Understanding the Fall in Mormonism – Part IV: The Fall of Man Meets the Plurality of Worlds

This is Part IV in a multi-part series exploring the concept of the Fall in Mormon thought. This post will explore the ways in which the Fall has been influenced by the plurality of worlds idea. See all parts here.

Perhaps the most significant impetus to Mormonism’s positive view of the fall is the revelation known as the Book of Moses. This revelation came to Joseph Smith in June of 1830—only two months after the organization of the Church, and three months after the publication of the Book of Mormon.

The Book of Moses is perhaps best described as a prequel to the creation account as given in the Book of Genesis. God shows Moses a piercing vision of the world that increases in resolution as the vision unfolds. Moses

beheld the Earth yea even all the face of it & there was not a particl[e of it which he did not behold & he discerned it by the Spirit of God & he beheld also the inhabitants thereof & there was not a soul which he be[held not & he discerned them by the Spirit of God[1]

Suddenly, and unexpectedly, Moses’s vision radically changes in scope so that “he beheld many lands & each land was called Earth & there were inhabitants upon the face thereof.”

At this point Moses interrupts the vision to ask God “tell me I pray thee why these things are so & by what thou madest them.” God responds to Moses:

For mine own purpose have I made these things here is wisdom & it remaineth in me & by the word of my power have I created them which is mine only be-gotten Son full of grace and truth & worlds without number have I cre-]ated & I also created them for mine own purpose & by the same I created them which is mine only begotten & the first man of all men have I called Adam which is many but only an account of this Earth & the inhabitants thereof give I unto you for behold there are many worlds that have passed away by the word of my power & there are many that now stand & innumerable are they unto man bu[t all things are numbered unto me for they are mine and I know them.[2]

Here the Lord informs Moses that there are other populated worlds, that have passed away and that now stand. This is a radical vision that has several implications for understanding humanity’s salvation narrative. The Lord explains to Moses that he will receive only an account of this world. Moses agrees and asks the Lord to show him “this Earth & the inhabitan[ts th]ereof & also the H[eavens] & then they servant will be content.”[3]

Despite God’s disclaimer that he will only speak “concer-ning this Earth upon which thou standest” hints of other worlds continue to escape. God explains to Moses, “And Adam called his wifes name Eve because she wa[s the mother of all living for thus have I the Lord God called the first of all women which are many.” This is a deliberate parallel to God’s previous explanation that “the first man of all men have I called Adam.”

The Book of Moses assumes a plurality of worlds reality and builds that assumption into the Mormon corpus of scripture. I argue that this heavily colors, even if subconsciously, Mormon sentiments regarding the fall of man. It is therefore important for us to take a detour in our journey of texts relating to the fall in Mormonism, to carefully consider the impact of other worlds.

Plurality of Worlds in Christian Thought

The idea of plurality of worlds in Western thought has a long and turbulent history.[4] As explained by Erich Robert Paul, many Christians were able to reconcile the plurality of worlds and scientific progress with their concept of the Creator:

The plurality of worlds doctrine accompanied the birth of modern science in the seventeenth century, a time that fostered the growth of Natural Theology, when scientific and religious views complemented mutual intellectual concerns. As a study in rational religion, Natural Theology asserted that the Christian God created a universe in which laws, design, purpose, and harmony were paramount and the scientist, being a Christian, could find justification for his religious convictions in his scientific studies.[5]

Other Christians would not be able to justify a plurality of worlds. Grant McColley points out that the German reformer Philip Melanchthon rejected a plurality of worlds specifically because it conflicted with the doctrine of atonement.

The most vital argument to Melanchthon is his last, wherein he states that there is but one Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, who was sent into the world, was dead, and was resurrected. He did not appear in other worlds, nor was He dead and resurrected there. Nor is it to be thought that if there are many worlds, something not to be imagined, that Christ was often dead and resurrected. Nor should it be considered that in any other world, without the sacrifice of the Son of God, men could be brought to eternal life. As Melanchthon reasons, to accept a plurality of worlds is to deny or to make a travesty of the Atonement.[6]

Despite the protests of Melanchthon and others, Christians continued to entertain ideas of other worlds. From 1742-1745, the English poet, Edward Young, penned Night Thoughts, his most well-known poem written in the wake of the death of his loved ones. In his ninth chapter, “Consolations,” Young asks the inhabitants of other worlds concerning their world history.

Enjoy your happy realms their golden age?
And had your Eden an abstemious Eve?
Our Eve’s fair daughters prove their pedigree,
And ask their Adams — ‘Who would not be wise?’
Or, if your mother fell, are you redeemed?
And, if redeem’d — is your Redeemer scorn’d?[7]

Such words reflect the perennial questions raised by a plurality of worlds: Would all worlds be fallen? Would the Adam and Eve story repeat itself?

