THE ORIGIN OF MAN & ORGANIC EVOLUTION
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Table of Contents
Click on the names immediately below to go to the first article by the respective author.
Church News, "On Darwin's Setback"
George Q. Cannon & Orson F. Whitney
Chauncey C. Riddle (BYU)
Robert J. Matthews (BYU)
Ezra Taft Benson & Melvin Cook
Joseph Smith the Prophet
Hyrum M. Smith & Janne M Sjodahl, Doctrine & Covenants Commentary
The First Presidency (Joseph F. Smith, John R. Winder, Anthon H. Lund), "THE ORIGIN OF MAN," Improvement Era, Vol. 13, (November 1909), pg. 75-81. (Also in Joseph Fielding Smith, Man: His Origin and Destiny, pp. 348-355; James R. Clark, Messages of the First Presidency, 4:199-206.) [Emphasis added.]
Inquiries arise from time to time respecting the attitude of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints upon questions which, although not vital from a doctrinal standpoint, are closely connected with the fundamental principles of salvation. The latest inquiry of this kind that has reached us is in relation to the origin of man. It is believed that a statement of the position held by the Church upon this important subject will be timely and productive of good.
In presenting the statement that follows we are not conscious of putting forth anything essentially new; neither is it our desire so to do. Truth is what we wish to present, and truth–eternal truth–is fundamentally old. A restatement of the original attitude of the Church relative to this matter is all that will be attempted here. To tell the truth as God has revealed it, and commend it to the acceptance of those who need to conform their opinion thereto, is the sole purpose of this presentation.
"God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them." In these plain and pointed words the inspired author of the book of Genesis made known to the world the truth concerning the origin of the human family. Moses, the prophet-historian, "learned," as we are told, "in all the wisdom of the Egyptians," when making this important announcement, was not voicing mere opinion, a theory derived from his researches into the occult lore of that ancient people. He was speaking as the mouthpiece of God, ‹and his solemn declaration was for all time and for all people. No subsequent revelator of the truth has contradicted the great leader and lawgiver of Israel. All who have since spoken by divine authority upon this theme have confirmed his simple and sublime proclamation. Nor could it be otherwise. Truth has but one source, and all revelations from heaven are harmonious with each other. The omnipotent Creator, the maker of heaven and earth–had shown unto Moses everything pertaining to this planet, including the facts relating to man's origin, and the authoritative pronouncement of that mighty prophet and seer to the house of Israel, and through Israel to the whole world, is couched in the simple clause: "God created man in his own image" (Genesis 1:27; Moses 1:27-41).
The creation was two-fold–firstly spiritual, secondly temporal. This truth, also, Moses plainly taught–much more plainly than it has come down to us in the imperfect translations of the Bible that are now in use. Therein the fact of a spiritual creation, antedating the temporal creation, is strongly implied, but the proof of it is not so clear and conclusive as in other records held by the Latter-day Saints to be of equal authority with the Jewish scriptures. The partial obscurity of the latter upon the point in question is owing, no doubt, to the loss of those "plain and precious" parts of the sacred writ, which, as the Book of Mormon informs us, have been taken away from the Bible during its passage down the centuries (1 Ne 13:24-29). Some of these missing parts the Prophet Joseph Smith undertook to restore when he revised those scriptures by the spirit of revelation, the result being that more complete account of the creation which is found in the book of Moses, previously cited. Note the following passages:
[Moses 3:4-7 quoted.]
These two points being established, namely, the creation of man in the image of God, and the two-fold character of the creation, let us now inquire: What was the form of man, in the spirit and in the body, as originally created? In a general way the answer is given in the words chosen as the text of this treatise. "God created man in his own image." It is more explicitly rendered in the Book of Mormon thus: "All men were created in the beginning after mine own image" (Eth 3:15). It is the Father who is speaking. If, therefore, we can ascertain the form of the "Father of spirits," "the God of the spirits of all flesh," we shall be able to discover the form of the original man.
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is "the express image" of the his Father's person (Heb 1:3). He walked the earth as a human being, as a perfect man, and said, in answer to a question put to him: "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father" (Jn 14:9). This alone ought to solve the problem to the satisfaction of every thoughtful, reverent mind. The conclusion is irresistible, that if the Son of God be the express image (that is, likeness) of his Father's person, then his Father is in the form of man; for that was the form of the Son of God, not only during his mortal life, but before his mortal birth, and after his resurrection. It was in this form that the Father and the Son, as two personages, appeared to Joseph Smith, when, as a boy of fourteen years, he received his first vision. Then if God made man–the first man–in his own image and likeness, he must have made him like unto Christ, and consequently like unto men of Christ's time and of the present day. That man was made in the image of Christ, is positively stated in the book of Moses: "And I, God, created man in mine own image, in the image of Mine Only Begotten created I him, male and female created I them" (Moses 2:26,27).
The Father of Jesus is our Father also. Jesus himself taught this truth, when He instructed his disciples how to pray: "Our Father which art in heaven," etc. Jesus, however, is the firstborn among all the sons of God–the first begotten in the spirit, and the only begotten in the flesh. He is our elder brother, and we, like him, are in the image of God. All men and women are in the similitude of the universal Father and Mother, and are literally the sons and daughters of Deity.
"God created man in his own image." This is just as true of the spirit as it is of the body, which is only the clothing of the spirit, its complement; the two together constituting the soul. The spirit of man is in the form of man, and the spirits of all creatures are in the likeness of their bodies. This was plainly taught by the Prophet Joseph Smith (D&C 77:2).
Here is further evidence of the fact. More than seven hundred years before Moses was shown the things pertaining to this earth, another great prophet, known to us as the brother of Jared, was similarly favored by the Lord. He was even permitted to behold the spirit-body of the foreordained Savior, prior to his incarnation; and so like the body of a man was his spirit in form and appearance, that the prophet thought he was gazing upon a being of flesh and blood. He first saw the finger and then the entire body of the Lord–all in the spirit. The Book of Mormon says of this wonderful manifestation:
[Ether 3:6-16 quoted.]
What more is needed to convince us that man, both in spirit and in body, is the image and likeness of God, and that God himself is in the form of man?
When the divine Being whose spirit-body the brother of Jared beheld, took upon him flesh and blood, He appeared as a man, having "body, parts and passions," like other men, though vastly superior to all others, because he was God, even the Son of God, the Word made flesh: in him "dwelt the fulness of the Godhead bodily." And why should He not appear as a man? That was the form of his spirit, and it must needs have an appropriate covering, a suitable tabernacle. He came into the world as He had promised to come (3 Ne 1:13), taking an infant tabernacle, and developing it gradually to the fulness of his spirit stature. He came as man had been coming for ages, and as man has continued to come ever since. Jesus, however, as shown, was the only begotten of God in the flesh.
Adam, our progenitor, "the first man," was, like Christ, a pre-existent spirit, and like Christ, he took upon him an appropriate body, the body of a man, and so became a "living soul." The doctrine of the pre-existence,–revealed so plainly, particularly in latter days, pours a wonderful flood of light upon the otherwise mysterious problem of man's origin. It shows that man, as a spirit, was begotten and born of heavenly parents, and reared to maturity in the eternal mansions of the Father, prior to coming upon the earth in a temporal body to undergo an experience in mortality. It teaches that all men existed in the spirit before any man existed in the flesh, and that all who have inhabited the earth since Adam have taken bodies and become souls in like manner.
It is held by some that Adam was not the first man upon this earth, and that the original human being was a development from lower orders of the animal creation. These, however, are the theories of men. The word of the Lord declares that Adam was "the first man of all men" (Moses 1:34), and we are therefore in duty bound to regard him as the primal parent of our race. It was shown to the brother of Jared that all men were created in the beginning after the image of God; and whether we take this to mean the spirit or the body, or both, it commits us to the same conclusion: Man began life as a human being, in the likeness of our heavenly Father.
True it is that the body of man enters upon its career as a tiny germ embryo, which becomes an infant, quickened at a certain stage by the spirit whose tabernacle it is, and the child, after being born, develops into a man. There is nothing in this, however, to indicate that the original man, the first of our race, began life as anything less than a man, or less than the human germ or embryo that becomes a man.
Man, by searching, cannot find God. Never, unaided, will he discover the truth about the beginning of human life. The Lord must reveal himself, or remain unrevealed; and the same is true of the facts relating to the origin of Adam's race–God alone can reveal them.
Some of these facts, however, are already known, and what has been made known it is our duty to receive and retain.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, basing its belief on divine revelation, ancient and modern, proclaims man to be the direct and lineal offspring of Deity. God himself is an exalted man, perfected, enthroned, and supreme. By his almighty power He organized the earth, and all that it contains, from spirit and element, which exist co-eternally with himself. He formed every plant that grows, and every animal that breathes, each after its own kind, spiritually and temporally–"that which is spiritual being in the likeness of that which is temporal, and that which is temporal in the likeness of that which is spiritual." He made the tadpole and the ape, the lion and the elephant but He did not make them in his own image, nor endow them with Godlike reason and intelligence. Nevertheless, the whole animal creation will be perfected and perpetuated in the hereafter, each class in its "distinct [sic; "destined" in D&C 77:3] order or sphere," and will enjoy "eternal felicity." That fact has been made plain in this dispensation (D&C 77:3).
Man is the child of God, formed in the divine image and endowed with divine attributes, and even as the infant son of an earthly father and mother is capable in due time of becoming a man, so the undeveloped offspring of celestial parentage is capable, by experience through ages and aeons, of evolving into a God.
The First Presidency, "Mormon" View of Evolution, (Heber J. Grant, Anthony W. Ivins, Charles W. Nibley), Improvement Era, 28:1090–1091, September, 1925.; also in James R. Clark, comp., Messages of the First Presidency 5:243–244) "God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him: male and female created he them."
In these plain and pointed words the inspired author of the book of Genesis made known to the world the truth concerning the origin of the human family. Moses, the prophet-historian, who was "learned" we are told, "in all the wisdom of the Egyptians," when making this important announcement, was not voicing a mere opinion. He was speaking as the mouthpiece of God, and his solemn declaration was for all time and all people. No subsequent revelator of the truth has contradicted the great leader and law-giver of Israel. All who have since spoken by divine authority upon this theme have confirmed his simple and sublime proclamation. Nor could it be otherwise. Truth has but one source, and all revelations from heaven are harmonious one with the other.
Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is "the express image" of his Father’s person (Hebr 1:3). He walked the earth as a human being, as a perfect man, and said, in answer to a question put to him: "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father" (John 14:9). This alone ought to solve the problem to the satisfaction of every thoughtful, reverent mind. It was in this form that the Father and the Son, as two distinct personages, appeared to Joseph Smith, when, as a boy of fourteen years, he received his first vision.
The Father of Jesus Christ is our Father also. Jesus himself taught this truth when he taught his disciples how to pray: "Our Father which art in heaven," etc. Jesus, however, is the first born among all the sons of God—the first begotten in the spirit, and the only begotten in the flesh. He is our elder brother, and we, like him, are in the image of God. All men and women are in the similitude of the universal Father and Mother, and are literally sons and daughters of Deity.
