No, brother Skousen, that’s not the Atonement

This post isn’t really representative of a lot of what I plan on posting on this blog—partly because of how long it is, but this is a sensitive subject that should not be treated lightly.

I’d heard a few people talk about Cleon Skousen’s Atonement talk and when I got around to reading it I found myself in strong disagreement with it. So I decided to write this rebuttal in debate form with the full text of brother Skousen’s talk in blue and my paragraph by paragraph response in black. I added bold for emphases in some of brother Skousen’s blue text. You can read the uninterrupted text of his talk here.

I’m not 100% sure that I’m 100% right on all my disagreements and criticisms, but I thought this talk deserved a strong rebuttal because if it can stand, then let it stand, but if it falls apart once you dig into it, then let it fall. Please leave your comments at the end.

THE ATONEMENT
Talk By Cleon Skousen

President Kimball introduced one subject in General Priesthood Meeting that isn’t generally discussed that I want to comment on because it’s the whole foundation of Easter that’s never discussed. We just don’t talk about it, and we’re the only people that know about it. And we’ve almost lost it as a doctrine of the Church. So I was quite thrilled when President Kimball introduced it. He said:

“I want everybody to understand that in this life we only have a very limited amount of priesthood authority to function with. There are many ordinances that as yet must be given to us in the next world. One of them is the ordinance of resurrection. We’re not allowed to perform that ordinance here. It’s an ordinance of the priesthood, we’ll get it over there.

Over in the next life we’ll also have the ordinance of begetting spirit children with spirit bodies and that’s something that we have no power or capacity to do here. Physical bodies, yes, but not spirit.”

Then he got onto a theme that I’m sure may have sounded a little strange to some ears. He said:

“You’ll be able to have access to the intelligences in the universe and organize them and make planets and organize kingdoms.”

Brother Skousen has a bad habit of paraphrasing everything and even those it is put in quotation marks—what is above is not a quote. This is an okay paraphrase except for one blaring addition “intelligences in the universe”. Here’s the closes quote I could find in President Kimball’s talk to this last paraphrased paragraph by brother Skousen:

“While we are in the mortal body we cannot ‘fashion kingdoms [or] organize matter, for [that is] beyond our capacity and calling, beyond this world. In the resurrection, men who have been faithful and diligent in all things in the flesh, [who] have kept their first and second estate, and [are] worthy to be crowned Gods, even the sons of God, will be ordained to organize matter.[...]’ (JD, 15:137)” (Spencer W. Kimball "Our Great Potential,”, April 2, 1977).

As you read on you’ll see how problematic this little addition is, but for now let it suffice to note that President Kimball is being misquoted here.

Now this is a beautiful doctrine that it’s time we discussed a little bit more because if we understand that principle, it will help us to comprehend why there had to be an atonement. I don’t know whether this bothers you or not, but as I was a little boy sitting in Sunday School and they talked about the terrible suffering of Jesus on the cross, I would say to my Sunday School teacher, “Who wanted that? What was all the suffering for? Everybody talks about all the suffering. What was it for? Who was it to satisfy?” And my teacher said, “Well, it was to satisfy Heavenly Father.” And that didn’t answer my childish questions either. Seems like if Heavenly Father wanted us to come down on this earth, after we’d repented, He’d just say, “Come back on up, you did the best you could.” What did we need all this suffering up there for?

When I (Cleon Skousen) went on my mission I asked James Widtsoe, my mission president, all my childhood questions concerning all the suffering of Jesus. Why all the pain? President Widtsoe said, “This is the most profound question of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and it shouldn’t be answered unless people are first capable of at least wondering about it so they can hear the answer. The answer to this question is what President Kimball was talking about in priesthood meeting. He didn’t associate it with the subject of the Atonement, but it’s the foundation of it.”

The following are passages in the scriptures–the answers to the questions of the pain of the atonement. If you look each one up you will appreciate them much more than if you just say, “Now I know where.” Actually read each passage and you’ll begin to see what a marvelous ocean, an avalanche, a veritable waterfall of truth has poured out upon the saints in the latter days, and some of it we’ve allowed to run off without appreciating what it really represented. Now, first of all, is II Nephi 2:14. This is what you’ll read:

And now, my sons, I speak unto you these things for your profit and learning; for there is a God, and He hath created all things, both the heavens and the earth, and all things that in them are, both things to act and things to be acted upon.

Father Lehi says that everything in the universe is made of two things. This is where we get our “building blocks” concept–something to act and something to be acted upon.

First let’s put this verse in context. Lehi is talking about the agency and salvation of man. I would propose that the things to act, in this chapter, are God’s children and the things to be acted upon is the matter that intelligent beings act upon (the sphere in which they are place to act D&C 93: 30) and/or intelligent beings (God’s children; spirit, mortal man or resurrected man) that are acted upon or have their freedom limited because they are under the punishment of the law. For example, if you were to end up in the Telestial Kingdom rather then the Celestial, you would have you freedom limited in the sense that you have far fewer chooses of what you could do (D&C 88: 38). Another example of this concept are those who rebelled in the preexistence as Elder Hales said in the 2010 October General Conference “Those who followed Satan lost the opportunity to receive a mortal body, live on earth, and progress. Because of the way they used their agency, they lost their agency” (Robert D. Hales, "Agency: Essential to the Plan of Life).

Just read the entire chapter and you’ll find it clear that Lehi is talking about the agency of man—and about nothing that would suggest that ever particle of mater has an individual independent speak of intelligence. Here’s just one quick verse that helps give some more insight 2Ne 2: 26 (emphasis added):

“And the Messiah cometh in the fulness of time, that he may redeem the children of men from the fall. And because that they are redeemed from the fall they have become free forever, knowing good from evil; to act for themselves and not to be acted upon, save it be by the punishment of the law at the great and last day, according to the commandments which God hath given.”

Just look at the way Elder Hales used this same scripture during this the above mentioned conference: “We teach that agency is the ability and privilege God gives us to choose and ‘to act for [ourselves] and not to be acted upon” (reference, same as above).

Now the next reference is D&C 93:29.

The thing which acts is called “eternal intelligences” In the plural– eternal intelligences!

Now maybe Brother Skousen was misquoted here because what is put in quotations above is not in the verse. Here’s D&C 93: 29 “Man was also in the beginning with God. Intelligence, or the light of truth, was not created or made, neither indeed can be.”

The entity that is referred to in this verse is not intelligences: independent particles of intelligent. The entity that is referred to in the verse is “Intelligence” no S it is not plural; it is one divine intelligent entity—not a chaotic mass of lesser intelligences. Note that we are given a very clear explanation of what this entity is, we don’t need to speculate: “Intelligence, or the light of truth”. The light of truth is another world for the light of Christ, read D&C 88: 5-13, verse 6 and 7 are quoted below (emphases added).

6 He that ascended up on high, as also he descended below all things, in that he comprehended all things, that he might be in all and through all things, the light of truth;

7 Which truth shineth. This is the light of Christ. As also he is in the sun, and the light of the sun, and the power thereof by which it was made.

So it would appear the Brother Skousen is sighting verses about the light of Christ “the law by which all things are governed, even the power of God” (D&C 88:13) to try to show the existence of independent imperfect particles of lesser intelligent, which at first glance might just seem like another way of understanding the same concept. But by taking the singular light of truth, light and truth, intelligence and turning it into a mass of independent lesser intelligences you redefine the scriptural definition of the glory of God “intelligence, or, in other words, light and truth” (D&C 93: 36) and turn God into a being beholden to a chaotic mass of lesser intelligences.

I am very passionate about this difference between God’s power or glory being intelligence or derived from intelligences because adding the S perverts the doctrine and hides beautiful beautiful truths about our beginning and end. About which truths I will not be commenting because I don't fully understand it and they are far too sacred (Alma 12: 9).

The next one is D&C 93:30.

These intelligences are independent and act voluntarily. They are not compelled. The heavens wait on them until they obey. They don’t do anything until they are ready, just like us! And our Heavenly Father built the whole universe with this element of action, this energy factor in the universe is intelligence and it only operates as fast and in a direction that it is willing to follow.

Here he tries to use D&C 93:30 to show that the “intelligences” (again he has to add the S) all act independently. I will not try to explain and a correct interpretation of verse 30, but I would point you to 2Ne 2: 27, which is, I believe, a clearer or specific explanation of the same principle as D&C 93: 30. But to put the verse in context let’s read the first line of the next verse, which explains what verse 30 is talking about: “Behold, here is the agency of man […]” (D&C 93:31). So again brother Skousen is trying to use a verse that is about the agency of man to show the independence of his lesser intelligences.

Now Abraham 3:19.

These intelligences are graded from the lowest to the highest and the highest is God’s intelligence Himself. And we’re in between. Some of the intelligences are assigned to the elements, and some were assigned to plant life and some were assigned to animals and those that were his very special, superior, super deluxe intelligences were given bodies in his image. And you are they. You are very, very, very special people.

