Some Elements Are Eternal

Jul 12, 2022 - NASA’s Webb Delivers Deepest Infrared Image of Universe Yet; nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2022/nasa-s-webb-delivers-deepest-infrared-image-of-universe-yet

Where Science Meets the Doctrine and Covenants, for the Come Follow Me lesson August 25-31; Doctrine and Covenants 93

In my opinion, Doctrine and Covenants sections 67, 76, 77, 82, 84, and 88 are mind-blowing, but they are relatively mild compared to section 93—Wow! Doctrine and Covenants 93:1-40 is packed full of mind-blowing information, so, rather than quoting all forty verses at the beginning, I am going to pick isolated verses or sets of verses to discuss, as I proceed through this essay.

Doctrine and Covenants 93:1 states, “Verily, thus saith the Lord: It shall come to pass that every soul who forsaketh his sins and cometh unto me, and calleth on my name, and obeyeth my voice, and keepeth my commandments, shall see my face and know that I am…”

That verse reminds me of John 17:3, “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” I think a lot of people think of this verse as being metaphorical, “Oh, what a nice feeling.” But I think Doctrine and Covenants 93 tells us that such knowledge is far more real than just a warm feeling of eternal life. That knowledge is the substance of eternal life—whatever that means.

Doctrine and Covenants 93:2 says, “And that I am the true light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world…” What is the difference between “light” and “true light”? That question will be addressed, at least according to my limited understanding, later in this essay. The entry “Light of Christ” in the Bible Dictionary states, “The phrase ‘light of Christ’ does not appear in the Bible, although the principles that apply to it are frequently mentioned therein. The precise phrase is found in Alma 28:14, Moro. 7:18, and D&C 88:7. Biblical phrases that are sometimes synonymous to the term ‘light of Christ’ are ‘spirit of the Lord’ and ‘light of life’ (see, for example, John 1:4; 8:12). The ‘spirit of the Lord,’ however, sometimes is used with reference to the Holy Ghost and so must not be taken in every case as having reference to the light of Christ.”

The entry continues, “The light of Christ is just what the words imply: enlightenment, knowledge, and an uplifting, ennobling, persevering influence that comes upon mankind because of Jesus Christ. For instance, Christ is ‘the true light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world’ (D&C 93:2; see John 1:9). The light of Christ fills the ‘immensity of space’ and is the means by which Christ is able to be ‘in all things, and is through all things, and is round about all things.’ It ‘giveth life to all things’ and is ‘the law by which all things are governed.’ It is also ‘the light that quickeneth’ man’s understanding (see D&C 88:6–13, 41).” This light of Christ which fills the ‘immensity of space’ is much larger than what I think of as enlightening my mind, and is much larger and grander than I can even imagine or comprehend.

Doctrine and Covenants 93:3-5 states, “And that I am in the Father, and the Father in me, and the Father and I are one—The Father because he gave me of his fulness, and the Son because I was in the world and made flesh my tabernacle, and dwelt among the sons of men. I was in the world and received of my Father, and the works of him were plainly manifest.”

This statement “the Father and I are one” in the New Testament, John 10:30, “I and my Father are one.” Led to a major schism in the early Christian Church, between the Alexandrian Trinitarians and the Arian anti-trinitarian “heretics”. Being an Arian heretic myself, I offer the other scripture in John 17:21: “That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.” Which, to my mind, makes it very clear what Christ meant by “one”. Here we have the same “oneness” doctrine in the Doctrine and Covenants as in the New Testament, but this time revealed to the very Prophet, Joseph Smith, who saw the Father and the Son as two distinct individuals, and powerfully testified of such in Doctrine and Covenants 76:22-24, “And now, after the many testimonies which have been given of him, this is the testimony, last of all, which we give of him: That he lives! For we saw him, even on the right hand of God; and we heard the voice bearing record that he is the Only Begotten of the Father—That by him, and through him, and of him, the worlds are and were created, and the inhabitants thereof are begotten sons and daughters unto God.”