Adam, our great progenitor, "the first man," was, like Christ, a pre-existent spirit, and, like Christ, he took upon him an appropriate body, the body of a man, and so became a "living soul." The doctrine of pre-existence pours wonderful flood of light upon the otherwise mysterious problem of man’s origin. It shows that man, as a spirit, was begotten and born of heavenly parents, and reared to maturity in the eternal mansions of the Father, prior to coming upon the earth in a temporal body to undergo an experience in mortality.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, basing its belief on divine revelation, ancient and modern, proclaims man to be the direct and lineal offspring of Deity. By his Almighty power God organized the earth, and all that it contains, from spirit and element, which exist co-eternally with himself.
Man is the child of God, formed in the divine
image and endowed with divine attributes, and even as the infant
son of an earthly father and mother is capable in due time of
becoming a man, so the undeveloped offspring of celestial
parentage is capable, by experience through ages and aeons, of
evolving into a God,
The First Presidency (In Melvin A. and M. Garfield Cook, Science & Mormonism [SLC: Deseret Book Company, 1973], p. 156; in Messages of the First Presidency 4:266.) “In a letter to Samuel O. Bennion, February 26, 1912, Joseph F. Smith, Anthon H. Lund and Charles W. Penrose stated:
But President Young went on to show that our Father Adam—that is our earthy father—the progenitor of the race of man, stands at the head being 'Michael the Archangel, the Ancient of Days,' and that he was not fashioned from earth life and adobe but begotten by his Father in Heaven."
Marion G. Romney (in Keith H. Meservy, "Evolution & the Origin of Adam," CES Religious Educators' Symposium, BYU, Aug. 16-18, 1979, pg. 225.) [Emphasis added.] In view of the Church teaching the fact that each of us is a child of God both in the spirit and in the flesh, the following response of Marion G. Romney to a question on the beliefs of the General Authorities makes explicit what might readily be inferred. A student asked, "Are the General Authorities of the Church in one accord on the subject of evolution?" Elder Romney replied: "I don’t suppose that any two minds in the world understand exactly alike any statement on any subject. The General Authorities of the Church are, of course, like all other men, different in their personalities. However, on the fundamentals they are in accord, and one of those fundamentals upon which they are in accord is that Adam is a son of God, that neither his spirit nor his body is a product of biological evolution which went on for millions of years on this earth."
Marion G. Romney, Conference Report, April 1973, pp. 133-136. [Emphasis added.] The truth I desire to emphasize today is that we mortals are in very deed the literal offspring of God. If men understood, believed, and accepted this truth and lived by it, our sick and dying society would be reformed and redeemed, and men would have peace here and now and eternal joy in the hereafter.
Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints accept this concept as a basic doctrine of their theology. The lives of those who have given it thought enough to realize its implications are controlled by it; it gives meaning and direction to all their thoughts and deeds. This is so because they know that it is the universal law of nature in the plant, animal, and human worlds for reproducing offspring to reach in final maturity the likeness of their parents....
The theory that man is other than the offspring of God has been, and, so long as it is accepted and acted upon, will continue to be, a major factor in blocking man's spiritual growth and in corrupting his morals....
The concept that man is a beast relieves him of a sense of accountability and encourages him to adopt the fatalistic attitude of "eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die"...
That man is a child of God is the most important knowledge available to mortals. Such knowledge is beyond the ken of the uninspired mind. Neither logic, science, philosophy, nor any other field of worldly learning has ever been, or ever will be, able to find it out. Those who limit their search to such learning techniques will continue to be as they have always been, "Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth." (2 Tim 3:7.)
The only means by which such knowledge can be had is divine revelation. Fortunately for us, as has already been shown, it has been so revealed repeatedly from Adam until today.
Marion G. Romney, Conference Report, April 1953, pg. 123-126. [Emphasis added.] I would like to say just a word about my testimony of the mission of Jesus Christ. I want to go a little farther back for a moment, if I can be given guidance by the Spirit of the Lord to speak the truth accurately, and mention the great condition precedent to the efficacy of the mission of Jesus Christ. That condition precedent is the mission of Father Adam, because without the mission of Adam there would have been no need for the mission–the atonement–of Jesus Christ.
I have an assignment from the First Presidency to serve on the Church publications committee. This committee is expected to read and pass upon the literature proposed for use in the study of our auxiliary organizations. It would please me immensely if, in the preparation of this literature, we could get away from using the language of those who do not believe in the mission of Adam. I have reference to words and phrases such as "primitive man," "prehistoric man," "before men learned to write," and the like. We sometimes use these terms in a way that offends my feelings; in a way which indicates to me that we get mixed up in our understanding of the mission of Adam. The connotation of these terms, as used by unbelievers, is out of harmony with our understanding of the mission of Adam.
"Adam fell that man might be." (2 Ne 2:25.) There were no pre-Adamic men in the line of Adam. The Lord said that Adam was the first man. (Moses 1:34; 3:7; D&C 84:16.) It is hard for me to get the idea of a man ahead of Adam, before the first man. The Lord also said that Adam was the first flesh (Moses 3:7) which, as I understand it, means the first mortal on the earth. I understand from a statement in the book of Moses, which was made by Enoch, that there was no death in the world before Adam. (Moses 6:48; see also 2 Ne 2:22.) ...
I understand from this that Enoch could read about Adam in a book which had been written under the tutelage of Almighty God. Thus there were no prehistoric men who could not write because men living in the days of Adam, who was the first man, wrote.
I am not a scientist. I do not profess to know anything but Jesus Christ, and him crucified, and the principles of his gospel. If, however, there are some things in the strata of the earth indicating there were men before Adam, they were not the ancestors of Adam.
Adam was the son of God. He was our elder brother, not older than Jesus, but he was our brother in the same sense that Jesus was our brother, and he "fell" to earth life. He did not come up through an unbroken line of organic evolution. There had to be a fall....
I must not go into a longer discussion, but I say again that I would be very pleased if, in our teaching of the gospel, we could keep revealed truth straight in our minds and not get it confused with the ideas and theories of men, who do not believe what the Lord has revealed with respect to the fall of Adam.
Marion G. Romney, BYU, 30 May 1957, pg. 14-15 (Rel. 231 syllabus, BYU, p. 92.) ... examine the conclusions of science as to the origin of man to see, if in harmony with God's revealed truth, they account for his deathless state. If not, then they do not persuade me to believe in Christ and‹ ‹therefore, according to Mormon [Moroni 7:14-19], are not of God.
"On Darwin's Setback," Church News, April 7, 1973, pg. 16 (editorial). [Emphasis added.] Some weeks ago these editorials reported the action of the California State Board of Education in relegating the Darwinian concept to its place as only a speculative theory.
Recently in another vote of that board the action was confirmed. School children of that state will be told that Darwinism is not an established fact, it is merely a speculative theory.
Science teachers who are members of the church have written to the Church News editor expressing their views on the matter, and have suggested that although it is not known HOW life was created by the Lord, He may have used the Darwinian proposal as the means.
Are they justified in teaching such a thing? Is not that idea as speculative as Darwin's original theory? Is it any better founded? Dare church teachers introduce such a thought in their classes? Must they not stay with the scriptures?
Harold B. Lee, Ensign, December 1972, p. 2 (First Presidency Message). [Emphasis added.] I was somewhat sorrowed recently to hear someone, a sister who comes from a church family, ask, "What about the pre-Adamic people?" Here was someone who I thought was fully grounded in the faith.
I asked, "What about the pre-Adamic people?"
She replied, "Well, aren't there evidences that people preceded the Adamic period of the earth?"
I said, "Have you forgotten the scriptures that says, ‘And I, the Lord God, formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul, the first flesh upon the earth, the first man also....’ " (Moses 3:7.) I asked, "Do you believe that?"
She wondered about the creation because she had read the theories of the scientists, and the question that she was really asking was: How do you reconcile science with religion? The answer must be, If science is not true, you cannot reconcile truth with error....
President Joseph F. Smith said (Gospel Doctrine, pg. 38): "Our young people are diligent students. They reach out for truth and knowledge with commendable zeal, and in so doing they must necessarily adopt for temporary use, the theories of men. As long, however, as they recognize them as scaffolding useful for research purposes, there can be no special harm in them. It is when these theories are settled upon as basic truth that trouble appears, and the searcher then stands in grave danger of being led hopelessly from the right way."
Harold B. Lee, private letter on official Church letterhead stationery, “THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS, 47 EAST SOUTH TEMPLE STREET, SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH 84111, HAROLD B. LEE, PRESIDENT,” to an unnamed member of the Church. (President Lee sent the letter that he composed to President Marion G. Romney to obtain his feelings about his letter. President Romney’s hand written reply said on his own monogrammed memo stationery , “I think this letter is well written. It will be helpful to ___ and his friends.” The letter is dated October 2, 1973. This is written a few months before President Lee’s death. The compiler obtained a copy of this letter in the course of his employment in the Church Office Building during 1973 and 1974 as a Research Analyst in which the compiler collected and filed into a file cabinet database letters which had been composed by the Brethren.)
I have a few moments to respond to your letter of recent date in which you express some concern about some contradictory information as to the position we should take with regard to the doctrine of evolution.
This, as you know, has been long a bone of contention so serious that in the earlier years when Darwin’s theory first was enunciated, a number of professors at the Brigham Young University were released because of their unwillingness to teach the theory and then counter by delivering the true doctrines of the gospel.
Apparently the thing that confused you was that these who have contended have shown you a copy of a letter which was signed by President David O. McKay in which he disavowed the church having taken any official position on the subject of organic evolution. And, furthermore, that in that note to Professor William Lee Stokes, he declared that the book, Man, His Origin and Destiny [by President Joseph Fielding Smith] was not published by the church and is not approved by the church.
There is a little bit of history that I should tell you about. One summer some years ago, I was assigned to deliver a day by day set of lessons to all the seminary students [teachers?] and some of the institute teachers of the church, which proved to be a very demanding assignment. I went down each morning and met with all of these teachers. President Joseph Fielding Smith’s book had just come off the press and I assigned as a part of the course, the reading of this book and writing a dissertation not less than 2500 words on the subject “What Your Appraisal Is of the Value of This Book to a High School Senior or a College Student.” This caused quite a consternation among the teachers, some of whom wanted to write a very critical analysis of the book and were fearful of doing so lest I would downgrade them in the course. This was not at all my intent, it was merely to have them respond critically if they wished, and I so told President Smith that I was inviting criticism and he said that was alright.
Some of these brethren who were critical of the book came directly to President McKay and represented to him that I had used President Joseph Fielding Smith’s book as a text for my lectures at the BYU. He called President Ernest Wilkinson in to express his criticism that I had done so, and President Wilkinson told him that that was not true, that he, President Wilkinson, had sat in on most of the lectures that I had given and I did not use the book as a text, it was merely an assigned reading outside of the lessons.
