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Has Science & History Disemboweled Mormonism?

Research by Kerry A. Shirts

I was talking to a friend a little while back and was telling him how much I was enjoying discussing Mormonism on the Internet. I was telling him how interesting it is to see things about Mormonism from non-Mormon views and how it was helping me rethink my assumptions, thoughts, and feelings about Joseph Smith and Mormonism. He told me he didn't have to bother with all that at all since science and history have disemboweled Mormonism. I asked him what he meant, and he told me all about the Solomon Spaulding theory and Views of the Hebrews and how Smith just stole stuff from the Bible, you know, the old anti-Mormon chestnuts. But then he also claimed that science has proven Mormonism wrong. Science itself, with all the new information about Quantum Mechanics and how impossible it was for angels to visit us on earth and all that sorta thing.

Well I've had time to think about it for a bit and try to understand what assumptions come with this idea that science has disemboweled Mormonism and I'm going to share with you folks on the Internet some of my thoughts and research. I'm giving him a copy of this also.

Few would argue (please don't) that mathematics is a branch of science, and is actually a very powerful conveyer of knowledge in science, and is in fact, the language of science. Well just in this one branch I found out the interesting and astounding reason why we can NEVER even begin to have more than an elementary understanding here. In their book "The Mathematical Experience," Philip J. Davis & Reuben Hersh discuss how much math is discovered every year. It is a staggering thing to realize that over 200,000 mathematical theorums are published every year. "If the number of theorums is larger than one can possibly survey, who can be trusted to judge what is 'important?'" (p. 21) But what's more, "...there will rarely be any single person who is in command of recent work in more than two or three areas [of math]." (p. 21).

Our knowledge is abyssmally low in just this one branch of science, and CAN NEVER be anything other, according to this text.

Roger Penrose in his fine text, "The Emperor's New Mind," states that the status of physical theory still has "many mysteries to be unravelled and many deep insights yet to be gained." What's more "...a vast amount about its detailed structure and relevant operation is not yet known..." (p. 149) Penrose also notes that there are many... very many things about physics that we do not know. (p. 4). He also discusses how many scientists have been led into error because of other scientists who thought they knew everything (p. 23).

Ivars Peterson in his interesting text, "The Mathematical Tourist," says that math will never have final answers even though some think it is unchanging, reliable, has an aura of authority and rests on the firm foundation of logic. "Mathematics, too, changes and grows, not only in the way it is applied, but also in its fundamental structure. New ideas are introduced; intriguing connections between old ideas are discovered. Chance observations and informed guesses develop into whole new fields of inquiry." (p. 9)

With this tentativeness and ever new and refreshing information changing our understanding as well as the "fundamental structures" of math, we certainly CANNOT claim a finality to our knowledge here. This doesn't mean we are lost or that math is useless (far from it!) but it does mean that what we may think today may not be what is tomorrow.

James Gleick in his astounding text "Chaos: Making a New Science," shows that scientists, far from being objective and rational discoverers of knowledge, "had learned not to see chaos." (p. 67) In fact he goes on to show that people are automatically trained to see that the results of being unable to solve differential equations, which leads to chaos, dismissed the unsolvable equations as aberrations (p. 68) Scientists and non scientists can be easily mislead about complexity if they are not properly tuned. (p. 68). In other words, by their being tuned to one thing, they missed another, which is, it turns out, a legitimate science.

Jeremy Campbell's book "Grammatical Man" also teaches us that what we know, and what we think we know is not so at all. "The human observer cannot be excluded completely, because the idea of order is inextricably linked to the mind's awareness. Muddle, to some extent, is in the brain of the beholder. One person's disorder may be another person's order, depending on how much knowledge that person possesses about the details of the apparent confusion." (p. 32f).

An interesting illustration of this would be my saying that a square is not always a square. Someone with knowledge of basic geometry is sure to complain that I am just muddling up language in order to pull wool over their eyes. It is obvious that a square, with four sides, is always a square! But as we further our knowledge, this muddle straightens out, since, it is also obvious that were a square drawn on a sphere, then Euclidean geometry would not hold, and the square would not be a square. It is the same thing when a triangle is drawn on a spere, its total angles are NOT 180 degrees, but the sum of the angles will be more than 180 degrees. (see Fritjof Capra, "The Tao of Physics," p. 52; Isaac Asimov, "The Edge of Tomorrow," p. 171).

