I am ecstatic about what Elder Lawrence E. Corbridge has said.
For far too long, I believe many Latter-day Saints have been hesitant to confront Darwinian evolution and ask whether its account of human origins can actually be reconciled with the revealed word of God.
Elder Corbridge is willing to confront the issue.
In his Stand Forever discussion about the existence of God our Father, he brings Charles Darwin into a discussion of Korihor—the Book of Mormon anti-Christ whose philosophy removed God, revelation, Christ, and divine accountability from man’s understanding of existence.
I applaud Elder Corbridge for his boldness.
We need more willingness to defend revealed truth even when doing so runs contrary to fashionable intellectual ideas.
Watch Elder Corbridge’s Discussion
“Stand Forever” Ep. 29 | The Truth—Is There A God Who Is Our Father? | Elder Lawrence E. Corbridge
The issue is bigger than Darwin. It is about who we are.
Are human beings ultimately the descendants of lower animals through an unguided struggle for survival?
Or are we the literal children of God, deliberately created male and female in His image?
For me, the scriptures are unmistakable.
Korihor’s Philosophy
Alma 30 records one of the Book of Mormon’s most chilling descriptions of a godless philosophy:
“Every man fared in this life according to the management of the creature; therefore every man prospered according to his genius, and that every man conquered according to his strength.”
—Alma 30:17
Notice those words:
“Management of the creature.”
“Conquered according to his strength.”
Korihor’s philosophy removes mankind from dependence upon a Creator and places the creature at the center.
Then consider what Darwinian theory introduced into modern thought: the development of living things through natural processes, with natural selection acting upon variation and differential survival and reproduction.
Darwin wrote On the Origin of Species in 1859.
The Book of Mormon was published in 1830.
Joseph Smith was born in 1805.
Darwin was born in 1809.
I find the parallel remarkable. There truly is opposition in all things. Is this Satan’s answer to the Restoration of the Gospel?
What we are being shown here is that this Anti-God ideology is not new: Both men in different centuries, no in different millenniums explain life from the creature upward rather than from the Creator downward.
And when Darwinian evolution is extended to human origins as a sufficient explanation of mankind, I believe it directly conflicts with revealed scripture.
Genesis Says God Created Man
We do not have to guess what Genesis teaches:
“And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.”
—Genesis 1:26 as it is also stated in Moses
Then:
“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”
—Genesis 1:27 again this is also in moses and Might I add in the temple.
That is the biblical account.
God did not merely discover mankind.
God did not simply observe mankind emerging.
God created man in His own image.
Adam and Eve stand at the beginning of the human family.
That matters.
The Book of Moses Makes It Even Clearer
For Latter-day Saints, we have additional revelation.
The Pearl of Great Price declares:
“And I, God, created man in mine own image, in the image of mine Only Begotten created I him; male and female created I them.”—Moses 2:27
Then God describes Adam’s physical creation:
“And I, the Lord God, formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” —Moses 3:7
This is not incidental language.
The Creation, Adam, Eve, the Fall, and the resulting need for Jesus Christ are woven throughout the restored gospel.
Abraham Gives Us the Same Picture
The Book of Abraham likewise declares:
“And the Gods took counsel among themselves and said: Let us go down and form man in our image, after our likeness. —Abraham 4:26
And again:
“So the Gods went down to organize man in their own image, in the image of the Gods to form they him, male and female to form they them.”—Abraham 4:27
Genesis.
Moses.
Abraham.
Again and again the message is the same:
God created mankind in His image.
That is the doctrine I choose to stand with.
And Then There Is the Temple
For Latter-day Saints, this question becomes even more significant because the Creation and Fall aren’t obscure passages that appear once in Genesis.
They stand at the heart of our temple theology.
The Creation.
Adam.
Eve.
The Garden.
The Fall.
Our relationship with God.
Our journey back into His presence.
These aren’t disposable details.
They help form the theological foundation upon which the plan of salvation rests.
That is why I cannot simply shrug my shoulders when a theory of human origins presents mankind as descending through an evolutionary history shared with other animals.
The question deserves serious examination against revelation.
Darwinism Is Not the Gospel
I want to state my position without ambiguity:
I reject Darwinian evolution as the explanation for the origin of mankind.
I reject the idea that our deepest identity can be explained by descent from lower animal ancestors.
I reject any naturalistic philosophy that treats God as unnecessary to understanding human origins.
I reject the idea that scripture should automatically be reinterpreted whenever the prevailing scientific consensus conflicts with its straightforward account of Creation.
