Matters of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of True Happiness
Oct. 9, 2007 - More on Evolution....
I've been thinking about this more today. I also happened to go to a friend's house. She has a master's degree in biology so she's thought about this all quite a bit. She is Christian and went to a private Christian school for her degree. I asked her what her thoughts were on this subject. She expressed that she believes in evolution, including evolution of humans. She believes that God uses the natural laws and order to accomplish His purposes. With regard to human evolution, she does believe that Adam and Eve were the first humans with the distinction that they were the first homo sapiens. Since there is ample evidence in the fossil record of bipedal creatures that appear to be an early form of human she believes that those early humans were creatures something like animals. She believes that they are not the spirit offspring of God. She said she thinks God waited until there were appropriate bodies before He chose to send His spirit sons and daughters to Earth.
And I found myself agreeing with her. 
Some scriptures are not meant to be taken literally. I'm not sure how much of the Adam and Eve story is literal and how much of it is figurative. I do believe that Adam and Eve are the literal parents of modern humanity. I do believe that they are the first spirit offspring to obtain mortal bodies. I'm ok with the idea that their bodies might be the product of evolution from earlier renditions of humans. And God still exists.
So my friend, Penny, commented on my other post and mentioned these scriptures as a counter argument to my view of scriptural support for evolution.
2 Nephi
22And now, behold, if Adam had not transgressed he would not have fallen, but he would have remained in the garden of Eden. And all things which were created must have remained in the same state in which they were after they were created; and they must have remained forever, and had no end.
23 And they would have had no children; wherefore they would have remained in a state of innocence, having no joy, for they knew no misery; doing no good, for they knew no sin.
24 But behold, all things have been done in the wisdom of him who knoweth all things.
25 Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy.
And Penny said: Before the fall there was no death, no sickness, nothing to require the atonement. Evolution requires death as things evolve. And procreation, which also did not exist before the fall. I believe in the literal creation of the world by God. Does it matter to know the exact whys and wherefores? No, not really. I did want to share this scripture with you, though. There are more that support that as well. :)
I think those scriptures have to do with the state of modern humanity, human bodies that would be vessels for God's spirit children. I don't think those scriptures necessarily include all life on planet Earth. Surely bacteria, plants, microbes, etc. decayed and died. Did Adam and Eve ever eat anything prior to the Fall? Or was that bite of forbidden fruit the first thing ever to pass through their lips? If they did eat before the Fall, did those plants stay living even while being digested?
I don't know.... It bothers me to try to, er, adjust what seems to be fairly obvious evidence of evolution to fit within a creation story that probably isn't meant to be taken literally. That shakes my faith way more than the idea of God using evolution.  I like order. I like consistency. I like things to be built logically. I believe God is logical and that He works within the scope of Natural Law. It may be that things we perceive to be miracles (angels appearing, etc.) are merely outside our current understanding of how the world works yet still within the bounds of natural law.
Faith is a funny thing. There's never going to be a stamp somewhere in the Earth "Made by God" to prove to the evolutionists that He really exists. There's never going to be a stamp anywhere that says "Earth, created ____ years ago exactly." It takes faith to believe in God at all. That's what really matters. So, keep the faith.
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"Live free or die. Death is not the worst of evils." ~ General John Stark |
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Oct. 12, 2007 - questions
2) Either way, my faith doesn't hinge on this. I won't be surprised to find out that evolution happened, nor will I be surprised to find out that it didn't :-) Science surely isn't perfect, so the evidence that proves evolution may not really prove it at all, or vice versa.
3) Does the fact that there are many other worlds throw a wrench into anything for you? Or do you believe that evolution would occur in the same manner on each world? Part of me wonders why that would be necessary - why wouldn't God just put the first humans on each world there himself, since humans already exist elsewhere? But perhaps the billions of years that evolution requires is necessary to make an earth able to sustain human life for thousands of years. And it's certainly plausible that the end results of evolution would be the same each time. I mean, a baby starts out as an egg and sperm, and the results are the same (human) each time.
4) A big sticking point for me is that Adam and Eve would have had non-human parents. That just seems really weird - non-human parents and human children. But that would explain why they had to go into the Garden of Eden - to be segregated from the society of non-humans.