Why Did Martin Harris Sometimes Say He Saw the Plates with Spiritual Eyes?

The Know

When Martin Harris was finally granted a view of the gold plates in June 1829, he exclaimed with excitement, “’Tis enough! ’Tis enough! Mine eyes have beheld! Mine eyes have beheld!”1 Soon thereafter, however, some of Martin’s skeptical neighbors began reporting that Martin would say he saw the angel and the plates with “spiritual eyes” or the “eye of faith” when he was questioned about the experience.2 Some take these statements to mean that Martin and the other Witnesses to the Book of Mormon never really saw the plates, at least not “literally and physically,” but only had a subjective, internal “visionary experience.”3

It must be kept in mind, however, that all the sources that use the language of spiritual sight are secondhand at best and are only repeated by those who are skeptical of the Witnesses’ claims. As such, they likely do not fairly represent what Martin Harris was trying to communicate about his experience.4 In the firsthand statements that survive, none of the Three Witnesses use this kind of language to talk about their experience.5

Although skeptics over the centuries have represented visions and spiritual sight as being distinct from natural experience, this does not reflect how the Witnesses understood their own experience. David Whitmer explained, “Of course we were in the spirit when we had the view, for no man can behold the face of an angel, except in a spiritual view, but we were in the body also, and everything was as natural to us, as it is at any time.”6

This sets the Witnesses’ understanding of spiritual sight apart from the common nineteenth-century understanding. After the New Testament period, Judeo-Christian tradition became increasingly influenced by ideas from Greek philosophy, including the Platonic idea that “the most valuable and most real things are immaterial, invisible, and eternal, and whatever we know through the senses is less real, less valuable.”7 God and the divine realm came to be viewed as incorporeal, invisible, and immaterial. Visions seen with the “eye of faith” or “spiritual eye” took on the sense of seeing things that were believed to be otherwise intangible and unseeable.8

Within this worldview, when people claimed to have “more tangible visitations” from heavenly beings “in which the believer could see, hear, and sometimes touch the spiritual messenger,” the vision was under suspicion of being “not divine but pathological in some sense. In general, visions should be seen—not felt or heard in any physical way—and seen by the ‘eye of faith’ alone.”9 This inherently creates an absolute dichotomy between spiritual and natural senses. People who claimed to experience visions by their natural senses were often considered mad, deluded, or insane.10

In the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, however, the dichotomy between spiritual and natural senses was rejected.11 Joseph Smith learned by revelation that God has a physical body and that all spirit is matter (Doctrine and Covenants 130:22; 131:7–8). As such, Restoration scripture presents an alternative way of understanding what it means to see with “spiritual eyes” or the “eye of faith.”

For instance, Moroni taught that great visionaries like the brother of Jared “truly saw with their eyes the things they had beheld with an eye of faith” (Ether 12:19; emphasis added). In his vision, the brother of Jared witnessed the premortal spirit body of the Lord physically interact with material objects, and he even received tangible artifacts (the two interpreter stones) from Him (see Ether 3). What was seen by faith could nonetheless be physically interacted with through the natural senses.12

Likewise, the Book of Moses states that Moses “saw God face to face, and he talked with him, and the glory of God was upon Moses; therefore Moses could endure his presence” (Moses 1:2). Yet, the Lord tells Moses, “No man can behold all my glory, and afterwards remain in the flesh on the earth” (Moses 1:5). Moses thus concludes: “But now mine own eyes have beheld God; but not my natural, but my spiritual eyes, for my natural eyes could not have beheld; for I should have withered and died in his presence; but his glory was upon me; and I beheld his face, for I was transfigured before him” (Moses 1:11). Moses really stood in God’s presence and spoke to Him face to face—but he had to be physically transfigured to withstand His glory.13

In contrast, no transfiguration was necessary when Satan appeared to Moses, and Moses proclaimed, “I can look upon thee in the natural man” (Moses 1:14). Despite the fact that this would also be a visionary encounter with a supernatural being, “Moses can see Satan’s dark realm as a natural man with his natural eyes.”14

These examples illustrate that the scriptural understanding of seeing by the “eye of faith” or “spiritual eyes” differs from the theological views common in the nineteenth century. It does not refer to having an internal, subjective vision of an immaterial and unseeable divine realm; rather, it refers to being spiritually prepared and preserved while encountering the intense glory of a divine being with one’s natural senses.

The Why

Restoration teachings about the physical nature of God and spirits and what it means to see spiritual things provide the needed context to properly understand what Martin Harris likely meant when talking about seeing the plates by “spiritual eyes.” In the Book of Mormon and Book of Moses, spiritual sight comes upon individuals who exercise such great faith that the Lord permits and empowers them to see sacred things. Martin Harris’s own statements are consistent with this view.

Even before he had joined the church, Martin had rejected the idea of an immaterial God “without body, parts, or passions” because he “would not be afraid to fight a duel with such a god.”15 Instead, Martin accepted the understanding of God reflected in the Old Testament—and Restoration scripture—which sees God as having a physical body that “no man could see . . . and live” due to the glorious nature of God’s presence.16 Similarly, the holiest objects of the tabernacle were placed beyond the veil of the Holy of Holies and could not “be seen on penalty of death.”17 This is similar to Martin’s view of what would happen if he looked upon the plates or the interpreters without first being authorized to do so by God.18

Neal Rappleye explained, “Within this theological framework, the difference between natural and spiritual sight is not one of material vs. immaterial, or physical, external reality vs. an internal, imagined vision. Rather, it is a matter of being divinely authorized to see what only God can permit one to see.”19 Thus, saying that one has seen with “spiritual eyes” is another way of expressing that something was seen “by the power of God and not of man.” When Martin first received the promise that the Lord would “grant unto him a view of the things [that is, the plates] which he desires to see” if he was humble and faithful, the Lord explained that Martin would then be expected to testify of what he saw and how he saw it: “And then he shall say unto the people of this generation: Behold, I have seen the things which the Lord hath shown unto Joseph Smith, Jun., and I know of a surety that they are true, for I have seen them, for they have been shown unto me by the power of God and not of man.”20

Later, when Martin was named one of the Three Witnesses along with David Whitmer and Oliver Cowdery, the Lord explained: “And it is by your faith that you shall obtain a view of them, even by that faith which was had by the prophets of old. And after that you have obtained faith, and have seen them with your eyes, you shall testify of them, by the power of God” (Doctrine and Covenants 17:2–3). In their official statement, the Three Witnesses affirmed that the plates and engravings were “shown unto us by the power of God, and not of man” and that it was “by the grace of God . . . that we beheld and bear record that these things are true.”21

Martin Harris sought to be true to his commission to testify that he had seen the plates by God’s power. In the course of one interview, when asked how he saw the plates, he explained, “I am forbidden to say anything how the Lord showed them to me, except that by the power of God I have seen them.”22 If recollections of Martin using phrases such as “spiritual eyes” or “eye of faith” are accurate, then he likely intended to convey that what he had seen was shown to him by divine power rather than human hands.

What he did not intended to convey was the idea that what he had seen was imaginary or unreal. As Richard Lloyd Anderson explained, Martin Harris “was confidently claiming something more, not something less than normal sight.”23