Before Richard Dawkins, There Was Orson Pratt

At By Common Consent, writer WVS shared an excerpt of Wilford Woodruff's journal, which captured a speculative explanation that Orson Pratt gave for the origin of God. After referring to the trial-and-error process that chemists often go through, Pratt said:

An eternity was filled as it were with particules of intelligences who had their agency, two of these particles in the process of time might have joined their interest together exchanged ideas & found by persueing this course that they gained double strength to what one particle of intelligence would have & afterwards were joined by other particles & continued untill they organized a combination or body though through a long process...

Pratt's process is that of an individual advancing in organization. But if you look at it from a slightly different angle and apply his process to populations, then you're not very far from 'the replicators' in Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene. (The 'replicators' chapter defies a concise summary quote, so you'll just need to click through and read it.)

This all reminds me of something that Terryl Givens recently wrote [1]:

Mormons ironically find an unlikely (and surely unwilling) ally in the arch-atheist Richard Dawkins. In his controversial critique of religion, he wrote that: “Any creative intelligence of sufficient complexity to design anything comes into existence only at the end product of an extended process of gradual evolution.” Elaborating this point, he said that

you have to have a gradual slow incremental process [to explain an eye or a brain] and by the very same token, God would have to have the same kind of explanation. … God indeed can’t have just happened. If there are Gods in the universe, they must be the end product of slow incremental processes. If there are beings in the universe that we would treat as Gods, … that we would worship … as gods, then they must have come about by an incremental process, gradually.

It's fun when the 'new atheism' sounds like the old Mormonism!

Notes:
1. Givens, Terryl L. (2014). Wrestling the Angel: The Foundations of Mormon Thought: Cosmos, God, Humanity (p. 216).

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The Ways of Correlation are Mysterious: When Jesus Was Born

Lately I've been browsing through some of the newer manuals published by the Church. I've found some things that I like, and some things I dislike. And then there are other things that are just...interesting. Let's take the birth of Jesus, for example. In the old New Testament (Ha!) manual for Institute (1979), we find the following subheading in chapter 3: "Jesus Was Born in Bethlehem, April 6, 1 B.C." The manual then states:

After summarizing the opinions of various scholars in the matter of Christ’s birthday, Elder James E. Talmage compares their conclusions with modern revelation and then affirms: “We believe that Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem of Judea, April 6, B.C. 1.” (Jesus the Christ, p. 104.) Of this President Harold B. Lee declared:

“This is the annual conference of the Church. April 6, 1973, is a particularly significant date because it commemorates not only the anniversary of the organization of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in this dispensation, but also the anniversary of the birth of the Savior, our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ. [Quoted D&C 20:1]” (CR, Apr. 1973, p. 4.)

To help drive the point home, the manual has a graphic showing the months of the years 1 B.C. and 1 A.D. (there is no year zero), with an arrow pointing to April accompanied by the words (in two lines), "April 6, 1 B.C." and "Birthday of the Lord."

That is pretty straightforward, and it is complemented by commentary in the Institute manual for the Doctrine and Covenants. The statement by President Lee was cited by Elder Bednar in his April 2014 General Conference talk in which he said that April 6 is known by revelation to be "the actual and accurate date of the Savior's birth."

The new manual (2015) is a little different:

Concerning the year in which Jesus Christ was born, “the Church has made no official declaration on the matter” (J. Reuben Clark Jr., Our Lord of the Gospels [1954], vi). The calendar currently used throughout most of the world was created many centuries after Jesus Christ lived, and experts disagree about how to use existing historical information to calculate the year of His birth. Elder Bruce R. McConkie wrote: “This is not a settled issue. Perhaps also it does not matter too much as long as we have an accepted framework of time within which to relate the actual events of [Christ’s] life” (The Mortal Messiah: From Bethlehem to Calvary, 4 vols. [1979–81], 1:350).

