BYU Publishes Significant Book on Evolution and the Gospel

The BYU College of Life Sciences recently published a book (free online) titled The Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ and Evolution. I think it is arguably the most significant church-related publication on the topic since Joseph Fielding Smith's Man, His Origin and Destiny, especially when paired with the near simultaneous entry in the Gospel Library on Religion and Science.

In order to understand why I think the book is so significant, a little history is in order. During the mid-twentieth century the views of President Joseph Fielding Smith and Elder Bruce R. McConkie (his son-in-law) on this topic dominated within the Church. Both men were prolific writers and their books were widely read, widely quoted, and widely considered authoritative. LDS scientists and students really had to swim upstream in that kind of atmosphere. For example, in 1980 Elder McConkie gave a talk at BYU titled, "The Seven Deadly Heresies," where evolution was the second of the seven heresies. In the meantime, LDS historians were uncovering information from the early twentieth century showing that church leaders had not been as unified on the issue as it seemed. Publication of this information was not necessarily warmly received, with then-apostle Ezra Taft Benson, for example, viewing it as an attack on the integrity of Joseph Fielding Smith. In 1992 the BYU Board of Trustees authorized publication of a packet on the topic that consisted of First Presidency statements and the entry on evolution from the Encyclopedia of Mormonism. This packet provided LDS scientists and students some cover by emphasizing that only First Presidency statements represented the official Church position, thus implicitly providing a way to faithfully disagree with President Smith and Elder McConkie. However, the packet had limited circulation (especially prior to the Internet), and was never referenced in Church publications so it remained largely hidden from general church membership.

So the state of play in the late 1990s and early 2000s was basically this: General church membership was still influenced by the legacy of Smith and McConkie (dovetailing with conservative strains of Protestantism). Meanwhile, people "in the know" could eke out a contrary position using the BYU packet combined with a sort of mournful harkening back to the views expressed by leaders such as Elders James E. Talmage and John A. Widtsoe, as well as prominent members like Henry Eyring.

While there have been a few minor developments in the last decade, this new book is a big leap forward. Here are some of the reasons I think it is significant.

1. It is published by BYU, thus giving it a halo of Church-sanctioned acceptability.
2. It will be a standard resource distributed to all freshman biology students. As the years pass it will influence tens of thousands of BYU students.
3. It is bold and forthright in declaring that evolution has been demonstrated and can be accepted with joy (a reference to the 1910 First Presidency statement that has been the tagline of this blog since its beginning), and brags a bit about how successful BYU has been in its scientific research related to evolution.
4. It dissects some of the assumptions that have undergird certain scriptural interpretations, providing a deeper understanding that goes beyond simply pitting two interpretations against each other.
5. It uses modern scholarship to help provide some cultural context to the Genesis creation account, even going so far as to adopt the scholarly recognition that the first two chapters of Genesis contain two different creation accounts spliced together (something that would further horrify Joseph Fielding Smith).
6. It does all of this without picking a fight and emphasizes a model of seeking reconciliation while maintaining comfort with leaving unknowns open.

The book was not intended to be comprehensive on every topic. For example, while some of the science supporting evolution is briefly discussed, it is pretty high-level and is unlikely to satisfy readers who are familiar with young-earth creationist arguments. Similarly, while there is some introduction to the cultural context of Genesis and issues with English translation, there is much, much, more that could be said. In both cases, readers should consult additional resources. Similarly, the book does not attempt to grapple with every scriptural objection or solve every doctrinal problem. What the book does more than anything is model a broad-minded orientation of faithful inquiry and acceptance while expanding the boundaries of inquiry beyond fundamentalism [1].

Perhaps a day will come when we will see another era of retrenchment and a renewal of Joseph Fielding Smith's fundamentalist approach (vestiges of which can still be found in Church publications such as the Institute manual for the Old Testament). But for the time being it looks like Church leaders are willing to let the science play out and leave the resulting religious incongruities open to personal study and interpretation. This book is a great resource to help in that effort.

Notes:
1. Lots of people did similar work in the past, but they tended to be published in venues that lacked the halo of Church approval or broad distribution among the rank-and-file.

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The Church Accepts an Old Earth and is Neutral on Evolution

The Church recently added a new entry to its Topics and Questions section of the Gospel Library titled, Religion and Science. It is significant in that it is the most positive collection of statements for general membership about science that I have seen in a long time. Mostly, it just tries to keep the peace by remaining neutral and giving people room to sort through scientific and religious truths on their own. This paragraph is typical of the tone and content:

The Church does not take a position on most scientific matters. Instead, the Church focuses on teaching revealed, spiritual truths and helping God’s children live by those truths. At the same time, many Latter-day Saints seek to understand and contribute to scientific knowledge, following the Lord’s invitation to Joseph Smith to “seek learning, even by study and also by faith.”

However, the following statement caught my eye. Not so much because of its implicit acceptance of an old earth (which has generally not been a major sticking point for Church members), but because of what it says about how we know the earth is old.

Using reliable methods of measurement, such as radiometric dating, scientists currently estimate the age of the earth to be approximately 4.5 billion years.

To understand the significance of this, you need to know that rejection of scientific chronology is a cornerstone of fundamentalist young-earth creationism and they have invented a number of excuses for disbelieving radiometric dating. To the extent that Church members align with creationism, they import (sometimes without knowing) the arguments of fundamentalist creationism into their own thinking. Moreover, an LDS twist on this comes in the form of the so-called "Heartland Model" of Book of Mormon geography, which relies on a young-earth creationist paradigm. Although Book of Mormon geography would seem to have nothing to do with the age of the earth, the connection comes from trying to torture DNA data into showing that Native Americans are decendants of ancient Israel. The problem is that the particular DNA marker in question was present in native populations thousands of years before the Book of Mormon events took place. Thus, the need to deny scientific chronology.

For the Church to call radiometric dating a "reliable method of measurement" breaks a lot of brackets, so to speak [1].

