The Species of my Faith Tree

 Last week I wrote about the space that faith fills in the epistemology of the gospel: specifically that it extends beyond the known, but can be felt and experienced as a sensation as if something is growing inside us. I reiterated and complicated Alma's description of how to tell when a seed is good, and when we should keep watering it.

As a metaphor, planting "the word" as a seed is extremely helpful for those who are new to the idea of faith, and those of us who have begun taking it for granted.

And yet I find that there is more to say. What exactly is this thing whose tentacles/branches/nerve cells want to invade every part of me? Must I let it grow before I know? What is the nature of the growth? Is it a cancer? A parasite? A symbiote? How much of it is me, and how much of it is not me? Will I birth it like a child, or absorb it into my cells like a protein nutrient?

Maybe. . . Maybe a better metaphor is gut biome - it's a thing that biologists haven't quite decided is or is not actually part of us. Because that's probably a philosophical question, not a biological one.

So. Many. Metaphors. We live in a world full of all the terrors of things which grow inside us. Maybe we have some choice in defining this relationship.

How faith functions in relation to our sentience is equally complex, but also something I can describe from experience. Let's go back to the idea of faith as an intermediate step before knowledge. Alma points out that it's dangerous to acquire spiritual knowledge before we have the strength for sure obedience, because the stakes are higher.

Visual pun: tree stakes. Get it?

Dvortygirl, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

Ha ha. Ahem. Anyway, the idea that I want to unpack, if you'll pardon the expression, is about how faith grows obedience, and the answer is "cyclically and incrementally."

Faith asks us to do things without knowing the results. I mean, life does that, too. Just living requires us to get out of bed and see what the next fifteen hours will dump on us. And that's an act of faith. By getting out of bed a few times, we see whether or not doing so is a good idea, and it's no longer faith, but experience that tells us whether we should roll over and burrito.

Despite my social difficulties, this week my experience has betrayed me. I should have stayed in bed much, much longer. Sunday was particularly difficult, in that I did not have the mental strength to articulate an important divergence from what was being taught in the women's meeting. I finally left, and was conscripted into primary duties. And yet I went to church. That is sometimes an act of desire, sometimes an act of need, and sometimes an act of faith. It can be more than one of those things at the same time, but next week it may especially be an act of faith.

When the scriptures talk about faith, they frequently refer to miracles that occur because prophets performed acts of faith, and it is never made entirely clear whether every prophet knew the outcome of each act. They were often leading a group of people in great need. They asked for help. They were told to hit something with a stick, or hold out their hand, or kill someone. Did they know why? Or were they meant to believe, first, that it was God's will, even if it went horribly wrong? Were they surprised when they found water? When they found dry land? When an angel appeared? When no angel appeared?

Faith requires action before surety. Without action, what is your belief, and how can it grow? You're just waiting to see: waiting for proof before you've shown that you can live what you belief/know.

Then after action, if you observe clearly over time, you develop theories: patterns. These are also not faith. So the situation changes, and you are given the chance to choose faith again, to stay where the landscape is familiar, or to wait and see. This pull towards the familiar is a different current than the inertia that keeps us frozen until we can reliably predict the results of our actions. But neither of them is faith.

Think about the heartbreakingly problematic story of Abraham when he's commanded to sacrifice Isaac. His personal experience, and everything he "knows" about God tells him that it is never the right thing to do. We know that God is reliable. Dependable. In my life, if God asked me to kill a human (of any age), I would refuse. I could not perform that act of faith - but human/animal sacrifice is blessedly not part of my culture. And yet if I want to achieve great faith, I must face my own heartbreaking sacrifices. I must be willing to act on inspiration before I can see the outcome.

I feel like I've written about Nephi's moment before. But I feel strongly that when he was told to cut off Laban's head, he wasn't expecting (and probably didn't receive) a "get out of PTSD free" card. His faith included the hope that Jesus would come and die for that sin (as mitigated as it was by circumstance), so he would not be condemned forever: so he would not be the sacrifice that saved his people. Or perhaps he considered the possibility that his soul WAS the sacrifice that would save his posterity? And that that was part of his act of faith? We do know that Nephi knew that it was wrong to kill - and especially wrong to kill when not being attacked.

And Eve, when tempted in Eden, certainly couldn't have had faith in the words of the serpent. He's a liar, right? And yet he told her that she would gain knowledge by experience of good and adversity, and that was true. Could she have exercised faith in that when she ate the fruit? What does it mean to have faith in the words of the adversary? Does the truth matter more than the source?

Okay, I'm getting off into more-questions-than-answers space. I think my original premise stands: that faith requires action: to act on inspiration with uncertain outcomes. And all of our faith is balancing on a tightrope over the net of our hope in the goodness and mercy of God, and the Atonement of Jesus Christ.

Is that enough metaphors for you?