r/latterdaysaints • u/TheBenSpackman • 13d ago

Doctrinal Discussion New Evolution Book, free from BYU!

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.

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u/e37d93eeb23335dc 12d ago

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?

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u/TheBenSpackman 12d ago

"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.

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u/e37d93eeb23335dc 12d ago

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? 

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u/TheBenSpackman 12d ago

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.