(by Dennis B. Horne)
From the October
2016 New
Era statement: “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.”
This statement should be read carefully and with due caution, since it could erroneously be understood to contradict other approved doctrinal teachings found in a Church Educational System manual.[1] One issue relates to the common but careless or intermingled uses of the crucial phrases “theory of evolution” versus “origin of man.” A letter from the Office of the First Presidency (of David O. McKay) noted this wording distinction (one that is easily manipulated, especially by biologists, but that I have tried to recognize herein). The letter, from a secretary to the First Presidency, said: “I have been directed to say that the enclosed statement published in the Improvement Era over the Signature of President Joseph F. Smith and his counselors express the position of the Church upon the subject of the ‘origin of man.’ I have also been directed to say that the Church has made no official statement on the subject of evolution. It is a scientific theory and is subject to and is undergoing modification from time to time. Scientific people seem to differ in their interpretation and views of the theory. . . . The authorities of the Church rely upon the revelations of the Lord for information about the creation of man. I have also been directed to say that the book to which you refer in your letter (Man, His Origin and Destiny by Joseph F[ielding] Smith) expresses the views of the author, for which he assumes full responsibility. The book was not published, approved, or authorized by the Church, nor did the author intend that it be.”[2]
This
explanation captures the important difference between the “theory of evolution”
on the one hand and the “origin of man” on the other; distinctions that the New
Era piece misses or avoids. It also delineates the source church
authorities rely on for information on the origin of man—as does another
letter, from President McKay’s secretary: “I have been directed to say that the
Church has issued no official statement on this subject [evolution]. It is a
theory, and it is subject to and undergoing modification from time to time, at
least in the differing interpretations of scientific people. Under these
circumstances, any conflict which may seem to exist between the scientific
theory and the truth of revealed religion should be dealt with by suspending judgement
as long as may be necessary to arrive at the facts and a complete understanding
of the truth. While the theory is subject to controversy and differences of
opinion in the scientific world, the authorities of the Church rely upon the
revelations of the Lord for information about the creation of man.”[3]
This item also distinguishes between the theory of evolution and the origin of
man in relation to the position of the Church, points out where the authorities
of the Church get their information on the origin of man, and gives a
recommendation of what to personally do with the conflict now. (Readers may
determine for themselves whether the BYU biologists innocently intermix these
terms, or whether they do so manipulatively for their agenda, in the below quotations
from them.)
Continuing,
several senior church leaders have in fact, taught that it has been revealed
how the bodies of Adam and Eve were created. Passages of scripture declare the
same doctrine. Moses 6:22 states: “And this is the genealogy of the sons of
Adam, who was the son of God, with whom God, himself, conversed.” A footnote
conveniently takes us to the second, from Luke 3:38: “Which was the son of
Enos, which was the son of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was the son
of God.” Further, “even the right of the firstborn, or the first man, who is
Adam” (Abraham 1:3). And, “For the firstborn [Adam] holds the right of the
presidency [under Christ] over this priesthood” (D&C 68:17). Four scriptural
references teaching the same doctrine—that Adam was the son and firstborn of
God (into immortality). I am unable to fathom how the author and vetters of the
October
2016 New Era piece missed these scriptures; or, if they were aware
of them, perhaps it was an issue of interpretation or caution. Could they have
quoted President Nelson instead of or in addition to Elder Holland? President
Nelson’s teachings are clearer and more detailed than Elder Holland’s, and he
is now the prophet of the Lord.
Elder Bruce
R. McConkie encountered this doctrinal issue himself (regarding Luke 3:38 and
the other like passages), as he prepared his Doctrinal New Testament
Commentary (vol. 1), writing: “Adam, which was the son of God. This
statement, found also in Moses 6:22, has a deep and profound significance and
also means what it says. Father Adam came, as indicated, to this sphere,
gaining an immortal body, because death had not yet entered the world. (2 Ne.
2:22.) Jesus, on the other hand, was the Only Begotten in the flesh, meaning
into a world of mortality where death already reigned.”[4]
This comment does not contain a great deal of detail, although discerning
readers will realize what is being taught.
