← Church History Matters
Church History Matters
185 - Can Science and Religion Coexist? | Church History Matters I Science & Religion Series
00:57:16
Loading summary
Transcript60 lines
- [00:05]
A
As the centuries go by, religion has less and less room to exist and perform its obscurantist interference with the search for truth.
- [00:15]
B
Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind.
- [00:20]
A
The teachings and the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints are uniquely positioned among the Christian faith to utilize the tools of both science and and religion in our search for truth.
- [00:32]
B
The church has had a pretty good record of being quick to embrace scientific progress and new technologies.
- [00:40]
A
Like, if it's true in any way, we just embrace it.
- [00:43]
B
Dieter F. Uchtdorf said education for Latter Day Saints is not just a good idea, it's a commandment.
- [00:49]
A
He's basically suggesting that theology is one of the branches of science.
- [00:54]
B
College in the millennium is going to be great.
- [00:56]
A
There is no scientific evidence that proves or disproves God's existence.
- [01:01]
B
Some people run across one thing that they think contradicts their religion and science, and they toss everything.
- [01:09]
A
The wisest kind of humans are the kind that are willing to rethink their assumptions in light of new information.
- [01:15]
B
Scientific endeavor is primarily interested in answering the questions of who, what, when, and where. But there's one question that science isn't really designed to answer, and that's why.
- [01:33]
A
Hello, Casey, and Happy New Year.
- [01:35]
B
Happy New Year to you, Scott. It's an exciting time, and I'm excited to get to what we're talking about today.
- [01:42]
A
Yeah, this is not just a new year, Casey. It's kind of a new us in a way. I mean, we just got done, and in 2025, we've been doing Doctrine and Covenants, Come follow me. But in 2026, we're not doing that anymore. We're going back to our previous model of just digging into challenging sort of ideas and history in our church. And it feels good to be back.
- [02:06]
B
Yeah, maybe you've heard the origin story of our podcast before, but you and I were on a trip to Nauvoo with our wives, and we wanted to do a podcast that was deep dives into challenging subjects. And we departed from that for a year as we're also the managing editors of Doctrine and Covenants Central. And we wanted to do a deep dive into every section of the Doctrine and Covenants. But now that the come follow me curriculum has switched over to Old Testament, we kind of have been itching to get back to these difficult topics. If you were listening last year, you remember the four Cs context, content, controversies and consequences. And it seems like from the people we talked to, Scott, the most popular one of the four was controversies Controversies.
- [02:56]
A
Sometimes people fast forward just to get to the controversies. I feel like.
- [02:59]
B
Yeah, yeah, so, so if you jumped on board for, for Doctrine and Covenants and you aren't familiar with what we did before, this is like all controversies. So yeah, you and I love this stuff. But this one, the, the content is the controversies basically. So it's all killer, no filler, like we're just skipping straight to the meaty stuff and tackling some big questions. And, and, and, and the first one is probably one of the most fundamental controversies that not only encompasses being a Latter Day Saint, but being a person of faith in general. What I'm talking about is the conflict between science and religion. That's what our first series this year is going to focus on. So just so you understand, we've outlined this series and sometimes the series go in different directions that we didn't expect. We just kind of, as we discover things, adjust as we go. That's one of the wonderful things about this approach. But as we plan the series, it's really sort of a two part series within an overall series. One we're going to talk about how you reconcile scientific discovery with religious belief. Like how do you read the scriptures as a religious person but also believe in science and scientific inquiry. That's part one. And then part two is going to be the history of science within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. So part one might be more of a broad general, here's how religion and science can be reconciled. But we're going to use a lot of specific tools that belong to Latter Day Saints and we're going to use our history and theology as a focus on it. And part two is going to be about the personalities, the people in the church that have kind of been engaged in this intense discussion about the nature of truth inquiry. There's a lot of colorful figures on both sides and no real bad guys here as we tell this story. Just people that believed passionately that they were doing the right thing and were striving to help others do the same. So part one is going to be sort of idea the concepts related to science and religion and how would they relate to the scriptures. And then part two is the history of science in the church. And we're equally excited about both sides. That's just the approach we're going to do. We'll lay out the ideas and then we'll discuss the history.
- [05:34]
A
I want to kind of lay the scene. Okay, so for, for centuries there's been this cultural narrative that there is a war for your Mind out there. On the one side, you have the laboratory, the microscope, the cold hard data of science, okay? On the other hand, you have the chapel, the scriptures, the spirit of revelation, right? And we're often subtly or not so subtly told we have to choose a side that if science is right, then religion is wrong, vice versa. When we enter the science classroom, we have to check our faith at the door. We've heard that expression or that when we enter into a chapel, we have to check our brains at the door. It can kind of feel like a zero sum game. But in this series, we're asking this question, we're asking like, is this battlefield real or is this a manufactured dilemma? Right. One of our core faith claims is to embrace all truth. And we believe that we can circumscribe all truth into one great whole. Right? But I guess a couple questions that matter are, how far can we push that? Should we ever be afraid of what the telescope or the microscope might reveal? Can we be confident that the tension between the empirical and the spiritual isn't really a threat to our testimony, but actually an invitation to expand it like we sometimes hear? And if so, how. How do we do that? So that is what we want to tackle, right? Welcome to this new series of Church History Matters. We're just walking right into the crossfire of this tension between science and religion. And so in today's episode, we want to drop us into, like this. This kind of. This tension between, you know, science and religion. These friends are mortal enemies and kind of do a little bit of history. We'll do more history in future episodes, but a little bit of history here. So, Casey, where do you want to start?
