On The Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ and Evolution

Chad Nielsen

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There has been some recent excitement in the Latter-day Saint scholarly community about the recent publication of BYU Life Sciences, The Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ and Evolution. It’s a publication that’s been years in the making, and highly anticipated during the last few years, so it’s good to see it come to fruition. Co-editor Jamie Jensen recent discussed the book in an interview at the Latter-day Saint history and theology site, From the Desk. What follows here is a copost to the full interview.

What Should Latter-day Saints Know About BYU’s Evolution Book?

Jamie Jensen started out by explaining some of the background and purpose of the book:

Ultimately, the BYU evolution book was published to provide students with a tool to help them embrace truths discovered through science about the origins and history of modern-day diversity while maintaining a strong and unflappable testimony in the Savior Jesus Christ, His restored Gospel, and the Plan of Salvation.

For years, I have taught biology at BYU and watched students wrestle with evolution, sometimes for the first time in their lives—and how to reconcile it with the religious beliefs they hold dear.

I have seen them reach out, sometimes in desperation, for a bridge, for resources to help them overcome cognitive conflict, and for advice on adjusting their schemas to accommodate additional truths they are learning. At the beginning of my career here, I watched them struggle with a lack of readily available resources about this topic. …

Five and a half years ago, the editors of this book (myself included) were approached by BYU Studies to consider compiling an academic collection of essays that address both religious and scientific components of the evolution-religion complexity. We thought it was a great idea, and we set out to find the best experts in both religion and evolutionary science who shared a genuine desire to help students (and all members of the Church) find successful reconciliation.

Through a long and convoluted series of events, most of which had nothing to do with evolution and all of which were well beyond our control, we decided the best way to get this tool into the hands of students in the most efficient and accessible manner was to publish it through the BYU College of Life Sciences.

I believe it will be a useful resource for discussing evolution in the Church.

Evolution is a fraught topic for many, partly because it has been weaponized in arguments against religion. But the Church as a whole has tried to remain neutral on the topic, leaving room for this type of discussion to take place:

The Church does not have an official position on evolution, or you could say, it has a “neutral” position.

Here is the latest from the Church:

The packet also included an entry from the 1992 publication The Encyclopedia of Mormonism, produced with Church leader approval, which explained that “the scriptures tell why man was created, but they do not tell how.

Church History Topics: Organic Evolution

In 2016, the Church’s youth magazine published articles on pursuing scientific truth. These articles reiterated that “the Church has no official position on the theory of evolution” and characterized it as a “matter for scientific study.”

Neutrality leaves possibilities open for discussion. And given that evolution is a widely-accepted part of the scientific worldview, it’s useful to have discussions that make it so people don’t feel like they have to choose between their faith and their learnings from biology.

Now, my personal background is in biology and engineering with hobbies in religious history and theology, so this book is right up my alley. And one thing that I’ve noticed is that there is often too much certainty on either side when evolution and religion are discussed combatively. A basic tenet of science, after all, is that nothing can truly be proven. I have come to be comfortable with living in uncertainty as a result of this. In the interview, Jensen was asked: “How Does the Book Help Students Grow Comfortable With Uncertainty?” Her response didn’t seem to be directed to the question, but did provide insight into the book itself:

Rarely, at least in a science class, do we talk about the religious aspects of this intersection. I think this is where our book offers a unique tool. Most of the resources we have created previously are focused on science. The Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ and Evolution offers an accurate and in-depth treatise of the religious and scientific sides of the intersection by experts in each field, making it a more complete resource for students.

That combination does make The Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ and Evolution an important resource.

For more on the BYU evolution book, head on over to the Latter-day Saint history blog From the Desk to read the full interview with Jamie Jensen.

Comments

13 responses to “On The Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ and Evolution”

  1. ji

    Thanks for the introduction.

    Based on what I have heard about BYU’s climate these days, I have to say I most sincerely hope the editors face no harm for producing this book.

  2. Stephen C.

    I love you guys, but **eyeroll**

  3. Hoosier

    …it’s literally published by BYU. BYU printed it. A large chunk of the Religion Department contributed to it.

    Do you…*want* to feel scandalized? C’mon, don’t make me believe that Huxley was any more right than I already do.

  4. Mark V.

    I have come to believe in evolution, but the more I learn about it the less compatible it seems with certain fundamental LDS doctrines. For example, everything I have read about evolution and DNA science says there was no, and could have been no, “Adam and Eve.” In other words, there was no father and mother over all of Homo sapiens.