It seems
that Elder McConkie, who was one of the greatest expounders of the scriptures
of our dispensation, did not always hold himself to quite the same restraint he
showed in his New Testament commentary. For instance, in 1979 he contributed a
chapter (along with a number of other apostles and general authorities) for a book
titled Woman, in which he plainly but sensitively taught how Adam and
Eve were placed in the Garden of Eden, but also cautioned that some with
limited spiritual understanding would not believe:
How did Adam and Eve
gain their temporal bodies? Our revelations record Deity's words in this way:
"And I, God, said unto mine Only Begotten, which was with me from the
beginning: Let us make man in our image, after our likeness." (Moses
2:26.) Man on earth—Adam and Eve and all their descendants—was to be created in
the image of God; he was to be in his image spiritually and temporally, with
power to convert the image into a reality by becoming like him. Then the
scripture says: "And I, God, created man in mine own image, in the image
of mine Only Begotten created I him; male and female created I them."
(Moses 2:27.) Also: "And I, the Lord God, formed men from the dust of the
ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a
living soul, the first flesh upon the earth, the first man also." (Moses
3:7.)
For those whose
limited spiritual understanding precludes a recitation of all the facts, the
revealed account, in figurative language, speaks of Eve being created from
Adam's rib. (Moses 3:21-25.) A more express scripture, however, speaks of
"Adam, who was the son of God, with whom God, himself,
conversed." (Moses 6:22. Italics added.) In a formal doctrinal
pronouncement, the First Presidency of the Church (Joseph F. Smith, John R.
Winder, and Anthon H. Lund) said that “all who have inhabited the earth since
Adam have taken bodies and become souls in like manner,” and that the first of
our race began life as the human germ or embryo that becomes a man. (See Improvement
Era, November 1909, p. 80.)
Christ is universally
attested in the scriptures to be the Only Begotten. At this point, as we
consider the “creation” of Adam, and lest there be any misunderstanding, we
must remember that Adam was created in immortality, but that Christ came to
earth as a mortal; thus our Lord is the Only Begotten in the flesh, meaning
into this mortal sphere of existence. Adam came to earth to dwell in
immortality until the fall changed his status to that of mortality.
Those who have ears to hear will understand
these things. All of us, however, must know and believe that when Adam and Eve
were placed in the Garden of Eden, there was no death. They were immortal.
Unless some change occurred they would live forever, retaining all the bloom,
beauty, and freshness of youth. Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, Orson Pratt, and
our early brethren preached many sermons on this.[5]
In the
mid-1950s, one of the leading gospel scholars at BYU, Dr. Sydney B. Sperry,
asked President Joseph Fielding Smith how Adam and Eve were placed in the
Garden of Eden. The exchange went like this:
Bro. Sperry: Bro. Smith,
relative to Adam’s condition before the Fall, the fact that he had no blood in
his veins would rather suggest therefore, that his father and mother were
individuals, shall we say resurrected individuals, meaning God, let’s say. Now,
we’ve got a strange situation here, we’ve got an individual, in the case of
Adam, who would have lived forever. I think that Dr. Talmage attached the name
“unmortal” to that state.
Pres. Smith: He did, but he
took it away again.
Bro. Sperry: Would you care
to comment on his parentage and his state there. I know it’s a difficult thing
to do, but go as far as you can.
Pres. Smith: Bro. Sperry, I
can’t go very far because all of that has been withheld. Now I don’t believe
the Lord took the soil [clay] and molded it in the form of a man and then put a
spirit in it. As to his father and his mother and Adam being born—I’m going to
be very cautious, and not get myself in trouble in regard to that.”
After some
more Q&A, the subject returned to Adam, with a new questioner:
Bro. Bennett: The book of
Moses concerning the creation of man uses the expression, “In the image of His
own body, male and female created He them.” What explanation could you give on
the male and female?
Pres. Smith: Well, we sing
so frequently in our General Conferences and stake conferences and throughout,
the words to “O My Father.” If we don’t have a [Heavenly] mother, we did not
have a [Heavenly] father. That’s logical. We don’t read in the scriptures much
about mothers anyway, but we certainly had to have one, and we had a [Heavenly]
mother. I might say something more—that the laws of God are eternal. I don’t
want to get into any difficulty now—and mortality is not different from
immortality [regarding mothers]. We marry for time and eternity, don’t we? Why?