Ok now we jump to Abraham. Abraham 3:19 is not talking about a gradation of intelligences from tiny particles to plains to animals to man to God. It is talking about the gradation of intelligence among God’s spirit children, and that He God is above them all. Just read the verse (emphasis added): “And the Lord said unto me: These two facts do exist, that there are two spirits, one being more intelligent than the other; there shall be another more intelligent than they; I am the Lord thy God, I am more intelligent than they all.”

But interestingly enough a few verses later in verse 22 we do find the one and only scriptural use of the word “intelligences.” But it is not used at all as Brother Skousen uses it. The foot note next to the word intelligences in verse 22 defines it well: “Man, a Spirit Child of Heavenly Father. Man, Antemortal Existence of.” And as you read on the group that Abraham saw called “intelligences” are more clearly defines in verse 23 as “those that were spirits.” Just read Abraham 3: 22-28 and the context makes it very clear.

Now Joseph Smith describes this in Documentary History of the Church Vol. 4, p. 519. He says:

“And I explained to the Quorum of the Twelve and their wives the doctrine of the eternal progression of intelligences.”

Then he doesn’t tell us what the explanation was. So you have to go to Brigham Young, Parley P. Pratt and Heber C. Kimball and they tell what was explained to them but they got the doctrine from him.

I don’t really know what to make of these past few paragraphs—it’s just name dropping without saying what they said.

The prophet Joseph Smith used the word “intelligences” in his teaching the same way it is used in Abraham 3: 22, which in it’s broadest sense means man in any staged of development: spirit, mortal, post mortal spirit, resurrected being. Understanding the context and proper scriptural use of the word “intelligences” help you understand what Joseph Smith might be talking about when he says “the eternal progression of intelligences”: we are spirit children, born in a physical body and so on to out final glory and hopefully Eternal Life.

And if Joseph Smith was using word “intelligences” the same way brother Skousen defines it, which interpretation would require taking that one quote completely out of context, then the prophet would be saying that the chaotic lesser intelligences progress eternally, as we do, which would have very strange implications.

Joseph Smith said “If we start right, it is easy to go right all the time; but if we start wrong we may go wrong […]” (History of the Church, 6:303). Brother Skousen’s theories here are not correct, so when you start extrapolating the implications out, then you get farther and farther from the reviled doctrine and it just all falls apart—that is how error behaves.

Our next one is D&C 93:33.

That which is acted upon is called “eternal element” (two blocks–act, acted upon )–element, matter. Joseph Smith said that matter exists on two dimensions– the very refined element is called spirit. And the more coarse element is called this temporal matter we’ve got here, physical (D&C 131:7-8). It’s all matter but it exists on two planes. Like ice and water. They’re the same thing but they’re on different dimensions. Everything is made up of a combination of intelligence and matter. They are the building blocks of the universe. (Abraham 4:10,12,18; Helaman 12:8-9)

Again a verse of scripture is referred to, but not quoted, so let’s start by looking at D&C 93: 33-34 (emphases added)

“33 For man is spirit. The elements are eternal, and spirit and element, inseparably connected, receive a fulness of joy;

34 And when separated, man cannot receive a fulness of joy.”

So what is done here is Brother Skousen acts as if the point that he will make is based in D&C 93:33, pulls out one out of context concept “elements are eternal” changes that to “eternal element” but keeps the quotation marks even though it was a paraphrase and not a quote. Then he goes on talking about spiritual and physical matter, and then ends with the conclusion “Everything is made up of a combination of intelligence and matter.”

Now while this ending conclusion may, in the right context, have truth—it is not what is stated in his supporting scripture, and the reason he is using D&C 93: 33 is to support his theory that every particle of matter is connected to an independent particle of intelligence, but he is ignoring that these verses are talking about the physical body and spirit of man and their connection, and these verses say nothing about the topic that he is trying to prove with it.

To say that our physical bodies are made of eternal element and that man is spirit, and that only when our physical and spiritual bodies are inseparably connected can man have a fullness of joy clearly does not mean that every particle of matter is connected to an independent particle of intelligence. Brother Skousen’s conclusion (if truly based on D&C 93: 33, as he cites) is either a distortion, or it’s a new revelation—for which Brother Skousen has no authority to declare.

Now if you’re interested in science, this will be very exciting information. Our most advanced research scientists in the pure research area have just proven this to be true. Matter does not function mechanically. It has an element of finite intelligence in it, they say. That’s what Bergsen called it–the French philosopher. It can distinguish, it can choose, it doesn’t always do what the rules say. Some of these little elements are just as ornery as you and me. They go wandering around–and in the aggregate we say that that’s the law of chemistry. In the aggregate, yes, but you look at them individually and they’re fooling around. As a matter of fact, Robert Milligan said that if all the elements were obeying all of the rules of chemistry, you would never die. Through rebellion in the flesh. And they’re called seeds of death–you may have heard of that before. Now at God’s command, element which has received intelligence attached to it, at God’s command it will obey. You want a mountain to move? Talk to it. “MOVE!” “YES, SIR.” And they move when God commands it, or his priesthood does it by his authorization. When God commands, these intelligences obey, in the elements. That’s Jacob 4:6; I Nephi 20:13.

This section is very speculative to say the least. I do think that he might be on to something true, but again he is replacing the light of Christ with his lesser intelligences theory. And one blaring doctrinal problem with this section is if death comes by the “fooling around” of these lesser intelligences, then what about the doctrine that death came by the Fall (Alma 42: 9). And if these lesser intelligences are eternal and have always been independent, as Skousen suggests and tries to demonstrate in scripture, then how is it that they did not also cause death before the fall or why don’t they cause death in God himself?

So did these lesser intelligences obey perfectly before the fall and in resurrected beings, and that’s what makes an immortal never die? And if this was the case, then how does God stop them from “fooling around”? If they had their agency, does God take it away in some cases? Or are these lesser intelligences also judged and sanctified like we are?

D&C 93 tells us that we have physical bodies made of element and spiritual bodies made of spirit, and that it is our spirit that is connected to the element of our body. Brother Skousen is trying to say that our physical bodies are possessed with countless specks of lesser intelligences attached to every particle of our body, but this is false.

Death came by Adam’s transgression (2Ne 2: 22), not the transgression of the lesser intelligences in his body. This fact alone should disprove Brother Skousen’s thought in this last paragraph are off because although the beginnings of the theory may be in the gray area, by the time it gets to the end it is clearly in error—God has not been silent about the origins of death.

Now I do believe that there is intelligence, besides just our individual spirits, in the matter. This is a doctrine that has been touched on many times in the scriptures and the words of the prophets. The problem with brother Skousen’s theory here is that he is replacing the light of Christ with his own concept of independent lesser intelligences, so there is intelligence in matter, but it is not “just as ornery as you and me” it is Divine. President Boyd K. Packer said: “The Light of Christ is as universal as sunlight itself. Wherever there is human life, there is the Spirit of Christ. Every living soul is possessed of it” (“The Light of Christ,” Ensign, Apr 2005, 8–14).

Now listen to Brigham Young discussing this principle. There is life or intelligence in all matter through the vast extent of all the eternities. It is in the rock, in the sand, in water, air, the gases, and in short, in every description and organization of matter whether it be solid, liquid, or gaseous. Particle operating with particle. Now, all of a sudden, we begin to catch the vision of the miracle of God’s creation. He goes up into the outer darkness of unorganized intelligences and unorganized bits of element and combines them together so that a little tiny bit of element has an intelligence attached to it and now you can command it. They’re combined in certain ways. The Lord has given to all of them a pattern, which becomes the law by which they operate. Some will accept electricity and some will resist it. Some will combine with various things and you get a combination–2 parts Hydrogen and 1 part Oxygen–and we call it water. That’s because they were organized in that way. They’re so marvelously organized that you can take one single little complex organization–it’s called a cell–and it’s fertilized by another cell. And within 9 months because of the DNA organization that is set up there by highly intelligent Heavenly Father, that will grow into trillions of cells, called a human being. All by design. You can almost stand in a worshipful feeling toward our Heavenly Father as you realize what is possible in that organizational structure. (Discourses of Brigham Young, p.368-369)

Now this appears to be a gross act of intellectual dishonesty on someone’s part, but, assuming the best, it could have just been a mistake. I don’t know who was responsible for transcribing this talk or if brother Skousen wrote it out himself, but notice the absents of quotation marks. With a large paragraph and an introductory sentence at the very start saying this is Brigham Young and then citing the source at the end of the entire paragraph would either lead you to believe that the entire paragraph is quoting President Young or at least get you confused about where the quote ends.

Well I had to go look up the quote to find the end (see LINK) and the actual quote ends after “…Particle operating with particle.”, which seems like a bit of a transition once you know that’s where the quote ends, but leaving the quotation boundaries so nebulous is very troubling, especially when you read the following few sentences that make it seem like brother Skousen’s theory is put forward by President Young without distinguishing between the two.

