The Crucible of Doubt: Reflections on the Quest for Faith

by Terryl L. Givens

scripture resulted from revelatory process and was thus the product of revealed truth, not the other way around.

we should hold the scriptures as “the moon of our darkness, . . . not dear as the sun towards which we haste.”

The reason for scriptural imperfection should be obvious: scripture comes to us through human conduits. The Doctrine and Covenants defines scripture as that which is spoken by godly people “as they are moved upon by the Holy Ghost.”23 This does not suggest a process by which a prophet invariably takes dictation as the Lord verbally recites a set of verses.

God may have written with His finger on Mt. Sinai, but it is Paul who writes a formal epistle to saints in Corinth. Court chroniclers record the details of the reigns of Jewish rulers. Psalmists record poetic words of celebration and praise. Nephi relates his family history. Joseph Smith writes a personal letter filled with pain and yearning from a Missouri jail cell. All partake in varying degrees of heavenly inspiration; all bear the human traces of those who felt the Spirit move upon them; all are filtered through an individual’s mind and cultural environment.

“The things of God are of deep import, and time, and experience, and careful, and

solemn, and ponderous thoughts can only find them out,” Joseph said.24 He was willing to put in the time, and the painstaking effort, to understand the things of God. He studied German so he could read Luther’s superb translation of the scriptures. He studied Hebrew so he could get closer to the original text of the Old Testament. Notwithstanding his calling as a seer, he labored to underst...

we need to search the scriptures and rely upon the Spirit to discern the true God and His true nature. When dissonance and distress set in, we should trust in the Spirit to find the hidden God of scripture, the One who knows us by name, w...

Chapter 5 On Prophecy and Prophets: The Perils of Hero Worship

“I am the least in my [family],” said Gideon (Judges 6:15).

am but a lad, . . . and all the people hate me,” said Enoch (Moses 6:31). “I am a man of unclean lips,” said Isaiah (Isaiah 6:5). “I am slow of speech, and of a slow tongue,” said Moses (Exodus 4:10). “Jonah set out to flee . . . from the presence of the Lord” (Jonah 1:3).

the spark of divinity animates every man and woman, it is too often obscured by the monotonous daily grind of economic and emotional survival,

too often, we confuse the call to discipleship with the desire to unload responsibility for our spiritual direction onto another. Christ invites us to assume the yoke, but we would rather ride in the cart. That is one reason why some find comfort in hero worship. It represents a release from the burden of responsibility.

some people fancy that because we have the Presidency and Apostles of the Church that they will do the thinking for us. There are men and women so mentally lazy that they hardly think for themselves. To think calls for effort, which makes some men tired and wearies their souls. No man or woman can remain in this Church on borrowed light.”

frequently fell into many foolish errors, and displayed the weakness of youth, and the corruption of human nature.”21 To drive home the point, he canonized those scriptures in which he was rebuked for his inconstancy and weakness: “How oft you have transgressed the commandments and the laws of God,” the Lord told him.22 He “feared man more than God,” and went “on in the persuasions of men,” and was chastised as “not excusable in [his] transgressions.”

it is more important for disciples to be motivated than to be awestruck. As Lorenzo Snow wisely noted, “I thanked God that He would put upon a man who had those imperfections the power and authority He placed upon him for I knew that I myself had weakness[es], and I thought there was a chance for me.” That is why “I thanked God that I saw these imperfections.”

we could literally, in Peter’s words, acquire “the divine nature.”

rather than fawning choirs of angels, God wanted us all to be joint-heirs with Christ,

second reason for God’s choice of fallible leaders is simply this: He has no other kind. The most holy of men and women have their feet of clay. Erecting any—even the noblest among us—into an idol is both dangerous and a fail-safe recipe for disappointment.

we are all interns, this side of Zion, laity and leaders alike. As Edward Beecher wrote, all humans participate in this “moral hospital” called the world.30 And we will all bear the wounds we inflict, wittingly or unwittingly, upon each other.

third reason God employs flawed vessels: to help redirect our attention in the right direction.

Gideon’s hope is that the miraculous victory will deflect Israel’s worship from the false god Baal to the true God of their fathers. Regrettably, it is not God that his army credits for the slaughter. It is Gideon: “Then the men of Israel said unto Gideon, Rule thou over us, both thou, and thy son, and thy son’s son also: for thou hast delivered us from the hand of Midian.” Gideon replies, “I will not rule over you, neither shall my son rule over you: the Lord shall rule over you.”

“For unto this end have I raised you [Joseph] up, that I might show forth my wisdom through the weak things of the earth.”

Woodruff spoke about revelation—and Restoration—as ongoing processes rather than events. Noting how Mormon understanding of temple work and temple sealings evolved over time, he had this to say in 1894: “We have felt there was more to be revealed upon this subject than we had received.” Changes came as revelation unfolded, he said, and “we still have more changes to make in order to satisfy our Heavenly Father. . . . We have felt, as President Taylor said, that we have got to have more revelation concerning sealing.”34 Translating God’s will into specific programs, policies, and practices, in other words, requires ongoing effort.

Joseph did not wish to promote the idea of himself as an infallible oracle, transmitting with pristine perfection the word of God. For there in the Facsimile Edition of the Joseph Smith Papers, published by the Church for all the world to see in half a dozen vivid colors,

however powerful the fonts of inspiration at which he drank, Joseph had to transmit eternal things into the idiom of common English. And that, he found, was no easy task. As he complained to a friend, “Oh Lord God, deliver us from this prison, . . . of a crooked, broken, scattered and imperfect language.”

