On Learning to Trust Doubt v11

Steven Bassett

Bro. Gentry

Eng 106

25 May 2019

On Learning to Trust in Doubt

Is it wrong to doubt or question gospel doctrines, or is it a normal part of developing a testimony?

I have learned that doubt is an essential part of the learning process.  We must confront what our parents and teachers have taught us.  A number of years ago I created a motto for myself; “Real growth comes in the margins, with rising levels of uncertainty’”. We must be willing to evaluate their truth claims if only to correct their incomplete understanding.  "I think it’s much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong."  (Feynman, p24)

I have been instructed since my youth to bear testimony of the certainty of the restoration, that Joseph Smith was a prophet and that God’s prophet leads the church today. I myself have born this testimony many times from the pulpit. This testimony was a good first step.  The first step in pedagogy is an imitation.  In the long run, imitation will not sustain truth exploration or increase our faith and reliance on God.

 In an essay, Levi Petersen speaks of losing his testimony.  He loses it when he is confronted by the Christianity of a Jehovah's Witness.  He had been raised to believe that The Latter-Day Saint Church has a monopoly on truth.  In the essay, he speaks of seeking the remainder of his life to returning to this level of certainty.  " 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." (Petersen,19) With this level of uncertainty, Levi has learned to see the essential question of the immortality of his very soul.

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.   Even in his uncertainty Levi was able to pass his faith in God onto his wife and child.

I myself have experienced this level of angst and uncertainty.  I have studied, and studied, and studied the doctrines of the Church, yet this study brought me no lasting peace and fulfillment.  I remember going out one night and cursing God in my unhappiness.  This certainty has brought me no personal sense of satisfaction.  

There was a payphone that once stood in the Mojave Desert. It was installed in the corner of a crossroad for the convenience of some miners who worked nearby.  In the days before cell phones, phone booths were an essential part of life.  The phone company continued to maintain the phone booth long after the mine closed.  With the invention of the Internet, the world soon learned the number to the phone.  As a prank people would call it just to hear it ring.  Visitors camped near the phone booth just to listen for the ring.  I often thought of this story as I was sitting in Sacrament Meeting.  I wondered if I was the pay phone waiting for a call or was I the one calling the pay phone knowing no one would answer it.  (Mojave Phone Booth,Wikipedia)

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?

Even as my own level of uncertainty has increased, I have learned to have more faith and trust in God.  I have been led to instruct my children in an unorthodox manner.  I have taught them well The Gospel of Jesus Christ.  They know how to repent, and 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.  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. 

When I listen to the talks in Sacrament Meeting for intent, not for quality, when I pet my children’s newborn kittens, when I listened to my Dad’s favorite joke for the fourth time yesterday, and three times today, when I am grateful for the life Heavenly Father has led me to create, I know these things are real life.   They bring real joy.

I will never be able to stop thinking about deep thoughts.  My brain is hard-wired to do it.  I can not stop it.  I also know these deep thoughts are not real life.  I am grateful for my wife and children and for them helping me to understand this truth and to live with uncertainty. This increase in uncertainty has to lead me to great faith, and reliance on God.

Feynman, Richard P., and Jeffrey Robbins. The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman. Penguin, 2007.

Peterson, Levi S. “A Christian by Yearning.” Sunstone, Sept. 1988.

“Mojave Phone Booth.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 22 Feb. 2019, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mojave_phone_booth.