Mormonism's Conflicted View of Scientific Evidence

[A draft of this post has been hanging around for a couple of years, waiting to see the light of day. I finally decided to dust it off and set it free. My plan is to use it as a springboard for some further discussion.]

In his 1991 book, The Lord's Way, Elder Dallin H. Oaks devoted a chapter to "signs and science." After surveying the scriptures he concluded that although the Bible is ambivalent on whether signs should be used in conversion, modern revelation--especially the Doctrine and Covenants--forbids it.

In our day, God does not use miracles or signs as a way of teaching or convincing the unbeliever. As a result, we should not ask for signs for this purpose, and we should be deeply suspicious of the so-called spiritual evidences of those who do. [p. 86]

But for Elder Oaks, 'signs' are not limited to miracles. He went on to assert that scientific evidences are a type of sign, and a discussion of the inadequacies of science to deal with gospel truths followed. One problem is that scientific evidence must be open and shared, but individual communication with the Spirit cannot (and sometimes should not) be. More importantly for the purposes of this post, he wrote,

This helps us understand why the methods of science are not applicable to establishing the truthfulness of the gospel, the fact of the Restoration, or the origin and truth of the Book of Mormon. President Ezra Taft Benson has declared: "It never has been the case, nor is it so now, that the studies of the learned will prove the Book of Mormon true or false. The origin, preparation, translation, and verification of the truth of the Book of Mormon have all been retained in the hands of the Lord." [p. 91]

Yet as Terryl Givens detailed in By the Hand of Mormon, the early Saints--including Joseph Smith--very much viewed discoveries in American archaeology and antiquities as vindicating the Book of Mormon.

For the time being [mid-late nineteenth century], it appears, Mormons valued the Book of Mormon as faithful history of their own continent, secure in the belief that its historical validity was amply confirmed by the abundant ruins so general throughout the lands of Mesoamerica. [p. 106]

However, caution emerged as New World studies progressed and began to challenge the Book of Mormon. Although some leaders remained optimistic that further research would support the Book of Mormon, the sentiment expressed more recently by President Benson and Elder Oaks grew. But such caution has been difficult to wholeheartedly embrace. Givens again:

Still, even as Mormon scholars affirm on the one hand that no amount of scientific evidence can prove the Book of Mormon true, it is hard to shake the heritage of Joseph Smith's famous claim that "the Lord has a hand in bringing to pass his strange act, and proving the Book of Mormon true in the eyes of all the people. . . . Surely 'facts are stubborn things.' It will be and ever has been, the world will prove Joseph Smith a true prophet by circumstantial evidence, in experimentis, as they did Moses and Elijah. (p.118)

Indeed. Hugh Nibley, for example, in his preface to Since Cumorah stated that the Book of Mormon is "asking for a fight" and is "delightfully falsifiable."

And so we are left with competing expectations about how the Book of Mormon and other religious claims are tied to reality--whether they are scientifically verifiable or falsifiable, even in principle.

---