A few thoughts on faith and reason

As I have reflected on this topic lately, I came to think of all the heart and mind passages in the Book of Mormon. I thought it was significant that heart (faith and desire) always was mentioned before mind (our intellect). But as I studied it further, I realized that it is all about our faith and desire. I created a post about this when I realized that the original word for "mind" in the Book of Mormon probably has little to do with our intellect.

I have had my share of discussion with former believers or non-believers. I think I understand where they are coming from. When you don't believe in God, the highest intelligence in the universe that you are aware of is that of man. In our time, using logic and reason and the principles of the scientific approach is not only the best approach to discovering and verifying truth, it is the only approach. To the non-believers, religion and faith, like any other topic, must be approached this way. "To a man with the hammer, everything looks like a nail". The scientific approach is the hammer and religion is just another nail.

For a believer like me, matters of faith differ significantly from matters of quantum physics, biochemistry or even social sciences. If there really exists

1. a supreme intelligence (God)
2. revelation

it goes without saying that I should "despise not the revelations of God" (Jacob 4:8) and that whatever enables me to receive revelation is the best approach to eternal truth. This is not a viable option for atheists. They will not accept revelation as a possible approach to learn truth before they accept the existence of God, and they cannot verify the existence of God with the only approach they know. They will pound away on that screw with the hammer without getting the desired result and quickly conclude that the screw is useless.

Don't get me wrong. I think that science is a great tool for its purpose. It is also hard to draw clear lines between all the different fields or subjects and in some cases they overlap. For instance, there are church historians who obviously use common approaches within the field of history to learn about the past of the church. But I think that the successes of science in the last century or two has caused it to sometimes overstep its bounds. One example is when some atheists try to convince themselves and others that science has disproved God. In other words, they are using a tool that is only capable of investigating the observable to disprove something unobservable.

Since this is a Book of Mormon blog, I will get to what I have learned from it about this subject. Science was obviously not a familiar concept to Book of Mormon authors, at least not the same way as today. But logic and reason or "wisdom of men", is mentioned several times, and it is usually connected to wickedness and disbelief. A great illustration of this is found in Helaman 16

15 Nevertheless, the people began to harden their hearts, all save it were the most believing part of them, both of the Nephites and also of the Lamanites, and began to depend upon their own strength and upon their own wisdom, saying:
16 Some things they may have guessed right, among so many; but behold, we know that all these great and marvelous works cannot come to pass, of which has been spoken.
17 And they began to reason and to contend among themselves, saying:
18 That it is not reasonable that such a being as a Christ shall come; if so, and he be the Son of God, the Father of heaven and of earth, as it has been spoken, why will he not show himself unto us as well as unto them who shall be at Jerusalem?

We have repeated several times on this blog that the Book of Mormon plainly teaches that a hard heart leads to lack of understanding. When depending on their own limited wisdom the coming of Christ was not "reasonable". Interestingly, their argument is based on a wrong assumption. This is basically the reaction of the people after Samuel's speech in Zarahemla. He only talked about Christ's birth and death in Jerusalem without mentioning that he would appear to the Nephites after his resurrection. The people assumed that Christ would only show himself to those at Jerusalem and not to them. 

Their hard hearts prevented the "greater portion of the word" (Alma 12:10) and they were left with "their own wisdom". Because of those limitations, they were missing vital understanding and it led them to the conclusion that the prophecies they had heard were "not reasonable". 

I think the same thing is happening a lot today, sometimes with believers like me as well. We apply logic and reason to "make sense" of the gospel and eternal truths. Sometimes it doesn't, but that is probably because we are concluding based on limited information, often as a consequence of hardened hearts. We tend to be unwilling to admit that the error is on our part. Some other ways the Book of Mormon teaches us about this topic:

But behold, the devil hath deceived me; for he appeared unto me in the form of an angel, and said unto me: Go and reclaim this people, for they have all gone astray after an unknown God. And he said unto me: There is no God; yea, and he taught me that which I should say. And I have taught his words; and I taught them because they were pleasing unto the carnal mind; and I taught them, even until I had much success (Alma 30:53)

The teaching that there is no God was pleasing unto the carnal mind. Interesting. Another well-known scripture:

28 O that cunning plan of the evil one! O the vainness, and the frailties, and the foolishness of men! When they are learned they think they are wise, and they hearken not unto the counsel of God, for they set it aside, supposing they know of themselves, wherefore, their wisdom is foolishness and it profiteth them not. And they shall perish...
42 And whoso knocketh, to him will he open; and the wise, and the learned, and they that are rich, who are puffed up because of their learning, and their wisdom, and their riches—yea, they are they whom he despiseth; and save they shall cast these things away, and consider themselves fools before God, and come down in the depths of humility, he will not open unto them. (2 Nephi 9)

Does this mean that logic and reason has no place in religion at all? Of course not. What the Book of Mormon warns against is depending solely on the wisdom of man. Wisdom of man is simply inadequate to know the things of God

How unsearchable are the depths of the mysteries of him; and it is impossible that man should find out all his ways. And no man knoweth of his ways save it be revealed unto him (Jacob 4:8)

Faith must come first

God is merciful unto all who believe on his name; therefore he desireth, in the first place, that ye should believe, yea, even on his word. (Alma 32:22)

Then a heart that is soft enough to enable the planting of a seed. Speaking of Alma 32, I find it quite interesting that the best description that I know in the Book of Mormon of developing faith and learning eternal truth, uses the term, "experiment".

But behold, if ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith (Alma 32:27)

Can this be compared to a scientific experiment? Yes and no. Faith, diligence and patience is also necessary in the process of developing scientific proof, just like Alma describes the planting and growing of the tree. I mentioned that faith must come first. Actually, it is the same in science. First you postulate a theory or hypothesis before you do the experiment and get proof. That is also an expression of belief. The major difference is this: Whereas a person or group of scientists do the work, once the proof is there it's available to everybody else not requiring their individual effort. The tree in Alma 32, however, is personal. I can't eat of anybody else's fruit. Each one of us need to put in the effort to grow the tree. Just as importantly, each one of us can.  

And even all this can you do if you will (Alma 33:23)

That is the final point I would like to make: If logic and reason is God's way of approaching Him, that means he favors people with the highest cognitive abilities and deductive reasoning skills. That does not sound fair to me. "The way" is prepared for every single one of his children and he favors noone. Some might say that the faith/revelation approach favors people with the highest capacity of faith. But Alma assures us that we don't need anything more than a desire for a start. It is not about our skills or capabilities, it is simply about our will. This is the true meaning of "heart and mind".