Historian of Religion, Science, and Biblical Interpretation
A new Church History Topic essay on Organic Evolution appeared recently. These are not full-blown essays, like the Gospel Topics. Rather, they are meant as concise historical/conceptual summaries provided as background for the Saints volumes, not as a stand-alone lengthy exploration of a subject. You can find them linked, in footnotes, in Saints online. I’d like to provide some notes and comments on this short background essay.
President Joseph Fielding Smith took his understanding of geology and cosmology from his readings of scripture. One of his central premises was that scripture consisted of divinely-revealed facts of religion but also science and history; and therefore, scripture— as he interpreted it— should take precedence over limited and flawed human theorizing, i.e. modern science.
On two occasions, Smith commented on the mountains of Utah, and these illustrate his premises.
Today’s take-away is simple: Don’t use the Old Testament Institute manual for Genesis. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk…
We begin interpreting scripture before we even crack open the cover, through the assumptions and premises that we bring to scripture.
It is somewhat well-known that Joseph Fielding Smith did not like the idea of astronauts; scripture, in his view, was clear that humans were limited to this planet, and attempts to get off it, at all, would fail. It even made the Ensign, in 2015.
My last post talked about Cleon Skousen’s book, The First 2000 Years. Today I came across an interview with BYU professor Bertrand Harrison, a biology and botany professor. If you’ve ever been to the garden or duck pond on the south end of BYU campus, on 800 North, that’s the Bertrand F. Harrison Arboretum, pictured above
Harrison had written one of the most pro-evolution articles ever published in a Church magazine, and it was specifically read and approved by President McKay to appear in the magazine. That article was part of a controversial pro-science series in Church magazines in 1965, which I detailed here.
I came across this interview with Harrison, wherein he relates an anecdote about George Hansen and Cleon Skousen. Continue reading
Henry Eyring Sr. taught chemistry at the University of Utah, but also served on the general Sunday School board for the LDS Church from 1946 onwards. He frequently spoke about science and religion. Continue reading
As noted in a prior post, Orson F. Whitney authored the 1909 First Presidency statement on “The Origin of Man.” He sent a letter to John Widtsoe with that draft, along with some notes. Although Whitney was strongly opposed to evolution, he acknowledge that science could play a role in clarifying earth history. Continue reading
I am not an “evolution apologist.” Although I suspect I have more scientific training than your average historian, I’m not a scientist. And more likely than not, neither is my average reader. For that reason, and because I don’t follow the specialized and technical literature, I don’t engage in scientific debate about evolution. Rather, in keeping with my own training and expertise, my approach is historical, scriptural, and theological. And historically, I understand how and why evolution has come to be the dominant way to make sense of mountains of data across multiple fields, and why 98% of scientists accept evolution as the best explanation of all that data. Continue reading
Some Latter-day Saints have touted the 1909 First Presidency statement as the definitive doctrinal repudiation of evolution for all time; Elder McConkie wanted it canonized and added to the 1978/82 scripture revisions, for example.
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