Then there is the section on evolution: "Over the years, Church leaders have expressed differing views about evolution. However, the Church takes no position on the topic."

This also breaks brackets. I can't remember the number of online arguments I have seen (or occassionally participated in) where LDS critics of evolution would insist that the Church DID in fact have a position on evolution. They would lay out a variety of Church teachings about the Fall and so forth, including the 1909 First Presidency statement, "The Origin of Man", and then conclude that whether or not the Church said so explicitly, its teachings clearly excluded evolution. If you pointed to the First Presidency's instructions to General Authorities in 1931 that struck a neutral balance, they would counter that the statement had never been published to the general Church membership. Well, now it has been (in at least three separate places within the Gosepl Library), and the Church here explicitly says that it takes no position on evolution.

Perhaps the best thing about this new topical entry is that it can be used to defuse attacks based on General Authority quotes. As I previously wrote,

Although pronouncements by authorities do not determine the truth or falsity of a proposition (hence the logical fallacy), we look to the prophets and apostles as a source of truth, and their thoughts deserve consideration. This style of argumentation, where one is made to feel like s/he is rejecting the prophets, can therefore be quite difficult and frustrating to grapple with because, in its strongest form, there can be no counter-argument. Attempting to do so only validates the perception that you reject the prophets. And yet, we who defend science cannot remain silent or else the authoritarian bullies will be the only ones heard. So what can we do when confronted with such material?

Well, now you can just point to this entry in the Gospel Library.

Notes:
1. I'm using predicted March Madness college basketball tournament brackets as a metaphor.

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Far as the Curse was Found, Farther than We Think

My ancestry is thoroughly European and Mormon. The ancestors of three of my grandparents were all settled in Utah prior to 1900. From there, some of the lines quickly trace back to Europe, while others go back to the founding of the country before jumping to Europe. My remaining grandparent was born to Midwestern converts. Working back from them, some lines go back almost to the Mayflower via New England, some lines work through the Midwest and then back to Maryland, and others quickly go back to Europe.

It came as no surprise, then, that the results of my recent DNA test showed that my genetics are almost completely European. England and Ireland alone account for about three-fifths of my genome, with the remainder drawing from other various parts of Europe. Like many Europeans, I have inherited a small amount of Neanderthal sequence. Being so European, I was pleasantly surprised to find that a small amount of my DNA has a different origin: West Africa.

It's not obvious where the link to West Africa might be in my family history. Although my African DNA is a small percentage, it's enough that the connection may be less than 300 years old. Browsing around FamilySearch.org, nothing really jumps out. A few of my ancestors were in slave-holding areas. Was there a Jefferson-Hemmings type of relationship in one of my more poorly documented lines, or could it be hiding in plain sight, disguised with an ordinary name? Or did Africa enter my ancestry somewhere back in Europe? Whatever the case, it looks like our family has an unexpected mystery to solve. The first step will be to determine from which of my parents I inherited the markers in question.

Coincidentally, on June 1 the Church will celebrate the 40th anniversary of the revelation allowing the extension of the priesthood to people of African descent. The ban was formally announced in 1852 by Brigham Young who, drawing on the already popular belief that Africans were descended from Cain, explained that Cain's killing of Able resulted in a curse such that Cain's descendants could not receive the priesthood until all of Able's did. Following Young's death, this rationale gradually faded from memory as others took its place.

Subsequent Church leaders wrestled with the implications of the ban using pre-scientific notions of heredity, believing that traits were transmitted through blood.

In 1902, as president of the church, Joseph F. Smith presided over a council that again addressed the issue of race and this time considered what percentage of African ancestry qualified a person as cursed. Smith cited the precedent established in the cases of Elijah Abel and Jane Manning James as justifications for a racial ban. Their repeated appeals for temple blessings ended “of course in vain,” Smith told the council. Apostle John Henry Smith countered that “persons in whose veins the white blood predominated should not be barred from the temple,” an argument for a more liberal standard than was then being applied. Joseph F. Smith replied with an idea that he attributed to Brigham Young. The belief was that racial blood was not passed proportionately to each child but that one child might inherit all of his or her racial blood from a black ancestor, no matter how remote, while the rest of the children might all be white. In Smith’s “opinion” then, “in all cases where the blood of Cain showed itself, however slight, the line should be drawn there; but where children of tainted parents were found to be pure Ephraimites, they might be admitted to the temple.” He then clarified, “This was only an opinion” and suggested that “the subject would no doubt be considered later.” As finally articulated sometime before early 1907, leaders put a firm “one drop” rule in place: “The descendants of Ham may receive baptism and confirmation but no one known to have in his veins negro blood, (it matters not how remote a degree) can either have the Priesthood in any degree or the blessings of the Temple of God; no matter how otherwise worthy he may be.” [1]

You can argue about whether the ban itself originated or was perpetuated by God's will until the cows come home. It is impossible to evaluate the inner spiritual experiences of Church leaders, much less dead ones. However, in my study of the issue it has become clear to me that the various rationales advanced by Church leaders over the years in defense of the policy are a mishmash of ill-conceived justifications built on foundations of sand. They don't bear any critical scrutiny, are at odds with science, history, and in some cases even the scriptures, and they require constant special pleading via appeals to the mysteries of God and prophetic authority. Thank heavens the Church has officially thrown them in the garbage bin.

Over time, Church leaders and members advanced many theories to explain the priesthood and temple restrictions. None of these explanations is accepted today as the official doctrine of the Church....Today, the Church disavows the theories advanced in the past that black skin is a sign of divine disfavor or curse, or that it reflects unrighteous actions in a premortal life; that mixed-race marriages are a sin; or that blacks or people of any other race or ethnicity are inferior in any way to anyone else. Church leaders today unequivocally condemn all racism, past and present, in any form.