- [07:36]
B
Well, let's start by acknowledging this is a huge thing, and we're not just setting up acute hypothetical arguments so that we can make a couple points. There is a long history of antagonistic behavior between scientists and people of faith. And I'll just say, like Christian churches in general, like, most famously, and this is the classic example, but Galileo, Galileo, the guy that invented the telescope, one of the most gifted scientists ever came into direct conflict with the Catholic Church. Galileo was oppressed by the Catholic Church because they condemned his heliocentric views as heresy. And when I say heliocentric, what Galileo was suggesting was that through observation and scientific method, he came to believe that the Earth rotated around the sun instead of vice versa. The prominent view at the time, supported by the Church, was that the sun and all those other celestial objects orbit around the Earth. Galileo is arguing that the Earth actually orbits around the sun. So this leads to a 1616 prohibition against him defending the theory. He's not allowed to defend or teach. The. After he published a book arguing for heliocentrism, the Church found him guilty of, here's the quote, vehement suspicion of heresy, which resulted in a forced recantation. He had to recant everything that he said. His book was banned and he was under permanent house arrest for the rest of his life. So, I mean, that's an example, right? Galileo publishes this book called the Dialogue concerning the Two Chief World Systems, which the Church summons him to Rome. He's tried by the Inquisition and found guilty. And then as punishment, he had to publicly recant his views. The sale of the book was banned. He's under house arrest. The Church didn't torture or threaten him to ensure his recantation, but his work was suppressed and his book was added to the index of prohibited books. He was also prohibited from discussing heliocentric ideas, even hypothetically. Like, he wasn't allowed to go up to people and say, well, what if the earth rotated around the center? And anything like that. So that seems to be a classic 101 religion oppressing science story that happens. And I mean, we're not ignoring that. Honestly. There have been a lot of times when Christian religion, or religion in general, has oppressed science and pushed back against its findings. When they don't support the worldview that they already have. That's part of the conflict.
- [10:20]
A
So in some ways, the Catholic Church felt threatened by Galileo's new ideas, almost as if that would somehow prove the Catholic Church wrong or something like that. There seems to be something. The prominent view held by the Church was now being contradicted by a scientist, and therefore this was dangerous and must be stamped out. Well, and there's been people, you know, throughout the years who've made their case against the compatibility of science and religion. For instance, a guy named Robert Greene Ingersoll, who was known as the Great Agnostic, wrote back in the. In the 19th century, he said, there is no harmony between religion and science. Like that's no harmony. He said when science was a child, religion sought to strangle it in the cradle. Now that science has attained its youth and superstition is in its old age, the trembling, palsied wreck says to the athlete, let us be friends. It reminds me of the bargain he says, that the cock wished to make with the horse when he said, let's agree not to step on each other's feet. Close quote. And then there's, you know, Some modern scientists like, like Richard Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist who is very vocal. He's, he's atheist to the core and he's written lots of books against religion. He once said this. He said, quote, religion is a cop out, a betrayal of the intellect, a betrayal of all that's best about what makes us human. A phony substitute for an explanat. Which seems to answer the question until you examine it and realize that it does no such thing. Religion is not just redundant and irrelevant, it's an active and pernicious charlatan. He says. It pedals false expectations or at least pseudo explanations where real explanations could have been offered and will be offered. Pseudo explanations that get in the way of the enterprise of discovering real explanations, he said. And then he concludes, as the centuries go by, religion has less and less room to exist and perform its obscurantist interference with the search for truth in the 21st century. It's high time finally to send it packing. Close quote. So, so he's not pulling any punches. It is not just incompatible, but it's like dangerous to the pursuit of truth, says, says Richard Dawkins. So that's, that's, that's one perspective here. Right? And, and it's a perspective that held for centuries by many, but it's not the only perspective.
- [13:01]
B
Yeah, yeah. Those people of faith have sometimes responded to scientists by pointing out that science can't answer every question and that religion and science shouldn't be seen as adversaries, but as two sides that can cooperate. Two symbiotic approaches to truth. For instance, this is a quote that Jeffrey R. Holland shared, and he's being a little facetious here, but he said it is mind boggling to think that a group of bright secular think in the 21st century really believe that if they can show, for example, that the universe is more than 6,000 years old or that a rainbow can be explained other than as a sign of God's covenant after the flood, that somehow such stunning assertions will bring all of humanity's religious beliefs tumbling down like a house of cards. And we are then left with a serene world of rational non believers. And then he adds, serene, except perhaps when they whistle nervously past the local graveyard. So again, Elder Holland's just saying, hey, just because you can point out some things that maybe aren't literal in the scriptures, it doesn't destroy the belief in religion or the value of religion. And science so far hasn't been able to answer some of the most important questions, like, well, what happens after we die. And what's the state of the human soul? And is this all there is? So he takes that tack. Others have tried to harmonize. For example, another scientist you may have heard of named Albert Einstein said the following. He said, science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind. They need each other. Einstein used this to illustrate the interdependence of science, which provides knowledge of facts, and religion, which provides a sense of purpose and values. He believed religion deals with evaluations of human thought and action, while science can only ascertain what is, not what should be. So the two work together, and you'll see this mirrored in some of the best minds of our time, like Brigham Young, another guy you might have heard of. Not a famous scientist.
