Greetings, fellow eternal-beings-having-a-mortal-experience! Today’s post falls into one of two categories:
- Whoa! Profound observation! Why has no one else in the history of Mormonism ever noticed that doctrinal contradiction!
OR
- Janey, not to be rude or anything, but everyone figured this out decades ago.
And you get to decide the category!
Okay so.
People who exercise unrighteous dominion lose their priesthood, right? I mean, not in mortality. No one gets excommunicated for unrighteous dominion. But it’s pretty clear that the priesthood is reserved for the righteous. “The rights of the priesthood are inseparably connected with the powers of heaven, and that the powers of heaven cannot be controlled nor handled only upon the principles of righteousness.” D&C 121:36. And in fact “when we undertake to cover our sins, or to gratify our pride, our vain ambition, or to exercise control or dominion or compulsion upon the souls of the children of men, in any degree of unrighteousness, behold, the heavens withdraw themselves; the Spirit of the Lord is grieved; and when it is withdrawn, Amen to the priesthood or the authority of that man.” D&C 121:37.
I think we can all agree that Satan has tried to exercise control, dominion, or compulsion upon souls. Why does the temple teach that he still has the priesthood? In the temple ceremony, in totally awkward dialogue that I still have memorized, Satan says he has power and priesthood. Someone tell me if the wording has changed. This is what I remember:
Adam: What is that apron you have on?
Satan: It is an emblem of my powers and priesthood.
Adam: We are waiting for Father to come down and give us further instruction.
Smooth change of subject, Adam. Why couldn’t you ask him how he has the priesthood even though he’s so wicked he didn’t even keep his first estate?
Being ordained to the priesthood in mortality is conditioned on pre-mortal righteousness.
And this is the manner after which they were ordained—being called and prepared from the foundation of the world according to the foreknowledge of God, on account of their exceeding faith and good works; in the first place being left to choose good or evil; therefore they having chosen good, and exercising exceedingly great faith, are called with a holy calling, yea, with that holy calling which was prepared with, and according to, a preparatory redemption for such.
And thus they have been called to this holy calling on account of their faith, while others would reject the Spirit of God on account of the hardness of their hearts and blindness of their minds, while, if it had not been for this they might have had as great privilege as their brethren.” Alma 13:3-4.
Certainly Satan didn’t pass the test of ‘exceeding faith and good works before the foundation of the world.’ When did he get ordained to the priesthood? If it was before he Fell, then why didn’t he lose his priesthood after he tried to exercise the most unrighteous dominion ever? Surely leading the war in heaven would be considered unrighteous dominion.
Then, Satan announces that he is the god of this world. I’m sure that’s a small-g god, not The God. I’d love to see the General Authority approved temple ceremony script to verify that.
The doctrine of exaltation and eternal progression to godhood is based on righteousness. Why is Satan the god of this world? How did he get promoted to godhood, with the priesthood and the power to reign with blood and horror upon this earth?
No power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood, only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned; By kindness, and pure knowledge, which shall greatly enlarge the soul without hypocrisy, and without guile. D&C 121:41-42.
Someone help me with this. The Gospel Topics Essays don’t have an essay on why Satan has apparently been exalted.
Wheat & Tares 
Satan has always created his own “fake” versions of God’s structures and organizations. Remember the story of the Exodus. The Pharoah’s magicians were able to duplicate several of Moses’s and Aaron’s miracles. It’s part of how Satan has always oversold his own position as a way to win people over to his side.
So, in the Endowment, it’s not that Satan has the Priesthood, but that he is trying to impersonate the Priesthood. It’s not that he is the god of this world, but that he claims to be the god of this world. Notice that as soon as he’s actually challenged on those claims and confronted by those with actual authority, he runs away. He knows that his claims don’t actually stand up to real scrutiny.
You have a linear, erroneous view of the plan of salvation.
https://scriptures.info/scriptures/tc/glossary/one-eternal-round
I had always figured that there was some innate “Light of Christ” like power/authority as part of existing that even God can’t take away from spirit children that Satan was using and exalting in that moment.
That doesn’t help any with the “people need the priesthood in their lives” reasoning if the “Light of Christ” is so powerful.
If you believe that Satan never lies then yes this a doctrinal contradiction.
I heard it as “a symbol of my power and priesthoods.” Satan has his own priesthoods. Who knows where he got them. Maybe from a previous Satan.