It was undoubtedly the undue pressure of some of these dissidents, one of which was his own son, who was a professor at the University of Utah, that induced him to write this brief and to them a satisfying but to you a disturbing note, which poured water over their wheel and tended to lessen the influence of President Joseph Fielding Smith’s book.
When your letter came to our attention, President Marion G. Romney told me of a conference address which he had delivered at the April conference in 1953, where he spoke directly to this subject of the fall of Adam, or the fall of man, as it is spoken of, and then brought forth scriptures to support the position of the church with respect to the advent of man upon the earth, etc.
At the conclusion of his talk, President Romney said that President David O. McKay had congratulated him and had written a brief note, a copy of which I am attaching hereto, in which he congratulated President Romney and then said, “I congratulate you for your excellent contribution during the conference and express gratitude for your remarks as well as your fine spirit, and I assure you that I agreed heartily in every instance.” President Romney thought if you had this statement from President David O. McKay, signed by himself, to counter this other statement which has been so confusing, that that should be sufficient for you to understand that President McKay had made this other statement probably because of a compromising position he had been in due to the circumstances as I have explained them.
I might add one further thought. Just after this book of President Joseph Fielding Smith’s was printed, I had a young student of science from the University of Utah who came from a family who lived in my stake, come in with several books and wanted to argue against statements made in President [Joseph] Fielding Smith’s book. I said to him, “Now Brother ___.” (his name was Dr. ___.) “I haven’t had the opportunity of delving deeply into science, but I want to tell you an experience that Mark E. Petersen and I had when we organized the new Kansas City Stake. In our interview we had a man who was considered as a bishop of one of the wards who was a teacher of anatomy in the Kansas City University, which was a dental school. Of course this made it necessary for us to examine very carefully his faith as contrasted with his teaching of the evolutionary theory which of course would be taught in connection with the subject of anatomy. After we had discussed this, I asked him if he had read Brother Smith’s book. He smiled and said, ‘’Yes, I have, and it was the most difficult book I have ever read.’ ‘’But,’ he said, ‘’I want to tell you that in my opinion this is the finest book that the church has ever produced for men who were teachers in the field of science. And I endorse what President Smith has said entirely so.’ “
I said to this young Dr. ____, ‘”I wish you would write to this professor of science, who is much older and more experienced than you, in Kansas City, and have him respond to your questions.”
A few weeks later this young man came back in a humble spirit and said, ‘”Well I need nothing more to quiet my concerns, when a man of his experience can say what he said, that’s enough for me.”
“Now if I were you, Brother ____, I would not be discouraged. This is a contention which has gone on and will continue to the end of time I suppose, and until the scientists get nearer and nearer to the doctrines of the Church, there will still be contention, but remember this, that truth can never be composed with the errors of men. Just know that the gospel is true and that these are the theories of men which you as a student must learn if you want to pass the courses you are taking.
With kindest personal regards and trusting this letter will be sufficient to set the matter right in your mind I am, Very sincerely yours, Harold B. Lee.
Joseph F. Smith, delivered Dec 7, 1913 at Mesa, AZ, Deseret Evening News, Dec. 27, 1913, Sec. 3, p. 7. I know that God is a being with body, parts and passions and that His Son, Jesus Christ, grew and developed into manhood the same as you or I, as likewise did God, His Father, grow and develop to the Supreme Being that He now is. Man was born of woman; Christ, the Savior, was born of woman, and God, the Father, was born of woman. Adam, our earthly parent, was also born of woman into this world, the same as Jesus and you and I.
Joseph F. Smith, Gospel Doctrine, pg. 25, 62. God was and is our Father, and his children were begotten in the flesh of his own image and likeness, male and female....
God originated and designed all things, and all are his children. We are born into the world as his offspring; endowed with the same attributes. The children of men have sprung from the Almighty, whether the world is willing to acknowledge it or not. He is the Father of our spirits. He is the originator of our earthly tabernacles.
Melchizedek Priesthood Manual, 1980-81, pg. 36. [Emphasis added.] Luke 3:38. What does this verse reveal about the origin of Adam’s physical body? "As to the manner in which Adam was placed on the earth, the First Presidency of the Church ... has given us this plain statement: ‘He took upon him an appropriate body, the body of a man, and so became a "living soul."... All who have inhabited the earth since Adam have taken bodies and become souls in like manner.’ "
George Q. Cannon, Millennial Star, 23:654, 12 Oct 1861. He [Brigham Young] unmistakably declares man's origins to be altogether of a celestial character–that not only is his spirit of heavenly descent, but his bodily organization, too–that the latter is not taken from the lower animals, but from the original celestial body of the great Father of humanity.
Orson F. Whitney, "Divine Mission of the Savior," Course of Study for the Quorums of the Priesthood, 1910, pp. 35, 37. Man is, in the most literal sense, a child of God. This is not only true of the spirit of man, but of his body also....
One of the important points about this topic is
to learn, if possible, how Adam obtained his body of flesh and
bones. There would seem to be but one natural and reasonable
explanation, and that is, that Adam obtained his body in the same
way Christ obtained his -- and just as all men obtain theirs --
namely, by being born of woman.
Boyd K. Packer, General Conference Address, Ensign, Nov. 1984, pp. 66-69. [Emphasis added.] I desire to share a few thoughts about a basic doctrine of the Church... What may be obscure in the scriptures can be made plain through the gift of the Holy Ghost. We can have as full an understanding of spiritual things as we are willing to earn.
And I add one more conviction: there is an adversary who has his own channels of spiritual communication. He confuses the careless and prompts those who serve him to devise deceptive, counterfeit doctrine, carefully contrived to appear genuine.
I mention this because now, as always, there are self-appointed spokesmen who scoff at what we believe and misrepresent what we teach....
The doctrine I wish to discuss concerns the nature of man and of God....
We are the children of God. That doctrine is not hidden away in an obscure verse. It is taught over and over again in scripture. These clear examples are from the Bible: [Ps 82:6 and Acts 17:29 quoted.] ...
No lesson is more manifest in nature than that all living things do as the Lord commanded in the Creation. They reproduce "after their own kind." (See Moses 2:12,24.) They follow the pattern of their parentage. Everyone knows that; every four-year-old knows that! A bird will not become an animal nor a fish. A mammal will not beget reptiles, nor "do men gather figs of thistles." (Matt. 7:16.)
In the countless billions of opportunities in the reproduction of living things, one kind does not beget another. If a species ever does cross, the offspring generally cannot reproduce. The pattern for all life is the pattern of the parentage.
This is demonstrated in so many obvious ways, even an ordinary mind should understand it. Surely no one with reverence for God could believe that His children evolved from slime or from reptiles. (Although one can easily imagine that those who accept the theory of evolution don’t show much enthusiasm for genealogical research!) The theory of evolution, and it is a theory, will have an entirely different dimension when the workings of God in creation are fully revealed.
Since every living thing follows the pattern of its parentage, are we to suppose that God had some other strange pattern in mind for His offspring? Surely we, His children, are not, in the language of science, a different species than He is?
What is in error, then, when we use the term Godhood to describe the ultimate destiny of mankind? We may now be young in our progression–juvenile, even infantile, compared with Him. Nevertheless, in the eternities to come, if we are worthy, we may be like unto Him, enter His presence, "see as [we] are seen, and know as [we] are known," and receive a "fulness." (D&C 76:94.)
This doctrine is not at variance with the scriptures. Nevertheless, it is easy to understand why some Christians reject it, because it introduces the possibility that man may achieve Godhood....
There are those who mock our beliefs in the most uncharitable ways. And we will bear what they do with long-suffering, for it does not change truth. And in their own way they move our work along a little faster. We will send our missionaries abroad to teach that we are the literal sons and daughters of God....
I bear solemn witness that Jesus is the Christ, the Only Begotten of the Father in the flesh; that He is our Redeemer, our Savior; that God‹ is our Father. This we know through the gift of the Holy Ghost. And I humbly but resolutely affirm that we will not, we cannot, stray from this doctrine. On this fundamental truth we will never yield.
Boyd K. Packer, "The Law and the Light," Book of Mormon Symposium, BYU, 30 October 1988. Those who defend opposing views on the origin of man use the same words but sometimes attach very different meanings to them. I will define some words in the hope that you will understand what I mean....
The point of my presentation is this: There are moral and spiritual laws pertaining to values, good and evil, right and wrong; laws as constant, precise, and valid as those which govern the physical universe.
If there is a crucial point of divergence between views on the origin of man, it is whether law governs both the physical or temporal and the moral or spiritual in the universe.
If you reject the premise that unchangeable law governs both, I shall have great difficulty communicating my view as to how man came to be.
I am counting on Latter-day Saints agreeing that laws governing spiritual things were irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundation of the earth. (D&C 130:20.)
More often it is students of the physical universe who fail to accept moral and spiritual law as valid and authoritative because such laws are not measured by methods they have been accustomed to use in their studies. Physical or natural laws are generally more visible and therefore much easier to demonstrate.
These students tend to gather endless examples of the effects of natural law to support their theory on the origin of man. But all of their‹ examples put together–compelling or not, true or not, whether they prove natural laws or not–cannot disprove the existence of moral and spiritual laws. To study mankind and his beginnings by analyzing his physical body and environment only, is to study but half of him. Regardless of how much physical truth is discovered, it is but half the truth....
The many similarities between the human body and the physical bodies of animals do not, in my mind, confirm a common ancestor. Not at all! It confirms the sovereignty of physical laws. If a hip joint in a human body is of the same design as that in animals, it simply means that the ball and socket conforms to physical laws which govern space, stress, strength, motion, and articulation. If you want articulation, that design works in the flesh and bone of either man or animal, or for that matter in machines.
It is on the premise that law controls both the moral and spiritual, and the physical natures of man that I have established my conviction on his origin. All laws, even those devised by man, are established under the assumption that violation carries penalties. If man is no more than a highly specialized animal, there are substantial questions as to whether moral laws can apply to him. If there is no moral law, there is no sin. The New Testament makes that clear, (see Rom 5:13; Heb 10:26; 1 Jn 3:4) and Lehi said: [2 Ne 2:13 quoted]....
The comprehension of man as no more than a specialized animal cannot help but affect how one behaves. A conviction that man did evolve from animals fosters the mentality that man is not responsible for moral conduct. Animals are controlled to a very large extent by physical urges. Promiscuity is a common pattern in the reproduction of animals. In many subtle ways, the perception that man is an animal and likewise controlled by urges invites that kind of behavior so apparent in society today. A self-image in which we regard ourselves as children of God sponsors one kind of behavior. A conclusion which equates man to animals fosters another kind of behavior entirely.
Consequences of which spring from that single false premise account for much of what society now suffers. I do not speak in theoretical terms; it matters very much in practical ways. The word abortion should suffice as an example....