It appears that some of my ancestors were unknowingly covered by the priesthood ban. It would be fascinating to know whether any of the Church leaders who upheld the ban unknowingly fell under it. I'll bet there were a few. The "curse" undoubtedly reached farther than we knew.


Notes:
1. Reeve, W. Paul. Religion of a Different Color: Race and the Mormon Struggle for Whiteness (Kindle Locations 4866-4878). You can still see echoes of Smith's reasoning in current guidance on patriarchal blessings. "Because each of us has many bloodlines running in us, two members of the same family may be declared as being of different tribes in Israel."


Essential Reading:
- Race and the Priesthood, lds.org
- Reeve, W. Paul. Religion of a Different Color: Race and the Mormon Struggle for Whiteness. (Reeve wrote the first draft of the Race and the Priesthood article above.)
- Neither White Nor Black
- Edward L. Kimball, “Spencer W. Kimball and the Revelation on Priesthood,” BYU Studies 47, no. 2 (Spring 2008), 18–20;

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President Erying, His Father, and the Letter

In two different General Conference addresses, President Henry B. Eyring has briefly recounted his role in a letter that his father wrote to an Apostle about science and religion.

October 2014:

My father was once asked by a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles to write a short paper on science and religion. My father was a famous scientist and a faithful priesthood holder. But I can still remember the moment he handed me the paper he had written and said, “Here, before I send this to the Twelve, I want you to read it. You will know if it is right.” He was 32 years older than me and immeasurably more wise and intelligent.

October 2016:

Once [my father] was asked by an Apostle to write a short note about the scientific evidence for the age of the earth. He wrote it carefully, knowing that some who might read it had strong feelings that the earth was much younger than the scientific evidence suggested.

I still remember my father handing me what he had written and saying to me, “Hal, you have the spiritual wisdom to know if I should send this to the apostles and prophets.” I can’t remember much of what the paper said, but I will carry with me forever the gratitude I felt for a great Melchizedek Priesthood holder who saw in me spiritual wisdom that I could not see.

BYU-Idaho has a video documentary titled, Mormon Scientist, about the life of Henry Eyring (based on the book of the same name) that includes an interview with President Eyring (at about the 5 minute mark) [1]. President Eyring recounts the story above, but with some interesting added details, including a subsequent phone call from David O. McKay. He clearly connects the story to Joseph Fielding Smith's book, Man, His Origin and Destiny.

So far as I am aware, these are the only public statements by President Eyring that exist about the disagreement between his father and Joseph Fielding Smith. The story of that letter--twice mentioned in General Conference--including the full text and response by Joseph Fielding Smith, can be found in Agreeing to Disagree: Henry Eyring and Joseph Fielding Smith.


Notes:
1. A substantially similar, if not identical, video was previously available as early as 2010 at BYUtv as episode 13 of a series called "Inspiring Lives". However, it disappeared sometime before October 2014. Fortunately, the interview segment with President Eyring lives on in the BYU-I video.

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The Church Has No Official Position on Evolution - New Era

The Church's October 2016 issue of the New Era magazine says the following about evolution:

The Church has no official position on the theory of evolution. Organic evolution, or changes to species’ inherited traits over time, is a matter for scientific study. Nothing has been revealed concerning evolution. Though the details of what happened on earth before Adam and Eve, including how their bodies were created, have not been revealed, our teachings regarding man’s origin are clear and come from revelation.

Before we were born on earth, we were spirit children of heavenly parents, with bodies in their image. God directed the creation of Adam and Eve and placed their spirits in their bodies. We are all descendants of Adam and Eve, our first parents, who were created in God’s image. There were no spirit children of Heavenly Father on the earth before Adam and Eve were created. In addition, “for a time they lived alone in a paradisiacal setting where there was neither human death nor future family.” They fell from that state, and this Fall was an essential part of Heavenly Father’s plan for us to become like Him.

This statement is historic. Although David O. McKay privately indicated that the Church had no position on evolution, I don't recall an explicit 'no position' statement ever appearing in official Church publications. The statement also references the Evolution entry of the Encyclopedia of Mormonism, which contains the following counsel given by Heber J. Grant in 1931:

Upon the fundamental doctrines of the Church we are all agreed. Our mission is to bear the message of the restored gospel to the world. Leave geology, biology, archaeology, and anthropology, no one of which has to do with the salvation of the souls of mankind, to scientific research, while we magnify our calling in the realm of the Church….

The New Era statement seems to have adopted Grant's approach.

In case you are worried that the statement will settle arguments about the Church and evolution, be at peace. There will still be plenty to bicker and argue about. Some will see the second paragraph as a negation of the first. Others will argue about how both paragraphs can be true at the same time. And so forth.

Nevertheless, from my point of view this is a step forward and I am pleased to add it to the historical record.

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The Church's New Institute Manual Makes the Divine Sonship of Jesus a Scientific Issue

The Church is introducing new 'cornerstone' religion courses for Church universities and Institutes of Religion. One of these courses is titled, Jesus Christ and the Everlasting Gospel, with a manual of the same name. The seventh lesson of the manual is titled, Jesus Christ—God’s Only Begotten Son in the Flesh. After laying some scriptural groundwork, students are encouraged to think of physical traits they inherited from their mother and father. They are then taught to think of Jesus, Mary, and God the Father in the same manner, with support from this passage in Jesus the Christ, written by Elder James E. Talmage.

That Child to be born of Mary was begotten of Elohim, the Eternal Father, not in violation of natural law but in accordance with a higher manifestation thereof; … In His nature would be combined the powers of Godhood with the capacity and possibilities of mortality; and this through the ordinary operation of the fundamental law of heredity, declared of God, demonstrated by science, and admitted by philosophy, that living beings shall propagate—after their kind. The Child Jesus was to inherit the physical, mental, and spiritual traits, tendencies, and powers that characterized His parents—one immortal and glorified—God, the other human—woman” (Jesus the Christ, 3rd ed. [1916], 81).

