Doctrine and Covenants 77

(November 5, 2015)

                So I am what you would probably call a proponent of Intelligent Design.  I have no problem with macroevolution, but don’t believe the science supports the theory that it occurred naturally.  The probabilities are so low that those who are reductive materialists are reduced to presenting the argument (which I take to be a tautology) that if must have happened, however improbable, or else we wouldn’t be here to notice it didn’t happen.

                Frankly, I am not too concerned about it, however.  I somehow doubt that, in the hereafter, we will be judged on our beliefs as to the mechanism by which Creation occurred.  Instead we will ask (or remember participating in it), and that will be that.  It makes a fine test for us mortals, but I don’t imagine it to be a stumbling block hereafter.

                But I must admit that my viewpoint seems a little inconsistent with verse 6.  It appears on the face that it is directly incompatible, except for the fact that the best evidence we have indicates that Joseph Smith believed in an Earth around 2.55 billion years old both before and after this revelation.  So who knows?  I guess the key point is, after getting a testimony of the truthfulness of the Restoration, the details are not as important and our minds sometimes try to make them out to be.