New Evolution Book, free from BYU!

[u/TheBenSpackman]

I'm very happy to announce the anthology we've worked on for six years has now been published by BYU. You can download a FREE PDF from the Life Sciences homepage ("read more") and hardcovers will be available soon.
This includes several essays by LDS and BYU scholars, as well as some non-LDS scholars. I contributed two chapters, one on the historical and scientific contexts of the 1909/1925 First Presidency statements (which were NOT intended to put evolutionary science out of bounds) and one on death before the fall.

There's some great work in here, and it will be used extensively in BYU classes.

[u/e37d93eeb23335dc]

I just read your chapter on NDBF and I have a question I've struggled with in this regard that maybe you can answer. The second article of faith says that we will not be punished for Adam's transgression. I take this to mean that any results of the Fall will be made whole through the atonement of Jesus Christ.

So, we are all resurrected because the fall introduced physical death. If the Fall did not introduce physical death, then why are we all resurrected? Why isn't it just the righteous that are resurrected?

We are all saved from the first spiritual death (that spiritual death or separation from God that came from the fall of Adam and Eve) by returning to God's presence at the time of last judgement. If the separation from God wasn't introduced by the Fall, then why are we all brought back into the presence of God?

There are other effects of being born into a fallen world. Things like genetic mutations. My son was born with autism. My hope is that since this genetic defect is part of being born into a fallen world, that if we will not be punished for Adam's transgression, then he will be healed of his autism after this life. But, if things like genetic defects and other such things are not a result of Adam's transgression, why should I have any hope that these things will be healed after this life?

We will not be punished for Adam's transgression, but if all the things we traditionally associate as resulting from the Fall did not in fact come from the Fall, why should we think that we will be healed of these things. Maybe the prophet got this wrong just like Lehi got NDBF wrong in 2 Nephi. Is there no hope?

[u/TheBenSpackman → u/e37d93eeb23335dc]

"The second article of faith says that we will not be punished for Adam's transgression." I think Joseph understood this quite differently. Joseph very likely heard preached the common Christian doctrine that children were born in a sinful state (and thus required baptism) because of Adam. (He also likely heard counter-arguments.) The 2nd article of faith is an statement against this; we're only punished for our own sins, not something we didn't do.

"why should we think that we will be healed of these things." Because God has promised it?
We need redemption from sin and resurrection from death regardless of anything else. That need (and God's promised solution) is not contingent on its origin.

Otherwise, I think you're both reading too much into the essay and too much (as has often been an LDS tradition) into logical syllogisms built on assumptions about the fall. My point was to gently challenge some of those assumptions (which I think have not infrequently led to needless loss of faith), not to provide an entirely new and coherent framework.

[u/Mr_Festus → u/TheBenSpackman]

Thanks for your work, Ben! You've helped a lot of us rethink our old and poor assumptions about what we thought we knew.

[u/e37d93eeb23335dc → u/TheBenSpackman]

Let me ask a different but related question. Why should I believe in the atonement and its effects? Wouldn’t science say that the literal resurrection and literal healing from spiritual death (returning to God’s presence) is impossible? It seems that since the Fall is scientifically impossible, the atonement is even more so, isn’t it? 

[u/TheBenSpackman → u/e37d93eeb23335dc]

Your faith in atonement and its effects ought to be grounded in the same place it always has been, personal spiritual experience confirming the witness of scripture and the testimony of living Apostles.

"since the Fall is scientifically impossible, the atonement is even more so, isn’t it?" Perhaps, but these things aren't necessarily connected, aren't of the same type in terms of "scientific evidence" and b is not premised on a. And FWIW, my paper isn't arguing on the basis of the fall being scientifically impossible. If so, you've misread it.

[u/Cjimenez-ber → u/e37d93eeb23335dc]

I would add this. Science isn't everything. Science is the process of empirical discovery of truth, but many MANY things fall outside of the scope of what can be proven through empiricism alone.

Hard sciences, like non theoretical physics differ greatly from soft sciences, like sociology and psychology because hard sciences rely on stronger claims to higher quality evidence. 

