What did Joseph Smith mean that God the father had a father in the 1844 King Follet Discourse? The following is an explanation from the perspective of my thesis on the Godhead in this blog series.
Joseph Canonized the Lectures on Faith in 1844 just before he died
On The Joseph Papers website, in the Historical Introduction to the 1844 edition of The Doctrine & Covenants, it states that Joseph Smith "likely would have had some input in the format of the newer edition" and that Joseph Smith "read proofs of [the 1844 edition]" and he "reprinted the seven 'Lectures on Faith.” Two weeks later Joseph Smith was killed.
In other words, Joseph Smith clearly knew what he was doing when he republished the Lectures on Faith as true doctrine; for he re-read them and re-published them again in 1844 as official doctrine bound in canonized Holy Scripture. So Joseph Smith clearly knew that in republishing the Lectures on Faith as canonized doctrine that he was endorsing the Godhead doctrine of the Second and Fifth Lectures on Faith. So in the following blog series I will rely heavily on the Lectures on Faith because it is clear that Joseph Smith clearly considered them revealed truth regarding the Godhead: as they were the canonized official doctrine of the Church which again he republished as Holy Scripture in 1844, just two weeks before he died! Thus what he said about the Godhead and divine beings in the same year (1844) when giving the Sermon in the Grove and the King Follet Discourse, needs to be interpreted and filtered through the Scriptures which Joseph approved of and published after giving those two controversial sermons. For, again, just before he died Joseph canonized the Lectures on Faith which means he meant for those doctrinal Lectures to be the interpretive lens through which to understand the Sermon in the Grove and the King Follet Discourse.
Back to Godhead Series for Part 2.
