “Adam, Which Was the Son of God,” traces persistent fragments of the Adam-God theory in the Church Educational System. He has also published about topics like psychological distress among religious nonbelievers (Journal of Religion and Health), ritual cursing (Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought), and the Law of the Gospel (Journal of Mormon History).

2 replies on “What Did Brigham Young Teach About Adam and God?”

Brigham Young’s theory almost seems to work (IMO) if we keep it allegorical and employ the principle of divine investiture of authority.

That said, I think the bigger question we may want to ask ourselves is–how did the saints respond to his ideas? We’re they receptive or did they “fly to pieces like glass”? I wonder sometimes if the Lord let him run with it–right or wrong–for that very purpose–that is, to test the saints.

I’m leaning towards ‘lost in translation’. Imagine Young being shown in a vision back in his time all this wonderous stuff. Then trying to explain it to us that haven’t been touched by the Spirit as he had been and not having English words to describe Heavenly things. Then someone transcribing it into something they think they understand but probably not really because the words we use don’t describe what really happened. Then us many years later and language and meaning has changed trying to understand what he meant. It’s like reading Isiah for the first time without the Spirit or any context. It will be great to see in the next life when we see for ourselves and have that ‘oh I see what he was saying’ moment and it will all make sense.

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