Light and Truth

Where Science Meets the Doctrine and Covenants, for the Come Follow Me lesson July 28-Aug 3; Doctrine and Covenants 84

Doctrine and Covenants 84:45-47 states, “For the word of the Lord is truth, and whatsoever is truth is light, and whatsoever is light is Spirit, even the Spirit of Jesus Christ. And the Spirit giveth light to every man that cometh into the world; and the Spirit enlighteneth every man through the world, that hearkeneth to the voice of the Spirit. And every one that hearkeneth to the voice of the Spirit cometh unto God, even the Father.”

When I was a child, we had four separate gospel books in our home: the Bible, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price. I was always fascinated by the latter two, which were small, dark blue, hardback books. They seemed to carry a certain mystique about them. I don’t remember that we had a specific course in Seminary on the Doctrine and Covenants, and I don’t remember reading much from it before my mission, but I remember being excited to read it on my mission.

When I was in the Great Lakes Mission (Michigan and Indiana), I spent every waking hour that I was not proselyting, studying the scriptures. I read the Old Testament twice and the other standard works six times each. We did not have Quadruple Combinations back then, but, rather, I had a Bible and a Triple Combination. My Triple had one blank page between the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants, and two blank pages at the back of the book for writing down notes. As I read, those three pages were nowhere near enough for what I wanted to write, especially when reading the Doctrine and Covenants. So, I found some thin writing paper that was nearly like the pages in my book, cut them to size and glued them in: eight pages in the back and thirteen pages in the center. I then completely filled those twenty-one pages with copious, hand-written notes. Three of those pages have as their heading: Light and Truth.

The first of those three pages has a long equation, beginning with the above-cited verses in section 84: word=truth=light=Spirit=Priesthood=Intelligence=light of truth=sunlight=Christ=mind=soul=God=spirit of Christ=spirit=matter. Although, on the two other pages, I wrote references from other sources, mostly from other scriptures, the equation was originally and mostly generated from the Doctrine and Covenants. Even though section 84 sparked my interest in creating the equation, here are the Doctrine and Covenants verses in order: 1:16, 1:39, 6:21, 10:58, 34:2, 39:2, 45:7, 45:28, 50:24, 67:9, 76:96, 82:3, 84:45-46, 84:64, 88:6-7, 88:13, 88:49, 88:67, 93:24, 93:26, 93:28-30, 93:36, 93:32-39, 129:8, 131:7-8, 132:12.

Since I first created that equation some 57 years ago, I have always wanted to publish it—so here it is. But what does it all mean? That’s a question I’ve been pondering for the past 57 years, and the bottom-line answer is that I still don’t know.

Five weeks ago, I wrote an essay entitled “The Father of Lights”. In that essay, I focused, in part, on Doctrine and Covenants 88:13, “The light which is in all things…which is the law by which all things are governed…” My conclusion there was, “Light is actually photons, but when we are told in the Doctrine and Covenants that, ‘The light which is in all things…which is the law by which all things are governed…’, I think that ‘light’ is referring to all the fundamental particles, as well as other, as yet undiscovered, mystery particles…”

Where I find the issue being very confusing, and therefore very interesting, is the statement in Doctrine and Covenants 84:45, “For the word of the Lord is truth, and whatsoever is truth is light, and whatsoever is light is Spirit, even the Spirit of Jesus Christ.” I understand the metaphor that truth is light, but is this verse going even farther?

Truth is somewhat of an abstract concept, especially in our modern political environment. The Romans seem to have been struggling with the same issue. In John 18:38, Pontius Pilate famously asked Jesus, “What is truth?”. “Truth” is a noun, but what does truth look like? If asked to draw a picture of truth, what would you draw? Thus, the image at the beginning of this essay is a question mark.

Doctrine and Covenants 84:45 suggests that truth is more than just an abstract concept. In God’s much larger world, is what we call “truth” something more? In the equation of “light=truth”, maybe the “truth” there is a more “tangible” part of the equation, perhaps like a gluon in a proton.

Then the equation goes on to say that sunlight and the light of truth are equal. We now know that sunlight is comprised of photons, so, as I proposed in my previous post, we are talking here about fundamental particles. If we place within this equation what we currently understand of energy and fundamental particles, then the equation seems, to me at least, to make more sense: energy=fundamental particles=word=truth=light=Spirit=Priesthood=Intelligence=light of truth=sunlight=Christ=mind=soul=God=spirit of Christ=spirit=matter. We understand that Priesthood is power, or energy, although I don’t fully understand what that means either. We are taught that “It is the power by which the earth was created.”¹ 

And what if we add faith to the equation? We are told by Paul that “…faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Then he said, “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.” Interestingly, in the King James Version, there are no commas in that sentence. Does it say: “Through faith, we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God…”? Or does it say, “Through faith, we understand, that the worlds were framed by the word of God…?” Is that sentence saying that through faith we understand, or is it saying we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, which is faith? I think it means both. But, if the second meaning is correct, then “faith” can be added to the equation.

The word “substance” in the King James Version of Hebrews 11:1 is an interesting choice of words, because, according to Bible Hub, the Greek word ὑπόστασις (hypostasis) literally means “a setting under”, like a foundation. Then Bible Hub cited James Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, to say: concretely, essence, or abstractly, assurance. So, in other word, faith can be thought of literally concretely, as the essence, substance, or foundation of things hoped for; or abstractly, the assurance of things hoped for; or, more likely, both.

I find it fascinating that in Hebrews 11:1 and in Doctrine and Covenants 84:45, we can think of a noun: light, truth, faith; as being at once concrete and abstract. That notion reminds me a lot of quantum mechanics, of which Richard Feynman said, “If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics”. In my opinion, the same can be said of Hebrews 11:1 and in Doctrine and Covenants 84:45.

Trent Dee Stephens, PhD

trentdeestephens.com

stephenstrent7@gmail.com

References

1.     Oaks, Dallin H, The Keys and Authority of the Priesthood, General Conference, April 2014; and see his references

2.     Hebrews 1:1

3.     Hebrews 1:3

4.     AZ Quotes