“And now as I have said concerning faith—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.” This short passage of scripture—found in verse 21 of Alma chapter 32 of the Book of Mormon—sums up roughly what I was taught about faith as I grew up in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. While this scripture provides a good explanation of what faith is, it falls short of answering how we obtain faith. It wasn’t until I enrolled in a Book of Mormon class at Brigham Young University that I found an answer to this question.
The Book of Mormon tells us how we can gain faith.
Here at BYU, my professor of religion taught my class that there are three main parts we must experience in order for faith to be obtained. The first of these steps is assurance. A little vague, I know. Going into more detail, we need assurance of God’s work from the past, before we began our life on Earth. Without knowing that God’s work has been performed once before—or hundreds if not thousands of times, for that matter—how can we be expected to believe in His existence? Note how I said, “without knowing…” That phrase ties this into the scripture from the first paragraph: “things which are not seen, which are true.” You may not have personally witnessed His works, but that doesn’t mean they never were done. You must know that they did in order to progress in this chain.
The second of these steps we call action. Now that we know of the presence of God in miracles that have been made before our time, we need to know that He is still here today and hasn’t disappeared from existence. Knowing that such great works have happened in our time isn’t enough, however. In order to progress even further to the third and final step, we must know that the miracles around us aren’t just coincidences. If we believe this, we’ll be stuck in the Action stage and possibly even traverse backwards in the three steps. Knowing—again with the “knowing.” It must be pretty important, huh? It truly is God’s work is what really sets us forward in motion. When we set out and try to understand that God is truly there, we are taking the action necessary to progress.
Lastly, the third and final step is evidence. Though the title may make it seem like it’s the first step all over again, it’s a unique part of the process separate from the others. So we’ve been assured and we know of Gods existence in the past; we’ve been proactive in finding that God still watches over us in the present; now where do we go? Good question: Where do we go? The only place left to go from this is point in onward, into the future. As we live our lives, we must find the evidence around us that allows us to know that God will always be with us. Again, I want to point out the use of the work ‘know.’ If the things of which the Book of Mormon and The Church of Jesus Christ of LDS speak are true, we, through our faith, will come to know that it is true.
This article was written by Jordan W., a student at Brigham Young University and a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
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