[Editorial Note: This post is only meant to be what its title says it is. It is not an historical treatise on related teachings from various past or present church leaders, or an attempt to compare or contrast them. A few other leaders’ thinking on the subject are encountered as they touched on, in the documents, Pres. Romney’s teachings. Those interested in obtaining the Church’s position on organic evolution, which is that it doesn’t have one for that particular scientific field (as well as all others), can find it here and here. Those wishing to obtain the Church’s position on the origin of man can find it here and here.]
Abstract: President Marion G. Romney, as part of his Apostolic ministry, loved the standard works and studied them closely. Therefore he became an astute gospel scholar and was accordingly assigned to review proposed materials for use in Church classes. This labor occasionally caused him to become offended by the worldly interpretations some writings placed on various scriptural passages that dealt with the origin and mission of Adam. These feelings caused him to publicly take exception and repeatedly teach the Church the correct doctrine. His explanations were twice endorsed by Church leaders. His position was that Adam was a child of God, both in spirit and physical body, and did not originate from a lower form of life.
Some Introductory Life History
President Marion G. Romney (1897-1988) is little-known in the contemporary Church, so an introduction is in order, including a few special highlights. Born in Mexico, in the Colonia Juarez colony, he grew up in a tight-nit Latter-day Saint community. With the 1912 Mexican revolution his family was forced to leave, eventually ending up in Oakley, Idaho, where he attended Rick’s College for two years. He served a mission to Australia, where his testimony solidified. Two motivating experiences should be mentioned.
Though his family was so poor that he had not entertained serving a mission, he changed his mind quickly: “Towards the end of the summer, just before school started, a stake conference was held in the Rexburg Tabernacle. The choir seats in that building formed a half circle. The pulpit was on a line with and between the ends of the seats. I sat on the end seat in the choir, straight across from the podium. Apostle Melvin J. Ballard conducted the conference. As he stood at the pulpit, he told of seeing the Savior on an occasion when as President of the Northwestern States Mission, he had visited an Indian reservation in Montana. His account so impressed me that I immediately went to my father and told him that I needed his financial help to serve a mission].”[1] Funds were obtained and Marion served with distinction.
During his mission he enjoyed one of the great spiritual experiences of his life. He explained: “One Saturday I went to the University of Sydney and spent the afternoon in the library. When I got tired looking in the book[stack]s, I sat down at a table with my Doctrine and Covenants and read the 76th Section where the Lord talks about the three degrees of glory and so forth. As I read it, I got tremendously interested, and when I finished and got up to go, it was dark. As I stepped outside and down the steps of the library building, I looked into the heavens and saw the stars in that southern sky, the Southern Cross and other constellations. They seemed unusually bright. As I gazed into the heavens and walked across the lawn to the street, I seemed to see the things I’d been reading about. That experience had such an effect on me that never since then have I been able to find complete satisfaction in any work other than the work of the Lord.”[2]
After his mission, he returned to school and married Ida Jensen. He later earned a law degree from the University of Utah. During his lifetime he served as a bishop, stake president, Assistant to the Twelve, Apostle, President of the Quorum of the Twelve (though age and ill-health made him inactive in this), and Counselor in the First Presidency. In his professional life he practiced law before being called to full-time Church service, starting with his role as Assistant Managing Director of the Welfare Program.[3]
Because of warnings from relatives about the dubious conduct of some lawyers, and his own internal pondering, he began a study habit to ensure he would live life with integrity. “I decided that I would not be anything but an honest man and so I made a resolution and followed it through for the twelve years I practiced law,” he said. “I went to my office each morning thirty minutes earlier than my associates. There I read the scriptures for thirty minutes, and prayed about what I’d read. I pleaded with the Lord to give me strength to be an honest man while I practiced law. I read through the Book of Mormon nine times during that period and through the Pearl of Great Price, New Testament, and Doctrine and Covenants about the same. That’s where I really got acquainted with the Book of Mormon.”[4]
After he toured a mission (in 1969), an observant mission president wrote of him: “Elder Romney was a very kind, gracious, and considerate man. He was constantly studying the scriptures and reminding us to use the Standard Works of the Church as our guide. He studied on the plane, while waiting for buses, and in-between meetings in his room. While he lived in the mission home, he was constantly studying.”[5]
Around this same time, when his wife Ida had a stroke and lay in the hospital for weeks in a coma, unable to talk or recognize visitors, he fasted and prayed with great earnestness and faith. After this spiritually exhausting process, an associate described what happened: “She was in the hospital and finally the doctors told him that there was no hope, that she was now beyond help. . . . After all his yearning and concern, ‘For the first time,’ he said, ‘My heart was filled with faith.’ He knelt down by the bed and he blessed her to recover and to live. She traveled with him around the world after that.”[6]
President Romney often indicated that one of his spiritual gifts was to hear the voice of the Lord: “After much praying, and on many occasions fasting for a day a week, over long periods of time, I have had answers revealed to my mind in finished sentences. I have heard the voice of God in my mind, and I know his words.”[7] He also testified, “I know, for example, what Enos was talking about when he said, ‘the voice of the Lord came into my mind again, . . .’ He did not say it came into his ear, but that it ‘came into my mind again, saying. . . .’ I know what that voice is like because I have had it come into my mind and give me names when I have had to select stake presidents. There is nothing mysterious about it to people who learn to be guided by the Spirit. The voice of the Lord has come into my mind, in sentences, in answer to prayer.”[8] Again: “In my own life, I have had answers, as a result of long periods of faithful fasting and prayer. I have had the answers of God come into my mind with the same distinctness that Enos had when the answer came to his mind and he said, ‘The voice of the Lord came into my mind again, saying.’ I have had that experience; sentences, names, have been given to me. I know this is true and in my soul is an absolute certain witness.”[9] After a long and immensely productive life, President Romney died in 1988 at age ninety.
When speaking at his funeral, President Gordin B. Hinckley described his perception of President Romney’s gospel knowledge and teachings:
I respected him for his tremendous mental capacity. He was a man of intelligence. He had a remarkable power of concentration as he read and studied. He was gifted with a rare capacity for scholarship. He had excelled in his studies as a student of the law. He prepared all of his presentations as a practicing attorney would, with infinite care and research. He similarly studied the gospel. No one among his brethren was an abler student of the Book of Mormon. He read it scores of times. He read it deliberately, carefully; he pondered it, and prayed over it. He loved the Book of Mormon, and no one ever said anything critical of it that he could not overcome with conviction and persuasion. Its words of power and truth became the foundation of numerous talks which he gave. His discourses were not flowery. They were profound and convincing. He would prepare his gospel presentations with great diligence, citing authority, and deftly weaving argument that came out of the sincerity of his conviction, as well as the logic of his reasoning. . . .
His ability to teach came of a deep understanding that resulted from study and prayer. He was absolutely fearless in stating his beliefs and his purposes.[10]
President Spencer W. Kimball said of President Romney, “His prayers are so earnest . . . that we know the Lord is listening. His sincerity is of such quality that it touches the listeners, and all of us feel that because President Romney is praying, we are all closer to our Father in Heaven. . . . All is holy where this man kneels.”[11] In their statement at his death, the First Presidency wrote of him, “President Romney taught with the conviction born of a life immersed in the study of scriptures. His understanding and exposition of gospel principles will stand as a testament to his faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and will be a beacon to others who seek to follow the Savior, who is ’the way, the truth, and the life.’”[12]
The Standard Works of the Church
President Romney viewed the scriptures as the revealed word of the Lord and prioritized them first as his main source of truth and knowledge. “Now, I don’t know much about the gospel other than what I’ve learned from the standard works. When I drink from a spring I like to get the water where it comes out of the ground, not down the stream after the cattle have waded in it,” he said. Continuing, he explained: “When it comes to the gospel we ought to be acquainted with what the Lord says and we ought to read it. You ought to read the gospel; you ought to read the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants; and you ought to read all the scriptures with the idea of finding out what’s in them and what the meaning is and not to prove some idea of your own. Just read them and plead with the Lord to let you understand what he had in mind when he wrote them.”[13]
He further affirmed: “We must work and study his word with full desire until his teachings become our teachings. Then we will be prepared to speak with power and conviction. If we choose to follow some other path of preparation, we have no assurance of success. We will end up delivering our own ideas or some other man’s ideas, and we will not be profitable servants of the Lord. The primary source of the Lord’s word is in the standard works. This is augmented as needed by living prophets. One of the best ways to learn the gospel is to search the scriptures. Scriptures contain the word of God to man.”[14] Elder Romney found that some people sought to wrest the scriptures for various personal purposes, so he warned: “Many people find it difficult to accept at face value and as sufficient for the time being what the Lord has said about a matter.”[15] And he warned: “It is, of course, common knowledge that there are among us many who, through devious ways and means, take unwarranted liberties with the revealed word of God. In speeches, magazine articles, books, [websites] etc., the scriptures are wrested at will in an effort to make them appear to support private interpretations and theories.
