Mormons and Evolution

In trying to reconcile the findings of science with LDS theology, one of the more difficult scriptures to deal with is D&C 77:6-7.

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.

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.

Jeff has discussed this scripture before. I want to supplement his discussion with some further information and analysis.

I think there are 3 basic ways to approach this scripture, not all of which are mutually exclusive.

1. Traditional: The traditional straight-forward approach is that the fall of Adam and Eve occured ~4,000 B.C., which began the temporal (mortal) condition of the earth. The seventh thousand-year period will be the millenium and is expected to begin soon. This approach is supported by biblical chronology as well as D&C 88, which uses the seven thousand-year framework.

This general view of earth history is also held by some other Christian denominations, so it is not unique to LDS theology or modern revelation. Of course the problem in relating this to science is that it is contradicted by a number of scientific disciplines.

2. Literal, With Modification: This approach gives literal meaning to the seven thousand years, but modifies it a bit. Jeff Lindsay describes this approach as suggested by Sterling Talmage, son of James E. Talmage. Sterling Talmage examined the meaning of the words “continuance,” “economy”, and “temporal.”

The three terms that Talmage analyzes harmonize with each other and all point to the conclusions that D&C 77 refers to God’s dealing with man under the present time period (the collection of dispensations of the past several thousand years), and does not say anything about the time of the Creation or age of the earth, or even the antiquity of other humans or humanoids.

3. Developmental: Michael Quinn’s biography of J. Reuben Clark says that Clark had some different views on science and scripture than Joseph Fielding Smith. Presidents Clark and Smith corresponded about a speech that Clark intended to give. Clark wrote in a letter,

You quote from Section 77 of the Doctrine and Covenants. I do not get from that section the meaning you give it.

Apparently the basic difference between us is this: you do not accept the scriptural record as given in historical sequence; I do.

It is not clear to me exactly how Section 77 was used in the correspondence[1], but the final sentence quoted is interesting. It suggests to me that while Joseph Fielding Smith tended to view the scriptures as an integrated whole, J. Reuben Clark viewed the scriptures as coming line upon line and reflecting historical context.

I think this second view is worth considering in connection with Section 77. Later in the same section, verse 12 refers to the seven days of creation. Unlike some other Christian denominations, Latter-day Saints, including such commentators as Elder Bruce R. McConkie, have felt free to view the days of creation as representing longer periods of time ranging from one thousand years for each “day” to unspecified lengths of time. The basis of this freedom is derived from the Book of Abraham which describes one of God’s days as one thousand of our years (this is also suggested in the New Testament) and uses the vague term “time” instead of “day” in describing the creation.

The information that became D&C 77 was written in 1832, and D&C 88 was given at the boundary of 1832/1833. Joseph Smith obtained the papyri from which he translated (whatever is meant by “translated”) the Book of Abraham in mid-1835. It is easy to retroactively apply the insights gained from the Book of Abraham concerning the “times” of creation to D&C 77:12, but at the time it was given we would likely have held a literal view of the “days” of creation.

Perhaps we can see Section 77 as an example of the Lord speaking according to Joseph’s understanding–not bothering to correct traditional interpretations or incorrect information of the time. The meaning of the “days” of creation has been re-interpreted in the light of further revelation; perhaps the seven thousand-year timeline will be also.

Meridian of Time: Finally, I want to discuss a potential objection–that any alternative reading is contradicted by the scriptures that refer to Jesus as being born in the “meridian of time.” Joseph Fielding Smith’s explanation for “meridian of time” was that Jesus was born about 4,000 years after Adam and 2,000 years before us. The future millenium and the “little season” (D&C 88:111) following it complete the balance, putting the birth of Jesus approximately in the middle. (Doctrines of Salvation Vol I p.81. Orson F. Whitney also expressed this view.)

I see several possible weaknesses with this explanation:

1. Stretching the “little season” into almost one thousand years seems ad hoc to me. Why is this period of time lightly passed over when it would seem to be equivalent, or nearly so, to all of the other divisions of time?

2. The exact chronology of future events is somewhat uncertain, but the declaration of D&C 88:110 that “time is no longer” (whatever that means) could easily be understood to occur at the beginning of the millenium, since it is immediately followed by a statement about the binding of Satan. If the beginning–or even the end–of the millenium marks the end of time, the scheme laid out by Joseph Fielding Smith is disrupted.

3. It has been traditionally understood that during the millenium the earth is to be returned to a “terrestrial” condition, as it was before the fall of Adam. If such is the case, why is the millenium, but not the time before the Fall, included in figuring the meridian of time? Again, this seems ad hoc to me.

4. Although “meridian” can have the conotation of “middle” or “dividing symetrically,” it also means “high point” or “zenith.” Jesus’ life and atonement is legitimately described as the “meridian of time” whether or not it divides time in two equal portions.

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1. My inference from the information provided is that Joseph Fielding Smith was reading Abraham’s equation of one of the Lord’s days for one thousand of our years into D&C 77:12, thus concluding that the creation of the earth took seven thousand years. J. Reuben Clark was comfortable with millions of years.

Given how little we know about how the Fall of Adam and Eve actually occurred, it is difficult for me to see why it must necessarily be incompatible with evolution. My belief is that the conflict is only apparent, and that more information about the Fall will help resolve the conflict. I do not claim to know what that further information is, but I have a few ideas that might be worth thinking about. (Some of these ideas have been brought up by others here and are not totally unique to me.)

Modularity and Timelessness: Our scriptures make clear that the power of the Atonement was operational before Jesus came to earth. Men and women were forgiven of their sins and sanctified in spite of the fact that the Atonement had not actually occurred yet. At least in regard to forgiveness of sin, it seems that the timing of the Atonement was not important. Time does not seem to matter to God. Is it therefore possible that conditions on earth preceding Adam and Eve operated as though the Fall had already occurred? Furthermore, is it possible that Adam and Eve performed a vicarious work for us in the garden, as our representatives, making the events in the Garden of Eden largely ceremonial in nature? So Adam and Eve represented us in getting us into mortality, and Jesus represented us in getting us out.

Pre-Mortal Symbolism: The story of Adam and Eve can be generalized to all of us. In fact we are encouraged to follow their example. Yet many elements of the story seem restricted to Adam and Eve. Jeff has suggested that we think of the story of Adam and Eve in terms of the pre-mortal world (pre-existence). Thinking along these lines reveals some striking similarities between Adam and Eve, and the rest of us. Common elements include:

Living in the presence of God
Not subject to pain or disease
Desire to gain knowledge and experience
Unable to have children
choosing to progress by entering mortality and leaving the presence of God
Confronting temptation by Satan
Receiving a coat of skin (ie. body)

Could it be that Moses taught about our pre-mortal existence by the means of allegory? If this is the case, it leads to some interesting questions. For example, is it possible that the reason we wanted to come to earth was because Lucifer introduced us to the concept of mortal life, thus sowing discontent with our pre-mortal existence (ie. teaching us that we were naked) and unwittingly fulfilling God’s plan?

