A Response to FARMS Critique of Questions to ask your Mormon Friends

Are prophets scientists?

Jacobson writes:

McKeever and Johnson seem to think that statements made by Church leaders which are not accurate according to modern scientific views indicate that these leaders can't be trusted to provide information regarding the will of God (p. 35). Yet they do not judge so harshly the writings of the Bible that include such statements as 'All fowls that creep, going on all four...' (Leviticus 11:20, KJV) and 'he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajilon. And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed...' (Joshua 10:12-13, KJV)."

We wish Jacobson would have taken the time to explain the examples we listed. Can she defend Brigham Young's statement that there is life on the sun, or that gold and silver "grows" like hair, or that Adam is really God?

Since Jacobson feels that Leviticus 11:20 and Joshua 10:12-13 cannot be logically explained, we offer the following explanations:

By "fowls" here are to be understood all creatures with wings and "going upon all fours," not a restriction to animals which have exactly four feet, because many "creeping things" have more than that number. The prohibition is regarded generally as extending to insects, reptiles, and worms. (Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset, and David Brown, Commentary on the Whole Bible, pg.92)

Regarding Joshua 10:12-13, most commentators feel that God miraculously turned a 24-hour day into 48 hours, thus not creating the certain catastrophe that would occur if the earth stopped moving on its axis. But whatever the situation, something special happened on this day. Christian scholar Dr. Norman Geisler gives the following suggestions:

First, it is not necessary to conclude that the earth's rotation was totally halted. Verse 13 states that the sun "did not hasten to go down for about a whole day." This could indicate that the earth's rotation was not completely halted, but that it was retarded to such a degree that the sun did not set for about a whole day. Or it is possible that God caused the light of the sun to refract through some cosmic "mirror" so that it could be seen a day longer.

Even if the earth rotation was completely stopped, we must remember that God is not only capable of halting the rotation of the earth for a whole day, but He is also able to prevent any possible catastrophic effects that might result from the cessation of the earth s rotation. Although we do not necessarily know how God brought about this miraculous event, we know that He did it.

Finally, the Bible speaks in everyday observational language. So the sun did not actually stop; it only appeared to do so. (When Critics Ask, pg. 14)

We are not saying that prophets have to be scientists, however, if a man is clearly a prophet representing the God who created science, and he speaks on subjects relative to the scientific realm, he should not contradict it. Even LDS Apostle Bruce McConkie recognized this when he wrote:

Obviously there never will be a conflict between truths revealed in the realm of religion and those discovered by scientific research. Truth is ever in harmony with itself. But if false doctrines creep into revealed religion, these will run counter to the discovered truths of science; and if false scientific theories are postulated, these ultimately will be overthrown by the truths revealed from Him who knows all things (Mormon Doctrine, pg. 250).

For instance, take this statement by Brigham Young who declared that he had never given incorrect counsel and challenged any Latter-day Saint to prove otherwise. Just four years before he died, Young gave the following challenge:

I am here to give this people, called Latter-day Saints, counsel to direct them in the path of life ... If there is an elder here, or any member of this Church, called the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who can bring up the first idea, the first sentence that I have delivered to the people as counsel that is wrong, I really wish they would do it; but they cannot do it, for the simple reason that I have never given counsel that is wrong; this is the reason (Journal of Discourses 16:161).

Jacobson and other Latter-day Saints have every right to accept Young's counsel as perpetually true if they desire; however, we wish they would explain Young's comments to those of us who are not as receptive to such bravado. We have no problem with "miracles" such as that mentioned in Joshua 10, but we do have a problem with bizarre comments such as those made by Young and other LDS leaders. There has to come a time when rational, thinking people must decide that such men are not credible sources for truth.