But back to the actual quote itself. YES, there is life or intelligence in all matter as President Young says, and that life or power is the light of truth or the light of Christ (D&C 88: 7-13). So again brother Skousen talks a quote talking about “Intelligence, or the light of truth”, adds an “S” at the end of intelligence, drops the light of truth and runs with his independent lesser intelligences theory.

Now you could say that Brother Skousen is just describing the light of Christ, renaming it and explaining that it operates as a mass of independent lesser intelligences that obey God, and that is the power of God. And yes, I’d say that you’re probably right—I think that’s about what he did. But the problem is that the explanation is not correct. The light of Christ is Divine and does not operate by “fooling around” like brother Skousen’s lesser intelligences, and together with the renaming of the entity, his lesser intelligences theory is replacing the doctrinal concept of the light of Christ. And as you’ll see this doctrinal change has mounting casualties as his theory unfolds.

Now let me show you a miracle. See that hand? That is made of dirt! You want to see a miracle in engineering and Godly power, it’s in that hand. That is made of dirt! And our Heavenly Father can speak to all those little intelligences and He could turn them back into dirt that fast. Or He can say to them–as to the hand of Moses–”My children, halfway, not all the way, just halfway.” Like leprosy, maybe? “Moses, put your hand into your bosom.” So he puts it in and the Lord says, “Now, my children, Moses, take your hand out.” Leprosy! Dripping, incurable, on the way back to dirt. “Moses, put your hand back into your bosom.” Then the Lord says, “Now my children, as you were–everybody back in your places. Take your hand out, Moses.” Ah! Beautiful, clean, strong, pink flesh. That’s the miracle of God. Children are a miracle. Everything around us is a miracle, and for the first time we’re beginning to understand.

A little over simplified, but drop the plural on his intelligences and I don’t find a lot to disagree with in this last section.

God speaks and they obey. Things are made of that which acts and that which is acted upon, and they’ve been identified for us by name and President Kimball said that in the next world–that’s where we have access to these intelligences to organize our own great systems.

Here he repeats a little of his theory and drops President Kimball’s name without quoting anything.

Now, our Heavenly Father says, “Do you know what makes me God?” You might want to put this down. The source of God’s power is D&C 29:36, Moses 4:1,4.

Here he talks about the source of his power–what makes him God. What do you think it turns out to be? What makes a being suddenly or over the process of time a God? MY HONOR is my power. My honor is my power. So that when I speak and say, “water, reorganize into wine–a very high grade of wine, please,” there’s no problem. They reorganize. We called it a miracle. It was nothing in the world but obedient intelligences. That’s the doctrine.

No, that’s not the doctrine it’s brother Skousen’s theory, which even if it was true should not be elevated to the leave of doctrine.

Let’s look at the scriptures that he cited above. First Moses 4: 1 and 4, but go read verses 1 through 4 instead of just 1 and 4. You’ll see that honor, glory and power are all used interchangeably. So yes, God’s honor is His power, and God’s glory is His power, and God’s intelligence is God’s power (D&C 93: 36) So lets not get so focused on one truth that we start to lose prospective and distort understanding: something as brilliant as God’s power surly has many facets.

Now keeping that in mind, that’s D&C 29:36, what would happen if the Father violated the confidence of those intelligences? What do you think would happen? No church on the face of the earth has dared to announce the doctrine contained in the Book of Alma, Chapter 42. No church has dared to suggest that God could fall. And our Heavenly Father says, “I want you to know that I walk the razor’s edge of Celestial Law continually in order to maintain the confidence and the honor of all these who trust me because that’s the source of my power.” This gives us a whole new understanding of our Heavenly Father. In Alma 42:13,22,25 he repeats it over and over again. And in Mormon 9:19 it is repeated. If He were unjust, if He were arbitrary, if He were false in any sense, He would what? CEASE TO BE GOD. Who dares to suggest that anything could happen to challenge the power of the almighty Elohim, chief of the Gods? Our Heavenly Father says, “I want you to understand me. I work within very strict rules. I have to function so that I enjoy their confidence and do not violate it.”

Just a little note here in case you’re confused, when brother Skousen says something like Heavenly Father says “…”, then puts something in quotations; he’s not quoting anything in scripture or trying to say that God actually said the quote. brother Skousen is just saying what he thinks God might say. And I think this is the transcript from a talk, so brother Skousen may not have intended for all these quotation marks to be place in here.

Now I believe that it is impossible for God to fall. D&C 20: 17 and 28:

“17 By these things we know that there is a God in heaven, who is infinite and eternal, from everlasting to everlasting the same unchangeable God, the framer of heaven and earth, and all things which are in them;

…

28 Which Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are one God, infinite and eternal, without end. Amen.”

And there are many other scriptures in each of the standard works that echo this same point. And when you read the sermons where Nephite prophets say “if so, God would cease to be God” it seems clear to me that they are not actually suggesting that there is some chance that God would cease to be God or fall, it is a hypothetical question or rhetorical device to help explain why some things have to be the way they are. Take 2Ne 2: 13-14 (emphases added) for example:

“13 And if ye shall say there is no law, ye shall also say there is no sin. If ye shall say there is no sin, ye shall also say there is no righteousness. And if there be no righteousness there be no happiness. […] And if these things are not there is no God. […] wherefore, all things must have vanished away.

14 And now, my sons, I speak unto you these things for your profit and learning; for there is a God, and he hath created all things […].”

So I think that Lehi, here in second Nephi, is using the same kind of persuasive thought process that Alma and other prophets are using when they say if God was unjust, then “God would cease to be God.” It would seen that this speech pattern of the first leader of the Nephite people became a model to those that followed. They're not actually saying they think God might fall nor is Lehi saying that all things might just vanish away; this is just a way of explaining a complex concept and relate it to something we can understand “for [our] profit and learning”.

Now Alma 34:9.

The Father says, “Once I had put you down into the second estate, I lost complete control over the possibility of bringing you back Myself.” God the Father cannot save us. These are doctrines of the church that we seldom put in these dimensions. But this is the Easter story. This is really the Easter story. In fact, it says there that if there had not been some way to get us back to the presence of the Father, and it had been left to the Father and He had been helpless to get us back, we would have ended back in outer darkness with Satan and his hosts. We’d have gone the same route they went. And everything that had been organized by the Father in connection with us, our earth and the other earths on which part of this family is located and all of the creations connected with it, would have disintegrated and gone back to outer darkness, disorganized, That’s the scripture.

Reading this last paragraph draws a contrast in my mind. When I read the scriptures or the words of the prophets, everything is so clear. I delight in the subtlety; it rings so true. I feel spiritual vindicated as I discover passages and prophets that explain concepts in the same way the Spirit has unfolded them to me while reading other passages. Then I read something like the above paragraph, where I can’t quite put my finger on what’s wrong with it. It sounds true. And I know that the over all concepts are true, but it just doesn’t feel right—maybe because I already know where he is going to go with it.

Now this takes all the magic out of creation. All of a sudden, we can understand it, in our finite way. All of a sudden, our Heavenly Father becomes much more rational, comprehensive, and our appreciation begins to accelerate as we begin to realize what a remarkable, beautiful, powerful personality He is. II Nephi 9:9 is where it says we would end up with Satan and his angels were there no atonement. That it is absolutely beyond the capacity of our Heavenly Father to lift children who have stumbled while learning the difference between good and evil back into His presence. Because He has to operate according to law and all the other intelligences would say, “Father, now they have sinned and come short of Thy glory. They cannot come back. Remember all the laws that held us back? We didn’t get to be those top people, we were graded down. Remember? Remember laws? You kept talking about laws . . .” These are they who demand justice and will not let us return. And should God try it, as it says in Alma, they would cease to honor Him. And He would cease to be God. That’s the doctrine.

I love Robert J. Matthews. Whenever Brother Matthews starts a talk that might have any of his own option, even if is option is grounded in the doctrine of the Church, he still begins by humbly saying that while he tries to stay grounded in doctrine, what he may say is his own option, that he is not speaking for the Church and so on. Contrast that with Brother Skousen’s talk here— “That’s the doctrine.” “That’s the scripture.” “That’s the doctrine.” So authoritative, but with no authority or grounds to make such declarations.

But, again, no that is not the doctrine—it’s your theory. Like the prophet Joseph said “but if we start wrong we may go wrong” and in This last paragraph of Skousen’s talk we start to see the some effects of his “wrong” lesser intelligences theory on other points of profoundly important doctrines.

God cannot be overthrown by His subjects. Hypothetically if God were to sin or do something unjust, then he would cease to be God. But this is just a hypothetical and in my option couldn’t happen, and there is absolutely no reviled method or procedure to impeaching God even it it could happen. So for Brother Skousen to suggest that he knows how God might be impeached or lose his power is very speculative at the very least. Now if he wanted to offer it as his option, he free to, but he is trying to claim it as doctrinal.

