Regular readers of M* may know there is an ongoing debate between the pro-evolution crowd and some of us who are skeptics. To sum up: I am skeptical of macro evolution but willing to accept it may have happened with a Creator’s guiding hand. But for the meantime color me doubtful. Others, including our brilliant Clark Goble, and a supporting cast of scientists at the fascinating web site Mormons and Evolution are politely but insistently critical of doubters like myself. Clark, for example, has said repeatedly that evolution is “settled science.”
Well, I have some new thoughts to add to the debate, and I wanted to post them here. I’d like some input from our scientific friends (who consistently amaze me with the depth of their knowledge).
The following argument is made by John Pratt, the science editor at Meridian magazine. Here’s the entire article by Brother Pratt. I disagree with many points made by Brother Pratt, but I think this argument is incontrovertible. Perhaps Clark and Jeffrey, Jared, Mike and Christian can come up with believable counter-arguments. We shall see.
Q5. If science only concerns what is observable, and if God remains hidden, then would there be a proper place for God in scientific journals? Isn’t the real reason that God is not mentioned in scientific journals because he has no place there, rather than a result of a Satanic conspiracy to keep him out?
A5. As an example of how God might fit into scientific articles, consider articles about the origin of life on earth. There could be a whole array of scientific hypotheses put forward, all of which could lead to scientific tests, especially in the field of genetics. For example, there could be a theory that a) atoms just came together by themselves, forming all plant and animal life with no need for a Creator; b) same as a) but directed by a Creator; c) same as b) with the requirement added that spirits are needed for life; d) all instructions for life were encoded by the Creator into the first single cell, which was then left on its own to evolve into all plants and animals; e) several separate kinds of plants and animals were created, which are not related to each other at all, but rather share similar “good design” features; f) the various kinds of plant and animal life were transplanted to the earth; g) the real creation was all done in the spirit world where DNA codes were written, and the physical creation consisted of planting seeds, watering them, etc.; and h) God’s creations are never “left alone” but God is actively involved with all of his creatures.
This list could obviously be extended, but the point here is that only theory a) is allowed in scientific journals today because it is “unscientific” to mention God. Thus we are only allowed to discuss and teach in science classes the one theory that God has told us explicitly is guaranteed to be false, namely that God was not involved at all.
What will scientific journals be like after the Savior returns, and the Millennium is fully underway? Will we not still have schools where youth are taught science? Will they still learn Kepler’s laws of astronomy and Newton’s laws of physics? Will they study genetics and be taught how to understand the DNA code of life? I think so. But what about theory a) above, the atheistic theory of organic evolution, the only one taught in most schools today? Will it be taught any more at all? Will it still be forbidden to speak of the Creator in science classes? Of course not.
Re-reading this, I think John Pratt makes some excellent points. A refusal by the scientific world to accept God in any of its respected experiments these days makes for incomplete studies and false science. As any student of the history of science will know, Sir Isaac Newton and even Einstein accepted the existence of a Creator. Isn’t scientific study incomplete without this factor?
Another and related question for our scientific observers: Do they honestly believe that the study of science in a Millennial world will be the same as it is now? Obviously, this is pure speculation, but isn’t it safe to say scientific study will be very different then?
And, lastly, if science classes are incomplete without factoring in the “God factor” in their experiments, isn’t there room for at least bringing that up in evolution or astronomy classes?
Gary:
There was Sin before the Fall(Reference Satan and his followers) and there was certainly the second death(greater death), or seperation from God (same reference). Yet we know Adam introduced Sin at the Fall. We can not even say there was no Sin in Eden before the Fall, becasue Satan was there.
matt witten (#201),
In the larger view which you are taking, yes, there was sin before the fall (reference Satan and his followers); and yes, there was also the second death, or separation from God (same reference). However, regarding what happened in Eden, the Prophet Joseph Smith referred to Adam’s disobedience as a “transgression,†not a sin (A of F 2) and Lehi states plainly that “they [Adam and Eve] knew no sin” (2 Ne. 2:23). Elder Bruce R. McConkie elaborates,
After Adam was placed on the earth and before he was taken to the Garden of Eden, he was given dominion over the entire paradisiacal planet and all things upon it. Satan fulfilled an essential role in the Garden of Eden, as Lehi explains (see 2 Ne. 2:11-19).
Gary,
What do you think it means to “know good from evil” in this context? Adam and Eve knew that God told them not to partake (although he advised them, as he advises us, that we have our agency). It seems like they knew eating of the fruit violated a commandment, and they did so anyway. I have always understood sin to mean a knowing violation of God’s commandment (i.e., knowing what we are doing and knowing that it violates God’s commandment). Is there an additional requirement that we must know that violation of that commandment is also “evil”?
