Science and Religion (part 1)
I have rarely if ever had seen tension between my religious beliefs and my work in the physical sciences. I’ve had students who felt that the Big Bang conflicts with the idea of the Creation, but it was actually the rival theory of the origin of the universe (the Steady State theory) that would have been at odds with the religious. Unfortunately (from my perspective) reconciling religion and the life sciences is not so simple. I’ll admit that this is a subject that I haven’t delved into very much largely because I haven’t felt the need to and because I am generally not too interested in biology.
From an LDS perspective (through my interpretation of course), the two biggest apparent conflicts between religious and scientific descriptions of the origin of man are that man evolved from lower forms of life and that there was no death before the Fall.
I see about five general stances that one could take regarding the origin of the earth and man (though I’m sure there are others):
- The earth and man (starting with Adam) are both a few thousand years old.
- The earth began 4.5 billion years ago, was then populated with life that didn’t die, and Adam was placed in the garden a few thousand years ago. Death began with Adam.
- The earth began 4.5 billion years ago, the earth was populated with animals that did die and evolve, Adam was placed in the garden a few thousand years ago.
- The earth began 4.5 billion years ago, the earth was populated with animals that did die and evolve, God used evolutionary processes to form Adam.
- The earth began about 4.5 billion years ago, primitive life about 3.8 billion, and humans a couple hundred thousand. Adam is a work of fiction.
The only authoritative statement of which I am aware that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has released on evolution (back in 1909) contains the passage:
Adam, our first progenitor, “the first man,” was, like Christ, a preexistent spirit, and like Christ he took upon him an appropriate body, the body of a man, and so became a “living soul.” The doctrine of the preexistence—revealed so plainly, particularly in latter days—pours a wonderful flood of light upon the otherwise mysterious problem of man’s origin. It shows that man, as a spirit, was begotten and born of heavenly parents and reared to maturity in the eternal mansions of the Father, prior to coming upon the earth in a temporal body to undergo an experience in mortality. It teaches that all men existed in the spirit before any man existed in the flesh and that all who have inhabited the earth since Adam have taken bodies and become souls in like manner.
I could read this to mean that Adam was the first of any human-like inhabitants of the earth (consistent with options 1-3), or that Neanderthals and the like did not have spirits that were children of Heavenly Father and thus were not “man” (consistent with option 4).
LDS scriptures contain the following passages:
And now, behold, if Adam had not transgressed he would not have fallen, but he would have remained in the garden of Eden. And all things which were created must have remained in the same state in which they were after they were created; and they must have remained forever, and had no end (2 Nephi
And he said unto them: Because that Adam fell, we are; and by his fall came death; and we are made partakers of misery and woe (Moses
Unless this is taken to refer to spiritual death, it seems only to support options 1 and 2. If it does mean spiritual death, it could also apply to options 3 and 4. A variation on 3 or 4 could be that evolution was part of the creative process and then everything stopped changing (creation was considered finished) when Adam came.
I’m really quite undecided (other than throwing out options 1 and 5) and am curious about what others might think.
Comments
Ever since the Galileo debacle the Church doesn't make definitive statements on scientific questions, except to teach that true understanding of faith and nature can never contradict each other because both are creations of God.
But to reconcile evolution with the story of Adam you obviously can't take every word of the bible literally, particularly the amounts of time. The creation of man was the spiritual creation of a human soul, and not about the physical body which could have taken millions of years to develop.
I'm not sure this fits though with the statement from 1909 you posted. It seems to strongly emphasize the actual body being an important aspect of Adam. And if Adam existed as a spirit beforehand (a novel idea to me, ..."born of heavenly parents and reared to maturity in the eternal mansions of the Father" what?!?) along with other men existing in spirit before any man existed in flesh then it would have to be the physical body that is the main focus of his creation as the first man in Genesis.
In my view the death that Adam brought into the world would have been a spiritual death, a separation from God (only achieved through sin), that you proposed. Animals died beforehand, a physical death as they do now. It seems to me that the death brought by Adam could not refer to physical death because even now, after the resurrection of Christ, we still die physically, even those going straight to heaven. However, I think within the Garden of Eden, being an earthly paradise, probably no sort of death existed there at all, for animals or humans.