Many Church members are entirely unaware that fundamental doctrines cannot co-exist with a belief that man evolved from lower forms of life. From the scriptures I will briefly review fundamental doctrines on the creation, the fall, and the atonement. Before doing so, let me tell you how I feel about you who study or teach or work in the fields of science. I envy your opportunity to work in fields of scientific discovery: anthropology, paleontology, geology, physics, biology, physiology, chemistry, medicine, engineering and many others. Just think of the opportunity to study the laws of the physical universe and harness the power inherent in obeying them for the good of mankind. It gives me feelings of wonder, of reverence. No Latter-day Saint should be hesitant to pursue any true science as a career, a hobby, an interest, or to accept any truth established through those means of discovery. Nor need one become a scientist at the expense of being a Latter-day Saint of faith and spiritual maturity.
Science is seeking; science is discovery. Man finds joy in discovery. If all things were known, man's creativity would be stifled. There could be no further discovery, no growth, nothing to decide–no agency.
All things not only are not known but must not be so convincingly clear as to eliminate the need for faith. That would nullify agency and defeat the purpose of the plan of salvation. Tests of faith are growing experiences. We all have unanswered questions. Seeking and questioning, periods of doubt, in an effort to find answers, are part of the process of discovery. The kind of doubt which is spiritually dangerous does not relate to questions so much as to answers. For that and other reasons, it is my conviction that a full knowledge of the origin of man must await further discovery, further revelation....
Know this: Knowledge of the physical universe and of the laws which govern it is cumulative. Thus each generation builds upon and expands the knowledge gained from discoveries of the past. Contributions to scientific and practical knowledge are gathered from one generation to the next. As greater light and knowledge are discovered, tentative theories of the past are replaced.
Unlike knowledge of the physical universe, the moral knowledge of each generation begins where the previous generation began rather than where they left off. For example, the remedy for an infection in the physical body has changed dramatically over the centuries; the remedy for infidelity, not at all. Morality is not so easily conveyed from one generation to the next. It is acquired more from example, ideally in the home.
This apparent imbalance in accumulating knowledge can easily contribute to a spirit of arrogance in students of the physical world, especially in so-called intellectuals. They may feel they have inherited the larger and more valuable legacy of knowledge. The Book of Mormon warns of [2 Ne 9:28-29 quoted; 2 Ne 9:42; 28:15; Alma 32:23; D&C 58:10 referred to.]
For generations, the clergy of the Christian churches (including ours) have been labeled as bumbling and naive because they rejected the theory of evolution and believed in a separate creation of man. Those who have only the Bible, have just enough in the Old and New Testaments about men as the children of God, about law and sin, to enforce their belief that man is accountable for his conduct, that accountability requires a special status, a separate creation.
Confronted by the sophisticated arguments of articulate scientists with impressive visual evidence to support the theory of organic evolution, the clergy could but quote scriptures or testify of inner feelings. This meant little or nothing to the scientist.
Do not despise those who over the years defended these doctrines in spite of intellectual mocking. Do not belittle their efforts. However foolish they may have appeared to some, there is substance to the position they have defended. I say, God bless them!...
Do not mortgage your testimony for an unproved theory on how man was created. Have faith in the revelations; leave man in the place the revelations have put him!...
The scriptures us the words "organize" and "form" when discussing the creation. (Abr 4:1,12,15,25,30.) The earth was created or formed of imperishable substance for the revelations tell us that "the elements are eternal" (D&C 93:33). Matter already existed, but it was "without form and void." (See Gen 1:2 and Moses 2:2.) That word "beginning" applies only if "create" is defined as "form" or "organize." There was no beginning and there shall be no end to matter. This is also said of intelligence, that spiritual part of man. "Intelligence, or the light of truth, was not created or made, neither indeed can be." (D&C 93:29.) We know from the revelations also that this earth is but one of an innumerable host of worlds. [Moses 1:37-38,35 quoted.] When man was created, there was no need for trial and error, for chance....
Many who perceive organic evolution to be law rather than theory do not realize they forsake the atonement in the process....
What is physical interconnects with the spiritual; what is spiritual, or eternal, or moral, resonates with the physical. We respond in our very soul to the order in the universe. How we respect those interconnections will have profound effect upon our happiness or sorrow. In support of this, I will quote from one who must be regarded as an expert witness of the subject. It was written in the later years of his life:
"I have said," our writer proceeds, "that in one respect my mind has changed during the last twenty or thirty years. Up to the age of thirty, or beyond it, poetry of many kinds, such as the works of Milton, Gray, Byron, Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Shelley, gave me great pleasure, and even as a schoolboy I took intense delight in Shakespeare, especially in the historical plays. I have also said that formerly pictures gave me considerable, and music very great delight. But now for many years I cannot endure to read a line of poetry: I have tried lately to read Shakespeare, and found it so intolerably dull that it nauseated me. I have also almost lost any taste for pictures or music.–Music generally set me thinking too energetically on what I have been at work on, instead of giving me pleasure. I retain some taste for fine scenery, but it does not cause me the exquisite delight which it formerly did...."
Our witness continues speaking:
"This curious and lamentable loss of the higher aesthetic tastes is all the odder, as books on history, biographies and travels (independently of any scientific facts which they may contain), and essays on all sorts of subjects interest me as much as ever they did. My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of facts, but why this should have caused the atrophy of that part of the brain alone, one which the higher tastes depend, I cannot conceive. A man with a mind more highly organized or better constituted than mine, would not I suppose have thus suffered; and if I had to live my life again I would have made a rule to read some poetry and listen to some music at least once every week; for perhaps the parts of my brain now atrophied could thus have been kept active through use. The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature."
To repeat, "The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature."
That remarkable confession is from the autobiography of Charles Darwin, who conceived the theory of organic evolution. (The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, Colline, St. James Place, London, 1958, pg. 138f.)
There are too many interconnections uniting the physical and the spiritual in man to suppose that they came at random or by chance–not in a billion years or a billion times a billion years! It is against the law! What law? The law of common sense!
Now in conclusion: It is my conviction that to the degree the theory of evolution asserts that man is the product of an evolutionary process, the offspring of animals–it is false!
What application the evolutionary theory has to animals gives me no concern. That is another question entirely, one to be pursued by science. But remember, the scriptures speak of the spirit in animals and other living things, and of each multiplying after its own kind. (D&C 77:2; 2 Ne 2:22; Moses 3:9; Abr 4:11-12,24.)
And, I am sorry to say, the so-called theistic evolution, the theory that God used an evolutionary process to prepare a physical body for the spirit of man, is equally false. I say I am sorry because I know it is a view commonly held by good and thoughtful people who search for an acceptable resolution to an apparent conflict between the theory of evolution and the doctrines of the gospel....
When the First Presidency speaks, we can safely accept their word.
"And if my people will hearken unto my voice, and unto the voice of my servants whom I have appointed to lead my people, behold, verily I say unto you, they shall not be moved out of their place.
"But if they will not hearken to my voice, nor unto the voice of these men whom I have appointed, they shall not be blest. (D&C 124:45-46). [See also D&C 1:14,19,38.]
Twice the First Presidency has declared the position of the Church on organic evolution. The first, a statement published in 1909 entitled The Origin of Man [the first article in this collection] was signed by Presidents Joseph F. Smith, John R. Winder, and Anthon H. Lund. (The Improvement Era, November 1909:75-81.) The other, entitled "Mormon" View of Evolution, signed by Presidents Heber J. Grant, Anthony W. Ivins, and Charles W. Nibley, was published in 1925 (The Improvement Era, September 1925:1090-91). It follows very closely the first statement, indeed quotes directly from it.
The doctrines in both of them are consistent and have not changed....
Statements have been made by other presidents of the Church and members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles which corroborate these official declarations by the First Presidency.
I should take note of one letter signed by a president of the Church addressed to a private individual which includes a sentence, which taken out of context reads, "On the subject of organic evolution the Church has officially taken no position." For some reason the addressee passed this letter about. For years it has appeared each time this subject is debated. Letters to individuals are not the channel for announcing the policy of the Church. For several important reasons, this letter itself is not a declaration of the position of the Church, as some have misinterpreted it to be. Do not anchor your position on this major issue to that one sentence! It is in conflict with the two official declarations, each signed by all members of the presidency. Remember the revelation in the Doctrine and Covenants, "Every decision made by ... (the First Presidency) must be by the unanimous voice of the same; that is, every member ... must be agreed to its decisions.... Unless this is the case, their decisions are not entitled to the same blessings which the decisions of a quorum of three presidents were anciently, who were ordained after the order of Melchizedek, and were righteous and holy men." (D&C 107:27,29.) ...
How old is the earth? I do not know! But I do know that matter is eternal. How long a time has man been upon the earth? I do not know! But I do know that man did not evolve from animals. Both questions have to do with time. Time is a medium for measurement, perhaps no more than that. Occasionally I wonder if time exists at all. Quantum physicists are now beginning to say strange things like that. "Time" comes from the word "tempus"; so do temporal and temporary. The revelations say that the day will come when "there shall be time no longer" (Rev 10:6; D&C 84:100). In any case, they say "time only is measured unto men." (Alma 40:8.) ...
All the answers as to how man was created have not been discovered by scientists; neither has God revealed them, but he has promised that he will reveal them. [D&C 101:32-34 quoted.]
When confronted by evidence in the rocks below, rely on the witness of the heavens above.... I said I would give six reasons for my conviction. I listed only five. The sixth is personal revelation.
Boyd K. Packer, Conference Report, October 1983, pg. 22. When we understand the doctrine of premortal life, then things fit together and make sense.
We then know that little boys and little girls are not monkeys, nor are their parents, nor were theirs, to the very beginning generation. We are the children of God, created in his image. Our child-parent relationship to God is clear. The purpose for the creation of this earth is clear.
Spencer W. Kimball, Ensign, Nov. 1975, pg. 140. [Emphasis added.] He [Spencer W. Kimball] stressed that the creation was not an experiment. "There were no guesses, no trial and error."
Ibid., p. 80. When was that [the beginning of time]? I guess we would say when Adam was placed on the earth.
Spencer W. Kimball, Miracle of Forgiveness, p. 5. Our spirit matter was eternal and co-existent with God, but it was organized into spirit bodies by our Heavenly Father.
John Taylor, The Mediation and Atonement, pg. 164-165. These principles do not change, as represented by evolutionists of the Darwinian school, but the primitive organisms of all living beings exist in the same form as when they first received their impress from their Maker.... and if we take man, he is said to have been made in the image of God, for the simple reason that he is a son of God.... in whose likeness, we are told, he is made. He did not originate from a chaotic mass of matter, moving or inert, but came forth possessing, in an embryonic state, all the faculties and powers of a God. And when he shall be perfected, and have progressed to maturity, he will be like his Father–a God; being indeed His offspring. As the horse, the ox, the sheep, and every living creature, including man, propagates its own species and perpetuates its own kind, so does God perpetuate His.
