approximately limitless: Seekers and tellers of the truth

Brother Cook asked me to speak in our church meeting last week. Because of COVID, the congregation has been split into four groups. Last names A though H meet on the first Sunday of the month. This was my first time back to church since March, and even though there were only ~25 of us in the chapel, it was moving to worship with friends long unseen. Social distancing was carefully implemented, and all but one congregant wore a mask. Brother Cook sanitized the pulpit and microphone with an antiseptic wipe between announcements and prayers.

Videochatting with family in China, New York, and across town.

I wasn't assigned a topic, so I picked one that has been on my mind recently: truth. I don’t ever write out my talks word for word, but I’ve tried to translate my notes into a readable form below (with some random pictures for variety from yesterday and a year ago). Like usual, I crammed in too many ideas for any one of them to be memorable or impactful, but I’d love to know your thoughts.

Let us be seekers and tellers of truth. July 5^th, Orem 3^rd Ward

On this Independence Day weekend, I decided to speak today about a subject that is crucial to our democracy: truth. As I studied this topic throughout the week, I was surprised at how many times seeking truth is mentioned in the scriptures. There are literally hundreds of commandments to investigate the truth, treasure up the truth, and proclaim the truth. I knew many of these verses before, but I'd glossed over them, thinking "of course the truth is important, and of course I want more of it. Doesn’t everyone?"

So, what is truth, besides "the fairest gem" (whatever that means)? Christ himself describes truth this way in the 93^rd section of the Doctrine and Covenants:

And now, verily I say unto you, I was in the beginning with the Father, and am the Firstborn; And all those who are begotten through me are partakers of the glory of the same, and are the church of the Firstborn. Ye were also in the beginning with the Father; that which is Spirit, even the Spirit of truth; And truth is knowledge of things as they are, and as they were, and as they are to come; And whatsoever is more or less than this is the spirit of that wicked one who was a liar from the beginning.

Truth is an external reality that doesn't depend on our perspective or awareness. We sometimes talk about "my truth" or "your truth", but that is really describing something different—our interpretation of the world around us.

There are many truths and even types of truth in the world, but the revelations of the restoration teach us that all truths are connected—part of a single whole. What we learn from science connects to what we learn from music, which connects to what we learn from ministering. The boundaries between fields of inquiry or types of knowledge—history, biology, poetry—are ultimately artificial. If something is true, it is a part of the universal truth—the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

President Nelson phrased it this way in an address last year to BYU students:

Some things are simply true. The arbiter of truth is God—not your favorite social media news feed, not Google, and certainly not those who are disaffected from the Church. President Spencer W. Kimball taught that absolute truth cannot be “altered by the opinions of men. . . If men are really humble, they will realize that they discover, but do not create, truth.”… Eternal laws operate in and affect each of our lives, whether we believe them or not. Divine law is incontrovertible! The same can be said of the law of gravity and the laws of foil and lift that allow airplanes to fly. Each is an absolute truth. Doctors or pilots do not have the power to change those laws, but their understanding of them safeguards lives.

In the 1979 address that President Nelson quoted, Spencer W. Kimball said it even more directly:

The earth is spherical. If all the four billion people in the world think it flat, they are in error. That is an absolute truth, and all the arguing in the world will not change it. Weights will not suspend themselves in the air, but when released will fall earthward. The law of gravity is an absolute truth. It never varies. Greater laws can overcome lesser ones, but that does not change their undeniable truth.

God's laws—the absolute truths that govern the universe—include the laws of nature that guide the tiniest atom and the largest galaxy, just as they do the commandments that can bring us safety, happiness, and opportunity to do good. We can disbelieve the evidence for the Restoration, just as we can the evidence for vaccines, climate change, and the Earth being round, but this does not change the reality of these truths. Our denial of any kind of truth only decreases our capacity to do good and distances us from God.

Truth is one of the defining attributes of the Savior. In Moses 1:6 we read “he is full of grace and truth.” In the Doctrine and Covenants, we read that Christ is the Spirit of Truth and the Light of Truth. Truth isn’t something that is nice to have, it is something we must thirst for and acquire, or we cannot become like our ultimate exemplar.

Some goat's beard seeds ready to travel the world, like truths on the wind.

OUR EVOLVING UNDERSTANDING OF THE TRUTH:

While truth never changes, our understanding of the truth does and should evolve constantly. It is one of the basic tenets of our religion and the foundation of the purpose of this life. Christ himself learned line by line. In 1842, Joseph Smith wrote the following:

We believe all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal, and we believe that He will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God.

This article of faith does not read, “He will yet reveal many minor and incremental changes in policies and the details.” Our understanding of spiritual truth, just as natural truth, is always expanding and changing. Yet, I often hear people reject or criticize science, journalism, history, and other intellectual fields because they are always changing. One of the fundamental lessons of the restoration is that we should never mistake consistency in belief as evidence of truthfulness. Virtually all our scriptures affirm that the intellectually and spiritually humble will receive greater light and knowledge, while those who are satisfied or self-assured will be left hungry and empty in the end.