Terryl Givens has written that,

LDS biblical interpretation has tended more toward fundamentalist literalism than historically nuanced or figurative readings. This is largely a product of Mormonism’s origins in a time when Common Sense theology was dominant....Parley Pratt set the tone for Mormon scriptural exegesis with recurrent attacks on those who would “spiritualize” the Bible, rather than read in the plain, literal sense [1].

Reinforcing this literalism was the attempt of Parley and Orson Pratt, as well as John Widtsoe and James Talmage, to fit Joseph Smith's teachings into a theology "amenable to contemporary standards of scientific understanding [2]." Indeed, elsewhere in Jesus the Christ Elder Talmage explained that miracles are simply higher manifestations of natural law, not violations of it.

When Elder Talmage wrote his book a century ago, heredity was an observed phenomenon about which almost nothing was known. The passage above was a sensible thing for Elder Talmage to write for readers of the time, and its inclusion in the new manual speaks to its persuasive power today--when most people still only have a vague sense of the basis for heredity [3]. However, today the mechanism of heredity is well understood. So if we are to let science into the conversation, as Elder Talmage invites us to, then we need to talk about biological and genetic principles and details. Are these topics that can profitably be brought to bear on Jesus' divine sonship? It may seem vulgar to speak of such things in the context of the atonement, but that is the door the writers of the manual open by highlighting Elder Talmage's optimistic appeal to science and philosophy.

Using the lens of science a variety of questions could be raised. Instead, for now let's confine ourselves to this question: What possible relevance could genetics ("the ordinary operation of the fundamental law of heredity") have to the resurrection or any other of Jesus' abilities? The manual directs as follows (bolding in original):

As students respond, make sure they understand the following truth: As the Only Begotten Son of God in the flesh, Jesus Christ was able to perform the Atoning sacrifice, which required Him to endure more than a mortal person could, and thereby fulfill His role in the Father’s plan. In addition, because Jesus had power over death, He had the capacity to rise from the dead. Make sure students understand that if Jesus Christ had been born of two mortal parents, He could not have overcome death or endured the infinite pain and suffering of the Atonement. If He were born of two immortal parents, He would not have been subject to physical suffering and death.

On what basis should such assertions be made? Several scriptural prophets including Enoch, Moses, Elijah, John, and the three Nephites were each given a kind of "power over death" (D&C 7:2), without heredity playing any role. Lazarus was raised from the dead. Any number of miraculous interventions could have been used to prevent Jesus from dying before his mission was accomplished. Further, it is unclear what inherited property could cause a dead body to rise back to life, and since all people are promised the resurrection (Spencer W. Kimball, echoing Brigham Young, taught that it is an ordinance), I don't see why we would even need to posit one.

Remember that in a gospel context death is the separation of body and spirit, with resurrection being the reuniting of the two. Are we to believe that a physical property of Jesus' decaying body made it possible for his spirit to re-enter it? If the decision to initiate resurrection was made by his spirit, how can inheritance be relevant? You would think that the mere fact that Jesus was "God himself"--the premortal Jehovah, would be a sufficient explanation. (And simply as a matter of internal consistency, if, according to Church teachings, it was possible for Adam and Eve to change from immortality to mortality, why wouldn't it be possible for Jesus to do the same if both parents were immortal?)

The atonement and resurrection are incomprehensible, and fundamentally remain mysteries to us. Is anything gained in multiplying the mystery by asserting the necessity of unknown inherited factors? Is such detail clearly supported by the scriptures? And might we unwittingly put stumbling blocks in the paths of students by invoking the authority of science where it probably doesn't belong?

Let's be careful about claiming science in support of doctrine. Especially those doctrines we know very little about.


Notes:
1. Givens, Wrestling the Angel: The Foundations of Mormon Thought: Cosmos, God, Humanity, p. 18.
2. Givens, Wrestling the Angel: The Foundations of Mormon Thought: Cosmos, God, Humanity, p. 126.
3. I think most people know that heredity involves genes and DNA, but don't really know much more than that. I once had a conversation with a highly intelligent and educated friend in which he told me that he did not understand the difference between a gene and the genome. Based on his career path, there was no particular reason why he should have.

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Pro-Evolution Article in Interpreter

Last week the LDS journal Interpreter published a pro-evolution article, The Theory of Evolution is Compatible with Both Belief and Unbelief in a Supreme Being, by David M. Belnap. As I read the article I was waiting for the 'but' moment, but I was pleasantly surprised that it never really came. Belnap made no apologies for evolution, and even used some of his own research in constructing 3D models of viruses from 2D images to make a point that randomness, coupled with selection, and be constructive.

The article covers a lot of ground quickly, which limits its persuasive power, in my opinion. Anti-evolutionists will think he is making empty assertions. And I thought the weakest part of the essay was when he tried to show that the Genesis 1 account isn't that different from what we know from paleontology and geological history. That's not an exercise that I think is needed, because Genesis was written for a pre-scientific people. Nevertheless, I applaud his overall effort and Interpreter for publishing it.

P.S. Several days passed from when I read the article to when I looked at the comments after it. As you might expect, it was off to the races with doctrinaires and cranks sounding off. Wade into it if you wish, but I don't have time for trying to clean up that kind of garbage anymore.

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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 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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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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The Crucible of Doubt: Granting Permission to Believe

Modern science has taught us a lot about how our bodies work. To say it all boils down to chemistry may be an oversimplification, but there is a lot of truth in that statement. What does it mean then, when we feel love and affection for one another? Are our emotions and desires the work of chemicals that manipulate our subjective experience, and therefore not really real? These kinds of questions are sometimes posed by budding rationalists, who wonder what role such chemical reactions should play in their life. A common answer goes something like this: 'We are humans and we have no choice but to experience life as humans. Our emotions and feelings are real to us. Understand where they come from so that you don't make bad decisions based on them, but don't over-think them either. It is not a betrayal of reason and logic to be human. Enjoy life!'