Simple. Satan had been given the second endowment and his calling and election was made sure and the only way he would lose his priesthood was to shed innocent blood. Have you seen where Satan personally murdered an innocent person? So, therefore even God couldn’t take away his priesthood.
Ummm…..I think I may have just hit on another doctrinal inconsistency.
But seriously, Mormon doctrine has so many inconsistencies and holes in it that they have to fall back on the old Catholic coverup of their holes and inconsistencies and total lack of comprehensibility. “It’s a mystery.” Or “God’s ways are not our ways.” Or “with our limited human minds, we just can’t comprehend.” Religion has been doing that long before Athena strung fully formed from Zeus’s forehead.
Oh, and consider me in the “I noticed that decades ago.” But I wrote it off as an evil priesthood, not the priesthood of God, but a Satanic priesthood. And knowing Joseph Smith and how into the occult he was, that was probably what he meant. Joseph believed in light magic and dark magic and even said once that he received his inspiration for something from Satan. It was Joseph’s way of saying that Satan has power that we shouldn’t under estimate.
Not a believer in Satan or the infallibilty or even close to accurate depictions of well, anything, of the temple, so this doesn’t bother me. Just me.
These questions seem like moot points to me. Why not ask- Where did the myth of Satan come from?
Where did the origin myth of Adam and Eve come from? How is it possible to believe in Adam and Eve, and Evolution without a lot of pretzel twisting?
And how did the INVENTION of priesthood evolve?
I don’t see that particular contradiction. The fact that Satan uses the plural “priesthoods” makes it clear that he is not referring to THE Priesthood.
But there is a grammatical contradiction in the verses you site. Taken literally, “amen to the priesthood or the authority of that man” does not mean what everybody thinks it means. Substitute any word or phrase synonymous with “amen” into the beginning of the phrase and you’ll see what I mean. (Note that “the end” is not a synonym for “amen”.) This is arguably a case in which a church-wide misunderstanding of a word saves us from a disastrous misreading of the intent of the phrase. Two cheers for ignorance.
Also worth clarifying is the meaning of “that the powers of heaven cannot be controlled nor handled only upon the principles of righteousness”. The use of “only” in that phrase confused me for years. It sounded like it was implying that there are other ways to control the powers of heaven, not only by righteousness. In fact, “only”, in this case, is a synonym for “except”. That usage has fallen out of favor. Doing a quick online check, Merriam-Websters recognizes the synonym (perhaps as a legacy), but Thesaurus.com (which has no legacy) does not.
Fascinating comments everyone, thank you.
Satan, the father of lies, lied about his power and priesthood. But right after he says he’s a god of this world, he says he will buy up armies and navies, false priests who oppress, and tyrants and etc, and basically cause suffering and chaos. That’s not a lie. If Satan is claiming to be the cause of all that, he’s done what he said he’d do. There is some sort of power and influence there.
I am not persuaded that God has a righteous priesthood and Satan has an evil priesthood. That’s not a doctrinal answer, more of a dodge. Is the priesthood like the Jedi Force? You can use it for good and evil? I’ve only ever heard that the priesthood carries out the will of God and nothing else. Didn’t Elder Oaks give a talk about this? Like, if you bless someone to be healed by the power of the priesthood, and it isn’t God’s will that they be healed, the priesthood can’t override God’s will. That suggests that the priesthood is bound by God’s will, i.e., righteousness.
gebanks – the word may be symbols, and not emblems. It’s been a long time since I heard it.
Anna – I don’t know much of anything about Joseph Smith being interested in the occult. Was that in Rough Stone Rolling? That would be an interesting explanation. The current Church doesn’t teach any Satanic priesthood.
LoudlySublime – I read “The Origin of Satan” by Elain Pagels which traces how the doctrine of Satan basically came from Christianity. Satan isn’t really a character in the Old Testament. I know we’re talking about myths, but when the myths are taught as religious doctrine, I expect some consistency. If nothing else, it’s interesting to discuss as a break from talking about current events. As you suggest, none of us should be taking this issue too seriously.
lastlemming – what other priesthood does the LDS Church teach? I’m sure Satan hasn’t been ordained to the sort of priesthood that my bishop holds, but what other priesthood is there? Is Satan’s version of the priesthood one of the mysteries of hell?
Carry on! No right or wrong answers for this one!
