In 1999, Catholic Answers released two books on "Mormonism" from Isaiah Bennett, When Mormons Call: Answering Mormon Missionaries at Your Door and Inside Mormonism: What Mormons Really Believe. Both these books were refuted by a well-written review by Dr. Barry R. Bickmore (author of Restoring the Ancient Church:Joseph Smith and Early Christianity), available here.
The following is a sound refutation of the claim that “Mormonism” teaches that God the Father had sexual intercourse with Mary to conceive Jesus, a sadly all-too-common claim against LDS theology (in reality, it is nothing short of “yellow journalism”):
Virgin Birth
When nonauthoritative statements of LDS leaders do not deliver the desired "punch," anti-Mormon authors will often expand the authoritative to include their own dubious interpretations of LDS doctrine. This is especially true with regard to the LDS doctrine of the virgin birth. Bennett quotes a number of nonauthoritative statements by LDS leaders saying that Jesus is the "only begotten after the flesh," that Jesus was begotten "in the same way that mortal men are begotten by mortal fathers," that Mary "must have been, for the time being, the lawful wife of God the Father," and the like (IM, pp. 292, 293; WMC, p. 93). He takes these statements to mean that members of the Church of Jesus Christ "do not believe that [Mary] was a virgin when [Jesus] was conceived or afterward because they believe conception occurred in the ordinary, natural way" (IM, p. 292) and that "God the Father begot Jesus in the flesh through copulation with the Virgin Mary" (WMC, p. 92). Since the LDS have an anthropomorphic concept of deity, it is certainly possible to interpret these statements in the way Bennett indicates. However, this is not the only interpretation possible, and Bennett leaves out important statements from our prophets and scriptures that lead to much more modest conclusions.
Certainly the prophets have clarified that the virgin birth was a case of sexual reproduction.[97] That is, Jesus had both a father and a mother in the flesh,and his flesh obtained its genetic blueprint from both. Similarly, they have made clear that Jesus was not conceived by the Holy Spirit. Mary was told, "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee" (Luke 1:35). To us this indicates that Mary had to be transfigured by the power of the Holy Spirit to withstand the presence of God (see Moses 1:11). On the other hand, it is equally clear that our scriptures and prophets have affirmed that "His mortal mother, Mary, was called a virgin, both before and after she gave birth. (See 1 Nephi 11:20.)"[98] That is, whatever the particular mode of conception, Mary came out of the experience still a virgin. Consider the following statement by President Harold B. Lee:
You asked about . . . the birth of the Savior. Never have I talked about sexual intercourse between Deity and the mother of the Savior. If teachers were wise in speaking of this matter about which the Lord has said but very little, they would rest their discussion on this subject with merely the words which are recorded on this subject in Luke 1:34-35: "Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man? And the angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God."
Remember that the being who was brought about by [Mary's] conception was a divine personage. We need not question His method to accomplish His purposes. Perhaps we would do well to remember the words of Isaiah 55:8-9. "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts."
Let the Lord rest His case with this declaration and wait until He sees fit to tell us more.[99]
Bennett even resorts to a highly interpretive paraphrase of a statement by Bruce R. McConkie to obscure this point. "McConkie resorted to redefining the term: A virgin is a woman who has not had sexual intercourse with a mortal man. The Heavenly Father is a resurrected, immortal man. Therefore, Mary did not lose her virginity" (IM, p. 294; cf. WMC, p. 93; citing The Mortal Messiah 1:314). Nothing of the kind is on the page or even in the book Bennett cites. (I will discuss below his tendency to lift quotations from other anti-Mormon authors without attribution and without checking sources.) However, his paraphrase is vaguely similar to the wording in McConkie's article, "Virgin Birth," in Mormon Doctrine. McConkie writes, "Our Lord is the only mortal person ever born to avirgin, because he is the only person who ever had an immortal Father." But how did the conception take place? He goes on to say that "Mary, his mother, 'was carried away in the Spirit' (1 Ne.11:13-21), was 'overshadowed' by the Holy Ghost, and the conception which took place 'by the power of the Holy Ghost' resulted in the bringing forth of the literal and personal Son of God the Father." Finally, McConkie claims, "Modernistic teachings denying the virgin birth are utterly and completely apostate and false."[100] All this seems quite a bit more vague than Bennett would have us believe.
Regarding McConkie's supposed statement, Bennett opines, "Of course, this is ridiculous. Sex is sex, whether it is with an immortal manor a mortal man" (WMC, p. 93). Is it really so obvious? We do not know what the mechanics of reproduction are when celestial beings are involved. As James E. Talmage explains, Jesus was begotten "not in violation of natural law but in accordance with a higher manifestation thereof."[101] That is, it was a miracle.[102] What is the "higher manifestation" of natural law that occurred here? Talmage never says.
Indeed, one of Bennett's prime witnesses is Orson Pratt, who said that the Father and Mary "must have been associated together in the capacity of Husband and Wife" (IM, p. 294), but if Bennett had read just a few more lines, he would have found that Pratt also said the Father "overshadow[ed] the Virgin Mary in the capacity of a husband." Surely, Pratt meant that God acted in the capacity of a husband by begetting a child with Mary; but as for the mechanics of conception, Pratt only ventured to apply the scriptural language that God "overshadowed" her.
Consider this analogy. Jesus has a resurrected, celestial body. At one point he transported this undeniably physical body right through a solid wall, and the wall remained intact (see Luke 24:36-40). Christians of all stripes affirm that this event really occurred. It did not happen spiritually or figuratively—a solid body was literally transported through a solid wall and nothing happened to the wall! How did Jesus do it? Here, most Christians will stop short and look puzzled. It was a miracle, after all, and it seems a little silly to ask how Jesus did it. It should not take a rocket scientist to figure out why many Latter-day Saints stop short and look puzzled when anti-Mormons tell us how we must believe the miracle of Jesus' conception and the virgin birth were accomplished. No matter what they may have personally speculated,the modern prophets have never explicitly, and certainly never authoritatively, stated what Isaiah Bennett says they have.
Endnotes for the Above
[97] I thank Russell McGregor for this exceptionally clear explanation.
[98] The Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1988), 7.
[99] The Teachings of Harold B. Lee, ed. Clyde J. Williams (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1996),14.
[100] McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 822. I find it significant that Bennett uses quotations rather than paraphrases in every other instance in this section of Inside Mormonism. Did he know that McConkie's words did not quite go as far as he would have liked?
[101] James E. Talmage, Jesus the Christ (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1983), 77.
[102] Talmage defined miracles in these words: "Miracles are commonly regarded as occurrences in opposition to the laws of nature. Such a conception is plainly erroneous, for the laws of nature are inviolable. However, as human understanding of these laws is at best but imperfect, events strictly in accordance with natural law may appear contrary thereto. . . . The operation of a higher law in any particular case does not destroy the actuality of an inferior one." James E. Talmage, The Articles of Faith (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1984), 200. See Paul C. Hedengren, "Miracles," in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 2:908: Miracles are "a beneficial event brought about through divine power that mortals do not understand and of themselves cannot duplicate."