Wednesday, October 4, 2023

George H. Brimhall (former BYU President) on Science and Religion

  

BELIEF CONCERNING REVELATION AND SCIENCE

 

Revelation and Science are complements of each other, sources of truth; they both belong to God. Through one is emphasized a knowledge of His will, and through the other, stress is placed upon His works. The same God who spoke to Abraham led the Father of the Faithful to a study of the stars.

 

To believe in Joseph Smith, the Seer, is to believe in a prophet whose predictions have stood the test of nearly a century without a single failure. To believe in Pasteur, the Scientist, is to believe in a student whose discoveries have stayed in the ravages of disease and held back the hand of death with marvelous potency.

 

Truth is constantly springing out of the earth and righteousness is everlastingly looking down from heaven.

 

God’s writings on stone were not limited to the tables which Moses threw down in anger. He has been recording the history of the earth both in heaven and in the earth.

 

It ill becomes the theologians to fight physical truth revealed by science nor is it consistent for the scientist to scorn truth revealed direct by Deity. Revelation and Science at variance is like the two hands of the same person seeking to disable each other.

 

Upward climb, O manhood—day by day,
Onward, science—plod thy worthy way.

 

This, it seems to me, should be our attitude toward Science and Revelation—

 

“Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief.” These words contain at once a declaration of strength and a call for help. It is a prayer common to us all. Unbelief is a condition of weakness whether we admit it or not. The unbeliever is rarely worthy of sympathy but always deserving pity.

 

To the spiritual unbeliever, the words of Chalmers are eloquently appropriate:

 

“I pity the unbeliever—one who can gaze upon the grandeur and glory of the natural universe and behold not the touch of His finger, who is over and with and above all; from my very heart I commiserate his condition, one whose intellect the light of revelation never penetrated, one who can gaze upon the sun, the moon, and the stars, and upon the imperishable sky spread out so magnificently before him and say, ‘All this is the work of chance.’ * * * Yea, while standing on the foot-stool of omnipotence and gazing upon the dazzling throne of Jehovah, he shuts is intellect to the light of reason and denies there is a God.”

 

As to the value of the desirability of unbelief, the case may here rest with the belief that, as President Nibley said, it is a good thing for one to be a believer, and a great thing for a community to be made up of believers. When peace shall come to the world, she will be carrying a white banner on which in blue letters will be seen the one word, “Believing.” (George H. Brimhall, Long and Short Range Arrows [Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 1934], 30-32)

 

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