Refuting and Correcting BYU’s False Doctrine on the Origin of Man #40 - President George Q. Cannon on False Theories about the Origin of Man

(by Dennis B. Horne)

            Today, most members don’t understand the marvelous counselor in the First Presidency George Q. Cannon was a hundred and twenty to a hundred and sixty years ago. Historians compare his influence and stature to that of Presidents Heber C. Kimball, J. Rueben Clark, and Gordon B. Hinckley. His list of accomplishments in behalf of the Church is long and distinguished with few to match it. His spiritual and doctrinal qualifications were impressive. For example, speaking to a congregation of young people, President Cannon recorded, “I testified that the Lord Jesus lived, for I had seen Him and heard His voice, and I had heard the voice of the Spirit [Holy Ghost], speaking to me as one man speaketh to another. I had been led to my present position by the revelations of the Lord, for He had pointed out to me the path to pursue. . . . I also testified that under the laying on of my hands those who were dead to all human appearance had been raised to life, and the blind had been restored to sight.” During a meeting of the Quorum of the Twelve, President Cannon declared: “I bore testimony also to the brethren that I had heard the voice of the Spirit of God [Holy Ghost] as a man’s voice.” President Cannon was truly a prophet, seer, and revelator. I suspect his inspired teachings on the creation of man will not be appreciated by BYU biologists, for while science changes, doctrine does not and what was true in President Cannon’s day remains so today and in the century and decades to follow.

Refuting and Correcting BYU’s False Doctrine on the Origin of Man #39 - Spencer W. Kimball on superiority of revelation to science

(by Dennis B. Horne)

            This general conference message by Elder Spencer W. Kimball is highly relevant to this series:

            We live in a marvelous age with developments far beyond the most fantastic prognostications of a quarter century ago. Our communication lines have been extended from Pony Express to fast air service; transportation has been speeded from horse and buggy to globe-encircling jets for the masses, and speeds running into the thousands of miles each hour for the explorers. From the Vikings and Columbus, we come to "Glenn" and the astronauts. Persistent scientists continue to explore land and sea, and now they are out in space. Much learning has been added, but astronauts and rocket riders and telegraphers can little realize how relatively elementary are their movements and discoveries and knowledge. Astronomers have sought knowledge through study but prophets through faith. Astronomers have developed powerful telescopes through which they have seen much, but prophets and seers have had clearer vision at greater distances with precision instruments such as the Liahona and the Urim and Thummim, which have far exceeded the most advanced radar radio, television, or telescopic equipment.

Refuting and Correcting BYU’s False Doctrine on the Origin of Man #38 - President David O. McKay on Evolution

(by Dennis B. Horne) 

            The strings holding up the notion that President McKay believed in evolution are thin and fragile indeed. The two or three hints that evolutionists have promoted to make their case are entirely insufficient. Of course, even if we hypothetically decreed that President McKay was a believer in evolution, which he was not, he would be vastly outnumbered by his Brethren in the leading councils of the Church. The two items below are very relevant and interesting, as is the material reviewed in blog #7:

            President Harold B. Lee [private letter on official Church letterhead stationery, October 2, 1973. This was written a few months before President Lee’s death.]

            I have a few moments to respond to your letter of recent date in which you express some concern about some contradictory information as to the position we should take with regard to the doctrine of evolution. This, as you know, has been long a bone of contention so serious that in the earlier years when Darwin’s theory first was enunciated, a number of professors at the Brigham Young University were released because of their unwillingness to teach the theory and then counter by delivering the true doctrines of the gospel.

Refuting and Correcting BYU’s False Doctrine on the Origin of Man #37 - President George Albert Smith on the Origin of Man

(by Dennis B. Horne)

            As a result of the BYU Modernism controversy, but mainly the scopes monkey trial of evolution vs Biblical creationism, President Smith gave this October 1925 general conference talk:

            Now to this vast audience I could ask that question without hesitation, with the assurance that most of you would say, Why, there were two creations referred to. In the first place God created all these things. He formed the earth that was without form and void. He caused light to appear, he caused the waters to take their place, and the dry land to appear. He created spiritually, everything that dwells upon the earth; and after he had done that, the statement is made that there was not yet man to till the earth. Man in his spiritual condition was not prepared to till the earth, and so God formed his body for him. He prepared his physical being, and then the spirit that had been prepared before was placed in that body and he became a living soul. It seems to me that a splendid opportunity was lost to say to all the world, read the first and second chapters of Genesis carefully, and, to a very may as large degree it will settle any doubt that be in your mind to the possibility of the various forms of life gravitating from one to the other, because we are told, “every tree and every seed bearing fruit after its kind.”

Introduction to Volume 2 - I Know He Lives: How 11 More Special Witnesses Came to Know Jesus Christ

(by Dennis B. Horne)

[Readers desiring to obtain their own hardback copies of volume one of I Know He Lives: How 13 Special Witnesses Came to Know Jesus Christ can find copies on sale here  Softbound copies can be purchased here, on sale. An ebook (Kindle) edition is available on Amazon here, for cheap. The Amazon page also includes the Introduction and first chapter of volume one for free.]

 

My first and primary ordination is to testify of

Christ and to be a special witness of Him.

(Elder Neal L. Andersen[1])

            Special Witnesses of the Lord Jesus Christ walk the earth today in both humility and great spiritual power and will do so until the Second Coming. “I certify to you that the 14 men with whom I share the ordination are indeed Apostles. In declaring this, I say no more than the Lord has taught, no more than may be revealed to anyone who seeks with a sincere heart and real intent for an individual witness of the Spirit. These men are true servants of the Lord; give heed to their counsel.”[2] So testified President Boyd K. Packer to the Church assembled in general conference. His words were true then and remain so now and into the future. And they do indeed know something of the future: “There are 15 old men whose very lives are focused on the future. They are called, sustained, and ordained as prophets, seers, and revelators. It is their right to see as seers see; it is their obligation to counsel and to warn.”[3]

Refuting and Correcting BYU’s False Doctrine on the Origin of Man #36 - President Gordon B. Hinckley on Evolution

 (by Dennis B. Horne) 

            Some mistaken writers have tried to hint, or even outright declare, that President Gordon B. Hinckley was in favor of evolution. I trust the below teachings of President Hinckley’s will settle that question in the minds of reasonable people.

 

President Gordon B. Hinckley:

            I believe in evolution, not organic evolution, as it is called, but in the evolution of the mind, the heart, and the soul of man. I believe in improvement.

Refuting and Correcting BYU’s False Doctrine on the Origin of Man #35 - Elder Mark E. Petersen Warns Against Evolution and Teaches Truth about the Origin of Man (Part B)

 (by Dennis B. Horne)

            The below are excerpts from a major address by Elder Mark E. Petersen on the subject of the origin of man and evolution, given to BYU faculty and students in 1973. Readers are encouraged to visit the BYU Speeches website to read the address in its entirety. Elder Petersen was obviously disgusted with the growing evolution cult as it was then (and now) being pushed on college students and church members by atheists, biologists, and others.

 

Elder Mark E. Petersen, “We Believe in God, the Eternal Father”:

            That’s what I’d like to talk about with you tonight: the fatherhood of God. God is literally our Eternal Father. . . . You recall that when he [Paul] spoke to them he said, among other things, that “we are the offspring of God.” That is the very basis of our whole religion. We are the offspring of Almighty God.