Monday, December 29, 2014

Wilford Woodruff on the Necessity and Rationality of the Atonement

For were it not for the redemption which he hath made for his people, which was prepared from the foundation of the world, I say unto you, were it not for this, all mankind must have perished. (Mosiah 15:19)


A heresy that I have found among some member of the Church is that the atonement of Christ is contingent, not necessary, in the plan of salvation. Sadly, it is a damnable heresy that has been with some members of the Church since the early days. However, whenever the Church has been confronted with this, such a heresy has been thoroughly refuted, and the true teachings of the Church are further emphasised.

While serving as a mission president in the British Isles, Wilford Woodruff (who would later become the fourth president of the Church) wrote a response to a tract by a member of the Church who argued that the atonement was not necessary and not even rational. Woodruff’s response, entitled, “The Rationality of the Atonement,” originally appearing in in vol. 6, of the Millennial Star, and was later republished in Matthias Cowley's biography, Wilford Woodruff, Fourth President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: History of His life and Labors as Recorded in His Daily Journals (Salt Lake City: The Deseret News, 1909) pp. 676-688, which can be found online here. For those interested in LDS theology, this is a must-read.