Lastlemming has it right on “amen to the priesthood of that man.” Amen means that you heartily agree, so, it is like saying “yes to the priesthood of that man.” Or “I agree with the priesthood of that man.” Yikes! So, that scripture does not mean there is an end to his priesthood, but that you agree with his priesthood. Ummm, which is how far too many priesthood holders act. It says it is great to act that way, that bossing people around is exactly how you think priesthood should be. Although amen is often used at closing, it doesn’t mean an end to something, but an agreement with something. So, that scripture says the writer agrees with priesthood being used abusively. Whoever invented that scripture was an idiot.
I always took it to be evidence that as the father of lies, he was pretending to have something unprovable that he didn’t really have. Which, come to think of it, sounds like all religion. Now the question is whether he believes it or not. I think he does, and as George Costanza says “It’s not a lie if you believe it, Jerry!”
Janey, I am not sure if that was in Rough Stone Rolling or some other stuff I have read. It has been years since I went down the rabbit hole doing research on Joseph Smith. I read No Man Knows My History about the same time and a few other books that got the author excommunicated. Plus I have been on discussion boards on line for 15 years now, so I forget where I learned one particular fact. For information on that idea research his money digging years and the anti Mormon stuff written about him during his life. I know he owned a Jupiter talisman and I believe the church hides it in their archives along with his seer stone. The use of a seer stone is proof enough that he believed in the occult. He lived during a time that seances and other occult stuff was popular and many people believed. So, whether or not he*believed* or just used other people’s belief is a different question.
Since I really do not believe in Satan OR priesthood, this whole discussion is really like discussing whether Zeus or Poseidon has longer hair or whether or not Dumbledore was gay. Satan was a human invention and priesthood is a human invention, so we are just talking theoretical religion anyway. But, hey I enjoy talking about fiction.
“Amen” has to be read in its context, where in D&C 121 it plainly means farewell or the end of. The 1983 M*A*S*H finale was entitled “Goodbye, Farewell, Amen.” After Donald Sutherland’s death, the LA Times published a piece entitled: “Hollywood says ‘goodbye, farewell and amen’ to Donald Sutherland: ‘What a legacy you leave behind.'” One poster on a site somewhere wrote: “And amen to never again running for a plane you don’t really want to catch anyway! ;-)” The Dallas Observer has an article titled “A Wake for a Dump, or: Goodbye, Farewell and Amen to Texas Stadium.” Clearly amen can mean farewell, goodbye, or end in idiomatic usage. While not in mu regular go-to dictionary, I find this definition in my Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary (1983) for amen: “the conclusion, in word or act; the end.”
I don’t see a doctrinal contradiction. Satan claimed that his apron was an emblem of his priesthoods. That doesn’t mean that he had any priesthoods. He may have held them formerly. I can claim that I have a deed to a piece of property and the property is mine, but if I haven’t paid my taxes and the state sells the property at auction, I can claim ownership and can wave my deed all I want, but the state won’t recognize its validity.
Don’t think too hard. The priesthood is simply a made-up pretend power. Makes men feel like wizards.
How many abuse the Priesthood by being members in high places and justifying something by saying, “It’s just business, or it’s just politics?” Even here in Wheat and Tares, people don’t want to talk about politics. So, justifying business or politics while holding the priesthood is a way of saying the Priesthood is not over all things, or is not all-powerful. If an LDS leader pushes for a higher steeple on a temple or an LDS Politician pushes something that hurts the poor, the environment, education, healthcare, or immigrants, both are disrespecting the priesthood. Just my two cents.
So there is a very specific, utterly mundane, and deeply embarrassing answer to your question.
Every time the temple ceremony is tweaked, lingering vestiges of previous ceremonies clutter up the endowment in ways that make no sense to those who don’t remember the previous version. The one that drove me crazy for the longest time was the reference to the name and the sign for the final token. Pre-1990, the language about the last token was as follows:
“This token has a name and a sign, but no penalty as mentioned. However, you will be under the same obligation with this token as you are with the other signs and tokens of the Holy Priesthood that you have received in the temple today.”
When they removed the penalties in 1990 – thank God! No more throat slitting! – that meant that there was no difference between that last token and the other ones, so that meant there was no need for any explanation of why you would be under the same obligation with this token as you were with the other ones. But rather than remove that whole paragraph, they just removed the one bit about how there’s no penalty. So for no reason at all, you’re told you’re under the same obligation with this one as you are with the others. It’s just a sort of dangling participle that means nothing and just shows that Church committees are bad at editing and/or proofreading.