But if what Brother Skousen says here was true and these lesser intelligences “[...] are just as ordinary as you or me”, wouldn’t that them mean that these lesser intelligences could hypothetically choose to all rebel against God and overthrow Him with or without cause. “[…] and He, like the Gods of the heathen, would be unable to fulfill His promises; but seeing He is God over all, from everlasting to everlasting, the Creator and upholder of all things, no such fear can exist in the minds of those who put their trust in Him, so that in this respect their faith can be without wavering” (Lectures on Faith 3, 19).

None are more powerful then God, and He cannot be beholden to powers or entries less powerful then Himself, for He is God over all. God is all powerful. He all ways does what is just and right, and not because God is afraid of being overthrown by His subjects.

Now I do have a personal theory that would replace Skousen’s theoretical lesser intelligences rebellion impeachment process, but I’m not going to share it because it would kinda be off subject and personal theories of this nature should not be shared openly.

Then how do we do it? How do we do it? Alma 34:11. No person can suffer for the sins of another person, that’s the law. The law says no person can suffer for the sins of another person. That’s what these little intelligences are saying–”that’s the law.” Now, you just stop and think why that is so. If I commit a very serious offense could my brother die for it and satisfy you people? Even though we love each other and my brother says, “No, don’t let him be killed, I’ll die for him.” Do you think everyone would be happy about that? No, it would violate your sense of justice. And it does all these little intelligences. And Alma 34:11 says, “No person can die or be punished for the sins of another person and have it acceptable as justice.” See, there’s demands of justice. That’s what these little intelligences are doing. “There’s an offense there, they cannot come back, Father.” Everybody see the problem?

Now I’m ready to call heresy. You have to keep reading to catch the full intent of this last paragraph, so just let me point out the central doctrine of the Gospel of Jesus Christ that was just perverted.

Brother Skousen just said that “No person can suffer for the sins of another person, that’s the law”, and he, as you read on, includes Jesus Christ as someone who cannot suffer for another person’s sins. Let that soak in. He is trying to use a scripture from the Book of Mormon to prove that Jesus cannot suffer for our sins, so he can substitute his own explain of exactly how the atonement works.

First what does Alma 34: 11 really say and what is the context, Alma 34: 10-14 (emphasis added):

“10 For it is expedient that there should be a great and last sacrifice; yea, not a sacrifice of man, neither of beast, neither of any manner of fowl; for it shall not be a human sacrifice; but it must be an infinite and eternal sacrifice.

11 Now there is not any man that can sacrifice his own blood which will atone for the sins of another. Now, if a man murdereth, behold will our law, which is just, take the life of his brother? I say unto you, Nay.

…

13 Therefore, it is expedient that there should be a great and last sacrifice, […] and that great and last sacrifice will be the Son of God, yea, infinite and eternal.”

You’ll notice that Brother Skousen has a habit, as least in this talk, to refer to Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ as people. And They are people in a since and in the right context. We are the “offspring of God” (Acts 17: 29) and the Greek word translated “offspring” here is “genace”, which is the root of the English word “genetics” it means race, stock, family, kin (Strong's Concordance #G1085)—suggesting that we are, for the lack of a better word, the same species as God. So if we’re people, then in the right context They are people too, but God is not just a man—He is a glorified Man or Man of Holiness, and Christ is the Son of Man (Moses 6: 57). So you really need to depend on context to understand how Brother Skousen is wresting Alma 34: 11, but the context is clear.

Now in Alma 34 Amulek is saying that their will be (this is about 74 B.C.) a great and last sacrifice or the Atonement, but this sacrifice will not be of man (lower case “m”, he talking about mortal man), beast or fowl. The Atonement is not a “human sacrifice” he says: it’s an “infinite and eternal sacrifice.” But what does he mean by that? Well just look at verse 14 “that great and last sacrifice will be the Son of God, yea, infinite and eternal.” So in this context, and rightly so, Amulek is saying that the Atonement will be preformed, not by a man but by the Son of God. For truly no mere mortal man could have atoned for the sins of the world—only the Only Begotten, Jesus Christ, the Son of God has the power and ability to perform the great and last sacrifice.

So now we have the context for verse 11, which Brother Skousen quotes. In its proper context it’s so clear I almost don’t need to explain it. It is not saying that Christ cannot suffer for our sins—it is saying that one fallen mortal man cannot pay for another mortal’s sins, and that is why we need Christ because of who He is and because He remained sinless Himself He could and did suffer for the sins of the world.

Just to keep it perfectly clear here is a quick list of scriptures that say Jesus Christ suffered for our sins: Isaiah 53: 4-5, 1 Pet. 3: 18, Alma 11:40, D&C 18:11, D&C 19: 16-18, Alma 7: 13

“As used in the scriptures, to atone is to suffer the penalty for an act of sin, thereby removing the effects of sin from the repentant sinner and allowing him to be reconciled to God. Jesus Christ was the only one capable of making a perfect atonement for all mankind” (GUIDE TO THE SCRIPTURES Atone, Atonement).

Now, the genius of the solution. The Gods know that these little intelligences have a capacity for compassion. Compassion–just like you and me. Intelligences have a capacity for compassion. Therefore, the atonement is based not on law, but mercy. That’s Alma 34:15. In other words, we’re going to try and get to these little intelligences in some way so that we can overcome the demands of justice. With what? Sympathy, mercy–so that we’ll actually overcome the demands of justice. That’s Alma 34:15.

The Atonement is based on law and justice and mercy. To say that the Atonement is not based on law is to say that the Atonement breaks the law and God sins. God is a God of order (D&C 132: 8). The law and the Atonement work in harmony. If there was no law, then we could not choose good or evil, so there would be no sin or righteousness (2Ne 2: 13). But by the law we are cut off from God because all of us sin, but Christ came to atone, suffer for, pay the price for our sins, “to answer the ends of the law” and justly and lawfully bring salvation to the repentant sinner because the price of our braking the law is paid by Christ’s suffering for our sins—that’s what it means to answer the ends of the law (2Ne 2: 5-7).

“And the Messiah cometh in the fulness of time, that he may redeem the children of men from the fall” (2Ne 2: 26). To redeem does not mean to find some way around or to avoid paying the penitently, it means to “To deliver, to purchase, or to ransom, such as to free a person from bondage by payment” (GUIDE TO THE SCRIPTURES Redeem, Redeemed, Redemption).

Let’s now take a look at what Alma 34: 15 says: “And thus he shall bring salvation to all those who shall believe on his name; this being the intent of this last sacrifice, to bring about the bowels of mercy, which overpowereth justice, and bringeth about means unto men that they may have faith unto repentance.”

Amulek is clearly speaking poetically here. Mercy does not literally overpower justice like in a fight, and beat the snot out of justice and steal its wallet. “What, do ye suppose that mercy can rob justice? I say unto you, Nay; not one whit. If so, God would cease to be God.” (Alma 42: 25).

So what is Amulek saying? Well just read the beginning of the next verse: “And thus mercy can satisfy the demands of justice […]” (Alma 34: 16). Christ overpowers the demands of justice by satisfying the demands of justice; He did this by paying our price and cleansing us from our sins not by guilting the masses into overlooking our sin.

Now, once the families of Gods–and they must have worked this out eons and eons ago with other families, so this is a pattern. Remember when they were selecting the Savior? Jesus volunteered, but Satan said, “You know, Father, this is very old fashioned, this just isn’t necessary. We can satisfy the intelligences of the universe. Just put our children in straight jackets and get them through the second estate . . . it’s a great idea, I thought of it. I really would like to get credit for it because I’m offering the whole family, the whole human family, insurance. All I’m asking you to do is to give up the hang-up that the family has always had on this free agency thing. It’s only for this little bit of time. We’ll put them in a straight jacket, get them through the second estate– no body can object to them then. We’ve taken them down, they’ve got bodies, we’ve prevented them from violating any laws . . . bring them back . . . it’s that simple.”

Besides his story form recapitulation of his theory that I already disagreed with in my last section, let me hit on a couple of other sort of side things here.

“they must have worked this out eons and eons ago” There is no time to God. There was no time before the plain of salvation was worked out—it is eternal. We, here on earth, are so used to having beginnings and ends to things that we sometimes project that on God, but it is not the case: “[…] all is as one day with God, and time only is measured unto men” (Alma 40: 8).

I’m aware of what’s in Abraham chapter 3, so I’m not trying to say that God doesn’t reckon durations or seasons, I’m just saying that the plain of salvation, as the Priesthood, is “without beginning of days or end of years” (Alma 13: 7).

Next, “Remember when they were selecting the Savior?” I don’t like the idea that there was some kind of debate or discussion about who the Father wanted to anoint as the Savor. Yes in Abraham 3 the Father asked “Whom shall I send?” But this was a rhetorical question; everyone already knew who the Savor would be. Jehovah “was [the father’s] Beloved and Chosen from the beginning” (Moses 4: 2).