Multi-Step Process: When we talk of the Fall, we usually think in terms of a specific event that occurred on a specific (but unknown) day. The way the story is given to us encourages this kind of thinking. Perhaps the Fall was a multi-step process that began in the spirit world and culminated with Adam and Eve in the garden. An analogy might be cross-country travel. We think of Adam and Eve as taking off in New York City and landing in Los Angeles. Perhaps it was more like traveling by car with stops and detours along the way. Thus, the Fall was responsible for the mortality of all life forms on earth, but the part of the Fall that initiated mortality for most (if not all) of the earth happened back in Missouri (to be clever)–not the end of the trip in Los Angeles.

Conclusion

I think that some of the ideas I have outlined above are useful, even within the traditional LDS paradigm of the Fall. Such ideas do not dispense with the importance of the Fall–they merely adjust our way of thinking about it. (Revelation does do that from time to time.) The ultimate truth may or may not resemble my suggestions, but until we are given further light by revelation, it seems a little hasty to conclude that evolution and the Fall are ultimately incompatible with one another.

It appears that Robert Millet rejects much (or all) of evolution, but I think that the sentiment expressed here is well-put.

In regard to the Fall, it should be sufficient for us to know that Adam and Eve and all forms of life are required to partake of the fruits of mortality before we can partake of the fruits of immortality in the Resurrection. Further, men and women cannot partake of the fruit of the tree of life–that is, gain eternal life–while they remain in their sins; mortal man simply cannot inherit immortal glory. It is as though the Lord places cherubim and a flaming sword to guard the way of celestial glory so that we may surely understand that no unclean thing can enter his presence. Repentance and redemption always and forevermore precede exaltation. (Power of the Word: Saving Doctrines from the Book of Mormon p. 66)

One of the main theological objections to evolution is that it is incompatible with the Fall. Since the scriptures tie the Fall and the Atonement together, some believe that any implications that evolution may have for the Fall carry through to the Atonement, the heart of the gospel. I’m not sure that such must be the case, but I will leave that topic alone and focus on the Fall.

In discussing the Fall, a question we might ask up front is “what do we know and what don’t we know?” The answer is not an easy one because it depends on the amount of weight given to any particular commentary. Some in the broader Christian community argue that everything in Genesis must be factually true, or else the whole Bible is unreliable. Some Latter-day Saints seem to buy into this reasoning, but strictly speaking such an argument is false when judged by the standard of Mormon theology. Elder Packer has said,

Now, about the Creation. What is said in the revelations about the Creation, though brief, is repeated in Genesis, in the Book of Mormon, in Moses, in Abraham, and in the endowment. We are told it is figurative insofar as the man and woman are concerned. (”The Law and the Light”) [It pre-dates me, but apparently the last sentence is derived from previous wording in the endowment.]

It seems to me that the line between literal and figurative in Genesis has not been clearly drawn, but for the sake of discussion I think we can safely make a few judgments. Let’s look at a few examples.

Adam and Eve: The scriptures consistently speak of Adam and Eve as actual people. Although it might be tempting to argue that the prophets who wrote the scriptures just assumed that Adam and Eve were real, such an argument becomes more difficult in the face of the teachings of modern prophets. Joseph Smith repeatedly taught that Adam was a real person, that he is Michael the archangel, and that in terms of priesthood, he stands at the head of the human family. Furthermore, Joseph Smith identifies Adam in vision (D&C 137). Joseph F. Smith also identified Adam and Eve in his vision of the spirit world (D&C 138:38-39). Although questions about whether the visions were intended to communicate factual information might be interesting, overall it seems that the historical reality of Adam and Eve is too ingrained in LDS scripture and theology to be easily removed. I am not aware of any General Authorities who have felt otherwise.

The Garden of Eden: Joseph Smith identified Missouri as the location of the Garden of Eden. This identification has not actually been canonized, nevertheless it would seem difficult to dispense with the historicity of the Garden of Eden without doing violence to Joseph Smith’s prophetic status.

Eve Formed from Adam’s Rib: At least three LDS authorities (Brigham Young, Specer W. Kimball, Bruce R. McConkie) have designated this part of the story as figurative. (For Kimball and McConkie, see “The Blessings and Responsibilities of Womanhood,” Ensign, March 1976 and “Christ and the Creation,” Ensign, June 1982.) A number of prophetic commentators would also view Adam’s creation from the dust as figurative.

The Tree of Life/Knowledge of Good and Evil: Opinions regarding the trees may vary, but at least Elder Bruce R. McConkie designated the trees and their fruit as figurative.

To Adam and Eve the command came: “Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat, But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it, nevertheless, thou mayest choose for thyself, for it is given unto thee; but, remember that I forbid it, for in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” (Moses 3:16–17.) Again the account is speaking figuratively. What is meant by partaking of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is that our first parents complied with whatever laws were involved so that their bodies would change from their state of paradisiacal immortality to a state of natural mortality. (”Christ and the Creation,” Ensign, June 1982)

Other elements of the story such as the serpent, or Adam and Eve being naked, have not received as much attention and their status as either literal or figurative probably do not matter. Since the central objects of the story (ie. the trees and fruit) can be legitimately be viewed as figurative, I am inclined to view these other elements as figurative as well.

Accepting that Adam, Eve, and the Garden of Eden were historical realities, we still know almost nothing about what actually occured in the Garden and how Adam and Eve became mortal. This being the case, it strikes me as a little strange to say that evolution and the Fall cannot both be true.

[I should also point out that we know very little about how the Atonement actually works. Thus, when it is suggested that limiting the paradisiacal state of the earth to the Garden of Eden also limits the effects of the Atonment to that square acreage, I have to wonder whether the infinite Atonement is really limited by such technicalities.]

I’ve been sitting on this for quite a while, partly because I’m not much of a philosopher and partly because I haven’t been able to figure out what to do with it. So I’m finally just throwing it out.

“In his Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein proposed the idea of cluster, or ‘family resemblance’, concepts: some terms by their nature do not admit of an essentialist definition, but are rather characterized by a diffuse network of more or less loosely interconnected properties. Any particular instantiation of the concept may draw on a subset of such threads, even though there is a limit to such conceptual ‘plasticity’. Wittgenstein’s famous example is the idea of a game: the more one thinks about it, the more it is clear that it is difficult to list a set of characteristics that are necessary and sufficient to define what we mean by ‘game’. Board games like chess or monopoly clearly have more features in common than any of them has with ball games like soccer or basketball, and yet we meaningfully refer to all of these activities as ‘games’.