Our conclusions are only as good as the assumptions we make with any knowledge we possess, and further knowledge can eliminate the muddle, no matter how ridiculous the muddle may seem! Science will nor can it ever have the last word on anything. Fred Alan Wolf demonstates this conclusively in his wonderfully mind bending book, "Taking the Quantum Leap". In fact reality has been changed completely with the recent proving of Bell's Thoerum as Nick Herbert shows in his text "Quantum Reality: Beyond the New Physics". Furthermore, some very cherished notions of physics are being challenged such as the absolute speed of light in Nick Herbert, "Faster Than Light:Superluminal Loopholes in Physics," as well as John W. Macvey, "Time Travel," Science is not a sacred cow, nor are any of her precepts. Things in science are just not final no matter how hard we look for finality and rationality.

Paul Davies says rather seriously that we live in an 11 dimension universe, ("Other Worlds"). A very wild read to be sure.

Scientists have begun to lose that old cocksureness that we have everything under control and that science can find all the answers, "...scientific explanations sometimes fail to capture the essence of actual experience, for they are unable to address our subjective reactions to nature. Therefore, despite its power to shape the modern world, science has little to say about the way in which people live their daily lives; enter into relationships; experience love, birth, and death; give value to the world; and respond to new situations in creative ways." (F. David Peat, "Synchronicity," p. 113).

One of the main problems with our current scientific attitudes toward knowledge is that we have fragmented compartments of knowledge in science and hence cannot see the overall patterns and fail to progress in our knowledge. (David Bohm F. David Peat, "Science, Order, and Creativity," p. 12)

R. Buckminster Fuller says "Dare to be naive." What he means by this he clearly says: "It is one of our most exciting discoveries that local discovery leads to a complex of further discoveries. The corollary to this we find that we no sooner get a problem solved than we are overwhelmed with a multiplicity of additional problems in a most beaustiful payoff of heretofore unknown, previously unrecognized, and as-yet unsolved problems." (Synergetics:Explorations in the Geometry of Thinking," p. xix) He also notes that science "has made no experimental finding of any phenomena that can be described as solid, or as continuous, or as a straight surface plane, or as a straight line, or as infinite anything." (!) (p. xxxi).

John L. Casti, "Paradigms Lost: Images of Man in the Mirror of Science," shows how various schools of thought on Quantum Physics used which assumptions to come to differing conclusions, and hence none of them necessarily coming to any sort of real reality. (pp. 456-467).

While there are many, many other texts which proclaim much the same information in every branch of science, I would also add that the same thing is happening in religion. Religion changes as it must, exactly as science and our understanding of both disciplines goes. In fact, religion, and Mormonism, MUST change. That is the Tanner's pot-shot against Mormonism in their heavily loaded titled book "The Changing World of Mormonism". Well of course! But the question isn't should Mormonism change, the question is HOW should it change? A religion which stays as it was when it started is a dead stagnant religion. By further revelation, God's church can and does change. The circumstances of today are not the same as those in the early 1800's. We believe that God will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to God's Kingdom. The show is not over yet. We do not have nor do we claim to have final knowledge yet. That will come much later and far into the eternities after we have died here.

Both disciplines are incomplete in this sense. There is new knowledge to be had, new things we are to do. When we are told that a discipline has proven Mormonism false, we must remember that ALL knowledge on earth is incomplete, and as more is learned there are rising with this new knowledge far more questions than there are answers. That is the point of living by faith is it not?

We ought to study out of the best books as we have been told to do in the D & C, but WITH the hope and prayer that eternal knowledge of eternal principles will also distill from heaven as the dews of the morning do. It's no shame to say we don't know everything, anymore than it is to say we have made mistakes in our understanding or knowledge, but the correct cure is to learn more! It is most dangerous when we sit back and say I have learned enough. THAT is PRIDE. The cure for authoritarianism in any discipline is to learn more. An open mind is open only if it is an enquiring mind (Hugh Nibley). We must stretch ourselves in learning. This is why I don't believe science nor history nor archaeology can or ever will prove Mormonism false. Our knowledge is being refined which is wonderful, but provens are extremely flimsy. After all, God still hasn't proven He/She exists definitively yet.