- [15:10]
A
I've heard of him, too. Yes.
- [15:11]
B
A famous religious leader said this. He said the idea that the religion of Christ is one thing and that science is another is a mistaken idea. For there is no true religion without true science, and consequently, there is no true science without true religion. He just saw them as opposite sides of the same coin. Coin. Both approaching truth and both borrowing each other's tools to fill out the entire picture that we need to see.
- [15:37]
A
Yeah, And I think that Brigham Young quote is like a perfect articulation of where we're coming down on this podcast. Right. The church history matters. We believe that. And maybe we'll go even a little further. We not only believe that science and religion are compatible, we also believe that the teachings and the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints are uniquely positioned among the Christian faiths, actually to utilize the tools of both science and religion in our search for truth. There's a lot of reasons we believe this. We want to go through three in this episode. So I don't know, Casey, do you want to kick us off with maybe the first one?
- [16:18]
B
Yeah. So the church is kind of in a unique position. And one of the unique things about the church is one, the Restoration took place post Enlightenment. So when I say the Enlightenment, there was this wonderful flowering of scientific thought and philosophy that starts with guys like Galileo and leads up to Sir Isaac Newton and a whole bunch of great thinkers, Voltaire, Hume, and so on and so forth. And the Restoration takes place after this occurs. Joseph Smith and all of his subsequent revelations were received post Enlightenment. So the theophanies of the Restoration took place after the work of Galileo, Copernicus, New, and Thomas Jefferson all did their work. And that gives us kind of a unique advantage because we're not weighed down by all the baggage that came from these conflicts between the Christian churches of the Middle Ages and the budding scientific movements that they sought to oppress. So we can sort of dodge the whole Galileo controversy by saying that wasn't our church. Our church was brought into existence after Galileo and after Galileo's heliocentric views were widely accepted. We've never really had a problem with that. Them. And in general, we haven't always been perfect, but in general, the church has had a pretty good record of being quick to embrace scientific progress and new technologies. Just one example, John Krakauer, who's this author who's sometimes been a little antagonistic towards the Church, noted something unique about the Restoration. This is why he wanted to write about Latter Day Saints. He said, I was irresistibly drawn to write about Latter Day Saints, not only because I already knew something about their theology and admired much about their culture, but also because of the utterly unique circumstances in which their religion was born, the Mormon Church. And again, Brother Krakauer is not a member of our faith. So the Mormon Church was founded a mere 173 years ago. It is a little bit longer now, but this was at the time of his writing, he said, in a literate society and in the age of the printing press. As a consequence, the creation of what became a worldwide faith was abundantly documented in firsthand accounts. Thanks to the Mormons, we have been given an unprecedented opportunity to appreciate in astonishing detail how an important religion came to be. So, yeah, the church came about in the age of the printing press and the steam engine and the locomotive and all these incredible scientific innovations that are eventually going to revolutionize and change the whole world. And the fact that we came into existence during this time when there was a scientific revolution taking place makes it so that from the beginning, church leaders are very anxious to embrace scientific practice. First of all, to use it to proselyte. You can get a lot more people with a printing press, for instance, or to use it for other things. You can put people on a locomotive and bring them to Utah. That's faster than handcarts and so on and so forth. So the birthplace of the Restoration taking place in the 19th century, lets us jettison a lot of the baggage and also put us in this unique environment where we were in the midst of scientific innovation, where there were changes happening all the time. And for the most part, church leaders embraced it.
- [19:43]
A
Yeah, that's nice. So we don't have to bring the baggage of the pre Enlightenment assumptions between science and religion link. We just bypass all of that. We get to start kind of with a leg up almost, we kind of.
- [19:58]
B
Skip the bad parts.