“Now the Lord had shown unto me, Abraham, the intelligences that were organized before the world was; and among all these there were many of the noble and great ones; […] And there stood one among them that was like unto God […]” (Abr. 3: 22-24 - emphasis added). The Father knew who He was going to send when He asked “Whom shall I send?” Jehovah was the Chosen, the Anointed, the Christ from the beginning and the only one that was “like unto God.” Satan’s offer to be the savor was in and of itself an act of rebellion—that position had already been filled. This would be like if you were in the Conference Center while the Prophet was been presented for a sustaining vote, and you stood up and said that you thought that you should be the Prophet and President of the Church. As Elders Hales said this last October conference “Indeed, [Satan’s plan] was a plan of rebellion” ("Agency: Essential to the Plan of Life", Ensign, Nov. 2010, 24–27).

“No!” the father said, “it isn’t that simple.” Apparently implying that if you introduce compulsion into our eternal plan of salvation, or into the cosmic universe, you put coercion there. Anyway, your sowing the seeds of what? . . . Revolution, disintegration. Everything we have out there is moving as it is willing to move. You don’t get revolution that way.

Now there are very profound reasons way Satan’s “plan” (more of a power grab really) wouldn’t have worked, which I won’t try to get into because I don’t fully understand it, and to try to talk about it would require a bunch of personal speculation that is not appropriate for a public setting. So I’ll just refrain from going farther there.

And speculation is all this last paragraph is, and he speculating about a made-up quote, so I really don’t know what to say here.

Then Satan says, “I’ll start a revolution.” And he does. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if the real followers of the Father there, for a while, were a minority. And we had a big uncommitted, in the middle, majority. Jesus said, “Father, I’ll do it your way–I’ll do it the way they’ve always had to do it. We do have casualties, true–but, at least we maintain a voluntary participation that you’ve always done in the past. And I know someone has to suffer in order to have that atonement, and create that sense of compassion, but I’ll do it.” And so we had a big argument, and the revelation says that the war in heaven was a testimony meeting.

As we said one to another, “The Father’s way is the right way. Now you don’t want to introduce compulsion. If you start compulsion, who says where it could end? Lucifer’s trying to steal the throne of our Heavenly Father and he wants the glory for it and there’s nothing in that direction but rebellion and destruction.” We finally got 2/3′s on our side. I won’t be surprised when we see this in the vision if we only had a minority to begin with. But we finally got 2/3′s. And the other 1/3 went for no-risk insurance. They wouldn’t take a chance with us.

It seems odd to me to assume that “the real followers of the Father there, for a while, were a minority.” There is absolutely no doctrinal reason for this assumption, and it just doesn’t ring true to me. And I don’t believe there could be an uncommitted majority. Before Lucifer rebelled, I would assume that we were all looking to our Father for direction and had a hope in Christ who was the “Beloved and Chosen from the beginning” (Moses 4: 2). So, as I see it, there was no uncommitted or neutral in the war in heaven—they either stayed with the Father and His Christ or rebelled and followed Satan. But that’s just the way I see it and is based and my personal feelings and impressions.

All right, now, how does this atonement work? Watch how the principle functions. Now you’re an intelligence. You are capable of being subjected to so much sympathy and compassion, you’ve stopped asking for every pound of flesh that the law permits. Ever notice that in yourself? It works–first the principle. They must have a person who is infinite as it says in Alma 34–one who is infinitely loved. Infinite means completely–everybody recognizes this. So we take a spirit who is so superior He’s first counselor in the first presidency of heaven. He’s so honored that when the Father wants something done He speaks to this person and he tells all the intelligences what to do. And He’s identified as the Word. He’s the one through whom the word passes. He’s loved and respected by all, just like the Father. So we use him. He is infinitely loved. And we have Him come down into the second estate and live a perfect life without offense so that He can return to the Father and incidental thereto while laboring among the human family, we have Him suffer so terribly that the little intelligences of the entire universe are revolted. It’s abhorrent–the suffering that He went through. They loved Him. As it says in the Book of Mormon, even the elements of the earth couldn’t stand it, and churned back and forth until the whole face of the land northward was different than before. The very elements were crying out against this terrible torture of someone that they loved. And all this was by design. That’s the mission of Jesus Christ. You must suffer so much that those little intelligences, when you come and plead on behalf of someone who did the best that he could, which is called repentance–they’ll say, “Well, they really shouldn’t go back, but if you want them, after all you went through for them . . . yes, they can go up.” That’s the atonement.

Shhhhhhh... if the little intelligences find out we were just using Jesus to trick them, then the plan of salvation might fall apart. Of course I’m being facetious, but think about what this last paragraph is saying. What? is God a politician that has to devise elaborate schemes to keep His subjects from rebelling (although in Brother Skousen’s theory it’s not quite clear who is subject to who—God or the little intelligences). King Noah kept his people from rebelling by indulging them in the same sins he was committing (Mosiah 11: 2), so keeping subjects from rebelling is not necessarily just and is defiantly not a measure of goodness.

The bottom line is that this is not the atonement. I do not completely understand how the atonement works, but I know that the ideas put forth in his last paragraph are false.

Earlier Brother Skousen said “The law says no person can suffer for the sins of another person.” Although he does not overtly say it (perhaps he’s afraid he’d get struck by lightning), but as you read the talk it is clear that he includes Jesus in this—that Jesus can not suffer to pay the price for our sins. So this last paragraph is Brother Skousen’s replacement for the reviled doctrine about the atonement.

And Christ’s suffering was not just some “incidental” pain inflicted by God to make the universe feel sorry for Him, so they would give Him a pass on bending a few rules. This is a ridiculous notion. First brother Skousen wrests the scriptures to say that Christ cannot suffer the consequences of our sins for us. But Christ obviously suffered. So what was all that suffering about then, brother Skousen, if it could do nothing for our sins? “And we have [Christ] come down into the second estate and live a perfect life [...] and incidental thereto [...] we have Him suffer so terribly that the little intelligences of the entire universe are revolted. [...] [Then] [...] when [Jesus] come[s] and plead on behalf of someone [...]–[the little intelligences] say, “Well, they [us] really shouldn’t go back [to live in Heaven], but if you want them, after all you went through for them . . . yes, they can go up.”

This is really quite perverse when you think about it. It is saying that Christ’s suffering “Which suffering caused [Him], even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit [...]” (D&C 19: 18) was inflicted on Christ by the Father to no benefit except to make others feel sorry for Him. How different is this from evil men that burn out orphaned children’s eyes just to make other feel sorry for them as they panhandle? Inflicting suffering solely to generate sympathy in order to achieve a separate goal (no madder how noble or base the goal) is wrong and is not the way God operates.

The reviled truth about the atonement is it “is to suffer the penalty for an act of sin, thereby removing the effects of sin from the repentant sinner and allowing him to be reconciled to God” (GUIDE TO THE SCRIPTURES Atone, Atonement). Read chapter 12 in the Gospel Principles manual on the atonement, contrast President Packer’s parable of the Mediator (starting on page 63) with Brother Skousen’s explanation of the atonement.

First what is this justice that must be satisfied? None of us have or can of our own merit return to live with our Father in Heaven, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3: 23). Our Heavenly Father wants us to return to live with Him, but to just bring us back despite our debt of sin, which is very real and cannot just be pardoned, but mush be paid: for mercy cannot rob justice. Even if there was some scheme in place to keep God’s subjects from rebelling, to bring us back even though we “really shouldn’t go” would be breaking Eternal laws that God Himself cannot (will not) break, else He would be sinning and God cannot sin nor “[...] look upon sin with the least degree of allowance” (Alma 45:16).

So there is something that even God cannot do—sin. God cannot sin or God would cease to be God or in other words “A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit” (Matt 7: 18). The Father could not just wave a magic wand and pardon our sins, He needed a Son, and we needed a Savor to pay the price of our sins, so we could be cleansed from them.

As far as I know this concept is uniquely Christen, our Muslim brothers and sisters, for example, teach that “God had no need for a son because Allah has but to speak and a thing is done” (The Mystery of Godliness BRUCE R. MCCONKIE). This is an important concept, God cannot just do whatever we feel He wants to do. In order to bring us back the justice that our sins demand must be paid, and there are no entities nor entity that can be coxed, tricked or just decide to ignore our debt of sin.

Now I would say that God cannot sin to put it in clearer terms: God is good and He will not do something against His nature. Brother Skousen is saying that God cannot sin because He would loose the confidence of all the lesser intelligences through which He has all His power, but really that is not saying God can’t sin; it is just saying that God can’t loose the confidence of the lesser intelligences regardless of what might be called sin or injustice.

So how does the Atonement extend mercy without robbing justice? So Brother Skousen is saying that Christ does not and cannot suffer for our sins or pay the price of our sins to satisfy justice—this is false and contrary to the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

He is saying that a scheme was concocted that won over the hearts of some lesser intelligences, which allows God to do something unjust, bring us back to Him despite our sin, and retain control and the confidence of these lesser intelligences because they have compassion on Jesus.