To put it as the master did: “How should we explain to someone what a game is? I imagine that we should describe games to him, and we might add: ‘This and similar things are called games’” (P.I., para. 69). … “But this is not ignorance. We do not know the boundaries because none have been drawn … We can draw a boundary for a special purpose” (ibid).

The same holds for species. Not only special purposes (like the very different works of a paleontologist and a geneticist), but also different classes of living organisms (a bacterium vs. a reptile) may require us to think of species as concepts made of a loose cluster of characteristics, some of which turn out to be particularly useful – while some do not apply – in any given circumstance.”

If this inspires anything in you, have at it.

Many Church members—even some who profess an interest in Mormon thought—resist discussion of evolution. Early in his career, Hugh Nibley discussed the subject in his classes; then, for a period of time, he decided “it was a waste of time;” and finally, he recognized that the alleged evolutionary origin of humanity is “a subject that is impossible to avoid,” and was willing to weigh in on the matter. He expressed his view in Before Adam, an address to the BYU community delivered in 1980 (also available in CWHN, Vol. 1, Ch. 4). While he commendably took scientific findings much more seriously than material published by the Church, in the end his view does not stand up in the face of currently available data.

Nibley deserves credit, first of all, for recognizing the need for a reconciliation between scientific data and scriptural accounts. He urges us to get beyond the “nursery tales” and “Sunday-school recitals” that many take away from Biblical stories, but he also disparages those who “fall into adolescent disillusionment” under the influence of their “emancipated teachers.” When it comes to getting beyond these default options, he declares that “We have drawn back from that assignment, preferring to save a lot of trouble and take sides with the traditional schools.”

Nibley is not kind to these “traditional schools.” “…we have been the spectators of a foolish contest between equally vain and bigoted rivals, in which it is a moot question which side heaps the most contempt on God’s creatures.” In the same vein, on the surface it would seem to be a moot question which of these “rivals”—“apostate religion” or “an always inadequate science”—receives more contempt from Nibley. With these, “…the issue is never the merits of the evidence but always the jealous rivalry of the contestants to see which would be the official light unto the world.”

In fact, however, his bark is worse than his bite; his sarcastic dismissals seem to be a rhetorical stance adopted out of concern over theories “that turned some of our best students away from the gospel,” and perhaps also an effort to assure his audience of his bona fides before taking a step or two beyond traditional doctrine. “Am I willing to stake my eternal salvation on their highly conflicting opinions?” No, Professor Nibley, we are persuaded you are not. But we can see past the red meat your audience demands to the way you have voted with your feet: your summaries of worldly learning, copious references, and ultimately your attempt at accomodating what you accept as stubborn facts all constitute a high compliment, betraying the time and thought—and therefore serious respect—you have accorded the scholars and scientists, and some of us are grateful.

Whether or not his mockery of the would-be official luminaries is merely rhetorical, it’s not, of course, as though Nibley himself is without an official light: “This means that Joseph Smith is the only entry.” Relying primarily on his ‘grown-up’ interpretation of the Book of Abraham, but sensitive to the facts uncovered by geology and paleontology, Nibley parses the account as a description of the creative enterprise more or less in line with scientific realism. He makes as much as possible of available resources offered by the text, emphasizing changes in perspective, the earth and waters being “prepared” to “bring forth” life, the waiting and watching to see that things “obeyed.” He paints an interesting picture “entailing careful planning based on vast experience, long consultations, models, tests, and even trial runs for a complicated system requiring a vast scale of participation by the creatures concerned.”

Predictably and perhaps necessarily, his congeniality towards science begins to wane as he approaches man, and he is ultimately at a loss to provide a clear-cut solution to the Adam problem (though he does in the end throw a desperate “Hail Mary,” mentioned below). He vacillates, on the one hand seeming to need and want the theoretical space afforded by eight “roles” and four “senses” of “Adam,” and acknowledging the existence of “100,000-year-old villages;” but in the end he chooses the other hand, and denies the authority of archaeology and anthropology to say anything about us. Regarding “creatures that looked like men long, long ago,”

…their world is not our world. They have all gone away long before our people ever appeared.…That gap between the record keeper and all the other creatures we know anything about is so unimaginably enormous and yet so neat and abrupt that we can only be dealing with another sort of being, a quantum leap from one world to another. Here is something not derivative from anything that has gone before on the local scene, even though they all share the same atoms.

By thus positing an unbridgeable gap in time and type, when it comes to man he makes a decisive break with evolution.

In making his case, Nibley positions himself above the fray, occupying the high ground cleared by Joseph’s sweeping revelations, and adopting the strategy of triangulation long before anyone ever heard of Dick Morris. Seeking a solution beyond those proferred by the equally inadequate jealous rivals, the idiosyncratic picture Nibley ends up with has important affinities to the position staked out by B. H. Roberts in his (until recently) unpublished manuscript The Truth, The Way, The Life. (One wonders if Nibley arrived at his views independently, or if perhaps he had access to this embargoed work of Elder Roberts.) Knowingly or unknowingly following in Elder Roberts’ footsteps, Nibley’s synthesis valiantly attempts to thread the needle–accepting more than is customary (for a Mormon) from science, while taking more seriously than is customary (for a scientist) the scriptural accounts. In conceding the reality of death before the fall and the existence of “a lot of creatures running about long ago who looked like men,” he risks alienting the Priests; in ultimately rejecting an evolutionary origin of mankind, he finds himself hopelessly at odds with the Scientists. His intriguing and dramatic finale, a bold coup de gras, is almost literally deus ex machina: a not-so-subtle hint at a resort to private acceptance of some form of the Adam-God doctrine in order to resolve the problem of Adam, whereby he manages to simultaneously offend both Priest and Scientist in equal measure—a situation probably inevitable in any attempted reconciliation anyway. (Nibley here provides a roadmap for getting away with this sort of thing with an academically unwashed audience of faith: first, let the impression fall as gently and subtly as possible, like the dews of heaven, that you know a hell of a lot more than they do; and second, make as explicit as possible—and as bombastically as occasion allows—your unalloyed allegiance to the Restoration, by roundly condemning its detractors while overtly wrapping yourself in the ægis of Joseph’s revelations. Must be fun to throw lightning bolts from that rhetorical Olympus.)

