Science & Archaeologyevolutioncreationadamscience

Evolution, Creation, and Faith

Must a faithful Latter-day Saint reject biological evolution, or can evolution be discussed as the how while God remains the who?

Bible

The Bible answers

Bible · Genesis 1:1

KJV + NRSVUE

In the beginning, God. Mechanism is not the enemy of that sentence.

King James Version
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

NRSVUE
When God began to create the heavens and the earth,

Bible · Hebrews 11:3

KJV + NRSVUE

King James Version
Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.

NRSVUE
By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible.

Book of Mormon

Also restored

Moses 1:33–35
And worlds without number have I created; and I also created them for mine own purpose; and by the Son I created them, which is mine Only Begotten. And the first man of all men have I called Adam, which is many. But only an account of this earth, and the inhabitants thereof, give I unto you. For behold, there are many worlds that have passed away by the word of my power. And there are many that now stand, and innumerable are they unto man; but all things are numbered unto me, for they are mine and I know them.

Abraham 4:1
And then the Lord said: Let us go down. And they went down at the beginning, and they, that is the Gods, organized and formed the heavens and the earth.

Ancient witnesses

Dead Sea Scrolls and related extra-biblical texts that illuminate the same pattern the Restoration restores.

Genesis 1 as temple cosmology, not a lab notebook

Ancient Near Eastern creation accounts, including Genesis 1, order a cosmos as a sacred house: domains, rulers, a seventh-day enthronement. They answer who is King and why we are here, not how genomes mutate.

Reading Genesis as a modern scientific paper is a category error shared by some atheists and some believers. Restoration scripture keeps the who (the Father, by the Son) and the why (Moses 1:39) while speaking of organizing, of many worlds, and of “times” of creation (Abraham 4). That leaves room for serious biology without baptizing materialism.

Faithful answers

FAIR

Mormonism and Science

FAIR Latter-day Saints

Latter-day Saints are not required to deny common descent, deep time, or the fossil record. They are required to confess God as Creator, Adam as the first man in the theological sense the scriptures mean, and Jesus Christ as Redeemer. Evolution as a scientific description of how life on this earth may have been organized is an open question, not a loyalty test.

The Church has no official position on the theory of evolution. Members may accept, reject, or remain undecided about evolutionary science so long as they do not displace God as Creator or deny the truths of the gospel concerning the Fall and the Atonement.

Official statements (1909, 1925, and later First Presidency comments) insist that Adam is the first man and that we are children of God. They do not canonize a young earth or forbid research in biology.
Abraham 4 uses “organized and formed,” not creation from absolute nothing. That is friendly to process, development, and secondary causes under God’s command.
Moses 1 already has many worlds that have passed away. A tiny, young, unique earth is not the Restoration’s cosmology.
Materialist evolution as a religion—no God, no Fall, no Atonement—is incompatible with the gospel. Evolution as possible mechanism is not.

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