James E. Talmage, Church News, Nov. 21, 1931, pg. 8 (in Meservy, p. 224). I do not regard Adam as related to–certainly not as descended from–the Neanderthal, the Cro-Magnon, the Peking or the Piltdown [!] man. Adam came as divinely created, created and empowered, and stands as the patriarchal head of his posterity–posterity, who, if true to the laws of God are heirs to the Priesthood and to the glories of eternal lives.
James E. Talmage, Conference Report, October 1916, pp. 73–76. ... There are men in the world who have set themselves up against the God of Israel, men who have undertaken to measure arms with the Almighty, and to pit their wisdom against the eternal wisdom of God, men who have undertaken to construe, or rather to misconstrue, the holy Scripture, and to declare to the people that these writings do not mean what they say. Beware of them, Latter-day Saints. Stand we firm and steadfast by the revealed word of God and on the words of instruction that are given us from time to time by those whom we sustain before the Lord as his representatives in our midst; and should there come a question of issue between the opinions of men and the word of revelation, I say, as said the apostle, Paul, of old, in his written address to the Saints of Rome: “Yea, let God be true, but every man a liar.” Men have made themselves liars before God because they have undertaken to question and even to deny his word.
... Scientists, psychologists, students of the human mind, have undertaken to analyze and dissect this strange organism “Mormonism,” and they have said it arose from delusion; that it has sprung from the seed of deception; that it is the offspring of bigotry and fanaticism; and the man whom we call a prophet of the last days, through whom we say the gospel has been restored and the Church re-established, was an epileptic; and consequently, according to the laws of heredity, which they have diagrammed and set forth in orderly array, the delusion could not persist beyond the third generation, for such would be contrary to formulated law. The world took comfort in that assurance, for it was given by those in whom the people had confidence; but what see we? Under this vast dome here today, are hundreds of the fourth and many of the fifth generation. Yea, let God be true, though every man be a liar.
... When I see how often the theories and conceptions of men have gone astray, have fallen short of the truth, yea, have even contradicted the truth directly, I am thankful in my heart that we have an iron rod to which we can cling—the rod of certainty, the rod of revealed truth. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints welcomes all truth, but it distinguishes most carefully between fact and theory, between premises and deductions; and it is willing to leave some questions in abeyance until the Lord in his wisdom shall see fit to speak more plainly.
As the result of the combined labors of men I learn that man is but the developed offspring of the beast; and yet I read that God created man in his own image, after his likeness; and again, I stand on the word of God, though it be in contradiction to the theories of men. This spirit of misconstruction, this attempt to explain away the sure word of prophecy, the indisputable word of revelation, is manifest even among our own people. There are those who would juggle with the predictions of the Lord's prophets.
Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, 4:217-218. [Emphasis added.] Thus you may continue and trace the human family back to Adam and Eve, and ask, "are we of the same species with Adam and Eve?" Yes, every person acknowledges this; this comes within the scope of our‹ understanding.
But when we arrive at that point, a vail [sic] is dropt, and our knowledge is cut off. Were it not so, you could trace back your history to the Father of our spirits in the eternal world. He is a being of the species as ourselves; He lives as we do, except the difference that we are earthly, and He is heavenly. He has been earthly, and is of precisely the same species of being that we are....
Things were first created spiritually; the Father actually begat the spirits, and they were brought forth and lived with Him. Then He commenced the work of creating earthly tabernacles, precisely as He had been created in this flesh Himself, by partaking of the coarse material that was organized and composed this earth, until His system was charged with it, consequently the tabernacles of His children were organized from the coarse materials of this earth.
When the time came that His first-born, the Saviour, should come into the world and take a tabernacle, the Father came Himself and favoured that spirit with a tabernacle instead of letting any other man do it. The Saviour was begotten by the Father of His spirit, by the same Being who is the Father of our spirits, and that is all the organic difference between Jesus Christ and you and me.
Brigham Young, quoted by George Q. Cannon in Millennial Star, Vol. 23, No. 41, October 12, 1861, pg. 654. And who is the Father? He is the first of the human family; and when he took a tabernacle, it was begotten by his Father in heaven, after the same manner as the tabernacles of Cain, Abel, and the rest of the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve. From the fruits of the earth the first earthly tabernacles were originated by the Father, and so on in succession.
After men have got their exaltations and their crowns–have become Gods, even the sons of God–are made Kings of kings and Lords of lords, they have the power then of propagating their species in spirit, and that is the first of their operations with regard to organising a world. Power is then given to them to organise the elements, and then commence the organising of tabetrnacles. How can they do it? Have they to go to that earth? Yes, an Adam will have to go there, and he cannot do without Eve: he must have Eve to commence the work of generation, and they will go into the garden and continue to eat and drink of the fruits of the corporeal world, until this grosser matter is diffused sufficiently through their celestial bodies to enable them, according to the established laws, to produce mortal tabernacles for their spiritual children.
Brigham Young, JD 7:285-286. [Emphasis added.] When people have secured to themselves eternal life, they are where they can understand the true character of their Father and God, and the object of the creation, fall, and redemption of man after the creation of this world. These points have ever been subjects for speculation with all classes of believers, and are subjects of much interest to those who entertain a deep anxiety to know how to secure to themselves eternal life....
Shall I say that the seeds of vegetables were planted here by the Characters that framed and built this world–that the seeds of every plant composing the vegetable kingdom were brought from another world? This would be news to many of you. Who brought them here? It matters little to us whether it was John, James, William, Adam, or Bartholomew who brought them; but it was some Being who had power to frame this earth with its seas, valleys, mountains, and rivers, and cause it to teem with vegetables and animal life.
Here let me state to all philosophers of every class upon the earth, When you tell me that father Adam was made as we make adobes from the earth, you tell me what I deem an idle tale. When you tell me that the beasts of the field were produced in that manner, you are speaking idle words devoid of meaning. There is no such thing in all the eternities where the Gods dwell.
Mankind are here because they are the offspring of parents who were first brought here from another planet, and power was given them to propagate their species, and they were commanded to multiply and replenish the earth. The offspring of Adam and Eve are commanded to take the rude elements, and, by the knowledge God has given, to convert them into everything required ...
Brigham Young, JD 9:283. [Emphasis added.] Man is the offspring of God.... We are as much the children of this great Being as we are the children of our mortal progenitors. We are flesh of his flesh, bone of his bone, and the same fluid that circulates in our bodies, called blood, once circulated in His veins as it does in ours. As the seeds of grains, vegetables and fruits produce their kind, so man is in the image of God.
Brigham Young, JD 11:122. [Emphasis added.] Numerous are the scriptures which I might bring to bear upon the subject of the personality of God. I shall not take time to quote them on this occasion, but will content myself by quoting two passages in the 1st chapter of Genesis, 26th and 27th verses. [Quoted.]
I believe that the declaration made in these two scriptures is literally true. God has made His children like Himself to stand erect, and has endowed them with intelligence and power and dominion over all His works and given them the same attributes which He Himself possesses.
He created man, as we create our children; for there is no other process of creation in heaven, on the earth, in the earth, or under the earth, or in all the eternities, that is, that were, or that will ever be.
Brigham Young, Discourses of Brigham Young, pg. 222; JD 13:310. [Emphasis added.] They [the scriptures] testify of the Savior, of his doctrines and requirements, and of the ordinances of his house; the plan of salvation is there portrayed, and any person who follows its dictation may redeem himself from the thraldom of sin, and know by the spirit, that Jesus is the Christ. All who will take this course will know by revelation that God is our Father; they will understand the relationship they hold to him and to their fellow-beings. The world may in vain ask the question, "Who are we?" But the Gospel tells us that we are the sons and daughters of God whom we serve. Some say, "We are the children of Adam and Eve." So we are, and they are the children of our Heavenly Father. We are all the children of Adam and Eve, and they are the offspring of him who dwells in the heavens, the highest Intelligence that dwells anywhere that we have any knowledge of.
Brigham Young, JD 15:137. And when our spirits receive our bodies, and through our faithfulness we are worthy to be crowned, we will then receive authority to produce both spirit and body.
Brigham Young, Discourses of Brigham Young, pg. 283. And the fact that we receive this Comforter, the Holy Ghost, is proof that the spirit in warring with the flesh has overcome, and by continuing in this state of victory over our sinful bodies we become the sons and daughters of God. Christ having made us free, and whoever the Son makes free is free indeed. Having fought the good fight we then shall be prepared to lay our bodies down to rest to await the morning of the resurrection when they will come forth and be reunited with the spirits, the faithful, as it is said, receiving crowns, glory, immortality and eternal lives, even a fulness with the Father, when Jesus shall present His work to the Father, saying, "Father, here is the work thou gavest me to do." Then will they become Gods, even the sons of God; then will they become eternal fathers, eternal mothers, eternal sons and eternal daughters; being eternal in their organization they go from glory to glory, from power to power; they will ever cease to increase and to multiply, worlds without end. When they receive their crowns, their dominions, they then will be prepared to frame earths like unto ours and to people them in the same manner as we have been brought forth by our parents, by our Father and God. (Journal of Discourses 18:259.)
Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 3:319. He was the person who brought the animals and the seeds from other planets to this world, and brought a wife with him and stayed here. You may read and believe what you please as to what is found written in the Bible. Adam was made from the dust of an earth, but not from the dust of this earth. He was made as you and I are made, and no person was ever made upon any other principle.
Chauncey C. Riddle, Ensign, September 1975, pg. 83. [Emphasis added.] So we are persecuted for personal revelation in a world that prides itself on "hard" evidence, on objectivity, on the strength of consensus. As a philosopher of knowledge, I can only shake my head. For now I know and can prove that there is no such thing as evidence apart from a matrix of presuppositions, that objectivity is at best consensus, and that consensus is often but a public relations job.
Orson Pratt (Joseph Fielding McConkie, Journal of Discourses Digest, pg. 348-356). [Emphasis added.] All things with which we are acquainted, pertaining to this earth of ours, are subject to change; not only man, so far as his temporal body is concerned, but the beasts of the field, the fowls of the air, the fishes of the sea, and every living thing with which we are acquainted–all are subject to pain and distress and finally die and pass away; death seems to have universal dominion in our creation.
It certainly is a curious world; it certainly does not look like a world constructed in such a manner as to produce eternal happiness; and it would be very far from the truth, I think, for any being at the present time to pronounce it very good everything seems to show us that goodness, in a great degree, has fled from this creation....
Why is it that this creation is so constructed? And why is it that death reigns universally over all living earthly beings? Did the great Author of creation construct this little globe of ours subject to all these changes, which are calculated to produce sorrow and death among the beings that inhabit it? Was this the original condition of our creation? I answer, No; it was not so constructed. But how was it made in the beginning? All things that were made pertaining to this earth were pronounced very good. (Gen 1:31.) Where there is pain, where there is sickness, where there is sorrow, and where there is death, this saying cannot be understood in its literal sense; things cannot be very good where something very evil reigns and has universal dominion.
We are, therefore, constrained to believe that in the first formation of our globe, as far as the Mosaic history gives us information, everything was perfect in its formation; that there was nothing in the air, or in the waters, or in the solid elements, that was calculated to produce misery, wretchedness, unhappiness, or death, in the way that it was then organized ... immortality reigned in every department of creation; hence it was pronounced very good....