President Kimball himself took a potshot at science, in that same talk: "The sincere searching of science often rests only on the threshold of truth." My initial response to his statement is to ask, is it better to be on the threshold of truth or wandering in the desert far from its door? My more charitable interpretation is to acknowledge that until we have all truth, none of our conclusions will be final—whether spiritual or scientific. But this permanently provisional nature of our understanding doesn’t mean we must resign ourselves to or excuse ourselves for not knowing. I deeply believe that if we do not investigate and learn from the discoveries of the natural and human world around us, we are cutting ourselves off from a part of God’s truth.

Without the sciences and arts, we are unable to fulfill our spiritual stewardship. These fields help us understand the world around us and our place within it. When Christ explained the two great commandments—our most fundamental responsibilities—He told us to love God and to love our neighbor. How can we love God without understanding and caring for His creation? How can we love our neighbor if we don't know how our economic and environmental choices affect them?

The meadow just below Big Baldy. One of my favorite places.

More generally, we are warned again and again that if we reject the truth available to us, bad things will happen. In 2 Nephi, we read:

Yea, wo be unto him that hearkeneth unto the precepts of men, and denieth the power of God, and the gift of the Holy Ghost! Yea, wo be unto him that saith: We have received, and we need no more! And in fine, wo unto all those who tremble, and are angry because of the truth of God! For behold, he that is built upon the rock receiveth it with gladness; and he that is built upon a sandy foundation trembleth lest he shall fall. . . For behold, thus saith the Lord God: I will give unto the children of men line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little; and blessed are those who hearken unto my precepts, and lend an ear unto my counsel, for they shall learn wisdom; for unto him that receiveth I will give more; and from them that shall say, We have enough, from them shall be taken away even that which they have.

I think these verses resolve that paradox between the stability of truth and the instability of our understanding of it. When we have a firm foundation—when we are absolutely committed to the principles of truth, reverence, and caring for others—we are able to receive new understanding with gladness. When our only loyalty is to God, the letter of the law is no longer a stumbling block. On the other hand, if our understanding of natural and spiritual truths is not changing and evolving, it is likely regressing and growing dimmer. Constancy isn't a sign of truthfulness, it's a sign of stagnation.

Two sisters by a stream. It may be a long and wasteful diversion from the Provo River, but it is an agreeable spot.

SEEKING TRUTH THROUGH THE SPIRIT:

There is one tool, or rather one companion, that is most important in seeking truth. In Jacob chapter 4, we read:

the Spirit speaketh the truth and lieth not. Wherefore, it speaketh of things as they really are, and of things as they really will be; wherefore, these things are manifested unto us plainly, for the salvation of our souls.

Cheryl Esplin taught it this way:

Many of us have been baptized and have received the gift of the Holy Ghost, whose role it is to reveal and teach the truth of all things. With the privilege of that gift comes the responsibility to seek truth, to live the truth we know, and to share and defend the truth.

So, this underlines one of the greatest challenges of this life: how do we recognize the Spirit? I believe that we should talk about this more and work as individuals and as a people to better develop sensitivity to the spirit. By design, we are largely separated from the light of God while on Earth. Learning to receive revelation through the veil isn’t a skill that we master and check off at one point in our life. That connection with God is a living relationship that requires effort and sustained practice.

For example, I have always misunderstood Galatians 5:20, one of the versus often used to teach about recognizing the Spirit. I was taught a simple version in Primary and as a young adult: the spirit was always a warm, comfortable, good feeling. Furthermore, I was taught that the spirit could only manifest when I was keeping the rules. The scripture seems to support this interpretation:

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.

But after rereading the whole chapter, I am convinced that Paul isn't describing the experience of being moved upon by the Spirit, he is describing the long-term state that we can achieve when we follow the Spirit’s promptings.

When we stop and consider what the scriptures teach us about encounters with the Spirit, feelings of being challenged, uncomfortable, and alarmed are as or more common as feelings of warmth and comfort. From Nephi holding the sword, to Saul falling on the ground, to King and Queen Lamoni collapsing as if dead, we read story after story of people feeling fear, despair, regret, and urgency when the Spirit is truly moving upon them. The presence of the Spirit can be excruciating. The fruits of the spirit described by Paul, are not the sign of revelation, they are the consequence of repentance. They come if we repent—if we are courageous enough to face and change what is wrong in our beliefs and actions.

This again underlines the importance of humility and submissiveness. To move towards the truth, we must be humble and accept correction. In 1 John chapter 1, we read, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”

A trip to Glacier National Park last July. We are brothers, but we look more like a comparison shot of Captain America before and after the super serum.

Another set of tools for gaining truth is experimentation and implementation. Learning by doing. Like we read in John 7 and Alma 32, if we want to know if the teaching is true—if the seed is good, so to speak—we need to try it out. Reading reviews on Amazon or Good Reads isn’t enough. There is no substitute for trying it out—for personal action.

Both these methods for acquiring truth—reflection and revelation through the Spirit and personal investigation and experimentation—are potentially transformative because they can teach us things we didn't expect or even didn't want to know. They can provide external insight into what is going on in our lives and how we can best move forward.