“We . . . should ever be on guard against such heresies. Certainly, we should never be the originators of them. We . . . should study and correctly understand the scriptures as they are written, and so rely upon them. They should be studied for the purpose of learning what they say and teach, rather than for the purpose of using them to support a predetermined thesis or theory.”[16]
Although the standard works were President Romney’s primary gospel knowledge source, he was also tutored by members of the First Presidency and the Twelve as he progressed within the ranks of Church leadership.[17] As his gospel acumen became increasingly evident to his leaders, he was asked to use it to upgrade instructional materials that affected the entire Church.
Church “Publications Committee” Work
In 1944 the First Presidency assigned Elder Romney to serve on a newly created Publications Committee, responsible for reviewing proposed church materials before publication and dissemination; something of a forerunner to today’s Church Correlation Committee.[18] The letter he received from them stated the following explanation of duties; he would publicly refer to his work on this committee more than once, as seen below:
As you are aware, the Council of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve approved, by a formal action, the setting up of a committee on Publications as proposed by the First Presidency. You Brethren were named and approved to constitute that Committee. [Joseph Fielding Smith, John A. Widstoe (who soon died), Harold B. Lee, Marion G. Romney]
The function of this Committee is to pass upon and approve all materials, other than those that are purely secular, to be used by our Church Priesthood, Educational, Auxiliary, and Missionary organizations in their work of instructing members of the Church in the principles of the Gospel and in leading others to a knowledge of the truth. No non-secular materials will be used by any of these organizations that do not receive the approval of your committee. This assignment will cover reference books prescribed or placed at the disposal of our youth by any of the organizations named, as also books used in reading courses.
To meet the required standards for use by Church organizations, such materials must:
- Clearly set forth or be fully consistent with the principles of the Restored Gospel.
- Be wholly free from any taint of sectarianism and also of all theories and conclusions destructive of faith in the simple truths of the Restored Gospel, and especially be free from the teachings of the so-called “higher criticism.” Worldly knowledge and speculation have their place; but they must yield to revealed truth.
- Be so framed and written as affirmatively to breed faith and not to raise doubts. “Rationalizing” may be most destructive of faith. That the Finite cannot fully explain the Infinite casts no doubt upon the Infinite. Truth, not error, must be stressed.
- Be so built in form and substance as to lead to definite conclusions that accord with the principles of the Restored Gospel, which conclusions must be expressed and not left to possible deduction by the students. When truth is involved there is no place for student preference or choice. Youth must be taught that truth cannot be blinked or put aside; it must be accepted.
- Be filled with a spirit of deepest reverence. They should give no place for the slightest levity. They should be so written that those who teach from them will so understand.
- Be so organized and written that the matter may be effectively taught by men and women untrained in teaching and without the background equipment given by such fields of learning as psychology, pedagogy, philosophy, and ethics. The great bulk of our teachers are in this untrained group.[19]
Such were some of the First Presidency’s formal instructions to these apostles forming the committee, and such is how they proceeded in their labors.
For example, in his October 1947 general conference talk, Elder Romney referred to his labors thereon: “I would like to find, when I read the [proposed] lessons that are to be presented in the classes of the organizations of this Church, an assurance that what is in them was written against the background of the knowledge and understanding of the eternal principles of the gospel, unaffected by the learning and philosophies of men. I think we cannot explain the teachings of Jesus, as they are recorded in the New Testament, in the absence of the light of what the Redeemer himself has said about those teachings in the modern revelations, and I think we need to hold close to these eternal principles. We must learn what they are. If we would spend just a portion of the time we spend reading uninspired writings of men in studying the gospel of Jesus Christ as it is written in the revelations, we would not be deceived as we sometimes are.”[20]
As another example of this Publications Committee’s members’ labors, Elder Romney’s colleague on the committee, Elder Harold B. Lee, shared some internal insights:
I have had a little experience reading some lessons for the various organizations. The First Presidency has a Publications Committee charged with the responsibility of looking over all the lessons prepared. In reading them over, I have been amazed to see how many of our writers fail to have sufficient understanding when they are making interpretations of scriptural teachings. They often fail to realize that the very interpretation that they are straining for is spelled out clearly in the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, the Bible, and the Pearl of Great Price. We have what no other church has: four great books, the truth of which, if we would read them all, is so clear that we need not be in error. For instance, when we want to know about the interpretation of the parable of the tares as the Lord meant it, all we have to do is read the revelation known as the 86th section of the Doctrine and Covenants and we have the Lord’s interpretation. If we want to know something as contained in the teachings of the Beatitudes or the Lord’s Prayer, we can read the more correct version in 3 Nephi. Many concepts that otherwise would be obscure are made clear and sure in our minds. Our job, as one of our presidents said, is to see to it that these purveyors of false notions and speculations are put to flight.[21]
Learns from the Prophet
We are not privy to what Elder Romney heard taught by his brethren in their formal council and testimony meetings over the decades, but we do know what he heard taught by the Prophet of God at the April 1946 general conference. Sitting on the stand, Elder Romney listened to President George Albert Smith teach the following to the Saints: “There are thousands of members of this Church who know—it is not a question of imagination at all—they know that God lives and that Jesus is the Christ and that we are the children of God. He is the Father of our spirits. We have not come from some lower form of life, but God is the Father of our spirits, and we belong to the royal family, because he is our Father.
“We talk about the philosophies of men and hold them up sometimes as a pretty picture, but when they conflict with the teachings of our Heavenly Father as contained in Holy Writ, they are valueless. They will never lead anybody into eternal happiness, nor help him to find a place in the kingdom of our Heavenly Father.”[22]
In a separate address given that same conference, President Smith reminisced, with a touch of humor, that he “said to a man one day, ‘You can find out all about your ancestors if you will go with me to the Genealogical Library.’ He said, ‘I don’t want to know anything about them.’ I wouldn’t either if I thought my ancestors could be traced back to an orangutang or a baboon. But . . . those who have any pride in that kind of ancestry will not connect me with their family tree.”[23]
Only the year before (again in Elder Romney’s hearing), as President of the Twelve, President Smith had taught the Saints: “It was in the plan of our Heavenly Father that every living thing that he created should each reproduce after its kind. Adam and Eve were the children of God; they were our first parents, and every human being that has lived upon the earth descended from them.”[24] Of course, such statements would convey to Elder Romney (along with the entire church) what the Prophet believed and would likely have influenced his doctrinal views.
The Mission of Adam
This brings us to Elder Romney’s April 1953 general conference talk. On this occasion he decided not to use his prepared message and instead speak of other matters weighing on his mind, including issues he encountered during his work on the Publications Committee. Early on in his remarks, he quoted a statement from a conference talk given a year previously by one of his Quorum associates, Elder Albert E. Bowen, saying: “In my view there is only one safety; there is only one cure; and that is to take the pure and unadulterated word of God and set that up as our standard of measurement, and measure every creed and doctrine and dogma by that yardstick. That which will not square with the declarations of Almighty God we can lay aside as unsuited for the need of man.”
Then Elder Romney launched into his own message. When one listens to or reads the talk, it is apparent that Elder Romney felt strongly about what he was expounding, as it seems something of a rebuke to certain unnamed hearers, probably curriculum writers. Yet because of his audience, the message was meant for the entire Church. Being extemporaneous and energetic, it came across a little choppy, but still completely understandable, especially as published in the smoothed-out official Conference Report:
I want to go a little farther back for a moment, if I can be given guidance by the Spirit of the Lord to speak the truth accurately, and mention the great condition precedent to the efficacy of the mission of Jesus Christ. That condition precedent is the mission of Father Adam, because without the mission of Adam there would have been no need for the mission—the atonement—of Jesus Christ.
I have an assignment from the First Presidency to serve on the Church publications committee. This committee is expected to read and pass upon the literature proposed for use in the study courses of our auxiliary organizations. It would please me immensely if, in the preparation of this literature, we could get away from using the language of those who do not believe in the mission of Adam. I have reference to words and phrases such as “primitive man,” “prehistoric man,” “before men learned to write,” and the like. We sometimes use these terms in a way that offends my feelings; in a way which indicates to me that we get mixed up in our understanding of the mission of Adam. The connotation of these terms, as used by unbelievers, is out of harmony with our understanding of the mission of Adam.
“Adam fell that man might be.” (2 Nephi 2:25.) There were no pre-Adamic men in the line of Adam. The Lord said that Adam was the first man. (Moses 1:34, 3:7; D&C 84:16.) It is hard for me to get the idea of a man ahead of Adam, before the first man. The Lord also said that Adam was the first flesh (Moses 3:7) which, as I understand it, means the first mortal on the earth. I understand from a statement in the book of Moses, which was made by Enoch, that there was no death in the world before Adam. (Moses 6:48; see also 2 Nephi 2:22.) Enoch said: . . . death hath come upon our fathers; nevertheless we know them, and cannot deny, and even the first of all we know, even Adam.
For a book of remembrance we have written among us, according to the pattern given by the finger of God; and it is given in our own language. (Moses 6:45-46.)