In his 1794 tract Age of Reason, the great firebrand Thomas Paine attacked Christianity by lampooning Christians who believed in a plurality of worlds.

From whence then could arise the solitary and strange conceit that the Almighty, who had millions of worlds equally dependent on his protection, should quit the care of all the rest, and come to die in our world, because, they say, one man and one woman had eaten an apple! And, on the other hand, are we to suppose that every world in the boundless creation had an Eve, an apple, a serpent, and a redeemer? In this case, the person who is irreverently called the Son of God, and sometimes God himself, would have nothing else to do than to travel from world to world, in an endless succession of death, with scarcely a momentary interval of life.[8]

Paine’s criticism, a kind of irreverent version of Melanchthon, notes the unresolved questions when combining Christianity with plural worlds. Why then this world? How similar are other worlds?

Some religious Americans, undeterred by Paine, would continue to find harmony in science and faith, such as the Reverend Thomas William Jenkyn:

It is not, I conceive, the philosophy of NEWTON only, that teaches us the doctrine of plurality of worlds; the illustrious President of the universe himself has said, “In my Father’s house are many mansions.” The “Father’s house” is the vast temple of the universe, and the “many mansions,” are the innumerable stars, and suns, and systems which compose its apartments.[9]

On the other hand, many believed such ideas complicated the purpose of God’s creation. In 1859, the Reverend Charles Louis Hequembourg illustrated the several reasons why a plurality of worlds idea frustrates the Christian gospel:

Theology is fully competent to pronounce against the probability that the universe is generally inhabited. The supposition of there being intelligent inhabitants in other worlds, involves them at once in all the high responsibilities and in the fearful hazards of moral beings. If we suppose that all other worlds are inhabited by fallen or sinful beings, we have the hopeless problem to solve, how sin and misery can be universal in the government of God. It is hard to conceive that Infinite Wisdom should or could originate no better plan than such as would fill the universe with sinful and miserable beings, many of whom could never escape from a condition of wretchedness except by their extinction. A superior plan is conceivable, and has been practicable. And if, on the other hand, we conceive that no other beings have fallen besides those known actually to have done so, we have the still greater difficulty to meet, affecting not only the wisdom but also the justice of God, — why, if it was possible to preserve all other worlds in a state of innocence, two races of beings, men and angels, should have been suffered to fall into sin. Theology, therefore, presents objections altogether insuperable, to the belief that the popular doctrine of millions of inhabited worlds is true.”[10]

Plurality of Worlds in the Book of Moses

Much has been written about the reconciliation between science and faith in Mormonism and typically in terms of how much Joseph Smith was influenced by 19^th science.[11] However, little attention has been paid to the impact that plurality of worlds teaching has had on the development of Mormon soteriology. As can be seen from even the brief sampling above, the doctrine of plurality of worlds has far-reaching implications for the doctrine of the atonement and the fall.

The Book of Moses offered the Latter-day Saints explicit scripture that taught: there is a plurality of inhabited worlds; that all the worlds were created by God through his Only Begotten; the first man and woman of each world is called Adam and Eve respectively. But it did not answer all questions nor did it resolve all tensions. How similar or dissimilar are these other worlds? Do the Adam and Eve of all worlds fall like this one? What will world history look like on these other worlds? The Book of Moses is deliberately silent on all these matters.

As to whether other worlds have a different Redeemer, Joseph Smith would later answer in the negative. On February 16, 1832, John Whitmer recorded “A Vision of Joseph and Sidney [Rigdon].”

& we heard the voice bearing record that he is the only begotten of the father; that by him, & through him, & of him, the worlds were made, & were created; & the inhabitants thereof are begotten Sons {of\and} daughters of unto God.[12]

Years later Whitmer’s prose would be converted to poetry, published in the Times and Seasons and signed by Joseph Smith (1843):

And I heard a great voice, bearing record from heav’n,
He’s the Saviour, and only begotten of God-
By him, of him, and through him, the worlds were all made,
Even all that career in the heavens so broad,
Whose inhabitants, too, from the first to the last,
Are sav’d by the very same Saviour of ours;
And, of course, are begotten God’s daughters and sons,
By the very same truths, and the very same pow’rs.[13]

The implications that flow from the few passages in the Book of Moses was not lost on subsequent explicators of Mormon doctrine. A quarter of a century later after its publication, Brigham Young would tell his congregation (1854):

Worlds have always been in progress, and eternally will be. Every world has had an Adam, and an Eve: named so, simply because the first man is always called Adam, and the first woman Eve.[14]

Young continued to be influenced by the notion of a plurality of worlds. In 1870, seven years before his death, Brother Brigham, in words that would make his contemporary Hequembourg shudder, went so far as to tell the saints:

Sin is upon every earth that ever was created. . . . Consequently every earth has its redeemer and every earth has its tempter; and every earth and the people thereof . . . pass through all the ordeals that we are passing through.[15]

For Young, each earth was another iteration—a purposeful repeat—of the plan of salvation. In Young’s mind, the roles of redeemer and even tempter merely pass from one world to the next. All have a plan and a purpose in the grand economy of the Gods.

