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Video Transcript:
If The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is true, then by divine design, no amount of historical analysis or scientific research will be able to categorically prove it to be true. That’s going to resonate with some people, and for others it’s not. And that’s entirely the point. Hear me out.
The Book of Mormon teaches that “Faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things.” We’re also taught that “it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things.” In order for faith to be faith, it must be chosen and pursued in spite of real alternate, even tempting options.
When the apostle Thomas wanted irrefutable physical proof of the resurrection of Christ as an exception to the rule, he actually got it, but it came with a reprimand: “Because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.” In other words, Blessed are those who faced the choice to believe or not believe and chose to believe anyway.
Terryl and Fiona Givens wrote that “There must be grounds for doubt as well as belief, in order to render the choice more truly a choice, and therefore the more deliberate, and laden with personal vulnerability and investment. An overwhelming preponderance of evidence on either side would make our choice as meaningless as would a loaded gun pointed at our heads.”
John Welch wrote that “It seems clear enough that the Lord does not intend for the Book of Mormon, the Bible, or any other sacred matters to be open-and-shut cases intellectually, either pro or con. If God had intended this, He could have left more concrete evidences one way or the other. Instead, it seems that the Lord has maintained a careful balance between requiring people to exercise faith and allowing them to find reasons that affirm the stated origins of His revealed word. Instead, the choice is, then, entirely ours.”
In their book Faith is Not Blind, Bruce and Marie Hafen assert that “God has left us free, amid circumstances that do not compel our belief, to choose for ourselves, as an act of will, whether to grasp the iron rod in the midst of the darkness.”
Now, paralleling the title of the Hafens’ book, I want to make it loud and clear that I am not advocating for blind faith—I’m advocating for informed faith. Do your homework. Ask the questions. Our scriptures teach us to “seek learning, even by study and also by faith.” We believe the Holy Ghost communicates with us in our hearts and in our minds. The Givens added, “The call to faith is a summons to engage the heart, to attune it to resonate in sympathy with principles and values and ideals that we devoutly hope are true and which we have reasonable but not certain grounds for believing to be true.” That is the key: Reasonable, but not certain.
In the words of Neal A. Maxwell: “… all the scriptures, including the Book of Mormon, will remain in the realm of faith. Science will not be able to prove or disprove holy writ. However, enough plausible evidence will come forth to prevent scoffers from having a field day, but not enough to remove the requirement of faith. Believers must be patient during such unfolding.”
Now, while I do argue that faith is a choice, I’m not arguing that therefore there’s a 50/50 chance that the Church is true or false or that the evidence for and against are in perfect balance on the scales of truth. Which way the scales tip is going to be a personal determination. Because of my experiences and research, I think the scales tip heavily towards the Church being true. Others will say the opposite. John Welch wrote, “… important evidence relevant to religious matters will often be perpetually lacking. Thus, a person must subjectively choose at what point enough has been heard. Further historical or archaeological discoveries may eventually surface, but in the meantime, one must choose.”
Tools like the scientific method and historical analysis are important but limited. They might show us that the Sea of Galilee existed in the ancient world, but they can’t prove that Christ walked on it. They can help us plot out an entirely plausible detailed route that Lehi and his family could have traveled from Jerusalem to the Arabian coast, but they can’t prove that they actually did take that route — you get to choose what you’re going to believe.
Did God really answer your prayer, or would the outcome have been the same either way? Was that the Spirit you were feeling? Or was it all in your head? Did the Ten Commandments concealed in the ark of the covenant actually exist? Did Joseph Smith’s golden plates concealed by a cloth actually exist? Neither record is available for scrutiny in a museum. Precious few people were permitted to see either record.
We can even turn this principle on itself and ask: Is choosing to believe in the face of uncertainty actually how God works? Or is this just a convenient route for religious confirmation bias? You get to weigh the information that we have against the information we don’t have and decide what to believe. And I’m sure the comments section will have opinions from both perspectives.
As for me, I’ve come to expect and be OK with ambiguity sometimes. Not all the time — oftentimes, I find great answers to a variety of questions, but on some important questions — the evidence isn’t overwhelming in either direction. And I think God often uses that ambiguity as an opportunity for us to turn to him for the answers that can’t definitively be found elsewhere.
In Matthew 16, Jesus asked his disciples: “… whom say ye that I am?” Peter responded: “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus said, “Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.” This is the same source that Moroni asks us to turn to as we study the Book of Mormon. If we expect flesh and blood or science or history or archaeology to prove it to be true, we might be missing the mark. God wants our confidence in Him and His works to come from Him, through the witness of the Holy Ghost, after “the trial of our faith.”
Now, the big question is why? Why the ambiguity? Why the uncertainty? Why the risk? We live in a pluralistic society saturated with competing religions — or at least, competing religious people. Everyone is trying to prove that they’re right and the other guy is wrong. And because they don’t have all of the correct beliefs, God is going to punish them and bless me. If we are obsessed with collecting all of the “right” beliefs, then divine ambiguity might be frustrating. And if the consequence for not “getting it right” is eternal torment, as some faiths teach, divine ambiguity might even seem outright cruel. But I want you to try to table that paradigm for a moment and consider this:
What if divine ambiguity is less about collecting correct beliefs and more about fostering a correct relationship with a loving Heavenly Father? Sometimes we spend so much time thinking about what we’re saved from that we forget what we are saved for. Heavenly Father is not just a glorified ticket-puncher at the pearly gates. He wants a real, eternal relationship with each of His children, and He wants to help us become more like Him.
But a relationship is a two-way street, and it’s only going to work and be lasting if we want it, and that desire lacks depth when it’s simply the result of having no other options. That’s part of what being in heaven is — being in relationship with God — and He’s not going to force it on anyone. He wants us in at-one-ment with Him because our hearts resonate and align with the goodness and truth that He stands for — not because we simply had no other choice. It’s that freedom to choose that fosters the kind of loyalty and devotion that God wants from us — the same kind of loyalty and devotion that He chooses to give us.
The Givens yet again: “What we choose to embrace, to be responsive to, is the purest reflection of who we are and what we love …. The call to faith, in this light, is not some test of a coy god, waiting to see if we ‘get it right.’ It is the only summons, issued under the only conditions, which can allow us fully to reveal who we are, what we most love, and what we most devoutly desire.”
Now, I’m not saying that what you believe in doesn’t matter. Of course, God wants us to find and cling to truth. But maybe the Church is about more than that. The ordinances of the gospel aren’t just about truth, and they aren’t just items on a checklist — they’re how we bind ourselves to God in an eternal covenant relationship. Faith in Jesus Christ is the first principle of the gospel, but we need to understand that it’s more than just an expression of belief — it’s an expression of you, and it’s you that God wants. And he wants you to choose him, too. Check out this video while you’re here — it outlines a process you’re going to go through over and over again as you decide what is and is not worth believing in. Have a great day!
— Suggested reading:
— “The God Who Weeps” ( https://tinyurl.com/4ht9rubu ) and “The Crucible of Doubt,” by Terryl & Fiona Givens.
— “Faith is Not Blind” by Bruce & Marie Hafen
— For a non-Latter-day Saint perspective, you might enjoy “The Sin of Certainty,” by Pete Enns.
— For more on the relational aspect of gospel ordinances, check out this interview we did with Brother Brad Wilcox: https://tinyurl.com/4psahfjd
— An article I wrote several years ago that touches on this subject: https://tinyurl.com/yxxnv93h