- [20:01]
A
That's nice. And the second point I'd want to bring up is one of our, I think pretty unique and fundamental assumptions as a church is that we are open to and actually anxious to embrace all truth as part of our religious belief. That would include scientific truth as well. We don't have a perfect record. There have been times when church leaders have been hostile to scientific progress. We'll talk about that in future episodes. But generally speaking, leaders from the time of Joseph Smith forward have been anxious to embrace scientific progress and learning as part of our religion, actually. So we start to blur the lines a little bit between, like the theology and the scientific. For instance, Joseph Smith wrote on one occasion, quote, mormonism is truth, and every man who embraced it felt himself at liberty to embrace every truth. Consequently, the shackles of superstition, bigotry, ignorance and priestcraft falls at once from his neck and his eyes are open to see the truth. Mormonism is truth. In other words, the doctrine of the Latter Day Saints is truth. He said, you may think that this is a broad assertion that it is truth, but the first and fundamental principle of our holy religion is that we believe that we have a right to embrace all and every item of truth without limitation when that truth is clearly demonstrated to our mind and we have the highest degree of evidence of the same. Close quote. That's one of my favorite Joseph Smith quotes. Honestly, just this beautiful, refreshing broad mindedness that we are open to anything that's true. And if it's true, we believe it. We believe it. We also know there's. There's passages in the Doctrine and Covenants where he says things like, whatever principle of intelligence we attain unto in this life, it will rise with us in the resurrection. We're a fan of that. We think that any learning that you get here gives you an advantage in the world to come, as Joseph says. And then Joseph's successor, Brigham Young, he also emphasized this point, like for instance, he once said, if on the Sabbath day when we are assembled here to worship the Lord, one of the elders should be prompted to give us a lecture on any branch of education with which he is acquainted. Is it outside the pale of our religion? I think not. If any of the elders are disposed to give a lecture to parents and children on letters, on the rudiments of the English language, it's in my religion, it's part of my faith, he said. Or if any elder should give us a lecture upon astronomy, chemistry, or Geology. Our religion embraces it all. It matters not what the subject be, if it tends to improve the mind, exalt the feelings and enlarge the capacity. He said, the truth that is in all the arts and sciences forms a part of our religion. Faith is no more a part of it than any other true principle of philosophy. Were I to give you a lecture today upon farming, would I be speaking upon a matter that transcends the bounds of our religion? No, agriculture is part of it as well as any other truth. Or I'd a lecture on business principles of any kind. Our religion embraces it and what it does not circumscribe, it would be well for us to dispose with at once and forever. Close quote. Bam. So that shows the really enmeshed nature of our belief in both the theological and the empirical. Right. If, like, if it's true in any way, we just embrace it. And I think that uniquely situates us to really explore this topic in a really productive way, honestly.
- [23:41]
B
Yeah, And. And Joseph Smith and Brigham Young aren't the only ones. There's this rich tradition within the restoration of church leaders embracing science. For instance, Parley P. Pratt wrote a well regarded book on theology where he just described it as a science. He saw understanding God as a key to knowledge in both the scientific and religious realms. Here's a few excerpts from his book, Key to the Science of Theology.
- [24:09]
A
Just right there, Just his title, Key to the Science of Theology. He's already putting these ideas together, science and theology. Anyway. That's so cool.
- [24:17]
B
Yeah. And I am an avowed Parlor P. Pratt fan, but this is some of his best stuff. And look at how comfortable he is using the terms theology and science, which again are sometimes seen as opposing. He says theology is the science of communication between God, angels, spirits and humans through visions, dreams, interpretations, conversations, inspiration, prophecy and revelation. He also said theology is also also the science of knowledge, the key and the power that opens the heavens, granting access to boundless wisdom and intelligence, encompassing the past, the present and future. It is the foundation of all other sciences and useful arts, including philosophy, astronomy, history, mathematics, geography, languages and the science of letters. It also includes scientific discoveries and inventions, agriculture, mechanical arts, architecture, shipbuilding, navigation and music. All other sciences are seen as branches growing from theology. And he's not the only one. Other early leaders of the church embrace science like Parley's brother, Orson Pratt actually set up an observatory on what is today Temple Square. Wilford Woodruff helped launch a polyphilosophical society during the 19th century, designed to bring the latest scientific innovations and inventions or new ideas to Latter Day Saints. And the real flowering was kind of in the early 20th century where these seeds are really permitted to grow. And leaders of the church come from a number of different backgrounds. Like, there was a time when almost half the quorum of the 12 were university professors. Like in the early 1930s. You have James E. Talmadge, who's a professor of geology, and he serves alongside John A. Widtsoe, who's a professor of agronomy, and Richard Lyman, who is a chemist, and Joseph F. Merrill, who's a physicist. And they're serving alongside scriptural fundamentalists like Joseph Fielding Smith and J. Reuben CL and in this context I should specify, a fundamentalist is someone that just believes in a more literal interpretation of Scripture. So there's these guys that are really into science serving in the quorum of the 12 alongside these guys that are very literal when it comes to the Scriptures. And I'm not saying there wasn't any conflict, because we're going to detail that there was some conflict.
- [26:34]
A
There was.
- [26:35]
B
But the fact that in the 1930s, being a professor at the University of Utah made it likely you'd be called into the quorum of the 12 is really fascinating and a part of our religion that I'm really proud of, to be honest with you.
- [26:49]
A
Yeah, I'm still stuck back on those Parley P. Pratt quotes where he's saying that he's basically suggesting that theology is one of the branches of science. I mean, he goes so far as to say all the sciences are branches of theology. I'm not sure everyone could get on board with that. But he's at least putting it side by side. Right. If not at the head of all knowledge. But. But I just love the way that he's thinking about this, that whether he's right or wrong. We could debate that another time. But just the beautiful congruence of both sides is just indicative of what we're trying to illustrate. I mean, that's perfect.
- [27:32]
B
I think what he's arguing here is that God isn't opposed to science. Basically, that theology, which he defines as seeking to understand God and communications from God, is the root of all these pursuits. Because God is the author of science. Understanding science is understanding the language of God the way that he created the universe and brought it into being. And it's just exciting to see a religious figure embracing this and saying, hey, this is a great thing. God wants us to know and understand how the world around us works, works.