As long as one sees the Fall of Man as a fluke, as an isolated event, as a one-time event in the history of the universe, it can be more easily regarded as a mistake, as an expression of human weakness or even pride. But once Latter-day Saints have a doctrine where this “mistake” is to be repeated on all other worlds by an all-wise God, it becomes increasingly difficult to accept that this was an error. The Book of Moses suggests that God’s plan had been enacted before—that it wasn’t a one-time tragedy, but rather so by design.

The Book of Mormon’s atonement doctrine was that the plan of salvation was prepared according to the foreknowledge of God as a response to human sin. However, after the plurality of worlds, the plan of salvation would come to mean the plan that is reenacted with every world.

The notion of a plurality of worlds, each repeating an established plan of salvation, forms a very powerful undercurrent in Mormon soteriology that continues to breathe life into the notion of a fortunate and intended fall.

________
[1] Scott H. Faulring, Kent P. Jackson, and Robert J. Matthews, eds. Joseph Smith’s New Translation of the Bible: Original Manuscripts. Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2004, p. 85.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.
[4] For a general overview of the development of the plurality of worlds doctrine see Grant McColley, “The Seventeenth Century Doctrine of a Plurality of Worlds.” Annals of Science 1:4 (1936): 385-430. In the Mormon context see Robert Paul. “Joseph Smith and the Plurality of Worlds Idea.” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 19.2 (1986): 13–36; Erich Robert Paul. Science, Religion, and Mormon Cosmology (University of Illinois Press, 1992). See also Vogel, Dan and Brent Lee Metcalfe. “Joseph Smith’s Scriptural Cosmology” in Dan Vogel, The Word of God: Essays on Mormon Scripture (Signature Books, 1990): 187.
[5] Joseph Smith and the Plurality of Worlds Idea, 14.
[6] The Seventeenth Century Doctrine of a Plurality of Worlds, 412-413.
[7] Edward Young. The consolation: Containing, among other things. A moral survey of the nocturnal heavens. A night-address to the deity. London : printed for G. Hawkins. And sold by M. Cooper, 1745.
[8] Thomas Paine. The Age of Reason. Being an Investigation of True and Fabulous Theology. (Philadelphia, 1794).
[9] Thomas William Jenkyn. On the Extent of the Atonement, in its Relation to God and the Universe. (Boston, 1835): 116.
[10] Charles Louis Hequembourg. Plan of the creation; or, Other worlds, and who inhabit them. (Boston: Phillips, Sampson and Company, 1859): 41-42.
[11] See footnote 4.
[12] Robin Scott Jensen, Robert J. Woodford, and Steven C. Harper, eds., Revelations and Translations, Volume 1: Manuscript Revelation Books. Vol. 1 of the Revelations and Translations series of The Joseph Smith Papers, edited by Dean C. Jessee, Ronald K. Esplin, and Richard Lyman Bushman. (Salt Lake City: The Church Historian’s Press, 2009), 245.
[13] Joseph Smith, “THE ANSWER. TO W. W. PHELPS, ESQ. A Vision.” Times and Seasons vol. 4 no. 6 (1 February 1843), 82-85. Also cited by Paul (1986) and Vogel (1990). Hicks disputes Joseph’s authorship in favor of W. W. Phelps. See Hicks, Michael. “Joseph Smith, W. W. Phelps, and the Poetic Paraphrase of ‘the Vision’.” Journal of Mormon History 20.2 (1994): 63-84.
[14] The Essential Brigham Young (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1992): 93. “I Propose to Speak Upon a Subject that does not Immediately Concern Yours or My Welfare” A Sermon Delivered on 8 October 1854.
[15] Brigham Young, “Sin—the Atonement—Good and Evil—the Kingdom of God.” Journal of Discourses 14:72. (Ogden City, July 10, 1870). Here, Young’s readings go beyond text of the Book of Moses, which says nothing about other redeemers or other tempters, but maintains that all worlds were created by the Only Begotten. Young’s views clearly influence the development of temple liturgy.