Duane Jeffery's SSE: A Continuing Dialogue

Duane Jeffery's article, "Seers, Savants and Evolution: The Uncomfortable Interface" is essential reading for anyone interested in the history of the relationship between science (especially evolution) and the Church. It appeared in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought Vol. 8 No. 3, and is available here and here. What appears to be less well-known is that several issues later (Vol. 9 No. 3) another article was published titled, "Seers, Savants and Evolution: A Continuing Dialogue." (Available here.)

This second article consists of three letters responding to the first article followed by Duane Jeffery's response to the letters. Although written over three decades ago, much of the article is just as applicable now--some of it, perhaps, more so. It is worth reading and I am providing some of my favorite excerpts here along with a few comments of my own.

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Prophetic Infallibility

On all of the above issues [concerning creation scriptures] (and many others), no matter which interpretation one may accept, one is forced to reject at least some teachings of some prophets. The pain in that process stems purely from the erroneous doctrine of prophetic infallibility. Even Joseph Smith, whom we traditionally view as closest of all in his intimacy with God, openly rejected the idea. Others of his successors have done likewise (cf. "SSE," fn. 6). We must internalize the validity of that rejection; the doctrine of prophetic infallibility is foreign to Mormonism.

On the Atonement

Mr. Eatough represents that evolution (he does not qualify it; it appears that he means any form of it, fully-theistic or otherwise) negates the atonement. I have heard this assertion many times over the years; but for the first time I can now openly query the writer: why? Please reflect very carefully on what the atonement is and does, and then tell me why. But I serve warning in advance: the usual arguments given in LDS literature are not firmly based. Be very very careful of your steps; that originally solid-looking footing turns rapidly to a morass of quicksand.

As far as I am aware, Jeffery has never publically elaborated on this point. I would like to know his insight here, but I think I may have some idea as to what he means.

The Alternative, Design

Unfortunately...there are people, and they are not at all rare, who do deny that any form of evolutionary processes occur, who sincerely feel that if they admit the validity of even one tiny piece of evolutionary biology, they will have permitted into their religious values the tip of a wedge which cannot be stopped and which they view with near horror. (We have Church writings which bolster that belief!) Every semester I meet a number of students who are very uncomfortable with the development of pesticide resistance in mosquitoes, warfarin resistance in rats, etc. Though some person will assert that these incontrovertible developments via mutation and selection have nothing at all to do with real evolution, still these trivialities cause considerable discomfort to many of our people. It is a deeply sincere position. And what do such persons offer as an alternative to explain the incredible adaptation visible in nature? Design—pure, thorough, and simple. As before, I make no attempt to pursue that question in depth (cf. "SSE," p. 44, and fn. 10). The Snows appear cognizant of the limitations of the position, and specifically circumvent it; from their point of reference the word "capricious" is quite probably inapplicable. But I doubt that theirs is the prevailing belief in the Church; even our current Family Home Evening manual comes dangerously close to falling into the trap. For trap it is, and an old one. Indeed, it was right on this issue that Darwin the clergy candidate got his start on wondering about species—and, interestingly, his response provides an excellent case-example of the very kind of thing Brigham Young was extolling (in his quote, p. 49, fn. 36, "SSE"). Under those intense concepts of design, capriciousness is really a very mild word, even an understatement. Sociology and history, for starters, readily establish the point, without even beginning to invoke the detail of biology. It is the posit of intense design that bestows such problems, of course, and it was to that that my remarks were directed. I infer that the Snows find capriciousness in God to be intensely repugnant; I share their disdain. It seems time, then, that we eschew those peripheral doctrines which inescapably confer it on Him. Nature's adhering to a design by a benevolent being may well exist, but the concept seems to be not defensible on the level at which it is so often claimed.

Yes, that was all one paragraph.

On Understanding

...Eatough seems to feel that if I show any sensitivity at all to any form of evolution, I am thereby a fellow-traveller with, and a brazen champion of, the extreme anti-religious element, that I am demanding total and unconditional religious capitulation. That is his inference, not my implication, and totally contrary to the entire message of my article. Contrary to his assertion, I did not spell out any specific view of evolution in the entire article; other reviewers have rightly noted that point. I am a biologist, yes; a geneticist, yes, and I have access to all the flexibility of data interpretation that exists in those fields, but in this arena I am not bound by many of their limitations. The game we are playing in this search for truth is one of synthesis, not one contrived of extreme religionists on one hand and extreme anti-religionists on the other, each shouting epithets but never listening.

Explaining Facts

[W]hile I would not begin to claim that we can understand all of God's direct actions—indeed I assert that we cannot even identify them all—I do maintain that it is folly to characterize Him in such a way that He becomes duplicitous and/or irrational. And that is precisely what he becomes with virtually all of the anti-evolution arguments with which I am familiar. For, invoking a critical point not heavily made by the Snows, whatever method "God used" must eventually square with all the "factual" data...And when we adopt such a test (comprehensiveness of explanation, etc.) the superiority (n.b., I do not say "absolute truth,") of hypotheses which propose that some form of theistic evolution was involved becomes quickly apparent; the others, so far as I have observed, place God in an untenable position. For example, it seems to me quite reliable to "believe" that fossils exist. Their interpretation may well merit discussion; it seems to me that their legitimacy as remnants of previously-living organisms really does not. Evolutionary biology, of course, makes an attempt—a very good one—to explain them. Among others, one prominent anti-evolutionary commentator of high LDS rank had another explanation: "Well, of course we know that Satan just put those things there to deceive us." I cannot but wonder if persons who postulate this idea fully realize how widespread fossils are. They are found through and through virtually every major land mass known—if Satan really made all that, who then is the Creator of the earth? If nature indeed testifies of diety (a long-standing and still-in-vogue theological injunction), of which "diety" does it thus testify? And what is its testimony? For if the hypothesis be accepted, then God is a party to this by allowing such a monumental hoax, and indeed we have conferred on Him duplicity of truly staggering proportions! A witness of that sort, it appears to me, God can well do without.

Of course, the key claim of the Intelligent Design movement is that we can identify God's direct actions. Like Jeffery, I believe it to be a doubtful claim. But he makes a larger point here that is often lost: The "factual" data, not just from paleontology, but a number of fields including comparative genomics and developmental biology, must be accounted for somehow. LDS writers often invoke the Fall as somehow explaining what we see, but such an "explanation" is as vague as explaining the classical trinitarian God as a "mystery," nor does it come free from the problems with intense design mentioned above.