For some reason the manual went from a declarative statement of belief based on revelation, to a complete punt on the year and no mention of April 6 at all. And it's not like the J. Reuben Clark quote didn't exist when the first manual was printed, so why the change?

We can only speculate, but it might in part be because in 2010, BYU religion professor Jeffrey Chadwick published an article in BYU Studies [1] that pretty much demolished 1 B.C. as a viable option, and kicked out the supports from underneath the April 6 date as well [2]. Yes, Presidents Lee, Kimball, and Hinckley made comments in support of April 6, but so far as can be determined, they were relying on a tradition started by Elder James E. Talmage in Jesus the Christ [3]. Of course it's possible that Elder Talmage was just really lucky on the April 6 part and later Church presidents felt inspired that he was right, even if his reasons were wrong [4]. Whatever the case, it seems that the authors and editors steered clear of April 6, which allowed them to avoid taking a position that would contradict a fresh conference statement by a living Apostle on the one hand [5], or lend additional support to the date on the other.

I should clarify that I support the change that the manual made, although I wish they had given the history of the topic more discussion. And who knows? Maybe April 6 will make a comeback in another manual (though I doubt 1 B.C. will). When exactly Jesus was born has zero significance to any core element of the gospel. But it is the insignificance of the issue that allows us to think about how we relate to the manuals, and issues of revelation, tradition, authority, doctrine...and of course correlation.


Notes:
1. Don't ignore the endnotes, especially 9, 10, 11, 12, and 18. A summary of the article was published in the Deseret News. FAIR also has a nice treatment of the issue.
2. Elder Talmage's use of D&C 20:1 applies with equal force to both the year and the date. In his argument, both stand or fall together.
3. In fact if you look at the first passage you will find that President Lee quoted D&C 20:1--clearly following Elder Talmage's argument.
4. Scientists, too, sometimes accidentally hit on the right answer.
5. Elder Bednar spoke in April 2014, and the manual appears to have been approved the following November. If I have misinterpreted the approval date, then Elder Bednar's talk would have come after the manual approval.

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On Being Faithful to the Future

I've been a little more active in my reading lately, but am unable to comment in detail on some of the pregnant passages I have found. So from time to time I will simply post quotations as food for thought. First up:

Often Christians focus on the need to be faithful to the past, to make sure that present belief matches that of previous generations. I support the sentiment in general, but we must be just as burdened to be faithful to the future, to ensure that we are doing all we can to deliver a viable faith to future generations.

--Peter Enns, The Evolution of Adam, What the Bible Does and Doesn't Say about Human Origins, (pp. 147-148).

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The Evolution of Adam

When I bought The Evolution of Adam, by Peter Enns, I was afraid that I might be in for a tenuous attempt to read evolution into the Bible. What I found instead was an engaging discussion of the history and cultural background of the Old and New Testaments, in support of Enns's argument that Adam was probably not a historical person.

As fate would have it, I happened to be in the middle of the book during April General Conference, which made for an interesting juxtaposition. In the middle of a powerful talk on Jesus Christ and the Atonement that used two boys' harrowing experience on a cliff as a metaphor, Elder Jeffrey Holland turned for a moment to the importance of the fall of Adam and Eve.

In our increasingly secular society, it is as uncommon as it is unfashionable to speak of Adam and Eve or the Garden of Eden or of a “fortunate fall” into mortality. Nevertheless, the simple truth is that we cannot fully comprehend the Atonement and Resurrection of Christ and we will not adequately appreciate the unique purpose of His birth or His death...without understanding that there was an actual Adam and Eve who fell from an actual Eden, with all the consequences that fall carried with it.

Enns is by no means a secularist. He is a professor of Biblical studies who is clear and straightforward about his belief in Jesus Christ [1]. Nevertheless, as Enns sees the historical evidence, which he lays out in the first half of the book, Adam was probably a mythological character that the ancient Israelites used to orient and define their identity.