Erich Robert Paul's article on Science and Religion deserves to be more widely well known. He is the author of the outstanding book Science, Religion, and Mormon Cosmology, Univ. of Illinois Press, 1992. His article in the Encyclopedia of Mormonism, is an excellent summary of this most interesting subject...

Science And Religion

Encyclopedia of Mormonism, Vol.3, SCIENCE AND RELIGION

Because of belief in the ultimate compatibility of all truth and in the eternal character of human knowledge, Latter-day Saints tend to take a more positive approach to science than do some people in other religious traditions who also claim a strong foundation in scripture. The LDS experience includes encounters between religious belief and the natural sciences in three broad areas. For the most part, LDS responses to discoveries in American antiquities and New World archaeology have been enthusiastic, but sometimes cautious, as these findings are thought to have some potential for expanding contemporary understanding of the ancient Book of Mormon Peoples and Book of Mormon geography. Latter-day Saints have often been defensive toward, though they have not necessarily rejected, developments in geology and the biological sciences that bear on the nature of the Creation and the age of the earth (see Evolution; Origin of Man). The revelations to Joseph Smith of an Abrahamic astronomy and three creation accounts, having some variation, have also stimulated positive interest in astronomical and cosmological issues. In particular, these revelations affirmed the plurality of worlds and heliocentrism in the scriptural writings of ancient prophets. Historical, scientific, philosophical, and theological factors have tempered discussions of science and religion in the LDS context.

Conceptions of scientific knowledge have changed many times since Greek antiquity. Thus, for example, modern understanding of the nature of the cosmos has changed radically from Aristotle in early Greece; to Galileo, Descartes, and Newton in the seventeenth century; to Lyell and Darwin in the nineteenth century; and in the twentieth century to Einstein, Hubble, and Hawking. Science itself continues in a state of constant flux, so that the total collection of scientific ideas at any point in time could never be considered final truth. Consequently, scientific theories are forever tentative and are not likely to be fully compatible with revealed religion at any particular time.

Realizing this, scholars today recognize that older descriptions of "conflict" or open "warfare" between science and Christianity are often mistaken. Nor could LDS thinking about science be described in this way. The Church is distinguished by its acceptance of ongoing revelation and the view that divine revelation underlies its scriptures and teachings. Consequently, Latter-day Saints assume that ultimate truths about religious matters and about God's creations can never be in conflict, as God is the author of both. They look forward to a time when more complete knowledge in both areas will transcend all present perceptions of conflict.

As early revelations to Joseph Smith seemed to invite reflections on the nature of the universe and the place of human beings in it, Latter-day Saints came to reflect the kind of optimism about a future reconciliation of science and religion that characterized many of their contemporaries. As positive ideas and attitudes about the compatibility of science and religion emerged with growing confidence among Latter-day Saints, many began to use the theories and observations of science to support their religious beliefs. Two main reasons for this appear to be that (1) LDS theology is philosophically committed to a positive conception of "true" science, and (2) Latter-day Saints could invoke science in partial support of the revealed world of the restoration (true religion).

These LDS appeals to science are distinct from the traditional Christian efforts in natural theology, which assumed that science can lead to a theology of nature in which science and Christianity are compatible. While individual Latter-day Saints freely invoke philosophical arguments and scientific evidences to affirm religious claims, these have never been considered official or conclusive. Latter-day Saints tend to be dubious of natural theology because the existence and nature of God can be known only through revelation, not through speculative theology.

Several basic Church teachings combine to provide additional support for a positive attitude toward science. Because God governs his creations through the laws of nature, of which he is the author, science is perceived as one important means of gaining understanding of his governance. Furthermore, LDS scriptures teach that "the glory of God is intelligence, or, in other words, light and truth" (D&C 93:36) and that the knowledge and intelligence gained in this life will be an advantage in the next (D&C 130:18-19). Finally, Latter-day Saints also use pragmatic and empiricological methods as legitimate means of gaining knowledge. They believe God expects them to use all forms of knowledge, including the revelatory and the scientific. Yet, revelation is always primary, and there is little sympathy among Latter-day Saints for the emphasis on science that leads to a rejection of scripturally based understanding.