Now mercy cannot rod justice because that would be God sinning. If a man breaks into another man’s house and rods him as he sleeps that is sinful. That is robbing, that is stealing. One party against the will of the other steals something that he did not earn. But what if the stealing is mutually consensual—it that wrong? Yes, consensual robbery is call gambling. Now gambling is not as bad as stealing, but both are wrong in their degrees. Gambling and stealing are wrong because you’re taking something that does not belong to you—that you did not earn (Gambling, LDS.org), even if all parties involved agree to sin together or let sin slide, sin is still committed and eternal realities are violated.

And so it is with Brother Skousen’s theory. We sin and come back to God presence despite the face that “[we] really shouldn’t go back” as Brother Skousen puts it. In his whole theory there is nothing about cleansing us from our sins, we are just brought back in their sins to live in the kingdom of heaven and God retains His Honor because those to whom He owes His Honor let it slide and turn a blind eye to sin in God’s presence.

But this cannot be done, as Amulek testified, for God has declared otherwise:

“And I say unto you again that he [God] cannot save them in their sins; for I cannot deny his word, and he hath said that no unclean thing can inherit the kingdom of heaven; therefore, how can ye be saved, except ye inherit the kingdom of heaven? Therefore, ye cannot be saved in your sins.” (Alma 11: 37)

So what must Christ do so we can have salvation and eternal life in the presence of God, Amulek continues:

“And he [Christ] shall come into the world to redeem his people; and he shall take upon him the transgressions of those who believe on his name; and these are they that shall have eternal life, and salvation cometh to none else” (Alma 11: 40).

Now, that’s the atonement.

And so listen to Alma 34 as we hear the prophets who use to understand and preach this doctrine extensively, which we’ve kind of stopped preaching among ourselves. Listen to this statement here. Alma 34:15.

“And thus He shall bring salvation to all those who shall believe on His name. This being the intent of this last sacrifice–to bring about the bowels of mercy.” Whose mercy? The bowels of mercy . . . whose mercy? Our Heavenly Father already has mercy toward us. This is His plan. We don’t have to create that in Him. We have to create it in those that are demanding justice. “Father, they’ve sinned–come short of the glory of God.” There’s where you must arouse the bowels of mercy, which overpower justice, being the demands of justice. “And brings about the means unto men that they may have faith unto repentance. And thus mercy can satisfy the demands of justice. And encircles them in the arms of safety. While he that exerciseth not faith unto repentance is exposed to the whole law of the demands of justice. Therefore, only unto them that hath faith unto repentance is brought about the great and eternal plan of redemption.”

We’ve already gone over the context of Alma 34 and shown that this spin is a distortion. But the really interesting thing in here was that first little paragraph: “[...] we hear the prophets who use to understand and preach this doctrine extensively, which we’ve kind of stopped preaching among ourselves.” Now this may sound a little extreme on my part, but does this not smack of the kind of thinking of some sort of brake-off cult? I’m not saying that it’s anywhere near that level of heresy or rebellion, but what is brother Skousen saying? Is he saying that the Prophets today have stopped preaching the true doctrine, but he is preaching the true doctrine and he justifies his contradicting with modern General Authorities by saying he got it from or it was thought by some, now dead, prophet? Whose words are now subject to the whims and intellectual integrities of those who search out legitimacy by excavating and recreating the teaching of past prophets while ignoring and, even if softly, condemning the living Oracles.

Now let’s turn to D&C 45 and listen to the Savior telling about it. Verse 3–listen to Him who is the advocate with your Father–who is pleading your cause before him saying, “Father, behold the suffering and death of Him who did no sin. In whom thou wast well pleased. Behold the blood of thy Son, which was shed. The blood of Him who thou prayest that Thyself may be glorified, Wherefore, Father, spare these my brethren”–see how He does that? “Spare these my brethren that believe on my name.” He doesn’t plead for those who don’t believe, He can’t–He’s not allowed to–it would rob justice. “Spare these that believe on my name, that they may come to me and have everlasting life.” And the Father can do it without ceasing to be God. Because of what? Mercy! Let me give you an example of how that works. During the Civil War there was a 19 year old soldier who went to sleep on guard duty. A whole section of the Union army was wiped out in that particular sector. He lost many of his very best friends all because he went to sleep and they were able to make a surprise attack on one flank of that particular defense effort. He survived the battle. He was court-martialed and sentenced to be hanged for neglect of duty for going to sleep while servicing as a guard, which was routine military law. The death sentence and order of execution was placed on the desk of President Lincoln and he was prepared to sign it. We lost a lot of valuable men because a 19 year old soldier went to sleep. President Lincoln was communicated with by a little old woman. This mother said to President Lincoln, “When this war started, I had a husband and 6 sons. First I lost my husband, then I lost my sons–5 of them. I just have one son left. And he’s about to be executed for neglect of duty. He feels terrible about what he did. He knows he deserves to die. President Lincoln, I wonder if, maybe, because you have the pardoning power under the constitution, you could find it in your heart to let me have the last of my family–for my sake?” President Lincoln said to the mother, “For your sake, I pardon your son. I pray God he’ll survive the war and be a blessing to you all the days of your life.” See how compassion works? We completely overcame the demands of justice. And nobody criticized President Lincoln for using his pardoning power in that case once they found out what the plea of that little mother had been. And that’s the way all of us are.

I love this analogy for clarity sake. First of all let’s read a little into the text. No where in scripture or in the words of the prophets (as far as I know) is God compared to a United States President. Well duh... you might say, of course there’s nothing about a US President in the scriptures, but let’s look at what this means. God, in scripture, is compared to earthly kings, fathers or lords someone who is sovereign. A US President is not sovereign he gets his power from the people and serves at the pleasure of the people—in America the people, under God, are sovereign. Now this is important to this analogy because for the logic of this analogy to hold true, God would have be subject to a power(s) BELOW Himself, which is not the case, but is the end result of brother Skousen’s theory.

One can take almost any analogy and pick it apart and find where it brakes down because it is just an analogy that is meant to illustrate one or more particular point(s). But these underlying realities in Skousen’s analogy are at the root of its meaning and logic.

In Skousen’s analogy God The Father is President Lincoln, Christ is the old woman, we (every sinner) are the young man and Skousen’s lesser intelligences are the American people. So the young man like us had sinned and deserved to die for what he had done. But Lincoln pardoned him and the crime went unpaid for, and Lincoln is able to do so without a rebellion from the people because everyone had companion on the old woman.

There are two things wrong with this view of the Atonement that I can see. First, as I alluded to, in order for this analogy to work with God it would have to mean that God is subject to His subjects—which is at the root of Brother Skousen’s whole theory—which I strongly disagree with.

Now it may be (and I personally believe is) true that God is, in a sense, subject to eternal laws that ever He cannot or will not break. I talked a little about this earlier. So one may look at my criticism of Brother Skousen here and wonder where my disagreement really is. It is here: I agree that God may be in a sense subject to some eternal laws that He will not brake, but brother Skousen is suggesting that God is subject to the whims and imperfections of all those over whom He reigns—throwing out a sense of eternal order and justice and replacing it with an imperfect God that only needs to maintain power.

Secondly, nowhere in this analogy or Brother Skousen’s larger theory is anything about a actual remission of sins: where the price is paid for you by Christ and your sins can be removed, cleansed—not just overlooked. In this analogy and brother Skousen’s theory the sins is never suffered for by Christ or the sinner, the sinner is just brought back to dwell with the just despite his sins.

We have all sinned and that sin must be paid for. For those that exercise faith in Christ unto repentance and are born of water and the Spirit (John 3: 5) the price for their sins is paid by Christ and they are forgiven and cleaned. And the unrepentant are left to pay for themselves the whole price of their sins—which price is eternal damnation. So the huge problem with Brother Skousen’s ideas here are that with his whole theory and the analogy the sinner remains in his sins because brother Shousen seems to denies the doctrine of Christ’s vicarious suffering for our sins.

“Behold, I say unto you that ye would be more miserable to dwell with a holy and just God, under a consciousness of your filthiness before him, than ye would to dwell with the damned souls in hell” (Mormon 9: 4). “[...] and no unclean thing can inherit the kingdom of God; but they are cast out [...]” (Alma 40: 26).

