"A personal, though well-considered, opinion"

In the April 2012 general conference, Russell M. Nelson named several amazing attributes of the human body and called them "wondrous gifts from God." He then added this warning:

"Some people erroneously think that these marvelous physical attributes happened by chance or resulted from a big bang somewhere." (Ensign, May 2012.)

When I mentioned this earlier on my blog, Jared* (from LDS Science Review) commented: "It seems to me that Elder Nelson's statements about the Big Bang, when measured against Elder Christofferson's conference talk, and the talk by J. Reuben Clark on which it draws, constitute personal opinion."

I count Jared* as a friend. My very first blog post was published by him on his blog. The two of us have traded many comments over the years on various LDS blogs. I know him to be a careful and considerate blogger who almost always has his facts straight. But, in my opinion, he might be wrong this time. I offer three reasons for that opinion:

1.

I believe Elder Christofferson quoted those portions of President Clark's talk that were relevant to the point he, Christofferson, wanted to make:

"Speaking of members of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, he [J. Reuben Clark] stated:

" ' [We] should [bear] in mind that some of the General Authorities have had assigned to them a special calling; they possess a special gift; they are sustained as prophets, seers, and revelators, which gives them a special spiritual endowment in connection with their teaching of the people. They have the right, the power, and authority to declare the mind and will of God to his people, subject to the over-all power and authority of the President of the Church.' " (Ensign, May 2012.)

President Clark, as quoted by Elder Christofferson, doesn't appear to me to be saying that apostolic remarks in general conference might be personal opinion. In fact, as quoted by Christofferson, Clark seems to me to be saying that the First Presidency and Twelve (the prophets, seers, and revelators) are the Church's opinion setters and the rest of us should look to them:

" ' They have the right, the power, and authority to declare the mind and will of God to his people.... Others of the General Authorities are not given this special spiritual endowment and authority covering their teaching; they have a resulting limitation, and the resulting limitation upon their power and authority in teaching applies to every other officer and member of the Church.' " (Ensign, May 2012.)

My opinion about this is based on President Clark as quoted by Elder Christofferson.

2.

Elder Christofferson did say there are times when a statement made by a Church leader might represent  "a personal, though well-considered, opinion." But I believe we should carefully read all of that sentence, not just those six words:

"At the same time it should be remembered that not every statement made by a Church leader, past or present, necessarily constitutes doctrine. It is commonly understood in the Church that a statement made by one leader on a single occasion often represents a personal, though well-considered, opinion, not meant to be official or binding for the whole Church." (Ensign, May 2012.)

Yes, Elder Nelson's big bang remark is "a statement made by one leader." But no, it was not made "on a single occasion." On at least four occasions linked on LDS.org, the Church has published big bang remarks made by Elder Nelson: 1987, 1988, 2011, and 2012.

3.

I believe his big bang comment is closely related to and derived from other scriptural doctrines preached by Elder Nelson, doctrines also preached by other apostles and prophets. So let's talk now about what the big bang is and how Elder Nelson perceives the beginning of things without it.

In his book, Science, Religion, and Mormon Cosmology (1999, University of Illinois Press), scientist Erich Robert Paul explained the big bang in these words:

"Present-day twentieth-century astrophysics now asserts that the universe began originally in a big bang, prior to which there was simply nothing (at least we can never know of anything prior to this singular event)." (p.166.)

As I understand it then, big bang theory says the entire natural universe had a beginning, before which there was nothing. All things (meaning all things science knows about) came into existence as a result of this big bang.

By contrast, Russell M. Nelson believes and teaches that "Christ is the Creator of all things." (Helaman 14:12.) He finds additional support for this in the Bible, where the Apostle John speaks of Christ as the Word and says: "All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made." (John 1:3.) To Elder Nelson, all things exist because of Christ, not because of the big bang.

Now let's look again at his April 2012 general conference talk and note that Elder Nelson quoted King Benjamin: "Believe in God; believe that he is, and that he created all things, both in heaven and in earth." (Mosiah 4:9.) According to Elder Nelson, our scriptures say GOD (not the big bang) created all things. And Elder Nelson is merely the most recent of many apostles and prophets who have used scripture to teach that GOD created all things.

Conclusion

The way I see it, Elder Nelson's big bang remark is more apostolic interpretation of scripture and less an impromptu statement "made by one leader on a single occasion."

But none of this should be taken to mean that I think Elder Nelson's general conference remark about the big bang constitutes an official statement of doctrine. I don't believe that. Nor do I believe it was meant to be binding on every Church member.

I do feel very strongly that we might all benefit from the words of a Pharisee named Gamaliel who counseled moderation when criticizing apostles, "lest haply ye be found even to fight against God." (Acts 5:39.)