This is important because, remember, the truth doesn't depend on what we want to be true. This is a deep and powerful psychological bias: we are more likely to believe the “truth” that is more convenient, happy, or beneficial to our current way of life. I encountered this last week on Facebook. I’ve been advertising a new course I’m teaching in the fall at BYU on climate change. One of my friends asked me about a forthcoming book by Michael Shellenberger, an American political and environmental writer. Since the book wasn’t out yet, I read an essay my friend linked to where he apologizes for the “climate scare.” I responded to my friend that unfortunately many of the points in the essay were scientifically incorrect. He responded back, “He is really optimistic, I’m going to buy his book. I hope he is right.”

I hope things are better than they seem as well. But that's a bad criterion on which to judge whether something is truth. Truth doesn’t depend on whether we believe it. We should seek to see the world around us as it is. It is only then that we stand a chance of changing it.

IS IT POSSIBLE TO FIND TRUTH?

With so many scriptures telling us that we must find and declare the truth, it may seem obvious that it is possible to find truth. Yet, I encounter many people who believe it is not possible. More and more, I encounter people who feel they cannot access the truth. Everywhere they look, they see spin, bias, and deceit. There are two passages in 1^st and 2^nd Timothy that describe the current public dialogue quite well:

He is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself. (1 Timothy 6:4-5)

And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. (2 Timothy 4:3)

In this downpour of opinion and lies, many have given up on finding the truth. The falsehood has triumphed, not by convincing them of any specific lie, but by undermining their faith in learning and truth altogether. Such people accept no external authority or expertise. In effect, they make themselves the final arbiter of all questions, whether they know anything about the topic or not. That is a dangerous place—a path that we are told to turn away from.

Believing truth is not accessible is a rejection of the promises of God. It is a teaching of the devil and tool he uses to distract and disarm those capable of making positive changes. We see this belief in Pontius Pilate. After Christ stated calmly and clearly who He was, Pilate used an appeal to the impossibility of knowing, among other justifications, as a reason for letting Christ be crucified. In John 18, we read:

Pilate saith unto him, What is truth? And when he had said this, he went out again unto the Jews, and saith unto them, I find in him no fault at all.

Pilate sensed the truth of what Christ told him, but truth wasn’t his priority. Popularity, position, and power—the opinion of the people—was more important than the truth. When we reject truth, we are putting our trust in the arm of the flesh.

Naomi and Rachel, all tuckered out from seeking the truth.

Elder Uchtdorf addressed the belief that truth is inaccessible to us in a conference address a few years ago:

It seems to be a trait of humanity to assume that we are right even when we are wrong. And if that is the case, what hope is there for any of us? Are we destined to drift aimlessly on an ocean of conflicting information, stranded on a raft we have poorly pieced together from our own biases?

The church—the body of Christ—is a tool to help us find truth in the internal and external din of the modern world. In Ephesians 4, we read that apostles, prophets, and evangelists have been called “that we henceforth be no longer children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine by the sleight of men and their cunning and craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive.”

Education at all levels is another tool to help us find truth. Brigham Young said the following on this subject:

All our educational pursuits are in the service of God, for all these labors are to establish truth on the earth, and that we may increase in knowledge, wisdom, understanding in the power of faith and in the wisdom of God, that we may become fit subjects to dwell in a higher state of existence and intelligence than we now enjoy.

We have the Spirit, we have our intellectual capabilities, we have education, we have the church, we have Wikipedia. Truth is not out of reach.

Henry's bridge may or may not make it to the other side.

IS IT ENOUGH TO BE RIGHT?

I want to finish with a final question. Is it enough to be right? As you might guess, I believe that the answer is no. In section 50 of the Doctrine and Covenants, we read:

Verily I say unto you, he that is ordained of me and sent forth to preach the word of truth by the Comforter, in the Spirit of truth, doth he preach it by the Spirit of truth or some other way? And if it be by some other way it is not of God.

This guidance to 19th century missionaries who were proclaiming the restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is very clear. If we proclaim the truth—scientific or spiritual—in ways that are not in line with God’s principles, it is not of God. How does God teach us to proclaim the truth? “by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned; by kindness, and pure knowledge, which shall greatly enlarge the soul without hypocrisy, and without guile” (Doctrine and Covenants 121:41-42).

When we are disdainful of others, or disrespectful of their beliefs (whether spiritual or scientific), we will accomplish nothing by telling the truth to them. Unkindness towards others can keep them from accepting the truth. I have seen this dynamic with face coverings, the Gospel, and everything in between.

A pause among the bear grass. I think little Lucy was already in Paige's belly.

BE SEEKERS AND TELLERS OF TRUTH:

My invitation to all of us today is simple. Will you become seekers of the truth? Will you redouble your efforts to be tellers of the truth? The world needs this desperately, and we, as people who have received the gift of the Holy Ghost are specifically called to fill this need.

Truth is findable. Truth is uncomfortable. Truth challenges our beliefs and practices. The truth will set us free.