I understand from this that Enoch could read about Adam in a book which had been written under the tutelage of Almighty God. Thus there were no prehistoric men who could not write because men living in the days of Adam, who was the first man, wrote.
I am not a scientist. I do not profess to know anything but Jesus Christ, and him crucified, and the principles of his gospel. If, however, there are some things in the strata of the earth indicating there were men before Adam, they were not the ancestors of Adam.
Adam was the son of God. He was our elder brother, not older than Jesus but he was our brother in the same sense that Jesus was our brother, and he "fell" to earth life. He did not come up through an unbroken line of organic evolution. There had to be a fall. “Adam fell that men might be.” (2 Nephi 2:25.)
I will go on now and read this scripture before I forget it:
For a book of remembrance we have written among us, according to the pattern given by the finger of God; and it is given in our own language.
And as Enoch spake forth the words of God, the people trembled, and could not stand in his presence. (Moses 6:46-47.)
Some men speak of the ancients as being savages, as if they had no intelligence. I tell you this man Enoch had intelligence, and Adam had intelligence, as much as any man that ever lived since or that lives now. They were mighty sons of God.
And he said unto them: Because that Adam fell, we are; and by his fall came death; and we are made partakers of misery and woe. (Moses 6:48.)
If Adam and Eve had not partaken of the forbidden fruit, they would have had no children, and we would not have been. (2 Nephi 2:23-25; Moses 5:11.)
I do not look upon Adam’s action as a sin. I think it was a deliberate act of free agency. He chose to do that which had to be done to further the purposes of God. The consequences of his act made necessary the atonement of the Redeemer.
I must not go into a longer discussion, but I say again that I would be very pleased if, in our teaching of the gospel, we could keep revealed truth straight in our minds and not get it confused with the ideas and theories of men, who do not believe what the Lord has revealed with respect to the fall of Adam.
Now, I believe with Enoch, “. . . Because that Adam fell, we are; and by his fall came death;”" (Moses 6:48) that every man must die, as Brother Petersen said yesterday. I believe that to meet the demands of justice, it took the atonement of Jesus Christ to redeem men from that death, that they may be raised again and have their spirits and their bodies, which are separated through death, reunited. I believe that through the atonement of Jesus Christ whatever "transgression" Adam committed was paid for, and that as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive, every living creature. (1 Cor. 15:22; D&C 29:24, 77:2.) I believe, too, that through the atonement of Jesus Christ my individual sins, your individual sins, and the individual sins of every human being that ever lived or ever will live upon the earth were atoned for, upon condition that we accept the gospel and live it to the end of our lives.[25]
From this explanation we may infer that members of the Publications Committee had reviewed proposed instructional writings that did not accurately reflect the doctrine of the mission of Adam. Both Elder Romney and Elder Harold B. Lee would later mention a key development involving President David O. McKay (then President of the Church) and Elder Romney’s conference talk (see below).
Lecture on “The Apostasy”
In the summer of 1954 the First Presidency sent Elder Harold B. Lee to BYU to instruct the Church’s professional religious educators, some of whom they felt were slipping from orthodox moorings. Elder Boyd K. Packer explained the situation: “At about that time there was a change in the leadership of Church education. It was time once again to check the moorings. So, in 1954, all the seminary and institute teachers (by this time a goodly number) were assembled for the first time in many years for a Summer School of intensive instruction. The Brethren sent a teacher, Elder Harold B. Lee, of the Council of the Twelve Apostles. We met two hours each day, five days a week, for five weeks. Frequently he would invite other members of the Council of the Twelve and members of the First Presidency of the Church to instruct us in class or in special evening sessions.”[26]
As noted, while Elder Lee taught most of the classes himself, he did invite other members of the Twelve and First Presidency to teach on occasion (more is said about these classes below). One of those invited was Elder Romney. He lectured to the class on July 2, 1954, on the subject of “The Apostasy,” meaning the great apostasy (prior to the restoration) as it is traditionally termed in the Church.[27] His presentation touched on four points, one of which was the “Loss of the Knowledge and Understanding of God” and its replacement with the philosophies of men. During his lecture, Elder Romney stated:
Today, one of the most widely accepted and highly regarded books in its field is Human Destiny by Lecomte du Noüy. It was published in 1947. At that time the author (since deceased) was an internationally known scientist. He was “widely known and respected by scientists of every land. In 1944 this respect was signalized by the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, when he was awarded the Arnold Reymond Prize for . . . [having made] the most important contribution to scientific philosophy in the past ten years.” (Biographical sketch, in Lecomte du Noüy, Human Destiny [1947], 277.)
In his Human Destiny he attempts to reconcile the evolutionary theory with the Christian religion. He recognizes that the world has suffered an irreparable loss by substituting the materialism of evolution for the idealism of Christianity. His objective is to recover the lost. His effort, I think, is sincere and earnest. President David O. McKay is quoted by the press as naming this book as one of two “which probably will be the greatest of the century.”
In discussing life itself, Dr. du Noüy says: “Let [every man] above all never forget that the divine spark is in him, in him alone, and that he is free to disregard it, to kill it, or to come closer to God by showing his eagerness to work with Him, and for Him.” (Human Destiny, 273.)
This statement illustrates his high purpose and his elevated conception of man and his possibilities. But when he comes to define his God, he drops to the level of the pagan philosophers.
As to the origin of man, he says: “It is almost impossible, nowadays, not to be an evolutionist. Consequently, we must frankly face the problem of the appearance of man. Physical man can only be considered as the result of a series of organisms which go back to the most elementary forms of life. . . . All living beings must have a common origin, and, as evolution exists, it is infinitely probable that the original strain was slightly differentiated living matter, still very close to inorganic matter, and not an already evolved organism.” (Human Destiny, 66.)
As to the origin of religion, he contends that it evolved in the minds of men, superstition being its progenitor. “Superstition first appears as the manifestation of a mental reaction fundamentally important as a starting point [for religion]. . . . The majority of prehistoric men must have had a very crude psychology. Nevertheless, a few ‘mutant’ individuals detached themselves and evolved in an ever-increasingly divergent direction, toward pure religious thinking.” (Human Destiny, 171.)
About Jesus he says: “Christ can be assimilated to one of the intermediary, transitional forms, perhaps a million years in advance of evolution, Who came amongst us to keep us from despair, and to prove to us that our efforts can and must succeed. He in truth died for us, for had He not been crucified, we would not have been convinced.” (Human Destiny, 117.)
As to God: “The idea of God emerged progressively as an absolute necessity, . . . whereas, on the contrary, the Scriptures infer moral rules, identical with ours, from the postulated existence of an almighty personal God.” (Human Destiny, 148.)
“Any representation of God is necessarily borrowed from . . . the physiological reactions resulting from our contact with nature. Therefore, this representation is not only questionable but certainly false.
“On the other hand, the idea of God is a pure idea, like the idea of force, or of energy, and does not need to be visualized; nor can it be. It develops either spontaneously through intuition, unworded and irrational, and is then called revelation; or else it emerges rationally from the contradictions observed between the homogeneous but tentative pattern proposed by science and objective reality which made the construction of this scheme possible.” (Human Destiny, 193.)
“When we were led to call on an external action so as to account for the birth of life and the development of evolution, when we were forced, by the contradictions observed between our intellectual pattern—our science—and Nature, to admit an anti-chance, essentially irrational, we admitted that the only possible logical interpretation of these facts coincided with that which recognized the existence of God. For a man of science there is no difference between the meaning of the words ‘anti-chance’ and ‘God.’ When we proposed the hypothesis of the prolongation of evolution by man, and man alone, we were once more driven, in order to explain the universe and evolution, to accept the idea of a very remote goal, of a telefinalism imposing the necessity of a force, an intelligence, a transcendent will.
“However, we were careful not to define the attributes of this force, which evidently corresponds to the admitted idea of God. We, therefore, used the consecrated name, but avoided as much as possible any anthropomorphic idea.”(Lecomte du Noüy, Human Destiny, 201-02).
There you have the God of the foremost modern philosophical scientists. They have no more knowledge or understanding of the true and living God than does apostate Christendom.[28]
In his address at the April 1959 general conference, Elder Romney repeated some of the same troubling Lecomte du Noüy, Human Destiny book quotations in his talk and arrived at the same conclusions.[29] Then, in 1962, when back speaking to the BYU Student-body, he again referred to and quoted from Human Destiny. Evidently the volume continued to agitate him as he declared, “Recognizing these distinctive means of learning, through those things born of the flesh and those born of the spirit, few scientists attempt to define the God in whom they believe. When they do, they usually get as far afield as the unlearned when they discourse in the fields of science.”[30] The author promoted a theory of a theistic (God-directed) form of evolution and Elder Romney was having none of it. As popular then as the book was, he could not square such teachings with the standard works and therefore repeatedly warned against them.[31]
Letter to a Friend
We now remember Elder Romney’s above quoted 1953 general conference address in which he taught the doctrine of the origin and mission of Adam. Two years after giving that talk he wrote a self-explanatory letter to a friend[32] in which he explained President McKay’s involvement in the aftermath of his talk. He also explained the doctrine further. He wrote:
In the final paragraph of your letter you say: “I would appreciate receiving a statement from you regarding the fall of Adam and his position before the fall as we discussed this morning.” I apologize for the delay in getting this answer to you. I have been out of town on several rather extended trips since I saw you at the Brigham Young University, and I do not remember exactly what I said about Adam before the fall in my conversation with you.
