The following is my comments and excerpts from Orson Pratt and the Expansion of the Doctrine and Covenants by Brian C. Passantino (2020):
In the beginning of his thesis Passantino writes:
... Before Smith died in 1844, he oversaw the collection and dissemination of his most essential and authoritative revelations and teachings as contained within the Doctrine and Covenants.
Passantino says his thesis seems to uncover the rationale for Orson Pratt adding the revelations and teachings that he was asked to add to the 1876 Doctrine & Covenants.
On page 3-4, he says that in the 1870s, Orson Pratt spearheaded the expansion of the D&C and
its most radical change since the death of Smith. He added an additional twenty six revelations to the doctrinal corpus. ... I assert that there were three major influences or factors that informed Pratt's canonical additions to the text of the Doctrine and Covenants. The first influence was his immensely complicated relationship with Brigham Young, then president of the Church. The second factor was his desire to preserve popular revelations and further the priorities of the Church.
In my own words, not Passantino's, I see it as a way to outsmart Brigham Young and retain certain doctrines that counteracted Brigham's ideas like his Adam God Theory.
On page Passantino emphasizes how there were differences in personality and temperament between Young and Pratt; for example Pratt was "an intellectual of the highest order. He used scientific theories combined with scriptures to come to reasoned conclusions. This was in stark contrast to Brigham Young...[who] never felt the need to square his doctrinal pronouncements with the scriptures." This is of course what sustained Young's Adam God doctrine for decades, in that he was not relying on reason or scriptural authority when teaching that Adam was God but relying on his own will and opinions by appealing to being a "living oracle" as President of the Church.
On page 8, Passantino points out that Orson added "more revelations from Smith about the United Order, his economic utopian idea, which Young and his contemporaries would refer to as the 'Order of Enoch."
On page 12, he points out that Orson Pratt is recognized by historians for being an intellectual acumen and producing a scientific theology. When he was alive he was basically considered the St. Paul of Mormonism because like Paul he wrote extensively about the doctrine and theology of the Church in the form of pamphlets which had a major influence on the Church. Passantino states that according to the scholar Barlow, Pratt "felt constrained by the canon of scripture and sought to align his doctrinal beliefs within its confines." Passantino then writes: "My research takes this a step further and shows that Pratt's anxiety about squaring his beliefs with scripture may have influenced him to canonize scripture [in the 1870s] that helped lend credence to his non-canonical beliefs." In my own words, the pre-1870 canon of scripture did not contain sections of scripture like D&C 130, 131, 132, which talked about spirit matter/atoms for example, which provided canonical authority for Pratt’s theology. While acknowledging that Orson Pratt believed in continual revelation Passantino writes that Pratt also placed a great degree of authority in the written word of scripture. On page 15, Passantino's writes:
My research suggests that the canonical expansion in the 1870s may have been a way to guard the Church from Young's doctrinal conjecture and re-emphasize the authority of the written word. Pratt saw the cannon as indispensable for the benefit of the Church and recognized the ephemerality of Young's teachings relative to this solidity of canonized scripture.
Passantino goes on to point out that after first questioning polygamy, Pratt went on to be the central mouthpiece in defending plural marriage. After Joseph Smith died in 1844, Orson Pratt was the primary actor in the decisions of the Church and was quickly recognized as the foremost teacher and interpreter of Mormon Doctrine. On page 17, Passantino writes "... his work on the Doctrine and Covenants is perhaps his most lasting [legacy, even] if heretofore underappreciated ..." In other words, Pratt's formation of the new Doctrine and Covenants editions between 1870 and 1900 canonized new content from Joseph Smith that were formerly unpublished as scripture, which affected the future of Mormon doctrine by giving concepts like the Father God's physical embodiment and spirit matter (or "spirit atoms"), scriptual authority.
Passantino notes that it was by the counsel of President Brigham Young that Pratt did all this, as a collaborative effort, and yet it's clear to me that Pratt's work was mostly his own as Young lacked the intellectual acumen necessary to fully oversee the process. But Young did oversee things, for example Young and Pratt both decided to divide the various revelations into verses. So it looks like it was a collaboration between Young and Pratt throughout the process (see pages 17-18).