The Prophet Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon, at Hiram, Ohio, February 16, 1832, had exactly the same experience as Stephen in Acts 7:55-56, “But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, And said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God.” Joseph Smith further testified, in Doctrine and Covenants 130:22, “The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man’s; the Son also; but the Holy Ghost has not a body of flesh and bones…”

All that said, we think we understand the relationship between the Father and Son, but then there is Doctrine and Covenants 93:4, “The Father because he gave me of his fulness, and the Son because I was in the world and made flesh my tabernacle, and dwelt among the sons of men.” The idea that there is something more here than is seen on the surface is emphasized in verse 14, which says, “And thus he was called the Son of God, because he received not of the fulness at the first.” These verses seem to me to sort of throw a curve: is there more to this Father/Son relationship than appears at face value? I think these verses remind us that we are still just children when it comes to understanding eternal concepts, including the deeper relations between God and Jesus.

Doctrine and Covenants 93:9-10 states, “The light and the Redeemer of the world; the Spirit of truth, who came into the world, because the world was made by him, and in him was the life of men and the light of men. The worlds were made by him; men were made by him; all things were made by him, and through him, and of him.” Although I think I understand these verses, I also think there is a lot more information wrapped into them than what I can fully comprehend. Some of the recognition that there is much deeper information here comes from the verses that follow in this section of the Doctrine and Covenants.

Doctrine and Covenants 93:11 says, “And I, John, bear record that I beheld his glory, as the glory of the Only Begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth, even the Spirit of truth, which came and dwelt in the flesh, and dwelt among us.” It seems from this verse and other verses in the Doctrine and Covenants that “grace and truth” and “Spirit of truth” mean a lot more than how we typically define “truth”.

Doctrine and Covenants 93:23-26 states, “Ye were also in the beginning with the Father; that which is Spirit, even the Spirit of truth; And truth is knowledge of things as they are, and as they were, and as they are to come; And whatsoever is more or less than this is the spirit of that wicked one who was a liar from the beginning. The Spirit of truth is of God. I am the Spirit of truth, and John bore record of me, saying: He received a fulness of truth, yea, even of all truth…” These verses are interesting and somewhat perplexing. Verse 24 gives what might be considered an ordinary definition of truth, yet the next verse suggests that the amount of truth is finite, in that adding or subtracting from it is evil. Then we learn that Christ is the Spirit of truth and is of God, which suggests that truth is more than just knowledge. However, if we equate knowledge with intelligence, then we learn in Abraham 3:19, “And the Lord said unto me: These two facts do exist, that there are two spirits, one being more intelligent than the other; there shall be another more intelligent than they; I am the Lord thy God, I am more intelligent than they all.” That verse seems to be saying that God is God because of His intelligence (knowledge?), yet in other Doctrine and Covenant verses we are told that intelligence=spirit=light. So, is knowledge something more than how we typically define it?

Then we are told in Doctrine and Covenants 93:28, “He that keepeth his commandments receiveth truth and light, until he is glorified in truth and knoweth all things.” This verse sounds like truth and light are not exactly the same thing; neither is truth and knowledge, but that knowledge and light may be essentially the same.

Then Doctrine and Covenants 93:30 states, “All truth is independent in that sphere in which God has placed it, to act for itself, as all intelligence also; otherwise there is no existence.” To me, this verse is very mind-blowing and suggests that after all my discussion about truth that I just presented, where I thought I might obtain some small amount of understanding, verse 30 tells me I have no idea what truth actually is. How can truth “act” unless it is something more tangible than just “knowledge”, or is knowledge something much more than just knowing?

Then there is Doctrine and Covenants 93:29, “Man was also in the beginning with God. Intelligence, or the light of truth, was not created or made, neither indeed can be.” This idea harkens back to Abraham 3:19, cited above, which talks about intelligent spirits. Then we have Abraham 3:22, “Now the Lord had shown unto me, Abraham, the intelligences that were organized before the world was; and among all these there were many of the noble and great ones…” which suggests that intelligences are some sort of substantive entities that have always existed (D&C 93:29). And then verse 29 suggests that the “light of truth” may be some sort of substance from which those intelligences were made, but not “made”, because they have always existed, apparently in that same state. Joseph Smith, in Doctrine and Covenants 131:7-8 said, “There is no such thing as immaterial matter. All spirit is matter, but it is more fine or pure, and can only be discerned by purer eyes; We cannot see it; but when our bodies are purified we shall see that it is all matter.” So, light and truth, from which intelligences/spirits are comprised is some form of invisible matter? This statement of Joseph Smith’s sounds like the modern definition of dark (obscure, which was one of the original terms applied to this matter) matter. Are we, at the core, intelligences made of obscure matter that can never be created or destroyed?