- [28:08]
A
And let's add the Third point to this, it's not just church leaders who have talked like this about how these are just totally compatible, but also the revelations of the restoration themselves, like in the Doctrine and Covenants. There's a few juicy places where we get a glimpse into the mind of the Lord as He revealed this through Joseph Smith, for instance, like in Section 88 of the Doctrine and Covenants, the Lord instructing the early elders about setting up a school. They called it the School of the Prophets or the School of the Elders. Here's the curriculum that the Lord recommends. Here he says, teach ye diligently and my grace shall attend you that you may be instructed more perfectly in theory, in principle, in doctrine, in the law of the Gospel, in all things that pertain unto the kingdom of God, that are expedient for you to understand of things both in heaven. Heaven and in the earth and under the earth. What do we call that? Geology? What would we call that? Archaeology? Things which have been. I think we call that history. Things which are so many things. Current events, politics, what else would fall into the realm of things which are so many things. Things which must shortly come to pass. What's that? Is that a school subject? Is that economics? Economics, predicting predictive models.
- [29:30]
B
Yeah.
- [29:30]
A
Things which are abroad, like international studies of all the kinds. Right. He says the wars and the perplexities of the nations and the judgments which are on the land. Is that law? And a knowledge also of countries and of kingdoms. This is all part of the curriculum for the School of the Elders. Is this a church curriculum or is this a secular curriculum? I don't see the Lord distinguishing here. He goes on the reason he wants the elders to know all of this. He says, verse 80, that ye may be prepared in all things when I shall send you again to magnify the calling whereunto I have called you and the mission with which I have commissioned you, like the Lord just thinks this is all relevant in order to achieve the mission that he has called us to do, to take this gospel of Jesus Christ out to the world. We got to understand the world, we got to understand the people out there. We got to understand how it all operates. And we're trying to establish a literal like kingdom on earth. He calls it Zion. A lot of times in the Doctrine and Covenants, trying to build societies in such a way that there will be a critical mass of people ready to receive Jesus when He comes again. And he thinks that all these domains of knowledge are relevant to that project which is so cool.
- [30:46]
B
Well, and when he says so That I can send you out. I flash to when the twelve apostles are called to England on their mission. All of a sudden they're in London, which is, like, world capital at the time, and they're talking about how when they aren't teaching, they're going to museums and they're studying the architecture of St. Paul's and they're just, like, embracing all these different kinds of learning, and they just have this intense curiosity about the world. Like, this is one of my favorite passages in the Doctrine and Covenants because it just suggests that God likes us to be curious and God wants us to, like, be really engaged with the world around us and constantly looking around and seeking knowledge from whatever source we can get it. It's just great stuff.
- [31:30]
A
Yeah. It reminds me of what he said way back in doctrine and covenants 29, when he said, all things unto me are spiritual. You guys like to divide them into temporal and spiritual. And you can see this is a cool example in section 88. He's like, I don't really play that game. It's all relevant. It's just like, all useful, right? For the purpose of building the kingdom on earth. There's one more cool passage too, in section 101. This is right in the midst of, like, the persecutions in Jackson County, Missouri. The Lord's responding to some concerns about that. And in the midst of that, he gives this little glimmer of hope to this persecuted people, where he talks about the millennial day, kind of setting forth the hope before them. He says, verily, I say unto you, in that day when the Lord shall come, he shall reveal all things. And here's his list of topics. Things which have passed, history hidden, things which no man knew. The things of the earth by which it was made, and the purpose and the end thereof. Things most precious, things that are above and things that are beneath. Things that are in the earth and upon the earth and in heaven. I'll tell you all about it. I'll tell you all about it in the millennium. And Casey, I've got a lot of questions about some of the stuff that we can find in the rocks, right? There's paleontology, archaeology. Like, there's so many interesting mysteries in the rocks, and scientists are doing their very best to figure it all out. But the Lord here is just saying, I'll tell you all about that. We're going to have a marvelous Q and A in the millennium where we're going to talk about stuff that some people think is secular and scientific and not really religious. But it all is, and I'll tell you all about it. So I just love those passages.
- [33:16]
B
College in the millennium is going to be great. Right? Because every class will be a religion class and every class will also be a science class. And it's literally the creator of the universe saying, yeah, here's how I did that. You want to know how a star is made? Here we go. Which we're tiptoeing towards right now. Right.
- [33:34]
A
I think you can see from these scriptures and these quotes from the prophets, not only is science something we don't need to be afraid of as religious people, but the Lord is actually encouraging, you could maybe even say commanding, depending on how you read those passages, us to engage, engage in learning all the topics, all the topics which can and should include, you know, the various branches of scientific inquiry. So that just again, is part of the premise of what we want to say in this podcast, is that those of us in the Restoration, we think are pretty uniquely positioned theologically to really do a lot of good and to have a lot of fun in this realm of science and religion. Religion, because it's a commandment for us to do that. So that's fun.