However, I am sure I would have said that in the garden of Eden, Adam was so constituted that he would have lived forever. In support of this statement I cite you to 2 Nephi 2:22. It was by the fall of Adam that death came (Moses 6:48-59).
The other point I would have made is that in the garden of Eden Adam did not have the power of procreation. In support of this I cite 2 Nephi 2:23-25 and Moses 5:11. It was after Adam and Eve left the garden of Eden that they had children (Moses 5:1-3).
Some weeks ago I wrote a letter to a student at the Brigham Young University who had set forth some direct questions. I believe by sending you a copy of that letter (other than the personal parts) I can help as much as I could in any other way, so I enclose a copy herewith. I also enclose copies of the material referred to in that letter: (1) April, 1953 Annual Conference Report; (2) Statement on the Origin of Man, by the First Presidency, November, 1909; and (3) letter to Bishop Joseph H. Eldredge, February 26, 1936.
I am sorry I haven’t been able to give more time to looking up the authorities on the questions involved in this discussion. I expect to do that in the future when I can get some time, and I will keep your name on the list and send you a copy of it when I do. . . . [Signed] Marion G. Romney
[Letter continues:] (The Following is part of a letter [to a student] by Marion G. Romney, under date of February 18, 1955.)
I am not a scientist—which, of course, you already know—and I am not right sure whether I am properly advised as to the present status of the evolution theory. But so far as I do understand it, I am inclined to believe, with you, that an acceptance of it with all of its implications “would seem to cancel out the Fall of Adam and therefore the Atonement of Jesus Christ”.
If you could tell me in a little more detail what you have in mind by use of the word evolution, I may be in a better position to answer your first question: “Are the General Authorities of the Church in one accord on the subject of evolution?”
I don’t suppose that any two minds in the world understand exactly alike any statement on any subject. The General Authorities of the Church are, of course, like all other men, different in their personalities. However, on the fundamentals they are in accord, and one of those fundamentals upon which they are in accord is that Adam is a son of God, that neither his spirit nor his body is a product of a biological evolution which went on for millions of years on this earth.
I enclose herewith a copy of the Annual Conference Report for April, 1953, and I refer you to my talk therein, particularly to that part of it which appears on pages 123-124 bearing on some of the questions you ask. I also call your attention to the statements of Elder Richard L. Evans on pages 132-133.
Following this conference, on April 13, 1953, President David O. McKay wrote me a letter in which he said: “I have heard many express gratitude for your remarks, as well as for your fine spirit. I assure you I have agreed heartily in every instance.” I would assume that this statement of President McKay’s did not repudiate what I had said about the origin of Adam.
I also enclose herewith for your information a statement on the origin of man made by the First Presidency in the Improvement Era, Volume 13, Part 1, November, 1909, and a copy of a letter signed by President Heber J. Grant and his then Second Counselor David O. McKay, under date of February 26, 1936, which letter was addressed to Bishop Joseph H. Eldredge, Myton, Utah, and concerns Adam’s condition before the fall.
If you will study these documents, I think you will be persuaded that they, with the written revelations which the Lord has given, teach rather clearly that the physical bodies created by God, not only for man but for the animals upon this earth, were created after the likeness of the pre-existent spirits which were to inhabit them. I think the scriptures are clear that animals, as well as man were endowed by the Creator, in the day that they became mortal, with the power of bringing forth young after their own kind, and not after some other kind. See Genesis 1:11-12, 20-21, 24-25.
In your second question you say: “Has there been any revelation as to the actual physical creation of Adam? For example, as a rumor I have heard that Brigham Young said that they (Adam and Eve) were brough here from another planet.”
So far as I know there has not been any revelation about the manner of the creation of Adam and Eve, other than what is in the standard works of the church. You no doubt are acquainted with the 38th verse of the 3rd chapter of Luke. What is there said, together with what is said in the enclosed statement of the First Presidency, dated November, 1909, particularly from the middle of page 4 to the end of page 5, is about as much as has been officially said about it. There are some other scriptures bearing on the question, but I do not have the time to get them together right now.[33]
In your third question you say: “Would it be possible in your opinion that God started life with low animals such as the amoeba and when they had progressed to the state of man physically that God put the soul or spirit into man? (This is the theory I believe mostly accepted by the students. All or most of the students believe in God but they think that man was created by some form of evolution.)”
Well, I guess all things are possible to God, but the process you refer to in this third question seems to me to be out of harmony with what the Lord has said about putting in His creations the power to produce after their own kind, and that they are going to persist through the next world in that form, I would have to have something more than the uncorroborated theories of men to make me believe that God created the body of Adam by a series of mutations over a long period of biological evolution on this earth. I just don’t believe it.
Knowledge of the actual manner of the creation of Adam’s body, the Lord has withheld. I feel positive, as the Presidency say in the enclosed statement, that the knowledge of the manner in which he was created will have to await revelations from the Lord. You know, the scriptures teach that the things of man are understood by the spirit of God. Man will never find out the secrets of the creation except God reveals them, and when He reveals them it will be through His Priesthood.
The Lord does say in the Doctrine and Covenants that when He comes, He will reveal all things concerning the earth and how it was made [D&C 101:32-34], and the sealed part of the Book of Mormon likewise contains a complete account of the creation, which is yet to be revealed [Ether 3:25-28].
Your fourth and last question is: “Do you think that death at all on the earth has existed for millions of years and that there was any death at all on the earth before Adam? If not, how do we explain dinosaurs, etc.?”
Frankly, I do not know how long the earth has existed. I cannot answer your question as to how we explain the dinosaurs. I am not too well acquainted with the scientific explanation of the creation of the earth and what their theories are with respect to the dinosaurs.
I do know that Lehi taught that “If Adam had not transgressed he would have remained forever, and had no end. (2 Nephi 2:22)
And Enoch said that “because that Adam fell, we are, and by his fall came death.” (Moses 6:48)
And the Lord said to Adam: “Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the fruit of the tree of which I commanded thee, saying—Thou shalt not eat of it, cursed shall be the ground for thy sake. . . . Thorns also, and thistles shall it bring forth to thee.” (Moses 4:23-24) From this last statement it is clear that something happened to the earth, as well as to Adam and Eve, as the result of the fall, for evidently before that time the earth was not cursed and did not bring forth thorns and thistles, but now it was going to do that.[34]
From this communication, we learn even more about how Elder Romney interpreted the relevant scriptures, as well as the position of the First Presidency and the Twelve at that time on the matter; that neither Adam’s spirit nor his body were created by evolutionary processes. Regarding this fundamental doctrine there was unity among the senior Brethren.
Teaching the Doctrine to BYU Students
Some three years after writing these letters and sending them with the accompanying exhibits[35], Elder Romney spoke to BYU students on the subject, “A Practical Religion.” In this 1957 devotional address, he referred to the origin of man and plants and animals, further referencing scripture:
Our theological doctrine as to the origin of men is that they are the offspring of God. . . . These teachings, of course, are in harmony with the statement that “In the beginning God created man in his own image; in the image of God created he them. Male and female created he them.” [see Genesis 1:26-27; Moses 2:26-27] In modern revelation it is declared that the inhabitants of the earth are “begotten sons and daughters unto God” [D&C 76:24]. Now if this is the truth, as to man’s origin, then the doctrine and the hope that men and women, the offspring of God, may attain unto Godhood, is in harmony with all we know about the practical laws of life in nature. All forms of reproducing life were created in the beginning with the power to bring forth seed after their own kind [Moses 2:21-25]. Plant, animal, and man. Not only do the scriptures specifically testify that God so commanded them, but they also testify that this command was obeyed. [Abraham 4] This law has ever since been and is now in force. We see it in practical operation daily.[36]
About six months later Elder Romney returned to BYU as a member of the Church Board of Education to give the Baccalaureate Address. Therein he again spoke about “that perennial problem, the origin of man”—teaching that truth cannot be reconciled with error, whether on earth or in heaven:
Now for our concluding illustration, let us turn to that perennial problem, the origin of man. At the very heart of revealed truth is the doctrine that Jesus atoned for the fall of Adam. The immediate result of the fall—as taught by revealed truth—was the substitution of mortality, with all its attendant frailties, for the vigor of Adam’s primeval deathless state. This doctrine, that Adam lived in a deathless state before the fall, persuades men to believe in Christ and in His atonement. Therefore, according to Mormon’s test it is of God and true. I suggest that in your search for truth you examine into the conclusions of science as to the origin of man, to see if in harmony with God’s revealed truth, they account for this deathless state. If not, then they do not persuade to believe in Christ. And therefore, according to Mormon, are not of God and are not the truth. In your quest for truth, you will do well to apply this test in other fields. And should you in doing so discover conflicts between revealed truth and men’s conclusions, you need not be too concerned about reconciling these conflicts. Truth and error cannot be reconciled. All you need to do is distinguish between them. Accept the truth and forsake the error. That is what the Lord has always done.