Joseph himself complained that “he did not enjoy the right vouchsafed to every American citizen—that of free speech. He said that when he ventured to give his private opinion” about various subjects, they ended up “being given out as the word of the Lord because they came from him.”

at the time of the Utah War, Young “preached to the people in a morning meeting a sermon vibrant with defiance to the approaching army, and declaring an intention to oppose and drive them back. In the afternoon meeting he arose and said that Brigham Young had been talking in the morning, but the Lord was going to talk now. He then delivered an address, the tempo of which was the opposite from the morning talk.”

Airbrushing our leaders, past or present, is both a wrenching of the scriptural record and a form of idolatry.

The prophetic mantle represents priesthood keys, not a level of holiness or infallibility. That is why our scripturally mandated duty to the prophets and apostles is not to idolize them but to uphold and sustain them “by the prayer of faith.”

Chapter 6 On Delegation and Discipleship: The Ring of Pharaoh

Moses said unto God, Who am I, that I should . . . bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt? And he said, Certainly I will be with thee; and this shall be a token

Mormons frequently describe priesthood as the authority to act in God’s name. But they often fail to plumb the potentially vexing implications of that principle. Authority is the source of delegation, delegation involves humans, humans entail error, and error in the context of authority creates conflict and tension. These stresses, which involve fallibility in conduct as well as in words, can be a challenge to the most faithful.

“If Peter and his colleagues make law in applying the Lord’s precepts, . . . their law is the law of Christ’s Church, the best (if you will) that God’s Spirit

can make with human instruments there and then, and, as such, to be obeyed as the will of God Himself.

Delegation is a sobering, even terrifying gesture on God’s part. To delegate or to deputize, both mean that the person receiving that authority has something like God’s power of attorney; the person’s acts, within circumscribed limits, carry the weight and efficacy of God’s own acts. But surely no human can act with the wisdom, the perfect judgment, the infallibility of God. Precisely so. And if delegation is a real principle—if God really does endow mortals with the authority to act in His place and with His authority, even while He knows they will not act with infallible judgment—then it becomes

clearer why God is asking us to receive the words of the prophet “as if from mine own mouth, in all patience and faith.”

The story is told of a Church official who returned from installing a new stake presidency. “Dad, do you Brethren feel confident when you call a man as the stake president that he is the Lord’s man?” the official’s son asked upon his father’s return home. “No, not always,” he replied. “But once we call him, he becomes the Lord’s man.”

The Pharaoh didn’t say to Joseph, your authority extends as far as you anticipate perfectly what I would do in every instance. He gave Joseph his ring. The king of Spain didn’t say, I will honor your judgments and directives insofar as they accord with my precise conclusions at such a time as I second-guess your every word and act. He signed the viceroy’s royal commission. And after calling Joseph Smith to his mission, the Lord didn’t say, I will stand by you as long as you never err in judgment. He said, “Thou

wast called and chosen. . . . Devote all thy service in Zion; and . . . lo, I am with thee, even unto the end.”

God “does not promise [Peter, or Joseph] infallible correctness in reproducing on earth the eternal decrees of heaven. He promises him that the decisions he makes below will be sanctioned from above.”

It is at this point that the hard cases erupt into the conversation. Just how far will the Lord go in allowing a delegated authority to err?

sobering opinion of B. H. Roberts: “I think it is a reasonable conclusion to say that constant, never-varying inspiration is not a factor in the administration of the affairs even of the Church; not even good men, no, not

though they be prophets or other high officials of the Church, are at all times and in all things inspired of God.”14 In other words, to put it starkly, God really means it when He delegates His authority to men and women—and expects them to use their wisdom and judgment in executing His will.

D&C 68:4 says: “And whatsoever they shall speak when moved upon by the Holy Ghost shall be scripture, shall be the will of the Lord, shall be the mind of the Lord, shall be the word of the Lord, shall be the voice of the Lord, and the power of God unto salvation.”

What people want is to be absolved of responsibility. They want a formula, a rulebook, or an oracle to which they can defer tough questions.

“That sounds like hard work. Please give us a cheat sheet.” . . . And, when God refuses to give out a cheat sheet, people just invent

J. Reuben Clark Jr. with an interesting caveat: “The Church will know by the testimony of the Holy Ghost in the body of members, whether the brethren in voicing their views are ‘moved upon by the Holy Ghost’: and in due time that knowledge will be made manifest.”

His divine energies are spent not in precluding chaos but in reordering it, not in preventing suffering but in alchemizing it, not in disallowing error but in transmuting it into goodness. Satan’s unhindered efforts in the garden were simply assimilated into God’s greater purpose. The malice of the biblical Joseph’s brothers became instrumental in their entire household’s salvation.

If God can transform cosmic entropy and malice alike into fire that purifies rather than destroys, how much more can He do this with the actions of well-intentioned but less-than-perfect leaders.

In spite of conspiring men and the gaping jaws of hell, Joseph is encouraged to “hold on thy way,” for “their bounds are set, they cannot pass.”19 When Lehi blessed his son Jacob, he promised him that “God . . . shall consecrate thine afflictions for thy gain.”