On page 21 we learn that Pratt wanted The Pearl of Great Price to be added to the Doctrine and Covenants but when he asked the leadership if that could be done, suggesting that the Lectures on Faith be omitted from the D&C to make room for the Pearl of Great Price, his request was denied. Passantino assumes this is because the Lectures on Faith may have conflicted with Smith’s later 1840s teachings on the Godhead. I disagree with Passantino, I think the Lectures instead contributed to his Godhead theology. But it is very interesting to learn that at one point the 12 Apostles refused to remove the Lectures on Faith, when they would later be removed in 1921 after James Talmage was commssioned to form the final orthodox doctrine on the Godhead in 1916. In my view, the removal of the Lectures in 1921 was unnecessary: because Pratt's footnotes in the 1891 D&C in sections 130 and 131, drew the reader to the Lectures, which combined with Pratt's pamphlet Absurdities of Immaterialism -- explaining the doctrine of the Godhead -- also footnoted in the 1891 D&C section 131, provided a coherent Godhead theology, which I will discuss below.
On page 25, Passantino says that he "will demonstrate that many of the sections that Orson Pratt added to the Doctrine and Covenants were most definitely influenced by his relationship with Brigham Young."
On page 31 to 36, Passantino points out the Orson Hyde was the senior apostle and Pratt was next in line to become Church President after Brigham Young died, but Young changed the order of seniority making it so Hyde and Pratt would not be Church President. According to Passantino this was because both Hyde and Pratt had brief periods of doubt and questioned Smith and left the Church, but they did later rejoin and were loyal afterward; nevertheless Young decided to set an example of them making it so anyone else in the future would not want to be disloyal or leave the Church because you could lose your seniority. It did not matter to Young that Hyde and Pratt had "repented" and come back to the Church and had been loyal for decades.
Unrighteous Dominion
Passantino goes on to point out that several leaders of the Church expressed dissatisfaction with Young's leadership style. Passantino points out that it may have been the authoritarian tendencies of Young that led Pratt to introduce certain texts into the canon of scripture. For example, while in Liberty Jail, Joseph Smith wrote a long letter expressing his anguish at his condition, Pratt chose to only include about 40% of the letter and part of the letter he included was likely a result of his reacting to Brigham Young's authoritarianism when Orson Pratt included from the letter what became D&C 121: 34-40 about "unrighteous dominion." Passantino writes on page 35-36 that this section can be read as
Pratt appropriating the words of Joseph Smith to renounce the authoritative liberties taken by his prophetic president Brigham Young. This point becomes clearer as one begins to understand the instances that Pratt believe Young had exceeded his prophetic mandate.
One of the first major theological disagreements of the two men had was over Young's promulgation of a speculative doctrine about Adam [being] God. ...
Passantino goes on to explain that basically Pratt rejected Brigham's doctrine that Adam was God, saying it was against the scriptural revelations of Smith. But Young said that he got the idea from Smith yet Young had no scriptural backing for this assertion. Passantino writes on pages 36-37 that
Young went beyond Smith's authority and emphasized his own by stating that the doctrine was the way he presented it "in the name of the Lord." At one point in their argumentation, Pratt made clear that he "preferred to receive the written revelations of [Joseph Smith]." Pratt utilized Smith's teachings and revelations to refute Young's doctrinal beliefs and to combat instances where he believed Young's speculative doctrine had run amok. It is, therefore, reasonable to assume that Pratt would use his project of expanding the Doctrine and Covenants to serve a similar purpose, namely, to curb the autocratic excesses of his prophet, Brigham Young. This doctrinal conflict highlights some of the differences in their approaches toward authority.