In fact, his ability to do so is, as we have seen, inherent in the intelligence which is His glory. The error of Lucifer and the truth of Jesus could not be reconciled—even in heaven. Error had to be cast out. Jesus spoke with finality on this matter when He said, “No man can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one and love the other or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.”
This is just as true in the realms of thought and faith as it is in the fields of action. Should conflicts in fact (or seemingly) arise, between revealed truth and the conclusions drawn by man in their search for that knowledge which is truth, the safe course is always to accept, hold fast to, and rely upon the word of God. When all the facts are in, science will come to that truth which God already knows and which He speaks in His revelations to men.[37]
At the conclusion of Elder Romney’s address, President Joseph Fielding Smith, who conducted the service, stood and endorsed all that Elder Romney had taught: “I wish to express a word of appreciation for this excellent discourse by Brother Marion G. Romney. I want to bear witness to its truth. I hope the truth of it will sink into our hearts, permanently.” This endorsement declaration is the last thing said on the BYU Speeches audio recording, a moment after Elder Romney’s “Amen.”[38]
President Ezra Taft Benson was so impressed with Elder Romney’s speech that he quoted several paragraphs from it himself when he spoke to BYU students in 1977, as President of the Quorum of the Twelve.[39]
Teaching the Doctrine to the Church
Meanwhile, in 1972 Elder Romney became President Romney of the First Presidency, having been called as second counselor to President Lee. In this new position, at the April 1973 general conference, he again taught from the scriptures the doctrine of the origin and mission of Adam:
The truth I desire to emphasize today is that we mortals are in very deed the literal offspring of God. If men understood, believed, and accepted this truth and lived by it, our sick and dying society would be reformed and redeemed, and men would have peace here and now and eternal joy in the hereafter.
Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints accept this concept as a basic doctrine of their theology. The lives of those who have given it thought enough to realize its implications are controlled by it; it gives meaning and direction to all their thoughts and deeds. This is so because they know that it is the universal law of nature in the plant, animal, and human worlds for reproducing offspring to reach in final maturity the likeness of their parents.
They reason that the same law is in force with respect to the offspring of God. Their objective is, therefore, to someday be like their heavenly parents.
They not only so reason; they know they may so become because God has revealed the fact that it is his work and glory to bring to pass their eternal life (Moses 1:39), which is the life God lives.
Adam, the first man, knew that he was a son of God. He walked and talked with him in the Garden of Eden before the fall. After the fall, “Adam and Eve, his wife, called upon the name of the Lord, and they heard the voice of the Lord from the way toward the Garden of Eden, speaking unto them. . . .” (Moses 5:4–5.). . .
The theory that man is other than the offspring of God has been, and, so long as it is accepted and acted upon, will continue to be, a major factor in blocking man’s spiritual growth and in corrupting his morals.
That it would be so was clearly predictable. In the mind of its devotee, any such theory as Pope’s doubt as to whether “to deem himself a God or Beast” is resolved in favor of being a beast; and his doubt as to whether to prefer “his mind or body,” in favor of his body.
The concept that man is a beast relieves him of a sense of accountability and encourages him to adopt the fatalistic attitude of “eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.”. . .
The truth is, my beloved brethren and sisters, man is a child of God—a God in embryo. . . . That man is a child of God is the most important knowledge available to mortals. Such knowledge is beyond the ken of the uninspired mind. Neither logic, science, philosophy, nor any other field of worldly learning has ever been, or ever will be, able to find it out. Those who limit their search to such learning techniques will continue to be as they have always been, “Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.” (2 Tim. 3:7.)
The only means by which such knowledge can be had is divine revelation. Fortunately for us, as has already been shown, it has been so revealed repeatedly from Adam until today.
The aspirations, desires, and motivations of one who accepts, believes, and by the power of the Holy Spirit obtains a witness to the truth that he is a begotten son or daughter unto God differs from the aspirations of him who believes otherwise, as the growing vine differs from the severed branch.[40]
It becomes clear that Elder Romney believed this doctrine to be important for Church members to understand, as he returned to it often.
He also refused to place advancements in secular or scientific knowledge in the same category as the revelations of God to prophets. After teaching a general conference audience about revelation in the Church, Elder Romney clarified: “In these remarks I have, as you of course have noted, omitted any reference to revelation in connection with the great advances of science in our age. This I have done deliberately. I know that all men live and learn by the light of the Spirit of Christ; I know that all progress in science and other fields of secular learning is made possible by the light of Christ. I do not, however, think that our distinctive message about revelation lies in such fields of learning but rather in the field of religion.”[41] As we have shown, he repeatedly taught that all secular learning must be measured against and yield to the revelations of God found in the standard works; for him they always took precedence.
President Lee’s Historical Account
In 1973 President Lee received a letter inquiring about President McKay and a Deseret Book-published book by President Joseph Fielding Smith. First issued in 1954 and entitled, Man: His Origin and Destiny, it set forth doctrinal views in accordance with those of Bro. Romney.[42] President Lee’s reply repeats the account of President McKay’s endorsement letter to Elder Romney after his 1953 general conference address on the mission of Adam. The letter also relates further information about the 1954 BYU Summer School mentioned above and was written less than three months before President Lee passed away. It is dated October 2, 1973:
I have a few moments to respond to your letter of recent date in which you express some concern about some contradictory information as to the position we should take with regard to the doctrine of evolution. This, as you know, has been long a bone of contention so serious that in the earlier years when Darwin’s theory first was enunciated, a number of professors at the Brigham Young University were released because of their unwillingness to teach the theory and then counter by delivering the true doctrines of the gospel.
Apparently the thing that confused you was that these who have contended have shown you a copy of a letter which was signed by President David O. McKay in which he disavowed the church having taken any official position on the subject of organic evolution. And, furthermore, that in that note to Professor William Lee Stokes, he declared that the book, Man, His Origin and Destiny was not published by the church and is not approved by the church.[43]
There is a little bit of history that I should tell you about. One summer some years ago [1954], I was assigned to deliver a day by day set of lessons to all the seminary teachers and some of the institute teachers of the church, which proved to be a very demanding assignment. I went down each morning and met with all of these teachers. President Joseph Fielding Smith’s book had just come off the press and I assigned, as a part of the course, the reading of this book and writing a dissertation not less than 2500 words on the subject “What Your Appraisal Is of the Value of This Book to a High School Senior or a College Student.” This caused quite a consternation among the teachers, some of whom wanted to write a very critical analysis of the book and were fearful of doing so lest I would downgrade them in the course. This was not at all my intent, it was merely to have them respond critically if they wished, and I so told President Smith that I was inviting criticism and he said that was all right.
Some of these brethren who were critical of the book came directly to President McKay and represented to him that I had used President Joseph Fielding Smith’s book as a text for my lectures at the BYU. He called President Ernest Wilkinson in to express his criticism that I had done so, and President Wilkinson told him that that was not true, that he, President Wilkinson, had sat in on most of the lectures that I had given and I did not use the book as a text, it was merely an assigned reading outside of the lessons.
It was undoubtedly the undue pressure of some of these dissidents, one of which was his own son, who was a professor at the University of Utah, that induced him to write this brief and to them a satisfying but to you a disturbing note, which poured water over their wheel and tended to lessen the influence of President Joseph Fielding Smith’s book.
When your letter came to our attention, President Marion G. Romney told me of a conference address which he had delivered at the April conference in 1953, where he spoke directly to this subject of the fall of Adam, or the fall of man, as it is spoken of, and then brought forth scriptures to support the position of the church with respect to the advent of man upon the earth, etc.
At the conclusion of his talk, President Romney said that President David O. McKay had congratulated him and had written a brief note, a copy of which I am attaching hereto, in which he congratulated President Romney and then said, “I congratulate you for your excellent contribution during the conference and express gratitude for your remarks as well as your fine spirit, and I assure you that I agreed heartily in every instance.” President Romney thought if you had this statement from President David O. McKay, signed by himself, to counter this other statement which has been so confusing, that that should be sufficient for you to understand that President McKay had made this other statement probably because of a compromising position he had been in due to the circumstances as I have explained them. . . .
Very sincerely yours, Harold B. Lee.[44]
Doctrinal Repetition: Pres. Romney’s Religious Educators’ Symposium Address
In August of 1979, President Romney spoke at a Church Educational System Religious Educators’ Symposium at BYU. His address on that occasion, wherein he was speaking to BYU religious educators and Seminary and Institute instructors assembled from around the Church, repeated the substance of his 1953 general conference address. He used much of the same wording, including the fact that certain terms had “sometimes offended” his spirit as he reviewed proposed curriculum. For him, whatever the revisions or advancements of certain fields of science might have been over the intervening decades, the doctrine in the scriptures pertaining to the mission of Adam had certainly not changed.
