Reconciling Faith with Difficult Issues

Intro

Everyone’s faith will be tried or tested at some point during their lifetime here on earth. This was the purpose of coming to earth.

Romans 3:23 tells us

23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

This means that every man has sinned so if you have doubted, or are currently wrestling with doubts, just remember that this does not separate you from anyone else who has ever lived. You are the same as all other men in the sense that your doubts are sinful and all men have sinned in 1 way or another.

Possible causes of doubt

If anyone is wrestling with church history or other church topics, this is the right place to find some answers. There are proven ways to reconcile faith with doubts. Many people have faced opposition to their faith since Adam and Eve (and even before Adam and Even on worlds that have passed away). I personally have had times where I wrestle with maintaining faith along with learning new information that might at first seem contradictory to the original doctrine in which my faith was placed.

The following is a list of issues that I have become aware of that have possibly caused many members to struggle with their faith:

  • Polygamy of Joseph Smith, Hyrum Smith, Brigham Young, Heber C. Kimball, Wilford Woodruff, Willard Richards, William Smith, Thomas Bullock, Orson Pratt, William Clayton, Orson Hyde, Parley P. Pratt, Amasa Lyman, John Taylor, Edwin D. Woolley, Sr., Erastus Snow, John D. Lee, Ezra T. Benson
  • The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints methods of handling the tithing funds and investments
  • church finances, Ensign Peak Advisors reports to the SEC
  • Joseph Smith translations of the Book of Mormon
  • The kinderhook plates
  • Contradictions between the Bible and the Book of Mormon
  • Discrepancies between the Egyptian papyri and the Book of Abraham
  • Book of Mormon geographical evidence, anachronisms, historicity
  • Racial priesthood restrictions and the fact that blacks could not receive the priesthood until 1987
  • Reconciling evolution with Adam and Eve
  • Reconciling scientific accounts of the creation of earth and the emergence of life itself and the creation account recorded in Genesis or Abraham
  • Reconciling Luke 23:43 (And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise.) with spirit paradise and protestant views
  • Reconciling Revelations 22:18–19 “And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.” with the Book of Mormon being another text to the Bible.
  • The change in the introduction in of the Book of Mormon in 2006 from “After thousands of years, all were destroyed except the Lamanites, and they are the principal ancestors of the American Indians.” To “After thousands of years, all were destroyed except the Lamanites, and they are among the ancestors of the American Indians.”

And the list goes on… and on… and on…

Perhaps 1 approach would be to do a deep dive into each of these questions and get to the bottom of exactly what happened and what the evidence says. Like doing a big search to find the geographical evidence of the Book of Mormon, or trying to read all of the Joseph Smith Papers to perfectly understand exactly what he did and said. Then we could prove that the Book of Mormon was true or false, or we could prove that Joseph Smith was a worthy man or an evil man. Or we could prove that Joseph Smith had the power of translation by comparing the Egyptian papyri with Joseph Smith’s translation of it or the Book of Abraham. Right?

Well it turns out there is a better way to discover truth…

The 3 Stages of Faith

Jared Halverson has helped us understand the 3 main stages of faith:

  1. Creation

This is a very shallow type of faith where you believe in Jesus Christ, or God or both, and you believe that Joseph Smith was a prophet. This is like the stories we hear in primary where the church is perfect, maybe we think Joseph Smith was perfect. We have this image of God that he created earth and humans and put us all here to be happy with our families and one day live with God forever.

  1. Fall

This is where we learn about many difficult issues, Joseph Smith and polygamy, the fact that Joseph Smith used a hat to translate the plates, the fact that Joseph Smith had a gun before he was killed in Carthage jail, the fact that we may be struggling with sin or LGBTQ issues, the fact that we have found evidence of evolution which may be difficult to reconcile with Adam and Eve.

  1. Atonement

This is the final stage where we learn about the true nature of Christ and his suffering. After the creation and atonement, we eventually make our way to the atonement phase. This is where we finally reach a path where we understand the true nature of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. We learn that Jesus Christ exists despite there being little to no conclusive geographical evidence of the Book of Mormon. We learn that our initial understanding was too simple and superficial. We needed to come to know Jesus Christ for who he truly is. We needed to experience a fall so we could see our fallen nature and truly be changed, even the nature of our very souls. It’s a more real and full understanding of truth. We learn that Joseph Smith was not perfect, he was

Counsel from James

While Joseph Smith was just 14 years old he was wondering which church was true. He read in the epistle of James:

James 1:5

5 If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. 6 But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.

This tells us that we can ask God to obtain wisdom, but verse 6 reminds us that we must ask in faith, dothing waivering, nothing doubting. He that wavereth is like “a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed”.

After Joseph Smith read this verse, we acted in faith and went to a grove of trees and prayed to know which church was true. Immediately, a dark power, the power of Satan ceased upon him and tried to stop him from continuing the prayer. But as he endured, he continued to pray and eventually Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ appeared to him.

This is a powerful principle for maintaining faith. If we are ever wrestling with difficult issues regarding church history or church policy or reconciling something that happened to a friend or relative or even to ourselves, this counsel from James is very helpful for teaching us how to maintiain faith. Basically we must just maintain faith, maintain our focus on Jesus Chrits and he will guide us through our questions and struggles. He will show us how we can have faith instead of fear and doubt. If we have certain questions about the scriptures or the church or the church’s truth claims, James makes it very clear that God freely gives wisdom to people who have questions about any of these such things.

Teaching from the Prophet Joseph Smith

Joseph Smith said,

“in proving contraries, the truth is made manifest.”

Contraries are 2 ideas that are opposite and cannot coexist with 1 another. If 1 idea is true, the other must be false. They cannot both be true at the same time. It cannot be true that Joseph Smith was a lier and a prophet at the same time. It cannot be true that the Book of Mormon’s spiritual claims are true if the geographical or DNA evidence proves contrary. If polygamy is a sinful act, Joseph Smith cannot have acted it out in righteousness. If Heavenly Father is loving, he cannot allow suffering on earth. And so on… There are many contradictory ideas or dichotomies found within the gospel, but from Joseph Smith we learn that in proving them the truth is made manifest. This means the truth of Jesus Christ is the solution to 2 contradictory ideas. Through Jesus Christ, 2 seemingly contradictory ideas are reconciled.

Teaching from President Russell M. Nelson

President Russell M. Nelson gave a talk titled, The Answer is Always Jesus Christ where he said, “Whatever questions or problems you have, the answer is always found in the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.”

This means that if any of us are struggling with faith or doubt or reconciling church history or church policy or other church topics or events in friends, family, or personal lives, the answer is always Jesus Christ. I know these things are true, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Conclusion

Everyone will have questions in this life, and some may even have doubts, but one way or another everyone is going to have to come to know Jesus Christ, who he really is and develop true, faith in him so that he can change their very nature and eventually welcome them into the kingdom of God 1 day.