I choose revelation.
I choose Genesis.
I choose Moses.
I choose Abraham.
I choose the Creation and Fall revealed through the Restoration.
And above everything else, I choose the doctrine that mankind is created in the image of God.
Why Darwin’s Influence Concerns Me
Charles Darwin’s ideas profoundly changed the way Western civilization thought about life and human origins.
The implications extended far beyond biology.
Once mankind could be understood entirely through natural processes, thinkers could construct explanations of human existence that required no Creator, no Adam and Eve, no Fall, no divine purpose, and ultimately no God.
That is where I believe Darwinian thinking becomes spiritually dangerous.
Evolution can become more than a biological hypothesis.
It can become a worldview.
And a worldview that reduces mankind to nothing more than the product of unguided natural processes is radically different from the restored gospel’s proclamation:
You are a child of God.
Korihor wanted people to understand themselves without Christ.
The gospel teaches us that we cannot properly understand ourselves without Christ.
That contrast matters enormously.
“All Things Denote There Is a God”
Alma’s response to Korihor is magnificent:
“All things denote there is a God; yea, even the earth, and all things that are upon the face of it, yea, and its motion, yea, and also all the planets which move in their regular form do witness that there is a Supreme Creator.”—Alma 30:44
Korihor looked at existence and denied God.
Alma looked at creation and saw God’s fingerprints everywhere.
I stand with Alma.
And that is one reason Elder Corbridge’s message excites me.
Modern science has uncovered extraordinary complexity in DNA, molecular machinery, cellular systems, reproduction, physiology, the brain, and the physical conditions necessary for life.
Why should believers be embarrassed to look at those discoveries and repeat Alma’s declaration?
“All things denote there is a God.”
Thank You, Elder Corbridge
This is where I especially want to express my gratitude to Elder Lawrence E. Corbridge.
Thank you for being willing to stand out.
Thank you for asking the primary question:
“Is there a God who is our Father?”
Thank you for pointing people back toward the Creator.
Thank you for bringing Korihor into this discussion.
Thank you for being willing to discuss Darwin when many people would rather avoid the controversy entirely.
And thank you for reminding us that intellectual sophistication does not require abandoning confidence in God.
Sometimes standing for revealed truth means standing apart from the dominant assumptions of the surrounding culture.
That takes courage.
Our Identity Is Not Darwinian—It Is Divine
Here is what I most want Latter-day Saint parents and young people to understand:
Your ultimate identity does not come from Darwin.
It comes from God.
You are not merely an advanced animal.
You are not a cosmic accident.
You are not simply the temporary result of an unguided struggle for survival.
You are a child of God.
Before this earth, you lived with Him.
You came here for a divine purpose.
Your mortal body has eternal significance. Jesus Christ came to redeem mankind from the Fall.
You can return to the presence of your Heavenly Father. That is an incomparably greater vision of humanity. We Should Not Be Embarrassed by the Creation
Latter-day Saints should never be embarrassed by the doctrine of Creation.
We should rejoice in it.
God created the heavens and the earth.
God created life.
God created Adam and Eve.
God created mankind in His image.
Adam fell.
Christ redeemed mankind from the Fall. Those truths form a magnificent chain:
Creation → Adam and Eve → Fall → Jesus Christ → Resurrection and Redemption
Remove the Creation and Fall from that chain, and profound theological questions immediately follow.
That is why the question of origins isn’t merely an interesting scientific debate.
It touches the plan of salvation itself.
Choose the Creator
The intellectual fashions of mankind change.
Theories change.
Textbooks change.
Academic consensus changes.
But God’s declaration concerning His children remains:
“I, God, created man in mine own image.”
That is where I plant my flag.
When forced to choose between a naturalistic account of human origins and the revealed testimony of Genesis, Moses, Abraham, and the Restoration, I choose revelation. When Korihor tells me to look only to the “management of the creature,” I choose the Creator.
When the world tells my children that their ultimate ancestry and identity are animal, I will teach them that their ultimate identity is divine. And when Elder Lawrence E. Corbridge has the courage to raise these questions publicly and direct Latter-day Saints back toward God our Father, I am going to celebrate it.
Bravo, Elder Corbridge.
Keep standing.
Keep speaking.
Keep pointing us toward the Creator.
And may Latter-day Saints have the courage to do the same.
Because the question at the heart of this debate isn’t merely:
Where did we come from?
The deeper question is:
Who are we?
And the restored gospel answers:
We are children of God, created in His image.
That truth is worth defending.”
