{"id":26181,"date":"2015-09-06T16:59:33","date_gmt":"2015-09-06T22:59:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=26181"},"modified":"2015-09-06T16:59:33","modified_gmt":"2015-09-06T22:59:33","slug":"does-the-church-oppose-science","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2015\/09\/does-the-church-oppose-science.html","title":{"rendered":"Does the Church oppose science?"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_26182\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-26182\" style=\"width: 175px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2015\/09\/175px-John_A._Widtsoe2.jpg\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-26182\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2015\/09\/175px-John_A._Widtsoe2.jpg\" alt=\"Photo of J. Widtsoe\" width=\"175\" height=\"281\"><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-26182\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Elder John A. Widtsoe<br>Biologist and Chemist<br>Council of the Twelve Apostles<br>b. 1872<br>Fr\u00f8ya, S\u00f8r-Tr\u00f8ndelag, Norway<br>d. 1952<br>Salt Lake City, Utah<br>B.A. Harvard College<br>Ph.D. Universit\u00e4t G\u00f6ttingen<br>President, Utah State University<br>President, University of Utah<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong><span style=\"color: #000080;\">The Church, the custodian of the gospel on earth, looks with full favor upon the attempts of men to search out the facts and laws of nature. It believes that men of science, seekers after truth, are often assisted by the Spirit of the Lord in such researches. It holds further that every scientific discovery may be incorporated into the gospel, and that, therefore there can be no conflict between true religion and correct science. The Church teaches that the laws of nature are but the immutable laws of the Creator of the universe.\u00a0. . .<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Every person must decide for himself, on the basis of the evidence produced, which of these three opinions as to the age of the earth, before Adam, seems most reasonable to him, whether (1) six days, or (2) six thousand years, or (3) many millions of years. Clearly it does not matter to one\u2019s daily welfare or ultimate salvation which view he adopts, except that every Latter-day Saint must seek and cherish truth above all else. \u00a0<\/span><\/strong><span style=\"color: #000080;\">(John A. Widtsoe,\u00a0<i>Evidences and Reconciliations\u00a0<\/i>[Salt Lake City:\u00a0Bookcraft, 1960], 139, 149]<\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 \u00a0 The Church, the custodian of the gospel on earth, looks with full favor upon the attempts of men to search out the facts and laws of nature. It believes that men of science, seekers after truth, are often assisted by the Spirit of the Lord in such researches. It holds further that every [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Does the Church oppose science?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"&nbsp; &nbsp; The Church, the custodian of the gospel on earth, looks with full favor upon the attempts of men to search out the facts and laws of nature.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2015\/09\/does-the-church-oppose-science.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Does the Church oppose science?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"&nbsp; &nbsp; The Church, the custodian of the gospel on earth, looks with full favor upon the attempts of men to search out the facts and laws of nature.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2015\/09\/does-the-church-oppose-science.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Sic et Non\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-09-06T22:59:33+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/wp.production.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/files\/2015\/09\/175px-John_A._Widtsoe2.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Dan Peterson\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Dan Peterson\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2015\/09\/does-the-church-oppose-science.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2015\/09\/does-the-church-oppose-science.html\",\"name\":\"Does the Church oppose science?\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2015-09-06T22:59:33+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-09-06T22:59:33+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/#\/schema\/person\/77113e9b09701bd1599fa272c4f65045\"},\"description\":\"&nbsp; 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