While LDS publications from 1832 to the Nauvoo exodus in 1846 occasionally examined scientific ideas, extensive use and discussion of scientific themes did not emerge until the 1850s. Early Latter-day Saint speculations on science were set forth occasionally in conference addresses and published in the Journal of Discourses, the Millennial Star, and in the writings of apostles Parley P. Pratt and Orson Pratt. For example, Orson Pratt, the first LDS science-philosopher, wrote in 1873 that "the great temple of science must be erected upon the solid foundations of everlasting truth; its towering spires must mount upward, reaching higher and still higher, until crowned with the glory and presence of Him, who is Eternal" (Deseret News 22 [1873]:586).

Beginning in the 1890s, positive LDS speculations on science generally, and specifically in such fields as astronomy, cosmology, evolution, geology, and paleontology, while not always harmonious, drew on the ideas of the first academically trained LDS scientists (and later General Authorities) James E. Talmage, John A. Widtsoe, Joseph F. Merrill, and Richard R. Lyman. All four of these highly influential apostles used their scientific expertise to further the view that "correct" science and revealed religion are in close harmony because the author of both is God. Thus, Talmage asked rhetorically, "What is the field of science?" His answer: "Everything. Science is the discourse of nature and nature is the visible declaration of Divine Will…. There is naught so small, so vast that science takes no cognizance thereof…. Nature is the scientist's copy and truth his chief aim" (c. 1895). "Among our young people," Talmage wrote elsewhere, "I consider scientific knowledge as second in importance only to that knowledge that pertains to the Church and Kingdom of God…. Nature, as we study it, is but the temple of the Almighty" (c. 1900).

In 1930, Widtsoe wrote:

Science…is the recognition by the mind through human senses of the realities of existence. The mind of man is a noble instrument, a pre-eminent possession, by which he becomes conscious, not only of his own existence, but of the conditions of external nature…. The glory of physical conquests, of the sea and earth and air, have often dazzled men to such a degree that they have forgotten that back of all discovery and progress is the power of observation and thought. Without mind, there is no science, no progress, only extinction [In Search of Truth (Salt Lake City, 1930), pp. 36-37].

Later, in Evidences and Reconciliations, one of Widtsoe's most widely known books, he wrote, "The Church supports and welcomes the growth of science…. The religion of the Latter-day Saints is not hostile to any truth, nor to scientific search for truth" (Vol. 1, p. 129).

Other (non-scientist) Church authorities, principally Joseph Fielding Smith, writing in the first half of the twentieth century, and later Bruce R. McConkie, vigorously criticized the ideas of some that the scriptures could be reconciled with scientific theories, in particular, evolutionary accounts of the origin of man.

Talmage, Widtsoe, and B. H. Roberts, writing in the first half of the twentieth century, probably have contributed more than any other LDS authorities—with the possible exception of the Pratt brothers—after the initial years of Church growth to scientific topics and their assumed general harmony with the gospel. That this attitude continues and is presently sustained within the larger Latter-day Saint culture, particularly among LDS scientists, is also supported by recent studies that suggest that the LDS community has produced more scientists per capita than most religious groups in twentieth-century America.

Bibliography

The finest scholarly examination of the complex relation between the natural sciences and religion from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century can be found in David Lindberg and Ronald Numbers, eds., God and Nature: Historical Essays on the Encounter Between Christianity and Science (Berkeley, Calif., 1986). For a discussion of numerous issues dealing with science and the LDS Church by prominent LDS scientists and authorities, including Henry Eyring, Carl J. Christensen, Harvey Fletcher, Franklin S. Harris, Joseph F. Merrill, Frederick J. Pack, and John A. Widtsoe, see Henry Eyring et al., Science and Your Faith in God (Salt Lake City, 1958). For a discussion by LDS scientists affirming the compatibility of their faith and their fields of specialty, see Wilford M. Hess, Raymond T. Matheny, and Donlu D. Thayer, eds., Science and Religion: Toward a More Useful Dialogue, 2 vols. (Geneva, Ill., 1979). On the issue of American antiquities, see John Sorenson, An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City, 1985). For a review of issues dealing with evolution and geology, respectively, see Duane E. Jeffery, "Seers, Savants and Evolution: The Uncomfortable Interface," Dialogue 8 (Autumn-Winter 1973):41-75, and Morris S. Petersen, "[Fossils and Scriptures]," Ensign 17 (Sept. 1987):28-29. For an extensive examination of science and cosmology and their relationship to LDS theology, see Erich Robert Paul, Science, Religion, and Mormon Cosmology (Champaign, Ill., 1991).

ERICH ROBERT PAUL