Sometimes we need permission to just be ourselves. One of the messages I took away from The Crucible of Doubt: Reflections on the Quest for Faith, by Terryl and Fiona Givens, is that we should give ourselves permission to believe.

Coming into the first chapter, The Use and Abuse of Reason, I was a little skeptical that I would agree with what the authors would say. It is easy to say that there are ways of 'knowing' other than science and reason. Such statements usually strike me as a kind of epistemic jealousy. Artists and writers may have dreamed up things as strange as relativity and quantum mechanics, but they could never deliver the empirical reality. I was pleasantly surprised that the Givens did not seem to be trying to put science 'in its place' as much as put it in a human context.

The problem is not that science cannot give us direction with life’s most urgent questions. It is because, in actual practice, logical reasoning does not give us much guidance. We don’t really live our lives, in any meaningful way, according to the dictates of logic. And we certainly don’t embrace our most cherished beliefs, values, or opinions on the basis of reason alone—however much we may protest we do....

[A]s moral agents, immersed in a world of human relationships and human values, we most appropriately choose and judge and act as human beings whose desires and motivations and bases for action are deeper than and prior to logic.

I can get on board with that, since even certainty is a feeling.

The discussion in the first chapter connects to the last chapter, where the Givens take up the inevitability of belief and how we channel it. After describing three views of the cosmos (both theistic and atheistic), they write:

...we assemble the scattered pieces of evidence from science, from life experience, from intuition, and from reason into a tentative whole, trusting some sources of meaning and distrusting others. We cannot escape the burden of faith, within or outside the parameters of religious conviction.

So we can't help but believe in something, but what if that something turns out to be wrong? The Givens, in turn, ask if that is really such a horrible thing, and quote William James as follows:

He who says “Better to go without belief forever than believe a lie!” merely shows his own preponderant private horror of becoming a dupe. . . . This fear he slavishly obeys. . . . For my own part, I have also a horror of being duped; but I can believe that worse things than being duped may happen to a man in this world. . . . It is like a general informing his soldiers that it is better to keep out of battle forever than to risk a single wound. Not so are victories either over enemies or over nature gained. Our errors are surely not such awfully solemn things. In a world where we are so certain to incur them in spite of all our caution, a certain lightness of heart seems healthier than this excessive nervousness on their behalf.

This is all well and good, but there are elements of Church doctrine where we might suspect that we are indeed being duped. What then? The Givens answer:

Perhaps...one might focus on the message rather than the messenger. One might consider that the contingencies of history and culture and the human element will always constitute the garment in which God’s word and will are clothed. And one might refuse to allow our desire for the perfect to be the enemy of the present good. Finally, we might ask ourselves, with the early disciples, “to whom [else] shall we go?”

The worst risk such a life of faith entails is not that such a life might be wrong—but that it might be incomprehensible to those unprepared to take such a risk.

Perhaps you find yourself unable to abandon belief in certain core doctrines of Mormonism in spite of science and reason. As I read them, the message of these two chapters of The Crucible of Doubt is this: 'You are a human and will unavoidably believe things that go beyond science, and often make choices ignoring it. It is not a betrayal of rationality to believe. Embrace what you find beautiful, good, and compelling in Mormonism. Enjoy life!'

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Priesthood Session Highlights: Dunning-Kruger and The Eyring Letter

Two items of relevance to this blog in last night's priesthood session of General Conference stood out to me. First, as President Uchtdorf described research showing that people with low skill tend to overrate their own performance, it became clear to me that he was describing the Dunning-Kruger effect. Pres. Uchtdorf didn't mention the corollary, that people with low skill also fail to recognize true competence in others. This bit of psychology is often invoked in online discussions when some ignoramus starts yammering on about things he clearly does not understand, and rejects correction. As Dunning and Kruger put it, in the abstract of one of their publications,

Successful negotiation of everyday life would seem to require people to possess insight about deficiencies in their intellectual and social skills. However, people tend to be blissfully unaware of their incompetence. This lack of awareness arises because poor performers are doubly cursed: Their lack of skill deprives them not only of the ability to produce correct responses, but also of the expertise necessary to surmise that they are not producing them. People base their perceptions of performance, in part, on their preconceived notions about their skills. Because these notions often do not correlate with objective performance, they can lead people to make judgments about their performance that have little to do with actual accomplishment.

I thought it was great that Pres. Uchtdorf injected this nerdy bit of psychology into Church discourse, and I will be interested to see if/how it is footnoted in the printed text. The overall talk was very good, and I expect that it will be widely used for fourth-Sunday lessons. Maybe we can think of other ways Dunning-Kruger is manifest amongst the Saints.

The second item of interest to me was President Eyring's reference to a letter his father sent to Church leaders about science and religion, and which his father asked his opinion on. Pres. Eyring previously told that story during an interview for a program BYUtv did on his father several years ago. (Alas, it appears to have disappeared from the BYUtv site.) In that program, Pres. Eyring told the story in the context of reaction to Pres. Joseph Fielding Smith's book, Man, His Origin and Destiny. It is therefore likely that Pres. Eyring was referring to Henry Eyring's most famous letter. The full text of that letter and the story behind it can be read here. (It is also possible that Pres. Eyring was remembering one of the other letters Henry Eyring wrote.)

At a minimum, Pres. Eyring's talk is a useful reference if you ever have occasion to tell someone about the letter. However, Pres. Eyring's talk is also a likely candidate for a fourth-Sunday lesson. Maybe you can help liven the discussion by providing the background on the famous letter he was probably alluding to.

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D&C 77 and the World's Week

The Church has released a new Doctrine and Covenants and Church History manual for seminary. The FairMormon blog has a rundown of some items of interest, mostly how the manual deals with sensitive historical topics. What caught my attention was item number seven:

Finally, in discussing section 77 of the Doctrine and Covenants, the manual straightforwardly says, “The 7,000 years [in vv. 6–7] refers to the time since the Fall of Adam and Eve. It is not referring to the actual age of the earth including the periods of creation” (p. 280).

