Isn’t God subject to natural law?

Some Latter-day Saint scholars have argued that the personal, relational truth of the scriptures exists within a larger universe fundamentally governed by idea-truth. From this view, God’s power is based on his superior knowledge of abstract, universal scientific laws. For example, Elder Widstoe argued, “God is part of nature, and superior to it only in the sense that the electrician is superior to the current that is transmitted along the wire. The great laws of nature are immutable, and even God cannot transcend them.”¹¶

Elder Parley P. Pratt suggested the laws that govern the physical world “are absolute and unchangeable in their nature, and apply to all intelligent agencies which do or can exist. They, therefore, apply with equal force to the great, supreme, Eternal Father of the heavens and of the earth, and to His meanest subjects.”² Elder B. H. Roberts wrote, “Miracles are not, properly speaking, events which take place in violation of the laws of nature, but ... they take place through the operation of higher laws of nature not yet understood by man.”³¶

This popular perspective seems to reconcile the person view of truth with the idea view of truth. However, this approach requires us to adopt the idea view of truth. It subjugates the covenantal worldview of scripture into a fundamentally philosophical conceptual framework. As Garrard points out, “In such a universe it would be more reasonable for people to worship the law (which incidentally has no body, parts, or passions) since it is more powerful than God and he is subject to it.”⁴¶

When we do this, we risk repeating the same pattern that occurred in early Christianity: we take a living, relational faith and subordinate it to the assumptions of the philosophical tradition. This view, while appearing to honor God, adopts the same core assumption that ultimate reality must be abstract, impersonal, and incorporeal. God, in this model, becomes the universe’s most brilliant physicist, but He is still playing by rules He did not create. Although it changes the conceptual category God occupies, it does not challenge any of its underlying assumptions about truth (see the figure on the next page).¶

We do not claim that those who hold this view are leading people astray. The inspired teachings of Elder Pratt, Elder Widstoe, and Elder Talmage can be taken in a different light. Their ultimate goal was to convince Latter-day Saints that they can pursue scientific endeavors and not relinquish their faith. As Brigham Young taught, “Our religion will not clash with or contradict the facts of science in any particular.”⁵ This is a vital message that has been repeated by nearly every prophet since.¶

In addition, prophets and apostles have been inconsistent on this issue. For evidence, we read that God “hath given a law unto all things, by which they move in their times and their seasons; and their courses are fixed, even the courses of the heavens and the earth, which comprehend the earth and all the planets” (D&C 88:42-43). This implies that God decreed natural law. Similarly, President Brigham Young taught:¶

It is hard to get the people to believe that God is a scientific character, that He lives by science or strict law, that by this He is, and by law he was made what He is; and will remain to all eternity because of His faithful adherence to law. It is a most difficult thing to make the people believe that every art and science and all wisdom comes from Him, and that He is their Author.⁶

At first glance, it seems that Brother Brigham agrees with Elders Pratt, Widstoe, and Roberts. But he is actually saying something very different. Brigham Young describes God as a “scientific character,” but then claims that God is the Author of scientific law. However, the scientific laws of scientific naturalism do not have authors. They are immutable, embedded in the fabric of the universe.¶

On another occasion, President Young taught: “Our religion embraces chemistry; it embraces all the knowledge of the geologist, and then it goes a little further than their systems of argument, for the Lord almighty, its author, is the greatest chemist there is.”⁷ But notice that God is not a chemist in the same way that we can be chemists (in mortality, at least), because chemists do not author the laws of chemistry. Brigham Young is teaching that God is familiar with and often works through scientific laws, but also implies (with imprecise language, perhaps) that such laws are decreed. The prophet Joseph Smith taught:¶

God has made certain decrees which are fixed and immovable; for instance, God set the sun, the moon, and the stars in the heavens, and gave them their laws, conditions and bounds, which they cannot pass except by His commandments; they all move in perfect harmony in their sphere and order, and are as lights, wonders and signs unto us.⁸

When Joseph Smith describes these laws as “fixed and immovable,” he is certainly not using these terms in the Greek, philosophical sense. He implies that heavenly bodies could defy these laws when commanded by God. They are fixed and immovable only to us. Joseph Smith taught, “If the veil were rent today, and the great God who holds this world in its orbit, and who upholds all worlds and all things by his power, was to make himself visible ... you would see him like a man in form—like yourselves.”⁹ In the Book of Mormon, we read:¶

For behold, the dust of the earth moveth hither and thither, to the dividing asunder, at the command of our great and everlasting God.

Yea, behold at his voice do the hills and the mountains tremble and quake.

And by the power of his voice they are broken up, and become smooth, yea, even like unto a valley.

Yea, by the power of his voice doth the whole earth shake; Yea, by the power of his voice, do the foundations rock, even to the very center.

Yea, and if he say unto the earth—Move—it is moved.

Yea, if he say unto the earth—Thou shalt go back, that it lengthen out the day for many hours—it is done;

And thus, according to his word the earth goeth back, and it appeareth unto man that the sun standeth still; yea, and behold, this is so; for surely it is the earth that moveth and not the sun (Helaman 12:8-15).

In conclusion, we can make a strong case that the physical universe does operate within a system of observable law that is detectable by empirical observation, but also that these laws ultimately answer to God (who can override them).¶

John A. Widstoe, Joseph Smith as Scientist (Heber City, UT: Archive Publishers, 2000), 138. ↩
Parley P. Pratt, Spirituality: Key to the Science of Theology (Springville, UT: Cedar Fort, 2007), 25. He further wrote, “Among the popular errors of modern times an opinion prevails that miracles are events which transpire contrary to the laws of nature, that they are effects without a cause. If such is the fact, then, there never has been a miracle, and there never will be one. The laws of nature are the laws of truth. Truth is unchangeable, independent in its own sphere. A law of nature never has been broken. And it is an absolute impossibility that such a law ever should be broken. That which at first sight appears to be contrary to the known laws of nature, will always be found, on investigation, to be in perfect accordance with those laws.” From Pratt, Spirituality, 67). ↩
B. H. Roberts, New Witnesses for God, vol. 1, (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret News, 1911), 249. ↩
LaMar E. Garrard, “Creation, Fall, and Atonement,” in Studies in Scripture: Volume Seven: 1 Nephi to Alma 29, ed. Kent P. Jackson (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book, 1987), 93. ↩
Teachings of the Presidents of the Church: Brigham Young (Salt Lake City, UT: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1997), 197. ↩
Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, 13:306. ↩
Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, 15:127. ↩
Joseph Smith, History of the Church, 4:554. ↩
Joseph Smith, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 345, emphasis added. ↩

Footnotes