Passantino goes on to say that while Pratt himself engaged in some speculation he always did so by aligning his ideas with the scriptures and Joseph Smith's revelations while Young relied mostly only on his subjective opinion. Pratt believed in the superiority of modern revelation but also believed he could disprove Young's theological assertions by the Scriptures. When Pratt spoke he couched his talks in the language of scripture, science and scholarship, while Young referred to the scriptures sparingly and spoke more pragmatically. Passantino points out on pages 37-38 that
These differences in approach shed light on Pratt's expansion of the Doctrine and Covenants. Pratt instinctively believed that even though modern revelation took precedence over former revelation, that canonized text mattered much more than Young seemed to realize. Pratt knew that the content of Young's seemingly innumerable sermons was ephemeral [unlasting] and that canonizing the faith's beliefs in scripture would have a much more lasting impact.
Both Pratt and Young had a stake to claim in defining the deity for the faith.
I think this is why when Young died, Pratt strategically put a footnote to D&C 131: 7 directing the reader to his pamphlet Absurdities of Immaterialism. Builing off of Joseph Smith's pro-science ideas, Pratt was seeking to produce a scientific theology by combining the Lectures on Faith with Joseph Smith's later teachings in the 1840s. He goes on to point out that both men engaged in a theological battle with Brigham teaching Adam was God and Pratt producing pamphlets presenting a Godhead theology that better aligned with the scriptures Joseph produced. Young considered Pratt's views to contain "false doctrines" and pushed for the Adam-is-God dogma.
Young's main issue was apparently the doctrine of the Holy Spirit being a diffused substance which constitutes (forms) the personages of the Father and Son. Young saw this as placing the Holy Spirit above the Father and Son. Reading this part of the thesis, I found it ironic that Young would feel this way when he had flat out replaced Jehovah as the God of this earth by replacing him with Adam as our Heavenly Father. Furthermore, Pratt's theology of an omnipresent substance called the Holy Spirit aligns with the doctrine of the Lectures on Faith which Joseph Smith himself re-read and approved of as doctrinal scripture just before he died in 1844.
On pages 38-42, Passantino summarizes Pratt's view stating that Pratt
surmised that "the original divine entity was not God the Father," as Joseph Smith had insinuated near the end of his life, but rather "the Great First Cause itself" comprised of "conscious, intelligent, self-moving particles, called the Holy Spirit." ... Pratt concluded that "there is but one God, and he is in all worlds, and throughout all space, wherever the same identical light or truth is found." Therefore, "we worship that Holy Spirit or intelligence." In other words, they were worshiping the "attributes that constitutes divinity."
This view of the one God is discussed in this LDS forum. This idea is actually found in the Second and Fifth Lecture on Faith, where one reads that the Mind of the Supreme Deity, as an omnipresent Spirit, is in both the personages of the Father and Son, or in other words the Father and Son are constituted or organized by the Divine Mind and its Spirit Substance.
Passantino goes on to say that President Young wanted Pratt formally brought before the Church to have his ideas declared false doctrine. Pratt tried to calm him down by basically apologizing for his teachings but Young continued to try and get his writings completely destroyed. Passantino then writes: "This public spat over the issue of the nature of the Holy [Spirit] became all the more interesting when Pratt inserted a section in the Doctrine and Covenants that expounded on the nature of the Godhead." He goes on in page 40 to recite the history of D&C 130:22, which came about after Orson Hyde spoke of the "Father and Son dwelling in our hearts" and Smith offering to correct Hyde's theology by saying that "the Father and Son dwelling in a man's heart is an old Sectarian notion and is not correct." Smith went on further to explain that the Father and Son having physical tangible bodies of flesh, this made it so that they could not dwell in one's heart. Smith went on to say that "a person cannot have the personage of the Holy Ghost in his heart, he may receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, it may descend upon him but not tarry with him." I personally believe that here Smith likely meant to convey the idea that the Holy Ghost was a personage in the Godhead, the 3rd member, but the Holy Spirit (not the Holy Ghost) mentioned in the then canonized scripture of the fifth Lecture on Faith, is a diffuse substance. So that the Holy Spirit is omnipresent per Lecture 2 and 5, but the Holy Ghost was a personage as the third member of the Godhead. I think this is the most logical conclusion, given Smith's statements in the 1840s on the Holy Ghost and his re-canonizing the Lectures on Faith in 1844.