The document that became D&C 77 was produced in March 1832 while Joseph Smith was studying the New Testament's Book of Revelation. It was added to the cannon in 1876, long after his death. The reference in the manual is to the following passage:

6 Q. What are we to understand by the book which John saw, which was sealed on the back with seven seals?
A. We are to understand that it contains the revealed will, mysteries, and the works of God; the hidden things of his economy concerning this earth during the seven thousand years of its continuance, or its temporal existence.
7 Q. What are we to understand by the seven seals with which it was sealed?
A. We are to understand that the first seal contains the things of the first thousand years, and the second also of the second thousand years, and so on until the seventh.

This is reinforced a few verses later:

12 Q. What are we to understand by the sounding of the trumpets, mentioned in the 8th chapter of Revelation?
A. We are to understand that as God made the world in six days, and on the seventh day he finished his work, and sanctified it, and also formed man out of the dust of the earth, even so, in the beginning of the seventh thousand years will the Lord God sanctify the earth, and complete the salvation of man, and judge all things, and shall redeem all things, except that which he hath not put into his power, when he shall have sealed all things, unto the end of all things; and the sounding of the trumpets of the seven angels are the preparing and finishing of his work, in the beginning of the seventh thousand years—the preparing of the way before the time of his coming.

This all reminded me of something I discovered a while ago. Commenting on these passages, President Joseph Fielding Smith wrote:

This revelation confirms the fact that the days of creation were celestial days, and this earth is passing through one week of temporal (mortal) existence, after which it will die and receive its resurrection [1]. [italics in original]

Interestingly, the manual appears to adopt President Smith's interpretation of the length of mortal existence, while rejecting his view on the days of creation. But of greater interest to me is that the belief that the earth is passing through a week of existence has a long history. You can find references to the world-week in the religious literature in Joseph's day and earlier. For example, Scottish preacher Thomas Boston (d. 1732) wrote,

Time has run from the beginning, and is running on in an uninterrupted course of addition of moments, hours, days, months, and years. About four thousand years of it passed before the birth of Christ; and now is begun the one thousand seven hundred and thirty-second year from that happy period. So there want not three hundred years now to complete the world's week of six thousand years; after which many have thought the eternal Sabbath would come.

But it turns out that we can go back much farther to the early Christian era. The Epistle of Barnabas, thought to be written by 135 A.D., contains the same interpretation.

15:3 ...And God made in six days the works of his hands, and finished them on the seventh day, and rested in it and sanctified it.

15:4 Consider, my children, what signify the words, He finished them in six days. They mean this: that in
six thousand years the Lord will make an end of all things, for a day is with him as a thousand years. And he himself beareth witness unto me, saying: Behold this day a day shall be as a thousand years. Therefore, my children, in six days, that is in six thousand years, shall all things be brought to an end.

15:5 And the words, He rested on the seventh day, signify this: After that his Son hath come, and hath caused to cease the time of the wicked one, and hath judged the ungodly, and changed the sun and the moon and the stars, then shall he rest well on the seventh day.

It is possible that in asserting that the seven seals cover the earth's temporal history, one thousand years each, Joseph was tapping into ideas current in his culture. But it's also clear that the world-week concept is ancient, and it's worth noting that the Epistle of Barnabas and the Book of Revelation are probably only separated by 50-80 years, at most. Inasmuch as D&C 77 is about the Book of Revelation, Joseph's interpretation seems on the mark, at least in that it accords with ideas about the earth's history and future that were present just after the New Testament period.

However, we're still left with an enormous conflict with science if we take this scripture to mean that mortality began 6,000 years ago. Now I am a fan of understanding scripture within its cultural context, so I have no reason to doubt that was Joseph's intent. However, there may be other options for us. Personally, I like an interpretation that was advanced by Sterling Talmage, geologist and son of Elder James E. Talmage (himself a defender of the geological record):

...D&C 77:6 very clearly means that the Book of the Seven Seals represented the totality of scripture, to be revealed in successive dispensations; that it contained the previously unknown things regarding the plan of salvation ("the hidden things of his economy"), which were to be shown during the current seven thousand years of earth time ("its continuance") with special reference to humankind in the affairs of the present life ("its temporal existence"). This passage, then, would seem to have no reference whatever to the earth as a physical entity but refer only to the hand-dealings of God with its inhabitants [2].

On this reading, a scripture in direct conflict with science essentially becomes a summary of revealed religion as we have it in our scriptures. What it means for the future remains to be seen.

Notes:
1. Joseph Fielding Smith, Man, His Origin and Destiny, p.465. See also Doctrines of Salvation vol. 1, p. 80.
2. Sterling Talmage, Can Science Be Faith-Promoting, p.176.

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The Church Teaches Evolution via the Book of Mormon

In what may be the most scientifically detailed explanation on LDS.org, the Church recently added a page that explains some of the basic principles of population genetics, and a few of the processes that result in changes in gene frequencies in a population (i.e. evolution). Book of Mormon and DNA Studies is another new addition to the Gospel Topics section that is meant to give a more detailed (and, ahem, accurate) answer on a controversial topic. (See also Race and the Priesthood, First Vision Accounts, and Book of Mormon Translation.)

Of course, the focus of this article is on the controversy over what lack of DNA support means for the Book of Mormon. Those familiar with the work of Michael Whiting and Ugo Perego (to which the LDS.org page provides links) will see their fingerprints in the new article. Personally, I'm pretty pleased with the result, especially coming from the Church website. As to the substance of the argument, I'm undecided whether the caveats in interpreting the state of the DNA evidence can really do the work required to make the Nephites/Lamanites genetically disappear. (I lean toward skepticism there unless it's paired with extensive intermixing from the beginning. But then we leave science and move into textual interpretation.) For now I think it's the only legitimate scientific way to argue for Book of Mormon historicity, or rather that historicity cannot be dis-proven.