Tim,
Although I appreciate your borrowing my term (preaching) I don’t think that it really applies here. Moses said that species were created exclusively by an intelligent designer separately and specially, and that they didn’t start dying until about 6,000 years ago. He suggests that ALL species were present in the garden and that Adam named them all. His words are interpreted as the Lion having been a vegetarian living in harmony with the lamb. He says that woman was created from the man. Can you think of anything that is more wrong than this? In fact its hard to find anything in the first three chapters of Gen. that is in harmony with what we now know about lifes beginning.
These are all reasons that I’m giving here, and thus amount to arguments. Luckily we as Mormons don’t believe that the scriptures or the prophets are perfect. Of course we can say that those chapters are “symbolic” but this is an ad hoc interpretation which only came about when it had been shown that the most straight forward interpretation was completely wrong. The fact that the literal reading is the most striaght forward one can easily be seen in most all Christians’ inability or refusal to read them any other way.
Jeffrey, it seems to me that you are overlooking the reading of Genesis 1, frankly implied by the JST, that Genesis 1 is a spiritual, not physical, creation.
Not to make the obvious point either, but I’d be leery of attributing all in the books of Moses compiled after the exile to Moses. I rather suspect there’s a lot of “new stuff” in it and a lot lost. Joseph made a lot of changes in the JST. I’m sure not all were restoring texts but were primarily answering questions about the texts. But even in a conservative reading of the JST, it seems our Biblical texts are problematic.
Jeffrey:
I think the Temple also shows that, from the Getgo in Mormonism, the genesis Story was primarily understood as symbolic (Example, Peter, James, and John in the Garden of Eden. I think it unfair to say this is something new that was come up with to explain away inaccurate science.
Gary:
My point was that if the Fall introduced Sin and Death into the World, as Preach my Gospel basically teaches, and the atonement overcame sin and death in the world, as is basically taught, and further if Death and Sin still exist after the Atonement; and Sin existed before the Fall, then why can Death not exist before the Fall in some form or fashion?
Now I’m pretty Neutral on this, but I think it would be a lot of fun to see you and Jeffrey take a week and argue the other side of each other’s coins.
Matt,
I’m not saying anything about the revelations received by Joseph Smith (temple, BofA, or BoMoses) only about the account of Moses as found in the OT. As Clark said there’s lots of room for corruption to have happened, but this doesn’t change the fact that that account is totally wrong in pretty much every detail.
DavidH (#203),
Based on your comment, it seems like you’re not comfortable with Adam’s transgression not being also sin. It’s true that in some scriptural contexts, the two words are used interchangeably. However, that is not the case with the Fall of Adam. Elder Dallin H. Oaks, explaining something Joseph Fielding Smith had said, provides an excellent analogy to explain sin versus transgression as these words apply to the Fall.
Yes, God had commanded them not to eat “of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil … for in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die†(Moses 3:17). But because the veil had been drawn, they had no memory of the spiritual death suffered earlier by so many of Satan’s followers, nor had they witnessed physical death among any of the other creatures on their paradisiacal earth. Therefore, they didn’t even really know what death was and this would be another reason for classifying their disobedience in Eden as transgression, not sin.
matt witten (#206),
One can certainly speculate about sin and death before Adam’s fall—many do. The problem however, as I see it, is that such theories are usually not based on scripture and definitely not based on anything taught by the apostles and prophets during the past 35 years.
Gary, I think we probably ought open an other thread for that discussion. It is a good one though. The transgression/sin distinction is something some embrace and others find problematic.
Gary (200), you avoided the fact that Elder Nelson’s “explosion in a printshop” argument undeniably betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of evolution. This in no way detracts from his academic degrees or his calling as an apostle.
On this topic, the opinions of most LDS members and many LDS leaders are trumped by established facts. I would love it if church leaders who become aware of this would publicly retract previously stated opinions, but that’s not how things are done. In this church, false notions aren’t killed; they’re simply allowed to slowly fade. As I look at anti-evolution statements over the past several decades, I see this fading process in action.
This thread is old, but let me say that I think the proposition that the Fall occurred six thousand years ago has been demonstrated to be presumptively false.
No death before the Fall is a scriptural principle, as is the principle that “Adam” and “Eve” did not have the capacity to have children before the Fall. Those two principles alone (in the context of the fossil record) move the Fall to a spiritual, immortal environment where there was no biological reproduction whatsoever. So my conclusion is that Moses chapters 3 and 4 is an allegory of the first estate. (cf. Moses 1:34, D&C 20:20)
By the way, the basics of evolution are precisely what are not settled. No one has a clue – it is largely handwaving more worthy of the term speculation than science.