REXBURG— Alma chapter 30 verse 44 in The Book of Mormon says, “… all things denote there is a God; yea, even the earth and all the things that are upon the face of it, yea, and its motion, yea, and also all the planets which move in their regular form do witness that there is a supreme creator.” Kerry Powell, a BYU-Idaho faculty member in the Animal and Food Science Department, has found this scripture to ring true in his own life and shared his thoughts and findings on the correlation between science and religion in his devotional address today.
In an interview with BYU-Idaho Radio, Powell shared how he introduces the gospel while teaching an animal science class. He says he urges his students to search the scriptures and the words of latter-day prophets to find evidence of how God uses animals to teach, test, try and bless the lives of those reading.
“It's amazing what they find, and their eyes, I think, are kind of opened,” Powell said. “The animals are throughout the gospel, throughout the scriptures, and you can see how God values them as a tool to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.”
In his devotional address, Powell shared the spiritual and physical evolution of a human, starting with the embryo. He said that at some point the immortal spirit joins with the mortal cells to become a living soul that grows and matures with tremendous capabilities.
“This person will become a glorified being with all the divine attributes that her Heavenly Father possesses if she faithfully proceeds along the developmental or covenant path following the example of Jesus Christ,” he said. “But remember, when they were an embryo, they didn't much look like or act like what they would and will become.”
Powell said that humans’ divine potential is bigger than any embryo they came from.
“As small as we are in what God's got to do in the universe, He's occupied with us, and we're His business. We're His work,” Powell said. “And so, if the concept of an embryo or a young animal or a child crosses your mind one day, think about the growth potential.”