Joseph Fielding Smith on Naturalism

Joseph Fielding Smith

There are thousands of miracles performed today, wonders that would astound our grandfathers could they suddenly see them. These miracles are as great as turning water into wine, raising the dead or anything else. A miracle is not, as many believe, the setting aside or overruling natural laws. Every miracle performed in Biblical days or now, is done on natural principles and in obedience to natural law. The healing of the sick, the raising of the dead, giving eyesight to the blind, whatever it may be that is done by the power of God, is in accordance with natural law. Because we do not understand how it is done, does not argue for the impossibility of it.

Man, His Origin and Destiny, page 525, Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book, 1954

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This day I have been walking through the most splended part of the City of New York, ... and the language of my heart is like this: “Can the great God of all the Earth, maker of all things magnificent and splendid, be displeased with man for all these great inventions sought out by them?” My answer is no. It cannot be, seeing these works are are calculated to make men comfortable, wise, and happy.

Sterling M. McMurrin

The typical Mormon conception of a miracle is that the miraculous event, though entirely natural, is simply not understood because of deficiencies in human knowledge. From the perspective of God there are no miracles.

More from Joseph Fielding Smith

In the resurrection from the dead, the bodies which were laid down natural bodies shall come forth spiritual bodies. That is to say, in mortality the life of the body is in the blood, but the body when raised to immortality shall be quickened by the spirit and not the blood. Hence, it becomes spiritual, but it will be composed of flesh and bones, just as the body of Jesus was, who is the prototype.

Even the most devout and sincere believers in the Bible realize that it is, like most any other book, filled with metaphor, simile, allegory, and parable, which no intelligent person could be compelled to accept in a literal sense … The Lord has not taken from those who believe in his word the power of reason.

Now what is a spiritual body? It is one that is quickened by spirit and not by blood. Our Father in heaven and our Savior and all those who have passed through the resurrection have physical bodies of flesh and bones, but their bodies are quickened by spirit and not by blood, hence they are spiritual bodies and not blood bodies. The immortal body is quickened by spirit, but the mortal body is quickened by blood.

God is an exalted man . . . our Father in Heaven at one time passed through a life and death and is an exalted man . . . The Prophet [Joseph Smith] taught that our Father had a Father and so on . . . promises are made to us that we may become like him.