I like this piece of Nibley’s, for its willingness to take on the subject, its erudition, and its engaging, bold, almost flamboyant style; but I think it fails on scientific grounds, right where it matters most: the origin of man. It is not at all clear that the gaps in man’s nature and descent that he requires are there; on the contrary, everything seems to point to us being an elaboration of anatomy and culture possessed by ancient and different ancestors. (The modern genetic evidence seems particularly definitive regarding historically contingent descent of the physical body; see this post for a specific example.) Nibley seems tolerant of evolution of the animal kingdom, but is unwilling to take it all the way to man. (I suspect that if President McKay accepted evolution, as often alleged, it was only in this limited sense that does not ‘give away the store.’) The necessity of this gap is a legacy of the fundamental Mormon doctrine of an anthropomorphic, procreating God, whose consequences for the expected nature of exaltation will not easily be relinquished.

The LDS doctrine of God differs from that of others in a number of ways. Probably the most prominent difference is our belief that God the Father has a body of flesh and bones, presumably similar to the resurrected Jesus. This gives added meaning to our belief in Jesus’s divine Sonship. Church doctrine also teaches that we are all the spirit children of God. A more obscure doctrine concerns the relationship of Adam and Eve (and by extension, all of us) to God–that Adam and Eve are physical children of God. I say “obscure” because I was unaware of it until three-fourths of the way through my mission. It is beyond the scope of this post to give a thorough historical tracing of this doctrine. Rather, I want to provide an overview of the support for this doctrine and some of my own observations. (I have touched on this topic before, here.)

Background

I do not know exactly when this doctrine originated. Some cite this statement of Joseph Smith in support of the doctrine:

“Where was there ever a son without a father? And where was there ever a father without first being a son? Whenever did a tree or anything spring into existence without a progenitor? And everything comes in this way.” (TPJS, p. 373)

The idea that Adam was a physical son of God is a reasonable extension of this statement, but technically this statement was about the plurality of gods, not Adam’s creation. Brigham Young was probably more responsible for bringing this doctrine out into the open. He denied that Adam was literally made of dust and insisted that Adam had a physical father, which was intimately tied into Brigham’s Adam-God teachings.

It appears that in the decades following Brigham Young’s death, the teaching that Adam was a physical child of God was retained by stripping it away from, and discarding, Adam-God. A 1910 Church manual stated:

Man has descended from God: In fact, he is of the same race as the Gods. His descent has not been from a lower form of life, but from the Highest Form of Life; in other words, man is, in the most literal sense, a child of God. This is not only true of the spirit of man, but of his body also. There never was a time, probably, in all the eternities of the past, when there was not men or children of God. This world is only one of many worlds which have been created by the Father through His Only Begotten. (Church Manual, Course of Study for Priests, 1910, under the subject “The Creation of Man”)

Joseph F. Smith made this statement in 1913:

I know that my Redeemer liveth; . . . I know that God is a being with body, parts, and passions and that His Son is in His own likeness, and that man is created in the image of God. The Son, Jesus Christ, grew and developed into manhood the same as you or I, as likewise did God, His Father grow and develop to the Supreme Being that He now is. Man was born of woman; Christ the Savior, was born of woman and God, the Father, was born of woman. Adam, our early parent, was also born of woman into this world, the same as Jesus and you and I. (Deseret Evening News, Dec. 27, 1913, Sec. III, p. 7. Also quoted in Deseret News: Church Section, Sep. 19, 1936, pp. 2,8 )

In a 1912 letter to a mission president that dealt with a controversial speech by Brigham Young, the First Presidency under Joseph F. Smith included this statement:

But President Young went on to show that our father Adam, — that is, our earthly father, — the progenitor of the race of man, stands at our head, being “Michael the Archangel, the Ancient of Days,” and that he was not fashioned from earth like an adobe, but “begotten by his Father in Heaven.” Adam is called in the Bible “the son of God” (Luke 3:38). (James R. Clark, Messages of the First Presidency, Vol.4, 265-267)

Further support might be drawn from the 1909 First Presidency statement, “Origin of Man” (also under Joseph F. Smith). This document affirms our spiritual relationship with God, but also contains statements that could easily be interpreted as supporting a physical relationship as well. (This document is available on the sidebar as part of the BYU Evolution Packet.)

Perhaps the most influential proponent in modern times has been Elder Bruce R. McConkie who wrote:

Father Adam, the first man, is also a son of God (Luke 3:38; Moses 6:22), a fact that does not change the great truth that Christ is the Only Begotten in the flesh, for Adam’s entrance into this world was in immortality. He came here before death had its beginning, with its consequent mortal or flesh-status of existence. (”Son of God” in Mormon Doctrine)

This does not represent an exhaustive list of statements by Church leaders or publications that support this doctrine, but these are probably the most prominent.

Scriptural Support

As should be clear from the above discussion, the chief scriptural support for this concept comes from the New Testament and the Pearl of Great Price. A listing of Jesus’s genealogy in Luke states, “Which was the son of Enos, which was the son of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God.” (Luke 3:38, italics in KJV and indicate wording inserted by the translators.) In his commentary on the New Testament, Elder McConkie affirmed that these words meant what they said. This scripture was also cited by the First Presidency in the letter quoted above. Also in the context of genealogy, the Book of Moses states, “And this is the genealogy of the sons of Adam, who was the son of God, with whom God, himself, conversed” (Moses 6:22). No doubt some see the statement in the Book of Moses as the restoration of a “plain and precious” truth, yet there are facts that would seem to obscure its plainess.

The Book of Moses in the Pearl of Great Price is taken from Joseph Smith’s translation of the Bible. According to the Encyclopedia of Mormonism, Joseph translated Genesis 1-17 (maybe even through 24) and then switched to work exclusively on the New Testament. After finishing the New Testament, the Old Testament was then completed. The JST corresponding to Luke 3:38 alters the words “Adam, who was the son of God” to read “Adam, who was formed of God, and the first man upon the earth.” Since Joseph’s alteration of Luke occured after he wrote Moses 6:22, it seems reasonable to question whether he intended the literal interpretation that some have made of these verses.

Chapter 6 of the Book of Moses, itself, suggests a figurative interpretation because after Adam is baptized he is told “Behold, thou art one in me, a son of God; and thus may all become my sons. Amen.” (Moses 6:68) Here, Adam’s sonship is equated with the sonship (or daughterhood) that is offered to all of us. In a number of places, the scriptures refer to the status of a “son of God” as something one becomes through the Atonement (see John 1:12, 11:30, 34:3, and 45:8, for one example). A counter-argument to this might be that while Moses 6:22 has reference to Adam’s physical relationship to God the Father, the other scriptures have reference to becoming a son of Christ, as explained by King Benjamin in the Book of Mormon.

