Dear Gramps,

Based on one of your articles, I’d like to ask you a question about Adam and Eve. Would it be a reasonable point to believe that Adam and Eve were representatives of a terrestrial world/kingdom (like the one most of the humanity are going to inherit according to Mormon doctrine)? If this were true, it would turn out that Adam and Eve would have been selected from a terrestrial kingdom (on some planet) by God to found a human race on earth in order to make a way for the incarnation of spirits born to exalted beings in the celestial kingdom, who are our God-Father and our Heavenly Mother. Am I to any extent on a right path of understanding this principle? Has it been discussed at all by the prophets/authorities of the Mormon Church? What is your opinion about that? I will highly appreciate your opinion and understanding of my theory.
Thank you very much

Roman, from Yerevan, Armenia

Dear Roman,

Those are some pretty deep doctrinal questions, but in my opinion you are exactly on the right path. The tenth Article of Faith of the Mormon Church states,

We believe in the literal gathering of Israel and in the restoration of the Ten Tribes; that Zion (the New Jerusalem) will be built upon the American continent; that Christ will reign personally upon the earth; and, that the earth will be renewed and receive its paradisiacal glory.

The paradisiacal glory is that of a terrestrial world. This Article of Faith implies that the earth was once a world of terrestrial glory and will be returned to that state at the advent of the Savior as he initiates his great millennial reign. We are told by the prophet, Brigham Young, that Adam was born on a terrestrial world, and that he was instrumental in the development of this earth.

“Though we have it in history that our father Adam was made of the dust of this earth, and that he knew nothing about his God previous to being made here, yet it is not so; and when we learn the truth we shall see and understand that he helped to make this world, and was the chief manager in that operation.

“He was the person who brought the animals and the seeds from other planets to this world, and brought a wife with him and stayed here. You may read and believe what you please as to what is found written in the Bible. Adam was made from the dust of an earth, but not from the dust of this earth. He was made as you and I are made, and no person was ever made upon any other principle.” (Journal of Discourses, 3:, p.319)

At the fall of Adam, the earth fell also. When Adam and Eve exercised their agency to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil they, with the earth and all it contained, were transformed from a terrestrial condition to a telestial condition, which is the state that the earth is now in, and in which it and all its appointments will remain until the advent of the Lord at the beginning of the Millennium. In the words of Elder Bruce R. McConkie,

“This earth and all that pertains to it, including every form of life on the face thereof, was first created in a terrestrial or paradisiacal state. Incident to the fall of Adam, the earth itself and all life on its face fell to their present telestial state” (Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 2d ed., p.633).

Gramps