Our Glorious Mother Eve

The LDS view of the role of “our Glorious mother, Eve” (D&C 138:39), is strongly opposite to the beliefs of most of the Christian world. We are considerably more optimistic because we understand that Adam and Eve went into the Garden to fall. We understand that the Fall was part of the foreordained Great Plan of the Eternal God (GPEG) (Alma 34:9) devised in the great council in heaven in which we as spirits participated and God the Father and his son presided. Joseph Fielding Smith said:

The fall of Adam and Eve was foreknown, and preparation for this restoration had been made long before they had been placed on this earth.

We understand that the Fall took Adam and Eve downward from their immortal and glorified state in the Garden, yet forward into mortality. Orson F. Whitney said

It brought man into the world and set his feet upon progression's highway.”

We do not refer to the actions of Adam and Eve in the Garden as “sin.” Rather, we speak of them as “transgression.” Adam and his eternal companion were given conflicting commandmants in the Garden. They could not avoid partaking of the “forbidden fruit” if they were to fulfill the commandment to “multiply and replenish the earth,” and they were proscribed from partaking of the fruit of the “tree of Life.” Yet in their immortal state, they were incapable of keeping the greater of the two commandments.. Because of this, we do not believe in an “original sin” that burdens the posterity of Adam and Eve. Bruce R. McConkie tells us the trees described in the account are figurative:

Again, the account is speaking figuratively. What is meant by partaking of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil is that our first parents complied with whatever laws were involved so that their bodies would change from their state of paradisiacal immortality to a state of natural mortality.

The second Article of Faith says:
Note the careful use of the words “sins” and “transgression.” Adam recognized the greater need to comply with the Lord’s commandment to “multiply.” Because of his – and Eve’s -- transgression, “men are.” Our first parents acted with full knowledge of what had to be accomplished so that the billions of spirits waiting to come to earth could do so. Elder McConkie eloquently expresses their dilemma:

We believe that man will be punished for his own sins, and not for Adam’s transgression.

Be fruitful! Multiply! Have children! The whole plan of salvation, including both immortality and eternal life for all the spirit hosts of heaven, hung on their compliance with this command. If they obeyed, the Lord's purposes would prevail.

If they disobeyed, they would remain childless and innocent in their paradisiacal Eden, and the spirit hosts would remain in their celestial heaven—denied the experiences of mortality, denied a resurrection, denied a hope of eternal life, denied the privilege to advance and progress and become like their Eternal Father. That is to say, the whole plan of salvation would have been frustrated, and the purposes of God in begetting spirit children and in creating this earth as their habitat would have come to naught. (The Promised Messiah: The First Coming of Christ pg 221)

So “The mother of all living” as Adam so eloquently named her, was a valiant spirit who recognized the need to choose between the two commandments given to her and her companion in the Garden. She knew that they had been sealed together for eternity while still in their immortal state.

Eve was not inexperienced, nor was Adam. They did not destroy the GPEG, they fulfilled their eternal and foreordained role. They were numbered among the noble and great ones before the world was. Adam, as Michael, participated in the creation of the Earth. Eve stood at his side in the pre-existence, foreordained to be his eternal companion and “the mother of all living.” Elder Bruce R. McConkie wrote:

Who was Adam and who was Eve when they twain dwelt in the presence of the Father in that premortal life before the foundations of this earth were laid?

They were spirit children of the Father. Adam, a male spirit, then called Michael, stood next in power, might, and dominion to the Lord Jehovah (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 157). Eve, a female spirit, whose premortal name has not been revealed, was of like stature, capacity, and intelligence.

Through the extended schooling of eternity, Eve had proven herself worthy in every particular. … we know she was one like unto or after the pattern of the heavenly mother. We conclude, then, that Eve, by endowment and preparation, corresponded in all things to Michael. She was his completion. (Sermons and Writings of Bruce R. McConkie [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1998], 197)

Suzanne Evertsen Lundquist, in a talk titled “The Repentance of Eve” at the 1989 BYU Women’s Conference said this:

Eve was someone before this life. Like Adam, who was Michael (one of the creators of this earth), Eve had a great pre-mortal identity.

Again, Joseph Fielding Smith teaches us:

In the grand council held in heaven,…Adam [and Eve] was also chosen…to fulfil his part as the progenitor of the human race. When he came to fulfil his part of the plan, all his former knowledge was taken from him. He had forgotten that he was Michael the archangel, holding great authority in the pre-existence. When the truth was fully revealed to Adam and Eve, and they learned that Jesus Christ had been chosen to be their Redeemer, and also of their posterity, they rejoiced, and Eve said:
Were it not for our transgression we never should have had seed, and never should have known good and evil, and the joy of our redemption, and the eternal life which God giveth unto all the obedient.(Moses 5:11.)

But having forgotten all, they had to learn again their role. They had to understand and resolve the dichotomy between the two commandments they were given in the Garden. In the Garden, they had the benefit of the greatest of all teachers, God the Father and his son. (Genesis 3:8) Joseph Fielding Smith says:

When Adam was in the Garden of Eden and before the Fall, he was in the presence of God the Father. He walked with God, for he was free from sin and in possession of an eternal body that could have endured forever.

So they made their choice with full understanding of the ramifications, consequences, and blessing that would accrue as a result. Elder Jeffrey R. Holland elaborates on this doctrine:

But Adam and Eve made their choice for an even more generous reason than those of godly knowledge and personal progress. They did it for the one overriding and commanding reason basic to the entire plan of salvation and all the discussions ever held in all the councils of heaven. They did it "that men might be." Had Adam and Eve never left the garden, Lehi noted, "they would have had no children." … The privilege of mortality granted to the rest of us is the principal gift given by the fall of Adam and Eve. (Christ and the New Covenant: The Messianic Message of the Book of Mormon, 204)

We are forever in debt to “Our glorious mother Eve” for her perception and willingness to enter mortality and provide the opportunity to become mortal and prove ourselves worthy to return to our Father-in-Heaven’s presence for eternity. Eve, and her stalwart companion fell “that men night be,” and because of the fall, “men are that they might have joy.” (2 Nephi 2:25) Again, Joseph Fielding Smith helps us understand:

…we all owe a debt of gratitude to Mother Eve for partaking of the "forbidden fruit." It was not a sin, as many Bible commentators would have you believe, but an eternal blessing which caused Eve to rejoice and thank the Lord; and in her joy she praised the Lord and said:
Were it not for our transgression we never should have had seed, and never should have known good and evil, and the joy of our redemption, and the eternal life which God giveth unto all the obedient (Moses 5:11. )