James E. Talmage on Harmonization

James E. Talmage

In conclusion, let it be said that science is undoubtedly entitled to a place in the curriculum of Association studies; it should have its right, but at the expense of nothing else that is good. Among our young people I consider scientific knowledge as second in importance only to that knowledge that pertains to the Church and Kingdom of God; such information is of greatest worth to us, because of greatest use. It is superior to science, to art, to literature. Nature as we study it, is but the temple of the Almighty⁠—wonderful, imposing, awe-inspiring structure though it is, and the duty of science is to conduct us through the portals, and lead us to the altar where we will acknowledge, with reverential sincerity, “In Him we live and move and have our being.”

“Science in the Associations,” Mutual Improvement Association Conference, 1898

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Brigham Young

[The sons of perdition] will be decomposed, both soul and body, and return to their native element. I do not say that they will be annihilated; but they will be disorganized, and will be as though they never had been, while we will live and retain our identity, and contend against those principles which tend to death or dissolution.

Richard Holloway

To demythologise the myth of Adam and Eve, for instance, is not to abandon it as a uselessly primitive way of speaking about abstract matters. It is to understand it as a myth, a narrative way of speaking about abstractions, which is valued for that very reason. The myth is seen as a powerful metaphor for real human experience. It is kept not because it is bad history, but because it is good poetry, because it provides us with a powerful shorthand for complex human experiences of alienation and regret.

Ada Lovelace

The intellectual, the moral, the religious seem to me all naturally bound up and interlinked together in one great and harmonious whole.

More from James E. Talmage

It is reasonable to believe, in the absence of direct revelation by which alone absolute knowledge of the matter could be acquired, that, in accordance with God’s plan of eternal progression, advancement from grade to grade within any kingdom, and from kingdom to kingdom, will be provided for.

We believe in a God who is Himself progressive . . . whose perfection consists in eternal advancement . . . a Being who has attained His exalted state.

Miracles are commonly regarded as occurrences in opposition to the laws of nature. Such a conception is plainly erroneous, for the laws of nature are inviolable.

According to the conception of geologists the earth passed through ages of preparation, to us unmeasured and immeasurable, during which countless generations of plants and animals existed in great variety and profusion and gave in part the very substance of their bodies to help form certain strata which are still existent as such. . . .

Some of the latest and highest achievements of man in the utilization of natural forces approach the conditions of spiritual operations. To count the ticking of a watch thousands of miles away; to speak in but an ordinary tone and be heard across the continent; to signal from one hemisphere and be understood on the other though oceans roll and roar between; to bring the lightning into our homes and make it serve as fire and torch; to navigate the air and to travel beneath the ocean surface; to make chemical and atomic energies obey our will—are not these miracles?