David O. McKay on Technology

David O. McKay

accelerating change miracles mormon authorities naturalism science technology

I appreciate and realize the accomplishments, to a certain degree, of this wonderful atomic age in which we are living. Scientific discoveries of today stagger the imagination. Nearly every day we read of almost unbelievable accomplishments. The age of the atom has only begun, and no one knows what exciting developments may yet unfold when the atomic research now in progress is completed. Its potential for good far outweighs its potential for destruction. The discoveries and inventions of this age are unequaled by any previous period in the world’s history, discoveries latent with such potent power, either for the blessing or the destruction of human beings, as to make man’s responsibility in controlling them the most gigantic ever placed in human hands.

Conference Report, 1966.10

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John Taylor

Science reveals the beauty and harmony of the world material; it unveils to us ten thousand mysteries in the kingdom of nature, and shows that all forms of life through fire and analogous decay are returned again to its bosom. It unfolds to us the mysteries of cloud and rains, dew and frost, growth and decay, and reveals the operation of those silent irresistible forces which give vitality to the world.

Joseph Smith

This day I have been walking through the most splended part of the City of n New Y- the buildings are truly great and wonderful to the astonishing [of] to eve[r]y beholder and the language of my heart is like this can the great God of all the Earth maker of all thing[s] magnificent and splendid be displeased with man for all these great inventions saught out by them my answer is no it can not be seeing these works are are calculated to mak[e] men…

Parley P. Pratt

The science of geography will then be extended to millions of worlds, and will embrace a knowledge of their physical features and boundaries, their resources, mineral and vegetable; their rivers, lakes, seas, continents and islands; the attainments of their inhabitants in the science of government; their progress in revealed religion; their employments, dress, manners, customs, etc.

More from David O. McKay

But science, dominated by the spirit of religion is the key to progress and the hope of the future. For example, evolution’s beautiful theory of the creation of the world offers many perplexing problems to the inquiring mind. Inevitably, a teacher who denies divine agency in creation, who insists there is no intelligent purpose in it, will infest the student with the thought that all may be chance.

Whatever the subject may be, the principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ may be elaborated upon without fear of anyone’s objecting, and the teacher can be free to express his honest conviction regarding it, whether that subject be in geology, the history of the world, the millions of years that it took to prepare the physical world, whether it be in engineering, literature, art—any principles of the gospel may be briefly or extensively touched…

The thing you need to remember about evolution is that the Lord has never revealed anything about the matter. People have their opinions but the Lord has not revealed the details of how He created the Earth.

On the subject of organic evolution the Church has officially taken no position.

Dear Brother: … The Church has issued no official statement on the subject of the theory of evolution. Neither “Man, His Origin and Destiny” by Elder Joseph Fielding Smith, nor “Mormon Doctrine” by Elder Bruce R. McConkie, is an official publication of the Church.