What is the Adam-God theory in Mormonism?

We begin our enquiry by asking, Who is God? What have the Mormons to say as to this? The late Brigham Young, one of their very ablest leaders, elected the second “First President” of their Church, answers,

“Adam is God, the Creator of the world, our God, and the only Creator with whom we have to do.”

It will be an astonishment doubtless to some, who have been inclined to think charitably of this people and of their doctrines, to learn that according to the Mormon creed, there is “no God,” that is, no Divine Being such as the Scriptures reveal. Here is what the Prophet, Joseph Smith, says: “God Himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man.” “God Himself, the Father of us all, dwelt on earth the same as Jesus Christ did.” “The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man's.” And the following, by Brigham Young, leaves no doubt as to who this “exalted man” is, I who was “once as we are,” and is now a God. “When our father Adam came into the Garden of Eden, he came into it with a celestial body, and brought Eve, one of his celestial wives. He helped to make and organize this world. He is our Father and our God, the ONLY God with whom we have to do” (Journal of Discourses). This is blasphemy! What is the need of a Gospel to convert sinners to fallen Adam, as the “only God” with whom they “have to do,” or of “preaching elders” evangelising to bring converts to worship “an exalted man,” who formerly lived in Eden with one of his celestial wives? The Mormon creed goes on to say that Jesus Christ was Adam's son by ordinary generation, that the Fall was a necessity, “that men might be,” and that those who practise celestial marriage on earth, will “pass by the angels” and “be God's themselves. This brands the Mormon faith as Polytheism of the lowest and grossest kind.

Early in this pamphlet we saw that Brigham Young declared that Adam was God, and the remark was made of the subtility of his blasphemous statement, and that we should comment further on this more fully later on in the pamphlet. This promise is now fulfilled by quoting Parley P. Pratt’s Key to Theology: “All men are potential Gods. Thus Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, for instance, are in eternity developing themselves swiftly so that they shall one day be Gods over all their progeny. … All Gods have wives, and become the fathers of the souls of men by Divine generation. The Gods are in the form of men, of the same substance, but more ‘refined’ Man, if faithful, will advance until he has the same creative and designing power as the present Gods, who will go higher in the scale, the end of which is beyond our finite comprehension. … Joseph Smith, the first Mormon prophet, stands next to Christ (Smith being now one of the Gods of his generation), and Christ stands next to Adam. Above the latter is Jehovah, and above Jehovah is Elohim, who is the highest God of whom we in this world have any knowledge.”

Much more of this senseless, blasphemous stuff could be quoted, but we forbear. It shows, however, in what direction Brigham Young’s mind was travelling when he said Adam was God. Was he preparing his followers to believe in his own, falsely-claimed Godhead? What a terrible disillusionment awaits these dupes of Satan. There are not words strong enough in the English language to denounce the childishness, the utter stupidity, the uncleanness, the blasphemy of such wicked vapourings.

Brigham Young went still further in reckless statements without any warrant whatsoever. He asserted that God was a polygamist. Here are his words, “When our Father Adam came into the garden of Eden, he came with a celestial body, and brought Eve, one of his wives.”

For purely wicked imagination this would be hard to beat. Adam did not come into the garden of Eden as God. He was created by God as a creature. We read, “And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there He put the man whom He had formed” (Gen. 2:8).

Surely Brigham Young must have read at some time the story of creation as told in the Bible. There we read its opening words, “In the beginning GOD created the heaven and the earth” (Gen. 1:1).

Mormonism teaches that God used to be a man on another world and that he became a god by following the laws and ordinances of his god on his home world. He brought his wife to this world, a woman he had married on the other world. She is, essentially, a goddess. In his present god-state, he rules our world. He has a body of flesh and bones. Since god and his wife are both exalted persons, they each possess physical bodies. In their exalted states as deities, they produce spirit children that grow and mature in the spiritual realm. The first spirit born was Jesus. Afterwards Lucifer was born along with the rest of us. So, Mormonism teaches that we all pre-existed in the spirit realm having been produced from the union of god and his goddess wife. Therefore, we all existed in spirit form before coming down and entering the bodies of human babies that are being born on earth. During this ‘compression' into the infant state, the memories of their pre-existence are 'veiled.'

In the Mormon plan of salvation there needed to be a savior: Jesus. But Jesus was a spirit in heaven. For him to be born on earth, Brigham Young the second prophet of the Mormon church said that instead of letting any other man do it, God the Father did it with Mary. He said that the birth of our savior was as natural as the birth of our parents. Essentially, what this means is that Brigham Young taught that ‘god the father' came down and had relations with Mary, his spirit daughter, to produce the body of Jesus. Though many Mormons will not entertain such incestuous thoughts about God and Mary, this is what Brigham Young taught and as far as we know, this has not been denied by the Mormon church. Nevertheless, Jesus was born, got married, and had children. [2]