On the Power of Doubt

My Belief in Doubt

I believe that doubt is an important part of our growth process and essential to learning more about God.

I have been instructed since my youth to bear testimony of the certainty of the restoration.  That Joseph Smith was a prophet and that Gods prophet leads the church today. I myself have born this testimony many times from the pulpit.  I now find this level of certainty brings me no level of happiness or joy.

One of my favorite essays is A Christian by Yearning, by Levi S. Peterson. In the essay, Levi speaks of losing his testimony within weeks of arriving on his mission in France.  He loses it when he is confronted by the Christianity of a Jehovah's Witness.  He had been raised to believe that Latter-Day Saint church has a monopoly on truth.  He speaks of spending the remainder of his life trying to recover the certainty of that testimony and failing.

"Today I am a more or less active Mormon. I attend sacrament meeting regularly, I am a home teacher, I am a half-time instructor of my ward high priests’ group. I am uninterested in what I will call secondary theological questions such as the authenticity of the Book of Mormon, the prophetical character of Joseph Smith, and the doctrine of the three degrees of glory. I do not quarrel with those doctrines. If my fellow Mormons consider them important, I too will stand by them, and I will certainly not fail to give them an orthodox cast when I lead discussions in my high priests’ group. But in my private ruminations, I dwell instead upon the more primary matters of the fatherhood of God, the redemptive sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and the immortality of the human soul."   "If I differ from the typical Latter-day Saint, it is because my anxiety is focused not upon whether my immortal soul may suffer damnation but upon whether I have an immortal soul."

I began to feel this angst a number of years ago.  I have studied, and studied, and studied the Doctrines of the Church.  This study brought me no lasting peace and fulfillment.  I remember going out one night and cursing God in my unhappiness.  This certainly has brought me no personal sense of satisfaction.  I had a meeting with the Bishop and expressed my feelings.  He asks me to continue to attend church if only because of the members of the congregation.  They needed my fellowship.

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I lost it today, my religion.

Left long neglected, so long ago.

like a sign, on a road, to nowhere.

like a phone booth, in the desert.

Do I call it, or does it call me?

When I call does it hear me?

Or does it ring, and ring and ring?

Still, I ask, is it the service, or is it me.

Steven Bassett

This the phone number for a pay phone that once stood,

in the crossroads, in the middle of The Mojave Desert.

I am learning to live with uncertainty.  Do my children love me?  Where do I fit in the lives of my wife and children?  Is God really there and does he answer my prayers?  Have I lived the life God wanted me to live? Who are my large and righteous posterity? How do I hear his voice and follow his ways?

Levi Peterson's wife was a non-Mormon.  She asks him to raise their daughter in the LDS Church because his church was as good as any other maybe a little better.  She had the faith to believe The Doctrines of the Church would be beneficial to their daughter.  She was expressing a faith, if not a belief. 

Can I live with the uncertainty of my wife and children’s testimony of The Doctrines of the Church?  Can I overcome the guilt at not helping them to develop a stronger testimony of these doctrines?  Through our experiences helping their older brother to repent of some very serious sins, I have taught them well The Gospel of Jesus Christ.  They know how to repent. They know how to forgive and be forgiven.  I am most certain of this.  I see it in their eyes when I see their interactions with each other.

My children are adopted.  There is a good chance my adoption made their life possible.  When I see the pictures of my two children and their older brother laughing and having a good time, I know that I have made enough good choices to partially answer these questions. I have no certainty, but I have hope, for now, that is enough.  This uncertainty brings me great joy.