He told these men: “As I understand it, the purpose of this symposium is to focus specifically on Old Testament materials. One approach to an understanding of these materials and their value in teaching the gospel is to learn from the most righteous people who were on the scene when the action took place. Such men as Abraham, Moses, Lehi, and Nephi qualify as specialists on Old Testament matters. We are most fortunate to have some of the teachings of these men preserved for our use. I think we should study them and follow their counsel if we desire to understand and teach the message of the gospel from the Old Testament. The writings of Abraham, Moses, and Enoch, recorded in the Pearl of Great Price, are a great asset in understanding the purpose and intent of the earliest Old Testament writings. For example, they make very clear the origin and nature of man.”[45]
President Romney then taught (and this is where the repetition from his 1953 conference talk occurs):
For many years I had an assignment from the First Presidency to serve on what was then known as the Church Publications Committee. We were expected to read and pass upon material submitted for use in the study courses of our auxiliary organizations. In reading these materials my spirit was sometimes offended by the use of language which expressed the views of those who did not believe in the mission of Adam. I have reference to words and phrases such as “primitive man,” “prehistoric man,” “before men learned to write,” and the like. Sometimes these terms are used in ways which evidence a misunderstanding of the mission of Adam. The connotation of these terms, as used by unbelievers, is out of harmony with our understanding of the mission of Adam as taught by such teachers as Enoch, Moses, [Lehi] and Nephi. “Adam fell that men might be” (2 Nephi 2:25). There were no pre-Adamic men in the line of Adam. The Lord said that Adam was the first man (see Moses 1:34, 3:7; D&C 84:16). The Lord also said that Adam was the first flesh (see Moses 3:7), which, as I understand it, means the first mortal on the earth. I understand from a statement made by Enoch in the book of Moses, that there was no death in the world before Adam (see Moses 6:48; 2 Nephi 2:22). Enoch also said that a record of Adam was kept in a book which had been written under the tutelage of the Almighty himself. [quotes Moses 6:43-47] . . .
I am not a scientist. I do not profess to know much about what they know. My emphasis is on Jesus Christ, and him crucified, and the revealed principles of his gospel. If, however, there are some things in the strata of the earth indicating there were men before Adam, they were not the ancestors of Adam. And we should avoid using language and ideas that would cause confusion on this matter.
If we confuse the missions of Adam and Eve, we also confuse our understanding of the Savior’s mission. The consequences of the missions performed by Adam and Eve made necessary the atonement wrought by Jesus. Such is the major message of the Old Testament, which was a precursor to the fulfillment of Christ’s atoning mission.
Lehi and Nephi taught these truths. In fact, one of the clearest explanations of the Old Testament’s great message is contained in their writings as found in the Book of Mormon.[46]
One might presume that President Romney had in mind that members of his audience would pass his teachings on to their students in church education classrooms throughout the Church. If not, he still ensured that all members of the Church could study them on their own.
More Repetition: President Romney’s First Presidency Message
With President Lee’s death in late 1973, President Romney then became a counselor to President Spencer W. Kimball. In that capacity President Romney prepared a formal “First Presidency Message” entitled, “Records of Great Worth” for inclusion in the September 1980 Ensign. For this article, he again used and again repeated the same critical portions of his 1953 general conference address on the origin and mission of Adam that President McKay had endorsed, and also in the Religious Educators’ Symposium presentation. In his First Presidency Message, President Romney averred:
One approach that I have found helpful to an understanding of the Old Testament is to learn from other scriptures what the most righteous people who were on the scene had to say. Such men as Abraham, Moses, Lehi, and Nephi qualify as specialists on Old Testament matters. We are most fortunate to have some of the teachings of these men preserved for our use. I think we should study them and follow their counsel if we desire to understand and teach the message of the gospel from the Old Testament.
The writings of Abraham, Moses, and Enoch as recorded in the Pearl of Great Price and the writings of Lehi and Nephi as recorded in the Book of Mormon are a great asset in understanding the purpose and intent of the earliest Old Testament writings. For example, they make very clear the origin and nature of man.
For many years I had an assignment from the First Presidency to serve on what was known as the Church Publications Committee. We were expected to read and pass upon material submitted for use in the study courses of our auxiliary organizations. In reading these materials my spirit was sometimes offended by the use of language which expressed the views of those who did not believe in the mission of Adam. I have reference to words and phrases such as “primitive man,” “prehistoric man,” “before men learned to write,” and the like. Sometimes these terms are used in ways which evidence a misunderstanding of the mission of Adam. The connotation of these terms, as used by unbelievers, is out of harmony with our understanding of the mission of Adam, as taught by such teachers as Enoch, Moses, and Nephi.
“Adam fell that men might be” (2 Ne. 2:25). There were no pre-Adamic men in the line of Adam. The Lord said that Adam was the first man (see Moses 1:34, Moses 3:7; D&C 84:16). The Lord also said that Adam was the first flesh (see Moses 3:7), which, as I understand it, means the first mortal on the earth. I understand from a statement made by Enoch, in the book of Moses, that there was no death in the world before Adam (see Moses 6:48; 2 Ne. 2:22). Enoch also said that a record of Adam was kept in a book which had been written under the tutelage of the Almighty himself.
Consider the deep import of the truth revealed in this scripture:
“And Enoch continued his speech, saying: The Lord which spake with me, the same is the God of heaven, and he is my God, and your God, and ye are my brethren, and why counsel ye yourselves, and deny the God of heaven?
“The heavens he made; the earth is his footstool; and the foundation thereof is his. Behold, he laid it, an host of men hath he brought in upon the face thereof.
“And death hath come upon our fathers; nevertheless we know them, and cannot deny, and even the first of all we know, even Adam.
“For a book of remembrance we have written among us, according to the pattern given by the finger of God; and it is given in our own language.
“And as Enoch spake forth the words of God, the people trembled, and could not stand in his presence” (Moses 6:43–47).
I am not a scientist. I do not profess to know much about what they know. My emphasis is on Jesus Christ, and him crucified, and the revealed principles of his gospel. If, however, there are some things in the strata of the earth indicating there were men before Adam, then they were not the ancestors of Adam. And we should avoid using language and ideas that would cause confusion on this matter.
If we confuse the missions of Adam and Eve, we also confuse our understanding of the Savior’s mission. The consequences of the missions performed by Adam and Eve made necessary the atonement wrought by Jesus. Such is the major message of the Old Testament, which was a precursor to the fulfillment of Christ’s atoning mission. The practice of blood sacrifice was instituted to point man’s thoughts forward to the great atoning sacrifice of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Lehi and Nephi taught these truths. In fact, one of the clearest explanations of the Old Testament’s great message is contained in their writings as found in the Book of Mormon (see 1 Ne. 20–21; 2 Ne. 6–8, 12–25).[47]
Conclusion
Such are the main occasions and historical circumstances in which President Romney taught the doctrine of the origin and mission of Adam. We might speculate that there were other talks and letters originating from him relating to this subject that we do not know about or perhaps that went unpreserved; we cannot say. Some minor supporting items have been silently omitted. Still, the above quoted teachings, largely shared in chronological order, portray his doctrinal position.
President Romney declared: “Now, in conclusion, as a special witness, I want to leave my testimony with each of you, . . . I personally know ‘. . . that there is a God in heaven, who is infinite and eternal, . . . that he created man, male and female, after his own image and in his own likeness . . .’; that in these latter days he has revealed himself anew; and that he is ‘. . . the only living and true God, . . .’
“I have obtained this knowledge and testimony through the same means that Peter, Paul, Joseph Smith, and tens of thousands of others have received it—by the witness of the Holy Spirit to my soul.”[48]
Endnotes
[1] Marion G. Romney, “To Him ‘That Asketh in the Spirit,’” Talk given at Devotional of Salt Lake Institute of Religion, October 18, 1974, 4.
[2] As cited in Oral History of Marion G. Romney, 5-6, as quoted in Email, Glen L. Rudd to Dennis B. Horne, January 25, 2012. See also F. Burton Howard, Marion G. Romney: His Life and Faith (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1988), 77-79. Elder Boyd K. Packer remembered hearing Elder Romney explain his Australian experience: “Some years ago, I was with President Marion G. Romney, meeting with mission presidents and their wives in Geneva, Switzerland. He told them that 50 years before, as a missionary boy in Australia, late one afternoon he had gone to a library to study. When he walked out, it was night. He looked up into the starry sky, and it happened. The Spirit touched him, and a certain witness was born in his soul. He told those mission presidents that he did not know any more surely then as a member of the First Presidency that God the Father lives; that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, the Only Begotten of the Father; and that the fulness of the gospel had been restored than he did as a missionary boy 50 years before in Australia. He said that his testimony had changed in that it was much easier to get an answer from the Lord. The Lord’s presence was nearer, and he knew the Lord much better than he had 50 years before.” (Boyd K. Packer, “The Weak and the Simple of the Church” General Conference, October 2007; https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2007/10/the-weak-and-the-simple-of-the-church?lang=eng)
[3] For further information about Marion G. Romney, see the Church’s online biographical summary: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/liahona/2010/08/small-and-simple-things/president-marion-g-romney- 1897-1988?lang=eng. See also F. Burton Howard, Marion G. Romney: His Life and Faith (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1988); and, “President Marion G. Romney: A Symbol of Righteousness,” Ensign, November 1972; https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/1972/11/president-marion-g-romney-a-symbol-of-righteousness?lang=eng. All online materials in the endnotes were accessed first quarter of 2024.