Another scripture cited in support of this doctrine is Moses 6:8 which says, “Now this prophecy Adam spake, as he was moved upon by the Holy Ghost, and a genealogy was kept of the children of God.” Again, the term “children of God” is usually used in scripture to refer to God’s covenant people. Some also equate the word “firstborn” with Adam’s physical birth in Abraham 1:3, but other readings seem equally legitimate.

Interestingly, there is at least one scripture that contradicts this doctrine. Speaking of Christ, D&C 93:10 says, “The worlds were made by him; men were made by him; all things were made by him, and through him, and of him.” Since God the Father is the father of our spirits, in what sense did Jesus make men if Adam is a physical son of God? Elder McConkie’s solution to this scripture is to invoke the principle of divine investiture of authority–the actions and words of the Father can be attributed to the Son, and vice versa. (The Promised Messiah, p.63. Elder McConkie also gives an extended treatment to how one becomes a son of God. One is first adopted into the family of Christ, and then into the family of Elohim. See chapter 20.)

Current Treatment

Although this doctrine has appeared in talks and Church publications from time to time, it seems to be almost absent from current Church teaching. “The Family: A Proclamation on the Family,” and Church manuals such as True to the Faith and Gospel Principles emphasize our spiritual relationship with God but say nothing of any physical relationship.

You are a literal child of God, spiritually begotten in the premortal life. As His child, you can be assured that you have divine, eternal potential and that He will help you in your sincere efforts to reach that potential. (”God the Father” in True to the Faith, p.74)

In fact, none of the Church Educational System (CES) Institute student manuals dealing with the Old Testament, New Testament, Pearl of Great Price, nor the more general “Doctrines of the Gospel” manual, contain commentary on Luke 3:38 or Moses 6:22 affirming the doctrine. (In most cases there is not any commentary on these scriptures at all.)

A search of the Ensign reveals only a handful of references to Luke 3:38 or Moses 6:22, none of which are contained in an article or talk by a General Authority. As far as I can determine, there have not been any General Conference statements in at least the last 25 years supporting the doctrine either. In the October 1980 conference, Elder Mark E. Petersen gave a talk in which he specifically criticized Adam-God. In the course of the talk he said:

Yet God our Eternal Father had only one son in the flesh, who was Jesus Christ. Then was Adam our God, or did God become Adam? Ridiculous! Adam was neither God nor the Only Begotten Son of God. He was a child of God in the spirit as we all are. Jesus was the firstborn in the spirit, and the only one born to God in the flesh.

This is one example of an Apostle emphasizing Adam’s (and by extension, our) spiritual relationship with God, but leaving any physical relationship untouched (or in this case apparently denied.)

Conclusion

The concept that Adam and Eve were physically born of Heavenly Parents is a natural extrapolation of our mortal experience and fits reasonably well within the overall structure of Mormon theology. It has been believed and taught by some of the best men of this dispensation. However, although I am not aware that the doctrine has ever been specifically repudiated, the dearth of support for it from LDS leaders for almost a generation leads me to conclude that it is considered an unsettled, and perhaps speculative, matter by current leadership.

[Update: In his 1976 book, Adam: Who Is He?, Elder Mark E. Petersen refers to Luke 3:38 in three places (pages 5, 13, 59), although without much elaboration. His 1980 talk notwithstanding, it is possible that he believed the doctrine.]

Readers of this blog will have noticed that I speak ill of “intelligent design,” and may wonder why that is. Why, as a believing Latter-day Saint, do I not support such a concept? There are number of reasons, some of which I have expressed in previous posts. Nevertheless, I thought it might be helpful if I concentrate some of them in one post, which I will link to on the sidebar and update as I feel inclined. Extensive critiques of intelligent design are available in books and on the internet.

Continue Reading at LDS Science Review

As discussed in my last post, B.H. Roberts sought to account for the age of the earth and the fossils therein by invoking a statement by Joseph Smith that “our planet was made up of the fragments of a planet which previously existed; some mighty convulsions disrupted that creation and made it desolate. Both its animal and vegetable life forms were destroyed” (Gospel and Man’s Relationship to Diety). In his later work, The Truth, The Way, The Life, Roberts apparently abandoned this line of reasoning, which was part of the reason the Church refused to publish it–he was asserting that life and death had occured on this earth before Adam and Eve.

Given his importance to Latter-day Saints, we are desirious to know everything Joseph Smith had to say on any topic and slow to discount his words. The first step in investigating this topic is to determine exactly what was said. The statement comes from notes taken by William Clayton of a speech by Joseph on January 5, 1841 and is published in The Words of Joseph Smith: The Contemporary Accounts of the Nauvoo Discourses of the Prophet Joseph, by Andrew F. Ehat and Lyndon W. Cook. (I am unaware of any other sources; please provide others if you know of them.) Here is the relevant passage:

The world and earth are not synonymous terms. The world is the human family. This earth was organized or formed out of other planets which were broke up and remodelled and made into the one on which we live. The elements are eternal. That which has a begining will surely have an end. Take a ring, it is without beginning or end; cut it for a beginning place, and at the same time you have an ending place.

A key, every principle proceeding from God is eternal, and any principle which is not eternal is of the Devil. The sun [the context suggests that this should be “Son.”] has no beginning or end, the rays which proceed from himself have no bounds, consequently are eternal. So it is with God. If the soul of man had a beginning it will surely have an end. In the translation, “without form and void” it should read “empty and desolate.” The word “created” should be formed or organized.

It is apparent from the surrounding sentences that Joseph’s main point concerns the eternal nature of element. In fact a footnote says that “the William P. McIntire account of this discourse indicates that the subject of ex nihilo creation was one of the major topics of discussion during this inaugural lyceum meeting.”

So we have a single, non-canonical statement taken from notes by William Clayton, that was not the main topic of Joseph’s speech. This seems to me, poor material with which to build arguments against modern science. James E. Talmage apparently thought so too:

The statement by Joseph Smith, quoted at the beginning of this article, has been amplified and applied by some of our people in a way unwarranted by the prophet’s utterance. This is no unusual incident in connection with the announcement of a great truth bearing the stamp of newness. Thus, the words of the prophet have been construed as meaning that great masses of material have come together in space to form this planet, and that the broken and disturbed state of the earth’s crust is an immediate result of these masses falling together in a disorderly way…

Whatever may have been the character of the planetesimal bodies, the existing structure of the earth’s crust is the result of causes less remote than the original accretion of these bodies,-causes of a kind yet operating,-disintegration, removal, and re-deposition in the case of these dimentaries, volcanism and metamorphism in the case of crystalline rocks. (Improvement Era, Vol. VII. MAY, 1904. No. 7.)

