Ellen White has been criticized by many people from the beginning to this very day. Some of the more common criticisms are noted here.

Criticism: Ellen White's visions were merely the product of a childhood injury, when she was hit on the face by a stone.

Response: This criticism is based on speculation. Ellen White was injured, but no one knows how it affected her long term. Even if it were true that her injury facilitated visions, that does not prevent God from using that very condition. It is a perverse idea to insist that God must give visions only to people who are physiologically incapable of having them. The important issue is whether the content of her visions support Bible truth and foster the spread of the Gospel or not.

Criticism: Ellen White strongly supported the shut-door doctrine in the early years and then reversed herself later. She at first taught that probation had closed for those who rejected the Millerite faith, and only those who accepted it could be saved.

Response: During the first years, when Ellen and James White had no possibility of contact with anyone but those who had heard and either rejected or accepted the Millerite message of Christ's soon coming, they did teach the shut-door doctrine. They taught that those people who had grieved the Holy Spirit by their unbelief had shut themselves away from divine grace. The shut-door doctrine is fully Biblical and is still true today. Those who reject the light God has sent them, and stubbornly refuse to hear the truth of the Gospel over and over, stifle the voice of the Holy Spirit and shut themselves from salvation. “Wherefore I say unto you, All manner of sin and blasphemy shall be forgiven unto men: but the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost shall not be forgiven unto men.” Matt. 12:31.

Criticism: Ellen White plagiarized much of her writings.

Response: While the criticism has been made and published, the candid reader who compares the passages that are supposed to have been copied with the supposed sources will find only occasional words and phrases that are similar. What is surprising is that it is possible, after all that has been written about the Bible, that anyone could write as much as Ellen White did without producing a good deal more similarities. If ten people write about the same thing, there are bound to be many similarities. But in fact, Ellen White's style is so characteristic, that almost anyone, who is well-read in her books, can identify her as the author of any passage immediately. Such stylistic originality prevents the validity of all plagiarism charges. Ellen White wrote in another time, under other concepts of plagiarism, and yet no plagiarism charge could be validated in any court, even under the presently somewhat more stringent laws of today.

Criticism: Ellen White believed that humans and animals could breed together and did so in earlier times, producing the monsters that made the Flood necessary and the diversity of animals and humans today.

Response: The following are the texts that critics use to support this claim:

"But if there was one sin above another which called for the destruction of the race by the flood, it was the base crime of amalgamation of man and beast which defaced the image of God, and caused confusion everywhere." Spiritual Gifts, volume three, p. 64. "Every species of animal which God had created were preserved in the ark. The confused species which God did not create, which were the result of amalgamation, were destroyed by the flood. Since the flood there has been amalgamation of man and beast, as may be seen in the almost endless varieties of species of animals, and in certain races of men." Spiritual Gifts, volume three, p. 75.

This is probably the most serious charge of the scores, if not hundreds, made against Ellen White. It is also the one that has been most difficult to meet, and a proliferation of speculation has made it a muddle of claims and counter-claims. The problem is that the text is ambiguous, and any understanding is speculatory. The critic assumes that the criticism is valid, if the statements can be understood to be incriminating. But this is false. The criticism is shown to be valid only if the statements must be understood to be incriminating.

Given the volume of Ellen White writings, and the diligence of her many critics, it is only a wonder that more ambiguous statements have not been found. Two ambiguities are pivotal here. We cannot be certain what Ellen White means by amalgamation, on one hand, and we cannot be sure whether or not she intends to state that such amalgamation existed between humans and animals, or among humans on one hand and animals on the other.

While the Enochian writings are considered late and apocryphal, and there was little opportunity for Ellen White to be acquainted with them, her views of pre-Flood society were that civilization was highly developed and that demonic activity was much in evidence. Generally speaking, Ellen White seems to favor the idea that the sons of God who married the daughters of men were human. These statements can be read to suggest the intrusion of demonic forces, which is the understanding of modern interpreters of Genesis 6:2, which is the central text of this single Biblical passage that is under question. Given the rather far-fetched explanations of this text that contemporary readers, even creditable scholars, make, Ellen White's few cryptic remarks seem pale and unassuming. Why she should be singled out in her comments of this passage is incomprehensible. The candid reader can only come to the conclusion that the critic is grasping at straws. That being the case in the most difficult passages, what can be said of the other passages that critics single out? Ellen White is singularly unsusceptible to criticism.

The statements can be understood to mean that intermarriage between believers and unbelievers before and after the Flood had horrible consequences on their offspring. At the same time, demonic action, possibly with human co-operation, upon the animal population also had horrible consequences. These consequences, both physical and spiritual, are evident in the world even today. But even this understanding is speculative, to say nothing of the paper dragons that critics make and destroy.

Criticism: Ellen White copied her health principles from various other health reformers of her day.

Response: Most of Ellen White's advice on health principles has been confirmed by recent science. None of her health advice, the two or three issues that lack confirmation, has been shown to be detrimental or false. By contrast, all other health reformers of her time have been shown to have taught a preponderance of health advice that is clearly rejected today. The fact that modern science confirms virtually all of Ellen White's health advice, and very little of that of other health reformers of the time, shows rather her uniqueness than her similarity to other health reformers. It is true that most of her advice was given by one or another health reformer of the time. But the critic leaves unanswered the question of how she could have picked out the good from the enormous pile of nonsense without divine guidance.