[4] As quoted in Thoughts on Welfare from the Words of President Marion G. Romney, comp., Glen L. Rudd, (Salt Lake City: Privately published, 2012), 51; quotations are extracts from the Marion G. Romney Oral History as interviewed by James B. Allen, December 18, 1972 and January 4 and 10, 1973.
[5] The First Presidency, Funeral Services For President Marion G. Romney, 23 May, 1988, “Address of F. Buron Howard,” 3; in Church Archives; https://catalog.churchofjesuschrist.org/record/ac8280b4-d4f1-4691-a132-cf7f7b372ea6/0?view=summary&lang=eng
[6] The First Presidency, Funeral Services For President Marion G. Romney, 23 May, 1988, “Address of Boyd K Packer,” 6; https://catalog.churchofjesuschrist.org/record/ac8280b4-d4f1-4691-a132-cf7f7b372ea6/0?view=summary&lang=eng; Elder Romney also received personal revelation that his calling and election was made sure as part of this experience. For the full story, see Howard, Marion G. Romney: His Life and Faith, 137-43.
[7] “How to Gain a Testimony,” New Era, May 1976; https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/new-era/1976/05/how-to-gain-a-testimony?lang=eng
[8] “Seek the Spirit,” in Conference Report, September 1961, 57–61. See: https://archive.org/details/conferencereport1961sa/page/60/mode/2up
[9] Howard, Marion G. Romney: His Life and Faith, 225–26.
[10] “In Memoriam: President Marion G. Romney—A Promise Fulfilled,” Ensign, July 1988; https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/new-era/1988/07/in-memoriam-president-marion-g-romney-a-promise-fulfilled?lang=eng#title1; for the full service and talk, see The First Presidency, Funeral Services For President Marion G. Romney, 23 May, 1988, “Address of Gordon B. Hinckley,” 4-5, 12; https://catalog.churchofjesuschrist.org/record/ac8280b4-d4f1-4691-a132-cf7f7b372ea6/0?view=summary&lang=eng. Or for the sound recording: https://catalog.churchofjesuschrist.org/record/217386ee-72a2-44ee-937f-4170889f4e72/0?view=browse&lang=eng
[11] Ensign, November 1972, 26–27; https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/1972/11/president-marion-g-romney-a-symbol-of-righteousness?lang=eng
[12] “President Marion G. Romney,” Ensign, July 1988; https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/1988/07/president-marion-g-romney-all-is-holy-where-this-man-kneels?lang=eng#title1
[13] “Address to Coordinators Convention,” Seminaries and Institutes of Religion, April 13, 1973, 4; https://catalog.churchofjesuschrist.org/assets/d4e4e647-299b-4284-a8d3-481014c370f5/0/10?lang=eng
[14] “The Message of the Old Testament,” Address given at the Church Educational System Religious Educators’ Symposium, Brigham Young University, 17 August 1979, 1-2.
[15] Marion G. Romney, “Behold: Ye Have My Gospel,” address to Seminary and Institute personnel at BYU, 13 July 1970, 2.
[16] Ibid, 3.
[17] One way we know about the tutoring or teaching of the Brethren by the Brethren (at least at this time) is this October 19, 1955, entry from the diary of Elder Spencer W. Kimball, referring to the meetings of the general authorities: “I attended the . . . report meeting at 1 o’clock. This meeting turned into a question and answer and discussion meeting. Brother [Bruce R.] McConkie presented a lesson on the personality of the Gods. We have decided now to have something comparable to the School of the Prophets, and each Wednesday we will discuss some phase of the gospel among all of us.” The next Wednesday, October 26, he recorded, “I attended the regular report meeting at 1 o’clock, followed by the discussion on the Godhead, . . .” See the Kimball diaries in the Church Archives here: https://catalog.churchofjesuschrist.org/assets/fb47ca6f-7679-49fe-80b0-ef7d1517ebb8/0/19 and https://catalog.churchofjesuschrist.org/assets/fb47ca6f-7679-49fe-80b0-ef7d1517ebb8/0/21
[18] For further information, see the Church History Topic, “Correlation,” at: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/history/topics/correlation?lang=eng
[19] See James R. Harris, Comp. Messages of the First Presidency 6:208-10, for explanation and text of the full letter, only a part of which has been reproduced here. The letter goes on to request that “The discussion of mysteries and of doctrines upon which there is not a recognized accepted view, should be avoided.” Since Elder Romney spoke so emphatically on this subject at least three times, it is evident that he thought the doctrine of the mission of Adam was accepted and recognized in the Church and should be taught accordingly.
[20] Conference Report, October 1947, 41-42; https://archive.org/details/conferencereport1947sa/page/41/mode/1up
[21] Harold B. Lee, “The Mission of the Church Schools,” Address to CES Religious Educators, August 21, 1953, 3. Elder Lee also shared this example of the committee’s work:President Joseph Fielding Smith, brother Romney and I served on the Publications Committee. That is about as thankless an assignment as anybody could get, and I have it still, as Chairman of the Correlation Committee, the responsibility to see that all the [proposed] lesson materials are read . . . as to correlation and as to doctrine. When you start to criticize anybody’s doctrine, you are treading on pretty thin ice. We had a set of lessons that was brought to us one time. This committee who had prepared these lessons were all mission presidents, and the subject they were preparing was something like this, as I remember, “The Teachings of the Master in Everyday Life”. I believe that was the general subject. Well, we three read it and we passed back to President [Joseph Fielding] Smith our criticism. It was so obvious that they were taking a leaf out of some sectarian concept. They talked, for instance, of eternal life as the good life, and so the verbiage went throughout, wholly missing the point of the lesson to apply the teachings of the Master in everyday life leading to eternal life.
President Smith, who has not learned any diplomacy, knowing only how to use English in a straightforward manner, wrote just as we wrote to him, and the [curriculum] writers did not like it. They were offended. I guess it was a little sharp. They asked for a hearing before all of us to have it out. Well, we spent an hour or two. These three men were all excellent men, all mission presidents. Very patiently President Smith said, “Now, brethren, let us take you to one illustration. Here you took the Parable of the Tares. Now where in the world did you get this interpretation of the Parable of the Tares I will never know, but did you know that the Lord gave a revelation in the 86th section of the Doctrine and Covenants in which He told us what the interpretation was? Have you ever read through the 86th section of the Doctrine and Covenants?” And they sat back chagrined. They were not aware of the fact that here the Lord, by revelation, had told us what the interpretation of the parable was. They had taken a sectarian concept because they had not studied the scriptures sufficiently to prepare. They had not done their homework, in other words. This went on, calling attention to other similar teachings. Then the brethren said, “Oh, we are so grateful for this. Now we understand your criticism.” (“Remarks given by Elder Harold B. Lee at the Seminar for Regional Representatives of the Twelve,” September 28, 1967, 5.)
[22] Conference Report, April 1946, 124; https://archive.org/details/conferencereport1946a/page/124/mode/2up
[23] Conference Report, April 1946, 183: https://archive.org/details/conferencereport1946a/page/182/mode/2up
[24] Conference Report, April 1945, 135: https://archive.org/details/conferencereport1945a/page/135/mode/1up. In a general conference address given some twenty years previously (1925), Elder George Albert Smith, then of the Twelve, expressed this same teaching: “I am grateful that in the midst of the confusion of our Father’s children there has been given to the members of this great organization a sure knowledge of the origin of man, that we came from the spirit world where our spirits were begotten by our Father in heaven, that he formed our first parents from the dust of the earth, and that their spirits were placed in their bodies, and that man came, not as some have believed, not as some have preferred to believe, from some of the lower walks of life, but our ancestors were those beings who lived in the courts of heaven. We came not from some menial order of life, but our ancestor is God our heavenly Father. I am grateful that we are not laboring under a handicap such as I feel that some men are who feel that they have grown up and evolved from some unknown condition” (Conference Report, Oct. 1925, 33, see pages 28-34 inclusive). https://archive.org/details/conferencereport1925sa/page/28/mode/2up.