    If that’s true, then there could have been no Fall, right? No identifiable person or persons exercising agency in a specific way to suddenly trigger death. And if that is so, doesn’t that moot or undo the standard concept of Christian Atonement?

    Related issue is that natural selection requires selection, which requires death, which it seems they’re always was. If there is always been death attached to life, it would be problematic for Christianity to suppose that the creator introduced it. This is another undermining of the need for Christian atonement.

    I don’t think evolution is incompatible with belief in God (which I do), but it does seem incompatible with fundamental doctrines and myths upon which most Judeo-Christian biblical religion is built.

  5. Jack

    Mark V.,

    I think it helps to view the Garden of Eden saga as “other worldly” — something that existed on another plain. The garden setting was paradisiacal in nature–or of a terrestrial order. And after Adam and Eve — who represent the entirety of the human family — partake of the fruit they are driven out of the garden. And so they are moved to a new venue where death is the order of the day.

    That said, what we don’t know is how the various divisions of the sacred cosmos interact and interlock with one another. It could be that 4.5 billion years in this sphere is nothing but a blip in the screen where God dwells. And so the preparation of our mortal bodies through evolutionary pathways doesn’t really pose a problem with respect to how, when, or where the garden and the fallen world line up exactly.

    Admin,

    My earlier comment hath disappeared from the face of this thread.

  6. j

    admin,

    Disregard my complaint about the deleted comment. I found it on a different thread.

    I’m getting old in my old age.

  7. Chad Nielsen

    Jack, glad to know the comment didn’t disappear!

  8. jader3rd

    I think that most of the conflict comes from outside of the church telling people that there must be a conflict between religion and evolution, and as a show of faith you must flaunt your ignorance of evolution. I wish that somewhere in church studies, we could take the time to point out how this is mostly an outside influence.
    Brandishing ignorance is not a show of faith.

  9. Stephen C

    In terms of Adam, it is true that with science we probably need to drop the idea of Adam and Eve as the first two and only two progenitors of the human race, but that assumes that that’s the defining characteristic of Adam and Eve. That they couldn’t have been, say, two universal but not exclusive progenitors of the human race, or prophets that went through some kind of Garden and Fall moment in a celestial realm before being born on the earth, etc. There are a lot of ways to preserve Adam and Even without holding that they were the universal and exclusive progenitors of the human race. Even though that has traditionally been on of their defining characteristics, the temple kind of hits you over the head with the idea that it’s intensely symbolic, so we have a lot of leeway on this.

  10. Tom McKnight

    When I was 16 years old, as a new convert to the Church, I first began seriously noticing that there was a conflict here. Either the Gospel was true, or Evolution. The Gospel won out, but I still had to deal with the Evolution issue. Years after mission, graduating from college, and mostly getting the family raised, I did the research I needed for myself. Here it is: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1k-WlQUX0m8o3Y2FpLq_aUY8Q_up9BmaagTo2txoV1IQ/edit?pli=1&tab=t.0

  11. rogerdhansen

    There is no conflict between the message of Christ and evolution. There is a conflict between OT literalism and evolution.

    Once one accepts that Genesis is myth, which most Church members currently believe, then the issues start to resolve themselves. We as members need to abandon the false ideas of Joseph Fielding Smith and his SIL about evolution. The discussion should be between Mormon evolutionists and non-Mormon evolutionists.

    What CES or the BYU religion faculty has to say about evolution is irrelevant. Their track record on these types of issues is abysmal.

    This book might have been timely 50+ yrs ago. Now it is too late. The idea that it might controversial is very distressing.

  12. Jack

    The problem wasn’t that some church leaders were wrong on the science of evolution. The larger problem was that some folks were using evolution to discount the Biblical narrative of our beginnings. And so, Joseph Fielding Smith, Bruce R. McConkie, and others denounced evolution–as it was understood at the time–as the final word on our beginnings as God’s children. They fiercely defended the doctrine of God as the Creator, our divine lineage and heritage, the premortal existence and so forth. And so, when they said that evolution was incorrect they were both right and wrong. They were right that it didn’t answer questions having to do with our deep past–and they were wrong to suggest that the science itself was incorrect. But given the importance of the former I can give them a pass on the latter–at least as the debate was understood in those days.

  13. Chad Nielsen

    Roger and Jack, it’s usually better to look at cause and effect in a contribution rather than blame framework. Church leaders being on the wrong side of evolution contributed to the current situation and atheist propaganda that weaponized evolution against religion also has contributed to the current situation. Jamie Jensen does actually tackle the latter point in her chapter pretty well. And while this book would have been nice to have 50 to 100 years ago, it’s better late than never.

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