Some think Latter-day Saints are young-earth creationists; others think the Church has embraced Darwin. Here’s what the First Presidency has actually said, in its own words.
The Church takes no official position on the science of evolution. Its Gospel Topics entry says “the Church takes no position on the topic,” and in 1931 the First Presidency told leaders to leave biology and geology “to scientific research.” What it does teach firmly: God is the Creator, man was created “in his own image” (Genesis 1:27), every person is a spirit child of God, and Adam is “the first man of all men” (Moses 1:34). The 1909 First Presidency added that God’s children can grow, “through ages and aeons,” into gods.
The short answerNo position on the mechanics, firm on the meaning
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints does not take an official position on the scientific theory of evolution. The Church’s Gospel Topics entry on Religion and Science says it plainly: “Over the years, Church leaders have expressed differing views about evolution. However, the Church takes no position on the topic.” Latter-day Saints include biologists who accept evolutionary science and members who don’t.
What the Church does teach is not negotiable: God is the Creator; “God created man in his own image” (Genesis 1:27); every person lived as a spirit child of God before birth; and Adam is “the first man of all men” (Moses 1:34). Science can study how bodies develop. It cannot tell you whose child you are.
The 1909 First Presidency statement“The Origin of Man”
In 1909, during a public debate over Darwin, the First Presidency (Joseph F. Smith, John R. Winder and Anthon H. Lund) published “The Origin of Man”. It declared that the Church “proclaims man to be the direct and lineal offspring of Deity,” and that “man began life as a human being, in the likeness of our Heavenly Father.” It answered the idea “that the original human being was a development from lower orders of the animal creation” by calling it among “the theories of men,” and said that because the Lord called Adam “the first man of all men,” “we are therefore in duty bound to regard him as the primal parent of our race.”
Notice what the statement is about. It is not a geology lecture. It is a declaration of identity: God made you in His image, as His literal offspring.
The 1931 instruction: leave science to scientistsNo sides on the mechanics
By 1931, Apostles with scientific training and Apostles with a strict reading of Genesis disagreed about the age of the earth and life before Adam. The First Presidency (Heber J. Grant and his counselors) declined to settle the science and urged leaders to “leave Geology, Biology, Archaeology and Anthropology, no one of which has to do with the salvation of the souls of mankind, to scientific research, while we magnify our calling in the realm of the Church” (quoted in Gospel Topics, “Religion and Science”).
That is still the balance today: revealed doctrine on who we are and why we are here; humility about how God did it.
What the four standard works sayCreated spiritually, then physically
Restoration scripture adds something Genesis only hints at. “I, the Lord God, created all things … spiritually, before they were naturally upon the face of the earth … for in heaven created I them” (Moses 3:5). Then “I, the Lord God, formed man from the dust of the ground … and man became a living soul, the first flesh upon the earth, the first man also” (Moses 3:7).
The Book of Abraham describes the Creation as organization, not creation from nothing: “they, that is the Gods, organized and formed the heavens and the earth” (Abraham 4:1). The Book of Mormon says “all things denote there is a God; yea, even the earth … and also all the planets which move in their regular form do witness that there is a Supreme Creator” (Alma 30:44). And the Lord promised that when He comes, “he shall reveal all things … things of the earth, by which it was made, and the purpose and the end thereof” (D&C 101:32–33). Until then, “seek learning, even by study and also by faith” (D&C 88:118).
The evolution that matters mostFrom child of God to like Him
The 1909 statement ends with a line most critics never quote. After rejecting the idea that man descended from beasts, it says: “Man is the child of God, formed in the divine image and endowed with divine attributes, and even as the infant son of an earthly father and mother is capable in due time of becoming a man, so the undeveloped offspring of celestial parentage is capable, by experience through ages and aeons, of evolving into a God.” It also says, “God Himself is an exalted man, perfected, enthroned, and supreme.”
That is Joseph Smith’s teaching restated by a First Presidency 65 years after his death. In the King Follett sermon he taught that “God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man,” and that the faithful must learn “how to be gods yourselves … the same as all gods have done before you … from grace to grace, from exaltation to exaltation.” In the Sermon in the Grove he taught that the Father of Jesus Christ “had a Father also”: an endless lineage of divine fathers and sons. We will always be our Father’s children and always worship Him, yet His work is to bring us to inherit all He has, including eternal increase and worlds without number. See Was God Once a Man?.
Check the premiseThe presuppositions baked into the question
Before this question can be answered fairly, the person asking has to justify a few assumptions packed inside it:
- That Latter-day Saints must reject all of evolutionary biology. The Church “takes no position on the topic” of evolution (Gospel Topics).
- That accepting science means rejecting God. Alma 30:44 says the earth and the planets “witness that there is a Supreme Creator.”
- That Genesis is the only Creation account. Moses 2–3 and Abraham 4–5 add a spiritual creation and a council of Gods who “organized” the earth.
- That “who made us” is a question science can settle. The 1909 First Presidency said man is “the direct and lineal offspring of Deity”; that is revelation, not biology.
FAQQuick answers
Do Latter-day Saints believe in evolution?
The Church takes no official position on the science of evolution. It teaches that God is the Creator, man is created in His image, and Adam is “the first man of all men” (Moses 1:34).
What did the 1909 First Presidency statement say?
It declared man “the direct and lineal offspring of Deity” and Adam “the primal parent of our race,” and taught that God’s children can, “through ages and aeons,” evolve “into a God.”
Can a Latter-day Saint be a biologist?
Yes. In 1931 the First Presidency urged leaders to leave biology and geology “to scientific research.”
Do Latter-day Saints believe the earth is 6,000 years old?
The Church has not declared an official age of the earth. Abraham 4 counts each stage as a “time” that the Gods “called night and day” (Abraham 4:8).
What is the spiritual creation?
Moses 3:5 teaches that God created all things “spiritually, before they were naturally upon the face of the earth.”
Did God create the earth from nothing?
Latter-day Saint scripture says He organized it from existing matter: “we will take of these materials, and we will make an earth whereon these may dwell” (Abraham 3:24).
What do Latter-day Saints believe about Adam and the Fall?
That Adam was a real person and the Fall was part of God’s plan: “Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy” (2 Nephi 2:25).
Does the Church see science and faith as enemies?
No. The Lord told the Saints to “seek learning, even by study and also by faith” (D&C 88:118). Latter-day Saints believe all truth comes from God.
SummaryKey takeaways
- The Church takes no official position on evolutionary science.
- It teaches man is made in God’s image and Adam is the first man (Moses 1:34).
- In 1931 leaders were told to leave biology and geology to scientists.
- The 1909 statement teaches God’s children can grow “into a God.”
Read “The Origin of Man” yourself; it’s short. For quick, sourced answers, open Galatians18, and follow me on X at @TraviXai.
Sources
- King James Bible (churchofjesuschrist.org): Genesis 1:27 · Psalm 19:1
- Book of Mormon: Alma 30:44
- Doctrine and Covenants: D&C 88:118 · D&C 101:32–34
- Pearl of Great Price: Moses 1:34 · Moses 2:1 · Moses 3:5–7 · Abraham 4:1
- First Presidency, “The Origin of Man,” Improvement Era, Nov. 1909 (reprinted Ensign, Feb. 2002)
- Gospel Topics, “Religion and Science”
- Joseph Smith, King Follett sermon (HC 6:305–306) and Sermon in the Grove (HC 6:476), BYU Studies online edition
- Featured image and in-article graphic: original graphics by thebookofmormon.ai (painterly backgrounds; no photographs or likenesses of real people).