Furthermore, Doctrine and Covenants 93:33-34 says, “For man is spirit. The elements are eternal, and spirit and element, inseparably connected, receive a fulness of joy; And when separated, man cannot receive a fulness of joy.” In classical chemistry, we know that the total mass of the starting material in a chemical reaction always equals the total mass in the ending material. The law of conservation of mass states that matter is neither created nor destroyed in a chemical reaction. However, at the subatomic level, in high-energy collisions, which occurred at the big bang, in the furnaces of suns, or in particle accelerators; matter can be converted to energy and energy can be converted to matter. But the law of conservation of mass and its exceptions, as far as we can tell, involve only normal matter. We know nothing about what chemical reactions might occur in obscure (dark) matter or whether obscure matter would be affected at all by high-energy reactions. For example, dark matter surrounds all the galaxies, but there is no evidence that dark matter ever participates in any way in the nuclear fusion reactions in stars.

So, when Doctrine and Covenants 93:33 says that “spirit and element, inseparably connected, receive a fulness of joy”, is that referring to “normal elements” or is it referring to some other (dark/obscure) element/matter? Doctrine and Covenants 131:7-8 tells us that spirit matter is not regular matter, so, are resurrected bodies made of regular matter or some other (obscure) matter?

We are told in the New Testament that, apparently, Christ’s resurrected body (except the blood) was the same “regular” body that had been laid in the tomb, in that that is the body that came out of the tomb, not some other. However, no one actually saw what transpired in the tomb, and we are told in Doctrine and Covenants 43:32, 63:51, 101:31 that a person can change from mortal to immortal in the twinkling of an eye. None-the-less, whatever body Jesus had after his resurrection, it could interact with this world’s substances in apparently normal ways, such as eating food (Luke 24:41-43). As for Christ’s blood, most of it had been lost before and during his crucifixion, so it must have been replaced by some other blood (perhaps coming from the obscure matter all around us) that functioned just like “normal” blood in the digestive process. (I have written an entire book, The Immortal Missiah: the Physiology of Resurrected Beings, Cedar Fort, 2022, dealing with just such issues after Christ’s resurrection.) However, even though Christ’s body could interact with, i.e. eat, normal food, He could still walk through (or fly through, or teleport through) walls.

This said, it appears to me that elements that are eternal (Doctrine and Covenants 93:33) are not exactly the same regular elements that we encounter in the chemistry laboratory, because the elements referred to in that verse are to remain “inseparably connected” with our spirit throughout the rest of eternity. However, given what we learn in the previous paragraph, those “eternal” elements will apparently function exactly the same way that the normal elements of our bodies function now, including the “new” blood in Christ’s body functioning as an oxygen carrier. This conclusion suggests that dark (obscure) matter may not be a single entity, but may be describable as an entire “obscure matter table of the elements”, including “obscure oxygen”, which can function as a terminal receptor in an electron transport chain, itself made of obscure elements.

Such a view seems to be confirmed by Doctrine and Covenants 93:35, which states, “The elements are the tabernacle of [the eternal] God; yea, man is the tabernacle of God, even temples; and whatsoever temple is defiled, God shall destroy that temple.”

I love the next few verses (36, 37, and 40): “The glory of God is intelligence, or, in other words, light and truth. Light and truth forsake that evil one…But I have commanded you to bring up your children in light and truth.”

It is interesting that when I looked up “element” in the Index to the Triple Combination on the Church website, what came up was only Doctrine and Covenants 93, and one reference in 101:25 about the elements melting when the earth is consumed by fire. When I looked up “matter”, only Doctrine and Covenants 131:7-8, cited above, came up. So, sections 93 and 131 are the only scriptures we have dealing directly with the issues I have raised in this essay.

I find Doctrine and Covenants 93 refreshing. Anytime we think we know something about chemistry and the cosmos, we should humble ourselves by reading that section. I find that understanding section 93 is much like what Richard Feynman said about quantum physics: “If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics”. 

Trent Dee Stephens, PhD

trentdeestephens.com

stephenstrent7@gmail.com