At Issue: Is Young Teaching False Doctrine?

Strange and fickle as it might seem, however, within a few months Pratt was again openly opposing Brigham! On April 4 and 5 the Church Authorities again convened to discuss Pratt. Though the subject of Adam was not the major issue during the January 27 meeting, it was brought up often during these sessions.

On April 4 in the Church Historians Office Pratt told the quorum members that he did not find the Adam-God doctrine to be supported by Joseph's revelation:

I would like to enumerate items first preached and published that Adam is the Father of our spirits... When I read the revelation given Joseph I read directly the opposite.

Brigham later responded to Orson's attack by appealing to his own prophetical calling:

It is my duty to see that correct doctrine is taught and to guard the Church from error, it is my calling.

Orson spurned this statement; still believing that the Mormon prophet could err in doctrine even when he was acting as a prophet. With Brigham absent on the following day, Mormon Apostle Orson Hyde answered Pratt by affirming that to charge the prophet with advancing false doctrine was in reality undermining the entire truth and foundation of their religion. God's prophets cannot advance false doctrine. Therefore, to acknowledge that the prophet Brigham was indeed advancing false doctrine would be to acknowledge that he was not divinely led. This would destroy their claim to be the Kingdom of God. Hyde insisted on this implication:

To acknowledge that this is the Kingdom of God, and that there is a presiding power, and to admit that he can advance incorrect doctrine is to lay the axe at the root of the tree. Will he suffer his mouthpiece to go into error? No. He would remove him and place another there. Brother Brigham may err in the price of a horse,... but in the revelations from God, where is the man that has given thus saith the Lord when it was not so? I cannot find one instance.

Pratt expressed his total disbelief in Brigham's doctrine regarding Adam:

In regard to Adam being our Father and God... I frankly say, I have no confidence in it, although advanced by Brother Kimball in the stand, and afterwards approved by Brigham... I have heard Brigham say that Adam is the Father of our spirits and he came here with a resurrected body, to fall for his own children, and I said to him it leads to an endless number of falls which leads to sorrow and death; that is revolting to my feelings, even if it were sustained by revelation.

Orson Pratt's central argument was that Young's doctrine contradicted the Scriptures. Joseph Smith claimed to have restored the pure version of the Genesis creation narrative in his inspired revision of the earlier chapters of the Bible. This "inspired" revision later became part of Mormon scripture, entitled the Book of Moses. In the following verse Joseph's account of Genesis distinctly implies that Adam was not the God and Father of Jesus Christ:

And he called upon out father Adam by his own voice saying: I am God; I made the world, and men before they were in the flesh. And he also said unto him: If thou wilt turn unto me, and hearken unto my voice, and believe, and repent of all thy transgressions, and be baptized, even in water, in the name of Jesus Christ... and now, behold, I say unto you: This is the plan of salvation unto all men, through the blood of mine Only Begotten, who shall come in the meridian of time (Moses 6:51f., 62)

These and other passages in Joseph's Book of Moses teach that the Father of the only begotten son, Jesus Christ, spoke to Adam in the Garden. that clearly indicates that Adam was not God the Father. It was to this fact that Orson Pratt appealed:

One [revelation] says that Adam was formed out of the earth, and the Lord put in his spirit, and another that he came with his body, flesh and bones, thus there are two contradictory revelations. in the garden it is said that a voice said to Adam, in the meridian of time, I will send my only begotten son Jesus Christ, then how can that man and Adam both be the Father of Jesus Christ? It was the Father of Jesus Christ that was talking to Adam in the garden. Young says that Adam was the Father of Jesus Christ both of his spirit and body in his teaching from the stand.

The apostles answered Pratt by reassuring Brigham's divine calling; he was God's mouthpiece. The thought that a prophet of God could advance false doctrine chilled their blood. It was the duty of all to set aside any personal opinions and to be subject to the pronouncements of their divinely led leader. Wilford Woodruff angrily retorted:

As our leaders are inspired to talk, they are inspired oracles, and we should be as limber as a dish cloth.

Hyde, the President of the quorum of the Twelve Apostles, later in the session asked his brethren what should be required of Orson Pratt. George A. Smith, Church Historian, responded by suggesting that Orson acknowledge Brigham as a prophet and inspired man. Smith assured that if Brigham was indeed the Church President, he would be a inspired man. On the other hand, if Orson Pratt were correct in his doctrines, which were declared to be false by Brigham, then all would have to conclude that the man whom they had thought was God's prophet was in fact not divinely led. Smith told Hyde that Pratt should.