- [34:24]
B
Yeah. I mean, Dieter F. Uchtdorf said, education for Latter Day Saints is not just a good idea, it's a commandment. And so that's part of our theology from the beginning. So there's plenty of reason for Latter Day Saints to not be afraid to embrace this. But this is sort of the part of the discussion where we have to pause and say, let's make sure we understand our terms and we know what we're talking about, because science and religion are different from each other. They're different approaches to truth. But we want to point out a couple things to keep in mind about science, like maybe a couple things that if you keep in your mind as you're studying the scriptures and especially as you're studying other secular subjects, you need to know. Now, in doing this, we're borrowing from someone we're going to have on the show in a few weeks. This is Dr. Jamie Jensen. She's a biology professor at BYU and Provo, and we're drawing from a BYU devotional she gave where she referred to science and religion as these are her words, symbiotic paths to truth. So they're interrelated to each other. They both have the same basic goal, but they're a little bit different, even though they have a connected nature to each other. So, as she points out, both religion and science are just tools for Finding truth. But as in life, we sometimes use different tools for different kinds of tasks. For instance, she started out in her talk by giving some basic definitions. She said said this all too often we find ourselves in a battle of semantics fueled by a misunderstanding of basic terminology. So let's define these two symbiotic ways of knowing. One, knowing through scientific explanation is a process through which we gather evidence from the natural world to find explanations for natural phenomena. And two, knowing through religious faith is a process through which we gather spiritual evidence through study and revelation to find explanation for spiritual truth truths. Both religion and science use similar processes to find truth. They seek evidence and then they perform tests to find out if their hypothesis holds true. For instance, this was interesting, but in her talk, she actually points out that the process suggested in the Book of Mormon in the last chapter, Moroni 10, that famous passage sounds like hypothesis, test, gather evidence. She reads it as follows. This is Moroni 10, 3, 5. Behold, I would exhort you that when ye shall read these things, if it be wisdom in God that ye should read them, that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true. And if ye shall ask with a sincere heart and with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you by the power of the Holy Ghost, and by the power of the Holy Ghost, you may know the truth of all things. So there's a test with a clear prediction. The test is, once you know these things, things ask God. The prediction is that if this record is true, that's the proposed hypothesis, and I ask God, the experiment is to pray about it, then I will be given confirmation by the Holy Ghost. That's the evidence. So hypothesis, experimentation and evidence. And then she adds her commentary. She said, here is where the processes differ. The evidence here is different. It is not tangible, measurable evidence by a scientific definition, but it is real evidence nonetheless. However, this test assumes that you know how to recognize the Holy Ghost and the evidence. In other words, that you have the necessary tools to detect the evidence. These spiritual tools take practice to develop, but they do exist, and you can develop them in terms of science. There is nowhere that this type of hypothesis testing fits in. However, this is not to say that this spiritual hypothesis testing is in any way less valid. It's just a different way of approaching truth. So, yeah, they're different, but on a fundamental level, they're very much the same in the way that we approach things. Just the evidence that we're suggesting, gathered by these two processes are different from each other.
- [38:30]
A
And I like, you know, that that made me think of Alma 32, right where he almost uses the language of a. Of a hypothesis testing. Where he actually calls it an experiment upon the word right. Which is I think what Moroni is suggesting. Why don't you experiment upon this word? Word and the evidence that Alma suggests that you'll start to feel. He says it'll start to swell inside of you if you don't resist the spirit of the Lord. It'll start to. Here's his language. It'll begin to swell within your breasts. And when you feel these swelling motions, you'll begin to say within yourselves, it must needs be that this is a good seed or that the word of God is good for it beginneth to enlarge my soul. That's another evidence. Evidence. It beginneth to enlighten my understanding and other evidence. Yea, it beginneth to be delicious to me. And then later he says, is this not real? And then he says, yay, it is real because it's light. And whatever is light is good. And because it's discernible, therefore you must know that it's good. But all of that's happening inside of us, which Jamie's saying no scientist is going to to say. Yep, that's the scientific way of knowing. Right? Jamie's saying, but it's a legitimate way of knowing. Just it's a different methodology that the scientific method would not acknowledge. Am I understanding her right? My mind just went straight to Alma 32 and I just thought that fits really, really well.
- [40:00]
B
She chose moroni. But Alma 32 maybe does it even better because there's a clear hypothesis, experiment, gather evidence type thing. And it's fun to find that in the Book of Mormon, but you can find it in other scripture too. Ask and you shall receive. Knock and it shall be opened unto you. It just seems like from the beginning the approach to truth as taught by Jesus Christ is hey, if any man shall do his will, he shall know of the doctrine. In other words, take your hypothesis, test it out, take it out for a test drive and then see how it affects and changes you. It's just the evidence that gathered like Jamie says, is less tangible than it would be in a scientific realm.
- [40:41]
A
Alma calls it light. He said it's discernible light, but it's only discernible within you. Which if you've ever had that experience, then you know exactly what Alma's talking about. But if you haven't, that can sound a little. It can sound a little not impure, but I think Alma's actually proposing an empirical experiment that the evidence only appears within. Another thing I want to point out from Dr. Jensen's talk is what I thought was a brilliant point. She said science is not atheistic or theistic. She said science is agnostic. So there's a study from Arizona State University where they looked over a thousand college students. Students, and they found that 48% of them thought that you have to reject belief in God if you accept evolution. The researchers also noticed that the more students held this atheistic assumption, the less likely they were to accept scientific findings. Right. These are apparently students who want to protect their faith. And so if they believed that, they would shy away from scientific findings because they didn't want it to harm their. Their faith. But this idea, Dr. Jensen points out, this idea is really unhelpful, actually harms both science and religion, which I really like that point. It creates a divide that doesn't need to exist. And, and so she's. She really highlights that science isn't atheistic any more than it's theistic. It does not take a stance on God at all. There is no scientific evidence that proves or disproves God's existence. And as we've already talked about, like, questions about God don't even fall within what science is meant to study. They belong to, like, a different way of understanding altogether. And in that sense, science, she says, is just agnostic.
