While it is true that Latter-day Saints have a more positive view of man, even after the Fall, notwithstanding popular misgivings of many members of the Church, the Fall was not a totally positive thing. Indeed, due to the Fall, we became fallen, both morally and epistemologically (cf. Ether 3:2).
Stephen L. Richards, while rejecting concepts such as Total Depravity, did not exempt all of the human race from negative consequences to our nature in our fallen state:
“Light and truth” are the words of the revelation. It places no premium upon the acquisition of falsehood and error. It distinguishes very clearly between sophistication and true intelligence. A man once said in distinguishing intelligence from education that intelligence is that which enables one to wisely meet the situations of life without education; whereas, education is that which helps one to meet the situations of life without intelligence.
This statement may leave the inference that intelligence is largely inherited. The gospel teaches us that it is—that it came as a native endowment of the race but that the efficacy of the endowment has been in many instances largely mitigated by the perversion of the race. It is encouraging and gratifying, however, to be assured that no man has ever quite lost this vital and all-important attribute. There is enough intelligence with every man to acquire knowledge and truth if he elects so to do. It is a significant fact, demonstrated by most extensive research and investigation, that there is no people in the earth, even the most primitive, which has not sufficient intelligence to grasp and hold to a conception of a God as a supreme being. (Where is Wisdom? Addresses of President Stephen L. Richards [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1955], 164)