I just pause at this moment to ask the question, “What do you think an intelligence is?” What is an intelligence? Well, we don’t know. It’s a wonderful, self-knowing, eternal little entity that says, “I am.” You see me up her, but what you’re really seeing isn’t me–this is mine. And the little “I am” that always existed–I can locate him pretty well. I touch my chin, and that’s outside and below me. Shut your eyes and touch your right ear– is that you? Or is that to the right of you? Notice that? Put your hand on the top of your head. Is that you or is that above you? Isn’t that interesting? Put your fingers out here–is that you or is that way, way, way out from you? You see, “I am” is right in there–that’s the seat of power. Want to know what an intelligence is? That’s it, that’s you! And you’re one of the very advanced intelligences. You’re so advanced that one of our brothers on this level thought that he was as smart as the Father, and tried to take over the Father’s kingdom. Those other little intelligences wouldn’t have thought of that. But the Father’s elevated far beyond us. I tell you, this is an exciting place to be, and it took eons to bring us here and everyone is so precious. Our Heavenly Father says, “If you see one of them trying, then backsliding, then he tries, keeps backsliding, you work with him if you have to forgive him 70 x 7 — as long as he’s trying–keep in there, push him–we might make it eventually–maybe we’ve got an Alma in the making. Who knows?”

Brother Skousen’s theory seems to put God subject to these lesser intelligences and now this last paragraph sheds some interesting light on this. His uses of “I am” in describing these lesser intelligences is reviling. “I am” means Jehovah. “I am” is the English translation of the Greek translation of the Hebrew “YHWH” or Yahweh or Jehovah (see John 8: 58 and foot note b).

I don’t think brother Skousen is trying to literally say that his lesser intelligences are Jehovah or that they are Christ, but using a name of God in describing them is, I think, inappropriate—especially in the contact of his larger theory.

Now it is true that “The mind or the intelligence which man possesses is co-equal [co-eternal] with God himself" (-Joseph Smith). And I think that brother Skousen has this concept in mind in this last paragraph, but I once again have a seemingly subtle disagreement with his interpretation. But I will let what I’ve said here suffice rather then explain at length my own personal thoughts on the subject because part of my problem with this talk is its open declaration of what should be one man’s person and private thoughts, so I won’t combat it by making the same mistake.

Toward the evening they went to the last supper. They partook of the passover lamb. And he looked out over his 12 apostles and He said, “One of you will betray me.” Peter says to John, “You’re closest. You ask Him, who?” And John the Beloved said, “Master, who?” The Savior whispered, “He to whom I give the sop.” And He picked up a piece of bread, dipped it in the gravy, handed it to Judas Iscariot and said, “Judas, whatsoever thou doest, do thou quickly.” Judas got up and went out. I wonder if he suspected that maybe Jesus suspected. We don’t know. We don’t think so. He’d already received the 30 pieces of silver–he’d already approved to betray the Christ. He went out. He went to see the elders of the city. Now it says that Jesus became very depressed. And then rose up and he gave that beautiful high priest prayer found in John, Chapter 17, where he pleads with the Father to, “Bless these, that they may be one as thou, Father, art in me and I in Thee– That they also may be one in us.” And He says, “Bless those who shall believe on their words, who have not seen–that they also may be one, that we all may be one. I pray not for the world, but for those that thou hast given me out of the world. That they may be one.” And in the greatest of anguish and suffering He pleaded with that prayer.

John 17 is one of my favorite chapters in the Bible.

Now, He said, “Let us be gone. I need to pray.” And so they went from the part of the city where the poor people lived–we think that’s where it really was–across the temple square, out through the golden gate on the eastern side, down through the brook Cidron, and up unto the top of the Mount of Olives. It was dark now, and as He came in, He told eight of his disciples to stay by the gate. He took Peter, James and John and went into the grove. Then He had them watch, and He went further up the hillside into the grove, and apparently only John stayed awake. And John heard Him fall full-length on the ground and said, “O Father, all things are possible unto thee. Take this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but Thy will be done.” What He’s saying is, “Father, You are God. You’re all powerful–all things are possible unto Thee–don’t make me go through this. We can work it out some other way.” And that angel that came to minister unto Jesus, undoubtedly, explained to Him something He’d forgotten–He’s forgotten His preexistence. He was born to suffer and die. What the angel must have said, and undoubtedly did, though we don’t have the message–but I won’t be surprised if it was something like this, “O Jehovah, Thou Son of God–You do not have to do this, unless you wish. But you should know that unless you fulfill this assignment, the Father will lose not only this family, this whole family, but the entire creation associated with them. The planets, the plants, the animals, everything that you used your hands to create, will be lost to the Father and go back to the chaos of outer darkness from which it came.”

A few things stud out to me in this last one—nothing too earth shaking, but I’ll just mention one of them so not to get too sidetracked.

I don’t agree with brother Skousen’s interpretation of what Christ said in Gethsemane. Each of the four Gospels are a little different; here is the one closest to brother Skousen’s paraphrase: “And he said, Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me: nevertheless not what I will, but what thou wilt” (Mark 14: 36).

I think Christ knew exactly what needed to be done and why. And it wasn’t just some fabricated scheme to win over the emotions of the lesser masses. Jesus wasn’t asking “don’t make me go through this. We can work it out some other way.” Satan was the one trying to find some other way—Christ knew there was no other way and no one did or could make Him go through it.

At most this might have been a doesn’t hurt to ask kind of moment, but I feel it was a verbal demonstration of the Son of God submitting to the will of the Father: “[...]the will of the Son being swallowed up in the will of the Father” (Mosiah 15: 7). “Prayer is the act by which the will of the Father and the will of the child are brought into correspondence with each other” (Bible Dictionary –Prayer). And that was what was happening in Gethsemane. An important principle was thought by Christ here and He may have only verbalized it for our sakes.

And I think brother Skousen’s interpretation here is reflective of his larger theory. A theme throughout which is the deglorification of Deity. “[...] we are the children of God” (Romans 8: 16). “Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods? If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken; (John 10: 34-35 emphases added)” God has reviled to us that we are His children and there is something divine in each of use, but let us remember that God plans on bring us up to His level (Romans 8: 17 and Revelations 3: 21), and we should not think to any degree to drag God down to our fallen level.

Because when the angel had finished ministering to Him, He said, “Then Thy will be done.” And He sweat drops of blood. The channels of His lifestream couldn’t even contain the fluid of life and it spilled out into the sweat glands and poured out on His skin as it were great drops of blood. The agony of that moment. Now you and I couldn’t have endured that–we don’t have any idea how terrible that was. But Jesus has given us some idea of what it was like in the 19th Section of The Doctrine and Covenants, in which He says, verse 15, “Therefore, I command you to repent. Repent lest I smite you by the rod of my mouth and by my wrath and by my anger, and your sufferings be sore. How sore you know not–how exquisite you know not. How hard to bear you know not. For behold, I, God have suffered these things for all, that they might not suffer if they would repent. But if they would not repent, they must suffer even as I, which suffering caused myself, even God, the greatest of all, to tremble with pain and to bleed at every pore, and suffer both body and spirit and would that I might not drink the bitter cup and shrink. Nevertheless, glory be to the Father, and I partook and finished my preparation unto the children of men.” “Now will you accept it? Will you let me blot them out? I can, if you’ll be obedient through repentance, the spirit will justify you, and I will sanctify you. I’ve done it for you. Come unto me.” After that, Judas came with the soldiers, and Jesus heard them coming–He came back and here were His apostles sound asleep. We don’t know what else happened– John didn’t stay awake. He was tired. Judas came up to Him. It was night– they had torches–they’d seen Jesus in the temple square but it was night time and they wanted to be sure and get the right one because the others will all flee as soon as they grab somebody. And so Judas came up to Him, Took Jesus in his arms and said, “Hail, Master.” And the Savior looked down at him and said, “Judas, betrayest thou the Son of Man with a kiss?” The soldiers screamed, “Seize him! Seize him!” And everybody fled. Then the Savior was taken up to the house of Ananias and we all remember the terrible night that He spent. We remember the three denials by Peter–he was petrified–Peter will never forgive himself for these three denials. The next morning there was an illegal trial before the Sanhedrin. They can’t kill Jesus without the consent of Pilate, so they take Him into the Antonian, named after Mark Antony and this was a big fortress that’s part of the temple square, and right in the open square they brought in Jesus and turned Him over to Pilate.

This paragraph starts with the word “because.” It would appear that he is trying to prove a point made in the last paragraph. Brother Skousen said in the paragraph before this above one; “And that angel that came to minister unto Jesus, undoubtedly, explained to Him something He’d forgotten”. He inserts this angelic visit between Christ saying “if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: [...]” and “[...] nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done” (Luke 22: 42). So by placing the angelic visit between these two statements of Christ brother Skousen then extrapolates that the angel must have convinced Christ to go through with the atonement.

One big problem here. This angelic visit is only mentioned in Luke and it did not happen between the above two statements of Christ—in fact these two statement immediately follow each other (as they do in each of the four Gospels) and the angelic visit happens afterwards. Here is the whole quotation:

“Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done. And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him” (Luke 22: 42-43).

This just seems to be a sloppy mistake—of which there are a few in this talk—because he does at one point paraphrase it in the correct order, then turns around and changes the order. I guess this is why one should quote the scriptures and not just paraphrase them to avoid this slow drift from what is written.