- [42:34]
B
When she's using these terms. Agnostic isn't a bad thing. Sometimes to religious people, atheism and agnosticism are seen as, you know, basically the same thing. But atheism is. You don't believe in God. God.
- [42:49]
A
You reject that assumption completely that there's a God.
- [42:51]
B
Yeah, yeah. Agnosticism is. I don't know. And she's saying that science isn't for God or against God. It's neutral, basically. It doesn't really state an opinion on God. And when we approach it, we shouldn't see it as overtly atheistic. That what science is trying to do is just gather evidence, and it's not making moral judgments or trying to measure things that it can't really measure, like the existence of God. There, There are some scientific findings that point us towards existence of God, some that point us away from it. And all she's saying is it's just gathering evidence, and then you get to assess, but it's not making a value judgment from the beginning.
- [43:30]
A
Here she quotes a guy named Francis Collins, who's the director of the National Institutes of Health. He's recently awarded the Templeton prize for his work on reconciling science and religion. And in his acceptance address, he described his previous attempt to prove atheism. And this is what he said. I began a journey to try to understand why intellectually sophisticated people could actually believe in God. And to my dismay, I found that atheism turned out to be the least rational of all the choices. To quote Chesterton, he says, atheism is the most daring of all dogmas, for it is the assertion of a universal negative, that God doesn't exist. He said with a bit of a chuckle, scientists aren't supposed to do that. That's a great point. That science cannot prove or disprove the existence of a God. It is agnostic.
- [44:25]
B
Yeah. And again, just to make sure these terms are clear, atheism is the belief that there's no God. Theism is the belief that there is a God. And agnosticism is the absence of belief. Science just really isn't designed to measure belief. It's designed to measure. Measure natural phenomenon, like Dr. Jensen argues. So in science, we. We don't say things like, I believe in gravity or I believe in evolution. Instead, scientists will say things like, I accept gravity because it provides the best explanation for why an apple falls from a tree. In the same way, if a person accepts evolution, they're saying it's the best explanation for the incredible diversity of life that we see today. Belief isn't really part of scientific progress. Science operates from an agnostic standpoint. It doesn't really take a position on whether God exists. So saying that science proves there is no God is just as unscientific as saying science proves there is a God. Put simply, atheism is just as much a belief system as theism. For example, Dr. Jensen in her talk, talks about how she once led a workshop for biology professors on how to teach evolution to religious aud. And she emphasized this key idea that science is agnostic. And afterwards, one of her participants shared this insight. The participant wrote, dogmatism in either science or religion shuts down your ability to learn and grow. If something seems to conflict between what science shows and what you understand through your faith, don't rush to toss one out. Instead, hold off on making a judgment. Be patient. Patient. And stay open to truth from both sides. And this is harkening back to our series on good thinking, Scott, where thinking slowly is a good quality. Some people run across one thing that they think contradicts their religion in science, and they Toss everything. Or someone comes across something that conflicts with science and they say, well, I'm going to ignore that completely. When in reality, sometimes it takes ideas time to percolate, to gel. Sometimes we find ways to harmonize the two things if we just are a little patient and provide our minds with time to work.
- [46:43]
A
And I think some of the brightest minds in our church's history have taken this approach. Like, for example, when he was a younger apostle, President Russell M. Nelson, he said at the dedication of the BYU Life Sciences Building, he said, quote, there is no conflict between science and religion. Conflict only arises from an incomplete knowledge of either science or religion or both. Close quote. To which I would just add, who doesn't have an incomplete knowledge of science and religion? So are we going to have conflicts that arise? Of course. But I love his premise here, that the conflict is just a symptom of incomplete knowledge in either science or religion or both. I think coming from him, I think it's. He's got the ethos to back that up as a heart surgeon who's also an apostle, an incredibly stout believer in both the scientific method and in. I don't know if we call it the religious method or the theological method, but I think he was a master of both realms. And so I think he knows whereof he speaks.
- [47:48]
B
I think he's just making a good point here, which is a true scientist, it doesn't state anything with absolute certainty. Right. And a true person of faith keeps an open mind, too, about how the universe works, how all these things came together, and how we discover truth. So dogmatism is just, this is the way it is, and there's no other way it can be A good antidote for dogmatism is humility. To basically say, I'm keeping an open mind on all things, whether you're a scientist saying, this seems to be the best fit right now, but I'm open to other suggestions. Or a person of faith saying, yeah, I have my beliefs. I'm anxious to explore how they fit into the world around me and to find out new things that I didn't know and to make new connections that I hadn't realized previously.
- [48:39]
A
Reminds me of Adam Grant. He's got this great book out called Think Again. We've quoted it before in this podcast. But that is the premise of the whole book, is that the wisest people out there in churches, outside of churches, just the wisest kind of human humans are the kind that are willing to rethink their assumptions in light of new information, to not be Dogmatic. Right. And to just, like, be willing to change old thought patterns if better ones come along. And I just think that's beautiful. So this year, as we study the Old Testament, particularly the book of Genesis and particularly the opening chapters of Genesis, keep this in mind when we're reading Scripture, maybe. No. No chapters of scripture have been pressed into service on both sides, both to try to denounce the science or from science, trying to denounce religion as the opening chapters of the book of Genesis. And so we're going to explore this more in our next episode, but invite you just kind of to use this model of being open to both sides and that maybe we don't have it all figured out yet on either side and being willing to explore deeper, both the theology and the science on the beginnings of things as far as we know them.