The second half of the book examines what this conclusion means for Paul's teachings. Briefly put, if I understand Enns correctly, Paul used Adam to show Jews and Gentiles that they were united in having a common problem that was solved by Jesus Christ. Since that common problem pre-dated Abraham and the law of Moses, and since Jesus had solved the problem, there was no need for Gentile Christians to convert to Judaism first and/or be circumcised. To put a finer point on it, Paul was explicating the origin of sin and death in a Biblically novel way [2] to solve a problem (i.e. refute the Judaizers). The fact that he used a scriptural figure that (according to Enns) probably did not exist is simply a reflection of the fact that Paul was a first-century Jew. (By comparison, there is no necessary reason to think that Job was a historical figure just because he is mentioned in D&C 121. Joseph had no reason to think otherwise, and Job was a fitting example to make the point.)

Noting that "It is commonly argued that, as goes the historicity of Adam, so goes the historicity of Christ," Enns's perspective can be summarized by these passages (italics in original):

Admitting the historical and scientific problems with Paul’s Adam does not mean in the least that the gospel message is therefore undermined. A literal Adam may not be the first man and cause of sin and death, as Paul understood it, but what remains of Paul’s theology are three core elements of the gospel:

The universal and self-evident problem of death
The universal and self-evident problem of sin
The historical event of the death and resurrection of Christ

These three remain; what is lost is Paul’s culturally assumed explanation for what a primordial man had to do with causing the reign of death and sin in the world. Paul’s understanding of Adam as the cause reflects his time and place [p.123].

So, even without attributing their cause to Adam, sin and death are with us, and we cannot free ourselves from them. They remain the foes vanquished by Christ’s death and resurrection. The fact that Paul draws an analogy between Adam and Christ, however, does not mean that we are required to consider them as characters of equal historical standing. Unlike Adam, Christ was not a primordial, prehistorical man known only through hundreds and hundreds of years of cultural transmission. The resurrection of Christ was a present reality for Paul, an event that had happened in Jerusalem about twenty-five years before he wrote Romans [p. 125].

For Enns (to use Elder Holland's metaphor), it doesn't really matter how the boys got into their predicament. What matters is the cold reality of their predicament and need for saving.

I fear that my highlighting Enns's argument that Adam was not a historical person will result in otherwise interested readers passing on Enns's book. That would be a mistake because even if you can't accept his conclusion, there is much to learn. For one thing, he admits that there are other possible interpretations, even if he does not favor them. Further, LDS readers ought to be more conversant with the cultural and historical background of the Bible, as understood by mainstream scholars. But there are also some gems that serve our own parochial interests. For example, LDS readers may find this statement striking:

The Protestant reading of Paul reflects medieval theological debates, not Paul or the Judaism of his time.

If I hadn't read this book, I would not have known that there is a movement among New Testament scholars called the New Perspective on Paul, which at first blush seems to reinterpret the New Testament discussion of grace and works in a way that undercuts Protestant critiques of Mormonism on these issues. LDS readers who must commonly address this issue with their Protestant acquaintances may want to give further consideration to the New Perspective. Similarly, Enns acknowledges that the doctrine of "original sin" is an Augustinian innovation that is not supported by scripture. And like others of his books, this book also cuts against the Protestant doctrine of scriptural inerrancy while maintaining reverence for the scriptures.

Of course Enns does not have extra-Biblical scripture to rekcon with. Adam and Eve appear in every additional LDS book of scripture, including Joseph F. Smith's vision described in D&C 138. Explaining them away as non-historical scriptural characters might be possible, but is orders of magnitude more difficult in an LDS context. Perhaps it is acceptable and sufficient to say that Adam is a combination of man, myth, and legend.

Enns does not pretend to have the final word and hopes for ongoing conversation. I hope that Elder Holland's talk does not end the conversation in LDS circles. Even taken on its own terms, the talk was more circumspect than one might have expected.