Passantino goes on to point out that the original wording by Smith's scribes on the Holy Ghost above was edited to instead say that basically the Holy Ghost can dwell in us. Passantino then says that Pratt in turn seems to have used this updated wording to continue his speculation on the Godhead, writing "Not only did the cannonization of this section [130] serve Pratt's theological priorities, but it also changed the very nature of the Doctrine and Covenants." In other words, the rewording added credence to Pratt's Godhead.
Something Passantino does not cover is that Pratt's footnotes in the 1891 D&C has footnotes to D&C 130:22 and 131:7-8, drawing the reader to the Lectures on Faith, which would have likely to a distinction in the LDS readers mind between the omnipresent Holy Spirit of the fifth Lecture on Faith, a difuse substance of spirit matter/atoms (per section 131: 7-8), as distinct from the third member of the Godhead, the Holy Ghost (mentioned in D&C 130:22).
On page 42, Passantino writes
Section 130, along with sections 129 and 131, significantly changed the nature of the Doctrine and Covenants as a whole. Instead of it being a repository for revelations and the occasional letter tinged with revelatory language, it became a book that also contained teachings extracted from personal journal entries. The genre of the book was expanded to incorporate new authoritative teachings that may never have been meant by Joseph Smith to become so.
He goes on to basically say that in doing this, Pratt expanded what was considered scripture beyond what Smith himself had approved in his lifetime. Giving my own thoughts, I think that Pratt had contemplated why Joseph Smith would re-canonize the Lectures on Faith in 1844 after just teaching other ideas like God the Father has a body of flesh. Thus, being a thinking man, Pratt combined his knowledge of science with Joseph Smith's teaching that all spirit matter (or atoms) are spirit atoms or spirit matter, by formulating that doctrine that the Supreme Governing Power of Lecture 2, that constitutes (composes) the bodies or personages of the Father and Son, is likely a diffused substance of fluid omnipresent spirit-atoms acting as a Divine "Mind" (as Lecture 5 puts it). In other words, the canonization of section 130 - 131 and the footnotes added to these sections in the 1891 edition, linking Smith's journal entries to the doctrine of the Lectures on Faith, presented Pratt's Godhead as authoritative doctrine and now bound in Scripture. Since Brigham Young was not a student of scripture I don't think he realized what Pratt was actually doing. When Young died in 1877, Pratt further canonized his Godhead theology by providing footnotes to D&C 130:22 and 131:7-8, that directed the reader to his pamphlet on the Godhead and the Lectures on Faith: that described a single Supreme Governing Power, the divine Mind, described as a fluid substance that constituted (forms) the personages of the Father and Son. So in my view, Orson Pratt had basically outsmarted Brigham Young by making it so his own Godhead theology was actually canonized in Scripture along with footnotes teaching his doctrine and he and added safety rails to block future autocratic tendencies with D&C 121: 34 - 43.
This would mean that the 1891 D&C as canonized scripture, could be argued to basically contain Pratt's scientific Godhead theology, along with the original canonization of the Lectures on Faith as official Church doctrine. So that to have an 1891 edition or a print out from online digital versions, is to essentially have LDS scripture containing Pratt's pro-science, physicalist spirituality or rational theology.
Passantino goes on to say that Pratt nevertheless sustained Brigham Young's title as President. He goes on to point out that it was after the death of Joseph Smith and the early Mormons feeling lost and confused, that it was Young's confidence in declaring it was "the word and will of the Lord" that they become the new Israel and him the new Moses, and cross the planes to Utah, which gave the Church needed cohesion and confidence to make the trek. In fact many Mormons we're happy to hear that the prophetic voice of God had returned. He concludes the section by pointing out that Pratt respected Young's sacrifices and loyalty to Joseph Smith and Pratt added a revelation from Brigham into the new edition of the D&C to honor his devotion and solidify his prophetic mantle and the doctrine of continuous revelation.
