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Gramps,
Does the Mormon Church accept the Theory of Evolution?
Amy, from Arizona

Dear Amy,
First, a general statement. In the Doctrine and Covenants we are told to teach one another of many things—

And I give unto you a commandment that you shall teach one another the doctrine of the kingdom. Teach ye diligently and my grace shall attend you, that you may be instructed more perfectly in theory, in principle, in doctrine, in the law of the gospel, in all things that pertain unto the kingdom of God, that are expedient for you to understand; Of things both in heaven and in the earth, and under the earth; things which have been, things which are, things which must shortly come to pass; things which are at home, things which are abroad; the wars and the perplexities of the nations, and the judgments which are on the land; and a knowledge also of countries and of kingdoms–That ye may be prepared in all things when I shall send you again to magnify the calling whereunto I have called you, and the mission with which I have commissioned you (D&C 88:77-80).

including  things both in heaven and in the earth, and under the earth. But the purpose of this teaching is not to expand our knowledge of the truths of eternity, but to be prepared when we go out to represent the Lord to the people of the world–-That ye may be prepared in all things when I shall send you again to magnify the calling whereunto I have called you, and the mission with which I have commissioned you.
A second general statement. We live in a telestial world.. Our scientists in their laboratories are equipped to deal only with telestial knowledge. They have no way in the laboratory to deal with revealed truth. Revealed truth can only be understood by the influence of the Holy Spirit. When evolutionists make dogmatic statements about conditions that may have existed thousands or millions or billions of years ago, they have absolutely no way of making any type of accurate time assessments. As a matter of fact, the earth will have existed in time for only seven thousand years!

Q. What are we to understand by the book which John saw, which was sealed on the back with seven seals? A. We are to understand that it contains the revealed will, mysteries, and the works of God; the hidden things of his economy concerning this earth during the seven thousand years of its continuance, or its temporal existence (D&C  77:6).

…And so on, until the seventh angel shall sound his trump; and he shall stand forth upon the land and upon the sea, and swear in the name of him who sitteth upon the throne, that there shall be time no longer; and Satan shall be bound, that old serpent, who is called the devil, and shall not be loosed for the space of a thousand years (D&C  88:110).

It may also be appropriate to talk about the seven days of creation. The word, day, in the Genesis account of the creation, is translated from the Hebrew, yowm, which may be translated as either day or time.. In fact, in the Book of Abraham it is translated as time rather than day—

And the Gods called the expanse, Heaven. And it came to pass that it was from evening until morning that they called night; and it came to pass that it was from morning until evening that they called day; and this was the second time that they called night and day (Abr  4:8).

Further, in Abraham 5 when Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden, Adam had not yet been appointed his reckoning, or his measurement of time.

But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it; for in the time that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. Now I, Abraham, saw that it was after the Lord’s time, which was after the time of Kolob; for as yet the Gods had not appointed unto Adam his reckoning (Abr  5:13)

In other words, the seven thousand years of the earth’s temporal existence had not yet begun.
Therefore, there is no possible way that any scientist in any laboratory could make any calculation of the time when any prehistoric event could have occurred, because time simply did not exist prior to the seven thousand years of the earth’s temporal existence.
If we go to the turf of the scientists we will find that there are many scientific reasons that clearly demonstrate that the theory of relativity is passe. It stems from the theory of uniformitarianism. Scientific evidence for the opposing theory of catastrophism carries much more weight in today’s scientific world. So indeed, the theory of evolution is on its way out, and would have been swept away by now except for the great tenacity of scientific theories to hang on the in the universities long after their demise.
Gramps

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