I do not know the details of what happened on this planet before that [the fall], but I do know these two were created under the divine hand of God, that for a time they lived alone in a paradisiacal setting where there was neither human death nor future family, and that through a sequence of choices they transgressed a commandment of God which required that they leave their garden setting but which allowed them to have children before facing physical death. [bolding added]

If that is the bare minimum of acceptable LDS doctrine on Adam and Eve, Elder Holland has still left a lot of space for exploration and discussion [3].

Notes:
1. BYU's Maxwell Institute featured a great interview with him on their podcast.
2. Enns points out that after the initial chapters of Genesis, Adam is virtually ignored in the Old Testament.
3. See also my previous posts, The Further Fall of Adam, and Book of Mormon Scholarship as an Elias for Evolution.

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Oklahoma is Fulfilling Prophecy

Several passages of scripture speak of "earthquakes in divers places" as a sign of the times. Matthew 24:7 is a fine example:

For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places.

Although earthquakes can be devastating, I'm not really sure what to make of that phrase because, like wars, earthquakes are always with us. I don't know if their frequency is common knowledge, but I have spoken with people who were surprised to learn that earthquakes happen everyday all around the world. Most earthquakes don't make the news because they don't cause damage or happen in uninhabited places (or simply aren't considered newsworthy), but they are there and seismologists track them.

One folk interpretation of this phrase that I have heard is that earthquakes will happen where they haven't before. I don't know whether such a place exists or not, but Oklahoma may be as good a candidate for this interpretation as any. It is certainly not an earthquake virgin, but check out the history of earthquakes of M3 or greater in Oklahoma since 1978.

For geologists, the reason for this surge in earthquakes is pretty clear: hydraulic fracturing (fracking). This month The New Yorker has an article, Weather Underground, that tells a sadly familiar story--the confidence of scientists, the concern of citizens, and the fecklessness of government. The problem is relatively straightforward.

Many of the larger earthquakes are caused by disposal wells, where the billions of barrels of brackish water brought up by drilling for oil and gas are pumped back into the ground. (Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking—in which chemically treated water is injected into the earth to fracture rocks in order to access oil and gas reserves—causes smaller earthquakes, almost always less than 3.0.) Disposal wells trigger earthquakes when they are dug too deep, near or into basement rock, or when the wells impinge on a fault line.

The solution is not to prohibit fracking, but to restrict disposal wells from being near basement rock or fault lines. But Oklahoma is built on the oil industry and state regulators and politicians have a sense of willful ignorance that is fitting for a state represented by Senator James Inhofe (who recently threw a snowball on the Senate floor as prop evidence against global warming).

In September, 2014, at the request of two state representatives, the Oklahoma legislature conducted an official interim study on induced seismicity. In subsequent hearings, more than five hours of testimony were presented to a committee of legislators. Holland, Dana Murphy, of the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, and Todd Halihan, the professor of geology at Oklahoma State University, all spoke about the link between disposal wells and earthquakes. Tim Baker, of the O.C.C., spoke about the link between drilling into basement rock and earthquakes.

After the hearings, Mark McBride, the committee chair, issued a press release. It denied “a correlation between the injection wells and seismic activity,” and quoted a legislator’s speculation that perhaps the quakes were caused by “the current drought.” None of the scientists who had been present were quoted.

They have no peer-reviewed science on their side, but that doesn't stop state officials from postulating natural causes or drought as the cause, and calling for more research.

The whole story is worth reading. Recently there have been some modest signs of progress; the state can't play dumb forever. Just long enough to perhaps be a sign of the times.