- [49:57]
B
And maybe the last point we want to make is to understand what science is designed to do and what religion is designed to do. And this is a weird example to bring up, but there's this terrible Val Kilmer movie. It's called Red Planet, and I can't recommend it. Like, it wasn't very good. I tried to rewatch it while I was working on the outline for this and see if, you know, I'd missed something. I just remember watching it and being pretty underwhelmed. But there is one conversation in the movie that stuck with me. So the premise is all these people are flying to Mars. It's like the first expedition to Mars. And on the way there, they're setting up their characters and they're having this conversation where all the scientists are just sitting around talking. And one of the scientists is really religious and everybody else is kind of piling on the guy and picking on him. And one of the characters says, I looked up this quote so that I could get it exact. But one of the characters said, you didn't just give up on being a scientist one day, did you? And the religious scientist answers the question by saying this. He said, I realize science couldn't answer any of the really interesting questions. So I turned to philosophy. I've been searching for God ever since. Who knows? I may pick up a rock and it'll say, I underneath, made by God. The universe is full of surprises. That line that science doesn't answer any of the really interesting questions just sort of struck me. So we keep in mind that we need to use the right tool to solve different problems. Like, you wouldn't use a glass beaker to hammer in a nail, and you wouldn't Use a hammer to measure volume. Right? That would be ridiculous. You wouldn't use a measuring tape to screw in a screw, and you wouldn't use a screwdriver to try and measure length or anything like that. You got to use the right tool. Scientific endeavor is primarily interested in answering the questions of who, what, when and where. But there's one question that science isn't really designed to answer, and that's why. And when we read through a text like the book of Genesis or the book of Moses or the book of Abraham, we need to remember that the Scriptures were primarily written to answer the question question of why. And it can make for an awkward fit when we try to use a scriptural text to answer questions like how or what or when or where. So it's just a question of using the right tool to carry out the right task. Science and religion can be symbiotic paths to truth, like Dr. Jensen says. But sometimes we need to sit down and say, well, I've got this toolbox of truth. What's the best tool to get at what I'm going for? If I want to know, know how old the Earth is, there's a whole bunch of scientific tools we can use. If I want to know how stars came into existence, there's tools we can use. If I want to know the purpose or the meaning behind why the Earth came into existence, I might need to turn to religion or philosophy, because those are the tools designed to answer that particular question. So it's just really a question of the right tool for the right job.
- [53:08]
A
That is wise. That is wise. It takes humility and a little bit of experience. Experience and patience to make sure you get that fit just right. And to wrap this all up, Casey, I was recently reading a letter that was written by a member of the quorum of the Twelve Apostles back in 1933. His name was Elder Stephen L. Richards. This is when debates over evolution and stuff were still raging. I know they still are in some quarters today, but it was really raging back then. And he wrote what he called an open letter to college students. And in that, he wrote this. And I just think this is just a great way to maybe land the plane today. He said, if you will take the counsel of one who loves science and reveres religion, permit me to admonish you, never close your mind or your heart ever keep them open to the reception of both knowledge and spiritual impression expressions. Both true science and true religion are the exponents of truth. Their fields are different, their provinces are distinct, but their purposes are identical. To enlighten man, to give him power, to make him good and bring him joy. Never abandon a time tested thing of worth until you are very, very sure that the new is better. Be not ashamed of faith in God. God. It has been the incentive for the noblest things of life. Close quote.
- [54:36]
B
This is our first episode in this series. Let me just outline what we're going to do. Okay. So you might have noticed today's episode had a little history. This is called Church History Matters, but mostly ideas, theology. We're going to do a couple episodes where we use the Old Testament specifically and show how you can read the Scriptures and maintain your faith, but also believe in in science. Like use these different tools just to approach truth. So we're going to do that and then we'll bring in an expert on reconciling these two and interview her. And then we're going to do the history of science within the church. There's been some wonderful work done on things like this. There's some wonderful figures in the history of the Church like Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, Orson Pratt, James E. Talvinch, Joseph Fielding Smith, Joseph Merrill that we're going to use use to illustrate the history of science within the church. And there's some ups and downs and there's been some righteous conflicts that have happened between good people, but we just want you to understand the ebbs and flows of intellectual history. We're going to bring in a great expert too that's written a lot about this that will help us understand it. So for the next couple weeks, we're going to approach the history and belief of the Church with regards to science. We'll spend the first couple episodes on belief and then the next couple episodes on history. And I want to be clear, this is a story with no real bad guys, just people that believe passionately in the ideas that they strove and fought for and what they believed was best for other people. So we're going to paint a picture and just show how in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, scientific ideas have come in and out of favor and hopefully arrive at a firm understanding of how a Latter Day Saint could be both a person of faith and a person of reason that we can bring both together and use both as tools on our journey to exaltation and eternal life.
- [56:33]
A
I look forward to this Next week we're going to dig deep into exploring Scripture and science together. So that's exciting. How do we reconcile Scriptures with what we learn from science? And no funner place to play no better sandbox than in the Book of Genesis. So we'll have a good time over the next. Next couple episodes doing that.
- [56:54]
B
Okay, well, we'll see you at the next episode.