Joseph Smith taught that “ Mormonism is truth, in other words the doctrine of the Latter-day Saints, is truth… The first and fundamental principle of our holy religion is, that we believe that we have a right to embrace all, and every item of truth, without limitation or without being circumscribed or prohibited by the creeds or superstitious notions of men, or by the dominations of one another, when that truth is clearly demonstrated to our minds, and we have the highest degree of evidence of the same.” (TPJS Manual Ch 22)

Brigham Young later supported this idea when he said “Mormonism embraces every fact there is in the heavens and in the heaven of heavens – every fact there is upon the surface of the earth, in the bowels of the earth, and in the starry heavens; In fine, it embraces all truth there is in all the eternities of the Gods. … Mormonism embraces all truth that is revealed and that is unrevealed, whether religious, political, scientific, or philosophical.” (JD Vol. 9, pg 149)

If we believe these words from Joseph Smith and Brigham Young, then one way to characterize the followers of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is that we are a people who seek for truth from whatever source it may come and when found strive to live our lives in accordance with it. We do this because we understand that God is the ultimate source of all truth (Mosiah 4:9), and that His purpose is our happiness (Moses 1:39). Knowing this we trust that the truths from God will teach us how to live our lives after the manner of happiness.

But how do we obtain a knowledge of truth? In my mind there are two fundamental ways to learn and gain knowledge of the truth. They are observation and revelation. Observation is the discovery of truth based on things we have observed or experienced, or things that can be logically deduced from those observations. Much of what we know we have learned in this way, either directly through our own experience or vicariously through others who have shared their experiences with us. This is a very powerful process which when formalized is often referred to as the scientific method and has lead to the discovery of much truth which our society has benefited from immensely.

Much of the world, particularly the non-religious world, feel that observation is the only mechanism by which truth can be discerned. But as Latter-Day Saints we know that this is not the case. We understand that revelation is an even more powerful way to obtain truth. Revelation happens when truths are impressed upon our soul by communication between our spirits and the spirit of God. Through this means God is able to communicate whatsoever truth He will through the direct enlightenment of our soul. I say this means is more powerful because God as the ultimate source of all knowledge and truth can reveal to us all truths that can also be discovered through observation, but there is a large body of truth which can only be learned through revelation from God. Paul explains these things this way “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? Even so the things of God knoweth no man, except he has the Spirit of God…  But the natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” ( JST 1 Cor 2:9-14) In other words we must seek for and obtain the Spirit of God and it is through this spirit that we are able to receive and understand the truths of God. That these things can only be received and understood in this way and are often seen as foolishness to those who do not possess this spirit.

Elder John Taylor further explained “When the light that is in heaven communicates with the light that is within us; when the Spirit dwells in ours, and an intercourse is opened between heaven and us, we are then placed in a position to understand that which it would be impossible to comprehend upon any natural principle known to us.” (JD Vol 11 No 3)

What Paul and Elder Taylor are teaching us is that there is a hierarchy of truth. The wisdom and learning of man can only go so far. But “The Spirit knoweth all things” (Alma 7:13) and “By the power of The Holy Ghost [we] may know the truth of all things” (Mor 10:5)

Therefore it is essential to our salvation that we learn to obtain knowledge by the Spirit. This is the only true path to conversion. It is the only means by which we can become truly convinced of the reality of Jesus Christ and his divine mission. This is the essence of faith in Jesus Christ and the reason for its necessity. Even those who lived at the time of Christ, heard his teachings from his lips, and were witnesses of the reality of his resurrection, still required faith in Him. They needed to have a spiritual witness upon which their faith was based. For this faith is what is described in Romans as “the evidence of things not seen.” (Rom 11:1) That evidence which is referenced is the evidence of the spirit. It is the communication which comes by revelation. And it is required in order for us to become truly converted. Otherwise we are subject to the failings of human wisdom. So we must seek the spirit, and the revelation that can come through it, and maintain that relationship in order to be continually reminded and taught those things which can be obtained by no other way.

At the same time we are commanded to learn both “by study and by faith” and to “seek learning by the best books.” (D&C 88:118) So God expects us to educate ourselves using all of our available resources. We as a people are to be truth seekers and should be open to all potential sources of true knowledge. Even the scriptures themselves encourage us to use the power of the scientific method to learn and understand things of the spirit. For example Alma challenges us to do a spiritual “experiment” upon the word and to see that as the fruit of the word is observed to be good, we can come to know that the word itself is good. (Alma 32) Even Christ instructs us that if we desire to know if His doctrine is true and from the Father then we should live it and then observe the results for by the “fruits we shall know them” (John 7:17, Matt 7:20)

Sometimes supposed issues arise when revealed truths and observed truths seem to come into conflict. This is often expressed as a conflict between science and religion, and as a scientist I have frequently been asked by non-believers how can I rationally believe in God while also claiming to support the scientific method, when these two sources of investigation lead to conflicting conclusions? My typical response to this is along the lines of what the famous chemist Henry Eyring expressed when he said that “Some have asked me: ’Is there any conflict between science and religion?’ There is no conflict in the mind of God, but often there is conflict in the minds of men. Through the eternities, we are going to get closer and closer to understanding the mind of God, then the conflicts will disappear… Since God’s Message embraces all truth, there can never be any genuine contradictions between true science and true religion.”

With this perspective I will be the first to agree that everything that is taught in the scriptures and everything that has been discovered by science does not completely jive together at this point. But that doesn’t cause me a bit of heartburn because I know two key things. The first is that God will “yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the kingdom of God” (AoF 9) or in other words we don’t have the whole story yet from the religious perspective. The second thing is that the scientific method is by design an iterative approach to gaining knowledge and therefore the “truths” that we know today are likely to change as we delve further and further into the various fields of study, and it would be premature to claim that science has definitively determined an ultimate truth.

So I believe that the way to address these supposed conflicts is to simply exercise a bit a humility and recognize that we don’t have the whole story yet. We need to be ok saying “I don’t know” as an answer to some of these questions. But I think the humility needs to come from both the religious scientific perspective. We need to be careful not to be too dogmatic about religious concepts that we are not totally sure are actually true, while also avoiding the hubris associated with thinking that science has all the answers either. If we can do this and are patient knowing that truth is what it is and someday our various means of discovering and understanding truth will be in complete harmony, then we can learn to be at peace with the journey of discovery that we are on, knowing that for a time it may seem like revelation and observation lead to two different conclusions, but we know that eventually that real truth will become unified into one great self consistent whole.