Part 2 of a series:
Surviving the Journey of A Thoughtful Faith
The defining characteristic of our Journey of A Thoughtful Faith is that we are no longer certain of the fundamental truth claims of our Church. To many, this appears like we’ve lost our testimony, that we are weak in faith.
Consider a few examples of people standing up in Testimony Meeting. One fervently proclaims “I KNOW the Church is true.” Another says, “I BELIEVE the Church to be true.” Another, with deep humility, cries, “I HOPE the Church is inspired, but I simply do not know.”
Most Latter-day Saints think that the person proclaiming knowledge is the strongest “testimony” — it shows the greatest “faith”.
The Book of Mormon speaks of the Zoramites: a group of people who worshiped once a week, having a form of a “testimony meeting” where each person, in their Sunday-best attire, stood up on the stand and proclaimed what they *knew* to be true. Some of the Zoramites were so poor they didn’t have acceptable “Sunday-best” clothes, or they weren’t so sure in their “testimony”. They were cast out of the Zoramite churches.
Alma encountered these people, noting their humility, and taught them about faith. First, he noted that *humility* was essential for having faith, “for if a man knoweth a thing, he hath no cause to believe, for he knoweth it.” (Alma 32:18) “To believe” in this context is the active form of having faith, hope, and trust in something. Alma is explicitly saying:
Faith is not knowing.
Thus, when we listen to our testimony meetings, when we hear the proclamation “I KNOW” versus “I believe”, “I hope”, “I have faith in”, or “I trust”, the statements that indicate a lack of perfect knowledge are the ones that express “faith”; for as Alma taught:
“Faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true.” (Alma 32:21)
“Perfect knowledge” is to have certainty. It means that I know a thing without any doubt. Thus, if “faith is not perfect knowledge”, then faith means we are not certain, and thus necessarily have some doubt. This flies in the face of our cultural belief that faith and doubt are opposites, but indeed, doubt is the beginning of faith — doubt is essential for faith.
But often, in the same way that “belief” is often conflated with “I know”, the term “doubt” is conflated with “I disbelieve”. Doubt is a bad word in our Church and culture: it means that you aren’t a ‘faithful” member somehow. Naomi Randall’s hymn: “When Faith Endures” states explicitly, “I will not doubt, I will not fear…his love assures that fear departs when faith endures.” Peter is condemned for having little faith, and Christ asks, “wherefore didst thou doubt?”
These messages associate doubt with the shame of weak faith and lack of sure knowledge and certainty. “Doubt” has thus become a loaded term, to the point that Dieter Uchtdorf asked that members “doubt their doubts before they doubt their faith.”
This is unfortunate, for we ought to celebrate not knowing, we ought to realize that in order for us to learn anything new, we must have the humility to recognize that we don’t know. We have faith *because* we doubt, and yet that doubt is not negative, but rather, filled with *hope*.
And the idea that we don’t know is perhaps one of the most critical aspects of our Journey of A Thoughtful Faith. We find ourselves triggered by facts that cause us to question and indeed *doubt* our truth claims. And where does that lead us?
Faced with this crack in our “knowledge” that the Church is “true”, we have some alternatives:
1. We can revert to our certainties. We “know” the church is true, thus anything that puts that in question is irrelevant. This is the Way of Certainty most often recommended by our Church and leaders.
2. We can reject our certainties. Given what we are often taught that the Church is all true and exactly what it claims to be, otherwise it’s the “biggest fraud in history”, we flip from certainly knowing it’s true, to certainly knowing that it isn’t true. This, also, is the Way of Certainty, for we have traded one certainty for another.
3. We can become confused and disillusioned. This is a natural reaction to losing our certainties. This is the Way of Disaffection, for we have lost “hope”.
4. We can find out what is true and what isn’t, and adjust our beliefs accordingly. This is the Way of Faith.
The Way of Certainty and the Way of Faith are not opposed to each other. Indeed, there are times when either, or both, are necessary. We must never disparage another’s path, for we all have gifts differing. We need those who have the gift of Certainty.
Yet our gift is not knowing. Our Path is that of A Thoughtful Faith.
Lao Tzu said, “Not knowing is true knowledge”. There is a deep paradox in what we call faith: for in the moment we realize that we don’t know but need to find out, we have placed our feet firmly on the Way of A Thoughtful Faith.
Not knowing, being curious, doing the work necessary to discover: this is the basis of all learning. “Faith, and faith only, is the moving cause of all action. Without faith, both mind and body would be in a state of inactivity, and all their exertions would cease, both physical and mental.”
(Lectures on Faith 1:10).
A Thoughtful Faith lives in the question, in the desire to learn the truth, wherever it may take us.
Faith is not knowing, and thus opens the door of all wonders.