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Not To Teach Any Different Doctrine: Examining The Doctrines Of The Early Latter-Day Saints Movement And The Church Fathers, Jacob D. Hayden

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Explanations of the nature of humanity, God, and the purpose of life have a direct influence on the daily lives of the adherents of a given religious tradition. In the early third century, Origen of Alexandria proposed doctrines of preexistence, subordinationism, and theosis, which were dismissed in the early Church to various degrees. Some sixteen hundred years later, members of the upstart Latter-day Saints movement, such as Orson Pratt, would maintain strikingly similar positions about the nature of the soul, the godhead, and the final cause of humanity. These concepts represent essential aspects of the worldviews of these traditions; …