Whichever option a person picks I think it's critical to have an agreement between religious beliefs and what you learn to be true through laws of evidence. Otherwise you end up simultaneously keeping contradictory beliefs in your mind, such as in George Orwell's 1984. In the long run, this will stifle your ability to think clearly. Although faith is supreme, reason is God's gift to mankind for discerning truth on earth.
I admit that the scripture you quote seems to preclude 3 & 4 unless you think "death" means spiritual death.
The problem I have with 3&4 are that we've discovered skeletons of animals that are on earth that go back way longer than a few thousand years, Like alligators. I'm not sure how you explain their death, unless you're going to argue, that They were on another planet! (but the scripture doesn't limit itself to earth) or that they were skeleton's created by god but never lived, or some other remotely possible but wholly unconvincing story.
Also, there are those people-like skeletons that seems to suggest something like humans have existed for a long time too.
So, 4 seems the most likely to me, but I don't have a firm opinion about it. I've decided that 1. Church doctrine on this point is sufficiently pliable to accommodate views 1-4 and 2. Ultimately this has little affect on how I perceive myself.
Some people think a belief that God created us in his image somehow precludes using some sort of evolutionary system to effect that creation, but I don't.
As far as Adam existing as a spirit before coming to Earth (if you're curious), that might be a uniquely LDS doctrine. But it is a core tenet of our belief that all people were born as spirit children of God before our earth-life. Then that same spirit that lived with Him is joined with our physical body when we are born on Earth (having the memory of our previous existence removed in order to follow God by faith). We hold certain biblical scriptures as references to this:
That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us: For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring. Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device (Acts 17:27-29).
As well as the war in heaven described in Revelation 12 where Satan is "cast out."
Also, I agree with your comment that we should avoid contradictory beliefs. I think the sentiment I meant to convey was that we shouldn't cast off our faith if we don't have the answers to everything. If one has opposing ideas at the core of one's beliefs (whether religious, political, or whatever) one will surely have some inner conflict, but there will always be peripheral questions that one is curious about.
Ryan - you're right, I gave no reasoning for rejecting option 1. So here it is: option 1 is rather ridiculous. Not only would you have to reject evolutionary biology, but also most all of geology, large parts of astronomy, nuclear physics, etc.
When you said, "The problem I have with 3&4," I'm assuming you meant 1 & 2.
I know you were using it as a far fetched example, but I just have to say that skeleton's created by God that never lived would make for a rather malicious god. As far as fossils being a part of another planet that was incorporated into ours, that wouldn't be feasible with our understanding of planetary formation (not to mention geologic evidence).
In the end I agree that none of this has much affect on how I see myself or my relationship to God.
This is not about your current blog post, but I was listening to someone talk about education reform on the radio at work yesterday which I thought was informative although I don't really have the experience or knowledge about it to agree or disagree with her. But I thought you might be interested, so here's a link to the audio: http://www.kqed.org/radio/programs/forum/
I didn't think the biblical references said much about when souls are created. The one from Acts says we are God's offspring, but that applies no matter when our souls are formed. Regarding Revelations, Satan was an angel, not a man, and the angels were created and existed in heaven before men. Nevertheless, I don't think it's that unreasonable of an idea to have human souls existing in heaven before birth. I think it's strange to have them maturing in mansions though. It just doesn't go with my view of heaven, in which there is no aging and God definitely doesn't live in a mansion. And "heavenly parents" is odd. Is that God? and who else?
There are other LDS scriptures that spell out our doctrine on when souls are created much more clearly.
As far as the mansions, I think it's referring more to the abodes of God in general, not literal buildings. In John 14:2 Jesus uses similar phrasing in telling Peter "In my Father's house are many mansions."
We believe that the family unit is an eternal organization...that we do have a Heavenly Mother.
I didn't give a reason for throwing out either option 1 or 5. The post is more my personal musings than a logical treatise. Option 1 is the position of a religious fundamentalist and option 5 is the position of an atheist. I threw them out for person reasons..I am neither of those things.
Granted my discussion primarily addressed the religious aspects, but that's because science is rather clear on the topic of the evolution of life while religion is a bit more ambiguous.