Ben, thank you for this probing question. It has usually been asked in the spirit of pitting truth against science. Which one is more accurate, or to which one should we give preference?
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| President Boyd K. Packer |
I have always valued the sagacious wisdom of President Boyd K. Packer, who noted:
“The Spirit of Christ can enlighten the inventor, the scientist, the painter, the sculptor, the composer, the performer, the architect, the author to produce great, even inspired things for the blessing and good of all mankind.
“This Spirit can prompt the farmer in his field and the fisherman on his boat. It can inspire the teacher in the classroom, the missionary in presenting his discussion. It can inspire the student who listens. And of enormous importance, it can inspire husband and wife, and father and mother.” (Boyd K. Packer, “The Light of Christ,”Ensign, April 2005, 10, emphasis mine).
The Lord declares, “All truth is independent in that sphere in which God has placed it, to act for itself, as all intelligence also; otherwise there is no existence.” (D&C 93:30, emphasis mine).
President Boyd K. Packer, in the article I quoted earlier, taught:
“Every man, woman, and child of every nation, creed, or color — everyone, no matter where they live or what they believe or what they do — has within them the imperishable Light of Christ. In this respect, all men are created equally. The Light of Christ in everyone is a testimony that God is no respecter of persons (see D&C 1:35). He treats everyone equally in that endowment with the Light of Christ.” (Boyd K. Packer, ibid).
The Light of Christ, which every mortal on earth possesses, is what Lehi had in mind when he declared, “And men are instructed sufficiently that they know good from evil. … And because that they are redeemed from the fall they have become free forever, knowing good from evil; to act for themselves.” (2 Nephi 2:5, 26).
Mormon urged: “Search diligently in the light of Christ that ye may know good from evil; and if ye will lay hold upon every good thing, and condemn it not, ye certainly will be a child of Christ.” (Moroni 7:19).
The scriptures are simply the most accurate guide we may apply to Ben’s question, as well as every other question we might suggest. It’s where my mind always takes me first, in addition to the living oracles who lead and preside among us in these last days.
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| President Harold B. Lee |
I went WAY BACK in my memory this morning to a talk none of you would have heard of because it was delivered near the end of his mortal life in 1973, by my Grandfather, President Harold B. Lee. He titled it simply “Closing Remarks.”
“And so, in the closing moments of this conference, I have been moved as I think I have never been moved before in all my life. If it were not for the assurance that I have that the Lord is near to us, guiding, directing, the burden would be almost beyond my strength, but because I know that he is there, and that he can be appealed to, and if we have ears to hear attuned to him, we will never be left alone.
“I am grateful for strong men like President Tanner and President Romney and the Twelve and all the General Authorities, who are united more so than I have ever experienced before during my lifetime. The General Authorities are united and working together and are speaking with one voice to the world.
“Follow the Brethren, listen to the Brethren. I bear you my witness as one whom the Lord has brought to this place, as Brother Gordon Hinckley has said. I thank the Lord that I may have passed some of the tests, but maybe there will have to be more before I shall have been polished to do all that the Lord would have me do.
“Sometimes when the veil has been very thin, I have thought that if the struggle had been still greater that maybe then there would have been no veil. I stand by, not asking for anything more than the Lord wants to give me, but I know that he is up there and he is guiding and directing.
“I extend my blessings to you wonderful Saints. Go back to your homes now. Take the love of the General Authorities to your people. We extend to those who are not members of the Church the hand of fellowship. May we reach out to those who have lost their sense of direction and, before it is too late, try to win them back into the fold; because they are all God’s children, and he wants us to save all of them.
“Peace be with you, not the peace that comes from the legislation in the halls of congress, but the peace that comes in the way that the Master said, by overcoming all the things of the world. That God may help us so to understand and may you know that I know with a certainty that defies all doubt that this is his work, that he is guiding us and directing us today, as he has done in every dispensation of the gospel, and I say that with all the humility of my soul, in the name of the Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.” (https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/1973/10/closing-remarks?lang=eng).
That concluding address to the Saints in October General Conference would be his final one. He would be gone by December 26, 1973, after a shockingly short administration everyone had expected would be much longer because of his 20-year age differential with President Joseph Fielding Smith. When his surprising death came, we all looked back and realized he had been saying his benediction at the end of General Conference.
Now, please don’t misunderstand. I have intentionally avoided in my answer anything that might resemble giving any credence to the notion that somehow faith and science are mutually exclusive. They are NOT!! Our enemies are fond of pitting us against each other with similarly posited “controversies.” There is eternal harmony in TRUTH, whether it comes from science or religion. We are taught in sacred precincts, “All truth may be circumscribed into one great whole.” We carry the symbol of that eternal truth in the sacred temple garments each of us wears every day.
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| President Russell M. Nelson |
Now to put a fine point on this question, Ben, I turn to perhaps our most recent and most famous scientist/Apostle, even President Russell M. Nelson, who was a world-renowned heart surgeon. He brilliantly reconciles below what might only appear to be two competing worlds in his life:
“After graduating from medical school, I pursued advanced education in surgery. At that time there was no such thing as heart surgery. Then I teamed up with other researchers in the daunting task of making an artificial heart and lung machine. We knew that such an apparatus could possibly maintain the body’s circulation while repairs might be made on the heart. But during that early era, there was much we did not know.
“Then one day, two truths articulated in the Doctrine and Covenants spoke to my inquiring mind. These truths were, first, that all blessings are predicated upon obedience to law [see Doctrine and Covenants 130:21] and, second, that to every kingdom there is a law given [see Doctrine and Covenants 88:38].
“Well, I reasoned that if every kingdom had a law, there must be laws that govern the beating heart. I was determined to discover those laws and obey them. By doing so, blessings would come and lives could be saved.
“In medical school I had been taught that if one touched the beating heart, it would stop beating. However, one of the first laws we discovered in the lab was that we could touch the heart of an animal without losing its heartbeat. This finding opened the door later to uncovering another law that made more complex open-heart operations possible.
“We learned that if we added potassium chloride to blood flowing into the coronary arteries, thereby altering the normal sodium/potassium ratio, the heart would stop beating instantly. Then, when we nourished the heart with blood that had a normal sodium/potassium ratio, the heart would spring back to its normal beating pattern. Literally we could turn the heart off long enough to repair it and then turn it back on again.
“Decades later, when I explained this to a group of medical students, one prominent professor asked, ‘But what if it doesn’t work?’ My answer? It always works, because it is based on divine law.” (“The Love and Laws of God,” Brigham Young University devotional, Sept. 17, 2019, 2–3, speeches.byu.edu, emphasis mine).
Now, to all of you, my beloved posterity reading these poor words of mine, compiled with generous quotes from prophets, ancient and modern, I conclude with my witness. I know by the revelations to my heart and soul that ALL truth, whether it originates in the halls of scientific academia or the sacred precincts of temples now dotting the globe, that I have the witness of the Holy Ghost who speaks to me here and now as I write that the gospel of Jesus Christ is true.
When I think of the careful tutoring and mentoring received by the boy prophet Joseph Smith in the years between 1820 and 1830, including the publication of the Book of Mormon, that ALL I know compiled over my 78 years, has been revealed to me by my Heavenly Father and my Savior Jesus Christ through the ministrations of the Holy Ghost. It is consistent, comprehensive, and exhaustive in its volume which I will never have in its fulness until I move ahead into the spirit world someday.
In the meantime, I am content to bear this sure witness.
Comment:
Hey Grandpa! This is Ben, thanks for your answer to my question!
It’s a topic that’s come up a few times at BYU in my classes and I wanted to hear your perspective. Very enlightening!
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