But if we set the Book of Mormon aside for a moment, this article is essentially a primer on how evolution works: the creation of new alleles and their spread, as well as the loss of alleles from a population. Selection was left out of the discussion, (which is unfortunate because it might be relevant--a sensitive issue perhaps? [1]), but in a way it's just as well because natural selection usually gets all of the attention. Genetic drift, founder effect, etc, are random processes that can also play an important role.

So go study Book of Mormon and DNA Studies. As you begin to comprehend its message, you'll begin to understand how Neanderthal DNA is hanging around in many of us, and you'll begin to understand how two separate populations can begin to genetically diverge. And you'll be able to imagine how enough time and change can result in reproductive isolation, with gradual differences in form and behavior. You'll be on your way to understanding how evolution works. Thanks, LDS.org!

Notes:

1. Here's another subtle tip-toe: "Scientists theorize that in an era that predated Book of Mormon accounts, a relatively small group of people migrated from northeast Asia to the Americas by way of a land bridge that connected Siberia to Alaska." Yes, predating the Book of Mormon by about 10-15 thousand years. Some people might have difficulty squaring that with the Bible Chronology.

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Videos Posted: Interpreter Conference on Science and Mormonism

Videos from the Interpreter conference, Science & Mormonism: Cosmos, Earth & Man, are now available.

I'm still working my way through them, but I want to congratulate the organizers and participants for a stimulating discussion.

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Latter-day Saints Must Do a Better Job Answering Atheism

Last February Elder Jeffery R. Holland gave a talk (recently published) at the J. Reuben Clark Law Society Conference in Washington D.C. that touched on the growing influence of the 'new atheism.' Elder Holland acknowledged the influence of men such as Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens, and called for more effective persuasion.

In the face of such waning religiosity—or, at the very least, waning religious affiliation—Latter-day Saints and other churches must be ever more effective in making the persuasive case for why both religious belief and institutional identity are more relevant than ever and deserve continued consideration and privilege within our society.

Given the venue and purpose of his talk, I would not expect Elder Holland to take on that task in this speech. Frankly I was impressed to see him call attention to the issue and name (even quote) some of the most prominent voices of atheism. However, it isn't clear to me from this speech that Elder Holland has paid close attention to their arguments. For example, Elder Holland said that militant atheism is untenable,

simply because it would take someone with God’s omniscience and omnipresence to be sure that nowhere in the universe was there such an omniscient and omnipresent being. Catch 22. But I digress with philosophical nitpicking.

This was clearly a line designed for laughs. But Dawkins (who is often called 'militant' for his blunt style) doesn't hold that view, and I doubt his compatriots do either because it's so obviously logically flawed. Dawkins' argument in his book, The God Delusion, is one of probability based on what we know from science, reason, and history, and is directed toward conceptions of God with certain characteristics.

It may be that emotion plays a large role in many people's decision to reject theism, and it may be that defending theism will ultimately come down to "bearing down in pure testimony" (Alma 4:19). However, if we are to be more effective in making our case, I think a few considerations may be helpful.

1. Many atheists are good and thoughtful people. Rather than sneering at them, we would do better to take a view more like that expressed by President Uchtdorf about people who leave the Church.

In this Church that honors personal agency so strongly, that was restored by a young man who asked questions and sought answers, we respect those who honestly search for truth. It may break our hearts when their journey takes them away from the Church we love and the truth we have found, but we honor their right to worship Almighty God [or not, in this case] according to the dictates of their own conscience, just as we claim that privilege for ourselves.

Many atheists are truth seekers and hold their position because that's where their conscience has taken them. Indeed, it appears that many young atheists are disappointed idealists. Making caricatures of their arguments and experience is an indicator to them that our claims are empty because we cannot engage their concerns head-on.

2. While we cannot limit our religious beliefs to the discoveries of science, we must be clear that one can hold belief in God and still accept any demonstrated truth of science. We have official statements to that effect, but sometimes our rhetoric betrays us.

3. Recognize that there may be areas of common agreement, such as the material nature of the universe or the origin of God. Even at a more basic level, Mormonism rejects some of the theological baggage that offends the sensitivities of religious skeptics.

4. In his speech Elder Holland recognized two additional perceptions that turn people off from organized religion.

Inasmuch as more than two-thirds of the religiously unaffiliated nevertheless do say they believe in God, it may well be that part of the reason for this drift away from formal church affiliation has something to do with how churches are perceived. More than two-thirds of the religiously unaffiliated say “religious institutions are too concerned with money” (70 percent) and too
deeply entangled in politics (67 percent). A word to the wise for all churches.

We should recognize that the mapping of our religious values onto public policy is a tricky business. Often people of opposing political parties share many of the same values. Their disagreement is rooted in the prioritization of those values and their application to law and public policy. Church leaders decide how the institutional Church should interact with specific laws and policies. As for individual members, I think we would do well to emphasize the things we value and avoid shallow cultural warfare.

Robert Millet, former dean of Religious Education at BYU, has done a lot of outreach work with evangelical Christians in his service as Manager of Outreach and Interfaith Relations for Church Public Affairs. He has helped facilitate communication between our two communities and has helped to clarify our doctrine to ourselves and others. I think a similar project on 'new atheism' might be in order. Actually, as I was writing this I found a 2009 interview in which Brother Millet said he was undertaking such a project.

Millet: Oddly enough, I’m currently doing a good bit of reading on atheism. Not to become one, of course, but I am concerned with how our people are responding to atheism. There is currently an upsurge in interest in the new atheism, as it’s called, and they’re proselyting!

Thayne: So you’re reading Christopher Hitchens?

Millet: Hitchens, Dawkins, Dennett, Harris. And I’ve read about ten or twelve responses to atheism. It’s a project I started on my own. Then, out of the blue, I discovered a group of faculty members in other colleges who were doing the same. We are planning a major conference on the subject.