The same thing is happening here with Satan and his priesthoods, plural. (The plural nature is important. Bit of foreshadowing there.)
They placed a really weird and awkward emphasis on the priesthood plurality pre-1990. Adam would ask “What is that apron you have on?” And Satan would say “It is an emblem of my power and priesthoods.” And then Adam would weirdly repeat/ask “Priesthoods?” And then Satan would nod and say, “Yes. Priesthoods.”
Yeah! You know, priesthoods! So there!
I think the apron was visible in the film version pre-1990, although it hasn’t been since. It was certainly in the live ceremony in Salt Lake when I first got my endowment. It was just like the green leaf-stitched apron the men wear, but it was dark purple, which supposedly suggests it was a corrupt or evil version of the true priesthood. (I like purple, but whatever. The apostles apparently aren’t Prince fans.) So you weren’t supposed to think Satan had the real priesthood – he only had his purple counterfeits. And the earlier versions of the endowment were very explicit about identifying what those counterfeit priesthoods were.
In Satan’s diatribe about buying up armies and navies and such to reign with blood and horror on this earth, he now says he will buy up “false priests who oppress.” But he used to say he would buy up “popes and priests.” It was very explicitly anti-Catholic, so it was very clear that we were supposed to connect the priesthoods Satan’s boasting about with his purpleness with the Catholic priesthood. The softened language now leaves room for ambiguity, and it also negates the need for Satan’s apron and priesthoods boast. But the rotting remains of the previous version still stink up that moment in today’s ceremony.
Pre-1990, there was also a Protestant preacher in Satan’s employ, a character that has been entirely excised from the endowment altogether. When my parents got their endowments, this preacher would enter and lead the entire congregation in a Protestant hymn. By the time I got there, the hymn was gone, but the Preacher, played by University of Utah Theatre Department Professor Keith Engar, showed up to teach Adam and Eve “the philosophies of men, mingled with scripture.” He then launched into a lengthy rant about a god who “sits on the top of a topless throne, whose radius is everywhere, but his circumference is nowhere,” quoting and strawmanning Christian creeds to depict all other churches as wrong, evil, and stupid.
After he’s done, he demands Satan pay him for preaching, which is a dig at the idea of a paid ministry, because, of course, we don’t have a paid ministry, except that we absolutely do. Regardless, this was another clear and direct connection to the idea of Satan buying up a bunch of false priesthoods – not just popes and Catholic priesthoods, but hymn-singing Protestants, too.
But today’s ceremony guts all of that, and the only vestiges of the Preacher are in the one line about the philosophies of men mingled with scripture, which, again, has no connection to Satan’s previous priesthoods reference, so at this point, it’s just a weird little loogie hanging from the endowment’s nose that it hasn’t yet noticed.
So the TL/DR is that the reason this supposed doctrinal contradiction exists is that the endowment ceremony has been written by a series of committees over the course of 150+ years, and too many leftovers from previous committees have not been cleared out of the rhetorical refrigerator, even though they are decades past their expiration date.
This is deeply embarrassing, because it clearly puts the lie to the idea that the temple is the product of a coherent or cohesive revelatory process, and it’s clear that they’re just making it up as they go along.
Janey,
“Satan, the father of lies, lied about his power and priesthood. But right after he says he’s a god of this world, he says he will buy up armies and navies, false priests who oppress, and tyrants and etc, and basically cause suffering and chaos. That’s not a lie. If Satan is claiming to be the cause of all that, he’s done what he said he’d do. There is some sort of power and influence there.”
Satan does have power, but only the power that people are willing to give to him. He is, in effect, an extremely charismatic con man, using his charisma to convince people to follow him through a combination of lies and half-truths.
Satan will say or do whatever he can to convince people to follow him. Whether that’s the classic “It’s okay to eat that apple! You won’t SURELY die!” or something more personal like “It’s okay to take just one little drink” or “Your wife will never find out if you cheat on her on this business trip”. As he wins people over, he gains influence over them, and with that influence he can cause that suffering and chaos you mention.
And yet, that doesn’t mean that his promises aren’t still a pack of lies, just as much as that multi-level marketing scheme promising to triple your money in six months.
I give up trying to make sense of all this, takes too much bandwidth and I have a lot to do.
Without guidance, we can make of this what we will. I just try to hang on to the communitarian principles I read into the temple, but I’ve come to think now that I’m hanging on to an out of date model. My confusion has led me to attend the temple less frequently as it becomes distressing and I have to attend to the living, not the dead.