I have no training in geology, but I think it is a safe bet that the progress in geology over the 100 years that have passed since Talmage’s writing have only compounded the difficulties in maintaining the interpretation that he argues against.

The scientist Henry Eyring (father of Elder Henry B. Eyring) is reported to have said that “it would take a very fancy shovel to put the earth together in such an organized fashion so that the fossils and ages of rocks are arranged in such an orderly manner with the oldest on the bottom and the youngest on top.”

In his Sunstone article, Noah’s Flood: Modern Scholarship and Mormon Traditions, Duane Jeffery gives some treatment to this topic:

Some Latter-day Saints have tried to explain the fossil record with an uncanonized statement reportedly made by Joseph Smith that this earth was created from fragments of other earths. This sentiment is then extended to propose that dinosaurs, mammoths, and Australopithecines all come from other planets that have been destroyed, broken up, and recycled.

What size were the fragments? I have encountered claims all the way from continent-sized portions, to tectonic plates, to specific geological formations complete with living bristlecone pines on them, to mere atoms. Suffice it to say that no scientific evidence whatever exists to support such a model, and massive amounts of data indicate that our planet has, from its beginning, been a single dynamic but integrated entity–with continued accretions of space dust and meteorites of course.

Jeffery goes on to discuss theological questions such a scenario also raises.

Notice that none of this has anything to do with whether Joseph Smith was right or wrong. Like the quote commonly attributed to him concerning the Constitution hanging by a thread, the statement of interest here is rather vague and any interpretation of it says more about what the interpreter thinks than what Joseph thought. It gives no information as to how we could verify the statement, where we should look to do so, or what we should find. Even an interpretation of his statement regarding the eternal nature of elements is questionable, given our knowledge of nuclear physics and relativity. (Physicists could probably make an even stronger point here.)

What if Joseph really intended his audience to think that fossils came from recycled planets? Could it not be it a personal opinion, assumption, or speculation? Similar questions are currently in play regarding Joseph’s views on the geography of the Book of Mormon or the identity of the Lamanites. However, I do not think we need to argue over whether it was personal opinion or not because the statement is sufficiently vague that no specific meaning can be reliably attached to it. (I wonder if the word “fossil” was part of Joseph’s working vocabulary. My quick search on Gospelink 2001 did not return any usage of the word by Joseph. If anybody finds otherwise, please provide a reference in the comments.)

Finally, I think it would be useful to have a list of specific evidences that the scenario Roberts put forth would have to overcome or explain in order to be plausible. I invite readers to leave such in the comments–with references if possible. (Don’t worry about the age of the post, comment anyway.)

Perhaps Joseph was absolutely right in what he said. But until we know what he meant, or we uncover meanings consistent with available evidence, it seems best to put his statement aside for now. I think it unwise to use the statement as a weapon until we know which way it cuts.

[This is a cross-post at LDS Science Review.]

Gospel and Man’s Relationship to Deity, a book written by B.H. Roberts, was first published in 1888 with new editions released as a late as 1924. In a “Supplement” at the end of the book, Roberts takes on the topic of evolution. It is clear from his discussion that Roberts did not accept evolution for reasons having to do with both theology and science. Since there were multiple editions of the book, I do not know whether the supplement was included from the beginning or was added later, however it appears that he eventually did modify some of his thinking on the matter (see below).

The Supplement is interesting for at least two reasons. First, it shows what Roberts thought about evolution (as understood at the time). Second, Roberts lays out a number of arguments that persist to this day. The Supplement is too long to reproduce here, but I will provide the most relevant passages. Since it is such a readily accessible resource, I will also provide links to counter-arguments made on Talkorigin.com’s Index to Creationist Claims. I will also add a few comments of my own. In doing so I intend no disrespect toward Roberts–as the 1931 controversy and other aspects of his life show, he was a man of both spiritual and intellectual integrity. I do not, however, believe that we do Roberts any honor by not providing answers to his objections.

The state of science has progressed immeasurably since Roberts first published this book–or even since he died. Think of the concepts of radioactive decay, genes, plate tectonics, the structure and coding of DNA, molecular biology, and genomics–the majority of these did not even exist in Roberts’ lifetime and those that did were still in their infancy. These concepts have brought us an unprecedented understanding of the world we live in–an understanding that is increasingly harnessed by technology for practical benefit. I wonder what Roberts would say today.

Excerpts from the Supplement (page numbers are included):

p.265 What do these facts prove, I mean the sterility of species and hybrids on the one hand, and fertility of varieties, descendants from a common stock, on the other? Why, that the great law of nature is, as announced in holy writ, that every seed shall produce after its kind, and every fish, fowl, creeping thing, beast, and man shall bring forth after his kind-that is what it proves. And though man may for a moment by crossing species cause a slight deviation from the great law, it can be but for an instant, the monstrosity cannot be perpetuated, it dies out by being made unfruitful.

How do these facts affect the theory of evolution? Let us remember upon what that theory rests. It rests upon the principle that lower forms producing favorable variations, and these being preserved by the process of natural selection, amount finally to the production of distant species; but we have seen that varieties cannot produce what may be called the great characteristic of species-infertility to each other; then also we have seen there is a check to variation in the sterility of species and hybrids. Add these facts to that other fact that neither in living nature nor in the geological records can be found the intermediate transitional forms linking together by fine gradations the species, and the theory of evolution as advocated by many modern scientists lies stranded upon the shore of idle speculation.

Now that the basis of heredity and genetics are better understood, Roberts’ objections are consistent with, if not outright supportive of, evolution. The more closely related two species are, the more likely it is that they can produce a hybrid (not all hybrids are sterile, by the way). Inability to produce a hybrid means that the reproductive isolation is complete. This is a matter of genetics, not a supernatural law governing variation.

Evolution has not been proved.
Mutations do not produce new features.
Range of variation is limited within kinds.
Evolution predicts a continuum of organisms, not discrete kinds.
Transitional fossils are lacking.
There should be billions of transitional fossils.
Science cannot define “species.”

p.266 But if the hypothesis of evolution be true, if man is only a product evolved from the lower forms of life, better still producing better, until the highest type of intellectual manhood crowns with glory this long continued process-then it is evident that there has been no “fall,” such as the revelations of God speak of; and if there was no fall, there was no occasion for a Redeemer to make atonement for man, in order to reconcile him to God; then the mission of Jesus Christ was a myth, the coinage of idle brains, and Jesus himself was either mistaken, or one of the many impostors that have arisen to mock mankind with the hope of eternal life.

