In my last two posts, I detailed some things from Henry Eyring and Joseph Fielding Smith about the assumptions we make, how the conclusions we draw are highly influenced by our foundational premises.  Today’s two stories represent two historical instantiations of recognizing premises in key debates.

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Story 1

I’ve written before about a series of science-friendly articles run in the Church magazines in 1965 and reactions.  To refresh your

William Lee Stokes, LDS professor of Geology at the U of Utah

memory, the first author, William Lee Stokes had been a U of U paleontologist, and chair of the Geology department. Henry Eyring, as you might recall, was part of the General Sunday School board, with some input into Church magazines.  And Lorin Wheelwright had also been on the General Sunday School board, and then served as associate editor of The Instructor for 1956-1971.

When Stokes’ kick-off article of the series went in for editing, Wheelwright was quite pleased. Before publication, Wheelwright wrote to Stokes, copying Eyring.1My italics

Your article entitled ‘In the Beginning’ flew with me to Chicago recently….It is positively fascinating…. You not only stir my imagination but provoke my consideration of premises not previously in mind…..

While in Chicago, I attended Sunday school at the University ward.2Wheelwright had received his MA at the University of Chicago My old chum, Sylvan Ward, is bishop…. in the adult class the teacher was admirably prepared, but when the discussion arose on the time elements of the Genesis story I could not resist reading three paragraphs from your paper. The response was electric. Members wanted to know when and where the article would appear and seemed most eager to read it in its entirety….
I think your most powerful argument is the exposure of assumptions that some folk commonly make without being aware of making them….

Some folk assume they know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and yet ignore facts and data which must be faced…. We must try to find answers or at least prompt the kind of faith that can live with [questions] unanswered….

I think your article can help orient some of our young people to keep the faith in the face of… the problems of intellectual probings of a mystifying universe.

Identifying premises and unexpressed assumptions was and is key to defusing the evolution/scripture tensions

 

Story #2

It’s the early 1950s. Ernest Wilkinson—BYU President from 1951-71— had been in Chicago visiting with Chauncy Harris, a University of Chicago professor, and son of Franklin Harris (BYU President  from 1921-1945). Wilkinson finds their conversation so interesting and useful, that he writes a letter to President McKay, forgets to send it, but then copies the letter to Adam S. Bennion, new Apostle and longtime superintendent of Church education.

Wilkinson and Harris had been talking about “the relationship of the Church to the colored person.” In this letter,3my italics Wilkinson relates how Harris

disagree[d] with men like Dr. Lowry Nelson… who think the problem should be approached from a sociological point of view, but Dr. Harris agrees that it must be approached from the revealed word of the Lord. But he says he has personally come to the conclusion that we have taken too much for granted in interpreting what has been revealed, and he thinks the subject is still open for an authoritative interpretation by the President of the Church.

I think the post 1950s history entirely bears this out; Latter-day Saints at all levels had made assumptions about scripture and history, taking for granted things which simply weren’t the case.

Later historical research which dug deeper and questioned these premises undermined the taken-for-granted basis of the priesthood/temple ban, and contributed in a significant way to clearing away barriers. As President Kimball’s son writes in his biography,

The gaps in logic were bridged with supposition, to justify a predetermined position [of the ban].

…. [But] study by General Authorities and independent scholars had weakened the traditional idea that Joseph Smith taught priesthood exclusion and cast a shadow on the policy’s purported scriptural justifications.

The extended version of the biography has a lot of detail about this. (The book came with a cd with a number of files on it, including a PDF of an extended edition of the biography, Lengthen Your Stride. Highly recommended.)

I think some of our current issues may be addressed by looking at our inherited assumptions and premises which we have taken for granted, particularly with issues of evolution.

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