Pilate tried to create sympathy in their hearts by flogging Him and putting a crown of thorns on His head and blood running down His face, His robe is just saturated with blood and they bring Him out and say in Latin, “Behold! Behold the man!” And they scream, “Crucify Him! Crucify Him! That’s not enough.” “Bring me water–see ye to it–I wash my hands of this judgment.”

“Crucify Him!” And so they took Him with the cross–carried it as long as His broken body could endure the pain and finally they took Him up to the place of the skull and there they nailed Him to the cross and swung it into position. Two thieves were crucified on either side. The earth trembled and the sky grew black at noon and remained black with the ground trembling occasionally clear up until 3 o’clock.

Over in America, the whole continent was in turmoil as were the islands of the sea. Towards the end, He cried out, “I thirst.” On a sponge they put vinegar up because that was supposed to alleviate the pain a little bit. He looked down in His agony and He said, “John, behold thy mother; mother, behold thy son.” Apparently Joseph had passed away. He’s just saying, “John, take care of my mother, Mary.” And then, after they’d tormented Him and pestered Him, “Why don’t you come down? Why don’t you heal yourself?” All of this is in the 110th Psalm–all of it was seen by David. He knew the very words Jesus would say. And then almost when the agony was beyond bearing, and it was getting toward dusk when they would have to start breaking their legs so they would die fast, suddenly Jesus looked up and said, “Eloi, Eloi, Lama Sabachthani? My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” The Spirit of the Father had withdrawn from this man– left Him absolutely alone, hanging on that cross. But just for a moment–and then the Spirit of God surged back into Him, to say, in effect, “My Son, I’m here–we did it!” He lifted up His face and He said, “It is finished. Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit.” And he departed.

At that moment Jesus became the Christ. He had done what was necessary to overcome the demands of justice so we could go back. He did it. And by the power of that great force that was in Him, He now had three days and nights and would have that body lifted, resurrected, purified, and glorified, and it’s such a thrilling thing to contemplate Mary Magdalene coming and leaning against the wall of the tomb–she knows that someone stole the body. She thinks maybe it’s the gardener and she sees that person standing through her tears, standing there. She said, “Master, if thou hast born Him hence, tell me where thou hast laid Him and I will bear Him away.” And the person said, “Mary.” She looked up and said, “Master!” He said, “Touch me not. I am not yet ascended to my Father who is in heaven. But go and tell the brethren I ascend unto my God and their God.” And he was gone. That’s the Easter story.

In these last four paragraphs I saw a couple little things that I kind of wanted to comment on, but for the most part they have been a good summery of the Easter story, so I really have nothing to add.

And our Heavenly Father suffered so much that night in Gethsemane when that Son of His lay among the leaves underneath the olive trees and said, “O Father, if it be possible, take this cup from me.” Our Heavenly Father was suffering so much that moment that He wanted at least one of His children of the earth to know what that was like that night for Him. And so He said to our great ancestor, Abraham, “I want you to take your best, beloved son up onto the top of Mount Moriah and I want you to offer him unto me as a sacrifice.” “My son! To whom you promised his seed might be like unto the sands of the seashore. Mine only son and heir. I kill him? And burn him?” And without telling Sarah, he took this young man, probably in his early teens, up to the top of Mount Moriah. And Josephus, who had access to all the books of the temple, says that he said to his son, “My child, I wouldn’t have had you without a special blessing from God to your mother. And He, having sent you to me, now asks that I send you back–not by disease, or war, or old age, but as a sacrament unto Him at the hands of your own Father. I now send you to Him.” And he raised the knife. Oh, the anguish of that father! And in Jacob 4:5 of The Book of Mormon it says that that was done to symbolize the feelings of the Father and the Son. That was specifically done so that at least one human father would know what the pain and anguish was like that night in Gethsemane as Jesus said, “O Father, all things are possible unto Thee–take this cup from me.”

You know as you begin to understand this beautiful doctrine–the intelligences in the universe, the fact that their honor of God is what makes Him God–the fact that if He lost their confidence, He’d cease to be God–these are basic doctrines of the restored gospel as it says in Jacob 2. Why don’t we talk about the atonement more? We don’t talk about the real basis of the atonement–we talk about it as a proven fact, without ever reaching out and saying, “Heavenly Father, I think I understand just a little. I think I understand.” I don’t know what it does for you but it has made me to love my Heavenly Father like I’ve never loved Him before. And I’ve learned to love the Savior Jesus Christ like I’ve never loved Him before. Now that I know what those two wonderful people did for me and you and our children and all the people of this world, the planet on which we live–and all the beautiful things that He’s blessed us with. It would have all been destroyed and lost if those two people hadn’t done what they did. I love them for that.

“We don’t talk about the real basis of the atonement” We talk about the real basis of the atonement all the time—Jesus Christ suffering the consequence for our sins in our place on conditions of repentance. The reason we (the Saints and Prophets) don’t talk about the concepts in brother Skousen’s talk here is because they are false. The fact is that the doctrines of the restored gospel are in direct and open conflict with brother Skousen’s theory. If brother Skousen wanted to say that he's putting forth some new ideas, some of his own speculation and feeling on the matter—then at least that would be honest, but his insistent that these heretical (at least speculative) notions are the true doctrine and we should all except it, and his arrogance in putting forth these notions is striking. Lets contrast this arrogance with Bishop Richard C. Edgley of the Presiding Bishopric, who almost seems to have brother Skousen’s talk here in mind as he speaks these sober words:

“There is much that I do not know. I do not know the details of the organization of matter into the beautiful world we live in. I do not understand the intricacies of the Atonement, how the Savior’s sacrifice can cleanse all repentant people, or how the Savior could suffer “the pain of all men” (D&C 18:11). [...] Perhaps these are matters our Father in Heaven described as the “mysteries … of heaven” (D&C 107:19) that will be revealed at a later date” (Faith—the Choice is Yours -Richard C. Edgley, First Counselor in the Presiding Bishopric).

As we’ve gone through, brother Skousen’s concept of “the intelligences in the universe”, which exists nowhere in scripture or the words of the prophets—he constructed his theory from obvious and clear distortions, stretches and misquotes about the true doctrines of the Light of Christ and/or spirit children.

Brother Skousen’s concept about his lesser intelligences seems to be very innocent and many may wait to except that part of his theory—even if they find other parts not so attractive. But his lesser intelligences theory in false and is the foundation for the rest of his theory. The talk starts with this subtle incorrect understanding that is close enough to the truth to seem to be truth, but from there it continues—diverging farther and farther from the truth—until it distorts the Fall, the Atonement and the very power and character of God.

Some may find great comfort and enlightenment from this talk if it helped them to realize that the Father could not redeem us without the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. The same people may have thought why all the suffering—why not just erase the sin? And to the existent that this talk tries to explains that their was a good reason for Christ’s suffering and that the Father could not have done it any other way—it may act to illuminate their minds to this fact. But in presenting this fact brother Skousen’s theory stray far from the reviled truth—strolling arrogantly through the gray areas passing back and forth over truth and error.

What if out of nowhere someone had come up to you and said something like “Christ’s suffering and atonement did nothing to cleanse your sins—it was only done to create sympathy in the heart of those to whom God the Father owes His power, so that the Father could bring you back, despite your sins, and still retain control of the universe”; you would reject that false doctrine like a frog jumping out of a pot of boiling water. And I think most people do disagree with that part of brother Skousen’s theory, but for some reason some still want to retain the foundation while rejecting the pinnacle—“[...] but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit” (MATT. 7: 17).

My suggestion to anyone who still believes any of the false doctrines put forth in brother Skousen’s talk is to read the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants all the way through—once, twice, thrice or more. “[...] seek learning, even by study and also by faith” (D&C 88:118). Immerse yourself in the scriptures pray with real intent—it’s not quick and easy, it will not give you a false sense of superiority, but it’s worth it and you will receive true knowledge.

I bear witness that Jesus is the Christ. We have a Father in Heaven who loves us. The atonement is real. The atonement is effective. The atonement works. There is a resurrection. There is forgiveness of sins. Though our sins be as scarlet, if we will truly repent, we can be restored and taken back to our Heavenly Father cleansed like white snow. (Isaiah 1:18) I pray our Heavenly Father that He’ll help us so we won’t let Him down, so we won’t betray the Christ, so we’ll be good missionaries and spread this great message to our neighbors. I pray that we may be worthy of the atonement and gospel of Jesus Christ which has been restored for us, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

I am honestly a little irritated with this talk, but I harbor no ill feeling towards brother Skousen—and I happily call him my brother. I don’t see disagreement as a reason for resentment, but as a starter for a conversation. I think and feel that the ideas and rebuttals that I’ve put forth are correct—but I’m not perfect and I don’t know all things. In contrast, I do know that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in the true church of God: the one place where the gifts, power and doctrine of our Father in Heaven reside. I know these things to be true by the power of the Holy Ghost, and nothing on earth or in hell can convince me otherwise—for I have truly received it from Heaven. I leave this testimony in the Holy Name of Jesus Christ, Amen.