There are two crucial links in reasoning here, and in many other theological treatments of evolution. The first is that the Fall of Adam and Eve is incompatible with evolution. The second is that without the Fall, the Atonement is unnecessary. I would like to deal with these in a future post. For now I will just say that I believe that these objections can be overcome. (If the first is overcome, the second is moot.) It is self-evident that we are subject to physical death. It is also self-evident (to most people) that we are not in the presence of God. Since the purpose of the Atonement is to overcome these two things, I think that how they came to be is of secondary importance, theologically. I hope to expand on this in a future post. Although the index treatment of this is unsatisfactory to me, it at least gives something to think about.

Without a literal Fall, there is no need for Jesus and redemption.

p.267 I am aware that there is a class of men who profess to be “Christian evolutionists,” and who maintain that Christianity can be made to harmonize with the philosophy of evolution. But how are they made to harmonize? We are told that Jesus is still a Redeemer, but in this sense only: he gave out faultless moral precepts, and practiced them in his life, and inasmuch as people accept his doctrines and follow his example they will be redeemed from evil. But as to the fall of man and the atonement made for him by the Son of God-both ideas are of necessity rejected; which means, of course, denying the great fundamental truths of revelation; it is by destroying the basis on which the Christian religion rests, that the two theories are harmonized-if such a process can be called harmonization. It is on the same principle that the lion and the lamb harmonize, or lie down together-the lion eats the lamb.

If this is the best harmonization that can be accomplished, we do have a problem. While this may be the solution for some, I think the options presented here are a false dichotomy. See above.

p.279 The Prophet Joseph Smith is credited with having said that our planet was made up of the fragments of a planet which previously existed; some mighty convulsions disrupted that creation and made it desolate. Both its animal and vegetable life forms were destroyed…

p.281 Accepting this statement of Joseph Smith relative to our planet in its present state being created or formed from the fragments of a planet which previously existed, one may readily understand how the supposed differences between scientists and believers in revelation have arisen. Scientists have been talking of the earth’s strata, that were formed in a previously existing planet; they have considered the fossilized flora and fauna embedded in those strata, and have speculated as to the probable lapse of time since those animal and vegetable forms of life existed; and have generally concluded that the age is so far remote that there is no possible chance of harmonizing it with the account of the creation as given in the Bible. Believers in the Bible, on the other hand, have generally taken it for granted that the account of the creation in the sacred record would give to the earth no greater antiquity than six thousand years; and have held that within that period the universe was created out of nothing by the volition of Deity-an idea so palpably absurd that intelligence, despite all church authority to the contrary, everywhere rejects it.

The theory set forth in this writing that before Adam was placed upon this earth to people it with his offspring, the matter of which it is composed existed in another planet, which by some mighty convulsion was broken up, and from its ruins was formed our present earth, at once affords a means of harmonizing those facts established by the researches of men and the facts of revelation. If scientists shall claim that myriads of years or of centuries must have been necessary to form the earth’s crust, it may be allowed by the believers in revelation, for there is nothing that would contradict that idea in the revelations of God on the subject. If scientists shall claim that the fossilized remains in the different strata of the earth’s crust reveal the fact that in the earlier periods of the earth’s existence only the simpler forms of vegetation and animal life are to be found, both forms of life becoming more complex and of higher type as the earth becomes older, until it is crowned with the presence of man-all that may be allowed. But that this gradation of animal and vegetable life owes its existence to the process of evolution is denied. As before stated, the claims of evolution, as explained by philosophers of the Darwin school, are contrary to all experience so far as man’s knowledge extends. The great law of nature is that every plant, herb, fish, beast and man produces its kind; and though there may be slight variation from that law, those variations soon run out either by reverting to the original stock, or else by becoming incapable of producing offspring, and thus become extinct.

Furthermore, since we have learned that God made “every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb before it grew” (i. e. in our earth), the gradation of life forms which the naturalists discover in the various strata of the earth’s crust may reasonably be accounted for aside from the theory of evolution-viz., by the animal and vegetable life forms of some older earth being brought to our own; different species being transplanted as changed conditions in the soil and atmosphere and temperature of our earth rendered it favorable to their productions, the older species becoming extinct as the changed conditions of the earth became unfavorable to them.

Then too, the theory advanced in this writing gives ample room for the reconciliation of another serious difficulty between the scientist and the believer in revelation. To the latter Adam is the first man; the former maintains that there are evidences which prove the earth to have been inhabited before Adam’s time. Whether or not the planet which existed previous to our own, and out of the ruins of which our own was organized was inhabited by man as well as by vegetation and animals, I cannot say; all remarks on this subject would be conjecture merely. But if the researches of scientists prove beyond all question that there were pre-Adamic races, then doubtless they were inhabitants of that world which was destroyed, but the evidence of their existence as well as the evidence of the existence of animals and vegetation was preserved in the re-creation of that planet to form this earth. Though, in this connection, I must say that so far as I have examined the works of those who treat on the subject of pre-historic man, or pre-Adamic races, they have hung the heaviest weights on the slenderest of threads: and I am inclined to the opinion that Adam was the progenitor of all races of men whose remains have yet been found.

The claim that the age of the earth and the fossil evidence can be explained by the earth having been formed from previous planets that were broken is unique, I think, to Latter-day Saints. I will defer discussion of this claim to my next post. I would just note that one of the reasons The Truth, The Way, The Life was not published by the Church was because it assumed life and death had occurred on this earth before Adam and Eve. Thus it appears that Roberts did not stick to the argument laid out above.

The statement by Roberts that “the claims of evolution…are contrary to all experience so far as man’s knowledge extends” is telling. I think that many arguments against evolution really boil down to this sentiment. It is what Richard Dawkins calls “The Argument from Personal Incredulity.” However, the truth or accuracy of scientific concepts does not lie in whether they are intuitive or not. Quite the contrary–science is full of counter-intuitive ideas. For example, even a casual exploration of physics will uncover concepts that have no resemblance to our day-to-day lives. We are used to it now, but there is nothing immediately intuitive about how microorganisms cause disease–the etiology of infectious diseases has been unknown for most of history. The germ theory of disease was deemed absurd by some skeptics. Examples could be multiplied–the point is that our daily experience is not always the best way to judge such things.

As for the transplantation of life on earth from a another planet, this is a common idea found in LDS circles–I’m not sure whether it is found in the broader Christian tradition. The history of this concept within Mormonism would be interesting–something I may investigate later. For now I will just say that the idea that most life-forms were transplanted from another place does not really solve any problems. First, it does nothing to answer the question of how the life-forms were created. It merely moves the question back to another place. It also fails to explain the evidences from biogeography, the fossil record, and molecular evidences of common descent. Whether the original life on earth was a transplant is something that probably cannot be ruled out by present evidence, but that is another matter. If transplantation of life from elsewhere has occured we currently have no evidence for it, and for large-scale transplantation, we have much evidence against it.