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Let's Not Overinterpret Revelation

Last week Mormon Interpreter published a treatise by Duane Boyce titled Sustaining the Brethren. In making the point that the personal views of Apostles do not trump First Presidency statements, Boyce wrote that "Elder Boyd K. Packer once said that he knew by personal revelation that man did not evolve from animals..." This is, of course, a reference to Elder Packer's 1988 speech, The Law and the Light, which was published with a disclaimer that it represented his personal views only. In footnote #37 Boyce quotes Elder Packer as follows:

“I said I would give six reasons for my conviction [i.e., that ‘the theory that God used an evolutionary process to prepare a physical body for the spirit of man … is false’], and I have listed only five. The sixth is personal revelation” (emphasis in original).

Boyce quotes and paraphrases Elder Packer accurately, and yet it is incomplete. Here is more of what Elder Packer said about his personal revelation.

Do not mortgage your soul for unproved theories; ask, simply ask! I have asked, but not how man was created; I have asked if the scriptures are true [emphasis added].

In a sense, the speech is anti-climactic because just as we get to the ultimate reason for his conviction, it turns out that Elder Packer asked a different question than the one we were led to expect. Revelation that evolution is false vs revelation that the scriptures are true, is an important distinction in my book [1]. We would hardly expect God to reveal that the scriptures are NOT true, and yet if pressed even the most conservative saint will concede that some things in the scriptures not entirely accurate (or are figurative, or whatever).

There is no doubt that Elder Packer believes evolution to be false. However, I believe it is claiming too much to say that he knows by revelation that it is false--at least based on what he has shared publicly.

Incidentally, former BYU professor and Biology department dean Lester Allen once described his own (anti-climactic) revelation in response to a more direct question.

After some struggle, I decided to ask the Lord how the separate stories [evolution and creation] relate to each other. Even though I was surrounded by those superior to me scientifically, as well as spiritually, I was brash enough to hope the Lord would assist me in finding an answer. After personal preparation, I petitioned the Lord and asked, "What is the answer?" There came clearly into my mind the statement, "There is an answer." I didn't learn what the answer is, but it is reassuring to know that it all fits together.

Notes:
1. In fairness to Boyce, his footnote #38 cautions that different people can mean different things when talking about evolution, so caution is warranted in interpreting statements.

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Medicine is an Important Part of Addiction Recovery

See update below.

Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) is such a part of American culture that even those of us untouched by alcoholism [1] know some of the basic principles of the AA approach. In fact AA is popular enough that the Church has modeled its Addiction Recovery Program (ARP) after it, as stated in the ARP guide. So The Atlantic got my attention when I saw the title of a new article, The Irrationality of Alcoholics Anonymous, and I was a little surprised by what I read. Here are a few excerpts that, together, summarize the article.

The problem is that nothing about the 12-step approach draws on modern science: not the character building, not the tough love, not even the standard 28-day rehab stay.

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The 12 steps are so deeply ingrained in the United States that many people, including doctors and therapists, believe attending meetings, earning one’s sobriety chips, and never taking another sip of alcohol is the only way to get better. Hospitals, outpatient clinics, and rehab centers use the 12 steps as the basis for treatment. But although few people seem to realize it, there are alternatives, including prescription drugs and therapies that aim to help patients learn to drink in moderation. Unlike Alcoholics Anonymous, these methods are based on modern science and have been proved, in randomized, controlled studies, to work.

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Bill Wilson, AA’s founding father, was right when he insisted, 80 years ago, that alcohol dependence is an illness, not a moral failing. Why, then, do we so rarely treat it medically? It’s a question I’ve heard many times from researchers and clinicians. “Alcohol- and substance-use disorders are the realm of medicine,” McLellan says. “This is not the realm of priests.”

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Although AA claims a success rate of 75%, another estimate suggests it is closer to 5 - 8%.

We’ve grown so accustomed to testimonials from those who say AA saved their life that we take the program’s efficacy as an article of faith. Rarely do we hear from those for whom 12-step treatment doesn’t work. But think about it: How many celebrities can you name who bounced in and out of rehab without ever getting better? Why do we assume they failed the program, rather than that the program failed them?

