Belief & Knowledge

I think it is safe to say that everyone has nagging thoughts in the back of their mind of exciting or useful things that they should finally get around to doing. Maybe you frequently think about getting back into an old hobby, trying a new sport, or getting to know a certain person. In the two-and-a-half years that I've lived in Utah, one of my lingering desires has been to get out and see more of the beautiful nature that we have here. There are always lots of excuses not to (e.g., school), but somehow last weekend worked out perfectly for some friends and I to travel down and see Arches and Canyonlands National Parks near Moab, Utah. It was an awesome weekend with great friends, and the landscapes were beautiful to see in person.

Arches National Park was definitely a must-see on my mental list of things to do and places to visit. Any visual reference to Utah you have seen probably includes a depiction of the famous Delicate Arch. When you drive into Utah on the interstate or out of the airport, you are greeted with a "Welcome to Utah" sign featuring the classic arch. As you continue driving, you are bound to encounter the arch again on most of the state's license plates. If you Google "Utah," the first images that come up are of the unique red rock arch. Basically, if you have ever been in or thought about Utah, you probably recognize the Delicate Arch.

Upon visiting any iconic landmark, I kind of expect a breathtaking moment when I finally see it for myself. At the end of the hike up to the Delicate Arch, we rounded the last bend and saw the natural structure in person for the first time. It really was awesome to witness, but I didn't have any breathtaking sensation of seeing something that I hadn't already known or imagined before. I guess I had seen it so many times on the back of the slow cars in front of me, or on any website about Utah, that I basically already knew what the arch was like. Seeing it in person was obviously better than a license plate or picture, but it wasn't anything I didn't expect. You could say that I "believed" in the Delicate Arch so much previously that coming to actually "know" it was real didn't involve a big change in my mind.

Later that night we set up camp, made a fire, and talked with each other as we waited for our tin foil dinners to cook. Our conversation covered a lot of different topics (even things as random as different types of sandwiches) including some profound ideas, such as the difference between believing in something and in knowing it is real. How do we really know that we know something? A whole field of study called epistemology is dedicated to this question. I won't pretend to know more about it than the fact that it is called "epistemology," but it is interesting to think about. Some things are pretty easy to verify because they are just facts that we observe for ourselves. There are many things that we firmly believe will happen, such as the sun rising tomorrow morning. Technically we don't know the sun will rise, because we haven't proved for ourselves the rotation of the earth or the organization of the solar system, but we believe it because it consistently happens and has a logical explanation.

Some concepts aren't as easy to "prove." How do you know you are angry or happy or sad? How do you know when someone is being genuine or sarcastic? How do you know that everything will work out? Emotional or cognitive matters often don't have concrete evidence backing them up (or it is not as readily visible to us), yet we usually are still able to interpret feelings and thoughts coherently. While we can prove some things easily with facts and findings, other concepts are proved by emotion and feeling. 

Around our little campfire, our epistemological questions centered around spiritual things, which also can't be proved with scientific reasoning. Can we really know that there is a God? Can we know that Jesus Christ is our Savior? D&C 46 outlines the gifts of the Spirit, with the assurance that "to some it is given by the Holy Ghost to know that Jesus Christ is the Son of God [and] to others it is given to believe on their words." This seems to say that some people could really know that Jesus Christ lives, while others can believe it. If God really loves all of His children, is it fair that some might not "know" the truth?

In D&C 88:118, the Lord commands to "seek learning, even by study and also by faith." I think that to really comprehend all truth, we cannot rely purely on either secular or spiritual means. Most people are familiar with how to obtain earthly knowledge, and are content to simply believe some temporal things that they can't fully explain. We should also be familiar with how to obtain spiritual knowledge, and be content to believe spiritual things that we can't fully explain. As Alma proclaimed in Alma 30:44, "all things denote there is a God; yea, even the earth, and all things that are upon the face of it, yea, and its motion, yea, and also all the planets which move in their regular form do witness that there is a Supreme Creator." Secular and spiritual forms of learning are not contrasting pools of thought, but are actually complementing and edifying to each other.

Honestly, I have often had that lingering thought in the back of my mind questioning if I really know that God exists and that we are on this earth as part of our journey to return to Him and become like Him. Regardless of the answer to that question, I do know that I believe, and that is enough. I also know that as I have acted on my beliefs, I have been blessed by that God who loves me and knows me. I have faith and knowledge, which is a powerful combination.

Sitting around the fire and thinking about some of this and about seeing the Delicate Arch earlier that day, I realized that there won't ever be some huge moment where I suddenly "know" that all of this is true. When I saw the Delicate Arch, it wasn't anything new because I already knew it was there. If God appeared right now and proclaimed His existence, I don't think I would breath a sigh of relief or feel some sensational new understanding, because I already know Him through my belief and my action. Belief and knowledge are not so much opposite ends a spectrum as they are adjacent stepping stones on the path to perfect understanding. "That which is of God is light; and he that receiveth light, and continueth in God, receiveth more light; and that light groweth brighter and brighter until the perfect day" (D&C 50:24). Live what you believe, trust in God, and without realizing when or how it happened you will know what you believe. I know that I do.