Macroevolution has never been observed.

[This is a cross-post from LDS Science Review.]

Perhaps the men most responsible for popularizing evolution was Herbert Spencer and Thomas H. Huxley (sometimes referred to as “Pope Huxley” of “Darwin’s bulldog”). Interestingly enough, their popularization efforts centered not in the biological consequences of Darwin’s idea, but in the political ramifications, especially in the case of Spencer. Spencer’s coining of the phrase “survival of the fittest” was intended not only to describe biological evolution, but as a principle of economics as well. Those who are able to prosper is some sense should and should not try to bag down the rest of humanity by helping the “weak” to survive and reproduce through altruistic acts of charity.

It is for this reason that the LDS church of the second half of the 19th century was not too persuaded by evolution. At the time, Pres. Young and to a lesser degree Taylor were trying vigorously to impliment the United Order and nothing could have been more contrary to the United Order than Spencer ideas of Social Darwinism. It is in this context that Brigham writes to his son:

We have enough and to spare, at present in these mountains, of schools where young infidels are made because the teachers are so tender-footed that they dare not mention the principles of the gospel to their pupils, but have no hesitancy in introducing into the classroom the theories of Huxley, of Darwin, or of Miall and the false political economy which contends against co-operation and the United Order. This course I am resolutely and uncompromisingly opposed to, and I hope to see the day when the doctrines of the gospel will be taught in all our schools, when the revelation of the Lord will be our texts, and our books will be written and manufactured by ourselves and in our own midst. As a beginning in this direction I have endowed the Brigham Young Academy at Provo and [am] now seeking to do the same thing in this city. (Letters of Brigham Young to His Sons, 200)

Clearly this was a bit of an over-reaction on Brigham’s part on a number of levels. First of all, Darwin did not himself fully buy into Social Darwinism, despite it’s unfortunate name. Second, I don’t think that anybody at Brigham Young University would really want to take the scriptures as their textbook for any subject outside of the religion department.

Where Brigham was right, howver, was in his rejection of Social Darwinism. Though I should make it clear that his rejection was hardly based on any kind of logical error which he perceived in the theory. He almost certainly rejected the theory out of an allegiance to his interpretation of scripture and revelation. Luckily, by the end of the second world war, the rest of the academic world has also come to realize many of the flaws in Spencer’s reasoning. These errors came to mind all to easily upon seeing Hitler take Spencer’s reasoning to an extreme in his genocidal racism.

Darwinism in itself does not contradict the United Order as practiced by the early Saints. I wouldn’t say that it supports it either, but nobody has ever articulated the logical bridges necessary to cross from the “is” of biological evolution to the “ought” of Social Darwinism. But wait. Aren’t we told that evolution is centered around the “selfish gene”? How can a biological theory is is surely based of selfishness of some kind or another ever support the altruism necessary for the Law of Consecration to work in any form?

The answer to this question lies in the difference which exists between the “selfish genotype,” an idea which evolution definitely supports, and the “selfish phenotype,” an idea called Social Darwinism which biological evolution says little about. It is in the very selfishness of our genes that the altruism of our phenotypes has evolved. Altruism can emerge under many forms, for example kin selection and reciprocal altruism.

Kin selection is the altruism found in most animal species where the parents or siblings make sacrifices for the benefit of their children or siblings. This can be understood by the fact that the children bear the genes of their parents, thus when a parent sacrifices for their offspring, they are actually serving their own genes as found in their offspring. Thus, phenotypic altruism serves the selfishness of the genes.

I very interesting example of this is found in wasps, ants and bees where by an unusual genetic phenomenon, females are more closely related to their sisters than they are to their daughters. Thus, from a selfish gene point of view, it is more profitable for these females to occupy themselves raising the offspring of their fertile sisters than their fertile daughters. And this is exactly what we observe in such colonies in the case of females, but not males who have no such genetic relationship. This is a clear example of the selfish gene producing radically altruistic behavior on the phenotypic level.

The other example of genetically based phenotypic altruism is reciprocal altruism. This too is found among many species of animals, especially mammals, the great apes in particular. This is where I am nice to people when they are nice to me, thereby allowing all of us better chances at survival and serving the selfish gene again. Many studies have been done using game theory to show how such behavior could evolve and with great success. Due to the societal relationships of early man and most great apes, where the society are small bands with a relatively large perentage of the population being related, it would not be at all improbable for kin selection to evolve into reciprocal altruism. It is due to such “in born” reciprocal altruism that our tendencies towards contractual relationships has evolved, suggests the founder of sociobiology, Edward Wilson. We are naturally inclined, to a certain extent, to be altruistic on the phenotypic level.

Now we are approaching the law of consecration as expressed in the United Order. The revelation was as follows:

And again I say unto you, let every man esteem his brother as himself. For what man among you having twelve sons, and is no respecter of them, and they serve him obediently, and he saith unto the one: Be thou clothed in robes and sit thou here; and to the other: Be thou clothed in rags and sit thou there—and looketh upon his sons and saith I am just? Behold, this I have given unto you as a parable, and it is even as I am. I say unto you, be one; and if ye are not one ye are not mine. (D&C 38)

This was the point of the Law of Consecration the extending of the family, that we consider those around us (remember this was in the context of the United Order) brothers and sisters and not just in name but in action. It was not just giving of your “time and talent” to the church as we hear today, but giving of everything, especially money. How many are willing to merely give of their time and talents to their children, expecting that to be enough for their sustanance? We are to treat those around exactly as we do our kin, because that is what they are.

Some people, especially mothers, consider their children to be but an extension of themselves. It isn’t a her and them relationship at all, but is instead a “we” relationship, the first person plural. The Law of Consecration as practiced in the United Order was an attempt to extend this first person plural to include all other members of the church and community as well. It was to transform the my family and their family relationship into an “our family” relationship. Thus, in the United Order people were asked to embrace an intense phenotypic expression of reciprocal altruism (done by a covenant and deed which cannot be broken, D&C 42:30) which was to be considered a form of spiritual kin selection.

I’m not saying that we are biologically engineered to be communists or to embrace the United Order. I’m simply pointing out that the genetic selfishness inherent in evolution is not at all in conflict with our doctrines concerning consecration as Brigham evidently believed. Indeed, most naturalists view religious inclination in general to have been an evolutionary adaption meant to facilitate greater group cohesion. I can think of no greater expression of this cohesion than that found in the United Order.