I’m in the #1 camp…….never thought about it that way……. I’m reading this late at night……I have to have a long “think” about this…..haven’t been to the Temp,e in years…..by choice but I remember…….thanks for the brain jolt!
I wasn’t bothered by this in my temple-attending TBM days; it was all just part of Satan’s pack of deceptions, I reasoned. Introducing himself as the self-proclaimed God of This World, reminding us that “you can buy anything in this world with money”, even his little monologue at the end about not keeping covenants putting us in his power. The apron was an emblem of his self-proclaimed (false) priesthoods.
The contradiction that did bother me, though, was one version of the endowment film that showed a cast-out Satan storming off in a huff, breaking a limb off a tree and using it as a walking stick. I thought Satan lacked a physical body and had no physical power in the mortal plane of existence!
But whatever, I’m not troubled by these things anymore, since I’ve decided that there is a much simpler, more logical explanation for understanding Satan.
Satan has been described as the “Father of all lies,” which is still true in the temple. Another example is when he said that if we don’t live up to every covenant we will be under his power. Do you know anyone who has ever lived up to every covenant they have ever made? I don’t. Are we all under his power? He wants us to think so. He lies.
Also regarding the comment on breaking the tree limb (in the old video). Everything in the temple has been described as symbolic. Just. Cinematic way to show someone huffing and puffing there way out of the scene. No actual trees were harmed.
Mike Spendlove – that was fascinating. Thanks for typing out that long explanation. Now I’m kind of ticked off at all the time I wasted fasting and praying to better understand the temple ceremony.
I’m enjoying everyone else’s thoughts as well. It’s fun to hear the varying ideas about What It All Means.
I wouldn’t lose sleep over the potential “doctrinal contradiction”, consistent with what others have said.
I am one (perhaps a minority here) who think that priesthood authority is in fact a real thing — yet I also firmly believe that we don’t have it all figured out. In other words, I completely understand and empathize with those who see/notice the patriarchy and how it’s reified in the way the church administers the priesthood and essentially say: “this is male patriarchal BS, hence the entire thing is a fake concept (wizardry!).” I get it, and find it an understandable position to hold.
Nevertheless I’m definitely in the slightly different camp of similarly seeing/noticing the patriarchy and how it’s reified in the way the church administers the priesthood but instead essentially saying: “wow the church whiffs the ball on how they’ve “patriarchy’d up” the concept of god’s authority. what a shame. the primary defining feature of mormonism–which i believe is authentic–is practiced as an gendered-exclusionary institution, for no doctrinally defensible reason.” In other words, i believe it’s possible to hold the view that priesthood authority is real, while simultaneously holding that the church’s current practice of it is incomplete and problematic.
But back to the original post: I believe the intention of the (original, and current) endowment depictions is meant to suggest that Lucifer is making sh$t up. Viewed that way, there’s no doctrinal contradiction.
Satan lies about stuff. Everything he says would be taken with a block of salt. Just because he says he has priesthood… Also, I think the wording has changed. That is no longer in the endowment, unless I missed it.
Where I thought you were going with your initial statement about unrighteous dominion and getting excommunicated was that in the church today, people are most often excommunicated for criticizing the leaders. People are less often excommunicated for greater sins, such as child abuse or domestic violence. Or, at least, excommunication due to criticizing the leaders is most often caught by social media. I love our leaders. I really do. But I am confused by this emphasis on not criticizing them. Members even feel threatened by excommunication if they have confused thoughts about why that is a greater crime than other seemingly greater crimes or sins. It seems to me that a greater emphasis on not criticizing leaders is along the lines of unrighteous dominion. It leaves no room for checks and balances. What are your thoughts?
As with pretty much all anti/apostate/ex-mormon nonsense, you have taken something pretty simple and self-explanatory and acted lie it is some big deal. There must be opposition in all things. I could end there if you were sincere in your desire to understand the gospel and come unto Christ, but I will have to explain all this. Satan is either given or allowed to have power by God so that he may tempt and otherwise influence men. Why? Read Alma. Without evil, there can be no good. Satan plays a role in God’s plan. Like many anti-mormons, he rages about and seeks to make all miserable like unto himself. What he likely doesn’t know or realize is that he cannot frustrate the plans of God and he will be bound when Christ returns.
You can pretend that unless we know everything about his power this is a dodge to the question, but really this is just a sad case of a miserable person grasping at anything at all they can try to use to justify their apostasy.