[25] Conference Report, April 1953, 123-24; https://archive.org/details/conferencereport1953a/page/122/mode/2up. Or listen to the audio version which gives a better flavor for his feelings and delivery then: https://catalog.churchofjesuschrist.org/assets/9573212a-e844-4d2f-bd53-802dc2e5f695/0/0?lang=eng (10:50 mins. in)
[26] Boyd K. Packer, “Seek Learning Even by Study and Also by Faith,” in That All May Be Edified (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1982), 45. This history and more is also reviewed by Bruce C. Hafen in his BYU Speeches address, “Religious Education in BYU’s Prophetic Historical Context,” (August 28, 2019), wherein he said: “In a meeting held two years after these changes were announced, Elder Packer delivered a key discourse—some of which I have quoted—on the history of Church religious education. The occasion for that meeting was the retirement of Dean Roy W. Doxey and the introduction of Jeffrey R. Holland, then thirty-three years old, as the new dean of Religious Education at BYU. It was an appropriate time for reflection and recalibration. I recommend President Packer’s talk for frequent rereading.” See: https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/bruce-c-hafen/religious-education-in-byus-prophetic-historical-context/
[27] Elder Romney defined the great apostasy in these words: “Our position—that is, the position of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—is (and we declare it boldly) that within the first three centuries a.d. the power of the priesthood and principles and ordinances of the gospel in its purity as taught by Jesus and the Apostles, and the Church organization as set up by Jesus and the Apostles, were through apostasy lost to mankind. This apostasy was individual and general. If this claim were not true, there would have been no need for the Restoration which came through the Prophet Joseph Smith” (“The Apostasy,” Lecture given to Seminary and Institute Teachers at Brigham Young University, July 2, 1954, 2).
[28] “The Apostasy,” Lecture given to Seminary and Institute Teachers at Brigham Young University, July 2, 1954, 12-14. For the book Human Destiny, see: https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.77857/page/n7/mode/2up
[29] Conference Report, April 1959, 8; https://archive.org/details/conferencereport1959a/page/8/mode/2up.
[30] “Flesh is Flesh and Spirit is Spirit,” BYU Speeches; https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/marion-g-romney/flesh-flesh-spirit-spirit/ (30:10 mins in)
[31] Elder Harold B. Lee harmonized with Elder Romney in such thinking, saying: “You students, who daily have lessons which advance you towards that spiritual excellence while acquiring the skills and the tools through science and philosophy by which you might earn a living and by which [you] raise a family are wonderfully blessed. All of this to keep your lives balanced—how wonderful it is that you come to an institution [BYU] where all of that is kept in proper balance. This institution must turn out the best scientists. We want to turn out the best philosophers to be found in any of the schools; but we want those scientists and philosophers thus trained to measure the theories of their science and their philosophy by the truths of the Gospel of Jesus Christ” (Harold B. Lee, “Cram for Life’s Final Examination,” Address to the Brigham Young University Student-body, January 5, 1954, 8). Regarding the fall of man, Elder Lee taught: “To accept the reality of the Fall and the Atonement is to immediately defeat the teachings of the theories of the so-called scientific men. . . . And when you begin to see that, you see how vital to all we are teaching is an understanding of the Fall, making necessary the Atonement—hence the mission of the Lord Jesus Christ. Recently President J. Reuben Clark and I were talking about some of these things—about some who perhaps claim membership in the Church but who deny the Fall and therefore deny the need for the Atonement and even the Atonement itself. President Clark said, ‘If they really only knew it, they are not Christians, because they do not believe in Jesus Christ as the Savior of the world.’” And: “Now, besides the Fall having had to do with Adam and Eve, a change coming over them, that change also affected all human nature, all of the natural creation of animals and plants. All kinds of life were affected by the Fall. The earth itself became subject to death. One time it must also be cleansed. How the change took place no one can explain, and anyone who would attempt to make an explanation would be going far beyond anything the Lord has told us. But a change was wrought over the whole face of His creation, which up to that time had not been subject to death, and from that time henceforth it was in a state of gradual dissolution until mortal death was to come, requiring a resurrection therefrom” (“The Fall of Man,” Lecture Given to Seminary and Institute Teachers, BYU, June 23, 1954, 4, 12). As he said, President Romney had plenty of company in his teachings on this subject.
[32] The friend was Joseph T. Bentley. For some reminiscing from Brother Romney, in general conference (in 1958), about Joseph Bentley, listen to: https://catalog.churchofjesuschrist.org/assets/79f7797c-5821-4e9b-b910-568f10719d35/0/0?lang=eng, starting at about 1:34:25 minutes in.
[33] Elder Romney probably had in mind the following scriptural passages in addition to Luke 3:38: Moses 6:22: “And this is the genealogy of the sons of Adam, who was the son of God, with whom God, himself, conversed.” Abraham 1:3: “even the right of the firstborn, or the first man, who is Adam” D&C 68:17: “For the firstborn [Adam] holds the right of the presidency [under Christ] over this priesthood.”
[34] Personal correspondence, Marion G. Romney to Mr. Joseph T. Bentley, March 24, 1955; copy in possession of the author.
[35] For the First Presidency doctrinal declaration “The Origin of Man,” see Ensign, February 2002; https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2002/02/the-origin-of-man?lang=eng. See also Clark, Messages of the First Presidency 5:289-90 where a list is given of other subject-related items from the First Presidency.
[36] “A Practical Religion,” BYU Speeches, January 15, 1957; https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/marion-g-romney/a-practical-religion/?M=A (11:33) Elder Romney confirmed this in 1964 in general conference: “We all know that like begets like and that for the offspring to grow to the stature of his parent is a process infinitely repeated in nature. We can therefore understand that for a son of God to grow to the likeness of his Father in heaven is in harmony with natural law.” Conference Report, October 1964, 49; https://archive.org/details/conferencereport1964sa/page/49/mode/1up
[37] “Your Quest for Truth,” May 30, 1957, BYU Speeches; https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/marion-g-romney/quest-truth/?M=A (30:40)
[38] Ibid.
[39] See Ezra Taft Benson, “God’s Hand in Our Nation’s History,” March 28, 1977; https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/ezra-taft-benson/gods-hand-nations-history/
[40] “Man: a Child of God,” Ensign, April 1973; https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/1973/04/man-a-child-of-god?lang=eng. In regards to man’s (and women’s) existence before they became the children of their heavenly parents, President Romney taught this, “In origin, man is a son of God. The spirits of men ‘are begotten sons and daughters unto God’ (D&C 76:24). Through that birth process, self-existing intelligence was organized into individual spirit beings" (Ensign, November 1978, 11); https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/1978/11/the-worth-of-souls?lang=eng. In another talk given many years before that, he stated: “I believe he is the Father of my spirit and the Father of your spirit. I believe we were born to him and to our mother in heaven. I do not know the process, but I do know how we are born to our fathers and mothers in this earth and that is the way I think about it. I feel that there is a similar relationship between him and me that I feel toward my earthly father, or that I did feel toward him when he was here. I have always thought about God in this way. I believe I was born to him as a spirit child in the spirit world before I was born here, and what I say about myself — and you will pardon the personal reference — I feel about every other human soul that lives in the earth. I believe we all lived with him before we came here.” (“Testimony,” in Conference Report, April 1948, 76-77); https://archive.org/details/conferencereport1948a/page/76/mode/1up.
[41] Conference Report, April 1964, 126; https://archive.org/details/conferencereport1964a/page/126/mode/1up
[42] We are herein discussing doctrinal teachings from the scriptures and are not evaluating past or current scientific theories. Both President Romney and President Joseph Fielding Smith knew that scientific thought would change with the passage of the decades. Those portions of President Smith’s book that delved into his day’s science would largely be obsolete now, while his doctrinal teachings based on the standard works remain correct and current and always will.
[43] This letter said:“David O. McKay, President [letterhead]
February 15, 1957
Professor _______
Dear Brother _______
Your letter of February 11, 1957 has been received.
On the subject of organic evolution the Church has officially taken no position. The book “Man, His Origin and Destiny” was not published by the Church, and is not approved by the Church.
The book contains expressions of the author’s views for which he alone is responsible.
Sincerely your brother,
David O. McKay
(President)”
As quoted in Boyd K. Packer, “The Law and the Light,” in Monte S. Nyman and Charles D. Tate, Jr., The Book of Mormon: Jacob Through Words of Mormon, To Learn with Joy {Provo, Utah: BYU Religious Studies Center and Bookcraft, 1990), 23.
[44] Private letter on official Church letterhead stationery, October 2, 1973. I cannot now find the copy of the letter I first located, to make this typescript, but be assured it is authentic. Another copy can be found here: https://josephsmithfoundation.org/david-o-mckay-evolution-letter-february-15-1957/
[45] “The Message of the Old Testament,” Address given at the Church Educational System Religious Educators’ Symposium, Brigham Young University, 17 August 1979, 4.
[46] “The Message of the Old Testament,” Address given at the Church Educational System Religious Educators’ Symposium, Brigham Young University, 17 August 1979, 4-5.
[47] As stated, this message was “Edited from a 17 August 1979 address at the Church Educational System Religious Educators’ Symposium, Brigham Young University”: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/1980/09/records-of-great-worth?lang=eng
[48] Conference Report, October 1964, 51-52; ellipses in original; https://archive.org/details/conferencereport1964sa/page/52/mode/1up