To have a continuation of the seeds forever. Now there’s the answer—to have a
continuation of the seeds forever. They are natural principles, that’s all. So,
according to what has been revealed to us, we know that if we had a [Heavenly]
father, we had a [Heavenly] mother, and we are to be like them, and then that
passage you refer to is evidence enough in itself; for we’re created in the
image of God—male and female. . . . Is that answer enough, Bro. Bennett?[6]
Surely
something like these scriptures and explanations would have been more
insightful to church members, young or old, than the puzzling wording in the New
Era article indicating that the manner in which Adam and Eve were placed in
the Garden of Eden has not been revealed when it has.
The New
Era item also stated: “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.”
The quoted reference is from a General Conference talk
given by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, which needs repeating so that full and
accurate context can be given:
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—in other words, there
is no way to truly celebrate Christmas or Easter—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.
I
do not know the details of what happened on this planet before that, 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. (Emphasis
added.)
Notice that
Elder Holland is teaching the doctrine that Adam and Eve were not mortal in the
Garden of Eden, but instead existed in a “paradisiacal setting where there was
neither human death nor future family.” Obviously, this doctrine destroys the
theistic theory of evolution, which would have God directing evolutionary
processes to eventually create Adam and Eve from the animal kingdom. There is
no provision in any brand of the theory of evolution for the creation or
natural selection of Edenic paradisiacal immortality. The wording, that there
were no spirit children of God on the earth before Adam and Eve, is also very
significant and true. For evolution to be true it would have to mean that Adam
and Eve’s parents were animals—advanced apes or some kind of prehistoric
man-like creature?—that had animal spirits but not human spirits born to our
heavenly parents.
The
prophets have often recommended that when we study the scriptures we should not
take one passage out of context and rely on it for doctrinal determination in
important matters. Other scripture passages bearing on the same subjects should
be studied as well so that a fuller and more well-rounded understanding can
emerge. For example, there are the above quoted scriptural passages that
directly state that Adam was a son of God; it is good sound stable doctrine.
The same
principle applies to church magazine articles, especially those on
controversial subjects that are unattributed. Other articles containing
information and teachings about the same subject should be studied in conjunction
with this one. We have the “Origin of Man” and “Mormon View of Evolution”
articles from Church magazines, as well as their much later reprints to compare
with. We also have the doctrinal declarations about the creation of Adam and
Adam’s fall from President Nelson and other apostles.
All of this
doctrine together is much more convincing that the Church definitely has a
doctrine of how Adam and Eve were created, that they were created immortal and
fell into mortality, and that there was no death or procreation before the
fall—that such began after the fall. Or, like the evolutionists, we simply toss
out all the scriptures and prophetic teachings about Adam and Eve and go with
evolution instead—we are the descendants of an amoeba from the depths of time;
somehow God guided the amoeba to split into a worm that split into something
else until a million or billion years later something genetically drifted and
naturally selected into a prehistoric ape-man that was Adam’s dad instead of
God.
As previously
stated, there is no official church position on this shifting scientific
theory, but there is an official position on the creation of man (Adam and
Eve), and that position does not allow for macro-evolution to have any
involvement at all. It does however indicate that God our heavenly Father and
also our heavenly Mother were full participants and gave birth to Adam and Eve
on this earth.
The fact
that BYU biologists don’t explain some of these matters to new or continuing
students is to me unethical and smacks of sophistry.
The Church
Board of Education (meaning the First Presidency and most of the Twelve and some
other general church officers) have formally approved, on several occasions
over the decades, a doctrinal document meant for teaching purposes in the
Seminaries and Institutes. It is called Basic
Doctrines, and it states: “Adam was the first man
created on the earth. God created Adam and Eve in His own image. All human
beings—male and female—are created in the image of God (see Genesis 1:26–27).”
It further states:
Jesus
Christ created the heavens and the earth under the direction of the Father. The
earth was not created from nothing; it was organized from existing matter.