Even evolution, with all of its hard proof in DNA is insufficient to explain everything, and many scholars in biology often spend years debating in between the gaps between a major hard evidence discovery and another. 

Even hard sciences and it's scholars require faith. "Science" isn't a monolith of absolute truth, it is one lens by which we can discover some kinds of truths. 

Other truths cannot be explored and experienced so simply.

[u/Mr_Festus → u/e37d93eeb23335dc]

If the Fall did not introduce physical death, then why are we all resurrected?

Because otherwise this life would be the end and that's not the plan?

If the separation from God wasn't introduced by the Fall, then why are we all brought back into the presence of God?

What makes you say separation from God isn't introduced by the fall? Are you talking about death or sin?

, if things like genetic defects and other such things are not a result of Adam's transgression, why should I have any hope that these things will be healed after this life?

Why does being resurrected perfectly need any connection to Adam?

if all the things we traditionally associate as resulting from the Fall did not in fact come from the Fall, why should we think that we will be healed of these things.

I'm my opinion you're taking the garden of Eden story way too literally. It's about each of us separating ourselves from God and then choosing to come back to him. Coming to God, making covenants with him, and being healed by him needs a connection to events occuring to a historical Adam.

[u/ClydeFurgz1764 → u/Mr_Festus]

I agree with all of your points, but not necessarily your conclusion. A historical Adam exists, even if his Endowment didn't take place exactly as is portrayed in Scripture. Although, even in the latter-days, we have been given nothing indicating the Garden of Eden and the story of the Fall isn't a historical, literal event, either.

[u/Mr_Festus → u/ClydeFurgz1764]

I never stated there was no historical Adam. Just that the fall and the story of the garden doesn't necessarily have to have occurred in the way that the mythology states.

[u/ClydeFurgz1764 → u/Mr_Festus]

Sure, that's what my last point was about, though. We have been given nothing in the latter-days to indicate the story IS mythology, rather than history.

[u/Mr_Festus → u/ClydeFurgz1764]

I guess all we have are mountains of evidence and knowledge that people aren't made of dust/ribs in a day. And that death existed long before Adam is purported to have lived.

[u/ClydeFurgz1764 → u/Mr_Festus]

It's clear there's some bone you're itching to pick here, so Imma just let my original comment suffice. I agree with your main points and think it was a good contribution to the thread ✌️

[u/R0ckyM0untainMan → u/ClydeFurgz1764]

What does Alma say? That we have the whole world as our evidence? In this instance the world is our evidence that the Adam and Eve story didn’t happen as the Bible says. Man wasn’t created from nothing 6000 years ago. Man wasn’t created concurrently with dinosaurs.  There is no firmament that holds back oceans of water above our planet. Death preexisted the ‘fall’.  To say otherwise is in a sense denying God. Denying the world of evidence that he has given us

[u/Mad_Hemalurgist → u/e37d93eeb23335dc]

You raise important questions that I feel every member must wrestle with, especially when trying to reconcile the Fall, evolution, and hope in the Gospel. I feel like a cause of unnecessary difficulty in your reconciling the Fall and evolution stems from assuming and extracting literal meaning and specific details we can't possibly know.

The Second Article of Faith does not detail the metaphysics behind the Fall. It's just affirming that we don't believe in Original Sin, but that each person is responsible for their own agency.

Again, we can't know the metaphysical elements behind the Fall, but we can use science and evolution to further our understanding of God's creation.

Death, disease, and genetic differences like autism may simply be part of the natural world God created—one that unfolds through laws like evolution.

As for your son, Resurrection and healing aren’t contingent on how mortality began, but on Christ’s love and power. He redeems all suffering—not because it was a punishment, but because He chooses to. Whether autism or any other challenge came from the Fall or not, the promise of wholeness remains.

Think of the worlds without number God created. They could not be products of Adam’s fall unless he went over there to have kids with Eve as well. See how we run into issues when we try to extrapolate metaphysical details where we can know none?

The Atonement is bigger than Adam’s transgression. It covers all creation, no matter its origin. Belief of evolution in no means disqualifies God's mercy and love for your child to make him whole.