Man, when he was first placed upon this earth, was an immortal being, capable of eternal endurance; his flesh and bones, as well as his spirit, were immortal and eternal in their nature; and it was just so with all the inferior creation–the lion, the leopard, the kid, and the cow; it was so with the feathered tribes of creation, as well as those that swim in the vast ocean of waters; all were immortal and eternal in their nature (2 Ne 2:22); and the earth itself, as a living being, was immortal and eternal in its nature....
But how can it be proved that man was an immortal being? We will refer to what the Apostle Paul has written upon this subject; he says that by one man came death; and he tells us how it came; it was by the transgression of one individual that death was introduced here. (Rom 6:12-19; 1 Cor 15:21-22.)
But did the transgression bring in all these diseases and this sorrow, this misery and wretchedness, over the face of this creation? Is it by the transgression of one person that the very heavens are to vanish away as smoke and the earth is to wax old like a garment? Yes, it is by the‹ transgression of one; and if it had not been for his transgression, the earth never would have been subject to death. Why? Because the works of the Lord are so constructed as to exist forever; and if death had come in without a cause, and destroyed the earth, and laid waste the material heavens, and produced a general and utter overthrow and ruin in this fair creation, then the works of the Lord would have ceased to endure according to the promise, being imperfect in their construction and consequently not very good....
Adam was appointed lord of this creation, a great governor, swaying the scepter of power over the whole earth. When the governor, the person who was placed to reign over this fair creation, had transgressed, all in his dominions had to feel the effects of it, the same as a father or a mother who transgresses certain laws, frequently transmits the effects thereof to the latest generations.
Orson Pratt, Nov 12, 1876, JD 18:293-294. [Emphasis added.] Before the earth was rolled into existence we were his sons and daughters. Those of his children who prove themselves during this probation worthy of exaltation in his presence, will beget other children, and, precisely according to the same principles, they too will become fathers of spirits, as he is the Father of our spirits; and thus the works of God are one eternal round–creation, glorification, and exaltation in the celestial kingdom.
How many transformations this earth had before it received its present form of creation, I do not know. Geologists pretend to say that this earth must have existed many millions of years, and this assertion is generally made by men who do not believe in God or the Bible, to disprove the history of the creation of the world, as given by the Prophet Moses. We will go further than geologists dare to go, and say that the materials of which the earth is composed are eternal, they will never have an end....
How many transformations this earth passed through before the one spoken of by Moses, I do not know, neither do I particularly care. If it had gone through millions on millions of transformations, it is nothing to us. We are willing, for the sake of argument, to admit that the materials themselves are as old as geologists dare to say they are; but then, that does not destroy the idea of a God, that does not destroy the idea of a great Creator, who, according to certain fix and unalterable laws, brought these materials, from time to time, into a certain organization, and then by his power completed the worlds that were thus made, by placing thereon intelligent and animated beings, capable of thinking and having an existence; and then again, for various reasons, he destroys their earthly existence, until finally he exalts them from their former condition, and makes them celestial in their nature.
This is the destiny of this globe of ours; it will eventually attain a state or organization that will no more be destroyed. When? After God has fulfilled and accomplished his purposes, after it has rested from wickedness one thousand years, during which time Satan will not have power to tempt the children of men, during which time the faithful will reign, as kings and priests on the earth in their resurrected bodies, when, too, the kingdom and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven will be in possession of the Saints of the Most High; not only in the possession of those who are mortal Saints, but also in the possession of those who are immortal Saints, appearing as they will in their resurrected bodies, rising up as rulers, as kings and priests, upon the face of our globe.
B. H. Roberts in Keith H. Meservy, "Evolution & the Origin of Adam," Church Educational System Religious Educators’ Symposium, BYU, 1979, pg. 224-225. [Emphasis added.] Elder B. H. Roberts, who is recognized by many as an erudite writer in the Church, explicitly expressed his disbelief in evolution. "The claims of evolution ... are contrary to all experience so far as man’s knowledge extends. The great law of nature is that every plant, herb, fish, beast and man produces it kind." (The Gospel, An Exposition of Its First Principles & Man's Relationship to Deity, 8th ed. [SLC: Deseret Book Co., 1946], pg. 282.) If scientists can show that the earliest strata of the earth have the simplest forms and the latest the most complex, "until it [the earth was] crowned with the presence of man–all that may be allowed. But that this gradation of animal and vegetable life owes its existence to the process of evolution is denied." The Gospel, pg. 282.) But what about the evidence for prehistoric man, or pre-Adamic races? Scientists "have hung the heaviest weights on the slenderest of threads; and I am inclined to the opinion that Adam was the progenitor of all the races of men whose remains have yet been found." (Ibid., pp. 283-84.) He concluded that Adam was "brought forth by the natural laws of procreation ... in some other world" (Ibid., 280.) and was a "son of God" (Luke 3:38 [Moses 6:22]). He noted that "one other objection" could be "urged against the theory of evolution ... it is contrary to the revelations of God.... the revelations which speak of the atonement of Jesus Christ.... if the hypothesis of evolution be true, if a man is only a product evolved from lower forms of life, better still producing better ... then it is evident that there has been no ‘fall,’ such as the revelations of God speak of; and if there was no fall, there was no occasion for a Redeemer to make atonement for man ... then the mission of Jesus Christ was a myth, the coinage of idle brains." (Ibid., pg. 266.) He concluded that the Christian religion can be harmonized with evolution "on the same principle that the lion and the lamb harmonize, or lie down together–the lion eats the lamb" (Ibid., pg. 267).
B. H. Roberts, Church News, 19 Sep 1936, pg. 8. "Man has descended from God: in fact, he is of the same race as the Gods. His descent has not been from a lower form of life, but from the Highest Form of Life; in other words, man is, in the most literal sense, a child of God. This is not only true of the spirit of man, but of his body also. There never was a time, probably, in all the eternities of the past, when there was not men or children of God. This world is only one of many worlds which have been created by the Father through His Only Begotten." (B. H. Roberts, "The Creation of Man," Course of Study for Priests, 1910.)
Mark E. Petersen, Speeches of the Year, BYU, Sept. 2, 1973, pg. 246-251. [Emphasis added.] There has developed in recent years what almost amounts to a cult in certain fields. This is a cult which also points the finger of scorn at believers and would seek to make us ashamed of our faith. It is one which would have us reject the doctrine of a special creation and accept the unproven but time-worn theory that all life evolved from lower forms, that worms and microbes were our ancestors, and not God. It teaches that God is not our father, but that our first progenitors were microscopic forms which came into existence spontaneously, without cause, without reason, and without purpose. According to this theory of primordial life, man at one time developed from an ancestor which, as one writer described him, was "a hairy, four-legged beast which had a tail and pointed ears and lived in trees." I ask you, which requires more faith, to believe that God is our father, or that some monkey-like ape gave us birth? And which would you rather have as your father, a creeping ape or Almighty God?
Our religion tells us that God is our Father. Some so-called intellectuals who point the finger at religion have become so domineering in their attitude toward those who do not believe their ghastly theories that they assume an attitude almost approaching tyranny. In some circles it has become persecution. So severe it is among some that one researcher, Dr. Thomas Dwight, was led so say,
The tyranny in the matter of evolution is overwhelming to a degree of which no outsider has any idea. How very few leaders in the field of science dare to tell the truth as to the state of their own minds. How many of them feel themselves forced in public to do lip service to a cult that they do not believe in.
... It's a very interesting thing to read in section 77 of the Doctrine and Covenants some further information on this same subject.... We learn from this section that in heaven beasts and fowls and creeping things exist as spirits. Then the scripture goes on: "That which is spiritual being in the likeness of that which is temporal; and that which is temporal in the likeness of that which is spiritual" (D&C 77:2). So you see, the body matches the spirit, and the spirit was made in the preexistence, so that the body that’s made here fits the spirit that was made in the preexistence. Then notice this next part of this little section: "the spirit of man in the likeness of his person, as also the spirit of the beast and every other creature which God has created" (D&C 77:2). Isn’t that a marvelous and an interesting scripture? Lots of people don’t read that, but this is one of the most significant things in the Doctrine and Covenants, in my humble opinion. So in heaven God created the spirits of all forms of life as they appear in mortality, the mortal form being in the likeness of the spirit, with mankind being God’s own offspring, his literal children, having the full capability of becoming like him.
... Man, then, was always man, because he was made that way in the preexistence. Cows were always cows and horses were always horses, because they were made that way in the preexistence, when first they were made as spirits before they were tabernacled in flesh, since all things were made spiritually before they were temporally in the earth. Then trees were always trees, corn was always corn, cats were always cats, because they were made that way in the preexistence....
You believe in our Articles of Faith. One of them says, "We believe that men will be punished for their own sins, and not for Adam’s transgression." Do you believe there was an Adam, described in the scripture as the first man? Do you believe there was such a thing as Adam’s transgression, sometimes called the Fall? Now I ask you, can you believe in Adam and in Darwinian evolution at the same time? Our religion teaches that there was no death in the world before the Fall. Do you believe that? And if you do, how can you accept Darwinism, which says there was death before Adam–or before the first human being, as some will accept it? This then becomes one of the great hurdles for LDS anthropologists, doesn't it?
According to our doctrine, the fall of Adam and the process of death are inseparable. Death and Adam are inseparable; death and the resurrection are inseparable; the fall of Adam and the atonement of Christ are inseparable; Adam and Christ are inseparable. If there was no Adam, there was no fall. If there was no fall of Adam there was no atonement by Christ. If there was no atonement by Christ our religion is in vain, for if there was no Adam, there was no Christ either. If there is no Christ, where are we? Are you ready to reject your inspired religion, your faith in God and Christ, to accept a questionable philosophy that may be thrust upon you by some unbelieving, even atheistic, professor of an unproved hypothesis? This is certainly a case in point where we must do as Joshua of old said, "Choose you this day whom ye will serve" (Josh 24:15).
Robert J. Matthews, A Bible! A Bible! (SLC: Bookcraft, 1990) pg. 188-189, 193-194. I believe that Adam's physical body was the offspring of God, literally (Moses 6:22); that he was begotten as a baby with a physical body not subject to death, in a world without sin or blood; and that he grew to manhood in that condition and then became mortal through his own actions. I believe that Adam's physical body was begotten by our immortal celestial Father and an immortal celestial Mother, and thus not into a condition of mortality, a condition which would have precluded Jesus from being the Only Begotten of the Father in the flesh (D&C 93:11)–flesh meaning mortality. Jesus’ physical body was also begotten of the same celestial Father but through a mortal woman and hence into mortality.
Commenting on Luke 3:38 ("Adam, which was the son of God"), Elder Bruce R. McConkie wrote: "This statement, found also in Moses 6:22, has a deep and profound significance and also means what it says. Father Adam came, as indicated, to this sphere, gaining a immortal body, because death had not yet entered the world. (2 Ne 2:22.) Jesus, on the other hand, was the Only Begotten in the flesh, meaning into a world of mortality where death already reigned." [Doctrinal New Testament Commentary 1:95.]
