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)