CA II
- stephenstrent7
- Oct 11
- 3 min read
Where Science Meets the Doctrine and Covenants, for the Come Follow Me lesson Oct 13-19; Doctrine and Covenants 115-120
The first revelation among this set (Section 115) was given April 26, 1838. The last revelation here (Section 120) was given July 8, 1838. Then there was an eleven-month hiatus before the next revelation (Section 121) was written while Joseph Smith and others were prisoners in Liberty Jail. The fall of 1838 was a terrible time for the members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Missouri Governor Lilburn Boggs signed the “Mormon Extermination Order” on October 27, 1838, forcing all members of the Church who remained faithful to leave Missouri. The Extermination Order, Missouri Executive Order 44, stated, “the Mormons must be treated as enemies, and must be exterminated or driven from the State if necessary for the public peace—their outrages are beyond all description”.1 Joseph and five others were imprisoned December 1.
The first of the four sections given on July 8 (Section 117) is of particular interest during this time of upheaval and uncertainty. Speaking of William Marks, Newel K. Whitney, and Oliver Granger, in verse 4, the Lord said, “Let them repent of all their sins, and of all their covetous desires, before me, saith the Lord; for what is property unto me? saith the Lord.” When we contemplate that question, the rest of the verses in these sections of the Doctrine and Covenants make more sense. Why would God, for example, in the midst of all the chaos of 1838, bother to state, in Section 116, “Spring Hill is named by the Lord Adam-ondi-Ahman, because, said he, it is the place where Adam shall come to visit his people, or the Ancient of Days shall sit, as spoken of by Daniel the prophet.”? Because He saw the big picture; He saw the time when the Church would become mighty in the earth, with its headquarters today in Salt Lake City.
The Saints did not see that, in eight years, they would be driven out of their beautiful city, Nauvoo, and trek across the dusty plains to the Great Basin—and then be sent out from there all over the west—to as far away as Canada and Mexico. It is my personal opinion that the Saints were driven out of Missouri and Illinois, in part at least, to spare them from the entanglement of the Civil War, with those two states being very much in the action, losing thousands of young men each—on opposite sides of the conflict.
The Lord then continued, in 117:6, “For have I not the fowls of heaven, and also the fish of the sea, and the beasts of the mountains? Have I not made the earth? Do I not hold the destinies of all the armies of the nations of the earth?”
What fascinates me, in teaching biochemistry, is not the fowls and the fishes and the beasts, but the stunningly amazing micro-machinery inside. The enzymes that catalyze all the reactions in our bodies, from breaking down the food we eat to walking down the isles of the store, work at mind-boggling speeds. For example, carbonic anhydrase II (CA II), which converts carbon dioxide and water into carbonic acid and a proton (H+), has a reaction rate of around 600,000 reactions per second, and up to over a million reactions per second. It has been proposed that those “impossible” rates of reaction occur by a process called “quantum tunneling” within or across the enzyme.
So, not only does God know all about Adam-ondi-Ahman, including when the Temple He described will be built there, and how to save His Saints from the devastation of the Civil War, but He, in addition to making the earth, has designed CA II. I believe that there are myriad laws governing how the earth and CA II are made and function. We, scientists have not even scratched the surface in our attempts to comprehend the works of God. I am confident that we have job security for many years to come—in trying to discover God’s laws.
Trent Dee Stephens, PhD
References
1. The entire Extermination Order, Missouri Executive Order 44, has been reproduced at Wikipedia under the title “Missouri Executive Order 44”
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