Evolution would place Adam’s body as the offspring of animals, each generation having gradually evolved and improved in structure and in intelligence until a creature came into being that was more man-like than animal-like. This seems to me such a time-wasting process. We know that God can beget children: he is the Father of Jesus’ body and has also begotten innumerable spirit children in his own likeness and image. Why would the Father resort to animal evolution to bring his very own family into the new world that he had created, rather than he and the heavenly mother doing it in just one generation by begetting Adam themselves? Surely we would not deny the heavenly parents the privilege of begetting their own children. If our heavenly parents were but spirits only, there might be some cause for expecting they would need an alternate way to produce Adam's body. But since they are tangible resurrected beings of flesh and bone, there seems to be no necessity to resort to the animals to produce bodies for Adam and Eve....
For the foregoing reasons, all of them taken from the teachings of the scriptures and the Brethren, I see the theory of organic evolution as contrary to the nature of God, insulting to the original status of man, and a subtle attack upon the mission of Jesus Christ. It may not seem so at first glance, but in terms of doctrine the theory of organic evolution is a concept that, if believed, would undercut the entire plan of salvation and our faith in the divinity and accomplishments of the Messiah. There must be a simple, straightforward way to make this situation evident to honest believers who espouse so-called theistic evolution, believers who may not realize they harbor a philosophy that is not only contradictory but also destructive. I do not think it is harmless. The end result is disaster, because the tenets of organic evolution are contrary to the plan of God.
In review then, what are the universal truths that are given to us in the scriptures that would have bearing on this subject? First, there is an eternal, perfect plan. Accepting this concept enables us to see the larger picture and prepares our minds against any false doctrine. This is especially so when one accepts the whole plan, with all of its parts extending from the premortal existence to the final judgment. To pick and choose, to alter and adapt, are not acceptable intellectual options when one is dealing with the plan of redemption. In other words, we should not "monkey" with the plan of salvation. The provisions of the plan are not negotiable.
Second, there is order in God’s plan; there are certain fixed principles that were in place before the world was formed. Therefore, the plan does not change. This concept can be another major stabilizing influence in our gospel studies.
Third, what sin is and how it got into the world are moral issues. If a person accepts organic evolution as the explanation for the origin of man on this earth, it seems he has to reject the explanation for the origin of sin that is given in every one of the standard works. Because of the moral implications of such a course, it seems to me that most "believers" would not be eager to do this.
We are able to turn to the scriptures for a statement of the principles related to man's origin, but in some ways, with regard to this particular matter, we who live today are in a situation more critical than that of any other people. The high degree of scientific progress today, the sophisticated methods of gaining knowledge and formulating hypotheses, and the current advances in tests and measurements have all tended toward more complex hypotheses about man’s origin than those with which Lehi, Jacob, Abinadi, Alma, or even Joseph Smith had to deal. Matters are complicated also because the scientific method is regarded so highly in our society.
Therefore, we have to diligently search to understand the revelations well enough to find adequate explanations. The doctrinal framework has been given to us in the scriptures and by the prophets of this dispensation for our guidance and use. It takes considerable effort to comprehend it, but if we ignore it, we are left to our own limited understanding. We cannot be content with a mediocre acquaintance with the plan of God. What we are challenged to do is to find a way, a simple way, to put the doctrinal issues so clearly before our hearers that those with faith in the revelations and in the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ will not unwittingly forsake the faith of our fathers–or of Elijah, Enoch, Nephi, and Joseph Smith–in order to try to be in harmony with what the world accepts.
Probably never before have believers in the scriptures had as great a need as they do now to grasp the iron rod of Lehi's dream to guide them through the subtle mists of darkness lest they wander in strange paths and become lost (see 1 Ne 8:19-21,24,30). On scientific grounds, I cannot effectively answer the evolutionist, whether he be in or out of the Church; but I can see what the theological and moral issues are, and I can see that the theory of evolution is deeply entrenched in almost every discipline and field of study in which modern man is engaged. It is a very popular philosophy, but it is capable of eroding men’s faith because it undercuts what God has revealed about the doctrine of Christ. The erosive effect of this theory are subtle, and it may not appear harmful to many at first. However, because of evolution’s inherent opposition to the mission of the Messiah, it may possibly be that in connection with this subject, more than with any other, everyone must eventually and individually answer Pilate’s question, "What shall I do then with Jesus which is called Christ?" (Mt 27:22.)
Bruce R. McConkie, BYU, June 1, 1980. [Emphasis added.] I have sought and do now seek that guidance and enlightenment which comes from the Holy Spirit of God. I desire to speak by the power of the Holy Ghost so that my words will be true and wise and proper. When any of us speaks by the power of the Spirit, we say what the Lord wants said, or, better, what he would say if he were here in person.
I want to state temperately and accurately the doctrinal principles involved and to say them in a way that will not leave room for doubt or for question. I shall speak on some matters that some may consider to be controversial, though they ought not to be. They are things on which we ought to be united, and to the extent we are all guided and enlightened from on high we will be. If we are so united–and there will be no disagreement among those who believe and understand the revealed word–we will progress and advance and grow in the things of the Spirit ...
Now let me list some axioms (I guess in academic circles we call these caveats):
Please note that knowledge is gained by obedience. It comes by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel. In the ultimate and full sense it comes only by revelation from the Holy Ghost. There are some things a sinful man does not and cannot know. The Lord’s people are promised: "By the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things." (Moro 10:5.) But if they do not seek the Spirit, if they do not accept the revelations God has given, if they cannot distinguish between the revealed word and the theories of men, they have no promise of gaining a fulness of truth by the power of the Holy Ghost....
Heresy two concerns itself with the relationship between organic evolution and revealed religion and asks the question whether they can be harmonized.
There are those who believe that the theory of organic evolution runs counter to the plain and explicit principles set forth in the Holy Scriptures as these have been interpreted and taught by Joseph Smith and his associates. There are others who think that evolution is the system used by the Lord to form plant and animal life and to place man on earth.
May I say that all truth is in agreement, that true religion and true science bear the same witness, and that in the true and full sense, true science is part of true religion. But may I also raise some questions of a serious nature. Is there any way to harmonize the false religions of the dark ages with the truths of science as they have now been discovered? Is there any way to harmonize the revealed religion that has come to us with the theoretical postulates of Darwinism and the diverse speculations descending therefrom?
Should we accept the famous document of the First Presidency, issued in the days of President Joseph F. Smith and entitled, "The Origin of Man," as meaning exactly what it says? Is it the doctrine of the gospel that Adam stood next to Christ in power and might and intelligence before the foundations of the world were laid; that Adam was placed on this earth as an immortal being; that there was no death in the world for him or for any form of life until after the Fall; that the Fall of Adam brought temporal and spiritual death into the world; that this temporal death passed upon all forms of life, upon man and animal and fish and fowl and plant life; that Christ came to ransom man and all forms of life from the effects of the temporal death brought into the world through the Fall, and in the case of man from a spiritual death also; and that this ransom includes a resurrection for man and for all forms of life?
Can you harmonize these things with the evolutionary postulate that death has always existed and that the various forms of life have evolved from preceding forms over astronomically long periods of time? Can you harmonize the theories of men with the inspired words that say: [2 Ne 2:22-26 quoted.]
These are questions to which all of us should find answers. Every person must choose for himself what he will believe. I recommend that all of you study and ponder and pray and seek light and knowledge in these and in all fields.
I believe that the atonement of Christ is the great and eternal foundation upon which revealed religion rests. I believe that no man can be saved unless he believes that our Lord’s atoning sacrifice brings immortality to all and eternal life to those who believe and obey, and no man can believe in the atonement unless he accepts both the divine Sonship of Christ and the fall of Adam.
My reasoning causes me to conclude that if death has always prevailed in the world, then there was no fall of Adam that brought death to all forms of life; that if Adam did not fall, there is no need for an atonement; that if there was no atonement, there is no salvation, no resurrection, and no eternal life; and that if there was no atonement, there is nothing in all of the glorious promises that the Lord has given us. I believe that the fall affects man, all forms of life, and the earth itself, and that the atonement affects all forms of life, and earth itself.
Bruce R. McConkie, "Foolishness of Teaching," BYU, (SLC: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1981)] If we labor at it and if we struggle, the Spirit will be given by the prayer of faith. If we do our part we will improve and grow in the things of the Spirit until we get to a position where we can, being in tune, say what the Lord wants said. That is what is expected of us. And that is foolishness in the eyes of the world, in the disciplines of science, and sociology, and so on. But it is the foolishness of God, and the foolishness of God which is wiser than men is what brings salvation.
Let me say just a word about false doctrine. We are supposed to teach. Pitfalls we are supposed to avoid are the teaching of false doctrine; teaching ethics in preference to doctrine; compromising our doctrines with the philosophies of the world; entertaining rather than teaching, and using games and gimmicks rather than sound doctrine, coddling students, as President Clark expressed it.
We ought to judge everything by gospel standards, not the reverse. Do not take a scientific principle, so-called, and try to make the gospel conform to it. Take the gospel for what it is, and, insofar as you can, make other things conform to it, and if they do not conform to it, forget them. Forget them; do not worry. They will vanish away eventually. In the true sense of the word, the gospel embraces all truth. And everything that is true is going to conform to the principles that God has revealed.
"O the wise, and the learned, and the rich, that are puffed up in the pride of their hearts, and all those who preach false doctrines, and all those who commit whoredoms, and pervert the right way of the Lord, wo, wo, wo be unto them, saith the Lord God Almighty, for they shall be thrust down to hell!" (2 Ne 28:15).
I shall repeat the portion of that that deals with teaching. "Those who preach false doctrines,... wo, wo, wo be unto them, saith the Lord God Almighty, for they shall be thrust down to hell!" (2 Ne 28:15).
I want to say something about this. That scripture is talking about people who have a form of godliness, as Paul expressed it, but who deny the power thereof (see 2 Tim 3:5). And the Lord quoted Paul in the First Vision, using his very language. He is talking about those people of whom Paul said: They are "ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth" (2 Tim 3:7)....
You talk about teaching false doctrine and being damned. Here is a list of false doctrines that if someone teaches he will be damned. And there is not one of these that I have ever known to be taught in the Church, but I am giving you the list for a perspective because of what will follow. Teach that God is a Spirit, the sectarian trinity. Teach that salvation comes by grace alone, without works. Teach original guilt, or birth sin, as they express it. Teach infant baptism. Teach predestination. Teach that revelation and gifts and miracles have ceased. Teach the Adam-God theory. (That does apply in the Church.) Teach that we should practice plural marriage today. Now any of those are doctrines that damn. They are what I just read about from that chapter 28 of 2 Nephi.