I am not aware that any such conference has occurred (not that that means much), but I think it would be a great idea. Done right, it would help fulfill Elder Holland's call.

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Where Do Spirits Meet Electrons?

I enjoy reading physicist Sean Carroll because he is a penetrating thinker and good communicator. A recent blog post of his hits on a theme that raises fundamental issues of concern to Mormons. First, let's set the backdrop. We're all familiar with the following statement from Joseph Smith, canonized as D&C 131:7-8:

There is no such thing as immaterial matter. All spirit is matter, but it is more fine or pure, and can only be discerned by purer eyes; We cannot see it; but when our bodies are purified we shall see that it is all matter.

In Church discourse the term spirit can mean several things, but let's focus on personal spirit body.

According to scripture and Church teachings our spirit exists independent of the body but is united with the body at birth and again at the resurrection. In it's independent state it has thoughts and emotions, and is in the "likeness" of the body (whatever that means). Although the notion that spirits are made of a type of matter is a distinctive LDS belief, practically our conception of the spirit is very much like that of popular culture: it looks and is shaped like the body, and is the core source of our thoughts and decisions. A few degrees into folklore is the common belief that following death our spirit will have many of the same cravings and desires that we have in life, such as addictions.

Back to Carroll, I'm actually going to quote from two different blog posts interchangeably (here and here) because they are related.

Claims that some form of consciousness persists after our bodies die and decay into their constituent atoms face one huge, insuperable obstacle: the laws of physics underlying everyday life are completely understood, and there’s no way within those laws to allow for the information stored in our brains to persist after we die. If you claim that some form of soul persists beyond death, what particles is that soul made of? What forces are holding it together? How does it interact with ordinary matter?

If you believe in an immaterial soul that interacts with our bodies, you need to believe that [the Dirac equation, which describes the behavior of electrons] is not right, even at everyday energies. There needs to be a new term (at minimum) on the right, representing how the soul interacts with electrons. (If that term doesn’t exist, electrons will just go on their way as if there weren’t any soul at all, and then what’s the point?) So any respectable scientist who took this idea seriously would be asking — what form does that interaction take? Is it local in spacetime? Does the soul respect gauge invariance and Lorentz invariance? Does the soul have a Hamiltonian? Do the interactions preserve unitarity and conservation of information?

Among advocates for life after death, nobody even tries to sit down and do the hard work of explaining how the basic physics of atoms and electrons would have to be altered in order for this to be true. If we tried, the fundamental absurdity of the task would quickly become evident.

I suppose we non-physicists can just blithely say that there is more physics out there to discover (like dark matter), and I'm sure that Carroll would be thrilled if that prospect looked like a reality. (Just today I saw an article about the doldrums particle physicists are in because the Standard Model has been validated in such detail that there seems little to get excited about on the horizon.) But even still, are the laws of physics in a rock different than in a brain? And who hasn't wondered where in the spectrum of life a spirit gets involved (proteins, viruses, bacteria, plants, worms, and so on)? It seems like the best answer these kinds of questions can garner is a shrug of the shoulders. (Maybe I need to look harder?)

None of this is truly novel; beginning in the Renaissance anatomists tried to figure out where in the brain the soul was located, eventually giving up. Carroll has just put the question in a straightforward fundamental form. Perhaps a lot of how we think about spirits is wrong--a combination of speculation and misinterpreted experience that has been propagated in our culture for ages. (Sometimes I think that we are so used to our embodied state that we seriously underestimate what "bondage", as the scriptures put it, the lack of a body is.) Be that as it may, it appears that spirits will unfortunately remain something we have no scientific right to believe in for the foreseeable future.

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Material Continuity in the Resurrection and Bold Inquiry

You have probably seen the following quote from Joseph Smith before, delivered at an 1843 conference in response to a speech by Orson Pratt:

There is no fundamental principle belonging to a human system that ever goes into another in this world or in the world to come; I care not what the theories of men are. We have the testimony that God will raise us up, and he has the power to do it. If any one supposes that any part of our bodies, that is, the fundamental parts thereof, ever goes into another body, he is mistaken (History of the Church, 5:339)

I'm currently reading Samuel Brown's book, In Heaven as It Is on Earth: Joseph Smith and the Early Mormon Conquest of Death, and chapter 2 contains a discussion of the material continuity of the body. It turns out that there was already a large discussion within Christianity on what the emerging findings of science (especially chemistry and biology) meant for the resurrection. It was already apparent that living organisms constantly exchanged matter with their environment. Would the resurrected body be composed of the same matter as the mortal body, or would the structure only remain the same? According to Brown,

...Smith allowed the possibility that a body might contain surplus matter, that perhaps “vegetable” matter could be excluded from the resurrection body. However...no significant part of the material body could disappear. However circular the reasoning, Smith would not abandon the requirement for material continuity. Like many of his lay peers, Smith believed that to allow a reshuffling of physical material threatened a death powerful enough to destroy personal integrity and the promise of postmortal community.

If Joseph's position was scientifically untenable then, it is all the more so now. But I like the boldness with which early church leaders tackled conceptual problems. Just a few years previous to Joseph's statement quoted above, Parley Pratt had taken on the same issue in the Millenial Star (although coming to a different conclusion). After acknowledging that objections to the resurrection on the grounds of overlapping claims to matter were superficially plausible, he turned his displeasure to a certain class of defenders.

While, on the other hand, these objections have been met by superstition, bigotry, and ignorance, not with a design to enlighten the understanding or to inform and convince the judgment, but with an endeavor to throw a veil of sacredness over the whole subject, as if it were a mystery to be believed without the possibility of understanding it.

Perhaps a few sentences like the following have been sufficient to smother all further enquiry:-"Ignorance is the mother of devotion." "Don't let your mind think on such subjects, it is a temptation to infidelity." "It is wicked to enquire into such things." "All things are possible with God," &c.

I like Parley's no-nonsense attitude!

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