Jesus Christ has created worlds without number (see D&C 76:22–24).
The
Creation of the earth was essential to God’s plan. It provided a place where we
could gain a physical body, be tested and tried, and develop divine attributes.
We
are to use the earth’s resources with wisdom, judgment, and thanksgiving (see
D&C 78:19).
Adam
was the first man created on the earth. God created Adam and Eve in His own
image. All human beings—male and female—are created in the image of God (see Genesis
1:26–27).
In
the Garden of Eden, God commanded Adam and Eve not to partake of the fruit of
the tree of knowledge of good and evil; the consequence of doing so would be
spiritual and physical death. Spiritual death is separation from God. Physical
death is the separation of the spirit from the mortal body. Because Adam and
Eve transgressed God’s command, they were cast out from His presence and became
mortal. Adam and Eve’s transgression and the resultant changes they
experienced, including spiritual and physical death, are called the Fall.
As
a result of the Fall, Adam and Eve and their posterity could experience joy and
sorrow, know good and evil, and have children (see 2 Nephi 2:25). As
descendants of Adam and Eve, we inherit a fallen condition during mortality. We
are separated from the presence of the Lord and subject to physical death. We
are also tested by the difficulties of life and the temptations of the
adversary. (See Mosiah 3:19.)
The
Fall is an integral part of Heavenly Father’s plan of salvation. It has a
twofold direction—downward yet forward. In addition to introducing physical and
spiritual death, it gave us the opportunity to be born on the earth and to
learn and progress.
No mention
of or room for evolution in this document, just the settled and formally
approved doctrines of the church regarding the origin of man/Adam and Eve.
[1]
This
manual contains writings of President Joseph Fielding Smith that strongly
condemn the promotion of theistic evolution: “Of course, I think those people
who hold to the view that man has come up through all these ages from the scum
of the sea through billions of years do not believe in Adam. Honestly I do not
know how they can, and I am going to show you that they do not. There are some
who attempt to do it but they are inconsistent—absolutely inconsistent,
because that
doctrine is so incompatible, so utterly out of harmony, with the revelations of
the Lord that a man just cannot believe in both.
“… I
say most emphatically, you cannot believe in this theory of the origin
of man, and at the same time accept the plan of salvation as set forth by the
Lord our God. You must choose the one and reject the other, for they are in
direct conflict and there is a gulf separating them which is so great that it
cannot be bridged, no matter how much one may try to do so.”
[2]
Letter from A. Hamer Reiser, Assistant Secretary to the First Presidency, to
Mr. Robert C. Stones, April 21, 1960; copy in possession of the author. Past
BYU religion professor Joseph Fielding McConkie agreed with this distinction,
and explained: “In telling the story of the Creation, for instance, teachers
are commonly challenged with the question, ‘Does the Church have an official
position on the theory of evolution?’ The answer is no, it does not. On the
other hand, and this is certainly very important in such a discussion, the
Church does have an official position on the doctrine of the origin of man. The
way questions are framed is very important. On the one hand, the Church is not
in the business of evaluating scientific theories; on the other, it is in the
business of teaching that all humankind are the offspring of divine parents and
thus not the product of an evolutionary process.” (As quoted in Answers,
212-13.) I have tried to emphasize this same point throughout this piece.
[3]
Letter, Claire Middlemiss, Secretary to President David O. McKay, to Mr. Pertti
Felin, May 8, 1964. Copy in author’s possession.
[4]
As quoted in Bruce R. McConkie, Doctrinal New Testament Commentary (Salt
Lake City: Bookcraft; 1966), 3 vols., 1:95.
[5]
As quoted in Bruce R. McConkie, “Eve and the Fall,” in Woman (Salt Lake
City: Deseret Book, 1979), 60.
[6]
Joseph Fielding Smith, “The Fundamentals of the Gospel,” August 25, 1954,
Brigham Young University; question and answer discussion period, 11-12; copy in
possession of the author. In his remarks, President Smith also made this
statement: “They would have had no children. Now don’t anyone ask me why they
couldn’t have children—I don’t know” (3-4).
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