Now here are some doctrines that weaken faith and may damn. It depends on how inured a person gets to them, and how much emphasis he puts on them, and how much the doctrine begins to govern the affairs of his life. Evolution is one of them. Somebody can get so wrapped up in so-called organic evolution that he ends up not believing in the atoning sacrifice of the Lord Jesus. Such a course leads to damnation.
Somebody can teach that God is progressing in knowledge. And if he begins to believe it, and emphasizes it unduly, and it becomes a ruling thing in his life, then, as the Lectures on Faith say, it is not possible for him to have faith unto life and salvation. He is required to believe, in the Prophet’s language, that God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, that he has all power and he knows all things.
If you teach a doctrine that there is a second chance for salvation, you may lose your soul. You will, if you believe that doctrine to the point that you do not live right and if you go on the assumption that someday you will have the opportunity for salvation even though you did not keep the commandments here.
And so it is with the paradisiacal creation, with progression from one degree of glory to another, with figuring out what the beasts in the book of Revelation are about, or the mysteries in any field. If you get talking about the fact that the sons of perdition are not resurrected, or where the ten tribes are, or if you make a mistake on the true doctrine of the gathering of Israel, or some of the events incident to the Second Coming, or millennial events and the like.
Now I am not saying that those doctrines will damn in the sense that the first list that I read will, but they may. They certainly will lead people astray, and they will keep you from perfecting the kind of faith that will enable you to do good and work righteousness and perform miracles. I do not get very troubled about an honest and a sincere person who makes a mistake in doctrine, provided that it is a mistake of the intellect or a mistake of understanding, and provided it is not on a great basic and fundamental principle. If he makes a mistake on the atoning sacrifice of Christ, he will go down to destruction. But if he errs in a lesser way–in a nonmalignant way if you will–he can still straighten himself out without too much trouble.
Bruce R. McConkie, "The Bible: A Sealed Book" (CES Symposium publication, c. 1981), pg. 1, 2, 6. [Emphasis added.] As of now, the world is not ready to receive these truths [from the sealed portion of the Book of Mormon]. For one thing, these added doctrines will completely destroy the whole theory of organic evolution as it is now almost universally taught in the halls of academia. For another, they will set forth an entirely different concept and time frame of the creation, both of this earth and all forms of life and of the sidereal heavens themselves, than is postulated in all the theories of men. And sadly, there are those who, if forced to make a choice at this time, would select Darwin over Deity....
"The Origin of Man," by the First Presidency of the Church. (See Clark, Messages of the First Presidency 4:200-206; see also 4:199.) This inspired writing sets forth the official position of the Church on the origin of man and therefore impinges on the evolutionary fantasies of biologists and their fellow travelers. As might be expected, it arouses great animosity among intellectuals whose testimonies are more ethereal than real....
The everlasting gospel; the eternal priesthood; the identical ordinances of salvation and exaltation; the never-varying doctrines of salvation; the same Church and kingdom; the keys of the kingdom, which alone can seal men up unto eternal life–all these have always been the same in all ages; and it shall be so everlastingly on this earth and all earths to all eternity. These things we know by latter-day revelation.
Bruce R. McConkie, Doctrinal New Testament Commentary 3:95-96; Mormon Doctrine, 2nd ed., pg. 681. [Emphasis added.] Is there a conflict between science and religion? The answer to this basic query depends entirely upon what is meant by and accepted as science and as religion. It is common to say there is no such conflict, meaning between true science and true religion–for one truth never conflicts with another, no matter what fields or categories the truths are put in for purposes of study. But there most certainly is a conflict between science and religion, if by science is meant (for instance) the theoretical guesses and postulates of some organic evolutionists, or if by religion is meant the false creeds and dogmas of the sectarian and pagan worlds. "Oppositions of science falsely so called" were causing people to err "concerning the faith" even in the days of Paul. (1 Tim 6:20-21.)
There is, of course, no conflict between revealed religion as it has been restored in our day and those scientific realities which have been established as ultimate truth. The mental quagmires in which many students struggle result from the acceptance of unproven scientific theories as ultimate facts, which brings the student to the necessity of rejecting conflicting truths of revealed religion. If, for example, a student accepts the untrue theory that death has been present on the earth for scores of thousands or millions of years, he must reject the revealed truth that there was no death either for man or animals or plants or any form of life until some 6000 years ago when Adam fell.
As a matter of fact, from the eternal perspective, true science is part of the gospel itself; in its broadest signification the gospel embraces all truth. When the full blessings of the millennium are poured out upon the earth and its inhabitants, pseudo-science and pseudo-religion will be swept aside, and all supposed conflicts between science and religion will vanish away.
Bruce R. McConkie, Doctrinal New Testament Commentary 3:366. [RE: 2 Pet 3:4.] All things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation] In this simple statement is summarized one of the basic reasons why the wisdom of men cannot interpret the events of creation, redemption, and salvation. The reason: It is false to assume that all things have always been the same. For instance: When the Lord created this earth, it was in a terrestrial state, an Edenic state, a paradisiacal state; death had not then entered the world. Ada;m and Eve and all created things were in an immortal state. The begetting of offspring had not yet begun. (Moses 5:11.) Then came the fall. And … [2 Ne 2:22-25 quoted] … In due course, when Christ reigns “personally upon the earth,” then “the earth will be renewed and receive its paradisiacal glory. (Tenth Article of Faith.) That is, it will return to its terrestrial, Edenic, or paradisiacal state; it will be the new heaven and new earth of which Peter is about to speak. None of these eternal verities are known to or understood by the scientists of the world or the uninspired teachers among men. Without them how can they possibly understand the true import and meaning of the doctrine of the Second Coming of the Son of Man?
6. The world … overflowed with water] A literal, universal flood!
7. The heaven and the earth, which are now] This present planet (surrounded by the atmospheric heavens) in its fallen state, its telestial state, a state where carnality and evil can and do dwell upon its face.
Bruce R. McConkie, Ensign, June 1982, pg. 9. The Lord expects us to believe and understand the true doctrine of the Creation–the creations of this earth, of man, and of all forms of life. Indeed, as we shall see, an understanding of the doctrine of creation is essential to salvation. Unless and until we gain a true view of the creation of all things we cannot hope to gain that fulness of eternal reward which otherwise would be ours.
God himself, the Father of us all, ordained and established a plan of salvation whereby his spirit children might advance and progress and become like him. It is the gospel of God, the plan of Eternal Elohim, the system that saves and exalts, and it consists of three things. These three are the very pillars of eternity itself. They are the most important events that ever have or ever will occur in all eternity. They are the Creation, the Fall, and the Atonement.
Before we can even begin to understand the temporal creation of all things, we must know how and in what manner these three eternal verities–the Creation, the Fall, and the Atonement–are inseparably woven together to form one plan of salvation. No one of them stands alone; each of them ties into the other two; and without a knowledge of all of them, it is not possible to know the truth about any one of them....
Mortality and procreation and death all had their beginnings with the Fall....
And be it also remembered that the Fall was made possible because an infinite Creator, in the primeval day, made the earth and man and all forms of life in such a state that they could fall. This fall involved a change of status. All things were so created that they could fall or change, and thus was introduced the type and kind of existence needed to put into operation all the terms and conditions of the Father's eternal plan of‹ salvation.
This first temporal creation of all things, as we shall see, was paradisiacal in nature. In the primeval and Edenic day all forms of life lived in a higher and different state than now prevails. The coming fall would take them downward and forward and onward. Death and procreation had yet to enter the world. That death would be Adam’s gift to man, and, then, the gift of God would be eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Thus, existence came from God; death came by Adam; and immortality and eternal life come through Christ....
Our analysis properly begins with the frank recital that our knowledge about the Creation is limited. We do not know the how and why and when of all things. Our finite limitations are such that we could not comprehend them if they were revealed to us in all their glory, fulness, and perfection. What has been revealed is that portion of the Lord's eternal word which we must believe and understand if we are to envision the truth about the Fall and the Atonement and thus become heirs of salvation. This is all we are obligated to know in our day.
In a future day the Lord will expect more of his Saints in this regard than he does of us. "When the Lord shall come, he shall reveal all things," our latter-day revelations tell us–"Things which have passed, and hidden things which no man knew, things of the earth, by which it was made, and the purpose and the end thereof." (D&C 101:32-33.) Pending that Millennial day it is our responsibility to believe and accept that portion of the truth about the Creation that has been dispensed to us in our dispensation....
Thus we learn that the initial creation was paradisiacal; death and mortality had not yet entered the world. There was no mortal flesh upon the earth for any form of life. The Creation was past, but mortality as we know it lay ahead. All things had been created in a state of paradisiacal immortality....
The physical body of Adam is made from the dust of this earth, the very earth to which the Gods came down to form him. His "spirit" enters his body, as Abraham expresses it. (See Abr 5:7.) Man becomes a living, immortal soul; body and spirit are joined together. He has been created "spiritually," as all things were because there is as yet no mortality. Then comes the Fall; Adam falls; mortality and procreation and death commence. Fallen man is mortal; he has mortal flesh; he is "the first [mortal] flesh upon the earth." And the effects of his fall pass upon all created things. They fall in that they too become mortal. Death enters the world; mortality reigns; procreation commences; and the Lord’s great and eternal purposes roll onward.
Thus, "all things" were created as spirit entities in heaven; then "all things" were created in a paradisiacal state upon the earth; that is, "spiritually were they created," for there was as yet no death. They had spiritual bodies made of the elements of the earth as distinguished from the mortal bodies they would receive after the Fall when death would enter the scheme of things. Natural bodies are subject to the natural death; spiritual bodies, being paradisiacal in nature, are not subject to death. Hence the need for a fall and the mortality and death that grows out of it....
There is no evolving from one species to another in any of this....
These revealed verities about the creation of all things run counter to many of the speculations and theoretical postulates of the world. They are, however, what the inspired word sets forth, and we are duty bound to accept them.
Bruce R. McConkie, A New Witness for the Articles of Faith, pg. 98ff.) False Doctrines about the Fall. Heresies Concerning Adam and the Fall. It is not generally recognized how far man may go astray if he does not understand the true doctrine about Adam and the fall. The fall of man is one of the great foundations upon which salvation rests. Unless and until it is placed in its proper relationship to all things, almost unbelievable heresies will rise to plague and curse mankind. From among the many that have so risen, and as a means of dramatizing the need to learn the truth about Adam and his fall, we shall now list several of the current heresies. It should be noted that these heresies, though often formally espoused by the same church or group of believers, disagree with and contradict each other, as one would expect the case to be in the realms of error.
Heresy 1: There is no Christian God, no Adam in the sense of his being created as the first man, and no Christ in the sense of Jesus being the Son of God.
Commentary: This is the atheistic, agnostic, worldly view held by hosts of people who assume the creation came chance and that life developed through evolutionary processes. It prevails among many who worship at the altars of science, and who espouse that godless communism which calls religion the opiate of the people. Such unbelievers pretend to find no need for divine guidance and intervention in the lives of men.
Heresy 2: There is no such thing as a fall of Adam and an atonement of Christ.
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