In the October 1989 General Conference, Elder Boyd K. Packer said the following:

It is my conviction, and my constant prayer, that there will come through research, through inspiration to scientists if need be, the power to conquer narcotic addiction through the same means which cause it. I plead with all of you to earnestly pray that somewhere, somehow, the way will be discovered to erase addiction in the human body.

As discussed by the article, there are several medical drugs available that can help relieve the urge to drink--or to drink heavily--although they are not effective for everyone. Unfortunately, however, I am unable to find any encouragement in the Church's ARP guide for afflicted persons to seek medical treatment. That seems to me like an important omission. Tackling addiction issues using Gospel principles is great, but as Elder Dallin H. Oaks has reminded us,

Latter-day Saints believe in applying the best available scientific knowledge and techniques. We use nutrition, exercise, and other practices to preserve health, and we enlist the help of healing practitioners, such as physicians and surgeons, to restore health. The use of medical science is not at odds with our prayers of faith and our reliance on priesthood blessings.

I'm not qualified to render judgment on 12-step programs; they obviously do help some people. For its part, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) (part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH)) recommends social support, including joining AA or a similar program, as a part of recovery efforts.

I guess the bottom line is this: People with substance addictions should, by all means, join support groups like AA or the Church's ARP program. But chances for improvement are best if medical help is also sought. Chemistry caused the problem; it can also be part of the solution.

[3/21/15] Update: For some push-back on the Atlantic article, see Why Alcoholics Anonymous Works.

Notes:
1. Disclaimer: To my knowledge, nobody close to me has (or has had) a substance addiction, so I have little personal experience with these issues.

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In the Universe, But Not Of the Universe?

I have a hard time rejecting causal determinism [1], which is essentially the idea that every result (including our choices and actions) depends on a chain-reaction of cause-and-effect relationships stretching back to the origin of the universe. And throwing a spirit into the equation doesn't seem to help because in Mormonism "all spirit is matter." So whatever that matter consists of, it will have laws that govern it. This leaves us with the prospect that our personalities, decisions, etc. are the combined chain of cause-and-effect relationships of physical and spiritual matter. This shouldn't be all that shocking in as much as our very existence is dependent on the existence of the universe (or multiverse, or whatever) and its laws and properties. If we have no right to exist apart from the universe, should we be shocked that everything we think and do is an extension of the universe?

But what people really seem to care about are issues of agency and responsibility. If we aren't truly making free choices (i.e. choices that are somehow not dependent on the configuration of matter in the universe--I guess), can we be held responsible for anything? And in a Mormon setting, what is the point of the plan of salvation if we are all simply acting out the consequences of the laws of the universe?

I have two responses to this [2]. First, as long as there are conscious beings with subjective experience, they will have a stake in regulating the behavior of other conscious beings. I don't want people stealing my stuff, for example, so laws and punishments are useful for deterring poor behavior and encouraging good. Second, if free will (i.e. the type that somehow makes decisions independent of the state of matter in the universe) does not exist, then we are all in the same boat--presumably including God [3]. There's no need to worry about Laplace's demon; he doesn't exist.

It seems to me that if causal-determinism is true, existence in the universe remains an unpredictable adventure [4], and we go right along on our merry way.

Notes:

1. ...which is different than saying I'm confident it is true.

2. I don't claim to have thought this through all the way. Whether by free will or determinism, I don't find the wrangling over definitions and thought experiments inherent in free will discussions to be worth my time and interest. I'm just giving you my two cents.

3. In Rational Theology, John A. Widtsoe wrote: "There can be no rational discussion of the details of God's life or nature. To him we give the most complete devotion, for to us he is in all respects infinite and perfect. His Godhood, however, was attained by the use of his power in simple obedience to the laws he discovered as he grew in experience." Maybe the universe favors the development of gods because they have a Darwinian advantage (i.e. scum bags are self-destructive).

4. Well, some things are predictable even now. I just mean that nobody can predict every detail of the course of the universe.

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